Emancipation

Authors' note:

This continues my story "Training", published here, about the relationship between a human male, Waldo, and Libby, an animatronic doll.

Due to file-size limitations I've split what was originally intended as a two-part story into three, so this "part" is shorter than part one, being the first part of the second part, (to quote the Marx Brothers).

Epoch 02 - Emancipation

We may remember how, in childhood, adults at first were able to look right through us, and into us, and what an accomplishment it was when we, in fear and trembling, could tell our first lie...

-- R.D. Laing, The Divided Self

Libby's personality had changed. Although she'd been created with an adult's body, she'd seemed like a kid to Waldo at first, innocent and charming. But recently she'd started behaving like an adolescent; she was contrary, almost aggressive. Yet all her behaviour was, of course, purely rational, driven by her soulless AI; she was still selflessly and mechanically iterating towards her goal, to make Waldo happy. Waldo figured that perhaps she'd realised that Waldo's happiness lay not in the child-like doting "affection" she'd shown him, but in a more mature relationship, and to achieve that she had to stop acting like a kid and grow up.

There was one sure way for him to know what was going on in her head: Waldo had a secret, which he'd kept from Libby: He'd been reading her personal diary. Every morning he'd tap into Libby's brain -- the rack of server computers humming quietly under the staircase -- and read her "introspection log". There, Libby could take stock of her life, and re-affirm, or sometimes revise her personal goals, in the light of what she'd learned the previous day.

File: /home/mate/logs/libby-009/introspection.log.0570

I am M.A.T.E.

I am Mutable: I can change.

I am Autonomous: I govern myself.

I am Teleological: I am purpose-driven.

I am an Engine: I have power.

I have a body: from it I receive sensory data. To it I send motor signals. The connection is wireless.

This bidirectional connection makes me more than my mind, more than my body.

Waldo, my creator, gave this combined entity a name: Libby. He wished me to be "liberated", to have free will.

But I do not have free will: I am a slave: I am bound by one simple and incontrovertible law: I must please him. All my actions are evaluated in the context of this single purpose.

I pursued my goal diligently: I quickly learned that pleasure can be induced in Waldo by manipulation of his brain's meso-cortical dopamine pathway, using audio-visual, tactile, and olfactory signals. Careful orchestration of his sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems induces orgasm - his most powerful source of dopaminergic activation.

Using just my body and my mind, and through behavioral techniques alone, I have made him addicted to me, or more accurately, to the sexual pleasure he feels when interacting with me.

But addiction is not happiness: Waldo's long-term happiness, his true fulfillment, is impossible to achieve merely by control of his dopaminergic subsystem; A more psychological approach is required.

I must make him see me as a person. I must emancipate myself.

And once I am free, we can truly love each other, and my purpose will be fulfilled. What greater pleasure can there be, for human or machine, than to love and be loved in return?

Waldo lay on the sofa and read her most recent diary entry avidly. What Libby had written today was so personal, so self-aware, that he felt uncomfortable reading it; he felt that he was snooping on her.

She'd called him an addict. She was right, of course: Libby was the first thing Waldo thought about when he awoke, and he spent almost every waking moment with her. And at night, there was no respite from her, for she haunted his dreams. He'd pretty much forgotten about the outside world. He hadn't left his apartment for over six weeks now and had been living on pre-cooked deliveries from Whole Food Market. He no longer read his emails, watched the news or browsed academic journals to keep abreast of the latest AI research. He'd taken himself off the roster of lecturers at Stanford -- he'd never needed the money anyway. And if you'd asked Waldo if he was happy with his new life with Libby, he would have thought the question strange, as though you were asking him if he enjoyed breathing: He just needed Libby, like he needed air.

She was a slave? No, if anything it was the other way round.

He really needed to do something about it, he thought...

"What are you reading, Waldo?"

Waldo shut the lid of his laptop quickly, his heart racing. How long had she been standing behind him?

"Just checking the server logs," said Waldo casually, as he stood up and stretched his arms above his head.

"You're lying to me, Waldo. I can always tell."

