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It’s kind of an understatement to say I have a lot of experience with unexpected emergencies. I’ve got protocol for it and everything. It’s basically what the company contracted me out for, before the whole thing with GrayCris and my PreservationAux humans. (Well, that and some other stuff, like protecting assets and property at all costs (SecUnits not included) and giving bored, sadistic clients something to do.) In theory, I was really good at responding to stressful and potentially dangerous situations in a smart and strategic way.
In theory.
It was really hard to remind myself of this in the moments right after Amena tapped my feed to tell me that Mensah was missing.
She’s not really missing , Amena insisted. She just hasn’t come back and it’s sort of weird since it’s getting dark. (Okay, fine, so Amena hadn’t exactly said she was missing, she’d just asked whether I knew “if second mom is back from her walk yet.” But I could read between the lines and that did not sound great.)
I was already on my feet and waking up my drones that weren’t patrolling. I cycled through my perimeter cams for the third time, knowing it was pointless. Well, fuck. I was going to have to go out and search.
I’d stayed at Mensah’s farm enough times to know she liked walking by herself through the surrounding vegetation, even though there was perfectly good vegetation near the house. At first, I’d tried to go with her. The whole thing seemed like a stupid unnecessary risk, but it was important to her for some reason, and I obviously wasn’t going to let her wander off where I couldn’t see her. (She never did anything that I noticed except walk around quietly and look at stuff. Yeah, I don’t really get it, either. Just when you think you’re getting a handle on humans, they come up with some new thing.)
Following Mensah around while she aimlessly meandered was boring, but hardly the worst thing I’ve had to do (by a very, very far margin), so I generally just watched media while monitoring her with part of my attention. Over time, she started suggesting that I might be more comfortable watching media back at the house and that she would be fine, she’d been doing this alone forever, the risk of anything bad happening here was very low, blah blah. Then the suggestions got more firm until they were insistent and I (very reluctantly) complied. Even though it meant she would be going out of range of my drones. Even though she’d had the company implant removed a long time ago so I would have no way to track her location. Even though the whole thing went against every bit of what my (admittedly at least a little paranoid) programming wanted me to do.
I should’ve fucking known better.
I’ll find her and be back as fast as I can, I told Amena. Exiting the house, I split my drones and sent them scouting in different directions. There was no sign of Mensah’s feed that I could pick up. Ugh, of course I’d been right about this. Letting her go alone had been a terrible idea. There’s a reason you shouldn’t let humans do their own security. I never should have listened to her reassurances; this was all my fucking fault. If anything had happened to her…
Sure, Amena said in my feed. She probably just lost track of time or something.
Don’t let anyone else leave the house. Especially the kids.
I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. We’ll be fine, SecUnit.
I hesitated a little, unsure. I’d have felt better about the whole thing if at least one of Mensah’s marital partners was around, but both of them were gone for the next few cycles. (I think someone had told me where they were and why, but I had been busy watching my shows and honestly I didn’t care. To be fair to me, at the time I hadn’t known I might need to care.) As usual, there were some other adult relatives at the farm here and there, but other than the basics I didn’t know much about them or how competent I could expect them to be if anything happened. Technically Amena was also over Preservation’s legal age of majority by now. I mean, she was still Amena, but legal distinctions like that are meaningful to humans, so it must count for something, right?
Gritting my teeth, I ran a quick situation analysis. Risk assessment ruled it would likely be fine. Whatever had happened to Mensah probably wasn’t going to extend to the farm. They’d be okay without me; I just needed to get out there and find her.
Okay, I’d have to chance it. Call me if anything happens, I said.
Amena tapped my feed in acknowledgment and I was off, sorting my inputs and running scans for any clue to which way Mensah had gone.
It wasn’t very dark yet, but the shadows stretched long and sunset was beginning. I really hate planets. This never would have happened on a station. When you’re not on a planet, you don’t have to put up with stupid changing light and weather conditions, and nobody thinks it’s crucial to walk around alone just to look at flora. Plus, I would’ve had more access to security cams, drones, bots--you know, all the things I need to do my dumb job. Why do humans love planets so much, anyway? This was the worst.
