I fell in love with an android.
At first sight.
Not that I knew, at the time, that she was an android. She spoke like a woman. She moved like a woman. And, most noticeably, she looked like a woman--and a
beauty at that.
“Take my hand,” I said to her that first day, a sunny day on St. Catherine Street, downtown Montreal. “We’ll go for a walk.”
She smiled, slipped her hand into mine, and we walked through Mount Royal, talking of birds, trees, romance, and lovely things. Never did I suspect. The revelation only came at sunset when, on a bench down at Old Port, surrounded by soft lanterns and 17th century architecture, I kissed her.
Spark flews. Literally.
“Error! Error!” she called. “Must restart.”
As I stared, stunned, my hair standing from the electrical shock, my date lay down on the brick road, shut her eyes, and rebooted.
“Jesus...” I muttered. I mean, these days I expected women to be part silicon--but a silicon brain, too? I rose to my feet and began to flee.
I crashed into another one.
We both went sprawling.
I pushed myself up, rubbing my eyes. Before me, lying on the bricks, was an exact copy of my date. A young, tall, stunning female, with browns curls and perfect red lips.
“Jesus Christ!” I said, ignoring a group of German teenage tourists who stood laughing nearby. “How many of you are there?”
The new one rose to her feet. “Just one bot,” she said. “And one creator. And now you’ve met both.”
So. I had been dating the fake. I pointed at the woman. “I should sue you for letting this thing walk free! It electrocuted me.”
“Did you try to kiss it?” she asked, brushing leaves off her dress.
I lowered my head. God, did I kiss an android? “Well, yeah, I guess I did.”
The woman--the real woman--laughed. “Well, you got what you deserved, then. If you had talked to her first, maybe you’d have discovered she’s a bot. You saw a babe and kissed her right off--so serves you right.”
I shook my head, incredulous. “I did talk to it. All day! I’ve never seen such a convincing bot.”
The woman gave me a taunting, crooked smile. “Did you really talk to her, or just spew romantic nonsense while staring at her body?”
I felt myself blush. I hated the woman for making me blush. “You built her?” I asked.
The woman gave a little curtsy, though her taunting smile never left her face. “With me own two hands, squire! But she ain’t AI; she’s just very, very clever.”
Strangely--against all logic and reason--I found myself irresistibly attracted to this woman. Maybe this day was still not wasted...
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Victoria.”
“Well, Victoria. Your little creation here singed my eyebrows and nearly made me wet my nice pants, and I wasted a whole day of flirting on her. Far as I see, you owe me that kiss she couldn’t give.”
The woman laughed--loudly, her head tossed back.
“You got some nerve, Jack!” she said, but I could tell she was amused.
“The name’s Alan, actually. So what do you say? Just a little peck?”
She placed her hands on her hips, gave me a sidelong glance, still smiling. “Tell you what,
Alan,” she said. “I think you’re just interested in the sexy parts, and not in the person. So we’ll give you a test. The Turing Test.”
“What’s the Turing Test?” I asked. I remembered something about Turing from school, but little more than
him causing me much misery.
“Turing developed a test to tell human from machine. You ask both questions. By questions alone, you try and tell who’s who.”
“And if I pass, I get my kiss?”
She nodded.
“And if I fail?”
She got a shrewd, wicked look. “Oh, whoever you choose, you kiss. If you choose the woman, you kiss the woman. If you choose the android, you kiss the android--only this time I turn the power up!”
I had to gasp. This woman was evil! And yet, I could feel my knees become weak. There was something about her...
“I accept,” I said.
“Great!” said the android, sneaking up from behind. “Meet us at our house, eight o’clock tomorrow evening.”
#
Victoria, I discovered, lived in no less than Westmount, in a mansion that cost more than I’d earn in ten lifetimes. I arrived at the door at 7:53, dressed in my lucky shirt and holding a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath.
The door was opened by a small, round bot.
“Good evening, visitor!” it announced, blinking its many lights. “And welcome! Please come in.”
Did Victoria’s bots let in any stranger? I wondered. But when I stepped inside, I realized she had nothing to fear from robbers. Her house was a barracks for androids--tall, short, fat, thin, metallic, plastic, organic--many of them armed. I wondered why such a beauty needed to spend so much time with toys.
“Hello, Alan!” came Victoria’s voice from upstairs--or was it her e-twin speaking? “We’re waiting for you here.”
Unable to resist a smile, I stepped onto the escalator and ascended onto a floor of many rooms--most of them, I could see, housing more bots.
“In here, Alan.”
The voice came from a room ahead. I stepped inside.
The room was wide and bare. It contained three chairs, two of which faced me. On one chair sat Victoria. On the other, her replica. Not that I knew who was which.
