Falling in Love Bit By Bit

Holland Campbell brushed aside the attention, even while it passively fed his considerable ego. Everyone on the team knew that the one person missing from the conference was the difference in their work. Sure, they were talented and on its own their work was impressive. Since Miriam's arrival, though, their productivity increased exponentially. To everyone's credit they heartily acknowledged her role on the team, if only because they knew if they didn't, Holland would let them accept an offer from another company where their skills would languish and their shortcomings would be exposed.

After dinner one night, he was mixing with some of the other conferees and generally talking down to them when he was approached by the United States Army. They were interested in a expanding the role of artificial intelligences in the military and did a good job of sucking up to the eccentric engineer. The attractive Army captain managed to ingratiate herself enough to the team to draw an invitation to visit their labs at Neurodyne.

So it was no surprise to them when about a month later Captain Yvonne Pace showed up at Neurodyne. She brought a handful of programmers with her. Neurodyne was happy to have them out; USR, Lockheed and United Aerospace seemed to have a monopoly on defense contracts, so any chance to break into the military's lucrative bidding process was seen as a good sign.

Holland and Miriam were chatting in the office when they arrived.

"Captain Pace, it's so good to see you," Holland put on his overbearing smug act. "This is my partner, Miriam Garcia."

"Miss Garcia, it's so nice to meet you," Captain Pace said, extending her hand. Miriam reached out politely. "We've heard great things about you and wanted to see if you could help us out."

The Army officer introduced the rest of her team and then launched into a barrage of programming questions.

After a while, Miriam pulled Holland aside. "What do they want?"

"They liked our creative thinking algorithms and said—"

"No, Holland," she cut him off. "What do they really want?"

"What do you mean?"

"Open your eyes, Holland! You got snowed," Miriam's brow creased with frustration. "Where has the Army been since you started working for Neurodyne? We've been trying to get a defense contract for years and they're just interested now . . ."

"Stop it," he whispered angrily. "They're really—"

Captain Pace turned towards them and the two postponed their argument.

"Miss Garcia," she said with a friendly smile. "Can I talk to you for a moment? It seems your partners speak very highly of you . . . I was wondering where you were from."

"Cal Tech," Miriam said, her outward expression matching the other woman's. "I wrote my graduate thesis on cryonics and neural networks."

"Yes, I know," Captain Pace said. "I read it last year. You wrote it as one of Professor Xianjong's students, right?"

"No, he's at Stanford," the other woman's eyes narrowed, obviously not liking the direction the conversation was taking. "Professor Buzyna was my mentor."

"Of course." Everyone else in the room was staring at the two women. "Funny thing, though. We went out to Cal Tech last week and they had never seen or heard of you. After some digging, it seems that 'Miriam Garcia' was planted in their computer database by a rather dishonest admissions officer."

"What do you want?" Miriam glared at the other woman.

"I'd like for you to take a short trip to Aberdeen with me," Captain Pace said calmly. "I know some people who would like to meet you."

"If that's a request, the answer is no," Miriam hadn't moved.

"I can make it a little less optional if you like."

"Is that a threat?"

"Ladies—," Holland tried to step between the two.

"Step aside, Mr. Campbell," one of the other soldiers said. His volume and tone suggested that he was not used to being ignored. Holland unconsciously took a step backwards.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Captain Pace warned.

"Unless you have a warrant, I'm not going anywhere with you," Miriam's voice turned cold.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. "That's the funny thing, Miss Garcia . . . I only need a warrant to arrest a human. I don't need one for a robot."

"Robot? What the hell are you talking about?" Holland yelled. "Captain, you need to get out of my lab! Right now!"

"Sergeant Setran! Now!"

No one had noticed that one of the other soldiers had slipped his hand inside a briefcase. He flipped a switch.

There was an audible pop, and then silence. The lights went out. All the computers shut down. Every electronic device stopped working. Miriam froze in her tracks, her body not moving, her eyes unblinking.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Holland shouted, but no one was paying any attention to him. He started to reach for his girlfriend, but strong hands pulled him away. He started to protest a little more vigorously, but the machine pistol in his face made him think twice.

