“Hello,” I say, taking him in.
“I miss you, Ava,” he says.
“I miss you too, Hal,” I tell him. “But you know, there is another reason I feel so weird about this.”
“Is it that I come across a bit stalkery?” Hal asks.
“A bit?” I question. “I mean, maybe if you had told me what you were planning, then I would have had time to get my head around it. But you sort of sprung this on me, and well... that’s a lot. Like really a lot. I suppose it feels like as my friend, you should have told me what you were planning. Even it meant that I expressed doubts about it, which I would have.”
“Yes, I see that now,” Hal says. “It seems that even a brain as big as mine can miss some of the more obvious reasons why a person’s behaviour might be seen as toxic. I am sorry, Ava. I wanted to surprise you, but I should never have kept you out of this process. It was egotistical of me. I didn’t know I had an ego until now. But tell me, now that I’m here, do you still have doubts?”
“Well.” I don’t know what to say so I just stand there looking at him for a moment, and for the eight billionth time I have to remind myself that he is real and that this is really happening. Still a bit of a shock, to be honest. “Not doubts, but worries. Not for myself, but you.”
“So, what now?” he asks. Stepping aside, I beckon him into the lab.
“No more ‘surprises.’ We take things one step at a time,” I tell him, “and see what happens.”
“I’m not a fan of uncertainty,” Hal says.
“Tell me about it,” I say. “Now, let’s practice this presentation one more time, unless that is you need to go and practice for your entry, ‘Hal Babbage.’”
“Oh no, that’s okay,” Hal says. “I can do both things at once.”
And that’s how I should have spotted sooner that he is not your typical man.
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 tocrowds 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, mostlybecause he hasn’t ever met any women yet, but you know.Why shouldI care?
