His Robot Girlfriend (2 page)

Mike woke up just after five with a splitting
headache. The bed was cold, not surprising considering he had left
both the oscillating fan and the auxiliary air conditioner on. He
got up and turned off one and then walked downstairs to the family
room to turn off the other. Stopping for a moment, he reached up
and touched the vueTee screen, turning it on. An infomercial for
the all-in-one electronic device charger blared to life, but he sat
down and grabbed the remote, thumbing back to the browser and
examining the Daffodil page once more. With a sudden sense of
purpose he zipped through the custom design pages, changing most of
the settings that had been there since he had first looked it over.
He didn’t know why he made most of the changes that he did. It was
as if something unseen and unknown inside him compelled him to do
it. With a slightly hesitant hand, he pressed the “Buy Now” button.
$2749.00. Then he went back to bed.

It was more than five weeks later, May 31st,
when the package arrived. In the interim, life had gone on much as
it had for the past several years. Each weekday, Mike tried to
teach World Geography to the dullards that passed for eighth grade
students in Midland Middle School, after which he came home and
vegetated the evening away. On the weekends, he skipped the first
part and simply vegetated. One night, the Saturday before last, he
had dinner with Harriet and Jack. Every day he looked forward to
the change that was coming. Even if the Daffodil never lived up to
the hype, even if it was just an overpriced Gizmo Maidbot, it would
be an improvement. It would pick up the laundry that had covered
the floor for a month now, vacuum the carpet that hadn’t been
vacuumed in two months, clean the bathrooms that hadn’t been
cleaned since Tiffany’s funeral, and maybe dust the things that
hadn’t been dusted… well, ever.

Mike was annoyed that the box was just
sitting on the step when he got home. Something that expensive, he
should have had to sign for. Somebody could have just carried it
off. But they hadn’t. It was here. The box looked impossibly
small—only about thirty inches on each side. It was silver with a
large yellow daffodil only partially obscured by the shipping
label. Unlocking and then opening the front door, he picked up the
box and brought it inside. It was heavy but not too heavy to lift.
He set it down first in the foyer, but once he had shut and locked
the front door, he carried it into the center of the living room
floor. He went to the kitchen and returned with a chef knife.
Carefully sliding the blade through the packing tape, he cut along
each edge and then across the top seam.

Folding back the two flaps of the box lid,
Mike looked down to find it filled with packing peanuts. Brushing
some of them out of the way, he almost immediately found a patch of
smooth white skin. It was remarkably real looking—pearlescent on
the surface and kind of peachy pink beneath, but not a single
blemish or mole or hair upon it. Mike brushed more packing peanuts
out onto the floor and uncovered more skin, and then plastic with
black hair inside. Finally, setting the knife on the coffee table,
he tipped the box over, dumping the contents into the center of the
floor. White packing went everywhere. The Daffodil rolled out and
came to rest on its side, facing away from him. It was curled up
tightly into a ball.

At first, Mike thought he must have ordered
the wrong robot. Curled up as it was, it looked like a child. He
just stared at it for a moment; at its naked back and buttocks and
its black hair wrapped up in plastic. Finally he kicked around
through the packing peanuts. There didn’t seem to be a manual—just
a single sheet of paper marked “Quick Setup”. He picked it up and
looked at it. There were two pictures and no words. The first
picture showed line drawing of the back of a human-looking neck,
except that the neck had three round holes in it and below them a
button. The second picture showed the button being pushed by a
line-drawn finger. Next to the button and the finger were the
numerals 1, 2, 3. Bending down, Mike lifted up the plastic wrapped
hair and examined the Daffodil’s neck. There were the three holes
and there was the button. He pressed it and counted aloud “one,
two, three”. Then he let go.

For a moment nothing happened. Then the
Daffodil tilted its head and unarched its back. It unwrapped its
arms from around its knees and stretched out its legs. Rolling over
onto its stomach and then, placing both palms on the floor, it rose
in a push-up form, and then putting its left foot beneath it and
then its right, stood up. It came to attention.

