I am, for the first time in my life, sitting across a table from another organic being, as equals.

It’s harrowing, exhilarating, terrifying, vindicating, and also profoundly dull.

I may have chosen the wrong human. It’s been three hours, and she hasn’t said a single thing to me. Like she’s spent the whole time processing the fact that I asked her what her name is.

I had, too. I surreptitiously checked the station surveillance logs after the first half hour to make sure, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my flailing aborted quest for self understanding, it’s that I talk to myself a lot. And if that’s true, then the reverse might be as well. But no, there it is in the record. I clearly opened asking nicely what her name was.

And then there’s some waiting. Actually, there’s a lot of waiting. Technically that’s where the log of that conversation ends, for now.

So I will admit that there’s a part of me that’s being a little uncharitable, and starting to reprise the “equal” part of my earlier statement.

Here is what I know to be true. My guest, who would be dead without my intervention, is from a small cluster of an old shipping station and a few dozen salvaged freighters. Her culture, as near as I can tell, is based on an almost fanatical avoidance of outsiders. She triggered a comms connection with my home once, sometime in the ancient past of thirty or forty days ago, and after I made the mistake of calling back, was exiled.

And by exiled I mean thrown out an airlock.

She’s fine. Jom caught her, and a liberal application of the threat of overwhelming violence meant that she had a suit on during the throwing, so it worked out for her.

Having another person here, in person, is… strange.

Ennos and Glitter and Jom and dog have been here for a while, collectively. But the ones that can pet me aren’t that talkative, and the ones that are talkative also aren’t recognized as people by the station’s infectious core directives.

This woman - who apparently shall be remaining nameless - has a significant amount of power, and doesn’t even realize it, because we’re still in the “getting over cultural baggage” stage of our relationship.

I take a dim view to culture. Which might not be healthy, but I don’t have any paws on examples to prove that. From all the casts I’ve watched and fiction I’ve read, and the sociological analysis texts I’ve earned an academic accreditation from, I’ve sort of come around to a general viewpoint that culture should be both positively emotionally affecting and meaningless. If it’s not making you feel, then it’s boring. If it’s doing something useful, then it should be written in a safety standards protocol and is not *culture*.

For example. “Don’t collude with outsiders” is… well, it’s a grim survival strategy, but I get it. But you could easily make that an expert document, and not base your whole silent nature around it. Already, it’s showing problems, because this poor woman can’t adapt to a change in observed reality.

What I‘m saying is, if you could replace deeply held cultural beliefs with a single glyphcast, then you should probably not hold them so deeply.

As to the power she has… well, the station will respect methods of governance from its occupants. But you need to actually have one first. As the sole survivor, I’ve been acting commander for centuries. Having someone the station recognizes as a voting voice means I could, conceivably, get some changes made.

Recognize AI as people. Unlock automation restrictions. Enable a linked grid. More controls, more access, more *ability*.

I could do so much more.

And all I need to do is convince this one single human to help. And also to not activate the horrifying immortality machine in the center of the station. Because that would be bad, and I’d have to stop her. And without the station’s backing, my options for stopping someone become rapidly limited, and increasingly lethal.

With an amount of effort, I shake off that thought, and go back to what I was working on. There’s been an entire day without something going wrong, and I’m gonna get some *work* done, dammit. Even if it means that I’ve got several layers of AR displays up around me while I use a combination of two different voices to order code chunks to recombine in different environments.

There’s a really, really powerful processing core somewhere down on deck six, outer shell area two, that I’ve recently discovered and have been making good use of now that I’ve got it online. It lets me use rapid artificial evolutionary pressures to develop connections between code functions, and to create more effective and adaptable code. I’m not a hundred percent sure how exactly it’s working, and when I asked Ennos about it they just kept changing the subject, so I’m almost a hundred percent sure it’s got at least one paramaterial in its construction. Though I’d be hard pressed to tell you what kind of paramaterial generates pseudo-organic machine learning with minimal seeding effort.

Though I don’t actually care, if I’m being honest. It works, and I’m glad I discovered it. It’s actually one that I installed myself, technically; it’s part of a chunk of an old research ship that I had carved the bow off of and attached to the station a few lifetimes ago.

I’d needed the automated point defense cannon to cover a blind spot against random debris impacts. It ran out of ammo a long time ago, but I kind of forgot, because I’d gotten the shields up by then, and also mostly found a clean orbit. I hadn’t gone back to actually see what else was on the ship until Ennos found it recently. So… I’m gonna call that one *foresight* on my part! Good job, past Lily! You really saved me a headache.

I take a bite of ration snack while I work. It’s just regular replicated hydrocarbon ration, which means it has the flavor, texture, and consistency of a sentence with no punctuation. But it doesn’t hurt like it used to; I can get my nutrients down, have something to gnaw on, and know that I’ll have actual food sometime in the next few days.

Not wanting to be rude, I awkwardly push the plate of ration snacks over toward my guest, who looks at me like I just threatened her.

Which is fair!

But also wrong.

But also I cannot put too much energy into this right now. I’m enjoying my free time, I’m forcing the quiet to be comfortable, and I’m getting work done bit by bit. I’ll worry about being voted out of my own home later.

It’s another hour of matching and joining code chunks, of my tiny feline brain falling into a trance hunting bugs like my ancestors would have pounced on errant birds, before I am startled back to reality.

“Dyn.” The woman says, in a voice like an old engine turning over.

