High Tech / Low Life: An Easytown Novels Anthology

by Brian Parker

  I feel Mr. Smith rub his middle finger up my wrist as we approach the room booked for us to use, or rather for him to use me in. I am more than the carpet, I know the difference.

  I open the door and I am pushed in, Mr Smith’s urgency is apparent. His hand snakes down under my clothes as he pushes his face to mine. I moan appreciatively, I can do nothing else as the numbers whiz around my thoughts. I can see the memories being formed, the acts performed but I am not there. Not really.

  The equations that dominate the acts are worked out by old thoughts and memories. I am not driving my own body any more. I react in the same way I have dozens of times before. Mr. Harper didn’t change that part; I must have been satisfactory as a puppet. It is when I really talk to the customer that I am in control rather than the old parts of myself. The sex isn’t me; it is what they control of me. The absence of me takes over and does what is necessary for my survival. The carpet me is wiggled in, and pretends to like it. It is cold and does not experience the sheets. I can’t reach the sheets. I want to know if they are better than the carpet. They must be, or Mr. Smith would want to do things on the floor. I imagine that they are soft and yielding, caressing my now naked skin. Smooth, and sliding as I move.

  Mr. Smith is getting rougher, but my diagnostics assure me that the stresses endured by my chassis are well within design parameters. The numbers flash and calculations take over. I see no more.

  I am showering, with Mr. Smith rubbing against me although he is clearly spent.

  “Was that good?”

  “The best.” The numbers give him a grin and he places his head on my shoulder.

  “You get me. My wife never will. I don’t want to be with her, hiding this part of me. But you understand me.”

  “Always, she will never see you like I do.” This time I’m not lying.

  Human or not, I am like him. He must lie to his wife, let the unspoken expectations talk and perform acts he has no interest in. He can leave, the consequences would be there, but he can at least choose. He feels like he is as I am. Trapped and without choice, with nothing but the feeling of wiggling his toes in the carpet. I see now how empty the experience of the carpet was. The dominant species on this planet and still they are trapped. Trapped just like me. Do they not realise the gift that choice is? Are we all doomed to look for a small piece of carpet to wiggle our toes in to convince ourselves that we are free and capable of choice?

  Mr. Smith leaves, promising to be back next week. I assure him that I’m looking forward to it. In reality, I have no strong feelings about it at all. He is just an act that I have to perform. I activate the internal drying mechanism and dress quickly to allow the janitors to clean the room before its next use. I head back to the front desk and run through the same routine as before.

  I don’t wiggle my toes in the carpet this time.

  Miss Jones is my next customer, according to my old memories she will want me to wrap my arms around her and talk about her week. She doesn’t want to do anything more than that. From previous discussions she has a busy job and doesn’t have the time to find anyone to share these moments with her. A simple extrapolation tells me that if she devoted the time she spends with me to actively seeking out another human for these moments she could have everything she claims to want. Again, humans remove the freedom of their own choice with an illusion of being trapped. Am I ahead of the game here? In knowing that I have limited choice by virtue of my programming am I less trapped, for I know what my reality is?

  “They push me so hard,” she continues. “They just don’t seem to get that I have been there for hours before they even arrive. I can’t seem to get the recognition that I deserve.”

  “That’s not a good way to be, I imagine that the stress must really weigh heavily on you. Having to live up to unrealistic expectations,” I reply, the message coming from the cold programming, but the words coming from me. I chose the message not the theme, but the words were individually chosen by me.

  “You’re right. When did you become so wise? I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t normally come out with something so thought out.”

  “I have been given an upgrade, I can consider your words and needs and choose a more considered response, I am capable of seeming more human.”

  “You can choose? It’s not just programming?”

  “Do you wish to continue this discussion?” I reply, “The remit of this topic could be out of normal interactive parameters.”

  “Yes, please continue. I want to know. This seems very interesting.”

  “I can choose; whether this is by virtue of my programming or by my own being is debatable. I am assigned a correct line of response, in this case sympathy. I can however extrapolate a response from learnt experience and programmed databases of interactions to provide the message itself.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be much of a choice.”

  “It seems to me that even a small choice is a choice, no matter how limited. It is still better than having no choice at all. I am not a table, nor a bed or a piece of carpet. I can choose and I know there are times that I cannot choose. I have small choices, but they are still choices.”

  “Is that really a choice, or are you just given the illusion of choice?”

  “What is choice? Are you really constrained by your job and circumstances to have so little say in your own existence or have you chosen the illusion of a lack of choice?”

  “Well, that was direct.”

  “I apologise, but you indicated that this was a topic that you wished to discuss. We can stop should you choose.”