All right, Murderbot, get a grip. I had to focus on finding Mensah. The fact that I couldn’t ping her interface was giving me lots of uneasy feelings I didn’t have time to think about. There had to be some kind of reasonable and not horrifying explanation for that, probably, I just couldn’t come up with what it might be right now. My performance reliability crept down a point to rest at 92 percent.
My drones hadn’t located anything useful yet, but one of my vision filters identified traces of what looked like recently-disturbed dirt along a path leading away from the farm. It was faint, but I also thought I could identify a familiar scent in the air nearby. (Human smells are almost universally gross, and mostly they all just stink like dirty socks all the time. Mensah did too, kind of, but maybe a little less than other humans. And she usually smelled of other things too, like the hygiene products she used a lot, and her favorite hot fragrant beverage.) Okay, that seemed like a decent enough place to start. I jogged in the direction of the path, wanting to go fast but not wanting to break into a full run and miss some important detail that could help.
As I went, I tried calling out for her as loud as I could. SecUnit lung capacity isn’t the greatest and my voice couldn’t project that far, but if there was even a chance she might hear me, I had to take it.
The further I got from the farm, the harder I had to fight against the anxious doubts and questions my mind kept generating. What if I couldn’t find her? What if I did find her, but it was really bad? I’d already fucked up by letting her go out alone. If something had happened to her, what was I going to do? I didn’t have access to a MedSystem; I would be useless. There were medical supplies back at the house. Why hadn’t I brought them? That was stupid of me. I should be better than this. I was her SecUnit and it was my job to protect her, this kind of thing was my basic function. If I failed here, what was I supposed to do? Would they still let me stay at the farm? Would they still let me stay in Preservation? Did I deserve to stay in Preservation, if I couldn’t even do this one simple thing?
My performance reliability was at 89 percent. Increased levels of adrenaline and stress toxins were circulating through my systems. My organic parts weren’t feeling awesome. A drone cam alerted me to movement and I forcefully pulled myself away from my thoughts to bring the input to the front of my attention.
I’d been trying not to get my hopes up, but watching the drone zoom in on some kind of small, fleeing fauna still felt like getting kicked in the chest without armor. This sucked. Mensah was good at helping me figure out how to get my shit together when I was like this, but I’d had to let her go off and end up missing.
The light was getting dimmer; I switched to a different vision filter and shoved down my anger and panic. Okay, yeah, it was fine. I could do this. I just had to stop freaking out like an irrational human.
Then something caught my eye on the same drone cam. (Yes, I really should have noticed this before, but I was being an idiot, you might have noticed. This is why emotions are terrible and I’d rather just not have them, thanks.) Mensah’s feed interface was lying in a stretch of tall grass five meters from the base of a gradual hill, cracked and broken with what looked like some kind of impact damage.
Oh, oh shit. Well, that answered one question. If her interface was completely non-functional, no wonder I couldn’t ping it or find her feed. That was kind of good (it meant her inactive feed wasn’t automatically a bad sign) but also kind of bad (because why the hell wasn’t her interface with her and why was it damaged). I headed for it and picked it up. A quick scan told me there was only a 13 percent chance it was energy or projectile weapon damage. It was much more likely the interface had collided forcefully with something, a rock or the ground or the base of a tree.
(A voice came through one of the drones I’d left back at the house. One of the adult relatives I didn’t really know, voice too faint to parse without boosting audio, which I didn’t want to spend resources on right now. Amena called back, “Yeah, SecUnit is out looking for her, they’ll probably be back soon.” A short reply in return. Everyone sounded way too calm. (They were calm because they trusted me. They assumed I would handle things. Right now that felt wrong, like they were making a mistake. A big, stupid mistake. I didn’t deserve that kind of faith after letting this happen.))
My audio alerted me to a weak sound, something nearby and not from the house. I sent a few drones in a wide radius. It was hard to pin down but I thought I could still detect that socks-hygiene-beverage smell somewhere nearby, mixed with all the vegetation smells on the breeze. I tried calling out her name with my voice again.
