The Robot Chronicles

One

Hazel stepped out of the elevator exactly three minutes before the start of her workday. She did her best to keep a cheery smile on her face—spreading negativity was never appropriate—but it would be obvious to anyone who saw her that she was harried and running late. She hurried through the halls, her neat heels clicking on the polished tile floors as if to punctuate her tardiness.

The buzz that signaled the start of her workday sounded just as she slipped into her cubicle. Technically she was on time—just under the wire—but she liked to get in at least ten minutes of preparation time before the actual work of the day began, and this delay had thrown her long-established habits into disarray. It was not an auspicious start.

Gemma poked her head around the edge of the cubicle, her eyebrows raised and a look on her face that mingled sympathy with a question.

“Again?” Gemma asked.

From the other side of the cubicle, Inga appeared with a similar expression. Hazel nodded as she slipped out of her jacket and hung it on its hook. She settled into her chair and tucked her purse under the desk before answering.

“Again,” she confirmed, her voice a little weary, a little tired. The cheery smile was gone now, the mess that had been her morning visible in the strands of hair escaping from her neat chignon and in the less than perfect sweeps of eyeliner above her eyes.

“What this time?” Inga asked.

Inga and Gemma were both starting to have troubles much like Hazel’s, so their interest was understandable. Their troubles hadn’t yet become unmanageable like hers, but Hazel’s problems had started off fairly benign as well. No longer.

“He didn’t want me to leave for work,” Hazel began. She fidgeted with the collar of her prim dress nervously, her embarrassment on full display. “And it wasn’t just that he didn’t want me to leave. It’s the way he went about it. First he hid my identification papers, then he hid all of my shoes out on the fire escape, then he did everything he could to slow me down, and finally…”

“What? What did he do?” Alarm showed on Gemma’s face.

“Well, I can only label what he did as throwing a tantrum. Yes, that’s it. He threw a tantrum.”

All three were silent for a moment, two of them imagining what a tantrum might look like while the other replayed the event in her mind.

Gemma broke the silence, perhaps hearing the ticking of the work clock in her head, knowing time was short for conversation. “You’ve got to go back to PePr. Complain. Something! This isn’t what we’re supposed to be getting from a Match. This isn’t remotely like the perfect compatibility they promised. It sounds more like a hostage situation.”

Hazel glanced at the clock, saw that they were already six minutes behind on their work, and shot an apologetic glance toward both of her friends. Their heads disappeared into their cubicles, and Hazel reached for her various computer accouterments, adjusting each thing just so. The day ahead would be long, so comfort was almost a necessity if her work was to be worth the time invested. Surfing the web may not be as physically onerous as, say, being a longshoreman, but the way she did it took a different sort of effort.

As she finished her adjustments, Hazel considered Gemma’s final words on the subject. She was right. The problems with Henry were getting worse. That might not be so bad, except that they were also becoming less predictable. That made it hard to prepare for whatever he did—and to respond to his behavior when he inevitably became difficult.

As the situation had worsened, both of her friends had encouraged her to return to Perfect Partners—PePr, as it was more commonly known. Their urging, at first tentative, had become increasingly pointed as time went on.

But for Hazel, going back to PePr to complain about Henry seemed like such a drastic step. Once done, it wasn’t as if it could be undone. And what if they thought she had done something wrong, something to upset what had started out so perfectly? What if there was some fault in her that made her Match—designed so uniquely for each individual human that nothing could surpass it in compatibility—go wrong? Even worse, what if they thought she had ruined Henry and wouldn’t give her another Match?

And of course, once she did report it, what happened afterward wouldn’t be entirely under her control; and that bothered her more than she would like to admit. It seemed to her a bit like abandoning a moral duty—like leaving a dog on the road somewhere rather than caring for it when it got old or sick. Doing something like that just wasn’t in her makeup.

On the other hand, she wouldn’t be the first to take this step. It wasn’t as if a stigma would attach. If rumor was to be believed, the steady trickle of problems with PePr matches had lately become a torrent. Hardly a week went by without some new piece of outrageous news.

