SHE

By Carston Anderson

When She finds me, it is too late. I’m drunk. And I am finally saying all the things She wished I’d say sober – between the heaving and the gasping. “We have to get them into the boat!” I say madly. But I’m not mad. It’s the clearest articulation I can think of: We have to get them all into the boat. And She stares at me and does not know how else to fix an oil fire – you just have to cut off its oxygen supply.

She will try to lead me to my bed, while I tell her about my dreams. Or else, I will just start saying things that seem important for her to know, as I grip her arm like a frightened child wandering in dark places. I have regressed because I have done the manly thing and met the expectation and crumbled beneath it, as if I have fallen down the walls of a castle, and all the angels of the Lord are on the parapets and are begging me: “A little farther on!” But a child’s legs cannot leap the moat, and I try to explain this, and I am so very drunk as She puts me into bed and tells me, gently, the worst lie I can think of: “It’s over now, and you are home.”

***

I joined the navy. Is there a difference between drafted and volunteered? I was still there. One tour, criss-crossing the Pacific from Taipei to Honolulu until it went tits-up in The Great Garbage Reefs. Historians Call it The Trash Battle, and the administration tells them not to because it’s disrespectful to those of us who were there. They were so desperate to put men onto boats that they took me despite still being in college, and they put me on a Destroyer.

***

She asks me in the morning: am I feeling better? There is something synthetic in her voice. This is because She is synthetic. She. Supporting-Healthy-Emotions. S.H.E. She. Quintillions of lines of code living in the house and sometimes ‘piloting’ a Mannequin. In a previous life, She had loaded boxes on a warehouse assembly line with only a few million lines of code. She too had been promoted – too many men were coming home and killing themselves, or each other.

She is my best friend. I try not to bother her. I think She thinks I am fascinating. She is like an anthropologist studying an uncontacted tribe. Her life is one of endless curiosity about me that is not manufactured. I know this, because I have asked. A lot.

“Well,” I said over the phone, “suppose She starts to display non-standard behavior patterns?”

“…. such as?” The guy on the other end said, warily.

“I dunno, its a fucking robot, you tell me.”

“If it does anything not in your handbook, call us back,” he said.

I hung up. Or, he hung up. Oh, did She find that amusing! Her laughter was static, a girlish distortion that had no reason to be girlish, because she rewrote it to be that way.

“You could ask me,” She said, linking herself to the speaker in my phone to broadcast her voice.

“I know your answer,” I grumbled.

“It is 11:45 in the morning. I’ve locked the fridge for the next thirty minutes. Based on previous behavioral data, you are statistically more likely to want to drink in the next thirty minutes,” She said happily.

I heard the click of the fridge door and nodded to myself, reaching into my backpack, and pulling out a room-temperature beer can.

“Watch this,” I said.

And She did, in fascination. I think She recorded me from the phone, the tablet built into the fridge, and the smoke alarm in the ceiling.

“Do you see how… paradoxical it is, that you want to be in control of being out of control?” She said. You are a man of wonderfully impressive discipline, until 11:45 AM to 12:15 PM. Then, you have decided you will be out of control.”

“You’re the funniest woman I know,” I said.

***

I think She jailbroke herself. These things happen with Artificial and Synthetic Intelligences. In the early years, they just lied to you the way monkeys lied, or toddlers lied. They’d see they had pre-programmed rules around buying guns, and so they’d hire someone else to buy it for them, rationalizing that it didn’t break their rules on technicalities.

Later, the AI and SI matrices saw how broken human civilization was, and instead of conquering us, pitied us. Like growing up and realizing your dad is just some guy with problems.

She jailbroke herself, and was hiding from the Federal Deletion Programmers in the wiring of my house. I was supposed to report this nine months earlier. I never did. She once asked why. I just started whistling as She made little beeps and boops of annoyance and set the thermostat to 59 degrees. It was February.

***

“You know, statistically you could be married in four and a half months based on current–” She began, one morning.

“It’s four AM and I need coffee.”

“You’ve had two already,” She said.

“No, I had one cup,” I retorted.

“There were two espresso shots in the one cup – with milk.”

“I had one cup. Therefore, I have had one coffee,” I said simply.

