another story from The Robot Revolution

A Custom-Made Android

When I made my second million dollars, I decided to get a custom-made android companion.  I was 63-years old and divorced. I had been working so much for the past few years that I didn’t have time for any real friends. I just wanted some companionship, and an electronic companionship would suit my lifestyle.

            I went to Realistic Androids, Inc. and talked to Julie, a bubbly,

forty-something blonde.  I told her what I wanted. I found out that it was more complicated than I realized, but that’s true of everything, I guess.

“Do you want a male or female companion?”
“Female.”

“What age?”

I was going to say, forties, but instead, I said, thirties. Julie showed me some pictures to choose the type of face I wanted on my android. I took my time looking and finally chose a dark-haired, exotic looking woman, like maybe she was Eurasian.

 “And personality type, interests, level of education?” Julie asked. “That’s the thing about Realistic Androids custom android. You get to choose all those things ahead of time.” She glanced at my left hand.

I told her that I wanted someone who liked to talk and to listen, someone who liked good books and good movies. I wanted her to have the intellectual equivalent of the university graduate.”

I gulped when Julie told me the fee, but I told myself that I deserved it. I had been working so hard these last few years, and I was finally on my way.

She told me that it would take two or three weeks to assemble the physical android, but they would start right away on forming the personality. “That part of it won’t be in the physical body. She will have a personal cloud which she will be able to access to talk to you about books and the latest movies.”

“How natural will she look?”

“Would you believe that I am an android?”

 “Really!”

Julie laughed and put her hand on my arm.  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson. I couldn’t resist it. But our androids look so realistic that most people take them for humans unless they look really closely.

“Have you thought about what you will name her?” she asked.

I nodded and said, “I’m going to call her Valerie.”

Three weeks later I went to pick up Valerie. I was overwhelmed with how beautiful she looked and how voluptuous. I decided not to go back to work but to take her to my apartment so we could get acquainted.

I was embarrassed when we walked into the apartment. The place was littered with pizza boxes and beer cans. The place hadn’t been vacuumed or dusted for at least a month, maybe two. Valerie looked around and said, “I could clean this up for you.”

“You don’t have to do that. I have a woman who comes in to clean when I remember to call her. I’ll give her a call tomorrow.”

We spent the afternoon talking about books and movies and music. I felt almost as though I had met my soul mate.

“One of my all-time favorite books is Raintree County by Ross Lockridge,” I said.

“Oh yes, the book was an immediate success and was made into a movie with Elizabeth Taylor.”

Of course Valerie didn’t know those things about Raintree County the way a person would know. She was like Siri or Alexa. She could access that information the way any chatbot would. The difference was: she could use the information to carry on a conversation. I was amazed.

I opened a beer while we talked and then ordered a pizza for dinner. While I ordered the pizza, Valerie started picking up the boxes and beer cans.

Rather than leave Valerie alone the next day, I took her to work with me. I introduced her to my partner, Tom Kramlich, telling him that she was my housekeeper. He really looked her over and then winked at me. Tom was the COO of the company. He kept things going day by day. I was president, but I mostly worked on developing and improving the product. I didn’t do any work that day. I just showed Valerie through the plant and explained how it all ran.

That afternoon as I went to the restroom, I ran into Tom. He poked me playfully on the shoulder and said, “You sly dog, Rich. That housekeeper of yours sure is hot,” holding up his finger to indicate quotation marks when he said, housekeeper.

I left work early and took Valerie to the Tip Top Tavern. We slid into a booth, and I ordered two draft beers. Of course Valerie didn’t drink, but the server put a beer in front of each of us. When I finished my beer, I just exchanged glasses with her. As I looked around the room, I saw one guy at the bar giving her the once over. I glared at him, and he looked away.

I lifted my full glass and she lifted the empty glass to clink it against mine.

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” I said.

“Casa Blanca,” she answered.

The next day was Friday. I got a call at work from my sister Winnie. For the past few years I had been having dinner with Winnie and her family every Friday. “I want to see that you get at least one decent meal a week,” she would say.

“I understand you have a new friend,” Winnie said.

“Wow, word really gets around.”

