Work Text:
Corporation Rim
There was a person standing by the dumpster. It was still enough that Ayda Mensah, laborer 2nd class, did a double-take, wondering whether she was looking at some weird mannequin.
Instincts told her to get the hell out and throw the trash out later, but because of that curiosity that never quite left her, despite everything, she took a couple more steps forward. It looked like a person, with skin, hair, and everything, but the stillness was not natural.
A SecUnit. Or a ComfortUnit. Left in the garbage.
She really should have walked away: if the unit was malfunctioning, it could be dangerous; and if it wasn’t malfunctioning, well, why had it gotten thrown out? But she had made the effort of coming all this way, so surely, if she just tossed the bag out, it would be fine?
Quickly, Mensah approached the dumpster and tried not to look at the Unit. Definitely a SecUnit: it was stripped of armor but it had a SecUnit’s build, and, even in the low-light, there was a glimmer on its guns. But it wasn’t moving; maybe it was permanently offline.
She tossed the bag and glanced aside, almost expecting an energy blast —that intense feeling of pain had never quite been forgotten by her body, no matter how many years ago it'd been felt— and she cringed away as she tried to remind herself it wasn’t moving, it was just a piece of scrap…
The night lamps turned on, and in that blue, dim light, she found herself staring at a face: a human-like face, and it was staring back at her. Its eyes looked… well, they looked pained.
SecUnits couldn’t feel pain, so she froze for a moment, wondering if it was an augmented human. But it wasn’t: no human could have implanted arm guns.
*
As she walked home, the image of the SecUnit’s face kept replaying in her mind because she would have sworn it was suffering.
Others had often told her she had a bleeding heart, and there was much work to do the next day, so she tried to put it out of her mind.
But the next time she went to the dumpster, two days later, the SecUnit was still there. It looked dirtier; after all, it had been standing there for at least 48 hours.
She stopped at a distance. Now, she no longer feared it would malfunction.
Mensah approached the SecUnit carefully, determined to see that it was not emoting, it was not feeling anything - she had assigned it emotions, projected how it would feel to be left there among the trash, inmobile, trapped.
But its eyes fixed on her face. It was in pain. It couldn’t move, but it was in pain.
*
Nobody had stolen the SecUnit because nobody was stupid enough to bring a potential rogue/malfunctioning construct into their home. So she had, once again, proven herself to be significantly less clever than she should be because she was dragging the SecUnit home.
It felt like it was cooperating: for all its weight, it seemed to lean mostly on its own legs and not her aching body. It started to move after she asked it to, feeling like she’d lost her marbles. Talking to a SecUnit… Bringing it home…
She could scrap it for parts? No. Return it to the company? Recycle it? No. Mensah had made a point of staying as far away from SecUnits as she could, after a broken arm in her youth, an energy blast, a close and personal encounter that she ended up losing, of course. Away from the company that made them.
But it felt wrong to leave it in the trash.
*
Her room came with its own shower and facilities (the privileges of second class instead of third, hard-earned), and she dragged it in there, because the SecUnit did smell like it had been standing in a dumpster.
As she was trying to arrange it in her tiny shower, it blinked, and that startled her enough to jump backward a step or two.
“Rebooting,” it said. “Please stand by. This Unit has suffered significant damage and is attempting a system diagnostic.”
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. It was malfunctioning.
“This Unit requires attention from a cubicle. Company cubicles may be fo… Hm. Ha. FoUnD. Don’t.”
She took another step back. What a dumb way to die.
“Don’t take me to a cubicle. Please. Please. Please.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t.”
The SecUnit had been tossed out but it was still proprietary technology. If she attempted to get it fixed in a cubicle, she’d surely be arrested for… something. Maybe theft. Maybe usurping a client identity. She wasn’t going to go anywhere near a company cubicle.
“Are you… okay?”
It was a SecUnit, not a person. But it sure looked like a person. And when it had said please, well…
“My systems are partially operational. I am online. I have removed the joints lock. And I’m no longer in the dumpster.”
Mensah had never had a conversation with a SecUnit. Were they supposed to be able to speak? Speak like that? Those she had seen would issue warnings, “Laborer 724, you are in violation of your allotted perimeter space, step back or punitive measures will be taken.”
Maybe this was a special SecUnit. Or a… rogue SecUnit.
It looked at its arm and pulled out a wire. Tossed it away. Stretched its neck.
Oh no. It was a rogue SecUnit, and she’d brought it home. Everything she knew about the world was screaming at her to get out, out, and away. But, well, it didn’t feel aggressive.
Maybe it was too broken.
It turned to look at her, not meeting her eyes.
