Network Effect

Oh, please. I could have played the audio recording I had of what he had said to Dr. Mensah about me, but that was a little incriminating with the whole listening to private conversations in secured spaces and personal dwellings thing. I said, “So you didn’t have serious reservations?”

There was that little flash of surprise some humans have when I say something that doesn’t sound like what their idea of a SecUnit should say. He said, slowly, “I did.” It had been too long for a human to remember what he had said verbatim and he didn’t know I was quoting him. Still, his eyes narrowed a little. “And I know you’ve saved our lives.” He hesitated.

There was an unvoiced “but” on the end of that sentence. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on this, so I said, “But you don’t like the way I did it.”

His gaze went hard and he said, “I don’t. And I don’t like the fact that Amena saw you do it. But that’s not the problem.”

On our private connection, ART said, Don’t ask the question unless you already know the answer.

Right, so I didn’t listen to ART. I said, “What problem?”

ART did the feed equivalent of rolling its eyes and started another episode of World Hoppers.

Thiago said, “You have leverage over Ayda.”

That one got me. Fortunately ART was keeping track of the processes so I didn’t screw up the data analysis. It also provided a definition of the word leverage. I know what it means, I told ART privately. And I did, but not the way Thiago meant. I think. I said, “I don’t tell Dr. Mensah what to do.”

Thiago’s jaw went tight. “I’m sure you didn’t. But she’s afraid to carry out her duties as council leader. She won’t apply to continue her term. That’s because of you. You’ve made her afraid of shadows. She never needed ‘security’ before you came to Preservation. Now she thinks she can’t do her job without it.”

There were so many things wrong and unfair and yet true about that I started dropping inputs. ART picked them up and transferred them to our shared workspace. I said, “I didn’t come to Preservation. I was brought there in an inactive state after incurring a catastrophic failure while saving Dr. Mensah’s life.”

“I know that.” Thiago waved a hand in frustration. “I’m saying—”

No, I get to talk now. “There was a security threat. After Dr. Mensah returned to Preservation Station, three GrayCris operatives were sent to kill her. They failed but there was a sixty-five percent chance that more operatives would be sent. That percentage started to fall after the bond company destroyed Palisade Security and all of GrayCris’ operational facilities.”

It was GrayCris’ own fault for ordering Palisade Security to attack an expensive company gunship and Palisade’s fault for escalating past standard operational parameters, but try telling GrayCris that. And it wasn’t like the company was afraid of GrayCris, but they had to teach them a lesson. (The lesson was: if you’re going to fuck with something bigger and meaner than you, use a quick targeted attack and then run away really fast. (This is the way I always try to operate, too.) GrayCris’ attack had not been quick and targeted and they had failed to run away effectively.)

Thiago had his mouth open but I was still talking. “There was, and is, still a potential danger from individual dependents or employees of GrayCris but threat assessment determined that the percentage is low enough for Dr. Mensah to resume normal activities with the assistance of Preservation Station Security.”

It took Thiago fourteen seconds to digest that. “There was an attack? Why didn’t she tell us— It would have been in the newsstream—”

I pulled the video from my archive and quickly edited in the views from the Station Security helmet cams and the one lousy security cam in the lobby of the council offices on station. ART studied it curiously. I sent it to autoplay in Thiago’s feed.

His gaze went distant, then startled, then increasingly appalled.

ART watched the full video, running it back and forth. I had sent Thiago the part where I was on top of the council table trying to snap Hostile One’s neck while Hostile Two was on my back stabbing the absolute crap out of me. Six Station Security officers were draped around the room in various states of consciousness, with Officer Tifany, the only one still functional, hanging on to the stabbing arm of Hostile Two and punching him repeatedly in the head. ART commented, What is that human stabbing you with?

Part of a broken chair.

“They’re SecUnits?” Thiago asked, horrified.