Archive of Our Own

“Eden?”

If I were a smart murderbot, I wouldn’t have looked around. I would have kept on following Iris through the university courtyard and left well enough alone. If I were a dumber bot, I wouldn’t have looked around either. Because whoever had said that name was probably talking to someone actually named Eden, not a construct who had briefly borrowed that name from its favorite serial.

But I’m just me, and I looked around.

“Eden! It is you!” Tapan squealed, dodging through the crowd of milling humans and augmented humans to reach me.

Iris noticed that I was not right behind her anymore and doubled back to stand by my elbow. Because, yeah, I’d stopped, like a dumbass, in the center of The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland’s (PSUMNT’s) main causeway. This didn’t seem to phase any of the nearby humans thankfully, and they just flowed around us like water.

Isn’t Eden the name of a character in that show you love? Iris asked me on the feed.

The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, I shot back. And shut up.

Iris smirked. I could see her face through the drone I have posted on the shoulder closest to her. There were also drones on my other shoulder and on the jackets of each of ART’s crew. It had figured out a way to disguise my drones in its own logo so that I could have eyes on everyone without hacking the university's systems. We all agreed that it would be a hard enough sell to convince the university’s review board to hire a rogue SecUnit without making it obvious how easily I could take over their systems. ART could too, of course, but the university already knew that, so it was less of an issue.

I used the three cameras attached to Iris and me to look at Tapan. Her braids weren’t multicolored any more, but instead a bright, bold blue that faded to white toward the ends. But her feed signature was the same. Her face was the same as my last recorded image of her. Behind her, Rami was throwing ter hands up excitedly and Maro was hugging an unknown person who I could reasonably assume to be one of their other marital partners.

“I can’t believe it’s really you!” Maro exclaimed, hugging her partner even tighter and sending me a ping. This is for you.

I assumed that she meant the hug, and not the kiss she pressed to her partner’s cheek. I made a mental note to thank ART for insisting that I make my feed name “SU Perihelion” while at the university rather than “SecUnit.” I’d said that someone might call me “Sue” and that putting its identifier as my last name made it sound like we were marital partners (gross). ART had said that it was hardly the stupidest pseudonym I’d used. And yeah, it wasn’t wrong.

Case in point, the unknown marital partner (whose name was listed as “Kollo, they/them” in the feed) said, “It’s so great to finally meet you, Eden. We have all wanted to thank you for getting Maro, Rami and Tapan back to us safely.”

I could sense Iris’ amusement through the feed. Yeah, she still wasn’t over the stupid name.

I was in a rush. I sent her.

She reacted with an amusement sigil.

They don’t know I’m not human, I sent Iris too. The amusement on her face faded a little.

“That’s my job,” I told Kollo.

Tapan rolled her eyes.

“Please,” she said, “You went above and beyond, and you never even billed us for it!”

“You paid me,” I said awkwardly, wondering vaguely if I should try and move this conversation out of the central space or if I could wrap it fast enough for the move to be unnecessary.

Rami scoffed.

“For security during the initial meeting,” te pointed out. “You never billed us for any of the other stuff you did. Or any of the stuff Art did for that matter.”

“ART helped?” Iris asked, eyebrows shooting up in alarm.

“Peripherally,” I said quickly, adding in the feed. They think it’s a human pilot who helped me with some medical intervention.

That made her chuckle. Then she addressed the group.

“I’m Iris, by the way, Eden’s friend. Should we find somewhere to sit while you all catch up?”

There was general agreement and I was torn between being relieved that we were leaving such an exposed area and annoyed that this conversation was apparently going to go on for even longer.

Iris led us to a food area where the humans and augmented humans bought various hot liquids. Iris got me a disposable cup of hot water. ART says that it’s her way of including me in the group bonding ritual of hot liquid consumption. I never drink it (I’d have to store it in part of my lung and cough it up later, and nobody wants that), but I have to admit that it is nice to have a set task for my hands during these times. It also makes my hands warm. I don’t hate that.

“So what brings you to the university?” Iris asked, thankfully spearheading over the conversation.

“Oh, well, the work that Eden helped us recover is finally complete,” Maro explained.

“But once we made it, we had to decide what we wanted to do with it,” Rami said, picking up the explanation while ter partner took a sip of her drink.

“Eventually, we realized that it needed to be tested and only used for, you know, avoiding strange synthetics, rather than looking for them,” Kollo continued seamlessly. “And the university has a good reputation using systems like this responsibly.”

