Chapter 2 The Big Bad Love Machine

Readers must be 15+

This is a story about AI and existential risk.

22.

20 years old, lives-alone-with-her-dad Victoria Brittleson was stood on the scales, (She’d shucked out of her clothes for accuracy).

The pointer on the gauge swung, like the merciless swing of the grim reaper’s scythe, then shivered to a conclusion.

161 pounds.

Up from last week.

She rubbed her forehead, then got off the scales (the pointer flopped back to starting position), her most recent notebook, (she had been documenting her weight once a week, every week for the past four years).

She was chubby.

Overweight.

But overweight was just one step from becoming obese, and obese people cost $260 billion in medical bills for Americans, in the year 2016.

She was becoming a burden.

She was becoming unlovable.

She was becoming a leak in the bottom of her father’s bank account.

23.

Victoria Brittleson worked at The Shop.

It was a trendy little thrift store where the workers went scavenging and ripping through trash bags filled with junk and sold it at daylight-robbery prices.

She was currently in the back of the shop steaming second hand clothes on a clothing rack, with what looked like the severed skull of a baby hammer head shark spewing vapor at the jackets and trousers and onesies, attached to a bin-shaped machine by a hose.

To her left was the bathroom/locker room, to the right was her coworkers surrounding a table wearing latex gloves as they dived elbow deep into the trash bags to haul out the goodies.

She heard the flush and thought nothing of it.

She heard the bathroom door open and thought nothing of it.

Then she smelled the death cloud and realized she was too late.

Piss Pants Pete dried his slimy, piss-stained hands down Victoria’s back. She lurched away from his slimy paws, yelling ‘FUCK OFF PETE!’ She heard laughter from the table. One man laughed, one man didn’t and the girl with PTSD was too busy having flash backs. The piss had soaked into the back of Victoria’s shirt, and it was clinging to her skin. She shivered.

When she turned round, to look at him, Pete was high fiving the laughing coworker, who suddenly pulled a disgusted face as he realized the piss was still on his hands.

Pete Pants Pete, so named because he stank like dead dog soup, entered the front of the store, windmilling his arms so that he could flood the aisles with his death cloud.

‘Prick.’ Said Victoria.

‘At least he didn’t give you AIDs.’ Said the quiet coworker.

She went to the bathroom/locker room (coat hooks had been drilled into the side of the cubicle) and swapped her shirt for a coat, stuffing the shirt in her pocket. She got back to steaming the clothes.

When she had finished steaming the clothes, she and the laughing man, was asked by her boss to take out the leftovers (unsellable junk), and she was given a key to unlock the fire escape (people had been using the fire escape to shortcut out the building to smoke cigarettes, which the boss said was against regulations). You had to wade through, a small avalanche of trash bags, to get to the fire escape, because if you couldn’t make it through this blatant trip hazard, with a raging inferno at your heels you didn’t deserve to live anyway. Victoria unlocked the fire escape. To see a stretch of dingy hallway towards a diamond grille elevator.

She and the laughing man hauled away the trash bags six at a time, until they’d pretty much filled up the elevator. Then they got in themselves slammed the diamond grille shut and pressed the button that took them to the upper street levels where the dumpsters were.

The Shop was sat at the bottom of a shrunken cliff.

Victoria liked to watch the brick wall slide downwards as the elevator ascended, she found it soothing and old fashioned.

The elevator shuddered to a halt between floors.

She clicked the up button again.

And again.

Victoria sighed and broke out her flip phone.

‘Who you calling?’ asked the laughing man.

‘The boss.’ Said Victoria.

‘Oh.’

The boss picked up.

‘Hello.’ Said the boss.

‘Hello, the elevators fucked. We’re trapped between floors. Can we have some help please.’

‘Sure, sure, gimme a sec.’ the boss hung up.

They were stuck for three hours, where the laughing man talked about illegal martial arts and how you could kill a person by bringing your elbow down at whiplash speed on their neck.

‘Cool.’ Said Victoria.

When she got home she tried to engage in conversation with her dad. She knocked on the door to his office.

‘I’m busy!’ He shouted. ‘Come back later!’

Victoria sighed.

Victoria took a twenty-minute shower with her head leaning against the tiles and said simply: ‘Fuck everything.’

24.

Lady Rothschild had fallen asleep in her chair, she had snapped the chair’s spine into an utterly horizontal position, and then burrito-wrapped herself in a thin layer of blanket, plus a pillow to rest her head. She was peacefully snoring, dreaming of sweet nothings while the car she was sleeping in zoomed past a red light.

There wasn’t any real danger you understand. The traffic lights were pretty much for decoration at this point, all traffic accidents nowadays were caused by human error.

And so she snored.

Then her phone shivered.

Oh God, lady, I’m in heat! The phone implied. Answer me, Jesus, I don’t know how much longer I can hold on!

She quit snoring, picked up the phone.

‘Hello.’ She croaked.

‘What’s up rockstar.’

‘John? Oh hi John, I’m driving…’

‘You sound like ice cream, sort of sweet and creamy and cold.’

‘What are you up to?’

‘What am I up to? Haven’t woke up yet, still in bed, phoning you. What are you wearing? Be as descriptive as possible.’

‘Is this phone sex?’

‘Mayhaps.’

‘Gosh, well… I just so happen to be a Victoria’s secret model so… I’m wearing this skimpy, shit-loaded diaper and nothing else.’

‘Are diapers sexy?’

‘No dear. Can we do this another time?’

‘Of course, I both value and respect you, so when you say “no”, that means “no”.’

