‘I’ve been such an asshole,’ Jane said. Owl laughed, and Jane laughed, too, through the tears. ‘And I was stupid out there, I was so stupid and I knew better, and I almost left you all alone.’
Owl put her puppet hand on Jane’s back. It didn’t feel like anything, but knowing Owl wanted to have a hand to put there was good enough. ‘When you didn’t come home that night, I thought I’d lost you. But I never thought you left. I know you wouldn’t do that, not without saying why.’ She placed an empty kiss on Jane’s scalp. ‘That’s not how family works.’
SIDRA
Sidra stepped into the workshop, her scrib in the kit’s hands. ‘Pepper, do you have a minute?’
Pepper looked up from the sim cap she was repairing. ‘I have several.’
The kit took a breath. She set the scrib down flat on Pepper’s workbench. ‘I was hoping this might be a good time to talk about the . . . thing I’ve been working on.’
Pepper grinned. She put her tools aside and sat down. ‘So, do I finally get to see the mystery project?’
‘Yes.’ Sidra gestured at the scrib; a set of blueprints appeared. Pepper leaned forward, studying. ‘This—’ Sidra began.
‘—is an AI framework,’ Pepper said, eyes darting from junction to junction. She raised an absent eyebrow and looked Sidra in the eye. ‘And it’s also my house.’
The kit swallowed.
Pepper gave a patient smile. ‘You’re not being presumptuous, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have no problem ripping walls open.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘I’m all ears.’
Sidra regrouped. She was off-script now. A quick adjustment of the intro, and: ‘I’ve done a lot of research, and I think this could be accomplished rather easily. You’ve already got cable columns throughout the walls, so you could run the physical pathways alongside. My room could remain just that – my room. With some extra hardware and a cooling system, it would be an absolutely suitable spot for a core.’ She gestured at the scrib, and a new set of images appeared. ‘I could have cameras in all the rooms we share now – excluding your room and the bathroom, of course – and even’ – she gestured again – ‘a few outside.’ Another gesture brought up a table of numbers. ‘According to what I’ve found, I could buy all the supplies for the equivalent of eleven tendays on my current wages. If you’d be agreeable to starting on this project soon, I could work off the cost, no problem.’
Pepper tapped her finger over her lips as she thought. ‘You want to install yourself in my house.’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. How does this setup benefit me?’
‘For starters, increased security. I know you’ve got an alarmbot hive in case somebody breaks in, but it’s a very basic model. With me, you’d have a way of preventing trouble before it starts. If something was wrong, I could wake you up, call the authorities, and have all the lights in the house on in the blink of an eye. Same goes for medical emergencies. If something happened to you or Blue and the other wasn’t home, I’d be there to help.’
‘Interesting. What else?’
‘Enhanced communications and convenience. Want to order dinner? I can take care of it. Want to have all the newest sims downloaded to your hub before you come home? Give me a list of what you want, and I’ll have it done. Want me to read you your messages while you get ready for work? That’s a good twenty minutes I can shave off of your morning.’
Pepper laced her fingers together under her chin. ‘And what do you get out of this?’
‘I just . . . think this arrangement would be better for everyone.’
‘I’m asking why.’
Sidra looked at her friend for a moment. How was Pepper not getting this? ‘I don’t belong out here. I’m going to get someone in trouble – you, or Blue, or Tak. All three of you, maybe. There are too many variables, and I don’t know how this’ – she pointed at the kit – ‘is going to react to any of them.’
‘Is this about the thing that happened at the Vortex?’
The kit froze. ‘In part. How do you know about that?’
‘Tak told me, after he brought you home.’
Sidra’s pathways crackled with indignation. ‘He told you?’
‘He was just worried about you. Wanted to make sure your kit wasn’t malfunctioning.’
Sidra tried to squash the petty sense of betrayal. If anything, whatever exchange had happened between Pepper and Tak further bolstered her point. ‘Well, that’s exactly what I mean. I don’t belong out there with Tak, and I’m just going to get you in trouble. One day, someone’s going to ask me a question that I shouldn’t answer—’
‘I’m working on that, Sidra. I’m sorry, Lattice is a beast—’
‘You shouldn’t have to be learning it. You shouldn’t have to be rearranging your life for me. I know you’re not going out as much as you used to. I see your calendar, I know things were different before I got here. I’m a hindrance to you. I’m a danger.’
‘You’re not.’