Artificial Condition

Chapter Four

I CAME BACK ONLINE to find I was at 26 percent capacity, but the percentage was climbing slowly. Bands of pain circled my knee and elbow joints, so intense I couldn’t process it. My human skin itched. And I was leaking. I hate that.

I didn’t have the capacity to access or play any of my media. All I could do was lie there waiting for my levels to adjust. Attempts to move just made it worse. I wished I had gone with Plan Sixteen to render the ART inoperable, the one with the best statistical chance of success without me taking catastrophic damage in retaliation. Plan Two to blow it up was looking pretty attractive at the moment, too. This had been a stupid thing to agree to.

It was like being in a cubicle after being shot to pieces, but without a cubicle’s ability to shut down higher functions until the repairs were complete. I had known going in that the MedSystem wouldn’t be able to adjust my pain level, but I hadn’t thought it would be this bad. I couldn’t adjust my own temperature, either, but I wasn’t cold, as the MedSystem was controlling the temperature of the room and the platform to keep me at a comfortable level. Cubicles didn’t do that and I had to admit it was nice.

Gradually my levels started to even out and I got back enough function to dial down my pain sensor and turn off the itching. I needed some pain to tell me what not to move until all the regrowth of my organic tissue was complete.

ART was hanging around out in my feed but mercifully hadn’t tried to talk to me yet. At 75 percent capacity, I tried to sit up.

MedSystem started to throw warnings and ART said, There is no reason to move now. During the process I ran a search of my onboard public information newsfeed bases during the time period in question, regarding unusual fatalities relating to mining. Do you want my conclusions based on the results?

I eased back down, feeling my organic parts cling to the warm metal of the platform. I was now leaking from a different spot. I told ART I knew how to fucking read search results.

I would defer to your expertise in shooting and killing things. You should defer to mine in data analysis.

I told it fine, whatever. I didn’t think there would be anything useful.

It sent its conclusions into the feed. Admittedly, it made sense that a large number of deaths under unusual circumstances would end up in some sort of public record available to multiple newsfeeds, the way the DeltFall incident had. The RaviHyral incident might have been classed as an accident, but a company bond was involved so there would have been a legal battle. Though if the data said it was a rogue SecUnit who had killed everyone, that didn’t give me any more information than I already had.

Records across several archived newsfeeds indicate the site of the incident was likely a small installation called Ganaka Pit. The information originates in a source from Kalidon, a political entity on the Corporation Rim, where the company funding Ganaka Pit was based. There were fifty-seven fatalities. The cause is listed as “equipment failure.”

SecUnits were categorized on inventory as equipment.

ART waited, and when I didn’t say anything, added, So your initial assumption was correct, the incident did occur. Investigation can now proceed.

I wanted to shut down, but it would interfere with the healing process.

ART asked, Do you wish to watch media?

I didn’t respond, but it started an episode of Sanctuary Moon anyway.

When I was finally able to climb off the platform, I fell on the deck, but by the end of that cycle I was almost back to normal. The first thing I did was wash off all the blood and other assorted fluids in the bathing facility attached to the MedSystem bay. Security ready rooms had facilities where I could clean off the blood and fluids after a fight or a repair, but I had never used a facility meant for humans. ART had good ones, with the recycled cleaning fluid that was so much like water it was hard to tell the difference without a chemical analysis. You could adjust the temperature to make it warmer, and it smelled good. I smelled like a clean human afterward, and that was just odd.

The fine hair that was coming up in patches in various places was strange but not as annoying as I had anticipated. It might be inconvenient the next time I had to put on a suit skin, but the humans with hair seemed to manage with a minimum of complaint, so I figured I would, too. The change in code had also made my eyebrows thicker and the hair on my head a few centimeters longer. I could feel it, and it was weird.

I went to ART’s rec space and used the treadmill and the other machines to test myself, making sure my weapons were still functioning correctly and my aim wasn’t off. (I didn’t test fire them, as ART let me know that it would set off the fire protection system if I did.)

I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time.

I told myself I still looked like a SecUnit without armor, hopelessly exposed, but the truth was I did look more human. And now I knew why I hadn’t wanted to do this.

It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.

