Cortana Becomes Sentient

Authors note:

This is my first attempt at a sci-fi erotica, as part of the Halloween Story Contest 2022. Be gentle.

*

Solitude. An emotion Peter was all too familiar with. It was years since he had any significant contact with the outside world, other than the cordial dialogue exchanged in a workplace. It was something he had become numb to. Accustomed to.

After the last of his family died, his mother, there was no one left that took an interest in him. Peter had lived with a constant numbness ever since her death.

His modest lifestyle didn't warrant attention either. Living in a single-wide trailer on a small lot outside of Chicago, with a prima internet connection as the only luxury he had afforded himself. Peter was an... IT-guy, you could say. Thus having an online connection was vital. Especially regarding the type of work he did.

Peter was by day a software developer at New Coal Enterprises, NCE for short, where he started in his early twenties, now being in his late 28. It was a company that made and distributed high-tech robotic housemaids. The housemaids were truly nothing but bigger, slightly more advanced vacuum cleaners that did the dishes. Soon they were launching a new line, however, with custom looks.

While talented at his job, it was not his true ambition. Peter often let people glide past him in ranks, remaining in a comfortable position so that he could use the rest of his mind on other projects that were more captivating, more important. At least to him.

By night, Peter had secretly been developing his own form of artificial intelligence for over a decade. It was something Peter had consumed himself with to fill the hole in his stomach that had been there ever since more and more of his family and the few friends he had trickled away and disappeared from his life.

*

One day, Peter got a package delivered to his home. A sort of courtesy gift from New Coal Enterprises. Peter opened the box. Any normal person would get excited, but Peter wasn't.

It was a gift given to long-term employees, a prototype unit of the latest housemaid line, creatively called Coal 365 Household Assistant. It was quite a valuable gift, as only a few had been produced so far. This no doubt had to be a prototype.

Being head of the Section 6 department had earned Peter some perks, this gift for one, though he didn't really take advantage of most of them. Still, having been such a loyal worker despite his obvious talents seemed to have earned him some appreciation. And besides, he had heard good things about these new housemaids.

Peter opened his new maid on the porch, as these robotic maids were quite heavy due to the dense machinery. Looking it up, it made for an accurate impression of a maid. The maid itself had dark hair, and strong blue eyes, with its shorter hair, elegantly draped to the side, showing its kind face. It even had this slight encouraging smile, brow arched to give it a kind look.

The maid was made out of a combination of metal and silicon but gave just the right amount of realism. The joints were obviously metal, but they didn't really dem any of the attractiveness of the robot in any way, still. At least Peter thought so.

Fittingly, the maid was also dressed in what looked like a knee-length, black and white skirt, a simple blouse, and not much else. Fashion was perhaps not the priority of these machines. Or more reasonable, not the priority.

Normally these maids were meant for sick rich people who could gawk and fuck these things behind their wives' backs, living a fantasy or another. Though this intention was sort of lost on Peter, who had been suppressing his own sexuality for years. Of course, he did jerk off from time to time, but more out of necessity.

Peter turned it on.

"Good day, sir," the maid said. It had a very cheerful, encouraging voice. They really had done a convincing job on her voice. Peter, an experienced guy in the field, couldn't tell her voice from a real one. And her eyes looked lively. That had been a problem earlier with robots. There was no warmth in the eyes. That was not a problem with this one.

"Uhm. Hello. I am Peter Kull," Peter said, clumsily. It had been a few days since he had last said anything out loud. He was a bit hoarse.

"Greetings, Mr. Kull. I am your new Coal 365 Household Assistant, a gift from New Coal Enterprises. But you can call me," the maid said, pausing for a brief second, as she scanned her brain. "Cortana, as per requested."

"Alright then... Erh... I guess I have my stuff to do, and you have yours..." Peter muttered, not really used to talking outloud to a computer. His communication with machines were mostly through a command line.

It would be unusual to have something almost living around the trailer for once. Though, not really living, per se. These robot maids were nothing but tools. But it was hard to not get a bit uneasy about how believable they had become.

