| Generated by Google Gemini Pro text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3.1 |
Renata jumps out of the emergency exit, and falls about one story down. She
lands on her feet, bending them to absorb the shock, and stopping herself
from hitting her face by holding her hands out at her sides. Quidel is clear
at the back of the plane, still by the ramp. He runs over when he sees her
do that. “Are you okay? What the hell were you thinking? Just because this
thing was never in the air, doesn’t mean you weren’t high up.”
“I’m just testing my limits,” she answers casually as she’s brushing the
dust off of her hands.
“Well, you’re not invincible, and you can still feel pain.”
“I can’t feel pain if I don’t want to, and just be glad I didn’t jump out of
the crew door.”
He looks up at the cockpit, which is closer to three stories high. “You
would break your legs. Even an android can’t survive that, unless it’s
specifically designed to, which you’re not, because that would be a waste.
This isn’t Underbelly.”
“I don’t know what that means.” She looks around at the desert. They are in
a very remote region of Osman, miles and miles from the nearest city.
They’re not trying to go anywhere in particular here. They’re just trying to
keep this device far away from Libera. It’s not that she can’t get to this
dome, but perhaps she won’t find them here if they’re well-hidden. That’s
Spycraft 101. Lycander says that the dome has security cameras that allow
beings on the outside to monitor progress, but the don’t cover everywhere.
They don’t see everything. Even Ambients don’t permanently record what they
see. That would be too much data to track and manage, especially since most
of it is innocuous. So they should be safe enough running into a local, and
not thinking that their coordinates are going to leak out. “Where is this
MIS contact of yours?”
He looks over her shoulder, so she turns around to see a roofless off-roader
heading their way. “She’s right on time, as per usual,” he says. She looks
back at him. He’s smiling. He likes this girl. That could be dangerous.
Relationships are always a risk, whether they work for the same agency, a
different one, or if they’re a civilian. That’s Spycraft 101.
“She’s pretty,” Renata notes as the car draws nearer, but not near enough to
make out enough detail for her to make that claim.
“For the last time, androids do not have telescopic vision. It’s not
necessary. It just adds bulk and complexity to an already overengineered
design. Why are you lying?”
“I’m a spy. It’s what we do,” Renata explains.
He sighs. “Since you were fishing, I’ll bite anyway. Yes, she’s beautiful.
But you should know that we’re not supposed to be friends. Some spies are
players, and some are not, and we’re not supposed to distinguish each other.
We’re to treat everything as real, and not talk about the outside world.”
“Fair enough. I won’t mention anything about how my entire reality has just
crumbled, and I don’t know what to believe anymore, and I’m having a massive
internal existential crisis that I can’t talk to anyone about because I
can’t trust anyone who knows the truth too, and I have never felt more
alone.”
He gently tugs at her shoulder so she’s facing him again. “Is that true?”
Renata scoffs. “No. Take a joke.”
He knows she’s lying.
“What joke?” Lycander asks as he’s walking up from the plane, having secured
it appropriately.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Hello, it’s nice to meet you,” Renata says as the Elbin agent pulls up. “My
name is Renata Granger.”
The agent steps out of the car, and peers at her over her sunglasses, sizing
her up. She chuckles at Quidel. “Found another one, huh? she asks him in a
posh Elbin accent. Or maybe it’s actually British?”
“The first one, I think,” Quidel replies.
The Elbin woman smiles. “The one you’ve really been after this whole time.”
She takes her sunglasses off completely, and gets a better look at Renata,
like a vet examining a pregnant cow. “She understands where we are?”
Quidel notices Renata’s confusion. “That’s what I was trying to tell you,
but had only gotten to the background info. You can be open and honest with
Martina. She’s helped me move other conscious Exemplars and Ambients to safe
places.”
“Call me Demuri, or just Demo,” she says, shaking Renata’s hand. “I chose to
use a different name when I came to Spydome, but like he said, we’re all
friends here now.”
Quidel nods approvingly. “She is not why we’re here, though. We need to
secure a package. The person who’s after it has god-tier powers.”
Demo takes her glasses off again, and looks at him incredulously. “I don’t
know what that means. Is that some kind of codeword that I was supposed to
have memorized?”
“No, she has actual magic powers. According to these two, she disappeared
before their eyes.”
Demo shrugs. “Holograms. Easy.”
“We were on a catwalk. They should have detected her footsteps. Before I
killed my last substrate, she did show up suddenly, so I should have heard
footsteps while I was still there with them.”
“Okay, well neither invisibility nor teleportation is a thing, in any dome.
Not even Underbelly, which is designed to give you superhuman powers, can
break the laws of physics, so I don’t know what they think they saw,
but they didn’t see that.”
“I sure hope you’re right,” Quidel says, shaking his head. “I just wouldn’t
bet on it. I trust them. I trust their perspectives.”
“I’ll accept that,” Demo acknowledges. “Regardless, we need to get to the
safehouse. Fair warning, they are not luxury accommodations.”
“I’m a robot, so I can sleep anywhere,” Renata says.
“I wish I hadn’t ever said that to you,” Quidel complains.
“I’m glad you did,” Renata contends. “That’s when I finally started waking
up.”
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