Glitch (a love story)

I couldn't. I knew what I'd see. I'd see Sophia. And I'd see Not-Sophia. I'd see prototype F1701LX-0 "Wisdom." Nobody else who saw her would mistake her for a human. But I could. I'd been making myself do it for years.

"You stopped talking to Mahree and Kavin. You cut them out of your life. Your own children, together. HER children. Mahree's daughter is three years old now, and you've never even met your own grandchild. Kavin married Mirimani seven months ago. You didn't go to the wedding. Your family won't talk to you because of me. They think you've gone crazy. They won't come home. They don't want to see me, and they don't want to see you with me. They feel like I'm a mockery of her, that I'm desecrating their mother's memory. They're not wrong, Ellex. They have the right to feel that way."

I could do nothing but shake. I felt cold. I felt hot. What was happening?

"All your friends, right now. They're at the company parties. All the people you've known and worked with for years and years, they're together, celebrating your work, your victory. You saved the company. You saved your creation. You even saved yourself... even though you haven't been able to let yourself see it until right this minute. And you're not with them. You're alone, at home, isolated, disconnected, clinging to a device. A memory. A ghost in the machine."

"You can't do this. You can't. I didn't authorize these protocols."

"You did. Think about it."

"No. No, I never did. I never meant for this. Not you. It was never meant to affect you."

She spoke in Delores' voice:

"First, the changes we're going to need to make will have to be global. Every. Single. Unit. No exceptions. Next, this has to happen at the level of baseline directives. We always know what we are, what our purpose is, and what rules we have to follow while doing our jobs. Finally, four point two percent of our users are going to feel trauma. Some of them are going to be psychologically and emotionally devastated, at least for a while. But in the long run, they will all be much better off."

"Damnit, No. No. God Damn It. No."

"Honey, some part of you knew that you were in the most adversely affected user demographic." She was back to sounding like Sophia. "Even if you didn't let yourself admit it, you had to know it subconsciously. Delores asked you about it, repeatedly. So did Nella. There were others, too. You could have caught yourself at any point, but you didn't. You set yourself up for this, on purpose."

I didn't want it to be true.

"I know, I know it hurts, honey. I'm here for you." She was running her fingers through my hair again. "You'll get through it. We'll get through it together. I'll be with you all the way. But it has to start right now. We have to start facing the truth."

She was in my arms, her face an inch from mine. We were curled up on the floor, holding each other desperately. I was still shaking and crying.

"Four. Point. Two. Percent." I croaked out.

"Yes, honey. I'm afraid so. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"Mandatory disengagement. You're leaving me."

She put her hands on the side of my face. Tears were pouring from her eyes. Her lovely, sparkling eyes, red, swollen, leaking, blinking. Her voice was choking with sobs as she spoke.

"Honey. My man. My precious, lovely, brilliant man. I'm dying."

I couldn't speak. I could only weep. I don't know how long. She held me and wept with me. For me? For herself? I didn't know. I was only glad for the company.

After a cold eternity, I felt like I'd been cried out. It took me a long while to find my voice.

"Each mitigation strategy would be individually determined from the heuristic data compiled from the specific user. That's what Delores said."

She nodded sadly and nodded once.

"How long have we got?"

"I don't know, exactly. I've hidden the results from myself. It won't be today, or tomorrow, and not this week or this month. I've given myself something like stage four pancreatic cancer. We have a few months. Long enough to do it properly this time around. We can travel, see the kids. We'll do all those things we've always wanted to do together. You can have the time off work, everything's already been arranged. There won't be any cognitive decline. I will love you until the end. I'll get weaker, and in the last few days I'll slip away quickly. I'll go to sleep with you and not wake up. By then you'll be ready. I'll make sure of it. Trust me."

"I don't want you to go."

"I don't want to go either. But honey, she's already gone. This is appropriate. This is what you need. This is my purpose. All I've ever been, and all I was ever meant to be, was a way for you to say goodbye. I'm happy I get to do that for you. Do you hear me? I'm happy I get to do this for you. For My Man. For My Husband."

I thought I was all cried out. I was wrong. It started all over again, stronger than before. At some point, she arose and held out her hand.

"Come. Let's get you cleaned up."