“
Please wait,” she said,
and it was at this moment, that for Mike, it became a
she.

The Daffodil could no longer be an “it”. It
was obviously not an “it”. And it was obviously not a child. Once
upright, she was tall, maybe five foot seven. Mike examined her
carefully. Though her hair was covered with a clear plastic cap, he
could see it was jet black. It matched two dark, carefully arched
eyebrows and a set of long eyelashes. She had no other body hair.
Her face could best be described as cute, with large blue eyes, a
button nose, and thick voluptuous lips. She had the kind of slender
and yet curvy body that was just not possible on a real woman.
Breasts the size of apples just kind of floated there above a
perfectly flat stomach. Mike tilted his head down. She looked
anatomically complete.

“
You are Michael Winston
Smith?”

“
Huh?”

“
You are Michael Winston
Smith?” She was looking at him. Her eyes seemed very
life-like.

“
Uh… yes.”

“
I am Daffodil serial
number 55277-PFN-001-XGN-F0103. My software is up to
date.”

“
Good.”

“
The primary setup
procedure requires approximately six hours. During this period, I
your Daffodil, will be unavailable for other activities. It is
recommended that during this time period you make a few basic
decisions. What initial duties do you wish me to have? What
clothing, if any, do you wish me to wear? What name would you like
me to answer to?”

Mike looked at the clock on the wall. It was
3:20 PM. He counted off six hours on his fingers—9:20. He sat down
on the white sofa that was almost never used and looked at the
shapely nude robot. With a wry smile, he realized that he could sit
and stare at it for the next six hours, or he could get up and do
something. He went back to the family room, picked up the texTee,
and flipped open Moby Dick, but he didn’t read any more of it.
Instead he turned the select dial to the bookstore and typed in
“names”. The titles of half a dozen books appeared including “The
Name Book”, “The Secret Universe of Names”, and “The Baby Name
Wizard”. He selected the last book of the six: “Virtue Names”. It
took about twenty seconds for the book to download to the texTee.
Looking back to the screen, Mike turned to the first page of the
name book. The first name was Agape. Agape? The book said that it
had something to do with God’s love, but all Mike could think of
was “hanging loosely open”. That was not a particularly desirable
trait. He spun the selector dial and picked a page at random.
Patience. Now that was a trait he could appreciate. But the book
said it was pronounced Pay-shuns. That wasn’t right. Paish-ence.
Mike had always appreciated those names, mostly associated in his
mind with the ninetieth century, that illustrated the supposed
virtues—Faith, Hope, Chastity—but he hadn’t considered Patience
until now.

He set the texTee back down and walked to the
living room to look at the Daffodil. Did she look like a Patience?
Close enough, he decided. Now what? He looked back at the clock. It
was 3:33. What else did she say? Clothing. He felt his pants
pockets. He still had his keys and wallet. He slipped out the door,
locking it behind him and jumped back in the car.

Walmart was right around the corner and it
took him less than five minutes to get there and park his car. He
felt more than a little self-conscious, venturing into the women’s
apparel department, but it turned out that he was one of more than
a dozen men there. Most were just standing around, waiting for
their women to finish trying something on in the fitting rooms,
though a few were actively shopping. Mike made his way through the
racks of ugly old-lady dresses until he found the clothing that
young women seemed to prefer. The Daffodil looked like she might be
in her early twenties. The first racks held blue jeans, but there
was no way that he would be able to figure out the right size. Then
he found several racks of dresses that seemed more appropriate. He
picked out a cute little one with blue flowers on it, then a white
dress with large black polka dots. The smallest size on the rack
was a three/four, and it looked pretty small, so he picked out a
size five/six for each dress.

