You can eat a dinner, anytime

I wrangled Mensah into taking a rest period pretty easily when we got back, but Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj wanted to debrief first. So I commandeered ART's argument lounge and, after giving Aspen a quick heads-up about their fucking books, sat down with my humans to do some processing.

Bharadwaj thought that I needed debriefing at least as much as they did, and she wasn't wrong. My performance reliability still hadn't recovered from my media comments tipping off ExecutiveAsshole off about the Javelins, which was the last thing we had wanted.

Weirdly, my humans seemed mostly unbothered about it. They checked in with me about how I was feeling (bad. I was feeling really fucking bad about it, because this situation was squarely my stupid fucking fault), and they vented to me and to each other about just how shitty ExecutiveAsshole was, but their vitals went back to normal a lot quicker than they should have according to my estimates, and for that abnormality made risk assessment tick slowly upwards the better they looked.

(Were my humans doing that thing Thiago wrote about, where humans who hadn't ever really been in danger but were constantly warned about it began to ignore the warnings, because they never amounted to anything? The thing that got Aspen's sister killed? No, my humans weren't pulling crap like "ignore their security's orders". And they didn't look like the corporate humans me and ART wrote to Thiago about, the kind who knew warnings didn't make a bit of difference as to how fucked they were and subsequently ignored them.

(If my humans ever got that beaten-down look in their eyes, that meant I was dead and melted down a long time ago, because I would have not let that happen or died trying.)

None of the models I had fit, because my humans were being normal. Weirdly normal.)

"Seriously, there was a pretty high chance ke'd figure it out even from the get-go, considering the Palladion," Pin-Lee was saying through the starchy food she was chewing on. She had her knees over the hand-rest of one of ART's sofas, and ART, who was usually a stickler for proper use of furniture by humans, was indulging her, because it was the best sunbleached ship in the world and it knew how to be nice to humans if it wanted to. "And once ke mentioned Aspen's books, it was like watching a hauler bot pileup in slow motion."

I checked Bharadwaj's vital signs again, because she was usually the one most affected by these things. But, like Mensah's, they'd stabilized at a high normal, and Bharadwaj herself added, "Yes--and how is Dr. Vivacious dealing with the news?"

"They're fine. But I'm not sure you are. You're not exhibiting human-appropriate signs of distress, and anomalies make me worried."

(Aspen's reaction would have been really funny, except I couldn't laugh about their stupid fucking books anymore, not after the Encephalon SecUnits had read my stupid fucking helpme.file and made everything so much more complicated. I needed to have a serious discussion about them with Tango and its team, but I could do that once my humans were debriefed and resting.)

(I was not looking forward to that discussion. Being security chief really fucking sucked sometimes.)

Bharadwaj smiled at the drone that was hovering over her shoulder, then put down her nearly-completed fibers project and walked to ART's lounge window.

"You're not the only one who's surprised. But I think just being here makes me a little more calm than I expected to be," she said, one hand on the glass as she looked down onto the planet below. "Maghā. The first destination of our Javelin, and the first place where our ancestors fought corporate oppression and won. Captain Makeba's crew left no one behind, and now that we're here, how can we do any less?"

"Captain Makeba wasn't risking getting re-enslaved by corporates."

"Yeah, he was," Pin-Lee said, "Remember Hylara? Once wormholes were a thing, the corporates could have caught up to our ancestors at any time. And they eventually did, so now we're not just the Javelin Preservation, but Preservation Alliance. But we're still here. And fuck if these assholes are going to make us go anywhere."

"Hear, hear!" Ratthi called from the lounge doorway as he walked in and beelined for the other sofa, Gurathin and Mrinal trailing behind him. "I take it we're in?"

I scowled at him.

"Yes, Ratthi. You're in. Don't sound so fucking happy about it."

(Who the fuck put Ratthi on an infiltration team? Me, that's who. What the fuck was I even doing here?)

Mrinal crossed their arms at me. "I don't see why he shouldn't be, if everything's going according to plan."

"It's not. I fucked up and Encephalon knows Preservation is a Javelin colony now."

I expected at least Mrinal to freak out about it, which would have sucked to handle but at least would have been normal, but they just closed their eyes and looked sad. Ratthi put one arm around them and they sighed, leaning on Ratthi's shoulder a little. Ratthi just hugged them tighter and asked, "This doesn't really change anything for us, though, right?"

Not being able to abort the operation was a pretty big change in operational circumstances, but I was not going to talk to my humans about this without Mensah as backup. If the realization didn't hit them by the time she woke up, I could bring the problem to her, and then we could handle it together.

Could have handled it together. Because of course the fucking Friend aspirant decided to go for it immediately.

"It means you can't get out anymore," Mrinal said, and I could see them sweep the room in that Friendly equivalent of checking on clients to see if they were in trouble or just stupid.

Pin-Lee snorted.

"We weren't planning to."

"There is a very big difference between 'not planning to' and 'not being able to', solicitor."

"And there is a very big difference between 'dragged into court unprepared' and 'ready to make your case'," Pin-Lee shot back.

Mrinal grimaced, then searched the room for backup. Ugh.

"They're right," I said. "It does make a difference and you all should be more distressed about it."

