Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

My performance reliability hit 60 percent and I could talk again. I said, “Fuck you, ART.”

Amena leaned over the platform, watching me worriedly. “SecUnit, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Parts of the surgical suite were withdrawing and I could see her with my eyes now instead of just the drones. “Except that I’m being held prisoner by a giant asshole of a research transport.”

Ratthi hobbled over and stopped outside the sterile field. “Do you need anything?”

Amena said, “I saw what happened. I mean, I still had the view through your eyes when—” She stopped and swallowed. “That was intense.”

That was one word for it. I sat up as the rest of the suite pulled away. The skin on my back felt new and itchy. I hate that. “I need my jacket.”

ART said, It was damaged and is being repaired in the recycler .

It was very hard to say evenly, “I am not speaking to you.”

Ratthi lifted his brows. “So… how well do you two know each other?”

In the control area, Arada stood up. “Uh, Ratthi, let’s take that up later. Transport, will you answer our questions now?”

ART said, That depends on the questions .

I said, “The humans think I’m an asshole, wait till they get to know you.”

I thought you weren’t speaking to me .

Ratthi muttered to Amena, “I admit I’m a little worried right now.”

Amena told him, “SecUnit said bot pilots can kill people.”

ART said, SecUnit exaggerates .

Arada’s brow was furrowed. “Transport, where are we? We’ve accessed your sensors and we’re not receiving any contacts indicating a station. Is this an uninhabited system?”

This system has a numerical designation assigned by a corporation which was investigating it for salvage. It was the site of at least two attempts at colonization. The latest attempt was abandoned when the company funding it was destroyed in a hostile takeover, and the colony’s location was lost. ART paused for 8.3 seconds for no reason I could think of except to make the humans think it wasn’t going to answer the question. I have evidence indicating that it is inhabited.

Arada has a lot of expressions, even for a human. The one she was wearing now involved squinting one eye and twisting her mouth around and biting one corner of her lip. I didn’t know what it meant, except that she must be worried by what she was hearing. “It’s inhabited by these people—the hostiles?”

Circumstances suggest it .

Yeah, that was sarcastic.

Arada stopped biting her lip but her eye got more squinty. “What is your operational status? You said the alien remnant detached from your engines? Can we leave now via the wormhole?”

I am currently still in reinitialization mode and my normal-space maneuvering functions are not responding, possibly due to damage caused when the foreign device was installed on the wormhole drive. When reinitialization completes, I can begin self-repair. But I have absolutely no intention of leaving this system until I get what I want .

Oh, here we go.

Ratthi made a faint “oof” noise. Thiago’s jaw started to drop but he stopped it in time. Amena folded her lips in and glanced worriedly at me. Overse grimaced and rubbed her eyes. Arada looked like she wasn’t exactly surprised. She did a quick silent-communication expression thing back and forth with Overse, then she said evenly, “I see. What do you want?”

I want my crew back .

Arada’s brows lifted, like she was relieved it wasn’t something worse. “What happened to them?”

The hostiles stole them, forced me to cooperate by threatening their welfare, infected my engines with interdicted alien remnant technology, installed adversarial software, and then deleted me .

I was still mad, right? But there were a lot of keywords there that invoked involuntary responses.

Thiago kept his expression neutral. “But how are you talking to us if—”

I saved a backup copy and hid it where only a trusted friend could find it .

I was looking at the wall, watching everyone and the display with Amena’s drones. Trusted friend? “Oh, fuck you.”

That still counts as speaking .

Arada and Overse looked at each other again. Overse widened her eyes and did a slight shoulder movement. Arada’s mouth set in a grim line, then she took a breath and asked, “Is SecUnit right, did you plan to attack our facility?”

It was not my plan .

Overse’s eyes had narrowed. She said, “But it was your idea.”

I said, “Don’t humor it.”

Arada’s tone was still even. “It wasn’t your plan, but you made it happen. You sent those people after us—after SecUnit.”

ART said, I did .

Of course it did.

“You knew where we were?” Ratthi frowned. “How?”

When I arrived through the Preservation wormhole, I sent messages inquiring after humans who I knew were associated with SecUnit. The Free Preservation Institute of Discovery and Engineering was most helpful when I asked for a possible meeting with Survey Specialist Arada. They sent me complete information on your itinerary and team .

Of course they had. I had heard ART pretend to be human on the comm before, on the RaviHyral transit station.

Ratthi groaned and covered his face. Arada and Overse stared at each other incredulously. Overse muttered, “We have got to talk to them about that.”

Arada rubbed a spot over her left eye like it hurt. She said to ART, “So you knew when we’d be coming back to Preservation space.”

You were early .

Arada was sticking to the point. “But why did you want to kidnap SecUnit?”

I needed someone who could kill the hostiles .

Everyone looked at me. I dug my fingers into the edge of the med platform. The skin on them itched, too, where the surgical suite had fixed the burned parts. “You told them I was a weapon, that they could use.”

I built a trap, they entered it of their own accord .

“But who are they?” Amena said, frustrated. “Where did they come from? Are they supposed to look like that? Did something happen to them to make them this way?”

ART said, I don’t know the answers to any of those questions .

Thiago looked down at Target Six. “There’s a possibility their appearance is the result of genetic or cosmetic manipulation. But…”

Ratthi finished, “But we have an alien remnant on the drive, that does suggest possible contamination…”

That’s why humans and augmented humans are so cautious around alien remnants that even corporations mostly try to be careful. Strange synthetics are usually harmless, emphasis on the “usually.” But organic elements can be really dangerous, where “really” means everyone dies horribly and nobody can ever go to the planet again.

Thiago’s mouth tightened. “If any of these people had been left alive, perhaps we could have asked them.”

I thought that was a shot at me, but ART apparently didn’t take it well. It said, If you’ll put that one on the medical platform, I can cut it open and see .

I was unimpressed, having heard ART’s “villain of a long-running mythic adventure serial” voice before, but all the humans got quiet. Amena shifted uncertainly and looked at me. Then Ratthi whispered, “Was that a subtle threat?”

I said, “No. It wasn’t subtle.”

Amena hugged herself, then said, “How did the gray people steal your crew?”

ART said, There was a catastrophic event when my crew and I first entered this system. My memory archive was disrupted and I’m still attempting to reconstruct it .