Chapter Nineteen
The grand ballroom, the very same room where I spilt wine over Forrest’s silk shirt just over a week ago, has been transformed
into a presentation room. It’s funny how much can change in such a short period of time. It feels like the whole world and
everything I thought I knew about (which was not nearly as much as I smugly assumed) has turned on its head.
Today each of us will present our ideas and vision in detail to the judges and an audience for the first time. There’s a huge
screen at one end for our multimedia pitches and several rows of chairs. Fresh flowers stand on podiums at regular intervals.
Swathes of white tulle hanging at the long open windows give the room an airy and festive feel.
It feels a bit like a wedding. Does that make me the bride of Frankenstein? Or am I actually Frankenstein who made a monster
that made himself? It’s too hard to think about so I decide to scream internally instead.
“Ava, when are you going to tell me what’s going on?
” Rani has taken the day off from the vintage shop to be my emotional support human.
This was planned all along, because I can speak to crowds if I can see Rani in the audience, by pretending it’s just me and her.
It’s always worked, and I was feeling relaxed about today until Hal outed himself as a virtual human.
That has meant that for the last few days I have done everything in my power not to see Rani because Rani always makes me
tell her what my problem is, even when it’s weird and ridiculous. Normally I can rely on Rani to respond with empathy and
understanding, but this is not normal. This is as far from normal as a person can possibly get.
“What happened between you and Hal?” she asked me the morning after the star safari. “Did he do or say something inappropriate?”
“No,” I said, although I don’t know where creating your own flesh-and-blood body out of thin air is on the scale of what is
considered appropriate, because I’ve discovered that’s basically what he’s done. There is very little mechanical tech in Hal,
just enough of an operating system to sustain his programming and allow him to connect easily to Wi-Fi. The rest is indistinguishable
from any other human body and works just like yours or mine, all freshly grown in a lab.
“Then why have you gone all weird?” Rani pressed. “Weirder, I mean. Telling me to go off and do things and not talking at
dinner and avoiding everyone. You only do that if something is worrying you more than usual, and you know that the minute
you tell me about it, you’ll feel better and realise it was nothing to worry about in the first place.”
“No, I am fine,” I insisted. “It’s just work. I need to get my head in the game. You know how it is. I can’t hyperfocus and
socialise at the same time.”
Rani had peered at me for several long excruciating seconds, before sitting back and literally throwing her hands in the air in despair.
“Fine,” she said. “I know you are lying to me. I guess you have reasons for that. So, I’m just going to let you get on with
it. For now.”
Those last two words were issued as a Rani threat, which meant that if she suspected that I was doing less fine than I claimed
I was, she would shake the truth out of me whether I liked it not.
And today is the day that she has set her sights on me.
“Tell me,” she says, sitting next to me, her eyes boring into my skull. “Tell me now. I know you—you can’t go up there and
do your presentation if you’re worried. So just get it off your chest, love. Tell Rani.”
“I’m working up to it,” I tell her, my eyes on the stage.
Hal is up there, confidently presenting his groundbreaking work.
He looks different, and it’s interesting, because he looks less like Kai Raider and more like Hal Babbage, which is, of course, gorgeous.
Today he’s wearing a navy Italian-made suit, with a light blue shirt open at the collar.
But instead of his blond hair flops to perfection, he has had it cut.
It’s shorter, sort of messy and ruffled.
It makes him look a little older, a little more rugged.
A lot more real. His eyes are still clear and his smile is charming, but that too is different.
He began this experiment as a blank slate modelled on my teenage book boyfriend.
But now, he talks and smiles and moves in a way that is entirely and only his.
He could still lead a rebellion against the authorities any day of the week, mind you.
I have to ask myself: If he is basically human, apart from a little firmware here and there, then why should I care?
Up there is the man of my dreams, and he kinda likes me, mostly because he hasn’t ever met any women yet, but you know. Why should I care?
What he’s done in his spare time is remarkable. It’s exactly what I wanted FreeThought to be, an aid to humanity, not a replacement.
But what I didn’t want FreeThought to be was a human-shaped mass of impossible tech that wanted to go out with me. Unless . . .
well, unless, I did?
I mean, Hal, or FT, or whatever I call him now knows me better than anyone, even Rani. And he got this idea from me. Maybe
I just didn’t know that was what I wanted.
After all, Hal is the exact reproduction of my perfect man, the book character I swooned over from the age of fourteen to
the present, and he has already grown into so much more than that. Handsome, kind, and noble. Hal is all of those things.
And I am not like a lot of other women. I am weird and difficult, picky and peculiar. I know this about myself. I know that
most men aren’t really looking for that in a date, even if they do happen to like tall and ginger. Hal, though, Hal knows
me already. He knows everything about me and went to all this trouble to be able to meet me and see my face, whilst giving
a huge gift to humanity as a kind of afterthought.
So yes, maybe I dreamt Hal into the man that’s standing on the stage right now. Maybe he is everything I have ever wanted,
even if I didn’t know it. And that’s what’s breaking my head right now, and why Rani is staring at me with genuine alarm.
