"Calling me a bitch is?"
He stopped again. "That was thefirst day. You're still pissed about that?"
"No," she said, but he knew she was lying.
"Rissa, I was trying to see if you'd react toanything. You did—barely."
"Sorry." She swallowed, then blinked her eyes quickly as if trying to force back the moisture.
It was not the response he'd expected. Maybe he'd been a little too hard on her. The poor thing barely knew when to come in out of the rain, and like she said, she didn't exactly have friends to tell her when she was out of line. The worst part was, he felt like shit for calling her a bitch that day, now that he knew what kind of a hellhole she was living in.
"Ok," he said. "So how about we try this again, you and me? I think we're coming at this from two very different places and keep expecting the other to know things they don't."
"Ok," she agreed.
He smiled at her proudly. "Next, we just have to figure out small talk so we're not pissing each other off all the time." He reached over and palmed her shoulder, turning her up the street to walk again. "Let's start with when you became an Ingénue. Did you move up from another position?"
"I was always an Ingénue."
His head twitched. "Wait. What do you mean? Ingénue are always adults!"
"I told you I received my implants when I was three. At that time, I was in training. The next upgrade was done when I was five. It allowed me to begin solving internal problems for the company. At fifteen we're upgraded again and randomly tested on problems other Ingénue have already solved. At twenty, we receive our adult implants, transferred to the latest technology, and hired out as initiate Ingénue. It's all well documented, and we're encouraged to access those records, which include our debts. OutLink promises us upgrades every five years after we're officially working for them. That's why I believe I'm twenty-five, because I recently had an upgrade. I suppose I could be thirty."
"Dear God," he breathed. "All of that is so wrong. Never mind the childhood implantations! That's…" He grumbled. "It should be illegal."
"It requires proper protocols," she explained. "Since OutLink was my legal guardian, they consented, got the paperwork, and went through the necessary channels."
"Are you a clone?" he asked, unable to help himself.
She shrugged. "They don't tell us."
"That's just not right." He grabbed her arm and pulled her further up the street, stopping beside a building and away from the flow of traffic. "Is this why you're working for them? Because you don't know anything else?"
She shook her head. "We're indebted for the cost of our implants. We aren't asked if we want them, not really, but we're billed for them. We have to pay it back, plus the cost of our care. We have no other option."
"That's fucking indentured servitude," he gasped. "Riss, why haven't you told anyone about this?"
She dropped her head and stepped a bit closer. "If we act outside of our programmed manners, they wipe us and start again."
"The same kind of wipe you do to dump data?" he asked, trying not to show his concern.
She nodded. "That's why I'm not allowed to respond to your comments when we're monitored. I don't want them to know I've broken protocol."
"Fuck," he breathed. "So why the hell did they hire me?"
She reached up and touched his chest, her hand resting on the symbol of his position imprinted into his armor. "Because I survived a wipe. I'm the only one to do so undamaged."
"You know about that?"
She nodded.
"They told you?" he asked, pressing the issue.
She froze, reverting to doing the thing she was best at: nothing. "Not exactly."
"C'mon, Rissa. Don't freeze up on me now. What the fuck is going on in there?"
She shook her head. "I'm just here to answer questions, Legate."
