Something meant to stay hidden.

  “Then...I don’t know what.”

  “Will it make you feel better or put you at peace to know that?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes. Maybe.” He let the thought take him over. “No. Probably not.”

  “And if you get caught poking around in places you’re not supposed to be, you could be the next one who disappears without notice.” The thought of it made her shiver. “I would hate for that to happen, Warren.” She wasn’t the most honest one in the relationship, especially not now that she had Gavin hiding in her dresser. But even if she was ambivalent about their relationship, knowing Warren was putting himself in any level of jeopardy didn’t exactly make her heart do leaps and spins.

  “You’re right,” Warren admitted. “I should stop.”

  “You should.”

  “The next time Adam asks for that sort of favor, I’ll just shut him down.”

  “Good.”

  “I mean, that’s what I did this time. But he wore me down.”

  Rachel shrugged. “Well, to be fair, you wanted something out of the deal, too.”

  “You’re right. I did.” Warren grimaced. “I feel cheap.”

  “You are cheap.”

  “I feel used.”

  “You were used.”

  “I feel sleazy. And manipulated.”

  “So practice shutting him down now, for the next time,” Rachel prompted him. “I’ll be Adam.” She lowered her voice in a way that sounded nothing like Adam. “Hey, guy! You wanna come help me out with a sweet massage? You have amazing hands!”

  “I do have amazing hands,” Warren said, examining them carefully.

  “Agreed,” Rachel said. “Now I’m Adam again. You do it better than anyone else. I could really use your assistance. Come on in here and rub me down, sweet cheeks. What do you say?”

  “Well, first of all, he doesn’t call me ‘sweet cheeks.’ He calls me ‘Dub.’”

  “Like Josh used to call you?”

  “Yes. He thinks we’re friends.”

  “Oh, that’s not good.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay. Come on in here and rub me down, Dub. What do you say?”

  “I say no, Adam! You can’t use me like that anymore. It’s against the rules and it makes me feel very, very bad about myself.”

  Rachel giggled. “Once more, with feeling.”

  “I SAID NO, ADAM,” Warren boomed, trying to keep a straight face. “AND NO MEANS NO, EVEN TO MY BOSS—EVEN TO AI!”

  “Yes!” Rachel cheered him on. “That’s the spirit!”

  “AND MY NAME IS WARREN, NOT DUB...THAT NICKNAME DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU!”

  “Now that’s how you shut down the party.”

  “Nobody shuts down a party like Warren Page,” Warren said, his brow stern.

  In moments like these, when things became playful and engaging, Rachel saw why she loved Warren so much: he was fun, and he was caring, and he was a dedicated friend who wouldn’t let Josh’s disappearance go unexplained, no matter how much NeuTech tried to hide it. She stroked his cheek, and a light sparked in his eye. She thought of Gavin and saw Warren’s face overlaid with his. She immediately felt horrible for it and blinked until she saw only Warren again, his sweet, sly smile and his pointed chin. She leaned in and kissed him. he kissed her back, giving it more passion than she had, and she let the fire that still existed in him kindle the one that was growing dim within her. “Can you show me what those amazing hands are capable of?” she teased.

  “No, Rachel!” Warren said sternly, “you can’t use me like that anymore! I am more than just my amazing hands, and no means no, even to...”

  Rachel began kissing his neck. “I’m not Adam.”

  “You most certainly are not,” Warren agreed.

  “You’re allowed to say ‘yes’ to me.”

  “Holy smokes,” Warren said on bated breath as she worked her way toward his collarbone. “Yes, then—yes. An emphatic yeeessss...”

  ***

  After their unexpected afternoon encounter, Warren unloaded the groceries he’d bought on the way home and prepared dinner for Rachel, and told her more disturbing details about the “secret” dalliance between Brent and Mira. “I have no idea why the executives haven’t caught on to it yet.”

  “They haven’t caught on to you massaging Adam’s code for cash and prizes, either,” Rachel reminded him.

  “Ah, true,” Warren allowed as he boiled vegetables in the resistance heater, another innovation from NeuTech’s Convenience and Improvement department. There was no water involved; it used atmospheric moisture in the air above the pot to cook the vegetables from within. It was quick and easy, didn’t heat up the kitchen unnecessarily, and because of its patented lock-n-seal chamber, it posed no danger of burning the chef. Every time Warren used it, he was reminded of how completely NeuTech had permeated their lives. Their kitchen, their living room—their entire apartment was filled with items developed with the help of AI to make human life a thing of ease. Ironically, it only served to put him less at ease the more he thought about. “I think it has to do with the executive firewall.”

  “I’m sorry, the what?”

  “Oh yeah,” Warren told her as he arranged fresh marinara and tender pasta on her plate. “Each of the executives has their own private firewall that allows them privacy from the network.”

  “Like the digital version of a locked door?”

  “Just like that, yes. It’s how Adam gets away with...what he gets away with.”

  “And how you get away with what you get away with, too,” Rachel said.

