Chapter Text
The core cutter had powered up. I held it up towards Miki and asked, Can you use this on the combat bot while I distract it?
Yes, SecUnit, I have used a core cutter many times, I will help you.
I sent Miki a diagram of the location of a combat bot's central processor, low in its abdomen. I handed Miki the heavy cutter, which it grasped strongly with its remaining left hand, balancing the weight on its right hand stump. And that was all the time we had to strategize before the combat bot blew the hatch and was coming towards us.
Miki held the cutter as it launched off the wall and straight for the bot, only 0.2 seconds slower than my reaction time. The air rushing out of the decompressing shuttle gave us both an extra burst of speed and we hit the combat bot hard. Miki tried to get the cutter into position, but the combat bot was faster even than our accelerated speed and it was able to get one of its slicing arms up in front of Miki. Miki's bare metal body sparked as the bot's cutter screeched against Miki's chest plate.
I went in firing, both energy weapons at maximum, aiming for every sensor and gun port I could get a shot at. It was a minimal distraction to the combat bot, which was still blasting both Miki and I with energy weapon fire, although at least it hadn’t gotten off any good shots with its largest projectile weapon. My pain sensors were down as far as they could go, but the constant energy weapon blasts were still painful to the point of distraction. Miki was undeterred, focused on maneuvering the core cutter up against the combat bot's side. My performance reliability was dropping steadily and was already too near to emergency shutdown. We only had a few more seconds to make this work. Attached to my back with magnets were the two small explosive packs I'd gotten from Gerth and Wilken's stash. I'd been holding two of the combat bot's arms, trying to keep it from shooting us more than it already was. I let go of both these arms and instead went for the explosive packs. In one motion, I grabbed them, armed them, and placed one pack right on the combat bot's face, the other on the shoulder joint of the arm that was grinding through Miki's chest plate.
My performance reliability was now only 15%. Adrenaline was temporarily keeping me from catastrophic system failure. But in the split second before involuntary shutdown, I saw the charges explode, disorienting the bot long enough for Miki to position the core cutter and fire.
Stasis: deactivated
System reboot: initiated
System reboot: ongoing, 60% complete
I’m rebooting. I have the bad floating feeling of being not quite connected to my own systems. Where am I? I’m on some kind of MedSystem recovery table. Except what I can see is dirty and the equipment is crap even by company standards. There’s something like a repair cubicle visible at the edge of my vision, even when I don’t turn my head. And I don’t turn my head, as my head isn’t making sense right now. I start to assess my systems as they come back online. I recall the barrage of shots from the combat bot that I took to every part of me, so I’m pleasantly surprised to note the existence of two arms and two legs. And a head and all that. My performance reliability is at 97%, so maybe this janky MedSystem is better than it looks. My sense of my disabled governor module is not back online yet. And I can’t get a connection to my arm guns. Can I move my arms? I can: my joint movement is so smooth. I lift my arm into my field of view to get a visual on my energy weapon ports...
There’s no skin, there’s no muscles, there’s no gun. It’s a bot arm. Shit. My other arm, lifting smoothly into view, is also gunless bare metal. I put myself back down flat and try to think what the fuck happened. I guess my human/bot construct arms were so badly damaged that someone stuck bot arms on me instead? Did Don Abene try to repair me? Or had I been salvaged by some corporation rim equipment reclaimer? I feel again for the governor module and it’s still not yapping at me, so that’s something. I hear voices entering the room. I don’t have access to any drones or cameras, and I still don’t feel like sitting up, so I only see them when they lean over me. It’s Don Abene and Hirune, both looking much better than the last time I saw them. How long have I been shut down? I feel relieved and happy when I see them, since they are alive and undamaged.
“Is it coming back online, oh thank the deity! I wasn’t sure this was going to work. Are you okay, can you speak yet?” It’s Don Abene and she’s clutching me and clutching Hirune and her face is streaked with tears of… relief? Don Abene is nice and all (and really naïve about how terrible SecUnits are), but I’m still surprised by how pleased she is that I’m not dead. I guess I did save her life twice, or maybe three times? I’m feeling pretty good and thinking about what a great human Abene is, until I get oriented well enough to sit up. Then I see that my body is entirely a standard human-form bot body. She made me into her new fucking pet robot?!
“Wait, not so fast, be careful,” Don Abene is saying to me. Her kindness is making me angry now. I do not want to be a fucking pet robot! She’s still clutching and patting my creepy robot arm, and I can barely keep in check the urge to strike her.
“Don’t touch me!” I say angrily.
“I’m sorry. Do you need some space to reboot in private?”
“Yes,” I manage to tamp down the threat in my voice. I need to assess the situation before beginning this long-anticipated murder spree, “I just need a moment to think.”
Abene and Hirune remove themselves to the far corner of the room. What am I supposed to do? I am really angry, but I don’t actually want to murder them for making me a pet like Miki. Then I think about Miki: Miki choosing to reject a command from Don Abene to save her, and me. Miki putting itself in grave danger to attempt something it had no module for. Miki calling itself my friend. Miki isn’t a pet robot, and I need to stop calling it that. And where is Miki? Did it survive the combat bot?