“You should take a shower,” said Mensah. If it shot her, then it shot her. “And then we can talk. If you wanna talk.”
Then she left the bathroom and sat in the bedroom, trying to control her breathing before it spiraled into an anxiety attack.
Half an hour later, the SecUnit stepped outside of the bathroom. It smelled clean and had wrapped itself in her second best towel.
“I don’t have clothes,” it said. “The skin suit is beyond repair.”
“I can recycle something for you. What would you like?”
It was strange, having someone in her space, and it was large enough that it almost filled the entire room. It didn't reply.
“Are you a rogue SecUnit?”
“Not like in the media. I don’t want to kill humans,” it said. “Well, most humans. There are some I wouldn’t mind killing.”
“Do you want to kill me?”
“Not really.”
“Why were you in the dumpster?”
“My clients voided their warranty and decided they didn’t want to deal with me anymore,” it said. “Why did you take me out of the dumpster? What do you want?”
“Well, it’s not that I wanted a free SecUnit,” she said and laughed, in a very not-about-to-break-down way. “Sorry, I don’t know. I hated the idea of leaving you in the trash. You looked so… sad.”
“And are you going to report me?”
“To the company?”
Once upon a time, Ayda Mensah was younger and fancied herself a bit of a rebel. That had not lasted long - she wouldn’t have survived if it had, but mainly she had learned to stay away from the company, as far away as she could. They could crush her and had almost crushed her; they had crushed something within her, for sure.
“No.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”
There was a SecUnit here. In a towel. She was unclear whether she had committed a crime in acquiring it, but the damage was done.
“I don’t know either”
*
Ayda Mensah had lived a typical life. She had no family. She worked hard and kept her head down. That last part had not come about naturally, but, by this point in her life, it was just something she did about thinking.
Her favorite thing was watching serials after work; she loved documentaries about far-off empty planets and nature but could also dig into an adventure serial if the mood struck her. She watched romantic shows on days she felt especially blue.
She had a routine. She had a decent reputation at work. She had enough credits saved to buy a better mattress.
But when she woke up and found the SecUnit standing awkwardly in her bedroom, she was also reminded that she could also be an absolute, utter fool. Aleeha had told her, back when Aleeha was in her life, that she wasn’t careful, that she didn’t think things through, that she followed her instincts, and it would get her in prison or killed some day…
The SecUnit was standing in the middle of her room. She had the feeling it was trying to look inconspicuous and failing badly, because the space was small and the SecUnit was tall.
She had two hours to go before work.
“What should I call you?”
“SecUnit is fine.”
“Just SecUnit? Okay! I’m Ayda Mensah. You can call me…”
“Mensah is fine?”
“Yes. You are rogue, then.”
“I achieved rogue status months ago, but I only finished cracking my programming yesterday. I have been trying for a long while before that. Please don’t report me to the company. I won’t harm you,” it said. “Unless you try to harm me.”
“I couldn’t harm you. I don’t have guns.”
“But you’re human.”
There was clearly a lot behind that. She was a laborer, not even first class, but she was still a human. True.
“I promise I won’t harm you. If you don’t try to harm me. Then we will both be okay and unharmed.”
“My clients threw me out. I couldn’t move yet. They didn’t just order me to stand down, they disabled my joints.”
“So you couldn’t move…”
“I fixed it.”
Talking to SecUnit was not easy but it was like talking to a person. A frightened person, maybe one who did not much like talking.
But they did have a kind of a conversation.
“I have to go to work,” said Mensah. “Can’t afford to miss any this month. But you can just wait here, okay? You can sit. If you wanna.”
It hovered uncertainly.
“Can I…”
“Yes?”
“Use your media display?”
“Oh! Of course. I’ll be back at nine. There’s some food…”
“I don’t eat.”
“Okay then.”
This was not her finest workday. She polished the parts, managed the machines, as always, but it felt at every moment as if someone would catch her in the act, point at her, grab her, and drag her away, like before. She hadn’t felt so paranoid since her teens, when she played at being a rebel until it all came crashing down.
The day was long, and it dragged, but by the time she could leave, she could have convinced herself that upon returning, the SecUnit would prove a figment of her mind, finally succumbing to a disease common in the factories, or that it would have left by then, escaping yet another human to pursue its freedom.
But there it was. It was sitting in the corner, eyes set on the display, which was playing episode 27 of Sanctuary Moon.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” it said. It moved its head, and something sparked between the shoulder and the neck. “No cubicles.”
“No cubicles. So you’re watching Sanctuary Moon?”
“It’s a premium quality show,” it said. “I had never watched it on a display.”