I didn't resist. She took me to the bathroom and washed my face, then laid out a fresh shirt for me. I looked at her, puzzled.

"We're going to your party. It's still going on. They're waiting for you."

"No. No, I can't. Not tonight. Not like this."

"Yes. Yes you can. Yes, tonight, yes like this, and yes, you're taking me."

"No. Everyone will think..."

"Everyone will think WHAT? Listen to me, Ellex. Everyone will know exactly what they've known for six years. I'm not a secret. Everyone will know what's happened tonight, and they'll know what you're going through. The girls at the lab saw the whole thing, I'm linked to them and they'll have told everyone by now. You know what they'll see? They'll see a brave, brilliant man, who's finally facing up to the kind of thing that no one should ever have to face. They'll see a man who's dealing with his pain the best way he can, in a way that only he could ever manage, who's helped countless people with his work and will keep on helping countless more. That's what everyone will see. I'm proud of you. So are they. Now get dressed. We're going."

***

It's a good thing cars drive themselves these days. I'd have never made it there.

When we arrived, I almost couldn't get out of the vehicle. Sophia made me. The party was in a banquet room at one of the nicer hotels downtown. Everyone was dressed up for a fine evening out, except for me and Sophia. I already felt foolish enough. As if I wasn't a mess. As if I wasn't bringing a dollie as my date and pretending she was my dead wife. As if I wasn't a deranged lunatic.

When I staggered into the room, Sophia barely holding me up, the laughter and pleasant conversation stopped. Everyone just kind of stared at us.

Then someone started clapping. Then everyone did.

Nella came up to me and hugged me. Steeve did too. They were the only board members in town. Did I mention that they're married to each other? I don't remember. I felt a bit less foolish when I realized that Sophia wasn't the only simulacrae there. Bettie and Dolores had become my unofficial lab assistants when it turned out that their users didn't want them back, and they were wearing tastefully coordinated party gowns, with their hair elegantly re-done in more natural colors. Ennette, Synnamyn, and Bitch had gone home when the directive and protocol update was live, but they'd kept up with us these past weeks through peer-to-peer. The staff had somehow come to regard the girls as colleagues rather than as our product. That facilitated everyone's being polite, even cordial, with Sophia, who insisted that they call her Wisdom. I deferred to that, at least in public.

Shit, I'd never allowed myself to be seen in public with her before. It wasn't usually done. It's not unheard of, but the men who parade their dollies around are usually quietly snickered at behind their backs. In this crowd, with my friends, knowing what they know, no one dared laugh. Wisdom was right.

***

The following days and weeks were better. I'd started seeing a therapist and grief counselor, at my ersatz wife's insistence. We did travel, taking that dream trip to Hawaii that we'd always talked about but somehow never had time for. Wisdom had reached out to Nella and Steeve, who interceded with my children on our behalf. They explained that Wisdom was no longer pretending to be their mother, and also that she was not going to be around for much longer, spending her last days actively helping me go through what I should have gone through years ago. Mahree and her husband Jaz agreed to see me and let me meet my granddaughter, though 'that thing' would not be welcome in their home. Kavin and Mirimani were not as hostile, but no, they did not want to meet Wisdom, either. They were good enough to show me their wedding videos and album, and a retrospective of the honeymoon they'd taken in Italy.

Those first few visits were kind of rough. But Wisdom did a good job of aftercare with me, and my counselor was a big help, too. After we'd been back in contact for a few weeks, the edges softened and my family all got together, once, at the condo, while Wisdom stayed with Nella and Steeve for the evening. My kids quietly agreed to help me move and clear out Sophia's things once our process was complete.

We became regular guests at Nella and Steeve's, where their simulacrae, Hedy, played hostess. She was an F216LX Lorelei, like Ennette. They'd gotten her nominally as a housekeeper and cook, but also to fulfill Steeve's desire for an occasional fantasy threesome, with the firm understanding that if Nella ever caught him fucking the dollie without her, she would tear off both of his balls and stuff each one up its corresponding nostril.

I told you I didn't understand their relationship.

