Mandy clutched the knife more tightly in her right hand. She moved close to The Other Mandy and looked at her threateningly. The Other Mandy just stared as fiercely back, as if daring Mandy to do her worst.
Mandy bit her lip and thought. Why wasn’t The Other Mandy scared? Didn’t she see the knife she held? Mandy was sure she would have been terrified if The Other Mandy had held a knife to her. But she would bluff. Then it clicked. The Other Mandy was bluffing. Mandy smiled.
She wasn’t sure why she wanted to kill The Other Mandy, but she was sure that it was the right thing to do. How could there be two Mandys in the same place? It didn’t make sense. There was only one thing to do. The Other Mandy had to go.
She raised the knife and made as if to strike The Other Mandy, who immediately let loose a high pitched scream.
“Shut up!” Mandy hissed. The Other Mandy was immediately quiet.
“Take it easy,” she coaxed. “It’s going to be quick and just the tiniest bit painful.” She was enjoying watching the various expressions of terror dancing over The Other Mandy’s visage.
Mandy stopped grinning, and moved up close until their noses touched. The Other Mandy was quietly begging Mandy not to kill her. Mandy thought about it.
“No,” she told The Other Mandy quietly at first, and then more loudly, psyching herself up until she finally said,
“No! You have to die.”
The Other Mandy saw that Mandy was faltering. The Other Mandy seized the advantage, softly at first.
“Please let me leave, I’ll go far away and you’ll never have to see me again.”
“Shut up!” Mandy was the one screaming now. “One more word out of you and I swear I’ll make it extremely painful.” Mandy was more mad at herself than anything else. She’d set her mind on killing The Other Mandy, and here she was losing both her nerve and her temper.
“You’re not going to do it,” The Other Mandy said quietly, but matter-of-factly.
“You’re about to make me,” Mandy spat back.
“You’re not going to kill me,” The Other Mandy was in the ascendancy now.
Mandy steeled herself and raised the knife, ready to do this once and for all.
“Mandy!”
Mandy lowered the knife again.
“Mandy, are you alright?”
“Yes mum,” she sighed.
“Could you come downstairs please?”
“Coming mum”
“Told you so,” The Other Mandy taunted.
Mandy snarled and walked away, turning her back on the mirror.
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Thursday, 18 June 2009
The Test
The Test.
He opened the large box. He was excited. He ripped off the polystyrene packaging and plastic wrapping. It was a robot, man size and streamlined. Fully six feet tall and weighing just over seventy kilograms, the JX86 was a class act. He spent a while perusing the instruction manual, not that he didn’t already know everything there was to know about robots, and robotics for that matter.
In fact, the JX86 was his own creation - well not creation per se, but created based on his design. And now he’d been given a complimentary copy, even though he knew The Company just wanted to be sure it worked according to his specifications before releasing it to the general public. His daughter would be thrilled by the new addition.
He called out to Samantha, and she came running.
“Hi dad!” she said, running up. She stopped dead when she saw the gleaming robot with humanoid proportions. She was stunned.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Samantha, this is Alexander.”
At that the robot came to life. He really was called Alexander. Samantha thought it should be able to talk if it responded to its name with those beautiful lights in its eyes.
“Hello Alexander,” she said.
The robot looked at her. Scanning its database for what kind of creature. It could recognise over two billion different species of living matter and could focus on anything from a nanometre to a few kilometres in length. It came up with juvenile Homo sapiens sapiens, female. Alexander scanned his language database. He understood well over a thousand languages, including Esperanto, Lojban and Klingon. It located English, Caucasian New York accent. Speech centres activated, simulated human intelligent thought relayed messages to the core processor.
“Hello young lady, what is your name?” Alexander said in a perfect New York accent.
“Daddy, it talks! It talks! Yay!”
“Why don’t you spend some time with Alexander,” her dad said.
“Super,” said Samantha. She turned to the robot.
“Alex? I can call you Alex, can’t I?”
The robot nodded.
“Nice. You can call me Sam.”
The robot smiled. Well it wasn’t exactly a smile, as the robot’s face did not have the expression range of a human’s, but Sam easily recognised it as a smile. It was its eyes. The robot had the most extraordinary eyes. They changed colour according to its emotions, from a neutral grey to a tranquil blue, excited yellow, angry red, pious white, and a happy green. Sam didn’t know that it could do that, but somehow could recognise the warmth in the green eyes and slight rise of the robot’s shoulders that signified a smile.
“Do you have friends Alex?” Sam asked, spurred on by the robots obvious enthusiasm for her.
“No, but I’d like some,” said the robot, the emotion module of its simulated human intelligent thought centre coming into play once again.
“I could be your friend, if you like,” said Sam.
“I’d like that very much,” said Alex.
Then Alex and Sam launched into conversation. They talked and talked and talked, about anything and everything. They talked about school and friends, people and robots, pets and wild animals, quiet times and adventures, and all sorts of stuff. Sam didn’t get tired of talking, and Alex didn’t have an exhaustion integrated nanocircuit in his entire system.
