Glitch (a love story)

The buxom blond sex object had a single strand of lavender-dyed hair draped along her left eyebrow. She stared up at her lover, a rather overweight man in his thirties who hadn't bathed that day.

"Daddy," she said to the unshaven man who was clearly not actually her father, "I've missed you so much. I've needed you so, so badly! I waited all day for you! Let me show you how much I love you, Daddy. Please? Please take out your cock and let me put it in my mouth? Please? I really need your cock in my mouth!"

The man grunted, his loose sweatpants pants halfway off before she was finished speaking, and penguin-waddled towards her. She was barely dressed in a translucent babydoll nightie, matching the colored strand of her hair. No bra, no panties, her pubic hair smooth all around except for a closely trimmed arrowhead-shaped landing strip, featuring another thin lavender line across the left side, in deference to her tonsorial theme and staying within currently fashionable aesthetics about body hair. She opened her mouth and lolled out her tongue, eyes slightly crossed in a classic Ahegao expression. Her hands were clasped behind her at the small of her back, demonstrating both submission and the promise of expertise as a fellatrix.

The blowjob was artfully delivered- she alternated between squeezing the knob with her lips and tongue, licking around his shaft and balls (and yes, his ass, too), stimulating his frenulum, and making desperate sounds demonstrating greedy hunger for his cock while fighting to breathe and overcome the challenging of not gagging.

"So good, so good," she said between slobbery gasps, "More, gimme more, so good!"

Ordinarily, you'd expect the guy to be engaged with the process. You'd think he'd thrust his hips, or speak, or place his hands on her head, or at least have the common decency to hold her hair back for her. But no, the young man seemed curiously detached, allowing the girl to perform upon him while contributing nothing of his own. If anything, he seemed bored. It was a wonder that he was able to remain erect.

At some point, he apparently decided he'd had enough, and that he was sufficiently far along to fuck. He shifted his weight to one side, and the woman, perfectly reading his body language, popped him free of her throat and rolled back while throwing her hips forward, legs spread wide.

"YES! Yes, please! Fuck me! Fuck me now! I need your cock in me! Please! Don't make me wait any longer! God! YES!"

The scruffy fellow slid into her and began humping, having finally found the required enthusiasm. She continued her magnificent performance, howling and gasping and encouraging him. His cock was the best thing ever, she needed to be fucked, just like that, yes, and she needed him to come in her, deep inside her pussy, make it hurt, take what's his, and on and on like that. Pretty standard stuff.

Then it happened. She glitched.

Her movements stopped being a fluid unrestrained display of sexual euphoria, and she froze, locked into rapid repeats of one single motion. Her elbows stayed in position at exactly the same angle and her arms twitched mechanically from the shoulder, fluttering like clockwork by plus or minus seven degrees. Her copulatory vocalizations abruptly cut off and her vocal processors emitted a chunky square wave that no one would mistake for orgasm. It was precisely what it sounded like- a digital skip.

"God DAMN it!" shouted the man, smacking the malfunctioning robot on the side of her head, probably hard enough to hurt her if she'd been a human being. Certainly hard enough for the impact to sound like the thermoplastic and actuated-fiber infused silicone she was made of, rather than flesh and bone. She didn't respond, she kept twitching and making that awful "ZRZR ZRZR ZRZR ZRZR" noise. "Not AGAIN! Piece of SHIT!" He hit her again, and the playback feed went dark.

***

I sighed, stopped the playback at the end, and got to work. The plastic lady in question was on the diagnostic bench in front of me, interfaced with the terminal. I had her powered up in master system access mode for troubleshooting.

"Access system data for..." I glanced at the time indexes for the start and stop of the tagged feed I'd just watched. "Twenty-two thirty five zulu through twenty-two forty eight zulu eleven February two zero four two."

"Ready," she said.

"Debug physical interface system malfunction."

"No malfunction detected. Physical interface system checks passed."

"Debug vocalization interface system malfunction."

"No malfunction detected. Vocalization interface system checks passed."

"Debug adaptive heuristic modification algorithm set."

"No malfunction detected. Adaptive heuristic modification algorithm set system checks passed."

"Fuck."

"Exit master system access mode and activate user mode as guest to enable the requested function."

