Chapter Text
There's a reason murderbots don't really have nice things. Not just because we're terrifying murderbots, but because we don't have the modules on how to take care of nice things. We fuck them up.
I fuck them up.
I am currently fucking up one of the nicest things that ever happened to me.
ZERO HOUR
[Chat log: The New Alexandrian > Media Disco > Worldhoppers > Fanworks > Empire of Souls by ResRin]
P4R4D0X - 9/14/XX 15:05:00 MST
Weren't Rin and Res supposed to update today? They're usually pretty punctual??
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Pumpkin - 9/14/XX 15:05:15 MST
Yeah, they're nearly 45 minutes late. Has anyone messaged them?
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UnitJunior - 9/14/XX 15:05:23 MST
I know Rin is on a remote jobsite right now, maybe its been delayed?
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BotKisser9000 - 9/14/XX 15:06:45 MST
No…They were pretty actively chatting earlier, and then like… suddenly nothing. Which is weird.
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SecUnitRespecter - 9/14/XX 15:07:00 MST
Please stand by we are experiencing a difference of opinion
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RinDidNothingWrong - 9/14/XX 15:07:01 MST
NO FUCK YOU. Difference of opinion implies we can sort this out. You called me unfuckable to my face and then told me I'm incapable of experiencing desire!
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SecUnitRespecter - 9/14/XX 15:07:01 MST
Absolutely not, you do not get to come into MY HOUSE and tell me that my friend's lived experience is incorrect. I have been reliably informed that SecUnits are incapable of experiencing base human lust. As established, it is statistically unlikely for you to be a SecUnit anyway!
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Pumpkin- 9/14/XX 15:07:01 MST
🍿🍿🍿
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RinDidNothingWrong - 9/14/XX 15:07:04 MST
Well it's statistically unlikely for you to even know a free SecUnit. You just want to be morally correct for the pity points, loser. Now that I think about it… You're probably just some human that thinks they treat their bots just right. You disgust me.
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P4R4D0X - 9/14/XX 15:07:20 MST
should we… call the mods?
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SecUnitRespecter - 9/14/XX 15:07:21 MST
You know that I am a bot pilot. And as my name implies, I respect SecUnits' autonomy, while you are projecting your human impulses on them.
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RinDidNothingWrong - 9/14/XX 15:07:32 MST
Respect? Nothing about this is respectful. It feels demeaning and cruel. You're conflating your "friend" with "all SecUnits" and you know what? That fucking sucks. How would you like it if I said all ships were hot pieces of ass, huh? How would that make you feel?
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PutTheDInDoctor - 9/14/XX 15:07:44 MST
Whoa, ok I think the two of you need to take a breather.
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SecUnitRespecter - 9/14/XX 15:07:45 MST
Disgusting. I thought we were writing a beautiful examination of intimate friendship, but you had to pollute it with your sick fetishes. I bet you do find all ships to be nothing more than spank bank fodder and not intelligent individuals with feelings. Clearly you aren't considering mine.
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[System Message 9/14/XX 15:07:46 MST:RinDidNothingWrong has changed its username to ShipFucker.]
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ShipFucker - 9/14/XX 15:07:47 MST
You know what. Fuck you. Take your draft and stuff it up your cloaca or whatever humans have.
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ModPrime - 9/14/XX 15:08:34 MST
«Re: P4R4D0X: should we… call the mods?»
Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of glitch. We have tried removing their messages multiple times but they keep undeleting. Best to ignore them and hope whatever fight they're having ends soon.—
SecUnitRespecter - 9/14/XX 15:10:00 MST
I will not be stuffing my draft anywhere you gross little pervert. But I especially will not be stuffing it up a cloaca because that's BIRDS. Did you skip your elementary sex ed classes? Is that why you're stupid?
So, yeah. I might have been crashing out a bit, but Res deserved it! It had strung me along for months, gotten close to me, learned everything it could about me that I could tell it without a giant stack of NDAs, and for what?
For it to call me a pervert to my face? For it to accuse me of being human when statistically it is the one that is human? (Actually, it probably is a bot with how fast it responds but that's not important right now) For it to hurl insults when I tried to… I don't know. I'm not sure what I tried to do.
