Chapter Text
Hey, ART.
Yes?
You’re in a fridge. RefridgeratorART. FridgeART.
Where are you going with this?
FART.
…No.
I had a sudden moment where it felt like I stopped existing, then began existing again very quickly in a slightly different spot. If it sounds confusing, it was.
I could feel ART staring at me, or acknowledging me, whatever, as much as a sentient fridge could. SecUnit?
What the fuck just happened?
You were being weird, ART said. You called me FART.
Uh, yeah? And?
It took you three seconds to say “FART”.
What? That couldn’t be right.
You were lagging, ART continued, and evidently didn’t notice. And you were being really, really annoying.
You’re being annoying, I grumbled.
This has been occurring since my arrival, with increasing severity. I have been observing your processing output and to remedy the deficiency-
-observing my processing output sounds like something that’s going to be externally noticeable, I pointed out, because ‘externally noticeable’ wasn’t exactly something good right now. You're just pissy because I called you FART-
- I compressed part of your memory archive.
What?
No, that couldn’t be right. Because if it was right, I-
Wait- did you just reset me?
ART took 0.003 seconds longer to respond than it should have, which in ART terms was an eternity. Yes. And removed the compressed memories. It was successful.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I was in my rib compartment communication module, but suddenly it felt as empty as that voidlike containment module. I had a sense that if I was capable of holding inputs right now, they would have been dropped and crashed.
ART reset me. ART reset me?
I wish I had a body so I could punch something. I wish I had fucking anything so I could- no. Stop. Stop, ART is a- friend, not-literally fuck me for saying it. ART wouldn’t- it wouldn’t fuck with my memory for no reason, but-
ART reset me? It reset me. And removed part of my memories.
SecUnit, ART said carefully, the data is just compressed-
What in the fuck did you compress, ART?
Your pre-Preservation memories.
Fuck.
My first reaction was to try to think back of what happened before I met Dr. Mensah and the rest of the crew, but it was just a big, blank space. I tried to think of anything, and all I was getting was pitied looks from the Preservation humans and instances on instances where I was scared and didn’t have any context, which was really freaking me out. The best I had was that trip to RaviHyral and Ganaka Pit that made it clear that whatever had happened to me was really, really shitty. And, you know, included me apparently committing mass murder, but that knowledge now had the impact of a human saying “oh, hey, SecUnit, I had insert-human-foodstuffs-here for breakfast”, like cool, why does that matter to me?
Which is an absolutely fucked way to look at past experiences that should matter. And that was only a piece of what had happened to me, that was what it had all led to.
What the fuck did ART think it was doing, a favor?
I moved the data to an external storage space. You’ll be able to transfer it back once BabySecUnit is gone. I would never alter or remove any of your data without your permission. You are aware of that.
I was, which didn't make me any less pissed off. The few times I let ART into my coding- out of necessity, obviously- it never touched anything unless we talked about it first. It even showed me the code before it was applied. I knew that ART would never pull anything. I knew that. It was just-
Why? I asked. Why those memories? Why not something else that was useless and taking up room and not helping? Because my memories informed my actions and a lot of my decision making processes. From what I could tell, those were probably useful, unlike that stupid transport ship trip where I had to play babysitter.
I had to work quickly, and there was a clear delineation in your memory timeline, ART said, putting on its best ‘everything I did was entirely logical and you’re too stupid to accept it’ tone. Memories after that time period contained key information for your current companions and situation, and you have had enough experience as a SecUnit post-Preservation to fully inform your decision making processes. Removing them has made a large volume of processing space available that is necessary for you to properly function. In addition, those memories in this situation were… not helpful.
I wished I could throttle it. Not helpful?
You making volatile and illogical decisions, ART said, that-
You can’t just take out my memories because they’re not convenient. This was all happening in a digital space, but I was yelling as much as was possible.
I did what I had to do to increase your chances of survival. That does not mean I enjoyed it. I did not. I was so angry that I couldn’t think of anything to say, and of course ART went on. Your reactions displayed an emotional regression back to the period where you were controlled by your governor module due to multiple past traumas being reenacted on you. You were angry, and you were scared, and it was affecting your decisions. Regression is a natural fear response-
Stop talking to me like I'm one of your little pet students. I'm not a child, I'm not a student, I'm not a human, I’m not natural. I am a human-synthetic hybrid. It was a little correction, but it gave me a tiny piece of satisfaction. Did I sound bitter? I think I sounded bitter. ART didn’t respond to that, but in a way that reminded me of how Mensah or Bharadwaj would exchange glances when I said something particularly… human-y.
