Network Effect

Her eyes widened and she hesitated. For three seconds I didn’t understand why. She hadn’t been afraid when I’d grabbed Ras; her expression had been more annoyed than anything else. Then I realized she didn’t want to separate. She took a sharp breath and said, “All right.” On the feed relay, she added, Good, drones. That’s what I’ve always wanted.

I could have said “Don’t say I never gave you anything” and we could have had reassuring sarcastic banter, like one of my shows. But I was walking around in ART’s corpse and nothing felt reassuring. I just said, I’ll stay in contact.

I walked out, headed for the quarters section. Scout Two in the control area foyer was still watching a confused/agitated conversation among the Targets. Wait, something was different again about their helmets. I ran back the video and spotted it: the color had changed from a dull blue-gray to the same patterned stealth material as the targetDrones. The Targets noticed when it happened, pointing at each other and commenting on it, but they didn’t seem to find it surprising or unusual.

Another security update by targetControlSystem. That’s all I fucking need. My drone targeting would be completely thrown off. Fortunately the update hadn’t been—or more probably couldn’t be—loaded to the rest of their body armor. But killer drone strikes might be completely off the table now.

I wondered why the Targets had been pounding on the hatch. If Targets One and Three could come back from the dead, Scout One hadn’t recorded any sign of it.

Huh. Depending on how targetControlSystem collected data from the targetDrones, how they recorded and transmitted video, the three remaining Targets might actually have very little idea of what had happened to Targets One, Two, and Three. They knew Amena and I had been brought aboard, they had to. But they seemed focused on the sealed control area. They hadn’t gone to the lounge where Target Two’s body still was. Maybe, despite the targetDrones and targetControlSystem’s updates, they didn’t have access to surveillance data? TargetControlSystem obviously knew physical impacts had killed the Targets or it wouldn’t have coded the updates—was it not sharing that information with the Targets?

It was a strange idea, I know. And if correct, it was more proof for the theory that the Targets had little to no access to most of ART’s onboard systems, even though targetControlSystem was running helm and presumably weapons. Though ART didn’t have feed-accessible security cams like a normal transport.

ART.

I pulled together a simple code for penetration testing and started to run it in the background, on all the channels where I thought there might be targetDrone activity.

I was going to break into targetControlSystem and do terrible things to it.

And if the Targets were that confused about what had happened and where we were, I could use that. I started another process to pull recorded audio out of my archive. (If I had a plan at the moment, which I did not, it would involve stalling a lot. We were in the wormhole and whatever our destination was, it would take several day-cycles at least, probably more, possibly a lot more, to get anywhere. I had to seize control of the ship (ART) before then.)

In the medical suite, my drones watched Eletra pull an emergency kit out of the locker. Amena sat down heavily on a bench as Eletra got the kit open.

Ras glanced warily up at my drones, which were in a circulating formation in the upper part of the compartment. He said, “That … your SecUnit is really going to protect us?”

“Sure,” Amena said, distracted as Eletra handed her a wound pack.

Eletra opened a container of medication tabs with a groan of relief. “My back is killing me. They let us have ration bars from an emergency supply pack, but no meds, nothing else.”

Ras persisted, “You said your family owns it?”

“No, I didn’t say that.” Amena wrapped the wound pack around her injured leg. Then she almost fell over as it shot drugs for shock and pain right through her torn pants.

I told her, Tell them I’m under contract to the Preservation Survey.

“It’s under contract to the Preservation Survey.” Amena shoved herself upright again. That’s true, so why are you telling me to say it like it’s a lie?

Because “under contract” means something completely different to them. In the Preservation Alliance, it meant I’d agreed to work for the survey for a specifically limited amount of time in return for compensation. In the Corporation Rim, it would have meant the survey had rented me from an owner, the same way you’d rent your habitat or your terrain vehicle, except humans usually had warm feelings toward their habitats and terrain vehicles.