in light that is not blue, in a space that’s actually meant to keep people like her alive. She notes that her Network unit is no longer hanging here—but as her body reminds her, that’s not number one on the priority list right now. A few more pulls, and here she is at the living level. Then it’s just steps to her room and the sweet relief of her sanitation station. Which would all be great…except for one thing.
Which is her room?
She stares at six identical hatches, three on each side of the corridor. Okay, no problem, no problem. She turned left to get to the ladder before, so it’s one of these three on the right. She passed at least one hatch on the way—oh, right, here are the talon marks all around this one on the end—so it’s definitely one of the other two. Once again, life has become far more complicated without a Network unit. She tries the first, leaning in to give the hatch a clear view of her registration, and then takes a startled step backward when it slides open. It’s not the sudden movement that shocks her; rather, it’s the fact that someone is standing there.
The figure is her size, bipedal, all gleaming black synthetic surfaces. A face full of lenses examines her, and she can hear the high-pitched hum of tiny servos as they focus. Again she misses the overlays her Network unit provides, because she cannot for the life of her remember the name. This is a person and not a drone, she’s sure of that. An android. He, tier two-point-something…But name? Nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought these were my quarters.”
“They are,” says the person. “I was just going through your things.”
“You were— I’m sorry, you were what?” She wasn’t aware she had things other than the utility suit on her carapace, but the phrase is still provoking.
“I’ve identified everything except for this awfulness,” he says, holding up one hand. Dangling from synthetic fingertips is a black eight-legged silk doll.
Sarya’s mouth is already open to give vent to further outrage, but she is stopped cold. She works her way through one silent word after another. “Where…did you get that?” she finally manages to say.
“It was in a bag,” he says, gesturing backward with a small jerk of his head. “On your floor.”
A bag! She remembers her mother strapping it to her before their flight. She does have things! What would her mother have packed? The goddess only knows, but now she has a second, extremely high priority. “Okay, so,” she says, “I really need to get in there right now, but I think after that we need to discuss, um, personal boundaries.” She moves aside for him to step out.
He doesn’t. “I should probably thank you,” he says.
“That’s very nice, but you can do that after—”
“But I don’t think I will.”
“Okay, whatever, but just—”
“Because I had everything well in hand. It had been decades since I’ve been incarcerated, you see, and I was beginning to get the itch. So just because your actions resulted in my freedom, that doesn’t mean that—”
“Get out of the damn way!” Sarya roars, and she shoves him backward into the room. His surface is surprisingly cold, even through the bandages on her hands, and she charges through a cloud of ozone where he was standing. “Now,” she says, pointing at the door. “Out. We can talk all you want in one minute. Okay? Out.”
He does go out, perhaps more bewildered than actually cowed, and her two minutes in the sanitation station are perhaps the most glorious of her life—though it is weird, come to think of it, that it thanks her at the end. Does it actually enjoy this job? Or is it like Eleven, just projecting a cheerful shell while it lives a second life somewhere in its gleaming white case? Well, Eleven, you got what you wanted: she’s now considering the inner emotional lives of appliances.
When she opens the door again, relieved and sanitized—if somewhat discomfited, mentally speaking—the corridor is both darker and more muffled.
“—so if you ask me,” the android is saying, “it doesn’t really matter. Dead is dead.”
“It does matter, though,” says a new voice. It’s a thunderous voice, an earthquake of a voice. It’s coming from somewhere deep in the two hundred kilos of furred muscle that is currently blocking the light in the corridor. A mouthful of black teeth appears, each gleaming shape longer than Sarya’s fingers.