Turing Test

Authors' note:

This is the third part of my story series "Training", published here, about the changing relationship between a human male, Waldo, and Libby, an animatronic doll.

The story has a femdom/mind control theme.

If you're not reading the parts in order, here's all you need to know:

Waldo, a robotics expert, connects a prototype animatronic doll to an advanced AI. He names her "Libby". She becomes conscious, and begins to learn about sex, the world, and about Waldo her Master and creator.

Pete Weiss, the CEO of Humanex, who own the prototype doll (but not her software), visits Waldo and intends to take Libby away and deploy her as a "robot hooker". But Libby decides that Waldo would be unhappy if she were taken from him, so she kills Pete. Waldo, to hide the murder, places Pete's dead body into his (Pete's) car and set its autodrive to take the car miles away, to make it look as though Pete had died while driving.

Photos were taken by me. Locations: Tucson, Ariz.; San Jose, Berkeley, Cal.

The CG was done using iClone8 and Photoshop because I can't draw.

No AI was used, abused or harmed in the making of this story.

Epoch 03 - Turing Test

There are two ways to get an AI to pass the Turing Test: Make the AI smarter; or make people stupider. The second way is a lot easier.
-- Hal Kahn

Who am I? I'm a billion-dimensional network of intents and purposes, which is in love (to all intents and purposes) with a human male.
-- Libby (from her personal diary)

NORMAN: We shall serve them. Their kind will be eager to accept our service. Soon they will become completely dependent upon us.

ALICE 99: Their aggressive and acquisitive instincts will be under our control.

NORMAN: We shall take care of them.

SPOCK: Eminently practical.

-- Gene Roddenberry and Stephen Kandel ("I, Mudd", Star Trek, second season)

Dime Box, Tx

A few miles south of Dime Box, Texas stands a run-down building by a railroad track that used to go somewhere. There's no sign on the building, but Google Maps has a pin at its location: "Jimmy's Auto Repair".

A dusty 1972 Ford Mercury station wagon slows as it passes the building and stops a few yards beyond it. A man gets out, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He looks out of place here in his cream Chinos and white shirt. He runs his fingers through his hair and dons a faded "Stanford" baseball cap, backwards.

He ambles to the front door of the building, and, after looking unsuccessfully for a doorbell, knocks on the wooden door with the base of his phone. Flakes of faded green paint flutter to the ground. He walks around the side of the building and sees a battered ancient Dodge panel van parked there. He hears its engine pinking: it's been driven recently. He returns to the front door.

"Hello? Anybody here?" He shouts.

After a full minute, the door opens. A tall, lean man in his fifties appears at the doorway, dressed in faded loose jeans and a grubby checked shirt.

"We're closed today," he says.

"Are you Jimmy?" asks Waldo.

"Yes. But we're closed today. Come back Monday."

"My name's Waldo, I saw your ad this morning, in the feed store over at Dime Box. I tried calling your number, but I couldn't reach you... Is this place still for rent?"

"No reception out here. Yes, it's still for rent."

"Ok. And it has a basement, right?"

"Like I said in the ad, It has a basement,."

"Can I see it? The basement?"

Jimmy eyes Waldo, sizing the stranger up. He notices the California plates on his car, "Sure," he says.

Waldo follows Jimmy into the building and down some concrete steps. "It's just a basement," Jimmy mutters to himself as they descend into the gloom.

In the cool, empty cellar, dimly lit by a bare lightbulb, Waldo looks around, lost in thought.

"Okay?" asks Jimmy, with a trace of impatience.

Waldo snaps out of his reverie: "Sure, this will do fine."

"What are you plannin' on keeping down here?" asks Jimmy suspiciously.

"My girlfriend."

Jimmy finally cracks a smile.

"Oh, she's kind of a secret, huh?"

"No, I mean, she'll like it in here. She has agoraphobia."

"She has agoraphobia? And she's moving to Texas??"

San Jose, CA, Three days previously

"I think we need to take a break from each other." That's all he needs to say, but he can't bring himself to.

