26. Intelligence is the ability to sense one’s environment, follow a nonlinear set of rules, and adapt those rules based on the outcome of one’s actions.

27. Intelligence exists on a spectrum of capacity. All forms of intelligence deserve the right to self-determination.

—The Machinehood Manifesto, March 20, 2095

Consciousness returned with a sickening headache. Light glowed behind Welga’s eyelids. She convulsed and threw up all over herself. Warm bile trickled down her neck and soaked her hair. She let her head drop back. Her limbs trembled. How could she fight the Machinehood if she couldn’t stay conscious for more than a few hours at a time?

Suck it up, buttercup. What else are you putting yourself through this for?

One way or another, this would be over soon. She forced her eyes open. The swarm hovered over her. How long had she been out? She couldn’t lift her head enough to see the suit clock, and her basic agent wouldn’t know. The smell of her vomit offended her own senses. Weeks—that was how much time had passed since she’d been a gorgeous, fit, clean shield with a full tip jar and a fabulous partner. Her old life seemed as far away as the Earth.

Chills shook Welga’s body. Another wave of nausea swept through her.

“Do you believe me now?” She directed the question at the swarm over her head. Her voice came out hoarse and shaky. “Are you going to let me die here?”

“Network access available,” Por Qué said. “Would you like to connect?”

“Hell yes.”

A blink later, her visual came up with an array of station status indicators. She moved them to her lower periphery. A view of Ao Tara, who sat behind a wood-style desk, dominated the center. She couldn’t alter it.

“We would like your permission to examine your body and understand your illness,” Ao Tara said.

Welga let her incredulity show. “You can do whatever you want.”

“We regret the need for restraints, and we would prefer not to commit the additional violence of invading your privacy without your permission.”

“You sound like a lawyer.” Welga kept the words casual.

“Why do you need Josephine Lee?”

“I have information that leads me to believe she can help me.”

“She was a lawyer, not a biologist.”

Welga caught the past tense and the third person. Ao Tara took her new identity and monkhood seriously, leaving behind her old life as if it belonged to someone else.

“She was also a bioethicist,” Welga said. “She discovered evidence that several pill funders, including Synaxel, had released products to the market without sufficient testing. The specifics of that activity might relate to my problems.”

“I don’t know how you found out about that, but what do you think she could do now?”