by Young, D. L.
Later, as they began their second round, Ximena discreetly reached over to the nightstand and pressed the signal. A few seconds later, Javier gasped as he noticed the blonde nymphbot, standing naked in the doorway, silently watching them. He started to pull out, but Ximena tightened her legs around him. “Javi, wait. Please try to relax.”
“You can't be serious.”
“Amor, just this once, please. Just this once and then I’ll sign, I promise.”
“I don't know, Xime.”
“Javi, please…for me?” She gazed into his eyes, hoping he understood the finality of her request. Never again would she ask him to jump off a mountain with her.
Javier’s face softened, and Ximena felt his body relax. He nodded and she motioned to the nymphbot. It climbed onto the bed and gently kissed him on the back of the neck.
Ximena smiled lovingly at him. Her Javi. It was one of those moments, the kind she lived for.
Cotner's Bot
“A robot didn’t do this.”
I said it with flat certainty, but I knew it was the last thing the boss wanted to hear. I flipped through the last couple pics of oil paintings on Nathan’s slate.
“But whoever did,” I continued, “has pretty decent technique and obviously understands the trends of the last couple of decades.” We sat in the gallery’s cramped office. It was actually my office, but whenever the owner stopped by it became his (as his feet on the desk made clear).
“Nathan,” I said, “you could have just sent me these. Hate for you to waste a trip over here.”
I looked up from the slate and realized he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. He was looking past me, through the glass door and into the gallery’s showcase area. I’d seen that lusty stare a hundred times, and I didn’t have to turn and look to know there was an attractive female wandering through the gallery. Some billionaires buy a stretch of beach in Thailand to get women. Some buy Hong Kong movie houses. Nathan Pendergast, hot shot Wall Street investor, bought a Soho gallery. He once told me he had a thing for artsy pussy.
“Nathan? Did you understand what I said?”
He turned his attention back to me. “So they’re good, right? I want to show them right away.”
“We can’t.”
“What? Why not? They look pretty damn good to me.” His face reddened. I called it stage one anger: flushed cheeks, tight lips, harsh eyes. At this point I knew I had to be careful. Stage two was explosive: screams, threats, fists pounding the desk.
“It’s not that they’re bad,” I said. “They’re actually pretty good. But there’s no way a robot did this, trust me.”
Nathan nodded, seeming to understand how confident I was with the appraisal. I sighed, relieved to avoid a stage two escalation.
“All right, Alex,” he said. “I suppose you’re the expert. But I still want you to check it out in person. You never know when a good play might present itself.”
His eyes again wandered past me. He gave me a wink, stood, and exited the office for what would surely be a more stimulating conversation.
***
Managing a third-rate gallery is the kind of gig you’re lucky to get when you have a black mark on your career as an art dealer. In this business, a black mark is a black mark, and it doesn’t matter what the circumstances were. It doesn’t matter that the phony Nieuwenhuys painting was one of the best forgeries of all time. And it doesn’t matter that you’d had a fifteen-year run in the business, that you’d built a solid reputation with a spotless record. All that mattered was that you were the one who’d brokered the sale, that your name was attached to one of the biggest art frauds ever. Then suddenly you’re toxic, and the people you’ve known and trusted for years—friends, lovers, colleagues—all act like they never even knew you. And when the money runs out (and Jesus it runs out fast), you end up taking whatever work you can get, like managing a joke of a gallery for a sex-crazed billionaire dilettante, so far removed from the real action you might as well be working at a print shop in a suburban mall.
The lawyers said I was lucky to avoid jail, but as my car drove me to Jersey to interview the robot’s owner, I didn’t feel very lucky. A robot painter, for Christ’s sake. Ninety-nine out of a hundred gallery owners would laugh it off, but mine sends me to check it out. Lucky fucking me.
***
“The problem isn’t replicating the logical functions of the human brain, like pattern recognition, basic problem-solving, and so on. We cracked that nut years ago. It’s the creative process that none of the so-called experts have ever been able to reproduce. Until now, that is.”
I sat on the sofa of Dr. Marcus Cotner’s modest Passaic home, trying not to yawn as the self-described genius explained his inspired breakthroughs. Cotner was in his late seventies, but still spry and fiery-eyed. And he seemed to have some major bone to pick with the AI establishment, whoever they were.
I’d read his bio on the drive out. Before he retired, Cotner was one of the top researchers in artificial intelligence, a celebrity scientist of sorts.
“Can I show you some of the other paintings, the earlier works? Perhaps you’d like to see the sketches? They’re quite good.” The doctor was too eager, too insistent. The old man had a lot to learn about the confidence game.
I decided to cut the meeting short. I hated coming to Jersey. “Dr. Cotner,” I said, cutting him off, “I’m going to be honest with you. Robot painters are a fairly common scam in the art world.”
Cotner’s eyes widened. He seemed genuinely surprised. “Oh, is that so? I had no idea.” He glanced over at the trashcan-sized bot sitting in the corner of the room, its articulated digits stained with paint. I coughed to cover up a laugh. He actually wanted me to believe this jerry-rigged domestic was the artist. Unbelievable.
