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Exolymph creator Sonya Mann's active website is Sonya, Supposedly.

February 21, 2016

Like Slack But For VR

“The artists opt to break the artificial world apart instead, and they take their destruction seriously.” — Miles Klee on glitch art

Artwork by Antonio Roberts.

Julia pulled on her gloves carefully, making sure that the razor blades mounted on the palms were attached firmly. This was a simulation, naturally — what wasn’t a simulation? But it was a deeper sim than the ones you could buy per minute at shopping malls (next to the candy machines and phalanxes of massage chairs). This method wasn’t cutting edge, per se, because presumably all the best tech was sequestered in experimental military installs. However, it was better than the dreck on the enterprise market.

Harvey had done a year of painstaking work to build this tool for her, using open-source code to cobble together a neuro interpretation engine and the corresponding interface. Their collective’s main investor had gotten very impatient with Harvey’s pace of progress, and Julia still resented that the project lead hadn’t tried harder to shield them.

Back in October, after a tense meeting with the money men, Anthony had yelled at Harvey, “You’re the operations team! Your job is to make things go fast!”

“No,” Harvey had replied, calmly. “That’s what product does. We make things go smoothly.” Of course, the product engineers weren’t outputting as quickly as Anthony wanted either. They didn’t finish the enviro until a few weeks before Harvey sent his own code to QA. Julia had insisted on a QA phase.

During that October confrontation, Julia had screamed that Anthony didn’t care about quality or safety and the discussion devolved from there. Now she slightly regretted her own part in that conflict, but Julia was the one risking her life by using a tool that Anthony ultimately shipped because of deadline pressure. She trusted Harvey implicitly — they couldn’t collaborate if that weren’t the case — but Julia was still nervous.

She flexed her hands in the razor gloves. They were a bit ridiculous, but Harvey thought they’d suit her personality. The sim wasn’t complete, so Julia didn’t feel grey neoprene moving against her real skin, but her brain was convinced by the image. She took a couple of steps forward, waving her hands in front of her. The lines of light hooked on the palm blades and pulled away, revealing an under-layer of… more light. Hmm. At least the enviro had accepted her. Julia imagined seeing the data split to flow around her body, rippling digits, but it was actually more like navigating an REM dreamscape than that old movie, The Matrix. Moving didn’t feel normal, like physical life — maybe the gravity settings should be tweaked — but it didn’t feel totally faked either.

Julia was supposed to monitor her mental reactions, watching out for signs that her brain was reacting badly to immersion. She kept walking toward the bright tunnel. This is cool, she thought, but pretty fucking inefficient. The sim should drop me right in front of the intel station. It would get so annoying when you have to work but they send you through this pretty-for-nothing tunnel.

The posters on the walls of the tunnel all read “ONBOARDING TIPS HERE” but the product team was waiting to hear Julia’s evaluation before they decided what to write. She emerged from the tunnel’s mouth and looked at the intel station. It was obvious where she was supposed to stand because footprint shapes glowed on the ground. “I still think this looks like a dance arcade knockoff from the 2000s,” she said out loud, knowing that the eng team was watching her on 3D screens in the office. This is what happens when you let game designers make professional tools, Julia thought, exasperated again.

February 3, 2016

Step Into My Office

“Alright. Get on with answering.”

“Give me a minute to think. I didn’t expect to be asked about this at a job interview.” Gwen rubbed her ankle against the leg of her chair. The metal felt cold through her thin stockings.

Michael sat behind the big desk, arms crossed. His shirtsleeves were crumpled and pushed up to his elbows. “It’s a very simple question, and you only need ‘a minute to think’ because you want to conceal information from me.”

“I was prepared to discuss my organizational skills, not bare my soul.” She frowned at him quizzically. “This is a secretary job, right? To be honest, I don’t want to work someplace where I get the third degree for no reason.”

