“It’s… what they say in murder mysteries?”
He huffs a sound of disbelief. “You’re unhinged.”
No, I’msleep-deprived. After an eight-hour spaceflight to get here, three rounds of gelatin shots, and nearly twenty-four hours without sleep, I’m exhausted.
I don’t say this to Lament, though. The last time he witnessed me in a moment of vulnerability, he mocked me for it. I’m pretty sure that makes him an asshole, which is just my luck, really, finally making it into my dream slot in the Legion only to be stuck with an absolute lemon of a partner. And what’s worse? I can’t even call him out on it, because that would be (as Master Ira used to say)stirring the pot, and I can’t afford to stir any pots. Can’t eventhinkabout pots or utensils used for their stirring. Because while Lament has already secured his place in the Legion, I haven’t. And I really, really need this to work.
Lament scratches the back of his neck, then drops the hand and gives me a look that’s steady and… curious? Which I guess is a step up from the glaring? “What species are you?”
Now I’m the one frowning. “Um. Human?”
“Are you sure?”
“What? Yes.”
“You don’t exactly look human.”
I have no idea what to say to that. There are a few humanoid races similar to ours, but they all have distinct markers, like silver eyes or horns or fangs. No one has ever questioned my humanity before. “Are you messing with me?”
He looks affronted. “No.”
Mercifully, a cleaning bot chooses this moment to roll into the room. It’s a CE-90, one of those rollers with a dozen extending arms and just enough programming to prevent it from knocking anything over. As Lament and I watch, a nozzle appears out of the bot’s side and begins vacuuming the bookcases. It looks like an elephant. A squat metal elephant with a tubular trunk for slurping dust.
I really must be sleep-deprived, because I choke back a snort.
Lament flashes me a look of deep concern. “Are you laughing?”
Yes. “No.”
“Why are you laughing?”
Because I’m a hundred light-years away from anyone I know. Because I thought coming here would feel like coming home, and it doesn’t. BecauseI’m half-convinced that by morning, Sergeant Forst will call me into her office to tell me I’ve been reassigned. “No reason.”
“Youareunhinged.”
I turn my attention back to the monitor where Rudy Rivon is brandishing his microphone at a frightened-looking young man. “How do you unmute the volume?”
Lament hesitates—probably deciding if helping me will shrivel his soul or whatever—before striding to a nearby drawer and extracting a remote. I lift my hand, expecting him to toss it over, but he only says, “They’re interviewing a Determinist.”
“I can see that.” My voice is perfectly calm. I deserve an award. “I’d like to listen.”
“You’re not a follower, are you?”
Determinists are a faction of people who believe every event leads to every next event, meaning the future can be charted down to what kind of eggs you’ll have for breakfast in thirty years. The group has been around for decades, recruiting members and spouting their predictions, but it wasn’t until about three years ago that a man named Ran Doc Min created a computer simulation that does exactly that—predicts the future. In the time since, he’s become the leader of the Determinist movement and spends most of his time warning people about all sorts of catastrophic events: worldwide floods, meteors, collapsing stars. At first, everyone wrote him off as a madman, but then his predictions started to come true. Recently he’s started hinting at something bigger. Something that will affect not just one planet, but the entire galaxy. It’s been all over the news.
“Not really,” I reply. “I mean, I get the concept of Determinism. And it seems like there might not actually be any randomness in the universe, so it makes sense that our lives could be predetermined. But I’m not, you know,devotedto the movement. Not like Doc Min and his followers.”
Lament crosses the room in six easy strides. His steps are so graceful they can’t not be deliberate. “His predictions are certainly making headlines.”
I peer at him. “Areyoua follower?”
“Quite the opposite.” He spins the remote deftly over his palm. “The man is a wild card. He’s been able to predict the future using technology we’ve never seen and don’t understand. So far, Ran Doc Min has mostly used his simulation to forecast planetary catastrophes, and in doing so, he’s saved lives. People think he’s a hero. In many ways, they’re right. But it’s dangerous for one person to have that much power, especially since we don’t know how his simulation works or what his ultimate motive is. What if this is all just a prelude to some other, darker venture?”
“He could outmaneuver any resistance.” I prop an elbow on the couch’s arm. Behind us, the cleaning bot starts unscrewing ventilation grates from the wall to dust the airways inside. “Using his predictive technology, Doc Min could always stay a step ahead.”
“Exactly. The Legion has tried questioning him about both the ethics and the mechanics of his simulation, but Doc Min remains uncooperative. He thinks we’re trying to interfere with his predictions. To stop them, maybe. And of course, that makesuslook bad, since his forecasts really do save lives. It’s a mess.”
It’s not lost on me that Lament and I are managing to carry on an actual conversation without any sarcasm or hostility. His face has changed again, softened, the lines smoothing around his mouth and eyes. I offer an olive branch of a smile. “Is that the Sixth’s main mission right now? Uncovering the method behind Doc Min’s simulation?”