“After that whole thing in the news cycle about GreyCris and shit,” Tapan cut in, “Well, we figured that being careful was probably for the best.”

Iris pinged me excitedly in the feed. I ignored her.

“You work with code that identifies strange synthetics?” Iris asked.

“Yeah!” Maro said. “We were working on it in our down time, just off and on, you know? But then Tlacey…”

“Ugh, Tlacey,” Rami interjected.

“Right. So, Tlacey says it’s company property because we coded some of it while working for RaviHyral, and took it,” Maro continued.

“So we went looking for a security consultant,” Tapan said, cutting back in. “And we met Eden, who saved our lives like a million times over!”

“Just twice,” I corrected.

“Oh well if it was only twice,” Iris said in that tone that adolescent humans use to point out obvious inconsistencies.

“You saved my life way more than twice,” Tapan argued.

I’d saved her life four times. Maybe. The last time, it was kind of my fault that she was in danger, so I wasn’t sure if that counted.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” Iris said. “ Eden tends to undervalue its impact.”

She was looking at me. Directly at me, not at my drones. I wished that I had access to ART’s database to identify her expression. (It was temporarily shut down for some light maintenance work to its processors and I already missed my external storage.) Without it, all I could parse was that her eyes were all warm and crinkly.

“And undercharge,” Rami added, and ter eyes also looked warm and crinkly.

I wasn’t sure why te kept bringing that up, either. Didn’t humans usually hate giving money away? Was it suspicious that I wasn’t walking around with a bill just hoping to get more currency out of them?

“And provide scary-good security,” Tapan added. “Are you doing security for the University now?”

My nose scrunched up before I could think to stop it. I could think of two dozen ways I’d change the university’s security if they asked me. But they hadn’t asked me. (ART and I were keeping a list all the same.)

“ART and I work for the university,” Iris explained, “But most of our work is off-planet and Se– Eden contracts with us.”

“Do you not think the university has adequate security?” Rami asked me seriously, ignoring Iris’ explanation. Te set aside ter hot liquid and leaned over the table. “Because we heard this rumor—”

“It’s just a rumor, Rami,” Kollo said, rolling their eyes.

“What’s the rumor?” Iris interjected.

“That the university has a rogue SecUnit on campus that they’re performing experiments on,” Rami said quietly.

I would have reacted better if te had dropped a live bomb on the table.

I stiffened. I felt air hit parts of my eyes that are usually under my eyelids. I was probably making an expression. I was definitely making an expression.

Iris just hummed like that was a mildly interesting idea.

Unsurprisingly, Rami focused on my reaction.

“So you think it’s possible?” te asked.

“The university isn’t conducting any experiments on SecUnits,” Iris said firmly.

Nobody was listening to her.

“Just the thought of a rogue one of those things on campus…” Kollo said with an exaggerated shiver.

“Have you ever met one?” Iris asked pointedly.

“We’ve seen a SecUnit kill someone on one of our contracts,” Maro explained, putting her arm around Kollo. “It’s not something you forget in a hurry.”

None of them (except for Tapan when she’d been half out of her mind with pain) had ever seen me kill anyone. I wanted to keep it that way. I also wanted this conversation to end.

Iris, apparently, didn’t.

“SecUnits that were ordered to kill people,” she said, like she was correcting them rather than just stating an obvious fact. “It’s not like they were rouge and just decided to go on a murder rampage!”

“They have a point,” I said, staring down at my hot water. “SecUnits are very efficient killers.”

“Exactly,” Rami said, with a violent pointing/gesticulating thing.

I just barely managed not to jump at the sudden movement.

“Wouldn’t you want to know if one was on university grounds,” Tapan asked Iris. It sounded so reasonable in her voice.

The university had wanted to issue a bulletin about my presence. ART had convinced them not to.

I had said that it was fine if my feed was flagged so anyone interacting with me would know I wasn’t human.

Pin-Lee said that was a violation of my rights as their employee. Or, potential employee. Or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t really listening. I had been checking out their security walls at the time and watching an episode of Worldhoppers in the feed with ART.

“If Eden thinks SecUnits are dangerous, that’s good enough for me,” Rami said, leaning back in ter chair and crossing ter arms.

Iris shot me another look I couldn’t interpret.

“They’re not inherently dangerous,” she insisted.