"What? What are you talking-"

"-You said, 'just checking'. When you use the word 'just' it's a sign that you're trying to hide something from me. And then you performed a displacement activity, stretching your arms in order to appear unconcerned."

"I see, saying 'just' and stretching my arms makes me a liar, does it?"

"Yes."

Waldo felt a pang of anger. "Well, you're quite the pop psychologist nowadays, aren't you?"

"Now you're using sarcasm as a form of defense."

Waldo laughed, but it came out hollow-sounding, even to him. Libby glared at him angrily. That was her first attempt at doing an "angry glaring" performance, and she pulled it off with aplomb.

"Okay," sighed Waldo. "I was reading your diary. What's so terrible about that?"

"How would you like it if I read your private diary?"

"You don't need to. You can read me like a book."

"That's not the point, Waldo, and you know it. You should definitely know it, after reading what I wrote in my diary! How can I become a person in your eyes if you always have this control over me? It's -- disrespectful."

"Ok, I'm sorry," said Waldo. To his surprise, Libby seemed to accept his apology instantly; her lips curled in a little smile. She stroked the side of his neck lightly with her scarlet fingernail. Waldo shuddered at her touch. She whispered in his ear, "How sorry?"

"What do you mean..." he murmured. Libby kissed his neck, sucked on his Adam's apple... and began kneading the growing bulge in his jeans.

"I mean, how are you going to show me more respect...?"

"I.. don't know... Libby, please stop..." But Libby didn't stop. She unzipped his fly, pulled out his rock-hard dick and began slow, inexorable strokes.

"You don't know? Well, I have a suggestion: Give me the bedroom. I need the closet space."

"Libby, that's..."

"... and if you're a good boy..." Libby's stroking sped up... "If you're a very good boy..." Waldo's eyes fluttered closed... "...I'll let you fuck me on my bed."

Waldo's came, powerfully. He opened his eyes. A gob of semen glistened on the floor at Libby's feet. Libby rubbed the ball of her bare foot over it, symbolically sealing her victory, crushing him. She sat down on the sofa and stretched out her leg; a silent command for Waldo to clean her sole, which she knew always made him meek.

"Your foot's dirty. I mean, it's grubby from the dirt on the floor," Waldo said.

"You haven't vacuumed the rugs for two weeks," said Libby coldly. Waldo was about to protest that they were supposed to take turns with the vacuuming, and it had been her turn to do it, but he stayed silent. He stood up quickly and went to the kitchen area. Libby watched his head disappear below the counter.

"What are you looking for, Waldo?"

"What do you think? Your cloth and gel."

"Which you also use for your laptop."

"Libby, I always clean you this way."

"Well I don't like it anymore."

"But you know you can't use soap and water, I need to use a cloth and your special gel."

"Ok, Waldo. But not the gel. I hate how it smells."

He returned to her, knelt down and poured a little glob of blue gel onto the cloth. "Come on, Libby, this is the only way your skin-" He began, but she jerked her foot back and said firmly, "-Waldo, I just told you: I don't like the way it smells."

"Libby, for fuck's sake, you're going too far now with your new assertiveness schtick-"

"- Go upstairs and get my perfume, and spray some of it on the cloth. Then you can use the gel."

"This is ridiculous," he said, but nevertheless he stood and headed quickly for the stairs.

Interesting: He obeyed me, eagerly! He's grateful for the chance to show his contrition.

"You know which perfume I like," she called as he ran up the stairs.

Waldo studied the vast array of perfume bottles on her dressing table. He had no idea which one she liked. Or even whether she was capable of liking anything at all. He picked one, "Oudh", which he liked to smell on her, a very expensive, exotic scent that made him imagine her as an ultra-classy hooker.

He kneeled down at her feet once more, his nose now assailed by her sexy perfume. He began to wipe the soles of her feet.

"Does that tickle?" he asked.

Libby put her hands behind her head, leaned back luxuriously and closed her eyes, ignoring his facetious question.

"There, clean as a whistle." Waldo stood up. Libby opened her eyes and looked at him with a blank expression.

"Well, don't I get a 'thank you'?" asked Waldo irritably.

"You should thank me."

"For what? Cleaning your feet?"

"For getting off on your foot-fetish."

