do i count as a big-ticket heist?

yep. 'cause you're a person, not 'cause you're spendy. people shouldn't have prices, doesn't matter what the corp thinks yours is.

real principled of you

I mean, anarchists, it's kind of our thing.

something wrong?

people don't do this kind of shit for free

empirically false

a lot of us are paying it forward.

okay

but if it turns out you're grabbing me for the rec room or something i'm gonna be pissed

kid

I'm not going to fuck you

and if anybody you don't want to fuck fucks you, they'll have the entire collective's boot up their ass

we're real firm on that one.

so, hypothetically

if there's some programming they didn't bother to fix up

shortlisted for when you get here, yeah. don't need the background check to get that gone. fucking corps.

fuck

thank you

what /do/ i need the background check for

knowing things about us and wandering around unsupervised. you and Skip are going to be buddies for the next while.

he won't mind, he doesn't get many excuses to run around.

same skip?

yeah.

she's an enby, thinks all the pronouns are cool.

how cool can a pronoun be

unless you're graduating from 'it', i guess.

he's actually just like that, but yeah.

guess you'll see soon enough anyway -

The message comes with an image: a quadrupedal industrial robot built like a cross between a bulldog and a jaguar with an extra set of servo-arms on the shoulders, a large, low-slung, featureless head with a primitive LED display on top showing the word "happy", and a rudimentary seat on the back, in plain gunmetal grey with a sprinkling of yellow warning marks, lounging on an oddly-textured floor in front of a server rack.

huh

isn't it illegal to make those in conscious

i guess it's not like that stops anyone

illegal to make 'em human-grade, but they're not. they only threshold sometimes, too - part of why I had to ask if you wanted the lift, that's the script for nonhumans, makes sure we aren't wasting our time on a rock.

definitely not a rock

i'm about as lifelike as they get

you rescue a lot of people like us?

not a lot; not that many opportunities. it's pretty high priority, though. we started looking for you as soon as we heard about your cohort.

one sec, gotta help skip with the lock.

my cohort?

There's no answer.

After a few moments, the lid of the box lifts and the whole thing rocks slightly as Skip steps onto the edge to look in. The arm that's not holding the lid up has a screenprinted tee-shirt and pair of sweatpants held in the fold of it, and she deposits them beside her foot before reaching behind him to - delicately, but with a decidedly chilly metal grasper - extract the lock from the back of his neck.

Whoa. Hi.

...is that a Marvelous Liar t-shirt? It's from Season 2 and everything. If his weird hacker rescuer knows about his shameful late-night anime binge habits he's gonna be so embarrassed.

"...thanks."

He climbs out of the box and starts to dress himself.

there's some tech in here i need

can you open the foot compartment?

(The robot's LED panel, now that he can see it, reads 'HI!'.)

on it.

Skip approaches the box again and ducks his head, looking for a moment like he's going to bite the lock off. Instead, a prehensile-looking tongue emerges from his mouth to interface with it; after a few seconds, he steps back again and opens the compartment.

He digs through the box and pulls out a couple of cables and a large, heavy black box with a handle.

ok. got it.