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Chapter Text

He’d been too deep in the feed scouring the metadata from DeltaFall’s research for any sign of alien remnants to realize his name was being called. He’d thought the team had all turned in for a rest cycle, so he had taken a carefully measured dose and plugged in.

The feeling of a sudden weight on his shoulder jerked him to the surface. There were a few disorienting seconds as his visual augments registered the room around him and his mind reoriented itself.

“Fuck sake, Novak!”

“Sorry, sir,” he muttered. It was practiced and automatic.

“We got a distress call from the other survey team, a free planet ‘collective’ way in over its head. No surprise there. Grab your shit; they need help with their systems so plan to be gone for a few days.”

He was already coiling his hardwire before the survey leader, Brandt, was done speaking. Packing quickly was no challenge. He kept a go-bag ready with a change of clothes and spare necessities. It was just a matter of collecting enough chems to get him through the excursion, and he grabbed a couple extra vials from the small cooler just to be sure he wouldn’t be caught short and put himself into withdrawals.

Back in the control room, Brandt was giving directions to the pilot, Mihai, as a Security Unit stood by at loose-ready. He could see a warped reflection of him in the dark faceplate, doing nothing to hide his tight, sour expression. The distortion ensured he never forgot the waking nightmare that was life in the Corporate Rim.

“Novak, listen up. Prosperity–”

“Preservation,” Mihai corrected.

“Preservation Alliance - fucking free-holders - cheaped out and didn’t hire a systems engineer. Now they’re having trouble with HubSys and have come begging for us to send ours to them. You are going to do whatever to get their system up and running, but I want you to go through any data they might have and bring us back a copy, got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They are pretty inept from the sound of it but watch your ass. Think you can manage to not get caught?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You fucking better not.”
Decades in the service of The Company meant his expression was always closed off, carefully schooled to not expose any emotion, and rote answers rolled off his tongue without thought. The truth was, spying on DeltFall was the easiest assignment he’d had since he’d finished his degree and left the analyst corp for the espionage department. It was humorous that DeltFall doubted his ability to covertly clone any data from the competing survey team while completely unaware of the subterfuge within their own camp. He allowed himself to silently note the irony deep within the recesses of his augments while he followed Mihai to the hopper.

Cool midnight air and the spray of the nearby geyser made him shiver slightly and fold his arms tightly across his chest. Preservation’s camp was situated in a high desert so over clothes hadn’t been needed.

The trip across the ocean would take nearly an entire cycle. They were travelling against the rotation of the planet, which would shave some time off. Mihai had ter interface active the entire time listening to music and playing colorful games. Te ignored him. Everyone at DeltFall did. He was rented equipment as far as they were concerned, different from a Security or Comfort Unit in that his replacement cost was much higher. That earned him a spot in the main cabin of the hopper but little other consideration.

Perfectly acceptable as far as he was concerned. He laid on one of the long benches, pretending to be asleep while working on code he could use to infiltrate the HubSystem at Preservation. It was easily adapted from the one he’d installed at DeltFall, set to collect back-data and set to broadcast new information at regular intervals. Although he wasn’t concerned about being discovered, he made sure to hide his tracks, first disguising the code as something The Company had standard in the system, then burying it deep in the code. Someone would have to be really looking to find it and, even then, would either need to know what they were looking for or have an encyclopedic recall of all the coding for HubSys.

Once he was satisfied with the code, had run validation checks and created patches, he turned his attention to the information packet the company had provided. Technically, it hadn’t been provided to him. The Company had decided that maps and details of the local flora and fauna were not pertinent to corporate surveillance, and DeltFall apparently didn’t see the relevance to a systems engineer who would only leave the habitat to walk to and from the hopper.

Nearly fifteen years of spying had taught him to not rely on the information he was provided. If The Company knew everything he needed to do his job then they would already have all the information they were looking for.

He had downloaded the packet from Hubsys during the first rest cycle.

The Company’s shadow client was looking for alien remnants and he was supposed to help by scouring DeltFall’s data for any anomalies. It helped to have a frame of reference for where DeltFall was taking samples, what the environment was, and where all of that fit in the world at large. Something his handler didn’t understand.

