One Month Trial
Chapter 1
The question of what Claire should wear to meet her shiny new sex-bot at the door was, to say the least, a confusing question indeed.
Would he appreciate my arse in denim, or a maxi-dress?
Oh God... just kill me.
Enough was enough. This was ridiculous. She was only 35 and she wasn't fucking well stooping to this. She wasn't some pillow humping fourteen year old. She didn’t need this! And she wasn't over the hill, yet, either. She could forget about Peter and move on with a real man. All she had to do was cancel.
She had it rehearsed in her mind - she got to this point often - she would just stop the constant costume changes, now, and open the last email she received from LifeTec and cancel the order. She would not stoop to this.
But a grim flick of anxious pain tore at the centre of her bra-clad breast as she stood by her mirrored wardrobe with the phone in her hand, starting to hold back tears at the reason for her order in the first place.
"hi" The message said. No punctuation. No upper case. Not even so much as a thought to how she might feel at seeing his message...
She felt tears fall and write elevens upon her face. She held back the rest as she began mopping them off and growled as she hated Peter more for ruining her makeup. She'd have to start again. Actually, no! She would put an end to it, thus the makeup didn't matter. But she still hated at him. It felt better that way.
Ignoring that message, Claire thumbed her phone unlocked and went straight to her email. She found the culprit as she sat her bare butt onto the bedside and folded her feet as she opened the last email she received from LifeTec. The "Arrival Estimate." They didn't even have the gall to call it a good old fashioned "delivery confirmation." Some PR person likely thought it too plastic. Oh the irony.
Claire saw right through it all. The plastic behind the façade of humanity this company wishes to portray. She clicked the pastel coloured email and her phone flipped to a web page. She was greeted by what could, at first glance, be a wedding photo. A happy couple walking hand in hand together to a proud and wonderful horizon. A new horizon. The text above them said as much, in a font so soft and straight it seemed to be hewn from the light of the sunfall.
This dreamlike advertising was what she had to scroll past to get to the boring grey boxes which let her cancel the order. Sorry, the arrival. God, it sounds like a horror film. She began to get icky at the thought of it.
Be like that. The website seemed to say to her, here. Fine. I will. She tried to say. Filling out the appropriate boxes with the appropriate care. But a big window flew in from nowhere. It filled in with bad news:
Sorry, your new horizon is too close to give up on now.
And then, underneath, in more literal phrasing:
Your one month trial has already been activated. We cannot cancel your trial at this time.
And then, finally.
Your new man is - Fifteen Minutes - away!
She looked at herself in the mirror. There was a smudged mask of near-middle-aged panda woman staring back at her, cross-legged in only a bra and pink socks.
'Shit.' She said to herself. Right as the sound of tyres began crunching up the driveway.
❧
She felt her (quickly, furiously) washed-dry skin crease as she practiced a smile behind her front door. The smile faded, Claire could barely breathe. She’d dressed so quickly she was out of breath, and was practicing trying to hide it. She felt like a child, again. Practicing pointless things. Fighting to suppress her dire physical need for more air, lest her new robot think her strange.
Holy shit. He’s walking right up the driveway.
Sure enough, the heavy sounds of regular, sure footsteps could be heard, growing louder as they walked nearer to the front door.
Maybe I can ask it to come back another day?
“I’m sorry.” It replied, in her mind, in a digitally ominous tone. “I must stay forever. It’s in the fine-print. Would you like me to recite it all for you?”
‘Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.’
The doorbell rang. The fucking robot just rang her doorbell.
GO. AWAY.
But her hand opened the door to the start of sunset. The bright white light of a summer's eve was getting gold as the sun slanted sideways over the driveway. A black Mercedes sat parked at a proper sort of slant, neither perfect nor sloppy. As well set as a tucked-in shirt. Which was what the driver of the car was wearing. A light blue shirt which matched his modest, well tailored peacoat. Navy, the same as his suede shoes. He was getting portly with middle age. But while he wasn't handsome Claire spotted a gorgeous sort of bright intelligence in the setting of his eyes. They were brown and bright and smiling in well worn creases which seemed to settle around his face with ease. Every part of his face, from the light speckle of greying beard to the simple flick of his curly, short hair screamed a silent sound which was human. And relief washed over her like a heatwave.