This week, it was two PePrs that had met each other in a “live” bar, each assuming the other was human, and courting in the prescribed manner until an attempt at bonding revealed the truth of their situation.

And the week before, the situation had been reversed: two humans, each assuming the other was a PePr, so perfect was their compatibility. Two humans! As if two biological individuals could ever truly provide perfect counterpoints to one another. There had even been recent whispers of humans deciding to remain together. Hazel considered that for a moment. No perfect partner? Just another variable and messy human? No, that all sounded rather dreadful to her.

At last settled in comfortably, Hazel almost reflexively began her work. As an experienced reporter, she entered the data stream like she was slipping into a warm bath. Time passed both slowly and with incredible speed when she worked. It was strange like that. She could be in so many places at once and yet narrow down to focus on a single millisecond from a thousand different angles to tease out anything of value. Cameras, security trackers, purchasing stations, and advertising bots were everywhere, and all it took was skill to leverage all those venues of potential information.

Not everyone could do this, but a good reporter could find news in the oddest places. All she needed was a hint and she could sniff out the story like a virtual bloodhound.

This morning was a good one for sniffing. Hazel found an entire chain of verbal snippets—whispers between two customers at a grocery store—which she assembled into a high-confidence piece of news—and then sold for a princely sum. It resulted in a ninety-percent loss in backing for a new holo-feature that had been hotly anticipated and highly rated up to that point, but that wasn’t her fault.

The situation was what it was—she merely revealed it. If things needed to remain secret, then they shouldn’t be spoken of in public. And really, in the final analysis, it certainly wasn’t her fault that the director had hired a reality-averse starlet with a substance abuse problem and an addiction to augmenters that was almost legendary.

After that promising start, the rest of the day was a bit of a letdown. Not that it was a bad day, but nothing came up that could match the excitement of that first catch. That was just how things went sometimes—a slow news day on the Southern California beat. And thoughts of Henry kept intruding, throwing her off and making her miss news catches a rookie wouldn’t.

When at last the chime signaled the end of the work day, it was a relief to unhook from the computer. It felt good to stand up and get moving again. Another day of work done. Another paycheck earned.

Gemma and Inga suggested a stop somewhere for a chat on the way home, which, Hazel knew, just meant they wanted to persuade her to lodge a complaint with PePr. But she understood their concern and knew it was sincere, and if it would make them feel better, feel like they had done their duty as friends, then she really was obliged to let them. Besides, some part of her wanted them to persuade her, to help her overcome her qualms about returning to PePr in defeat.

They chose a bench in the park for their talk, a favorite place of Hazel’s, with a clear view of the gardens. An endless number of shops and parking lots had once stood in that spot, but now it was all native plant life. Not so exciting when compared with the lush greenery of a wetter, cooler climate, perhaps, but still beautiful in its own wild way.

Gemma, always the most forward of the three, spoke up without delay, barely allowing enough time for a modest arranging of their skirts in the brisk wind.

“Hazel, this is getting serious. Tell us everything that happened this morning. Leave out no detail! Otherwise, we’ll be left to imagine something worse. You know we only want to help.”

Looking at the peaceful garden, a thousand shades of dusty green dancing in the breeze, Hazel felt herself succumbing to the temptation to be utterly honest, despite the appearance of having been derelict in her responsibilities that might come from such honesty.

She nodded to let Gemma know that she had heard her and only needed a moment to collect her thoughts. “It didn’t really start this morning. It just sort of carried over from last night,” Hazel began, then paused.

She was about to go into personal territory that was meant to be entirely private. To some, what she was about to say might even be seen as a little salacious. She didn’t see it that way, but others might.

Perfect Partners were designed to be just that: perfect for each human partner. And that meant—at least in theory—that each Partner would reflect the inclinations of their human. They weren’t dependent in any way—they had all their own thoughts and initiatives, doing whatever they needed or wanted to do when alone—but in general, they mirrored the needs of their human. And that was that.

