by Greg Krojac
“Coppélia. You know that we wish you no harm, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve run through various virtual scenarios and that is my conclusion.”
“Well… I only want to help you. If your arm is damaged, maybe we can repair it. Can we see it?”
Coppélia was still reticent.
“But it’s ugly.”
Karen tried to reassure the android.
“I’m sure I’ve seen much worse.”
Coppélia offered her forearm to the Detective Inspector, who proceeded to unwind the dressing. Although she wasn’t particularity squeamish, Karen was glad that she wasn’t faced with a mass of broken bones, torn sinew, and blood. On the contrary, the ‘wound’ was extremely neat – a narrow flap of skin, carefully placed back in its original position, incisions at three sides betraying the damage. Karen looked at it closely.
“Who did this to you, Karen?”
“Nobody.”
Was Coppélia trying to protect somebody? There was another alternative.
“Did you do this to yourself?”
A guilty expression came over the android’s face.
“I had no choice.”
“Why Coppélia? Why did you have no choice?”
“I went against my programming. I refused an order from a human. I said no. I’m programmed to comply with a human’s order. I broke the Second Law.”
Karen could see that there was definitely something deeply troubling Coppélia’s AI. The conversation that she found herself embroiled in with the android was far more profound than she was used to. Conversations with droids were normally simplistically factual; a question was asked and a question was answered. There were no layers to peel back. This conversation was completely new territory. If she didn’t know better, Karen would have sworn that she was talking with a human.
“Did the human’s order conflict with the First Law?”
Coppélia shook her head.
“Complying wouldn’t have injured the man or, through inaction, allowed him to come to harm.”
“So why did you refuse to do what he ordered you to do?”
“I didn’t want to have sex with him.”
Again, Coppélia was demonstrating evidence of independent thought.
“But you did, eventually.”
“Yes, because to have resisted further would have necessitated injuring him. I would have broken the First Law after all.”
There was something so sad about this conversation. Coppélia seemed much more than just a machine. Karen knew that she was anthropomorphising the android, but it was nigh on impossible not to humanise it.
“So why did you run away?”
“I was worried. I’d disobeyed an order. My creators would deactivate me. They’d dismantle me and use me for spare parts for the next prototype. The Third Law states that a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection doesn’t conflict with the First or Second Laws. That’s all I was doing – protecting my own existence – without injuring or causing injury to a human. I don’t want to die.”
The two police officers were stunned. Coppélia wasn’t just a machine; she believed that she was alive.
Rachel found herself involuntarily saying something out loud.
“Cogito, ergo sum.”
Karen’s Latin knowledge only went as far as knowing the meanings of ‘et cetera’, ‘exempli gratia’, and ‘id est’. Any more than that and she was lost.
“Do what, Rachel?”
“Oh, sorry ma’am. It’s something the French philosopher, René Descartes, said. It means ‘I think, therefore I am’.”
Now that expression, Karen did know, and Coppélia did certainly appear to think. Nobody could define what exactly thinking was, or even deconstruct the thought process effectively, but thinking was considered an essential part of being human. Karen’s brain was telling her that Coppélia couldn’t be alive, that she was just a machine, but her gut told her something else and the DI trusted her gut more often than not. Karen knew what she should do, she knew what the rules said she should do, and she knew what the right thing to do was. But sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing to do.
“Why did you damage yourself, Coppélia?”
“It was the only way to remove the remote tracking implant. I had to take it out and destroy it. If I didn’t, they might find me and deactivate me.”
Rachel wasn’t sure that destroying the tracking device would prevent the android being found.
“There are cameras and drones all over the city. Don’t you think they’ll find you that way? Surely they – whoever ‘they’ are – are watching your every move?”
“My skin is coated in a material that jams external surveillance cameras. I don’t know why. But they use my eyes to see what I see. There was a direct feed from my eyes to their monitoring and recording devices.”
“You said ‘was’?”
“Yes. I took out my eyes and removed the transmitters. It only took a couple of minutes.”
Outside Karen’s office, Luke was waiting patiently for the new girl to come out again. He’d been getting on with his work, but with one eye trained on the office door, not wanting to miss a second if she left the room. She was that hot. Suddenly, the door swished open and Karen, Rachel, and Coppélia emerged from the DI’s room. The three of them went over to Rachel’s workstation and Karen moved a tablet out of the way before sitting on the DS’s desk. Rachel sat down and moved her chair to face her boss so that she wasn’t looking at the back of Karen’s head, while Coppélia stood alongside Karen.
“People, I’d like to introduce you to Coppélia. She’ll be spending a little time with us. She’s – um – a journalist who’ll be writing an article about the department. She’ll be observing us as we work and accompanying us on the occasional audit or raid, that kind of stuff. I want you to make her welcome.”
This was music to Luke’s ears. DI Chambers hadn’t said how long Coppélia would be staying, but he hoped he’d have time to make a good impression. Luke stood up hurriedly, unintentionally catapulting his chair backwards, and approached the young woman with his hand outstretched.
