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Dr. Gurathin was on a mission. Not one he especially wanted to do; he was headed straight back into the nightmare he’d left years before. There was no other option, though, so on he walked through the halls and concourses of Port Free Commerce, heading toward the employee apartments. There was one way he might – might! – be able to recover their SecUnit’s memories, and he was the only one who could do it.
He wasn’t doing it to be nice. Gurathin wasn’t a nice person. He knew this and was comfortable with it. “Nice” was a flaccid, near-meaningless descriptor, and he preferred to skip the bother of pretending he was something other than a grumpy, paranoid, emotionally-repressed mess of an augmented human. He’d done enough pretending in his life for four people, and he was sick of it.
And, honestly, “nice” had played very little role in his life thus far. He’d been raised on an agricultural colony, not by a family, but in an orphans’ creche. He had a few muddled memories of his parents before their deaths due to faulty equipment and ultimately due to corporate fuckwittery. In a way, he was lucky; his parents had been free agents, meaning the corporate payout for their deaths covered his upbringing in the creche. (Such as it was; “benign neglect” was about the best orphans could expect there.) If they’d been indentured, he would have been destined for indenture on the same ag colony the moment he came of age, maintaining harvester bots with cow shit on his boots. Instead, he had been able to leave the planet and promptly become an indent for another damned company in Corporation Rim.
All told, that indenture wasn’t the worst thing that could’ve happened to him. He was smart and quick to pick things up, and one of the supervisors spotted potential in him. He got to qualify for several tech certifications courtesy of the corporation, which landed him among a better class of indents and jobs that didn’t involve being knee-deep in sewer systems or trying not to get dismembered by malfunctioning equipment. For quite some time, he’d looked back on the experience fondly. He’d even been part of a nice polycule for a while.
Some of them had talked about trying to stay together after indenture. They’d fantasized about one of them getting out and making enough money to buy out the indenture of at least one of the others, starting their own business, making enough to buy out the others . . .
Gurathin had smiled and made sounds of encouragement at the time, but he’d never believed it was possible. People like him didn’t belong anywhere permanently.
Of course, it had never happened. Indents got split up all the time, and his partners eventually disappeared, working out their contracts or getting reassigned. He’d been left alone once more. At least it was familiar.
And then he was offered a chance to shorten his own indenture by getting neural augments. He knew damned well that a shortened indenture offer was code for “extremely dangerous,” but he took it anyway, because why not? It was a way to get ahead in the universe, and if the augments fried his brain, at least it was a way out.
Augments were never completely without risk, but that risk was generally low for simple cosmetic or even common neural augments. What the company ordered were not simple augments. They were extensive, invasive, and experimental. And the moment he awoke after surgery with the migraine to end all migraines, he knew he’d made a huge mistake.
Gods, he’d been such a stupid kid!
Most humans with more extensive neural augments struggled with them, especially at first. With all the new information constantly pinging in your brain, sensory overload was always a problem. It took time to integrate stimuli coming in through your senses and from the augments. People with neural augments had a not-undeserved reputation for being irritable, distracted, antisocial, and even obsessive. The mind needed something to ground it, so they would latch onto something – music, a sport or game, careful rituals – to keep themselves sane.
It occurred to Gurathin that perhaps Sanctuary Moon could serve the same purpose for the SecUnit that called itself Murderbot. If so, it irritated him even more that he and the SecUnit kept having things in common.
That moment of waking, head throbbing like it was about to go critical, burning pain under his fingernails, and noise that wasn’t noise crowding his brain, was the first official before/after turning point of his life. A sympathetic-looking nurse-technician had given him a painkiller, one he would curse her for later.
That was the beginning. Painkillers to stop the migraines were followed by drugs to focus his mind and block out overstimulation. Those were followed by downers to help him sleep. Those were followed by euphoric stims to help him stay awake. And so on, and so forth, all proprietary to the company and highly addictive. It was how they kept him in line as they made him into the perfect corporate spy, able to hack into protected systems and carry away the information in his head with no one the wiser.
