HIS ROBOT WIFE
By Wesley Allison
Kindle Edition
His Robot Wife
Copyright © 2011 by Wesley Allison
All Rights Reserved. This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If sold, shared, or given away it is a violation of the copyright of this work. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design by Wesley Allison
Cover Image Copyright © Neoblues | Dreamstime.com
* * * * *
For Tom Swift Jr.
In July 1971, I found a box in my grandparent’s basement. It was filled with books that had belonged to my uncle, killed in action three years before in Viet Nam. Chief among the books in that box were thirteen Tom Swift Jr. books. I read them all that summer, and ordered more in the series through the local bookstore. Tom Swift would be followed by John Carter, Tarzan of the Apes, Perry Rhodan, and many others, but Tom, Bud, Chow, and Tom Sr. will always have a special place in my heart.
His Robot Wife
By Wesley Allison
Chapter One
Mike Smith first noticed the bright blue sign on his sixth circuit around the indoor jogging track. It was Thursday and he came every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning to jog twenty-five laps. Twenty-five laps equaled two miles. The sign was in somebody’s yard. That’s why he noticed it. It wasn’t an advertisement like the ones on businesses you could see from the other side of the track. It was bright blue and it had yellow writing and some kind of picture. The seventh lap around, he tried to make out the three large words at the top. It looked like they said “stop the perverts.” The next lap, he looked again. Now he was sure that it said “stop the perverts,” but what did it say below that? He strained his eyes but after three more laps, he couldn’t make out the smaller words below.
He put it out of his mind and instead watched the people on the track with him as he ran. There were two girls in their late teens or early twenties who both looked too chubby to be jogging. Never the less, they lapped him about every fourth circuit. There were eight or ten people walking, mostly in pairs. But one little old man was walking quite fast, about half as fast as Mike was jogging, and he constantly leaned to the left. Mike was sure he was going to just fall right over sooner or later. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Mike hit the finish line and immediately dropped his speed, walking over to get a towel and a bottle of water. Remembering the sign, he walked to the back wall of the running track and looked down over the neighborhood. There was the sign. He pressed his forehead against the hot glass and squinted. “Stop the perverts. Vote yes on 22.” Or was that thirty three?
Wiping his face and finishing his water, Mike walked back to the cubbyhole and picked up his texTee. “What is California proposition twenty-two?” The screen immediately came to life and began playing a news story. “Just let me read it.” The video dissolved into a page of text. “Blah blah blah. Supporters include blah blah blah. The proposition will amend the state constitution to define a person as a biological entity, preventing robots seeking redress for blah blah blah. Blah blah blah essentially an anti-robot marriage proposal. What? If this amendment is passed it will prohibit the state of California from acknowledging the marriages between humans and robots currently being performed in four states.
“Son of a bitch.”
Hopping down the stairs with much more energy than he usually had after jogging, Mike crossed the blistering parking lot and climbed into his Chevy, letting the cool air wash over him before he turned on the ignition. He counted it as a blessing that all cars now had auto-cooled interiors. He wouldn’t want to have to wait for the cool air. He pulled out of the parking lot and drove up the street, turning left into the neighboring block so that he could get a better look at the blue sign. But it took him several minutes to find the correct house. Finally he stopped in from of the one featuring the placard. “Stop the perverts. Vote yes on 22.” Beneath the words was a stick figure diagram, the kind used on street signs, of what looked like a man trying to have sex with a toaster. Mike thought about getting out of his car and ripping the sign out of the ground, but he saw the face of a little old lady looking out at him through the blinds.
“Assholes,” he said, and slammed his foot on the gas pedal. The car sped away, but failed to make the screeching tire noise that he was hoping for.
His house at 11 North Willow was a five minute drive from the track, which was not nearly enough time for Mike to calm down before he pulled into the driveway. Then on his way from the car to the front door, he tripped over the yardbot, which was busy pulling gnarled desert weeds from between the red brick stepping stones. Finally, the front door lock seemed to take forever to recognize him and allow him to enter the cool interior of the house.
“The world is going to hell,” he growled as he kicked off his track shoes. “Literally. It is literally as hot as hell outside.”
“Here you go, Mike.” Patience was suddenly beside him, with a towel in one hand and a tall glass of iced water in the other.
She looked as perfect as she had they day she came out of the box. Big blue eyes, a cute little button nose, and that slender, curvy body; all of which were just outside the possibilities of a real human form. She stood there with a smile not only on her lips but radiating from her eyes as well.
“What are you so happy about?” He took the towel and wiped the back of his neck and then took several long gulps from the water glass.
