Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)(28)

Thirty-two minutes later, I heard movement. I thought Tapan was getting up to go to the restroom facility, but then she settled on the pads behind me, not quite touching my back. I had set my breathing to sound deep and even, like a human sleeping, with occasional random variations to add verisimilitude, so the fact that I had frozen in place wasn’t obvious.

I had never had a human touch me, or almost touch me, like this before and it was deeply, deeply weird.

Calm down, ART said, not helpfully.

I was too frozen to respond. After three seconds, ART added, She’s frightened. You are a reassuring presence.

I was still too frozen to answer ART, but I upped my body heat. Over the next two hours, she yawned twice, breathed deeply, and snorted occasionally. At the end of that time I changed my breathing and moved a little, and she immediately slid off my pad and over to hers.

By that time, I had a plan, sort of.

*

I convinced Tapan that I should go to the meeting, and she should get on a public shuttle to the transit ring immediately. She was reluctant. “I don’t want to abandon you,” she said. “You’re only involved in this because of us.”

That hit home so hard my insides clenched. I had to lean over and pretend to look through my bag to hide my expression. Company emergency protocol allows clients to abandon their SecUnits if necessary, even in situations where the company might never be able to retrieve them. Tapan was making me think of Mensah, yelling that she wouldn’t leave me. I said, “It’ll help me the most if you go back to the transit ring.”

It took a while, but I finally convinced her this was for the best for both of us.

Tapan left the hostel first, wearing both extra jackets from her pack to change her body shape and with the hood of one pulled up to conceal her hair and shadow her face. (This was mostly to make her feel more confident, and because I didn’t want to explain the extent to which I could gain temporary control over portions of RaviHyral’s admittedly not-great security system.) I watched her on the security cameras until I saw her reach the public dock about one hundred meters away, go down the walkway to the embarkation area, then board the shuttle that was scheduled to leave in twenty-one minutes. ART sent me an acknowledgment as it slid into the shuttle’s controls to guard the bot pilot again. Then I left the hostel.

I’d prepared a hack for the security cameras that was much more sophisticated than the one I’d been using up to this point. It involved getting into the operational code and setting the system on a tenth of a second delay, then deleting Tapan out and randomly replacing that part of the recording with pieces cut from earlier. This would work because the sexbot would be scanning the recordings the same way I would, using a body configuration scan. I didn’t match SecUnit standard anymore, but the sexbot had had plenty of time to scan my new configuration during that first meeting with Tlacey.

Right now I wanted the sexbot’s attention on me, and not the public dock. I let the cameras track me out of the port and back toward the tube access. Then I started the hack.

I was only 97 percent certain this meeting was a trap.





Chapter Eight

WHEN I REACHED THE small food service counter in the contractor district, a human was there who matched the image Tapan had sent to my feed. As I sat down at the table he looked up at me, his expression nervous, sweat beading on his pale forehead. I said, “Tapan couldn’t come,” and sent his feed the brief recording Tapan had made with her interface. It was her standing next to me in the room at the hostel, holding my arm and explaining that the files could be given to me. Wow, I looked uncomfortable.

His gaze went inward as he reviewed the recording, then his body relaxed a little. He slid a memory clip over to me. I took it and checked the cameras.

Nothing. No potential threats, no one showing interest in us. The counter served drinks with a lot of bubbles in them and fried protein in the shape of water fauna and flora. Everyone else was busy eating or talking. There was no one suspicious in the corridor or mall area outside, no one watching, no one waiting.

This was not a trap.

The human said uncertainly, “Should we order something? To make it look like we’re not—you know?”

I told him, “No one’s watching, you can leave,” and pushed to my feet. I had to get back to the port.

If this wasn’t a trap, the real trap was somewhere else.

*

On the way back to the dock, I checked the schedule. The shuttle was now listed as delayed.

As I reached the embarkation area, I was reviewing the security recording from the time Tapan had boarded the shuttle. On visual, I spotted the sexbot coming toward me from the far end of the walkway.

I had gotten to the point in the recording where two humans with Port Authority identification had stopped the shuttle’s departure and removed Tapan. ART slid out of the shuttle and back into my feed. It said, If I had my armed drones, this would be easier.

When the sexbot reached me, I said, “Where is she?”

“In Tlacey’s private shuttle. I’ll show you.”

I followed it along the walkway, then down the ramp that split off toward the private shuttle docks. ART said, Why is it showing you where your human is?

I said, Because Tlacey doesn’t want Tapan, she wants me.

ART was quiet as we went past the private shuttle slots toward the bigger, more expensive section at the end. Then it said, Retrieve your human and make Tlacey regret this.