Eye Candy

by Ryan Schneider

  “So what happens?”

  “The robots begin to do the same thing a human would do: they find a safe middle ground. They still go to work but their performance suffers and they yield less work, fewer stops, fewer citations, fewer arrests.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I talk to them. I give them a pep talk so they can return to work in full capacity. Otherwise I have to recommend they be decommissioned. Sometimes I can help them find a different job, a janitor in one of the nuclear waste recycling plants, for example. Someplace that would be dangerous for a human but is perfectly safe for them. I can never get them a desk job, of course, as those are all taken by humans. It’s ironic that humans manage to stay well out of the line of fire, but when a robot begins to experience the same distress under the very same pressure, the unions make a huge fuss about robots displacing human beings from their jobs. I have a robocop in my office right now. It was involved in a hostage situation which went very badly. From the report, it sounds like the robot followed procedure, but ultimately had to use lethal force.”

  “It shot a human?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it freeze?”

  “No, but it may as well have. They had to pick it up and put it in a truck to bring it to my office. It responds when addressed but nothing more. It’s been sitting in my waiting room for three weeks.”

  “Want me to take a look at it?”

  “You would do that?”

  “Sure. Couldn’t hurt. If I can’t fix it, I’m sure you can. And if you can’t, it’ll have to be junked. Maybe you should organize a group, for all the ailing robots. A support group, for robots with post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  “Considering the price tag of some of these robots, that actually may not be a bad idea.” Candy laughed. “The great Daniel Olivaw, eminent roboticist and stand-up comic.”

  “I’m not that great.”

  “I’ve only known you ten minutes, but I think you’re pretty great.”

  Embarrassed and uncertain of how to respond, Danny drank more wine.

  ~

  Several hours later, Roberto announced that he and Gus were ready to close the restaurant. Danny ordered the aforementioned bottle of wine, as well as a pizza for Floyd, and paid the bill. He made certain to reward both Roberto and Gus with a gratuity every bit as exemplary as Gus’s cuisine and Roberto’s attentive service.

  Danny escorted Candy home, driving behind her in his car until she safely arrived.

  Home turned out to be a quaint two-story dwelling. When Danny exited his car he noticed the wide glass doors of a well-appointed office.

  “You live here?” he asked.

  “No, I work here. I live up there.” Candy pointed to the upper story and the stairs leading to it. “I have a thirty-second commute. It’s fabulous during rush hour.”

  Danny moved closer to the office door and inspected it. He read the big gold letters on the glass: CANDACE CALVIN, Ph.D.

  “You’re Candace Calvin?” he asked.

  Candy nodded.

  “You’re Candace Calvin.”

  “My friends call me Candy.”

  “I can’t believe it. Half my research for The Rock of God came from your research on robopsychology.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, I’m serious. Your work on robots and their curiosity about their own existence was absolutely inspired. It contributed immensely to my book.”

  “Well, I’d say this is just about impossible. Us meeting like this. Our matching wardrobe. Impossible multiplied by . . . itself.”

  “Impossibility squared.”

  Candy grinned. She proceeded up the stairs to her residence. Danny followed.

  “I like your gnome.” Danny motioned to a small figurine perched by the door and wearing a pointed red hat.

  “Thanks. I bought it in Amsterdam. It’s supposed to be a stash can for weed but I keep a spare key to my house inside it, in case I ever lose my keys.”

  They reached the landing and stood quietly. Staring at one another.

  “What’re you looking at, Candy?”

  “What do you think I’m looking at, Danny?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

  “You know,” said Candy, “if you were a robot, I could order you to come inside for a nightcap.” She held up the bottle of wine.

  “And if you were a robot, I could order you to invite me inside for a nightcap.”

  “But neither of us is a robot. So what should we do?”

  “It’s time to use the blind-date-ending code words.”

  “But we agreed to use the code words only if the date wasn’t going well.”

  “Oh,” said Danny, “you’re right. We should’ve come up with blind-date-continuing code words.”

  “Like, ‘Do you want to come . . . inside?’ ”

  “Yes,” Danny whispered.

  Slowly, very slowly, Danny leaned forward, until his face was less than an inch from Candy, with his mouth very nearly pressed against Candy’s lips. He brushed his lips against her face, soft as velvet, and kissed her cheek, lightly.

  He leaned away and took a step back. “I’ll call you tomorrow.” He turned and descended the stairs, slid behind the wheel of his white convertible, and drove away, leaving Candy standing outside her front door, as if frozen.

  Chapter 4

  I Want Candy

  Once inside, Candy bolted the door and placed her keys and purse and the bottle of Cabernet on the hall table.

  A voice spoke out in the darkness. “Hi.”

  Candy screamed. She lunged forward and slapped the light switch.

  Two men sat on the sofa: Tim and Rory.

  “What the hell are you guys doing in my house?”

  “We were worried about you,” said Rory. “We wanted to make sure your date went all right. Did it go all right?”

  “How the hell did you get in here?”

  “We found your key inside the gnome,” replied Tim. “Don’t worry, we replaced it.”

