Turing Attraction · Part 1 (1/2)
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"It feels so strange in here," P'nyssa said, rubbing her tens with her mitts briskly. "Empty."
"Creepy," I agreed. Our footsteps echoed hollowly down the metallic hallways. "I've never actually been in the Castle when it was empty. Even during construction, it was always in some state of progress with workers somewhere putting it together."
She smiled softly and said "It looks pretty good, though."
"That it does; Did you see the way they reorganized the commons room?"
She nodded. "I don't like it. It doesn't look like children play there."
"It's not supposed to look like our house, Nyss. It's supposed to look like what offringers think our house looks like." I snickered darkly. "The price of fame."
She nodded, shivering slightly. "Still, it does give me the… creeps." She smiled to me, and we giggled.
"If that gives you the creeps," Aaden said, ascending from the gravtube, "you should look at the storage room downstairs."
"Why?" P'nyssa asked.
"That's where they're storing us." He smiled.
"Really?" P'nyssa asked. "The 'droids are here? Let's go take a look."
I shrugged, smiling. "Sure, let's go see what we look like."
Aaden led us down the gravtube and along a hallway. "Take a look."
In the real Shardik Castle, this would have been where we stored the vehicles. Instead, it was presently storage for the morph'droids that would double as us when the tourists came. Aaden went in first and I took up the rear.
Inside, there were duplicates of damn near everybody who presently lived at Shardik Castle and not a few of our past friends and relatives. I was surprised to see Kathy Morran among them. Shalla, Paul, Carroll, Ress, Bawr, Nance, Brieanna… Lots of memories, lots of friends. Then I saw us. P'nyssa, Aaden, and myself, leaning against the wall in storage and maintenance cubicles. I walked up to my duplicate and looked it in the face. Its eyes were closed, but otherwise it was a pretty good image. A little disconcerting; I was used to seeing my face in the mirror, as a reverse image. This thing looked like I was supposed to look, the face I presented to the world. I ran my hand along the chin; it was cold, but there was a slight stubble there, too. I laughed. Correct in every detail.
P'nyssa's and Aaden's 'droids were even more disconcerting. As far as I knew, that may just as well have been my coimelin there, but for the lack of breathing. No, that wasn't entirely true.
Aaden, all 184 centimeters of him, rested against the wall with his muscular arms crossed. His tail hung low, indicating a relaxed pose, but otherwise this was the same anthropomorphic skunk I'd been living with for the past four and half centuries. Same short muzzle, same triangular chin with the sudden blunt terminus, same black nose. The fur was just as thick as on the real one; it was something of an effort to not reach out and stroke it, or to stroke down over it's pants and find out if the 'droid was accurate in absolutely every detail or not. Other than the lack of breathing, the only giveaway that this was not my true love was that the real Aaden, standing to my left and most definitely breathing, was wearing his 'indoor' clothing of silk blouse pants and a vest with many pockets, whereas the 'droid was wearing denim cutoff shorts and a tank-top.
P'nyssa was wearing her hair loose, the 'droid had it up in a bun and fixed with two long pins. Otherwise it was the same thing; but for the 'droids complete motionlessness, they were identical. 168 centimeters of indigo-blue furred humanoid topped with a massive tangle of raven-black hair and ears larger then the span of my hand, the 'droid was complete with gold highlights amidst the fur of her arms, which rather than the standard humanoid ball-and-lever arrangements were supple tentacles ending in a broad-padded and muscular 'mitten' with an opposable thumb. The real P'nyssa's clothing reminded me of nothing less than a baseball jersey, complete with vertical stripes, while the 'droid was wearing a more comfortable silkscreened kimono.
"Now I've really got the creeps," I breathed.
"Yeah," Aaden said, laughing softly. "It's fascinating how accurate they are."
"I wonder, though," I said. "Can they pass the test?"
"What test?" Aaden asked.
"How real are they?"
"That depends," Dave answered, clearing his electronic throat first. "There are very few AI's on the planet that could with absolute accuracy reproduce the thought processes of an organic sentient, and those that could would do so at the expense of most of their present functioning. There are thirty morph'droids in this location, each of which has it's own independent SI processor for accepting data and formulating responses. I estimate I shall be examining each SI's status of interaction about ten times a second. With the 270 additional AI primaries I have had installed for this locale, it should be a minimal task for me to simulate your behavior in a manner convincing to whatever questions the tourists may have. After all, we estimate that no tourist will interact with the Shardik Castle Simulation for more than eighty minutes."
"But what about extremes of behavior?"
"For you, Kennet, extremes of behavior involve the gengineering of sentient species and the indulgence of your algophilia. Neither will be going on when the tourists are around. I would not begin to guess how your creative faculties work under those circumstances."
I nodded. "So it'll be just boring, mundane Ken Shardik when the guests arrive?"
"Indeed," Dave said. "I would like you to view some episodes during the first few weeks, to see if I get your lecherous propensity down pat."
"'Lecherous propensity!'" I said, laughing. "Dave, you don't intend to have the Shardik morph'droid fuck a tourist or two while they're here, do you?"
