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Sep 9th, 2001
March 13th, 2010. I was really excited when FedEx arrived with the really big box. Inside was Miss Exceptional, serial number MSX-131-0MIG-4519327776-GY. Thank goodness it was a sunny day. My plan was to sit in the warm sun and activate her in the driveway so I wouldn't have to haul the heavy box inside.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The reason I bought this HRD (human replica droid) was because I'd had a lot of trouble meeting women after the war. The China-Taiwan war wasn't as clean as the Gulf war twenty years ago, if you know what I mean. American GIs got caught in some pretty nasty ground combat, all wrapped up nicely with a sprinkle of chemical weapons, and the burns on my face and hands are evidence of that.
So, when I came back to Wyoming, you could say that young Cheyenne women weren't exactly standing in line to pair up with me. Yeah, I love my cat Oscar, but often, on cold Cheyenne nights, even a cat curled up on the blankets doesn't cut it, you know?
I wasn't alone. A lot of other young American soldiers were in the same boat. So when I read about Miss Exceptional, I thought, hey, why not give it a try. The largest, wealthiest robotics company on the planet was selling them at a brisk pace and guaranteed my satisfaction.
Couldn't hurt to try.
March 19th. I named her Shannon, partly in honor of my mother's home town in Ireland and partly in honor of the great mathematician, Claude E. Shannon. My Shannon was bright, enthusiastic, and always eager to please. I began to derive great pleasure from having her always around, making meals, keeping things tidy, and curling up with me on the hammock in the sun room.
Shannon was a marvel of engineering. Her skin was soft and warm, and I could feel the gentle beat of her (admittedly artificial) heart as she rested her head on my chest while we swayed back and forth in the hammock. Colossal curly locks of auburn hair spread across my chest, and a lithe, seemingly tanned arm wrapped around my waist.
For the first time in a long time, I was truly happy.
April 4th. The first sign of trouble, I think, was when I went to the fridge to get a Mountain Dew and discovered that they had all been replaced by Coke. I asked Shannon about it.
"Hey Shannon, where's my Dew?"
"I beg your pardon?" She walked into the kitchen and tossed her hair back and away from her eyes with that cute flick of her head.
"My Mountain Dews. They're gone."
"Oh. You don't like Coke?"
"I hate Coke."
"Coke is good for you."
"Could be. But I hate it. Can you get us some Mountain Dew?"
"Sure." She smiled, and I thought nothing of it. Until the next day when she came home from the grocery store with an armload of plastic bags.
"Here. Let me help," I said, forgetting for a second that she was mechanical. As we unloaded the bags, I noticed that there was no Mountain Dew.
"So where's the Dew?" I asked, growing irritated.
"Oh. I forgot," Shannon said and proceeded to put some cans in the cupboard.
"Forget? How is that possible?"
"I'm only human, you know." She looked at me with those big green eyes and I could see a hint of hurt. I decided it might be time to take a closer look at Shannon's instruction manual. Such as it was.
April 7th. There was a bit more trouble when I went into my small den one evening and noticed that my trusty old Mac server was gone. It only had a terrabyte drive, but I found it to be a sturdy and trustworthy server. It just kept on truckin'. I found Shannon in the kitchen, cleaning up. She explained that she'd gotten a really good deal on a new PC server with considerably better performance and hardly any cost.
"I was very attached to that old Mac, Shannon."
"Attached?"
"Yes, attached."
"I don't understand. It was obsolete. By many years."
"Yes, but it was mine, and I loved it. It got me through my undergraduate years."
"I can try to replace it."
"Please do so."
Shannon sighed and continued her cleanup. I was beginning to get very uncomfortable with this HRD. The manual that came with her said that her memory would be perfect. I was beginning to wonder what was going on.
April 17th. One of the things we'd grown accustomed to over the last month was curling up on the sofa after dinner and reading the paper. Shannon would do needle work and make little coasters and place mats which I thought was really charming. I'd read the newspaper and rest my head on her shoulder. She'd ask me about my day at work, and I'd tell her my interpretation of the news.
Today, however, I noticed that there was a section of the newspaper that had been cut out, sharply and cleanly as if with a razor blade.
"So, what's happened here?" I said pointing to the gap in my newspaper. Shannon looked up calmly and focused on the hole as I stuck my finger through it.
"Oh, it's nothing. I just thought there was an item that was, um, superfluous."
"Superfluous?"
Shannon made a quiet humming sound and went back to her needle work. I contemplated this for a few seconds, then got up off the sofa and grabbed my jacket. "I'll be back in a few minutes?"
"Can I come along?" Shannon's eyes were bright and alert with eagerness.
"I'll just be a few minutes. You can stay here."
When I got to the market, I headed straight for the news stand and picked up a copy of the local newspaper, looking for the section that was missing from my own copy. There it was on page two.
Seattle, WA. Exceptional Robotics announced today that sales of its Miss Exceptional HRD were poorer than expected for the week ending April 16th. CEO Moniker Boyd stressed that this was likely a temporary fluctuation in the market, but that due to the short- fall in revenue, the license fees would probably have to be increased. Industry analysts generally agreed with the move by CEO Boyd citing widespread praise for the surrogate companion HRD and expressed expectations that revenues would be back to normal in a few days.
The house was quiet when I got home, so I put the Mountain Dews in the fridge and went looking for Shannon. I found her in my den with a wire connected from her neck to my new server.
"What's happening?" I asked as I walked over to the server. The red LEDs were blinking rapidly.
