Exit Strategy

Mensah leaned against the railing next to me and said, “I was afraid you’d left.”

She kept her gaze on the plaza, so I could look at the side of her face. “I thought about it.”

She was quiet for twenty seconds, watching the movement in the plaza below. “Have you thought much about what you want to do?”

“Watch media.”

She did the lifted eyebrow look which I had on file as meaning: I know you’re trying to be funny but you’re not funny. It was most often aimed at Ratthi and Gurathin. “I think if that was all you wanted to do, you’d be off somewhere doing it, and you’d never have gone to Milu.”

“I watched a lot of media on the way to Milu.” It wasn’t exactly a counterargument, but I thought it was important data.

“You’ll have to wait to discuss it,” Pin-Lee told them. “It can’t enter into any contractual agreements until it completes its memory rebuild.”

“Why?” I asked her. “Because my owner says so?”

“No, asshole,” Pin-Lee said. “Because I’m your legal counsel.”

The one good thing about having emotions was that it accelerated the repair process for my memory storage. (The bad thing about having emotions is, you know, OH SHIT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME.)