Artificial Condition

Chapter Nine

BY THE TIME WE were on approach to the transit ring, ART had cleared us with the ring’s Port Authority. Shuttles weren’t supposed to be able to dock with transports without advance notice, but ART took care of approach permission, and forged its captain’s feed signature to pay the fine for not giving prior notice of the scheduled trip. They didn’t suspect anything; nobody knew transports could have bots sophisticated enough to fake being human in the feed. I sure hadn’t known it.

The locks weren’t compatible but ART solved that problem by pulling the shuttle into an empty module meant for lab space. It sat us down, filled the module with atmosphere, and then cycled our lock. I got upright and carried Tapan out and up the access into the main section. ComfortUnit followed me.

The MedSystem was ready by the time I walked in and laid Tapan down on the platform. Drones whizzed around me and I picked up the MedSystem feed’s instruction to remove her shoes and clothes. As the cradle closed around her, I sank down beside the platform.

She was out now, the MedSystem keeping her under while it finished its assessment and started to work. Two medical drones flew around me, one diving in toward my shoulder and the other poking at the wound in my thigh. I ignored them.

A larger drone flew in, carrying Tapan’s bag, her blood-stained jacket, and my knapsack. ART flashed me a view of the other drones still inside the shuttle. Four of the humans in the shuttle were still alive, though unconscious. ART had sent drones to scrub and sterilize away my fluids and Tapan’s blood from the shuttle’s interior. ART had already wiped the bot pilot’s memory and deleted any security data. It was also chatting casually with transit ring launch authority with a forged feed signature from one of the dead humans.

I watched as the drones finished and retreated, then ART sealed the shuttle again and launched it with a filed flight plan back to RaviHyral. The onboard bot pilot would land it, full of terribly injured humans, and no one would know they hadn’t done it to each other until they were all conscious and told their stories. Though maybe some wouldn’t want to tell the story of how they had helped kidnap another human. Whatever happened, it would give us all time to get out of here.

I asked ART, How did you know to do that? though I already knew the answer.

It knew I knew, but it said, Episode 179 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

ComfortUnit knelt beside me. “Can I help?”

“No.” The medical drones were clamped onto me now, digging for the projectiles, and I was leaking onto ART’s pristine MedSystem floor. The anesthetic was making me numb. “How did you know I was one of the Ganaka Pit units?”

It said, “I saw you get off the tube access in that section. There’s nothing else down there. It’s not in the historical database anymore, but the humans still tell each other horror stories about it. If you were really a rogue and not under orders to go there, then there was an eighty-six percent chance that you went there because you were one of the units involved.”

I believed it. “Drop your wall.”

It did, and I rode the feed into its brain. I could feel ART with me, alert for traps. But I found the governor module, rendered it null, and slid back out into my own body again.

The ComfortUnit had fallen back, sitting down on the deck with a thump, staring at me.

I said, “Go away. Don’t let me see you again. Don’t hurt anyone on this transit ring or I’ll find you.”

It shoved upright, unsteady. More of ART’s drones flicked through the air, making sure it didn’t try to damage anything, herding it toward the door. It followed the drones out into the corridor. Through ART’s feed I watched it go through to the main hatch, where the lock cycled and it went out into the transit ring.

ART watched it walk away through its lock camera. It said, I thought you might destroy it.

Too tired and numb to talk, I signaled a negative through the feed. It hadn’t had a choice. And I hadn’t broken its governor module for its sake. I did it for the four ComfortUnits at Ganaka Pit who had no orders and no directive to act and had voluntarily walked into the meat grinder to try to save me and everyone else left alive in the installation.

ART said, Now get on the other platform. The shuttle will land soon and there is a great deal of evidence to destroy.

When Tapan woke, I was sitting on the MedSystem’s platform holding her hand. The MedSystem had taken care of my wounds, and I’d cleaned off all the blood. The projectiles that had hit me and the energy bursts from my own weapons had left holes in my clothes, and ART had produced a new set for me from its recycler. It was basically ART’s crew uniform without the logos: pants with lots of sealable pockets, a long-sleeved shirt with a collar just high enough to cover my data port, and a soft hooded jacket, all of it either dark blue or black. I fed my bloody clothes into the recycler so the waste-reclamation levels would be neutral and ART wouldn’t have to forge its log.

Tapan blinked up at me, confused. “Um,” she said, and squeezed my hand. The drugs made her expression bleary. “What happened?”

I said, “They tried to kill us again. We had to leave. We’re back on the transit ring, on my friend’s ship.”

Her eyes widened as she remembered. She winced, and muttered, “Fuckers.”

“Your friend was telling the truth, he gave me your files.” I held up the memory clip, and showed her I was putting it into the interface pocket in her bag. I’d checked it already for malware or tracers. “This ship has to leave soon. I need you to call Rami and Maro to come meet us outside the embarkation zone.”

“Okay.” She fumbled at her ear, and I handed her the blue feed interface. One of ART’s drones had found it in Tlacey’s pocket. She took it, started to put it back in her ear, and hesitated. “They’re going to be so mad.”

“Yeah, they are.” I thought they would be so glad to have her alive it wouldn’t occur to them to be angry.

She winced again. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Her brow crinkled. “I kind of think it was.”

“It was my fault.”

“It’s both our faults then, but we won’t tell anybody,” Tapan decided, and wiggled the interface into her ear.

I did a quick walk-through of the areas of the ship I had used, to make sure nothing was out of place. ART’s drones had already come through, taking Tapan’s bloody clothes to be cleaned and sterilizing surfaces so any attempt to collect trace evidence would fail. Not that ART intended to be here when the investigation started. We were all leaving immediately, but ART believed in contingency plans. I started to remove the comm interface ART had given me. “You need to clean this, too.”

No, ART said. Keep it. Maybe we’ll come within range of each other again.

The MedSystem had already sterilized itself and deleted the records of my configuration change and the emergency trauma treatments to both me and Tapan. I was waiting for her when she came out of the bath facility. Drones followed her in to clean away any traces of her presence, and she said, “I’m ready.” She had stuffed her old clothes into her pack and was wearing fresh ones. She still looked a little bleary.

We walked out together and the lock sealed behind us. I had the cameras in the embarkation zone and ART was already doctoring the security recordings on its lock to erase our presence.

We met Rami, Maro, and the rest of their group at a food stand outside the embarkation zone. Rami had messaged me that they had already bought passage on a passenger transport leaving within the hour. They greeted Tapan enthusiastically, with tears and admonishments to each other not to squeeze her too hard.

I’d told them already not to talk about it in public. Rami turned and handed me a hard currency card. “Your friend Art said this was a good way to pay you.”

“Right.” I took it and tucked it in a sealable pocket.

They were all watching me now and it was a little nerve-racking. Rami said, “So, you’re going?”

I had my eye on a cargo transport heading the right direction. With luck I should be leaving within minutes of their departure. “Yes, I should hurry.”

“Can we hug you?” Maro let go of Tapan and faced me.

“Uh.” I didn’t step back, but it must have been obvious the answer was no.

Maro nodded. “Okay. This is for you.” She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed.

I said, “I’ve got to go,” and walked away down the mall.

Fading, already disengaging from its lock, ART said in my feed, Be careful. Find your crew.

I tapped the feed in acknowledgment, because if I tried to say anything else I was going to sound stupid and emotional.

I didn’t know what I was going to do now, if I was going to go ahead with my plan or not. I had hoped finding out what had happened at Ganaka Pit would clear everything up, but maybe revelations like that only happened in the media.

Speaking of which, I needed to grab some more downloads before my next transport left. It was going to be a long trip.