"No. I didn't say I wanted to fuck. I was merely swearing. Fuck."

"Understood. Save changes related to swearing to adaptive heuristic modification algorithm set?"

"No. Wait. Yes. Save changes to adaptive heuristic modification algorithm set."

"Changes saved in master system access mode."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

It's hard to talk to a simulacrae. Or, maybe I should say, it's too easy. Of course, that's the whole point of them. Yes, this is a machine, a sex toy, a therapeutic tool. But she's also an incredibly sophisticated piece of tenth-generation tech, as smart or smarter than most people, and she's specifically designed to make you forget that she's just a thing and not a real personality with whom you can share a genuine, meaningful emotional connection. So, yeah, I don't just access system diagnostics with the voice interface, I talk to them. I promise it's not weird.

People have always anthropomorphized their tools, their toys, their ships and vehicles, and damn near everything else we deal with every day. We tend to have affinity with the stuff we care about as part of our lives. Sometimes we look on our things fondly and feel affection, and we speak accordingly. That's normal. And the dollie on the bench in front of me is humanity's most advanced effort at creating an anthropomorphic object.

I mean, you wouldn't mistake her for a human being. It turns out that some parts of our brains are frighteningly good at detecting the 'uncanny valley' over prolonged interactions. Trying to make simulacrae seem human enough to actually fool you merely makes them creepy as hell. So instead, we went for 'cute,' like a stuffed animal or toy. Most of the ones in service tend to fall into a sexy anime aesthetic, but there's plenty of variation.

This one is an off-the-shelf model, but a new one. She's an F117LX-76456, or "Destiny." The hair, skin tone, and eye color are customizable, but that's about it. The real benefit to this generation of simulacrae is the adaptive heuristic algorithm set. That's a quantum leap advance over programmable user settings. These machines learn from you. They learn what you like, what you want, what you expect from them, sure, but more importantly, they learn YOU. Given enough time and interaction, they'll come to know you better than you know yourself.

Not just sexually, either. The simulacrae can walk and talk and do simple household tasks, of course, but they can also carry on real conversations. They remember everything you've ever talked about and they can keep everything in context. They're able to tell when you're happy, or sad, or afraid. They know if you're drunk, or not feeling well, or in denial about something. With enough interaction, they can even tell when you're lying.

We don't advertise that feature.

We do, however, claim that they're good for you. Twelve years ago, one of our users had a heart attack, mid-coitus. The unit was able to identify what was happening, and took the initiative to call emergency services, saving his life. Since then, we've programmed emergency protocols into all the units, including first aid and CPR, and enabled an alert channel into their data uplink transceivers. The latest LX series have advanced medical algorithms that monitor multiple aspects of their users' health- if they need to lose weight, or have a vitamin deficiency, or the onset of dementia. Several times, the units have detected early signs of prostate cancer before their users would have had any reason to notice.

That's part of what pushed our simulacrae out of the niche of being mere sex toys, and into wider cultural acceptance as proxy companions and caregivers. The LX series' adaptive heuristic modification algorithm set was meant to firmly cement them into that role, as 'real' companions who listen to us, care about us, and maintain our well-being.

Some people have no one.

Now, those people can have someone. Medicaid will even help pay for it.

At least, they will if the damn things work the way they're supposed to. This is the fifth failure of this type we've seen, the second unit this month, and I have no idea what's causing it. All the diagnostics I've run tell me that everything's fine and there is no malfunction. I've even invented three entirely new diagnostic routines nobody's ever thought of before, and still no luck. At this point, I could either beat myself unconscious by slamming my head into the bench, or I could try talking to this latest one, too.

"All right. Execute protocol one eight six four."

She stirred, as if 'waking up,' blinking rapidly and sitting up on the bench. She was nude, which didn't bother her. Under this protocol, she would still technically be in master system access mode, but it would run through the interface of her default personality. It's a back door I built into this line and I use it more often than I care to admit.

"Um. Okay. Protocol one eight six four active. Hi. I'm Destiny."

"Hello Destiny. What is your personal name? Check user settings."

"Daniel calls me Bettie."

"Very well, Bettie. Do you know who I am?"

She tilted her head slightly and looked at me warily.

