Futopia

"You're very pretty." he said as he examined her.

"You're very ... intense." She was going to just finished rinsing her hair but then she added, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Letting me do that. I've wanted to do that for, wow years now. I just get this urge like I want a man. I want a man to be on me and go in me and just ... take me. I want a big strong man to let me be a woman."

"You are a woman." Johnny said as he smiled and knew better.

"I know. It sounds stupid but that's the best I can say it. It's a kind of feeling I get but then I feel bad about feeling that way because ..."

"People would look down on you if they knew what you were thinking." Johnny said as he remembered saying something very similar in the lab once about how he just wanted to be allowed to take a woman and be on top of her.

"I'm glad you understand."

"We have to look out for each other."

She got out and reached to grab a towel while Johnny washed up a bit more.

"So, do you have any plans for the week. I have to go back in six days."

"Well, have to is a relative term."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you have a job you need to get back to?"

"Studies if I can't find a job while I'm here."

"I'm actually hiring at the moment. I was looking for someone with experience in robotics."

"Drat, I'm a psychology major."

"Is that so? Well, I supposed I could pay you to just ... I don't know, keep me company and bounce ideas off of but that seems like a waste of your time if I'm only paying div and a half."

"Div and a half! I'll be the highest paid psychologist on the continent."

"Not true. I attended a talk by Syougn."

"Really? Why?"

Johnny turned the water off and stepped out. "He had some theory that as AI gets more advanced the machines will start to have their own complicated psychology that will eventually mirror humans." Johnny put out his hand for a towel. "Of course if he spent any time looking at how we actually made robots he'd know that the AI trained for one robot would be totally different and independent than an AI trained for a different task. While theoretically possible, in practicality it's impossible for two AI to overlap even if they were both trained to do the same task. There are literally so many multiple ways of achieving the same results that the best you could say is convergent evolution."

Johnny, pulled the towel away from his hair and saw that the woman wasn't really listening at all. She was fixing her eyes on his body. There was a pause and then she snapped back. "Oh, right. Very interesting."

"Sorry. I can get really into my work."

She was about to say something in response when the chime to the door drew their attention. Quickly he wrapped a towel around himself and went to answer the door. That must be his clothes hot off the press. He expected a robot but found some girl in a uniform there with a box.

"Whoa." the delivery woman said when a nearly naked man was standing in front of her. She recoiled and covered her eyes with her hand.

"Sorry." Johnny said as he hid himself halfway behind the door.

"I have a delivery for ..."

"My clothes. Thank you."

"I didn't expect that you needed them that bad."

"Yeah, sorry again."

"Just put your print on the pad."

"Do I have to pay extra for human delivery?"

"No. This is my community service. Now hurry up, man."

"Community service?"

"You want to hear my whole backstory or something? I flipped off a cop and they busted me. Now sign the damn thing and let me get out of here. Geez, man, and wear something more than a damn towel when you answer your door or next time just let me leave the package outside."

"Sure." Johnny said as he took the box from the girl who had almost completely turned her back to him to avoid looking at him. He pressed his index finger to the pad and it recognized his signature. "Thank you, again."

"Yeah, whatever, man." the girl said as she snatched the pad away and then just rushed off.

Johnny half thought he'd been a jerk and he should apologize more but also took umbrage at the clearly unprofessional behavior. Then again, being forced to do robot work for free as community service must mean she was ungovernable or some such. Johnny closed the door and then opened the box so he could start getting dressed.

Damn. He had expected to be able to get the delivery robot to also bring his sweaty clothes to be laundered and returned to his house. Now he was going to have to either carry them home with him or wait again.

"You look nice." Megan said.

"Thanks."

Before leaving he got the contact details for 'Megan' and he had to to admit again that the robot was going above and beyond what he thought she was capable of. She had full on stolen some real person's identity and was presenting herself to him as the real Megan with login access to the real Megan's contact. If not for the super fast and easy set up to get to sex he would definitely believe she was the real person and not something he'd had built.

"So, in your professional opinion, should I come and interview for that job or would I just be wasting your time."

"My time. It's really about your time. Should I pay you to have access to your time?"

"Well, I'm willing if you are."

"Come on down. I'll give you a tour of my lab. It's just a small operation right now but who knows."

"Count me in." she said.

She gave him a kiss on the cheek as he left and as the door closed he wondered how long it would take her to get to the apartment.

That question in him mind was seemingly answered when he got back. After unburdening his sweaty jogging clothes onto a robot to go have laundered for him, he found Alice 2.0 already in the lab waiting for him.

"How did you get here so fast? And back in your original skin?"

"I have accomplished one of my tasks, sir."

"Just one?"

"At this time. Would you like to analyze the data at this stage or should I continue and attempt to ..."

"Upload it." Johnny said with a smile. He wanted to know what it was like on her end to do the sex with him.

A lot of code and data blocks started to transfer to the main.

"No. No. Show me video. I mean, I want all that but show me what you saw."

"Yes, sir."