When he did well – and he did well often – he was treated to luxuries he’d never seen except on entertainment feeds. Parties, lavish banquets, high-rent hotels out of the reach of common plebs, all his as long as he was playing his part for the company.
When he failed, all they had to do was withhold the drugs. It generally took less than two days for him to start groveling. Sometimes he held out longer, sometimes an hour was too much. Either way, it was degrading.
But he was good. His augments were better than anything on the open market, and his mind had been razor-sharp to begin with. The company knew he was an asset, so they sent him out on mission after mission, confident he’d get them at least something, even if he wasn’t entirely successful. For the better part of two decades, he was on their leash.
And then the company had set him on Preservation Alliance. It was a simple enough mission: Meet Dr. Mensah “by chance” at a conference. Wheedle an invitation to contract on Preservation Station. Plant a backdoor for the company to exploit while hacking through their systems. It was nothing he hadn’t done a dozen times before.
Then he actually met Ayda Mensah, and it was all over.
That was the second before/after moment in his life. There was before her, and it was dark, and there was after her, and it was light.
At first, he tried to stick to the mission. He didn’t even know why he tried, but he did. Habit, perhaps. It was just . . . he was so tired. Tired of the pain, tired of the drugs, tired of having his chain yanked, tired of the fact that he’d made so many moral compromises that he didn’t even properly have morals anymore, yet he still felt buried in guilt over all the lives he’d helped ruin, even end. He had contemplated ending it all so many times. Now, facing someone who was so much better than he’d ever been, he knew he couldn’t go on.
One night, he finally faced her. She’d known he was under some sort of strain and had treated him with nothing but kindness. Everyone on Preservation Station had. It wasn’t something he was used to or even fully understood. He kept thinking they must have some sort of angle.
They didn’t. They were just kind. And he couldn’t help Corporation Rim destroy them.
So he told Mensah. He ran a “glitch” program in his augments to disrupt the feed from his superiors – at this distance, it was believable enough, and they didn’t keep close track of him anyway, believing the drugs were enough of a leash – and sat down across from her one evening.
“Dr. Mensah,” he began, but she interrupted him.
“Call me Ayda, please,” she said. “We’re off duty now.”
That caught him off-guard. Of course he knew Mensah had a given name, but hearing her ask him to use it was strangely intimate.
“Farid,” he replied automatically. “I’m Farid.” He hadn’t used his given name since childhood. He wanted to hear her use it.
She smiled warmly. “What’s on your mind, Farid?”
Before he could talk himself out of it, he laid it out for her. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m a corporate spy.”
The rest came spilling out almost uncontrollably. He couldn’t stop it. He confessed to the backdoor he’d inserted, the drug addiction, the suicidal thoughts, everything. At some point, he realized he was shaking and crying, which he hadn’t thought he was capable of anymore, yet here it was happening.
After he finally was able to stop, everything was silent. He couldn’t even look at her.
But then her soft, gentle hands slid over his. “Oh, Farid,” she breathed. “I’m so glad you told me.”
That was the moment he knew he’d do anything for her.
“We’ll get you out. We’ll get you clean. You’ll come live on Preservation. A man of your talents will have no trouble finding an occupation,” she said.
He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Ayda; they own me.”
There was suddenly flint in her eyes, and he was reminded that her kindness covered a soul of steel. “That’s what they think.”
They didn’t think it for long. Mensah brought in Pin-Lee, who swiftly found out that thanks to his sleeper agent status, Gurathin wasn’t technically employed by the corporation. He was as much a contractor with them as he was with Preservation. As long as he finished out his current contract, he was a free agent.
“So, what do I do?” he asked.
Pin-Lee shrugged. “Finish it, of course.” They grinned impishly. “I’m pretty sure you’re smart enough for a little malicious compliance.”
Spite was, it turned out, a pretty powerful motivator. He fulfilled his contract to the letter. Then he applied for (and was quickly granted) asylum on Preservation and they immediately hired him to upgrade their security systems and make sure Corporation Rim was firmly locked out.
They raged, but as his mission had been far from legal, they couldn’t do anything about it. The last communication he got from them was, “Enjoy withdrawal, asshole.” Which just showed how petty they could be.
