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So I knew for sure we’d done a really shit job of telling Amena about redacted when she insisted on coming over from the Preservation responder with Mensah the next time there was a meeting with ART’s crew about our upcoming strategy (such as it was) to deal with the current situation. Or, rather, we’d done a really shit job of being reassuring while lying about redacted because Amena still didn’t know that part, she thought I was just borked from my up-close-and-personal encounter with alien remnant contamination. But she still detected some handwaving going on.
She said she wanted to talk more with Iris and Martyn about the classes she’d need to take back on Preservation to prep for attending PSUMNUT, but if Mensah and I had been bad at lying to her, she didn’t do a great job of lying to us, either. It was pretty clear she wanted to make sure I was still alive and everything, in person. I think Mensah was feeling a little guilty, because she went along with it.
Which is how Amena and I ended up in the lounge next to ART’s galley. I was lying on a couch, watching media, supposedly still “recovering” and taking it easy. Amena was going through academic requirements on her feed. Everyone else was in one of a couple-three different strategy meetings and it felt weird not to be part of one, too, though of course I was listening in on all of them via my drones and ART’s camera system.
I had enough going on with the multiple inputs I wasn’t paying a ton of attention to Amena (she’d been visibly glad to see me up and ambulatory, though she hadn’t tried anything as embarrassing as hugging me, whew), so I was startled when she said out of the blue, “You know, you have nice hair.”
My thought processes came to a screeching halt. I paused my media and meeting feeds and replayed footage from the drone I’d had watching her. She’d been looking at me thoughtfully for a little while, it turns out. Redacted didn’t do my situational awareness any favors.
I had absolutely no idea what to say, but then Amena made it even weirder by asking, “Have you ever thought about doing anything with it?”
Like what? Shaving it off and selling it? Was there a market for that sort of thing? Teaching it to do tricks?
“What do you mean?” I asked, startled into asking for clarification.
Amena scooched forward in her chair looking hopeful. “Like, you know, styling it.” She made fluffing gestures around her head. “I think there are some styles that would look good on you. We could try it out now, I have some hair things in my bag we can use.”
A whole landslide of emotions hit me and I couldn’t speak, but just then ART barged into the conversation because it had been eavesdropping like the wannabe-omniscient asshole it is.
I like that idea, it said in the feed we shared with Amena, sounding nice and kind and friendly. In the private feed between it and me, it said, SAY YES! with all the oomph of its gigantic, looming presence behind it.
“Sure,” my mouth said, in a 100% involuntary verbal flinch. I’m lucky it came out as word and not a squeak.
Amena bounced to her feet, all delighted smiles and excitement. “I’ll get my bag!” she said, and went to get it from the chair across the lounge where she’d left it.
What the fuck, I asked ART in private, angry. Why did you butt in? I don’t want this!
I think it will be good for her.
I’m not her toy, I shot back. Her . . . doll. I was filled with all the reflexive revulsion built up from years of being treated as a thing – and, all too often, a literal toy – by corporate clients. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you, you know?
She knows that, ART said, sounding both sarcastic and exasperated. You are not giving her enough credit. This is the kind of thing young humans do with their friends, for fun. It’s a way to cheer someone up when they are sad – or recovering. And it will make her feel like she is doing something to help.
I could have argued more, but the look on Amena’s face when she returned was enough to shut me up. Look, I’m an asshole, but I’m not that much of an asshole. She was beaming, and more relaxed than I’d seen her in a long time. I realized just how much tension and fear she’d been bottling up – covering it well for her age, but we were in a lousy situation and she (we all) knew it.
ART was right, the pushy bastard. I gritted my teeth and prepared to be styled. I guess my hair was going to be doing tricks after all.
Amena had me sit on the floor in front of her chair as she pulled combs and tubes of hair goop out of her bag. I had my drone focus on the same wall I was looking at with my eyes, and cut contact with the lounge cameras; I couldn’t watch this even at a remove.
She was fast, I’ll give her credit, and careful – she contacted my actual scalp as little as possible, and all her motions were quick and sure. I guess she really had been doing this with her friends back on Preservation, and I just hadn’t paid attention.
She snapped a tube of hair goo closed and sat back in her chair. “What do you think?” she asked.
I turned the drone around and got a good look at myself.
Even after adding length to my hair for augmented human passing purposes (ugh), I’d largely ignored it except to keep it clean and run my fingers through it every now and then so it was pushed back out of my face (the sensation made me shudder, but I didn’t want it in my way). So my hair normally did its own thing.
Now it was orderly. And fluffy. And really, really different. In the same way adding length to my hair in the first place had changed my appearance way more than it should have, this changed everything yet again.
“I look like a Preservation human,” I said, before I could stop. I managed not to add, I hate it.
Amena was smiling as she gathered hair things back into her bag. “It’s one of the new fashions that’s popular right now,” she said happily. “I thought I could pull it off. I can do other designs if you want to try something else later.”
I opened my mouth and ART, who had been watching all along and radiating smug amusement, sent me an absolutely thunderous DON’T in our private feed. I closed my mouth again.
I was partially saved, if you could call it that, by Dr. Ratthi walking into the lounge on his way to get something from the galley (humans and augmented humans tended to go through lots of snacks and hot beverages during intense meetings). He glanced at us, did a double-take, looked at me, looked at Amena (she waved at him), and then didn’t say anything at all.
Have I mentioned Ratthi is my friend?
Then Seth was on the comm with an announcement that sent us all in different directions: some of the colonists had agreed to talk, and we needed to come up with yet another plan and a negotiation team, now.
Ratthi grabbed a nutrition bar, Amena went to find Mensah, and Martyn sent me a feed message asking if I wanted to consult about the possibility of sending Three along with the negotiators.
Everyone I passed in the corridor looked at me, but we all had places to be and nobody made comments, yay. My movement sent air pushing against my newly fluffy hair in an annoying way, but I tuned it out. When things settled down, I’d try to figure out how long I had to leave it this way before I could get back to normal.
But it had made Amena happy. And, if nothing else, it sure made a distraction from redacted.
At least for a little while.