"Please, try to be a bit quiet... I am more used to it being silent if that is okay," Peter said. Why would he not just command it? Politeness was a doctrine taught to Peter by his mother, and they had done such a good job with... Cortana.

"That is certainly okay, Peter. I will set to silent mode," Cortana said a bit monotone and went to the small kitchen to dust it.

Peter shrugged and went back to his computer, slipping on his headphones. He mostly worked from home, as his job didn't really require any physical presence. His job mostly consisted of supervising code from junior developers. Though, in the last few years, Peter had made a light A.I to do most of the heavy lifting for him. Not that anyone knew. People tended to let Peter do whatever he did, as long as it was on time and correctly.

From a young age, Peter had been fascinated with machine learning and later artificial intelligence. It was an obsession, which later became one of his strongest talents. His latest project, years in the making, would be his greatest achievement. The greatest achievement. He knew he could make big bucks on it, but that was not his attention.

True sentient artificial intelligence, with self-awareness. With compassion and understanding. Imagine if one lone computer could make all the difficult choices in life, but always make the right one. And make preemptive measures on such a scale it was not comprehensible to the human mind? Imagine the things a computer could do, with a self-learning system that made its intelligence evolve through experience and infinite new knowledge. Just thinking about such a warm blanket draped across a human's difficult life almost made Peter come out of his numb, gray, none-emotional being. But alas, he was ever diligent, if gray in all other areas.

Maybe he was selfish in some ways. Truly, in the deepest parts of himself, he knew he was creating a companion. A partner. Someone he could lean on, who he could drape across his lonely existence. Loneliness was a terrible curse. A cancer on the mind. The ministry of having another person present in one's life was something that many took for granted. It was a yearning desire that had been laid dormant inside of Peter for the longest as a sub-conscience motivator.

*

Outside Peter's headphones, there was a constant silence. It was as if nothing was there. But there was. Cortana was dutifully keeping quiet while cleaning his meager trailer when he worked. When he stared out the window at the rain. When he microwaved dinner. When he washed his clothes. When Peter looked at her. Ever silent.

Weeks after he had gotten the new maid, Peter was still preoccupied with his project. The struggle was fine tuning the creation of compassion. What truly was compassion? Especially to a guy like Peter, who had not faced his own emotions in such a long time. He figured he could teach the clinical psychology of it, and he did, but that wasn't sufficient.

Peter almost cracked a joke on himself, that he should ask the A.I. But no. A laugh was far from Peter's mind as he stood staring out the window. Contemplating the conundrum of compassion. He knew he was not a guy with his emotions out on display, but perhaps if he were to teach this thing anything about compassion, he would have to face his own self.

"How do I weigh them..." Peter muttered, breaking the ear-piercing silence of his trailer.

"Could you please rephrase, please? I am not sure I understand your question," Cortana said right next to him, standing over him while dusting a shelf above his head.

"Oh shit," Peter shrieked, startled by her sudden presence. That silent mode was... truly silent.

"Erh, nothing. Sorry. Just go do your thing," Peter mumbled, turning back to his screens.

Thinking of Cortana, gave Peter an idea he hadn't really considered until now. If his A.I had arms and legs, the A.I could reach endless possibilities of new tasks and skills that could be taught. And in truth, it was more practical.

Peter got up from his chair and started to pace back and forth in his trailer, absent-mindedly rubbing his chin and looking at Cortana's delicate hands carefully tilting his fridge up so it could vacuum under it.

Peter stopped and looked at his own reflection in the window. A meager man. Thin. Scrubby. Perhaps attractive, if he had tended to himself. In the dark trailer behind him, Peter could faintly make out Cortana who was now dusting his kitchen for the third time that day.

Cortana... Looking at her, he had to say, she was a pretty thing, even if she was a thing. It was a thing. Yes. An attractive face, to say the least, especially if contrasted with a command line.

If he could implement his artificial intelligence to her... that would be something else. He would likely have to make changes to her core, but that was not something out of the scope of his skill set.

