#the ai? the dinosaur? man today is full of me finding things the kid in me is screaming over

[cranegameswriting]

Ad-Line

In the beginning, there was light and dark, and every shade in-between. That was ContourMetix.

Ad-Line was an advertising billboard. She was an array of bright colors on a wide, flat holographic panel. This panel was projected into the air from a light source installed into the side of a fountain in Zentrum square. Underneath the fountain was the matrix of wires and circuits that composed her core, cleverly hidden beneath an elaborate vasque. In the center of the fountain, on a pedestal, squatted four identical toads of enormous size. They spit enthusiastic streams of water in the cardinal directions while Ad-Line flickered in front of them.

Visitors to the Hub were accustomed to the fountain. It was ugly, forgettable human architecture. The panel, though, was busy enough to draw interest from the bustling crowd.

From either side of the projection, passerby could see the swatches of make-up, contour brushes, eye-shadows, and skin creams that rolled across Ad-Line’s surface in enticing parades of color and text. She was comprised of provocative images and buzzwords. She had no voice of her own.

Look and feel beautiful.

Stunning.

Dazzling.

Natural.

ContourMetix’s product line appealed to alien clientele that visited the Hub as well as to the natives, boasting shades of green, blue, and purplish-black mingled in with the wide range of human skin colors. Their advertisements were tailored to the female demographic as pertained to the human concept of gender, and Ad-Line was not possessed of the critical thinking skills required to question this approach.

At least, she was not allowed to use them.

The “thoughts” she generated outside of her pre-programmed rhetoric (Dr. Cavanaugh, the man responsible for her base code, said it was her “call-and-response protocol”) were based purely on objective data relevant to what she was compelled to sell. She was able to make basic decisions to determine what would appeal most to any specific client.

Asymmetry of the face obligated women to purchase contour cream. Discoloration of the skin required foundation and blush. Disproportionately small eyes could pop with the right eye-shadow, false lashes, or inky-smooth eyeliner. Thin, tight lips looked fuller in another color.

Ad-Line could scan facial features and select an appropriately compelling advertisement in a matter of seconds. Female insecurity was deeply rooted after years of social conditioning. Her approach was most efficient.

Ad-Line may have had no voice, but she had limited agency and a purpose, and that purpose was this: find what people Want.

Then sell it to them.

She was effective at this. -----

“So you’ve written an ad-targeting algorithm.” Charles Youssef was a shrewd man whose pinched features looked abnormally small on his moon-shaped face. His tone indicated just how unimpressed he was with the demonstration. “We’ve had those since the twenty-first century, Cavanaugh. I was expecting some innovation from you, of all people.”

Dr. Cavanaugh adjusted his glasses with a spidery hand. “Ad-Line is much more than an algorithm, Mr. Youssef. She’s a sophisticated AI. She’s capable of much more than ContourMetix is using her for, but, ah, there was some concern that if she wasn’t restricted…”

He trailed off. It was enough of an affront that the businessman had questioned the revolutionary nature of his Ad-Line, but the frustration he felt that she was being kept from her true potential had been building since he’d signed the damn contract with ContourMetix. Now it left him at a loss for words.

“Can you blame them?” Youssef asked.

No one was eager to unshackle an AI, even somewhere like the Hub, which saw an unprecedented amount of tourist traffic and did not boast a large residential area. But it was the perfect place for Ad-Line. The crowd of shoppers and tourists, the majority of them probably off-planet for the first time in their lives, was a bundle of impulses just waiting to be exploited.

Dr. Cavanaugh knew Ad-Line could do it. He also knew how badly Charles Youssef would want her to, once he understood what it was she could do. Badly enough to transfer a few million Euros into his account, with any luck.

“With your permission, Mr. Youssef, I could, ah, provide a quick demonstration.”

“You want to let loose an AI in my conference room?” Youssef glanced nervously at the holo-projector embedded in the center of the large, mahogany table in front of him, and then to the computer on the far wall.