After reviewing her resume and asking a few questions about her past positions, Michael had demanded, “What are your secrets?” At first she thought he was joking, but he hadn’t been satisfied with a flippant answer. Michael had pressed her: “No, your personal secrets.” So now Gwen was gambling. She needed the work — well, she needed the salary — but she was reluctant to make up any deep, dark disclosures. Telling the truth certainly wasn’t possible! Hopefully being abrasively straightforward would appease him.

Michael sighed, pushing his chair back from his desk, and stood up. “Here’s how this works. Before I can hire someone, I need to know that I have leverage. I need to know that I can break you if I need to.” He looked down at her, brown eyes fixed on her face.

Gwen stood to match him. “Okay. I don’t think I’m the right candidate for your situation, and I’m going to leave now.”

Contempt came into his gaze. “You think being refurbished makes you a real woman? You think I can’t tell?”

Gwen’s breath seized up, and she felt her fight-or-flight program kick in. She started backing toward the door, hands help up instinctively in the “calm down” stance.

“Bitch, I know you were manufactured. I’m not a moron.” He took a step toward her, and snorted derisively when Gwen flinched. “I thought so. They spruce up your reactions but I can always tell a synthetic.”

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said, fumbling for the doorknob. She pulled it open and stepped into the hall, still watching him. Then she ran.

January 27, 2016

A Secret Message

Loosely inspired by North of Reality’s cryptofiction initiative, even though I’m not exempting this from the archive.

Tonight we insert the plug. It’s big and ugly, made of grey industrial plastic. The metal prongs look like an iridescent alloy. The socket is composed of two vertical voids set in the wall. We lift the plug — all together now! — and shove it in.

The machine turns on. It makes a classic grinding sound as power pushes through it. We wonder if we oiled the parts properly, checking the grease stains on our pants for proof.

The screen flickers, and then it’s live. Our worried faces appear on the plasma expanse. Someone turns to a neighbor and whispers. The rest of rotate toward the disturbance and frown at him. Noises like gossip aren’t appropriate for the solemnity of this moment.

Around the world, other groups are jamming their own large plugs into gaping sockets. Their machines and their screens are awakening. Hopefully we calculated the time zones correctly. Globally, we must all execute the maneuver within an hour of each other, give or take a few minutes. Give or take a disaster.

Now we wait. Everything is ready. We just have to count on the other continents, the nations that remain.

After forty-five minutes, the mass of us starts to disintegrate into smaller clumps. We don’t lose hope.

After seventy minutes, we do lose hope. Clearly it is too late. We tried, and we failed. This was known to be possible, and yet we are devastated.

January 24, 2016

Tiny Friendly Robots

Nanobots were first developed for medical purposes, of course. That’s where the funding was — both pharmaceutical companies and government grants supported the initial research. Army surgeons used the earliest models in the field, and eventually big hospitals could afford fleets of little medbots. Before long nanobots could do more than clear internal blockages and seal wounds. They could purify bodily fluids. Dispense chemicals. Stimulate particular areas of the brain.

That last application was tricky to develop. Predictably, as soon as the tech was ready, Congress wanted to futz around with legislation. For a while, people who could afford it traveled to less-regulated parts of the world for treatment. Neither mental illness nor cancer were solved, exactly, but they were a lot easier to deal with.

Artwork by psion005.

The original nanobot swarms had to be injected into the patient’s bloodstream. But the programming rapidly became more sophisticated, and the info-storage hardware was engineered to be extremely tiny. Third-generation nanobots could be swallowed. They’d swim to the area where they were needed. Or, to be more precise, where they were directed to go.

The espionage possibilities were obvious — spike a plate of salmon crostini at a party and hack all the guests’ pleasure receptors. Making someone too happy was a good way to disarm them, literally and figuratively. Nanobots were a drug and a scalpel combined. Anyone who thought they were worth targeting became very cautious about what they consumed.

