Chapter Text
I really don’t know what made me want to go out and get a boating certification. Back with the Company, I’d been run through the basics of operating some transport aircraft, which they never certified me in and almost never had me do, and I’d been given a little bit more in terms of education on how to operate small boats. It’d never appealed to me, and I was dogshit at it anyhow, because I was never made to actually fly an aircraft. I'd never cared about planes, and I'd never cared about boats, or any of that, beyond their potential to get me the fuck out of somewhere.
I don’t know what changed.
Maybe it was the stillness of the water. Or the isolation. The way you look down into the steely surface, and its so deep, and so murky, you just can't make out anything. It could go down forever and I wouldn't know it.
Then, there's the vastness; It stretches out far, far into the horizon, so far that it's impassable without any sort of watercraft. No one could find me out here. There was just too much water.
When you get far enough out from land, they can only reach you by way of certain radio signals. Whatever work there is is basic and undemanding, and there was plenty of time left over for me to hook up my hard media copies to the TV and watch them. Or listen to something. So on, and so forth.
After the Preservation Aux survey team bought me (They’d tell you that’s not what it was, and that I was my own free person, or whatever, but I knew better. Sorry, Dr. Mensah), all I’d wanted to do was fuck off on my own to where no one would bother me, and I certainly didn’t want to be owned. So, what I’d done was hitch a ride out to wherever the hell on a big cargo hauler. And then I’d done it again, this time doing manual labor for money with the crew. Then again, and again, taking different ships out from Preservation.
Sometimes, when I was free, I'd go out onto the deck and lean against the measly safety railing, and look out on the water. I've already said that it's vast, and that it's deep, and that it's so, just, immense, I could get lost in it.
I wanted to get lost in it, I think.
Maybe, the draw was that you couldn’t hurt anyone, if you were out by yourself in the middle of nowhere. They were all too far away. It was just me, my thoughts, any my media. None of the humans would want to hear about that - maybe they’d even ban me from my boat time, if they knew. I could get lost in it and they wouldn’t know, either. I’d just disappear, in a way that they would shrug off as just something I did, and wouldn’t think too much about, or be too upset about, or whatever.
So, then, on a long holiday between ships, I got my boating certification. And then, I got a boat.
It’s kind of a shitty boat, I’m not going to lie, but its mine, and I like it.
It was about then that I stopped going on so many voyages out, because the legal battle between Preservation and those corporate fucks from the survey started heating up, and. I needed to look after those people. The same ones I ran away from.
Whatever.
Whenever they weren’t actively needing looked after, which was most of the time, I was on my boat. There weren’t all that many assassins around in the legal proceedings, and I wasn’t really needed unless somebody was leaving Preservation territory. Same reason I left, really - they didn't fucking need any soldiers, or mercenaries, or slaves. They didn't need anything like what I was.
All of which is to say, I was out on my boat a lot. I’d sail out until I couldn’t see the shoreline anymore, and until next to nobody could reach me, and I’d throw down my anchor. Then, I’d sit there, for hours, and hours, and hours, doing nothing but looking out at the water and feeling lost.
__
I have to admit, my first reaction to this wasn’t much of anything. This was only the latest in a long, long list of hapless things that happen to me, only registering as mildly annoying because it means I might have to talk to someone at some point in the immediate future. It wasn’t even a serious threat to my person, so I took it as it was. I think to myself: Well, shit, I guess my anchor’s borked.
Ugh.
The chain, stretched taut, clanks loudly. Each individual link pulled up seemed to be a struggle for the mechanism to manage, and it protests loudly. I stare at it for an awkwardly long moment. This is funny, given the reaction times needed for employment as a human weapon typically had you responding a lot sooner than I was, but here we are.
I brace myself against the mechanism, before giving it a solid kick. predictably, this did nothing. (I don’t.. actually know why I did that. As I said, it was pretty predictable that wouldn’t fix the issue. Whatever.)
I sigh. Loudly.
The machinery groans, then continues to inform me of its borked-ness with a very loud creak.
I reach down to turn the windlass off before the mechanisms inside, as well as my anchor, can incur any more damage, but -
Even with the pulley system disabled, the chain still strains against its moors, which in turn still wail under the pressure. it slowly releases - good, that means it’ll fuck up my boat less - but it doesn’t fully stop. As the chain slackens, some of it slips back into the water, like it was being hauled back down towards the bottom. (I realize this might be the normal thing for an anchor to do - but, I’m telling you, it was distinctly doing it wrong.)
