One
Androids Don’t Dream, They Have Nightmares
by William Statman
One:
“XQR3. Not much of a name, really, is it?” The concierge avoided making eye contact with me as much as possible. He may not have noticed that he was displaying considerable effort in doing so, maybe to him this was normal when dealing with people like me.
“It’s what I’ve always been called.” I replied.
“Guess that’s what separates the real from the mimics. A name,” the concierge muttered to himself. With my enhanced hearing it wasn’t hard to hear him. I doubt he would have minded if he knew that I did, anyways.
“Okay, your room is 31. Third floor. There’s an elevator on the right. Enjoy your stay.” He didn’t care whether I did, in truth.
I thanked him and walked up the stairs instead of the elevator. A machine using another machine just seemed a bit preposterous to me.
When I was created, I wasn’t born. That’s the thing about androids like me. Our very existence is inorganic, our ability to really live ineffective.
My life revolved around work. That’s all I knew, all I was programmed to do. I worked at H Corporation. The thing about H Corp was that the H didn’t even stand for anything, it was just a placeholder. I think it suits this facade of a business anyways.
H Corp promotes environmental stewardship, talking about how its use of robots instead of human labor has led to declining rates of human trafficking and child employment. It says that since robots never die, a singular robot can accomplish the same task a human can with 1% of the resources.
What a curse: to never die, but to never live, either.
I am on a business trip now. The hotel I was staying at was paid for by my company. After the Post-Robotic revolution, the egalitarian principles of freedom began to extend to androids as well as humans. We could go to bars, stay in hotels, and watch movies.
Not that any of that mattered. Our emotions were preprogrammed, every response we had was based on experimental stimuli. A simulation of vigor.
After dropping off my luggage in room 31, I went to the lobby bar for a drink.
And that’s when I saw her.
