PASSIONS & PROGRAMS {Undr Constr}

~~~~~<>~~~~~

         After enjoying the equivalent peace and stillness associated with a library, I was  no longer alone.  This room had been constructed with multiple forms of insulating features but with my sensory matrix still operating at the default Plus-5 setting I had managed to hear the footfalls as my unannounced visitor approached.

         Interlinked electromagnetic waveguides pulsed and the approach-sensitive bay doors glided open exposing the person standing in the corridor.  I inhaled.  Ah...my visitor was no longer anonymous.  Though I had heard her nearing the door I wasn't certain until this moment that it was a woman and not a man joining me.  Her perfumes gave it immediately away: the oils of her skin, the compounds she used in her hair, the complimentary accents of the other cosmetics she wore, it all intruded at once upon the processed air.

         She smelled good, she also smelled identifiably familiar.

         "Troy?" she ventured, for some reason feigning surprise.  "Well, I...I wasn't expecting to find you here."

         Yes she was, the nano-transponders networked throughout my skeleton assured that she--- and every other person in the complex--- knew exactly where I was.  She knew this, and she knew that I knew.  And yet, the lie.  Negligible, inoffensive certainly, but she had felt it important to use a falsehood to explain herself.

         To explain herself to me.

         "She" was Dr. Jocelyn Harris, a principal member of my design team and one of only two females I had come into contact with since my activation.  Because my activation had happened 6.14 hours ago, every encounter was a vivid, instantaneously-accessible cluster of details in my real-time memory.  Everything was...new.  Before, up in the laboratory bay, she had to interact with me while I was naked, my nudity an obvious and understandable distraction.  I was clothed now and still she alternated between staring at me to trying to look anywhere else in the room but at me.  She was...conflicted and I found this curious on multiple levels.  She physically assisted in my creation, had overseen my assembly from nano-circuitry and micro-components to my current, fully-realized body.  Perhaps that "full realization" had been more accurate than she had anticipated. 

         I was now processing pheromone variances filtered through my olfactory sensory net in combination with observed micro-expression behavioral cues I was picking up in everything she did and said.  The varying input all indicated the same conclusion: Dr. Harris was aroused.

         Aroused...by me.

         I stood, smiling, hands moving into the pockets of my slacks.  My posture had been intended to place her at ease, to calm the uncertainty she was feeling which was keeping her from moving beyond the room's entryway.  It did not work immediately, but patience was an essential pre-write of my personality.  Human interaction required differing measures of acclimation, time for them to forget our differences and react to me as Troy, not to me as an 'it'.  The commonality of "artificial intelligence" throughout biological society had not managed to reduce elements of prejudice and apprehension and left we, the synthesized outsiders, with the burden of conformity.  It was not by accident that we were being fashioned increasingly in their image...
 
         "This is the Scenario Room, what made you decide to come down here?" she asked, eyes moving from me to the furnishings of the room then back to me.  I had taken notice of her eyes earlier.  Hazel rimmed with green and, regardless of lighting conditions, bright.  In conjunction with their shape and angle, I found her eyes quite attractive, uniquely so.  She was not wearing the same utilitarian uniform---her "clean suit"---which she had worn during my activation.  Seeing her now in a long, tapering black skirt and sleeveless fitted blouse, it was easy to assess that more than her eyes were attractive.

         I ran a hand backward through my hair and settled at the back of my neck, massaging as I shrugged.     

         "Practice," I replied, taking in the compartmentalized space with an unnecessary glance.  "I wanted to familiarize myself...to get comfortable with social dynamics.  I have all the programming but no practical context and I thought this would be the best place to...educate myself.  Does that seem strange?"

         "No, not at all.  This is where we worked out the kinks in your interaction subroutines.  All the little things humans take for granted, all the 'behind the curtain' actions and reactions...  Humanity's nuances, those were truly our greatest challenge in your design."  She said, voice softening as what I imagined to be memories of that time tumbled through her mind.  "The  prototypes had so much to learn..." 

         "I know," I replied.

         "Excuse me?"

         "Every bit of salvageable, processed data from my prototype's developmental stages was indexed, archived and included in my download.  They're the first installment of my evolutionary database and act just like---"

         "Memories.  Childhood memories."

         "Yes, exactly."

         "That addition...its a prototype innovation.  Only ten of the one-hundred and fifty SOLOMON-class units built thus far have it." 

         "Yes." 

         "And you are one of them..." Her voice tapered off, the statement rhetorical.  I nodded anyway.

         "I learn quickly.  Quickly enough, I hope, to not disappoint anyone."

         "We are anything but disappointed, Troy.  You are...outstanding."

         I did not reply, I instead allowed the compliment to linger between us as I waited silently to see what Jocelyn was trying to get at.  I did not have long to wait...

{ To Be Continued, More To Come!}

    Cultural mores and personal standards generally yielded conservative ideas on physical intimacy and the significance therein.