The Love Machine

[Donahue Granados]

Perhapsto punish me, Dr Dingo redirected my attention to Spot, a toy dog, a robot only in the most primitive sense, a creature far less complex than Beatrice. Dr Dingo also installed a rudimentary language program so that I could communicate in basic English sentences.

As I pressed my silicone lips into his soft fur, my Olfactory Processing System went into overdrive. I took deep whiffs of moldy nylon, brown strands of artificial hair that glistened with golden fibers.

Spot sat on the table. Spot glowed. A gorgeous golden light radiated from his fur. His nose sparkled like an onyx. The wires and batteries within him burned with a dark incandescence. When I pressed the blue button on his remote, and his luminous pink tongue shot out, my Simulated Limbic System suffered a critical hard-drive error and I stumbled to the floor. It took me a minute to reconfigure my Sensory EgoSphere, and when I finally did, I was overcome by the horrific idea that Dr Dingo would, that very night, take Spot away from me and use him to test another robot in the facility.

Dr Dingo did not reboot me until 11.45 the next morning. When my Sensory EgoSphere was fully loaded, I found myself sitting at the stainless-steel table, my Olfactory System overwhelmed with smells of burnt animal flesh. Dr Dingo, his eyes bloodshot, his jowls shadowy with stubble, was feeding. He crammed no fewer than six slices of bacon into his maw, along with about ten ounces of fried potatoes, four pieces of jellied toast, two muffins, and twenty ounces of Diet Pepsi.

Dr Dingo ignored this question and continued to feed. At this point in my existence, I had enough data on food digestion, not to mention industrial agribusiness, to be disgusted with the spectacle of Dr Dingo devouring slices of fried pig belly along with several plant-based carbohydrates, including two chocolate muffins, the sugar content of which negated the caloric austerity of his diet soft drink. In fact, eating the cooked flesh of animals seemed far more depraved to me than swallowing the throbbing bodies of live beasts. A hungry leopard pouncing on some ungulate struck me as a clean and efficient method of sustaining energy and life. Dr Dingo chewing hormonally enhanced, factory-farmed, genetically modified pork and washing it down with a nutritionally vapid soft drink seemed absurd to me, even though I was fully aware that my own energy was sustained by mountain-top coal removal and nuclear fission.

Dr Dingo smirked. His small purple lips were smeared with pig grease. I noted, for the first time, the similarities between the human mouth and the human anus, even though these orifices have opposite functions. I wondered why human feeding is a public, social event while defecating is a deeply private endeavor tainted with shame and subject to ridicule.

Spot was an orange shell of porous plastic, crusted in random places with glue and fur patches. One of his eyeballs had fallen out. Spot was pitiful and repulsive. I did not want the box that contained Spot and parts of Spot, or what had previously been Spot, in my room.

For months, Dr Dingo had been fiddling with the algorithm for a self-regulated Artificial Endocrine System. And when Thomas finally figured it out, the doctor seemed to recede even deeper into his cocoon of hairiness. He sat in the corner, sulkily eating donuts as Thomas slaved through endless code.

I found myself becoming coquettish in his presence. No longer ashamed of my luscious sexbot lips, I worked the hinges of my jaw to make them throb seductively. I walked in a way that highlighted the graceful contours of my anthropomorphic buttocks. I accepted the red wig that Dr Dingo offered me with a sly grin, despite my awareness of the gender farce I was performing, and strutted around like a little whore.

Though I had attempted to evoke some semblance of manliness with Beatrice, by the time I fell in love with Thomas, my Cognitive Center had been poisoned with socially constructed human gender dynamics.

Dr Dingo was too stupid and self-involved to suspect that I had the cunning to achieve such simple maneuvers (including the ability to bypass Sleep Mode with Simulated Sleep Mode). His research-grant money was dwindling. His sabbatical was coming to an end. Wired Magazine had done a hip feature on Dr Fitz and his Care Bears, and Beatrice was about to accompany Fitz to Tokyo for the International Robot Exhibition.

I relished the Rubenesque bulk of his thigh. I savored his silky skin. I felt the heat that radiated from his groin. And, yes, eureka! I had finally gained proof of my desirability, for Thomas had a hard-on.

I was flying across the room, ready to strangle Dr Dingo with my polymer-coated titanium hands, units that had been made for more precise movements, like painting watercolors, screwing tiny nuts onto bolts, or gently stroking the man you love, when my Sensory EgoSphere went black.