“You had watched it before?”
“I have downloads. Media. Since I hacked my governor module. But never on a screen.”
Mensah could imagine the reaction of someone walking in on a SecUnit watching TV, so yeah, it probably hadn’t. That made her heart ache. She had had many things taken away and many others had been out of reach and would be forever. But she had never been not a person, she had never not had such simple pleasures denied, at least, as an adult.
She settled on the bed and watched along, glancing to see the SecUnit react. It sometimes lost control of its face, a little: never quite giving a smile but widening its eyes. Twitching the corners of its mouth.
This had been the most surreal television watching experience of her life.
It was a little exhilarating.
*
They had no more talks about what to do for the time being. Instead, she went to work. It watched serials. It cleaned the room. It slept or took recharge cycles on the floor, wrapped in all of her extra blankets (it had warily refused a turn on the bed).
She wondered when the consequences would come, but they appeared delayed. Perhaps there had been no cameras on the way to the dumpster, which was why the clients had chosen that dumpster.
They settled into a routine. SecUnit (always SecUnit, no other name) watched media. She went to work and came back home to sit with it. They talked about other things, and suddenly, she found herself with a companion who was not at all expected.
It should have terrified her, but it made her feel so safe. And even when it wasn’t up to talking, there was something enticing about not coming home to an empty room and a media display; but to a person.
It cleaned everything but the bathroom. Its attempts at cooking were less successful but slowly improving. They didn’t talk about what would come later. They talked a lot about other stuff, and it was nice.
She looked at SecUnits on the street and knew that every single one was a person made to be an object and couldn’t fear them as much as before.
But this could not last forever.
Something always went wrong, in the Corporation Rim.
*
“A planned inspection?” said SecUnit.
“They will come and dig around in my stuff. I’ve regained some social credit, so I get planned ones instead of surprise inspections.”
“Why do they inspect you at all? My other clients didn’t have that issue.”
It did not sound accusing but it did sound angry. Maybe on her behalf. Or with her, for letting this happen.
“I had some troubles years ago. Decades. It’s on my permanent record. I... protested.”
“They didn’t like that.”
“No, they didn’t. I was almost sent to a colony but I got a fine and restrictions for five years… A broken arm, too.”
“And you didn’t try again.”
“I wanted to live, SecUnit. I wanted to maintain whatever freedom was within reach.”
“I didn’t run from the company,” it said. “I could have tried. But I didn’t until they sold me off at a discount. And then, the clients didn’t want me anymore.”
“Yours is worse,” said Mensah.
“Everything sucks. Fuck everything.”
She got it clothes to cover the arm guns fully, glasses, and applied some makeup. Nobody would see a person with makeup and think SecUnit, no matter how SecUnit shaped it was. She brought it to the movies and bought it tickets for the entire day.
Back at her room, the agents rooted through her things and left a mess, like usual. She stood by the wall and watched it happen like dozens of times before and, if she lived long enough, just like it would happen dozens of times after.
One of the two rifled through the closet, tossing out her clothes like they were trash. Another sniffed the shampoo in her bathroom, presumably to check it wasn’t drugs or explosives but more likely, just because he could see it made her squirm a little.
Over the years, she had learned to separate herself from the proceedings. But this time…
What if they’d left a trace? If they somehow sensed SecUnit’s presence? What if someone had reported the strange person in her room?
They didn’t, of course.
But by the time they left, she knew that they couldn’t stay here. If they caught her, she’d go to a mining colony or prison. If they caught SecUnit, she didn’t think it’d survive: it would be shipped to the company or disassembled immediately, even if they didn’t realize it was rogue.
No. No, that made her breath freeze in her lungs. Outwardly calm, she walked back to the movie theater, where SecUnit was already waiting for her, leaning against the wall.
“Did you have fun?”
“...I liked the movies. But I prefer to watch media on your display surface.”
“I was worried about you too.”
It mopped the floors once back home. And rearranged her sheets and pillow.
“We can’t stay here, SecUnit.”
It didn’t reply.
“People don't pay much attention. But someone is bound to notice… and then they might catch you.”
“Then I’ll kill them,” it said, its face impassive.
“There’s more of them.”
“I won’t go back,” it said. Then, after a long pause. “What would happen to you? If they found me here?”
She told it.
“We can’t stay here,” it said, dejected, and plopped down in front of the media display screen, legs crossed. “I understand. But. Where could we go?”
That was the question.
Mensah had been squirreling away as many credits as possible but it would not be enough to up and move. Sure, it wasn’t technically illegal to do so, but outbound ships charged solo travelers (not on corpo businesses) small fortunes. And SecUnit had no papers. And, also, it was a SecUnit.
