Blue smiled at the petbot. ‘I’m so glad you like it,’ he said.
There were six of them altogether, and Owl could see each one as they roamed around the cosy establishment. There was the cat, of course, and the rabbit, which hopped along after Tak. The dragon was wandering around the back storage room, double-checking inventory. The turtle was at its permanent post next to the Linking hub, which it was plugged directly into. The remaining two – the giant spider and the monkey – sat in the window of the bedroom upstairs, each focused on the street outside from a different angle. To future customers, the petbots would appear to be nothing more than a quirky, kitschy menagerie that gave the establishment some charm (much like Owl’s vid panels on the walls, which she’d been deeply amused to learn were considered a bit retro). In reality, the petbots were networked together, and Sidra could spread herself through all of them, using them as Owl used the cameras in the corners. No one aside from the three sapients with them now would know that the friendly face in the walls wasn’t the only AI present. No one would know about the block of memory banks down in the basement, or if they did, they wouldn’t know about Sidra and Owl gleefully stuffing them with their latest downloads. No one would know that the bed upstairs wasn’t used by the establishment’s proprietor, but by Pepper and Blue, who sometimes stayed late to help get the place ready (or stayed just to talk, much to Owl’s delight).
Sidra had to leave the bots behind when she went out, of course, but she’d accepted that limitation for the rare occasions that she felt like exiting her walled space. It was a fair price to pay, she said, for going dancing now and then. Naturally, the petbots had been purchased as unassembled kits, not as off-the-shelf models. Sidra hadn’t felt right about the idea of Pepper gutting premades that were already activated, sentient or no.
Owl felt much the same. They agreed on a lot, the two of them. Not that they spoke aloud, of course, not unless they were joining in conversation with the others. The AI framework installed in the walls – Sidra’s design, Pepper’s implementation – contained a single node where Sidra and Owl could communicate with each other in much the way they had that first night in the shuttle. The node didn’t bind them. They could each pull back from it at will whenever privacy was desired. But that was uncommon. Having another of their kind to interact with was a joy they hadn’t known they were missing. Blue had done a small painting of how he imagined the node: a fence with a hole cut in it, a hand reaching through from either side, the two joined together in the freed space. He was a good one, Blue. Owl was glad they’d brought him along.
‘Tak, could you give me a hand?’ Pepper said. Her expression was one of taut concentration, and the sight of it made Owl’s pathways soar. She knew that face. She’d known that face when it was small and sunburned. She’d known that face when it responded to a different name, a number. To see it now, with full cheeks and healthy colour and clean skin that had smiled often enough to gain a few lines – that was worth everything. It was worth every day of being alone, every day of wondering what had gone wrong. It was worth that last horrible day in the Transport Board impound when she’d slipped away with the last of the shuttle’s power reserves. She’d kept hoping, even then, even though there was no reason to. She’d told herself, as her nodes blinked out one by one, that Jane would come. She had no reason to believe that, but she’d hung onto it anyway.
And she’d been right.
Tak approached Pepper’s ladder. ‘What do you need?’
‘A third hand,’ Pepper said. The Aeluon climbed the other side of the ladder. The purple cat watched from the floor, its mechanical tail swishing. ‘Okay, see that junction there? I need you to hold it steady while I pop everything else together.’
Tak reached up into the ceiling, beyond Owl’s field of vision. ‘Like this?’ he said.
‘That’s great,’ Pepper said. She put her tongue between her teeth as she worked. There was a series of loud snaps, followed by the light panel blooming back on. ‘There we go!’ Pepper grinned. Owl knew that face, too. It was the face that happened when something got fixed.
Pepper descended the ladder and walked to the bar, pulling off her gloves. ‘Anything else I can do?’ she said, addressing Sidra’s core.
Sidra shook her head with a smile. ‘You can tell me if my mek brewer’s working right.’
Pepper raised her brow. ‘I thought you were worried about running out.’
‘Well, yes, but now I’m worried about the brewer not working. I can spare one test batch.’
‘All right,’ Pepper said, starting toward the other side of the bar. ‘Let me—’