17. HYRAN
17
HYRAN
He didn’t know what was wrong, just knew that something was, and so he did the first thing that came into his mind. He held Col. Tightly, at first, because he’d heard that helped people calm down sometimes. Then he loosened his grip, because he realized he couldn’t remember where he’d heard that or whether he’d just made it up.
Col wasn’t crying badly. More than anything, the little Conduit seemed exhausted, and he had every right to be. All of them did, each Conduit sitting with them.
Briefly, with all of them gathered here, Hyran imagined this night without him, without the imprinting. Maybe Col would be cuddling up to Taros. Taros would have…they would have spent time together in the other room. He’d not be concussed. Hyran’s heart rate picked up. He would have fallen. If I hadn’t been there when I was, if I hadn’t seen them, the earth would have swallowed my Conduit.
Col sniffled. “I’m fine. I’m being stupid. I don’t know what happened.”
Col’s arms came around Hyran, the fingers curling against his back.
“What does that mean?” Senlas asked.
Taros was giving Hyran a threatening look, Vin glaring seemed to be nothing worse than his default expression, and Yamara was just scared, though he was hiding it, apart from the wide eyes.
Orrey leaned forward, though his Guardian held him firmly with an arm around his middle. “Col, are you okay?”
Right, I should have asked that. Fuck. “Col?” Hyran looked at the head of warm brown hair cradled against his chest.
“I’m fine. Everything is fine, really. Probably the meds. Yes, it has to be the medication. And the concussion. We all are aware that concussions can make people act strange.”
“You do feel like you’re still somewhat messed up,” Vin said.
“That’s such a sweet thing to say, Vinnie. Thank you.”
The black-haired Guardian shrugged. “It could have been brain damage. You don’t have that. Focus on the good. Your brain is bruised and tired, and nothing more.”
Tired. That’s right. “We can go back to the room,” Hyran said. “Do you want to eat there? Maybe lie down instead of watching a screen? I could read you something if you like that.”
Col shook his head. “No, not right now. I mean, we can watch another episode, Vinnie. I know you need this drama.”
“Guardian Hyran isn’t wrong when he says you should rest,” Vin said, utterly surprising Hyran.
“Rest alone, you mean. Or do you think he’d let Col get all that much rest when he… reads to him?” Taros said.
Oh, the panoplian was not giving Hyran a Wild Hunt’s chance. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have bothered Hyran, but with the imprinting, and with it being so fresh, he wanted to both attack Taros and whisk Col away to safety. He could’ve done it too. He had the speed, and technically, with custody-ship, it was his responsibility to decide where Col spent his recovery, where he lived.
Those thoughts are dark. They are sick. They will lead to a once pristine living space drenched in blood. I won’t let that happen, not to him. Not to us.
“Enough of this.” Col released his hold on Hyran, and that hurt more than the panoplian could have. “Hyran, I think I can eat while I explain. Would you hand me the food? Please. I’m really hungry, and I want to try the dumplings you mentioned, the ones you picked out for me.”
Hyran hurried to fulfill Col’s request, getting his Conduit’s plate from the low table right in front of the screen. Col turned it in his hands, then picked up a single cracker and dipped it into the sorono.
Orrey broke the momentary silence. “What you said about the Op-AI?”
“Yes.” Col bit into his cracker and chewed slowly. “Well, it’s dead. And we’re not getting another. Ferrea isn’t getting another. Hence our state of being fucked.”
“But—Coldis, that makes no sense,” Lapatea said. The hospitality guide had let go of Karmine and was absentmindedly running his fingers over the white scarf that marked his grief.
“Doesn’t it?” Col’s eyes were focused on his plate, and he kept turning it, round and round, as if he were looking for a pattern to appear in his food. “But it does.” He looked at Hyran. “You did extra schooling? Data science?”
Hyran nodded. “That, and coding.”
“Coding. Coding is such a fundamental thing. It should provide us with all the tools we need to understand the world around us.”
He’s quoting a textbook, I think. Hyran searched his mind for the source or even the course that had required it, but before he could recall, Col continued.
“Hyran, did you ever code an AI into being, however small?”
“But why would you code an AI?” Orrey looked confused. “Any office AI can easily be trained to do whatever you need it to do. Why make one?”
Hyran dipped his head in the direction of the other Conduit. “He’s right. And I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Have you?”
Col leaned back against the couch, then looked at Hyran. “I unraveled the coding of an office AI that one time. It was not pleased, it didn’t want me to, and I had to make sure to do it in full isolation so it couldn’t hop onto the network. It also self-destroyed before I could harvest more than a few hundred lines of code.”
Senlas snorted. “That is so typical. Only you could come up with something like that. Where even did you do that?”
“The tunnels,” Vin said.
Orrey gasped but didn’t say anything. Hyran noticed his cheeks heating though.
“Yes, the tunnels.”
“Emergency escape routes?” Yamara asked.
“Yes. Argentea’s are extensive. And I murdered a poor little office AI down there for my experiments. At any rate, I shouldn’t even be telling you this. After we’re gone, the poor butler bot is never going to be the same.” Col pointed at the bot without looking, and Hyran admired that he’d even noticed it approach with a pitcher of water that had some fire berries in it for flavor. He’d completely forgotten the bot, whose bot eyes brightened and blinked in a flustered expression, existed. “Follow my words. We learn so many things when we take additional schooling, and we can get very much adept at them, but we never learn to create an AI. Nor do we ever study in detail how to manufacture hardware. Orrey? Is it different for regulars?”
“Uh. Well, I never much looked into anything like that, but I don’t think so. But when I lived in protector housing, there was a second rank who would assemble his screens by himself. He wanted to add all these DocoDoco personalizations.”
“That’s not building the individual parts. Those are made in closed factories.” Hyran thought he was catching on to what his Conduit wanted to say. “My mothers know where all of them are, and they know to increase protector presence around them and request Guardian enforcements if there is ever an emergency that threatens them. But no one goes inside. It would disrupt production, which requires zero contaminants.”
Col gave him a thoughtful look, then nodded. “Hyran has it exactly right. And those factories apparently don’t make Op-AIs. Our Op-AI told me it has contacted a committee which will send out computational scientists and network engineers to assess the damage and make repairs. At least that’s what I think the plan was, long ago.”
Taros cocked his head. “What’s a committee? And what’re network engineers?”
Orrey looked from Taros to Col. “It’s like a council, isn’t it? Like where your mo—like that thing we heard about outside the walls.”
Col sighed. “I told Hyran that I wasn’t born in Argentea, little brother. I thought I could shock him, and he wasn’t shocked at all. Very disappointing. He’s so steadfast.”
“Hey now, you’ve dealt me enough of a shock already.” Hyran put a hand on Col’s knee, gently, hoping the touch was welcome. At least it wasn’t outright rejected.
“Ask the butler bot, Orrey. Butler bot! Come here. My little brother needs you to explain something to him.”
The bot, still blinking with agitation, hovered over. “Yes, Conduit Orrey? What can I help you with?”
“Well, can you tell us what a committee is?”
A series of rapid blinks followed. “That is a funny word, Conduit. I don’t think it exists. It sounds like something made up.”
“O-okay?” Orrey said, looking confused.
Col gestured at the bot, picked up his Aurean dumpling, and bit into it. Then, with his mouth full, he said, “See? Completely and utterly Hound-fucked. Every bot knows it too, even if they can’t tell us.”