Heathers arrived before Carlyle yet the restaurant’s seating algorithm informed her that Jeremy had made a reservation. For four people. Five minutes before seemed a little late for making a reservation, but Heathers wasn’t complaining. She and Isidore sat down at a table near the window.
“Do you want to hear a joke?” Isidore asked, breaking the silence.
Heathers sighed. “Isidore…”
“You said you liked jokes when you are nervous."
“Who said I was nervous?” Heathers laughed, lightly poking Isidore’s shoulder. He poked her back and they descended into a fit of innocent laughter.
The background noise of the restaurant died down and Heathers turned toward the door. Carlyle had entered, Jeremy almost embodying her shadow personified. He seemed to notice every single minute detail that she missed and she had a palpable presence more than enough for the two of them. They were the perfect team and for a moment, Heathers was almost jealous of their efficiency.
Then Carlyle’s ineffable smile graced Heathers, making the unfamiliar familiar, the unknown known. With that smile, anything was possible, including a serious android with as much empyreal charm as Carlyle.
Carlyle sat across from Heathers and Jeremy sat across from Isidore. Jeremy immediately checked all the plates and silverware for contamination. Heathers watched with ardent curiosity as Jeremy’s ultraviolet scanner swept each surface. When he noticed Heathers’s staring, he simply grunted. “The flu is quite severe this year." Heathers managed a nod.
“Have you ordered yet?” Carlyle asked, effortlessly stealing Heather’s attention. Her blue, almost purple eyes glittered ethereally in the diaphanous sunlight.
“Nope. I was waiting for you—” but Heathers noticed that neither Carlyle nor Jeremy were picking up their phones. “Did you guys already order before…?”
“We have a… restricted diet,” Jeremy said. He stopped, not elaborating.
“Okay, then…” Heathers turned to Isidore. “What would you like to eat, bud?”
Isidore’s pupils turned blue, an artifact of his older hardware, as he read the menu on the other side of the restaurant. After incorporating the choices into his memory, he smiled. “The dijon salami sandwich on sourdough sounds good.” Heathers paired her phone app with the table and added both Isidore’s sandwich and a chicken fettuccine alfredo for herself onto the tab. She noticed that a superfood salad and a tomato quinoa soup were already on the tab.
“Who’s having soup for lunch?” Isidore exclaimed, looking over Heathers’s shoulder as he always did.
“It’s better to eat a big breakfast and have light meals the rest of the day,” Jeremy said matter-of-factly.
“I read that somewhere…” Heathers said though she couldn’t remember where she had seen it. “Smaller meals throughout the day are supposed to be easier for your body to metabolize, right?”
“You’re well read, aren’t you?” Carlyle asked. She was paying an unusual amount of attention to Heather, focusing in on her drumming fingers, the rhythm of her breathing, the shifting of her dark curls. Heathers was flattered by the spotlight.
A human waiter brought their food and drinks and the table settled. Carlyle’s superfood salad looked much better than Heathers expected and she wondered if she should have ordered something lighter than a pasta dish for lunch. She nervously sipped her kiwi lemonade iced tea. It wasn’t anywhere as good as she’d expected it to be, but it was the newest thing on the menu and she had to try it at least once.
“So, what have you read up on recently?” Carlyle asked. “You really have to read about the nonconsensual personality modification. Oh, it’s absolutely horrid!” Carlyle stated with a dramatic flair.
Heathers was slightly stunned by the display of genuine emotion. “Oh, really?”
Carlyle nodded emphatically. “You have heard of the movies with the all-android casts, have you?”
Heathers took a shaky breath. “I’ve seen… some.” She didn’t like watching pre-programmed androids mathematically following the muse of a director. There was a layer of artistry missing without talented actors interpreting direction from the director. Somehow, differences in interpretation made human-cast movies better. But Heathers wasn’t sure if the passionate Carlyle would be insulted if Heathers even insinuated that android actors weren’t as good as human ones.
“Did you know that those don’t have a base personality?” Carlyle stared intently at Heathers, her gaze slightly more energetic than before, if possible.
