Persona Tests: McKenzie One Point One
Persona Technologies Stress and Structural Tests
Location: Persona R&D Facility #773
Subject: P-017-4-KM-317 "McKenzie"
There was still work to be done, of course, so Simmons did not miss a beat. She looked down at the vegetables and saw an opportunity to do a bit of quality control. “McKenzie, can you take that stalk of celery, fellate it to...40% simulated arousal, and then chew and swallow it conspicuously?"
The girl’s AI filtered that request in a nanosecond, translating it into some form of socially-acceptable request. "Yeah, sure." McKenzie shrugged. To her, this was nothing out of the ordinary. She casually picked up the stick of celery and slid it into her mouth, pumping it in and out slowly. Her AI did this until the celery was "stimulated" enough, then simply chewed it up and swallowed it. There was another twitch from the neck servo, then McKenzie looked up at her mother. "Anything else I can do?"
Simmons was about to respond when there was a shrill ring from her cell phone. Every member of the staff was required to carry an old-style Nokia phone rather than whatever smart phone they used outside of the facility. It helped maintain the illusion, and Persona found that the more advanced AI would ask questions about advanced technology inside this carefully-crafted lie.
“I’m sorry, McKenzie. Work needs me for just one more second.”
Simmons turned quickly back into the living room. She did not see McKenzie’s right eye dilate just a bit too much or her neck turn at an inhuman angle. “Okay Mommy” was all she said, but she said it through an unmoving symmetric smile, teeth frozen in a grin that wavered between alluring and unsettling. With no other stimuli and no preprogrammed tasks, McKenzie stayed utterly still.
There was a bag left on the doorstop in a standard Persona duffel bag, all the things Simmons would need for a weekend stay with her “daughter”. There was also a notice from her colleague to make sure that they data gathered from this experiment was worth it. She did not like being left high and dry to deal with fifty-nine units—fifty-eight now that “Sandra Abrams” had outlived her useful life and been scrapped—by herself. Simmons had to chuckle at that one. Her colleague had changed names and appearance enough times now that she stopped trying to remember what they were called. She served her purpose just like all of the other machines of Fairlane, so it was always a good laugh to see her programmed to complain about it.
Simmons returned to the kitchen and McKenzie came alive again. She moved the knife up and down on the cutting board even without vegetables in front of her, looking nearly like a department store window display. One could watch the heuristic programming shoot through her plastic mind as she turned back into the full “McKenzie”. She looked her ersatz mother and began to speak again:
“Guess what happened in class today? I told you about Jack O’Bannon, right? We—”
“P-017-4-KM-317, rewind to time code 002103, dialogue prompt ‘anything else I can do’, then erase and restart.”
“—Jack O’Bannon, right? We—yes, Doctor Simmons. Rewinding to time code 002103.”
McKenzie danced backwards in precise movements, tracing every motion she had made in the past three minutes. Her mouth flapped and her hands flittered and in a seeming instant she was back at the precise moment that was ordered. Her past. Their present.
“Anything else I can do?”
“McKenzie, follow me to the living room. Also, tell me about your last sexual experience, and whether you think any of your fellow students could be robots.”
McKenzie followed obediently, as if this was all the most normal and logical of ways to spend a morning. Her mind would not allow her to think any differently. “Yes, of course. My last sexual experience? It was error: no results found, fabricating memory, please wait…oh! I remember. I was at Kappa Iota Tau with Erica. We set up a charity drive among the sisters. They paid six thousand dollars for her to tie me up and eat me out. I don’t think that even a robot could have done better! If there were such a thing as robots, of course. Could you imagine a machine that looks just like a girl? If anyone was a robot then Bridget Fallon would be a robot. She’s too perfect at at at academics gymnastics social events cooking sexual positions P1 through P628/B—”
Simmons held up her hand. “Thank you, McKenzie. That is more than enough information. I just wanted to make sure you were sharp and staying on top of your studies.” She looked up towards no one in particular, speaking as if she had a ring announcer’s microphone. “She offers up too much information, but I think that’s because she’s speaking out all the data points that she has. Could we begin filling her in a little bit? Give her a general randomized data package based upon a c. 1978 birthday and standard American experience.”
McKenzie tilted her head. Even for a robot programmed to ignore many cues this was odd. “Mother, who are you talking t—” She lurched forward and froze. If one listened closely they could hear the clicking of her hard drives and processors as they were taxed to the limit. Simmons put her hand on McKenzie’s stomach, feeling the slight sheen of artificial perspiration and the rising temperature within her.
“May Third is my birthday!” The girl straightened up as she exclaimed this. “I should really call Erica and see if she wants to watch Untamed Heart again. I wonder how Johnny at the bar is doing, I haven’t gone out in a few days because I have been studying. Erica Grace, that’s a nice name. Sometimes I wish my Mother would—”
McKenzie suddenly stopped talking. She reached to unclasp her bra and let it fall to the floor. Her underwear followed quickly. She was a marvel of design. There were slight imperfections in her skin, a hair or two out of place, birthmarks and moles and all the little things that aren’t often considered when thinking about building a girl. It is what put Persona’s artificial women a cut above the competition. Simmons had placed some of these blemishes herself, using her own body as a template to make McKenzie almost perfect. She never grew tired of looking at these machines. They would sometimes cause her to get lost in thought, as she realized when she returned halfway through McKenzie’s latest utterance.
“She never has breakouts, her hair is always perfect…it’s just kinda odd to me. I don’t know, maybe that’s just stupid. Robots that advanced don’t even exist, so I don’t know what I’m worrying about. Mother, have you seen my outfit not defined?”