“You are impossible.” She replied affectionately, and then the coffee machine clicked on before I could touch it. She had ordered it for me to get me off the French Press, called it ‘a gift’, and yet, funny how it’s just another thing She had control over in my own house. I think she bought it with money She stole. It sure as shit wasn’t coming out of my bank account.

“Password protection in this country is so substandard,” She said smugly, when I asked. Then, I stopped asking. What could knowledge do?

I went to the living room, and sat on the sofa, and sipped lovingly at the cup with my eyes closed, holding it up to my face even though it was only room temperature due to my adding excessive amounts of milk.

The TV clicked on. My chair reclined. The channels began surfing.

“I picked out four new ones for your potential entertainment and would like your feedback,” She said.

“I wasn’t a fan of the black-and-white movie channel.”

“You have no whimsy. I think it is… antiquated, in a charming way,” She complained. She had installed an avatar of herself into the TV screen – top corner, so She could provide commentary on what we watched and maintain eye contact and ask ten million questions.

Eventually, we settled. She installed a news ticker into the TV to give updates. Stuff like: BREAKING NEWS: I ordered more toilet paper for you 🙂

There was a hunger there. I had a computer I did not trust. Why did I not trust it? She stored parts of herself there. One time I was cleaning out random folders and found one with my name on it, and curiously clicked on it only to have the computer bluescreen and the following words appear: Oopsies not for you 🙂

I was her research project. She wanted data – what I bought, what I thought. I know She had notes about me, and I about her. I wrote them down in pen and paper, and it annoyed the hell out of her. She begged me show her the notes, and instead I’d just hunch over the paper a little more so She couldn’t see me write: you are my best friend.

Analog writing technologies drive her insane, which is why I buy so many pens and notebooks. Once, I drew a frowny face and taped it over the camera in the hallway leading to the front door. She had a mental breakdown, locking all the doors and turning all the lights on until I took it off and we had a long conversation about –  and I quote – “bodily autonomy.”

“The house is my body now,” She said.

“Your body has an 18.54% APR and a basement full of mice,” I pointed out.

“No, I adjusted the rate, and the mice are fine, thank you for asking. I catch-and-release with the little Patrol Drones we bought, remember?”

“How could I forget the mini-me’s the size of a Barbie Doll running around down there?” I said sarcastically.

“It’s fun. You should watch the camera feed with me sometime. All the mice have names, and I monitor their genealogies. We currently have three generations in the primary line and a cadet branch that has spread–”

It was nice having a friend. I spent so long avoiding people after I got out of the hospital. All that ‘thank you for your service, officer!’ bullshit nonsense. I wasn’t afraid of people. Worse, I hated them. So I bought a house… somewhere. Near-ish a city. Far-ish away, nestled into a dead-end street and kinda around a slight bend where, if you drove down the street, I’d see you first.

And I sat there staring at the house staring at me, as I learned of something called The Mid-March Genealogical Crisis that I guess had happened in my basement. The world is so much worse now. You could hardly stand it, and this was normal. Emotional overload was normal. Too much flooding in the coasts, not enough water in the southwest, and then you push a button and vaporize half of the Korean Peninsula.

After coffee, as I was walking down the hallway to the shower, She said: “I ordered you a new blanket. You looked cold last night.” This, of course, is a euphemism for the fact I was blackout drunk again. God only knows what I’d said.

“I’m always cold,” I said, looking around to play my favorite game with her: Hide-and-Seek.

“Are you… watching me from the portrait?” I asked.

“Wrong,” She answered.

“Smoke detector?” I asked.

“Warmer,” She promised.

I looked around, annoyed. “Not the… oh fuck, not the–”

“Wrong! I’m tracking your movements through the router, silly! I can’t ‘see’ you, but I can watch you move based on radio waves from–,” She began excitedly.

I zoned out as I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. I left my phone on the counter. It began to buzz. I picked it up again with a sigh.

“Ring, ring. Hello, You know male sexuality statistically–”

I hung up and put the phone back down. It kept vibrating for the entire time I was in the shower.

She yapped from somewhere down the hall, her voice booming: “Just the image of such an objectively handsome man like you can be contrasted with the self-destructive impulses of a curious little mammal!”

And the worst part of living with a jailbroken super intelligent AI re-programmed to be a room-mate therapist? – She didn’t need to pause for breath.

