Instead of going to work the next day, Ariadne visits Dr. Janison’s cubicle. She’s dressed conservatively for this meeting, appropriate for a woman in quarantine. Only a trace of gold shimmers in her hair. An opaque stocking clings to her body underneath an oversize cape. She wears no jewelry except her simplest nose-stud and hoops in her ars.

Despite her simplicity of dress and cosmetics, she is a stunning woman. Tom used to say she’d look ravishing wrapped in burlap. A beautiful woman is one who looks best naked, all cosmetics and jewelry stripped off, he claimed.

***

Dr. Janison is as cheery as ever, welcomes her into the office with a smile and the wave of a hand. She wears parrot colors that embellish the blueness of her eyes. “Of course I’m available to you. We’re here to counsel as well as regulate the quarantined.”

“I’m feeling overly regulated. The surrogate I ordered seems to have some unusual programming. It’s a chaperon.”

The doctor smiles again. She has smiles for everything. This one is benign and authoritative. “You knew about this, and didn’t tell me?”

“Ariadne, you’re an attractive woman, the kind most men can’t resist. Your Safedate was programmed to discourage you from seeking out human intimacy, to which you seem to be addicted.”  She folds her hands under her chin. This is the church, this is the steeple, Ariadne recites in her head. “The Department has your safety in mind. Remember that.”

“The Department can remove the thing from my house. I don’t relish being perforated by a machine against my will.”  She focuses on the doctor’s face, plain beneath the brilliant paint. “I don’t think that is in my best interest.” She stresses the last four words, gives them a sarcastic twist.

“Ariadne, you have to understand our concern.” Dr. Janison exits Ariadne’s file firmly. “We will not remove the surrogate from your property. You are not allowed to dispose of it until your quarantine is over.”

“Please don’t call me by my first name. You can call me Ms. Price.” Ariadne wants to choke this woman. She can see it now, the apple blossom cheeks blanching just a little, then slowly turning blue beneath the paint. She’s never actually choked someone, but she imagines what it would be like, with pleasure. “Your Department seems to specialize in excessive familiarity.”

“We know you’re reaching out on the net,” Dr. Janison murmurs. “Are you that isolated? Your surrogate should give you the companionship you require.”

“How dare you monitor my communications?”

“If I do not, I risk your health and the health of others.” The doctor straightens in her chair. “Perhaps we should consider stronger measures. People addicted to intimacy often respond well to reorientation.”

“Don’t threaten me. I want to know what’s wrong with appreciating a flesh and blood male! Someone who complains about work, who laughs at my jokes if they’re funny and tells me when they’re not.” Ariadne tries to get through to this woman. “You might prefer your surrogate to your husband. That’s fine. Maybe your husband isn’t technically proficient in sex. But you have your husband to talk to, to turn to for advice. All I have is a toy programmed to hover over me. I’d rather be alone than have this surrogate in my house.”

“Ariadne, human relationships are fraught with conflict. The beauty of a surrogate is that you get all the enjoyment without any complications.”

Disgusted, Ariadne prepares to leave. “Ariadne,I want you to stay and talk to me.”

Ariadne ignores the voice calling her back.

I have to destroy this thing, she tells herself. There has to be a way to be rid of it once and for all. I can’t live with that nothing for five years.

Robert waits for her inside the door. “How was your day, beloved?” A facsimile of curiosity spreads across perfect features.

“Don’t talk to me until I address you,” Ariadne orders incisively.

He nods agreement, a wounded look in his eyes. We programmed him well, Ariadne thinks. Too bad she knows he’s not human. He could pass for it, surely. But how can she be rid of this thing? She can’t just leave it somewhere; it has ways to find the way back. Perhaps that’s the key, Ariadne muses. The navigational software and name/visual memory are located in the head. If she damages the head, she can drop it off somewhere.

“We’re going to take a drive. I feel like taking a walk in the mountains.”

“Does that mean you’re no longer angry with me?” The device capers like a whipped canine offered forgiveness.

“Of course I’m not angry with you.” The sweetness cloys on her tongue. It is configured to detect shifts in mood demonstrated through voice and expression. She has to be careful. “You’re only protecting me,  after all.”

“Would you like to take a picnic? Shall I say I love you?”

“That won’t be necessary.” She touches the smooth skin on the back of its hand, a reassuring pressure. If it thinks something is wrong, it will initiate a preservation program. If not, then Ariadne underestimates the Health Department, which could be dangerous.

Ariadne keys the coordinates for the Sierra Nevadas into her car. The car floats from the landing-pad, streaks westward, towards the mountains. It will take less than an hour to get there from Cleveland-Cincinnati, according to the AAA infotrans.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are wild and young, still push themselves out of the earth. Thirty miles away, the lights of Tucson Phoenix Outpost cast an orange light against the sky.  Ariadne watches the stars emerge. “So close I can almost touch them,” she murmurs to herself.

“My data suggests that stars are millions of light years away.  You will not be able to touch them. The absence of haze makes them appear larger.” The surrogate recites this information dutifully, turns to her with a pleased expression. “Shall I kiss you?”

“Let me lie down first,” she says, grips a rock in her left hand. When he kisses her, it is easy to press the off button as if by accident, roll from beneath the device as it collapses against naked rock.

It was too easy, she reflects as she programs her car for home, easy and almost criminal to dash his head to shards with a rock. Surely Robert wanders in the mountains, whitish lubricant dripping from its head like blood. Hopefully, moisture will damage the components further, before it is discovered.

On the internet, she sends a message to her nameless friend:

FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM FREEDOM

They come for her two days later. Two men fill the door of her office as they enter without knocking. Her surrogate was found near TPO, which stretches to just east of the mountains. The Health Department traced it to her via serial number. Ariadne’s coworkers watch as the men cuff and push Ariadne out of the building, arms behind her back.

Because she used the Health Department’s voucher, she is charged with destruction of Federal property. She is fined the cost of the surrogate and placed in the custody of the Health Department for reorientation.

The quarantine complex is a walled structure in the Adirondacks. It is not a hospital, as most of the people detained here are not and never will be ill. To ensure their future health, they are here for reeducation.

The Director waits by the gate with several nurse-psychiatrists and
orderlies. New patients are difficult to restrain: they are confused
and combative despite the cortico-numbers they are given for the journey to the complex.

The cuffs are removed from Ariadne’s wrists as soon as she enters the compound. Two other women are with her, and one man.  They have traveled together in the back of an Airbus like dangerous criminals. The guards leave them in the custody of the administrator. He smiles at them, squints in the bright sun.   “Welcome to New Hope Facility, a Federally funded program. We’re here to assist you in developing safer habits, to illustrate the dangers and pitfalls of human relationships.”

The facility is for minor offenders like Ariadne; individuals who display a potential for dangerous and irresponsible activity.   She will spend the next five years here, learn the joys of sexuality without intimacy. She will unlearn the need for a true companion, view men as simply fathers for her children. The Health Department is pleased with the success of this program, and prefers to call its inmates students; the sentence itself is referred to as reassessment.

The quarantine complex is full of people like Ariadne, stubborn men and women born too early to easily accept surrogates as partners, who crave touch. There is a movement within the administration to discourage the use of the term “surrogate.” It is argued that the correct term for a Safedate is “partner.” To refer to androids as “surrogates” implies they are inferior to human partners.

Like Ariadne, the students aren’t sick, but it remains the administration’s policy to separate these individuals from the general population. When they have learned to restrain dangerous passion they can return to society, which will welcome them with synthetic arms open wide.

***OK, here’s the rest of it–Rhonda you impatient fiend 🙂

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• Safedates (1 of 3) (susandanielseden.wordpress.com)
• Safedates part deux (susandanielseden.wordpress.com)
• Safedates part 3 (susandanielseden.wordpress.com)