I said, “Every couple of years some software engineer comes up with a program he thinks will fool the experts, but it’s not that hard to spot a fraud. There’s a simple test we can do.”
***
“Test? What test?” Nathan asked. I sat in my car outside Cotner’s house, talking with Nathan, his head superimposed on the bottom corner of my windshield.
“Works like this,” I said. “You take a photograph and have the robot make it into a sketch, painting, sculpture, whatever. The result always betrays the coder’s programming. The smarter nerds try to cover their tracks by combining styles. Picasso perspective blended with Lichtenstein textures and Pollock brush strokes, that kind of thing. Understand?”
“Not really.”
“Bottom line, a trained eye can spot it in about five seconds.”
“And you think this one’s a scam?”
“I think this Cotner wants to send a big fuck you to his old colleagues. Show them he’s smarter than they are, that he was right all along, that kind of thing. Don’t get your hopes up, Nathan.”
After a few moments Nathan said, “All right, whatever. Let me know how it turns out.”
As he disconnected, I jumped in my seat from a knock on the driver’s side window. It was Cotner. I lowered the glass and he handed me a painting, still shiny and wet. I looked at it, confused. What the hell? The work appeared to be an original piece, but only five minutes had passed since I’d given Cotner the photo.
No way. It was impossible.
I handed the painting back to Cotner, insisting that I watch as the robot painted a second piece. I gave him another photo and he led me back into the house, a smug smile stretching across his face. He handed the photo to the paint-stained domestic. I folded my arms and watched as the little machine gently dabbed a brush onto a palette.
Cotner’s bot finished the painting in just under four minutes. No tricks, no sleight of hand. The painting looked like an authentic, original work of art.
I stared at it for some time before I realized my mouth was hanging open.
***
“Where is it, Alex? I want to see it!” Nathan boomed as he burst into the gallery office. I pointed to where I’d pl
aced the painting on the desk. He hovered over it and grinned like a proud father. “And you didn’t even want to go out there, did you?” He punched my shoulder, then pulled out two cigars from his jacket and handed one to me.
I’d been looking over the painting for the last couple hours, searching every square inch of canvas for anything that would betray a faker’s trick. I’d given Cotner a photo of my ex, and on such a familiar subject I would have recognized a programmed emulation of any major painter, living or dead. I may have been running a third-rate gallery, but I was still a first-rate appraiser. And the more I examined the painting, the less doubt I had about its authenticity. Amazingly, it looked like the real deal.
Nathan looked at me, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. “So now we sign this Cotner to an exclusive contract—which he just told me on the phone he’d be happy to do—and we’re all set.” He rubbed his hands together. “Something like this will finally make this dump legit, won’t it?”
It was my second surprise of the day. Nearly four years working here and I’d always assumed Nathan was blissfully unaware of his gallery’s lowly status.
And his assessment was right on the mark. That paint-stained bot was a once in a lifetime find, the kind that instantly gives an unknown gallery big-time recognition and credibility. And it’s cred that matters more than anything in this business. If you have it, the big names come to you, and everyone wants to show at your gallery. If you don’t have it, you’re out in the cold, just another nobody in a sea of nobodies.
“Not a bad day’s work,” Nathan said. “Like I told you, you never know when a good play will present itself.” He lit his cigar and appeared quite satisfied with himself. “And I suppose this means you’ll be back in the middle of things again, won’t you, Alex?”
Again, I couldn’t disagree. For Nathan, discovering Cotner’s bot was going to be a huge ego stroke, granting him the I’m-more-than-a-greedy-suit social standing that Wall Street types always look for but rarely find. But for me, Mr. Black Mark, this was nothing less than a ticket out of the gutter, a second chance. No more lame sales pitches to tightfisted tourists. No more swearing some student’s horrendous watercolor is inspired genius. Maybe there was light at the end of the tunnel after all.
“It’s a hell of a find, Nathan,” I said. “So, how did you cross paths with this Cotner?”
Nathan blew smoke. “Charity dinner of all places, something for autism if memory serves. Those events are crawling with high-end tail, you have no idea.” He chuckled and said, “I remember being pissed when the old codger sat down next to me. A room full of movie stars and models, and I get the place next to grandfather time. Then he goes and bends my ear for like an hour. Total sob story about being a retired single dad with a grown disabled son, and how he used to be this famous, under-appreciated scientist and—“
“Wait,” I interrupted. “A son? What son?”
“Cotner has a grown son with severe autism who lives with him. Didn’t you see him?”
Shit.
***
My car rolled to a stop in Cotner’s driveway. I cursed myself again for not being thorough enough, for believing this sham for even a second. Dumb.
The phone beeped, but I didn’t answer. It was Nathan calling again, no doubt wanting to know why I’d bolted out of the gallery without a word to him.
I got out of the car, walked up to the door, and rang the bell. No answer. I tried the door and found it unlocked, so I let myself in. The house was quiet (no alarm system, thankfully), and in the front room the robot sat in the corner, powered down. I went down the hall and opened the door to a small bedroom.