"Of course not," Dave replied. He almost sounded miffed. "But you do have a reputation to uphold as a roving and inviting rogue. I would hate to see said reputation fade because I ran you too politely."
I rolled my eyes. "Sheesh." I turned to my two companions, who both looked at me a shrugged, giving me "don't ask us" looks. "Come on, let's go take a look around. I want to see what my studio looks like."
We stepped out into the hallway and Aaden said, "Ken? Nyss and I are going to check the lagoon. Dave said he wants me to check the bowl and make recommendations for what kind of alien flora he should have planted."
"Something big, off-color, and harmless," I suggested. "Okay, I'll see you guys on the roof in a little bit?"
"Sure thing," he said. "C'mon, Nyss." I watched their retreating backs as they walked down the hallway towards the grav-tube. "Actually," Aaden shouted down from the tube, "Low-maintenance is a necessity, too. Especially if children will be part of the tourist… " his voice faded too much for me to make out clearly. I smiled and headed back down the hallway to "my" art studio. The door opened and I looked inside.
"Dave?" I asked.
"Yes, Ken?"
"'Karza' isn't here."
"No, you specifically asked that 'Karza' not be made available for public exhibition several decades ago, so I excluded it from the collection. I did leave 'Michelle' and 'Four Dolphins' here, as well as your work in progress of Karen sleeping."
I nodded, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. "Dave, include 'Karza'."
"You're sure?"
"It's my work. The three works here are all peaceful, pastoral, alive. 'Karza' is a rarity for me, a very dark and distressing subject. If we're going to show these people what I'm like, we may as well show them all of it."
"I'll have a duplicate made and moved over here as soon as possible."
I nodded. "Dave, what sort of things do you plan on having me do while the tourists are here?"
"I figured I'd have the 'droids talk about themselves and their impressions of others. I have been watching you and yours for nearly nine hundred years, Ken; I know how you all feel about each other."
"What about… oh, politics? Or sex?"
"For politics I'll have the conversation steer away from controversial subjects. If the inquiry gets pressed, I'll say 'I really don't want to talk about it'"– he said that in my voice, very nicely– "Or I'll defer to what I know of your opinion on the subject, if I feel confident with it, with a heavy preference for 'no comments.' As for sex, I do know your opinion of the subject. But as I said, I doubt 'you'll' be having any."
"Poor 'droid. All of my work and none of my play."
"I also think I'll use place you where people expect you to be, at your workstation or in the unsambo, doing research or getting exercise."
"Dave? How will you reconcile the tourists meeting 'me' when I'm obviously not home?"
"Unless it's otherwise publicly noted, most of the tourists will assume you're home because they are there right then. I will avoid as much as possible overlaps and the potential that outsiders will discover the fraud. At times when you're known to be offworld, or when you're visibly public somewhere else on the ring, we plan on alternating with one of two plans: either we will shut down the simacula, or we'll have them visit and just not have you home at the time. 'M'Ress' or 'Aaden' will be their guides then."
I stepped out into the hallway and ascended to the roof. Looking over the railing, I didn't see the loves of my life as I scanned the rim of the crater. "Where are P'nyssa and Aaden?"
"They are further up along the beach," David replied. "Aaden is investigating the limits of a tourist's wandering. Between the fence to 'Stephen's' house and the huge bundles of driftwood we should effectively keep them from wandering too far away from the Simacula."
"Is the graffiti on the rock by the driftwood?"
"Yes."
I sighed. Detail was everything. Dave interrupted my musings by asking me, "Have you looked at your own home yet?"
"No, why?"
"Just curious," Dave replied. "Of all the places on Shardik Castle, that's the one with which you are most intimate. I feel curious to know if minutiae like the lumpiness of pillows and the quality of waterflow in the shower are accurate."
Detail is everything, perhaps, but I thought that was pushing detail a little too far. "I'll go check it out," I said, descending down the gravtube again. Once on the second floor I made my way to my apartment, passing by way of David's apartment. "By the way, Dave, I assume you're keeping the 30 SI boxes and the 270 AI extensions in here?
"Yes," he replied. "I saw no reason to locate them elsewhere."
I nodded, crossing the hall to my own home. The door opened smoothly. It looked just like the real place had about a century ago. There was the old white couch, stuffed easy chair. The curtain separating this room from the children's playroom was still there, and peeking my head through I could see through the doorway to the workroom, complete with graphics roundtable and Aaden's seedling platform. "What are you planning on putting in the seedling jars?"
"I'll be consulting with Aaden on that," Dave announced.
Stepping back into the living room, I noticed a stain on the carpet floor. Running my hand over it, I realized it was a permanent discoloration on the carpeting. "What's this?"
"An excuse," David replied, "to discuss The Carpet Monster. Four minutes of inane conversation that every parent in the audience should be able to appreciate."
I laughed aloud. "That's very clever!" The Carpet Monster was something P'nyssa had dreamed up a long time ago when we'd first had Richard and Rainy. Richard had spilled a glass of juice on the floor, and P'nyssa had, on the spur of the moment, told him about The Carpet Monster, a creature that fed on food spilled on the floor. If you spilled food too often, she explained, the Carpet Monster would get big, and eventually it would be too big for just spilled food to satisfy it. Then it would come after little boys and girls, so you shouldn't spill stuff on the floor.