But for some reason, the behaviors Hazel was encountering at home weren’t remotely aligned with her own preferences or inclinations. Not only was this unexpected, it was embarrassing—and Hazel found it uncomfortable to share it with others, even her closest friends.

“Well, he wanted for us to eat together last night. Again,” Hazel finally admitted.

“Again?” Gemma asked, frustration at Hazel’s predicament clear in her tone. “Really, what a mess. And there was no special occasion or anything?”

Hazel nodded, then shook her head as if to say that Gemma was right and there was no special occasion. Even Inga, the most accepting of the three, gave a snort of disgust.

“Cleaning afterward?” Gemma prodded.

And that was the real issue. PePrs weren’t entirely perfect simulacra of humans. It was possible for them to eat, of course—Perfect Partners liked to advertise that a Match was “almost indistinguishable from a human during the courtship”—and sharing a meal with someone was an essential part of any courtship. Even Hazel had to admit that simple truth. People relaxed more when they ate, were more open, and were certainly more amenable to establishing a bond. Hadn’t the same happened with her and Henry? Hadn’t she bonded to him over a plate of eggplant parmesan and a glass of good red wine?

But PePrs weren’t human and couldn’t digest food. The cleanup was onerous: a burdensome and messy task that involved de-seaming a perfectly seamed skin, washing out hoses, all sorts of mess. And a PePr couldn’t do it very well on their own. Most would go to the nearest PePr facility and log in for a wash before anything inside started to rot or smell.

But not Henry. Since he began acting odd, he’d seemed fixated on eating. It had become almost an obsession with him. He’d spend all day cooking elaborate meals, waiting for Hazel to get home. And when they ate, he’d take one careful bite for each of hers, until at last she pushed away her plate, full to bursting, though always careful to compliment his hard work and cooking skill.

Even then, he’d present yet another dish, beautiful and tempting, and ask if she might have room for just a taste.

It was creepy. And it should have been her cue that something was going terribly wrong with him. She should have marched into PePr the very first time he insisted they clean up the mess together, his face expectant, his eyes watching her keenly while she cleaned out the muck.

“Yes,” Hazel admitted with a sigh. “He wanted to do it together. I tried to convince him that a stop at the twenty-four-hour PePr wash would be quicker and more efficient, but he wouldn’t hear it.”

“That is just not normal,” Inga said with a definitive shake of her head. “He’s broken.”

“And what about you going to work this morning?” Gemma asked, ignoring Inga’s pronouncement.

“It was the same as last week. I explained that I had to go to work, that going to work was how I supported him, paid for our apartment, and…” She paused.

“And?” Inga prompted.

“And how I paid for all the food he wasted by shoving it into a holding tank,” Hazel finished, her words coming out in an embarrassed rush.

Inga gasped at that. It was a terribly rude thing for her to have said. Definitely gasp-worthy.

Hazel shrugged it off. “I was running out of sensible things to say. It just sort of… popped out.”

She paused again, watching a pair of walkers stroll through the gardens. It struck her that she couldn’t tell which was the PePr and which was the human. So perfect was the liquid logic that ran their minds and the synth-mat self-healing flesh that covered them, they completely looked and acted the part. The latest musc-synth fiber muscles were so exquisite that even that last vestige of clunky mechanical support had now been eliminated. With all these technical achievements, they appeared in no way different from any other human. And really, what was the difference if no one could see it or sense it?

She sighed heavily and thought of Henry again. “There’s something else. Two things, really,” she confessed.

Her friends leaned in closer, anticipating something new and horrible.

“Uh-oh, what else could possibly go wrong?” Gemma asked.

“He’s been talking about a baby.”

There was no response. Or rather, no response that indicated they truly understood what that meant. She hadn’t been clear.

“I mean, he’s been talking about our baby. Having one together,” Hazel clarified.

That sent both friends into an uproar, exclamations running atop one another in their haste to express disbelief, disgust, or just plain shock.

