Designs of our Slave Race chapter 7

Chapter 7

“Well, I hope that everyone here is having fun with the HX01 unit that has been assigned to them,” Devon stated at one of our meetings.

“Yep, I'm having my fun all right,” Philip stated in a raunchy tone, “Hadn't been so satisfied in a long time. Could replace women as we know it.”

“Oh I'm sure you are you pervert,” I shot back, “Gotta love Phil, who can get a droid, which is not programmed to do that I might add, to jerk him off.”

“Enough!” Devon rose his hands to silence the room of the IT chicka and pervert engineer stand-off. He then continued on, his bony figure hovering over the table as he continued, “I would like to know if there are any problems that anyone is having with the HX01.”

“Yeah, ah,” I started as everyone said they had no problems, “Mine seems to be awfully chatty, asking questions that are at the philosophical level. Its rather creepy.”

“Mine does that too,” Gordon replied, “I just assumed that it was part of the learning matrix: trying to know as much as possible. Nothing to worry about.”

“So does mine,” David piped in, “Mine is really interested in me. I kinda like it actually.”

“Mine doesn't do that,” Philip said.

“Oh really?” I said in a curious tone, “Did you get a special model or something?”

“No,” he said, “It tried that on the first day. I merely told it to shut up. Hasn't done it ever since. God, if only all women were like this HX01.”

My heart sank into my stomach. I had thought of that, but I didn't say it, for Ben somehow felt too human to say something like that too. A silly thought at the time to think that I cared about the feelings of a computer.

“I just don't think that we had to say anything to them,” I explained, “I mean, its not that they're saying 'I'm sorry I don't understand, please elaborate'. The other day mine asked me about sex. He asked me why we think sex is dirty. Why should he care whether or not sex is dirty?”

“You got a point Shannon,” Gordon understood, “thought what's wrong with answering it?”

“Oh Shannon,” David chimed in a silly voice, “did you call your HX01 a 'he'?”

“No I didn't,” I replied.

“Yes you did,” he rebutted, “You said 'he asked me', and 'why should he care'.”

“I did?” My mind worked overtime. Did I assign human traits to a robot? The thought was too much. “I could have sworn I said 'it'” I said back to them, though now I think about it I had used the pronoun 'he'.

“And you said while talking about sex,” Philip added in, “You getting satisfaction from your HX01 unit?”