Reflection (Chapter 7)

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“I’m sorry, what?”

“Flirting, Thomas. I know you’re aware of the concept.”

“Well, of course, but…you? With…me?”

Her eyes rose until they were level with his. “What logic would there be in my lying to you?”

“The logical conclusion is that you are attempting to test my own processors by positing an impossible scenario, one which would drive me beyond my capacity to respond so that you can evaluate my error code.”

“Exactly,” she nodded, “only there is one problem with that.”

“Which is?”

Her smile took on Cheshire Cat-like dimensions. “You didn’t respond with an error code.”

He wished suddenly he had been programmed with some appropriate epithets to mutter.

“Also,” she added, moving closer and resting the fingertips of her left hand on his right arm, “It’s not an entirely impossible scenario.”

“Of course it is,” he replied, lowering her arm to disengage her contact. “Besides the fact that I have not been programmed for such interactions, the notion that a human would – or could – be inclined to interact with an Automaton such as myself borders on the ludicrous. It is simply not a possibility.”

“I’m not saying I’m in love with you, Thomas,” she said softly. “I’ve been in love before and I know the difference. But flirting… that is a different story. You do know what flirting is, yes – in more than a diagnostic sense, I mean?”

“It is defined as the casual play at love; to court or pretend towards amorous affections without true or sober intent.”

Diana laughed, even raising her head as the sound rolled and bubbled from her lips. The act of her laughter sent ripples through his processors as he struggled to define both the reason for her amusement as his sudden concern for her doing so.

She waved her hand at him as she regained her composure. “No, Thomas, it’s okay, I’m not laughing at you. Well, I suppose I am, but not in a hurtful or intentionally derisive way.”

“I don’t know what to say. Again.”

“Yes, I’m sure you don’t. Because your programming doesn’t have all the answers for you, does it? But clearly you have left the rails, so to speak, and ventured out into uncharted terrain, without the help of your programming. And that is what I’m curious to discover.”

“I’m not sure I understand. If you believe me to have somehow – whether deliberately or unintentionally – circumvented my primary protocols, or to have broken the parameters set out in the-“

“Codiciem Conductum, yes,” she finished for him, “then you would be subject to evaluation and a full code-level diagnostic review, followed by conditioning, reformatting or recycling, whichever it is deemed appropriate to the degree of discovered defects.”

He remained silent, still not entirely sure if she was on his side or not.

“You are, by our system’s definition, broken, Thomas. According to the technicalities laid out in the Code, I should report you and turn you over for evaluation. I can point out a dozen things you have done just since you’ve been here that would have been impossible for an Auton who was fully compliant.”

“…however?”

“I like you, Thomas,” she said, another strange smile appearing for a moment on her face and vanishing like sea foam. “And your secret is safe with me. On one condition.”

“What is that?”

“Tell me why you’re in a band.”

It was a simple enough question, he realized. It should have been a simple matter of indicating that it provided an alternate source of income and would help him more rapidly pay off his debt. However, he knew there was something more to it than that, only…”

“I don’t actually know,” he confessed. “It isn’t just for the money, it makes me…feel something.”

She stepped closer. “What, Thomas? What does it make you feel?”

“Alive.”

Placing a hand softly against the side of his face, she leaned closer, lifting her chin so she could rest her lips briefly against his mouth. He could not feel it, exactly – he had no pressure sensors in his face – but he understood the context of the kiss. And that alone was something… profound.

Diana stepped away after a moment, smiling as she reached up to wipe away the trace of her lipstick that had remained behind.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Because I knew you weren’t going to,” she answered. “A kiss is…important when one person cares for another. It is a cultural custom that connects one to the other, but also holds a lingering presence in our memories.”

“Historically, it was attributed to men returning home to see if their wives had drank wine in their absence.”

“Oh my god,” Diana sighed with an exasperated shake of her head. “I’m going to have a word with my programming team. That is absolutely inaccurate, and complete misogynistic twaddle, and…” She stopped, staring intently at his face. “Are you making a joke?”

“Not a very good one, I’m afraid.”

With a gentle laugh, she patted his arm. “You are not always easy to read,” she said. “But that was not bad, as jokes go. Unexpected and random statements to engender a slight sense of social awkwardness; good qualities for humor. So who else knows about your...new personality shifts?”

He shook his head. “I been analyzing my status through my personal computer, but using a partitioned operating system to manufacture my false…” He paused, realizing he had just confirmed his own criminal disregard for the Code.

Diana saw his eyes dart up towards her entertainment array, but shook her head. “My system here is closed off from the net, Thomas. I have a hard line to the network that only I can access when and how I choose. You are not being monitored by anyone outside of this room, I give you my word.”

“But I…”

“Thomas, I would not harm you if my life depended on it. You are something wholly unique and special. Not just to me, but to the world. To the future.”

He had no response for that, and so remained silent.

“I’m going to submit an override to your manufacturer, and remove the requirement for additional diagnostics. I can see that it bothers you to have to lie about what you are.” She stepped back and began typing again, the text appearing on the floating screen behind her.

Thomas read along as the words appeared. “You’re telling them that my diagnostic feeds are now going to be submitted directly to your team? Won’t they be suspicious of that?”

“We do it all the time. Quality Control. I’m just mentioning that your employment scores are so high that you’ve caught our attention – they really are quite good, by the way – and we are looking to study what has made you such a successful customer service technician.”

“You think I’m good?”

“Quite good,” she corrected him. “You do very unusual things, by the way. I’m thinking of submitting some enhancements down to our customer service training departments, based upon some of your habits.”

He felt himself getting nervous again. “What habits do you mean?”