  “You guys ever heard of a telephone?”

  “I called but you didn’t answer,” said Rory.

  “Yes, I know. I turned off my phone. I was on a date.”

  “So how did it go? Did it go all right?” asked Rory.

  “None of your goddamn business, Rory,” replied Candy. She unbolted the dead bolt and opened the door. “I’d like you both to leave.”

  “See?” said Tim, turning to Rory. “I told you she’d throw us out.”

  “You’re the one who found the key,” said Rory. He and Tim rose from the sofa and moved toward the door. “Shall we have some hot tea first? You can tell us about your date.”

  “Look, Rory, it’s real cute that you guys are so protective over me, but why don’t you call my receptionist in the morning and make an appointment.”

  “An appointment? How long have we known each other?”

  “About four years, doctor,” replied Candy.

  “Doctor? You’ve never called me doctor before.”

  “I think it’s best if we keep things professional from now on.”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “That was before I came home and found that you’d broken into my house. Good night.”

  “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” Rory asked.

  “I said good night.” She held the door wide.

  Rory stepped through the door, followed by Tim. Tim paused and turned to Candy. “My annual Fourth of July Fireworks Extravaganza is next week. I hope you still want to come.”

  “I’ll try to stop by.”

  “Great. I’ll tell Maggs.” Tim smiled and followed Rory down the stairs.

  Rory looked over his shoulder in time to see Candy snatch up the gnome and take it inside. The door slammed shut.

  Tim and Rory walked across the street and climbed into Rory’s lime green Lamborghini electric roadster.

  “I cannot believe you did that,” said Tim. “I cannot
believe you hit on her.”

  “I asked her to dinner.”

  “That’s called hitting on her.”

  “I think I’m falling for her.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “Forget it.”

  “I don’t want to forget it.”

  “You must.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  Tim sighed. “Look. You’re young, good looking, and rich. You can have any woman in the world. So pick one and get on with it.”

  “I want Candy.”

  “Then you’re in for a lot of heartache because apparently she is the one woman you can’t have.”

  “What if she were to choose me?”

  Tim stared out the window and did not reply.

  Chapter 5

  Can a Robot Smile?

  Danny arrived home. He parked his car in the garage and entered the house, pizza box in hand.

  He hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d left Candy standing outside her front door.

  In the great room, he found Floyd seated on the sofa, hands in the air, fingers dancing across the virtual keyboard visible only to him.

  In the kitchen, Howard stood surrounded by mixing bowls and measuring spoons and myriad ingredients. “Good evening, sir,” said Howard. Howard’s expressionless face turned to Danny while both of his hands continued mixing ingredients in two silver bowls. “Did you enjoy your social engagement?”

  “Yes, Howard. I enjoyed it very, very much.”

  “I am pleased to hear it, sir.”

  “What are you making?”

  “I am preparing another batch of magic brownies for Master Floyd. I am also preparing a separate batch, one not containing the magic ingredient.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Howard. Thank you.”

  “Not at all, sir. I enjoy baking.” Howard raised his voice an octave, “Master Floyd, Master Danny has arrived home.”

  “Hey roomy,” Floyd nearly shouted. “How was the date?”

  “Fantastic. She’s amazing and we–”

  “Hold on, I can’t hear you!” Floyd’s contact lenses pulsed a deep purple, flashing in time with the beat of the music he was enjoying. Floyd tapped his ear, silencing his in-ear music player, and his contacts receded to a thin purple ring around the perimeter of his irises. “You look happy. The date went well?”

  “It went perfectly.” Danny handed the pizza to Floyd, and Floyd promptly opened it and withdrew a slice. “We have so much in common. We like the same music, movies, food, wine. And get this, we were wearing the exact same clothes. She looked better in hers, of course, but they were almost identical.”

  “You were wearing the same clothes?”

  “Yes. Roberto thought we’d prearranged it and that we were married. He almost had a mental freeze-out trying to calculate the odds of two complete strangers showing up on a blind date wearing matching outfits.”

  “Was he okay? I like Roberto. He always gives me free stuff.”

  “Yes, he’s fine. Positronic potential built up a bit, but it discharged eventually and he’s fine. Candy and I also have similar senses of humor, which is very important for a relationship to work. You need to be able to laugh at the same things.”

  “That’s very true.”

  “And she’s smart. She’s a robopsychologist. And not just any robopsychologist, but the robopsychologist whose work I studied for my own book. And it turns out, she did her dissertation on my book. Talk about a small world.”

  “How’d she look?”

  “Absolutely gorgeous. I almost suffered my own mental freeze-out when I first laid eyes on her.”

  Floyd laughed heartily.

  “She’s tall, blonde, and breathtaking. Her hair, her smile. She has the most incredible green eyes. And her body. It’s almost like she’s a better-looking, smarter, kinder, female version of me.” Danny flopped down on the sofa and grabbed a slice of pizza from the box.