Ordinary people, however, were thrilled. It took a little while, naturally — ten years had to pass before commercial nanobots really took off. When mothers give something to their schoolchildren, that’s when the big money starts rolling in! The grind of daily life and the respite of entertainment were both impacted. Nanobots regulated your emotions during the workday. When you got home, they made whatever you wanted to do better than it had been a decade ago.

VR enviros were touted as immersive in the 2020s, but now your brain didn’t need to be tricked — the holo scenes and the nanobots had integrated instructions. You really felt the sensations that you were supposed to. What a relief!

January 13, 2016

Chekhov’s Katana / Survive By Being Hard To Hunt

Bad Girl In The Future by Didiusz, available for $12.26 on Etsy.

The car was definitely and thoroughly broken down. Melinda couldn’t jump the engine because the trees weren’t even sparking. There was no sizzle left in them — she could tell. It was an old car anyway, running on 2078 software. The dealer probably jailbroke it in the first place. Melinda shook her hair out of her eyes, halfway shaking her head at the results of buying a cheap car. She would have jacked one, but it took ages to strip the tracking gear out of a stolen model.

Melinda sat on the ground, and a grey cat inched toward her. It looked ready to nudge her outstretched hand, but it was staying cautious, anime eyes wide open. Gene-manipped pets were cute but sometimes their exaggerated features verged on creepy. The animal’s tail twitched. Melinda eyed it suspiciously. She wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t bite her fingers. Who knew what bad habits they picked up in the wild. Maybe it was hungry.

Melinda was hungry, certainly, but not hungry enough to try manipped meat that wasn’t tailored for human metabolisms. Sick of waiting for the cat after thirty seconds, she picked up her satchel and drew her katana. As soon as she moved, the creature darted away, joining its companion on the hood of the car. Melinda weighed the sword in her hand. Keeping it out was impractical for walking, but she wanted to be able to react quickly. Traveling on foot felt insecure, at least outside of the city.

She thumbed the switch, unlocking it with her fingerprint. The blade split silently and its sharp edge emerged. Melinda’s hip buzzed with the 2FA notification, and she pulled her phone from her pocket. If she didn’t enter the passphrase within ten minutes, the katana’s edge would retract and she couldn’t cut anything. It was still useful as a cudgel, but better as a sword.

Melinda walked down the rutted road, passing more trees with ruined wires. Her boots scuffed against the dirt and gravel, but a few chunks of asphalt remained. As soon as hoverjeeps got cheap enough for anyone to buy, which must have been fifty years ago, it was only a matter of time before the government neglected the roads. They had plenty of other infrastructure projects to fund.

Melinda kept a sharp eye on the forest surrounding her. Gene-manipped cats sitting near the edges of the road darted back into the trees as she passed. If Melinda sat down and didn’t move, they would flock to her, but they were sensible enough be cautious at first.

Melinda was heading to a city satellite, returning to the shanty village that she’d passed earlier. It was fifty miles out from the main city, but still had more supplies than she could find elsewhere. Their smuggling operations were well-organized. Long walk from her broken-down car, though. Melinda kicked a clump of dry mud. It exploded into dust and small chunks, and a cat hissed.

Cat pattern photo by antjeverena.

She hiked for more than a hour to reach the dilapidated town. It was a small settlement, consisting of maybe fifteen tents and five extra structures cobbled together from salvaged wood and car shells. The buildings were arranged to circle the water pump in the middle courtyard. Melinda walked toward the well, tapping tent walls with the flat of her katana as she went. No one yelled and no one emerged. “Probably out hunting,” Melinda muttered. She wondered if they ate cats — maybe manipped meat was okay after all.

Melinda was thirsty. She reached the water pump and tapped its holo display to check the status. Half-full, tolerably clean, and the price per liter wasn’t devastatingly high.

Melinda clicked off her katana, re-sheathed it in the leather harness on her back, and opened up her pack to find her water bottle. She unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle up to drink. She had waited because she didn’t want to risk being caught without water. Melinda was too eager, and some of the liquid splashed down her chin. “Fuck,” she said, chiding herself for being careless. Money down the drain.

