Page 4 of You Had Me At Pumpkin Patch
‘A robot?’ Cassius scratched his head. ‘A robot writer?’
‘Not a physical robot, you computer-shagging buffoon. One of those Artificial Intelligence things. Achatbot. Presumably it’s better at stringing words together than your new cat-whimpering girlfriend.’
‘Ahh, a chatbot. They’re not really robots at all. AI issoftware, not...’ His voice trailed off, as though acutely aware that the next part was ill-fitting for the situation. He covered his groin.
‘Hardware,’ Rosie finished, with a weighty sigh.
And with that, she marched into the room, pulled a holdall from under the bed, and began throwing essentials into it as fast as her arms would allow her, trying her best to ignore robot woman and her particularly supple limbs. It seemed Rosie was a ‘spare part’ even in her own bedroom. Perhaps her crappy boss had been right. She was easily replaceable, like some kind of minor character in the story of her own life. Didn’t everyone deserve a chance at playing the heroine?
‘Can’t really blame me,’ she heard Cassius grumbling, somewhere behind her. ‘You’re still clinging to the fantasy of that dead James bloke. At least Zoe has a bit more life in her than him.’
‘You bloody loser,’ Rosie yelled as she slung her bag over her shoulder and left the room. If she’d ever compared him to James, she’d been right to conclude that Cassius would never measure up.
When she reached the hallway, she spied the huge box again and felt her heart plummet. So that was what thespecial deliverywas all about. How had she seen this woman-sized box and not put two and two together? Was her head actually in the clouds? She gave the robot’s empty box a swift hip barge, because that seemed like the best revenge she was going to get. A small collection of envelopes that she hadn’t noticed before fell off the box and floated to the floor. The day’s post. She pulled out anything with her name on it, only half-registering the bright orange envelope with the handwritten address that on any normal day would have stood out like a big sore thumb. But today was not a normal day. She shoved the mail into her pocket.
It was time to get out of there. Rosie had no idea where she was going, but one thing was clear. She needed to get as far away from civilisation and disrobed robots as her clapped-out Citroën would carry her. Which probably wouldn’t be far enough.
3
‘Come on, Doll. Surely you can get us a bit further away thanthis?’
Rosie wanted to scream and cry and kick things like she was a very cross donkey, even though she had not been brought up to use nice boots as weaponry. Her eyes had just witnessed things that no respectable sensory organs should ever have to see, and yet another relationship had disappeared down the slippery slope to doom, because she’d opted to ignore the blindingly obvious. And all her hopeless car wanted to do in support was conk out.
Thanks. A.Bunch.
Rosie unfolded her body from the vehicle, her unsavoury mutterings making the cold air foggy. She’d only made it about fifteen miles into the countryside before her car had all but said‘You’re on your own, love’before coming to a spluttering stop.
She knew it was hopeless trying to bargain with her little old banger. She’d only bought the ancient green Citroën Dolly to clash with the pristine white Range Rovers that her mum and sister proudly parked outside the townhouse she used to share with them and her comparatively sweet stepdad, Giles. Her mum had called itthat dreadful green gooseberry, which had made Rosie’s inner rebel sing. Childish, but true. And who wanted to be a grown-up?
Rosie tried to give the car a shove from behind, although she knew it was pointless. You needed two people for a jump-start, and it seemed Rosie was now a one-person show. Her heart sank, which she’d come to realise was actually a thing. It had felt heavy since she’d been drop-kicked from her job, then had been forced to flee from her android-bonking boyfriend, dragging her emergency belongings and huffing obscenities that would have made a pirate blush.
How was this happening to her? And what the hell was she going to do?
She’d spent the drive yelling angry song lyrics at her windscreen and trying to erase the horrific images from her mind, but it was likely they’d be etched there for all eternity. Even lying on her latex back with her legs in the air, Zoe was doing a better job of winning at life than Rosie was.
She shook her head to dislodge the awful scene, because what was the point in taunting herself? Now she was here. Whereverherewas.
Rosie pulled her coat tighter against the unseasonable chill. She was in a country lane somewhere in Gloucestershire, in the Cotswold hills. And although Doll hadn’t transported her as far from the robot-induced Armageddon as she would have liked, in contrast to her dreadful morning, there was almost the faint promise of peace here – other than the steaming green car and the fumes that were still quietly emanating from her head. She took a few breaths to calm herself. At least she’d been able to chug into a parking spot and hadn’t fizzled out in a winding country lane leaving a tailback of beeping tractors or angry sheep. There weresomesmall mercies. It was almost as though old Doll was willing her to stop here and take in the view.
Now she came to look, the scenery below was almost magical, if she’d been in a better mood for it. A blanket of mist hung low through the deep green and autumnal gold valleys, a few smatterings of Cotswold stone houses hugging together in what she guessed were small villages. Hills rose up around her, clusters of trees on their tops. The fields seemed to cascade down the hillsides, a patchwork blanket of shapes and shades, divided by ancient stone walls and gates.
There she was, a town girl in a peacoat, perched somewhere in the middle. She hadn’t come far – but in that moment, it would have to do. Rosie moved around the car, narrowing her eyes at its frontage. Not that she’d ever admitted it out loud, but she’d always had the feeling that Doll’s front view was like a face. The two bulging headlights were the eyes, and the grille at the front looked just like a mouth. Right then, she could have sworn Doll was winking at her. A car, winking? Ithadbeen a pretty weird morning.
Rosie put her hands on her hips. ‘I don’t find you funny. And we’re going to have words about this later on.’
As tempting as it was to crawl into the boot and hibernate until at least next century, it was time to find help. Her phone battery had died on the journey, which she should have been annoyed about. Yet part of her gave an internal cheer thathardwarewasn’t as all-powerful as it thought it was, without a human to plug it in.
Had Rosie landed in the outskirts of Stroud? Doll was far too antiquated for satnav – not that Rosie would have been in the mood to consult it, as she’d zoomed away from the scarring sexbot fiasco. She’d had no real plan, other than to bolt.
Rosie grabbed her holdall containing clothes, her laptop and essentials from the boot, half-registering the bags of stuff for charity that hadn’t quite made it to a shop, even though she was definitely charitable. Then she locked up Doll and made her way along the country lane on foot. Her toes felt bruised inside her boot after dropping Cassius’s stupid vase on it. It had taken all of her composure not to clonk him on the nose with the thing – although adding a police officer with handcuffs to that surreal bedroom scene would not have improved her day.
Rosie limped along the quiet country road, trying not to snag her beige coat on the hedgerows, realising she should have checked her face. Her sobs had no doubt left her with mascara cheeks, and she’d given up trying to readjust her sad ponytail. Much to her mum and sister’s disappointment, she’d only ever half cared about looking well groomed.
Why were there never enough toilets in the countryside? Rosie felt like she’d been walking for days with her heaving bag, even though it had probably only been about ten minutes. She was bursting for the loo, her foot was throbbing, and she could really do with a cup of something warm for her nerves. There hadn’t been a single car or person. Where was everyone?
She stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, wondering if some of her coldness was caused by shock. Her fingers brushed against the collection of now crumpled envelopes that she’d grabbed on her exit from the flat, and she pulled them out. Probably bills. Urgh. Not that she had a job to help pay them, or even a roof to live under unless a car counted as a fixed abode. Surely, they weren’t all bills? She deservedsomepositive news today. What was this orange one? She stopped and pulled it open, noticing it smelt of a perfume that was oddly familiar, even if she had no idea why.
The letter inside was handwritten, on orange paper too. Anyone would think it was a love letter. But as her eyes devoured it, it became clear it was anything but. Her mouth dropped open.
