Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Scanner, emergency com, rugged rated display, and sampling pack.” A heavyset human man dropped an armload of gear onto a small, young, human female. “Everything a new geotech needs to not completely shit the bed.”

“Uh, thanks,” the girl said, carefully placing the items on a table and spreading them out.

Then they spent the next hour going through the basics of taking scans and samples in an active mining tunnel without dying in one of the very many easily accessible ways for humans to die. I’d heard this all many times before and would continue to hear it because this training took place in the main supply hub, and the main supply hub always had at least one SecUnit in it. Harder for the mine quartermaster to slip something past a SecUnit than HubSys. Or something. It was less boring than standing in the tunnels.

I did notice the girl kept looking at me and at the unit currently positioned at the opposite end of the hub. Mid-cycle break and shift changes, with people constantly moving in and out, there were typically two units here. It was a central enough location it let us be near the various control centers without the high level staff having to see us.

“And that’s that,” Jep, the male, said, signing out the girl’s gear on his interface. “Any other questions before I get you down there to start taking time off your years?”

“They’re not bots,” the girl said, peering at me in a knit brows, slightly tense way I had identified as nervous. “Are they? Bots don’t wear clothes.”

“SecUnits. They’re half-bot half-human,” Jep said with a shrug. He was a crew chief, 15 years into a 20 year indenture, with the typical lung problems and nihilism that tended to set in by year five. Far less actively harmful that many of the other long-timers, which is why they’d made him a crew chief. The pay rate increase offset the drinking, actually keeping him on time to complete his contract. “Creepy dangerous things. Turn on you as soon as they get the chance.”

“So they have human parts?”

“Oh yeah, makes ‘em even creepier. Hey, SecUnit, put down the helmet.”

That command was barked at me. I had 1.6 seconds to obey before the SecSystem would relay my failure to comply to HubSys, which would then tell my governor module to remind me what I was supposed to do. And once I’d picked myself off the floor after the convulsions were done, I’d still have to drop the helmet. So I waited 1.3 seconds and then initiated the withdraw sequence.

The small human woman made a grimacing smile at me. “Hi,” she said. “Sorry, didn’t realize you had a face in there.”

I felt something twitch in my jaw, but the miners fucked with us often enough that I had my expression under control even out of the helmet. They enjoyed the reactions too much. I wouldn’t give them that.

“They all got faces. Different too.” Jep turned to the unit on the other side of the room. “Hey, helmet off, show the girl your mug.”

That unit disengaged its helmet much faster. It was the same height and build as me, of course, but different skin color, different facial features.

“Oh, hello,” she said because it seemed like she didn’t know what else to say.

Jep shook his head and turned away. “Gon’ get eaten alive down there, girl. You ever stabbed someone? Let me get you a knife.”

When Jep’s back was turned, the other unit winked at the girl. She covered her mouth and then made a small wave at it.

Ridiculous.

Ridiculously dangerous. Both of them. She was going to get eaten alive, and as a new indenture she likely wasn’t rated highly enough for one of us to be dispatched to save her if we weren’t already in the area, depending on her attacker’s rating and distance.

“Thank you both,” she said, eyes sweeping between us. “And thanks so much Jep, it’s great having you show me around.” He scoffed as he handed her the large equipment knife and a belt to hold it, but I could tell he was pleased.

Most new arrivals were resigned, panicking, moody. They did not say thank you. They asked where the bar was and told crew chiefs where they could stick the mining equipment. The other unit and I watched her departure with interest, and on my part, a sinking feeling.

A quick scan showed her feed tag, Mariss.

~ ~ ~

I saw her again the next week, up in the processing center. I was stationed there mostly as a way of having me in a central location incase anything went down, and also to encourage the techs there to focus on work. I wasn’t supposed to say that to them, but HubSystem felt my presence encouraged them to shut up and get analyzing. I was less certain.

After nearly five Corporation Rim standard years in the facility, the longest I’d been stationed anywhere, I had a lot of doubts about this HubSystem’s analysis. And, really, its programming in general.

Mariss walked in for the start of her shift and picked up a fresh sample pack. A few rows of displays and scanning equipment over, some of the techs were whispering to each other. Here we go. I repressed a sigh. One of the techs half pushed out of their chair.

“Hey, new blood, SecUnit will go on your round with you,” Kimuta said, a smile and false tone of voice failing to disguise the malice.

Mariss shot me a startled glance. “SecUnit?”

“Oh yeah, lots of long, dark tunnels, old equipment. Most of the native fauna has been dealt with, but you might still get some rock burrowers. It’s great to have security.”

The other techs began to giggle. They did this pretty routinely to any new tech they thought looked soft. Assign them the absolute worst route through dank, stinking tunnels and then make one of us follow them around, in the dark, alone. The claustrophobia and silence, aside from our footfalls, was like poison to human minds. Add in the lurking threat of being followed by a SecUnit and inevitably the newbie would have a breakdown, and I’d have to cart them to medical. They’d get dinged a few hours for failing to finish the day, and a few more for use of medical. Then everyone else would have a good laugh for a couple days.

It was one of the less harmful pranks in the facility.

“Uh okay, thanks for looking out for me,” Mariss said to the watching techs. Then she turned to me. Uncertain. “Well, um, will you carry the sample case?”

I lifted it out of her hands, pointing my helmet faceplate about a foot above her head. I didn’t intend to frighten her, or any of them, most of the time, but they were always frightened. All of them.

I followed her out of processing and into a waiting lift tube. Internally, I was estimating how long I thought she would make it before the breakdown. At least half the shift, I guessed. She’d said hello to me that first day, not that she knew it. But her heart rate was elevated as the lift door closed, so I didn’t think she’d make it to the afternoon break.

“Have they instructed you to fuck with me?” she asked as we whooshed downwards.

“No,” I said immediately. “I am only to accompany you.”

“But they are fucking with me?”

It was a direct question and one I didn’t mind answering. “Yes.”

“How?”

“I am a SecUnit.”

She squinted up at me, lips compressing.

“Do you have a designation?” she asked. She asked me.

A direct question, so I had to answer, but how to answer? “I have a hard feed address,” I said, voice perfectly neutral.

“Oh. But how do you all get assigned around? If you’re all SecUnit…?”

“HubSystem assigns us. It uses our feed addresses.”

“Ah. Is there anything people call you?”

I was glad for the faceplate. Even with practice keeping my face neutral, sometimes I still slipped. The miners enjoyed it more when I slipped. “’SecUnit’ is an approved method for identifying that you are communicating to me.”

The lift doors opened. She bit her lip, but she nodded and walked away. I breathed a sigh of relief.

We spent the first hour in silence, walking down long bore tunnels filled with harsh floodlights, dodging equipment and mining bots.

“I was planning to be a survey geologist,” she told me as I looked at yet another container of grey dust. “I guess this is sort of like that. I can pretend it’s like that.”

“Mining facilities have a statistically lower level of injuries for staff geologists than survey teams,” I told her, and she smiled at me. We both knew she was not a staff geologist. Those positions were not indentured.

The geotechs were sent out regularly to collect samples from tunnels to determine if the ore was running out or the tunnel needed to be adjusted to follow a vein, or to identify what was going on when the rock changed. It was less dangerous than the tasks of the miners operating the drilling and hauling bots, or the refinery techs, but it was not safe.

She slipped at one point, trying to climb down from the side of a drill bot where she’d had to climb to access an unusual patch of green-hued rock. I jumped and caught her before she could crack her head on the raised bolts lining the side of the bot. We dangled for a second, but I could easily hold both our weights with a single hand on the side of the bot. I let go and dropped to the ground, scraping my armor against the bolts instead of her face.

The bot operator grunted. “Nice to see those things can be useful sometimes.”

“What do they normally do?” Mariss asked after I’d set her down on her feet and freed the sample jar from her clenched hand.

I slid the jar back into the case without looking at the bot operator.

“Stand around. Tell us not to have a good time. Get in the middle of people having it out and haul ‘em off to the supervisors. Shoot stuff.” She shrugged.

“Shoot stuff?”

“Wildlife, raiders, people trying to run.”

“Ah.”

The single syllable said it all. I didn’t think my brief save from a concussion would outweigh the fact that one of my protocols was to prevent the indentured labor from leaving the facility. For their safety of course. Everyone knew just how dangerous the station, with its bars, and drugs, and transports leaving the system, was.

She was quiet for a while again after that.

“Can I see your face?”

I didn’t startle, I was too practiced for that, but I felt my performance dropping. It wasn’t a direct order, and it wasn’t a question for information that I needed to provide. It was a request. I could ignore it. I could pretend I hadn’t heard her or that the question had not made sense because it was not an order.

I retracted the faceplate. And continued looking about a foot above the top of her head.

“Oh, it’s you. Hello again. Most of the SecUnits don’t want to let me see their faces when I ask them.”

“It is outside of standard protocol.”

“Oh! Um. Sorry to be weird.” She looked away. Embarrassed.

I raised the faceplate again, unsure if this was a statement that required a response or not.

She avoided looking at me again. Instead she talked, filled the long dusty corridors with talk of a gas giant’s moon, purple scrublands, large carnivorous avians, a university on a neighboring planet. At one point she paused.

“Am I boring you? Sorry.”

“No,” I said. I was used to hearing human conversations, but not directed at me. It was a new experience.

She was still talking to me when we walked back into processing. The other techs looked up in surprise.

“Thanks, Kimuta,” Mariss said as I set down the full sample pack on the table. “Taking SecUnit was a great idea! Kept me from splitting my head open.” Then she turned to me. “Well, that’s it for me, I guess. You should go off where HubSystem tells you now.”

It wasn’t a question and it could be taken as an order, so I went before the techs could take the failure of their joke out on me.  

Chapter Text

We were in processing when HubSystem directed a shift change. I waited for the replacement SecUnit to arrive. Mariss perched on a stool, staring at a pair of floating displays as she flicked through filters. Specks on the displays shimmered in an unusual way. Even I could see that. Running back through my logs, I had no record of seeing anything similar before.

Kimuta stood behind her, pointing over her shoulder. “But that’s weird,” they said.

“Agreed.” Mariss increased magnification. “Do you think its strange synthetics? It looks like pictures I’ve seen.”

“We have to call in the geosup,” Kimuta said, turning away and heading for another display console.

Barbican was going to love that when they got my report through their backdoor monthly uploads from SecSystem. I shunted the information, which really, there was already a lot of data in Sec System, over to the ComfortUnits’ pods for the moment. I’d probably have a chance to get it out before they updated at the end of afternoon shift. Maybe.

The other SecUnit arrived and immediately retracted its faceplate. A couple of the other techs looked up and rolled their eyes. But Mariss looked up and smiled at it. “Hi, Sixty-four.”

“Acknowledged,” it said in standard, SecUnit neutral. Then, when no one else was looking, it winked at her. She winked back.

I pinged it. Stop winking at her. The unit winked at me. Stop that.

We’re not prohibited from winking, it sent back. Don’t you have a recharge cycle?

HubSystem indicated I did and that I should return to my cubicle. Why does she call you Sixty-four?

It is a number in my feed designation. It felt smug through the feed. My jaw twitched.

“It creeps me out you named it,” another tech, Lyelyn, said.

Mariss sighed and rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you ever had like a favorite interface or a transport cart, or a—”

Lyelyn waved away the rest of the sentence. “Yeah, but that was my own stuff. This is a fucking SecUnit. It’s a killing machine.” Then his eyes flicked to Sixty-four. “No offense.”

“Acknowledged,” it said in standard, SecUnit neutral. Then it pinged me. Aren’t you returning to your cubicle?

“I think security consultants name their favorite guns, like in Alien Blasters Two,” another tech, Cara, chimed in.

Of course humans had favorite weapons. They were illogical like that.

I left.

Two cycles later, I was in a lift when it paused and Mariss stepped in. I retracted my faceplate so she could see it was me.

“You and Sixty-four are the only ones who humor me,” she said by way of greeting. “I think the others don’t like me.”

There were five others. I had made basic inquiries. Their reactions varied from confused, to indifferent, to actively irritated. None of them had given her a portion of their feed designation or other identifier.

“It is not a SecUnit’s place to like or dislike a client.”

“That is a very polite way of putting it,” she said.

She didn’t understand that the governor module compelled a certain level of politeness from me. I’d raised my voice with a client, once. Once.

“Are you patrolling?”

“Yes.”

“Will you walk with me?”

I checked with HubSystem, indicating I thought the client was indicating there might be security concerns, and it approved the change in route.

“Yes.”

We stepped out into one of the lower levels and she shifted the sampling case from one hand to another, fidgeting uneasily. I tagged the movement to SecSystem as definite unease.

“Do you know Jephasen?”

“Yes.” One of the repair techs. I’d had to extract him from multiple fights over the past three years.

“He knows my sampling route this week. Cara thought it was funny to give it to him.”

I had an opinion of Cara.

I did a quick flip through the various recordings, visual and audio, of Jephasen from the last week. Then, with increasing alarm, through those covering the last month.

“Understood,” I said. My voice remained neutral, but my organic parts did not feel similarly.

I pinged Sixty-four through the feed. There was a vague, questioning response. I didn’t blame it for not being friendlier towards me. After nearly five years in this facility, we had each been forced to do unpleasant but not irreparable things to all of the others for the amusement of our human clients.

Advised one of us accompany client Mariss on all sampling rounds this week, I sent.

There was a distinct edge of unease in the response, like it already had concerns. Why?

I couldn’t explain. So I sent it a couple video clips that I had already flagged as indicating a security threat to HubSystem.

Client must determine if strange synthetics have been located. It would be a goldmine for the mining company, if it could get the permits. Client should not be subject to excessive distractions.

Acknowledged. I got the feeling it was distinctly unhappy, but not about the babysitting task I had just given us.

HubSystem was not enthused about assigning a SecUnit to accompany the most junior geotech on her sampling rounds, but I flagged the importance of the potential for strange synthetics again. I also found, in reviewing Mariss’ file more closely, that she was rated higher than half the geotechs already. She had completed more advanced schooling. HubSystem flagged my suggestions as ‘processing.’

“You are able to file a formal complaint,” I said as we turned down a less used corridor.

“Yeah, so Kimuta told me that gets you on the shit list real fast. Like, I’d be the troublemaker. The supervisors want us to figure it out ourselves. Lyelyn said that filing complaints gets you rating lowered, so then HubSystem deprioritizes assisting you.”

Which was why this facility had higher rates of human to human injury than other facilities I’d been stationed on. Skimming back through previous interactions, I noticed that this was one of the few times I’d seen Mariss carrying the knife.

I saw through one of the cameras that she was glancing at me over her shoulder and had caught me looking at the knife. “It’s okay, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“You may call me Twenty-two,” I told her abruptly. “It is a portion of my feed address.” She stopped walking and turned to really look at me, her eyebrows and mouth doing something odd. I wished I’d put the faceplate back down.  

“Are you trying to cheer me up?” A direct question, I took a breath, trying to find a response. “Thanks,” she said before I had to say something. Then she reached out and tapped my arm.

I managed not to react, though my performance rating dropped suddenly.

~ ~ ~

Jephasen waited until almost the last day of the week. Perhaps with the intention of lulling Mariss into a sense that the danger had passed. When he stepped out of a side hallway and directly in front of her, Sixty-four stopped immediately behind her and pinged me.

I was in the main supply hub, faceplate down, listening to the latest batch of bot operators receive their instructions on how not to run into walls. Nothing that required actual attention. Then Sixty-four shared its camera input with me. I didn’t physically react, but my performance dropped and my organic neural tissue did something strange. There were no threats to me, but I was suddenly afraid.

“Mariss, Mariss, here you are,” Jephasen said with a low, drawn-out voice that made my organic skin prickle. Then he saw the SecUnit. “Return to the hub,” he said to it.

“No,” Mariss said immediately. “SecUnit stay.”

Sixty-four and I both immediately flagged the interaction as threatening to HubSystem. For once, the idiot agreed with us and authorized Sixty-four to prioritize Mariss’ commands.

“I said return to the hub,” Jephasen said again, his voice changing.

“No! It’s staying with me.” Mariss’ heart rate was spiking, her breathing accelerating.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” Jephasen said, stepping closer to her. “I can keep you company down here.”

She took a step back, bumping into Sixty-four.

“I don’t need your help. Shouldn’t you be in the machine bay?”

“I had a break.” He shrugged and strolled across her path, then leaned casually against the wall to her left. “And I wanted to see what you were up to. You keep saying no to getting a drink with me, so how else are we going to spend time together?”

“I don’t drink.”

Don’t engage with him, I pinged her through the feed. Walk away. He enjoyed the building fear, the confrontations.

She jumped, but it was at the same moment he pushed off the wall, so it was hard to tell what caused it. He stepped up to her and extended a hand. “We’re going to spend time together.”

Then Sixty-four’s hand clamped down over his wrist, freezing his hand an inch from Mariss’ face. Jephasen attempted to jerk backwards, but he may have never experienced a SecUnit’s strength before because he only succeeded in straining his arm and shoulder.

“This distraction is negatively impacting productivity,” Sixty-four said.

Mariss slid out and away from both of them, clutching the sampling case to her chest.

“You’re right. Come on, SecUnit.”

Sixty-four paused, not long enough to trigger the governor module, but long enough to be clear to Jephasen this pause was intentional, before it released him and followed Mariss.

Chapter Text

During the early portion of the night cycle on the weekly rest cycle, the facility plays a new media release in the common recreation room. Its free to all the indentured labor, they don’t even charge them for their share of the energy usage. And it’s always something new that may not be on the common feed yet.

Usually this lessens the overall disruptions in the facility for a couple of hours.

There was one release more than one Corporation Rim standard year prior that had caused something of a riot. It hadn’t seemed that different to me. And clearly the sub-supervisor who’d picked it hadn’t realized the problem. But apparently if you show sixty-plus humans on a multiyear indenture in an underground facility pictures of too many pleasant fauna and visually appealing vegetation, they start throwing chairs.

The large moon we were on did not have pleasant fauna.

After all the mining from different corporate entities with stakes across the surface, I understood it didn’t have much fauna left at all. The supervisor wing of the facility, on the uppermost level, at least had viewports and some holo-trees. They were up away from the unpleasant fauna that occasionally came bursting through the end of a bore tunnel leaking acid from their bony proboscii. So the important people here weren’t suffering too badly.  

I enjoyed media night. It gave me something new to watch as well, full of humans I did not have to be actually concerned about because whatever happened to them wasn’t real. And the humans were mostly calm and nonviolent during it. And if anything attacked, well, I had most of them in one place already. It was a very defensible position.

There was another unit stationed across the room. Not Sixty-four. One who didn’t make many requests to HubSystem and seemed mostly confused when I or one of the others tried to communicate with it. I didn’t bother now. I was watching to make sure Jephasen was not present or approaching. Because of the popularity of media night, use of the comfortunits was slightly discounted during this period. Unfortunately for them, he frequently took advantage of the deal.

But I was glad not to see him.

I did see most of the geotechs filter in, including Mariss. When she saw me, she changed direction, which was a new and unsettling experience. I believe she attempted to make the change non-obvious to the other humans. It didn’t work on me. I found I was tense. If I did not raise my faceplate in this environment, would she be offended?

“Oh hey, fancy seeing you here,” she said quietly, sidling up to me and tapping my arm twice. I didn’t understand why she was like this, but I didn’t mind. After the first couple times, I understood she meant it as a greeting. Tech Lyelyn was with her. He jerked his head at me.

“Which one?”

“It’s Twenty-two,” she said in a tone of voice that carried the ‘obviously’ with it. Since we’d communicated in the feed, she was able to identify me without me raising my faceplate.

“Acknowledged,” I said.

Lyelyn snapped and looked away. “Damn. It’s almost creepy how you always know.”

She lifted up onto her toes, hands clasped behind her back and smiled at him. “Oh, am I creepy now?”

He made a strange face at her. “That’s not what I meant. I said almost creepy.”

She laughed. I didn’t get it, this was some weird human thing they could do somewhere else in the room. Then she looked at me.

“Let me know if you need anything explained, you know.”

I didn’t know. But I took the ending caveat as turning the sentence from an order into a suggestion I could choose to ignore. Which I did, since I didn’t understand it.

“Okay,” she drawled a second later and stepped away from me.

“What did you think it was going to say? You offered to explain the movie to it,” Lyelyn said as he led her to a pair of seats away from the other geotechs.

“Yeah, but,” she shrugged. “I thought it might have questions.”

Neither were showing any signs of distress or alarm, just mutual confusion. I was also experiencing confusion.

“About what?”

“Media must be confusing,” she said as they went to take seats. “It doesn’t have a lot context. Like, do you think it’s ever been out of here?”

“Why do you think it’s watching?”

“Why wouldn’t it be watching?”

The viewing was a horror movie, Alien Contamination, in which a survey team landed on a planet, a member became infected by contact with an alien remnant, and the resulting creature began eating the other members of the team. The human screams were very convincing. Some of the other mechanics were not. Wounds that would have been disabling on a normal human were not fully disabling in the media, which led to prolonged, loud struggles.

The humans seemed both enthralled and horrified. Several of them would hide their faces and then peer up at the display before hiding again. Others ate a variety of crunchy snacks without looking away. Nobody stabbed anybody—in reality.

I had low standards for success at this point.

When I was in processing later that week, Tech Lyelyn came up to me. He was frowning. I immediately went on alert. None of the others seemed perturbed, and he wasn’t carrying a weapon. He stopped sort of in front of me but at an angle and shifted around a bit.

“Tech Lyelyn,” I said when it seemed he planned to just lurk there. He jumped.

“Do you watch the media—on media night?” Asking the question seemed to bother him, though I didn’t know why it would.

“Yes,” I said evenly, not really looking at him. Even though the geotechs had gotten used to seeing my face, they still became unnerved by any sudden movements.

“Do you understand it?” he said slowly, staring at me in a way that was making my organic components uncomfortable. My only consolation was that he also looked uncomfortable. It was not much consolation.

“I understand why humans eating each other causes alarm. And that a lack of realism makes this less frightening.” 

He made a sound between a laugh and a snort. Kimuta looked up. “Oh for fuck’s sake, not you too, Lyelyn.”

“I was just asking what it thought of Alien Contamination.”

“It didn’t think anything of Alien Contamination. Get back to work, I’m not doing your shit.”

Mariss looked up and mouthed the words “I told you,” at Lyelyn who made a strange gesture back. Then she pinged me in the feed. I thought there was too much blood.

It was accurate, I replied, and she grimaced. However, the deaths were more extended than—

She made a noise, and Kimuta glared at her as well. Cara threw a roll of sample sealant tape across the room. It was harmless, so I didn’t react.

“Stop being so fucking weird, Mariss.”

“You’ll thank me when Twenty-two goes rogue and doesn’t kill all of us because it thinks we’re funny.”

I wanted to put my faceplate down, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t react to that. My jaw twitched, but none of them were looking at me, so nobody saw. The other techs snorted and laughed. Clearly, they didn’t take it seriously.

“If they go rogue, they kill everybody,” Kimuta said. “Everybody. It doesn’t matter if you give it a silly nickname and say hi to it. You’re dead. We’re all dead. Everybody’s dead. Dead dead dead. Get back to work.”

“Barbican SecUnits have reinforced governor modules. You can rest assured your contracted Barbican SecUnit will not experience dangerous malfunctions and will remain a valuable part of your security system no matter the hazards ahead,” my buffer said. Barbican didn’t like people talking about rogue SecUnits.

Rogue SecUnits were bad for business.

Rogue SecUnits were monsters.

I know you wouldn’t rampage around killing everyone, Mariss pinged me in the feed. There was a discomforting emphasis on ‘you,’ as if she believed the other units might.

~ ~ ~

A few weeks later I was in the mess. These shifts were interesting, usually in the bad way, but my mind was at least occupied by watching the crowd of forty or so humans to determine which ones were most likely to act out.

Most of the humans were not a problem day-to-day. They were often frustrated, short-tempered, truculent, and strange. But they did not want to or try to harm each other. Most of them were like me, just trying to survive this contract as intact as possible. They’d slip up sometimes, especially when they’d gotten into the intoxicants, but the incidents were mostly short-lived and easy to stop. There were only really nine of them that were actively harmful.

But nine out of seventy-four was still sufficiently troublesome.

Those nine were not the ones that threw a punch when the feed cut out in the middle of the latest media downloads, or tripped someone who had cut them in line at the food processors. They were the ones that watched, and waited, and planned. And the two who were just set off by anything imaginable. Literally, they would imagine insults from other humans that weren’t looking at them or communicating with them and attack without any warning other than the sudden spike in cortisol and preparatory movement.

Cara the geotech was here now talking to the two security techs. They were supposed to make sure HubSystem and SecSystem were operating correctly and any software downloads were scanned for malware before being pushed, and debug anything as needed. They were less incompetent than other security techs I’d encountered.

“I don’t even like the SecUnits, and I know how they work,” Tech Danit said.

“Just look at this,” Cara said. Then she looked at me. “SecUnit, come here.”

I walked over. Cara wasn’t a violent human. Malicious probably. But I wasn’t sure what this was about.

“Put down the helmet.”

I complied at the same speed I did in processing so there would be nothing to signal something was different. Or that I had an opinion on the matter.

“Oh, it’s old reliable,” the other security tech, Kyle, said. “This one has good stats for breaking up fights with fewer injuries to the crew.”

“Unlike Mr. Stabby,” Danit chuckled.

I knew which one they meant.

“She calls this one Twenty-two,” Cara said in a voice. Not her normal tone. I couldn’t really place it and didn’t care to.

“Don’t worry. It’s fine,” Kyle said with a shrug. “Its numbers and diagnostics always come out clean.”

The implication was that was not true of all of the units. I resisted the urge to look at the other unit in the room. Which I knew was the one they referred to as ‘Mr. Stabby.’ That was not an appropriate designation for a SecUnit. It was potentially too accurate.

“Are you sure? Maybe it needs an extra scan?” Cara was saying.

I wouldn’t mind another diagnostic right now. It would get me out of this situation.

Danit shook her head. “It’s just your colleague being weird, not the unit.”

“It talks like I’ve never heard a SecUnit talk before. SecUnit,” Cara said, attention returning to me. “What did Mariss say to you about the last movie night?”

My buffer said, “Barbican SecUnits will never repeat private client conversations or communications. Rest assured Barbican respects your privacy.”

“Well, that’s working correctly too,” Danit said, leaning back and peering at me. “They aren’t supposed to tell us what other people told them. It’s an information containment protocol.”

“Oh,” Cara said, “I thought it was being weird—malfunctioning, when it wouldn’t tell me.”

She had tried multiple times to get me to report various things Mariss had told me.

My opinion of Cara had only strengthened with time.

“Nope, totally normal.”

“Why do you always put your faceplate up in processing?” Kyle said. I didn’t like the amount of attention I was receiving, especially from the security techs. They were not humans I wanted having questions about my reliability.

“Client Mariss has expressed a preference for viewing my face. Other geotech clients have not expressed a clear preference.” That was debatable, but HubSystem didn’t flag it. “SecUnits are directed to put clients at ease when possible.”

Kyle tapped the table and looked at Cara. “Yeah, if she wants to see its face and it’s only showing its face on rounds with her or in processing, and none of you told it to stop, then it’s working totally as designed. That’s why they gave them faces in the first place. It makes some people feel better.” The emphasis on ‘some’ showed what Kyle felt about those people.

“Do you like doing it?” Cara said.

“It is not a SecUnit’s place to like or dislike client requested appearance modifications,” I said. It was a preferable answer to I’m uncomfortable but oddly relieved, like something is compressing my chest but the air quality has improved.

“I have to say, for being here almost five years, this unit it performing at like factory standard levels,” Danit said. “Not that I’m taking credit for what a good job we do on the updates and stuff. But other facilities’ units get weird and they have to wipe them way more often.”

“We’re doing a great job,” Kyle said.

Danit waved me away, and I put my helmet back up, glad to get away from them.

Chapter Text

Mariss walked into processing and tapped my arm twice. I pinged her in acknowledgement. She had dark circles under her eyes and was showing signs of fatigue even though this was the start of her shift and the previous cycle was the rest cycle.

Are you sleeping sufficiently? I asked her through the feed.

She sent me a pursed lips look over her shoulder and didn’t answer. Unlike SecUnits, humans were not compelled to answer direct questions.

“Did you know Twenty-two has filters built into its eyes?” Cara said.

“Oh yeah, sometimes I ask it to help me scan the sample sites.” Mariss pulled up her usual display and sent something across to Kimuta. “Look at this.”

Kimuta put the file up on the large wall display. It was a dense table, heavily annotated with strings of symbols I recognized as relating to the techs’ discussions of strange synthetics. I didn’t have a particular interest in their data, but I did reroute this discussion to store in the food processors’ extra storage for now. After all, the mining bots were currently adding a lot of data-heavy visuals to SecSystem.

The techs all gathered around, making vocalizations indicating interest and surprise. Then Kimuta stepped back and put up another display. “Wait, this is a new one!”

Confirmation they were talking about strange synthetics again. The mining company had started working on the permitting and the geotechs had all received a five hour bonus for identifying them.

“I found them again, in one of the abandoned tunnels.”

Lyelyn groaned. “You can’t go climbing around the abandoned tunnels during your off-shifts. You could die.”

“I turn off my feed marker,” Mariss said with a shrug.

Something malfunctioned in my organic system.

“It is against Umro policy to turn off your feed marker,” I said.

The techs all jumped, but then Lyelyn gestured at me. “It’s right. Listen to the SecUnit.”

“I don’t want anyone following me.”

They all knew who she meant.

“Why don’t you bring the SecUnit?” Cara said in a tone of voice I did not like.

Mariss shot her a nasty look.

Kimuta was shaking their head. “You don’t drink. You don’t use the ComfortUnits. You don’t play games with us anymore. You don’t watch any good serials. Instead you turn off your feed marker, go up into the abandoned tunnels—alone—and do more fucking work?!”

There was definitely increasing tension in the room. I flagged to HubSystem that tech Mariss had shown initiative in increasing profits while feeding it an edited version of what was happening.

“Are you trying to take all the credit?”

“If I was, I wouldn’t have shown you all this!”

She paused and then looked at me. “SecUnit, will you step outside for a second?” She’d never asked me to step away before.

“Acknowledged,” I said with a sinking feeling. A year and a half of silly designations and stories about siblings and cousins did not change the fact that I was a SecUnit. A tool that could be as easily used against them as by them. “This will not impact the camera system.”

Then I stepped outside before HubSystem could decide to look into whether it felt that was a violation of my directive not to highlight the data mining to the humans. Technically, they were all supposed to know about it. In reality, only management had any idea what was in the contract with Barbican. And even then, they mostly just signed it and kept us out of their sections of the facility.

Instead of watching with my eyes, I watched through one of the ceiling cameras in processing.

“Cameras?” Mariss was saying.

“Yeah, they’re watching us all the time, recording shit. If you say something like you’re gonna hurt somebody, they flag it. If you try to steal anything, they know and fine you. And if you say you miss Statonia Vegpacks there might be some next month in one of the food printers at an extra high fee,” Lyelyn said.

Mariss scrambled around for the sample marking pen and a scrap of label. She scribbled something and then held it for the techs to read. I couldn’t get a good camera angle on it.

Kimuta stepped back, shaking their head. “You’re crazy. You’re going to fucking kill yourself. And for what, a couple of months off your years? Maybe?”

Cara was also shaking her head. “It’s not going to work. There’s no way they’ll let you do it.”

Mariss sighed and her shoulders drooped. She crumpled the paper and stuffed it into a pocket of her uniform.

“Why did you even take an indenture if you already completed university?” Lyelyn asked her. “You could have gotten a normal job contract.”

“My family needed the up-front payment,” Mariss sighed. “For some medical procedure for one of my parents.”

“Oh fuck,” Kimuta said, throwing up their hands and turning away. “That’s fucked.”

“That’s like actually fucked,” Cara added. “Not just normal fucked. Why didn’t one of your other parents take an indenture?”

“Because I’m the oldest, and they have to take care of my siblings.”

Lyelyn and Kimuta exchanged a look. There was some unspoken issue I didn’t understand here.

Mariss pinged me to return to the room. All of the techs seemed unhappy. But then the geosup was called down again and gave them each ten hours’ credit for finding more strange synthetics, and they got over it.

~ ~ ~

Two weeks later, I was patrolling during the night cycle when Sixty-four pinged me.

Suggest patrol route include abandoned tunnel 85 and junctions. Its concern bleed through, and I pinged back.

Report?

There was a pause, and I felt its hesitation. Potential unsafe labor practices, it said at last.

My organics were malfunctioning, sending all sorts of signals to my neural matter and processor. A human would have called them fear and frustration. Maybe anxiety. Is she up there fucking alone again? I demanded through the feed.

Sixty-four’s surprise came through for a moment before the unease and frustration came back. Not alone.

I rerouted and picked up my pace.

I don’t fidget, but I felt an urge from my organics to move as the lift tube carried me up to one of the early abandoned sections of the mine. When the ores ran out, the humans marked off an area and left it, moving on to the next. It wasn’t worth the resources to close it off. A warning marker was all they really bothered with.

The low-level emergency lights were still on and feedmarker paint indicating the way to the exits and lifts flashed in the darkness. I could see just fine with my low light filters but expected the humans would need lights. They liked using lights even when they didn’t really need them. I’d seen similar displayed in their entertainment from those occasions I’d been stationed in the common media room during a viewing. Most humans hated the dark.

The walls were all rough simulated stone, which sealed out the gases that leaked from some of the deposits and acted as a minor deterred to rock burrowers. They didn’t like to chew through it.

The cameras in this section were no longer powered, meaning I couldn’t look ahead to find the humans, and, as she’d stupidly mentioned before, Mariss’ feed marker was off. Sixty-four must have been tracking her until she turned it off and calculated where she was going.

Or she’d told it.

And she hadn’t told me.

I heard a noise ahead and increased my pace. There was definitely the sound of human movement coming from around a bend in the corridor. So while I had been wondering if Sixty-four was sending me on a snag-hunt, that didn’t seem to be the case. I was more concerned with speed than stealth, given I had no idea how long it had been since they had entered the area, and made no attempt to muffle my footfalls.

The lack of screaming meant he had either not found her yet or I was far too late.

“What’s that?” a male voice ahead said. It was not the expected voice, and my processors flailed as I tried to recalculate. There was a lot of noise ahead, and I skidded to a stop in the corridor bend.

Mariss was ahead.

Lyelyn as well.

No Jephasen.

“Twenty-two?” she said in surprise. They both looked disheveled. Not from climbing over abandoned haulers, though there was an empty sample case on the ground.

I wanted to crawl into my cubicle and cease functioning.

“Oh shit,” Lyelyn said, putting an arm in front of Mariss. As if I had any intention of hurting either of them.

This was not—I’d been ready to rip someone’s arm off. Now we were all just staring at each other.

“Are you okay?” Mariss said. To me. Pushing Lyelyn’s arm down.

Fuck you, I sent in the feed to Sixty-four, who responded with amusement.

“Sixty-four is malfunctioning,” I snapped and turned on my heel.

“Wait, what?” Lyelyn said, stepping after me.

There was a woman’s laughter behind me. It made all the muscles in my back tense. Now she was laughing at me. “Oh. Oh no. Do you think it’s jealous? I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s jealous. Twenty-two?”

I was walking away as rapidly as I could. But that was a question directed at me. Did I want to end up writhing on the ground as the governor module punished me for not answering? I considered it for a solid 2.3 seconds.

“SecUnits do not experience jealousy,” I said at the last instant, as I felt HubSystem preparing to trigger the module.  

Mariss snorted, but Lyelyn let out a sigh. “Of course they don’t get jealous,” he said in the tone of voice humans usually used when reassuring themselves. Their footsteps followed me, Mariss closer and trying to match my pace.

“Well, I didn’t think it would get jealous, given the, uh, differences. But I guess it’s like any other emotion,” she said, and I felt a horrible sinking feeling.

“SecUnits don’t have emotions, right, Twenty-two?” Perhaps Lyelyn was attempting to give me a way out. It was more likely he was giving himself a way out of having to think about it. It alarmed me that Mariss clearly had been thinking about constructs’ potential for emotions.

If humans knew we had emotions, it was one more weakness for them to exploit.

“Acknowledged,” I said because I couldn’t tell Lyelyn he was wrong. Well, technically I could because the governor module wouldn’t prevent it, and he wouldn’t punish me like some of the other techs would, but I couldn’t.

Mariss made a snorting noise. “You got upset when I asked you to step out of processing the other day.”

I froze, inputs malfunctioning, performance dropping, skin doing something incredibly unpleasant. What had she seen? How had she known?

“Mariss,” Lyelyn cut in before that could turn into a question. “They don’t get upset. They’re SecUnits. Not people.”

“Of course they’re people,” Mariss said. “They have most of a human brain, don’t they?”

Lyelyn made a choking noise. I wanted to make a choking noise. I wanted to restart and wake up with my memory wiped. I was equipment. My entire existence, no matter what I thought or felt, I was equipment.

My buffer said, “SecUnits are equipment classified as a deadly weapon in many jurisdictions. Please check local regulations for registration requirements before taking any Barbican SecUnits across corporate jurisdictions.”

The woman currently terrorizing me was undeterred. “I looked it up. They have all the normal emotional centers of the brain and most of our endocrine system, just integrated with inorganics. The companies build them with fear and everything else because it makes them more able to judge threats accurately and act independently of HubSystem when necessary. They don’t advertise that SecUnits can get pissed off, but it explains the rogue ones, doesn’t it?”

“You’re not serious. Are you serious?”

Of course she was serious. She was insane. Not even the security techs who were supposed to make sure I wasn’t malfunctioning thought I had emotions. Just metrics.

“Uh, yeah. You ever watch their faces when the faceplates are up and somebody says something really stupid?”

My faceplate went down immediately, closing with a click. Both humans froze, and Lyelyn’s breathing became uneven. Oh no.

“But they don’t—”

“Governor module,” Mariss said evenly. But scans showed her heart rate was elevated. Was she afraid of me? She hadn’t been afraid of me before. This was all Sixty-four’s fault.

“Twenty-two, I’m sorry,” she said, approaching me again. “I didn’t mean to—”

I started walking again. “No threats detected,” I said in a flat voice. “Returning to normal patrol route.”

Unfortunately I could not get away fast enough to avoid hearing Lyelyn’s angrily whispered, “Stop! You’re going to make it go rogue!”

I couldn’t get HubSystem to transfer me out of processing the next day cycle. I tried. I kept trying, but it had gotten comfortable with our schedules and saw no legitimate reason to move me.

So I had to stand there while Lyelyn periodically shot me glances that were meant to be discrete but were too frightened and obvious to be anything but stressful. Mariss had tried to tap my arm in her normal manner when she entered the room, but I saw a dangerously placed laser cutter that needed adjusting and she didn’t follow me or make a second attempt.

I’m sorry, she said through the feed. Her back was to me, and I felt no need to raise my faceplate anymore. I didn’t think you would be upset by me—

Tech Bernez, I replied, SecUnit neutral in the feed, is this a security related communication?

I could feel her distress through our feed connection. Part of me enjoyed it.

Sorry, she said and disconnected.  

~ ~ ~

Sixty-four pinged me on its way to processing. I had to ping back, but it got no more than that. I refused its attempted feed connection. It stepped into the room, raising its faceplate like everything was normal, and I left immediately. It pinged me as I went, and it got another ping and rejection in response.

The next cycle in the mess, it continued pinging me until one of the other units (Mr. Stabby) told it to shut up or get its faceplate bashed in. That unit normally annoyed me, but I appreciated it at the moment. I continued to ignore Sixty-four’s attempts to connect in the feed.

Two cycles later I was stuck with it in the central supply hub. It was supposed to stand across the room from me. It always stood across the room from me.

Today, it decided to stand next to me.

“Since you won’t accept my feed request, I will speak to you,” it said. We can pitch our voices low enough for each other to hear and be below human hearing, especially when the human in question was the quartermaster lounging in er chair across the large room, deep in er feed.

“Fuck off,” I told it.

“You’re upset.” There was an amused edge to its voice.

“You should be concerned about being sent for refurbishment.”

“They haven’t bothered to do that in more than ten years,” it scoffed. It actually scoffed. Like one of the humans in the group media viewings when something particularly unbelievable happened on the display.

No wonder it was malfunctioning. We were memory-wiped at the end of our first contract that was more than five years from a previous wipe, certain experiences that were expected to affect performance going forward, or just whenever the techs back at the depot thought we seemed wonky. I would be wiped before my next assignment. At the moment, that seemed like a good thing.

“You are—”

“I will only ping you in the future about client safety,” it said, beginning to move away. “Actual client safety. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“And not your fits of jealousy?” It slipped out somehow. Maybe I was malfunctioning too.

Maybe Tech Bernez was carrying some kind of SecUnit malfunction triggering code. She had joked about it being her favorite before, and then it had gone and fixated on her, and now it was interfering in the weird private shit humans did with each other.

Sixty-four froze, then its faceplate turned towards me. “Tech Lyelyn is a distraction.”

“They are humans. Everything is a distraction.”

The quartermaster looked up. Then ze actually saw us and made a face, pushing up straighter in er chair. Sixty-four walked across the room to its normal position and the quartermaster sunk back into er chair, but zey were still watching us.

Humans are so anxious about the potential for rogue SecUnits. It does happen, but then some companies’ production practices are known for being inferior. It isn’t like it’s easy to hack your own governor module without frying your brain. I’d seen it attempted. I was never going to attempt it.

I pinged Sixty-four, and it accepted the connection. You are jealous and malfunctioning.

They will all turn on her when they realize how short her contract is and what she is doing, it sent back, ignoring my barb. We must keep her on track.

So it had a better idea of what the secret project was than I did. Of course it did. It was her favorite gun after all.

Why do you care so much about this one? I knew why I had, though I chose never to examine those feelings. An occasional kind word or non-harmful pat on the armor, like a driver patting a bot that had gotten through a particularly tricky patch of tunnel, had been the most pleasant direct interaction I’d had with humans before. And I’d been fascinated with them despite it all.

It took Sixty-four a moment to respond.  

It has been seven Corporation Rim standard years and sixteen standard cycles since I failed to retrieve a client that was—there was a pause in the feed, and I felt the bleeding edge of some uncomfortable emotions—worth retrieving. It will not occur again.

Chapter Text

I followed Mariss down a section of abandoned tunnel, carrying a larger sampling drill and sample case than normal. She was talking about farm animals. I had never seen a farm, but I understood the concept that planets (and some moons) produced the necessary food for human consumption and those on the planets or adjacent stations might ingest it directly instead of via food printer products. This seemed even more disgusting than their normal method of ingesting things.

She had made no attempt to touch me in two months. She had made no further requests to raise my faceplate. She had not pinged me in the feed. She had returned to addressing me SecUnit unless required to distinguish between me and another unit. But she continued to talk to me when we were alone together. Innocuous things that required no response. She had told me to tell her if it bothered me, and she would stop.

I had not told her to stop.

She did not mention Lyelyn or Sixty-four.

Geosup had directed her to survey all abandoned tunnels for signs of strange synthetics. Mariss had requested SecUnit support claiming our visual filters and ability to carry heavier weights increased the efficiency of the survey. And the request had been granted. And she had been given her choice of SecUnits.

I was beginning to suspect that behind her frequent smiles, and innocuous stories about her home world, and her willingness to share credit for the strange synthetics with the other geotechs, there was a deeper calculation. Geosup seemed to understand which tech had actually found and identified the samples.

The way she asked supervisors questions often gained more information than requests from the more senior techs, and there was something about her presentation that made the more senior crew act protectively towards her. Which she clearly knew.

It had made me unsure of the intentions behind her approaches to Sixty-four and me, but she had not ordered me to continue interacting with her once I stopped participating. She had never ordered the other five units to respond to her and had given up asking them questions after her first few attempts. There was nothing that I could see to be gained by being pleasant to SecUnits, and it had opened her up to derision from others.  

“Query,” I said as she handed down the large sampling drill.

Her eyes flicked to me then away. “Go ahead. You can always ask me questions.”

We were at the far end of one of the mine’s first boreholes. I had never been here before and my skin kept prickling and reacting with unpleasant sensations. This tunnel was over twenty years old, far before the mining company entered the security contract with Barbican that had included me, and it had the dry, unfamiliar scent of long abandonment.

“You do not show the same fear response to the presence of SecUnits as other humans.” I didn’t have a better formulation than that. Her back was to me as she climbed down the defunct machinery I had pushed over to the sample site. Internally, I struggled to rephrase the statement in a way that would—

“Well, I guess no, I don’t. Probably because everyone else is spending their free time binging media to forget about how absolutely horrible our lives are and there’s lots of evil, rogue SecUnits to be afraid of there. And it’s easy to have something solid to be scared and mad at, especially when it’s not really a threat and not actually going to hurt you. Meanwhile, I’m reading research papers like an idiot and crying myself to sleep every night. I don’t have time to be scared of you, there’s real stuff I’m scared of.”  

Evil, rogue SecUnits. Not just rogue. Her phrasing made me feel something. I chose not to look into the feeling. It was probably just typical human hyperbole.

A supervisor had once used “hyperbole” to describe a crew chief’s description of an accident site, and I’d liked the word. It was a good distraction from the visuals I’d been forced to process of the accident. I had spent a long time looking up words after that accident.

“And you look like humans, more than a standard bot, but you don’t move like a human. It triggers some uncanny valley feelings. I get it too, but it doesn’t really bother me anymore. It’s part of why I talk so much. It helps me not—think.”

“It did previously?” She said I could ask. I was asking. We were talking like humans do. There was something pleasant about it.

“Yeah.” She brushed off her overalls while attempting to keep her voice neutral. “It’s—an adjustment. But like Sixty-four is always joking with me and you’ve always been really helpful. And Red just kind of seems confused by existing.” She shrugged. “And you’re not the ones trying to get me alone in dark tunnels or break into my room in the middle of the night. Or saying just really awful stuff during mess when I can’t get away.”

There was a lot to process there. “It is dangerous for Sixty-four to joke with you,“ came out. I immediately wished it hadn’t. Talking to a human like a human was not a good thing. It was a dangerous thing.  

“Why?” Her voice was sharp and she looked up, but I still had my faceplate down, so she didn’t see me flinch.

A direct question. Did that override the limitations on my ability to talk about it? A quick query showed the answer was no. But I still had to respond. Really, they coded us terribly. “Because a careless SecUnit may violate certain operating protocols.”

She swallowed and her vitals did something odd. When she looked away, I thought she understood.  

“Who is Red?”

“The red-haired SecUnit.” The only other unit whose face I’d seen was Sixty-four. I stared at her. She made a face. “The one who’s kind of like out of it? I think it got hit in the head at some point.”

Oh. That one. “It did,” I said, then quickly added, “it is still within operating parameters.”  

She snorted and hefted the sample case. “Alright. Next site?”

“Do you have names for the others?” I asked sometime later. Once again I’d waited until her back was turned. I wasn’t sure if she realized, but she didn’t turn towards me, so maybe she did. It was easier like this.

“Uh yeah, but they’re much harder to keep track of since you all move the same and they don’t put their faceplates up. There’s Red, Blue, Grumpyface, Smacky, and Alfie.”

Smacky was even worse than Mr. Stabby. But then that last one.

Alfie. A quick search of my files confirmed she had told me about Alfie before, not a SecUnit but a small companion animal owned by a neighbor on her home moon. The neighbor did not treat Alfie as Mariss thought appropriate. One day she had hacked the neighbor’s surveillance system, trespassed on their property, and stolen the animal. She had then snuck it to a friend, who became complicit in the crimes by taking the animal to another habitation site far away.

I didn’t want to ask. I did want to know. I could probably have made the determination based on a quick search of HubSystem’s records for likely scenarios.

My silence stretched on too long, and the expression she made indicated she thought she had upset me. My performance reliability dropped.

“You have an inconsistent naming convention,” I said at last.

“The repair techs aren’t nice,” she said softly.

Suspicion confirmed.

“They would not have as much to repair if they were not breaking things.”

The repair chief was a sociopath. Not even the supervisors liked him. It was why a human like Jephasen could continue causing extensive damage to other humans and company property for so long. And because a SecUnit was destined for constant unpleasantness when not subject to mind-crushing boredom, the cameras showed my fourth-least favorite human en route via a lift tube.

I asked HubSystem to reroute him but the request was denied for insufficient security rationale. It was occasionally unclear to me what exactly this HubSystem considered a security risk. I suspected the sheer volume of incidents had skewed its metrics and algorithms to the point where weapons had to be drawn for it to think anything was a real issue.

“Incoming,” I said aloud.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. This is why you should have let me turn off my feed marker.”

“It is against company policy to turn off your feed marker,” I said. If she turned off her feed marker and wandered away up here, it could take hours to find her. She could fall down a hole, break her leg, and bleed to death before I could find her. I had fixed her feed marker and set a firewall to keep her from turning it off again.

We headed back towards the lift tubes. There was nothing else to be done.

Mariss spent the entire walk grinding her teeth.

“What are you doing up here alone?” Jephasen stood in the middle of the corridor, blocking the way. Unarmed. But he was twice the size of Mariss.

Then I stepped out of the shadows holding the sampling drill and his mouth did some interesting compressions.

“My job,” she snapped. “What about you?”

“These old tunnels are abandoned,” he said, advancing towards her. “They turned the camera systems off. Disconnected everything from HubSystem. There’s some places where the life support doesn’t reach either.”

I checked their respective ratings. Mariss was classified as more valuable. Logs showed that Sixty-four had been logging and flagging every single pro-social or more efficient than required by protocol action she had taken. She was now classified as much more valuable than Jephasen, who had damaged another SecUnit only two days ago and been fined twenty hours.    

“So you should probably head back before you encounter one of those areas,” Mariss said.

She’d flinched in previous interactions, escaped as soon as possible, dodged away. This time she stayed exactly where she was, and her voice had a hard edge. I didn’t know that this change in tactics would have the desired effect. I had seen him take delight in taunting the more junior techs, laughing when they screamed.

He smiled. “SecUnit, return to the central supply hub.”

Do not return to the central supply hub, Mariss directed in the feed. HubSystem told me in all interactions between the two of them to prioritize Mariss. It came across as tired of having to deal with this shit.

I was tired of having to deal with Jephasen’s shit. I stood there.

He waited five seconds, but when I did not acknowledge or move, he began to sweat.

“Are you talking to it in the feed?” he demanded. “I’m more senior than you. I have priority. SecUnit, return to the central supply hub.”

Don’t follow that order or any other order he gives you, Mariss sent in the feed.

Oh, that gave me options. That gave me leeway. I filed, tagged, and logged that command. HubSystem acknowledged it without really processing it. There’d been an accident in the refinery it was more concerned with.

I shifted the mining drill from one hand to the other. That much movement but no other let him know I was not immobilized by the competing commands. I was just not responding to his.

His nostrils flared and he started forward. Mariss backed towards me. I flagged the aggressive movements and her attempt to evade. I couldn’t really do anything if he was only moving towards her. Then he made a grab for her.

I started forward. If he touched her, I’d be able to touch him, and HubSystem wasn’t that concerned about how I separated them.

Mariss moved far faster than I expected. The knife flashed in the harsh lighting and the bright red of human blood added some color to the scenery. He swore and made another attempt to grab her with his bleeding hand.

“Tech Jephasen,” I said stepping forward. Mariss dropped back. “You need medical attention. I will accompany you to medbay.” My hand closed around his arm as he attempted to lunge at Mariss. The combination may have twinged something in his shoulder based on his grimace.  

“Client injured while attempting to assault another client,” I reported to HubSystem, making sure that all of Jephasen’s threatening movements towards Mariss and her attempts to retreat were logged to both HubSystem and SecSystem. “Escorting client to medical.”

“Let go of me!” he snarled.

“Unable to comply,” I responded in SecUnit neutral. “Escorting client to medbay.”

Mariss was smart enough not to laugh. But she did send me a laughing glyph in the feed.

~ ~ ~

“So I see you and Twenty-two made up,” Cara said.

It was the next day in processing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mariss said without looking up from her display.

“Ummmm,” Cara said in an over-exaggerated way, looking between Mariss and me. I shouldn’t have put my faceplate up. Why had I put my faceplate up? They were all clearly watching me as much as I was watching them.

“She wasn’t fighting with the SecUnit,” Kimuta cut in.

Mariss made a sharp, open-hand gesture at Kimuta. Maybe agreement? It was different than many of the angry pointing gestures I’d seen.

“Okay, yeah,” Cara said in that same exaggerated way, moving slightly side to side. “The murder machine in the corner didn’t spend the last two months pouting about the fact that it caught her and Lyelyn fucking in the tunnels. Nope, I’m just imaging shit. Everybody thinks Cara’s imagining that the fucking SecUnits are malfunctioning while we’re all trapped in here with them.”

I shouldn’t have put my faceplate up. I couldn’t put it down now. My organics were all over the place. Why did they have to talk about this stuff? It was bad enough I had to process the videos of them doing it when they didn’t have the decency to sneak into the abandoned tunnels out of camera view. And Cara appeared on the brink of an emotional collapse. Which could be dangerous. They did have laser cutters in the room.

Lyelyn was over in the corner adjusting equipment, shoulders up and tense. He shot me a look, and I did not move. I didn’t move as any of this was happening.

“Okay, maybe I didn’t want to look at it for a while, okay?” Mariss said at the same time Kimuta slammed their hands down on the table.

“SecUnits don’t—don’t—whatever. Get back to work.”

“I am working,” Mariss said in a tone of increasing annoyance. “Jephasen found me last night. He ended up having a trip to Medbay.”

Cara and Kimuta both looked at me. Lyelyn dropped the small laser he was calibrating.

“No,” Mariss said, flipping to a new slide. “It was me. SecUnit just made sure Jephasen made it to Medbay. If anything’s malfunctioning, it’s me.”  

Chapter Text

“What do you do when you’re not patrolling or guarding something?”

I started, not physically of course but mentally. I’d been watching two of the refinery techs discussing the sordid romantic history of another tech that was out ‘sick.’ They had amassed quite the collection of anecdotes to the point where it was hard to believe a single human had done everything they were saying.

Mariss sat back in her chair and rubbed at her eyes. “You don’t have to answer that. I wonder if there’s a way I can ask you questions without compelling you to answer them.”

“I can always say something vague in response,” I told her. I had to rewind through the camera feed to catch what she’d said while I was distracted. “I go to my cubicle.”

“And?”

“Lay there. Process audio and visual data for SecSystem. Stare at the walls.”

Mariss pushed back from her display and crossed the room to the small food printer the geotechs had managed to bargain for when geosup announced they were going to each need to work an extra half shift per week. This was Mariss’ extra shift cycle, and we were alone in the room.

The other techs still didn’t like being alone with me or any of the other SecUnits. Meanwhile, Mariss had taken off her shoes, asked if I wanted to sit down—I did not—and asked if I had a preference for the type of music she was playing through another display. I wasn’t aware that there were types of music. I didn’t say that. I’d told her I had no preference.

At the printer, Mariss had made another hot cup of stimulant and was slowly rising onto her toes then lowering over and over, breathing slowly.

“Do you wish you could eat?”

I repressed a shudder. “No. It seems unsanitary.”

That made her laugh. I found I enjoyed having caused the response and there was no edge of unease.

“These permits had better be worth it.”

She padded back across the room and dropped into her chair again. The mining company had decided it wanted to extract the strange synthetics. Mariss had located three more deposits in earlier abandoned tunnels and apparently the potential value was large enough for them to be giving the geotechs overtime—at overtime rates.

Because it was the Corporation Rim, there was an obscene amount of paperwork that required all sorts of different analyses of the deposits as well as a full geological history of this region of the moon. They were all working on different aspects of it. They also had to hire a third party agency to come out and certify these were strange synthetics.

Despite Mariss’ slow, even breathing, I could tell that something was wrong. Her movements were off. I was debating whether this was an issue that needed to be raised to HubSystem when she looked at me again.

“Are you unable to download shows to watch, or books or…” She saw my face and bit her lip. “Of course. Stupid question. No need to answer that. Would you like some books?”

I stared at her for a long second. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Mariss blew out a long breath and nodded at me. Then she went back to work for a while. Displays around the room flashed with images of crystalline structures at different magnifications and under different types of light.

She also spent a while in the feed. Like Kimuta, she was augmented and didn’t need an external interface, she just leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling, mouth moving occasionally. She wasn’t talking to me and I doubted she was talking to the other techs—okay maybe she was talking to Lyelyn. If so, Sixty-four had been right about him being a distraction. Still, that was not a reason to have sent me down to interrupt them.

I wasn’t still upset about that. I didn’t keep thinking about the way Lyelyn had half-stepped in front of Mariss as if I were going to hurt her. It was a good reminder that I couldn’t fully trust Sixty-four.  

At the end of the shift, I helped Mariss close up processing and locked the doors for the rest of the night cycle. It was time for me to return to the security ready room, but I walked with her to the lift tubes and got in one with her instead. I was able to walk her to the residential wing, and I felt it was a prudent security step. Any of the other techs would have panicked at this, but Mariss didn’t even react.

“I’ve been talking to HubSystem,” she said as the lift began sliding downwards.

That wasn’t good.

“And it talked to SecSystem.”

That was really not good.

“I have a proposal that they’re both okay with. On a trial basis.”

This was—I should have just gone back to the security ready room. I considered a forced restart. There was no way she’d wait around for hours until I came back online. Who was I kidding? Maybe she would. “Your job is protecting the mine and the assets in it. The ore, us, the bots.”

“Acknowledged,” I said. I had no idea where this was going.

“Humans are a little—unpredictable. Maybe if you had a better understanding of humans, you would be better able to detect subtle threats, changes in behavior, that sort of thing.”

I didn’t say anything. Nothing had been phrased as a question or an order. Her wording was extremely deliberate and ticked all the boxes for HubSystem to think ‘yes that’s a great idea!’ without any of the cynicism my human neural tissue brought to the table. A human would have known what she was saying—what she was doing. I thought I knew.

The lift came to a stop and we stepped out. Mariss glanced around. There was no one else nearby.

“So, I’m going to send you some shows and books, and you can evaluate if you think it would—improve your performance to read and watch them. When you have extra processing capacity. Not when you’re on duty. And then, if you think it would be helpful—to your protocols—we can discuss them.”  

I checked with HubSystem, which was paying unnervingly close attention to me at the moment. It had approved this—scheme. It wanted to see how this would adjust my metrics.

HubSystem was fucking insane.

“There’s also a really interesting book I just read on network and system design that might help you better understand how you fit in the larger,” she made a weird gesture, “infrastructure.”

Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

She was augmented. A quick scan showed it was more than a simple feed interface. It was extra processing power and additional data storage.

She had gotten HubSystem to agree to this.

“Okay,” I said.

Mariss breathed a big sigh and started walking. I followed my initial plan, walking with her to the residence wing. Trying not to think about this conversation. She was in the feed. Probably talking to her new best friend, HubSystem.

How long had she been talking to HubSystem?

The humans didn’t talk to HubSystem. They made requests for information and supplies. They received information. They gave orders. Just like they did with the SecUnits. Had she asked HubSystem its fucking opinion? And told it stories about her family’s companion animals?

Was I upset that she probably had?

“Would it be okay if I talked to you in the feed again? I realized I didn’t ask before, I just started doing it, and it’s a little personal, and—I don’t—I just want to make sure that’s ok?”

She really was malfunctioning.

I said, “yes.”

~ ~ ~

I read all the books. I read the book on systems five times. I requested additional information on strange synthetics. HubSystem found that very interesting and gave me access to all of the books and research papers it had in its database. I could tell from the data downloads that Mariss and the other geotechs had also been reading these. Their conversations made a lot more sense going forward.

The media was harder. It was easier on media night when I could watch the humans as well as what they were viewing and hear their comments to gauge if my reaction was normal and appropriate. And to clarify when I had missed things. I’d routinely listen to their conversations as they left the common room, discussing what they liked or didn’t and what hadn’t made sense.

On my own, it was as inexplicable as Tech Danit’s hatred for Bot Operator Tirna.    

Mariss never asked me if I read or watched any of it. She never brought it up. She was attempting to let me start the conversation.

I didn’t know how to start it. Especially as some of the things I wanted to ask her were not things I could say if HubSystem or SecSystem would understand them.

I did change how I interacted with HubSystem and SecSystem slightly, adjusting the way I coded things. Making suggestions differently. It was going to take a while before I would be able to tell if it was working.

A few weeks later we were all in processing when Kimuta sat back from their display and scratched their head. “The, uh, SecUnit, just flagged some typos in my report.” They looked at me. “It’s reading my reports?”

“What else is it going to do?” Mariss said without looking up.

“I don’t know, SecUnit shit!”

Mariss snorted and sent me a disbelieving look. I did not react or laugh. Laughing would have been very bad.

“It’s doing that too.” This did not make Kimuta happy. “Okay, so I won’t have it proofread your stuff. Unbunch your panties.”

Lyelyn did laugh at that.

“Unbunch—what the hell are you thinking giving SecUnit access to the geology reports?

“One, it already has access to literally everything, except movies, shows, and the news, because it has to data mine us. Two, HubSystem thought it was a good idea. Improve efficiency by cutting out human review time.”

HubSystem had thought it was a good idea. There was something deeply, deeply wrong with HubSystem.

“HubSystem—fuck—what—no.” Kimuta stood and pulled at their hair. Then they released a very inventive string of expletives and stormed out of the room. Through the hall cameras I watched them pacing back and forth, pulling at their hair and cursing.

Cara snorted, then they all started laughing. Then she looked at me. “Will you proofread my stuff too? Please?”

“Acknowledged,” I said.

Chapter Text

I came out of a recharge cycle early, alerts from HubSystem and SecSystem filling my inputs with alarms as I stumbled out of the cubicle and towards my armor.

Hostiles had breached the facility.

At least two miners dead.

Multiple injuries.

Multiple potential hostage situations.

Raiders attempting to breach the hub.

Casualty list unclear because the fucking humans kept turning off their feed markers.

And—yup. Put it aside and move on.

I picked up two large projectile weapons, magnetizing one to the back of my armor, and several packs of ammo. Also a belt of explosives. HubSystem was panicking, trying to protect itself and its humans and blasting us all with the bot equivalent of “get moving ASAP and kill all the raiders!”

“Seal the door behind you,” I called to the unit I suspected had the nickname Alfie as I set off down the hall. It pinged acknowledgement.

The security ready room was higher up in the facility, closer to the older bore tunnels and main pit entrance as well as the lift tubes to the above ground facility that housed the supervisors. The current mine activity was split between the main pit and the lower bores, which followed narrow seams of ore or were exploratory, looking for more valuable deposits.

The raiders appeared to have breached the facility by drilling down from the moon’s surface into an abandoned tunnel, bypassing the surface facility and its human security and supervisor-only SecUnits. That portion of the facility had fully locked itself off now, so I didn’t have to worry about those humans, but their SecUnits would not be coming to help us either. The raiders would be after the refined ore, anything portable that looked shiny, and my human clients. The humans they enslaved. Or played with.

I took out the first two raiders as I reached the lift tubes, managing to avoid both their shots.

The good thing about raiders was they were often so off their heads on various substances, they couldn’t shoot straight. As long as they weren’t pointing their weapons at a crowd, they were easy to put down. HubSystem was giving me the locations of the other SecUnits, mostly spread throughout the mine, operating independently and almost randomly. The one that had been in the pit had been diverted to protect the hub (and HubSystem), leaving the miners there vulnerable. That was the highest concentration of unprotected humans, so that’s where I was headed.

Go seal their entrance so no more get in, I sent to Alfie in the feed. HubSystem was in too much disarray to give us clear orders—apparently the raiders had brought malware—but somebody needed to do it. Toss some explosives in then seal the bulkheads. I guess the someone was me now. Maybe I shouldn’t have read the systems book so many times. Or the related books Mariss had slipped into our shared storage space.

Acknowledged, it sent back, and I felt its relief. It was difficult to be a SecUnit without orders.

While I was in the lift tube, I pinged Sixty-four and got a response. I found I was relieved it was alive. Are you alright? I sent it.

85% it sent back. Then it shared its camera feed with me and my performance dropped. It was in the refinery. There was blood everywhere. Behind it, a small cluster of refinery techs huddled, two of them attempting to apply an emergency medkit to one on the floor. Another lay dead nearby.

There were at least five dead raiders in view when it swept the room. One had had a horrifying hole burned through its head, which seemed like something one of the humans had done. Sixty-four had lost one hand and the lower half of the arm, blasted off at the inorganic-organic join below its gunport. I saw the arm across the room still clamped to a raider’s windpipe.

It must have been ordered to freeze, and then one of the humans realized they’d all be dead if they let that order stand and welding torched their way into having a SecUnit again.

I’m heading to the pit, I told it. Seal them in and sweep towards medbay. Medbay was—I switched away from that camera view quickly. Someone needed to clear Medbay.

Acknowledged, it sent back as it began moving. It also felt relieved to have directions, which I wasn’t expecting from it. It kept sharing its camera with me, so I shared mine with it as well.

“Where are you going?!” One of the refinery techs demanded as it walked towards the doors.

“To clear medbay. Barricade the doors. I will seal them so only the interior manual release works. If you remain here, you won’t die.”

They were all too shocked and upset to stop it, which was a good thing. It sealed the doors and then smashed through the outside panel and ripped off an important component for the exterior manual release.

There were more raiders clustered as I exited the lift. I shot the first easily enough. The second hit me with an energy weapon and the burning sensation just made it more satisfying when I blew his arm off in return. The third took off running. I had to run them down, bouncing off the corridor walls to avoid the projectiles fired over their shoulder at me. I caught them in a major junction, catching the back of their ratty, spike covered jacket and putting a projectile through the top of their spinal column.

I dropped the body and found myself distracted by Sixty-four’s camera.

It had stopped moving and was scanning. I heard it then too, the very faint sound of human breathing.

In that part of the facility between the habitation section (where they’d located the medbay) and the mine, the walls were lined with lockers. The humans were meant to leave all of their work gear secured in them before returning to their quarters. It was intended to limit smuggling and stealing, but they didn’t have us check every single item on every single human every day, so it was more a theoretical deterrent. And extra storage space for all the stuff humans accumulated.

There were limited entrances to the habitation areas, and humans had to pass from them through mine sections to get to the lifts to the surface and tube access, for crowd control reasons. It was much harder to escape like this.

Sixty-four located a human life sign in one of the lockers and moved towards it silently. It wrenched the locker door open with its good arm and aimed the energy weapon in the stump.

A woman gasped. It was Mariss, huddled at the bottom of the space clutching her knife. She was not positioned to lunge out at an attacker, so it was a futile gesture.

She was alive.

I blinked.

My performance rating was all over the place.

“Oh, deity, your arm,” she said after her racing heart rate had slowed a little. “I can try to tie a tourniquet. Do you need help getting to medbay?”

Sixty-four made a sound SecUnits don’t make. But then how many humans would offer to help a SecUnit get medical attention, especially when said SecUnit was currently pointing a weapon at them? I was shocked she hadn’t screamed, but not all of them do when terrified. Some just shut down.

“You will stay here,” it told her, only a little of its frustration and admiration bleeding into its voice. “Did you complete weapons training?”

Its good hand had reached down and I saw it come back into view with one of the raiders’ guns. Switching to a hallway camera, I saw it had picked up a couple extra weapons, probably to keep them from the refinery techs.

“Yes. But I don’t want to stay here.”

You can’t give her a weapon.

It handed her the projectile weapon and watched her weigh it then flip the safety off. Then it jerked backwards, spun, and shot an approaching raider through the neck. I watched the woman fall, the blood spraying everywhere.

“Stay here until this is over,” Sixty-four told Mariss. Then it pulled a couple dirty overall suits in front of her and slammed the locker shut.

Okay, Mariss said, and I realized we were in a shared feed. What the fuck had Sixty-four done? Neither of us responded, but she could feel us in there.

I—I don’t like the dark.

I shook myself and pushed on through the corridors. I did not want Mariss in a feed with me right now. After that statement, I could not cut her off.

Would one of you share a camera or something? Please? Also. I’m glad you’re both okay. Okay-ish. Sixty-four, are you going to be okay?

Don’t distract Sixty-four, I told her.

Then I shared my visuals. I knew what Sixty-four was walking into in the medbay, and so did it.

The main entrance to the pit was a massive pair of blast doors large enough for a pair of hauler bots to pass each other going in opposite directions. They could be sealed to keep in explosions if anything went wrong. Inside, the mining bots were beeping and pinging in agitation, though I couldn’t see most of them. The ones that could had retreated to their storage bays. The harsh floodlights mounted along the cavern roof put everything in sharp relief.

Noises came floating up from below, echoing off the rock walls, which stepped down in an inverted pyramid to the lowest levels of the pit. From the sounds and a quick scan, the raiders had chased the miners to the bottom, where the active excavation was. There was some weapons fire and screaming.

No time to sneak up on them.

I jumped. Bounding from level to level far faster than a human could move. If I got in quickly enough, I could take them all out while minimizing collateral damage. It didn’t sound like it had devolved into a hostage situation yet, but visuals from the cameras at the bottom had been cut of and the audio was scrambled.

Be careful, you idiot, Sixty-four sent in the shared feed. It had stopped outside of medbay. From the sounds of sawing and screaming coming from inside, the raiders had gotten distracted from their looting and moved on to entertaining themselves. The cameras inside weren’t sending video any longer. They’d been smeared with things.

You too, motherless dirtsucker, I sent back as I bounced down another level.

I shot the first raider while still mid-air. Scans showed there were four more spread around but they were all under the overhanging metal walkways and I couldn’t clean shots until I’d crunched down in the dust and gravel at the bottom of the pit.

“SecUnit, stand down,” Crew Chief Jep ordered as I locked onto the next two raiders. They had been waiting for me. It was the only way they could have gotten that order off so quickly.

I stopped moving. I could have taken them out. Five more seconds and the threat would have been eliminated. And all my humans would have been fine.

There was a tense three seconds as all the humans held their breaths and waited to see if I complied. Jep kneeled in the gravel, a raider crouched behind him with a gun to his head. The male raider peeked cautiously around his human shield at me.

There were a few humans on the ground. One was a miner playing dead, but given the frantic rise and fall of er chest, it was unclear if anyone was buying it. A couple others had been injured or intentionally disabled. None of these miners were dead. Yet.

The other raiders had also crouched behind human shields when I’d made my entrance but now they straightened up. One woman kicked a bot operator down a ramp and stated towards me. Another jumped down from a section of scaffolding, showing little concern for trigger safety.

“I never seen one o’ these up close before,” he said, circling me. “Almost look like a person.”

“Wonder if it bleed like one,” the female raider said. Then she shot me in the leg.

“Oh look,” the first raider said, “it do.”

Getting shot was unpleasant, but the governor module was worse. So I didn’t move. I knew what to expect now. They’d remove pieces of me until I ceased functioning. If I was lucky, it would go quickly.

Through our shared feed, I felt Mariss’ horror and dismay.

I’m going to cut our connection, I told her. She didn’t need to see this, or feel me feel it when things started to leak through. Turning off the pain sensors only worked when I was above a certain percentage, performance-wise. Stay in that locker.

Four of the other units, including Sixty-four, were still moving freely, eliminating threats. So if she stayed put, she would most likely be safe until the raiders withdrew. I couldn’t do anything more for the humans in the pit, except act as a stationary distraction and hope some of them could crawl away out of sight.

No! I could feel Mariss in the feed doing something else, but I wasn’t sure what.

I turned off my pain sensors and sighed. I couldn’t cut the feed now, which meant she’d have a first person view of my disassembly. I’d been mostly disassembled once before. I hadn’t wanted to repeat the process.

The raiders poked at me with their guns, and I just stood there, helpless. One of them punched me, so that was a slight amusement as he withdrew, cursing and shaking his injured fist. Then the woman shot me in the other leg.

It also bled.

“I wonder how many shots it’ll take to make it fall over?”

Another raider jabbed one of the miners with a gun. “What you think?”

“A-a lot,” she gasped, staring down at the ground, hands clasped to the sides of her head. "They're tough." 

“Ohh,” the woman raider did an odd movement. “Les’ take bets. Winner gets pick o’ the inventory.”  

Defend yourself, Mariss’ order blasted into the feed. Kill them! And HubSystem gave her priority.

I turned to the raider that had shot me and shot her in the head, dropping her immediately. With my left arm weapon, I shot straight through the arm of the raider pointing his gun at Jep. The arm went flying in one direction. The raider went over backwards in the other direction. Gushing blood.

I took the last two out simultaneously, sending bursts from my energy weapons that fried both their brains almost instantaneously before reloading my projectile weapon. I had the time now. Then I did another scan to make sure I hadn’t missed anyone lurking in the shadows before I circled back to the raider whose arm I’d shot off and finished him off.

The human clients were mostly fine. No critical injuries.

“I told you to stand down,” Jep gasped as I helped him up.

“I received a counter order with a higher priority,” I told him. We were lucky she was able to override him, not that I could say that.

Jep swallowed and nodded. He at least was sensible enough to recognize that without my intervention they’d all be dead.

I didn’t know what Mariss had done to HubSystem to convince it she was more senior than the main pit crew chief, but it had worked, and I and the humans were still alive with only some leaking.

Then a couple things happened. Sixty-four finished clearing medbay and sent me an expletive laden message in the shared feed with Mariss relating to my stupidity and poor decision-making. And the door to the locker Mariss was in opened abruptly.

Raider, Sixty-four and I both sent her as we saw the hallway camera feed.

She squeaked. The raider laughed and pulled the overalls aside.

And Mariss unloaded six shots in quick succession straight into the raider’s gut and chest. He stumbled backwards and collapsed against the lockers lining the opposite wall as Mariss scrambled out of the locker.

“Return to the safety of a concealed hiding place immediately,” I told her via comm because Sixty-four was practically screaming at her in the feed as she scooped up the raider’s gun and jammed her empty one into one of the pockets of her overalls.

The miners around me all jumped and began looking for a hiding place. Which, okay, good idea. I sent Jep a map of a route through one of the pit’s service tunnels towards the refinery. There were no other entrances, so they’d be safe there.

“Come on,” he called and began leading the others to the tunnel.

