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Why the fuck do humans breathe? My humans were trying to stay quiet for my sake (I would probably have an emotion about this later, when I could process things again) but they were too fucking noisy and I didn't feel like giving them credit just for trying right now.
Sixteen cycles ago, when this had first started and I'd still been able to pretend to be okay, I'd tried watching Sanctuary Moon to distract myself, but it had quickly become apparent that the movement and light and noise from my media affected me the same way that real sensory input did. I really missed my media. It would have helped distract me from the urge to rip this transit pod open and run to - I hadn't got that far. Anywhere but here. It wasn't a rational urge. There was nowhere I could go that didn't have noise or light.
I needed to get back to ART. ART would fix me.
Whatever the malware was that was affecting me, it stopped me from disabling the input from my eyes. The blindfold that Ratthi had made from a piece of his shirt was an improvement, but it was still letting too much light in and the knot was pressing uncomfortably against the back of my head. I shifted it, and for a moment I was assaulted by light. I couldn't stop myself from whimpering slightly. I would probably have felt embarrassed by that if I'd had any spare processing left to feel embarrassed.
The pod we were crammed into jerked to a halt.
Mensah whispered, "can you walk or shall we carry you?"
I tried to evaluate the options. I can think about more things than a human can, but a lot of my attention was taken up by trying to ignore the light and the breathing and being pressed against my humans on either side of me and the way the button on Mensah's clothes was pressing into my organic skin and the overwhelming urge to get away from here. Walking seemed like too much but having humans carry me seemed worse. "Walk," I muttered. 'Run,' I wanted to say.
The relatively small amount of sensory input in the pod was unbearable. It was time for it to get worse. The doors slid open and the ambient noise of the humans in the port area (talking, shoes hitting the floor, some asshole laughing) hit my ears and then kept going, tunneling right into my brain. (I don't think that's how sound is supposed to work but that's what it felt like.) I covered my ears with my hands. Like the blindfold, it helped a bit but not enough. Someone (Mensah?) wordlessly tugged on my upper arm. I could hear at least four separate conversations and couldn't make sense of any of them.
When my governor module was still active, I had been zapped by it so many times that I'd lost count. What was a bit of noise in comparison? I just needed to focus on getting to ART.
I took one step in the direction Mensah (or whoever. If they weren't Mensah they were just going to have to deal with being called Mensah because I didn't have the capacity to do anything else right now) pulled me. Okay. One down. However many to go. At least, unlike humans, I knew how to walk silently. (Or I'd thought I had. The hypersensitivity from the malware meant I was picking up minute sounds as my feet struck the floor.)
Some kind of bot started broadcasting a warning into the feed to stay clear of it. I tried to hack it to make it stop but the humans were making their human noises and Mensah was gripping my arm and the hood of the hoodie I had stolen for my disguise was flipped the wrong way around and pressing against my neck. Instead I told the noise to fuck off, which somehow worked.
Some deep part of me was trying to be concerned about doing my job as a SecUnit, pushing security alerts about stuff like not being connected to my drones or not evaluating the environment for threats or whatever. (I didn't know, because I kept deleting the alerts because looking at them was too much.) My humans were always telling me I needed to trust them more. I hoped they were right, because right now I didn't have much choice. If they weren't capable of assessing threats for themselves we were all going to have to deal with it and die, I guess.
We were close to ART now. I got through some more steps without running away or killing everyone. Then ART pinged me.
For a bot so advanced, ART has a surprising lack of awareness of how big its feed presence is. In other words, its ping felt like someone had shot an explosive right into the middle of my consciousness. I screamed and dropped to the floor and tried uselessly to wrap my arms around my head to keep ART out. ART prodded at me, radiating concern, which only made it more unbearable. (At least it kind of drowned out the noise of the humans around me, I guess. There were unfamiliar humans making concerned noises. Two people were trying to pick me up, I think. I was fairly sure they were my humans so I designated them both as Mensah so I wouldn't have to think about it.) I felt Gurathin in the feed, opening a private connection to ART.
ART withdrew from my mind. I had hoped it would be a relief, with ART's overwhelming presence gone, but it was replaced by the sensations of being dragged across the floor. Mensah's arms were digging into my armpits and her chest was jolting against my back as she carried me, and the other Mensah's fingernails were digging into my calves. They were both panting from the exertion of moving me.
We stopped moving, and mercifully the light faded to complete blackness. Wait, what? How? Oh, we must be inside ART now.
I ripped my blindfold off and threw it as hard as I could. Somehow, that didn't make me feel better. The humans dispersed, taking their breathing and clattering out of the range of my hearing. Someone tried to message me on the feed and ART intercepted it.