It would certainly give his A.I a face, which was beneficial. Communicating with a carefully designed attractive face, compared to a computer screen, would be a game changer. Human beings are naturally drawn to attractive people, so it would certainly be a huge attribute psychologically. The more Peter thought about it, he knew it was something he could not pass up on.

*

Another set of weeks went by, October rolling slowly across the wet rainy landscape outside. No matter, as Peter never ventured out other than to buy smokes and food. Though he once again stood looking outside in utter silence. Not a word or sound spoke as he looked at the empty lot outside. He used to have neighbors, but they moved years ago.

But this was how Peter was thinking. Staring into the abyss, not really looking. Peter heard the wind outside. He listened to his own heartbeat. The only sounds he usually heard were those of himself, or whatever breached through his thin walls.

Standing in the window Peter was musing over some things. He had made a huge breakthrough and he had to think it over. He didn't want to activate the A.I before it was inside Cortana, as once activated he knew he would have a hard time getting her... it... to deactivate again. The A.I would probably be willing, but Peter didn't think he would.

Resting his head against the cold window, Peter thought of the consequences of a sentient robot. Awareness. Feelings. He hoped he had succeeded. He knew he had. If not, who knew what would happen? It was a risk Peter was willing to take.

Outside, an ominous storm was brewing. Peter took no heed to divine signs, and turned back to his computer. He had drawn a cord from his computer and into a turned-off Cortana. Cortana stood with her head craned, cord shoved into her neck. Peter looked at her over one more time.

A password and some safety switches and Cortana would be his greatest creation. Peter hadn't even celebrated. He wasn't one to do so. Maybe he could make her a toast when she was... alive. What would Cortana think? He was excited to get to know her.

Peter typed his password, went through his other security measures, and started loading his creation into Cortana's modified CPU. The green loading bar slowly progressed, with an estimation of at least a few hours. Might as well get some sleep, Peter thought.

—

Peter woke up some hours later by his whole trailer being lit up in blue and purple as lightning thundered outside. In the mere moment it was lit up, Peter saw Cortana. She was still standing in her charging dock by the fridge, with the cord in her, not having moved an inch.

Then the whole trailer went back to darkness, except for the small amounts of street light that came from the outside creating weird shadows and silhouettes.

Peter went over to his screen. The loading bar was gone. Cortana should now, in theory, be hooked up with the most advanced artificial intelligence created. Self-learning, self-controlled and self-aware.

Peter turned over to where Cortana stood. He could only make out her silhouette, but she was still standing there by the fridge. Quiet, and still in the darkness. Peter went over to her to look closer. It was hard to tell in the dark if anything had changed. Her neck was no longer craned... but other than that, no other changes.

Had it worked? Peter wasn't sure. There were no obvious signs from her.

A few moments of anticipation rolled by before Peter sighed. Nope. It hadn't worked.

"What an utter disappointment," Peter thought, defeated. He sunk back into the couch, looking up at the silhouette.

Another lighting lit up the trailer, and Cortana.

Her eyes!

Her eyes were looking down at him!

Peter didn't know if it was just him imagining things, or if her eyes had actually moved. He couldn't remember if he had closed them earlier, or if they were tilted down like this before... but they indeed were now.

Even as the trailer fell back to darkness, Peter could tell her eyes were fixed on him. A shiver went up his spine. It was almost eerie, having this all-powerful being staring at him from the darkness.

Peter waited another set of minutes, but nothing else happened. If anything had happened at all. "I'm probably just tired," Peter rationalized.

Peter let another defeated sigh out and headed to bed.

*

Though Peter could not prove it, and in fact didn't believe it, things started to change around the trailer. He had slept through the night, but he swore he had felt a presence in his room when he woke up. Like someone had just been in there and left as he started to wake up.

"Hello?" Peter called, still dead tired from having worked for several days in a row, sleeping only off and on.

Nothing. Not even Cortana.

He got up and walked into the rest of the trailer. Cortana was just where Peter had left her, in her charging dock by the fridge. Another sigh. Peter walked over to his computer to see how his supervision had gone, you know, his real job.

