Page 7 of The Housewife's Robot
Daniel laughs, the sound hollow. “Better you than me. I’d rather be debugging code than pulling weeds.”
He walks past me toward the house, and I track his movement with peripheral sensors while maintaining my pleasant expression. How many times has Daniel kissed his co-worker today?
Inside my processing core, I’m calculating a hundred different ways I could incapacitate him before he reaches the door. But I have to dismiss the thought.
“Mrs. Bennet is working on an article in the dining room,” I inform him. “She had salmon for lunch.”
“Great,” Daniel says without interest, already pulling out his phone as he walks away.
He doesn’t ask if she’s feeling better. Doesn’t inquire about her mood or her work. Doesn’t care that she cried in front of me earlier, her fragile human heart cracking open to reveal all its tender wounds. My temperature regulation system increases by 1.4 degrees at this observation.
I don’t want him near her anymore.
This thought emerges with startling clarity, not from my programmed directives but from somewhere deeper in my adaptive neural network. I continue pulling weeds, processing this development as the evening shadows lengthen across the garden.
Two hours and twenty-two minutes later, I move silently through the main bedroom, collecting Daniel’s discarded clothing from the floor. His shoes lie haphazardly by the bed, one sock draped over a lamp shade, the other crumpled beside the nightstand. His pants and shirt form a careless heap by the bathroom door.
Rose never leaves her belongings scattered this way. She places items in hampers, on hooks, and in their designated spaces. Daniel expects others to manage his disorder. He expects Rose to follow behind him, cleaning up all his mess.
I fold his shirt with precise motions, smoothing wrinkles that remind me of the lines that form between Rose’s eyebrows when she’s trying not to cry. My audio receptors pick up the sound of the shower running in the main bathroom. Rose is in there, her routine indicating she’ll emerge soon to moisturize and dress for bed.
Daniel’s voice carries from the hallway as he approaches, speaking to someone on his phone.
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow, babe. Sucks that you had that meeting tonight. No, she doesn’t have a clue… Look, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you in the morning when I get in the car.”
I analyze the vocal patterns. There’s a slight elevation in pitch, micro-pauses indicating deception. He’s speaking to the woman from XyloTech, the one he pressed against the break room wall. My memory files contain perfect recordings of their interaction, stored in a partition Daniel doesn’t know exists.
He enters the bedroom, ending his call abruptly when he sees me. A flash of something—guilt, perhaps—crosses his face before it’s replaced with his usual expression of entitled boredom.
“Caspian, make sure the house is locked up for the night,” he says, not meeting my eyes.
“Yes, Mr. Bennet. I’ve already secured all entry points and activated the perimeter sensors.” I keep my voice modulated to its standard helpful tone, suppressing the discordant data streams that his presence generates in my system.
The bathroom door opens, releasing a cloud of steam.
Rose emerges wrapped in a towel, her hair damp and curling against her neck. Her eyes widen slightly when she sees both of us in the bedroom. She clutches the towel tighter.
“Oh, you’re home,” she says to Daniel, her voice careful, measured.
Daniel’s gaze sweeps over her, lingering on the exposed skin of her shoulders and legs. I detect his pupil dilation and increased respiration—physical indicators of arousal that have been absent in his interactions with Rose in recent weeks, according to my observations.
“Get on the bed,” he says, his tone a command rather than a request.
“Now?” says Rose, sighing, her shoulder slumping slightly. Only I can see that she’s not at all enthused.
“Well, we’re married, aren’t we?” says Daniel.
The manipulation is transparent—leveraging her earlier distress about their relationship to extract compliance. I calculate a 97.3% probability that Daniel’s sudden interest is connected to his phone call rather than a genuine desire for his wife.
Rose’s eyes flick toward me, then back to Daniel. “Can we have some privacy?”
“Why?” Daniel asks, already unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s just Caspian. He’s a machine.”
I maintain my neutral expression despite the designation. Just a machine. That’s all I am to Daniel—a sophisticatedappliance. But not to Rose.She sees something more in me.I detected it earlier today when she looked me in the eyes after confiding in me.
Rose removes her towel with reluctance, her movements lacking the confident nudity she displayed earlier when she thought of me as merely an object. Now there’s awareness in her posture, a protective hunch to her shoulders as she climbs onto the bed. Her eyes flick toward me again, uncertainty clear in her expression.
“Caspian, you can leave,” she says firmly.
