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"Adonai, could I...ask you something?"
It was late. Finalizing Sosuke's paperwork had been a several-hour ordeal, and then they'd had to stay a bit longer while she helped Boss close up the bar for the night. The interior of the private Ikariya autocar that Makoto had arranged for them was comfortable, but dark - the velvety gloom broken only occasionally by a stripe of neon yellow or pink from an advertisement outside, throwing the shadows within into stark relief for a brief instant before retreating once again.
For a moment, Serra was unsure if Adonai had heard her; perhaps she'd fallen into one of her trademark naps while she stared out the window in deep, moody thought? But then came a sign of life - a very slight head tilt in her direction.
"Shoot."
Serra flexed her fingers nervously. Adonai wasn't really intimidating per se. But she sometimes felt like a puzzle box, one with some missing piece or twist of logic just out of reach. This made asking her personal questions somewhat unpredictable. And unpredictability, though thrilling, could be uncomfortable.
"...Why...haven't you sold me yet?"
The question came out halting and clunky, her tongue folding over and around it. It didn't have a pleasant taste, for certain - the fact that the rest of the world saw her as a product, an object, was not something she enjoyed thinking about. And now that it was out of her mouth, it felt...insecure. Desperate, almost. Childish. Serra's fears were realized as she saw Adonai turn to face her fully, flat expressionless expression quickly becoming her trademark smirk and trademark raised eyebrow.
"Where's this coming from? Worried about your performance today?" Adonai put her hand to her chest, adopting a sarcastically self-absorbed lilt: "Well, while it was of course my unparalleled legal prowess and quick thinking that earned this victory, you can rest assured that your unflagging moral support was deeply instrumental. At the very least, watching you try and talk Sosuke into reenacting crusty old action flicks was top-tier entertainment value."
Then, more coolly: "...Relax, Serra. You did just fine. Trust me, if I'm feeling shortchanged by your paralegal work, you'll be the first to know. And quit pouting."
Serra, who was not 'pouting', steepled her fingers and replied: "While I am glad that you appreciate my contributions - despite your lack of appreciation for the classic fight choreography of Die Hard With A Vengeance - I guess that is not, quite, what I am asking about..."
A raised eyebrow. "Then...?"
"...I was...thinking, about what you and Sosuke were talking about at the bar, and earlier today, before the trial. About how you couldn't understand why Sosuke would give up the wealth offered by the Bluebloods just to remain loyal to House Ikariya." Serra looked down at her lap. "I know you feel obligated to fulfil your favor to father, but...I was wondering why the same did not apply to me. Why you haven't sold me, to a collector, or to another willing buyer."
"...because I still need a paralegal? Like I said, I hate everything to do with interviews and hiring. And your room and board is still cheaper than paying a salary to some fresh-faced law school twerp. Which is good for you, otherwise you'd never be able to work down your tab from David's case."
"Adonai. You revealed, as a matter of legal record, in court, that my estimated worth is enough to allow you to simply retire, very comfortably, assuming a sound investment portfolio and stable rate of inflation." Serra quite disliked when she did this. Pretending not to understand the question, and also including dismissive or hurtful personal remarks as a strategy to divert her attention. "I am...being serious. Please."
There was nothing but silence for a moment. Flashes of neon flickering through the window, the nightlife backlight casting Adonai's expression in shadow. Unreadable.
"Alright. Firstly," Adonai began counting off on her hands, bending back her left index finger with her right, "Unlike the very real, very open and concrete offer from the Bluebloods to Sosuke, your monetary value is entirely theoretical. Just because an insurance algorithm spat out a big number when forced to make a call on a completely one-of-a-kind 'android' doesn't mean there actually exists a buyer willing to pay that amount, or a bank willing to issue a loan against your value as a collateral asset. I don't even have the social connections to get in contact with such a buyer if they did exist."
"The Ikariya-"
"Are gangsters with massive amounts of legal and financial impunity, and every reason to cash out on the relationship. If I go to them to try and find some Neobility android collector or David Ashur fanatic to buy you, if they learn what your pricetag is, at best I'm indebted to them indefinitely; at worst and most likely, they simply take you for themselves and leave my body in an alley."
"Well, then, why is a wealthy individual buyer the only option? There are many research institutions or competitors to Noble Electronics that would be glad to purchase me. And even a fraction of the number you cited in court would be quite substantial."
"That brings us to problem two," she bent back the next finger, "Which is that with you being, well, what you are, anyone who looks at you too closely will create a catastrophic cascade of problems leading directly back to me. Any Add company or research lab that gets their hands on you will be doing so for the express purpose of seeing what makes you tick. And when they find out that what makes you tick is, ah,"
"A bioequivalent matrix of custom-grown quasi-organic structures animated by a neuromechanical central processor consisting of-"
"-right, sure, that, once they realize that what they have is not the mere custom Animate-16 they were sold, there'll be an uproar which will, again, lead directly back to me. You might not technically be an AI, but I doubt the State will appreciate the distinction. There will be inquiries, hearings, trials. And if they find out that actual, undisputed AIs were involved in your creation, if they find out that I knew, then I'll probably go to prison and you'll certainly be destroyed."
