In Altantsetseg’s security module, on built-in workbenches and hanging half-assembled from machined and gleaming inlaid pegboards was a menagerie of deadly mechanisms: an edged and high-velocity workshop of death-dealing. But most of the space was dominated by a massive transparent tank.

Inside, Altantsetseg floated naked in a luminescent green fluid. Her head was hooded by a black multi-hosed breathing apparatus. Suspended, she writhed, fingers fluttering, every muscle twitching in time.

Epicene, roped with muscle, streaked and slashed with scar tissue, Altantsetseg’s body looked like a statue battered but left standing after an air raid. In the phosphorescent aquamarine of the tank, writhing to a syncopation of its own, it had a terrible, innovated beauty. Traces of the past, the course of her life. Memory, etched permanently on the body.

“She is miraculous,” Evrim said. “One of only three known security specialists in the world who can operate the fluid control system for a drone network this extensive. She is, submerged in there, literally a one-woman army.”

Ha approached the tank like a child trying to get a better look at a shark in an aquarium.

“There is no problem with her translations now,” Evrim continued. “No misunderstandings or distortions. Her will is executed exactly, across dozens of systems at once. She is a symphony.”

Altantsetseg rotated in a slow, deadly spiral. Her fingers, the position of her limbs, even her toes spelled out commands Ha could not interpret. Outside, there was another explosion.

Evrim said: “Earlier today, I saw it in your face. You wanted to ask—am I a supercomputer? An omniscient AI housed in a human-shaped carapace?”

“Yes,” Ha admitted. “I suppose I was wondering that. Wondering why you would even need me here, if you already know everything.”

“The answer is no. I am not a supercomputer. No more than you are. There are plenty of supercomputers out there, with memories containing most documented human knowledge. Plenty of AI minds working through humanity’s problems. Computers that can process more data than you or I could in a lifetime. But computation was never the purpose of bringing me into being. The purpose was to create a true android. An android inside and out: a robot not only human in appearance, but human in … I’m not sure what to name it. In consciousness? But they still do not agree as to whether I am truly conscious or not—though I believe I am.”

Altantsetseg’s back arched. Her fingers spread. Out at sea, hisses and whistling. A series of bursts, distant thumps.

“I think what they were looking for was a being that was human in … let us say cognitive aspect. They wanted me to think like them. To be like them in mind.”

“And are you?”

“I don’t know. I often feel—I feel a bit aslant, Ha.”

“Aslant?”

“A bit alien. A bit…” Evrim adjusted the collar of the strange robe, drew it closer at the throat. “Mad.”