I killed her in the end. She’s the fifth woman I’ve slaughtered this
year. I had no choice really, she really
was immensely tedious. I think there was a bug in her software or something,
which you get with these cheap robots. She kept telling me the same dreary anecdote
again and again. I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically the story
was about how she once met a man whose surname was “Crisps”. That was it. “Design your perfect woman and
have her delivered directly to your door!” the website said. And to be fair
they all do look exactly like my perfect woman: pretty, blonde, terrifying knockers. But something’s not working; I’ve just never clicked with any of
them. I think it’s because maybe I don’t
really know my “type”? Well, I thought I did, but they keep getting delivered
and I keep knocking them off after dinner.
The first robot date I had was a disaster. My Wi-Fi went
down due to a drone attack by the People’s Republic of Mars and she literally
lost the ability to speak. She was fine
until we’d finished our mains, then she just buffered till dawn. The second wasn’t much better either. I mean,
she was absolutely gorgeous - perfectly designed to my spec- but no
conversation at all. After that I made
sure I shelled out extra to download the personality software too. I went for “functioning
alcoholic”, and she was great fun. Yeah, I thought the third doll was the one. She was called Kate. Amazing
smile, totally life-like skin, free updates. I was really into her. I’ll never forget our
first date. It was like we’d known each other forever, which I suppose from her
perspective we had: she’d been manufactured only a few hours previously. I made
parsnip soup for starter. But I tripped on the way to the table, spilling it down
her back, causing a short circuit and she burst into flames. She tried to laugh
it off, bless her, but all her skin had melted off. She exploded during
dessert.
I had a lot in common with the fourth robot, the exotically
named “Faith”. We both had strong political views, agreeing that the massacring
of the Kardashian peoples in the East by President Bieber was entirely
justified. President Bieber had visited
every citizen in the state to explain his plan, (in hologram form, obviously),
and had reasoned that The Kardashians had recently discovered cloning and were
now creating an army big enough to launch an invasion. And I was like, “Hey
Kardashians! 2030 called, and it wants its science back!” Justin loved that, grabbing
his crotch in appreciation. “So are you a Belieber?” he said. And I was like, “Errr...do
bears shit in the woods?!” He laughed again, as did Vice President Buble, which
was generous, considering bears have been extinct for over 30 years, and plant
life is impossible in our atmosphere.
It was all going swimmingly with Faith, but then she was
hacked by some teenage Kardashians, and she tried to electrocute me with her
nipples. Just my luck! So she had to go
too. I lured her onto the balcony with a magnet and then pushed her off. She
would have died quickly, the lava moat below burns at about 1000 degrees
centigrade. The balcony trick was also what accounted for my latest victim, dull
old Alice and her stories of men named after snacks. You don’t have
to kill the robots, (the website says they’ll pick them up and recycle them),
but there’s a call out fee, so it works out cheaper to just do it yourself. In
fact, it’s important you do finish them off.
My friend Dave went out with his robot for 18 months. He broke up with
her when she ran out of hard-disk space, and sent her back to the shop. But she
escaped, and two weeks later she came back and strangled him. The last thing
you want is a mental ex, especially if she’s made out of titanium. He was only
146 when he died, such a waste.
I know from what you’ve read here that I probably don’t come
across as a nice guy. But I want you to know that there was a girl once. Yes, a
real girl, who I loved more than anything else in the galaxy. She was pretty
and weird and loved the smell of second hand books and wore her dressing gown too
much. We met at university, Emma and I. We were both studying modern history
and decided to write our dissertation on the same subject: the war crimes of
Nigel Farage. She was totally not my type, but somehow it worked. We dated for
five years and then, a day before I planned to propose, she told me she’d been
offered a dream job on Saturn as a policy advisor to the new King, Brooklyn
Beckham. I begged her not to go, wet
pleas shimmying down my face, but she’d already packed. She’d been planning it
for months. Emma disappeared that evening, and I was left, aimless and
pointless. That’s when I found the robots.
You see, you can control a robot. You design and programme
them. They won’t leave you. What could go wrong? Well lots of things, clearly.
I’m a serial killer, robot wise. The trouble is, right, and here’s the rub, ok,
is that in order to fall in love with a robot that you’ve designed, you have to
have known what you want when you designed it. And to know what you want, you
need to know who you are. The trouble is, the horrible truth is, that I don’t, really.
I know nothing. I’m just a bloke with a
broken heart looking for someone or something to make this whole fucking mess worthwhile.
Anyway, I better go: I’ve got a date tonight. I’m going virtual reality shark
fishing with a girl I met in the teleporter terminal. Fingers crossed.
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