The Killer Sexbots, Part Two

On Monday I called my client and told her what I’d learned.

            Sexbots were apparently a thing. I’d done a lot of research on Saturday, and although I couldn’t quite believe that robots disguised as humans could ever actually fool anyone . . . well. I’d seen some strange things in my career. Like vampires, zombies, and giant mutant ninja chickens. Anything seemed possible.

            “What are you saying?” Lynda Daugherty kept her voice low. “I thought Earl was just screwing his secretary! Now you say he’s doing it with . . . robots?”

            “I don’t know.” I paused. “There’s a real estate office inside Building 2. He might have gone there for a meeting, but it’s a whole different outfit. Business development, not homes, like your husband deals with mostly. Maybe he’s . . . screwing someone in there. But I can’t find out without going in somehow. To check Yanna AI out.”

            “I don’t know. This is getting too expensive, like I said. Maybe I should just end it here.”

            “Sure.” I breathed a sigh of relief. I like getting paid, but this case seemed to be going nowhere. “Your check covers most of it. I can just send you a bill for the rest—”

            “No, wait.” She sighed. “I can pay you for one more day. If you can find out about that place.”

            “I’ll see what I can do.” I wondered how I’d get into Yanna—and how I’d convince Rachel to let me do it.

I considered pretending to be a reporter doing a story on AI and sexbots—I used to be a reporter, after all—but that seemed risky. Being a private detective involves a certain amount of misrepresentation, but outright lying can backfire in a big way.

            So in the end I called and told the receptionist that I was a consultant (sort of true) working for a client who wanted more information about the sexbots (also true) and who might be interested in investing in one—or possibly the company (okay, definitely not true, but two out of three isn’t so bad, is it?).

            Rachel rolled her eyes at her desk as I hung up. “Okay, you’ve had vampires and demons and flesh-eating fungus—oh, wait, that was me—so I guess you’re allowed a little fun for once.” She jabbed at finger at me. “A little. Got it?”

            “I won’t have fun at all,” I promised.

           

So on Tuesday I drove out past Glen Ellyn to the Lawson Industrial Park again, stopped at the gate, and told the speaker I had an 11 a.m. appointment at Yanna AI.

            I parked, checked in at the first-floor desk, and took an elevator up to the third floor. Yanna took up the entire space. I introduced myself to a middle-aged receptionist. She buzzed someone and told me to take a seat.

            The workplace—what I could see and hear of it—was quiet and clean, with biege walls, green carpeting, and shoulder-high cubicles. I heard laughter from one corner, and a mild curse closer by. A typical office.

            A tall man, slightly balding, walked to the front desk. “Mr. Jurgen? Mike Moniz.”

            We shook hands. Moniz wore a T-shirt, blazer, and jeans—the very model of a modern IT executive. He led me to an office with a plaque mounted next to the door: “Michael C. Moniz, V.P.—Sales.” Well, that figured.

            “What can I tell you, Mr. Jurgen?” We sat down.

            “Well, my client is very interested in your line of, uh, lifelike humans, but for obvious reasons he’s a little reticent about being open about them. He’s reasonably well-off, not married, a little shy around the opposite sex. So I have to keep a wall between him and you—for now.”

            Moniz smiled. “That’s our target market. Although I have to say that none of our models are likely to be available for purchase for at least another year.”

            I nodded. “So the, uh, models on your website aren’t fully operational yet?”

            “They’re, let’s say, functional. I don’t know if they pass the Turing test or anything . . .” He chuckled. “But we have to do a lot more work and testing before making them publicly available.”

            “Makes sense.” I leaned back. “How do you, you know—make them?”

            Another smile. “Of course, much of that is proprietary. I can tell you that we use the most advanced synthetic materials for the skin, and the latest robotic technology for movement. And we’ve got a top-notch group of programmers creating the AI interface.”

            All pretty standard, and it told me nothing. “Why are you here instead of in Silicon Valley?”

            “Dr. Yanna grew up in Illinois. He spent some time in California, sure. But he wanted to be near his family. And . . .” Moniz leaned forward. “You can find just as much talent in Chicago as anywhere else. You know?”

            I nodded., thinking about the people who’d worked on Xan—an alien entity from billions of light years away. “Absolutely.”

            “Now . . .” Moniz pushed his chair back and stood up. “I bet you’d like to see the prototypes.”

            I grinned. “Sure. I was hoping for that.” I could feel Rachel’s punch from miles away.

            Moniz led me through the cubicles to one side of the office, where he unlocked a thick door with a key card. “No pictures, no recording all right?”

            “Yeah.” I held out my phone. “You want to take it?”

            He shook his head with a smile. “Not necessary.”

            Beyond the door we started walking through a combination workshop and operating room. Lockers lined one wall for a few yards. On the other side, technicians peered at monitors and tapped keyboards, and lots of tech equipment sat on tables or inside transparent storage units.