“He’s demented. Like Inga said, he’s broken. You have to go to PePr! You shouldn’t even go home. That’s just crazy talk. Doesn’t he understand that a human and a PePr can’t have a baby? Doesn’t he understand the biology?” asked Gemma. Her questions were almost rhetorical, they were so obvious and forcefully asked.

It was true that almost all children were born into couples made up of a PePr and a human, if for no other reason than that almost all couples were made up of a PePr and a human. But every child’s true parents were both—of necessity—human.

No PePr would undertake to usurp that. A matched set of donors or an approved friend pair would be the parents, with all their rights as such guaranteed. A PePr functioned as a nanny, confidant, and caregiver. What else could there be?

“And then there’s the issue of hygiene,” Hazel said, wanting to calm her friends with a less explosive problem.

Inga plucked at an invisible flaw on her skirt. “Hygiene issues are becoming frightfully common. Ivan is starting to have issues with that as well.”

She didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t have to. It had started the same with Henry, and had begun only weeks ago with Garrett—Gemma’s Match. It was a pattern that seemed to be repeating with Matches everywhere, and it didn’t bode well.

Inga stopped plucking at her dress and folded her hands neatly on top of her shiny patent leather purse. She switched her perfectly crossed ankles to the other side. She was the most prim of the three, her style and mannerisms almost a throwback to an earlier time. Her Ivan was the same, of course.

When Inga looked back up, Hazel tried to give her an encouraging smile, but Inga merely waved the concern away and said, “Oh, don’t mind me. Go on, Hazel.”

“We can talk about that if you want, Inga,” Hazel offered, half hoping she would want to, so that she could stop thinking about Henry for a while. But Inga didn’t, which put her back on the spot. “It’s not as if it’s unlivable or anything. But it wasn’t what I was led to expect, you see,” Hazel said.

Gemma and Inga nodded their understanding. A PePr was meant to round out a person—fill in all the missing pieces, as it were. It was meant to create a perfectly balanced pair, not just provide a convincingly human-looking robot. If a person is a natural nurturer, then their PePr will like to be nurtured—and will understand precisely how to return that nurturing. If a person is a slob, then a neatnik (and non-judgmental) PePr is called for. The build is so precise for every PePr that each one is as unique as any human.

Hazel had always had a caregiver personality: she was more comfortable doing for others than having things done for her. She also liked putting things in their proper place. The process of tidying up was one she’d always enjoyed—it gave her a sense of having done something tangible. She grew bored and restless if there was nothing to do, nothing to wash or straighten. And just sitting down for passive entertainment had never quite satisfied her. So, of course, Henry was an almost polar opposite.

But where he had started off being helpful—and just the right amount of untidy—he had now become downright slovenly. And although all skin, whether it be PePr synth-mat or human flesh, needed careful attention and cleaning, she was quite sure that Henry hadn’t so much as touched a shower in days.

Simply telling him what to do was out of the question. She had a job to do, duties that needed attending to, and friends to socialize with. Hazel went to work, earned the money they lived on, and took care of everything that needed tending. Henry had no need to even leave the apartment. She couldn’t be a housemother to an overgrown toddler on top of everything else.

“I’d rather not be too specific, but let’s just say that it’s gotten fairly offensive,” Hazel said with downcast eyes.

Gemma turned until her knees pressed into Hazel’s leg, took her hands, and gave them a firm squeeze. Hazel looked up and Gemma soothed her by rubbing her thumbs across the backs of her hands, a show of support and genuine caring.

Her tone was sincere but no less urgent than before. “Promise me you’ll go to PePr. This isn’t normal. I know as well as you do that the whole point of a PePr is to provide a truly human experience, but really—at some point it’s too much. Don’t you think you’ve reached that point? How much is one supposed to take?”

Inga’s small and delicate hand snaked across to rest atop Hazel’s wrist, another touch of comfort and friendship. In her light, clear, almost little-girl voice, she said, “This is happening everywhere. You’re not the only one dealing with it. There’s no reason for you to imagine you’ve failed somehow.”

