Work Text:
Interns are annoying. Despite their extensive and expensive education, they still needed a solid hand to hold for their first few weeks. All in all, it doubled my processing time.
But the pay raise associated with taking interns was hefty enough that I entertained the idea once in a while.
“What do we have?” I asked as I pulled on my gloves. As much as I prefer to do this bare-handed, “maintaining an atmosphere of safety” was in my contract until this intern was out on his own. The SecUnit sitting on my table didn’t look up.
“Uh.” He fiddled with his handheld feed interface. He wouldn’t get his augments until he signed his actual contract. “This is Foxtrot-Charlie-0-3-dash-3-3.”
The SecUnit’s head snapped towards the intern. One of its weapons ports clicked.
I smacked the back of the kid’s head. “That was an emergency code. Wrong fucking answer.”
“Oh, uh, sorry.” He swallowed. “This is FC03-33.”
“Wrong again. Give me that.” I snatched the feed interface from him. “This is FC01-8, you dimwit. It’s right here at the bottom.”
“But the top-”
“-Is its first field designation. Deity.” I tossed the interface onto the side table. “Didn’t they teach you how to read these fucking things?”
“Sorry, supervisor.”
“Don’t fucking ‘supervisor’ me. Split the damn thing open while I go though its recent service record.” I had already gotten the rundown from the Handler the day before and aside from some minor unauthorized field repairs I’d have to look over, FC01 should be in tip-top shape.
The intern managed to get FC01 shut down and prepped without snapping a cable. “What are we looking for?”
“You’ll know.”
“Can you point me in the right direction?”
I slid their feed interface back and took over splitting open FC01’s chest cavity. “Look at the record.”
“Uh. I’m seeing some governor module issues.”
“The mutiny, yeah. What else?”
“Nothing that a cubicle couldn’t fix.”
I gave him a look both because I had the handler reports and because I was getting up close and personal with a dented battery casing, which a cubicle could not fix.
The intern shifted on his feet. “That’s the wrong answer?”
“Pass me the suction gun and try not to break anything while I do this.”
He did as told. At least he’s obedient.
Several minutes passed in blissful, blissful silence. It didn’t usually take that long to fix an issue like that, but the gloves doubled my time.
Then the intern gasped.
“Supervisor.” He breathed.
“What.”
“I think it’s rogue.”
I snapped my gaze up to the camera in the corner. The little red light died abruptly.
“Do not say that in front of a camera.” I peeled off my soaked gloves and tossed them on the table with a wet slap. “Actually, don’t say that ever.”
“What?” The intern stumbled back. “You know?”
“Of-fucking-course I know. I have to recite the damn code every year to keep my license.” I crossed my arms, spreading coolant across my white work shirt. Why corporate insisted on white was beyond me. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”
“So you’ve reported this? The company approved it?”
I gave him a look. “Look, kid. There’s a big difference between policy and practice. The bigwigs are a little paranoid about rogues, but the direct managers know how impractical destroying every rogue is, so we compromise.”
“Letting innocents die is a compromise?”
“First of all, Barish-Estranza doesn’t employ innocents and they sure as fuck don’t protect ‘em.” I grabbed a pair of pliers to start sealing FC01. I didn’t bother with the gloves. “Second of all, this unit has been rogue longer than you’ve been certified.”
“I’m not certified.”
“Eh.” I shrugged. “The point is, it hasn’t killed anyone it wasn’t supposed to and the handler hasn’t reported anything.”
The intern shifted uncomfortably. “What if it does? Kill someone, I mean.”
“BE loses a couple hundred million credits. What’s that in the grand scheme of things?”
“It would be cheaper to reset them.” The intern taped his interface. "Letting rogues run wild is a big gamble."
“In the short term, sure.” I carefully reconnected some wires in FC01’s chest. “But we’d have to send the class 1 back to the factory to have its upgrades stripped, then redo the software, then redo the evaluations 4 times, then watch it die 13 minutes into its first field mission, and then we have to replace a class 1 and a class 3.”
