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>Walk on the street and try to avoid bots. Doc said they were searching people, not scanning metadata. You have a smuggling partition, so you should be completely fine. But if he's wrong, or they ask for it on a whim, you're in huge trouble.
"... Let's just walk."
<span class="mu-s">"You sure?"</span>
"Yeah. I think so. If we do anything else, we might get noticed."
You step out onto the street. A lot of the bots are crawling in the alleyways, trying to snap up folk who are making an effort to evade them, so you deem the pavement to be the safest spot. You try to make turns whenever you see them, managing to bypass most. Your attention is seized by a scuffle on the other side of the road.
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-g">"Contraband detected. Please-"</span></span>
A servitor is scanning a nervous looking girl. As soon as it announces her guilt, she sprints away from it. It whistles loudly to call for its peers, and they begin chasing her down.
"LET GO OF ME! YOU DAMN-"
One of the hovering security bots descends on her to seize her. Instead of podding her, they surround her and begin to dole out their penalties for whatever they've found. You quickly move on.
Further down the street, you do see someone getting podded. A hovering droid lifts his capsule into the air and takes off towards the Tower. You clench your fist, remembering the disorienting, surreal environment you got sucked into when you were suspended. That guy must have tried to destroy a bot, or had some particularly dangerous piece of tech in his inventory. While you're watching all this, you get just a little bit careless, and one of the robots gets close enough to start a conversation with you.
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-g">"Good afternoon, Marnie."</span></span>
As always, it greets you without an introduction. It knows your name. Why wouldn't it? A quick scan shows them all they need to know about you.
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-g">"We are conducting random checks for contraband. Please hold out hands out to your sides and prepare for scanning. This will only take several seconds."</span></span>
You feel your pulse quicken. You're quite sure you have everything properly sequestered in the partition, but what if they can find it anyway? What if you've left something out? What if it asks for metadata too? Before you can even do one last paranoid search through your own inventory, the bot snaps you out of your panic.
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-g">"Thank you for your cooperation. Have a nice day."</span></span>
It marches off without further fanfare, off to search the next delinquent. You've likely been flagged as passing the test, and the next few bots you see don't bother checking your inventory again.
You sigh in relief as Doc's building comes into view.
<span class="mu-s">"That was easy... I was real worried."</span>
"I guess I was just scaring myself. That partition has always held up."
<span class="mu-s">"I was hoping they didn't have some secret tools, or they weren't feeling particularly curious."</span>
"Me too, good thing we didn't overreact. Shush now, let's talk when we're inside."
==
