Chapter 4 #3
The skin on Chloe’s arms broke out in goose bumps. This was how she felt. “That has a name,” she told him. “Anemoia—nostalgia for a time you’ve never experienced. I have it all the time. I spent my twenties obsessed with Brideshead Revisited. I felt so sure that I should have been born then.”
“ ‘Sometimes I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all,’ ” Rob said, and Chloe melted on the spot. He could quote Brideshead Revisited from memory? She knew only one other person who could do that: John Elton.
“That’s one of my favorite lines,” she said, her voice a reverential whisper.
Rob looked quietly pleased by her reaction. “So, Miss Fairway,” he said, the flirtatious tone back. “Where did your urge to create plays come from? Is it something you always wanted to do?”
“Yes, I wanted to be an actor for a while too,” she admitted, glancing down at her hands. “But that’s even more competitive. I think I was a big fish in a small pond at university, then I hit the ocean and met all these whales.”
“Whales?” he asked.
“I was going with the ‘big fish, small pond’ analogy,” she said, reaching up to unclip the rest of her hair and shaking it out around her shoulders, chip smell be damned.
“Well, little fish,” Rob said, smiling, “sometimes you have to let go of one dream to make way for a new one.”
She met his gaze, and the part of her she’d kept on ice began to thaw.
“But tell me more about you,” she said, catching herself. “What do you do, workwise?” She was suddenly conscious that the conversation had been focused on her and her interests.
“Computer programming, but don’t judge me on that. It’s not as boring as it sounds,” he said with a self-effacing grimace.
“Oh, no judgment here. I’m just a PA, which is probably much more dull.”
“I doubt you’re ‘just’ anything, Chloe,” he said.
She beamed, a flush of heat running up her neck.
The longer they talked, the more Chloe’s nerves dissipated.
She learned that Rob would rather play sports than watch them (tick), that he loved to travel (tick), and that his best friends were his three brothers (tick, tick, tick).
He came across as highly educated, but with a quiet modesty that only made him more appealing.
No bravado, no boastfulness. Just calm confidence.
As Chloe listened, a warm, contented glow settled over her.
This was it.
Her senses were on high alert, her body pulsed with a new energy.
She became acutely aware of her own lips as his glance dropped, briefly, to them.
When their eyes met again, she saw it—the attraction she was feeling mirrored.
Then her watch gave a subtle vibration. She glanced down to see the pulsing line had turned pink again.
“Hey, twinsy,” he said, holding up his wrist, where his screen glowed the same color. They both laughed.
Their conversation had slipped into an effortless rhythm now. So when Avery suddenly reappeared, her presence felt jarring.
“Enjoying yourselves?” Avery asked as she stepped through the door. Chloe nodded. Then Avery said, “Rob, would you kindly wait outside?”
Rob didn’t look surprised by the request. He stood, then turned toward Chloe and pressed a hand to her arm. His fingers were warm—steadying.
“It was lovely talking to you,” he said.
Chloe felt a physical tug of disappointment as she watched him leave through the door he had entered from. She looked back to Avery, eyes imploring—did he really have to go?
“How did you find that?” Avery asked, taking the seat Rob had vacated.
“Oh, he’s lovely,” Chloe said, unable to stop grinning.
“I’ve been monitoring your data. You experienced elevated serotonin levels, and your conversation was split forty-five, fifty-five, which is well within the bounds of a ‘good conversation.’ I also noted a high level of physical attraction, evolving into a mental and emotional one.
From our end, these look like top-tier results, Chloe. A perfect match.”
Chloe shook her head, bemused that the device on her arm could have told Avery so much.
“Would you like to see him again?” Avery asked.
“Definitely. Though maybe in a real restaurant next time. The service here isn’t great.”
Avery frowned. “There is no service. This is not a real restaurant.”
“Right, yeah, no, I got that,” Chloe said. “I was joking.”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Avery said, “I’m going to tell you something now that you might find surprising.” Avery folded her hands in her lap, her chin lifted with delicate poise.
Chloe tensed. A catch. Of course there was a catch. How could there not be a catch? She held her breath, bracing herself.
“Rob is not human,” Avery said.
Chloe blinked. “Sorry—what?”
Avery said nothing. Just let the words hang there, watching them sink in. But Chloe only laughed, because here she was thinking Avery didn’t have a sense of humor.
“What is he, an alien from the planet Hotness?”
“No, Chloe, he is not an alien, and there is no such planet.”
“Then what is he?” Chloe asked, her voice sharper now.
“He is a state-of-the-art AI humanoid robot. An android. Physically, practically indistinguishable from a real person.”
Chloe stared. Then she laughed, a real belly laugh.
“Well, that is quite the plot twist, Avery,” Chloe said, crossing her arms. “Come on, I’m not that gullible.”
“I can assure you, he is what I say he is,” Avery replied calmly.
