“They’ll be here in about ten minutes,” Alice informs Nikki, having accessed a terminal to relay her communications beyond the electronic isolation of the lab. “The explaining part comes later, but right now we don’t need to worry about anybody questioning the fact I’ve got Maria Gonçalves under arrest. Ochoba’s got our backs.”
They are standing against the wall furthest from the operating tables, Nikki washing a cut with water from one of the sinks. All of their prisoners are restrained by various means but Nikki has slung the suppression rifle around her shoulder and has assembled the other weapons at her feet. Mind control devices or not, clearly she isn’t taking any chances.
Alice offers her a towel to dab herself dry. She feels some kind of acknowledgement is called for.
“You okay?” she asks. “I know you took a couple of knocks there.”
“It’s okay, I get what you were trying to do. I appreciate it. Are you okay though? Because I figure you gotta be dealing with some serious shit. I mean, at some point we all have to confront our own mortality, but it’s something else to confront your potential immortality.”
“It is a lot to take in,” Alice admits. “I could yet, in a way, fulfil the role Gonçalves chose for me, ultimately book myself a place on the Arca and be a living repository of knowledge. Equally, a synthetic brain needs a body to support it, same as any other. It needs oxygen, energy, so I can choose not to repair myself, and die of old age. Am I obliged to accept this gift, given what it might allow me to give in return? Would it be selfish to refuse? So many difficult questions, so many confounding possibilities.”
“Yeah, and unlike the Beatrice issue, this one really is your problem.”
“Fortunately, my synthetic superbrain has already come up with a short-term strategy for dealing with the sheer enormity of it.”
“And what’s that?”
“It involves mojitos. Do you know where I can get a good one?”