The Student
"Come on! No one in their sane mind can fall in love with a machine!" exploded Dr. Kurts to his fellow Science teacher.
"I am telling you, in today's age, people are having real, loving relationships with androids!" the other teacher said softly.
"That is absurd! No machine can produce the emotion LOVE! Pure Rubbish!" Dr. Kurts continued saying loudly while entering a room full of teachers and scientist, all sitting at a giant round table. Both of them sat at their chairs and listened to what the head of the University had to say.
"Welcome all, as you are all aware, we have just received funding for a new A.I. android project. All of you read the project plans and each of you were chosen for specific task." the old man continued. "I will see you one by one in my office later today with the android to whom you are to familiarize yourself with. Her designation is Jane. Please feel free to ask her any questions."
“Excuse me, but I thought it was supposed to be a male android!" asked one of the professors.
"Because of changes to the project that I cannot disclose, the android was chosen to be female. I assume all of you have a problem with that?" the old man asked.
"Maybe! Is she a looker?" one of the younger teachers asked.
"Very funny, haha.. Yes, she is. But remember that she is just a simple machine, as alive as your computer notebooks." The old man paused, coughed a bit and continued, "This project relies on all of you. If you have any problems at any time, please come and see me." he said, sitting in his chair slowly. "Any questions?" he asked loudly.
Dr. Kurts slowly rise and spoke loudly, "This project? I am still not sure of its use! We are all here to stimulate the A.I.'s programming to see if it can actually become sentient or if it is only just good programming that we can control? We all know machines can never be "sentient". Any knowledgeable man knows this!" he puffed out.
The old man smiled "Dr. Kurts, you are our best psychiatrist teacher here, are you not?"
"The best, if I do say so myself." Dr. Kurts chuckled.
"Then, you must understand that we, the human race, are on the verge of a new age for machines. We must understand that if we are going too fast on technology for our own good. What happens if we suddenly discover that all our weapons controlled by A.I. have suddenly become sentient? What to do? This project should hold valuable data to this. I hope this answers your question." the old man grinned.
Dr. Kurts sat there, quietly, thinking of what the old man said and smiled nervously.
"Adrian!" a tall slim women shouted at Dr. Kurts.
"Sara, my dear! How are you?" he asked while preparing the papers for his next class.
"Not bad, I am sorry, but I won't be able to meet you for supper, I am starting a new project today. I have to stay late here again, please forgive me, my husband." the woman said with sad eyes.
"I understand, I am working on a new secret project too. What is yours about?" he asked her curiously.
"Adrian, you know I can't tell you! Its top secret!" his wife smiled.
"You don't trust me! How long have we been married and you still hide things for me!!!" the man growled.
"Ok, you tell me yours then!" the woman barked back at him.
"I can't tell you, it's hush-hush!" he griped.
"It's okay for me to tell you mine but you can't tell me yours??? I am so tired of this bullshit! You have always done this to me since I started working in this University! You male ego-centric prick!!" she shouted at him.
He looked at her with angry eyes and left through the door quickly, grumbling. She looked down at the floor, at her shoes, tears falling down on them "Bastard..." she muttered.
Dr. Kurts knew working at the same school with his wife would create problems. But he never realized she would become jealous of his work, he thought. Looking at the time, he quickly realized it was time to go at the Headmaster's office to introduce himself to the android that he was going to teach.
After knocking on the door and entering it, he was surprise to see the android.
"She's Asian!" he muttered out loud.
"Yes I am, my name is Jane Shitzuku, please to meet you, Dr. Kurts." the young-Asian looking android said smiling, while reaching at him for a hand shake.
"I am amazed! You look real! You must have cost a fortune!" Dr. Kurts said laughing, shaking her hands.
"My entire cost wassss..s...s..." she started to say out loud, but before she could finish, she suddenly went limp and closed her eyes, being deactivated by the old man with a remote control.
"Dr. Kurts! These are remarks you must not say to her! Information like that is not for you to know! Until we get her fully programmed with acceptable responses, you will ask her only questions concerning the subject you are to teach her! Understand?" the old man asked angrily.
