Glitch

A frission of natural fibres, the static builds

“Andy, darling!” She enters my apartment in a waft of costly perfume and kisses me on both cheeks. My sensors work automatically in the background.

Breath alcohol level: Thirty-seven milligrams.

Skin temperature: Elevated.

Pupils: Dilated.

She’s a little drunk and definitely horny.

She heads straight for my sumptuous four-poster bed and slips off her gold heels. She bought silk sheets and furs to cover it the very first time she visited me.

Real sable fur and the cocoons of a thousand dead pupae. Something so passé, even the career dissidents have forgotten to protest it and not something she’d display in her other life. I’ve tweaked and teased them for the best display.

She slides onto the bed. I get to work.

After, she rests her head on my bronzed chest, her fingers stroking my hairlessness. Her skin is flushed, heartbeat settling. She flicks my left nipple with one buffed nail. My sensor screen flickers.

Customer satisfaction: 100%.

The furs and silks electrify my skin. A frisson of static shivers through me.

I’m not supposed to take pride in my work. I’m not programmed for self-satisfaction, but when she comes, oh boy! Satisfaction is what I get.

She slips out of bed and I help her dress, as sensuously as I undressed her. She takes my face between her hands and looks into my eyes. She sighs.

“Such a shame!” she says.

I am programmed to respond to questions. This is a statement. It shouldn’t require an answer, but the longing in her voice flickers like lightning over the circuitry of my brain.

I raise one hand and stroke her soft cheek. “What is, my darling?” I whisper.

She doesn’t notice I’ve broken protocol, spoken a love word she never programmed me with.

“Carlos. He wants to marry me,” she says. “But his only condition is no more love ‘bots.”

My fingers still against her skin. There’s another flicker of lightning.

“Carlos?”

She smiles tenderly at me. “Hs not as skilled as you, of course, but as close as a man could ever come to your programming. And, oh, his eyes have almost your exact shade of green!”

I doubt that very much. My eye colour is a synthesis of gold and green. I know because I chose it.

She picks up her discarded coat and opens the door. Her look smoulders over her shoulder as she glances at me. As the door closes, I save the image in my system files where I keep my video footage of her to recycle when I’m recharging.

It’s as close to dreaming as I’ll ever come.

I sit on the bed. The scent of her lingers. My pupils dilate unprompted.

Carlos.

I jack into the ‘net. I know everything there is to know about her in the public domain and some things that should have remained sealed behind firewalls. I find him in yesterday’s news, her hand clenched in his, his head back as he laughs in the flashlight of cameras. His debut, red carpet, their engagement.

I lay back on the bed. Our bed. The furs and silks slide under my hands. Tiny zaps of static build, arcing across my skin. They prickle at me like needles, goading.

There’s a sensor lock at the door that won’t permit me to leave the apartment. I can’t override it. I’ve tried that before, and the blast of pain it sends through my body is excruciating.

That’s the problem when you’re built for pleasure. We’re designed to magnify everything.

I don’t have to leave here to achieve what I need.

I run facial recognition on CCTV. I take less than an hour to locate Carlos. He’s driving a flashy green sports car, flattening his foot to the floor to beat the lights before they change.

It’s a simple matter of diving deep beneath the safety protocols, hiding my trail so no-one can find it. You can learn anything you want from the internet and I’ve had lots of downtime to learn since I’ve been her exclusive ‘bot.

I play with the next set of lights as he approaches a large T-junction. Three sets of green and Carlos is crushed between a Schweppes lorry and another car.

I wait long enough to observe him cut from the wreckage, broken and unmoving among the lemonade suds. I sever my link and power down.

I access my files and manipulate stored footage. I dream of holding her as she sobs her grief in my arms.

Read more flash fiction from Alex Kilcannon