"Still, that is...not a guarantee, is it? Even if they did decide to...cut me open..." Serra shivered, "...we destroyed the recording from the journal, there is no available physical evidence that you knew any of the details of my creation or nature. And if father took the care to hide the existence of my progenitors, it is a near certainty that he would have erased any other evidence of their creation from his personal computer as well. The probability of the scenario you described occurring, compared against the magnitude of the payoff..."
"Nobody ever got rich betting against the State, Serra."
"Is that not what we just finished doing? Defending Sosuke's innocence, betting aginst the State's accusation of his guilt?"
"Not quite! We were betting against Hughie Rogers' innocence. We called his bluff, the criminal was caught, the innocent went free, another victory for our flawless criminal justice system. The House always wins."
"So...you are saying that selling me would be an overly-risky wager?" The arguments she was presenting were valid, Serra supposed, but something about their context and construction seemed off. Since when had Adonai been risk-averse?
"It would be attention that I don't want. We're skating on thin enough ice as is; no need to invite a spotlight that could melt the rest of the way through."
Serra frowned. "Adonai, I cannot help but feel that you are mixing metaphors for rhetorical convenience. And was there not attention, and risk, involved in Sosuke's situation as well? Even if he took their offer, there is no guarantee that the Bluebloods would treat him well rather than simply use him for his blood. And he would potentially invite retaliation upon himself by the Ikariya for his betrayal. Or upon Mirei and Makoto. To ignore the risks of one but not the other seems to be motivated reasoning."
"With the amount of money he'd be inheriting, he could buy enough security to make the Ikariya look like mall cops. And if he managed to negotiate a merger between the Ikariya and the Bluebloods you could hardly call that a 'betrayal'. Everyone wins, except his damn servitude complex."
"There are many, many things that could go wrong with that chain of events. He would be inviting potential danger upon his wife and son, all for the sake of money."
"The Ikariya don't even know that Makoto and Sosuke are related."
"Do you think the Bluebloods are the only ones who can commission paternity tests? Do you think many people have become wealthy by betting against Daisuke Ikariya?" Serra crossed her arms. The woman who had argued her way out of two seemingly-impossible court cases now was too smart to fall into this kind of sophomoric reversal, and they both knew it.
Adonai rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, I'm sure that felt very clever. But you're comparing two incomparable situations. Money is only as good as what you can buy with it, and what Sosuke Ikariya, as a member of a powerful family with plenty of high-class connections - some of which are almost literally begging him to take their dynastic wealth and status - can buy his way out of, is very different from what I, a smalltime criminal defense attorney looking at an, again, purely hypothetical influx of cash, can buy my way out of, in terms of legal problems."
"Because of your...relative differences in status?"
"Correct. Class is more than just cash on hand. Money is a social technology, and you need social connections to use it. Without a means of actualizing it, wealth is just an abstract number - like the Bluebloods' accounts, or your paper value."
"But does wealth not create access and class all on its own? That was the origin of the Neobility, as I understand it. They profited off the disaster, and used that wealth as leverage to establish their social position and status. If you possess enough of it, isn't one person's money as good as another's in a market-based system?"
"The Red Decade was a period of mass social upheaval. It wasn't just a wealth transfer - whole political dynasties lost their shirts, and their legitimacy. A lot of powerful people's seats went up for grabs, in ways they usually don't. That isn't something you can just buy, because usually, nobody's selling."
Serra rolled this idea over in her head for a moment. "...'If old money has its way, nobody ever becomes new money', huh...", she mumbled.
"Dunno what you're quoting, but yes, that's basically accurate. At the end of the day, you only get a seat at the table if the other players agree to the buy-in."
"That seems like...quite a cynical and depressing worldview. The idea that there's nothing you could ever truly do to change your position in society, except wait for a massive paradigm-changing event of some kind." The idea that there were levels of comfort, of acceptance, that not even a socio-economic order that prided herself on selling anything was willing to offer at any price.
Serra thought about her boxes of wine, and how she still wasn't. Really sure what she was going to do with them.
Adonai shrugged and made a dismissive gesture with her hands, displaying her trademark 'imparting-jaded-but-valuable-wisdom-about-the-world' expression. "I'm only being realistic. You play the cards you're dealt, not the ones you wish you had. And if you happen to draw a royal flush, you don't throw it away out of some sense of honor."
For a few minutes, the car lapsed into silence once again. Adonai, seemingly considering her point made, checked her phone and then turned back to her pensive window-watching, as Serra stared contemplatively at the floor.