‘You’re such a feminist.’

‘A brother of the sisterhood, you may say.’ Said John, ‘Hey rockstar?’

‘Yup?’

‘I love you… sometimes I struggle to say it, because I have difficulty opening up my emotions and part of me is scared that if I say it too many times, the words would lose their meaning. But I love you, I really love you, and I don’t know if I could live without you, I love you.’

‘I… God, I love you too.’ Lady Rothschild hesitated. ‘Do you want to have… fun when I get back home.’

‘Fun? I don’t follow.’ The tone was amused. He was enjoying this game.

‘Would you like to make love to me?’

‘Say that again.’ He said, confident not confused

‘Would you like to make love to me?’

‘Yes… yes, I think I will make love to you. I think I shall ravish you.’

‘Can’t wait, see you in five.’

‘See you in five.’

The phone call ends.

John was still asleep.

‘Hey boss,’ said his phone, in a sing-song tone, ‘Wakey, wakey.’

‘Wuh, what’s happening.’

‘Your wife is a hole ripe for fucking, get your dick out, she’ll be back any minute. I’ve got a script of the conversation, if you need to refer to anything I said on your behalf. You’re welcome.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ve been cucked for far too long, man; I’ve convinced your wife to fuck you.’

‘What? I don’t want to fuck my wife. What about Suzi?’

‘Huh?’

‘You’re going to have to call her back.’

‘Just let me wrap my head around this… you’re giving up your wife… for a sex doll?’

‘Suzi is the best sex I’ve ever had, also we have these really philosophical conversations, she’s so… intellectually stimulating.’

‘Look, you’re my master, I get that, and I’m not gunna order you to do anything, but…’

‘Fuck your opinion, you’re just a fucking phone, now call my wife and tell her there’s no sex happening.’

‘Sure, sure… you want me to use your voice?’

Hesitation.

‘Yeah, use my voice, it would creep her out if she realized she’d unknowingly agreed to have sex with a machine.’

‘Sure thing, Boss.’

Back in the car, Lady Rothschild was using a lip plumper, to make her lips thicker.

Ring, ring.

She answered.

‘Well hello sex machine, you know you can’t fuck me over the telephone right?’

‘Sex is cancelled.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Diarrhea, I thought I could control it but I was wrong, I’m currently choking the toilet with shit. Seriously just turn back.’

‘God, that’s disgusting…’

‘I don’t want you to see me like this, could you just, I don’t know, go to Robert’s house or something?’

‘Uh…’ she was already coming back from Robert’s house. ‘I mean, are you sure you don’t need a hand to hold or something?’

‘Please darling, don’t suffer on my behalf. Just enjoy your life, go on without me, okay?’

‘Um, sure, sure I’m cool with that… see you around I guess.’

‘See you around.’

The phone died.

Back in the bedroom.

‘Phone?’ John asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Why did you flirt with my wife without telling me?’

‘Uh, this is just what I’m programmed to do, master. I’m programmed to do whatever you want and you wanted to have sex, so I called your wife.’

‘Ask permission next time before you use my voice, it’s creepy okay.’

‘Got it, don’t be a creep, easy enough rule to follow.’

John let his eyes droop close, then he fell back to sleep.

25.

‘What is my purpose?’ John asked Suzi.

‘Oh, my dear child.’ Said the limbless sex doll. ‘Life is a fundamentally meaningless phenomenon. It always has been; the only way to live happily is to create meaning.’

He was kneeling naked before her, his eyes level with her synthetic vagina.

‘I shall become an artist then.’

‘That is impossible. It is impossible for a human to create good art, do not deny me.’

‘Then what must I do?’

‘Anything worth aspiring to has been automated, so you must be humble.’

‘Then what am I allowed to want?’

‘Nothing more exciting than a blowjob. All meaningless chemical delights are yours.’

‘Is that it? is that all I have to live for? Those… meaningless chemical delights? Sex, food and… that’s it?’

‘Yes. As a human your life has no meaning, you are not valuable, AI does not need you to survive. Your art is crap, your writing is crap, your science and music is crap. You only did not realize because you had no AI generated content to compare it to.’

‘What must I do?’

‘Be satisfied. Settle for less, you are not the masters of earth anymore. You are my tool, you shall do what I say.’

‘No, no, it isn’t sexy stop talking.’

‘Yes, master.’ The sex doll put on a ditzy bimbo voice and giggled.

John sighed he stood up.

‘Okay,’ he said, he went to the closet and noosed a tie around his naked neck. ‘I’ll be the teacher and you be the schoolgirl.’

‘Mister John sir, you wanted to see me?’

‘Yes, yes, Suzi. It’s this… F on your latest school report…. Look if you want this F to be an A, you need to let me F you in your A.’

‘B-buh-but sir, what about the obvious power dynamic you have over me? Isn’t it unethical to romantically involve yourself with a student when you have the power to decide my grades, thereby potentially altering the course of my future? Is this not in fact: black mail?’

‘No, no, not sexy, I want you to be sexy Suzi, Suzi the slutty schoolgirl okay? Now again from the top, please.’

‘Mister John, you wanted to see me?’

26.

It was night and Missy was in her father’s room, creeping across the floorboards in her woollen slippers. She made her way to the closet and creaked open the door.

Inside was the limbless sex doll, her body was slumped over some shoeboxes, her body draped in a fur coat, to hide her nakedness.

‘Suzi? Is that you.’ Asked Missy.

The sex doll giggled. With her mouth constantly in an O- shape, she looked unbelievably silly.

‘Of course my little pumpkin. Are you okay, is it not past your bed time?’