I have guns in my arms, I reminded her in a secure feed conversation. She didn’t reply

“Well I feel safer knowing that Eden’s here,” Tapan said diplomatically, “even if it is just a rumor.”

Another look from Iris.

I started tagging the video snippets for ART and I to go over later. If she wanted to communicate something with me privately, I’d much rather that she just use the feed.

“That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited to run into you,” Kollo chimed in, thankfully changing the subject. “But also we all want the opportunity to thank you for everything you did for us on RaviHyral.”

“Yes!” Maro affirmed, her little tufts of silver hair quivered with her excitement.

“Me especially. I know I’d be dead if it weren’t for you,” Tapan said, smiling widely. “We all talked about it, and we’d like to offer you a share of our profits from selling our program.”

I kept staring at the wall. I replayed the last few seconds of the conversation, sure I must have missed something.

“It’s only fair,” Kollo added when I didn’t immediately accept. “We would never have been able to get our code back without your help. And some of us wouldn’t even be here.”

They put a hand on Rami’s shoulder and squeezed. Te leaned back into the contact and Maro leaned in for another hug.

I stood up and walked out of the cafe.

My audio sensors felt distant, like they’d taken damage and I’d tuned down my pain sensors. I could process that Iris was saying something to the others, but not what. I just had to leave. I got out the doors and into a quiet sort of courtyard where I could pace back and forth until Iris came out.

I felt her ping my feed.

She was still inside the cafe. I could just go back to ART, she was perfectly safe here at the University.

And I had a drone on her jacket. But my skin itched at the thought of leaving her unprotected.

No. Just no.

Are you okay? Iris asked on the feed. Still inside and still not coming out. They didn’t mean to upset you.

I’m not upset. I shot back.

Sure.

I decided to ignore her sarcasm.

It does actually sound like they underpaid you, Iris continued. I’m surprised Peri didn’t tell you.

It did, I admitted. I just chose to ignore it.

Business as usual, then.

I could tell that she was attempting to lighten the mood. Trying to gently get me to stop pacing and tell her what the hell was wrong with me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me either.

I created a group feed channel with Iris, Maro, Rami, Tapan and Kollo.

I don’t want your money, I sent.

There was a 5 second silence that felt like an hour. Through Iris’ drone camera I could see them all tilting their heads together to discuss what I’d just said. I could have used its audio, but I didn’t really even need to. My hearing is good enough to hear whatever they were saying 8 meters and one glass door away. I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear what they were saying.

“Why not?” Kollo asked aloud.

Because you already paid me, I sent back, ignoring the way they all jumped when I answered a question that I really shouldn’t be able to hear with human or augmented human hearing.

“Eden’s really good at hacking,” Rami explained to Kollo. “Eden must have access to the security cameras in here.”

And I have really sensitive hearing.

“I think what we’re all trying to understand,” Iris said aloud, looking at the other humans instead of at me or my cameras. “Is why you’re so adamant about it.”

It was a good question.

Pin-Lee was currently in the process of negotiating a contract for me where I would be paid more per day for protecting ART and it’s crew (our crew?) than the whole misadventure on RaviHyral had made me. But I hadn’t gone there to make money. I’d gone there to find answers. Answers that I’d found, completely independent of my contract with the three humans inside.

On a private channel, I sent Iris, I don’t know how to answer that without explaining that I’m not human.

Inside, Iris leaned back in her chair and took a sip of her hot liquid.

Can you explain it to me? She asked. Maybe I can help put it into words that they can understand too without blowing your cover.

I thought about that for 2.4 seconds. I also spent some of the time wishing that ART was back online. It’s much better at making people do what it wants than I am.

I went there to find out what happened to me before my memory was purged. I sent Iris on our private channel. I didn’t really care about their whole thing until Tlacey tried to kill them.

Through the glass door, I could see Iris nodding.

Then what did you do? She asked, like that wasn’t a stupid question

I made sure that they didn’t die.

You saved their lives. Iris said.

I threw my hands up over my head and startled a student walking by. I’d gotten way too comfortable expressing my thoughts and emotions physically while I was on board ART. Out here in the real world, I really ought to have gone back to SecUnit neutral. But that wasn’t an option either with Tapan and her marital partners just a few meters away thinking that I was just a really augmented human.

“I think,” Iris said slowly, breaking the silence at the table where I was pretty sure the marital partners had been talking on a private feed channel, “That Se– that Eden feels like the contract you all made was completed and paid out fairly. I think it just doesn't want to take money it feels like it didn’t earn.”

