The package

"Sammy" the voice on the other end of the phone nearly yelled, in a joyful kind of way. "I am glad you are coming back."

"I have not committed to coming back just yet." Sam replied to the over exuberant caller on the other end of the phone.

"What!?" the caller squeaked. "Richard would not have sent the prototype to you if there was any doubt in his mind that you were not on board to sell this."

"All he told me was there is a prototype product that he wanted me to look over. By the way, what is the prototype of any ways?' Sam asked. There was an awkward sound on the other end of the phone. It sounded something like an asthmatic wheezing. The noise grew and she realized it was laughter.

"What!?" This time the statement was made with an even higher pitched squeak. "You don't even know what it is yet?"

"That is what I was hoping you would tell me."

"Not on your life girl. If Richard did not tell you. I am sure not going to break the news to you. But, I am going to stay on the phone while you open it."

"Get off my phone James, I will call you if I have any questions when it gets here. Speaking of which, when is it going to be…" She was cut off by the door bell ringing.

"Right now."

"How would you know that?"

"This is a half a million dollar prototype with a trillion dollars worth of trade secrets in it. I have been tracking it the whole way. Richard demanded I watch it until you sign for it. So, let's get this done so I can leave you two together." James could barely get the sentence out through the laughter.

Sam opened the door to two men standing next to a crate the same size as the men. The crate was just over six feet high and two feet square and lying on its side. There were fragile stickers all over it. "Good evening mam. I have a delivery for Samantha Fiantfy."

"I am Sam." She replied.

"Great, I am going to need to see some id and once you have signed for the package I am going to need to take pictures of you with the undamaged crate."

After doing their due diligence and moving the crate to the center of her flat's main room the movers left.

"James are you still there?"

"You bet I am. I am not going to miss this."

Sam went to open the crate and it was screwed tight with what looked like a thousand screws. "Sugar." Sam said in exasperation. "This was getting to be too much. Do they think I have a screw driver? I will need to get my neighbor."

"Whoa. No can do. Nobody get's to see the prototype outside of the company." James said

Sam sighed, "Fine, I will not let him help open it." Twenty minutes later Sam had all the screws out and pull off the lid. The crate is full of packing peanuts and some have already spilt out when she pulled the lid off. "this is going to make a mess." She tells James, whose excitement is palpable through the phone "Dig in girl let's get this toy out."

Sam wiped away some packing peanuts and squeals in horror. "It is a foot." she yelled into the phone. "I touched it." Protruding through the packing peanuts where two big toes. Brushing across the toes they felt completely normal. "This is not funny James. Is this some type of joke you and Richard are playing on me?" she demanded.

"Nope, those toes are connect to a full size prototype."

Tentatively, Sam started clearing the packing peanuts from the other end of the box wanting to stay away from the exposed digits. Slowly wiping a layer of packing material away at a time. Again her hand brushed against flesh and she retracted in horror. "This just does not feel right. It does not make sense. I can see a nose."

"Keep digging." James encouraged her.

Summoning up all the courage she had, she dug into the packing material. Exposing a full sized male mannequin, if that is what you would call it. Mannequins are plastic. They are locked in place. This looked real. Full of life. It moved as the packing material sifted under it. Sam expected the eyes to open at any moment and sit up. The eye are closed, thank goodness, Sam would not have been able to stand there if the eyes would have been open. There is no expression on its face. The head is bald. The skin tone is somewhere between honey and almond. It is clothed in a plain t-shirt and gym shorts. The clothes are tight enough to show definition of the body. Biceps that fill the sleeves. Ledges under the pectorals. Flat stomach. The legs matched the upper torso. This mannequin did not miss leg day at the gym, and it did not over do it either. When Sam stepped back and looked at it completely, it was a very attractive mannequin if mannequins could be attractive. It made her think of a cross between sexy Mr. Clean and Dwayne Johnson. She did not know much about the product, but she could tell that a lot of work was put in to it design and feel. Especially the feel. As she had cleared off the packaging material the skin felt very normal. Just a little cooler than you would expect at first touch. By the time she had exposed the whole body it felt natural touching it.

"Okay, now what." She asked James. "I have a full sized man comfortably sleeping in a box in my living room."

"You need to test it. Richard wants you to drive the sales initiative for this."

"I don't even know what 'this' is."

"There is a growing demand for simulated human companionship. The most demand currently is in female sex robots. We believe that simulated human companionship is the real market and that is not just a sex thing, but that is a part of it."

"So, you are telling me that rubber Bob in the box is supposed to be my friend?"

"And more."

"More?" With that thought Sam gingerly felt the shorts of the inanimate object in the box. There was an obvious bulge there. The whole thought was starting to overwhelm her. She had seen sex robots before but those looked generally terrible, grotesque. This design seemed to cross a line into living.

Sensing the quiet thoughts Sam was having, James cut in "It looks real doesn’t it. That is the goal. Start with the companionship and let the attraction grow naturally."

Attraction. Now there was a thought. What does that even mean. How does one control what or who they are attracted to? Sam was trying to process all the thoughts. Now she knew why Richard wanted her on this team. She was the best. This could be revolutionizing or world ending and she could be right at the front of it. "Does it have a name?" she asked.

"We have been calling it Mark. I think the version you are looking at is mark 15. We were giving names to the early version but as they got better the engineers started feeling like people were dying when the versions changed. So now it is mark with the version number. Most of us have just shortened it to Mark. But, you can call it what ever you want."

"I will call him Steven." As soon as she said it she laughed out loud.

"I don't get why that would be funny."

"It is the name of my boss at work."

"Kinky."

"Pervert."

"What ever. I am going to leave you alone with Mark…I mean Steven. One last thing before I go. I sent you a link for a private app to interact with the companion. Have fun and give me a shout if you have any questions."

When the call ended it seemed eerily quiet in the room with the "companion" as James called it. She was not ready to turn it on yet, what ever "on" was, but she wanted to get it out of the box. She discovered that it weighed about 150 pounds. To get him out, she rolled the box over. Then rolled Steven out and then she did a fireman drag over to the couch. She straddled over him and put her arms under his armpits and lifted him into a sitting position on the couch. After the effort of moving him and getting him up right in what she felt would be a comfortable position she already felt connected to him.

"Okay, you bag of rubber. Let's turn you on." After installing the app and completing all the security requirements. There was a power button in the middle of the screen that glowed red. Sam paused a moment, her finger hesitated above the power button, thinking about needs and attraction and wondered how this would become a part of world history, or her history. She thought about the real Steven and his work at Foresight and how they were trying to help real people improve their happiness. She thought about her time with Steven, she hoped they would be able to find what they were looking for. That thought fell somewhere between hope and hopelessness. She felt like she was at a cross road. Pushing the power button was going to take her back to America. Put her back at the top of a high profile sales team. They would be pushing the bounds of the human society. She knew she could control that path. It would give her a place to focus 100% of her energy. She and the new Steven would take the world by storm.

Strangely, not pushing the power button seemed more uncertain. A path that she felt she had less control over. Would the real Steven be a part of this path?