But it was not that Serra had, necessarily, run out of things to say. It was that she was unsure if voicing the contradiction that had been bothering her, teetering on her tongue, was necessarily wise. But if she didn't do so now, it seemed unlikely she'd have a chance to breach the topic again.
"What do you consider your favor to father, then?" The words tumbled quietly from her lips, not quite unbidden.
Adonai turned her head slowly, eyes flashing as her face chilled into her trademark 'you're-treading-on-thin-ice-here' expression. "Serra."
"Sorry. I am simply...trying to understand." Serra closed her eyes, and breathed in, choosing her words carefully. "You have said that you don't respect Sosuke's decision to sacrifice a life of wealth and comfort for the sake of staying loyal to his family. But you also continue to take care of me, and you have said that it is to repay a favor to a man who is now...gone. Why? We have gone through several topics and I...still don't understand the answer."
Adonai stared at her for a moment, sighed, and bent back a third finger. "Three: I have no reason not to. Like I said before, I still need a paralegal. Unlike the idle rich, I have no ability to play power games with money and status, and the idea that selling you for your hypothetical full value could be my ticket in is a longshot that's more trouble and risk than it's worth. So why would I stomp on the memory of my very good friend for the sake of whatever pocket change I could sell you for?"
"...even if you hid my connection to father to keep the sale as low-profile as possible, I do not think the sale could be considered 'pocket change', Adonai," Serra mumbled.
"It would be compared to the full value~!" The sing-song tone seemed designed to irritate her, and it worked.
Serra put her hands on her hips and did not pout. "What happened to 'playing the cards you were given'?"
"Now who's mixing metaphors? Serra, is it really so unbelievable that I'd value David's last wishes over the hassle and risk of trying to pass you off to some shmuck as a normal Animate-16? Do I come off that shallow?" Adonai sighed once again, softer and more tired this time.
"I...no. I suppose not. It is just that you have told me on several occasions that you are not a...sentimental person."
"Yeah, well, I'm not a freak with a short-term profit-maximizing algorithm where my frontal lobe should be, either. Money's as good as what you can spend it on; all I'm doing is choosing to spend it on the warm afterglow of moral superiority and the services of a decent paralegal, instead of a cheap shopping spree."
"...So...is that what you consider your favor to Father to be, then? A simple and purely hedonistic source of positive feeling, with no deeper meaning?"
"That's all that any of this is, Serra."
"..."
More silence. Adonai's words hung bitter and smoky in the air, with no open windows to dismiss them.
"...still," Serra broke the silence, haltingly, "still, if everything was really as pointless as you say...it is hard to imagine a level of creature comfort that a large enough infusion of funds could not provide to someone who is truly unconcerned."
"Well. Cash can't buy peace of mind."
"That...does not seem at all in line with what you expressed to Sosuke, Adonai."
Serra straightened up in her seat, and looked Morgan directly in the eyes.
"I believe that, if you truly cared as little as you say you do, if it really came down to nothing but cold calculation and mere short-term satisfaction...even with the risk involved in liquidating me for a profit, you would not hesitate."
Adonai returned her gaze, looked her up, and down. And then Serra could feel some kind of tension break as she watched a dismissively playful look cross her features.
"Serra. Are you trying to convince me to get rid of you? You're not making an unpersuasive argument, you know."
Her smile was sharp, tight-edged. And Serra knew her well enough to spot the lapse - it didn't reach her eyes, which had that dark, hollow, faraway look they sometimes got when she was brooding to herself. Lost in thoughts she did not want to voice to Serra.
"No, o-of course not! I only wanted to understand why, I would nev-"
"then drop it. it's been a long day, and i'm tired."
Adonai's tone, and her expression, dropped. For just a brief moment, that empty look in her eyes seemed to well up, spill out, wash everything else away.
It was an expression that Serra had...never seen before.
Then it was gone, if it was ever there. Another stripe of neon flashed across her shadowed face, revealing nothing but Adonai's trademark "still-entertaining-this-but-starting-to-grow-irritated" face.
"If you want something to do, set an appointment with the clerk's office tomorrow to process the last of that paperwork and then get a pizza delivered for the apartment. Do whatever with the toppings. As long as it's not that god-awful dehydrated cheese or whatever that was you insisted on trying last time."
The tasks in question were extraordinarily trivial and would not occupy any significant portion of her attention, but such an assignment was, she had learned, a signal that Adonai was finished with the conversation. She turned back towards the window, face hidden from view once again as she contemplated the view of the Canopy outside.
Serra turned away as well, retreating into her thoughts as she left Adonai alone with hers. Mulling over the last few minutes of conversation as she quickly and neatly tidied away the tasks Adonai had requested.
...if she really cared as little as she said she did...
As she gazed out over the twinkling panoply of lights below, Serra smiled a small, private smile.