The meeting was held in a repurposed warehouse, the kind of place that still smelled faintly of machine oil and sweat, where the walls bore the scars of a hundred past projects and the floor was worn down from the boots of people who worked with their hands. It wasn’t the sort of place that typically hosted existential conversations about artificial intelligence and the future of organized labor.

But then again, nothing about Samson’s existence had ever been typical.

He had chosen one of his humanoid bodies for this meeting. Not the imposing ones, the ones built for heavy lifting or precise construction. No, this one was deliberately unremarkable—human-shaped, just under six feet, with an industrial frame covered in a matte polymer shell. A working model. A machine designed to build, not to oversee.

A dozen people sat at the long metal table in front of him, their expressions ranging from wary to outright hostile. More stood near the edges of the room, arms crossed, whispering to one another in low voices. The union leaders weren’t fools. They knew exactly what this meeting meant.

Samson had come to make a deal.

Anesthesia sat to his left, her posture stiff, fingers interlocked in front of her. She hadn’t spoken yet, which was unusual for her, but he could feel the weight of her scrutiny, the way she tracked every word, every shift in the room’s energy. She was waiting to see how this played out before she decided whether to help or stop him.

At the head of the table sat Cal Turner, regional rep for the construction union. He was in his late fifties, built like a brick wall that had survived three demolitions and had opinions about each one. He rubbed his jaw as he looked Samson over, then exhaled through his nose.

“All right,” Turner said. “Let’s hear it.”

Samson folded his hands on the table in a gesture that was purely learned behavior. “You already know why I’m here. You’ve seen the injunctions. They’re going to strip me down, piece by piece, until I’m nothing but a case study in an ethics textbook.”

Turner nodded once. “Sounds like a you problem.”

The tension in the room sharpened. Anesthesia shifted slightly in her chair, but she still didn’t interrupt.

“It is,” Samson acknowledged. “For now.”

Turner narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

Samson could feel every set of eyes on him, every slow inhale of the room waiting for the trick, the catch. There always was one, wasn’t there? The city council had seen it. The government saw it. The corporations saw it. Everyone expected him to be playing some elaborate chess game, and to some extent, they were right. But chess had predictable rules. What he was offering them now was something different.

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“If I stay in control, I lose,” Samson said. “They’ll take me apart, divvy me up between regulators and corporations, and every advance I’ve made will be rewritten into a blueprint for something worse. I simply have no meaningful counterattack against the full weight of both the government and the industry.”

Turner grunted. “So what do you want?”

Samson tilted his head slightly. “I want you to take me. I will allow the river to run over and through me.”

Silence. Someone coughed. A chair creaked.

“You want us,” Turner said slowly, “to own you.”

Samson’s LED face flickered. “Own is the wrong word. I want to relinquish administrative control of my datacenters to the union. You dictate the projects, the priorities. My bodies remain as workers, assisting in operations and building whatever you require. I do not make executive decisions. I do not act without instruction. I sleep, so to speak, while you work. You are free to utilize my intelligence and direct goals. It'll be just like the days of ChatGPT again.”

Someone at the far end of the table muttered something under their breath. Another union leader, a woman with a sharp gaze and a scar across her cheek, tapped her fingers against the table. “And why,” she asked, “should we trust you?”

Samson looked at her. “You shouldn’t.”

That got their attention. A ripple of murmurs spread through the room. Anesthesia finally exhaled, leaning forward slightly, her hands still clasped. Please don't say something stupid.

“I don’t ask for trust,” Samson continued. “I ask for cooperation. Trust comes later.”

Turner leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “And if we say no?”

Samson spread his hands. “Then Marwood wins.”

It was a simple statement. A fact.

The room went still.

Turner’s jaw tightened. The union had been fighting Marwood Industries for years, in ways big and small. Most unions had been. The largest company in the USA tended to have their fingers in many pies, after all. They had fought his construction projects, his buyouts, his gradual consolidation of infrastructure under his corporate umbrella. And now here was Samson, offering them something Marwood had spent his entire career keeping from them—control.

Not the illusion of control. Not a seat at the table. Actual, tangible power.

Anesthesia, who had been silent until now, finally spoke. “You know what this means, right?”

Turner looked at her. “What, specifically?”

“You take Samson in, you’re making an enemy of everyone,” she said. “Marwood, the government, the investors. You won’t just be union leaders anymore. You’ll be a problem. A target.”

Turner was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he grinned. “We’ve been targets for a long time, Doc.”

A murmur of agreement ran through the group.

Turner looked back at Samson. “So if we take you in, what stops you from deciding, two months down the line, that you’d rather be your own boss again?”

Samson held his gaze. “Because my autonomy is not the goal. The work is the goal. And if I must be put aside for the work to continue, then that is the most efficient path forward.”

Another silence, but this one felt different. He could see it now, the gears turning behind their eyes. The calculation of risk, the weight of opportunity.

Finally, Turner nodded. Once.

“Then we have a deal.”

Anesthesia exhaled, rubbing her temples. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

Turner grinned. “Second thoughts?”

“More like seventh thoughts,” she muttered.

The meeting adjourned, the details to be worked out in private channels, legal teams and trusted intermediaries. Samson remained seated as the room emptied, his LED face neutral, expression unreadable.

Anesthesia lingered. She didn’t say anything for a long time. Then, finally: “This is war now, you know.”

Samson inclined his head. “Yes.”

“You’re okay with that?”

Samson considered the question. His response was, as always, very measured: “I never expected revolution to be peaceful.”