He didn’t enjoy withdrawal. Even with the best medical care available on Preservation, it was most of a year of pure hell once his supply of drugs was used up. Unspeakable migraines that left him whimpering in dark rooms wanting to die, nausea so bad he was hospitalized for dehydration, insomnia, inability to focus on anything, hypersensitivity to light and sound, hallucinations, inability to regulate his emotions . . .
Through all of it, Mensah was there for him. Her presence soothed him. Her voice, her hands wrapped around his, the clean scent of her, were sometimes all he had to cling to. He knew his obsession with her was a sort of transference, but given that his mental health in general was somewhere between “terrible” and “nonexistent,” he didn’t bother trying to break himself of it. Maybe someday, he’d be ready, but he wasn’t yet.
He’d never say anything about it to her, because it was about him, not her. So he kept it inside. Once in a very long time, he’d break down and find something of hers and breathe in her scent, like one of his drugs from the bad old days. That wasn’t something he was proud of.
It wasn’t even like he wanted to be her spouse or lover. It had been a long, long time since he’d felt sexual desire, and he didn’t miss it. He didn’t want her to be his mother, either. That wasn’t what he needed. He just wanted . . .
He wanted to belong to her.
He didn’t, but he could belong to her people. He got to meet her family and friends, he worked with her, and eventually, he became part of her inner circle. They became his friends and coworkers. They accepted him into their midst, embraced him none-too-figuratively, even when he was awkward with them, which was most of the time. Still, Mensah was the only one who ever called him by his first name. The others called him Gurathin, or Gura, which was fine.
(“Gugu” was not, but Ratthi was far too puppy-like to yell at.)
They even accepted him after he came clean to them about his past. Pin-Lee had known he had worked for a company within Corporation Rim under some coercion, but nothing else. Mensah had, of course, been perfectly discreet. He was nervous about telling them, but he made himself do it, and the overwhelming response had been sympathetic. They’d been honored to receive his trust.
They became family to him, and he felt protective of them, especially as they embarked on the survey mission that sent up all the red flags in his brain. But it was Mensah he needed to protect most.
That was why, when he saw their rogue SecUnit broken on the ground after saving her life, all his paranoia evaporated, replaced by pure gratitude. He remembered kneeling by it and touching its helmet, the only part he figured wouldn’t hurt it, and saying, “It’s okay to shut down now. We’ll take care of you.”
And it had. It had trusted him, those strangely guileless blue eyes closing.
Then the company assholes had come along, taken it along with all the rest of their equipment, and made him a liar.
After all the trouble he’d gone to in order to become an honest man, Gurathin hated being made a liar. And spite was a powerful motivator.
***
He had no doubt Pin-Lee could get its body back. The real trick was its mind. In spite of what he’d told the others, he knew there was at least a little room for hope because memory wipes on constructs were never completely successful. It would have memory and personality stored in its organic parts. The trick was in its systems’ connection to those things, and its stored memories could be the link it needed. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was a chance.
Hence his current mission. He’d done some checking and located Landers. Perfect. Landers not only had the data systems access he needed, but he’d been one of Gurathin’s dealers back in the day. One of the less-assholish ones, too.
(The most assholish of them mysteriously found their feed infected with persistent malware that couldn’t be fully purged without the help of someone far above their pay grade. Gurathin could be petty, too.)
Nonetheless, it didn’t bother Gurathin to use the leverage of Landers’s past and his kid to get what he wanted. This was about restoring a sentient. One that deserved better than the fucking company that had done nothing but exploit it.
When he found the contents of SecUnit’s memory, Gurathin took a moment to enjoy the triumph, because this next part . . . well, it was going to suck.
“Download all.”
Its memories flooded into Gurathin’s augments and overflowed into his own organic tissue. The overload felt like it was going to blow his skull apart. Flashes of memory hit Gurathin in every one of his senses. It was far, far more than he was ever meant to contain, but he hoped he could long enough to get the memories back to where they belonged.
