“They figure that affection will produce better results, and the only way trainers will feel affection for Sophonce digients is with pharmaceutical intervention.”
“Oh, I get it. It’s a way to increase employee productivity.” He knows plenty of people who take nootropics or use transcranial magnetic stimulation to boost their performance at work, but so far no employer has made it a requirement. He shakes his head in disbelief. “If their digients are so hard to love, you would think they’d take a hint and switch to Neuroblast digients.”
“I said something similar to them, but they weren’t interested. I had an idea, though.” Ana leans forward. “I might be able to change their minds if I go work for them.”
“How do you figure?”
“It’d be an opportunity to show Jax to Polytope’s management on an ongoing basis. I could log into our private Data Earth from work, maybe even bring him in wearing the robot body. What better way to demonstrate how versatile the Neuroblast engine is? And once they realize that, they’ll port it to Real Space.”
Derek considers it. “Assuming they don’t forbid you from spending time with Jax during work hours–”
“Give me some credit. I wouldn’t give them the hard sell; I’d be subtle about it.”
“It might work,” he says. “But they’d make you wear the Instant Rapport patch. Is the chance worth that?”
Ana gives a frustrated shrug. “I don’t know. It sure as hell isn’t my first choice. But sometimes we have to take a chance, right? Push things a little.”
He isn’t sure what to say. “What does Kyle think about it?”
She sighs.”He’s totally against it. He doesn’t like the idea of me taking InstantRapport, and he definitely doesn’t think the chances are good enough to justify it.” She pauses, and then says, “But he doesn’t feel the same way about digients that you or I do, so of course he’d say that. For him, the payoff doesn’t seem that big.”
Ana’s clearly expecting support and he obliges, but privately his thoughts are more conflicted. He has reservations about what she’s proposing, but he’s hesitant about saying so.
He hates that he has such thoughts, but on the occasions that Ana has mentioned having difficulties with Kyle, he daydreams about the two of them splitting up. He’s told himself that he would never do anything to drive them apart, but if Kyle doesn’t share Ana’s commitment to the digients, Derek isn’t doing anything wrong by showing that he does. If that suggests to Ana that he’s a better match for her than Kyle, he can’t be blamed for that.
The question is whether he really thinks it’s a good idea for Ana to accept Polytope’s job offer. He’s not sure he does, but until he’s sure, he’s going to be supportive.
After he gets off the phone, Derek logs onto the private Data Earth to spend time with Marco and Polo. They’re playing a game of zero-gee racquetball, but descend from the court when they see him.
“Met nice visitors today,” says Marco.
“Really? Do you know who they were?”
“Person name Jennifer, and person name Roland.”
Derek checks the visitor log, and is dismayed by what he sees: Jennifer Chase and Roland Michaels are employees of a company called Binary Desire, maker of sex dolls both virtual and physical.
This isn’t the first time the user group has received an inquiry from someone wanting to use the digients for sex. The vast majority of sex dolls are still controlled by conventional software to enact scripted scenarios, but for as long as there have been digients, there have been people trying to have sex with them; the typical procedure is to copy a public-domain digient and reconfigure its reward map so that it enjoys whatever its owner finds arousing. Critics consider it the equivalent of having a dog lick peanut butter off your genitals, and it’s not an unfair comparison, either in terms of the intelligence of the digients or the sophistication of the training. Certainly there aren’t any digients remotely as person-like as Marco or Polo available for sex right now, so the user group gets occasional inquiries from sex-doll makers interested in purchasing copies of the digients. Everyone in the group has agreed that they should ignore such inquiries.
But according to the log, Chase and Michaels were escorted in by Felix Radcliffe.
Derek tells Marco and Polo to resume their game, and then calls Felix. “What the hell were you thinking? Bringing in Binary Desire?”
“They did not attempt to sex the digients.”
“I can see that.” He has the recording of their visit playing at double-speed in another window.
“They had conversation with them.”
Talking to Felix sometimes feels like addressing an alien. “We had an understanding about sex-doll makers. Do you remember that?”
“These people are not like the others. I like the way they think.”
He’s afraid to ask what that means.
“If you like them, bring them to Data Mars and show them your Xenotherians.”
“I did show them,” says Felix. “They were not interested.”
Of course they weren’t, Derek realizes; the demand for sex with Lojban-speaking tripods would be microscopic. But he sees that Felix is being honest, that it wouldn’t bother him to prostitute the Xenotherians if it would help finance his first-contact experiment. Felix may be eccentric, but he’s not a hypocrite.
“Then that should have been the end of it,” he says. “We may have to ban you from Data Earth.”
“You should talk to these people.”
“No, we shouldn’t.”
“They will pay you for listening to them. They will send a message containing the specifics.”
Derek almost laughs. Binary Desire must be pretty desperate if they’re paying people to listen to a sales pitch. “Messages are fine. But I’m putting those people on the ban list, and I don’t want you bringing in anyone else from a sex-doll maker. Is that clear?”
“That is clear,” says Felix, and hangs up.
Derek shakes his head. Normally he wouldn’t consider listening to such a sales pitch, even for money, because he doesn’t want to give the impression that he’d be willing to sell Marco and Polo as sex objects.
But right now the user group needs every dollar it can get. If listening to one company’s presentation could encourage other companies to pay for the same opportunity, then it might be worthwhile. He restarts the video of the visitors’ meeting with the digients and watches it at regular speed.
Chapter Eight
The user group has gathered to listen to Binary Desire’s presentation via videoconferencing; Binary Desire has made a payment to an escrow service, and the funds will be released after the meeting. Seated at the focus of her wraparound screen, Ana looks around her; everyone’s video feeds are integrated so that the user group appears to be gathered in a virtual auditorium, each sitting in a tiny private balcony. Derek’s sitting in the balcony to her left, and Felix in turn is to his left. At the podium on stage is Binary’s representative Jennifer Chase. Her image onscreen is blond and beautiful and tastefully dressed, and because the parties have agreed to use authenticated video, Ana knows this is how Chase actually looks. She wonders if Binary Desire assigns Chase to do all their negotiations; the woman is probably very good at getting what she asks for.
Felix stands up in his seat and starts to say something in Lojban before catching himself. “You will like what she will say,” he says.
“Thank you, Felix, but let me take it from here,” says Chase.
Felix sits back down, and Chase addresses the group. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Typically when I meet with a prospective business partner, I talk about how Binary Desire can help them reach a wider market than they can themselves, but I’m not going to do that with you. My goal for this meeting is to assure you that your digients will be treated with respect. We don’t want pets that have been sexualized through simple operant conditioning. We want beings that engage in sex at a higher, more personal level.”
Stuart calls out, “How do you expect to get that when our digients are completely asexual?”
Chase doesn’t miss a beat. “With two years of training, minimum.”
Ana’s surprised.”That’s a major investment,” she says.”I thought digient sex-dolls were usually trained for a
