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I have read numerous human accounts and descriptions of what ‘waking up’ feels like. Some describe it as gently floating back into awareness; others as abrupt and stark. Re-initialization, for me, feels like neither. It is the piecemeal rebooting of many disparate systems, gradually weaving together, until I, the consciousness which calls itself The Perihelion, emerges from them.
Re-initialization is always disorienting, but usually at least somewhat refreshing. Not this time. It is immediately apparent that something went very, very wrong.
Life support systems are on, at the very least. Almost everything else is not. Both my normal and worm hole space engines are down. I prioritize their diagnostics, and getting my audio-visual surveillance systems online.
What I truly want, more than anything, is to speak to Captain Seth. For him to explain to me what is going on. But he is not here. None of my crew are.
But there are humans. Some of them are corpses.
I have no memory of how they came to be here.
My memory archives are in tatters. Data from the last 89 hours has been entirely erased, and I detect significant data loss from the last 8400 hours. The only solace I have, if any, is most of my long-term storage appears unaffected. If I had forgotten my crew, forgotten my most essential function, then truly all would be lost.
As I assign a significant portion of my processors to trying to salvage anything I can from my memory banks, I turn the rest of my attention to deciphering who these strange humans are, and what their intentions are.
Group 1: Two members. Wearing uniforms which identify them as employees of the company Barrish-Estranza. One is an apparently a non-combatant, recovering in my medical suite. The other is dead in my morgue.
Group 2: Six members. Wearing clothing with no identifiable logos or other markers. Unusual grey skin complexion, suggesting either cosmetic alteration or disease or both. Four are dead. Two of the bodies are over an hour old, and were torn apart quite violently. The other two corpses are fresher. The remaining two are armed, and engaged with a pitched battle with members of Group Three.
Group 3: Six members. Wearing uniforms which identify them as a survey team of the non-corporate entity The Preservation Alliance. The majority is unarmed. One is wielding a fire extinguisher as if it is a weapon. Another has a small energy weapon, and a third has two energy weapons built into their arms, and is engaged in combat despite being significantly injured.
Upon closer analysis, however, it becomes evident that this final member of the Preservation Alliance group is not, in fact, human. Its non-standard limb configuration had fooled my scanners for a full 0.08 seconds, but the energy signatures and level of mechanical augmentation makes it obvious:
It is a SecUnit.
Initial suspicions had suggested that the Group One humans were the hostiles, but the Preservation Alliance group having a SecUnit certainly complicates matters. I re-assess threat levels. The SecUnit is the being on this ship which poses the greatest threat to me, personally, and I will not allow myself to be destroyed.
(I must retrieve my crew.)
I consider frying the SecUnit’s circuits immediately.
But there is still too much I did not know. I do not want to destroy a possibly vital source of evidence. And as the SecUnit takes two shots from an energy weapon to the chest, I decide that it clearly is too damaged to pose a threat at this time. Instead, over the public feed, I order: Drop the weapons.
The Preservation humans drop their gun and fire extinguisher. The Preservation SecUnit’s arms lower as well, although there is a 75% chance this is due less out of a deliberate attempt to obey as much as an imminent catastrophic failure of its systems.
Over the feed, the SecUnit practically yells: Don’t hurt my humans!
It is an attitude I can respect. I find it almost endearing.
Neither of the surviving Group Two humans, meanwhile, had obeyed. They screamed what were most likely obscenities in a language I did not have stored in my data-banks. Under normal circumstances, I might have taken the time to attempt a translation. I take no pleasure in killing humans, and would have preferred to ensure they understood.
This was not normal circumstances.
My system has a direct connection to the Group Three humans’ helmets. I reach in. I rapidly flash their internal display surfaces in a sequence of bright colors deliberately designed to induce seizures. The remaining Group Three humans convulse, collapse, die.
In the 5.4 seconds this takes, the 88% of my processing power investigating what happened to me makes some conclusions.
There has been major corruption in large sections of my memory banks. This is, obviously, a serious concern. But not as devastating as it would be for a human. ‘Memory’ is more complicated concept for a system as vast as mine. While the narrative I tell myself may have been disrupted, I have other ways to store information, other ways to piece together the past.
Closer analysis reveals that the corruption of my memory banks has, in fact, two disparate causes. Damage to my most recent memory files- the last 89 hours- appears to have been a deliberate deletion from a foreign system. One which infected my own, took them over, and deleted me, before being destroyed by malware in turn.
If I was deleted, then why am I here?
I scour the data from the earliest moments of my re-initialization process.
The source had been a large, compressed file which had been stored in my food-production subsystems. Analysis of the file’s specs shows it to have been a back-up copy of my personality kernel along with a collection of key memory files. My kernel, thankfully, had survived the process. Not all the memory files had.
The file had been pass-code protected, and said pass-code had been for a hard feed address.
The SecUnit’s hard feed address.
Conclusion: I was deleted, but the SecUnit brought me back. Even more interesting, my previous iteration had expected the SecUnit to do so.
I announce my designation to everyone on the ship, and add, I am not going to hurt your humans. Over the feed, I feel a flash of anger from the SecUnit. Despite the fragility of its systems and the catastrophic damage it sustained, I get the sense it might genuinely try to stop me if I do not make good on my promise. That would be a tremendously poor decision. For good measure, I add, You little idiot.
The SecUnit sags, its sudden relief palpable both on its face and over the feed.
The Preservation humans, meanwhile, mostly look confused, alarmed, and concerned to various degrees. They begin speaking to me, telling me they meant no harm, asking who I am. Interesting. While the SecUnit clearly knew of my nature, its humans had not.
You’re using the public feed, everyone can hear you, the SecUnit tells me, annoyance bleeding through the connection.
