Love in the age of spyware

Their affair was nurtured by a robot and watched by millions -- but its ratings were shaky.

Editor's note: Nebula Award nominee William Shunn has been published in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, and Realms of Fantasy.

By William Shunn

July 16, 2003 | Lastly, consider Brian Hayes of Oak Knoll Drive, South Pasadena.

Mr. Hayes, 34, sits on a low retaining wall behind the Griffith Observatory, legs dangling over a darkening garden landscape of flowering plants and deciduous shrubbery. Further down the mountainside the vegetation thins out to pine and scrub, becoming lush and green again at the level of the first swimming pools and multimillion-dollar homes. Beyond even that, the monstrous logic of Los Angeles begins to reveal itself in the dusk as headlights, streetlamps, and other point sources switch on for the night, electrical impulses in a vast motherboard whose most sensational computations will output to the eleven o'clock news.

Hayes breathes in deeply of an organic perfume that overwhelms even the omnipresent reek of hydrocarbons. He luxuriates in the scent, and half a million (and slowly declining) subscribers luxuriate with him. As do we. His vital signs chart a map of contentment and arousal. On some level he must understand he's a political pawn, deployed as entertainment to promote public acceptance of the coming parolee spyware program. But it doesn't seem to be something he or the other six subjects think much about.

"Smell that, L.A.?" he asks his companion. "Moonflowers. That brings back memories."

His companion, standing behind him and to the left, raises its face and turns its head left and right, as if testing the air. It is a robot, man-sized and -shaped, spindly, but armored in highly burnished chromiplate. The waning sun makes its skin a furnace of molten gold, rust, and blood. Only the LAPD Traffic Control shield inlaid on its chest, frosted with a dull matte surface, stands out distinct amid the reflected conflagration.

Hayes leans forward and plucks a white flower, six inches across, from the twining vines that festoon the wall below him. He holds the trumpet-shaped bloom against his face like an oxygen mask, its petals having just untwisted for the night. The sweet scent is overpowering -- but despite the erotic charge it carries for Hayes, subscribers are dropping out by the tens of thousands, flipping over to one of the other subjects or just getting back to their own lives. Exit polling indicates they'll be back later this evening for the fireworks with Sandra when Hayes finally goes home. But this flower-sniffing interlude? Booor-ing.

The robot, a standard enforcement unit with moderate autonomy, has lowered itself into a clumsy squat, one hand touching the ground and the other questing vainly over the wall for its own moonflower. Hayes' muscles tense as if in anticipation of a tumble. "Here, take mine," he says, holding out his flower.

The robot pinches the stem gingerly, straightens, and holds the flower to its mouth-grille.

"Now you're making fun of me," says Hayes. Annoyance scribbles its signature in his voiceprint and blood pressure. "The robot can't smell that."

"Not fine details," says the robot, its voice plummy and its diction stilted, "but I can distinguish the scent of flowers from other airborne chemicals."

And through the robot, we say, "These units are much better at recognizing smoke and hazardous gases of different sorts, but yes, they can smell the roses. Of course, we get a much sharper image through your senses than its. According to your nose, that's Ipomoea alba, sometimes classed as Calonyction aculeatum."

"That's very interesting," says Hayes, obviously (along with his still declining subscribers) finding it anything but. "That's just ace." He reaches down to snap another moonflower from its vine. Resting his weight on one hand, he leans back and relaxes as he breathes in the blossom's heavy perfume.

It's moments like these, as sense memory carries muscles and biochemistry on a virtual journey back in time, that convince many subscribers they can read the subjects' minds. Moods, yes. Minds, no. Disclaimers and demonstrations do little to disabuse them. But not even we can know for certain what the subject is thinking unless he chooses to say. Or lets himself be prompted.

"You mentioned memories a moment ago," we say through the robot.

Hayes smiles, and his subscribers feel their faces split with sly, involuntary grins. The dropouts taper off and ratings plateau. "It was the first night I spent with Sandra," he says. "She had this little rented bungalow in West Hollywood, moonflowers and morning glories growing all up the side of the house and onto the roof. She kept the window open, and that's what we smelled all night. And I mean all night."

His blood pressure spikes with the onset of arousal -- as a hundred subscribers comb public records for the bungalow's address -- but a clench of his stomach follows almost immediately. "God, I'm such a shit," he says, shaking his head.

"Brian, what makes you say that?" we ask -- though it's a dead certainty he's thinking about his evening bar outing with Naomi Warner.

When Hayes looks up, the robot is regarding him with its head tilted at an almost human angle of concern -- our doing, not its. The moonflower dangles from its left hand like a forgotten offering.

Hayes sighs, a soul-rending sound from the depths of his thorax. "Even with a million people watching, I can't be a decent husband. Hell, a decent person." He stares morosely down the hillside. "I may as well just throw myself off this mountain. Or take a dive off the Hollywood sign like that actress, whoever she was."

"Peg Entwhistle. But that was over a hundred years ago. You could never get near it now."

Hayes glares at the robot. "Well, assuming I could, then I would. It'd be better for me and for Sandra."

"You don't mean that."

"I do," says Hayes, though from his respiration and heart rate we know that he doesn't, though his self-pity does run high. "At the very least, L.A., I think I should pull the plug on the spyware."

That he does mean, and suddenly the boards are abuzz with shocked protests and I-told-you-so's. It's fortunate that Hayes can't follow the commentary in realtime, but even more fortunate that we cannot betray our secret thoughts in the myriad ways humans do.

"The park closes at sunset," we say. "What you do say we continue this discussion on the road?"

"All right," says Hayes, and the robot extends a hand to help him to his feet -- its initiative, not ours.

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