“So,” I said, “who do I give these flowers to?”
“Won’t be so easy,” said one, and another said, “Sit down.”
I sat down slowly, already wondering. Both Victorias were dressed the same, in flowery summer dresses and sandals, diamonds in their ears. Both were, of course, stunning, just as I remembered.
Looking at their lips, I swallowed. One of them could, no doubt, kiss sweetly enough to die for. The other could blow my socks off--and I knew that this time the android would kiss lustily.
“So, Alan, are you ready?” asked one. “Ask us anything. Then kiss whoever you choose.” She pulled out a clock, set it for three minutes, and started it. “Test begins now.”
“Whoa!” I said, shifting in my chair. “Nobody said anything about a time limit.”
One Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Do you think we would spend more than three minutes on you? You better start asking, buddy; time is running.”
Suddenly, I did not like the game. I had counted on a slow, thorough interrogation. I had not planned for a time limit. But Victoria set the rules here, I knew. I would have to play her game.
And I would win it, I decided.
First question.
“Victoria A,” I said, turning to the left one. “What do you like better, sunsets or sunrises, and why?”
“Sunrises,” she said. “They speak of a new day, new hope.”
Hmmm. I turned to the right. “Victoria B. Answer the same question.”
“Sunrises,” said the other Victoria. “They speak of a new day, new hope.”
Victoria B gave the same answer; she just copied the first one! Victoria B must be the android. But no--maybe Victoria B was just trying to sound like an android. To fool me.
I had to be sure.
“Victoria B,” I asked. “What is 2317 times 42318?”
“I don’t know.”
Which didn’t mean much. Victoria B, if a machine, might be programmed not to calculate problems over a certain number.
“Victoria A, answer the same question.”
“I don’t know.”
I had not thought she would.
I glanced at the clock. Two minutes left. Where had a minute gone already? I had to think fast.
“Victoria A. How many letters are in the word ‘Encyclopedia’?”
Very quickly: “12.”
“Victoria B. How many letters are in the word ‘University’?”
“10.” But she answered slowly.
Was Victoria B the human, then? She took several seconds to count the letters, while Victoria A could answer at once. But Victoria B might be programmed to calculate anything--even small numbers--slowly. And Victoria A might just be a genius human; surely she was, if she could build such bots.
A minute and a half.
My pulse began to quicken. I wanted that kiss--and not an electrical shock.
“Victoria A. How do you feel about butterflies?”
“I am incapable of feeling anything.”
Which probably meant she was the human, and trying to trick me. But then, maybe Victoria knew I would think that. Maybe she made the android, when asked about feelings, appear like a human pretending to be a computer?
My head began to hurt.
Time was running out.
“Victoria B, answer the same question.”
“Butterflies are insects with two pairs of large, colorful wings and clubbed or dilated antennae. They fly by day and feed on nectar.”
Again, could go either way.
One minute.
One minute!
My heart was thrashing.
Time for a different approach.
“This morning, I took my nephew for a walk. He is only a year old. I carried him down the street, then dropped him. A car ran him over, crushing his skull, and his brains leaked onto the pavement.”
Nothing. Nothing! Whoever the human was, she was tough. She knew how to hide emotion.
Desperate now. “I scooped up his brains then, and ate them.”
Nothing. Not a twitch from either one.
Ten seconds left.
In despair, I muttered the worst obscenities I knew.
And Victoria B winced.
I stared, mouth open. I stood up.
“I choose to kiss Victoria A!” I said.
I stopped the clock, with two seconds left. My heart still pounding, I stepped toward Victoria A, swept her up from her chair, and kissed her deeply. She kissed back, teasingly, her hands in my hair.
She did know how to kiss.
“So...” she said, drawing back, smiling her crooked smile. “How did you know?”
Though my heart still thrashed, I feigned relaxation as I sat down, leaned back, and crossed my legs.
“Easy,” I said. “My ‘shocking’ remarks brought no emotional response from either of you. But at my curses, one of you winced. What woman would remain cool hearing about mutilated babies, but wince at curses? You programmed the android to wince at curses. Obviously, you intended this to make it more human--it did the opposite.”
“Congratulations, Alan,” she said, taking the flowers from me. “Now how about another game? Let me fix that bug, and then you can test us again.”
I raised an eyebrow. “For what reward?”
“Great beyond your wildest dreams!” she whispered. “But,” she added, tapping her cheek, “choosing the wrong one this time would be
very unpleasant.”
This woman was psycho.
I knew I should run. Instead, I grinned and said, “See you tomorrow evening?”
Read more stories at
www.DanielArenson.com.