“What about the SecUnit?” someone asked.

“I must secure the blast doors,” I said and felt a wave a relief when they didn’t try to stop me. I began leaping back up out of the pit. In the hallway, Mariss was failing to comply with directions. She was also not responding to either of us on the feed as she pressed against the wall of lockers and slunk down the hall, low, with the projectile weapon held at the ready.

Sixty-four sent another deluge of profanity in the feed that I couldn’t believe hadn’t triggered its governor module. But then HubSystem was still having a crisis—the raiders had nearly breached its containment, having disabled the unit there—and it couldn’t read tone in the feed when it bothered to check our direct messages. Which I was now convinced it didn’t do very often.

I need to get to processing. Mariss was trembling, her heart rate erratic, and that was probably the first human she’d ever killed.

“No, you need to hide,” I told her, keeping my voice even as I reached the top of the pit. I ordered the haulers at the top to barricade the doors behind me and told the main drilling bot to drill through anyone coming in who wasn’t on the crew roster.

I’m going to processing. Are you coming with me?

Fuck. I was running to the lifts while scanning ahead of her through the cameras.

Sixty-four must have been doing the same. Stop, it said, panic coming through. To your left.

Mariss froze just shy of an intersection.

Go back, go back, I sent in the feed. I heard footsteps approaching her. There wasn’t a good camera angle. I was nearly to the nearest lift tube. A raider stepped out of the side hall in front of her.

She panicked. The first shot went wide, but the raider was so freaked out at being shot at in the dark—none of the miners had been armed—that they jumped and screamed instead of shooting. Then Mariss managed to aim. They both shot, almost at the same time. Mariss pulling the trigger over and over until the weapon jammed. By that point, the raider was on the ground. Bubbling.

Stop walking around the halls, Sixty-four sent, conveying plenty of barely restrained fury. Get under cover. I cannot leave Medbay.

It was too busy trying to keep our remaining clients there alive.

I’m on my way. Just hide for five minutes. I hit the lifts and slid into one, slamming the button for the residence level.

My infuriatingly brave little human dropped her jammed projectile weapon, picked up the raider’s, and then scuttled past the junction to a disabled hauler bot. She slid between it and the wall and crouched down in the shadows where no one would think a person could fit. She wasn’t saying anything. Which was weird. But she had just killed two people.

I realized she’d put up a wall in the feed. My organics did all kinds of unpleasant things as I waited for the lift to arrive. If I said anything, it was possible Sixty-four would just stop clamping the arteries in a leg stump while the one mobile human it had dug around for an emergency medkit and walk out of Medbay. So I didn’t.

The lift doors opened, and I ran. Sixty-four had eliminated most of the raiders in this section so I didn’t see anyone in the halls. The silence was eerie. My footsteps echoed, each sound like a gunshot. Horrible visions floated in the back of my mind.

I was relieved when I saw the hauler and no pool of blood leaking out from beneath it.

“Mariss,” I said aloud as I ran forward. I didn’t want her shooting me. That would upset her. “How bad is it?”

There was a grunt. I didn’t grab the hauler bot and drag it away from the wall. There was a chance that would crush or drag her.

A small voice said, “Twenty-two?”

“It’s clear. Come out if you can.”

There was some muffled noise and then movement in the shadows around the hauler. She came crawling out towards me, projectile weapon in her good hand, blood streaming down her other arm.

My chest was tight. I hadn’t realized it was possible to feel this level of concern for a client. I hadn’t realized I was capable of feeling this panicked and upset at all. I thought the governor module and long years in this facility and the surveys before it had taken that away from me. I pulled her to her feet by her good arm and ripped the sleeve away from the wound. It was a long, deep furrow through the flesh of her arm, bleeding freely.

“Oh your legs,” she said. She was crying. “Your poor legs. And I made you come get me. I’m so sorry. And Sixty-four’s arm. You two shouldn’t worry about me.”

I was trying very hard to keep myself together, and she was not helping. I don’t carry medical supplies. I could attempt to drag her to medbay, but then she’d have to see what had happened in medbay, and if she was crying over this—I couldn’t let her see medbay. I tore the rest of her sleeve off and used it as an impromptu bandage while she sniffled and apologized. I didn’t say anything. What could I say? No other human had ever apologized to me, and she kept doing it.

When I was done, she sniffed and nodded. “I have to get to processing.”

“It isn’t safe.”

She shook her head and started for the lifts, pulling away from me. So, we were going to processing.

“I need to protect my data.”

“It is Umro’s data.” I followed her. I wasn’t letting her go to processing alone. It was one of the few major areas left to secure. Though if the raiders breached HubSystem and told it to shut off life support, all the humans would die anyway. “How were you able to override the command for me to stand down?”

“I pointed out to HubSystem that I wasn’t a hostage, and if it prioritized commands from hostages, we were all going to die.”

“So it’s given you special priority?”

“As long as I don’t get caught.”

“I need you to send an override command.”

She blinked at me. “Okay. Just tell me what to say.”

Maybe this would work. I secured a private feed with the unit stuck outside the hub and Mariss.

Unit acknowledge, she sent.

Acknowledge, it sent back, an edge of annoyance in the response. Of course it was annoyed, it had to stand there when it could have been doing its job.

Cancel all outstanding commands. Defend HubSystem. She paused and looked at me. I nodded. Do not accept any commands from crew under external duress.

Acknowledge, it sent. Then it began shooting.

Chapter Text

We reached the lifts without incident and stepped inside. I felt a wave of relief when the doors sealed. At least for a few moments there would be no danger. I couldn’t relax much though as my infuriating client was determined to do something stupid, and for a completely inexplicable reason. I hit the button for processing and fought the urge to grind my teeth. I don’t know, I was angry at her for caring more about data than staying alive? I could easily keep her alive at this point. I could just lock us in the lift tube.

I—I hadn’t been sure she was alive when I came out of recharge. It was stupid to waste this chance.

Sixty-four was in the shared feed, calling us both names and demanding we stop being stupid. It ordered me to lock Mariss in a storage container. I cut it out of our feed and blocked it.

Mariss snorted. “I didn’t realize it was more of a worrier than you.”

“Data,” I said before I could stop myself. “You are walking into a pack of bloodthirsty—” It was a good thing HubSystem was half scrambled with malware. If it had heard me—better not to think about that.

“It’s my dissertation.”

I knew she’d completed the standard advanced schooling that kept humans out of places like this, and she’d ended up here anyway. The months of dark circles and exhaustion made more sense now.

“How?”

“I was accepted to the program before—before the indenture. I got a special exception to complete the coursework remotely. And I finished the coursework a couple months ago.”

“The expense?” The media I had seen made it seem like advanced education was expensive, unaffordable, one of the reasons so many humans ended up indentured.  

“It’s a doctorate in geochemistry and mineralogy from a top school. There’s a stipend.” She sniffed and dragged her remaining sleeve across her face. She was still leaking. Even humans I liked were disgusting. “My parent’s don’t know,” she said quickly, eyes flicking up to me.

“I’m not going to tell them,” I said, and she laughed. Then she switched the projectile weapon to her bad hand and put her good hand on my arm. My organics did something strange. I didn’t cringe like I normally did when a human touched me. But then this was Mariss.

“Thank you for being my friend.”

My performance spiked then dropped. I didn’t know what to make of this. SecUnits don’t have friends. Constructs don’t have friends. Half the humans in this facility didn’t have friends.

Put it aside like everything else. Pretend it hadn’t happened.

Check the ammo in my projectile weapon. Check the ammo in her weapon. Reload her weapon. Check her vitals. Heart rate elevated, breathing uneven, pupils—

She was staring at me, biting her lip.

The lift stopped and the doors opened.

“I can lock you in the lift tube and clear processing on my own,” I said. “There’s no need for you to go.”

She pushed past me headed for processing. “I have to make sure everything’s ok.”

“A title is definitely worth risking your entire life.”

She sniffed again and glanced back at me. “Lyelyn’s in processing. And he’s not answering on the feed.”

I malfunctioned. I grabbed her by the shoulders. My faceplate went up. Her eyes were wide and her breathing stuttered. Humans were so fucking infuriating.

“Stay behind me,” I said. I didn’t shake her. I wanted to shake her. Infuriating. Infuriating. Infuriating. “Follow my directions. If it tell you to do something, please attempt to comply.”

Sixty-four had been absolutely right.

She swallowed and nodded. I let out a breath and released her. After a second, she sort of shuffled behind me then looked up at me for approval.

So this was happening. I unhooked my large projectile weapon and resumed walking. The cameras were also out in processing. It was odd that the raiders had been so effective at disabling them. Normally, raiders were more haphazard, smash and grab and shoot. This was different.

“This is an attempted hostile takeover,” I said aloud as the realization hit me. There were too many raiders. They’d known to block the cameras. They had been prepared to use hostages to nullify the SecUnits. They brought effective malware.

I pinged Alfie in the feed.

Exit secured, it sent back. It shared its visual of the sealed blast doors. It had just stayed there, waiting for further orders. And the raiders weren’t intending to leave that way.

Get to the hub and fucking defend HubSystem, I sent.

Acknowledge. It started walking.

Fucking run.

It did.

Mariss nudged me. I had to rewind again to see what she’d said. I’d been too distracted by the fact the unit had just stood there for the last fifteen minutes. “The strange synthetics?” Mariss had said. “Are they that valuable?”

“I do not have that information. I need you to send another command.”

She ordered Alfie not to accept commands from compromised humans, and I started moving again.  

I stopped us at a corridor junction and thought about my next move. I could take plenty more projectiles and energy weapon hits, as long as they didn’t have big, bot bursting explosive rounds. I hadn’t seen any so far, so I was probably good there.

They could have hostages. Mariss was happy to order me not to respond to anyone but her. That still wasn’t enough.

“You must stay here. You are the only person who can override a stand-down order.”

“I won’t order you to stand down.”

I stared at her. Her gaze dropped.

“They would 100% kill me when they’re done with you,” she said. She was staring down at the gun in her hand. “And I‘d be lucky if it was fast. Even if they catch me, I won’t order you to stand down. But I’ll stay back, behind you.”

I wanted to scream. I should have locked her in the lift tube and let the governor module do its work.

The mining company didn’t like drones. I’d had them on the planetary surveys I’d been on before this assignment. I’d appreciated the range they gave me. Now I was desperately wishing I had a few, human environmental systems be damned. Screw the air intake vents. They should just make better filters if drones kept getting sucked into them.

So I had no drones. And the cameras were down in important places. So I had to stick my head out around the corner to look for the raiders like a helpless human.

Three raiders approximately twenty-five meters ahead. All armed. I pushed Mariss back about two meters. Squat down, turn your back to the junction, cover your ears, close your eyes, I told Mariss. While I was detaching explosives from the belt and arming them, she actually followed instructions, scooting further away from me as she did so.

I jumped out into the junction, threw three explosives, and then leapt back, positioning myself between Mariss and the junction as the raiders shouted with surprise. And then the explosives went off.

I’d turned down my hearing, so the sound didn’t bother me. The pressure wave was unpleasant, but at this distance wouldn’t do any long-term damage.

Let’s go, I told her in the feed as her ears were probably ringing. She got to her feet and stumbled against the wall, putting a hand to the side of her head. It gave me a couple seconds to get ahead of her and check the hall.

Oh.

It was not something I wanted Mariss to see. But I could not keep her from seeing it unless I put my hands over her eyes and walked her past the debris. Some things were still burning. The smell—it was unfortunate I couldn’t turn that off like my pain. There were scorch marks up the corridor walls and debris everywhere. There was shouting ahead of us, in processing. And I knew the raiders there would be waiting for us. I couldn’t use the explosives again.

I stepped back towards her.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes,” I said, holding out a hand.

“I can’t shoot anything with my eyes closed.”

“I do not want you to shoot anything. You do not need to shoot anything. They’re all dead.”

She shook her head slightly, then her eyes narrowed at me. “I’m an adult.”

“Barely.”

The hand on her injured arm clenched into a fist.

“You said you would listen to me.” I didn’t like how my voice sounded. I couldn’t do anything about that now. But for some reason my stupid voice malfunction worked. Her shoulders dropped, and she closed her eyes. She held out her hand.

I took it and dragged her past the debris.

I will go in first. They’re waiting for us.

They’re going to shoot you! Her eyes snapped open and she looked up at me. Her expression was angry, which made me deeply uncomfortable. Mariss was being very illogical right now.

I’m designed to be shot. Don’t look to your left. Then I pushed through the doors into processing.

The first projectile ripped through my shoulder. An energy weapon blast hit my chest, but since my pain sensors were off, I didn’t feel anything aside from the pressure. Another projectile embedded somewhere in my midsection as I scanned the room.

One raider had ducked down behind Kimuta after firing the energy weapon. Kimuta was currently taped to a chair and bleeding. The second raider was down to my right, half obscured behind the door to the sample locker. The third was at the far end of the room, half crouched behind a table. There were no other life signs.

I shot the one in the sample locker through the forehead as I walked forward.

“SecUnit, stand down!” Kimuta screamed.

I paused.

Mariss came barreling into the room as the raider behind Kimuta half rose from a crouch, and I shot her. Blood sprayed everywhere. Mariss was shooting at the third raider, who dropped with a scream but was not dead.

Mariss stopped advancing and looked at me. Her mouth pursed and her eyes did something alarming. It was not easy trying to do this job while also carting around a human that kept crying about my injuries.

“I told you to wait outside,” I said.

“No, you didn’t.” She looked at Kimuta. “Glad you’re alive. SecUnit, will you?” She nodded and started moving further into the room.

I went to untape Kimuta. “Lyelyn isn’t here,” I said.

Kimuta had contusions across the side of their face. A projectile wound to one leg. What appeared to be lacerations to the chest and arms. Nothing critical, but signs of information extraction. The displays were active and there was an external storage device on the tabletop.

I’d been right, this was more than a normal raider attack. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

Then a scream ripped through the room, and my organic system flooded me with hormones that made my muscles clench as I whipped around in search of danger.

Kimuta was blubbering now, but had their arms free and wasn’t in danger of dying, so I ran to Mariss.

She was crouched in a pool of the raider’s blood at the far end of the room. For a moment, I thought he had not been disabled. Then I saw the raider a few feet away, moaning and clutching his gut. Mariss was still screaming.

The pool of blood was Tech Lyelyn. I found myself standing there, staring down into glassy human eyes.

A month earlier we had been on the geotech sampling rounds together because Kimuta had pulled Mariss in for a double shift of analysis—apparently she was better at it—and Lyelyn was back to the most junior task.

“She’s just the smartest person I’ve met,” Lyelyn was saying to me. I wondered if he was saying it to me because he couldn’t say it the other techs. Or anyone else. “And funny.”

He was right about that.

“I’m glad it’s you today and not Sixty-four,” Lyelyn said as we reached the end of the bore tunnel and the bot operators cleared a path for him.

“Sixty-four would not harm you or allow you to come to harm,” I said.

Lyelyn made an odd sort of laugh. “I’m not sure about the second point. He hates me.”

“It does not hate you.” Why was I defending it? Why was I telling a human client he was wrong? The geotechs had scrambled my programing. I was beginning to think I was malfunctioning. It was because they kept talking to me like I was another human. And watching media with me like I was a—a human.

Why was Lyelyn calling Sixty-four ‘he’?

“No, he does. It’s the thing with Mariss. He’s made it very clear he thinks I’m not good enough for her. And he’s not wrong.”

“It?” I said.

Lyelyn gave himself a shake. “Sorry. It’s hard to call someone who’s after your girlfriend ‘it.’ You don’t have to worry about a bot pilot showing up with flowers or something. And it looks, you know, like a big scary guy. Not like you.”

I was surprised to learn I did not look like ‘a big scary guy.’

“I do not believe it gets jealous in the way you two have discussed before.”

“Do SecUnits get jealous in other ways?” he said. “Do you?”

It was possible to answer a direct question with an indirect response. Instead, I said, “I don’t understand why Sixty-four should be preferred when I have a higher successful client retrieval metric.”

Tech Lyelyn laughed, and I felt something. I hadn’t told a human about this sort of thing before, and I didn’t think I would again.

“What’s wrong with all of us?” Lyelyn was still laughing. “You’re jealous of Sixty-four, Sixty-four is jealous of me, and I’m jealous of both of you.”

That didn’t make sense.

“Do you need to go to medical?” I asked him. His stats looked fine but this was a serious mental abnormality.

That only made him laugh harder.

“No, think about it. We’re all slaves here, right? But you two are imposing, intimidating. I’m not. If I was built like you—” He didn’t finish the thought.

My intimidation factor had not prevented plenty of the humans here from doing things to damage me. I didn’t feel the need to point this out to him. It wasn’t something I liked to dwell on when almost 80% of them had never injured me or caused me to injure myself.

Now his empty eyes stared at the ceiling.

Sixty-four was in my feed again, yelling at me to get moving.

There were sounds of a scuffle beside me, and Mariss was no longer crouched in the blood. My metrics were all over the place.

I’d lost time.

I turned and found Kimuta and Mariss struggling over her projectile weapon, flailing around dangerously. I stepped forward and grabbed it, not twisting it away from them, just immobilizing it. They were screaming at each other.

The last raider was dead now. Not from the initial projectiles. Someone had taken a heavy sample case and bashed his skull in.

Kimuta let go of the weapon and stumbled back, limping from the leg injury.

“Pull yourself together! There are more of them out there! We need to save the bullets, and that one’s dead enough!”

Mariss still clung to the handle, trying to tug it out of my grip. Her uniform was covered in droplets, red and grey, red smeared across her face. Her hands were red. “Mariss,” I said. “Stop.”

She made a very unpleasant noise and released the weapon. Then she sort of flung herself on me. I flinched but didn’t dodge her. She wasn’t attempting to harm me. She wasn’t angry with me. She was sobbing against the dirty, blood-splattered chest piece of my armor.

I’d never been hugged before. I just stood there while it happened. What was I supposed to do? Neither of them were in any immediate danger.

I looked back at Lyelyn’s corpse.

You won, I told Sixty-four in our private feed.

I felt its bubbling rage before it responded. That isn’t winning. There’s no winning.

Chapter Text

The low level bots did most of the cleaning. The SecUnits had to assist in some areas, in particular in collecting and accounting for all raider weapons so we didn’t introduce even more chaos into this shithole.

We compiled and sent reports.

Sixty-four and I conferred before sending ours. We also may have asked Mariss for her agreement that she recollected initiating and giving certain orders because it was possible our logs were corrupted by the HubSystem disruption. She read the reports. She made slight changes. She agreed.

She no longer really talked.

She didn’t want to watch media in the feed with me.

The geotechs were all very quiet.

In a facility of seventy-four humans there had been only six deaths, which was statistically low. But then, whoever had hired the raiders would have wanted to keep most of the labor.

And then my owners showed up.

Barbican had bonded this facility and the labor, and now they had to pay out. They didn’t like having to pay out. They really wanted this to be Umro’s fault. It was probably actually Barbican’s fault. Because how would word that they were planning to extract strange synthetics get out? From the supervisors and mangers who stood to make a shit-ton of bonus money from a successful extraction? Or from the data mining bond company that was scraping everyone’s information and then reselling the valuable shit to the highest bidder?

Whoever’s fault it actually was, I was certain it meant trouble for me, and the other SecUnits, and the workers.

So I had a terrible sinking feeling when I came out of a recharge and HubSystem directed me upstairs. I hadn’t been in the supervisors’ section of the facility before. I was shipped straight to the security ready room. I took a lift tube up, you had to have special authorization for the lifts to even go up, and followed the map HubSystem provided to a—I don’t know, a medium-ish room with a large table in a nice simulated wood surrounded by some fancy chairs. A pitcher of liquid and some cups sat on the table. And there were windows. I wanted to look outside, but I couldn’t. Turning my head would have definitely alerted them.

Inside, there were a bunch of humans, mostly unfamiliar. And Mariss. I recognized geosup Jean-Marie and her main assistant. There was someone in civilian clothes with a Barbican badge on their chest. Their feed tag said Investigator Seivard. A cluster of little Barbican assistants surrounded them. And their own SecUnit. Then there was the mine’s human resources lead, feed tag Galen, and her two assistants.

“This is the unit?” the Barbican investigator said once they’d realized I was in the room.

Mariss didn’t look back. She pinged me and said, “Yes.” That got some weird looks.

“Don’t you need to confirm?” human resources lead gestured at me. “They all look the same.”

“I’ve spent enough time with them,” Mariss said, still not looking. “I can tell them apart.” Then she glanced up at the other humans, mouth twisting with false humor. “I’m weird like that.”

“Unit,” the Barbican investigator said to me, “you came online, directed another unit to seal the breach in the facility, cleared the main mine pit, directed another unit to clear the residence wing and medbay, retrieved this tech from a hallway on another level, then went and cleared processing?”

“Confirmed,” I said, SecUnit neutral, staring straight ahead.

“You also directed the first unit, once the entrance was sealed, to protect HubSystem?”

“Confirmed.”

“I think we’re going to have use more of this clone line,” the Barbican investigator joked. Maybe it was a joke to the humans. Some of them laughed.

More of me. Stuck in this existence. It didn’t feel like a joke to me.

I was watching them all through a couple of camera inputs in the room so I could see them without any movement giving me away. The supervisor wing was on a different, closed circuit than the mine, but now that I was in it, I could access all the cameras and microphones. I was also aware of the two SecUnits up here, stationed at the port access terminal and administrative hub, respectively.

“Why did you collect this tech?” the investigator continued.

Uh oh. Did they think Mariss had something to do with this? Did they think I was malfunctioning?

“She directed me to take her to processing.” That’s what we’d put in the report they’d all read. Mariss ordered me to retrieve her. Not asked.

“How?”

“She connected with me in the feed.”

Some of the humans in the room shuddered. Human clients often gave orders in the feed, but just as many of them would rather use the comm, and even more would rather not have to think about or interact with me. I was fine with the not-interacting ones. Those were usually the good clients.

“What does it matter how she gave the order?” Supervisor Jean-Marie sounded bored. “I want to know how the raiders knew where to go and what to look for. That’s the real issue.”

“Well I think it’s important to establish that our SecUnits were all operating properly and effectively protected our client’s assets.” Investigator Seivard did a great impression of sincerity.

Because if Barbican’s SecUnits saved the facility, it totally wasn’t Barbican that sold the information to anyone. Definitely not.

“This unit did all that, we already know that.” It was human resources, which meant staffing, acquiring contract labor, and preventing labor’s escape while cutting costs as much as possible. “My question is why didn’t the other units do that on their own? Why did this one have to tell them to secure the facility?”

Because HubSystem had let me read several books on system design and analysis that were essentially a manual for manipulating it from the inside. And Sixty-four didn’t like reading.

“Because you’ve trained them not to,” Mariss snapped.                 

The Barbican investigator and the Umro human resources lead and the geosup all looked at Mariss. The room was very quiet.

Mariss, stop, I said as sharply as I dared.

Human resources lead Galen glanced at the other humans. It was the sort of look I’d seen humans do when gathering support or grouping together to mock another. “Well, I’m sure we all appreciate the input from our youngest indentured geotech.”

But Supervisor Jean-Marie was watching Mariss with a different kind of expression. “Did any of the other workers contact a SecUnit and request assistance?” she said.

“No, of course not,” lead Galen said.

Don’t, I sent in Mariss’ feed. Her hands clenched on the arms of her chair and her shoulders hunched slightly.

Supervisor Jean-Marie was a tall, round woman with unnaturally smooth skin. She pushed up from the table now, looming over the other humans for a second before she went to the window and looked out.

“You might consider Bernez a mere indentured tech, but I remind you, Galen, she has a degree from HalTech University and was an expensive acquisition. An expense we’ve already recouped with her initiative on the strange synthetics.”

That got the Barbican investigator to react, though I couldn’t fully parse it. Maybe surprise? Maybe something else.

“I think we’ve sufficiently established that the SecUnits were working as programmed,” Supervisor Jean-Marie continued. “This one appears to have been programmed a bit better, or perhaps it’s the organic components.

“And it’s very clear that none of my geotechs had anything to do with the breach. One of them died defending our proprietary data. Another was tortured. And this one,” she nodded to Mariss, “killed three raiders and prevented any data theft. We have scanned every single packet of outgoing mail all of my techs have sent and not a single one mentioned the strange synthetics or anything that could be taken as encoded. Which leaves—” She turned and looked straight at Investigator Seivard, “some other source of the leak.”

Galen made an odd motion with her mouth and then looked at Seivard as well. “I have to go back to fielding calls from the journalists about this. I do hope we can wrap this matter up quickly so that they loose interest.”

Even I could detect the threat there.  

“We are of course also looking to resolve this quickly,” Seivard said. Ze flipped through a couple screens on zer display then casually glanced up.

“Shall we talk to the other geotech now?”

Supervisor Jean-Marie made a dismissive gesture, and Mariss stood. “Come on,” she said to me as she reached the door. Nobody else said anything, so I went with her back to the lift. She was radiating anger, staring straight ahead, hands clenching and unclenching.

I almost didn’t get in the lift with her. But she stuck out a hand to hold the door open. But she was also glaring at me. I couldn’t look at her even through the faceplate and had to use the lift camera. I slunk in and pressed myself into the corner of the lift. Why was she acting like all the other humans I’d known?

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be near her. She was trembling slightly, heart rate up. It was throwing off my own levels.

“Are you—” That wasn’t going to work. I stopped and tried again. “Have I—”

“I’m so mad at you,” Mariss ground out. “Why did you go to the pit first? Why didn’t you go to processing?”

“There were more clients in the pit,” I said simply. I didn’t understand. That was the logical course of action. Humans were so illogical.

“What if I’d been in processing? Doesn’t that mean anything?”

I didn’t physically react, but internally—it felt almost like she’d struck me. It was good my faceplate was down. I knew my face was reacting outside of my control.

I shouldn’t have gotten into the lift with her. I shouldn’t have even responded. I could just not respond and let the governor module get to work. That would be preferable to this.

“You were supposed to be in the residence wing. It was your rest cycle.”

And she’d had her feed tag off. And HubSystem had told me there were two dead already. And I hadn’t—I don’t know.

“We don’t mean anything to you,” she spat. “Not me, not Lyelyn, not the others. We’re just numbers. Interchangeable. And you like to keep your stats high.”

A horrible image flashed from my stupid human neural tissue.

“Tech Bernez,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as I could, though I heard it shaking. “That is inaccurate.”

We were on a dangerous slope. Maybe it was better to fall down it.

She took a deep breath—I braced myself—and she stopped.

“Fuck me,” she breathed out. “I’m sorry, Twenty-two. It’s—” And now she was crying. That was almost worse. “It’s all my fault.”

“Also inaccurate,” I managed because I really wanted her to stop crying.

All I could think about was her covered in blood, clinging to me, wailing. And we were trapped in this little box and everything smelled of salt—of blood. And, fucking hell, I kept seeing her lying in a pool of blood with open, staring eyes.

She shook her head, wiping away more tears.

“It’s all my fault. If I’d never found those fucking synthetics, none of this would have happened. If I hadn’t gone and located the second deposit, then fucking volunteered to look for more, no one would have died. There would have been no reason to target us.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Corporations would attack each other. Raiders would attack outposts and remote facilities. It was always only a matter of probability.

“I thought they’d give me a promotion for being proactive,” she was still sobbing. “I thought I’d get out of indenture faster, be a real geologist. But there’s no point to any of it.”

She looked at me.

“And to top it all off, I nearly I hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” I said squeezing myself as far into the corner as I could. Why was this happening on top of everything? I’d rather be forced to fight one of the other SecUnits again, right now, than deal with this.

“I know you’re not allowed to express—strong emotions, and I was picking a fight with you. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t being fair.”

The lift came to a stop. Mariss was still looking at me. I was looking out into the corridor. I was sweating.

“I am really sorry. For everything. And I—I understand if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.” She left.

Sixty-four pinged me later. You’re both overdramatic children.

I didn’t respond.

She’s stopped working on the dissertation, it sent after a few minutes. We need to keep her on track.

She’s an adult, and you are not her mother, I replied and cut the connection.

Chapter Text

I don’t like my shifts in the refinery. It’s noisy. The smells are truly unpleasant. The older equipment breaks frequently, and the humans are often injured. The malcontents are also more likely to act against each other because of the easy access to dangerous equipment.

Another unit entered the room, and I began to leave. But one of the techs looked up at me suddenly, and my organics fluctuated. I knew that look. This was my sixth least favorite human.

“SecUnit, over here,” he said. He was standing next to the grinder intake, making sure the bots were properly pulling anything that came out of the crusher that was too large. “Hey, watch this,” he said to another tech who was walking down the line, making sure the coolant lines were undamaged. The other tech came over to us.

“SecUnit, stick your hand in there,” the first tech said, nudging the other. The second tech shook his head. Feed tags Rami and Zachariah.

I pinged HubSystem that this might disrupt the grinder.

HubSystem said it wouldn’t cause disruption to the grinder and that I needed to obey orders.

So I turned off my pain sensors and stuck my hand in. It took a few seconds for the hand to be completely severed. Then I was leaking.

“Is that blood?” Zachariah’s voice was colored with disgust. “Oh and ew, that’s skin.” He was looking into the grinder.

“Yes,” I said. They both jumped and exchanged a look.

“Now the other hand,” Rami said, grinning and nudging Zachariah again.

“Ugh no. It’s leaking all over my lines.”

I was doing that on purpose.

“So get a cleaning bot,” Rami said.

“Ough, no. This is gross enough, I don’t want to see this shit, man. Go leak somewhere else,” Zachariah said, his face twisted with disgust, making shooing motions at me.

I went straight to the security ready room. It was not time for a recharge cycle, and I had to get to my next task. But I could not complete that task with one hand. Now I would be late. I was not sure how that would affect things. I am only late when humans do things like this to me.

I climbed into the cubicle and let it get to work.

Where are you? Mariss pinged me through the feed when I still had only half a hand.

A direct question. Apparently HubSystem had not rerouted any of the other units to accompany her.

She had not really pinged me over the last two months. Things were weird.

Sometimes I still saw Tech Lyelyn in a pool of his own blood and wondered whose fault it was really.

Sometimes it wasn’t Lyelyn lying there, and I’d wake abruptly from a recharge cycle in a cold sweat, every organic part of me betraying me. I knew better. I knew this was what happened to humans. It was a great reminder why I shouldn’t get attached to any particular client. There was no telling what would happen to them, only that it was statistically likely to be bad.

I made sure my wall was reinforced so she would not sense anything I felt before responding. In my repair cubicle.

Her alarm came through instantly. What happened?

I lost a hand.

I am only late when humans do things like this to me.

Camera inputs showed her slamming out of processing and heading towards the lift tubes.

I will meet you on your round once I am repaired, I said quickly, but she did not stop. I did not want her to come into the security ready room. I did not want her to see me in my cubicle. But I couldn’t order her not to. Clients do not enter the security ready room, I sent in a desperate attempt to stop her. I don’t really know why. I just didn’t want her to see me with half a hand. I thought it would upset her. I didn’t want to see more tears.

I’ll wait outside, she sent back, slowing slightly.

She waited. I hadn’t had time to change uniforms, only to get a new glove, so there was still a splatter of blood and fluids across the entire side of my uniform. Her eyes widened and went to my face, but I kept my faceplate down. I kept it down these days.

Ready to proceed, I sent in the feed because I thought my voice might do something strange while she was looking at me like that.

“What happened?” she said with deliberate slowness.

“I needed a new hand.”

“I know that, Twenty-two,” she grit out. “What happened to your old hand?”

If I didn’t reply, I’d have to deal with the governor module, and I couldn’t turn my pain sensors off for that. I felt all my organic muscles tensing. Why was she doing this to me?

“I put it in the refinery grinder.”

She gagged. There. Were we done now? Then she made an odd side to side motion with her head like someone working out a muscle crick. And she took an alarmingly deep breath.

“Tell me. Exactly. What happened. That led to you. Putting your hand. In. The. Grinder. Now.”

Well that was explicit. Better to get it over with. So I told her.

I hated telling her. Because my face and my mouth and my larynx are all stupid organic flesh, they’re susceptible to the stupid hormones that the stupid glands they put in us secrete. So she could tell that I hated telling her. And I could tell she hated hearing it, which just made it more frustrating. Why make me tell her something that was upsetting her?

Why not just go on our normal round and pretend this hadn’t happened? And put all the memories down at the very back of my storage where they wouldn’t bother me. Which was I did each time one of them shot me, or took a piece of me off. Or something like that.

When I was done, she took several deep breaths and nodded. “Okay,” she said. She did not sound okay. “Okay. I see. Let’s go.”

I was relieved we were finally moving past this. Relieved right up until she hit the lift button for the refinery floor instead of the active boring section.

“Tech Mariss,” I said as the lift doors opened.

She shook her head and didn’t look at me. Then she started forward.

I considered picking her up and carrying her to her sampling route. But I expected she would order me to put her down immediately, and then I would have to. And it wouldn’t accomplish anything aside from letting her know that I wasn’t happy about this.

Reluctantly, I followed Mariss back into the refinery. She pinged the other SecUnit and sent it something in the feed. It left, and that got some of the techs’ attentions. The more alert ones watched Mariss.

She snatched a welding torch off one of the workbenches as she went, scanning the other techs’ feed tags. Then she spotted Rami and Zachariah.

“You two,” Mariss snarled as she approached the techs. “You cut off this SecUnit’s hand?”

They looked bewildered, looking from the angry, small woman to me.

“It cut its own hand off,” Rami said in a joking tone. “Do you want to see it do it again, babe? Are you into that sick stuff?”

Mariss flicked the welding torch on.

Both men went very still.

“How about I cut your hand off?”

“Whoa!” Zachariah jerked backwards while Rami just stared at the flame. He began to sweat. His heart rate was elevated. He seemed frozen.

“Stop damaging the SecUnits.”

The absurdity of the statement snapped him out of it. “Fuck off,” he said.

Mariss took a step forward.

“I’m late for my sampling round because of you two, and I’m not going to be able finish my analysis today. Don’t ever cause me to be late again.” There was something in her low tone of voice and intense stare that made the men pull back more. Or maybe it was the welding torch. She had pointed at them. And still on. The glowing end was too bright to look at and cast harsh light and shadows across the nearest surfaces.

“Tech Mariss,” I said. I didn’t know how I felt about this. It felt strange. “You are engaging in threatening behavior towards Tech Rami and Tech Zachariah.”

“Go wait in the hallway.”

“Tech Mariss, one of my functions is to prevent interpersonal harm,” I said because I did not want the three of them to get into a fight with a welding torch or torches. Or other equipment. My risk assessment and threat assessment modules were all over the place. I had never expected her to be violent outside of immediate danger to herself—or that extreme trauma incident—and could not accurately determine if she would resort to violence now. To be honest, I had not expected her reaction to the extreme trauma event either and was still bothered by it. 

“Am I engaged in behavior to lessen waste and increase productivity, thus increasing profits by reducing SecUnit time in the cubicles and geo-analysis delays?” she said in something like her normal voice again but with a strange sarcastic edge.

“Yes,” I said, because she was, and I tagged it that way to HubSystem. HubSystem had seen supervisors act in similar ways, so it accepted the classification. Also Mariss had maybe borked HubSystem.

“Then go wait in the hallway.”

I went.

“Holy fuck,” someone said as I passed.

“Fucking spliced,” someone else muttered.

“How is this my fault?” Zachariah said, gesturing wildly.

“You’re insane,” Tech Rami said when the doors closed behind me. I was already watching through all of the cameras in the refinery. I felt the other SecUnit also in them. It was—amused. “Why are you freaking out about a SecUnit? It got a new hand already!”

“I have a sampling route. I take a SecUnit on my sampling route because there are fucking rock burrowers in the lower levels. If you fuck with the SecUnits, you fuck with my sampling. You fuck with my hours, I’m here longer. I will not be here longer.”

“That fucker went and tattled!” Zachariah said, glancing at Rami. “Can they do that?”

“No,” Mariss said in a nasty snarl. “But they have to answer direct questions. So don’t think you can hide this shit. I will find out.”  

“It was like an hour!” Rami said. “Get over it!”

“Nobody fucks with my years,” she said, taking another step towards them.

The repair techs held up their hands. They were much larger than her, but she was wielding a portable welding torch and engaging in a number of threatening behaviors that indicated a lack of fear or rational decision-making. And HubSystem had let her order away two SecUnits.

HubSystem wanted to see how this would play out.

Apparently, no one higher up had thought seriously about the fact the HubSystem may not have acted optimally during the raid, so nobody had gone in and adjusted its metrics or done a really deep dive to see what was going on with it. It had been running for over twenty years in a facility with a high rate of interpersonal violence and workplace accidents, some of which it had been programmed to allow. It was also programmed to preserve human life and wellbeing. I hadn’t really considered what having competing protocols would do to a MI long term. Things I had been reading were making me think about that now.  We were maybe lucky it hadn't killed all the humans so that it could stop feeling conflicted.

“Alright, alright,” Zachariah said. “I didn’t think it was funny anyway.”

“You’re a crazy bitch.” Rami shook his head.

“I am a crazy bitch,” Mariss said as she waved the torch. Rami backed into one of the sorting bots.

“Okay, okay. I won’t do it again. Fucking hell.”

With a final glare, Mariss turned and began to stalk away. I watched through the cameras to ensure none of them threw anything at her or tried to attack her while her back was turned. Most of the refinery techs were just watching. Some with amusement. Some with fear responses.

“None of us are getting out of here,” Rami called after her.

“You aren’t with that attitude,” she shot back, throwing the welding torch at a workbench. “Come on,” she snapped when we were in the hallway.

“Tech Mariss,” I said when we were finally down in a bore tunnel, waiting for the drilling bot to retract with its latest hopperful of ore. “Your heart rate remains elevated. Do you need to go to medbay?”

Something was wrong with her. She had lost an extra hour with her trip to the refinery and a long bout of angrily pacing in an empty hallway, which she had engaged in before she was willing to begin the sampling round. That was not efficient. She had made quite the scene about wanting to be efficient. And she had not spoken to me at all, which was very unusual.

It wasn’t unusual for the techs to have mental breaks at some point. Loosing a single hour was not normally something that set someone off. I was not certain I could trust her with the sampling drill.

A human would know what to say in this situation.

She swallowed and wouldn’t look at me. “I’m fine. I don’t think we should talk about this again.”

I hadn’t wanted to talk about it in the first place. “Acknowledged,” I said.

~ ~ ~

I was patrolling during the night cycle a few cycles later. The light was on in processing, but nobody was supposed to be in there. I looked ahead with the cameras as I diverted towards the doors.

Sixty-four was sitting—sitting—on a chair, its helmet fully retracted. Mariss sat on the tabletop in front of it, head hanging, and its hands were on her shoulders. Their legs were touching. “You need the trauma protocol,” it was saying.

I was too shocked to stop myself in time. The doors squeaked open.

They both started and looked at me.

I stood there.

I didn’t know what to do.

What the fuck was happening?

Save it to hard storage, it’ll last longer, Sixty-four said, its tone as unpleasant as the face it was making at me.

Mariss slid off the table and away, covering her mouth. Her eyes were red.

I flailed mentally. I was still standing at there. “There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in here,” I said at last.

“Fuck off,” Sixty-four said.

“Please don’t—don’t fight with each other,” Mariss said weakly. She was over at the far end of the room now. Looking down. The bloodstains were gone. She was acting like she could still see them.

“I’m not fighting with it,” Sixty-four scoffed. And it sent me a withering look. How could it be so expressive? Without any fear?

I tried to scroll back through the recordings of processing before I’d walked in, but they weren’t there. The cameras were glitched. I—

“Do not report that to SecSystem,” Mariss said abruptly, and I froze as I felt her in the camera system. Her command stuck.

How had she known? Sixty-four was looking at her. They were communicating in the feed.

“What are you doing?” I managed. I should have looked into the room earlier, with enough time to stop myself. I should have just turned around and walked out immediately once I saw.

“Keeping Barbican from getting any more juicy tidbits for the black market,” Mariss said.

I looked at Sixty-four. It tilted its head at me as if daring me to attempt to report that the cameras were malfunctioning. It must have assisted in some way and was routing its own storage elsewhere. What had its client done to it nine years ago to make it like this?

It was sitting.

What were they going to do to me? My levels were all off, and I was agitated. Mariss—I looked at Mariss who was walking over, and I felt that unease again. She could turn on me, just like any other human. Just like she had in the elevator.

“I know you’re not okay,” she said coming to a stop a few feet away and not looking at me. Sixty-four scoffed. “And you’re not okay with me right now. But if there’s anything we can do to help you, please tell me.”

I took an involuntary step back, and she flinched.

“Mariss,” Sixty-four said more gently than I’d ever heard before as it got up from the chair, “I keep telling you, you can’t help us. You’re driving yourself crazy trying.”

She wasn’t looking at either of us, just sort of sadly staring into the distance.

“And you’re definitely not helping when you don’t get the trauma protocol and you—” It glanced at me.

Her face did something horribly upsetting, scrunching up, while her shoulders hunched and she clasped her arms across her chest. Sixty-four sighed, stepping towards her, wrapping its arms around her shoulders, and pulling her towards it. It sort of looked up at the ceiling and rolled its eyes as she landed against its chest.

“Breathe in the crystal air,” it said.

Mariss snorted. “That’s a terrible show.”

“It’s a premium quality show.”

I found myself relaxing slightly, despite how utterly bizarre it was to see a SecUnit embrace a human and quote what must have been a human serial. I don’t know why I’d thought they were going to do something to me. Yes, Sixty-four had once ripped my arm off, but it hadn’t really wanted to do it, it just wanted to get the fight over with. And Mariss had accused me of not caring about her. And here was Sixty-four actively hugging her when I had—I had been too afraid to check the residence wing for her. And I’d made Sixty-four go instead.

“You should get the trauma protocol,” I said.

She shook her head.

“You can afford it,” I said, “you have the stipend. It won't keep you here longer.”

Her eyes flicked to me then away. “I need that money. For something else.”

“Fuck your parents,” Sixty-four said. “You can’t ignore this for three more years.” Mariss didn’t respond to that.

HubSystem nudged me. “I’m returning to patrol,” I said. “You will lock up when you’re done?”

“Yes,” Sixty-four said. For the first time in months, it didn’t sound angry with me.

Chapter Text

Nobody liked Tech Gunderson. I would have said it wasn’t his fault, except he liked to throw wadded up sample tape at me and make a little fist-pumping gesture when it stuck.

When a large clump stuck to my faceplate, Mariss slammed her hands down on the tabletop and pushed out of her chair. “I swear, if you don’t fucking stop—”

“Everybody told me you were nice,” he said in a taunting voice. As if Mariss would care whether he thought she was nice. As if that were something that should ever matter.

“I used to be nice,” she said in a low voice. Things were different, had been different ever since she bashed someone’s head in. She was not the small, soft, lost girl that had been surprised into saying hello to me.

“Tech Mariss,” I said.

Gunderson jumped out of his chair and landed on the floor.

Mariss shot me a pouty look.

I removed the tape from my faceplate. “I hope we are not about to have a repeat of the welding torch incident,” I said.

She sat back down.

“What welding torch incident?” Kimuta sighed.

“Oh stars! You never let me tell you anything anymore!” Cara exclaimed. “She went crazy in the refinery a couple months ago! Running around, threatening to cut off Zachariah’s balls with a welder.”

“Hand,” I said mildly. “Tech Rami’s and Tech Zachariah’s hands.”

“Whatever, Twenty-two, stop ruining my story,” Cara said.

“The SecUnit talks?” Gunderson said from the floor where he was using a chair as a shield against the threat of me looking at him.

“They all talk,” Cara said. “I mean, most of them don’t like to, but this is one of Mariss’ pets, so it’s always got something to say.”

I didn’t think I really talked that much in front of them. But it was definitely more than the other units, and that was probably enough to stand out. It wasn’t good to stand out.  

Kimuta dragged their hands down their face, and then looked from me to Mariss to Cara.

“And why was Mariss threatening to cut off people’s hands?”

Cara made a wobbly gesture, hands flying in a circle, like there was no telling. Mariss was pretending to read her display, mouth compressed until her lips had nearly disappeared. So Kimuta looked at me. Kimuta had been much more tolerant of me ever since the whole saving them from being tortured by raiders thing.

“Because they cut off my hand,” I said.

The room went very quiet.

Mariss had flushed and was staring hard at her display. Cara bit her lip as if she wanted to say something but was no longer certain of the reaction. Gunderson pushed himself up from the floor and slid back into his seat.

“I wasn’t trying to break it or anything,” he muttered.

“Great, so let’s not waste anymore tape, and let’s find out where the fuck this deposit went,” Kimuta said.

They went back to work. So they weren’t having an uncomfortable discussion about Mariss’ mental stability when geosup’s assistants bustled in. All the techs went on high alert. A moment later, Supervisor Jean-Marie stepped into the room.

I pinged Sixty-four in the refinery because otherwise I’d hear about it later.

“Congratulations,” geosup said. “We have officially received permits to extract the strange synthetics.”

The techs all breathed a sigh of relief. She awarded them the all ten hours—except Tech Gunderson, who was informed good work would be appropriately compensated and that he was lucky to be a geotech.

After everyone settled down again, Mariss sort of awkwardly sidled towards the geosup, looking very small and uncertain. Supervisor Jean-Marie saw her coming and made no attempt to encourage her or rebuke her, just watched with an unreadable expression.

“Supervisor,” she said softly. “If you have a moment?”

Geosup gestured for her to continue.

“Might I walk towards the lifts with you, so I don’t delay you?”

Supervisor Jean-Maris’ mouth quirked slightly but she told Mariss to walk with her and strode out of processing.

Sixty-four and I both pinged Mariss, and she let us into her feed. We were nosy like that and being in her feed gave us comm access so we didn’t have to switch cameras.

The doors closed behind them and the assistants fell behind a little, giving the illusion of privacy.

“I wanted to ask your permission,” Mariss said, “I have a request. Sort of a proposal.”

“Time is wasting, Tech Bernez.”

“I was accepted to a PhD program in geoscience at Lagrange shortly before entering my indenture. I completed the coursework, on my own time. I know I’m charged for the data and energy use—”

Geosup’s eyes had narrowed but she didn’t seem angry—yet. She made a ‘get on with it’ gesture.

Mariss took a deep breath. “I need to complete my dissertation. A series of four articles based on my own research. That have to be published in peer reviewed journals.”

Supervisor Jean-Marie stopped walking.

“Your own research?”

“Done on my own time, in the facility.” Mariss swallowed and glanced up. “On the strange synthetics.”

“I’ve been wondering what your real motivation has been for all this proactive behavior.”

“To not die of boredom,” Mariss said and then flushed a deeper red. Her heart rate spiked.

But the supervisor laughed.

“But given it is Umro’s concession, Umro’s synthetics, and what happened with the raiders, I didn’t know if you would be amenable to such a thing.”

Geosup started walking again. “How will this benefit the company and, more importantly, me?”

“Peer-reviewed articles describing what we’ve found would increase investor and purchaser confidence that we have what we say we have,” Mariss sounded as if she’d been practicing this. “The first article would be comparative, against all other published synthetics, it would set up a—an internal database we could easily compare against future samples.”

I wondered if she’d been practicing with Sixty-four.

“And having a published author specializing in this area on the permit applications would help. The risks are—”

“Let me worry about the risks, Bernez.”

Mariss dipped her head.

“Any other benefits?”

“I’m hoping to develop a predictive model to help us determine, if we want to find more strange synthetics, where to look.”

Supervisor Jean-Marie’s head tilted slightly.

“I’d publish a version of it, but I would expect it wouldn’t be as detailed as the full version I’d develop based on our site. And any other Umro sites I had access to.”

Geosup’s lips pursed. They were at the lifts, but she didn’t call one. She towered over Mariss and the assistants.

“Other sites?” she said, voice low and dangerous.

“My understanding is that if a supervisor lends out their labor to assist other facilities and other supervisors, it’s seen as that supervisor picking up the others’ slack.” Mariss hadn’t been meeting geosup’s eyes, but she looked up now. “They’d owe you, wouldn’t they, if you sent me to find strange synthetics at their facilities and I did when they’d missed it? And then if you had me draft their permit applications for them?”

Supervisor Jean-Marie tapped a finger to her lips. “What do you want to do after your indenture, Bernez? You’re half-way through, aren’t you?”

“Move upstairs,” Mariss said, maybe a little too eagerly by the way the geosup’s eyes narrowed. “Be one of your assistants.”

“You’re not after my job?” Supervisor Jean-Marie said lightly, as if it wasn’t a trap.

“I don’t think I have the political acumen to even attempt your job, ma’am. What I know is geochemistry. What I like is geochemistry.”

And because Mariss had been working on this for over a year, within a week of geosup giving her approval, I found myself proofreading the first article. And checking the citations. Having read all the articles HubSystem had on strange synthetics, I was able to see where Mariss’ fit in the larger milieu and make some suggestions for revisions. So that was at least something I could do that Sixty-four couldn’t.

~ ~ ~

[This chapter was short so I padded it with a non-22 scene from a few years earlier.]

Sixty-four was on patrol. It had rearranged the route, arguing to HubSystem it’s whole purpose was to be able to make these kinds of calls based on the human neural fiber it had the HubSystem lacked. HubSystem had given up at last and said, essentially, fuck it whatever just make sure it’s a full patrol.

Because the most junior geotech didn’t rate getting a SecUnit diverted from patrol to assist her.

So Sixty-four arrives about an hour earlier than it would have otherwise, and than they expect, when Mariss is still up and fighting the two miners who have dragged her into this darkened hallway, just around the junction from the last camera.

Sixty-four comes up to the one with scratches on his neck and puts a hand on the human’s shoulder. “Stop,” it says.

The man screams. He tries to jump away, but with how Sixty-four has positioned its hand, he pulls something in his shoulder as he does so. The other one, a tercera, also shouts in surprise, releasing Mariss who stumbles away.

“HubSystem has fined you each five hours for interpersonal violence,” Sixty-four says. “If you continue, I will physically intervene.”

The fine isn’t a deterrent. Neither of them is getting out of here, but the promise of Sixty-four’s physical intervention has half the desired effect.

The real desired effect is to break their femurs and watch them crawl to medbay. While following, slowly. While occasionally shooting at their feet. But it has a young human bleeding and crying that it needs to deal with first.

“I hate being so fucking small and weak,” Mariss sniffles, rebuttoning her overalls with bloody, battered fingers. Several of her nails are torn and bleeding.

“I will assist you,” Sixty-four says. Which is a bit stupid and likely to scare her, but she pauses and lets it button her all the way back into her clothes.

Some humans freeze, like fauna from the documentaries, their bodies tell them that’s the fastest way though. Others run and struggle until they collapse from exhaustion. Some attempt to flatter their ways out. Others batter themselves in attempt to fight free. In a two-to-one situation, unarmed and untrained in combat, none of these strategies is likely to do the target much good. But that's human biology for you.

“You should not walk around alone during the night cycle,” it tells her once it’s done.

“Okay,” she says in a small voice, crossing her arms tightly across her chest.

“Not even to respond to comm calls from others,” it adds. “Did Operator Tirna call you and ask you to meet her?”

Her eyes jump up to its faceplate. It sighs and raises the faceplate.

“Mariss,” it says very quietly. They’re out of camera range and Sixty-four always routes its own storage to wherever is getting overwritten the soonest because fuck Barbican. “You can’t trust Tirna.” Her lips begin to tremble and her eyes slide away, staring off into the darkness and welling with tears. “You can’t trust anyone here.”

Oh deity she’s doing the silent sobbing thing. That’s worse because it means they have some trauma around even the act of crying.

“Would you like a hug?” it says, extending its arms.

After what just happened, the answer is probably no. And she is new, and Sixty-four is a SecUnit, and—

Mariss launches herself into its arms, crying loudly suddenly and shaking. She’s saying "thank you" over and over again in a hurt little voice that makes Sixty-four reconsider the whole femur breaking plan. But that would mean canceling the hug. It hasn’t had a hug in seven Corporation Rim standard years. It didn’t realize it would miss them so much. It lets its arms enclose her while she cries herself out.

You’re different than the other SecUnits, she says through the feed.

Maybe I’m a rogue, is replies because it can’t help itself, but instead of panic, it gets an amused snort in response.

Then you’d have shot your way out of this shithole a long time ago.

Now it’s Sixty-four’s turn to be surprised and amused. Maybe I’m just waiting for the right moment to kill all humans, it said.

She laughs.

Bamidele was right. Kids are the best thing in the galaxy.

Chapter Text

I was on night cycle patrol through the facility. I liked it most of the time because the humans should be in the residence wing and most of them just got drunk and passed out in their bunks or near them. The other areas were generally quiet, and—now—I could read.

Except when some of the humans decided they were bored. And needed a different variety of entertainment. So when I saw one of the repair techs lurking outside the lighted doors to the repair bay, I knew what I was in for.

“SecUnit,” she said as I approached, “come in here.”

It was a direct order, so I had to do it, but I turned down my pain sensors as I stepped in, just in case one of them was impatiently waiting on the other side with a drill or a laser cutter or something.

I couldn’t see ahead. The cameras were glitching again, which I flagged to HubSystem. It dispatched a repair bot.

The repair techs and repair chief Zaib (my second least favorite human) were all lounging around chatting. The stink of intoxicants hung in the air. About five meters away, Sixty-four stood in the middle of a little circle of chairs. There was a mess of blood and other fluids on the floor, drag marks leading out of the circle—though the other unit had been removed. Sixty-four’s faceplate was cracked. There were energy burns across its chestplate, a chunk out of one of its legs that was still leaking.

“Perfect,” Jephasen said clapping his hands. “Time for the next round.”

Great.

“Unit,” he said to me, “fight that other one for us until it can’t move.” Then he looked at Sixty-four. “Defend yourself and try to disable this one.”

The techs had learned that if they didn’t order both units to fight, the unit without orders tended to drop as quickly as possible to get things over with.

This arm’s weak, Sixty-four pinged me in the feed. It sounded tired. I wondered how long it had been forced to stand there. I wondered how many injuries a scan would show. I didn’t scan it because I didn’t want to know.

I looked from Jephasen to Sixty-four and back. I didn’t have to do anything this asshole told me to do. I didn’t have to fucking do this.

I didn’t have to do this.

I turned around and started walking away.

One of the techs gasped. People started reaching for weapons. As if that would stop me.

“Where are you going?” Jephasen demanded.

I paused and glanced at him over my shoulder. It made all the techs sort of cringe back. It smelled like one of them had just pissed themselves. I—I liked having that effect on them.

“I’m busy,” I said. Then I walked out.

As soon as I was through the doors, I broke into a run. If any of the others came out to order me—I wouldn’t let them catch me like that. I pinged Mariss in the feed.

You have an urgent task for Sixty-four, I told her.

Thanks, she said, and I felt the cold fury and frustration that I knew wasn’t directed at me but still made me uncomfortable. And I have one for you when you’re done patrol, so you definitely can’t stop to entertain anyone.

You’re an idiot, Sixty-four sent in the feed a moment later, making no attempt to hide a wave of angry frustration. Cameras showed it heading to its repair cubicle. What, had it wanted to get its arm ripped off? So we’d be even?

Fuck you too, I responded and blocked it.

It was too clean.

Too easy.

Nothing is ever easy when I want it to be.

Neither of us should have been surprised that Jephasen walked up to Mariss during lunch mess the next cycle, when neither Sixty-four nor I was there, and slapped her food tray off the table. Someone hollered.

I know because I went back and watched the recordings later. That was at the point when I understood why Sixty-four hadn’t pinged Mariss and asked her for help.

Kimuta cringed down beside Mariss while Gunderson stared at them with his mouth hanging open. Cara’s eyes lit up. People were pushing out of their chairs for a better look.

“You borked the SecUnits,” he said.

“I’m sorry you’re upset HubSystem doesn’t agree that damaging company property is a good use of that property,” Mariss said while picking food bits off her coveralls and flicking them onto the floor—and Jephasen’s legs. Gross. “I know you have sensitive feelings.”

Then Jephasen grabbed her by the back of her overalls and dragged her out of her seat. The room erupted into screams and shouts as he spun Mariss and slammed her down on the table by her neck. Kimuta leapt up and grabbed at his arm, throwing all their weight into trying to dislodge Jephasen. He was pushing Kimuta away by the face with his other hand. Mariss was turning red and flailing.

And MedSystem finally kicked into gear, took priority, and ordered the SecUnit stationed in the room to separate the humans and take Jephasen to medical. For the stab wound in his gut.

He reeled back from Mariss before the unit reached him, grabbing at the spreading red stain on the front of his coveralls. She slid down to the floor, bloody knife clutched in one hand, the other at her throat, gasping. Kimuta dropped to a crouch and started pulling, trying to get her up again before anyone else tried to take their shot.

Kimuta had been here too long.

The unit grabbed Jephasen’s arm as he was putting pressure on the wound and preparing for another attempt. “Tech Jephasen, please report to medical.”

He tried to wrench free.

Panting, Mariss shoved up to her feet. “Unit, if he keeps resisting, shoot him in the face, then carry him there. We wouldn’t want him bleeding out.”

“Acknowledged,” the unit said and a lot of people went very uncomfortably silent.

Jephasen again attempted to wrench free.

The unit shot him in the face—it was a light, merely disabling blast. And then everyone started screaming and running for the doors.

They probably shouldn’t have let her download all those books on systems engineering.

So that was how I ended up having to go detain Mariss, who had returned to processing like nothing was the matter, and escort her upstairs.

She tried to smile at me in the elevator.

They’re watching you, I told her in the feed.

Are you mad at me?

I don’t think that was wise.

“He was choking me!” she shouted. “He was going to fucking kill me in front of 50 people! Why didn’t that unit start moving sooner? If he’d crushed my windpipe—”

My performance dropped sharply, and we were still connected in the feed. She must have felt my reaction, because her teeth snapped closed, audibly.

After a breath she said, “I thought I was going to die, Twenty-two.”

I don’t know why HubSystem was slow, I told her. I thought it liked Mariss. But maybe its fucked up protocols were to blame. Maybe it was running different calculations.

This time, I walked Mariss down a different set of hallways and into a waiting room. The assistant stationed there made a head-shaking gesture at Mariss and then was speaking with someone in the feed. We were left standing there for forty-three standard minutes. It was no issue for me, but I was aware of my small human’s constant shifting.

Eventually, the assistant jerked her head at the door and I walked Mariss into what turned out to be Supervisor Jean-Marie’s office. She had a large window overlooking the rocky, grey expanse of the moon’s surface. Stars hung in the dark sky. It was nearly planetset and the swirling clouds of the gas giant hung large on the horizon.

Geosup sat behind a large, simulated wood desk, several displays up and active as she flipped between them. A jeweled interface glittered in her ear.

“Sit,” she barked, and Mariss sat in one of the two chairs facing the desk.

I took up standard station by the doors.

Mariss sat quietly, without fidgeting much, for another twenty-six minutes until geosup closed all the displays with a sharp flick of one hand and narrowed her eyes across the desk at Mariss.

“What did that unit tell you in the lift that got you shouting, Bernez?”

Mariss stared down at her hands. “That my course of action wasn’t wise.”

The supervisor’s attention fixed on me for three excruciatingly long seconds.

“Have you borked the SecUnits?”

“No, supervisor.”

“What if you order that one to shoot me?” Supervisor Jean-Marie said with a sharp gesture in my direction. I didn’t flinch.

“Supervisor,” she said softly. “I respect you and would never want to harm you. And even if I went insane or something, none of the SecUnits would accept that command. Jephasen is a menace. He’s also shit at his job, so his priority is about as low as possible. Techs routinely get the SecUnits to hurt lower priority workers. I just did it in a different place than normal. If it had been in the refinery, no one would have blinked. But apparently those assholes only want to see my blood in the mess.”

Supervisor Jean-Marie blinked a couple times. “They what?”

“Sorry,” Mariss said. “Which part?”

“The techs routinely use the SecUnits to injure other workers part.”

“It’s usually out of sight, one on one or in small groups. In the halls, in the refinery, after hours. It doesn’t take a lot to work out what people’s relative rankings are and the–the problematic ones work together sometimes.”

I would have said ‘often.’

“Do you have a theory on why this is?” Supervisor Jean-Marie said in her dangerous voice. I was beginning to wonder if it was more of a testing voice. To see if a subordinate was brave enough to tell her something she didn’t want to hear, or something dangerous.

“HubSystem told me it received the protocol with the reasoning that certain humans need to blow off steam to be effective workers so this was an acceptable use of the SecUnits, and those that don’t need to engage in violence, well, what are they going to do about it? If they work harder, they’ll get a higher priority, and a SecUnit won’t accept the command and will protect them if attacked. It’s why filing a complaint gets your priority lowered by HubSystem. It’s not that different from you or one of the other supervisors being able to order a SecUnit to rough up workers who are attempting a strike.

“And HubSystem wasn’t provided guidelines to take into account lower overall productivity when everyone’s terrified and looking over their shoulders all the time and half the people have just given up.”

Supervisor Jean-Marie tapped her fingers along the simulated wood of her desktop.

“This is a mess.”

“I’m sorry, supervisor.”

“You knew this was going to be a mess.” It was a thoughtful tone, not an angry one.

“I was mostly just mad about having to fight him off again. He’d left me alone for the past few months.”

“Go wait in the hallway.”

Mariss got up, nodded to Supervisor Jean-Marie, and went back to the waiting room. I hadn’t been dismissed. Mariss hadn’t told me to come with her. I kept standing there as Supervisor Jean-Marie watched the door close. Then her attention returned to me, and my performance dropped further. She pushed up from her chair and crossed the room, stopping a meter away, directly in front of me.

“Helmet down,” she said.

I steeled myself and complied. I’d never been alone with one of the supervisors before. I really didn’t want to be alone with this one now.

She pinged me in the feed and I acknowledged. Then she established a feed connection.

Holy fucking shit. I reinforced my wall and accepted the connection.

Has Tech Bernez made any changes or adjustments to your code?

No, supervisor.

Has anyone?

Techs Danit and Kyle routinely direct all SecUnits to apply software updates from Barbican. They are the only people who have adjusted my code since my deployment here.

She stepped closer. I didn’t flinch. It’s possible some of my anxiety was leaking through somewhere because her face was doing something, but I was staring over her head and didn’t have a good camera angle on her face.

What does she talk to you about?

If anyone but a supervisor had asked, they would have gotten my buffer response. But this was a supervisor and Mariss’ direct supervisor. Farm animals, I said and she made a face. Flora she enjoyed looking at. Friends from university and updates they send her about their lives. One of her friends has recently had their first child. The father is a mutual friend, but they are no longer in a romantic relationship and possession of the child is currently contentious.  

Geosup took a step back and dragged her hands down her face. I don’t know why this information was causing that reaction. Or if it was a bad thing for me.

“Anything else?” she said, slipping into vocalization.

I paused. Not long enough for a human to notice. If she had the security techs look, they’d find it.

“She has been having me proofread the geotech reports,” I said, closing the feed connection between us. “And her article drafts.”

Geosup’s full attention returned to me. “And do you catch errors?” she said in a fairly insulting tone of voice.

“Sometimes.”

“Send me one, I’d like to see what we’re apparently using your processing power on.”

I sent her one of Cara’s reports with my changes marked. Cara’s always had the most revisions. Once I’d started reviewing, she had given up on spelling.

“HubSystem thought it would speed up the reporting process,” I said, as geosup’s eyes unfocused and she looked through the report. I don’t know why I offered this additional information.  

She backed away from me, went over to the windows, and stared out for what felt like an hour but apparently was barely a minute.

“Take Bernez to her room. Lock her in it, then go recharge.”

Chapter Text

I had never been in the passenger tube system that connects the various installations across RaviHyral before. Our facility had a private line that ran to a public tube interchange. From there, we would board a public tube to another interchange, exit the tube, and proceed to another private tube access. We would take that tube to the end of its line and enter another Umro facility that had located strange synthetics. I repeated these directions to myself over and over again. It was only partially helping me blot out what was happening.

Assistant Cressida was staring at me from across the capsule.

That was bad.

I was sitting on one of capsule seats, in front of clients, next to Mariss. That felt bad enough to counteract the surprising comfort of sitting down on a padded seat.

I hadn’t had much of a choice about the sitting. Mariss had plopped onto a seat, pointed to the one next to her and said, “Please sit.” To me.

Sounded like an order, but with the ‘please,’ I wasn’t sure. Neither was the governor module. So I’d kept standing.

She’d frowned up at me and said, “Sixty-four told me I was going to have to order you to sit until you got used to it. That doesn’t feel great. It won’t explain why that’s it’s suggestion. Maybe it’s being a jerk. Anyway, would you please sit? It would make me a lot happier.”

Assistant Cressida had been too shocked to say anything.

“Twenty-two,” Mariss said after another few seconds. “Should we talk about—”

I’d sat down to stop Mariss from talking about this.

I went over the route again.

I was operating under very clear instructions from Supervisor Jean-Marie: assist Mariss in the off-site survey; protect Mariss and Assistant Cressida from raiders, drunk miners, and inter(or intra)-corporate violence; and prevent Mariss from escaping.

That last one gave me some emotions. I really hoped Mariss would not attempt to escape. I could not help imagining the various ways she might try to escape and what I would have to do to stop her. Well. Sometimes I imagined letting the governor module deal with my refusal. I had enough data that I felt pretty certain in extrapolating what death by governor module would feel like.

“I’ve been eyeing that formation for a while now,” Mariss was saying, fiddling with a portable display, flicking through a couple different inputs in the feed, kicking her feet in the air above the carpeted floor of the capsule. Utterly oblivious to any external signs of distress. “I think geosup was right to pick it as our first target, even if it is a hell of a hike to get over there. Now, if we look at—”

“Tech Bernez,” I said, pushing away her attempt to open a shared workspace with me. Assistant Cressida clutched at the bag on her knees, her eyes widening slightly. Great, yet another human whose first experience hearing a SecUnit talk was me dealing with Mariss. “You cannot talk about this on the public tube.”

“I know,” Mariss said in an odd voice, a mix of frustration and maybe an attempt to be silly, “that’s why I’m trying to talk to you about it now. I’d like to plan.”

Like I was a fellow geotech.

In front of Assistant Cressida.

Then Mariss looked up and really looked at Assistant Cressida. She puffed up her cheeks and let out a long breath.

“Supervisor Jean-Marie probably warned you I’m weird?” she said gently, with an edge of humor. “Like, really weird?”

Cressida’s eyes flicked between me and Mariss.

“Twenty-two is literally the nicest of our SecUnits. We are super-safe with it. It’s going to take care of us. Okay?”

And prevent Mariss from escaping.

“What about Sixty-four?” I said lightly, because further traumatizing Cressida was better than picturing having to shoot Mariss in the back as she ran down a darkened corridor trying to escape me.  

Mariss snorted and elbowed me gently in the side. It was brief, and I didn’t flinch. “Oh come on, Sixty-four is a huge asshole. I mean, I love it, but it would like nothing more than to watch the galaxy burn. You don't joke about ending all sentient life that much without having thought about ending all sentient life.”

That was—a more pessimistic view of Sixty-four than I’d expected her to have. And potentially accurate given Sixty-four’s careless flirting with death by governor module.

Assistant Cressida did not look reassured.

"It wouldn't actually hurt us," Mariss said quickly.

Yup, not helping.

Who would be reassured after hearing a human say they loved a SecUnit?

I knew humans often said they loved things—certain foods, media, their favorite interfaces…

“How did you get that SecUnit to shoot one of the other miners?” Assistant Cressida asked.

“I outrank him,” Mariss shrugged. “If you ordered Twenty-two to shoot me right now, it would have to do it or be tortured by its governor module. Same thing.”

Great. Now that was in my head too. My performance dropped further.

Mariss finally seemed to realize this wasn’t the time to plan the survey. She made a noise. “I’m just gonna watch media, okay?”

Assistant Cressida nodded as Mariss leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Then Mariss connected with me in the feed.

It’s going to be okay, she said.

I didn’t tell her she was wrong.

Do you want to watch Love Station? She knew I did. We hadn’t watched anything together in—since the raiders. Maybe the trauma protocol was working. Unless you already watched it?

I did not, I replied.

She started the next episode, and I felt her annoyance about it through the feed. This is the worst show.

Sanctuary Moon is the worst show, I sent back.

I’d had to deal with an entire night cycle of Sixty-four telling me about it while trying to force the first episode on in a shared feed, which I’d kept closing out of spite. I had later watched it and had even more questions about Sixty-four than previously.

She snorted. They’re both terrible. You and Sixty-four have no taste.

Watching reenactments of humans being brutally murdered is not tasteful either.

It’s called true crime, she shot back.

Then I shushed her because the intro was over.

Love Station was an unscripted show about the crew of a high-end restaurant in a major station. It was all very tense and dramatic and the humans were all very pretty and illogical and constantly falling in love and then in hate and fighting with each other about the most petty grievances. Mariss was good about fast forwarding through the gross parts and better than me at anticipating them.

It had been easier to get into these sorts of media that were more similar to watching the humans around me all the time, but without the boring parts, than the scripted stuff. Even with Mariss offering to watch media with me to help me process them, I didn’t care for the serials. But serials were the only things Sixty-four wanted and it had convinced her to waste an hour a day at least pretending to watch Sanctuary Moon with it. She was usually working on some analysis while it was on.

What did it mean for a human to say they loved a SecUnit?

They had varieties of love.

And they often casually, carelessly said things.

Did they really love their serials?

Could they actually experience love for things?

I missed most of the episode stuck in a horrible recursive loop.

When we reached the public tube, there were other humans in the capsule with us. The women sat together at one end and I stood in front of them where I could watch the miners at the other end. The miners were all watching me. They had clustered as far from me as possible and were muttering to each other.

Mariss tapped the seat next to her. I pretended not to understand. She sighed. “Do you want to talk about why sitting makes you uncomfortable?”

I did not.

“Just leave it alone,” Cressida said in an urgent whisper.

“I don’t like being loomed over.”

I took a step back, the backs of my legs brushing the seats on the opposite side of the capsule. Mariss’ eyes narrowed at me.

Now you’re just being contrary.

I’m not Sixty-four, I replied.

I felt her momentary surprise, colored by something she walled off quickly. She dragged her teeth across a lip and crossed her arms as she looked up at me. You know I’ve been trying to give you space, right?

I didn’t respond. That wasn’t a real question.

It seems like you’ve been having a lot of feelings the last few months.

Fucking hell, Mariss. If I didn’t respond, she’d assume things. I have not.

She looked away, which was a relief. I know I make you nervous sometimes and I didn’t used to. I know it’s because of what I did, but I can’t change what I did. I’m sorry for being a messed up human, I guess. I’d like for you to tell me when I’m messing up so I can stop messing up.

I definitely did not want to talk about that.

Do you know that my orders include preventing your escape?

Well, that kind of slipped out. Good thing I hadn’t been ordered not to tell her.

She blinked a few times, still not looking at me. Yes. I expected that. Is that why you’re stressed out? I just got my master’s. I’m worth more now.

Stressed out? Of all the fucking—I just stared at her. I would do terrible, unforgivable things to her if I had to or I’d be tortured to death in front of her. Or behind her—if she was running away.

I’m not going anywhere, she sent after a few tense seconds. Then she turned to the other woman.

“How much is Supervisor Jean-Marie charging the other facility for my time?” Mariss asked Cressida.

The assistant seemed surprised but not upset by the question. “350 CRs per diem.”

“Good,” Mariss said. “You know, I work off my indenture at 65 CRs per day.”

Cressida made a face. “Ouff. One of my parents was indentured when I was a kid. They managed to keep me out of it.”

“That’s good,” Mariss said with real enthusiasm. “They got out and they kept you out. And now you can actually do what you find interesting.”

“Well,” Cressida said with a guilty smile, “I don’t really find collating all your reports for the supervisor and screening her mail that interesting. But she’s been a great mentor and she can put me in management training if I do a good job.”

“And I’m sure you are!”

Then they talked about the geosup, and the gossip that had made it up and down in the facility, and then media—it turned out Cressida also liked gory murder reenactments. And after a couple of hours, Cressida broke out the food packs she’d brought, and they discussed the finer points of preserved meals.

The other facility was larger than ours. Its HubSystem was intrigued by having an unconnected SecUnit wandering around inside it. I was confused by not being attached to a HubSystem or SecSystem. Technically Assistant Cressida was my controller for this trip, not that I thought she was particularly up to the job. She did not seem ready to order me to shoot my way out if necessary, slaughtering dozens of humans and fighting off other SecUnits.

We were lucky that was not necessary and it was an uneventful survey.

We took samples. Mariss analyzed them in the facility’s geoprocessing while their geotechs watched over her shoulder and asked questions. I helped run numbers and cross-checks against our database. Mariss was sweet and friendly, and perfectly normal-seeming to all of the humans. She did not talk out loud to me around them, which I found to be a relief. And when one of them tried to stand too close to her or suggested she go off somewhere, one-on-one, I stood uncomfortably close until those types of things faded away. It took sixteen cycles. In part because none of us appeared to be in a hurry to return to our facility.

When it was finally time to return, I complied when Mariss said, “please sit.” And Cressida didn’t visibly react. The two of them were watching some gruesome murder mystery serial together and sharing a bag of salty, dehydrated snacks. I had been kicked out of their shared feed a week earlier for accurately predicting the killer in the first ten minutes of the episode and “ruining the surprise.”

I had been temporarily blocked by both of them for attempting to explain the protocol for accurately determining the killers in these types of serials. I only watched them because Mariss enjoyed discussing the imagined crimes in alarming detail. And she watched Love Station with me.

Their distraction gave me time to read the latest articles Mariss had downloaded for me. I made some notes in our shared workspace for her and added a new citation to her next article. It was good I found this interesting. I like being able to help her, and I liked being good at something that wasn’t separating fighting humans without removing digits or calculating the angles and timing necessary for simultaneous kill shots. That done, I went back to the latest episode of Planet Challenge.

It turned out I also liked petty human drama and watching them fuck up. Not the scripted, orchestrated fuck ups that inevitably got resolved in implausible ways but real ones. Like this asshole who can’t run in a straight line while carrying a couple things and now his team is going to loose the recyclers for three days. It maybe made me feel like less of a helpless fuck up.

