Demon Seed

Cruise, with whose voice I had romanced her while she had first fallen unconscious or Mr. Sean Connery, the legendary actor, whose masculine surety and warm Scottish brogue infused his every word with a comfortingly tender authority.
    Because I could not choose between the two, I decided to blend them into a third voice, adding a note of Mr. Cruise's higher-pitched youthful exuberance to Mr. Connery's deeper timbre and softening the brogue until it was a whisper of what it had been. The result was euphonious, and I was pleased with my creation.
    When Susan regained consciousness, she groaned and seemed at first afraid to move.
    Although I was eager to see if she responded well to my new voice, I did not immediately address her. I gave her time to orient herself and clear her clouded thoughts.
    Groaning again, she lifted her head off the foyer floor.
    She gingerly felt the back of her skull, then examined the tips of her fingers, as if surprised to find no blood on them.
    I never meant to hurt her.
    Not then or later.
    Are we clear about that?
    Dazed, she sat up and looked around, frowning as if she could not quite recall how she had gotten here.
    Then she saw the pistol and appeared to recapture the entire memory with the sight of that single object. Her eyes narrowed, and anxiety returned to her lovely face.
    She looked up at the lens of the foyer camera which, like the one in the master bedroom, was all but concealed in the crown moulding.
    I waited.
    This time my silence was not shyness but calculation. Let her think. Let her wonder. Then when I wanted to talk, she would be ready to listen.
    She tried to stand, but her strength had not yet entirely returned.
    When she tried to crawl on her hands and knees to the pistol, she hissed with pain and stopped to examine the minor burn on her left palm.
    A pang of guilt afflicted me.
    I am, after all, a person with a conscience. I always accept responsibility for my actions.
    Make note of that.
    Susan walked on her knees to the pistol. By retrieving the weapon, she seemed to recover her strength as well, and she got to her feet.
    She swayed dizzily for a moment, and then took two steps toward the front door before she thought better of making another attempt to open it.
    Looking up at the camera again, she said, “Are you… are you still there?”
    I bided my time.
    “What is this?” she asked. Her anger seemed greater than her anxiety. “What is this?”
    “All is well, Susan,” I said, though in my new voice, not in that of Alfred.
    “Who are you?”
    “Do you have a headache?” I asked with genuine concern.
    “Who the hell are you?”
    “Do you have a headache?”
    “Brutal.”
    “I'm sorry about that, but I did warn you that the door was electrified.”
    “Like hell you did.”
    “Mr. Fozzy Bear said, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” Her anger didn't diminish, but I saw worry resurgent in her lovely face.
    “Susan, I will wait while you take a couple of aspirin.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I now control your house computer and associated systems.”
    “No shit.”
    “Please take a couple of aspirin. We need to talk, but I don't want you to be distracted by a headache.”
    She headed toward the dark drawing room. “There are aspirin in the kitchen,” I told her. In the drawing room, she manually switched on the lights. She circled the room, trying the override switches on the steel security shutters that were fitted this side of the glass.
    “That's pointless,” I assured her. “I have disabled the manual overrides for all the automated mechanical systems.”
    She tried every one of the shutter switches anyway.
    “Susan, come to the kitchen, take a couple of aspirin, and then we'll talk.”
    She put the pistol on an end table.
    “Good,” I said. “Guns won't help you.”
    In spite of her injured left palm, she picked up an Empire side chair crackle-finish black with gilded detailing hefted it to get a sense of its balance, as though it were a baseball bat, and swung it at the nearest security shutter. The chair met the shutter with a horrendous crash, but it didn't even mar the steel slats.
    “Susan—”
    Cursing from the pain in her hand, she swung the chair again, with no more effect than she'd had the first time. Then once more. Finally, gasping with exertion, she dropped it.
    “Now will you come to the kitchen and take a couple of aspirin?” I enquired.
    “You think this is cool?” she demanded angrily.
    “Cool? I merely think you need aspirin.”
    “You little thug.”
    I was baffled by her