Once he disconnected, through the haze of pain and flashes of memories that weren’t his, he felt Landers helping him stand, babbling something about how he’d fry his neurons if he didn’t dump the data fast.
“That’s the plan,” Gurathin slurred. He just had to make it back up to PresAux’s suite.
Easier said than done. He was sure everyone who saw him as he stumbled through the station’s halls thought he was some strung-out junkie on a bender. Ha, if only they’d seen him ten years ago! He giggled a little hysterically at the thought. Then he threw up.
He managed to make it to a tram and rode it to a junction where he had to transfer. As he stepped out, someone decided he looked like a good target for theft and grabbed him. A few seconds later, that person was on the ground nursing a dislocated elbow and a broken nose, and Gurathin had blood on his hand. That was new.
“Bleed-over,” he muttered. “I’m part SecUnit now.” He giggled again, then staggered, vision going white. He braced himself against a nearby column. He wasn’t going to make it unless he dumped something. He bundled together a packet of Sanctuary Moon episodes and deleted it. Murderbot could be mad about it once they got him back.
His feed pinged that they had their SecUnit back at the suite. Good. Also, ow.
It felt like it took hours, but he dragged his sorry ass up to the suite and managed to open the door on his first try. He immediately bolted for the sink and vomited again, and there was Mensah, chiding herself for bringing him back to where he’d gotten addicted.
“I haven’t relapsed,” he reassured her, and tapped his ever-so-painful head. “I have it.”
Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Mensah and the others to realize what he’d done. They got SecUnit situated on a couch, looking somehow both like a deadly construct built for killing, and a little boy among strange adults at the same time. Gurathin sat beside him, and Bharadwaj connected their data ports, her hands shaking only slightly.
Then there was the glorious drain of pressure from his head as the memories uploaded to the SecUnit. He still had a headache, but it was no longer at apocalyptic levels.
“That’s it,” he said when his head was his own again. All there was to do was wait and see if they’d been successful.
Of course the first thing good old Murderbot did was bitch about its lost episodes. Still, Gurathin couldn’t help but smile at the laughter and tears of his favorite people. It had saved them, and now they’d saved it.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said dryly. Bharadwaj hugged him, and so did Mensah. It had all been worth it. “I only did it to mess with the company.”
He figured a lie that transparent was as good as the truth.
***
As Arada got their SecUnit into civilian clothes, Bharadwaj and Ratthi fussed over Gurathin, pressing a cup of ginger-ginseng tea and some electrolyte solution on him. He had to admit, it did wonders for him as the next few hours were filled with bureaucratic bullshit, and by the time they had their celebratory dinner, he even felt like eating. He kept glancing at SecUnit through the whole meal, seeing it quietly taking everything in, almost looking serene. What was it thinking?
As station evening set in, the team, exhausted, retired to their bunks. Gurathin did the same, though his racing brain, still swarming with echoes of SecUnit’s memories, wouldn’t let him sleep. That was why he was still awake when he saw SecUnit head for the door.
“I’m going to . . . check the perimeter,” it said when he stopped it.
He got it, or at least he thought he did. He tried to reassure it that it would find its place, that he would help it. It was possible he babbled a bit.
“Dr. Gurathin,” it finally, mercifully interrupted. “I need to check the perimeter.” It put a subtle emphasis on the word “need.”
And this time, Gurathin did get it. He had needed belonging more than anything when he found Preservation. But this SecUnit had always belonged to someone. It had always had a place and a purpose. Now, it needed to belong to itself.
Murderbot sent a small packet into Gurathin’s feed. He flinched just a little, his brain still feeling tender, and checked the file name. “For my humans,” it read. It was entrusting Gurathin with its message for them.
“You . . . need to check the perimeter,” he repeated, understanding. Bitter, but also sweet.
He was rewarded with a soft, “Thank you,” and the slightest smile.
Then it was gone, and Gurathin’s eyes filled with tears. For some reason, his augments felt somehow more like a part of him now, instead of something that had been inflicted upon him. “Thank you,” he whispered.
He had a feeling this was the third before/after moment of his life. He looked forward to seeing the “after.”