Work Text:
Even when repaired by a good MedSystem (and Perihelion’s MedSystem was very good), a human body that has been damaged is not completely restored to its previous integrity.
The clean up and regeneration process is fast and accurate, but never perfect. Some lingering effect (a subtle scarring of tissues, a deviation of vessels and nerves, a slight imbalance in some fluids) usually remains, a memento that something happened there.
Even if the pain is gone and functionality is back to normal, the human body records the disruption.
Perihelion knew that avoiding any and all trauma in humans was impossible. Seth said it was undesirable, even. The important part was providing an overall satisfactory recuperation, and preferably avoiding major adverse events.
Iris had a slight deformation of her left little finger, from when she broke it while playing in the yard of the AI Department at the University when she was five. Seth had a small adhesion in his abdomen after the removal of a cancerous mass. Dr. Bharadwaj still showed a little limping in her gait after the incident with the hostile fauna during her first survey with SecUnit.
Even Turi had a 4 mm circular scar where Perihelion had to regrow part of the soft tissues of their shin after an exofauna sting on a planet caused a necrosis.
Was SecUnit any different? Perihelion’s scans had surprisingly revealed no evidence of past physical traumas. Which didn't align with what SecUnit had shared of its past, nor with what Perihelion had observed of its modus operandi, which had it in shambles after most confrontations where a human's safety was its priority. Even the structural alteration of its limbs that had been Perihelion’s first surgical intervention on it had not left appreciable signs.
Its primary hypothesis was that a construct's organic material repaired itself differently from a human's.
Perihelion’s reverse engineering of SecUnit's workings and repairs had been a fascinating and worthy undertaking since they first met, and instrumental to their continued "mutual administrative assistance." Given time and opportunity, Perihelion was certain it would know SecUnit completely, probably better than its makers.
But now, right now, it didn't have the time. After spending 0.001 seconds considering all this, Perihelion went back to scanning SecUnit. It hadn't seen it this badly injured before.
The construct's performance reliability was so low that it had shut down as soon as the gurney had picked it up, and hadn't even tried restarting yet. A significant number of the organometallic bones were messily broken, and it had been shot several times.
Perihelion observed and scanned it, and started making progress notes. Right leg presented compound fracture of the femur, tibia and fibula, dislocated ankle and dents in the metatarsal area of the inorganic foot. Right arm had compound fracture of the humerus, radius and ulna with dislocation of the energy gun casing. Fourteen projectile weapon wounds were sustained across the torso, with both organic and inorganic involvement. Left lung was perforated and collapsed. Right side of skull from temporal to zygomatic bone suffered severe damage with complete loss of the ocular globe and partial loss of the ear.
The lower part of the auricle and the lobe were still in their proper place, perfect and unscathed next to the ruin of SecUnit’s face.
Perihelion observed this detail from one of its MedBay cameras, while something went in circles inside its consciousness.
Then 30% of its processing power snapped into first aid mode.
The bed contoured SecUnit's body and gently moved it, drones activated, tubes descended, mechanical arms deployed. The MedSystem started working on ventilation, extracting projectiles, cleaning wounds, putting the leg and the arm in traction, prepping the blowtorch and regeneration shells.
But a small process (less than 0.2% of its mental capabilities) kept looking at the side of SecUnit's face, and going in circles. Vibrating? ...screaming.
Perihelion knew that its friend was now safe inside its hull, that its body would be whole in less than a cycle and its consciousness back online shortly after. It had never conducted some of the repairs, but it absolutely knew how to perform them. Every medical protocol was crystal clear, all equipment and material was ready. Its mechanical arms wouldn't tremble, its drones wouldn't fumble, its processes wouldn't tire even after hours of procedures.
So why was that backburnered process still screaming? Why was some part of itself, however small, panicking now?
It wasn't, Perihelion realized, fear of failing at restoring SecUnit. It wasn't even a misplaced sense of guilt for having failed to prevent this damage: that was not how their partnership worked. Perihelion knew they had both done their best.
Maybe it was just the horror of seeing SecUnit hurt, again: its body in pieces, its consciousness forcibly shut down. Perihelion had seen this before but, for all its processing capabilities and learning modules, only now it had felt just how horrible, how wrong it all was.
SecUnit had been created to be broken, and repaired just to be broken again. Its organic mind was a reticulum of partial memories, a riddle of traumas. Its bot memory a sequence of wipes, its code full of hastily overwritten routines.
Yet its body was unscarred, engineered to present no evidence of all the violence that made up its life, even now that it was free.
When SecUnit reinitialized, Perihelion made sure it was warm and its pain sensors were tuned down. When its eyes blinked open and its presence manifested in the feed, Perihelion warned it, Don't get up, don't move: treatment of your arm and leg still need 0.45 hours to complete.
SecUnit acknowledged. What happened? It said. Is everybody alive?
Our crew is safe. You protected them and retrieved them. But you were badly damaged.
SecUnit let out a sigh, but didn't reply.
Perihelion sent a report of the medical session to SecUnit, and requested a full diagnostic. They analyzed it together, satisfied with the results.
Perihelion watched the side of its face, now whole and perfect again. Hadn't stopped watching it the entire time. The process that had cried and panicked had interwoven with the ones that directed the resection and the reconstruction.
Also, there was an unexpected problem with your right ear.
Oh?
Perihelion shared its MedBay camera input. Zooming in, a small line was visible just above the lobe, where the auricle had been cut away.
I am sorry, I will have to repeat the reconstruction process there.
SecUnit shut its eyes and said, It won't affect my functionality. You can skip that.
Perihelion got closer in the feed and said, I made a mistake. I will correct it.
You made a mistake?
I was emotionally compromised.
Again, SecUnit didn't reply.
After 3 seconds, Perihelion continued. It was hard, seeing you so badly hurt.
SecUnit huffed. It's OK, really. It's not like I have to appear in some kind of media. Leave it.
Perihelion started the first episode of Timestream Defenders Orion and they watched it together, close in the feed.