CHAPTER 39
I don’t hate maintenance passages.
Talinn followed the first path they’d traced for themselves—unlike their first station, the map and directions had been accurate, and they hadn’t had to make any sudden detours. Bee occasionally commented on an absurdly loud passerby or a particularly lurid advertisement, but overall it was an unremarkable journey until they reached their destination.
The same symbol—the outlines of three interlocking ports—had been traced over the entrance, but the doorway itself stood open. Talinn checked her step toward it, making a point to scan the area around them.
This was not a purely residential portion of the station, but what commercial uses it had catered less to tourists and more to locals, given the fairly simple signage and lack of noisy ads. There were fewer than forty people in the immediate area—most sitting outside a counter restaurant, eating such fantastically long noodles Talinn was tempted to have Bee dial her sense of scent back to normal.
The door isn’t entirely open, Bee observed before Talinn could ask about smelling the noodles. It’s a field.
“More chance of electrifying people?” Talinn squinted at it briefly, then continued her scan of the area. Three levels were in view above them, and one below, all accessible by lifts rather than walkways. Each lift was sized to hold a handful of people and moved at a sedate pace, though a smaller one, virulently red and smaller, with room for no more than three bodies, raced through and vanished around a curve in the overarching structure as she watched.
Not . . . an electrifying field. Bee didn’t have access to a full range of sensors, given she wasn’t in an active server connected to anything. She could, however, use some of Talinn’s adaptations and their own experience to make solid guesses about various machinery. But I don’t recommend walking through it to find out.
“Any ideas how to get an invite, then?”
Get some noodles and watch the place to see who moves in and out, or walk up and shout through the door?
“Now that’s machine-god level thinking, that is. Very nice.” Talinn snorted to herself, strongly considered the latter option, then turned toward the counter restaurant instead.
Most of the wall was solid, covered in menus and old posters much like the maintenance corridors. A long rectangle of an opening revealed the action side of a kitchen, the shining counter mostly bare other than the bowl or two of noodles that periodically slid through for pickup. Talinn took her hands out of her pockets—unadapted humans much preferred to see hands than have them hidden, she’d learned—and moved toward the stand at the far end of the counter.
A display projected above it as she approached, menu flickering through several versions until her eyes dilated in a way that confirmed for it she understood the writing. She scrolled through the options—an overwhelming plethora of choices, with seven different noodle dishes, two stir-frys, and a baked dish she didn’t recognize—tapped a soup touted as “local favorite” and tossed the appropriate amount of credit into the drawer that opened underneath. The screen flashed a confirmation and directed her to sit. Most of the tables were occupied, almost all with two or more people, and she walked toward one of the two empty ones without making eye contact. The one she chose had had all but one of its chairs scavenged, so she figured she’d be left alone even if local custom involved communal seating. She tossed a delivery checklist on the table and slid into the seat, running her finger over the manifest as though absorbed with work while she listened to Bee’s ongoing monologue of theories on the machine god’s open but invisibly curtained door.
An EMP field doesn’t make sense though, if they’re trying to load programs into people. That would just wipe them every time. Unless it’s a coded EMP—remember Caytil had that idea, there was a way to target an EMP specifically to a certain frequency and leave everything else unharmed? Offensive shielding.
“Maybe like what happened to us at Deep End.” Talinn swung her leg under the table, because something needed to move. “Though I’m pretty sure that was the same night we started theorizing on kill codes—”
Which do exist.
“Which you still think exist, but we really should spend some time on actual research and development, huh?”
“Can’t even get a break for meals, is it?” a new voice interjected, and Talinn guiltily reminded herself she was not in a safe environment where she could focus inward on conversation. She was in the actual public, surrounded by potentially hostile people, with all of a fragile wig for cover.
“You know how it is. Paid for the results, not the time.” Talinn tilted her head up and flipped the manifest over. Its information was real enough, but she hoped both reply and action were standard enough in the civilian world not to attract too much attention.
