It’s far more sophisticated than it’s pretending to be, ART-drone said.
“But will they watch it in time?” Ratthi asked. He was rubbing his eyes; all three humans had been tired before but now they were beyond exhausted, hyped up on stimulants and every food item we had with simple carbohydrates in it.
“It’s new,” Tarik said, waving his arms. “How long has it been since they got something new to watch?”
“And it’s good, it’s really good.” Iris paced. I wanted to think she wasn’t just trying to convince herself. “This was a good idea, SecUnit. Even if … It’ll be useful to a lot of people.”
Then AdaCol2 said, query: accuracy.
ART-drone had already bundled our annotated data and was shoving it at me. That was something the humans had come up with that I wouldn’t have thought of. We had our emotionally engaging story, and a presentation of the facts behind it with references, but we also had all the interviews, transcripts, videos, academic papers, newsfeed articles, etc., we had used to make it, like the data package part of a survey report. Including the original, longer version of Tarik’s interview done by Ratthi, though in the finished product we had given it the backdrop of ART’s crew lounge, which ART-drone thought was aesthetically better than the bare blue wall of this room, and we used the technique of cutting out Ratthi’s voice, so it was just Tarik giving the answers that complemented that section of the story.
AdaCol2 said, File uploaded just as it appeared in the colonists’ download menu. It was tagged entertainment and educational and most important, new, with a note that it was a gift from the visitors from the University of Mihira and New Tideland. I wished AdaCol2 hadn’t put that last part in. I didn’t think any visitors were super popular in this underground installation at the moment, but we, the uncaring academics who wanted to turn them all into lab experiments, were definitely coming in last. “It’s uploaded,” I said.
Iris stopped pacing and all three humans stared at me. I stared at them with my drones until ART-drone said, Even if they download it immediately, it will take approximately forty-eight minutes for a human to view it.
“Right, of course.” Iris pressed her hands to her face. “We should probably try to get some rest.”
“Or,” Ratthi said, perking up, “we could watch the whole thing together, the way they’ll be watching it.”
Tarik groaned. “You think that will be less stressful?”
At least no one had said if they watch it. Except I thought it, so. Whatever, I need to watch Sanctuary Moon now.
I couldn’t sit on the entertainment menu and watch the download counter because ART-drone cut off all our access to it until at least forty-eight minutes were up. The humans thought watching our video was a good idea and not a painful exercise in self-flagellation, but what do I know. Iris and Ratthi sprawled on the bunk while Tarik sat on the floor with his legs stretched out. ART-drone put up a display surface in front of them. With the editing, I’d already seen the video about 273 times so far, so I sat on the other bunk and watched Sanctuary Moon.
It was comforting, right, but I was really in the mood for something new. I hadn’t wanted to watch anything new since my stupid memory incident. ART had been keeping a list. When we got back, I’d have to let it pick the next show to make up for me being useless. I had new downloads off AdaCol2’s archive, but the humans were starting to distract me by not doing anything distracting.
I’d watched a lot of humans watch or read all kinds of media, so I knew that when they didn’t talk and didn’t move much except to eat crunchy things out of bags, it was a good sign. But then these humans had seen the Corporation Rim for themselves, they weren’t at all like the ones we were trying to convince.
And I was having a moment. The humans and ART-drone had tried so hard to make my stupid idea work. Tarik had clearly not wanted to talk about his past any more than I wanted to talk about my emotions, but he had done it anyway, because it might help. And Ratthi had been supportive and asked good questions no matter how pissed off he was with Tarik about the sex thing. Iris had trusted me to know what I was doing, despite all the evidence to the contrary that I had already given her. ART-drone had created graphics and voices and used our shared media storage to give itself a crash module in dramatic documentary production.
I gained interesting insights, ART-drone said. You should stop worrying.
Yeah, I’ll just code a patch to stop feeling anxiety, wow, why didn’t I think of that earlier. (That was sarcasm, I have too much organic neural tissue for that to work.) (Of course I’ve already tried it.)
The video finished. We had the list of sources appended, but hadn’t done credits, just a statement that it was a joint production of the University of Mihira and New Tideland and the Preservation Independent System Survey Auxiliary Team. (Credits listing three humans, a SecUnit, two intel drones, and a drone iteration of a transport just looked weird.) Iris sighed and said, “That was excellent, SecUnit.”
Ratthi said, “If they don’t like it, fuck them.”
Tarik snorted a crunchy thing and had to be pounded on the back by Iris. “I’m serious,” Ratthi said, doing an exasperated hand-wave thing. “If they can’t recognize the truth in an attempt to save their lives, I don’t know what else to do.”
Tarik drank from a container and croaked, “So how are we doing? Come on, Peri, I know you’re keeping track.”
ART-drone said, Three hundred and sixty-two downloads, two hundred and eighty-seven views still in progress, seventy-five views completed within the past 2.3 minutes. And counting.
We were all staring at each other again: the humans, my drones, ART-drone’s unresponsive carapace. It gave me access to AdaCol2’s media menu again so I could check for myself. It wasn’t lying to make us feel better. Two more completed views popped up while I watched.
“What does that mean?” Tarik was obviously trying not to be too hopeful. “How many people are here?”
“Four hundred and twenty-one.” Ratthi did look hopeful. “Almost everyone downloaded it. Except the young children. And some people would watch in groups.”
ART-drone picked up a static message to Iris’s comm. She started to accept, and ART-drone stopped her before she got too excited. It wasn’t from the colonists. It’s Supervisor Leonide, ART-drone said.
Iris’s expectant look turned disgruntled. She accepted the message and frowned as she listened to it. “Barish-Estranza wants to meet again. They’re leaving, apparently.”
The colonists had told us to leave by morning; they must have told Barish-Estranza, too. That had to be a good sign? I checked AdaCol2’s updated weather report and the disturbance was starting to die down, though later than predicted. I didn’t know whether we should leave or not, or pretend to leave and hang out somewhere nearby. Maybe the colonists just needed time to think and talk it over. Ugh, having hope that it might have worked was almost worse than knowing for sure it hadn’t. (I know, I’m never satisfied.)
Iris had made up her mind. “SecUnit and I will go talk to them. Tarik, you and Ratthi and Peri go get the shuttle ready.”
ART-drone said, Iris.
Iris shook her head. “We’ve done our best with the colonists. I’ve told them how they can contact us. But I want to know what else Leonide has to say. At best, maybe it’ll give us some idea of what they might try next, or if they’re writing these people off as a loss.”