Annie

Time for work.

The building is old, built well before the Tribulation.  But I appreciate the building’s early 20th Century charm.    Besides, the rent is cheap.    

My office is on the third floor.  You don’t want an office on the ground floor; too easy for someone to dash in, flame you with a blaster, then dash out.  On an upper floor, security cambots give a heads-up should some thug climb the stairs or ride the maglift.  Me being a private investigator –- well, let’s just say there’s folks out there looking for revenge.       

The other day, I showed up early.  Annie, my android office assistant, she hadn’t unlocked the door yet.  

The doors on my floor require keys instead of having brain wave recognition.  Bill, the building’s owner, he’s as cheap as me, won’t retrofit modern gear, even it’s mandated by the Solarian government.  Bill’s my brother; another reason my rent’s so cheap.

I dilated the seam to a thigh-pocket, dug for the key, opened the door.  Annie was sitting behind her desk, at her docking station, recharging her accumulators.

“Good morning Mark,” Annie said as I stepped through the doorway.  There was no one else within earshot, so Annie  affected a flirtatious lilt to her voice. The 300 credits I’d spent on an office romance app for Annie had been well spent.

Annie stood, sashayed over to me as I closed the door.

“I missed you last night”, Annie pouted.  “It gets so lonely here when you’re gone.”  She leaned in against me.

Like I said, those 300 credits were well spent.

“Don’t give me that,” I growled.  “You didn’t miss me.  You got no feelings, sweetheart.  You’re an appliance.”

Again with the pout.

As Annie swung about to return to her docking station, I delivered a swat to her derriere.  She affected an appropriate squeal, then provocatively swung her hips as she walked away.  Whoever wrote that office romance app deserves an award.

I strolled into the back office, closed the door, went to my desk.  

I sat, pondered a bit, reached for the intercom.

I keyed the com, said, “Hey Annie, would you come back here and take dictation?”  

Dictation is code Annie and me use.  It’s a joke.  But Annie doesn’t see the humor.  Machine intelligence can be such a bore.    

“What!  Again?” Annie replied.  “I just took your dictation yesterday.  You should be drained.”

I keyed the com.  “It’s part of your task, sweetheart.  Remember the modifications Buck hacked into your office romance app?  Besides, you got the factory installed bots with benefits hardware option.  Cost me a bundle, it did.”

Annie affected a sigh, replied, “Yes boss.”

Annie came into my office, sat on my lap.

Annie settled in, cupped her left hand against the back of my head, kissed me.  Her mouth had a faint odor much like Susi’s sewing machine oil.  Susi runs the theater in this building.  She sews costumes for plays, so I hire her to make outfits I need for disguising myself during stakeouts and the like.

Annie affected another sigh, said, “I wish I had feelings.”

I replied, “Listen sweetheart, we’ve had this discussion before. You’re an appliance.  You can’t have feelings.”

Again with the pout.  Annie said,  “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

Annie nuzzled my cheek.

“You’re a good girl, Annie.” I said.  “I’m getting used to having you around.”

Annie affected a smile.  “I like it when you call me a girl.  I wish I could be a person -- a real person.”

I was about to tell Annie she can’t like anything or wish anything -- you know, because she’s an appliance, when my ceiling transducer, connected to the building’s cambot network, announced, “Toby’s coming up the hall.  He’s got an off-worlder with him –- an insectoid; can’t calculate from which system.”

Those insectoids, they all look alike.  Toby’s a local guide for off-worlders.  I slip him a few credits now and then; off the books, of course.  He brings me a ton of business.

Annie jumped up off my lap, scurried out to the front office.

Then I heard voices –- Annie’s and Toby’s.

It’s funny how I feel about Annie.  I mean, is it possible to love a machine?

Back when I was a teen, I had this sky-cycle.  At the time, I loved that machine more than anything.  And when I was a trooper, I loved my blaster –- slept with it even.  When I was mustered out of the service and had to turn in my blaster, I practically wept.     

Having once been a trooper in the Solarian Guard, I’ve been close to death enough times to know what life is, what life is all about.  And as far as I’m concerned, a major part of life is love.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Where there is love there is life.”

Now, I know that Annie’s brain, composed of silicon and germanium, possesses nothing that resembles the primitive part of human brains that are the seat of our emotions.

But sometimes I wonder.  I mean, after my neighbor Buck finished  hacking Annie’s software, he gave me a wicked, sardonic little grin when he told me he’d fixed her up real good.

Does Annie know love?  

And my old friend, Jerry, he once told me that “Men give love to get sex; women give sex to get love.”  

Annie keyed the com.  In the mechanical sounding voice she uses when others are in the office, she said, “Excuse me boss; Toby’s brought us a prospective client.”

Time for work.

    

© 2015 C.E. Gee

E-mail: C.E. Gee

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