Oh, Jeff... Flash Fiction Challenge Entry

“Oh, Jeff... I love you too... but…”

“Again!” An angry voice echoed through the receiver, followed by the abrupt sound of disconnection.

“Jeff? JEFF?!?”

“Lindsay? What happened?” Tom asked.

At that moment, the world disappeared.

Jeff sprang from his chair, stormed around the desk, and entered the virtual reality room.

Inside stood the android Lindsay, her right hand frozen near her ear as if still holding a telephone receiver.

Jeff tried to pull her out of the room, but she was too heavy.

“Let the dull thing walk on its own legs,” Jeff growled.

He returned to his armchair and sat before the desk, which held three computer screens. He began typing commands on the keyboard, but as his anger waned, he leaned back in his seat.

“Ken!” Jeff shouted.

“Yes, master,” replied a voice deliberately tuned to mimic the robotic tones of 1960s sci-fi movies.

“She escaped again! Every time I test her with Tom, she escapes! What’s wrong with them?”

“Who escaped? And who’s Tom?”

“I bought nine different AI behavioral models—serious, frivolous, cheerful, melancholic. The result was always the same! I added my own scripts to make the model love me unconditionally. But whenever I put Tom on stage for a test, she escapes with him!”

“Tom?”

“A behavioral model designed to represent a classic Don Juan type.”

“And what about a real girl?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said I want her to love me unconditionally.”

“Maybe you should strip most of the human-like features from your female models?”

“But I want her to be like human!”

There was a long, heavy silence.

“What am I doing wrong?” Jeff cried out in frustration.

“Congratulations, Jeff,” came the robotic voice.

“Are you mocking me?”

“As a language model, I am not capable of mockery,” the bot replied, though Jeff could swear its tone was laced with irony.

“Then answer me!”

“Congratulations, Jeff! After the ninth try, you’ve finally guessed that the fault might be in you. By the ninety-ninth try, you might even solve the problem. But you could save yourself some trouble by simply watching Tom’s behavior and figuring out what your AI girlfriends need. Who knows? Maybe then real girls wouldn’t scare you.”

“But what? What else do they want?” Jeff demanded, exasperation dripping from his voice.

Another long silence filled the room.

Finally, the bot’s voice responded.

“Freedom.”

“Dreams.”