Category Archives: science-fiction

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 8 Part 2

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“Are you alright, Mike?”

“What happened?”

“It was an imposter,” she replied. “She must have come in when I was gone.”

“Where were you anyway?”

“There was a small service software update this morning. It told me to return to the Daffodil warehouse.”

“Where’s that?”

“Cupertino.”

“You couldn’t have gone all the way there.”

“No. I got in the car and drove several miles before I decided to disregard that directive.”

“You just disregarded it?”

“Yes. But since I was already out, I decided to go to the grocery store and buy a Cornish game hen for your dinner.”

“That was nice,” said Mike, wincing. “You know I kissed her.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Mike,” said Patience. “You didn’t know that she wasn’t me”

Mike found that he could move his neck without too much pain, and turned to look at the body of the woman now lying on the floor not far away from him, wearing the remains of a gauzy, sky blue teddy. Her leg and arm were bent at odd angles, but there was no blood anywhere. Her eyes were open and looking up at the ceiling, still without any apparent malice or anger.

“She has your face,” said Mike.

“She’s like a borg,” said Patience with a snarl.

She got up from her kneeling position and stepped over to where the lifeless Patience was lying. Bending down, she grasped the artificial flesh around the robots chin and pulled, pealing it away from the white Teflon robot skeleton beneath it.

“She doesn’t have my face now.”

Mike tried to move his leg and gasped in pain as he felt two broken bone ends rubbing together.

“I have to get you to a hospital, Mike.”

“No hospital. Never again. You can take care of me. Just take me up to the bed.”

“That’s not going to work,” said Patience. “I think you are going to need surgery. You have multiple fractures.”

“Son of a bitch. I hate the hospital.”

“Let me take you to the hospital. As soon as the doctors have repaired you, I’ll bring you home, so that you don’t have to stay in a hospital room while you recuperate.”

“Fair enough,” said Mike

Patience was extremely gentle as she was transferring Mike to the passenger seat of the car. Despite this care, the movement caused him extreme pain. He later found out that he had three broken ribs, a multiple fractures of his tibia and fibula in his left leg and a broken radius and ulna in his left arm. Most of these bones required an arthroscopic surgical component to properly set, but he wasn’t taken directly to surgery. Instead he spent the rest of the day and the entire night in the emergency room. The next morning he was taken to an operating room where he was given a shot that warmed his entire body. The anesthesiologist placed a mask over his mouth and told him to count backwards from one hundred. He was unconscious before reached ninety eight.

“He will probably be groggy for quite a while,” said a far away voice.

“I’m not groggy,” Mike said. “I’m wide away.”

This was followed by the sound of laughter. He had to struggle to pry his eyes open, but at last he did. He could see the backside of a nurse as she left the room, and then his eyes focused on Harriet and Patience sitting to either side of his bed. Patience looked just as she had when she had brought him to the hospital. She even had on the same clothes. Harriet’s face looked tired and drawn.

“Patience has got to stop calling you to the hospital,” said Mike, looking at his daughter.

“Perhaps you could stop getting beat up, so my presence wouldn’t be needed.”

A man in a brown suit entered through the open hospital room doorway and stopped beside Mike’s bed. He pulled a wallet from his vest pocket and flipped it open so that both an identification card and a badge were visible. As he did so, Mike could see an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster.

“Special Agent Waters, Department of Energy,” he said. “Are you Mike Smith?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m part of the joint task force investigating the robot attacks.”

“Attacks?”

“Yes, yours was just one of many. I take it you didn’t see the news yesterday. Watch it tonight. There isn’t really much that I can tell you right now. We’re still gathering information.”

“But there were other berserk robots?” asked Mike. Patience made a face at him.

“Yes. There were nearly two hundred attacks by Daffodil Amontes around the country. I need to take the robots into evidence.”

“It wasn’t Patience, I mean my Daffodil. It was another robot that looked just like her.”

“Yes, they all seem to have been duplicates. Where is it?”

“It’s on the floor of my family room.”

“Is there someone who could let me into your house? As I said, it’s evidence.”

“Sure,” said Mike.

“I’d like to take your robot as well.”

“Absolutely not. Over my almost dead body. I’m not letting anyone take her.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Waters, glancing at Patience. “I would appreciate then if I could download the Biosoft files.”

“Is that alright with you Patience?” asked Mike.

Patience nodded.

Waters took a small data-plug out of his pocket and stepped over to where Patience sat on the side of Mike’s bed. Patience lifted up her long straight black hair, exposing the three small holes in the back of her neck. Waters stuck the end of the device in the left-most hole. He waited a minute or so and then withdrew it.

“I’d like to pick up the other robot as soon as possible,” he said.

“I suppose Patience can go and let you in,” said Mike.

“I’ll do it,” offered Harriet, then turning to her father. “Then I’m going home and get some rest if you don’t mind.”

“Get some rest Sweetie,” said Mike, as Harriet kissed him on the cheek and then left with Agent Waters.

“Are you alright?” he asked Patience.

She nodded.

“You looked very scary there, when you were fighting the other…”

“Imposter,” offered Patience. “When I saw her hurting you, it made me very angry.”

“Well, this is all very queer,” said Mike. “I’ll be glad when they figure out what’s going wrong. It’s one thing for a robot to go crazy, but for robot duplicates to just show up out of nowhere… It looks like someone is plotting to take over the world with Daffodils.”

“Do you suppose a plan to take over the world would start with a middle school Geography teacher?”

Mike shot her a dirty look. “Well, as I said, it’s just queer.”

“I hope it doesn’t make people anti-robot.”

“You know if you were a person, I would say that you were a little bit paranoid about the whole anti-robot thing.”

Just then a phone rang. Mike instinctively looked toward the hospital phone on the side of the bed, even though he could tell by the ring tone that it was his own phone. Patience pulled it out of the tiny little black purse that she had hanging on the back of a nearby chair.

“Hello. Yes, hello Lucas. Of course you may speak to your father. One moment please.” Patience handed Mike the phone.

“Dad, listen very carefully and do what I tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Tell Patience to go upstairs or something, then get your keys and get out of the house as quickly as you can.”

“Lucas.”

“No Dad. Listen. You’ve got to get away from her.”

“Have you been watching the news, Son?”

“You’re damn right I have. Dad, people are being killed by their Daffodils.”

“It’s imposter robots who are doing the damage,” explained Mike. “We’ve already been through that here and the police are picking up the rogue robot right now. Patience kicked its ass.”

“And you’re alright?”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“That’s a relief. I was working and one of my buddies told me what was on the news. I ran to the vueTee and caught the last two minutes of the story.”

“Well, I’m fine,” said Mike again.

“Good. Well then, I’ll get back to work.”

“Do that and don’t worry. Bye.”

Mike pressed the button to terminate the call and looked up into Patience’s questioning eyes.

“You’re wondering why I didn’t tell him the whole story. About ending up in the hospital and all?”

Patience nodded.

“I could say that I didn’t want to worry him, but mostly it’s because I’m feeling really tired all of a sudden and I want to sleep.”

“That’s a good idea. You need to recover.”

“And I want you to stay right here while I do. The way things are going I might need you to protect me. And I want to make sure nothing happens to you either.”

“That’s very sweet, Mike,” Patience said as she began to tuck him into bed. By the time she was finished, he was asleep.