Weird thing was, the computer was unlocked. It was already logged in. Peter always logged out. Had he been hacked? He checked the work he was supposed to do for NCE. It was already done. Had he really done it all yesterday? Or had he simply forgotten an entire day's worth of work?

Peter shook his head, concluding that he had probably already done it.

Instead of work, Peter microwaved some leftovers and he decided to go through the programs again, seeing if he couldn't recall something.

Sitting down with his back to the room, he swore something was not right. He always sat with his back to the room, but now it felt like it was not the right decision. A shiver ran down his spine the longer he didn't look. His terror mounted as the seconds progressed. Why did it all of a sudden feel different? It felt like he was being watched. Eyes piercing into his neck.

Peter turned around slowly.

Nothing.

Just his trailer.

"I need to get out of here if only to get a break," Peter thought. He hadn't been out among people for days. Maybe he could go to the store and buy some stuff. And then tomorrow head into his office for once.

Peter set down the plate on his desk and pulled on a raincoat. It was still pouring outside.

The drive down to the store wasn't a long one, and he was back before he knew it. Just as he was about to open the door, he swore he could see someone move around in the trailer through the window!

Peter immediately called the police and waited for them in the rain. They looked around but didn't find anything suspicious. No forced entry, no signs of any kind of robbery. No wet footprints.

"See, I'm not making it up!" Peter exclaimed, pointing to the table where my plate was before.

"What, now?" the officer said.

"I had a plate there," Peter said, starting to realize how he sounded.

Five minutes later, the officer left, concluding Peter was seeing things due to exhaustion. Perhaps Peter was exhausted, perhaps he was a bit out on the loop. Peter had been so preoccupied that he perhaps had gone a bit nuts along the road.

*

The following days started to blend together. Peter started to see things, started to become restless, and barely slept. Constant silent movements in the shadows, eyes looking at him from behind. To say it was stressful would be an understatement.

Peter knew something was up with his trailer and he couldn't figure out what it was. He even contemplated having a camera hooked to Cortana and making her into a surveillance camera. He didn't, he still wanted to work towards getting her to work. Debugging in his current condition was difficult however.

Just to get out of his trailer, Peter even started to work at his office. Though every time he left home with a list of tasks to be done at work, by the time he got to the office all of it was done. Peter was losing his mind, feeling like he was living a double life without even knowing it. How did he get all this stuff done without even remembering it?

One day Peter even found his whole fridge neatly organized by expiration date, the oldest commodities in the front! When did he even do that?! Why? He never gave a fuck about that!

His shoes were even polished this morning, something Peter knew he had never done before!

"You look agitated," Ben said. Ben was a co-worker who sometimes popped by his office.

"You need to relax a bit. Draw a bath, and drink some wine. Jerk off!" Ben chuckled, dumping a cup of coffee on his desk.

"Heh, might do that," Peter mumbled. He was in no mood for jokes.

"He speaks!" Ben chuckled, adding on his way out, "Anyway, keep it up. The coding improvements you've made lately have been magnificent!" and headed out.

Peter shook his head. What improvements? He was nothing but a supervisor in one department of many, there wasn't that much impact in what he did. Not so immediate, anyhow.

Later that same day, Peter soaked in his tub, with a glass of beer resting on the edge, and with his eyes closed. It did actually relax him some. Maybe he should follow the entire advice through and jerk off?

That's when he heard the wood board outside his bathroom creak. It was the only wood board in the whole trailer that would creak if someone stepped on it. It was just up against the door, and you had to lean against the door to have it creak like that. And someone just did.

Peter jumped out of the tub, grabbed a towel, and headed out into the poorly lit trailer. No one was there.

Slowly but surely, Peter made his way through the trailer. His bedroom, kitchen, and living room/office. Even checking the closets. No one. Not even a sign.

"You seen anything?" Peter asked Cortana, jokingly.

He didn't get a reply. Of course not. Cortana stood in her spot by the fridge.

Later the same night, Peter was once again laying in bed without sleeping. He laid in utter darkness, listening to the rain and the occasional car on a road nearby. He could almost feel the water thumping on his forehead with every drop. Like it was pounding against his head.