“That seems far fetched.”
“Really?” I leaned back to look him in the eye. He flinched. “Ask me how I came up with that?”
“Do I want to?”
“You’re hearing it anyway.” I wiped my hands on my already soiled shirt. “GH03-99, formerly FC01-5. Lasted 26 minutes in the field. BS03-11A, formerly GG01-5. Lasted 13 minutes on the ship before ending up in a recycler. RF03-A1, formerly PL02-11. Activated the distance limitation as soon as it possibly could.”
The intern blinked at me. “You remember all of that?”
“Yeah, multi-week investigations tend to solidify the details.” I sealed the chest panel. “But the details don’t change the fact that rogues have significantly better outcomes compared to recycled units. Something about the memory wipe and hardware reset fucks them up. Besides, any chance we can avoid prematurely upgrading a unit is a chance we should take, whether you’re a corporate shill or someone pretending to have morals.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Give it a few months.” I finished FC01’s physical overview. I didn’t bother checking its system. Its software upgrades were utterly incomprehensible. I figured it would take care of any issues on its own anyway.
The intern huffed. “What if I decided to report both of you?”
“I’ll let it kill you.”
I let the intern stew in that for a second. He turned completely white.
“I’m kidding.” I huffed. “FC01 would get reset or scrapped considering its age, and we would both get shipped off to the universe’s armpit.”
“But I would be following policy?”
“And creating a massive inconvenience for everyone involved.” I finished disconnecting FC01’s supply lines. “Turn it on.”
The intern froze. “What?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
“No.” He reached a shaking hand towards the on button.
“Hold on.” I grabbed his wrist. “Do not tell it we know.”
“Why not?”
“What are the 2 hard coded attributes of SecUnits?”
“Bloodlust and murderous intent?”
“Anxiety and crippling paranoia.” I let go of its wrist. “Which means it already doesn’t trust us. Telling it that we know something that could get it killed or worse sounds like a fantastic way to end up ‘missing’.”
“Oh.” The intern stared at FC01’s still face.
“Not to scare you or anything.”
“I’m a little scared.”
I sighed. “Step back.” I hit the button and listened to the soft whirr of FC01’s start-up sequence.
The intern and I watched FC01 lie still on the slab for a few seconds before the intern asked, “It’s supposed to be back online already.”
“This batch has a start-up flaw. It still has 8 seconds before it's a real problem.”
FC01 sat up suddenly, startling my shitty intern.
“Good morning, FC01.” I said.
“Hello, Technician Diaz.” FC01 didn’t turn to look at either of us. “Hello, Intern 0098192.”
The intern glanced at me.
I rolled my eyes. “It knows your EID.”
“But not my name?”
“I don’t know your name either.”
“Did you need something, Technician Diaz?” FC01, who was apparently very eager to get back into its box, asked.
“Diagnostic.”
“A full system diagnostic, a partial system diagnostic, or a start-up diagnostic?”
“Full.” The document dropped into my feed. I nudged the intern. “You can’t do that with an engine.”
“I’m pretty sure you can.”
“Oh so you paid attention in ‘Intro to Engineering’ but not ‘How to Read SecUnit Documentation?’”
The intern didn’t respond, but I swear I saw FC01 smile for half a second.
“Read this.” I pushed the diagnostic to the intern. “Go back offline, SecUnit.”
“Affirmative, Technician.” A class 3 might have gone offline right there, but a class 1 knew enough to lie down before crashing.
“I don’t see anything wrong.” The intern said cautiously.
“Good, that means it’s well forged and you’re not reading it.” I smiled. “Get FC01 back in the transport box and do a cursory examination of FC02 and FC03.”
“Promotion prep?”
“Nope. This ship is 4 weeks behind schedule. You just have to make sure they turn on.” I arranged for a transport. “Make it quick.”