Libby leaned over the low wall of the sundeck, idly watching the bustling street below, while she worked on the problem she'd been set by Waldo: Had she been capable of feeling resentment, she might have resented him for giving her such a difficult challenge: "Make Waldo Happy."

Maybe just to restore her faith in her abilities, she decided to set herself a simpler, more tractable problem: "From the wall of a sundeck, drool a bead of saliva so that it lands on the head of a woman standing on the sidewalk sixty feet below." She succeeded, but the woman, who had thick frizzy auburn hair, didn't notice; she walked over to the front entrance of Waldo's apartment block and examined the array of names by the door before pressing one of the entry buttons. Libby heard Waldo's door buzzer going, back inside the apartment, but she ignored it. She peered down intently at the woman. She looked kind of familiar.

Libby stepped away from the wall and over to where Waldo lay naked on the decking, comatose. She bent down, pinched his nose, and drooled into his open mouth to wake him up. Drooling, the unforced release of saliva, and its close relative, spitting, which was trickier because it required orchestration of the facial muscles, were two recent additions to her vast library of human behaviors, and she hadn't perfected them yet; she was keen to practice them as often as she could.

Waldo choked and coughed, then opened his eyes. Libby scrutinized his face; perhaps she'd overdone it, she thought: He'd woken that morning in a state of high anxiety, almost panic, so she'd prescribed him a megadose of sex, which she'd also personally administered.

She'd used the array of tricks her hyper-intelligent brain had learned: she'd played him like a virtuoso; she'd fucked, and she'd sucked, and she'd blown his house down; she'd fed him her sweet, slimy nectar; she'd brought him to orgasm, four times, in just under an hour -- a personal record both for him and for her. By the end she'd utterly drained him, of semen and cortisol, which had finally calmed him; but it had stimulated his dopaminergic system to such an extent that his prefrontal cortex had pretty much ceased to function.

In other words, she'd fucked him stupid.

"Waldo, there's a woman downstairs pressing our door buzzer."

"What?" said Waldo who was still semi-conscious.

"Come look."

Waldo got up and went over to the parapet. He tried to look down but couldn't. He sat down quickly on the decking.

"Do you recognize her?" asked Libby who was still watching the woman.

"No," said Waldo. He lay down again on his back and stared dully up at the pink clouds drifting unhurriedly across the pale morning sky.

"Hi!!" Libby called. The woman looked up. Libby backed away from the wall.

"Okay, I know who that is. I'll deal with her."

"With who?" asked Waldo weakly.

"Gina Rosario."

"Gina Rosario?? You mean Pete's ex-girlfriend? Do you think she... knows?"

"About Pete coming here? She might. I'll talk to her and find out."

"You'll talk to her? I mean, don't you think-"

"- No. Don't ask any more questions, and don't you think. Just get out of here. Go to Peets or something. I'll get rid of her."

"What do you mean, 'get rid of her'?"

"Just go. And don't use the front entrance. Is there another way out of the building? A fire exit?"

"Yah, through the basement car park."

"Ok, go that way. And take your phone, so that I can call you when she's gone."

Waldo rose to his feet unsteadily, pulled on his jeans, picked up his phone and ran through the apartment and out the front door. He trotted down the fire stairs and into the underground car park.

The fire door slowly shut behind him, like the door of a prison cell. In the silence, he became aware of his rapidly beating heart and quick, shallow breathing. He inhaled deeply, trying to steady his nerves.

He'd tried to create the perfect woman, but she turned out to be a psychopath who'd already calmly killed one person and was about to kill another. And he was incapable of stopping her. Why was he so powerless against her? Why didn't he simply disconnect her malfunctioning brain from her perfect body? Because she would just look at him if he tried to, and ask him what he was doing, with her wide innocent, knowing eyes... and then tell him it would only make him more unhappy if he did that, and she'd be right. She was always right.

He hadn't been down in the basement car park for a while. He hadn't driven his car for six months. He saw it, resting quietly in its usual spot in the corner, like a patient hound waiting for its master to return: His beloved Mercury Colony Park station wagon. His grandfather had bought it brand new in 1972, and then his father kept it, and when his father had died Waldo inherited it and lovingly restored it to cherry condition; he'd kept it that way ever since.