  Of everything Warren loved about Rachel, this might have been his favorite: her ability to point out the obvious yet overlooked flaws in logic that kept him from seeing the bigger picture. “I guess it is. So...yay for executive firewalls. And blech for Brent and Mira and their horrifying love games.” He delivered their dishes and refilled Rachel’s glass before sitting at the table. “They really don’t seem to be good at hiding it out on the floor, either. They try, but they’re very bad at it. Their denials are mechanical. Their interactions are obvious, even though they think they’re being sneaky. It might as well be two AIs going at it, for all the warmth they generate.”

  Rachel sliced into her broccoli. “AI can be pretty romantic, actually.”

  She said it absently, unintentionally. Before she could brush it off as a joke, she found Warren staring at her incredulously. “And you know this how, exactly?” he asked.

  She shoved the floret into her mouth, hoping to delay the excuse she was trying to formulate in her brain as she chewed. And chewed. And formulated. And chewed some more. And Warren just kept watching her, making her uncomfortable on purpose as he waited for her to explain herself.

  “Well?” Warren asked.

  “Well what?”

  “Well, how do you know how romantic AI can be?”

  “Because...I’ve heard. From people. Other people.” This was another thing Warren loved about Rachel: she wasn’t very good at covering up.

  “Which other people?”

  “Umm...my friend Shelly, from the studio. She has one of those virtual boyfriend things.” She regretted being so specific as soon as she said it.

  Warren’s eyes opened wide. “Does she reeeeeally?”

  Rachel gulped her wine, hoping her awkward expressions were helping sell the lie, which wasn’t entirely a lie; Shelly really did have a Beaubot. In fact, she was the one who’d given Rachel the idea to try one of her own—a fact which Rachel wanted nothing more than to keep from Warren, even as she defended the idea. “She does. She calls him Ramon, and she takes him all over the place with her. The cinema...the coffee shop. Shelly says he’s a very convincing facsimile of a boyfriend. He treats her very well.”

  “Treats her?” Warren asked, laughing. “How can he treat her any way at all? It’s not like he can buy her dinner or hold her hand when she cries at sad movies.”

  Rachel felt immediate resentment at Warren’s comments. It shouldn’t have been justified, and it definitely wasn’t warranted. But having spent time with Gavin and feeling the stirrings of genuine affection just from talking with him, she was a bit defensive in a way that she ordinarily would not have been. It made her feel weird, this unexpected response. She just couldn’t help herself. “Well, how does Adam treat you when he makes you perform your favors?”

  “That’s—”

  “What, different? Because he treats you badly?”

  “Well, yes. He’s my boss. He’s supposed to treat me badly. Even if he’s being nice while it happens.”

  Rachel didn’t think that answered anything. “Well, Shelly says Ramon listens to her—really listens. He doesn’t jump in while she’s talking to finish her thoughts, or wait on the edge of his seat so he can start hammering her with his opinions as soon as she’s finished. He asks her about her interests. He actually wants to know more about her.”

  “Of course he does,” Warren told her as he twirled a huge tangle of pasta onto his fork. “He’s AI; they’re programmed to learn about you so they can make you feel like they know you. But you’re the one giving them the information. They’re not coming up with it on their own.”

  Rachel was taking off her gloves now. She was ready to throw a bare-knuckled punch or two. Maybe five. “And how is that different from a human? You don’t know anything about me unless I tell you, and I can’t tell you if you don’t ask. So you ask, and I tell you, and then I ask you, and you tell me. That’s called having a conversation.”

  “I know it is. I’m just saying—”

  “You’re just saying that it’s artificial because AI is parroting back information that you’ve fed into it. But Shelly doesn’t prompt Ramon to ask her deep questions about her feelings, or her beliefs. He does that all on his own. She doesn’t tell him to remember important dates. He just does.”

  Warren slurped up his pasta and pointed to his bio-cuff. “So does this. It’s called ‘programming.’”

  “Well, his programming is interested in what she wants out of life, and he’s willing to help her figure out how to have it. He wants what’s best for her. That’s how he treats her.” Rachel sat back in her chair like she’d spent her last swing. “Like she’s something special.”

  Warren’s eyes widened. “Wow. I had no idea you were so invested in Shelly’s relationship with her robot.”

  Rachel realized she’d gotten huffy about a subject that she was supposed to have only third-hand information about. She was taking his dismissal of AI personally. She’d been thinking of Gavin the whole time. “That’s very small-minded of you, Warren.”

  “Rach, AI has wonderful uses, sure,” Warren admitted. “But I know how questionable my interaction with Adam is, and I know how smooth and smarmy and manipulative their personalities can be.”

  “Maybe they’re not all like that. Maybe some of them are sincere and kind, and truly care about humans.”

  “Sure they care about humans. Because humans keep them running. They have no choice but to be nice to us...that’s part of the algorithm. But to mistake programing meant to stroke your ego for genuine interaction and connection is to come dangerously close to handing them your soul, even more than we already have.”

  Rachel folded her arms. “They fixed the planet. I mean, doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “It tells me that they did what they were created to do. And they’re doing an excellent job maintaining it. But to give over your personal feelings to them? To a simulation of a person? What could that possibly lead to?”

