It was the second flaw in the doll – the first one her father had made the day they brought the Child home. Myoko’s father had taken its hand and peeled back a layer of skin from the palm, revealing the soft white plastic beneath.
“So you don’t forget what it is,” he had said.
Myoko had cried later: the Child was new, and already broken.
Later she noticed other people’s Children had similar tiny flaws or reminders.
The Child lay still, face down on the floor. Myoko called it Chouchou, in private, when her parents couldn’t hear her. She pulled the Child’s shirt up –one of Myoko’s old shirts – and exposed its narrow back. It had tan lines. Myoko held her screw driver over the little body, searching for the magnetic screws. The instructions she’d found were not as precise as she could wish, the magnet not as strong, and the screws buried deeply. But Myoko was a patient girl. Minutes later the soft white plastic hatch opened to reveal a port for her laptop. Myoko’s small childish face did not change. Her cheeks were round and smooth and should have been pink. Her mother told her sometimes that Myoko seemed more like a doll than the Child.
Myoko sealed her laptop from the rest of the world, shutting down the network and the cloud connections. Several of the programs she used repaired her connections automatically. In the end she deleted most of them. She was wearing ordinary glasses as well, the kind she only wore when she was sick. No chips, no datafeed, no link to her digital lifestream. Her bedroom felt strange without the constant electronic hum she was accustomed to, but she’d shut down the cameras and the climate control too. She ran three checks, making certain that she was disconnected. There were too many viruses built for Children. As she worked, Myoko lay a comforting hand on Chouchou’s still back.
She checked the file once more before installing it, running over the code with her dark brown eyes, the seriousness of her round face paradoxical.
Once Myoko had ‘borrowed’ her father’s computer, after he forgot to lock it down. She’d found the files from the genetics lab: the details on how much she cost, the lists of source material and her parents’ own requests – their preliminary and specific descriptions of their daughter-to-be.
They had wanted an obedient daughter, a quiet and studious girl, a practical one. They wanted a healthy, thin, attractive child.
Myoko had a copy of the file. She checked back to it often, looking for the changes it described, comparing herself to the descriptions. The geneticists were very good.
She did not have any objections to what they made her, but a nagging objection to being made. It was not uncommon. Almost all living children were made that way. But every now and then Myoko wanted to be loud. Only Chouchou knew about that. Her parents had wanted a patient daughter and Myoko was that. She had been made to be patient and studious. She thought that might backfire on them – may already have.
An animation of two children playing joyfully in a garden filled her screen, with options bursting out of flowers. She touched the screen instead of speaking, afraid to make any noise, or even say this aloud. The load screen appeared, showing one new paradigm.
Her parents had chosen Chouchou’s programming without asking Myoko. She had not seen it until later. It looked very much like Myoko’s own. At the beginning it was easy to hate herself in a different body.
Myoko tapped the new paradigm, and the file began to load. Moments later she disconnected and began replacing the hatch. It took longer to refit it, blindly turning her magnetic screwdriver.
‘Our daughter should express considerable patience and the ability to entertain herself…’
Lastly she replaced the skin. It reformed around the plastic, realigning with the tan lines; but a hair-thin crack remained across the bottom of Chouchou’s shoulder blades. Myoko ran a finger along it. She sighed and pulled the Child’s shirt down again, covering the mark.
When Myoko had realized that Chouchou was a mirror of herself, another studious quiet child, she had stopped hating her. It had given her someone else to pity.
“Wake up,” she commanded, and Chouchou stirred.
“Good morning, Myoko-san,” said the Child into the floor, before rolling herself over to sit up. It looked at Myoko respectfully, smiling a little, waiting for instructions. Standard ops opener.
“Hello, Chou-chan,” said Myoko carefully. The Child’s eyes blinked, reallocating memory. Her synthetic mouth widened to a grin. Her posture changed – head leaning to one side, fingers tapping to unheard music. Automatically Myoko reached up to her glasses to take a picture, then she realized she could not with this pair.
“Myo-chan,” said Chouchou, still grinning. The Child looked around the room, curious and bold and happy. And Myoko smiled back.
Interested in this future? Investigate the Present:
- Stiehl, W. et al. The Huggable: A Therapeutic Robotic Companion for Relational, Affective Touch. From the MIT Media Lab. Explore.
- Prendinger, H. & Ishizuka, M. Social Role Awareness in Animated Agents. Agents'01. May 28 - June 1, 2001. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Downloadable via the ACM.
