Chapter Text
Murderbot had to admit: it hadn't given much thought to what ART would look like in a human-shaped body. ART wasn't a human-form bot, after all—it was so much more than that—and it had drones to do the physical parts of its job its programing couldn't. Why would it need more than that? This body wasn't a human-form bot-body, though, and it was unlike any of the ART's drones or droids Murderbot had seen aboard the Perihelion. It was clearly much more related to a construct—modeled off of a comfort unit, if the sex parts were anything to go by.
That's where the comparison stopped. In fact, it didn't compare to any construct Murderbot had ever seen before. Most comfort units, while their configuration could be altered or changed however their client wanted, met a list of standard beauty requirements for attraction. This construct-body… didn't. Murderbot thought it looked so much better.
The face, trunk, and extremities were symmetrical in the way all bots were, but the body was well below standard hight. It's torso was also much rounder than standard with curved, dark skin falling over the ribs and hips. It was covered in the kinds of decoration humans would permanently paint or attach onto their skin. Metal glittered in strategic places that drew the eye. Its hair was long-ish, cut short on the sides, and colored in the same blue as the ship's logo.
Oddly enough, it did look like ART—in the same way the Perihelion or ART's drones looked like it. You saw it and thought “Yeah, that's ART.” You also thought “that's very expensive,” but ART was filled with expensive equipment, so that was a common enough thought that it barely registered.
Curiosity took over as Murderbot reached its hand out, its fingertips almost brushing against the construct-body's skin. It wanted to know how organic it was, to see if the construct-body felt the same as when it touched a drone or more like when it touched ART in the feed. And then ART was suddenly very close in the feed. It felt similar to the first time they had met: heavy, overpowering, microseconds away from squashing Murderbot like a bug.
D̷̠́ó̴͓ ̵̞̓n̴̡̈ȏ̸̰t̶̹̚ ̶̾ͅţ̶͂o̴̱̍ų̸̂ć̵̗h̵̫̿ ̴̲̾m̶͐ͅy̷͎̎ ̸̪͝b̶̧͝o̵̪̐d̷̬̓y̵̯͑, it threatened.
Murderbot felt disjointed at the sudden abortion of movement. It pulled back, fingers still centimeters away from the pretty looking galaxy cloud painted onto ART's shoulder. If ART didn't want Murderbot touching its body, of course it wouldn't. Murderbot stepped back and the pod immediately closed and locked like ART was hiding it. Like it was hiding it from Murderbot. It made the organics in Murderbot's system burn hot. It didn't like knowing ART kept secrets, especially when it couldn't.
And now that Murderbot had discovered The Secret, it was too late to pretend it didn't exist. ART had called itself Murderbot's friend, because it had decided to be, but they both knew the truth: ART was the one in charge of their (ick) relationship. If they were friends—like the humans were, like Murderbot had originally believed they could not be and ART had adamantly insisted they could—if they really were friends, why was ART hiding specialty equipment from it?
Because ART didn't want Murderbot touching its equipment. That didn't make sense. Murderbot touched ART all the time, both in the feed and physically. It was touching ART right now. It removed its hand from the panel controlling the pod carousel as realization struck too slow. ART had said not to touch its body.
Murderbot was once again grateful it had hacked its Governor Module, because it could only do so much to adhere to the command while living inside one of ART's bodies. It was going to be hard not to touch ART. The automatic systems would help with avoiding a lot of the unwanted contact, but there was nothing Murderbot could do to stop standing on the ship's floor. Knowing it would constantly be breaking ART's request had its Performance Reliability reading quivering.
If it were a true bot and not a bot-human construct, it could figure out a way to hover in place, carefully avoiding touching any part of ART's body as requested. It wasn't, though, so it couldn't. It would just have to do its best to minimize contact to any of ART'S bodies until… when?
If it no longer wanted Murderbot around (how could you want something inside you that you didn't want touching you?) and if Murderbot wasn't able to be useful to ART anymore… Its contract for this mission ended once they got back to PSUMNT. It could still do its job without touching ART, even if it would be difficult. When you were constantly asked to do the impossible, difficult was easy to manage.
The lights in the maintenance room flickered and turned a soft orange, which was the code for an all-crew meeting. They were having crew media night. Murderbot thought the timing was a convenient start, but decided against saying anything as it turned and headed towards the Argument Lounge. It could wait for maintenance until its contract was over.
Most of the crew were already gathered together by the time Murderbot arrived in the lounge. Everyone piled together on a few of the larger couches, cuddling with their assorted partners, family members, and friends. Murderbot would never admit it out loud, but it felt a little left out during crew media nights.
It hadn't wanted to touch humans while it was trying to entertain itself, obviously, even if it had been invited into the ‘cuddle pile’ a few times, but the knowledge of ART's construct-body—one it didn't want Murderbot touching—intensified that feeling of being just on the outside. It was taking up more processing space than it should have, considering ART didn't want Murderbot even knowing about it.