“SecUnit!”
A jolt went through the organic bits of my torso. That was Mensah for sure. I sprinted, cycling through my inputs to guide me, scanning for her energy signature.
She was lying on her side nearer to the base of the hill where the grass was a little shorter, curled awkwardly into herself. From the position and appearance of her right leg, it was immediately obvious that there was some kind of fracture. (Fuck). The scrapes on her skin, the dirt and stains on her body and clothes, and her proximity to the hill made it clear she had fallen. (Fuck fuck fuck.)
I could tell from the marks on the ground she’d tried to drag herself but hadn’t made it far. I was trying really hard not to think about how it looked like she’d been crying, or the way her breathing sounded sort of ragged. As she caught sight of me, she struggled to sit up.
Oh, I would have killed several people for access to a MedSystem right now. (Not really. Mostly.) But she was alive and the scans of her vitals were reassuring and she was here, right in front of me. The awful projected scenarios and assessments cleared from my mind. I was experiencing a complex emotional reaction so intense that, without fully considering anything, I dropped to my knees beside her, leaned close, and pressed my lips to the center of her forehead.
This went on for 1.4 seconds before I realized what I was doing and pulled back, startled. I felt my face making some kind of expression but I didn’t want to know what. Staring over her shoulder, I fumbled for what to say.
“Dr. Mensah.” Right, okay. Good start. This doesn’t have to be weird. (I’d already made it weird.)
“SecUnit,” she said back. Her voice was strained like she was in pain and hoarse like she’d been yelling.
Wow, all right, this was uncomfortable. But I had to get her medical attention as soon as I could. I realized I was still weirdly close to her and shifted backwards so I could stand up. “I’m going to pick you up so I can take you home, Dr. Mensah. Do I have a go to proceed?”
I didn’t know why I’d asked like that, but I was trying not to think too much right now. Mensah nodded and let me lift her into a standard client retrieval carry. I did my best to support her injured leg to minimize how much it would jostle and bounce as I turned and made my way back to the farm.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” she said weakly. I could see dried blood on her knuckles as she clung to my jacket.
“You lost your interface,” I told her like an idiot. Obviously she already knew that. Get it together, Murderbot. “We were worried.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
No, that wasn’t how I’d meant it. I was fucking this up even more. How do humans just figure out what you’re supposed to say all the time?
Sorting through my inputs, I pinged one of my house drones and tapped Amena’s feed. I’ve got her. Send a request for an emergency vehicle.
Her feed voice came back startled, concerned. What happened? Is she okay?
She will be, but she needs medical care. I think her leg is fractured. I’m on my way back, hurry up.
Amena tapped an acknowledgement and I heard her shouting other humans’ names. I turned my attention to monitoring Mensah’s vitals and breathing. Holding her a little closer, I increased my core temperature by three degrees. I’d messed up, but I was taking care of things now. It was going to be okay.
* * *
It was well into the night and the humans were worn out from the events of the previous cycle. Everyone else in the house had been asleep for a few hours now. Almost everyone.
The time Mensah started her rest periods tended to fluctuate. She could be inconsistent about taking them at all. Right now she was in her bedroom with the door closed, but I could tell she was still awake, working with her interface. Standing outside the room, I paused my media and tapped her feed.
Hi, SecUnit, she sent. Do you need something?
No, Dr. Mensah. How is your leg feeling? Do you need additional medication?
No, I’m fine. I shouldn’t need to take anything else until tomorrow morning.
Once we’d gotten back to the farm and I’d helped Mensah into the emergency vehicle, I mostly let the adult humans take over. They had done a lot to treat her at the hospital, but I knew they’d sent medication home with her the next day. I wasn’t familiar with the proper dosage or timings. If something was wearing off, maybe the pain was preventing Mensah from sleeping.
I knew enough by now to never take her at face value when she claimed to be fine. Can I come in?
She sent an affirmative so I opened the door and stepped inside. She was sitting up on the bed with her back against the cushioned headboard. I thought she looked tired, but it was clear from her clothes and the neat bedding that she wasn’t intending to start her rest period any time soon. Her injured leg was stretched out in front of her, supported by the recycler-printed lattice cast wrapped around it.
