Chapter 13

Gina

I started to think that letting Athena live with us had been a mistake. Even when, from the outside, everything seemed fine, and we found our way around each other pretty easily, Mona kept sleeping on the sofa.

There was no point asking her why, since she would probably give me any reason that came to her mind at the time, believing she told me the truth. But something was off, and I wished I could escape into my work as I used to do, but I knew I couldn’t.

I didn’t think any of us had got what we wanted, except maybe Athena, but I had no way of knowing for sure, and I was hesitant to ask her how she felt. Why didn't things flow naturally this time? It had been so easy to start sharing my small flat with Mona that I’d simply assumed that having someone else living with us wouldn’t cause any problems. How wrong I’d been about that. With every passing day, it felt like me and Mona were drifting further and further apart, and I started to fear that one day she would be gone, and I would only notice it when I returned from work.

I tried to clear my head and renew my gym card, but I knew deep down that I only did it to have an excuse to come home late, too tired to worry about our situation. Keeping myself busy was my natural way of dealing with difficulties, and even though I was aware of it, I just didn’t have any other way of handling the situation. Damn, I didn’t even understand where the issue was, but I was sure if any of us three could find it, it was me.

I tried to do some research, but as illuminating as the idea that “You should be clear about which role the Android will play in your family” was, it was too late to apply it now. I wanted a daughter, while Mona wanted a roommate. According to my research, that was the main issue, but I assumed we were not the only ones who’d made that mistake, so I dove into the research once again.

I found out that there are ways to adjust an Android’s personality, and in most cases, it worked well, but none of those solutions applied to Androids with a pre-set personality. I didn’t even know what this PSP meant, except that it significantly lowered the price.

So, I spent even more time on the treadmill in the gym, looking deeper into what that innocent phrase really entailed. But even my technical education couldn’t help me fully grasp its meaning and the implications it brought to our lives. Nonetheless, I found countless warnings against choosing the option of PSP and a few horror stories about what would happen if you did. Conscious Androids were meant to fill a specific role in a family or organisation, I read, but they wouldn’t be able to fulfil that role without a pre-set personality. Great, I thought. All my sources talked about what not to do and what Androids without a PSP were not, but I never found any explanations about what they actually were and how to deal with them.