“I’m happy that you’re home. Why don’t you sit down and cool off for six and one half minutes, then you can take a nice cool shower.” Patience turned and glided down the hallway to the kitchen.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m in a bad mood?” he called out, taking a seat on the sofa and propping his feet up on the coffee table.
“You’re always in a bad mood when you come back from the track,” she called from the other room.
“I am not. vueTee.” The large screen above the fireplace came to life, the image of a daffodil filling the browser screen.
“What are you doing browsing the Daffodil site? Do you need an update?” He picked up the remote and began flipping through the feeds.
“My software is completely up-to-date,” said Patience, walking back into the room with a plate of sliced fruit. “Just tell the vueTee what you want to watch.”
“I don’t want to have to talk. I can flip through them faster.”
“You can’t flip through all four thousand feeds.”
“Sure I can. It will just take me a while.”
Patience took the remote from his hands and replaced it with the plate of fruit.
“Feed seventy-six,” she said toward the screen. “Star Trek: the Original Series season one, episode fifteen.”
The starship Enterprise appeared on the screen arriving in orbit around a green planet. This was quickly followed by a female crewmember giving Captain Kirk a massage while he sat in his captain’s chair.
“This is a great episode,” said Mike, leaning back and popping an apple slice into his mouth. “You know it looks like Kirk is going to sleep with her just like he does with every other female in the galaxy, but this time Dr. McCoy actually gets the girl.”
“It would be a shame if the poor captain had to go without for a week,” said Patience, sitting down beside him.
“Don’t worry. He gets a robot version of an old girlfriend.”
“I know,” she replied. “That’s why I like this episode so much.”
“I thought you turned it on for me.”
“No. I’m going to watch it while you take a shower. Now finish your fruit.”
After eating, Mike went upstairs t
o take a shower, tossing his sweaty clothes on the bedroom floor on his way to the bathroom. He stopped, looked at the shorts and t-shirt, then went and picked them up and threw them in the hamper. When he climbed into the enclosure and turned on the water, if felt so good. He ended up staying longer than he should have, and as he dried off he realized he would probably get a fine when the next water bill came.
When he got back to the living room Star Trek was only half over, so he sat down next to Patience and watched Captain Kirk being pummeled by his Academy roommate. When the program ended, he turned his head and looked at Patience.
“You know, I had something I wanted to say to you but now I can’t remember what it was. I guess you are so beautiful that when I look at you I forget about everything else.”
“Do you want to have sex now?”
“That’s it! Now I remember. Have you heard of Prop 22?”
Patience’s perfect face turned sour. “That’s the anti-robot marriage proposition.”
“Right. When did you hear about it?”
“Last year when it was first proposed.”
“Last year? You didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mike. “I know I would have heard about it. They’ve been talking about all the props on the local news for the last two months. What have you been doing—editing my news?”
“Of course not, Mike. They didn’t cover it like they did the other propositions, because its backers barely got it on the ballot. As long as it appeared as though it would be just one more failed initiative, I didn’t want to mention it. It would have just made you upset for nothing. They had to get two million signatures and they almost missed the deadline. I was hoping they would miss it, but they didn’t.”
“So you did censor my news.”
“I didn’t remove the story from the news, Mike. I just didn’t bring it up.”
“Have you ever censored my news?”
“Why would I do that?” Patience batted her eyelashes in a look of innocence.
“I don’t know why… hey. Yes or no?”
“Why would you think that I would?”
“You’re not answering me.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Oh, that’s very funny. Robot humor. Make fun of the meat-bag.”
Patience crossed her arms as her face turned sour once again. “Don’t say that word. I don’t like it, and I think that robot on Futurama is a bad role model.”
“Alright fine. But what do you think about Prop 22?”
“I want you to vote against it.”
“Of course I’ll vote against it. I could very well be the poster boy for an anti-22 movement. What I mean is how do you feel about it?”
Patience cocked her head thoughtfully to the side. “I feel 43% angry, 22% sad, 19% surprised in a bad way, 3% excited, and 13% of various combinations of emotions available to me because of the BioSoft 1.9.1 upgrade in February of this year.
“Okay,” said Mike. “The important question: What is it going to mean for us if it passes?”
“It means that our marriage will no longer be recognized by the State of California.”
“Bastards.”
“What time would you like to eat lunch, Mike?”
“What? I want to eat lunch exactly the same time I do every day. It’s not like you deviate the time you make it by a nanosecond. Why are you changing the subject?”
“I don’t want you to become overly upset. I want to change the subject so that your pulse rate will drop and you will stop making your mad voice.”
“I’m not making a mad…” He lowered both the tone and volume of his voice. “I’m not making a mad voice, and my heart is fine. I just jogged two miles without stopping. That might not be anything for Jesse Owens, but it’s pretty good for me. Two years ago I couldn’t have jogged one lap.”