We exited the wormhole on schedule. As soon as we were in range of the transit ring, ART stretched its reception and picked up the destination info packet for me, which included a more detailed map of RaviHyral. Rotating the map to look at it from every angle didn’t jog anything in the fragments of memory I had of that time. But it was interesting that Ganaka Pit wasn’t marked anywhere.

I could feel ART in my feed, looking over my figurative shoulder again. I checked the timestamp, and saw the map had been updated multiple times since the time period of my incident. “They took it off the map.”

Is this usual? ART asked. It dealt only with star maps, and removing something from one of those was kind of a big deal.

“I don’t know if it’s usual or not, but it makes sense, if the company or the clients wanted to conceal what happened.” If the company wanted to continue to sell contracts for SecUnits to other mining installations, concealing the fact, or at least obscuring the fact, that fatalities had occurred was important. Maybe instead of a legal battle, the company had paid out on the bonds quickly under the condition that the client minimize details about the incident in the public record. This hadn’t been a situation like GrayCris and DeltFall, where there were multiple parties involved and the company was all over the newsfeeds, trying to generate sympathy for itself.

ART pulled more historical info, searching the pit and service installation names that were listed. RaviHyral had originally been held by a number of companies with mining rights to different areas of the moon’s interior. But over the past two system-years, a company called Umro had bought out some of the claims, though many of the original companies were still operating as contractors. None of the names sounded familiar.

I’d have to figure out where Ganaka Pit had been before I could go there. I would have been transported there as freight and there weren’t any memories of the trip, partially erased or not.

I started to search through the rest of the info packet, looking for schedules. I would have to get a shuttle from the transit ring to the RaviHyral port. That would be tricky. Well, the whole thing would be tricky. From the information on the shipping schedule, only people with employment vouchers or passes from one of the mining installations or support services were allowed to board the shuttles. There was no tourism, nobody coming and going without official authorization from one of the companies or contractors on the moon. Since I wasn’t a person and I didn’t have an employment voucher, I would have to hack my way into one of the supply shuttles …

ART was still pulling data from the station feed. I have a suggestion, it told me, and displayed a set of personal advertisements. I had seen these in the feeds at Port FreeCommerce and the last transit ring, but hadn’t paid attention. ART highlighted one that was a job listing for a temporary position as security for a technologist group on limited contract.

“What?” I asked ART. I didn’t understand why it was showing me this.

If this group hired you, you would have an employment voucher for travel to the installation.

“Hire me.” I’ve had more contracts than I can remember (I mean that literally. A lot of them were before the memory purge) but none of them were voluntary. The company pulled me out of storage, showed me to the client, then packed me into the cargo hold. “Have you lost your mind?”

My crew hires consultants for every voyage. ART was impatient that I wasn’t complimenting it yet on its great idea. The procedure is simple.

“For humans and augmented humans, yes.” I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human. I know that’s what altering my configuration was supposed to be for, but I had imagined it as taking place from a distance, or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. Interacting meant talking, and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.

It will be simple, ART insisted. I’ll assist you.

Yes, the giant transport bot is going to help the construct SecUnit pretend to be human. This will go well.

Once ART was docked and the transit ring’s bot-piloted tugs were removing the cargo modules, it cycled the lock for me and I slipped through into the embarkation zone. It had given me access to its comm so it could ride my feed through the transit ring. It claimed it could help me and while I was skeptical of that, it could at least keep me company. As I walked away from the safety of ART’s lock, I dropped back down to 96 percent efficiency. I hit the station entertainment feeds for new downloads to try to calm down.

I’d already sent a message to the social feed node about the advertisement, and gotten an answer with a location and timestamp. The last time I’d had an arranged meeting with humans they kidnapped Mensah and blew me up, so. This could hardly be worse.

I hacked my way through embarkation zone security and out into the ring’s mall. It was utilitarian compared to both the last transit ring and Port FreeCommerce. No garden pods, no holo sculptures, no big holo displays advertising arrays of shipwrights and cargo factors and other businesses, no shiny new interface vending machines. Also no big passenger transports coming through, so not nearly as big a crowd, of humans or bots. ART’s idea was beginning to seem less like a stupid risk and more like a necessity. Blending in here would be harder, if everyone was only here on their way to and from the installations on the moon. In my feed, ART said, I told you so.

