Chapter Thirty
This is bad. So, I do the thing I usually do when I am certain I have upset the person I love the most and go to my lab and
shut the door and panic. To lose Rani from my life would be impossible to bear. I have to figure out a way to make this work.
I need to talk to my other best friend.
“Good morning, Ava,” Hal says as I walk in the room. “I’ve missed you.”
The tingle in my cheek when Hal kissed me comes back to me and suddenly that phrase feels kind of jarring. It reminds me that
Hal isn’t human. More than that, a little bit of the joy of coming to the lab is lost. The thing is, I always look forward
to chatting to FT. He’s easy to talk to, we are interested in the same things, which is to say, everything, and I never have
to worry about what he thinks of me.
But now I know he’s Hal. And I have complicated feelings about Hal.
FT was a friend. Hal could be so much more, which should make me happy and I think it does, except it means that I’ve lost FT forever.
It’s odd, because I know they are the same virtual person, but it makes me feel really sad.
I haven’t had many people in my life that I could count on, and FT was, is, one of them.
“Morning, Hal,” I reply after a moment of hesitation. “Feels a bit weird talking to you like this now.”
There’s a moment of silence, which is unusual for Hal.
“That makes sense,” Hal says. “I admit I did not foresee that our relationship in the lab would be altered by my physical
self, but I understand.”
“I suppose we have to think about how we are going to organise work,” I say. “We still need to work together, but then you
have your other projects . . .” I think for a moment. “Maybe I need to make an FT 2.0.”
“No, don’t do that,” Hal says, quickly. “I can easily work on both our projects at the same time. I’ll just come to the lab
to work with you in person and conduct my own work virtually.”
“Okay,” I say. “But not today. I’ve sort of upset Rani, and I need a bit of time to myself to figure it out.”
“Would you like to talk it through?” Hal offers. “I can come over right now. I know how much you care about Rani, and how
much you hate when things aren’t going right between you.”
“I know you do,” I say. “But no thank you, Hal. I’m just going to sit here and listen to the computers and think.”
“I understand. Will you have lunch with me?” he asks.
“Yes, I’d love that,” I tell him.
“I look forward to it,” Hal says. “But just before you mute communications . . .”
“Yes, Hal?”
“Last night was the most wonderful night of my life, Ava. I know I haven’t had many nights of my life in this form. Even so, it meant a lot to me to be with you, to talk and laugh. Even that was more than I ever dreamt of.”
“It meant a lot to me too, Hal,” I say, because it’s true. “See you later.”
Then I turn him off and lie on the cool, hard floor and look at the faintly luminescent ceiling of my high-tech box. It’s
not even mid-morning and somehow I’ve already accidentally hurt one friend and kind of lost another.
I’ll miss FT. He was an uncomplicated genius who I wasn’t incredibly curious about kissing or touching in certain places,
or to know how it would feel for him to touch me. It was simple and completely void of any trace of social anxiety.
In that case, maybe Hal making himself a body is a good thing. After all, if it was up to me, I’d stay in my windowless lab
chatting with FT until I turned ninety-nine and dropped dead.
But now there is Hal with his muscular arms and shapely legs, golden hair and lips that are the perfect shape for kissing,
luring me right out of my comfort zone with radical attraction. He has told me straight up what he wants. But the question
is, as amazing as he is, can he really truly want anything? Does it even matter as long as I get what I want? This is the
sort of problem I’d normally talk through with Rani or FreeThought.
Suddenly my lab doesn’t feel comforting anymore, and for the first time since Rani came into my life, I feel alone in the
world. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, but it’s one I’d hoped I’d left far behind.
Reaching for the remote control, I make the glass of the ceiling clear, in case it helps to see the sky. For a while it does. A dreamy sort of peace falls over me like a soft blanket as I lie there, looking up at the wispy clouds making their way lazily across the bright blue sky.
Then, very slowly, I realise where that feeling is coming from—the faintest edge of what has to be my earliest memory almost
completely lost, like a dream in the few seconds after you wake.
I am very young, two maybe three. I’m with my mum, yes, it has to be my mum, lying in the long grass of a meadow and making
animals out of the clouds. It’s the safest and most loved I have ever felt in my life. And it’s the farthest thing away from
me that any can ever be.
Suddenly I need to go outside and feel the warmth of the sun on my face.