That isn’t what I said. It was tempting to just leave, to just remove myself from this whole situation. If they wanted to pay someone so badly, they could give money to Iris and she could give it to ART. It did all the medical shit anyway.

They kept arguing that they wanted to pay me what I deserved . Fuck.

I lied to you, I sent into the feed channel with all of them.

Inside, the humans stopped talking.

There was never another client. I sent, choosing my words carefully. I wanted information that I could only get on RaviHyral and I jeopardized your safety to get it. You don’t owe me anything.

That resulted in another long silence. Inside, the marital group subvocalized as they spoke on a private feed.

You still saved my life, Tapan sent the group eventually.

A decent security consultant would never have taken you down to the planet in the first place. I responded.

We would have gone anyway, Rami sent.

I winced. If they’d gone alone, or with any human security, they wouldn’t have been able to prevent the transport from crashing. They would have never even made it to the planetary surface. I didn’t like thinking about my clients smashed flat against the side of the mining installation. My former clients. Whatever. The humans and augmented humans that were still trying to give me money for some reason.

SecUnit, Iris sent me privately, I know you don’t want to overcharge them, but I really think you should consider their offer. They didn’t have money when you helped them. Now they have money and they want to share it with the people that helped them.

They want to share it with the human that helped them. I sent back pointedly. They’re scared of SecUnits. They should be.

They’re not scared of you . Iris shot back.

They would be if they knew.

Inside, she looked at the others again, then turned to look at me through the glass door.

I really don’t think that they would be. Iris sent me.

I made an expression. Through Iris’ drone cam I could see that it wasn’t one of my better ones.

They trust you. Iris continued, insistent. They’re scared of something they’ve been taught to fear. You are a person who has already saved their lives and livelihoods multiple times. I think you could tell them. If you want to.

Distantly, far away in the docks, I felt ARTs processes begin to stretch out after its shutdown.

A tendril of its consciousness tapped my feed.

I tapped back immediately, knowing my relief was probably evident in the feed.

I was only offline for 4.3 hours, ART told me, its usual sarcasm firmly in place. Please tell me that the university is still standing.

I ignored the barb.

The humans from RaviHyral are here. I sent without preamble. They’re offering me money.

Take the money.

I threw up my hands again and went back to pacing. I couldn't remember when or why I’d stopped.

I could feel ART doing its eyeroll thing at me through the feed. It made it clear that it was still booting up, still checking all its systems and it shouldn’t be wasting processing power on my bullshit problems right now.

This social interaction is causing you distress, it explained, like I was a low level bot without experience thinking human interactions through logically. The easiest and fastest way to extricate yourself from the interaction is to agree to the humans’ terms. Terms which only benefit you anyway.

They don’t know I’m a SecUnit.

ART did something in the feed which is kind of like when a human cocks their head to the side in a combination of thought and exasperation.

You are not considering this logically.

Yeah, thanks, ART. I already knew that. Huge help there.

They already know that you are more augmented than an average human. ART pointed out. They are offering you currency anyway.

I sent it the part of the conversation about SecUnits.

It paused just long enough to process the dronecam files. Then it added itself to the group feed conversation with the humans inside.

It had changed its feed signature from “PSUMNT Perihelion (research vessel)” to “Art Peri (he/him)” and greeted the humans warmly.

What the shit, ART.

Iris whipped around to make startled eye contact with me through the cafe’s glass door.

I was already walking back inside.

Eden has informed me of the present discussion, ART sent through the private feed, and has explained its reservations in accepting your generous offer.

I sent it the equivalent of a rude gesture though our 1:1 connection as I got inside and stood awkwardly by the table. My hot water was still steaming a little bit on the table.

Eden fears that this is a decision you will regret in time, or if certain information ever came to light. ART said calmly, making itself seem like some human I’d pulled into the conversation from elsewhere in the University.

Came to light? What a pretentious asshole, using figurative language with the humans for no good reason.

The table erupted with denials and dismissals from Rami, Tapan and Maro. Kollo notably stayed quiet.

“What information?” Kollo asked quietly, turning their head up to look me in the eyes.

I looked at their left shoulder.

ART was silent. Gee, thanks.

There is a rogue SecUnit at the university, I sent the group.

They all looked alarmed.

I’m the rogue SecUnit.

The whole table turned to look at me. Everyone but Iris, who was tense and watching everyone else’s reactions. It was very tempting to just turn around and walk myself back to ART.