"No, SecUnit, I get what you mean," Pin-Lee closed the workspace where she had been jotting down her solicitor notes and stretched like predatory fauna. "You don't want your clients to be overconfident when they don't understand just how much shit they're in. But I think we're all just done being distressed for now. Like before a really big court case: all the worry goes into the prepwork, and then proceedings start, and you're just looking forward to tearing the asshole on the other side a new one."

Bharadwaj threw her an amused look. "Are you saying we've adapted?"

Wow, I did not want to hear that. And neither did Mrinal, who looked like they were about to spit out something sarcastic. But they swallowed it and simply said, "Every time I thought I'd adapted, things got worse. So forgive me for not being optimistic."

"You know, Mrinal, I just don't get you," Pin-Lee flipped over from her lounging pose to sit up straight, then leaned forward towards them. "First, you spend all that time complaining Preservation doesn't do anything. And now we are, and you're saying we should all be wringing our hands about taking down the temporary crossing behind us?"

"Solicitor--" Mrinal pinched the bridge of their nose. "--Please tell me you're simply making fun of me and do, in fact, understand what I'm trying to say here."

The pleading note in their voice actually made Pin-Lee frown and study them before replying.

"I'm sorry I came across that way," she said, a lot more carefully. "I'm not making fun of you. Though I guess I am saying you're being naїve."

"I'm the one who's being naїve?"

"Yeah. When you're facing a big, tough opponent, you have to expect that they're competent enough to see what they want and try to take it. Encephalon's had Javelins on the mind for years now, and hoping they weren't going to put two and two together eventually would just have been unrealistic. Like I told SecUnit: we got lucky they made the connection where we could use it for a good play. 'These idiots don't even know how valuable what they have is' was just too attractive for that asshat to resist."

Pin-Lee's threat assessment was on point. But that hadn't made it any easier for me, and it wasn't helping Mrinal either. They weren't actually bleeding the emotion they were having at me, because they weren't wearing a feed interface, but I could tell they were having the same one as I did. It was a) a really fucking stupid emotion; b) implied there was a lot wrong with both of us; c) something I was going to have to process on my own time.

(No, I wasn't even going to ask Bharadwaj. She had her own processing to do, and she needed a rest period.)

At least I didn't have to worry about Mrinal having a breakdown on me. Friend, call sign Ilona, was making its way to the lounge, and it was actually good at this. I could hand its client off in peace and go deal with the rest of the crap on my list.

(I was surprised Ilona had let Mrinal out of its sight in the first place, but it was probably doing some last-minute testing on how stable they were.)

(Not stable enough, but what the fuck were any of us going to do about it.)

I stood up and said, "I need to go run some diagnostics on the malware incident. Don't forget that humans need rest periods."

My humans answered with an array of really unconvincing confirmations, so I told Gurathin I was holding him responsible if they were still having up by the time I got back, and left, the Friend deftly slipping past me right at the lounge entrance.

Dandelion? Are you available for that in-depth diagnostic?

I am. She paused as she assessed me through our connection. Two preliminary queries.

Yes?

Primary query: Ghostwheel is fully out of your systems?

Yeah. ART's checking over some of its killware code right now. We scheduled the live testing for after my recharge cycle, and I want to know about any glitches before that.

(And no, I wasn't leaving those two together unsupervised. Aspen was keeping an eye on them, happy not to have to think about their dumb books.)

Understood. Secondary query: the emotional variance you're displaying. Is that related to the issue we're testing, or is it separate?

Separate. I know what that's about.

Specify?

I considered just sending her the inputs from the drone I still had hanging around in ART's argument lounge. But that was a bad idea. The last thing Dandelion needed right now was emotions about the Friends and Preservation and gilded cages.

(The scene that was playing out right now was disgustingly idyllic. Gurathin and Pin-Lee had moved to the floor and he was double-checking her feed notes, while Ratthi and the Friend were sitting on different sides of Mrinal, and they looked like they were feeling better already. Bharadwaj was back at her place on the sofa and had just stabilized her project so that it wouldn't unravel if she pulled on it too hard. Then she stretched out her hands, shaking the outfit so it fell to its full length.

"Ilona, loveling? Come over here for a moment. I want to see how this looks on you."

The Friend took its hands off Mrinal and covered its mouth in a theatrically-gendered expression of delight. "Dr. Bharadwaj! You really shouldn't have--"

"Nonsense. If you're going to be Preservation, you have to look the part, don't you? All of our clothes are made to the person, and pieces like this are always made by hand. Do you like the pattern? It's ice apples. I grow them back home."

The Friend put on the knitted poncho, then pulled some of the fabric to its cheek, smiling shyly. "They're beautiful. But this is so much work! When did you have the time to make this?"

Bharadwaj laughed, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes creasing kindly. "You've caught me. This started as a present for my niece, but I want you to have it. Keep it after the operation, too, if you like. I imagined you growing up at First Landing when I worked on the detailing. The kind of person you'd be…"

"It's so perfect. Thank you!"

"I'm glad you like it, loveling. Now, kindly hand it back over--I need to finish the last few rows."

All that, plus the expression on Mrinal's face. Dandelion didn't need to see this. And neither did I.)

I backburnered the drone input and said, I don't want to talk about it.

I see. Then I will run the diagnostic filtered. If it seems like we need to take this into account, I will tell you.