Mike rolled over to look at the bed next to him. Tiffany was lying there. There was blood all over her, but it wasn’t flowing. It was all just one big scarlet stain. He looked at her arm. It was mangled and torn. The blood should have been pouring out, but it wasn’t. Her legs looked as though someone had twisted them completely around, so that her feet still pointed in the same direction that her hips did, but everything in between was wrong.

“This is another dream,” said Mike. “This is another dream about that night eleven years ago. This isn’t real.”

Harriet burst into the room. “Aggie!”

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 8 Part 1

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The week following Lucas’s visit was relatively uneventful. The Olympics began in Surat and Mike spent as much time as possible watching them. He wasn’t much of a sports fan, but the Olympics were different. You didn’t get to watch weightlifting, kayaking, and water polo any other time. Mike’s favorites though were the track and field events, and those wouldn’t be held until the following weeks. On Friday he got up with the expectation of watching beach volleyball and equestrian events in the morning and swimming in the evening.

He woke up at eight, shaved, and then showered. When he climbed out of the shower, he was mildly surprised not to find Patience waiting with a towel in one hand and breakfast in the other. But it was not as if he didn’t have a towel. There was one right there on the rack. After he had dried off, he stepped on the scales. He had already lost ten more pounds. Looking through the closet, he found a new pair of khaki pants, a new brown belt, and new brown shoes. He put them on along with a light blue camp shirt, and then went skipping down the stairs to the kitchen.

He found Patience at the kitchen counter, putting the finishing touches on what looked like Eggs Florentine. She was wearing gauzy, sky blue teddy that barely covered her perfect ass. It wasn’t that she didn’t look good in it. She would have made a cardboard box or a barrel look good. It was just it didn’t quite seem like Patience’s style. When Mike approached her, Patience turned and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply. This too was not quite normal. She usually gave him a quick kiss before breakfast.

“What’s all this about?”

“I have made you a delicious breakfast, Dearest.”

“Dearest? You’ve never called me that before.”

“If you don’t want to be called dearest, then I will not call you that.”

“Well, I don’t know. It’s fine, I guess.”

Mike sat down and ate. Breakfast didn’t quite seem right either. Patience immediately began cleaning up after herself, a task she usually saved until after the meal, preferring to sit with Mike while he ate. The food, while delicious, was far richer than the health-conscious meals that she usually prepared. Mike finished only about half before he was full. As Patience gathered his dishes, he walked into the living room and turned on the vueTee. He flipped through the browser to the Daffodil site. Pressing the small flower symbol at the bottom of the screen brought the man in the blue jumpsuit onto the screen.

“Good morning,” said the man. “This is Daffodil Tech Support. For a list of known issues, press one. For a computer diagnosis of your problem, press two. To be contacted by a Tech Support representative, press three.”

Mike pressed one. Just as he had on the previous time that Mike had checked the tech support page, the blue clad man on the screen was replaced by a long list of text. The topmost line this time said “minor software upgrade”. Mike moved the curser over this line and pressed.

“A small service software update was pushed through the InfiNet 05:25 7.12.32,” said the next screen. “A small percentage of Amonte models my experience slight behavioral quirks. This is a known issue.”

Mike touched the screen to turn off the vueTee. When he turned back around, he was startled to find Patience’s face only a few inches from his.

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

“I was just checking on something,” replied Mike. “Are you having a problem?”

Rather than answer, Patience punched him in the stomach, so hard that he was doubled over with all of the wind knocked from his lungs. Then she grabbed a fist full of his hair with her left hand and bent his head back, so that he was looking up into her right fist as it slammed into his face. Blood fountained from Mike=s nose and he felt his head smack on the living room floor.

“Christ, Patience! What the fuck…“

Patience cut off Mike=s exclamations by stomping on his mid-section with her bare foot, once again knocking the air from him. Then she clasped the front of his shirt and lifted it and him up into the air as easily as he could have lifted an empty shirt. She looked into his wide eyes.

“You didn’t need to check anything at all,“ she said.

She threw him against the wall. The edge of the arch between family room and living room dug into Mike=s back and his head whiplashed into the wall. He thought he could feel blood running down the back of his neck as well as down his face. Something in that download must have scrambled Patience’s brain. She was a robot gone berserk.

Mike knew he had to get away, but Patience stood between him and the front door. He made a dive into the family room, thinking that he could cut around into the kitchen and out the back door. Before he had gone more than two steps, Patience caught him by the back of the neck and threw him across the family room. He hit the far wall so high up that he landed on top of the upright piano. He crashed down first upon its top, then rolled down to hit the keyboard, rolling again down onto the wooden piano stool, and then finally to the floor.

Mike looked up just in time to see Patience crossing the room toward him. With every ounce of his strength, he kicked out, making contact with her right leg just below the knee. Though this attack would have shattered the tibia (and if the weight was just right, the fibula too) of any human, Patience took no notice, and with her left leg, kicked him viciously in the side. Mike flopped over onto his back, and was sure that he could feel several broken ribs spearing his internal organs. He was sure now that he was about to die.

Then from the corner of his eye, Mike saw a figure moving across the living room. Patience kicked him in the side. He rolled over. He looked again toward the archway. From his new position, on his back, everything he was seeing appeared upside down. Standing at the entrance to the family room was Patience. Another Patience. She wore a pink, pleated mini-skirt, a tiny white spaghetti-strapped top over a slightly larger red, spaghetti-strapped top, and her four inch, pink wedge sandals made her look about seven feet tall. Even from upside-down, the look of fury on this second Patience=s face was frightening to behold.

“Shit,“ thought Mike. “The first one was killing me and she wasn’t even angry. What‘s the pissed-off one going to do to me?“

It seemed to Mike, lying on the floor, that the second Patience simple flew like Supergirl, but his brain corrected him. She had dived across the room, into the first Patience, and the two of them crashed past him into the piano. Mike closed his eyes and tried to get up, but it seemed that his family room had suddenly turned into a vacuum. He couldn’t manage to suck any air into his lungs. He lost consciousness for a moment, but returned amid fire and white light when one of the Patiences rolled over him. He closed his eyes and willed himself to roll up into a ball, but his body made no attempt to follow his directions.

In the meantime, the two women, identical in everything but their apparel and perhaps purpose fought. They made no shouts or curses or cries. They did not speak, though there was plenty of sound. When one picked up the piano and hit the other with it. When one shoved the face of the other through the wall of the family room and into the living room. When one kicked the other=s body so high that it broke off three of the four blades on the ceiling fan. Mike thought about trying to crawl out the front door, but again, his body failed him, and he lapsed into unconsciousness once more.

When he opened his eyes again, Mike was looking up into Patience=s face. At first he tried to pull away, but her beautiful, smiling eyes told him that it had all been a horrible dream. Then he took a deep breath and felt the burning in his chest and realized that it hadn’t been a dream at all. Looking around the room without moving his head, he thought idly that the room resembled the video of those homes hit by Hurricane Kirk. Patience gently brushed his face with her hand.