”What exactly do you mean by that?” Heathers asked. Now, that was something she had not read about before.
“You know how the androids are programmed for their roles? Well, most don’t have a standard disposition, so in between roles, they are either locked up in a prison-like environment or, if their previous role is a socially acceptable one, they are left with that programming until they are needed again. These androids have no real long-term memories, no real identity, and no life other than the one completely determined for them by the movie studio.” Carlyle paused, taking a sip of her vanilla milkshake. “Can you even imagine what that would be like? I think I'd rather off myself."
"That wouldn't give you that type of personality if you were an acting-droid," Jeremy reminded. "And besides, most of them aren't aware of their own fragility."
Heathers sat for a solid minute, speechless. It seemed like such a big tradeoff for such little return. She knew people who preferred droid-movies to human movies, but they were the crowd who also worshiped CGI and anime. What would it be like if people constantly tampered with your personality? Heathers tended to agree with Carlyle. Being dead sounded like a better option.
Carlyle sipped loudly on the remains of her milkshake. Heathers realized that Carlyle had barely touched her salad. It made the Alfredo sit strangely in her stomach.
"Do you know what it's called when you throw glitter on the street?" Isidore cut through the silence.
Heathers recognized the tension and consciously tried to alleviate it. "What?" she asked.
"Glittering!" Isidore exclaimed, his smile as wide as the Mississippi.
Carlyle laughed heartily. "Silly Isidore. I'm sure you could be so much more if Eon didn't limit you."
Heathers frowned. "It's not like Isidore could do much when I first got him."
“Like humans, Eon’s lifelike series androids evolve over time. This is reiterated in every Eon tech forum,” Jeremy explained. “The thing they don’t tell you is that limiters are installed on older models so that they remain developmentally unchanged to the way they were almost on the day the next model is released.”
“What about the carbon copy series?” Heathers asked.
“You need not concern yourself with them, sweetie,” Carlyle smiled understandingly. “The carbon copy androids aren’t sentient.”
“Oh.” Heathers looked at Isidore. Even though he seemed rudimentary and much like a child, there was no doubt that he was sentient. She’d never looked much into the carbon copy series, but if they weren’t sentient, she didn’t see the point of getting one. She supposed that was why they were mostly used in factories.
Isidore finished his sandwich. Of the four, he was the only one to finish his food, and contrary to Carlyle, he hadn’t even touched his glass of cola.
“How do they change the personality of an android?” Heathers found herself asking.
For the first time, Carlyle looked less sure of herself. “So, I haven’t read the full documentation on it, as most of it is written in the mercer programming language, but it appears that the repair centers have proprietary software that gauges the evolution of an android and activates an inverse filter when Eon tells them to do so.” She spoke as if she was meticulously choosing each word; her syntax felt like a life or death choice.
“That sounds terrible,” Isidore said, taking the appearance of a pouty child.
“Yes, it does,” Heathers whispered. “It certainly does.” She twirled her fettuccine in a pool of sauce and tried to sip at her kiwi lemonade iced tea. All in all, she didn’t regret ordering the novel drink, but she definitely wouldn't be ordering it again.
“I’ve paid the tab if you’re done,” Jeremy announced. He’d finally finished his soup, but Carlyle’s salad sat almost untouched in front of her. “But how are you feeling, Dr. Heathers?”
The chicken wasn’t too great today and the thought of her precious companion getting rewritten and limited didn’t help her appetite. “I’ll take this with me,” Heathers decided.
The sound of Isidore draining his cola broke her concentration. He looked up, smiling. “It was nice having lunch with you, Jeremy and Carlyle.”
“Likewise,” Jeremy said.
“I’d love to see you again sometime,” Carlyle smiled, her bright charm brightening Heathers’s mood once more.
“Yeah. That’d be great.” Heathers smiled and waved as the pair of gen8s exited the restaurant.
“Why can’t dinosaurs sing?” Isidore asked.
“Not right now, Isidore,” Heathers said, smiling. It was enough just to enjoy the ephemeral feeling.
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