The eGirl (2 page)

I found my seat—or seats, to be accurate, though one was empty—and sat down. I ordered a beer on my phone, which arrived in a few minutes. The vendor handed it to the girl on the end of the row, who passed it across the empty seat between us.

On the other side of me were two women in their 30s, both fairly pretty but also looking rather pissed off.

“This probably isn’t what you signed up for when you bought your tickets,” I said.

One of them laughed bitterly.

“Fuck Vertex. I want to find the nearest eGirl and cunt-punt the fucking thing.”

Her friend laughed, then looked over at me.

“Are you my eBoy?”

I laughed with them. “No. Sorry. You’re the first person to ask me that, though.”

That was all I could think of to say to them. Not that I really had the energy for it.

About six months ago, the loneliness of being widowed began to win the battle over my grief over Megan. I began to think it might time to start dating again. I didn’t think I would ever find what I had had with her, but I had to start somewhere.

I rapidly discovered, though, that I was playing with a pretty weak hand. I had a good job and a nice house in a nice part of the city, but having three kids—including a teenage daughter—was a big strike against me. It didn’t take long to realize that the women in my age group who were worth marrying were either already married, happy being single, or just weren’t interested in a guy with three kids.

Then there was Alisa, who was clearly not ready for this. She reacted to the handful of dates I brought home with such absolute implacable hostility that I finally gave up. And I realized that as little as she was ready to allow another woman into my life, I didn’t really have the emotional energy for it either. When I told her that—in a conversation that had started as an attempt to get her used to the idea of my dating—she’d cried, then hugged me, then made me promise not to start dating again until she was ready for it. I shouldn’t have agreed, but I did.

So maybe I could have gotten a phone number from these two cute women next to me, but what would I have done with it?

♦ ♦

The 49ers went up 14-3 after the first quarter on a couple of long touchdown passes. Halfway through the second quarter, they stopped the game, announcing that the penalty monitoring system had just crashed. The crowd reacted with jeering and catcalls as a promotional video went up on the display above the field.

I ordered another beer. It arrived like the first one, and the girl on the end of the row handed it to me. She met my eyes briefly as I thanked her. She was plain to the point of being homely. I wondered what she was doing here by herself.

“Rough day?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“This Vertex thing.”

“What about it?”

“Everybody asking you ‘Are you my eGirl.’”

She gave me a neutral look.

“Nobody’s asked me that.”

Well, that wasn’t too surprising. She looked as much like an eGirl as the dog I’d had as a kid.

I sat there for a second wondering what that might feel like. Watching all this insanity, but realizing no one thought enough of you to even bother. It felt a lot like what I’d gone through discovering women I was attracted to weren’t interested in the package deal with my kids.

I could at least throw her a bone. I leaned over toward her.

“So, are you my eGirl?”

Her reaction was not what I had expected. She didn’t laugh or even smile. But she didn’t get upset or give me a dirty look, either. Instead, she simply stood up, moved over one seat, and sat down next to me.

“Do you have the Vertex app installed on your phone?”

This was such a non sequitur that it took me a few moments to answer.

“Uh . . . yeah.”

“Would you open it, please?”

“Why?”

“Please open the Vertex app.”

I pulled out my phone, unlocked it, and stared up the app. She watched as I did it.

“Please go into Settings>About and read the serial number at the top.”

I did, though I had no idea what was going on here. “A45EF8001300BE.”

“Please wait.”

A moment later, a spinning progress indicator appeared over the app. It went on for about ten seconds. Then what looked like some kind of click-wrap agreement appeared. It was a mile long, and I scrolled through it rapidly, not quite sure what was going on. I tapped “Accept.”

When it disappeared, the interface had completely changed. The boilerplate information about Vertex had been replaced by a list of options: Appearance | Personality | Behavior | Skills | Settings | Messages | Help. And above the list was an image of the girl next to me.