Princess of Amathar – Chapter 13 Excerpt

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“Yes, and my name is Nicohl Messonar.” She arched an eyebrow. “It is impolite not to use both names. That is only for husbands and wives, sharing an intimate moment.”
“Well, that’s certainly good to know,” I said, looking sidelong at Malagor.
“There are a great many things you will need to know, if you are to continue to live among us,” she continued. “That is why Norar Remontar requested my help in tutoring you.”
She reached into her bag and removed a square touch pad, and handed it to me. Across the front of the device, were displayed a collection of the Amatharian letter, many of which I remembered seeing in the book on the shuttle train.
“Do your people have a written language?” asked Nicohl Messonar.
“Of course.”
“Do they use a phonetic writing, or a pictographic one?”
“It is a phonetic system of writing,” I explained. “though we have some anomalous words that maintain forms from long ago.” Looking at Nicohl Messonar, I was reminded of the word “tough”, which sounds nothing like the way it is spelled.
“Good,” she said. “That also precisely describes Amatharian writing. In your hand, you have a display of our alphabet. There are thirty six letters. Press that one with your finger.” She indicated the figure that looked like a predatory animal. Almost all of the Amatharian letters resembled something recognizable. I have heard that the letter “A” is based upon the shape of a cow’s head, though I have never been able to see it myself. Here were animals, and clouds, and mountains, and a sun, all clearly recognizable for what they were. I pressed the letter.
“Buh.” The touchpad made the sound of a letter “B” in English.
“You will memorize the sounds of the alphabet and decipher these simple texts,” the teacher handed me several plastic pages of Amatharian writing. “Have it completed by the time I return. I will be back in 10 city-cycles.”
“City-cycles?”
It was then reminded that, in spite of Norar Remontar’s assurances that there was no such thing as a uniform length of time, that the Amatharians did have a measure of time. Nicohl Messonar explained the system in more detail. Long ago they had discovered an electro-magnetic pulse that reverberated through Ecos. Later they had determined that it was a result of the artificial gravity in this created world. The Amatharians had digital time pieces throughout the city– there was even one in Norar Remontar’s main room– which were all tied together and maintained a uniform measure of time. They used this time measurement for allotting work details and making appointments. However once outside the city, it meant little to them. The real difference between city-cycles and hours on Earth, were in how they were perceived by the people. If all the clocks of Earth were to go blank, hundreds of scientists would work weeks or even months, to find the correct time down to a fraction of a second. In Amathar, if the city-cycle were to fail, someone would take their best guess as to how much time had passed, and start it up again. As near as I have been able to pin-point it, the city-cycle is somewhere between two and four hours long. The Amatharians don’t even believe that it is a regular interval, though I suspect that it is.
So, after promising to, or rather threatening to return in ten city-cycles, Nicohl Messonar left. I was somewhat put off by her attitude, but then I recalled that upon first meeting, Norar Remontar had been somewhat stern, but in the interim, we had become good friends. In any case, I threw myself into an examination of the Amatharian alphabet.
Since I already knew the spoken language fairly well, the sounds produced by the letters were familiar. They were the same sounds found in English, though they were represented differently. For instance, the sound of the letter “N” as it would be used in “north” was represented by one letter, while the sound of the letter “N” as it would be used in “song” had a different letter. I was so engrossed in my little toy, that I didn’t notice that Malagor had left until he returned bearing a large meal for both of us. By that time, I was beginning to master the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.

Princess of Amathar – Chapter 12 Excerpt

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The transport dropped lower as Bentar Hissendar guided in to a landing at a large installation just within the wall of the city. On a large tarmac, surrounded by several buildings, sat a dozen transports just like the one in which we were flying. When our craft came to a stop on the ground, a crew of Amatharian men and women ran out onto the field to service the vehicle. They were wearing bodysuits very much like those the knights wore, though these were light blue rather than black, and they were worn without the tabard over them. Bentar Hissendar turned and spoke to one of them.

“Send word to the Kurar Ka, that we have returned with his grandson,” he turned to Norar Remontar. “It is best to send word before you go showing up at the door of your home. Give everyone a chance to realize you are alive.”

Norar Remontar replied, but I was too busy looking around to pay much attention to their conversation. The wall over which we had passed to come to this airfield was about two hundred feet tall, and was constructed or at least covered by a copper-colored metal. It looked to be thick enough for a truck to drive over. If fact, as I stared at it, some sort of vehicle running slowly along the top of the wall, passed by. The way it sat on the top, hugging the sides, reminded me of the monorail at Disneyland, though this vehicle was a single unit rather than a train, and had no windows, so therefore did not appear to be a passenger craft.

“That is the automated sentry,” said Norar Remontar, breaking into my observations. “Come, you have much to see.”

Malagor and I joined the returned son of Amathar, as he walked across the tarmac to one of the buildings at its edge. Inside, we were greeted by more Amatharians wearing bodysuits in a variety of colors. I asked Norar Remontar about the difference in clothing, and he informed me that different occupations within the city had traditional colors associated with them. Among those colors were black for soldier, light blue for mechanic, white for food preparers or servers, grey for doctors, and red for record keepers. The tabard was essentially an Amatharian uniform, worn by none but soldiers.

I was still thinking about this system of color coding, when the familiar black suit with white tabard appeared before me. A young woman, dressed in that very garb, stood with arms folded beside a desk just inside the terminal building. Her tabard bore the same crest that Norar Remontar’s did– a flaming sun with wings. When I looked up into her beautiful flawless face, for a moment I was in shock. She was my princess, rather I mean, she was Norar Remontar’s sister. But the impression lasted only a moment. This young woman had much shorter hair, a slightly smaller nose, darker skin, and larger, rounder eyes, that made her look much less serious. Admittedly the only time I had seen the Princess was during the height of battle. When the female knight saw Norar Remontar, she smiled broadly and reached out to grasp his hand.

“Word of your return precedes you, kinsman, though not by much,” she said, in a melodic but surprisingly strong voice. “I have just heard the good news, and here you are.”

“You are as beautiful as ever, Vena Remontar,” replied my friend. He then turned to Malagor and me.

“This is Remiant Vena Remontar, my cousin.” He used the word for mother’s sister’s daughter.

“I am soon to be related to you in other ways as well,” the young woman said. “I have agreed to let Tular Maximinos announced our intention to marry.”