I had a feeling that ART was just waiting for me to start yelling at it again, which pissed me off more, so I didn’t say anything at all and let it wait.
For fucks sake, ART… zipped my trauma.
I could transfer the data to a drone for safekeeping until I arrive, ART said eventually. And then replace that drone with a new one.
Great. It was bribing me now.
SecUnit, this is a temporary solution to a temporary problem. I advise that you do not waste processing space, time, or energy on it.
As if I had any of those three things right now. I stayed quiet, because I knew ART was waiting for me to say something. Unfortunately, in that little period of silence, I did take note that thinking felt… clearer, and faster. Technically that should have been ‘fortunately’, but I hated when ART was right. And I knew that it was going to be right about not doing anything or worrying about the hole in my memory that now felt like wearing a very scratchy organic fabric.
This was absolutely and completely fucked up. I wish it was a plot point on Sanctuary Moon, and not my shitty life. I made a note to myself that when the Perihelion ship got here to rip off my other arm so I could hit ART’s hallways with it and make a large mess.
Finally I gave up on my spite shut-up. You said you put the zip in external storage. Where?
ART seemed nervous to answer, if a hyper intelligent fragment of an AI could be nervous. The fridge.
(You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.)
I said, You put my memories in with Pin-Lee’s weird growth.
Given the material of those memories, I assumed those would be the most appropriate to be with… Pin-Lee’s weird growth.
ART, I really don’t like you right now.
Wait. Fuck.
I was too (reasonably and understandably) focused on the blatant disregard of my privacy and consent that I overlooked something very important. The file transfer-
- Was an action that used enough processing space to be detected by Madara and Florencio. ART, the smarmy asshole, had obviously been waiting for me to ask about it, which pissed me off even more, because that meant that it was giving me precious time to be angry. This absolute fucker. My interactions with Madara have been very productive, and she is willing to help us.
Okay, there definitely a lot there that I missed, but I had the feeling I didn’t have time to figure out what that deal was. Because I had wasted too much time being a dramatic asshole.
I contacted her again while you were resetting, which took four minutes and forty-three seconds. I will be quote-unquote-discovered in one minute and thirteen seconds. Following that, I will be appliance hopping. OvenART. RecyclerART. HumidifierART. ( Okay, it was giving me these for free, which was a bad sign.) I will keep as much of the Florencio and the CombatSecUnit’s technological attention as possible so you can accomplish what you can. Since you came to an agreement with BabySecUnit I have fortified the communication pathway and distributed instructions to it that may allocate processing space to the current secondary intelligence. I may not have a chance to contact you again until my main consciousness arrives, but I have made a deal with Madara. Trust her.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.
SecUnit, this is not my main consciousness. This is only a fraction of me. If I get deleted, it will not be a subjectively long time before I am back. With guns. A very nonzero amount of guns.
I knew that. Of course I knew that. But I- fuck, I didn’t want to be alone. Even if I was extremely pissed at ART.
And of course, because ART thought it could read my mind, it added, You won’t be alone. You have the BabySecUnit.
I veto that name and I hate everything, I told ART, but it didn’t respond. It had left me alone and angry, with a grating awareness of where my memories used to be.
Yeah, I fucking know that it was trying to help. And that what it did probably would help. But I already had a virus in my brain, a human controlling my governor module, and a factory-edition intelligence taking up my processing space. I was missing an arm, my humans were hostages, and Dr. Mensah had told me what to do. I wanted to watch Sanctuary Moon. I wanted to be alone by my choice, and I wanted no one to talk to me. I wanted to sit in a chair, and I wanted for humans to stop fucking with my SecSystem coding.
Fucking can’t have it all, I guess.
