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I’ve also had clients who thought they didn’t need any security at all, right up until something ate them. (That’s mostly a metaphor. My uneaten client stat is high.)
Amena made a derisive huff. “It doesn’t even like me.” Admittedly I am tired of the whole concept of humans at the moment, but that was unfair because she didn’t like me first.
This drone had six of its spidery arms deployed when something had knocked it out of the air, and it was splayed and flattened to the deck like something had stepped on it. I wanted to pick it up and have an emotion over it like a stupid human.
“You have a friendship.” I settled back in the corner and hugged my jacket. “No. Not—No.” “Not anymore?” Ratthi asked pointedly. “No,” I said very firmly. ART had stopped pinging me but I knew it was listening. It’s like having a malign impersonal intelligence that is incapable of minding its own business reading over your shoulder.
“Have you made many friends who are bots?” I thought about poor dead Miki, who had wanted to be my friend. There was a 93 percent chance Miki had wanted to be everybody’s friend, but Miki had said to me “I have human friends, but I never had a friend like me before.”
“The Transport doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about, plus it lies a lot, and it’s mean.”
“Anyone who thinks machine intelligences don’t have emotions needs to be in this very uncomfortable room right now.”
(Normal = neutral expression concealing existential despair and brain-crushing boredom.)
ART said, I didn’t mean you. That sounds mild, putting it like that, like something ART would say in a normal tone. But it said it with so much force in the feed I sat down hard on the bunk. I said, “Stop yelling at me.”
ART said aloud, I concur, it will be safer if SecUnit is accompanied by two certified survey specialists. Why am I even surprised. I sent privately again, ART, you asshole. ART replied, only to me, It is safer. I’ve lost my crew, I won’t lose you.