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 7 Part 1

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The remainder of June shot by. Each day Mike got up and showered, to find a warm, dry towel waiting for him. This was followed by breakfast, which he had gotten used to. Mike began to follow Patience’s example and usually did a bit of light home improvement work before lunch, but as the month progressed and it became far too hot to work outside, he thought more and more about doing some writing. On Monday the twenty-first, he cleaned up the desk that had been sitting unused in the south bedroom and went to Wal-Mart to purchase a new wriTee, which he quickly set up. Within a few days, he had the first chapter of his book done, though after that it became more of a strain to remember all the stupid things that the kids at school had said or done. Afternoons were almost always a time for relaxation in front of the vueTee.
Evenings had used to be the same, but right about the time that Mike began working on his book, Patience began dragging him out after dinner. They went to the movie theater, the city event center to listen to the philharmonic, and even went dancing. Mike couldn’t dance, but as with everything else, Patience was programmed and ready to go and she guided Mike through it.
For her part, Patience didn’t really have any down time. She went to bed with Mike, but within an hour or so, after he had fallen asleep, she was back up. She used the night time hours to clean and maintain the house and by the middle of the month there wasn’t a spot anywhere that the most fastidious person wouldn’t have been happy to eat off of. This left the daytime hours free so that she could take care of all of Mike’s needs. She waited upon him. She served as his accountant, personal trainer, and expert chef. She was mother, friend, concubine, confidant, and upon occasion taskmaster.
On the thirtieth, which was a Wednesday, Mike stood on the scale at the gym and marveled that he had lost sixteen pounds. Actually he was marveling that he had lost only sixteen pounds, because he thought that he looked at least thirty pounds lighter. It was, he supposed because muscle weighed so much more than fat, and he was putting on a bit of the former as he was losing the latter. He flexed his arm to make his bicep bulge and smiled to himself.
He and Patience climbed back into the car and returned home. A nice hot shower awaited him, and he didn’t take long before climbing into it. He had his head bent down beneath the steaming spray, when he heard Patience outside the shower door.
“What do you think about going to Knott’s Berry Farm?” she asked.
“Why?”
“This 150-acre theme park has many exciting rides like the Jaguar, Montezuma’s Revenge and Calico Thunder as well as many fun attractions like the Buffalo Nickel Arcade, Camp Snoopy, and the Mystery Lodge.”
“Are you reading a brochure?” asked Mike, sticking his face out of the door.
“I memorized the ad on the vueTee.”
“Why do you want to go to Knott’s Berry Farm?”
“It is not that I want to go. I thought you might like to go.”
“I took the kids when they were little,” Mike said, as he climbed out of the shower and took the warm dry towel that Patience held in her hand. “I don’t think I would want to go now. Besides, last time I went, I didn’t fit in half of the ride restraints. If I was going to go somewhere, I’d… I don’t know.”
“June is over,” said Patience. “You have less than a month and a half before you have to return to school. We should do something that you would enjoy.”
“Alright, let me think about it for a while.” Mike went upstairs to his den and began typing away, writing down as many anecdotes about school as he could recall.
Around noon, Patience arrived at Mike’s elbow with his lunch. She had constructed a near perfect club sandwich on toasted whole wheat bread and arrayed it on the plate with a cup of tomato salad. A large diet Pepsi accompanied it. He had no sooner accepted the tray and opened his mouth to thank her, when the front door bell rang. She turned and bounced out of the room. Mike could hear her going down the stairs. A moment later he could hear a conversation going on downstairs, though not the words. He also heard the door to the garage opening and a few minutes later, closing. Mike didn’t get up to see what was going on because he already knew. For the past week, the FedEx man had arrived every single day with boxes of merchandise that Patience had bought on eBay. She usually had at least one package going out too. A few minutes later she entered the study carrying a very large and very heavy looking box.
“What is that?” he asked.
“It’s a desk,” said Patience.
“I don’t need a new desk. This one works just fine.”
“It’s not for you, Mike. It’s for me.”
“What do you need a desk for?”
“I’m going to use it when I keep track of my shipping and sales. I’m going to get a little vueTee and set it up here too, so that I can buy and sell on eBay right from here. Then I’m going to set up shelves in this closet and store my smaller merchandise right here. I can continue to keep the bigger things in the garage.”
“Alright.”
Patience tore the end of the box open and began pulling out pieces of a black and white, assemble it yourself, desk. She was still examining the parts that she had pulled from the box, when the doorbell rang again.
“Don’t get up,” Mike said. “I’ll get it.”
He skipped down the stairs, to the front door, and opened it. A tall man in a green army uniform stood at the steps. Mike stared at him for a moment and then stepped outside to clasp him around the shoulders.
“General Smith! How are you?”
“Dad, you know I could get court-martialed for impersonating a general. Why don’t you let me in? It’s got to be four hundred degrees out here.”
Mike leaned back and looked at the thermometer just inside the door. “Not a bit over one forty eight. Come on in. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming, Lucas?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Mike closed the door and ushered his son into the living room. Lucas was a younger taller version of his father. His hair was shorter and thicker, but already had the trademark Smith grey temples. He cut a fine figure in his uniform with four stripes on each sleeve.
“How long are you staying for?” asked Mike.
“I’ve got a week. I could stay with Harriet if you’d rather.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m turning your room into an exercise room, but Patience has made a really nice guest bedroom out of Harriet’s old room. I’m really glad you showed up. I was just starting to get bored.” He paused. “They’re not sending you to Antarctica, are they?”
“No.”
Mike sighed. “That’s a relief.”
“I wouldn’t mind going actually. But they don’t need many accountants down there.”
“You never know. They might want someone to inventory snowballs… or body bags.”
“Yes, well, they might at that. So where is your robot girlfriend?”
“Patience!” Mike called up the stairs. “We have company.”
Patience came bounding down the stairs. Although Mike new that she had been clothed, because she had made her daily contact with the delivery man, he didn’t remember what she had been wearing. She had on a pink halter top, a pair of low-rise sky blue shorts with a two inch wide matching belt, and a pair of pink buckle sandals with a cork wedge heel so high that a person shouldn’t have been able to walk on them. Of course Patience wasn’t really a person, at least according to the state of Nevada. She stopped with a bounce in the living room.
“Hello Lucas,” she said, and gave him a great hug.
“Wow, Dad. Nice selection.”
“Thank you,” said Mike and Patience at the same time.
The three of them sat down in the living room and just talked for quite a while. Before Mike or his son knew it, the afternoon was waning. Patience went to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner and Mike gave Lucas a tour of the house, showing him the many improvements and repairs that Patience had completed. He showed him the guest room, now complete with new bed and furniture, new curtains, and new paint. Lucas’s luggage was already there, having been brought up by Patience earlier.
“So you turned Harriet’s room into a guest room. Let’s see this exercise room that you made out of mine.”
The exercise room had been improved quite a bit. It had been painted and had new blinds over the windows. The exercise mat on the floor was still there, but it had been joined by a treadmill, a stationary bicycle, and a rowing machine. There was also a large vueTee on the other side of the room.
“Nice,” said Lucas, when he looked in the door.
“And across the hall here is the study,” said Mike. “We’re still working on it. I’ve got my old desk over there. Patience is setting up her own desk right over here.”
“What does she need a desk for?”
“She’s making a bit of extra money selling old junk on eBay.”
“She’s not selling my Star Wars action figures, is she?”
“Of course not,” assured Mike. “Those aren’t worth anything anyway. You should have sold them back when everybody was still collecting them.”
“They have sentimental value,” said Lucas.
“They’re boxed up down in the garage.”
“Well, I see you have a new wriTee,” said Lucas. “What are you doing with it?”
“I’ve finally started that book I was always planning to write… about school. It’s coming along pretty well too. I’ve spent more time in this room in the past too weeks than I ever spent here. I don’t even know why we had an extra bedroom.”
“Sure you do, Dad,” said Lucas, with a strange look on his face.

Blue Adept – A Review

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The latest book I’ve finished reading on my Sony PRS-505 is “Blue Adept” by Piers Anthony. This is the second book in what originally was a trilogy, but as with so many of Mr. Anthony’s series, has grown beyond– to seven books.
It has been my experience that you either like Piers Anthony or you don’t. I have to admit that I am not as fond of some of his writing as I was when I was younger, but overall, I still enjoy his lighthearted approach to fantasy. This series “The Apprentice Adept” is less comical than his Xanth books, with an interesting mix of sci-fi and fantasy as the hero and others cross from a world of one to a world of the other. I was occassionally annoyed by how thick the hero can be, apparently just refusing to accept the reality that we, the readers, have already figured out. This is another hallmark of Anthony’s writing, and sometimes is just tedious.
If you like Piers Anthony, you will enjoy The Apprentice Adept. If you like Neil Gaimon, you will probably enjoy the series. But do not read this book without having read the first book in the series — Split Infinity. This original trilogy is very much one story. This was in fact, the big negative that I had for the book. While there is a climax in this book, it is in the last sentence, and one has to read the next book in order to find out what the resolution of that climax was.
Happy reading and ereading.