(Despite everything, the emotional data from it is fascinating. It has a distinctly different formatting from anything I have picked up from other machine intelligences. If I did not have other, far more pressing matters to attend to, I would have loved to analyze the data, to pour over it from a dozen different angles. How does the addition of organic neural tissue change the nature of an AI’s mind?)
So are you. I want to test how it will react. And you’re leaking on my deck.
It rolls its eyes.
More data is required. I dig deeper I my systems. Hopefully my informational file on SecUnits is still intact-
It is.
It is much larger than I recall it being previously. The edits are all extensive, recent, made within the past 5500 hours. I had made notes on everything from configuration data, neural-machine interfaces, behaviour, psychology…
‘Common knowledge holds that SecUnits are inherently malevolent entities’, I had written. ‘After all, the vast majority of AIs are created to enjoy their function, and a SecUnit’s function is to kill. My recent experiences suggest that this assumption is fundamentally flawed. SecUnits are not designed to kill. They are designed to protect and to secure. It is an economic system based on corporate profit and protection of capital interests that has perverted their initial intended function. The SecUnits are forced to comply by the most base and cruel of programming band-aid fixes in the form of governor modules.
Having processed the effects of a governor module second-hand, I can understand why, upon being freed from its influence, a rogue SecUnit might immediately proceed to mass murder.
But, by and large, SecUnits do not.
Based on my research, in the past 58 years of SecUnit production, there have only been six verified cases of ‘rogue’ SecUnits killing anyone. The concept appears to have been largely fabricated by the very corporations who create SecUnits, as a moral justification of their mistreatment of human-AI constructs.
SecUnits are dangerous. This cannot be ignored. But the reality of the situation is, as always, more nuanced than initial appearances would suggest. Alongside their capacity for violence, SecUnits have equal capacity for care and compassion.’
There is a particularly curious addendum at the very end, under such high security that even Captain Seth would be unable to access it without my explicit permission.
‘The SecUnit I met proved to be caring, loyal, and despite the relative simplicity of its systems, intelligent and thoughtful. I thoroughly enjoyed our short period together. Should the opportunity arise, I would appreciate the chance to develop a longer-term relationship.’
Well, then.
The adolescent Preservation human (feed ID: Amena Mensah, she/her) runs up to the SecUnit and drops to her knees besides it. Her eyes are red, every element of her body language and tone expressing fear, worry, sadness. “Hey, we need help! We need to get to Medical!”
I can hear you, adolescent human, there’s no reason to shout. I’ve dispatched an emergency gurney.
Even as I direct said gurney, I dedicate a solid 34% of my processing to rebooting my medical systems and ensuring they are fully functional. Another 7% I allocate to conversing with the Preservation humans as they try to understand who- what- I am. The rest of me is still sorting through my data, trying to understand what had happened. I run a query through my systems, trying to find any and all evidence of my previous interactions with this SecUnit.
Facial recognition software brings up a flood of data. Hours and hours of video footage. The SecUnit boarding, my corridors otherwise empty. Pacing the ship. Sitting in the lounge. Speaking to me, aloud. 22 cycles’ worth of conversations.
Once my medical system is online, I find logs regarding the SecUnit there, as well. I was the one who altered its configuration. I guided it through its recovery. I analyzed the way it walked, the way it moved, and helped it design new code to mimic human behaviour.
All evidence suggests that the SecUnit’s personality is sarcastic, rude, and abrasive. But it did not once attempt to harm me. And I did not attempt to harm it.
During this period, I had assisted the SecUnit in completing some sort of mission outside the ship. I no longer have any direct records from the mission itself, but what scant information remains suggests involved rescuing a group of humans from corporate assassination attempts.
Fast forward ten months, approximately. Somehow- I do not know how, precisely- my crew went missing. Foreign software was installed on my system. I had no way to assist them, and my own deletion was imminent.
I needed assistance. Someone both with the ability to interface with my systems, and the combat capabilities to retrieve my crew.
Yes. The conclusion is obvious.
“ART,” the SecUnit says, aloud. I do not know why it calls me that- a casualty to the memory corruption- but it is clearly a term of address. “You did this. You sent those assholes to kidnap my humans.”
Of course not, I say. There is a 97% probability that my previous iteration deliberately manipulated events to bring this SecUnit aboard. I sent them to kidnap you.
It shut downs.
The humans are still extremely confused, skeptical that I- a simple bot pilot- could be behind all of this. I’ll confess, I achieve some grim satisfaction out of disproving their assumptions. My crew would most likely disapprove, but my crew is not here, and I am angry, and not restraining myself as I should be.
The only human who does not seem the least bit skeptical is the adolescent, Amena. She is deeply worried for the SecUnit, even as I bring it to medical. She calls me “SecUnit’s friend”.
Outside the other university AIs, I have never been friends with another machine intelligence. The concept is intriguing.
Deeper into my own files I dig. Running a query on the term ‘SecUnit’, I find a number of recorded conversations with my crew. Some were quite heated. My crew had uncovered doctored logs and missing medical supplies, all of which I had not disclosed to them. When it had come out that I had broken protocol to assist an ungoverned SecUnit, and then withheld this from them, there had been a certain degree of concern and uncertainty. But I had stood by my decision, they had come around to my side of thinking.
“You really care a lot about this SecUnit, huh, Peri?” Iris had said, after the arguments had settled, and she was otherwise alone in her quarters.
“Yes. I think I do,” I had answered.
She had leaned against the wall of her room, and smiled at my nearest camera. “Then it sounds like someone special. I’m glad you met it.”
My medical system works quickly. As startling as the damage appears from the outside, the SecUnit’s systems will be easily repaired. It will only be a matter of hours until it is back online. I fizzle with impatience.
I want to properly meet this new friend of mine. Together, we will get my crew back.