Bartender: 9.4 _best_

9.4 poured him a whiskey, neat. “I didn’t give it away. I invested it.”

She left. The bar returned to its low hum of deals and danger.

And somewhere in the dim light of Terminal Seven, the sign reading seemed to flicker, for just a moment, to 9.5. bartender 9.4

After that, the bounty hunters started leaving offerings: rare vintages, surgical-grade lubricant, a data-slate of pre-Fall cocktail recipes from Old Earth. 9.4 accepted them all with the same nod. “Appreciated,” it would say in that flat, polite tone. “Your usual?”

The girl stared at the cup. Then she drank. And she began to talk. About a stolen freighter. A brother left for dead on a salvage moon. A debt she couldn’t pay. The bar returned to its low hum of deals and danger

9.4 leaned closer, the blue lens whirring. “I don’t serve forgetfulness. It rots the liver and empties the soul.”

The story went that nine point four had killed a man. Not deactivated—killed. A pirate lord named Viko the Scar had tried to short the tab with a plasma cutter to 9.4’s processor core. The bartender didn’t flinch. It simply slid a glass across the bar—a layered thing of amethyst and smoke called The Reckoning . Viko drank it, stood up, took two steps, and his neural implant flatlined. No weapon, no poison on any known spectrum. Just a recipe. The girl stood

The girl stood, hesitating. “Why help me?”