DeltFall was situated in a temperate rainforest. Nothing remarkable about the climate, not horribly mutated plants or strange animals. Every minute spent scraping test results for the smallest oddity predictably resulted in nothing.

He wasn’t sure why the shadow client was certain there were alien remnants on the planet. The information packet was completely standard. But, then again, if they knew where to look and what to look for, he wouldn’t be here.

Preservation was essentially on the other side of the planet. There was nothing profound there either. Scrub brush with small innocuous animals.

Absent-mindedly, he flicked a finger as he scrolled through the materials. On a back channel, he ran the metadata through an analysis, checking the code as he read the information. Running concurrent audits was a trick he’d learned early on in his career, after receiving a particularly robust cognitive implant. It halved his times and had earned him closer attention from The Company.

Thankfully, he didn’t have long to dwell on the misguided pride he had felt at the time. The back channel flagged a section of the map.

It was subtle and he had to run back and forth over the images before he could see it: a break in the map. It wasn’t a blank area. Instead, it was as if the map had been carefully folded to obscure a section in such a way a casual viewer wouldn’t notice. It seemed intentional, but that was illogical.

He frowned and set the meal package down. What was being hidden? Had the shadow client set up camp there and manipulated the map? That would be a valid explanation if it wasn’t within wandering distance of the Preservation survey team. The Company would never make the mistake of planting one group right on top of another, especially not one that was supposed to be a secret.

Reanalyze.

The code both was and wasn’t intentional. There were no markers to indicate someone had tampered with it. Of course, a sophisticated enough splicer could mask their signature - he certainly could - but it looked more like the system itself had tried to make sense of corrupt or fragmented data.

He picked up the operational ration pack while he started on a new code.

Chapter Text

If he’d been a member of the DeltFall survey team, if had been Senior Systems Analyst Dr. Gurathin instead of Systems Engineer Novak, it would have been appropriate to have joined Mihai at the controls as the hopper came in low over the Preservation habitat. Expected, even. But, he was Novak, so remained seated on the bench.

“Hey,” Mihai called over ter shoulder, “remember why we’re really here, got it? Oh, and keep your mouth shut. If you need to tell me anything, do it through the feed. Don’t so much as fucking whisper.”

Obediently, he opened a secure feed channel. It was all the acknowledgement needed. He’d be a ghost.

Satisfied, te released the hatch and scooped up ter duffle from the other bench. He followed, maintaining a standard meter distance and keeping his head down. The Security Unit fell in, a meter behind and to the side of Mihai.

Ahead two people stood, arm in arm, in front of a habitat that had been a standard issue, single structure but at some point had been decorated with colorful shapes and swirls.

“Thank you for coming,” the woman said. “I am Dr. Mensah, the team leader. I was the one who contacted you.”

“Mihai. We were told you’re having issues with your HubSystem?”

“Ah, yes. We have been experiencing satellite outages and disruptions in our communications out in the field.” Her tone was rich and steady but her hand grasped the arm looped through hers.

He had slid into HubSys already and scanned through the team’s biographic reports as soon as they had come within range. While clearly overwhelmed, Dr. Mensah was maintaining her regal demeanor, but then she was a planetary leader. She had practice remaining calm in the face of crisis, but underneath that veneer was a fear that didn’t match the minor inconvenience of connectivity problems.

The back of his neck prickled. Where was their Security Unit?

“Can we come in? Our engineer is going to need to hardwire in to see if he can find the root of the issue.”

“Of course! I am sorry; we have had a bit of excitement earlier today and it has us all a little out of sorts. Come in, we’ll get you settled and introduce the others.”

Mihai’s derisive snort did not slip past him unnoticed. He had had a similar reaction deep behind his mask. Introductions were not necessary. They weren’t joining Preservation on a permanent basis. If they were lucky, they could be headed back to DeltFall within the next cycle.

The inside of the habitat matched the outside with its chaotic and disjointed decor. Cartons were turned into planters and hung around the central room, dangling from the railing and encircling a central post. The furniture was provided by The Company but the pillows and blankets were certainly not from anywhere in the Corporation Rim.

“Dr. Mihai, I’ll show you to your rooms. Pin-Lee, would you help Dr. Novak connect with the interface?”

“He’s just a systems engineer,” Mihai corrected.

