Chapter Thirty-Eight
The band packed up at eleven, much to Artie’s disgruntlement.
“More dancing,” she cried as they put their instruments away.
“Sorry, kid,” the guitarist told her. “We need our rest. Big wedding tomorrow.”
“I’m not even tired,” Artie told Forrest as he picked her up in his arm. She was fast asleep before they got to the foot of
the stairs.
Megan, Poppy, and the gang were about to sneak out onto the terrace when Lady B stopped them in their tracks.
“Sorry to get in the way of any shenanigans, young people,” she told them before they could creep out into the cover of night.
“But your car is waiting to take you back to your homes.”
“Thanks for inviting us, Miss,” Poppy said, and the others all chorused the same too. “If you ever want to adopt a daughter,
I’m available.”
“Oi, get your own fairy godmother,” Megan said, and she hugged Lady B hard, who hugged her back.
“Girls, you can keep those frocks,” Rani told them as we waved goodbye to them. “No one else could wear them like you, and
I know you’ll have prom next year.”
“Thanks, Miss.” Poppy and Lucy hugged Rani and me and climbed happily into the car with the lads.
“So,” Rani asks me as we watch the car disappear down the sweep of the long drive, “how was your first ball?”
“Really great,” I tell her. “I think you had fun too judging by all the dance floor snogging that was going on.”
“I’m willing to give Alex a chance to prove himself, let’s put it like that,” Rani says, with a small smile. “But what about
you and Forrest?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, suddenly keen to go back inside.
“Babe, there was so much chemistry between you two that I felt like I might need a hazmat suit. I mean, he’s effing hot and
right there. And he wants you. It’s nice that Hal thought you needed to be provided with a boyfriend, but you don’t. Not when
there’s a red-hot lover waiting in the wings.”
“It is not like that,” I say.
“It is exactly like that,” she says.
“Well, anyway, I have already made plans, and you can’t go around just . . . scrapping plans.”
“Er, yes you can. Especially if they are the wrong plan,” Rani insists as we return to the castle.
“I can’t know what’s wrong or right until I know,” I insist. “Hal’s gone to a lot of trouble and it would be rude . . .”
“Darling”—Rani grasps my arm—“you don’t enter into a relationship with a . . . with anyone out of the fear of being rude.
This is your life. You have to get it right.”
“I know,” I assure her. “And that’s why I am testing all the options. Just let me do me, Rani, please?”
“’Spose,” she says reluctantly. “Well, I’m going to bed. I will need to know every detail of your secret meeting as soon as I wake up.”
“Anyone for a nightcap?” Lord B says, walking towards the drawing room.
“Can I have a nightcap?” Megan asks.
“Of hot chocolate,” I tell her. It looks like Forrest and River went to bed with Artie, and there is still quite some time
until I’m due to meet Hal. A stiff drink is just what I need.
“When I’m a graphic novelist or scientist or whatever, I’m not going to have any boyfriends,” Megan tells me, a blob of whipped
cream on the end of her nose. “Jack from school asked me out tonight, but the thing is Poppy really likes him and even though
he’s okay, Poppy is my friend, right? Friends are everything. Like you and Rani. Relationships are just too much bloody trouble.
I’m just going to concentrate on my career, like you, Ava.”
I suppose I am the poster girl for Being Alone and Prioritising Work.
“By the time you get out of school, we might live in a world where no one has a job,” Forrest says as he comes into the room.
“I thought you were in bed,” I say, realising a tad too late that it might sound like I was thinking about him in bed, which
I was.
“Couldn’t sleep for some reason,” Forrest says, taking a drink from Lord B.
“What do you mean, a world with no jobs?” Megan asks.
“We humans do seem keen to give away our purpose to machines.” Forrest shrugs.
“That’s not what’s going to happen, is it?” Megan asks with a deep frown.
“Not if everyone is willing to draw a line between where technology can help us and how it can diminish us,” I tell her.
“Because if people care about human-made art, and human-written stories, then they have to stand up for them. Refuse to watch AI-made movies, or read books generated by algorithms. Everybody needs to prove how much they value human creativity by celebrating it instead of taking it for granted. We need to protect artists like we look after . . . I don’t know . . . endangered species.”
“I never thought I’d ever become an endangered species,” Forrest says. “The end of human-made art sounds like the end of the
world to me.”
“And Ava agrees,” Hal says. “That’s why FreeThought has been created to work alongside humans to give them a better life,
instead of trying to replace what makes them uniquely human.”
“I know,” Forrest concedes. “I just find this world we are walking so blindly into hard to stomach sometimes. It’s almost
as if we are so determined to advance technology that we have forgotten what really matters. This world, and each other.”
“Yeah, that,” Megan says.
“You make a good point,” Hal says thoughtfully. He looks at me. “Protecting what makes this planet so miraculous is the most
important thing. And that’s what Ava wants to do. That’s why she designed an AI that will not only reduce the impact on the
environment but actively seek to solve it, and bring equity and security to everyone. That’s her vision, Forrest. You two
are not as different as you think you are.”
Forrest nods and touches his glass to Hal’s.
“You know, I think you’re right,” he says. “This world needs more Ava Greens in it. And more men like you, Hal. You are doing
work that will change so many lives.”
“Oh, well.” Hal folds his hands in his lap. “I couldn’t have done it without . . .”
“A lot of hard work and diligence,” I say, standing up when the clock on the mantel chimes 11:45 p.m. “Well, I’m tired. So
tired. So, I’m going to go to my room now and stay there all night, with absolutely no wandering about in the dark.”
I rush out of the dining room and to my bedroom, and with every step I take I have the same thought over and over again. What
the hell am I doing?