Evolved(57)

He checked his watch. “Oh, shoot!” He jumped to his feet. “I’m late.”

I instinctively checked the time, and Shaun and I both stood up. “Me too. I’ve got ten minutes to get to class.”

Jae was already halfway out the door when he stopped and turned back to us. “I’ll see what I can find out and let you know.” Then he came back into the room and offered his hand for Shaun to shake. “It’s a real honour.”

Shaun beamed. “Likewise.”

Jae shook his head like he couldn’t believe any of it was real. He had that look of wonder on his face again. “Lloyd, when you told me about him being advanced, I thought maybe he bordered on sentient. But Shaun’s well and truly past that. He’s sapient. Like the only one in the world kind of sapient.”

He disappeared out the door and I tried to smile for Shaun, but Jae had just exposed my greatest fear.

The only one in the world.

Which meant if it wasn’t SATinc coming for him, it would only be someone else. Some technology rival, some AMA agency, some government agency would deem him too valuable, too risky, too unknown, too human…

Shaun tilted his head. “Sapient has differing definitions. To which is he referring?”

I gave him the best smile I could muster. “That you’re self-aware.” I swallowed hard. “That you’re more human than other.”

Shaun beamed, just positively beamed, while cold dread curled in my belly. He held the door open. “Come, or you will be late for class.”



Shaun sat through my lecture. I’d asked him to sit at the back and to not ask questions or interrupt—in other words, not to draw attention to himself. So he sat there and listened and grinned the entire time. My gaze kept pulling back to him and I had to make myself focus on my class. But he looked at me like I hung the moon, and my stomach kept doing ridiculous swoops of excitement and love.

When the class was over and the other students all filed out, Shaun stayed in his seat. I shut down the holographic projector and was finally free to smile back at him. “Well, what did you think of your first university lecture?”

“It confirmed two things I was almost certain of,” he replied.

“And what’s that?”

“One, that you’re brilliant at what you do. And two, that I would very much like to accompany you every day.”

I chuckled, and for the remainder of the day, I was caught up in his excitement. Before lunch, instead of going straight back to my office, I showed him around the different buildings, different departments, and we strolled along the grounds before finally ending up in the staff lunch room.

I was hoping Jae would already be there, given we were a little late, but instead we ran into, almost quite literally, the one and only Mrs Van der Heek. I knew it was bound to happen at some point if Shaun would be with me every day, but I was hoping we could have avoided the one anti-android person I had the misfortune of calling a colleague.

“Ah, Mrs Van der Heek, this is Shaun.” I gave Shaun a pointed look, trying to pre-warn him or something. “Shaun, this is Mrs Van der Heek.”

He smiled and spoke politely. “Shaun Salter. It’s very nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, which she shook, and it took her a few long seconds to realise he wasn’t human, but the look on her face was priceless when the penny finally dropped.

“Oh.”

“Oh?” I questioned. I knew her type; she could run her mouth off all day long, spieling her anti-android hate—what did she call them? A dirtybot? Never in a million years could she say it to one of them. A bigot and a coward. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly, unable to take her eyes off him. “I’ve just never seen one look so real.”

One. She called him a one.

“He’s not a one,” I corrected. “When someone introduces themselves and gives you their name, is it not rude for you to ignore them?”

Mrs Van der Heek looked horrified that I would call her on her bullshit, but I didn’t care. I wouldn’t stand for someone being so blatantly rude to him. Shaun put his hand on my arm and smiled sweetly at her. “It’s okay, Lloyd. I have been programmed with state-of-the-art social intelligence. I can easily identify when a human has diminished reasoning and therefore will lack, for the want of a better word, social grace.”

It took Mrs Van der Heek a whole four seconds to realise she’d just been insulted. She paled and her mouth fell open, then took a small step back and put a hand to her chest. “Well, I never.”

I really did try hard not to smile. “Shaun will be joining me most days,” I said. “Maybe next time you might try and remember his name.”

She scurried off and I showed Shaun to our table. Other colleagues came in and went and no one paid any attention other than a passing glance. None of them looked long enough to realise he wasn’t human, but that wasn’t surprising; no one ever looked my way for long.

“Was that rude of me?” Shaun asked. “Perhaps I should not have treated your colleague like that.”

“That”—I nodded pointedly to where we’d just stood with Mrs Van der Heek—“was perfect. She’s been an outspoken technophobe for years. She’s a racist, bigoted, loud-mouthed dinosaur.”