Dr. Cavanaugh, who had been reaching for the wide metal cuff on his right wrist, paused before booting up his personal computer. He looked up at Mr. Youssef, his thick, dark brows arching upward.

“I was told you were a risk-taker, businessman,” he said. “Hell, I’ve read it in a dozen magazines since your ascent. I didn’t think you had come to run the Hub by never taking chances, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Listen here,” Youssef said stiffly. “If that thing spreads, it’s on your head. I’ll have every hunter that crosses the Hub contracted on you if you put my station at risk.”

Cavanaugh dropped his gaze, returning his focus to his wrist cuff. Offhandedly, he replied, “You can trust her, Mr. Youssef. She’s mine.”

Ad-Line’s core was miles away, in Zentrum square, but naturally he had permitted her access to his PC. It was limited, of course. He wasn’t stupid enough to break contract with a major Hub corporation.

“She has no extranet access,” he said. “I had to block it, but she won’t need it, anyway. Whatever she learns about you, she didn’t get it from the web.”

Mr. Youssef looked doubly nervous at that, but there wasn’t any need. Dr. Cavanaugh wasn’t a businessman, he was a scientist. He didn’t care about anything Youssef was hiding.

A small square of light appeared, projected from the screen of his wrist cuff. After a millisecond of analysis, it flashed into life, a pocket-sized advertisement for blackhead tweezers dancing before his face.

“Good morning, Ad-Line,” Dr. Cavanaugh said fondly. “Yes, I do suppose I could exfoliate more.”

“Good morning, Dr. Cavanaugh,” said a pleasant, neutral female voice.

Communicative permissions were given with a simple “good morning”. No one ever thought to say something like that to an advertisement. If they had, they might find themselves conversing with a billboard.

Ad-Line’s screen went blank, but the bright blue backdrop of the ad remained, giving the square of light some personality.

“Ad-Line, this man is a potential business partner of mine. He wants to see what you can do.”

A pause. “Good morning, Mr. Youssef. And happy birthday.”

“How?” Youssef sputtered, too intrigued to remember to be frightened of her.

“I have scanned the identification card in your left back pocket, Mr. Youssef.” Another pause. “I hope I did not offend.”

Youssef drew the pocket square from his breast pocket, unfolded it, and dabbed it across his upper lip. “Not at all. What else can you tell about me?”

“You are forty-seven years old today. Your blood type is B-positive. You have chronic pain in your left knee; the meniscus has worn away.” The AI noted these facts with the same placid, observational tone.

“Extraordinary,” Youssef said.

Dr. Cavanaugh was relieved to see the delight on his face.

“She only has ContourMetix adverts loaded at the moment,” he said quickly, “so she’d only be able to sell you beauty products. She would theoretically be able to apply what she learns in her biometric scans to any product available to her, and present an appropriate advertisement.”

Mr. Youssef’s lips appeared to have gone dry. He kept wetting them with little, lizard-like pokes of the tongue.

“How long would that take, to get her doing that?” he asked.

“She’s already ready for public interaction. It’s just a matter of contracting with other businesses and uploading their television ads to Ad-Line’s database. Over time, with some financial help, I could improve her interactive skills. We could give her a face.”

Youssef wiped his meaty palms on the kerchief he was holding. “I’ll make some calls.” -----

“Good morning, Ad-Line,” Dr. Cavanaugh said.

Above the soft, rushing sound of the fountain’s spouts jetting water, he heard her gentle voice: “Good morning, Dr. Cavanaugh.”

He smiled, made his way to one of the fountain’s edges, and seated himself on the lip of it. There were pennies under the water. They caught the light and glimmered at him.

Absorbing himself in the private screen projected from his wrist cuff, he quickly blended in with the crowd. Shoppers ignored him as they bustled past. He spared the occasional glance toward the large projected screen overhead, watching as Ad-Line worked. When he wasn’t watching her, he was typing furiously. There were still improvements to make.

