After she got to the waterhole, she put on the pair of huge rubber boots that had been in the cargo bay from day one. They were enormous on her, but they went up past her knees, which was what she needed. She picked up the fabric that the bones rested on, holding it wide as she could between her arms. The bones shifted together. Some of the lizard-birds near the bank looked up.
‘I hope this is okay with you,’ Jane said to the bones. She stepped carefully into the water, trying not to jostle the bones any more than she had to. ‘I can’t launch you to space, and you don’t have any nutrients I can make anything out of.’ She walked forward. The water was dirty and polluted, but it gave life, too. It gave life to the lizard-birds and the fungus and the bugs, and even the dogs, the bastard dogs who’d made a meal out of these kids. The water gave her life, too. ‘So, um, in sims, sometimes they talk about fossils. Fossils are great, because they mean there’s a chance somebody will find you a long long time from now and what’s left of you can teach them things about who you were. I don’t know if this will work, but I know you need water and mud for fossils, and this is the best I’ve got.’ She stopped in the middle of the pond. The lizard-birds chirped. The water lapped at her huge boots. She felt like she should say something more, but what else was there? The bones couldn’t hear her anyway. She didn’t know why she was talking. She didn’t have any more words left, just a heavy chest and a whole lot of tired. She laid the fabric into the water. The water reached up, bleeding through, tugging it down. The bones sank and vanished.
As Jane headed back home, she decided something, and she knew it better than she’d ever known anything. She would die someday – no getting around that. But nobody would find her bones in the scrapyard. She wasn’t going to leave them there.
SIDRA
Sidra stood outside of the shop for three minutes. She’d seen the place before, when running errands for Pepper around the caves, but had never gone inside. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t before. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to now.
Friendly Tethesh, the blinking blue sign read. Licensed AI Vendor.
The kit breathed in. She walked through the door.
The space within was empty, for the most part. Just a cylindrical room with a large pixel projector bolted to the floor. Advertising prints for various programming studios lined the walls. An Aandrisk man lounged in an elaborate reclining workstation, eating a large snapfruit tart. The door to a back room was shut behind him.
‘Hey, welcome, welcome,’ the proprietor said. He put down his snack and got to his feet. ‘What can I do for you?’
Sidra considered her words with care, hoping this wasn’t a mistake. ‘I’m . . . honestly, I’m just curious,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been in an AI shop before.’
‘I’m happy to be the first,’ the Aandrisk said. ‘I’m Tethesh. And you?’
‘Sidra.’
‘A pleasure,’ he said with a welcoming flick of his hand. ‘So. How can I help?’
‘I’d like to know more about how this works. If I wanted to buy an AI, how would I go about it?’
Tethesh looked at her, considering. ‘You thinking about getting one for your ship? Or your workplace, perhaps?’
Sidra struggled. A simple yes would move this conversation along, but that she couldn’t do. ‘The shop I work at has an AI,’ she said. It was an awkward reply, she knew, but she couldn’t say nothing.
Tethesh, however, didn’t seem thrown. ‘Ah,’ he said, with a knowing nod. ‘Yeah, I know how it is when it’s time for a replacement. You’re ready to upgrade from the old one, but you’re so used to it, it’s hard to take the plunge. Well, I can show you what I have to offer, and maybe that’ll help you make a more informed decision.’ He gestured to the pixel projector. A flurry of pixels shot up and arranged themselves in neat sheets around them. ‘You’ll find a lot of merchants who specialise in one catalogue, but me, I offer a bit of everything. I’d rather help my customers find the perfect fit than get a sales commission.’ He pointed at the orderly lists the pixels had arranged themselves in. ‘Nath’duol, Tornado, SynTel, Next Stage. All the major developers. I have a few independent producers on offer as well,’ he said, nodding to a smaller list. ‘The big names give you reliability, but don’t discount the little guys. Some of the coolest changes in cognitive capacity are coming out of smaller studios these days.’
Sidra looked around. Every catalogue was just a list of names. Kola. Tycho. Auntie. ‘How do you go about picking one?’ she asked.
Tethesh raised a claw. ‘We start with the basics. Let’s say you’re looking for a shopfront program.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Catalogue filter: shopfront,’ he said, loud and clear. The pixels shifted, names disappearing, others sliding in to take their places. He looked to her again. ‘Now, you’re probably going to want someone who shares your cultural norms, so . . . catalogue filter: Human.’ He glanced at her, considering. ‘I’m gonna guess Exodan. How’d I do?’