“Entering medical mode!” booms Eleven, its holo ring shifting from red to gold. “Sarya the Daughter: this suit thanks you for honoring your appointment. Please step inside if you are able. If you are not able, say not able and this suit will retrieve you from your current position.”
[Suit], says Sandy without moving. [Exit medical mode.]
“As this suit’s primary motivation is occupant safety—”
[Suit], says Sandy. [You belong to me now. Exit medical mode.]
The suit trembles almost imperceptibly, from bottom to top, and then its lights change back to red.
“Listen,” says Sarya, her Widow instincts roused. She can barely move, she’s missing her blades, but she’s got more than enough muscle to take care of a little furball like Sandy. “If you think for one second—”
“Good news, everyone!” interrupts Ol’ Ernie’s raucous voice. His words are doubled, appearing in glowing symbols in Sarya’s Network overlay. “I know I told y’all four days, but…surprise! Ol’ Ernie got your transfer slot moved up! We leave this solar system in less’n half an hour. Now repeat after me, everybody: Ol’ Ernie’s the best.”
Sandy quivers at the top of the ramp. [Half an hour?] she says. [I understood we would be here for four days.]
“Well, that don’t sound very grateful,” says Ol’ Ernie. “Ol’ Ernie’s known for pulling strings for his clients, that he is. That’s why Ol’ Ernie’s clients ask for him by name. Give me Ol’ Ernie, they say. The best damn pilot intelligence on the Blackstar.”
Sarya watches, wide-eyed, as Sandy’s quiver becomes a full-body shake. Her tiny mouth is moving, making high-pitched sounds that Sarya would call growls were they emerging from something a little larger. [Can you delay?] she asks.
“Y’all think y’all are Ol’ Ernie’s only clients? Ol’ Ernie’s got a schedule to keep!”
Sandy chirps, an adorable sound that contrasts with her trembling and wide-eyed gaze. She paces the width of the ramp twice, talons scraping its textured surface, then skitters down its length and plunges into the water. Her tiny figure paddles furiously toward the ladder, making its tiny sounds all the way.
Sarya turns back to Eleven. “What the hell did I just see?” she says.
Sarya hangs in Eleven’s straps, struggling with a boot clasp that just won’t give up, angrily aware that she is returning to the same subject for the third time in ten minutes.
“But what is her problem?” she demands. “Is it because she’s a three? Is she just possessive? What?”
[You know how it works], says Eleven. [I’m sub-legal. This is just life.]
“Life?” Sarya almost shouts. “It’s…it’s wrong, that’s what it is.”
[Think so?] says Eleven. [Did you come to that conclusion before or after you used your sanitation station this morning?]
“Okay, you’ve already used that one on me,” says Sarya, pointing toward where she imagines Eleven’s intelligence core to be. “And you know what? It’s different. My sanitation station is not smart enough to clean my teeth without drawing blood, let alone hold a conversation, let alone…let alone—”
[Outsmart a Human?]
She claps her hands together. “Sure, why the hell not. You know how many times my sanitation station has saved my life? Zero. And you do it like every other day. Don’t you think that makes you a little…I don’t know. Different? Special?”
[It makes me a pressure suit. That’s my job.]
“You’re supporting this system? You think it’s right? You think Sandy should have the right to just, to just own you and tell you what to do and—”
[She caught Roche down here a couple days ago], interrupts Eleven.
Sarya pauses. She struggles a moment, attempting to stoke her anger, but her curiosity is making a compelling case. “You make that sound so—” She pauses to search for the word. “Illicit?”
[We’re just friends], says Eleven quickly.
Sarya feels her eyebrows rise. If Eleven was trying to distract her, it’s working. “And now it’s more illicit,” she says.
[He says he wants to tinker with my grav assembly.]
And now something unfamiliar is pulling at the corners of Sarya’s mouth. She coughs into Roche’s hand before replying. “That sounds, um…serious?”
Eleven doesn’t say anything for a moment. And then: [It does seem like a big step.]
“Yeah,” Sarya says, her face grave. “I remember the first time I…let someone tinker with my grav assembly. I was”—cough—“never the same.”
[Oh. You’re going to be like that.]
“I hope you’re not jealous,” says Sarya, flexing Roche’s hand in as casual a manner as she can manage. “I mean, that he tinkered with me first.”
[I know what you’re trying to do.]
“I really consider him a part of me now,” says Sarya, examining the hand from another angle. It’s surprisingly difficult to keep a straight face even when you can’t remember how to smile on purpose. “Of course, this is no grav assembly—”
Eleven hums somewhere deep inside itself, a low-frequency rumble that rattles Sarya’s teeth. [Can we stop with the cracks about my grav assembly?]
“The only one who’s cracking your grav assembly is— No, wait!” Sarya presses back as Eleven’s hatch yawns open into the darkness. “No more from me, I swear.”
Eleven folds closed. [All right, fine], it says. [Here’s the truth. Roche has been helping me prepare for the intelligence test.]
Sarya blinks. “You mean…for tier?”
[Right. He thinks I could be legal.]
“So that’s why Sandy doesn’t want you getting ideas,” says Sarya. “Because if you end up legal—”
[Then Sandy wouldn’t own me anymore. No one could own me anymore.]
“Legal Eleven,” murmurs Sarya. “That would be…”
[That would be what?], says Eleven sharply.
“That would be…great!” says Sarya. “I mean, you’d probably be higher-tier than me. I’m at my species default or whatever. Which is, you know. Moron.”
Eleven’s next message has an obvious edge to it. [Worse than a One-point-seven-five?]
“Well. I mean. No. Obviously not. But—” Sarya takes a breath. She has come close to tripping Eleven’s delicate tier sensibilities more than once, and she senses she is treading perilously close to the edge.