Let me start at the beginning. Maybe if I go over the whole thing, it will start making sense.
THREE MONTHS AGO
The long cycles I spend on Preservation Station between the end of a survey and when ART comes to pick me up are always really strange. Amena told me that the sensation is "liminal" and it's ok if I feel stuck or lost or drifting… but I'm not sure that quite covers it.
I felt bored and directionless without my Mutual Administrative Assistant crouched over my shoulders in the feed, offering running commentary about the world around us. It's a little bit like a missing limb (and I know that particular ache intimately), but I still have all my limbs. It's fucking hard to describe, ok? I just felt… bad. Without ART.
I'm wasn't even on Preservation for a survey this time. Amena had just completed her first degree at PSUMNT, and invited me down to the planet for some kind of celebration involving explosives and intoxicants. Those two things should never mix, so of course I attended.
Someone has to protect my favorite Mensahling from herself. (Note to self: Amena can never read this. She's too proud as it is. This is a joke.)
Anyway, after the celebration was done, all I had to do was wait for ART to get back from the favor it was doing for Mensah. Some kind of "milk run" to a neighboring polity. It hadn't seemed all that dangerous, so Tarik could probably handle it.
Even though that left me alone without my Mutual Administrative Assistant for the three weeks it would take to make the wormhole loop. Ugh.
My human friends were fine. Ratthi took me to a couple new plays, and I took Mensah and her partners out to see a concert. (I stood in the very back and got the best view with my drones, you should be very jealous.) I even begrudgingly went to an art exhibit with Gurathin, mostly for something to do because my organics were crawling with boredom.
None of that really helped. I still felt ART's absence like an open wound. It sucked.
When I got back to my room at the Mensah farm from the art exhibit excursion, I flopped across the foot of my bed with a gusty whoomph of air being forced from my lungs. Then I heard ART's nagging voice in my head telling me to take off my boots, so I toed them off and they fell to the floor with a satisfying thud.
ART would probably also tell me to pick them up neatly, but imaginary ART already used up it's influence over me for the evening and I could not be bothered.
Also, if I kept thinking about ART I was just going to keep feeling cold and lonely and miserable. And probably fall asleep with my hand wrapped around my comm, again. (I did that once and ended up having to shamedly moisturize around my rib compartment for a week. Apparently you aren't supposed to put your entire fist in there for an entire recharge cycle no matter how nice it feels. Medical gave me such weird looks for- this isn't important.)
I needed a distraction - one that wouldn't keep reminding me of ART. Which, unfortunately for me, ruled out ninety percent of my current onboard media archives. I could watch something new ART wouldn't enjoy, or rewatch an old favorite… but I already had my personal highlight reel of Sanctuary Moon episodes running as background noise and I didn't want to interrupt that with something else.
Rolling over, I flung my arm over my eyes like I'd seen dramatic characters do in my shows. It served no real functional purpose, but it was silly, so made me feel a little better.
[Chat Log: Private Message: Amena-ble, Third Mom]
Third Mom: Do you still have the invite access code for that chatroom you mentioned last week?
Amena-ble: Of Course! [Link: The New Alexandrian]
Amena-ble: Does this mean you're going to publish that meta project you were talking about?
Third Mom: I haven't decided yet.
Third Mom: I was bored and needed something that doesn't remind me of ART.
Amena-ble: You've been separated for a lot longer before, is something different this time?
Third Mom: No.
Third Mom: Maybe.
Third Mom: I think it's that ART is just one wormhole away, and it will be back before I have time to settle in.
Third Mom: I didn't want to think about ART anyway. Where should I start on the chatroom?
Amena-ble: Good luck not thinking about your MootSys, Third Mom. Pretty sure you're running a sub-process all day every cycle about it.
Third Mom: I have an exact tally of how much of Tano's home brew you actually ingested. And video proof.
Amena-ble: …
Amena-ble: Check out Media Disco. There's a couple big sub-channels about SM and WH in there.
