Марта Уэллс: Fugitive Telemetry

The bot could have engaged a privacy shield but Mensah and Indah just stepped behind a large plant biome with giant paddle-shaped leaves that was screening the entrance to a food service place. (A feed marker in multiple languages and a colorful sign in Preservation Standard Nomenclature indicated it was called “Starchy Foods!!!” and noted that it was closed for its cycle rest period.)

It was relatively private, but I had my drones scan for any attempt to focus a listening device on us. Indah faced me and asked, “You have experience at this?”

Watching her via the drones, I kept my gaze on the Starchy Foods!!! sign, which had little dancing figures around it which I guess were supposed to be starchy foods. I said, “With dead humans? Sure.”

Mensah’s pointed eyebrow was now aimed at me. She tapped my feed for a private connection. I secured it and she sent, Do you think this is GrayCris?

Ugh, maybe? Right now all we had was an anomalous death with no indication of a connection to Mensah or any of my other humans that GrayCris might want to target. I told her, I don’t have enough data to make an assessment yet .

Understood . Then she added, I want you to work on this with Station Security. Even if it isn’t anything to do with our corporate problems, it’s a good opportunity for you .

Double ugh. I told her, They don’t want me . (Hey, I don’t want me, either, but I’m stuck with me.) And it would be easier for me to investigate on my own, particularly if my investigations led to me having to do things like disposing of abruptly dead GrayCris agents.

(No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall, for fuck’s sake.)

She said, If you want to stay in the Preservation Alliance, improving your relationship with Station Security will help immeasurably. This might lead to them hiring you as a consultant .

Mensah didn’t usually take the “this is for your own good, you idiot” tone, so the fact that she had meant she really thought it was a good idea. Also, I’m not an idiot, I knew she was right. But it wasn’t like I could leave Preservation yet, anyway, even if I didn’t like it and it didn’t like me. My threat assessments were still rising steadily. (I had an input on my threat assessment module continuously now so I could get real-time updates instead of just checking it periodically, and yes, it was a constant source of irritation because it reacted to everything. No, it was not helping my anxiety. But it was necessary.)

Station Security had been briefed on the danger from GrayCris but I trusted them as much as they trusted me. (Surprise, it was not very much.) And they had no experience with corporate attacks. Their job was mostly accident first response and maintaining safety equipment and scanning for illegal hazardous cargo, not repelling assassination attempts. They didn’t even patrol outside the port.

Indah watched us with an acerbic expression that indicated she knew we were talking privately on the feed. Mensah was still eyebrow-glaring at me so I answered Indah’s question. “Yes, I’ve had experience with investigating suspicious fatalities in controlled circumstances.”

Indah’s gaze wasn’t exactly skeptical. “What controlled circumstances?”

I said, “Isolated work installations.”

Her expression turned even more grim. “Corporate slave labor camps.”

I said, “Yes, but if we call them that, Marketing and Branding gets angry and we get a power surge through our brains that fries little pieces of our neural tissue.”

Indah winced. Mensah folded her arms, her expression a combo of “are you satisfied now” and “get on with it.” Indah narrowed her eyes at me. “I know Dr. Mensah wants you involved in this investigation. Are you willing to work with us?”

Okay, I’m not lying about having investigated this kind of thing in the past. It turns out the big danger to humans on any isolated corporate project, whether it’s mining or—okay, it’s mostly mining. Whatever—the big danger to humans is not raiders, angry human-eating fauna, or rogue SecUnits; it’s other humans. They kill each other either accidentally or on purpose and you have to clear that up fast because it jeopardizes the bond and determines whether the company has to pay out damages on it or not. SecUnits are ordered by the HubSystem to gather video and audio evidence because nobody trusts the human supervisors, including the other human supervisors.

I had dealt with some instances of humans killing each other surreptitiously instead of, for example, in front of the entire mess hall during food service, but most had been pre–memory wipe(s) so the details were fuzzy. It was better to prevent them from murdering each other in the first place, by keeping watch for aggressive or destructive behaviors, things like trying to sabotage another human’s life support pack or poison their water supply. Then you put in a notice to MedSystem to call them in for an evaluation, or reported to the supervisor who moved them to a different section so it would be someone else’s problem if MedSystem couldn’t convince them to stop. But whatever, the idea was to keep it from getting that far.

(And I know it sounds like they were all just running around trying to murder each other on these contracts but really, it was more like it had been with the poor humans on the transport I used to get to HaveRatton, who thought I was an augmented human security consultant. They had been complaining and fighting out of frustration and fear about going into contract labor. Actually being in contract labor just made it that much worse.)

I had archives of everything that had happened since I hacked my governor module, but I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was possibly anywhere from 60 to 70 percent inaccurate shit.

But Mensah was right, butting in on the investigation was the best way to find out if the anomalous death was a sign of GrayCris-related activity on station. I said, “Yes. Will you increase security around Dr. Mensah to the specifications I stipulated?” Yeah, that had been an ongoing argument.

Indah’s jaw tightened again (she was going to hurt herself) but she said, “Of course, with a murderer running loose on the station, I am upping every security level, including those around the council and Dr. Mensah. I actually don’t need you to tell me my job.”

Oh good, maybe the security level would go from barely adequate to mostly adequate. I didn’t make an expression because I knew Indah would be more annoyed by me not reacting than by me reacting.

Mensah cleared her throat in a “you are trying to annoy each other but are mostly annoying me” way. She said, “I assume an employment contract will be forthcoming.”

Indah’s voice was dry. “It will, no need to send the terrifying solicitor after me.”

She meant Pin-Lee because she said “terrifying.” Being the top Preservation expert in dealing with contract law in the Corporation Rim apparently made Pin-Lee like the CombatUnit version of a lawyer.

The employment contracts for Preservation citizens were pretty simple, because their planetary legal code had so many in-built protections already. (For example, humans and augmented humans can’t sign away their rights to their labor or bodily autonomy in perpetuity; that’s like, straight-up illegal.)

But I wasn’t a citizen and also technically not actually a person, which made it more difficult. But Pin-Lee’s contract would make sure that they couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do and I would get a hard currency card out of it. (When we had first discussed the idea of me getting jobs as a way to encourage the Preservation Council to grant me permanent refugee status, I didn’t know very much about the kind of contract in which I was actually an active participant. (My previous contracts were rental contracts with the company, where I was just a piece of equipment.) Pin-Lee had promised, “Don’t worry, I’ll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like.”)