“Are you talking about the great track star Jesse Owens who lived a century ago?”
“I couldn’t think of the names of any living athletes. You know I don’t watch sports.”
Patience scooted her shapely bottom across the couch and then into his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and gently kissed him.
“Jesse Owens didn’t have two heart attacks,” she said.
“Are you sure? He lived to be an old man. He could have had them later on.”
“No. So you, who have had two heart attacks, will make your heart strong by eating healthy foods, and maintaining a regular exercise regimen. You will not make it weaker by allowing yourself to be manipulated into anger over stupid robot-hating bastards.”
“Yes, Dear.”
“Do you want to watch another episode of Star Trek?”
“No. I think I’m going to write for a while.”
Two years before Mike had finished a book about his experiences as a teacher. Behind the Schoolyard had started selling well as soon as it hit the Booknet. Sales had steadily increased until it had spent nearly nine weeks at number 162 on the biographies and memoirs chart, before dropping back down. It had given Mike an income that surpassed both his teaching salary and Patience’s business of selling junk on eBay. He had received a legal settlement five years before, and with this he had purchased five years of early retirement credit. Last May, he had spent his last days in the classroom, and now he had more disposable income than he had ever imagined.
Mike had decided to write a second book and was now culling together anecdotes from his years of teaching. His office was upstairs in what had once, a long time ago, been his daughter Aggie’s room. Sitting down at his desk, he turned on his wriTee with a word. Flipping his hands across the screen he sorted through his notes, thinking that if she were in the room, Patience would no doubt tell him that it was quicker if he just spoke the commands.
“It’s quicker if you just speak the commands.”
“Crap!” shouted Mike, as he banged his knee into the desk leg. “Talk about a heart attack! You scared me on purpose.”
“Nonsense. I just brought you a Diet Pepsi.” Patience set the iced beverage beside the wriTee.
Picking up the glass, he took a quick sip of his soda, still rubbing his bruised knee with his other hand.
“You know that’s a clear violation of the first law of robotics. I may have to take you to the Daffodil Geniuses and have them check you out. You do know the three rules of robotics, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. One: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two: A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Three: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
“Well, didn’t you injure me or let me come to harm? I’m going to have a big bruise on my knee tomorrow. You know my heart medications make me bruise like an over-ripe pear. Don’t you agree you violated rule one?”
“I think of them more as suggestions that rules in the strictest sense,” said Patience before turning and leaving the room.
It took Mike almost six hours to sort the stories that he had into an outline for the book, eating the lunch that Patience had prepared while he worked. He didn’t really notice the passing of time until he got up and stretched, deciding that his ergonomically correct chair hurt his back. Standing in the center of the room, he crossed his arms and looked crossly at the wriTee. There weren’t enough stories there for an entire book. He was going to have to jog his memory somehow.
“Are you ready to eat?” asked Patience, sticking her head through the doorway. “Dinner has been ready, but I didn’t want to disturb you while you were working so hard.”
“I guess so.” Mike aimed one more perturbed look at the wriTee before leaving the room.
Sitting down in front of the single place setting, Mike examined his meal. It was a thick salmon filet, coated with glaze and topped with scallions
and sesame seeds. Next to it sat a pile of bright green broccoli. It looked perfect. It looked like a picture on the cover of one of those food magazines. There was even a little radish and a little piece of carrot, both carved to look like flower blossoms. Patience sat down across from him with a tall glass of water.
“This is really good,” he said, after taking the first bite.
“Thank you,” she replied, watching while he ate.
This was something that had been strange at first, but which he had now grown quite used to. Patience never ate. She could, technically, but it wouldn’t nourish her. So she preferred not to gum up her insides with useless mass, instead drinking water which she did need to run her fuel cell. Mike had heard that other people had their robots eat, but it just seemed like a waste of good food to him. And Patience was more than just a robot. She was his wife.
“So why were you browsing the Daffodil site?” he asked.
“No particular reason.”
Mike waited for her to continue and when she didn’t, he signaled her to do so by waving a piece of salmon impaled upon his fork.
“I like to keep up on new products and technology news.”
“Like what?”
“Well, the Amonte 2e for instance.”
“Oh yeah, I heard that there’s a problem with them. They keep dropping their signal to the Infinet.”
“All robots can temporarily lose their signal due to their surroundings,” said Patience, waving her hand around in a fashion model-like way. “The individual Amonte 2es lose their signals only twice more for every one thousand connections than older model Amontes.”
“What a bizarre way to phrase a statistic. Obviously they’re trying to cover something up. Seems like Daffodil should have tested them out before they hit the marketplace.”
“I’m sure they were appropriately tested. Daffodil would not release a product that did not function as intended.”
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