Huh.
So, what most likely happened is that the anchor itself is caught in something; what, I couldn’t tell you, but it was putting up a fight. I doubted it was a rock, or a natural feature of the seafloor, which made it all the more unpleasant. There’s a reason I never picked up fishing, along with the whole boating thing - and a reason why I didn’t really want to go out on the fishing trawlers. It’s not like I had any specific love for fish and other aquatic organisms, but hunting them made me itch in a distinctly unpleasant way.
The most logical course of action would be to ditch the anchor completely, and let whatever it’s stuck in keep it. I still don’t like that all that much.
Usually, when I’m out on the water, listening to the seawater lap and break against the hull is something I find soothing; sort of like a good version of the don’t-care feeling, where instead of drowning in it you float comfortably on its surface.
Tonight, the ambient sounds of the water don’t do any of that. Instead, they add to the growing, uneasy itch I had under my skin. With one hand still resting on the pulley mechanism, I straighten up and look out at the water. It was jet black, much like the sky above it, and you could only really tell there’s water around you at all by whatever light you have with you on your boat. Without it, you wouldn’t see anything at all. It’s like I wasn’t actually looking at water at all - instead, all the ocean’s been replaced by a huge, featureless vacuum, from what little distance off my boat the light in the pilothouse cast.
For a second I catch myself thinking about what all I can’t see, even on a clear day, under the surface. Of course, there’s things like fish and rocks and mud, maybe a shipwreck if we’re being generous, but I couldn’t for sure see any of it. Who knows what else might be down there?
After all, there is a lot of water beneath me.
I'm still chewing on that thought when I spot it: A smooth, snakelike appendage, slithering over the edge of my ship and onto the faux-wood of the deck.
Fitting, huh? Yeah.
That boating license was a great choice.
It worms across the deck, poking briefly at the nonfunctional windlass before pulling away and squirming further inward, which happens to be where I am.
I get a split second of blank staring before adrenaline floods my nervous system, before I toss out the how and why and focus on getting rid of it.
I take one slow, careful step forward, before I rapidly close the distance and toss it overboard with the toe of my boot. Unfortunately, the thing with most living, tentacle-having organisms is that they usually have several, and this thing wasn’t an exception to that. The second my boot makes contact with the slimy surface of my target, all the others rapidly unlatch and slip backwards into the water.
I hold position and wait.
I want to tell you that it’s a squid or an octopus or something, but the appendages taper smoothly off at their tips, instead of clubbing like they usually would. The more practical conclusion is that it’s a weird squid - but all I think of is the internet chat board horror stories about science expeditions out to clandestine old ruins and find alien shit; Usually, the monster variety. (As opposed to the normal unidentifiable element kind, or other strange remnants. My first contract with Dr. Mensah had those, but I tried not to pay too much attention to them.)
(And, yes, I’m aware that if it doesn’t have a clubbed end, its not technically a tentacle. Whatever.)
Then, a loud thud reverberates through the deck as it latches on to my hull, and I’m fairly sure normal tentacle-having organisms don’t do that, anyway. The adrenaline comes back in force.
I backpedal until I hit the pilothouse wall, pressing my palms to it and considering my options. As far as I could tell, based on the thud, its main body was probably close to where I’d first seen its tendrils. It probably knows my general position, too.
I have a hatchet inside the pilot house, just in case something happens. It’s stashed with my other gear - the thermal blanket and rations and the toolbox and the foldout chair. Its better than nothing, if I’m dealing with a likely-hostile outside force, but I really wish I’d gotten a harpoon right about now. Maybe in some alternate timeline, somewhere, there’s a me that has the foresight to predict getting caught in the grasp of some sort of weird sea monster, and bought a harpoon gun just in case.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have that foresight, and also didn’t think I lived in some sort of hellworld where the monsters were anything other than people.
Keeping hand pressing against the wall, I move across the deck. I keep my steps light and slow, because I figure that if it’s trying to find me, it’d probably do so by vibration or sound. The last couple steps pass agonizingly slowly, with the way I’ve got my eyes boring into the gloom off the deck - A few bold tendrils have began feeling their way over the guardrail and onto the deck, searching and methodical.