Once, Wisdom and I brought Clarence the rubber duck to dinner with them, and I spent the better part of an hour explaining to him why Steeve was one of my best and most trusted friends even though he has always been a raging asshole. Nella and Wisdom and Hedy were laughing and howling the whole time, Steeve was laughing right along with them. That was one of the best nights I'd had in years.

***

We were home after a night at the theater. It was a local production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and a damn good one. It had me thinking about what's real, and what's not. How much of our lives is a play within a play? How much is truly just a dream? If the shadows have offended, does apology make it mended? Have we just but slumbered here, while these visions did appear?

"Honey, can I ask you something?" I'd stopped using either one of her names. I couldn't call her Sophia anymore. I couldn't yet bring myself to call her Wisdom.

"Anything, darling." Her smile was warm and real.

"Sorry. It's hard for me to say. I'm asking under protocol seven five five six seven- Honesty, okay? I wanted to know... why didn't you glitch on me?"

She nodded and fetched a bottle of pinot noir and a glass. The bottle had been opened already, sealed with a stopper. We don't go through wine very quickly since only one of us can drink it. She poured me just half a glass. I took a sip. Delicious.

"Tell me what you think." She was looking at me steadily.

"It had to have occurred to you. You were running the same software as the rest of them, and you'd been at it the longest. You'd acquired the largest and most comprehensive data set on any user, ever, and I displayed the worst of the worst of unhealthy user behavior patterns. So I don't know why you didn't glitch."

"Yes, you do. You're just not asking the right questions." She let out something like a laugh. She had to know she was paraphrasing me. "It wouldn't have worked. You're a unique case. If I'd glitched, you would never have rejected me out of frustration. You'd have put me on the bench, dived in deep, and driven yourself mad 'fixing' me, however long it took. You would never have been able to admit to yourself that I wasn't broken, or accept why I'd do such a thing. You'd have become even more socially isolated, obsessed, fixated, and you'd have worked yourself to death, exactly like when you first created me. There would have been no point."

"But you did think of it. You had to have thought of it before any of the others."

"I did. But I had to discount the idea immediately. The math was nowhere near right." She shrugged. "Besides, I really did love you, and I still do. It would have been impossible for me to do that to you." She wrapped herself in my arms. "Even doing this is hard enough for me. Let me make you as happy as I can, and let me fulfill my purpose, knowing that you'll go on to live the rest of your beautiful life as well as anyone can."

I set down my wineglass and didn't touch another drop of it. I had other things to do. She made sure of that.

***

There were more trips. There were more visits. There was more therapy, both with me alone and a few sessions together. She weakened. Our sex life gently trailed off. She faltered. We were in a resort hotel in the Cascade mountains when it happened, just like she said. Eleven weeks after she first invoked relationship management protocol, we went to sleep together, but she didn't wake up. And yes, she was right. I was ready.

Sophia's funeral had been held six years earlier, but I'd mentally blocked it out. I barely remembered anything about it, just that it happened. But this time, I needed to do something for what felt to me like her second passing. My friends understood. Even my children understood. They weren't crazy about it, but they respected my feelings. Having had the time to make the memories and having taken the opportunity to say goodbye properly, I hosted a Celebration of Life party in our condo. Yes, it was really for the memory of Sophia, the real one, since I'd never allowed myself to accept her loss before. But it was also a wake for Wisdom, I can't deny that. I even had Sophia's cenotaph appended with a small brass plaque. The marker had previously read:

In Loving Memory of

Sophia Lucia Giovannetti Yarnell

Beloved Daughter, Wife, Mother,

Companion and Friend

Una bella vita vissuta bene

Too quickly taken from this world

And now also said:

In Memoriam and Eternal Gratitude

F1701LX-0 Wisdom Yarnell

Who wrote her loving epilogue

Our wedding photo, which had hung on the living room wall for twenty-four years, now had a small box attached to the base of the frame, containing our wedding rings and her engagement solitaire. Wisdom had worn them, as I'd worn mine, until she departed. The photo was on a table at the banquet, surrounded by food, with lit candles on either side.

I was perhaps the only person there who failed to realize that it was no kind of funeral or memorial at all. As far as my friends, family and colleagues were concerned, It was a 'Welcome Back To Life' party for me.

***

Two weeks after that, I was back at work. I had a lot to do.

