A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2)(82)

file name: The Complete Lattice Guide – level 2

file name: The Complete Lattice Guide – level 3





Sent message


Encryption: 0


Translation: 0

From: Sidra (path: 8952-684-63)

To: Velut Deg Nud’tharal (path: 1031-225-39)

Hello Professor,

Yes, I have Level 3 fluency. I am also already familiar with AI installation and maintenance. If you have no objections, I will go ahead and enroll. In answer to your question, I’m specifically interested in learning how to remove out-of-the-box behavioural protocols without causing instability within the core platform. A general awareness of other potential alterations (and associated risks) would also be useful for me.

Thank you again. I’m looking forward to the course.

Sidra





JANE, AGE 18


‘He’s coming with us.’ Jane sat on the couch, eating a bowl of stew as slowly as she could. She could’ve eaten four bowls, especially after the long walk back from the factory. But she only had one, and it was the last of the batch she’d made before she left. Eating it slow made it feel like there was more of it. Kind of. Not really.

Owl didn’t look thrilled with the turn of events. ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘No,’ Jane said. ‘But that’s the deal. Laurian lets me grab three barrels of fuel every four weeks, and when our tanks are full, he comes back with me.’

‘Will no one notice? Does he not have to file reports?’

‘He has to report it if something goes wrong, but he won’t be mentioning me. There aren’t Mothers on the outside of the fuel pickup area. Just cameras, which he can move so they’re not pointed at me. And three barrels is apparently a drop in the bucket of what they churn out. Nobody will miss it, not if I spread it out, and so long as I’m not there when his inspector comes to visit. He gave me a schedule for that.’

‘Jane, I don’t like this. You don’t know this man at all. You don’t know if you can trust him.’

‘What else are we gonna do? We need fuel, and I need to not get caught. Or killed. Or thrown back in a factory. Whatever it is they’d do.’ She took another bite of stew. She was so sick of dog. Didn’t matter how she cooked it. ‘Besides, he wants out just as bad as we do. His life is shit, Owl. It’s as shit as mine is. Worse, maybe, because he’s still stuck in there. I’d be a giant * if I just took his fuel and left him behind.’ She sipped her cup of water, savouring it. Clean and cool. That, at least, she wasn’t sick of. ‘And, I mean, he seems nice. He can’t talk right. He wrote down most of his side of the conversation. But I think he’s nice.’

‘Nice.’

‘Yeah. He has a nice face.’

There was a faint whirring as Owl’s cameras zoomed in. ‘How nice of a face?’ Owl asked.

Jane paused in mid-bite, rolled her eyes, and shot the closest camera a look. ‘For f*ck’s sake, Owl,’ Jane laughed. ‘Jeez.’

Owl laughed, too. ‘All right, I’m sorry. It was a fair question.’ Owl paused, her face thoughtful. ‘How was it seeing another person again?’

‘I don’t know. Weird. Good, once I realised he was okay. Mostly weird.’ She scratched her ear. ‘I was scared.’

‘Understandably. You’ve been alone a long time.’

Jane frowned at the screen. ‘No, I haven’t.’

Owl smiled in that warm, quiet way she did sometimes. ‘You know if you bring him, it’ll change the fuel calculations.’

‘I know. I thought of that. That’s fine. Trust me, they’ve got plenty.’

‘Food and water, too. You’ll need to ration them differently.’

Jane nodded, scraping as much as she could from the sides of the bowl. The remnants filled her spoon. Almost. ‘Yeah,’ she sighed, taking her last bite. She let the taste of food – boring as it was – linger until it faded into nothing. ‘We’re figuring on a thirty-seven-day trip, yeah?’

‘That was how long it took us to get here, yes.’

Jane leaned back into the couch, sucking the empty spoon, pressing her tongue into its cold curve. Thirty-seven days. They couldn’t do it on mushrooms alone. She’d need a lot of dog, but they were getting harder and harder to find. Maybe Laurian had access to food, too. She remembered the meal drinks back at the factory. Did he eat those? Maybe, maybe not, but the workers he watched over definitely did. What was in those things, anyway? Chock-full of vitamins and protein and sugars, probably. Maybe he could snag some of those. She felt like she’d be asking too much, but then again, she was bringing him home. A few meals for the road was not an unreasonable thing.





SIDRA


The shutters in Tak’s shop were closed, and the door was locked, too, but he did not look comfortable. He stared at the scrib being offered to him as if it might bite. ‘You’re serious,’ he said.

Sidra gave the scrib an encouraging little wiggle. The tethering cable attached to the back of the kit’s head bobbed in tandem. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’ll be easy. I’ll talk you through every step.’

Tak rubbed his eyes. ‘Sidra, if I f*ck this up—’