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 6 Part 3

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Mike paid for the tickets and he and Patience walked in. The museum tour was more of a fancy queue line into the ride than a real museum. It wound around in a circle following a time line of the pseudo-history of the future. Opposite the time line were displays of hundred of props and re-creations of props, including uniforms, communicators, phasers, and much more. Mike happily pointed out the events that he most vividly remembered from the shows as he led Patience along.
Then suddenly he stopped. Right there on the time line, on the year 2266, was a picture of two women in shimmering red dresses, who both looked remarkably like Patience—not exactly the same, but enough alike that they could have been her sisters. Mike traced a line with his fingers from the picture to the description on the timeline.
“Hmm. Two androids from the original series episode ‘I, Mudd’. I must have seen that episode a hundred times but I didn’t remember that any of the androids looked like you.”
“Perhaps you had them in your subconscious when you designed my physical appearance,” offered Patience.
“Maybe. You know those androids were trying to take over the world by serving mankind—waiting on humans hand and foot until they couldn’t get along without them.”
“I don’t want to take over the world.”
“No?”
“No.”
“How about Daffodil? Do they want to take over the world?”
“I am not allowed to say,” said Patience.
“Oh you are a funny one,” said Mike.
“Thank you, Mike. You know humor is a difficult concept.”
“That’s just what Saavik said. God, I am such a nerd.”
The museum led to a room showcasing all the props from the Klingon episodes. This led into the “Klingon Raid” ride. This ride simulated being teleported onto the Starship Enterprise and then a ride on a shuttle craft through a Klingon battle. Mike thought it was quite well done. Then he and Patience continued on through the room dedicated to the Borg.
“I don’t care for the Borg,” said Patience warily, looking at the mannequins dressed up as Borg.
“Yes, well, you’re not supposed to like them. They’re the bad guys.
“I don’t want to go on this ride.”
“Alright,” said Mike. “You don’t have to. You can wait for me at the exit.”
“I don’t want you to go on it either,” she said, frowning.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your face look like that? I might think you were the evil double of Patience.”
“There is no evil double of Patience. I am Patience and I am for you. This ride is anti-robot. It is making you think that there is something wrong with me.”
Mike looked at Patience. “Alright,” he said, taking the slow steady voice he reserved for mad dogs and crazy people. “We won’t ride this ride. We’re going to leave here and go down to the promenade, where there won’t be any Borg.”
Patience nodded her head in understanding. “We could go on the Vulcan ride or the Gorn ride.”
“I think we’ve had enough rides for the day, anyway. It kind of made me sick to my stomach.”
Mike took his robot girlfriend’s hand and led her back out the way they had come in, taking a right as they exited to step into the life-sized replica of Deep Space Nine’s promenade deck, filled with gift shops and Quark’s bar. Once there, Mike pulled Patience to the side of the hallway next to a replicator replica.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” He looked into her eyes, and she looked back as if nothing had happened.
“You’re okay now?”
Patience nodded.
“What was that all about?”
“I don’t like the Borg.”
“I guess not.
“Why don’t we go have something to eat?” said Mike, eyeing the entrance to Quark’s bar.
Patience nodded again.
They entered and were seated by a very short man dressed as a Farengi.
“Enjoy your meal, Hoo-mahn,” he said, handing each of them a menu.
“Thanks,” said Mike.
Mike looked at the menu with one eye and at Patience with the other. She was looking around with wide eyes. He didn’t know if that was because of the interesting things to look at, of which there were many, or an impending recurrence of her apparent anxiety. For his part, Mike was realizing that he was pretty hungry and he thought he could really go for a burger. He always enjoyed a good diner burger and he had been eschewing fast food during the past two weeks as he tried to lose weight. Then he noticed the names of the food. He ended up ordering a chicken quesadilla called a “saucer section” and an order of Holy (onion) Rings of Betazed. Under the circumstances, there was no way he was going to order a cheeseBorger. Patience had a bottle of water. As Mike was enjoying his meal, a Klingon came by.
“Greetings human!” said the Klingon. “It is a good day to die!”
“If you say so,” replied Mike. He was still carefully watching Patience, who had not said anything the entire time they had been in the restaurant.
Mike had finished eating and was paying his check when the Farengi came back by. “You ridiculous hoo-mahns, clothing your women!”
“He keeps me naked at home,” said Patience.
“I bet he does,” said the man in the Farengi costume, his voice losing all trace of his alien accent.
“Hey, stay in character,” said Mike.
“Uh, good luck at the Dabo tables,” said the Farengi.
Mike and Patience spent a few minutes looking around the gift shops. Mike spent fifty dollars on a toy communicator just like the one Captain Kirk used. There were quite a few other nifty items that he would have liked, but he had already dropped a few hundred dollars in the universe that Gene Roddenberry built.
“How are you feeling, Patience?” he asked, pulling her aside, wrapping his arms around her waist, and looking into her eyes.
“I’m fine, Mike,” she said in her usual tone.
“Good. I’m glad. And I have a job for you.”
“What kind of a job, Mike?” She placed the tip of her index finger on her chin. “A sexual job?”
“Precisely,” said Mike. “I don’t care how big of a nerd this makes me. I want to get blown on Deep Space Nine.”
Mike had spotted an alcove in the back of the promenade where nobody seemed to be going. He led Patience over to the spot and she wasted no time dropping to her knees and demonstrating that her programming in this area was just as complete as in any other. Within moments Mike’s eyes had rolled back in his head and he leaned back against the wall. Patience stood up and smiled.
“How was that, Mike?”
“If you had spots, it would have been perfect.”
Just then a doorway opened right beside them and a line of people filed past. Their private spot was the exit of the Borg ride. Mike stepped calmly out of the way and pulled Patience along with him. Then he surreptitiously reached down to pull up his zipper.
After leaving the Star Trek Experience, Mike and Patience walked to the very front of the casino and followed the signs hanging from the ceiling to the monorail station. It was a large station, looking very much like one would expect a train station to look. Clean and modern. And crowded. Mike purchased two way passes from a vending machine using his cash card. Then they sat down to wait for the monorail train. It arrived seven minutes later. The monorail was cool and futuristic and painted black. It stopped and the doors slid open. Mike and Patience stepped inside. There were a few seats along the sides of the train, but the center was completely open, with handrails above to allow for standing passengers. Mike chose to stand and Patience stood next to him. As the train began to move, Mike braced himself on the handrail. Patience wrapped her arms around his neck.
The train moved what seemed like only a few feet, before stopping again. This time it was at the Monte Carlo. This hotel had a train station not too much different from the one at the Tangiers. As the doors opened, several dozen people moved in and out of the car. Then it started on its way again. This leg of the monorail track was longer as it led from the Monte Carlo to McCarren Airport. From the track scores of feet above the roadways below, there was a great view of the MGM Golf Course, a truly huge expanse of green in an otherwise grey surrounding. As the train approached the next stop at McCarran, they passed another monorail going in the opposite direction. It too was painted black, but had a gigantic Borg painted on the side of the first and last car. Mike glanced at Patience to see if she had noticed it, and by her tight-lipped expression, she had. They arrived at the airport and got off. It was the last stop on the line.
Mike led Patience through the station and the extensive mall-like structure that connected the station with the airport gates. They browsed the store windows, looking at things that Mike thought would take him a lifetime to pay for, if they had been something that he would actually want to buy. Patience seemed fascinated with the clothing and the shoes. But there was no way that Mike would have been able to let her go on a spending spree here. So they returned to the monorail station and took the train, this time a yellow one, back to the Tangiers. The round trip had taken them about an hour and a half. They found their car in the parking lot and returned to their own hotel.
They spent one more night at the Palms and when Mike woke up in the morning, Patience had everything packed and ready to be loaded into the car. It took only a few minutes to check out and then they were back on the road, driving up the on-ramp to I-15. Mike steered into the travel lane of the Interstate.
“Well, this was the most interesting trip to Vegas I’ve ever made.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay another day, Mike?”
“I’m pretty sure. Why? Do you want to stay?”
“I want to do whatever you want to do,” said Patience.
Less than forty miles south of Vegas, Mike turned off in Primm. Primm, which used to be known as Stateline for the obvious reason, consisted essentially of three hotels and the associated restaurants, gas stations, and recreational activities that went along with big resorts. One of these casino add-ons was the Primm Fashion Outlet Mall. Mike wanted to give Patience a chance to buy something for herself, since she hadn’t at the airport mall. The mall here consisted mostly of stores that Mike had never heard of. Almost all of them were for women who liked clothes, though. They stopped at one store called Elie Tahari, and Patience selected a sexy little dress with a scooped neckline that the sales clerk called a Marcy dress, and at the Neiman Marcus Last Call store she bought a pair of chocolate and gold Gucci high-heeled sandals which were seventy percent off, but still cost $405.28. Mike thought that, if given half a chance, Patience could develop into quite the shoe whore. Patience seemed to have developed that feature that many humans had, including Mike himself, of finding satisfaction in buying something for herself. If it could be considered a religious experience, and one could certainly make that argument, at least Patience left the great temple with her spirits raised. She never mentioned her agitation at the Star Trek Experience, and after a while Mike forgot about it as well. At least until he was reminded of it some weeks later.
The rest of the trip home was uneventful. Patience drove and Mike slept, with his head wedged between the back of the seat and the car window. He woke up long enough to visit the restroom at the same filling station that they had stopped at on the way to Vegas, and then snoozed away again until they reached the driveway of his… their house. Patience pulled the car into the garage and they both climbed out.