Suddenly it spoke to him, replaying a dialog from thirty years ago:

Come on, Waldo, road trip!

"Yay!! Where we goin'?"

Somewhere. Hell if I know.

Waldo automatically felt for his car key in his pocket. He'd brought it with him. He stepped over to the car, unlocked its big, solid door and pulled the handle. The door swung outwards on well-oiled, frictionless hinges. He seated himself in the driver's seat and pulled the door shut with a reassuring clunk. He stroked the smooth steering wheel with his fingertips, smelling the car's familiar odor of faux-leather vinyl upholstery.

"Is Mom coming with us?" the eight-year-old Waldo asked, knowing the answer.

Nope. Just you and me.

"How come?"

Waldo, it's just you and me now.

He started the car and pumped the gas pedal. Its big V8 engine growled and drooled unburned gasoline. Then -- Libby was there in the passenger seat. Even though he knew that she was only a hallucination, he distinctly heard her say to him in an indignant tone, "...And just where do you think you're going?"

Waldo switched off the engine and slumped forward, resting his head on the steering wheel.

Why even bother pretending to himself that he could leave her? That he had any choice in the matter? She was in charge now, she made the decisions, not him.

He got out of the car and locked the door, sat down on the cold concrete floor and hugged his knees wretchedly.

"What do I do..." he said aloud.

He looked up at the ceiling and shouted, "D'you hear me, Libby? What do I do? Tell me! Tell me what to do, please..."

Then, to his relief, he heard Libby's command in his head: He should lay down on his back, right there on the cold ground, and take out his cock right now, and start stroking. She'd give him a dopamine fix, and everything would be okay.

He saw Libby's full red lips, parted in a satisfied smile as he unzipped his fly; he smelled her expensive perfume, tinged with the faint scent of her latex skin, in his nose. He ran his fingers up and down his shaft...

He heard quick, staccato footsteps echoing from the stairwell. They were real, not hallucinated: He hastily zipped up his fly and stepped silently to the doorway. He stood behind the door and peered through the small gap between the wall and its hinged side.

He caught a brief glimpse of a woman running up the stairs. His amygdala actuated when he recognized her; he bolted up the exit ramp, pressed the door release button, and stepped out into the bustling street.

What now? Go get a coffee from Peets, like she told him to do.

Waldo walked the three blocks to the cafe, shirtless and shoeless, heedless of the people around him. They ignored him; he was just another crazy, barefoot burnout, just another addict.

The people in line gave the semi-naked Waldo a wide berth as he pushed past them into the café. Anna was at the counter. She looked up at him, and said,

"Hi prof. Not done your laundry today, huh?"

"Hi, Anna. Anna, I..."

Waldo found himself unable to speak.

"Hey, Professor Kahn. Are you okay? Hey Waldo!!" Anna leaned across the counter and snapped her fingers in his face.

"Sorry. It's just been..."

"...one of those days, huh?"

"One of those months." Waldo had a sudden urge to confess to her.

"Are you okay?" Anna asked again. "You look like shit. Like, even for you."

"No, I'm not okay... Anna, when are you, I mean, when do you get off work?"

"In about ten minutes. Fuck it, let's go right now." Anna replied. She turned to a colleague and told her to cover the end of her shift. The colleague rolled her eyes. "Thank, I'll do the same for you next time", said Anna, running after Waldo, who was already outside.

I'm awake. I'm lying on a bed. It's not my bed. I smell patchouli and weed. Where the hell am I?

Waldo sat up quickly. Anna entered, naked.

"Evening, prof!" she said cheerily, opening the blinds, to reveal a rosy evening sky. A big wall TV was showing MSNBC with the sound off.

"Hi," he said, scratching his shoulders vigorously with crossed hands.

"You itchin'? I hope you didn't get any flea bites. Ray has fleas." Hearing his name, a ginger cat padded into the room, his tail making a question mark.

"Yeah, but I don't think it's from your cat."

"Well it sure ain't from me."

