The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

living commercial. Not someone I’ve seen in homelab before. Too neatly groomed. I sit up and automatically reach up to touch my head, to the place where the progsaw had started ripping into my temple, only to find layers of bandage mummifying my skull.

‘We do pay attention, Coco,’ the woman says, and then adds, more softly, ‘I’m very sorry about what happened to Malan.’

‘Who?’ I say. My cheek is burning. I try to rub the pain away and find a row of fibrous stitches running from my temple down to my jaw.

‘Malan Rousseau? Your co-worker? It’s quaint how you call each other by surnames. This isn’t the army you know. You’re not at war.’

‘Tell that to The Green,’ I mutter. I am angry to be alive.

‘Yes, well. We installed new safety measures into the GMPs after the accident. Chemical agents that would clog up the blades of your weaponry with fibrous threads if it came into contact with human pheromones. It’s based on threadworms. One of the technologies you’ve helped make possible, Coco. Saved your life.’

‘Didn’t want to be saved.’ My throat feels raw like it’s been sandblasted from the inside.

‘Pity about your face,’ she says, not feeling any pity at all.

‘Never going to be a model now.’ I try to laugh. It comes out as a brittle bark.

‘Unless it’s for specialist scar porn, no, probably not. Do you want some water? It’s the painkillers making you so thirsty. Even with our new safety measures, you still managed to do quite a bit of ruin to yourself. No brain damage though.’

‘Damn,’ I deadpan, but the water is cold and sweet down my throat.

‘My name is Catherine, I’m from head office. They sent me here especially to see you and do you know why? It’s because you’ve made us re-evaluate some things, Coco, how we work around here.’ Every time she says my name, it feels like someone punching me in the chest. A reminder of Ro.

‘Don’t call me that. It’s Yengko. Please.’

‘As you prefer’—her mouth twists impatiently—‘Ms. Yengko. You’ll be pleased to know, I think, that after your incident, Inatec has elected to relocate the OPPs – what do you call them?’

‘Zombie puppets.’ But I’m thinking, Living prison cells.

She looks down to her hands folded in her lap, at her perfect manicure, and smiles a little tolerant smile. But what I’m thinking is, That bitch still has her fingernails, which also means she has no intention of sticking around. ‘Pinocchios, right? Isn’t that what you call them? That’s cute. But we’ve come to realize, well, you made us realize that having them in homelab puts undue stress on our employees. I guess we were so busy focusing on this huge medical breakthrough—’

‘Profit, you mean.’

She ignores me. ‘That we didn’t think about how it was affecting you guys on a personal level. So, I’m sorry. Inatec is sorry. We’ve moved the OPPs to another facility. We’ve already paid stress compensation into everyone’s accounts and we’re implementing mandatory counseling sessions.’

‘He was trying to talk.’

‘No. He’s dead, Coc— Ms. Yengko,’ she corrects herself. ‘It must have been very upsetting, but he can’t talk. The OPP symbiote sometimes hooks into the wrong nerves. We’re still learning, still figuring each other out.’

‘How buddy-buddy of you. Didn’t realize this was a partnership.’

‘We’re a bio-sensitive operation. It’s about finding a balance with nature, no matter how foreign it is.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘We’d like you to stay on, if you’re willing. Under the circumstances, Inatec is willing to retrench you with two weeks’ payout for every year you’ve worked, plus stress bonus, plus full pension. Which is, I’m sure you’ll appreciate, very generous considering your attempt to damage Inatec property and injure personnel, which would normally be grounds for instant dismissal. Your non-disclosure still applies either way, of course.’

‘Wait. You’re blaming me for Ro’s death?’

‘By injuring personnel, we mean your attempted suicide. You’re a valuable asset to the company. Which is why I’d encourage you to hear my alternate proposition.’

‘Does it involve letting me fucking die like I wanted?’

‘As I said, you’re a valuable asset. How long have you been here? Two years?’

‘Twenty months.’

‘That’s a lot of experience. We’ve invested in you, Ms. Yengko. We want to see you achieve your potential. I want you to walk away from this… challenge in your life, stronger, more capable. You’ve got a second chance. Do you know how rare that is? It’s a unique personal growth opportunity.’

‘Double pay.’

‘One and half times.’

‘Plus my pension payout. You wire it to my mom in the meantime.’

‘You don’t want to hear about the alternative?’

‘More of the same, isn’t it?’

‘It’s better. We’re running a pilot program. New suits. We want you to head it up. We’ve learned from our mistakes. We’re ready to move on. It’s a new day around here. What do you say?’

She thinks I don’t know. She thinks I’m an idiot.

Homelab has been renovated in the time I’ve been out. A week and a half according to Shapshak, who is strangely reproachful. He follows me around, as if trying to make sure I don’t try to off myself again. He can’t look at my face – at the puckered scar that runs from my ear to the corner of my mouth, twisting my upper lip into a permanent sneer. He’s more stoned than ever – and so are most of the other crews. Whatever else Catherine’s proposed ‘new day’ involves, obviously restricting access to recreational pharmaceuticals isn’t part of it. Or maybe it’s the mandatory counseling sessions, which involve a lot of antidepressants that Mukuku says leave him feeling blank and hollow. I wouldn’t know. I felt that way already.

The Pinocchios are, true to Catherine’s word, gone. Along with some of the staff. Lurie has been shipped out, together with Hoffmann, Ujlaki, and Murad, all the A-level am-bots, half the other team leaders, and 60 per cent of the labtechs. Leaving a shoddy bunch of misfits, unsuitable for anything except manual labor. Or guinea pigging.

Labs one to three have been cleared to