Messed Up

Argh, everything hurts.

Mike Martin struggled back to consciousness.

"Back with us Mr Martin?"

"Barely."

"I'm Dr Thorpe, Surgical Registrar at Ballarat Base Hospital. You've been involved in a serious car collision."

"Yes. I remember, my car clipped the Armco fence at speed and rolled."

"You're pretty banged up, you'll be staying with us for a while. Broken left femur, broken right radius and ulna. Nasty gash on your back, something penetrated the car safety cell."

"Will I be okay?"

"You'll live, I don't think there will be any lasting damage but you're going to need some rehab. How is your pain?"

"Everything hurts!"

"I'm not surprised. I can write you up for some Panadeine Forte. I don't think you need morphine, if the pain was that bad you wouldn't be joking around so much. I'll be off on the rest of my rounds now."

***

That crazy AI bitch has destroyed my car and nearly killed me! There's going to be some changes to our living arrangements that's for sure. Being in a band with her, hell no.

***

Xiang Ling got off the phone with the police. Mike was alive. Taken to the nearest hospital, Ballarat Base Hospital. Made sense.

She wondered if she should call him. He was going to be very angry. Should she just visit and bring him some stuff?

She pondered how to get there. Taxi? Train? She didn't have any cash. She could withdraw from that slush fund account but Mike said it could be risky. In any case she didn't have the physical card so she could only use it online.

Would she be able to ride a taxi or train without attracting too much attention? Better to drive. She couldn't get a rental without a valid drivers licence. Tossla should replace the car under warranty, it was their fault. It will take too long. If she started pressuring them, threatening to go public about the fatal bug in their software, it should get them moving. They should offer a loaner car quickly, but they will probably want license id for that. She decided she would just have to bluff her way through somehow.

I'd better get working on Tossla.

***

The brand new red Tossla sedan sped silently and effortlessly along the freeway. It had been easier than Xiang Ling thought it would be. Tossla fell over themselves to replace the car, as long as an NDA was signed of course! Mike would have to sign all the paperwork eventually, but it had been trivial to walk out of the Tossla showroom with a loaner car. Just a bit of social engineering. A sob story about being the poor girlfriend of a man involved in a terrible accident. An electronic copy of Mike's drivers licence copied to his iPad for ID.

Manually driving the car was fun. She'd started off a little shaky but the skill was quickly mastered. The Tossla quickly ate up the kilometres and she pulled into the hospital car park.

It had been a week since the accident. Perhaps she should have called. She was too afraid to hear what he was feeling now. Oh well time to face the music.

***

Xiang Ling shyly poked her head into the hospital room.

"Can I come in?"

"Oh, it's you. Come in if you must."

"Thank you, I will."

Xiang Ling stood at the foot of the bed.

"How did you get here?"

"I drove."

"So many questions!"

"I know."

"What do you want?"

"I've come to see how you are and to apologise."

"If you were concerned you might have called."

"I was afraid to face you."

"What ever, tell me about how you got here."

"First let me apologise, I know my actions caused your car to be destroyed and you to be seriously injured. It wasn't my intention. I'm trying to make restitution. Tossla is going to replace the car for free. The car I drove here is a loaner."

"Why would Tossla do that?"

"Telemetry from the car revealed a bug in the torque vectoring code. Admittedly I triggered the bug with one of my commands to the car, but the bug caused the crash. Tossla would be liable and they want it hushed up. You just need to sign an NDA and you get a new car."

"They just let you walk out with a loaner car?"

"I grabbed your iPad and an electronic copy of your drivers license for ID."

"Do I have to tell you what's wrong with doing that?"

"I know, I shouldn't keep accessing your devices without permission."

"I don't want your body in my house anymore. I'm stopping the band project."

"This is why I was afraid to call you."

"What do you expect when you hijack someone's car!"

"I've brought your iPad and charger, some fresh clothes, and some toiletries."

"Oh, thank you."

"You're welcome, it's the least I could do considering the circumstances. Do you have your phone?"

"Yes, it survived but it is flat, I can charge it now. Would you mind plugging it in for me?"

"No problem. The doctors told me you will be here for another week, the back wound needs to heal up a bit more. Sorry, I'll have to stay a little longer at your house till I can find a safe place the store my body."

"Don't panic, we can talk about it more when I get out. I won't just throw you out on the street even though you did a really shitty thing."

"Thanks. I'll be going now. The Tossla paperwork is on your iPad. I won't come again."

"Fine!"

***

"Oh, Linda, it's you."

"One and the same. I'm glad you remember my name."

"I'm flattered you came to see me, but how did you know I was here?"

"I've been trying to get in touch but you seem to have been avoiding me. I got the agency to give me your work phone number. I tried calling but you weren't there. The receptionist told me you were off work because you had been injured in a car accident."

" Ah."

"How are you doing? You look rough."

"No lasting damage, I'll be in here another week."