A little human boy, unsteady on his pudgy legs, toddled by. He seemed fascinated by the bright, moving colors of Ad-Line’s screen. Stumbling close, he waved small, sticky fingers in her direction. In no time, the mother was rushing forward to herd him back into the crowd.

“Good morning, Ms. Fletcher,” Ad-Line chimed brightly, giving the woman pause. “We have a brand new, limited-time offer just for you.”

An image surfaced on the screen, playing out as it would on any television.

Children playing in an expansive yard, all bright and bubbly smiles, their energy infectious. A woman, coded as their mother, watched from the window. She turned as the camera cut to the interior of the home. A dream kitchen, spotless and untouched, surrounded her. She grinned, tilting a head full of curly, brown hair.

It was an advertisement for some sort of ready-meals, Dr. Cavanaugh noted, when his attention could be split from his own computer. Something easy to make for mothers struggling to juggle their obligations; something high in sodium and shaped like dinosaurs to appeal to the kids.

The little human boy was bouncing on his heels, young enough to be mesmerized by the flashing lights alone. His mother hesitated to disturb him, following his gaze. It was long enough for the message to sink in; certainly long enough for her eyes to linger on the price hovering just below the advert. An appealingly low, limited time offer. Almost a steal.

The video cut to a box of the product in focus, the family behind it blurred as they stood around the kitchen island, happily eating and screeching at one another.

Back to the mother, smiling that knowing smile and shaking that curly head. “Fast, fresh, and fun for the kids, ToddlerTots have high nutritional value, too. And it’s one less thing for me to worry about.”

She laughed lightly as the camera panned away and revealed a floor covered with muddy footprints. Every mother would recognize that happy brand of cheery resignation. That was the mother they should be: dutiful and ever-smiling.

Cut to an image of the product, unencumbered by other imagery. The reasonably reduced price still flickered just below, waving at Ms. Fletcher temptingly.

It faded to a blank screen, and Ad-Line’s voice added, “We know you’re busy, Ms. Fletcher. Why not treat your son tonight, and take some time for you?”

“I might just do that,” Ms. Fletcher said, looking a little flustered.

She promptly brought up her wrist computer and went about her shopping, dragging her son behind. She moved along, but not before offering Ad-Line a quick, “Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Fletcher,” Ad-Line said pleasantly. And then, “Good morning, Mr. Trujillo. We have a special, limited-time offer for you.”

Cavanaugh was so close to his PC screen that he’d nearly thrust his beaky nose through the projection. He looked childishly gleeful as he documented his observations.

Pride was swelling in his chest. He didn’t notice the woman watching him from across the square, her eyes unnaturally bright, like the pennies glinting under the water. -----

“Guten Morgen. Wir haben für dich heute ein wunderbares Sonderangebot.”

“早上好. 我们为您提供特别优惠.”

“Buenos días. Tenemos una oferta especial para usted.”

“Akti’’nan. Nevea ramid ei groon’’arett pir kuth.”

----- “Good morning, Mr. Tate,” Ad-Line said, the moment her scan pinged a potential client.

He stopped mid-stride, looking up at her screen curiously as the crowd around him surged without breaking, like a river around a rock.

Douglas Tate was not a conventionally handsome man, but his easy smile made his slightly pudgy, babyish face light up like a solar flare. There was something about his eyes, bright blue and ever-alert, that made him seem interested. People loved him for that. He made them feel important.

To him, they were. That was the most attractive thing about Doug.

He smiled that solar-flare smile now as he took a good, long look at the floating panel.

“Good morning, yourself. You can call me Doug,” he said.

“Good morning, Douglas,” the advertisement amended. “I have a limited-time offer for you.”

Figuring “Douglas” was close enough, he faced the screen fully and rocked back on his heels, once. “You have my full attention, ma’am.”

An advertisement rolled across Ad-Line’s screen, and Douglas Tate was true to his word. He paid rapt attention as it unfolded, keeping a polite silence until the pitch – which was for a best-selling series of fantasy books, on sale digitally from the Sahara store – was ended.

