A wave of hurried, muffled voices flew around the darkness. The feeling of an expanding coat hanger pushing through her internal organs was getting too much.
“She’s losing consciousness,” a female voice flew into the air, “Dr. Whitaker? Can you hear me?”
A horizontal sliver of light burst across the darkness, revealing a blurred vision of a delivery nurse. Bonnie opened her eyelids and looked at the floor to find her knees splayed across flooded, spongy floor.
“Welcome back, Dr. Whitaker,” the nurse said, holding her up by her left arm. The image of the woman focused into crystal clarity. The bottom half of her body remained blurred through the plastic casing attached to her face.
An oxygen mask.
“Level off the gas, please,” said another nurse, who kept an eye on a monitor to the left. “No need for the Entonox. She’s doing fine on her own.”
“Keep pushing, Bonnie,” the delivery nurse said, holding her hands out between her legs, “Nearly there.”
Bonnie tilted her head to the right. Holding her hand was her husband, Troy, doing his best to keep her calm. “You’re doing great, Bonnie.”
Bonnie’s cries fogged up the oxygen mask. Her stomach felt like it had been stuffed with a thousand lit fireworks. She bent her knees apart and tried to push said fireworks out from between her legs.
A man’s voice echoed around her head as she suffered her birthing pains, “Good people, it is our pleasure to introduce to you the next level in the Androgyne series. The third generation.”
The USARIC 2110 summit – attended by all twelve board members and their guests – was the highlight of the company’s year.
In his late twenties, the devastatingly handsome Xavier Manning spoke to the audience from the stage. Two twenty year-old women stood either side of him in black underwear.
“The Androgyne Series Three model is an ultra-simple machine. In every way, vastly superior to its previous incarnation. Take a look at both my friends, here. One of them is a genuine human being, born of flesh and blood. The other is not. Can you tell which is which?”
The first woman stepped forward and place her hands on her hip, posing for the audience.
In the front row, Maar Sheck felt along his forearm, pushing the ink around and taking a keen interest in the display.
The second woman stepped forward and turned one-hundred-and-eighty degrees for the crowd of onlookers.
True enough, it was impossible to tell the difference between the two women. Xavier found the audience’s awe most amusing.
A diagram of what looked like a human body appeared on the screen behind him.
“What a difference advancements in technology makes. No more amnesia, except for where it counts. The Androgyne Series Three comes equipped with a fully customizable remit. You need an engineer to carry out tasks for you? You got it.”
Xavier lifted the back of the first model’s hair and lifted it up. He opened a plate in the back of her neck and pressed a button. “Sleep, Bonnie.”
The woman’s head faced down, appearing to be offline. He turned to the second woman and smiled. “So, I guess you figured out which one was the genuine woman, huh?”
The audience giggled. Maar turned to Dimitri and whispered in his ear. “This is incrediful.”
“I know. We should consider stocking future ventures with them.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think of the savings on life insurance, if nothing else. If something happens, the repair bill will be a lot cheaper than the insurance pay-out.”
“I see you’re thinking what I’m thinking, Dimitri.”
The USARIC chiefs turned to the stage to see the second woman turn her back to Xavier. He reached for the back of her head.
“Well, everyone, you chose wrong. Belinda, here, is also a series three unit.”
He lifted her hair and revealed a removable panel. The casing slid across her neck, revealing the circuitry inside. Her scalp slid off into Xavier’s hands.
“Fully integrated organs. Lungs, stomach, pancreas, kidneys, and a fully functioning brain. Every single series three unit is, for all intents and purposes, a real life human being. Calibrated with a lifetime’s worth of carefully selected memories. In essence, utterly indistinguishable from a genuine human being.”
The audience clapped and cheered as Xavier replaced Belinda’s scalp and reactivated her.
“Belinda?”
“Yes, Xavier?”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“What would you like to know?” She smiled and winked at him, much to the amusement of the audience.
“I don’t know. Tell me your age and where you’re from.”
“Oh, you’re so forward,” she giggled to knowing chuckles from the audience. “I was born in South Texas, but grew up in New York City. I’m twenty-years-old.”
“Excellent,” Xavier said. “Tell me about your family?”
“My folks live in South Texas. I have two older brothers.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an engineer for the Manning/Synapse company, out of Moscow. It’s a pleasure to be here with you, Xavier. You’ve always been a hero of mine.”
The audience muttered to themselves with great curiosity. Standing before them was an android who believed she was real and had no reason to believe otherwise.
“Sleep, Belinda,” Xavier said.
She kept her eyes open and powered down, standing still on the spot.
“Obviously, I don’t recommend that command when you acquire your own droid,” Xavier chuckled, knowingly, “This is for the purposes of the demonstration. You can customize your shut-down command, too. You, the shareholders and major partners have spoken. We at Manning/Synapse listened. The series three model will forget that they are a droid with every power-down. No more recharging chambers, either. When they sleep, they replenish their internal core and battery, just like us humans do. They wake up fresh, and remember everything – except that they are not human. Just the way it should be.”
A burst of giddy excitement came from the audience. The diagram on the screen behind him faded out, replaced by the Manning/Synapse company logo.
“We believe the days are gone where technology and humans are distinguishable. Soon, the differentiation between the two will be a thing of the past. A unit that believes it is human. A unit that can reproduce and never die. Imagine the reduction of risk for your company, given the nature of the work you undertake. No more injury or, at least if there is, it’s easily fixed. No more death.”
Maar and Dimitri looked at each other, knowing full well what the other was thinking.
Bonnie screamed and thrashed around as she heaved through her oxygen mask. Her knees threatened to buckle.
The woman was in so much pain, squatting over the birthing pool, kept in place by her husband and a nurse.
“Okay, Bonnie, keep pushing,” the delivery nurse said, “The head is coming through.”
“Nggg…” Bonnie lifted her hips and stomped her false leg to the ground in an attempt to fling the volcano of hurt away.
“It’s coming… keep breathing. Push, push.”
A final flex of the muscles did the trick. She slammed the back of her head against the padding and exhaled through her tears.
The sense of relief was immeasurable, and only nearly as affecting as the cries of a newborn baby that followed seconds later.
Bonnie opened her eyes to find Troy marveling at what lay in the delivery nurse’s arms. “Oh… my God. Bonnie, look.”
“Congratulations, Dr. Whitaker,” the nurse said, holding the detritus-covered baby in her arms. “It’s a boy.”
Bonnie lifted her arms, unable to quell her happiness. “It’s a miracle, is what it is.”