We all fall silent, just like Jamie does.
“Let’s start over, okay? I don’t want you planning or anticipating anything for me until you understand whether those are things I even want,” she clips.
“Not so helpless after all,” I smirk, impressed.
There’s some fire under the shy exterior.
Amelia continues, “You’ve shown you’re capable, and that’s amazing.”
“Oh yeah?” Grey frowns, looking over at me. “She’s complimenting an AI.”
“And you know he will react to it. He can understand emotions and knows how a human would react to certain things, so he is able to imitate it,” I explain, feeling proud of our creation. “Having her interact with him as if he’s human is exactly what I wanted.”
“How about we take some time to get to know each other before you try to improve my life?” Amelia suggests to Jamie.
I laugh, shaking my head. “She’s freaking amazing.” Grey is still scowling at me, and Oliver looks a little clueless, so pointing at the monitor, I add, “She spotted where we needed to improve and just found the solution for a quick fix herself. Otherwise, we would have to abort the whole mission or troubleshoot the system while it was running. Not what I planned to do this evening.”
We turn our attention back to the monitor, and I now notice how tidy and clean her apartment is. It’s all white and beige, so different from the dark wood and colors of our place. And there, in the back, is a massive fish tank.
“I need to know what’s up with that fish thing,” I murmur, more to myself than anyone else.
Amelia stands and walks over to her kitchen, tapping her finger on the countertop. “All right, so I’m Amelia, and I prefer to be called Amelia. You don’t have to speak formally to me. I prefer casual.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jamie responds, making me chuckle.
“You sure you didn’t overdo it with his humor?” Oliver asks, shooting me an exasperated look.
But then Amelia laughs. “You’re a cheeky little thing, aren’t you?”
“Shelikes it.” I shrug, thoroughly enjoying this.
“Okay, what’s there to say? I’m not good with people or talking, so I’m more than fine with my position at Elysium. I would appreciate it if you could help out with managing emails or small stuff like that, but I don’t need you to handle anything else job-related unless I tell you to.”
“Noted,” Jamie agrees, but I don’t.
“What? Just because she can’t stand up for herself, she’s working a job she’s overqualified for? If that were a thing, Ollie would have never made it out of that crappy IT support technician job he had in college.”
“Ha-ha,” is all Oliver says, but Grey smirks at me.
The shy guy who’s barely able to keep eye contact had to help out old people who came in with glitchy phones and shit.
It was hilarious to watch.
“I don’t want to go back to London. Preferably ever. I still have family there, so they call or write every now and then, but I’m not planning to visit them, so you don’t have to either,” Amelia continues.
“You think it’s the family or the city?” Grey shoots me a look.
“No idea, but given her tone, there are definitely issues there.” I tilt my head to look more closely at the beauty on my screen.
What could have driven someone like her to leave everything behind?
“Her heart rate just spiked too,” Oliver mumbles, and Grey and I lean in to see what he’s looking at.
“Some sort of biometric data tracker? What the fuck? Who is this girl?” Grey seems to grow more frustrated by the second, but what frustrates him intrigues me.
“Hmm… what else do you need to know?” Amelia asks, her nose scrunching up in thought.
“The quality of those cameras is unreal. It’s like they are everywhere. I can switch between them and even zoom in,” Grey mutters while Oliver grabs the microphone and brings it to his mouth.
