[Analysis complete], says her Network unit, but by now Sarya’s eyes have adjusted sufficiently to see the general shape of the room. She stands at the highest point of a dark and gleaming chamber. Before her, several tiers of black seats step down to a blank wall that must be ten meters high. Individuals of various biologies stare into space, limbs twitching as they manipulate data invisible to her. Several more teacher bodies are here, making small talk with several of the workers. That makes sense; the teacher probably taught all of them as well. Everyone on Watertower probably knows the teacher. She could be centuries old, as far as Sarya knows.
“This,” says a moist voice at her elbow. “Is the oldest. Part. Of the station.”
Sarya stares down at the face mask, unbelieving. Jobe is a half meter shorter than her, rounder than her, his skin slicker than hers, and he stares back with wide and innocent eyes. Oh goddess—he’s adopted her. He’s playing the higher-tier mentor role.
“One. Of my dads. Used to work here,” he continues, oblivious to the blistering glare he’s receiving. “He says. It’s the best view. On the station.”
I am Widow. My rage is my weapon. I am Widow. There are no secrets between Mother and Daughter. I am—
“I’m Jobe,” says Jobe. “In case. You can’t. Read it.”
A Widow might have been able to keep herself under control. A Widow might have been able to avoid this entire conversation simply by virtue of her terrifying appearance. But Sarya the Daughter is not a Widow. She is a Human pretending to be a Spaal who wishes it was a Widow, and she can almost feel the heat radiating through cracks in her carefully nested façades. She doesn’t remember seizing the face mask, but now she feels its warm greasiness in her hands. “Listen,” she hisses through her teeth. “I am perfectly capable of understanding Standard. I am not an idiot. I am a—”
And she almost says it. She very nearly releases years of frustration in a single word. But her mother’s discipline—and the wish to avoid more of the same—stops her at the last possible second. She contains it. She stands there, trembling, Jobe’s oily face mask gripped in her Human fingers, glaring a hole into a randomly chosen glistening eye.
[Please release this Citizen member!] says an overlay over Jobe’s face. It’s orange, danger-colored for attention, but Sarya knows from experience that she has several more seconds before this warning escalates to physical action. Plenty of time.
“Sarya the Daughter,” says the voice of the nearest teacher. It is heavy with gentleness and meaning—irritatingly so. “Is there a problem?”
Oh, yes, there’s most definitely a problem. There are so many problems that Sarya doesn’t even know where to start. It is a problem that everyone in this room—hell, everyone on the damn station—thinks she’s an idiot. It is a problem that she will never again be allowed in this room because of her intelligence tier. It is a problem that her registered tier isn’t even right because she’s not a damn Spaal, she’s a Human. And it is a problem that she can’t even say so without starting a riot. The list of problems is long; she could do this all day.
But she doesn’t, mostly because she doesn’t particularly care to be escorted home by a cloud of anxious Network drones. “No,” she says, releasing Jobe’s mask and wiping her hands on her utility suit. “There’s no problem.”
“May we continue?” asks the teacher.
“You may,” says Sarya, layering on as much scorn as she can manage.
“Thank you,” says another of the teacher’s bodies. “Students?” The word appears next to her face, brilliant in the darkness of the room. “If you have eyes, shield them.”
[Radiation shields dropping in six seconds], says a virtual warning across the massive blank wall at the foot of the room. Individual shields appear in front of many of the workers’ faces, and several turn away. Sarya has no time to do anything but squeeze her eyes into a squint as, with a hum she can feel through the soles of her boots, the wall dissolves into blinding light.
(“Welcome to Network!” revision 5600109c, intelligence Tier 1.8–2.5, F-type metaphors)
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD!
Billions of years ago, in a stagnant pool of goo, something magical occurred: your species began a journey that would be long, noble, occasionally tragic, and always unpredictable. But if you had asked those original organic molecules what