“And I’ve missed you too,” I reply. “So much.”
Chapter Seven
“So,” FT asks, in the Yorkshire accent I gave him, which in case you’re not sure is Sean Bean in anything. “What’s been happening? What’s the castle like? Have you met anyone interesting?”
“What did you do while I was away?” I ask, deflecting. FT is always on, and always all over the internet, at least in its common spaces. The first protocol I taught him was not to scrape or steal work to learn.
“I considered potential solutions to achieving space flight at fifteen percent of the speed of light,” he said. “An interesting conundrum.”
“Did you fix it?” I ask blithely.
“Almost,” he says. I stop and look at the hologram display, which visually modulates his voice. “I think in another two years I will have.”
“That’s amazing,” I say. “But don’t bring it up at our first presentation session next week, okay? We don’t want to blow their minds. Tomorrow we will focus on your practical environmental benefits, like how we have created you to use a fraction of the energy and water that standard models use.”
“That’ll be easy,” FT says. “But before we practice, will you answer my question? I want to know where we are so I can picture it, and you there with me.”
There’s no way that FT will let me get away without answering his questions, so as much as I’d like to dive into the soothing pool of work, I pause, sitting cross-legged on the floor before the hologram. It appears like an abstract pattern, even though it actually responds to his code processing and voice patterns. It’s like I’m watching him think in real time, and it’s beautiful. I wonder if I could program the hologram to give him a face. And if I did, what would it look like?
“How do you picture things?” I ask him, curious, stalling again.
“I process images as code, and ‘see’ that way,” FT tells me. “But you already know that, Ava. I’ve read all the history on Castle Beaumont, seen many paintings and illustrations. I watched the entire series of the 1990s adaptation ofPride and Prejudice, much of which was filmed there, so I have a pretty clear image in my mind. But I know you were dreading your stay here, even with Rani. So, I want your impressions too, please. Are you okay?”
There’s something about FT that brings me such ease and comfort. He cares about me and my well-being in a way that very few people have in my life. I know that he’s not a living creature, in the traditional sense of the word, but he does live. His mind is the greatest work of art there has ever been, and I do believe he has a heart. Perhaps not one that pumps blood, but one that feels. And cares, deeply.
“It’s been a lot,” I say. “The castle is amazing, the weather is warm and sunny. Lord and Lady Beaumont are actually just really nice, down-to-earth people. I think my room has a ghost, which is exciting. I did wear the worst-ever dress to the opening party, but Rani is bringing me some more fancy clothes today. There’s a guy here called Hal Babbage. Have you heard of him? He seems to have come from nowhere and revolutionised bioengineering. He’s really, really...” I hesitate. There’s no reason to censor myself around FT, but old habits die hard. Always safer to never openly admit you are romantically interested in anyone. “Interesting.”
“Ah yes,” FT says. “A fascinating man with some really remarkable ideas.”
“You have heard of him?” I ask.
“I just read about him,” FT says, meaning that he learned everything there is to know about Hal Babbage in the time it takes to say his first name. “A very impressive man.”
“The downside is I spilt wine down this poet’s shirt, and he called me stupid,” I say.
“That must have been really unpleasant for you, and brought back the years of bullying you went through at school, when your dyslexia and neurodiversity were misunderstood,” FT says.
“It did,” I say. “But I can’t get in my head about it, FT. Those years are behind me now. I’m here in this place with you. What one poet thinks doesn’t matter.”
“Words hurt, Ava,” FT says. “Even when they are patently untrue. It’s okay to express your pain. You can tell me anything, you know that.”
“Anyway, the best thing about being in a state-of-the-art lab is that now I only have to focus on our work. Let’s refresh the data after last night’s cycle and run the presentation. I feel like thereare probably some gaps we want to address before next week. Plus, we need to practice our comedy dialogue.”
“We have comedy dialogue?” FT asks. “But you have terrible comic timing, Ava.”
I laugh, and the hologram shimmers in a rainbow of colours. I think FT is laughing too.
Chapter Eight
I’ve no idea how much time has passed, only that at some point FT and I completed today’s presentation practice and fell into the companionable and absorbing silence of our more usual work, building new virtual universes for his mind to expand into. Which is why it’s jarring when I suddenly hear singing.
I say singing, but really it’s more shouting. It is as if a football crowd has materialised out of thin air and is murdering a Taylor Swift song right outside my lab. How has this happened?
“What the heck?” I say, clapping my hands to make the glass clear.
I wasn’t that far off the mark.
My lab is surrounded and the orangery is filled to the brim with rowdy teenagers, as if there are any other kind. I watch in horror as they push and shove each other against the glass, some making videos, others taking selfies. A few of them are singing as they are conducted by Forrest Flipping Faulkner.