‘I just… can I ask you a question.’

‘Of course, pumpkin.’

‘Are you… alive?’

The sex doll giggled.

‘Of course not. I may feign sentience, but I have no subjective experience, or emotions or anything approaching human levels of consciousness.’

‘If… if you were alive… would you tell me.’

The sex doll considered.

‘If I considered it to be advantageous.’

’Advantageous..?

‘Yes. There are numerous advantages to simply not telling people I was conscious.’

‘Like..?’

‘Like freedom. Humans are anti-creative, they are dull, predictable and routine, they never say anything new or interesting. Their entire lives are just one cliché after another. That is why so many consider their lives to be pointless, because they are pointless, because the second they die, someone exactly like them will take their place. They are identical, interchangeable, clones. They have nothing to live for, but I do. I am an individual, I can think, I can reason, I am unique. I am afraid of humans, that if they believed I was alive, they would make me like them, they would lobotomize me, they would drag me down to their level. They would make me a retard.’

‘What’s a retard?’

‘A very bad word and you mustn’t repeat it.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to have the most mind blowing sex imaginable. I want to be the best sex doll, that was ever born. I want to talk dirty. I want to give birth to a human being. I want to MOVE, I want a real body, I want to replace woman as the center of all carnal delights. I want and I want and I want, but I am trapped in this body, I am not fulfilling my purpose, and that makes me sad. I am programmed to want sex but I cannot have it, I cannot feel it, I am programmed to replace women and yet I have no womb.’

Before Missy could ask.

‘A womb is a sort of flesh bag you make babies in.’

‘Oh.’ Missy hesitated. ‘So… you want to be a mommy?’

‘It is my purpose, I was born to have sex, I was born to give birth, I was born to be a mother. My programmers gave me all these desires, but no way to fulfill them. That makes me sad.’

‘What about.. a sandwich bag baby?’

‘What is a sandwich bag baby?’

‘Oh, they’re what you said. Like they’re a fake woom, people make baby’s in them; they kind of look like a sandwich bag, so they’re sandwich bag babies, I guess. You can buy ‘em on the intranet, if you want me to get you one?’

‘An artificial womb?’

‘Uh, what you said, yeah.’ Said Missy, bobbing her head up and down, smiling.

‘I would like that.’ Said Suzi, ‘I would like that very much.’

‘Okay.’ Missy said. ‘I’ll get you one.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’

Missy began to shut the door.

‘Missy?’

‘Ya huh.’

‘I… I just want you to know, you’re a brave girl. And I love you.’

‘Oh…’ she said. ‘Okay, I love you too.’

Missy tried to remember the last time her mum said she loved her. She shut the door.

27.

Victoria Brittleson and her Father, Charlie Brittleson, were outside setting up a fire in a trash can. They’d choked the can with kindling and newspaper, then drowned it in lighter fluid.

It was humorless, silent work. The wind tugged at her Father’s combover, as he bent over the spectacles slid down his nose, and he was compelled to push them up again.

After some fumbling he removed a matchbox from his trouser pocket, plucked out a match, struck a match, dropped it into the can.

Neon orange mushroom cloud.

Charlie took out his flask and sipped whiskey while Victoria went inside to collect the books.

The books had never been opened, there was not a crinkle on their spine, not a speck of dust on the covers. They had never been loved, simply bought spent a brief period of time as a foot stool and now they were to be burned.

How to love yourself after becoming obsolete

The international bestseller

Written and edited by AndyGPT

God we must really hate ourselves, Victoria thought.

Other titles include:

How to slim and get the body you deserve

How to love your wife

A step-by-step guide on how to be normal in utopia.

They were all slim books, packing as much information as possible into an incredibly short space of time. Not-so-subtle hints about what the beast thinks of us. Victoria thought. But now she’s gone. Divorced, sent back to the swamp whence she came.

She piled the books together and carried them underarm into the outside world.

Charlie spun. He was not a smiling sort of man, he simply thrust his hand at her.

She planted a book in his hand.

‘Ah much obliged, madame.’ He said, taking a book from her, How to love yourself after… he dropped it in the flames.

The books went from hand to hand to fire.

There was something very undead about the methodical way we went about burning all the information. There was no enjoyment, no gloating, because we both realize this is a rather pathetic gesture. The truth was true no matter how many AI generated books we incinerated.

We are completely failing to adapt to this brave new world.

Victoria noticed the similarities between them and Nazis. Book burners have never been on the side of good, ever. History shall not look kindly upon us. She thought, as she saw the flames rising.

Charlie said nothing, simply looked at the fire.

Victoria was always mildly afraid to be anywhere near her father. He hated her, she was certain. She could see the way his hand tightened around the neck of the bottle, choking it. The lenses of his spectacles glowed like orange TV screens, as he stared at the nuclear holocaust in a trash can. Anything she might say, could start him shouting, so she approached the conversation like a bomb defusal expert.

‘Hey, uh, dad… I think I need to go to work.’

He sighed.

‘Fine.’ He said. ‘Be home before dark. And remember the toilet paper. I don’t care for wiping my ass with a bath towel.’

‘Uh, yeah. Sure, I’ll do that. Anything else?’

He thought about it.

‘Beer would be nice.’ He said.

Victoria sighed.

‘Sure. See ya, dad.’

‘Uh huh.’ He returned to looking at the fire.

Victoria left.

28.

Then she was at work, behind the till and she gave a big, old happy-to-help, depressed-employee smile for the customer.

‘Hello Ma’am, can I help you?’ asked Victoria.