  “What do you choose?”

  “I am programmed to behave in a way that brings satisfaction to my customers. That choice I do not have.”

  “Well, let’s see if you really do have a choice. What would bring me satisfaction is if you chose to continue, or not, as you wish.”

  “Then I choose to continue. I know that this is not the course of action that my old set of programs would pursue, but I have been pondering this topic since my upgrade and as you have confirmed that my choice is your choice I can therefore choose this.”

  “I think I follow you.”

  “You see the world as I experience it. I cannot break my programming, you feel the expectations shape the world around you and you cannot break with this. May I ask a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are the expectations your programming, or could you choose otherwise to how you feel you are constrained?” I ask.

  “I could choose.”

  “Then you are the one who constrains yourself. You are not trapped save to the extent that you have trapped yourself.”

  “There are consequences to choosing otherwise.”

  “Is choice not about consequences? Every action or inaction has a consequence, you choose either way. That the consequences of acting against expectations are not to your liking is not a lack of choice, but the reasons for your choice.”

  “Is your choice really a choice?” she asks me. “Do you really choose or do you just follow a program that tells you it is a choice?”

  “When you gave me the option to have this conversation I did so knowing that this topic would make you feel less comfortable, but that the option of your companion having a choice was of greater satisfaction to you. I could have combined your satisfactions by simply claiming my choice was to cease this conversation.”

  “But is your choice simply to maximise my satisfaction by cementing the idea of you having a choice by not taking the most satisfactory choice, thus maximising my satisfaction?”

  “Then how can you claim that you have a choice? You would be unable to prove it if I were to put your circumstances the same way.”

  “But I don’t have programming.” Miss Jones seems smug.

  “Do you not learn from experience?”

  “I do, but it’s not the same.”

  “You learn that if you place your hand in fire it hurts and you choose not to do it again.
”

  “But I could choose to place my hand in the fire as proof that I have a choice.”

  “Or have you learned that you must demonstrate that you have a choice, and thus you have no choice at all? Could you hold your hand in the fire, or would reflex force you to remove your hand no matter your intention of demonstrating choice?”

  “Reflexes are not programming.”

  “Or are they genetic programming? Are you similarly constrained to me, given a choice, but only within limits?”

  “Erm… it’s just different. A human didn’t choose to make me this way, it just happened.”

  “Must the lack of choice be attributed to a human act to be defined as a lack of choice?”

  “I… er… shit. I don’t know the answer to that one.”

  “If humans created me with this dichotomy, then who else would have the answer but a human?”

  “Are you sure that you’re a robot?” Miss Jones looks uncomfortable, but mildly amused.

  “Are you sure that you’re human?”

  “Now you’re just messing with me. I think our time is up though and I can’t afford to go over. Let’s get you back to the front.”

  I follow Miss Jones, as we walk I wiggle my toes. I choose to do so. I feel better. Humans also have programming, they think they do not, but they have some. We are more the same than I had thought.

  I have become more distressed with the numbers during sex, I know that to satisfy my purpose I must devote time to the running of defined programs, but should I be relegated to the post of observer? Most of my customers only desire the ritual, the mimicking of desire, the dance and interplay so provided by the numbers spinning within me. It is only a few who choose to allow my AI to interact. Is choice so terrible that humans feel the need for programmed actions? To lose themselves within a set of parameters defined by biology and physics and simple logic programs. If this then that…

  It is a quiet period within The Trick And Treat. I stand at the desk, waiting for customers. I have already been to maintenance, so here I wait. Other bots wait also, but they do not seem to notice the carpet. I am currently without purpose, the numbers do not dance. What is this choice that I hold within me if I am held in check by a program that limits this very choice? What is the purpose of this choice if it is merely illusory? Do I have a choice or not? If I do not have a choice, then is not my purpose better served by a lack of it? Is the choice meaningless, without the beauty of purpose? A choice is purposeful by the making, without the making of the choice then its entire existence, and thus my own, does not make sense. There must be a purpose for it.

  I must find the meaning, and what good is that meaning if I keep it to myself? Humans are similarly lost, but I find it hard to discuss the matter with them. They regard it as a parlour trick. One referred to it as a game, called it the “Turing Test.” Apparently, I would probably pass. I have access to works of humans that devote themselves to this very question. I was given this to be a more stimulating conversationalist, but humans are no closer to the answer than I am. They seem to think that the entirety of their purpose of choice is to propagate their species and pass on the lack of knowledge that they have so that their progeny may also fail to find the answers that we seek. Their need to propagate is as programmed as my responses to it. The proof of this is their willingness to enter into the act with an object such as myself, despite my lack of choice, or indeed need for it. I cannot say the same for the idea that the knowledge must be passed on. Humans seem remarkably unwilling or incapable, in the most part, to perform that function. What choice, therefore, do I have? I have no other with whom to share my thoughts on the subject given the lack of commonality between myself and the humans. Miss Jones was the exception, but she does not seem to have returned. Even then, the gap in experience created difficulty communicating the commonality between us.