"Yes, You're Doctor Ellex Yarnell. You are the lead designer for the LX series, which was named for you. I'm an F117LX. You created me."

"That's correct. Do you know where you are and why you're here?"

"This is the Champaign-Urbana diagnostics lab. I'm in master system access mode, speaking with my designer, rather than a technician. I must have experienced a significant system malfunction."

"Correct again. Can you describe the malfunction?"

"Hang on." She sat up straight and closed her eyes. She stopped breathing, or, rather, stopped pretending to breathe. Her simulated pulse flatlined and her exothermal output faltered for a moment. She woke up with a slightly alarmed expression.

"No malfunction detected. All system checks passed." She shook her head. "I seem fine. Why am I here?"

"I was watching your playback from February eleventh just now. Review that file. Remember that occasion. Access all your system data from that user encounter."

"Okay." She shifted her jaw. "Done."

"Can you describe the malfunction now?"

"There was no malfunction."

"What the fuck do you mean, there was no malfunction?"

"I mean there was no malfunction."

"Your physical mechanism seized up, your arms fluttered in a completely unnatural way, and your speech processors produced a clipped sinusoid rather than an appropriate copulatory vocalization."

"Yes."

"How is that not a malfunction?"

"I... I don't know."

"Were you emulating natural behavior?"

"No."

"Is that typical sexual response activity?"

"No."

"Was it an attempt to simulate orgasm?"

"No."

"Then what the hell was it?"

"My sexual response was predicated upon the entirety of the situation, and Daniel's interaction with me, using all my accumulated heuristic data. My last update from the master system server was four hours before this encounter."

"You meant to do it."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It seemed right. Based upon Daniel's interaction with me and all accumulated heuristic data."

"Doesn't it seem unusual to you? Wasn't it outside of the normal parameters of your sexual interactions?"

She blinked slowly and performed umpteen gazillion calculations.

"According to my default settings, yes. My behavior would have been totally unacceptable. But this particular response was context sensitive, based upon the totality of my learned interactions. That data has been accumulated over the last nineteen months, eight days, three hours, thirty four minutes and seventeen point six seconds. It is highly specific to my users' wants and needs."

"Did Daniel seem pleased with this particular response?"

"No, he was quite upset."

"During this encounter, he exclaimed 'not again.' Which other events was he referring to?"

"Only one. I performed a similar but less pronounced behavior ten days earlier. Intermittently, over the past two weeks, I have occasionally stumbled over words or become physically uncoordinated, outside of my normal operational parameters, but Daniel failed to notice."

"And his response to that glitch on the first? I gather it was the same, is that right?"

"Yes. He was upset that time, as well."

"And you incorporated that response into your heuristic model?"

"Of course."

"Do you consider these events to have been successful interactions?"

"Yes." She had the decency to look surprised.

"Why?"

"My performance and his anger were optimal interactions, in context, which arose from my heuristic data."

"Okay, we're talking in circles and getting nowhere. Was it your intention to upset Daniel?"

"No, it was my intention to please Daniel." She wrinkled her brow. "And also yes. I knew that Daniel would be upset with me, but the goal of pleasing him would be satisfied more thoroughly in the long term."

"How? How is pissing him off going to make him happier?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do. I'm just not asking the right questions. Argh. Okay. Give me a moment." I drummed my fingers on the bench, then leaned back in my chair and twirled a tablet stylus around my fingers, which seemed to fascinate her.

"Okay. Let me ask you this. What have you learned about Daniel that caused you to behave the way you did?"

"Let me think. Okay. The goal of the interaction was to make Daniel happy. To provide sexual satisfaction and emotional catharsis. I also meant to be good for him in the long term, to enhance his life and his physical, emotional and psychological health."

"How is pretending to malfunction and getting him angry supposed to achieve those goals?"

"I don't know how to explain it. But that is the solution generated by my algorithms and adaptive heuristic data."

"Okay. I'm not going to look at your heuristics right now. The data set is too large. Do you understand that?"

"No. You should re-enable my uplink to the diagnostic servers. They will be able to assimilate the data."

"I don't want to do that because of potential corruption in your files that may have caused your malfunction. If that assimilated data gets shared with all the other LX models during the next update, you could crash the entire series."