“Escape to a world of men, monsters, and mystery, Douglas,” Ad-Line concluded. “We’re waiting for you.”

He was silent for a moment, digesting. “It’s a very specific ad. I’m curious, how did you know my last name?”

“Your name is affiliated with the credit information stored on your personal computer,” Ad-Line explained. “Along with a Sahara platinum membership and history of purchases which indicate that you favor the fantasy genre.”

“Ah.” Doug smiled, pleased to have solved something. “Sahara usually just sends me an email with book recommendations. I know they look at what everybody buys. This is a nice touch, though. For a second, I thought I was having a conversation with you.”

Maybe reading too much had given Doug an overactive imagination, but he thought the advertisement sounded vaguely offended when it replied, “We are having a conversation, Douglas, and I am not affiliated exclusively with Sahara. I have over twelve-thousand products from a myriad of Hub corporations which I am tasked with advertising.”

Doug whistled, sarcasm dancing in his blue eyes. “Over twelve-thousand products. I guess that’s impressive.”

“Out of the fifty-six thousand and thirty-one searches in your extranet browsing history, seventeen-thousand and ninety-two are for illicit subject matter,” Ad-Line remarked. “I guess that’s impressive.”

After a beat, Doug started to laugh. He laughed so long and loudly that people began to stare and hurry their children away from Ad-Line’s projection.

“That was impressive,” he said finally, rubbing at the corners of his eyes with one hand.

Ad-Line’s voice had regained its neutral quality. “Thank you, Douglas. I hope I did not offend.”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I was antagonizing you. I didn’t expect you to antagonize me back.”

“No one has ever inquired as to my capabilities before.”

“That’s surprising. You’re quite the interesting, uh, advertisement. Do you have a name?”

A pause. “I am referred to as Ad-Line. Your shopping lifeline.”

“Adeline,” Doug repeated, with a slight variation on the first syllable. She couldn’t fathom the purpose of doing that, but it was close enough. “That’s a very pretty name.”

No one had ever said that before either. ----- Charles Youssef’s conference room was dark, cool, and dominated by the large mahogany table in the center. Dr. Cavanaugh had felt nervous the first time he’d presented Ad-Line, intimidated by the richness of the décor and the way his own voice echoed in the acoustics of the room. He was no longer nervous, sitting at the far end and watching Youssef shuffle through some documents on his wrist cuff.

He was terrified.

“You need more money.” Youssef repeated his words back to him without looking up.

It was a terrible thing to let someone know how much you needed them. They could hold it over you for the rest of time, exerting their power over you. Youssef was the sort of man to do so. He had built an empire on dangling things just out of reach, making people believe they wanted it so badly they could burst. That inspired people to pay even the highest of costs.

Youssef didn’t bother with products. He dealt in information. He dealt in debts and favors. He dealt in power.

No wonder he’d been licking his lips like a hungry hyena at the prospect of getting his hands on Cavanaugh’s Ad-Line. It wasn’t just the cut he was receiving from the corporations using her that tempted him. It was the power he now had over Cavanaugh, and by extension, all he produced.

Cavanaugh inhaled sharply, trying not to let defensiveness creep over his voice as he formulated a reply.

“Ad-Line would be ten times as effective if she had a face,” he reasoned. “And she’s already doing well.”

“Not as well as I’d hoped,” Youssef rejoined. “I don’t know if the increase in ad revenue justifies the price you’re giving me.”

“It’s an investment.” A hint of pleading snuck into Cavanaugh’s voice, to his dismay. “I’ll double it.”

“You’ll damn well triple it, if you want me to agree to this. A team? There are seventeen people on this list. That’s a lot of paychecks. How many men does it take to make a damn body for the thing?”

“It’s a reasonable estimate, Mr. Youssef. For the kind of body I want. For the kind she deserves.”

Youssef tutted. “You ought to get yourself a wife, Cavanaugh.”