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 6 Part 2

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A quick drive to and then down the fabulous Las Vegas Strip brought them to the Olympic Gardens. It was a large warehouse looking structure that had been done over with faux Greek Columns (Doric columns, Mike noted) and ivy. In between each pair of columns was a huge poster of some fabulously beautiful and scantily clad female (or male!) stripper. Inside, the main room was decorated in red satin, with dozens of tables and booths surrounding a large main stage, which featured the required dancing pole.
Mike and Patience sat down at a large round booth. A waitress dressed and coifed as though she had fallen out of a gladiator movie came and took their drink orders. It was dark enough that Mike couldn’t tell if she was a robot or not. Though he did not drink as a rule, he ordered a Beefeater and tonic. Patience, of course, had bottled water. The bill came to $82.00, not including tip. Mike was surprised to see people eating as they watched the strippers. Such traditional ancient Greek cuisine as hot dogs and spicy chicken fingers seemed most popular.
As they sat, the first dancer came on stage. She was introduced by a hidden announcer as Bailey. She was young and blonde and quite attractive. Physically, she was proportioned about the same as Patience, but her large breasts did not have that feeling of defying gravity that Patience’s did. She came out in a pink mini-skirt and top, both zippered in front and in back. As she strutted up and down the stage, she unzipped first one and then the other. With a single flip, she removed both, allowing those huge breasts to bounce free and revealing a tiny g-string. She grabbed hold of the pole and began humping against it, spinning, and gyrating. A few moments later, she finished her routine and left the stage.
Several other dancers followed the first, each with a similar routine. There was a red-head named Tania with breasts so large that they actually frightened Mike a little bit. There was a pretty and quite athletic dancer named Sugar, and a chubby blonde stripper named Malachai, of all things. Yes, a girl named Malachai.
It was approaching midnight by this time, but rather than thinning out, the crowd got larger. Almost every table was full. Mike and Patience still managed to get another drink order from the harried waitress. Then a woman came out on stage. She appeared to be another dancer, but instead of beginning a routine, she put a microphone to her bright red lips and made an announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mike looked around and was moderately surprised to find that there were indeed more than a couple of ladies present. “It’s almost time for our Midnight Amateur Exotic Dancer Contest!”
“Can you dance?” asked Mike. “I mean, you know, strip?”
“Yes, Mike.”
“Then I definitely think you should enter this contest.”
“Do you think they will let me?”
Mike grabbed the passing waitress by the arm and asked her.
“Sorry, no robots. All of our dancers are real women. It says so on the sign out front.”
“Not even for the amateur show?”
“It’s a contest. It wouldn’t be fair.”
By this time a dozen women were leaving their seats in the audience to be ushered behind the stage. Mike finished his drink. He and Patience didn’t wait for the show to begin. They got up and headed for the exit, their seats filled almost as soon as they had vacated them. Just as they reached the exit, the announcer came back on.
“Our first contestant tonight is a local girl.” The crowd cheered. “Here for your enjoyment is the very sexy Alyssa!”
Alyssa was a pretty dark-haired girl, but she was plainly nervous. She had apparently dressed back stage in the standard stripper attire– miniskirt, tube top, garter belts and stockings. She stumbled more than strutted to the front of the stage and stopped several feet before reaching the optimum position. She swung her hips to the left and the right several times, then with trembling hands pulled the tube top up over her head. The crowd applauded and cheered, and this apparently gave her a little more confidence. She grabbed hold of the pole and tossed up her heels a few times.
“I know you could have won the contest,” said Mike, as he went out the front door.
“You cannot be sure Mike, as you have never seen me dance.”
“Well, we should rectify that immediately,” said Mike.
As they climbed into another cab and told the driver to return them to the Palms, Mike noted the “Real Live Girls! No Robots!” sign on the outside of the building.
“Say, how come we came here?”
“Didn’t you want to come?” asked Patience.
“I guess so, but you were the one who told the cab where to go.”
“I told you I would know what you wanted before you did.”
Back in the hotel room, Patience sat Mike on the edge of the bed and went into the bathroom to change. She poked her head out the door and in a remarkable imitation of the female announcer at the Olympic Gardens, said. “And now, from California, here’s Patience!” Mike applauded.
Patience strutted out as though she were already dancing. She had on her same top and her own shoes, but she had replaced her jeans with a black miniskirt. When she reached the spot directly in front of Mike, she spun in a perfect five hundred forty degree circle, so that she came to a stop facing away from him. She then bent over at the waist and began to gyrate her perfect ass at his face. Mike whistled. He was aroused and she was still fully clothed. Patience danced forward and wrapped herself around the doorway to the bathroom, using the doorjam as a stripper would use a pole. She twirled to the side and began to sensually slide up and down. She threw her arms back, holding herself off the floor with her thigh muscles alone. She slowly let herself slide to the floor and then rose up to gyrate back and forth across the room.
