How to Date an Android

Chapter 13 Part A (revised & reworked)!

"Sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. But that's right. And there's no way I'd be able to afford a Liga. Totally impossible. How do you even justify its immense cost?" I wondered.

She continued punching numbers on her datapad. It looked like she was trying to pre-emptively look at things I might possible be interested in. "The Liga has new technology never before introduced into androids. They are good, for that sort of thing. It's hopeful that they will become a bit more affordable in the future. And very advanced."

"Yeah, I get it," I scratched my chin.

"Them being on the market only five years is good too. It means there's been plenty of time to iron out any kinks that weren't caught earlier either," she said.

"Hmm that's good," I replied.

"Are you feeling OK Jack?" she got up and went around to sit next to me placing her hand on my forehead. This position seems easier for both of us now. But she didn't smoothen her skirt out when she'd sat down next to me this time. I find that curious. It's still slightly pushed up. She could have pushed it down...

"I'm fine," I almost squeaked it out.

"So what about more disguise stealth mods? There's been an unusual amount of riots and anti android unrest lately. I'd like to be sure there are things that can have additional coverage to make sure she's not detectable to as being noticeably inhuman," I said.

"Good. That's a good choice. I'd pick that one too if it were up to me," she said.

We kept going back and forth for several hours. It took a lot of discussion but was helpful to have her inside information. There were things she could tell me about the different androids that were interesting and surprising that I wouldn't have been able to tell from other sources.

For example, it seems that Liga androids didn't seem to do well in farming and menial hand labor like digging trenches or the bottom blue collar jobs like shoveling manure, etc. There wasn't any explanation for it. They had superior hardware, software, and excelled above the others in everything except for self repair. But even with all of that, they didn't do well at some jobs. Yet they should excel more than any other at all jobs.

Odd...

"It's almost like they don't want to work in farming and dirty jobs," I joked.

"Interesting theory. That's a possibility. We are built to emulate human behavior. So it's possible we might emulate human desire too well. But I see nothing wrong with being independent and farming. Self sufficiency is a very desirable survival trait. Its desirable in many life areas and affects the ability to prosper also," Barbara noted seriously.

That made me wonder if my joke was partly true.

Soon we reached a couple of choices. I even talked about the possibility of 2 cheaper androids with her rather than 1 more expensive model. But this idea while it seemed extremely fun to me, was hampered by the cheaper android model not being able to use the shop mod that I needed for business.

It started to look like just one android was good enough at one point in the conversation since the cheaper models didn't seem to be able to handle some of the shop technician skill mods that I needed them to have. I didn't have time to train an android from scratch when I couldn't do my job on my own, which would be required to teach an android a skill. It is possible to teach androids new skills though, so you don't technically have to buy modifications but they can give you a big advantage to take away a lot of training time. Time I didn't have.

Barbara was able to also help me see that a cheaper android wouldn't do the job perfectly right from day one, just from me teaching it a skill once. I'd still have to follow through and watch it work. And guide it. In some ways they'd end up book smart the first few times with a skill but not totally applied in skill until they tried a skill the first few times. Then it would just sort of... activate like that.