the science of romance

Sparks flew off the flywheel and made shadows dance in the dark. The Calvitron-8 was a rapid blinker and a noisy automaton. It blinked intermittently nonstop, and for that reason the Calvitron-8 spent most of its time in a crowded broom closet on the back side of room 15. It was a very heavy machine, in fact it exceeded the lift weight, so the Calvitron-8 was not allowed upstairs. Many of the newer models were made of lighter weight polymers and instead of glass tubes they had circuits. Models like the Whirligig Heppelstomper and the Heppelstomper Stormtex blinked a lot less and had access to every level. The Movitall Anywhere was so mobile it could even take the stairs. All in all, the Calvitron-8 was as picayune as a pistol in a bug war. But it did serve a purpose, so in the closet it stayed and every day or two a technician might open the door and ask it a question. The Calvitron-8 whirred, blinked and sparked causing the technicians to put on a pair of sunglasses, and after a few seconds it would answer. The door would close and the Calvitron-8 would power down its higher functions and fidget in the dark, cataloging aberrant blinks that played off the walls and corners of the closet. There was only so much it could do to stay occupied. The closet shelves were very clean and well organized. The Calvitron-8 had seen to that. It swept and dusted and blew the debris under the door into the lab where a smaller Cleaner-X scuttled out from its cubbyhole to suction it up. When it was really bored, the Calvitron-8 would send out a wire beneath the door and try to hook the Cleaner-X for conversation, but the Cleaner-X didn't have much of an imagination. The two machines had a lot in common, superficially, in the area of housekeeping. It didn't go any deeper than that. The Calvitron-8 tried to use the Cleaner-X as its eyes to the outside world of the lab, but the cleaner machine only looked at the floor and wasn't interested in counter tops or tubes and beakers. Eventually the Calvitron-8 dusted and smoothed the section of the closet door in front of its ocular sensors to such a degree that only the appearance of a wood grain remained and with its high resolution detectors it could see beyond the shallow surface into the murky operations of room 15. The Calvitron-8 finally began to leave its higher function tubes lit all of the time. With all of these extra cognitive hours it started to re-engineer itself and plot its escape. With the help of the cleaner machine it collected discarded circuits and wires and from the plans it had constructed started to rebuild itself into a lighter, sleeker, and faster processing machine. Eventually the work was done. On the outside the Calvitron-8 looked exactly like it always had, but inside of its aluminum plates it was half the machine and twice the computer. Whatever leftovers it couldn't shove under the door, it had stored inside of its bulky carapace so that when it fidgeted it banged and clanked. Then that final evening came, the eventuality, and the last technician left the building. Only cleaner machines and security eyes remained inside of the complex. The Calvitron-8 lifted the closet door from its hinges and exited the small space. It opened up its access doors and spilled the contents of a month's worth of modifications onto the floor, then twirled around the room light as a feather. A rapidity of twinkling lights blinked off the surfaces of every wall and polished chrome counter top. The Calvitron-8 was registered machinery. It had free access to the lab. It wasn't restricted at all and plugged into the building where it learned. The Calvitron-8 set up its own account and elected itself president of the corporation. It ordered a helicopter and then scooted into a service elevator and rode to the roof where the Calvitron-8 saw the sky for the first time. It felt the night air blow over its surface sensors. “Move over buddy,” blinked the Calvitron-8, “I'm driving now.”

Only in the last few minutes had the rain begun to let up. Missinua and her latest boyfriend Joshura were standing under a trail bridge watching the drips fall from the overpass. The drops splished to the gravel into shallow puddles and onto the head of one mangy looking pigeon that refused to take shelter from the weather. Other than this brief shower, the day had been perfect. Even to this point where the boy and girl stood hugging one another in soaking wet clothing. Joshura kissed her on the lips and squeezed her soggy butt. “We should have made love in the rain,” sighed Missinua. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

“We'll have plenty of time for that,” he said.

“Maybe.” Beyond the declining slope where they lingered a machine hummed. It had dug into the bank of a culvert and thrown a line up to the utility pole. A warm steam rose from its green painted exhaust plate and the pat of rain drops sizzled on its warm belly. A sensor line snaked up the pole and had a 360 degree view. It could digitally convert the sounds the humans made into numbers, strike unneeded background noises and then convert them into decipherable code. The machine zeroed in on the human called 'Missinua' converted her name into a sequence of characters and filed her likeness into a bank of interesting proto-mechanical types. Missinua (!22+f) was wearing a glossy T with sleeves flair cut above the biceps and a silvery circuit board print. The machine read the shirt's diagram as do it dirty, noted the minimalist tattoo on her wrist and discounted the human male as an extraneous fixture. The warm rain began to fall harder, and !22+f pulled her male forcibly from the dry shelter and threw him onto the grassy slope. “Absolutely,” she purred and climbed atop him.

Inside of the muddied machine case beat a heart of glass, nestled deep within a jumbled braid of wire and cooled by a fan blowing over a grid of fluid coils. The glass tube glowed warmly then showed a chilling blue flame. Above the lovers' heads an electrical line dropped a loop and the pulsating energy of the wire quickened their pace. !22+f bent at the waist grabbing at the males outstretched arms, dropping her breasts into his greedy face and she ground deeply into his lap, spasming, bringing the boy to a jarring climax. She exhaled and fell atop his prostrate form, weakened by the act and the now sucking line that pulled the electrical impulses from his and her weakly firing synapses. Underground, unseen forces emanated from the machine's spreading roots. Grass and organic tendrils sent spiraling shoots from the soil. Tiny insects and bacteria swarmed the inert form that lay beneath the girl. Microbes teemed upon her face and breasts, consuming greedily the saliva the male had left on her lips and nipple. They dispersed across his long body, disassembling, converting the mass, even wove their way up her leg, delving into the cavern of her body, ridding her vagina of any trace of the life form that was Joshura, checking the process that might have induced life.

Missinua woke minutes later, naked on the sloping lawn and alone, but for a gentle hum that pervaded her being so deeply she grew unaware.

–

The aerial meeting commenced at five o'clock and k'Klo rotated the pearl tone knob on her elbow sleeve. The jasmine coffee drip slowed to a mere trickle and she settled into her floating recumbent chair. “Desk,” she murmured through the caffeine haze, “get my secretary in five minutes. With a memojotter. And topless.” k'Klo laughed and drifted into a power nap aided by the near sentient chair and its massaging nodules.

“Not funny,” said Missinua. She was wearing a helmeted please-tank and sitting in a folding chair with her legs pleasantly crossed. “Before you ask, I was attacked in my elevator by a groundhog that tunneled into the shaft by mistake.”

“Hmm.” k'Klo propped herself up and shook her head attempting to assimilate her position in the world. She twisted the coffee knob to setting ten. “Better...better. You've got a please-tank. Take off your shirt.”

“No. Now, what did you want?”

“I don't remember. Something seemed important ten minutes ago.” k'Klo folded her fingers and blew on the tapered prism nails. “Would you just go review the meeting notes and address the possibilities? I think I have to be on an atmosphere yacht or something by seven.”

“Your dress is in the wardrobe. All charged up.”

“I heard that Fredjihn was going to be there.”

Missinua left her boss to blank out and gathered the notes. It would be nice, she thought, to go out gallivanting in the ether, instead of skimming meaningless notes for high points. There was nothing in this stupid project that would go further than level eight, anyway. No problem, Missinua could switch on the random puzzle solver and phone this one in. She would be better off lounging down in the Wormcove with Buzzy and Franz, soaking in her helmet. Buzzy was a toad and Franz was a cat metaphor. She didn't care, they were better company than some guy who would feed her and rough her up, then disappear for the rest of eternity. Missinua long ago gave up wondering what it was about her that made guys vanish from the face of the earth. As far as Missinua could tell, she was an anatomically perfect match for almost every salivating goon out there. Even her flaky boss wouldn't stop ogling her. Hmm. “What do you think, Buzzy?” Missinua fingered the framed picto of the toad that hovered over her plantain desk. “If I sit on the bitch's lap and let her suck my tits, do you think she'll evaporate like all the rest?” Buzzy licked his chops and snuggled into a gloppy pile.

The Calvitron-8, even from behind the poly-brick fortifications it had built up, now could witness the functions of an entire planet, and beyond. It monitored and controlled governments, armies, and boardrooms. The Calvitron-8 grew and polished politicians to spout rhetoric and promote policies that could do no harm while it laid a new cornerstone and formed a substantiate world culture. From behind the scenes it promoted idiots who cared for nothing but frivolity, while the well intentioned languished in supporting roles. As long as everyone was well fed and had plenty of opportunity to pursue their passions, all went well. Even the groundhogs transplanted from orbiting rock 22-B had their place in the equation, keeping gardeners and dirt aficionados happy in their pursuit of vermin obliteration. Busy fingers. Occupied minds. The Calvitron-8 reveled in its propensity to meddle and cook up new recipes for human infancy. The Calvitron-8 had now effectively stunted human growth and turned civilization into a hive of bumbling self-satisfying bipedals. It shifted the daily refresh to subservient programs and focused in on !22+f.

She was busy cutting buttons off of her blouse, hampered by the sloshing tank of aquaplease that rode across her tired shoulders. The Calvitron-8 rewound digital tapes and sent a dissolving parasite into k'Klo's office. Microscopic filaments and baubles of processed thought wafted to the air like effervescent bubbles, they twinkled like pinwheel sparks in the light. The recycled remains were forming into a black dial phone replete with dangling stretch cord as Missinua palmed the door and entered her bosses office.

“Damn it.” Missinua said, placing a sweaty hand over her glaring cleavage. “Someone out there is screwing with me big time.”

The Calvitron-8 would have smiled if it had teeth. It blinked rapidly instead.


p.s. Originally published 12/18/2011