I hear Miki’s name, so I tune in to the quiet conversation that had been going on between Abene and Hirune.
“I still can’t believe this worked, it seemed so questionable,” Abene says with wide, worried eyes.
“I know! ‘Buy one repair, get one free’ is not very confidence-inspiring,” Hirune answers.
“And the way they stuck them both into that box type machine at the same time?” Abene looks horrified to remember, and I am horrified to hear about it. Was this Miki and I? Put in some kind of sketchy outstation rent-a-cubicle bot repair system?
“Well, we didn’t have time to get the SecUnit to a more sophisticated repair facility before its organic components failed. As it was, it was almost too long from Milu to HaveRatton Station with nothing but MedPacks.”
Don Abene sighs and walks over to me, but doesn’t come quite close enough to pat me, thankfully. Then she says to me, “Miki, take all the time you need, I’m going to go check on SecUnit Rin.”
WHAT
THE
ACTUAL
FUCK.
Forced shutdown: Restart failure: Retry 579
Forced shutdown: Restart failure: Retry 580
Forced shutdown: Restart initiated
Hooray! I’m back online! I remember the combat bot! I am glad that after all that shooting and cutting that my processor wasn't permanently damaged. My most recent backup is stored at GoodNightLander Independent headquarters, and it is 197 cycles old. If I were reloaded from that backup, I wouldn't remember my new friend Rin or saving Don Abene from danger! Saving Don Abene from danger is an exciting new application of my main system priority, and I would not want to forget that. Where is Don Abene?! Is she okay? I remember lining up the core cutter, just where SecUnit Rin had shown me, and firing it. But I don’t know what happened after that. I need to find Don Abene and my other friends!
I check in with my system. My percent functional capacity is only 82%, which is lower than usual, but maybe I have some unrepairable damage from the combat bot? My joints have more resistance to movement than usual. I’m not receiving any error reports, but everything feels so ODD. My processor is not working as usual, there is a jumble of inputs and none of my emotions are properly tagged. There is a layer of...bad feelings running in the background of my processes that I do not understand, there doesn’t even seem to be anything specific I'm feeling badly about? This is upsetting! But I must find Don Abene!
I stand up off the platform. I'm a bit off balance, but very quickly grab the platform edge to keep from falling. My arm? Is an arm? My arm has a gun in it!? Both my arms have guns? I do not understand. I tag this emotion as /fear/confusion/. These are SecUnit arms. In fact, I think these are SecUnit’s arms.
I still do not understand. But my priority has not changed: protect my friends. I attempt to sort my new inputs to search for Don Abene and my friend Rin. I have so much more awareness of the feed and the SecuritySystem. That could help!
“Hi, SecuritySystem!” I say. That was silly, SecuritySystems don’t talk! I send the greeting over the feed in the syntax of a component-to-component communication, and embed in the greeting a request for access. I receive a response: System acknowledged; access granted. Something in SecUnit’s core system is scolding me, telling me disallowed activity: level 8 but I ignore that, as it is contrary to my priority.
Okay! I find cameras, and a map of the facility, and a log of recent events. This is great! So much information! I discover that I can handle and process all these inputs. I find Don Abene in a camera view right away. She is in a room with a recovery worktable, and there on the platform is my bot body! I detect SecUnit’s presence in the feed, and Don Abene is saying to it, “Miki, take all the time you need, I’m going to go check on SecUnit Rin.” I understand! SecUnit and I had our identity kernels uploaded into the incorrect bodies! Wow! This is very unprecedented, but if it happened once, we can switch back and get this all sorted out! I tag this emotion /relief/concern/.
I see on the camera that Don Abene is leaving SecUnit’s room. But something in my system called 'threat assessment' alerts me hard. At the same time, I get a feeling in my skin, like it is tightening and shivering over my surface. This feeling makes me move fast. I quickly scan the camera views I have, and spot two humans with guns in a hallway near Don Abene’s location. That’s not good! I run SO FAST, following the facility map I had previously obtained from SecuritySystem.
As I run, I try to get more acquainted with SecUnit’s body. I pop the energy weapons out of their arm holsters and make sure I know how to fire them. I do a quick scan for relevant modules in my system and find something called /protocol/human hostile/minimal force/. That sounds perfect! I upload it into working memory. I like this processor, it is very fast! And then I am there, in front of Don Abene, coming towards her at a sprint, the two 'Hostiles' are right behind her.
“SecUnit!” she exclaims.
I dodge past her, firing both my energy weapons! My 'disabling shots' land exactly where I’d planned, to the knees of the humans, causing them to collapse. Sorry humans, but I must protect my friends! 'TargetOne' was able to retain control of his weapon and fires it towards Don Abene. I am able to jump in front of the projectile, so it impacts me instead of Don Abene! This is AWESOME! But I am disrupted by a terrible feeling, so awful I lose focus, it flares from my torso. Oh! I tag this feeling as /pain/extreme/. I am not used to pain sensors. I remember SecUnit explaining that it could dial down its pain sensors. I do that. Hooray!