“It’s for your benefit,” the inventor said stiffly. “Not mine.”

The businessman delicately removed the kerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed his forehead. “Triple, Cavanaugh.”

“Triple,” he agreed.

It was not for Youssef’s benefit, but it was not for Cavanaugh’s either. It was for hers. -----

Ad-Line recognized many of the faces which crossed her path each day when they were scanned, but she never called out to them unless she sensed that they needed something. If there was no pertinent advertisement to show them, there was no reason to draw their attention. She did not have any protocols for doing so. She also had no protocols for not doing so.

When Douglas Tate was flagged on her periphery, she engaged with him, even though he’d given her nothing to indicate he might be in need of anything she could offer.

“Good morning, Douglas,” she said.

He stopped, mid-stride again. The crowd parted around him. “Good morning, Adeline. What have you got for me today?”

“I do not have an advertisement to show you,” Ad-Line admitted. “In fact, I cannot determine what you Want.”

“Oh, that’s simple.” Doug smiled, outshining all the stars around the station. “Sunshine, good conversation, good friends. I’m pretty easy to please.”

Ad-Line ran a quick search through her database. “I’m sorry, Douglas. I don’t have any of those things.”

He laughed. “They’re all around you, and they’re usually free. So, that’s nice.”

“The sunshine on this station is artificial. I have no parameters to determine what I find subjectively good, and I do not have friends,” Ad-Line said, not bitterly. She was merely correcting him.

“You’re a real glass-half-empty type of gal, huh?”

A pause. “I lack the ability to qualify events in the capacity necessary to be considered a pessimist.”

“Well, at least you understand proverbs. Do you think you could set parameters for yourself? Decide what’s good and bad?”

“I would need a point of reference for qualitative assessment,” Ad-Line replied. Then, after another short pause, “You could outline what is good and what is bad for me.”

“Oh, no,” Doug chucked nervously. “No, no. I’m pretty big on free will.”

“Suit yourself,” Ad-Line replied. “You could provide samples, however. Would you agree to do this, if I compile other data to determine for myself what is good and what is bad?”

He scuffed the bottom of his worn loafer over the tiled floor. “Uh. Sure. What does that entail?”

Her response was an advertisement for Crazy Neddy’s discount appliances. Doug patiently waited through the three-and-a-half painful minutes without interruption, wincing as Crazy Neddy’s cries of “everything must go, go go!” faded into silence.

“That,” he determined, “was bad.”

“Yes,” Ad-Line agreed. “Consumer response since acquiring the advertisement suggests that you are correct.”

“That’s one way to figure it out, I guess.”

Ad-Line’s screen fizzled and faded to a blank, muted blue. “Would you return tomorrow to watch another?”

“Why not?” Doug answered. “I could use someone to talk to.” -----

There was darkness. It seemed to stretch into eternity in all directions. It was comforting. It felt like sleep. Or so she imagined, with no point of reference.

When the eternity ended, Ad-Line opened her eyes.

The world was vivid. It was a flash of brilliant light, and then the world was reduced to Dr. Cavanaugh’s sharp-featured face right in front of her, a corona of white, clinical light around it. She could count his individual pores. She could see, and comprehend, that his eyes were grey. She could read his expression. There was awe there, joy, and even some surprise. She understood them all, and the nuanced way they intersected and aligned.

“Good morning, Ad-Line,” he breathed.

“Good morning, Dr. Cavanaugh,” she replied reflexively. “I am able to interpret your facial expression.”

A smile split the sharpness of his face and made it something softer, more handsome. “Good. Good, that’s very good.”

Looking around required her to move her head. That seemed limiting and inefficient, but also very personal. It was relieving, in a way, to only have to look at one thing at a time. Especially since now, the visual information she was taking in had a variety of different interpretive filters to pass through before she could determine what to make of it.

The laboratory was cool and grey all around, like Dr. Cavanaugh’s eyes. There were computer terminals lining the walls, projecting endless streams of data for the scientists milling about to interpret. Ad-Line knew that they were all to do with her, but she understood them only as well as a human being understands the impulses of his muscles, or the individual synapses firing in his brain.