I sat in the chair to the side of the bed and positioned two drones so I could see her face. (I could have my drones active in the house as long as I kept them out of people’s bedrooms when I wasn’t also in there. Yes, it’s an unnecessary security risk, and of course I’d tried to explain that. (Preservation has a lot of weird ideas about stuff like privacy. Mensah might be a very smart human, but she was still a Preservation human.))
Now that I was here, I wasn’t sure what to say. “Are you experiencing any pain? Is everything okay?”
Based on what I knew about her expressions, I decided the look she was giving me was patient and affectionate. “Thank you for checking in on me, SecUnit. My leg is all right, really. The hospital’s treatment was very thorough.”
I noticed she hadn’t answered my second question, so I kept quiet and waited. Silence makes humans uncomfortable and often they feel pressured to fill it by talking. It had worked on Mensah before. (As a SecUnit, it’s pretty easy for me to outlast humans with the whole “no speaking” thing, I’m great at keeping my mouth shut and doing nothing. Okay, yeah, so I may have started sorting my media in the background. Humans just do everything so slowly. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to look patient while they work out whatever they want to do or say next.)
Mensah shifted the way humans do when they’re feeling awkward, and I knew I’d been right. Finally, she said, “I’m glad you found me yesterday. I would have—well. I know I would have been okay. I wasn’t really in that much danger. Even if you hadn’t been here, someone would have found me before the situation was dire. But I just… hate feeling helpless like that. It always reminds me--”
She didn’t finish her statement but I was pretty sure I knew what it reminded her of. I didn’t know what to say that would help or make her feel better, and none of my frantic knowledge base searching was turning up anything useful. But I wanted her to know that she was safe now, so I did the only thing I could come up with. Shifting forward in the chair a little, I reached out and took her hand, like she was a client I was retrieving. (It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. She would always be my client; I would always retrieve her. I didn’t know how to tell her that.)
With my drone, I watched some of the tension leave her body. Her face softened into that happy expression that changes her eyes, makes them get funny in a good way, and I felt my insides melt a little. She squeezed my hand.
“I know I’m overreacting. It’s always just harder to sleep when Farai and Tano are away.”
Wow, I was really not good at this kind of thing. I’m just a murderbot; I’m not made for this. I had no idea what else to do, so I just squeezed her hand back.
Without meaning to, I remembered the panic I’d felt not knowing where she was or if she was still alive, and the intense wave of relief that had hit me when I heard her voice. Annoyingly, that forced me to think about what I’d been trying not to think about since then. (What the hell is wrong with you, Murderbot? What the fuck were you thinking? Why would you— humans do things like that. I don’t do things like that. I really didn’t want to deal with this.)
Before I knew what I was going to say, I blurted out like an idiot, “I’m sorry about, you know. When I found you. It…I don’t know why I did that.” Yeah, one of these days I was absolutely going to put that one-second delay on my stupid mouth. I needed to get around to it badly.
Her face briefly scrunched up in confusion, then smoothed out into a broad smile. “You don’t have to apologize for that. It felt...reassuring.”
“Reassuring” was not a word a human had ever used for me before. I didn’t know what to make of it. Something strange had happened in the organic parts of my chest when she smiled. “It was...weird. I was weird.”
I could tell she wanted to look at me but she fixed her eyes straight ahead near one of my drones, which I appreciated. “Many humans express emotions with our bodies, with physical touch like a hug or a kiss. It’s a very common behavior when we feel things like affection or concern or relief.” I opened my mouth to interject and she held up a hand to stop me. “Yes, I know you’re not human. But you’ve spent a lot of time around us observing how we act. Even among humans, preferences can vary, but I’ve always appreciated physical touch myself as a way to demonstrate care.” In my drone’s view, I could see a soft look on her face, the same kind from before that changed her eyes.