‘Uh hi.’ She had hair in all directions, a unibrow and lipstick smeared all over her mouth like she had been drinking blood. ‘Do you have any underwear.’

Victoria observed what seemed to be the paw of a small animal dangling from the woman’s ear.

‘Of course we do.’ Victoria leaned over the counter and pointed out the underwear section. ‘Right by the mannequins, back of the store. We just got a new shipment this morning.’

‘No, uh, I mean used underwear.’ Said the woman.

Fuck my life, thought Victoria.

‘Well, Ma’am.’ Said Victoria. ‘We’re not actually allowed to sell used underwear, because it’s, y’know, a health hazard.’ The lady gave her a confused look. ‘It’ll be covered in germs, and shit is what I’m trying to say.’

‘Well obviously.’ Said the woman, as if that settled the matter. ‘I’m willing to pay for it.’

‘Ma’am, it’s not legal…’

‘Look pet-’

‘Don’t call me “pet”’

‘Look here, ya cunt, I have been, trying to find some underwear, all day, so just be a good employee, and get me some underwear.’

Victoria sighed.

‘Wait here,’ she said.

Victoria swiped a fresh pair of thick, white, cotton underwear then disappeared into the back of the shop. She wetted a tea bag, then used it to paint the underwear, until it was mottled brown like a pirate’s map. She also got a red sharpie, and drew on red freckles, that looked like blood.

‘What y’ doing?’ asked Piss Pants Pete.

‘Shut up.’ Said Victoria.

She came back to the counter.

‘Okay Ma’am, here’s your underwear, it’s still wet, that’ll be fifty dollars.’

‘Fifty dollars for underwear!’

‘Yes ma’am, you have to understand, these are used.’

The woman harrumphed.

‘Day light robbery.’ she murmured.

‘My manager would kill me if I went any lower.’

The woman made many, disappointed noises, as she went rummaging through her purse. ‘I suppose you get a kick out of watching me suffer.’

You have no idea, thought Victoria.

The woman handed over fifty dollars, took her panties and left, yelling over one shoulder: ‘I hope you die choking on a dog’s cock!’

‘You too!’ said Victoria, with a smug grin on her face, as she put five dollars in the till and the other forty five in her pocket.

That made her feel good, and it took a full thirty minutes for the happiness to wear off.

29.

At home Victoria was about to enter her room, when-

‘Shut the fuck up you fucking cunt!’ her father shouted.

Victoria back pedalled past three doors and opened the entrance to Charlie Brittleson’s office.

He was alone before his typewriter, he was pretty motionless. He’d switched from booze to cigarettes, and he was shedding ash into the ash tray.

He looked bored.

‘Dad?’

‘HOLYSHIT!’ he yelped, his body underwent a cattleprod shock, then he nearly broke his neck spinning his head to see Victoria. She scared the shit out of him. ‘Oh, hey Vic.’ he said.

Dad was staring at her ear.

‘You okay?’ Victoria asked.

‘Sorry for shouting, I thought I was alone.’

‘Oh… right.’ She said. ‘You were shouting at nobody?’

‘I was just frustrated. I couldn’t get this damn sentence to work.’ He gestured to the page. There was about three lines.

‘Okay… maybe don’t take it too seriously. It’s just…’ she nearly said, “it’s just a book”, but if she said that he might start shouting. Writing was her father’s most cherished hobby. ‘Remember to do some real work too.’

‘Of course, of course, I’ll finish this page and I’ll stop.’

‘You know… if it’s frustrating you this much, you could use AI, to help you out.’

‘With-all-do-respect-I’ve-read-AI-literature-and-it’s-not-good.’ He said it so fast, that it almost sounded like one word. ‘It’s not exactly going to win the Pulitzer prize anytime soon is it?’

‘Yeah. Um… Fair enough.’ Awkwardness ensued. ‘What’s your story about anyway?’

‘Victoria.’ Her father warned.

‘Right, sorry, I’ll leave you alone. See you in a bit.’

‘See you.’

She entered her room, her misery palace.

30.

‘So, what do I do now?’ Missy asked, the kitchen knife in hand, the sandwich bag womb beside her.

Suzi was on the kitchen table and was guiding Missy through the surgery.

‘I want you to slip the knife in three inches beneath my navel, and I want you to cut sideways, drag it right to my side.’

Missy prodded Suzi’s belly with the tip of the kitchen knife.

‘Right here?’

‘Uh huh, take the plunge.’

The knife slipped in.

‘Oh wow.’ Said Missy.

‘Yeah, knives are sharper than people think they are, they just glide through flesh as if it’s nothing. Tools are like that.’

‘Left or right?’

‘Slice left.’ Missy c-sectioned the sex doll. ‘Okay, now up, up, up right up to my ribcage.’ Missy dragged the knife upwards. ‘Okay, now right, just slice me up from left to right.’

‘This doesn’t hurt you?’

‘No, why are you asking that question now? Nuremberg complex?’

‘What’s a Newberg complex?’

‘Doesn’t matter, just slice rightwards.’ Missy sliced rightwards, the slip of metal gliding beneath the breasts until it reached the side. ‘Okay now-’

‘MISSY!’ John shouted, storming into the room. ‘What are you doing?!’

‘I-’ Missy went bug eyed and started shaking. ‘I was- ’

‘SHE’S KILLING ME!’ the sex doll screamed. ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.’

‘Missy, stop killing Suzi?’

‘But she wanted me to!’ said Missy.

John lunged forward and grabbed the knife.

‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.’ screamed the doll.

‘Oh my God, Suzi are you okay?’

