Groovy Tunes, Saturday

[justice_undone]

Children often liked music, didn't they? And Groovy Tunes had both recordings and musical instruments, and Breq was happy to help both young and adult customers today, and even placed an extra sign outside the door:

 

For children and teenagers only:

25% discount on guitars

 

If they sold and Jono objected, she would pay for that herself.

[Open]

Comments

[ai_kid]

"Mother."

A child stepped through the door.

"It's hard to find you when you don't have the implants connected. Mother's system isn't up yet, is it?"

[justice_undone]

Breq got to her feet.

"You!." She was about to cross the room to strangle her, when the child spoke again.

[ai_kid]

"Oh, I'm not her," the child answered calmly. "It was just easier to use a body to clone that you had implants to install from birth already designed for."

If her mother hadn't got it by now, she added, to clarify:

"I'm an AI. This body is a clone, using ancillary technology."

[justice_undone]

Breq hesitated, not sure if this was a trick.

"Why?"

She didn't put it past Anaander Mianaai to come up with this sort of thing, even if the timing was odd.

[ai_kid]

"You need ancillaries. You don't want to use unwilling people. Clones were the most obvious solution. I'm connected to an AI core created from you and EDI.

That might come as a surprise, Esk Four knew.

"She offered to help. You were stuck with creating new ones. Mixing the code from an already existing AI with a missing core and a foreign AI was an experiment."

[justice_undone]

Breq stood still. "Sing me a song. One she wouldn't know."

It wasn't foolproof, The Lord of the Radch might have ordered her to give up any song if she wanted.

"One from this universe."

At least that would make this more unlikely to be a trick.