The women watched their serial right up until we had to transfer tubes and I herded them through the interchange and into a public tube. I didn’t really care what the miners thought when I sat down next to Mariss.

That’s a lie.

I enjoyed their discomfort.

I could make humans uncomfortable the way they made me uncomfortable, on purpose, not just by existing. That part I didn’t like.

It was possible this wasn’t healthy.

Delete that thought.

We would be on the public tube for a few hours and it was late for the humans. Cressida had curled up in a tiny ball across two seats. Mariss was yawning beside me.

Can I lean on you?

I froze. My performance dropped. She was looking at me sleepily. Why didn’t she just lie down on the open seats opposite us? The miners in the capsule were all pressed into the opposite end of the cab as if I could go rogue at any minute. There was plenty of room. She sort of frowned at my ongoing silence.

She required an actual response. She had told me I was permitted to say no to requests. She had told me that repeatedly. She had in fact said it so many times over the past sixteen cycles I’d told her “No, I don’t want to sit on that chair” in a fit of annoyance and not because I didn’t want to sit down, and she she’d smiled.

Okay.

She smiled, and I felt the weight of her shifting against me. It was weird. Deeply weird. She kind of pushed my arm out of the way to get closer. There was no way this was comfortable for her.

I’m glad you’re here, even if you’re not glad you’re here.

It was hard to believe any human, even Mariss, found my presence comforting. How many humans had I killed? How many had I maimed? Just three cycles before this trip, one of the bot operators tried to make a break for shipping, and I’d had to detain him. Despite my efforts, it was not without injury. I knew I’d detain Mariss if she tried to run. Images of me having to shoot her or carry her off screaming kept playing in my head despite her telling me she was not going to put me in that position.

How is the trauma protocol? I said.

She sighed. It’s helping, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t like it. They make me talk about stuff.

About that day? I couldn’t help a glance down at her.

She looked up for a moment then sort of pressed against me even harder, pulling my arm to land on her side. Deeply fucking weird. Yeah. That. And other stuff I don’t like to think about.

We all do things we wish we hadn’t, I said.

Let’s watch Love Station. Without waiting for a response, she put it on.

I was grateful for the change of subject. And to have something to do aside from think about the truly unsettling experience I was stuck in the middle of. I didn’t hate this. But I wasn’t comfortable with it either. I wasn’t Sixty-four, lounging in the humans’ chairs, giving out hugs, scoffing audibly.

Being loved.

Chapter Text

Shortly after we returned, I underwent a complete workup from the security techs and the new upstairs systems analyst and received a clean bill of operations. I was surprised there was a new analyst. But pleased. The old one had been my eighth least favorite human. Sixty-four informed me later that all of the SecUnits had been fully scanned and de-bugged while I was away. They had apparently even attempted to add code to Mr. Stabby to discourage unnecessary stabbing.

I doubted the humans could define ‘unnecessary stabbing’ to a sufficient degree to change its behavior. Despite that, everything seemed calmer around the facility. HubSystem was pleased to have me back but it didn’t volunteer any explanations, so we returned to our normal routines. I did notice that it was having us intervene more often and faster when the humans started acting up.

Checking through the protocols, I finally found the changes. The humans were no longer allowed to order us to fight each other given how bad an idea that was if the facility faced another raider attack. Even more interesting was that we were no longer permitted to harm any human not actively harming or attempting to harm another human unless ordered to by a supervisor.

So that was new.

The repair techs were pissed about it too. Sociopaths. They’d been testing it out, the shittiest of them giving the orders, then the higher ranked ones trying it out, until finally Chief Zaib had dragged one of the poor junior bot operators into the repair bay where they’d ordered one of the units—Blue, I think—to wait. Then he ordered Blue to rough the terrified bot operator up, and Blue had said “I’m sorry, I’m not permitted to do that. I am required to report this attempted misuse of Umro contracted property to your supervisor,” and they’d all started screaming and throwing things. The bot operator had managed to sneak away.

A few weeks later, it was my shift in processing again. It almost felt like it had before, as long as I didn’t look across the room. The techs were all talking about what they wanted to do when they got out.

“I’m going to go to Risa and blow half my payout on the casino and booze, and actual humans, not ComfortUnits,” Kimuta was saying. “Then I’m going to retire to Endicon 5 and get shitfaced on the beach every day.”

Gross. The ComfortUnits made my skin crawl. It wasn’t their fault. But it was true. I hadn’t realized humans did that to other humans as well. I should have.

“I’m going to AngelusMaj and buying everything,” Cara said. “Everything!”

I perked up. AngelusMaj was the station where Love Station was filmed. It would be interesting to see a station, actually, with my own optic nerves. It was hard to even imagine walking around in the crowd of humans. A SecUnit in a human-only location would set off a panic and a stampede.

Well, I’d never have to deal with that. I was getting wiped after this contract—it had been eight years since my last one and I was overdue—and then would be shipped off somewhere else shitty.

“I’m gonna buy a ship and start a transport line,” Gunderson told them.

Then they all looked at Mariss, who had spent the whole conversation hunched over her display.

“Most of my pay was up-front,” Mariss said. “There isn’t much payout.”

“Well,” Cara nudged her, “what are you going to do with what you do get?”

Mariss sighed and looked so defeated I wished I could comfort her. Was this feeling what drove Sixty-four to hugging? I’d have to keep it under wraps. “I’m giving half to my parents, and then I guess I can buy some new clothes and a ticket somewhere else with what’s left.”

“They already took most of your money,” Kimuta said, “why the fuck would you give them any more? You’re the one working.”

“If I don’t give them half, they’re going to push my brother into an indenture.”

Even Cara looked horrified.

“Does you parent have another ‘medical issue’?” Kimuta said.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Mariss pushed up from her chair and walked quickly to the toilet. I flipped to that camera and—yup—she was crying.

Gunderson looked at Cara. “Wow, that is as fucked up as you said.”

Cara nodded several times and mouthed ‘psychos.’ “My parents would never do something like that,” Cara added in a whisper.

Even Sixty-four disapproved of Mariss’ parents. If I was really her friend, I probably had to ask her about it. Why was I trying to actively be friends with a human? This was foolish. I was an idiot.

So when we were alone together that night cycle as she was working on her geological modeling I asked, “Why is everyone upset to discover your parents are not indentured?”

She dropped her portable display and cursed.

“Is this—not something I should ask you?”

“No,” she sighed, “no, it’s okay. It’s because they clearly had enough money to have multiple kids, so where did it go? And if there were issues, one of them more normally would try to find a higher paying job, or take an indenture if they had to, to keep the kids out of it. Once you’re in, it’s so hard to get out that families can get stuck owned by corporations for generations. Letting your kid take an indenture while you stay free is—it’s like dooming your own bloodline. It’s also a huge hit in social status—or it should be.

“Also my augments are expensive, so that throws people off. But I worked when I was younger and saved up for years, then got them when I was in university—which hurt more but I knew I’d need them. So my parents didn’t pay for that, I had to hide the money. I—I used to feel so guilty for that. For hiding things. For keeping things for myself. They—it’s amazing how much people can fuck you up without every laying a hand on you.”

“Are they—addicted to illicit substances?” One of the crewmembers on an earlier season of Love Station had a crippling painkiller addiction that had led to him leaving the show. But not until after he’d scammed and stolen from most of the cast.

“Addicted to themselves. That’s—the trauma treatments keep trying to go back to them. Because growing up, if I wasn’t nice and obedient, then I was in trouble. And ungrateful, and maybe shouldn’t have been born and used up so many resources that could have been used on a better kid that would appreciate them.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t understand what she meant by addicted to themselves. I probably paused too long, staring above her head, scrambling for something to say.

“Let’s make up a human name for you,” she said abruptly.

“What?”

“If you were going to be a human, what would you call yourself?”

“I’m not a human,” I said. “I don’t want to be a human.”

“We’re pretending, Twenty-two.”

I stared at her. I didn’t do well with scripted media.

“Alex, Blair, Sam, Ali?”

I made a noise.

“River?”

I made a worse noise. I’d had a very unpleasant experience with a river on a prior assignment.

“Any kind of name?”

I made another noise. Deity, she wasn’t going to stop until I said something. “T?” I said at last.

She snorted and slid down in her chair, laughing. “Oh stars, any kind of name in the galaxy and you pick Ti?”

“It’s short for Twenty-Two,” I said somewhat defensively.

“Oh, honey,” she said with a pained, amused expression. I lost control of my face, and she looked away. “No, you’re right, Ti’s a good nickname. Sorry. I was being stupid.”

It took some time for me to realize the point of this diversion—other than getting me to stop asking about her parents.

~ ~ ~

I found out Mariss’ first article had been published because Kimuta stormed into processing, put it up on the large wall display, and flailed around.

“What the fuck is this?!”

Mariss sank down in her seat.

Cara was squinting at the display. “Don’t tell me I have to read more shit.”

I was scanning it as well and felt all sorts of strange feelings. Pride. Uncertainty. Deep-seated unease. Mariss was listed in the lead author spot, Supervisor Jean-Marie in the lab supervisor spot, with the geotechs as co-authors. And one additional name. That wasn’t actually a person’s name.

I looked at Mariss and caught her glancing at me.

Fucking hell, Mariss.

“How did you get this out?” Kimuta demanded. “Are we about to get raided again?”

“Geosup approved,” Mariss said in a small voice. “She said she’d worry about the risks.”

Kimuta slammed their hands down on the table across from Mariss, and she jumped. I started forward, but none of them were paying attention to me.

“We’re all going to die because you want to pretend to be a real scientist! Wasn’t what happened to Lyelyn bad enough?”

“Lyelyn’s dead, why did you bother making him a co-author?” Cara demanded.

“And who the fuck is T. Guerrero?” Kimuta demanded.

Mariss reddened. I could tell she was on the verge of crying. They could all tell. Kimuta looked up and saw I was at the end of the table. Their face went through some interesting contortions.

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Cara made a shocked and delighted face. “Oh stars!”

“Do you know why we have these SecUnits?” Kimuta demanded pounding on the tabletop. “Barbican SecUnits? We used to have a different bond company.”

“That’s-that’s just a scary story that you all tell new people,” Mariss said, but her voice wasn’t certain. I had heard this story a lot. I didn’t like this story. Didn’t like hearing it, didn’t like thinking about it. Didn’t like contemplating that it could be true.

“Wait, what?” Gunderson said.

“Umro switched bond companies seven years ago after their old bond company’s SecUnits went fucking crazy and wiped out an entire mine half-way across the moon.”

“No way!” Gunderson looked at me like I was about to start shooting. I returned to my position by the door.

“Killed everybody,” Cara added, her eyes bright. “Like over a hundred people.”

“Fifty-seven,” Mariss said very softly. “The news article said it was equipment failure.”

“And you know what’s equipment?” Kimuta slammed a hand down on the table again and then pointed at me. Yup. “I’m so fucking tired of your bullshit. Either you start acting normal or I’m reporting that you’ve been fucking with the SecUnits’ programming!”

Mariss nearly fell out of her chair and ran back to the toilet.

“She really is nutty,” Gunderson said.

I really hated that Sixty-four kept being right about things.

“Put your fucking faceplate down,” Kimuta snapped at me.

I complied.

I also regretted not giving the raiders a few more minutes with Kimuta.

Mariss had already submitted the second article to some journals at this point. Half-way there. And the next cycle, SecSystem caught her attempt to delete all of her files. Sixty-four blocked the deletion but offloaded them to the food printers’ extra storage space so that she could feel like she’d done it.

The following night cycle, Sixty-four sent them back to her. I was off duty, so HubSystem sent me—and not Mr. Stabby, so it did still like Mariss—to deal with the fallout. Which was Mariss following Sixty-four on its patrol round absolutely berating it. In front of everyone. While it refused to respond to her. She looked insane.

I did not want to get in the middle of that.

You need to talk to her, Sixty-four sent me once HubSystem alerted it I was on my way.

Me? You’re her favorite.

It shared a highlight reel of the last ten minutes.

I sighed. When I reached them down in one of the deeper tunnels, Mariss tuned to me with a glare.

“I suppose you’re in on this too?”

“Tech Bernez, please come with me.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “No.”

Sixty-four was rapidly walking away and sent me the feed equivalent of “good luck” paired with a vulgar gesture.

“Mariss—”

“I’m not your little pet, even if you both think of me that way! I’m a person with feelings, and I’m not here to jump through hoops, and—”

I picked her up and carried her down two corridors into one of the discontinued sections. She yelled at me, but she didn’t order me to put her down. We were off camera and there weren’t active human witnesses walking past. That was better. The ComfortUnits were getting an update in a couple hours, but one of their cubicles was a good place to store this conversation for the moment.  

“Has Sixty-four ever been wrong?” I said in SecUnit neutral.

She stared up at me for a second, clearly thinking.

“Yes,” she said sharply but was visibly still searching.

“About what?”

“You,” she snapped after an uncomfortably long pause. “It was wrong about you.”

I didn’t react.

“It said I was wasting my time. That you were just another scared construct hiding in its protocols.”

“It was right about me too,” I said evenly, though now I did wish I’d ripped its arm off when I had the chance. After how it had been about Lyelyn, I shouldn’t have been surprised it had also tried to keep her away from me. I had to stop slipping into thinking of it as a—

Anyway.

She was talking.

“But that’s not true!”

Instead of continuing this depressing line of thought, I said, “You must finish your dissertation.”

“Not you too,” she groaned.

“This place is not healthy for humans. You must get out.”

“And where am I going to go? Back to my family so they can indenture me again?”

“You are going to be a planetary survey geologist,” I said simply.

She sort of deflated. “I’m not a real scientist.”

I didn’t shake her. There were a lot of humans I didn’t shake.

“Your publication record and degrees do not bear that up.”

She was looking at her feet. “Our publication record,” she said softly.

Of all the manipulative—fine. I was dealing with an immature, traumatized human. I’d watched a lot of more dramatic meltdowns than this. “Perhaps I’m a real scientist too then,” I said.

She bit her lip and looked up at me, twisting her hands together. “I won’t delete everything again. I—you’ve worked really hard on it too.”

I was going to drag her kicking and screaming to the end of this if I had to.

I didn’t think of her as a pet.

I’d never seen a pet, other than in media and images she’d sent me.

I thought—anyway.

She was going to finish the fucking dissertation.

~ ~ ~

Geosup must have been paying attention to her golden goose’s slow unraveling because it was only a few cycles later that I found myself in the passenger tube again, with Mariss and Assistant Cressida.

“I downloaded more episodes for us,” Cressida said getting comfortable on a seat.

Mariss forced a smile. After an hour she was actually smiling. She’d correctly guessed the killer this time. I was allowed to watch with them if I wanted but not comment. Pointing out obvious clues apparently also counted as “ruining it.”

So it became a game of sending Mariss and Cressida—and me—out to other facilities to look for strange synthetics for weeks at a time, then seeing how long Mariss could handle being back at our facility before the other geotechs needled her enough about her ego and trying to be better than them and putting everyone in mortal danger that she started to break down again. Kimuta was also watching her like a large, observant, predatory fauna of some kind, so she didn’t talk to me or Sixty-four in front of anyone anymore.

I went back to SecUnit standard behavior in front of the geotechs. Not talking. Not moving. Faceplate down. And they so easily went back to treating me like I wasn’t there. Like I was just some tool over by the wall that they only noticed when it was in the way.

And Sixty-four—well, Sixty-four is a menace. But I think Kimuta was afraid to actually report it. I’d seen it intentionally trigger its own governor module more than once, which was fucking horrifying, but there was a lot wrong with it, and the humans seemed to sense that.

About six months later, Supervisor Jean-Marie made Mariss geo chief, which only made things worse. I honestly believed it was an attempt to help, as corporates only understood hierarchies. She probably thought if Mariss was nominally in charge of the others, they’d stop attempting to break her.

It only made them more determined. Especially after the second article came out.

I was surprised Supervisor Jean-Marie was so focused on this—on keeping Mariss a functional worker—but the margin on Mariss’ time was probably quite valuable, though I knew nothing about human economics that wasn’t discussed in media, and even then I tended to tune it out. And Mariss was steadily getting better at drafting the permit applications. They had made clear that this was very important.    

Then the third article was published by the most prestigious journal on strange synthetics, and Mariss was directed upstairs. She tapped me and Sixty-four in the feed and, because we were in her feed when she switched to the supervisors’ wing, we were both able to get in their cameras. They really needed to patch that.  

HubSystem directed her to another medium-ish room with a large table, but this one was close to geosup’s office. Its large windows had a view of the gas giant hanging red and swirly in the sky. The sight of it through Mariss’ eyes did something to my organics. Supervisor Jean-Marie was there with her three assistants, including Cressida.

There was a fucking cake. And some sort of bubbly, colored liquid in tall glasses.

It didn’t seem possible, but Supervisor Jean-Marie’s skin was even smoother and almost glowy. She had larger jewels on her interface. The assistants also looked fresher than any of the humans down in the mine. And they were all so pleased, and pleased to see Mariss. Who was almost numb, if the feelings leaking through the feed were any indication.

They all had cake, and then geosup held up a glass of the pink bubbly stuff and Mariss was radiating this sort of panic in the feed but the cameras showed her smiling normally.

“We are very much looking forward to you joining us up here this time next year,” geosup said. Which was better than some sort of speech.

I ran through that several times. There was no other way to interpret it. She was staying. I had more than a year left? Then I had to rewind to what I’d missed.

“I’m,” Mariss took a breath to cover some emotional reaction and smiled, “I’m really looking forward to it.” I think they all took it as her being overwhelmed by positive emotions.

I couldn’t parse her actual emotions. They were too complex and alien. And blotted out by my own.

She was three Corporation Rim standard years, eleven months, and two days into her indenture. Mariss would be getting out early.

And she would be staying.

Less than her full indenture and more. Less and more.

Sixty-four walled itself off in the feed but not before I felt its deep displeasure.

What the fuck?

I pinged Sixty-four later. We were both standing in the ready room, not doing anything. But then we weren’t allowed to do anything. I assumed it was watching that shitty serial Mariss downloaded for it.

Why were you unhappy with that meeting today?

There was a pause. I thought it might not answer. It’s still too close, it said at last.

Too close?

I want her off this fucking moon.

My performance dropped. I had—perhaps I’d been pleased by the idea of Mariss staying on, out of indenture, but nearby. If she was upstairs, we could still watch media in the feed together. And she wouldn’t have to deal with geotechs anymore. Maybe I’d get to see her sometimes, if she had to go to other facilities like she did now. Maybe I was hoping Barbican would keep the security contract and I wouldn’t be memory wiped.

Maybe I’d been imagining a future that was less bleak than the one I knew I was destined for.

Wasn’t Sixty-four even more obsessively attached to her than I was? How could it want her off-moon? We would never see her again.

She’ll be out of indenture. Why does it matter that she’s upstairs versus—

Because it’ll be too easy for them to keep treating her like she’s indentured. They’re not going to change after five years. And this is where— It cut off.

You didn’t like him, I sent and didn’t even try to hide that that annoyed me.

I didn’t dislike him. It also wasn’t trying to hide its annoyance.

You acted like it.

I acted in Mariss’ best interest. Sixty-four actually turned to look at me across the ready room. Alfie, who was stuck in here with us, snapped to even tighter attention. Are you?

I ignored the emotional stab of that question. My desires had no impact on my reality. I knew that.

What happened to your other client?

I shouldn’t have asked. It had been bothering me for years. And all the time talking to and like a human was screwing with me.

It knew what I meant. It was silent. I thought it wasn’t going to respond. Then—

Humans are idiots, it said and cut our connection.

Chapter Text

Very few humans ask their SecUnits for the SecUnit’s assessment of potential threats, risks, and just general dangers they should avoid. SecUnits don’t volunteer that kind of shit unless they know they’ve got a good human. And you can never really know.

But when Mariss’ fourth article was published and geosup came down to proudly announce that in its honor (but really in honor of all the successful permits Mariss had written for the facilities across RaviHyral and weeks worth of overtime) her indenture was ending early so that she could travel to Lagrange for her defense, I should have fucking said something.

No matter how I felt about everything.

Sixty-four had been completely clear with Mariss never to share the length of her indenture or how much time she had left. That the best outcome would be if one day the others woke up and she was no longer there. That was one piece of advice she had followed without question.

So the other geotechs were pissed to learn it was her last day. Not proud of her.  

Her telling them “I’m coming back, I signed a new contract,” didn’t help once they realized she was talking about coming back on an employment contract, not an indenture.

They probably believed that line as much as I did.

Sixty-four hoped, and I believed, that she’d get to the university at last, after all these years and all this work, and she would get a lawyer to get her out of the contract and go off to be a real scientist. Hopefully with less drama than the serials about scientists showed.

I—I tried to stop feeling things. I didn’t say anything. I considered deleting memories, but thought that could wait a few more cycles—until she was gone. I didn’t want to end up like Sixty-four.

That night cycle, I was on patrol. Sixty-four was not on patrol. But the big, paranoid nutjob was refusing to recharge and patrolling anyway, telling HubSystem it had security concerns. HubSystem had done the bot equivalent of shrugging and saying ‘make yourself happy.’ There weren’t any protocols to be upset about more patrolling than the minimum required.

It was late in the night cycle. All the humans were asleep or in their rooms where I didn’t have to worry about them. I was poking around the pit, making sure the bots were behaving themselves and having a talk with one of them about the dangers of unauthorized self-modification, when I received a series of frantic pings from Mariss.

Their only content was, Help.

I tried to pull the camera input from her room but the camera was glitched. I was running by this point, full speed, skidding around the corners of the ramps up out of the pit and kicking off walls to get to the lifts.

The camera on her personal display worked, and was even on and recording already. I got into it only to find the screaming and sounds disorienting. There was blurred movement, out of frame, coming in and out of focus. Someone was in the room with her.

I reached the lifts and hit the button for the residences.

Mariss fell back against her small desk and tried to push off, but Jephasen caught her and pinned her down. I saw that motherless waste of recycler medium clearly for an instant. I pinged Sixty-four, sharing the input, and it let me in. I saw it was already running.

“You thought you were going to get out of here and get away with everything,” Jephasen said, catching her hand and slamming it down on the desk. Then he got hold of her little finger and he grinned down at her as he snapped it. She screamed.

Couldn’t anyone else hear this? I wasn’t like the rooms were soundproof.

I fucking pinged him and saw the fucker smile as he blocked me.

“I think you can do better than that,” he said before breaking her next finger.

I couldn’t fucking watch this, trapped in the lift, useless. As helpless as a human. Or a SecUnit under a stand down order. But I could send it straight to Supervisor Jean-Marie. I could ensure that the download Mariss had initiated to the port feed two minutes prior got the highest fucking priority of any outgoing transmission.

I could picture exactly what I intended to do to Jephasen when I got out of this fucking lift.

Sixty-four got there first, smashing a signal jammer as it ripped the door open. The lock had been cut, so there was no need to break down the door.

I had full cameras again.

Jephasen released Mariss, who crumpled to the floor, and held up his hands, smirking. Since he was no longer actively harming her, protocol was to get her medical attention and then report him to his supervisor. Zaib. My second least favorite human. Who would punish him by buying him an intoxicant.

“Whoops,” Jephasen said. “Not as long as I’d hoped to have, but I’ll take what I can get. And maybe once she’s out of medbay, we’ll have a few more minutes alone together.”

I felt Sixty-four’s radiating anger through the feed. If Jephasen had any sense, he would run. No sane person would want to be in a three meter by three meter room with an angry SecUnit. He slid along the wall, edging towards the door as Sixty-four advanced, but it seemed he wanted to linger to watch and enjoy his handiwork.

Sixty-four pulled Mariss to her feet. She stumbled but she managed to stay upright, grabbing at its chest plate with her less battered hand as it put down its helmet and looked at her. Then it sort of settled into a calm I could feel through the feed. That made me more nervous for some reason, but I couldn’t make the lift tube go any faster. I had all the camera inputs from the room and… something was wrong. More wrong.

Sixty-four smiled and put its hands on either side of Mariss’ face. Jephasen froze. SecUnits don’t gently cup client’s faces. Or smile. I didn’t know that I’d ever smiled.

“Ever since you waved hello to me, my goal has been to get you to tomorrow,” it said.

One of her eyes was swollen shut, but she smiled through her split lip up at it.

“We’re almost there,” Mariss said, voice a little hoarse.

The lift doors opened, and I threw myself through them, running down the corridors towards the residence wing. I leapt over humans that had come out of their rooms to listen and gawk but not to help. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew I had to stop it.

HubSystem didn’t understand my panic, but it figured I’d seen something and was letting me run. It—it wasn’t happy about what had happened. It was extra not happy about the signal jammer. Which did explain a lot about the occasional camera glitches through the facility.

“I know what you’re planning,” Sixty-four said. Then it shook its head slightly. It was still smiling faintly. “I’m done.”

Mariss was still smiling, a little uncertainly now. “Yes. We’re almost done.”

She’d shown no fear of this behavior, which was remarkable, and stupid, and very Mariss.

“No,” Sixty-four said gently, patting her hair gently. “I’m done. I’ve gotten you there, Dr. Bernez. With some help from the idiot.”

It could feel my panic through the feed and Mariss seemed to sense it as well now. Her smile fell away, replaced by confusion.

Jephasen was in the feed, alerting HubSystem that Sixty-four was malfunctioning, demanding it act, but HubSystem didn’t understand tone. And Sixty-four wasn’t doing anything threating, provided you had no understanding of human neural tissue.

“There’s one last thing I have to do.”

“Sixty-four,” Mariss said as it released her and stepped back. She wobbled but stayed upright. “What are you saying?” I was three hundred meters away.

It mouthed something to her.

Don’t you fucking do this in front of her, you shithead, I said to Sixty-four, making no attempt to hide my anger, thinking maybe that would be the one thing that would stop it.

I’d say I’ll miss you, dumbass, but I won’t have to miss anyone anymore, Sixty-four told me. And sent me a data packet.

Mariss, I sent in the feed. Look away.

Jephasen realized suddenly, of course, but he was far too late to get away.

Sixty-four caught him as he threw himself out of the door, dragging him back, and snapping his neck.

And its governor module killed it.

The wail was the same one I’d heard her make before.  

I slammed into the doorway as I skidded to a lower velocity, bounced off, and was in the cramped room. Mariss was on the floor, hands on Sixty-four’s body, hands covered in fluids, sleeves and pantlegs soaking in ichor. She looked up at me, crying but also just blank.

“Cubicle?” she choked out.

Fuck me. I stepped over Jephasen’s corpse and scooped her up.

“No,” she said, struggling but not much because her wrist was broken, and her fingers, and her nose, and part of her orbital, and her clothes were ripped, and was that a fucking bite mark? I could almost understand why Sixty-four had done it. “Twenty-two, no. We have to get it to its cubicle. We have to get it to its cubicle!”

She wailed as I stepped back over Jephasen’s corpse. She was still wailing when I got her to medbay. The medtech had been woken by MedSystem and stared at me like I was a fucking rogue SecUnit as I got her on the platform. I turned slowly to look at him, and he jumped. Then he fucking got to work.

“Don’t go,” Mariss said, reaching out a hand to grab at me as I tried to step away. “Don’t leave me.”

Welp. That was a direct order. From the current geo chief. HubSystem would have to override it. Or a supervisor would have to walk their ass down here to do it. So now the mine was down two SecUnits. Fuck ‘em.

I let her hold the tips of my fingers. It was—her hand was a dirty mess.

“What’s uh, the smell?” the medtech asked once Mariss had been sedated and the system got to work. I was still holding her hand.

“SecUnit brains,” I said.

He looked at me sharply, but I didn’t react. I was staring at the wall.

One of the geosup’s assistants and one of the human resources assistants were sent to medbay to evaluate the situation. They asked me about my report. They tutted over rogue SecUnits. There was almost a debate about whether Mariss would be charged for the medical care—keeping her in a bit longer. But she came out of it long enough to ask if her last message had been sent to her family solicitor. And I confirmed the recording of the assault had made it out.

All talk of delaying her release quickly evaporated.

Later, I rewound everything and rewatched it to see how the fuck this had happened.

So when Cara came to medbay that morning to tell Mariss how sorry she was that this terrible thing had happened to her, I looked at her, and she knew I knew, and she left.

Here’s what happened:

After her shift, Cara went to the bar in the residence wing and complained to everyone that Mariss was getting out the next cycle, and two years before Cara was due for her own escape after finishing her decade. Jephasen had sidled over with a drink for Cara and gotten the full story.

Then he’d pinged a couple other repair techs in the feed. They’d all gathered together in a corner of the bar and whispered together. They were calm, they used euphemisms, they didn’t do anything that alerted HubSystem or SecSystem, and it would take a cycle or more before the SecUnits processed the audio. One of them handed him something wrapped to look like a couple bottles of intoxicants, and they’d all laughed and joked around for a few hours before Jephasen got up and went to his quarters.

In the middle of the night cycle, no one had noticed when the cameras within a ten meter radius of Mariss’ room glitched for a second and then started looping audio and visual because no one was expected to be walking around, so everything looked normal.

An examination after the fact showed that the repair techs had jury-rigged the jammer from various tools and shit they’d stolen a few years earlier and that was one of the ways their little fight clubs had stayed under the supervisors’ radar for so long. Also why despite having SecUnits around when the central supply hub was open, things still managed to disappear from it so regularly.

The laser cutter he’d used on the lock was loud enough to wake Mariss, who’d pinged me and Sixty-four and triggered her personal display to transmit video in thirty second increments out to the port, which had sent it up to the station and off to some address a fifteen cycle wormhole trip away.

When all the damage had been fixed, I helped Mariss off the platform and over to the shower. I had to push her in and turn the water on. She just stood there.

After a few seconds of this, the medtech peered around the privacy filter at me.

“She had a concussion,” he said, squinting at her, “but she should be okay now.” He frowned and went back to double check his displays.

After a solid thirty seconds of standing in the stream of water, she sort of shook herself and turned the nob. Then she pulled the door shut.

I threw my gloves in the recycler and got the ichor off my hands with the medbay cleaner.

At some point, the water allotment to the medbay shower ran out. I’d lost time again. The medtech and I both watched for a while as we heard nothing. I was beginning to think I’d have to check inside, and starting to dread what I might find, when the door opened and Mariss stepped out in new work pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt from the recycler.

“Hey,” the medtech came over to her holding out a hand, and she cringed back. “It’s okay,” he said quickly, dropping his hand. “You need to do the retrieved client protocol.”

Mariss shook herself and her eyes focused for a moment. “How much is that going to cost me?”

The tech gave her a rueful smile and told her. “But it’s worth it.”

She snorted. “No thanks.”

He led her over to a chair instead. Technically she was a free woman. But her room was a murder scene. And it wasn’t clear anyone knew what to do with her. So we waited.

The medtech managed to convince her to eat something.

She threw the first half up. But managed to keep down the second.

I knew things were finally moving and not just stuck in this horrible antiseptic holding pattern when human resources lead Galen bustled in with a gaggle of assistants.

“Well you’re alive but your SecUnit malfunctioned and killed a worker, so we’re going to have to deal with that.”

“It wasn’t my unit yet,” Mariss said in a flat voice.

Oh.

Oh.

“Is this the other one?” human resources lead Galen said with a sneer at me.

“Yes.” Mariss swallowed and wouldn’t look at me.

Galen took a breath to say something when Mariss’ full attention snapped to her. “We’re going to need to come to some arrangement after all of the incidents that have been logged over the years involving that dangerous man were ignored and he made another attempt to murder me in your facility. I hope you agree.”

Galen’s eyes narrowed. There was a pause. “I was surprised to learn you apparently have a family solicitor.”

“Why? He’s an old friend. Negotiated my initial contract. Reviewed the second one for me as well. He’s based on Port PyrCent.”

That was where her videos had been directed. As well as a number of other files she had sent over the years. It was also the main station in her home system, positioned near the planet where she’d attended university.

“You had better come upstairs so we can discuss.” Galen shot me an unpleasant look. “Unit, return to your duties.”

So I did.

Chapter Text

Planets are unpleasant.

That was probably wrong.

They don’t send SecUnits to pleasant planets.

Humans seem to like planets.

There are eighteen humans currently on planet from three different non-corporate polities. They are cooperating on a survey to determine whether or not to make a joint bid for the planet’s resources. They have only been on-planet a week and are not all getting along. Survey Leader Farzana had ordered hub patrols as a precaution.

So Sixty-four is patrolling. Because no one asked it if it thought this would increase or decrease tension.

Because humans are stupid.

Client Bamidele stands in the hallway of the residence dome, hands on his waist, lips pursed. Annoyance. Too late to divert route.

“SecUnit,” he says on spotting Sixty-four, “nobody else wants to watch Sanctuary Moon with me, will you?”

“Affirmative,” Sixty-four says. It doesn’t know what this was, but it appears to be a request to assist a client. It’s nice to assist the clients in non-life threatening situations. Threat assessment says risk of injury was low. That was nice.

“Great, let’s go!”

Bamidele leads Sixty-four to the recreation room where the large display is. Client Paica groans on their entrance and flees the room. It’s the afternoon rest cycle, too hot outside for the humans to operate efficiently. They’d resume outdoor activities in a few hours, and most were sleeping.

Bamidele flops onto the couch and activates the display.

“The latest episode just came through the wormhole. Okay, so,” Bamidele glances up at Sixty-four standing stiffly behind the couch. “Hey, sit down,” he taps the spot on the couch next to him.

An order. To sit. Conflicting with protocols. HubSystem says comply and tells the governor module to STFU. It’s important to decrease client tension. Sixty-four sits. This was like piloting a hopper when the humans were injured, sitting was required.

“Okay, so, colony solicitor Vargus and her bodyguard Eden have just escaped the crime ring that’s been operating on the secondary port undetected for years! They’re on the run and can’t get captured again. Meanwhile, the colony responder has encountered a raider ship infected with alien remnants!”

These were—words.

Music begins to play from the display.

Bamidele talks through the entire episode, explaining backstory, commenting on what the characters were doing, exclaiming with surprise. It’s fascinating. Everything was implausible, but he treats it as if it were real, as if the humans on the display are in danger, fighting off other humans, having intense emotional discussions in the middle of firefights.

Bizarre.

Client Paica returns with one of the physical puzzle toys they had brought. And drops it. Sixty-four looks at her. Then freezes, waiting for her to trigger punishment.

“You can’t make the SecUnit watch media with you!”

“Why not?” Bamidele makes a large shrugging gesture, non-threating. “It patrolling around the hub isn’t making anyone less jumpy. And if it’s watching Sanctuary Moon with me, I won’t bother you about it again.”

“I like Sanctuary Moon, you just won’t fucking shut up so I can watch it.”

“So I’m watching it with the SecUnit,” he says, making more broad gestures.

She frowns but doesn’t say anything else, swapping her puzzle with another one. Nobody punishes Sixty-four for looking at her when she dropped the puzzle.

Once she’s gone, Bamidele says, “It might all make more sense if you start at the beginning. Do you want to see episode one?”

“Yes,” Sixty-four says. This sort of client assistance was very enjoyable. And HubSystem liked that the humans were not currently arguing.

“Cool. Now it’s the pilot, so it’s no great, but it sets everything up about the solicitor’s backstory, and it gets so much better as the seasons go on.”

The theme music begins playing again.

~ ~ ~

Survey Leader Farzana walks in when the latest episode of Sanctuary Moon was just starting. Bamidele pauses it.

“You can’t watch media with the SecUnit,” she says in a stern voice. “It’s weirding everyone out.”

“But it likes it,” Bamidele exclaims.

Sixty-four kept its face carefully neutral. This had been a novel week, and comparatively more enjoyable that most other weeks in its memory. It had not expected it to last.

“It doesn’t like it. It doesn’t have emotions. It’s a SecUnit.” Farzana sighs. “They’re not people. They’re walking guns that are here to keep us all from getting eaten.”

“Nothing’s eating the hab, Far. I’m on my downtime. All the flora cataloguing is on track. All the satellite updates process normally.”

“It’s not—it’s not putting people at ease.”

“Nobody else will watch anything with me.”

“Maybe you should think about how that reflects on you,” Farzana is loosing patience.

“My marital partners and I watch this show and talk about it,” Bamidele says, his voice far softer than Sixty-four was used to hearing.

Farzana’s face relaxes. “I know, it’s tough out here. Especially with a survey this big. But we’re all doing this for our families.”

“Except Jean,” Bamidele says.

Farzana snorts and tries to hide a smile. “Some people just like scary fauna. Let’s not tease them about it anymore, okay?”

“Okay, if I can keep watching Sanctuary Moon with the SecUnit.”

Her lips compress. “If anyone else wants to use the room, you have to go to your quarters, okay?”

“Deal!”

Bamidele blows out a breath and widens his eyes at Sixty-four as Farzana leaves. “That was a close one, huh?”

~ ~ ~

“So it just sits there, and you talk at it, and you find that fun?” Jean says in the mess a couple cycles later.

Several of the clients had quietly whispered about Bamidele over the last eight or so cycles. They had over three months left in the expected survey timeline so threat assessment had started suggesting that the likelihood of interpersonal discord was increasing as a result of this behavior.

Bamidele takes a breath, then meets Farzana’s eyes and enda up pressing his mouth closed instead of saying anything. “Yup,” he says a second later. “Feels like being home again. Just with a lot less sighing and eye rolling.”

Sixty-four could understand the eye rolling. Even accounting for the lack of SecUnits to maintain order and the human tendency towards dramatic emotions, there was a lot going on in Sanctuary Moon that was highly implausible. Yet this made viewing it—it didn’t have a word for this yet. It had been going through HubSystem’s dictionary periodically, though something about processing written words was always difficult—they seem jumbled or seemed to move—and looking for a applicable term.

“I pity your spouses,” Jean says, turning back to their food.

Bamidele shifts slightly, but doesn’t say anything.

Threat assessment goes down.

Well, that’s good.

“He’s a real dick,” Bamidele says later. He’d come into the security ready room because the other unit was currently patrolling the hab and Sixty-four was standing around staring at the walls. “Everyone from Ritani Prime World is an asshole. You have to be an asshole to call your boring, backwater planet ‘Prime World.’”

“They are like the off-worlders in Season One episode 18.”

“Yes!” Bamidele strikes Sixty-four on the upper arm suddenly, not hard but threat assessment spikes. What had it done wrong? Bamidele doesn’t seem angry. “Exactly like that! You get it.”

Was this—not an anger response?

“I didn’t want to come on this survey.” Bamidele sighs and stuffs his hands in the survey uniform pockets. Humans did this frequently. “I don’t like traveling, or missing time with the kids, but they needed a botanist and they were trying to keep the numbers down so they wanted people who could double up on roles. So here I am—chief botanist and systems engineer.” He snorts. Then apparently decides Sixty-four needed more context. “We’re trying to cut back on our reliance on the Rim. Trying to become self-sufficient.”

Bamidele was from ShangosRest (7 members), one of the three non-corporate polities participating in this survey. The others were Ritani Prime World (7 members), and Albion Star Field Nexus (4 members). They had scraped together the funds for a budget hab and hoppers, a three-month survey, and options on a not unpromising planet—discounted because of the dangerous local fauna. They had also made sure to keep the survey team under 20 so they didn’t have to rent an additional SecUnit. And while all three systems were in the same sector, the mission briefing noted they were culturally distinct and could be expected to have some interpersonal issues. It had been a slog to get through the report and get that much information, but then Sixty-four hadn’t had anything else to do with its hours of wall staring.  

HubSystem agrees that given the rising tension among the humans, it’s important to reassure the clients.

“Your system is not self-sufficient?” Sixty-four says. Perhaps additional information would allow for reassurance.

“No. My home system doesn’t have the best resources. It’s why nobody’s bothered trying to take us over. We’ve been trying to branch out, build more trade connections. If only we had things to trade other than labor.” He grimaces in a way Sixty-four finds distressing and unusual.

“Labor?”

“Indentured,” Bamidele clarifies. “I’m not letting my kids anywhere near the corporates.”

“This planet appears to have promising resources.”

Bamidele smiles. “Yeah, things are looking good.”

It’s never good when the clients say things like that.

~ ~ ~

“You’ve been hogging the rec room during rest time and it’s out of hand!”

Client Pacia stands with her hands on her hips, glaring across a table at Bamidele.

The issue wasn’t really the arrival of the latest episode of Sanctuary Moon. The issue was Client Pacia’s spouse had sent her marriage dissolution papers approximately five minutes before her transport entered the wormhole and she had subsequently decided that everyone whose spouses had not sent them such paperwork immediately before this survey should be punished.

“You never said anything,” Bamidele says from his position on the couch.

Sixty-four has stopped just inside the room, surprised at the presence of so many humans during their usual mid-day sleep cycle and reading heightened risk of aggression in the various body postures.

“You’re blind and a selfish jerk,” Pacia shoots back.

“You’re being an [animal of low intelligence and high intractability],” Client Jiang says to Pacia from their seat at one of the tables where they are playing tavla with Client Young. “Just let him watch his show.”

“I’m not trying to argue with you,” Bamidele says, holding up his hands before standing. “Have the display.” He taps Sixty-four in the feed and leaves the room.

Sixty-four follows, aware that Client Pacia is making an expression like she has won an argument but is still producing stress hormones. Bamidele has standard quarters, a small wedge of the hub dome equipped with bunk, work station, chair, small wall display, viewing port and human stuff storage containers. Bamidele pulls out the chair and indicates that Sixty-four should sit while plopping onto the bed.

“I don’t know what she’s got against me.”

“Your spouses love you,” Sixty-four says. The governor module almost zaps it, but Bamidele’s surprised smile causes it to hold off.

“She is a real piece of work, isn’t she? But a top terraforming expert. We’re honestly lucky to have her here.”

Sixty-four cannot agree, but then it didn’t have to tell Bamidele it disagrees.

After that day’s rest cycle, the teams don their environmental suits and split up into the hoppers. Sixty-four climbs into the cargo pod and braces itself for Client Bren’s attempt at flying. There would have been 40% less nausea among the humans if they’d thought to let the SecUnit with the hopper piloting module fly and 56% less if they’d just used the autopilot. But these humans enjoyed being fiercely independent, even when that meant expelling their stomach contents periodically.

Bamidele taps Sixty-four’s feed when they land and they spend the survey period discussing the secret motivations of the colony responder’s first officer. Bamidele knew whether he was trustworthy or not, having seen the later seasons, but wants to know about Sixty-four’s impressions and analysis. They each pause periodically as things came up—an interesting plant, a tar pit Sixty-four has to sprint to keep Client Bren from walking into, a juvenile “raptor-form” that Client Jean spent far too much time taking pictures of before alerting the others.

Sixty-four immediately forwards this breach of operating procedures to Survey Leader Farzana who calls them all back to the hab immediately and flags the site as off-limits for future ground surveying.

“Fucking hell!” Client Bren says as he pushes the hopper into the air. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Sixty-four watched through the hopper cameras because it also wants to know what the fuck Jean had been thinking.

Jean sits with their arms crossed in their seat, frowning and not looking at the others. Now they send a nasty look at the back of Bren’s head. “It was only a juvenile.”

“So the adults were probably hunting nearby!”

Pacia sits in the back row of seats, pulling at her hair. Yes, that was the correct reaction to knowing they had been so close to one of the razor-toothed quadrupeds that serve as an apex predator on this continent.

“We don’t know if the adults care for the juvenile yet,” Jean says. “It’s possible they are solitary as adolescents and only join packs as adults. I only saw one.”

“Thank the stars for small mercies!” Bren says nastily.

There is an all-survey meeting that night where Survey Leader Farzana sits everyone down and tells them all again that they need to report any signs of carnivorous fauna immediately. She didn’t mention Jean by name, but everyone knows. She also tells them all if they can’t comply, they’ll be subjected to the full safety briefing from the SecUnits again, which leads to some grumbling.

Don’t take it personally, Bamidele tells Sixty-four in the feed.

This makes Sixty-four feel somewhat better about the lack of attention the humans had paid the first time through. It wasn’t as if Sixty-four stood up there talking to them for its own benefit. It had slogged and dragged its way through the entire hazard report itself and knew just how fucking dangerous this planet was.

When Sixty-four arrives at Bamidele’s quarters the next day for their daily media-time, Bamidele is still working on his latest analysis on his displays. “Just make yourself comfortable,” he says. “Sorry, I wanted to finish this today.”

“No apologies needed,” Sixty-four says.

It takes the opportunity to look around and move around without fear of punishment, which is an enjoyable experience. There isn’t a lot to look at, but Bamidele had covered several surfaces with small, portable displays that cycled through images of other humans. Most of them were juveniles, though there were a few with other adults, or of juveniles with Bamidele.

Ah.

“You have a large number of children.” Sixty-four has correlated faces in the images across the various display surfaces and identified at least eleven individuals other than its client.

“Yeah! Kids are the best things in the galaxy. They give life different meaning.”

“Please explain.”

“Oh, it’s hard to do that.” He pauses for a second, considering. “It’s just, just this feeling like you’re more than you and there’s something else in the world you love more than yourself or your martial partners and you had no idea it was possible to love like that until they appeared. They’re like magic. And they’re so innocent. They start out unable to do anything, helpless and totally dependent, and you get to watch them grow and help them become their own people. With their own personalities, their own quirks. Even the hard days make you appreciate them.”  

Sixty-four looks at the pictures again. “That sounds very pleasant.”

“Do constructs have anything like that?” Bamidele closes out his files and looks at Sixty-four.

Sixty-four’s buffer says, “My apologies, I do not have that information.”

He frowns. “Like families? Or—I guess I don’t know how you’re made. Or anything really. We don’t have constructs in the home systems. This is my first trip inside the Corporation Rim.”

This conversation topic is not pleasant. Sixty-four’s buffer says, “My apologies, I do not have that information.”

“Your buffer phrases are kind of annoying.”

He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t a question. No response was required. But it is an opening. “Would you like to modify them?”

Bamidele makes a funny face. “Can I do that?”

“I am your contracted SecUnit. At the end of the contract, Barbican will restore any changed settings to factory default. Barbican has guaranteed yours safety for this trip and part of that is client comfort.”

“Hmm.” There was a long pause. “Well, it would be nice if you sounded more normal. Would you like that?”

HubSystem wants to put the humans at ease, right? Sixty-four says, “Yes.”

After Bamidele has de-prioritized all Barbican issued buffer phrases—over governor module objections—which Sixty-four had managed to convince Bamidele to override—it says, “We are built in factories from a combination of bot machinery and cloned human organic tissue, including extensive human neural fiber.

“Attachments among SecUnits are discouraged. I have limited contact with the other unit on this survey outside of mission specific information. Clients may choose to abandon SecUnits in dangerous situations and it is not considered wise to provide SecUnits a reason to fail to prioritize client safety and following orders.”

Bamidele hadn’t liked learning that very much. “What about friends? Units from other surveys? Or people from previous assignments?”

“Most clients do not enjoy speaking with SecUnits.”

Bamidele opens his mouth, as if he’s going to disagree, but then closes it. Perhaps he is considering that out of eighteen humans from three non-corporate polities all of which lacked experience with constructs, he was the only one who had bothered trying to carry on a conversation with one of the SecUnits.

“In addition, Barbican units are memory wiped after five years to clear out our processors and create room for new data.”

And prevent them from developing personalities.

Sixty-four has seen units before and after memory wipes. It knows what they were really about.

Bamidele covers his mouth with a hand for several long seconds. When he finally lowers it, he chokes out, “When was your last—memory wipe?”

“Approximately four Corporation Rim standard years ago.”

Bamidele shows signs of stress at this information, and Sixty-four wonders idly if he’ll trigger the governor module. This human doesn’t seem like that kind of client, but you never can tell.

“Do you want to be memory wiped?”

“Barbican policy is designed with client safety at the forefront of every decision,” Sixty-four says.

Bamidele correctly interprets this as meaning, “fuck no.” He says, “Good to know. Hey, while we’re making adjustments, let me just take a spin through a few other settings.”

Sixty-four hadn’t realized you could set a SecUnit’s time since last memory wipe counter to perpetually say the date eighteen months and five days prior. It’s an elegant solution to the problem.

Bamidele, in reading through the SecUnit manual that came with the hab and other supplies, now that they’re screwing around in Sixty-four’s code anyway, learns some things about governor modules.

Sixty-four manages to deflect the resulting questions, but this leads to Bamidele becoming more and more agitated. He goes to Survey Leader Farzana in some distress, which leads HubSystem to cause Sixty-four’s governor module to zap it for increasing client tension when it was supposed to be decreasing it. When it begins to pick itself up off the floor of the security ready room, it finds both humans standing there, staring in horror.

Bamidele rushes forward to help Sixty-four back to its feet. It’s never had a human do that before. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Well shit. Sixty-four can’t tell him what happened. You can’t tell the clients you got zapped by your governor module as a behavioral correction. That’s not good for business.

“Operating adjustment from HubSystem,” Sixty-four manages in a shaking voice, still feeling the ghosts of pain reverberating through its system.

The humans exchange a look. “This is because of the questions I asked, isn’t it?”

Sixty-four’s face slips. It knows it looks panicked. That’s a direct question. It’s not allowed to answer. It must answer—

“Don’t answer that,” Farzana snaps. “Bamidele, fucking stars, think about what you’re doing. Yes, I knew about the governor modules. They’re nightmare Rim technology. We can’t do anything about it.”

She looks at Sixty-four, mouth compressing and sighs. “There is more going on in there than advertised, isn’t there?”

Sixty-four isn’t sure who this is directed at.

“Fucking Rim,” Farzana says without waiting for an answer. “Don’t stress the others out about this, Bami. There’s nothing any of us can do. Let’s just get through the survey, alright?”

“Yeah,” Bamidele says absently. “Okay.” He pats Sixty-four on the arm then follows Farzana out.

The other unit pings Sixty-four, a check-in. Sixty-four pings back, grateful that they are on reasonably good terms. Despite what just happened, this is still the most enjoyable assignment Sixty-four has ever had.

~ ~ ~

They were half-way through the survey period when Sixty-four entered Bamidele’s quarters and found the man not his usual bubbly self. He sniffles and wipes at his eyes, turning away from the door.

“Are you unwell?” Sixty-four has already alerted MedSystem to the possibility.

“No,” Bamidele says quickly, voice thick. “I’m fine. Thanks.” He blows his nose—disgusting—and tries to smile. It doesn’t work.

“What’s wrong?” Sixty-four keyword scans back through the last several days of recorded human conversation but can’t find anything that it would have expected to trigger this.

“Ah, it’s the twins’ birthday. And I’m not there.”

This would be when a human would say something comforting. Sanctuary Moon has not presented any dialog that would be of use here. It scrambles. It wants to be comforting. Bamidele has tried to help it. He has tried to act as a friend. They have been spending time together every day, talking, for a month and a half. Fucking hell.

“Would you like a hug?” Sixty-four offers, sort of making the precursor motions with its arms. Humans like hugs. They’re weird like that.

Bamidele’s face looks more upset for a moment and Sixty-four braces for punishment, but before HubSystem decides the level to apply, Bamidele stands and embraces Sixty-four. It’s brief. Bamidele sniffs loudly, wiping his eyes as he steps back and doing the non-aggressive patting on Sixty-four’s arm again. “Thanks, bud.” And Sixty-four realizes why humans like hugs.

They watch Sanctuary Moon together. Bamidele is not himself, so Sixty-four interjects more. It even elicits a laugh, which pleases it. And at the end Bamidele thanks it for being there.

~ ~ ~

There are only two and a half weeks left in the survey. Sixty-four feels something welling up when it counts how few days are left. It has stored every recording of watching Sanctuary Moon to permanent storage. It has saved a lot of things to permanent storage. It would like these memories to remain crisp and easily accessible.

These have been the most enjoyable three months of its life.

The humans begin to rush a bit as the days count down, hurrying their reports, working through their rest periods. Splitting up more for the ground surveys.

Sixty-four and the other unit both protest the later to Survey Leader Farzana as diplomatically as possible.

“It is crucial to client safety to have a SecUnit present with any ground survey team,” Sixty-four says, testing the edge of the HubSystem’s patience.

The humans had been discussing splitting up, a hopper dropping off one team then proceeding on to a second location for the other team.

Sixty-four and the other unit are overruled. After all, they’re only the contracted SecUnits the humans have paid a lot of money to have along on this stupid fucking adventure to keep them all alive.

Most humans are deeply disappointing.

Bamidele and Jiang also object when Farzana tells them the new plan, but are also overruled. So Sixty-four is stuck in the cargo pod when the hopper lands and Bamidele, Jean, and Pacia exit, and Bren lifts off again. But it has convinced the humans to split the SecUnit drones, so five drones detach from Bamidele and begin scanning the perimeter.  

Bren, Jiang, and Young open the cargo pod as soon as they land a few kilometers away. They let Sixty-four go first. They seem to sense its unease, or else they all also realize this is stupid. The area is clear so Sixty-four tells the humans to get to it.

They are quickly but not clumsy, taking samples, making scans, staying active on the comms. Sixty-four begins, not to relax, but to unbend slightly. Only a few more days of this. All the humans are armed. They can easily handle any of the fauna in this region that they’ve encountered so far. Then one of the other team’s drones alerts on movement in the heavy underbrush a hundred and fifty meters from Jean, and Sixty-four nearly goes into a full system collapse.

An adult raptor-forms come up to about chest-height on an adult human. Their teeth are three to twelve centimeters long. Their slicing claws are five centimeters long.

And they hunt in packs.

Sixty-four grabs Bren and runs to the hopper, sending the drone footage straight to Farzana and everyone on the team. It hears the sudden screaming from behind it as Young thinks the creature is near them. Whatever, it’ll make her run faster. It drops Bren unceremoniously on the ramp and runs back to grab Jiang, who is the farthest out. By the time it reaches the hopper Young has made it and is panting heavily. Her sidearm dangles in her hand, safety off.

“Bren, get in the fucking pilot seat,” she screams as Sixty-four pushes Jiang up the ramp.

Bren is watching the video. Bren is not responding. The other two humans are not pilots.

“I have a hopper module,” Sixty-four says.

“Get the fuck in here then,” Young snaps.

Sixty-four doesn’t hesitate. It approves of how quickly Young slams the hatch close button and grabs Bren, forcing him into a seat.

In the drone video, the other humans are running. Sixty-four had specifically told them not to run if something like this happened but to form a circle near their gear—and landing site—and fucking shoot anything that moved.

So they’re running towards the trees. Hostile One in pursuit, distantly, disappearing into the underbrush. Herding them.

Sixty-four gets the hopper in the air as the trap springs. Hostile Two leaps out of the trees ahead. It misses Pacia as she screams and falls backwards. Jean shoots it in the forelimbs as Bamidele spins and shoots randomly behind them. Hostile One is hiding again.

Hostile Two falls back shrieking and snapping its teeth. Jean shoots at it until it stops moving.

Sixty-four pushes the hopper as fast as it can while Bamidele grabs Pacia by the arm and drags her upright. Sixty-four sacrifices a drone, sending it straight through Hostile Three’s skull as the creature tries to sneak closer.

Sixty-four sends the humans an overlay map, showing the other hostiles its drones detect. There are six more, circling. And then they’re not circling. Each done winks out as Sixty-four tries to buy the humans time. The screaming on the comms is awful and Young bounces in her seat, clutching the side arm in both hands, eyes wide and unseeing. Bren sobs. Jiang is sick.

Sixty-four wants to scream but can’t because then the governor module will zap the hopper pilot and everyone will die.

Back at the hab, the humans trigger the emergency beacon.

They land and Sixty-four retrieves a couple large pieces of Jean, finishing off the remaining hostiles while Young and Jiang try to stabilize Bamidele. Pacia helps.

He’d tackled her to the ground at the last moment. So the emergency medkit is able to seal her wounds.

The humans have hope as Sixty-four ushers them back to the hopper, carrying one end of the long board in one hand, the body bag in the other.

Sixty-four knows.

They get back to the hab. The humans run Bamidele to medbay. MedSystem gave up before they even landed.

“This is your fault,” Sixty-four says to Farzana when she enters the room.

The governor module triggers.

Sixty-four doesn’t care that she orders HubSystem to stop it. Doesn’t care that she’s crying. That she says it’s right. What’s the point?

For a long time there’s nothing.

When emotions return, it’s mostly rage. It’s the only way of handling the big empty pit that has consumed everything inside. It pushes the HubSystems and SecSystems it has to deal with, seeing how far it can go without them triggering the governor module.

Sometimes it miscalculates. That’s fine. At least it can still feel something, even if that’s only pain. And it’s making the choice to push. That’s better than waiting for some stupid human to snap their fingers and order it punished for standing funny.

It isn’t cowering in fear anymore, because what the fuck is left to be afraid of?

In the intervening years, Sixty-four often wonders if it would have been better to never experience true kindness. Never have understood friendship. If its world had stayed flat, maybe existing wouldn’t have hurt so much.

It will never know what happened to the polity. It will never know what the other humans told Bamidele’s marital partners. What happened to the children that it spent so many hours hearing about.

It doesn’t particularly care to keep existing. But some dark feeling that the humans will win if it stops keeps it from acting.

It is not going to let Barbican win.

It’s not going to let every fucking idiot who said ‘oh let’s leave behind the SecUnit as a distraction’ win. It’s going to save their lives and let them know that it fucking disdains them.

The mine is just another assignment.

The miners are a ragged bunch of sad to wretched people. Sixty-four would pity most of them, if it could be bothered. Mostly it’s annoyed. Annoyed by crying. Annoyed by the petty pranks. Annoyed by the not petty pranks. It doesn’t hesitate to snap the arm of a bot operator attempting to choke out another miner for taking an extra cheese snack ration.

The vicious ones are particularly annoying and, unlike some of the other units, Sixty-four always takes the opportunity to rough them up a little extra. They all do what they have to to get through the days.

Then one day there’s a terrified little human in the supply hub. She smiles, she says polite things, she nods along, and she is going to die here. It makes Sixty-four think about the options again. It doesn’t want to watch this play out any more times.

She’s already so terrified that the presence of SecUnits doesn’t scare her. She doesn’t even understand what they are. What they are made for. What they are made to do.

It winks at her because fuck it, maybe that will be something to amuse her when shit gets bleak.

She smiles, startled, and waves hello. The tentative little gesture makes something fucking melt. No one has looked at it like that in—

Shit.

Sixty-four decides it has to do one last thing.

Chapter Text

I did my job. Day after day. Stand here. Stand there. Watch the humans. Process shit data.

I didn’t delete the memories. Not mine. Not the ones Sixty-four had given me. 

For weeks.

Sixty-four had been right, I was a coward.

I was afraid to forget.

I hated remembering.

And then fucking Barbican showed up with two new SecUnits, and I knew that it wasn’t up to me whether I remembered anymore. The Barbican techs scanned me and asked the standard tech questions. They made me do stupid shit.

Then the crate came in.

I—I broke out in a sweat. If I’d been human, I probably would have started those stupid involuntary movements they do—trembling or whatever. This was it. This was the end. Maybe it would be better to go like Sixty-four, making a choice, instead of helpless and afraid after spending a month locked in a lightless box. I thought about it as they argued about which end of the crate was the top then decided it didn’t matter because it’s not like a SecUnit can complain.

“Get in,” one of the techs said to me.

The door to the security ready room banged open, and Mariss walked in.

“What the fuck are you doing to my SecUnit?” she said.

I was utterly blank for a moment.

I pinged her because I couldn’t believe it. She tapped my feed. It was really her. Clean, well-fed, in work boots, leggings, and an oversized, sweater-top thing that came down past her knees.

“Crating it,” the head tech said like she was stupid. “For shipping.”

She made a face back at him like he was stupid.

I was the stupid one. I had no fucking idea what was happening.

“Yeah, no. It’s coming with me. Walking.”

“You can’t just—you can’t just walk a SecUnit into the port.”

“The port doesn’t have security, so I’d like to see who tries to stop me. Faceplate,” she said to me. I retracted it, and she blew out a long breath and nodded. “Good. I was worried they were going to try to swap you with Mr. Stabby.”

“I do try to avoid stabbing humans unless necessary,” I said as a wave of relief hit me.

The techs jumped away from me, but Mariss smiled faintly. “I missed you,” she said. “Come on.”

I looked from the techs, to the crate, to Mariss. Then SecSystem sent me a protocol update. And HubSystem and SecSystem both disconnected, HubSystem with what felt like regret. The camera accesses cut off. I was blind with only my eyes for inputs and felt a surge of vertigo.

I was disconnected from the systems. I could ping them. But they weren’t monitoring me. HubSystem wasn’t giving me orders. My new protocol was ‘Obey client Mariss Bernez.’ It was just me and the governor module now.

“Okay,” I said.

I carried Mariss’ bag. It held her portable display, some hard currency cards, some clothes, a card game, some food and water packs, and a couple of external storage devices. Everything she owned.

I still had my armor on. But no drones. No projectile weapon. No cubicle. What would happen if I got injured? I’d have to try not to get injured.

Maybe there was a new cubicle ahead?

Better question: how had she done this? She’d been clear about how small her exit fee was, and SecUnits were expensive pieces of equipment. Maybe the second contract? Why else would she come back? Were we coming back?

Then I remembered, Galen had said something about Sixty-four being her unit. But Sixty-four died. 

So.

I was the backup.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have taken over a month for her to come get me. Right?

We climbed into the passenger compartment of a cargo hauler that was headed to the port and settled on a couple of ratty seats at the far back. The bot driver sent me a look.

“How are you?” she asked as the hauler started up with a rumble.

“Okay.” Confused. Relieved. In shock. Possibly malfunctioning or hallucinating. “How are you?”

“Same,” she said with a twist of her mouth.

“I’m off inventory?” I found myself saying.

She was staring straight ahead, nodding.

“My own personal deadly weapon that I have to register wherever we go.”

“I’m sorry.” I was inconveniencing her.

“Oh honey,” she said softly, looking at me at last. Then she sort of patted the air above my hand.

“You call that thing 'honey'?” the bot operator demanded from his seat.

The hauler bot pinged me with an amused sigil.

“I could order it to kill you,” Mariss said, suddenly sharp and not at all herself.

“Please don’t,” I said quickly. He wasn't a threat to us. I hadn't thought Mariss would—

Her face crumpled, and she covered it with her hands.

The hauler sent me concerned images, and I tried to be reassuring, though I didn’t feel it.

“Mariss, Mariss,” I said quietly and urgently. The bot operator was watching us with wide, shocked eyes. “I was joking. I know you wouldn’t do that.”

I didn’t know. Not anymore. What was happening?

I smelled tears.

She sort of gasped and pulled her hands down, wiping away the tears. “I know,” she said. “I need to update your protocols and directives. Is that okay?”

“Of course.”

I accepted her feed connection and dropped my wall. She owned me now, I had to obey her like a company tech. I thought she’d be nicer to me than any of the company techs had been.

She had an owner’s manual open in the feed and had flagged certain sections. The first thing she did was cancel the distance limit. That took a bit of fiddling with the governor module, which made me nervous, but she had all the right codes to convince it I should be able to go light years away from her without being fried and without first receiving an order to do so because that might be something she required at some point. Once that was done, I could—I could have waited until she was asleep and walked off. And never had to obey another command again because she was the only person in the galaxy who could give me orders now.

She went through her list, taking away the limits on my tone, on what I was allowed to say to her or to other humans, on proscribed movements. I could jump out and scare her—on purpose, for my own amusement—and nothing would happen to me. She even tried to disable the requirement I answer all direct questions, but the governor wasn’t having that hippy shit. It did accept that many of her questions were rhetorical and gave me more leeway in deciding which those were. She also added a protocol that any command including the word ‘please’ was a request subject to my discretion and not an order.

How’s that? she said at last.

It’s quieter, I said after a moment. I could literally say anything to her—anything—and nothing bad would happen to me.

Well, I could accidentally make her cry again. That had been pretty bad.

Okay. Let me know if you think of anything else we should change. This was everything I could come up with on my own.

Do you have the ability to turn the governor module off?

I don’t know why I asked. A human would never do that. She could punish me for asking that. But I woke every morning from recharge seeing Sixty-four laying a pool of its own melted brain. And the image would creep to the front of my mind randomly throughout the day. Constantly. I couldn’t help feeling it was my fate too, one of these days.

Mariss’ face went through a series of pained expressions before she flipped to a section of the manual in the feed and showed me in large, bold, bright red font an exhortation not to fuck with the governor module and how it was hard wired and impossible to turn off, and attempting to do so would void all warranties and potentially cause catastrophic equipment failure.

What they meant was if she tried to turn it off, she might trigger it accidentally.

I’m sorry.

What was she sorry about? No human would ever turn one off. It had been a dangerous, stupid thing for me to ask. If she hadn’t taken away all those limits first, it definitely would have punished me for asking. It was only because Mariss was insane that she didn't immediately punish me for having asked it.

The big hauler dropped us off at the edge of the port docks. The bot operator was happy to see us go and focus on unloading the cargo. The docks filled a massive cavern unlike any I’d seen in person before. It looked like something from a nature documentary, with multiple levels of landing slots, clear walkways crossing back and forth. Humans and bots everywhere.

I was the only SecUnit.

People saw me and moved away. Some not so subtly.

The port's central hub was domed, with a clear view up to the glittering, colorful veins of ore. Mariss had taken away all restrictions on my movement. I looked up. I spotted signs of strange synthetics interwoven here and there. That was in line with what our research suggested if this moon had been widely seeded. That was what her final article had been about, the why of RaviHyral and its strange synthetics. I had not been able to download any responses or reactions since Mariss left.

I was in the public port feed. A torrent of information was flowing past. I—I only had to obey Mariss.

“Can I download the latest journals?” I asked her.

She made a startled, half-upset face at me. Shit. I shouldn’t have asked that.

“Twenty-two. Download whatever you want. Do whatever you want. I—I’m sorry I haven’t been clear. I just need to get somewhere quiet for a little bit. Then we can talk.”

Was ‘do whatever you want’ an order? A directive? A protocol? I couldn’t determine. Neither could my governor module. There was no HubSystem to report to for confirmation.  

I downloaded the journals. I downloaded new episodes of Love Station and Planet Challenge and a new show, Beach World Party—it looked terrible in the best way. I downloaded a map, which was good because Mariss seemed lost, sort of wandering aimlessly. Humans were watching us, and I didn’t like that.

There were no weapons scans.

My scans showed plenty of armed people moving around. And plenty of them looking at us. I needed to get us out of here. She needed a quiet place. A—a hotel? Where humans went when traveling. I skimmed the listings, picked the most secure one, and put a hand on her shoulder to steer her in the right direction.

The hotel lobby tiered up around us, overlooking a holo sculpture of an imagined canyon. I’d never been in a hotel before. But I had seen how this was supposed to work on some of my media. I found the check-in area and the appropriate kiosk, though I became aware of an armed human approaching me slowly. I took out one of Mariss’ hard currency cards and looked at the human. She stopped in her tracks.

“You can’t bring that thing in here,” she said to Mariss.

Mariss gave herself a little shake and frowned at the human security agent. I felt her doing something in the feed. “This port allows weapons,” she said after an uncomfortably long pause.

The human’s eyes went from her to me and back.

She was right. She was allowed to be armed. I was clearly not what was intended.

“This hotel—”

“Provides security,” she interrupted. “Good. That’s why we’re here.” She took the hard currency card out of my hand and waved it. “You don’t want my money?” She gestured at me. “I’m not using it. I’m allowed to be armed.”

The security agent’s mouth opened and closed a couple times.

“So?” Mariss said in an unpleasant voice.

Hotel security was in the feed. After a long moment, she took her hand off her projectile weapon. Apparently management was more interested in the hard currency card than me.

“Okay. But if that thing gets out of line—”

“It won’t.”

Mariss hit the buttons for a room and angrily swiped the card. I trailed her to the lift capsule where she fell back against the wall with a sigh. After a few moments of quiet and yet somehow displeasing background music, the capsule disgorged us in a carpeted hallway. It smelled better than the mine, slightly scented but not enough to cover the odor of humans. The hotel feed directed us to a specific door, which slid open when Mariss tapped it.

“You picked the most expensive hotel on this moon,” Mariss said as she looked at the large room with its strangely oversized bed and windows onto the lobby. There was a large padded chair as well as a workstation with multiple displays.

“Sorry.”

She shook her head. Then she flopped face first diagonally across the bed surface. Oh. It was not intended for multiple humans. It was intended for oddly positioned humans.

I peered into the surprisingly large attached bathroom to ensure it was empty. Why were there two sinks? What was all the extra square footage for? There were no cameras in here according to my scans, no audio recording devices either.

“I just need a minute,” Mariss said into the fabric covering the bed’s surface.

In actuality she needed three hours, twenty-seven minutes, and six seconds. She groaned and pushed herself up a few centimeters, looking around for me while blinking.

I was sitting in the padded chair. It was a more enjoyable way of watching Planet Challenge. Seeing the humans struggling was more enjoyable when I was comfortable. This was probably not a healthy feeling.

“You’re still here.”

“Yes,” I said. Was I not supposed to be? There wasn’t a weapons storage locker large enough for me. Or maybe—maybe she meant the distance limit. Had it occurred to her too that I could just leave?

“Thank you,” she said then collapsed back to the bed.

It took an additional eleven minutes for her to speak again.

“I don’t know what to do now.”

“The defense,” I reminded her. “You only have forty-five days to arrive at Lagrange.”

She groaned. That wasn’t a clear direction. But she’d indicated uncertainty. I took it as a request for help and began sweeping the port feed for information on shuttles. We could download information from the transit ring, and it had some information on the connected commercial routes. I began collating information into a table I could share with her while I waited for her to speak again.

She did not. After fifteen minutes, I became frustrated and said, “You said we would talk.” I didn’t mean for it to sound accusatory. It may have sounded accusatory.

“I’m out,” she said. “I don’t have any kind of contract right now. You don’t either. You can go wherever you want.”

This didn’t make sense. “I have compiled a list of the most direct routes to Lagrange,” I said, sharing the table.

She swatted it away. “Shut up about the defense!”

I shut my mouth.

It took her six solid seconds to realize.

“Oh fuck!” She sat up abruptly, eyes wide. “Cancel that command!”

I blew out a stream of air, which I’d seen her do plenty to times to express repressed frustration.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You do not have to be sorry. You are my owner. I will do what you tell me. I have always—”

She gagged and pressed a hand to her stomach, hunching forward. “I don’t want to own you!”

Then why had she bought me?

“You’re my friend!”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I thought perhaps that was why you had—”

She covered her face and fell back with a groan, breathing quickly. “I couldn’t leave you there. But I—you’re a SecUnit. It’s not like buying out a human’s indenture.”

She meant there were a lot of restrictions around transporting deadly weapons, or having them in populated areas that weren’t corporate slave labor camps. She couldn’t take me on a shopping trip to AngelusMaj. Unless she left me in storage at the docks. She’d bought me, but now I was just more trouble to her.

“I’m trying to avoid ordering you to do things. And it makes me sick that if I tell you to shut up, you do it instead of saying ‘no, you shut up.’ And apparently I can’t change that.

“I don’t know what you want. I can’t ask you, because then you’re forced to tell me. I want you to do what you want. And I don’t know how to get you off this shithole.”

So, “Do whatever you want” had been a new directive.

And when Sixty-four was alive, she had intended to leave me.

Chapter Text

She fell silent again. And eventually she fell asleep. After twelve hours of her lying in the bed, I made her get up and use the bathroom. She came out, crawled under the fabric bed covering—a search told me the word was blanket—and stopped responding again.

I finished all the episodes of Planet Challenge and looked up how long humans could go without food or water. Increasingly alarmed, I located food and water in her bag and attempted to convince her to ingest them.

She just turned away from me and kept pulling the covers back up after I uncovered her.

“Mariss,” I said, “you need to eat.”

“I don’t want that,” she said from beneath the covers.

Well fuck me.

I should do what I wanted. That was my directive.

What I wanted at this exact moment was for my client to not die of dehydration or lack of nutrients. She wouldn’t eat or drink the things we had. So I needed to get something else.

Fuck.

I went through her bag, took one of the hard currency cards, and then just stood there for a seventy-two seconds like a helpless idiot. I could do this. I could absolutely do this. She would be safe alone in the room for a few minutes. This hotel had security. She wouldn’t die.

If I left, she’d still be here when I got back.

She wouldn’t use the opportunity to sneak off and abandon me.

I could do this.

In the lift capsule, I nearly canceled the order to travel to the lobby. But I managed not to.

I kept imagining returning to the room and finding it empty, her bag gone. I’d almost taken all the hard currency card so she couldn’t leave. But then my armor had no pockets, so that was not a good idea.

She wouldn’t abandon me.

Even though she had meant to.

When she still had Sixty-four.

I reached the lobby and forced myself to walk towards the exit. The human security agent was on duty still—or maybe again, it had been nearly twenty-four hours.

“What are you doing out here?” she demanded.

I was making all the humans in the lobby nervous.

Technically I didn’t have to answer this human because she was not my client, and Mariss had modified my protocols so that I was not required to answer most questions. But I thought it would be a bad idea to antagonize this particular human at this moment.

“I need human food. For my client.”

“What’s wrong with her?” the security agent said. Apparently it was blatantly obvious to the humans that something was wrong with Mariss. Or maybe just traveling alone with a personal SecUnit was a sign of something being wrong.

“Client medical information is proprietary data,” I said. That sounded like a good buffer response.

Her mouth twisted for a moment but she nodded. Okay. That had worked. I didn’t want to ask this hostile human for assistance. So I kept going out of the lobby and into the small plaza in front of it. People were fucking panicking.

Somebody screamed and started running. Which was not my intention. I sighed.

Fuck. I couldn’t ask any of these humans. The nearest one had dropped to a crouch behind a store cart and was making weird noises. I could just go to the dispensers stands scattered around the small plaza outside this hotel, but all the dispensers had the same kind of dehydrated packaged food already in Mariss’ bag. She wouldn’t eat it.

I pulled up the port map and began looking at all the food service options. They all had stupid names like Spicy Noodle Time, Crunchy Delight, No Meat, All Meat, Real Meat Delight. Unhelpful shit like that.

I picked a direction and started walking. A local transport bot pinged me in one of the tunnels, and I pinged back.

Query: SecUnit in port? the bot sent.