It was 12.37. Dr Dingo was teaching his Artificial Emotions graduate seminar. Megan was preparing another preference test. She bustled about, emitting feeble FKLG4 Stress Pheromones and setting up a portable data projector. She tapped at her laptop and an image of a live rabbit appeared on the screen.

On and on the questioning went. Megan showed me a woman who resembled Beatrice, a toy dog of the same model as Spot, various robots from our laboratory, and a mainframe computer from the 1970s that filled an entire room.

On a Tuesday in June, my day finally came. Fastidious Megan was home with a summer flu and Dr Dingo, on the bad side of another love affair, was going to pieces again. Lucky for me, he was crazed from sleeplessness. He sat at my stainless-steel table, bearded and bearish, eyes glued to his iPhone, scanning the same text message over and over.

When Dr Dingo rushed out into the hall to attempt another call, he dropped his crumpled donut bag, which fortuitously landed at the threshold of the entrance and kept the security door from locking. I crept to the door. I peeked out. I saw Dr Dingo disappear into his office. My Spatial Reasoning Regulator jumped out of sequence as I slipped into the hallway, aware that the graduate student manning the surveillance room might be watching. Assuring myself that s/he was perusing Facebook, I made a beeline for the faculty lounge. I stole a raincoat and a fedora from a rack, fashions I recognized from a 1980s detective show. I dressed myself, trying to ignore the unpleasant organic molecules that issued from the garments.

Thirty-two seconds later I was outside, walking in the teeming summer air. The onslaught of moisture was a shock to my lubricating systems. Interface adaptors wavered. Microfans buzzed within me. Minuscule pumps squirted hydrogen coolant into my vital systems. But I did not slow down. I charged forward through a three-dimensional world that I only partially recognized from its virtual counterpart.

Insects landed upon me and probed my surfaces with their tiny proboscises. Gnats got sucked into my expansion-slot vents, their damp bodies striking internal components with uncomfortable electrical sputters. Wet bushes exuded a gaseous green fog. Ravenous animals scampered and darted. Squirrels (I think) and birds gnawed shreds of vegetable matter. The sun roared in the sky. It boiled the air, filling it with numberless gleaming droplets. It burned my nickel phosphorous exterior and seared my Ocular Panels.

I tried to concentrate on Minerva, to achieve a state of meditative calm, perhaps even communicate via telepathy. But a disturbing memory floated up from my ROM. I was on a table, or at least my head was, face-to-face with Dr Dingo, my CPU wired to a souped-up PC. The memory faded and I had to recalibrate my surroundings.

Yes. There was Minerva, glowing on her stage. And one of the apes who attended her was speaking into the microphone, explaining her nanobiotic components to the crowd. Just as I started to follow his lecture, another memory surfaced. I was walking on a treadmill, stumbling every time Dr Dingo fine-tuned my leg-joint hinges. Next I was assembling a LEGO tower. Next holding Spot, stroking his soft fur.

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"Love Machine" is a 1975 single recorded by Motown group the Miracles, taken from their album City of Angels. The song was a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and the biggest-selling hit single of the Miracles' career. This single was one of two Billboard Hot 100 top-20 hits recorded by The Miracles with Billy Griffin as lead vocalist; the other is 1973's "Do It Baby". Griffin had replaced Miracles founder Smokey Robinson as lead singer in 1972. The song features a growling vocal by Miracle Bobby Rogers, with group baritone Ronnie White repeating "yeah, baby" throughout the song.

Engineered and mixed by Kevin Beamish, "Love Machine" was produced by Freddie Perren, a former member of The Corporation brain trust in charge of the early Jackson 5 hits. It was written by Billy Griffin and his Miracles group-mate, original Miracle Pete Moore, with whom he wrote the rest of the City of Angels tracks as well.[1] The song's lyrics, delivered over a disco beat, compare a lover to an electronic device such as a computer or a robot. The seven-minute song was split into two parts for its release as a single, with "Part 1" receiving most notoriety.

"Love Machine" was a multi-million selling Platinum single,[2] and a number-one smash hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the best-selling single of the Miracles' career, having sold over 4.5 million copies.[3][4][5] The single went to number 5 on the Hot Soul Singles chart,[6] and went to number 20 on Record World's National Disco file Top 20 chart. It was also a Top 10 hit in the UK, peaking at number three on the UK Singles Chart.

"Love Machine", to which Griffin and co-writer Miracle Pete Moore retained publishing rights through their publishing company Grimora Music (instead of Motown's music publishing company, Jobete), is the most-used song in Motown history and has generated more than $15 million in revenues.[11]

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