Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) - Martha Wells Page 0,14

I would have to get a shuttle from the transit ring to the RaviHyral port. That would be tricky. Well, the whole thing would be tricky. From the information on the shipping schedule, only people with employment vouchers or passes from one of the mining installations or support services were allowed to board the shuttles. There was no tourism, nobody coming and going without official authorization from one of the companies or contractors on the moon. Since I wasn’t a person and I didn’t have an employment voucher, I would have to hack my way into one of the supply shuttles …

ART was still pulling data from the station feed. I have a suggestion, it told me, and displayed a set of personal advertisements. I had seen these in the feeds at Port FreeCommerce and the last transit ring, but hadn’t paid attention. ART highlighted one that was a job listing for a temporary position as security for a technologist group on limited contract.

“What?” I asked ART. I didn’t understand why it was showing me this.

If this group hired you, you would have an employment voucher for travel to the installation.

“Hire me.” I’ve had more contracts than I can remember (I mean that literally. A lot of them were before the memory purge) but none of them were voluntary. The company pulled me out of storage, showed me to the client, then packed me into the cargo hold. “Have you lost your mind?”

My crew hires consultants for every voyage. ART was impatient that I wasn’t complimenting it yet on its great idea. The procedure is simple.

“For humans and augmented humans, yes.” I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human. I know that’s what altering my configuration was supposed to be for, but I had imagined it as taking place from a distance, or in the spaces of a crowded transit ring. Interacting meant talking, and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.

It will be simple, ART insisted. I’ll assist you.

Yes, the giant transport bot is going to help the construct SecUnit pretend to be human. This will go well.

* * *

Once ART was docked and the transit ring’s bot-piloted tugs were removing the cargo modules, it cycled the lock for me and I slipped through into the embarkation zone. It had given me access to its comm so it could ride my feed through the transit ring. It claimed it could help me and while I was skeptical of that, it could at least keep me company. As I walked away from the safety of ART’s lock, I dropped back down to 96 percent efficiency. I hit the station entertainment feeds for new downloads to try to calm down.

I’d already sent a message to the social feed node about the advertisement, and gotten an answer with a location and timestamp. The last time I’d had an arranged meeting with humans they kidnapped Mensah and blew me up, so. This could hardly be worse.

I hacked my way through embarkation zone security and out into the ring’s mall. It was utilitarian compared to both the last transit ring and Port FreeCommerce. No garden pods, no holo sculptures, no big holo displays advertising arrays of shipwrights and cargo factors and other businesses, no shiny new interface vending machines. Also no big passenger transports coming through, so not nearly as big a crowd, of humans or bots. ART’s idea was beginning to seem less like a stupid risk and more like a necessity. Blending in here would be harder, if everyone was only here on their way to and from the installations on the moon. In my feed, ART said, I told you so.

The location for the meeting was a food service place in the main mall area. It was in a large transparent bubble in the second level of the mall, overlooking the walkways and counter service stalls below. There were multiple open levels inside, with tables and chairs, and it was 40 percent full of humans and augmented humans. As I walked through, I picked up the occasional buzz of a drone, but no pings. There were food smells in the air, and the acrid scents of intoxicants. I didn’t bother to try to analyze and identify them; I was too nervous and trying to focus on looking like an augmented human.

The humans I was to meet had sent an image so I could find them. There were three of them, all wearing