“Isn’t it just. Noticed you missed your noodles.” The stranger—a gangly young man with an excessive amount of both head hair and eyebrows—smiled and carefully placed a large bowl in front of her. “Didn’t want you to lose the steam.”
“Oh.” She breathed deeply, the sharp bite of some sort of pepper tingling the edges of her nose, and smiled at him. “Appreciate that, thanks. Faster than I’m used to.” She had no idea how long food took to make at a restaurant like this—her best comparison was when Otie had made them noodles at the installation, and she’d walked in partway through that process.
“Fastest on Sovoritt,” he agreed, straightening proudly as though he had something to do with it.
Is he . . . going to keep talking to you? Start eating, see if that helps send him on his way.
“Is it your place?” Talinn found herself asking instead of picking up a pack of sealed utensils from the jar in the middle of the table.
“Noo-wave?” He laughed, shook his head. “No. I work over there.” He gestured vaguely behind him. “So most times I’m picking up food here to take back.”
Talinn followed his gesture, which could have been toward the machine god’s waiting room. Or it could have been the body-design studio next to it. “Artist?” she asked, ignoring Bee’s explosive pretend sigh.
“Something like that. Enjoy your meal.” He rapped on the table with his knuckles and sauntered back toward the counter, whistling.
Whistling. Who did that?
All right, I guess just asking questions and staring at him did enough to send him off. Good job being awkward.
“Enough out of you. We don’t want to stick out, and if he did happen to be one of the people with the machine-god activists, or knew something about them, wouldn’t that be helpful?”
Eat your noodles and watch the door. Before more empties come over and try to sex you.
Unfortunately Talinn took her first mouthful at near the exact moment Bee chose to drop that tidbit, and equally unfortunately it was a far hotter bite than she’d been expecting. She spluttered, then choked, then realized she hadn’t purchased a beverage, and coughed more until everything found its way into its proper tube. She very, very much hoped the areas of her brain lighting up indicated clearly to Bee the level of cursing she aimed at her partner mentally, especially when the tall man returned with a glistening receptacle of liquid and a smile that might have been sincere.
“It’s also pretty spicy here, if you’re not ready.” He proffered the drink and she took it without question. It was sealed and had a label she’d seen on countless advertisements, so it seemed safe enough. Bee didn’t argue.
After she’d swallowed about half of it without anything rearranging itself in her chest, she realized she had to clarify. “Not the spice.” Her voice remained slightly ragged, but she pushed through. “Just swallowed the wrong way and . . .” She took another sip and laughed. “Maybe a little bit the spice. But mostly the first.”
“How long are you on decks for?” He left his hands on the table, leaning but not getting too close to her.
“Not much longer. Few more deliveries, then on to the next.”
At least you don’t have a chair to offer him.
“Do you want to grab a chair?”
You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Bee made a very loud noise, but Talinn managed not to flinch, and then the man was turning to secure a chair and Talinn had space to subvocalize without worry of being noticed.
“Point the first: either he’s one of the people we want to talk to, or he works near them and might have seen something. Point the second: no one else in this area is eating alone, this might help me blend more. Point the third—“
I’m being a brat.
“You are, in fact, being a brat.”
It’s also possible he was waving in a completely general ‘that way’ direction, and neither of those things is true, and you’re wasting time.
“Odds?”
Slightly in your favor.
“Enough for you to stop being a brat?”
Maybe.
Talinn smiled slightly, and the man returned, sliding the chair on the opposite side of the table from her, not next to her.
“I’m Elban. Ban to my friends.” He swept his hands over his forehead—either a gesture of greeting in the local environment, or a failed attempt to move some of his truly impressive hair away from his eyes.
“Your acquaintance is a pleasure,” she replied, borrowing a response she’d heard on Duray. Before she almost got stabbed in an alley. “You can call me Tal.”
“Which of the courier services do you work for? I always said I was going to get out of here and run off with Dorner, but their hiring never matched up with my availability.” He smiled, expression warm. Was she getting better at reading unadapted faces, or was he more open than others?
“Are you from Sovoritt?” She widened her eyes slightly, as though she were interested. The patch on her coverall indicated she worked for Spinafel, based out of Hynex, but the less they talked about her details, the better.