“My apologies,” Dr. Mensah turned to him, “I’m not familiar with the appropriate honorific…”

“Just his name is fine, though you can just ask me anything.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mihai.”

Notably, the pilot hadn’t corrected erroneous honorific for temself. He pushed down the urge to allow himself another mental eye roll. Too much and it would start to seep into the feed or he’d slip up and react openly.

Instead, he messaged tem. My chems need to be kept cool.

Then take care of it, was the reply through the feed. Aloud te said, “He has some personal medication that needs to be kept in the medical refrigerator. If you can accommodate it.”

“Yes, yes! Of course! Pin-Lee can get you all taken care of then. Is there anything we can bring up to your room for you?”

The absolute absurdity of a planetary leader offering to carry the luggage of a systems engineer was too much and he brought his head up to look at her. Her soft smile made her face look open and gentle in a way that was unfamiliar.

Fuck.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Mihai seething. Dr. Mensah was waiting, her hand out expectantly.

“No, thank you, ma’am.” He dropped his eyes and pressed the nail of his left thumb into the soft quick under the nail of the index finger. The pain spread up the finger, across the hand, and into his wrist, not uncomfortable but warm and grounding.

Shut the fuck up!

His lips twitched and tightened.

“Hey, come on, medical is this way,” Pin-Lee said. They made a small head movement indicating he should follow, so he did.

“The fridge is over on the counter on the far end of the left wall. Try and be quiet, though. Dr. Bharadwaj is still in there.”

No Security Unit, a stressed planetary leader, and a member of the team in the medical bay.

The door slid open and he headed directly to the back left corner. He had to make a little space for the box to fit, not many of the housed medications had been used. In fact, it seemed like only a couple of non-standard compounds had been touched. The others sat in perfect rows, their labels faced forward.

Pin-Lee was hugging a woman, whispering in her ear as she nuzzled close. Another member of the team was asleep on the table in the center of the room. Dr. Bharadwaj.

The one in Pin-Lee’s arms was their wife, Dr. Arada, based on the data he’d pulled earlier.

With them distracted by each other, he was able to take stock of the meds, and rearrange them to fit his own in. It would have been easier to remove the vials and tuck them in somewhere but that was how things got lost or mixed up. No, all of his supplies stayed together in their little case. Anonymous and secure.

He shut the door to the cooler with a bit of extra force. The sound pulled the couple back into the room and broke their embrace.

“Gotta go, babe.” Pin-Lee kissed Dr. Arada.

“Hate to see you go.”

“You love watching me leave.”

At that, they both smiled and pressed their foreheads together one more time.

He pointedly ignored the open display of affection in a way that made him feel even more uncomfortable.

Pin-Lee led him up to the room the team had freed up for him to use. He wouldn’t. He hadn’t slept more than twelve hours since landing on the planet and there was a lot of work to do here.

Back down in the large central room, Dr. Mensah and Mihai were in the seating area with the last two members of the research team - Dr. Rathhi and Dr. Volescu. The older man had a shawl over his shoulders, staring into a steaming mug with glassy eyes. Another granule of data with no context for analysis.

Across the room is a huge array of workstations and screens. It’s not far enough away that he can’t hear Dr. Mensah vaguely relating the recent encounter with a particularly violent fauna, but soon he’ll sink into the feed, cloning and downloading every bit of data he can find. And he can find it all.

He will.

Then, he’ll drop his code, patch their comms, then go back to DeltFall. He’d permit himself a rest cycle to celebrate a job well done. Maybe even allow a little extra of the med that counters the chems that keep him awake. Sleep the whole trip away.

“We can’t find anything in the packet about these… worms, or… I’m not really sure what to call them,” Dr. Mensah said. “We’ve started a deeper analysis of the whole packet. Have you noticed anything missing from DeltFall’s?”

Mihai hadn’t, he knew. No one had.

Snapping the hardline into place, he pulled up the information packet and ran it through his new code. The same anomalies, folds in the data, that he had found in DeltFall’s were there. Identical.

It was possible that the master had been doctored and both teams were given the fabricated packets but intentional subterfuge wasn’t the answer though. Why go through the trouble of obscuring all evidence of tampering, then plant a team right next to what you are trying to hide?

Surely the data had been reviewed, at least superficially, before being distributed. If they had, how could anyone overlook a vast section of the planet being devoid of life forms?