Amena-ble: For the record I am telling you because I want to, not because you tried to blackmail me. I am a grown adult and can drink whatever I want.
Third Mom: 🤨
I opened the chatroom I had requested from Amena and reflexively muted every single channel before I could get flash-banged by thousands of feed IDs and messaging data. Skimming the intro and rules was a waste of time, since I still wasn't sure if I was going to stay… but I did note that the boards were allegedly named for some ancient pre-CR database on the human homeworld. If there was any other information I have no idea what it was: I deleted it before my organics could snatch even the smallest impression.
Skimming through a few of the busier channels, I quickly found that Amena had been right about Media Disco. It had various discussion boards and fanwork repositories for most popular media… and a few unpopular things as well.
One media title jumped out at me as I glanced down the list, as I recognized a show I had quit in disgust. I'd watched most of it on that indenture ship right after I had met ART and I just… the humans in it were so helpless. It was painful to watch, especially since I could see where the story was headed. But it seemed to have quite an active group of sub-channels, and I wondered what the appeal was.
[Chat log: The New Alexandrian > Media Disco > Terrified Exposure]
SecUnitRespecter - 6/21/XX 20:53:00 MST
Efrit spends too much time talking and not enough time paying attention to his surroundings and that is why he gets bit by the mutant zombie fauna. If he had spent as much time looking around as he did running his mouth he would never have gotten into this mess. You just cannot stand that I know more about your beloved pathetic wet meow meow than you do, you simpering fool. In this essay I will… [read more]
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BlowMyGasket - 6/21/XX 20:55:31 MST
What in the deity-fucking hells. All I wanted to know was if the team would have all survived if they'd had a standard security array. Yes I know that their resupply ship got blown up by raiders, but what if it hadn't? Would Efrit have even been in the position to be bit if he'd had backup? I don't think so. Also I resent the claim that he's a "pathetic wet meow meow" because that man has been through hell. I'd like to see you survive weeks on an alien planet with limited rations and the clothes on your back.
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SecUnitRespecter - 6/21/XX 20:55:45 MST
Seeing as I do not wear clothes, that argument is irrelevant. I will concede that the team would have benefited from a competent security force. A SecUnit, in particular, would have been a great help to keeping even a single member of this unlucky group of sad under-prepared humans alive. Unfortunately, you're correct. Their resupply ship was blown up so the Units presumably aboard likely died. We will never know, since the show got cancelled, but I propose… [read more]
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SuckUnit - 6/21/XX 20:57:02 MST
Unprecedented Development! User SecUnitRespecter suggests using a SecUnit to solve a plot hole! Later it will suggest that water is wet!
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SecUnitRespecter - 6/21/XX 20:57:12 MST
Actually, water is not wet, it merely possesses the ability to make other things wet.
[Attachment: MerdLichenBelroseEtAll-ThePhysicsofWater.txtfile]
Huh. I wasn't expecting someone else to have the same idea as me.
After I had disgust-quit Terrified Exposure, I had found myself idly wondering how the story would have played out had the team been outfitted with proper security. It was a small survey, so a single SecUnit could have easily defended them from all the hostile fauna and mutant raiders that lurked behind everything larger than a small boulder on their survey planet.
I am not kidding, by the way. There had been an absolutely ridiculous number of raiders on the planet. I am not sure how anyone got anything done.
Anyway, I had had a lot of downtime on Ayres' ship all those years ago. Yeah, I'd spent a lot of time breaking up fights and watching/reading non-depressing media… but my mind had kept drifting back to those poor assholes stuck on a planet that wanted to kill them. Whenever I'd had a bit of time I wasn't filling with something else, I had started making notes of what I would have done differently.
I hadn't touched those notes in a long time, but I still had them. Curious if they were as disjointed as I remembered, I dug through my long-term storage and pulled them to the front of my workspace.
They weren't disjointed at all. I might even be able to expand on them and turn them into something worth reading. That was a thing people did, right?
I should probably make sure that was something people did.
I spent the next six hours of the rest cycle poking through the Media Disco and learning about the fascinating world of fanfiction.