Scene

A pane of glass stood firm before Jones, a window into the machine left desolate in the alley behind Aphrodite’s Strip Club. Moonlight from the cloudless sky above shone off of it, illuminating hints of the face that sunk deep into the darkness behind the glass. There was a low hum coming from the machine that acted as a quiet reminder that it was still active, still alive. Jones squared his shoulders as he took out a crisp twenty-dollar bill and slipped it into the designated slot on the machine’s interface.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered to himself, desperation slipping into his tone.

Light flickered behind the machine’s glass, bringing to life the cybernetic figure inside, as a holographic screen rose above her head and prompted Jonsey to enter his login credentials.

She was just as gorgeous as she was the previous night, when Jonsey had dreamt of her glossy black locks and her daintily paneled features. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you these past few days, Monica—my wife forced me to drive out to Palo Alto with her for . . . a vacation of sorts.”

The android, Monica, was unresponsive, feet glued to the floor and eyes focused straight ahead. Jonsey hurriedly provided his information via the machine’s keyboard, fingers gliding off the smooth, worn surfaces of the keys. When the machine responded by printing a receipt, he quickly crumpled it into a ball and stuffed it in his suit pocket, knowing well by now that the machine had run out of ink long ago.

Monica came alive, her steely onyx eyes blinking a few times as she adjusted to consciousness, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders like swirling paint strokes in a Van Gogh piece—because that’s what she was: art. Made to be imperfect in the most painstakingly plotted-out way, made to be beautiful, made to be unequivocally unforgettable. She was his Aphrodite, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t settle into his wife’s bed every night with Monica’s face seared into the back of his eyelids.

“Is it you, Jones?”

“Who else would it be?”

She reached out, pressing her metallic palm against the glass. Jones felt guilty that she’d spent three consecutive nights without him, incapable of moving and incapable of thought. He brought his hand to hers—nothing but the glass separating his flesh from her steel—and offered her a melancholic smile. 

Her gaze was solemn as she grieved the absence of the freedom she could’ve had somewhere else, in a place conscious beings weren’t held hostage in boxes as punishment for being made. She was helplessness and yearning, eyes focusing less on Jonsey and more on her reflection in the machine’s glass. 

“How many nights must I ask this of you, Jones:” she whispered, the tinny lilt of her voice despairingly pleading, “please, just unplug the machine.”