The machine had been stuck outside the bookstore for nearly an hour.
One of its wheels had lodged itself between two uneven paving stones, leaving the little AIware bot capable of rotating its upper body but unable to travel in any particular direction.
It continued its sales pitch with the cheerful indifference of something incapable of embarrassment.
"Reminisce on the days humans read human-authored books, created music through instruments, and more! Yours for only 500 merit points!"
Its display showed an impossibly attractive family gathered around a fireplace, reading leather-bound volumes while a grandfather played a violin.
The scene was charming, provided one overlooked the fact that none of the people, the books, the fireplace, or the violin had ever existed.
Andrew stopped to watch.
He had been attending an artificial intelligence conference in downtown Denver, one of those increasingly elaborate gatherings at which people with considerable financial interests in the future assembled to explain why their particular version of it was inevitable.
He had escaped between sessions.
The malfunctioning bot was considerably more interesting than the last three speakers.
A woman stood a few feet away, watching the same spectacle.
She held a paper bag containing two books.
Andrew noticed the books before he noticed her face.
This was unusual, because hers was a face that people tended to notice.
She was strikingly attractive, though not in the carefully manufactured way that had become so commonplace. Her dark hair framed an expressive face, and there was a natural elegance in the way she carried herself, even as she seemed to be making a small, unconscious effort to occupy less space than she deserved.
There was something reserved about her, an apparent confidence that seemed to stop just short of believing in itself.
Andrew possessed a similar contradiction.
He was a handsome man, tall and quietly distinguished, with the first suggestions of silver in his hair and the composed bearing of someone accustomed to being taken seriously. His face was expressive without being theatrical, and when he smiled, the effect was sufficiently disarming that people often found themselves smiling in return.
Neither was particularly impressed by their own appearance.
Both had been blessed with considerable physical advantages, yet neither had learned to regard those advantages as especially meaningful. They had grown accustomed to being noticed for the wrong reasons and overlooked for the ones that mattered.
Their attractiveness was difficult to explain entirely through physical characteristics.
There was an unusual quality to each, an independence of spirit that had survived years of disappointment and adaptation. Both had constructed elaborate accommodations with the world without entirely surrendering the private selves they had been born with.
In a society increasingly populated by people performing identities for one another, this had become a rare quality.
It was not a quality either recognized in themselves.
They knew their own compromises too well.
But something about the stranger standing nearby felt unexpectedly familiar.
Neither understood why.
They were, in a peculiar way, two variations of the same person, although their lives had taken remarkably different directions.
Both had enjoyed considerable professional success. Both had developed rich intellectual lives. Both were capable of great warmth, though they distributed it cautiously.
And both had become something approaching hermits.
Not the miserable sort who spent their days resenting the world outside their windows, but rather the more curious variety who had discovered that solitude could be immensely pleasurable.
They enjoyed their own company.
They could entertain themselves for days with books, questions, projects, and the astonishing abundance of information now available to anyone willing to seek it.
Their loneliness was not born of having nothing to do.
Quite the opposite.
They possessed entire private universes.
What they lacked was someone with whom those universes could be shared without translation.
The irony was that nearly everyone around them was becoming similarly isolated.
Pedestrians moved through Denver immersed in personalized streams of conversation, entertainment, and artificial companionship. People walked beside one another while speaking to agents only they could hear. Restaurants were filled with individuals enjoying customized experiences that required remarkably little participation from anyone else.
Humanity had never possessed so many ways to communicate.
It had rarely seemed so content to avoid the inconvenience of doing so.
Andrew and the woman outside the bookstore had arrived at their solitude by different routes.
But unlike many around them, neither wanted a machine to provide the illusion of being understood.
They wanted to understand things.
It was a small distinction.
It would prove to be an important one.
"Rather sad, isn't it?" Andrew said, mostly to himself.
The woman looked over, uncertain whether he was speaking to her.
He glanced at the machine.
"We've taught it to sell us memories of reading books, and now it's stranded outside a shop full of them."
She smiled.
There was a moment of silence, just long enough for two shy adults to begin regretting the possibility of conversation.
"I still read books written by people," she said.
Andrew looked at her with exaggerated concern.
"Careful. It may report you for accessing a premium feature without paying."
She laughed.
It was an unguarded laugh, which he found immediately appealing.
"I suppose I should hide these, then."
"At the very least. Five hundred merit points is a substantial fine for possessing an imagination."
She glanced toward the bookstore.
"I can't imagine not reading actual books."
"Neither can I."
"Although I use AI all the time."
"So do I."
She seemed relieved, then faintly embarrassed by her relief.
They looked back at the machine.
"Reminisce on the days—"
"Do you think anyone will help it?" she asked.
"Eventually. Although I suspect its marketing department would prefer that it continue selling the past."
That earned another laugh.
Then came another silence.
Both considered leaving.
Both wanted to continue talking.
Finally, Andrew gestured toward the bag.
"What did you buy?"
And with that rather ordinary question, two lives began to change.