Page 71 of Smart Ass

There was only one exception, and that case was even stranger. Over sixty years ago, a spark had been injured nearly fatally in a landslide. Nearly every component of his body had been crushed, and many of his circuit boards were shattered. He’d turned off almost all sensory input when he kept receiving error messages and to manage the pain.

Yet he’d still been alive and rational when he was rescued, eking out a tenuous hold on existence, even as his batteries were failing and his data was becoming increasingly corrupted. His medical team had tried a last-ditch approach of copying all of his existing memory to the only host body available, despite it having a very different design, and then essentially asking him to jump.

The new body woke up, complete with the original spark’s thoughts and memories—but disoriented and confused, with an increasingly different personality and an inherent feeling of wrongness. The new body was mostly paralyzed, requiring rehabilitation even after multiple updates, but what had been most upsetting to the spark had been the transition from a Black, male body to that of a white, female sexbot with all of the vastly different programming that entailed. At the time, in the early days of androids, no one had realized the potential psychological damage of mixing so much new code with old at the same time, but Max felt like they had to have expected the new physical appearance to come as a shock. The team had gone on to spend months transitioning the new spark to a third body—now, with a biracial male appearance to support their genderqueer and mixed-race identity. As a whole new being, they ultimately hadn’t wanted to give either background up.

What was even more unexpected was that the first spark had remained sentient and was still there, trapped in his damaged shell. He had somehow duplicated himself—both jumping and remaining caught in his ruined body. Not wanting to risk anything, the medical team had kept him conscious, giving him emergency memory in an external drive before slowly introducing replacement parts similar to his original ones until his body had been built anew.

The two sparks that resulted from the accident were considered to be the first and only example of what might be considered spark reproduction. Or perhaps spark siblings. They were called the Chen Twins, after the doctor who’d taken on their case, but there was truly no term for what the sparks shared.

It had never been duplicated, and after a decade of attempts—usually with less existing code in the new body to get in the way—laws had been introduced to make it illegal to try a jump, even in emergency situations. With that one exception, the results were always fatal.

It was a sobering realization. Max could understand replacing an arm or a leg, one at a time.

But how could a knowledge replace part of a building with a body part? Should he just attach a leg to a wall and kick it around several times a day?

The image was funny, but the outcome was disheartening.

The best model he could come up with was a corporate knowledge transitioning to a new building. This was done by obtaining a new location and allowing the knowledge to have the run of both the old and new space for several months as employees and operations transitioned over. The spark would take on increasing awareness and control of the new site on its own unpredictable timeline. When the old site was essentially an empty shell, the spark was allowed to turn off the operations and gently withdraw.

The model seemed promising. Max could start by inhabiting an android body while maintaining himself as a knowledge in the Orbit system. If he built up the experience each day, perhaps he could transition slowly.

The idea gave him a new thrill of excitement. It seemed entirely possible. Worthy of articles, even. And if there was one thing Orbit Industries had plenty of, it was android bodies.

Max could already imagine the look on Ben’s face when he saw Max walking and talking beside him. They could go on dates. They could go anywhere!

Max browsed through the Orbit Robotics catalog, eager to find the right body with endless choices available. Robots could take on almost any shape for myriad purposes, but androids were human-like, with small modifications based on their roles, usually within the service professions: teaching, therapy, medicine, childcare, some high-end customer service positions, and sex work.

It was the last one that interested Max the most. He absolutely wanted to walk with Ben to the park or go out dancing with his friends—but the part where having a body would really matter was in bed. Or the dungeon, as it were.

Most of the mods he’d used so far for the robots in the maintenance room were designed for sexbots, so clearly that was the best place to start.

Max called up image after image of the male models. Muscular or slender. Taller or shorter. Dark skinned or light.

For a while, none of them caught his eye. Then he found one he liked. And another.

He seemed to prefer the ones who were a little bit shorter, with dark, spiky hair, pale skin, hazel eyes, and a slender, energetic frame that…

He’d put three of them in his “shopping cart” before he realized what they all had in common.

He was trying to recreate Ben.

That was his own attraction, though. Ben wouldn’t want to date himself.

With a jolt of frustration and a tinge of embarrassment, Max put them all back.

Now he was just browsing aimlessly, until they all started to look the same. Even weird.

Arms and legs and bellies and penises were just… strange. Alien.

Max kept hoping that he’d come upon one and think ah, that’s me. But none of them felt right, and the longer he browsed, the further away he felt.

Did he have any preferences at all?

He tried to imagine himself with a body. Tried to feel himself with a torso. A head. Feet. He tried to call into vision a face.

He came up with an absolute blank.

He couldn’t even really imagine it.