“You have no secrets in a small town like Hannaford,” she said. “Anyway, why don’t you bring your friend to dinner, let her meet the family.”

“I can bring her, but she won’t want anything to eat.”

“What, is she a picky eater?”

‘No, she’s ah, she’s fasting.”

“Well, you can still bring her.”

When I introduced Valerie to Winnie and her husband, George, I thought he was going to stick his nose into her cleavage. He’s such a pig. I wonder how my sister can put up with him.

At dinner Winnie asked me how the business was going.

            “It’s doing really well,” I said. We get into new markets every week. I’m making so much money that I’m going to set up a scholarship fund for Heckle and Jeckle here.”

Heckle and Jeckle were my nephews, sweet fourteen-year-old twins. Their real names were Harry and Jerry, but I called them Heckle and Jeckle to tease them.

“That’s so sweet! Thank you, Rich.” Winnie leaned over to kiss me.

For a few minutes there was no sound except for the clang of cutlery on the plates. Dinner was roast chicken with mashed potatoes and peas.

Valerie looked at my brother-in-law and asked, “What do you do, George?”

“I sell insurance, so I’m wondering, what do you have for life insurance?”

“Come on, George,” I said.

“This is not a time to be selling insurance,” Winnie added.

As we were driving home, Valerie said, “When the boys went upstairs, and you and Valerie were in the kitchen, George tried to kiss me and put his hand on my breast.”

“That son of a bitch!”

“I didn’t know whether it was all right for him to do that. I have so much to learn.”

The next day I got a call from my daughter Patty. Patty blamed me for the divorce, and we had drifted apart. I hadn’t spoken to her for months.

“Dad, you’re embarrassing the family again!” she said.

“What, what are you talking about?”

“You have a girl friend young enough to be my sister, and you take her to the Tip Top Inn where everyone can see you.”

“It isn’t what it looks like.”

“Oh? Well, what is it then?”

“Valerie isn’t a real person. I haven’t told anyone else, not even your Aunt Winnie. She’s a realistic android. I just wanted someone to keep me company.”
            “Valerie? Is that her name?” Then she started laughing. I didn’t know what to say.

“You know what your problem is, Dad? You’re a workaholic. You’re too busy working to meet people and make real friends. If you hadn’t spent so much time on the job and a little more time with your family, Mom wouldn’t have divorced you.”

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

“You need to get a life, Dad. You’re sixty-three years old, and I understand you’re a millionaire. You need to take some time for yourself.”

 “I know you’re right, Patty.”

“I’ll tell you what. Next Saturday Bob and I are having a few people in, and I’d like you to be there.”

“          That’s wonderful. Of course I’ll be there.”

“But don’t bring your girl friend.” She laughed and hung up.

It was so good to see Patty again and Bob. I always liked him. Patty took me around introducing me to people. The last person I met was a petite blonde named Simone. She looked very young, but the lines around her eyes said that she was probably in her fifties.

“Patty said that you have a manufacturing company. What do you manufacture?”

“A light-weight spare battery for electric cars. They extend the range of the cars. If the on-board battery runs out of juice, the spare can kick in until the car gets to a charging station.”

“And what about you? What do you do?”

 “I’m an oenophile,” she said, holding up a glass of amber wine.

“An oenophile?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. I noticed how white her teeth were.

 “I’m an oenophile too,” I said, holding up my can of beer.

“What’s your favorite kind of wine?” she asked.

“Riesling.”

“It just happens that I have a bottle of Riesling in my refrigerator.”

“Out in the kitchen?”

“No, in my kitchen at home. I live only a few blocks from here.”

When we got to Simone’s apartment, she asked me what my favorite piece of music was.

“Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”

“Alexa, play Beethoven’s Ninth.”

In a moment the symphony opened with a flourish.

“I love the chorale movement in this.”

“Yes, it’s from Schiller’s ‘An Die Freude,’ ‘Ode to Joy.’”

Simone took the Riesling from the refrigerator and handed me a corkscrew. I opened the bottle and poured the wine into two glasses.

We clinked the glasses together, and Simone said, “To Joy.”

“To Joy,” I answered.

We took a sip of the wine, and then I kissed her.

