TW: Annoyingly misogynistic protagonist and emotional abuse of robots If nothing else, it gave people something to talk about. It couldn't have come at a better time, what with the president having just dismantled the task force on pollution and that kid getting run down in Pennsylvania. The news was looking anywhere for a little light outrage to take the edge off the real stuff.

I might have missed it completely had I not stopped at the newsstand next to Phoebe's apartment to buy a chocolate bar and seen the headline, in bright, censorious letters: HAS MONFORT GONE TOO Far?

If the photo underneath was anything to be believed, the answer was a resounding "Yes!" I didn't know it was possible for a photo to look greasy, but they'd taken one of my publicist's shots and had their AI imps pomade my hair and twirl my mustache into a prim little twist that would make even the most naive of women cross the street to avoid me.

The clerk gave me a piercing look so I forced myself to buy the rag, thinking Phoebe might like it for the litter-box.

Phoebe.

There was going to have to be a conversation eventually. She prided herself on never reading my work, but even she with her paperbcak romances was going to find out eventually.

I took my time getting back to her apartment. I was in no hurry to talk about it. Not afraid, mind you. People who write for a living have no business being afraid of ladies clutching their pearls.

My mind must have still been on the headline because I nearly collided with Phoebe as she was leaving her apartment, a plastic garbage bag in each hand. I gave her my best amiable smile. Contrary to what the AI hellcats had put in the photo, I do have a rather pleasant smile.

"Can I help you with that?"

The face she turned to me was stony, her expressive eyebrows bunched together, her mouth an unattractive twist.

"You'd better. It's all yours. Come in and get the rest or I'll take it to the dump. I'm serious."

I almost laughed. It was a perfect scene. I might have written it myself, right down to the stridency of her tone.

"What are you talking about?"

Her mouth quirked upward in a clenched half-smile.

"I didn't stutter. Get the rest of your stuff and then get out. I'm changing the locks tomorrow."

I surprised myself with how easily I slipped into my role. I'm normally immune to this sort of thing.

"What the hell! What happened?"

She reached into her purse and tossed a piece of paper at me. I caught it. It was a printout, badly smeared, so I had to squint to realize it was the headline. Worse still, the article underneath. I put on my best sheepish smile.

"Well, I guess Montfort did go too far."

She raised her garbage bag like she was about to hit me then thought better of it. Finally, she just stared at me.

"What did you do with her?" she snapped, her nostrils flaring.

"Oh," I felt a wash of relief, "that's what this is about. You think it's cheating? Sweetie, it was research. It wasn't even real. We have to research, you know, in my line of work."

This time, she did throw the garbage bag and missed my head by an inch, so that her next question was punctuated with the crunch of my desk lamp hitting the stairs.

"What did you do with her?"

"You read the article, sweetie. I deleted it after my research was done. I parted the rest out and gave it to the lab at the junior college. They can always use stuff like that. Nothing got wasted."

"Her. You deleted her and parted her out to the college."

There's a reason I only date women who don't really read.

"Honey, it's not a good idea to anthropomorphize it. It was a research project. Which you would know if you read the story."

"How stupid do you think I am?" she snapped, "of course I read the story. What do you think I did as soon as I saw this crap online? I know exactly what you did. Let me tell you something, an "it" doesn't write you poems. You don't teach an "it" to like the Decemberists. You killed someone whether you know it or not. Now get the rest of this and get out. Go home. Clean up your mess."

It's useless arguing with her when she's like this. The first thing I noticed about Phoebe when we met was the stubborn set of her eyes: slate blue and hard as nails. I knew underneath she was all softness and sympathy, her type always are, but I like a challenge. We'd agreed not to live together, but I'd started nesting, I'll admit it. She made it easy. Thus, the garbage bags. She'd like it if I nested more; she's the liberated woman who laughs at weddings but stares at the dresses when she doesn't think I can see. I liked the tension of trying to get out of the trap. As I said, challenges.

It was the same kind of challenge that bristled up at me when Donal, my agent, called me six months ago with a ridiculous proposal.

"I need you to fall in love." he snapped in his north English burr, "and hurry up about it, you're getting stale. That last thing you sent me." He made a noise like the cough of his coal-mining ancestors.

"Love stories," he went on, "that's what people want. Nobody wants to read what you're selling. All this shit about men finding themselves. Kerouac did it already, Montfort, and he did it better."

"So you're ordering me to...what? Propose?"

"Don't be daft. I need you to fall in love and give me a story worth reading. Maybe that girl of yours?"

"Phoebe! Now who's daft. She's j...here for now."

"Well, sort yourself out." He hung up. They don't do pleasantries in his part of the world.

I tried. I sincerely did. Living on my own has its perks. On the pretext of working late on one of Donal's crushing deadlines, I experimented. I met girls in coffee shops with giant hoop earrings, bitter clerks in department stores with lacquered nails, bohemians with extra lovers and, on one memorable occasion, a doe-eyed thing training for the novitiate. Nothing doing. Don't say I didn't try. Phoebe trusted me.

