‘But… how…why… when…’ He burbled.
Taylor released his grip on Alice and she walked quickly out of the library, closing the door behind her.
‘Sit down Dick. Sit down’ said Taylor. I’ll tell you all about it.
The two men sat at the table. Taylor leant forward to talk and Dick flinched. It was a reflex action to avoid the inevitable punch in the face from a man who had caught you red-handed going down on his robotic girlfriend. But Taylor didn’t throw a punch. Instead he sighed. There then followed an awkward silence, during which time Dick flinched twice more, certain Taylor would punch him without warning,
‘You’re lost for words because you’re so angry, is that it?’ Dick asked.
‘I’m not angry Dick… well I am, but I’m also relieved. Relieved that you know the truth’.
Dick looked at him with a puzzled expression.
‘It was only time before you found out. It was obvious you were especially attracted to Alice. What just happened was simply the inevitable’.
‘I’m really sorry Taylor, I truly am’, Dick said with genuine remorse. ‘You’re right. There was a weird attraction. She appeared so straight-laced and uptight that she became, well, a sort of challenge to me’. Looking Taylor in the eye Dick continued. ‘It won’t happen again. I swear to that. You can trust me in a room alone with her; you have my word of honour. OK, you might think that doesn’t count for anything but I’m deadly serious’.
‘I know’, Taylor said. ‘I believe you’.
Leaning forward, now confident that Taylor wasn’t going to hit him, Dick posed the question he’d been absolutely dying to ask.
‘Does anyone else know about the fact that she’s… er, well, you know, a…’
Taylor interrupted Dick to save him the embarrassment of saying something like ‘mechanical’, ‘not human’ or ‘a fucking robot’.
‘No. No one knows the truth. You’ve probably guessed that Alice was part of Project Gladstone but I couldn’t say anything when you told us you were working on it’.
‘Did you work on the project?’, Dick enquired.
‘In a sort of way’, answered Taylor.
‘Did you help to design them?’. Dick was intrigued.
‘Let’s just say that some of my skills were utilised. I’ve got an electronic engineering background, but I can’t tell you any more. Alice was one of the last working prototypes. She never went out in the field and was supposed to have been scrapped after final testing’. Dick was still slightly stunned as Taylor continued his revelation. ‘With the help of another resistance member I managed to ‘rescue’ Alice and de-activate certain parts of her programming. She was given a new identity like you and well, here she is, ostensibly an ordinary member of society but a key member of the Resistance. The Party has no idea she still exists’.
‘Couldn’t you have re-programmed her to be totally faithful to you?’, Dick asked, quite insensitively.
‘I wish I could’, Taylor replied. ‘But I don’t have the necessary skills. Changing her prime directive was one thing, but altering the rest of her behaviour is beyond my abilities’.
‘Does she know that she’s… er, well, you know, a…’
Taylor cut him short again. ‘Yes. It’s part of her programming. She has to know what she really is in order that she understands the importance of concealing the truth from anyone. Plus, of course, if you found a serial number imprinted on your inner thigh, it would only get you wondering wouldn’t it?’
‘Until I saw that’, Dick explained, ‘I had absolutely no idea at all. I didn’t even realise when she was almost naked. She’s a perfect replica. There are some people I’ve known who are, well, less human than her’.
‘I know. The realism is uncanny, isn’t it? But there was one aspect of the design and engineering that even the best technological brains in the Party couldn’t overcome. One thing they had to conceal’.
Dick threw Taylor one of his puzzled expressions.
‘The smell. The hydraulic fluid necessary for their operation has a characteristic and unusual smell. You must have noticed that from the demonstration of Jack’.
Dick thought back and remembered that Jack and the robot harlots built for the demonstration shared a very odd odour. ‘That’s right! I mentioned it to one of the technicians who said that when Jack was sent out into the field, that smell would be masked by a strong cologne’.
‘That’s why Alice wears her distinctive perfume’, Taylor explained. ‘To mask the oil’.
Dick smiled. He’d been aware of her alluring perfume from the first time she appeared in his trailer. If only he knew then the real reason she wore it. He nodded and then asked Taylor with an astonishing amount of insensitivity, ‘What’s it like fucking a machine?’
This time Taylor did punch Dick in the face.
CHAPTER 23
Sitting in the lounge a short time later with his colleagues Dick discretely nursed his bruised jaw. As relationships with your boss went, he wasn’t doing so well. So far in their brief relationship Taylor had kneed Dick in the groin and punched him in the face, but if Taylor harboured a deep-seated feeling of seething resentment towards Dick then this was currently well-concealed. He was as civil and as friendly as usual. Likewise, if Alice had been distressed about what had taken place earlier on the library table then she certainly didn’t show it.
The three of them, Edward and Susan were discussing the extraordinary news of the capture and likely execution of Benjamin Faraday. Taylor vehemently denied that Benjamin had been a member of the Resistance and that his arrest was as much of a surprise to him as it had been to Dick. By the strengths of his protests and those of his colleagues Dick was starting to believe that Taylor might actually be telling the truth. Taylor, meanwhile, was angry with himself that Benjamin’s anti-Party sentiment had not come to his attention earlier – and for not recruiting him. He wondered how many other people like Benjamin had slipped through the net; valuable additional members the Resistance so dearly needed. This was being discussed when, in an extraordinary coincidence, Grace rushed into the room with a copy of the London Evening Telegraph in her hand and an excited look on her face.
‘I think we might have found a potential new member!’, she said eagerly. ‘Look!’
Grace pointed energetically at the open paper. Dick joined Taylor, Alice, Susan and Edward in staring at the page.
‘New Indian tiger for London Zoological Gardens?’ Dick asked, pondering a) why they would recruit a tiger and b) how they would train it to such a degree that it would be useful to the Resistance, let alone cure it of its innate man-eating instincts.
‘No!’, Grace, exclaimed, pointing excitedly to the page again.
Dick tried to follow her finger but this was difficult as she was waving it about so frantically.
‘New Sewerage System for Manchester?’ If Dick had doubts about recruiting a tiger then enlisting the help of a sewage system made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Dick thought the whole notion was fraught with impracticalities, starting with the fact that they would need an unfeasibly large volume of perfume to hide its stench. Dick’s colleagues however, didn’t share his confusion.
‘Well spotted Grace’, Taylor said. ‘This is definitely worth investigating further’.
‘What an odd story!’ added Alice, which made Dick even more determined to find out what all the fuss was about.
‘What is it?’, asked Dick, the frustration evident in his voice.