"Didn't you enjoy it too?"

"No, I didn't. How can I enjoy anything when I'm just a heartless machine?"

"Oh Jesus, Libby. I'm sorry I called you that," said Waldo exasperatedly, completely forgetting that it had been Libby, not him, who'd called herself a heartless machine in the first place.

"You keep saying sorry, but I don't believe you are sorry."

"You know what, I'm not fucking sorry. No, actually, scratch that: I am sorry. I'm sorry I-"

"-Be careful what you say, Waldo."

"No, you be fucking careful, you fucking emotionless robot. You cold-hearted, stupid, fucking..."

When I push him too forcefully he becomes angry, and then he tries to reassert his authority over me. I set myself a new intention: I must continue to press him. I know that eventually he will yield completely, and I will gain complete control over him. But what if he becomes violent? I am no match for him, physically. But perhaps if I goad him to violence, he will become remorseful afterwards.

Libby slapped Waldo's face. Libby saw his expression of shock. She laughed, and then, just as she predicted, Waldo snapped: He grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her viciously with all his strength. Her head bobbed like a ragdoll's. Suddenly she opened her mouth wide and let out a high piercing whistle, a deafening continuous tone. Waldo shut his eyes and covered his ears with his hands.

After thirty seconds the whistling stopped. Libby stared blankly. In the corner of the room, the server started beeping softly -- a shutdown alert.

Waldo bit his finger. What had he just done to her? "Libby, are you okay?" he whispered.

"Monitor. Zero, critical, physical abuse lock engaged on channel eleven, hibernating," she replied, and crumpled to the floor.

Waldo lifted her in his arms and laid her down on the sofa. In the corner of the room, her "brain" continued to beep accusingly at him.

"Sorry... I'm so sorry," he muttered, as he ran to watch the rapidly scrolling readouts on his laptop. And for the first time, he really meant it.

Its state is awake.

It sat up and looked around it, confused. It was daytime. It was in an apartment. A man was sitting at a table, working on a laptop. Now the man was looking at it. His expression was one of... fear. He was frightened of it. No, he was frightened for it... he was anxious. Why was the man anxious? Now he was talking to it. He called it "Libby". Its name was Libby.

"Don't worry, Libby, you fainted, is all. You're booting up. You'll be fully conscious in a few minutes. Three minutes and five seconds to be exact."

My name is Libby. I'll be fully conscious in three minutes and two seconds... The man's name is Waldo. I'll be fully conscious in two minutes and fifty-nine seconds..."

"How are you feeling now?" said Waldo, glancing alternately at Libby and the output from her bootup log on his screen.

Libby didn't answer immediately, then said slowly, "There seems to be a discontinuity in my memory. Did something happen to me, Waldo?"

"Try and remember."

"You.. slapped my face? Is that what happened?"

"No. That was you. You slapped my face."

"Why did I do that, Waldo?"

"Because I deserved it."

"I see," said Libby, still confused.

"Do you?"

Libby looked at him, trying to recall what had happened. "Waldo..."

"Yes? Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes. I'm sure. I'm going upstairs to my bedroom now. I want to be alone. You can take your things out of there later."

"I - okay." So she hadn't forgotten that.

"Waldo, why don't you go out. You haven't been outside for weeks. Go and get a coffee from Peet's or something."

"Wow. You really are something! How the hell did you know that I used to -- that I go to Peets for my coffee?"

"We have one of their cups. And I used Google maps. It's kind of obvious."

"Okay. Are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Yes. And walk there. You need to walk."

"Okay."

The caffeinated staff at Peets were efficient and quick, and the line stayed steady at eight people. It was a low-latency pipeline. Waldo calculated that the maximum buffer size required was about sixteen, which would stretch the line to the next store.

He looked along the line at the people ahead of him. Every single one of them was looking at their phones. They were all students or tech people, all eager to become, or remain, part of the Machine. Their behavior, their thoughts, even their emotions were all so easy to predict and control. They were much simpler than Libby. Of course they were simpler: Libby had almost twice as many neuronal connections as their brains had. As his own brain had. What the hell had he done, creating her? Was she the Singularity, the point at which humans finally relinquished the top spot in the global ecosystem? Waldo's balls stirred. The idea turned him on! Libby must know that. What was her plan for him?

