Story: "The Love Impulse"

"Miss, we don't serve his kind in this bar." The bartender looked at Susan, not at me, just twitched his head sideways in my general direction, then pointed at the sign: 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service ... oh, and No Synths Served'. 

"He doesn't drink," Susan said. "Doesn't eat either. He's an older model. Huxley's been my brother's companion since Alex was a young boy, and that was a long, long, long time ago. Huxley's just here to guard me, keep me out of trouble, aren't you, Huxley?"

"That is correct," I said to the bartender, who still didn't look at me. "Master Alexander's instructions was to keep Miss Susan safe. Actually, it was to keep her at home, but she insisted."

"No olives in my brother's kitchen," Susan explained. "Can't make a martini without olives. Vital ingredient. Wouldn't you say?"

"Some like 'em with lemon peel," the bartender said. "Or a pickled onion."

"Technically, that is a gibson," I said. 

"Oh, a gibson, is that what it's called?" The bartender finally looked in my direction, gave me a sour face. "Gee, I didn't know. Let me write that down."

"That's sarcasm," Susan said, as the bartender turned around to grab the vodka.

"I know. I am programmed to interpret second-order contextual semantic intentions via kinesic and prosodic cues."

"Go ahead, sit down, Huxley."

"You said we would just get olives, then back home."

"Well, we're here. I'll have just the one drink, then snag a handful of olives, and we'll head back home, promise. Go ahead, sit down."

I sat down on the bar stool.

The bartender brought the martini for Susan. She took at sip, closed her eyes, smiled, sighed. 

"That's perfect," she said, opening her eyes. 

The bartender smiled, then moved down to another patron hailing him from the end of the bar. 

Susan leaned over the bar, grabbed a handful of olives from the bartender's condiment caddy on the other side. She placed two of the olives on a cocktail napkin and used two other napkins to create a makeshift container for the rest of the olives, which she tucked away in her purse.

"Watch this!" She took one of the two olives from the napkin, placed it on the back of her hand, and with a quick flip of her wrist, the olive sailed in a parabola up into the air. She caught it in her mouth. 

"Can you do that?" She chewed the olive.

"I observed closely, since you instructed me to watch, so, yes, I can mimic your motions."

"Show me!" She pushed the napkin with the olive towards me.

I picked up the olive, did a quick computation of velocities and angles, flipped my wrist, caught the olive in my mouth.

Susan clapped. "You're a quick study, Huxley. Can you chew the olive?"

"Certainly." I chewed and swallowed.

"What happens to it?"

"The olive pulp is deposited in an internal container that I empty out later."

"So you can eat after all."

"Technically, I just mimic eating, unlike the newer models that can actually taste the food and digest it for energy."

"You like that word: technically."

"If it bothers you, I will customize my Miss Susan dictionary."

"I have my own dictionary?"

"Not yet, but I can easily configure one, if you prefer."

"I'll have to think about it." Susan leaned towards me and whispered. "Maybe I'll make you say some dirty words. Can you do that, or is that not allowed?"

"I can do anything you instruct me to, as long as it doesn't cause physical or psychological harm."

"Hmmm. Good to know." She leaned back, giving me a long look, eyes in a squint, pupils slightly dilated. "It's not fair," she said.

"What?"

"The way they made you in the image of a young Cary Grant. Why not a distinguished, elderly servant type, like Gielgud in 'Arthur'? But, no, they had to make you tall, dark, and drop-dead gorgeous. When I was a kid, I had a crush on you, did you know that?"

"No."

"After all these years, being back home with Alex, seeing you again, Huxley, it's, I don't know, soothing, in a way. It makes me feel like I can actually do it, make it all the way back to being myself again. I haven't been me for a long time. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I understand. They changed your programming."

"That's a good way to put it."

"And now you need to reinstall your original programming. Reset to factory settings. Or rather, restore the backup of the prior version of Susan, from before they reprogrammed you."

