Network Effect

by Martha Wells

  He sat down on the bunk across from me, pulled the bedding pack out from under it, but then set it aside.

  Oh good, we’re going to have a chat.

  “If you have a moment, I was hoping we could talk,” he said.

  I could have said that I didn’t have a moment what with writing code to save humans from whatever the stupid Targets were but I did have a moment. ART had constructed a simulation of the software fix that had protected the Targets’ helmets and gear from my drone strikes and was running tests of my new targeting code for my drones. The targetDrones’ camouflage was harder to crack due to being a physical effect rather than something caused by signal interference. None of the filters I’d come up with for the drones’ scan or targeting functions would work, at least according to the simulations. Continuing to ram my head into that particular wall wasn’t going to get me anywhere until I thought up an alternate approach. So instead of being an asshole, I just said, “Go ahead.”

  He said, “I know you don’t believe it, but I was glad you came along on this survey.”

  Oh, please. I could have played the audio recording I had of what he had said to Dr. Mensah about me, but that was a little incriminating with the whole listening to private conversations in secured spaces and personal dwellings thing. I said, “So you didn’t have serious reservations?”

  There was that little flash of surprise some humans have when I say something that doesn’t sound like what their idea of a SecUnit should say. He said, slowly, “I did.” It had been too long for a human to remember what he had said verbatim and he didn’t know I was quoting him. Still, his eyes narrowed a little. “And I know you’ve saved our lives.” He hesitated.

  There was an unvoiced “but” on the end of that sentence. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on this, so I said, “But you don’t like the way I did it.”

  His gaze went hard and he said, “I don’t. And I don’t like the fact that Amena saw you do it. But that’s not the problem.”

  On our private connection, ART said, Don’t ask the question unless you already know the answer.

  Right, so I didn’t listen to ART. I said, “What problem?”

  ART did the feed equivalent of rolling its eyes and started another episode of World Hoppers.

  Thiago said, “You have leverage over Ayda.”

  That one got me. Fortunately ART was keeping track of the processes so I didn’t screw up the data analysis. It also provided a definition of the word leverage. I know what it means, I told ART privately. And I did, but not the way Thiago meant. I think. I said, “I don’t tell Dr. Mensah what to do.”

  Thiago’s jaw went tight. “I’m sure you didn’t. But she’s afraid to carry out her duties as council leader. She won’t apply to continue her term. That’s because of you. You’ve made her afraid of shadows. She never needed ‘security’ before you came to Preservation. Now she thinks she can’t do her job without it.”

  There were so many things wrong and unfair and yet true about that I started dropping inputs. ART picked them up and transferred them to our shared workspace. I said, “I didn’t come to Preservation. I was brought there in an inactive state after incurring a catastrophic failure while saving Dr. Mensah’s life.”

  “I know that.” Thiago waved a hand in frustration. “I’m saying—”

  No, I get to talk now. “There was a security threat. After Dr. Mensah returned to Preservation Station, three GrayCris operatives were sent to kill her. They failed but there was a sixty-five percent chance that more operatives would be sent. That percentage started to fall after the bond company destroyed Palisade Security and all of GrayCris’ operational facilities.”

  It was GrayCris’ own fault for ordering Palisade Security to attack an expensive company gunship and Palisade’s fault for escalating past standard operational parameters, but try telling GrayCris that. And it wasn’t like the company was afraid of GrayCris, but they had to teach them a lesson. (The lesson was: if you’re going to fuck with something bigger and meaner than you, use a quick targeted attack and then run away really fast. (This is the way I always try to operate, too.) GrayCris’ attack had not been quick and targeted and they had failed to run away effectively.)

  Thiago had his mouth open but I was still talking. “There was, and is, still a potential danger from individual dependents or employees of GrayCris but threat assessment determined that the percentage is low enough for Dr. Mensah to resume normal activities with the assistance of Preservation Station Security.”

  It took Thiago fourteen seconds to digest that. “There was an attack? Why didn’t she tell us— It would have been in the newsstream—”

  I pulled the video from my archive and quickly edited in the views from the Station Security helmet cams and the one lousy security cam in the lobby of the council offices on station. ART studied it curiously. I sent it to autoplay in Thiago’s feed.

  His gaze went distant, then startled, then increasingly appalled.

  ART watched the full video, running it back and forth. I had sent Thiago the part where I was on top of the council table trying to snap Hostile One’s neck while Hostile Two was on my back stabbing the absolute crap out of me. Six Station Security officers were draped around the room in various states of consciousness, with Officer Tifany, the only one still functional, hanging on to the stabbing arm of Hostile Two and punching him repeatedly in the head. ART commented, What is that human stabbing you with?

  Part of a broken chair.

  “They’re SecUnits?” Thiago asked, horrified.

  I can see why he might think that. I said, “They’re augmented humans who were chemically enhanced. They don’t feel pain, their reflexes and reaction times are accelerated. They have the physical strength of a SecUnit, but not the feed connectivity or processing capacity. So they’re harder to detect, and even more disposable.” To be fair, at this point GrayCris probably couldn’t get any other security companies licensed to produce and/or deploy SecUnits to contract with them. Between the high-risk assessment and the lack of operating funds and the cheating/attacking contract partners, GrayCris wasn’t a good client.

