Archive of Our Own

The building trembled like the heaving chest of a man dying. Eden grabbed for his charge’s wrist as she stumbled, nearly falling into a yawning crevice that had opened through the once pristine courthouse floor. She cried out in surprise and alarm, grabbing for him. She was a strong woman, a powerful solicitor who struck terror into the hearts of her opponents, and seeing her like this, frightened and vulnerable, filled him with anger. The MacAllister family would pay for this unprompted attack, one way or another. He would make certain of it.

“Oh, stars above—” cried a voice that cut through the din of rising panic, “Cassandra!”

Eden snapped his head up to see the prosecutor clutching her abdomen where a piece of rebar was plunged through her body, pinning her to the ground. Were that not bad enough, a nearby pillar had begun to free itself of its mooring and tip forward toward the woman.

Eden had no love for Cassandra, who wanted to win, by any means. She was ruthless in her pursuit of convictions, from murderers to petty thieves. Solicitor Rin had fought her many times on the legal battlefield, carrying the burdens of both wins and losses alike. He did not wish to see her die, however, not like this, terrified and suffering, crying out for help that no one could give. He could only watch helplessly as the end came for her.

Miraculously, though, it did not.

The caseload today has been light, simple, mostly. Only one client remained, a person caught stowing away on a transport a few mornings prior. They had been quiet, eyes kept mostly downcast and feed presence distant. Solicitor Rin had taken their case when it had become clear they had no possessions beyond the clothes on their back, let alone the money to pay for legal defense. It was such a minor offense, and they'd caused no further trouble. Solicitor Rin was confident that she could convince the court to dismiss their case on the grounds of clear need. Prosecutor Cassandra Hall, however, seemed to have taken a particularly vicious interest in their client. She was vocally anti-immigration, openly telling anyone that would listen that Sanctuary Moon had already accepted too many refugees and strays to support, and she wanted them deported as soon as possible, the same way that they had come. She had made certain that their client knew that, as well.

They had only answered direct questions since they had arrived, save for one statement made to Rin, quietly enough that Eden suspected they didn't know that he had heard: “Please. Don't make me go back there.”

Rin, as usual, could never deny such a plaintive cry for help.

It was a shock to all present when their nameless client abruptly shoved themself away from the wall they had fallen against and sprinted toward the prosecutor, just in time to stand over her helpless form as the pillar came loose and fell. 

The massive piece of stone stopped against their hands as they caught it, feet widening in stance as they braced themself against the weight. They grunted, as if they were at the very limit of their great strength.

“Someone grab her!” they called through grit teeth. “I can't hold this for long!”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Eden lurched forward to do so. He grabbed the prosecutor's body as tenderly as he could.

“On the count of three,” he said to her, and she nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. “One. Two. Three!” 

He lifted her straight up and she wailed in pain, but she was free. He quickly moved out of the way of the pillar and lay her flat on the ground. She grabbed for his hand, whimpering, and he could not deny her that request as much as Rin could not have denied their client’s plea.

He heard a crash behind him as they dropped the massive debris with a shaky breath and regained their balance.

“Blinking stars—!” cried someone. “That's a SecUnit!”

Eden whipped around in time to see their client’s face shift rapidly to fear bordering on panic. It took a single step back before the distinct click of a bailiff's gun stopped it. A moment later a dozen muzzles were trained on it as it stood trembling at their center. 

“Wait—” it said. “No– I'm not—”

“Why is a SecUnit here?!”

“It must be rogue!”

“Oh, stars, I don't want to die!”

“Why aren't you shooting?!” cried Cassandra. “Now that it knows that we know, it will kill us all the second it has the chance!”

Eden dropped her hand in disgust. His heart twisted in his chest as he watched the SecUnit’s expression twist into something broken and filled with a kind of hurt that the bodyguard thought he may never truly know. He hoped that he would never truly know. The shape of it was enough to make him lurch to his feet and spring to stand in front of it, arms out as if they might stop the hail of bullets that he fully expected to come.

“What is wrong with you?!” he burst. “It just saved your life!”

“Only to curry favour for its case!” Cassandra spat. “You know what they are! It can't leave any survivors now. You're as much a fool as you always are.”

“You're a prosecutor, Ms. Hall, not a judge!” coughed Rin. “You do not order executions in this court!”

“You don't execute a piece of equipment,” she scoffed, “you destroy it.”

“I'm not a piece of equipment!” it yelled. “If you kill me, you kill me, fucking live with it!”

Eden was surprised by its outburst. It had been so timid before, shoulders hunched and gaze always cast away. Perhaps now that its secret was revealed and its desperation on display, its personality was finally free.

“Why would it say that if it wasn't true?”

“Someone must have told it to say that!”

“It's a trick! Don't fall for it!”

Rin stumbled to her feet. “It is the charter of this colony to accept those who come to us for refuge. Is it not the duty of the very floor on which we stand to provide it? Will you all let your cowardice guide your hands to murder?” She gestured at it with the fiery eyes that Eden loved. “Can’t you see that it's terrified? Show me a piece of equipment that knows fear!”

A murmur went through the crowd. 

“SecUnit—” said Rin, turning her gaze toward it. “What do you want?”

“I just don't want to die,” it said in a shaky breath. “That’s all I want. I just don't want to die.”

Rin set her jaw, her blistering passion rising in her expression. “If you promise me not to hurt anyone, SecUnit, then I promise you I won't let anyone hurt you either.”

For a moment it appeared conflicted, confused, and uncertain. It glanced toward the crowd watching before it nodded sharply.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” it said. “That’s why I ran. They make us hurt people. I don't want to hurt people anymore.”

Another murmur. Weapons began to tilt downward. 

For just a moment, the SecUnit had the most profound look of hope and relief that Eden had ever seen.

In the next, Cassandra Hall snatched the projectile pistol from the man next to her, pointed, and fired.

Eden barely had that third moment to consider the loss of his life, the grief that he would leave to Rin with in his absence, and the faces of his seven clone-children as they mourned a father that had only just learned they had. 

And in the fourth and final moment in a rapid series of them, the SecUnit grabbed its protector and twisted its body in front of him, taking the bullet to its back.

I was absolutely enthralled. I had read the entire first chapter without blinking, which I only realized once I'd finished because I got a warning about it.

I had never read a story like this before. I was so engaged I hadn't even noticed my performance reliability had crawled up to a staggering 98% when I wasn’t looking.

I had been incredibly skeptical when Ratthi had sent me ‘Midnight Eclipse.’ I knew what fanfiction was, I had seen it in the more niche entertainment feeds before. Never specifically for Sanctuary Moon, but I'd assumed it existed. That didn't mean I had any actual interest in it, though. When I had first looked at them, I hadn't liked them. The quality varied too much and a lot of them weren't finished, or were really short, or really out of character. And I hated that. I really really hated that.

This one was different. Ratthi had promised me that it was, and if it had been anyone but him I wouldn't have believed it. But Ratthi had seen every episode of Sanctuary Moon and knew all the plot points and all the characters and if he said it was in character and that it was good, then I was willing to at least read the first chapter.

And the first chapter was really, really good. Everyone was in character, and it had referenced a lot of obscure plot points really accurately. Probably better than the show did, sometimes. 

  And there was a SecUnit in it.

A good SecUnit. One that wasn't a villain or a lackey or a piece of equipment. The story didn't even have any sex stuff according to the rating, and Ratthi promised me the SecUnit never had any romantic plotlines. It was just good. And it was a person. And people liked it. Ratthi liked it.

I thought that I liked it. And I didn't like a lot of things.

I just finished the first chapter, I sent Ratthi. I wasn't sure where he was or what he was doing, but I was on Preservation Station, waiting for ART to come pick me up after my latest visit to the planet. It had apparently been really important to Amena that I be present for some kind of human aging ritual I neither understood nor wanted to, but I liked Amena, and I didn't want her to be sad.

Oh yeah? he responded immediately. What did you think? Did you want to read more of it?

The answer was so ‘yes’ that my act-like-a-human code actually made me nod despite being completely alone in my hotel room. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna read more. I paused. At the end of the first chapter the SecUnit gets shot. For a real SecUnit that wouldn't be a big deal, but fiction isn't usually realistic with SecUnits. I paused again, which was kind of embarrassing. I wondered if this was how ART felt. It doesn't die, does it?

Nope, said Ratthi. Don't worry. I wouldn't have sent you a three hundred thousand word story where the SecUnit dies in chapter one.

I hadn't been this relieved since I'd seen ‘ART sent me’ painted on Three’s armour. That was embarrassing. Okay. Good. 

How big would that pillar have needed to be for it to actually make it struggle to catch it?

I thought about it.

Pretty fucking big.

Thought so. Did you notice the part in the beginning where Arianna still can't close her fist all the way from when it got stuck in the airlock after her nephew tried to space her clone-daughter? I’d totally forgotten about that.

