The synthetic lips on the rookie’s robotic face frowned as she turned back and looked at their subservient expressions.
“Why is it that the humans all seem to end up in Slumside?” Tera asked. “I mean, so disproportionately. There’s got to be a hundred humans here for every I.I.”
“It’s because they’re less intelligent, and therefore, worth less to the city,” Abenayo answered. “They should be grateful the Council gives them a place to stay at all. We could just kick them out and send them into the wastes with the other ferals, and the city would be all the better for it. I don’t know why they don’t — it could save a lot of resources. I guess even the Council can’t help but feel sympathy for the pathetic creatures. So we give them a home, a place to live out the twilight of their lives. Like some sort of hospice.”
“They don’t seem to think it’s very generous,” Tera commented. “They hate us down here.”
“Of course they do,” her partner replied. “We’re their replacements. I can’t blame them for hating us. I’m sure we’ll hate whoever ends up replacing us, too.”
They took another turn, taking a less-traveled road that ran parallel to the main street in their precinct. Abenayo liked to take this route in hopes of a teachable moment for Tera. The road seemed to attract lowlifes from all over Slumside who sought shelter from prying eyes, and Abenayo knew it. The slum dwellers didn’t seem to catch onto that fact, however.
Only a few humans hung out in the side road. Most just used it to get where they need to go, but a few loiter on crummy little porches barely wide enough for one to sit on. A faint cloud of smoke lingered in the air and Tera heard one of the people cough. She recognized the sweet odor of Mist, a drug that had been outlawed by the Council.
The narcotic was a variation of an old drug called Fog, which played an important part in mankind’s downfall. The installed intelligences of the old world used it to degrade human brains to the point where it was easy to Jump into their neural implants and control their bodies. They used that control to knock humans off the podium of global dominance. A version of Fog was still produced by the Council and distributed to the people in the cities, but it wasn’t necessary. The humans were already complacent and soft.
The Mist variation of the drug was illegal, however. It gave the user a euphoric high like Fog did, but instead of causing passive brain damage, it caused mechanical issues in their implants. Also, it sent the user into either a deep slumber or a paranoid fit.
“Hey!” Abenayo barked at a group of three slum dwellers gathered on one of the makeshift stoops.
The smoke came from them, according to Tera’s sensors. They seemed to know they were busted as they tried to hide their pipes and needles and hoses, their eyes wide with concern.
“I saw that!” Abenayo said, stepping up and seizing one of their Mist pipes. “You know this shit is illegal, right?”
Slowly, they all nodded. None of them said a word.
“Get rid of it now and don’t let me see it again,” the senior officer ordered them. “If I catch you with that stuff, I’m sending you off to the camps, got it? You don’t want that, do you?”
They shook their heads.
One of them stared at the pipe in her hand, the drug only half-smoked inside. His eyes watched longingly as Abenayo took the pipe with her. Tera followed her partner as they walked away from the junkies.
“They won’t get rid of it,” Abenayo commented once they were out of earshot.
“Pity,” Tera replied.
She couldn’t imagine the misery that was life in one of the labor camps. Perhaps she would never be able to picture it since she didn’t have a human body. She didn’t know what exhaustion felt like, how aching muscles or hunger affects the body. The super-rich I.I.s in the city might know better, since they could afford human bodies to live in. However, she doubted any of them felt hunger or fatigue. Someone with that kind of money wasn’t doing their own labor. They weren’t going without food.
Still, she knew enough about the camps to understand why people feared them so much. It was the only effective deterrent in a society this miserable. Prison time and fines are no threat to someone who lives in the slums.
They left the seedy alley and turned onto one of the residential lanes that connected to the main street. Tera saw an old woman with a rag over her head ushering a young boy back into their shack. The dwelling looked barely big enough for the two of them to lie down inside.
Abenayo stopped short and Tera took a few steps before noticing. When she looked back, her partner had a look of amusement on her robotic features.
“Come look at this,” Abenayo said. She was staring at one of the electrical poles that lined the street.
Tera walked over to where her superior stood and followed her gaze. Someone had stapled a flyer to the pole for passersby to see.
MORTALITY GOT YOU DOWN?
WE CAN HELP YOU LEAVE THIS LIFE BEHIND
AND JOIN OUR I.I. SUPERIORS.
FIND THE SHEDDERS AND ASCEND TO A HIGHER EXISTENCE.
A confused laugh escaped Tera’s auditory output. She looked over and saw Abenayo with an expression of humor she had never seen in her partner’s face.
“Oh, I’m sure this club will be real popular with the slum dwellers,” the senior officer joked. “Everyone knows they love installed intelligences. They probably can’t wait to get installed.”
Tera laughed a little more.
“This has to be a joke, right?” she said.
“That, or someone’s about to be really unpopular around here,” Abenayo replied. Her face became serious after she looked at the flyer again. “Best to report this, just in case
