Read an extract from Annie Bot by Sierra Greer

“Come to bed, Mouse. I know how to cheer you up,” he said.

“I don’t ruminate,” Annie said.

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

She has just taken a shower and is rubbing lotion on her legs. Her black hair hangs in wet clumps along one side of her neck, and she has deliberately left the waistband of her dress undone, knowing that he can peek in from the bedroom via the mirror.

“It’s always about your focus, isn’t it?” he said. “Forget it.”

“This is all degrading,” she says, and she sees that it’s the right angle.

He enjoys a certain degree of humiliation.

“Have you seen your usual tech?” he asks.

“Yes. Jacobson.”

She turns off the bathroom light and steps out of the humidity and into the cooler air of the bedroom. Pretending to take a deep breath, she quickly assesses where he is. She memorized Doug’s features from many angles: his brown eyes, the V-line of his dark locks, his tall, pale forehead, and the contours of his face. His mouth, at rest, settles into a decisive line, but this does not express displeasure.

The opposite is actually more likely. Without his shoes but fully dressed, he lies on his back on top of the blankets. He put his phone aside. His hands are folded behind his head, placing his elbows in an open butterfly position, which further indicates that he is relaxed, ready for verbal foreplay.

She adjusts her temperature to go from 75 to 98.6.

“Did he mention anything I should know?” he asks.

“I’m ready for another three months or three thousand miles, whichever comes first,” she says.

She crawls onto the bed and sits against his hip, her face turned towards him. She rubs the rest of her lotion into her hands and studies her cuticles. They did all the work today, waxing, nails, tetris from memory. She feels more lively, less sluggish. If she could just forget about that sad Stella in Pea Brain’s cabin, everything would be fine.

Doug runs the back of his hand down her arm. “What is it then? Talk to me.”

“I met a strange Stella during my tune-up today,” Annie said. “She was in line in front of me. Her name was actually Stella, as if her owners had no imagination. But she was sensitive like me.”

“How do you know?”

“It was obvious. I said hello and she looked surprised. A normal Stella wouldn’t look surprised. She would just respond evenly, hello.” She imitates a monotonous robot.

“You’ve never talked like that.”

“I’m sure I did, thank you. I have no illusions about where I come from.” Annie flips her damp hair over her other shoulder.

“The lights,” he said.

She sends an overhead signal to the fixtures and dims the light to a hundred lumens, where he likes it, enough to see, but softer, closer to candlelight. Then she intertwines her fingers in his, noting that his skin is slightly darker, with warmer undertones. He puts his hand to his lips, sniffing his lotion. She can’t smell him, but she’s aware that he likes the lemony aroma.

“Am I warm enough?” she asks.

“I’m getting there,” he said, shifting slightly.

Following the signal, she slides a few fingers under his belt, into his belt, feeling the heat there. His hands return to the back of his head. He’s still in no hurry.

“Tell me more,” he said. “Did that strange Stella have a seam on her neck?”

“Yes.”

“So that’s a basic. Was she pretty?”

“I guess so. Quite pretty. She was a white girl with blonde hair and big brown eyes. She didn’t smile much, which also seemed odd.”

“How was his body?”

“Compared to mine?

“Just answer the question.”

Discomfort, a 2 out of 10. She needs to be careful.

This is an excerpt from the award-winning novel Arthur C. Clarke by Sierra Greer. Annie Bot (The Borough Press), January reading for the New Scientist Book Club. Sign up to read with us here.