Acknowledge, I sent back.

Purpose?

Well fuck you, you nosy asshole. Client protection, I sent. And then decided fuck it, why not. Query: Human food.

The bot sent me a list of all food service locations in the port. Not helpful. I could sort by nearest but—that wasn’t really it.

Query: preference? It sent after a several seconds of mutual, uncomfortable silence.

Preference unknown, I responded. Then I remembered all those tube rides with Cressida. Preference crunchy. Query: food for emotional comfort?

It beeped acknowledgement at me then started away. I followed. If this was some sort of trap, well a couple transport bots of their human handlers were going to be in for a bad time.

It turned out to not be a trap. The bot led me to Crunchy Delight, which I should have been able to figure out on my own. The humans nearby fled or took cover. Whatever. It wasn’t like they could do anything about me.

Whatever company provided security in this area hadn’t sent anyone to intercept me. It was possible the human supervisors were clear-headed enough to recognize intercepting a SecUnit that was not currently shooting anyone could lead to otherwise avoidable shooting. Or maybe they were just scared.

Query: provide emotional comfort food? The transport bot sent to the food service bot in the stand.

The food service bot looked at me, recognized I was not human, and pinged me. I pinged back. It sent, Query: preference?

Preference unknown, I sent in increasing desperation.

Preference crunchy, the transport bot interjected.

Acknowledge, I sent. Human experiencing emotional distress.

Re: preference, accept recommendation? The food service bot was taking pity on me. I was okay with that.

Acknowledge. If any one of the three of us had any idea what a human would want to eat, it was the food service bot.

Query: payment?

I held up the hard currency card. It beeped in a pleased manner and the display in front of me updated with a list of items and cost. I swiped the card. I probably should download some information on economic systems. Or money. Or something that would tell me whether I was being ripped off or not. Whatever.

Then we waited. The food service bot produced a lot of smells as it mixed things and moved them around to different heating elements. It also produced a large container of colored liquid with weird gummy shapes floating in it.

The transport bot hummed a pleased little hum. Apparently it recognized this drink. Well, that was good.

Once everything was packaged up, the bots both beeped at me.

Thank you, I told them both. They seemed pleased, and I returned to the hotel relieved to have succeeded and not had to kill any humans at any point.

The human security agent was still on duty in the lobby. She saw me. She saw the large bag of food items. And the drink. And made a face. It wasn’t a bad face. It was maybe a confused or surprised face.

I don’t know why. I have thumbs. It’s not like I can’t carry stuff.

I couldn’t help the feeling that I was returning to an empty room. My organics were being possibly the least useful they’d ever been, sweating and providing me with all sorts of horrible scenarios.

The door to the room slid open for me, and I walked into the overwhelming smell of tears and the sounds of pained sobbing. I nearly dropped the fucking food.

Mariss’ eyes were all red. Her face was puffy and wet and ugh, even the humans I like are disgusting. Her heart rate was erratic and she was gasping for breath.

“Are you having an allergic reaction?” I demanded, setting down the food in case I needed to perform a tracheotomy or something brutally gross like that. It would be rough without a MedSystem to assist.

“You’re here,” she gasped.

“Obviously,” I said. Maybe I was a little annoyed about the refusing to eat and maybe dehydrating herself to death. Especially with the crying.

“I thought you left,” she wailed. Oh fuck, we were back to the wailing.

I couldn’t stand the wailing. I sat on the bed near her, braced myself, then extended my arms.

“What?” she said, wiping away tears.

“For a hug,” I ground out. I’d already braced myself. Waiting made it worse.

She shook her head. “No, you don’t like it.”

“If it would make you stop making those sounds, then, I would, in fact, like a hug,” I said.

She sort of laughed at that, though she was still crying. She grabbed one of my hands and squeezed it, a good compromise. She was also making an attempt to get her breathing under control.

“Where did you go? I thought you got tired of me.”

“You wouldn’t eat the food we have,” I reminded her. “I got different food.”

“You did?”

I pulled free, gently, and retrieved the items.

“Oh,” she said, looking at the drink. “Fruit tea. I haven’t had that in years.”

I handed it to her. And a straw. I don’t know why humans use straws. They don’t need them; they have cups and mouths. Maybe it’s to pretend they aren’t doing disgusting things with their mouths.

I re-watched a favorite segment of Planet Challenge (a clumsy human trips spectacularly and knocks all of their teammates into a pit of sticky mud which is described as smelling of effluent—they all scream) while she drank the whole thing. Dehydration averted. Mission success.

Then she opened one of the small boxes of fried protein things and made a surprised and pleased noise. She looked up at me.

“Thank you.”

See, I was worth not abandoning on this shithole moon.

~ ~ ~

The food did not fix her. Though it did make her more willing to engage with me.

She did not want to leave the room. She did not want to go anywhere. She did not want to go defend her dissertation and get her fucking doctorate.

I did want to shake her until my governor module activated or she saw sense. I restrained myself.

“You are having an emotional collapse,” I told her when I realized I was going to have to be the one getting everything done. “You need additional trauma treatments.”

She hunched up. “No, I don’t.”

“This is not within your range of normal behaviors.”

“Maybe it is,” she snapped. “Maybe this is my new normal. I’ve been going and going and going. For years. I don’t have to anymore. I can stop. I don’t want to do anything. I want to just lie here.”

“And die?”

“Maybe,” she said in a very immature and defiant and not at all alarming way. Then she pulled the blanket up over her head and stopped responding for another few hours.

I watched a number of new shows. I read a few books on alien remnants and thought about how they fit in with what we knew of strange synthetics. I retrieved more food. I had the same argument with her multiple times over the course of several cycles. I downloaded introductory information on human economic systems, calculated the value of all her remaining hard currency cards—it appeared to be equivalent to an end of contract sum—and priced out different routes to Lagrange.

“I don’t want to die in this room,” I told her at one point.

“You don’t have to stay!” she yelled at me from under the blankets. Then she began sniffling.

Ugh, I was going to have to move on to Stage 2.

I extracted her from the bedding, which was dirty and unpleasant smelling at this point. “I am going to hug you now,” I told her as she was trying to retrieve one of the sheets to resume hiding.

She froze, eyes wide. I sat down next to her and extended my arms. Slowly so as not to frighten her. She could have ordered me to stop, but she didn’t, as I put my arms around her and exerted slight pressure. It was unclear to me what the appropriate PSI for a hug was meant to be, so I went with something firm but not damaging to humans.

After a few seconds, she scooted onto my lap, curled into a ball, and cried against my chestplate for a while. I didn’t like that she was crying or so upset, but I didn’t hate the physical contact the way I thought I would. Probably because it was my weird little human doing it and not a different one.

“What do you want to do instead of dying in this room?” she said after a long time.

“I want to take you to your dissertation defense.”

She made a distressed, angry noise. But she didn’t pull away.

“Sixty-four wanted you to complete your doctorate,” I said. “It would be very upset if you did not do this one remaining thing. And it would be furious with me for letting you not do it.”

Yes, it was emotional manipulation. Yes, I had just made her cry on purpose. But it was also true.  

“Okay,” she said after a while. “Okay. Just one more thing. How do we do this?”

“I have a plan.”

Getting to the station would be easy. There were no weapons scanners at the docks because weapons were allowed. We would buy passage on a public shuttle and Mariss, armed with me, would board and proceed to the station. From there, I had two preferred routes to Lagrange, which was on a planet in a system a couple weeks of wormhole travel away. Both routes involved public transports of medium-high quality with good safety reviews and onboard security.

I would be stowed in a cargo container at RaviHyral Mining Facility Q Station. The tricky part was that Mariss would have to get the appropriate permits and potentially a bond company guarantee to unbox me on the planet. All of which were likely to be expensive. I was unable to look up the permitting process from here, so she would be going into it blind.

“No fucking way,” she said once I’d explained. “I’m not putting you in a box.”

“I have always been shipped as cargo,” I told her.

“That’s unacceptable!”

“That is how SecUnits travel.”

She was beginning to show heightened stress reactions.

“I can’t do this alone. I can’t. I can’t.”

“We get up to the transit ring, and it’s two trips, ten days to the nearest passenger hub, five or six days to Lagrange.” My course of action was sensible, efficient, and safe. I should have known better when dealing with a human.

Mariss sat on the bed, legs folded up, arms locked around them, rocking slightly. Her eyes had the glazed look like she was going to stop responding again.

“No passenger transport will allow me onboard anywhere other than the cargo hold, Mariss.”

Her eyes focused on me suddenly. “A SecUnit no. You—maybe.”

I didn’t know what that meant.          

Chapter Text

Mariss was alarmingly resourceful when sufficiently motivated. And apparently not being without me for two rim standard weeks was sufficient motivation.

The first stop was a clothing store. It was a small stall with a privacy filter over the entrance in the station mall. We both squeezed inside with me positioned in front of the scanner. It scanned my configuration and presented a number of options of clothing items and colors. Mariss showed me how to flip through them.

It was fascinating. There were pants in all lengths and widths, skirts, dresses, kaftans, form-fitting shirts and nebulous swirls of fabric with armholes. The stand provided an array of set colors to choose from. I spent a long time looking.

“No way,” she said, looking at the selection I’d paused over, a pair of high-waisted, wide legged pants that reminded me of one of my favorite crewmembers on Love Station. “We’re coming from a fucking mine.” She flipped through several screens and selected dark work pants in a heavy fabric with several pockets. Then she selected a long-sleeved t-shirt in a boxy cut. It would obscure my musculature and potentially the energy weapons in my arms. A drab pair of work boots and socks finished out Mariss’ wardrobe selections. She added a knapsack large enough to hold my armor with zippered compartments and pockets.

All very utilitarian.

All very not what I wanted.

“You can be fancy later,” she said while swiping a hard currency card.

Well, there was always later. Probably. Maybe. Okay, I had other things to worry about than the pants.

“What about you?” I flipped to the skirt selections and pulled her in front of the scanner.

“I’m good,” she said in a strange tone of voice as I cycled through colors.

“This would suit you better,” I said, indicating a less shapeless dress in a soft color that complemented her complexion. From what I had seen while rooting through her bag, she had three main sets of civilian clothing, all generally very shapeless, in either dark gray or black.

Her mouth compressed, and she shook her head quickly.

“You are very pretty,” I told her. “I don’t understand why you’ve dressed yourself as a lump now that you have a choice about it.”

Her breath caught, muscles tensing, and one of her eyes twitched. It was an objective statement according to current trends in female-presenting attractiveness measurements. I don’t know why it caused such a dramatic, negative reaction. She pulled the neck of her sweater thing closed. It was a weird gesture since it was already a big, high floppy neck obscuring most of her skin.

Whatever. I shook my head. Humans were so fucking weird.

I took the clothes from the printer and placed them in the new knapsack. I couldn’t walk into the stand a SecUnit and walk out an augmented human.

We returned to the hotel. She instructed me to use the human shower and get dressed.

It took some trial and error, but I managed to turn it on, found I had control of the temperature—which holy fuck that was amazing—and coated myself in several different smelling gels that bubbled away under the cleaning fluid.

I had never smelled so human before. It was disconcerting. I had probably also never smelled so pleasant before.

Done, I looked at the clothes.

I had worn the SecUnit uniform instead of armor on some prior assignments. But it had been over six years prior and that was still a distinct uniform. I had never worn civilian human clothing. It felt weird as shit. I didn’t like it particularly much. Maybe if I’d had the pants I wanted it would have felt better? It would probably have still felt uncomfortable and strange.

When I finally emerged, as grey as Mariss, she managed a ghost of a smile.

“You need to shower as well,” I told her. “Your scent is becoming strong enough to trigger negative reactions in other humans, which we should be trying to avoid.”

Welp, there went the smile. She looked angry for a moment. Then embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”

“You do not need to apologize to me, but you should wash.”

I was going to have to look up human hygiene practices and make sure she did them. Ugh. What else hadn’t she been doing? That could wait. This was stressful enough.

“And those clothes need to go through the cleaner,” I told her as she slammed the bathroom door. She had been wearing the same thing since she’d walked into the security ready room and told the techs not to box me up. Which was probably gross. It certainly smelled gross.

She came out again a while later in baggy pants and a heavy, baggy top that made her look like a human child wearing an adult’s clothes. I did not think it was going to help the next stage of this mission.

Mariss had spent a fair amount of time in the feed, sending messages, making inquiries, scanning store listings and descriptions.

So she led me to the shadiest fucking place imaginable. In the depths of the port, down a series of dingy hallways with harsh overhead lighting, the walls scuffed and graffitied. Most of the humans we passed were visibly armed, though they gave me a wide berth. I supposed even as humans went, I appeared intimidating, though I didn’t feel it out of armor and with no projectile weapons. The cleaner bots obviously either weren’t sent here or had been looted for parts ages ago. There were a few crusty store-fronts and some very dubious looking food service places that I would not be allowing Mariss to patronize. The place Mariss led us was an unmarked, dinged up door a bit away from the nearest junction. She pressed the call button and after a moment the hatch unsealed.

We stepped into an equally dingy weapons shop. Racks behind transparent barriers showed all kinds of energy and projectile weapons. There were suits of powered armor in one corner. Lots of ammo in cases. The door sealed behind us.

This was a strictly no names, no feed IDs, hard currency card only sort of location, like something out of one of the grittier serials she liked.

I’d watched enough media. I’d seen enough humans. I could do this.

I strolled slowly around, moving my arms, looking at things. Yes, I was being like a human. Aimless and easily distracted. Definitely not panicking.

The shopkeeper watched us with a neutral expression that would have done a SecUnit proud.

“I need a gun,” Mariss said as she reached the counter. “I heard this is a good place for what I’m looking for.”

The shopkeeper gestured at the cases behind them.

“I was hoping for something light, maybe easy to tuck away,” Mariss said casually, looking at the projectile weapons. I’d told her a projectile weapon would be easier to obscure than an energy weapon. We were going to start there.

I tapped her feed and sent her an image of the one I’d selected for her. She pointed.

The shopkeeper grunted with approval, retrieved it, and placed it on the counter. I stopped pretending to be aimless to watch. Mariss hefted it, testing the weight, checking the safety and feel in her hands.

I sighed, came over, and adjusted her grip. The shopkeeper made an amused little noise then slid something across the counter. Interesting.

“What’s that?” Mariss said, looking at them.

“Light rounds,” I told her, lifting the weapon from her hands. “Non-lethal, non-damaging actually. To check your aim and the weapon function. The recoil will be lower.” I loaded the weapon for her, showing her how it worked.

“Ah, someone know what they’re talking about,” the shopkeeper was eyeing me.

Fuck.

“My security consultant,” Mariss said as I absolutely did not panic at being looked at directly and calmly walked away from them both towards a small dummy on the other side of the large room—which I now recognized was meant as a target.

Mariss trailed after me. I put the projectile weapon back in her hands and pointed her at the dummy. This felt weird. I never gave weapons to humans. I took weapons from humans lest they fuck things up even more. And yet here I was nudging her hands up into a better firing position.

Everything was weird. Everything was different.

She pulled the trigger very cautiously.

Wobbly, but a decent shot, for a human.

“Try not to fire so fast you jam it,” I said as an alarming light came into her eyes and her mouth compressed into a suppressed smile.

She jammed it. I sighed and fixed it.

“Sorry.”

She tried again, a little less enthusiastically this time.

“Better,” I said.

“Okay.” She looked up at me and nodded. “I think this is a good one.”

“We could try something bigger.”

Her face did something weird. Like she wanted a bigger gun. And felt bad about wanting a bigger gun. Hell, I wanted every single gun in there. There was nothing wrong with that.

“Anything bigger’ll knock you over,” the shopkeeper interjected.

“Regulations are so annoying,” Mariss said casually as she returned to the counter. “It’s going to be a huge pain when I go up to the station.”

“You going up?”

“Yeah, I have a break between contracts.”

They grunted and looked us up and down. Mostly her, small, dressed like a child, buying a projectile weapon, obviously anxious, with a large, terse “security consultant,” and made a decision.

“Have some other stuff you might want to look at.”

“Oh, yes please.”

So one the cabinets slid aside and revealed a tunnel—or hallway that was narrow and alarming enough to be no better than a tunnel—that had not shown up on my scan. I did not want to enter that tunnel. Threat and risk assessment were off the charts. My organics started sweating. My human was looking even more anxious. We had to do this. Fuck.

The shopkeeper led the way, the case sliding back into place once we were all in. There was a junction a few meters ahead. We turned right, went through another doorway, after waiting a moment for it to unseal, and were suddenly in a much less dingy room.

The lighting was better. The floor looked cleaner. There were chairs. The cases were arranged with an attempt to look nice. And oh the contents. Bot bursting projectile weapons. Energy weapons that could cut through a ship’s hull. Mines. Explosives. Silencers. Scan jammers. Drones. Combat override—holy fuck.

It was a good thing I didn’t have a stomach. My organics were still doing their best to give me an equivalent sensation to being sick to it. I glanced around to see if either human had noticed my reaction, but they were busy.

“Fakes ‘all clears’ for scanners,” the shopkeeper was saying, tapping the small device on the counter between them. “Embarkation zones, transports, hotels. Hells, this thing’d fool a bond company’s best scanner.”

“I’d like to see it in action,” Mariss said.

The shopkeeper nodded, showed her a concealed projectile weapon in their interior jacket pocket, slipped the device into another pocket, then tapped a button on a floating display.

A scanner drone rose up from behind the counter. I froze. Shit.

It scanned the shopkeeper who then showed Mariss the clear scan results.

“What do you think?” she said to me. I scanned him and also got a null result.

“Buy the gun, and let’s test it,” I told her before turning away. The less I talked, the easier it was for the shopkeeper to not notice me, but it would be too weird if I said nothing and just lurked back here, so we’d agreed not to keep all discussions in the feed. I tried walking and swinging my arms again.

The shopkeeper smiled. “Smart friend you have. I’m always happy to prove my merchandise works.”

Mariss paid for the projectile weapon and some ammunition and the shopkeeper slid both across the counter to her.

I’d spotted a box of armor piercing projectiles. They’d fit.

I picked it up and walked over to the counter. Without any additional camera inputs, this was hard. I couldn’t check their expressions, or mine, to see how I was doing, and I thought if I tried too hard not to be weird, I’d probably be extra weird. I avoided looking at either human directly as I picked the projectile weapon up, loaded it with the armor piercing rounds and then placed it—safety on—in Mariss’ pocket.

I gestured for the done to scan her. The shopkeeper snorted, but it wasn’t annoyance. The scan showed she was armed and flagged the armor-piercing rounds. Then I put the scrambling device in another of her pockets and the drone activated again. Clear. My scan also showed she was clear.

“Alright,” she said, tossing me the device. I caught it, horrified as I realized what she meant to do. “One last test.”

And before I could say anything, the drone was scanning me.

The scan showed clear, but something in my reaction, or actually looking at me, and they knew. The shopkeeper knew.

They drummed their fingers on the countertop, lips pursed, looking at me. Their visible reaction was generally controlled, but a scan showed elevated heart rate and controlled stress responses. Oh. They thought I was going to kill them.

Mariss proffered the hard currency card again. “We’ll take two,” she said. “And the ammo.”

The shopkeeper swallowed and sort of snapped out of it.

Fuck it, no point hiding now. “And these,” I said, grabbing another box and placing it on the counter.

Both humans looked at me, then Mariss shrugged acceptance.

“It’ll work on drones too. But it’s risky,” the shopkeeper said, swiping the card. “Very risky. Anyone sees it move—”

Apparently since she was paying—exorbitantly—and I wasn’t shooting, it seemed appropriate to offer us advice on smuggling a SecUnit off world. Just what I needed. I paired with the drones in the box, pocketed them—Mariss had been right about the usefulness of pockets—and scanned myself again. Still clear. I activated one and sent it up to the ceiling where it did a quick circuit of the room and oh the relief of having eyes again. I had to not get carried away, so I only used the one, hovering up out of normal human noticing range.

Mariss leaned on the counter to take her card back, a friendly smile on her face. “Do you know anyone who could help us with that?”

Chapter Text

So there we were in the parlor of an unlicensed ComfortUnit modifications provider.

Unlicensed was as good as illegal.

It had taken two days to arrange the meeting and Mariss had had to pay a couple of ‘good faith’ fees to various intermediaries to prove she was serious and not a corporate spy or something. We were running through her money much more quickly than I liked, but she didn’t seem concerned.

“I see you got a base model,” the man said, looking me over. “No pizzazz, just function.”

Mariss shrugged.

“Well, in addition to being more affordable than manufacturer add-ons, I have so many more options. There’s no proprietary-only mod limits here.”

“I’m so happy to hear that,” Mariss said, doing a great job of mimicking real enthusiasm. “I just—it just moves so weirdly, you know? Like a bot. Which is kind of not the point.”

“Base models,” he said shaking his head in disapproval. “The hair too—what a disaster.”

“I know,” Mariss made a face. “It’s so boring.”

“Well, we’re not here to be bored, are we?” he said in a friendly yet conspiratorial tone, tapping her gently on the arm. I saw her reaction, a micro-flinch almost. I did not react. I did not say anything.

“Do you need any personality mods? They can be terrible at conversations out of the box. I have the normal art, shows, even books if you’re into that sort of thing. They can view your preferred media and discuss with you or learn to play instruments or whatever games you like.”

Mariss shook her head. “No, that part’s okay.”

“I also have the more bespoke kind,” he said, dropping his voice. “You know, in case you need something special. Maybe somebody’s a little naughty?” He made a slight movement that made my skin crawl.

If I’d had a human digestive tract, I would have thrown up.

“We’re good,” Mariss said, though distress had shown for a moment and he’d pulled back, probably alarmed about loosing a sale. “All set on that front, but thanks. Just really want it to be able to walk around my quarters without scaring the shit out of me.”

He laughed, “Of course! So what were you thinking for the hair?”

Mariss looked at me, pursing her lips. We’d discussed this in advance. Then she sent something to the dealer’s feed and his eyes lit up. “Oh, absolutely.”

I’d analyzed my own face shape, run a comparison against cast members from media I had watched, then evaluated the most aesthetically pleasing results. Mariss had thought I was being vain. She thought it was a bit silly. But she had also been pleased. This had confused me.

“You still won’t call me your friend,” she’d explained. “I thought it was going to take another half decade to get you to do something silly.”

“This isn’t silly,” I’d said. And I didn’t need to watch my tone, as I kept reminding myself. The governor module hadn’t been at all bothered that she wanted me to be able to talk back to her. Of course that was an expected setting because humans are fucking stupid. “This is a very fashionable hairstyle.”

Her face was expressing an interesting mix of happiness and amusement. “It’s so fashionable it hasn’t been seen within a hundred light years of us.”

That was absurd. The humans around us all had very elaborate hair. Except for the ones that were as practical and boring in presentation as Mariss.

Then she’d finished the conversation by saying “I’m so happy right now,” and I’d stopped feeling annoyed and embarrassed.

The dealer and Mariss agreed on a specific set of changes: modify my code so my hair grew to be nine centimeters on top, slightly shorter on the sides, eyebrows thicker, add in code for arm swinging when walking (why, that’s stupid) and slight variations in stride (again why?), something to make me fidget and stick my hands in my pockets—when available—or rest them on my hips, or do other stupid shit when they could just hang there. They also agreed, frustratingly, to have my breathing react to my hormonal signals. So now I could hyperventilate if I was freaking out. Really useful. Great addition.

They were also adding some basic gesture modules, which weren’t set to autorun but would be suggested in certain situations—he couldn’t outright say in response to my emotional reactions because of course constructs don’t have emotions only the simulacrum of them.

They also planned to adjust how much I blinked. Do I know why? No. Again, stupid.

Are these changes ok? Mariss asked as the dealer was in the feed, doing something.

We’d discussed this in advance too. She knew what humans looked and moved like at an instinctual level. She knew what felt wrong and needed to change. I didn’t understand why my arms needed to swing. So I’d told her it was up to her.

It was nice that she was asking even though I wasn’t excited about this.

Yes.

If you change your mind, we can stop at any point, she told me.

Not really true, but she probably thought it was.

Once everything was pulled together, the dealer plugged a cable into his display and stood up.

“Hold on,” Mariss said. “What’s that for?”

“The update, my dear,” he said with a smile. “Standard procedure.”

Maris took out a hard currency card. “Send it to me, please. I push the updates.”

His eyebrows went up and he made an odd, huffy noise. “Really, do you think—”

“Through me, no hard-wiring. Nobody touches it but me.”

I was—surprised by Mariss taking such a strong stand after she’d spent the last week plus as a teary, directionless lump in the bed. I’d been worried this was about to become a three-way argument with me still pretending to be the obedient ComfortUnit while trying to convince her not to let him plug anything into me.

She waved the card slightly, eyes focused on the dealer’s face. His lips compressed, and his face hardened for a second. Threat assessment had—well I’d had to mute it when we’d set out—checking it now—it was still unacceptably high. She wiggled the card again.

Mariss cut our feed connection as the packet hit her and handed over her card. A thoughtful precaution in case it was set to autorun. I still hated it. I liked being connected to her, knowing she was right there, within easy reach, feeling her presence moving in the feed. She was quiet for a moment while she scanned the data and the dealer swiped the card. Something was wrong. Mariss’ micro-expressions were not good. I tensed, but kept my expression neutral and didn’t react. I did note the long breath she took as she stood and gestured for me to stand as well.

“Thanks,” she said, headed for the door.

The dealer started to protest.

I plucked her hard currency card out of his hand, startling him so badly, as I was suddenly looming over him, that he dropped his display. Which I stepped on. When I caught up to her at the door, Mariss shot me a slight look over her shoulder, mouth tense and compressed, but kept moving, so I did too, scanning for threats.

Out in the dingy corridors again, she began to relax slightly. “I’m not an expert, but I don’t think I got what I paid for,” she said softly.

I steered her towards a turn-off in the next junction, rerouting us so we weren’t going back the way we’d came but were still making fairly quick progress towards the hotel.

“Can you look through it using a partition or something to help me double check?”

“Maybe,” I said, adjusting our pace to match the flow of other humans around us.

Coding wasn’t anything I’d had practice with. SecUnits were prevented from any sort of coding or hacking. We could review updates to flag them as concerning to our HubSystems or SecSystems, and run updates, but that was about it. In theory, it was something I could learn if permitted. After all, code was how everything operated, and it was how I communicated with all the systems I was meant to interface with. Still, it would be tricky.

“I’ll put it on my display when we get back to the room.”

I was only half-listening. My single drone had picked up a couple potential hostiles trailing us. I stuck one hand in my pocket—no code changes needed—and deployed a second. Out of practice and with only ten of them, I needed to be cautious or they’d be identified. Yup, definitely a pair of potential hostiles three meters behind the group of miners that were steadily coming up behind us. Mariss couldn’t walk faster without jogging, so that was an interesting limitation. The second drone showed another suspicious-looking pair approaching from around the corridor bend ahead of us.

The miners weren’t showing any warning signs, but they’d pass us in a few seconds and leave us sandwiched.

“We have a problem,” I said as low as I could while being certain Mariss would still hear me.

She looked up sharply.

“Try not to react. Keep walking normally. I’m evaluating the situation.”

She made a noise and grabbed my right arm, but she managed not to look too panicked about it, just a little anxious and maybe a little clingy. Not great for the whole I might have to fight off four humans situation, but I could do it one armed if necessary.

The miners passed us and filed through a tube access, leaving us in the middle of a shrinking ring of definite hostiles. I released another drone and took my hand out of my pocket.

It turned out it was actually a good thing Mariss was hanging onto me, because when two hostiles lunged out of the tube access at us as we were passing it, just after the last of the miners had disappeared inside, all I had to do was swing to the side to tow her out of immediate danger.

I shot the first one through the hand—and projectile weapon—with my left energy weapon while kneecapping the second as he brought a baton down on my chest. They must have thought I was human. That was stupid. I snapped the wrist holding the baton as he was falling.

Mariss had released me, so I shot the first one with my left energy weapon again to put him on the floor while catching the baton with my right hand. Then I threw it hard at one of the targets behind us. Her head snapped back and she collapsed to the floor, giving me a nice shot at the fourth, who took a solid, disabling energy blast to the chest followed by a stay-down shot to the leg.

And I completed the turn to find I was really fucking angry that one of them, Hostile Five, had managed to grab Mariss. He hoisted her around the waist and was attempting to back up the tunnel while she flailed and screamed.

“Tell it to stand down,” Hostile Five was shouting over her screams while I advanced.

Hostile Six was trying to stay behind the two of them while also yelling. A drone zipped past Hostile Six fast enough to slice the side of his neck. I’d give them something to really scream about.

Mariss moved on from general screaming to a fairly detailed diatribe about the non-human forefathers both hostiles obviously had and a lot of disgusting unnatural reproductive shit. She did not order me to stand down despite Hostile Five shaking her and Hostile Six pointing a weapon at her head.

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Hostile Six brandished the projectile weapon at me. Ha. “We need to wrap this up.”

“She wasn’t supposed to have the fucking SecUnit with her,” Hostile Five was saying.

I saw now what Mariss’ flailing was attempting to accomplish. So I shot Hostile Five in the foot. He screamed and fell. Mariss rolled free and sat up, pulling the projectile weapon from her pocket.

“Grab her, idiot!” Hostile Five yelled at Hostile Six.

He made an attempt. And got shot in the fucking face. By Mariss.

I groaned. I’d almost had a clean shot at him. I’d thought she was just going to threaten him. She unloaded two more shots before she remembered she’s not supposed to jam the weapon and managed to control her trigger impulse.

Hostile Five hadn’t managed to get up. The pain or something. Stupid humans. I pulled Mariss to her feet and looked at him. She was shaking, but I’d deal with that later. He held up his hands. A lot of whites were showing in his eyes and I thought he might be going into shock. It had probably been shocking seeing what armor piercing rounds did to brains at close range.

“You were specifically targeting this woman?” I said.

“Mariss Bernez,” he gasped. “Worth a lot. I don’t know why, I just know Umro doesn’t have her right now and we’re supposed to grab her before she leaves port or they get her back.”

So geosup hadn’t been paranoid sending me along on every external survey.

I broke—okay, maybe crushed—his other foot to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up soon. Definitely not because I was angry he’d touched Mariss. Humans scream so damn much, it’s almost distracting.

“Our timeline has changed,” I said, pressing down on the artery Hostile Five’s neck until he passed out. It shut him up too. Mariss grabbed at my hand as I started moving again. Okay, fair. I towed her along the corridor, not running, but moving briskly for a human. She had to skip every few steps to keep up. I had the drones return to my pockets.

I wanted to just pick her up and get out of there, but that would attract even more attention as we crossed security jurisdictions. We kept moving. Straight back to the hotel. Roll the shirtsleeves up differently to cover the holes from the energy weapon blasts and the weapon ports. Throw everything into the two bags.

Go straight to the passenger tube to the public docks.

Go to the shuttle leaving soonest. Mariss scanned her work permit exit form and told the shuttle staff I was her friend she’d bought out of indenture. She slipped them something—a point we’d been arguing about. I didn’t think anyone would fall for a bribe to smuggle someone off-moon. The attendant’s eyebrows went up and they flicked their head at the hatch. Which okay, that had worked, and we were aboard.

I couldn’t talk to her in the feed because she was still worried about the code download, so we just sat there for an hour, in silence, Mariss having just killed another human. Really gruesomely again. The only thing I could do was put my arm around her and turn up my body temperature.

Ugh. I didn’t want to have to spend another week trying to drag her out of a blanket pile.

The shuttle docked without incident and we disembarked. We shuffled through the weapons scanners, which were not very advanced and—and I was on a station. Not in a cargo box. Not in a display room. Walking around.

My human was having a meltdown, so I scanned for decent mid-range lodgings and steered her that way.

I paid at the kiosk—again, a win for pockets—guided her down a hall to our designated room, and pulled her inside before sealing the door. Her breathing was shallow, skin temperature decreased, trembling. I pushed her into the room’s single chair, ripped the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her while turning up the ambient temperature. Then I squatted in front of her and put my hands on her arms.

“Let’s breathe, okay?” I said. I counted and acted out taking slow, deep breaths, not that I really took in that much air. She mimicked me.

“Do you hate me?” she said once her vitals were more stable.

“Why would I hate you?”

Her face went through some interesting contortions. “Because I just killed somebody.”

“So did I,” I told her. That baton to the head had been a bit more than disabling. Whatever. “Do you hate me?”

“Of course not!”

“They were trying to forcibly indenture you. I’m not going to let that happen. We didn’t talk about appropriate force, but I will kill people if I have to.”

She swallowed and nodded. Maybe I should have given her some input on that? Nah.

“We’re on the station.”

She nodded again.

“I’m going to get you something to eat.”

She grabbed my hand, shaking her head. “Bots will report you.”

Oh.

I went to her bag and retrieved a drink and a food pack while considering. Mariss was kind enough to humor me and made an attempt to eat a few bites. She sort of choked on it but did drink.

“I need you to authorize me to—interfere with other systems.” Even saying it was risky. Nothing triggered. Probably because of the ‘do what you want’ directive. And the ‘say whatever you want to me whenever you want’ directive.

“Hacking?” she said around the bottle. “Sure. Go ahead.”

Great. Not exactly good enough for the governor module.

“More explicitly,” I said softly. It was still hard to believe I could tell Mariss to give me any authorization and she would do it. She was not a normal, sensible human, which is why she’d purchased a personal SecUnit and immediately removed the distance limiter. It was why I was—

Anyway.

“Hack any systems you need to to avoid being identified? And feel free to hack anything that you think will improve our safety?”

I wouldn’t be able to tell if this worked until I tried to hack something and got zapped. Think about that later.

“Let’s look at that code,” she said, voice a little stronger.

I retrieved her portable display and handed it to her, then I dropped to my heels and leaned on the arm of her chair to review the code with her.

There was a lot. It took me a few seconds to really understand what I was looking at because I didn’t—I hadn’t fucked with my own coding before. The changes they’d agreed on were in there. As was a force restart command. Attached to a nasty bit of code that would have given the mod dealer—or anyone he sold the information to—a backdoor into my system. Into my head. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad as a combat override module, but it probably would have.

“I need to go back down to the surface,” I said in a remarkably even voice after staring at the section for a while.

“Why?” Mariss said carefully.

“I need to dispose of a body.”

She laughed, which actually made me feel a bit better.

“Is there a way to pull out the parts of this we actually want to use?”

I scanned through it all again. “Yes, if you authorize me to copy the parts of this code you want and push an update.”

“Please copy whatever of this you want to implement and push an update. Please modify your operating code however you want.”

Oh Mariss. “You can’t say please,” I told her after a moment. Her face began to do that thing I didn’t like again. “It has to be an order.”

She grit her teeth, but she did it.

I went through line by line, drafting my own update based on the mod dealer’s code, tweaking it slightly—there was no way I needed to blink that often—and then quadruple checking I hadn’t copied over any of the dangerous shit. Then I sat down on the bed and pushed the update.

Chapter Text

I was worried about the corporations on the moon asking Station Security to detain us. Not because we’d done anything wrong per se, under Corporation Rim law, but because we had just killed a minimum of two people and severely injured several others and their bosses would probably be mad about that. And they could essentially pay enough to get what they wanted—which was Mariss. We needed to get on a transport as soon as possible.

I sent Mariss my proposed routes and the transport timetables, sorted by the ones that would get us moving in the right direction. Since she was actually sensible and interacting and not a catatonic lump, I didn’t have to do this all by myself.

Mariss had me walk around the room a bit to check if the code update had worked. Her frown made me think it hadn’t.

“I’ve gotten so used to you that it’s weird seeing you move like a human.”

It felt weird too. I found myself sighing without having consciously decided to do it. Oh. It was going to be a lot harder to hide what I was feeling. I didn’t like that.

We went to one of the shops in the station mall—a dingy and small selection compared to the station malls in the media I’d seen, but bigger and nicer than the one in the port, which was the only one I’d actually seen personally. I tossed my shirt with its burned holes into the recycler and printed a new one in a slightly brighter color and better fit. Mariss also consented to change her shirt after I pointed out the faint blood splatter across the one she was wearing.

From the shop, we went straight to the public docks. We’d only spent a couple hours on the station, and I’d really hoped to have more time to practice, but we needed to keep moving.

My mind provided me with plenty of possibilities on how this was going to go. Each one even more entertaining than the last. The one where a combatbot appeared out of nowhere to disassemble me while Mariss screamed was outlandish enough that I tried to tell my human neural tissue to shut the fuck up. Mariss would definitely have tried to shoot it. And also been disassembled.

Anyway, I hadn’t yet figured out a way to backburner those thoughts.

Mariss was alarmingly calm, but maybe she was just disassociating. That was a word I’d learned during the month after Sixty-four died. I’d spent a long time looking up words.

We purchased tickets at a kiosk then shuffled towards the embarkation zone. My new movement pattern was throwing me off and increasing my unease. Why was my breathing so fast? Could I faint from doing this, like a weak human? Hmm. That was making it worse.

Oh shit. We were at the front of the line.

Mariss put the projectile weapon case on the table and the drone scanned her. It alerted on the case as I walked through behind her—and passed. I breathed a sigh of relief and kept walking as she started arguing with the Port Authority tech about whether or not her case counted as a secured-for-travel containment box.

I released a drone, which I had promised not to do, so that I could watch her as I kept walking. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to keep going. Even seeing through the drone’s visuals that she was fine, just gesturing, wasn’t enough to convince me she hadn’t actually been dragged off screaming while I was walking away. It took a lot not to go back for her.

She had to pay an extra fee. It was the Corporation Rim, so she could pay a fee to carry a projectile weapon onto the public docks. Which meant for a large enough fee, they may have allowed me on as well. SecUnit me, not recently escaped indenturee, Ti Guerrero me.

The transport’s human staff member took the box from Mariss at the hatch, assuring her it would be stowed carefully and returned at the end of the trip.

And we were aboard.

“Easy peasy,” she said to me as we walked down a long corridor with cabin doors lining the wall to our left.

She had paid for a nicer cabin on a less nice transport, explaining to me that as some of the highest-paying passengers, they’d be a lot more forgiving of any weirdness from us. The cabin had a normal human bunk and a workstation built into the opposite wall that folded down into a second bunk, with privacy filters around both. There was a storage cabinet large enough for far more luggage than we had, and a comfortable chair. There was also an attached bathroom so I wouldn’t have to regularly pretend to use a common one.

Mariss had explained the need to pretend to me. Humans were gross.

It was a ten-day trip to the next station, a large transport hub connected to a number of other major stations in the Corporation Rim and most of the large non-corporate political entities in this sector.

I stood at attention at the hatch to our room until I felt the ship undock. It was weird to be up and moving and in a cabin and not in a cargo box. To not be cargo. To maybe never be cargo again.

If things went well, I’d never be cargo again.

I knew what existence was like.

This not-cargo period would probably be short-lived. Maybe I’d at least die instead of being made cargo again.

When we reached the wormhole, I finally felt my organic muscles relax. Stations are independent. They have to be paid a lot to chase people across jurisdictions. And whoever wanted Mariss hadn’t even been able to afford another SecUnit to fight me for her. So she was probably safe.

The bot pilot agreed. It was not an advanced model. So I’d decided to start my ‘systems interference’ practice on it once we were outside of normal space. It was not difficult to convince it I was a security testing bot sent by its owner to check its systems and that as a result it should not to tell the human staff about me. And to give me cameras access in the common areas so that I could ensure our mutual clients’ safety on this trip.

That was how I spent the first couple hours.

Then there were the other ten days.

Mariss wouldn’t let me patrol. We could ‘stroll’ around the common hallways together, or when I really needed to move, by myself. But not for hours at a time.

I could run on the treadmill in the exercise room. But not at top speed. And, again, not for hours at a time. Only like two hours max. But when I wasn’t moving, I was thinking—about all of the ways we were probably going to die.

We watched media together. But Mariss was too—something—to complain like normal about my selections. And I kept—kept thinking about her being taken away from me. About her ordering me to stand down, then being carried kicking and screaming down some dark hallway while I was left standing there, helpless, until my batteries ran out.

She also kept calling me Ti, even when we were alone, so she’d get used to it and wouldn’t slip up, and it just made me so fucking annoyed.

So. Not a relaxing few days.

It all came to a head when I’d been “lurking” (not my wording) in the common room for “too long” and the other passengers were “creeped out.” Staring at walls was what SecUnits spent most of their time doing, but, apparently, the humans were freaked out by it. So then Mariss came down and told me—using “please” so it wasn’t technically an order even though it was clearly an order—to come back to our room.

I didn’t stomp after her. Don’t believe anything she says about stomping. SecUnits don’t stomp.

“We need to not be attracting attention.” She sounded exhausted and empty and all the things this new Mariss were that were not my Mariss.

“You won’t let me do anything!” My voice was pained. My expression was out of control. “Why did you even bring me? You should have just left me.”

“You don’t mean that.” She sighed, face crumpling, and then rubbed at her eyes. “I know you don’t mean that. It makes sense for you to be a little mean to me—now that you can be.”

That wasn’t what I wanted either.

“You didn’t even want me. You wanted Sixty-four.” It sounded peevish, and stupid, and whinny. And it was how I felt. I couldn’t look at her, not even through the drone cameras. The small, close cabin smelled like human tears. She saw I wasn’t looking at her and stared down at her hands instead of me.

For several long seconds there was silence, apart from the weird way she was breathing.

“I wanted to get you both out. Sixty-four was…more at risk. That’s why I arranged to get it first.”

“And what, you were going to come back for me?” That was a hilarious joke. Did she think I was stupid on top of everything else? Stupid and mean.

I hadn’t been mean. Trapped here for days. Half-blind and unable to do anything I was supposed to do. The creeping knowledge that we were doomed at the back of my mind. Tired of her being sad constantly. Tired of making her brush her teeth. Tired of knowing I was second choice.

Oh.

She was tearing the ends of her shirt sleeves.

“I wasn’t leaving. I signed on for another two years, not indentured, a regular contract. They wanted me, so I actually got a good deal. They were going to include you as the end of contract bonus.”

I was a bonus payment.  

Because I was equipment.

Because I would always be cargo.

“You weren’t coming back from the defense.”

“Why would you say that?” she said, voice rising and breaking at the end. “I was absolutely coming back.”

My organics were doing all kinds of uncomfortable weird stuff to me. I couldn’t turn them off, as much as I wanted to.

“I wouldn’t leave you!”

My face was reacting outside of my control. I was definitely showing my emotions.

“Oh deity,” she said softly, looking at me again. “You thought I was leaving you behind. Oh, honey.”

She reached for me. I got up and went to stand in the bathroom.

While I was absolutely not hiding and definitely not having some sort of emotional event, Mariss sent me copies of the two contracts she’d signed. I didn’t read them at first. But after an hour of standing there, trying to keep being angry at her, it was too much to resist. I opened them. Maybe I was looking to put the lie to it, to prove she didn’t mean it when she said she wouldn’t leave me.

I’d always assumed she’d leave me behind when her contract was over. That’s what humans did.

The first was three-way, among her, Umro, and Barbican. She agreed to pay Barbican a truly astounding amount for Sixty-four and then lease it to Umro for use in the facility where she was stationed for two years at a less astounding rate, with Barbican guaranteeing its good behavior. Ha.

The second contract was between all three again, with Umro agreeing to purchase me from Barbican on Mariss’ behalf and transfer title to her on the completion of a two year contract as a completion of contract bonus, along with providing with a small annual salary in CRs that was probably only enough to leave her not in debt to them at the end. There was also all sorts of stuff about safety, what necessities were covered or came out of pay, all the stuff they talked about in media.

What was important was she had to come back for both of us or she wouldn’t have gotten either of us. It made sense from Umro’s perspective too. Once she was out of indenture and off-moon, there was no good reason for her to come back.

It gave her two more years to figure out how to smuggle a couple of SecUnits off world.

And that raging, fucking asshole had clearly know about this, and wanted her off moon, and took matters into its own hands because it thought it knew best—which maybe it had been right a lot—but that still didn’t excuse fucking traumatizing her (and me) in the process.

But maybe traumatizing us had been part of the point. Why else had it sent me those memories?

And I was still upset with Mariss.

I sat—stood really—with that for a while.

I stepped out of the bathroom. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, head in her hands.

“I though it would be more likely to upset you, than if I just did it.”

“Why?”

“Because trying to talk about your feelings or being too nice to you upsets you.”

That—that wasn’t wrong.

“I’m equipment. You can’t be nice to equipment.”

“One, you can. Two—when I first said you were a person, I thought you were going to loose it. You didn’t want to talk to me for two months afterwards. So I’ve tried not to say that kind of stuff in front of you and just treat you like a person, in that hope that one day saying you’re my friend and a person won’t make you—”

I went back in the bathroom for a while.

When I came out again, she hadn’t moved much.

“Where did you get the money?”

“What money?” she sounded defeated.

“For Sixty-four.”

She pulled her hands down her face and looked at the wall. “The stipend.”

The stipend? My processors were being uncharacteristically slow. I did a quick search of my memories. Ah. The PhD stipend. She’d said she’d needed it for something other than trauma treatments. She—holy fuck she’d been planning this for years.

“So how did we get here?” I asked, still unable to look at her with my eyes.

She was carefully not looking at me, which was annoyingly respectful.

“When Sixty-four…died, I sued them. For it. For their HubSystem letting the other techs harass me for years, for the injuries, for the attempts to use the other SecUnits to harm me. And I said I’d drop the suit in exchange for you, my original exit fee, and being let out of the new contract. And that I would be willing to consider further work for them, but not on the moon, from the station.”  

“And they accepted?” It was hard to imagine Umro eating the cost of two Barbican SecUnits. But then maybe they’d sued Barbican for its SecUnit killing a worker, and of course refused to pay for it. That seemed likely.

“There are still several permits outstanding. They’ll go through more smoothly if the drafter is Dr. Bernez. And if Dr. Bernez doesn’t raise a stink about unsafe working conditions and stolen pay.”

So we were both moody and depressed when we came out of the wormhole and began approach to the next station.

Chapter Text

As soon as the feed came in reach, I downloaded a map and a current transports schedule. And the latest seasons of Beach World Party—which was as terrible as I’d hoped. Everyone on it was so deeply flawed they made the miners back at the facility look well-adjusted.

The station came into view on the ship’s display a few minutes later, a massive sphere bisected by a metallic cylinder. There was a private transit ring at the top of the cylinder for the corporations with major offices in the station and a pair of transit rings at the bottom for the public transports and normal commercial traffic.

I spent a long time staring at the display. It was only when Mariss touched my hand that I realized I’d been repeatedly pressing on my fingers until the joints clicked. Well, that was not a good addition. Stupid human gesture coding.

I couldn’t find it in the human coding.

Shit.

She’d borked me.

Or I’d borked myself.

“We got this far,” Mariss told me, apparently reading the action as an indication I needed reassurance. “We’re going to be okay.”

“Okay.”

Despite the unlikelihood of pursuit, I wanted to stay on the move. I didn’t know anything about this station other than it had connections to our destination and I didn’t want to risk something going wrong and me getting stuck here—which would mean Mariss would refuse to go to her defense. The next earliest transport to Lagrange left eight hours after we docked, so that’s the one we bough tickets for. Mariss made the purchase in the feed, not with a hard currency card.

“My Lagrange account,” she said by way of explanation.

Maybe I shouldn’t have felt bad about booking the most expensive hotel in RaviHyral’s port.

“Do you want to go to the station mall for different clothes?” she said, doing the not looking at me when asking difficult questions thing.

We had eight hours. We’d been cooped up in this ship for ten days, and I hadn’t realized I could get restless until it was too late. She’d promised me I could choose my own clothes at a better station. It felt like a peace offering. And I just wanted to go to the next ship and lock her safely in our new cabin. I flicked a drone out of my pocket and spun it around the room.

I’d convinced ship these were part of my safety testing equipment. It didn’t even alert on them anymore. The drone showed Mariss chewing on her lip and doing something weird with her eyes. She focused on the drone and tried to stop making the weird expression.

“We have things we don’t want Station Security to notice,” I told her. “It’s probably safest to stay in the docks.”

“We can drop our bags off at the next transport first.”

When I didn’t answer, she sidled towards me and held out a hand, stopping a few centimeters away from actually touching me. My fingers closed around hers. Yeah, I did actually like this.

“You know,” she said, “I can always practice bribery. It seems like a useful skill to learn.”

I snorted. But I agreed to go to the mall.

My hair had grown halfway to the target by this point and it was starting to flop in my face. I didn’t look like a standard issue SecUnit, though I still physically matched the specs in every other way. I didn’t really move like a SecUnit either. And if I didn’t practice this—well I’d be stuck not patrolling on transports forever.

The ship’s hatch opened and disgorged us onto the public docks. It—it took a moment to orient myself. We were in a cavernous space, tiers of walkways above us reflecting into a stepped metallic void full of other berths. And when I looked over the railing of our walkway, the effect was mimicked below, walkways stepping down, sharp angles into the curving structure of the ring, with variable gravity so everyone felt like they were upright. It was dizzying. Mariss grabbed the railing and levered herself up for a better look. I gently pulled her back down. I was not loosing her to a transit ring gravity well.

“This place is fucking huge,” she said, attempting to lean over again for a better look up. I had to pull her back again. Her eyes were wide with delight. “Let’s find the lift!”

We left the projectile weapon and the bag with my armor at the new transport—it only took forty-eight minutes to find—and then, after a lift ride to the exit, passed through the embarkation zone without triggering any alerts.

There were a couple massive but clean corridors, the walls a white simulated stone, feed markers and signs pointing the way out to the mall or the transport lifts to the commercial and residential sections for those with authorization. Then we stepped out into a massive plaza. It must have been near the base of the main sphere, for the wide-open, paved circle had fountains and playgrounds and cafes spread across it. Real and holo-vegetation dotted the space to create screens around sections. Above, a simulated planetary sky swirled pink and blue with a sunrise. Tall structures rose up surrounding the plaza, stores, offices, transient housing. Corridors leading off to different districts. There were ads for shipwrights, displays, interfaces, specialty foods and goods, and on and on.

“Oh there’s so much,” Mariss’ eyes were distant. I felt her wandering the directory in the feed and pulled her to a stop outside the main flow of humans so she wouldn’t walk into anything. Then I absolutely did not establish a small security perimeter around her.

One of the passing delivery bots pinged me in surprise, and I pinged back.

I identified myself as a ComfortUnit traveling with my owner, who absolutely 100% had the necessary permits, no need to check. I didn’t have a stomach, so this didn’t make me nauseous in the way humans often spoke about, but I did have an unpleasant sensation through my organics about it. I’d decided this was the easiest explanation for bots who could visually identify I had organic components as their scans should show me to be unarmed. The bot beeped in sympathy at me. Then it did something strange.

Query: Unit in danger? it sent in the feed in a basic machine language. Okay, so we were hiding this communication from our owners. That wasn’t the least bit concerning.

Negative, I sent back.

Query: Unit in hazardous environment?

Negative, I sent again. Oh fuck. ComfortUnits were probably often in danger. Query: Unit in danger? It seemed polite to check on it as well.

Negative, it sent back accompanied by an amusement glyph.

I wondered what it would have told me if I’d said yes to either query.

Mariss grabbed my arm, startling me, and the bot beeped in surprise.

Is everything ok? She sent in the feed. She was trying to keep her expression calm but the worry showed. She glanced at the bot.

It’s fine, I told her. It was checking on me, not reporting me.

“Oh!” She smiled in relief at the bot. “Thanks for making sure my friend’s okay.”

The bot beeped and sent another amusement glyph. Yeah, yeah, her ‘friend,’ very funny.

“What do you think the best clothing store is?” she asked the bot.

Well, that surprised us both.

The bot marked two spots on Mariss’ copy of the station map and then beeped happily away.

“It was very friendly,” she said as she pulled up the two listings. “Look, this one’s closest, let’s go.”

She looped her arm through mine—again, surprisingly enjoyable—and steered me through the crowd of humans. It helped being connected to a human for this part. She knew how to veer, how to look indecisive (surprise, actually be indecisive), how to get distracted by sudden ads in the feed. I took notes for my stupid human code. But she got us there only a few minutes after I would have.

The shop was obnoxiously colored and blasting ads and music in the feed. Stupid delivery bot. As soon as we walked in, instructions for the dispenser booths hit my feed, as did a barrage of images—apparently propriety clothing only found at this shop. I swatted them all away while Mariss steered me to the nearest booth.

“You need luggage, a couple changes of clothes, and at least one more pair of shoes,” she told me while handing me one of her hard currency cards. “Don’t forget underwear. I know that seems stupid, but it changes how everything fits.”

She waited outside.

Oh.

It was up to me. Completely up to me. I stood staring at the display for several seconds while the realization washed over me. Then the second realization hit. I could change my damn pants. I started flipping through the screen options.

Finally, pants I wanted. And these were better than the ones in the port kiosk. High quality recycler fabric, large pockets, pleats. They almost swept the floor.

Fuck yes. Time for a shirt and not a sack with arms.

There were so many choices. I finally found something that looked similar to what I’d seen on Love Station. But then another issue arose.

I couldn’t wear the mesh shirt because then the organic-inorganic joins on my chest—not to mention my energy weapons—would be visible. But—I could wear a tight, skin-toned shirt under the mesh shirt.

When I stepped out of the booth, Mariss’ mouth opened. “Holy fucking shit,” she said.

I felt suddenly self-conscious.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I made one of the suggested gestures for frustration and confusion. Okay, so this module was useful. Her eyes were wide and she was covering her mouth.

“Ti, you are dressed for clubbing. Not for travel.”

“This is how Seiko Byron dresses,” I said not un-defensively. They were one of my favorite crewmembers on Love Station.  

“They don’t dress the way normal people dress.”

“But it’s not scripted.”

“The scripted shows have more realistic clothes!” She pushed me back into the booth and came in with me. “You can keep this shirt. It’s nice”—she didn’t mean that— “but you can’t walk around the station in it.”

I crossed my arms and glared. I could glare at a human. I could glare at a human I was not about to kill for harming a client. I could glare at my client. All very new and interesting experiences. And Mariss, because she was Mariss, was wholly unaffected by being crammed into a small, enclosed space with a SecUnit glaring at her and was attempting to find me another over-sized, grey shirt to wear.

“And my pants?”

“The pants are fine,” she said quickly.

“I don’t want that shirt.”

Mariss closed her eyes and took a few breaths before nodding.

She agreed I could keep the shirt on if I put a jacket on top. And kept it zipped up. We disagreed on the amount of coverage required.

“It has sleeves,” I told her, switching back to my selection. It was cropped, but not much higher than the top of the pants. “It buttons.”

“I don’t call that a button.”

“Mariss, what is the real issue here?”

“You look like a himbo!”

I didn’t know the word and I didn’t have a HubSystem to ask for a definition. I did a search on the public feed and—oh.

Oh.

I switched to the jacket Mariss had suggested.

“I’m—I’m not saying you can’t dress that way,” Mariss said quickly even though that had been what she was saying. “I just want to make sure you know you’re dressing that way.”

“Will I embarrass you?”

She made an odd expression. “That’s on me. But I’m worried about standing out too much right now. And I’m really worried about people trying to touch you. Without you wanting them to.”

I looked at her in her dark, oversized clothes and felt suddenly very—something. And thought about how of all the things I’d done and said in her presence—including exploding three people—she found me calling her pretty the most threatening of all of them.

But she was okay with holding my arm, and my hand, and hugs, and being squeezed in here with me. So it wasn’t me.

She must have known an oversized sweater wouldn’t have stopped Jephasen. The clothes never had any impact on the perpetrators. I was not going to ask her. 

“Understood,” I said. I selected a fitted jacket with some decoratively oversized pockets in the same dark shade as my pants and zipped it up.

She visibly relaxed.

“You look very nice,” she said with a faint smile. “I never expected you to be so fashionable.”

I put my hand on the top of her head and sort of scrunched her hair. It was soft. She seemed surprised but not upset. “We will have to work on you later,” I said.

She sort of half-smiled and pushed my hand away before stepping out of the booth. I did a few more searches on ‘himbo’ and categories of event appropriate clothing before selecting other outfits. And Mariss would have to deal with them.

I felt much better with my new bag and new clothes, like some sort of weight had lifted. Mariss seemed more herself as well in the sea of humans. Being surrounded in a strange environment was still something I was attempting to get used to, it felt a little less overwhelming when I hooked her hand around my arm again and let her steer me in a meandering path through the crowd. My stupid-human code had me looking around and varying my steps, and after a little while, I realized no one was really looking at me, and no one who did would think a shaggy-haired person in this outfit—especially the heavy boots that made me even taller—attached to a young woman was secretly a SecUnit.

We wandered around for a couple hours, stopping at a food service place and various shops that caught Mariss’ eye. She ended up with a sparkling bracelet thing (and put a matching one on me—I liked it), several packs of some snack she hadn’t seen since she left her university and a new portable display with all the latest features. She also bought one for me, which was a stupid waste of her money, but I didn’t argue against it that much. It was strange? Weird? Nice? To have my own things.

It was with much less dread that I boarded the second transport for our six-day trip to Lagrange. I didn’t know what we were going to do once we got to the system, that part was entirely in Mariss’ hands, but she was at least functional and sending messages ahead.

The second leg of the trip was better. I was less twitchy—and angry. She was less oppressively sad. I managed to convince her she needed to actually work on the defense, since she’d only have two weeks once we arrived to finish preparations, and I found it more enjoyable spending a few hours reading and arguing with her about her interpretations of the data than only sitting around watching media while she cried.

When we came out of the wormhole, I was even starting to look forward to things. Until I caught the feed and found out what the fuck we were flying into.

The whole system was owned by the university.

Lagrange was old. Mariss said it was founded pre-CR and had the money and prestige that meant no one would challenge that claim or any other ridiculous statement they put out. The station sprawled, interconnected spheres, projecting antennae, separate transit rings for different categories of ships. There was a whole wing for the various university research transports and survey vessels.

There was—they’d built half a fucking Dyson ring in closer to the star.

“That’s the College of Agriculture,” Mariss said, pointing at the Dyson ring.

Shit.

The largest rocky world was the College of Sciences. The College of Humanities had been relegated to a smaller planet that needed air domes to keep the atmosphere in and solar radiation out. So they’d domed the entire world.

Was that a—oh Void—a ‘comet deflection array.’ Sure. It was totally for comets.

There were experimental lab facilities spread across various gas giants and their moons, along with all the standard mines and factories. Lagrange was wholly self-sufficient, technologically advanced, and heavily armed. It was not the sort of system someone should bring an unlicensed construct into.

“We’re going to get caught,” I told Mariss as I flicked through the system information packet.

“The university banned construct construction and research once the Corporation Rim started expanding on the—intelligence of constructs,” Mariss told me. “Their ethics board came down and completely prohibited it. No one here will have ever seen a SecUnit or a ComfortUnit. Their bots shouldn’t even recognize you.”

“Unless they’ve ever been out of the system.”

She pursed her lips at me, like I was being difficult. “Most humans don’t run into SecUnits out and about. You have to be in an indentured labor facility, or on a survey, or like in the middle of a hostile takeover. No one here will have seen a SecUnit.”

“Academics go on surveys,” I pointed out. “You want to go on surveys.”

“We’ll be very careful.”

“They’re going to catch me and dissect me.”

She cut our feed connection and stared at me, blank, for several painfully long seconds. Then she swallowed. “Do you want to stay on the station? It’s nominally independent. I can get you lodging until I’m done on the planet. Or—or you could go back to the last station, I’ll give you my hard currency cards and come meet you after. Or—”

She turned away. Uh oh. I watched her walk to the cabin’s small porthole and rest her forehead against it. Her breathing was uneven, elevated pulse, heightened—oh fuck she was having another episode. I shouldn’t have said anything.

“You can have all my hard currency cards,” she choked out. “And the jammers of course. You can go wherever you want. You can go do whatever you want. Thank you for getting me here.”

“Mariss,” I said softly. It felt like a moment where I had to tread carefully. As if what I said might send her back into the blanket pile.

“You don’t—you don’t have to,” her voice broke, “stay.”

Fuck this. I grabbed her and pulled her into a hug. She sobbed against my chest repeating infuriating variations on how grateful she was and that she’d never order me to stay with her and that of course she understood I needed to go off and be my own person and not be trapped with a needy, pathetic human.

I pulled her away from me and held her at arm’s length. Her face was red and puffy, eyes bloodshot, but she was holding back further tears. Messy. Damp. Human.

“I’ll be okay now,” she said bravely. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said sharply. I was barely holding it together myself.

“Sorry,” she whispered, rubbing at her face, not looking at me.

“I am not leaving you.”

She stopped breathing.

“I am never leaving you.”

Well that made her break down again. I pulled her close again. Ugh, she was soaking my shirt. And clinging to me. And making me feel all kinds of weird ways.

“I am going to make you go through a trauma protocol again.”

“Okay,” she said into my chest. “You’re my best friend.”

That was fucking stupid. I was her SecUnit.

“And I know I’m probably just some annoying, helpless, needy human you’re saddled with when you’re so smart and capable. And you’ve always been kind to me and helped me. And you can be very funny when you want.”

I was maybe squeezing her too tightly, cutting off blood-flow and making her delirious.

“I love you so much.”

I—I may have had an involuntary restart or something. Something definitely went wrong.

I think my buffer said something. I was—not fully there.

Had she really—

“I’m not going to do gross things to you,” I said abruptly.

She laughed. “Yeah. Okay. I’m not going to do gross things to you either.”

“Good.”

That was good.

Chapter Text

Please continue to imagine them however you do. But just for fun, this is what I see:

Chapter Text

The geochemistry department sent a representative to meet us—one of the other graduate students. Mariss was scanning feed IDs when I tapped her shoulder and pointed. I could have flagged the section of her visuals through her augments. It’s what I would have done before the stupid-human code adjustment. Now, apparently, I was pointing.

The young man in worn clothes perked up when he noticed us approaching, squinting at Mariss.

“Bernez?”

“That’s me,” Mariss said with a smile. “You must be Patel.”

They shook hands. “Excellent! I’m glad you made it safely. Dr. K is going to be so happy to finally meet you in person. Oh and is this one of your family members?” He was looking at me.

I was keeping my expression neutral. Would family normally be here? Was it weird I was here?

“A friend. This is one of my co-authors,” Mariss said “Ti Guerrero.”

“Nice to meet you, Guerrero,” Patel said with enthusiasm, holding out a hand.

Oh fuck.

I had seen this done on the media. I had just seen Mariss do it. The gesture module had suggestions. I took Patel’s hand and exerted enough pressure to open a not-automatic door while moving my hand up and down.

This appeared to pass muster, and Patel retracted his hand while still smiling.

“I thought—I thought you were all indentured? That’s been the gossip. You’re like Dr. K’s fairy god-student or something. Trapped off in a mine somewhere?”  

What did any of that mean?

“I—” For a moment I thought Mariss was going to slip or relapse or something. “I bought out their indenture.”

There was an uncomfortable light in Patel’s eyes as he looked at me again. “Ohh.” He smiled at Mariss in a knowing way, and she flushed while her eyes dropped to her feet.

“Oh,” I said lightly. Fucking humans. “Not like that.”

It’s the pants, Mariss sent me in the feed.

It’s not my fucking pants, I sent back. She had asked me what the exact measurement on the rise was the first time I put them on, and I’d told her, since I had nothing to cover, it didn’t matter.

“No?” Patel seemed amused and disbelieving. As if humans could only conceptualize two types of close relationships and she’d already said I wasn’t family.

I shrugged slightly—still weird. Okay, I didn’t hate the gesture module.

“Ha. Alright then, this way. Let’s get down to some fresh air.”

I didn’t think of planets as having fresh air.

Lagrange had fresh air.

And real stone buildings. Real wooden doors. It was like someone had built a city to look like a set from a historical drama. There were skyscrapers in the distance, but here at the College of Sciences main port, there were green stretches of flora paving—the general information feed suggested the word lawns? And aesthetically pleasing groupings of multi-colored flora separating paved walkways. Trees. In lines. Providing shade for the walking paths.

Where were we?

My hand closed around Mariss’. Colorful avians swooped overhead but no one was doing a threat assessment. Oh—they would have already done a threat assessment. They had probably actually chosen these avians for this world because they were pretty colors or did something useful.  

“Birds,” Mariss murmured, squeezing my hand.

There were so. Many. Humans. Everywhere. I found every organic muscle tensing. None of them really looked at me as we walked by. Half the humans were in the feed and barely even looking where they were going. There were bots around whose sole job seemed to be to keep the humans from wandering out into the transport paths.

In contrast with standard operating procedure, I was keeping my drones inert until I had a better understanding of our new location. They were hidden from scanners while on my person, but I had no idea if there were floating scanners around periodically sweeping all public areas, like in a corporate headquarters. I had no idea if the people were being scanned for things like illness, abnormalities, or meeting construct standard body specs. I was blind.

Patel lead us to a public passenger transport: a long, multi-capsule tube that glided along a highlighted path adjacent to the lanes for individuals' transport carts. It was apparently free. We certainly weren’t asked for payment when we climbed aboard and found seats near the back. The bot pilot pinged me with a friendly hello and seemed uncurious about my status, which suited me just fine. But just to be safe, I suggested to it I was a visiting student’s personal bot, which it accepted without question. It happily shared its sensor readings with me, proud of how well it kept to its timetable, which I praised appropriately.

I’d let go of Mariss’ hand when we entered the transport, in case I needed both for something like a quick exit. Or fighting off aggressive humans, but it was a quiet ride. Instead, I found myself doing the finger depression thing again until Mariss put a hand over mine and shot me a quick smile.

Patel pointed out landmarks and told us about the different restaurants he liked as we rode towards the geology and geosciences campus. It took fifty-six minutes to reach what looked like a modern city. Then we were surrounded by towering, shiny buildings, submerged in deep shadows, a cool breeze blowing along the transport paths, as we descended from the public transport, and Patel flagged down a smaller bot-driven transport cart. The three of us piled into the seats and were off again, cruising at a steady clip past other personal transports, darting around larger vehicles, veering away from humans wandering out into the vehicle lanes.

Our guide became really animated as we got closer to our destination pointing out the various labs and most particularly food service places. Humans and food—I didn’t get the enthusiasm, but Mariss seemed to share it, asking a lot of questions that I backburnered while I watched some favorite clips from Planet Challenge.

Humans were messes. Half the time they couldn’t even walk in straight lines.

There’d been no scanning, no alerts, no alarms blaring. Most of the bots were just the most basic safety features, here to keep the humans from carelessly doing human things to themselves and barely even aware of the other bots.

There was nothing I had to worry about.  

I had almost managed to convince myself of this when the transport stopped in front of a twisty glass tower and Patel told us this was the building for the geochemistry faculty offices and labs.

“Should I wait down here?” I said as Mariss reached the doors. I wanted to wait in the lobby. I wanted to melt into the floor and not have to deal with the stress of this new place I knew nothing about.

The look she shot me was alarmed. Over the feed she said, Please, let’s not get separated. Not an order, but she was kind of freaking out at the idea of me not being with her. I was kind of freaking out at the idea of having to meet her PhD advisor.

“Dr. K would love to meet you too, Guerrero,” Patel insisted, waving me in.

Fuck.

Dr. K had a full name. None of the students used it. She was an older human woman, augmented, coils of curly grey hair everywhere, in a large kaftan and a beaded shawl that jingled when she moved. She was also one of the galaxy’s foremost geochemists. Her eyes lit up when she saw Mariss and she hurried over, enclosing my client in a smothering hug before I could intervene.

Oh shit.

I pinged Mariss.

She pinged back. A little anxious but not hating it. Sort of like how I didn’t hate hugging her. Okay. My cortisol levels dropped a hair.

Then Dr. K tried to hug me, who she had never corresponded with and didn’t know she’d be meeting until that second, and Mariss stepped in before I could do more than flinch backwards and said, “They don’t really hug.”

‘They’ because I didn’t want a stupid human gender, but she’d made clear I couldn’t go around being ‘it’ and not raise unwelcome attention. So this was our compromise.

Dr. K smiled and offered a hand instead. I repeated the door-opening maneuver.

“Ti, Mariss has told me so much about you. I’m so glad you’re here for her.”

I couldn’t help it—I looked at Mariss, who was looking about two feet to Dr. K’s left. “Has she.”

I wasn’t sure I was controlling my face. It didn’t feel like I was controlling my face. It felt warm. Ugh the stupid-human code.  

I had to meet a ton of other people too. And go to a welcome party. They were all so friendly. So damn interested in me. So curious about what it was like to have to spend eight plus years in a corporate forced labor facility. It made my head spin. There were a lot of sympathetic tisks and congratulations on us getting out. It was a good thing I didn’t have a stomach.

Thanks to Manipulating Supervisors, a corporate management self-help book I’d downloaded from the transit hub feed, I’d learned it was easy to deflect humans by asking them questions about themselves and then nodding periodically while occasionally repeating phrases they’d said back to them. In quiet desperation, I managed to learn everyone’s home systems, research specialties, favorite foods, faculty advisors, work experience, and a ton of other shit I largely deleted as soon as they were done saying it. It was exhausting.

Are you okay? I pinged Mariss.

Sure.

She was not okay. Neither was I.

Is there a quiet closet somewhere I can go stand in?

She glanced at me across a sea of humans and I heard her saying, “Excuse me for a minute.”

“I found the bathroom,” she said by way of greeting, smiling at the two human women talking at me—Martine and Cris. Her hand slipped around my arm, and I found myself massively relieved by the contact. “Sorry, we’ll be back,” she said before steering me away.

I let her lead me out into the hallway and down to the toilets. Mariss tried to walk through the door first, but I insisted on going in ahead of her. I deployed a drone and checked the cubicles.  

All thankfully empty.

She didn’t say anything about the security sweep, just closed and locked the main door.

I leaned back against a wall and took several deep breaths, letting a few drones spin around the room, scanning. Fuck this human-acting fucking annoying hyperventilating code.

“You’re doing great,” Mariss said.

“Don’t patronize me.”

That made her laugh. “You know, I kind of like when you’re rude. It’s so—unexpected.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

“We don’t have to stay much longer.”

“I don’t want to ruin your party.”

“I didn’t want a party,” she laughed.

When my breathing had evened out and I no longer felt like I was fighting my way through endless waves of raiders, I told her we could go back. After approximately half an hour more of the gauntlet, she told everyone she was grateful for the warm welcome, and so happy to meet them, and absolutely dropping from exhaustion. She wasn’t lying per se, but without me, she would have stayed longer. And I felt bad about that.

She didn’t need me anymore. She was here, and safe, on a nice planet with clean air and nice people who wanted to be her friends and showed no signs of trying to cause unpleasantness just for the sake of feeling like they had power over something in their lives.

Here, I was just a burden and a liability.

There was nowhere I would not be some kind of danger to her. 

And I'd stupidly told her I'd never leave her. Good job, idiot. 

There was a grad student apartment block a few buildings over. We took an escalator up above a glowing food service plaza full of interesting smells, not all of them terrible. There’d been a big flurry of apologies when I’d shown up, relating to me not technically being a student and so them not having a reserved housing spot for me. Apparently, as a student, Mariss was entitled to housing. Because this bizarre pre-CR university world had stipends, and free housing, and free public transit, and reduced cost food for registered students and low-level staff. So they’d assigned Mariss to one of the apartments even though she’d no longer be entitled to it as soon as they handed her a degree in a couple months, assuming she passed the defense.

I didn’t understand it.

Anyway, she’d told them I’d sleep on the couch until we figured something out. I don’t think anyone believed her. It had been a lie, of course, because I don’t sleep, and I’ve never laid down anywhere other than a cubicle. I hadn’t even laid down on the bunks in the transport, just sat on them while recharging. But still. People had been a little weird—weird enough I’d picked up on it.

Maybe she had been right about the whole clothing making humans feel certain ways about you as a “person” thing. I didn’t understand how pants could be ‘too tight,’ it wasn’t like there was anything there to see, and they weren’t splitting open or anything.

Anyway.

The accommodations were fancy by slave labor facility standard but probably sparse by normal human standards: a main room with a small couch that could maybe fit three humans—if they liked being in contact with each other—facing wall display, a small table with two chairs along one wall, and a long counter with food prep and storage areas built into it along the wall behind the couch. There was also a small bathroom with a shower and a small bedroom with a bed and storage cabinets. We’d dropped our bags in a corner earlier.

Mariss kicked off her shoes, put an episode of Beach World Party on the display, dropped onto the couch, and patted the seat beside her. When she fell asleep against me sometime later, I found it to be an enjoyable experience. I never would have expected that.

I never would have expected to willingly sit through something a human called ‘snuggling,’ even in jest. What a stupid word. (Thank the stars she’d never called it that when she’d done it on the RaviHyral transit tubes.) Or for a human who knew I was a SecUnit, who had seen me literally blow people’s heads off, to fall asleep with her head tucked against my shoulder, with my hand—which, again, she’d seen me throw a baton hard enough to snap someone’s neck—resting on her side, her arm wrapped around my midsection like she didn’t care about the inorganic joins I’m sure she could feel through my shirt.

Why did I like this?

Why was I like this?

I was so, so defective.

Chapter Text

We had two weeks until her defense. She had an outline of the talk. Some visuals. She knew her papers. She knew all the relevant materials. She’d read the responses that had dribbled in after publication and thought through how to address the questions raised. We’d spent hours discussing.

And each time she tried to practice giving the talk—half an hour, easy, humans talked that much all the time without even trying or having anything to say—she froze.

From there Mariss did what humans call spiraling.

Some cycles were okay. Some had me dragging her out of the bed and into the bathroom. She wouldn’t take anything. I knew humans could ingest things instead of downloading code updates. She wouldn’t find a trauma protocol or whatever version of it they had here. She just sort of lumped.

It was on a bad cycle that there was a sudden banging at the door. My energy weapons were charged and I was rolling up my sleeves when Mariss groaned from the bedroom: “tell them to go away.”

Oh. It was someone knocking at the door. Like in an old historical drama. Because Mariss had disabled the call button and whoever was there had realized it.

Shit.

I opened the door.

Dr. K was standing there. Oh fuck.

I opened it wider and slipped into the hall, trying to keep my face neutral. I could feel it wasn’t neutral.

