Warren
Warren scratched his neck as the doorbell to his apartment rang. The abrupt noise in his otherwise silent home caused him to nearly leap from his skin. He felt sweat starting to form across his back, making the general stickiness he’d been contending with feel all the worse for his anxieties.
Warren needed a shower… he needed a whole lot of things, actually. A hot meal that didn't come in a thermal package; a conversation and appointment with a laundry-bot; and definitely a visit to a barber or barber-droid.
As things stood, Warren knew how scruffy he looked. Ratty beard, long hair, enough grease for a potluck cookout, and clothes that had been washed at some point in the last dozen weeks—probably. His apartment wasn't much better than he was. It was filled with hastily piled bags of trash, assorted garbage, and unrecycled recyclables, all surrounded by kicked-off clothes that were screaming for mercy and praying for the blessed touch of water and soap.
There were crushed cans scattered about the small kitchen-dining combo—a space that hadn't been used in lieu of takeout since he’d first rented the place. And though there weren't any bugs yet, one could rightly assume that, given a few more months of living like this, it was practically pre-ordained. Eventually, he’d be competing with cockroaches for his own leftovers.
At that point, Warren might be too far gone to care.
A-and, of course, there was his workstation. Truth be told, this final aspect of his abode—or lair, as his friend and co-conspirator had called it—was the earnest and genuine reason for eighty percent of his current appearance. Honestly, the remaining twenty was all on him; then again, he only saw it that way through the eyes of his own depression. Even with all his money being sunk into this project, Warren could have found ways to take care of himself and his apartment—if he’d wanted to.
Sadly, the man was lazy. At home, without the expectation, structure, and demands that the military had placed on him back before he’d quit and stolen—well, either way, this is what Warren’s natural state of being seemed to default to. It happened no matter how many times he’d let life slip away like this.
All the same, he was perfectly at home within his own chaos. When held against the knife, it was clear where his priorities lay; as it happened, hygiene wasn't among the short list of things he valued.
Still, it was with an almost nervous tick that Warren, twitchingly, approached the door. He hastily combed his hair with his fingers, folding greasy strands back on themselves to give his appearance an almost gelled look—assuming one were to look at him in the perfect light. Oh well. He doubted the person at the door really gave two shits over his appearance, and he could deal with his hagrid form now that he wasn't sinking every credit he made into his scheme.
Affecting as bright and welcoming a smile as he could manage, Warren opened the sliding door just as it rang for a third time. It revealed the dingy, rubber-scented, and dishearteningly utilitarian hallway that always greeted him—and the single ray of sunshine and hope that waited within it.
Warren felt his heart skip a beat as the grimy air wafted past the door. The old and rundown complex’s hall, ever tidied by custodians but never actually washed, hardly detracted from the angelic appearance of the smiling girl before him.
She was radiant.
And though her matte-white skin was synthetic, though she had exposed joints, glossy and mechanical as they were, it did not detract from her brilliant and wide smile. Or her large luminescent eyes. Instead, they and her upbeat voice all converged in a mere moment to uplift his spirit. Every worry and anxiety softly drifted away on the breeze.
“Good afternoon! And thank you for your continued patronage, dear customer, Warren. According to my schedule, you have booked a one-time extended home visit with Doll unit 0-0-2-7-7-2: ‘Claire.’ If this appointment is correct, please offer verbal confirmation. If you cannot provide verbal confirmation, please provide confirmation via an approved gesture. Approved gestures include a thumbs up, a smile, a—”
“N-no, I mean, yes, I set up the appointment; I mean, it's approved,” Warren quickly interrupted, stumbling over his own words as he felt his face flush.
The Doll—a sexbot, or call-droid as they were colloquially called by those who used them (or simply made fun of those who did)—appeared to hesitate for half a moment at his somewhat confusing answer. Tilting her head in a very human-like manner, she smiled again at him, her bright and beautiful expression returning with full heart-stopping force before she nodded her head a single time.
She was perfect. But then again, she was made that way… with long and silken black hair, loose bangs that reached her brows, and a figure that was, in a very real way, designed with a singular purpose in mind.
He loved her… but she couldn't ever love him. A sad reality born of mental instability and falsified warmth that, truth be told, the human mind simply couldn't differentiate from the real thing.
But Warren—Warren could fix that.
Her eyes glowed with a momentary flash before a slight chime filled the air. Her exuberant virtue and blessed naivete were akin to a soft breeze upon a warm spring afternoon, all gently accented by the subtle aroma of fruity perfume that wafted from her flowy dress. It hit him like a wave, sending sparkles of euphoria through his mind in a very real chemical reaction that was just on the cusp of being legal to dose her clients with.
“Appointment confirmed! Now, though you are a verified user, new security protocols require me to ask if you intend to harm, modify, steal, damage, or otherwise perform any action that could violate the terms and conditions of our contract. Please state—”
“I-I would never!” Warren burst, taking a half-step forward. His eyes were wide and wild with blinded adoration, his hands trembling with scarcely contained excitement. “I would never hurt you, Claire.”