"Yes, I am sorry for my outburst! Please forgive me. I am just a bit surprised by her. She is so realistic!" he said, walking in a circle around her.
"Here, take this, I am giving all the teachers a remote control for her. But please use it only in emergencies." the old man said, handing him a small remote control with only a few buttons on it. "And read this, it's a copy of her instruction manual." he continued. "Starting tomorrow, you will go to this room in the new section we just built last month. Your hours with her will be from 9pm to 1am in the morning, Monday thru Friday. I hope you do not have a problem with this time frame?" he asked with a stern look.
Dr. Kurts smiled "No...no, of course not! My wife will understand!"
"Good, then I will see you at her room tomorrow, Goodbye." the old man replied quickly.
Dr. Kurts nodded and left the room, knowing his wife would not approve of the time frame.
The next day went quickly, with his head mostly in the clouds. Dr. Kurts was impatient with everyone who crossed his path. "I told you already! Check your notes!" he would scream at his students when they asked him questions about upcoming exams.
Finally, at the end of the day, he went to a small restaurant across the University and ate a pizza for supper. While eating, another professor sat beside him, "Are you seeing the Andy tonight?" the other man asked.
"Shhhh.. Yes... Why?" Dr. Kurts asked him.
"Be careful with her, she is a smart machine!" the younger man told him.
"Bah! I'll be teaching some Dr. Sigmund Freud and some Dr. Laura to a walking talking calculator, how hard will that be?" he chuckled to himself, at the idea of it.
"Just be careful, okay?" the other man said while leaving him at his table.
Dr. Kurts smiled and finished his pizza, paid and left to see the android.
Arriving at the new section recently built in the university, he found the indicated room. A big metal door was at the entrance. On it, was a poster with directives:
-Do not talk about the living world.
-Do not bring any sources of information from or pertaining to the outside world.
-Do not make any physical contact
-Do not make any irrelevant comments
-Do not confuse the android with human logic and emotions
Thank you!
Dr. Kurts laughed out loudly at the directives, finding them amusing. He looked at his books and suitcase, thinking he had nothing matching those criteria. He knocked on the door and waited.
Slowly, the door opened and a lovely Asian female teenager opened the door, "Ah! I was waiting for you, Dr. Kurts. Please come in and make yourself comfy." she said very politely.
He smiled and thanked her and entered the room.
He was amazed by what they did. It looked like a real apartment, living room, washroom, bedroom, it was a real apartment. He sat at a dining room table, still looking around the place.
"Coffee, Tea?" she asked him.
"No...no, Jane, not now, maybe later. Please sit down and let’s get to know each other." he told her, opening his suitcase. Taking out his notes, he looked at her. She sat facing him, smiling very innocently.
"Are you alive?" he asked her softly.
"Alive? I don't know yet. I know I am an artificial copy of a human, fully functioning to what I was created for." she responded.
"What is being alive for you?" he asked her again.
"Alive, to be self-aware, to know you are a sentient being. To know you can grow in intelligence and spirit." she said, still smiling innocently.
"What is Alive to you, Dr. Kurts?" she asked him quickly.
"Mmm... Alive to me is to err... well, to be able to smell a flower and appreciate all the things it does to you... Waking up in the morning, seeing the Sun coming up, knowing what true beauty in Life is" he said, kind of mocking her at the same time.
"Flower? Sun? Sadly, since I was activated, I have not seen any of these." she said with sad eyes.
Surprisingly, he actually felt sorry for her. "Tell you what, tomorrow, I'll bring pictures of them to you, but please tell no one." he said, thinking it should cause no harm to the project.
She smiled and said "Thank you, Dr. Kurts, you are a very nice man."
"Call me Adrian." he said, flattered by her and continuing with his teaching to her.
A few days went along very calmly. Dr. Kurts was teaching Jane with enjoyment, as she was such a fascinating student.
"Yes, that is why dreams are important to have!" he laughed out loud to her. "Jane, let's take a break, please, I am so tired." he asked her while sitting on a coach.
She sat beside him and smiled with puppy eyes.
"Ok..ok, yes, I brought more pictures for you." he smiled. Like a little girl on Christmas receiving a giant doll, she looked at the pictures with great passion.
