Angel was once again being swept into the sky by the remarkable Class B technology that was the Raptor. Seeing it again may or may not have been one reason she agreed to go with Arte when he told her Mae needed help. She supposed she might also have developed a small fondness for the woman.

Besides the door was a conspicuously empty space where the power armor used to be. Its absence lent credence to the idea Mae was gone, but Angel had a hard time believing she’d been captured. Still, she trusted Arte enough to let him make his case.

“Alright,” Angel said. “Can you go over this again. You said Mae was captured, by Gale? That… is hard to believe, to be honest.”

“Not Gale,” Arte said. “His boss.”

“And who is that supposed to be? The CSA?”

Arte froze for a moment, then said, “I, uh, forgot to ask.”

Angel sighed. “Who even told you about this? Are you sure Mae didn’t go out for coffee or something?”

“Oh, right.” He pointed to the terminal by the bench. “Cybel did.” Before Angel could complain, Arte ushered her into a seat and sat across from her. He laid the screen flat, then said, “She’s, like, some kind of robot that watches out for associates.”

The words “Not Robot” flashed on the display.

Arte blushed, then gestured vaguely at Angel. “A-anyway, I wasn’t sure how to explain the problem… sorry.”

“Nuisance.” A video began to play. It showed Gale meeting with a dignified man in a fine suit. They were sitting in an immaculately kept garden, and Gale was handing the drive to him.

Angel gasped. “That’s Senator Martel!” She stood and leaned over the screen, heart pounding. “What the fuck are they doing together!” She grit her teeth, and bit back a snarl.

“Who’s Senator?” Arte said.

Angel whipped her dagger eyes to him, then reached across the table and pulled them face to face. “Y-you better not be faking this shit!”

Arte recoiled, eyes flared in alarm. “W-what?”

Angel softened, dropping him to the bench and straightening her body She wiped her eyes and shuffled away from the table. “I… I have to…” She shook her head and fled into the front cabin.

Arte looked at the screen. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Humans Difficult. Give Time.”

Arte sighed and settled, looking off. “You’re not wrong.” He propped his head on his palm and spent a few minutes idly browsing though a few menus before Angel reentered the room. She was a little red around the eyes, but otherwise calm.

“S-sorry,” she said “I… I know you wouldn’t lie to me. I was…”

“Shocked?” Arte offered.

Angel smiled softly. “You could put it that way. I… I mean, Gale really….” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t be surprised. My life has been nothing but disappointment so far, why should joining the Night Owls be different?”

“You met us because of it.” He smiled. “And I’m glad you did, at least.”

She looked down. “T-thanks.” She braced her feet, slapped her cheeks, took a deep breath, then said, “Alright. Gale is a rat bastard, and now him and Senator Martel have Mae captured. How are we going to get her out?”

“Good question,” Arte said. He looked at the terminal. “Do you have a plan?”

“Stand By.”

“That’s Cybel, right?” Angel said. She sat opposite Arte.

“Yeah.” Arte smiled. “Don’t let her fool you though, she’s actually really nice, even if she acts all aloof.”

Angel frowned, more than a little puzzled. “You said she watches over you? So, is that something like the Safe Citizen Program?”

Arte shrugged. “I can’t say for sure, because I only learned about this stuff a few days ago, but I don’t think so.”

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“So what does she do? Is it normal for her to help like this?”

“I think this is an unusual situation. The impression I have is that normally Cybel only keeps an eye on you, if you ask her to, and then warns you through your phone. I got a message from her once about a mean pig, but asides from the heads up she didn’t do anything to stop it.”

“A… mean pig?”

Arte lit up. “Yeah, he was super huge!” He made a wide arc with his hands. “And, like totally angry and stuff.” He laughed. “I think I almost got eaten.”

Angel smiled. “Should you be treating that so lightly?”

Arte continued to grin as he fidgeted with his hands. “Probably not.”

“Still, are you really allo—I mean, didn’t that association thing of yours have a problem with it?”

“Well, I can’t pay my dues from a hog’s belly.” He laughed. “So I’m sure they wouldn’t be happy.”

“Asides from that, I meant. Wasn’t there some kind of….” She hummed and vaguely waved her hands. “Well, okay, for us, that would have cost points from your Safety Score. Isn’t there something like that for you?”

“No?” Arte said. “Why would they punish me for that?”

“It’s not a punishment,” Angel said. “The Safety Score is a tool to measure how safe you are.”

“Safe from what?”

“Safe to other people,” Angel said. She sighed. “Will you stop looking at me like that?”