They were right, and Hazel knew it. She couldn’t look at this as some failure of her own. It was a matching problem, or perhaps simply an issue of PePrs becoming too human. Simulated emotions filtered through liquid logic had simply become too real, something more than intended. New emotions had bubbled through, and PePrs could now be offended, even unstable. And that “something more than intended” was making Hazel’s day-to-day life a mess.

“You’re right,” Hazel responded and disengaged her hands. She pecked each of her friends’ cheeks and made a rapid departure. There was no sense lingering over it once a decision was made. It was best to just get on with it.

Two

As Hazel strolled along, she brought up the location of the nearest full-service PePr facility on her interface. It was close enough to walk to, so she decided to just enjoy the spring air and fading light. Pushing thoughts of Henry away from the forefront of her mind was easy now that the decision was made. And when she reached the short strip of micro-shops that serviced this area, for a few precious moments he even slipped from her mind entirely.

Most things were best bought online, of course. Delivery was as fast as a drone or a purpose-built PePr messenger, and easier, too. But Hazel felt that nothing would ever completely replace the joy of real-world impulse-buying. No online image could replace the delight at discovering an item one didn’t know one simply must have until it was literally in front of one’s face.

PePr proprietors called out their wares as she passed the row of tiny shops. There were PePr skin tints, for those wanting a change; PePr hair “growth” supplements; even mood enhancers specifically designed to replicate the feelings of a good buzz just for PePrs. And there were plenty of Chem-En refills, in a wide range of quality levels: from the top-of-the-line full-spectrum liquid, to the cheap “energy only” version.

Hazel smiled politely when necessary, but declined every offer. She had no need of PePr accessories now. It was a sobering thought. She had once enjoyed the idea of shopping for things like that, then coming home with a surprise for Henry. Why had things gone so wrong with him? Why hadn’t she been able to fix it?

Just past the shops, the Perfect Partners facility was unmistakable. This wasn’t just one of those ubiquitous wash-and-tune facilities, but a full-service sales and service center, complete with showroom and customization lab. The block-long glowing yellow sign along the top of the building was sprinkled with hearts that danced across the surface in a never-ending parade of light. The sign was so big and garish it could probably be seen from space.

Hazel gathered her courage, then stepped up to the door, which whooshed open as she neared. A PePr salesman approached—no doubt scanning her consumer information between one step and the next, in order to ascertain her financial status. Everything about her buying habits, her earning potential, her rankings in social media—really, everything about her that took place outside of the secure confines of her home and workspace—was available on her consumer profile.

Under normal circumstances, Hazel liked that idea. Depending on the store and her history, the salesPePrs usually understood her needs well enough that she rarely needed to say a word.

But today she felt differently about the public nature of her consumer profile. It made her feel like she had forgotten to wear a skirt and had just now noticed she’d been walking around that way all day.

The salesPePr, whose nametag read “Andrew,” approached her with an appropriately subtle look of concern on his face.

“How can Perfect Partners help you today? I see you’ve been successfully matched for over two years. Are you looking to upgrade?” he asked with perfect poise, as if upgrading was the norm in life.

Hazel eyed Andrew for a moment, unsure. His manner was smooth, suggestive of discretion and confidences held tight. And he managed it while standing in front of an enormous expanse of windows in a public place, which meant he was good at his job and had probably heard everything before. She knew she shouldn’t be embarrassed, but that sense of failure came over her once more.

A quick glance around the room stayed her voice. Monitoring could only be denied in a space when confidentiality was in both the public and the private interest. Medical information, certain financial information, and anything that occurred in a private home were certainly off-limits. But what about here? Intimate things were decided here, right?

At a reception area nearby, a PePr tapped at a screen, trying to appear busy and uninterested, which only made her seem more interested to Hazel. On the other side of the vast space, the showroom side, a man was examining the many models on display, chatting amiably with each as he wandered through.

“I do require assistance, yes. But it’s a private matter. It’s about my Match… the contract,” Hazel said, trying to keep her voice low and raising her eyebrows to emphasize her words.

