A Matter of Compatibilty

A story by Bryan Harrison

Based on character concepts established in the film
AI: Artificial Intelligence

Transcript of excerpt from audio-recording obtained from anonymous persons, allegedly recorded during tests conducted at Cyberchild Industries. Voices are one unidentified female (1) and one unidentified male (2), assumed to be employees of Cyberchild. Names are omitted, perhaps censored by the creator of the recording or the person who sent the disk.

(Sound of door slamming, indistinguishable peripheral noises.)

(1) - “What the hell happened?”

(2)- “If we knew that we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?

(1) - “Well, isn’t this your department?”

(2)- “Don’t even try it! I’ve never even seen the neural map for this thing. (unintelligible) was all ‘just plug it in and let it go’, right? Now, I’m supposed to come in and clean up the mess? Why don’t you call Hobby? It’s his design, right?“

(1)- “Last warning.”

(2)- “OK, fine! Play your games. But you can’t sit on this forever.”

(1)- “Let me worry about that. Have you ever seen a malfunction like this?”

(2)- “It wasn’t a malfunction. There was some kind of conflict in the system.”

(1)– “What kind of conflict?”

(2)- “It was a matter of compatibility. Listen, (unintelligible) I’m not taking the fall for this one. Not alone. You’d better think about that”

(1) - “Maybe You need a vacation. You’re getting jumpy.”

2

Automated Rejection Response from Litigation Net-Clerk to Legal Council for plaintiff Julia Contreras-Zimmerman on the matter of pending Complaint against Cyberchild Industries:

In response to e-filing on matter of Zimmerman vs. Cyberchild Re: “Motion toInclude Peripheral Testimony/Evidence”; Testimony of Monica Swinton (plaintiff in un-related case), Testimony of Tom Rhoze (Cybertronics technician in un-related case), audio-recording of Cyberchild employees at Mecha-child trials:

This document has been returned un-filed, pending judgment on the following proceedings:

(a) Matter of Swinton vs. Cybertronics; Relevance of Simulant Unit behavior to emotional anguish of plaintiff derived from malfunction of Simulant Unit due to characteristics not

disclosed in arbitration contract; Legality of non-disclosure in respect to contract.

(b) Matter of Cybertronics vs. Cyberchild; Re: Commercial Espionage, Intellectual Theft, and Copyright Infringement.

Plaintiff Julia C. Zimmerman’s request for inclusion of the testimony of Monica Swinton and/or Tom Rhoze cannot be filed without prior judgment on at least one of the preceding matters.

Clerks Note: Peripheral Testimony must fall under existing legal standards of relevance before it can be considered evidentiary. Without precedence established on matter legality of Cybertronics failure to disclose relevant data in arbitration contract and/or Cyberchild alleged intellectual theft of programming design, no case for testimony can be considered applicable to proceedings. Either finding will establish relevance in your case and the motion can then go before the Judge.

If you would like notification of Judgment on these cases, please fill out form CN-1624-a and mark “Relevance” on the “Reason for Notification” tab.

In regards to the Cyberchild audio recording, please separate Motion for Inclusion as Evidence Re: audio-recording, from packet and resubmit separately. This matter can proceed before the Judge.

For further inquiries or complaints please contact a Civil Matters Supervisor @ Shadow Creek Net-Home.gov

3

Melancholy always descended on Julia this time of year. It wrapped her tightly in its brooding grey cloak, and left her bedridden for a month before it finally, mercifully passed. Medford, her husband of fifteen years, had grown used to this annual hibernation and had long since learned to make the best of his early retirement during that time by scouring the sunken towns along the coast with his recreational salvage team, zipping through the skies in his time-share Strato-cruiser, or catching a round of Zero-G golf with the small circle of friends his work allowed.

He was also prone to spend this time with another woman. An Orga woman.

Not that such a delineation would have made much difference to Julia, had she been aware of her husband’s infidelities, which she was not. It was not that she was a stupid, or naive woman. It was because the Medford Zimmerman she’d married had not been a man capable of detailed or prolonged deceptions. It didn’t seem to be in his nature. So, after an initial period of watchful newlywed skepticism, she’d come to trust her husband. Implicitly.

Six years after that his affair had begun.

Julia’s annual depression had first started the year before her husband break of faith, in the spring of their fifth year. This was the year that Medford had worked his way up from the ranks of corporate anonymity to become a face often seen, if not yet known, in the halls of aspiring power, where gathered the upwardly mobile acolytes who had already shed their now useless ethical skins and cut their teeth on stabbing each other in the back. Whoever survived these savage training grounds would then begin the slow ascent up the corporate ladder to the green pastures of wealth, privilege and security. The once quiet and bookish Medford Zimmerman, the one with whom a young Julia Contreras had fallen in love and married, would become one of the survivors, so much so that he would retire from the work place long before any of his peers. He would also become a different man in the process.

So, in the spring of that fifth year, when the fruits of her husband’s labor and ethical sacrifices began to sprout, Julia had applied to the Child Licensing Authority for a permit to make their family the perfect triad that only the most fit to parenthood were allowed.

She had been promptly denied.

“How can they!” she’d screamed that night, as her (at that point) faithful husband had rocked her in his arms. She had been clasping the document that carried the official decision. It was already torn and wrinkled from being thrown into, and retrieved from, the trash basket three times by that point.

The infamous psychological temperament tests that were one of many obstacles for applicants to the CLA, were not always accurate. The institution had been sued in the past when couples they had deemed unstable, had thrived for years, well past the point when age would allow them a license. The CLA had insisted that the couples had managed their longevity simply out of spite and that had they been allowed to bring a life into the world, it would have wound up being another for the already overburdened Fed to feed. This argument had not always proved effective, or even valid.

But the tests had been quite accurate on the matter of the marriage of Contreras/Zimmerman, and had inadvertently given Julia the first of many hints that she would fail to notice.

“Please, Julia,” Medford had pleaded, “We’ll apply again. We only have a 12-month waiting period.” But that following year he would meet Miriam Jefferson at a time-share pitch for his latest hobby, strato-cruising, and their affair would begin during an innocent dinner that same evening.

Julia had been at home the night her husband embarked on his departure from his matrimonial agreements. She’d been pacing their large suburban home, crying; throwing away and retrieving the second of what would wind up a total of six denials by the CLA. The tests had once again picked up on Medford’s potential for infidelity. Contrasted with Julia’s strong conservative profile, the prognosis had suggested a likelihood of divorce and custody battles and the inevitable emotional trauma to any child. Their application was, once again, denied.

It was basically a matter of compatibility.

Julia had only been able to tolerate four more of those notices before the sham of applying was dispensed of and she, instead, would take to the bed with remote in hand and hibernate until the chill of her emotional season had passed.

Then, in the third year of her annual hibernation, a small, unknown company named Cyberchild contacted the troubled Zimmerman family, and everything changed.