Morning sped into afternoon and dad came to call Sam to lunch.
“Are you going to eat with us?” Samantha asked.
“I’m an android. I don’t eat.”
Sam was curious.
“Then how come you know what ice cream tastes like,” she asked.
“I don’t. I only know that people like it, so it must taste nice.”
“Oh... okay.”
She stretched her little arms out wide for a hug. Alex’s simulated human intelligent thought centre had a strange thought. It thought that this child was a bit too demanding. It recognised the gesture, after an extensive database search that took all of three seconds. It immediately evened its surface to human temperature, and knelt down to briefly hold the girl, in what humans call a hug.
“Goodbye Sam,” the Android said, with just the right amount of ruefulness in its voice that Samantha thought it sorry to have to leave.
“It’s alright,” she said brightly, “we’ll see again soon.”
While Sam was at lunch, dad - who’d been watching the whole episode - took Alex away. He led him up to the lab.
“Quite a test, don’t you think?” dad asked.
“Quite,” the robot replied.
“She’s innocent, impulsive, inquisitive and inadvertently insightful”, the robot continued, alliterating, “definitely a girl.”
He opened the large box. He was excited. He ripped off the polystyrene packaging and plastic wrapping. It was a robot, man size and streamlined. Fully six feet tall and weighing just over seventy kilograms, the JX86 was a class act. He spent a while perusing the instruction manual, not that he didn’t already know everything there was to know about robots, and robotics for that matter.
In fact, the JX86 was his own creation - well not creation per se, but created based on his design. And now he’d been given a complimentary copy, even though he knew The Company just wanted to be sure it worked according to his specifications before releasing it to the general public. His daughter would be thrilled by the new addition.
He called out to Samantha, and she came running.
“Hi dad!” she said, running up. She stopped dead when she saw the gleaming robot with humanoid proportions. She was stunned.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Samantha, this is Alexander.”
At that the robot came to life. He really was called Alexander. Samantha thought it should be able to talk if it responded to its name with those beautiful lights in its eyes.
“Hello Alexander,” she said.
The robot looked at her. Scanning its database for what kind of creature. It could recognise over two billion different species of living matter and could focus on anything from a nanometre to a few kilometres in length. It came up with juvenile Homo sapiens sapiens, female. Alexander scanned his language database. He understood well over a thousand languages, including Esperanto, Lojban and Klingon. It located English, Caucasian New York accent. Speech centres activated, simulated human intelligent thought relayed messages to the core processor.
“Hello young lady, what is your name?” Alexander said in a perfect New York accent.
“Daddy, it talks! It talks! Yay!”
“Why don’t you spend some time with Alexander,” her dad said.
“Super,” said Samantha. She turned to the robot.
“Alex? I can call you Alex, can’t I?”
The robot nodded.
“Nice. You can call me Sam.”
The robot smiled. Well it wasn’t exactly a smile, as the robot’s face did not have the expression range of a human’s, but Sam easily recognised it as a smile. It was its eyes. The robot had the most extraordinary eyes. They changed colour according to its emotions, from a neutral grey to a tranquil blue, excited yellow, angry red, pious white, and a happy green. Sam didn’t know that it could do that, but somehow could recognise the warmth in the green eyes and slight rise of the robot’s shoulders that signified a smile.
“Do you have friends Alex?” Sam asked, spurred on by the robots obvious enthusiasm for her.
“No, but I’d like some,” said the robot, the emotion module of its simulated human intelligent thought centre coming into play once again.
“I could be your friend, if you like,” said Sam.
“I’d like that very much,” said Alex.
Then Alex and Sam launched into conversation. They talked and talked and talked, about anything and everything. They talked about school and friends, people and robots, pets and wild animals, quiet times and adventures, and all sorts of stuff. Sam didn’t get tired of talking, and Alex didn’t have an exhaustion integrated nanocircuit in his entire system.
Morning sped into afternoon and dad came to call Sam to lunch.
“Are you going to eat with us?” Samantha asked.
“I’m an android. I don’t eat.”
Sam was curious.
“Then how come you know what ice cream tastes like,” she asked.
“I don’t. I only know that people like it, so it must taste nice.”
“Oh... okay.”
She stretched her little arms out wide for a hug. Alex’s simulated human intelligent thought centre had a strange thought. It thought that this child was a bit too demanding. It recognised the gesture, after an extensive database search that took all of three seconds. It immediately evened its surface to human temperature, and knelt down to briefly hold the girl, in what humans call a hug.
“Goodbye Sam,” the Android said, with just the right amount of ruefulness in its voice that Samantha thought it sorry to have to leave.
“It’s alright,” she said brightly, “we’ll see again soon.”
While Sam was at lunch, dad - who’d been watching the whole episode - took Alex away. He led him up to the lab.
“Quite a test, don’t you think?” dad asked.
“Quite,” the robot replied.
“She’s innocent, impulsive, inquisitive and inadvertently insightful”, the robot continued, alliterating, “definitely a girl.”
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