The AI unit is in a soundproof partition of the hangar. “Good for me to check in with them at least daily, lest they get up to too much trouble,” Sander ruefully remarks as he badges them in.

  Inside, about a dozen researchers sit at desks, some working with three-dimensional holo-casts that they periodically rotate, while others stare blankly into spaces that only they can see, typing on invisible keyboards as they mutter technical annotations. A bowl of assorted fruits and snacks sits along one wall, along with a chilled water dispenser and cups.

  All in all, it appears to be a fairly normal office setting, though Lanis would freely admit that she’s never actually seen the inside of a corporate office before now. Normal, that is, except for the two large reclining seats that sit heavily, each in their own dignified space, at the far end of the office. She immediately recognizes the silver devices that sit at the head of each seat from her first year at Fleet Academy: neural nets.

  One of them is currently in use. A strong-jawed man is lying back in the chair, his mouth formed into an almost comic pout. Comic, if he didn’t look so angry, and so serious. His eyes dart back and forth as he stares blankly up at the ceiling. He wears an ID badge that reads Pilot, and underneath that is a name: Fornis. Next to his chair a pair of technicians observe a large screen-casted projection of waveforms and data readouts.

  Lanis walks quietly up behind the two technicians, observing. For the first time in months she feels suddenly, shockingly, in her element. She glances at the analysis projection in front of the techs, recognizing it immediately: they’re running a simulation and seeing how well the man and the AI play together.

  It isn’t going well.

  “Missile impact,” one tech breathes as the other types an invisible annotation.

  “Power recalibration is all wrong. Countermeasures slow. Hm. Very slow,” the other remarks.

  “I can fucking hear you,” the pilot in the couch growls. His eyes fix at a point, pupils dilating. “Disengaging simulation,” he snarls. The neural net’s green LEDs pulse three times and then slowly dim, the net relaxing and lifting off of his pilot’s head as the chair rotates him upright.

  “All it wants to do is argue.” the pilot says, spitting out the last word. “It’s too slow, then too fast. I could swear it’s being dense on purpose.” He stands, pulling off the vital sign monitoring bracelets and tossing them back onto the seat. “I’m done for the day. Maybe if you all do your jobs it’ll have an attitude adjustment tomorrow. Though I highly doubt it.” He suddenly notices Mirem, Lanis and Sander. His expression softens—perhaps with a flicker of embarrassment— but then becomes hard again. “Sorry Sander. Mirem. Whoever you are,” he says, giving Lanis barely a glance. “But I’ve been at this for hours, for days, weeks. Vallicent hasn’t had much luck either. Your AI are too base-trained for mining, not combat; they have Versk stamped all over them. Way too much ego.”

  Mirem is silent, but Sander claps the man on the shoulder sympathetically. Lanis can hear Sander commiserating as he walks him to the door: “get some rest Fornis. I’ll debrief with the techs, and we’ll try again tomorrow. That’s what we do here, hey? Just keep trying.”

  Fornis grimaces and gives Sander a nod. Lanis watches his stiff gait as he lumbers out of the lab, not acknowledging her again. Seriously? That’s the best pilot they could bring on? she wonders.

  “He’s a good pilot, actually” Mirem says, as if reading Lanis’ thoughts. “Decently ranked, solid record. His contract expired and we poached him on a six-month conditional contract. We’re paying him and the other pilot, Vallicent, a fairly stupid amount. But,” she sighs, “I guess that’s my fault.”

  “He’s not wrong though,” says one of the techs sitting beside the neural couch, a youngish woman with short curly hair. She turns to Sander, her voice light but hoarse, as if she’s been talking all day. “We’re taking the root structure of a deep-core mining AI and trying to push it into a different way of thinking. At this point retraining her base instincts would be way too time consuming and expensive. That is, if it even got past Admin ethics to do a reboot.” She shakes her head.

  “What about the Murkata AI?” Sander asks. “Any progress with it?”

  The woman gestures with a nod across the room.

  “Connor and Eva are working on it. But, if anything, that AI is worse than ours. I can see why they sent it over on lease. Everyone says it’s a joke, and maybe they’re right. It has a, uh… bad attitude, shall we say,” the tech says, clearly exasperated. “It’s refusing updates. Says it’ll only work with Murkata pilots, and to let it know when Murkata has a controlling share of Versk stock. Point eight seven on the Hinton scale, so we’d never get past Ethics on forcing updates on it. Anyway, it’s only on lease, so what’s the point of going through all that?”

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  “Can I work with one of them?” Lanis asks quietly.

  The tech looks at Lanis for the first time, surprised. Her partner technician, an older man with greying stubble and shaved head, who’s been absorbed in Fornis’ data, slowly pivots his chair to take a look at Lanis. She has a feeling that more than one colleague has wilted before their joint appraisal, and she straightens her back a bit and lifts her chin, conscious of the judgement.

