‘Is it real, Mum?’ I said, voice all whispery and choked with emotion.

Mum laughed.

‘Of course not, Ashleigh.’ She sat at the table and ran her hand through the dog’s fur. ‘You know it’s illegal to own pets.’

‘Some people have real dogs,’ said Aiden, but Mum held up her hand.

‘I know, Aiden, but they’re breaking the law and we won’t ever do that. No. This is better than real. This won’t get sick and it won’t die. At least I don’t think it will.’

‘You made it,’ I said.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Mum. ‘It’s state-of-the-art.’ She gently opened the dog’s mouth, exposing a pink tongue and a set of small teeth. When she let go, the dog sneezed and we all laughed. ‘Based on some AI devices I’d already engineered for work in dangerous environments. War zones, places like that. Though we have sold or given away a number to blind people for use as guide dogs. But matey here is different.’

‘Why?’ Aiden and I asked together.

‘Because those dogs were nothing like as realistic,’ said Mum. ‘They didn’t have to be because basically they were designed for functionality, rather than aesthetics.’

I opened my mouth to ask, but Mum beat me to it.

‘They were meant to work, rather than look good,’ she said. ‘For the guide dogs, I put fur on them and gave them the ability to lick their owners. Sometimes it’s important for a machine to give the impression of friendship – love, even – and some blind people need all the love they can get. But your dog … well, he can do things that the others simply can’t.’

‘Like?’ prompted Aiden.

‘He can learn. He has the new generation of artificial intelligence algorithms installed and this means that, basically, he interacts with his environment, learns from it and changes behaviour accordingly.’ Mum was in full lecture mode now. ‘A machine will keep getting burned if it strays into a fire. A proper AI machine will do that maybe a couple of times, but then it will learn to recognise that fire is unpleasant and avoid it. In many ways, the principle is exactly the same as the way babies learn about the world. This dog will just do it a lot quicker.’ Mum ruffled the dog’s head and it stood up on its four stubby little legs. ‘Try getting it to sit,’ Mum said.

I looked at Aiden and he looked at me. He nodded, giving me permission.

‘Sit,’ I said. The dog cocked its head to one side, regarded me. But it stayed standing. I tried again, this time, putting gentle pressure on its back, close to the tail.

‘Sit,’ I said. The dog yawned and walked off. Aiden and I laughed.

‘You’re going to have to teach it,’ said Mum. ‘It will learn, trust me. It’ll sit, roll over, play dead, come to heel, do everything a real dog can do. It’s just going to take time.’

‘Could we teach it to talk?’ asked Aiden. There was silence for a couple of beats and then I burst out laughing. But I was the only one. ‘If it’s AI, then it shouldn’t be restricted just to things a dog can do,’ he continued. ‘It could learn anything. How to play chess, how to paint, how to talk.’