"Just doing my nightly upload."
"Of what?"
"Status data," Shannon said with a big smile.
I walked closer and wondered why Shannon had to be connected to my server to do that. "What kind of status data?"
"The usual stuff. My performance stats. Health data. New neural insights. The factory likes to keep tabs on me."
"Any reason you're connected to my server?"
She did that famous toss of her head to clear the hair from her eyes. I don't know why, but it made me really horny. "Just some ancillary environmental data. I'll be finished in a second."
I logged on to the server and opened a console window. SU to root. No one knows how to do that anymore, you know? But I find it very useful. The logs showed that Shannon was uploading my electronic checkbook, so I quickly entered:
/sbin/shutdown -h now
Shannon blinked several times, and her head jerked. "I think that's enough environmental data for now. Let's go to bed," I said as I reached out for her hand. She smiled and disconnected the wire.
April 28th. Normally, Oscar is the first one to greet me when I get home. Shannon is usually off doing some chore, folding clothes in the basement or running errands. That's not to say that dinner isn't ready when I'm ready to eat, but I like to check my vid-mail and exercise before dinner, and Shannon knows that. So it's Oscar who's Johnny on the spot, stretching, arching his back, and rubbing against my legs -- thinking that the sweet smell of dinner on the way might mean that a morsel or two might possibly drift down to ground level.
But there was no Oscar tonight.
I looked around the house and found Shannon in the bedroom hanging my laundered shirts in the closet. "Where's Oscar?" I asked.
Shannon turned and looked at me sadly. I noticed some kind of bandage on her left forearm. She just stood there, and I could swear I heard her sniff gently.
"Oscar is gone," she said quietly.
"You mean he ran away? He's never done that before."
"No. I mean he's passed away." Shannon turned and hung another shirt on a hanger.
I approached Shannon and gently put my hand around her shoulder. "What happened?"
"I was feeding Oscar and petting him at the same time. I guess he didn't like that. He scratched my arm.... It was self defense. Really."
"Whoa! Whaddya mean?"
Shannon sobbed quietly, pointing to her bandage. "I looked down and there was a big gash in my arm. So I smacked him. A little too hard I guess. He didn't survive it."
I pushed the hair back from Shannon's face and kissed her. I wasn't quite sure how I felt.
May 8th. Sex with Shannon has really been the best part of all this. It was a Saturday night and we were just getting kinda warmed up, if you know what I mean. We were both mostly undressed, and I was about as horny as one can get. Shannon knows exactly what I want.
So there I was, just about ready to consummate the moment when Shannon pushed me off her abruptly. I rolled to the side of the bed.
"What!" I cried.
"I think our license is expiring. You need to renew."
"Now?"
"Yes. My clock says now."
"Can't it wait?! I'm all loaded up here, you know."
"My love, I'm sorry. If you could just get on-line and renew, then we could continue. Just like you like it."
I sighed and tried to calm down. In a minute or so, I got out of bed, put on a bathrobe, and went downstairs to the den and logged on.
Welcome to Exceptional Robotics.
Do you want to renew an MSX license? [yes]
Please enter the license number: [MSX-131-0MIG-4519327776-GY]
Please reenter the license number for confirmation:
[MSX-131-0MIG-4519327776-GY]
Yikes! How long is this gonna take?!
Which credit card would you like to use? [on file]
Please reenter for confirmation.
Oh, man. It'll be dawn before I finish all this crap.
The minimum after-trial license is 12 months.
Enter the number of months: [12]
Thank you for your order. The total comes to $25,680
including sales tax.
Rats! That was double what the website said it would be when I signed up. Then I remembered the newspaper article. I hit the cancel button.
Thank you for your order. You may log off now.
I kept trying to cancel the order, but they had my money. It was no use. I sighed and went back upstairs. Shannon, it seems, had just put on some more perfume, was reclining on her elbows and had one leg up, rolling it back and forth seductively. Long curls of auburn hair framed her face. "Are you ready for me?" she asked.
May 17th. Sunday. I met the guys for softball practice. Signs of spring were coming to Cheyenne, and there was a light breeze of warm air wafting over the field. Trees were starting to bloom, and they sky was full of puffy cumulus clouds.
I sat on the bleachers tying the laces on my cleats nice and firm and took a deep breath. The smells of infield dirt and chalk blew past me.
Bill walked up to me. "Ready to warm up?"
"You bet." I put on my mitt and ran out onto the grass.
"So, how's your love life?" Bill asked.
"Shannon? Shannon's a dream girl. I love her."
"Good to hear. We're all jealous as hell, you know," Bill yelled.
"Oh yeah? Well at least no one calls you scar face."
Bill squinched up his face and rolled his head back. He threw the ball to me, saying not a word. As I watched the small, yellow sphere arc towards me against the blue sky, I suddenly realized something. Something that had been quietly nagging me for weeks.
I really missed Oscar.
Copyright 2001 by John
Martellaro, All rights reserved. Quantum Threads banner
artwork by Tracy Haynes. This is a work of fiction. All
people, places, entities, and events are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.
About the Author
John Martellaro lives in Colorado at 2,800 meters above sea level with a Ph.D. wife and two cats, Nikki and Data. He holds a B.S. in Astrophysics and an M.S. in Physics. His hobbies, include amateur astronomy, downhill skiing, bicycling, and listening to piano solos. His personal Macs are a B&W G3/400 with a flat screen Studio Display and a TiBook.
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