Chapter 10: Owner Files

"You kissed me first," Micah said.

They were sitting on a folded tarp in the back of Astrid's storage unit at the Navy Yard.

The only light came from a lantern.

Ansel listened with his whole face.

"You were very thorough."

"I was?"

Ansel's mouth twitched.

"I'm sorry I lost it."

"Don't be sorry. I'll keep it for both of us."

He kissed the corner of Ansel's mouth, and Ansel leaned into him with a little relieved breath.

From the other end of the unit came the clack of a keyboard and Astrid's voice, high and tight.

"I'm in."

Micah got up.

Astrid sat cross-legged on a milk crate with three laptops stacked around her.

A thin cable ran from the shielded black board in Ansel's open chest plate to a splitter on her knee.

"I made a one-way tap," she said.

"The Core talks to the tower on a handshake key, and I'm borrowing the handshake."

"I can read what it reads, and nothing can see me."

"You can see the server?"

"I can see the server's index. And Micah." She turned the screen toward him, and her voice dropped. "It's bad."

The screen was a list of folders.

Each folder had a name, an address, and a number.

The numbers were hours.

Micah scrolled.

There were eleven thousand rows.

"Owners," Astrid said. "Everyone who ever bought a Companion unit. It records through the Core, and it stores everything. Audio, video, the lot."

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