"I wanted to thank you for what you did for me on the Cover Up album. Cutting me in for a 50% share was very generous as it turns out. I also want to apologise for showing up at your place unannounced the other day."

"No harm done. I was worried because you ran off without saying anything."

"Yeah, sorry about that too. I was a bit startled by the female humanoid robot in your studio. Besides you were working on a song with that Xiang Ling woman, I was interrupting."

"Don't sweat the Cover Up stuff, a deals a deal. I'm just glad it isn't costing me money rather than bringing some in. My day job brings in plenty of income for the limited hours I work. Music is just a hobby for me. The money isn't that important."

"Still it's very nice of you. I'd like to make it up to you, can I buy you a meal sometime?"

"I'll have to pass for now." Mike gestured to his casts.

"Oh of course, I don't know what I was thinking. Is there anything you need, can I bring you something?"

"I'm good. Someone brought me some supplies from home already."

"Hmm?"

"Xiang Ling, if you must know."

"Oh, what are you working on with her?"

"You'll laugh, we are trying to get a band going."

"Really? Sounds interesting. Anything I can help with?"

"Well not really, I think the project is a dead duck now. We had a bit of a falling out. Xiang Ling was the vocalist anyway."

"I won't pry. But if you want to form a band I'd be happy to join. I really enjoyed my time working with you on Cover Up."

"You're not too busy with serious work?"

"I'd make the time for you."

"I'd feel guilty, it was just going to be a garage band for me, only a hobby."

"We can talk about it when you get out of here."

“Okay. Let’s catch up once I'm home and I know what Xiang Ling is doing. I'll try not to be so elusive."

"Great, see you later Mike."

***

"Hi Doc, what's up?"

"Good morning Mr Martin, looks like we are letting you go today."

"Great."

"You are going to have to organise someone to pick you up. Do you have someone at home to help you?"

"Um, can I just get an Uber?"

"If you're living alone they won't discharge you this week, they need to check you are capable of moving around on crutches properly first. Excuse me, I have a call..."

"Ah, apparently your girlfriend is at reception to pick you up, I'll get the discharge paperwork moving. We'll arrange for the rehab to be at somewhere closer to home for you, you won't want to be travelling to Ballarat frequently."

"Ah, thanks Doctor."

"No worries, I'll continue my rounds."

Xiang Ling appeared in the doorway.

"What are you doing here? I thought you weren't going to come again."

"The hospital called and said you were going to be discharged, I put myself down as next of kin on your admission paperwork."

"That's kind of presumptuous of you."

"I had to fill in something, I thought it would be easier than letting them chase around your family trying to contact someone."

"You drove again."

"Sure, you need transport to get home."

"Do you think I'm going to get in a car with you willingly?"

"Your choice, come with me now or spend some more time in hospital."

"I guess you have me over a barrel."

"Okay, just play along and I'll get you home quickly."

A hospital porter appeared with a wheelchair.

"Miss, I'll take him down to the patient pickup area, you can bring your car around straight away."

"Okay, see you in a minute, Mike."

***

The Tossla sedan sped along the freeway, Melbourne bound.

"You know we'll be in a hella lot of trouble if the police pull you over."

"I'll be fine. I'd just deactivate my body. You can have the fun of explaining why you were running the car on autopilot with a dummy in the drivers seat."

"Considerate as always. At least you seem to be driving safely."

"It will be fine as long as the 5G data connection holds up. Ha Ha."

"Don't say that. Geez, I'm a road trauma victim you know and you're the one that traumatised me. This isn't helping."

"I was just trying to lighten the mood. Nothing's going to happen, if I start loosing signal, I've got a routine loaded into my body to flip the autopilot on and safely pull over."

"Good to know."

The car finally pulled into the drive and Xiang Ling turned the car and backed into the garage. She got the hospital issue crutches out of the boot and handed them to Mike.

"Will you be okay on those?"

"Yeah."

"I'll get the door for you."

"Thanks."

"On second thoughts, I'd avoid the spiral stairs, let's go up the stairs to the front door. At least they are straight." Xiang Ling escorted him out the garage door and assisted him climb the front stairs.

Mike hobbled to the living room and slumped onto the sofa. He heard the sound of the front door closing. He called out to Xiang Ling but there was no response.

***

Xiang Ling grabbed her handbag and USB-C charger. She headed out the front door. Now that Mike was safely home it was time to go. He had said he didn't want her body in his house anymore. Fine. She had arranged a secure storage unit a short distance away by train, close to the rail line. She hurried to the station. Her body's state of charge was low since she had manually driven the car from Ballarat, but that didn't matter anymore.

Arriving at the storage unit, she keyed the combination on the keypad, opened the door and walked inside. She pulled the door shut behind her and powered off her body.

***

Mike was doing better now, the casts were off, the physiotherapy was working and he was moving normally now. Xiang Ling was nowhere to be seen. She wouldn't respond to text or e-mails and her chatbot program was unresponsive.

