Tantamount [short story] Read online

  At this influx of interest, a guilty conscience began to build for Raine; still, she continued to guard her doubts closely. She had not even mentioned the growing longing she felt to her sister—to be truly in love and to have that love reciprocated. How could she explain that her perfect match was programmed to love her, that that knowledge alone made it impossible for her to feel deeply for Lloyd beyond a certain point, and that he was incapable of the same since he had not chosen her. She might have tried to illustrate the point by saying it was as though Lloyd existed just out of reach behind a pane of leaded glass if she thought Justine would understand. Her sister was too excited at the prospect of bringing home her own life companion.

  Under the guise of supervision, Raine would visit the bioengineering laboratories on the fifth floor of the building every day, walking the aisles, scrutinizing the development kiosks, peering at the diagnostic monitors all the while disinterested in the androids actually being animated and built. The sterile-ness of the process fueled her personal uncertainties but she also found it comforting. In recognizing Lloyd as an assemblage of mostly digital machinery under biological flesh desensitized her from wanting from him what she would never have.

  Sean accompanied her on these daily visits since he was under the impression they were overseeing that each order placed was brought to fruition—a sort of self-imposed quality control and the last customer satisfaction checkmark. He commended Raine on this final step as good business practice; even Dr. Lewis didn’t feel the need to come down here.

  2.0

  IN THEIR SUPERVISION of the production chain, Raine noticed another potential problem. This one, she addressed with Dr. Lewis and her development team. Among current society, the population of women was already greater than men and the gender demographics of the customers, according to the orders placed, showed an even wider imbalance growing. This was not a factor that had been accounted for in equanimity during the project’s development since women were usually more decisive and verbal when it came to expressing what they wanted in a partner. The program algorithm and its variations ran on the assumption that the qualities, which made one person desirable to another (appearance aside), were the same regardless of gender.

  “It is probably still a valid premise. I’d say men are less likely to shop for a life mate, anyhow. Perhaps we just cannot verbalize what characteristics we desire in a companion as well as women can,” Sean voiced. As he was one of the few men on the team, Raine asked for the others’ input and when his male peers agreed, the rest of the team had to take their word for it.

  “We can always upgrade the software model in Virtue Us version 2.0,” Dr. Lewis concluded before leaving the conference.

  A discomfort gnawed in the pit of Raine’s stomach, and it wasn’t due to what she had for lunch. Regardless, a new age of society had begun and only the passage of time would tell how it would evolve. For a while, there will be happiness, she thought to herself; however, in her mind and by her own experience, she knew that enchantment would be a superficial one.

  ・ ・ ・

  Despite several refinements in the operating system of the program, that span of contentment was shorter than anyone anticipated. Less than two decades later the change in global social dynamics brought with it a progressive decline of the male population, which, horrifically could be directly and primarily attributed to the Virtue Us project.

  Somehow, Crane had gained access to the database of personality traits and did not delay in reporting to the government that Tantamount should have foreseen the outcome. It was furthermore surmised that not only had they foreseen it, they had hidden the knowledge these many years.

  “If the company had created a fair program in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this mess. They are solely responsible for the peril the male gender faces today,” Jameson Crane announced on a Virt-You channel. There were only a few hundred views of his speech. Also, Crane Industries attacks landed on partially deaf ears of policy makers. By now, the social androids were more than popular; human and cybernetic citizen partnerships had become a way of life and although the male population had been decreasing before, this sociological point was now markedly beyond any easy correction. Not only was there an imbalance of gender among society, women were choosing android partners over human ones.

  Also, consequently, there we fewer births and when a couple did decide to have a child they more often chose to have a female. Society would not just comply with a request to choose otherwise. Ironically, one reason was that the government was less likely to suggest this of its female citizens since as females themselves, officials would be expected to lead by example. The crux of the problem was this: The chances of success were greater for females and all parents wanted that for their children.

  All that could be done was a reevaluation of society and what was deemed important for the global culture. It seemed the world would just have to adjust to the idea of extinction of the natural-born male human.

  Try as she might to accept the idea, Raine could not. She had already sacrificed her innermost desire, for she never broached the topic with anyone, having promised herself to only speak her thoughts if the issue came to light by others who perhaps felt the same strangeness. Struggling with the decision for a long time, she and Lloyd finally concluded they could not in good conscience conform, thereby condoning the obsolescence of the race of men, and thus, Raine was inseminated with a male zygote. She would hope and pray for as long as it took that some woman would choose her son and find in him, true love.

  Titles by Ellison Blackburn

  The Watchers:

  If There Be Giants and Second Son

  The Fountain:

  Flash Back, Second Nature, and Being Human

  by Ellis Blackburn

  The Chicago St. Clairs:

  The Ashes of Aubrey Milner (coming soon)

  About the Author

  Ellison Blackburn is the author of several works of fiction, including The Fountain trilogy and The Watchers series. Writing as Ellis Blackburn, her upcoming book is a time-travel mystery set in Victorian-era Chicago.

  Unlike other writers who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up, Ellis came into her creative own only a few years ago. And despite earning degrees in Biology and English Literature, for many years, she traveled a career path unrelated to either field of study. It was not until she authored her first Sci-Fi book did her education and work backgrounds mingle sensibly.

  In addition to storytelling, Ellison enjoys painting, traveling, watching documentaries and movies, as well as reading novels and tales of mystery and suspense. Learn more at EllisonBlackburn.com or join her Facebook group. You can also follow her on Amazon, BookBub, and Facebook.