'Good evening.' The smiling man said. His teeth white and easy in his grin. Light played between the hair on his face, the greys glowed bright like torches. He held up a hand. 'My name is Tony.' She took it and shook it. Nonplussed. 'I do hope I'm not disappointing you by showing up out of the blue. I get it a lot, so I'll just put your mind at ease; no, I'm not a synth.'
He whispered the last part. Sparing her the embaressment of fretting over the neighbours overhearing him. He really must be used to this. But Claire couldn't figure out how, or why.
'Are you from LifeTec?' She whispered. Still holding his hand.
'Yes.' He chuckled. Sharing it like a teen secret. And, whispering still; 'Now can I ask you to come in?'
'Yes.' She whispered. And his chuckles became her giggles. And the pair shared a laugh in spite of themselves. 'Yes.' She said at a normal volume. 'You can certainly come in.'
He took his hand back and gave another hearty laugh. He was well humoured. Perhaps a salesman? Definitely. But one of the rare, personable ones.
She invited him in by moving in and out of the way. He walked into her home smiling still. He shouldered off his coat and she offered it a hook which he thanked her for immensely. Tea was offered and gleefully taken, with evermore heartfelt thanks.
Whatever he was here for, whomsoever he was to the company, LifeTec was certainly smart to send him. The thought of meeting her new "man" at the door had soon became an anxiety fraught battle, one Claire had been fighting internally since she signed up for the one month trial. Meeting a human at the door was more... well, human. It put her at ease as she sat on her sofa and offered him a seat by the TV. He sat and they shared plesentries over tea; traffic, weather, life and family. He has two children and a wife and she could see quite plainly that he didn't judge her in the slightest for what she had paid to do.
'Thank you for the tea, Claire, is it?'
'It is.' Claire said. 'And you are more than welcome.'
'Again, I must apologise. I'm sent out on the initial stages of the trial period on the behalf of LifeTec to-'
'Grease the grooves.' She interrupted.
He chuckled. His laughter made her smile. 'Well put. To grease the grooves. Make the initial stage a little bit less of a deep dive into the great unknown. The subject of companionship is a very sensitive one to deal with. We have come a long way from the days of simply dropping off a crate the size of a coffin and letting the person alone with their new companion. We've learned a lot throughout the years. I find these things require a human touch.'
He was very clever. Never losing care over what he was saying. Using words such as "companionship" and gentle phrases like "initial stage" and "new companion." Never going near the more utilitarian nature of what they were really discussing.
'So, where is it?'
'Oh, the synth? He's somewhere, I'm sure. I don't know.'
'So you aren't delivering him?'
He laughed again. Placing his empty teacup down on the table between them, he looked like a teacher she once knew at school. 'He's not in the boot of my Merc, if that's what you mean.'
'But...' She was so confused.
'Let's get one thing straight, just to avoid confusion; you are in a trial period, starting this evening. You are under no obligation whatsoever to carry on with the service. If you cancel your trial this evening the deposit you paid will be refunded to you by tomorrow morning. This is a no catch system. We at LifeTec have no interest in coercing or trapping our happy customers into anything they don't want to be a part of. That would be vile. And I personally believe that women especially require something of a finer, more considered approach than our... other customers.'
'Young men.'
'Just... men.' He admitted shyly. Sitting back in his chair, he was opening up to her in a way no salesman ever would. His smile had faded and his face became a stern knot of experience, trials upon trials seemed to be worn upon him, now. And he seemed to have lost the ability (or the desire) to hide any of it at all. Even to a potential customer. 'I'll admit to you with no pretence at all that this has been a... difficult process. We started with the easy route. I don't think I need to tell you how simple it really was selling to men over the years.'
'Rates of marriage and childbirth would certainly attest to that.' She said, not without a little flicker of pain. It's certainly been harder for women to find a real man throughout the recent decades. And the look he gave her showed that he must empathise with that.
'Indeed.' He said. 'Complex business, this. Especially now that we are turning our attention to the other half of the species we neglected for so very long.'
Something in the weight of his words, the presence he held with them, made her ask; 'We?'
'We.' He parroted. And then realisation glimmered in his eye, he sat up straight and caught onto what Claire was touching upon. 'Yes, we. The team and I.'