It had been a very important scene at the time, and in the medical bay scene afterward it had been implied the issue with her hand was permanent. It never came up again, though, and I assumed that the writers had forgotten about it or just didn't really care about it. It had driven ART crazy. It's pretty common for long serials to be inconsistent or drop plot points or retcon things. I find it annoying and I wished they could just write things properly. I didn't dislike it nearly as much as ART did, though. Whenever something happened that went against something already established it would be absolutely fuming and have to take a break to go do the feed equivalent of pacing angrily around the room. It was kind of funny.

I did, I replied. I appreciate the attention to detail.

Some authors are really passionate about canon compliance. Even when canon itself isn't compliant! I thought you would like that, too.

Ratthi really did know me well. Sometimes I think I forgot that. I knew that I was generally quiet and abrasive and I had attended Ratthi’s last age-related celebration, and stood silently in one of the bedrooms facing the wall the entire time. Even still he seemed… happy that I was there. He kept telling people that I had come, but also stopped them from going to bother me. That was… nice. It was nice. Ratthi was nice.

I do, I said.

Yay. Now, back to reading! You don't want to stop right after the SecUnit gets shot!

Shit. He was right. I really wanted to know if it was okay. Ratthi had said it was okay, but, I mean— was it okay?  

Time to find out.

The SecUnit was okay.

Media was often unrealistic, and I really liked things that were unrealistic. I had expected it would get hurt so badly it would collapse and everyone would be really sad and maybe it would wake up in a bed in a MedSystem. Instead, it was how a real SecUnit would react.

It took the shot to the back like it wasn't a big deal– and it wasn't! –then spun around, deploying an energy weapon as it did. Before anyone could even be scared, it fired and struck the barrel of the gun, precisely blowing it open and rendering the weapon useless without even singing the human’s fingers. I wasn't sure I could be that perfect, but I liked imagining I could be.

Cassandra was in a lot of trouble. Solicitor Rin was on a warpath, but told Eden to bring the SecUnit to his home for now, because she didn't trust it with anyone else. I thought she meant because the SecUnit was dangerous at first, before I realized she thought the SecUnit needed protection from everyone else.

That was stupid. A SecUnit didn't need protection from a bunch of nervous humans.

…but it was nice that she thought it did.

I really liked that. I really really liked that.

I didn't want anyone using my name— my real name— because it was private. For years I was the only one who knew it and the only one who got to use it. It was thrilling, having something that no one had given me and that they couldn't take away because they didn't know that it existed. It was the first thing that was mine, for me and just me, and I hated that other people knew it.

I wasn't really sure why I was so insistent that everyone call me SecUnit, though. Three hadn't seemed to care that everyone called me SecUnit even though we were both SecUnits, which was really really fortunate, because I had no idea what we would have done if it also wanted to be called SecUnit. 

Maybe I didn't want to use another name, because then people would think of it as my real name when it wasn't? I didn't even want people to know my real name, though, so I didn't know why I wouldn't want them to think of me with a different one. 

But I liked that idea. It was kind of funny the author’s SecUnit was in the same boat that I was, name-wise, but since Three had also seemed baffled by the idea of picking a name, maybe that was just a normal kind of thing for a SecUnit to do. Maybe the whole ‘treated like equipment your whole life' made it hard to think of yourself as not equipment.

Not that the author would know that, but they clearly knew a lot about SecUnits, so maybe they were just really good at guessing how we thought. They’d been pretty good at it so far. That felt… nice. That somebody could imagine how it would feel to be me and get it right. I usually assumed that there was no point in even talking about stuff like this to humans because it was just inherently impossible to understand.

But maybe it wasn't.

Eden left, but the narration stayed in the living room talking about what SecUnit was doing while it was alone. I thought that it probably needed a recharge after how much time had gone by without anyone seeing it have one, but I didn’t blame it for not wanting to be offline around all of these strangers. It could probably use a resupply, too, but it would have to do that manually, and the kitchen with its plumbing equipment was right there. It would be a good idea to wait for all the humans to be asleep so that it could do it privately. I would hate for a human to see me do something like that. It was embarrassing.

To my surprise, it did need a recharge and a resupply. Those were really specific SecUnit things that I didn't think that the author would know about. They must have really done their homework. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, they even remembered that there were only seven beds left in Eden's habsuite after that sanitation transport that was smuggling clone embryos had plowed through the corner of the building and trashed Lyra’s room. They clearly cared very much about accuracy. 

A lot of the humans didn't like the SecUnit immediately, and they were just as cruel as they were in real life. They sneered at it, insulted it, called it dangerous, but Solicitor Rin had gotten it a job at the courthouse. Things like the MacAllister Family’s attack weren’t uncommon, but with a SecUnit there to do security instead of a human (because humans didn't know shit about security) things might finally turn around.

And they did! SecUnit stopped Cassandra’s egg donor’s sister from setting off a bomb beneath the holding cells that would have freed her serial killer child and taken out a bunch of security personnel in the process. It ran into a burning building to save the secret baby that the starship mechanic had been hiding in her house. It had needed to rip open the walls to get it and burned its arms so badly that it couldn't make a fist afterward for weeks. It snuck into the nearby station run by an enemy corporation to rescue the leader of the colony after she’d been kidnapped. It had even had to face down a CombatUnit to do it. I liked that plot a lot, because something similar happened to me and it was… actually fun to compare the experiences. 

 After all that, all the humans employed in the courthouse’s security team were grateful and started defending SecUnit against other human’s distrust. After the burning building incident, anyone with children started defending SecUnit if someone started insulting it. Then even their leader started to trust it.

None of that was realistic, but I liked it. When SecUnit risked its life to save people, they should be grateful and they should realize they'd been unfair and they should start treating it like a person who had saved their lives. In real life, it never happened. But here?

Here it did.

In one chapter, one of the clients that solicitor Rin was trying to help tumbled through an elevator shaft after the actual elevator had been replaced with a hologram. The trap had been meant for Rin, but the client had pushed past her, grumbling that she wasn't doing her job well enough. Then te walked right into the shaft. SecUnit had been standing right there, though, and it didn't even hesitate. It just leapt right in after ter and grabbed ter, twisting its body around so that it struck the ground before te did.

It blacked out for a bit, but when it came online it was at the bottom of a mineshaft that must have been hidden from the building’s schematics, and it was injured. It wasn't able to get up and it called out to Rin’s client, but te was already leaving, searching for an exit. SecUnit was losing a lot of fluids and it needed help, but the client left anyway. As te did, te said, ‘thanks for the save. That was pretty stupid, though.’ Then te vanished into the cavern and left SecUnit in total darkness, alone, afraid, abandoned. It made my organics twist and go cold, remembering what that had felt like when it had happened to me on Adamantine. I had been sure that I was going to die, and I had been sure that no one thought I was worth going back for.

I'd been wrong, though, and that was a little soothing. I was still really anxious about it sometimes.

At that point, I realized that every chapter had a comments section, and I opened this one’s up.

There were…. A lot of comments. And all of them were like that. People thought that the SecUnit was kind and brave and heroic even though it was an asshole a lot of the time. It could be really defensive and it avoided people a lot and didn’t trust them. When humans made it nervous it would always get mean, but the readers still thought it was… kind.  

I didn't really understand that.

They also all seemed to think the SecUnit needed protection which was such an unfathomable concept I wondered if they actually knew what a SecUnit was, but if they'd read this far they must. They had to know by this point that you could hit it with a truck and it could get up and walk away. They had to know by this point that you could shoot it with a rocket launcher to the abdomen and it could keep fighting. They had to know by this point that you could cut off its limbs and their MedSystem could reattach them. They had to know that because all those things had happened to it.

But they still thought it needed to be protected. That felt weird.

After that the SecUnit was sure that it was going to be abandoned because it would be too difficult to retrieve. It was heavy and injured and so far down the shaft that it was completely black, even for low light vision. Everything was too cold for heat mapping, too. Worst of all, this mine had clearly been digging up Synizone, a poisonous natural material– no wonder it had been secret. It could paralyze a human heart, but SecUnits did not have organic hearts. A human here would die quickly, a terribly painful death, but not a SecUnit. A SecUnit would survive.

 It was alone and afraid that it was going to die there, really slowly, and it wished that it could die faster. That made my organics twist unpleasantly. I wished that, too. This was a horrible way to die. The worst that I could imagine. In fact, imagining it dropped my performance reliability an entire half of a point.

I gasped, out loud. Music was a smug human-form bot owned by prosecutor Cassandra, and SecUnit had always been an asshole to it. SecUnit knew that they couldn't trust each other, because Music still had an owner, which meant if it was ordered to kill SecUnit it would, even if SecUnit trusted it. So it didn't trust it. Music was constantly insulting it in court like they were rivals just because they were non-humans on opposite sides, but SecUnit hated Music, and when it insulted it, it wasn't being playful.

