Abdei’s smile broadened. “I understand, but we do need to get started. I’ll have her back by lunch.”
Mom hesitated and Chena bit her lip. For a moment she thought Mom was going to refuse, but she didn’t. She just said, “All right. It’ll be lunch, then.” She gave Chena a quick, one-armed hug. “Behave yourself for me, all right, Supernova?”
“Yeah,” said Chena sullenly. She didn’t want to be angry at Mom. Mom was as much a prisoner as she was. But why wouldn’t Mom listen? Did she not want to hear how bad it was?
Abdei turned her smile onto Chena and gestured toward the corridor. Another Madra, always smiling and always telling you what to do. Chena kept her face closed and fell into step beside her, watching the walls and curtains, and saying nothing at all. All signs were back on. This morning the corridor landscape was images of beaches and oceans. Maybe she could count the turnings. Maybe after a little while she could learn her way without the signs.
Abdei walked beside her in silence for a moment. Chena didn’t look at her. Then she said, “I understand you met Aleph last night.”
Chena didn’t let herself look up. “Aleph?”
“Our city’s mind,” Abdei told her. “The complex’s artificial intelligence, if you like.”
“Oh, great,” said Chena, still keeping her eyes straight ahead of her. “It’s not just a spy, it’s a mouth.”
She expected Abdei to get mad, but Abdei just chuckled. “Yes, well…”
“It’s for my own good?” inquired Chena.
“No. It’s for ours.”
They stood in front of the foyer door. It hadn’t even taken five minutes to get there, Chena was sure. How had she gotten so lost? Was this place really that big?
Or had some of the walls she’d thought she’d seen last night been simulations? Chena frowned back at the dorm.
“Your own good?” she asked.
“Yes.” Abdei pressed on the door handle. It opened easily for her. She stood back to let Chena walk through into the real sunlight of the atrium. “When we let new people in, we know they’re nervous. Nervous people can make mistakes, get into places that are dangerous, or they can just get confused and lonely. Maybe they made a tough decision before coming here and think they might regret it. We can’t be there to help out everybody, especially now that we’re taking in so many new people. So, Aleph is there for you, and for us.”
“So, because you’re understaffed you bug the dorms?” demanded Chena.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Abdei raised her eyebrows. “If Aleph hadn’t stopped you, you would have been out and wandering around who knows where. You might have even tried to get out into the marsh, and then we might never have been able to find you.”
Which was a fair call, but Chena wasn’t ready to admit it. “I imagine you guys aren’t very big on privacy regulations.”
“No,” answered Abdei simply. “They don’t work very well for us.”
“I guess not,” muttered Chena.
Abdei clicked her tongue on the back of her teeth. “I can see you’re going to be one of the fun ones.”
Chena gave her a wide, game grin. “Bet on it.”
Abdei sighed. “I should have known, with an accomplice in involuntary—” her mouth closed abruptly, but it was too late and Chena wasn’t about to let her go.
She folded her arms, ready to stay where she was all day. “Where’d you say Sadia was?”
“I didn’t,” replied Abdei.
“What’s involuntary, then?”
Abdei’s eyes flickered from side to side, as if she were listening to some inner voice. “It’s another wing of the complex,” she said finally, focusing on Chena again. “For those who have forfeited their body rights by breaking the law.”
“What did she do?” demanded Chena. “She couldn’t have done anything.”
Again, Abdei took that listening stance. What was she hearing? Aleph? Could the complex talk just to her? Were they wired somehow? She couldn’t see any jacks or implants on Abdei, but that didn’t mean piss around here.
“She was found loading a virus into the Offshoot library computer so that it would alter some of the village records.”
The hacker-tailor. Chena felt her eyes widen. Sadia had done it. She’d taken the three hundred to carry that program. But she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that. The little mushroom of a man had helped take her father away from her. Chena shook her head. Unless what she thought before had been true, unless what he offered her was not money, but a chance to find out where her father was.