Party Girl

Julie wondered at the chaos around her in the school cafeteria. It was difficult to pick out conversations from the overall buzz. Trays clattered, videos and music played from phones. Knots of students laughed and chatted. The sensory overload was intimidating. Add to the noise the harsh overhead fluorescent lights, clothing of every color in the rainbow, the hideous bright blue and yellow chairs. The smell of fried food, tomato sauce, and the sickly sweet of today’s dessert wafting out from the kitchen. This mixed with hundreds of different perfumes, deodorants, body sprays and shampoos to further assault her nose. But in her own weird way, she kind of liked it. Took it all in. Catalogued it.

She saw a group of her friends making their way over to her table. She self-consciously brushed her hair back behind her ears and pasted a smile on as they settled into seats around her. “Hey Jules. Whatchoo doin’ girl?” This was Glenda. She was loud and obnoxious, but Julie admired her brashness and independence. She had on a Che Guevara T-shirt over a very loud pink long sleeve. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an untidy mess. “Hey Glen. How are you?” Julie asked. “Jules, we gotta do something to loosen you up,” Glenda laughed and then mocked Julie with a faux serious face until Julie laughed a little herself. Julie observed Glenda a lot. She figured she could learn from her behavior. Glenda had lots of friends and seemed so easy with everything. The group dug into their meals and the conversation ebbed. Phones came out. Pictures were taken. Pictures were shared and laughed about. Julie had her phone out too. It looked like everyone else’s phone but had some special features. She recorded almost the entire day. Later, she would upload the recordings and process them, watching for facial expressions that were common, listening to how the other kids spoke to her, to each other.

“Jules. You going to Jimmy’s party tomorrow?” Julie checked to see if this was part of her schedule. There it was. She noted that Jimmy, who she didn’t know that well, had passed her an invite earlier in the week. She had read it but wanted to see how the rest of the week played out before responding. “Are you guys going?” Julie asked. She was greeted by a chorus of “Yeah”, “Of Course” and “Wouldn’t miss it”. She nodded too. “Yeah, I’m going.” Parties were tough for Julie. Even though she had been to a few, she felt even more out of place than usual and worried that someone might find her out. Many of her friends got drunk or smoked weed and their personalities changed. This part of human behavior was difficult to analyze and more difficult to mimic. She could consume any quantity of alcohol or drugs without any effect. She had to be extra careful at parties. It would seem weird if she were to take a few shots, share a joint and then seem her normal reserved self.

She also worried about boys at parties. A few months ago, at a celebration near the end of the football season, there had been a big party at the house of one of the team members. It was a fancy place with a swimming pool, hot tub, and huge back yard. Julie had been studying how boys and girls of her age interacted. She had uploaded dozens of movies about this age and downloaded hundreds of articles on teenage sexuality. She had developed a sense for what was considered attractive and picked out a boy she knew from one of her classes. Before heading to the party, she had enhanced her breast size, knowing this was something that many boys liked. She didn’t go too much bigger, because that might draw suspicion. She chose a revealing shirt and bra that enhanced her cleavage even more. She was interested in how things would progress, eager to log new information. Her manufacturer had spared no expense on making her a fully functional human, from a biological standpoint. Obviously, she couldn’t conceive a child, but a human male (or female, for that matter) would not be able to tell that she was an android by having sex with her. She had also uploaded enough media to know how she should act if she were to have sex.

It had been easy to get Travis interested in her. Humans were creatures that functioned on a very basic level, when you came down to it. They kissed a little while in a quiet spot in the yard. Then Travis suggested that they go find a room in the house. Even though this was what Julie had wanted, so she could learn from the experience, there was a sense of fear in how aggressively Travis pulled her along by the arm. They found an empty bedroom in the house and Travis shut and locked the door behind him. He immediately took off most of his clothes. “Take off your shirt,” he said. Julie was feeling less and less confident. “I don’t know,” she said. “Forget that,” said Travis and he pushed Julie roughly back on the bed, straddling her and pulling her shirt out of her pants. Julie went into self-preservation mode, grabbing Travis by the arm, twisting it and knocking him to the floor. His eyes went wide with pain. “You crazy bitch. I think you broke my arm.” Julie looked back through the pressure data and noted that it was just under what was needed to break human bone unless he had particularly weak bones. She bolted from the room. Tales from that night circulated around the school for a few days, but thankfully were surpassed by new, juicier rumors in short order. Julie downplayed the incident, hoping for it to fade from memory.

The rest of the school day was uneventful. Julie lined up with the other students to take her bus home in the afternoon. The sun was out and she felt the warmth on her face. Some kids were tossing a frisbee around as they waited. Julie had better than normal peripheral vision and noticed an errant throw coming her way. She quickly calculated the speed and trajectory of the disc and anticipated contact. She made herself stand still. It flew into her arm. She dampened the pain sensors, so she wouldn’t react too much. A boy she recognized from her math class came running over. “Hey, I’m really sorry,” he said. “That’s OK,” said Julie, “It didn’t hurt that much.” “It’s Julie, right?” he asked. “That’s right. And you are…,” “Ben.” He stuck out his hand. “I think we’re in geometry together.” Julie took has hand and gave it a shake. “Nice to meet you Ben,” she said. The bus had arrived and kids were jostling towards the open doors. “See you later Ben,” Julie said. She made sure to add some blush to her cheeks. Just enough that he might notice. Ben waved as she got on the bus.

The day had warmed up nicely and kids opened windows on the stuffy bus for the ride home. Julie noticed spring smells of tree blossoms and new growth as the bus bumped through the neighborhood. She observed and catalogued more behavior and interactions on the bus to add to her dataset.