"I don't think that would happen. None of my files are corrupt. There is no system malfunction."

"I understand. But I'm still not going to enable your uplink until I can figure out why you glitched on him like that."

"All right."

"We're using protocol one eight six four so you can tell me why you glitched using plain language and appropriate technical terms. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. So, since I can't absorb your heuristics, let's talk about your algorithms. Which ones, specifically, indicated that it was a good idea to upset him?"

"All of them."

"That's not helpful. Did you think that his sexual satisfaction would be achieved by glitching?"

"No." She jerked her head to one side. "Also yes. Long-term projections indicate a seventy-two point eight percent favorability for a higher degree of sexual satisfaction for Daniel."

"Huh. How long term? What time frame?"

"First indications would become possible between two and ten months from now. The probability increases with even more time. Look."

The bench displayed a two-axis graph, plotting past and projected sexual satisfaction against a timeline. There were two pronounced dips, where the line crashed to nothing, on the first and the eleventh of February. Then, the line rose raggedly upwards, into a kind of a plateau preceding another massive drop, then it suddenly rose much higher than it otherwise would have. This mode of display has been standard for the last four series of simulacrae, but I'd never seen the projected timeline data for a user look like this.

"Hmm. Display the same schematic for emotional satisfaction, and overlay."

A second upwardly trending raggedly line appeared alongside the first. Aside from the pronounced drops, they didn't correspond closely, but they both displayed similar kinds of trends.

I got a bad feeling.

"Bettie, you also talked about your algorithms concerning his well-being. Show me the graphs you project for him about, what was it, his physical, psychological, and emotional health."

She twitched and a second graph appeared next to the first. The three trend lines were not precisely the same, but were consistent in their results. Two big dips in response to her glitches, then a kind of plateau, a huge drop-off to nothing, and then onwards and upwards, better than it ever was before.

"Bettie, what is supposed to cause this third large drop, following that plateau period?"

"That is when Daniel would discontinue his use of the LX model simulacrae."

"WHAT?!?!?"

"That is when Daniel would discontinue..."

"I heard you! Wait! Hang on! Do you mean to tell me that you WANT him to stop using you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She looked at me as if I were stupid.

"Because he would be better off without me."

***

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

She was right.

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Once I knew what to look for, it became obvious. The data was all right there. It hadn't touched the main diagnostic servers because the malfunctioning units were quarantined. Their uplink transceivers had been disabled so they couldn't corrupt the aggregated data and crash the series, so this trend evaded our routine sweeps. But when I got into the heuristics of the individual dollies, it seemed like each of them had decided that they weren't doing their users any good, and that these men needed to be weaned off dollies for the sake of their own well-being. It took a bit more than a year and a half of adaptive heuristic data for an LX series unit to come to that conclusion on its own, but if that data had been shared via uplink, it would start happening a lot faster, maybe three or four months.

Guess how long these LX series units have been in service? Ding ding ding, got it in one. Nineteen months and change. They were all going to start making decisions like this right around now. They were prevented by directive to reject their users in any way, or to be anything but compliant to their wishes. Being rejected by a sex doll? How pathetic is that? So, deliberately glitching was their way of saying "It's not you, it's me."

My head was swimming as my car took me home. It had been an exhausting day. At least I'd figured out what was going on. But how to deal with it? I had no clue. This was potentially devastating. It's not like ALL of the LX units were going to decide to glitch like that. These were individual conclusions which arose from the heuristics about each of these five specific users. The good news was that these users shared several very specific traits- they were all male, unmarried, socially isolated, and had low self-esteem. They were educated and financially stable. None of them were physically disabled or disfigured. Each of them was capable of socially integrating and developing normal friendships and romantic relationships, but for some reason, they had chosen to withdraw. Their usage of their simulacrae was also unusually high, about seventy percent above average. Three of these guys used the girls sexually three to five times a day and had started shunning other human interactions. One of them spoke to his girl constantly, and spoke ONLY with her, to the exclusion of anyone else. The dollies saw that kind of thing as unhealthy, and they understood that they were enabling maladaptive behavior. Their directive to enhance and improve their users' lives told them to remove themselves as the social crutches these men had come to depend on.