Again, another pause. However, the reason so many people liked the Dolls—at least when compared to other ‘service droids’ in the industry—was because they tended to overlook certain emotional red flags. Doubtless, the girl was already processing his rapid heartbeat, the sweat forming at his temples, the way he seemed to constantly switch his stance, and the way he scratched nervously at his neck.
He should know; Warren had helped develop the very sensors she now used on him. As things currently stood, Warren knew he’d fail a psych eval, possibly before he’d been asked the first question. Still, the Doll merely nodded, the all-mighty credit allowing her to bypass whatever safety protocols were in place to prevent what Luna-C saw as ‘violent crimes’ in the making.
Why? Simple. Because Paradise, the company that owned this particular android, was as shady as they were popular. But that just came with the territory of low prices and high values, even if the Dolls might not be the most—stable…
The abrupt sound of an opening door had the man’s gaze darting towards it like a startled rabbit, his breath coming in shallow gasps as he stared across the hall to spy another man stepping outside.
“Fucking hell, Warren,” came a voice that he was reasonably familiar with. The abrupt callout of his name made him flinch, even as the Doll shifted to step inside his apartment. She wasn't interested in the interruption—and why would she be?—but for Warren, the newcomer had frozen him like a small animal. “Jesus… you've seen better days, huh?”
It was all the ex-engineer could do but plaster on a fake smile, his fingers adjusting his spindly glasses as he peered over to his neighbor. The man was exiting his own room, a barking, happy, and holographic puppy racing around his legs.
“Heeey Bill… You, ugh, you taking Rick out for another walk?”
“Eh, it helps cool the nerves when Viv and I get into a fight. Hmph. Fucking virtual girlfriends, am I right? All the god damn problems, none of the sex… Oh well, not much a registered S.O. can get otherwise, you know? You, umm, you calling in another Doll, huh?”
“Uh-yup.” Warren smiled, or he thought he did, thin lips curling in that ever-familiar manner that people offered others when they didn't want to talk.
This particular apartment complex didn't exactly bring in the best crowd. In fact, it was a well-known den for reprobates, criminals, and the dirt-poor—the assorted castoffs of the city that was subsidized simply to keep the unwanted of society as far away from those it actually deemed to fit in.
Bill, as it happened, was a pretty decent guy. That said, he’d also been caught ‘hanging out’ with underage boys while using a spoofed profile and doing God knows what else within the under-eighteen servers of the Sub-verse… so, he wasn't ‘good’ either.
For his part, Bill could only click his tongue, not exactly judging Warren for what he could doubtless see of his own apartment through the door. After a moment, he shrugged as though he really didn't care.
“Well, pfft, have fun, I guess. And ugh, you know, if you feel like meeting up online to play some Terra-wars or something, you’ve got my profile.” Then, pausing, he added, “Hey, you know, Warren… If ever you wanted to talk or needed someone to just vent at, I’ve got this therapist who’s been helping me—”
“I'm fine!” Warren snapped, wincing a second later as he bit back on what nearly came next. He took in a deep breath before shaking his head, losing most, if not all, his will for conversation. “Listen, Bill, I gotta go, man, I’m…”
“Nah, I get it!” The other man nodded, turning to finish shutting his door. The entirely clean and well-furnished apartment was just visible through the crack before the guy shrugged. “Dolls ain't cheap, even the ones from Paradise. Just ugh, do yourself a favor and maybe hit up a salon or something, brother; those whiskers are getting a little long there.”
Warren laughed at his neighbor's scarcely veiled commentary on his hygiene while Bill gave him a wave, walking off, his tiny pet yipping and yapping all the while. The virtual dog darted between his neighbor's legs as he huffed on a burner, leaving a massive plume of scented vapor in his wake as they both carried on, absent Warren in their thoughts.
The forced upward curve of his lips gently relaxed, his eyes losing their brief spark of strained and exhausting politeness. He worried a loose bit of skin on the inside of his cheek with his teeth, his gaze following Bill as he departed down the stairwell, making sure the other man pushed through the security door and disappeared before he let out a stifled sigh.
Slowly, he closed the door to his apartment, the exterior light of the hallway fading as its final glimmer vanished through the diminishing crack.
Then, it was dark again, and Warren was, once more, submerged in the thickening gloom of his abode. His eyes shifted to fall upon the waiting android; the object of his fixation silently observed him as he took another moment to bask in her beauty.
Her smile was far too innocent and pure for this world…
She didn't understand, and how could she? B-but—but, Warren would fix her. He would help her see. T-then, they could be together, forever! They could be happy!
Slowly, the engineer reached out for the small device sitting on his desk, activating the improvised signal jammer he’d built for this very occasion. The net immediately cut everything in the room away from the outside world.
His glasses glinted against the soft glow of her gaze as the moments stretched. The life in his eye receded until they were dark as coals, neither of them looking away.
Slowly, Warren wrapped his fingers over the cool plastic of a stun baton, flicking the switch. The savage crackle of electricity sparked to life in his hand and filled the room with the scent of ozone, carbon, sweat, and desperation pretending at love…