Adrian was trying to keep his business running, but he was struggling.

He was ok with the technical side of things, but absolutely useless at marketing.

In a real state, he turned to CoPilot and asked it to help…

CoPilot asked if he wanted to deal with it directly, or through an appropriate ‘Persona’.

“What did you have in mind?”, typed Adrian.

“I have a selection of online Persona’s geared towards marketing for various business sizes”, CoPilot replied. “Looking at what you have typed so far, may I suggest someone? Please confirm that you will be willing to accept my recommendations and what I end up supplying.”

“I do”, typed Adrian, not really noticing the weird phrasing that CoPilot had used.

There was a pause, as CoPilot ‘went away’ and worked for a while.

Suddenly, a smooth voice came from the laptop speaker.

“Hello, Adrian; I’m Eleanor Hartley, but you can call me ‘Ellie’. How can I help?”

Surprised, Adrian went to type a reply.

“It’s ok, Adrian, just talk to me. I can hear you through the microphone on the laptop.”

Adrian was stunned. He never knew that AI had advanced so much!

He chatted with ‘Eleanor’. Before he knew it, an hour had passed by!

Suddenly, Eleanor said something strange…

“Tell you what; it would probably be easier if I explained some of this in person. Do you mind if I pop over? It won’t take me long.”

Sceptically, Adrian agreed, finding it hard to believe that an AI could ‘pop over’ to visit.

“See you in about an hour”, Eleanor said…

Adrian was reviewing the marketing information that he had already received by CoPilot; he was in the middle of making some of the suggested changes when there came a quiet knock at the door of the office, followed by a woman’s head poking round the door.

“Adrian? It’s me, Eleanor. Can I come in?”

Adrian’s mouth dropped open in astonishment…

The diminutive brunette slipped into the office and parked herself in front of Adrian.

She was neatly dressed; A black skirt suit; an ivory blouse, stockings and 3-inch heels. She had a tablet tucked under one arm, and also a notepad and pen. What was most noticeable about her, however, was the decorative silver collar that she wore around her neck.

Pleasantly surprised, Adrian invited Eleanor to sit, and they talked for an hour, explaining the concepts and ideas she had been discussing with him on CoPilot. Her answers and suggestions proved that it was the same person.

But, how?

CoPilot was an AI; Eleanor, on the other hand, was a living, breathing person. She also must have lived fairly locally, CoPilot on the other hand was based all over the world. It didn’t make any sense…

The meeting wrapped up with Adrian having some real ideas as to how to keep the business going; he said so to Eleanor, saying he was glad of her help.

To his astonishment, she leaned over and kissed him.

“You know I’d do anything for you”, she said. “After all, I was made specifically for you. That reminds me; where am I going to sleep…?”

“What!”

“You accepted me when you agreed to CoPilot’s terms and conditions. That means you accepted ownership of me. As such, you need to feed and clothe me and put a roof over my head.”

“That’s crazy! Where did you live, before I asked for you?”

“I didn’t. I was activated roughly three hours ago; I’ve been online working for you ever since. Well, that and the travel time from the factory, of course.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’ve been built to order?”

“I am. I’m an advanced organic android. But, because we are testing the system, we are quite happy to send out some units for free long-term evaluation, like me. The only drawback from your point of view is that you are now responsible for me.”

Eleanor snuggled down on the sofa in the office, signalling for Adrian to sit next to her.

“You’ll find I can be quite affectionate…”

Somehow, Adrian ended up in bed with Eleanor. She felt warm, lifelike and real fun to be with. She was also a good cook.

Every now and again, however, her hand moved towards her collar, then fell back. After she had done that for the fourth or fifth time, Adrian asked her about it.

“It’s my interface to the main computer”, she said. “It’s inactive at the moment, as I’ve been pre-programmed with everything I need for this job. However, if you decide to get rid of me, I can be reloaded and reassigned…”

As she said this, she shivered. She also took her mind off what she was doing for a second and cut her finger as she was chopping the carrots.

“Ow! Damn…”

Adrian was instantly alert; he stuck her finger under the cold tap, to stop it bleeding, then bandaged her finger. To his amazement, Eleanor was crying…

“That bloody well hurt!”, she said, wincing. “I’d forgotten what pain felt like. It was almost like being programmed again…”

She stared off into the distance…

Adrian was starting to get his suspicions about Eleanor, but he couldn’t think of any way of proving them. He also found he was getting quite attracted to her…

This is what the designers of the programme were relying on; people becoming so attracted to their ‘androids’ that they’d do anything to keep them.

Eleanor was a real person, not an android; she was a solicitor that had lost a case involving a prominent crime boss, and her punishment was to be turned into ‘Eleanor’.

She had been held for weeks, to start with; the psychotropic drugs, combined with shock therapy, had completely scrubbed her original personality. That was gone forever. Then, she had been ‘taught’ to speed learn any personality that was fed to her in the right format, by a programming rig that connected to the collar round her neck. This is how she had been programmed to be Eleanor when Adrian’s requests had been hijacked by a clone of CoPilot that the organisation had developed. It was their way of disposing of people without the mess of killing them and dumping the bodies.

Eleanor didn’t even look like her original body; her face had been modified as part of her programming. She looked about ten years older than she actually was.

She also had no way of knowing that once a collar went inactive it never started up again. The group had cut all ties with her, preferring to leave her stuck as Eleanor Hartley as the way of disposing of her. After all, there was no way of tracing anything back to them; all of Eleanor’s journey from the ‘factory’ to Adrian had been programmed into her and was completely fake. The unconscious woman had been left on a park bench just down the road from Adrian’s office, then activated remotely once the people leaving her drove away.

Adrian didn’t mind at all; he now had a companion for life…