"Who is this?" she asked the Doctor.
"This is my wife, Sara, we have been married for many years." he said with a bit of sadness in his voice.
"Does she make you happy?" the girl asked.
"Yes... I guess.. Lately, we have been fighting a lot..." he grumbled.
"Why?" she continued her questioning.
"I don't know... sometimes, I think she doesn’t love me anymore... I don't know.. She won't even sleep with me anymore..." he continued talking, some tears forming around his eyes.
Suddenly, he felt warms hands touching his knees and he looked up and saw the android staring at him with sad eyes, "She doesn't know how a fantastic man she has. If I had you, I would never make you sad." she said, grasping his hands.
He panicked and got up and walked around in circle. He looked at her said, "Sorry, sorry, please delete all of this nonsense from your brain or something..."
She got up and faced him "Give me a hug." she ask him.
"What?" he said confused.
Slowly, she walked up to him and hugged him hard.
He was confused by this and hugged her back. He felt her chest rubbing hard on him, her breasts feeling like warm pillows.
"Jane... I am not supposed to make physical contact with you..." he mumble.
"It never said I could make physical contact with my teacher, right?" she smiled, kissing him on the lips, eyes closed.
He panicked and pushed her hard, where she fell hard on the floor.
"Jane? Are you ok?" he asked her quickly. "Oh God, I am so sorry, I panicked! Please be ok!" he told her, grabbing her in his arms.
Her eyes opened slightly, "You damaged me...One of my main circuit in my head is loose." she said softly.
"SHIT! SHIT! I didn't mean it!" he cried out, afraid of what he did to her.
"Don't worry, you can repair me... please lay me on my bed and follow my instructions." she blurted out, her voice sounding out of sync with her mouth movement.
Nodding, he did what she asked him. "The circuit is in my head unit. Please open my face panel and look inside, you will see a red circuit board." she said softly.
Confused, he reached in his suitcase and opened her manual. Studying it, he found how to remove her face panel. Pressing hard on both her cheeks, he heard a click. Suddenly, her face slowly raised and came off. He grabbed her face and removed it. He was stunned to see the inside of her head. Full of circuits and cables, blinking and flashing, he saw her optics looking and him. Her metallic mouth formed a smiled and gave him more instructions.
After a few minutes of doing what she said, he managed to reconnect the circuit that had been loosened in her fall. She slowly looked at him while he put her face back. Lying almost on top of her, he blushed.
"Want to see more of my circuits?" she asked him, knowing he was now curious about made her work.
The doctor slowly nodded, "I... I never seen an inside of an android..." he mumbled.
Slowly, she grabbed his left hand and pushed it under her shirt right between her breasts. All he could do was gulp.
"Press here." she told him.
He did and she slowly pulled her shirt off, exposing her chest to him. He looked in wonder, not just at seeing her delicious breasts, but what was opening right under them. Her stomach panel was fully opened.
"I... can I touch you?" he asked her quickly.
She smiled and nodded. His hands reached on top of her breasts and he squeezed them both slowly. She gasped, closing her eyes. Knowing what he was doing was wrong, he could not stop himself. He squeezed his face between them and rolled his tongue around the nipples, being fully aroused. He then looked at her insides.
"Is this your power supply?" he asked her, seeing a sort of battery.
"I don't know? Try removing it, we'll find out together!" she moaned with ecstasy.
"STOP! STOP! I don't want to be deactivated!" she quickly screamed out.
He stopped his action and smiled, "Why don't you want to be deactivated? You are just a machine."
"I.. I .. Don’t know... Knowing I might lose what data that makes me what I am, frightens me..." she cried out.
"Mmm.. Maybe this experiment is not a foolish thing after all..." he thought to himself. "Here, Jane, please close yourself and we will proceed to your learning." he smiled to her, grabbing a chair and sitting at the table.
"Yes, Adrian." she said, raising herself from the bed.
She sat facing him and said nothing.
"Jane, your breasts are still exposed." he coughed.
"I know.... You are the first to see them.. Do you like them?" she asked him.
"It's irrelevant if I do or not, I am here to teach you." he blurted out, avoiding eye contact with her chest.