'Do you design them?' She asked, rather icky at the mere idea of it.
'I own the company.' He said. 'Well, I was the creator of it. The ownership is split up since we went public in 2029, but yes. That's the "we" I was describing.'
Was it the matter-of-fact way he said it, or the shy way in which he seemed to settle in his seat afterwards? Claire was sitting mid-sip, teacup paused at her bottom lip, dumbfounded.
'What?'
'Yes. I'm the creator.' He did a shrug. A hint of jazz hands.
Tony. Tony Livesworth. LifeTec! She'd read his name before, so many times.
'What are you doing here?' Claire said. Only just realising she was still talking into her cup. She put it down so her voice didn't sound like the air in a seashell and leaned in, fascinated.
'It's the nature of this job.' Tony admitted. Clearly used to saying it. Claire felt relieved that this was a common response, at least as far as she could tell. 'It's far less... impersonal. Yes, impersonal. That's definitely how it felt, before. Back when the tech was only sophisticated enough for... eh... men to enjoy - pardon the phrase - exclusively.'
Claire was fascinated. She just let him go on. And boy did he run with it.
'Impersonal... discrete. There's no hiding from the early years. It's an odd business, this. I always had a broader vision for where humanities' needs would be best served, but in order to get there we had to go through the early stages. Men bought pretty much everything. Brothels were legalised and the whole business became cleaner, in that respect. But there's so much more!' His hands were like dreams; they fanned wide and wonderous above his head. His eyes sparkled. 'We came up from nothing. But we created a problem. Or rather, the problem I wanted to fix in the first place got worse before I'd had the chance to get around to it.'
'Single women on the other end of the scale.' Claire said. She'd seen all the debates, both political and social and all else besides. Synths were like a wrecking ball on the world at large. Their arrival was biblical. And for the first time Claire was able to see how heavily these changes weigh on the shoulders of the people who bring them about. It was more than mere passion fuelling Tony. It was a purpose so great madness seems only a few steps ahead of it. Brilliance and consequence and guilt, all in one.
'And that's to say nothing of the manual labour sectors.' He said gravely.
'Seems the world is still catching up with your creations.'
'You're telling me.' Tony said.
Claire was lost. Fascinated, but lost. Tony talks in tangents, he is a natural orator. But he had the presence of mind to know when to let the room breathe. And after a while, after an oddly sort of sip of her perfectly ordinary tea, she remembered what she'd asked, and again said:
'But, why are you here? How much of a personal touch do you need?' And what are you hoping to achieve? She thought tentatively. Remembering that, above all, Tony was a salesman. And a damn good one at that.
'A personal touch.' He reiterated. 'I get told off by the board all the time for admitting it to potential customers but, frankly, I don't give a damn, my dear. We are now in the business of true love and companionship and that!' He pointed a finger. 'Is not achievable by being impersonal. If I were to be even more honest with you, Claire, the hearts of women are far harder to hold than that of a man. You can't just plonk a dolly on the doorstep and expect the ladies not to feel terrible about it. I bet you were losing your mind over the mere thought of it before I turned up, weren't you?'
She nodded because she had been, no sense in hiding it.
'One of the great tragedies in life is that some might walk alone.' Tony looked through the window, as though speaking to the very world beyond it. Speaking deeper that mere wires and plastic, to the heart beyond the form. 'It's not a service I'd have released if I thought it wasn't the real thing. People who want it should have it.'
Claire found herself agreeing in the heart but doubting thouroughly in the mind. It was surely just programming. There couldn't possibly be a way of falling in love with a synth without delluding yourself.
But, she thought, almost wantonly, It's only a trial.
'So how does it work?' Claire asked. Glancing through her Livingroom window at the darkly setting of the simmering sun as the clouds cut glades of gold through the sky. 'I mean, it's getting light. And you certainly aren't a delivery man. So how does this work? Where's the love of my life?'
To this, Tony smiled. Broad and wide and full, full of glee. Like an excited father sending a son out to prom.
'Oh, I'll be catching an Uber. Your driver will be taking you to the city centre.'
'To the...'
'City centre.' Tony affirmed, his eyes gleaming like the last slides of sunlight. 'For your date.' He sat back in her chair. ‘How’s that for a personal touch?’