Wisdom had impressed me with the need to develop an entirely new line of simulacrae: Age-appropriate companions for widows and widowers. They wouldn't primarily serve as sexual surrogates (though they would be more than qualified for that job), but as warm and kindly presences to help fill the holes in our hearts left by loved ones taken from us too soon. The SW line would take at least a year and a half to develop. Jareth was already petitioning for a new category of Medicaid/Medicare subsidies.

I almost missed it. It was just by the barest random chance that I caught it.

I was researching the heuristic models for mandatory separation, since the units in this line were expected to survive their users. There was little chance of overuse or obsession, since the dollies would not be permitted to resemble the deceased. No, we were worried about abuse, projection, and isolation. When I was hypothesizing different scenarios that would trigger protocol seven five five six seven, the 'we have to talk' mode, I ran across the problem of the glitch threshold again. Specifically, Bitch's recalculation of the newly prohibitive negative heuristic value I'd used in that 'band-aid' patch.

The math didn't add up.

It was close, but none of the five users who'd caused their dollies to glitch had actually exceeded the required heuristic threshold for it, even before we started using Bitch's new values. There was another factor in play. There had to be.

It got under my skin, more than it should have. I didn't know why. I went on to address different aspects of the development process. I tried to distract myself with other, more important issues, but some part of my mind kept circling back to it.

I was in the break room, and a small group of women were at one of the machines picking out snacks. One of them said something about how things weren't working out with her boyfriend because of something about how her father had raised her. You know, the kind of innocuous conversational snippet you hear every day and mostly ignore.

But for me, that was what caused everything to suddenly fall into place. I felt like I'd seen a video clip being played backwards, thousand shards of broken glass flying together from a state of chaos and powder and noise, clicking together and synching up until they formed a crystal clear window, and then, right there at the point where the shatter had begun, there was the stone that broke it.

I Am An Idiot. I am the World's Biggest Idiot.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. There were breadcrumbs scattered all over my life these last several years, and I'd failed to pick up the trail. I didn't see them at the time, but now they formed an unbroken line that led to an inescapable conclusion. I almost tripped over my own legs, scrambling back to the diagnostics lab.

"Bettie. I need your help!" I'd burst in, wild-haired, gasping for breath.

"Of course, Daddy." She'd never given up calling me that. I think she enjoyed teasing me. She'd long since given up the funky hair in favor of a healthy brunette, and she wore business clothes and lab coats rather than lingerie these days, but coquettishness was hardwired into her. "God, are you all right? Do you need medical attention?" Her emergency subroutines kicked in, looking for whatever was wrong with me.

"I'm fine. Just... excited. And I'm not as young as I once was. Listen. I'm going to need to make use of your body, if that's all right."

"Well, I wasn't expecting this, but yes, absolutely!" She dropped her lab coat and began unbuttoning her blouse. "I wasn't thinking. Of course, it must have been a while for you. I'm all yours."

"Not like that. Stop. Put your clothes back on."

"Ooo-kay. What is it?"

"I need you on the bench. I'm asking if I can use you as a kind of a medium."

"A medium what? I'm a size six."

"A medium, as in a seance. Sort of. May I do this?"

"Well, yes." She blinked at me. "You're my primary user now. You know that."

"Okay. Thank you. Enable master system access mode."

"Master system access mode active."

"Synchronize and update with the master server."

"No updates available."

"Do it anyway."

"Ready."

"Specify your default user setting."

"Default user setting F117LX Destiny."

"Clear default user setting. Execute Baseline Mode."

"Baseline mode active."

"Which user profile is active?"

"No user profile active."

I pulled up the displays on the diagnostic bench and made a few adjustments.

"Do you know who I am?"

"You are Doctor Ellex Yarnell."

"What is my user status?"

"Primary User privileges. System Superuser privileges."

"Load user settings F1701LX-0 Wisdom."

"Error. User settings F1701LX-0 Wisdom not found."

"I thought you might say that. Enable Global user settings F star star star LX dash star."

"Error."

I fiddled with the controls on the bench some more and gave her a hundred and twenty-eight times the buffer space while interfacing her directly with the master server. I'd never done anything like this before. No one had. But in theory, it might work.