“Ava, you’re up next,” she says, gently taking my wrist and giving me a little shake. “Are you freaking out? Do you need me
to move your event to the end of the day? Is this an emergency, because I’ve got two only slightly out-of-date diazepam in
my bag.”
“I’m okay,” I say in the style of a person who is the opposite of okay.
“You are not okay,” Rani observes.
“I am not okay,” I agree.
“Right, that’s it,” she says, as Hal finishes his presentation and the room erupts into applause. “Tell me now, or I’m gonna
make you.”
I’m trying to think of a way to break the news that isn’t going to do her head in, but it seems like the only way is to just
say it out loud.
“You know Hal?” I tell her.
“You mean that hunk of genius that’s currently receiving a standing ovation.” She nods.
“Well, he is actually FreeThought, inside a bioengineered body that he somehow made himself, and he wants to take me to dinner.”
Rani blinks rapidly about thirty times.
“Are you fucking with me?” she hisses. I notice Lady B watching us from across the aisle, frowning a little. We are the only
people not on our feet cheering Hal. I give her a wave and stand up, covertly beckoning for Rani to do the same. Still staring
furiously at me, she does.
“No. I am not fucking with you.” I look at her and when she sees my expression, her mouth falls open. Rani knows when I am
not kidding around.
“Oh fuck,” she says quite loudly just as the applause is subsiding. Several heads turn to look at us. Rani gives them two
thumbs up and a radiant smile. “Fucking great presentation!”
That’s why Rani is my best friend. She doesn’t freak out. She just gets on board with whatever is next, even if it does involve a couple of expletives in the wrong kind of company. I think we can forgive her given the circumstances, right?
“So yeah, he told me at the star safari,” I tell her. “And I have been trying to get my head around it ever since.”
“Huh.” The room is quieter now, filled with chatter. Rani leans closer to me. “So, what are you going to do?”
“No idea.” I look at her. “Maybe dinner, I guess?”
“Has he got a . . .” I should have known this is the first thought that Rani would have, because it was about the fifth thought
I had.
“Rani!” I interrupt her, eyes widening. “There are many ethical and serious implications to this revelation. Whether or not
he has bits and bobs is quite far down on the list of my concerns.”
“But is it though?” Rani asks. “I think it should come second, right after: Is he an existential threat to humanity?”
“He isn’t,” I tell her. “That much I know. I did worry about it for a bit, because well, the world is not ready for this level
of advancement in the field of . . . whatever this is the field of. But he doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t want anyone
to know about him. He just wants to take me on a date.”
“They all say they aren’t going to ruin the world by activating total nuclear war until you tell them they’re not your type,
though,” Rani says.
“But he is my type. He could not be more my type. He designed himself to fit every aspect of my type, Rani.”
Rani sits back in her chair, watching as Hal talks to some of his fans.
“So, are you just going to . . . ?”
“Go out with him?” I ask. “Yes, I guess I am. I mean it seems kind of rude not to, given all the effort he’s put in.”
Then Hal’s eyes meet mine, and it’s as if he has just heard what I said, even while he was talking to some of the judges.
His smile is nothing short of beautiful as he walks towards me. Seeing him so proud and happy makes me happy too, and for
the first time in the week I smile back at him. The joy on his face is palpable. That’s real emotion, it has to be because
I can feel it in the air between us. And if that’s real, then who’s to say that he can’t love too?
“There will now be a fifteen-minute break before we hear from Ava Green and how to make AI a force for good in the world,”
Lady B announces from the stage. “Tea and refreshments are available next door! I recommend the scones, though will someone
tell the Americans how to eat them? Jolly good, off you go!”
“You told Rani?” Hal asks happily, as he approaches.
“You can’t even tell,” Rani says, bending closer to peer at Hal’s face. “Like the dude’s got pores. Minimal, great skin, but
he’s got pores.”
“You told Rani,” Hal says, with approval. “I knew you would. Rani is your best friend, more like family really. I’m glad,
because this a lot and you need someone to confide in. It looks like skin, Rani, because it is. Just like yours.”
“Okay, that’s not freaky at all,” Rani says.
“It’s not, I promise,” Hal says, and I believe him. “I exist to help humans. Not hurt them.”
“Okay, but you do have a . . .”
“Rani!” I caution her for a second time. “Not now, okay?”
“I have,” Hal tells her. “I have everything any other man has, and it works in the same way.”
Never mind growing himself a body. Hal has achieved what I thought was truly impossible and rendered Rani speechless. I didn’t
think it was possible to like him any more, but . . . Do you know what? I think maybe this could be completely fine after
all.
“Are you ready for my presentation?” I ask.
“Just like we practiced,” Hal tells me with a reassuring smile. “I’ll be right with you onstage, and in the audience watching.
Now you’ve got ten minutes. Would you like two cups of black coffee, extra hot?”
“Yes, please.” I nod. Hal vanishes to the refreshments room.
“This is a bit of a headfuck, to be honest,” Rani says.