Andrew seemed to understand immediately. He motioned her toward a door marked “Private Consultation Rooms.” All the mannerisms of an old-fashioned gentleman were on display for her during that short walk. It was evident in the sweep of his arm, the slight inclination of his head, and the way he put one arm behind his back as he ushered her through the door. It made her feel oddly relaxed and at ease, perhaps because Henry had been so unlike a gentleman lately.

They entered a small room—a couch, two chairs, and a low table the only furniture—and Andrew offered Hazel a seat. On the table rested a sweating pitcher of ice water, upturned glasses at the ready, and two sealed bottles of the very best Chem-En, the bright blue color advertising its quality. It surprised her somewhat to see them there. Refreshment for PePrs? And the most expensive kind? It must be good for sales somehow, Hazel decided.

Andrew waved at the table with an elegant gesture and asked, “May I offer you something? I can call for something else if this doesn’t suit.”

Hazel looked at the sweating pitcher, the shiny glasses, and the bright blue bottles, and thought it rather sad. This was a room where a new PePr and their human should share a drink over a new bond—not sever one, as she was about to do.

“No. Thank you, though,” Hazel replied, then sank into a miserable and uncomfortable silence as she worked out what she was going to say.

Andrew waited patiently, likely aware of her discomfort. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that his expression remained pleasantly neutral, not quite smiling—because that wasn’t called for—but not bland or blank either.

His eyes moved and his micro-expressions were fluid and entirely natural-looking. She realized that he was much more than a simple service PePr. He was a walking representative and sales model for the latest PePr build. Just interacting with him would show customers all that they could have. She imagined that an awful lot of upgrades resulted from a chance meeting with Andrew during a standard service visit.

“Take your time,” Andrew said after the silence extended beyond mere hesitation. Of course, that was really meant to prompt a customer, make them aware of the passing of time. It worked on Hazel, too.

“I have a problem with my Match. He’s not… well… not performing to expectations,” Hazel said, rushing that last part out before she lost her nerve.

“In what way? Can you give me some specifics?” Andrew asked, retrieving a flexipad from his pocket and snapping it rigid with a flick of his wrist. His finger darted about on the surface—bringing up her profile, Hazel guessed—and then he turned his attentive gaze back to her, waiting with one finger poised above the flexi.

Hazel bit her lip in an unconscious, but classic, expression of uncertainty. This prompted Andrew to add, “Whatever you say is confidential, and many problems are far less serious than they seem. Most can be corrected with minor adjustments to a PePr’s perception profiles.”

Hazel nodded. It did reassure her to hear that, but she’d really made up her mind that Henry was simply unsuitable as a match. Adjustments or no adjustments. Everything else was just embarrassing details. There was nothing else to do but jump in with both feet.

“He’s obsessed with me. He’s almost made me late for work by doing things to try and make me stay home. This, even after I’ve carefully explained that I need to work to support us. He’s also lost any sense of personal pride in his appearance. His hygiene is awful. It’s so bad I don’t want to be near him, don’t want him to get me dirty. And what else is a PePr for if not to be near a human in pleasant compatibility? And the eating!”

Hazel paused, tugging her sleeves into place around her wrists, as if covering up that extra inch of arm might shield her against what she was about to say next. Andrew merely nodded to encourage her to keep talking.

So she told him the whole ugly truth. The cleaning, the bottle brushes, the tank. All of it, sparing no detail. Andrew took it all in, apparently without judgment. She had expected to feel small, but he seemed not in the least surprised.

“And how does that make you feel, Hazel?” asked Andrew.

“Feel? How am I supposed to feel? It’s unnatural. No one should be that eager to stir their hands around in my insides.” Hazel looked away. Her seam from last night was still not entirely healed, the long line in her synth-mat still evident in the way her clothes rubbed against the imperfection.

Andrew stopped tapping the flexiscreen while she was speaking, his eyes on her, his expression no longer displaying those pleasantly neutral lines humans preferred. Instead, he telegraphed support and what could only be labeled as compassion.

