Skip reaches for the box and then crouches to indicate that Z should sit on the saddle on her back, which is designed to have her rider leaning forward nearly to the horizontal, using her folded arms as handlebars.

you okay with Skip strapping you on? she doesn't have to but it's safer and faster.

yeah. shouldn't be bad.

He climbs on, tucks his stuff protectively under him.

Skip puts the lid back on the box while the straps are securing themselves, and then paces around it, giving z a chance to get used to how he moves - there's a subtle hitch in the movement of his right rear leg, not obvious until now.

...okay. This isn't so bad.

"How fast are we gonna go?"

'FAST!'

if rollercoasters aren't your thing now's the time to say.

"–well, come on, then! Lemme see it!"

And off she goes; she's very fast, and even inside the shipping warehouse, the roller coaster comparison is apt: she tends to corner by banking off walls or support beams, when she can. Then they're outside, and she's really in her element, running along the catwalks and leaping from level to level, down and down and down, with little concern for the startlement of passerby. 'WHEEEEE!'

He laughs and whoops all the way there, occasionally squawking a little when they hit a new level particularly hard.

He settles down a little - but only a little - once they're at street level, and begins making his way across the city, taking a fairly circuitous route.

And after several minutes, there's another message from Diff.

anything you're going to need when you get here? I've got a room set aside for you, and lunch being made.

i already have a room?

uh. does the plumbing have exposed hookups because i've got an appliance here i need

also what's lunch

yeah, I usually have one free. plumbing's a little weird but I'm sure we can get you hooked up.

Kish's doing pizza, Jam's doing kebabs, and there's always beans and rice and noodles and salad.

Options.

...are they good kebabs

yep. if you like vat beef, anyway.

i don’t get why people are so weird about vat meat. it’s different but it’s not like it’s bad.

I suppose it's going to be more trouble than it's worth to keep it a secret.

I don't get to eat. or, like, walk around. corp stuff.

jesus fucking christ

not gonna ask but

sorry

I'm okay. if it mattered that much I could fix it.

my cohort was all autistic kids. nonverbal ones. stuck us in vats, wired us up to the net, had us doing stuff they didn't have smart enough AI for. collective found us when someone tried to hack into someplace we were doing security for; got a real scare when the computer started talking back. they got us out, gave us lives. a couple of us got out of the tanks but it's *hard*, not worth it.

like I said, a lot of us are paying it forward, getting other people out.

fuckers.

did you get them back?

yeah. took a few years, but we put 'em under.

bet you could use an old corp agent for something.

if that's what you want to do with yourself, yeah. you don't have to, though. this isn't just bullshit 2.0, things are actually different here, it's important.

maybe i’ll wait a few days to decide like i’m a person or something

it's going to take longer than that for people to decide how much you get to know, anyway - couple weeks, more like, maybe a little more if somebody digs in.

locals'll need to talk it out, too, but that should just be a day or two, nothing too tricky there.

locals?