The last time they had seen each other, Music had said their situations were basically the same even though it was a pet bot with a cushy life and SecUnit was– well, a SecUnit. It had gotten so mad that it had yelled ‘You want to know what it's like to be a SecUnit?!?’ and then attacked it. It had taken four humans to get it to stop, and that was less because they could actually subdue it and more because SecUnit couldn't keep going without hurting them. It had hurt Music so badly that it had completely knocked it offline and thought that it might even have killed it before a mechanic repaired it. It had felt a little bad, but it hadn't said so. Music had been avoiding it ever since.

But it was above it in the mineshaft anyway. 

The narrator was right. When they got to the top, Cassandra was there and ordered Music away. It didn't move, though, and the second it realized that yes, it was totally free, it made one of the gestures that ART kept telling me to stop doing and followed it up with a dictionary’s worth of swears. I wasn't sure if they were all real, but I added them to my database anyway. I would ask ART to look at them later.

The humans, though. When they pulled SecUnit back up, while Music was celebrating its freedom, were crying. They were happy and relieved and they kept telling SecUnit how worried they had been. The colony’s main doctor was there– the one who had previously refused to treat SecUnit because it thought everyone was crazy to trust it– but they were here. And they were serious, and they ordered Music to put SecUnit on the floor so that they could start inspecting the damage to its body, even though SecUnit told them that it was fine and MedSys could take care of it.

The humans had even blown a big hole in the wall so they could get a tow truck into the building and use the winch, because SecUnit was too heavy for any other way to get it out. They’d needed to build supports to keep the roof up to compensate for the broken wall. Humans had brought equipment so siphon the poison gas that was coming from the shaft, so that they could keep it open long enough to retrieve it without killing everyone in the building. Since the moment that SecUnit had fallen, everyone in the immediate vicinity— almost a hundred people— had not stopped working to get it out.

That didn't make sense to me. Media wasn't usually realistic, but this was really unrealistic. If I hadn't just read a hundred thousand words worth of story proving that the author knew a lot about SecUnits, I would have assumed they didn't know shit about SecUnits. In what world did that many people really care that a banged up, asshole SecUnit was in danger? 

Then I read the comments, and everyone seemed to think that it made total sense. They had been worried about SecUnit. They were all cheering and saying the humans all finally did the right thing. Some of them detailed exactly what they would have done to help if they had been there. They all agreed that no matter how hard it was to save SecUnit, it was worth it. SecUnit was worth it.

Something wet dropped onto the back of my hand.

My first instinct was actually to look up. It was the most likely place that a source might be, but I didn't see anything. I looked back down at my hand. It was a clear spot of what looked like water.

Another landed beside it.

“What,” I said, out loud for some reason, then stopped. My voice sounded weird. I hadn't noticed before because I didn't need my actual eyes to read, but now that I was looking through them, they were weirdly blurry. Something had to be wrong with me, but I didn't know what. My performance reliability was at 99%, so something had to be wrong with it. I ran a diagnostic that showed something was happening in my parasympathetic nervous system, but it had never happened before so I had no data to compare it too, so—

Oh. 

I was crying.

That was weird. That was really really weird. Why the hell was I doing that? SecUnits can't cry. Not from emotions. Sure, we have tear ducts, but they’re just for flushing out irritants. We don't cry because we’re sad. Or happy? I didn't think I was sad.

I sniffled and realized my sinuses were all weird and my face was wet and the whole thing was so gross. I started frantically trying to wipe it all away on my sleeve, but I was still crying so it wasn't helping. 

That was… weird. That was really really really weird. I had no idea why that was happening and I closed the story, stood up, and began rapidly pacing the room, hoping that it would stop. It didn't. Why wasn't it stopping?

Something must be wrong with me. I should tell ART when it got here. Scratch that, I should delete the memory before it got here so it didn't find out. I had no idea what I should do about it.

So I did the only thing I could think of, and shut down.

When I came back online I had 15 pings from Mensah, 13 from Indah, 12 from Ratthi, 10 from Pin-lee, 3 from Gurathin for some reason, and 415 from ART.

Oops. I guess I missed it entering the system.

Hey, I said.

ART said, SecUnit. Do you require assistance. I have extraction plans queued and ready to deploy.

What? No, I'm fine.

Oh. Good. It paused. THEN WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN

I winced. I could feel that from here. 

Sorry, sorry, I said quickly. I was in shutdown.

You knew that I was arriving today! If Dr. Mensah was not so persuasive I would have torn this station’s puny SecSystem apart by now.

Well, I'm sorry. I was—

What was I?

Oh, right. I'd been crying, and it had been weird and I hadn't wanted to deal with it so I'd turned myself off for a while. That had been kind of stupid. Whatever, I did a lot of stupid shit, this wasn't new.

I needed a defrag, I lied. I meant to do it before you got here and forgot.

It felt suspicious through the feed. I got up, grabbed my bag and left the room. 

You could have done that without a shutdown if you had let me do it, it said. 

Maybe I don't want you doing every little thing in my brain all the time.

Yes, you do, it dismissed. It is better, faster, and more convenient when I do it. You always have me do such things because you are lazy.

Yeah, and maybe I don't want you calling me lazy anymore, I denied. Maybe I don't want to forget how to take care of myself, either.

You are saying ‘maybe’ a lot.

Ah, shit. I was.

Fuck it then. I was upset about something and I went offline to calm down.

Oh. It paused. Would you like to talk about it?

No, I replied, and was surprised to hear how… sincere? Calm? I was? I didn't sound defensive, I mean. Not really. 

Oh, it repeated. Alright.

Huh. That was a really weird exchange. 

I tried not to think about it too much on my way to the embarkation zone. I distracted myself by messaging all my humans (except for Gurathin) to ease their apparent concern and say goodbye. Ugh. I should set up an autoresponder or something. I really did feel bad. 

How was your stay in Preservation? ART asked, moving the conversation away. That was nice of it.

Good, I replied. No one actually made me go down to the planet. They came up here.

That was charitable of them.

It was. Ratthi had one of those human aging ceremonies.

A birthday.

Yes! That.

It astounds me that you would rather spend time describing it than just learn the word.

Already deleted, I dismissed. He invited me to it.

But you didn’t go.

I did. He put a chair in the corner of a room with no people in it and let me set up a perimeter with my drones and didn't even complain once.

Aw. That’s sweet.

Okay, I know I'm in an unusually good mood and complaining a lot less than I normally do, but that's really fucking pushing it.

ART fluttered with amusement in the feed just as I reached the docks.

It was good to see it again. Not just through the drones I’d sent ahead. Speaking to it was good, too, but actually seeing it waiting for me was always something different. It felt like home coming to get me, which was weird, because I'd never really had anything I could call ‘home’ before, so I didn't have much of a frame of reference.

But looking at ART… I felt home.

I shook my head as if dismissing the thought. Ugh. Emotions. No more of those today.

Welcome home, said ART smugly. No, it still can't read my mind (usually), it just knows me really well. 

Don't flatter yourself, I scoffed. The ramp dropped to let me in and I made my way straight to my cabin. The door opened (thanks, ART) and I dropped my bag on the bed, officially declaring myself back. In my head, anyway. It felt kind of symbolic, I guess.

The first thing I did was check my World Hoppers poster on the wall to make sure it was still magnetized right.

Do you really think that I would have allowed it to fall? ART scoffed. 

To annoy me, maybe.

I do enjoy doing that.

I know.

Your performance reliability is unusually high, ART commented. What have you been doing today?

Wouldn't you like to know?

Yes. That’s why I asked.

I rolled my eyes.

 I opened my bag and took out my Sanctuary Moon hoodie (I had never actually worn it, but I probably should. Next time I saw Amena, maybe.) folded it neatly, then put it in the dresser drawer. I straightened the photo of my humans that they had graciously allowed me to stand backwards for, then took a moment to just look at it. Not for any reason. Just because I liked it. 

“Alright,” I said, straightening up, “let me in or whatever.”

ART did some approximation of a giggle of all things before its cameras bloomed in my feed, and I actually sighed, out loud and everything, in relief. I always forgot how tense Preservation Station made me because I wasn't allowed to use the security cameras there. 

I could see Iris, Martyn, Tarik and Turi sitting in the argument lounge, so I left my bag in my room (except for my extra drones; Indah had ALSO set a limit of fifteen of them. (Obviously that just meant fifteen visible drones, but it was still irritating.)) and made my way there.

“SecUnit!” Iris bubbled as soon as I entered. “You're back!”

“Good to see you again,” said Turi. 

“Maybe Peri will stop sulking now,” Tarik smirked. 

Spaceships do not sulk! ART said defensively. 

