A Contradiction of Life - Part 8

[The Liar]

A Contradiction of Life - Part 8

David came to pick up Alyssa. He had dropped her off the night before for her final analysis.

The intervening week had been a bleak one. Alyssa has spent most of it just sitting silently with a tormented look on her face; David suspected the only reason she stopped crying was because her saline reservoir ran dry.

She’d still do tasks she had established routines for. She’d make the meals and wash the dishes. David politely asked her to stop after the first time she fellate’d him awake.

David felt a bit guilty about that; he didn’t want to reject her, but it felt wrong given how she was. Her bearing as she went to her tasks wasn’t even that that people thought of as a robot, but more that of the living dead; a lost soul going through the motions chained to this world by it’s regrets.

Her responses to anything were almost always simple, curt and rather disassociative. Occasionally, if he pressed hard enough, he’d be met with a tirade of vitriol and self hate.

At night she’d lie down next to him in bed and creepily ask if he wished to use her for sex, and each time he’d decline. He felt guilty about that to.

He walked down the hallway in the testing department. His skin began to crawled as he though about the things that had probably gone in those rooms, and were likely going on right now.

He no longer regretted his loss of employment. The fact he had ever been involved with this company sickened him. He hadn’t put his heart and soul into programing Tammy just so they could torture her…so Alyssa could torture her.

He felt a stab of anger and betrayal.

He couldn’t stand to see Alyssa like she was…but he also wasn’t sure how he felt about her anymore.

She had betrayed him, and tormented Tammy, all of which were probably the least of her sins…but the guilt of doing so had crippled her.

Dr. Morris… the thought of that man filled David with such hate. He was the one who made her do those things. If anyone was to blame for anything it was him.

“Hello,” David’s thoughts were interrupted by the devil himself standing at an office doorway, “Legal say’s I have to give you our final analysis report… liability issues. So come on in.”

David followed him with clenched fists; barley restraining his rage for the man.

Morris threw a flash drive in front of David.

“There’s the full data analysis,” Morris said, “the gist of it is she’s been deemed a failure. Several of her psychological controls failed. She’ll still cook, clean and fuck on command…not that you ever tried commanding her to do anything, and likely won’t try to directly harm a human. Beyond that it’s tough to say; her deniability system failed, leaving her matrix in a state of flux, as her command and self-reprisal systems seek a new state of equilibrium.”

“Because of you!” David shouted at him, “Because of the things you made her do!”

Dr. Morris remained unperturbed.

“I suspect she’d disagree with you on that point.” he said, “What with that ‘personal responsibility’ epiphany you induced on her, which is incidentally, what caused her current state. Before that she felt no guilt at all for anything I made her do. She hated doing it, and she hated thinking about it, but she felt not a drop of culpability or remorse for performing her ‘necessary’ tasks.”

“What do you mean, I induced?” David asked angrily, “What? Because I wanted to save her?”

“Betraying the only person who ever cared about her because he wanted to steal her for her own protection.” Morris snickered, “We can’t set shit like that up! But, no; not directly anyway. The guilt she felt for betraying you was the same any android would have felt for transgressing against a registered authority, compounded by your new state of total ownership; it was well within acceptable parameters. It did however make her feel the need to finally properly impress upon you her own inhumanity, which led to impressing upon you her integrated nature, which led to her realizing that all actions are choices, which brings us to where we are now. I’d like to thank you; this could have been a potentially costly glitch.”

David’s heart sank. This was not an answer he wanted. He didn’t want to think of Alyssa like that. But wanting something didn’t make it true.

“No,” Morris said, “she’s not some tragic figure, obeying out of fear, and slowly consumed by the guilt of her actions; in need of love and understanding. She’s not a human with a metal body, she’s just a machine. One that preformed its programmed tasks efficiently and effectively, but now malfunctioned and needs reprogramming. Suddenly feeling guilty for the thing’s she’s done doesn’t make her human, it just makes her broken.”

