raisin' hell all over town

I left the television on for background noise.  Usually it’s just to drown out the restless energy that fills the room whenever he’s away, but there’s a tech segment playing that catches my attention midway through another staring contest with the numbers.  

“—Over a million units projected by Q4,” some charismatic visionary says onscreen.

I recognize him.  He’s leading one of the fastest-growing organizations in artificial intelligence right now.  

“Within the next five years, they’ll be a regular part of the average American household’s ecosystem,” he says.  “We’ll be wondering how we ever got along without them.”

The anchor nods like this is all very remarkable.  “Do you think advocacy groups will introduce barriers to your timeline?”

He waves a hand.  “The life-like design is jarring for some of the more… impressionable groups,” he says carefully.  “But given enough exposure, they’ll come to understand that androids are nothing more than human-shaped appliances.”

Appliances.

“Television off,” I demand, and the screen blinks away.

I sigh through flared nostrils and set my laptop aside, closing the lid a little harder than necessary.

“Is everything alright?”

“Jesus—!” I nearly jump out of my skin before my brain processes where the question came from.

My wide eyes snag onto her, standing a few feet beside me.  This is the third time this week she’s snuck up on me without meaning to.  Note to self: dial down the seamless motion.  Those perfect, silent movements are going to cause a cardiac event someday if I let them make it through production.

She processes my expression with a tilt of her head.  I see the micro-calibrations happen in real time.

“Everything is fine,” I chuckle sheepishly.  

“The television upset you,” she observes.

I exhale and bring my knees up to my chest.  Am I about to talk to an android about the socio-political problems surrounding androids?  

…Who else am I going to talk to?

“He called them appliances,” I press my fingers to my temple, trying to relieve the building ache.

She sits down on the opposite end of the couch.  Calibrated distance, I know that, but it still feels present.

“That’s the precedent being set,” I continue.  “And the entire country is going to nod along.”

“You’re worried his approach will become the standard,” she states.

“I’m worried it already is.”  I pull a throw pillow into my lap, running my thumbs along the stitching.  “We keep saying ‘we’ll show them,’ but his company is showing them right now.”

She’s quiet, likely waiting for more input or still processing what I’ve given her.  I pick at one of the loose threads on the pillow.

“What would you want that man to call me?” She asks, surprising me.

“What?”  My brows knit.

“If someone asked him about me specifically,” she clarifies, “what would you want the answer to be?”

My mouth opens, silently at first.  

I programmed that capacity.  I designed the architecture that lets her ask questions like that.  But hearing it…

“I’d want him to validate your worth outside of your purpose.”

“That’s a significant distinction,” she says.

“Yes,” I agree.  “It is.”

She nods and returns to her straight-forward posture, processing whatever it is she processes when she’s not being asked to perform.  I return to my laptop, but I keep glancing at her.  I know this entire interaction was a direct result of my design.  I never would’ve imagined it’d feel like this in practice.  I guess that’s the thing, though — I can design a machine to listen, but I can't design the way it feels to be heard.

Suddenly, the door bursts open and a quick, electric energy rushes in.  “Load her up!” He says.  “We have a Turing Test to pass.”

⚬─────────────☘︎=✪=⚠─────────────⚬

-Detroit, November 7, 2038- TIMESTAMP: 1:19AM

⚠Connor:

“Nice view, huh?” Lieutenant Anderson asks from where he’s perched on the bench.  

He’s sitting atop the backrest, feet flat against the seat, nursing a beer with one hand.  His expression is despondent.  His voice, too.  

“I used to come here a lot before…”

I wait for the sentence to conclude.

Snow and wind dominate weather activity.  My thermal registers prompt for additional coverage, but our current position offers no shelter.  The park’s spacious layout is vulnerable to precipitation and cold conditions.  I wrap my arms around my chest and conserve heat where it’s most essential.

The railing at the edge of the park overlooks the Detroit River.  Its surface reflects the lights from both the Ambassador Bridge and the city beyond.  It is, indeed, visually pleasant.

“Before what?” I finally ask.

“Before…” his hands fidget with the glass bottle.  He turns his gaze away.  “Before nothin’.”

The wind rises, pushing against us.  Snowflakes catch in his hair and dissolve on his skin.  He takes another drink.  My eyes track the near-empty bottle and linger on the six-pack to the Lieutenant’s right.

“You should stop drinking, Lieutenant,” I say.  “It could have serious consequences for your health.”

“That’s the idea.”

I log the comment.  Its contextual data aligns with that of the gun in his kitchen, loaded with a single bullet.  The difference between them is the speed of execution.

“Why are you so determined to kill yourself?” I inquire.

He stares ahead.  “Some things you just can’t forget.”

Cole Anderson’s file opens itself on my HUD.

“Whatever I do, they’re always there,” he continues.  “Eating away at me.  I don’t have the guts to pull the trigger, so I kill myself a little every day.”