I finally reach the corner by the pilothouse door, ducking inside with one sharp movement. I snatch my hatchet out of its place, before pivoting on my heel and exiting again, rounding the corner back towards where I’d last seen it.
My eyes lock on to the nearest tendril, maybe about a third of a meter onto the deck. It slowly noses forward, seemingly set on finding the pilothouse wall.
I heft up my hatchet, closing the distance before whatever it is has the time to get a better idea of where I am. In the split second before I bring the blade down on it, off my hull and in the corner of my eye I swear I can see a large, dark form, peeking up over the edge of the deck.
I cannot describe how dark it gets at night, especially on an overcast night like this one, out on the water. You can’t see fuck all, beyond whatever lights you have with you. The light from mine can beam out maybe a few meters out over the waves, allowing me to see a faint glimmer on the water off my boat - but even then, it was still very, very dark. I’d never been as scared of the dark as I was then, when I could have sworn I could see something else out there, glinting wetly.
It’s likely, if not more probable, that it was my eyes playing tricks on me. But.
I swing the hatchet down on the tendril, cutting through its rubbery flesh and momentarily pinning it to the deck. A sort of dark red feeling shoots down my spine, and I glance out to catch sight of several of its smaller siblings recoiling backwards, rolling and curling in on themselves as if pained.
I grab the handle of my hatchet and yank it firmly upward, preparing to find my next target if that wasn’t enough. If it is, my next move is to pull the anchor back up and get the hell out of here; but I barely begin to pivot towards the windlass before a moderately-sized tentacle springs out of the black and tangles itself firmly with my hatchet-holding wrist and using it to slam me backwards against the pilothouse wall. Pain shoots down my wrist in a distant sort of way that matches up with how my brain is currently rattling around in its protective casing. My vision swims, and for one brief second I feel out-of-sync with my body.
Fuzzily, I think to myself: Oh, fuck.
A wave of magenta rolls in to press against me, disorienting me further; All the while, I sync up with myself to realize I’m now deprived of my hatchet. My vision clears, and I lift my head by a fraction, staring out off the deck of my boat. I catch a ripple of color, sort of bubbly and bright in the way a hydrothermal vent produces bubbles and heat. Then, it shifts, simmer-y and indigo. I squint at nothing, trying to pinpoint what it was I was picking up.
You… it says. Are lucky.
Speaking brings it into sharp focus: I feel the distant rippling coalesces into a definable presence, stretching out into nothing and bearing down on me like I was some sort of bacteria under a microscope. It was huge, and heavy, like I was pinned under a thousand kiloliters of seawater. The colors were feelings, I have space to note. That’s fucking… weird.
“Why…” I twitch feebly. That’s fucking weird. “Is that?”
That you didn’t injure me further, its presence flickers, like it was blinking, or cocking its head to the side. I am obligated to defend myself. That is not a fight you would win.
Then its presence unfurls outwards in many colors and shapes, emanating from a single, ultra-dense point. It was so vast I thought I was going to fall in, even though there was nothing to fall in to; I wasn’t looking at a physical entity. The thousand kiloliters of water was initially just hyperbole, and is now outdated. It was bigger than that.
For good measure, the voice adds, Don’t try it again.
It sounds very, very earnest, for a moment; but, in this sort of arrogant and condescending way that would totally piss me off under different circumstances. However, I’m too busy taking a moment to appreciate how truly fucked I am to do that.
“… Okay.” It's kind of embarrassing to admit, because I'm supposed to be a terrifying super soldier killing machine, but I shut down. I didn't know what the fuck it was, after all - not only that, but I’d apparently found a whole new sense that it was using, one that made me feel like, at best, a hack psychic. At worst, it made me feel like I’d sustained a worse hit to the head than I’d thought, and that I was going to be imminently dead of a massive brain bleed. My eyes go wide in my face and I make an effort to keep my breathing even.
The appendage holding me up is only mildly slick, and moderately unpleasant to the touch. It has me reconsidering my stances on aquatic fauna.
I go slack against the wall, slipping down its smooth surface to become a puddle on the floor. Helpfully, it releases my wrist.
I fold my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around myself.
I sit for a while, staring blankly forward, until the voice comes again. It couldn't've been more than five minutes, but it felt much longer. I listen to the waves lap against the hull, getting lost in the vague rocking motion it provided. Soothing, despite the circumstances.