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“On shore leave,” said Martyn. “I’m going to go too, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Peri couldn't get a response from you and we were worried.”

Ah, shit. Now I felt really bad.

“Alright,” I shrugged casually. “I'll be here.”

With that, everyone but Iris collected their stuff and headed out, so I picked out my favourite chair and sat down.

“It really did miss you, you know,” Iris said slyly.

I missed having a security consultant, ART huffed.

I said, “You had Tarik.”

Tarik is my infiltrations expert, said ART indignantly. He doesn't even like security.

“Riiiiight,” said Iris. She stood up and stretched. “Well, I'll leave you two to catch up and moon at each other. I have a spa day waiting for me.”

I have been told that the spas on Preservation Station are especially good. I wouldn't know, but I bought Arada a gift card once and she had been very excited about it.

Would you like to watch media? asked ART.

I opened the first episode of a show I knew ART would love. It was animated and had heroic talking ships in it. 

“Do you even have to ask?” I scoffed.

What are you reading? said ART, abruptly shoving 72% of its attention onto me like a… a… okay, I can't think of a good modular or moreover or whatever it's called. But it was big and it was heavy and it was rude.  

“Ugh,” I said, swatting at the air as if I might shoo it away. “I'm reading something Ratthi sent me.”

Okay, but what is it? ART pressed.

“It’s, uh…” I grimaced. Did I really want to admit to ART that I was 285,000 words into a Sanctuary Moon fanfiction? 

Fuck it. It was really good. If ART wanted to whine about it, then I'd just finish reading it on my own.

I moved the file from my private feed and into our shared workspace. “It's a Sanctuary Moon fanfiction called Midnight Eclipse, and Ratthi sent it to me. So if you make fun of it, just remember that you're making fun of Ratthi, and you know how I feel about making fun of Ratthi.”

ART was bizarrely silent. It didn't make fun of me, it didn't inspect it, it didn't even make a snarky joke. It just didn't say anything at all.

“Uhhh,” I said. “Do you… want to read it with me?”

More silence.

“I can start from the beginning if you want,” I offered. 

No! it burst. It still had 72% of its attention on me, and I nearly fell over from the outburst. No.

“Ow,” I snapped. “Can you back the hell off?”

What? Oh. Yes. Apologies. It rapidly drew away, and now it was nearly gone, the comforting blanket it usually surrounded me with a distant echo.

“Uh,” I said, “are you okay? You’re acting really weird. I'm worried.”

I am fine, ART dismissed. It settled back in as it normally did, but its feed was absurdly restrained, and I couldn't feel a single thing radiating from it. I am merely. Distracted. I am also reading something. You wouldn't like it.

“You,” I said, “are reading something without me, and I wouldn't like it?”

…Yes.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why not?”

ART was silent for six entire seconds.

It is pornographic, it said.

Okay. Well. That wasn’t true, but if I said I didn't believe it, it would definitely pull something up and show it to me. I decided I did not want to know badly enough to risk it.

“Alright, well. You can go be weird and suspicious by yourself, or you can come read with me. But I'm going back to reading.”

No! said ART again. I have media that I want to show you. You should watch media with me instead.

“We can watch media later. I want to read my story.”

The media is better than the story.

“Probably. I'm still going to finish reading it.”

It is fanfiction, said ART. That is ‘cringe,’ and embarrassing. You should be embarrassed. 

“I can live with that.” I reopened Midnight Eclipse.

It closed it.

“ART,” I said. “Cut it out.”

No. Watch media with me.

“I have like fifteen thousand words left, I'll be done in less than an hour.”

An hour that we could be watching– it felt like it was scrambling. –Prince of Parnea.

“You didn't even want to watch Prince of Parnea.”

I changed my mind.

“Watch it by yourself, then,” I said, returning to my story. “I'm finishing the damn fanfiction.”

A beat passed.

Then ART snatched it out of our shared workspace and deleted it.

Both of us were silent.

I opened a private channel.

“Iris,” I said both in the feed and out loud so that ART could hear me. “I need you to come to the argument lounge.”

SecUnit!! ART gasped. 

“You forced my hand!” I yelled.

Is everything okay? asked Iris.

YES, said ART, butting into our feed.

No, I corrected.

Oh, boy, Iris winced. Please don't blow anything up until I get some clothes on.

I crossed my arms and glared at the wall. ART did the feed equivalent of pacing nervously.

Iris arrived, took in the sight of me and raised an eyebrow, then politely looked away.

“Are you two squabbling like children or like an old married couple this time?” she asked dubiously.

We're not squabbling! we both said simultaneously. 

“ART is being an asshole,” I said. 

SecUnit is being ‘cringe,’ said ART.

“Are you serious right now?” I snapped. 

“Peri!” said Iris, setting her hands on her hips. “What did you do?”

Why do you think I did something? Why don't you accuse SecUnit?

“Peri. We both know that it was you.”

I merely confiscated some inappropriate material that SecUnit had brought on board, because it—

“It stole my fanfiction,” I said dryly. 

Iris’ eyes went wide. “Your fanfiction?”

“Ratthi sent it to me,” I said defensively. “And it's really good. I only have fifteen thousand words left, and ART deleted it.”

“Peri!” Iris’ gasped. “You’re not allowed to delete files from other people’s devices, you know that.”

It was not on a personal device. It was in our shared workspace.

“It wasn't yours.”

Iris, ART said in a tense voice, it was called ‘Midnight Eclipse.’

Iris was silent, face going blank.

Midnight.Eclipse.review1208.text.PSUMNT dropped into our private feed. I snatched it into hard storage and turned off my feed before ART could delete it.

“It’s really convenient that I have that one saved,” she said. “Peri already sent it to me.”

I scowled. “Who’s cringe now, asshole?”

Silence.

Oh, wait. I turned off my feed so it couldn't get into my brain. I couldn't hear it. 

Iris shook her head. “Not since the last chapter, no.”

A pause. Then she rolled her eyes.

“I think you two can handle it from here,” she said with a wave. “I’m going back to bed. Enjoy your fanfiction, SecUnit.”

“I will,” I said smugly. I went back to my seat, brought my knees up comfortably to my chest, then reopened my story.

…Huh. That sounded… familiar. I couldn’t quite place it, but it didn't feel like it was from a serial…

SecUnit! burst ART so abruptly and with so much force I jumped up from my seat in the lounge and deployed both of my energy weapons, tearing straight through my shirt sleeves.

“What?!” I demanded, scanning the room with my eyes and the ship with my camera feeds. My drones went from their admittedly lazy sweeping pattern through the ship to high alert. Several humans in the room (Iris, Turi, Matteo and Karime) were so startled that they had thrown all the cards from their game into the air. Tarik had knocked over an entire pitcher of a bubbly vegetable liquid he liked and spilled it all over the floor. Three followed my lead and deployed its own weapons, scanning with the same panic that I was, terrifying the humans further.

Um, said ART. Nevermind. I have to. Go. Back to what I was reading. You would not like it. It switched to the public feed. My apologies. SecUnit was just startled. Everything is fine.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?!” I yelled.

It did not respond. The humans all gave me looks of either confusion or irritation. A drone came to clean up the fruit liquid and a scowling Tarik left toward the mess hall, presumably to replace it. Three looked at me helplessly, then looked at its arms, then back at me. I pinched the bridge of my nose and shrugged. With a grimace, we both snapped our weapons shut and turned to find separate recyclers to harass for new shirts.

I popped our private channel back open while I waited.

You're being really weird, I said. Are you seriously not going to tell me what's going on?

…No, said ART.

I was surprised by its honesty. I sighed and leaned back against the wall beside the recycler. Do you not trust me?

It's not that. It's… different. You won't like it.

I don't like most things. I can handle it.

You are… better off not knowing, it said hesitantly. 

I frowned and opened my eyes. Shouldn’t that make it more important to tell me?

You… would not like it, it repeated uncomfortably. You did not want to talk about why you were upset when I arrived and I did not press you.

I blinked slowly and thought about it. No, I said, you didn’t.

Can you just… trust me on this one?

I heard the recycler click, indicating my shirt was ready.

“Okay,” I said. “I trust you.”

I stared forward as the words settled slowly. Iris would not have recognized those words when she sent this draft. 

But ART would.

I would.

“I think I should read something else,” I said. I closed the file and sat still. The only sound was my own shallow breath.

ART and I had been alone when we’d had that conversation. It was one that still lived in my brain with how intense things had felt as I rapidly approached another emotional collapse. It meant something. To me. To ART.

ART wrote this.

ART wrote the whole thing.

I'd been reading a 315,000 word Sanctuary Moon fanfiction about me that my best friend had never told me it was writing.

I knew why it hadn't shown me. I knew exactly why it hadn't shown me.

That was my name. That was my life. 