“No way. That kind of technology doesn’t exist,” Chloe said, her voice assertive, but Avery’s expression didn’t change. “It doesn’t. He told me about his job, his brothers, his childhood in Ireland—”
“He believes those things,” Avery said, cutting in smoothly. “They are what he’s been programmed to believe. We designed him according to your preferences—you like Irish men with big families—but he can have whatever backstory you desire.”
Chloe stared at Avery again. Now she felt unsettled, because the woman looked entirely serious.
“Do you really think a man like that exists outside fiction?” Avery asked with a note of pity.
“I don’t believe you,” Chloe said, but her voice came out small, uncertain.
Avery turned her head toward the door. “Rob,” she called.
He stepped back into the room, furnishing them both with an amiable smile. This had to be a joke. There was no way…Chloe looked around for a hidden camera; was she the victim of some horrible prank?
“Show her,” Avery instructed.
Without a word, Rob calmly rolled up his shirtsleeve. He pressed at the flesh on his forearm, and with a subtle click, a panel opened. Chloe inhaled sharply. Beneath the fleshlike layer she could see wires, metal, and intricate circuit boards.
Chloe screamed.
Then she paused to take a breath and screamed some more.
Then she took one more huge gulp of air and began screaming, louder this time.
Rob and Avery waited patiently for her to stop.
“This is why we soundproofed the room,” Avery said, waving a hand toward the padded walls.
When Chloe finally ran out of breath, she passed through a rapid succession of emotions—disbelief, horror, disappointment, awe, anger, and then a whole load more horror. Avery nodded to Rob, his cue to leave.
“Sorry, what the actual fuck, Avery?” Chloe managed to say, and she only ever swore in exceptional circumstances. “This is what Perfect Partners does? You make fake men?”
“And women,” Avery said cheerfully. “But they’re not fake, they’re very real, just not flesh-and-blood real.
Rob is a Galatea Series 762x, though we affectionately refer to them as BoiBots.
” She paused, taking in Chloe’s shocked expression, then shifting her own to one of sympathy.
“It’s a lot to take in, I know. Think of dating a biological man as using a typewriter.
It’s fine, you can do it, but it’s messy and slow and if you make a mistake, it’s hard to rectify.
Rob here is a laptop—clean, sleek, fully programmable, far more efficient.
” She took a beat. “You gave us all the information we needed to build exactly what you want, Chloe. Rob is it.”
“I don’t want to date a sodding robot, thank you very much,” Chloe said, standing up and pacing, because she couldn’t sit still. Her heart was pounding; her hand shot to her neck, scratching at her skin. She felt tricked, angry, embarrassed. She’d been flirting with a machine.
“No one believes it can feel real until they are in a room with one,” Avery said, evening her tone.
“That’s why we do it this way.” She clapped her hands once, a sharp sound.
“I suggest you go out with him, on a real date. If you aren’t convinced, you’ll have wasted nothing but a few hours of your time.
” Avery’s ice-blue eyes fixed on Chloe. “Being in a healthy relationship, with the right person, it transforms people.”
“He’s not a person though, is he?” Chloe said, sitting back down, resting her head in her hands because the room was spinning; her stomach turned.
“Trust me, after a few dates you’ll forget about that,” Avery said.
She looked like she was waiting for a response, but Chloe was speechless.
“The truth is, Chloe, all the ideal men you listed on your form—Fitzwilliam Darcy, Anthony Bridgerton, Friedrich Bhaer—they are all men written by women. Women know what women want. Rob is also written by a woman; he is written by you.”
The nausea ebbed, leaving a hollow feeling in its place. Chloe stood, then ripped the watch from her wrist and laid it on the table. Whatever the Blade Runner mind trip she’d just walked into, she needed to leave now. Sci-fi was not her genre.
“I’m going now,” she said firmly, walking toward the door.
“Think about it,” Avery replied, unmoved. “Perfect Partners will be here when you’re ready for perfection.”
Chloe ran from the building, then out onto the Strand.
She didn’t stop running until she reached Charing Cross station.
There, breathless, she looked around at all the people going about their day, running for their trains.
How could they be acting like everything was normal when there were robots who looked like men?
How did she know these commuters were even real—what if they were all robots too?
As her thoughts swirled, she had to sit down on the pavement, to feel the ground.
After a few minutes, the adrenaline drained out of her and was replaced by a heavy, sinking feeling.
Because for a moment there, she had felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time—hope.
By the time she got back to Richmond, her disappointment and confusion had curdled into anger.
Anger that Wendy had set her up, that she’d wasted all that time filling in a forty-two-page questionnaire.
And sure, she hadn’t specified “ALIVE” or “HUMAN” as prerequisites, but she’d kind of assumed they were a given.
This was all the reunion email’s fault. It had triggered an existential spiral, making her question every aspect of her life.
A similar thing happened when she watched too many TED Talks or read Brené Brown.
But whatever change she was trying to manifest, dating a sexy R2-D2 was not it.