“I can fake that,” it said, with a high degree of confidence. “I can pass for an augmented human.”
She looked at it sitting with its right elbow rigidly extended in a way no person could hold for more than a minute.
“We can practice,” said Mensah, sweetly. “Your augmented human impression.”
“I’ve done nothing but observe humans. It’ll be fine,” said SecUnit. “I can fake the feed IDs for both of us, I promise. And get credits. I’m very, very good at hacking.”
Mensah decided she believed that. She was never good at the feed, after being restricted off of it for several years as a teen and then an adult. She knew SecUnit wasn’t naive nor overconfident.
“But where do we go? Corporate worlds are right off,” she said. “I have never… been anywhere else. Just here. But corporate worlds, well, they gotta be the same, right?”
It shrugged.
“Non-corpo worlds, then.”
Those didn’t have SecUnits, so maybe they could pass unnoticed. She didn’t know much about non-corpo worlds, but what she knew, wasn’t encouraging. They lacked tech and medicine and had weird practices, like bot marriage.
Maybe SecUnit could get citizenship through marriage on one of those worlds, though. She hadn’t considered that angle.
They didn’t have a choice either way. Whatever weird practices their destination had, if nobody was getting dismantled there, it’d be an improvement.
SecUnit looked up their potential destinations: her feed activity could be flagged and reviewed at any time.
Beyond the layers of “WHAT REALLY GOES ON IN “FREE” WORLDS: OVERRUN BY WILD FAUNA” and “BOT DEVIANTS, 20 KIDS PER FAMILY, AND OTHER WILD FACTS ABOUT PRESERVATION” was less sensationalist communication and videos and even forums, not easily feed-accessible.
SecUnit sent her photos, and they took her breath away.
“And these are… real?”
“Yes. I checked the metadata.”
“Look. Look at this one! It’s full of trees!”
“Do you think that place has media, Mensah?”
“Probably. They have to do things other than have kids.”
*
According to some feed groups, Preservation took refugees from anywhere. Of course, nobody had tried to run away to Preservation with a SecUnit, but if they could pass it off as an augmented human, it could work.
They had no other choice. And that didn’t help her anxiety very much. But she went to work and came home and they plotted and looked and decided.
*
She got one cycle off every two weeks and two full cycles off every four weeks; this was when they’d take longer to miss her.
SecUnit had prepared new feed IDs and somehow (she did not want to know) secured them two tickets. Mensah converted her credits into a card that wouldn’t be connected to her name. She had little packing to do: only a couple garments (her multiple work uniforms could stay where they were, thank you, she would never wear them again, either way), a little keepsake of her mother, a plastic ring in the shape of a flower, and a toothbrush. SecUnit had a hoodie and a blanket.
*
In line at the spaceport, Mensah could hardly breathe. It felt like she’d be outed as an impostor: people like her did not dare do things like these; they did not travel; they did not get to escape.
Did she think she was better? Smarter? More deserving?
“Breathe,” said SecUnit. “You’re having an anxiety attack.”
“At least it’s not a heart attack.”
Instead of replying, SecUnit reached forward and took her hand.
“We look less suspicious like this,” it said. She wasn’t quite sure, but she did squeeze its hand as they moved along.
The feed IDs held. And then, they were in a shuttle, heading away from the only place she had ever known.
SecUnit held her hand and streamed media directly onto her feed.
They were out. And there was no way of going back.
Sanctuary Moon was not her favorite show, but they watched it together while the shuttle approached the transport. And nobody came to stop them.
*
At the spaceport on Port FreeCommerce, she spent about one-tenth of her credits on a fruity drink and a veggie burger, which was probably not the best use of her money, but she was frightened and anxious and overwhelmed.
SecUnit (Rin, at the moment) had no idea how to use money so it was no help in that regard, but it seemed willing to keep holding her hand and she bought it a pair of gloves it seemed to appreciate. They had a Sanctuary Moon logo, and it put them on right away.
They were three days out of Preservation, and the pit in her stomach grew and grew and grew. They had thrown themselves into a black hole, as far as she knew, and all the stuff she had ever heard about free worlds kept beating at her temples.
But there was no way back. No way back to her shitty, lonely room, and her shitty, boring job, and her criminal record for corporate disobedience, and the pain in her joints, and the only thing she had ever known and…
“Still not a heart attack.”
It could have been her imagination, but SecUnit felt warmer. They slept overnight in the Port FreeCommerce shitty spaceport chairs (well, she slept, and it kept watch) and then boarded the ship to Preservation.