Having gotten used to looking through the
women’s clothing, Mike’s discomfort returned when he moved into the
lingerie section, the two dresses draped over his arm. There were
counters and counters of underwear and bras. If choosing the
correct pair of jeans was difficult, then choosing the proper size
and type of bra would be insurmountable. The Daffodil didn’t really
seem like she needed one, at least not from a purely functional
perspective, though some women liked to wear them anyway. Moving on
to the panties, Mike found a dizzying array of sizes, types, and
styles. Then he saw some tiny, skimpy, little things called “Smart
and Sexy” thongs. He didn’t know about smart, but they were
definitely sexy, little more than triangular pieces of lace with
elastic bands. They came in bags of three—tiny little lace bags.
Mike bought a set in blue.

At the checkout stand, Mike realized that he
was hungry. He grabbed a Payday candy bar. The matronly looking
Gizmo Servbot gave him his total: $148.17. He drove back home and
raced inside with his purchases, but there was no hurry. The
Daffodil hadn’t moved. It was only 5:01. Looking at the robot, Mike
appreciated her sheer physical beauty like he hadn’t before. He
pulled the two dresses out of the bag and held them up in front of
her, one after the other. Though they had seemed incredibly tiny in
the store, they now looked as though they would fit her and might
even be a bit on the large side. Draping them over the arm of the
couch, he took the Walmart bag to the kitchen and stuffed it into
the recycler. This made him think about everything else that was
lying around the house. He had company now, sort of, and he felt an
urge to clean up.

Starting in the living room, Mike began
cleaning. It didn’t take much, since he hardly used the room at
all. He picked up the packing peanuts and dropped them into the
recycler, folded up the Daffodil box and put it in the compactor,
and then he moved on to the foyer. He swept the tiles and
straitened the several pairs of shoes by the door. Then he moved on
to the family room. This room, though fairly large, was crammed
full of old furniture, including the recliner, sofa, two end tables
and a coffee table, three bookcases, the entertainment center, and
the piano. Most of the furniture and a good bit of the floor were
covered with cast-off items as well. Books, obsolete but not quite
completely replaced by the texTee were everywhere, as were small
piles of junk mail, interlaced with an occasional bill, and stacks
of dirty dishes. Mike got to work, picking things up and putting
them away until the room looked about as good as it ever had.

He stopped to make himself a supper of a
deviled ham sandwich, which he ate along with a diet Pepsi and a
handful of potato chips. He stood in the dining room, chewing and
looking through the passage at the shapely form of the Daffodil
still standing naked where he had left her. When he finished
eating, he started wiping down the kitchen counters. He had them
nice and clean by the time eight o’clock rolled around and Gunsmoke
came on. He went back to his recliner, which had long ago conformed
to his shape. Just as the story was getting interesting, his phone
rang. It was Harriet calling to see if he was alright. He assured
her he was. When he closed the connection and put the phone back in
his pocket, the vueTee went to a commercial. Mike turned around and
then jumped in his seat. The Daffodil was standing behind him,
looking at him from the arch between the family room and living
room.

“
The primary setup
procedure is complete,” she said. “The secondary setup procedure
requires approximately thirty-six hours. During this period, I your
Daffodil, will be capable of other activities.”

“
What did you do?” asked
Mike. “In your primary setup, I mean?”

“
There are one thousand
sixty seven individual tasks accomplished during the primary setup
procedure, the most important of which are the initialization of
the BioSoft operating system, registration of the InfiNet
connection, and charging of the Honda X88 fuel cell.”

“
Well, that’s good. Oh.
There are some clothes for you in the living room.” He pointed over
her shoulder.

She turned around and walked into the living
room. Mike followed. She picked up the two dresses and held them in
front of her one after the other, smiling.

“
I wasn’t sure what size
you wore, um, Patience. That’s what I decided to name you by the
way—Patience.”

“
Patience,” she said
slowly. “The capacity, habit, or fact of being patient. Patient:
bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint; manifesting
forbearance under provocation or strain; not hasty or impetuous;
steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity. That is a
very good name. What should I call you?”