1 – Say Yes to Manupartners
K8
September 21, 2390, before.
Modern times are lonely; the future may be worse.
K8’s doorbell pings, drawing her attention away from the eerily accurate Old News article she was reading dated September 21, 2030, exactly three hundred and sixty years ago. Jett breezes into her unit carrying a to-go bag from Say Yes to Noodles.
“Lessa says you’re being weird again.” He hands her the package.
She scoffs. She isn’t being weird. Certainly not again. In fact, she’s never weird. K8 is perfectly normal. Just an incrediblylonely womanimportant particulate pollution scientist whopathetically lives byherselfmaintains a very nice unit in C Quadrant. So what if she hasn’t left that very nice unit since her birthday a week ago?
Before she can come up with a viable excuse, he frowns, scolding, “K8-nine-ten, if you continue to isolate yourself like this, how am I supposed to do my job as one of your FRIENDS?” He holds out his device for the retina scan. “Speaking of, let’s verify before we forget.” She leans forward and it pings. Then he does his own.Lunch encounter verified. Only two more encounters needed to complete your September requirement, the device confirms.
Jett is the one of her three government-assigned FRIENDS who she’s closest to. Close isn’t the right word. Surface level is a better description. He’s better than the other two.
Today he’s wearing his strip of icy blond hair slicked back over his head, so the shaved sides stand out. The severe style makes his sharp cheekbones and the deep hollows beneath them pop more than usual. With his heavy brow and deep-set eyes, he looks as if someone’s placed a charcoal bias-cut tunic and pair of leggings on a marble statue. A statue that has black eyes and an iridescent black snake scale tattoo peeking out of the edge of his collar to wrap around his corded neck as a cuff. He purses his pale lips as he studies her.
“I’m not being weird.” She sets the two boxes of noodles on the coffee table along with a water and VitaShot for each of them. “It’s only that I had a dream about my parents again and it got me thinking.”
Jett gives her a dramatic eye roll as she passes him a water. “Not this again. They were born in the late 2000s. You can’t expect things to be how they were back then. You’re a scientist, for the love of Zorg. Be logical.”
“But it would only take one other person who feels the same. Then I could have what my parents did.” She knows exactly where this conversation is headed, but she’s powerless to steer it in a different direction. The logical reality is that in all her eighty-six years, she’s nevermet a single person who wants the same thing as her: companionship.With another human.
“I’m telling you,” Jett starts, but she parrots him as they finish together, “you should get a manupartner.”
They both chuckle because this isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation.
She opens her mouth to speak, but Jett cuts her off before she can. “Please, not another diatribe against manupartners.”
She huffs, feeling defeated by the prevailing attitude of her time. She can practically see the GROW slogan in fresh, grass-green letters as if it were a banner in her mind: “Love Has Never Been Easier.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I don’t get the point of them. Why pay unicoin for something you can have for free? They’re not even real. Just biologically identical dupes. Don’t you find it a little gross that you’re having a romantic relationship with a clone?”
Jett snorts. “You usually say flesh robot. You must be serious this time.”
She can almost rationalize why Jett and every other member of her society choose manupartners. The man who invented them, Res6, is a modern-day hero. Theflesh robotsprovide an easy, no-strings-attached option for companionship. Eager to please and disposable. Sounds great, right? But something in her refuses to give in. It’s what herheartbrain wants. “I just can’t stand it anymore.”
“Think of it this way; they’re like having a dog that you get to have sex with. You get companionship during the day and something to warm your bed at night.” Jett smirks, seemingly amused at his cleverness.
K8 imagines the small furry animals that lived inside people’s houses. She thinks of her own dog. How petting its soft fur has been such a comfort to her at low points over her life. But having sex with one . . . “That’s disgusting. People didn’t have sex with dogs.”
Jett chuffs, breaking the seal on his box of noodles. “I know that. But you get my point.”
“I think someone should start a dating service. Like a system where the algorithm suggests potential partners based on personality and similar interests. You can narrow down the pool of potential candidates based on—”
“Society has already tried and failed with those applications. Not to mention the Northern Hemisphere Organizational System’s Community Protection Bans. I’m fairly certain dating platforms are on the list of prohibited online activities.”
K8 huffs, flicking an irritating lock of hair over her shoulder. “But it might be different now. What if you could check boxes, like how you do when you order a manupartner, but instead of a flesh robot, it gives you options for real people? If I could get enough signatures, I could convince the NHOS Intra-society Network Monitoring Agency about the substantial benefits for the modern world.”
“There’s no way NHOS will make an exception. It’s well documented that programs like that created the societal malaise that led to The Great Equalizer. The latest literature points to ‘interested parties’ conditioning society through various social platforms. People became apathetic.”
The catastrophic event had ultimately benefited society. So what if it took hackers programming AI bots to wipe out the financial systems in a single night? They effectively did away with the “interested parties,” a.k.a. the faceless entitiescontrollingdestroying the world.
“Look at how good things are now. These delectable and nutritious noodles are affordable to every citizen. Advancements in medical care mean that we can live several hundred years, maybe even more. Our choice of entertainment is at our fingertips. Want to go rafting down the river or lie on the beach at a luxury resort? Anyone can step into a simulation chamber and experience it—regardless of the pay bracket.”
Jett shakes his head. “Wiping out all monetary records means good people lost everything, too. It sent the world into chaos. Food and supply systems failed, setting humanity back, by some estimates, nearly a hundred years. Maybe more.”
