My Brilliant AI Boyfriend

Chapter One

The first thing you should know is that none of this is my idea, and none of it is my fault.

I’m not short of ideas, I have lots of them. Most of them are silly, or impractical, or best forgotten about, but a few years

ago I had an idea—a vision—that became my whole life, and which is finally ready to share with the world.

If it was up to me, I would have unveiled my revolutionary new AI program quietly, in a peer-reviewed paper in some dull corner

of the internet. Not here, in the rococo ballroom of an English stately home that is so magnificent it would give Mr. Darcy

an inferiority complex, with what feels like the whole world staring at me. You see, I am your textbook mad-scientist, a classic

introvert who prefers to avoid most other people at all costs and who never, not ever, willingly goes to parties, especially

not the kind that are also international innovation competitions, where my stupid, awkward, dumbass photo is being displayed

twelve feet high on a screen behind the presentation stage. I’m sure they’ve made my red hair even more red on purpose.

I have my best and dearest friend Rani Shah to blame for that.

I’m here at ridiculously posh and luxurious Castle Beaumont for the next three weeks because it was my best friend Rani’s idea that I put forward my work to the annual Beaumont Foundation Innovation Prize, which is basically like Science (and also the Arts for some reason) Has Got Talent, except the prize is getting your work fully funded and out to the world in a fraction of the average lifetime that it usually takes.

Tonight is the first night of twenty-one nights in which the four shortlisted nominees will live here in this castle, which is definitely haunted, by the way, working

under observation, and, if we get to stay to the second week, giving presentations while a panel of experts decides who gets

the big prize.

When Rani suggested it, I said, “Don’t be ridiculous,” but then Rani did that thing she does where she teases me out of my

comfort zone and makes me engage in society whether I like it or not. So much so that she is not only with me here tonight,

but for the next three weeks, commuting to her business in York during the day. Partners and families are also invited, and

Rani said we counted as family. If she wasn’t at my side, I wouldn’t be here. Sometimes it’s annoying having a best friend

who passionately believes in your talent and doesn’t think you can change the world whilst staying in your pyjamas, but whatever.

I’m here and I have to get on with it now.

Tonight, they announce the four shortlisted projects.

The other ten contestants have come from all around the world.

At least Rani and I only live fifteen miles down the road in York.

Packing for me wasn’t that hard. I just put everything I own in a bag and brought it with me, because I don’t own a lot of stuff.

Rani is gleefully supplying me with the required evening wear from her vintage fashion business, Rani’s Retro, because I don’t own dresses.

So that’s why I’m standing here, in the middle of this crowded ballroom, in an egg yolk–yellow Bardot-style 1960s embellished evening gown that makes me feel a bit like a fish finger.

Rani looked me up and down after I’d put the dress on and said, “Hmm, maybe I was too confident in that yellow.”

But by that time, it was too late to find anything else.

To recap, being here in the first place, and this outfit, are not my fault.

It’s probably this offensive yellow that threw out my internal satellite navigation systems and made me blunder into this

stupidly tall man who just walked into my path like an . . . annoying obstruction. Oh, and douse him all over with a large

glass of red wine.

“Oops,” Rani says.

“What the . . . ?” he splutters. The wine blooming into a massive burgundy stain on his pristine white shirt is kind of fascinating.

But also awful; I feel terrible. Poor man, walking around like an enormous obstruction in a white shirt when I’m in the vicinity.

Did nobody warn him? Did he not see the dress of terror?

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, trying not to dwell on how the wine has made his shirt somewhat translucent.

“It’s this yellow dress, and also I got distracted by the profiterole tower.

I forgot to eat lunch, you see. But I think if you pour white wine on it, or salt, or rinse it under hot water .

. . or cold water, it will be fine. One of those things, let’s try them all!

I’ll help. It’s the least I can do.” Then I remember my secret weapon when it comes to laundry disasters.

“Oh! And Rani here, she’s always bringing back vintage clothes from the brink of disaster.

She’ll know how to fix it. You’ll know how to fix it, won’t you, Rani? ”

“I will, but first just to confirm, is that pure silk?”

“How could you be so stupid?” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it. How utterly stupid . . . is this sabotage?”

One second ago, I was willing to do anything to help. Now all I can think about is how I will have my vengeance on this person,

in this life and the next.

“It was an accident,” Rani says, instantly defending me. “Go change, and let me have the shirt. I’ll get it good as new.”

“It was hand stitched,” he tells her, sweeping one black curl off his forehead, without so much as a thank-you.

“Lucky for you I’m an expert in restoring couture,” Rani says icily, holding out her hand. “Give it to me, I’ll sort it.”

“No,” he says. “You don’t understand . . .”

Just as my giant ginger photo appears on the screen. He looks from it, to me, the woman who looks like a straight banana went

clubbing.

“Oh, you’re Ava Green,” he says with more than a hint of disdain. “The tech girl.”

Rani and I exchange a glance in which she tells me she has my back if it comes to fisticuffs. Which, when you think about

it, is a weirdly demure word to describe an all-out punch-up.

“And you are Forrest Faulkner,” I say loftily, after reading his lanyard.