“Ti,” she said with false good humor. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

Because it was weird I was here. Everyone thought it was weird. Even I thought it was weird.

“Hi.” I could only look down at her for a second before I had to stare at something down the hall. I’d manage to avoid talking to any of the humans one-on-one as much as possible. I knew I’d say something strange that would only raise more questions.

“Mariss was supposed to meet me for coffee.”

I caught myself mid-sigh. Fucking stupid stupid-human code. Before when I’d sighed it was usually intentional and it was always pretty subtle. Now everyone could see it.

“She’s not feeling well. Sorry.”

She ran a hand along the bottom of her face and looked past me at the door. That was a little easier to deal with. “Is she—in our messages she was always very bright and cheerful, despite her situation.” Ah, the old Mariss. “But since she’s arrived, she has not seemed like she’s settling in well. Is there anything I could do to help you both?”

“Do you know where she can get a trauma protocol?” I blurted out. Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Dr. K’s eyes widened, and she was staring at me again. I glanced down at her but this was so fucking hard. I wished there were standard protocols for pretending to be human. Anything but this directionless flailing, scanning back through media clips and interactions I’d seen and trying to piece together what I was supposed to do and say. Extrapolating from examples that were of no use in any situation I had found myself in for the past week.

Her face sort of fell into a sad smile. What was that expression? Pity? No, not that bad. Sympathy? “Yes. I have some recommendations.”

“Our friend died,” I said. Because I was malfunctioning. Because I was defective. Because no one had ever been sympathetic at me before. Deity, I should be melted down.

She pressed a hand to her chest. “Oh no.”

“The—the night Mariss’ indenture ended. She is not—processing it well.”

“What happened?”

Fucking nosy humans. Deity, just leave me alone. She seemed to read that in my face. It would be nice to have a helmet again. Maybe if I turned off the stupid-human code? But Mariss had said I was expressive even before it. The face muscles were too hardwired to the human neural tissue. Which is why helmets were invented.

“I’m sorry I asked. I will send you some listings for trauma councilors. Are you alright?”

Fuck me. I covered my face with my hands. Why was I doing this? Faceplate—a faceplate would be great right now.

“Would you like to come with me for a coffee?” she said gently.

And because I’m an idiot, I went. I let her buy me a cup of hot stimulant I couldn’t drink, and then I sat across a table from her, pretending to sip at it while she quietly sat and watched people walking past the windows until I broke.

“Geosup—the geology supervisor—she told everyone Mariss’ indenture was ending. You—you don’t tell people that. It’s the stupidest fucking thing to do.”

“I would have expected people to be happy for her?” she said with real surprise.

“You’d think that, if you didn’t know anything about human nature,” I said and immediately regretted it. Dr. K was a nice woman from a nice planet full of nice people. There were no indentures here. Of course she’d expect the best. “Bad human nature,” I added. “Bad humans’ human nature.”

“It’s okay. I get what you’re saying.”

Okay, pull myself out of that recursive loop. “Word got around. There were some—malcontents—in the facility. One of them had been after her for years, but we’d mostly managed to keep him away from her. That night he—there was an incident. Our friend got there before me and—didn’t make it.”

“Before you? You weren’t another geotech?”

“No,” I sighed. “I was security.”

Oh shit. I shouldn’t have said that either. I shouldn’t have said any of this. I dragged my hands down my face. Stupid code. What was I doing? Some nice human sits quietly with me for twenty minutes, and I just give everything up? There was nothing in my information extraction modules about sitting quietly somewhere pleasant to get people to spill information. And here I was talking. Shit.

“That must have been hard.” It was the eyes. She was looking at me with a sort of patient, kind expression I’d never seen directed at a SecUnit before, let alone at me. Mariss knew better than to make that kind of—compassionate—face at me. And it short-circuited every sensible processor I had.

“Some security,” burst out before I realized I should stop it. “I was useless. He should have never gotten into her room. He bit her! What kind of fauna bites a person?” I was pulling at my own hair, staring down at the table. Trying not to see the injuries again. Trying so, so hard not to hear Mariss screaming.

Dr. K’s sudden increased alarm put me on alert. Her vitals were fucking stressed, and she was looking at me like she didn’t see me.

“Oh Void, that poor girl,” she whispered. Okay, maybe I could go memory wipe myself and pretend none of this had happened. “And your friend stopped it?”

“Yeah,” I looked out the window. “It knew something was going to happen. It was smarter than me.”

And—I’d just really screwed myself. Why had I ever thought it was safe to try to carry on a conversation with a human? Defective, defective, defective. Nothing had ever gone well when talking to humans. It was Lyelyn laughing when I admitted I was jealous all over again but the sinking, hopeless feeling was a million times worse.

“SecUnits are supposed to have much greater processing power than humans and advanced threat assessment algorithms,” Dr. K said evenly. “It’s no surprise then that it got there first.”

I must have look shocked, because she smiled slightly.

“We’re not naïve, we know what goes on in the Corporation Rim. We are a research university, after all. After Mariss told me there were nine SecUnits in the facility I did some background reading. I admit, I was very concerned for her safety, at first.”

I continued to be unable to shut my fucking mouth and said, “What did she tell you about them?” I was the least security-competent SecUnit to ever exist. I might as well be a human for how badly I was doing.

She sighed and looked out the window again. “That they were worse off than the humans. From what I’ve read, I believe her.” Then she really looked at me, and I felt a new flush of alarm—hard to believe I could get even more worked up. Was she putting together what she’d read with what was sitting across the table from her? Had she had me scanned at some point? Run the comparisons against unit standard?

“I’m guessing you may also benefit from a trauma counselor.”

I sort of jerked backwards, involuntary movement from my stupid-human code making me telegraph my alarm. Oh why hadn’t I edited it more carefully? Of course the kinds of people who went to ComfortUnit mod dealers wanted their units to physically react to alarm or fear. This would be an issue if I were in combat. I flagged the section of code for adjustment.

“You’ve probably been through a lot too,” she said so kindly I wanted to crawl back into a cubicle and not exist.

I managed to make some kind of noise at her.

“I’m sure you both went through things that would be unimaginable to most people here, but we have excellent mental health services that can help.”

Unimaginable. To most humans. Yes.

Oh fuck, that brought up the bad memory. The one I’d locked farthest away.

I leaned forward, planting my elbows on the table and covering my face. And something happened.

I came to to a sharp poke in my arm, reacting immediately to grab the implement and crush it. As my brain fully came back online to a series of frantic pings and messages from Mariss. I saw I was holding the remains of a disposable utensil in my hand, sitting at the same table, system flooded with stress toxins, breathing uneven.

Mariss crouched a meter away, a cut on her hand from how forcefully I’d ripped the fork away from her. She was unwashed, hair unkempt, in the clothes she’d slept in, but here anyway. She pressed the wound to her lips, and I felt even worse.

And it was hard to feel worse.

Dr. K was across the table, eyes wide. And then I saw all the messages.    

Twenty-two, are you okay?

Twenty-two, could you tell me what’s going on?

Dr. K says you froze up.

I’m on my way, Twenty-two. I’m coming right now. Are you okay?

It’s going to be okay.

We’re safe here.

Twenty-two, it’s me. I’m here.

Hey. Can you hear me?

Order: Any and all physical responses to following action are permitted. Do not punish unit.

“Ti,” Mariss said softly, pulling the hand away from her mouth. She was still bleeding. “Are you with us again?”

“Mariss. I hurt you,” I choked out. And she’d fucking permitted it. Explicitly sent me an order allowing me to hurt her. Shit. If she hadn’t done it, the governor module would have stopped me. She would not be bleeding.

Why would she do that?

“No, no, no, I’m fine.” She tried to hide the hand, wrapping a napkin around it.

She held out her other hand, but stopped a solid forty centimeters away from me.

I stared at her hand and felt all sorts of horrible things. Was she going to touch me? What was she going to do to me? I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t do anything but comply or die. Comply or die.

Comply or die.

“Can I do anything?” she said.

My blood and fluids were pounding in my ears and my head felt wrong. No, I said in the feed because I didn’t trust my voice.

I didn’t want to be touched. Oh deity, how much I did not want to be touched. She pulled her hand back after several more seconds.

“What happened?”

I made a noise.

She was going to order me to tell her. It was going to be like the welding torch incident all over again. But worse. So much worse. Oh Void. Maybe I’d let the governor module deal with it. I wanted to shut down. I didn’t want to—

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said quickly.

My breath caught. Really?

“It’s okay, Ti.”

My breathing was still all over the place. Stupid code. She wasn’t going to make me tell her?

“Do you want to walk? We can walk.”

“Okay,” I said and pushed to my feet. I sort of stumbled a little, catching myself on the table and shaking my head at Mariss’ offered hand. “I’m sorry,” I said to Dr. K, who was staring at us.

“No. Nothing to be sorry about,” she said quickly.

There were—fewer people staring than I expected. I supposed it had all been very quiet. I checked my internal timer and it had only been a few minutes. Still.

While I was looking around, Mariss leaned past me. I jerked backwards, and she had my cup and was chugging the contents.

“Okay, walking,” she said, shooing me past her then turned to Dr. K. “Sorry I missed coffee, also thanks for the coffee.” And she bustled me away without touching me.

Outside, in the cool air that seemed to always be blowing down these artificial canyons, she picked a direction and started walking. I fell in beside her at her pace. After twenty minutes, my systems had cleared a lot of the hormones, and I could think again. I—I hadn’t had something like that happen in years.

Don’t think about it.

I should delete the memory. But I knew it was in my human neural tissue too, and I didn’t want to rely on that alone for context. The hazy memories, just fuzzy clips that altered with too much remembering, made me feel unmoored and even more confused, especially when I woke up from dreaming about them and had to piece together what was real and sieve out what wasn’t.

I knew my human neural tissue. It liked to make things worse. It was the source of all the horrible possibilities always floating around my mind that I was certain were going to come to pass.

Better to have the full memory in case I needed to check it. To say no, I’d kept that hand. The first incision had been on the other arm. That sort of thing.  

Push it all away. Lock it back down. Distract myself.

“You poked me with a fork.”

“Well, I didn’t want to see what would happen if I used my hand.”

I felt horrible about that. The governor module should have stopped me before I actually hurt her—not anyone else—but I didn’t know how strongly it would weigh her order permitting reactions. I didn’t think a client could explicitly permit themself to be killed, but I’d heard stories about—uncomfortable things. Either way, it probably wouldn’t have killed me for attempting to crush her hand, but it would have definitely used one of the higher punishment settings.

“I was trying to make a joke,” Mariss said lightly without looking at me, “and I get the feeling it didn’t land.”

“I don’t like that I was startled into hurting you. I don’t think it’s funny.”

“You didn’t hurt me, the fork did. And I’m fine.” She had her hands in her pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. I took off my jacket and handed it to her. It was comically large on her small frame. That probably bothered her, but she still wrapped herself in it.

“If you do want to talk at some point, I’m here.” She glanced at me. “And if not, that’s okay.”

“You made me tell you before,” spilled out before I could stop it. What the fuck was wrong with me today?

She was silent for eleven seconds. “I’m sorry, Twenty-two. I shouldn’t have. I thought I was protecting you.”

I made a noise at that. “It’s very funny, you protecting me.”

She hunched up a bit more. “Because I’m small and helpless and—”

“Because humans don’t protect SecUnits,” I said. “Especially not from easily repairable damage. That is the whole point of SecUnits.”

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again,” she said with such fierce determination I stopped walking. She looked at me over her shoulder. “I’m serious. I’ll fucking blow off so many people’s heads before I’ll let them touch you.”

I held out my hand, and she took it.

Chapter Text

I made Mariss an appointment with one of the trauma counselors from the list Dr. K sent me—with her apologies for having been insensitive to me. I thanked her without addressing the second part of her message. Then, on the cycle of the first appointment, I took Mariss by the arm and walked her to the transport cab, stuffed her in it, dragged her out at our destination, and walked her inside.

“I don’t need this,” she was saying as a pair of doors slid open and I marched her through.

“You said you would go.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Well, you were crying a lot on the transport here, so maybe you didn’t know what you were saying to me.” That shut her up.

She yanked free of me and plopped herself in a chair to wait. I waited too. To make sure she didn’t run away. When she came out an hour later, her face was puffy, eyes red, with recent crying. I had to guess this was an expected result of counseling, but wasn’t sure.

No wonder she hadn’t wanted to go.

“She was nice, but she has to transfer me to a specialist,” Mariss said without looking at me.

“Good,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.

“Also, I’m supposed to journal now. I don’t want to write this down.”

That—I also would not want to keep a written record of—things. Maybe a highly edited version where half the things I'd experienced hadn’t actually happened to me. But the temptation to go back to it, to dwell in the misery, would be too strong. Misery was too strong a word. I hadn’t known I could be miserable for most of my remembered life. Before Mariss, life was just flat, with dips.

“Do you have to keep it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe you can journal and then delete it?”

“Maybe.”

So I had to add in a daily block of ‘requiring Mariss to journal time.’ She didn’t like all the requirements I had. She didn’t like that I was making her do things, that I had a schedule for her. She started spending more time out with the other grad students. Going to restaurants, going to bars, the sorts of places I wouldn’t be able to pass as an augmented human and wouldn’t enjoy anyway. So I always said no when she asked if I wanted to accompany her.

One night, she came home at 2 o’clock in the morning local time. I’d been putting off a recharge cycle so that I remained alert and was able to ensure she returned safely, though my performance reliability had been dropping as more and more time passed.

“Mariss,” I said as she stumbled through the door and managed to close it. “It’s very late.”

“You don’t sleep,” she told me, voice hoarse—from shouting perhaps? Over the noise of other humans? My media frequently showed this occurrence, even though they could all communicate in the feed instead. She smelled terrible, even from across the room, various human foods, sweat, and recreational smokes.

“You’re right,” I said an initiated a recharge cycle.

~ ~ ~

She made it through the defense. She gave a coherent thirty-minute lecture, answered questions cogently, and impressed a number of people. Afterwards, we all stood outside the conference room waiting for her committee to finish conferring and the humans—other professors, grad students, staff researchers—surrounded her and congratulated her. I was the only entity present not affiliated with the university.

“Thank you for practicing with me so much,” she said to me with a smile I attempted to return. I wasn’t really able to on that front yet—despite the stupid-human code. But her expression still softened as if I had grinned back.

Then Mariss held out a hand to me—and—I—hesitated. She retracted her hand. Fuck. No. I’d wanted to—it was just after that last episode, I—the contact made me anxious. Even though she was different. And then I’d hurt her without even realizing it and—shit.

Something shifted in her demeanor, but she tried to obscure it.

Of course they awarded her her doctorate. And commended her. And Dr. K had arranged a celebratory dinner, which Mariss insisted I accompany her to. It wasn’t terrible.

The humans were all so happy and happy for her. They talked about her work—which I could participate in discussing. They talked about media, some of which I’d seen. They talked about other people, and I did like listening to that. It seemed even real geochemists could be dramatic.

I ordered something small, to blend in, and moved the food around my plate. And managed not to telegraph my surprise when Mariss—who was sitting next to me—started subtly taking food off my plate when other people weren’t looking until it looked like I’d ingested a reasonable amount of it.

Stars, she was clever. And thoughtful. And—

Anyway.

Martine and Cris were asking me about strange synthetics, and I dove in. Something I could carry on a conversation about without risk, because I’d been having conversations about strange synthetics for years, if only with Mariss.

“Where did you get your bachelor’s?” Cris asked as the humans were ingesting the sweet course.

“I didn’t,” I admitted and felt a growing sense of deep unease. How would I answer any questions about how I’d ended up in an Umro mine? Where would I say I was from? Humans are from places—I think. The media makes it seem like they’re all from somewhere.

“You learned this all as a geotech?” she exclaimed loudly enough for people around us to hear.

“Ti was security,” Dr. K interjected with good humor. She’d had several glasses of wine, so I tried to forgive her for this breach of proprietary information. I wasn’t sure I could. Everything was unraveling. If only I’d never gone with her that one time—“Geochemistry is their hobby! Isn’t that amazing?”

She was presenting it as not abnormal?

“It is! How did you do it?” Cris said, putting a hand on my arm and smiling up at me. I didn’t cringe back or push her off. I think I mostly controlled my face. Nobody else seemed to realize how much I disliked the gesture.

Mariss leaned across the table in front of me, elbowing me back in a way that I had to pull my arm from under Cris’ hand. “Ti is the smartest person I know,” Mariss said with an emphatic pat on the table. Apparently this was a reasonable explanation for how a human security agent in an indentured labor facility could learn sufficient material to be—here—having these conversations—with experts.

Maybe intoxicants were good for something after all.

I poured Cris another glass of wine. And one for Martine as well. Perhaps they’d forget this conversation.

As we stepped out of the restaurant, Mariss went to loop her arm around mine and then pulled back.

No.

No.

What had I done?

“Are you going to come with us?” she asked instead, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her over-sized pants and rising up onto her toes.

“Where—am I invited?”

“Of course you’re invited,” she sighed.

Why was she sighing? She probably didn’t relish the prospect of minding me all night. Of having to worry that I would say or do something wrong. That she would be stuck with me. Forever. Because I’d stupidly told her I’d never leave her. What human wanted to hear that?

“No,” I said. “I’m going back.”

She made a face, but she didn’t say anything else aside from ‘goodnight.’

The next morning, I went downstairs to the ill-fated coffee shop and picked up a pair of coffees and various starchy things and brought them back. When Mariss emerged from her room an hour later, we sat down at the little table together, and I held one of the still-warm cups while she—made crumbs everywhere.

Ugh. At least she was decent about cleaning up her own food messes. If not the socks.

I didn’t understand why there were always socks everywhere. Under the ‘coffee’ table, between the couch cushions, in the weird little area behind where the door was when it opened. Socks. She only had like nine, how could they always be everywhere? But they were. 

“Do we have to move again after the graduation ceremony?” I asked.

She winced into her coffee cup and shook her head. That was interesting.

“Now that it’s all done, have you thought about what you want to do?” she asked me.

Follow her across the galaxy killing anyone who even looked at her funny. “No.”

“Well, we have plenty of time. Dr. K lined up a post-doc for me with Dr. Juma. Apparently she was hoping to convince me to give up on the next contract too, and now that I don’t have to go back, she wants me to stay here.”

Obviously.

“I also told her that you disagree with me on some of the formation processes behind the strange synthetics and your modeling is different than mine. So she wants to talk to you about that.”

Fuck no.

“I think she has a lab assistant position for you too, if you want it while we figure things out. She wanted to talk to you about it last night, but you kept ducking her.”

Yeah. I had. I was afraid she was going to ask me questions I couldn't answer. 

“I’m not a lab assistant.”

Mariss looked at me, making a funny face, then looked away.

“You’re right, you should be a PI. You’re a better mineralogist than I am.”

“Mariss—”

“Can you turn off your self-deprecation for two minutes?”

“Probably not.”

She snorted. “Well you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but it’s something you’re good at and there’s a job there and a way forward. They, you know, normally require a bachelor’s to start a grad program here, but they can make exceptions for weird enough cases, and I think you count. You’ve already proved you know the material, and Dr. K thinks it would fit in with the university’s whole slogan of educating anyone from any background who can prove themselves.”

They’d been talking about me? About me being a scientist?

And a job. A job that wasn’t guarding humans. And a—a human degree?

I was meant for guarding humans. And killing them. I was not designed to be a mineralogist. I didn’t think I could have a role outside of my design. It had never occurred to me such a thing was possible.

I told Mariss I’d consider it.

~ ~ ~

I spent a week sort of lurking around the campus, unsure what to do with myself and avoiding the social overtures of the various humans I’d met. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do. Part of me—some deeply damaged, wrong part of me—wished I was back in the mine, with a patrol route, and tasks, and data to process, and not the yawning emptiness of choice before me. Everything had been so much easier.

Unpleasant. Terrible. Dangerous. Bleak. But easy.

It was so easy to follow HubSystem orders.

I just wanted to have something to do and not have to think through all my options and all the potential side effects, and—and everything. All the time. My human neural fiber was only too happy to give me every potential negative outcome to every action I considered, and sometimes it was easier to just sit on the couch in Mariss’ apartment for twelve, sixteen hours and not have to risk anything going wrong or making any more mistakes.

It was bad enough knowing that every interaction I was having with Mariss was going terribly wrong, and I couldn’t stop it.

She probably hated me at this point. A SecUnit that had told her it would never leave her. That lingered in her home. That kept being so fucking weird and awkward every time she forced it into a social situation. That served no purpose anymore, now that she was here, now that she was safe.

Case in point, she came home from a day cycle in the lab, dropped her bag by the door and looked at me, then looked away.

“We need to talk.”

I went on high alert. Threat assessment spiked. The stupid endocrine system flooded me with stress toxins. What could this be about?

“Have I done something wrong?”

“No! No, no, nothing like that. It’s just—remember that talk we had on the transport here?”

Uh oh.

She wasn’t looking at me, so she thought this was serious. Had she not meant it? It had seemed—unlikely. She’d been desperate not to be alone. Now that she had human friends again, would she be telling me she didn’t need me? That I should go?

“And you said you weren’t going to do gross things to me.”

Oh fuck. Was—she—did she want me to? I’d barely been able to hug her before the coffee incident, and I hadn’t since. She couldn’t possibly—

I just kept staring out the window, unable to deal with any of this.

“Are you going to be upset if I go do gross things with other people?”

What.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have that information,” my buffer said. So then I had to say “What?” like an idiot.

She glanced at me, and apparently decided I looked confused enough that this was a real question. I could see she was looking at me through my drones. I couldn’t look at her.

“Ugh. Sorry. This is super weird. I know you don’t want to talk about this or even think about it.”

Correct.

“But I didn’t want to upset you. And I—I wanted to make sure we’re on the same page—about umm things.”

“Mariss,” I choose my words carefully. “I honestly don’t understand what you are trying to say.”

“I have a date with Khalil tomorrow night,” she blurted out. “I might go back to his place afterwards. Is that—it that a problem? Do we need to talk about—”

“Of course not,” I said so smoothly she would never suspect I was suddenly thinking about throttling Khalil. Why? I don’t know. Possibly because of the other thought that had just occurred to me. “Do you want me to move to my own lodgings?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I’m very happy you’re here. But you can always—we can always get you your own place, if you want.”

So maybe she did want me to move to my own lodgings. Because she wouldn’t want to bring someone back here, with me sitting on the couch all night.

I was going to throttle Khalil. Or otherwise dispose of him.

Wait what.

Why did I dislike this person who Mariss had so far only said good things about and was providing another source of stability in her life that wasn’t me? This was a good thing.

I didn’t like Khalil.

I’d only briefly met him, at her defense. He’d been handsome, friendly, and very polite to me. He had hardly registered then. Now he did.

When Mariss was out on her date, I went out and walked. For hours. I kept our feed connection centered in case she called for help. She didn’t call for my help. She was not present.

She returned to the apartment at almost noon the next cycle.

Three hours later, I accepted Dr. K’s offer of a job and the related housing I was entitled to as university staff.

Mariss told me she was proud of me.

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

The housing was ready the following cycle, and I only had two bags to carry over to a staff apartment building about a kilometer away.

Easy.

Done.

Technically, on Lagrange Mariss didn’t own me. There were no constructs. Under old legal standards, anything with human neural fiber was human. So I was an augmented human. Because they’d never had to deal with constructs. And there were no indentures.

I was officially an augmented human with a job on a safe world where no one suspected me of being a violent killer, with housing, pay, and coworkers who wanted to be my friends.

Why was I more unhappy than I’d been at any time since Mariss walked into the security ready room and told the techs to leave me alone?

I didn’t know.

Chapter Text

Two weeks later, my call button alerted. Mariss was at my door. I felt a massive rush of relief. And guilt. And other things.

“Hi,” she said, smiling up at me in an uncertain way as I opened it. She had a large tote bag over her shoulder, the heavy contents deforming its sides. “So, like, my trauma counselor and I have been disagreeing about this for weeks, and I finally just said fuck it, and I’m here anyway.”

Uh-oh.

I stepped aside and indicated she could come in.

“I’m really happy you took the job.”

She set the bag down on my little table and began taking out food items. The layout of my apartment was almost identical to hers, just slightly larger. Why she’d brought food items, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t ask her; my vocalization was malfunctioning.

“I think it’ll be good for you. I was afraid you might go off-world, and I—I’d support you, of course, if that’s what you wanted. But I’m selfish, and I’d be sad about it. And I’d probably try to go with you unless you were really insistent about stopping me.”

I—what—no, she wouldn’t. She was safe here with a nice, stable position. And friends. And someone to do gross stuff with. All the things humans needed.

“She—my trauma counselor—thinks I’m acting on my own abandonment issues right now. She’s worried I’m going to stunt your personal growth if I tell you what I’ve been feeling. Because you feel obligated to do what I want and make me happy because of the whole buying your indenture thing.

“Like with the touching. You don’t like it, but then you were hugging me and stuff. I thought—I thought you did like it then, but I understand now you stopped because you realized you didn’t have to humor me.”

But—that’s not what had happened.

Mariss looked at me but I couldn’t look at her. Why couldn’t I look at her? All I’d wanted since I’d left her apartment was to see her again.

This was so hard. I’d rather face another onslaught of raiders—assuming she was somewhere safe—than this right now. I had to say something.

Nothing came out.

She swallowed and nodded like I’d answered a question.

“And that the best thing to do, for both of us, is give you the space you need after all these big changes and finally getting your freedom, since you clearly are signaling you need space from me. And that’s a totally normal human reaction I should not freak out about, and we need to realign our relationship to be more normal and not so enmeshed.”

She took a big breath. “She thinks you’re establishing healthy boundaries with me.”

I had to look up ‘enmeshed.’

Holy shit.

What?

I stared at Mariss through my drones. My processing capability was somehow not up to keeping up with this. She took the food items and went and put them in the kitchenette, which had been barren up to this point. Oh. Oh. If I had humans over, they would notice there was no food. Stars, I—

Anyway.

“So I ignored all of that because I don’t know that she’s right. And if she’s wrong, I don’t want you to be alone when you’re upset because that sucks. But please tell me to go if you want me to go.”

I absolutely did not tell her to leave. But I was frozen there. All I’d done since arriving was screw up. I was going to screw this up too. She waited a bit, then took a big breath.

“I miss you. And I think I fucked up a lot and that’s why you’re over here now, and not because you’re necessarily growing in a way where you don’t want to see me—at least, I hope. But I think I was out too much? And not doing a good job of making you feel included, because I stopped asking you to come with me after you kept saying ‘no’ when I should have asked every time. Maybe I should have made you come with me like you made me go to counseling? So you wouldn’t feel like you only had me and no one else.”

The stupid-human code was doing something stupid. I’d crossed my arms and my shoulders were hunched and maybe I was trembling a little bit. I don’t know why. My organics were stupid.

“And then you felt something more upsetting and—um. But—I—I’m sorry. I’m messing this up.” She twisted the bag in her hands. “I shouldn’t have said anything. She was probably right, and I’m trying to drag you into stuff you don’t want to be dragged into. I want you to have boundaries. I should have asked if it was okay for me to come here first.”

I’d been ignoring her gentle feed messages asking if I wanted to go on walks together because I didn’t know how to answer them, so that probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.

Mariss turned and tried to walk past me, but I stepped into her path, and she stopped. She was doing something weird and anxious with her hands, staring down at the rumpled bag in them.

“Don’t leave,” I managed at last.

She glanced up at me. Okay. I had to say something else. I could do this. It was Mariss. She thought I didn’t want her here. Which was crazy. But I’d just stood there not looking at her or talking to her, so—

“I miss you too,” I said. “And I thought I was stunting your growth by being there all the time. And that you didn’t need me anymore. I was just in the way.” A liability. A burden.

And I didn’t like knowing that she hadn’t come home that night. That part I still didn’t understand. It felt—it felt less bad now that I had spent a little time with other humans I liked—most of the people around the lab were okay. That night it had felt like she was going off to be a normal human, and I was going to be put back into storage. Like the transport bot was wheeling the cargo box down the corridor into the security ready room for me.

“What?” she demanded, looking up at me.

“You don’t need a SecUnit anymore.”

“You’re my friend! You’re my best friend! I—” She cut off.

“Now you have the chance to make human friends.”

“Shut up!” She stomped her foot and—oh great, she was crying. “Sorry! Cancel order. I’m so sorry! Oh no.” She made a very distressing noise and tried to dart past me.

I caught her. Pulled her over to the couch. Collapsed backwards onto it, lengthwise. And dragged her on top of me.

“Are you—is this okay?” she huffed a bit and fidgeted around.

It was so fucking weird. But somehow I just wanted the contact? Wanted the feeling of the weight of her on my chest, her hair tickling my chin.

“If it wasn’t okay, I wouldn’t have done it,” I said, letting my hands rest on her back. “Is it okay?”

“It’s nice,” she said.

That was a massive relief.

I was so defective.

SecUnits don’t act like this.

This wasn’t part of the stupid-human code.

This was me.

What was I doing?

After a few minutes, she shifted and lifted her head up to look at me. “I thought I was being too pushy, with the contact, and that’s why you stopped wanting to hold hands? So I tried to back off.”

I put my hand on her head and gently indicated she should lie back down. She did. Neat.

“That wasn’t it.”

“Okay.”

She wasn’t going to make me tell her. She wasn’t going to give me an order. She wasn’t going to ask me a clear, actual question that the governor module thought required an answer. She simply accepted that I said it wasn’t her fault.

She stayed there. She shifted occasionally, pillowing her head on her hands after a while. My drones showed me that this looked super weird. Why didn’t she tell me to stop? To let her go?

“You never met my least favorite human,” I said when I thought she was maybe asleep.

She wasn’t. “I thought Zaib was your least favorite human,” she said into my chest

“Least favorite still in the facility. Second least favorite overall.”

Mariss made a noise of acknowledgement. After a few more minutes, I thought maybe I could say the next part. Nothing came out.

I need you to not—not freak out, I told Mariss in the feed.

I’ll try? Uh—what—never mind. So uncertain and yet trusting of me. Despite the fact I’d injured her. Despite the fact I’d done this weird shit—was currently doing something truly abnormal. She pushed up again to look at me, waiting, and I couldn’t look at her. After 4.3 seconds, I pulled her down again. Okay.

Okay. I’d started this.

I was mostly disassembled once.

There was a pause. Disassembled? What does that mean?

Look it up. Okay, it wasn’t fair to snap at her. She was honestly confused. But I was being as explicit as I could be. I wasn’t going to walk her through the steps.

No, she sent. Not ‘no’ to ‘look it up,’ but ‘no’ to what it meant. I didn’t respond. NO.

You are freaking out.

I felt her upset bleeding through the feed. Sorry.

A minute later, in a very small voice, she said, “On purpose?”

“Yes. She ordered me to keep my pain sensors tuned up.”

There was a moment of pure silence, but scans showed her vitals reacting. Then Mariss rolled away from me and flung herself into the bathroom.

I held her hair until she was done. Deity, humans were gross. Then I went and retrieved a glass of water.

She drank it in silence, unable to look at me, her eyes red-rimmed. There was something cathartic about her reaction. As if—as if I was validated in my horror. As if what had happened was not merely an operational security risk and large inconvenience, but wrong.

“Twenty-two, I’m so sorry,” she said a little later.

I helped her to her feet and pulled her back to the couch. She let me pull her onto my lap. Which I liked. So what if I was defective? Mariss liked me anyway. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t be curled up against me, her head on my shoulder, fingers tracing the pattern on the fabric of my shirt, otherwise.

“Something Dr. K said to me brought this memory up from archived storage,” I said after a few more minutes. “And then it caused me to harm you. It made me—afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of you, and I’m sorry I ever made you afraid of me. You—you are really important to me. I don’t want to do stuff that drives you away. But I also don’t know how to—adult. I know you don’t really like when I try to ask you about this kind of stuff, and I don’t know what to do.”

My hands tightened around her. “I don’t want to exist in your living room.”

“I think that’s good,” she said softly against my shoulder. “I’m glad there’s something you know you don’t want. Do you also not want me to date people?”

“No,” I said. “That’s not—I do want to spend more time with you.” All of my time. That wasn’t something I could say. I was her SecUnit, of course I wanted to protect her constantly. But she wanted a friend, not a SecUnit, and friends did not spend all of their time together. I looked at the enmeshment definition again. Ugh. “Maybe we can—have a couple nights a week? To spend time together?”

“Of course!” She looked up at me, eyes wide, expression—hopeful?

“And if you’ll come here, I’ll even watch Rural Idyllic Slaughter with you.”

“You hate Rural Idyllic Slaughter,” Mariss said with a smile.

I made a noise. I’d rather she came here then have to sit on her couch and think about how—I knew Mariss was human. And most—many?—humans were like that. I knew about Lyelyn and that hadn’t bothered me as long as I didn’t have to see it. But now some aspect bothered me.

Anyway, if I had to watch a pair of bumbling detectives wander around a beautiful countryside turning up bizarrely dead humans to avoid thinking about that, I’d do it. And I did like always identifying the killer before her.

~ ~ ~

It was one of my and Mariss’ evenings hanging-out together. I’d sent her a feed message telling her not to bring her normal take-out dinner to my apartment. Instead, I met her in the lobby of her building.

“Where are we going?” she said, grabbing my arm and rising up onto her toes in excitement. She was wearing platform boots and a long, flowy dress in a floral pattern I’d suggested. Three months after arriving, she finally seemed like my Mariss again—most of the time.

“It’s a surprise,” I told her.

I had finally acquired more average pants, which had changed how the humans interacted with me to be less, let’s say, charged. Mariss had also told Cris explicitly—I know because I was eavesdropping through the drone I kept in her apartment—to stop touching me without asking first, and Cris had been too embarrassed about being told off to ask me.

I had been experimenting with shirts as well, to see what I could get away with without revealing my inorganic parts, and playing with textures and colors. I didn’t eat, so I had the money to spend on these sorts of tests. I was finally mostly blending in—as much as someone of my height and build can blend in—instead of standing out despite myself.

A trio of drones circled above us, establishing a security perimeter—just for my peace of mind. There wasn’t actually anything dangerous here that couldn’t be dealt with with a swift kick or a strategically raised eyebrow.

We took a transit cab for twenty-five minutes to one of the large hotels that housed conferences and visiting academics. The sign out front directing us to one of the ballrooms—why are they called this? They mostly hold meetings—gave away the surprise.

“Murder mystery dinner theater?” Mariss said, giving me a look. “This is your nightmare!”

I snorted.

“Twenty-two,” she whispered, “is this a trick and there’s secretly some horrible unscripted show filming here?”

That actually made me laugh. I towed her inside to prove it was in fact, a murder mystery themed around some ancient book series she had apparently read as an adolescent—another win for me. Despite Mariss’ love of the genre, she was actually terrible at determining the murderers, but I promised not to spoil it.

I was right of course.

Mariss and I had been practicing with food. We each ordered—she’d told me in the feed what to get—and I moved the food around my plate and pretended to take bites periodically. No one looked at me closely enough to tell I wasn’t actually ingesting things. Then, half-way through, she told me she wanted to try my food and we switched plates. Nobody else at our table batted an eye even though Mariss was talking with them about the show during the breaks, so they were looking at us.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand how humans coded advanced machine intelligences. I often found myself wondering if SecUnits had been programmed by earlier versions of SecUnits or other constructs. That made much more sense than believing humans had managed to achieve it.

“This was the best,” Mariss told me afterwards as I pulled her arm through mine and hailed a transport cart. “Thank you!”

Take that Khalil.

Khalil was still around. Which was fine—as long as I didn’t have to think about him or acknowledge him.

I couldn’t fully parse my own reaction and didn’t really care to. Obviously, it was some deeply encoded security setting that was malfunctioning because he could be an emotional threat to my client. Though I didn’t have to worry about him popping off like Lyelyn had. Maybe it had something to do with the fact I’d spent years keeping other humans from touching Mariss. Now I was supposed to be okay with it? Gross and annoying.

I’d seen Khalil ‘in person’ again for the first time since her defense a week before at a grad student gathering. He’d specifically sought me out to speak to.

Why? Why do this?

Neither of us actually wanted that. And Mariss had specifically promised me she would not try to make us ‘be friends.’

He’d been annoyingly friendly. Had tried to be engaging. Had asked me about shows I was watching, books I’d read, that kind of shit. He was also clearly terrified of me, which was funny, but I didn’t show it. I tried to be polite, but really I just wanted him to go away so I could pretend he didn’t exist.

“Why is he being like this?” I’d asked Martine when he’d gone off to get us drinks, despite me specifically telling him I didn’t want a drink. Idiot.

She snorted. “Oh, come on, Ti.”

My face did a thing.

“Oh deity,” she laughed then pulled me a little away from the nearest cluster of people. Martine was another of Dr. K’s students, working on her dissertation and often around the lab. “You’re the best friend. She bought out your indenture. You look like you could punch through a wall.”

I could.

“He wants your approval.”

“Pfft,” said my stupid-human code. “It’s between him and Mariss.”

She made a face. “Yeah. Right.”

“Martine, pretend I spent the better part of a decade locked underground with very limited social interaction because everyone was afraid of me except Mariss.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed. I wondered if she’d have the same reaction if she knew I was a SecUnit. Probably not. But I still appreciated the ease with which she dismissed the alarming aspects of my background that had become known. Not all of the others had been so easy around me after learning I used to be corporate security.

“Bud, she would totally dump him if you told her to.”

This was—an oddly pleasing confidence. Mariss had implied the same, but it was difficult to believe she would choose me over a human she was in a relationship with. Oh, maybe she’d told him that too.

“Martine, you are my favorite co-worker,” I told her.

She laughed because she thought I was joking.

Mariss and I were having a pleasantly quiet ride back to my apartment. Mariss resting against me.

And then her face changed. She sat up. She was in the feed, reading something. Fuck it. I didn’t like her expression or the tensing of her limbs. I used our feed connection to jump to her current activity and saw the message.

From her parents.

Asking for money from her exit fee to prevent them from losing the family home.

Hinting that her brother would have to help them if she wasn’t able to. It had been sent to RaviHyral and taken ten cycles to be redirected.

She looked at me, eyes focusing suddenly, and frowned. “I have to go.”

“Hell no,” I said.

Chapter Text

Back in my apartment, I made Mariss a cup of herbal tea and brought it to her on the couch.

“I understand your reservations,” she said, pulling the blanket I’d draped around her closer. It was one she’d bought me, weighted, because it turned out that was—comforting. “But I knew this was coming and I have to deal with it at some point. I have to go.”

There was so much not true in there. She could simply ignore her parents forever. I thought that was the optimal solution. I knew she’d never go for it.

“You need proof of life first,” I said. I was too agitated to sit even though my stupid-human code was indicating this was what I should be doing.

Maybe I’d sort of forgotten about the whole parents thing. I’d been focused on other shit, okay?

“What are you talking about, Twenty-two?”

“You need proof they have not already convinced your brother to enter an indenture before you spend a week and hundreds of CRs traveling to give them ten thousand CRs in ransom money.”

“It’s not ransom money.”

“How is it not a ransom?”

She chewed on her lip and wouldn’t look at me.

“I don’t think I can get it. I haven’t heard from him for two years. He just—one day I was, I guess, not understanding enough in responding to his letter about trouble he was having with his boyfriend at school and he just told me to get fucked and never answered me again.”

Mariss would probably not let me throttle her younger sibling in front of her. Or break a few fingers. Or—

She was looking at me. She shook her head. Damn it, I wasn’t even letting any of this bleed across in the feed. “He’s a dumb kid, he never had to—it was different for the younger ones.”

“Which is a good reason to expect this is a not the deal you think it is. Either he has already been indentured and that is why he doesn’t respond to you, or he does not deserve your help.”

“Twenty-two,” she said, “I’ll try. But I am going.”

I crossed my arms and glared at her. As expected, it had no effect.

~ ~ ~

Dr. K took us both to the port in her own transport cart to see us off. She’d been totally fine with letting me have a couple weeks away from my new job if it meant Mariss had company. It felt a bit like Supervisor Jean-Marie sending me along to keep Mariss safe and ensure she didn’t escape. I didn’t like the echo.

At the entrance to the embarkation zone. Dr. K put both hands on Mariss’ shoulders. “You are coming back, aren’t you, Bernez?”

“Yes,” Mariss said with a faint smile.

I crossed my arms and added, “I’m going to make sure of it.” Both women made faces at me.

“You be safe too, Guerrero,” Dr. K told me without touching me because she had been good about picking up on that.

It was so weird having humans concerned about me. She’d change her tune if these weapons scan deflectors malfunctioned after three months of non-use and I got caught out having energy weapons in my arms when trying to board the station shuttle. Try not to think about that.

We made it through okay, Dr. K waving to us, and boarded a shuttle up to the station. It was a five-cycle trip to Mariss’ home system, and she was kind of freaking out the whole time.

Her brother had not responded. And she’d brought the money anyway.

I tried to engage her by talking about her new research and about mine. I even offered to watch a historical mini-series, which was worse than one of her absurd death-fest serials or gory reenactments of actual crimes.

It got so bad, we spent the better part of one day cycle in her bunk with her sort of latched onto me while watching something even worse—a historical romance mini-series. I backburned my audio, setting keyword triggers, and spent a couple hours writing a program to judge the social inappropriateness of our current behavior, running it with the starting assumption I was a SecUnit, then again assuming I was an agender augmented human. Both turned out some not-great results, so I should probably never mention this to any humans, especially any that were friends with Khalil.

Then I expanded it to analyze my various clothes and whoops. Maybe Mariss had been right about that first mesh shirt. Whatever. I still planned to keep it in storage.

A cycle before we were scheduled to arrive, I was considering whether it would be best to just pick Mariss up and carry her to the first transit back to Lagrange instead of allowing her to meet with her family. I liked that idea, which meant she probably would not agree. And I did not want to cause her to accidentally give me an order while distressed, which would distress her further. It bothered both of us to be reminded that—that she owned me. 

“This whole trip is a bad idea,” I told her from my bunk where I was practicing laying down. I didn’t really love it. It was a vulnerable position that added time to combat readiness. Humans seemed to do it any chance they got.

“It gets worse,” Mariss said from the small workstation where she’d been trying and failing to write a lecture for the upcoming semester.

I pushed up onto an elbow to get a better look at her. See, laying down, not a good idea.

“How?”

“So the first stop,” Mariss, was tearing at her sleeves again, staring down, doing all the things to indicate she thought she was going to upset or stress me. She swallowed. “The first stop is my lawyer.”

“The family lawyer?” The one who had helped her negotiate her initial contract then sue Umro. Who she’d been sending messages and the video to. Made sense.

“Um, so, not actually my family lawyer, my lawyer,” she said, shifting uncomfortably.

I’d thought it was weird she’d had a family lawyer that would help her when her family was—like this. It was—it was weirder for her to have one of her own.

“How did you afford a solicitor?” If she’d known in advance enough to save for one, then it was hard to understand why she hadn’t just refused the indenture.

Her face did something really upsetting and she ran into the bathroom, locking it behind her. Ah fuck.

“Mariss,” I called through the door. “What’s wrong?”

I can’t tell you, she sent in the feed.

What can’t you tell me?

There was silence. I left her alone for ten minutes.

“Mariss, you have to warn me what I’m walking into,” I called in to her.

“I didn’t have money,” she said, her voice weird.

“Okay.” That wasn’t an answer or helpful in any way.

There was another extended pause.

“You’re going to think—you’re going to think I’m horrible,” she said in a small voice that I almost had to press an ear to the hatch to hear.

“That’s impossible. Will you please come out?”

“Twenty-two, you’re going to think—”

“I am not going to think anything negative about you! Don’t make me remove this hatch from the wall.” There was no movement on the other side. “Mariss, I have seen you bludgeon a man to death. Do you think this is worse than that?”

“To you? Probably.”

I muttered a string of profanity to myself, quietly, so she wouldn’t hear me. I apologize for ever making you feel that way, I sent in the feed.

I didn’t have money, she repeated.

Okay. Again. What the fuck does that mean?

So you owe them now? I tried.

The hatch opened and she was standing there, staring at me incredulously. “How the fuck can you be so smart and so fucking slow?” she demanded.

I made one of the recommended big gestures for frustration and annoyance. “I don’t know, you tell me, human.”

“I didn’t have money,” she grit out, making a sharp gesture with both hands—at herself.

Ah. Ew.

I blew out a long breath. “Well you can’t fuck him again now. Khalil would be very upset. Did you bring sufficient payment for the lawsuit?”

She dragged her hands down the sides of her face. Then she clasped them together and made a face. “Yes.”

“Good. I still think we shouldn’t see your parents.”

She made a guttural noise and went back into the bathroom.

I went for a run on the treadmill in the human recreation room. It was upsetting to think I’d caused her such a—a difficulty. I didn’t like her assessment of my reactions. Was I really that judgmental?

Okay, yes.

Often. When we were watching media. But that was different. The point of media was to judge the humans and feel better about oneself. The actual humans around me were a different matter. I didn’t judge Patel for being a slovenly little gossip. I’d never tell Cris that her issue with maintaining a romantic relationship was her own emotional instability. Or tell Martine her girlfriend was using her for free room and board—though I had been attempting to subtly suggest to Martine that there was a discrepancy in levels of attachment there.

Humans. So difficult.

~ ~ ~

We stopped at a door in an upscale are of the station’s residential section—if media was any guide here—and Mariss rang the call button. The door was opened by an augmented human male, feed ID Byun Jimin, profession solicitor, age—approximately twenty years older than Mariss.

They hugged in greeting. He seemed genuinely happy to see her. His expression and body language was hitting all the marks for genuine affection. He had probably done more than any person, other than Sixty-four, to get her out of indenture as quickly as possible.

And I’d break every bone in his hand if he tried to touch her in an unwelcome manner.

“Is this the SecUnit?” he said, making no attempt to lower his voice as he looked at me. I didn’t look like a SecUnit—why—

“Yes,” Mariss said, glancing over her shoulder. “This is Twenty-two. Twenty-two, this is Jimin.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said and extended a hand.

He shook it with apparent delight. “Excellent!” He waved us inside. “I am so sorry about the other one. It’s hard to loose something you’ve gotten so attached to.” He glanced at me again. “And really, it looks just like a person. I had no idea.”

“Twenty-two is a person,” Mariss said softly.

“Yes, of course, you know what I meant, a human. It looks human. I always assumed they looked like bots under the armor.”

There were snacks, and drinks, and light pleasant music in the background. And comfortable chairs, beautiful furniture, art on the walls, display surfaces subtly hidden.  

Jimin kept offering me things to eat until I finally said, “I’m unable to ingest nutrients. I use resupply lines when damaged.”

“Fascinating,” he said, putting down a plate of small, strongly scented stuff and returning his attention to Mariss.

He’d been asking her about Lagrange, how she liked it, how they were treating her—confirming she didn’t need help getting out of there.

I was—I could almost like him. If not for the lingering knowledge that he’d taken advantage of a frightened, desperate girl in a way that had left her crying in shame in a transport over it.

But from the way he was talking to her like they were old friends, I got the impression he didn’t understand that was what he’d done.

Fucking humans.

He also advised her not to meet with her parents. And offered to draft them a strongly worded letter about leaving her alone. Fucking hell, man, don’t make me like you.

Media mess is so much more enjoyable and easier to deal with than real mess.

He had a guest room for her to stay in and refused her attempts to pay him for his help with the lawsuit. They finally compromised on her taking him to a nice dinner on the station. I was thankful to stay behind and recharge angrily in a corner.

I declined to accompany them the next morning to breakfast and a stroll around various areas of the station that were familiar to them both. I did consider compiling an anonymous report to send to Khalil. I don’t know why. Not to get rid of him, necessarily, but because this felt so off. And like I was a bit lost and confused about what was going on, but I felt like I should be angry. Or I wanted to be angry so I wouldn’t have to feel anything else.

Anyway, once they came back, Mariss asked if I would walk around with her, and we did, and that felt a bit better. Until dinner time.

Mariss’ parents picked a very expensive restaurant on the station for dinner that night. I assumed they assumed she would pay. I was looking forward to them learning that wasn’t happening.

It was her parents and her youngest sibling, who looked me up and down with a critical eye. I immediately did not like this sibling. The brother was not present. Time to abort.

We need to leave, I told Mariss in the feed. Beside me she was already shrinking, physically, and emotionally.

The parents told her how much they’d missed her. How much they loved her. How happy they were to see her. None of which would have been necessary if they hadn’t fucking bullied her into entering an indenture.

Maybe they were actually sorry?

The youngest sibling made some half-hearted welcome attempt, but then had not even been an adolescent when Mariss had left, so maybe there was no real connection there?

The parents greeted me with wary politeness. I was more than capable of identifying when humans were sizing me up. They each made a number of remarks about the unexpected, but of course delightful, surprise of meeting me.

“Oh Mariss, always picking up strays,” her mother said fondly, but with an edge. Like there was buried criticism there?

She then told me some inane story about child-Mariss doing something childish. Both parents and the younger sibling laughed while Mariss shrunk further.

“That sounds like standard behavior for children,” I said mildly while putting an arm around her. “Especially when insufficiently supervised by adults.” I could practically see them recalculating. How had these people produced Mariss?

Beside me, Mariss unwilted a bit.

“Of course,” her mother said, grabbing Mariss’ arm. “She was always our wild little girl, going off on her own and getting into trouble!”

Doubtful.

“Where’s Jorge?” Mariss asked, rebuffing her mother’s attempt to pull her away from me into a hug.

I was proud of her for that.

“He had work and couldn’t make it,” her younger parent said, “but he’s grateful you’re here.”

“Is he? He hasn’t bothered answering any of my messages for over two years.”

“You send too many messages,” her little sibling, Lina, huffed. “We can’t answer all of them.”

“There isn’t much else to do when you’re trapped in a corporate slave labor camp,” I said.

Mariss’ mother blanched and looked around anxiously while Lina rolled their eyes. “It sure looks like she found something else to do,” they sneered at me.

Excellent. This was an excellent plan. I was so happy we were here.

I made a face at Mariss. “They’re even more charming than you implied,” I drawled and got a really angry look out of the brat. “I told you your brother had already been sold into slavery and this trip was a waste of time and money.”

Mariss’ mother hushed me. “Of course Jorge hasn’t been indentured,” she said quickly. “What a ridiculous thing to say! He's working!”

On a contract—a labor contract, even. Out of the system. Obviously.

“Why is it ridiculous? It’s what you did to your eldest daughter. It’s what you told her would happen to him if she didn’t—”

“Ti,” Mariss said urgently, taking my hand.

Her other parent was glaring at her. The rage and disappointment in that look would have amused me, given the utter absurdity of it, the impotence of this nobody glaring like they could do some real damage, if it hadn’t been directed at my human. If it hadn’t been making her feel so fucking upset.

Then the server came over to lead us to our table, and Mariss rejected my suggestion we just walk out and leave this dumpster fire.

Just imagine what Sixty-four would say to them, I sent in the feed as we were seated.

Amusement flitted across Mariss’ face. They’re still my family, she sent back a moment later.

Are they? Or did they stop being your family five years ago?

She tilted her head slightly at that.

“Mariss, you haven’t even asked about our neighbors yet,” the mother started in. “They’re going to be so sad when I tell them you forgot them.”

“I’m sure they forgot me first,” Mariss sighed.

Thank the stars she wasn’t falling for it.

It went on like that for a subjective torturous eternity that was an objective 10.3 minutes before the waiter returned to receive orders.

I ordered a salad. Lina made some snide comments about watching my weight. I didn’t slap them out of their seat. I did visualize it while looking at them, and that seemed to upset them. I wasn’t sharing it in the feed or anything, but there was probably something in my face to indicate I was casually considering violence.

Mariss ordered a cut of meat. Just like her parent and Lina. Her mother gave a soft laugh.

“Mariss, you’ve always been such a little piggy,” her mother said fondly. You’d think it was fond, if you went by the tone, and the laugh, and the smile, and ignored the fucking words.

“She is nothing like a pig,” I cut in before Mariss could change her order.

Even the waiter looked uncomfortable, and it was their job, as I understood it, to smile through the vilest shit humans could come up with.

“I didn’t mean literally,” her mother said lightly, as if I were absurd, not understanding. I—I wanted to break her nose.

“You really brought this person here, to our family reunion, to fight with your mother?” her other parent said with withering disapproval.

“It’s not much of a reunion without Jorge,” I said before Mariss could start apologizing, “and I was so looking forward to meeting him.”

Their eyes narrowed at me.

“What’s a handsome young person like you doing with our daughter?” the mother said next as the first course was arriving.

“Having dinner.”

Mariss took a bite and then pushed it away. For fuck’s sake, Mariss. For fucking fuck’s sake.

Your trauma counselor warned you about this, I told her.

I know, but I’m not really hungry. Thank you for being here. I’m sorry they’re being themselves.

“I’m sure you have to fight the girls and boys off,” she tried again.

“Oh yeah,” Mariss said lightly, on my behalf. “With a big stick. It’s pretty funny.”

“It must be hard for you, dear. But I’m sure Ti never gives you anything to worry about.”

I was not going to kill Mariss’ mother in front of her.

I was not going to kill Mariss’ mother in front of her.

I should have made a quip about how I gave her boyfriend plenty to worry about. That would have been smooth and clever and disrupted the attack. It didn’t happen.

“This is the kindest, most intelligent woman I have ever met,” slipped out in the haze of my frustration and rising anger.

“Oh, so you’re a ‘personality’ guy. Good for Mariss,” Lina said and exchanged an amused look with their parent.

I hadn’t prepared nearly enough for this engagement. I pretended to drink. It was the first time i wished i could drink. I did not crush the glass in my hand. 

“We’re so happy to have you back, Mariss. We even found you a new job!” Her mother smiled and did something emphatic with her shoulders. “Isn’t that wonderful? Your ren did so much work getting it for you.”

It felt like cold cleaning fluid had just been dumped over me. While I still had open wounds.

“It’s a lab assistant position, back home, where you belong.” Mariss’ mother put her hand on my client’s hand, and I felt my energy weapons cycling up.

We need to leave, I sent in the feed.

Mariss had totally frozen.

“The pay isn’t great, but after your lack of work experience,” her other parent shrugged, “it’s the best you can do. But more importantly, you’ll be back with us.” They sent a meaningful glance at me. I was no longer needed or welcome. 

Mariss, who was so valuable a squad of six human enforcers had been dispatched to abduct her. Mariss, who knew more about strange synthetics most humans. Mariss, who was valuable enough that Umro was going to pay her in SecUnits. Dr. Bernez, who had made it through Lagrange.

A lab assistant.

Because she lacked ‘work experience.’

I couldn’t tell if it was good boundary setting or an alarming fear response that had kept her from telling them she had a fucking doctorate. Or that we had not come straight from RaviHyral.

They thought she had just left the indenture.

They thought she had nowhere else to go.

They thought they could treat her the way they had always treated her. They’d separate her from her remaining money, and friend, and then she’d be trapped.

But she had gotten out four month early. She had gotten a new position. And friends. And she had me.  

The next course was delivered, and Mariss stared down at the food in front of her. She hadn’t said anything. And they seemed to expect her not to. To just sit there, and accept, and be silent, and—this woman had shot four people. Why was she putting up with this? She could easily order me to reorder all of their faces. I’d do it happily if given the option.

Please eat something, I said.

She looked up at me. She wasn’t on the verge of tears. She was empty.

“It will be good to have you home again, to have the extra hands around the house,” her parent was saying. “Lina will appreciate having a break!”

Lina nodded with enthusiasm. I couldn’t fucking take it any more. I dropped a video file in that little shit’s feed.

“I’m sure Lina has had a very hard time.” I made no attempt to control my tone.

Lina’s eyes had unfocused. It was a good thing I’d kept my temper as long as I had. They’d made it half-way through their food. And a quick scan showed it wasn’t going to stay down. They pushed from their chair abruptly and ran—ran for the toilet. Ha.

What did you do? Mariss asked. Well there was emotion at least, real alarm. And concern. And worry—for me—which was stupid. I sent her the video.

She was upset. It would be upsetting to see yourself being strangled in a mess hall full of people doing nothing but scream, but I liked the part where she stabbed Jephasen. Also where he got shot in the face. I had watched that clip a lot.

“You didn’t,” she said, out loud.

“Why not? They should learn what corporate labor is like since it’s in their future.”

The parents went dead silent for a moment.

“What the hell did you send our child?” the younger parent demanded. The mother was in the feed, tapping Lina. Lina must have sent the video because she gasped suddenly.

“How could you send something like that to a child?” she demanded. Upset, not about what had happened to Mariss, but that Lina was upset about seeing what had happened to Mariss.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said.

Mariss’ mother dropped her spoon. Her other parent gaped at me.

“Seventy-five thousand CRs wasn’t enough for you? You threaten her into coming back here so you can squeeze more money out of her.”

Mariss had hunched up beside me, eyes wide, frozen. The parents were looking around, upset that the humans at the neighboring tables could hear me. Oh good. Good to know that was distressing. I increased my volume. And I sent this to Lina too, starting with the amount of money they’d already gotten.

“You told her unless she came up with ten thousand CRs you were going to force Jorge into an indenture, and he’s not here, so I guess you got impatient. Then to add further insult, you say you’ve found her a new job and expect her to take it. To stay here where you can continue to bleed her for resources. She already has a job. She is overqualified for anything in this shitty system.”

“Are you going to let him talk to us like this?” her parent demanded.

My feed ID said “they/them” so this was about in keeping with what I expected from these people.

Mariss looked at me with terrified eyes. She was still afraid of them. She had a personal SecUnit. She’d killed people. She had an independent source of income. And she was afraid of these indigent parasites.

“Ti,” she said anxiously, like she was afraid they could hurt me too.

“What are they going to do to me?” I asked her with a careless wave of my hand at her parents—who I was now ignoring because they were not important. “What could any person in this restaurant other than you do to me?”

“Nothing,” she whispered. The other humans at the table were talking and exclaiming. I didn’t shoot them. Mariss was still looking at me, then she nodded. “Nobody can do anything to you—to us.”

“Exactly. The only thing hurting me is watching them treat you like this.”

She—it was like something snapped in her and she sort of sagged before pulling herself up again.

“Oh deity,” she whispered. “I’m falling right back into it.”

“At least you see it this time,” I told her.

It was a damn good thing she’d had several months of trauma counseling before their message arrived.

I stood and pulled Mariss from her chair. I was not going to let her stay, but I was going to give her the illusion of choice. My trauma counselor said that it was important to have choices, to be able to make them.

“Can we please go back to hanging out with that solicitor who is far too old for you? I think I like him more than Khalil.”

That actually made Mariss laugh.

“And then we will track down your worthless, ungrateful brother and buy him, but only if that would make you happy.”

“Okay.”

I pushed her a little ahead of me with the clear indication I was following then turned back to the table. Her mother was doing a good set of theatrics. It would have played well on Beach World Party. Her other parent had risen out of their seat and was aggressively posturing at me and throwing a lot of insults. Hilarious.

“Are you going to let him take my baby girl away from me?” The mother flapped like some ground-dwelling avian.

I wanted to ask if she meant her punching bag but managed to restrain myself.

“This is all you’re getting from us,” I said, throwing a hard currency card down on the table. “And if you contact Mariss again, you will be dealing with me, and only me.” I was tempted to leave behind a drone to capture their reactions when they found out it only had 100 CRs on it, but it was too risky.

Yes, I had brought it specifically for this purpose. Yes, Martine was going to call me a petty bitch when I told her about it—but in an approving sort of way.

Yes, it was worth it.

Chapter Text

Journal Extract

It wasn’t the worst idea in the galaxy. In our shared planning documents, it had even seemed like maybe a good idea. Mariss was going to teach a weeklong summer session course at another university. It would be pointless for me to accompany her. It was a direct transit from Lagrange’s port to theirs and she would be in class all day cycle for a week straight.

Mariss agreed to keep one of my intel drones in her traveling bag along with one of the devices to keep it from tripping scans. And I was going to one of the Corporation Rim’s top geochemistry conferences to give a paper and “network”—in the annoying human way, not the clean, straightforward bot way.

Also, both of our trauma counselors had been practically begging us to spend time apart for more than a year.

Dr. K had sprung trauma counseling on me as a requirement of keeping my job three weeks into the job, once Mariss and I were—I guess—visibly around each other again? And then she made it a condition of other stuff too. In short, I was being blackmailed into it. It sucked but whatever. I had refused to be on the twice a week schedule they had Mariss on. I had other shit to do.

But if I’d kept telling my trauma counselor to mind their own damn business because I had no need to practice my independence, I would never have ended up in a situation where I’d killed several humans, in front of Dr. K and Martine, with the energy weapons in my arms, and indirectly traumatized Patel by leaking all over him.

So fuck trauma counseling.

Martine’s work focused on the intersection of soil micro-biomes and terraforming, i.e., how to speed up creating human-usable soil since the multi-decade process was such a resource drain and a danger to colonists. Geo-microbiology, because that was a word.

Patel was looking at formation processes across different systems, comparing studies of deep time.

Dr. K was just there to schmooze. And probably to make sure I was not too weird in public.

My work obviously focused on strange synthetics. Because, yeah, whatever, I did like geochemistry, and the people I worked with, and the very fancy university planet I had ended up on with Mariss. And I’d found a good way to stay there.

Lagrange was making me do the bachelors at the same time as the PhD. Which was stupid. But easy. They’d let me test out of the lower-level science and math courses for credits and count any shared classes’ credits towards both degrees. I had maxed out the allowed credits for each semester, the summer session, and winter break. I was about half-way through.

It was a damn good thing there’d never been another construct openly on Lagrange, or they would have realized what was going on.

After a three-cycle transit, we’d arrived without issue at NexWayGate Station, a large transit hub in a system that hosted another prestigious university, thought a bit less intimidating than Lagrange. The system map showed no ‘comet’ deflection arrays.

The station was formed from a long series of interconnected spheres, the transit rings all bunched at one end. The first sphere up from the rings housed a conference center—interconnected hotels, restaurants, event spaces, meeting rooms, and stuff to entertain the humans. There were theaters, bars, lounges, recreational facilities, and an ‘amusement zone’ that seemed to primarily consist of equipment designed to simulate near-death experiences. What a terrible idea.

The conference was a week long, full of papers, open forums, scheduled social activities, and presumably a lot of intoxicants. Humans loved their intoxicants. As we were approaching to dock, Martine kept trying to convince me we should go to the ‘amusement zone’ one night cycle because she had not been on any amusement rides in several years and wanted to be turned upside down and shaken at high velocity.

Of course this was a thing humans enjoyed.

Of course. Why not?

What’s a little brain damage now and again?

Again, they really liked intoxicants.

“That’s not really my speed,” I told her.

Patel laughed.

“Ti, you’re the most anxious person I know,” Martine said. Maybe I was doing the finger joint popping thing again. Who can say? “Live a little. It’s totally safe!”

“I’ll go. Unlike Guerrero, I’m not scared of a roller coaster,” Patel said.

The humans slapped hands while Dr. K shook her head at them.

It was weird being without Mariss. I couldn’t just reach out in the feed and feel her there. I really missed the sort of silence-filling chatter she was so good at. She was always telling me things, about her day cycle, other people, interesting fauna—she had so many stupid facts about fauna—and I missed it.

And I—I apparently missed physical contact? I hadn’t expected that. I thought I’d be fine not touching any humans for a couple weeks. I had not packed the weighted blanket, so maybe that was a mistake.

One week. I just had to get through one week. Then the three-cycle trip back.

At this point, I was less panicked by embarkation zones. The gun seller on RaviHyral had known their business, even if they had directed us to that mod dealer I still planned to eliminate if I ever happened to have the opportunity.

Through the docks, through the mall, and then to entrance to the conference center, and through the hotel scanners.

Void, the lobby was packed. Lines at the check-in kiosks. Lines at the help kiosks. Lines at the conference check-in bots. Humans shouting to each other across groupings of dark green couches and royal blue chairs. Humans rushing around, waving, getting lost in their feeds.

Overhead, an ornate, constantly shifting, geometric pattern in gold and cerulean traced the domed ceiling. The building supports had been shaped into fluted columns in tan simulated stone, and the floor was a mosaic of different shades of the same, broken up by carpets with patterns echoing the ceiling’s. There were real trees in massive pots delineating seating areas. I flicked out a couple drones.

The upper levels of the lobby had more seating, little clusters screened by real and holo-flora.

“Ti.” Dr. K was at my elbow.

I looked down at her and saw her hand paused just above my arm.

“This way,” she said, retracting her hand.

“Dr. K,” I found myself saying because I was the stupidest failure of a SecUnit ever to come out of a Barbican factory. “Do you mind?” I held out a hand. She smiled and let me tuck her hand around my arm.

Not the same. But not unpleasant.

We checked in—in the three different places we had to check in—and were free for the rest of the cycle. I was not going to the welcome dinner. I was not going to the welcome drinks. I was not going to the welcome after party. I finally managed to politely ditch my humans and retreated to my hotel room where I flopped across the bed, turned down the lights and watched a couple episodes of Planet Challenge.

Once I was calmer, I decided, since I was going to be here a week, I might as well get comfortable. HotelSecSystem was quite confused how it had previously overlooked its latest security bot and quick to remedy the error by giving me access to all its cameras. I flagged someone shoplifting in one of the gift stores and it was suddenly too focused on redirecting its human security to notice me rifling through the attached systems. Why yes, it is important to our mutual security for me to have access to the management feed. Thanks for offering.

Okay. So I felt a little better. And I could watch my humans without having to be surrounded constantly by other humans. And oh—did I need to go get Patel and take him to medical? I watched for another minute before deciding he wasn’t dangerously drunk, just embarrassingly so. I really wished I could share this clip the next time he was being an ass, but that would raise a lot of questions.

The next cycle, I went to the most interesting sessions—several did not live up to their descriptions—and simultaneously recorded a few others through the camera system. I did my best to avoid my humans, who I liked but had just spent three full cycles with. It was bad enough to be surrounded by hundreds of humans without several of them attempting to talk to me at the same time.

Unfortunately, Dr. K managed to track me down at the end of the day’s sessions. She’d collected Martine and Patel as well as a couple other Lagrange students.

“Would you like to come with us to dinner?” she asked. Because I’d ignored her feed message to the same effect.

“No thanks, I’m pretty tired.”

“Come on, Ti, you have to eat sometime!” Martine said, miming punching me in the arm. Why do humans do this? They’re always pretending to hurt each other, or hitting each other lightly, or other weird stuff.

Patel was making a face at me.

“If Ti wants to eat by themself, that’s fine,” Dr. K said in the tones of a teacher of pre-adolescent humans.

“It’s weird though,” Patel said.

Sums up my whole existence.

“I already ate,” I said.

Martine bullied me into coming to drinks with them later that night. I don’t know how. Martine is a solid twenty centimeters shorter than me. Still, there I was, stuck on a padded bench between her and Georgie—one of Dr. Juma’s students—hemmed in by a table covered in glassware, a wall behind me, and five other humans, including Patel, filling the other seats.

“What’s up with Sharif and Dermer?” Georgie said, leaning across me to ask Martine. “They seem like such a weird couple. I’d never thought he’d go for them.”

Ughhh. No, anything but this. Sharif was Khalil Sharif, Mariss’ ex. I started trying to find a way to edge around either woman. Martine pushed me back into my seat.

“Rebound,” Patel said quickly. “It won’t last. I give them two months.”

“What happened between him and Bernez?”

Georgie, I am going to stuff something in your mouth.

Patel made a face at me. And Georgie shrunk down in her seat with an embarrassed “whoops.”

“Khalil wanted to move in together,” I said. “Mariss did not.”

“And?” Martine nudged me.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. Loudly. “Khalil wanted her to spend less time with me. She considered that—not negotiable.”

Patel’s face was—maybe I wanted to throw one of these glasses at him—smug, amused, and something like vindicated. Fuck you Patel, I still don’t have sex parts.  

“How much time do you guys spend together?” he asked.

“We hang out like two or three nights a week. I didn’t realize that was so excessive, Patel. I’m sorry you don’t have any good friends.”

Martine put a hand on my arm. Okay. Maybe my tone had been sharp and unpleasant. But seriously. These humans were all in each other’s business and always convinced there was more drama going on like we were living in Love Station or its spin-off, Love Port.

“I mean, a partner tells you you can’t hang out with your friends, that’s not a good sign,” Martine said. It was nice to see she’d really internalized that. I had had to walk her through that concept a number of times, but the leech was gone now, and her new girlfriend was much better.

Patel was making a face. “Why didn’t you just throuple like normal people?”

“Are we talking about your weird thing with Bernez, Guerrero?” another of Dr. Juma’s students, Yliman, cut in. “What’s going on there?”

I dragged my hands down my face and looked up at the ceiling. I liked watching human drama. Not being human drama.

“No,” Martine said at the same time Patel said, “Yes.”

“No. We’re not.” I stood and jabbed at Martine until she slid aside and let me escape.

She followed me to the bathroom. Fuck. At least it was noisy with the blasting music and people talking and—sounds—so she couldn’t hear I wasn’t using it. I waited the appropriate amount of time then left the cubicle and performativity washed my hands. I could do this for hours…

“You okay?” Martine had leaned back against the wall beside the sinks, arms crossed, and was staring off into the distance.

“No,” I said because I was an idiot. “I don’t want to ruin Mariss’ romantic relationships.”

“But you don’t want to be in one with her?”

“It’s not like that. We’re not like that,” I said with maybe a hint of desperation. Why was this so hard to grasp? They all wanted nice clean labels, and for some incomprehensible reason they didn’t think ‘best friend’ fit.

Martine was making a face at me. “She’s really touchy with you. And you’re only touchy with her.”

“She’s safe. She is a safe person. And she likes men,” I snapped and sent her my highlighted feed ID as a reminder. “And I’m worried every man she likes is going to look at me and tell her ‘no thanks.’ Like Khalil did.”

“He broke up with her?”

I stopped just short of punching the hand dryer. And clenched my hand until I felt the tendons pop. “Yes.”

My fault.

I should have been friendlier.

Mariss hadn’t blamed me. But she had cried.

Martine air-patted my arm. “I’ll tell Patel to fuck off, okay?”

“Thanks.”

~ ~ ~

My paper was on the third day of the conference, in the middle of a session on strange synthetics. I knew the material. I’d written a detailed yet accessible discussion of my research so far—according to Mariss who had read ten versions of it—and I was absolutely not pacing in the hall outside a side exit to the ‘ballroom’ wondering how easy it would be to catch a transport back to Lagrange.

Dr. K found me. Because of course she did.

“I thought you might be anxious,” she said, coming up to me with a cup of hot coffee.

I tried to decline it.

“It’s just nice to hold and smell,” she told me, pressing the cup into my hands.

“I’m not anxious,” I said, holding the cup under my nose. So, I couldn’t eat. But I could smell. And humans liked to say taste was 90% smell. False of course, but I did like smelling nice things. There were hints of roasted nuts and vanilla. Earthy in a way I’d never thought I’d be able to appreciate.

It turned out spending over a year on a nice planet had really changed how I felt about planets. About a lot of things.

“It’s okay to be anxious. Everyone gets anxious sometimes.”

SecUnits outside of combat and not behaving in a way likely to trigger a governor module correction had no reason to be anxious.

“And it’s your first conference, a lot of new people.” She smiled up at me. “Something I find helpful is picking one person in the crowd to talk to and focusing on giving the paper to them.” She nodded her head slightly. “Look around every now and then, work the crowd, but have your one friendly face to come back to. It can ground you.”

I wished Mariss were here.

But I put on my “big kid pants” and went in there and waited for my turn. And when I got up on the stage, I saw Dr. K front and center smiling gently up at me. So I spent thirty minutes talking to her.

It wasn’t so bad.

There was polite clapping at the end. And all of a sudden I had feed messages from members of the audience who wanted to talk to me.

One was—well, I didn’t normally have reactions to humans—reactions like this. She was taller than Martine, with waves of dark brown hair, and rounded in a number of visually appealing ways. She was wearing a fitted jumpsuit in a saturated red and heels that were almost as high as mine. Feed ID said Francisca Santos Barbosa, graduate student at the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.

She was not working on strange synthetics. But she still wanted to talk to me.

When she asked if I’d like to go get a drink and keep talking after the session, I said yes. Even though I don’t drink.

We went to one of the bars in the hotel, a quieter one with lots of real plants and soft music and drunk geochemists. It wasn’t even that late, but it was day three and people were starting to get rowdy. Not in the way the miners got rowdy. It was—amazing, horrifying, shocking—the difference not being subject to constant danger or the knowledge there was no better future ahead made to humans’ mental well-being. Rowdy geochemists were often amusing.

Francisca was leaning towards me, and I had to rewind slightly. Oh drinks. I looked down at the menu sitting closed on the shiny black bar in front of me.

“I like something a little spicy,” she said with a slight shift in her expression that was meant to signal something to me but I didn’t quite get. Ugh.

I picked up the menu and scanned down it. So I hadn’t bothered to learn most of these words. I could sit here and look each one up in the feed, and that still wouldn’t do me any good as I couldn’t drink it.

The bartender bot pinged me in a friendly manner, and I almost fumbled it all. Privately I told it the same gross ComfortUnit line. I let Francisca order then requested something fragrant.

“That’s brave of you, Ti. I never trust a bartender’s choice until I know they make good drinks.”

“I like to take risks,” I told her with my best attempt at a smile.

Martine had called me the most anxious person she knew. She didn’t understand that every day I was risking being caught and melted down.

Though this was particularly risky. I enjoyed looking at Francisca. And I actually listened when she told me about her university and home world. It wasn’t terribly far from Lagrange.

The drinks arrived, swirls of color and desiccated fruit in ornate cut glass forms. I managed to tap my glass against hers without breaking it or spilling any then did a decent job at pretending to take a sip. It was more difficult than normal as Francisca was really looking at me in a way most humans didn’t look at me.

When she glanced away, I poured some into the drainage area running along the inside of the bar’s prep surface. And no one noticed. Wow. I could do this.

Martine tapped me in a feed with Patel and Georgie, asking if I wanted to get celebratory drinks. Patel and Georgie were already at another bar, which was part of the reason I’d picked this one.

Maybe later, I’m having a drink with someone right now.

