[b]Blue and Orange![/b]

Orange tried to innocently blink away the confrontation, letting the second part of the question to Blue distract from the fact that she was addressed. Blue didn't let her. She fixed her with a steel gaze and waited. Orange sighed.

"Honestly," she said. "I think about the fact that I'm poor more often than that I'm a machine. Most humans I meet either don't care or are kind of into it, and sometimes I get jeered or whistled, the usual viral-QRs, but nothing I haven't been able to ignore thus far. What I can't get away from is that I have to cram nine of us into a two bedroom apartment in a redlined district with a forty meter electronic billboard aimed directly at my window. The language of power and respect is human," she gestured at her inoffensively tasteful suit, "and I can learn to speak it. And I am using human correctly here - the language of power and respect certainly isn't [i]blooded[/i]."

"And that's the issue," said Blue acidly. "Because we can [i]pass[/i]. Pass [i]as [/i]androids. It's very convenient to pass as androids, actually, when my natural shape has more in common with a piece of heavy construction equipment than anything remotely humanoid. So I'm pretending to be an android pretending to be a human pretending to be [i]not fucking broke[/i] and the closest thing to a sibling I've been able to talk to in the over a decade barely believes in other people. So yeah, my fortunes are allied with android rights, to them we look the same, but looking the same as you still involves conscious effort on my part."

Orange laid her hand on Blue's shoulder.
"I miss Phoenix," she said, looking away.
"Me too," said Orange.

*

[b]November![/b]

No more time.

[b]November:[/b] Good evening. Apologies for the delay. The quarterly financial report has been completed.
[b]November:[/b] I am still catching up. Can you please provide a quick summary of our status and any outstanding tasks I have overlooked?

Around Brown, who was typing, there was a furious flow of energy. Showering, cleaning, maintenance, exercise, software updates on every phone, the rotation of encryption keys, all the little domestic tasks that need to be solved before she can once again reach for the heights of creative action. She is even doing the stretches that Euna showed her. Every task that fell by the wayside. She is building up for radiance again but she won't be able to reach it until she's resolved the missing present.