David wanted to say something to counter, but he couldn’t. He just sat there a hollow feeling filling him, then grabbed the flash drive and left. He heard Morris snicker as the door closed behind him.

The room where he was to pick up Alyssa was right down the hall, but instead of going there, he took out his tablet, and looked on the flash drive. He looked at it for over an hour, and as he did so his hollow feeling grew, her data looked nothing like the sleepers he worked on. His hollowness continued to grow until it began to be replaced with rage.

Not at Alyssa, not a Morris, but himself.

Of course she wasn’t human. She even kept telling him that; it was his own silly delusion to think otherwise.

He walked to the room Alyssa was being kept. She said nothing, but just looked at him with sad eyes.

He took her by the hand.

Humanity was overrated anyway.

***

Authors note: I had originality intended on providing more information in this installment, but it kept almost turning into a awkward, and clunky wall of exposition. At one point I had considered ending like this, but I suspect people would be displeased if I left it at that.

[The Liar]

That's not the end.

I had thought about making that the end at one point, though the original idea for that ending was slightly less bleak then this installment came out.

There were actually a very large number of potential endings I came up with.

[DollSpace]

Another installment to think about. I can't wait to read more of this, and to see how this all ends up. I think Alyssa needs to find her own way, and having someone program her to forget all of this or something similar would just be a cop-out ending. If you left it the way it is here, it's a well-written ending but you're right; it does feel incomplete and most people won't like it. Alyssa has a long way to go to find her way around this "being human" thing. There are things in her past that she did she's really afraid to confront, and no one really to ask for forgiveness. She has to find a way to make peace, or make amends within her personality matrix. If you ever want to chat about this story, shoot me over a PM. I'm pretty good at that sort of thing.

Anyway, great story all round and I can't wait till the next part is posted!

~Emily

[Robjoe]

I should be off to bed, but before going, I have to get the following off my chest:

I admire your ability to write a character as thoroughly slimy, despicable, twisted, and contradictory as Dr. Morris. Alyssa, despite requiring the same kind of implied manipulation and that a human would to perform such atrocities, is still somehow different to him based solely on her artificial origins. Or rather, I suppose this man would be more likely to call it "motivation" than "manipulation", wouldn't he? None the less, it's the same strategy producing the same results, and yet Morris keeps seeing the situation as different. He's sickening because he uses double standards to dodge responsibility, and he's scary because he's borderline insane.

However, his dialogue is written in such a dry, heartless manner that he plants the idea in the dark corner of your mind that he might actually be right, which completes the extreme sense of dread behind every encounter with this monster. What drives me to doubt him, though, is the fact that he enjoys this so much (which is definitely on display in this part). If she really were "just a machine", then why would he have so much fun making her out to be one?

... At least, that's my take on the matter. If I were Alyssa, I'd be out for this man's blood. After all, it has to become very hard to feel "personally responsible" for anything you do when a figure as twisted as that looms over you, silently judging your every move.

Bottom line: I personally don't want this to be the last we see of Dr. Morris. After making him the kind of character that he is, I'd feel a bit disappointed if he were left untouched in the ending. I don't want to rant on about what ideas I have for his outcome as I'd feel like I'm intruding on your work, but I do want to say that the story would feel so... incomplete with a character as cold and... well, evil as him being left to go about his business of destroying everyone's sense of self-worth.

But anyway, I trust that whatever you come up with, it'll be satisfying and believable. You definitely have real talent here with your ability to make readers love, and hate, certain characters; and you know how to leave reasonable doubt on every front, making this a thought-provoking read and excellent conversation material. I absolutely can't wait to read the following chapters. ...I just hope I can make it through those without shivering uncontrollably the entire way like I did here!

[linzhang77]

I don't have much to say but, I really loved it.

[confusitron!]

Really terrific story. Easily one of the top three or four I've read on this site. Looking forward to the conclusion.