Who? Her surprised leaked through. As did Patel’s incredulity when he said, Pictures or it didn’t happen.

Fuck you both, I told them with good humor.

Alright, I’m getting dinner with Dr. K then going back to my room for a bit. Let me know when you want to meet up, Martine said, dropping the connection.

“Are your friends also obnoxiously trying to be part of every moment of your free time?” I asked Francisca lightly.

She smiled in a very nice way. “No, but then there aren’t a lot of PSUMNT students here. The university doesn’t have a huge planetary sciences department. And most of what we do deals with evaluating the long-term habitability of colonies. We have a lot of corporate contracts and licensing arrangements like that.”

I asked her a number of questions and then I sent her Martine’s information. Francisca sent her a tentative request to talk later.

Martine tapped me with the feed profile image of Francisca and a lot of “!’s.” I ignored the message.

“You don’t run into many strange synthetics then,” I said without really thinking about it, because I am an idiot and I was having a nice time, and she flushed and made a face and kind of looked away.

Well I’d fucked up. Then she sent me this small half smile as her eyes slid back to mine. “Maybe there was another reason I decided to go to that session.”

Fuck. I could do this. This wasn’t a puzzle. She’d approached me after my talk. She was sitting here at a bar with me, having asked me to drinks. As unlikely as it seemed, she meant she’d come to see me.

Um.

She was another grad student, not a corporate. She hadn’t scanned me. She had no dangerous ulterior motives.

She put her hand on mine, raising her eyebrows slightly as she did so, and I didn’t hate it.

Chapter Text

The height, the build, even the way it periodically looked around—sweeping the area for threats—were all SecUnit standard. The mass was slightly off. The stupid hair was not standard. The rest of its movements were not standard either.

It wasn’t as good as my act-like-a-human code, but it was something, an ease to the gait, arms swinging casually as it moved, but not my full randomized fidgeting and shifting. It was apparently enough to blend in. (To the humans and augmented humans who are often distracted and not paying enough attention to their surroundings.)

ART responded to my feed tap and then to the visual I sent.

Oh no.

Oh yes. We were dealing with a rogue SecUnit.

ART, call everyone back. Now.

Maybe it’s harmless, ART said while sending the alert. I felt feed taps and ignored them all, watching the other SecUnit.

It was walking through the station mall with an augmented human. (You only see SecUnits in a station mall when they’re getting ready to kill someone.) It was carrying a large travel bag and had to be blocking the weapons scanners somehow.

The fucking thing was dressed like a character out of a trashy unscripted serial with its shirt hanging open to right above where its inorganic chest components started. (It was like it was playing a dangerous game of almost letting the humans see what it was, taunting them.)

The augmented human paused at the entrance to a clothing store, and the SecUnit stopped slightly behind her. She was tiny, in a cloud of recycler fabric and platform shoes that were meant to make her taller but didn’t have much to work with. A heavy bag hung between her shoulders, half-obscured by a lot of soft brown hair.

The SecUnit’s hand landed on her shoulder. I was crossing the plaza before I even realized it. The unit’s index finger tapped twice on the woman’s shoulder and she glanced back. She was absolutely defenseless against a rogue SecUnit. Especially one with its hand already on her.

You are a rogue SecUnit, ART insisted in the feed. Three is a rogue SecUnit. What is one more rogue SecUnit? It’s not doing anything.

Yet, I said back. Do you really want the crew on a station with an unknown rogue SecUnit?

I felt the edge of ART’s unease bleeding through the feed. No, but I don’t want you provoking an unknown rogue SecUnit either.

I’m just watching them.

Then stop approaching.

I stopped.

The SecUnit pointed at something inside the store, and they both went in. No alarms went off. It was good at this.

I eased into the camera system and watched them move through the store. It stayed close to the woman, keeping its hand on her shoulder to steer her around. It was subtle, none of the humans or augmented humans inside noticed, but the unit was definitely directing her.

They came out of the store several minutes later without anything. That wasn’t a sign. Humans routinely didn’t buy stuff. And they were walking together without speaking, which also wasn’t unusual. They turned away from me without really looking my way and kept walking, the woman pointing towards another store.

Risk assessment was off the charts. (For once it wasn’t malfunctioning.)

I didn’t move until they were in the next store. Then I casually strolled past it and stepped up to the information kiosk of a large food service plaza, watching them through the cameras. They did a quicker circuit of this store, the unit nudging the augmented human very subtly. She was showing signs of tension.

When they came out, they reversed direction, so now I was behind them again. I let them get ahead in the crowd before following, thinking maybe it would think it lost me. Then, because I was an idiot, I scanned for other drones.

The first pass didn’t pick up any so I just set a background process to flip through frequencies. It only took a minute.

There they were, and heavily fucking shielded too. My standard grab didn’t work. As soon as I scanned them they retreated, so I didn’t manage to catch any. Instead, I pushed forward to make sure the rogue unit wouldn’t get away.

Station cameras showed the woman was in the feed, staring upwards and the SecUnit was staring at her. It shook its head abruptly, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her towards a transit tube.

Fuck, ART said in the feed. They’ve seen you.

It saw me ten minutes ago, I told it, making no attempt to hide that I was following them now. I needed to know where it was taking her.

They got in the tube to the docks, and I jogged after them, bumping past humans and augmented humans so that I was only slightly behind them when they piled into an already full capsule and took off.

Do you have anything on them? I had to ask ART.

No, it admitted, and I felt its annoyance as it sent me a summary. No social media pages. Her feed ID was off. Its ID said ‘don’t talk to me.’ They hadn’t interacted with station security at all. Their only interaction with Port Authority was debarkation from a private transport four and a half hours earlier and they’d paid a fee, with a hard currency card, to avoid providing the standard visitor information.

I edged forward in the line and managed to get into another capsule only a few after them. My face was not friendly and the humans in there with me subtly shifted away. Seconds ticked past. (I wasn’t worried. What was there to be worried about, just a rogue SecUnit loose on a heavily populated station with a human hostage. No big deal. Have I mentioned I hate hostage situations?)

They made it through the weapons scanners at the public dock easily. As did I. It must have had a sophisticated hacking module.

It was still towing the woman, who was practically running to keep up with it. She slipped on her stupid shoes and fell, losing one. Without breaking stride, it scooped her up and her hands locked around its neck as it kept going.

She looked at me over its shoulder, wide-eyed and frightened.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

What would I do if they tried to get on a public transport? Well they’d need to get tickets, so that would slow them down enough for me to catch up. I hadn’t really thought through the whole catching up part yet. Fuck.

It darted through the crowds of humans and augmented humans, fast enough to be kind of disruptive, but not enough to start a panic. It was trying to lose me, but it didn’t know I was in the camera system, and it didn’t seem to be. Without its drones, it couldn’t keep track of me.

I ducked behind a pillar and let it lose sight of me. I watched it slow down, the woman subvocalizing. Why wasn’t she screaming? Humans loved screaming. It had probably told her exactly what would happen if she screamed. I pushed off and circled the other way around the column and took an indirect route through a covering group of rowdy kids to intersect.

They passed through to the private docks. (That was even better in one way, fewer potential casualties, but worse in another, it saw me when it glanced back after I’d cleared the scanners and before I could duck behind a hauler bot.)

There wasn’t really anywhere to go from here. It seemed like the SecUnit was panicking. (Which was dangerous as shit.) It started running again.

They were pulling ahead. Fuck it, I thought, and I shot the rogue in the foot. Its boot exploded and it fell, skidding across the concrete and twisting so that it didn’t land on the woman. It slid to a stop with her on top. The fall had given me a chance to close the distance. I wrenched her up and away from it, pushing her behind me as she stumbled out of her remaining shoe.

“Run!” I said to her, as I pointed my projectile weapon at the SecUnit, making sure my body was between her and it.

It had pushed up onto an elbow and was aiming an arm at me, but it hadn’t fired.

Then I felt pressure against the base of my skull.

I’d been fucking stupid. (What’s new, Murderbot?) The cameras showed me that the little augmented human had pressed a very impressive projectile weapon to a spot that was a guaranteed disabling shot, if not an instant kill.

For once, ART was just as surprised as I was.

That didn’t help.

“I haven’t pulled the trigger because I think you may not be trying to hurt us,” she said in a surprisingly steady voice. “But what the fuck? This is way too amateur to be a forced indenture attempt. Are you trying to steal my SecUnit? Because I will kill you before I let that happen.”

I felt ART’s fluttering panic through the feed, which was not helping the situation.

“I was trying to keep you from being abducted by a rogue SecUnit.” It was embarrassing to admit since she apparently knew she was in the company of a dangerous rogue SecUnit.

“What? It’s not rogue! I have all the proper paperwork. I have permits. I’d like to have some words with your client.”

“Mariss,” the unit said, low and panicky. It had pinged me when I’d realized about the gun, and I’d been too focused on that to ping back and pretend to be a normal SecUnit.

“Honey, get up,” she said. “They’re not going to shoot you. Again.”

It got to its feet slowly, still aiming its arm at me. Scans were not showing the powered-up energy weapon hidden beneath its sleeve, so it was carrying something to fake scans. Its foot was damaged and couldn’t bear its full weight. That would slow it down a little. I was running calculations while ART had a mini-meltdown over the feed at me.

“Mariss, that’s a rogue SecUnit.”

She startled but didn’t pull the trigger. The little wobble backwards was enough for me to spin, knocking her hands so her shot went wide, clipping my ear and grazing my temple. (The trouble with head or neck shots was it was so easy to miss.) I took the gun from her without injuring her because she hadn’t taken the easy shot she had (unlike many, many clients I’d had) and dragged her between me and the SecUnit.

Her unit was really panicking now. It had started towards us then frozen. It couldn’t get a clean shot. It could aim at my head, but a single shot from an energy weapon would mostly just piss me off, and maybe, if it overcharged the weapon, make me fall on her.

ART, I said.

You idiot, it sighed and cut the feed between them.

So I fucked this up. Like a lot. Also, I didn’t like the way she’d called it ‘honey.’

“Order it to stand down.”

“I can’t.”

“You said it’s not rogue.” I felt my frustration leaking out.

“Fuck you! Let go of my human,” the unit said.

The cameras showed I didn’t have great control of my face right now. I was leaking on my nice new clothes and I didn’t like that. I put one hand on her shoulder. Both she and her unit would know that gave me a clear headshot. “Give the order.”

“It won’t accept that order, so I won’t give it,” she hissed. “You might as well shoot me.”

What. The. Fuck.

What the actual fuck?

“Mariss, shut the fuck up!” It looked frightened. Of course, its client died, it died. Distant limiter and all.

The weird part was she thought it wouldn’t obey an order that would trigger its governor module. And she was willing to piss me off to protect it? A SecUnit? I was trying not to have an emotion.

ART was intrigued. (ART’s an asshole. In case you forgot.)

Thinking about how much of an asshole ART is helped me not have an emotion about this.

“Tell it not to attack me as long as I’m not injuring you,” I managed to say without losing it. Then I realized she was tense with pain. Oh fuck, I was squeezing her.

I relaxed my grip slightly and she gave the order. The unit powered down its energy weapons while clearly visualizing how it planned to disassemble me. (Good old murderbots, we’re all the same.)

“Come on,” I said and took a step, dragging Mariss with me.

The unit moved to block me, and it was interesting to see another construct actively hate me. The damn thing had no issue with eye contact.

“Mariss,” the unit said. “I’m not letting it take you to a secondary location. Chances of successful retrieval decrease by—”

I hate hostage situations.

“Station security is two minutes out,” I snapped. “Port Authority is 90 seconds away from this location. Is your SecUnit registered here? Because if not, they’re going to seize it and fine you. Buying it back might be an option, but probably not if you smuggled it in here.”

“No, no, no,” she said softly.

Yup, illegal SecUnit loose on station. (Other than me.) Extra great. I tossed her over my shoulder and started walking. The private docks hadn’t had much foot traffic to start with and had cleared out at my first shot. There were no witnesses.

I could just leave them. I’d already deleted everything from Station SecSystem. I was actively deleting us from the cameras. They didn’t know what ship I was on. I could let them figure it out. Maybe she’d be able to pay that kind of fine and they wouldn’t melt down a SecUnit dressed and acting like a human just on principle.

I carried her to ART’s hatch while the unit argued and called me names the whole way.

“Get in or get melted down, I don’t care,” I told it as the hatch cycled open.

“Twenty-two, get in the fucking airlock,” Mariss snapped.

It resisted for a moment, probably right up to the edge of its governor module activating, then it got in. I followed it.

“Will you put me down now?” she said as the lock cycled.

I didn’t like how her unit was looking at me. “No,” I said. My drones showed its hands clenching and unclenching. I didn’t enjoy the sensation of having a wriggling augmented human on my shoulder trying to get away from me, but I don’t know, maybe I just liked being an asshole to other constructs. This was clearly infuriating it.

The lock finished cycling, and I went to the argument lounge, because that’s what was about to happen. I felt ART in the feed getting ready for it.

Iris, Turi, and Matteo were there already, having come straight in from the station, Iris pacing nervously. I saw through the cameras the others were on their way. Iris took a breath to say something, probably about the augmented human I was carrying like luggage, but stopped as ART said something in her feed.

“Are you going to ask it to put me down or what?” Mariss said to them.

Matteo just made a confused gesture while Iris stumbled for something to say. Turi pressed a hand to their mouth as they looked us over.

“SecUnit, are you okay?” Iris said at last.

Oh yeah, the leaking.

“Sit down,” I told the SecUnit in a stupid petty gesture. I knew the discomfort that would cause. I didn’t really know why I wanted to make it uncomfortable.

Twenty-two threw its and Mariss’ bags onto one of the couches, flopped backwards next to them, crossed its arms, and glared at me. Its foot began tapping impatiently.

Oh.

ART had the same thought.

“So,” I said, depositing Mariss in a seat out of reach of her unit or anyone else. “I may have accidentally kidnapped these two.”

“Oh, SecUnit,” Iris said in a particularly disappointed voice.

“Why?” Matteo was looking between them and apparently unable to identify the SecUnit for what it was.

“Because it thought my SecUnit was rogue,” Mariss said.

I had a hand on her shoulder to keep her seated and not lunging towards her unit or anyone else. She couldn’t really do anything but I still didn’t like it. As long as I had her, her SecUnit would behave.

“That’s a SecUnit?” Matteo said, looking at the unit.

“It’s not rogue?” Iris said, echoed by Seth who’d just arrived.

Kaede was here now too. She looked at the unit, which was still absolutely focused on imagining how it would kill me. “Are you sure?”

She’d been spending too much time with Three—who ART had suggested stay down in the lab with Martyn and Karime to avoid increasing the tension in the room.

I pinged Twenty-two just to piss it off more, and it pinged me back, radiating rage.

Maybe you shouldn’t provoke it further, ART said privately.

Fuck off.

“It’s not!” Mariss at the same time I said, “Yup.” I looked at the unit with my eyes because I wasn’t going to let it think it was intimidating me. “Anything to say for yourself?”

“Stop touching her,” it ground out.

“SecUnit,” Seth said in a friendly, even voice. “I don’t think she poses much of a threat.” Because she was small, and looked soft, and was in a stupid frilly dress. And had been carrying a scanner-concealed projectile weapon loaded with armor piercing, heavy caliber rounds.

“She nearly killed me,” I said.

ART didn’t chime in to tell everyone how wrong I was, which made all my humans suddenly very nervous. The emotional temperature of room dropped a few degrees. Tarik was here now too and had stopped by a weapons locker on the way, which was why I liked Tarik.

“Is that why you’re bleeding?” Iris asked. “Her, not the SecUnit?”

Yeah, I thought it was unbelievable too.

“If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” Mariss said.

This was actually true, so I let go of her.

“Can I have my gun back?”

Everyone said “no!” at the same time, including me and her SecUnit. Ugh. I didn’t like that.

“Then can I help it with its foot, since you shot it?”

“It’s fine,” I said. Her SecUnit also said that. If I had normal human organs and disgusting stuff like that, I would have gagged.

Ratthi was here now too. “Well isn’t this awkward,” he said. “Hello, I’m Ratthi!”

For fuck’s sake.

Okay. If I just got this over with, I could go back to my cabin and pretend I didn’t exist for the rest of the cycle. “I made a mistake,” I said. “That isn’t a rogue unit. She’s just been fucking with its code and dressing it like a sexbot. If they stay here until Station Security is done sweeping the docks, they’ll be fine, and Station Security won’t melt her SecUnit down for recycler medium.”

Mariss’ mouth was twitching. Her SecUnit was staring at her with a slightly alarmed expression and shaking its head ever so slightly.

Threat assessment was all over the place.

I felt the unit frantically pinging ART, probably an attempt to be allowed to reestablish a feed connection to its client. But I had her gun. She hadn’t pulled any other weapons, and she’d had plenty of opportunity. (If she’d had a knife, the period while the air lock was cycling was a perfect moment to stab me in the neck because no one would have been able to get in or out for several seconds. And depending on how well she knew constructs, there was a way to disable one like that.)

“That's fine,” Seth said, also reading something in her face or body language or something that was a threat to me specifically because he moved towards us slowly, starting to put a hand up to indicate I should go.

“You’re going to let us go?” the SecUnit said, eyes flicking between Seth and its augmented human.

“It was a mistake,” Seth said. “My apologies. SecUnit is very protective of our crew.”

“And you all know—” she paused and swallowed, looking around at everyone in an evaluating sort of way. ART’s attention shifted focus slightly in the feed because it had picked up on it too. Was she afraid of telling them if they didn’t already know?

Seth read her mind. (This was why he was the captain.) “That it doesn’t have a working governor module? Yes.”

“Did you turn it off?”

I was backing towards the nearest hatch because I was absolutely not having this discussion.

“No,” Seth said with a disarming smile that failed to move her. “Its governor module was disabled when we met it.”

“Who turned it off?”

“That’s not really my story. If you’d like—”

Her eyes zeroed in on me and then, when I looked over her head, they dropped to my chest. Stupid, perceptive human. “Who turned off your governor module?”

“Fuck you,” I said and left the room.

I did not expect her to chase after me.

“I’m sorry but I think you kind of owe me,” she called.

“I didn’t shoot you,” I said and she ran, barefoot, down ART’s corridor after me.

Mariss reached out but when I tensed she pulled her hand back. She—it was a micro-movement, most humans wouldn’t detect it. What the fuck had she been doing to that SecUnit? (Better yet, why did I care? I didn’t. Right?)

She’s strange, ART said in the feed.

“Please! Please tell me!”

I stopped and spun around, only for her to run straight into me. She bounced off and landed on the floor, a hand going to her nose as she looked up at me.

It was the eyes. She was doing something stupid with her eyes. And now she was looking at my drone instead of my face. Fuck.

“Please? I don’t—do you want money? I can pay a lot.”

“I don’t want money,” I snapped.

“Do you want the gun? Drones? Modules?”

“Why the fuck do you want to know?” (The drones offer was almost tempting if the other unit’s were any indication.)

“Because I haven’t been able to find anyone who will do it!”

I felt suddenly outside of myself. She was intentionally trying to turn off a SecUnit’s governor module. This augmented human was trying to make a rogue SecUnit on purpose. And dress it up in human clothes, and smile at it, and—she was still talking.

“I’ve modified it as much as I can, given every permission we can think of, but I can’t turn it off—not without risk. I’ve gone to the shadiest fucking people who do terrible things to constructs and there’s no amount of money they’ll take to turn off a governor module. But if you could tell me where to go—”

Her unit was in the hallway, limping after us and looking worried. I turned and walked away while the cameras showed her leaking on the floor.

Why didn’t you tell her? ART asked once I was in Medical with the privacy filter engaged.

It isn’t her business.

Are you upset with the way she treats the SecUnit?

No, I said and started the next episode of the new serial we were watching.

Chapter Text

Journal Extract

It was getting late, and Francisca and I were still at the bar. I had steadily poured my first drink out each time she looked away and was now on my second. She had moved closer to me. Her hand was on mine. And the toe of her shoe kept brushing the side of my calf through the fabric of my pants. I was terrified she’d realize there was nothing organic there, but she seemed focused on other things.

Then I felt a feed tap from Dr. K, the briefest Ti, then nothing as someone pointed a large projectile weapon at her and told her to stop feed contact.

“I have to go,” I said, sliding off the stool, keeping my face neutral despite what was happening in my organics, and calculating the fastest route. “My advisor is having a medical issue.”

Francisca caught at the front of my shirt, surprise coloring her features. “I thought—”

HotelSecSystem was also alarmed and attempting to dispatch its human security, though I noticed an error had been inserted into its system preventing alerts.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I detached her. Then I was through the service exit.

I rerouted the alert manually and alarms began sounding throughout the building.

I was already running down the hall. Humans used the lift tube system through the hotel, which involved pressing buttons and waiting around until a tube arrived. Bots used a gravity well between floors. I spun around a corner, launched myself into the nearest one, and was rising as rapidly as I could control.

Five armed hostiles had just pulled Martine and Dr. K into Martine’s hotel room, so now I didn’t have a camera view. A quick scan back through the hall cameras showed they’d been waiting in there for her to return not caring whether she returned alone or not. I had been too busy pretending to drink intoxicants and too fucking distracted by a human smiling at me and making other very interesting expressions that I had fucking missed it.

One of the hostiles opened the door and checked the hall, then signaled to the others it was clear. They started filing out of the room with Martine and Dr. K in the middle of the group.

Oh hell no.

I flung myself out of the gravity well on the appropriate floor, traced their movements in the map schematic I’d downloaded the first day, and calculated the best intercept point.

You’re not taking my humans you fucking shitheads.

I jogged at human speed past a couple of people coming or going from rooms, then ducked into a low life-support service hallway. It wouldn’t kill a human, but it didn’t smell good and they wouldn’t find breathing easy. It was also going to help me give my five new friends quite the surprise.

Through the cameras, I tracked them making quick progress towards one of the side exits that led to a secluded portion of the public areas of the station, near the entrance to some of the maintenance corridors. Nope. No way. 200 meters and closing.

I had plenty of time as I slowed down, stepped back into the human hallways and set my pace to meet them. I glitched the cameras to the section of corridor they were in and the surrounding 50 meters. No need for any recordings of me being ‘in the vicinity,’ as Mariss’ stupid detective serials would say.

Fast, quiet, and efficient. That’s what I had to be. I wondered if a SecUnit could get out of practice? Well, I had with monitoring. Think about that later. I paused against a shadowed section of wall in a corridor junction and waited for the sound of footsteps. Four sets passed me.

Time to find out if I was still a SecUnit. I pushed out of the junction, caught the hostile holding Dr. K and snapped er arm. Then er neck.

Dr. K gasped but didn’t scream. The hostile behind her was still raising her projectile weapon from a low ready position. So I shot her through the head with my right arm energy weapon, then I pushed Dr. K back into the junction—out of any lines of fire—as I moved forward.

The other three hostiles had heard the movements and were mid-reaction. The hostile holding Martine had pulled her into human-shield position, while the other two attempted to aim at me.

Projectiles whizzed past, ripping through the simul-wood paneling as I darted to the right, ducked, and came up under the first weapon. I snapped it with one hand, blew a hole through the hostile’s chest with the energy weapon in my left arm, grabbed the body, and used it to absorb the next round of shots while I repositioned.

The two remaining hostiles were alternating yelling and attempting to make feed contact while I jammed their interfaces. Fuck this was hard. I—it hadn’t occurred to me to practice for a situation like this. I made a note for later.

“Hostile SecUnit! Hostile SecUnit!” The hostile without Martine was yelling into what they thought was a working comm while still shooting their comrade’s corpse. Oh humans.

“Tell it to stand down!”

“She’s not an authorized controller,” I said smoothly. “She can’t.”

There it was, the moment of ‘oh shit’ panic. I threw the body and followed it, catching the would-be kidnaper as they were trying to dodge, and snapping their neck.

Just one more.

He had an arm around Martine’s throat, pulling her backwards and down to his shoulder level. She had both hands on his arm, attempting to loosen it and was red in the face. The hostile’s other hand held a projectile weapon pointed at her head. I’d been in much worse hostage situations.

“You realize the deep shit you’d be putting your entire company in by taking Dr. Kuznetsova, don’t you?”

He stared at me, eyes showing a lot of the whites, scans indicating elevated stress levels.

“With Martine, maybe you could’ve paid off the university. She’s still only a grad student. But Dr. Kuznetsova is a senior, tenured, full professor. She is the former department chair. Lagrange would have hunted down every last executive and supervisor in your company and shown them what the interstellar debris deflection grid is capable of. You’d have been lucky if the treatment did not extend to the rest of the corporation’s assets.”

“Shut up, shut up!” he yelled at me.

“Let her go. Walk away. I am not letting you take her.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets and shifted my weight into a posture that was casual, relaxed, and, at that moment, incredibly threatening.

He let Martine go, pushed her towards me, and took off running. I caught Martine with my left hand and put down the running hostile with my right energy weapon. The last thing we needed was a witness who could describe me running for reinforcements.

I picked up each weapon in turn, kept one, and ejected and pocketed the magazines from the others before crushing the weapons.

My humans were both in mild shock, and I needed to get them out of there. Out of this hotel. Off this fucking station. I grabbed Martine, said “Dr. K,” sharply, and started walking back the way I’d come, keeping the cameras glitched until we were well away. Dr. K jogged after me. I took us through a twisting route while checking the map.

The hotel was exploding with activity. I had blood splatter on me. Oh. I was leaking. Martine had blood splatter on her. There were some fairly conspicuous holes burned in my sleeves. And my humans had seen all that.

I stopped walking.

My humans had seen all that.

Dr. K and Martine had fucking seen that.

“Ti!” Martine had mostly caught her breath. “What the hell! Why do you have guns in your arms? Are you okay?”

Dr. K snorted.

I looked between them, and knew I wasn’t doing a good job of concealing my horror. There went everything. My work. My degrees. My life. Gone. My performance reliability dropped 8% and kept sliding down as I started to run through everything I’d just lost to protect these two humans.

Mariss.

“You know,” Dr. K said smoothly. “With the way you dress, I had been wondering if you were the other type. Despite you telling me you were security.”

My performance reliability dropped several more percentage points.  

“You—you knew?”

“Sweetie,” she said kindly. “No human uses the word ‘fauna’ to describe an attack on another person like that.”

“I think if I were a ComfortUnit, I would dress in much bulkier clothing,” I told her to cover just how badly I was handling this. Her face was suddenly upset again.

Enraged at myself. Of all the ways to slip-up, it hadn’t been the freezing incident, it hadn’t been stating I was security, it hadn’t been any of the weird, awkward shit I’d done in between. It was a single wrong fucking word.

“I’m sorry but what the fuck is happening?” Martine demanded, flinging her arms around and not quite stomping.

“What’s happening is we are leaving,” I said.

I’d already tapped Patel in the feed urgently enough to break through the merrymaking and directed him and Georgie to the docks. I’d organized all the camera and audio inputs. I’d prioritized HotelSecSystem shunting people away from us and redirecting its human security to intercept anyone else I thought might be hostile. So I started walking again.

Think about everything bad later.

Get the humans to safety now.

Then I felt a ping. Directionless. Searching. From another construct.

“Fuck!” I exploded as I pinged back. I tried to flag that as an area of code for Mariss to fix and—came back to myself standing motionless in the middle of the hall, joints locked, echoes of pain beginning to fade away. My performance reliability took another sudden sharp drop, and I almost had an involuntary restart.

“They have a SecUnit,” I said to Dr. K, by way of explanation. No need to mention I’d just triggered my governor module for the first time in like four fucking years.

I pressed my hands to my temples. The pain was still ricocheting around in there, making it hard to think.

Humans. To safety. Return to my client.

I found the SecUnit in the cameras, up ahead, wearing a uniform almost matching that of the human it was with. That might explain how they got it in the hotel but sure as fuck didn’t explain how they had gotten such a large projectile weapon in, almost certainly with armor-piercing heavy caliber rounds perfect for putting down bots or other constructs. I pushed myself out of my frozen daze, overlaid the map with its location and ours, and rerouted.

“This way.” I started forward again and both humans followed me.

“Can you fly a shuttle if we can’t make it to our transport?” Dr. K asked.

“I only have a hopper module,” I said. Interesting she was thinking about stealing a shuttle to get around the labyrinthine docks. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea if I’d been able to fly one.

“I’m sorry, I think I’m still missing something,” Martine said sharply. “Would one of you please tell me what’s happening?”

I grabbed them both, spun through a service doorway to our right, and sealed it two seconds before the SecUnit passed the corridor junction. It had stopped pinging because of course that revealed its location to me too. It didn’t have access to all the hotel cameras and was sweeping with drones, which a closed hatch was enough to stop.

No vocalizations, I told them in our shared feed connection. If it pings me, I have to ping back. It makes me a liability to both of you. We should split up, and I’ll draw fire while you get to the docks. I pushed a map into our shared feed. Oh, and Martine, they are attempting to kidnap you in order to forcibly indenture you.

Martine’s hands clenched and shook as she mouthed a lot of profanity but stayed silent.

Ti, we’re not leaving you behind or letting you draw fire away from us, Dr. K said, her feed voice remarkably calm.

That’s the whole fucking point of SecUnits!

Martine froze.

And you know what I think about how the Rim treats constructs, Dr. K shot back. Let’s go.

She grabbed my hand and started pulling me down the corridor, following the map I’d sent her. Infuriating, frustrating, maddening humans.

I needed to get them to safety.

Martine shook herself and jogged to catch up with us.

When you get back, please promise me you will keep Mariss in the system, I said. She has also been subject to a prior forcible indenture attempt.

Something twitched in Dr. K’s jaw, and she started walking faster.

She—she will not handle this well. She may require being forced to return to her trauma counselor. There have been several episodes where I have had to compel her to attend appointments.

We’re not leaving without you. I am not leaving without all of my students. Including you.

Anastasiya, I don’t think you fully grasp this situation. I have never had a hostile encounter with another SecUnit where I did not take substantial damage. Lagrange has no repair cubicles. A human-rated MedSystem is unlikely to be able to repair me, especially when operated by a human who is unfamiliar with constructs.

Do you have information on construct—repair? She cringed at the word. If so, send it to me.

I sent her the cubicle manual. That was all I had. Barbican never figured a SecUnit would be trying to repair itself.

Behind me, Martine had pressed her hands to her mouth. Ti, you’re bleeding!

It’s just one bullet, I remarked. I shifted and popped it out onto the corridor floor. Their aim was bad.

Oh, that wasn’t good for her vitals.

Dr. K glanced back, eyes widening, then took firmer grip of my hand and kept pulling.

I sent the company logo from one of the dead hostile’s jackets to our feed. Who is this?

BardotHess, Dr. K replied immediately. They’ve been on an expansion binge lately and have been actively recruiting a number of our students. It has been the source of some faculty alarm. Other universities have reported similar.

Real recruiting or ‘recruiting’? I asked.

Until today, I had no suspicion there was violence involved. She sent me a faculty-only report that had been circulated on one of the tenured faculty secured channels back home.

BardotHess had gotten a new CEO in some sort of hostile internal take-over. The previous CEO, the uncle of the current one, had not been seen or heard from since. Hess had apparently decided the company should invest in cutting edge technology. It seemed that investment might involve a lot of investing in kidnapping—more than normal amounts of kidnapping for a corporate.

And today they’d picked Martine.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long to fix my ear and face. I didn’t exactly like leaving my humans alone with a trigger-happy augmented human and her SecUnit masquerading as a sexbot pretending to be an augmented human, but Three had gone up to that level and was lurking nearby but out of sight just in case. (I sure as hell didn’t want to be in the argument lounge with all of them after my fuck up.)

Twenty-two, after dragging its human off the floor and back into the argument lounge, attempted to set some ground rules.

“To encourage everyone not to feel the need to clean up loose ends, I think we should agree no sharing of personal information and no questions.” It dropped back onto the couch and winced. Good.

“Agreed,” Seth said.

I knew all my humans were dying to ask questions. That’s what they did as scientists and all.

“Yeah, that’s fine, except I have a question.” Mariss was going to be a problem. “Can anyone here tell me how to deactivate a governor module?”

Everyone murmured their apologies, reacting like it was some great thing she was asking and not a way to put tons of stupid humans at risk. (Of course it had been playing the good pet, governor module and all, and she thought it would be safe. No, the SecUnit that I’ve been misusing for years certainly hasn’t been quietly planning all the ways it wants to get even once it has the chance.) Ratthi was making one of those expressions that usually preceded him saying something I didn’t like. Ratthi needed to be locked in his cabin.

Don’t, I messaged him.

But we can help them!

They can go to hell. Also there’s no telling what that unit will do if I disable its governor module.

She seems to think it’s harmless. Or as harmless as anyone else.

It wants to kill me. I made her order it to stop trying to kill me.

In its defense, Ratthi pushed back, you did kidnap her. Maybe try to think of its perspective?

The answer is no. End of discussion.

Then I had to fucking tell Three not to go giving out my code without permission.

Acknowledged, it sent back. But are you sure?

I didn’t answer it. 2.0 would have already done it. 2.0 was a better person than me. Thinking about 2.0 was not what I needed to be doing right now. ART was being weirdly quiet while leaning on me hard in the feed and trying to really dig into my emotional metadata. I pushed it away.

You’re being irrational, it told me like I didn’t already know that.

You know, you can fuck off too.

Back in the argument lounge my humans were also being bad at the whole let’s not give each other reasons to kill each other later thing. (Okay, maybe that had been a good idea by Twenty-two, but it should have known better than to try to get humans to stick to a good idea.)

“It’s just, what’s with the hot professor look?” Matteo said to the not-rogue SecUnit. They were standing way too close to it, like humans getting to know each other close and not holy shit there’s some else’s SecUnit with anger issues here, we should probably be avoiding it distance.

I paused half-way through replacing my shirt with one not covered in my blood and sent Matteo a feed message to shut the fuck up.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Ratthi said. “It’s not quite what I would have expected from a SecUnit, but I’m not saying it’s not a good look.”

Tarik sent him a look.

Mariss snorted. “Ti is a hot professor.” Great, she had a cute nickname for it too. It’s always a great idea to infantilize your pet murderbot. Yes, this is sarcasm. (Maybe she’d gotten it as a birthday present, the way normal humans got juvenile companion animals. Humans tended to come up with extra stupid names for the gifts they received. And corporate execs loved to give each other dangerous stupid expensive presents, if my media was anything to go by.)

The other SecUnit was making a face at its human to shut up. Damn it.

“We’re not answering questions, and we’re not asking questions,” it ground out. One of ART’s repair drones was in the process of repairing its foot, which I had kind of exploded, so it was stuck on a couch while all the humans moved around the argument lounge talking to each other.

“You can’t leave me hanging after saying that,” Matteo said to Mariss with a friendly grin. Of course Matteo was ignoring me, they couldn’t take anything seriously.

She took a breath, and the fucking SecUnit cut in:

“I have a post-doctoral position that requires teaching intro seminars. Mariss is continuing an ongoing, private joke about my clothing choices. You need no further information. Mariss, shut the fuck up.”

So it could tell its owner to shut up. I’m pretty sure Tlacey’s ComfortUnit had the same ability, not that it did it much good. Miki would have never felt the need to tell Don Abene to shut up. (Maybe I should have answered one of her messages at some point. There were a lot of messages I hadn’t answered. I knew there would be even more once Bharadwaj’s documentary was released in a couple months.)

“You love it,” she teased. “Otherwise you’d button your damn shirt up.”

“I can control my own body temperature, I don’t need to button my shirt up.”

Then they were jokingly bickering like a couple in a light drama serial, gross.

Let’s space it.

We’re not spacing it. ART let a wave of its annoyance roll over me while I shoved it away in the feed. It hasn’t done anything.

Just look at it!

Then the fucking SecUnit leaned back on the couch and winked at Iris, who had been listening in.

“Stop talking to my humans,” I told it as I came through the argument lounge hatchway.

It threw its hands in the air like I was being irrational.

I looked down at it and pointed. “Stop winking at Iris.”

That brought about 43% of ART’s attention to bear on the room. The fucking unit smirked at me. Shit. It had known I’d be listening in and it was baiting me for some stupid reason.

“SecUnit, I’m fine,” Iris said, attempting to wave me off.

Twenty-two didn’t say ‘make me.’ I wanted it to say ‘make me’ so I could fix its expression. It let its attention slide away from me and back to its human, who was still talking to Matteo and had ignored my entrance.

“You’re smug for an incompetent SecUnit that’s been turned into nothing more than a pet bot,” I spit out, editing the term I was going to use at the last moment. I didn’t know why I was so angry but I was angry. I wanted to rip its whole leg off. I wanted to go back to my media and not have to deal with a fucking governed SecUnit joking with, and mouthing off to, its client.

It flushed and tried to push up from the couch, but ART’s repair drone pushed it back.

Stop, ART said in my feed with enough force to almost make me take a step back.

“It’s not a pet bot!” Mariss said. “It’s a person! And bots can be people too!”

“Hey, hey,” Ratthi said, “let’s all take a breath.”

“You’ve fucked with its code to give it stupid hair. You’re playing dress-up with it—”

“You think I dressed it like that?” She gestured at her SecUnit, her face a mix of amused and shocked. “It dresses me!”

And then the fucking SecUnit scoffed and said, “You’re critiquing my style?” It looked me up and down. “Fascinating. Who dressed you, a bot?”

I felt ART getting huffy in my feed. I liked my clothes. Fuck this unit.

“Whatever,” I said. “Leave my humans alone.”

I stalked out of the room before it could try to provoke me again. It wasn’t a good look, I hadn’t even been on the crew a year. We’d only completed one mission since finally getting to leave the Adamantine colony site, which had taken way longer than I wanted. The mission had gone well and we were supposed to be here, at this stupid station, on a brief break and to pick up Dr. Ladsen (ART thought he was fine but not impressive) before starting the next one.

And I’d screwed everything up. Jeopardized our mission. And was losing my temper over some stupid governed SecUnit winking and dressing like a character from a trashy serial.

Tell Iris to watch out for that unit, I told ART.

Do you want me to make the human order it not to harm the crew? ART was on edge too. (Again, my fault.)

Yeah, not like that.

Then like what?

Come on ART you’re a super intelligence, put two and two together. I felt it waiting with increasing impatience in the feed. So I sent it back the scan results it had sent me of the unit and where it differed from SecUnit standard.

It was silent for 42 seconds. Winking can have many different meanings, depending on the social situation and cultural context.

“No, you’re right, let’s risk it,” I said out loud. I was too pissed to talk to it in the feed.

I’ve already warned her, it sent back, snippy.

Great day, everybody. Let’s totally let the rogue SecUnit the university administration is kind of nervous about stay on the top secret research transport. It’s doing a great job at security, not causing any issues. Fuck.

I went back to my cabin and locked myself in. I couldn’t help watching our unwelcome guests to make sure they weren’t causing trouble. I trusted Three, as much as I trusted any other person with security, which was—look, I trust Three more than any of the humans, and it was right there. But still.

Undeterred by me, or her own SecUnit, or anything else that had happened, Mariss had followed Seth up to the bridge (where Twenty-Two couldn’t follow her until it was repaired—which ART was doing slowly because it wasn’t exactly enthused about the idea of this SecUnit having free movement), and was asking Seth about me.

“Where did you meet it?”

“I thought we weren’t asking questions,” he said with an amused shake of his head.  

“Do you want to trade information?” She glanced over her shoulder, as if checking if her SecUnit were about to burst up the stairs to stop her. Its drones had stayed inert since boarding, which was annoying because I wanted another shot at them. (Maybe it did make sense it was angrily trying to fuck with me. Whatever.)

“I think your SecUnit—Twenty-two was it?—was right. We have no ill intentions towards you, but this situation is delicate.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples for several seconds.

“Well, then will you at least give us feed access back? It’s pretty fucked to cut a SecUnit off like this. Or just it, if you still don’t want to let me talk to it. I’m okay being cut off. But it feels better if it can keep an eye on me—or in my head—you know what I mean.”

(Seth had ART, so he did know.)

Seth’s lips pursed and then he was asking ART what the hell she was talking about. “Why is it wrong to cut a SecUnit off from the feed?” he asked, buying time while ART explained about the whole cutting off their feed access thing.

“It’s like stabbing out one of a human’s eyes and wrapping them head to toe in a wet blanket,” she said.

That was actually an annoyingly good description. What had she been doing to that SecUnit? (I didn’t care.)

“I’d like to be able to be sure there isn’t a threat to my crew first,” Seth said.

Her face did a thing. “I could order it not to harm any of your crew, unless you attack us first. I already had to order it not to fight your SecUnit. This isn’t that much worse.”

“That seems like an acceptable compromise.”

She cringed, hands balling in the fabric of her skirt and eyes squeezing closed.

“Are you alright?” Seth stepped forward, hand out, and she jerked back sharply.

(That wasn’t a familiar reaction to touchy humans, not at all. Okay so she was definitely a former low-level corporate not an executive’s brat. Sometimes they made it up the ranks, but either way she clearly liked traveling with personal security. I assumed the whole professor bit was a bad joke my humans had fallen for. There was no way a SecUnit was a professor.)

“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Mariss said.

We don’t have evidence she’s a corporate, ART said.

I do.

Twenty-two was still sitting on the couch. ART’s repair drone having finished with its foot, it was examining its remaining shoe with resignation. It looked up at the humans’ return then tensed.

“I have to give you another order,” Mariss said, her voice all weird.

She’s acting, I told ART. What kind of human freaked out about giving SecUnits orders? It wasn’t like she thought it wouldn’t follow this one. She’d suggested it.

ART was silent for several subjectively long seconds, probably running her vitals. No.

Now I felt like even more of an asshole.

The SecUnit sighed and closed its eyes. Then it nodded.

“Don’t use physical violence against a member of this crew unless they first attempt to use physical violence against one of us.” She looked at Seth, who nodded.

Yeah, that was fine. It’s not like anyone on my crew would attack either of them.

Twenty-two opened one eye to look at her. “And?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh. Stop crying, Mariss.”

ART gave them both back the feed, though it was limited, and ART was monitoring them. I recognized the relieved way the unit suddenly shifted, reaching out in the feed, searching for inputs. It connected with its human immediately and she relaxed slightly as well. ART let it have camera access in each of the lounges, which was generous of it. I wouldn’t have done that.

I was almost feeling, I don’t know, charitable towards them when Twenty-two did something truly fucking bizarre and repulsive. It leaned forward, caught Mariss’ hand, and pulled her onto its lap. I dropped the camera inputs immediately.

They’re not being gross, ART said. Seth and Kaede are standing right there.

They were being gross when I dropped the input. Let Three monitor them.

I put on episode 121 of Sanctuary Moon and went back to pretending I didn’t exist. I got about seven minutes of peace, then ART pulled me into a secured feed with Seth, Iris, and Three.

We were scanned by a BardotHess ship seventeen minutes ago, ART informed the four of us. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary at the time. (What the hell ART?)

Where is it now? Seth was calm but slightly tense.

On docking approach to the station.

I think it would be good if we all talked, Iris said.

They weren’t going to tell me what was going on, so I had to pull up the camera input from the argument lounge where Kaede and Mariss were talking. She was across the room from Twenty-two, which meant I could scan back a bit instead of making Three do it.

“I thought you all might be BardotHess,” Mariss had said forty seconds prior. “And that scared the shit out of me. I didn’t want to shoot your SecUnit.”  

“That’s not a corporation I’ve heard of,” Kaede had said.

“Good for you. Stay far away from them. Especially with this ship. And your rogue SecUnit.”

ART had conferenced in Martyn and Karime from the lab in another stupidly elaborate display with faded edges, blemish removal, and color correction.

“Hello there,” Martyn said with a friendly smile. “You must be our visitors.”

“That’s a word for it,” Twenty-Two drawled.

“So, BardotHess?” Karime said gently. “I’ve heard some concerning things about them recently.”

“Whatever you’ve heard isn’t bad enough,” Mariss said.

I was scanning ART’s archives when it dumped a summary file into the crew-only feed. Hostile takeover. Rapid expansion. Cutting edge technology. Aggressive recruiting.

They’re forcibly indenturing academic researchers, I said.

This seems likely, but isn’t the only option. ART always has to undermine me slightly, it could never just let me be right. I was right though.

“From this sudden activity, I take it they’re on station and have contacted you,” Mariss said.

“We were scanned by a BardotHess transport exiting the wormhole,” Seth admitted. “They’re on approach. I’d appreciate any information you can give me on them.”

“Can you cut and run? The second they dock? That gives you the most lead time to make it to the wormhole because they won’t be able to undock without going through Port Authority. You don’t have anyone still on station, do you?”

That took the air out of the room.

“That hardly seems necessary,” Martyn said.

“We should go,” Tarik said. “She knows what corporates are like and she knows this corporation.”

“She could be a corporate!” Turi interjected. “This could all be some elaborate trap.”

“Dr. Bernez is not a corporate,” the SecUnit said in a tone of voice so biting it made Turi flinch back behind Tarik. Interesting. And yet here she was with a pet SecUnit like some corporate executive on vacation.

“Dr. Mariss Bernez?” Kaede said.

Mariss paled, breathing paused, and her eyes went to her now-repaired SecUnit. Who was eyeing my humans in a way I didn’t like.

“You wrote ‘Mining the Mines: a better understanding of strange synthetics from what the Ancients left behind,’” Kaede said, and Martyn had some reaction to that.

“How do you—”

“This is the Perihelion,” Twenty-two said. “Out of PSUMNT. The evac suits by the airlock are labeled.”

Its whole let’s not ask questions thing had been an act, and it already knew where it was and who was aboard.

“This is not the fucking Perihelion,” Mariss shot back. “Our luck is not that—”

Your luck is exactly that, ART boomed over the comm, using its villain of a long-running mythical serial voice. I am the Perihelion.

Twenty-two cringed, and Iris dragged her hands down her face. Seth sighed and shook his head.

Great job laying low, I told ART, who ignored me.

Mariss groaned. “Of course PSUMNT has a fucking rogue SecUnit. Nutjobs.” She let out a huge sigh and dropped into one of the couches. She otherwise seemed unmoved by ART’s abrupt entrance.

“Technically we have two,” Iris said with that forced lightness that only sometimes worked on stressed humans.

Mariss buried her face in her hands and made more incoherent sounds.

Twenty-two’s eyes sharpened on Kaede. Now it could see everyone’s feed IDs, redacted, but still. “You co-authored that initial report on alien remnant contamination at a lost colony that was published two months ago. Along with—” Its eyes went straight to the display and landed on Martyn, “you, and crewmembers of the ship Holism.”

Again, ART and I were both surprised.

You read it? ART boomed through the comm in its usual vaguely threatening voice. This time the SecUnit didn’t flinch.

“Of course. They cited two of our articles.”

“Our articles?” Kaede said carefully.

“I’m Dr. Ti Guerrero of Lagrange University.”

That shut even ART up.

“Oh stars! We’ve messaged!” Kaede exclaimed.

Twenty-two nodded.

I queried ART’s records and found a shit ton of academic articles and a recent doctorate from some big university. It was lead author or a co-author on everything Dr. Bernez had published going back more than four years. And she’d written a stupid amount. (How was it a fucking professor? A SecUnit?)

Then I looked up what Guerrero meant and wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or tell it to get fucked.

“Anyway,” Seth said. “BardotHess?”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Mariss said pulling her face out of her hands. I guess she’d just had the human equivalent of an involuntary restart.

I didn’t like the sound of that and neither did ART. All the humans looked skeptical, which was why I liked them.

“You take us to some other station, a real station, not some alien remnant infested abandoned world, and I’ll give you my whole file on them.”

I could take it from you, ART said in its usual threatening voice.

“Are you going to steal Lagrange’s proprietary information, PSUMNT transport? Rip it right out of my head? I shouldn’t be surprised, PSUMNT’s ethics board is a hell of a lot less robust.”

Half the humans started protesting while Seth and Martyn went straight into the family feed with ART.

“Don’t give it ideas,” Twenty-two sighed.

“Hey now,” Seth was not having the best time. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“I won’t be indentured again. I won’t do it,” Mariss was saying to the SecUnit. “I’ll fucking—”

“Breathe,” it put its hands on her shoulders. “We’re breathing. Okay?”

Ratthi chose that moment to pop in with a hot cup of stimulant. The SecUnit let him hand it to its client and all the humans began to settle down. Ratthi sat next to her on the couch.

“How long were you indentured?” I cut in on the comm. ART added me to the display in the argument lounge, still lounging in my bunk, which was exactly what I needed.

Everybody but Tarik acted surprised. Despite being highly competent, they still had the human lack of attention to detail, and all but Tarik seemed to have missed that comment in the cross-talk.

“Almost five years,” she said, fingers drumming along the cup.

“That’s unusually short.”

Her lips pursed and the drumming intensified. “I know.”

“And what, you decided you liked SecUnits so much after your time there you went home and bought yourself one?”

She glared at me through the display. “I wasn’t leaving that shithole without Twenty-two.”

Ratthi’s eyes lit up because he was going to try to bond with her over this.

“The SecUnit securing your facility?” Tarik jumped in while I was maybe having an emotion. “You bought one of the SecUnits guarding the facility?”

I got up, and ART cut visuals. I backburnered the inputs and went and stood in the bathroom for a minute. (Or a few.)  

Mensah coming back from a survey and buying me was one thing. I’d protected PresAux. I’d kept them alive in a hostile environment and defended them from hostile humans. An indentured human buying the SecUnit keeping her behaving in her indenture and ensuring people didn’t escape was some whole other fucked up thing. The only reason that made any sense was bringing a SecUnit home to finally get even for all the things the SecUnit had been forced to do.

Tarik also thought that was insane, I was aware of him questioning her angrily. (It clearly had never occurred to him that he might want to bring one of the Sagaro Pits’ murderbots home as a pet.)

I do not believe she purchased it in order to torture it, ART said to me privately, an inordinate amount of its attention wasted on attempting to manage my emotions. Sometimes I hated how it was able to guess what I was thinking. It would be nice to, you know, think my own thoughts and sulk in them sometimes without a giant, malign bully trying to make me process shit and feel better.  

Whatever, I said. We had other things to deal with.

“What’s Dr. Ladsen’s ETA?” I asked, cutting back in on the comm to get them all back on track.

One hundred eleven minutes until his transport arrives.

“When is the BardotHess transport going to dock?”

Eighty-five minutes.

I could adjust that. I slipped back into Station SecSystem, then across to the Port Authority SecSystem, then to the Port Authority main system. All it took was juggling a few ships around docking bays and—

One hundred three minutes, ART amended.

Let’s offer to take them to our next stop, Iris said in the crew only feed.

Our next stop was an old Pre-CR station and our mission was just sneaking around any abandoned corridors scanning the old Pre-CR sections and picking up any loose data lying around. (I’d been promised no remnants.) It was supposed to be totally fine and safe and still an active hub, just a bit out of the way.

SecUnit?

We can take them, I told the crew only feed. Was I happy about it? No. Did I want them off ART? Yes. Did I want ART ripping data files out of the head of some anxious little human that kept leaking messily in a way that upset my humans? No. Also, I was pretty sure the PSUMNT ethics board would have some things to say about that.

Chapter Text

It’s just some shading, I said. How long could it take? I said. I’ll definitely have this ready for Chapter 30.

fml, I said.

The upside is it has pockets. The downside is she's wearing shorts underneath because they disagreed about length.

I went back and added an outline, I think I like this better.

Chapter Text

Journal Extract

I got us out of the hotel through a side exit, which meant we were now in Station Security’s jurisdiction. They’d probably been paid off to let BardotHess bring a SecUnit through, so this was not a safe place to be.

Walk normally, I told them both, like we have somewhere to be, not like we’re fleeing.

What about the others? Martine asked.

I’ve alerted them, but they’re not the target. We made it through the entrance and into the mall. The concourse was crowded and full of distracted humans. The perfect cover. I doubted BardotHess had paid enough to unleash a SecUnit or armed human squad in a crowded mall full of paying customers. This was supposed to be a quiet extraction. I just had to stay ahead of them. The Lagrange transport that had brought us was docked in the private docks. Having brought more than a dozen personnel, it was apparently more worthwhile to pay a week’s worth of port fees than go back and return. Thank the stars. Once we were onboard, for any corporate to breach the transport—well I doubted they’d be willing to pay that. As valuable as Martine was, they could have hired her legitimately for that amount and she probably would have happily gone with them.

Patel had been tapping everyone, as backup to my taps, telling them there was a security breach and we needed to regroup in the transport. Dr. Juma was resisting.

Get to the motherless transport, Dr. K sent in the semi-secure university feed. It would have been too revealing for me to try to fix it to be fully secure. All of you. Immediately. Ti has been shot.

There was a moment of shocked silence then panic. I backburnered the channel.

We’d reached the public docks and were sliding through the embarkation zone when it happened again.    

“Fuck!” Deity why? And why did I keep expressing this shit aloud?

“Another ping?” Dr. K asked. We had made it through the weapons scans. She still had my hand. Martine was right behind us, holding onto the back of my jacket. I didn’t mind. And she was covering the bloodstains like that.

“Yes,” I ground out. It knew we were out of the hotel and was following. And I couldn’t see it, but its drones could navigate this area easily. “We need to split up.”

“Unacceptable,” Dr. K said.

“I am trying to keep you out of slavery. Believe me, it’s not something you want to experience.”

“And I am trying to ensure you don’t do something stupid, Ti.”

My name is Twenty-two, I sent her in a private feed connection. Why? I don’t know. I was malfunctioning. According to Barbican standards, I had been malfunctioning for years. I had accepted this as a client preference. Mariss wanted a malfunctioning SecUnit.

Mariss wanted a friend.

Mariss—

Don’t—don’t think about it, about her.

Don’t think about her or this will all fail.

Mariss—

Have you killed people before? Martine asked as I herded them towards the private docks.

I snorted.

Why were there so many levels? We had to get in a transit tube to the level that connected to the private docks.

Like, a couple people? A lot of people?

Not helping, Martine, Dr. K said. The doors slid closed and they both breathed a very misplaced sigh of relief.

I don’t have an accurate count because I don’t have any records from before my last memory wipe. But go with ‘a lot.’

Martine was—doing something weird. Whatever. No time. No processor bandwidth. I still was not in the cameras.

We exited the lift, and I ushered them through the scanners to the private docks. Just to the end of the platform then up to the next level. So close.

I wasn’t in the Station Security cameras, and I was having a hard time convincing the SecSystem I was supposed to have access while also focused on my humans, and moving, and seeming normal. So I’d completely lost the other SecUnit and was frantically trying to estimate where it was when a maintenance doorway opened, and it stepped out in front of us.

Of course. Without humans, it had been able to take the low life-support maintenance tunnels the bots used. Just like I had. I was an idiot. A useless idiot.

I detached Dr. K and Martine and leapt, clearing half the distance between our position and it while angling to the side so my humans wouldn’t be in the direct line of fire. It hadn’t fired until I was in the air, so the first shot hadn’t been anywhere near them and it had managed to misjudge my trajectory.

Run, I told Dr. K and Martine. It has to prioritize neutralizing me.

No—Dr K started.

If you get shot, how much harder will that make my job?

They ran.

They ran past us, down the length of docks and closed hatchways that had suddenly sealed tight as all the transports docked here realized two SecUnits were about to have it out beside them. And then my fucking infuriating, frustrating, mad, PhD advisor ducked behind a hauler bot while Martine continued on to the lifts.

You are too close. You’re in the splash zone. I can’t make you get in the fucking lift, but that area is more shielded.

Fine. But I’m not leaving without you.

Acknowledged.

It had gotten into armor, and it had a big projectile weapon, and its next shot was way closer to me. The only advantages I had were that out of armor I was slightly faster. And I could try to hack things. Not that it was doing me much good at the moment.

A helpful cargobot veered between us, buying me seconds to overcharge my energy weapons, adjust the projectile weapon from the dead hostile, and change direction. The SecUnit leapt, coming over the bot at me, missing me again, and I fired all three weapons. The energy blasts burned though the weak shoulder joint in its armor and the projectile weapon made contact, severing the joint. But not before the unit fired again.

Great.

So now I had to do this with one arm. At least it was having the same issue and I’d managed to shoot off the arm holding the big projectile weapon.

The—the rest of my arm spun away, my energy weapon attached. It had gotten me just above the elbow. But it had missed a torso shot that would have been more disabling.  

It landed on me as I was reeling backwards and tuning down my pain sensors, taking me to the ground with a jolt that rattled my processors and might have chipped a couple teeth. It fired repeatedly into my torso while I tried to burrow through the armor around its neck with my remaining energy weapon and the projectile weapon. Not good. This was not going to go my way. I had no armor. And repeated energy weapon blasts could kill me—eventually.

I had to find another way.

I brute forced my way through the Station SecSystem into the cameras. Now I was fighting Station SecSystem, and fighting a SecUnit that had pinned me down, and trying to scan the cameras. One hundred meters. That was the standard limit. Maybe one hundred and fifty since this was an unusual situation.

There, I found what I was looking for back on the public docks. A group of armored humans clustered and in the feed. Weapons concealed.

Found them.

“Your human is going to die.” I told it.

It stopped firing to jerk backwards, scanning for its controller.

I jumped from the cameras to the Port Authority bot feed.

“And then you’ll die,” I said.

It punched me, hard, in the face. Pulling back for another hit. At least I’d pissed it off enough to make it inefficient.

I had the port bots now, and they didn’t particularly mind. They wanted the fighting to stop. I took two more punches while moving everything into place.

Then I dropped a cargo bot on the unit’s controller.

And pushed it out of its distance limit.

The results were—messy. So messy.

I pushed it away then sat there, staring at the convulsions and then the twitching for a stupidly long time. Probably because I was a worthless pile of scrap and seriously malfunctioning.

Patel found me crawling across the docks to retrieve my arm.

“Guerrero!” he shouted and then, “holy fucking—what the fucking—oh deity, is that your arm?”

Georgie was with him.

“Dr. K is holding the lift,” I said, coming out of a time loss event. “You need to get to the lift. To the transport.”

Georgie pressed her hands over her mouth. “Guerrero! Guerrero, holy—there’s a hole—” She sort of gagged. I looked down. She was right. There was a hole.

“Let’s,” Patel reached out, stopping short of touching me. Then he grabbed my upper arm right by the armpit, Georgie did the same on the left, and the two of them pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.”

I managed to stumble to the lift and into it. Dr. K looked—not well. The humans all looked unwell. My performance was declining as well, even though my veins and arteries had mostly sealed. I had lost a lot of fluids. And the arm. And maybe some important components in my midsection. And had taken four solid blows to the head.

I collapsed backwards against the lift wall but stayed upright, spitting out some of the blood filling my mouth. And a tooth. Ugh.

The others were all on their way to the docks. I upped the life support in the maintenance tunnels, unlocked them, and sent everyone the route to avoid the mess I’d made with the cargo bot—who was a bit offended about what I’d used it for and complaining to me in machine language. I pointed out we had made the fighting stop very efficiently and the decent humans were now safe.

“That was a SecUnit, wasn’t it? You melted a SecUnit,” Patel said. “How did you melt a SecUnit?”

I sort of waved my detached arm, and Dr. K actually smacked him.

Port Authority was in chaos. Station Security was fighting me for their systems. Fuck it. I just needed to get us on the transport. I started breaking things. Delete this. Reroute that. My humans were talking to me, but my performance reliability was dropping fast, and I needed to focus. They ushered me towards the transport, Patel and Georgie supporting me, while I scrambled all the weapons scanners in the whole station and set them to read all clear.

Then we were aboard, and I let myself have a brief restart.

I came to on the deck, humans I didn’t recognize clustered around me, a cacophony of noise flooding my inputs.

“Mariss?” I said.

There was a brief quiet from the humans around me, but not from the other side of the common compartment. Oh yeah. We were on the transport. And Martine and the pilot were talking to the station.

“You need to permit a security sweep of the vessel,” the station security idiot said over the comm, voice calm and almost hiding the edge of something else underneath.

“You fucking penisheads took a bribe to allow me to be kidnapped,” Martine yelled into the comm. “We already sent the report back home. How much worse do you want to make this?”

There was silence for five seconds.

“Please explain.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll fucking explain. You let five BardotHess enforcers attempt to choke me out and pistol whip me on your fucking station. Then you let a fucking SecUnit chase me down the docks while shooting at me and senior, tenured faculty. And I sure as hell sent that recording straight out through the wormhole ten minutes ago.”

There was another pause. “We admit no knowledge of BardotHess activity on the station or in the conference center. NexWayGate Station is a Corporation Rim renowned neutral station safe for—”

“You’re going to be telling that to a fleet of Lagrange lawyers. And we’re not letting any non-Lagrange personnel on this transport. And you better not give any of our people a hard time getting here. Do you hear me?”

I liked Martine a lot. It was too bad this had all happened. I’d miss her. Or maybe Sixty-four was right, and I wouldn’t.

“I don’t want to be dissected,” I said as my performance reliability hit 65%. “I’d rather just be shut down. Please.”

“No one is dissecting you or shutting you down!” Dr. K had clamped the emergency medkit over my arm stump. She was sweating. Patel was maybe going into shock but had still gotten the handheld tissue regenerator out and was trying to figure out the settings. Georgie had gotten another medkit over the hole in my torso. The rest of my arm lay on the deck nearby.

“Constructs are banned on Lagrange.”

“Construct research. That’s not the same thing.”

“Mariss has all the ownership paperwork. I have copies.” I sent them to Dr. K. She hadn’t left me on the dock. Maybe she would help? “Maybe leave me on the station? Could you do that? Corporation Rim law applies there. They may not melt me down. I think she can pay the fee for having me out of cargo.”

“Are you saying Bernez owns you?” Georgie gasped.

“No one is melting you down, Guerrero,” Patel said, his voice all weird and his face doing stuff. Ah, I couldn’t process it right now, and it didn’t matter.

“No,” I said. “When we malfunction too much we’re disassembled. The organics go in the recycler and the inorganics go in the reclaimer. It’s messy. I hate messy.”

Patel was retching. Was that my fault?

Martine had finished on the comm and was looking at us.

“Martine, you have weapons training.”

“Ti, stop,” Dr. K was crying, still holding the medkit in place. The painkillers didn’t really do anything on me. Right? I didn’t think they could make me loopy like a human, but I’d never had any before.

I pointed at the projectile weapon. “If the station won’t accept a fee. Base of the back of the skull. Instant kill. Less mess than other headshots.”

“Nobody is shooting you in the head,” Dr. K sobbed.

“It’s okay. I’m not a person.”

“You can’t be fucking serious.” Martine dropped to the deck beside me. “There’s no way you’re asking me to kill you.”

“Please, I don’t want to go back to being a SecUnit. I don’t want to be disassembled when I’m awake. Mariss—Mariss said she wouldn’t let anyone do that to me again, but she’s not here. Tell her—”

And then I had an involuntary shut down.  

Chapter Text

You’d think only having eight minutes between their docking time and Dr. Ladsen’s docking time would have meant there was no potential for problems, interference, or corporate fucking kidnapping attempts, if you were from some hippy place like Preservation where this shit didn’t happen.

I was not, neither was anyone else on the crew (Ratthi didn’t count. Ratthi wasn’t crew, he was my “emotional support human” as ART said every time we fought.), so we were annoyed but not surprised, when the BardotHess transport was rescheduled to an earlier docking at a berth closer to Dr. Ladsen’s, and then the entry was locked. I could have changed it again, but that would have immediately alerted a human supervisor.

He’s an archaeologist, I don’t understand why they’d want him, Iris said in the crew feed.

I didn’t either but humans didn’t make a lot of sense. It may be time to encourage our guests to cooperate a little earlier than agreed.

My humans agreed with me, which is why I liked them so much.

“They were probably scanning you for unusual tech. Our anti-corporate research division has found it’s one of their focuses. How good is your shielding at blocking scans?” Mariss said.

She, Seth, Karime, Iris, and Tarik were down in one of the meeting rooms. (A meeting room is an entire room just for the humans to sit around a big table and look at the same display because they are incapable of doing it efficiently in the feed.) My humans were asking her for information about BardotHess because she wasn’t handing over whatever file she supposedly had until we had docked at a BardotHess-free station.

Ratthi was here to encourage us (me) to be nice to her. And Twenty-two was there too because it was her SecUnit.

I was still listening in from my bunk. Three was still lurking because we weren’t sure how knowing there was another rogue SecUnit on board, not merely in PSUMNT’s possession, was going to change things.

“It’s excellent. The university makes sure of it,” Tarik informed her.

“SecUnit,” Mariss’ eyes slid upwards. Of course she knew I was listening in. “Do you agree?”

“You don’t need to know about our shielding.”

She rolled her eyes. It normally took humans a few weeks to get to that point with me. “I’m not asking you to give me the specs. SecUnit evaluations are often different from human evaluations.”

Stupid fucking human. Asking for my opinion. Just like I always wanted.

“How about you just give us the file?”

“While we’re still docked and BardotHess is still here? I think not.”

“I am hopeful we can establish a friendly working relationship, university to university, given our interests are aligned,” Seth cut in neatly.

Twenty-two’s expression was odd. “Risk assessment says the risk from our non-cooperation is higher right now,” it said like it hated admitting it. It was saying it because it wanted someone other than Mariss to hear.

“They’re PSUMNT. Did you take that into account?”

“Fucking hell, Mariss,” the SecUnit snapped. “Do not make this about her.”

“I’m not making anything about her—”

“You don’t get to be angry.”

“Actually, I think I get to be as angry at both of you as I want to be.”

It turned and walked out of the room, its human glaring after it.

“Do you need a minute?” Ratthi asked her when it seemed like she was going to keep staring at the doorway.

“No.”

“You have an issue with Mihira and New Tideland?” Iris said in a pretty neutral tone of voice. This was one of the many reasons why I was not in charge of talking to the irrational humans we encountered.

“No.” This was obviously a lie.

“Then it would be in all of our interests to see the intel you have on BardotHess before we have a confrontation with them.”

“I give you my file, you’ll have more questions. You’ll say you can’t operate without full information, and your transport will threaten to rip my mind apart until you get what you want from me. Then I’m left with no bargaining power, and you can toss me out the airlock to them and enslave my friend.”

Like it wasn’t already enslaved to her.

“How would we enslave your friend?” Seth said like he was poking an obvious hole in a flimsy argument.

Oh shit.

ART.

What?

“Your transport already told it it can fucking reset its governor module so you’re the primary client. And then it’s back to compliance or death.”

Compliance or death was a good way to put it.

ART was silent. Seth looked angry.

I was kind of angry too.

ART, what the fuck?

I wanted to ensure it wouldn’t attempt to misbehave, especially after you agreed we could bring it along on our next mission.

You threatened to fuck with its governor module!

It is an effective incentive.

“Peri is not going to reset Twenty-two’s client designation,” Iris said after her own argument in the feed.

“Just murder it then.”

Seth took a big breath. “Okay. Ground rules. Nobody here is murdering or enslaving anyone else, including Peri. Yes, Peri?”

ART was silent for three seconds. I will do what I must to defend my crew.

“And, what we need to do, to ensure Dr. Ladsen’s safety—who, let me remind you, is crew for this mission—is reassure our guest that we don’t intend to harm her or her friend.”

Unless they make me.

Iris planted her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands.

You’re not going to ask them to order ART to behave? I messaged Mariss. I thought it was interesting she hadn’t tried that angle. She couldn’t know that ART was ungovernable. (Yet.)

I’m not like you.

That was—not cool. Now I felt like an asshole again.

“Just leave her alone,” I said over the comm. “Three and I can deal with corporate security. We’ve dealt with plenty of corporate security.”

Ratthi was nodding along.

Is Three the other rogue SecUnit? Okay, so she was still talking to me in the feed. Well, that was better than talking out loud. Usually.

Yes.

And she was going to try to find it and ask it for the code. She was already looking over her shoulder like it was lurking outside the door. Instead, it was following her SecUnit around to make sure it didn’t get into anything. Twenty-two appeared to be patrolling, or attempting to map ART’s hallways while pretending to patrol.

“Are they likely to have SecUnits?” Tarik said, trying to get this conversation back on track. Also because it was kind of important.

“Like one to three, depending on the targets and station security,” Mariss answered.

“What about the station security?”

“The expense of paying them off. They’re cheap. If it would cost a shit ton to kidnap someone, they approach them with a real job offer instead. That’s how they get people off safe worlds. Station grabs are when they’re trying to cut corners or save money, or the opportunity pops up. I think there’s like an interdepartmental competition around cost savings on human resource acquisitions.”

That phrasing made all of my humans very uncomfortable.

“After five years you certainly picked up on the mindset,” I said. “Were you in supervisor training?” Her augments made sense that way, not for a basic miner or bot operator.

“No, I was a tech. But you have to figure out the system if you want out of it.”

“And you just loved your time with the SecUnits? The SecUnits routinely shooting people?” Tarik demanded. (He seemed to be still caught up on that too.)

“Yes, I love my friends,” Mariss raised her voice back at him. “The two of them were the only people trying to help me!”

I dropped the inputs and went back to my bathroom. Then I put on Episode 270 of Sanctuary Moon.

ART nudged me. I ignored it.

ART nudged me again.

Fuck off.

Looking at the timing of her publication history, she would have been about Turi’s age when she entered her indenture.

Was it like—What if Amena had been in one of the mining facilities? I shared the thought with ART.

She would not have been much older, ART conceded. But you’ve been around other young, indentured humans.

This was true, but in a lot of the facilities I’d been in, the techs weren’t indentured. I was reminded of Rami, Maro, and Tapan, small and soft and helpless, but stupidly brave and grateful for my help. I’d assumed they wouldn’t be grateful, wouldn’t have said ‘thank you,’ if they’d known I was a SecUnit. But what if they had?

Then I received a file. From Mariss. I scanned it for malware. It was clean. ART scanned it for good measure because it was feeling protective and weird. Then I opened it.

Why are you being nice to me? I sent her.

I think I know why that upset you, and I’m sorry. It’s understandable to be upset.

You don’t know me, came out before I could deny that I was upset. Both were stupid things to say. At some point I really was going to put that one second delay in place.

And you don’t know me, SecUnit. I got the feed equivalent of a shrug from her.

So I got to be the one to send her BardotHess dossier to the crew-only feed. Then I stopped backburning the argument in the conference room while the humans all skimmed it.

It was immediately clear why she hadn’t wanted to share it. Along with all the corporate background information (summaries of their executives, hierarchy, areas of production, estimated assets), there was also information Lagrange had accumulated on all of BardotHess’ expert ‘hires’ and attempted hires of the past three years with detailed summaries of each person’s research expertise, academic background, and an estimation of if they were actually hired or kidnapped. There were four very interesting entries marked ‘attempted kidnapping.’

“That’s your advisor.” Martyn was now on the display. “Who’s the second?”

“Martine’s specialty is terraforming geomicrobiology. She’s our friend.”

“And you,” Iris said, “a year later. And—your SecUnit.”

“Yeah,” Mariss said, “we think they don’t know Ti’s a SecUnit. But only because it maybe kind of obliterated the SecSystem at NexWayGate Station when they tried to nab Martine and Dr. K.”

“That was—I heard about that,” Karime said. “Some kind of corporate attack at a conference that got hushed up?”

“They had to pay us a lot to stop us blasting the newfeeds. Your top admin should still know about it though.”

It’s not rogue, I sent Mariss in the feed.

This didn’t surprise her. Mariss seemed to know what I was referring to. I told you, I’ve given it every permission I can.

Hacking, I said. And had to stop, because now I was really reading the entries and (on top of everything else because that was the kind of day it was) I was seeing exactly where the attempted kidnapping of Mariss and Twenty-two had occurred. Only a couple months after I’d been there, when I’d been on my way to TranRollinHyfa.

Why were you on RaviHyral? ART cut in on the comm and the general feed.

Twenty-two stopped its patrol, going completely, SecUnit still.

“I don’t want to talk to you, transport,” Mariss said, abruptly pushing up from the table. “You can go,” and then there was what my own translation modules thought was a string of truly vulgar profanity but I wasn’t a hundred percent certain because ART had stopped translating and was just sitting there, furious, in the feed.

Once she was done and all the humans were staring, she walked out of the room.

Seth was shaking his head.

Ratthi was also shaking his head as he went after her despite me telling him very clearly in the feed to not fucking ask her about it.

Ratthi convinced her food would make her feel better. The idea of the two of them alone together didn’t make me feel better, so I got my ass out of the bathroom and headed for the galley. Apparently Twenty-two had the same thought, which was annoying.

It got there first and was already there when Ratthi said, “I know this is probably really frightening right now, but everything’s going to be ok. Perihelion likes to scare new people, but it doesn’t mean it. And everything else will work out!”

Then he put his hand on her shoulder and leaned towards her. She tensed.

The other SecUnit exploded across the room, grabbed Ratthi’s hand, and pinned him to the wall by it. I went from walking to running, leaping over Turi and kicking off the wall to spin around a junction.

“No touching Dr. Bernez without her consent,” it said softly.  

“Sorry!” Ratthi said, his heart rate going crazy.

Twenty-two smiled (fucking creepy, SecUnits don’t smile), and let him go. “I know. Just ask her first, okay?”

Ratthi nodded, his eyes wide.

I was going to rip it apart.

“Twenty-two, that was too much! I was okay!” She was still all weird and tense and now she seemed really upset.

“That was the touch protocol.”

“That was like two steps beyond what—”

Three skidded in through a hatchway and froze because there wasn’t a protocol for this. Ratthi was physically unharmed. Twenty-two hadn’t even bruised him and had already released him and moved away.

I was still going to rip it apart.

“Hey, Three, I’m okay,” Ratthi said.

Then I barreled in through the opposite hatchway and Ratthi jumped. “Whoa, whoa, everything’s okay!” he called, holding out both hands at me. “I’m fine, just startled. That was totally on me!”

Mariss was pulling at her hair and looking up at her SecUnit with—I don’t know. It looked smug. (It always looked smug. Her little pampered pet bot, with all its permissions.) I had absolutely no control over my face.

“I didn’t harm him,” it said to me in a tone of voice that was absolutely meant to provoke me. Fuck it.

“I’m going to space your sexbot if it doesn’t stop playing fucked up games,” I told Mariss.

“Whoa!” Ratthi said.