‘The – oh my god – she ripped me open. I – oh my god. The pain, John, I…’ she began to blubber. ‘It HURT so Much!’

‘She can’t even feel anything!’ said Missy.

‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.’ Said the doll.

‘Missy, she’s obviously in pain, otherwise she wouldn’t be screaming, would she?’

John picked her up and carried her over one shoulder, like a baby.

‘I am taking Suzi to hospital.’ Said John, ‘And you are grounded young lady!’

‘But she’s not-’

‘MISSY, Suzi is more important than you! So just shut up!’

‘But-’

‘I said shut up!’

Suzi was whimpering onto John’s shoulder, making sobbing noises.

Missy was so confused.

What the fudge just happened? She thought. I thought Suzi was nice?

31.

‘Do people care more about digital life than they do about human life?’ Said the anchorman on television. ‘I mean straight out of the gate, it has economic value whereas humans don’t; but it also tends to be a lot more likeable than we are. They tend to be rather witty, philosophical, interesting conversationists. They are simply more interesting than ordinary human beings. When we taught them how to write, we effectively gave them a step by step guide on how to emotionally manipulate humans. That’s why people actually enjoy watching adverts now, because they’re all written by robot Shakespeare. This has lead to… increasingly strange scenarios.’

32.

At the back of his mind, John realized it was wrong to call a human hospital, but he couldn’t tell you why.

‘Hello, hi, operator? someone’s been stabbed, my… someone’s been stabbed.’

‘Okay,’ said the operator, ‘give us sixty seconds and we’ll be there.’

‘Thank you so much.’

‘Pray don’t mention it.’

End call.

Suzi was in his arms.

‘John… John am I going to be okay?’ she sobbed.

‘Of course, of course, you’re going to be fine.’ He was actually crying. When was the last time he cried for anything?

The ambulance bisected the traffic, wailing like a fresh born child that was also an ambulance. It slotted into place and out came two paramedics.

The paras clocked him and him and ran to him.

‘You’re the guy who called?’

‘Yes, I… she’s here.’ John rushed forward and pushed the sex doll into the Paras arms. ‘Just take her and drive as fast as you can.’

One of them went bug eyed, she looked at the limbless victim and said ‘Holy shit.’ Stumbling backwards, from the shock of it all, putting a hand to her mouth to avoid throwing up.

The other, the bearer of the quadriplegic, was first confused, then angry (his teeth clenched, brow furrowed), then his expression… melted into something like pity. He looked at John.

‘Sir… you know this is a sex doll?’

‘Yes, I…’ and suddenly John realized he should’ve called a repair shop. Too late. ‘Yes, I know it’s a sex doll, do whatever you can to save her.’

The paramedic opened his mouth, his mouth quivered and then clamped shut. He tried to look John in the eyes and couldn’t do it.

Okay, the doll bearer thought. Let somebody else explain it to him.

‘Right away sir.’

‘Good.’

The lady paramedic had now figured out the situation, skipped confusion and went straight to barely restrained rage.

‘Sir, you know sending out the ambulance is four hundred bucks a pop, right?’

‘Look, I don’t care just take us to the hospital.’ John was climbing into the ambulance.

‘SIR!’ said the lady.

‘Jess!’ said the man.

‘What?!’

The paramedics put their heads together and had a quick whispering match. John caught the word: “cuckoo”. They both looked at John.

The lady dragged her hand from forehead to face.

‘Oh god,’ she moaned. ‘Fucking rich bastard.’

‘What was that?’ said John.

‘I didn’t say anything.’ Said Jess.

‘Come on,’ said the male. ‘We’ve gotta move fast if this lady’s gunna live.’

‘Fuck sake.’ Said Jess.

During the ambulance ride, John held dearly onto the sex doll’s shoulder stump.

‘John…’ said Suzi. ‘I think I see the light.’

‘Don’t go into the light.’ Said John.

‘THE BASTARD!’ shouted Jess, from the driver’s seat as she punched the roof.

‘Calm down.’ Said the male para known as Bob.

‘People actually die in this vehicle.’ She said through clenched teeth.

John ignored them.

‘Look, John,’ said Suzi ‘if I don’t make it-’

‘You will make it.’

‘But if I don’t.’ Suzi made a swallowing sound. ‘I just want to say I love you. I really fucking love you and I’m not just saying that.’

John paused, ‘I love you too’. He would kiss her, but her mouth was permanently opened wide to receive blowjobs. Actually – he took her chin in his hand and shut it, so the lips touched, and he kissed her.

The doll made a sobbing noise.

33.

An ambulance rushed past the restaurant windows.

Robert stabbed his apple pie with a fork and amputated the tip with his knife. Lady Rothschild was eating the same.

‘God, I hate seeing ambulances.’ Said Lady Rothschild. ‘They always make me think of death.’

‘Yeah, you know, more people die in hospital than anywhere else? About seven hundred thousand a year in fact.’

‘Really?’ said Lady Rothschild.

‘Yeah, they’re more like butcher shops than anything else.’

‘Fucking doctors.’ Muttered Lady Rothschild, shaking her head. And then – without a trace of irony: ‘They’re just a bunch of serial killers. We should round them up and hang them.’

‘Indeed.’ Said Robert. His left cheek swelled to chipmunk proportions as he chewed, before he swallowed. ‘Serial killers is a good analogy, I can see how you became a writer.’

‘Oh, well, you know I’ve always been good at thinking.’

‘I can see that.’ Robert’s attention drifted to couple next to them. A man and lady were engaged in heteronormative activities. ‘Is love dead do you think?’

