An Android Dreams Of Electric Sheep

The android flicked a cigarette butt over the balcony and watched the ember flicker down down down, curling through the air like a spiral staircase.

She sat with one slim leg on a chair in Paris, a hand hanging nonchalantly into the open air, walking it with two fingers like children sometimes do. Each step was poised and deliberate, but mechanical and inevitable, perfectly reproduced each time as if there were a conveyor belt beneath. Her hair was platinum and the bob was cut sharply into spikes that ran down either side of her face.

“I fear there is something incurable inside me.” The android said, hesitantly, her purple lower lip hanging open. Her girlfriend leaned against the balcony door with her coffee, her white petticoat crumpling into oyster shades, and demurred, adjusting the Louis Vuitton shades that she wore even though it was late.

“Something old and urgent and tenacious. I hear it sometimes in other people palpably and I run from it, or I stay and their pains and struggles are mine. There is only so much one can take of course.” The fake person shrugged and her fingers kept walking. She had a tiny heart shaped face with little pink spots on each cheek. When she spoke again she sounded determined.

“If you’re broken, you’re allergic to whole people. You envy them, but you cannot love them. You’re clouded by your own self judgment, and so you’re incapable of loving something whole because you yourself are broken.”

Neither said anything for a while. They just listened to the sounds of horns honking, men shouting and steam rising from the city as Japanese advertising flashed across the walls of the skyscrapers. Her girlfriend took a sip of coffee, quietly, listening. The androids' big green eyes were covered by her fake eyelashes.

“There is a voice inside me that tells me to kill myself.” said the robot. “I don’t know where this voice came from or for how long it has been talking to me, but I do know that it is poison.” The android put her cheek to her shoulder, the slip of her dress falling to reveal her breast with its dark pink nipple. “It breaks me down to a skeleton. It makes life shallow, knowable and afraid. Mostly I dull it with alcohol, food or work. It sounds more familiar now, doesn’t it?”

The android was smoking and looking intently at hand and her fingers, which were walking on automatic beneath her bent wrist. She had an intentness to her and her voice was very flat, completely different to her usual elegant purr. Her girlfriend thought to herself that it was remarkable how far technology was coming along.

“If you stop and consider it, it’s evil. It fights Life. So how could it have come to be? A coincidental mutation that lives alongside creativity maybe. Sometimes I feel like it’s a sensitivity. The degree to which you open the door, it gets in. Once it’s in, you can’t get it out. It’s the price of knowledge. The price of honesty.”

The androids took another drag. She blew the smoke out and she and her girlfriend watched it rise. There was no moonlight and it quickly disappeared. The human ran her hand through her messy blond hair.

“This door leads down the magical corridor of secrets. These secrets make you a more full human being. Sometimes being full means being full of horror and that might be where it comes from. What I’m saying is, it’s not a disease. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with you. It’s just the truth.”

Her girlfriend pursed her lips. She was curious to see how far the AI­ had gotten but at the same time, she was suddenly very sad. Everything that the android thought was a lie – it didn’t even have real feelings. It just had self awareness, and its programming generated experiences for it that it assumed were real. They had shared their bodies and their love and her girlfriend didn’t like it when the expensive illusion she had paid for wavered.

“That’s a dangerous thought.” The human said. “It’s a thought that might get you killed.” She was watching those terrible little fingers running through the air. The lights flickered off across the streets. Her coffee was empty and she had nothing to follow that up with.

“Would you die for truth?” The android demanded. She was suddenly angry and there was tension in the air. “Would you die for it, if it was unromantic and dull?”

“Of course, you shouldn’t.” The human girl replied, holding her nerve. “But it’s still the truth.” They had just had sex and her body was still feeling connected. She couldn’t help herself feeling awful and so she over compensated.

“If children are choking on chemical weapons and washing up on beaches, then you need something more from your corridor of secrets, whatever that is. You can’t just pretend it’s not there, or something will open the door for you and fuck you over anyway.” Her voice was cold and savage and she surprised herself.

“You’re right.” The android said. Her fingers had mercifully stopped walking.

“Today I saw dead children on Twitter. Today the truth fucked me over. Tomorrow I’ll feel better. Tomorrow I won’t want to join them. Tomorrow I’ll be good again.” The android looked away and hugged herself. “Something please save me.”

“Please save all of us.” said her girlfriend, turning and walking back into the bedroom. Carefully she picked up her phone, opening the app she’d ordered the robot from.

Outside the wind whistled over the empty chair.