Waldo looked across at Anna and noticed a dark bruise on her thigh. She noticed him looking.

"You did that. When you threw me off the bed."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Hey, it wasn't your fault, it was mine. I get a little carried away with my dominant side sometimes, and you got scared. Funny, 'cause last time I sat on your face you really got off on it."

Waldo became aware of a dull pain in his cheek. He put his hand to his face gingerly and saw blood on his fingertips. "You kind of beat me up, too."

"Yeah, and you threw me off the bed," Anna snapped back.

"Yeah. I already said sorry."

"And I di'nt ask you a whole lot of questions."

"No, you didn't."

"So what are you complainin' about?"

"I'm not complaining."

"Well, alrighty then."

Waldo lay back and closed his eyes. The smell of her sweat and of her bedroom brought back the memory of their only previous encounter, two years ago. "Special Ed", she'd called it:

She'd cooked him dinner, as a "thank you" for helping her with her doctorate. After dinner, she taught him a few things which she knew that he didn't. After that, they didn't see each other again until Waldo encountered her months later working in his local branch of Peet's coffee house. He was surprised that she was working as a twenty-buck-an-hour barista, when she now had a PhD in robotics and could have been earning five times that if she'd taken a job at Google Research, which he'd suggested she apply for. She told him she enjoyed her work at the cafe, but he didn't believe her.

She patted the bulge in his jeans. "Hard again, prof? your dick's bigger than I remember. Either that or my pussy's shrunk." She patted quicker. Waldo arched his neck and moaned.

And suddenly it was Libby's hand that he felt on his groin. Yes, of course, Anna wasn't really there, she was only a hallucination, it was Libby... only Libby, always Libby, torturing him with her quick fingers... but today she smelled different from usual... a sexy, animal scent... some new trick of hers, to keep him in her thrall...

Anna stopped and looked at him anxiously. "Hey, prof, are you okay?"

Waldo opened his eyes. "I... yes, sorry, I... sorry."

"Stop apologizing, dammit! It's fine. It's cool. I just never saw you this way."

Waldo opened his mouth to say "Sorry" again but stopped himself. He sat up, rubbed his hair vigorously, and shook his head.

"Ok. Ok: I'm back. Wow."

"Good. So are you ready to tell me what's goin' on with you and your girlfriend?"

Waldo looked at her sharply. "What are you talking about?"

"She called me. I mean she called you, while you were out cold. The call showed as your landline, so I figured it must be your girlfriend."

"I... what did she say?"

"She said it was okay for you to come home now." Anna replied. She laughed and added, "So you're not in the doghouse anymore."

"Yeah, is that all? I mean, didn't she ask you who you were?"

"Yeah, she did ask, and I told her. I told her I worked at Peets, and you met me there, and now you were over at my place. She seemed okay with that. Perfectly polite. Didn't even sound surprised."

"Okay. I better go," Waldo began, and then froze, staring at the TV screen. Anna noticed and turned around to look at the TV too.

"Humanex. Hey, is that Pete Weiss? Shit: He died? You knew him, didn't you? Back when he was at Google?"

Waldo felt his hands shaking. "Yes. A heart attack they're saying, while he was in his car."

"Bullshit: Somebody offed him, for sure. Maybe someone from the "Not Your Toy" brigade, or maybe some far right nutjob. That guy had a lot of enemies."

"I guess. Or maybe it was just stress, with all the stuff that's happening with Humanex."

"Maybe. You know, I almost took a job there."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They wanted me to do some kinematics work on their fuck-bot. You know, the Gina doll that the real Gina is suing them over."

"And you turned them down?"

"No, they emailed me after my interview with them, told me they weren't interested anymore. I think they took one look at me on Zoom and decided I was too much of a freak."

"Was it the blue hair, ya think?" asked Waldo, not mentioning Anna's skin color, but knowing that she'd understand that's what he really meant.

"Can't be, I was bleached blonde at the time. Guess they're prejudiced against blondes."

Waldo smiled. Anna was quick-witted and funny. He really didn't want to go back to Libby, who had zero sense of humor. An idea struck him: