His Robot Girlfriend: Charity Read online

  HIS ROBOT GIRLFRIEND: CHARITY

  By Wesley Allison

  His Robot Girlfriend: Charity

  Copyright © 2015 by Wesley Allison

  Smashwords Edition

  Revision: 12-19-14

  All Rights Reserved. This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If sold, shared, or given away it is a violation of the copyright of this work. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by Wesley Allison

  Cover Image Copyright © Valua Vitaly | Dreamstime.com

  ISBN 9781311644633

  For Vicki, Becky, and John

  His Robot Girlfriend: Charity

  By Wesley Allison

  Chapter One

  The sun was really beating down when Dakota Hawk pulled his pickup to a stop next to the metal cargo container that GoodWorks was using as the drop location from which to collect donations of clothing, furniture, and electronics. When he climbed out of the cab, his foot slid in the half molten asphalt. The poor bastard, who was earning a dollar less than minimum wage to sit in the heat and collect the donations, stepped out from the container’s interior, dripping sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead.

  “Back again? What are you trying to do, get rid of everything?”

  “As much as possible,” said Dakota. “Do you have water in there? Maybe a fan?”

  “Oh yeah. I’ve got a nifty little setup. Come in and look.”

  The air outside was well over 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was just as hot inside. It was even more oven-like. The back third of the container was filled with cardboard boxes and plastic trash bags full of who-knows-what. Along the left side were a few pieces of larger furniture. Along the right hand wall were a dozen non-animated robots—a couple with clothes, but most naked. Just inside the entrance sat a chaise lounge next to a mini-refrigerator with an electric fan sitting atop it. A long orange cord ran out the door, across the parking lot, and was plugged into the back of McDonalds.

  “Sweet,” said Dakota, and then he turned back to his truck and began unloading the black bags filled with clothing and household goods. He handed them to the guy, who then stacked them in back. By the time they were done, his own long, blond hair was plastered to his face.

  “Mostly clothes, feels like.”

  “Yes, mostly clothes.”

  Dakota had spent all morning trying to empty out the apartment. The first hour had been taken up getting his own things. He had packed up his vueTee and his other electronics, and then his clothes. That had filled up the back of the truck, leaving just enough room for the two crappy chairs his dad had given him. He’d taken it all to the Jiffy Locker and rented a storeroom, their smallest size. After unloading, he had made one final sweep through the apartment, taking whatever was left that he wanted—nothing more than a few photographs and mementos. Then he had spent the next five hours hauling as many of Rachel’s belongings away as possible and donating them to GoodWorks. He realized he could be charged with theft, but he didn’t care. Her closet was empty, her wriTee and all her files were gone, she had no pots and pans and no fine silverware, her underwear drawer was empty, and her grandmother’s Depression era glassware collection was history. He looked at his watch. There wasn’t time to make another trip before she got off work.

  He looked back into the cargo container.

  “Say, what are you going to do with these old robots?” Dakota asked.

  “They have a group that recycles them for parts. Most of them are Gizmos, and you can’t really fix them anymore.”

  Dakota looked them over. They were mostly Gizmos, but not all. He recognized a Braun… and something else. A naked female robot, waist bent at an anatomically impossible angle stared at the wall. A curtain of long brown hair was brushed aside just enough for Dakota to make out three small holes in the back of the neck, and beneath them, a button.

  “How much do you suppose they’ll get for them?”

  “Oh, a few hundred each, I suppose. Most of them don’t work at all.”

  “Could I buy one?”

  “We don’t sell them to the public.”

  “Seems a shame,” Dakota said. “I’d give you $500 for that one there, right now.”

  “Well, we don’t even know if it works.”

  “You wouldn’t have to worry about it. Cash deal. No exchanges or refunds.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed in $500, waving it back and forth in front of the guy’s eyes.

  The guy reached into his own pocket for his phone.

  “You can’t tell anyone about this,” he said. “You know, because they don’t want us selling them.”

  He pressed his phone to Dakota’s; transferring the $500 into what they both knew was the guy’s personal account.

  “Nobody’s going to hear anything about it from me. Help me load it?”

  They picked up the robot with the long brown hair, wrapped it in one of the donated sheets, and tossed it in the back of the pickup. With a nod, Dakota climbed back into the cab of his truck and drove away. He stopped at the nearby Wal-Mart, where he bought a cheap suitcase, an ice chest, a case of Coke, a loaf of bread, a package of sliced cheddar cheese, some Oscar Mayer Bologna, a package of Chips Ahoy cookies, and a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise. He got a bag of ice at the checkout. He tossed everything into the truck’s bed, next to the robot.

  Back at the Jiffy Locker, Dakota carefully selected enough clothes to fill the suitcase and zipped it shut. He filled the ice chest. He opened the case of Coke, carefully nestling the cans in the ice. Then he placed all his other food on top. With the ice chest, the robot, and the suitcase in the back of the truck, he locked the storage unit and drove away, taking the freeway onramp to leave Sacramento. Just as he hit 80 mph, his phone rang. He glanced at it to see that Rachel was calling. He turned off the ringer.

  Four hours later, he pulled off the freeway in Oceanside. Stopping at the first motel that had a vacancy sign, he checked into a room on the ground floor. He backed up the truck into the closest parking place and then unloaded his three items into the depressingly rectangular room. He set the suitcase next to the well-worn dresser, leaned the robot against the closet door, and set the ice chest on a little table that leaned precariously to one side. Assembling two bologna and cheese sandwiches, he took them and a Coke to bed. And so ended the two most depressing days of his life.

  It had seemed like any other week. He had a promising, if uninteresting, job as a threader for Internal Dynamics. He had an apartment that he’d lived in for four years with his girlfriend. It was nice. It had a pool. And yes, then there was the aforementioned girlfriend. Rachel was two years older than he was, and was too good for him in just about every way that could be measured. She was smarter than he was. She was a lawyer, with a job at an important firm, with a clear career path. She was good-looking—too good-looking really. She was smoking hot and he was just average—just an average guy. And she came from money. He’d been born, if not into poverty, at least into financial obscurity. She had money before they ever met. Everything of worth in the apartment was hers, or at least it had been before he’d donated it to GoodWorks.

  Dakota finished his dinner, rinsed his mouth out with Coke, and fell asleep on top of the bedspread, his clothes still on. When he woke up, at first he couldn’t remember where he was. Motel room—cheap motel room. Why? Oh, that’s right. It was the day after the day after the world ended.

  He got another Coke and drank it while getting undressed and into the shower. One thing you had to give motels, even cheap ones. They had plenty of hot water. He washed his hair with the tiny bottle o
f shampoo and combed it back with his fingers after he dried off. When he was done, he put on the same clothes he had worn the day before, with the exception of a clean pair of underwear.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked at the robot. The sheet had slid off onto the floor, leaving it naked. It would have been called cute if it had been a real human. Long, long brown hair. Big eyes with impossibly long lashes. Cute little nose. Full lips. It looked young, like a teenager, though it was difficult to tell. They tended to look so different when they were powered up. Standing, he leaned it forward and looked at the back of the neck. Yes, there was no doubt about it. This was a Daffodil. That was unusual. Not that you didn’t see Daffodils. They were everywhere. It seemed sometimes as if you saw more of them than you did real human beings. No, it was unusual to find one in what was essentially a big trashcan.

  He pressed the button just beneath the three holes. Nothing happened. He pressed it and held it for three seconds. Still nothing happened. That’s why they’d thrown it away. It seemed dead. Dakota had enough knowledge about robots—he was a threader after all—to know that it was ridiculously difficult to permanently damage a Daffodil. Most people didn’t know it, but a Daffodil could actually be booted up using BioSoft from the InfiNet.

  Leaving the Daffodil leaning against the wall, Dakota stepped outside. He could smell the ocean, though he couldn’t see it and didn’t really know which direction it was. Walking to the office, he found a shriveled old woman behind the desk.

  “Do you have toothbrushes?” he asked her.

  She pulled a generic looking toothbrush wrapped in plastic from beneath the counter. She set it by the PayNETime receiver.

  “Complimentary.”

  “Do you happen to have a paperclip?”

  She opened a drawer and shuffled through the papers inside. She held a paperclip up triumphantly, and then placed it next to the toothbrush.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. How far is it to the beach?”

  “About a half a mile that way,” she pointed over her shoulder.

  “Okay. I guess I’ll stay another night. I’m in room 106.”

  “Discount if you stay for a week,” she said.

  “Sure. Why the hell not?”

  She pointed to the PayNETime receiver. Dakota pulled out his phone and swiped it over the device. Grabbing the paperclip and toothbrush, he stuffed them in his pocket and exited through the tinted glass door. Directly across the parking lot was a restaurant. He could tell by the design and the shape of the sign that it had once been a Denny’s, but now it was just a generic diner. Walking across the pavement, he opened the door and went inside.

  “Sit anywhere,” called the waitress, resembling a slim woman about thirty, with big frosted hair and a white apron, as she passed by carrying a plate of pancakes.

  Dakota took a small booth and looked at the paper menu, which was already there next to the paper napkin-wrapped silverware.

  “Coffee?” The waitress was suddenly beside him.

  “Nope. I’ll take a Coke though.”

  She was back in a minute with the soft drink in a red, pebbled plastic tumbler, a thin red straw stuck between the ice cubes.

  “What can I get you?”

  “The two egg combination platter. Eggs over hard. Sausage.”

  “Toast or pancakes.”

  “Blueberry pancakes.”

  “I’ll get that right away for you.” Then she was gone.

  Dakota looked around. There were three other diners: a couple sat in a booth by the back and an older guy sat at the bar. He pulled out his phone and looked at it. Sixteen messages. Fifteen were from Rachel. The other one was from Internal Dynamics. He played it.

  “Mr. Hawk, we’ve done as you instructed. Both your retirement account balance and your last paycheck will be distributed to your PayNETime account. You paycheck will be deposited next Friday. You will receive the funds from the retirement account in six to eight weeks. That should complete your business with Internal Dynamics. Just a reminder that leaving without two weeks notice places you on the no-rehire list. Good bye.”

  He deleted all sixteen messages and shoved the phone back in his pocket. Then he watched the old guy at the bar get up and leave. Dakota’s eyes followed as the he got into a beat up truck outside and drove away. He kept looking at the cars passing by and the buildings. Now that he knew where the ocean was, it was easy enough to recognize. There was nothing poking up on the horizon in that direction—no hills or mountains. In the foreground were all the businesses that you would see in every town, the same fast food restaurants, the same auto parts store, the same drugstores.

  “Here you go,” said the waitress, placing two plates in front of him. “Ketchup?”

  “Tabasco.”

  Breakfast was fine, nothing fantastic, but fine. It went from plate to fork to mouth, without any conscious effort. The result of the mindlessness of eating was that the memories came flooding back into his brain—the memories of the end of the world, two days before.

  Dakota had gotten off work at the usual time—5:30. Some days he would stop off at the store on the way home, but he hadn’t on that particular Tuesday. He just came straight home. His usual routine was to change into his shoes and shorts and go for a run. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he took it easy—maybe a mile. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he pushed it. The last month or so, he’d been averaging about seven miles a day. He’d be back from the run, take a shower, and have time to start dinner before Rachel got home at a few minutes before 8:00.

  This day he didn’t make dinner though. He didn’t have a shower and he didn’t go for a run. He’d come in the front door and set his keys, wallet, and phone in the little dish on the table by the door. Then he heard strange noises coming from down the hall, and he had gone to investigate. What was he expecting? He shouldn’t have been surprised. Clothes—a man’s and a woman’s—trailed down the hallway to the bedroom. He reached the half open doorway just in time to hear the familiar squeaky noises that accompanied Rachel’s orgasms.

  There she was, in the middle of their bed, her legs wrapped around the waist of some guy, who was thrusting in and out of her. They were positioned at just the perfect angle. It was like a porn shoot. Dakota had the perfect view of the guy’s rock hard member plowing into her, and of their combined juices flowing down her ass. The guy was ripped, in as a good a shape as Dakota was, maybe a bit heavier—probably a weight lifter. His head was turned away, so there was no telling who he was. Rachel’s head was turned toward the door though. It took Dakota a few seconds to realize that she was looking right at him. She had a strange expression on her face. One would have thought it would have been surprise or guilt, or maybe even fear. It wasn’t. It was satisfaction.

  Turning, he ran down the hallway, back toward the living room. He had heard her try to call him, his name dissolving into a moan of ecstasy. Dakota had always hated his name. People thought he was named after an Indian tribe, but he wasn’t. Dakota Fisher Hawk, he was named after an airplane. His father had wanted to be a pilot and had named him after the plane he had planned to buy. As in everything else, his father had failed. He had never kept at anything long enough or hard enough to complete it, and this was just one more example. But of all the times he had heard his name and disliked it, none had been so terrible as that half-name, half-moan that had come out of Rachel’s mouth.

  Grabbing his keys, wallet, and phone, he had shot out the door, taking a room at a motel five miles from home for the night. The next day, he had waited until after 9:00 before going back. Rachel would be at work, but he cruised by twice just to be sure. He pulled into the visitor’s parking spot and then peeked in the windows. Nobody was there, not Rachel, not anyone else. It was then that he had begun stripping the apartment. While he was grabbing his clothes, he had looked at the bed. It was made with clean linens. Now he wished that he had pissed on it, but he hadn’t.

  Breakfast finished, Dakota pulled his p
hone back out and paid the bill. Then he crossed back through the parking lot and went back into room 106. After he brushed his teeth, he moved the robot onto the bed and, twisting the paperclip into a u shape, poked it into the first and third holes in the back of the neck. The robot straitened at the waist, turned a wrist, and suddenly took a more natural pose on the bed, but nothing else. Dakota knew that it would take a while.

  He left it lying there and went for a walk. It was even hotter here than it had been in Sacramento, but at least most of the sidewalks were beneath the bright orange sunscreens.

  The public beach was a strip of sand less than a mile wide. Millionaires with oceanfront property had appropriated the rest of the shoreline. Dakota took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants, wading out into the waves up to his ankles. There were a dozen or so people, huddling under their beach umbrellas. It was too hot really, and between the jellyfish in the daytime and squid at night, it was too dangerous to swim.

  Walking back to the motel, Dakota paid more attention to the shops and stores along the way. There was a laundry, a Chinese takeout, and donut shop, among the others. As he entered the room, he stopped and laughed. The maid had been there. She had made the bed while the robot was lying on it. The Daffodil was just as immobile as it had been when he left.

  Lying down beside it, he turned on the vueTee. It was set to a news feed. The news was always the same. A train derailed somewhere in Louisiana. There was more terrorist violence in Scotland. This time somebody blew up a school. Miss America from two years ago was choked to death during sex, presumably accidentally. The sex/snuff tape was already one of the most viewed things on the net. Dakota hated the news. He didn’t watch it. He switched to a game show. He watched Celebrity Rat Race and had just started Extreme Elimination Fortress when he felt the bed shift.

  Turning to look at the robot, he found it had moved. It was now lying on its back, staring at the ceiling. It spoke.