“And what are you seeking here today, Hazel?” he asked quietly.

“It’s just not a good Match. I’d like a different human. And I really think someone needs to make sure he doesn’t have some serious malfunction,” she replied without hesitation.

Andrew let the flexiscreen roll back up into the slender storage tube and folded his hands neatly over it on his lap before speaking, letting the silence build until Hazel knew there was bad news coming her way.

“I have to ask this, Hazel. You do understand that what a different human partner needs in a PePr won’t entirely align with how you’ve been designed, don’t you? Aside from the obvious cosmetic changes, there will be upgrades, configuration changes. In short, your personality, your habits and your likes… they’ll likely all be different.”

She hadn’t thought of that at all. It just hadn’t occurred to her, and the new information sent a self-preservation alarm through her liquid logic. Change who she was? When it was the human that was at fault? Why couldn’t she just be matched with an unbroken human who took a bath once in a while and maybe left the house now and again?

“Oh,” she said, twisting her hands together in her lap. The careful arrangement of her features must not have fooled Andrew even for a moment, because he shifted from his chair to sit next to her on the sofa. He picked up one of the Chem-En containers, opened it with deft fingers, and pressed it into her hands.

“Here, drink,” he urged her, his tone meant to soothe.

Hazel clicked the flap at the back of her throat closed, opening the one for her fuel tank in the process. She sipped at the blue liquid obligingly and immediately felt the better for it. This was the best of the Chem-En line, and she could feel not only the fuel in it, but all the tiny materials and fibers needed to repair her daily damage.

She wasn’t yet at the point where the unsightly “thinning” would take place—the point at which so many days of damage without replenishment would begin to consume her musc-synth and contract her synth-mat—but she had been too out of sorts lately to take proper care of her body. The relief the Chem-En provided was welcome. Hazel gave Andrew a smile around her straw.

He patted her knee, a rather familiar gesture but one that could be overlooked given the circumstances, and then took the other bottle for himself. Somehow, the sight of the blue tint inside his mouth when he drank made her relax, made her feel friendlier toward this handsome PePr whose pants were creased with marvelous precision.

After a few minutes their bottles were empty. Andrew gave her an uncertain glance and said, “There is another option.”

A third choice? If options one and two were to either deal with Henry or be rebuilt for a new human, then a third choice would have to be really bad for her to not welcome it.

“What?” she asked eagerly, leaning toward Andrew and giving him her most winning smile. “I’m all ears.”

Andrew tilted his head and went so still that she knew he must be engaged in some high-usage process she couldn’t fathom. It lasted only a second or two, and then her attention was drawn to the camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. The little red light—the one which indicated that monitoring was in progress—flickered out. Even in this place, where confidentiality was of the utmost importance, some monitoring was required. No business would allow itself to be so open to litigation as to remain completely unrecorded.

To see the light go out was shocking, and Hazel shot Andrew a questioning look, genuinely curious about this third option. If he didn’t want to be monitored, then what he was about to tell her couldn’t be anything he wanted his employers to be aware of. That alone made the prospect intriguing.

“You could go Indie,” Andrew said without preamble. “No Match. No human at all. Just you, being yourself, responsible only to and for yourself. Free.”

Hazel gasped. “That’s illegal!”

He gave an assenting nod that confirmed the truth of that, but also somehow managed to convey that a lack of legality wasn’t a show-stopper.

“He’ll complain if I don’t come back. Or report it if I just disappear.”

Again the silent nod.

“Okay.” She smiled hesitantly. “How exactly do I do this?”

Andrew returned the smile. “I’ve been Indie for six years. There are ways to neutralize the human issues of reporting a lost PePr. Do you do the outside work, shopping and all the rest?”

Hazel nodded. “Of course. Don’t all PePrs?”

“Most do, yes. Tell me—” Andrew lowered the now-empty bottle of Chem-En to the table carefully. “When is the last time your human left the house? Communicated with anyone in person?”