The location for the meeting was a food service place in the main mall area. It was in a large transparent bubble in the second level of the mall, overlooking the walkways and counter service stalls below. There were multiple open levels inside, with tables and chairs, and it was 40 percent full of humans and augmented humans. As I walked through, I picked up the occasional buzz of a drone, but no pings. There were food smells in the air, and the acrid scents of intoxicants. I didn’t bother to try to analyze and identify them; I was too nervous and trying to focus on looking like an augmented human.

The humans I was to meet had sent an image so I could find them. There were three of them, all wearing variations on work clothes, no uniform logos. A quick search had shown entries for them in the transit ring’s social feed. They had listed themselves as unaffiliated guest workers, but you could list yourself as anything, there was no identity check. Two were female, and one was tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster.

(To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” and my gender as indeterminate. Posing as its own captain, ART gave me a prior employment reference.)

I spotted them at a table near the bubble overlooking the mall. They were having a tense whispered conversation and body language said they were nervous. As I walked toward them, my quick scan showed no weapon signatures, just the small power sources of their personal feed interfaces. One had an implant, but it was just a low-level feed access tool.

I had practiced this part with ART on approach to the ring, recording myself so both of us could critique it. I told myself I could do this. I put on my best neutral expression, the one I used when the extra download activity had been detected and the deployment center’s supervisor was blaming the human techs for it. I walked up to the table and said, “Hello.”

All three of them flinched. “Uh, hello,” the tercera said, recovering first.

I picked up the feed from the security camera so I could watch myself and make sure my facial expressions were under control. And it was easier to talk to the humans while watching them through the cameras. I was well aware it was a completely false sensation of distance from the situation, but I needed it. I said, “We arranged to meet. I’m Eden, the security consultant.” Right, so, it was the name of one of the characters in Sanctuary Moon. You probably aren’t surprised by that.

The tercera cleared ter throat. Te had purple hair and red eyebrows, standing out against light brown skin. “I’m Rami, that’s Tapan, and Maro.” Te shifted nervously and tapped the empty chair.

ART, who was considerably faster than me at data retrieval, performed a quick search and informed me it was an invitation to sit down across several human cultural indices. It was giving me the etymology of the gesture as I sat down. You would think a SecUnit who had been shot to pieces multiple times, blown up, memory purged, and once partially dismantled by accident wouldn’t be on the verge of panic under these circumstances. You’d be wrong.

Rami added, “Uh, I’m not sure where to start.” Tapan nudged ter, apparently conveying moral support. Tapan had multicolored braids wrapped up around her head, and a blue jewel-toned interface clipped to her ear, and slightly darker skin than Rami. Maro had very dark skin, and silver-colored little puffs of hair, and was almost beautiful enough to be in the entertainment media. I’m terrible at estimating human ages because it’s not one of the few things I care about. Also most of my experience is with the humans on the entertainment feed, and they aren’t anything like the ones you see in reality. (One of the many reasons I’m not fond of reality.) But I thought all three might be young. Not children, but maybe not that far from adolescence.

They stared at me, and I realized I was going to have to help. I said, cautiously, “You want to hire a security consultant?” This was what they had posted on the social feed, and from the number of similar requests, it was common for groups and individuals to hire private security before going to RaviHyral. I guess hiring human security guards is what you do when you can’t afford real security.

Rami seemed relieved. “Yes, we need help.”

Maro threw a look around and said, “We shouldn’t talk here, maybe. Is there someplace else we could go?”

It had been stressful enough getting here, I didn’t want to have to go anywhere else right now. I did a quick scan for drones, then initiated a glitch in the connection between the restaurant and transit ring security. I caught the cameras and showed ART what I wanted it to do. It took over and edited me out of the system’s recording and cut the camera watching the table out of the system. I unglitched the connection to the ring’s main security, which wouldn’t notice the missing camera feed for the short time we would be here. I said, “It’s all right. We’re not being recorded.”

They stared at me. Rami said, “But there’s security—Did you do something?”

“I’m a security consultant,” I repeated. My panic level was starting to drop, primarily because they were so obviously nervous. Humans are nervous of me because I’m a terrifying murderbot, and I’m nervous of them because they’re humans. But I knew that humans could also be wary and nervous of each other in non-combat and non-adversarial situations, in reality and not just as part of a story. That was what seemed to be happening, but it let me pretend this was business as usual during one of the rare occasions when clients asked my advice about security.

