The Quiet Pools

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From the elevated guard station at the main entrance to Allied Transcon’s Houston center, a young corpsec monitored the truck trundling up Galveston Road toward NASA Boulevard. With his televiewer, he could see that the rider cabin of the robot tractor was empty. The dull silver tank trailer bore the familiar logo of Shell Chemical.

“Traffic on the board,” his watch partner said suddenly as the truck crossed the security threshold. His watch partner was an artificial intelligence personality named Isaac, one of eight personalities making up the center’s Sentinel system.

“I’ve got it,” said the corpsec. A squeeze on the grip of the televiewer brought the reply to the station’s radioed interrogative into the finder in pale yellow lettering. “ID’s okay. Shellchem local hauler, running empty.”

“I have confirmation from the National Vehicle Registry,” Isaac said. “The registry is valid and current.”

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