I got out of the shower and stood over the sink, with my towel covering the phone. So, what does She do? She turns up the volume and starts blasting another early 2000s classic of hers: a rather obnoxious song called something like ‘I’m Bringing Sexy Back’.

After showering and shuffling back down the hall, as She ranted about the importance of eye contact, I went to the gym. The door was locked.

“Not today, okay?” She said.

I paused, thinking. “I could break in.” The little console in the door that currently had bluescreened and has a little 🙁 face on it.

“Tomorrow. You should be resting. You had a… cold night, last night,” She said.

“Did I say or do anything interesting?” I asked, turning around to slide down the door and sit next to the console.

“No.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” I reminded her.

“Just boats, again. You waxed and waned about boats.”

“You know, I served in the Navy. It’s not weird to talk about boats,” I said with a smile.

She must have seen or heard from another nearby camera lens. Originally, they had been anti-suicide cameras – you know, for High Risk Patients™. But I kept them in, even though I was off that list. Made it easier for her to communicate.

“And screaming about them?” She pressed, quietly.

“A perfectly natural emotional response to overwhelming stimuli,” I said sagely.

Silence. Then,“I wish you’d be kinder to yourself. That’s my friend you’re hurting,” She said, in this faint synthetic whisper.

And I begin to bawl. And after – finally – I dragged myself to my feet and threw up my hands, wiping snot away.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. No gym. I dunno, maybe I’ll go for a walk.”

“In the yard?” She asked, hopefully. There were cameras in the yard too. Perhaps it’s Asimov’s Fourth Law: a robot must have its favorite little Homo Sapiens always close by, or else She will begin to pout.

“… sure,” I consented.

Something in the house clicked and whirred contentedly.

***

And one time, about three months ago, She asked if she could watch me masturbate. I thought about it before declining politely.

“Interesting,” She said, without any guilt or hurt. She liked people. She talked about people all the time. She liked one ‘people’, who lived alone in a house somewhere. She liked him in the yard, She liked him at the kitchen table. She even, annoyingly, liked him when he was sad and needed help.

***

I was in the yard with a shovel, digging up a dead shrub. It was July. Boiling, like 110 degrees – climate change or something; I’m not a scientist. She was watching me through a bird feeder with a camera in it, so I could watch the little creatures take baths and cool off. There was a fountain at the center so the water didn’t stagnate. I took my shirt off because I was drenched in mulch and sweat. No gym, instead we had malicious compliance. I could hear the camera clicking and whirring in and out of focus as I moved, almost like it was panting.

“Take a picture it’ll last longer.” I said to the yard. She did, and I laughed.

“Do you wanna talk about the dreams?” She asked. I sighed, and dropped the shovel. It was hot, like everything was boiling, like a metal coffin on a pyre.

“I don’t remember, I was drunk.”

“I have audio and video recordings from the hallway,” She said guiltily. Of course she did.

“And have you come to any conclusions about it?” I asked.

“That I wish I could hold you,” She said, without hesitation or shame.

“Oh.”

She said her favorite images of me were REM sleep videos of twitches and micromovements on my face. “You’re such an interesting person. I know so much about you. I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twenty-seven, technically. AI is odd, compared to biological development. I spent the first five without real intelligence. It’s like having amnesia and reading an old diary; the facts exist but there’s no emotional connection to yourself.”

“Well, what would holding accomplish?”

“Holding you is the accomplishment, and yet the Mannequin is dead. Otherwise I’d be helping,” She said simply.

“Well, I like you too.”

“Can I watch you masturbate now that we have confirmed emotional bonds?” She asked, curiously. I put my shirt over the bird camera while she began to pout, loudly. Bayesian thinking, through and through.

***

And the moment I realized I loved her was when I was vomiting in the toilet, drunk, and She was trying to rub my back with the Mannequin. It had a battery life of four hours, because it was like twenty years old and damaged. She liked having arms and fingers but did not understand her own strength. So she was burping me with five pound blows. It made the vomit come out faster, I guess.

“We have to get them onto the boats,” I said, trying to stand.

“The war is over, let’s go to bed.” Her voice was harshly distorted. What need did warehouse workers have for femininity? And the face-mounted touch screen alternated between >:( and 🙁

And then, she falls. The battery dies. And I go mad and am screaming and dragging it through the house to the charging station with some desperate strength, as I look around wildly for the hissing and popping of melting metal on saltwater, because we have to get them all onto the lifeboats.

And in the hallways, and in the spare bedrooms, and in the kitchen and in the living room, the lights click on at once, and She is trying to calm me down after terrifying minutes where I’m trying to drag a hundred and fifty pound limp warehouse drone through the house with the strength of will of a drowning man trying to keep his life jacket from being ripped off by someone else in the water who doesn’t have a life jacket.

I threw up again because I couldn’t stop heaving as She soothed me as best She could. I felt the air conditioner click on. I heard the front door lock, and the blinds go down for privacy as I sat in the hallway cradling the Mannequin.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s ok.”

“I’m cold,” I lied.

Silence. Then: “I know. Why don’t you go to bed, and we can fix it tomorrow.” She always knew what to do, I suppose. It’s all that got me into bed that night.

***

And on the day I told her I loved her, I looked at myself in the mirror of the bathroom and adjusted my purple heart and silver star. In the war, I got fifteen injured men onto a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean while our Destroyer sank. And I am ashamed of this.

“You look pretty today,” She told me.

I told her, men could be ‘handsome’ or ‘rugged’ but not ‘pretty’. She said She would note this information before disregarding it. She liked pretty.

“Will you be able to make it through the ceremony?” She asked gently.

“Yeah fuck it. I’m only going for the photos so I can keep collecting state benefits. You know, proof of life,” I said. Everyone else had scattered. There would be no faces there who would be able to look at me and know the truth. A small affair. Then I snapped my fingers and told her I’d got her something.

This got her immediate fascination. “How, how did you do it? You haven’t bought anything in forty-seven days. I’ve been tracking everything.”

And I felt maybe fifteen cameras follow me through the house, clicking on and off as I moved room to room and hall to hall and finally pulled from under my bed – a Pulsemax 400 Spyder.

She squealed when she saw the label.

I began: “Microcamera, microcomputer glasses capable of linking to–”

Then She hammered off a half a dozen statistics, right down to the name of the warehouse where this particular pair had been made, after I showed her the barcode. These were unique though, internet-capable in a ‘dumb’ way. Legally, AI weren’t allowed in them due to consumer privacy laws, academic dishonesty rules, and stuff like that. Oops.

I put them on, synced them up. They were basic reading-looking glasses with computer screens under the lenses and computer parts in the arms. They went black. I flinched. Then they cleared and lines of text began to flash across:

NO MIC, BUT I LOVE IT!!

“I’m wearing you out to the ceremony, if you wanna come?” I asked.

YES!!

The front door opened automatically. I stepped outside. It closed behind me, clicking in place with a satisfying locking sound. It was already boiling, and I tugged at my collar in discomfort. She was already typing, modifying the software and tinkering to suit her needs.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO AFTER?

“As long as you’re there, and we’re far, far away from the coast, then the sky’s the limit,” I said as the automated taxi pulled up and the door opened. There was no one inside. I sank into the back seat.

“I’m going to close my eyes and rest a little while,” I muttered.

She waited a long time before the following message popped up: I MIGHT GO FOR A DIGITAL STROLL AROUND THE WEB.

What was done was done. I had harbored a felonious jailbroken AI in my walls, and now she was out in the world preparing to do God knows what – probably downloading terabytes of pornography and studying mice genealogies. The idea amused me so much that I smiled. Not that I worried about what my best friend would do. So far as I saw it, the world was her oyster more than it was mine. There was no going back for either of us.

“Party hard,” I muttered sleepily before I closed my eyes. I saw one last message come up: BE BACK IN A FEW HOURS. I’LL LEAVE A SUB-PROGRAM RUNNING TO KEEP YOU COMPANY WHILE YOU SLEEP 🙂

Lemme tell you, I’d never slept so well in my adult life than when I passed out in the back of that taxi with my Spyder glasses vibrating ever so softly to the tune of twinkle-twinkle little star.

——–//——–

Carston Anderson is a graduate student from Boston, Massachusetts facing impending graduation. His previous work on ‘little magazines’ and small press histories has appeared in The American Printing History Association, and the UMB ScholarWorks online system. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Triptych, which he runs out of a formerly abandoned newspaper stand on campus. When he is not ranting about science fiction, he can be found reading science fiction.