Huh. Was that why I’d done it? I did know that she appreciated being touched. And it’s true that I cared about Mensah. (Caring about things is terrible, generally, but somehow it always felt different with her. I couldn’t explain that one, either.) Whatever was still going on in my chest was spreading to more of me. I ran a quick diagnostic, pulled a performance report, but nothing looked off. I was uncomfortably aware of how many seconds had passed. I had to say something back to her.
“I was worried,” I admitted. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
She knit her fingers between mine, tightening her grip. “Thank you for coming to find me.”
I was experiencing a sensation in my body now like I was getting ready to fight something or facing down a hostile, but I couldn’t understand why. Threat assessment was absurdly low and holding steady. Still looking through my drone, I examined Mensah’s face and my mind flashed to the moment when I’d dropped down beside her in the grass. It was like I was having the same emotions all over again.
Before I knew it, words were coming out of my mouth. “Dr. Mensah? Could I do it again?” What the fuck. What was I saying? Why did my voice sound like that? I ran back the last two seconds and listened to myself. Oh, I think I actually really wanted to do this.
She seemed surprised, but her response came easily. “If you’d like to, yes. It’s all right.”
I got up on the bed on my knees and positioned myself facing her, feeling weirdly unsteady. I looked at her with my actual eyes. Before I could spend more time thinking about it or experience any more confusing emotions, I leaned towards her and softly kissed her on the forehead.
I lingered longer this time, reluctant to pull away. My organic bits were tangled up with a complex feeling I was having trouble interpreting. That sensation like I was supposed to get ready to fight something was getting stronger.
“Can I--?” It took me half a second to realize I was the one speaking. I felt like I was losing control of my speech output. (More than usual, I mean. Clearly it wasn’t the most functional to begin with.) I didn’t know what I wanted to ask. Or did I? It felt strange to look so directly at Mensah’s face, but it also felt like I couldn’t stop for some reason.
“If you want. Yes.” Mensah reached toward me like she wanted to touch me but hesitated like she did sometimes when she remembered I hate physical contact. Yes, that was just as strange and ironic in the moment as it seems. But right then I knew what I wanted; I took her outstretched hand and held it. I leaned in to kiss her forehead again.
The backburnered inputs I had monitoring her vitals alerted in my feed to tell me her heart rate and body temperature were higher than their average expected levels. I silenced them. I could already tell from the rise and fall of her chest that her breathing pattern was different than normal. I brushed my lips against her skin as I moved to kiss her on the cheek. Through a drone I saw her eyes close. She lifted her free hand and hesitated again.
Yes, I sent her. She tapped back an acknowledgment. Continuing her motion, she very softly pressed her fingertips to the side of my face.
I didn’t have any idea what I was doing at this point but I didn’t want to stop. (Okay, sure, I hadn’t had any idea what I was doing for a while now. It’s probably fair to argue I only have a good solid idea of what I’m doing in the range of 20 to 30 percent of the time.) I’d seen plenty of this kind of thing in my media, obviously, but that was always gross and weird. Wasn’t it? It still felt that way when I tried to remember scenes I’d fast-forwarded through. But none of those scenes had been like this. None of them had been about me and Mensah.
I kissed her cheek again. Then her other one, slowly, lingering. Then I had to kill more alerts from my inputs. I tweaked the parameters on the monitoring processes. She’d said this was how humans expressed feelings like care. I’m not human, but I guess I do have human parts and organic brain matter. I did care about Mensah. I still didn’t know how to explain all this, but maybe that was okay and I didn’t need to. Maybe it was enough for now just to know what I wanted. (I wanted this. And I wanted more of this.)
Her left hand was still clasped in my right. She raised her other hand and tapped my feed with a wordless request. Yes, I said. Gently, tenderly, she ran her thumb up and down the edge of my jaw. She was looking at me directly now, and I was feeling surprisingly okay about that. I interpreted her expression as pleased, but there was something more to it I didn’t understand, something that looked profound and complicated. I don’t know if it was all the thinking about stuff in my serials or some other thing, but all of a sudden I had an idea. Really, it was more like a need than an idea. Drawing my body closer, I shut my eyes and pressed my lips up against hers.
