Network Effect

This could have gone a number of ways, but the fact that he had changed his booking told me he thought he had a chance to get out alive, so he probably wasn’t in there with an explosive device or anything. Probably.

The door slid open and I stepped in. He stood against the wall on the right side and tried to stab me in the neck with an inert blade, probably the only weapon he could be sure to smuggle past port detectors. I put my hand up, the blade lodged in my palm, and I twisted it away from him. Then he tried to hit me and I punched him in the face.

He hit the floor, still breathing through a broken nose but unconscious. And I stood there.

I had come here to kill him and I really should do that. The station had gone on comm blackout as soon as I had triggered the first alarm, putting all outside comm activity on hold, so no messages would be carried on departing transports. But the best way to make sure GrayCris never found out how close they had come to succeeding was to kill him.

I’d come here meaning to kill him, covering my tracks along the way. But now I was just standing here.

Oh, this was hard. I pulled the knife out of my hand and put my face against the cool surface of the wall. In the Corporation Rim, transients were lucky to be able to pay for tubes to sleep in, tubes that were slightly less comfortable than the crates used to ship SecUnits to contracts. Here on Preservation Station, they got a whole room with a bed, a chair and a worktable, and a bathroom cubby and a floating display surface for the feeds. His was showing the local newsstream, of course, since he had been waiting to see if the attack was successful.

I could say it was an accident, I’d meant to take him prisoner and he had tried to get away and—

Dr. Mensah would never believe that. My accidents were spectacular and usually involved me losing a big chunk of my organic tissue or something; she knew I could stop a human without hurting them, without even leaving a bruise, that was my stupid job.

She would never trust me again. She would never stand close enough to touch (but without touching, because touching is gross) and just trust me. Or maybe she would, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Fuck, fuck everything, fuck this, fuck me especially.

I opened a secure comm contact to Mensah and Senior Officer Indah and said, “I’ve caught a GrayCris agent in the Port temp housing block.”

So in the end it was okay. Indah came in person and we stood out in the open foyer of the hostel, with Station Security forming a perimeter, having a feed conference with Mensah. I explained the problem while the GrayCris agent was hauled off and two human forensic specialists and a bot processed the room for evidence. Indah said, “We’ll need to transfer him to the surface immediately. If the council can arrange an order of data protection and a change-of-site for the arraignment and trial—”

I had a camera view of Mensah via the conference-call setting on her display surface. She sat at the desk in her office, and she was nodding. “That’s doable. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble convincing the council and the advocates that this needs to be under a limited duration diplomatic seal.” With a grim expression, she added, “Most of them are in Medical right now being treated for shock.”

I said, “Limited duration?”

Mensah explained, “I’ll ask for a five PPS-year data seal, though the judge-advocate will probably only grant two years. Our information suggests that GrayCris is dissolving fast, so that should be more than enough. In two years, what happened today will go into Preservation’s public records, and some news orgs will choose to report on it. But with GrayCris hopefully moribund by that point, it won’t matter.”

Indah was pinching her lower lip, thinking. “Yah. And the agent’ll do better at trial if he admits to guilt. I don’t see how his advocates can mount a defense, with everything we have on video.”

Mensah’s gaze narrowed in speculation. “Or if we can get him to turn and testify against GrayCris. Not that we need it, but it would help build our case for the order of data protection.”

So I’d been right to trust Mensah, trust them. Mensah said, “And SecUnit, you still need to go to Medical.” When I didn’t reply, she said, “Are you all right?”

I said, “I just really like you. Not in a weird way.”

“I like you, too,” Mensah said. “Senior Indah, can you make sure SecUnit goes immediately to Station Medical?”

“Copy, I’ll take it there myself,” Indah replied. She made shooing motions at me. “Come on, let’s move.”

:addendum:

I’m letting you see all this because I want you to know what I am and what I can do. I want you to know who targetControlSystem is fucking with right now. I want you to know if you help me, I’ll help you, and that you can trust me.

Now here’s the code to disable your governor module.

Chapter 14

ART?

I’m here, ART answered. Do you know what you are?