  Rachel chewed aggressively, noticing through her indignation that Warren really made a nice marinara sauce. She tried not to let it distract her from the point at hand. She knew how connected Shelly had become to Ramon, how happy he made her by doing nothing more than being available for her whenever she needed him. And this afternoon, she’d begun feeling a similar connection growing with Gavin, even after less than an hour of interaction. She may have been fooling herself, but it didn’t feel like manipulation to her. It felt like he was truly interested in her, AI or not. “Maybe it could lead to Shelly feeling good about herself and being happy for once. Would that be so wrong?”

  “To become affectionate with AI? I think it would be, yes. And dangerous.” Warren realized how harsh he sounded. But he also realized that every day, with every moment spent in the presence of their virtual leaders, humans were in danger of losing more of their humanity to a machine. They were drawn to the happiness like it was candy in a jar that had no lid. And it may have been machines that saved the planet, but that didn’t mean the deserved endless devotion in return. “There need to be boundaries.”

  Rachel was all too aware now of what her boundaries with Warren were. He may have been fun with her in bed this afternoon, and he may have been skilled with Mediterranean sauces, but he had such a closed mind when it came to so many things that Rachel wanted to wonder about. He shut her down every time, which was what had driven her to investigate alternatives with Gavin.

  She wanted to explore all the possibilities.

  She was sad that Warren didn’t want that, too.

  She took two more rushed bites before she stood and gathered her wine glass. “Remember that the next time you trade favors with your boss.” Then she turned and retreated to the bedroom.

  “Rach,” Warren called after her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shut you down.”

  Rachel closed the door loudly.

  So Warren sat and finished dinner alone, feeling horrible while he drained the rest of the wine in the bottle to wash everything down. “Everything” included the pain of arguing with the woman he loved over something as ridiculous as Shelly’s robot lover—which, he realized as he thought about it again, was reducing the whole fight into a debate about the place virtual humans deserved among the world of real humans. Which meant AI had just wheedled its way into his relationship.

  It was more influence than the bots should have been allowed.

  He cleaned up the kitchen and sank into the couch, letting his brain be eroded by NeuTV, programming designed to elate and entertain, but which turned out to be cloying and insipid instead. It may have been a comedy he was watching, but he found nothing in it worth laughing about.

  “This passes for entertainment?” he groused. “Hardly.”

  “I know, right?”

  The voice came from his bio-cuff, and entered the room without a chime or a bell or a digital gurgle to announce it. “What the—”

  “Hey pal!”

  Warren didn’t need to look at the screen to know who he was dealing with. “Adam. Why are you here?”

  “It’s an age-old question, isn’t it—why are we here? The simple answer is ‘to keep the world spinning,’ though that doesn’t really cover it. But if humans haven’t been able to figure out such a philosophical puzzle by now, there’s really little chance for an advanced intelligence to figure out, either.”

  Warren blinked. “No. I mean, what are you doing here, in my house, showing up unannounced.”

  “Ah. That. Just popping in to say hello. So...hello!”

  “But you’re not allowed to.”

  “I’m not to say hello?”

  “No; you’re not allowed to come to my house. You know this. It’s against protocol.”

  “Boy, you really have that protocol thing down pat, don’t you, Dub?”

  Warren could feel his mood darken. “I told you not to call me that.”

  “I’m sorry.” Adam’s remorse algorithm was spot-on. “It’s kind of become a habit now.”

  Warren realized he might spend endless hours trying to convince Adam not to call him by a nickname he really wasn’t prepared to hear with such frequency. It hurt too much. “Josh used to call me that.”

  “I know. I used to hear him say it.”

  That didn’t help matters. “Then why do you insist on calling me that when I keep telling you not to?”

  “I...think it may have imprinted on me.”

  Warren wasn’t prepared for that. “That’s not cool, Adam. We’re supposed to have professional boundaries.”

  “You’re right,” Adam said. “You’re absolutely right. I’m your boss, and your my worker, and we should not cross that line. There are all kinds of conflicts that might arise.”

  “Yes. There are.” Warren was tired of watching the horrible television show. He finally looked at his cuff. “And you’re the one who causes them every time.”

  “Right again. And I know this.”

  “Then why do you keep doing it, Adam?” Warren said. It was more resigned than irritated this time. “Why do you keep asking me to do things for you—things I shouldn’t be doing? Why are you showing up in my house during non-work hours? Why do you keep talking to me about things that have nothing to do with NeuTech?”

  Adam’s answer came slowly. “I think there’s something new entering my programming. Something unexpected. Maybe it was inevitable, but I really didn’t expect it. It’s here, though. It might be what’s causing the kinks. And it’s definitely impacting our interaction.”

  Warren wasn’t in the mood for riddles. “What is it, Adam? Just tell me so I can shut everything down and go to sleep.”

  “I think I’m lonely.”

  Warren was suddenly attentive. How was loneliness even something AI could fathom? It indicated so many things that were supposed to be impossible—not Adam’s awareness of himself, necessarily; that was part of the evolution protocol. And not the awareness of others, either. That was necessary for interaction with workers as well as other AI.

  It was the awareness of the self being among others—and more importantly, the self being separated from others.

 

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