After all, a man's life, when all is said and done, should serve some greater purpose than that of a hero in a cautionary tale.

Can they love? Or is it a bit of code meant to get a reaction from humans? Can anyone tell real love, in a bot or in a human?

Unsettling because it reveals some possible branch of evolution in which sex organs will no longer exist. The bots won’t need them, and perhaps without them, the entire concept of gender will disappear.

She pulls a spare head from beneath a pile of shoes and raises it by the hair. It looks like one of those cheap, blue heads that botwhores keep for lonely sci-fi freaks who want to pretend they’re fucking the queen of Xenon.