Free The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett

instincts about this,’ Paul said. ‘There is something really abominable about building a machine to mimic a human being.’
    Marija shrugged.
    ‘Well, perhaps, but I still feel sorry for them,’ she said, and she looked at me, almost as if I was one of the robots she felt sorry for: this stiff creature, struggling to find the spark of spontaneity, of naturalness, of life…

19
    I ran to Lucy’s. I wanted the feeling that Lucy gave me, however illusory, however temporary, of being welcomed, of being accepted, of being let in .
    But when I got there, Lucy wasn’t free.
    ‘Perhaps you’d like to choose someone else for a change?’ the syntec receptionist suggested.
    ‘I don’t want anyone else!’ I snapped. I was shocked by the dangerous edge in my own voice, the scale of my rage at being thwarted.
    ‘I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m afraid she’s engaged.’
    ‘That’s no fucking use is it?’
    I took a pace or two away, my fists clenched, my head fizzing with violence. Then I came back to the receptionist.
    ‘Okay, I’ll wait then. How long will she be?’
    The robot receptionist passed on my query, via House Control, to Lucy up there in her room:
    ‘ Another subject is enquiring after you. Please give estimate of time with present subject. ’
    ‘ Subject is using special facilities ,’ Lucy replied in her batsqueak machine voice, quite inaudible to the customer, who only heard her simulated gasps of pleasure as he played with her surface layer of flesh. ‘ For your reference re duration of earlier visits , subjects credit code is 4532 7865 6120. Own estimate of remaining time: forty-five minutes .’
    House Control checked the estimate with its own records, and found it to be accurate. It relayed this back to the receptionist.
    ‘About forty-five minutes sir,’ said the receptionist, hardly more than a second after I had asked my question, ‘You could wait in the bar, or you could make another selection in the lounge…’
    I hesitated. Absurdly I felt murderously angry with Lucy for not being there for me.
    ‘I’ll pick another one,’ I said.
    I chose one as different from Lucy as possible: a syntec in the likeness of a large black woman called Sheba. She had huge silky-skinned breasts, broad, muscly thighs and a wonderful thick dark mat of pubic hair into which I plunged greedily.
    Yes, greedily is the word, for I seemed then to fall into a kind of feeding frenzy. No sooner had I finished with Sheba than I went straight back down to the lounge and picked up another ASPU called Lady Charlotte, made to look like a sophisticated aristocrat from eighteenth century Europe, complete with beauty spot and layers of petticoats.
    And when I’d finished under those petticoats, I went down for still more. It was as if the emptiness left behind by one ASPU could only be filled by another – and so on and on and on. I picked out a machine called Helen, in the likeness of a worldly schoolgirl with a small scar on her upper lip, and screwed her from behind in a place made out to look like a high school locker room.
    On the way down, I met Lucy coming up with another man.
    The syntecs were programmed to recognize regular customers. She looked at me and smiled. And her sweet smile went right through me like a knife.
    ‘Oh Lucy, I do love you,’ I whispered.
    And I kept on whispering it to myself outside in the street, with that dull ache pressing out from behind my eyes: ‘I love you Lucy, I love you, I love you, I love you…’
    When I’d walked a couple of blocks, I was startled by the sound of an explosion not very far away. Even the ground seemed to tremble – and somewhere behind me in the street some small glass object fell to the ground and smashed.
    A silence fell on the city.
    And then from the distance, in several directions, came the sound of emergency vehicles, drawing quickly nearer and then rushing whooping through the blocks on either side of me.
    I didn’t know it then, of course, but