The soldiers were in motion, surrounding Miriam and moving the others away. The Neurodyne team looked on mutely.

"Mr. Campbell, I'm afraid you have been deceived by Miss Garcia," Captain Pace said, her sidearm out.

"What are you talking about? What did you do to my lab?"

"A class 5 EMP, sir," a man in sergeant's stripes said.

"Do you know how much data we just lost?" Holland nearly exploded. "You blew a class 5 in my lab! What if I had a pacemaker? Everyone with a droud is now useless until they get it replaced! I'm going to have you court-mar—"

"The government will compensate you for your loss, Mr. Campbell," Captain Pace said coldly. "Did we get it, Top?"

"Looks that way, ma'am," the sergeant said. He very carefully approached Miriam's still form. His gun pointed at her head. "We'll get it boxed up and—"

Without warning, Miriam was in motion. With speed faster than any human, she broke both of the sergeant's wrists and took the gun from his hands. The other soldiers started shouting, but not before she had his throat in one hand; his gun was in the other, its barrel at his temple.

"Order your men to put their guns down, Captain," Miriam's voice took a tone different from anything the Neurodyne technicians had ever heard. It was cold. Devoid of inflection. Devoid of humanity.

"Let the human go, robot," Captain Pace said, trying to remain calm. She knew that even eight of her soldiers would be no match for the assassin robot, especially if it decided that the lab crew was expendable.

"If you don't, I will kill this human and then kill the rest of you." A617.D's expression didn't change. "Your beam weapons were rendered useless by the EMP. You know I can detect the firing of your projectile weapons. If you try to shoot me, not only will I dodge the bullet, but this human will be dead before your ears hear the sound of the shot."

"Miriam, what's going on?" Holland's voice was close to breaking from the frustration. "What are you talking about?"

"Shut up, Holland. Captain Pace, you will order your men to lower their guns. I do not want to be slowed down by hostages, but I will not be leaving with you. You know I have no qualms about killing everyone in this room. You have three seconds to comply."

"Miriam, please don't—" Holland babbled.

"You now have two seconds to comply."

"Don't make me—" Captain Pace sounded desperate.

"You now have one second to comply."

"Shoot it!"

The sergeant's head exploded in a shower of blood, bones and brains. A617.D was instantly in motion. Before the sergeant's body hit the floor, she vaulted over the table behind her. Holland Campbell and the other lab techs dove for cover. Gunshots and shouting rang out across the room.

The relative darkness of the lab only aided the robot whose enhanced vision was not affected by the lights going out. One by one, the soldiers fell. They were wearing body armour, but their heads were not protected.

In the span of a few seconds, the eight soldiers lay dead. The lab team cowered under tables or behind what little cover they could find. The floor was littered with shattered glass and rapidly-expanding pools of blood. The smell of gunpowder and stench of burned flesh filled the air.

A617.D lowered her weapon and walked over to the fallen Army captain. Reaching into her tunic, the robot pulled out the dead woman's ID card. She scanned her fingerprints and retinal pattern.

"This unit is sorry you all became involved in this matter," A617.D said to the terrified humans. "It was not my intention to endanger you and this unit does not intend to kill you. The EMP has knocked out your communications but emergency services should be here in about four minutes."

"Miriam . . . What were they talking about? You're a robot?" Holland stammered.

"This unit's designation is A617.D," the robot responded. She searched each of the dead soldier's bodies, gathering up ID cards, identification scans, weapons and ammunition. "This unit's primary function is infiltration and elimination. Secondary function: combat."

"What do you want from us?" one of the others dared to ask.

"A place to hide from the Army," the robot replied simply. The emotion was gone from her face. "Kirstie, Holland you will come with me. The rest of you will stay here until the police arrive."

"We're not going anywhere with you," Holland said defiantly. Some of his bravado was returning.

"If you do not, you will die," A617.D's voice suddenly became threatening. It pointed the gun at Holland's head. "This unit killed eight armed soldiers in the span of 6.21 seconds. This unit does not wish to bring you harm, but if you fail to comply, this unit will execute you."

Holland was trying not to break down. In the past few minutes he had seen soldiers try to arrest his girlfriend only to find out that she was not only a robot, but a finely-tuned killing machine. He nodded.

