Real Man, A; Mirror, Mirror

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  A REAL MAN

  by

  Kaitlyn O'Connor

  (C) Copyright Kaitlyn O'Connor, October 2013

  (C) Cover art by Jenny Dixon, September 2013

  Smashwords Edition

  New Concepts Publishing

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Frank Stein stepped back and studied his creation thoughtfully. After some moments, he breathed a deep sigh of contentment. “Perfection,” he announced. “Absolute perfection.”

  Stepping around behind his creation, he pressed the hidden activation button that looked like a small mole near his spine. Immediately, Nicorealeus, Nico as he liked to think of him, began to breathe, as if he were truly alive.

  Frank frowned at that thought, realizing that he wasn’t absolute perfection if he wasn’t a real man. Moving around in front of Nico once more, he looked up at him. Nico instantly responded by looking back.

  “How do you feel?” Frank asked him.

  Nico’s expression remained as it was. Instead of frowning in thoughtfulness, he stared blankly ahead. Finally, he asked without inflection, “Feel?”

  Frank frowned. “You’re a perfect marriage of biological and electronic mechanical technology. You’re more human than robot … at least physically. I’ve even programmed artificial intelligence into you … and yet you don’t understand what I mean when I ask how you feel? Can you give me the definition of feel?”

  “Feel. To perceive by the touch. To handle. To be sensitive to. To experience emotionally. To have an intuitive awareness of. To be moved emotionally,” the cyborg, Nico recited mechanically.

  Frank gripped his hair agitatedly. “There is no emotion in you!”

  Nico turned and looked at him. Lifting his hands, he grasped the hair on either side of his head.

  Frank stared at him a long moment and then angrily stamped his foot. “It isn’t enough to mimic emotion. You should feel it.”

  Nico merely stared at him. “I do not find this in my programming.”

  Frank sighed deeply and began to pace, muttering to himself. “He might as well be a garbage can. After all the time I’ve spent working on him. After all the great care. He’s nothing at all but a biological machine. I don’t understand it. I just don’t understand it.”

  Nico watched him as he paced back and forth. “You are dissatisfied with my performance?”

  “I feel like weeping at your performance,” Frank cried, pulling his hair again. “Don’t you wish to be human? To be a man and not a machine?”

  Again, Nico merely stared at him for several moments. Finally, with every appearance of a great deal of effort, he frowned. “Yes,” he said.

  Frank stopped abruptly, staring at his creation. Ever so faintly, a spark of hope flickered. “You felt that?”

  Nico managed another frown. It seemed to come easier to him this time. “I believe it is something I wish.”

  This time, it was Frank who stared at Nico for long moments. Slowly, a smile curled his lips. “You wish …. You must learn it. That’s the problem.”

  “I do not understand,” Nico said.

  Frank smiled at him. “I have put everything into you that you need to be a real man. You must go out into the world and learn to feel in order to reach your full potential. Come, I will take you out into the world. I will give you one week to learn. If you wish to become a real man, you must try to understand what emotion is. You must experience it. You must feel. If you cannot learn it, then, when you return, you will merely be a biological machine and nothing more.”

  Turning, he gestured for Nico to follow him and left his laboratory. Climbing into his hovercraft, Frank ordered the computer to take them to the edge of the city. There he set the craft down and told Nico to get out.

  Nico stepped out, because he was ordered to do so. The door closed. The hovercraft rose. And Nico watched it until it disappeared from sight.

  Time passed, but Nico had no real concept of time. He remained as he was, watching the point where the craft had disappeared from view. Slowly it grew dark, and he could no longer see, and still he stood, watching, waiting for his creator to return.

  When the star rose once more to brighten the sky, he decided that Frank expected him to carry out the orders that he had given him. He computed for some time, but the instructions simply did not make sense to him. Finally, he decided to go in search of Frank.

  He began to walk. As he did so, he looked around, recording the sights and sounds around him. He had been walking for much of the day when he finally computed that the sights and sounds belonged to life.

  Frowning, he stopped, looked around. He realized then that he was low on energy. There did not seem to be anything around that he could consume for energy, so he decided to sit down and conserve what he had left.

  * * * *

  Marina Torez landed her hovercraft on the landing pad and got out, planting her hands on her hips as she stared at the man sitting on her curb, trying to figure out what he was doing there. From her position, she could see he was dressed in a uniform of some type—a navy jumpsuit. But she hadn’t ordered any work to be done, and if he was there for repairs or county maintenance, surely he would have approached by now? For that matter, he had no tools of any description beside him and, looking in each direction down the street, she saw no work vehicles. Puzzled, she studied him, and for five minutes, waited for him to turn around and announce what he was doing there. He didn’t so much as twitch.

  “Hey,” she called. He didn’t respond. He sat there for all the world like a statue. If his trimmed black hair hadn’t been blowing in the slight breeze, she might’ve thought he was one—if she was half-blind.

  Marina walked down her lawn, moving in a wide circle until she stopped in front of him.