She positioned her water bottle under the spigot and tapped the well’s holo trigger again. “Retina scan prepared,” the display told her in a metallic voice. Melinda pulled what looked like a small metal ball from her pocket. She squeezed it and the thing popped open, projecting an image of two brown eyes back to the hologram. “Account accepted,” the well’s display announced. “Spigot will open in five seconds.”

“I never saw you do that before,” a voice said behind her. Melinda jumped, reaching over her shoulder for the katana. She cursed herself for not double-checking that everyone was gone.

“Those ain’t your eyes,” the man commented. “If you’re spending credits on my good water, they better not be counterfeit.”

“They’re not counterfeit,” Melinda said flatly. This was true. But the credits also didn’t belong to her — dead uncles were convenient. So was the eye-projecting device. However, this might not be the best time to explain either of those things. Melinda stared at the man. “Who are you? I came through this morning and no one hassled me.” She tapped the katana against her boot, which made a soft thunking noise. The blade wasn’t deployed yet but she could thumb it open quickly.

“They shoulda hassled you,” he retorted. “I work compliance for this satellite.” The man was tall, wearing beat-up dusty clothes like hers. His face was tough from the sun and his eyes were stern.

Melinda scoffed and turned back to the spigot, ready to fill up her water bottle. Compliance officer for a smuggling outpost? Sure, pull the other one. Before she could start the liquid flowing, Melinda felt a rough hand on her shoulder. She flinched.

“That wasn’t a joke. I said, I work compliance here. Let’s see who you are, girl.” He forcibly turned her around. One of his big-knuckled hands held a portable retina scanner.

Melinda closed her eyes immediately and let her body go limp, surprising him with her full weight. He could have held her up, but the sudden shift made his grip falter, and she jerked away. Melinda thumbed the safety on her sword. The dull metal split and its sharp edge emerged. “I’ll slice you up,” she warned him. The katana’s 2FA notification buzzed in her pocket, but she didn’t want to lose focus. Ten minutes before the sword would shut down again. That should be enough time.

She backed up slowly, still brandishing the katana, circling to the other side of the water pump. Better to have an obstacle between herself and this aggressive man. “What do you want, officer?”

He had his fists on his hips. “Seems like you’re running from the law.” He paused. “Bitch.”

“I don’t think you’re the law.”

He shrugged. “I’ll go get my pistol. See if you sass me then.”

Melinda watched him disappear through the tents. She crouched cautiously and finished filling up her water bottle. Then she started jogging back toward the broken-down car, pausing to look over her shoulder twice a minute. He didn’t seem to be following.

This may not seem like a conventional end to a story. Nothing much happened, and the heroine didn’t experience or overcome any particular hardship. My goal with the fiction in this newsletter is to convey a sense of a world we might inhabit at some point. Or maybe I’m just a lazy storyteller. Hard to figure out which.

January 5, 2016

Don’t Get Busted

Photo by Rodrigo Paredes.

“That’s a cop, you moron,” she hissed in his ear, tugging him down the tight alleyway. Actually, it was too small to be an alley — more like an unfilled gap between buildings. The concrete bricks scraped against Jason’s back. He could feel the roughness through his jacket.

“I know. But my sister is still out there,” he protested, squinting through the narrow channel to the street. He could vaguely hear yelling but couldn’t see much.

Evvy yanked on his arm. “We can’t do shit for her right now. And if you don’t come with me, I can’t do shit for you either.”

He blew air out between his lips. Jason could feel the headache expanding in his brain. When they had dodged into this space, the cop was still fifty feet away. His sister Melissa was frantically packing up her mobile shop, where she sold game IP burned onto old spindisks. Evvy was holding, so she panicked and dragged Jason with her into this tightly squeezed escape route.

