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In his heart of hearts, Gurathin knew he was a selfish person.
The others would see the best and decide that this was Good and Heroic and other adjectives that simply didn’t apply to Gurathin. He did try to be good, in the way that was so effortless to them, but he was never sure if it counted when he was trying to do it to be like them. An inherently selfish motivation.
And this.
If he had had longer, or been less in his head about it (he’d laugh about that later, or never), he would’ve thought to grab extra storage. But Ratthi had seen it and it hadn’t known him and there would be a narrow window where he might be able to recover their SecUnit (it wasn’t theirs, but even in his own head, he didn’t know what terminology to use).
Before they processed it for information, it would be stored in the queue of other information waiting to be stripped down into profit and recycling.
A good person would find a way to sneak in, steal the information without hurting anyone or threatening to. But Gurathin was not good, and he didn’t have the time to even pretend, so instead he went to Landers and threatened to blow apart his life if the man didn’t do what he needed him to. Nevermind that Gurathin got out and got a life without debt and without constant cost measuring and Landers was probably still paying off the license for that small child in his home, still paying off having lost control of an asset.
Landers had what Gurathin wanted and so Gurathin took it.
He ignored Landers’ concern, because, again, he was not a good person. He didn’t really care what Landers thought or felt, even when that was concern for his well being. He had something he wanted far more than his own well being.
And there it was, hidden away from every useful search term, but not from that stupid show that it loved.
He authorised download. An objective five second and subjective twenty hours later, he convulsed, threw up the water he had had earlier and authorised his processors to delete the next collection in his triage of information to make more space for it.
Another five second, not twenty hours later and he authorised another mass deletion and finally felt the code finish downloading.
It wasn’t, for the lack of a better term, awake. It occupied only storage, data and binary without inputs or outputs connected to his own systems. Whatever it experienced from being in the computers, being in his augments should be much the same, if more cramped.
A warning flashed up that his motor-neural system was at danger of compromise. A quick scan and he decided to once again ask forgiveness rather than permission. Sanctuary Moon might have saved it, but now it had to go. He didn’t want to risk his functionality over a tv show it could download again later.
In its own processors, not his.
Landers was touching him, but Gurathin shrugged him off, staggering to his feet. He could overclock his systems for a while, maybe half an hour, before he would have to choose between damage and deleting more from one of them.
It would be more Sanctuary Moon. He didn’t want to give up anything more of himself.
Despite the dismissal, Landers helped him leave, not touching him, but opening doors ahead, verbally guiding Gurathin to the exit nearest the transit system as if Gurathin didn’t remember this walk in his muscles and pistons.
He didn’t say goodbye or thank you. He blackmailed the man, he wasn’t such a hypocrite as to thank him for his compliance.
On the transport, speeding between stops, he enjoyed the isolation that came from the between shifts hour and the fact that he seemed like a dangerously intoxicated manager in his expensive to the CR clothes and unfocused gaze.
Throwing up again probably helped sell it.
When he got back, he knew that everyone would be too overjoyed to make a fuss about what he had done. Later, they’d probably tell the story and try and make him a hero of some kind, that he did this because it was Right and Good.
He didn’t. And the SecUnit was probably the only one who would have understood why he did it, if he had ever been inclined to say.
He did it because he was selfish. Because Mensah loved it, like she did her family. She listened to it and trusted it and it would keep her safe. And she would let it do that when no one else was allowed to.
When she wouldn’t let, or trust, Gurathin to do it.
SecUnit would keep her safe and that, selfishly, is why he’d do anything to get it back to her.