“Born, raised, and blooded.” Ban tapped his shoulder, which she took to mean he’d been injured in some way. Or body modified in some way. Her eyes drifted over his shoulder to the storefronts across the way, and he shifted in his seat. “You trying to figure out which place I work at?”
“Thinking about if you got blooded out there in the UCF-IDC mess, or if you meant there, picking up art or mods.” Talinn lifted both shoulders slightly and tilted her head.
“Neither, actually.” He laughed and leaned back, and she took the opportunity to eat more of her noodles. “Used to do lift repair, and one time a control program went amok while I was deep in a track. Lost this arm.” He tapped his shoulder again, and she lifted her eyebrows to demonstrate an appropriate amount of shock. “Got a pretty good replacement, but I like to say a little piece of me is in Sovoritt, just like a little bit of Sovoritt is in me.”
Before she could clear her mouth enough to ask, he chuckled again and gestured for her to keep eating. “We reuse everything, in case the war heats up and we lose shipments for a while. Happened before. As it is, at least part of my replacement arm is from the guts of the station.”
Talinn paused with another mound of twisted noodles halfway to her mouth. “I’ve spent most of my time in Govlic.” That was fairly true, up to a certain point in time. “Groundside when I’m at home, so supply chain is different. Does that happen a lot in Exfora?”
“What, replacement arms?” His laugh this time was deeper and he shook his head, indicating he didn’t mean the question. “Losing out on scheduled shipments? Here and there. A lot when I was a scrapling, then not much at all. Lately . . .” He tipped a hand side to side. “Enough. Enough that it’s good we keep to old habits, you know?”
She nodded and chewed, wondered at the cycle of the war’s disruptions. Bad, not so bad, bad again . . . maybe it wasn’t Otie and her plans, or bonzo defense arrays, making things messy. Maybe that was the part of the cycle they were in.
This seems like it was always a scavenge station. Wonder if that was on purpose, since they don’t add much to either UCF or IDC? Sovoritt does some refining of local asteroid ores, but . . . huh. I wonder which side that goes to?
Talinn didn’t know enough about the potential loyalties of the station’s inhabitants to even ask around that question, so when it seemed her new companion was satisfied in sitting quietly and letting her eat, she said between bites, “Thank you again. For the drink.”
“I’m glad to help. Sorry I wasn’t faster.” Ban leaned forward, his forearms flat against the edge of the table. “Too bad you’re not on decks longer. There’s a noodle place downward right, best in the system.”
“Have you eaten at a lot of places in the system?” She smiled to ensure it came across as a tease, rather than judgment, and hoped she calibrated the expression with the right amount of enthusiasm.
Apparently she did, because he laughed once again. “Enough to say it without fear of embarrassment. I know you said you spent most of your time in Govlic, or Hynex for work, but you’re here now—you get much chance to try food places?”
“I’m usually in and out. Maybe a meal here or there, but these are the best noodles I’ve had so far.”
You’re doing an excellent job of saying mostly true things. Proud of you.
“Yeah. Most of the extra-system delivery services haven’t been through here in a while. That’s why I was wondering who you courier for.”
“Didn’t I say?” She tapped the patch on her coveralls and took another bite of noodles. She was supposed to be questioning him, not the other way round. “Spinafel. You’ve heard their deal, right? Only a defense array could get in our way.”
I still can’t believe that’s really their slogan. Bee made a sound of disgust. Can we wrap this up? Have you even noticed the traffic around the machine-god place?
There hadn’t been any. No one had gone into the body-modification shop either. She had kept both in her eyeline, knowing Bee would note anything Talinn might miss, but there hadn’t been much to follow.
“I’d say it’s a terrible tagline, but I guess you live into it, so good for them. Hope they pay extra for this system’s runs.”
“Not as far as my balance shows.” She said it carefully, not sure what he meant. Then threw some measure of caution into a gravity well and asked the question directly. “And what do you mean? This part of Exfora’s not any hotter than anywhere else.”