In a whisper rather than its usual shout, ART requested access to my systems. I granted it. It slid into my mind and started to look through my files. It hurt, but not as much as when it was unknowingly poking me, and I could bear a few seconds of this if it would end this whole mess.
ART found a file (the malware, presumably) that had somehow hidden itself from me and took it away into some secure part of itself. It withdrew to a slightly less uncomfortable position in the feed.
The malware is gone.
The floor was still pressing into me painfully. The hoodie sleeves were tight around my wrists. I didn't feel any different.
You haven't fucking fixed it. I had been counting on ART. I had only managed to make it this far because I'd told myself ART was going to fix me. Why hadn't it done what it was supposed to? What if it couldn't? I didn't know what I was going to do if it turned out I was stuck like this.
Every diagnostic I had run in the last few cycles had insisted I was fine. Maybe the malware ART had found was unrelated. Maybe there was no malware. Maybe I was stuck like this.
ART entered my mind again, and this time, not knowing what was going on or when it was going to stop, it was too much.
Get out. I tried to scrape together some kind of code to shove ART out, but it was about as effective as it would have been to go out of the airlock and physically push it. It withdrew anyway, either because it had found what it wanted or out of respect for my pathetic attempts to defend myself.
I'm sorry, it said.
Why didn't you fix the malware? I was relying on you, you useless asshole. ART probably didn't deserve that. I might have cared about that, if I could have found space for caring between the feeling of the floor pressing into my back and the hoodie (still inside out) crumpled up around my neck and my panic that this might be permanent.
It made no attempt at a sarcastic response. Shit, it really was worried about me. My shoe was digging into my ankle and I pulled it off and threw it somewhere. It thumped loudly against the wall. Ouch.
Now one of my feet was giving different temperature readings from the other, and that was bothering me. I ripped the second shoe off and placed it beside me.
ART was staying away from me in the feed. Its silence was starting to get concerning. Why wasn't it fixing me? Every second of this was unbearable and I needed it to stop right now.
I have successfully eliminated the malware, however, your systems have become sensitized. They may take multiple cycles to return to normal.
Multiple cycles? No, that wasn't right. That couldn't be right. It was supposed to stop right now. I couldn't deal with this for another minute, let alone cycles. I tried to push myself up, wanting to run away from everything that was hurting me, but where could I go to escape something that my own systems were doing to me? I was stuck with this whether I liked it or not. And I really didn't like it.
It will fade gradually. I am turning off the gravity to make you more comfortable. I'm sorry I can't solve everything, but you will not go through this alone.
Oh, fuck you and your supportive attitude. I could feel the pressure decrease on the parts of me that were in contact with the floor, then disappear altogether. Okay, that did actually help. After a couple of minutes floating like that, for the first time in way too long I wasn't feeling quite so overwhelmed. The hoodie was still bothering me (it had switched to pressing against my throat now that the hood was floating freely), but on its own it wasn't quite so unbearable.
ART must have drifted me into a room or something, because I heard a hatch shutting quietly. I drifted for a while, trying to work up the energy to deal with the hoodie. Once I got it to stop touching me I would feel better, but taking it off would be unpleasant. Somehow I couldn't make myself deal with that temporary unpleasantness.
I had won fights with almost impossible odds before, multiple times, and I wasn't going to be defeated by a fucking piece of clothing.
I gripped the bottom and pulled it over my head. The fabric scraped all the way up the back of my head. I was glad it was completely dark and no one except ART was around because I think my face and possibly my voice did something as the fabric rustled over my ears. I managed to fight my way out of it and plopped it in the air to float off somewhere and finally, finally I had eliminated everything. (Okay, ART had done most of it.) The rest of my clothes were comfortable enough to be bearable. For the first time in the last sixteen cycles my surroundings felt like something I could actually exist in.
I didn't have to think any more. I just had to wait until it was over.
And, oh, great, I finally had enough processing space to start to feel embarrassed.
ART sent me a very gentle ping, and it was just about bearable so I opened a feed connection.
I have examined the malware and will share the results with you when you're ready.
I am ready, I lied. I wanted to look at code right now about as much as I wanted a fauna to eat one of my humans, but I could probably just about push myself to handle it. I wanted to know what had happened as soon as possible. If looking at code was equivalent to one human being eaten, then not being able to defend myself against this threat in the future was more like a three on the humans being eaten by fauna scale. (Possibly more, if one of them was Gurathin.)
No you're not, ART said, in its annoying authoritative way. It will wait until you're ready. I will protect you.
Fuck you, I said, because it was right.
It ended the connection. Too exhausted to do anything else, I drifted in the freedom of silence and darkness.