Марта Уэллс - Artificial Condition

Maro came out of shock first. She nodded hard, caught Rami’s arm, and poked Tapan’s shoulder. Rami turned to go, but Tapan said, “Security?”

I knew what she was asking. “They told somebody to cut the cameras. That’s why you need to leave now.” The public feed up on the transit ring had said there was no overall security, but the security companies for the different service installations and contractors were supposed to take responsibility for the public areas nearest their territory. This spot had obviously been carefully calculated to be out of range of any immediate assistance by whoever had helped the Targets by cutting the camera feed. I wasn’t expecting an immediate response, but we did need to move relatively quickly.

Rami whispered, “Come on,” and they started away, walking fast but not running.

I turned to the Target that was still conscious and pressed down on the artery in his neck until he passed out.

I started away, walking at a normal pace. I was deep enough into the camera system to delete the temporary storage on the cameras ahead of and behind the deactivated camera. That would help obscure the issue for anybody trying to figure out what had happened. But Tlacey had seen me, and she would know. I was just hoping the kids listened to me this time.

I reached the interchange where various access tunnels and tube stations met, with a scatter of pop-up stands selling packaged food, feed interfaces, toiletries, and other things humans liked. It wasn’t crowded but there was a steady flow of foot traffic. The hotel entrance was on the far side.

The lobby was built on various platforms overlooking a holo sculpture of an open chasm filled with a giant crystalline structure growing out of the walls. From the notations in the feed, it was supposed to be educational, but I had serious doubts about whether the mines on RaviHyral looked like that. Especially after the mining bots got to them.

My clients were on the same platform as the check-in area, near the railing around the sculpture’s artificial chasm, sitting on a round backless couch thing that looked more like a decorative object than furniture.

I sat on my heels in front of them.

Rami said, “They were going to kill us.”

“Again,” I said.

Rami bit ter lip. “I believed you about the shuttle. I believed you…”

“But now you’ve seen it,” I said. I knew what te meant. There was a huge difference between knowing something happened and seeing the reality of it. Even for SecUnits.

Maro rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, we were idiots. Tlacey was never going to let us give her the bonus for our files.”

“No, she wasn’t,” I agreed.

Rami nudged her. “You were right.”

Maro looked more depressed. “I didn’t want to be.”

Tapan said miserably, “We’re wrecked.”

Rami put an arm around her. “We’re alive.” Te looked at me. “What do we do now?”

I said, “Let me get you out of here.”

I TOOK THEM TOthe public shuttle slots first, then past that section to the private docks. Checking the schedules, ART had already scanned a likely shuttle. It was privately owned but the frequency of its trips to and from the transit ring suggested an entrepreneur who was offering private rides for hard currency.

This proved to be accurate, and it would allow Rami, Maro, and Tapan to leave without their employment vouchers being scanned. It would probably have been safe at this point to put them on a public shuttle, as long as there was no advance notice of which one they were taking. Killware couldn’t travel over the feed to infect a shuttle; there were too many protections in place. Whoever had planned to kill us on arrival had had to deliver the killware directly, through a data port actually inside the shuttle’s cockpit.

But I’m programmed to be paranoid. This private shuttle had the benefit not only of anonymity, but of an augmented human pilot who would be in place in case something interfered with the bot pilot. Plus ART, who was already cozying up to said bot pilot and would be keeping an eye on the shuttle during the brief trip. (ART’s idea of “cozying” being somewhat overbearing, I had already had to intervene once to assure the bot pilot that the big mean transport had promised not to hurt it.)

“You’re not going with us?” Rami asked, standing in the small embarkation area. The private docks were dingy and small compared to the Port Authority’s docks, with stains on the metal partitions and some of the lights up in the rocky ceiling broken or dim. Humans and a few bots were moving along the walkway above us, and I kept an eye on both approaches through the security cameras. The shuttle was already loaded into its slot and its hatch was open, with a small augmented human standing on the ramp to take the money. Six other passengers had already boarded and it was taking a large portion of my self-control not to just scoop up my clients and carry them onboard.

I said, “I still need to do some research here. I’ll go back to the transit ring when I’m finished.”

“How do we pay you?” Maro asked. “I mean, can we still afford you after … everything?” After they tried to kill us, she added in our joint feed connection.

“I’ll check my social feed profile on the ring,” I said, and felt pretty good that I had even remembered it existed. “Send a note to me there, and I’ll find you when I get back.”

“It’s just, I know we’re—” Tapan glanced around. Her expression was tense and unhappy, her body language bordering on desperate. “We can’t stay here, but I can’t give up, either. Our work—”

I said, “Sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.”

They all stopped talking and stared at me. It made me nervous and I immediately switched my view to the nearest security camera so I could watch us from the side. I had said it with more emphasis than I intended, but it was just the way things were. I wasn’t sure why it had such an impact on them. Maybe I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Maybe it was the two murder attempts.

Then Maro nodded, her mouth set in a grim line. She and Rami looked at each other and Rami nodded sadly. Maro said, “We need to get back to the others, figure out what to do next. Look for the next assignment.”

Rami added, “We’ll start over. We did it once, we can do it again.”

Tapan looked like she wanted to protest, but was too depressed to argue.

They wanted to say goodbye a lot and thank me, and I herded them up to the ramp while they were doing it, and watched Rami pay for their passage with a currency card that the crew person pressed to an interface. Then they were aboard.

The hatch closed and the shuttle’s feed signaled post-boarding mode, waiting for its clearance to leave. I went back down the access, heading for the walkway. I needed to get the tube over to the area where the tunnel diversion had occurred and start searching for Ganaka Pit. It was a relief to have my clients headed back to safety. But it felt odd to be on my own again, working for no one except myself.

I went to the tube access and boarded the next capsule to stop. Each capsule had seating for twenty people, plus an overhead rack to hold on to. The gravity was adjusted inside the cab to compensate for the motion. I took a seat with the seven humans already aboard. ART said, The shuttle has launched. I’ll monitor your feed, but much of my attention will be on it .

I sent an acknowledgment. I was trying to isolate why I felt so uneasy. Trapped in a small enclosed space with humans, check. Missing my drones, check. My Giant Asshole Research Transport too busy to complain at, check. Needed to actually focus on what I was doing so couldn’t watch media, check. But that wasn’t what it was. I hadn’t done a good job for my clients. I had had the opportunity, and had failed. As a SecUnit, I had the responsibility for my clients’ safety but no authority to do anything other than make suggestions, and try to use the company regulations inbuilt in a SecSystem to override the humans’ suicidal stupidity and homicidal impulses. This time I had responsibility and authority, and had still failed.