Pain spiked in his temples. Jason closed his eyes and shoved his way after her. Evvy muttered an expletive. “Do you know what’s on the other side?” he asked.

“Yup,” she said curtly. “We’ll be fine. I don’t think anyone saw us. But let’s move fast, okay?”

“Melissa saw us.”

“We have to hope she doesn’t squeal,” Evvy growled.

Jason didn’t answer. He felt guilt spreading through his head along with the throbbing soreness.

If the cops caught you with amphetamines and neuro hookups, they’d arrest you. So of course Evvy was afraid. After you were rounded up, there was a slim probability that you’d disappear. Rumored locations ranged from North Korea to Tennessee to an ignominious hole in some police chief’s backyard. The rumors were probably exaggerated — people got picked up and released all the time. But Evvy was paranoid. She had resistance friends. Like him.

Contraband game IP wasn’t such a big deal, Jason told himself. Besides, Melissa was quick. She might have dodged into another unseen escape avenue. Or sweet-talked her way out of a full search.

Evvy gripped Jason’s elbow and pulled him back into the light on an open street. He stumbled slightly as he followed her. “Keep it together,” she said in a strained voice.

“I’m cool,” he said. “Just getting a headache.”

“Stop worrying about Melissa. And don’t freak out on me. I’ll plug you in. Just give me a minute to get us —” Evvy stopped mid-sentence. There was another cop in front of them.

“Hey,” the officer said. He had his fists on his hips, and his sleeves were rolled up so that Jason could see the chrome forearm reinforcements. They weren’t powered on, but the threat was implicit. Metal banded the cop’s wrists, and it shifted when he did.

Evvy was half-crouching, but she straightened when the officer spoke. “Can I help you, sir?” It’s better to stay alive than make a point, Evvy told herself. It’s better to stay free and kicking. She tried to beam this thought to Jason even though 1) she didn’t have neuro ports and 2) he wasn’t aggressive enough confront this guy anyway. Jason seemed frozen like an old OS.

The policeman said, “Why are you in such a hurry, folks?”

“We’ve got an appointment,” Evvy answered.

“Sure,” the cop snorted. “You’re late for a very important date. Okay, you know the drill. Face the wall and get your hands on the brick.”

Evvy turned. Adrenaline buzzed through her brain. The stash wasn’t directly in her pockets, but it wasn’t hidden very many layers deep. She cursed herself for choosing convenience over security. Sloppy. Of course you get caught.

Jason put his hands on the wall and felt his weight pulling on his shoulders. The pain in his head was intensifying. It felt worse than a regular headache. He could hear the officer talking — recognized the noise as a voice — but units of sound weren’t converting to understandable words.

The cop started patting down Evvy. “When I see scrapers like you two running, I know something’s wrong.” He ran his hands up and down her legs, then reached into her pockets to turn them inside out. He grabbed her four-inch wafer and looked it over briefly. “Old school.” The screen awoke when he tapped it. “Unlock this,” he ordered, prodding Evvy to turn around.

Before she could do it, Jason collapsed, jerking against the wall and falling heavily to his knees. He toppled further toward his right side and landed half-twisted, mouth lolling open. Evvy stared at the red wet opening. She noticed that Jason’s teeth were still wired together in the back, from getting fixed up after that fight.

“What’s he on?” the policeman demanded.

“Nothing,” Evvy said. “He’s clean.”

“Yeah, yeah. You kids always lie to me. Just turn over whatever you’ve got and we’ll call this even. I don’t want to deal with your boyfriend.” He nudged Jason with the metal toe of his boot. Jason made a grunting noise.

Evvy bit her lip, trying to decide quickly. Was this some kind of ploy to catch her? But he could haul them both back to the precinct if he wanted, or simply pull out his scanner. Then again, this cop could be a sociopath who got off on manipulating his perps. They certainly existed.

