"MY DEAR FRIEND,–

"If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day's tete-a-tete between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.–Yours ever,

"CAROLINE BINGLEY"

P&P Chapter 7

"Just my luck! Caroline invited Miss Bennet –or 'the companion' if you insist– for dinner while we were with the officers. WTF was she thinking?"

"My guess is she was thinking of getting intel she can use to drive you back to town like a good little boy."

"What could she possibly get that would make the slightest difference?"

"No idea! Maybe the bot's vulgar, or no dowry, or has relations in trade, or an entailed estate and four sisters, or it's a witch. How the shit should I know? Caroline is your sister."

"I'm thinking complaining about relations in trade would be on the hypocritical side, myself."

"You speaking for your sister?"

"Well, when you put it that way–"

"Yeah – so what happened?"

"The usual – mercenary mother sent her on horseback."

"Horseback! Horseback in the flaming rain! Obvious much?"

"Yeah, well now she/it/whatever is upstairs with a nasty cold. How is that for your investigation? Tell you anything?"

"Tells you shit, I'm afraid. Elizabots can simulate colds, flu, Consumption – hell, I think they can even simulate having babies."

"Impressive!"

"Well, when you think about it, it's pretty damned impressive that women can have babies, let alone replicants."

"Yeah – glad we didn't draw that card. Not sure I could stand the pain. It would solve the replicant problem though, since humans would be extinct if it was up to men to have babies."

"Same here! So, we don't know much more than before. Faking illness is a pretty classic surveillance technique. If they are bots, and they think we're onto them, checking us out would just be common sense – pretty basic, really."

"Little tough to separate courting from mercenary entrapment from bloody murder, eh?"

"You can say that even without the threat of bots."

"Someday, some lady is going to catch your eye, Darcy – and then watch out."

"I'll believe it when I see it. So… bot in the house, let's keep quiet. Their hearing is pretty damned good."