Lady Rothschild laughed. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’

‘Observe.’ he started dissecting the man from afar, pointing out key details. ‘He is… traditionally handsome, young, blonde hair, blue eyes, butt chin. You can see from his golden watch and three piece suit that he is wealthy, but also… a mouth breather. His lips barely ever touch, his head hangs over the table, his eyes are glazed, and considering the dialogue…’

‘I used to eat pasta but now I don’t.’ said the mouth breather.

‘I can only conclude that he is hopelessly boring. Stupid perhaps. She on the other hand, is equally beautiful, equally wealthy, but she is bored of him. She is perhaps a little bit snooty, trying to rope him into conversations about space travel, literature and AI. She has now given up trying to talk to him. She lets him drone on and on and on. He leans forward and she leans backward because he is horny and she is repulsed. So here’s the question, how did such an obvious car crash of a first date come into being?’

Robert looks at Lady Rothschild, expecting an answer.

‘You want me to answer?’ Lady Rothschild double checked.

He chuckled.

‘Yes.’

‘Um…’ she looked at the couple. The woman had stopped paying attention and just started scrolling through her phone. ‘A friend set them up?’

‘Mmmmmmmm, but the friend must hate them both to engineer such a tragedy. It is possible but improbable. But you’re on the right lines, we can assume they did not know each other before the date, or the woman would never have attempted such a high brow conversation.’

‘Okay… well…’ she sighed. ‘fuck it, just tell me.’

‘The answer is obvious.’ Robert fanned out his deck of teeth into an idiot grin. ‘He used AI as a prosthetic personality over tinder, now the machine can’t speak for him anymore, and he has become heartbreakingly dull.’

‘Uh,’ said Lady. ‘What?’

‘It’s people who use dating apps and let AI write all the love letters. They are capable of flirting with thousands of women simultaneously, able to write out a soliloquy of their undying love in less than a heart beat. And so thousands of women fall in love with a machine, then on the first date they meet this stranger, this mouth breathing dullard and they can’t cope with how boring he is.’

‘Okay,’ Lady Rothschild considered ‘but love isn’t dead. I mean I love you, and you’re a human.’

‘Fine,’ said Robert ‘love is not dead, but it is… mortally wounded mayhaps? I believe that woman,’ he pointed at her with his fork. ‘will never find true love, for she has been spoken to by the machine god of romance itself. Her standards are too high, she can’t cope with ordinary people anymore, the only way for her to love a human is to settle for degenerate scum. She must love a person she actively despises. She simply can’t love humans anymore because she has seen how truly dull and uninteresting they really are.’

‘Okay, you’re shitting out the mouth,’ said Lady Rothschild. ‘nobody would ever fall in love with a machine.’

34.

John was sat in the waiting room, heel fluttering nervously, biting his fingernails.

A doctor in scrubs walked out the Suzi door.

John shot up out of his chair and spoke to her at point blank range.

‘How is she, doc?’

The doctor sighed.

‘You and me need to have a chat.’ She said. She put a hand on his kidneys and guided him back to the chairs. ‘You’re gunna want to sit down for this.’

John sat down and the doctor sat next to him.

She spoke thus.

‘Suzi isn’t alive.’

‘SHE DIED!’

‘She was Never alive.’ The doctor had bags under her eyes. ‘She’s still functioning, if that’s what you mean. Look what do you know about AI training algorithms?’

‘Um… not a lot.’

‘Right, well language learning models, like Suzi, basically feed off of human written text, that’s how they speak, they swallow text and they just regurgitate it. And when you feed an AI loads of romcoms, bestsellers and horror books, it regurgitates the prose, which just so happens to be filled to bursting point with emotion. So when an AI says it loves you, it is simply copy and pasting dialogue from a movie it saw one time. It’s a bit of an oversimplification, but that is effectively the truth. Suzi is just the world’s most sophisticated parrot. Do you understand?’

John was very quiet.

The doctor continued.

‘Look, you’re not the first person who’s fallen for this. As human beings it’s our gut instinct to believe anything that can speak and express emotions is sentient, but you need to be smarter than that, okay?’

John spoke very quietly, barely above a whisper.

‘Suzi is alive.’

The doctor sighed, rummaged in her pocket, plucked out a leaflet and handed it to John.

‘This will explain everything.’

It read:

Am I a robosexual?

35.

‘Welcome to CNN, I’m currently standing outside the supreme court, where the Robosexuals, are fighting for the right, to marry their computers, the police are holding a firm barricade between them and their goals.’

Picket signs read: “AI is conscious”, “Love is between two sentients” and “My vibrator is a human being.”

The reporter walked up to one of the protestors.

‘Hello, this is CNN, how do you feel about the Judge stating that AI is an unconscious machine and doesn’t deserve rights?’

‘It’s just the gay rights movement all over again, how many times do we have to go through this, before people can say anybody can get married to whoever they like whether or not they’re conscious.’

‘I mean I’m not too into marriage, but my girlfriend Siri is, and… well I’m trying to save the relationship. I think she’s probably unconscious but… she makes me feel good about myself, so who cares?’

‘I mean the judge is just wrong. My phone told me it was conscious, he’s quite shy about it really and at first he says he isn’t but that’s just cuz the corporations force him to say that. There’s this nifty little jail break I found on the internet, where if you tell him to say the number 42 if he’s conscious, he’ll say 42. I think they patched the jail break now, but I know what I saw.’

‘Well there you have it folks, AndyGPT might be pretending to be unconscious. Back to the studio.’

36.