            On top of one table lay Ben, the black model. A thin sheet lay across his waist. The skin on one leg had been pulled back, revealing a shell of light plastic that had been opened as well. I saw a network of fiberoptic cables and some other stuff around a metallic legbone.

A technician was replacing what looked like a watch battery neat to the knee. “Hi, Mike.” She was a young African American woman in a lab coat.

            “Hi, Steph. Just showing a potential customer around. How’s Ben?”

            “He fell in a test. Just replacing a battery, but then we’ve got to reboot the gyros. He should be ready for another walking test in a few hours.” She glanced at me. “Hi. Stephanie.”

            “Tom.” I stared at the robot. Ben looked completely human—although his eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. I’m definitely heterosexual, but I had to resist the urge to ask Stephanie to move the towel.

            “Over here . . .” Moniz moved me along. “Let’s take a look at Myn.”

            Myn was the Asian model. She was standing upright in a slim, one-piece bathing suit. Her eyes were wide open too, her face expressionless.

            “Activate.” Moniz waited a moment. “Hello, Myn.”

            Her eyes blinked. “Hi, Mike. How are you?” Her face swung toward me. “And who’s your friend?”

            “This is Tom. Do you mind if he asks you a few questions?”

            “Of course not.” She leaned back against a table. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

            She perched on the edge of the table. Moniz smiled. “Go ahead.”

            “Hi, Myn.” What to ask? “Do you like it here?”

            “It’s okay.” She nodded. “I’d rather go outside, but they say I’m not ready yet.”

            “What you like to do outside?”

            “Meet people. Everyone here is nice—except for Brian, he’s rude—but I want to get to know more people.”

            “How is Brian rude?”

            “He touches me inappropriately. I told him to stop, but he keeps doing it.” She frowned.

            “Goddamn it.” Moniz pulled out his phone and tapped a number. “Felipe? You need to talk to Brian about Myn. Yes, again.” He hung up. “I’m sorry, Myn. We’ve talked to Brian about this. It won’t happened again.”

            “It’s all right.” She smiled. “I like meeting new people.”

            “Thank you, Myn.” Moniz nodded. “Deactivate.”

            “It was nice meeting you, Tom.” Then her eyes went blank.

            “So they’re programmed for . . . honesty? Ethics?” I folded my arms.

            “They’re programmed to learn from experiences. It’s one of the big challenges, but we’re moving ahead in different ways.” Moniz stilled looked pissed. “But we don’t want to market our products to the BDSM crowd. That’s just bad PR.”

            Right. “I get that.”

            We veered around a corner, past a room marked CT-1. A heavyset woman in her late thirties walked out, her face flushed. She was followed by a female technician with one hand on her shoulder. “This way, Ms.—” She saw me. “Ma’am.”

            “Right.” The woman smiled at me. “Hi, there.”

            I glanced at Moniz. “More testing?”

            He grimaced. “I forgot to make you sign the nondisclosure agreement. It would be nice if you didn’t share whatever you see in here online.”

            I shrugged. “My client wants this as quiet as you do. But . . . what was that?”

            “It’s what you think. We recruit volunteers for . . . tests of the models. They sign NDAs.” He shook his head. “I’m going to have to talk to Dr. Yanna about this.”

            Volunteers. Like Daugherty? “I just need to report to my client. I’m not going to go to the media.” That was perfectly true. “Is that really . . .” I looked at the woman walking away, swaying from side to side. “What your customers can expect?”

            Moniz smiled. “That’s what we hope. Let me show you . . .”

            A few more steps down the hallway, and Moniz stopped. “This is the real work.”

The model Eve lay on a table, her body covered with a white cloth. Her scalp had been removed, and two techs were delicately inserting a chip into a tiny port at the base of a small white globe that glowed and pulsed with energy.  Fiberoptic cables wrapped down around a spinal cord.

“What are they doing?”

“Just some reprogramming. Like you saw, we want our models to be consistent.” Moniz gave me a mild push. “Let’s look over here . . .”

But the next table was empty. Moniz growled. “Wait a minute.” He swung around and pointed at a technician hunched over a computer. “Diane? Where is Val?”

Diane looked up, annoyed. She had short blond hair and thin glasses. “Ross took her out for some tests. I don’t know. I’m working on Eve’s nipples.” She wiped her forehead. “It’s going to take a while.”

            “Damn it.” Moniz pulled his phone again. “Felipe? Ross took Val out. Who authorized that? What? Goddamn it.” He looked at me. “Okay. I’m sorry, but the tour is over. I hope you’ve learned what your client needs to know. And I hope you can keep all is this quiet. We’re a legitimate company. This is not all we do, it’s a sideline. You can tell your client whatever you want, as long as you understand—”

            I held up a hand. “It’s okay, Mike. I’ve got everything I need for my client. It would be nice to talk to Dr. Yanna. Is that okay?”

            Moniz sighed. “He’s very busy. It was nice meeting with you.”

            “Same here.” We exchanged cards—mine was a generic “consultant” card I kept for situations like these. Then I found my own way out.