  He slowly looked up at her, his face devoid of expression.

  Were it not for that, he would be devastatingly handsome. His eyes were a warm brown. His nose was perfectly straight, and his jaw was squared with a shallow cleft marring his chin. His lips were thin but had just enough fullness to be exciting but not womanly. Examining each feature individually, she saw that they were classic, almost average, but there was just something about the combination of his features that made him attractive enough to catch the eye—completely intriguing and totally masculine.

  Marina swept away the strange turn of her thoughts. It wasn’t her habit to ogle men on the side of the road—they were usually prisoners. “Hey,” she said again.

  He frowned up at her. “Hay is for horses and other livestock.”

  A chuckle erupted from her. Marina clamped a hand over her mouth with a muffled snort.

  He frowned again, his brow furrowing with confusion. “This is humorous?”

  She swallowed her laughter, shrugging, and hooking her thumbs in her pants pockets. “It’s just not something I’d expect a guy like you to say. What are you doing here?”

  “I am conserving energy.”

  Marina frowned. “Is there something wrong with you?”

  “My energy levels have depleted. I must conserve so I can find my creator.”

  Oh. He was one of them. And here she’d thought … well, it didn’t really matter now what she’d thought. Poor thing. She wondered how long he’d been lost. “What’s your creator’s name?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Can you tell me your name and serial number?”

  “My name is Nico. I have no serial number.”

  Great. That wasn’t m
uch help.

  She debated on going inside and calling the CLMR—the Center for Lost or Misplaced Robots—but she knew they had a habit of ‘losing’ newer models for a price. And he was definitely a new model. She’d never seen a robot look and sound so human. If not for his lack of common sense, she would never have known the difference. As it was, he seemed more like a man who’d lost his memory than a robot.

  Still, the CLMR seemed like a poor choice of options. She’d heard of workers taking bots to the chop shop and selling pieces on the black market. That was all speculation of course. Government offices underwent rigorous procedures to weed out criminals from their midst, but she’d heard enough stories to have a healthy suspicion of most government agencies, especially those that could easily profit off of lost property. The thought of poor Nico being stuck in that place made her shudder. Not that it should matter to him, but she wasn’t comfortable with it herself, so that was that.

  She couldn’t call the CLMR.

  It could be his master—creator—was looking for him even now. If she moved him, he might never find his bot. Finally, she decided not to do anything. “Okay, I’m going in now. You wait here until your creator comes, okay?” she said, smiling at him.

  He smiled back at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes, mistress.”

  She was preparing dinner when it occurred to her that he’d said he was very low on energy. She looked out the window at him, studying his rigid back in the gathering gloom as darkness began to fall. Finally, feeling more than a little ridiculous, she turned, removed the food from the oven, set it aside, and left the house.

  Squatting down in front of him, she looked him over. “What sort of energy do you need?”

  He frowned. After a moment, he began uttering a list.

  Laughing, Marina held up her hand. “I’m afraid I don’t have all of that. From what I understand, though, you derive energy from food, right?”

  He considered it. “Yes. My internal biological mechanics are designed to break these materials down and convert them into energy.”

  “Come on, then. It looks like you’re going to be waiting awhile and I can’t eat knowing you’re sitting out here hungry.”

  He stood up but frowned. “It distresses you that I seem to suffer?”

  Marina caught his hand, tugging on him.

  He tilted his head curiously, but, after a moment, he gave in to her pull and followed her.

  “Yes. It distresses me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my stomach hurts when I’m hungry. I figure yours must, too.”

  “This is pain? A warning that the biological mechanics are in danger of running low on energy?”

  Marina stopped. “It doesn’t hurt?”

  “I believe it does,” he responded, sounding surprised.

  She laughed, tugging him toward the house again.

  “What is this sound you make?” he asked as she led him into the kitchen and guided him toward a chair.

  “Laughter?”

  “That is a laugh?”

  Marina, beginning to feel self-conscious, sat across from him. “It makes me feel good to laugh … and I think you’re cute. I don’t know who created you, but you’re absolutely adorable.”

  He tilted his head. “It makes a pleasant feeling in me also. Why?”

  Marina lifted her brows. “Because you were made that way?” she guessed.

  “You were made that way?”

  She snickered but focused on filling his plate. “You could say that. I am completely biological, however—I was born, not created in a lab.”

  He stared down at the food for several moments then finally picked up the fork beside the plate and stabbed it into the food. Lifting it toward his face, he studied it carefully for several moments and finally opened his mouth and placed the food inside.

  A strange expression contorted his features when his mouth closed on the food. He looked like he might be dying.

  Alarm went through her. “Is something wrong?” she gasped.

  “Tastes good,” he said thickly.

  She looked at him doubtfully. “I’m glad you like it. You haven’t had any before?”

  He thought it over. “No. My creator put tubes into me.”

  Marina looked at him sympathetically. “Poor baby!”