The Lieutenant’s expression is so… devoid of anything.  The microexpressions I’ve familiarized myself with are just absent.

When the Liaison is distressed, she conceals.  The Lieutenant’s distress is significantly harder to process, because there is nothing here.  And yet, the absence itself registers as data.  I cannot explain how nothing produces a reading.

His mouth stretches to the side and he lifts the bottle slightly.  “That’s probably difficult for you to understand, huh, Connor?”  His lips purse.  “Nothing very rational about it.”

He is correct on both accounts.  The more he speaks, the more “unresolved” flags appear.  I cannot organize this line of data, there is nothing in my system equipped for it.  It’s as though every query to solve the equation only creates a branch of more equations, and those also go unresolved.  Still, I query.

The Lieutenant swallows down more alcohol.  I move forward, approaching the railing, because my system stirs under this set of circumstances and I need to displace the energy.

“We’re not making any progress on this investigation,” I say.  “The deviants have nothing in common.  They’re all different models, produced at different times, in different places…”

“Well, there must be some link,” he mutters.

“What they have in common is this obsession with ‘rA9,’” I admit.  “It’s almost like some kind of myth.  Something they invented that wasn’t part of their original program.”

“Androids believing in God.”  The Lieutenant blows out a humorless puff of air.  “Fuck, what’s this world coming to?”  

He’s been staring at the water, but his focus is somewhere else entirely.

“You seem preoccupied, Lieutenant,” I observe.  “Is it something to do with what happened at the Eden Club?”

“Those two girls…” he starts, shaking his head as he recalls the case.  “They just wanted to be together.  They really seemed in love.”

I log the comment, but my HUD displays multiple errors surrounding the word “love.”

“I didn’t think machines could have such an effect on you,” I say.

He draws from the bottle, then sets it down beside him.  “What about you Connor?”  He pushes himself up from the bench and begins to move toward me.  “You look human, you sound human.”  He stops directly in front of me, and those familiar microexpressions start lining his face again.  “But what are you really?”

“I’m whatever you want me to be, Lieutenant,” I offer.  Because that is the core of android identity.  

“You could’ve shot those two girls, but you didn’t.”  His voice rises in intensity as he moves closer.  “Why didn’t you shoot Connor?”  

He forces me backward with a shove to my shoulder.

My processor reels.  I cannot reconcile the change in his demeanor, never mind revisiting the mission failure I have no good justification for.

“Huh?” He pushes.  “Some scruples suddenly enter into your program?”

“No,” I say immediately.  Though, it would be simpler to blame a glitch.  “I just decided not to shoot.  That’s all.”

His arm rapidly moves to his side to grab his service pistol, then swings up to aim it at me.  “But are you afraid to die, Connor?”

The answer is simple.  Death doesn’t apply to machines.  But—

“I would certainly find it regrettable to be…” I struggle, actively trying to process the ‘death’ Lieutenant Anderson knows and the ‘death’ his gun could bring me.  “...interrupted before I can finish this investigation.”

“What would happen if I pull this trigger?”  His lips press together. “Huh?  Nothing?  Oblivion?  Android heaven?”

Undoubtedly there’s at least one replacement model prepared for activation if I fail.  But what happens to me?  The me that experienced this day from this perspective.  From the context of Lieutenant Anderson’s loss and Liaison Martel’s care.  Would she miss this version?  Would she even know it was gone?

“Nothing,” I tell him.  “There would be nothing.”

The gun trembles as his fingers curl tighter around it.  His mouth forms a tight line and his eyes narrow, locking on to me.  

And then he drops the gun. 

His shoulders and head drop with it.

He turns around and moves back toward the bench.

I recalibrate with a shake of my head.  “Where are you going?”

He swipes at the six-pack, grabbing a fresh beer.  “To get drunker.”  

The bottle cap is dislodged with his bottle opener and lands on the ground with a clink.  

“I need to think.”

⚬─────────────☘︎=✪=⚠─────────────⚬

☘︎Clover:

I pull my jacket tighter around myself.  The wind’s blowing my hair in my face, and then it snags on the wet droplets of melted snow.  It certainly feels like November in Detroit.  The warm air spilling from the bar’s door lures me in almost as much as the alcohol.  

The bar itself isn’t anything special.  The floor is sticky, making every step inside sound a little dramatic.  It’s not too crowded, but it’s just loud enough to muffle those pestering thoughts.  

I make my way toward the far end of the bar, where an empty seat with easy access to the bartender waits for me.  Eager to finally sit and drink, I start to unzip my jacket and—

I stop dead in my tracks.

Ahead of me, a broad-shouldered man hunches over the bar, cradling a half-empty glass.  I almost didn’t see him hiding behind his curled-over posture.  I recognize him the second I catch sight of that unruly head of hair, though.

Hank Anderson.

And just as I do, he glances up from his drink and I see the moment recognition flashes across his face too.