How to Date an Android

Chapter 4, revised & improved

Chapter 4

I was just finished with an old lady paying her bill and picking up her car the next day when Matt burst into the shop area.

"Hey, check out the news feed!" he said excitedly, bouncing up and down and shaking his datapad.

"Hey you know the rules! This is the shop area! You cannot be seen anywhere near the shop!" I barked.

"I know but, this is big! I had to tell you right away!" he said gesturing wildly.

"Matt!" I yelled.

"Please!" he protested.

He's not even cleaned up from work and looks dirty and scruffy.

"Fine." I hit the button on my datapad for the 3D projection to activate. It filled a good chunk of air with the 3D projection in mid air. We're both stunned as the colorful and vivid violence on the screen is splashed into the air and light particles.

"Riots? Are you kidding me?" I said again.

"That's only a few miles from here," I protested.

"Man, this place is going to the dogs," Matt echoed right after me.

We watched as there was tons of rioters on both sides throwing bottles and stuff at each other. Someone tried to ignite a Molotov cocktail but he was taken down and beaten by police savagely. Ironically they weren't throwing stuff at the police, which was the case in some past riot footage. There seemed to be two different sides to the riots and they were clashing against each other. There were signs on one side usually things like, "we want our jobs back!", "make America employed again", "Nuke China so we can hav our jobz back,", and "death to android lovers", on one side.

The other side was sharply polarized and a different view. "More androids to fight the Russians and all stupid people who should die,", "Androids are people too,", "the old and infirm need android helpers to live", and "Haterz shud die!", and "you lost your job becuz u cheated thru sckool, not bcuz of androiz foo," written on whatever people could find like cardboard or pieces of drywall. Of course the most popular signs of all were, "don't take away our sexbots!" written in bold colorful lettering, along with "android sexbots don't spread disease like HIV, or hepatitis-K!"

That one made both of us snicker and laugh but that was what people really thought. It was common and accepted in our society that people were turning to sexbots to have a way of life. All androids were viewed subliminally as a sexbot in one way or another but people disliked saying it openly because of legislation from android companies. I can't remember how long it's been but the term sexbot has been universal with androids for years.

By now there was open brawling in the street and there weren't enough cops to contain anyone. The news reporter and her cameraman started moving farther away to get to a safe distance while they filmed.

"The question is, are the riots getting closer? And are they growing?" I asked him.

"I don't know man. But if they were there would be like people telling us to leave...I think," he said.

"I don't know. We have to look out for ourselves," I countered.

"You would think they wouldn't be so dramatic," Matt said pointing at the images. "Since the employment laws have changed you can still find a job if you want too. And they have banned employing robots over humans."