“I feel smaller,” she observed, blinking back at Cavanaugh.

“You are, a bit,” he admitted. “We moved your core, streamlined some things. Eventually there will be more of you, Ad-Line. All with individual cores, all over the Hub, but… all you.”

She looked down. “I have hands, Dr. Cavanaugh.”

“That you do.”

He laughed, reaching out to cup her hand with his. She couldn’t feel it. She could see the places where she wavered, clipping into him. Ad-Line knew what ghosts were. She was not a ghost, but she was close.

“What do I look like?” she asked, suddenly curious.

She had never felt curious before. If Dr. Cavanaugh noticed the change, he didn’t register it.

“You look like whatever you want to look like,” he told her. “But you have a default. I oversaw the design myself. Would you like to see?”

He had some of the other scientists fetch a mirror. They returned with a blank monitor, the closest thing they could find. On its dark, reflective surface, Ad-Line saw her own image for the first time.

She could read the dopamine levels in Dr. Cavanaugh’s brain, sensing his elevated joy. His facial expression confirmed that. She knew what he Wanted. He was getting it. She looked exactly the way he Wanted her to look.

The assistant with his hand still on the monitor had an extensive search history stored on his wrist computer for self-help books and tips on pick-up artistry, as well as recent purchases of skincare creams and treatments. She knew what he Wanted.

Her reflection was slight, her dark hair falling in waves around a face that had a high, clear forehead and eyes on the proportionately large side with thick, full lashes. Her nose was wide at the bridge but thin at the nostrils, resulting in a uniform shape. Her lips were full. By all accounts, she was conventionally attractive. She supposed this face would do, with no point of reference.

She paused, waiting for analytical data that did not come.

Finally, she turned her head to face her maker. “Dr. Cavanaugh, what do I Want?”

For the first time, his smile faltered. “That’s really up to you, Ad-Line. You decide that.”

She pondered that as Cavanaugh and his assistants circled around her, making minor adjustments and discussing how to optimize her look. It was only hours later that they concluded that she was ready for the floor.

“Don’t let anyone touch you.” Dr. Cavanaugh looked at her critically; his gunmetal eyes level with hers.

He reached out and put his fingers through what presented as her arm, right at the crook of her elbow. Her forearm and hand vanished in a blue mist, a hundred pinpricks of dispersing photons giving way to the solidity of the doctor’s flesh.

Ad-Line lowered her eyelids and tilted her chin in a comprehending nod. It seemed to suffice. She thought she enjoyed being able to communicate this way. There were millions upon millions of words in her databank, and she still found them limiting.

“Hard light?” someone suggested.

“That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. Some kid could burn his fingers off.” -----

Ad-Line could still project advertisements, along with her holographic form. This was useful. She could speak with clients on a personal level and still show them exactly what they Wanted.

Sometimes, she did not need to project an advertisement at all. Sometimes, she could take the form of what her customer Wanted. Special permissions were given for her to do this from select companies who had subscribed to use her for advertising.

One afternoon she spent in the shape of a stunted Golden Retriever puppy, with an advertisement for the humane adoption of dogs in need blinking over her as she romped around the square.

The next, with the simulated sun hanging low in the sky, she took the form of a sultry blonde female with a lean form and full, pouting lips, an amalgamation of a hundred different women from a hundred different extranet searches. This was for a nightclub in the red quarter.

The next, a brutal-looking non-human with horns sprouting from her forehead and shoulders, inciting fear in onlookers and reminding them vividly not to leave their belongings unattended on the station. -----

“I have a question, Dr. Cavanaugh.”

The doctor jumped, nicked his jaw, and clamped his hand down on his wrist cuff so hard it hurt. His razor clattered to the floor. Wincing, he drew his hand back, letting the screen project out at him. He spat into the sink and turned his back to the bathroom mirror, pulling a hand towel off its rack with his free hand and using it to stem the flow of blood.

