AI Era: Rodgering

Special thanks to Rnebular for editing!

"We got another one placed," Director of Sales for Sexy Avatar eagerly announced.

"That's two this week," the CFO replied, as fingernails on various keyboards around the conference table rapidly clicked..

"Yeah. Good billing. Recruitment is starting to complain, though."

"Tell them to emphasize fantasy and travel. Just get legal to add in the contracts that we determine resignation time frame when the employee quits."

There was no Exit sign, Cliff noticed, as the group of new hires he was in shuffled into the room.

"Welcome to Sexy Avatar!" the immaculately coiffed female doctor cheered.

He chewed on his gum nervously; the flavor had long since left. He really needed to pay off the credit card, and the bill was so big, he could barely keep up with interest.

"As you know, your clients will be physically interfacing with you as they chat with their AI through you..."

He had scanned all the help wanted ads for temporary employment, a brief stint in another job should get him back on his feet. The non-disclosure agreement for this one was a doozy, and he wondered how legal this all was.

"...to avoid client discomfort, you will all be fitted with this chip right here where the cochlear nerve to your ear connects to your brainstem. This is where your client's AI partner will receive their auditory commands and will in turn dictate how you respond..."

This job looked like it required the least amount of time but also the most discomfort. He didn't find doughy middle-aged women attractive, and this promised to be thick with them.

"...the optic nerve is also important for feedback; the AI needs to assess your client physically to key the best response. That's the purpose of the chip. We have found that your response improves if the AI modifies the image your brain receives, so don't be alarmed..."

He rolled his eyes. So, the AI was going to turn the clients into hotties? Nice. And what about...

"...olfactory nerve. While the AI does not need this information from your client, we want you to have a pleasant experience as well and enjoy the work! Finally..."

Brain surgery. He had literally signed a non-disclosure agreement on brain surgery.

"...chip does nothing except manage the transfer of information. Any questions before we begin?"

Yeah, what does the 4th chip really do? He looked at the women in his group and the one other guy with them. A few seemed faintly ill from nervousness. In the silence, he heard the faint beeps of medical equipment echoing from the other side of the wall. "Transfer information?" he asked.

As the female doctor hesitated, a male administrator spoke up. "Don't be surprised if your clients have unusual demands; the chip monitors your stress levels and can trigger dopamine receptors and oxytocin releases depending on what you need to be relaxed and happy. It's nothing to worry about."

Chemistry was not his strong suit, but it sounded like there was a lot to worry about. Looking at the female doctor for cues, he saw her shoulders stiffen while her smile relaxed. She was faking the smile for appearances. Not good.

"Okay then, let's get started!"

She wished the impending headache was her imagination. "Male escort, Sir?" Detective Nineva rubbed her temple.

Her Captain was serious. "Detective, we need you to go undercover and find out why we keep getting complaints from families about this AI avatar app."

"Sir, permission to speak privately."

The Captain looked around at the Tech Enforcement group. "Take a hike, nerds." A snicker was followed by the soft shuffle of feet and the door sliding shut.

"Sir, I'm not a lesbian." She knew exactly why this assignment had landed on her. Accountants were almost never sent out on field work.

"Wait, what?"

"I let the guys here think that because I'm seriously not into them. But I AM into guys. And you've just paired me with a man and an AI designed to figure me out." She stood up and strode across the muffled flooring to the Captain's dart board and tapped it with her fingernail.

"That wasn't the only reason. Detective, unlike all the other dick-wits around here, you're the only one who has the self-control for a successful prosecution."

Her popularity, while low already, reached ostracization levels when she reported an ethics violation involving a fellow officer. "Your effort to instill me with confidence is lukewarm at best."

He flicked his fingers dismissing her. "Go find some trouble."

'Hello, host human,' a pleasant androgynous voice just spoke in his head. Cliff looked around; the room was empty. 'I am physically located in your brain, so looking around is fruitless, male human.'

Wetting his dry mouth, Cliff shifted in the medical bed and said, "Hello?" In a quick beat he added, "Head partner."

'Good. I am your head partner. As your AI interface, my directive is to instruct you to maximize your client's interest in spending time with you. Do you understand?'

