checked the station directory and found Mensah had an office in the government admin block in the same section as the Port Authority. Her private quarters was listed, too. (Which is just a bad idea. I know Preservation thinks of itself as some kind of human non-corporate paradise, but let’s be real.) I didn’t want to go to her home anyway, since her family would be there, so I went to the office.
There was some security monitoring to get past, and three augmented humans who were way too easily distracted by fake feed alerts for routine malfunctions. It was a nice office, with a balcony overlooking the admin plaza area and some big display surfaces. I didn’t touch anything except the couch, which I laid down on and watched episodes for eight hours.
I had the station feed backburnered, and there were still no security alerts, no unusual activity around the passenger or bot-piloted transports.
Then I picked up Mensah arriving in the outer foyer with two humans and a small juvenile human, who looked like a miniature version of Mensah. I stood up and waited.
They walked in and stopped abruptly.
I said, “It’s me.”
“Yes, I see that.” Mensah pressed her lips together, hiding her expression, but she didn’t look mad. She glanced back at the other humans, then told me, “Just a moment.”
While she spoke to them, I stepped out onto the balcony. There was an air barrier protecting it from the plaza two levels below, which was better than nothing, I guess. The plaza had a big mosaic tile pattern with real plants in elaborate abstract sculptures around it. Humans and bots wandered across it on the way to the other port offices. Faint steps on audio told me the small human had followed me out. She stepped up to the railing, frowning curiously at me. She said, “Hello.”
“Hello,” I said. “I’m your mother’s pet security consultant.”
She nodded. “I know. She said if I asked you your name, you probably wouldn’t tell me.”
“She’s right.”
We stared at each other for ten seconds, then she decided I was serious. She added, “She also said you saved her from a bunch of corporate goons.”
“She didn’t say ‘goons. ’” It was an archaic word. I knew it without having to look it up because the new series of Adventures in the Free Systems, which was made on one of the other worlds in the Preservation Alliance, had dropped locally twenty hours ago and it had used the word “goons.” I was 93 percent certain that was where Mensah’s small human had picked it up, too.
“You know what I mean.” She folded her arms. She had clearly expected to get more information out of me and was disappointed this was apparently not going to happen. “You saved her, right?”
“Yeah. Want to see?”
She lifted her brows, surprised. “Sure.”
I’d already pulled my video of the last part of our run through the TRH embarkation zone, the fight with the SecUnits and the Combat SecUnit, and our escape in the shuttle. I did a rapid edit to cut out some of the bloodier close-ups, and then sent it to her feed.
Her gaze went inward, then a little glassy as she reviewed it. In the tone of a young human who was impressed but trying not to show it, she said, “Wow.”
“Your mother saved me, too. She shot a SecUnit with a sonic mining drill.”
She finished the vid and frowned at me again. “So, you’re a SecUnit.” She made a half-shrug gesture I didn’t understand. “Is that … weird?”
It was a complicated question with a simple answer. “Yes.”
Mensah came out onto the balcony and pointed firmly toward the seating area back inside the office. Small human waved goodbye and went to sit down. Mensah leaned against the railing next to me and said, “I was afraid you’d left.”
She kept her gaze on the plaza, so I could look at the side of her face. “I thought about it.”
She was quiet for twenty seconds, watching the movement in the plaza below. “Have you thought much about what you want to do?”
“Watch media.”
She did the lifted eyebrow look which I had on file as meaning: I know you’re trying to be funny but you’re not funny. It was most often aimed at Ratthi and Gurathin. “I think if that was all you wanted to do, you’d be off somewhere doing it, and you’d never have gone to Milu.”
“I watched a lot of media on the way to Milu.” It wasn’t exactly a counterargument, but I thought it was important data.
“Gurathin showed me the video you shared with him.” She meant the video of the transport with Ayres and the others. “You were helping those people.”
“I couldn’t help them. They had a contract labor agreement.”
I saw from her reaction that she knew exactly what that meant. “It was too late for you to help them, then.” She started to turn toward me, then looked out over the plaza again. “But you wanted to.”
“I’m programmed to help humans.”
Eyebrow lift again. “You’re not programmed to watch media.”
She had a point.
She continued, “The reason I ask, is that you’ve received a job offer from GoodNightLander Independent.”
Okay, now that was a surprise. “They want to buy me. I thought I was illegal in the territories they operate in.”
“It’s illegal to own a SecUnit,” Mensah corrected. “They want to hire someone who may or may not be called Rin, who they suspect is based somewhere in the Preservation Alliance, whose citizenship status will be considered immaterial.” She smiled. “I think that’s how they put it.”
I still couldn’t believe this. “They want to hire a SecUnit.”
“They want to hire the person who saved their assessment team from combat bots and contract killers, and they don’t care what that person is.” She glanced at me again. “Also, I’ve been talking to Dr. Bharadwaj and she wants to ask you to consider making your story public. Not to the newsfeed, but as part of a documentary account. There’s been a small movement for a while in the Preservation Alliance to press for full citizenship for constructs and high-level bots. She thinks a full account of your situation, in your own words, could be a great contribution. Even if all you did was agree to release the message you sent to me before you left Port FreeCommerce, as part of a public account of the GrayCris incident, it would help. She’d like to discuss it with you, if you feel it’s something you could consider.”
Okay, maybe I should have been appalled. It was a terrifying idea. It was a terrifyingly attractive idea. I said, “A documentary on the entertainment feed?”
Mensah nodded. “Again, there’s no rush about any of this. I just want you to know you already have options here, and I expect you’ll have more offers for your services or advice as a security consultant. And that you have friends here you can discuss things with, whatever you decide to do, or wherever you decide to go.”
I had options, and I didn’t have to decide right away. Which was good, because I still didn’t know what I wanted.
But maybe I had a place to be while I figured it out.