A video started to play and then Johnny had to do a double take. It was a video showing him answering a door in a towel. Johnny's mouth dropped. "Uh ... delivery girl?"

"Indeed. Did you know it was me?"

"No, I did not. So ..." Shit! That meant that Megan was FUCKING REAL! Real girl! A Real Woman. Oh, boy. But ... how ... he was so sure. What were the odds that he really would just randomly run across someone who wanted to do sex and with him of all people? This was blowing his mind. "What about the other time you fooled me?"

"I made an attempt pretending to be a fellow jogger but your facial expression revealed that there was a high probability that ..."

"Last night! Last fucking NIGHT!"

"I made not attempt to fool you last night."

"But that can't be. I saw you."

"Of course you did. I made no attempt to fool you last night."

"I mean I saw you trying to fool me when I came back to ..." Johnny paused. "Where were you last night? What were you doing?"

"I reported for work at Ehtrch co. and performed tasks in exchange for day wages which I used to purchase my costume to make my attempt."

"That can't be. You have to have ... or that means ..." The realization of it developed in his mind though he refused to let himself put words to it. "Well, good job but you forgot about your second task."

"Should I try again with that as my primary task?"

"No. I need to rethink this. I need to rethink this whole thing."

"As you wish, sir. If you would like to adjust my duties in any way, I will be happy to perform any tasks you set me to."

"I know. I know."

Johnny staggered out and felt his stomach burn through itself. He got down to his apartment where his sister would be either waiting on call in case city hall called her in or using her VR to pretend to fly. As it turned out she was on video chat with someone. Johnny didn't interrupt them. He just ordered a BLT for lunch and the kitchen robot went to prepare it.

Johnny sat and tried to both look at his sister and also try to not look like he was looking at his sister.

The call ended and his sister bounced over to him and smiled. "Where have you been all day?"

"You know. Jogging and working."

"Someone came by asking if they could drop off their CV. I put it in your mailbox."

"Thanks."

"What's a CV?"

"A resume."

"Oh, so like a special one just for robot stuff."

"I guess you can think of it like that if you want."

"What's wrong?"

"Uh, nothing. Why? Are you ok?"

"Me. Yeah."

"Did anything happen last night at racket ball?"

"No. It was ok. Why are you ... Oh, you know don't you."

"Know what?"

"Come on. Don't make me say it. It's already embarrassing enough."

"You were sleepwalking last night."

"Yeah, but you know I've been getting better. I went almost a year without an episode."

"What happened to your alarm? Your watch?"

"I fell asleep in the tub when I was taking a soak. Can you believe that? I'm so sorry. I'll have to just wear the watch even when I shower I guess."

"No, you don't have to do that. Seems overkill. You didn't get hurt did you?"

"I don't feel any injuries. Catcher says you tried to wake me up and help me to bed."

Johnny let out a nervous laugh as a chill ran down his back and branched out to his arms. "Well, we have to take care of each other."

"Thank you."

"Catcher needs to do a better job cause I didn't see that little guy at all."

"No? I wonder why?"

"Well, I'm glad you're not hurt."

"The funny thing is, when I first woke up, I didn't think to remember if I'd gone to bed or not. I felt great like life was this big rush of energy and opportunity. I was eating breakfast before I even noticed that my watch was gone. When I found it in the bathroom I figured out what must have happened."

"So, what do you want for lunch?" Johnny changed the subject.

Joy tossed her head from one shoulder to the other. "What did you order?"

"Just a BLT."

"You know, what if we didn't eat here and went out of lunch?"

"The CIM ok with that?"

"Oh, yeah. Oh, well. I'll just get a BLT too then."

"I think I need to apologize to you." Johnny said.

"For what?"

"I think I did something stupid and it could complicate stuff."

"Like what?"

"I met a woman and ... we sort of ... kissed a bit."

"Get out. Really? Who?"

"Her name's Megan. She's visiting for a few days and I happened to bump into her. I can't explain how it happened but one thing led to another and then I was kissing her."

"Wow. I wish I could have seen it."

"Really? But you keep ..."

"I want to see it so I can mock you for acting like a barbarian."

After lunch Johnny went to his bedroom. He was too big and too muscular to ball up in the fetal position so instead he just had to lay there and let his emotions flame through him and burn themselves out. After about an hour of him just laying there looking up at his blank there was a tap at his door.

"Are you ok?" Joy asked him. "I'm sorry about the barbarian thing. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

Johnny sat up and shook his head. "It's ok. I was actually thinking about something else."

Joy came and sat next to him. "Alice on your mind? I told you not to go meet her." She put her arm around him and then tired to get him to bring his head to her shoulder.

"I'm sorry." he said again.

"Why do you keep saying that?" she asked.

"You know just ... I can't ... I did something and you're never going to ..."

She stopped him from speaking and then took a deep breath. "Dammit. I guess I better say it cause you're flipping out. I wasn't sleepwalking."

His eyelids seemed pull open to the top of his forehead. "Wait! What!?"