Network Effect

She frowned, uncertain and wary. “They didn’t make it off the corporate ship. A colonist helped us escape when they were transferring us to the space dock’s drop box. We couldn’t—” Her self-control was good but raw pain made her voice go thick. “She said it was too late for them. Then she was killed in the dock before I could find out what had happened—” She stopped, glaring. “If our transport sent you—from where? Where did you come from?”

A scan showed no anomalous power sources. I said, “They didn’t put an implant in you, did they? Show me the back of your neck.”

She was understandably pissed off. “I’m not going to turn around and show you my neck, strange person I just met on a hostile planet.”

Right, so, I could point out that I was the one with the weapons, but I didn’t want to make my first interaction with one of ART’s humans all about me threatening her when I had no intention of following through. It just seemed unproductive, basically. I said, “That’s what someone with an implant would say, strange person I just met on a hostile planet who I am trying to rescue.”

She was keeping her expression somewhere in the vicinity of angry tough, and doing a pretty good job of it, but I could see she knew it wasn’t an unreasonable request. “No, no implant. I know they did that to some of the explorer’s crew, but not to us.” She turned around, lifting her hair to show me.

“I’m going to touch your back briefly.” I stepped close enough to pull down the back of her T-shirt and make sure there was no wound. I stepped back. “Clear. Now in approximately five minutes I need you and the others to follow me out of here, turn to the left, and run down the first corridor. You’ll meet a human wearing one of Perihelion’s enviro suits. Follow him and do what he says.”

She turned back around, lowering her hair and eyeing me with startled speculation. “Are you a SecUnit?”

That’s never not an awkward question. And my first impulse was to lie, since she was an unknown human, except she was ART’s human, so what came out was, “What makes you think that.”

(I know, I know.)

She just looked more certain. “You’re Peri’s SecUnit.”

Oh, ART’s humans had a cute pet name for it. I saved that to permanent archive immediately. I said, “I am not Perihelion’s SecUnit.” Then I ruined it by adding, “Whatever it told you about me isn’t true.”

She lifted her brows. “But you are the SecUnit Perihelion told us about?”

So there’s ART, telling all these humans about me. “If I am, will you do what I say so I can get you out of here?”

She hesitated, undecided but wanting to believe. “I will if you show me your face.”

“It showed you images of me?” What the shit, ART?

“Obviously.” Her expression hardened. “If you’re really Peri’s friend, show me your face.”

Well, fine. I told the suit to retract the faceplate and fold its hood down. Her gaze sharpened and I had to look at the manufactured stone wall past her head. My face was basically the same since ART had helped me change my configuration, though I’d made my hair and eyebrows thicker. But the drone watching Iris’s face for me showed the recognition in her expression.

A little of the tension went out of her body. “Thank you.” Her face looked younger. She looked like she had been pretending to have hope and now she didn’t have to pretend anymore.

(Confession time: that moment, when the humans or augmented humans realize you’re really here to help them. I don’t hate that moment.)

Iris said, “Is Peri all right? Where is it? And how did you get here? Did you follow us to this system?”

“It’s fine. It was at the space dock but it left to chase the explorer. It—” I wasn’t going to tell her about the whole kidnapping thing. Unlike some giant asshole research transports, I’m not a snitch. “It’s a long story. Please get the others and tell them we’re about to leave.”

She took a sharp breath and went to get the others.

So now I had Seth, Kaede, Tarik, and Matteo in addition to Iris. (They were smart, and had kept the exclamations and arm waving to a minimum when Iris told them I was here.) I didn’t know yet how we could get the other three off the explorer, or if they were still alive, but at least I could get these humans back to ART. (Five was better than none, but I knew how I’d feel if I had to give up three humans. It would suck.)

“How do we know you’re really Peri’s friend?” Seth said. He was the one I’d gotten the brief image of on DockSecSystem, tall, very dark skin, with less hair than most SecUnits. From ART’s records, he was Iris’s parent. “The colonists uploaded some sort of system when Peri was offline, they could have access to all Peri’s archives, they could know what you look like.”