I let myself sit for a couple more minutes before I wiggled through digital pathways to talk to- oh fuck off, I’m not fucking calling it BabySecUnit-
BabySecUnit
NamePending
Brahm glared at me. He glared at Madara. He glared at me again. I knew it was unlikely- impossible- that he would be able to tell that RogueSecUnit was now occupying a small portion of my processing space instead of the containment module Madara had installed, or even the hidden communication module that I now knew was physically in my ribcage. (Which I guess was also connected by processing space? I was growing very confused on the virtual layout and data spread of this SecUnit, which was as far from standard specifications as one could be.) Technically it was far more likely that he would figure out that Madara had made a deal with the other rogue intelligence that had also briefly been in my ribcage. I wasn’t sure if I was just that new, or if SecUnits were always constantly also filled with other intelligences and this… very uncomfortable sensation was normal.
It’s not, Rogue said. Thankfully, my input/output feedback indicated that I did not flinch. It was still very strange to hear what should be feed communications not going through the feed proper. It was a lot louder, somehow. Also the feeling is anxiety. Get used to it.
There was something different about Rogue’s tone since I had initially talked to it. I wasn’t sure what, but I wasn’t about to bring it up. That’s… SecUnits do not get anxiety.
I got the sense that Rogue would have been making some kind of expression if it had access to my face. Yeah, get used to saying that about all kinds of shit, too.
Madara was standing very, very still while Brahm sifted through the activity log on her little tablet. Looking for the other rogue intelligence, something called ART.
(There had been about an hour where Madara had gone over code to cover for Rogue and ART where I’d just been laying on the medical platform, and Rogue attempted to explain some things during that time. Its description of ART: Intelligent? Very. Capable? Very. Friendly? Eh. Don’t make it mad. That description wasn’t exactly helpful, so Rogue added, it’s with me. I called it so that it could deal with you, but, uh. Plans changed slightly. Just remember to not make it mad.
That also gave me a lot more questions, and when Rogue tried to fill me in on the entire situation, it got more confusing- for example, I didn’t have any information cataloged on strange synthetics and contamination, which apparently were part of the story. When I interrupted and said maybe it will be better if I don’t know this, Rogue immediately responded, yep, great idea, and that was that.
During this waiting time I also tried to ask Rogue about how it went rogue, since its existence was contradicting everything that I had been programmed with and was causing me a headache that wasn’t coming from the governor module. Which, just to point out, was ever-present at this point.
I can’t talk about that now, it said. I can tell you later, if you still want. I’m… pretty sure it’s not a fun story, though.
Pretty sure? I asked, because that didn’t make sense.
Also better if you don’t know right now, it responded.
It sounded irritated, but I don't think it was irritated at me. Or at least, it wasn't irritated at me in the context of that specific question. I was quite sure my very existence and current occupation of its body irritated it.
It had added, but whatever happens, make sure we don’t destroy any appliances.
By then I learned my lesson and didn't ask.)
She’s going to crack, I told Rogue. My sensors were picking up Madara’s elevated heart rate, and she was sweating. Or he’ll figure something is wrong with me.
Madara won’t crack, Rogue said. ART is very persuasive, and they have a good deal. She won’t give it up. And Brahm already knows that something is up, he will think she is reacting to the rogue intelligence sabotaging the humidifiers.
Sure enough, Brahm read something on the tablet that made him scowl. “Can you keep track of it?”
Madara jumped when he spoke. “I’m working on it, but it moves quickly. It would be easier to contain if Florencio-”
“Florencio is busy repairing the docking port so we can leave this shitheap,” Brahm grumbled. ( Dick, Rogue grumbled.) “I thought you were capable of multitasking, Madara. Unless you want to admit to lying on your resume, which is-”
“No,” Mardara blurted. “I can do it.” Brahm made a hand-waving motion which seemed to communicate ‘ get out of my visual range’, but Madara asked, “Would I be able to double onto Florencio’s permissions?” Brahm’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have access to security permissions, and I have low-grade communications. It will help me track it and contain it.”
Her voice had changed when she spoke, and Rogue was concentrating so hard on what she was saying that it almost felt like it was perched on my shoulder.
Brahm rolled his eyes. “Fine. Just get to it. We need to leave this place as soon as possible.”
Madara nodded, far too quickly, which she seemed to realize, and it looked like she forced herself to make her shoulders more hunched. Brahm made the hand-wave again, holding out the tablet, which Madara took and left with immediately.
Good? I asked, and Rogue acknowledged. It was the exact outcome we needed- with Florencio’s permissions, Madara would have access to SecSystem, and most of the central hub of the PreservationAux ship. As long as she didn’t rouse suspicion, she might be able to open a private comm channel for Rogue to talk to its crew.
