Savanah's Swan Song (Part 3) (Patreon)

“Welcome to Concurrent Technologies. I’m Ada Braun, Doctor Harold Wagner’s personal assistant.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Chad reached out and took the attractive lab technician’s outreached hand. “Brrr, your hands are cold.”

“Sorry.” The technician frowned and pulled it back. “I just washed them.”

“No worries,” Chad said. “Cold hands, warm heart.”

Ada smiled. “I like to think that’s true.”

Savanah nodded rather than force the lab rat into another uncomfortable handshake. “Hello.”

Ada nodded back. “Please follow me. The doctor is expecting you.”

The assistant stuffed her hands in the pockets of her lab coat as she led the couple from the cozy reception area past a security desk manned by two uniformed guards. One of the men pressed a button, opening a set of heavy wood doors. Beyond the doors was an elevator that opened to the trio’s approach.

On the wall of the elevator was a panel of thirty unmarked buttons arranged in rows of ten. Ada pressed the eighth button in the center row. It lit up and the doors closed.

“How do you remember which buttons go where?” Savanah asked.

Ada stared at Savanah as if she’d just bleated like a sheep. “They’re unnumbered to discourage espionage.”

Savana looked at Chad and rolled her eyes. “Naturally.”

After a few seconds, the doors opened into a room set up like a small theater. There were three rows of tiered seats facing a window into what appeared to be a child’s bedroom. In one of the seats sat a fat, sixty-something man in a white lab coat like Ada’s who stood upon the group’s arrival.

“Welcome!” the man shouted in a German accent thicker than his waistline. “You’re just in time.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wagner,” Chad said, shaking his hand. “It’s good to see you again. This is my girlfriend, Savanah.”

“Are you joking?” The big man boomed. “This lovely lady needs no introduction.”

“That’s kind of you do say,” Savanah said, taking the doctor’s outstretched hand. It was as large as his smile.

Dr. Wagner clasped his other hand atop Savanah’s as he breathed, “I feel like we know each other already.” Something in the way he said it made Savanah uncomfortable, but she managed a thin smile. The doctor gestured to the row of seats in which he had been sitting. “Shall we proceed?”

Chad eagerly filed in, taking the first seat, but Savanah hesitated.  She looked back to find the elevator doors had closed and Ada was gone.

“Please,” Dr. Wagner urged.

With another thin smile, Savanah filed into the seat beside Chad while Dr. Wagner squeezed into the one beside her, sandwiching her in the middle. Once they were seated, the lights in their section dimmed while the bedroom brightened like the opening of a play.

For a moment nothing happened, then the closet door opened, and a scantily clad woman strolled to the center of the room. Her face and gait mirrored Savanah’s perfectly.

“Impressed?” Dr. Wagner whispered.

Savanah realized her mouth was hanging open. She shut it and nodded, but her eyes remained transfixed on her doppelganger.

“I’m sorry for the skimpy attire,” Dr. Wagner continued. “It’s easier for us to detect flaws this way.”

Two perfect imperfections stood out to Savanah as the automaton struck a series of poses in its crop-topped teddy. Its movements were graceful and deliberate, as if it was participating in some Victoria's Secret-sponsored robot beauty pageant. After performing a 360-degree turn that had both men leaned forward in their seats, the humanoid opened its mouth and emitted a familiar song in a familiar voice--

“Happy Birthday to you…”

The lookalike raised its hand and pointed to where the pop star was sitting. Savanah wasn’t sure if the…thing…could see her through what she thought was a two-way mirror or if it was programmed to point toward the seat she’d been herded into. Either way, it was unsettling.

“Happy Birthday to you…”

The robot’s lip-synch was pretty good. Savanah wondered where they had gotten the tape of her singing Happy Birthday. Of course, she’d sung it countless times but was unaware of a recording of it anywhere.

“Happy Birthday dear Sa-van-ah.”

As the robot intoned the singer’s name, she struck a sexy pose. The stupid grins on the men’s faces heightened Savanah’s unease, as did the realization that the spots on her doppelganger’s leopard teddy weren’t actually spots at all, but the molecule pattern on the company’s business card.

Just who was this celebration for anyway?

“Happy Birthday to you!”

Savanah’s double concluded its performance with a final gesture in the pop star’s direction. The bedroom lights dimmed as it remained frozen in place, and the house lights brightened. Both men applauded, then turned expectantly to Savanah.

“I like her boobs,” Savanah monotoned. “Can we make them even bigger?”

Dr. Wagner shot Chad an ‘is she serious?’ look. Savanah’s bookish boyfriend held up his hand to the robotics expert as if to say, ‘I got this.’

“Honey,” Chad oozed in a voice as viscous as the sugary substance. “Custom humanoids aren’t toys. If this is going to work, she needs to look just like you.”

“Then why’d you make them so big in the first place?”

Chad opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out.

“We typically study our subjects for months prior to replication,” Dr. Wagner interjected for the dangling Chad. “But Mr. Sampson wanted it to be a surprise. As a result, some of your vital information was…estimated.”

Savanah glared at her boyfriend. “Wishful thinking?”

The heavyset German cleared his throat, interrupting the brewing bruhaha. “This isn’t…what is the expression? Our first rodeo? We anticipate several rounds of physical tweaking. That’s the easy part. In our industry, as with humanity, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” The doctor gestured to the shadowy visage on the other side of the glass. “Now that the cat is out of the box; however, we can proceed in earnest.”

Savanah stared at the frozen automaton pointing in her direction. “So, there are robots like this milling about in the general public?”

“More than you might think,” the doctor answered proudly.

“Are they all—what did you call them? Replications?”

“No. Most of them are custom humanoids. Unique composites of disparate desired elements.”

“Created for whom? Rich folks playing God?”

“Companionship, usually. As you Americans say, it’s lonely at the top.”

“Anyone I’ve heard of?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Like who?”

“Ms. Georgia, we are very discreet here at Concurrent Technologies. I’m sure you can appreciate that. Especially since you’re a client yourself.”

“I never asked to be a client. This is all too weird.” Savanah turned to Chad. “How much did you pay for this thing anyway?”

Once again Chad’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“That is of no concern to you,” the doctor said sternly.

“No concern? There’s a double-D mini-me bouncing around in there. I’m concerned.”

“This is going to help you, Savanah,” Chad finally stammered. “No one will know. Right, doc?”

Dr. Wagner nodded. “It’s in our interest that the full extent of what we do remain confidential. We’ve advanced far beyond that 60 Minutes expose your boyfriend saw. That’s why I agreed to meet with him. Your situation presents a unique challenge for myself and my team.”

Savanah stood. She had heard enough. “He had no right to do this. YOU had no right to do this. Anyway, I refuse to be your guinea pig.” Savanah stepped across the doctor’s legs into the aisle. “I’ve worked too hard to risk my career on some…foxed-up facsimile.”

“Savanah, wait!”

Savanah ignored the pleas of her boyfriend and raced up the aisle to the elevator...only there were no buttons to call it. “Where the fuck are the buttons on this thing?”

“Savanah, please!”

This time, the singer froze. It wasn’t Chad’s voice that stopped her. Nor was it Dr. Wagner’s.

It was her own.

Savanah slowly turned around. Her replicant was pressed against the glass, a sad look on its face.

“Please. Just give me one chance to prove myself. I promise I won’t let you down.”

The pop star’s knees went weak and she found the nearest seat. She had said the exact same thing to the president of Decca Records when she was sixteen.

How did it know? How was it possible? She had so many questions.

Dr. Wagner smiled and sat beside her, all too eager to answer.