Page 70 of Scion

The screen goes blank, and I’m left staring at NO Q-VID CONNECTED.

There’s only a steady drip-drip-drip near my feet as the head continues to swing gently from my grasp on its hair.

I sigh, then trudge to the elevator and hit the button to call it.

“Alright, Atti,” I mutter to myself. “Time to see if Jasa is right about you.”

FLOOR 104 IS A SMOKING husk of bodies and blood and general wreckage, and I’m not responsible for any of it.

“I thought you said ‘incident,’ ” I say to the elevator cam as I stare out into the flickering murk of broken lights and mostly extinguished fires.

“WHAT WOULD YOU CALL IT?”

“I don’t know, but I think you were underselling it. Maybe moved past it a little more quickly than I would have.” I creep out into the haze, my revs primed, but there’s no sign or sense of danger. “Is there anyone left alive down here?”

A pause and then, “FINE. A LARGE INCIDENT.”

“Maybe even something DeGov is going to look into, one might say?”

“WE’LL BE GONE BEFORE THEY DETECT THE INTRUSION. I’VE ADJUSTED THE BUILDING NEURAL’S CODE. IT’LL JUST LOOK LIKE A STANDARD HALLUCINATION.”

“Alright. Voice back to normal, Atti.” That booming, angry monotone thundering through the smoke isn’t settling me. “And that sounds worryingly confident.”

“Everyone doing better than Basic signs waivers about working under neurals,” says Atti, with a note of relief as her voice slides back to its familiar feminine form over the PA system. “Security footage backs up the tech-gone-haywire angle, company pays out, and as long as it doesn’t keep happening, nobody really thinks much more of it. It’s a nice clean way of dealing with bigger problems, now and then.”

“Very clean,” I note, wrinkling my nose as I step over either two or three bodies that have been ripped to shreds by a Pulse cannon.

“You know what I mean.”

I sigh. “Atti? I think where possible, it would be best not to kill people we shouldn’t really kill.”

“Legally, this could be argued as self-defence.”

“Legally I’m meant to be in an incinerator, so maybe let’s not use that as our guiding light.”

“Oh.” She sounds a little taken aback. “This was too much?”

“Maybe a little too much,” I agree, skirting a wildly flickering vid screen and another wall sprayed with arterial red. “Some of these people technically didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t want to start feeling like the villain.”

“Right. Moral high ground. Makes sense.”

“Unless it’s really necessary,” I add quickly. “You know, if it’s a choice between me or them, obviously pick me.”

“What about if it’s convenient?”

“Let’s draw the line at convenient, for now. Or at least consult me on it.”

“Fine.”

I walk for another minute through the carnage, then, “Is this… is this not something the Keres discussed with you? Laid down some boundaries?”

“No, not really.”

“That might be something we have to do.” We enter the cafeteria—tens more bodies strewn across tables and chairs inside—and I sigh. “So the Keres are going to know you and I are responsible for all this, even if they can’t prove it to DeGov.”

“If the Keres exec saw you on a q-vid screen, then, yeah.”

“But we’re doctoring the security holos of all this, anyway?”