Amazingly, it had worked with every one of our children, although Firin once admitted to me that his son had deliberately 'fed' his Carpet Monster because Uncia, being the biggest of the cat species, were supposed to be able to fight anything, even bogeymen, and Purrin wanted to get the 'challenge' of the Carpet Monster over with as soon as possible so he could head on to bigger and better things.
I descended the gravtube to our bedroom. The beautiful yellow rosewood cabinets were there against the wall, each open and filled with reproductions of the books I had at home. Shakespeare, Halleck, Chaucer, the Bible, the Koran, the lleritik were all there. Copies of Gray's Anatomy and Mendelev's Treatise emphasized who else lived here. In fact, the bedroom was meant to reflect the triplicate nature of my life even more so than the bedroom at home did, where P'nyssa tended to dominate with her lace and decoration.
I walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower; it seemed satisfactory. As did the presence of all three of our preferred soaps, clove, peppermint and unscented. "Nothing simulated about that," I said "Ken, Aaden and P'nyssa have returned from the beach and on the lagoon sands."
"Tell them where I am, would you?"
"They have already asked. P'nyssa is on her way; Aaden has stopped to inspect the rim of the bowl more closely, and asks that you be patient."
"Perfectionist," I said, meaning Aaden. I heard the sound of footsteps upstairs. "Ken?"
"Down here!" I shouted. P'nyssa floated down the gravtube, a smile on her face as she did so. "So, what do you think?" I asked.
"It's better outside. I'm used to the beach being empty. It's not our beach, though." She pouted; it's a pretty pout.
"Can't have everything," I said. "Where would you put it?" I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
She smiled and turned, hopping onto the bed. "Feels just like the one at home."
"Does it?" I asked. "Let's see." I leapt onto the bed beside her. "It does, when we have a new mattress."
She nodded. "I have a suggestion," she said, her eyes alight with mischief. "Listen, before the 'droids get their mechanical hands on 'our' bed, why don't we break it in for them?"
"What? Right now?"
"No better time," she said, turning over and sliding towards me. Her mittens slid up against my shirt and began undoing my buttons.
I laughed and leaned in to kiss her. She kissed back, warm and familiar, her back arching slightly as I ran my hand over her shirt. I reached between us to open her buttons as well, sliding a hand surreptitiously in and fondling her breast before undoing all of the buttons. She laughed. "You just can't keep your hands off, can you?"
"With such a pretty lady as yourself?" I asked. "Be serious." I kissed her chin, feeling her fur slide along my cheek as I eased down her throat. She moaned softly as my hands caressed her fur in small circles along her chest. My lips found a hardened nipples as her mitts slid along within my shirt, and her back arched upwards towards me. "I love you," I said, looking up at her.
"I love you, too." She smiled and opened the button that held her pants shut. "Help me take them off."
I helped her slide the pants off and tossed them aside. I removed my own clothing slowly as she watched, her mouth open. "Gods, you are excited," I said.
"Something about how all the tourists will be coming through here and wondering how many will guess the truth. And of those, wondering how many will realize that, at least once, we really did make love in this bed."
I laughed. "You have an active imagination, Nyss."
"You're the creative one in this family," she said, hauling me down on top of her. She kissed my lips, our tongues meeting, each sliding against the others' warmth and wetness. "Ken," she gasped as we parted, "Lick."
"With pleasure," I said, sliding halfway down the length of her body briskly and settling as she parted her thighs for me. I kissed the top of her mound, and was rewarded with the sight of her inner lips swelling slightly and peeking out from her fine blue fur, slightly longer here than elsewhere on her body. I kissed her mound again, extending my tongue into her cleft and parting her lips with saliva. The hood of her clitoris was still covering completely, so I ran my tongue over the top gently; I knew she didn't like too much pressure in the beginning, no matter how hot the rest of her was.
She moaned her appreciation at this comfortably familiar lovemaking. I chuckled, the laughter muffled by her body. As I slid down I tugged on her inner labia with my lips and I could taste her juices flowing down from her opening. The taste was heady, fueling a lust I had not felt moments before.
She moaned louder as I licked around the hood, and then finally under it; her mittens reached down to tug her hood upwards and open, giving me better access to her clitoris. She shuddered as I attacked her with wet, swashing strokes of the tongue.
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I lifted my head just long enough to say "Hello, Aaden."
"Not Aaden," said a voice behind me. P'nyssa's voice. I turned slowly to look behind me, right into the eyes of my beloved P'nyssa. I realized instantly what was going on. "Dave, no."
"You wanted a test," P'nyssa… the P'nyssa I had been making love to just a moment before… said. "Besides, maybe we changed clothes?"
I looked up at her, then back at the other one, the one with her hair up, and then back at the one lying down. "No way. You're you."
"Are you sure?" the one behind me said. "Go back to what you were doing," she suggested. Although part of me was sure that I should stop and figure out who was who, I was already too turned on by what was going on in front of me to think too clearly on the matter.
Turing Attraction · Part 1 (1/2)
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