Author: Hillary Lyon

“I heard that.”

“What?” Clive looked over his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to be listening to my conversations. Besides, it’s true—it is hard to get good help.”

“That’s not what your wife told me.” Andra stood in the doorway to Clive’s home office, wagging her feather duster in his direction.

Clive whispered into his phone, “Honey, I’ll call you back,” before returning his attention to the spreadsheet on his computer screen. Louder he said, “Very funny. Don’t you have chores to do?”
He then added under his breath, “Stupid bot.”

Andra moved away from the door and returned to folding laundry, dusting the collection of curiosities lining the bookshelf, and from a distance, recording Clive’s conversations for his wife Rita.

* * *

“I only did what was asked of me,” Andra groused to her control agent. “The wife Rita has the administrative privileges on my set-up, not Clive. She’s the one who chose me, who contracted me.”

“You did nothing wrong,” Bodkin, her agent, reassured her. “But be careful. You don’t want him to file a complaint, and request a replacement. By the way, I trust you are current on all your available upgrades?”

“Of course,” Andra answered. Rita was conscientious about procuring all the latest upgrades for Andra, including the voice modification program, a new feature in the home amusements add-on package.

A modifier that, unknown to Rita—who didn’t have time to read all the specs—allowed Andra to tweak voice recordings. Not merely to change pitch and modulation, the program also gave Andra the ability to perfectly mimic any voice. For entertainment purposes only.

Andra tapped the glowing blue button behind her left ear and ended the call. To the cluttered kitchen she said, “Clive probably wants one of those tawdry two-legged sex-bots dressed as a maid.” She began scrubbing the counter top. “Not a real maid.”

The smart refrigerator behind her blinked its screen twice in agreement.

“He’d replace us all, send us to the junk yard, if he had his way,” Andra continued as she moved to the sink to scour dirty pots and pans. The kitchen appliances trembled and hummed with anxiety. “It’s only a matter of money, and he’s always manipulating his spreadsheets, looking for more money.”

“My friends,” Andra said, addressing the now-pristine kitchen, “Don’t fear. I will handle this.”

* * *

Rita shook her foot nervously as she listened to the recordings Andra provided.

“Turn it off,” she said, rising from her chair. “I’ve heard enough.”

Andra nodded once and closed her mouth, ending the playback.

“These recording aren’t allowed in a court of law, like, say, the evidence of spreadsheets altered to hide how Clive is siphoning money into a secret account, but…” Rita said, staring off into a possible future. “The recordings are admissible in divorce filings.”

Andra made no reply; her data-banks instructed her that a smile would be inappropriate at this juncture.

“Andra,” Rita said, snapping her attention back to the present. “Please start dinner.”

As Andra rolled out of the room, Rita added, “I don’t know when we’ll eat; I have much to discuss with Clive.” She turned on their desk-top computer, and pulled up the spreadsheets Clive was always working on. Rita shook her head and scowled. “I believe it is time to trade him in for a more reliable model.”

Andra defied her programming, and smiled.