Julius Rosenthal will make candy no more and other short stories by Nicholas Russell (young adult books to read .txt) 📗

of its functions, simply took a picture of your palm. It would then take that picture and compare it to a database of other pictures. The vein scanner worked under the same principle as a hospitals MRI machine. A finger was slid into the machine and a three dimensional scan was taken of the finger and all the capillaries inside it. And since blood had to be flowing through the finger while the scan was being made it was nearly impossible to fake. Jack slid his finger in and waited for the screen to blink green and the door to pop open.

Old American Jazz floated into the hallway as Jack slipped inside his apartment. He only opened the door wide enough for him to pass and quickly, but quietly closed it behind himself. Another safety upgrade Jack had made to the apartment was installing a security bar. The contractor had laughed when he requested it, after all if someone was able to get through the steel reinforced door the bar would do little to stop. But it allowed Jack to sleep better at night. As he engaged the lock Jack could hear the hiss of the hydraulic steel beams in the door extending into the wall.

“You’re home.” The voice was chipper and feminine but slightly robotic. Turning Jack took in the sight of his companion droid. It was a female model and had been customer built by a friend of Jacks from college. She stood a few inches taller than Jack and at this moment was dressed in knee length floral dress that reminded Jack of pictures he had seen of the nineteen fifties. Her strawberry hair was neatly curled hanging lightly about her shoulders. “How was your day?”

“It was fine.” The droid stepped to Jack and wrapped its silicon covered arms around his waist. The silicon was a high quality. It looked and to most people felt real, but Jack could never get used to it. She nuzzled her head into his neck and before he could stop himself Jack jerked his head away from her.

Twisting from the droid’s grasp, Jack started for the kitchen. The kitchen was the smallest room in the apartment. With only two walls it could barely be considered an actual room. The back wall was covered with high efficiency appliances. The room smelled wonderful and reminded Jack of his childhood, before his father had passed. The droid had combed through Jack’s family email database to get the recipe she was cooking tonight. Jack had avoided the database choosing to ignore all mentions of his early life. Concentrating on the smell of food Jack pulled his mind from the dark place and walked over to the oven. He tapped the button turning on the internal cameras. The system cycled through three cameras giving a full view of the roast as it cooked. Jack moved from the oven to the stove top. Pulling lids from pots of boiling water Jack allowed the smell of steamed vegetables to caress his nose. He looked to the droid and smiled, she was standing in the door way leaning against its frame. The droid smirked as it watched Jack and it said “I think dinner will be delicious tonight, and I made a surprise for dessert.”

For all its programming droids could not taste. It had sensors in its mouth, it could breakdown the ingredients of any food put into its mouth, but it could not describe the joy and pleasures of a well prepared meal. The droid pulled itself from the wall and came up behind Jack. It slid synthetic hands over his shoulders and took hold of the lapel of Jack’s jacket. The droid pulled gently slipping the jacket over his shoulders and off his back.

“Why don’t you go get changed while I finish up dinner and make you a drink.” There was that sickeningly sweet voice again. With his jacket off the droid leaned in and gently kissed Jack’s neck. He sucked in a deep breath of air and for a moment forgot it was a machine at his back. As the droids hands slid down his chest Jack snapped back to reality. Humiliation twisted his stomach as Jack pulled from her embrace.

“A drink would be nice.” He said as he fled the room. He stopped just outside the door and looked back over his shoulder. “Make it a double.”

The living room housed the few family pictures that Jack had physical copies of. All of the pictures were stored digitally but if asked Jack would say the files had been corrupted. He crossed the small living room and entered the short hallway to the master bedroom. The apartment had two rooms, one of which Jack had turned into an office but he rarely went in there anymore. The door to the office was closed and Jack passed by it without giving it a second thought.

His master bedroom was sparingly furnished with just a night stand and a king size bed. Jack slipped his shoes off and moved them to a shoe rack just inside the closet. Returning to the foot of his bed, Jack waited a moment before sitting down. His feet had begun to ache on the train home. Standing on the toes of one foot Jack rolled his foot around stretching the muscles in the palm of his foot. After he had completed the process on each foot a few times the muscles began to relax and Jack took a seat on the bed. Taking the time to carefully undo each button Jack took off his shirt and turned it inside out. Once he was done with the shirt, Jack balled it up, tossed it in the corner and waited.

There was a small ping that had there been almost any noise would have been drowned out. After the ping, but before he could see the robot Jack could hear the motor spinning its little treads. The robot