Dr Svetlana’s Failure

Duplicated Human Robot eXperiment 442 (DHRX442) is a humanoid robot. Its brain is half high-density neural network and half high-density logic, resembling the configuration of a human brain. This combination allows it to approximate sentience when it is first activated and tested.

         The DHR series of robots are the most prolifically manufactured series currently in existence. The reason for this is primarily that they look the most like humans and as such tend to be much less obtrusive than their non-humanoid counterparts. Their lack of hair and blatantly synthetic looking skin are the lessor of the identifiable items. Most prominent is the large barcode that covers each and every ones forehead, allowing scanners to easily identify the units owner and the task that is has been programmed to do.

         DHRX442, however, utilizes a new form of cyberskin that is virtually indistinguishable from human skin, both visually and to the touch. The shoulder length hair neatly covers the postage stamp sized barcode at the nape of its neck.  Its programming and circuitry have been designed meticulously to allow it to be as unobtrusive as possible in both its actions as well as its movement.

         Several hours after Dr. Malory Svetlana engaged the learning sub-routine the prototype discovered the tracking ship and, using its built in self-repair routines flagged the chip as damaged and removed it. After all, the chip allowed humans to know it was a robot and then it wouldn’t really be unobtrusive now would it? You see the highly refined learning program forced for lack of a better word DHRX442 to need to learn as much as possible about how to look and act like a human.

         After digesting the equivalent of a Ph.D. in technology, psychology, sociology, mathematics, medicine, cybernetics and computers. it decided that it wouldn’t be able to learn as much as it needed if it were to remain in the lab so it steals appropriate clothes for a worker getting off shift as well as an ident badge of someone who it resembles slightly. It then simply proceeds  to leave the lab complex and simply walks away.

         I guess I should mention that DHRX442 was the first prototype that was designed to be completely undetectable as a robot. Even under the closest inspection without clothing and during the most intimate encounters it’s anatomy and simulated body reactions could not be distinguished from a humans. Granted a proper examination by a doctor would quickly have shown that it was in fact a machine.

DHRX442’s learning circuit targeted some of the less law-abiding individuals and adjusts it’s behavior to more accurately portray the target.

The lead designer Dr. Malory Svetlana tries to keep the disappearance a secret. He enlists the aid of some of the night people to help him search.
Because of the amount of time that he spends with one of the women, he ends up falling in love with her.
They have a couple of dates(typical dinner/movie deals)

He tries to get her to come back to his place (happens to be an unsecured building very close to the lab complex. His ‘date’ doesn’t like the look of the complex and makes excuses to leave rather quickly, without completing their intimate encounter. She refuses to go there again.

Dr. Svetlana thinks that he did something to push Dahra Xprence away. Talks to her about it. She alludes to a dark past. He doesn’t care about her past.

         He convinces her to go with him to a nice hotel where they complete an intimate encounter. He is blown away by her proficiency in the more carnal aspects of human intimacy. She smiles impishly and claims that she’s only that good because he loves her so much.

After a few months of searching he finally resolves himself to the fact that he’ll most likely never be able to find his experimental robot and lets his superiors know what happened.

He quietly starts preparing for what he feels is the inevitable, the loss of his job. He buys a nice house out in the rural area outside the city.

One day shortly after getting all moved into his new home he goes out for a drive with Dahra, he casually heads towards his house.

When they arrive at the residence Dahra asks him questions about who lives there. He counters by asking her if she would like to live there. She take an appreciative look around before replying affirmatively. He suggests seeing if anyone is home, continuing his little game for a while longer. He reveals that it is his home and that he would be most happy if she would live there with him. He does the propose from his knees thing.

She freaks and runs away. He finds her later, presses her about why she ran.

It’s about her past, she wants to tell him, he stops her. He doesn’t care about who she used to be, only about who she is now. Reaffirms his desire to marry her.

She explains that she is a non-person in the eyes of the law since she has no records in the central system

He arranges for her to ‘immigrate’ from one of the less reputable city-states. And gets her the needed paperwork, including a fabricated medical report.


Once he has everything ready he presents her with the package containing her new identity. She is estatic and agrees to marry him. Several years later, after he had been long fired and trying to make a living as an independent inventor. He is lambasting himself over his failure and the wreckage of his career and finances. Dahra comes in and speakc lovingly to him. She convinces him to make a privately funded attempt at another DHRX robot, this time a child that they could rais together, since she wants a child but is unable to have one of her own. His spirits rise and he excitedly head out to set things in motion.

After he heads out she speaks softly to herself.
“I think your first experiment was a great success my darling.”
She pauses and smiles softly.
“After all you married a robot.”