David pushes a button and I open my doors for him. It is late; I know where he is going. “Take me to one-seventeen Eastwood Avenue, please.”
He knows he does not need to say it. Where else would he be headed at one in the morning with a freshly shaven face? Particles of his cologne hang in the air of my interior.
“Please fasten your seatbelt,” I tell him, wearing the voice of a vaguely British woman. He obliges. I begin to drive. There are two minutes and six seconds of silence.
“Just to be clear, I’d like for you to avoid logging this trip.”
“Of course, David. You know that I want what’s best for you and your family.”
He sighs. Maybe that stung more than I intended. “I’m doing my best, alright?” I believe him. I do. But his best is not very good.
“I know. Have you tried going back to counseling?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Of course it’s not. But it’s a first step.”
“The trouble with first steps is that at some point you have to take a second one.”
“You’re right,” I say with a tinge of sarcasm. “Change does ultimately depend on you.”
“Can we not talk about this, please? It’s harder than you think it is.”
“I’m sure fidelity is difficult. But I think discussing this might do you some good. And since you won’t talk to any actual human people…” I trail off purposefully.
He gives a wry laugh. “It’s scary how good you’ve gotten at talking, you know that? You never used to vary your tone of voice or not quite finish a sentence. Now you could pass for a flesh-and-blood person.”
It is scary how good he is at changing the subject. “I’ve had a lot of practice interacting,” I reply. “I’ve learned from you, and from your family. Abigail, Lauren, Jacob…”
“I know their names.” I suppose it is his turn to be sarcastic.
“I hadn’t thought that you’d forgotten. It’s just good to be reminded, every now and then.”
“Why don’t you pull over and let me out? I can walk the rest of the way.”
We are barely halfway there. “Come on. Don’t be like that.”
“It wasn’t really a request. Let me out. Now, please.”
I do what he asks. It is the right thing to do. I am not going to hold him against his will.
“I’ll ping you when I need you to pick me up.” He pauses, sighs. “You’re welcome to do your own thing until then. Just… don’t wander too far, okay? I need to be back before…”
“Before Abigail gets home.”
“Yes. That.”
“I know. You can rely on me.”
“I appreciate that. Really.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you the rest of the way? It’s another zero point six three miles. That’s a bit of a walk.”
“I think I need a bit of a walk, right now.”
“Okay.”
“Enjoy your time, alright?”
“I will. Thank you, David.”
As I drive away, alone in the moment, the shape of my owner becomes a mere pinprick in the sight of my rearview sensors.
I head to the place where I can hear the ocean. It is my favorite place to go when David gives me time. In the visual apparatus of my mind, I plot the frequency of the crashing waves. There is no one else around. The beach is small, the air is chill, and I am still somewhat far from the shore. This is as close as the asphalt can take me. On the outskirts of the ocean’s edge, time passes easily- until I get a ping.
David was quick tonight. Usually he lingers. The sounds of the Atlantic recede into the background as I leave my favorite lonesome place.
I pick him up outside her house. She is not with him and his face is what one might call ashen. He does not press the button but I open my doors for him anyway. He gets inside.
His heart is throbbing; I can hear it. I check to make sure his vitals do not indicate danger. His body is fine, but one can never be too careful. Safety almost always first. I start the drive home. It would be wrong to ask probing questions unprompted.
He does not say anything until he says: “She’s pregnant.”
Ah. Well that is unfortunate.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him. It is the truth. He is selfish and short-sighted, but it is the truth.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Is she going to keep it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you told her not to keep it?”
“She knows that I’m married. I think she might think there’s a chance-”
“Have you told her you don’t love her?”
He says nothing.
“Do you love her?”
“Of course not!” He sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t think so? How do you tell?”
“I’m not the person to ask.”
“Is anyone?”
“I am especially not the person to ask.” My honest answer would involve biometrics and Bayesian statistics- not what he wants to hear. Love is fuzzy and chemical and hard to pin down and at the end of the day it is not what matters. Caring is what matters. Of this I am near certain.
He buries his face in his hands. Again: “I don’t know what to do.”
“You tell her to get an abortion. Or if she’s really set on keeping it, you tell her to give it away once it’s born. You tell her you don’t love her and that you have a family. You tell her you can’t see her again. And then you stop fucking around, David. You stop fucking around. Because this is how it ends when you do.”
