It wasn’t a bad plan, as plans go. I could still object and say I’d go alone, like before. Iris had already said as security consultant that kind of thing was my decision. But considering how that had worked out, I didn’t want to get set up by Leonide to say something stupid again, not when we might be close to succeeding.
Chapter Nine
THE MEETING PLACE WAS a different room, still spacious but smaller, only a third the size of the ball-throwing space. It was obviously meant more for humans to gather in and it looked like the colonists used it that way. The silver-gray side walls were slanted in to meet a curved ceiling with little blue tiles, and there was decorative trim framing the two big hatchways, one on either end. Padded chairs and curved benches were pushed back against the walls, with bright patterned fabrics that matched the colors in the room but must have been added later by the colonists because I don’t think Pre-CR furniture would have survived that long, at least not the soft parts. (Humans of every era are hard on their stuff.) The other obvious difference was that this room didn’t have any cameras.
As Iris and I walked in, I put ScoutDrone1 on the ceiling where it slipped in between two tiles and had ScoutDrone2 sit on my shoulder where it looked like part of the enviro suit. I started a video feed and offered it to AdaCol2. The earlier conversation had been broadcast, so why not. It picked up the channel and an instant later a new live viewing feed appeared on its media menu.
I showed Iris what I’d done and she lifted her brows in a way that suggested she approved.
(ART-drone was in the small hangar with Ratthi and Tarik. The shuttle was ready to lift off and they had the hatch open, pacing around outside it waiting. Someone, probably AdaCol2, had turned on the hangar’s lights for them, since the outside light was still so dim. Past the open hangar entrance the world was dark gray, heavy dust swirling in the harsh wind.)
Then the B-E group walked in. Leonide, with three other humans. Feed IDs said Adelsen, Beatrix, and Huang. Leonide stopped three long steps away from us, the rest of the group spread out behind her. Iris smiled tightly and said, “You wanted to see us.”
Leonide tilted her head thoughtfully, then she smiled. “You’re casting this.”
Iris was still smiling, but it was a fuck-you smile. She said, “We just thought the colonists might want a record of this meeting, too.”
“You can attach it to your sales pitch,” Leonide said, casual and amused, as if there was nothing riding on this, as if the colonists’ lives didn’t depend on it. “Good work with that, by the way.”
All the corporate assholishness aside, I thought this might be a good sign. Leonide wasn’t conceding, but it seemed like she was regrouping. Which should give us time to get out of the blackout zone and communicate with the rest of the humans and ART-prime, so we could strategize a next move that hopefully someone else would be in charge of. (Because I didn’t know about the humans and ART-drone, but I was tapped out. My organic neural tissue hurt and I really needed a shutdown and restart.)
Threat assessment pinged. Ugh, not now.
I checked its report and ugh, yes now. It had caught abnormalities in body language in two, no, all three of Leonide’s coworkers. Mostly changes in muscle tension out of sync to the conversation and reactions of Iris and Leonide. Tension for humans was normal in this situation, but this wasn’t tracking. Were they nervous of me, since by this point they all had to know I was a SecUnit? But they worked with SecUnits, and all they knew was that I was a weird SecUnit; they had no idea I was a rogue. I hope they had no idea I was a rogue.
There had been no stipulations about coming unarmed (if there had been, Iris wouldn’t have been able to bring me and we wouldn’t be having the meeting at all), so I still had the projectile weapon clamped to my harness. The B-E humans were wearing sidearms, all projectile weapons, but small ones, meant to threaten other humans and annoy the crap out of SecUnits and large fauna.
I’d missed Leonide’s anomaly until it was too late; I wasn’t going to let this go. I sent ART-drone an alert.
(I planned to query my archive later about a situation where an anomaly did mean something good, but I wouldn’t get excited about the potential results.)
Iris was saying, “The documentary explained the reality of the situation. I think that’s the opposite of a sales pitch.”
If I reacted to a false alarm, it would be a major fuckup on my part. We would look like the aggressors, just the way Leonide had tried to depict us. So it could be a trap, a trick to get me/us to react … Yeah, that’s really subtle, isn’t it. It’s not that Leonide wasn’t subtle, but I couldn’t see how she could possibly get the information she would need to give my threat assessment a false positive. Or how she would even know I had a threat assessment module to begin with. Corporates may use SecUnits, but very few clients have a clue how we actually work.
(At the landing area, ART-drone reviewed my analysis of the anomaly and said, Ratthi, Tarik, get in the shuttle.
Tarik turned to face the hatchway that led back into the installation, frowning. Ratthi, who had been making notes in his feed, said, “What?”)
Leonide made a graceful shrug. “Ah, well. These colonists have asked us to leave.” If she was planning an ambush, she was really good at hiding her intention, even to muscle tension and pupil dilation. She was relaxed, amused. It wasn’t like I hadn’t encountered humans before who could fool my threat assessment, and something about this scenario was still pinging all the “shit is going down” stats. “We have so many colonists at the original site to speak to.”
Iris’s jaw did something like she was thinking about biting someone, but her smile stayed the same. “We’ll see you there.”
ScoutDrone2 picked up motion from Adelsen’s arm and all observable data said it was a contraction indicating that he was about to reach for his sidearm. Same problem: my projectile weapon would blow a large hole through him. But I could disable him with the energy weapon in my left arm (it had the best angle, right would have taken another tenth of a second), but if I was wrong, he’d be, you know, shot, and we’d look like the overreactive assholes. So I lunged instead.
(If I was wrong, I’d still look like an overreactive asshole, but at least nobody would be shot.)
But I wasn’t the asshole. As my arm went around Iris, Adelsen gripped and halfway drew his sidearm. And that was the moment I realized my assumption about the trajectory was wrong. He wasn’t going to aim at Iris.
The margin of error was not small, but better safe than sorry or whatever. As I swung Iris around and threw both of us into the air, I gave Leonide a light tap in the shoulder with my right boot. It would push her into a sideways stumble.
As we hit the ground, I twisted to take the landing on my side to keep from crushing Iris. As I rolled with her to get upright again, I checked ScoutDrone1’s video. I was right; Adelsen had fired at Leonide.
Because my tap had shifted her position, the projectile had clipped Leonide’s shoulder instead of hitting her in the middle of her back. She cried out in shock. I should have shoved harder so the shot would have missed her entirely, though she would have hit the paved floor and maybe broken some important arm and shoulder parts. But I hadn’t really believed she was the target, despite what my data was saying. (Note to self: always listen to the data.)
I was on my feet with Iris. She gripped the sleeve of my environmental suit and she’d lost her scarf. She seemed really surprised. Leonide pressed a hand to her wounded shoulder, also really surprised. Adelsen and Beatrix and Huang (who were now displaying weapons but not pointing them at Iris or me yet) were also, you guessed it, really surprised. I had a very limited number of seconds before the humans recovered from the surprise and the shooting restarted.