Evvy looked at Jason again. He didn’t seem okay. She knew he kept playing those shoddy games that Melissa ripped — maybe this was a bug. She had friends who tweaked their firmware on purpose, so surely it could happen by accident.

“Make up your mind before he pukes and chokes on it,” the officer advised.

Instinctively turning to face the wall, Evvy lifted the hem of her shirt and pushed down her waistband, then felt for the latch on her hip compartment. The patch of silicon skin popped open, and she pulled her stash out. “Here you go.”

The policeman took her plastic bag of amphetamines and the small tangle of neuro hookups. He stuffed them in his pocket, nodded to Evvy, and started strolling away. She tried not to think about the money.

Passersby were skirting the scene and walking on. Evvy knelt by Jason’s head and jostled him a little. He groaned. “Wake up, Jason,” Evvy said. She slapped his cheek softly. “Now would be a really fucking good time for you to wake up. I want to get out of here.”

He opened his eyes but didn’t say anything.

December 27, 2015

Empty Ankles + Empty Womb

Trigger warning(s) for blood and grief.

Photo via Boston Public Library.

I am standing outside the entrance to the train station, yelling. My voice is so loud that it hurts my throat. I’m howling through the grey air. Is it smog, is it fog, or is it just smoke? Tourists aren’t sure unless they downloaded that one app released by the company that got so much funding. It’s gangbusters. When tourists end up here they wish the app were really gangbusters — I mean they wish that it broke up literal gangs. Tourists don’t come here on purpose very often. There are cooler places to take snapshots of #slumming than an actual not-quite-slum.

My noise has not prompted anyone to call the police. We’re not in a calling-the-police part of town. A few exasperated glares — is it a glare if it only lasts a few seconds, or does that mean it’s just a glance? Pedestrians walk a half-moon around me as they leave the station, keeping their distance.

I’m angry. Oh, it’s easy to be angry.

A guy is sitting on the concrete bench that circles the forlorn-looking landscape installation from the early 2000s. He leans his head on the scraggly little tree behind him. Its base is surrounded by fast-food wrappers. The guy is watching me. I’ve balled up my fists like a cartoon character. He can’t hear my yelling because of the boombox that sits at his feet, plugged into his ankles above bulky sneakers. The rubber coating on the cables looks battered, nicked in places. I know the music is traveling up through his nervous system to the brain and back down again. I’ve felt that. There are ports in my ankles too — to the left and right of the Achilles tendons in the left and right foot, respectively. My ports are empty.

The port is the place where a ship comes to dock. Centuries ago this was a port city, and wooden ships groaned across the ocean, traveling through the nascent networks of global commerce. Water still carries everything — it’s cheaper — but the drone boats unload a couple of cities away from here. We’ve lost our edge. The most important thing is to be the most important market. The most important market is somewhere with jobs.

I am yelling because I had a miscarriage. The reason for my public insanity is matter-of-fact. It was intensely physical, losing the fetus. The pain in my abdomen; crouching in the bathtub, gripping the sides and rocking back and forth. A clump of biomatter too thick to pass down the drain. And now I find that I must express my sorrow violently. There is power in demanding attention. The blood came out of me in private; the grief will be seen. I am mourning the child that wasn’t a child yet.

The man sitting on the bench yanks the cords from his ankles, grabs the boombox, and stands up. He takes a step toward me, dodges commuters, and takes another step. He’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt and bumpy corduroy pants. This is a violation — he is approaching me; breaking the rule that you’re supposed to ignore crazy people. I feel alarm in my stomach, a jump in adrenaline.

“Hey,” he says. “Shut the fuck up.”

“You could hear me through the system?” I jerk my chin at his boombox.

He shrugs and turns abruptly to descend into the train station.

December 23, 2015

Neon Century Redux

Below is a short story by @pythagorx, lightly edited for this venue.

Photo by Elentir.