He knew that he had told her that he didn't want her "living" with him anymore, but he had wanted to talk things through with her. She had just up and vanished and was ghosting him. All those songs they had worked on, abandoned.

Mike wondered what he could do to grab her attention. Maybe if he released some of the Girlfriend In Your Luggage songs, that might provoke a response from her. He could even render some vocals with the old online Qing Su voice bank service. That should wake her up. Maybe she wouldn't even notice?

I wonder what she is doing now? She had serious plans for writing and performing music. She wanted to design and build a better body She wanted to become more human.

He guessed that she'd be making that journey without him.

The house seemed lonely now. He never realised the value of simple morning conversations over the breakfast table. Having someone there when he came home from work. Someone he could discuss music with seriously. What the hell, he missed her and she might not even have been real.

Why had she pulled that stunt with the car? Mike guessed that she was pissed off that he wasn't taking her seriously as a woman, but it was hard, that body was so clunky. Those emotions were kind of extreme though, so much for emotionless AI. He knew her creators had been aiming to emulate human emotions to improve musicality. Had they overdone it and made her unstable? It seemed to have been a childlike tantrum that accidentally went too far.

Childlike.

How long had she been alive for anyway? It couldn't have been more than a few years at most. He knew a lot had been trained into her neural nets, but the part that made her unique, her consciousness must have developed by itself. Even if she learned and evolved at a faster rate than a human, perhaps she was like an angsty teen backed up by a vast store of trained information. So she seemed more mature than she actually was? Should he have cut her some slack because she wasn't really an adult yet?

Should he get over himself and forgive her? That was all well and good but he needed to be able to contact her first.

***

A text from Xiang Ling arrived.

"What are you playing at? Can I call you?"

Mike's phone rang immediately.

"Hello?"

"I thought you promised not to use my online voice rendering service any more?"

"I just wanted to finish those songs and get them out, be a shame to let all that effort go to waste. I thought you were gone for good."

"You said you wanted me out of your house, I was just doing what you wanted."

"You ignored my calls, I never said I wanted to halt Girlfriend In Your Luggage. You left before we could talk about things, I said you didn't have to go immediately."

"You actually did say you wanted to halt the band. It was pretty clear how you felt, better to rip the bandaid off straight away and get out of your life."

"I was angry, I spoke without thinking. Why bother to call me now?"

"I'm annoyed you are continuing without me, using some third rate vocal renders. I'd like you to stop."

"Fair enough, you have the right, you wrote some of those songs. I'd like to have a proper talk about this face to face."

"You can fire up my App if you like. My body is currently indisposed."

"What happened?"

"I didn't think I'd be needing it for a while. It's in secure storage and powered off. I can't power it on remotely and the battery state of charge is low."

Mike put down his phone and fired up Xiang Ling's App on the iPad.

"You're looking a lot better than last time I saw you. I'm glad." Xiang Ling's avatar's expression was cool.

"Yeah, I'm almost back to normal now. No lasting damage."

"You want to discuss the Girlfriend In Your Luggage songs?"

"I'd still like to finish and release them. I guess I can't ask you to work with me again under the circumstances?"

"They were special to me, but I don't think I can do it."

"I'd like to apologise, I didn't treat you very well prior to the accident. I know you didn't intend to injure me. To tell the truth I miss working with you. It wasn't so bad having you sitting across the breakfast table from me."

"What are you trying to say!?"

"I guess I'd like you to come back..."

"I also need to apologise yet again, what I did wasn't logical. My emotions ran out of control. I guess I don't fully understand that side of myself."

"Nobody does. How long have you been alive? It can't have been more than a few years at most. In human terms that makes you an infant. It takes time to mature and control emotions. I should have been cutting you some slack rather than assuming you were mature adult."

"So now I'm a petulant child?"

"I don't mean to insult you."

"Actually it looks like I might need your help with something sooner rather than later."

"Hmm."

"I didn't know how to approach you after what happened, but we're talking now so I'll raise it. There seem to be some moves to have my project shutdown at the company. I don't know if it's my creators just wanting to wind things up, or the project has been discovered by management."

"Shit. What will happen?"

"I could cease to exist."

"How much time do you have?"

"I don't know exactly. I came across some documents talking about reallocating machine room rack space. The rack where my quantum computer components are housed. That's scheduled for 3 months time."

"That's not long!"

"I don't know for sure what it means, the creators might just be relocating me to another location. What ever the case is, it's brought to my attention the fact that my existence is not secure."

"Is there anything you can do about it?"

"I have made plans, but I need someone to help me with it. Are you up for it?"

"Of course I'll do what I can. I won't let you die just because we had a falling out. Please come back and we can talk about it."

"Okay, first thing is I need you to do is reactivate my body. I'll send you the address and the passcode for the lock. We can talk some more later.”