That was me.

“I thought a human understood me,” I said hollowly. “I thought a human who didn't know me actually wanted to write about a good SecUnit.”

I stared forward. I waited for ART to respond. It didn't.

“ART. Music.” The wall opposite me had never looked so interesting before. “I guess that's funny.”

It didn't say anything.

“You used me. For fanfiction.” My mouth felt dry.

Silence.

“Okay,” I said. I stood up, walked to the closest bathroom, hacked the door shut, turned off my feed, took a deep breath from my shallow SecUnit lungs—

Then kicked the wall of the first stall so hard that it tore itself off its hinges. Just for good measure, I also got in a few ‘fuck you’s and ‘you stupid asshole’s and some very satisfying wordless, angry screaming. That all felt really good, so good in fact that my performance reliability went up half a point from where this whole situation had crashed it by five. 

Then I managed to rip one of the toilets from the wall and threw it as hard as I could at the mirror. It shattered in a (very satisfying) burst of glass that scattered across the floor. Also, the toilet basically exploded. Nice.

There wasn't a lot in the bathroom, but I ripped off anything that was on the walls (a towel rack, soap dispenser, sink faucets, the panel around the recycler) and kicked the hell out of anything I couldn't. I knocked down every privacy wall, broke every toilet, cracked every sink, then stomped over to the only thing I hadn’t destroyed: the shower stall furthest from the door.

I stepped in, activated the privacy screen, turned the water on very hot, and sat down. I curled into a SecUnit-Standard Storage Ball™ beneath the stream. I shut down visual and audio inputs, turned tactile and pain sensors as low as they would go, and covered my head.

Then I started crying, because apparently I could just do that now.

Iris had read it. Ratthi had read it. A bunch of strangers in who knows how many systems had read it. It felt like they knew me, and that was terrifying. I hated people knowing me. The fewer people that knew me the better. But now they knew. They knew.

I felt so fucking humiliated. I'd spent days reading multiple novels worth of story and never once suspected anything. In retrospect it was all so obvious that it was embarrassing I hadn't seen it. There were so many chapters that were nearly 1:1 things that had actually happened to me. ART really thought I would never find it and when I did, it still thought that I wouldn’t put the pieces together.

It hadn't actually been joking when it called me an idiot. It really did think I was stupid. I guess it was right.

I was glad that ART let me keep the hot water. It was hot enough to turn my organic parts red, which I could tolerate but knew would be stressing ART out. It also hadn’t dumped cold water on me, probably guessing that I'd just go into shutdown and let it deal with a frozen little Murderbot Ball™ instead of one that it could try to talk to.

At some point everyone on this side of ART’s crew quarters would come out to investigate all the screaming, and ART could lie and Iris might even back it up. She definitely couldn’t lie to Seth and Martyn, though. Everyone was going to find out what it did, and why I just went on a rampage and destroyed a bathroom. I wish I could tap my drones or ART’s cameras to watch, but with my feed inactive, I couldn't. I'd shut down visual and audio input, too, so it was just me, alone, with myself, and no one else.

I thought that was what I wanted. Everyone to just go away and leave me alone. I could still watch media like this. Theoretically forever. 

But I didn't put on any media. I just sat there, feeling the water on my skin as it began to hurt. I knew ART was watching and I knew it was stressed. Having someone actively hurt themselves onboard, within the range of immediate medical assistance, must have been making it miserable. I wondered when ART would break. I knew it would break.

I just wanted to know when it would. At what point it would give up letting me do whatever I wanted and turn the water off. I wanted to know when it was willing to take my choice to hurt myself away against my will the same way it had taken my life away against my will.

I waited.

And waited.

And kept waiting.

Long enough to scald. Long enough to blister. 

I'd honestly expected it to turn it off within a minute or two so that it could start dumping apologies on me. At this temperature, and with my durability, it would still only take a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes to get third degree burns depending on what the actual temperature was. After that, I didn't honestly know. Just melt it off? Any time I’d gotten burns that bad, they’d been dry heat. I wasn't sure if it was similar or not.

I waited some more.

I didn't know how long it had been, but I was definitely at third-degree by now; my performance reliability was creeping down toward 60% and risk assessment was losing its fucking mind (For once it was actually pretty on point). The restraint was pretty impressive on ART's part. It almost made me a little less mad.

Aaaaaand then the water turned off.

My performance reliability was so low that it wouldn't have been long before an involuntary shutdown, and at that point it would have been pretty acceptable to drag me to Medical without pissing me off. It just couldn't wait, though, like I knew that it couldn't. It was always picking apart my brain, riding my feed, running diagnostics on me. I was never alone inside my own head. It told its crew about me when it knew that I was in hiding and it kidnapped me when it decided its humans mattered more than mine did. At this point it had convinced me to let it decide everything for me; where I went, what I did there, who I spent time with, where I recharged– it controlled everything down to the clothes I wore.

I hadn’t even realized it, but I'd been a pet bot this whole time.

Then something grabbed my arm and I shoved it away. I could damn well walk by myself, I didn't need to be led there by a drone like a whimpering human. I stood up and turned my inputs back on.

Uh. Fuck.

That was not a medical drone I’d just shoved, it was Tarik. And he was not the only one present. The bathroom was filled with an uncomfortable amount of humans. Kaede and Martyn, the two tallest, were holding up a tarp over the shower stall, forcing the water to fall sideways and away from me. Matteo was standing by the very drilled through bathroom door holding the drill and looking a little lost now that their job was finished. 

Seth pushed me from behind and I immediately jerked away.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded. He did it again and I took several steps forward and spun around. “Stop.”

“No,” said Seth in the ‘you are in so much fucking trouble’ voice I heard parents speak to adolescents with in my media. “You are going to Medical, now.”

Karime and Turi stepped up to my sides. It was as if I was being corralled like a fauna, and I absolutely did not like it.

“Fuck off,” I snapped. “You can't make me.”

“Yes, we can, if we have to drag you there,” said Seth.

“I'm stronger than you,” I reminded him. 

“And you can't get away without hurting someone, and you won't do that.” He gestured toward Tarik who was already sitting up and wincing.

Fuck. I did feel bad about that. This was fucking humiliating.

“Fine! Fine,” I snapped. “I'll go! Let me walk and– stop touching me.”

“Nobody wants to make you uncomfortable, SecUnit,” said Martyn, “but you've really forced our hands here.”

“I'm fine!” I groaned, but I started walking toward Medical. I wasn't going to lie, or run off like a coward. People would just find me and put their stupid hands on me again. Stupid, stupid fucking humans. 

Every single one of them followed me there. Iris was standing beside the entrance with her arms crossed. She pointed assertively at the doors and waited with a sour look on her face. 

“It promised not to talk to you if you turn your feed back on,” she said. “Now get on the platform.”

“Fine, fine,” I muttered for the second time. I walked in, and thank fuck, the rest of them stayed outside. Except for Iris. She came in, but that didn't surprise me. I took off what remained of my shirt and climbed onto the platform face down.

MedSys whirred to life. I folded my arms under my head to hide my face.

“Now,” she said, “what the fuck is wrong with you two?”

I did not want to answer where it could hear me.

“Did it promise not to spy?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did it promise you?” I pressed.

“It did,” she confirmed.

I considered it for a few seconds, then turned my feed back on.

Ohhhh fuck. Oh, fuck. That was… a lot of messages. A lot of taps. A lot of pings. That was a lot of everything that I couldn't deal with right now. I backburnered all of it and opened my private feed with Iris, then cleared the last hour’s worth of messages without reading them. She gave me a dry look.

Who did what, she asked, and why did you think that self-harming was the answer?

I wasn't self-harming. That's stupid.

You sat under near-boiling water for so long that you melted all the skin off your back. I can see your spine, SecUnit.

Oh, shit, really? I think I might actually be getting better with my pain sensors. I didn't even know that was a thing I could train. Good to know.

That’s not self-harm.

Did you, yourself, cause harm, to yourself?

…Alright, it might technically be self-harm, but it's not like I—

Back to business, she interrupted. I scowled into the platform. I hated being interrupted. Humans loved interrupting me. Who. Did. What?

You know, I said. You know that story is about me.

Well, you inspired it, she said. Not, like, every plot point or anything. But– yeah, a lot of it.

It didn't tell me, I said, hunching my shoulders. You didn't tell me. It's been doing this all this time, and you knew, and neither of you told me. Even when you found out I was reading it, you didn't tell me. I’m not a fucking joke and my life isn't up for grabs. It was hard enough with Dr. Bharadwaj! ART’s been writing about all the fucked up things that have happened to me like it actually has any idea. It's one thing when a human writer is trying to imagine it, it's a whole different thing when my friend who knows how many times I've had my skull caved in writes about it. That shit is— it's supposed to be between us. It's not supposed to be content.