It couldn't stop thinking about the constuct-body, though. About sitting with ART like their humans did, appendages wrapped around each other. About how, if ART had a construct-body it could do things with, then they could, well… do things together. Murderbot didn't know what things, but there were several possibilities. Except there weren't. Not really.
A soft giggle broke above the advertisements for more media that hadn't been released yet as one of the humans brushed their cold feet against another who gasped in shock and swatted at them playfully. Murderbot turned and left the room, letting a drone stay behind to keep an eye on the humans. It couldn't deal with them right now.
You do not want to watch media with the crew? ART asked in their feed, inching closer than it had been for the last several minutes. Tonight's viewing is An Epic Solar Star. It sounded confused, which was understandable considering it was one of Murderbot's favorite long-form entertainments. It was exactly the kind of trick it would use to keep Murderbot distracted enough to keep it from returning to the maintenance room. ART was good at manipulation. It was a wasted attempt, though, because Murderbot wasn't trying to return to the maintenance room, anyway.
ART was still wating for an answer and there were a lot of ways Murderbot could do that. It could tell ART that standing was the only way to minimize contact with it and humans didn't feel comfortable with large killing machines looming around behind them while they were trying to relax. It could say that some error in its system went off when it saw the humans touching and the ghost programming from its Governor Module days reminded it of the last command it received and it would be too distracting to concentrate on the media. It could have just told ART to fuck off for being an asshole who thought it would want to watch media after being told it couldn't touch anything around it.
Instead, it just sent a negative in the feed and kept walking.
●
“SecUnit,” Iris's voice was soft, but it still was a shot of sound in the quiet corridor. “Are you okay?”
“The door won't open.” It had been standing there, waiting for the hatch to open longer than it should have.
“You can move through it manually,” she suggested, “but this corridor's sensors have been turned off for maintenance.”
“ART has no sensors here?”
“For the moment. Are you sure you're okay?”
“I'm within functionality,” it promised.
“Oh-kay,” she said like she didn't believe it, then continued on to her destination.
Murderbot hesitated before reaching out and touching the door. That singular bit of contact was enough to sooth the constantly flickering reliability numbers at the corner of its display screen. It sighed and pressed its forehead to the bulkhead door. It was being greedy, selfish—almost human-like.
Bots weren't supposed to question orders. It didn't need to know why the discovery of ART's construct-body had changed the way things were between them—it had and now Murderbot was left feeling like one of the creepy stalkers some serials would use to make the main character feel unsafe.
It didn't want ART feeling unsafe, especially not around it. It was supposed to be ART's security! Did it really not trust Murderbot around its equipment? Murderbot, who had a very slim record of breaking important company equipment. It was good at handling sensitive equipment—especially compared to humans who couldn't even calibrate their grip strength.
It hadn't even meant to discover ART's construct-body! It had only been trying to find an available maintenance pod for a fluid change—one it still needed according to its systems read out. Not that it could ask ART to do that for it now. Murderbot might not have been the best at setting boundaries, but it knew how to keep them.
With a sigh that was deeply rooted in its Act Like a Human code, Murderbot removed itself from the door and started a new path to its destination, avoiding the sensory blackout areas that were now tagged on the internal map.
They were still eight days away from their destination. It would make sense if ART was waiting until then to void their future contracts. Why let an uncontrollable Murderbot know you don't want it around while it can still cause you immeasurable damage? No, it was best to wait until they were docked to sever the tie. Or throw it out the airlock—which was sounding very tempting around now.
The doors in this corridor opened automatically with a soft swoosh as Murderbot approached. Eight days. One week. Murderbot could survive the new restrictions until then. ART hadn't been the only one offering up contracts. It could find employment elsewhere. It would be fine.
●
Murderbot could feel attention on it in the feed. Someone was talking about it. It was two days before they docked and Captain Seth had been taking crew members one at a time and discussing the future of the Perihelion with them and if they wanted to stay on for the next mission. Murderbot was mostly back-burnering the information its surveillance drone was providing from the room, which was how it almost missed the sudden attention.
Iris was sprawled on a chair pretending to read a paper book. Murderbot knew she was pretending because it hadn't seen her turn the page yet, and it knew that was necessary for physical media of that kind. Eventually, she looked over at it. “Will you be going back to Preservation?”
The words caused its reliability numbers to plummet into the low 40s. “What?”
“Where are you going when we get back?” The question was politely curious and triggered something in Murderbot's Small-Talk translator that it wasn't paying attention to.
Was now when it was supposed to decide what it was going to do? It hadn't even sent the other contracts to Pin-Lee to review yet! Obviously, Murderbot hadn't expected to be taken aside like a real crew member, but part of it had thought they might… What? Offer it a letter of recommendation? Like it was human-crew being dropped off after a job well done? And it always thought humans were unreasonably hopeful.