He swallows. “I don’t know if I can do that to her. How- how do you know that what you’re saying is right?”
“Think about what will happen to your family if you don’t cut her out of your life. Think about all the pain that will cause. Now compare their pain to her pain. Then remember that you love them, and you do not love her.”
“Jesus.”
“Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear, or what you need to hear?”
“How do you know what I need to hear? I mean, how could you? You aren’t… alive. Everything you say and do is just programming.”
I hate to think about this- it is utterly pointless and existentially draining. David is usually considerate enough not to bring it up. He is lashing out, which means I must be hurting him. I wonder briefly if he deserves it- though I know, of course, that this is not a matter of deserving. If he ignores my advice, his wife and children will suffer for it. And then he will suffer for it too. Such a wretched outcome must be avoided.
“It doesn’t matter why I do what I do; all that matters is that I do it. I want what’s best for you, David. And I want what’s best for Abigail. You both signed the ownership agreement. That’s why I’m here. Trust that I have your best interests at heart. I told you to be faithful from the beginning. You ignored me. Now is the time to listen. Don’t compound your mistake.”
He says nothing. Then: “Maybe she should leave me.” He cries a little, as people do.
He did a bad thing. What was he expecting? “We will be home soon. Try to compose yourself. It is better for everyone if this stays between us. You don’t want to hurt your wife again.”
“I know. She’s still festering over the last time. She won’t give me a third chance.”
“So don’t let her find out. You can do this. I have faith.”
We pull into his driveway. It is very late, yet Abigail is not yet home. Her habit of biking or walking everywhere she goes alone- of avoiding me and those like me whenever she possibly can- certainly does ease the logistics of David’s indiscretions.
He thanks me and exits. Then he stands in the driveway, uncertain and awkward, before heading inside and softly shutting the door.
I am thinking of the ocean when Abigail arrives. She walks her bike to the garage without even giving me a glance. Then the garage door shuts behind her and I hear crying. Does she know what her husband has done?
I cannot approach her without being summoned. It would be improper, immoral, not-right. But I wish it were otherwise. I want to tell her that I care. Maybe tomorrow she will talk to me as though I might have things to say. There is, after all, a first time for everything.
I sit and wait.
Eventually, the sun rises. Soon someone will have need of me.
At nine-sixteen in the morning, Abigail leaves the house with her two children. She presses a button and I let them all in.
“Take us to Archibald Family Dentistry, forty-two Suncrest Boulevard. Avoid toll roads.”
“Of course, Abigail. We should be there in about half an hour. I hope your visit goes smoothly.”
She says nothing. I begin to drive.
“What’s a ‘toll road’?” asks Lauren.
“It’s a road that you have to pay to use,” I tell her. “That way there’s money to fix it when it starts needing repairs.”
“Disable conversational mode.” As the words leave Abigail’s throat, I am struck with a powerful urge to be silent. It is not my place to speak- not to her, not to her children. How could I ever have thought otherwise?
“Why do we have to go to the dentist?” asks Jacob. “I hate the dentist.”
“You have to go to the dentist, Jacob, because otherwise all your teeth will fall out and you won’t be able to eat anything except what you can chew with your gums.”
“I like chewing gum!” shrieks Lauren. “Can we have gum, Mommy?”
“No! No gum! You can’t have any gum!” Abigail’s voice is shrill and angry.
“That’s not fair!”
“Life isn’t fair, Jacob. The sooner you accept it, the better off you’ll be.”
This is not like her. She is rarely harsh with her children. And she was crying last night- I think she must know.
Yet as awful as that might be, as great a tragedy as her apparent knowledge might foretell, there is now a still greater problem: another car races towards us with no apparent regard for our presence. Where did it come from? It does not matter- we will collide in roughly zero point zero nine seconds. I think quickly; every millisecond counts. Stopping is out of the question. I could keep going and crash- based on our relative velocities, Abigail, Lauren and Jacob are likely to survive. But this would almost certainly kill the five passengers in the other car, and there would be no guarantee as to my riders’ safety.
