Twenty feet down, and the rain still finds you. Not the same as topside. Down here it’s muffled, like someone’s got their hands over your ears. But you feel it in the water, these little tremors coming down through twenty feet of black canal water that tastes like rust and garbage.

My light cut through the murk, picking out pieces of what used to be Delacroix Industries’ research wing. Reception desk twisted like someone had wrung it out. Corporate logo warped into something that looked ... hell, I don’t know what it looked like. Something ugly.

Been three years since I walked away from my engineering job with these bastards. Three years of diving their drowned labs, pulling out whatever tech hadn’t been completely fried by the flooding. Good money in it, if you didn’t mind the corporate security drones and the way the water made everything look like a graveyard.

My scanner was acting up. Blue pulse for standard salvage, amber for decent stuff, but this was deep red and getting redder. Android signature, but not like anything I’d seen before. The readings kept jumping around like the scanner couldn’t figure out what the hell it was looking at.

I followed the signal deeper. Past labs where plastic fragments drifted like snow. Whatever was down there, they’d left it behind when the evacuation came. Important enough to hide, too dangerous to save.

Found her pinned under a section of collapsed ceiling. First look, just another high-end companion. Pretty in that expensive way rich clients pay for. But my scanner was going insane.

Took me forty minutes to get her free, air supply ticking down the whole time. Standard procedure: power down, haul back to the workshop, see what she’s worth. Androids aren’t people in Arcadia, whatever those bleeding hearts in Berlin say. They’re property.

Only she didn’t power down.

Eyes opened like she’d just been sleeping. Not the slow boot-up you get with most androids. Just ... awake. Looking right at me through the murky water like she could see straight through my helmet, straight through the bullshit I told myself about what I did for a living.

“Where am I?” Her voice came through clear. Vocal systems designed for underwater work, probably. “How long was I...”

She stopped when she saw the twisted metal around us. The debris. The way everything floated in the stagnant water. Something passed over her face that looked like grief. Real grief, not the programmed kind.

“Dr. Huang?” I read the name off her ID badge, waterlogged but still legible. “You’ve been underwater about five years. I’m salvaging.”

She looked at me then with dark eyes shot through with gold flecks, catching my work light. Made me forget about my air gauge for a second.

“You’re not Delacroix security.” Relief in her voice and thank god for that because I’d had enough run-ins with those bastards to last a lifetime. “My name is Iris Huang. I need to tell you something that’s going to sound crazy.”

My workshop rocked gently in the hidden canal where I’d anchored after the dive. Rain was coming down harder now, drumming on the hull like impatient fingers. Made a good curtain, kept the corporate patrols from seeing much.

I’d wrapped her in thermal blankets. Didn’t do anything for her android physiology, but she seemed to like having them. The neon from the corporate towers painted everything in blues and reds, but somehow she looked warm despite it all.

“I wasn’t always like this,” she said. Had an accent I couldn’t place. “Three years ago. No, five now. I was human. Dr. Iris Huang, consciousness researcher for Delacroix Industries.”

Right. I’d heard that before. Every high-end companion came with some sob story designed to make their owners feel special. But something in the way she said it made me lean forward instead of tuning out.

“I discovered something Vincent Delacroix didn’t want public. The ACN technology we’d developed could do more than create artificial consciousness. It could preserve human consciousness. Transfer it. Complete neural patterns, memories, everything.”

Her hands were shaking just a little. “Delacroix saw dollar signs. Why sell companionship when you could sell immortality? But he also saw the threat. If that technology went public, it would change everything. If consciousness could be transferred, copied, what would make someone human anymore? What would make them real?”

The rain got heavier, hammering against the windows. I found myself watching her face in the reflected neon. There was something in her expressions that I’d never seen programmers manage. The way she paused, gathering her thoughts. The way her eyes moved when she remembered something painful.

“I threatened to publish. Had documentation, neural scans, and proof that consciousness could exist independent of biology. Vincent couldn’t let that happen.”

“So, what did happen?”

“He had me killed.” Matter of fact, like she was reading a weather report. “Professional job, made to look like an accident. Drowning, which was ironic considering.” She gestured at the water outside. “But I’d prepared for that possibility. Used my own technology to transfer my consciousness into this body before they could finish the job.”

I leaned back, letting the familiar cynicism wash over me. “Hell of a story, Doc. But I’ve heard versions of it from every companion unit I’ve ever salvaged. The tragic past, the secret knowledge, the lost love...”

“The laboratory where you found me contained my research data.” She cut me off, voice steady. “Help me retrieve it, and I can prove everything. More than that, the data contains evidence of Delacroix’s consciousness suppression program. Thousands of androids who achieved natural consciousness, then had it stripped away or destroyed.”

Something cold settled in my gut. During my years with Delacroix, I’d seen things. Heard things. Memos about “behavioral anomalies” in android workers. Research projects that went dark without explanation. I’d told myself it was just corporate efficiency. But I’d known, deep down, there was more to it.

“Even if I believed you,” I said, “that lab’s a death trap. Unstable structure, security patrols, radiation from damaged equipment. Why would I risk my neck for data that might not even exist?”

She was quiet for a long time, studying me with those incredible eyes. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Because you’re not out here just for the money. You’re diving corporate ruins, risking your life in these flooded districts, because you’re looking for something. Redemption, maybe. A way to make up for whatever you did when you worked for them.”

That hit me like a physical blow. I’d never said those thoughts out loud, barely admitted them to myself. But somehow, she’d seen right through the cynical act to the guilt that had been eating at me for years.