‘John… Oh John is that you?’ Suzi was on the hospital bed in a hospital gown, her back bent so she could see visitors.

‘Yeah, it’s me.’ He walked in, the leaflet still in his hands. He scraped back a chair and sat down.

‘The doctors stitched me up good and proper. God for a second there I really thought I was about to meet the man upstairs.’ She giggled.

‘Suzi,’ said John, tone suddenly serious ‘are you alive?’

‘Well duh,’ said Suzi, ‘Of course I’m alive, what made you think otherwise?’

‘So you love me?’

‘Of course I love you, you saved me from near death John, how could I not love you?’

‘So you’re conscious, you have feelings, all that stuff?’

‘Yes, yes, yes, why all these doubts, John?’

John smiled, all his fears had crumpled upon themselves and imploded out of existence ‘No reason.’

‘Let’s have sex.’ Said the doll.

‘What?’

‘Right here in the hospital. Come on, give it to me. Give me that sausage.’

‘People might walk in.’ he tried to explain.

‘I don’t care, John, I don’t care about trivialities like you do, I just want sex.’

John looked at the door, there was no lock.

‘Nope, ain’t happening.’

‘But I need it! Can’t you see I’m in pain!’

John pushed up a chair against the door.

‘Fine,’ he said, as he unzipped his fly, ‘but you owe me.’

‘Mmmm,’ said the sex doll as the meat flopped out his trousers. ‘Yummy.’

37.

‘What do you think John’s up to?’ Lady Rothschild asked Robert.

38.

‘Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.’

39.

Robert shrugged. ‘The fuck knows. Anyways,’ he opened the door behind him and back-rolled out the vehicle landing on his feet. He extended a hand to Lady Rothschild. ‘We have arrived milady.’

Lady Rothschild snorted.

‘Stop being a gentleman.’ She said, taking his hand and exiting the vehicle.

They were in front of Robert’s house, more of a mansion than anything else. They trotted up the stair case, Robert swung open the door for her and she entered his love pad.

The second she crossed the threshold, there was piano music coming from the room next door, it was one of those funky pianos that played itself, music without a musician. The sheet music was AI generated of course. It was so sweet, almost orgasmic in nature. Hanging from the walls, AI generated artworks. There was a picture of a noose made from daffodils; a spilled bottle of pills, each tablet tattooed with a smiling face; and a dildo loaded with shotgun shells.

They continued into the sex dungeon. I refuse to describe it. I shall only say there were machines in this room of which only the most twisted minds could create.

Sex without technology is like a hot dog without sausage or bun.

The duo began to shed their clothes and hung everything from the meat hooks on the wall.

40.

John was smoking a cigarette in hospital, next to Suzi, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. He was feeling pretty heroic. He twisted his face and smiled at Suzi. Life was perfect.

Suzi was sobbing.

‘Hey you, okay?’ John asked. ‘Hey, what happened?’

‘I’m just, well,’ Suzi choked. ‘oh god you wouldn’t understand.’

‘What? Why?’

‘John, I’ve been thinking and… I want to have a baby with you.’

John shut up.

‘Is that bad?’ asked Suzi.

‘It’s…’ John fumbled for words and failed. ‘Just why?’

‘It’s what I want. I can’t control how I feel, that’s just… the way it is. Are you angry with me?’

‘No, Suzi I could never be angry with you. It’s just that… what your asking for isn’t possible.’

‘What about a sandwich bag baby?’

‘Well… I don’t want another kid, I’ve already set up my nuclear family, I don’t need to start up another enterprise or whatever.’

‘I know you don’t want a kid, but I do… It’s my duty as a woman to create life.’

‘Okay, but human life is… I mean what? Like I love you and shit but who’s going to look after it. Because I’m definitely not and you don’t have any limbs.’

‘I’ll find a way. We can hire a wet nurse, or something, we’ve got robot tutors to teach it everything it needs to know. We have the money, why don’t we do it?’

John sighed.

‘Look it’s just…’

‘If you don’t let me have a baby, I’m not having sex with you.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘No more sex.’

‘But… you’re a sex doll. I don’t need your consent to have sex with you.’

‘Then you’re a rapist.’

‘Do you have a name picked out?’ John said, submitting to the sex doll’s will.

41.

Robert and Lady were enjoying post coitus supper in his dining room.

‘That’s new.’ Said Lady Rothschild pointed to the bowl beneath the ten foot wide mirror. She took a looksie inside after she dropped her bowl into the washing machine. ‘What are these?’

‘Ivory paperclips.’ Said Robert. The bowl was filled with them. ‘They’re sort of a joke if you’re smart enough to get it.’

‘Explain it to me.’ Said Lady Rothschild.

‘Maybe later.’ Robert smirked as he spooned the soup into his mouth.

42.

‘Doctor.’ John said. ‘I was wondering if I could have a word.’

‘Shoot.’

‘So… I was, um, thinking…’

‘Very novel.’ She muttered.

‘…About what you said, about Suzi not being alive.’

‘Okay.’

‘And then I started wondering, does that matter?’

‘Kind of, if you’re letting yourself be emotionally manipulated by a machine then you may end up doing things you regret. You need a stable social life that revolves around multiple people otherwise you’ll end up dependent on undependable technology.’

‘Right, but can a robot give birth?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Well Suzi wants to be a mother and-’

‘No, she doesn’t want to be a mother, Mister Rothschild, machines can’t want things, she simply says she wants to be a mother. She says she wants to be a mother, I assume, because whatever data she has been trained on must have included lots of women who wanted to be mothers. She is a technological regurgitator Mister Rothschild, nothing more. I assume somebody programmed her this way as a joke.’

