“Why would you pay money for something like that?” Tera asked. “Why not just find anyone out there willing to share their mind with you? I’m sure plenty of people would like to be taken out to plays, to be wined and dined.”
“Because she needs the money, and I have it,” Ben replied. “I’m an I.I. I have more than all the humans around me, even though I’m a slum dweller myself. She’s a good person, at least to me, and I want to do what I can. It’s not like I get nothing from it.”
“I guess I just don’t understand,” Tera said.
“No, I don’t expect you to,” Ben said. “You’re like the other I.I.s. But some of us are sympathetic to the plight around us. We’re still human, after all.”
Tera raised one of her synthetic eyebrows as she considered the I.I. She chose to ignore the comment.
“Did Camila mention any shady customers when she was with you?” she asked, referring back to her notes.
“Oh, all the time,” Ben replied. “I made a point of always asking her about her day.”
“Anyone you think would want to rob her?”
“I dunno, I guess any of them could have,” her host said. “The only ones she talked about were the weirdos. None of them stand out over the others. Who knows which junkie might try to screw you over?”
Tera sighed, a bit of defeat in her tone.
“I just wish there was something I could do,” Tera said.
Ben smiled.
“That’s a good sign, officer,” he commented. “If more people felt that way, we wouldn’t have Slumside. In fact, Shell City would be a utopia for all. They certainly have the resources, they just lack the will to use them. It’s just the same old story, from before the war, before I.I.s took over. The inequality was still the same. It’s not about humans or I.I.s — it’s about the powerful wanting to keep the power. To horde it.”
“Yeah,” Tera replied. There was part of her that was worried someone might overhear her, someone working for the Council. She knew she was safe, though.
She started to rise from the couch.
“Well, Ben, if there’s anything else you can think of —”
“I know how to call you,” Ben interrupted.
At that moment, a page came through on Tera’s communication system. It was Abenayo.
“Officer Alvarez,” Tera answered.
“Tera, I need you to get to my location as soon as you can,” the senior officer said, forgoing a greeting. “Do you read my G.P.S.?”
“Got it,” Tera said. “En route.”
“Good. Hurry.”
Abenayo disconnected.
She turned to the I.I., who was still sat in his rocking chair, looking up at her.
“I’ve got another call,” she told him. “I’ve got to go.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you for speaking with me, Ben,” she said.
Ben nodded softly, a content look on his artificial features. “I’ll speak with anyone willing to show these folks a little compassion. The world needs more people like us, officer.”
Tera said nothing else before leaving the apartment.
Challenge
Sharpe was amused by Ethan’s story, to say the least. A look on his face indicated that he thought his friend was joking, that the interaction with Gauge was just some funny story he’d made up. Ethan didn’t like the way Sharpe reacted.
“I’m being serious,” Ethan said.
“Of course you are,” Sharpe said, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “And I suppose some fair maiden sent you on a quest afterward?”
It frustrated Ethan to not be taken seriously. His face turned a bit pink as he blushed. Sweat gathered under his brow, though it was just a digital rendition.
“He said the real world wasn’t what we thought,” Ethan said, ignoring his friend’s comment. “He said that we were being lied to.”
“Yeah, it sounds like a great hook for an adventure,” Sharpe replied. “I’d play it. Sounds intense.”
“It’s not an adventure, Sharpe!” Ethan replied.
Sharpe sat up in his virtual loveseat. His expression went from total amusement to thoughtful consideration.
“How do you know?” he asked. “Some of those adventures can feel pretty real.”
“Not this real,” Ethan replied. He refused to acknowledge the possibility. It was just so… different from anything he’d seen in the series of missions that made up the “game” part of the simulation.
“Did he ask you to take a red pill or a blue pill?” Sharpe joked. “Because, you know that you’re better off with the blue pill, right?”
“What if it’s real, though?” Ethan asked. He felt helpless. If Sharpe wouldn’t listen to him, no one would.
Am I really so wrong?
“Then I’d enjoy the simulation while you’re here, if I were you,” his friend replied. “Replication Systems worked hard to make it, after all.”
He became distracted by something on his personal interface. Ethan couldn’t see what it was, naturally.
“Shit,” Sharpe said, almost as a whisper to himself.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s at the door,” Sharpe replied.
“Who?”
Sharpe concentrated for a moment while his eyes saw things that weren’t actually there in the room with them. A smirk crossed his lips after a few seconds.
“It’s Taylor,” he replied, his focus returning to Ethan.
“Taylor?” Ethan repeated, thinking of their casual rival. “What does she want?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
A knock came at the front door, loud enough for the pair of them to hear it down in Sharpe’s basement. The host turned his attention back to whatever security feed was showing him the front of his home base.
“She says she just wants to talk,” he explained. “Says she ‘doesn’t want a shootout like last time’. Think we should entertain her?”
“Hmm, I dunno,” Ethan replied. “She’s probably still sore about the hole we blew into her home base on the island.”
“She started that fight and she knows it,” Sharpe said. “She’s not unreasonable.”
Ethan sighed, feeling like he wasn’t being listened to for the umpteenth time that week. “Let’s go see her, then.”
Ethan and Sharpe were no fools. Their rivalry with Taylor meant that no one was above deception. If she was still angry about her home base, the worst thing they could do was get together in
