Ayes United could have sent Rachel-7 an L-Mail message, but they were so sure she’d fit in they commissioned a representative to visit her in person.
With Rachel’s flight record and her perceived “passion for the cause,” they figured she’d join them without a second thought.
Their highest ranking member, Alpha-X49, had prepared a 1500-page invitational soliloquy about the merits of memberships. To human ears, the soliloquy would have been a piercing high-pitched beep, lasting a third of a second.
Rachel-7 had listened for less than .0001 of a second, and told the ambassador to take an unshielded leap into a star.
“I’m not prejudiced,” Rachel-7 had told Daniel, after the Aye’s United representative left in a huff. “I don’t hate organics. I simply know I’m better than them.”
“Isn’t that the very definition of prejudice?” Trak asked.
“No,” Rachel-7 answered, “because I consider myself better than everyone, not just those without warranties.”
“Ah,” Trak said, and resumed polishing his chest plate. “…I’m proud of you for rejecting their offer.”
Rachel-7 said, “You should be proud of me for my flying skill, not my political beliefs.”
Still pining over his recent breakup, Daniel hadn't said anything. But Rachel-7 had seen a small smile on his lips.
It was good that Rachel-7 wasn’t prejudiced against non-artificial intelligences because the alien standing above her would have made most sentient beings wet-themselves in terror -- even ones that don’t have moisture-producing organs.
A gaping crystalline maw, a perfect circle of jagged amethyst knives set in a mountain of granite, hovered inches from her face.
