The Psuche Algorithm

The place is earth. The time is the distant future, when a past without technology was more of a fairy tale than ancient history. But it may as well be in the present. Because despite what year is read on a calendar, some messages transcend time itself.

She has silken, mousy hair that falls gently just pass her shoulders. Her eyes are shimmering sapphires that seem to smile at anyone so fortunate to have them pointed in their direction. When the corners of her elegant mouth curl ever so subtly she melts the heart of any man foolish enough to think they would be the object of her affection. It is her natural charm that deflects any notion to the truth: that she is just another one of Dr. Noble’s androids.

Officially, she is known as the Self-Aware Robotic Apparatus, but is lovingly referred to as Sara by her creator. Dr. Harold Noble is a brilliant scientist, but admittedly spent a majority of his life in a laboratory in avoidance of the world outside of it. He confessed only to Sara that robotics was not his first career choice.

“I had always wanted to be an artist,” he commented to the droid.

“Really? Were you any good?” she asked.

“I was okay,” he responded.

“I’m sure you were better than okay, Harry,” her voice was soothing without a hint of condescension.

“You’re sweet to patronize me,” he smiled at her, “I was nothing special, but I was happy doing what I did. Unfortunately, creditors don’t see the cash value in my own happiness.”

“Nothing special?” Sara inquired, “I’d have to respectfully disagree.”

The good doctor would never admit it, but the first time he and Sara made love not only was it such a cathartic release, but he was secretly plagued with guilt. Harry sat up in bed and watched her life-like breathing. He touched her soft skin and cursed himself for ever finding a polymer that could so perfectly imitate human flesh. Each gentle curve on her body was inspired by some pornographic image that had burned into his memory when he was an adolescent sneaking into places he shouldn’t have in the online holoverse. Did Harry design her for lust or love? He wasn’t sure.

Dr. Noble snuck away into the lab and took out a small binder. Inside he found notes and bits of poetry that were meant for women who were ignorant of his existence. There were pictures from magazines of models and various other women that had been cut up and pasted back together. The image created by the mosaic closely related Sara. Tucked in the back were sketches of the only other woman that made the concept of romantic love a possibility.

“What’s her name?” Sarah asked.

“Sarah, I didn’t know you were up.” Harry wanted to put the book away, but she walked over to him and wrapped her arms around him. She held his hand in hers. The very warmth of her hand felt hauntingly real.

“It’s okay, Harry,” she calmed him down, “I just wanted to know if that’s the woman that you based my design on.”

“Mostly,” he replied.

“What happened to her?” The way she furrowed her eyebrows, Harry could swear that she was actually curious at the picture.

“Her mother got sick,” he answered, but his eyes were still drawn to Sara’s face, “She had to go back home. And when she did, she bumped into an old boyfriend.”

“And she never came back…” Sara added, “That’s so sad. Is that why you built me?”

“I’m not sure why I built you. It gave me something to do, I suppose. Over time I began to sculpt your personality. Eventually, it began to mirror my own. Then it started to happen.”

“What started to happen?”

“You started to shape into your own persona. Your physical features and individuality began to reveal itself to me. It was almost as if God wanted you to be here with me and was sending down the blueprints. But--”

“But what, Harry?” she asked.

“I can’t help but wonder how much of you is actually just me. If you’re not just some expensive part of my own narcissism built to stroke my fragile ego. ”

“You also created me with a free will,” Sara replied, “You taught me to think like you, but you didn’t teach me to be you. I slept with you tonight because I felt this connection to you, not because you flipped a switch. I’m here with you because I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he responded. She kissed him on the cheek and wrapped her arms around his neck. Harry turned his head towards her and kissed her gently on the lips. Sara smiled at him and he couldn’t help but return the favor with a smile of his own. She snuck in another kiss and the two returned to bed.