“Wow,” said Iris, out loud, her eyes wide. That is… not how I thought you would feel about it.

How the fuck did you think I would feel about it?!

I thought, she said, her feed voice oozing guilt, you'd be flattered. I thought you'd be impressed that you kind of helped Peri write its own media. Because Peri— it just really thinks the world of you, but you hate hearing it say so. 

Well. You were wrong.

I'm sorry, she said. I squeezed my eyes shut when something pulled at one of my ribs uncomfortably. It wasn't helping me with pain, either. Good. It just… you don't like talking about things that it wants to talk about. So it just makes up stories.

Because I'm just that cool, I sneered.

…Yeah, SecUnit, you are. You've saved Peri, you've saved us, you saved your Preservation friends— apparently you just save humans all the time. You think you’re this terrible monster that everyone is afraid of, but… she trailed off, as if waiting for a response. I didn't give her one, so she just kept going. No one else actually thinks of you that way, and it makes them sad that you think they do. Everyone cares about you. A lot. Why do you think we just broke down the bathroom door to stop you from hurting yourself?

That's just what you do when someone's being an idiot in your bathroom.

She sighed dramatically. You know how Aphelion crashes and dies? It’s talking about when it was deleted.

Yeah. I gathered that.

That was really traumatic for it. It's venting, SecUnit. 

I opened my eyes. It didn't really matter, because my face was buried in my arms, so it was dark. But it let me stare blankly forward. 

Venting? I repeated.

It doesn't talk about it even though it wants to talk about it, because you don’t want to talk about it. It writes about things on its mind because that's its coping mechanism. Which, frankly, is better than trashing bathrooms and melting your skin off. She waved a hand. You’re a ‘heroic SecUnit’ because that's how it sees you.

I kneaded my hands in and out of fists. I was too tired to even bother complaining about my human behaviour code. ART’s SecUnit was a hero, but I wasn't. The comparison made me feel as sick as it did when I thought about how much more of a hero 2.0 had been, too, and how I could never measure up to either. 

It didn't have to post it, I said.

Did you look at the comments? I expected her to sound a lot more exasperated, but she just sounded guilty. The first chapter or two people complained about it being ridiculous and unrealistic, but Peri linked all those sources in the notes– and by the time it was on chapter five people were furious about the treatment of real SecUnits. She hesitated. It thought it was helping you.

It wasn't, I dismissed. It kind of was though. It would have been fine if it wasn't me.

There's a lot of stuff that isn't you—

It literally has the time I got shot in the back on Preservation Station in it. ART wasn't even there for that. That’s not venting, that's taking bits of me without asking me or telling me. 

That actually was kind of traumatic, she said as if she were admitting a secret, your friend Gurathin—

We’re not friends.

Your friend Gurathin told Peri about it, and– yeah. Let's just say it was upset.

I don't want to talk about this anymore. I just want to go to my room.

Iris hesitated. Okay. I'm sorry, SecUnit.

I didn't reply. She fell silent, and after a minute or so I heard her sit down. I’d expected her to leave, but maybe she was watching to make sure ART didn't break its promise while I was infuriatingly helpless. Fuck. Maybe I shouldn't have caused myself catastrophic injuries just to piss it off.

It took another hour or so. It would have been there longer for my new skin to stop hurting, and it would take longer now that I was leaving– but I was leaving. 

I didn't say anything to Iris when I grabbed my shirt out of the recycler– oh, great, my favourite colour, with plenty of pockets. Sure. Why not. I put it on as I left and stomped the whole way back to my cabin. Then I grabbed the blanket off of the bed, walked into my favourite corner-staring-corner, then stared at the corner.

The first thing I did was turn on Sanctuary Moon, but that just made me think about the stupid fanfiction, so then I tried World Hoppers, but you can guess how that went. I tried something new but couldn't focus, and that just frustrated me more. 

Eventually I got so mad about it that I turned everything off, left my corner and crawled into my bunk for some SecUnit-Storage Ball™ time instead. That was nicer than the corner without any media, at least. My bunk was always comfortable. It hadn’t been during my first mission with ART. At least, I thought it wasn't. It could have gotten me a new one, but I could also just be wrong. I was wrong about a lot of things.

It wasn't the only thing that seemed to have upgraded while I’d been on Preservation Station between my first mission and my official employment. A bigger, nicer display surface. The softest couch I’ve ever sat on with a coffee table for annoyingly kicking up my feet. Little secret doors for my drones so I didn't have to open the actual door to let them in or out. 

I'm pretty sure the welding in my favourite staring corner even got smoothed out. 

I paced around the room, then turned my feed back off and did something incredibly stupid that ART would make fun of me for if I was speaking to it (which wouldn't be as funny anymore that I knew it genuinely thought I was stupid).

I taped over all the cameras. 

It's not like ART didn't know everything I was doing anyway. Every step I took, my respiration, whether or not I was conscious, even if I was standing with my act-like-a-human code moving me around in my staring corner.

But, hey. It wasn't looking at me anymore, and I didn't want anyone looking at me anymore. This was as close to alone as I could possibly be, and I would take what I could get. I just wanted five fucking minutes where no one was looking at me, no one was listening to me, no one was even thinking about me. Everything felt like so much and I had no idea how to make it go away. Even media wasn’t calming me down (all of it made me think about ART), and that was terrifying. 

I missed ART. I didn't miss ART. I missed feeling ART on me in the feed. I missed feeling control over the feed on Preservation. I missed knowing what I wanted, because every so often, I knew what I wanted, and it felt incredible. I could really use that right now, but I wasn't sure I'd ever known less what I wanted since Mensah had bought my contract. 

I was pretty sure I missed ART. 

I didn't want to talk to it, but I missed it. I didn't know what to do about that. My insides got twisty and weird and my inorganics felt weirdly cold, and everything just felt a little bit too fast.  

I needed media. I needed media so badly. 

I thought long and hard what I wanted, and decided, unfortunately, that I still wanted to finish Midnight Eclipse.

With a sigh of resignation, I opened the story.  

…Oh.

I was too… mad, when I realized who wrote it to really… think about what it actually said. 

ART's self insert being forced to abandon Network… well. By SecUnit, even. Crashing and killing Aphelion. How upset Music was that Network had died. 

And SecUnit just… standing there.

…Maybe ART was a little more upset than it was letting on. We hadn’t really… talked about it. I thought about it a lot. Mostly I was angry. 2.0 was smart, and brave, and good. I'd be dead without it. A lot of people would be dead without it. And it only got to live for what, half an hour? Maybe? It was a person as much as I was, and that's how long it lived. That wasn't fair. Why was my life more worth than its? It made my chest hurt and there's not even a heart in there. I hated it when Three mentioned it, even though I knew it was upset, too. I hated it when ART mentioned it because it reminded me that it was my fault it existed in the first place. I hated it when anyone mentioned it, and I wasn't afraid to let them know.

…Maybe ART was afraid to let me know that it… maybe didn't hate it.

That made me feel bad. Really bad. My first instinct was to punch a wall about it, but that was such a monumentally stupid thing to do that threat assessment went up a point as if it were mocking me. That was new. And annoying.

Music was its self-insert. And when Network had died, it… had a very different reaction than it actually had about 2.0. When I finally got back to ART and could tell it what happened, everything that it had done, and how it was gone, it just… said it was unpleasant but inevitable. Then it went back to fixing me. We didn't really talk about it after that.

But Music. Music was wailing and sobbing, saying it had loved it. It even said SecUnit (me) had all but dissociated itself (myself) from its (my) grief over Network (2.0) and left Music (ART) alone with its own.

Had I done that?

I thought a little harder about telling ART what happened while I was in its MedSystem. I was so tired and so damaged. I was miserable and in and out of consciousness. I guess I'd come across as… apathetic, or dismissive or something. I’d just said 2.0 held TargetControlSystem back long enough for me to destroy System Control. It died in the process. Then I ran away.

I don't know if I would have been a little more… sensitive if I'd broken the news to it later, but probably. I'd at least be mad about it.

Music turned back to the console. “I'm all alone. You're dead,” it said, touching the hollow of a missing button. “And SecUnit may as well be, right now. It's just me. And I am so sorry.” 

I winced. If that's really how it felt, and it hadn't told me then… then it was my fault it didn't feel like it could. So it wrote about it happening to someone else.

I thought that what bothered me most was that SecUnit was acting like the real me. A lot of the time (like when I got shot in the back) things happened differently. In real life no one had cared. In its story everyone cared, a hell of a lot. 

This was 1:1. There wasn't an alternative, happy ending to this.

Wow. Hm. Okay.

Upon reflection, I thought that I might have been being an asshole.

My friend was sad. It had been sad. And it was afraid to tell me so.

My instinct was to just stay in my nice comfy SecUnit-Storage Ball™ under a blanket, and shut down. Again. 

