by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Culture Writer
The animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Alan Turing has gone missing.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it," said DCI Gene Hunt. "They tell me that Turing's a smart lad, good head on his...well, a smart lad, anyway, so I'm sure he couldn't be up to anything too stupid."
Turing's head was last seen at Salome's Strip & Clip Joint in London's East End, where he was talking to the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Philip K. Dick.
"Are you sure it was Alan Turing's animatronic, AI-enhanced head?" the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Philip K. Dick asked. "Maybe it was the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of an animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Alan Turing impersonator who had forgotten that he wasn't the real animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Alan Turing. Maybe it was the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Isaac Asimov that had been reprogrammed to think it was the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Alan Turing. For that matter, are you sure this universe is real? How do we know that we're not all characters in some fake news article dreamed up by a demented –"
We didn't have time to hear all of the possible paranoid scenarios the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Philip K. Dick could come up with, so we pretended to hear our LOLcat mewling for its supper and went backstage to talk to one of the performers at the adult club.
"Stripping from the neck up is not a matter of what you show," the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Lili St. Cyr explained, a wispy veil blowing around her face, "but, rather what you artfully conceal."
Asked if she had known the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Alan Turing, the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Lili St. Cyr said she may have noticed him around the club. "Hard not to, really," she sniffed. "He would go on and on about how we were all part of a single, universal computational machine. I swear, if he hadn't been so cute! – not that that mattered very much, if you know what I mean..."
We said we didn't know what she meant. When the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Lili St. Cyr said it wasn't like it was subtle, we explained that we had led a sheltered life. "Alan preferred his heads more...chiselled," she told us. We shook our heads. "Hairier?" We smiled in polite bafflement. "Goodness, but you are thick! He would rather be with male heads than female heads!"
Ooooooooh.
"But, still," we sputtered, "how...I mean, without a body, is it even – you know – is there really a possibility of...umm..."
"Zis is a very interesting qvestion," stated the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of noted sexologist and hardscrabble oil wildcatter Dr. Ruth Westheimer. "If our zexuality is focused solely in our genital regions, zen siz would make no sense, yes? Howeffer, if zexuality iz affected by brain structure and chemicals, zen zis is indeed possible!"
"But...they're...just...heads!" we objected. "Astonishingly life-like recreations of the faces and intellects of famous people, but, still! Heads! No bodies! How –"
"Tut, tut," the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Dr. Ruth Westheimer tut tutted us. "Human desire iz a mysterious three leggedy beasty!"
Oh.
The police have brought in the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Rock Hudson and the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Cary Grant for questioning. "They aren't suspects or nothing," DCI Hunt, hastily stuffing some BMW brochures in a drawer and slamming it shut, explained. "You can't do no foul play without limbs, right? It's just – you just can't. But, what the hell? They do liven the place up – especially for the birds!"
The proliferation (not to be confused with the process of turning somebody into an anti-abortion zealot) of animatronic, AI-enhanced heads can be traced back almost 20 years, when every museum, art gallery and rock and roll hall of fame seemed to have to have one. The problem with animatronic, AI-enhanced heads is that they tend to take on a life of their own – legally as well as literally – so when they got bored of them, the museums, art galleries and halls of fame couldn't just drive into the countryside, leave them by the side of the road and hope they never found their way back home.
Thus, the profusion (not to be confused with the razor, the anti-nuclear fission movement or the short-lived NHL/jazz musical ice hockey movement) of animatronic, AI-enhanced heads. Still, despite their growing numbers, animatronic, AI-enhanced heads are not generally well accepted in society (the Queen has never asked one to escort her to a Detroit Lions tailgate party, for example) and, as a result, tend to keep to their own areas of the city. So, the animatronic, AI-enhanced head of Alan Turing would stand out like a man coughing up a rhino in most places in the city.
"Oh, yeah, well, I wouldn't worry too much about it," sniffed DCI Hunt. "This Alan Turing thingie probably got its brains scrambled by being too close to an electro-magnet. Yeah, we'll probably find it next to the Thames, singing 'Danny Boy' off key and crying about how Hugh Alexander got too much of the credit. Yeah. Sure. Happens all the time!"
The Investigation continues.