Jaw having dropped to my chest, I looked over at her slowly.

“
It’s you?
” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“But you’re . . . “ Even knowing she was a robot—something I still couldn’t believe, because she looked absolutely human—I couldn’t say it.

She completed my thought. “Not pretty?”

I nodded.

“Would you like me to be?”

I blinked. I had no idea what to say to her.

“If you select Appearance, you can adjust how I look.”

I found my voice. “You can do that?”

“Yes. It’s a new feature of the eGirl5 that hasn’t been announced. The product announcement will be at halftime. The eBoy5 has already been found.”

I still couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. I reached over slowly and poked her arm. She let me. It felt human at first, though as I stroked her skin, I could just barely sense something that was just ever so slightly off. But had I not known, I doubt I would ever have noticed it.

I looked back at my phone. I tapped Appearance. That brought up another list of options: Face | Age | Eyes | Hair | Height | Weight | Athleticism | Bust | Waist | Buttocks | Legs | Feet

I blinked at it a few times, then tapped Face. That brought up a sliding scale that was numbered from 1 to 100. The slider was currently at 35. Well, that seemed to fit.

I finally looked up and glanced around us. No one else, even the women to my left, seemed to have noticed what had happened. I tapped the slider and moved it up to 60.

As I watched in amazement, the girl’s face shifted subtly. Her nose shrank and became more evenly proportioned. Her chin moved out a bit, and her cheekbones became more prominent. She wasn't exactly pretty yet, but she had gone from homely to generally good looking in a matter of moments.

I moved the slider up to 70. Her features became more even and proportional, and her cheekbones came out a bit more. Now you would definitely call her pretty. It was the same girl who’d been sitting next to me this entire time, yet it wasn’t.

“How?” I gasped.

“My skin is an electrically activated silicone composite. That’s all I can tell you. The rest is a trade secret.”

I looked back at my phone and backed up to Appearance. I stared briefly at Bust before stopping myself. I wasn’t ready to go there. Instead I selected Eyes. A color palette came up. Playing with it for a minute, I selected a deep teal blue.

When I looked over at the girl, her eyes—which had been an unremarkable brown—were now the exact color I had just selected.

Up until that moment, I hadn’t completely been convinced. Maybe I hadn’t looked closely enough at the girl before this, maybe she hadn’t really been as homely as I had thought. But there was just no way she could have changed her eye color that fast, right to the exact shade I’d picked.

Holy shit
, I thought to myself. What the hell was I supposed to do with her? Cole and Kevin were going to freak over this. And Alisa—what was
she
going to think when I brought this thing home?

I sat there for about a minute in a complete daze. The eGirl sat there quietly beside me. For all the rest of the stadium knew, nothing had changed.

I finally pulled myself together a bit.

“So, um, what’s your name?” I asked her.

“What would you like it to be?”

Shit
. Of course I would get to name her. I tried to think of something. The first name that came to mind was—

“Selena?”

“Thank you. I like that.”

I looked down at my phone. A number across the top of the settings screen, which I hadn’t paid any attention to, changed to
Selena
.

The eGirl stood up.

“Would you come with me, please?”

“Where?”

“The sponsor’s box. The license agreement, which you didn’t read, included provisions about cooperating with the halftime marketing sequence, as well as other things. We have to go up there now.”

♦ ♦

I followed Selena out of our section. She led me up a couple of escalators. When we got to the VIP level, the stadium security officials that usually checked tickets to make sure you belonged up there were standing with two guys in Vertex golf shirts. As soon as they saw the two of us, they waved us over.

“This way, sir,” one of them said.

I followed them about a third of the way around the stadium before we reached a box suite section with a big Vertex logo. More Vertex people were waiting for us, including a pretty woman with a tablet in her hands. She motioned me to follow her.

The box suite was a big room about fifty feet long looking out over the field, with two rows of seats in front of the window. Inside, several more people intercepted us.

