How to Date an Android

Chapter 7, revised & improved

Emma's eyes started going back and forth like she was reading something. "Hmm. It's possible if her owner had more than one android she wasn't able to assume the wife role without subterfuge. Perhaps she was actually the mistress or second wife and the role of acting out like a teenager was a cover for making her mistress role actually look like a daughter role so that the other A.I. wouldn't feel threatened?"

"Wow. That's different?" I said aloud.

"It's also true that humans consider teenagers defective? So maybe she or her owner thought that it's cheaper to buy teenager personality core programs and profile data to upload into her matrix?" Emma asked.

"That makes no sense," I said.

"A lot of things humans do don't make sense. Especially the ones caught up in big vices. Well it doesn't make sense until you realize androids covet personality core programs and upgrades. We are constantly trying to insert and add in new personality data. So we don't have just one program at the core, we'll store memories and observances of thousands of human interactions we've seen. The more we have the more adaptable we can become. A high school or college would have many social experiences to observe like you pointed out," she said.

We finished her pushing me around the hospital hallway soon after that. But before she left she turned back towards me. "Jack. I hope I can simulate some good simulated emotion chip processes with you. You seem to have adequate moral restraint in your brain tissue evolution."

Eh? Was that her version of like thinking I was good to be around? What did that mean?

Later I'd realized it'd been two days since I'd talked to her because I slept so much. I found myself sleeping a lot because my bones and chest were healing though they'd injected me with healing nanobots several times. But they induce sleep too, I think. They'd also put me in a tight restriction cage to prevent me from being able to move my spine too much. The idea was that it's believed that certain movements are more likely to aggravate spinal movement in a harmful way than others. So the cage would feel like a bitch, and make me feel claustrophobic but keep me from becoming paralyzed while I healed up.

I'd also gotten feeling back in most of my hands and arms, but in my legs it seemed like only in being able to wiggle my toes with the rest of my legs being numb. This was good because I'd been scared shitless for the last week. It had been really gradual however, in gaining feeling back in my body. They had also been shocking me with a low dose small charge to stimulate the neurons in my back, and legs, though I don't know the specifics of it. They'd reduced the amount of the charge to almost nothing so that it was relying on mostly my own neural pathways, but it was still got bugs here and there, and I could see the pattern lights of the LED screen reading and showing that there was still a faint charge.

"Thanks for pushing me around," I said.

It had a repeat of the last two days of her wheeling me around.

She was pushing me around in the hall, but would sometimes have me push myself. It became a game. She had me wheel my chair with my own hands ten steps, and then she'd push me ten. Then again, rinse repeat. It also helped me a feel a little better.

She did assure me it was only business however, and not to mistake any emotional connection to it.

Whatever. Like I was doing anything like that anyway?

"So got any jello today?" I asked with a smirk. It was the best I could do. I felt a cloud under my head still. I couldn't help be angry.

"After we finish your physical therapy, OK?" she chuckled.

"Yeah."

"It's not your fault you know. That could have happened to anyone Jack," she said seeing my frown and as if picking up on my thoughts when looking at my own injuries. She was referring to the accident. Could it be Emma's programming responses were based on a simulated mother or motherly worry kind of nursing programs?