Michael 2.0

Part 6

“Dr. DeLanne?” a voice called Charlie; she turned her head and saw it was Dr. Lawrence. “A word, please?”

“Yes, Dr. Lawrence?” Charlie approached him, a bit worried; the man looked serious, scratching his beard as he did when he was anxious.

“I saw the last tapes of your interactions with Michael,” he started. “It’s quite impressive, I must say, really impressive.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“May I ask which emotions was he originally programmed to simulate?”

Something about that line sounded a bit off for Charlie; simulate emotions? She wasn’t sure anymore that was the correct term for what happened to Michael.

“We tried to include every sort of emotion possible, sir. Michael is the perfect simulator.”

Again, that word; Charlie waved it off her mind, trying to reach to the point. “And he’s been responding in a wonderful way, much better than what we had expected.”

“Ah, no doubt. However, there was something I noticed on the last session. Did you include the feeling of romantic love in his program?”

“Romantic love?” Charlie smiled, incredulous. “Why would I include that?”

“For the sake of studying and experimenting, Dr. DeLanne. As you said, Michael is supposed to be the perfect simulator. He cannot be so if he isn’t programmed to simulate romantic love!”

“But this is not exactly relevant to what we are trying to prove, sir,” Charlie objected. “He is supposed to prove that we can create human emotions in the laboratory, and we did it. We have enough proof of that, and I’ll be gathering more.”

“I want him to be complete, Dr. DeLanne. I want Michael to be able to simulate every emotion.”

“Romantic love simulation may as well cause a system failure. It will go against other diagnostics and programs I’ve previously ran and installed, and it might as well damage the machinery.”

“It’s a risk we have to take if we want to go further, Doctor. That’s what makes History: dares, going beyond, going further. We won’t lose everything: we have Michael’s formula and project saved and we could do it over again.”

“Michael cost W.I.S.E.R. around two hundred million dollars, sir! We can’t just spend money like this on another robot!”

“Doctor, this is an order,” Dr. Lawrence said, raising his brow. “Program him and test him. I want the whole package there.”

Charlie sighed; she couldn’t refuse a direct order from her boss.

“Very well, sir.”

“Good, very good.” He smiled amiably. “I was thinking you could start it tonight?”

“Actually, tonight have plans wit–” Before Charlie could finish the sentence, her phone rang. She looked at the screen; it was Mike.

“Sir, could you please give me a minute? I have to take this,” she asked, as Dr. Lawrence nodded. Charlie gave a few steps away from her boss to talk to her fiancée. After the fiasco of a few nights before, she had hoped to make things up with a movie and dinner. “Hey, Mike”

“Hey, Charle… I think I can’t make it tonight.”

“What? Again?” Her disappointment hurt deeply; it seems as everything was going wrong for them to spend time together.

“I’m sorry, baby, it’s work,” Mike apologized. “You know I want to be with you. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go to my place tomorrow and we can have lunch?”

“Mike, have you completely forgotten? We’ve planned this for weeks! My sister is coming to town tomorrow and we planned to meet her at the Houston’s for lunch!”

“Well, I can’t go that far tomorrow, Charlie. I’ll have to go back to work before 1AM. But well, tell your sister I said ‘hey’. I’ll talk to you later, honey, love you.”

“I –” Mike had already hung up on Charlie. She felt incredibly lonely; but the self-pity moment didn’t last for too long. She turned to her boss, with a renewed energy.

“Change of plans, boss. I’ll start the program today.”