Page 55 of Guiding Reason
“That’s at least a possibility worth considering.”
She sighed. “One more thing for me to do, it seems.”
Before Col could apologize, a knock on the door was followed by the industrious first rank entering. She had a bag in her arms, NomNom Noodles going by the logo printed on it.
“I had these delivered from the regular side, Conduit. I hope you don’t mind. This was faster.” She held the bag out to Col, but Hyran took it from her hands.
“Thank you, Motono.” Niyada dismissed her with a wave. “Go ahead. Eat. Both of you. I will give you an update on what we have been doing here, Coldis, if that’s fine.”
Col nodded and took the food container Hyran offered him, along with utensils. “Very. And you wanted to make me have a large breakfast when there are noodles here,” he said to Hyran, who gave Col a hard look, or as hard as the Guardian could make it, which wasn’t very.
“Hyran, what have I always told you?” Niyada asked.
Hyran handed her a container and utensils as well. “That it is important to eat, especially when you’re working a lot or burning tons of energy running from one place to another. He didn’twant to. The butler bot tried too, but all he would take was coffee and half a plain pancake.”
Col stirred his noodles. They came in a creamy sauce, and his mouth was watering at the sight and smell. “I’m not a breakfast person most of the time.”
“Our son is a Guardian A-classer. We all did our best to be well informed in case he ever imprinted or in the hopes he would find some nice Conduits to be with. What I understand about imprinting is that it can take a lot out of the Conduit, especially during the early days. So you need to fuel yourself, Coldis.”
Niyada reminded Col of Maro, Senlas’s aunt, who would have strapped him down and fed him like a sick horn cat if she were here. The thought made him smile.
“I probably should, Niyada. But please, while I feed myself, tell me what is going on in the Grounds.”
Niyada let out a long groan as she opened her own food. “Where to start. The attack timeline and processing the attack site—Starlit Stage—is one of the easier tasks. And as I said, the Archi-Team is easy to work with and incredibly useful in ways we hadn’t even anticipated.
“We get a lot of calls for assistance from citizens though—Guardians and Conduits, I mean. Parents ask about how their children’s schooling will proceed, but we have gotten the teachers to field most of that. Others are just plain worried. Some Grounds security bots are patrolling rather than being in standby mode as they should be, without the Op-AI to confer with, so we have been tracking those down. Unless they managed to track us down first.”
The noodles were a rich, creamy delight, and Col swallowed hastily. “What have they been doing?”
“Not much. But they commanded my people to stop and leave the Grounds. My protectors would contact the Municipal AI, and then it would talk with the Argentean Op-AI, and even then, wehad to use pulse grenades with three of the security bots. They seemed willing to remove my protectors using force.”
Col coughed, and Hyran gently stroked his back. “You—you threw pulse grenades here in the Grounds? To take down security bots?”
Niyada slurped her own noodles. “We had to. They wouldn’t let our protectors do their jobs.”
“Fucking—do you know how many are unaccounted for?”
“No. They are housed in very resistant structures, and those structures have all shut down when the Op-AI died. Maybe you can ask if your Op-AI can access those? Or at least give me a count of how many bots my people should look out for.”
“I will try. Haven’t you?”
“Hm. Your Op-AI felt strongly that the presence of Grounds security bots can only be beneficial. Most larger buildings have their own, but those don’t interfere with our work since the building AIs regulate them. I told your Op-AI. I think it didn’t like the notion that I, a regular, wanted the Grounds security bots to shut down.”
“How bad are those bots?” Hyran sounded halfway to annoyed on behalf of his mother.
“Nothing I can’t handle. I’m also not sure the Argentean Op-AI knows to do everything I would want it to do. No, that’s wrong. I don’t know that it can do everything the Ferrean Op-AI used to do. Maybe they each work a little differently and can’t adapt to how things are in cities not their own.”
Col and Hyran exchanged a look.
Niyada leaned forward in her moldable. “What? Is there something I need to know?”
I want to tell her, but I can’t, not yet. It might get out and then…“Nothing you are cleared to know, Niyada. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “Well, anything I don’t need to know is something I won’t worry about. Does Rasev need to know?”
“I don’t think so, at least not right now. We should move on. What else?”
“We are handling everything that doesn’t work as it should. Some building AIs require their inhabitants to be escorted, or else they won’t let them out. And while the auto-drives are running smoother now, they will still stop randomly. Deliveries are late or don’t happen at all, and most of the agriculture doesn’t run properly. The worst thing in all of this is that almost everyone here in the Grounds is scared and afraid to go about their business as normal.”