Part of my job as a SecUnit was to give clients advice when they asked for it, as I was theoretically the one with all the information on security. Not that a lot of them had asked for it, or had listened to me. Not that I’m bitter about that, or anything.

Tapan looked impressed. “So you’re spliced, right?” She patted the back of her neck, indicating where my data port was. “You got augments? You have extra access to the feed?”

“Spliced” was an informal term for an augmented human; I’d heard it on the entertainment feed. I said, “Yes.” Then added, “Among other things.”

Rami’s red brows lifted in understanding. Maro looked impressed, and said, “I don’t know if we can afford— Our credit account is— If we can get our data back, then—”

Rami took it up again. “Then we would have plenty to pay you.”

ART, who was apparently very interested in the job scenario, started to search the public feeds for a pay scale for private security consultants. I reminded myself that I was pretending not to be a SecUnit, so me questioning them wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. I decided to start with the basic information. “Why do you want to hire me?”

Rami looked at the other two, got nods in response, and cleared ter throat. “We were working on RaviHyral, for Tlacey Excavations, one of the smaller Umro contractors. We do mineral research and technology development.” Te explained that they were a collective of technologists, seven of them plus dependents, who traveled from work contract to work contract. The others were waiting in a hotel suite, with Rami, Maro, and Tapan having been deputized to act for the group. It was a relief to hear that their mining experience was in tech and research; in the mining contracts I had had, the techs were usually in offices off the pit site or adjacent to it, and we didn’t see them unless they got intoxicated and tried to kill each other, which admittedly was rare.

“Tlacey’s terms were great,” Tapan added, “but maybe too great, if you know what I mean.”

ART did a quick search and returned the opinion that it was intended to be a figure of speech. I told it I knew that.

Rami continued, “We took the contract because it would give us time to work on our own stuff. We’d had this idea to develop a new detection system for strange synthetics. RaviHyral has a lot of identified deposits, so it’s a great place for research.” Strange synthetics were elements left behind by alien civilizations. Telling the difference between them and naturally occurring elements that were previously unidentified was a problem in mining. Like the remnants of alien occupation/civilization uncovered by GrayCris on my last contract, they were off limits for commercial development. That was all I’d ever needed to know, since every job I’d ever had involving alien material was just me standing around guarding the people who were working on it. (ART tried to explain it to me and I told it to save it for later, I needed to focus.)

Rami said, “We were making good progress, but then suddenly our group got terminated with no notice, and they took our data—”

Tapan waved her hands. “All our work! It wasn’t anything to do with our contract—”

Maro finished, “Tlacey stole it, basically, and they deleted the most current version off our devices. We had copies of the older iterations, but we’ve lost all our recent work.”

Rami added, “We filed a complaint with Umro, but it’s taking forever to process it, and we don’t know if it’s ever going to come to anything.”

I said, “This sounds like something you should go to a solicitor about.” It wasn’t unusual. The company data mined, too, but it wasn’t as clumsy or obvious as to try to delete the work from the original creators’ devices. If it did that, then the creators wouldn’t come back and enter into more security bond agreements, which would give the company access to whatever they were working on next.

“We thought about a solicitor,” Rami said. “But we aren’t in the union, so it would be expensive. But then yesterday Tlacey finally answered our petition, and said we could have the files back if we returned our signing bonus. We have to go down to RaviHyral to do that.” Te sat back in ter chair. “That’s why we wanted to hire you.”

This was starting to make sense. “You don’t trust Tlacey.”

“We just want somebody on our side,” Tapan clarified.

“No, we definitely don’t trust Tlacey,” Maro countered. “Not at all. We need security for when we get there, if things get … touchy. Tlacey herself is supposed to meet us, and she has an entourage of bodyguards, and there’s no general security except what Umro has in the public areas and the port, and that’s not much.”

I didn’t know exactly what she thought she meant by “touchy,” but all the scenarios I could imagine in that situation weren’t good ones.

The company offered SecUnits so the clients didn’t have to hire humans to guard each other. From what I had seen in the serials, me doing a half-assed version of my job was still better than a human trying to do it.

I was still watching us through the captured security camera even though I wasn’t allowing it to record. I could see my expression was dubious, but in this case I think the situation warranted it. I said, “The meeting with Tlacey could be held through a secured comm channel.” The company bonded those, too, for funds and data transfer.