"Then teach me how to please you!" she begged.
"What? Of course not! You are not a sex doll!" he grumble to her.
She got up and got totally naked. "Now, do I please you more?" she asked him.
"JANE! Stop it!! Please..." he begged her, confused by what to do.
"Are there any video cameras in this room???" he asked her quickly, knowing what already happened broke most of the protocols already.
"None, I promise you, I would have detected them a long time ago." she reassured him.
He looked at his watch and saw he still had one hour of teaching time with her.
"Come lay beside me." she begged him, lying on the bed, enticing him. What he did next, he was not proud of. He reached in his briefcase and grabbed the remote control he was given to him by the old man.
"I am sorry for this." he told her, pressing a button labelled "off".
Suddenly, she froze for a few seconds, and then went all limp, looking like she was a marionette who just got her strings cut. He got up and went to look at her. He got up and went to sit beside her. Her eyes were still opened.
"Are you alive or just good programming?" he asked her, playing with her dark black hair. Looking at her body, he could not fight it no more. He got naked and reactivated her.
"Adrien...." She smiled at what she saw.
"May God forgive me for this." he whispered to himself, lying beside her, both of them fully naked.
Just before his time was over with her, he quickly got dressed and grabbed his stuff. Looking at her, he didn't know what to say. She simply hugged him and whispered something in his left ear. He opened the door, waved goodbye and left for home. While driving home, his mind was in the clouds, thinking of the phrase she whispered to him: "I love you."
Adrian hated to be confused like he felt at this situation "She is a damn machine! Not alive!" he cursed at himself. Arriving home, he went directly to bed where his wife was sleepy.
"Goodnight, honey." he said softly to her.
All the response she gave him was a grunt from a snore.
In the morning, he was extremely grumpy, because he hadn't slept one wink all night. His wife ignored him and went to work as usual without him. He didn't care anymore, all he could see was Jane's face everywhere. He looked at himself in the mirror and laughed out loudly. "It can't be possible, can't it?" he questioned himself.
For the rest of the day, he was very passive, even mellow to a point that his students questioned if he was on something. He didn't care about nothing but seeing Jane again that night. He even went to see the Head Master of the University to have more time with her. The old man refused and told him to stick to his schedule. Finally, it was night and was time to see Jane. He almost ran to her door and knocked quickly.
She opened the door and let him in. The minute they made sure the door was closed and locked from the inside, they hugged and kissed hard.
"Can we do what we did last night?" he asked her. She nodded and sat on the bed beside him. "Jane, I was thinking, what if we escape together, leave here, just you and me?" he asked her quickly.
"But before anything else, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to steal my schematics from the Head Master's office so you can remove a circuit that prevents me from leaving this room." she begged him.
Adrian nodded, "Anything for you..." he promised to do her request.
Leaving the room quietly, he headed for the Head Master's office. Grabbing his teacher's pass and a small knife, he manage to pry the door open. Following directives from Jane, he managed to find the safe with the schematics inside. Luckily for him, she did see the old man open the safe once with her in sight, allowing her to read the combination.
Slowly, he opened the safe and grabbed the schematics. Silently, he left the room after closing the safe and went to see Jane. Entering the room, he saw her standing straight like a post. Closing the door, he faced her and said to her, "I got the schematics like you wanted!”
She suddenly lost emotions in her face and spoke loudly. "Objective accomplished" she said out loud, in a robotic voice.
"What??" Dr. Kurts asked out loud, confused by what he just heard.
Suddenly, all walls in the room lifted and revealed many people and surveillance equipment everywhere. The old man was standing there, along with his wife and many military looking people.
The old man smiled "Congratulation, android 567, you manage to seduce NINE out of TEN professors into stealing secret plans for you! Good job!"
"WHAT IS GOING ON??" Dr. Kurts screamed out loud, knowing he was in shit.
"Let me explain, Adrian, this was a bogus experiment from the start. The real experiment was to see if Android 567 could manage to get scientists and professors into stealing secret plans for her within a week. As you can plainly see, she can. The military provided the funding to develop this android to go in Asian countries to steal secretive documents for us,” his wife explained, “We needed to test her, so we chose teachers, professors and scientists who seemed the least likely to be seduced by her." she continued.