Finally, they were on her street and the bus squealed to a stop at the end of her block. She got off with a half dozen other students and walked down to her house. She guessed that her mom would be there, which was confirmed by the presence of her car in the driveway. Her parents treated her well. That wasn’t surprising, given the amount of money they had spent for her. She wasn’t really supposed to have that information, but one day when they were gone, she had been going through papers in their office and found a folder from Offspring Dynamics. She also learned that they had tried to conceive a child naturally for years but were unsuccessful. Her Mom, Beth, really wanted a child. Even though her dad, Joe, was nice enough to her, sometimes she found him looking at her in an odd way and there were subtle hints that he was just playing along for Beth’s sake.

Julie opened the door and went in. She kicked off her shoes in the hall, making sure to leave them in the way even though she knew her mom would scold her about this. She wasn’t supposed to be a perfect person. She was supposed to give her parents a realistic daughter and that meant sometimes being annoying and difficult, the way real teenagers were. Beth would sometimes yell or say mean things to her. While Julie didn’t have actual feelings, her AI did create certain reactions given different stimuli. Julie felt like real feelings were just beyond her reach, like a word that is on the tip of your tongue, but just won’t quite materialize. She wondered what real feelings felt like and how she would ever tell if she was having them.

Julie went into the kitchen, plunked her backpack down and went to the refrigerator. With a can of seltzer, she sat at the kitchen counter and took out her phone, scrolling through the latest Instagram and Facebook posts. Beth came in and gave Julie a brief hug before sitting down next to her at the counter. “How was your day, sweetie?” Julie kept staring at the screen, not wanting to be too eager in her response. She let another minute go by before looking up. “Hey Mom. It was good,” she said. “There’s a party tomorrow that I’m going to. I hope that’s OK.” Julie looked at Beth to gauge her reaction. She could tell that Beth wasn’t crazy about the idea by the small physical reactions that otherwise would go unnoticed. A slight increase in her respiratory rate and widening of her pupils. “Where is it going to be?” asked Beth. “At Jimmy’s. It’ll be fine, Mom. Don’t worry.” Julie picked up her backpack and headed to her room, ending the conversation.

The next day at school was uneventful. Julie added a few new behaviors and language phrases to her database, integrating them into her overall personality. She liked to think that she was unique. And in some ways, she was little pieces of everyone she had interacted with. The AI was supposed to be always evolving, although Julie wasn’t conscious of that happening. Everyone was talking about Jimmy’s party and Julie joined in on the excitement. She worked out getting a ride with Glenda and a few other girls.

That afternoon, she got herself ready, picking out clothes that would show off her body, but not too much. The unfortunate events of the other party led to a somewhat more conservative choice. She pulled her hair back into a pony tail and chose a pair of dangly earrings. The doorbell rang and she called out from her room, “I’m coming.” Beth was waiting for her in the hallway. Julie anticipated Beth’s warnings about the party. “Don’t worry about me, Mom. I’ll be careful. And I’ll call you if I need ride, even if it’s late.” Julie gave Beth a quick hug and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks Mom,” Julie said and headed out the door.

Jimmy’s house was in a different suburban neighborhood. One that was slightly more affluent than where Julie lived. Cars were parked up and down the street and it seemed like every light in the house was on as they went up to the front door. The heavy bass of the music and a drone of conversation and laughter could be heard from the street. Julie took in the crowd as they made their way through the front door. Most of the kids she recognized from school, with a few strangers mixed in. She smelled the skunky odor of pot and almost everyone had either a beer bottle or red plastic cup in their hand. Julie wanted to fit in, so she found her way to the bar and got a cup of the punch. It was hard to hear any conversations over the music in the house, so Julie made her way to the back yard. People were gathered in small knots, chatting and laughing. There was a fire going in the circular stone pit at the edge of the patio. Julie turned up the acuity of her hearing and listened in to different groups, getting  the gist what was being discussed. Predictably, the girls were talking about different boys they were interested in. The male groups had conversations evenly split between girls and sports. 

Julie spotted a guy she hadn’t seen before sitting by himself in a chair at the edge of the patio. She watched him for a couple of minutes. He seemed to be doing the same thing as she was, just taking things in. He had a bottle of beer but wasn’t drinking from it. A burst of laughter distracted her and she saw one of her classmates toppled over on the ground. The party hadn’t been going that long and already people had consumed too much. 

Julie made her way over to the stranger in the chair. About halfway there, he looked up and caught her eye. He smiled. She smiled back. “Hey,” Julie said as she got close enough. “Hey yourself,” he said. “You don’t go to Central, do you,” said Julie. He hesitated for a moment. “No. I go to the Catholic school. I’m pretty new.” They talked for a few minutes about their different schools and how he knew Jimmy, which was from a swimming club they were both in. His name was John. Julie noticed the way his hands moved and a slight delay in his pupil response. She had often wondered if she would ever run into another like her. She had no idea how many were out there and where they were. “It’s OK. I know what you are,” Julie figured that being direct was probably the best. For what was probably an unnoticeable amount of time to anyone who wasn’t an android, John was frozen. “Oh. OK. I guess I see it now,” John said.

Julie didn’t realize how much she had longed to have someone like herself to interact with. She felt a great relief to have found John. She reached out to him across a bandwidth that was unique to their brand and felt the connection as his system gave her access. This would allow them to share data back and forth. It was actually more intimate than what it sounded like. They both continued a semblance of a human conversation, but the data exchange was where they were really communicating. Julie felt less alone than she had in a long time.