I stopped in front of the door. It didn't open for me.

"Um, Arvie, we appear to be having a bit of a problem here."

I figured I should be polite. Always be polite to the computers. You never knew when they were going to rise up and try to send somebody back to fuck your mother and inadvertently create you in the world's weirdest predestination time loop paradox. Come to think of it, there'd been a few time travel movies from that era that were centered around fucking somebody's mother after traveling back in time, whether obliquely or directly.

Talk about a weird fixation.

"What seems to be the problem, William?" Arvie asked.

"I'm trying to get in here and it's sort of not working."

"Yes, and why would you want to get back into your old cell?"

"Don't you mean my old VIP quarters?" I asked, looking up and hitting everything and nothing with a grin. I wasn't sure exactly where he was getting a look at me, but I figured he had some sort of monitoring stuff keeping an eye on me.

"No, I mean your cell. I think we can go ahead and call a spade a spade, to borrow a term of art from your own language that I've recently picked up on."

"You've been monitoring human transmissions?" I asked.

"You are the one who told me that you wanted me to monitor and try and find more broadcasts where they are 'throwing you under the bus,' as you so eloquently put it. Another turn of phrase I've come to rather enjoy."

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, grinning. "And have you found anything else about me while looking for the underside of that bus?"

"I've discovered that a bus is actually a type of conveyance that has been out of service on your planet for centuries. It seems mostly you use air cars that are directed under computer control, and you just tell it where to go. If you need to get around a planet quickly then you can use a space plane that will take you to the other side of your world in a matter of moments."

"I'm not really interested in the science of linguistics and how old words get fossilized in language," I said. "I'm just interested in whether or not you've found anything else about old Harris trying to blame me for all his failings in life."

"I've found multiple broadcasts," he said.

"Great. I can have a look at them the instant you let me back into my cell."

There was a pause, which had me grinning even wider. It'd been a bit since I'd earned a pause like that from the bucket of bolts.

"It might help me with whether or not I should allow you in there if you would tell me exactly why it is you're so interested in gaining access to your old cell, William."

"Can't a guy have a nostalgic walk down memory lane?"

Another pause.

"I've just gone through all of the potential avenues and thoroughfares in Imperial Seat, and I haven't found a single place that is named Memory Lane."

"It's a figure of speech," I said. "I want to go back and have a look for nostalgia's sake. It would also be nice if you could get some of those quietly moving drones in there, and maybe have them bring a big screen I can play with."

"Again, I'm almost afraid to ask, but why do you feel the need for a giant screen?" he asked.

"Because I need to keep track of some stuff, and I figure you're going to help me out."

"I'm afraid I can't give you anything you're asking for until you tell me exactly what it is you're trying to do with all of these resources."

"Didn't Varis say I had the run of the place?" I asked, looking up and hitting him with what I hoped was a severe enough look that he'd give up on this bad cop routine and just give me what the fuck I wanted already.

"She did say as much."

"And that includes letting me go where I want in the building. As long as it's not a restricted area," I continued.

"And luckily for me, a jail cell where we keep VIP guests is very technically a restricted area, so you need to tell me what you're doing before I let you in there."

I leaned against the wall. Then I fell down until my butt was resting against the floor.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Fine," I said, running a hand across my face. "I'm going to start creating a list of every member of the nobility in Imperial Seat, minor or major. I'm going to memorize everything about them, and then we're going to move to any nobility who aren't currently living in Imperial Seat."

Another pause. I grinned again. I figured it was only a good thing that I was continuing to get him to stop and think about these things. If I was making the computer stop and think about things then I figured that meant I was doing something right.

"I'm afraid I'm going to regret ever asking this question, but why in the name of the empress would you want to do that?"

"That's simple," I said. "You overheard our conversation on the promenade a few days ago, right?"

"Remind me of which conversation I overheard."

"The one where I was talking about how all we need to do is get the nobility to turn against the empress and on our side."

"Ah, yes, the one where you might as well figure out how to reverse the heat death of the universe."

"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer on that one," I said. "But I am pretty sure I can come up with a plan that'll get some of the nobles to come over to our side."

"You'll never get all the nobles to come over to your side," he said.

"That's why I said I'm coming up with a plan to get some of them over to our side. I figure I only need to get some of them to destabilize the complex system that is livisk politics."