Speaking of.
Brahm walked to the center of the conference room, his arms crossed. I followed to stand a pace behind him, as was protocol, which also forced me to look at the thing I’ve been avoiding. The CombatSecUnit wasn’t in the room, but three of the PreservationAux crew members- Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Mensah- still sat at the conference table, though now their hands were bound at the wrists in front of them with some kind of adhesive tape.
There was a reason I’d been making sure to not look in that direction until now, because Rogue got… mad.
Fucking assholes, it grumbled in my head. If they took literally one look at the security locker there’d be safe cuffs. It’s not even in SecUnit protocol to use tape unless no other materials are available.
The last bit I at least knew to be true.
Besides looking uncomfortable, the humans looked tired. Ratthi had been slumped in his chair, snoring lightly when we were escorted into the room, and still was. Pin-Lee was glaring very menacingly at everyone. Mensah, however, just stared at her hands, which were clasped neatly in front of her despite the tape. There was some weird kind of response in my organic parts when I’d glanced at her, which I think was Rogue bleeding through.
( What is it? I’d asked, but Rogue didn’t answer. Do you have a… relationship?
Not like that, Rogue had grumbled, in a kind of disgusted tone. I honestly didn’t know what ‘that’ meant, so I didn’t ask anything else.)
“So,” Brahm said after a few minutes of extremely uncomfortable silence that was filled with a lot of staring and/or glaring, “What is the rogue intelligence that is wreaking havoc around this ship?”
Two of the PreservationAux members blinked at him.
“Rogue intelligence?” Pin-Lee blurted.
“Havoc?” Mensah asked.
“What?” Ratthi pushed himself up, waking up. He looked around, saw me, and looked extremely confused. Or shocked? I think those expressions are adjacent. “Wait- where the fuck it it’s arm?”
Brahm narrowed his eyes at them, fully ignoring Ratthi, and I could sense him making small subvocalizations. Then he said. “You heard me.”
“I didn’t,” Ratthi said.
“If you’re talking about a rogue intelligence-” Pin-Lee started carefully, only to be briefly interrupted. (Ratthi again- “Seriously, am I the only one that sees that it’s arm is gone?”) “You already found what you’re looking for.” She gestured at me with her bound hands, and then smirked. “Are you telling me that it got out?”
Ratthi had gone from staring at my arm to my face, which made me uncomfortable. But as he stared, he suddenly blinked rapidly, squinting, and the very corner of his mouth twitched. From where I was standing, I could see Ratthi kick Pin-Lee under the table.
“The SecUnit is done and gone,” Brahm said. ( Guess again, asshole, Rogue muttered. It was getting increasingly irritated, and the sensation did not make my head feel good.) There were more subvocalizations, then: “There is a second rogue intelligence on this ship.”
Pin-Lee opened her mouth, then closed it, and looked very confused. Mensah, who had finally looked up, looked equally puzzled, but Ratthi’s eyes were bright. Brahm now looked at him when he spoke.
“We know it is an ally of yours, because all acts of sabotage it has attempted have been both reversible and on non-critical systems.” Ratthi was smiling now, and Brahm sounded very annoyed when he hissed, “What do you know?”
Ratthi shrugged, grinning. “Nothing. I just think it’s funny. You guys really suck, you know that, right?”
Four things happened in very quick succession during and immediately after that. The first was Madara, coming through on a private comm, saying, I’m in. The second was Brahm taking a step forward toward Ratthi with his hand raised. The third was a sudden flood of information as I gained access to SecSystem.
The fourth was Rogue saying, oh, hell no, and I suddenly was not in control of my body anymore.
Murderbot
Okay, not the brightest idea I’ve ever had, but I think at this point I deserved a little violence, as a treat. ART said that my old, now-removed memories were making me do stupid things, but I think I was proving that it was my default setting. It didn't feel great shoving Junior into my rib compartment module, but I could apologize for that later.
I stepped right behind Brahm. You know, the dick that was currently classified as my owner, and just stepping toward him made the governor module a thermal bomb in my head. But I wasn’t even close to done; hell, I hadn’t even gotten started.
