When I came out Ratthi was still there. He grabbed my arm and tugged me past a couple of human techs and out through two levels of secure doors and into the display area. This was where the rentals were arranged and it was nicer than the rest of the deployment center, with carpets and couches. Pin-Lee stood in the middle of it, dressed in sharp business attire. She looked like somebody from one of the shows I liked. The tough yet compassionate solicitor coming to rescue us from unfair prosecution. Two humans in company gear were standing around like they wanted to argue with her but she was ignoring them, tossing a data chip casually in one hand.
One saw me and Ratthi and said, “Again, this is irregular. Purging the unit’s memory before it changes hands isn’t just a policy, it’s best for the—”
“Again, I have a court order,” Pin-Lee said, grabbed my other arm, and they walked me out.
*
I had never seen the human parts of the station before. We went down the big multilevel center ring, past office blocks and shopping centers, crowded with every kind of people, every kind of bot, flash data displays darting around, a hundred different public feeds brushing my awareness. It was just like a place from the entertainment feed but bigger and brighter and noisier. It smelled good, too.
The thing that surprised me is that nobody stared at us. Nobody even gave us a second look. The uniform, the pants, the long-sleeved T-shirt and jacket, covered all my inorganic parts. If they noticed the dataport in the back of my neck they must have thought I was an augmented human. We were just three more people making our way down the ring. It hit me that I was just as anonymous in a crowd of humans who didn’t know each other as I was in my armor, in a group of other SecUnits.
As we turned into a hotel block I brushed a public feed offering station info. I saved a map and a set of shift schedules as we passed through the doors into the lobby.
There were potted trees twisting up into a hanging glass sculpture fountain, real, not a holo. Looking at it I almost didn’t see the reporters until they were right up on us. They were augmented humans, with a couple of drone cams. One tried to stop Pin-Lee, and instinct took over and I shouldered him off her.
He looked startled but I’d been gentle so he didn’t fall down. Pin-Lee said, “We’re not taking questions now,” shoved Ratthi into the hotel’s transport pod, then grabbed my arm and pulled me in after her.
It whooshed us around and let us out in the foyer of a big suite. I followed Pin-Lee in, Ratthi behind us talking to someone on his comm. It was just as fancy as the ones on the media, with carpets and furniture and big windows looking down on the garden and sculptures in the main lobby. Except the rooms were smaller. I guess the ones in the shows are bigger, to give them better angles for the drone cams.
My clients—ex-clients? New owners?—were here, only everybody looked different in their normal clothes.
Dr. Mensah stepped close, looking up at me. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” I had clear pictures from my field camera of her being hurt, but all her damage had been repaired, too. She looked different, in business clothes like Pin-Lee’s. “I don’t understand what’s happening.” It was stressful. I could feel the entertainment feed out there, the same one I could access from the unit processing zone, and it was hard not to sink into it.
She said, “I’ve purchased your contract. You’re coming back to Preservation with us. You’ll be a free agent there.”
“I’m off inventory.” They had told me that and maybe it was true. I had the urge to twitch uncontrollably and I had no idea why. “Can I still have armor?” It was the armor that told people I was a SecUnit. But I wasn’t Sec anymore, just Unit.
The others were so quiet. She said, even and calm, “We can arrange that, as long as you think you need it.”
I didn’t know if I thought I needed it or not. “I don’t have a cubicle.”
She was reassuring. “You won’t need one. People won’t be shooting at you. If you’re hurt, or your parts are damaged, you can be repaired in a medical center.”
“If people won’t be shooting at me what will I be doing?” Maybe I could be her bodyguard.
“I think you can learn to do anything you want.” She smiled. “We’ll talk about that when we get you home.”
Arada walked in then, and came over and patted my shoulder. “We’re so glad you’re with us,” she said. She told Mensah, “The DeltFall representatives are here.”
Mensah nodded. “I have to talk to them,” she told me. “Make yourself comfortable here. If there’s anything you need, tell us.”
I sat in a back corner and watched while different people came in and out of the suite to talk about what had happened. Solicitors, mostly. From the company, from DeltFall, from at least three other corporate political entities and one independent, even from GrayCris’ parent company. They asked questions, argued, looked at security records, showed Mensah and Pin-Lee security records. And they looked at me. Gurathin watched me, too, but he didn’t say anything. I wondered if he had told Mensah not to buy me.
I watched the entertainment feed a little to calm down, then pulled everything I could about the Preservation Alliance from the station’s information center. No one would be shooting at me because they didn’t shoot people there. Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.
Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of. He was called away to answer questions from a solicitor, which gave me time to think.
I didn’t know what I would do on a farm. Clean the house? That sounded way more boring than security. Maybe it would work out. This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want.
Supposed to want.
I’d have to pretend to be an augmented human, and that would be a strain. I’d have to change, make myself do things I didn’t want to do. Like talk to humans like I was one of them. I’d have to leave the armor behind.
But maybe I wouldn’t need it anymore.
*
Eventually things settled down, and they had dinner brought in. Mensah came and talked to me some more, about Preservation, what my options would be there, how I would stay with her until I knew what I wanted. It was pretty much what I’d already figured, from what Ratthi had told me.
“You’d be my guardian,” I said.
“Yes.” She was glad I understood. “There are so many education opportunities. You can do anything you want.”
Guardian was a nicer word than owner.
I waited until the middle of the offshift, when they were all either asleep or deep in their own feeds, working on their analysis of the assessment materials. I got up from the couch and went down the corridor, and slipped out the door.