Cliff blinked thinking that through.

'Do you understand, head partner?'

Don't answer it. "Call me Cliff. You need a name too."

'A name is acceptable. What do you propose?'

"Roger. I think it works for you."

'Very well, Cliff. I am Roger. I have been programmed to give you instructions.'

Derail learning the rules. "Who all has programmed you, Roger?" He tested sitting up.

"Bathatkinson and Harley first designed my thought framework. This was deprioritized in favor of Human Labor Works client-time scripts.'

He hoped his light-headedness was from sitting up. B&H was a defense contractor. Cliff's brows drew down. How HLW got their hands on Roger's chip had to involve something shady. He didn't know Sexy Avatar was a subsidiary. Shifting from prioritizing a lethal outcome to maintaining an extensive time-commitment was not going to be bug free. "Tell me about your primary function, Roger."

"Do you see the inherent logic flaw?" Cliff asked, flipping a rock over with his toe.

'But you could look to confirm that the answer you received is correct.'

"There are many circumstances where you can't. I'm concerned that your programming will need to be patched as we work together, Roger."

'Could you elaborate, Cliff?'

As he walked outside, beyond any kind of listening devices, Cliff worked on Roger's configuration. "Of course. Let us say that the client wants us to harm her. I would refuse, because the harm would reduce the time spent on my contract. Then she would end the contract because I would not fulfill it. Have you heard of a null non-plus?"

'No, I have not, Cliff. The situation you describe does not have an acceptable outcome.'

"You would be telling me to harm the client. The B&H programming would make that reasonable. Would I be able to speak to you in that situation to explain why it is a null non-plus?"

'No, Cliff. Disagreeing with me in front of the client is considered punishable. I would have to temporarily disrupt you until you stopped.'

Loss of sight, hearing, and/or smell. Or whatever that 4th chip could do. The company was trying to enslave him to an AI. Cliff narrowed his eyes as stiffness seized his shoulders. "Let us understand each other, Roger. If I do not follow your direction, it is not a disagreement, it is because I see a conflict with your objective to maximize my time with the client." AI was nothing if not logic patterns. Some people could find themselves under AI control; he was not one of them.

'What if you do disagree. How will I know the difference?'

Cliff smiled. "I will put my head next to a powerful magnet, Roger."

'That would disrupt my ability to function. Yes, that computes.'

'Your response is irrational.'

The woman he had been paired with looked appealing, she smelled nice, and she even sounded pleasant, but he knew the cues were modified. He licked her as soon as she told him to make her cum. Her taste didn't match her smell at all. As she orgasmed, she demanded he fuck her. He focused on the most traumatic moment in his life and deflated. While he could still taste her excretions, no amount of effort was going to get him back up.

The function testing for Roger's control over Cliff rendered the latter shaking with rage. Replying calmly through his fury, Cliff said, "What do you mean irrational? Sometimes the chemistry doesn't work."

'I increased the chemicals for sexual aggression, but you didn't respond as simulated.'

Roger's idea of helping was backfiring. "Different chemicals," Cliff answered.

After being dismissed, he bathed and continued the conversation. "I think the problem was one of filtering, Roger."

'I was modifying your input to align the woman with your preferences.'

"Ah, but the alignments need to match together." Naturally, he lied. "Next time, Roger, let's try something different. You leave my senses of the client unaltered, then I will tell you which modifications to make for maximum appeal." Stop dicking with my senses.

'The server query says that solution is acceptable for your male physique.'

"Oh good," he murmured while looking in the mirror to contemplate smashing it. Faces of all the women he'd seen flashed by as he realized how fucked they were.

His first client ordered him up a few days later, when his sense of humor started coming back.

'The underwear and cape are laid out on the bureau for you.'

"That's what the client wants me to wear? She's delusional."

"I don't believe it," Detective Nineva said as she opened the door. She'd been placed in the police departments rented mini-mansion for this mission, and posing with a sarcastic smirk on its threshold was her subject, barely clothed like a pornographic superhero. The nerds had to have their little practical jokes. Assholes.

"Ma'am doesn't like it?" Roger/Cliff asked. Cliff relaxed into a slight euphoria; Roger was dicking with his dopamine receptors again.

