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    That Sort of Partners
    That Sort of Partners
    That Sort of Partners
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    That Sort of Partners

    By Hollis Shiloh

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    About this ebook

    When Jake is assigned to work with the new guy at the precinct—their first robot cop—he's nervous, to say the least. But his new partner turns out to be a great guy on every level. They work together and learn from each other—and then feelings start to develop.

    Jake never thought he'd be the sort to fall for his partner. Or a robot.

    ~20,000 words
    heat level: sweet

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpare Words Press
    Release dateSep 7, 2018
    ISBN9781386998846
    That Sort of Partners

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    • 5/5
      This was beautiful. I loved the rytm, the fast pacing, but I wouldnt mind reading this story like 500 page book.
    • 5/5
      Sweet and well written short story with slow burn romance.

    Book preview

    That Sort of Partners - Hollis Shiloh

    That Sort of Partners

    by Hollis Shiloh

    ––––––––

    Jake

    Your new partner's here.

    I looked up to see the captain standing in front of my desk, scowling down, and a shiny new robot behind him, looking unwholesomely competent.  Its metal gleamed like a smug college student's hair. 

    I scraped back my chair and stood slowly.  How d'you do?

    Delta Green 1224.  The robot extended a hand smoothly.  Call me Green.  And you are?

    Jake Elliot.  Jake.  I shook its hand.  Skinny, metal, and warm to the touch.  The things they could do with technology these days.  I remembered my psych eval and coaching, and added, Pleased to meet ya.  It would be best, the brain people all recommended, to start thinking of them as people as soon as possible.  Since we legally had to and everything.

    Well, Green, Elliot, I'll leave you two to get acquainted, said the captain.  He still looked uncomfortable.  Remember, you're on beat today.

    Beat.  Every detective loves being busted back to beat—and teamed up with a machine.  Mechanical marvel cops, we called them, and we used to think they'd just be at the spaceports, gambling joints, that sort of thing, places that are usually understaffed.  Used to be a joke that, if someone made a mistake, they'd be replaced by a robot.  That wasn't so funny now.

    Ever since the introduction of the UltraCop 3000—a program for a bot, not a type of robot, since the shell didn't matter—precincts that had 'em had better records all around: fewer unnecessary deaths, fewer mistakes and human errors, more cases solved, and solved quicker.  Enough to give us humans a complex or something. 

    But the rates kept dropping, so the brass kept sending new ones in until they reached a certain point and the robots proved less efficient without humans around than with.  The way I heard it, it was like the old trains they used to have, back in the 20th century, ones that could run without an engineer aboard.  People were scared to use them.  They felt safer if a person was aboard, even if they didn't actually do anything.  Turned out it was the same with robot cops.  Criminals didn't trust them.  Wouldn't stop, kept running even if they could be shot.  Oh, maybe in a generation or two, it'd be different.  For now, a robot had to be paired with a human. 

    Never thought I'd be just a pretty face.

    Green sat down at the desk next to mine, smooth and normal, like a person would.  He was a person, I told myself, or anyway, I had to treat him like one.  As he sat, one of the guys walked by—Ferson—and cast back a look of disgust.  First robot in our precinct, and it had to be paired with me.  I was expecting a lot of those looks.

    And I was right.  The third dealer we busted, on the corner of 29th, turned his head while I was cuffing him and said, Never figured you for a mech-lover.

    I pushed him back around.  Shut up, Durby.  Don't you know your rights?  Silence is one of 'em.

    The robot performed just fine, but it was still one of the toughest days I'd had in a long time. 

    When it was nearly over and we were driving back, Green turned to me.  May I buy you a drink after we get off duty?

    Sure.  Why not.  I was almost too tired to go anywhere, but it still wouldn't do to get off on a bad footing on my first day with a new partner.

    We sat at the bar at Ugly Will's, me slumped low over my drink, bad posture and back pain.  The robot—my new partner—sat straight as a rocket, one hand curled around a glass of oil.  He turned the cup slightly and spoke without looking at me, a gesture I wouldn't have found disconcerting from a human.

    I've noticed that you're not entirely comfortable.  Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make this transition easier.

    Thanks, but I'll adjust. 

    No use lying and saying I was hunky-dory with everything.  These guys were like walking lie detectors.  Minute changes in respiration, perspiration, or heart rate were all as apparent to this guy as something as simple as eye color was to me.  Of course that was really useful against perps—or if a bot happened to be around someone who was about to have a heart attack or a seizure—but it wouldn't make for a lot of comfortable interpersonal relationships.

    I am curious why you were chosen as the first in this department to work with a robot.

    I shrugged.  I scored best on the test.  I paused.  Sipped my drink.  Or, as the psych docs would tell you, I was less poorly adjusted than the rest of the outfit.

    I find it difficult to understand why so many ordinary or lower-class humans have difficulty adjusting to working closely with robots.  The wealthy have no such difficulty.

    Some people will tell you it's because us poor folks are ignorant bumpkins.  But the truth is, rich kids grow up around robots, so they don't have any hang-ups on the topic.  And they're not scared of losing their living to them.  The rest of us just have to adjust, sometimes the hard way. 

    And since the Acts, have to was no joke.  You could no longer refuse to hire a robot, no longer refuse service to a robot.  Anti-roboticists were unobliquely labeled bigots, but that didn't stop the undercurrent of unease and distrust, sometimes downright hatred.  It was scary to have your job taken, especially.  After the anti-bot riots of '09, you couldn't just come out and say you hated bots, though.

    For the first time, I turned to look square at him.  If robots come in and make this department more efficient, we'll probably have as much as a fifty percent reduction in staff.  That means half our people fired, and probably no new jobs in sight.

    For a second, Green just stared at me with his faintly glowing eyes.  I turned back to my drink.  I can see this would be disturbing.  You are loyal to the people you work with.

    "Well, yeah.  Even the jerks—you don't necessarily want to see

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