Radio Free Mars by James L. Kent

Author:James L. Kent
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Supermassive, LLC
Published: 2018-12-08T23:00:00+00:00

Sunday Morning

Sandy woke at 9:08 AM and the loft was bustling. She slept for three-and-a-half hours, a full cycle. The robots were busy packing Victor’s personal possessions into crates; his clothes, his shoes, his toiletries, most of his books, his desk accessories, his media storage, all personal items from the bedroom and office areas. Sandy wanted to ask what they were doing, but then realized they were cleaning the loft. The robots understood that this loft was now Sandy’s space, but to Sandy it was still Victor’s loft. Cleaning out all traces of Victor seemed disrespectful, but the robots did not grasp this concept. They wanted to show Sandy that this was no longer a dead-man’s loft, it was her loft. She appreciated the gesture, but it was not sinking in.

Sleep had eased Sandy’s spirits. She was no longer dejected. She felt like drinking coffee, putting on makeup, and going to work. She showed Rodman video footage of her bumpers from the day before and asked if he could have a service robot bring her the clothes from the video. Rodman said he would handle it. She asked Rodman to open a connection to the secured network Roper had set up so she could check her mail and make some encrypted calls. Rodman did it. Sandy felt strange treating Rodman like a servant, but he also seemed to enjoy doing tasks, so she treated him like a servant and allowed herself to feel strange about it.

Rodman introduced Sandy to Jelena, the female robot Sandy called Barbie. Jelena wore a light blue sweater, a pencil skirt, and a brown wig. The outfit was very chic. Jelena also wore dark glasses with a head-scarf, the way Sandy saw most women dressed in Darwin. At first glance Sandy would not have guessed she was a robot, but she moved and spoke with a slow robotic precision that gave her away. The anthropomorphic weirdness of human-looking robots was unsettling to Sandy. The robots could fake human facial expressions, but they were always fakes. Sandy wondered if this was due to limitations of facial mechanics or bad programming, or if facial emotions were just very difficult to fake. Jelena was the most human of all the robots, more convincing than Victor 4, but she still had problems with lip synching and making her eyes and eyelids move naturally during conversation.

Even though Jelena lacked a certain human grace, Sandy found the comparison between Jelena and Rodman extreme. Jelena was an android made to look like a human. Rodman was a robot with nuts and bolts and wires sticking out of his frame. Yet to Sandy, Rodman seemed more human than Jelena.

“Jelena can take your calls and answer mail and direct messages.” Rodman was trying to find a function for Jelena. “She has advanced communication skills.”

“It’s a pleasure to serve you,” Jelena said with an Asian-style bow. “Konichiwa, I can assist you in many languages. You have one-hundred and thirty-eight messages and inquiries from Japanese fans and media in your mail folder.

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