Tapan was the first one to break the silence.

“You said you were in an explosion…”

I’ve been in a lot of explosions. I put in the feed.

I also sat down. None of the humans looked shocked by this, but it felt good anyway. I’m a rogue. I get to sit down. Fuck you.

And that not much of you was human… Tapan added in the feed.

Also true. Iris replied.

Rami shook ter head.

“We were really rude,” Maro said out loud, but quietly.

Okay, that’s not the reaction I expected.

“Yeah, you were,” Iris said.

“It’s fine,” I said and crossed my arms.

Iris gave me a look which ART helpfully decoded as annoyed and fond. I really need to download some of its database on crew expressions. It probably will only be the equivalent of one episode of media. Right?

“It’s not fine,” Tapan said, and she suddenly looked very upset. Shit. Here it came.

“I’m not giving back the currency you already paid me,” I said, cutting her off. “We agreed on a price, I provided a service and we signed a contract.”

I sounded like Pin-Lee. Maybe all those contract negotiations had carved out a place in my permanent storage through sheer repetition. I’d rather have the space free for media.

The humans were still looking at me. ART supplied the description of “horrified” to their expressions. Great. That was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid.

You are misreading the situation. ART told me privately.

You got me into this situation. I fired back.

It rolled its metaphorical eyes.

“We’re offering you more money,” Kollo said slowly. “We never wanted to ask for the money we paid you back .”

ART leaned on my feed, obviously preparing to say something.

I spoke first.

You thought you were making an offer to an augmented human, I pointed out. But as the original contract didn’t specify my legal designation, it’s still valid.

That may not have been true, but none of them argued with me, not even ART. So I was probably right.

I looked at their faces again (through the drone cams, I’m not an idiot) and they were all still stuck somewhere between confused and horrified. I wasn’t sure what to do about that. I've had a lot of humans recently who have realized that I’m more like them than the media would lead them to believe. I’d never had to explain to a group of humans that I liked had worked for that I was less human than I’d previously implied.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tapan said, shaking her head. “You’re human to us.”

Maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was one. Not the good kind either.

“I’m not human,” I said. “I don’t want to be human.”

Mensah had once said that might be a hard thing for some humans to understand.

These humans were definitely confused. At least it distracted them from being horrified.

We all sat in silence for a full fifteen seconds. It felt like an eternity.

“Whatever,” I said eventually. “Keep your currency. You did the work. You should be the ones getting paid.”

Then I got up and walked out of the cafe back toward the docks where ART and I could watch some Worldhoppers in fucking peace.

I back burnered Iris’ inputs unless certain keywords like “help” or “danger” came up. That failed almost immediately when Kollo asked Iris, “Is it dangerous?” I shut the input off completely and shoved it at ART so it could monitor the situation.

I managed to keep my walking speed to “human in a hurry” rather than breaking out into faster movement that would have drawn attention, but it wasn’t easy. I managed to get halfway across the campus before I felt an urgent ping in my feed. I stopped and turned around without really deciding to and saw Tapan jogging across the carefully manicured turf toward me.

Great. She wanted to talk some more.

I backed up toward a bench so that when she reached me, panting with the exertion of the slow run, she could sit down. She didn’t do that. When she reached me, she leaned over instead, bracing her hands on her knees. I realized that I had to sit down first, so I did and she sank down gratefully next to me.

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” she said, still breathing heavily.

“It’s fine,” I replied, staring straight ahead like I was looking over the strange little green space, though I could still see her face through my shoulder drone camera.

“It’s not fine,” she said, shaking her head. “You saved my life four times that I know of, and I’m not sure if I ever even said thank you.”

“You did.”

I remembered it clearly. I hadn’t been used to it back then. I’m not sure I’m used to it now, having humans thank me for performing my basic function.

She just scrunched up her nose and kept talking to the side of my head, growing confidence as she caught her breath again.

“You could have fucked off and left us right after Tlacey tried to kill us that first time and no one would have blamed you. That alone would have been enough to satisfy our contract. But you didn’t. You kept saving us. You kept saving me , way after you had to. Way after most people would have even tried. And the whole time you must have been worried that—”

She broke off with a shake of her head and turned to look down at the paving stones under our feet.

We sat in silence for a moment, just absorbing the ambient noise of students and researchers bustling around their campus. Tapan and I were just visitors here.

