"I mean, I expect to be able to work with them a non-zero amount, it's just...even if it's not the same United States Government, 'the United States Government says no' just...doesn't mean I'm not going to do something if I think I should."

"When I say they don't have a kill order, this is a short way of saying 'none of the things generally agreed up on to be conduct that suspends the rule about murder have occurred'. My government has its flaws but I think it's actually fairly reasonable about kill orders and murder being illegal."

"Oh. That's reasonable, it's just not where my mind went, because of the murderbots."

"Fair enough."

"We are probably not that great at this point at interacting with governments that are acting in good fairth. Or at least doing a good enough job at faking it that we have to pretend they are too."

"I hear you. I spend a lot of time letting Rete imitate me so I don't have to say polite things, and over much less serious problems. It went and did such a good job I got made team captain."

"That's amazing."

"You think so?"

"Absolutely!"

"I confess this is not the reaction I was expecting."

"The only authority I have ever respected in my life was literally my parents."

"Yes, but I bet you didn't build an AI to recite conciliatory sentences to all the other ones."

"Well, no, but I can't write AI."

"Fair point. I have usually found people who hold authority in contempt feel the need to display this in a way that's legible to the authority."

"Well, usually, but sometimes authority can actually make your life harder if you disrespect them, in which case you build up the resources you need to make this no longer the case and then thumb your nose at them."

"Yep, that was the plan, get out of the Wards and be a rogue tycoon."

"See? Awesome."

"Thank you."

"You're very welcome."

"We got sidetracked," Lorica remarks. "I could use a buncha these." She pops out a component and shows it to Emily.

"Okay, let me see..." she murmurs, and she picks up a glob of artificially-liquidish metal and starts fiddling with it. 

"Thanks."

"I mean, hey, you're the first hope we've had in years."

"I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make a bigger impact than consumer grade robotics, so, uh, hope is mutual?"

"Different kinds of absence of hope."