Love and Robotics Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing here?”
    “Well -” Alfred considered. “I thought I’d pop by to admire the architecture, then realised I could kill two birds with one stone and see you.”
    Josh looked to Madge for permission. “May I?”
    “Ask Shuggy.”
    Sugar took a maddeningly long time to trace. Finally Josh ran into him coming out of the fifth floor lavatory.
    “Alfred, sorry, Lord Langton, wants to know if I can go out. Says we’ll be back by dinner.”
    The roboticist considered. “Nineteen o’clock sharp. Else he’ll have me to answer to.” As Josh blinked, “Used to be a su mon du champion. Bet Langton can’t say that.”
     
    Josh had only seen Lux as sprinkles of lights beneath CER. On the rare occasions he’d been taken out it was to a lab, always in a hired vix with tinted windows. Alfred’s vix was a very different proposition: gleaming platinum, cream seats that sank as you sat down. What he’d taken for a chauffeur was Gwyn in a driving cap and jacket.
    “Where are you going?” she asked.
    “Anywhere and everywhere. Josh?”
    “No idea.” He wallowed in leather. “This is my first time in the city.”
    “We’ll give you a tour. Gwynnie, put some music on.”
    She was astonishingly like Alfred, as though somebody had hammered out a copy but made it female at the last minute. They shared many mannerisms:  lifting an eyebrow when they were bemused, propping their chin with their hand, drumming their fingers. They seemed to read each other’s thoughts. Josh wished, uselessly, he could have that close a bond with someone. There were no people like him.
    “Lux is best explored on foot,” Alfred explained. “There are all sorts of weird and wonderful places the tourist never sees. What are you wearing to the launch?”
    “One of the techies lent me a tux -”
    “Borrowed clothes never look right. It’s got to be something you’ve chosen.”
    “You’d know,” Gwyn teased. “You were born in tweed.”
    Josh thought he had misheard. “I can pick it myself?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    The parking bay wound into a shopping centre, the glass and colour reminding Josh of the Centre’s fish tank. So many windows, displaying so many things! Fat tubas and elegant fiddles. A toy helter-skelter, bobble hatted penguins whizzing round. Confectioners stretching taffy. Lacy bustiers high kicked with sheer stockings.
    This was real life. The couples dabbing cream on each other’s noses, old men heckling on balconies, teenagers spinning on the dance floor. When a robot came into view, whether a Dave with his stun gun or an S10 in the ticket booth, they were intrusions.
    Their first stop was an outfitters called Ratcliffe’s. The window was full of ‘Alfred wear’: mainly tweed, but also suits of impeccable cut, snowy shirts with starched collars, silk ties and buttery shoes. Alfred ambled inside, Gwyn following.
    Somebody plucked at Josh’s sleeve. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
    It must be his clothes. A sweater, twills, brogues - fine for mooching, but not somewhere like this. “I’ll come back when I’ve changed.”
    Josh would always remember this man. Short, wide shouldered, pot bellied. He was wearing one of his suits, but what looked debonair on a dummy was ludicrous on him. He’d gummed his hair across his bald patch; Alfred and Gwyn were trying not to giggle. “We don’t serve arties. You’ll have to go,” this vision said.
    Alfred, examining a rack of ties, looked up. He was quickly at Josh’s side. “ What did you say?”
    “Lord Langton!” The man was all cringing obeisance. “I was telling this young, er, robot -”
    “He’s with me.”
    “Oh!” He fidgeted. “If you could ask your, erm, property to wait outside -”
    Alfred glowered. At times like this you noticed how big he was. “ He has a name. He’s not my, or anybody’s, property. I was going to buy him a suit, but if you’re this pig ignorant, I don’t think I’ll bother.”
    “But -”
    “We’re