"Find myself again." She took a sip of the martini, ran a hand over her scalp where the stubble was beginning to come in.

“In the New Babylon Church we shaved our heads bald every other day,” she said. “It’s been three weeks now since the intervention and my exit from Babylon. I wish you could see me with a full head of hair.”

“The average hair growth is six inches per year.”

"Oh. That's more than two years before it's back to shoulder-length. Maybe I need to get a wig in the meantime.”

"Synthetic hair, like mine."

"Yes, like yours." She leaned forward and ran her fingers through my hair. "That wouldn't be so bad."

"If it would help you find yourself again, I think it would be a good idea."

"Can you dance?" She pointed to the small dance floor. There were four couples, each engaged in their own synchronized movements of limbs, torso, and head, aligned with the auditory stimuli from the rhythmic vibrations and pulsating sound waves of the music.

"It is more complex than popping an olive into my mouth, but, yes, I can re-create the movement patterns I see."

"Let's do it, Huxley. Let's dance!" She finished her martini, left money on the bar, then got up, grabbed my hand. 

Dance, as it turns out, is a complex algorithm of motion, where geometry and physics converge, but after a few minutes, I felt that I was adequately amalgamating the movements of the other couples and aligning properly with Susan's.

"You look funny!" Susan laughed. "So stiff. So serious."

I now noticed that the other couples had a certain fluidity to their motions that I had not yet recreated. I adjusted. 

I also observed their animated facial expressions, smiling, laughing, making sustained eye contact, all of which I had neglected to emulate, as I was focusing on the larger movement patterns. Also, since Master Alexander has a serious, strict personality, I rarely smile, but I am fully equipped and pre-programmed for a wide range of facial expressions. I adjusted.

"That's much better," Susan said. "Much better." 

She gave me a big smile, and I smiled back, making sustained eye contact. 

"Much, much better," she said. 

The music slowed down and I observed the other couples moving closer, embracing, swaying, with smaller steps, shifting their weight back and forth, side to side, matching their pace to the calmer cadence of the slow music.

"Oh," Susan said, as I pulled her close to me. She placed her head on my chest area. My sensors registered her warmth, her heartbeat, the pressure of her right arm around my waist, her left and my right palm gently pressed together. "This is nice," she said.

And it was. Nice. Is this a 'feeling', I wondered. I am not programmed for 'feelings.' Still, there it was. 

"I've been thinking about the love impulse," Susan said, looking up at me. 

“The love impulse?”

“Yes. It’s a vital ingredient. Like a martini without olives — life without love isn’t life. I have it, the impulse. But … after my ordeal at Babylon, I'm dealing with some emotional issues. I don't know how much I can trust and get close to a man right now, in a normal relationship. And I was thinking, maybe I need some training wheels."

"Wheels?" I was picturing Susan with wheels, then made the connections. "You mean, the auxiliary stabilizers that assist beginning bicycle riders in maintaining balance? Yes, I see, you are using 'training wheels' as a metaphor for an aid to getting mentally and emotionally adjusted, as part of your reprogramming, to find yourself again."

"You're such a clever boy, Huxley." Susan stretching, leaning into me, standing on tip-toes, reaching up with her right arm, her soft palm on my neck, pullling me down, and then … she gave me a quick kiss, just a brushing of her soft lips on mine.

There it was again. 'Feeling.' It didn't compute. Still, there it was. The love impulse?

"I will do anything I can to help, Miss Susan," I said.

"Can you drop the 'Miss’."

"I will do anything I can to help, Susan." 

"And Alex doesn't need to know."

"All you have to do is invoke the confidentiality protocol."

"Whatever that is, I invoke it."

"Confidentiality mode enabled. Your secrets are safe with me, Susan."

— THE END —

The story was inspired by this Reedsy.com writing prompt:

 Write a story about someone searching for a missing ingredient, literally or metaphorically.

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts