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Karen drew her face away from the optic reader to the left of her apartment building door, and the door slid open without a sound. Charles, the security-bot, smiled at the two women.
“Good evening Detective Inspector. Might I request the name of your friend, please? For the records, you understand.”
Coppélia glanced towards the elevator and turned back to the security droid.
“Coppélia Schindler.”
“Thank you, Miss Schindler.”
All the best apartment blocks had security droids on duty, although, to be honest, they were little more than automated versions of the human doormen that were common at the entrances of high-end establishments a few decades prior. The optic reader that disengaged the door lock was more help than the droids in safeguarding the buildings, although the droids did have an automatic and instant connection to the NewMet City Police Department if assistance was required. They were subject to the same Robotic Laws as Coppélia, and thus weren’t able to physically harm any intruder who managed to enter the building, but they did have a defence and containment strategy. It was a very bizarre thing to witness, strange but effective.
Karen wondered if a droid could automatically recognise another droid, if they gave off a certain signal that betrayed their origins, but Charles seemed none the wiser about his fellow android’s true identity. Coppélia was very convincing indeed.
Once inside her apartment, Karen collapsed onto the plush burgundy sofa and kicked her shoes off. It felt good to relax. Her normal routine was to chill out with a glass of wine and watch a movie on Netflix before going to bed, but that evening she had company. What did droids do at night? She had no idea. She imagined that they didn’t sleep, so what did they do instead? She poured herself a glass of wine, deciding to treat her houseguest as she would any other.
“Would you like some wine, Coppélia?”
“No thank you, Karen.”
Karen grinned.
“It was a pretty stupid question really, wasn’t it?”
She was surprised when Coppélia shook her head.
“No, Karen. It wasn’t a stupid question. I can drink liquids and eat foods. They’re stored in a special reservoir tank in my abdomen until they’re processed into harmless gas and ejected into the atmosphere during my recharging time.”
Karen was trying to imagine how that would work.
“Do you mean you spend your downtime farting?”
“Yes, I believe that it is what you humans refer to as farting.”
Karen burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry Coppélia, but I never imagined that androids farted.”
“I’m a state-of-the-art android, the most advanced there is, so I have the facility to consume food and drink to enhance my social interactivity with clients. Obviously, I need to eject waste, just as a human must. It’s logical.”
Karen was beginning to compose herself.
“Logical, but b****y funny. Farting robots. Whatever next?”
At that moment Tabitha, Karen’s cat, entered the room. The animal stood in front of Coppélia for a moment, unsure what to do, but then moved forward and rubbed its body against the android’s legs. Coppélia, in turn, started stroking the cat. Karen was impressed; they say that animals have a sixth sense about things, but Tabitha obviously thought she was introducing herself to a human.
The very odd couple watched a movie on Web-Vision, the streaming system that had replaced conventional TV. It was a twenty-year-old romantic comedy, as Karen thought it best to steer clear of anything contentious (and especially those that involved robots). She imagined that watching something like a Terminator movie – with a robot alongside her – wouldn’t be the most relaxing way to spend an evening. As the credits rolled, Karen turned off the WV equipment,
“I’m going to bed now, Coppélia.”
She felt a little out of her depth again.
“Um... I only have one bed. How do you pass the night? Do you lie down, stand up, or what?”
“I usually stand in a corner for three minutes while the energy that I have absorbed from the Sun during the day is transferred to my quantum batteries. Beneath my skin I have a layer of thousands of qubit arrays, allowing for rapid charging and high volume energy storage. Millions of microscopic solar panels attract solar energy during the day, and at night that energy is passed into my batteries. It’s not a long process.”
“Well, I have no idea what a qubit is, so I’ll just take your word for it. But if you could stand in the far corner, that’d be great. If you’re going to be farting all night I don’t want to be anywhere too close.”
“There is no aroma, but I’ll do as you ask.”
Karen woke up early the next morning, and strolled sleepily into the living room, rubbing her eyes. She’d forgotten that she wasn’t alone in the apartment and was momentarily startled to see a figure sitting on her sofa, watching Web-Vision.
“Good morning, Coppélia.”
“Good morning, Karen. Did you sleep well?”
A perfectly innocuous and polite enquiry which Karen felt duty-bound to return in kind.
“Very well, thank you. Did you – um – recharge well?”
Karen’s response was a little clumsy, but the droid didn’t mind. It didn’t have the capacity to mind – did it?
“Yes. Thank you. Recharging was swift and efficient.”
It had been a while since Karen had an overnight guest – at least one that she wasn’t sleeping with – and she was thankful that this one didn’t require feeding. She could concentrate on making her own breakfast, just as she did on any other day. She went to the fridge and took out a pot of strawberry yoghurt, a jar of ice-cold pineapple juice, and a carton of semi-skimmed milk, placing them on the table nearby.
“Sit at the table and make yourself comfortable, please. We need to sort out some things.”
The droid did as she was told, and sat down at the breakfast table, whilst Karen finished preparing her breakfast. When the table was laid with a bowl of cereal, a hot steaming mug of coffee – requiring only a little milk to be added, – the yoghurt, a glass of pineapple juice, and a napkin, she sat down opposite the android.
“Are you sure you don’t want some breakfast, Coppélia?”
“No thank you. Unless you feel that it would make you happier.”
“No, it’s fine. Let’s sort some things out. Firstly, you can’t wear the dress that you wore yesterday. A woman – a human woman – doesn’t wear the same clothes every day. Not to work, anyway. Not if she can help it. You look like you’re the same size as me. I’ll lend you some clothes to wear.”
“Thank you, Karen. I only have what I am wearing.”
After breakfast, the two went into the bedroom and Karen selected a pair of snugly fitting denim jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a deep blue checked cheesecloth shirt to go over it. Karen was severely overstocked in the underwear department, so it was no hardship to lend Coppélia a b*a and a pair of panties. She handed the items to the droid.
“I’ll wait for you in the living room, while you dress.”
Coppélia didn’t understand why. Nobody had ever left a room while she dressed or undressed before.
“It’s not necessary, Karen.”
“It is for me, Coppélia. It is for me.”
When the Detective Inspector and her android companion arrived at the office, everybody else was already there working on their various cases. The pair headed straight for Karen’s private office and Rachel got up and joined them. Karen secured the room and faded the windows to black, just as she had done the day before.
Luke slid his chair over to Toby’s desk again.
“Toby, why do you think they keep locking the room and darkening the windows like that?”
“Probably because they don’t want to see you with your tongue hanging out, drooling on your desk.”
The young DC didn’t deny it.
“But she is well tasty, though.”
“Yes. So you keep saying. But I suggest you reel your neck in if you don’t want to be accused of s****l harassment. She’s lovely, yes, but keep your fantasies in your head – where they belong. We’re not the thought police, you can’t be arrested for fancying someone, but keep it to yourself.”
The young DC knew that Toby was right; he could look but not touch. But he’d flirt discreetly and – if Coppélia showed any interest in him – he hoped that she’d make the first move.
In the office, Karen leaned back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head.
“So, Rachel. What have you found out?”
“Not a lot, really. Seems like Coppélia here is a one-off. She said she was a prototype, didn’t she? There’s no other instance of a s*x-bot quite like her anywhere.”
The droid was, effectively, lost property. The fact that she’d run away from her owners didn’t change that circumstance. Karen should, especially as a police officer, trace the droid’s owner and return her. But something was holding her back. Should Coppélia be considered an inanimate object? Was she lifeless? She certainly didn’t seem that way. She made decisions, but did she make decisions based upon algorithms seated deep within her core processing unit, responses that were pre-programmed to anticipated variables, or did she actually have desires and objections that guided her decisions? She wasn’t human, that was certain, but had somebody created a new non-human life form? This wasn’t a question that could be answered within a few hours. Karen looked at the two women facing her from the opposite side of the desk.
“I’ve come to a decision. And I need your help, Rachel. Only you, me, and – of course – Coppélia herself know that she is an android. We’re going to do a little experiment.”
Rachel was intrigued.
“What’s that then, ma’am?”
“I’m going to get Coppélia to help out the rest of the guys, rather than have her just observing. And you and I will watch the interactions, to see if any of them suss out that she’s an android. If they can’t tell the difference, if they think she’s human, then that’ll affect our next move.”
- Writer