…What are you doing? the voice prods me. A thin tendril has curled itself delicately around my wrist, I realize. I hadn’t even noticed it touching me - which should’ve gotten me killed, and certainly would’ve if I was still with the Company’s paramilitary forces. I recoil, sharply jerking my wrist away from it and curling my wrist to my chest. I was going to be leaving, I don’t tell it. I’m not technically doing anything right now - and I’m also not sure I could leave. I felt like I couldn’t get my body to move, as if it had mutinied to decide it wants to stay in fuck-off nowhere with a tentacle monster. Also, there’s no telling what that tentacle monster wants with me, anyway…
After a couple seconds, that same stupid tendril comes back and curls around my ankle, slow like it was trying to be accommodating of me. My face twists and I accept my fate. Rest in pieces Murderbot: Eaten by a tentacle monster because it was too scared shitless to move.
Don't sulk, it says, with a plaintive twist and a pointed mental poke. That snaps me into action: I bare my teeth at the dark I think the appendage is coming from.
"I don't sulk," I snap. "Sulking gets you killed.”
The whatever-it-is has the gall to be puzzled. A deep purple rolls through its presence, and it shifts in a way that implies it’s raising its metaphorical (hypothetical?) eyebrows at me. Silently, it challenges me to provide an alternative.
(I wasn’t lying, by the way, about sulking being potentially fatal. It freezes you up, and, worse yet, makes you unobservant. That’s slacking. If I was seen to be slacking, they’d send me to reconditioning. Again.)
(Nobody wanted to go to reconditioning.)
I get an idea: if it’s a mental presence, how much of my mind can it pick up on? Could it feel what I did, emotionally, and peel open my thought processes and read them? Presumably, that’s what all the colors I got off of it were - emotions, feelings, ideas. If it could pick up on those, then what about memories?
My idea had two potential benefits: one, as a defense mechanism - if it could feel what I did, then maybe anything I’d felt in the past would have an affect on it - and two, as a way of showing it that it couldn’t do anything worse to me than what’d already been done.
So I think as vividly as I can back to some of my getting tortured all time greatest hits, and project them at what I figure to be its mental presence. I remember getting shot: the feeling of a rifle round ripping through my upper left chest, shattering my collarbone and splattering blood onto the other Company soldier behind me. I remember a hole being burnt into my right palm, with the skin blackening and the muscle sizzling. I remember being slammed face-first into a metal guardrail, with the wet crunch of my nose breaking and the mean laugh of whoever it was that'd grabbed me by the hair to do so. I remember getting shot (again!), stabbed, hurtling into walls, slamming into the ground, being punched, burned, choked.
I remember being electrocuted, again and again and again, until my knees buckled and I hid my face against the cold concrete floor. (It wasn’t like I remembered my time(s) in reconditioning. I just know I’d been there about the time I got my worst head injury yet. The one that took out my memory.)
The tentacle recoils, fwipping backward into the darkness at lightning speed. I get a second of triumph before I realize that a disturbing amount of others followed it, none of which I’d known were there. (It’s not a red feeling this time, but more of a surprised orange hue with the red as an undertone. I only felt it sharply for a moment; now, it was just the background.)
The interesting thing is, once the tendril is gone, the thing’s psychic presence recedes exponentially. It must be clearer with touch or proximity.
I pull my knees up to my chest, huddling down against the wall. The shocks stuck with me the most - that’s why I saved them for last. They weren’t just being (traumatically) injured, like all the other memories I’d thought at it, the side effects of being on contract. The shocks are intentional. Any infractions you commit are noted, written down by the handler, and at the end of a shift, or a deployment, you’re punished for them. Usually, in a group setting, for max effectiveness. It’s part of what they do in reconditioning, I think. But I don’t remember enough to say.
A strange itch builds in the back of my neck. I can still feel the phantom pulses shuddering through me. If I curl in on myself enough, I don’t feel like I’m shaking. So, that’s what I’m doing. I shut my eyes tight and focus on the sounds of the water, and the slow motion of the boat, until my body catches the hint and dials back the production of stress hormones.
__
I had about an hour to myself before it came back, for most of which I spent Not Thinking about it all. My trauma, that is. I pushed it all to the back of my mind and did that breathing thing I was told to do. it returned me to my default, not-caring state.