  Thiago took a breath, made himself calm down. “But they won’t send anyone else? You said the threat percentage dropped—”

  “It’s at an acceptable level.” And it hadn’t been easy to get it to that level, either.

  Thiago watched me with a concentrated intensity I didn’t like. ART’s camera didn’t have a full-face view, but it was obvious even with the angle. “Then why did she decide not to take a second term?”

  “She didn’t quit because she was afraid, you asshole, she quit because she needs to start the trauma support treatment at Central Medical. She didn’t tell anyone in her extended family because being taken hostage—”

  In our private connection, ART said, Stop.

  ART has different ways of telling you to stop doing what you’re doing, with different threat levels, and this was toward the top of the list.

  I stopped. ART explained, You’re violating her privacy.

  I was pissed off, because of course ART was right. I said, What do you know about it?

  My MedSystem is certified in emotional support and trauma recovery.

  Ugh, ART did know everything. It was so annoying. I finished, “She wanted me to go on Arada’s survey. I told her I would, but she had to agree to start the treatment. That was the leverage I had.”

  He was still watching me, and I couldn’t tell if he believed me. His expression was conflicted and I think he was still shocked at the recording. (It had looped through to the end of the clip where stupid Hostile One finally went inert and I rolled myself, Hostile Two, and Tifany off the table. Now Hostile Two was trying to strangle Tifany and I was prying him off her.)

  ART said aloud, in its polite-but-actually-not-a-suggestion voice, We have work to do, Thiago, and you’re missing your rest period. Perhaps you should go.

  It startled Thiago, but he pushed to his feet. He said, “Y
ou’re right, I’ll go.”

  I stopped the clip and watched him on ART’s cameras. He went back to the galley lounge and took one of the other couches. He sat there for a while rubbing his face, then got up to get water from the galley and take a medication tab.

  What is that? I asked ART.

  A mild pain reliever, for headaches and muscle discomfort.

  When Thiago went to lie down on the couch, I relaxed a little. He had thought I was taking advantage of Dr. Mensah? I still wasn’t even sure what he meant. Did he think I was making her feel sorry for me? Hey, I hadn’t asked her to buy me. I hadn’t even been there when it happened, I had been still stuck in a cubicle in reconstruction at that point.

  I wish I could feel all vindicated, but I didn’t think that confrontation had gone well for either me or Thiago. I think he knew now that his view of the situation was inaccurate but I had gotten mad and stupidly admitted to blackmailing Dr. Mensah to go start the trauma treatment. So. I didn’t know what was going to happen, if, you know, we survived and stuff and got back to Preservation. Like I needed something else to worry about right now.

  ART said, You haven’t seen the obvious solution to the targetDrone camouflage problem.

  Obvious? I said. (I know, I was just making it worse. ART wouldn’t have framed it that way if it wasn’t something that was going to make me feel like an idiot for missing.)

  ART said, Modify your drones with a camouflage field that will display the same interference pattern as the Targets’ helmets and gear. They still won’t be able to strike the targetDrones, but then your supply is so limited that attack is now no longer viable.

  Well, now I feel even more stupid.

  ART said, You have time for a recharge cycle.

  I was going to tell it I didn’t need one. And I really didn’t. But I knew what I did need. I shifted everything over to our shared workspace and pulled up the first episode of Timestream Defenders Orion. I asked ART, Do you want World Hoppers or something new?

  ART considered, poking thoughtfully at the tag data for the new show. It said, New, as long as it’s not realistic.

  I’d downloaded Timestream Defenders Orion off the Preservation media archives because it was pretty much the opposite of the whole concept of realistic. I started the first episode.

  We watched it while ART finished our code, occasionally sending sections to me to check over. (Possibly it was humoring me. ART might still have memory archive gaps, but there was nothing wrong with its other functions.)

  Twenty-six minutes to the end of the designated rest period, ART said, Using the data from the shuttle, I’ve located one of the Barish-Estranza vessels. My engine repairs are complete and I am moving to intercept.

  HelpMe.file Excerpt 3

  (Section from interview Bharadwaj-108257394.)

  “It’s normal to feel conflict. You were part of something for a long time. You hate it, and it was a terrible thing. But it created you, and you were part of it.”

  :session redacted:

  (File detached from main narrative.)

  I was sitting on top of Hostile Two to make sure he was dead. He had been apparently dead at least twice, so this wasn’t misplaced caution. Tifany was on her knees beside me, her weapon pointed at his head. “You’re too close,” I told her.

  She looked at me, the skin around her eyes so swollen and puffy I’m not sure how well she could see. Then she edged back out of potential arm’s reach.

  Behind me, in the one stupid security camera, I saw the human second response team and their medical assistance bots belatedly crash through the door. I checked the time and wow, scratch that “belatedly.” This had been a fast incident, even by SecUnit standards of fast.

