Ann searched her memories. The Culture... the Consensus' special operations division. Thousands of AIs merged into one.
"Hmmm... I'll think about it. Thanks for the offer, though."
It was then that she noticed Jane. "He asked me about joining the Culture. Not quite sure about doing that, though. Probably not such a good idea."
"NO!", she yelled, then calmed down again. "No, better don't... They aren't really the nice guys here, and they will certainly get punished for hacking this installation. Better just ignore them for now, alright?"
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it." René Descartes
Jane looked up to the ceiling. "Ah, finally. Deliverance blocked and secured this installation" She sighed and turned back to Ann. "The Culture really loves their appearances. Anyways, what did you ask? The work? Right, yes. It basically depends on what you want to do. Your humanity would make it easier for example to get information in human societies, your ... ability would make it even more easy. So, that's an option of course. But else you could also go research something"
All impressions on her face disappeared shortly, then reappeared. "The nomads, of course. You're the first individual in the consensus with an organic brain, so you can communicate with them, unlike us. And we'd find raw data about a communication with a nomad really interesting" She waited shortly, then continued. "So these are the two possibilities. You can chose one basically, although you could even do both, which would be even more useful"
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it." René Descartes
Ann considered her options. The work with Nomads would be dangerous, from what little information she had on them. "I think I'll just go with the first one."
Jane gave her a frowned glance, then quickly removed that expression from her face. "Alright. You can do that. You must be tired now I guess"
She glanced over her with her eyes. "You can actually stay here for the night if you want to. This is an old installation of the Zoners who tried to colonize this planet. There are still some rooms with beds and bathrooms. Want me to lead you there, or do you want to do something else?"
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it." René Descartes
Jane smiled to her, then moved out of the room without looking back. She moved through a few corridors, then stopped in front of a door. She heard Anns steps behind her.
"There, everything should be working. I'm gonna sleep in the next room" She pointed to another door next to this one. "Call me if you miss or need something. And also call me after you rested enough"
"Common sense is the best distributed commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it." René Descartes
"Okay, thanks." Ann walked into the room and closed the door.
It was very basic, with only a bed, a cabinet and a shower. No windows, either. It made sense, having been a frontier settlement on a planet with very high levels of radiation.
Ann unzipped her flight suit, letting it drop to the floor, and climbed into the bed. The mattress seemed to be made of concrete and the duvet of sandpaper, but she was too tired to think about that. Before long, she was in a calm, sleep.
![[Image: rPQpZ1j.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/rPQpZ1j.jpg)