"Enough sales talk, please. I only asked for a straight answer. But I think I can guess where this labyrinthine introduction is leading."

"Silvio, you are our crowning glory. You eat, you drink, you defecate; you sleep and dream. We have even buried your registration number where only a trained gentleman of science could find it. More importantly, you feel like no other creation has ever done before. You crave, you desire, you love."

"Unrequited," I mutter, slumping to a vacant chair.

"The important thing is to feel. You are our leading light. By your shining example, you will bring about changes in others. You will set a template for them to follow. The future is bright; the future is android."

From my cultural programming, I recall stories of boys who wanted to become men or angels or super-heroes. But I know of no example of a robot wanting to become a plain man. And yet maybe Hoffman is right, maybe there is hope that my love for Coppelia - an electronic circuitry-induced reaction rather than the chemical messages that determine flesh and blood romance - could yet be reciprocated. We are, after all, of the same kind.

"Don't be cross with us, with me," Hoffman says. "Hey, do you know my lute solo in 'Fabian's Fandango'?" I nod that of course I do. Such musical mastery has led to Bryan becoming a national treasure. "How do you think I achieved that?" he asks.

"I think you played it very slowly in the studio and then perhaps speeded up the recording. Or else you laid it down one or two notes at a time."

"Hmm, yes, you're right about that but then I was faced with the issue of playing the whole thing live at an audience with The PM King and the lovely Princess Bea. So, I made a decision." He rolls back his sleeves. What I take to be a tattoo on his left wrist turns out to be the join and he unclasps his hand and shows me the bolts and wires. "A little augmentation," he smiles. "Like I said, the barriers between are blurring."

*

Still coping with recent revelations, my mind is taken off my own existential crisis by an invitation from Coppelia 3 to attend a "Fabrics Soiree" at her apartment. Her place is spick and span with the newly installed kitchen and bathroom areas unused. Automatically polite, she offers me a hot drink before realising that she doesn't actually keep any powders, beans or leaves about the place, having no requirement of them. The Great Winding Hall is but a short walk away from her abode so she is never in any great danger of suddenly running down. I content myself with some scoops of water, wondering as I drink whether my metabolism really functions in the way the biology textbooks claim pertains to true humans.

It's not much of a soiree, in truth, just a party for two. Of which I am inordinately glad: Coppelia my dream desire being able to give me her fullest attention.

She has used her staff discount and her recent promotion to buy, borrow or long-term loan a whole range of outfits from both her department and the adjoining menswear section. Soon I am trying on a range of inappropriately matched items to her seemingly genuine squeals of delight. As I strip to my underpants I hope that she is impressed by my finely toned body.

But she wants to go much further. She has the ballet score playing on the portable Baroquephone and whilst I try to be discreet and turn away, rather than stare open-mouthed, she dispenses with her home clothes in order to put on her freshly laundered white tights and tutu. She has tied her waterfall of black hair up in a secure bun; there is no sign of bodily hair anywhere else on her limbs or torso.

"Come on, Silvio," she cajoles and soon I am naked and being encouraged by her fleetly feminine fingers to don a brocade cap, male pantaloons and decorated jerkin. She purses her lip, eyes focused on my groin. She steps towards me, pulls the waistband forward and deposits a couple of large walnuts down the front of the garment.

"Parfait!" she exclaims. "Now we dance."

I move like a club-footed bear at the end of a trek through the Black Forest. Soon I decide it is safer to stay still like a Maypole and let Coppelia perform her art around my stability.

Then all of a sudden we are intimate. So many young women these days are enhancing their breasts with silicon; my lover's bosom is soft, gentle, more natural, even if made of the same base material. Her tights have been shucked off during a frantic pas de deux and my skin-tight trousers are now round my ankles as we begin fucking. I think the walnuts must have rolled off somewhere out of harm's way.

I am not new to this experience. I have been with women of, shall we say, various different backgrounds during my short spell of conscious life. I know that I can ejaculate. But somehow this time I don't quite manage to come and as my breath becomes ragged, I withdraw; excited by the device of costumes but now seeking my own original attire.

Later, I lay my hand gently on her chest and ask her if she feels anything in here.

"No," she says, "not what I think you mean." She holds her soft plastic hand over her mechanical heart. "It beats in perfect time," she beams proudly.

*

I had another moment or two of self-doubt, of existential uncertainty. It was true that I could not remember anything that had happened to me more than a year ago. Proficient in the de-encryption of the surface coding behind our suspicion machines, I unlocked all relevant personnel records and, to all intents and purposes, it was as if I had emerged fully-formed just twelve months ago. No parents, no relatives, no schooling… no childhood?

And yet I eat and drink and urinate and defecate and inhale and exhale and wake and sleep just like every other flesh and blood person in our capital city. Was I the most advanced automaton yet; powered by the same sources as regular people and, to all intents and purposes, effectively indistinguishable? Or was Bryan having some cruel / well-meant joke with me, in order to make me believe that my obsession with Coppelia was entirely to be expected and encouraged?

I hold my fingers over my heart hoping to detect a steady human beat. Instead, I seem to feel a motorik hum. Nerves, maybe…

I have much to ponder but more pressing matters intervene as I am called to Mr Cleggmoss' office.

He is young, well-groomed, exuding confidence yet surely too callow to have legitimately become store manager. Friends or family in high places, one suspects. What I would give for a rich father pulling strings…

"Silvio," he beams, "you know how much we value your contribution to our business. Results last quarter -"

"Show a seven percent growth," I complete.

"Uh, precisely. We must all share in the due congratulations. However… this is hard for me to say but… I feel that we may have to review your position."

I let the sound of his Cronos wristwatch punctuate the silence. Three months of my meagre salary would still leave me short of such a purchase.

"Is it my… relationship with one of the front of house sales ladies?" I whisper eventually.

He smiles. "Goodness, no. Since time immemorial shop floor romances have been par for the course in our line of work. So long as you're not shagging in the fitting rooms in front of angry customers, management turns a blind eye or even encourages such team building liaisons. No, the problem is - and this is hardly your fault, Silvio - your efficiency. You're simply too good at your job and it's causing dissatisfaction amongst some of my other employees who, to be fair, have been with the business a long time, through thick and thin."

Of all the spurious reasons. "So, you're firing me."

"Unless you have another suggestion; sadly, yes."

So much for the most advanced mechanical man of the century. Thrown onto the scrap heap at the end of the tax year.

"Can I clear my desk?"

"That's being done while we speak. Any further thoughts or questions?"

*

Her hands of plastic, her heart mechanical. Her feet programmed to skitter lightly across the freshly swept shop floor. She is Coppelia 3, the woman of my dreams, and we are now spending most of our active hours together. Although their manufactured colour is cornflower blue, one would say that she has artistic eyes: spotting, creating and celebrating new ideas, concepts and conjunctions in fashion. Customers and colleagues alike await her next inspired dressing or display.

It's not a demotion as such, I tell myself, just a re-deployment. I'm giving my brain a little rest, being flexible and malleable as Coppelia makes me her male fashion puppet for the greater good of the store and for the furtherance of our close relationship. I am her willing plaything, content to have eschewed conventional office attire for the fashionable whims of my lover. Like a knight of old, I shall carry my lady's colours.

And who is this entering our emporium? Why, it's me old mucker Bryan Hoffman. Perhaps he's after a new stage outfit for the much vaunted reunion concert. I have many questions I still wish to ask him and not just about his robotic chord finder hand. Great, he's coming across to look at jackets, flounced shirts and paisley pantaloons. He's teased the curls out of his hair in the manner that all the women love. And are those walnuts down the front of his trousers...?