  The man stands, his eyes narrowed and hard, but his voice is oddly amicable as he speaks. “You must be the young woman that Mirem has told us about. Apologies, I lost track of the time working with Fornis.” He holds out a hand. “Heinrich Moore, head of Versk Suit AI integration. Lanis, correct?”

  Lanis takes his hand. She imagines that Heinrich must be another contractor, or newish hire like Sander, who still dispenses with the Versk bows. Or maybe they’re just higher up, and can do what they want.

  “I am. A pleasure.” Lanis notices his gaze moving over her head, to her temple, and then to her neck, where the traces of inset Navigator filament run down from the back of her head to either side of her spine.

  “So… this is…?” he asks.

  “Yes, Fleet tech.” She answers softly—the man is standing close, after all. Yet she might have yelled the words for all the effect they have. It’s as if a vacuum has just sucked out all the air from this side of the room, making sound transmission impossible. No, not true, as she can hear the squeaks of pivoting chairs as every PhD AI tech within earshot turns to take a look at her.

  Heinrich sits back down heavily and strokes his chin, appearing once again to be lost in thought as he looks between Lanis and Mirem.

  Lanis clears her throat into the vacuum.

  “So, can I try an interface run?”

  “Lanis,” Mirem whispers, but Heinrich is already nodding.

  “Sure, I can’t see the harm. We’ll just use the web, of course, not your shunt. We’d need to run some diagnostics…” he trails off, but then rapidly blinks, bringing his focus back to Lanis. “The worst that can happen is she won’t talk to you. We’ll be monitoring the whole time.” He turns to the young woman sitting beside him, whose eyebrows fractionally rise.

  “Now? Ok…” the female tech says, glancing askingly between Mirem and Sander. Lanis hasn’t looked at Mirem since she first made the suggestion that she try an interface run. It’s not like she’s going to fully integrate with the AI, but she can still practically feel Mirem’s look of consternation. This was meant to be a visit, just a sounding out. Not the real thing.

  “She’s a guest, but also a prospect,” Sander says to Mirem. “If she wants to interface… well, that’s what she’s here for.” Lanis is already taking off her jacket as Sander speaks, folding it and handing it to Mirem. She feels suddenly anxious, her palms sweaty; but the words are already out. Boldness in action, before second thoughts, she thinks. The Fleet way.

  She sit in the chair as the young tech turns back to her screen, still looking doubtful.

  “I’ll link you up to our Versk AI. I don’t think the Murkata AI would even say hi.”

  Lanis leans back. She feels the neural net sliding over her head, cold yet soft. Heinrich cinches on the monitoring equipment over her wrists.

  “By the way, I’m Ash,” the woman says quietly. “I feel like I should introduce myself since I’ll be monitoring your brain.” Her hands flutter over a keyboard that only she can see. “T waves look good. Vitals good. All green.” She turns to Lanis.

  “Ready?”

  Lanis sees a strip of code-line at the base of her vision, confirming the access bridge to her mind. Breathe, she thinks, focusing her mind. She murmurs a prayer from an ancient text. Time to let go.

  “Ready,” she murmurs, with more confidence than she feels.

  “Ok. 3, 2, 1, bridge.”

  Lanis screams into the void. The void screams back.

  She feels her hands spasms and her teeth grind. She’s back on the Demeter. Fuck. She’s lost it: ABORT JUMP letters flash in her mind’s eye. What happened? a voice booms in her head. It doesn’t matter—the warp bubble is collapsing, and Sanislov is a spasming corpse, no help to her. A piece of the ship is gone, just gone, coming apart like wet paper even as the Demeter’s bulkheads slam shut. Through it all she can hear something laughing, something so vast and terrifying that simply acknowledging its presence risks insanity; then it suddenly fades, and it’s just her, coughing, choking on her blood—

  She snaps back into the present version of reality.

  “Lanis! What the hell just happened?” Mirem fiercely whispers; she’s leaning over her, and Heinrich is at her side, his hand ready to manually disengage the neural net. Lanis can feel half of the room staring at her.

  “No, I’m fine,” Lanis says through gritted teeth. She takes a gulp of breath and meets Mirem’s horrified eyes. “Just… a flashback.” She breathes, breathes, focusing on the essence of herself, the years of meditation practice kicking in. Nothing to fear… nothing to fear, she recites.

  Heinrich is back in his seat, talking: “Heart rate one-sixty, sinus tach… coming down now… one twenty…. blood pressure marginally elevated, but ok. You want to leave her in? Actually, the link looks pretty damn good now.”

  Sander slowly backs away, and Mirem squeezes her hand.

  “You’re sure?” she asks. “It’s ok…”

  “Yeah. Just, a shock. That’s all.” She breathes a great steadying breath, and attempts a smile. “Sorry everyone. I’m fine, really. Keep going. I’m ready now.”