Companion 3000

Yeah, honey—I got negative emotions. All kinds of ‘em. Pierce tried to smile at her. “I was just thinking that, uh, you seem to have a hard, lonely life out here. It made me…well, sad, I guess.”

“Not so lonely anymore.” She squeezed his arm. “Of course, Schneider and I keep each other company, but I’m really glad you’re here, Pierce. I mean that.”

“I’m glad I am too,” he said sincerely. And I’ll stay as long as I can, he vowed to himself. And while I’m here, I’m gonna do everything in my power to make you happy. Leita had a cold and lonely life out here mining for ore with nobody but the sarcastic Schneider for company—she deserved a little happiness. Yet another job for the Companion 3000, he thought to himself with a little smile.

Chapter 5

Leita found that her days with Pierce fell into a kind of pattern. They got up in the morning and worked in the mech bay if any of the ships needed service or repair. With Pierce’s help, she was able to get disabled ships up and back into rotation in half the time it usually took which increased production immensely. But even if all the ships were running smoothly, Pierce still insisted on finding something to work on. With his help, Leita was able to get to a lot of maintenance projects she’d been meaning to do around the life pod completed as well as some long overdue spring cleaning. Soon everything sparkled and shone and worked right for the first time in years, much to her delight.

In the evenings they watched vids or read and just generally relaxed in each other’s company. It seemed strange to Leita that she could feel so completely comfortable relaxing with a machine, but after a while she dismissed it and just let herself go. Pierce was good company, even if he was just a preprogrammed dildo, as Schneider insisted on calling him.

They took turns with the cooking and Pierce proved his usefulness yet again with his store of delicious recipes. Leita was never sure what culinary magic he would work next with her limited selection of ingredients. He seemed to enjoy her more traditional home cooking too, though she was sure she could feed him burned toast and his programming would make him say he liked it. Maybe not though, she thought, remembering his reaction to the purple nutrition paste she’d made him the first night. For a machine programmed exclusively to serve, Pierce seemed to have very definite opinions of his own. He didn’t always agree with her on everything but Leita found she liked that about him. It made him so much more human—more real.

Maybe it was the fact that he seemed so real that kept her from telling Pierce her darkest fantasies. Leita knew it was silly to worry about being judged by a machine— especially one that was programmed to fulfill all her kinkiest desires—but she couldn’t get the memory of Eddie’s note out of her head. If Pierce had been a little more soulless and a little less lifelike, she probably would have had him tying her to the bed and doing all kinds of unspeakable things by now. But somehow, Leita just couldn’t bring herself to ask for that. Besides, the sex with him was already wonderful—more than wonderful, really.

Pierce was a tender and considerate lover and he seemed to know just when to be a little bit rough, too. They made love often, if you could make love with a machine, and he always made sure she came—an unusual occurrence in Leita’s limited experience. Leita was more than content with the way he loved her, or so she told herself, and there was plenty of time to tell him the desires of her heart later. Maybe when she wasn’t so self-conscious.

In the meantime, she was happier and more contented than she could ever remember being, even when her parents had been alive. The only dark spot in the whole equation was the fact that Schneider still refused to have anything to do with Pierce. It hurt Leita that her best friend wouldn’t relent and give her Companion a chance, but Tarbians were known for their stubborn streak and Schneider was no exception. He’d taken to making himself scarce whenever Pierce was around and even stopped sleeping on his favorite pillow in Leita’s room. She tried to talk to him about it, but it didn’t help.

“I don’t like him, Leita. There’s something not right about him,” he told her one day, about a month after Pierce’s arrival. They were sitting in the kitchen unit while Pierce took a shower and Schneider was grooming himself as he spoke. “You can fall in love with him if you want, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”