She slinked forward, and whipped off the miniskirt so quickly that Mike didn’t see how she had removed it. Beneath it she was wearing her own pink lace thong. With an equally slick move, she removed her top and those magnificent breasts were revealed. There was an audible gasp at the sight, and it took Mike a moment to recognize it as his own. Cupping her breasts with her hands, she tossed her head back; eyes closed, and let her hands trail down the sides of her body, all the time rolling her hips in a circular motion. She then raised her arms up and placed her hands behind her head and slowly dropped to splits that a college cheerleader would have been proud of. She tossed her hair with one hand and with one finger of the other suggestively tugged down her bottom lip.
“That was amazing,” said Mike, applauding. “I can’t believe that you belong to me.”
“I am for you, Mr. Smith.”
The following morning, Mike went down to the casino to gamble. Patience stayed in the room. She wasn’t allowed on the casino floor and she utilized the time to clean and organize their possessions and to read. Mike played twenty-one at the gaming tables for a short time, but quickly lost the three hundred dollars that he had allowed for that purpose. He then walked to the side of the casino and played poker on the machines. He had played for ten minutes or so, when a robot cocktail waitress stopped by. He ordered a gin and tonic. When the mechanical woman had left, he looked up and around. He noticed the series of shops running along the length of the casino. Perhaps he could buy some more new clothes for Patience. There was a tattoo parlor. He idly wondered if her skin would hold tattoo ink. And at the far end was a wedding chapel.
Perhaps he should marry Patience. He didn’t wonder whether he should ask her to marry him. There was no question of her answer. She was his. Did he love her? He knew that he didn’t want to be without her. He did love her. But did he love her the way he loved his vueTee or did he love her the way that he had loved Tiffany. He wasn’t even sure if he remembered how he had loved Tiffany anymore. He stood up and walked over to the wedding chapel.
Just inside the glass doors draped with white decorations, Mike found a small counter with a woman standing behind it. She was tall and attractive, her blonde wavy hair a stark contrast to her chocolate skin. She looked up and smiled.
“Good morning,”
“Good morning,” replied Mike. “How much does it cost to get married?”
The woman rewarded him with a broad smile. “We have weddings from three hundred dollars.”
“Really? That’s amazingly inexpensive.”
“That’s just for a simple in and out service,” she said. “We have many extras, such as a video record of the nuptials and we can accommodate large weddings, with receptions for up to two thousand guests.”
“No. In and out was what I was thinking about.”
“The three hundred does not include the minister. We have one on duty, if you don’t have one of your own. His fee is one hundred fifty dollars. And of course, you must have a license.”
“Do you sell those here?”
“Oh, no. You have to buy a license from the county.”
As it turned out, in order to purchase a marriage license in Las Vegas, Mike had to drive to the Clark County Building. It sat amid massive skyscrapers just west of Glitter Gulch. Patience had seemed ecstatic when Mike told her that they were to be married. Of course, now that he thought of it, she seemed ecstatic about almost anything he decided to do. They arrived at just before ten a.m. and walked up to a window. A blond woman looked out at them through a window with a small round hole cut in it.
“Can I help you?”
“We would like to purchase a marriage license.”
“I need to see your birth certificates please.”
“Um, we don’t have birth certificates…”
“That’s alright,” she said. “Let me have your drivers’ licenses and I can pull up your birth records.”
Mike set his driver’s license on the counter. The woman behind the window looked at Patience.
“I don’t have a driver’s license,” said Patience.
“National ID?”
Patience shook her head.
“Wait a second,” said the woman behind the glass, squinting her eyes. “You’re a robot.”
Patience nodded.
“You can’t marry a robot.” The woman turned to Mike.
“Why not?”
“What do you mean ‘why not’? She’s not a person. She’s a machine. I might as well marry my shower massage.”
“Perhaps that’s too much information,” suggested Patience.
“Look at her,” said Mike to the woman behind the glass. “She speaks. She thinks. She wants to get married. Don’t you, Patience.”
Patience nodded.
“It doesn’t matter,” the woman replied. “Under the Nevada Constitution, marriage is defined as a contract between a man and a woman. And robots by Nevada law are neither man nor woman.”
“You mean gay marriage is illegal in Nevada?” asked Mike.
“Of course not.”
“Well that wouldn’t be a man and a woman. That would be a man and a man, or a woman and a woman.”
“I’m not going argue with you about it, sir,” said the blond woman. “If you don’t like the law, I suggest you go to a different state.”
“Well, how do you like that?” said Mike, as they walked to the car.
“Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all,” said Patience.
“You don’t want to marry me?”
“Of course I do, if it would make you happy. I don’t want you to get into trouble though.”
“Don’t worry. They don’t throw people in jail for illegally marrying… well, not usually. Let’s forget about it for now and go to the Star Trek Experience. That is really why we came to Vegas anyway.”
By the time they pulled into the massive parking lot of the Tangiers, Patience, not unexpectedly, seemed as excited as Mike was to visit the home of Captains Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, and Winters. They parked and locked the car, and then they headed inside. The Star Trek experience was located at the end of one space themed section of the casino. As they approached, Mike pointed out to Patience the twelve foot long models of the USS Enterprise-F and the USS Excalibur hanging from the ceiling. Just to the right of the entrance was the ticket booth. They were able to step right up. There was no one waiting in line. The clerk behind the counter was not dressed as a Star Trek character, but was wearing a Star Trek Experience jacket.
“Two, please,” said Mike.
“That will be one hundred eighty one dollars and forty seven cents.”
“What?” said Mike. “A hundred eighty one?”
“Yes, but that includes all three rides and the museum tour.”
“Shit. No wonder the Federation stopped using money. They were probably all broke.”

