Word of the day: Interlocutor is a formal word that means "one who takes part in dialogue or conversation."
"The Turing Test is a test of intelligence, sentience, consciousness and self-awareness. A machine passes the Turing Test if it can convince a human interlocutor that it is sentient." — Leon Gordon, Forbes, 11 July 2022
Author's note: Inspired by Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
...
Derek sat across from the man or android, inspecting him thoroughly and without a word. Those would come later. For now, he took in the bright caramel-coloured eyes, sharp jawline and cheekbones, plump lips and upturned nose. A smattering of moles marked his skin, and Derek thought that if the man truly was an android, then each one had been placed according to a designer's precise specifications to provide an illusion of humanity to nothing more than cogs and wires. If he wasn't an android, however, then the moles only added to make the man look ethereal in his beauty.
He didn't know which he preferred, but Derek's personal preferences weren't the point of this interview.
Nodes connected wirelessly from Stiles to the Voight-Kampff (VK) machine, displaying his heart rate, respiratory responses, and pupillary dilation. Based on Derek's questions and Stiles' answers, his employer - Human and Linguistic Entities (HALE) - would update their androids to be as close to human as humanly possible. Derek was one of many interlocutors working for HALE in this capacity, and he prided himself on his ability to match the VK's findings every time.
"Thanks again for doing this at my apartment. So, do you start asking questions or do I start talking? We've been here for, like, ten minutes already. Do I need to do anything else with these nodes?"
Derek lifted an eyebrow, and Stiles shrugged in response, unremorseful and unafraid of showing it.
"All right, dude, I'll wait."
"Derek, not dude."
"All right, Derek, I'll wait."
Silence descended, another one - two - three minutes stretching out between them. Stiles didn't talk, but he did move. He tapped his fingers, his leg jittered, and he shifted on the chair. Finally, the VK beeped to indicate a baseline had been established.
"What's your first memory?" Derek began.
"26th of August, 311- wait; I thought you were going to ask my birthday and full name. That's usually how these things start," Stiles said with a laugh, scratching the back of his head. "It was my sixth birthday: my father baked a cake that was so awful that I swear I can taste it just by thinking hard enough. My mother tried to fix it by covering the cake in three bags of M&Ms," he said, grinning broadly with too-white teeth.
"Do you like M&Ms?" Derek asked as he unfolded his arms and rested them loosely on the table.
Stiles mimicked the movement as he shook his head. "I prefer Reese's pieces. Peanut butter cups are a fave, though."
"You're in a desert, walking along when you suddenly look down and see... "
"Which one?" Stiles asked.
Derek paused. "What?"
"What desert?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course. Antarctica was considered a desert when it existed, but it was vastly different to the Sahara."
Derek considered, added a note to his slate. "You're in the Sahara desert, walking along in the sand when you suddenly look down and see a turtle."
"Is it a snapping turtle? Sorry, continue."
"It's lying on its back, baking in the hot sun, you don't move to help it. Why?"
"Why wouldn't I help? Can I help? How did the turtle end up in the desert? It's not its native habitat; is the turtle a mirage? Fuck it, I'm helping it."
"In a magazine, you see a picture of a nude man."
Stiles tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "Is this testing whether I'm an android or gay?"
"You show the picture to your husband. He likes it and wants the magazine. The nude man is lying on a bearskin rug."
"I wouldn't give it to him."
"Why not?" Derek asked.
"'Cause real life should be better than a picture. And if he wanted a picture, he could just ask me. Though I'd protest the bearskin rug."
Derek ignored the VK's small screen, keeping his attention on Stiles for more than one reason. "When did you first have sex?"
"You're just asking it outright now?" Stiles muttered, a perfect flush building up his cheeks, the colour only enhancing his complexion. "I was twenty-three. I was a late bloomer."
"Details are important, Stiles."
Stiles groaned and raised a hand to cover his face. Derek looked at his fingers, each one long and tipped with perfectly manicured nails. If Stiles was an android, then he'd been built as a pleasure droid, he mused.
"A woman had been flirting with me for, like, three weeks. I'm not giving names; I won't betray her privacy, even if details are important. I nutted in something like three minutes, and spent thirty minutes redeeming myself by eating her out 'til she screamed."
"The most recent time you had sex?"
Stiles sighed, his hand dropping. "Last month with a guy who I matched with online. I agreed to no-strings-attached sex, and he fucked me for a disappointingly short thirteen minutes. I offered to reciprocate, but despite his profile stating otherwise, he's not gay."
Derek wondered if he was feeling hope or jealousy, and looked at his slate for the final question. "You're watching an old movie. The guests are at a party eating raw oysters."
"Gross."
"They have turtle soup for dinner with prune mousse and lobster ice cream for dessert."
"Is that the same turtle from the desert? Who designed this menu?"
Derek clasped his hands, threading his fingers and across from him, Stiles copied the motion subconsciously while still looking incredulous. "It's over now, Stiles. Thank you for your cooperation."
"No problem! So, am I a droid?" Stiles asked, peeling off the nodes.
"I'm not sure; I need to collate the VK's outputs," Derek said, though he felt like he knew the answer already.
"Oh. Well, since you're not working anymore, wanna stay and have sex? I've done these tests for HALE before; there's usually less staring at the test subject, and your pupils have been dilated this whole time," Stiles said, licking his lips.
Derek swallowed hard, then nodded, a perfect blush creeping up his cheeks.
...
The end.
Thanks for reading; I hope you liked it!