How to Date an Android

Chapter 8, revised and improved

"Huh? Is this Emma or Edna? You sound so alike I can't tell which of you it is," I said.

"Right on! Since our voice modulators are the same, it's like you have guessed the right person in a way," she said in monotone. She does sound just like a real person. It's very shocking. But she doesn't always say things the way a normal person would.

"So is this about my physical therapy? I was trying to get some things worked out with hospital management," I asked.

"Sort of..." She paused a second. "You know Jack. I think you would benefit from a domestic partner android. I was calculating successful recovery probabilities about your situation and became worried about you. Of course it was after my normal shift was done. I did not lose any work efficiency," she started to say.

Small silence on my part...

"Jack, are you there?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah...but I don't need help at home. I like living alone and being independent," I protested.

"You need to accept help Jack. You have stubbornness in your character core that needs to be deleted, is what I would say if you an android. I don't fully understand what makes a human acquire such random possibilities in their mass individualism," she said.

It was true. I was having a hard time with it. I was raised to be independent and work hard. I loved the feeling of working towards something. "Yo-you're right. It's just I don't know where to start. It's hard to accept charity from others. I don't want to owe anyone or be indebted also. Or taken advantage of. I feel guilty because I don't want to live off others. Plus, most people aren't very trustworthy."

"That's one of your good points Jack! Keep it up! You have to think about how to be proactive to reach your goal," she said it very positively. I can even feel the almost motherly like affection on the other end. It's amazing that androids can simulate a motherly personality since you'd think it would require a lot of emotion.

"You know you are still very young Jack. I think you can turn this to your advantage," she said.

"Even if I want to, I don't clearly see an open door I can go through to get to a workable future. Trying to fix mag cars is what I do. I'm good at it and it's all I know. I used to be able to fix hover cars before they pulled those off the market from too many idiots who were driving them into buildings for Arab heaven ascending simulations. But I need to be able to work. Having a domestic android won't do me any good if I can't pay for it," I said.

"True. I can see why that would stress you out, noted that I haven't been in the same situation. I do want to help though. Also noted of things like that will get worked out if you make good choices. Good choice X, opens up Y coordinate for future, just like math. X and Y coordinates also correspond with an unexpected future Z third dimensional coordinate. It's simple like math. Bad choice equals going in the negative plane, and you don't want to do that. The negative plane is bad. Jack, I'm going to send someone to see you. She's very good at helping people like you. Let her talk to you listen to what she has to say with an open mind," she said.

Uh oh, that wasn't what I'd expected. I kept thinking there was some small hope of something else but that was naive and I knew it.

"She's not going to try to sell anything?" I grumbled unhappily.

"Just hear her out Jack. Attempt to see if it is a successful probability decision tree. It's not going to hurt. You are already in pain anyway and she doesn't want to aggravate it. But she may be able to help you with a few pointers and be able to educate you on a few things to make your life better, as people say."

"I can't believe I'm doing this. When is she coming by?" I asked.

"Is tomorrow good? You won't be too busy, I hope," she replied.

"That'll work I guess. But if this is a scam I'll know it," I warned her.

"It's not a scam Jack, bye. Take care! You were a pleasant patient too."

The phone call ended.

But the stress was keeping me awake.

And the next day more rioting was taking place again in our area. This time it hit an apartment complex on the other side of town. It was supposed to be inflammable but it burned anyway.

So the appointment was rescheduled.

I spent the day working out in the shop. I'm trying to be careful about moving. I haven't even tried to go up the stairs yet because I'm worried about what stairs will do to me. I did hire a temp service to do my grocery shopping. They of course used an android, which is partly why some of the rioting still takes place. They say the jobs are going to humans, but some of the older android models aren't good at blending in very well and this is one of them. They hold still too much, and look like they are zoned out, just like now.

But I can't ignore that this male android did follow the grocery list exactly. Every item was on there and despite looking like he was zoned out, he did it better than a human would. And he had a receipt which he produced without having to be asked too. Nor did he hassle me for a tip when he didn't know I already had talked about the managing agency about it. Its two weeks' worth of groceries just like I'd requested. This type of request wasn't unusual though. A lot of people would hire a temp service to send an errand runner for groceries or what not, though they were usually old people.

I could pay my other bills, such as utilities online. That would take care of those, but watering the grass and doing a garden in the backyard were probably not going to happen this year. I didn't like that. I got a lot of my fresh vegetables from my garden. I did stuff like tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, celery, and white corn.

I would be lucky if I didn't lose this place and I'm worried about the garden? I feel like an idiot.

I should have had the android put the perishable groceries in my fridge. I was lucky that I had the French door style fridge that opened with a partition in middle, which made reaching into the fridge easier for me without having to bend over since the design permitted me to have better up top efficiency. I also didn't pack a lot of stuff in it, so it wasn't overcrowded or hard to find things.

But it's not easy putting things into the fridge from a wheelchair.

Today, my feet and legs have had tremors and small movement beyond just the toes. I've gotten feeling back slowly in the area below my knees but it feels like my leg is asleep a lot and a lot of weakness without being able to support my weight yet. The chances of a recovery are good if I can just manage to work out the economic problems of the time between now and when I'm fully on my feet. But they say nerve related problems have the most down time of any other health problem in recovery time.