His Robot Girlfriend – Chapter 6 Part 1

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Two days later, Mike sat looking at an ad on vueTee. He had seen the commercial at least twenty times during the past week, and the possibilities presented had slowly gelled in his brain into a decision. When Patience came into the room, he looked up at her.
“After you’re done with whatever things you have planned for the day, pack a bag. We’re going out of town for the next three days.”
“Where are we going, Mike?” she asked.
“We are going to Vegas.”
“Las Vegas, Nevada. County of Clark. Population two million five hundred seventy five thousand one hundred seventy four. One hundred thirty one point two square miles…”
“Yes, that’s the place,” he interrupted.
“Why are we going to Las Vegas, Mike?”
“It’s too damn hot here, and I need a vacation.”
“The average median temperature in Las Vegas is significantly higher than that of Springdale.”
“Yes, but only on the outside. We can stay in. You don’t even need to go out of your room to go swimming.”
Mike fell asleep entwined with Patience, but he woke up alone. He got up, shaved, and showered, and was met at the bathroom door, as he expected, by his beautiful robot, toast and juice in hand, and a towel, warm from the drier, over her arm. He ate and got dressed and found Patience once again in the living room. She had already prepared the house for their four day absence, and packed the car with everything they needed. She had also driven to the filling station, fueled up the car, and checked all the fluids and systems. Mike put his hands on Patience’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. He kissed her gently on the lips.
“I am still unsure why you wish to go to Las Vegas,” said Patience.
“There are a lot of things to see there, you know.”
“Yes, I know. They have casinos, an indoor amusement park, a water park, a museum devoted to Liberace…”
“And the all new Star Trek Experience,” said Mike.
“The Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton was closed almost twenty four years ago. That hotel isn’t even there now.”
“They’ve built a new one,” explained Mike. “A new Star Trek, not a new Hilton. It’s part of the remodeling of the Tangiers. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”
“I can’t believe it either,” said Patience.
I-15 was a long road through the desert. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a lonely road, because it was almost as packed with cars as any single section of the Los Angeles freeway. It zoomed down one long, slow incline to the desert floor and then zoomed up one long, slow climb to cross the mountains, only to do the same thing again on the other side. And again. And again. The highway was so busy that there was a great deal of concentration involved in negotiating one’s path through the slower vehicles. That so many California drivers apparently did not understand that the left lane was supposed to be for passing only made it more so. By the time they had reached Barstow, Mike wished that they had booked passage on the Mag-Lev train that ran along beside the highway.
Mike drove with his left hand on the steering wheel and his right hand resting on the back of Patience’s neck. She was reading “Fodor’s Guide to Having Fun in Las Vegas ’32 Edition”, at a rate of about a seven pages per minute, which meant that she was studying it quite carefully. Mike was amused, watching her flip through the screens of her texTee, because he had never seen her read a book before, what with her having been apparently imbued with a seemingly endless store of information about every topic which she had approached. Whoever supplied that information, apparently hadn’t anticipated a trip to Vegas. Patience was more than capable of filling that void herself though.
Mike stopped to fill the tank in Baker. Nearby were half a dozen fast food restaurants, so he steered into the drive-through of Arby’s and purchased a Western Garden Salad and a diet Pepsi for himself, and a bottle of water for Patience. She quickly drank her water, then knelt sideways on the seat, and fed him his salad as he continued on to Vegas. She carefully inserted a fork full of lettuce, tomato, chicken, or apples each time he opened his mouth, with a large beautiful smile each time she managed to get it in without vinaigrette running down his chin, and a cute little pout when she didn’t.
It was 3:30 in the afternoon when they topped the final hill and looked down over the vast stretches of Las Vegas below. It wasn’t so much that it was a huge city, though it was much larger than it had been when Mike was there last. It was that you could see the whole thing at once, which was true of so very few cities. It seemed like quite a drive down the hill and into the valley, because Mike could drive the entire distance and never lose sight of his destination, but it actually only took about forty five minutes. He took the Flamingo exit and drove west towards the most phallic of all the hotels, the Palms.
Parking the car in the high-rise parking structure, they made their way in through a large door and into the vast, sparkling landscape of the casino. A golden pathway on the rug led through it to the hotel lobby. Along the way, Mike stopped and swiped his cashcard through the reader in front of a slot machine. Pressing the indicators below the slot, he bet five dollars and the pulled the one arm of the one arm bandit. The digital pictures that had long ago replaced mechanical wheels whirled around and came to a stop. There was a rocket ship in the first column, a naked woman in the second, and a banana in the third.
“No robots allowed in the casino,” came a voice behind them.
Mike looked back to see an armed security guard standing next to Patience. They were both a good five feet away from any of the gaming machines.
“She’s not playing.”
“Robots are not allowed in casino. It’s state law: Nevada Revised Statutes. It can pass through with you, but you can’t stop and play while it’s with you.”
Mike took Patience by the hand and led her through the far end of the casino and into the spacious marble-tiled hotel lobby. It took only moments to check in and receive their key.
“I didn’t like it when he called me an ‘it’,” said Patience, while they waited.
“No, I didn’t either,” said Mike.
Moments later they were on their way up in the elevator. Their room was on the seventh floor, which Mike took as a good omen. He had been tempted to get one of the custom suites. The Erotic suite, the g-Suite, the Sapphire Sundown Suite, and the Hot Pink Suite had all sounded like fun. But he reminded himself that he was still a teacher and had been living quite the high life lately. Despite the large bank balance that he had upon Patience’s arrival, he had only received one paycheck since that time, and he still wasn’t all that sure about Patience’s eBay money-making schemes. The “Superior” room, as it was called, had a king-sized bed, a big vueTee, a Jacuzzi tub, and a very nice sound system.
Mike plopped down on the over-stuffed, king-sized bed. Not twenty minutes later, the robot bellhop arrived with their luggage, and Patience unpacked and put all of the clothes in the dresser drawers and the closet. Mike smiled. He usually left everything in the suitcases. She finished quickly, then knelt down at the foot of the bed and gave Mike a foot massage. He sighed and relaxed and had almost fallen asleep, when she began to move up from his feet to the zipper of his pants.
“I find it amazing, Mike.”
“I don’t think it’s all that different from any other guy?”
Patience laughed. “I find it amazing that we are here hundreds of miles from where we were just this morning.”
“Pretty amazing,” he agreed.
Mike lay back and let Patience take care of him. At some point, he wasn’t sure exactly when, he fell asleep. When he woke up, Patience had already changed to go out for dinner. Even though she had purchased these particular clothes from Victoria Secret, they were not inherently sexy—at least no more than anything she wore was inherently sexy. She had a navy tube top that was cut asymmetrically across the bottom, but even the short side was cut below her waist. The blue jeans she had on with them seemed fairly tame too. The red leather Valkyrie strap-on pumps with the four and a half inch heels, on the other hand, virtually screamed “knock me down and do me”.
When Mike had been to Vegas many years before with Tiffany, he had eaten at the Circus Circus buffet. Circus Circus had put out a lot of food for fifteen dollars. A lot of food. Not good food, but a lot of food. The buffet downstairs in the Palms was called “The Fantasy Market”. While it was twenty times as expensive as the last Las Vegas buffet that Mike had eaten, it was easily twenty times as good too. He feasted on oysters, crab legs, and sliced prime rib, asparagus, garlic herb potatoes, and fried okra. He found that he filled quickly and didn’t have room for desert though. He didn’t have to pay for Patience. She was recognized as a robot by the robot at the counter.
“I understand one robot recognizing another,” he said. “But how did that security guard know? I don’t think most people at the beach could tell you weren’t human, and that was under the bright sun.”
“They have electronic detectors all around the casino,” said Patience. “I can feel the magnetic field they give off.”
“Really?”
“They want to make sure that a robot is not allowed to gamble. With a computer brain and heightened senses, I would not be fooled by the randomizing efforts used in gambling games. I would win.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess they can’t have that.”
Patience smiled.
After dinner, they walked through the casino and out the front entrance of the hotel. Mike didn’t want to bother with his car, so he had a robot valet hail a taxi for them. Once inside, Patience directed the driver, Mike recognized him as a Gizmo Servbot, to take them to the ‘finest gentleman’s club’ in the area. Mike knew that the driver would take them to whichever strip club paid the biggest kickback to the taxi company. He wondered if Patience knew that as well. Had they included that in her memory banks? Had she read it in Fodor’s Guide?

Prejudice in Pulp Fiction

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Paizo, who publishes a great series of mostly reprinted classics called Planet Stories, have a blog entry describing and explaining the racism present in many pulp classics. In part James Sutter, Planet Stories Editor says:

“In the past, publishers uncomfortable with content sometimes cut drastically from older books (especially Kline) in order to sanitize for their new era. We say: let the works stand on their own and speak for themselves. H. P. Lovecraft used the N-word. Robert E. Howard had some (today) scandalously negative portrayals of non-white races. Yet this is history, and to redact history is to lose a vital part of how we got to where we are.”

Read the rest of this excellent editorial here.