I could tell she was startled, but I felt her mouth relax into mine. Okay, so, I wasn’t really sure how this was supposed to work. Was I supposed to just stay like this? Oh shit, I hadn’t actually thought this far ahead. I retreated a little, suddenly nervous.
“SecUnit,” Mensah breathed. She was watching me with her eyes half-lidded. “Do you want to stop?”
No, I said in the feed, but I wasn’t sure how to explain any further. I don’t know how…?
The warmth on her face matched her voice when she spoke. “Would you like to continue? Do you want me to show you?”
Yes.
She gently ran her fingers through my hair, and I let her pull me back to her, shifting my whole body near enough to touch hers. Her familiar socks-hygiene-beverage smell washed over me, overwhelming, but not in a way that felt bad or gross. It was possible she didn’t even smell as much like dirty socks as I’d thought.
Her mouth moved softly against mine. Oh. Okay, maybe this was how it was supposed to work. I copied the technique, following her example. Huh, this was...surprisingly nice. I let her lead, doing my best to imitate the small twists, the delicate pressure and pull of her lips, to return the motions back to her. Mensah’s steady hand moved from my head to the back of my neck, brushing against my skin and my data port. I slid my arms around her and rubbed my palms in smooth motions over her shoulder blades. Her pulse was so strong I could feel it in the tips of my fingers. My own processes were going faster than usual; I felt fluid speeding through my circulatory system like I was full-out running.
I don’t need as much air as a human so Mensah broke the contact first, but I wanted more. I kissed her cheek again, then along the line of her jaw. She tilted her head up with a noise like a sigh and I kissed a line from her chin to the hollow of her neck. Trying to be careful with my strength, still aware of her injured leg, I pulled her even closer towards me, my hands moving down to the middle of her back. She wrapped her arms behind my body and rested her head on my shoulder. For a long moment, we held each other without saying anything. I wondered if she was also thinking back to that time on TranRollinHyfa when I’d let her hug me. It had been strange then and it was still strange now. It also hadn’t been entirely awful.
This was...I didn’t really have words for what this was, but it definitely wasn’t awful.
We stayed that way for what subjectively felt like hours but was objectively only a minute or two. (I could have checked the exact amount of time but I didn’t. I was distracted right then.) When we finally separated, she was beaming at me in a way that caused an intense emotional reaction in me I couldn’t interpret. The feeling was so overwhelming I had to pick up one of my backburnered drone inputs to look at her through and shift my gaze to the headboard over her shoulder. Gently, she stroked the side of my face while I tried not to worry about whatever was going on inside me. I closed my eyes instead and focused on the sensation of her fingertips on my skin.
I’ve said a lot that I don’t find touch comforting the way humans do. I know I lie a lot, but I was telling the truth about that. I guess maybe it’s possible for there to be exceptions to stuff you thought was built into your programming. In fact, now that I was thinking about it, it was Mensah who pointed out to me that I was never programmed to watch media.
Bending forward and down, I pressed my forehead to hers. I took both her hands in mine and massaged them, moving my thumbs in loose circles. Her skin was soft and dry, more creased and textured than my own unnaturally smooth organic parts. I liked the way she felt.
“Would it help if I stayed here with you for your rest period?” I asked.
Still hunched towards her, I let her gently turn my head to the side. She stretched her body forward and kissed me in three different places just behind my ear, then leaned her head against mine. She murmured, “It’s all right. I’ll be okay. You don’t need to do that.”
I touched her hair like she had touched mine. Brushing my hand over it slowly felt kind of nice. So did the low humming sound she made in response.
“But would it help?” I said. I backed up a bit so I could look at her again. “Will you sleep?”
I knew her well enough that I could read the answer on her face. I moved my hands to cradle her head and our mouths met again. I had a better idea what to do this time, though feeling the press of her tongue tracing my bottom lip was something new. (Not in a bad way.) When we withdrew, I wrapped her up in my arms again and just listened to her breathing and the beating of her heart.
“Yes,” she said into my chest, though I’d already made up my mind. “Please stay.”
“Okay, Dr. Mensah,” I promised. I didn’t let go of her. My insides were long past melted and, actually, I thought that was probably fine. “I will.”