those gazes. Just her luck to bump into another non-Networked citizen—maybe the only other one on the station, for all she knows. And now he wants to talk. Like, out-loud-style.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see your intelligence tier,” says Jobe, still peering at her through his own prosthetic. “Um,” he says, drawing out the sound. “It. Is. Okay. Sar-ya.”
Goddess, now it’s worse. That slow speech, the simplification of sentences, the too-loud pronunciation—it’s all familiar. Common, even. But this is the second offense in less than a Standard minute. This one pricks her deep, igniting a rage just below her surface. But Sarya the Daughter doesn’t explode. No, Sarya is the adopted child of a Widow. She has been trained for this. She clamps her teeth and digs nails into palms in her Human adaptation of a Widow meditation. She focuses on the pain, just like her mother taught her. Pain distracts. Pain means you are alive. Pain keeps her from ripping that face mask right off that—
She barely avoids ramming someone else when the group halts, her mind lost in violent fantasies that might give even her mother pause.
“All right, students,” says the teacher out loud, the words filling the nearly silent corridor. Her name and pronouns float next to the pinched face in simple yellow, but Sarya doesn’t need them. She is the teacher—the only one on Watertower—and that’s the only name anyone uses for her. She’s also the teacher for Sarya’s normal low-tier class—probably teaching them right now. In fact, her various identical bodies have taught every class Sarya’s ever had. A younger Sarya once spent an entire Standard year trying to figure out how many bodies make a teacher, but she gave up the project when she began suspecting that her efforts were being actively but subtly foiled. That’s when she learned a fundamental truth about higher tiers: they can screw with you as much as they want and you’ll never know.
“We have arrived at Watertower Station’s central observation deck,” continues the teacher. “Here, for the first time, you will see the entire reason for this station’s existence. I suspect one or two of you will be seeing this room again, come Career Day.”
Sarya realizes, from the [shocked] reactions of her classmates, that she is probably the only one in this group who has ever heard the teacher’s voice. Like any other Networked citizen of civilized space, the teacher seldom speaks. There is very rarely need. Unless, say, the teacher’s current class contains a supposed low-tier individual with no Network implant.
On the other side of the group, Sarya watches Jina nudge Rama and send a significant glance Sarya’s way. They know why the teacher is speaking aloud. Sarya receives the force of that glance like a slap; she can hear her own teeth grinding through her skull. Widow mantras begin running through her head again, an automatic response drilled into her over a long and painful childhood. I am Widow. My rage is my weapon. I am Widow. My life is my own. I am Widow. Better a scar from a sister than a—
And then she is startled by an unpleasantly biological sound beside her. “I’ll be here!” says Jobe, waving a glistening arm. “They said they’d even wait until I’m Networked!”
Sarya’s ears pop before she realizes exactly how hard she’s compressing her jaw. She expects to feel blood dripping from her clenched fists any second. She didn’t particularly plan on hating this Jobe kid, but the universe is really leaving her no choice here. He gets to be Networked. He doesn’t have to pretend he’s low-tier. This bladeless weakling, this—
And then with the hiss of a safety door and the familiar flourish of the teacher, her group is ushered into one of the many places where low-tier non-Networked Sarya the Daughter will never be allowed again. Her interest, which has been overshadowed by recent events, stages a tentative return. It’s dark in here, but it doesn’t seem dark because her Network unit instantly begins analyzing the space and adding glowing grid lines where it finds walls and floors. Her nose is ambushed by that relentless non-scent of Watertower’s industrial odor neutralizers, which means this is one of those spaces designed for many species to work in close proximity. She can hear those intelligences now: a soft biological tumult constructed of membrane friction, the squeaking of chitin, the compression of lungs and other modes of respiration—these sounds and more, built into a wall of gentle noise