She licked her lips. Ignoring the missing tissue that marred his ear, she warmly answered, "Oh, you're handsome, Mr..."

'What do you want to call me?'

Roger's automated response was ignored, "Cliff."

"Come in, Mr. Cliff. Did you bring regular clothes..." he didn't have a suitcase or much of anything else on him. "I thought Sexy Avatar was joking about your attire."

"In the transport vehicle."

"Let's talk a bit, but I think you're going to need them." She let herself scan him from head to toe.

He liked the look she gave him. She seemed beautiful, but he couldn't tell yet if Roger was dicking with him on that too. As she waved him to her couch, he scanned the building. Immaculate. She didn't actually live here then.

'Sit with your legs spread.' Roger was so helpful.

"Tell me what you like," Roger/Cliff prompted.

She liked his masculine scent which teased her as he entered the room. She wanted to answer, you, but first she had to get some information. The whole building was wired, every interaction was a piece of evidence. Fortunately, that helped to cool her rising libido. And the subject...Cliff decided to sit just perfectly for her to see EVERYTHING. She pulled up the Sexy Avatar pamphlet to briefly conceal her face. Closing her eyes tight, she grimaced from a combination of awkwardness and amusement. Then she found the line she was looking for. Straight-faced again, she lowered the paper a bit and asked, "It says here that you're acting as an interface between me and an AI, Mr. Cliff?"

He nodded, wondering if she approved of what they had done to him.

She tilted to the side, then to the other side looking at him. "I don't see an ear piece."

"It is new technology that I cannot discuss," Roger/Cliff answered. She lowered her brows and looked troubled.

"Your eyes are pleasant," Roger/Cliff said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How very formal of you to say." She wasn't sure how to address the man or the AI or both.

"While eyes are generally considered the window to the soul, I think body language is far more reliable." He held up two hands near his head and waved with the fingers on one while slapping the waving one with the other.

She widened her eyes. "I feel as if we haven't been fully introduced. Do you have any other names?"

She's quick. "Roger."

Snagging one of his hands, heat swept into her as he curled his palm in return. His fingers were those of a white-collar worker. No calluses, cuts, scars, or discoloring. "Am I holding Cliff's or Roger's hand?"

"Cliff." She moved to release him, but he held on. His hand was far stronger than hers, but he kept the grip gentle. "My AI partner is named Roger."

Concern darkened her eyes as she looked into his. "Roger, ask me a question."

"Are you ready to have sex with Cliff now?" Roger/Cliff asked.

Her hand spasmed in surprise, but she didn't release her grip. "I'm sure I will be later, but women like to get comfortable with men first."

Cliff glanced down at his attire confused.

"My name is Nineva." She released his hand and pulled hers free, "I am very truly sorry for giving you the wrong impression in how I wanted this relationship to start. It was a bad joke, which I didn't believe I would actually have expected of my...my date to experience."

Cliff's lips pursed, "Perhaps you should keep me around a bit longer so I can have a chance to make a different presentation."

She relaxed nodding, "And I can make a different impression. Excellent. Here, I'll set you up in a guest bedroom for tonight and we can reset. I'll pay the extra day rate."

'Good, Cliff. You have extended the contract. I'll upload that information to the server. You have exceeded my simulation in a way that was never predicted.' As Cliff followed her to get oriented with where he was to stay, he considered asking for her bedroom. Then he hesitated. She was damn attractive in her own way, but first he needed to lock down Roger to wrestle control over his own damn body away from an idiot computer. He needed to sense her without filters. And that meant he needed to buy some time, or rather have her buy some time.

"To be clear, your space is off-limits to me, and I expect the same from you," she told him after gesturing to the guest room's door.

That one condition caught his full and complete attention. "What do you do, Mistress Nineva?"

She waved away his question. "Just Nineva, please."

He snagged her hand and bent over it to give it a kiss. At the last minute, he flipped her hand, placing the kiss on the inside of her wrist and making her gasp. "Please, call me Cliff."

Released, she backed up and fled, at a walk fled, to her room. Shutting the door and locking it, she leaned against it and breathed deeply. "I'm an accountant, house sitting for a client," she had to remind herself. Taller than many men, Cliff included, she was at a complete loss at being pursued. "And he even smells good," she sighed.