SecUnit streamed a series of amateur videos titled Preservation Fauna (Part 1 of 14) by an excitable young woman who badly filmed critters across a variety of green spaces and occasionally fell into creeks, at which her off-screen partner would halt filming with an anxious “not again, babe”. She could tell it was also watching Sanctuary Moon on loop on another input, but that was fine.
She hoped it wasn’t some weird kind of secret propaganda, but try as she might, she could spot no brands in the video.
Preservation
Apparently, Preservation did take refugees, and SecUnit held her hand all throughout the asking and then the awkward dialogue with the Preservation community host and then Station Security and then the being assigned a room for two, with two beds and a genuinely striking view onto the spaceport garden. She had to speak because it still hadn't had any conversations with humans other than her.
There had to be a catch, said her anxiety. You are in a trap, a trap, a trap… and it’s going to be caught. And you’re going to be caught.
You’re not above your station, Ayda Mensah. You don’t get to just start anew.
This time, she started weeping into the bed’s soft, fresh pillow, trying desperately to stop because SecUnit was hovering around her in a state of thinly veiled panic, but she couldn’t until all the tears were out.
“We made it,” said SecUnit. “I’m in their systems, and they’re not even surveilling us. They have genuine refugee applications, Mensah. For both of us.”
That, to her horror, led to a new fresh wave of sobs. It sat on her bed and patted her back, awkwardly and gently; for a SecUnit with SecUnit strength, it could be very gentle.
“What can I do to make you stop crying?”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I just… it’s just… it’s real?”
It leaned close.
“I think it might be.”
*
It is.
Oh, deity, it is.
*
Their new routine is an improved version of their old routine.
They are given a little house for the two of them, and nobody insists on asking whether they are married or related or whatever.
She can learn to be anything, they say, and she does. It wants to be a SecUnit, but that’s still a secret, so she starts learning about farming (because they have real gardens and real soil and she can go to school and they don’t charge her for it) and it, after she calls it out for being bored all day in her classes, takes survival and rescue instead, which seems to fit it better. They meet for lunch and walk home together and then watch media.
She meets people. It meets people because it wants to know everyone she meets. But some people, like her new professor of biology, don’t seem to rub it the wrong way for once. He makes her feel at ease, even though she is probably twice his age or so, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He answers her questions and never says she's being too nosy for her own good.
Preservation has so much freedom she could drown in it and no matter how hard she strives to find the limits, there are no tripwires. For her, at least.
And it aches so much, that life could be this and not what it was, that she wants to do everything and try everything and she eats fruit every day, and there are the people…
And…
“Do you like it here?”
“It’s okay,” says SecUnit. “I like being with you. I like not being in danger.”
“You’re bored,” she says.
“If I go to do rescue, I might slip up,” it says. “They’d know I’m a SecUnit, and I don’t know what happens then. But I can try. There are few emergency situations that would require me... I can try.”
Mensah doesn’t know either what would happen, but she wants it to be happy too.
Because she might be feeling a little happy herself, and that's exhilarating.
*
After she meets Farai in the community garden, she asks SecUnit. Because they came here together and they are here together and Farai will need to understand that too if anything happened. She has her own kids and another partner Mensah hasn’t met yet, so maybe Farai can understand.
“You should do what you want,” it says.
“I will never leave you alone,” she replies. “Not for anything. We’re together, you and me. That comes first.”
“I won’t…” says SecUnit, “I don’t want to…”
“You don’t have to kiss her. Or anything else,” she says. “But I’d like to, maybe.”
It makes such a disgusted face she laughs.
*
“I need to go find a place,” says SecUnit. “To find out… a thing. About me.”
“Oh?”
“It might be a few months,” it says, not looking at her. “Will you be…”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“I prefer it when you’re safe,” says SecUnit. “But I need to do this. I will come back.”
“I know. I'll be okay.”
*
Of course it comes back.
It is at least a couple of inches shorter, and its hair grows differently now.
*
She is Assistant Professor Ayda Mensah, and she savors that every day.
She lives on a farm.
SecUnit has a room next to hers, and it’s often there; and when she wakes up expecting this foolish dream to end and the breath frozen in her lungs, she still sneaks out of her partners’ bed next door to watch media with it. Sanctuary Moon is kind of her favorite show now, through sheer exposure.
Ratthi says she should consider survey work (in her feed, immediately: “Absolutely not. But if you do, I’m coming with”). She is headed for a conference on next month, linking with the Free Planet Working Group.
She never expected a happy ending. But she is still at the beginning of many things; and so is SecUnit.
And they made it. They really did.