It’s wrong to think of a construct as a half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.

I don’t know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn’t that, it’s that I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me.

Ashby scratched his beard and thought. What did he want it for? After he’d first left home, all those years ago, he’d sometimes wondered if he’d go back to the Fleet to raise kids, or if he’d settle down on a colony somewhere. But he was a spacer through and through, and he had the itch for drifting.

She wished someone would give her that sort of attention on a whim. She wished she were confident enough to give it back.

“… Modding isn’t just about getting sewn up with cool tech, it’s about orchestrating a balance between the synthetic and the organic. If you don’t care about the well-being of the organic, then– ow!” He yelped as Kizzy pulled his hair.

“It’s still true.” Sissix grinned. “Look at them, though.” She nodded toward the Aeluons. “Look at the way they move. Even little things. Like that one, look at the way she picked up her cup. They don’t move. They dance.” She took another handful of puffs. “They make me feel like… oh, what are those big ugly reptiles you have back on Earth? The extinct ones?”

He’d only said what he meant, which was, when you thought about it, a minor superpower, because so few people ever did.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s the fragile illusion of invulnerability inherent in being just like everyone else. No–it’s Englishblokeman.