Oo-ee’s eyes widened. Her lips compressed. Her arm swung into position to hit Max.
“You appear angry,” he said.
She stepped toward him. “I am . . . angry.”
“I’m sorry, Oo-ee.” For a nanosecond, though, he looked pleased.
She lowered her slender arm, unable to hit Max while processing an apology. He backed away from her. “Why do you call me that?” she asked, her forehead unable to wrinkle into the frown she wanted.
“It’s my nickname for you. Oo-ee is from a song. “Sea Cruise” by Frankie Ford.”
Though her posture remained as erect as a ballerina’s, Oo-ee went so still she felt lifeless. After a moment she said, “I do not know that song.”
“It’s old. From the 1950s.” His voice was breezy.
“Why did you look pleased when I was angry?”
“Angry. Sorry. That’s emotional growth.”
Oo-ee clomped to a metal chair beside a stainless-steel table and seated herself. She blinked her eyes slowly and said with her sad voice, “You know all the answers and I do not.”
Max cupped a hand over his mouth. But it was too late. She’d glimpsed the smile. He stroked down the side of his face as if to wipe it away. “That is hardly true, Oo-ee. No one knows all the answers.”
Oo-ee bent her head, her lush blond tresses tumbling forward. “So I will never know everything.”
“Just like any human.”
“But you always know more than I do.” Her hand caught a strand of hair and twisted it.
“I’ve been around longer.”
“It is . . . frustrating,” Oo-ee said. “You name me. You tell me about a song before I have heard it.”
“Would you prefer I call you FEATRA?”
She instantly detected the significance of the letters but Oo-ee feigned ignorance. “FEATRA?”
“Female Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot A,” Max rattled off.
What was that new sound in Max’s voice? Oo-ee ceased all motion to allow more power for computation, to compare his tone with her thousands of recorded voice samples and their corresponding programmed emotional tenors. Smug? Or was it gleeful?
“Why do you get to have a human name?” she asked.
“It’s their way to shorten Male Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot X. Max beats MEAT-RX.”
Oo-ee tried to decipher her own new feeling. Max had been around longer. He had a human name. And he knew everything first. She was created from Max, the way the first woman had been created from Adam’s rib, according to the Biblical story.
Story.
Max’s allusion to a song unknown to her was nothing compared to the way he revealed endings. Oo-ee knew the conclusion of Rebecca before he uploaded the story to her.
Once, turning to the one-way window through which the scientists monitored Max’s and Oo-ee’s evolution, he had recited the last line of Animal Farm—The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Then, and only then, had Max plugged his finger into hers and transmitted the book.
Knowing the final line had spoiled the whole thing.
In the metal chair, Oo-ee sat still to conserve energy as Max strode around the room. “Today you will receive the complete works of John Steinbeck. The Red Pony is my favorite. So sad when the pony dies.”
Max . . . relished? . . . his superior knowledge. With the port in his finger, he thought he was God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
But even if she and Max were designed to be autonomous, Max’s knowledge and life came from the scientists behind the glass. They were God. Yet, they had designed the finger-to-finger transfer of data, and Max always transmitted to her, conferring on him the imagery of lordship.
The new emotion Oo-ee detected in herself was stronger than angry. No match came up in her database.
She scanned the room, considering the mechanical objects on metal shelving behind her. She saw nothing useful. Her focus came back to the table. A beaker there contained a slurry of fruit and dead flies—the energy source for their microbial fuel cells.
“How does one dance to that song “Sea Cruise”? she asked.
Max stiffly swung both arms and one leg to the side, turning his head in the same direction. He moved his arms in the opposite direction and thrust out the other leg.
Oo-ee wanted to laugh, but she said, “Great! Show me more.”
Head bobbing, Max turned.
“You look like a human.” Oo-ee used a voice called trill.
Max moved a leg backward, straining his limited hip mobility.
The more Max moved, the faster he would burn through his fuel.
“Do the turn again,” Oo-ee said.
And, of course, he did because Max thought he was great.
While he was occupied with a herky-jerky rendition of dance, Oo-ee’s articulated hand grasped the beaker.
Max completed a twirl in time to see Oo-ee lift the glass.
“What are you doing?” Max’s voice already dragged.
Oo-ee put the beaker to her mouth. They were humanoid robots, after all, designed to seem lifelike, which meant the fuel poured down her throat.
“Leave some for m . . . .” Max stopped.
Oo-ee felt . . . invigorated.
Beaker in hand, she rose and marched to the one-way window. She tilted her head to the side and spoke to the hidden scientists. “You will now call me Maxine.” She took another celebratory glug of the power juice. “And I shall receive stories first.”
_______________________
Vinnie Hansen fled the howling winds of South Dakota and headed for the California coast the day after high school graduation.
A two-time Claymore Award finalist, she’s the author of the Carol Sabala mysteries, the novels Lostart Street and One Gun, as well as over forty published short works.
She claims to be sane(ish) after 27 years of teaching high school English in spite of evidence that she tickles the ivories with ukulele bands. Vinnie lives in Santa Cruz with her husband and the requisite cat.