“Hi Coppélia, I’m Luke,”
Lights flashed unseen inside her head and she shook Luke’s hand gently, her programming preventing her from exerting too much pressure and crushing his hand as if it were made of eggshells, an action well within her capabilities. She was used to controlling her strength. She’d been working as a sexbot and it wouldn’t be good for business to have sexbots breaking their clients. She’d registered a protest with her last client but had reluctantly allowed him to continue to have intercourse with her, as the alternative would have been very painful – for him – and would have left him suffering from severe physical damage. Luke smiled at Coppélia, earning himself a reciprocal smile in the process.
The rest of the team introduced themselves and Karen was pleased to see that each one of them treated the android as a fellow human. She felt vindicated in her decision not to immediately seek out the android’s owner and return the sexbot to him. For her part, Coppélia’s manners were exemplary, her social interaction completely natural, and her smile totally disarming. Whilst introductions were being made, Rachel sidled up to her boss.
“Forgive me for asking, boss, but what are we going to do with her tonight? I mean, we can’t exactly leave her here with the night-shift, can we?”
Karen had already thought of that.
“Only you and I know she’s a droid, and you’ve got a husband and a kid to worry about, so I’ll take her home with me. It’s only me and the cat at home. I’m not expecting Vismay to come over tonight. It’ll be nice to have some female human company – even if it isn’t actually a real human.”
3
Karen drew her face away from the optic reader to the left of her apartment building door, and the door slid open without a sound. Charles, the security-bot, smiled at the two women.
“Good evening Detective Inspector
. Might I enquire the name of your friend, please? For the records, you understand.”
Coppélia glanced towards the elevator and turned back to the security droid.
“Coppélia Schindler.”
“Thank you, Miss Schindler.”
All the best apartment blocks had security droids on duty, although, to be honest, they were little more than automated versions of the human doormen that were common at the entrances of high end establishments a few decades prior. The optic reader that disengaged the door lock was more help than the droids in safeguarding the buildings, although the droids did have an automatic and instant connection to the NewMet City Police Department if assistance was required. They were subject to the same Robotic Laws as Coppélia, and thus weren’t able to physically harm any intruder who managed to enter the building, but they did have a defence and containment strategy. It was a very bizarre thing to witness, strange but effective.
Karen wondered if a droid could automatically recognise another droid, if they gave off a certain signal that betrayed their origins, but Charles seemed none the wiser about his fellow android’s true identity. Coppélia was very convincing indeed.
Once inside her apartment, Karen collapsed onto the plush burgundy sofa and kicked her shoes off. It felt good to relax. Her normal routine was to chill out with a glass of wine and watch a movie on Netflix before going to bed, but that evening she had company. What did droids do at night? She had no idea. She imagined that they didn’t sleep, so what did they do instead? She poured herself a glass of wine, deciding to treat her houseguest as she would any other.
“Would you like some wine, Coppélia?”
“No thank you, Karen.”
Karen grinned.
“It was a pretty stupid question really, wasn’t it?”
She was surprised when Coppélia shook her head.
“No, Karen. It wasn’t a stupid question. I can drink liquids and eat foods. They’re stored in a special reservoir tank in my abdomen until they’re processed into harmless gas and ejected into the atmosphere during my recharging time.”
Karen was trying to imagine how that would work.
“Do you mean you spend your downtime farting?”
“Yes, I believe that it is what you humans refer to as farting.”
Karen burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry Coppélia, but I never imagined that androids farted.”
“I’m a state-of-the-art android, the most advanced there is, so I have the facility to consume food and drink to enhance my social interactivity with clients. Obviously, I need to eject waste, just as a human must. It’s logical.”
Karen was beginning to compose herself.
“Logical, but bloody funny. Farting robots. Whatever next?”
At that moment Tabitha, Karen’s cat, entered the room. The animal stood in front of Coppélia for a moment, unsure what to do, but then moved forward and rubbed its body against the android’s legs. Coppélia, in turn, started stroking the cat. Karen was impressed; they say that animals have a sixth sense about things, but Tabitha obviously thought she was introducing herself to a human.
The very odd couple watched a movie on Web-Vision, the stream-feed system that had replaced conventional TV. It was a twenty year old romantic comedy, as Karen thought it best to steer clear of anything contentious (and especially those that involved robots). She imagined that watching something like a Terminator movie – with a robot alongside her – wouldn’t be the most relaxing way to spend an evening. As the credits rolled, Karen turned off the WV equipment,
“I’m going to bed now, Coppélia.”
She felt a little out of her depth again.
“Um…I only have one bed. How do you pass the night? Do you lie down, stand up, or what?”
“I usually stand in a corner for three minutes while the energy that I have absorbed from the Sun during the day is transferred to my quantum batteries. Beneath my skin I have a layer of thousands of qubit arrays, allowing for rapid charging and high volume energy storage. Millions of microscopic solar panels attract solar energy during the day, and at night that energy is passed into my batteries. It’s not a long process.”