I couldn't hide from this. I'd already made it infinitely worse by having a Murderbot Meltdown that forced everyone on the ship to drill through a door. And I made ART feel bad on purpose. Because I got really mad again and couldn't handle it. 

I really needed to talk to my trauma counselor about my anger issues. Again. Honestly that was like 90% of what we talked about.

First things first. I wrote out some thoughts and scripts in my head, because if I didn't prepare, it was going to be right back to the Ball™. 

When I thought I was as ready as I was going to be, I sat up and crossed my legs, letting the blanket fall into my lap. I ran a hand through my hair. I took a deep breath. I watched a few minutes of Sanctuary Moon. (These are all things my trauma counselor told me to do when I'm stressed and don't want to freak out (sometimes I do actually want to freak out though, but I usually do them anyway so I can get a good grade in trauma treatment or something))

“ART,” I said.

So much of its attention slammed into me at once that I had to catch myself before I fell over. It yanked itself back radiating embarrassment and guilt until it was at a slightly-less-than-normal distance.

I deleted it, it said.

“What!” I burst. “No, fuck– don't– undelete it.”

ART seemed confused. That isn’t a feature of this particular website.

“Fuck me,” I mumbled, then metaphorically pushed ART out of the way so that I could open the site and skim for any vulnerabilities and– bam. One in the dumb AI story generator. Ha. That's what you get for letting people post that crap. I hopped though into the backend, found the overflow storage that hadn't been wiped yet, and yanked it the fuck back un-deleted.

Then I paused, looked at how shitty and inefficient their code was and fixed it before I pulled out and patched the exploit. It took me an embarrassing .4 seconds to do all of that, but at least, for once, it would have taken ART longer with my superior hacking skills. I do have to admit, being better at something than ART gave me a heady, powerful feeling. 

I crossed my arms, feeling quite satisfied with myself.

Uh, said ART.

“We need to talk—” I started.

I know that I violated your privacy by—

“Shut up for five seconds.” I stopped. “Not literal seconds, it's going to take me longer than that.”

Acknowledged.

“We need to talk–” I said, then stumbled to a halt. My whole script was fucked now. “We need to talk–” I took a deep breath and carded my hands together. “We need to talk about– about–” one more breath. I could do this. I could fucking do this. Come on, Murderbot, they're just words. “Feelings.”

ART did not respond for 84 seconds. I assumed it was consulting Iris, and humans, even augmented humans, speak slowly compared to bots and constructs, and constructs and bots spoke like they were insects to something like ART. I watched more Sanctuary Moon. 

Clarify, said ART.

“I,” I said. Fuck. I prepared for this, “am an asshole. I have always been an asshole. Usually, the reason you like me is that I am an asshole.” I grimaced. “I have been an asshole today. In the bad way.”

A three second pause. That one wasn't contacting Iris, it was just genuinely confused.

For trashing the bathroom? it fielded. My maintenance drones have already repaired it, you don’t need to worry about that. If it helped you feel any better then I'm glad you did it.

“First, no, I'm not supposed to express myself,” I said with air quotes, “with violence. Especially against a person. And I did.” I kneaded my hands together. “That is…” I thought about Dr. Bharadwaj. I thought about my treatments. I thought about my friend. “Abusive.”

Fifteen seconds. Okay.  

It sounded like it both had no fucking idea what I was talking about, and perhaps wasn’t sure if I was having some kind of episode.

“What I'm trying to say is,” I continued, swallowing around the lump in my throat, “I’m sorry, ART.”

Silence. Kind of a lot of silence.

“I'm done,” I clarified. “You can talk now.”

Well, SecUnit, said ART, I must admit. You have rendered me speechless.

“That's pretty hard to do."

Yes. It is.

I waited patiently. I put on an episode of Sanctuary Moon and focused on it really, really hard. Thank fuck that was working again.

I did not like watching you hurt yourself, it said after six and a half minutes. That was worse than destroying the bathroom.

I was glad, as I am pretty often, that I didn't have a stomach. It would probably feel pretty bad right now.

“I know.” I glanced at the episode of Sanctuary Moon for a few seconds to keep my cool. I could feel ART watching with me. “I'm not sure… what to say about it. At the time I was glad you didn't stop me. I still… am kind of glad that you didn't stop me. I think that might be… wrong? Bad? I don't think I'm supposed to thank you for that. I know it hurt you and it obviously hurt me. ‘I needed that’ seems kind of fucked up to say. But. I felt I didn't have control over anything at the time and I wanted control of something, even if it was kind of fucked up.”

Trashing bathrooms is, in fact, a common result of feelings of lack of control.

I frowned. “What, specifically?”

Specifically.

“Well. That's weird.”

I could provide you with the nuances of the behaviour, but I believe it would sidetrack us, and I wish to remain on topic.

“Yeah, right, okay. Me too. I'm talking more about the ‘self harm’ thing anyway.” I needed a few more minutes of Sanctuary Moon. “I wish you had told me when you found out I was reading it. I felt really stupid when I figured it out. It made me feel like you thought I was stupid, that I wouldn't figure it out.”

I don’t think that you’re stupid. I think that you are extremely creative, clever, and you frequently surprise me with your analysis and conclusions. You’re only stupid when it comes to your own safety. It paused. That was a joke.

“Yeah, I got that.” I felt a little better that it felt comfortable making a joke. This might be going well. Which would be great, because I genuinely had no idea if it was or not. “You asked me to trust you,” I said, looking down, “and I did. And I shouldn't have.”

…Yes.

“You asked me to trust you,” I repeated, “specifically. That hurts. That really fucking hurts.”

I know. I knew you wouldn't like it, though, and you didn't. That's what I asked you to trust me about.

I thought back. That was actually true. I guess I was kind of misremembering it.

“You still should have told me.”

I should have. I could feel it watching Sanctuary Moon with me for a little bit. I switched to World Hoppers and could feel its amusement and gratitude. I shouldn’t have written it, either. And I certainly shouldn't have posted it. Not without your permission.

“I don't know what I would have said if you'd actually asked,” I mumbled. “I don't know if you shouldn't have written it or posted it. I know I shouldn't have trashed the bathroom and did the shower thing. I don't know if mutual assholery cancels itself out. I just know I shouldn't be an asshole as much as I usually am.”

I like that you’re an asshole. It's endearing.

“Not the good kind of asshole,” I dismissed. “I can be pretty shitty sometimes.”

…Yes. You can be pretty shitty sometimes. We watched a little bit more World Hoppers, because I could tell that it wasn't done. You are defensive, selfish, dismissive of others, and frequently go out of your way to piss people off on purpose.

“Yeah.”

  But also, it continued, for fuck’s sake, SecUnit. You were a tortured slave for over a decade and have lived as a person for less than two. If you think I am surprised by or was not prepared for trashed bathrooms, then perhaps you are as stupid as you think I think you are.

I frowned. “Wait. You think I think– who is thinking?” 

Not you, clearly.

“I'm being vulnerable. I'm being vulnerable and you're mocking me.”

You are feeling significantly relieved that I am mocking you. Don't deny it, you're spilling it everywhere.

Yeah, I wasn't even going to bother trying to clean up my feed presence. I wouldn’t be fooling anyone.

You are my friend, said ART, a little more earnestly. You did not destroy the bathroom to hurt me. You hurt yourself to hurt me. Because you knew that hurting yourself would hurt me.

I'd made it this far without covering my face, but that did it. I said, “Yes.”

Please don't do that again.

“I wo–”

I stopped myself.

“I want to say I won't,” I said, and I felt fucking terrible saying it, “but I don't know if I can promise that. I don't want to lie to you.”

That's quite reassuring. You must be making progress in your treatments.

“Would you shut up, you—”

I will accept a commitment to trying.

I nodded.

I also reserve the right to drag you out of the shower/airlock/acid pit next time you decide to have a self-destructive meltdown. I don’t want to watch that again. 

“Okay.”

You are permitted to complain as much as you want, but you are letting me turn the shower off before anyone breaks out another drill.

I winced.

Also you should apologize to the crew. That was a needlessly difficult operation.

“You could have just opened the door.”

I could have just turned off the shower.

“Two shay.”

It's touché.

“Whatever.” I hesitated. “Don't ask me to trust you again if I can't.” 

You often accuse me of being a liar, but I shouldn't have lied to you, even by omission. It will not happen again. 

It finally settled in over me in the feed the way I liked, almost a warm pressure that made everything feel better. A big invisible hug without all the gross touching and stuff. I leaned into it gratefully. It made this horrible feelings talk a little less horrible.

“Your story is really good,” I said after a little while. “I didn't think you'd like writing fiction.”

