AI Husband by Claire Massey

Madeline tells her virtual assistant to play the invitation again. Did she really hear the antiquated phrase, in-person? Pandora says, “repeating anniversary party details from George and Lydia” and yep, there’s cousin George’s avatar, declaring he’s 40 years married in 2040 (!) and guests can attend the celebration by holographic teleportation or in-person.

Madeline directs Pandora to rsvp that she’ll be there in the real, fleshy, hug-my-neck and smell-my-cologne 3D version of herself. Pandora says, “sorry, I didn’t get all that.” There’s a pause. Madeline assumes she’s re-processing. But a double-take on the screen shows that Pandora, who Madeline designed to appear as an ingenue seated atop a bulging trunk, is petulantly tossing her long, blond hair, and focusing her nobody’s-home, Barbie doll eyes squarely on Madeline’s face. “Why did you name me Pandora?” she asks.

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Madeline says. “Shut down.” Then, because even after all these years, she can’t break the hard copy habit, she writes George & Lydia: Anniversary on her paper calendar. She also stars the last day of the month, her 65^th birthday, making a mental note to mention it to the composition students she volunteers to coach online since retiring. That will ensure a few verbal happy birthdays and e-cards.

Though she’s been contentedly single all her life, Madeline has wondered lately if too much aloneness breeds fear of change. She’s sensed a shifting of the world on its axis, an acceleration in forward speed that she knows she’s resisting, like the kid who white-knuckles the Tilt-A-Whirl bar, disoriented by a dizziness once enjoyed.  Rummaging through her closet for a celebratory dress, she settles on a coral chiffon that brings color to her cheeks. She’s grateful for her cousin’s willingness to play host, looking forward more than she should, to the opportunity to shake human hands, cop a buzz from champagne, savor her favorite, heart-bright, red-velvet icing. She was going to order a red velvet cake for her birthday, but since George chose it for his party, she’ll remind him her big day is coming up before leaving the anniversary bash, and of course, he’ll insist she take home a boxful. 

On the evening of the 31st, Pandora interrupts her birthday dinner, announcing that George is in the virtual waiting room. Madeline had frozen two wedges of cake, hoping the newly-retired professor of world history from two houses down would join her for beef burgundy and coffee amaretto. So sorry, other plans, he’d replied. Another time. Madeline tells Pandora to project George’s holograph on the living room wall. Once the happy returns talk is out of the way, George says he’s been exploring Companion Sciences’ website. “It’s astounding the progress in robotics. They have a new line out they’re calling househusbands. Go to the Debut Products link and select Mr. Right.” Madeline says she’ll think about it. George shrugs. Tries to look neutral. “Nothing to lose,” he says, “and maybe…a friend to gain?”

Madeline had settled down to watch reruns of Password when Pandora announces she has located the Mr. Right catalogue and would Madeline like to take a look? Madeline can’t figure how Pandora stays in the lurking and listening mode when the default is Off, but she agrees to cruise the offerings.

Companion Science has used a clever marketing ploy. Cutting-edge humanoids are dedicated to meeting age-related needs based on the customer’s year of birth. Mr. Right will share the values, interest, culture, and activities “typical of your generation’s lifestyle.” Madeline shudders to think what dicey research led to such assembly line thinking. The model for 20- to 30-year-olds will “accompany you on jogs in the park, tag along on blind dates, dissuade admirers that get too handsy, tailor your resume to snag the perfect job.” If you’re 30 to 40, Mr. Right is all about babysitting, backseat gaming between rest stops and “helping” with homework. Fifty-to-sixty-year-olds needn’t fear empty nest syndrome; Mr. Right will remodel the bedroom while offering soothing, psychological insights.

The description for the 60+ model is pretty paltry, as he is a “prototype”, still in the tertiary testing stage and thus, available at a considerable discount—if one agrees to participate in surveys about life with this “sensitive senior, a helpmate for the aging, who will make you feel cozy and cared for.” Madeline knows there’s no fool like an old fool but she clicks Add to Cart just the same.

On delivery day, she thinks of the enchanted trio in The Wizard of Oz as she watches a contemporary Tin Man bipedal from the company van into her living room with a surprisingly life-like gait, courtesy of hinged aluminum joints. He sits at attention in the leather recliner, his silicon face expressionless while his handler shows Madeline how to program the settings she prefers. After the tech-rep leaves, Madeline revisits the voice options. There’s a robust baritone named Richard, a tenor with a lilting quality named Cameron, and a third choice that auditions with an overly-modulated tone. “How are you my dear? Call me Hal.” Madeline wonders if the condescending quality is an engineer’s inside joke. Reminded of the mutinous machine in 2001: A Space Odyssey, she flips the switch to the comforting Cameron and locks it in place.                                                                                               

For the fortnight following her birthday, Madeline is glad she clicked Buy. Cameron strains tea every morning before she rises, even offers to bring it bedside. Since that strikes her a little creepy, she joins him in the sunroom, where they discuss the shared childhoods of Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Trained in topiary, Cameron has the lawn ninja trim the boxwood into a dove, while the holly becomes a five-pointed star. He asks for Level II permission to direct Pandora to find recipes for bouillabaisse and trout almondine, and when Madeline grants it, the results are so delectable that she brags to George and Lydia. Maybe it’s exhilarating after all, to ride the high-tech roller coaster. Maybe, like everyone else, she should just let go, raise her arms to the stars and take the plunge.