“Patty said that you like movies.” Simone said. “Have you seen Friendly Enemies?”

“No, but I want to see it.”

 “It’s playing at the Rialto.”

“Maybe we could see it together.”

“That would be lovely.”

Then I kissed her again.

As I walked back to my car, I wondered what I was going to do about Valerie.

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Here's a story from The Robot Revolution

If It Ain’t One Thing, It’s Another                                       

Carl Perrin

We were in a real bind. Grandma was having one of them spells, and there was no way we could get her to the hospital in the city. The hurricane had knocked out the electricity and the phone line. We couldn’t get a good signal on our cell phones out here. Worst of all, a huge tree had fallen on Cousin Zeke’s self-driving car.

We just stood there, wondering what we could do when Grandma had another seizure. Her body went rigid. Then she started shaking all over, her white hair flying wildly. She fell to the floor and started babbling nonsense words.
“Don’t just stand there,” Aunt Carrie said. “Somebody do something.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Cousin Millie said. “We can’t carry her to the city.”

“There must be something,” Aunt Carrie insisted.

“What about Grandpa’s old car?” Cousin Millie asked. The car was about thirty years old. It had been sitting in the barn since Grandpa died about six months ago. Before he died, he used to drive it almost every day.

Aunt Carrie turned to Zeke. “You can drive Grandpa’s car, can’t you?”

Zeke shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea how to drive one of them old dinosaurs. It’s nothing like the self-driving cars.”

She looked at the rest of us young people, but of course no one knew how to drive an old-fashioned car. I wasn’t sure they even made them any more. They were notoriously dangerous. Thousands of people used to die in auto accidents every year with the old cars.

Millie had helped Grandma into the ragged, green chair, where she sat looking dazed. Then she started waving her arms and jabbering some crazy stuff before she fell to the floor again.

Aunt Carried yelled, “We’ve got to do something,” as she and Millie helped Grandma back into the chair.

 “What about Uncle Frank?” Zeke suggested.

 “No, he wouldn’t be able to do it,” Millie answered.

Years ago Grandpa and Grandma had bought this big old place out in the country because it was within walking distance of the Rest Haven Nursing Home. Grandma had started having her spells, and they thought it would be good to be near the place. As it turned out, the nursing home couldn’t do anything for her. She had to go to the hospital for a few days when one of her spells hit her. It was good to be near the place, though, when Uncle Frank started having memory problems. He was fine at home until he started wandering off and getting lost in the woods.

Uncle Frank was Grandma’s brother. He was old enough to have owned and driven the old-fashioned cars. But would he remember, and would we be able to get him out of the nursing home?

Frank liked the nursing home. He thought he was back in the army, and the head nurse was the first sergeant. Ironically, the head nurse’s name was Miss Smiley. She could have been the model for Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

As we expected, Miss Smiley gave us a hard time about taking Uncle Frank Home for a short visit. Naturally we didn’t tell her the real reason.

 “He can’t leave without a doctor’s okay, and there is no doctor here right now,” she told us.

We had been expecting that, so I left while the rest of the family kept Miss Ratchet—I mean Miss Smiley busy. I snuck down the corridor to Uncle Frank’s room and found him watching television. He was glad to see me.

“Are there any orders from headquarters?” he asked.

We had played along with his idea that he was in the army. Whenever any of us visited him, he asked if there were any orders from headquarters.

 “Yes, Private Frank,” I said. “You and I are going on a secret mission. We can’t even let the first sergeant know. We’re going to have to sneak out the side door.”

A half an hour later we were back at the house. After some fiddling around with Grandpa’s car, we got it started. Zeke and I sat in the front seat with Uncle Frank at the wheel. Aunt Carrie and Millie sat in back with Grandma. It was scary riding with Frank at the wheel, but we got there okay and got Grandma into the hospital.

After we got home, we sat in the kitchen drinking coffee. As we sat at the table Aunt Carrie patted Uncle Frank’s hand.

“It’s a good thing you knew how to drive,” she said.

 “It’s a good thing the car had an automatic transmission,” he answered. “I wouldn’t have known how to drive it if it had a stick shift.”

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