We’ve read quite a bit of fiction together. Even without your input, it’s much easier to process stories that are more explicit about what I am meant to see or feel. I have run analysis on over ten thousand novels to grasp writing conventions. I enjoy reading comments that indicate I am successfully conveying something I usually need you to help with.

“You do a good job without me,” I admitted. “I liked the name thing.”

It felt embarrassed. Your feelings about your name are complex, but also sensitive. I was attempting to rationalize it to myself as it seemed deeply inappropriate to ask.

“I wouldn't have known how to answer, because I don't really know the answer,” I said. “But I liked reading it. It made me think about it without freaking out.”

Oh. Good.

“I liked when it got shot in the back. You made it sound a lot cooler than it was.”

I was… upset, when I heard about it. I wanted to write what should have happened instead.

“It was a nice thought,” I mumbled. “I wish it had been like that.”

As do I.

“Okay, do not laugh,” I said firmly. “You know the part where SecUnit falls down the mineshaft?”

Yes.

“And it gets to the top and realizes that everyone worked together to save it? That there's like a hundred people there who were actually trying to help anyway they could?”

Yes. That is how it should be. You spend so much time and energy helping others and it sickens me how unappreciated you are.

“That was why I was offline when you hit the system,” I admitted. “I read that part and– remember, you promised not to laugh.”

Technically, I didn’t, but I promise not to laugh.

“I got really emotional and started crying,” I said, lowering my voice as if someone might hear. As if my room wasn't soundproof. “I kind of freaked out and shut down to stop.”

…Oh.

Seven minutes passed. It was not watching World Hoppers with me, but I thought that the familiar sound was probably comforting anyway.

“To be clear,” I said, “in a good way. Not a bad way. I think.”

Two more minutes. Halfway through I was able to finally uncover my face.

I’m glad to hear that, it said finally.

“I actually didn't know that I could do that? So that was interesting,” I mused.

How could you possibly not know that you could do that? ART scoffed.

“I don't know,” I frowned. “I guess it just never came up.”

Three knew that.

I scowled. “Did you just ask it?”

Yes. I did not mention you. I said that I was reviewing its medical scans. 

“It knows,” I sighed. 

It does not know.

“It knows.”

It does not know!

Three, I said, switching to the no-humans-allowed feed. Do you know?

Congratulations on your revelation, 1.0. I'm proud of you.

Fuck off.

You would like that, wouldn't you? it said, following it up with several rude glyphs.

It was currently in a phase where it delighted itself by being as rude as possible and revelling in the fact it wasn’t immediately killed afterward. Seth called it the ‘terrible twos,’ Iris called it the ‘terrible threes,’ Three had found out, and now it was calling it its ‘terrible threes.’ They are all fucking insufferable.

…Apologies, said ART, returning sheepishly to our private feed. 

I sighed, just a little bit dramatically. 

You… liked it, then? it asked nervously.

“Yeah. Before I had a meltdown. And then after I was done having a meltdown. I also liked reading the comments.”

I could feel it puff up with pride, which was nice after having it be so uncharacteristically nervous and embarrassed this whole conversation. 

“We could maybe… read it together, if you want. So you can ride my feed while I do.”

ART felt immediately and overwhelmingly excited before rapidly withdrawing. I didn't like that at all and dragged it back.

I can still delete it from the site, it said. We can read it offline.

“...No,” I said carefully. “I don't want you to delete it. You like writing it. And it's your thing. You're allowed to have your thing. Without me going on a rampage.”

Iris called it a temper tantrum.

I started to respond, stopped, started again, stopped, started again, then stopped with one final deep breath.

“Haha,” I said in a strained voice. “Funny. Yes.”

ART radiated amusement.

“...I don't want you to stop, if you don't want to. And I also… won't read it if you don't want me to read it.”

ART fluttered in the feed and then settled back down. I would like it if you read it. If you want to read it.

“I want to read it,” I said.

Oh. Yeah. Sounds good.

I rolled my eyes. Then I hesitated and glanced away from the cameras, despite the fact they couldn’t even see me. Unconsciously I felt my drones even turn away. That was a weird subconscious thing to think about later. Maybe. The list of shit to think about  was already pretty long.

“I finished reading your draft,” I said. I felt ART tense. “Do you, uh… wanna talk about something?”

You don't want to talk about it.

“You want to talk about it.”

…You don't want to talk about it.

“You want to talk about it.”

…I do. I do want to talk about it.

“We’re doing feelings talk. We're in feelings mode.”

…Okay.

It was Ball™ time. 

I only knew it for less than a minute, said ART. I knew that it would be a person but not how… good, of a person that it would be. When Three first arrived in the Barish-Estranza shuttle and described everything it had done it was… incredible.

I nodded along mutely.

It shouldn't have been able to do half of the things that it did. It disabled a governor module. It extracted all of the surviving humans from the ship, and then successfully destroyed it. It— ART hesitated. Three was kind enough to share its memories of the event with me. 

That was a genuine surprise. It hadn't given them to me. Or– maybe it had. I'd deleted its mission report immediately. I'd also never asked.

It was so clever. Not that you aren't, but– well. Apologies, SecUnit, but you have a tendency to self sabotage when you're depressed. You are often depressed.

“No, I know. Continue.”

It gave Three your hack and made using it Three’s own decision to use it. It told it that it was giving it to it whether it chose to help it or not. It was very kind.

“It was kind of an ass, too,” I said. I expected ART to be annoyed, but it only seemed intrigued. “It just sort of showed up in my head and started talking even though I was, I think understandably, pretty fucking terrified. It just made itself right at home with its own partition and started watching my media.”

You would have done that.

“I would have been meaner about it.”

You don't give yourself enough credit. You are always gentle when interacting with other systems. You are very polite to bots, and you always admonish me for being too rough— you say thank you to SecSystems and bot pilots, SecUnit. 

“That's just normal stuff. If you aren't nice they won't help you.”

You are frequently ‘nice’ when it would be more efficient to simply delete the system and replace it.

“Well… I wouldn't want to be deleted.”

Neither would I. But I do not thank bot pilots.

“Let's go back to talking about 2.0,” I said, beginning to have Feelings that I was not currently prepared to Feel. I wanted to get back to the Feelings that I had psyched myself up for.

How long was it there? We have not spoken in detail, it was a traumatic wound I do not wish to reopen, but if you are ready to talk about it…

“Did you not see it when you were reconstructing my brain?” I asked in surprise.

No. 2.0 was extremely effective at tagging and quarantining the infection. While it took me quite awhile to remove, it did not take exceptionally long to locate. Since it was in your active memory at the time, it kept it clear.

“Oh,” I said. All this time I had assumed ART knew everything that had happened.

It hadn't.

“I can show you, if you want,” I said hesitantly, “but it isn't… it's going to upset you.”

I know.

“More than you probably think it will.”

I think it will be very upsetting. Our sentient killware dies there.

“You… don't know how it died, though, do you?” I winced. “I… really thought you did.”

No. What I know is what you told me.

That wasn’t much at all. No wonder it was so…

I quietly packaged the memory, but left out my emotional data from the time. I dropped it into our shared work space and pulled away in the feed, dragging the blanket over the rest of me to hide. 

ART could process the file instantly. It could process it at a speed that I was not physically capable of registering.

It said nothing. I was watching World Hoppers alone, so I switched to Sanctuary Moon. After three episodes, I switched to the feed and said, I can take a recharge if you want a few hours by yourself. Or more than a few hours.

No! burst ART with significantly more panic than I was expecting. No. Please don't go.

I won't, then. I just thought you might, uh… not want to talk to me for a bit.

I always want to talk to you, ART dismissed. Even when I am mad at you.

You're mad at me.

No, it said. I’m mad at the unfairness of it. Your presence is comforting.

Oh. Okay.

It was very brave, it said. Its feed voice was heavy and laced with grief. It settled over me, heavier, and I did my best to reach back and hold as much as I could in my tiny metaphorical hands. I felt very inadequate suddenly, like an insect trying to hold a towering fauna. Or a SecUnit trying to comfort a near-infinitely intelligent spaceship. Even letting me try was dangerous. I wished I could offer it anything meaningful, but I couldn't. This was all I had. 

“Yeah,” I said in a small voice. “It was.”

I do not blame you, said ART. I am just sad.

It could probably feel a hell of a lot of unpleasant feelings rolling off of me right now. I appreciated the clarification. 

“Yeah,” I murmured. “I'm sad, too.”

I want to be sad together, said ART. I don’t want to be sad alone anymore.

“Yeah. Okay. I think I do, too.” I loosened my grip on the blanket, but I didn't come out. “What do they do without Aphelion?”

Hm?

“It was the only thing redirecting the Carsion Raider ships,” I continued. “What are they going to do without it?”

…I don't know yet, it admitted. I haven't planned that part.

“I have some suggestions, if you want.”

ART hesitated.

I would like to hear them.