If we started a conversation, at least I would have something to look forward to. Something to spark a bit of excitement.
Hi. The app says we are a match. So…reindeer, huh?
That was the genius message I came up with, which was not genius at all. I sent it before I lost my nerve.
If I wasn’t in the office, I would’ve let out a little squeal.
It was just one message. Only a few words, but it felt like the beginning of something big. Something life-changing.
That bright feeling in your chest that something good is about to happen.
Now, to wait for them to message me back, if they do at all. Three men like that with probably multiple matches? My heart sank as I realized I might not have a shot at all.
Chapter Six
Comet
We were still waiting for the app to suggest a potential mate when we settled in to work on the special order for the North Pole. While elves could handle most modern toys—and Santa was not beyond buying some of the very high-tech ones—he had turned to us to help him design and build a prototype of something special.
Robots.
Sure, there were some older styles that were more comical than robotic, and the elves had been turning them out since the 1950s. But they had not managed to advance much since then, and Santa had noticed requests decreasing. He’d actually assumed they were falling out of fashion until on his vacation the previous year, he’d stayed at a resort with robot servers in the restaurant.
And recognized how campy and behind-the-times his own product was.
“So what does he want the robot to do?” I leaned back in my chair. “And how big should it be? Surely not the size of the ones in restaurants.”
“He wasn’t specific.” Dash was sitting at his desk, designing. “But I am sure he wouldn’t want anything that size. The man isn’t really up on everything, and he’s leaving a lot of it to us with him getting final approval. So, here’s what I am thinking. A standard Barbie or action figure isn’t going to be big enough. But we don’t want it to be huge either. You know how parents hate things that fill up whole rooms. So, maybe 1.5 times the size of a GI Joe?”
“I forgot about GI Joe,” Blitz said. “Dash, can you show us one?”
“No problem.” He tapped at the keyboard and turned the screen to face us. “Here he is.”
“I’m thinking that the robots I’ve seen at restaurants and such are just so…metallic? Why can’t we make something a little more like a person?”
“We could.” Dash turned the screen back and tapped again. “Here’s what I had so far…”
This time, we both came around the desk and leaned over his shoulders. While we watched, he brought up the beginning sketches and we went to work, throwing suggestions back and forth while Dash applied them in the program. He could design anything, and Blitz could figure out how to make it all work. I often felt like the odd man out because I was good at operating the machinery but didn’t have the creativity they both did. Oh, they included me, but mostly out of kindness.
After a few hours, the design was really coming together. It would be a lot of hours of work before it could be reality, but I loved the ideas. “How is he planning to get this past the elves?” So far, the only things he bought outside were things like iPods when they were big, handheld games, stuff like that. This was entirely too close to being a doll for the elves to accept gracefully. Not to mention the fact it would replace their existing robots.
“I don’t know.” Dash stretched and stood up. “I did ask, and he said something about Christmas magic and leave it to him. I’m going up to the house for coffee. Can I bring anyone anything?”
“Coffee?” I leaned in to see what the printer was doing. Not in the actual device, of course, but in the app. “Dang, this isn’t quite right. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but…ugh.” I lost track of what the other guys were doing at that point, studying the lines of information. In theory, this model printer was plug and play, but that was only if you used what amounted to a template. Going off-script as we did, creating something new,required a bit of tweaking. Sometimes a lot. But if people only wanted things that there were templates for, they wouldn’t be coming to us or paying our prices.
“What’s wrong?” Blitz leaned in to see my screen. “Oh, that’s not good. It’s almost as if some sort of AI thing is taking over. Look at all those fingers.”
“I don’t use AI. You know that.” I continued to make changes, attempting to fix the problem, but now the robot had three legs and an alarming bulge that might make it less than acceptable in public. “What the hell?”
“That’s a whole other kind of robot. Oh Goddess…is it?”
“Santa doesn’t want a toy that can do that.” As I ran the program that showed the potential robot in operation, it became clear we could actually charge someone a whole lot more for it…but not Santa Claus. “I can’t even…wait. I know what happened. There was an update last night, and I glanced at it before letting it happen, but maybe not close enough.”
Turned out, while it wasn’t a porn update, it was indeed an upgrade to AI that was running its own life and apparently fantasies. “This sucks. Why?”
“Can you do anything about it?” Blitz’s expression of disgust probably mirrored mine. Not to judge, and people could do whatever they wanted, but I didn’t like how AI gathered the work of others to use. Or how it seemed to be going.
“I don’t know. Let me see if I can undo the upgrade. Those bastards even charged me for it.” In the end, it involved phone calls and a threat to return the still-under-extended-warranty machine before they would unlock the upgrade for me so I could remove it.
