Network Effect

“The code in your system,” Ratthi explained, tapping his own forehead like maybe I had also forgotten where my brain was. “The contaminated code. We can’t use the medical platform, until Perihelion gets that code out of you. But Overse and Thiago are getting a portable med unit that will be cut off from the feed. We’re going to take care of your physical injuries right here, then by that point, Perihelion should be able to deal with the contamination.”

Physical injuries. Oh right, I had been shot a lot and was still leaking. “What’s our situation?”

“No one’s shooting at us and we aren’t sending armed pathfinders at anyone,” Ratthi told me. “Everyone is back on the ship. And we have some Barish-Estranza personnel to send back to their transport, but we want to make certain they’re free of the remnant contamination first.”

Matteo asked Ratthi something technical about the biohazard testing and I stopped listening, mostly. From what they were saying, it looked like I/2.0 had been right about how the contamination was spread. So, it’s nice to be right, when you’re leaking and parts of you have fallen off.

Arada turned to Iris. “I think I should mention … Perihelion told us why you were actually here, in this system.”

ART’s humans were taken aback. Iris exchanged a low-key version of an “oh shit” look with Kaede. Matteo said hopefully, “Um, you mean the deep space mapping?”

Were we going to have a problem? I really hope we wouldn’t have a problem. And I wish Arada hadn’t picked a moment when I was literally falling apart to bring this up.

Arada said, “We’re not corporates. Everything Perihelion told us was in confidence and we won’t betray it, or you.” She made a little gesture. “I know contracts are important in the Corporation Rim, so we could sign one saying that we won’t talk about anything we were told, or what happened here, if that will help.”

Ratthi looked doubtful. “Yes, but we’ll have to come up with some sort of explanation.”

Amena added, “Yeah, my second mom is going to want to know what happened and she’s not exactly easy to lie to.”

“Your second mom?” Kaede prompted.

“She’s the head of the— She was the head of the Preservation Alliance Council,” Amena explained. “Dr. Mensah. She was in the newsfeeds a lot in the CR—she was kidnapped by a corporate called GrayCris and rescued by a SecUnit on TranRollinHyfa, and there was a company armed ship that was attacked and another ship from a security corporate that got blown up.”

“Rescued by a…” Matteo trailed off and they all stared at me.

Which was not what I needed right now, cut off from the feed and ART’s cameras and my drones. I said, “ART, I thought you told them about me.”

ART said, I told them I had met a rogue SecUnit. I didn’t imply that you were every SecUnit ever mentioned in the newsfeeds.

I think I was every SecUnit mentioned in the newsfeeds during that time, but whatever. SecUnit 3 had stopped trying to pretend to be an appliance and was now watching in fascination.

“No, Peri didn’t…” Kaede exchanged a look with Iris again. “We heard a little about GrayCris going down but we weren’t really following the story…”

Matteo’s eyebrows tilted. “So the rumor that it was a rogue SecUnit on TranRollinHyfa—”

“Was true,” Ratthi finished. “I was one of the ‘unidentified conspirators’ who escaped and is to be held liable for ‘massive interference with commerce and property damage’ if I’m ever caught on that station again.” He shrugged. “So now we know things about each other.”

Iris thought it over, then lifted her hands. “Look, we can work all this out later. Can we agree for now that we’re all allies who keep each other’s confidences?”

“And we don’t like Barish-Estranza,” Matteo added.

“Agreed,” Arada said.

Thiago and Overse are here with the emergency medical kit. Great. I think I’m going to restart again.

I’m not going into detail because it was gross and involved a lot of leaking and removing projectiles and regenerating tissue the hard old-fashioned way with hand units and the emergency medical kit kept trying to spray everything with disinfectant.

At one point, Martyn, who was Seth’s marital partner and Iris’s second parent, got called in from Medical to consult. He was a bio expert, too, but was still in isolation getting decontaminated himself. “Hello,” he said, peering at us via a display surface ART had generated. “How many SecUnit friends does Peri have?”

Iris said, “No, Dad, this is the SecUnit Peri told us about, the one it was going to bomb the colony over.”