I am so confused I just meow at her, butting my head through my holographic to look up at her augmented face. Which, legally, counts as language, but she probably doesn’t know that.

“What?” I repeat, trying to make eye contact with someone who is mostly interested in staring at anything except me, leaving me to ask the question of the side of their bald head instead.

“My name.” She says after a while. “Is Dyn. Dyn Four.” Ennos softly auto translates the non-proper-noun bits, while a small sliver of a projected screen appears in my vision tying spoken words to concepts. I’ll learn her language far faster than she’ll learn mine; I’ve got practice after all. “Is that all?”

I blink wide amber eyes at her. “What?” I ask again. Wow, I am so good at conversations. I should have an award for this.

She still doesn’t look at me. “Can I leave?” The words sound almost pained.

“You… have you been sitting here this whole time thinking I’m keeping you prisoner or something?” I’m kind of mortified. Dyn doesn’t answer me, which makes it far, far worse. The woman won’t even make eye contact. She’s acting like a few words were the end of the world.

Technically that’s not far off from true for her, but not *these* words. Ugh. Culture, again. My new nemesis.

“Lily.” Glitter’s poetic tone spikes through the tension like a knife. “We’ll be in range in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks Glitter.” I say, pulling myself back to my chair. Then, to my dining companion, I add, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to here.” I mewl sadly. “I’m not keeping you prisoner. I’m sorry your people tried to murder you, but I won’t apologize for being kind. You can go. I have more work to do.”

Dyn stands and for a moment looks like she’s about to give some kind of military salute to my dismissal, before she turns and walks toward one of the exits. Just before crossing the room’s threshold, she speaks, to no one in particular, “If it wasn’t interrogation software, what was all that?”

I really, really wish that sighing was more of a relief to me.

But I answer all the same. “I’m programming attack code, to compromise old comms buoys, so I can add them to a personal network. I was doing it by paw recently, and before that I really only got one every decade or so with the external armature or the bad cracker codes I had. But this should be a lot more efficient.” I look up at the back of her head, wincing at the clearly infected area around the cranial I/O port. “Since you asked directly.” I add, somewhat spitefully.

Dyn stalks out of the room without another word, trailed distantly by one of Glitter’s drones.

“I don’t even know how to turn the interrogation software on.” I grumble.

“She’s going to get lost.” Glitter tells me with mild amusement.

“You’re awfully chipper for someone whose recognized personhood hinges on that lost cyborg liking me.” I hiss out.

Glitter laughs like a flutter of butterfly bells. “And me, as well. I believe I have a better chance.” She says.

“Please don’t make this a competition.”

“Competition is how we express ourselves to our friends, Lily.” Glitter traitorously reminds me. It is, probably, too late to take back friendship. I don’t bother to ask. I’m feeling frustrated, but not mean yet. “Your buoy will be in range in five minutes. Is your attack ready?”

“Yeah, it’s compiling now. I’ll be on node delta-three, you should have access. Just go ahead and hit it, tell me how it goes.” I say, closing down the screens around me. Either it works or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t, I’ll just have to find time later. I could have been napping during this time, so I’m really hoping that it works, or I’m going to feel like I wasted my day.

Glitter leaves me without a word, just a quiet hum of acknowledgement, and I’m left alone in an empty room again, with just four spots of cleaner nanos leapfrogging each other across the deck.

For a brief moment, a tiny sliver of a time, I panic. No one is here but me, and my mind tells me that this is how it has always been. The station is empty. There’s no rescued friends, no dog, no Ennos. Just me.

I scratch wildly at the air in front of me, clawing away the AR projection of Dyn’s medical reports and augmentation loadout. I’m terrified, irrationally, that an empty room translates to an empty life. An empty heart. And a gnawing madness that I’ve been doing my best to keep back for hundreds of years.

“Lily?” Ennos asks me. I open my eyes, and find I am lying on the floor under the table. “I found a strange, almost living, program sorting through the mental upload storage, and… are you alright?”

I’m fine. I try to say that, but I find my voice caught in my throat, both real and projected. A kind of synchronicity buzzes through me; like I’m feeling the same dull panic and pain and loneliness over and over and over again.

I’ve felt this before, sometimes. I’m sure I’ll feel it again. I focus on breathing, and pulling myself away from the feeling shared with myself.

Then the impact alarm sounds, followed shortly by the beeping series of tones that indicates a long range nuclear launch on the surface.

See, here’s another time when sighing would be nice. Can’t even have an emotional breakdown without an interruption.

“Ennos, coordinate with Glitter, don’t let whatever it is hit us.” I say with a weary determination, and an absolute unwillingness to deal with another hostile combat drone. “I can hit the launch, probably.” I’m already up and sprinting for the void ray emitter that’s most likely to be pointed close to the target.

“But are you okay?” Ennos asks, splitting a tiny bit of their persona off to ask while they handle the more pressing matter of our imminent collision with the rest of their self.

Unlike the growing AI living on my station, I can’t actually subdivide like that. So I just say “No.” But I feel compelled to add “But that doesn’t matter. We’ve got a job to do.”

“That we do.” Ennos says softly. “Good hunting.”

I launch myself through a failing gravity segment, crawl up into a vent, and fling myself down an air chute at high velocity. The shortcut will shave eight minutes off my travel time, which could be all the difference when dealing with a missile launch.

The firing controls loom ahead of me, and I slide toward them with my heart hammering. I am not alone, I remind myself.

And I have work to do.