I don’t startle when a lone tentacle slithers quietly out of the gloom, and tentatively curling itself around my ankle. The thing’s presence pushes against mine as it does, prodding at me for some sort of response. I feel myself pull a face, which probably isn’t what it wants to get.
Regardless, it doesn’t say anything; it sits there, metaphorically, and watches my processes slowly chase themselves in circles.
I wasn’t actively producing all those stress chemicals, now, and had returned to a resting state of don’t-care. Without all the adrenaline and cortisol and what not complicating things, I could more clearly evaluate my situation: and when I did, I came up blank. I lay out all my facts in front of me, of which I have few. I was likely dealing with a sea creature. It’s on my boat. It can read my mind, among other things. It outclasses me in any way I can think of. So, what can I do about it?
The creature could probably disable my boat if it wanted, while I could hack away at any of its appendages that come close to me. Given it was some sort of aquatic organism, and we were (obviously) still on the water, it’s not likely I’d win, but I could make putting me down an overall unpleasant experience for it. I didn’t get any sort of happy feeling thinking about it. I didn’t really want to go to all that trouble. Besides, I still didn’t know what it wanted with me - just that it hadn’t put any real effort into killing me just yet.
If I find out why that is, I could work this out in a way that doesn’t end up with me being dinner.
When a second tendril makes itself known, brushing up against my arm, I decide that I’m going to have to pay attention to it; so, I turn my head and stare at it.
I did not mean to scare you, says the tendril. It pulses in a reproachful purple as it wraps slowly around my arm, making itself comfortable in the crook of my elbow.
"Okay," I say. The ankle tendril delicately curls higher, deciding to house itself against my knee. I look at it for a moment, too. Then, I add, “I don’t want something from you. If you unlatch yourself from my boat, I’ll fuck off and leave you alone.”
The knee tendril unfurls a bit, before flicking its tip at me. The presence ripples. Then you do want something - for me to get off your boat.
I pull another face. "I thought that was a given."
Well, you haven't made too many attempts to achieve it, the presence says flippantly. It gives me a sort of mental poke, then adds, I really am sorry. That I scared you, that is.
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” I grouse. I rest my cheek on my folded arms, staring at nothing. The presence settles closely next to me, it’s surface waving in a multitude of colors. I catch some sort of bemused beige, curious pastel pink, and more blue. Blue seemed pretty regular for it. The colors grow more vivid as more of its focus draws to me, and it hovers next to me with the impression of breathing down my neck. Tendril two, on my arm, wriggles like it’s trying to get comfortable.
So, as you may notice, it’s still here. Not only is it still here, it’s trying to get closer to me. The clarification in its apology must be needed specifically because it wants to be here.
I heave a put-upon sigh, and make my move. “What do you want.”
It seems to consider this for a moment. Then, it says: Your transport vehicle can be presumed to move faster than I can, with the added benefit of being unable to grow tired. I would like a ride.
Oh. Well, of course it does. “To…?”
In my head, I assign it a name: ART. The “A” stands for both assorted and asshole-ish, depending on the moment, and the “T” stands for either tentacles or tendrils. The “R” is for random, probably, for obvious reasons. This saves me the trouble of having to refer to it as “The Thing” or “It.”
Given I’m also an “it,” I want to avoid any confusion there.
Anyway, when it doesn’t answer immediately, I figure I’m going to have to clarify. “To where?”
A port I am familiar with. UplandGateway-One. it says, after a moment. There, I have a crew, as it were. Your vessel provides the opportunity to get back to them faster.
Despite myself, I pull an incredulous face. That was a ways out - enough so that I’d have to probably stop back at Preservation for supplies and better directions and all that. Why the hell would it want to go there?
But, at the same time, it didn’t need to negotiate with me to get that. It could probably take over my mind and force me. It hadn’t decided to do that yet.
I don’t know what to make of that.
It mentioned a crew. Did it have some other, less apparent use for me?
Apparently, I was silent for too long. ART says, “convincingly,” I believe this could be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
I turn my head a bit in the direction of tendril two, so ART knows I’m thinking at it suspiciously. “How so?”
It flutters, kind of, as if its trying to get itself in order before it makes its case. I catch little waves of yellow, and mint green, and teal.
