Anna lay peacefully swaying in a hammock stretched between two trees. The automatic watering systems had just finished their work, so the air around her was filled with a pleasant coolness and the smell of grass after rain. The park was quiet and deserted, as usual. However, Anna had shut herself off from the outside world with her headphones and an endless stream of old-fashioned synth-pop, so she couldn't even hear her own fingers flying across the keyboard of her laptop.
"Are you a Metallica fan today?" Anna suddenly heard Alexei's voice right above her ear and almost fell out of the hammock.
"Damn! You scared me, damn it!"
"Sorry."
"It's a cool print, isn't it?" Anna pointed out with some satisfaction.
"As brutal as ever," Alexei nodded. "But yesterday's Korn and the day before yesterday's Rammstein were pretty good too."
"Yeah! I decided to splurge on my first paycheck," the girl nodded cheerfully, but immediately frowned slightly. "So, are you following me?" You've been gone all week.
"Big Brother" added five bands to the "interesting" section of your profile this week. And all employee updates come to my smartphone... Alexei explained.
"I see, I understand," Anna replied sadly. "But it would be more interesting if you were following me on purpose."
"Do you want to take a break, go for a walk, and grab a bite to eat?" The guy waved a bag with several hot burgers in the air. "It will cure your broken heart."
"Treating me to GMO food? I'm flattered. Well, let's go..."
A minute later, they both were strolling leisurely along the park path, paved with two-colored diamonds. Anna was eagerly devouring a hot sandwich, while Alexei was slowly sipping coffee from a paper cup and, as usual, staring into space.
"Do you often have lunch with other employees? Is it part of team building or a special relationship?" asked the girl with her mouth full.
"I usually have lunch with Mikhail because he works in the neighboring building."
"By the way, how is he doing?"
"He's being discharged from the hospital today. But he'll be resting at home for a while..." "Hi, Svet!" Alexei greeted the girl who was setting up a drone in the middle of the basketball court. She looked up from her tablet screen and, smiling sweetly from behind her shiny glasses, waved her hand in response.
"I can't get used to the fact that there are a hundred times more people in the corporate chat than here," Anna said, clearly wanting to draw attention to herself. "I was talking to a couple of guys about nature, about the weather... I thought they were somewhere around here, but it turns out they live in Bali.
"I warned you."
They drew level with another G.A. building, an old gray Soviet-style block box already half-covered in ivy. On the end wall, a huge mosaic in the style of a late socialist poster was laid out across the entire height of the wall, depicting either a person or a robot against the backdrop of factory silhouettes and the rising sun with the GA logo and slogan: "The future has arrived. Enough for everyone."
Nearby, under a stretched awning, there were several tables and chairs in the manner of a makeshift summer cafe.
"Shall we sit down?"Alexei suggested and sat down at the table first.
Anna nodded and sat down opposite him, taking a second hamburger out of the bag. Near, a robot lawn mower was trimming the lawn with a sharp crackling sound. Noticing the people resting, it stopped and fell silent.
"Why doesn't G.A. produce humanoid robots?" Anna asked, looking thoughtfully at the frozen mechanism.
"Androids?"
"Yes."
"Well, why doesn't it... Take me, for example. A cybernetic organism. Living tissue on a steel frame," Alexei said with a serious look, sipping his coffee.
"That's a stupid joke," the girl replied with a dismissive grimace.
"Maybe," the guy shrugged awkwardly.
"So why?"
"Because G.A. makes robots to replace human labor. They're all specialized, created for their own narrow task, which they do better than humans, so they don't look like people."
"But a robot that looks like a human would be versatile, it could do everything or almost everything that a human can do," Anna argued.
"And it would do it just likely badly," Alexei remarked.
"But it would be more interesting... It would evoke emotions, sympathy..." the girl persisted.
"Emotions, yes... And that's the problem."
"What problem?"
"G.A. conducted marketing research. Despite the fact that most people are interested in androids, few would want to have one at home." Even if it's a simple machine without simulated feelings, it evokes feelings in people. They make people feel anxious, afraid, they expect something sinister... No one is afraid of an invasion of toasters or an attack by robot vacuum cleaners, but androids are a different matter altogether.
"What about specific services..." Anna smiled.
"Intimate robots for perverts? A very narrow market. And, as practice shows, even perverts are afraid that a cyber geisha will bite off their penis at the most inopportune moment, so they prefer to cum in a motionless silicone doll."
"Ugh..."
"It's the truth," the guy shrugged again, and after a short pause continued, looking somewhere off to the side. "Unfortunately, many people still behave like animals... It's especially sad that some even like it. Take, for example, that incident with you on the subway last week..."
"You're definitely following me."
"I just wanted to warn you," Alexei said seriously, looking at the girl. "Not everyone likes what we do at G.A. There are hysterical fanatics who oppose progress, cyber-Luddites, paranoid psychopathic hackers, people with a pathological urge to destroy, and those who simply want to profit from our developments for their own personal gain, so all of our employees could find themselves under attack at any moment...
"Well, thanks...Was there a fine print clause about this risk?" the girl smiled.
"I'm serious. Try to be more careful."