“If you have any difficulties, hit the panic button.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know.”
It left us. The AI warder was probably filling the role as part of the policy to encourage humans and AIs to get to know each other better. Most of the others were human, and would have worn power armour, but even so, they were more like concierges than jailers. Liss would have been treated well. But people like complaining, so I thought I’d give her the chance.
“How have they been treating you?”
She didn’t reply.
“Liss. Hi? It’s me. Asha?”
She flicked a look up at me for a moment, but that was all.
“They tell me they’ve been questioning you.”
No answer.
“They didn’t tell me what you said, but they seem to be satisfied you’re not a threat. They might let you come back to the centre.”
Still no answer. Still no eye contact.
“Olivia doesn’t believe you’ve been arrested. She doesn’t think you’ve got it in you.”
That got a derisive snort.
“None of us knows who you really are, do we?”
“No.”
“Well. You didn’t treat Mr. Dorje very well, did you? Do you remember? The man you attacked?”
“He’s a criminal.”
“Liss, he smuggles in fruit. He’ll be prosecuted for that and he might lose his business licence. Do you really think it merits a beating?”
“Still a criminal.”
“Did you know he comes from the same world as me?”
She looked up, and our eyes met.
“His whole country was destroyed. When we did a census after the evacuation, it turned out he was the only one left who came from there. Take a look at this…”
I pulled out a pad and showed her images of old Tibet: monasteries in high mountains, prayer flags in the breeze, smiling faces of children, monks in orange robes.
“That’s all gone now. They were starving at the end. With the glaciers all gone there was hardly any water for their crops. Then their cities were nuked when India and China had their war. And now he’s the only one left.”
Liss received this like a burden on her shoulders.
“He’s like a lot of people here. He could have gone on to the colony world, but he stayed on Hub instead. That bar of his? That’s the last piece of Tibet anywhere. It’s unique. I’ve been in there a few times. He’s got a terrible sense of humour, but he’s so proud of that place. And now he might lose it.”
I showed images of Dawa Dorje in his bar. Some publicity shots: prayer flags on the roof, the traditional interior. Dawa looking so obviously proud. And one that Bell had taken of Dawa posing with me, friendly grin all over his face. Liss closed her eyes; I hoped I wasn’t piling on the guilt too much, but she needed to know what she’d done.
“This is us, Liss. This is who you were investigating. This is Hub. Most of the people here came from dying worlds. If anyone in the multiverse is going to sympathise with you, it’s people like this.”
She put a hand to her eyes. Were those tears? Yes. She wiped them back.
“Do you want me to talk to him? I think he’ll understand if I explain.”
Liss couldn’t stop the tears this time, and I couldn’t cross the barrier to comfort her. “I’m sorry…” she said. “I’m not like this…” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and of course the paper tore as soon as it got wet.
“We’re all like this,” I said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
5. Group
“No. It’s rubbish. There’s no way that woman could fool a turnip!”
“She fooled us all, Olivia,” I said.
“She might have fooled you…”
“She did, for a while.”
“Do you really think she’s some kind of master criminal or something?”
“No. Quite the opposite, I expect.”
“All right, let’s say for a moment you’re not talking rubbish. So you’re seriously telling me you found her on a dead planet with corpses all over the place—”
“Um. It wasn’t corpses,” said Pew.
“Fine. Piles of ash everywhere, same thing. You find this woman still living there, still going about her business as though nothing’s happened, and you didn’t check? You didn’t look in her head with your doohickeys and your whatnots to see if she had anything to do with it?”
I said, “We can’t actually do that, Olivia, not unless we understand the species well enough. We can’t do it for Liss and we can’t do it for you, either.” Kwame held his silence, wanting to avoid complicated explanations about his own experiences.
“But you trusted her. That’s what I don’t understand. She’s obviously off her head and you trusted her.”
“We saw someone in distress and tried to help.”
“And she took advantage of you, is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s possible.”
“Well, you know what? Good for her!”
“What do you mean by that?” said Kwame.
“I mean I don’t believe a word of it because she’s a drip and nothing you can say is going to make me think any different, but if, and I mean if, she’s gone and made fools out of the lot of you, then good for her.”
6. Liss
“I’m no good at this,” said Liss.
“You did okay. You had us fooled.”
She scowled back. “Don’t patronise me.”
This was definitely not the Liss I knew. “I’m sorry. Please go on.”
“I was supposed to keep my mouth shut if I got caught. I tried, but… why do you have to be so nice? All of you, it’s like a tyranny of niceness. How’s anyone supposed to hold out against that?”
I smiled and shrugged. There are worse things to be accused of. But Liss was still dispirited. “I’ve never been any good at this. I’m the last person who should be here.”
“Does that mean you’ve done things like this before?”
She sighed. “I used to be an adventurer.”
“So you do have powers?”
She snapped back at me. “Yes, I’ve got powers. Crap powers. I had early onset superpower syndrome. Kids who get their powers early are usually screwed up somehow, I was just crap. I’m strong and fast and tough but not as strong and fast and tough as the people who have real powers.”
“So why did you become an adventurer?”
“My parents did it, my boyfriend was doing it, how was I supposed to avoid it?”
“Then why did you stop?”
“Because I wasn’t any good at it! I was better at doing the paperwork when everyone else got back from the mission. And then Yott dumped me and the PRG didn’t want me and you don’t really want to hear about all this.”
“I do want to hear about it.”
“This isn’t a therapy session.”
“Actually, it is.”
“Therapy sessions are supposed to be confidential. They’re watching.” She jabbed a finger at the cameras she assumed were in the room.
“I had the cameras switched off.”
“And I’m supposed to just believe you?”
“I’m your therapist. I give you my word.”
She did her best to disbelieve me, then gave it up and sighed. “Whatever.”
“Do you mind if I ask some questions, just so I know what happened?”
She snorted. “Didn’t they let you read the report?”
I shook my head. “I don’t work for Security.”
“Go on, then. If you really need to.”
“I suppose you didn’t actually work in a call centre? Or the recruitment agency?”