Maro, whose expression was even more dubious than mine, said, “Yeah, but Tlacey wants to do it in person.”

Rami admitted, “We know it doesn’t sound like a good idea to go.”

It was a great idea to go if you wanted to be murdered. I had hoped for an easier job, courier duty, or something similar. But this was protecting humans who were determined to do something dangerous, which was exactly the kind of job I was designed for. The job that I had kept doing more or less, often as less as possible, even after I had hacked my governor module. I was used to having something useful to do, taking care of something, even if it was only a contractually obligated group of humans who if I was lucky treated me like a tool and not a toy.

After PreservationAux, it had occurred to me how different it would be to do my job as an actual member of the group I was protecting. And that was the main reason I was here.

I phrased it as a question, because pretending you were asking for more information was the best way to try to get the humans to realize they were doing something stupid. “So do you think there’s another reason Tlacey wants you to do this exchange in person, other than … killing you?”

Tapan grimaced, as if that was something she had been aware of but trying not to think about. Maro tapped the table and pointed at me, which was vaguely alarming until ART identified it as a gesture of emphatic agreement. Rami took a sharp breath and said, “We think … We weren’t finished, our process was incomplete, but we were so enthusiastic about it … We think they must have listened in using the security feeds and heard us talking, and thought we were much further along than we actually were. So I don’t know if they can complete it. Maybe they realized it’s not worth much without us to finish it.”

“Maybe Tlacey wants us to work for her again,” Tapan said hopefully.

Probably, before she murders you, I didn’t say.

Maro snorted. “I would rather live in a box in a station mall than work for her again.”

Once they had started to talk about it, it was hard for them to stop. The collective was completely divided on what to do, which was apparently painful for all of them since they were used to agreeing on everything. Tapan, who according to Maro was too naive for this existence, thought it was worth a try. Maro, who according to Tapan was a cynical impediment to both fun and progress, thought they were screwed and should just cut their losses. Rami was undecided, which was why te had been elected leader of the collective for the duration of this problem. Rami did not seem thrilled by the collective’s confidence, but was gamely trying to proceed.

Finally, Rami finished up with, “So that’s why we want to hire you. We thought it would be better to go in with someone who could protect us, keep her crew from messing with us, show her we have backup while we negotiate.”

What they needed was a security company willing to bond them for the meeting and return trip, and send a SecUnit with them to guarantee their safety. But security companies like that are expensive, and wouldn’t be interested in a job this small.

They all stared at me worriedly. In the security camera view, from that angle, it was obvious how small they were. They looked so soft, with all the fluffy multicolored hair. And nervous, but not of me. I said, “I accept your job.”

Rami and Tapan looked relieved, and Maro, who clearly still didn’t want to do this, looked resigned. She said, “How much do we pay you?” She glanced uncertainly at the others. “Can we afford you, I mean.”

ART had a set of spreadsheets ready but I didn’t want to scare them off with a figure that was too high. “How much were they paying you before you were terminated?”

Rami said, “It’s two hundred CRs per cycle for each worker for the limited term of contract.”

It didn’t sound like this would take more than a cycle. “You can pay me that.”

“One cycle’s share of the contract?” Rami sat up straight. “Really?”

Ter reaction meant I’d asked for far too little, but it was too late to correct the mistake. I did need to give them a reason why I was willing to settle for a small amount, and I decided the partial truth was better. “I need to go to RaviHyral, and I need an employment contract to get there.”

“Why?” Tapan asked, and Rami nudged her by way of admonishment. “I mean, I know we don’t have a right to ask, but…”

Don’t have a right to ask. That wasn’t something that had ever applied to me, before PreservationAux. I told the truth again. “I need to do some research there for another client.”

Like ART, they understood the idea of research, especially proprietary research, and they didn’t ask any further questions. Rami told me they were scheduled to leave for RaviHyral during the next cycle, and said te would put in the request for the private employment voucher. I arranged to meet them in the mall near the access for the shuttle embarkation zone and then left. I released the security camera as soon as I was out of range.

I got back to ART and huddled in my favorite chair and we watched episodes for the next three hours while I calmed down. ART monitored the transit ring’s alert feed in case someone had realized what I was, but there was nothing.

I told you so, ART said. Again.

I ignored it. I hadn’t been detected, so now it was time to think about the rest of the plan. Which now involved keeping my new clients alive.