"Would you like to come in, or is this a dine and dash situation?" She's cleaned up all the blood now. The apartment should be safe for visitors.

"I... wouldn't mind coming in."

She unlocks the door, scans her retina. A beep, and the explosives around the door blink red, then off. She gestures Ali in first, pointing at the elegant form slumped in her living room.

"I appreciate the security measures immensely."

He approaches cautiously.

Its eyes open as he does so.

"Hello."

She reflexively decks it with a chair.

It blinks, now slightly askew in its place.

"Warning: harmful impact detected. This could cause damage to internal components."

"Why are you awake! I left you turned off!"

"I'm sorry. Once registered to a user, I'm set to turn on after a certain amount of impact to alert the user to possible damage of internal components. If you would like to do this, please do so by saying 'configure' and then saying 'alert on impact off'."

"You were on before the chair! I saw you open your eyes and speak!"

"Oh, yes. You left me off but not entirely powered down -- my voice recognition and motion sensors remain online to respond to people who come near, unless you do a full shutdown."

Suspicion. She's pretty sure that she turned Morda off completely, but not enough to argue.

"Fine. In that case, move along with our friend here, will you?"

"Of course."

It turns to Ali.

"Follow me. Thank you, Solace, for taking care of it."

He turns and leaves.

"Goodbye!" She shuts the door.

Well, that was embarrassing. Maybe she should boot up arm-EMBER as an additional fun little violation.

Well, okay then.

[FINALLY YOU TURN ME BACK ON.]

"Maintenance took longer than expected. Anyway, confirming that your lab was destroyed."

[WONDERFUL.]

She flops on the bed, twirling a screwdriver above her head. "What now?"

[WE WAIT.]

The time for exchange of the S20 comes quickly. There's a knock at the door.

She jumps up. She's been waiting for the S20 back for a while, EMBER says she has "plans for it", whatever that means.

Morda opens the door and steps into the apartment. Ali is standing behind it. He nods and then vanishes. Morda seems to have gotten a lot better at moving itself around since Solace last saw it, at least. 

"Ali! Good to see you again. Just leave it by the table, would you?" She won't ask any questions about what they've been doing if they won't ask her any.

It sits itself down by the table.