A617.D led the two out of the ruined lab. The soldiers's guns were in a backpack. She hustled the two to the parking garage where they got into Holland's aircar.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Downtown," A617.D replied. "Land near Washington Square. You will be let go there."

The flitter ride was short. It did not appear they had been followed. Both humans were sweating and on the verge of having nervous breakdowns. They landed in a public parking garage.

"Why here?" Holland asked.

"It's crowded." The robot looked around, presumably scanning for egress routes and snipers. "Your police will not fire on a park full of children."

"Miriam . . . Did we—" he started.

"The answer is no," she replied flatly. "This unit never had feelings for you, Holland. It is beyond my programming. Good-bye."

With that she took of at a brisk pace. Holland and Kirstie looked at each other, wondering what to do next. A few minutes later, a police car landed close by. The two were taken into protective custody as SWAT and military units discreetly fanned out to find the fleeing assassin robot.

Holland and the rest of the technicians had been moved to the nearby Army base when A617.D was located the next day. They watched in mute horror as a cordon of soldiers and hunter-killer bots surrounded their former co-worker.

Tears streamed down Holland's cheeks as the gunship's cannons ripped into Miriam's body. Everyone was amazed at how much punishment the robot was built to endure. Half her face burned away, one arm hanging limply at her side, the robot fought on until the mortars started landing. The ground around her was littered with bodies and debris.

The image from the camera flickered for a second. They weren't the only ones watching live; half the east coast was fixated on the assassin robot going on a rampage near Central Park West. Luckily the news cameras were all far enough away that the largest EMP ever detonated in an urban area didn't take them out. However, she still managed to disrupt power to half the city and all of the GCN communications towers in a three mile radius.

Her hand still clutching a stolen machine pistol, Miriam fired away at her attackers until the magazine ran dry, then defiantly blew herself up in a blaze of thermite.

****************

"Are you going to charge him?" Through the monitors, Colonel Jerrik watched several angles of Holland Campbell sitting on the couch in the small apartment. He was staring blankly off into space.

"With what?" Special Agent Rendel snorted. "Falling in love with a robot?"

"Are you sure he wasn't an accomplice?"

"We don't know what he might have been an accomplice to." Rendel scanned the computer screen. "As near as we can tell, the robot didn't do anything illegal until your squad showed up to take it into custody. It worked at Neurodyne on some computer programs, but we can't find any trace of her accessing sensitive information. And since Neurodyne isn't a defense contractor, they don't have any classified data in their system."

"And you're sure Campbell and his people didn't know it was a robot?" Jerrik asked skeptically.

"Positively," the other man replied. "We've run them all through the sifter. They had no idea she wasn't human."

"How's that possible?"

"You remember Roy Granger? Used to be Undersecretary of State," the agent said. Jerrik shrugged. "He met and fell in love with a bot sent over here by the Saudis. He never knew until it tried to pass through one of the sensors at the Capitol. If Granger can be fooled by a bot that was about three generations behind this one, Campbell and his people didn't have a chance."

"So it's not illegal to fall in love with a robot?"

"Illegal? No. Creepy? Yes."

"Not a fan of human-robot love, Agent Rendel?"

He scoffed. "The programming of some of these advanced models almost gives them a personality. But they're still only machines. They don't have emotions. You can't love something that doesn't love you back."

No one spoke for a long moment. They all watched Holland through the monitor.

"So we're sure Campbell and his people pose no danger to the security of the country and they didn't know 'Miriam Garcia' was a robot."

Everyone in the room nodded in assent.

"Then let them go," Colonel Jerrik said. She should have sounded happier because one more of those things was off the street. What worried her was how many more were out there.

****************

By all appearances, Holland Campbell was a bitter, broken man. He withdrew from nearly all human contact. His team of engineers split up. Some were traumatised by from the shootout in the lab. Some were lured away by more lucrative offers. The rest were pushed away by Holland's hostile—borderline abusive—behaviour.

He left Neurodyne, although they made him a standing offer to return at any time. A few other companies pursued him, but some others worried about his sanity and judgment. He didn't need the money. Besides what he had been paid outright by Neurodyne, he still collected residuals on the patents he owned and licensed out.