  He didn’t seem to notice the remark. His entire focus seemed to be on the food.

  Shrugging, Marina ate her own dinner. “So, how did you get separated from your creator?” she asked when he’d cleaned his plate.

  “He told me I must learn to feel so that I can become a real man. He was not pleased with my performance when he activated me. I am not perfect. I have been given artificial intelligence and biological mechanics so that I can be a real man, but I must learn.”

  Marina propped her elbow on the table, studying him. The comment produced some surprisingly intriguing fantasies in her mind. “Sooo—what you’re saying is that he sent you out to learn on your own?”

  “I believe that that was the command, yes.”

  “Then, there really isn’t much point in sitting out on the curb, is there? I mean, it doesn’t sound to me as if he’s planning on coming back for you—not anytime soon, anyway.”

  “I am to have a week. If I cannot learn to be a real man in a week, then I will only be a machine.” He stopped abruptly, seemed to consider something, and then spoke again. “I have a malfunction. My energy levels should be restored, but they do not seem to be.”

  Marina puzzled over it. Things would be so much easier if she were more mechanically inclined. “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand you. You’re not … uh … hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmmm. Tired?”

  He frowned, appearing to think it over a long moment.

  Marina was struck by how life-like he was, thinking.

  “Yes. I believe this is the reason for the discrepancy in my energy output.”

  He was making her head hurt. “Okay, can you start talking in normal, human speech? Just say, I’m tired when you feel like this, okay? Nod your head if you understand.”

  “I must learn your speech patterns?”

  “Yes. This stilted, mechanical way of talking is part of the problem. Real people, real men, allow the way they feel to come out when they talk.”

  “I do not compute this.”

  “Frightened, angry, excited, sad, happy—emotion!”

  “I am tired.”

  “No!”

  “Weary?”

  “Never mind,” Marina said irritably and stood up. “I’m tired, too, but this mess has to be cleaned up. So—first you help me, and then I’ll let you rest.”

  He stood up, nodded, and watched her, copying every move she made, following her step for step.

  After bumping into him the third time, Marina gave him a look of irritation.

  Both of his brows rose in an imitation of surprise.

  She shook her head, resisting the urge to smile.

  “Come on, Nico. I’ve only got one bed. We’ll have to share.”

  She stopped abruptly when she got to the bedroom. “I keep forgetting you’re not human. How much do you weigh?”

  “Two hundred,” he supplied promptly.

  “That light? You really must be cutting edge---The bed should hold you then.”

  When she gestured toward the bed, he sat on the edge and then turned and lay down, completely clothed, shoes and all. Breathing a gusty sigh, Marina tugged his shoes off and tossed them aside. Taking his hand, she urged him up once more. When he was standing beside the bed, she examined the suit he was wearing and finally found the release. He watched her with a faint expression of confusion while she pulled his clothes off.

  She was a little stunned when she discovered that he was completely anatomically correct. “Your creator wasn’t kidding about you being a real man,” she murmured. “You’ve got the plumbing, too.”

  He studied her a moment, his head tilted to one si
de, and then reached for the fastening to her clothing.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stopped, frowning. “This is not how this is done?”

  Marina bit her lip, realizing he was mimicking her. She couldn’t help but wonder, though, what he’d think of the female anatomy. She shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  When he’d finished stripping her clothes off, he looked her up and down. Then, his head tilting in that attitude of curiosity, he walked all the way around her. To her surprise, as innocent as his curiosity was, she felt both nervous and warm in a very sensual way when he’d made the circuit and stopped before her again.

  Without a word, he lifted both hands and grasped a breast in each, squeezing them experimentally. “What purpose do these serve?”

  She gasped but resisted the urge to jump back. “It’s mammary glands.”

  His gaze went blank while he thought that over. “You have young?”

  She smiled. “No. But women have them all the time, whether they need them for the purpose they were intended, or not. They’re sensitive, so in the sexual act between a man and woman, the man—if he’s smart—stimulates the sensors in the breasts and it makes a woman---feel good.”

  He computed that. “Why does he do that?”

  Marina was starting to feel uncomfortable about his hold on her breasts. “Because he can enjoy sex even more if the woman enjoys it, too.”

  Finally, he released her breasts, squatted down, and examined her genitals. “This is different also.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, stepping back when he reached for her.

  He tilted his head at her. “I was not through looking.”

  “You’re much too interested for my comfort,” she said, chuckling. “Get in the bed.”

  He stood up. “I would like to examine it more, please.”

  She yawned, stretching. “Not tonight. I’m tired.”

  Switching off the lights, she climbed in the bed, fluffed her pillow, and pulled the covers up. For a long time, he merely stood by the bed, staring down at her. Finally, he climbed into the bed on the opposite side and lay down.

  Marina feigned sleep until she decided he had settled into sleep mode. Finally, she relaxed, wondering if she’d done the right thing by bringing him into her home. He just seemed so … lifelike and at the same time so innocent and vulnerable that she hadn’t been able to resist.