Chapter Text
I didn’t know why the prisoner was important. She was some kind of political leader, according to the parts of her file I could access. Dr. Ayda Mensah, from the Preservation Alliance, some kind of backwater freehold out in non-corporate space. I wasn’t sure what the company wanted with her.
Apparently she was important enough for a SecUnit guard, though. As assignments went, it wasn’t that bad. No one was shooting at me, and most of the time I was alone with the prisoner, who didn’t have the authority to give me orders. That left me with lots of uninterrupted time to watch media. It was boring, but boring was better than a lot of other things.
The company interrogator came every day, for a while, to threaten and placate and manipulate the prisoner into giving up the information that they wanted. She mostly refused to talk to him. That was the smart move. It kept her from giving the company anything they could use against her.
Then he started coming less and less. The company wanted her to think they were losing interest, that she was no longer valuable if she didn’t start talking. I knew what happened to things that weren’t valuable. So did she. She got more restless, during the long gaps where it was almost like the company had forgotten about both of us.
During one of those gaps, the prisoner started talking to me. She knew I couldn’t respond, she said, but she was lonely and it was enough to have someone to listen. She stared at the ceiling of her cell and told me stories about her planet. She must have known I was recording everything she said, because she stuck to unimportant things—the native fauna and flora, the weather cycles, the festivals they held. She told me the story of how the colony was first founded. It was as suspenseful as anything in my serials. There was a dramatic rescue, a heroic protagonist (she quoted part of a speech at me with a smile on her lips, something about leaving no living thing behind), and a long, hard journey to a new home. I liked the story. When the human told it, she was animated, excited. It was the first time in cycles that she’d smiled.
I could tell they were wearing her down.
When she told me about her children, I hacked into the camera system and looped old footage to cover it up. She kept talking even when her voice cracked and she started to cry a little. I could tell she was trying to keep from saying what she was thinking, which was that she probably wasn’t going to see them again.
I couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort her, even if I could have said it without giving myself away. When she broke down into real tears and turned her back to me, I wished I could leave and give her real privacy. The best I could do was make sure that the company didn’t get to see this.
“I’m sorry,” she told me a while later. “I know you have no control over what happens to me. I’m sorry for…sorry that you have to be here.” She gave a weak laugh. “You don’t have any more choice than I do, do you?”
Her face turned serious again. “I don’t blame you,” she said. “For anything that happens to me while I’m here. No matter what they do.”
That didn’t make me feel better. I knew how this was going to end.
When I got the notification that the interrogator was coming in one last time, I hated that I was right.
He sat down and folded his hands, leaning slightly towards the prisoner. “Ayda, I won’t waste your time or mine. I think you realize what’s at stake here. I’m here to give you a final chance. Give us what we want.”
She turned her head towards the wall and didn’t respond to him.
“I won’t ask you again. This can end well for all of us, Ayda. There’s no shame in accepting a fair bargain.”
The prisoner’s mouth twitched, like she wanted to retort that this wasn’t fair at all, but she kept quiet.
In the feed, the interrogator ordered me, Unit, step forward.
From my position at the door, I took a step towards the center of the room and shifted my stance from standby to alert. The prisoner’s eyes flickered to me, and then away. Her shoulders tensed.
With the admin privileges I’d just managed to grant myself, I sent an urgent alert to the interrogator’s feed. Presence required immediately in conference room 3A.
He pinged back with Will comply. I waited for him to leave. Instead he leaned towards the prisoner and said, “Are you ready to comply with questioning?”
She looked him in the eyes. Her voice was soft and a little shaky, but she didn’t break his gaze. “I am not, nor will I ever be.”
“Unit, kill her,” the interrogator said.
The prisoner flinched, just slightly. She looked up at me, and then closed her eyes.
I couldn’t disobey an order in front of a human. Not without blowing my cover.
Her hands were trembling.
The interrogator looked impatient.
Fuck my cover.
I raised my energy weapons. It was a clean shot to the head. I didn’t know about painless, but it was a quick death.
The interrogator’s body crumpled to the floor. The prisoner flinched at the sound of my weapons firing.
I said, “Dr. Mensah.”
She opened her eyes. She saw me, and then the body. She gasped.
“Dr. Mensah, I need you to come with me.” I was digging deeper into the administration and security systems, not slowing down to make sure I wasn’t leaving a trail. Security on this station was tight, but all I needed was a crack. One tiny gap for her to slip through.
She stared at me. “What’s happening? You—you didn’t—”
I said, “Do you want to get out of here?”
She stood, shakily, still gaping in shock. “I—of course I do. I don’t understand. Are you still following orders?”
“No.” There it was. A crack. A way out. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
I could see the moment when she figured it out. When she started to believe me.
“You’re rogue,” she whispered. “And you’re—you’re going to help me?”
“Yes.” I overwrote my company directives. Client: Dr. Ayda Mensah. Mission objective: Safe egress of client. Acceptable mission cost: Anything.
No matter what it took, I wasn’t going to let her die here.
“Oh, thank the light!” She covered her face for a second, and then added, “Thank you.”
I sent an unlock command to the door of the cell. “Come with me.”
“Thank you,” she repeated, as she scrambled to follow me.
I’d already forfeited any chance of subtlety. So I disconnected every security camera in this part of the station. In my head, SecSys warnings started to wail.
I said, “Don’t thank me yet.”