Invincible Summer by Alice Adams Page B

watch, young man. It’s called 2001: A Space Odyssey and it will teach you a thing or two about just how far you can trust computers. Mark my words, it never pays to go against nature,’ he added darkly, before stalking away along the corridor.
    Benedict and Lydia looked at each other and covered their mouths with their hands, both waiting until they heard the double doors along the hallway swing shut before exploding into laughter.
    ‘Do you think Boris has achieved consciousness?’ asked Lydia when she’d stopped laughing long enough to catch her breath.
    ‘What, and set out to cause the downfall of his human masters and take over the world?’ Benedict guffawed, and then winced at the pain in his head.
    They both looked over at where Boris was hanging limply from the door of the data cupboard, looking not at all like a supreme, humanity-crushing intelligent life form, and cracked up again.
    ‘Right, that’s enough shenanigans with robots for one night, young man,’ said Lydia. ‘Come on, get your stuff together and we’ll head back to mine. There’s nothing we can do about this now. It’ll have to be sorted out in office hours.’
    ‘Oh, you don’t actually have to look after me tonight, you know,’ Benedict said. ‘I just needed you to say that so they wouldn’t insist on taking me in. I’m fine, see, perfectly alright to head home now.’
    ‘What, and have it on my conscience when they find you dead in the morning from a blood clot on the brain? Not likely. You’re coming with me, and that’s that.’
      
    When Benedict woke the next morning his head still hurt, but he couldn’t have said whether it was due to Boris’s punch, Lydia’s cheap plonk, or the rather vigorous pounding it had taken on her headboard.
    Crikey, he thought, looking over at her naked body, only partly obscured by sheets. Not timid old Benedict after all, eh.
    Okay, so she’d done most of the running. Or all of the running if he was honest, but he hadn’t put on a bad show. The first time he’d been a bit trigger-happy, but surely the second, third and fourth times would have made up for that? Perhaps there were some advantages in a build-up of sexual frustration.
    She’d been surprisingly kinky, way beyond any real-life experience of his own. His cheeks glowed remembering that thing with her finger. God, you’d never have thought it to look at her. Actually, he realised, he barely had looked at her until now. He knew she did something or other to do with solar cells but it wasn’t his field and he rarely went into the Solid State office. He looked at her again, taking in the curly brown hair and freckles. The freckles were on her arms and back too, he could see now. They made her sort of friendly-looking, and were more than a little sexy. Why had he never noticed any of this before? Partly because she usually had more clothes on, of course, but also because he was usually too busy thinking about Eva to notice what was right under his nose.
    Eva. The thought gave him a jolt. He’d been typing that email to her when Boris had started to malfunction…had he hit Send? No, he’d gone to see what Boris was doing and hadn’t finished the message. And then Lydia had turned the power to the whole room off, so it would have been lost. A wave of relief washed over him. What on earth had possessed him? What sort of idiot sends a declaration of love when it couldn’t be any clearer that it wasn’t reciprocated? And anyway, looky here. There were other fish in the sea.
    Lydia seemed to sense his appreciative gaze on her and rolled over sleepily, exposing her breasts (large and also freckled). She opened her eyes and gave him a lazy smile. Galvanised by her boldness, he reached out and ran his fingers over the left breast, tracing the outline of the areola.
    ‘What are you doing this summer?’ he asked, rolling towards her. ‘Have you ever been to Corfu?’

Chapter 10
London, September 2001
    T HE THICK CREAM envelope was