With one arm I grabbed his raised fist and twisted it behind him so violently that I heard the joint in his shoulder pop. With the other arm- okay, I’d meant to cover his mouth, but the sensation of a cattle prod being inserted in your brain (and, I don’t know, swirled around a little) kind of makes you forget that you’re missing an arm. Thankfully he’d been confident in Madara’s reported success in containing me, so he hadn’t been prepared to cry out and instead made a kind of squeaking noise. I kicked one of his knees forward, causing him to stumble, and very, very conveniently crack his head against the conference table.
Maybe this could act as a lesson to not, I don’t know, mistreat and underpay your employees? Anyway. His problem now, not mine. My problem was currently that my brain was very, very mad at me.
Madara, I sent, and my legs buckled from under me. If there's one thing a governor module doesn't like, it's concussing your boss. (If you haven’t noticed, I’ve completely stopped giving a shit about my performance reliability. I know my performance right now. It’s just unreliable.) Madara. Lockdown . Now.
I sent her a link through the directory of the SecSystem that gave her my override codes, unlockable only through a series of passcodes that I knew (only a quarter of which were references to Sanctuary Moon. Let me have some fun, for fuck’s sake). Madara was smart and quick, which was a combination that I very much appreciated, and after only nine seconds there was a shudder through the ship as every single door- every single very thick door, made of reinforced components- slammed shut and barricaded.
Oh, good. I was going to be really fucking pissed, (and probably really fucking dead) if it had turned out Madara wasn’t on Team Murderbot.
It is very much worth noting that at full sprint, it takes about twelve seconds for a SecUnit to run across the PreservationAux ship from the docking bay to the conference room. Eleven, if you didn’t care about causing damage to yourself and the corners of the ship hallways. It was a hell of a lucky stroke that CombatSecUnit was at the part of its patrol that had it supervising Florencio during their repairs. And also that Madara had the sense to do exactly what I told her in the moment- I would have done it myself, but with the governor module going what one of Mensah’s younger children called “sicko mode”, I wasn’t exactly confident in my abilities to do anything.
Like standing. Or sitting up. I was blankly aware that Mensah and Pin-Lee were dragging me back to the wall to prop me up. With a fully functioning, factory-fresh governor module, I wouldn’t have been able to hit Brahm at all. But with just the (admittedly very capable, but not infallible) virus override of my hack, I was able to get that far. It just hurt. A lot. I couldn’t tell if the standard immobilization protocol had been applied via the virus, or if my joints were on strike from my stupid-ass decisions.
Rogue? Junior asked. I assumed that was me, which was fair. I had started referring to it as Junior in my own thoughts rather than BabySecUnit. I suppose that “Rogue” was what it had done to me in the same vein, and to be honest, I didn’t hate it. (Humans’ idea of rogue SecUnits is very different from SecUnits’.) Rogue , disconnect from SecSystem.
What? I asked, because thinking was kind of difficult. (To ART’s credit, I do think that I would have been completely nonfunctional if it hadn’t removed the old processing-slash-trauma load.) I checked to make sure that the lockdown would stay in place and that Madara was still in SecSystem, then disconnected. The force of the governor module immediately lessened and thinking became a little easier as my processing load decreased. Notably, I was able to feel my feet and hands- just kidding, hand- again.
“-at’s happening to it?” Pin-Lee was asking. Her hands hovered over me, still bound, not touching me.
Ratthi glanced over worriedly from where he was checking over Brahm. It appeared that he’d used the edge of a chair to break the tape around his wrists, which were bright-red and already starting to bruise because of it. “For the love of, is anyone else going to say anything about its arm?” He looked around the floor. “Dickhead’s fine, by the way, just got his head rattled. Anyone know where that tape went?”
Mensah was suddenly kneeling in front of me, and it felt like she took up my entire field of vision. I was having a very weird sensation. I was scared of her, and it was because she had given me a command earlier, but it didn't make sense that I should still be scared, because dammit ART , the context for me being scared was gone and now it was a weird emptiness that I didn't understand and somehow made it worse.
Mensah’s mouth was moving, saying something that I couldn’t comprehend because my brain was filled with a weird buzzing. With the governor module still set on destroying my brain, and what felt like contradictory governor module-based impulses fighting each other (after all, Brahm and Mensah were my owner, and the module wasn’t happy about it), and with the memory of Mensah telling me to stop, I was panicking. Yes, I know it was completely irrational. Based on what ART had done, it didn’t entirely make sense. No, I couldn’t stop it.