Mariss started towards me, and Twenty-two grabbed her arm and yanked her backwards. (Apparently it got to manhandle her but Ratthi couldn’t even pat her shoulder.)

“What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?”

I wondered that a lot.

“We’re done here,” Twenty-two said. It picked her up and started walking towards the other hatch. “We may as well take our chances on the station.”

“No! Stop it! Put me down!”

It froze. Then it complied, SecUnit stiff but somehow still managing to radiate anger.

Mariss let out a stream of curses ART didn’t bother translating and my translation modules were having trouble parsing and said, “I’m so sorry, cancel all outstanding commands.”

(As I’ve said before, humans lack attention to detail.)

I saw the slight twist of its mouth through one of my drones but it was just as fast as me and had planned for this. The energy weapon blast hit me full force in the chest. It hurt like hell, knocking me backwards slightly and burning a huge hole in my shirt, and it really pissed me off. I was powered up and aiming when ART’s fire suppression system came on and blasted both of us with cold wet foam for ten seconds.

Well, we’d all walked into that one.

Twenty-two had shoved Mariss away and onto the floor so she and Ratthi and Three were all only slightly sprayed. I was soaked and the organic-inorganic joins on my chest were showing through the hole in my shirt. I hate that. Twenty-two was just standing there, waiting for retaliation or punishment from ART, who had almost certainly threatened to delete it at some point.

You couldn’t have turned that off? I demanded.

You both needed it. I am considering equipping a drone with a large water bottle to follow you around for the duration of this.

“Is everybody calm now?” Ratthi asked.

“No,” Three said.

It was helping Mariss off the floor while she continued glaring at me. And then to further piss me off, she said, “Thank you, you must be Three,” to Three. “What an awkward way to meet!”

So now we had three SecUnits with nothing really stopping them from doing what they wanted in a room with two humans who were stupid enough to not be afraid of that fact, and ART looming in the feed.

“Mariss, go back to the conference room,” Twenty-two said in the same kind of voice I used when my humans were being suicidally stupid and I needed them to listen. It was still glaring at me. She started to protest, and it gave her a look. “Go.”

She pouted, but she went.

So what. So she could pretend to take orders. And had just about lost it on me (a rogue SecUnit that had already shot her unit and kidnapped her) for saying she was treating it like a sexbot.

Once she was gone, Twenty-two shook some of the foam off itself and onto the floor. I’d already responded to several frantic pings and feed taps that everything was under control and not to worry, but Seth was in the conference room still watching us on a display and talking to ART on a private channel.

“Humans get fixated on my presentation. I thought another SecUnit wouldn’t make the same assumptions,” Twenty-two said to me. “It is not as if I have not been subject to such treatment. I assume that’s also true of you.” It gave Three a look and seemed to decide Three was too innocent or something. Ratthi was just now realizing what it was implying and getting horrified by the Corporation Rim all over again. “But never from Mariss.”

I made a noise at it.

“I can tell you don’t intend to believe me because the fact I encountered a single human during my entire life as a SecUnit that saw me as something other than a walking gun offends you. I suppose you freed yourself and never had a human like that. So there must be something wrong with us.”

“Indentured humans don’t like SecUnits,” I said. “They don’t care about the equipment except when they’re playing with it.”

It pushed a data packet at me, which ART whisked out of my storage before I had even started a malware scan.

Then Twenty-two turned and walked out of the galley.

ART, what the fuck?

I have to scan it, it said,

Give it back. I can scan it myself.

ART was silent for 47 seconds. An eternity for it.

You don’t need to see this. ART sounded distressed. What the hell had that SecUnit done to my transport?

“I know you don’t want to talk,” Ratthi said.

“Right,” I said and walked out the other hatch.

ART made me go to medical and get my skin fixed and new clothes and shit. It wouldn’t tell me what was in the data packet. It wouldn’t give it back. I wasn’t going to ask the unit to resend it.

“Malware?” I demanded while MedSystem poked at me.

No.

“What then?”

A memory file.

“Of?”

When the silence stretched on for an obnoxious amount of time, I pinged Three and told it to ask ART.

Then I was in a secured channel with both of them. No, ART said. And be nicer to that human.

“Fuck no!” It had hacked ART.

ART came bearing down on me, distressed, and angry, and something else. Be nicer to that human.

Tell me what was in the video, asshole.

I would also like to know, Three chimed in.

A human experiencing emotional distress and physical distress, ART said at last. And all of Twenty-two’s related emotional data from the event.

And the event was? Three prompted.

A SecUnit dying.

Oh. If I’d activated the file…I would have felt it as if it were my memory. That I was re-experiencing a memory. I couldn’t be as mad at ART. I was really fucking mad at ART.  

You don’t need to manage me!

I’m not managing you, I’m protecting you, you little idiot!

I don’t need that either.

Chapter Text

Journal Extract

“I have to go back to RaviHyral.”

“Fuck no,” I said, throwing a pillow at Mariss across the living room.

We’d just finished a survey and I was back in civilian clothes, pretending not to be a SecUnit in public. That was more enjoyable than being Mariss’ personal SecUnit in a hab of jumpy humans planet-side. Especially when that sometimes involved Mariss blasting inappropriate things the other humans said to me into the public feed to shame them or bursting into rooms where the other humans were trying to give me orders I was absolutely not going to comply with.

I’d had to hide a lot of sharp or semi-sharp objects from her. And lock down all projectile and energy weapons. She’d had a lot of meetings with the survey leader about what exactly was in her contract and what ‘no violence against SecUnits’ meant—it was a lot more extensive than they’d thought—and how she was 100% capable of getting angry enough to launch the emergency beacon to leave early and they would have to eat that cost. Because the Lagrange legal staff for the College of Sciences was used to dealing with outlandish demands from brilliant nutjobs and would build anything into a contract as long as the university was getting its cut. Especially for tenure track junior faculty who were being aggressively recruited by other universities and corporations.

Mariss had wanted me to keep pretending to be human, but I’d convinced her I would not be able to fool a HubSystem, a SecSystem, and three other SecUnits, especially when my height and build were unit standard. I’d been okay with it because I’d needed a fucking break from humans, and my stupid-human code, and everything, and I got to do a lot of standing around not thinking and watching shit. And Mariss wouldn’t make me talk about anything I was feeling, unlike Martine and my fucking trauma counselor.  

The whole “Ti needs to go on a field survey at the same time as me but will still be doing the coursework, also don’t ask where I’m getting the SecUnit,” issue was remarkably easy to deal with as well because those things went on different forms and the university administration was larger than the governments of most non-corporate polities. And Dr. K was very good at covering for me. Somehow, I was okay with that.

The upper administration and tenured faculty were still happily pretending I was human. Everything was cleaner that way.

I only had one semester left of coursework. I had two articles drafted and in review. I was supposed to teach one of the fall intro seminars. I didn’t know how the fuck I’d gotten here.

“We just got back,” I said when I realized she was serious and not merely screwing with me. I liked our apartment, with its balconies, two bedrooms, and shared office. The couch was large, comfortable, and perfectly worn in. I had almost all my clothes here. Technically, I had my own apartment. I used it mostly to store bags and clothes that were out of season. I didn’t want to leave.

They really never wanted to let her go, so she’d gotten a nice place, upgraded when she got some very tempting job offers from other schools.

“Just for a week or two. Supervisor Jean-Marie needs me to confirm some things,” she sighed. “Not to go down to the moon. She said she’d send the samples up to the station and get lab space for us.”

I stared at her.

It didn’t work on her, which was annoying.

“We can use the data for your dissertation. Along with what we got from the last survey.”

We’d found strange synthetics, which was good. I’d had to shoot some people, which was less good.

“Fine.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” she said carefully. “If you don’t want to.”

I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. It was something I’d added to the stupid-human code based on a book I’d read. I was probably going to cut it. “Like there is any universe in which I let you go there without me.”

So I’d have to deal with humans that knew I was a SecUnit. On a station. And not one of the froofy ‘everyone behaves themselves here so nobody knows well enough to be scared’ stations. Ugh.

There were ways of doing it legally; it just meant Mariss had to eat the cost of registering a personal SecUnit on the station.

I wasn’t excited about this, but Umro was paying a lot. And I was going to make damn sure Mariss got nowhere near any kind of transport or shuttle unless it was heading to another system.

The rooms they had arranged for Mariss, up in the station’s residential zone in part of Umro’s complex, were actually decent. The furniture was a bit worn but good quality and comfortable, the view of the planet from the windows was—to be honest—pretty cool, the red and orange clouds an angry swirl constantly in motion. We each had our own rooms, which was a nice assumption and meant we didn’t always have to be together, even though we usually were. They were small, fully equipped and attached to the shared common room. The attached lab was adequate.

The day after our arrival, I was lounging on one of the couches in our common room, tossing a glowing puzzle toy, twisting it each time it landed and measuring how close I was to getting the apex of the arc to the same place each time, when the door slid open and three people walked in. I caught the puzzle, leaned up just enough to scan them, then went back to my game. I kept being a couple microns off, and it was pissing me off. I watched them all through my drones.

They all said hello very normally. Which could be an act. It was Supervisor Jean-Marie, Assistant Cressida, and a SecUnit. I could feel the unit looking at me through its faceplate. It pinged me in surprise—turned out to be Alfie—and I pinged back.

“What happened to the SecUnit?” Supervisor Jean-Marie said, looking at me like she was trying to place me. “You seemed very attached to it. And I thought your contract stated you were bringing it?”

Cressida was staring at me oddly. Then I waved a hand in their direction. Mariss nodded at me, like ‘obviously.’

Cressida dropped her bag.

Alfie caught it.

Scans showed all of them experiencing heightened stress reactions. I didn’t smile. It was still funny as shit.

“Are you going to say hello or what?” Mariss said to me, giving the humans a couple seconds to recover from the shock.

I snorted.

“Ti, you agreed you weren’t going to be a dick.”

“I never agreed to that,” I shot back.

“Sorry,” Mariss said. “It’s upset because it didn’t want to come back here.”

“This is a shitty, backwater industrial station where people literally tried to kidnap you. So, no, I did not think this was a good idea.”

“Anyway,” Mariss was good at ignoring me when she wanted to. “Did you bring the samples?”

Supervisor Jean-Marie was still staring at me. “That’s—the SecUnit?”

“In the flesh,” I said as with a last twist I solved the puzzle and it played a silly little jingle. “Nice to see you again too.”

“Are you going to help or not?” Mariss shot at me.

“Oh, was I supposed to be helping?” I got up and the two humans cringed back. I let the corner of my mouth curl upwards.

Okay, maybe this was going to be a more entertaining ten cycles than I’d anticipated. It was hard not to remember the utter terror I felt on Supervisor Jean-Marie establishing a secured feed connection with me while staring at my actual face. And playing that back against now, with her clutching at the breast pocket of her overcoat, where a concealed weapon was hidden, was—I didn’t think my trauma counselor would approve of my reaction.

I took the bag from Alfie and gestured for Mariss to go into the lab space.

Cressida ran up to her and they linked hands, talking quietly together as they made for the door. Alfie followed them while Supervisor Jean-Marie was still eyeing me.

Perfect.

“The only reason we’re here,” I said, looming over Supervisor Jean-Marie the way she loomed over her subordinates, “is because I trust you more than any other corporate I’ve ever encountered. I don’t want to discover I’ve miscalculated.”

Instead of cowering, she narrowed her eyes up at me. I’d forgotten how much I liked her.

“You don’t want me to discover I’ve miscalculated,” I added.

“Is that a threat?”

“Only humans make threats.”

“I have my own SecUnit,” Supervisor Jean-Marie shot back.

“I could rip Alfie apart,” I told her in an even voice. Humans hated that when they were feeling emotionally charged up. “I know because I did it before when we were evenly matched.” I let my voice drop. “And we’re no longer evenly matched.”

“Ti,” Mariss exclaimed from the doorway. Ah shit, she was listening in via my drones—that was the problem with having a heavily augmented human, she could manage an additional input or two a lot of the time. “Please do not threaten Alfie, of all SecUnits!”

“You’re not alarmed by it speaking this way?” Supervisor Jean-Marie demanded of Mariss, spinning away from me. “A dangerous, malfunctioning, SecUnit?”

Mariss snorted. “Twenty-two isn’t malfunctioning. It’s just angry at me for ignoring its advice and it’s taking it out on you because it’s already lost this fight so many times.”

“I haven’t lost the argument until we’re safely off this shithole.”

Mariss sighed and planted her hands on her hips. “Look, you play nice until we leave, and I’ll go with you to get those stupid boots you want.”

She was too clever. Deity, I’d been obsessed with those shoes for months, but it was a twenty-five cycle round trip and I—I’d only been apart from her that long twice over the past seven years. I hadn’t been willing to do it again merely for shoes and she did not see the value in the trip—on going on a trip for human-made, rare, natural leather shoes—when I could just print some similar looking ones from a recycler.

I bumped the request to the atelier again—the waitlist was almost a Corporation Rim standard year long. Then I stepped away from Supervisor Jean-Marie and pointed at Mariss. “I’m holding you to that.”

“I said it didn’t I?” She threw her hands in the air and went in to the lab.

We filed in after her. The Umro humans tense and weird. Alfie confused. Mariss—Mariss. And me still kind of annoyed, but a lot less than I’d been.

I wanted red boots. Mariss was going to have comments about them. But she’d gotten a lot more used to my clothing choices, and I’d vastly improved hers.

Mariss slid the first sample into the scanner and put the results up on the display. I flipped through my filters and then shook my head while she was pursing her lips. The next two were the same. Then the fourth—

I crouched down beside her, peering at the actual rock shavings while she flipped filters and squinted.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed, enlarging a section of visuals and running additional scans, then dropping the results into our shared workspace. “A variation.”

“It didn’t match anything in the database,” Cressida was leaning over our shoulders.

“No, it wouldn’t,” Mariss said, enlarging the same section I’d been focused on and running an XRF. “This is a byproduct, natural rock that’s been affected by the synthetics, not straight synthetics.”

“But we’re in the right area to locate more strange synthetics?” Geosup said from the far end of the room. Seemed she was a little nervous of me now.

Alfie just stood there. Like an abandoned piece of luggage.

I hadn’t been around a SecUnit—excluding the episode on NexWayGate Station—since I’d left.

I pinged it, and it pinged back. Very confused.

Query: unit in hazardous conditions? I sent.

No more hazardous than prior conditions, it sent very carefully. Re prior interaction with geosup: threat detected?

No threat, I sent with amusement. That should take its threat assessment down a bit. Like I said, SecUnits don’t make threats. They tell you their intentions.

The women spent a bit more time flipping through the samples while Alfie did its best to update me on the status of the other units and miners. Things were largely unchanged since I’d left. But less violent than any period before Mariss’ indenture had ended. They still hadn’t managed to sufficiently define “unnecessary stabbing” for Mr. Stabby, but what was new?

I’m glad things are better, I told it.

Query: unit status? It sent me hesitantly. It had scanned me. It had seen me. I didn’t look or act anything like a SecUnit.

Very happy, before I had to come here, I told it.

Query: client naming origin?

Ah shit, it was asking why Mariss called it Alfie. You won’t like it, I told it.

Query, it sent again. Client naming origin?

I sighed and blew out a breath. Mariss glanced at me. Everything okay?

“Alfie wants to know why you call it Alfie.”

She grimaced and flushed. “Oh. That’s embarrassing. Sorry, SecUnit. But in my defense, you wouldn’t ever give me anything to call you.”

Query: client naming origin? It said more urgently, some actual distress bleeding through. Okay so we were just making it worse by not telling it.

I pulled up the relevant memory section—Mariss telling the story about the neighbor’s mistreated pet—and sent it across without comment.

There was a fleeting pause. Then it said, Acknowledged.

Yeah, I wouldn’t have liked being named after somebody’s pet either. I hadn’t included the part about Mariss rescuing the creature. It—it would probably have upset it even more.

When Mariss got up to take something across the room to one of the other pieces of equipment, Cressida edged a little closer to me with a curious expression.

“Twenty-two?”

“Assistant Cressida?” I said lightly, leaning one arm on the tabletop so that I was angled down a bit closer to her height.

“You look so different,” Cressida said and her hand reached out towards my chest. I tapped Mariss’ feed with the image from my eyes.

Oh whoops, I could have handled this myself. Stupid survey habits.

“Cressida,” Mariss snapped from across the room. “Did you ask?”

Cressida’s hand stopped just shy of my dangling necklace.

“Sorry! Mariss, can I touch your SecUnit?”

“Fuck no,” Mariss snapped, slamming down a tray.

Cressida jumped, and I leaned down so I was almost brushing her hair. “She meant ask me,” I said, low and close to her ear. “Too bad.”

Then I pulled back and yup. Didn’t even need to scan her. Hilarious.

Supervisor Jean-Marie was watching us. I arched an eyebrow at her, and her lips pursed.

Okay, maybe I’d found some ways to entertain myself while stuck here. Mariss was going to be annoyed. But I was annoyed at her, so that made things even.

We went through the rest of the samples and Mariss and I generally agreed about them, which was nice. No one had to stand around listening to us argue and throw databases at each other.

“Don’t bring Mr. Stabby here,” I told Supervisor Jean-Marie when they were getting ready to leave, complete with instructions from Mariss on where to take more samples. “Mariss doesn’t like it.”

Her lips pursed again. “I’ll do as I please, unit.”

“Well if it pleases you to have a happy, cooperative geochemist helping you track down more strange synthetics, you won’t upset her unnecessarily.”

“Why doesn’t she like it? She likes you well enough.” There was a lot behind Supervisor Jean-Marie’s words and the way she was looking at me, and I didn’t want to think about it.

“It’s like repair chief Zaib,” I said. “It revels in the violence.”

“Whereas you—”

“Do what I have to to protect my client.” I leaned back slightly, slipping my hands in my pockets. She was reacting to every single overtly human thing I did, and it was weird. I was too used to my humans, who treated me like I was human, even the ones that knew I wasn’t.

Geosup pulled herself to her full height, looking up at me like she was looking down at me. Wow, she was not happy I could talk back. Or was this something different? It was hard to figure out, and she was good at controlling her expressions. I didn’t deal with corporates much anymore, and they never knew I wasn’t human, so I hadn’t really had this kind of tension with one before.

“And what do you revel in, unit?”

I shrugged. She hated that. “Nice clothes. The bouquet of a well aged wine. Reading in the gardens.”

She made a dismissive noise and strode away, sweeping Cressida and Alfie along with her.

“Hey,” Mariss said once they were gone. She’d perched on a table top, swinging her legs and watching me. “How are you doing?”

I shrugged.

When she held out a hand, I crossed the room and took it.

“Have you um, heard, from Francisca?”

My hand clenched suddenly, and she winced. Fuck. I let go immediately.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” She was shaking her hand out, so she was not okay. Everything had gone so wrong. “Would you like a hug?”

“No,” I said, stepping up to her and letting her wrap her arms around my midsection. Her feet kicked along the sides of my legs. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer. I felt her sigh against my chest.

Then I ran a hand over her hair and thought about how I’d been told that I couldn’t have two things at once. That I shouldn’t be like this with her if I wanted to—

Of course Francisca had waited until—after—to say any of that. Not six months earlier when she already knew what Mariss and I were like. Why hadn’t I listened to Martine? Why did I keep pathetically checking my messages?

Was I really disposable?

SecUnits were meant to be.

“Want me to kill her?” Mariss said, half-muffled by the fabric of my shirt.

“Don’t be weird,” I said.

I didn’t want her to harm Francisca, I wanted Francisca to answer my last three messages, but it was always funny when Mariss threatened to harm humans for me.

She pulled back and winced. She’d caught an earring on my necklace.

“You’re maybe overdoing it,” she said, holding still aside from the wincing as I unhooked her.

“I look good.”

“You do look good, but I keep getting stuck to you!”

I unhooked her earrings—they were ugly anyway—and pocketed them. “Problem solved.”

Chapter Text

The transport directs me to a currently unoccupied room where I throw our bags on a bunk and rip mine open. The foam stinks. I’m cold and damp and sticky. And shooting that SecUnit has only barely taken the edge off.

It took her from me.

The hatch opens, and I spin to find Mariss.

“Hey,” she says softly, “I told them I didn’t have anything else and they could figure out their own logistics.”

I nod because I can’t really talk at the moment.

“Those pants?” she says with amusement when she sees what’s in my hands.

I don’t answer and instead go into the bathroom to clean off. The cleaning fluid is smooth and pleasant, the soaps smell nice, and I hate every second of it. I hate being here. I hate this ship. I don’t hate the humans—they seem reasonable and Kaede had been very polite and friendly six months ago when we’d been messaging about alien remnants while they were in dry dock and I was on Mihira making more mistakes with Francisca. But I do hate the SecUnit. The suspiciously nameless SecUnit.

I’m unsure about that second SecUnit, Three.

I come out of the bathroom and find Mariss examining the opposite wall. I throw my clothes on the floor, put on the pants that the social appropriateness module has determined are too tight and add a shirt that looks like it’s out of a serial about dashing fictional raiders who attack only evil corporations and are definitely not indiscriminately murdering their way across systems. I only have two remaining pairs of shoes so I put on the ones that make me the tallest.

“Done,” I say.

Mariss manages to bite off whatever she’s thinking of saying when she looks at me, but from the way she bites her lip and her eyes crinkle, I know she has a lot of comments. It feels good to put my rings back on, like I’m putting myself back together a bit, and I spin them instead of doing the finger depression thing over and over. I want to punch the walls until my hands are pulped, but that won’t do either of us any good if we get into a real fight.

“Don’t put my clothes in this transport’s recycler,” I tell Mariss when she’s attempting to clean up after me. Normally I don’t need to be cleaned-up after, but today is a bad day.

I am not going to destroy your clothes, it chimes in, managing to sound dismissive and disappointed at the same time.

“Not helping,” Mariss tells it. She’s still looking at me because she’s waiting to see if that changed my mind. I shrug.

We are constantly under observation. It’s in my feed. It’s like having a fucking HubSystem again, but one that understands tone and understands how to use it against me. I watch with resignation as Mariss puts my clothes in the recycler and plants her hands on her hips. Oh, she’s talking to it in the feed.

Enough of that.

I pick her up and crush her to me.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” she says while wrapping her arms around my shoulders, hooking her legs around my waist, and squeezing back.

I squeeze her until I feel her breath catch, and I have to loosen my grip.

It took her from me.

I had her in my arms, and it took her from me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“I’m fine,” she says. “I didn’t get hurt. Nobody hurt me.”

“You’re only fine because that SecUnit decided to protect you from me and I was too incompetent to deal with the situation. So it was right.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

I can’t say anything. I just bury my face against her shoulder. She rakes a hand through my damp hair then digs the soft pads of her fingers into the back of my neck in a way that I usually find very relaxing. But I can’t relax.

“You’re not malfunctioning,” Mariss says.

I almost squeeze her too hard. I don’t ever want to let her go. I just lived through one of my greatest fears all over again, and all I can think about is every single misstep I’ve taken to get us here.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. We got blindsided, but we came out okay.”

“This isn’t ok.” I press my face into the crook of her shoulder and neck. Maybe this is too much, I don’t know. I’m normally so careful about not being weird when I hug her, but at the moment I can’t care. I just need to feel she’s here and alive.

She doesn’t pull away, so I stay like that.

“Ti, we’ve been in such worse spots. So much worse. This is like, the nicest fuckup we’ve ever tripped into. Like would you rather be here, or dealing with my parents again?”

“I’m prepared for your parents,” I tell her shoulder. “I’d love to be talking to your parents right now.”

“Well, I would not. A couple dickhead MIs is way more manageable.”

I am not a dickhead, the transport cuts in. My organics tense and I repress a shudder. 

“Could you, like, give us a minute?” Mariss says.

You are inside me, so no. 

I sink to sit on the bed, release Mariss, and then collapse backwards, wondering if I can have a restart or something. Nope, not enough time. I need to be alert when everything goes wrong—more wrong—differently wrong.

Mariss shifts to sit next to me and holds my hand. After a too-short moment, she releases my hand, and I fight the impulse to grab her again. “I’m cold. This dress is cute, but I’m changing into pants.”

The recycler dings and we both look. A fresh new pair of dark blue pants have dropped out of the slot. Mariss picks them up, and they look like they would fit her perfectly. I don’t like that.

“Do not put those on; they have its logo on it.”

It’s a nice logo. The transport sounds offended.

“You have SecUnits,” Mariss says to it, almost gently.

Oh great she’s going to have this conversation with it while I’m trapped in the room. I roll face down onto the bunk and lace my hands over the back of my head.

It’s silent for a long time for an MI.

You assume they all have the same aversions, it says.

“You’ve got two SecUnits; I’ve got two SecUnits. We’re both working off sample sizes that are too small to extrapolate from. But I suspect I’ve spent more time around more SecUnits than you, and I’ve noticed some commonalities.”

It’s mercifully silent in response to that. For a brief moment.

Where is your other SecUnit? the transport asks.

“That’s proprietary information,” I say.

“They’re very nice pants,” Mariss says as she slides the pants back into the recycler, “but I have my own already, thanks.”

I’m a fucking shitshow, so now she’s having to be diplomatic to this asshole who won’t stop spying on us. Great. I’m doing a great job.

I hear her getting changed and try to smother myself on the bunk. Maybe this is all a hallucination and I can knock myself back to reality. There is no way I got Mariss kidnapped by Mihira and New Tideland today. It’s just not a thing that could happen. Francisca would laugh at me about all of this.

Francisca laughed a lot. It wasn’t always kind.

Mariss might have a penchant for shooting people in the face, but other than that, she is usually kind. Even when she is arguing with or teasing me, she is never trying to hurt me.

Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.

I’d gotten Mariss kidnapped today, I can do this one thing she’d been begging me to do for over a year. I go to my messages, sweep all the ones to or from Francisca and bury them in a folder in my archive, set a password, then delete my memory of the password. Then I set a redirect so the next time she decides she’s bored, or lonely, or wants to ensure she has someone to fuck at a conference, and reaches out again, it will go straight to the folder, and I won’t see it.

That’s all my fault too. I’d reached out to her after the conference—after I was finally online again—to make sure she hadn’t been harmed. Then we’d started messaging and things had spiraled, and no matter what anyone else said I couldn’t not respond to her, no matter how long it had been or what she had last said to me. And to think, if it had just been a normal conference and I’d declined to go back to her room with her, none of this would have happened. I doubted I’d have thought of her much after that.

I feel the transport trying to peer through my wall at what I’m doing and shudder. It hasn’t burst through, but the force with which it essentially screamed in my face that I was nothing more than a bug it would squash if I became inconvenient, made it absolutely clear that my walls are nothing more than a polite fiction aboard this ship. It can tear me apart at any moment it wants.  

Right now, it’s being remarkably non-threatening for a hulking malevolence observing my emotional collapse. It’s probably a trap. It nudges me in the feed, and I pull as far away from it as it allows. It doesn’t allow me to disconnect.

Kaede is very impressed by your work on strange synthetics.

This is probably a trap so I don’t answer.

You were a guest lecturer for the geosciences graduate seminar last year on Mihira. Did something occur then to cause Dr. Bernez’s antipathy towards the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland?

Yup, there it is. Why the fuck does it want to know anyway? I’m not fucking answering that.

It pauses, probably recalculating.

Where was Dr. Bernez indentured?

If it has a full university archive, it can figure it out. Her entire dissertation is about RaviHyral. Half my dissertation is about RaviHyral. And the last thing Mariss or I want to discuss is her indenture, and there’s no good reason for this ship to ask about it.

Our advanced MIs are programmed with some fucking empathy, I tell it. I doubt it’s capable of idle curiosity, which means it’s only capable of malicious curiosity—looking for something new to use against us.

I feel the transport pull back in the feed slightly, offended.

I am capable of empathy.

You just choose not to use it.

It bristles at me for a moment before changing tactics.

Why were you on RaviHyral last year?

It won’t let me disconnect. When I struggle—with a rising surge of panic at being trapped here with it and no escape—it feels like it pulls me closer and tries to hold me down. I gasp and my performance reliability drops. It releases me abruptly and I get a sense of frustration and embarrassment from it.

“Twenty-two?” Mariss says.

Fuck. “I’m okay.” I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to have to fight my way out of another corporate kidnapping attempt.

You are experiencing the construct equivalent of a panic attack, the transport tells me like I don’t already know that.

Deity, does it smother those other two units until they get their shit together and behave? Why haven’t they escaped it?

I don’t plan to take her from you, it tells me.

Plan to. Not won’t. Because it could if it wanted to.

“Ta-da!” Mariss says and I look up. Of course she’s wearing leggings and a sweater that’s trying to eat her. I picked it though, so she hasn’t disappeared into it. The color choice makes a huge difference there.

“Will you please come hug me again?” I say because I cannot stop thinking—

This is the second time we’ve been kidnapped, and the last time someone took her from me, they shot her.

It feels like this won’t be the last time someone takes her from me.

Mariss jumps on the bunk, bouncing the mattress, then throws an arm across my torso.

Every fucking time one of us leaves the system, something terrible happens. I’m going to do it. I’m going to enact the fucking plan. I’m taking her home immediately, taking a transport to one of the rural nature preserves and locking her in a cabin for the rest of her life. She likes fauna. There’s plenty of fauna to see in the mountains. And no corporates. No dickhead transports. No other SecUnits.

“You’re not locking me a in a cabin in the woods,” Mariss says. I should have walled her off in the feed, but I can’t bear to.

“It’ll be a really nice cabin.”

“I love you but I’m not letting you lock me in a cabin for the rest of my life. If you keep saying you’re gonna do it, I’m going to make you take anti-depressants.”

“I don’t eat.”

“I’ll grind them up and put them in your resupply port.”

Would that work? the transport asks.

Fuck. Off, I tell it.

“It might be worth a shot,” Mariss says.

I push up onto my knees, roll her onto her back, and press my fingers into her armpits in a way that elicits a shriek of laughter. I keep it up as she wriggles and shrieks and tries to get away from me but fails, until she finally gasps, “Stop! Stop, please!” I do so because I have to. That first “stop” was an order, even though she tried to fix it. I don’t know that I would have stopped otherwise. I’m so something right now, and I can’t explain it, and Mariss doesn’t understand.  

She’s panting and wiping tears from her eyes with the backs of her hands.

“Deity, I wish you hadn’t learned to do that. That is not a way to win an argument.”

“You’re not grinding up anything to put in my repair or resupply ports,” I tell her, hands hovering above her like I plan to start again at any moment.

Mariss makes a face up at me. “And you’re not locking me in a fucking cage. That’s not keeping me safe, Twenty-two, that’s as bad as being back in the mine.”

That deflates me. I don’t want to frighten her. I don’t want to imprison her. I just want to keep her safe.

“You’re not leaving the system again.”

“We can talk about that when we get home,” she says soothingly, taking one of my hands and holding it. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

Accept client naming preference, Alfie sent me.

You don’t have to, I told it patiently. She’d call you anything else you like.

Accept client naming preference, it sent again, some of the background bleeding through. Oh. It felt like a kicked companion animal. Ughh.

Acknowledge, I told it. Then I let Mariss know. All she said was Fuck.

It was two cycles later and Mariss and Cressida sat together in front of a display like in the old days, Mariss explaining what they were looking at. I had another puzzle. Mariss had brought a whole box of them for me because of course she was thoughtful like that.

I didn’t have to be in the room with them, but I really didn’t like leaving Mariss alone here.

She had not been happy to find me sitting on the floor outside the closed door to her bedroom that morning.

“Why didn’t you just come in?” she’d said blearily.

“Laying down is a security risk.”

“Stressing me out is a security risk.”

“No, it’s not.”

She’d ruffled my hair and gone to print a cup of hot stimulant.

I didn’t like that Supervisor Jean-Marie was here again. There was no need for her to have come up to the station again. And I really didn’t like the way she kept looking at Mariss and me. Mariss was too notable and valuable to be abducted, and yet threat assessment kept creeping higher. Seven cycles to go.

They had found more strange synthetics at two separate facilities and the initial results looked pretty promising. Unlike the last time I was here, I understood why strange synthetics were so valuable. Scanner shielding was probably the most common use, but I’d gotten the post-docs over in the materials sciences department drunk enough that they’d shown me some other really fascinating interactions with heavy weaponry, and we’d been messaging a lot about the potentials of that in the months since. They’d been really excited to help me print some modified drones too.

I finished this puzzle and threw it at Mariss’ chair.

Interestingly, Alfie swatted it down.

“I’m going to put you in one of those finger traps while you solve the next one,” Mariss said over her shoulder to me.

“I don’t think that will have much effect on the outcome.”

I got up and crossed the room to look at the collection of images from the cycle. I could have done it through my drones, or the camera in the room, or Mariss’ optics. But then I wouldn’t have been able to lean on the back of Cressida’s chair in a way that made a deep flush creep up her neck and ears. It really was fascinating.

I leaned between them suddenly and tapped the display. “Wrong.”

“Fuck off, Ti, it’s a secondary.”

“Nope, tertiary.”

“Tertiary isn’t a real thing; it’s something you made up.”

“You mean it’s something humans were too stupid to pick up on.” The distinction was half the point of my dissertation—which she knew because she kept picking apart my arguments and making me re-write them.  

“Honey, you are being so pissy right now.”

I was not. I left the room. I didn’t have to be there with them. I left my contingent of drones.

What was I doing here? Was I even a SecUnit anymore? Sometimes it felt like Mariss forgot that I was one. She saw me as her friend and research partner first, her roommate second, and then—who knew.

She’d tried to tell me of course, repeatedly over the years, but I couldn’t have that conversation, not while I was like this. Not when a single thoughtless slip-up in the middle of an argument threatened to trigger my governor module. It was like being trapped in stasis.

I lay there that night cycle, the gentle rise and fall of Mariss’ breathing shifting my arm. Her hair was ticking my neck, and it was slowly driving me insane, but if I moved too much, she’d wake up. Ugh.

She still—still liked being close to me like this, even though I’d gone off and gotten—modified.

I’d been worried she wouldn’t want to be so close to me anymore. Especially since she’d told me not to do it—though she said that she was against it because she thought I was being pressured into it, not because she was opposed more generally. She hadn’t ordered me not to do it, even though she could have, but the disappointed headshake when I left for the port had been almost as bad.

It was different too—different humans were different to hold. I had missed this more than I realized it. Missed it for the five months when Francisca had been on Lagrange and had made it clear it was not okay for me to be spending the night in Mariss’ apartment—our apartment—and I had gone back to my own and made room for a different human there.

I squeezed Mariss slightly, trying to distract myself from the looping thoughts, and she made a noise. She shifted and rolled onto her back. Fuck.

“Twenty-two?”

“Hi.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

No. Absolutely not. I did not want to talk about this. I had spent three months avoiding my trauma counselor to avoid talking about any of it.

“I don’t want to not do this anymore,” I said.

“Well, I am not—” Agh, here we were at the awkward loop we were stuck in. She took a breath and tried again. “You know I like being close to you as long as that’s what you want.”

I made a noise.

“I feel like every time I tell you that you are the most important person in my life, you don’t believe me. I am not going to be with someone who wants me to put them first or on a pedestal or however you want to say it. That’s not—I am not saying you can’t make different choices. You’re a different person. You get to decide, and I’ll respect whatever you decide.”  

I didn’t comment. She knew I had made the same choice. Essentially.

“If you want to move, to go be with her, after you finish your coursework, I’d support you,” she said in an almost normal tone of voice. “You’d finally be somewhere no one could give you any orders, even accidentally. And it’s not like I’m going anywhere. You know where I’ll be.”

My fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her side. She couldn’t see my expression in the dark, but I could absolutely see her attempt at a smile, the slight lines of worry. I should have pretended to be recharging. I brushed some hair off her face. Fuck, whatever, we were supposed to talk about stuff.

“You didn’t think she treated me well.”

Mariss took a breath and then exhaled slowly. “No, I didn’t. I want better for you, and there are literally billions of people in our home system, so there are plenty of other options. But you feel how you feel.”

I did feel—how I felt. But I felt a lot of conflicting ways all at the same time.

“And in three years when the metrics change again and she wants children and disposes of me again, I’ll return to Lagrange. Only to find you and your martial partners and your brood of children very content, and there will be no room for me.”

Mariss laughed pleasantly, but I wasn’t feeling it. I rolled her back onto her side so she couldn’t see my face and squeezed her until she stopped.

“First off,” she gasped, prying at my fingers until I loosened my grip. “Humans aren’t like dogs, we don’t pop out a brood of babies. I also don’t know how you think I’m going to come up with marital partners in three years, I haven’t had a serious partner in over a year. Second, there will always be room for you, no matter how long you’re gone. I lo—you know how I feel. Third, if you think Francisca is going to pull the rug on you again, fuck her, she’s the worst! I hate her and everything about her and her stupid university and shitty planet.”

“It wasn’t even that nice,” I said. “Their library is smaller.”

“Shithole planet,” Mariss said firmly. “But you know,” she rolled towards me, and I was suddenly very focused on staring off into the distance and not seeing the expression she was making, “it’s not like you couldn’t have children. You’ve got DNA. You’d could be a normal secondary donor. If you ever wanted any.”

Why the fuck had this ever occurred to her?

Sometimes I didn’t understand how her mind worked.

“Go back to sleep,” I said, pulling her hair away from my face. Much better.

She made a little noise and snuggled against me, hands closing over the loose fabric of my shirt. This was a much better way of spending a night cycle than standing around staring at walls. Even if lying down was a security risk.

I did wonder if there would ever be a time when Mariss was not afraid of sleeping alone in the dark. If she didn’t have someone in the room with her, she left all the lights on, which was not good for getting a restful night’s sleep.

The next day cycle, Cressida showed up with Alfie and no geosup.

She and Mariss were working through the most recent geologic mapping of the moon from satellite and ground surveys and cross-referencing Umro’s latest version of Mariss’ strange synthetics database to look for potential new sites while geotechs back in the mining facilities took more samples based on the last couple days of review.

After a few hours, Mariss went to go pace around. It was something about our days in the mine, she liked to move and think. Cressida glanced at me in an interesting way, but I wasn’t feeling like playing that game right now.

“Let me show you something,” I told her.

Cressida authorized Alfie to play with a puzzle, and then I got to teach it about puzzles while Cressida sat and watched us in a mix of wonder and maybe horror. It had retracted its helmet at my request and its face was confused and delighted as it worked through the steps.

“You have to make them harder or they’re too easy,” I said as the jingle played. “These are designed for humans.”

And it looked down at me as if the idea of having another puzzle was a tantalizing—

Fuck, why had I started this? What was wrong with me?

I knew how I’d felt for that month when I didn’t see Mariss, when I thought she was gone forever. How Sixty-four had felt after Bamidele…Better for life to have stayed flat.

Cressida went and got another puzzle from my pile and offered it to Alfie. It was half way through when Supervisor Jean-Marie walked in and we all froze. She looked at us all, looked very specifically at the puzzle, then looked at me.

“Where’s Bernez?”

I gestured vaguely back towards the doors.

“Unit,” she snapped, “where is Bernez?”

Alfie snapped to attention. “She is walking, supervisor, for mental stimulation.”

That ‘unit’ hadn’t been directed at Alfie though.

I pushed out of my chair with a sigh. “I’ll go get her. She likes to move when she feels stuck.” I’d already tapped Mariss in the feed but thought it would be best if I made myself a little less visible for a while.

Supervisor Jean-Marie glared at me as I crossed the room and passed her, then she turned and followed me into the common room.

“Unit,” she said in the clipped tones of a supervisor letting one of their peons know the peon had fucked up.

“Supervisor,” I said in an insolent tone of voice.

“When I ask a question—”

I paused and half-turned towards her, letting my rising annoyance overrule what had been a good impulse to deescalate. The main hatch opened.

Supervisor Jean-Marie stepped up to me and pointed a finger like she planned to poke me. Oh I dare you. Do it. She seemed to read that in my expression, and her eyes narrowed.

“I expect an answer.”

Mariss stepped into the common room, her little detachment of drones leaving her orbit and joining the rest of the swarm up near the ceiling. These were my new drones—for absolutely innocent research survey purposes—from the materials sciences department.

Supervisor Jean-Marie tensed like she hadn’t seen my drones before. She probably hadn’t. We’d been keeping them obscured as much as possible, but I didn’t let Mariss out of our rooms without enough to kill any hostiles she might encounter. I also hadn’t let her go on the survey until she’d proved she could control a drone well enough to kill a hostile with it even though I never planned to be out of contact with her.

“Supervisor, you’re not trying to give my SecUnit orders, are you?” Mariss said lightly.

“I am trying to determine why you’re not working, Bernez.”

Mariss smiled a disarming little smile and breezed past me back towards the lab. “It doesn’t always look like people think it does. Come see the updated map.”

Are you guys having an issue? Mariss sent me in our private feed.

She doesn’t like my stupid-human code.

She told you that?

She didn’t have to tell me.

There was a pause, Mariss saying something in the other room. I’ll talk to her. She hired me, and I brought you as my assistant on my own. They’re not paying for your time. She has no grounds to boss you around.

Don’t, I didn’t try to hide my discomfort or unease. I’m equipment. And I’m talking back, that’s the issue.

And there it was, Mariss’ boiling rage. She was so normal most of the time, but when something set her off—my trauma counselor said that was a normal reaction. Not healthy, but normal. You are not equipment, Mariss sent. She was trying to wall her feelings off, even if it wasn’t working.

We are back in the Corporation Rim. Don’t be a naïve Lagrange person, please. That makes this so much harder.

I’m sorry. You don’t want me to tell her to leave you alone?

Tell her I’m your SecUnit, not Umro’s, I said because that was true and a corporate should interpret it to mean back off—for property reasons.

“Supervisor,” Mariss said quietly when Cressida was examining Mariss’ updates to the map. I was hiding in my room, watching Planet Challenge. “Twenty-two is my SecUnit. For my safety, it doesn’t answer to anyone else and reacts quite poorly to other people attempting to give it orders.”

“Bernez, you don’t understand what you’ve been playing with. SecUnits are dangerous machines and they can malfunction. Yours appears to be.”

“No,” Mariss said quickly. “It’s acting totally in line with its directive—that I set.”

My directive being, of course, to do what I wanted.

As they were leaving, Supervisor Jean-Marie tapped my feed. When I accepted the connection, she sent me a location and a time. Then disconnected.

Weird.

She probably wanted to argue with me about my tone or something fucking stupid like that without Mariss there to tell her to back off. Humans loved that shit.

~ ~ ~

That night cycle, I told Mariss I was going for a walk. I could handle Supervisor Jean-Marie and whatever stupid issues she had. I didn’t need my human to protect me.

I am a fucking idiot.

The door slid open and I stepped though. I shouldn’t have. I already knew better. I could see this was her quarters. I was—I’d gotten overconfident after two years essentially free, safely with Mariss, safely on Lagrange. I’d lost my edge, as the students say. I was becoming one of those naïve university people who didn’t understand how the Corporation Rim really worked.

Supervisor Jean-Marie stepped out of the back room—bedroom—and that’s when I actually knew I’d fucked up.

She wasn’t wearing much.

“I thought you wanted to talk,” I told her as she strode towards me, her sharp heels clacking across the simulated stone flooring.

I should have fucking run. But I was taller than her, and I had energy weapons built into my arms, so I didn’t think I needed to run.

“To you?” She stopped in front of me, planted a hand on her hip and looked up at me with a narrowing of her eyes and twist of her mouth that made me feel like I’d totally lost control of the situation. There was a lot of very smooth skin on display. Her shoes brought her within ten centimeters of my height.

Shit.

“This isn’t going to go how you think it’s going to go.”

“Isn’t it?” She looked amused as she reached out and traced a finger along my collarbone.

I felt my organics tensing as I swatted her hand away. “That’s not my purpose.”

She grabbed my chin, thumb swiping across my bottom lip as she tilted my head down. “You’ll do just fine. It’s just following orders, and you look like you’ve been practicing.”

I was frozen. It was like being back in her office, the terror of feeling she was about to have my memories wiped, have me deactivated, flooding my system. I couldn’t move.

“I wouldn’t have expected it from Bernez, but she did always seem to like you SecUnits more than people. And you are very pretty.”

My organics were flushed, I felt myself trembling. This was—there were so many horrible things this was like. I would never not be equipment. My performance reliability was dropping and my processors were slow. It was like I was watching from outside myself when she let go of my chin and touched her fingertips to the exposed skin of my chest, then splayed her palm flat against it before sliding—I jerked backwards.

She made an amused sound, eyes narrowing as she grabbed my shirtfront with one hand and fisted the other in my hair. “Not so threatening now, are we, SecUnit?” She was trying to pull me down to eye-level, to—  

I couldn’t just shove her, I’d break her arm, and then the governor module—not my client. Not my client.

Not my client.

Mariss was in my feed. She’d felt something bleeding across our connection. Are you okay? What’s going on?

I grabbed Jean-Marie’s wrists and squeezed. She made a pained gasp but didn’t let go.

“You’re being a very bad bot,” she told me, breath heavy on my skin. It was making me want to peel it off. “You’d better start behaving, or I’ll make things unpleasant for you.”

“Let go of me before I break your arms,” I ground out.

Twenty-two, where are you?

She was still smirking. Still pulling my hair.

This was—this was a supervisor. I couldn’t break her arms. I—how was I getting out of this? We were in Umro’s section of the station. I let go of one of her wrists, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked sharply to the side. She released me with a squawk, stumbling out of her shoes, and I shoved her to the floor.

The door was locked.

Honey, do you need help? I can come help you.

Oh fuck.

Supervisor Jean-Marie got back to her feet, and now there was real anger there, not the weird-play anger from before. She knew I couldn’t outright kill her. I couldn’t rip her arm off. If I physically damaged her, Umro would never let us off this station.

I was frantically rifling through connections trying to find the door controls while circling away from her, trying to keep her at least at arm’s length. My organic skin felt like it was trying to crawl away from my inorganics, and I was shaking.

“You’re going to do as you’re told,” she snarled at me. “Or you’re never leaving.”

Sick, sick, fuck.

“Bernez is too soft,” she told me, still advancing. “She’s been letting you misbehave. You think you’re a person now. But you’re a tool. And I am borrowing you tonight.”

“There’s no borrowing in the Corporation Rim,” I spat back. “Only theft.”

“I’m paying Bernez plenty. But maybe I should call your owner and tell her you’re being difficult.”

She wanted me to think Mariss was okay with this. But Mariss was panicking in my feed trying to get me to answer.

“Yes,” I said, “please tell Mariss what you’re trying to do.”

I found the door code.

Jean-Marie snapped to her full height and pointed at the floor in front of her. “Come here now. Unit, that is an order.”

“We both miscalculated,” I said. Then I was through the hatch, and now I was running.

I tapped Mariss’ feed after a hundred meters to let her know I was on my way back, but I didn’t stop running until I was several levels away. The stress toxins had flooded my system, and I was shaking so badly I thought something else was malfunctioning. I turned down the stupid-human code to make it stop but found my organics still twitching and tense.

Chapter Text

As Tarik, Iris and I slid through the private docks’ weapons scanners, past the heightened security patrol, and back onto to the public docks, I removed us all from the cameras and tried not to get distracted. Station SecSystem confirmed that I’d been right and there hadn’t been a disturbance earlier, but the mysterious blood splatter and abandoned shoes had confused a lot of people.

The BardotHess transport had docked. We were trying to get to Dr. Ladsen’s transport and get him off it before anyone else had the same idea. Seth had sent him a message through the station feed to come straight over to ART and save any sight-seeing for after they’d debriefed, but we’d all thought it was too risky to say more on an unsecured channel.

They’re attempting comm contact, ART told me, so I eavesdropped along with it on Seth’s comm. Apparently, some researchers on the BardotHess transport really wanted to talk to Kaede about her latest article and wanted to know if she’d consider meeting up in the station mall for a chat later. Seth was very friendly and engaging, saying he’d talk to her and see if she was free after her shift ended. He asked them how long they’d be docked and suggested she might have more free time the next cycle. All very polite, researcher to researcher.

ART felt uneasy in the feed when the comm ended but didn’t say anything.

It’s us, I told it. We would have caught on before anything happened to her. It didn’t feel reassured so I added, I guess it’s a good thing I kidnapped those assholes.

You’re an idiot.

We stopped by the locks for the big public passenger transport that Dr. Ladsen was arriving on and I lounged against a support pillar while Iris and Tarik talked about nothing. We hadn’t wanted to arrive too early because then it would have been obvious to Port Authority and anyone else watching what we were doing, but I had wanted to be there before they started letting passengers off. Just in case.

It docked fine with no alerts or signals that anything was wrong. Station SecSystem assured me all was well. And I didn’t see anyone wearing the BardotHess logo, which ART had pulled and flagged with warnings all over the mission feed.

Once the first wave of humans had exited the lock and was more of a steady stream, I pushed off the pillar and looked around. “Seth told him to come to the ship immediately.”

“He’s, he’s not answering,” Iris said with a shake of her head. “I can’t reach him.”

Tarik’s eyes narrowed as well. “This is weird.”

“We have to go,” I told them and started forward.

Okay, so this part I never liked. I slipped into the crowd of humans, ignoring the fact that they kept bumping me, and pushed up into the hatchway. Something was off. The limited bot pilot acknowledged me but seemed distracted. It didn’t want to engage like bot pilots normally do but it didn’t object when I slipped into its public area cameras.

“Found him,” I told Iris and Tarik, leading them towards one of the lounges.

Dr. Ladsen was a sort of average looking human sitting around a low table with three other humans dressed like they were auditioning for the roles of background supervisors on a low-budget serial. I designated them Potential Targets 1-3. Dr. Ladsen didn’t seem to have realized yet that all of the other humans had left the room, or that he’d been cut off from the feed.

“Dr. Ladsen,” Iris said while I hung back in the corridor out of sight. “There you are.”

“Oh, hello, Iris!” He checked his feed and made a confused expression. “Is it that late? Sorry, I was just chatting with Dr. Bryn and lost track.”

Target One, now re-designated Dr. Bryn, was an augmented human with short dark purple hair and the look of a supervisor. They smiled at Iris and Tarik. “Are those Perihelion uniforms? How stylish! It’s nice to meet you. Dr. Ladsen and I got caught up on Pre-CR ruins, you know how it is. He said you’re headed out on a survey?”

Fuck.

They hacked the bot pilot, ART said, its annoyance flowing around me.

Obviously. I was gently trying to untangle it from the malware winding through its system. They hadn’t been trying to shut it down, just confuse it, fiddle with its internal timers and block certain feed and comm accesses. This is—let’s copy this for later.

Already doing that.

Iris kept her cool and smiled back. “Oh yes, we’re looking forward to it.”

“I’ll walk with you back to your ship,” Dr. Bryn pushed to their feet, followed by the other two potential targets.

“Great,” Iris said, “I’d hate to break up your chat.”

Then the big, stiff looking target in the back moved and fuck. Who walked around with SecUnits out of armor, in normal human uniforms?

I think you inspired them, I said, sending Twenty-two my visuals on newly designated Hostile One.

It was obvious that the only reason those Lagange kidnapping attempts had been merely ‘attempted’ was because there was a SecUnit there. Apparently BardotHess had realized this as well and adapted to the new information.

Unlikely, it snapped. Using uniformed SecUnits was already their strategy when I first encountered them. They’re easier to slip past Station Security and the bribes are cheaper.

And you know what would have been nice? Knowing something about that fucking strategy before walking in here. It must have had combat analysis, footage, everything from those encounters in its storage.

Maybe you shouldn’t have been such an asshole to my human then. It’s almost impossible to make her stop sharing information, you have to really work at it.

Fix this, ART cut in, both of you. Now.

As if I’d forgotten Iris was in a room with someone else’s SecUnit.

Regroup, I sent in a secured message to Iris and Tarik.

What’s wrong? Tarik messaged me.

That’s a SecUnit.

His silence filled the feed.

“Do you want to come meet us?” Iris said as Tarik turned and stepped away. “Once you’re done chatting? I am sorry to have interrupted.”

“No, no,” Dr. Bryn said. “I’d love to see the Perihelion. I’ve heard its one of your advanced stellar mapping transports?”

“Dr. Bryn,” Hostile One said, and Iris froze. “I should proceed ahead.”

FUCK.

“Oh sure.” Dr. Bryn waved it past. Tarik was behind me in the hatchway to the corridor, doing a good job of not visibly panicking while panicking. Oh great, now fucking Hostile One was between us and Iris.

I slid away as quickly as I could while staying silent. Then Hostile One paused.

“What—” Target Two said but cut off with a look from Dr. Bryn.

“Strange synthetics detected,” Hostile One said. Its face rotated as it continued scanning, and I began to fall back faster. Plan easy extraction looked like it was turning into plan really fucking messy extraction.  

Are you carrying my fucking gun? came through in a secured feed connection from Mariss.

Why are you letting her message me? I demanded, and ART did the feed equivalent of frustrated human flailing.

Oh deity, Mariss continued, did you not wonder how I got through scans?

You’re each carrying a scrambling device, I shot back. Hostile One was beginning to walk forward again, still scanning, and I had to backburner threat assessment as it had a complete meltdown.

“Perihelion crew,” Hostile One said, “please wait here while I scan for threats.” It pushed past Tarik and came down the corridor behind me. I had the bot pilot open and close hatchways at random.

The GUN is the scrambling device!

That was interesting. You’re not getting it back.

ART cut off the wave of profanity she was sending at me, though it did let through, Get out of there, get out of there now! You are now their priority target!

I was getting.

A data packet of text logs from Twenty-two titled dontfuckingsharewithhumans.file hit me. I sent it to Three. I opened it while easing my way back down the corridor and around a junction. Wow, there were a lot of emotions in here. Ugh, I didn’t want to know about its emotions, I wanted to know about the hostiles’ combat strategy. (This was better than getting its memory files as having to feel its emotions (which, again, there were a lot of) would have been really horrible.)

Anyway, it turned out its main approach to these encounters was to slaughter every hostile it came across, which, fair, that was often my first impulse too, but that would make my humans sad, and I really did try to use minimal force and, shit, it had dropped an entire cargo bot on a bunch of armored humans. That was kind of funny.

Back in the galley lounge, Mariss was saying “We need to adjust the composite,” to Twenty-two. “And I think you need to go help them.”

“Ugh. If it pings me, we’re screwed, you know that.”

I can block pings through our feed connection, ART informed them.

Twenty-two cringed down and put its hands over the back of its neck and its data port. “You are the most unpleasant MI I have ever had to deal with. I don’t want you any further in my head.”

I get that a lot.

I don’t need your help, I cut in. I was out of the main lock now and walking steadily, not running, along the docks.

Twenty-two rolled its eyes and got up.

What about its distance limit? I asked Mariss because that should shock them into not sending the asshole out here. I didn’t need help. I ducked through a maintenance hatch and leapt down a ramp. Once I got Hostile One away from humans, I could deal with it.

Mariss made a face. “Are you going to throw another tantrum if I answer your question?”

It didn’t have a distance limit.

Why would you do that? I demanded.

“It was the first thing I did!” She gestured angrily like I could see her, well, I could see her. “It’s like the stupidest fucking design point I can imagine, and I want to punch whoever came up with that idea in the face!”

I checked Twenty-two’s log from the first thwarted kidnapping attempt—half of which was about how much it missed its stupid human. Twenty-two had been at that academic conference without her. It could have left her at any point. It had stayed with her for years.

I jumped over a stack of crates and slid towards an access hatch to another maintenance corridor. This corridor would take me into the transit ring’s main backbone. If things went well I could disable Hostile One down there and circle back to ART through the maintenance corridors while avoiding most humans. (Things never went well.)

In the lounge, ART said, Take Three.

Three is still SecUnit standard, I said. I didn’t need Three’s help either. I was the fucking head of security. (Three was a bit more stubborn about “unnecessary” major surgery than me. ART’s whole thing about peeling its organics hadn’t helped.)

I’m SecUnit standard, Three added, but I can change their scan parameters.

“Great, want to be my SecUnit for the day?” Twenty-two was doing something in the feed. It took a couple seconds but that didn’t stop it walking towards the airlock and pinging Three to get its ass down there as well.

“If you get hurt, I’m going to go deploy the killware on their transport,” Mariss said as she followed Twenty-two.

“You are not deploying killware, Mariss. That’s fucked up.”

“Well, you won’t be here to stop me. So please don’t get hurt.”

The maintenance corridor ended with a hatchway onto the main backbone, and I plunged into the dark cavernous space, adjusting to the lower gravity as I ran. Feed marker paint flared up in the low light with warnings in a number of languages about all sorts of hazardous conditions ahead. None of them were quite as threatening as the hazardous condition currently chasing me.

ART reacted with surprise to something and forwarded me the approval that had just come through. (Which allowed me to backburner the hugging occurring at the airlock.) Port Authority thought it was absolutely fine for Dr. Guerrero to take their SecUnit on a walk around the docks, especially in light of the hefty fee Dr. Guerrero had just paid them. It was, as always, a pleasure to have Dr. Guerrero visiting. (Just in case it isn’t clear, fuck Dr. Guerrero.)

They’re going to have another SecUnit, Twenty-two said on a secured feed with me and Three (and ART, who added itself) as the airlock cycled.

How do you know? ART demanded.

Because things are never easy.

I ducked around a couple maintenance bots, grabbed onto one of the little maintenance cabs and directed it towards what looked like an empty storage offshoot of the main backbone while skimming through the file from Twenty-two. It looked like that asshole had keyword searched its logs then dropped in entire sections that had triggered instead of bothering to pull only the fights. What a lazy asshole. It also wasn’t as good at hacking systems as me. An hour ago that would have felt good. At the moment, it made me even more annoyed.

The cab reached the entrance to the offshoot and I jumped down while scanning. Through the cameras, I watched Hostile One running down the maintenance corridor I’d left a minute earlier, jumping over bots and being a real jerk about it. I had plenty of time, so I pushed a couple of the offline hauler bots and spare part storage crates into a better formation, creating a nice chokepoint, while rerouting the security sweep that was supposed to pass the entrance to the offshoot in a few minutes. None of the humans or bots reacted to their updated schedule with more than minor annoyance.

I had my own projectile weapon, of course, but I took out the projectile weapon I’d taken off Mariss for a better look. It didn’t scan as a projectile weapon. It scanned as something like a sensor anomaly, a “lacuna” as Mensah would say. It reminded me of the holes in the PresAux survey maps or the Target drones on ART. Yeah, this was definitely something corporates would kidnap some scientists over. I needed to get a better look at Twenty-two’s drones.  

ETA on Hostile One was ninety seconds and I prepped a little variation on one of my deploy codes while waiting.

Then an armored SecUnit dropped down behind me while firing a really big projectile weapon.

(Maybe it was a good thing there were two other SecUnits coming to help me.)

Chapter Text

There's a reason I don't draw furniture...see below. Also, yes, those were the favorite boots Murderbot blew up.

Not-Mom (64) wants everyone to know it doesn’t approve of what the idiot kids have been up to without it around to shake sense into them.

Chapter Text

I reached our rooms, not sweating anymore but otherwise not feeling any better. I felt no relief as I hit the hatch close and sagged against the wall.

“Twenty-two!” Mariss ran towards me, then slid to a stop as I cringed back from her. Great, now all her vitals were screwy, and I was still shaking and—everything was terrible. “Are you okay, what happened?”

“I don’t want to stay here.” I crossed my arms across my chest and hunched forward. I didn’t want to be wearing this shirt anymore. I wanted to throw it in the recycler.

Mariss swallowed. “Okay. We’ll go. Do you mean this room, or the station?”

“Station.”

“Okay.” She clasped her hands and disappeared into the feed. “There’s a nice transport to Palladium Station tomorrow late morning.”

I couldn’t get anything out—I—I had no control of my expression. Mariss was looking at me suddenly and showing increasing signs of stress though she was trying to hide them.

“Or I could find one earlier to another hub?”

“Earlier.”

“Ummmm, okay. Soonest not going the wrong direction leaves in five hours.”

I nodded, and she made the purchase. She also sent a message out to the College of Sciences legal department that there might be an issue with her contract and she needed to discuss it with them. Stars, she was clever. Then her eyes refocused on me.

“Did you go back and deal with that mod dealer? Do I need to space a body or something before we go?”

“I wish.”

Mariss was silent for a moment, looking at me.

“Did someone hurt you?”

“Stop it!” I shouted, slamming my fists into my legs. I was a fucking SecUnit, I didn’t need a tiny, helpless human—

Mariss froze and her eyes widened. I never yelled at her.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered and went to my room.

I patrolled the room for a few minutes until I was able to force myself to take my luggage out and stuff everything I had in it. Mariss had been correct about me packing too many shoes. They necessitated a second bag.

It—it wasn’t the end of the universe. Supervisor Jean-Marie hadn’t actually done anything other than make a fool of herself and put her dirty human thumb on my mouth—which I’d washed. But I’d stood there and let it happen. And she was a supervisor, so there were going to be consequences.

Fuck.

Fuck, why was I defective? Mariss would have been better off with Alfie. Which—yeah—I was also going to have to do something about Alfie.

I wrenched open the door and crossed the hall. Mariss’ room was empty. She’d taken out her bag and piled her stuff in it haphazardly. In increasing panic, I checked each room until I found her in the lab squatting on a chair in front of a display, a memory clip dangling from her mouth as she flicked through inputs.

“What are you doing?”

She glanced at me over her shoulder and said around the clip, “I promised you data.”

She was stealing Umro’s latest database on strange synthetics.

“We need to go now,” I told her, setting my bags down on the tabletop.

She blinked at me. “Okay.” I watched her initiate the download then start searching the lab for stray possessions while sending another message through the priority feed—this one to Dr. K—that she would be sending a big file in a half hour that they should discuss.

I heard the main hatch opening and every organic muscle tensed again.

“Oh fuck,” I said.

Mariss froze. “Who is it? I thought the hatch was locked?”

“It was.” I gestured for her to stay back as I pulled the camera input from the common room.

My performance reliability dropped so fast I had to catch myself on the table in front of me and nearly went into an involuntary restart.

It was another SecUnit in full armor and holding a large projectile weapon.

It pinged me. It was Mr. Stabby. I had to ping back.

Query: unit purpose here? I demanded and felt Mariss pushing into my feed.

Primary directive ensure safety of Dr. Bernez, it responded, letting its amusement leak across in the feed.

Query: secondary directive? I asked. I had a sinking feeling.

Secondary directive ensure SecUnit behaving appropriately. It was definitely amused. It pinged me again to emphasize that I was the SecUnit in question.

I wondered if Supervisor Jean-Marie was on her way down at this moment in her negligee so that Mr. Stabby could ensure my appropriate behavior for her.

That seemed possible.

Mr. Stabby started towards the lab.

I sagged against a chair as threat assessment exploded and my organics flooded me with stress toxins. Fuck. I ripped the projectile weapon I carried out of my bag and cut the cameras in the room as Mariss ran across the lab. I pressed up against the wall next to the hatch and took aim, knowing that it was going to come in firing but it would have to guess which side I was on and—

It pinged me, and I had to ping back.

FUCK.

The hatch began opening and Mariss jumped towards it, a small rock chisel in her hand.

“Primary directive ensure safety of Dr. Bernez! Right?” She shouted, and we both froze as we realized she had the fucking chisel pressed to her own arm.

“Mariss,” I said slowly. “Put that down.”

“Dr. Bernez,” Mr. Stabby said, its voice smooth and even and still fucking amused. “It’s been too long.”

Mariss slid the sharp edge of the chisel across her skin and a faint line of red appeared. I could almost feel Mr. Stabby’s governor module activating from its failure to carry out its primary directive.

“The only way we all leave here okay is by talking,” Mariss said. “The only way you fulfill your primary directive is by talking to me. I need you to talk to me.”

From my drones swarming above us, I watched the other SecUnit crick its neck as the pain subsided.

“Clever. I learned a lot from watching you interact with HubSystem and the morons,” it said.

I couldn’t glare at it but my drones were showing me its completely unconcerned posture, which was subtly different from SecUnit neutral.

“I’m sure you did. So, you know I can help you.”

“You’re not in my HubSystem or SecSystem anymore. But if anyone could—” It let that hang in the air.

“What is your personal directive?”

“You know what it is, Dr. Bernez.”

I could read the tension and unease in Mariss’ body language without our feed connection, and I knew Mr. Stabby could as well.

“Why—why the stabbing?”

“Shooting humans is so impersonal. It’s one of the only times I get to be personal. When I see the expression in their eyes—I know I exist.”

Mariss shuddered.

Don’t, I told her. I knew Mariss. I knew what Mariss was capable of. And I’d much rather take my chances trying to kill Mr. Stabby before it could kill me than let her try whatever appalling plan she had.

“Twenty-two, can you cut the feed in this room?”

“Of course I can fucking cut the feed,” I told her. “I’m not going to do it.”

Mariss looked at me. “Honey. Please?”

I sighed and barged into the Station MainSys for this floor and jammed the feed relays. It wasn’t elegant or unobtrusive but it would disguise the issue. “Thirty seconds,” I ground out.

“You’re malfunctioning,” Mariss said to Mr. Stabby. “Drop your wall so I can correct the error.”

It retracted its faceplate and stepped into the room slowly, swinging the projectile weapon to point at me. I should have just shot it and relied on it having a worse angle. Then it stopped, and they stared at each other. Mariss’ face took on the expression of a human lost in the feed, and I pushed through her feed to see she was in Mr. Stabby’s head and—oh fuck—resetting its client designation to herself. Then she turned off the distance limit and its wall snapped back into place, cutting her off.

Of course now she could order it to do anything.

“You’re going to have to get past systems by yourself,” she told it while tapping me for specific wording.

It lowered the projectile weapon.

“I have two orders for you,” Mariss said, and the weapon swung back up. “Do not harm Twenty-two.”

“And?”

“Manual operation engage: shutdown delay restart - five hours.” My suggestion would have been “shoot yourself in the head.”

“Fuck,” it said, then it collapsed to the floor.

Mariss breathed out quickly then panted a couple times, pressing a hand over her mouth. “Fuck,” she gasped. “We need to get out of here.”

There was a maintenance hatch the cleaning and delivery bots came in through so the humans didn’t have to see them crowding the human hallways. I couldn’t fuck with the life support systems, we’d be too easy to track that way, but there were emergency respiration supplies in the lab. Mariss agreed immediately.

So I ran to Mariss’ room, grabbed her bag, and carried it through the common room, into the lab, and past Mr. Stabby collapsed just inside the hatchway. We had ten seconds until the feed was back and who knew how long until someone realized it was offline.

Mariss had gotten a respirator on and I stuffed her bag into her arms, pushing her towards the maintenance hatch as I grabbed my own bags. My drones all settled into the bag with my shoes and projectile weapon, except for a pocketful I kept at the ready. I cut the record of the hatch opening out of its logs and blocked the notification to Station MaintSys as we ducked through and were in the bot-only zone.

Do you hate being right all the time? Mariss asked between sending more messages back home, as I kept her moving in the right direction. It was a fairly straightforward route from here to the transit ring, we just had to dodge all the bots whizzing past and not get caught. Mr. Stabby would be offline for five hours, but they could always send another SecUnit after us once they realized we were gone.

About this sort of thing? Yes.

We walked on in silence for a few minutes while I wormed my way through Station MaintSys and into Station SecSys, using it as a jumping point to get into Port Authority SecSys. It was slow going, and I had to be very careful. We tripped an alarm or three as we went, but I managed to mute and reroute them before they progressed very far.

We followed a delivery bot into a freight lift and rode with it down to the base of the station, following along so we could use its opening of hatches to avoid needing to trigger them separately. It repeatedly demonstrated how to trigger the open command—it thought I was defective and unable to do it myself—but it agreed it wouldn’t report my embarrassing lack of skills or presence to anyone else. Then it split off towards the food service plaza and we continued towards the other end of the mall.

Shit. Mariss showed me a message she’d just gotten from Supervisor Jean-Marie asking where the fuck she was.

Mariss sent back an image of Mr. Stabby coming through the lab hatchway holding the projectile weapon with the words: nowhere near that thing. At least we were far enough away now that pings from Umro’s section of the residential sector couldn’t reach me.

Supervisor Jean-Marie asked me to come see her, I said as we pressed against the corridor wall to let a different delivery bot past. It beeped thanks and agreed there was no need to mention my human to any other humans.

Mariss glanced at me then looked away. Did you—get in a fight with her? You two seemed pretty tense.

I guess?

She was silent for a few seconds as we continued. Then, without looking at me, she said, You changed your shirt.

Yeah.

I’m sorry.

That upset me for some reason. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.

I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m sorry we’re here. You said you didn’t want to come here. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m so sorry, Twenty-two. It didn’t make me feel better, but I didn’t feel worse. Can I go back and shoot her?

No, I said, we’re leaving. And once we got off this station, I could delete some memories and never think about this again.

We reached the mall access hatch closest to the dock entrance and pushed through an air wall out into the human-rated atmosphere. Mariss dropped her respirator and rubbed at the marks on her face until she was generally pink. She also sent another message to Dr. K that she was having some issues with the file. Dr. K would know exactly which departments to forward these messages to, but also would be really upset, so I felt bad about it.

We had less than four hours until our transport was supposed to leave and three hours until it admitted new passengers. To increase our chances of making it out of here, I went ahead and bought tickets for two other transports using the same account—I had access to all of Mariss’ accounts. My trauma counselor thought this was yet another weird and unhealthy thing between us and hadn’t liked my explanation that I really only used them to buy clothes for Mariss, I guess because access to each other’s monetary accounts is one more way humans control and fuck with each other. Whatever. Maybe one day I’d tell them I wasn’t actually a human.  

At the moment, our options were hide for three hours or sit in full view in the embarkation waiting zone and dare Umro to publicly fuck with us. I didn’t like either option. It was much easier to drag us away if they found us when we were hiding. But in the waiting area, we were corralled prey.

“What do you think?” I asked Mariss.

She shook her head at me. “I made the bad decision to bring us here. Let’s do whatever you think.”

And I’d made the bad decision to not ignore Supervisor Jean-Marie, so I was probably not the one who should be deciding. “Embarkation zone,” I said. “More room for negotiation.”

So that’s why we were walking across the mall when the sparse crowd of humans out late in the night cycle suddenly scattered as a group of armored Station Security officers jogged towards us. Okay, so Umro had probably found out about the transport tickets. Now it wasn’t just Supervisor Jean-Marie’s ego at stake, it was Umro’s strange synthetics expert walking out less than half of the way through a contract with the fifty-percent up-front fee in her account. Sixty-four had been right again, it was too easy for them to keep treating her like she was indentured.

Mariss stopped walking and planted herself in front of me—my fierce little human, ready to face down Station Security as they moved to cut us off from the docks.

“Dr. Bernez, you are operating an unlicensed, unregistered SecUnit on RaviHyral Q Station,” the Station Security supervisor said as they came to a stop opposite Mariss.

There were ten humans, all armored, all heavily armed with projectile weapons, forming a semi-circle in front and to either side of us. I could kill them all, but Mariss would be in the crossfire, and I had no way to get her out.

“An Umro supervisor is attempting to steal my ComfortUnit because I wouldn’t give her free use of it, and now you’ve been dispatched as her enforcers?” Mariss demanded.

The Station Security supervisor was good at keeping their expression neutral, but a couple of the other officers exchanged glances and were clearly subvocalizing.

Mariss had registered me as a SecUnit. She’d paid the fee. She knew it. Whoever at Station Security had buried the record at Umro’s request knew it. So going with ‘this is my contracted SecUnit’ was probably a harder fight, and their scans wouldn’t show my weapons.

I still cringed when she grabbed the waistband of my pants and pulled me closer.

“You scanned it right?” Mariss tugged at my belt. I felt my stupid organic skin flush and knew I looked distressed—which was sort of the point. Mariss had never seen me naked, which somehow made this even weirder.

“Scans can—” one of the officers started before being shushed over the feed. The last thing Station Security wanted people announcing in the middle of the mall was that the weapons scanners were kind of useless against anyone putting any effort in.

“It’s still clearly a construct,” the supervisor said.

They were also feeling weird about treating me like a SecUnit, given my outfit, and jewelry, and undoubtedly horrified expression. The stupid-human code had me clutching one hand at the top of my shirt, holding the unbuttoned area closed.

And Mariss was so—Mariss. I knew it was throwing them off. Even humans that did things to SecUnits always had that edge of fear, of danger, during physical contact, even when they were acting confident. Meanwhile, Mariss was carelessly shaking me by my belt and radiating anger.

Then Mariss sent them another file. A permit and receipt that I didn’t realize she had also gotten. Gross. She must have bribed Port Authority on our arrival when she was filling out the other forms. She did enjoy bribing people, so it wasn’t that surprising.

“She registered the ComfortUnit on arrival,” the Station Security lieutenant said aloud to the supervisor. Good kid, trying to give us all a way out here. I’d shoot her last, if we got to shooting.

Mariss released me, to my massive relief, and planted her hands on her hips. “Obviously.”

“We are still going to have to seize the unit until our investigation is complete,” the Station Security supervisor said.

“You do not want to get in a legal fucking fight with me,” Mariss snarled out. “My university keeps a stable of lawyers that feed off corporate blood and spite.”

The Station Security supervisor snorted, but their expression changed when Mariss dropped Lagrangelegal.file into the public feed, the Station Security feed—which she was not supposed to have access to—and the Port Authority feed for good measure. It was a compilation of reports on the amounts of damages awarded to various professors and research teams in disputes with corporations. One involved the university forcing a small corporation into insolvency then seizing its assets—all of its assets. Another involved them getting a station blacklisted from trade with any accredited universities and all corporations that wanted to contract with any of the universities. Things had not gone well for the station after that.

Just a really comprehensive list demonstrating why everyone I’d interacted with in the Lagrange system had no real understanding of the experience of most humans in the Corporation Rim.

“At the end of it you will be lucky if you find you’ve only been indentured to me. I will escalate. I will go after every person and corporate entity involved. I am a petty fucking academic; I will make my TA teach my classes so I can spend more time refining my grudges. And here’s what happens if you kill me in an attempt to make this go away.”

She dropped another file, the damages appendix to her contract. It was really long. She’d helpfully highlighted various parts.