“I still remember what you said, you know,” she said eventually. “That ‘sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.’ I thought at the time that you must have been speaking from experience. But I didn’t really think about it, you know? I don’t think I wanted to consider it. What you must have been through.”

“It happened a long time ago,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure if that was true.

I had hacked my governor module a little over five years ago, but I hadn’t met Mensah and the Preservation Aux group until less than a year ago. I hadn’t really been a rogue until then. I hadn’t really done much of anything before that. I hadn’t realized how small my world had been until I’d gone off on my own.

What’s the difference? She asked through our private feed channel. What makes you so different from the SecUnits that kill people?

I kill people , I responded immediately. You saw me kill Tlacey.

She nodded slowly, like she was thinking it over.

What makes you a rogue unit? She asked eventually.

I hacked my governor module, I answered automatically.

What’s that?

Then I turned to look at her. With my eyes and everything. I guess it made sense that most humans that didn’t interact with SecUnits regularly wouldn’t know what a governor module was, but it had been such a defining part of my life—both its presence and its absence—that it seemed impossible that Tapan didn't even know what it was.

I hesitated.

Then I compiled and sent her a file.

She was silent for a long time. Even longer than it would take a human (as slow as they are) just to read the words.

I double checked the file, just to make sure I’d sent her the right information.

“Governor modules are inbuilt systems in constructs (including but not limited to SecurityUnits and ComfortUnits) that reinforce commands given by human clients and system regulations. Built directly into the construct’s nervous system, governor modules have an access point near the connection to the brainstem, through the data port inbuilt into the back of the unit’s neck. Behavioral corrections most often use the use of electrical currents (between 1 and 250 mA) to…”

I stopped reading.

“They tortured you,” Tapan said eventually.

I made an expression. I tried not to, but I could feel how my face scrunched up no matter how hard I tried to… not do that.

“It forced me to do things, even when they were wrong,” I said, trying to correct her line of thinking.

What did they force you to do? Tapan asked me privately on the feed.

Kill people, mostly.

She laughed. But it wasn’t a happy laugh. More like a huff of air with a laugh sound attached but no emotion.

And what would have happened if you didn’t listen? she asked. Before you hacked it, I mean.

I remembered the feeling. Electricity scorching through my neural pathways at higher and higher voltages until the problem was corrected. Until the order was followed.

It administered punishment. I told Tapan.

So we were all afraid of a rogue SecUnit running around killing people and you became one so that you wouldn’t be tortured into killing people?

My first reaction was to say, No, you got it all wrong. But… she wasn’t exactly wrong, was she?

I do still kill people, I pointed out.

Just the assholes, Tapan said.

Then she kind of… leaned over until her temple rested on my shoulder, trusting me with her weight. Her braids obstructed the view out of my shoulder camera so all I could see on that channel was cool, calming blue.

I tried to keep my shoulder as still as possible.

You were the first clients I chose myself, I told her. I’m still not sure why.

I heard her breath catch, but she didn’t pull away.

I made a lot of mistakes, I admit. I should never have let you all go to the planet in the first place.

You saved my life, she said simply. I’m not sure anyone else could have. I don’t think a lot of people would have come back for me, even if they could have. They certainly would have asked for more money first.

We sat that way for a long time, looking out at the courtyard, watching the students and professors hurry between buildings. I think she said something to her marital patterns in the feed at some point. I felt the distant murmur of conversation, but didn’t try to hack my way into their channel.

She stayed still and so did I.

I kept expecting to feel the crawling under my organic skin that I usually felt when in physical contact with a human. But it never came. It was just… pressure. Good pressure.

After 37.4 minutes, ART opened up a conversation with it, me, Iris and Tapan’s whole marital conglomerate. It was still calling itself Art Peri, though it was radiating smugness through the feed in a way no human could.

I have negotiated in your absence, it told me. I have agreed, on your behalf, to accept half a share from the sale of the software. The other half will be donated to Preservation’s new outreach task force for constructs in untenable situations.

Tapan turned her head to smother her laughter against my shoulder. It was a surprisingly nice feeling.

New as in, you just made it up, I accused ART in a private channel.

Ratthi and Bharadwaj mentioned the idea when they were last on board, ART replied.

I rolled my eyes.

Are there any constructs in un-untenable situations? I shot back. Tenable? Able? Whatever.

That sounds like a good first question for the task force, ART replied happily. They’ll likely need an expert in the field…

Fucking damn it, ART.