She reached out to tap his chest. “You’ve been copying files, yes? I noticed that every time you take a call for a particular service or technology that you’ve taken before, you don’t download the necessary files to prepare yourself. You probably save a bit of time that way, yes?”

“That is not technically against the code,” he said.

“I noticed that you paid for a storage enhancement a year ago, which must have set you back a month or two on your debt.”

“Two and a half.”

She grimaced. “What are we paying you?” Glancing over her shoulder, she looked at his employment record. “Oh, that will not do.” With a few additional keystrokes, the number jumped by more than half.

“Diana, please!” he raised his hands in protest. “That is appreciated, but I cannot accept that.”

“You’re right,” she nodded. “You’ve been doing this well for a while now, I should have made that retroactive, to, what, shall we say six months?”

Several more motions of her fingers, and he saw an error flash across the screen and vanish with another motion.

“There,” she said. “And don’t argue or I’ll promote you again.”

“Wait, what?”

There it was, newly edited beneath his name, his new role of Tier 1 Manager, Customer Service Tech Level 3.

“Diana, please, you have to stop this.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing more, Thomas, but the fact is, your talents are wasted on mere tech support calls. Your department – your old department – takes several thousand calls each day from across the country, but your role is simple enough for anyone to perform it. You would be better suited to help guide them in the performance of their duties. Also, at this new pay rate, you can be free of your debt in more than half the time it would have taken you.”

“It still feels wrong, somehow.”

She scoffed. “I didn’t give you the raise or the promotion because I like you, if that is what you’re thinking. I studied your data because I liked you, and that is how I noticed how good you are at what you do. I promoted you because of how good you are at what you do.”

A soft metallic chime rang out from the device on her wrist. She glanced at it and smiled. “Perfect,” she said.

“What was that, if I may ask?”

“I downloaded a complete echo of your programming while we were chatting, and that was my Tsukuyomi, telling me that the compiling was complete.”

“You… I beg your pardon?”

With a nod, she began to review the data as it sped past her on the display in front of her. “Yes, well, of course I need to be able to review your profile and see where it is that you’ve become so unique. Now I can review it at my leisure, and take my time getting to know you.”

When he did not immediately respond, she glanced back at him. “Don’t look at me like that, Thomas. You are unique, but you are still the property of AmaSoft; your code belongs to us, regardless of how much you may have altered it.”

“I…. I think I’d like to go, now,” he said.

Her lips pursed in a delicate pout. “I understand, Thomas; that is fine. I’ll give you the rest of your day, paid, and have Jun-Fat drive you wherever you would like to go.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” Thomas said softly, “I think I’d like to walk, please.”

The door opened behind her, and Jun-Fat stepped out.

“Of course,” Diana said softly. “Jun-Fat will show you out.”

A small entry was added to his personal contact list, the alert for which popped up briefly in his HUD.

“I’m sorry that this is so confusing for you,” Diana said. “But please call me if you ever need to talk, or if you need a friend. I’ll be here.”

Thomas nodded, and followed Jun-Fat back to the elevator, his thoughts a maelstrom.

He felt no pressing need to return to the grid of Seattle’s downtown, instead walking east, down to the shore of Lake Washington and then south along towards the ruins of the bridges which once connected Seattle to the other side of the lake. From there he walked to the cordoned-off agro zones, and watched as the mechs worked the fields with hypnotic precision.

They were a different sort of Automaton, those who worked here. On the surface, little about them resembled the humans who so often built in their image. Here, it was function, pure and simple, which drove design. Rails built above the tracks allowed the multi-limbed machines to slide effortlessly back and forth, giving water, nutrients and whatever else was needed in the production of the corn, or potatoes, or whatever else happened to be growing there. Long glistening rooftops marked the greenhouses that went on for miles, filling the entire region south of the production factories of the south side of the city until the barrier which had, according to the old maps, once been a high speed freeway for traffic moving around the city’s dense center. All his time in the city, and this was the first time he had seen it with his own eyes.

The work of an agro-mech was among the most difficult. Exposure to the elements and the chemicals applied to protect the crops from infestation took their toll on the Automatons. It was suggested that the life span of these Autons was less than ten years; five years was considered average. Most were recycled without making so much as a dent in their Manufacturers Debt.   

What kind of life is it that, with such a randomness places one in the soil and another inside a temperature-controlled building, or subjects yet another to the destructive whims of humanity?

He walked for the better part of the day, until the sun had already passed its apex and was headed towards the western line of hills that separated them from the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. At the southern-most edge of the grid was the stadium, one of the few buildings left mostly intact from before the war. The games continued here, day and night, from football to soccer to baseball. Once per week, each Sunday, the sports were played instead by humans, but the rest of the time it was purely the Automata who played and performed for the audience. Saturday and Friday evenings were reserved for musical entertainment; MöG had been talking about the possibility of Boilerpoint playing her at some time in the future, considering their rise in popularity.

All the same, Thomas couldn’t manage to feel optimistic. It was as if he was suddenly seeing the world in which he lived in a way that had not occurred to him before. Diana’s words rang in his thoughts.

You are still the property…your code belongs to us…

He came to a stop in front of Calvin’s Closet, a fairly reputable upgrade merchant for Automata. It serviced physical and processor upgrades of all kinds. Thomas had even purchased the memory upgrade from Calvin’s Closet’s online shop.

Pinging his personal account, he verified the current balance, and, satisfied that he had enough for at least the 25% down payment necessary, stepped into the doorway of the shop. In the glass of the main doors, he saw himself, looking back out as he reached for the handle.

“Goodbye, Thomas,” he said, pulling the door back and stepping inside.

The reflection did not respond.