A Digital Romance
Louis leaned back on the couch and rested his head in the corner of the sofa, sprawled out with the mental exhaustion from a long day of meetings in virtual reality. He scratched idly at his head and felt a sharp pain through his scalp.
A small scratch on his head came from his Digit-X, the prosthetic that was now his middle finger. It was a strong combination of carbon fiber and synthetic dermis, but he still didn’t have the right calibration with it, and sometimes it used more pressure than he intended.
He winced and rubbed his head with his other hand. As he brought it away, he saw a speck of blood on his finger. He sighed and rubbed it again. The scratch definitely hurt, but the real pain was from the cost he had to pay. It was more expensive than the Honda Civic he’d been trying to fix when he lost the original.
Rosa sat on the other end of the couch, curled up under a mountain of blankets. She stared at the screen on the wall, which was playing a romantic drama with a lot of crying and kissing. She wasn’t paying attention to him, but Louis could tell she still resented him. Three months before, on the side of a snowy highway in the Rockies, Louis had picked hubris rather than gloves.
“It’s freezing in here. There’s basically no insulation in here,” Rosa complained and she pulled the blankets further up her body.
“The laws of thermodynamics can be cruel,” Louis joked, testing the waters.
“So is frostbite,” Rosa shot back without looking away from the TV.
Louis looked down at his Digit-X, which was glowing a passive standby blue around where his knuckle used to be. He didn’t think he could apologize again. There was nothing more he could say that would satisfy her. Instead, he had to take a more direct approach.
Louis sent a mental command to the prosthetic, activating the built-in warming element. The LED ring turned into a soft amber as the device temperature climbed to 104°F, just above a nominal temperature. Although the feature was meant to keep the servo-actuators from freezing in the cold, he had a different use in mind.
“Come here,” Louis offered, lifting himself up from the corner. He moved over towards her and draped his left arm around the back of the sofa so that his hand rested on her shoulder.
“I’m not in the mood for this,” she said in a flat tone as her body turned stiff and tense. She still didn’t forgive him for his recklessness, and the touch of the prosthetic was a physical reminder of how he didn’t listen to her.
But as his warm finger pressed against a tension knot in her shoulder, pushing through the thick wool of her sweater, she let out a small gasp. She still refused to look at him.
Louis felt her shoulders relax again and decided to take a step further. He mentally activated the haptic feedback system at a low 30-hertz buzz. There was a faint low hum from the prosthetic, almost like a cat purring.
“Is your finger vibrating?” Rosa’s eyes were wide and she turned her head slightly to look at him.
“It’s just a system diagnostic,” Louis lied, trying to downplay the situation. “It’s just a routine check that the servos are still functioning. Do you want me to turn it off?”
“No, it’s fine,” Rosa said, almost too quickly.
He pressed his hand closer to her shoulder as his finger inched closer to the back of her neck. The synthetic skin reformed and took on a softer texture, like it was made of velvet.
Rosa let out a loud breath and her neck fell back against the sofa cushions and against his hand. Her hand flailed down on the couch cushions for the remote and paused her movie. She was starting to relax in a way she hadn’t felt in months.
With the movie paused, they could hear the soft patters of raindrops hitting the windows. She turned to look at him with a mix of affection and annoyance, but her eyes were softer now as she had been before.
“You’re such an idiot,” she said with a small smile. “If you had listened to me, you wouldn’t have lost that finger.”
“You’re right,” he admitted.
“But...” Rosa let out another sigh. She reached over and took his other hand. She ran her thumb over his human fingers. “I can’t necessarily forgive you, but there has been a small upgrade I think.”
“My goal is to make your life better, or at least more pleasurable,” Louis said smoothly.
“You’ve definitely managed to do that,” she murmured. “But don’t let it get to your head. I’m still mad at you.”
“Anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“Let’s go to the bedroom and you can give me a longer walk-through of all your new features,” Rosa looked at him with fire in her eyes. Her cold front had finally melted.