What Makes a Man

"Devoia?  More like AVOID-YA!"

Devoia didn’t know what to do, so she stood there humiliated as Jay walked away.  When she got home she cried into the soft fur of her artificial rabbit.

Saturday morning Suzan called, all sunshine and roses.  She grinned at Devoia’s hair tied up in a scarf and her one open, squinting eye.

"G’morning!  I got some tickets for the cgrav show.  Wanna go?"  Suzan was highly in love with anything automotive.

"Suzan it’s-" she eyed the clock in the corner of the screen, "eight-thirty.  Can’t you call after the time is in the double digits?"  She didn’t want to go anywhere.  Devoia wanted to stay in bed.  "Ask my brother.  He loves cars."

"Well…" Suzan leaned in close to the monitor.  "He wouldn’t really appreciate the new models with ArTel.  But okay, I’ll ask him.  Maybe when he gets home you can get him to stop talking about booth babes long enough-"

"Wait, what?  ArTel?"  She sat up.  When she finished rubbing her eyes and both of them were open Suzan was grinning triumphantly.  Devoia narrowed her eyes: this had better not be a trick.  "ArTel, really?  Are you shitting me?"

"Oh Devoia, you’re my favorite turd.  I wouldn’t shit you!  Be over in an hour?"

"Half an hour."

While Suzan was chatting up other auto enthusiasts, Devoia hovered around the new ArTel-equipped vehicles trying to learn everything about their programming.  The intimidated man fielding her questions stalled her until one of the ArTel developers showed up and she talked her way into an internship.

By thirty-six, Devoia Chagra had become one of the most celebrated artificial intelligence developers for counter-gravitational vehicles.  It had been she who suggested that a cgrav should bond with its driver and become a bridge to the vehicle.  This idea gained little traction until offworld surveyors complained that pets were increasingly not allowed to accompany them to jobsites.  Some clever folk had figured out a way to run their pets’ ArTel in their cgravs through an emulator.  Others turned to mods that enabled the pets to control some of the cgrav functions but companies put the kibosh on that as soon as they found out.  It took their vehicles right out of warranty.

This was just the in that Devoia had been looking for and she quickly turned her idea into something valuable.  Her own much-tweaked cgrav ran Rico Suave, named after a Twentieth-Century pop star. 

In the years since school the friends kept in touch, though work and life had prevented them from seeing one another as often as they would have liked.  After several years of spotty contact, Suzan learned Devoia was back in town.  They scheduled dinner.

"And she wouldn’t let go until we were on the ground.  I was so sore!"  Erik poured another glass of wine.

"She’s never liked flying.  I spent two weeks convincing her that she wasn’t going to die a fiery death in a cgrav."  Suzan couldn’t stop smiling.  She’d never seen Devoia so happy before.  After dinner, Erik went into the kitchen to make dessert.

"Wow, I didn’t think you had it in you, Devoia."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…I remember in high school, after that whole thing with Jay you just kind of shut down.  I guess I never thought you would finally meet your equal in a man and settle down, be happy and all of that."

Devoia beamed.  "To be honest, I didn’t either.  I was happy, you know, with my ArTels.  They can be just like people." 

"Well where did you meet him?  Does he have any brothers?"  Suzan laughed, hoping she didn’t come off as desperate.

Learning in conspiratorially Devoia replied "It’s really all thanks to you dragging me to that show.  I don’t know if I’d have Erik otherwise."

"Oh, did you meet him through work?"  Suzan was dying of curiosity.  Devoia had spent all her free time- ever- playing around with neural nets and learning algorithms.  When did she have the time to get involved with someone?  She hadn’t even seemed interested in people.

"You could say that."  She tilted her head back and drained the rest of the wine from her glass.  "I built him.  Remember Rico?"

Suzan’s eyes widened.  "The car?"

"Yes!  Well, I decided why bother trying to meet someone when you can make someone?  So I made some modifications and got a blank droid from a dealership.  Then voila!  Erik."

"Erik’s a robot?  But he was eating!"  Suzan could hardly believe what she was hearing.  Erik wasn’t anything like the ArTels that were currently on the market as companions.  First of all he seemed so…so human.  "You could get rich off this.  Richer.  Hell, I’d buy one just so I wouldn’t have to bother with trying to meet real men any more."

"That’s why I made him and believe me it’s worth it."

With warm hugs and a promise to call, Suzan departed late in the evening.  On the way home she talked to Ches.

"Hey, you ever, uh, wanted a body?"

"I have a body.  You are in it."  His voice was so impassive.  Its voice.  Ches was nothing like Erik.

"I mean, to be more than just a car.  You could be a droid."  The last statement sounded like a question.  She wasn’t sure if she was asking her car out.

"Miss Bates, my architecture is incompatible with that of a droid.  In addition, I am unable to want anything.  Would you like me to take you to a dealership?"

"No.  Thank you" she said quickly, embarrassed.  After the cgrav descended into the port atop her house she got out, then paused.

"Have you forgotten something, Miss Bates?"

She shook her head then realized Ches would’t be able to parse that.  "N- actually, yes.  Ches: reconcile this drive to null.  My authorization."

"Are you sure you would like me to forget our conversation?"

"Yes."  She shut the door.  "I’d like to forget it too."