N.K.Jemisin

I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.”

“You prefer Antimony?”

Some things are easier when not faced alone.

SOUNDTRACK: Something inspiring. Adjust style for local market tastes per extranet IP address.

EDIT TEAM 1: Can we use Vaenia’s music?

EDIT TEAM 2: No, are you high? We want “inspired,” not “let’s go fuck an alien.”

EDIT TEAM 1: Hey, inspiration’s what you make of it!

She kept pinging on them because in any other crowd, these small oddities of behavior looked suspicious. Potential threats. But she was pinging everywhere, because they weren’t threats.

They were just humans—a complete chaotic mess.

CM 4: Half of Intelligence’s VIs are working to find out. Nothing yet. The other half are busy checking out back-channel chatter about that dead Spectre. The human one.

“A moment, Lieutenant. I’ll need to use Ms. Menoris’ omni-tool to access the Audacity’s systems.” It paused.

“Hmm.”

Cora made yet another mental note to ask Alec Ryder what the hell he’d been thinking to make an AI that paused for dramatic effect.

“Yes?”

“Menoris died of a registered assassination, so it’s not like we’re going to waste personnel hours on investigating it. We only tracked you down because of the floor. And since you’re a witness, we might as well register you as such. Makes the paperwork easier.”

Cora’s mouth fell open for a moment. “Assassination is legal here?”

She rolled her eyes. “This is Illium, human. Failure to comply will delay your departure by several days, and I’ll be late for dinner. Just sign the form.”

“I didn’t actually see the assassination, you know. Just the body.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s what the form says.”

“Oh.” Cora skimmed, and sure enough, there was a brief bit of text noting that she had not seen the assassin or witnessed the actual murder.

More often than not he slept in his lab, though he’d been making an effort to stop doing that. Ellen didn’t like it.

“Come on, Alec,” she always said. “Even Einstein managed to bathe every day.”

“Dirt builds character,” he’d reply. Not that he’d ever really foregone bathing. It was just that sometimes it took a little prompting for him to stop working and attend to basics. It had been easier to subsume himself in the work than think about mundanities. Or the looming future.

She was right. Enough coincidences meant intent, not bad luck.