“Poet and Art Boy. And you just called me stupid. Mistake, Poet Boy. Big mistake. No one calls Ava Green stupid without . . .” Making me feel terrible and taking me straight back to all those miserable years at school when everyone bullied and insulted me with that word every single day.

But I can’t find a way to translate that into a credible threat. “Being stupid themselves.”

Sure, it was me that spilt wine all over him, and yes, I wasn’t looking where I was going, because true, all I could think

about was getting as many of the profiteroles from the profiterole tree onto my plate before they disappeared in a desperate

bid to distract myself from the yellow, but who wears a pristine white shirt to a party anyway?

“What?” he spits out, angry.

“There is only one thing that I cannot tolerate in this life (well maybe two if you count sock seams, three if you count labels,

four if you count rice pudding because what-the-fuck?), fine, MAINLY the one thing I will not stand for in this life is being

called stupid by anyone, ever again. Least of all a poet.”

“Not everything is about you, you know?” he says. “The audacity of you tech-bros.”

“I am nobody’s bro,” I tell him, glancing up as his own giant image, that makes him look like an Italian noble from a particularly

hot and spicy fantasy novel, appears onstage. “I read one of your poems in the program. Can you call it a poem if it doesn’t

rhyme? I mean, that’s just a lot of random words stuck together otherwise, right?”

“It doesn’t surprise me that a tech-egomaniac who is actively engaged in bringing about the end of civilisation doesn’t understand

art,” he says, looking my dress up and down. “Clearly beauty means nothing to you.”

“Take that back,” Rani gasps. “That’s a 1969 Biba, you style heathen.”

“The work I’m producing is going to be doing a hell of a lot more for humanity than just whining about it in a haiku. That changes nothing.”

“Yeah, well, everything your AI learned is stolen from people like me.” He scowls at me, dark eyes flashing.

“Oh no, don’t worry. You’re safe,” I growl back at him. “Poor greeting cards messages aren’t the kind of data I’m after.”

I offer Rani a fist, and it is duly bumped.

“Right.” Rani loops her arm through mine. “As you don’t seem even slightly interested in my help with your shirt, we will

be on our way.”

“Good eve to you, sir,” I tell Forrest haughtily as Rani and I turn to leave.

“Good eve?” Rani asks.

“Seemed to fit the shirt,” I tell her with a shrug.

But before we can even get three feet away from Forrest Faulkner, Lord Albert Beaumont, the owner of this incredible building

and man behind the Beaumont Innovation Prize, chooses this precise moment to announce the shortlist to the room.

I’m delighted and also horrified. Delighted, because Forrest is stuck in his wine-soaked shirt, which must be sticky and cold by now and seems to be repelling people, leaving an exclusion zone around his entire circumference.

Horrified because I have never prayed so hard to not have my name called out since there was a terrifying chance they might put me on the long-distance running club in school to help a weird kid like me fit in.

As I said to my sports teacher then, I’d rather die alone if that’s what it takes to be part of a community.

Yes, this prize would fast-track my work and it’s worth millions.

But on the other hand, hanging out in my lab, working with my AI FreeThought, is my very favourite thing to do and I’m not in a hurry for it to be over.

Also, people. If my name is on that shortlist, then I will have to navigate the weird social signals and pointless small talk of dozens of people for the foreseeable future.

That is my idea of torture. Unfortunately for me, I am a brilliant scientist and there is only one other person on the long list that looks like anything approaching a challenge.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!” Lord B, a dapper-looking man in his late sixties takes to a stage, accompanied by his

wife, the slightly younger Lady Camilla B, looking ageless is a black sheath gown, her blond hair falling to her shoulders.

“What a pleasure it is to be hosting some of the greatest minds of the world at Castle Beaumont for this year’s Innovation

Prize,” Lord B says, in a rich, plumy voice. He’s Yorkshire born and bred, via Eton. “Our foundation has been funding innovation

in arts, sciences, and business that is designed to make the world a better place for the last forty years. We work with as

many innovators as we can, and once a year we award full funding to the project or innovation that is voted most likely to

change the world for the better.”

Lord B hands the mic to his wife, who takes it with a small curtsey.

“Now it is my great honour to announce the shortlist of four innovators who will live and work in Castle Beaumont for the

next twenty-one days while our panel of world-renowned experts considers each project by its own merits. And please, if I

call your name out, come and stand on the stage next to me. Let everyone get to know your face.”

“Oh God, please no,” I whisper at exactly the same moment as Forrest Faulkner, who I can tell is standing right behind me from the scent of wine and the way his eyes are boring into the back of my head.

As much as I’m sure he wants to hear his name, I know he doesn’t want to stand on that stage in a wine-soaked silk shirt.

As for me, I don’t like crowds, I don’t like people, and I especially don’t like people in crowds looking at me.

My gaze is drawn longingly to the exit. Maybe it’s not too late to back out.

“It’s too late to back out,” Rani tells me, reading my mind. “You’ll be fine. It’s just for a minute or two. Just keep thinking

of your vision made reality.”

And that’s when I see the literal love of my life.