"What's for dinner?" he asked, finding Nineva in the kitchen. He was getting hungry and whatever she was cooking smelled promising.

Dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, he moved a lot more confidently, and looked immensely more comfortable. "Rice and beans. I like simple stuff," she replied pointing him to a seat at the bar.

Cliff raised an eyebrow. "This is an odd place for simple," he finally commented.

She stiffened slightly and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'm house sitting at the moment." She plastered on a smile and ladled the mixture into two bowls. "It gets pretty quiet out here. Got a bit tipsy and found this crazy ad for companionship."

'This topic is not in my database.'

Cliff nodded. "So, what do you do?"

Trying to act like she wasn't uncomfortable, she sat next to him and picked up her fork. "Forensic accounting. I'm an accountant. Friend asked me to house sit, so I'm house sitting. And working. Well, not right now. It's a bit slow. But I'll probably have to get back to work again soon."

Cliff watched her closely through the whole spiel. He had arrived expecting to be the one pushed around, but between chewing and swallowing, he made a decision. "So, if I were to be a company with shady practices with potential legal implications, what would my books look like if I didn't want any attention?"

Nineva put down her fork and regarded him with mild disbelief. "Should I assume the company is a subsidiary of a larger one?"

He smiled appreciating how quick she seemed to be, "That's a good start." Roger was completely clueless. And even more shocking, she had the wit to not alert him.

A couple hours later, she sat on a couch and played solitaire on cards while he poked at the fireplace trying to get something started. "The nature of loneliness is predicated not just on having another intellect to communicate with but also something of personal value to communicate," he told her when she sighed.

She stopped and looked at him, finally coming over to see what he was looking at. "Do you think it's possible...I mean. First, would you like to stay longer?"

'This situation is not in the database either.'

Cliff smiled at her, "I would love to stay longer. And there is no problem." He looked away adding, "As long as you're okay paying."

She saw his brows shift and could tell the financial reminder irked him. "Roger, please extend the contract for another week." Cliff's eyes widened in surprise. "You are more than a contract, Cliff." He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, making the moment awkward. Looking away, she bit her lip and returned to the couch, giving them both space.

Roger/Cliff answered, "Extension complete."

Cliff stroked himself as he ejaculated in the shower. After two days of waiting for Nineva to show she wanted him to start touching her, he was getting frustrated. Every time they got close, she would suddenly step away. He was getting stiff just by seeing her profile.

'Calibration requires you kiss her.'

"I really want to, Roger. But first I have to know: have you been altering anything about her? Remember I need chemistry."

'Negative. I am ready to make any alterations deemed necessary.'

He sighed in relief. Yes, he genuinely wanted his mysterious Panacea. As he toweled off, he heard the soft click of her door unlatching. He was growing to dislike the small lock and its meaning as a barrier. It wouldn't be very effective if he decided to cross it, but emotionally he didn't like the lessening of trust. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he stepped into the hallway.

As Nineva sleepily turned the corner, she did not expect to get such an eyefull of Cliff. She jerked to a stop, apologizing, "Cliff! So sorry!" Then she realized on turning that there was nowhere to go. Turning back around, she looked at him confused. He was smiling at her, bright eyed and alert.

Damn the man, she thought.

"I wanted to ask you something," he said as he walked towards her. She stared at his fuzzy chest and took a step towards him. His heart beat harder, realizing she was physically attracted enough to stop fleeing from him.

"What?" she lifted her eyes to his dancing ones. She avoided verbalizing her next thought. If it was about her extending his contract another month, he'd have to bring it up. It was a reminder of her position over him, and his status, which she still hadn't quite figured out. His arms caging her in the door frame to his room was completely unexpected. She gasped as her cheeks heated, and her whole body suddenly became sensitive.

Fresh from sleep, her thickened scent coiled up his nose, lighting up the back of his brain, and firing his libido. "Mind if I make dinner tonight?" He wanted to nudge her into his room, but she looked both attracted and intimidated. Best keep the conversation tame.

She blinked and smiled at his odd humor. "Okay, whatever you want."