The Metal Maiden Collection Read Online Free PDF

enabling me to do that. I owe such success as I have to you.”
    Banner considered. “Elasa, I realize that all this is an extended publicity stunt. I’m just an incidental part of it. You’re the piece de resistance . Yet--” He had trouble continuing.
    “Yes,” she said, and walked toward the bedroom.
    “Dammit, it’s not about sex, this time.”
    She turned to face him, looking appalled. “Have I disappointed you, Banner? I’m so sorry. How can I make it right?”
    “Come here.”
    She came to him, obeying but evidently uncertain of his purpose. He embraced her and kissed her. “Elasa, you haven’t failed me. I fear I am failing you. I know you’re a robot, a machine, and I’m supposed to keep my emotional distance. But I think I am falling in love with you.”
    “Please do not. I am not a fit object for such an emotion.”
    “I can’t help it. You’re the perfect woman.”
    “I wish I could be that. But I am not.”
    He smiled. “Fake it.”
    “I can do that. But I do not wish to deceive you. Especially if that leads to emotional pain for you.”
    “I know you don’t. That’s part of what I love about you.”
    “I think I do not properly understand your sentiment.”
    “And you are incapable of understanding, because you are not alive. But I like to think you are trying.”
    “I am trying,” she agreed.
    “Show me your breasts.”
    She opened her shirt for him. “They are only emulations.”
    “I know. But I still like them.” He put his hands on them, cupping them. “They feel so lifelike. Even though I know they are mere padded covering, imitations of the real thing.”
    “All of me is imitation.”
    “Yet you turn me on. Just as your program turns me on much as if it were real.”
    “I like turning you on.”
    “Just as your body can perform real sex, I’m hoping your program will become able to feel real feelings. That would make you complete.”
    “Yes!”
    He shook off his mood. “ Now it’s about sex.”
    They went to the bedroom. She was perfect, as always. Yet, oddly, there were tears in her eyes. Surely part of the emulation, yet he couldn’t help wondering. Could there be some trace of genuine feeling in her, a desire to be what she was pretending to be? He knew better, yet tended to believe it.
    In the course of the next few days their routine settled in. Completely sated sexually, Banner began to notice other things. Elasa did what she did well, but always the same way. The food was the same unless he asked for a change; then it was always changed in the same manner. Even the sex became over-familiar, just like the prior times. He had to seek variations, lest it lose its flavor. She was, after all, a machine, unchanging unless directed.
    Then he got smart: “Introduce minor random variations in whatever you do,” he told her. “Do not do anything exactly the same as last time; change it a little bit.”
    “I will try,” she agreed.
    That worked, muting the sameness. The familiar larger pattern remained, but of course that would also be true with a living woman. It occurred to him that was why marriages tended to get stale. Did any couple really live happily ever after, or did the partners merely sink comfortably into bearable ruts?
    The month passed in relative bliss. Except for one thing: Banner knew he would have to turn Elasa in at the conclusion of it. He could not afford to rent her permanently; he had inquired and verified that.
    “Oh, Elasa, I wish I could keep you!”
    “Should I inquire?”
    “I already I know I can’t afford you.”
    “About cheaper alternatives?”
    What the hell. “Sure.”
    Her information, as usual, was disconcertingly instant. “There may be a way. The shop is extremely pleased with the way you have promoted me, and thinks you could be good at the next stage.”
    “The next stage?”
    “There is new software, more refined, more dynamic. It is an attempt to emulate consciousness in a machine. It is not yet successful, but