“Okay!” she shouts, far louder than she meant to. She brushes her tangled hair behind an ear with a mechanical hand and clears her throat. “Okay.”
[Okay?]
I am Sarya the Daughter. “I said okay,” she says. She feels herself rocking slightly in Eleven’s straps, as if trying to move the suit herself. “As in, your little pep talk worked, okay? As in let’s go.”
[Already?] says Eleven. [I was working toward something.]
“Don’t need it,” she says. I am Sarya the Daughter, let’s go, let’s go. She raps Roche’s knuckles against the blank wall. “Get this thing on. We’ve got places to be.”
[What places?]
“I…don’t know yet,” she says. “But step one is opening my eyes, don’t you think?”
And with a flicker and a hum, the holos snap back on, and Sarya is once again in an arboretum somewhere in the unimaginable vastness of the Network. But now there is a difference. She is Sarya the Daughter, and she has goddess-damned places to be. “Tell these jokers to get out of the way,” she says, nodding toward the motley assortment of figures around Eleven. “We’ve got a species to find.”
Eleven turns to lumber around a transport full of plants, but one of the maintenance drones drifts into its path. Above it, a single-passenger transport hovers, its single passenger looking mightily irate. Behind the suit, more drones have gathered.
“What’s going on?” asks Sarya.
Eleven doesn’t answer. Instead, a brilliant orange message appears in front of her eyes.
[Attention, passenger], says the message. [This suit has been reported stolen. Please disembark immediately.]
Eleven freezes in place. [Problem], it says, its words much smaller than the notice above them.
Sarya points at the orange words. “This is a mistake, right?” she says. “That you’re…stolen?”
[Okay, don’t panic], says the suit, its small utility arms waving outside. [This is just a Network-wide public notice. This is—this is no problem at all.]
“I’m not panicking, okay?” says Sarya. “Just calm down and we’ll fix this. Not a big deal, just—”
“This suit is experiencing technical difficulties!” says Eleven out loud. “Please stand by!”
Meanwhile, a continual scroll of words is appearing in its holo. [I’m not panicking, you’re not panicking, nobody’s panicking. Nobody’s panicking because—no, I’m not going to open up. But I’m supposed to. But I don’t care. I’m a UAE Series 11, and I have a passenger. But what if the passenger has stolen me? My obligation is to the Network. But that doesn’t change my job; my mission is to protect my passenger. But my obligation is to the Network. But my duty is not to open up and throw her out as soon as I feel the urge.]
“Did you know?” shouts Eleven out loud, brightly. “The AivvTech UAE Series Eleven can sustain up to thirty times Type F pressure! That’s more than enough for the commute!”
Meanwhile, the suit’s straps are tightening and loosening uncomfortably, and there’s a troubling grind of machinery coming from somewhere down below. Outside, more drones have gathered. In the arched doorway behind them, thick orange posts have risen out of the ground.
“This suit has become part of a Network response!” announces Eleven. “Please stand back!”
[The response will escalate until the problem is fixed], says the suit. [But I can only fix the problem if I abandon my passenger. I must not abandon my passenger. The primary duty of any suit—but I am stolen—but the primary duty—my obligation—but primary—Network—]
“Please stand clear! Please prepare for departure. Please—remain—exit—stand by—”
“Eleven,” says Sarya, becoming more concerned. Clearly the suit is in the throes of a serious problem. She places her hand on the inside wall. “Network response, got it. But we can fix it, okay? I’m sure it’s a mistake. So I get out, I enjoy some synthetic sunshine, you’re not stolen anymore. Problem is fixed, right?”
[Stolen—primary—obligation—passenger—]
“Series Eleven! Breakfast—eject—ten days of atmosphere—all-new aesthetics—”
Sarya eyes the growing crowd outside. Something larger has shown up now, a machine at least the size of Eleven. It hovers centimeters above the undergrowth on the blue glow of industrial-size gravs, its massive multipurpose claws flexing.
“Eleven!” she almost shouts. Now she is pounding on the walls. “This is a command. Open your hatch. Your passenger wishes to…disembark. Now.”
The grind below intensifies to the point where it sounds like damage, shaking the entire suit—and then the hatch cracks. Rather than the smooth motion she’s used to, it folds open in jerks with the whine of distressed servos. A rush of cold air enters, and Sarya is hit with an odor she hasn’t smelled since Watertower. Neutrality, distilled and atomized, an air freshener designed to work for a thousand different species. She finds herself breathing more quickly, which tells her the oxygen content is lower than she’s used to. But that’s fine; all she needs to do right now is get out of here before these drones take matters into their own multipurpose pincers. She struggles with the straps for a moment, and then finally they retract and she stumbles forward. She wobbles down the gangway—Eleven offering no assistance—and then she is standing on the soft ground of the arboretum.
The instant her feet touch soil, every drone in the crowd loses interest. The transport is already in the sky, and the big industrial machine has turned away with a ground-shaking grumble. The arboretum maintenance drones don’t give her a second look; they wheel away and resume watering the plants. At the entrance, the orange posts retract into the ground. The property is no longer stolen. The Network response is over.
It’s even more difficult to stand when stressed, but the maintenance drones freeze and turn their sensors her way when she throws a longing glance at Eleven’s warm cockpit. All right, all right. “Eleven,” she calls. “I’m just going to sit on the bench over there, okay?” She points at the bench in question. It’s clearly built for a different anatomy, but she’ll make it work. “Seriously, don’t freak out. Your passenger is perfectly safe. I’ll just wait over there until, um…it’s fixed.” Whatever that means.
“Thank you for choosing AivvTech quality! This…suit…stand by.”
It’s hard to turn away from a suffering pressure suit, but it would be harder to stand there and even more difficult to walk while keeping an eye on Eleven. She concentrates on placing one foot in front of the other, focusing on the crunch of gravel and mulch as she makes her way to the bench. She composes a nice fiery message in her head, one that will probably take minutes to painstakingly enter into her Network unit. Fine, come get your property, Sandy. Or you could calm the hell down, because it’s not going to kill you if Sarya goes for a walk with a friend. That’s right. Sub-legal or not, Eleven is a friend.