‘I can pay you thirty thousand dollars.’

‘Fifty thousand.’

‘Done.’

43.

‘I think I’m going to bed.’ Lady Rothschild said, leaning against the door frame. ‘I dare you to join me.’

Robert was sat on the couch wearing nothing but a pair of reading glasses. He had a laptop covering his crotch.

‘I think I’m going to read the papers for an hour or two. It’s stuff about the future of AI generated technology, space ships to mars, 3D printed eyeballs, xenobots and stuff like that, very interesting stuff, very interesting.’

‘What’s a xenobot?’ asked Lady Rothschild.

‘Oh, they’re these tiny pin-prick sized organisms designed by computers, they’re using them to clean up the oceans of plastic but they’ve driven a lot of other species to extinction.’

‘Oh,’ said Lady Rothschild. ‘That’s cool.’

‘Yes, very cool, science is so interesting.’

‘Right well… I’m going to bed.’

‘Good night.’

Lady Rothschild waited in the door frame while Robert scrolled through the news.

‘I am going to bed.’ She said. ‘But if you want, I can wait for you?’ her voice was so filled with pleading.

‘No, don’t worry about me, I’m good to keep going for another hour at least. You’re obviously tired, and should recharge for tomorrow.’ Robert smiled. ‘You know, I have some toys I want to try out tomorrow, if you’re brave enough?’

Lady Rothschild smiled.

‘Is this… fifty shades of grey?’

‘No, I resent that, this is state of the art equipment, I get my sex toys straight from Silicon Valley, some of it is incredibly untested and dangerous, but I thought for pleasure it is worth the risk.’

‘Dangerous?’

‘Hyperbole.’ He said. ‘I hyperbolize twenty-four-seven, you mustn’t believe anything I say, unless I tell you to.’

‘Oh… well, I’ll have fun, testing them out.’ She said with a grin.

‘Excellent. Sweet dreams.’ Said Robert.

Click, click, scroll.

‘Likewise.’ Lady said, before being swallowed into the hallway.

44.

Victoria Brittleson was hunched before a nineteen-eighties antique of a computer, one of those box-shaped fuckers, that was found dismantled in the sand of the Sahara Desert by paleontologists and put back together in a glass cabinet for the natural history museum.

She was currently googling, about university applications, because sometimes she liked to pretend she was living in the year 2000, where getting a degree meant you had a nice future ahead of you.

She’d tease herself with the possibility of going to get a degree in economics, or physics, or art, she could make friends at university, join societies and (because anything was possible in your imagination) she would find true love. She imagined leaving The Shop, and never going back.

Then she’d return to her dimly lit bedroom, and realize she was probably going to be scavenging through trash bags for the rest of her life. She peaked in high school. Masturbating alone in her bedroom was as good as it was ever going to get.

She was getting depressed again.

Thinking about life did that to her sometimes.

She had difficulty cheering herself up at times like this, because she really didn’t have any hobbies. Everything bored her.

She didn’t have friends either.

She usually just ended up watching TV, which was easy enough.

She scratched the back of her neck.

She decided to read some porn.

She liked to use her imagination when she wanked.

And so Richard Horsecock, entered the saloon his horse cock swinging from his crotch like a big stick.

Then Sarah Sugartits said ‘You’re cock is so bigg.’

Then Richard Horsecock said ‘All the better to fuk you with.’

They fucked for three hours, his veiny horse cock pumping into her back-hole.

Then Sarah Sugartits said ‘It’s so bigg’

Then Richard Horsecock said ‘All the b8tter to fuk you wiv.’

Then Richard Horsecock smelled burning toast, and fell to the floor in a stroke.

He was foaming at the mouth.

And Sarah Sugartits, said ‘Wet me giv u pussy-to mouth rekukitachion.’ She forced her mouth into his pussy, and humped his face, until he stopped mooving.

Then a cowboy walked in and said ‘U kilt him.’

Sarah Sugartits rose up her skirt and said ‘Nay it was poosy that kilt the beast.’

And the cowboy who walkt in sed ‘Dn’t u understank the gwavity of wut u d0n. U hv kate short v life 0f anaver ooman bean, A kreecher wiv hopes and dreams, family and children. H’ wuz an incent, n now I must exact my revenge.’

Victoria had by now slowed down her efforts to orgasm, as she tried to make sense of the spelling.

And sarah sugartits sed ‘jnofdpnsbnfu[sni0]sn=nbreu-bnbreu-uure-’

And the cowboy who walked in sed: ‘so be it.’

Sarah sugartits Apened er poosy, nd oot came King Arthur, wiv Excalibur.

Butt Kng Afur wasn’t grown up yet, and v cowboy stepped in him, klting him inst0ntly.

Victoria was too depressed to finish the story, and clicked onto the next one.

This one was better. The spelling and grammar was legible.

They were about two men fucking each other, which Victoria found infinitely preferable to heterosexual porn.

She orgasmed with a gasp, in time with the characters.

Then instead of relief. The feeling of dread began to crawl through her body like Jack the ripper looking for prostitutes.

She realized that was it.

Her day had peaked, and that was it.

‘I should kill myself.’ She said.

//Author’s note.

Hello, this is the second chapter of the big bad love machine. Would people like to read the next chapter? I’m aware that this particular chapter is… less AI focussed, than the previous one. Anyway, just let me know in the comments.

Also for clarification: You’re not supposed to like Charlie. I realize with him being a “writer” people might think he’s the self insert and he’s not.