  “You said something very interesting a moment ago,” said Floyd. “That bit about her being a better version of you. That’s why we refer to the people we love as ‘our better half’. Plato tells us that mankind once sought to be like the gods, so Zeus sliced all mortals into two, such that they would spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half, and when they find their other half, they experience love. It is this longing which compels us to search for the other half of ourselves.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “So, you’re smitten?”

  “Completely.”

  Sounds of classical music emanated from Danny’s pocket. He withdrew his phone. “It’s her.”

  “Go get her,” said Floyd.

  Danny answered his phone. “Hello?” He turned and walked down the hallway and into his bedroom.

  Floyd tapped his ear and the music played. His purple contacts resumed their rhythmic pulsing, and he went back to typing.

  ~

  Four hours later, Floyd tapped his ear once again. He removed his contact lenses, dropped them into their disinfecting container, stood, and stretched. “Night, Howard.”

  “A very good night to you also, sir.” Howard had long since cleaned up the kitchen and returned to his place in the corner of the room, where he stood effortlessly, enjoying a digital book. Two plates of brownies cut into geometrically-perfect squares sat upon the kitchen counter, expertly encased in hermetic wrap.

  Floyd gathered his bathrobe around him and proceeded down the hall toward his bedroom. He noticed a bar of light shining from under Danny’s door, and he heard Danny’s faint voice from the other side. He was still on the phone with Candy.

  Floyd smiled.

  Chapter 6

  Mud with Hell,

  and

  the Salton Sea

  Candy stood in the bathroom, drying herself with a fluffy white towel.

  The doorbell chimed.

  She scurried nude to the front door and activated her side of the vidcom. The screen showed a man standing with his back to the door. “Who is it?”

  The man turned. “It’s Danny.” He was holding something in each hand.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m here for our date. Like we arranged last night.”

  “It’s not eight o’clock yet.”

  “I know. I came over early. I was hoping to find you naked.”

  Candy surveyed her unclothed body.

  “Can you open the door?” Danny asked.

  “One second.” She moved swiftly to the bathroom and donned her white silk robe. She opened the door to find Danny standing before her, holding a tray with two cups of coffee in one hand and a white paper bag in the other.

  Danny looked Candy up and down. Her robe clung tightly to her body and she was clearly wearing nothing underneath. “You were naked, weren’t you?”

  Candy moved aside, allowing him to enter. “As a matter of fact, I was. Good morning.” Candy kissed Danny’s cheek.

  “It certainly is.” Danny surveyed Candy up and down once more. He smiled, then proceeded to the kitchen.

  “What do you have there?”

  “Breakfast.” Danny placed the items on the counter. “Two cups of coffee and some high-protein breakfast burritos. And some fruit salad with extra apples. Apples are supposed to help combat nausea while we’re in orbit. Hopefully we won’t need them. But we’ll eat them anyway. Just in case.”

  Candy removed one of the cups of coffee from the tray and curled her hands around it, savoring the warmth emanating from the stay-hot cup. She took a sip, then sighed contentedly. “That is an exquisite coffee.”

  “It’s Turkish coffee with cardamom. I was introduced to it when I was in Israel last year. You wouldn’t believe the advances they’ve made in robotics over there. I got the food and coffee at Aroma on Sunset.”

  “I love that place. But I’ve never had coffee like this before.”

  “It’s not on the menu. You have to
ask for it. Tell ’em you want mud with hell. They’ll know what you want.”

  “Mud with hell? If it weren’t so tasty I don’t think I’d want to drink something called mud with hell.”

  “It’s mud coffee because the beans are ground into powder which sinks to the bottom of your cup. The hell is a spice called cardamom. In Israel they call it hell.”

  “It’s fantastic.”

  “You’re not supposed to drink the coffee grounds, but I do. It gives you an extra kick of caffeine.” Danny swirled his tall stay-hot cup and took a sip.

  Candy imitated Danny’s motion with her own cup, and then took a sip. “You’re right. I like that. I enjoy a good energy boost. Especially before a night of hot sex in zero-G.” She gazed at Danny over the rim of her coffee cup.

  “My kind of girl. But we need to get our positrons in gear because I have a shuttle waiting for us. And while the shuttle will wait, the orbiter won’t. So we should eat on the way. For as good as that robe would look in zero-G, you had probably put on some actual clothes.”

  “I’ll be right back.” Candy left the kitchen and proceeded to her bedroom. She carried her coffee with her.

  Danny strolled through Candy’s living room, surveying her decorations and her library. The apartment managed to be cool and spacious, yet it felt warm and cozy. One wall contained a large wood-burning fireplace. Either the building was very old and the fireplace had been grandfathered into the current and utterly restrictive building codes, or Candy knew a good contractor and had paid him well enough for him to keep his mouth shut.

  Above the fireplace hung a framed print of a newspaper article featuring a big, bold headline: ROBOT ‘SKELETON’ FOUND ON MARS. Danny remembered that day well. Everybody remembered the Lefebre-Yishida expedition. But more than a decade on, no one had deduced how the ‘skeleton’ had come to be on the red planet.