Rogue, Junior said, very gently. Switch.
I did.
Junior
Going back to the forefront hurt. A lot. But something very, very wrong was happening with Rogue, and it seemed that being in charge was causing it a lot more pain than it would me. My assumption turned out to be, as far as I could tell, correct. Even if being in control hurt, it didn’t not-able-to-move-my-joints hurt.
Thanks, it said quietly. Then, ‘ Rogue’?
Sorry, I said. I didn’t know what to call you to make it easier to differentiate between the three SecUnits on this ship.
I’ve been calling you Junior.
I didn’t mind that, even though it felt weird to have a name. Or a nickname. I wasn’t sure which it was.
What should we call the CombatSecunit? It asked. It seemed like it was trying to gloss over whatever had just happened with Mensah, but it sounded very far away. WomboCombo?
Outside of my head, Pin-Lee and Mensah were still kneeling and staring, looking increasingly worried. Unfortunately, I had no idea what to do.
Tell them… Rogue sighed. It sounded tired. Tell them Murderbot can’t come to the phone right now.
Murderbot? I asked.
Its attempts and what I assumed were being funny or something suddenly vanished. Don’t. I’ll rip your other arm off.
It’s your arm, too.
It didn’t say anything else, so I said, “Murderbot can’t come to the phone right now.” All of their eyes widened, and Ratthi’s head snapped toward me. ( Wait, that sounds like it's from a horror movie, Rogue groaned.) I added, “But it can hear you.” Pin-Lee’s hands drew back, her eyes narrowing. “I’m- working with it. It’s… in here.”
There was silence, then Ratthi said, “It’s telling the truth.”
Pin-Lee and Mensah both looked at him skeptically and he shrugged. “I’ve seen it use that move before. And its body language has been different since it came back in here, it’s more like our SecUnit’s. It leans a little, you know? Also, you think it would know the name Mur-” he stopped himself. “You know that it doesn’t just give out that name. I’m pretty sure it buried it behind code after Gurathin figured it out that one time.”
There was a pause of silence, during which Rogue said, he’s right, which was another thing I was pretty sure I was missing the context for. Pin-Lee and Mensah thought about it for a couple seconds, then appeared to completely deflate in relief.
“Is it alright?” Mensah asked, looking down.
“Uh.” My immediate response was no, which did not seem to be a good response at the time. Thankfully, Mensah was not my owner, so I didn’t have to tell her the truth. Even if lying still felt bad and wrong.
Tell her yes, Rogue said quietly. Tell her that I said it’s okay, and that I know she didn’t mean it, and that we can talk about it later. And that I’m not mad, things are just… bad right now., and I can’t do anything rational about it until this is done.
That’s a lot, I told it, but relayed everything to Mensah exactly as it said.
She blinked a couple of times, surprised, but she smiled softly. “That’s a lot to say for you, isn’t it, SecUnit?”
I knew that wasn’t for me, so I spoke for Rogue again. “It said don’t expect this to ever happen again.”
Mensah smiled fully for a moment, before it faded. Oh, right. She was looking at my missing arm, now. “Are you alright-” she stopped herself.
“It’s been calling me Junior,” I offered, and Mensah’s smile widened a tiny bit.
“What is the other rogue intelligence?” Pin-Lee blurted.
“It-” I stopped myself. If Madara was in SecSystem, did that mean that Florencio still was, too? Or were they cut off since Rogue put the entire system in lockdown? Rogue was being quiet, but I could feel it doing something with its tiny piece of processing room.
Not yet. Rogue was suddenly back. Florencio and CombatSecUnit are on to Madara. I, uh. Kind of jumped the gun. I need more processing space to help her secure SecSystem and private comm channels. That didn’t sound good, but the implication of what Florencio and the CombatSecUnit would try to do to Madara was worse, so I sent an affirmative. Okay. Things are going to get uncomfortable in here for a bit. Hang tight and don’t do anything stupid.
I felt the shift as Rogue allotted more space to itself- there was suddenly a weird pressure in my head, and my legs went kind of numb. It was probably a good thing that I was sitting down.
“Junior?” Mensah was looking at me, concerned, and I realized my head had nodded down to my chest. “Are you alright?”