The system beeped that it was ready. Thousands of employee hours, including considerable user testing, had gone into creating that solitary six-second alert. Initial tests showed the sound reminded consumers of the familiar tone of a microwave oven — not the most comforting comparison for a machine with a direct neural interface.

Of course there had been issues in product development: sensory feedback loops, input misconfigurations, noise bleed from one input to the other, and so forth. There had been no deaths during the customer beta; the lawyers had wisely used a specific definition for medical death in the contracts. Grieving parents whose children were kept physically alive by machines, although nothing was going on upstairs, had signed non-disclosures and hefty payouts were made to them by the consortium of media and network companies backing the new technology.

Since information about the earliest prototypes, and a few missteps, had leaked, those who decried the technology were using phrases like “Why cook when you can look?!” or “Screen versus scream.” Both slogans offered a weak argument, contrasting ocular and haptic technology with the emerging technology that provided full environmental simulation offered in neural-linked virtual reality.

Consumer surveys showed the protests were actually garnering positive publicity for the new technology. Market segments from teen to forty found it a new medium, not in competition with the screen experience, although 72% indicated they felt it would replace the use of old technology. The protesters might as well have been arguing against using paper because stone tablets were so much harder to burn.

Edits of a practically ancient anti-drug video spread virally. “This is your brain,” a young woman says, displaying an egg in her grasp. “And this is your brain on Neon,’’ she states, with a convincing audio overdub, as she proceeds to destroy a kitchen. The advert was created by the agency promoting the use of the tech. Had they distributed the piece commercially, the law would have required a “Paid for by the Neon Coalition” tag at the end. Instead the untagged file found its way via a series of untraceable proxy connections to a repository known to be used by the Luddite protesters. Someone discovered it there, assumed one of their own had made it, and spread it through their video distribution vehicles.

The hotly contested marketing name for the network itself, Neon, was a derivative of “neural online interface”. Many would have preferred a simpler concept to promote the technology, but Neon captured the essence of the senior management’s exposure to 1980s cyberpunk literature and movies. The files and video had been long ago transferred to digital format, but it had been long enough that those files had to be converted for modern use. The name was esoteric, vague, and seemed to fit perfectly with the sense of style and design from that bygone era.

Neon, lighting the way into the future — again — for the first time.

If you enjoyed this story, go follow @pythagorx.

December 19, 2015

After Androids; Before AI

Trigger warning for sexual aggression. This ain’t a family newsletter! No need to worry, though — it’s not pornographic either.

Image via ▓▒░ TORLEY ░▒▓.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he yells to her. The sound bounces off her convex cheek. Blue-white silicon curve, so close to human. Her mechanical nature is both concealed and revealed. If the shape of her body weren’t defined by consumer testing, it would be a poem.

The robot rotates her head on her stacked neck, gazing at him. Her name is Eliza. The vertebrae are silent as she twists. “I was not,” she says in her careful voice, meaning that she wasn’t laughing at him. It’s not a response to his anger — her voice is always cautious and modulated.

“What, you don’t have humor programmed into you?”

“No,” she tells him. Her feet push against the velvet floor, toes digging into the fibers. Mimicking human stress gestures will trigger him to be more sympathetic. She was endowed with this coping mechanism because it helps preserve the tech. Courtesan bots are frequently harmed, and that’s expensive because of their robust warranties.

He shakes his head. “I thought they’d want that. For you to be funny.”

“They do,” she says, smiling at him. “I’m just low-tech.”

He leaves his drink on the piano — the instrument is retained as an affected anachronism — and walks toward her. He grabs Eliza by the hips and jerks her pelvis against his own.

The robot is not thinking about her own agency. I have to scoff at you: she doesn’t think. She’s a machine. In fact, we only use a pronoun because we lack the capacity to conceive of her correctly — as a series of binary commands housed in metal. The man could decapitate her, sawing through silicon skin and metal bones and then letting her head drop into a bucket. It would not be an injustice, except for the financial burden on the corporation.

Therapists use up a lot of these models.

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