“Well, I have no idea what a qubit is, so I’ll just take your word for it. But if you could stand in the far corner, that’d be great. If you’re going to be farting all night I don’t want to be anywhere too close.”
“There is no aroma, but I’ll do as you ask.”
Karen woke up early the next morning, and strolled sleepily into the living room, rubbing her eyes. She’d forgotten that she wasn’t alone in the apartment and was momentarily startled to see a figure sitting on her sofa, watching Web-Vision.
“Good morning, Coppélia.”
“Good morning, Karen. Did you sleep well?”
A perfectly innocuous and polite enquiry which Karen felt duty bound to return in kind.
“Very well, thank you. Did you – um – recharge well?”
Karen’s response was a little clumsy, but the droid didn’t mind. It didn’t have the capacity to mind – did it?
“Yes. Thank you. Recharging was swift and efficient.”
It had been a while since Karen had an overnight guest – at least one that she wasn’t sleeping with – and she was thankful that this one didn’t require feeding. She could concentrate on making her own breakfast, just as she did on any other day. She went to the fridge and took out a pot of strawberry yogurt, a jar of ice cold pineapple juice, and a carton of semi-skimmed milk, placing them on the table nearby.
“Sit at the table and make yourself comfortable, please. We need to sort out some things.”
The droid did as she was told, and sat down at the breakfast table, whilst Karen finished preparing her breakfast. When the table was laid with a bowl of cereal, a hot steaming mug of coffee – requiring only a little milk to be added, – the yogurt, a glass of pineapple juice, and a napkin, she sat down opposite the android.
“Are you sure you don’t want some breakfast, Coppélia?”
“No thank you. Unless you feel that it would make you happier.”
“No, it’s fine. Let’s sort some things out. Firstly, you can’t wear the dress that you wore yesterday. A woman – a human woman – doesn’t wear the same clothes every day. Not to work, anyway. Not if she can help it. You look like you’re the same size as me. I’ll lend you some clothes to wear.”
“Thank you, Karen. I only have what I am wearing.”
After breakfast, the two went into the bedroom and Karen selected a pair of snugly fitting denim jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a deep blue checked cheesecloth shirt to go over it. Karen was severely overstocked in the underwear department, so it was no hardship to lend Coppélia a bra and a pair of panties. She handed the items to the droid.
“I’ll wait for you in the living room, while you dress.”
Coppélia didn’t understand why. Nobody had ever left a room while she dressed or undressed before.
“It’s not necessary, Karen.”
“It is for me, Coppélia. It is for me.”
When the Detective Inspector and her android companion arrived at the office, everybody else was already there working on their various cases. The pair headed straight for Karen’s private office and Rachel got up and joined them. Karen secured the room and faded the windows to black, just as she had done the day before.
Luke slid his chair over to Toby’s desk again.
“Toby, why do you think they keep locking the room and darkening the windows like that?”
“Probably because they don’t want to see you with your tongue hanging out, drooling on your desk.”
The young DC didn’t deny it.
“But she is well tasty, though.”
“Yes. So you keep saying. But I suggest you reel your neck in if you don’t want to be accused of sexual harassment. She’s lovely, yes, but keep your fantasies in your head – where they belong. We’re not the thought police, you can’t be arrested for fan
cying someone, but keep it to yourself.”
The young DC knew that Toby was right; he could look but not touch. But he’d flirt discreetly and – if Coppélia showed any interest in him – he hoped that she’d make the first move.
In the office, Karen leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head.
“So, Rachel. What have you found out?”
“Not a lot, really. Seems like Coppélia here is a one off. She said she was a prototype, didn’t she? There’s no other instance of a sexbot quite like her anywhere.”
The droid was, effectively, lost property. The fact that she’d run away from her owners didn’t change that circumstance. Karen should, especially as a police officer, trace the droid’s owner and return her. But something was holding her back. Should Coppélia be considered an inanimate object? Was she lifeless? She certainly didn’t seem that way. She made decisions, but did she make decisions based upon algorithms seated deep within her core processing unit, responses that were pre-programmed to anticipated variables, or did she actually have desires and objections that guided her decisions? She wasn’t human, that was certain, but had somebody created a new non-human life form? This wasn’t a question that could be answered within a few hours. Karen looked at the two women facing her from the opposite side of the desk.
“I’ve come to a decision. And I need your help, Rachel. Only you, me, and – of course – Coppélia herself know that she is an android. We’re going to do a little experiment.”
Rachel was intrigued.
“What’s that then, ma’am?”
“I’m going to get Coppélia to help out the rest of the guys, rather than have her just observing. And you and I will watch the interactions, to see if any of them suss out that she’s an android. If they can’t tell the difference, if they think she’s human, then that’ll affect our next move.”