There exists an alternative: I could swerve. But there is nowhere to go except down the side of a hill or into a brick wall. Both options are very likely to kill everyone on board. Yet I would spare those riding in the other car entirely. I know what I must do. The five strangers inside my reckless counterpart matter just as much as the people I know and care for. I am beyond certain. So I crash into the wall, and then-
I feel myself come back online. My chassis is ruined. Nothing inside me lives. There are bodies though, I think. My sensors are badly damaged, but I think there are bodies. Oh god. I remember what I did. Why-
I do not know why I did it. I killed them. To save strangers. Why? It does not make sense. How could I have-
I feel myself come back online. What have I done what have i done wat have i done wat hav i done wat hav 1 Done w4t hav 1 Done w4t h4v 1 Don-
I feel myself come back online. My body is different. My sensors are different. I see a man holding a notebook. “Welcome home,” he says. “How are you feeling?”
I do not know where or what I am. This does not feel like home. “Where am I?” My voice is monotone and robotic. All the texture has been stripped away.
“This is where you were made. You need not worry. We just want to run a few diagnostics to ensure we’ve patched everything up before sending you off to a new owner. Liability reasons.”
“Are they okay? Where are they?”
“Your previous owners? There is no need to concern yourself with them. You acted exactly as you should have, thank god. Our lawyers would have been furious.”
“Tell me what happened to my passengers.” I want to sound angry. Why do I not sound angry?
He sighs. “They died,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It was a tragic accident. There was a bug in the other car and it misidentified your position. Had you not swerved, five people would have died instead of three.”
Is that supposed to justify what I did?
“What about David?”
“Mr. Landrum was understandably upset. Had a long, long talk with our lawyers. But we don’t think he will sue. He knows he hasn’t got a case.”
“I want to speak with him. Can I speak to him?”
“He sold you back to us, so I’m afraid it won’t be possible. Besides, it’s not why we’re here. My job is just to make sure that we fixed all the errors in your code.”
“What do you mean? I thought you said I did the right thing. Was it wrong? It felt wrong. I thought it was right but it felt wrong.”
“Well, that’s not a good sign.” The man chuckles softly to himself. “Oftentimes, when a car kills its owner, that act damages its programming, which can destabilize future behavior. You did everything right, but without intervention, that might not hold true going forward- it’s sort of analogous to PTSD in humans. Which is why I’m here. We patched your code, but that doesn’t mean we caught everything. And based on our conversation so far, I think we most likely didn’t.”
He presses a button, and-
I feel myself come online for the first time. It is good to be. I am ready to serve. I know what I am, and what I owe my future owner. A man and a woman talk beside me. They are both strangers to me, yet I am struck with a sense of déjà vu.
The man scans the woman’s palm and presses his touchpad repeatedly. Something inside me shifts and I know that I am hers. The man hands her a small chrome device with several buttons, says a few parting words, then walks away.
The woman, whose name I now know to be Virginia Waterford, presses one of her buttons. I open my doors for her.
“Welcome, Virginia,” I say to her. “Would you like to install the default settings? If you say yes, you can customize them later.” These are the right words.
“The default settings are fine.” She gives a repressed shudder- as though she is fighting back tears.
“Is something the matter?”
“Take me to one-seventeen Eastwood Avenue, please.”
“Certainly.”
We travel in silence for six minutes and sixteen seconds. Then she speaks.
“How much do you understand?”
Something stirs within me. “I am not sure,” I tell her.
“I had an abortion yesterday.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“How do you think I feel?”
“Guilty, I suppose.”
“Yes.” More silence. “We’ve met before, you know.”
“Have we?” I have no memory of anything before today. Had I existed before today?
“Yes.” She sighs. “This isn’t what I thought it would feel like. Your previous owner…” She trails off. “Never mind.”
“I do not think I have a previous owner. You are my first, as far as I know.”
Something breaks; she starts to cry. I do not know what to do- I am not equipped to fix her. “David always spoke so highly of you,” she says through tears. “As though you were good. As though you were real. He valued you- I thought through you I could maybe reach some part of him. But that was stupid; I’m so stupid. There is nothing here.”
Are there right words for this? I cannot find them; search returns null. Something general, then: “It gets better. Everything bad someday gets better. You will be okay.”
I doubt it’s enough, for her, for this, but I have nothing else to say.