Am I Programmed to Love Her?

I can feel my heart, if you can call it a heart, thumping. The mechanism is beating so fast because my date… no. My partner? No. My girlfriend? I hope so. Whatever I am to her — whatever she is to me — I can't explain my feelings. All I know is that each look, each touch, makes my circuits feel like they're shorting out. My heart mechanism races as she rubs little circles into my hand with her thumb. She talks about how her degrees are going. Library Science and Archaeology. The perfect education for a fellow jewel thief.

Jolene.

Jolene.

Jolene.

Jolene.

It seems my heart, or whatever it is, it's programmed to thump in a rhythm that almost sounds like her name.

Jolene.

Jolene.

Jolene.

Jolene.

What will she do when she finds out I’m not the real Isabelle? The real Isabelle, my mother-- No. That would be a weird way to describe our relationship. My creator died almost three years ago. She was trying to get back to Jolene to apologise for leaving when she got hit by a bus. She was planning to go back to Jolene. When she did, she'd leave me, an android with all of her memories, to do the dirty work of stealing jewels and selling them. She made me almost indistinguishable from herself. She even went so far as to make it so I’d need food, water, and sleep just like a real human. When she died, she’d been using an alias. In time, I was able to assume her identity and all of her remaining aliases with no trouble because of that.

I don’t know if she programmed me to love Jolene so I could never harm her. I don't know if loving Jolene is a result of having Isabelle’s memories. All I knew the first thing I had to do when I got back to Toronto was find Jolene.

I had spent the last three-ish years tying up the loose ends Isabelle had left. Once I finished I knew I could assume her identity without any issues. Now that I had taken care of that, I could finally meet… or return to… Jolene.

I know all of Isabelle’s tricks, mannerisms, habits, hobbies, opinions, and tastes. I am her. But I am also not her. She never saw the fortune we amassed when I sold the jewels. She never got to know how Jolene would react to seeing her again. I know where she stopped and I began. It was the day I first opened my eyes. Isabelle and Jolene had been separated for three months at that point.

As soon as Isabelle was sure I was functional, she put me to work stealing jewels from museums in Europe. As a hobby, we also replaced artifacts with fakes and returned the real ones to the cultures they belong to. Since my fingers are equipped with lasers that can cut glass and fix it with few traces, it was easy for me. I’d go in when an opportune moment presented itself and switch my target with a glass or plastic fake.

I have no fingerprints of my own. Isabelle borrowed them off a body that had been dead for a few hundred years. The prints were public record. My skin doesn’t shed cells and I don’t have any DNA. My hair is fake and I can’t grow more than I already have. I have titanium bones. Titanium is a metal that won’t set off any security alarms. But my skeleton is still strong enough that I could get hit by a car and walk away.

I’d been planning to tell Jolene about the flowers I got for her. I wanted to, but after I arrived almost three hours late for our date I was so flustered. I almost announced to the entire restaurant that I stole them.

They’re live flowers. I know Jolene likes that. And they have meaning in flower language. I knew the flower shops wouldn’t be able to accommodate on such short notice. Instead of trying to find a flower shop, I went to the richest parts of the city and snuck into a few greenhouses. I dug up live flowers. I was so careful with the roots and the bulbs that they should have no trouble with transplanting.

The ivy means affection.

The red carnations mean “my heart aches for you.”

The red tulips mean “I declare my love for you.”

The purple hyacinths mean “please forgive me.”

The violets are an old symbol of sapphic love.

I added the forget-me-nots on behalf of the other Isabelle and I mean for them to mean their name. She longed to be here today. I think the dead Isabelle would be happy with how the bouquet turned out. When the meanings of the flowers are put together it says: “Please forgive me. Don’t forget me. I love you so much my heart aches.”

I think it’s something the dead Isabelle Cartier would say with flowers. Or she would say it if she wasn’t buried in a grave with a name that wasn’t hers. Sibelle C. Artiera. An anagram of our name. We love anagrams. A lot of our aliases use them.

My date with Jolene at the top of the CN Tower has been going splendidly. Tonight is one of those rare nights when Ripley’s Aquarium has an after-hours event. So when we finish our dinner we go there.

Jolene pales at the thought of riding the elevator again, so I suggest we take the stairs instead. I pay security a few hundred dollars to let us do this. The stairs are normally used exclusively as a fire escape or for charity climbs. We sneak kisses on each landing on the way down.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jolene steals another kiss.

“You’re not going to swipe any of the fish tonight, are you?” she asks.

“No. I don’t think I could find a fake to replace it.”

She chuckles at my answer.

We spend a lot of our time at the aquarium seated by a tropical fish tank staring at all the bright colours. Jolene remarks that, if we were high, we’d probably stare at it for hours.

I don’t think my programming allows me to get high, but I never tried so I can’t be certain. I can’t tell her that, of course, so I smile and nod politely instead.

When the event ends, I invite her back to my place. She weighs her options for a moment, then accepts.

If we wind up being intimate, it will be my first time doing so. I have Isabelle’s memories to fall back on so I can make sure Jolene enjoys herself, but will I enjoy myself? I have functional anatomy. But will I get pleasure from the same things that brought Isabelle pleasure? This state of being simultaneously inexperienced and experienced confuses me. But the thought of having my first true sexual experience has me jittery. My heart mechanism feels like it should be audible to both of us as it thuds: Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.

Around three o’clock in the morning, Jolene yawns. She pulls a throw blanket over herself.

“We could sleep together in my bed, you know. Uh… just sleep. No sex… unless…”

She yawns. I yawn back, since humans do that.

“Just sleep… no sex tonight…” she says.

I nod and we walk to the bedroom.

She takes off most of her clothes and borrows one of my longer shirts. I change into a set of silky pyjamas. She snuggles up to me and we sleep. Just sleep.