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Ayda sat in the galley when the message arrived; the spicy warmth of her tea fighting the sterile scent of disinfectant stubbornly clinging to her nose. It wasn’t a message exactly, closer to an automatic alert (though she was unsure whether a ship as advanced as the Perihelion had such a thing).
[Update: Approximate time remaining: 92 minutes and 16 seconds]
She’d barely read it when the second message arrived; 114 minutes and 5 seconds. That had never happened before. From what she’d understood SecUnit’s injuries were far from complicated and it’d been in surgery well over an hour.
Had there been complications? No matter the skill of the surgeon it was always a risk. Was its injuries worse than Perihelion had first assumed? That didn’t make any sense. For all the time she’d spent aboard she’d never known it to make that kind of mistake, especially regarding SecUnit.
Complications then.
Her mind helpfully supplied every surgery-related horror story she’d heard before branching out, expanding. Presenting every dreadful scenario where SecUnit ended up hurt or damaged dead. It shouldn’t be taking this long.
(That she’d seen it hurt enough to have a proper frame of reference–)
[What’s happening? Is SecUnit alright?] She was grateful in that moment, both for the feed and the mug in her hands. She clutched it tighter, hoping to hide the tremors.
[SecUnit is fine. There were–] it paused, just long enough to make her doubt whether the hesitation was real. [–unforeseen circumstances.]
[What kind of circumstances are we talking about?] Whatever it was, it couldn't be good, but Perihelion said it was fine. It had to be fine. The thought did nothing to calm her racing heart.
An image popped up in her feed; a grey-scale diagram – someone’s head and upper back in stark relief. With the simplified markings of inorganics it had to be SecUnit, the dark greys of its body interspersed with lighter patches, clusters of white, like eccentric puzzle pieces scattered over its back and shoulders. The seeds of white radiate, bleaching the skin around them until it’s almost as pale.
The image clearly meant something but she’d always been a bit too squeamish for medicine as a field and never had enough interest to look past it. [What am I looking at?]
If Perihelion hadn’t seemed upset before, its voice, now devoid of its carefully rendered fluctuations would be a dead giveaway. [An initial scan of subcutaneous foreign bodies as they were, approximately, two and a half minutes ago. I am in the process of removing them.]
It took a moment for its words to sink in. [‘Foreign bodies?] She remembered all too vividly Ratthi digging metal shards out of SecUnit’s injured knee during the escape from GrayCris. [But– I thought they didn’t use explosive weaponry?]
‘They’ – the reason they’re here in the first place, in a desperate attempt to save a small, largely independent colony from corporate ownership.
[They do not.] It hesitates. [Look at the paler areas surrounding the debris, with that amount of scar tissue they have to be a lot older.] But– that didn’t make sense. She’d seen its back on more than one occasion (a majority of them accompanied by severe injury) and the skin is as inhumanly perfect as the rest of its body.
Except, the more she thought about it the more sense it made – every injury it sustained since TranRollinHyfa had been cared for by a regular medsystem. They wouldn’t leave anything in the wound unless removing it would cause additional harm, not with fresh injuries. But this? Would it register as anything but an abnormality if the wound had already healed? She didn’t think so.
Forcefully relaxing her jaw she took a sip of her tea. The scalding liquid burns its way down her throat but does nothing to dull the frigid bite of anger. Because isn’t that just like the corporates? Polishing the surface while leaving the actual problem to fester underneath.
[Does it hurt?] She asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
[I do not have a proper frame of reference to make that assessment. Though considering the reactions of surrounding tissue I would categorise it as a moderate to severe irritant,] it says. Pauses. [I am unsure to which extent SecUnit is affected, both as the damage is limited to its upper back, and since its musculature varies significantly from the medical standard.]
The words took her aback. [Nothing else? Just its back?]
[Nothing I would consider medically significant.]
[Huh.] It made sense the back and shoulders would be worst affected. She shuddered at the memory of the launchpad explosion. But nothing else? That should be almost impossible. [Are you sure?]
[Quite]
Of course. [Do you have any idea–] She didn’t get to finish the question before another image was in her feed, this time of a standing figure marked with two colours, each labelled with a short explanation. The first detailing the expanse of the scarring and the other a SecUnit’s average field of reach. In very few places did they overlap.
The undercurrent of anger almost swallowed its words as it said, [I think I do].
And oh. Oh how she did too.
When SecUnit walked in, less than two hours later, it looked fine. The clothes were different, its hooded sweatshirt a different shade and the trousers more akin to something she’d wear to sleep than its usual style, but apart from that it looked normal . She knows she shouldn’t have expected anything different, it gets shot half to death and the next thing she knows it’s acting like nothing happened.
It glanced up but didn’t say anything as it entered, silently curling up in one of the empty chairs. Once it was comfortable (if something resembling one of Farai’s more difficult stretching exercises could be called comfortable) she asked, “how are you?” She couldn’t quite keep the worry from her words and she cursed herself, she used to be good at this.
Questions whirled in her mind, important ones, leagues more important than basic pleasantries, but the same willpower that kept her in her seat, giving SecUnit the chance to seek out her company in its own time, helps quell the urge.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, pretending like the words meant something. (Once she realised its version of ‘I’m fine’ included everything from ‘everything is actually fine’ to ‘at least I have one arm left’ it kind of lost all credibility.) Carefully studying its expression she continued, “would you mind if I asked you a personal question?” It made a noncommittal sound she decided to interpret as a yes.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Half-shrug. “I didn’t think about it.” She sighed internally. Getting personal information out of SecUnit had always been like pulling teeth.
The look of dismay was more akin to someone interrupting a serial it’s watching than any actual discomfort so she tentatively continued. “But, that amount– it must have bothered you?”
Its face did something she couldn’t quite interpret. “That’s what the pain sensors are for.”
“What do you mean?” Whatever it was she had the sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t like it.
Staring up at the ceiling it said, “cubicles aren’t as advanced as a human-grade med-system, and I guess minimising the decrease in function was cheaper than improving them.” She almost winced at the casual way it confirmed her theory.
From what she knew of the production of SecUnits that wasn’t the entire story but the unbidden image of her friend , hurt and alone, picking shrapnel out of its own wounds stopped her from bringing it up.
The horror of it cracked her carefully controlled expression. ‘Not as advanced as a human-grade med-system’ it said. A crude way of saying the person using it is still half-injured when they get out.
SecUnit noticed, turning to look almost entirely at her. Its tone was warm, comforting in that deliberate way of its. “It’s fine. Once you get used to it it really isn’t as bad as it sounds.”
The force of her words startle her more than it does it. “You shouldn’t have to get used to it.”
“I know.”
Its voice softened, “it doesn’t hurt anymore. I didn’t know, not until it stopped.”