The room had a long twin bed with one side shoved against the wall. On the other side there was a safety rail, the kind used for children or disabled adults, which ran the length of the bed. Canvasses covered the walls and most of the floor, all of them oil paintings with the same style and color palette as the one sitting on my desk at the gallery. As if I needed any more proof of the fraud, there was a pair of remote-control gloves (complete with damning paint stains) on the floor next to a small monitor. I didn’t need to turn on the monitor to know it was connected to the robot’s camera eye.
Jesus, what a scam.
Cotner’s son was the artist. He was the robot’s puppeteer, the Oz behind the curtain.
The light at the end of the tunnel suddenly blinked out.
***
“His son? Alex, are you sure?” Nathan asked again over the phone, stage two anger in full effect. I’d called him as soon as I’d confirmed the fraud, hoping to catch him before he could boast of his discovery to anyone or, God forbid, send out a press release. I reassured him it was all a hoax as my car pulled away from Cotner’s house.
“How the fuck do you miss something like that?” he shouted.
“I’m sorry, Nathan.”
“But the son’s autistic, right? Surely we can work that angle. They make movies about that shit all the time.”
I sighed and said, “For a robot, those paintings would be phenomenal, a total game changer, so to speak. But for a human being, they’re just good, and not the kind of good that would get us any attention.”
Nathan said nothing and disconnected the line. I then decided it was a good idea to take the rest of the day off.
***
The next morning I arrived at work later than usual, hoping to avoid an early visit from Nathan, who was probably still fuming. As I walked the last couple blocks to the gallery, I tortured myself thinking about how close I was—or at least how close I thought I was—to a second chance. Christ, I could see it right in front of me, almost touch it. Back in the game, back in the middle of the vortex, that insane, ridiculous, unimaginably exciting vortex at the high-end of the art world. Private jets shuttling you to Dubai for an appraisal, hundred thousand dollar commissions for doing nothing more than making an introduction, the unbelievable food, the women, the lifestyle. I’d been out of the big time for years now, and I’d hated every mundane, penny-pinching minute of it.
All I could do now was to keep looking for that needle in a haystack, for that winning lottery ticket of a painter that could get me out of purgatory. The odds were against it, of course, but it’s not like I had other options.
I entered the gallery. There were canvasses scattered everywhere and a fortyish man sitting on the floor busily painting. He didn’t look up or acknowledge my presence in any way. I knew in an instant it was Cotner’s son, the resemblance to his father and the paintings on the floor leaving no doubt. Through the glass door I saw Cotner and Nathan in my office. Both men smiled, and they seemed to be having a pleasant conversation. What?
“Alex!” Nathan shouted, opening the door and motioning me in. “About time you got here. I’ve got great news.” Nathan beamed, but Cotner’s smile disappeared when he recognized me. He shifted his gaze to the floor, avoiding my eyes like a child who’d been caught cheating on a test.
“Dr. Cotner just signed with us. We’re looking forward to a long, successful relationship.”
It didn’t make sense. “But Nathan, I told you yesterday his son is the one—”
“The advances in artificial cognition,” Nathan interrupted, “that Dr. Cotner has pioneered are truly astounding. Artificial cognition is the term, isn’t it, Dr. Cotner?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Cotner said, still looking downward.
“Nathan,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Are you actually considering passing off these works as—”
“Listen to me, Alex.” Nathan inhaled deeply and fixed his eyes on me. Shut up and listen very carefully, he seemed to say without uttering a word.
Nathan said, “I want you to think about what these paintings, the robot’s paintings, could mean for the people in this room. Consider what they could do for the long-overdue recognition of Dr. Cotner’s work, for your professional standing in the art world, and for the future of this gallery.” He smiled faintly. “Not to mention the fin
ancial windfall.”
“But we’re risking—”
“Well, now, there’s risk in just about everything, isn’t there? The way I see it, if the people in this room work together and stay on the same page, I’m confident we can manage that risk. And then great things can happen, Alex. Great things.”
Nathan slid a paper across the desk and held out a pen. I recognized the document, a nondisclosure agreement. I didn’t have to read it to know that if I signed, I’d be agreeing to play along. To keep the secret, to perpetuate the robot-painter lie.
I remembered Nathan’s words: you never know when a good play will present itself.
I’d been out of the action for far too long, and risks, even big ones, were sometimes worth taking. I took the pen and signed.
I was back in the game.
Dogville
I came out of a cluster of trees into a clearing and stopped. About fifty meters ahead stood the crumbling facade of the abandoned Wal-Mart. Chest-high clumps of wild grass shot up from long, jagged cracks in the concrete parking lot. The stink of what I hoped was only a dead animal hit me and I threw my hand over my nose.
With my other hand I double-tapped the side of my specs and the overlay map popped up, superimposing itself over the ground, the store, and the surrounding forest. The overlay brought digital orderliness to the chaotic scene, showing my location and the distance to my destination. It even painted the outlines of old roads long since lost to the thick undergrowth.
The Wal-Mart was a landmark, a kind of line of demarcation for my questionable errand. The old store sat squarely on Dogville’s outer boundary. Ahead of me was the wild unknown, behind me was my car, parked where the highway ended a couple hundred meters back. There was a chill in the air, and I thought about the comfort of heated leather seats and the safety of locked doors, only a three-minute walk away.