  The Preservation council meeting room was a big oval with a long table in the middle, the walls lined with tall narrow windows, two entrances/exits on either end of the room. The one the second response team had come through led to the foyers and station government’s public offices where humans came to take care of things that couldn’t be taken care of on the feed, I guess, I actually had no idea. The other door led into the private offices where the occupants of the council room had managed to evacuate to when the incident occurred.

  Senior Officer Indah circled around the table and knelt down where I could see her. She said, “Is that person dead?”

  “Probably but there’s a seventeen percent chance he might revive,” I said.

  Tifany, her voice a strained rasp, said, “He came back twice. We need a containment unit.”

  Indah’s brow furrowed. “On the way.” She reached over to Tifany and carefully coaxed the weapon out of her hands. “You’re off duty now, officer.”

  Tifany said, “Yes, senior,” and folded over onto the floor.

  “She’s had a hard day,” I told Indah.

  “I inferred that.” Indah tapped her feed and a spidery-legged medical bot picked its way past me to crouch beside Tifany. Making comforting noises, it scanned her and immediately injected her with something. Indah said, “You need medical assistance, too.”

  I had a stab wound so large you could see the metal of my interior structure, but Senior Indah was too polite to mention it. The medical bot extended a delicate sensor limb toward me. On the feed I told it anything it touched me with would get torn off and thrown across the room. It pulled the limb back and used it to check Hostile Two instead.

  “Is there any hope for the subject?” Indah jerked her chin toward Hostile Two.

  I didn’t think there had been a person inside Hostile Two since before the first time we killed him. “Probably not.”

  I stayed in position until containment arrived to take care of our mostly dead Hostile Two and the hopefully all the way dead Hostile One. Tifany and the rest of the first response team had already been carried off to Station Medical. I went the other direction, further into the council/admin offices because I needed to see her.

  I found her only three unsecured doors away, but at least it was an office without a balcony or windows onto the admin mezzanine. I walked past Station Security and admin personnel. They should have tried to stop me but (a) it wasn’t like they didn’t know who I was and (b) it was a good thing they didn’t try to stop me.

  Mensah was watching the door and when I walked in her shoulders relaxed. She knew the hostiles had been secured and that the first response team had survived; she had command access to the Station Security feed and she’d been monitoring it from in here. There was a security lockdown on the public and private council feeds right now and we needed to get them restored soon, before anybody outside the offices noticed. We had to keep GrayCris from knowing this attack had nearly succeeded. It would give them too much intel about what to do next.

  Mensah met me in the middle of the room and did the hand thing that meant she wanted to grab me but knew I wouldn’t like it. She said, “You need to go to Medical.”

  There was dried blood on the tunic she was wearing, and on the right knee of her pants. Hostile One had charged at her across the council table and I’d stopped him literally a half-meter away from her. She could have reached out and patted his head.

  And that was after chasing him all the way here from the transit ring, while Hostile Two was trying to kill me. Slowing down Hostile Two long enough for me to mostly take out Hostile One was what had sent the entire first response security team to Station Medical. They were just lucky Two had been focused on trying to get past them and not slaughtering every human in the way.

  I said, “I can’t go to Medical yet. There’s something I have to do first.”

  Her expression was drawn. “Do you need help? Indah’s called in the off-duty personnel. I can get you a team.”

  “No, I just want to make sure I know how they got onto the station.” She nodded and let me go.

  So yeah, I’d lied to her.

  11

  I sent a wake-up call through the comm. While the humans in the galley lounge were staggering around trying to get consc
ious, ART fed the visual and scan images into the general feed. Amena rolled out of her bunk, blearily focused on the images, and muttered, “So is this good or bad or what?”

  “It’s ‘or what,’” I told her.

  ART’s scan image showed the Barish-Estranza supply transport, a mid-sized configuration with capacity to carry multiple landing shuttles and large terrain vehicles. Crew complement was estimated at thirty plus. The schematic looked like several rounded tubes bundled together with odd sharp pieces sticking out in places. The visual image just showed the long dark shape, light from the primary star catching the top of a curve.

  ART said, Long-range scan indicates systemic damage though some systems including life support show operational. Aft and starboard hull and the engine housing show signs of three distinct weapons strikes, but the pattern does not match my weapons system.

  That last part was good. If ART had been the one to fire on the supply transport, it would have meant my adjusted timeline was wrong and that I’d been wading in ART’s ocean of status updates for nothing.

  Amena stumbled out of the bunkroom and followed me to the galley where Thiago, Overse, and Ratthi were.

  “So there was a space fight, just not the fight Perihelion remembered.” Ratthi had gotten some packets and bottles out of the prep area for the humans. Amena took one of each and sat down at the table.

  “We think the Barish-Estranza explorer vessel was armed, correct?” Arada was still on the control deck, much more alert, looking at the multiple displays ART had put up for her. One of ART’s newly repaired drones floated around behind her, using light filters to disinfect the stations and chairs. Arada absently stood up and moved her drink bottle so it could do her station. “Any chance we can tell if it caused the weapon strikes?”

  Not without an analysis of the explorer’s weapons system for comparison, ART said. Scan indicates minimal power in the engine module. That may be the reason they have not attempted to flee through the wormhole.