“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.Thatchanges 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 outin 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!” LordB, 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,” LordB 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.”
LordB 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 fromthe 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.
Chapter Two
“The first name on the shortlist, an astounding talent that seems to have come from nowhere, is Dr. Hal Babbage, a bioengineer who is making remarkable leaps forward in organ transplant technology.”
Hal Babbage’s giant photo appears on the screen as applause fills the room and I am looking at the face of my dream man. I can’t quite recall when I decided that blond, tanned, and somehow modestly heroic was my idea of romantic perfection, but since I was a teenager, whenever I’ve closed my eyes and dreamed of, you know, sex stuff, it’s been the face of Hal Babbage that smoulders back at me before doing, you know, sex stuff. That golden hair, with a swooping fringe that falls across his bright blue eyes. That jawline that could cut paper. That perfectly sculpted mouth that seems to be just on the verge of a smile.
Hal Babbage takes to the stage and fills out his powder-blue suit in a way that would certainly suggest he could hold his own in a wrestling match, maybe a naked one, I don’t know, just a thought. My mouth falls open. Rani grips my arm.
“Wowsers,” she says. “Totty.”
“Next, we have Sasha Reeves and her husband, Steve. Lend It Forward brings community funding borrowing to start-up small businesses, empowering entrepreneurs of all backgrounds to make their dreams come true.”
Sasha is a glamorous-looking woman, who takes to the stage holding her husband’s hand, punching the air as she arrives before the audience.
“So proud of my team for getting here,” she shouts to one corner of the room to whoops and cheers. I like her smile and her sassy walk. Maybe in her forties, Sasha has that kind of innate confidence that I really hope I might get one day, when I grow up.
“Our third finalist is Forrest Faulkner, renowned prizewinning artist and poet all the way from the US!” Forrest barges past me and, with a toss of his long curls, heads up onto the stage like a wine-spattered shirt is the hottest trend amongst male bohemians. He has my begrudging respect for styling it out. If I was in his shoes, I’d be curled up in a corner right now. I nearly am as it is, and I only have this yellow dress to contend with.
“Forrest has developed an easily transferable and accessible arts program that is designed to give everyone a chance to discover their creative talent, especially in communities where creativity is a luxury. He’s had some incredibly positive results with victims of addiction and children from disadvantaged communities.”
