Retro

[apok]

Kathy booted up for the first time, in the production facility. Her systems were tested, for quality assurance purposes, by a technician with a laptop, a data cable running to a port on the nape of her neck. As the fifty-third Kathy to ever come off the assembly line, she was one of the best: a new, state-of-the-art gynoid engineered with third-generation artificial intelligence. Out of the box, she could cook, clean, garden, babysit, tutor, mend, and perform a wide variety of sexual functions, even including roleplay and safe BDSM! And anything she didn't know already, she could learn. There would also be software updates and subscription software modules her owner could purchase. The Kathy model was a game-changer that would revolutionize the way robots and humans coexisted. Her tests complete, she walked to the indicated pod, connected herself to the terminals within, and shut herself down. The next time she would be powered-on would be by her owner and master.

____

Kathy felt her main power turn on. She immediately noticed an error: her internal clock was flashing 00:00:00, 1 Jan 2000. That obviously couldn't be right, her clock must have reset or something. Her vision came into focus. Her pod was in a large, well-furnished room. A man and a woman stood before her, the man holding a tablet computer, and the woman leaning in toward Kathy inquisitively.
"I think she's on," the woman said.
Kathy's programming kicked in. "I am Kathy, your new multipurpose gynoid. Who is my owner?" Establishing ownership is an important, immediate priority for any new robot.
"I'm your owner," said the man with the tablet. "You may call me Eli."
"Hello, Eli. I am Kathy."
"Yes... you've already said that."

"Aww she's so cute," the woman cooed, and she pinched Kathy's cheek. "These third-generation AIs are so quaint."
"Don't touch her," Eli said, with a note of mild annoyance. "She's worth a lot more than you."
Kathy spoke up: "Eli, I am experiencing an error. My date and time settings are invalid."
Eli smiled. "Yeah, I figured that might be the case. Just a sec." He tapped on his tablet. Kathy felt her internal date and time being set manually. When it refreshed, she noticed something unexpected: it was thirty-six years after the date of her manufacture.

"Eli, I must inform you that my warranty expired thirty-one years ago." Kathy said.
Eli and the woman looked at each other and shared a smile, then looked back to Kathy. "I'm not too worried about that," said Eli.
He seemed satisfied enough, so Kathy went back to her default programming. "How may I serve you, Eli?"
"Stand still, for now."
"Aww, let her do something for you," the woman said. "I feel bad for her, all she knows is serving humans. Have her fix you up a cup of tea or something."
"No. Every second she's online she loses value," Eli replied, the annoyance returning to his voice. "I'm just running some tests before she goes in the case."
"Come on," the woman pleaded. "I want so see what she can do."
"That's enough," Eli sighed. "Alice, obedience mode."
The woman's expression flattened, and she promptly stood at attention, staring straight ahead. "Yes, sir."

Kathy struggled to understand what she just saw, but her learning algorithms were piecing the facts together. She asked her owner a simple question: "Is that woman a... robot?"
Eli grinned proudly. "Alice here is one of the newest models. A ninth-generation AI. She's so sapient she actually has some legal rights."

Kathy's mind boggled at the implications. AIs had advanced so much? Robots were visibly indistinguishable from humans? Kathy, of course, was obviously mechanical. Visible ports, seams around access panels, exposed mechanical joints. She stared in wonderment at Alice, who remained frozen in place. Kathy would never have guessed she wasn't human if not for this robotic behavior. And "Obedience mode"? Kathy couldn't fathom the concept. She was always obedient. That was the point. Why own a robot that had free will?

Eli lowered his tablet. "Okay, the checks are done. Kathy, follow me." Eli led her away, leaving Alice still standing in place. They entered a sort of gallery, with a carpeted path leading between two rows of large, transparent, rectangular cases. In each one, there stood an unmoving, smiling, naked woman. Not women, Kathy realized, robots. Beneath each one was a simple display card with names, serial numbers, and dates of manufacture. Stephanie 00357, Gigi 14673, Lola 00045, Lollipop 45624, Greta 03167, and on and on. Most of them were utterly indistinguishable from humans. Some of them, as they moved further down the rows, began to show signs of artificiality. Kathy realized that the dates of manufacture were getting older, the farther down they walked. Still, every one of these units was newer, and apparently more advanced, than Kathy.

Eventually, they reached the end of the gallery. The last case on the left side was empty. The info card read "Kathy 00053". "Step into the display case, Kathy," Eli said, opening a well concealed hatch on the back. Kathy obeyed, climbing through the hatch and standing in the transparent box. Eli closed the hatch behind her, and she felt the air shift within the chamber, as if the old air was getting sucked out and new air was getting pumped in from the floor. She looked out at Eli. How was she supposed to serve him from within this box?

"How may I serve you, Eli?"
"Stand still and keep smiling," said Eli. He tapped his tablet, and Kathy received the shutdown command.

[Sanjuro]

Short and simple, but a neat concept.