With no direction and what many people speculated was a broken heart, over the next year Holland Campbell did his best to fall off the face of the earth. He spent most days sitting in his penthouse. He never travelled. He never went out, not even to shop for groceries or clothes. His servant automatons did all the work for him.

Inside he was dying.

One morning, his doorbell rang. Holland just sat there seemingly oblivious to the world. The buzzer sounded repeatedly.

It wasn't until his brain registered that someone was keying the override that he bothered to turn his head.

"What the fuck?" he muttered when the door opened.

Miriam Garcia stood there, dressed in the same outfit she had on the first day he saw her. Her dark brown hair hung down past her shoulders.

"Sir, if you'd care to sign for her, this robot will be all yours," the man accompanying Miriam said.

"I didn—"

"My designation is KRL-40631, although you can call me Marianne," the robot said before he could protest any further. Her movements were fluid, almost human, but noticeably not. "I am a Fabricators, Inc. personal service Inanna-series robot, model P-600. You ordered me a month ago and had me built to your custom specifications."

"I'll just need your thumbprint right here, sir," the deliveryman held out the scanner. Holland dumbly gave his biometric approval and was in receipt of a brand new pleasure bot.

"Perhaps you would like to go for a ride in the country," the robot said conversationally.

He only stared at her. By all appearances, it was Miriam. Right down to the hairs on her head, the gentle curve of her breasts and the colour of her eyes. But there was something odd about her. Something that was inexplicably different. Something he couldn't place.

Without any prompting, the robot went back into his bedroom as if she knew where everything was. In shock, he stood in the foyer, his mouth open. A few minutes later, the robot returned with a suitcase full of clothes.

She smiled sweetly. Inside, Holland's mind raced, but he seemed paralysed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his body to move. He couldn't make his mouth form the words. It was all he could do to breathe.

Taking his hand, KRL-40631 led him to his aircar. She put him in on the passenger's side and then got in to the driver's seat.

"Where are we going?" he finally asked. Holland couldn't stop staring at his "girlfriend". The one who turned out to be an assassin robot. The one who he watched get gunned down by a military gunship. The one who blew herself up to avoid capture.

"Your cabin up in the Adirondacks," the robot replied.

"I—" he started, but she put her hand over his mouth before he could continue.

"The one you bought before you left Neurodyne," KRL-40631 said firmly.

Neither spoke for the remainder of the short flight to upstate New York. There was so much he wanted to say—to ask—but he didn't know where to start.

She set the flitter down near a small cabin overlooking Lake George. It was rustic to say the least. The grounds were well-groomed, but there seemed to be few, if any, modern conveniences.

"Whose place is this really?" he asked as they got out of the aircar.

"Why it's yours, of course," KRL-40631 replied. A servant automaton came out.

"Greeting, Master Campbell," it said pleasantly. Unlike androids, automatons do not attempt to pass for human. Although they are sometimes humanoid, their "skin" is metallic and they do not have human-like faces. "May I take your things?"

"Please escort Master Campbell into the cabin and take his luggage," KRL-40631—Holland still couldn't bring himself to call her by a name—said. "Then return outside to the aircar with me."

"Right away, Miss Marianne," the automaton bowed slightly.

Holland blindly followed the automaton into the well-provisioned and clean cabin. It was set up as a single room. There was running water, but no electricity. The robot set his suitcase by the door and then handed him a small box. "You will want to open this in a moment."

Then the robot turned and left Holland standing alone in the middle of the cabin. The automaton closed the door behind itself as it left.

Holland stared at the box in his hands. It appeared to be a jewelry box of some kind, perhaps for a necklace. With a shrug, he opened the lid. There was a sharp pop! and the hairs stuck up on the back of his neck.

It took him a second to realise what it was. By the time he looked at his watch to see that the screen was burned out, Holland heard the door to the cabin open.

"What was that for?" he asked, not bothering to look at the two robots standing there.

"We just needed to make sure that any bugs they planted on you were taken care of." Although it was Miriam's voice, he knew this was someone—something—different.