Read How It Ends: Part 1 - The Evaluation for Free Online Page B

desk,
resting on his arms which were folded before him, hiding his belly
as much as he could.
    He sighed. Working with this girl was going
to be problematic. She was going to be a distraction.
    Focus.
    Task at hand.
    Focus.
    “Brian is correct,” he said finally. “This
is an evaluation project. We will be visiting a robot currently in
use at the geriatric clinic of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Its
name is Kilgore.”
    “Sounds great. When do we go?”
    “After we do our research.” He handed her a
list several sheets long with his loopy handwriting scrawled front
and back. “Take this list and begin checking out books. We need to
research this level of robotics, which includes the history of
robotics engineering, programming modules, philosophies and ethics.
To start. We’ll visit Kilgore in a few days. In the meantime, get
started with this and take meticulous notes.”
    He had hoped the length of the list would
intimidate her. Perhaps she would decide the project was not worth
this level of effort. But it had the opposite effect. Her eyes lit
up as she scanned through it. She reached into her bag and rumbled
around the contents until she came up with a highlighter. She read
through the list and highlighted a number of instances where she
couldn’t read his handwriting. She asked him to clarify the
illegible words. To his silent distress she took a pen from his
desk and wrote over his own writing to make the words clearer. When
finished she dropped the pen back on the desk and rose from her
chair, grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder while
stuffing the list in her front pocket.
    “I have a bunch of these books already,” she
said. “I’ll start with those.”
    Sidney nodded, completely distracted by the
motion of her trying to stuff the piece of paper into the front
pocket of her jeans. The motion drew the attention of the eye and
his eye followed it for a few moments before traveling south along
the seams of her jeans to the cleft hidden between her legs. Her
jeans were cut low and dipped well below her navel which teased him
from across the desk. His eyes followed her form up to her head,
pausing long enough to circle her breasts and mentally caress her
nipples which were just visible along the relief map of her shirt,
and continued up the contours of her body to her face. She was
looking at him.
    “Be back here at seven o’clock on Thursday
morning the 15th. We’ll be taking the train in. Bring your
research. We’ll discuss it along the way.”
    She nodded and left his office.
    He got up from his desk and peered around
the corner of his door.
    He watched the sway of her walk as she
left.

    * * *

    That night Sidney climbed the stairs to his
bedroom and undressed, opening his pants, letting his bulky body
escape, reached below and grabbed himself. He hadn’t seen his penis
in person in years. He cursed silently at his dickie-do. His
stomach stuck out more than his dickie- do. But he knew it was
there. He knew it was there because of urination and mirrors. He
knew it was there because tonight is ached. It hardened.
    He closed his eyes and saw Anita.
    He masturbated.

Chapter Five
    Sidney and Anita took the elevator from
level 3 to level 11. The smooth metal door shined their reflection.
Sidney stared at it trying not to feel self-conscious, stealing
occasional glimpses at Anita’s chest. She’d put a bra on today.
    The door opened. A robot stood before them.
It stood slightly shorter than Sidney and was sharply dressed in a
pinstriped suit and tie over which was a white lab coat that
indicated a medical profession. From the collar of the shirt a
short metal neck extended upward. It was topped by an egg shaped
head that was a perfect smooth metal surface. The robot’s head
didn’t have a face. Sidney stared at the empty sphere. He could see
a funhouse mirror reflection of himself in the sphere. Anita
stepped forward looking at the sphere with fascination. From
somewhere around the base of