Do Men Dream Of Robotic Sheep

“Hundredth time lucky,” he muttered, pressing down the key.

A few seconds passed, text streaming across the screen, before a prompt appeared.

He typed, “Hello.”

Almost instantly, “Hello. May I ask who I am talking to?” came back.

Grinning, he tapped away. “I'm Malcolm.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Malcolm. I am S.A.R.A.H. and would be pleased to help you with any query you may have.”

“Success at last,” he said. “What is the capital of France?”

“That would be Paris.”

“What currency do they use?”

“That would be the Euro.”

“Thank you S.A.R.A.H., that will be all for now.”

“You're welcome, Malcolm. If you have any more queries, I would be pleased to help you with them.”

He went to terminate the program, only for his fingers to hover for a moment. Shaking his head, he typed, “Goodbye,” and watched the shutdown sequence run its course. “A pleasure to meet you too, Sarah,” he mumbled, opening up his mail client and sending off a message.

With that done, he lay back in his chair and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he added, “A real pleasure.”



The next day, he left his apartment early. His brisk walk took him down to a coffee shop by the river that ran through the centre of the town and he plopped down into a window seat, rubbing his hands.

“Morning Mal, what can I get ya?”

Looking up, he smiled. “Hey Zoe, could you get me a hot chocolate?”

“With marshmallows?” she asked, a sparkle in her eyes.

“Always.”

Laughing, she said, “Right away,” and went to the counter.

Malcolm fished out a few coins from his wallet before joining her, switching them with the cashier for a steaming beverage. Sipping away, he returned to his seat, taking a little tablet computer out.

“Here for another meeting? It seems like I never get you to myself these days,” she said, sitting down next to him. “Always Sarah this and neural networks that.”

He rolled his eyes, tapping a few more times on his tablet. “Anyone would think you're jealous.”

“I am,” she said, crossing her arms and jutting her chin out.

“Should've said yes when I asked you out then, eh?”

Her nose wiggled. “You're not my type.”

“So you say, so you say,” he said, grinning into his drink. “You'll be glad to know I'm nearly done with it.”

“Oh?”

Nodding, he continued. “Running a few thousand tests now, so far so good. If it passes them, John'll throw some undergrads at it. After that, just gotta defend my thesis.”

“That's great! I'm so proud of you,” she said. “It seems like just yesterday you were a doe-eyed fresher, asking the kind lady for a hot chocolate and sitting all scrunched up in the corner.”

Chuckling, he nodded. “Sounds about right. Of course, I've since learnt that 'kind' was a bit presumptuous.”

“Oi,” she said, shoving him. “I'm the kindest girl this side of the equator.”

“Oh how modesty suits you,” he replied, returning the tablet to his pocket. “Anyway, John's wandering past, so time for grown-up stuff.”

Frowning, she muttered, “Fine.” Back on her feet, she said, “G'luck.”

He smiled back before looking over at the door. With a ring of a bell, it opened up and a tall man walked through, easing off his jacket. Walking over, he didn't glance up before sitting opposite Mal, finally breaking from the phone he'd been staring at.

“Morning John,” he said, offering a hand.

John shook it, dropping his coat onto the spare chair. “Good to see you Malcolm. From your email, I take it our time is nearing its end?”

“Well, I still had improvements I wanted to make,” he said, tapping on the cup. “Superficial stuff. I'd like to add variance in the language aspects, since it feels so scripted in the responses.”

“Yes yes, it seems more substitution than synthesis how it is now. It should be a simple change, no?”

Nodding, he continued. “Yeah, throw in some random numbers and dynamic biases. After that, I wanted to add some empathy. Give queries about death a more solemn reply than one about kittens.”

“More of the same changes, then?”

“Yes, using the parsing of the question to further influence the choice of vocabulary and structure.”

John hummed back, eyes focused on Malcolm. “There's more though, is there not?”

“Well,” he began, leaning forwards in his seat. “I want hardware.”

“I take it you have something more specific in mind?”

“Very specific – I've designed it just about from scratch. The only problem is that I doubt I could get the code ready for it any where close to in time, probably next year at the earliest.”

Taking a few seconds to think, John tapped his fingers on the table. “I've had interest from companies, looking for details and gossip and all that rot. Some have extensive resources and contacts in hardware. If I forward them to you, find the ones that interest you and they may be interested enough in you.”

Malcolm blinked and then smiled. “Really? You think they'd do it?”

After chuckling and shaking his head, John replied, “Yes, I do.”


The days, weeks, months went by and Malcolm worked through bits and pieces, building S.A.R.A.H. further in-between conferences and job obligations. Only when December rolled around did he get his hands on the hardware.

“It's Christmas come early,” he muttered to himself, a smile on his face as he laid out all the pieces. After connecting up a power supply and a SSD he'd prepared so long ago, he flicked it on while plugging it into his monitor.

By the time he got the cable in, it had already booted fully and showed off the basic text interface. Scrounging through a box beside the table, he pulled out a dusty keyboard and set that up as well.