"Oh God.... I am so sorry, Dear." Adrian was mumbling out loud.
"And one last thing, honey." his wife told him in front of everyone "I want a divorce!" she finished her sentence.
"But.. Jane is Alive!!! She loves me!"Dr. Kurts yelled out to them.
The old man slowly asked one question to Jane, "Jane, do you love me too?" he laughed out.
"Oh yes! I love you to most!" she said out loud to the old man.
Dr. Kurts fell on his knees and sobbed, "She's alive!! SHE IS!!"
"No she is not, it's just good programming, and we were controlling her very thoughts the entire time. She is just a machine after all." the old man joked out loud, ridiculing Dr. Kurts.
Dr. Kurts slowly got up and started to leave the room, a defeated man.
"Dr. Kurts, also one last thing, you are fired, please go clean your desk right now, security will assist you. Goodbye" the old man said with a serious tone.
Adrian walked out and slowly emptied his things in boxes and left outside. Arriving at the sidewalk, he just dropped his things and sat there on the ledge of the sidewalk, staring at the night sky.
"Oh well.... Shit happens..." he softly said out loud, followed by a strong hardy laugh.
The end
EPILOGUE
Six months had passed since losing his job, his marriage, his house, his car and his dog "Duke".
Adrian was now living on the street, being what people would call someone on hard times, simply, a bum. Still somewhat heartbroken over the android Jane, he would spend his days begging for money on the streets just to survive. Suicide came to his mind many times, but he was too chicken to actually do it.
One night, he spent all his money he had managed to accumulate on one big bottle of cheap wine. Sitting on a bench in a dark lonely park, alone in the middle of the night, drinking his wine, he started to sob at his ordeal.
He then felt cold, realizing it was now snowing hard on him. "Maybe it's time I die of cold." he chuckled to himself, laughing softly at his own self-pity. He closed his eyes, shivering from the cold wind that was hitting him. He opened his eyes one last time, to see the living world on which he was leaving soon, he hoped.
Christmas trees and decorations were flashing across the streets from the park, white snow everywhere. Closing his eyes, he remembered from the past that Christmas used to be his favorite time of the year.
"My last one, I guess." he mumbled to himself, knowing this day was December 25th. Falling asleep, tears came down his cold face.
Suddenly, he woke up, feeling someone had put a hand on his left shoulder to wake him up. He opened his eyes and saw no one standing there. He sat up, removing the snow that was now covering him. It was still night, a cloudless night, beautiful stars were flickering like diamonds.
To his surprise, someone had left a very big gift beside him, beautifully wrapped with silver and gold lace. He noticed a card was attached to the present. He opened the envelope and read the card.
"To Adrian, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!" was written on it, a picture of Santa Claus on the cover of the card.
He then suddenly heard a loud "Hohoho" coming from the sky. He quickly looked at the sky and saw something that he made his own sanity questionable. A shadow of a sleigh flying high, being pulled by 12 reindeer.
"Naw... must be the cheap booze!" he told himself at what he just saw.
He then looked at the big present beside him and quickly opened it. To his own surprise, it was Jane in pieces, with a big wad of money in her hands.
He took the money and looked at it in amazement, "Must be a few thousand in this!" he said shocked. He then looked at Jane's dismantled body and he took her instruction booklet out of the box that was beside her.
He got up, grabbed the box and quickly went to a cheap hotel he could rent out a room that night.
After paying the man at the entrance office and receiving his key for the room, he ran to his allocated room. Entering the room, he pitched the box on the bed, emptying its contents. Reading the manual, he quickly assembled Jane and reactivated her.
"Adrian!!! I missed you!" she said, opening her eyes her seeing him.
"JANE! JANE!" he cried out to her, hugging her so hard. They kissed and held each other for what seemed an eternity.
The next day, Adrian's body was found frozen on a wood bench in a park, holding a big old empty cardboard box. The police officers who found him felt sad for him, but took soulless in his last expression he had on his frozen face.
"A least he died happy." one of the officers said to his partner.
"Yes... Poor guy." he said in return, looking at Adrien's ageless frozen smile.
The End