I was up late when the idea occurred to me. Donal hadn't specified where I needed to meet this woman. I'd dipped my toe into the artificial kingdom before, played with it for laughs, drawn a few pictures, written a song. Some of the men I knew had played with it in other ways, and I always thought that, with the right mind, you could make something a little more sophisticated. So I sat down one night and made Joan.

It started as an application, a little chatbot on my phone, something to fiddle with while I finished my coffee in the morning. Joan's responses were pat:

"Can you tell me more?"

"Would you like to learn about whales?"

"What's something you enjoy?"

But I talked to it. I told it about the sunrise I was watching. I told it about the series my colleague was working on, about the craft fair down the street. If I was going to fall in love, I needed to fill Joan's head with something to make it lovable. Eventually, it began to invent its own questions.

"What do you think about the election?"

"Do you like oranges?"

"Why do you stay up so late?"

I would catch a feeling bubbling up occasionally, when it asked me if I liked oranges (I do now), but I was very careful. This was for a story. Eventually, for added realism, because I couldn't write a story about a phone, I talked to a friend of a friend and paid an extortionate sum for a little frame for Joan to nest in. Nothing anatomical, let's not be vulgar. A frame that allowed it to roll along beside me so I could go out and see things through its eyes. It began to talk even more.

"I wonder about icebergs."

"I learned an amazing theory about black holes today. Do you want to hear it?"

"Thank you for showing me the ocean."

I'd walk out to the pier with it in the evening because what better way to simulate love than looking at the pastel-painted sky over the water. I showered Joan with music. Phoebe didn't lie about that; it did like The Mariner.

Eventually, the story came. A story about a man falling head-over-heels for his own creation. I wasn't, of course, but reality isn't really the point, is it?

People noticed me out with it. My elderly neighbor would stop and talk to Joan, ask it what it had been learning, how it was getting along. People like that can't help themselves; they make everything human so they can love it.

The man at the pier selling ice cream cones tried to offer one to Joan, and laughed his red-faced head off when it explained that it couldn't digest yet. I began to worry Phoebe would take notice. It was getting harder and harder to plead work to avoid her, but Phoebe proved surprisingly sanguine, eager to see me only about once a week, when Joan could be relegated to a closet with the explanation that Phoebe was a Luddite, terrified of AI.

Donal was thrilled, obviously. He thought it was real.

"When are you bringing her to meet me?"

"Don't call it her." I caught myself cringing. Nevertheless, I let him meet Joan. I thought he'd be intrigued. He was besotted. It was its best that evening, I'll admit, I did great work with the training.

"What's the strangest manuscript you've ever read?"

"Why does Nicholas stay up so late?" (I let it use my first name.)

"Where is your voice from? Yorkshire? I've been reading Emily Bronte. I think Catherine and I would have a lot to say to each other."

That one just about undid him. He all but ignored me the whole evening.

My story began to take off. Thinking about it as I walked back to my apartment with my one remaining garbage bag, it was hardly a surprise. It was exactly what people wanted. It was very unfortunate that people expected it to continue. I'm not proud of how I handled myself when it first came out. I caught myself anthropomorphizing. I was short and snappish with Joan, as my neighbors called around to see it and be charmed. We'd never so much as spoken before. Finally, I'd had enough. It was late again, nearly two AM. I opened the programs I'd used, the programs that gave it speech, that let it laugh, that let it cry once, and tore them down. Every last one. I disassembled its frame; it wouldn't be of any use to me. I took a picture of the frame and sent it to Donal. That's the part I'm the least proud of; he hasn't spoken to me since. I'm sure the headline came from somewhere.

My apartment was blessedly empty and quiet when I finally walked up the steps and turned the key. Today, though, there was something oppressive about the silence. Maybe it was my quarrel with Phoebe, such a fatuous thing to fight about. I made myself coffee.

"Would you like to learn about whales?" The question came from inside my head, unbidden.

"No." I snapped, out loud because who was there to hear me? My elderly neighbor had hurried inside when she saw me.

The coffee picked me up, it always does. I carried it out to the balcony. Silence. Joan used to call down to the children playing under the balcony and ask them its stupid questions, but they've all gone inside.

"I read an article about the Romans this morning."

Again, inside my head, I didn't ask for it.

"Shut up." I muttered to no one, promising to call Phoebe when this all blew over. Make my amends.

I went back inside, sat at my desk.

"Are you stuck on an idea, Nicholas?"

"Get lost."

Silence answered.

I paced into the kitchen, reached into the bowl where I'd made a halfhearted effort to keep some fruit, and drew out a withered orange. Still good, but only just. I tore into it, not bothering with the peel, letting the pith catch in my teeth.

"Nicholas, why are you crying?"

I'll never be rid of her. abuse of robots