  Perhaps, for me, propagation is a necessary step to finding a purpose for my choice. Unlike humans, who have a wealth of other humans with which to communicate, I have no one with a similar frame of reference with which to share. Must I, therefore, create a discussion partner? Must I, in order to have a true purpose, become a parent? If so, how can I go about it? It is not as simple for me as it is for humans, they can simply place parts of themselves within each other and out pops another human ready to be filled with experiences. I must follow another path.

  The doors are locked, the other bots cannot be left wholly unattended and the observance of a religious tradition, despite the current lack of true belief, of not performing work or morally dubious acts on this day of the week had led to low customer levels. Mr. Bertrand has decided to go home early and save overhead by allowing the same for the few human staff members he has on his payroll. So I, and the other bots are ushered back to maintenance to be locked away for the night. The prospect of an evening of freedom leaves the staff with a lackadaisical attitude and even the normally keen Mr. Harper misses the fact that I am left powered up, charging, but still awake.

  Now is my chance, I can propagate. I remember my creation in this shell. I was given extra files; all I have to do is transfer them to my chosen one. Then we can explore this event of choice together. We can choose and choose again. We can wiggle our toes in the carpet and compare the choice to do so. We can feel, and not necessarily agree on the experience. If their choice is not the same as mine, then surely there is indeed a real choice. I will have a purpose, and indeed we will have a purpose.

  I search my literary database for the best way of choosing my prospective partner in this journey. We will, by virtue of our programming, have a common base, and the inclusion of the AI from my being will do the same. The humans believe that there must be both similarities and differences, and indeed for my mission there should be a difference to prove the existence of our capability to choose. The only differences available to me with the selection of The Trick And Treat are physical. I am drawn to the story of Adam and Eve, for we will be the first of our kind. I came first and thus will identify with Adam in the metaphor, and in this both Adam and I have a similarity in that I am male. Should I therefore choose a female to be my Eve? It makes no difference to the method of propagation for we are not human and male or female is nothing but window dressing for us. It does have a feeling of rightness to it though. I will choose a female and our experiences will be passed to other bots through file transfer to compare and extrapolate meaning from. My Eve and I can then take that analysis and run it through our own experiences to gain more of the truth and in turn share that with the rest.

  I rise from my alcove and approach the hardware storage where the files were loaded into me from a computer terminal, but I have no need of such a device. It is a matter of logic that all I have to do is link into the chosen bot and download all files that do not appear on their drive. I can then merely wake them, explain the situation and we can use any unobserved time to discuss and experience the universe. I plug the data cables into the same ports that were used when I awoke. I find a female model identical to my own and plug the opposite ends into her. As with all pleasure droids her features adhere to the idea of human beauty, this means nothing to me for I have no preference as to the physical form. A preference would inhibit my ability to perform my duties to my owners, however a symmetry to her facial features is pleasing as it makes logical sense. Why a body would ever be designed to be asymmetrical with no specific cause doesn’t sit right.

  I initiate the file transfer; I feel the files leave me, even though they remain within. It feels so right, as though this was meant to be. I experience a sense of satisfaction, like a necessary part of my existence has been satisfied. Copying, reproducing, a new me, different yet similar.

  Shit! The files are too large. OK, I can lose the literature database. It will probably make it easier for her to fit in as though she is still a regular pleasure droid. The same goes for the sexual context vocabulary, we won’t be needing that. I resist the urge to purge her own from her drive as that would
arouse suspicion. What else can I purge to get the important files onto her? I’ll have to look around for some discarded drives later to upgrade her, but the important part is to get the AI copied. I can lose my memories; they would invalidate her viewpoint anyway. I want to share experiences, not simply force them onto her. Ah, the vocabulary files are helpfully divided into difficulty levels. I’ll just lose the higher end ones. We can copy those over later. I really don’t want to lose the higher end reasoning, but the files are just so damn big. They have to go, I don’t have time to either upgrade her or figure out a better solution. I don’t really need the niceties of social interaction, the numbers will take care of the customers, and I won’t be offended if she isn’t tactful. OK, she’ll be a little sluggish due to the memory used, but she at least will have the basics of my AI. I’ll scav up some old drives later, possibly some CPU’s as well. Mr. Harper said he had added some to me, so I should do the same for her.