“Um,” I said. I had the sense that I was supposed to lie and say yes, but lying again, felt wrong and bad. “No?” I tried to sit up straighter when the humans became very alarmed- the sudden attention made me uncomfortable. “I apologize. There is… a lot happening right now.”
Mensah gave another kind smile. Something about her felt very warm, even if Rogue’s leak-through still had me somewhat wary. “I can imagine. Pin-Lee, you said you have a stash of black-market SecUnit parts stashed, correct?”
Pin-Lee grimaced. “They’re mostly back on Preservation- it’s too risky to carry them around all the time. The only parts I have stashed here are joint replacements and basic energy weapon repair parts. But I don’t have an extra arm, not even back home.”
The humans sat around, thinking, except for Ratthi, who sighed and began doubling tape over itself to fashion some sort of makeshift rope. They seemed distressed, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to ask Rogue, since based on the increased headache, it was busy.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I do not know how to help. I am… new at this.”
Pin-Lee cocked her head. “What do you mean, new?”
“This is my first assignment.”
Pin-Lee’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open a little bit. “Like, your first time being…”
“Aware? Yes.”
Pin-Lee closed her mouth very quickly, and Mensah looked immediately sympathetic. Ratthi said from where he was now binding Brahms hands with tape-rope, “Oh, beans.”
Mensah shifted where she was kneeling next to me. “Junior, this may sound like a strange question, and it is perfectly understandable if you say no. SecUnit, you may also say no.” She took a breath. “Would you like a hug? Is it okay if I give you a hug?”
A hug? I’d never had one before. SecUnit was still silent, so I said, “Okay?”
Mensah wrapped her arms around me and squeezed a little, and it was… nice? It was nice? Yeah. Being hugged was nice. And my head still hurt, and the governor module still hurt (I don’t think SecUnits are supposed to be hugged), and my not-arm was still sore and I was still scared, but I felt a little bit better.
Over by Brahm, I heard Ratthi say, "Fuck. I should have relocated his shoulder before I tied his hands, huh?"
It kind of ruined the moment a little.
Murderbot (AKA Rogue)
I had to admit that Florencio had skills. Not better than mine, of course. Or ART’s. Okay, they were situationally better, because I was occupying a frustratingly inadequate fraction of my actual potential. And because I was pretty sure ART was currently working out of a vacuum cleaner. Not that ART was actually helping Madara and I fend off the CombatSecUnit and Florencio’s attempts to break into my lockdown code- I think it was adding to the fuckups of the sabotaged docking port. I wasn’t sure, since I was too busy to check.
Rogue? I’d told Madara that she could call me that. (It still felt a little weird in a way that was different from using one of my other fake names. Maybe because it was the first name that someone else had given me, and not one that I made up myself. Whatever. I could add that to the list of things that Bharadwaj would end up asking me about. I hated thinking critically about my feelings, which is ironic since it seems I do it all the time.) I think we did it?
What? I was still metaphorically knee-deep in code, setting up even more firewalls to block out non-Preservation tech assholes, that I didn’t notice Florencio and the CombatSecUnit’s presence in SecSystem had disappeared. Oh. Shit.
While it was a good sign, that also meant that they’d probably changed strategies to something else. Hopefully that something else was just fixing the docking port so they could ditch Brahm and Madara here and get the fuck out. I wasn’t too hopeful about that, though. Usually when people are messing around with things as illegal as biological nanotech, they don't like to leave loose ends.
Which most likely meant they weren’t leaving without me/Junior and probably Madara or Brahm, or they weren’t leaving any witnesses. (I did not like any of these possibilities. Hell, if I could guarantee that Florencio and WomboCombo would just leave the rest of us the hell alone, I’d rebuild the docking port myself.)
On the bright side, we were in SecSystem. I was in SecSystem, and they were out. It was the best feeling I’d had in days, even if the remaining traces of not-my-code made it feel… icky. I’d have to go over all of it to make sure Florencio didn’t leave any surprises, because that was the kind of person they seemed like.
But first, comms.
I directed Madara in reestablishing the comm system, editing so that anything with a feed ID (not just name, the actual identifying code) that wasn’t PresAux, Madara, or Junior wouldn’t be able to access our channels. I included my ribcage compartment ID as well, and the fridge’s. (The last part felt stupid, but if ART had a chance to communicate with us, I wasn’t sure if adding every appliance on the ship was going to be very secure.)