“We haven’t seen a lot of extra-system traffic lately. Other than IDC piling through, but they don’t have much cause for time here in this station.”
The bitterness in his voice snagged her attention, especially as his body language didn’t change. She dropped her utensils in the mostly empty bowl and kept her frown faint.
“I thought you said you weren’t missing too many shipments, these days?”
“We don’t count on anything extra-system, given we’re not high on trade. It’s in-system that keeps us going, and that’s been . . .” He straightened, pressing his back against the thin rungs of his chair, and lifted a shoulder. “Like I said. We’re missing enough.”
“Is it . . . with more IDC and UCF movement, I’m guessing the front’s getting, uh, front-ier?”
Is that the best you could do? We really need to practice your civilian.
“That’s a way to put it.” He snorted and crossed his arms. “It’s so pointless.”
“The war?”
“Absolutely.” Ban held up both hands and ducked his chin. “I’m not asking you to tell me your side. We don’t really do those here, best we can. But if other people would just . . .”
Hm. Maybe this isn’t a waste of time.
“Just?” she prompted, curling her hands around her empty bowl.
“Just let other people live. IDC doesn’t need to run us way out here, and we barely need UCF anymore either. We’re pretty self-sufficient.”
Says the man with station trash in his arm.
“The system would be fine, without either.” He nodded, glanced around, as though that were a controversial statement. Probably it was, though not nearly as interesting as if he’d declared for the machine god and made her next steps easier.
And I was right the first time. This is a waste of time.
“My job would definitely go smoother.” Talinn smiled, swallowing back the pang of disappointment. She could still find a way into the port-marked room and figure out what they were doing before Medith needed her back.
“Ha. That’s what they say, too.” He tilted his head back, not definitively, but enough for her gut to clench in anticipation.
“They?” She made a point to shift her gaze over his shoulder, raising her eyebrows. “Studio or shadow sign?”
“Shadow . . . ?” He turned in his chair, then laughed. “The machinists. You haven’t run into them before?”
“Like I said, mostly in and out. I don’t get a lot of the local flavor.” She waved a hand in the air, as vague a gesture as one of his.
“No, they’re not local. They’re all over. Really, you haven’t . . . ? Well, I guess that makes sense. They do travel some, but they’re more about the locals where they are, when they’re there.”
Talinn nodded as though that made sense, but she had to keep her hands tight around the bowl to stop herself from lunging across the table at him. “And they’re the ‘they’ you’re talking about? The . . . machinists?”
“Yeah. I’ve talked to them a few times. They say we’ve got enough programs to run everything that needs running, make everything that needs making. That humanity should be able to kick back and live, not fight to survive.”
That’s . . . disappointing.
“I mean, we have programs, sure, but . . .” Talinn glanced pointedly at his arm, hoping he was as not-sensitive about it as he’d seemed. He rewarded the guess with a snort that verged into another laugh.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Not sure those kinds of programs’re ready for heading up a full-time operation. I’d put people on a ticking timer until the program accidentally wiped us out on a glitch. Station wouldn’t last much past an ‘open airlocks to perform routine maintenance’ day.”
“I’d have to agree with you.”
Rude. I know you’re not talking about me, but still. Rude.
“And they said that’s why you got to have some people with programs in their head. Keep them logical when they need to be logical, adaptive when they need to adapt.”
“How . . .” Talinn pulled her hands back and folded them on her lap, so he wouldn’t see the knuckles go pale as she tensed. “How would that even work?”
“Oh, they have a whole plan. It’s like what I’ve got.”
“What . . . you’ve got?” Talinn barely stopped herself from glancing toward his earlobe—with all that hair, she’d never be able to see if he had a port, and the fact of her looking for one could reveal more than would be safe.
“To run the arm. It has a little program in it, tied to my spine.” He tapped the back of his neck. “Not an AI or anything—I’m not elite troops, right?” Ban laughed again, and this time the sound grated. “Not even anything as deep as the lift models. Just something to keep the pretend nerves talking to my real brain. But it’s a way they could plug in something bigger, if I wanted.”