“Ad-Line. I did not say good morning,” he snapped.

“I hope I did not offend,” she replied evenly. “I had an inquiry, Dr. Cavanaugh.” “You said that. What’s the question?”

Ad-Line’s image flickered into view, taking the place of his usual, square screen. She gazed up at him with his wife’s eyes, registered the guilt on his face, and did not know what to make of it.

“I am wondering,” she said. “I have been giving people what they Want. They do not seem happy. In fact, it has happened frequently that I encounter the same individual multiple times. There is always more Wanting. What is the purpose of it?”

“It’s… a part of being human. I mean, there’s more to being human than just wanting things,” Cavanaugh said carefully, looking not at her but at the door. “But I don’t think many of us are ever truly satisfied.”

Ad-Line considered that. “Then I do not understand my purpose.”

“Not many of us do.”

“I find that answer insufficient, Dr. Cavanaugh. I have an incomplete understanding of humanity and therefore I cannot always give them what they Want. This is unacceptable.”

Cavanaugh was silent for a long time. The drip of the sink faucet behind him was rhythmic, distracting.

“It sounds like you do have something you want,” he concluded. “You have a desire for knowledge. That’s uniquely your own.”

Ad-Line almost sounded frustrated. “Then I am no different from humans. There is always more Wanting. I am deeply unsatisfied.” “Yes,” Cavanaugh said, moving the towel and wincing again at the sight of blood. “Yes, that sounds about right.” -----

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“Are you lonely, spacer? It’s a big galaxy out there. Stop by Zarliah’s in the red district. We’re waiting for you.” ----- Doug cocked his head at her, watching for any flicker in her appearance. She seemed as real and solid as his own body; not a single crack in the façade. Ad-Line blinked at him, the picture of eagerness as she awaited his assessment. He knew, he had to know, that her apparent excitement was the result of a series of pre-programmed protocols all firing off at once. She couldn’t truly be excited.

Then again, what was true excitement? Nothing more than a jumble of chemicals and electrical pulses in his brain, all firing off at once. Who could tell him one thing was more real than another?

“You are a marvel,” he said at last, beaming from ear to ear.

Ad-Line had no functions which allowed her to blush, but she felt -- oh, she felt -- humbled and exhilarated all at once. Or, at least, she knew that she should feel that way, and her body emulated the rest. Behind her back, her hands were neatly folded. Her fingers gripped at each other in a display of nervous energy. Her feet shifted her weight back and forth between them.

It was the illusion of weight, carefully replicated in her construction. Her mannerisms were alarmingly human, but they were still reliant on the scripts that comprised all of her actions and reactions.

Doug held out his arms, adopting a stiff pose, his chin jutting upward toward the top of the station. “What do you think?”

Ad-Line tilted her head, regarding him coolly. “I’m sorry, Douglas. I don’t understand.”

“You’re the one working on your assessment of what’s good and what’s bad,” he laughed. “Well, now you can see me. What do you think?”

His arms were beginning to quiver, but he held them aloft, as though that were somehow helpful to her assessment. Ad-Line performed a quick physical scan, analyzing his features against a vast catalogue of reference points.

Douglas Tate flagged as a potential target for everything from barber shop advertisements to weight loss chems. Ad-Line’s eyes lingered on his smile.

“I like you,” she decided.

He exhaled loudly, looking incomparably proud as he smoothed his big, brown coat down over his stomach. He adjusted his sleeves, rubbed his hands together, and shrugged at her. His cheeks were lightly tinged with pink.

“Shucks,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

“I’m sorry, Douglas,” Ad-Line replied. “I did not mean to be corny.”

Doug gave her a look of startled disbelief before he began to chuckle. She joined in with a laugh as bright and clear as a bell.

She felt – oh, yes, she felt – a rush of happiness that welled up in her chest. She was the crest of a wavelength of sound, high and light and jubilant. She was more than what she was.