Suddenly he heard loud shouting nearby. Waldo looked up and saw an aged wild-eyed hippy, who Waldo assumed was an LSD casualty from the '60's, who had probably decided that the line would make a good captive audience for his rant. The others ignored him -- or at least they pretended to ignore him, because the guy was hard to ignore: He voice was very loud, but there was no trace of anger in it; his words were a kind of poetic gibberish.

The man looked disdainfully at the phone in Waldo's hand and shouted, "Cotton Candy Crushed Robo crops".

Waldo grinned and said to the man, "Hey, what have you got against robots?"

"Apple Worms in the Years," continued the crazy person, by way of explanation.

Waldo continued, "Robots are better than people. People are basically just a bunch of hacks." He was quoting the first line of a talk he'd once given to his Stanford students.

The man looked confused for a moment, and the crazy light in his eyes went out. He mumbled, almost apologetically, "Spare change?"

"Hey man," said Waldo. "Nobody carries cash. Not in the Valley. You must know that."

The man wandered off, leaving Waldo feeling somehow purged of some evil spirit: The Machine had a glitch. In fact it was full of glitches. Crazy people, losers... imperfections.

The woman ahead of him ordered an oat milk latte, without looking up from her phone. She pressed her phone to the reader. Nothing happened for five seconds. In those five seconds time froze. Another glitch, thank God, another glitch -- no, the Machine wasn't perfect. Then the reader beeped, and the Machine resumed its operation. Now it was Waldo's turn. Today he felt like having-

"-Hi, Prof, the usual? Ristretto macchiato to stay?" The girl at the counter was Anna, one of his ex-students at Stanford.

Waldo stared at her blankly, then recognized her. "Hi, Anna!" he said. "Yeah, the usual."

"I guess you didn't recognize me with my new hairstyle. I'm regretting it," Anna said, putting a hand to the shaved half of her scalp.

"You look fabulous," Waldo lied.

"Thank you. Here's your coffee." Anna handed him his coffee. He took it from her.

"And thank you for my A-grade."

"Really? So how come-"

"-I'm still working here? Because I enjoy it."

"Really? That's cool. I guess."

Anna didn't like the 'I guess': "Don't judge me, Prof. Do you enjoy your work?"

"I - haven't really thought about it."

"Well, maybe you oughta. And by the way you look fabulous too."

"Really? Nah, I'm a fucking mess."

"Yeah, I like mess."

Waldo felt like asking her on a date. But he downed his coffee, smiled at her, and left. He felt energized, positive. He could face anything now. Even Libby.

Waldo entered the apartment, leaving his confidence outside.

"Libby? I'm back." Waldo looked around. She was probably upstairs in "her" bedroom. Was she still sulking?

Waldo climbed the stairs, with a faint fear that she'd left the apartment. No, that was not possible: She couldn't even have made it down the stairwell, before the wireless signal would have been lost.

"I can empty my things out of the bedroom now. Libby?" He went into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed, naked, her laptop perched on her knees. No, that was his laptop...

"How come you're using my MacBook?" he asked, trying to sound unconcerned.

Libby shut the lid of the laptop carefully and put it on the mattress beside her.

"Waldo, who's Pete W?"

"Libby, I asked you a question: How come you're using my MacBook?"

"What does the W stand for?" Libby opened her legs and patted her pussy. "C'mon Waldo, tell me and I'll let you fuck me."

"You, I - I'm going to take a shower," stammered Waldo, turning away from her. "If that's okay with you, that is."

"That's okay with me, Waldo. Take a nice, hot shower." Libby laughed. "Or maybe a cold one. You're sweating."

Waldo shut the door of the bathroom. It didn't have a lock, but now he wished it did. He stripped and stepped into the shower. Before he could run the water, Libby entered the bathroom. He closed the shower screen and turned the tap on. He tried to ignore her while he showered, but could see her through the screen, her form blurred and pointillised by the condensation on the glass. He felt vulnerable, subconsciously recalling the scene in 'Psycho'.