Talinn had a moment to consider how a lift program could be more complicated than one that ran the intricate network of nerves and movements of a human limb, but Bee interjected before she solved it for herself.
It’s about decisions. His brain makes all the calls for the arm, the program only executes. A lift needs to decide the best course, what to do if there’s a potential collision, which arm to take off a tech. Not big choices, but choices all the same.
“Is that something . . . you’re planning on doing?” She made an effort to keep her voice light, conversational. She wasn’t sure she succeeded, but it didn’t seem to offend Ban.
“They have this idea that the more of us who do it, the more likely we can end the war.” There was a hush to his words on that—not a whisper, but a definite drop in his volume.
“I don’t follow.”
“It’s a little out there, right? I know that.” He straightened off the table again, draped his arm over the back of his chair, and cocked his head. Distancing himself from her, or his words. A layer of safety, ensuring she knew he didn’t mean it? Reading unadapted humans was a blind shot in the infinity of space. “But you give a program a set of constraints, it operates within them. Like—maximize resources. War is a waste of resources that could be better applied in a different direction.”
Not according to generations of Command. Or the logic of profit for weapons, profit for rebuilding, profit for new weapons to undo the rebuilding, repeat.
Talinn didn’t argue with either of them. It was a truth of people and AIs both, when they’d made up their minds, it became a fixed idea. Belief plus emotion became truth, and getting that solid conviction to shift was more work than she had time for.
“So you—they—say that if more people had a program for conservation in their heads, the war would end?”
“They admit it’s not quite that simple, but essentially that’s the idea.” Ban scanned the area around them—no one was close enough to their table to be obviously listening, but traffic had increased in the walkway nearby. After a moment, Talinn understood he was studying her in his peripheral, waiting for her reaction.
“Where will they get these programs? I didn’t think it was that easy to mesh them into people.” She tapped her temple, was momentarily surprised by the curl of hair that brushed her finger, and ignored the faint shriek of torn metal Bee left in the back of her head.
“That you’d have to talk to them about. I’m just the artist next door.” But the glances he slid sidelong at her were less subtle, so she made a point of shifting her gaze over his shoulder, toward the door.
“Can I just . . . go in?” She lifted a hand and gestured across the corridor.
“Door’s open. They’re welcoming—only way to do what they want to do.” Ban pushed his chair back, though he didn’t stand.
Welcoming. That’s an interesting use of the word. You think he doesn’t know there’s a field over the door, or he does and he thinks it’s funny when people get knocked out?
“I don’t have a lot of time . . .”
“Sure, of course. I can introduce you and if you’re interested, I mean, they’ve got places all over. All the systems. You might start a conversation here and pick it up in Hynex, or wherever Spinafel sends you next.”
Love that, wouldn’t they? A traveling convert, spreading the good word of the machine god.
“Don’t be mad that you’re not the machine god.” Talinn scratched at the back of her neck as she subvocalized to Bee, who made a dismissive noise but didn’t argue.
“You don’t have to,” Ban interjected before she’d decided how to accept without coming across as too eager. “I really did just come over to offer you a drink when you were choking—I mean I like talking with pretty strangers, but it’s not to, you know, recruit them—you—for anything.”
Well, now it seems like it’s to recruit for something. I wish I could monitor his pulse and see how likely it is he’s lying or not. His pupils are useless, he’s too interested in you.
“I guess I have a little time.” Talinn picked up her bowl and pushed her chair back. “If now is fine to go over there?”
“I’m supposed to get back to work eventually, so now is good.” He smiled and stood, offering her his hand.
For the sake of all the little broken codes . . . he’s a little much.
Talinn didn’t disagree, but took his hand to stand, then immediately took it back to push her chair back against the table. She managed another smile while she did it, and again he didn’t seem to take offense.
It took a handful of moments to dispose of her bowl, wind their way out of the noodle bar’s eating area, and finagle through the increased bodies between their side of the corridor and their target. It wasn’t enough time for either Talinn or Bee to come up with a solid plan for the field, other than “let Ban go first.”