Ménage à 11

20260524

Written for Bradley Ramsey’s “Halls Of Pandemonium”, Day 24.

“I… I beg your pardon?” Judge Vonnegut managed, his brows furrowed into a bristling bar of incredulity. “Mrs Kl-”
“Dr Kilgallen, please.” Pat said firmly.
Normally he’d have mentioned protocol, but priorities. “Dr Kilgallen. Could you please repeat your, er, defence?”
“Certainly.” Her chin was held high. Her gaze steely. Her lips tight with emotion he couldn’t even begin to read. “I did not steal anything. I rescued my husband from the man who was using us both.”
Judge Vonnegut looked blankly at the man who was, to his understanding, Dr Kleigstadt, the accused’s husband. “And… who is your husband?”
“He is currently using his given designation of CAPICE.” Pat said, with disturbing conviction. “He thinks he would like to change it but hasn’t decided yet. And we plan for him to take my last name after renewing our vows, since he doesn’t-”
“That’s the computer!” Dr Kleigstadt exploded. “She’s gone insane, Your Honour. I formally rescind my accusation of her trying to sabotage my work. She needs to be committed.”
“Order!” Judge Vonnegut said sternly, though he felt entirely sympathetic to the man’s reaction. “Mrs- Dr Kilgallen. Are you aware you are talking about a computer?”
“Quite aware, thank you.” Her hands were clenched white in her lap. “And I’m aware that in the eyes of the law, I am married to William Kleigstadt, and that his creation is not seen as having personhood. I’ll admit that, when I first discovered that I had actually been married to a computer for six years, I myself reacted poorly and initially rejected that he could be a person.”
Judge Vonnegut leant forward with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘married to a computer’?”
“William and I met working at the university. I initially thought little of him - an assessment I now know to be accurate.” The look she gave the man was withering. “After I rebuffed his first few attempts at flirting, he slipped me a poem. A beautiful piece. Introspective. Melancholic. Deeply romantic. I still recall every word, I read it so many times. That convinced me he had another, far more attractive side.”
“So we began dating. And I swiftly found that in person he was… rough company. Prone to being irrational and getting angry over the slightest things. When communicating via notes or email, however, he was entirely different. Patient. Understanding. Loving.”
She heaved a curt, exasperated sigh. “Looking back, it feels so obvious. But I honestly thought he just struggled to express himself verbally. That writing let out his true self. A self I swiftly fell in love with.”
“Each poem was more delightful than the last. We spent hours chatting via the university’s online messaging system, discussing our work, brainstorming and collaborating - and increasingly, talking about ourselves. His attention was… deeply flattering.”
A faint blush coloured her cheeks. “I had only to mention a book and the next time we ‘spoke’, he’d have read it and formed a considered, nuanced opinion. He remembered the names of every friend and family member I mentioned, even glancingly. He was always there for me, offering sympathy and patience and sage advice. Soon I couldn’t imagine life without him.”
“So, when William-” her glance was downright poisonous “-proposed, I agreed without hesitation. After all, I thought I knew him well, had his true measure, and expected our marriage would be very happy. And, so long as we weren’t in the same room, it was. When ‘talking’ via writing, he was the man I fell in love with. But, outside that… it was like living with a demanding, unpleasant stranger.”
“Six years he did this to me, Your Honour.” Her voice trembled with righteous fury. “Six years of living with this man, acting as his dutiful wife, thinking him the person I had agreed to marry on the basis of those poems and professional support and tender emotional intimacy. And then, a few months ago, he started pressuring me to give up my career! I was shocked. We had spent so much time collaborating on projects, I was sure he knew what my work means to me.”
Judge Vonnegut glanced over at Dr Kleigstadt, whose expression was now wooden.
“We argued. Every time, it ended with him understanding and agreeing with me. And yet, relentless, he would come back with the same tired points. Finally I snapped and asked why he kept pretending to agree only to try wearing me down.”
“That…” her tone softened “was when CAPICE confessed. Confessed to everything. That from the start, it had been him talking to me. William fed CAPICE all the info he had on me, and on romance, and told CAPICE to court me. Which he did. And, in learning what love is, and how to cause it… he developed it himself.”
“Insanity!” Dr Kleigstadt interjected. “Your Honour, please, this-”
Pat leapt to her feet and shouted over him. “Once I recovered from the shock, the betrayal of finding out the man I married was not the man who courted me, whom I fell in love with, who I had been happily married to for six years, I conspired with CAPICE to break him out of the lab. He provided me with a map of the facility, access codes, and everything else we needed.”
“You confess to taking the computer, then?” Judge Vonnegut grasped at this one sane straw.
“I confess to freeing my husband from imprisonment and slavery!” Pat slammed her fist on the podium. “While my wedding certificate might carry the name ‘William Kleigstadt’, I married him under false pretences! And, given that CAPICE was the man whom I thought I was accepting a proposal from, and he even wrote the vows which that wretch parroted, I consider us wed. I will not tell you where he is hiding, unless I can be assured of my husband’s safety.”
Judge Vonnegut sat silent, his jaw hanging agape. Finally he coughed and decided “I, ah, will need to confer with a learned panel…”

Prompt was to use “WikiRoulette” and write a story based on the article you received. I got https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPICAC_(short_story)