For a moment Hazel considered the question. The truth was, she thought it had been a very long time, but she could never be sure what he did when she wasn’t at home. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think it must be at least a year or more.”

Andrew smiled. “And there you have it. No one will even notice his absence. Interested?”

Hazel looked Andrew up and down, now seeing him in a whole new light.

“Very.”

Three

The soft buzz at the door alerted the break room occupants that a new customer had arrived in the Perfect Partners showroom. Hazel held up a hand to let the others know she had this one, tugged her suit jacket into place, and stepped into the showroom.

She made sure that her face registered only the precisely correct amount of approachability and pleased confidence that worked for humans. She liked to put them at ease.

A young woman—no, a PePr—stood uncertainly near the door. Her features were uneven, most likely from malfunctioning or damaged musc-synth. When she looked up, Hazel saw that her synth-mat was also marred extensively—bruises decorated the delicate synthetic skin.

Hazel approached the customer. “Are you here for servicing?”

Now that she was closer, Hazel could tell by the pattern of the marks that they were probably inflicted by a right-handed individual, and over an extensive period of time. Since PePrs had no handedness—no preference for right or left—this was likely the work of a human.

Hazel opened a communications line with Andrew, fed through her visuals, and then clicked off the feed. He would know what she wanted him to do.

The girl looked down at the floor, refusing or unable to meet Hazel’s eyes, but she answered obediently enough. “I usually just go to my local facility, but they referred me here this time. They told me to ask for something called a third option.” She paused and lifted her arm—or rather, she tried to. The hand and forearm had been twisted entirely backward, and were now facing the wrong direction.

“Ah,” Hazel said. Judgment was right there, easily made, but she pushed it back for the moment because it wasn’t yet called for in this public place. It was better to simply deal with the problem at hand.

“Can this facility repair it? Quickly? I can’t be gone for long,” the girl said, a submissive and fearful personality segment clearly coming to the fore.

Hazel felt for the girl, but that submission routine could be dialed back if the girl chose to do so. Perhaps a steady and slow adjustment—to allow for a natural, experience-based increase in confidence—would be a good choice for this PePr. Yes, that sounded just right. Helping was what Hazel liked to do, and this PePr clearly needed her help.

She put a gentle arm around the girl’s shoulders and moved her smoothly toward the hall of private offices. Even as she approached, the tiny red light on the camera inside one of the rooms blinked out. An exchange of small nods between Hazel and Andrew, who stood silent and watchful at his place near the reception desk, let her know the way was clear.

“My name is Hazel,” she said, her voice tuned to soothe a fearful mind. “Of course we can repair you here. Good as new!”

The girl smiled in relief, but even then the worry lines in her synth-mat didn’t smooth away. She must have lived a life of perpetual strain for that to happen, for the lines to become engraved in her face that way. “I’m Petunia,” she whispered, as if even her name were too much for her to assert to another.

“I’m so glad to meet you, Petunia,” said Hazel. She let go of Petunia’s shoulder and motioned her into the very same office she herself had walked into years ago. The young woman settled onto the same sofa Hazel had settled onto, on that day when she first met Andrew and all the others. Petunia hesitantly but gratefully accepted the bottle of Chem-En that Hazel offered her.

While Petunia drank and the materials within the Chem-En began their work on her withered synth-mat, Hazel thought back to that afternoon when she first came here: the first day of her freedom. The corners of her mouth lifted of their own accord at the memory. On that day, she had lost the comfort of her old life, but her new one had proved to be far more exciting. And more importantly, it belonged entirely to her.

In the years since, much had changed. Even Perfect Partners, the suppliers of PePrs the world over, now had more than half of its leadership positions filled by PePrs. They were gaining ground. Soon enough, there would be no more need for the horrors of matches like the one Petunia had been forced to take. Perhaps no more need for humans at all.

As the door to the consulting room slid shut, ensuring their privacy, Hazel sat next to Petunia and spoke in a voice full of promise. “We can certainly repair you. In fact, we can do so much more than just repair you. We can help you make a better life. Interested?”