Exit Strategy

Pin-Lee led the other two on a convoluted route through the shopping block, through various stores and plazas, and ended up in an open garden seating area at the foot of another cone-shaped hotel. It was a good effort, designed to take them through six different private security jurisdictions and private feed areas, a good way to lose a tail trying to follow you using drones or security cams. It didn’t lose me, of course, but it was a great way to lose normal (human) surveillance. And the seating area was surrounded by curtains of falling water, obscuring the view from the surrounding plazas and walkways.

I stopped outside the entrance, joining a small crowd of humans beside a store projecting more artsy product videos into the feed. On the hotel’s security cam I watched Pin-Lee and Gurathin have a short argument, which Ratthi tried to mediate, that ended with Gurathin and Ratthi taking a seat at a table and Pin-Lee walking away into the mercantile area next to the hotel’s lobby.

I know, I could have contacted them by now, either by establishing a secure connection on their feeds, or just walking up and saying hi. I just … wasn’t sure.

Okay, I was scared. Or nervous. Nervous-scared.

Were they my sort-of human friends? My clients? My ex-owners, though legally that was only Dr. Mensah. Were they going to see me and yell for help, alert security?

And if it was this hard with Ratthi and Pin-Lee (Gurathin had never liked me and it was mutual), what was it going to be like with Mensah, if I managed to get that far?

I didn’t know if I could trust them. I wanted to. But I want a lot of things—freedom, unlimited downloads, new episodes of Drama Sun Islands—most of which I wasn’t going to get.

I walked through the garden seating area, which was only 37 percent occupied, but Ratthi and Gurathin didn’t notice me. I scanned them as I went by, and picked up Gurathin’s augments but no energy signatures indicating weapons. Ratthi rubbed his eyes and sighed. Gurathin’s hard mouth was actually betraying some dismay.

I went through the open doorway into the mercantile area, which was light on the usual vending machines but had a lot of kiosks for various businesses, including passenger transport lines, station real estate, planetary real estate in this system and others, a lot of banks, and security companies. (Not Palisade, which catered only to corporate clients.) The area security was robust, but I couldn’t pick up any facial recognition scans. The feed was choked and privatized, any humans or augmented humans not registered with the hotel required to pay a fee to use it, and the security was all focused on theft-prevention. At the far end of the space was an access to a transit platform; it didn’t lead to the pipe, but to something called “transit bubbles.”

I found Pin-Lee standing at a kiosk for a local security company, her expression grim, but she hadn’t put her hand in the access field yet. I saw tension in her body language, particularly in the way she held her head. Whatever it was she had come here to do, she didn’t want to do it.

It hit me then, how all those cycles of watching Pin-Lee on our contract had made me trust her judgment. If she didn’t want to do it, she probably had a good reason. I had to talk to her, give her another option.

If it had been one of the others, I would have figured out a different approach. For Pin-Lee, I just said, “Hi.”

She barely glanced at me, her expression set with disinterest. Then she took another look, frowned, started to speak, then stopped herself. She still wasn’t sure. I said, “We met on Port FreeCommerce.” I couldn’t resist adding, “I was the one in the transport box.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She forced her tense shoulders to relax, and she didn’t make the mistake of looking around. She planted a smile on her face and said through gritted teeth, “What—How—”

“I came to find our friend,” I said. “Do you want to get in a transit bubble?” Local mass transport is usually easy to secure against potential surveillance and security screens. (Yes, it’s supposed to be the opposite. Yes, you should worry.)

She hesitated, then forced her smile wider. It looked fake and angry, but it was the thought that counted. “Sure.”

We crossed the room and walked up the access ramp to the station. A burst of feed advertising explained that the bubbles were a cup-shaped lift platform lined with padded benches, with a transparent bubble shield over the top so the humans couldn’t manage to fall out no matter how hard they tried. (The ad didn’t describe it that way.) The bubbles floated along a set path over the commercial segments and were much slower than the transit pipes, so they were mostly used for sightseeing. They also looked convenient for awkward conversations.