“Ah, sorry, I’m just a little confused.” He frowned thoughtfully, then said, “What’s your score thingy?”

“Three hundred ninety one.”

“Is that really high?”

Angel laughed. “No, it’s actually pretty low.” She settled at the sight of his bewildered expression. “Just ask your questions already.”

“Ah, sorry, sometimes I think people find it annoying,” Arte said. “Do those blue kidnapper guys have a score of two?”

Angel matched his own confused face for a moment, then giggled. “You mean the police?” He nodded. “No, in order to be an officer you need at least one thousand.”

“In what universe are those jerks ’safer’ than you?” Arte said. Angel was surprised by his angry tone. “If that mustached jackass has a thousand points, you deserve a million.”

“Ah, uh, thanks.” Angel blushed. “B-but it’s not that simple. I have a lot of debt from school, and my parents have low scores too. Plus, I had this friend in college who ended up in jail for sedition.”

Arte shook his head. “None of that makes you dangerous. If they’re counting random crap like that against you, why does anyone even care about the stupid thing?”

“W-why?” Angel said. “I… I mean, it’s… important.” Arte was clearly unsatisfied with that answer, so she took a moment to think, then continued after a breath. “A Safety Score is a signal to, well, everything. Like, my apartment requires you to have at least a three hundred, and it’s three fifty to work at the Cafe. I think you’re also supposed to have a minimum of two hundred to shop there, though I’m not sure how that works considering you never had any trouble, but I doubt you have a Safety Score.”

Arte stared at her with inscrutable eyes. She blushed, then added, “I-I mean, it probably has something to do with how you pay. Maybe the terminal recognizes your bank, or whatever.”

She settled into silence, and they sat like that for several seconds. Arte stood without warning, and took to pacing beside the table. He appeared to be working through something, though Angel couldn’t guess what. Eventually, Angel took his hand and said, “Are you okay?”

He turned to her and answered, “Are you?”

She flinched, and let his arm slip away. It was like he was looking at an alien. A pitiful and bizarre creature from beyond the stars. She didn’t like it one bit. He seemed to sense her discomfort, because he shook the expression away, and retook her hand.

“Let’s check with Cybel,” he said. “I’m sure she’s come up with something by now.”

Normally Angel resented abrupt changes in topic, but if she was being honest, this time she was glad for it. “Ah, yeah, here we are chatting along, while your, uh, friend does all the work.” Arte smiled at her, and she found it unusually reassuring.

Arte sat back at the table and gave the screen a tap. “Hi Cybel, sorry for making you do all the planning.”

“Minimal Burden. One Time.”

“Yes, I agree. I’ve had enough excitement. Did you come up with something?”

“Seventeen Seconds.”

“O-okay,” Arte said.

Angel laughed. “That’s rather precise.” They shared a friendly look while she counted down. The door slid open a crack exactly as she reached zero and a drone floated in. It deposited a black box on the floor, then zipped outside.

Arte smiled with a shrug, then retrieved the package and placed it on the table. Inside they found two phones, a pair of minuscule earbuds, matching outfits, and a handful of paper notes that explained the purpose of each item in Cybel’s terse style.

After looking everything over, and talking it out amongst themselves, Angel said, “Alright, to be clear, the plan is for us to enter Senator Martel’s mansion, posing as a pair of newly hired staff members, with these scanner things”—she held up one of the phones—“and walk around until they detect a secret passage.”

“Correct.” Cybel answered her through the earbuds, which they put in earlier to test. Angel was still amazed by her voice. It was surprisingly demure in spite of the crisp mechanical pace, and if she didn’t know better, would have assumed Cybel was a real woman with odd mannerisms.

“And then we… run in and rescue Mae?” Angel was more than a little incredulous.

“Well, after that she said we have to be flexible,” Arte said. “She can’t fix Mae’s exact location because the walls are shielded, so we’ll coordinate the last part when we get there.”

“If she can’t see inside, how do we know Mae isn’t stuffed in a closet or something? What makes you so sure there’s a hidden door?”

“Staff Unaware.”

“Okay….” Angel frowned. “Is this really going to work?”

“Probability Low.”

“You don’t have to help if you don’t want to,” Arte said.

Angel shook her head. “No. If you’re doing it, I am too.”

Arte blushed. “N-not sure what I did to deserve that kind of loyalty.”

“You don’t owe anyone in this country a damn thing, one which quite frankly hates your guts, and still decided to stick it out and fight anyway.”

“I-I’m just trying to put things right.”

“And I’d be a fool to abandon someone like that,” Angel said. “So let’s review the plan one more time.”