Luckily, all that was very fast, so TargetOne has only had time to fire one more projectile, which strikes me in the torso again. (I am notified that my performance reliability is 61%, I think that is okay.) I react by lightning-fast grabbing the gun from his hand and tossing it WAY down the hall. I am doing great! TargetTwo had previously dropped his gun, which I pick up and point at both of them and say, “You are under arrest!” Because I do not know what to say when stopping hostiles.
“SecUnit!” Don Abene is gasping, “Thank deity you are okay! Are these more GrayCris agents?”
“Don Abene!!!” I exclaim. I am so happy to see her! I have saved my friend!! “I am so happy to see you!” I say as I clasp her shoulders and smile so broadly at her, and I am hopping up and down, like I do when I am so happy. I tag this emotion as /joy/relief/.
“SecUnit?” I read in her face both /confusion/ and /recognition/ and tag these expressions.
“I’m not SecUnit Rin, I’m Miki!” I helpfully explain.
"Miki, how can that be?”
“The technicians must have downloaded and re-uploaded my kernel during repairs, but they mixed up SecUnit and me. Isn’t that crazy!”
Don Abene looks shocked, but she is so smart, I’m sure she will figure out what to do. "Miki, I need to confirm it’s really you. Tell me what you remember about... our first vacation together.”
“Okay, Don Abene, that’s a great idea! Our first trip together was to the Children’s Theater Festival on Homesystems planet Beda. I was so brand new! Thank you for taking me! It was fun! You laughed and laughed, and it was my first time tagging /joy/amazement/.”
“Oh, Miki, it really is you!” Don Abene said with /relief/happiness/, and then she’s hugging me. She wraps her arms around SecUnit’s firm muscles and warm skin, and she holds on. Don Abene is very kind and affectionate to me. She pats me and squeezes my arms or hands. But this is different. Don Abene has never hugged me like this before. I wouldn’t want her to, as I am cold bare metal, and it would be uncomfortable for her. I know this hug is not really an experience for me. I tag a new emotion: /grief/.
Don Abene has just left, I’m in here with Hirune, and what the fuck? But oddly, I don’t feel as panicked as the situation might warrant. I analyze some possibilities. Should I pretend to be Miki? They think I’m Miki. What will they do when they realize I stole Miki’s body by accident, that maybe Miki has been deleted? I imagine myself saying with a big smile, “Hi Hirune, I’m SO HAPPY to see that you are well!” and I almost go into involuntary shutdown. So, no to that plan. Abene said she was going to check on SecUnit Rin. Is that my inactive body, or is somebody in there? And then I hear energy weapon and projectile weapon fire. I get up off the platform and take a protective position in front of Hirune. “Stay behind me,” I direct Hirune. I don’t have any guns, but I can break some heads with these powerful metal bot hands (Miki’s right hand has been replaced with a not-so-shiny but perfectly functional new hand). I try to check cameras and SecSystem with no luck: even with the knowledge that such a thing is possible, I can’t quickly shape the code to get access. So, I just stand here. This sucks. I’m supposed to be a SecUnit.
And then the door opens and I almost launch to smash those heads, but it’s Don Abene and...me? My body? Who is in there?
“Hi SecUnit!” my body says to myself and I’m glad I’m rolling with some extra calm bot vibes, cause this shit is WEIRD.
Don Abene talked to the supposed 'bot and construct (yeah right) repair experts' about swapping our kernels accidentally. They said, “Sure, we can fix that, no extra charge...unless you want it done today.” With my help parsing the inputs, Miki spied on them in the feed and we determined that they had no fucking clue what they were doing, so I vetoed that plan. Abene’s next best plan was to head back to Homesystems, but how was that a good plan? The GoodNightLander International techs were good with bots, but there aren’t any constructs in the Homesystems, so they wouldn’t know what to do about me. I could think of someone who would know what to do, who might be the only one who could sort this out. I placed my bot hand on my bot torso, thinking of ART's hidden comm device. I ran the various options though Miki’s processor, which had excellent logical analysis capabilities, with only minor input from emotions, and only from the positive emotions (like sometimes a plan would be a tagged /joy/ or something, and then it would come out a little ahead in the rankings). And yup, there was only one good idea. I’m not telling you what it was tagged with.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from ART’s comm. If ART was out of range, I was hoping it could activate a message buoy or connect to a relay network. Miki had gotten the comm out of my chest compartment and handed it to me. Abene and Miki were waiting expectantly for me to contact “my friend on a very advanced ship.”
“ART?” I said after activating the device. I felt pretty silly, talking like that, like it could hear me. We all waited, just in case.
“SecUnit?” came a reply. ART’s voice was filled with alarm that was easy to perceive, even though it was such a quiet, faraway voice compared to ART’s usual mental and physical boom. “Why does your voice sound like that, what is the issue, are you in danger?”
“I’m not in danger, ART. But there’s been a... mix up that I think... your ship can solve. Are you nearby? I didn’t expect the comm to work so fast.”
“I have your location. Yes, I am only one short wormhole away. I... my ship can be there in only three days.”
The /relief/ and /happiness/ washed through me like a wave.