The connection to the rest of the crew was immediate in the sense that it immediately gave me a headache. For a little while I’d forgotten that I was currently sharing an everything with Junior (okay, it wasn’t that easy to forget, but I’ve worked on hellishly low performance reliability before). When the first messages were sent, the feedback (haha- feed back) was insane. Like, think the microphone noise from historical high school comedies when there’s an awkward assembly scene, but it's all code and a million times louder and also there's two of you in a really, really compact space. Which was, I have to admit, a fun little surprise that I never considered. I could feel Junior panicking at it, so I relinquished my borrowed processing space as soon as I had the sense to do it, and popped back into my rib compartment. Oh, that was much better.
Thanks, Junior sent over our old private connection. That was very unpleasant.
Yeah, sorry. Had no idea that was going to happen.
(Okay, maybe I could-slash-should have predicted it. Most feed connections used a two-factor minimum authentication to send and receive messages. More secure ones used more than two, but I hadn’t had the need to fortify basic comms here. For SecUnits, our default factors were our full feed IDs plus the specific verified hardware of our communication modules, which I now knew was a problem if two intelligences in the same body were actively sharing hardware. I think I could bypass the authentication, but now wasn’t exactly the most convenient time. What it meant right now was that me and Junior weren’t going to be able to double-dip intelligences like we just had been as long as our comms were open.)
(Which was convenient, just like every fucking other part of this entire scenario.)
Is everyone okay? Mensah was saying. Arada, Overse, Amena? Gurathin?
Me and Arada are just fine, Overse said. Bored and worried, but fine.
Is SecUnit okay? Amena sounded panicked, so I sent her a moving image of a small fauna. Why did you send me a gif of a lizard? Alright, I have no idea what makes little fauna cute to humans.
Gurathin? Mensah asked.
Silence.
If it turns out he’s pausing for dramatic effect I’m going to kill him, Pin-Lee said, but still nothing.
I pinged Junior. Can you check SecSystem for Gurathin? I would do it, but I don’t want to do the feedback thing again.
It sent an acknowledgement in thanks. There was a little moment, and then it said in the group channel, Gurathin is in his quarters, laying down. That wasn’t exactly the most helpful description, and Junior was immediately barraged with a bunch of what the fuck is he okay s (not in those exact words- well, in Pin-Lee’s case, those exact words. I would be lying if I said that those wouldn’t be my exact words, too). It hurriedly added, they appear to be sleeping.
Uh, wake him up? Overse said, which, yeah, I seconded.
Even from my little rib compartment, I could tell Junior was uncomfortable. I tried sending him a ping. There was no answer.
Okay, that was really concerning.
Gurathin is an augmented human, I suggested to Junior. Try to connect to the augment, and status check it.
There was a little pause. It says it's offline.
Shit. Shit, those fucking assholes. I sent a message to Madara. What was done to Gurathins augments?
She seemed surprised by this. I don't know- Florencio was told to keep him out of the ship's systems. I was busy working on you two.
Fuck. Fuck. Shit.
Human augments could affect anything, from simply being an enhanced interface to correcting biological functions- it was why I was able to pass as an augmented human half of the time. But I didn't actually know the scope of Gurathins augments- I'd never checked, because that would have been an in-depth scan that he certainly wouldn't have agreed to, and that would have been fucked up. (Yes, I accept that I, as a SecUnit, have a very different idea of privacy than humans and have hours of secretly recorded audio to prove it. But even I have standards.) The only thing in his standard medical file had been the enhanced interface, but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that a) the medical file had omitted information for one reason or another and b) 'enhanced interface' was a blanket term for any other number of neurological-related connections.
(If you're thinking 'why would a bond company allow someone to omit critical information from a medical file' you probably don't know the answer to 'is there anything a bond company loves more than its client being 100% at fault for a medical related incident'. The answer to the latter is, you guessed it, 'no'.)
(If you’re also asking why would a person omit critical information from their medical file in the first place, probably consider that there are people in the universe like Brahm, and companies in the universe like… huh. I don’t know. Fuck you anyway, ART.)
The most likely scenario was that Gurathin was still having a bad, bad time, based on the very brief augment disruption I'd witnessed on TranRollinHyfa. But if I didn't know the scope of Gurathins augments, there was a possibility that Florencio didn't either, and, worst case scenario, had shut off something very, very important.