Марта Уэллс: Rogue Protocol

It said, But why not? I tell Don Abene everything. She’s my friend.

When I’d called it a pet robot, I honestly thought I was exaggerating. This was going to be even more annoying than I had anticipated, and I had anticipated a pretty high level of annoyance, maybe as high as 85 percent. Now I was looking at 90 percent, possibly 95 percent.

I managed to keep my reaction out of the feed. It wasn’t easy. I said, This has to be a secret, to keep Don Abene and the others safe. We can’t risk anyone finding out about it.

Okay, it said. I wasn’t sure if it was serious. It couldn’t be this easy. Maybe it was just going along until it had a chance to report me? But it said, Promise me Don Abene and all my friends will be safe.

I had the horrible feeling it was serious. I hadn’t expected a bot on ART’s level, but holy shit. Had the humans actually coded it to be childlike, or petlike, I guess? Or had its code developed that way on its own, responding to the way they treated it?

I hesitated, because while I would rather not see a group of humans killed (again), I wasn’t their SecUnit, or even their pretend augmented human security consultant. It’s hard to keep humans safe when you can’t let them see you. But it was waiting, and I wanted it to trust me, and I said, I promise.

Okay. What’s your name?

This caught me off guard. Bots don’t have names, SecUnits don’t have names. (I’d given myself a name, but it was private.) I used the name I’d given Ayres and the others, my poor dumb humans who had sold themselves to a company and by now probably understood just how bad a deal it was. Rin. Security Consultant Rin.

That’s not your real name. I could tell through the feed it was genuinely confused. It doesn’t sound like you.

Obviously Miki was getting more through the feed than I had assumed. That was all I needed. I had nothing prepared for this, and there sure as hell wasn’t anything in my buffer that was remotely helpful. I defaulted to honesty (I know, I was surprised, too) and said, Rin is what I want to be called. I don’t tell anyone my real name.

Okay. I understand, Rin. I won’t tell anyone that you’re here. I will be your friend and help Don Abene and our team.

Right. (I almost said, Okay. ) I couldn’t tell if that was a default answer or Miki was making me a solemn promise. Whatever, either it told the humans about me or it didn’t, and if I was going to do this I had to assume it wouldn’t. Can you give me system access to your shuttle? I want to make sure it’s safe.

Okay. And the data came through the feed.

What they were calling a shuttle was actually a local space exploration/transit vehicle, with two levels of crew habitation areas plus a cargo hold that had been converted to bio lab space. It didn’t have the drive to get through the wormhole, but it could go anyplace else around the system. No bot pilot, just the kind of minimal automatic pilot system that I was more used to seeing on atmospheric craft. Not that helpful if everyone capable of operating the ship’s higher-level functions were injured or incapacitated. On the other hand, you couldn’t deliver killware if there was no bot pilot to kill.

The shuttle had no independent SecSystem, either. I had seen on some media from outside the Corporation Rim that internal security was less of an issue there, that the focus was on potential external threats more than it was on policing your own people. I hadn’t thought it was true, but it did mesh in with the lack of interest in monitoring the station staff in their private quarters. Also with the way my PreservationAux clients had behaved. It made me wonder what Preservation might be like, but I squelched that thought. It was probably a boring place where everybody would stare at SecUnits, just like everywhere else.

Miki was giving me full access, so I took a little tour via its memory of previous trips. It was a nice shuttle, way nicer than anything the company would have provided; even the upholstery was clean and repaired. It was another sign of GI’s commitment to their reclamation project; it would have come here in a big transport’s belly cargo module, or in tow via a dedicated supply hauler like Ship.

I would need to ride Miki’s internal feed the way ART had ridden mine, though unlike ART I couldn’t do it over the distance between a station and a planet. The good part was that there were plenty of places to hide onboard the shuttle, even without packing myself in a cabinet. The bad part was that I would have no systems to see through, no eyes and ears except for Miki.

Yeah, I was thrilled.

Miki, I’m going to need to use your systems to monitor your— I almost said clients . It took almost a full second for me to be able to use the word Miki wanted to hear. —your friends. I need you to be my camera, and let me use your scanning ability. Sometimes I might need to speak through you, pretending to be you, to warn Don Abene and your friends about things I believe are dangerous. Can you let me do that?

Obviously, with the access Miki had given me already, I could have taken Miki over, done what I wanted, and excised it all from its memory. I had done it to Ship, but Ship was a low-level bot and didn’t have enough self-awareness to give a shit. Doing that to Miki… But I didn’t know what I would do if it said no.

Miki said, Okay, I will do that, Consultant Rin. That sounds scary, but I want to make sure no one hurts my friends.

This felt way too easy. I almost suspected a trap. Or… Miki, have you been directed to reply to every query with a yes?

No, Consultant Rin, Miki said, and added, amusement sigil 376 = smile.

Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it.

I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.

I USED THE STATION’Shauler-bot delivery passage to get through the derelict mall and back down to the embarkation zone. The shuttle was docked in the Port Authority area and fortunately there was a working security camera. I was able to get a view of the area and see when it was clear. From Miki’s feed I knew that two crew members were up on the control deck running a pre-flight check and the others were still in their station lab space doing their last check list.

I froze the camera’s feed just long enough to sprint across the shadowy embarkation zone and reach the lock. I submitted the entry code Miki had supplied. The lock cycled open, letting out a breath of recycled air that my scan said was much cleaner than what was on the station. It sure smelled better. I stepped inside, closed the lock, and deleted my entry from the log.

I was listening in on Miki’s feed connection with the human assessment team. I heard Kader, one of the two augmented human pilots up on the shuttle’s flight deck, say, Hirune, is that you?

Hirune replied, What? I’m still in the PA. We’re about to come down.

Oddness, I thought I heard the hatch open.

An entry’s not in the log, the other pilot, Vibol, added. I think your ears are confused.

Now I have to check it out to prove you wrong, Kader told her.

I was already down the passage to the work space, past the bio labs to the supply storage. There was a slot for an onboard hauler bot, but since the cargo space had been converted to labs, the bot had been offloaded. It was more roomy than the supply locker on Ship, and at least I could sit on the deck and lean against the wall, even if I couldn’t stretch my legs out. I didn’t actually need to stretch, but it was nice. It was also completely dark, but with a lively feed in my head, that wasn’t a problem.