Iris was looking at it expectantly, but Murderbot was more focused on the internal sensors warning that its body would begin a soft shutdown if its processors continued overheating. “I need to go check the perimeter,” it said and, wow, that buffer was still in there?
“Oh,” Iris said, surprised. “Okay.”
It left the lounge at the same time Captain Seth's door opened. Shear survival programming had it spinning around and off in the opposite direction. Before it really knew where it was going, it was back in ART's blackout zone. Manually opening the door, Murderbot disappeared into the dark corridor.
The sudden relief that washed over it had Threat Assessment leveling out instead of the slow climb it had been doing ever since ART had gone distant. Maybe it could exist there forever. At least for the next few days. They couldn't toss it out an airlock if they couldn't find it. As if reading its thoughts, a ping in the feed alerted Murderbot someone was looking for it. Threat Assessment spiked again. It didn't reply. Maybe it would stay here forever.
Plus, it was still processing Iris's question in the background and the answer made its organic skin itch. Was it actually a question? ART always advised not to ask something you didn't already know the answer to. Iris knew it would return to Preservation. Of course it would. It didn't have much of a choice. Not until it could secure a new contract.
Preservation was where its owner was, after all.
Another ping went through the feed, this time from outside the hatch. From this close, Murderbot could recognize the feel of Iris's feed address. She felt similar to ART, but different. Murderbot wondered if they shared neuro tissue from the same donors. It must have been why Iris was smart enough to track it down to its totally not obvious hiding spot.
A soft knock wrapped on the door. “SecUnit? Can I come in?” Murderbot sent an affirmative over the feed. It didn't think it could talk right now. The door opened, spilling light into the corridor before it closed again and the only light came from Murderbot's inorganic parts and Iris's augments. There was a long silence before Iris spoke. “You don't have to go to Preservation if you don't want to. We just assumed you would want to visit your family with the break being so long. You can always stay here on Peri, of course.”
Murderbot scoffed. “Have you asked it about that? I'm sure ART wants me gone as soon as possible.”
“Why?” Iris sounded genuinely confused. “What's going on with you two?”
“It doesn't want me touching it.” The words burned on Murderbot's tongue. It could have also been the old fluids that needed flushed out tasting like burnt oil.
“What,” Iris almost laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. They lived inside Peri—how could you not touch it? But it occurred to her that she had seen Murderbot sitting less than usual over the last week. “I'm sure that's not—” Murderbot sent her the audio-video file of ART warning it off touching it. It doubted she could feel how threatening the moment actually was, but the static bursting gave some idea. Iris sucked her teeth, the sound echoing unnervingly. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Murderbot agreed, though it wasn't sure what it was agreeing with.
“It didn't mean all its bodies,” Iris offered softly. “That one is just… special.”
“I know how to take care of expensive hardware,” Murderbot ground out. “I won't break it.”
“That's not what this is about,” Iris promised.
Finally, it admitted, “I don't understand.”
Iris sighed, “People aren't supposed to know about it.”
“I'm not people, I'm ART’s security. Or I was.”
“You are,” Iris insisted before blowing out a puff of air. Murderbot's Act Like a Human code caught and categorized it as a sign of frustration. Finally she stated: “I built that body. It's not supposed to exist.”
Murderbot was quiet for a moment before asking, “Why not?”
“Perihelion is property of the University. And, technically, so is anything I develop—at least partially. If they were to find out about our backup plan…”
“It's an escape pod,” Murderbot said, understanding finally settling in.
Iris shrugged, “Basically. The more people who know about it, the high the chance someone finds out who shouldn't.”
“I'm not going to tell anyone,” it promised. “I would never jeopardize ART's freedom.”
“I know that,” Iris said, “Peri knows that. It was just scared and for someone who knows everything, it doesn't communicate emotions well.”
Murderbot could feel ART lurking in its feed, listening to the conversation though its connection to both of them. It felt like it was a child holding onto Iris's (figurative) skirt. It hadn't said anything, but Murderbot could feel its attention borring into it. It sighed and rubbed its face. There was still a kernel of fear that Iris misunderstood, that ART really didn't want Murderbot on board.
It pinged ART who responded imedantly. It didn't know what to say or how to ask what it needed to know, so it just used the most basic communication it could handle.
Query: Directive re: Do not touch my body?
ART sent back Directive: disregard.
The tension in its organic parts relaxed and its processors made a soft spinning sound as its programs recovered enough to kick the cooling system on. Dirty fluid leaked from the corner of its eye.
“Do you want to come out of the dark pit,” Iris asked softly.
Murderbot pinged an affirmative and followed her out into the too-bright corridor. It took a moment for it's ocular cameras to adjust, but when they did, it noticed Captain Seth a few pases down. Murderbot's Threat Assessment did a funny thing and tagged him as a potential hostile. It was definitely malfunctioning.
“SecUnit,” Captain Seth said in his Official Voice. It was the same voice he had used to call all the other crew members back to his office. “Do you have a moment to talk about your future aboard the Perihelion?”