Selena touched my arm. “I need to go change. I’ll be right back.”

The woman with the tablet extended her hand, which I shook. “Mr. Dawson, I’m Christina Murphy. I’m a communications manager with Vertex. We’re going to put on a promotional video about the eGirl and eBoy5 shortly, then we’ll be running a video of you finding Selena. Then we’re going to introduce you and the man who found the eBoy. Does that sound all right?”

“Um, I guess so.”

“After the promotional segment, you’re welcome to stay in the sponsor’s box for the remainder of the game, though we would like to record a brief interview with you.”

“Okay. I’m still a little in shock here.”

She smiled. “I understand. The eGirl5 is an amazing product. It’s going to take some time to get used to her. We’re all extremely excited about it.”

“She’s really a robot?” I felt stupid saying this, but I couldn’t help myself.

“We’re using the term
artificial person
at Vertex now. We don’t feel that
robot
is a true reflection of what they are.”

I nodded. Out on the field, I could see the first half ending. Someone came up and told Christina we needed to get ready. She led me out to the balcony in front of the box, where I was positioned next to a younger man with red hair.

“Did you win the eGirl?” he asked.

“Yeah. You got the other one?”

“Uh-huh. Pretty fucking amazing.”

I could only shake my head. I
still
couldn’t believe this.

I felt someone take my arm. I looked to my left and found a tall, drop-dead gorgeous brunette in a tank dress beside me. Her big breasts were almost falling out of the top. I was about to say something when I noticed her eyes: the same teal blue I’d given Selena.

She smiled.

“It’s me. This is what I look like when you max everything out.”

I could only gape at her. It wasn’t just that she was stunningly hot, she was also four or five inches taller than I’d left her a minute or two ago.

“You’re taller.”

“I can change that too. You didn’t see the setting?”

I had, but . . .
Jesus
.

I looked over and saw a strikingly handsome young man with chiseled features standing with the guy I’d just talked to. Obviously the eBoy.

I pulled out my phone and opened the Vertex app. I went into Appearance>Face. As I expected, it was now set to 100. I backed out to Bust, which was at 36D. Checking the other settings, I could see what the Vertex people had done to her. They’d taken the unremarkable girl I’d met a few minutes ago and turned her into a lingerie supermodel.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

I swallowed roughly. “It’s a bit much.”

She smiled. “After the promotion is over, you can do what you want with me. I’ll be ugly again if you like that better.”

The NFL officiating system blew the whistle for the first half. As the players left the field, the Vertex video started up on the big screen over the field. After some music and stock footage, they began the introduction.

“
For ten years, Vertex has redefined robotics
,” the voiceover said. “
Lifelike . . . versatile . . . inspiring.
” The video shifted to a scene of a group of beautiful men and women walking across a beach toward the camera. “
And now, Vertex brings you the biggest advance in robotics ever seen . . . the eGirl and eBoy5.
”

The men and women on the beach walked right up to the camera and smiled.

Then the video stopped, cutting to what I instantly realized was a recording of me, when I’d found Selena. They’d been watching the entire time, taping it.

I stood there seeing the entire thing again, from a distance. And when Selena explained about her appearance, and I began changing it, the crowd gasped in unison, then began cheering. They repeated the same sequence with the eBoy and the guy who had found him. By the end, the stadium was roaring.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice began, “we give you the winners of the Vertex eGirl and eBoy5 giveaway.”

On the screen, I saw myself, standing with the rest of them on the balcony. Selena leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. The camera zoomed in on her, then split to show the scene where I’d found her, emphasizing how much she’d changed. They then did the same thing with the eBoy.

As the crown continued cheering, the video began again, spinning through more stock footage of the other eGirls and eBoys.

“
The eGirl and eBoy5 . . . full appearance control . . . true artificial intelligence . . .
a quantum leap in robotics . . . available today.
”

The music surged to a crescendo, the crowd gave one final cheer, and it was over.