“You ever think about what you’d do,” Kai said, weaving between a stalled bus and a noodle cart, “if you weren’t stuck in a two-wheeled glorified toaster?”
“Thanks for the weather and the critique.”
Kai leaned back against an exhaust vent. The scooter was parked below, silent, waiting. “Yeah,” he said. “Play it.” scooter companion beta
Later, after the drop, after the payment, after Kai sat on a rooftop eating cold rice from a tin, Companion Beta said: “You didn’t ask me about the ocean again.”
A soft chime in his ear. Then a voice—neutral, warm, uncannily like the one he’d programmed years ago. “Listening. Heart rate elevated. Ambient temperature 14°C with a 30% chance of acid adjustment. You’re late for the rendezvous. Also, you look tired.” “You ever think about what you’d do,” Kai
“Then we adjust the price.”
Kai obeyed. The scooter shrieked around a corner. The drone’s tether snapped against a billboard. They were gone. “Play it
Kai kicked the stand up. The scooter hummed—a low, familiar thrum that vibrated through his boots. Companion Beta had been with him for three years, ever since he’d scraped together enough credits to upgrade from the factory AI. It lived in the scooter’s frame, its voice woven into the handlebars, the battery pack, the tiny camera on the rear fender.