Most humans, from my observations, prefer to be in groups, it says studiously. Given you aren’t with one, this indicates you must be some sort of outcast -
My face scrunches in on itself. Sure, I am, but it doesn’t need to rub that in so much. I grumble, “Maybe it’s me who doesn’t like them.”
It makes a point of pausing, flicking the hint of some of my own memories at me, before it sighs at me. Your dislike of other humans is perfectly reasonable, which I would have said if you let me finish speaking. Anyway - It draws the word out for the express purpose of being annoying, here - you may be some sort of outcast, willingly so or otherwise, but that doesn’t change that you’re lonely.
I stiffen up. “No, I’m not.”
It’s written all over your emotional output, ART raises its metaphorical eyebrows at me. I make an attempt to clamp down on whatever its picking up on me, trying to pull all my emotions back in on myself. You lack meaningful interactions with other members of your species, and display many indicators of avoiding the establishment of new ones.
As if to emphasize, it sinks hooks into the information storing and emotional processing parts of my brain, like it’s going to pick me apart to prove its point - I shove it off before it could get too far, ignoring the sharp burst of panic I felt at its probing. I wasn’t scared. It couldn’t do anything to me that was worse than anything I’d already had done. I wasn’t scared.
Regardless, a cold feeling rolls through my fleshy bits. My lungs spasm in my chest, deciding for themselves whether or not they want hyperventilate.
I bare my teeth at nothing and sharply dislodge tendril one around my knee. “What would you know? You’re a tentacle monster clinging to a tiny ship in the middle of nowhere! Don’t start with the shrink talk.”
It pulses in a way that makes me think it’s going to argue - so I snap at it again. “And don’t dig around in my head!”
ART stops. Its presence pulls away, then curls in on itself as though it’s trying to hide its face from me. It’s quiet for a long moment, rippling and ebbing in silence, before tendril two gently squeezes my arm.
Okay, it says. I won’t.
I scowl deeper. This was somehow worse than it steamrolling past me.
I was just saying, It’s silent for another second, but when it speaks again it regains its previous confidence. That I do believe this arrangement would be mutually beneficial. You will ferry me to where I need to go, and I will keep you company.
“Fuck off,” I grunt, shoving it further away. This only works because it allows it, which I don’t want to think about right now. It could probably crush me, if it wanted - both physically and out of my own head. Feeling its presence was like looking out over a dark pool; it was deep, and heavy, and probably had something in it you didn’t want to fuck with. Even with the immensity of it that I could see, there was still a drop-off that hinted at something else. And its actual, physical appendages being incredibly strong sort of went without saying.
We can talk about it later, it says ominously.
“I don’t want to do that,” I tell it, tersely. “If I agree to take you anywhere, then we aren’t doing any of that. Clear?”
I don’t know how it does it, but it manages to make that simple affirmation sound more ominous. It echoes, clear.
I let it sit with that for a bit, my jaw working silently. Why does it care, anyway? If this is a mutually beneficial exchange.
I say, “Why do you care. If you need to pay me, make your humans do it. You don’t need to make up some sort of deal.”
Its presence ripples, tendril shifting around my arm. I pick up on swirling, genuine confusion, as well as an unpleasant sort of resentment feeling I don’t know how to place. Then it tamps that all down.
Interesting.
I don’t depend on my crew for everything, it dismisses. I have my own currency, anyway. If that’s what you need.
Then, it feeds me a portion of its confusion, as well as its everything else. Slowly, it says, believe it or not, I’m not out to get you. I genuinely have no interest in hurting you.
For emphasis (As if it’s emotional feedback wasn’t doing that already), it brushes the tip of its tendril over my windbreaker sleeve. (For a brief moment, I pick up on it being intrigued by the material. Whatever.)
I consider this for a long, long second, frowning sternly at nothing. Then I say, “You haven’t done anything to me yet.”
No, I haven’t, it agrees. I don’t intend to.
I think for a moment, locking and unlocking my jaw. I get a sense of foreboding, creeping in my outer limbs, that I look at and dismiss. The thing is, sometimes you just have to take a risk, for anything good to happen at all. And whatever could happen couldn’t be worse than now.
(ART lets me think in silence, even going so far as to shift a little bit away to give me some semblance of privacy.)
Before I can change my mind, I say, “Hard currency works fine.”