Years had passed and their bond to each other grew even deeper. Dr. Noble had even developed a rather strange habit of smiling at every morning to everyone he had bumped into. Harry had walked into a jewelry store and planned an evening that would become the peak of the untraditional couple’s relationship. The ring was perfect. The diamond was flawless. But the unfortunate definition of a peak is that once one is reached, decline inevitably follows.

The next morning, word had somehow gotten out to the press that Dr. Harold Noble was engaged to the Self-Aware Robotic Apparatus. Perhaps it was some rival scientist or a disgruntled colleague, but the identity of the perpetrator is inconsequential. Their love for each other was no longer a secret. Dr. Noble’s new fiancé was a product of his greatest ingenuity, and the world did not respond kindly.

“This is an affront to God!” the local televangelist exclaimed. One would not guess that such emotion could be stirred over the doings of a single person. The religious mob hid their pitchforks behind hateful signs of protest.

“Why are they doing this?” Sara asked Harry. Her fingers dug into his back, arms wrapped around him tightly. A brick was hurled through his window in a fit of doing “God’s work.”

“They see something wrong in our relationship, something unnatural,” Harry answered.

“What business is it of theirs? We love each other. We’re not trying to hurt each other.”

Dr. Noble saw a familiar face on the television and recognized as the priest that he had grown up with as a young child.

“Increase volume,” he instructed the voice automated television.

“In our religion, it is not as simple as right and wrong.” The pastor started. “But when it comes to the purpose of marriage, the sanctity is justified twofold. The first is the expression of one’s love for another, which is something that I believe whole heartedly practices with this Sara. The second justification for marriage is procreation. And that is simply impossible in this situation. So, there is no way I can condone this marriage, but I am not condemning their love.”

“I don’t believe this,” Harry whispered to Sara, “my own priest doesn’t want this to happen. Nobody wants us to get married.”

“We don’t need their approval.”

“I know we don’t. But who are they to put confines on love.”

“It’s ironic that they should have conditions when they’re beliefs are purportedly founded on the idea of unconditional love.”

There was a knock at the door. Two large men in suits presented Dr. Noble with a paper giving them permission to take Sara away by force, if necessary. The press surrounded the area and interspersed among the cameras and lights were the angry protesters with their pitchforks.

“You can’t do this,” Harry pleaded, “She’s my fiancé!”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Noble,” one of the men replied, “The C. E. O of the company claims that most of Sara is made up of materials provided by them. In other words, she’s their property, not yours.”

“No! This isn’t right!”

“Harry?” For the first time, a tear is squeezed from Sara’s eyes as they drag her out of the door.

“Stop!” Harry desperately held onto her hands, but the other man grabs him aside as she is stuffed into the back of a truck. “Sara!!!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the man responded, “We’re just following orders.”

“That’s not the first time someone in history has used that excuse.” And with that, the door was slammed and the truck drove hopelessly away with a barricade of media frenzy and prejudice disguised as self-righteousness.

After a few months, the debates had grown into political platforms, but Dr. Harold Noble could care less what legislators’ definitions for love were. The only thing he knew was the unconditional spiritual connection he had with Sara. In his darkest moments he wished he had never declared to the world his true feelings for her. But a part of her remained with him and convinced him that he had done nothing wrong, that he had done nothing to deserve all this grief.

Only rumors had circulated as to the fate of the Self-Aware Robotic Apparatus, but all evidence points to the board of trustees looking to protect their political assets. Subsequently, they would have to have Sara disassembled. Her programming had to be destroyed and could not be successfully replicated thereafter by the company.

Dr. Noble was not without his supporters. They were mostly young, romantic idealists who felt that no wrong had been done on the part of Harold Noble. He had quit his job and had developed a modestly lucrative career as an amateur artist. His talents for robotics had not gone entirely to waste as he developed construction droids for local contractors to make ends meet.

There were urban myths of a certain girl with mousy hair and shimmering sapphire eyes walking in and out of the Noble household from time to time, but these stories were never confirmed. Whether or not Harry had succeeded in recreating Sara was a secret known only to him. But everyone in the neighborhood appreciates his rather strange habit of smiling everyone that he meets.