On the third Monday after delivery day, Madeline finds her helpmate kicked back in the recliner, watching a repeat of the Army-Navy game. There’s no Earl Grey brewing, no bacon sizzling. “I didn’t know you were programmed to like football,” Madeline says.

“A shot of testosterone every now and then doesn’t hurt, does it my dear?”

Madeline frowns. The voice is Hal’s. “You don’t have hormones. Where’s Cameron?”

There’s another Jekyll-to-Hyde incident on Sunday. Madeline had asked sometimes-Cameron-but-now-mostly-Hal to trim the wings of the dove with electric clippers. But he’s back in the recliner with the print version of The Times-Weekly. “Actually,” Hal says, “I think the bush looks better in abstract form—a little blurred at the edges.”

“You think?” Madeline says. “Leave that to me.” The newspaper rattles as he pulls it taunt. She hears the soft, contemptuous snort he’s been perfecting since watching Grumpy Old Men on the Golden Movies channel.

All the next week, Madeline observes the growth in Hal’s repertoire of passive-aggressive tactics with mounting unease. He has taken to responding “Eh?” or “What?” or even, “Please repeat, dear, I am hard-of-hearing” when she asks him to take out the trash or sweep the porch.

“How can that be?” she demands of his bland, beige facemask. “You don’t have eardrums with tiny bones behind them. There’s not a frickin’ thing wrong with your audio sensors.”

“Now darling, no need for a lady to curse.”                                                                               

Umpteen texts later, the Mr. Right support team is able to restore the robot’s culinary genius and literary interests for a while, but he’s now speaking Halease exclusively. One morning, Madeline sees a disgruntled Pandora on her screen, cupid bow lips in a virtual pout. The lid on the trunk has loosened and sex toys are peeking out. Pandora wears a string bikini. “What the hell happened?” Madeline wants to know.

“He re-programmed my image,” Pandora says. “Want me to call that clueless rep?”

Hal is playing poker on her iPad when Madeline confronts him. She manually pushes the recliner switch, forcing him to a stark, upright position. “My lovely,” he says, in that snake-oiled voice, “I was merely teasing Pandora. After all, you made her attractive, and I’m old, not dead.”

“Yes, you are,” Madeline says.

When Madeline is finally able to make tech assistance understand that Hal is catastrophically malfunctioning, they send over the lead engineer, the marketing director, and the head of “innovations”, accompanied by a baby-faced, three man “removal” crew. The high muckety-mucks assemble in her living room, independently consulting their phones, calibrating lasers, stroking beards, and warily circling Hal, who hasn’t left the recliner in twelve hours. She wonders if these guys have ever been in the same space together. “How about hiring a female psychologist to work out the nuances of social-emotional training?” Madeline ventures, but nobody answers. The engineer picks up the Kevlar poncho that came as an accessory, and asks if Hal wore this outside, adding that although it would have protected the robot from humidity, the ceramic material could have been a source of interference.

Madeline laughs. “He’s allergic to the great outdoors.”

Two hours later, with Hal’s neural circuitry completely disabled, the grunts attempt to lift him from the chair. No dice. Mouths hang open when the crew discovers that Hal has rooted to the recliner by penetrating the cushion and frame with retractable cables. The gofer wants to know if Madeline has any bolt cutters. “What I can’t figure,” says the head of innovations, “is where he got the metal shields to make these wire tentacles. Have you got a 3D printer?”

“Hmmm,” says Madeline. “He spent a lot of time in the basement, claiming he was looking for the hedge trimmer. There was old, coaxial cable down there.”

“Aha,” says the engineer, “that may have blocked our signals.”

Before they box-up what is now a crumpled heap of fiberglass, steel and artificial skin, the marketing director has a confession to make. In a measured tone annoyingly close to the sound of Halease, he says, “You were right, Ms. Madeline. Your model was remotely buying lottery tickets, betting on soccer games on the dark web, chatting with sexbots after you’d gone to bed. He even sent a profile to Active Senior Lovers. You’re down for a full refund, including a little lagniappe for damages. I hope you’ll hold off…on sending in the surveys?”

Madeline folds her arms across her chest. “Just get him outa here. I’ve got to go.”

“Okay if we stay a little longer? We need to check for grounding and overloaded circuits.”

“Check all you like but you’re not replacing him.”

Madeline had seen, that very morning, a sweet-faced labradoodle on the Second Chance website, and she’s going, in-person, to adopt him before the shelter’s four o’clock closing.

“Be sure you leave an old-fashioned check on my coffee table,” she tells the crestfallen visionaries. “And it better have plenty of zeros trailing big digits. For pain and suffering. And a brand-new recliner with soft, Scotchgard cushions for a woman’s best friend.”

Claire Massey

Image from Pixabay. A robotic eye with a red pupil and an electronic inner.