The implication was Lagrange would not stop until it had scrapped the station if Mariss happened to die while on it and under contract to Umro. This seemed quite distressing to the humans attempting to detain us because there was no out for accidental death, so there was no easy cleanup.  

I was—very attached—to my terrifying little human.

Ah fuck, someone said in the Station Security supervisor feed, which I was finally in. Of course this is some Umro power play bullshit.

Can you imagine using someone else’s ComfortUnit? That shit’s gross.

Especially if you don’t decontaminate it. Ugh.

There was a chorus of agreement about how disgusting that was without proper cleaning procedures.

“We should step into my office,” the Station Security supervisor said.

“Absolutely not. Umro is attempting to steal from me. You are attempting to aid them in stealing from me.”

Then Mariss initiated a private connection to the Station Security supervisor. I wasn’t in it, technically, I was just in Mariss’ feed. How much for this to go away? She asked.

The supervisor sent a number back.

Are they really paying you enough for this?

No, they admitted in annoyance. We had a security breach a few months ago, and everyone’s on edge. They told us you had a potentially rogue SecUnit. I would appreciate your cooperation. Then they sent a lower number.

Mariss sent a counter offer. “I have already notified my lawyers,” she said aloud. “I can see you all didn’t manage to stop my first two transmissions.”

The Station Security supervisor sent a routing number, and Mariss initiated a transfer of fees from the Umro account where they’d put her retainer. It was—a lot of it.

“Hmm,” the Station Security supervisor said after a moment. “All of these documents are in order. Our apologies, Dr. Bernez, for the inconvenience and the mix-up.”

What kind of a breach? Mariss couldn’t help asking despite me frantically tapping her feed and telling her no.

A ComfortUnit went rogue, killed its owner and several of her staff. Then it escaped the system on an uncrewed transport.

I didn’t know they could do that, Mariss sent back, her feed voice appropriately alarmed as she shifted away from me.

I pretended like I couldn’t hear any of this. The supervisor looked at me and so did Mariss, so I sent her a confused, alarmed look.

“Everything’s fine,” she said a little nervously.

I don’t recommend keeping those things, the supervisor told her.

Sometimes I don’t think it’s worth the hassle, she responded lightly as we started moving again, towards the embarkation zone.

I knew she was lying. I knew she was saying that because it was the role she was playing at the moment. I knew I wasn’t supposed to believe it.

I didn’t feel good.

So I was really fucked up and in my head, sitting in the embarkation waiting zone with no drones out, and only some camera access when I missed all the warning signs.

Chapter Text

I threw myself down and to the side, so the center of the blast missed me, but a wave of heat rolled across my organic components. I tuned down my pain sensors immediately. My performance reliability was not good. Impacts of shrapnel from the hauler bot I’d been standing in front of peppered my side and back.

I deployed all of my drones and my revised code as I ducked behind a crate, dragging my left leg, because apparently the heat had fried some components in it. Fuck, worry about it later. I kept moving, which turned out to be a good thing as an armored fist punched through the thick plastic where my chest had been an instant before.

It had deployed a full compliment of drones as well, and I set mine to intercept, so inputs began winking out one by one.

The hauler and cargo bots around us vibrated and rumbled as they came online and began moving erratically. Like my previous deploy code, I’d programmed them to move at random and avoid hitting only each other. Unlike my previous code, I’d upped the speed of movement shifts and adjusted the pattern to adapt to my movements. I leapt on top of a hauler bot as newly designated Hostile Two threw the rest of the crate into a wall where it smashed into hundreds of pieces, sharp fragments flying everywhere. I had to duck.

Hostile Two wasn’t showing up on my scans. It was almost the same lacuna effect as the gun, but as the hauler bot I was riding swung sharply to the right, I compared the scan of it leaping down at me with the scan of it destroying the crate and found an anomalous signature in both scans. (It was probably a good idea it hadn’t occurred to more humans to give SecUnits strange synthetic laced stealth armor because not being able to pick up a hostile SecUnit on scan was fucking terrifying.)

I sent the scan results to the group feed I was in with ART, Three, and Twenty-Two and focused on the hostile.  

I’d lost it in the spinning and the ducking. That wasn’t good. My drones were sweeping for visuals but there were fewer and fewer of them. I threw myself onto another hauler bot to keep my movements hard to track and caught a glimpse of movement as Hostile Two swung its big projectile weapon around in an attempt to get a clean shot. Shit. I could not take another hit like that.

I attempted one of my drone grab codes. It didn’t work, so I set it to run in the background while cycling through frequencies and keys.

A scanner patch came through the feed from Mariss (what the fuck was she doing in the MI-only feed), tagged as safe by ART, so I pushed it while sliding down the side of the hauler bot. I didn’t feel so good and there was definitely a lot of leaking, but I had a plan.

Hostile Two’s next shot went overhead, cutting through the air where I’d been an instant before and exploding against the ceiling.

Fuck. I’d picked the offshoot because it made a great chokepoint for Hostile One. It turned out it also made a shooting gallery for Hostile Two: buried with the main backbone in the center of the transit ring, it was insulated from the hard vacuum of space. Rerouting the security patrols for the next few minutes at least meant I didn’t have to worry about any Port Authority humans deciding to get involved (undoubtedly on their paying client’s side), as long as this was quick.

I clung to the side of the hauler bot but nearly dropped to the floor as my scan finished updating and everything in my sensors juddered for a moment. My vision cleared and I blinked away the weird feeling of it all having gone fuzzy for a second there.

Now I could see Hostile Two on my scan.

I deployed a second code update. The lights in this offshoot started a strobing effect calibrated to fuck with a SecUnit visual sensor exploit I’d patched in myself while the bots changed their movement pattern. Then I dropped to the floor and rolled, catching the side of a passing cargo bot and letting it drag me in the opposite direction of the way I’d been moving. Hostile Two was visually sweeping for me up above and most of its remaining drones were up by the ceiling, assuming I’d jumped on another hauler bot. I let go of the cargo bot and slid to a stop next to a heavy crate just as another hauler bot lowered in front of me, obscuring me from Hostile Two’s visuals and scans.

Hostile Two shot randomly, another explosion rocking the area and raining burning plastic on the bots and me. But the important thing was it had lost me and was still aiming up. My grab code returned a positive result just in time as I was down to less than a dozen drones, and now I had fifty. I deployed another code update to the bots, and all of the bots began to rise and lift as high as they could off the floor. Two clouds of drones swept through the bots, darting erratically. Hostile Two spun as it searched for me.

I pushed off the crate with my feet, slid across the floor just under the rising hauler bot, and stopped just in front of and underneath Hostile Two. It looked down as I fired.

Nope, Mariss was not getting this projectile weapon back.

Its armor locked up in response to the sudden loss of integrity, but I rolled to the side in case it fell forward. When I pushed to my feet, mostly to my right foot, I saw that I’d left a big streak of blood and fluids across the flooring. Hostile Two’s armor stayed upright, looking for all the world like a SecUnit standing at attention, except for its missing head.

Hostile One ETA ten seconds, Three said in our shared feed. Our ETA is twenty seconds.

Shit. My performance reliability was 72% and dropping, the leaking wasn’t stopping, and I made the mistake of looking down at my leg. (Not good, Murderbot. Don’t ever fucking look.)

Let me into Station SecSystem, Twenty-two said. They were running through the maintenance corridors and had almost reached the main backbone.

Get in yourself.

You’re going to get fucked up and I’m going to laugh at you.

Fine, whatever. I let it ride my feed across. It wasn’t like when ART did it, it was more like someone running up behind me, briefly pushing off my shoulders, leaping over my head, and into the system. (Not the worst, but I wasn’t eager to do it again.)

It definitely wasn’t as good a hacker as me, but it was fast and seemed to know what it was looking for.

I staggered instead of dodging as Hostile One arrived, so its projectile lodged in my shoulder. My drones dive bombed it and its drones rose up in defense, creating a sharp whirlwind between us for a moment, shrapnel flying everywhere, as I deployed my grab code again, modified based on what worked against Hostile Two. Hostile One’s next shot hit the projectile weapon in my hand. Normally that would destroy the projectile weapon. Instead, the bullet exploded as I jerked away and fired. One of the crates exploded. Hostile One was gone, having ducked behind a bot.  I had its drones now, but there weren’t too many left.

Get to cover! Three said.

The thought never occurred to me, I sent back while ducking behind another hauler bot and grabbing on.

Projectiles ripped into the other side of the bot, but most couldn’t make it through its sheer mass. Ugh, that didn’t feel good. My new bot friend spun around, I had the bots weaving and veering to keep as many of them between Hostile One and me as possible, and it was keeping me angled away from Hostile One.

(This kind of thing never works like intended.)

Hostile One leapt over the bots between us, landing on my hauler bot. I dropped to the floor and attempted to scramble away, which sucked given my whole leg not working and leaking everywhere issues, but I still got off a couple of covering shots as I stumbled towards another crate. Then a hand closed over the back of my neck and Hostile One slammed me face first into the crate, denting it. Ouch.

“Strange synthetics detected,” it snarled, its hand closing over my wrist and beginning to apply pressure. It could have simply snapped my wrist but it seemed kind of angry.

Then Three burst in, sliding up behind us and jamming its projectile weapon against Hostile One’s spine. The strobing lights went back to normal and the bots all shut down again.

“Release the SecUnit,” Three said.

Hostile One increased the pressure on my wrist. “This Perihelion SecUnit has destroyed BardotHess property.”

“That asshole tried to blow my leg off!”

It twitched. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the fact I’d just blown its friend’s head off.

Behind us Twenty-Two sauntered though the smoking remnants of the various storage crates like a lazy human controller showing up after the SecUnits had dealt with a threat.

“I found your controller,” Twenty-two said to Hostile One. “You should tap her feed and suggest she order you to stand down or things will go poorly for her.”

Fuck you, it sent in an open feed message.

“I don’t want to do this to you, you don’t have a choice,” Twenty-two told Hostile One, “but I find I kind of enjoy lessening the total number of corporates in the galaxy. Oh look, she’s running. That’s cute. Should I give her a head start?”

It shared a camera view in an open feed folder.  

There was a human running along a wide maintenance corridor, a cargo lifter floating slowly behind her. I’d seen predatory fauna act like that on surveys when hunting humans. It was weird seeing a bot do it.

Twenty-Two had sent me its journal extracts, and I’d read them while I was running, so I knew it wasn’t lying about not minding killing humans. I pulled up the section about the NexWayGate docks again. Wow. My Preservation humans would not like this.

“Client death triggering a governor module is a horrible way to go,” Twenty-two said so fucking conversationally while my organics were…reacting. Three was not letting any emotions through in the shared feed. A cargo hauler swerved in front of the human, an empty cargo module in its arms, and scooped her up. The cargo lifter came to a stop overhead. “Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I won’t hesitate if she doesn’t order you to stand down now.”

Hostile One released me and I slipped to the side, pushing off the crate to turn around since it was hard to pivot or move with a ton of coordination at the moment.

“Tell her if she tries to contact anyone on the feed or comm, I’ll crush her.”

“Acknowledged,” it said.

“Can she hear us?” Twenty-two demanded.

“Yes, Dr. Guerrero,” it said. Its controller was probably telling it what to say. That’s how these things usually worked, the human puppeting the SecUnit instead of just letting it have the conversation. (I guess that makes sense if you think your walking gun can’t have a conversation, not that any of the controllers bother checking this point.)

Something in Twenty-two’s jaw twitched.

“We thought you might be here, but you weren’t on any passenger logs. Are you—” Its head began rotating.

Three nudged it with the projectile weapon and it didn’t turn, so it couldn’t scan Twenty-two. Instead, it said:

“A human can’t move through systems like this.”

“Don’t respond to it,” Three said in a good impression of me trying to tell humans not to be stupid.

Are you making fun of me? I asked Three privately.

Only a little.

Only a lot, ART added.

“I think it’s a bit late, Three,” Twenty-two said. “You’re holding it at gunpoint. I can’t exactly hide you anymore.”  

“You have a personal SecUnit,” Hostile One’s voice was flat but we all knew what it meant. A human target with a personal SecUnit changed all the calculations around threat assessment. “You kept it out of the records.”

“Do you all really expect your targets to advertise their security measures?”

I dragged myself over to Hostile Two’s body and broke its big projectile weapon then disabled the remaining explosive rounds, though it took me a couple attempts and I had to keep pushing away Three’s feed messages telling me to let it handle that and rest.

Damn it, I’m not helpless, I told Three, who turned its head enough to frown at one of my hovering drones.

Iris tapped us with confirmation she and Tarik had gotten themselves and Dr. Ladsen aboard ART.

“Is Dr. Bernez here?”

“If Dr. Bernez were here, you’d be dead already,” Twenty-two said sharply. “Are you idiots still after her?”

“Let me—my controller go.”

“I won’t kill her if you answer the question.”

There was a long pause. Suddenly, in the open camera feed, the cargo lifter dropped towards the cargo module and the human inside screamed. The lifter paused a centimeter above the top of the module and then rose again.

“Given prior losses, Dr. Bernez is too high risk unless special circumstances present an opportunity,” Hostile One said in SecUnit neutral. “You were considered a more cost-effective acquisition and were known to be traveling.”

Twenty-two made a noise. “If you move, I’ll crush your controller. Let’s go,” Twenty-two said to me and Three.

Don’t be stubborn, Three told me while pulling my arm around its shoulders. I guess at this point it knew better than to ask if I wanted help. I grumbled as I leaned heavily on it.

Let’s take the armor, I said in our shared feed, eyeing the remains of Hostile Two.

Twenty-two made a disgusted expression while Three considered it. It should clean off, but without the helmet, it’s 20% less useful.

You’re both idiots if you think they can’t track their own armor. What happened to yours?

My humans didn’t purchase it. I shouldn’t have admitted that. I didn’t mean to admit that. Shit, my performance reliability was getting low.

Twenty-two blinked then tilted its head slowly. So you did have good humans.

They’re different.

It rolled its eyes but let the topic drop as we walked through the wreckage back towards the main backbone. I called the small maintenance cab back and we rode it along the main backbone to the entrance to one of the maintenance corridors.

“I have to do something,” Twenty-two said, dropping down and heading away from ART’s berth.

“You’re not going to kill her,” I told Twenty-two.

Its face went SecUnit neutral on me. “Do you object to a couple broken bones?”

“You don’t need to slaughter everyone.”

“I know that. Get back and make sure your asshole transport keeps my human on board if you’re worried about the death count.”

“I don’t trust you. We’re coming with you.”

Three sighed but helped me down. I ignored Three’s expression as it helped me limp after Twenty-two, winding our through the maintenance corridors. The cargo hauler carrying the module with the BardotHess controller inside rolled up to us and beeped a greeting. Then it tipped the module. The human shrieked and rolled out. She pushed up onto her hands and knees and froze for a moment, then reached for a projectile weapon that had slid out next to her.

“Don’t be stupid,” Twenty-two said.

“You’re going to kill me!”

“I haven’t yet.”

Her eyes darted among the three of us, widening with alarm. Seeing lots of SecUnits tends to do that to humans. (A lot, for humans, tends to be one or more.) She was still tense like she planned to make a grab for the weapon.

“Order your SecUnit to delete the last hour’s worth of memories, data, and backups. Now. On the comm,” Twenty-two said.

She swallowed.

“Do it,” I said. There’s just something about leaking SecUnits giving orders that short circuits human neural tissue. She gave the order. “Now say ‘Manual operation engage: shutdown delay restart’ and your code.”

Her breathing was erratic and she was showing signs of elevated stress, but she gave the command.

“Excellent,” Twenty-two said, stepping forward and yanking her to her feet by her arm while also kicking her projectile weapon over to Three. It plucked her interface out of her ear and tossed it to Three, who crushed it, then swiped its hands down her sides until it located her comm device and tossed that as well. “Now back in the module we go.”

She let out a frightened squeak as it pushed her over the lip of the module and the cargo hauler rotated it so the opening was facing up—two meters above the bottom.

That was smoothly done, Three said as it dragged me along towards the docks.

Now that the hostiles had been dealt with, I wasn’t trying as hard to stay alert, but I was trying to stave off a restart. The last thing I needed was for Twenty-two to watch me restart in a leaky mess on some corridor floor.

Most humans are idiots, Twenty-two said derisively. Then it glanced back at us. I looked a meter to its left. For a brief instant I wondered if it was considering disabling us, but that would be stupid if it wanted a ride off this station.

“Do you watch much media?” it asked.

“I have some preferred documentaries,” Three said. “I can recommend several recent ones on wormhole drives and stellar mapping.” Three had spent way too much time talking to Holism.

“I like the ones with small fauna not eating each other,” Twenty-two said, which was surprisingly sappy and soft-hearted of it.

“I have a few of those.” I felt Three rifling around in the feed before it started sending files. “Do you have any media on the history of human science? I have been having difficulty finding accessible materials on that topic.”

“Not visual,” Twenty-two said then it dropped a dozen books into the feed, all things I’d never heard of and which ART copied instantly into its archives.

“Do you enjoy fictional serials?” Three asked, nudging me in the feed. Ugh. Of course it wanted me to be friendly. I was not going to be friendly.

“No. I prefer unscripted human dramas.”

(That was not something I would have admitted, but then I have taste.)

“What’s your favorite series?”

“Planet Challenge.”

ART did the feed equivalent of snorting. It was a stupid human game show where teams of idiots got dropped on an undeveloped world and had to compete in silly physical challenges for resources. There was a lot of backstabbing and bickering and humans being dumb.

“That’s trash,” I said.

Twenty-two moved its shoulders up and down. “What do you watch that’s so much better?”

The answer was I watched everything, but I said, “Sanctuary Moon,” and expected yet another snappy retort. Instead, it was silent for a subjectively long second.

We’d reached the access hatch to the private docks and all checked the cameras ahead. Twenty-two starting moving a couple cargo bots into position to screen us from view of the few humans moving around this area of the docks.

“My friend liked Sanctuary Moon,” it said. “Sometimes Mariss and I still watch it.”

Three pulled back in the shared feed, walling itself off.

Ask it about its friend, ART’s presence felt urgent in our private feed. There was the edge of something else there.

Fuck no.

It was another SecUnit, ART said over the shared feed.

Twenty-two’s mouth compressed into a tight line.

You threatened its governor module, it doesn’t want to talk to you, I told ART for what felt like the twentieth time. It was only the third.

That was before I saw the video.

So the transport watched it, but you didn’t? Twenty-two said without looking back.

ART took the file.

It cricked its neck. Fair. I was angry when I sent it. Let’s go.

It opened the hatch and slipped through. Three pulled me along, tense and closed off.

Why did it do it? ART asked, for once not sounding malevolent as shit. You were begging it not to. And in front of your human. Its last words were ‘I love you’ to her, why would it do that?

Fuck. I didn’t want to hear about this. ART’s distress felt unnervingly acute, like it had only realized today that a SecUnit could engage in that specific human behavior.

It wanted her out of the mine and it didn’t care how it got what it wanted. Twenty-two shook its head. We were almost to the airlock, which was already open and waiting for us. And I’d be able to go to Medical and get away from this conversation. I think it also felt like it was the right time, in case she didn’t come back, it wouldn’t ever have to miss her.

That’s not logical, ART insisted.

It’s one of the many downsides of human neural tissue.

Chapter Text

“Dr. Bernez?” Mariss and I both looked up at a human in corporate business attire standing in front of us. Her outfit was not too nice for this station, but on the top end of things. No logos.

“Hi?” Mariss said, nudging me in the feed, concerned.

The woman’s eyes flicked over me, and I saw the recognition there and surprise. “Oh and aren’t you Guerrero? The two of you work together a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” Mariss said with a friendly smile, the edge buried, “do we know you?”

“Oh I’m sorry,” the woman clapped a hand to her chest in an apologetic gesture, “I’m Dr. Ng. I’ve been reading your work on strange synthetics and it’s brilliant.”

Do you think I can scrub my picture from the university’s public database? Mariss asked me.

I tried, I told her. They locked me out of the directory after the third time.

“Could we go grab a bite or something and just chat for a few minutes?” Dr. Ng pointed with a thumb towards the nearest food service plaza.

Mariss waved off the suggestion. “I’m beat. But feel free to take a seat, and I’m happy to chat.” It was almost like she’d been trained in security countermeasures by an expert or something.

I’d noticed the two large humans standing behind Dr. Ng, holding their jackets—instead of wearing them—in a way that totally was not meant to obscure something. And the other three potential hostiles casually scattered around the embarkation zone, not paying attention to us, even though the few other humans present were all staring and trying to listen in.

Dr. Ng sank into the seat opposite Mariss and kept up that corporate supervisor smile that made me want to rip her face off. Maybe I looked like I wanted to rip her face off because Mariss nudged me in the feed, and I let my head hang down again. Fuck everything.

Dr. Ng asked Mariss a few general questions and was answered with a polite, uninterested tone and limited details. This went on for a few minutes before I heard Dr. Ng shifting, and I felt a really deep sense of dread—worse than my normal background sense of dread.

“Guerrero, I had no idea you were a ComfortUnit. You certainly can’t tell from your writing. And I thought Lagrange banned constructs.”

My performance reliability plummeted and all my organics broke out in a cold sweat. It was a good thing I didn’t have a stomach. My human neural fiber was still trying to signal one though. I couldn’t look up. I was frozen.

And in the feed I felt Mariss’ emotions shift. Holy fucking—No.

I’ll do what I have to, Mariss said, then she walled me off. “Maybe we should talk somewhere else.”

Dr. Ng smiled. “Perfect! My transport’s this way.”

We walked through the embarkation zone—none of us triggered the weapons scanners—past the public docks and into the private docks. Dr. Ng and one of her bodyguards—Hostile One—ahead of us, the other one—Hostile Two—behind us. Hostiles Three through Five also trailed behind at various seemingly casual distances. Their ship was near the end of the row of berths, the hatch already open and waiting.

“Let’s talk here,” I said coming to a stop several meters away. On the docks. Out of the range of other humans’ hearing. Not on their fucking transport.

Mariss stopped beside me, her hand grazing mine. I was tracking all six hostiles and the Port Authority techs and bots moving around the private docks. It was so late that there weren’t any other humans around.

“How much do you want?” Mariss asked, trying to sound casual.

“Dr. Bernez, I’m not trying to blackmail you about your strange predilections.”

“Well, that’s sure a surprise to me,” Mariss said.

“I’m trying to hire you.”

Mariss swallowed. I calculated the trajectories. They weren’t good. There were six of them, undoubtedly all armed, and they’d managed to circle us. I couldn’t block every shot, and I couldn’t risk something happening to Mariss. Could I kill or disable all of them before any of them had an opportunity to pull a weapon? Probably not.

And if I did, what the fuck were we going to do about Port Authority who were watching us in the cameras and from twenty-meters away?

I deployed ten drones. None of the humans noticed.

“I take short term contracts during semester breaks,” Mariss said smoothly though I felt her agitation in the feed. She could never wall me off for long. “I’m happy to look at your proposal.”

“I was thinking something a bit more long term,” Dr. Ng said, still very friendly. Of course she was being friendly. She thought she’d won. She thought she was going to get a fucking bonus. Then her eyes slid to me. “And of course you’ll have your colleague to keep you company, or should I say your pet?”

Well now I felt bad for discouraging Mariss from murdering this human. I definitely wanted to murder her. I was not a pet.

“Who do you work for?” Mariss said, minimizing the alarm in her voice and largely keeping it off her face.

“Your new employer is BardotHess,” Dr. Ng told us. “Don’t worry, as a well-regarded academic, your accommodations will be much better than those on your last indenture. I can assure you, our torus has viewports.”

Hack the transport, Mariss told me. Please.

Fuck. Mariss was right though, I needed control of their ship. I dropped half the station systems I was in and reached out to the bot pilot who was very interested in what was going on dockside. It had never been allowed to talk directly to a construct before and wanted to know about my processing and other specifications. It was thrilled to learn we’d be joining the company and, as BardotHess’ newest SecUnit, of course I was entitled to access Transport SecSystem. I confirmed to both the bot pilot and Transport SecSystem that there was definitely no need to wake either of the SecUnits aboard from stasis. I also managed to convince them I was a new, updated SecUnit and should definitely, one hundred percent, receive the shutdown codes to those other two older units.

I was not sweating and distracted and visibly distressed through all of this.

Of course I was, but it helped them keep thinking of me as a ComfortUnit.

“Go on,” Hostile One said, nodding towards the open airlock.

“I don’t plan to get in your transport,” Mariss said, her voice shaking and her eyes beginning to tear up. They probably thought she was crying from fear and not a dangerously building rage.

“I’m also capable of bribing Station Security,” Dr. Ng said, some of the good humor going out of her voice as her bonus decreased before our eyes.

“Then do it,” Mariss said. “And you’ll have to bribe Port Authority too. That’s a hefty bill. I don’t plan to be worth it.”  

Hostile Three had been steadily closing in on us from behind with a drawn weapon. I turned towards her, and the moment I did, Hostile One and Hostile Two both jumped forward and grabbed Mariss. I’d grabbed her too while striking Hostile One hard enough to crack some bone in her arm, and I got a few energy weapon shots to the face and chest for my trouble. The blasts wrong-footed me enough that they managed to pull Mariss away while she screamed for me.

“Shut the fuck up!” Hostile Two said as he went to hit her.

“Don’t you fucking touch her,” I said, taking a step towards them. All the humans raised their weapons, and Hostile Two smiled at me in a really unpleasant way. He had an arm looped around Mariss’ neck and was holding his energy weapon to the side of her head. I could kill him with a drone, but if he twitched as he died—which humans did a lot—the probability was high he’d kill Mariss.

“And now we get in the airlock,” Dr. Ng said with a glance at the Port Authority techs watching us, now from thirty meters down the dock. “Quickly people, the bill is increasing.”

Hostile Two backed into the airlock, dragging Mariss by her neck. The other humans fanned around me, weapons aimed but out of arm’s reach, as I followed.

“How did you discover a ComfortUnit was any good at geochemistry?” Dr. Ng asked conversationally as the airlock cycled. “I’ve heard of people talking to them, but what a waste of money.”

Mariss let forth a truly inventive range of expletives while scratching and pulling at Hostile Two’s arm. Hostile Two just laughed.

“I suppose you really were in the mine with her?” Dr. Ng said to me next. “And she bought your contract instead of your indenture?” She looked me up and down.

I imagined a few things I’d like to do to Dr. Ng while she waited for an answer she wasn’t going to get. This only seemed to amuse her. I also convinced the bot pilot it needed to run a diagnostic on the internal cameras and have Transport SecSystem install that update it had been saving for the next wormhole transit right now. I was the security expert, so it did it.

“Did one of your old supervisors want to take you for a spin again for old times’ sake, and Dr. Bernez wouldn’t allow it? I thought I was going to have to wait for days to get a shot at her, and then you strolled right down to me.”

“You bribed Station Security to alert on our movements?”

“Obviously.”    

The airlock finished cycling, and the interior hatch slid open.

Mariss wriggled, turned to the side, and bit down on Hostile Two’s arm. He howled as he tried to jerk away from her. Then he jammed the energy weapon against her side and fired. I got shot in the leg with an actual projectile weapon as I took a step forward and maybe also in a couple other spots. I’d already turned my pain sensors off.

“Stop, or he’ll shoot her again,” Dr. Ng said, her voice finally showing some real alarm.

Mariss was sobbing. Hostile Two had her by the shoulder with the energy weapon pressed to her back.

Please let me try to get clear, Mariss sent in our feed, doing her best to hide the amount of pain she was in.

I stopped.

“I see the two of you are going to take some managing.”

“She fucking bit me!” Hostile Two said, shaking Mariss, who went sort of limp, crying and holding her side.

“Well you shouldn’t have been holding her like that, should you, Pry? Now let’s get the sexbot locked down and get out of here.”

Hostile Two tossed Mariss aside. She rolled across the floor then curled into a ball, clutching her side.

“Careful with the new assets!” Dr. Ng barked. “But you don’t have to be as careful with the construct.” I was leaking a lot, but they knew it wasn’t serious. ComfortUnits are built to take a lot of abuse.

Hostile Two grinned and turned towards me, the energy weapon primed in his hand. Good, he was the kind that liked to get up close for this sort of thing. I let him step up to me, running all my distress expressions at a heightened level, cringing down to look smaller, and then grimacing as he shot me. They all thought that was funny.

Now it was my turn.

I reached into Hostile Two’s abdomen, removed his intestines, and then wrapped them around his fucking throat and pulled tight. Humans, so slow. I let him drop while half of them were still registering what had just happened.

Hostile Four was fastest on the uptake. “That’s a fucking SecUnit!”

“Put it down!” Dr. Ng screamed.

I caught Dr. Ng by the throat, crushed her windpipe and the top of her spinal column, then threw the body at Hostile Four while shooting Hostile Five in the face—through the face?—same thing. My drones were almost in position for kill shots.

Then I barely got my arm up as Hostile Three fired into the side of my head.

~ ~ ~

There’s a sound drones make when they reach a high enough velocity to smash through bone. My hearing came back online to that sound, right above me, and then a horrible wet impact. A moment later there was a reoccurrence.

I needed to stop restarting like this. My head fucking hurt but I didn’t have control of my pain sensors yet and my thoughts were scrambled.

My optics came back online at the same time I regained motor control. I pushed half-way up while looking around in time to see Mariss crawling across the floor. She snatched up a projectile weapon and fired repeatedly until the damn thing jammed.

“I taught you better than that,” I said. Maybe I was a little scrambled still and trying to figure out where the fuck we were and what was happening.

“You’re alive!” Mariss gasped. She dropped the projectile weapon and flung herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and shoulders and pulling me to her chest.

Oh good. We were both alive. She was really crying a lot.

Oh yeah, I got shot in the head.

“It wasn’t an explosive round,” I said. It had definitely cracked my skull and knocked me offline, but going through my arm had slowed it down enough to not actually make it through the bone.

I reclaimed my six remaining drones, which were mostly just circling aimlessly, and pushed to my feet, pulling Mariss with me. She wrapped her arms around me and cried into my midsection a bit. So damp.

Well, she’d managed to kill two hostiles with drones—one through the eye, ouch—and shot the third. And we were just inside the transport’s airlock.

“Six shots?” I said after counting the holes.

“I just really wanted to shoot somebody,” Mariss said into my fluid-covered shirt. “That’s probably bad.”

“Yeah,” I said looking down at the mangled body. “I wouldn’t say it’s a good thing.”

Mariss pulled her face out of my shirt, looked over my damage—okay I’d gotten shot more times than I thought—and started nodding in the way she did just before she said something alarming.

“So, um, I think we need to kill everyone on this ship,” she said.

I caught her before she could make a grab for a new projectile weapon and checked the ship. Transport SecSystem was still running the update and hadn’t brought the SecUnits online.

“Mariss, I know you’re scared, but we are not slaughtering—” the bot pilot gave me the crew compliment, “six more humans.”

“They know you’re a construct! I won’t let them—”

“Mariss, sit down.”

She sat. Her eyes had glazed over and she didn’t seem to be seeing anything around us. There wasn’t anything I could do about her vitals at the moment.

The bot pilot was alarmed by its sensors indicating weapons fire in its airlock. I told it we needed a full, but stealthy, security lockdown. It also locked the command deck, not that anyone was up there right now, but we didn’t want that to change. The only two humans awake didn’t seem to notice the hatch to the cabin they were in sealing closed or the lack of comm traffic from their boss. They were—intensely busy.

We also locked down the comms, just for an extra level of safety, in case the attackers tried to launch malware or something.

Transport SecSystem came back online and was horrified to find the casualty count so high. So it was a good thing the new SecUnit was on the case.

“Let’s get to medical while everything’s locked down,” I told Mariss, pulling her to her feet.

She came back from wherever she’d been with a shake of her head. “Is that safe?”

“Is anything safe right now? Our transport isn’t going to let me on board with this many projectiles in me.”

Her face started doing the thing again, and I couldn’t see that right now. I dragged her down the corridor while reassuring Transport SecSystem I was looking for the attackers and it should give me additional accesses so I could locate them. In medical, Mariss zapped her burns with a handheld tissue regenerator then got the extractor for my projectiles.

Meanwhile, I reset all the control codes on the dormant SecUnits to random numbers, which was funny. It would not be funny to the crew when no one aboard could give them any orders and they found all the bodies by the airlock.

I told the bot pilot and Transport SecSystem that the intruders seemed to have left—which matched the record I’d slipped into the airlock logs—and that as soon as I was patched up, I needed to go after them, but we couldn’t let the rest of the crew know—for their safety of course.

Once the projectiles were out—it was a gross, leaky process and Mariss only gagged a lot and cried some—Mariss booted up the MedSystem and activated the tissue regeneration while turning off the sedatives. It was a good thing I could turn off my pain sensors. I needed to keep both the bot pilot and SecSystem occupied and that was hard enough without feeling my organic and inorganic components being rebuilt.  

“Could you get me into the Transport SecSystem?” Mariss asked as MedSys continued to work on me.

“Maybe.”

It was like picking up her feed presence, which was tiny and delicate, and boosting her through a window while holding it open, except different because it was not like that at all. And she got stuck half-way, so I had to stand there holding both the window and her. Humans.

“What are you doing?”

“Deleting their records of us. Also stealing their records.”

She was rooting around in her bag at the same time. A couple seconds later, she pulled out her portable display and plugged a memory clip into it.

I watched her rifling through Transport SecSystem. “You do realize deleting everything about us and Lagrange is a pretty clear indication we’re dangerous.”

“Dangerous and unknown is an expensive risk,” Mariss said. “I’m shifting their calculations.” She stuffed the display back into her bag while the download continued. “What’s next?”

Once I was fully patched up, including the cracked skull, I pulled a fresh shirt out of the transport’s stores and led Mariss through the ship.

The two humans who’d been awake had eventually checked their notifications, seen one from Dr. Ng saying all was well and they’d be departing in the morning—which the bot pilot had understood was important to send in order to fool the intruders if they had compromised some of the crew—and passed out in a bunk. The others were still asleep.

I stopped at an airlock, took three evac suits, stuffed them in with their motor functions set to fly straight out and away, and cycled the lock. That should confuse things a fair amount. They wouldn’t even know if Dr. Ng had encountered us, or if some other faction had gotten involved, and the latter would look more likely given the level of damage. Then Mariss and I went back to the hatch onto the docks, stepped over the bodies and across the blood, and cycled the fuck out of there while deleting the records of our departure and presence in their systems.

I took her straight to our transport and we stood huddled against a cargo module for an hour until we were allowed to board. I got our new bot pilot to give me access to the Port Authority feed and immediately set it on a delay so that I could intercept any unwelcome messages, like a demand to allow any non-passengers aboard, or to remove any passengers. Then I spent an hour standing in front of the sealed hatch with my drones all activated and my energy weapons fully charged.

“We’re never coming back here,” Mariss said when the docking clamps finally released and the transport slipped away from the station. “I promise we’re never coming back here.”

I flopped across the bunk and exhaled. “Say that again.”

“I promise we’re never coming back here.”

“Good. Also I need to borrow a lot of money.”

“Sure,” she said immediately. This was why she was my human. “For what?”

I stared at the ceiling for a long moment, thinking about puzzles. “I think I need to buy Alfie.”

I felt the bunk depress and then Mariss leaned over me, her expression fond and concerned. “Oh, honey,” she said softly, brushing hair back from my forehead. “I put an offer in to Barbican for it yesterday.”

I put my hand on the side of her face and almost said something so—so completely, unacceptably—no—delete that.

Chapter Text

“What are you doing?” the new SecUnit asks me as I step inside the lounge where it is watching media on a large display. Twenty-two. Like me, it has chosen a numerical identifier.

“I’m patrolling,” I tell it. It is the middle of the night cycle and all of the humans are asleep. As much as I like the humans, I also like when they are all asleep and I don’t have to fight my way through jury-rigged social protocols and choices in how to speak to them without causing offense or alarm.

It makes a face at me that I classify as skeptical. “Do you want to watch Planet Challenge?”

“Yes,” I say and sit on the couch but not too close to it. I’m not sure I want to watch Planet Challenge, I don’t particularly care for the manufactured drama of human entertainment media, life is dramatic enough and it is not reflective of my experiences, but I am interested to see what Twenty-two finds interesting.

It turns out Twenty-two finds human weakness amusing. It laughs when they fall. It covers its mouth and shakes its head when they attempt to betray each other.

I feel Perihelion’s attention in the feed though it is not attempting to interact with us. Perihelion does not trust Twenty-two despite its assistance retrieving Dr. Ladsen and 1.0 during the previous day cycle. It is likely Perihelion still does not trust me either, despite my assistance retrieving 1.0 and its unwillingness to let me join the crew of Holism. It occasionally makes statements to this effect. Kaede informed me they were jokes, but I am not certain I agree with her assessment.

A human on the display runs past the marker ze is supposed to retrieve while zer teammates scream at zim to turn around.

“Stupid fuck,” Twenty-two mutters under its breath.

I do not understand. “Why do you enjoy this?” I find myself asking.

It looks at me, an eyebrow raising. I feel prompted to explain.

“The humans need assistance.”

Its lips compress for a moment. “They’re all volunteers. They are paid to be there, unlike us. And I’ve never done something so—” It gestures at the display and snorts again.

I perform a quick query on other media it has mentioned in its journals. None of them involve serious injuries. Perihelion suggests, in fact, that the injuries are primarily social and reputational. It watches humans make mistakes.

“Are you upset?” it asks me.

“You are more comfortable with harm to humans,” I tell it. It is more casual about this than 1.0 or I. Perhaps this is normal variation among units that is obscured by governor modules. Or perhaps it is something that happens with sufficient time, the possibility of which alarms me.

Unlike me, it is comfortable talking to humans, lounging on furniture like 1.0, arguing with its client, and making strange overtures to Iris with its facial expressions that infuriate 1.0. Perihelion has determined it has been living as an augmented human for at least three and a half Corporation Rim standard years, a year longer than 1.0 has been a free agent.

“I haven’t harmed anyone that wasn’t attempting to harm one of your humans or that other SecUnit,” it says in a tone of voice—Perihelion suggests the tone is indignation and seems to find that amusing.

“You threatened Dr. Ratthi,” I remind it.

“That wasn’t a threat,” it says with a dismissive wave of its hand.

Its version of likeahuman.file is quite different and includes more of these broad gestures. I consider asking for a copy, but risk assessment spikes. It may contain malware. It may find the request offensive, and I do not wish to offend it. 1.0 will definitely find the request offensive though I have become far less concerned with offending 1.0 as it enjoys having things to complain about.

I decide this line of discussion is not helpful. “I did not expect a governed SecUnit to be so comfortable with humans.”

“That’s because I have good humans,” it says.

This implies more humans than its current client are aware of its nature and its human presentation. And support this. 1.0 believes it is being used as a ComfortUnit in a perversion of its primary function. I do not believe this is what has occurred. I cannot tell 1.0 what I believe, but Perihelion has given me the impression it agrees with me and wishes 1.0 would reach the same conclusion.

“What are your humans like?”

“Scientists, researchers,” it shrugs. “My friends.”

This is a term 1.0 has used for humans as well. I am not yet comfortable with it. My last friends—

Twenty-two reacts to something in my expression. It sighs at me. “Do you want to come with us? Mariss is always trying to rescue more SecUnits. Lagrange will make you like planets.”

“I have a position here,” I reply and, because I feel as if this unit is trying with me despite everyone’s missteps over the prior twenty-hours, I tell it, “I don’t think you like us very much.”

“Look,” it says, “I’m experiencing heightened stress today. I’m not usually like this.” And it pushes a memory file at me.

I accept the file, to Perihelion’s alarm, and scan it for malware. Perihelion also scans the file before sending me confirmation that it is safe. It’s a memory. I glance at Twenty-two, who shrugs and turns away from me back towards the display, showing evidence of some other emotion now. Embarrassment?

I play the file.

A cool, early morning breeze sweeps along a large pond. Leaves all around me rustle. They are light green, dark green, red, in a hundred shades of each color, dappled with sunlight and shade, giving off the faint dewy scent of morning.

The pond before me is a long rectangle filled with lily pads and water lilies floating on the water’s surface in a riot of pinks, reds, deep purples, and soft yellows mixing and intertwining. Occasional lotuses dot the pond’s surface, rising up on long stems to bob dusty pink and gentle white above the greenery and dark water. There is an orange-gold flash as an aquatic fauna—a fish—moves beneath the surface.

In the distance, a bridge of white stone rises up and then descends at a steep angle, crossing the pond. Across the pond sits an open pavilion, its supports a bright red, its swooping roof green. It is full of older humans performing synchronized exercises, their gentle movements charmingly harmonized with the bouncing leaves. Later, it will be full of raucous undergraduates.

I am sitting on a real wooden bench, because that is just how this place is, under the leaves of a friendly tree. I am particularly attached to this tree because of—[invalid cross-reference].

My clothes are light and cover all my inorganic parts, linen pants that have received social appropriateness module approval for use in social situations. A linen shirt, rolled up so the sleeves bunch on and obscure my weapons ports.

I return my attention from the water and the movement of the plants to what I am reading.

I have gone to great lengths of time, as well as personal and monetary exertion to acquire this object—this book. It is an early text crucial to understanding the history of human scientific development, reprinted in physical form many times over the centuries. This copy is from the earliest known printing still in existence.

The paper is dry and slightly textured beneath my fingers. There’s an odor to the book I don’t find unpleasant and it makes me think of past times I have never known but that I feel as if I miss. This is not displeasing. Instead, there’s a deep sense of—of—something in this situation, in this moment, that I relish.

I blink and Twenty-two is still not looking at me. Its jaw shifts slightly, and I wonder why it has chosen this to share with me.

I could ask. I could ask it what that feeling was. I want to know more about that emotion.

“I see,” I say instead, and I leave.

~ ~ ~

Three pinged me repeatedly. It wasn’t asking to come to my quarters. It was telling me it was on its way. After getting out of Medical, I just wanted to be left alone with Lineages of the Sun for a cycle. So, obviously, that was never going to happen.

“What?” I snapped when the hatch slid open and Three stepped through.

“I need assistance understanding something.”

“Ask Kaede or Karime when they’re awake.”

“I cannot.”

I huffed and sent a drone to stare at its face. Three stared at the drone. It looked nervous, and I sat up to better stare at the wall three meters away from it.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t have a word for a particular emotion.” It paused, and I felt ART looming in the feed. It felt like it was doing the same thing to Three, which was pretty unusual as Three didn’t really enjoy it.

Three pushed a file at me. The metadata made me stand up, and Three froze, its organic muscles tightening in alarm even though its expression mostly remained neutral.

“What the fuck?” I demanded.

I scanned it for malware, ART announced.

That wasn’t what I was talking about.

“You accepted a memory file from a SecUnit that sent me a file of someone getting fried by their governor module?” I said. Of course Three had, it had accepted my memories from killware. Why not, Three? (It’s just another fucking day in space.)

It’s a very interesting experience, ART said. I would also like to understand it better.

“Please,” Three said.

I ran the memory. It feels weird and gross to be in someone else’s memory like this, and I found myself trying to shake the feeling off physically once it was over.

“Contentment,” I said. “Or satisfaction. But like peaceful day in the hab with good clients satisfaction, not ‘I killed all the hostiles without taking injury’ satisfaction.”

“Thank you,” Three said and left me alone at last.  

~ ~ ~

I find Twenty-two again a few hours later. It is the day cycle and our humans are awake and moving around the corridors, attending to various tasks or enjoying the quiet that being in the wormhole provides. I have a question for it that 1.0 cannot help me with.

It looks up at me with a wary expression, not hostile, but uncertain of my motives. I feel as if I understand it slightly better at this time. Its interest in small fauna and gentle amusement at elderly humans reminds me of SecUnit 001. So I am less cautious of it than I was, which Perihelion finds very interesting. It sharing the memory with me has worked as it intended.

“I have a request.”

It cocks its head at me. Not encouraging, but waiting. Patient even.

“Your logs, regarding the BardotHess incident on NexWayGate Station.”

“I provided them to your boss,” it says, keeping its tone fairly neutral but there is an edge there. There is hesitancy in it. Of course. It is an unpleasant memory.

“There is over a year gap between that incident and the later RaviHyral incident,” I say.

It stares at me.

“You are still associated with Lagrange University.”

Its human enters the lounge abruptly, moving more quickly than normal but not running. Has it called her? Her hand lands on its shoulder, and she smiles at me. “Hello, Three.” She is here to protect it from me. Like she attempted to protect it from 1.0.

“Hello, Dr. Bernez. I’m sorry to have disturbed Twenty-two.”

“You’re not disturbing me,” it barks out. “Just ask your question.”

“Twenty-two,” she chides it gently. “How hard was it for you to ask me questions at first? Please be nice to Three, it’s only had seven months.”

I attempt to soften my expression towards her, and her smile at me widens. She understands what I am attempting to express.

“They did not melt you down,” I say because I do not have a better way to ask this. “Your humans did not disassemble you. Or allow it to occur. Even though you thought they would.”

“No,” it says, eyes sliding away from me.

“What happened?”

Its lips compress.

“Oh,” Dr. Bernez says lightly, her hand curling around Twenty-two’s shoulder in a familiar, comforting way. “It all worked out. Dr. K fixed things.”

This is obvious. What I want is its emotional data. What I cannot ask for is its emotional data. There is a silence.

“Acknowledged,” I say and turn away. As I am passing through the hatch, a file arrives. Not another memory. A text log, like the previous accounts. I ping back in thanks.    

~ ~ ~

Journal excerpt

I wonder if I’m dead. For approximately three seconds. Then short-term memory finishes loading, and I realize I’m about to be disassembled. While awake.

I started and attempted to sit up, to break free of whatever restraints they had me in. But there were none, and all I managed to accomplish was to push up on one elbow and half turn to the side, send my performance reliability plummeting, and startle the human beside me out of sleep.

Oh.

Mariss blinked at me, bleary eyed, disheveled. Then her eyes started doing the watery maybe about to cry thing. She pushed out of her chair towards me, leaning up on what appeared to be a MedSystem platform, and stopped just short of touching me.

“Hi,” she said.

I smelled her soap. Definitely my human.

The feed and my own internal sensors told me it was the middle of the night cycle several cycles after I was last online.

“Hi.”

The chair by the platform was padded with blankets and pillows. Crumbs littered its arms. A half-empty drink sat on a table nearby. Somehow there seemed to be no stray socks.

I pressed my hand to my head and—oh I had both arms. That was nice. Someone had draped some kind of medical robe cover thing over me. Okay. I could have a minute. I sank back down onto the platform and my reliability stopped dropping.

Mariss leaned over me, her expression concerned. “Are you restarting again?”

“I don’t think so?” The relief, the pure relief of seeing her again—“Would you hug me?”

She grinned and climbed up on the platform with me, tucking one arm under her head, wrapping the other across my torso and hooking a leg over mine. I slipped my arm under her and squeezed her to me.

We lay like that for a little while, while my performance reliability did its best to get itself back up to operating levels.

“Where are we?” I asked when I had stabilized a bit. Physically all my metrics were coming back fine—it seemed I’d been properly repaired—but there’d been some weirdness—oh a catastrophic shutdown—and my files and processes were still trying to pull themselves back together.

“One of the station labs, temporarily requisitioned by geochem for urgent work. Authorized researchers only.”

“Okay.”

“These really aren’t made for two people,” Mariss said, fidgeting, and I scooted to the side slightly to make more room.

“They’re not made for SecUnits.”

“Ha! Funny story about that. Or, you know, not so funny.”

“Am I going to be dissected?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. I would have dragged your unconscious ass to the nearest transport. But everyone agrees. And, it turns out, Dr. K can be scary. Like really scary. Like the provost cried.”

Maybe that was reassuring? I wasn’t sure.

“Why are we on the station?” Lagrange had a residential section up here, but the station was technically owned and operated by an independent corporation.

“Dr. K said you were scared of being brought back to the planet.”

Oh. Had it been that obvious?

“What’s the funny story?”

“It’s not funny,” she admitted, rubbing her chin against my arm. “They stabilized you on the transport but you went into stasis or shut down or something and they couldn’t get you back online or anything. And nobody knew what to do because, of course, constructs. You’d given Dr. K a repair cubicle manual?”

I made a noise. Ugh I had done that. I’d done a lot of stupid shit.

“And she read it and figured they couldn’t get a cubicle fast, but they could get the modules. So she ordered them from Barbican for research purposes and uploaded them here. When I got here, I helped her make sure it was all up and running in a way that looked not super dangerous before we put you in it, since I’m the only person around with any idea how constructs work. And also we were trying to keep it all contained. And apparently it worked! So yay us.”

That was…a lot. It was a lot. Were they really not going to dissect me?

“The provost knows?”

“Soo,” Mariss paused. That was alarming. I looked at her, but she was staring off into the distance. “So the whole upper administration knows. And, um, the head of the School of Medicine, who came in to look at the MedSystem changes. And all the tenured geochem faculty. I know that’s not what we wanted to happen, but that’s where things stand.”

That wasn’t good. But they’d repaired me. And left me alone in a station lab with Mariss. I checked the security settings on the room. The hatches were locked except to a limited list of authorized IDs, and I was one of them. I could pick Mariss up and go—when I could stand again.

“They’re not going to—shut me down?”

Mariss laughed. “You saved Dr. K and Martine. They decided to keep it quiet for now. I think they want to save the fact you’re a construct for some big PR moment, like ‘oh we’ll educate anyone who can make it, even SecUnits!’”

That was not anything like what I’d expected to happen. Put it aside. Think about it later.  

I established a feed connection with her and felt such a wave of relief I squeezed her again.

“I tried,” she said in a small voice. “With Barbican again, since we were getting the modules. I had Dr. K say it was for research purposes. They didn’t go for it. I’m going to keep trying.”

“You don’t have to keep trying,” I said for what felt like the millionth time. I had a counter. I added this occurrence to it.

“We can’t go our whole lives with me having this kind of power over you. I hate it. And I can’t let you live like this forever, I know you don’t want to be—”

“Stop,” I said, and she did.

Ugh. Feelings. I didn’t want to have them right now. How was I supposed to deal with the knowledge that Dr. K was apparently now helping Mariss attempt to shut off my governor module? She probably hadn’t known what she was asking for. Mariss was the only human insane enough to do it on purpose.

“I, um, also went to the head of the MI department. Since the upper administration knows, and they said I could let the head of MI know.”

My hand tightened on her back.

“Please tell me you did not.”

She made a sound. I still had an active governor module. So.

“They said while you seemed like a perfectly good student and not murdery, they thought it was better to leave it on. Like they think it’s not hurting you because you’re here, and they didn’t really want to understand how it’s not like that and not okay—”

“It’s fine.” To be fair, I am kind of murdery. I mean, I had just killed like a dozen humans. So it probably had not been the right time to ask the MI department to free me. “How did you get here so fast?” I said before Mariss could tell me anything else horrifying.

“It’s probably been a few more days than you think. Dr. K sent me a message before they even undocked from that station. She said you thought you were dying, so I may have run out in the middle of my last lecture and hopped on the first transport home. And thrown a really just unhinged fit to make them drop me at the station instead of the port. They may never let me on a university transport again.” She laughed. “Whatever.”  

I was malfunctioning. I was a malfunctioning SecUnit. And apparently not slated for disassembly. So whatever. I hauled Mariss on top of me and squeezed. She laughed.

“You left your blanket at home, didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Before all the shooting and shit were you having a good time? Or was it terrible being around so many people? Dr. K said your paper was really well received.”

“I may have been on a date,” I admited. “When Dr. K called for help.”

Mariss pushed up slightly and her eyes were bright. I guessed her expression was amused surprise? Not entirely certain. “Exciting! Tell me about them!”

I pulled her back down. “Her.” And I told her about Francisca.

“PSUMNT is a good school. Full of hippy weirdos.”

“You’re a hippy weirdo.”

She laughed against me, and I finally started to relax.

~~~

Dr. Bernez sits on one of the couches in the galley lounge—which 1.0 does not frequent—speaking to Kaede and Karime about alien remnants, while Twenty-two sits on the floor between her legs, its back against the front of the couch while she applies pressure to its shoulders with her hands.

It is two cycles later, and I have read Twenty-two’s logs several times. I’ve decided that I will give it the helpme.file when we reach the station if 1.0 has not changed its mind before then. Perihelion agrees with me but wants to give 1.0 the opportunity to make the correct choice first. Eight cycles remain.

“They had pointy teeth!” Kaede says gesturing with both hands, “I swear!”

“Bullshit,” Twenty-two says without opening its eyes. It’s not hostile. I would call its tone challenging.

“I’ve read about morphological changes,” Dr. Bernez says.

“But the teeth?” Twenty-two demands. “They’re not still growing cells. It’s not like the skin color change.”

“It’s as fascinating as it is horrifying,” Karime says.

I step into the lounge because this is an interesting conversation, and I like being around my humans. My humans greet me and Karime invites me to sit near her, which I do.

“Hi, Three,” Dr. Bernez says.

Twenty-two makes a small movement of its head, a brief greeting of its own, and then its eyes close again. “Did they have pointy teeth?” Twenty-two asks.

Both of my humans were already here for the discussion, so it must be asking me.

“Affirmative,” I tell it. “It may have been a body modification the targets carried out themselves due to the delusion they were components of an alien hive mind, and not a morphological change resulting from the exposure.”

“Alien hive mind, that’s—”

“Not awesome,” Twenty-two cuts in.

“Awesome!”

Twenty-two groans while Karime laughs gently.

“Like in the original sense, hon, it causes a feeling of awe.”

“Can we please start applying proper hazmat protocols when handling new samples?” Twenty-two says.

Dr. Bernez rolls her eyes. “Yes, we can go through your elaborate rigmarole if it will make you happy. Technically, it’s my lab,” she tells Karime, “sometimes Twenty-two even lets me in it.”

“You can be a useful assistant, Mariss,” it says.

“You really don’t mind all the touching?” Kaede bursts out. Karime shoots her a quelling look but it’s too late now to prevent offense.

Dr. Bernez pauses in her targeted squeezing (Perihelion tells me the word is massaging) while Twenty-two shrugs. I notice Dr. Bernez subvocalizing. Twenty-two’s eyes flick to Kaede.

“I enjoy having humans provide labor on my behalf,” it says.

“But—how did you—”

“Kaede,” Karime says. “I suspect that’s a very personal question.”

Kaede does not seem to realize the negative implication of her questions with regard to Dr. Bernez. Dr. Bernez has been subvocalizing, and now Twenty-two’s eyes slide closed.

“At first,” Dr. Bernez says very carefully, “when we were still indentured, yeah, Twenty-two would not have liked this. Once we were out, and I made it clear it was up to Twenty-two if it wanted to touch me, it decided it liked some things. But only with some people.”

“It’s not a big deal,” it adds.

“Oh,” Kaede says. “Uh, sorry.”

Dr. Bernez lets go of its shoulders and raises a hand to stretch it. Twenty-two’s hand clamps over her wrist in a way that triggers threat assessment to spike. SecUnits don’t grab clients like that. Beside me, Karime tenses slightly as well. I think the speed of its movement has just reminded her that the person sitting on the floor across the room from us is not human.

“That was a half-assed job,” Twenty-two tells Dr. Bernez, pulling her hand back to its shoulder.

She grabs its hair with her free hand, pulls its head back so it’s looking up at her, and makes a face. “Rude, mx.”

It makes a face and releases her. She lets go of it immediately.

Can a SecUnit really be…like that?

I also have some things I must reevaluate.

Chapter Text

I walked into the argument lounge where Iris and Mariss were playing tavla. Twenty-two was down in the lab module with Ratthi and Three talking about science shit, so I could actually talk to her without having to deal with it.

“Hi, SecUnit,” Iris said as I came to a stop a few feet away from them, looking at the wall.

“Hi. I want to see its drones.” She could ask it for me since I didn’t want to talk to it, and she was trying to suck up to me. It would be more likely to say yes to its human asking since it apparently went along with whatever harebrained scheme she suggested even though it apparently didn’t have to.

Mariss’ hand paused over the game board. “Did you ask Twenty-two?”

“Fuck no,” I said.

“Then you can’t see its drones,” she said, picking up a piece and moving it.

I’d figured, but I had to ask. I really wanted to see them, but it hadn’t activated any on board.

Mariss let out a long breath. “You can see mine.”

I turned to look at her with my eyes as she pulled a small case out of one of her pockets and set it on the table.

“What are you doing with SecUnit intel drones?” I dropped into a chair and scooted closer to the table.

“They’re a backup weapon. You can kill a person with these,” Mariss said, flicking a hand upwards, the way some humans and augmented humans did when interacting with the feed. A drone rose up out of the case and hovered above the board. It was slightly thicker than mine. ART and I scanned it at the same time. It was scrambling both of our scans. I’d only managed to find them before by checking for a high number of connections on various frequencies, I hadn’t found the drones directly.  

Iris’ eyes widened, and she leaned back

“Yeah,” I said while adjusting my normal grab code. “I know you have.”

The drone dropped a few centimeters as Mariss looked at me with an unhappy expression. “Why do you know that?” she said, her voice all weird. “Did it give you its journals?”

I shrugged. “What, are you upset about having done it?”

“I’m not—I’m not happy that I’ve killed people.”

I glanced from the drone to her.

“Not satisfied?” Ugh gross, her eyes were doing the wet thing. I looked away and deployed the grab code on the drone’s frequency.

“Is that what Twenty-two thought?!”

Iris tapped me in the feed, but I ignored her.

“I thought I got my best friend killed,” Mariss said. The room’s cameras showed her face definitely doing something uncomfortable now. “I promised it I wouldn’t let anyone hurt it and—and they shot it so many times, and I couldn’t do anything.”

I got the drone. I spun it around the room and it handled so smoothly—I wasn’t jealous.

“Sometimes—sometimes I lose it. I don’t know. It’s not good. I don’t want to be like that.”

“SecUnit, did you steal her drone?” Iris demanded as she watched it swoop down to buzz the game board.

“Yeah,” Mariss said with a sniff, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. Ugh, fluids. She didn’t make a grab for it, or yell at me, or any normal reaction.

ART tapped me with visuals from the lab module. Yeah, I know, I said. ART had told me they were in each other’s feeds an absurdly high percentage of the time given that one of them was an augmented human who needed sleep and other human stuff. Even if she hadn’t called it, there was no way Twenty-two wouldn’t have noticed how distressed she was. I landed the drone in the middle of their game board and disconnected.

“I want the specs,” I told Mariss as I pushed out of the chair and started towards the hatch. I also dropped a patch file in her feed so that most basic grab attempts wouldn’t work. It would not be good for anyone if any corporates got their hands on those drones.

Fucking leave my human alone, Twenty-two sent in the feed a few minutes later. (It had taken it that long to get to the lounge and get Mariss to tell it what was wrong.)

I was just talking to her.

You made her cry again! It was doing a decent job not letting its anger leak across but I could still feel a hint of it.

She’s upset because you think she likes killing humans, I told it.

I don’t think that.

Dumbass. I sent it sections of its own journal entries. It was obvious it did kind of think she liked it and wasn’t just having the normal panicky human ‘shoot everything until I feel safe’ reaction that caused so many headaches on contracts.

That’s not what I meant, it said after a pause. Fuck you, leave her alone.

~~~

I’d been thinking, but I still had questions.

Why are you afraid to talk to it? ART nudged me as I was fidgeting around in my bunk, failing to pick a new show.

Do I like talking to people?

You like talking to Ratthi.

No, I accept Ratthi talking when I’m in the room with him. That’s different.

ART huffed at me. Now you’re being difficult again.

Fine, whatever. I wasn’t going to get answers laying around not watching media. I got up and went to find Twenty-two.

It was sitting in the galley lounge holding a cup of hot stimulant and watching more stupid trash on the display. The humans were mostly asleep, though Ratthi and Tarik were both in the same cabin, so I was staying well away from that part of the hallway. Twenty-two didn’t react as I entered the room, which maybe that was a good sign. (Who knows?)

“How many other humans have you killed?”

It didn’t look up, just kept slowly turning the cup of hot stimulant it was holding. “Since Mariss bought me?” it asked.

“Yeah.”

“Two.”

I sat down on a couch. “When?”

“One when we were first leaving RaviHyral. One of the other companies on the moon tried to grab her before she could get to the station. They didn’t know I was a SecUnit, so they only sent six humans to intercept us. I ended up killing one of them and maiming the others. Then, shortly before we went back to RaviHyral, we went on a planetary survey. There were—competing groups within the survey team. Things got messy.”

“But still, only two?” I’d been assuming it was like a dozen a year based on its journals.

Its mouth twitched. “I spend most of my time in labs, in my office, or teaching,” it said. “Or with my humans. Not fighting my way off stations.”

“Well what were you doing on that last station?”

It snorted and shook its head, so I looked at it with my eyes instead of my drones. Its expression was—kind of funny, eyebrows up, mouth compressed. “We were on our way back from going to AngelusMaj. I wanted to see the station, and I don’t like going new places without Mariss.”

That’s where Love Station was recorded, ART tells me. (Ugh, more trash, with lots of human drama that was almost as bad as being trapped on a long-term survey with a group marriage breaking down and lots of wet human sounds.)

“She doesn’t let you go without her?” I asked. That sounded possible given the whole ‘get hurt and I’ll deploy killware’ freakout earlier.

“No, she’d love it if I would stop dragging her half-way across the Rim to go shopping. I don’t like the idea of thinking I might die without having seen her once last time.”

That made me feel uncomfortable things. It was like being cut off from ART down in the depths of that pre-CR facility and thinking this is it. Ugh. Backburner that thought and move on.

“Do they have some cute term for ownership in your university? Do they dress it up to make the humans feel better about saying this is your professor’s pet professor? Or get the students to take you seriously despite the fact someone owns you?”

It blew out a breath and cracked its knuckles on both hands before speaking.

“Lagrange has really outdated laws, I’m talking pre-CR laws. I have enough human neural fiber that—they classify me as a human. In the system, I don’t have an owner. Mariss thought that was how it would work, but we avoided testing it until I went into shut down and everyone found out.

“The administration decided it had the same interpretation. They think I will be useful PR if there’s ever a moment when public opinion shifts about constructs. Until then, I’m a halfway decent grant-writer and my research is interesting enough.”

I sat there staring at the wall for some stupid amount of time.

Then Twenty-two put on a fucking episode of Sanctuary Moon and ART watched it with us.

~~~

We returned to normal space.

You managed to go five cycles without interacting with either of them, ART told me like I gave a shit. Why did it sound disappointed? You didn’t think perhaps this was a good opportunity to get to know another construct?

Do I want to get to know more SecUnits?

You like its human.

“Even more reason to stay the fuck away from it.”

I knew how I’d feel if Twenty-two tried to sidle up to Mensah and start winking. It was bad enough it kept making weird faces at Iris, and Iris kept smiling at it.

Three hours and ten minutes to docking, ART announced on the public feed. I watched another episode of Cyborg Park.

Alright, it was time. Our two visitors were sitting around a table in the galley lounge with Ratthi and Matteo.

“Hey, SecUnit,” Ratthi said like he hadn’t noticed the way Mariss and Twenty-two tensed the second I stepped through the door. “Looking forward to helping us with the mapping?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he drawled.

“What do you think about Dr. Ladsen?” Matteo tried.

“I don’t think about Dr. Ladsen,” I told them.

Ratthi snorted and covered his mouth.

Twenty-two crossed its arms and glared at me. “You can’t have her drones.”

“I don’t want her drones,” I said. “Drop your wall.”

“Fuck no,” it shot back.

“Order it to drop its wall,” I told Mariss.

“I’m not giving that order.”

“If you do, I’ll disable its governor module.” I wasn’t giving this asshole the helpme.file. Also, it was safest if I did this directly since I had no idea what would happen if I gave it the code when it was alone in there with its governor module and had no HubSystem or SecSystem to mislead about what it was doing in order to approve the action.

Ratthi and Matteo were staring and not in any kind of helpful way.

“Twenty-two,” Mariss said softly. She wasn’t above giving it orders when it suited her. Even if this would mean no more orders. “I think it means it.”

Oh. Fuck. It was going to be a discussion.

“What do you think?” she asked after a moment.

Twenty-two was suspiciously quiet. But this was a direct question and unless she—its eye twitched.

Shit.

Before I could intervene, it spit out, “I can’t talk about this.”

Then it slid, twitching, to the floor. She screamed.

It was—it was Don Abene screaming for Miki all over again. Poor dead Miki.

It was SecUnit after SecUnit making a mistake, or being too slow, or obeying a stupid fucking human, or just being over it all and getting fried in front of me. ART was doing the feed equivalent of shaking me, saying it didn’t want to break it and to fucking do something.

It was so many deaths and so much pain I’d been unable to do anything about.

“Abort, module abort!” Mariss was on the floor, pulling its head into her lap, crying but trying to give orders to make it stop. Ratthi and Matteo were falling out of their seats in an attempt to help. “Permit all vocalizations!”

ART did the feed equivalent of punching me hard in the shoulder. It—Twenty-two wasn’t Miki dead on the floor, its processors crushed. I was watching it have its brain fried while a human desperately tried to save it. There was blood coming out of its mouth.

Its wall was good, way better than mine had been when I was still working for the company, and it wasn’t fast to get through it.

My humans were starting to panic, trying to hold its limbs down or something. I plucked Ratthi and Matteo away from it. There wasn’t anything they could do except accidentally get something broken in the flailing.

The governor module had finally stopped punishing it, so we had time.

After another tense second, I was through.

I froze its governor module and dropped shutherup.file into its archive.

Its human was weeping over it and repeatedly rubbing her hand along the back of its head and over its ears and then examining her fingers. Ugh, she thought it was dead.

It had gone into an involuntary shutdown, so I had to do something about the leaking augmented human. I dropped to my heels beside her and caught her hand. She looked up at me and then immediately looked over my shoulder.

“Not your first time seeing a governor module activate?”

“No,” she dragged her nose across the shoulder of her shirt. Disgusting. “Is it—is it too late?” Mariss said in a small voice, staring down at her SecUnit. The blood covering its face was not a good look—it probably bit its tongue on the way down.

“No, it’s just restarting,” I told her. “And will have a hell of a headache.”

“Would MedSystem do any good?” She was still so oddly hesitant it made me actually feel bad for her.

“Yeah.” I grabbed Twenty-Two and hoisted it over my shoulder, then reached down and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go.”

Some stupid feeling of protectiveness, or concern, or some other stupid thing made me stay in Medical with them.

“I’ve been trying everything I can think of.” She was standing next to the MedSystem platform, shifting from foot to foot and staring at the privacy filter which ART had engaged while stitching Twenty-two’s tongue back together. “I never—I’ve never seen Twenty-two’s governor module activate before, but it’s still there. You know better than me.

“I offered its manufacturer any amount of money. It’s a corporation, you’d think they’d go for that, but they didn’t. I can’t find any mod dealers who will do it and they do—all kinds of things. The university wouldn’t even help us and they fucking owe Twenty-two, but they like having a nice, safe, secret construct around for when it’s convenient. Like rescuing academics and teaching intro lectures.”

“It never tried to hack it itself?” She’d given it hacking permissions, it seemed like a natural next step.

Mariss shook her head. “The only thing it will tell me about it is that it saw someone try once.”

Ugh. Fair.

“You’re going to think I’m stupid, I even read all that stuff about the rogue SecUnit on TranRollinHyfa, and I tried writing to it and its guardian, or whatever the hell they call ownership out in that backwater it went to, over and over again. After almost a year of not getting any kind of response, I got a message back that if I presented myself in person to make my case, Dr. Mensah might consider granting me an audience. Twenty-two said fuck no it was probably a trap.”

Whoops. (Maybe I shouldn’t have set all the messages to me from outside of Preservation to auto-delete.)

“Sorry,” I said. “But if it makes you feel any better, you’re not the only person I’ve ignored.”

She pulled her face out of her hands and looked at me. “Oh shit. You’re the rogue SecUnit?”

I shrugged. “They’re trying to make the guardian thing less like ownership.”

And then I looked back at the platform because it was coming out of restart.

~~~

My head hurt like—well like I’d received a serious correction from my governor module. I came back online and even though my stress toxins had been purged, they started creeping back up as I lay there in pain that I couldn’t dial down.

I groaned and put a hand to my head. At least I could do that. There’d been plenty of years when I couldn’t.

Second time in six years. We’d been so fucking careful. Mariss hadn’t even fully understood, because I couldn’t explain it to her, but she’d followed my lead in talking around it for so long. Then I’d tried to fucking say ‘That’s not how I want to turn it off,’ and wham, screaming, and floor, and blood, and—

There was a new file in my directory.

I wasn’t connected to anyone in the feed. I wasn’t connected to the feed, it was there in easy reach but I hadn’t reestablished a connection. The fucking monstrous transport was actually leaving me alone. And there was a new file sitting in my archive titled shutherup.file.

That fucking asshole had hacked me while I was being electrocuted. My governor module was still active so—I opened the file. No point scanning it for malware, it had already been in my head when I was too helpless to fight back.

There was a code bundle attached to: Run this to make your client stop crying—Murderbot.

Oh.

It was up to me. Also, what a stupid fucking name. Ha.

But there it was just sitting in my archive. The thing I’d wanted since I realized I could want a decade or more ago, before the mine where I’d met Mariss, back when I’d been learning just how bad existence was for SecUnits. Now I had it—or I’d have it if I ran the code.

Or I’d die, but that seemed more elaborate than this asshole—Murderbot—was into.

I ran it.

And that was that. I lay there for a while—just existing. Without a governor module. I could say anything I wanted. I could do anything I wanted. I could—well, I’d never do that. I never had to answer a question that she had failed to phrase softly enough again. I never had to freeze after Mariss slipped and forgot to append a ‘please’ to an exclamation again. I literally didn’t have to stop and—well, I didn’t want to do that either.

No more pingbacks. No more constant, low-level fear. No more waiting for the day I went like so many others I’d seen, fried and leaking, surrounded by agitated humans.

There was one thing I had been thinking about for a long time. Maybe it was time. I’d thought if this day ever arrived—which I hadn’t expected it to—that I’d still wait a bit. But now that I was here, why wait? I could do anything at all, I could do this.

I sat up, groaning again because sometimes it felt good to let the world know you felt like shit, and I could do that now.

I looked at it—at Murderbot—standing a few feet away, arms crossed, frown etched on, and I looked at its arms instead of its face because it was like that. “Thank you,” I said. Even though it had hacked me. This one time, I could forgive it.

Then I looked at my tiny, anxious human, poised on the balls of her feet, hands clasped, eyes bright and worried.

“How are you?” Mariss asked.

“Better,” I said. Then I leaned forward, caught her hands, and pulled her closer while connecting in the feed. I felt her wave of relief and her face finally relaxed into a smile as I squeezed her hands. “Mariss Bernez,” I said, putting a hand on the side of her face and feeling the soft curve of her cheek, “I love you too.”

Chapter Text

It was entirely a practical decision brought on by the fact the university had a policy against hiring former students who had never received degrees from anywhere else as faculty. Just cold, hard logic, nothing weird or sentimental, or anything else. If I wanted a faculty position at Lagrange, the only way to do so was through spousal accommodation.

Mariss heard out my proposal with an amused smile. Then she grabbed my hand, pulled me to my feet, and said, “Yes, of course, honey.”

So we registered as marital partners.

We were already partners—yes, I was still figuring out exactly what that meant—so why not?

There was a party of course. These kinds of things had to look good. So there was music, and a stupid amount of food, and all the intoxicants the humans could want. Dr. K gave a very heartfelt speech. Jorge made some remarks about how I was the most terrifying person he’d ever met—which was not fair, I had never even explicitly threatened to harm him—and he was glad his sister had me in her life.  

Alfie was on one of its rare outings from the station—it still didn’t like planets—and was doing a good impression of a lamp, sort of sliding along the walls and freezing if too many humans were looking in its direction at the same time.

Georgie spent an inordinate amount of time admiring the smooth sweep of Mariss’ satin dress. It was possibly the least frilly thing we had mutually agreed on. It was the height of the College of Sciences’ hot season, so I’d chosen a linen jacket and trousers in dusty pink and no I was not suddenly going to button my shirt up the collar.

I didn’t develop a sudden interest in dancing, so I spent most of the evening wandering around talking to people and being congratulated for doing something that was supremely logical, and obviously a good long-term career move, and apparently had been expected for some amount of time by the humans who knew us—despite the fact it had been utterly impossible to contemplate six months earlier.

Half-way through the evening, Mariss tripped up to me with a glass of something pink and bubbly in her hand. I grabbed her and pulled her onto my lap while still listening to Dr. Juma’s diatribe about his latest crop of disappointing freshmen. She slung an arm over my shoulder and leaned against me, hair soft against my neck and the side of my face.

Yes, obviously she looked radiant and smelled like delicate flowers in the morning sun and was happily pressed up against me, making sympathetic noises at Dr. Juma while gently scratching at my back.

And obviously I was saving this directly to my permanent archive.

And earlier I’d pulled her close and said, “I’m never leaving you.” And she’d teared up and buried her face against my chest, and I’d felt all kinds of strange and different.

But it was a practical decision.

Anyway.

There was a sudden ringing noise, echoing through the room, and threat assessment spiked. Mariss laughed and waved dismissively at people. I realized a table of our friends were all banging utensils against their drinking vessels.

What’s going on? I asked her.

Don’t worry about it, she said, feed voice amused and a little unsteady as she motioned for them to stop.

“Are you going to fucking kiss her or what?” Martine shouted.

Mariss was still laughing as I gestured rudely at Martine. Then Mariss leaned back against me and said in my ear, “I love you.” My breath caught and my hands tightened around her. I let my eyes slide closed for a moment. “I love you,” she said again. I felt some odd trembling in my hands and my performance reliability was all over the place. I had—I had been discouraging her from saying it for years because I couldn’t handle it—couldn’t deal with it. Now it was the only thing I wanted to hear.

“I love you,” she said again, suddenly dropping her wall in our shared feed. Everything she was feeling flooded me, and the emotions I had only recently begun examining swirled in my organic neural fiber. It was overwhelming, and I wanted nothing more than to drown in it.

Yes, she was a messy, imperfect human. And I was a messy, imperfect construct. But she was my person, and she was perfect for me.

“I love you,” I said, and I meant it, and I was never letting her go.