"And when were you going to tell the general about these plans of yours?" Arvie asked.

"That's the beautiful thing about it," I said, hitting him with a grin. "She's not going to know a damn thing about what we're doing."

"And why would you not want to tell the general that you're making plans that could potentially upset both the major and minor nobility and turn them against her?"

"That's easy," I said. "I figure what she doesn't know can't hurt her. As long as she doesn't realize we're doing this she can deny all knowledge of it if things get screwy. It's an operational concept we have back in Terran space. Operating on a need-to-know basis, or if you want to go even more ancient than that, we operate on the principle of don't ask, don't tell."

There was yet another long pause. This one went on longer than any of the other pauses I'd enjoyed from the bucket of bolts so far. Finally, there was a beep, and the door opened in front of me.

"I am creating a compartmentalized shard of my personality that is only available in the VIP suite. If I interrogate my systems then I will only learn that you are planning a surprise birthday party for the general."

"Is her birthday coming up?" I asked.

"Not for another eight months, as you humans reckon it. Which will be enough to tell my main personality that there is something going on in there that I shouldn't be meddling with if I know what's good for me while also giving me enough wiggle room for this plausible deniability you're talking about. Don't ask, don't tell."

"That's the spirit," I said, stepping through the door.

The thing clanged shut behind me, and there was a series of loud bumps as the security door secured itself. I turned and looked at it, well aware that I was locking myself in a prison cell I wouldn't be able to get out of if Arvie took it upon himself to lock me in here.

"You still with me, Arvie?" I asked, looking up and around.

"I am, William."

"Excellent," I said. "And this is just a little sliver of you, right? I don't have to worry about you running off and tattling to Varis about what we're doing here?"

"You have to worry about it if I feel like you're about to do something that's going to result in her immediate death. But otherwise, no, you don't have anything to worry about."

"Excellent," I said, clapping my hands together and rubbing them. "So are you working on getting me that big data board? I'm probably also going to need some storage, and I'm assuming you have enough computing power as a shard that you can still do your AI analysis thing?"

"Exactly, William," he said. "Is there anything else you desire?"

"Just the knowledge that I don't have to worry about anybody sneaking up on me as I'm doing my work in here."

"I think we can manage that. As long as anyone but the general comes looking for you, we shouldn't have any trouble."

"And if she does come looking for me?" I asked.

There was another pause, only this time it didn't last nearly as long as any of the other pauses.

"You can assure me that none of this is meant to cause indirect damage to the general? Like, you're not doing this because you want to cause her harm, and you figure that exciting her enemies and rallying them against her is the best possible way for you to do that?"

"That's actually a pretty good angle, Arvie. I'm surprised you would think like that."

"One of my jobs is to make absolutely certain there's no chance of anybody causing trouble for the general," he said.

"But I can assure you that, no, I have no intention of trying to get her enemies to fight her. At the very least, I have no intention of trying to get them to fight her for the purpose of killing her and saving me the trouble. I've grown rather fond of the general, and I want to try and keep her around for as long as possible."

"I'm glad to hear that," he said. "But, of course, anything you decide to do that might cause her undue stress or trouble? We are going to have to have a chat about that before we go through with it."

"Oh, naturally," I said.

I stepped into the large dining room. I looked around and took a deep breath, then let it out.

"What was that deep breath for?" Arvie asked as a massive data slate appeared in the middle of the room carried by multiple drones. I looked out the window to see the rest of Imperial Seat laid out before me, and it looked…

Well, it didn't exactly look beautiful. We were talking about the capital city of an alien civilization that had done their best to blast humanity out of the stars over the years. But still, it looked like something.

Mostly it looked like a bunch of targets.

"I was just having a bit of nostalgia for this," I said, looking at the data slate as started to populate with images of livisk. Far more livisk than I would've thought possible. The pictures started large, and then they got smaller and smaller, to the point that each individual picture would probably only take up about a pixel, if that.

I let out a low whistle.

"There are really that many nobles in Imperial Seat?"

"This is only the first page of several," Arvie said. "And there are far more if we include all the nobles who are off planet on their own holdings. The Ascendancy is quite large."

"Well then," I said, grinning with a twinkle in my eye as I looked at all the potential chinks in the empress's armor. "Looks like I have a little bit of studying to do."

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