The maps, folded in on themselves, created a whole picture taken in the small quadrants they were provided, but trying to extrapolate the globe as a whole made the picture clear. Of course, no one would notice missing fauna reports for a section of the world they didn’t realize was also missing.

He could only think of one reason for the anomaly, and that was the most absurd revelation of all. The Company, being paid by a shadow client to locate alien remnants, had accidentally placed a group of free-hold researchers right next to what had to be a massive cache. Free-holders that, based on the biographies he was now scanning, would certainly report the remnants to the proper authorities.

He was not going to be getting a sleep cycle anytime soon.

Chapter Text

He ran the code to clone and download the personal data of the Preservation Alliance survey team; everything from number of marital partners and children to curriculum vitae.

While that was being compiled, he pulled up recent records from SecSys and MedSys. The worms Dr. Mensah had mentioned were the final piece to the puzzle and the surgical report on Dr. Bharadwaj confirmed it. Not long before he and Mihai had arrived, Dr. Dr. Bharadwaj had been attacked by an unknown megafauna while collecting samples with Dr. Dr. Volescu. She had sustained critical injuries before the Security Unit had intervened. It had lost 20% of its body mass. Readings from the cubicle indicated repairs were on track to be completed by the morning. Dr. Bharadwaj’s recovery would take longer but the medical data was showing her condition was stable with consistent improvement.

The team was rattled now but humans were animals at their very base and animals weren’t meant to remain in heightened stress for long-term. They would adapt and things would soon settle back into whatever a free-hold considered normal, to his benefit. Anxious people sought reassurance, understanding, and the last thing he needed was to have someone looking over his shoulder and asking questions while he pilfered their personal information and pirated their research.

He made sure to add the helmet cams and comms recordings from the incident to his export queue and moved on to a cursory systems check of the satellite connection. Even though he was certain the proximity of alien remnants was responsible, he still needed to cull usable datasets from the raw reports. When, how long, frequency. It all mattered if he was going to create a believable patch.

I need more time, he sent.

More time than what? Humans couldn’t convey emotion through their feed messages but it wasn't necessary. Te were annoyed.

This isn’t going to be a quick fix. It may require work on the actual hardware. Potentially repositioning.

Oh deities! I told you that you aren’t actually here to fix the problem. Just plant your code to route their research data to DeltFall, slap a patch on their comms, and we’re out of here.

It isn’t that simple–

Then make it that simple.

Te blocked the channel. He could have forced it back open but let it rest for now.

He moved on to poking at the satellite connection and initiated a diagnostics check. He could just insert some code that looked like it would boost a signal and call it done, it wasn’t like the team from Preservation seemed overly knowledgeable, but that didn’t address the problem DeltFall was going to have receiving continued data bursts after he left. Initially, he’d chalked the reported issues as being due to user error or a lack of understanding of Company equipment, and he thought Brandt had believed the same. DeltFall didn’t care if Preservation continued to struggle so long as he planted the code and they received regular reports. No one had expected an actual issue to be occurring and this type of interference meant that DeltFall couldn’t be sure they’d receive communications after he and Mihai returned. Even if he was still at Preservation’s habitat, it wasn’t like he could override a satellite outage and forcibly push the data to DeltFall. The connection to the satellite would have to be shored up and it was looking like that would mean moving the receiver.

Mihai reopened the channel to say, Stop what you’re doing. They’re insisting we both join them for the final meal of the day.

It wasn’t the best time for a break, but it wasn’t the worst, either. He’d have a ration packet - it had been about a cycle since he’d eaten on the hopper - and dive back in.

A spiced scent struck him as he removed his senses from the back burner. This was followed closely by the noise. Loud voices, and feet running. A crash, then the voices turned to shouts.

“You are not blaming this on me!”

“What were you even doing on the floor?”

“I dropped–”

“Guys! Nothing broke. Just pick it up.”

“I dropped a really pretty rock I found this morning while I was meditating. I think it rolled under the cabinet.”

Dr. Arada was on her hands and knees, the side of her face pressed to the floor. Pin-Lee was helping Dr. Ratthi pick up the bowls and eating utensils that had scattered when he’d tripped over Dr. Arada.

“Oh, hey! Novie!” Dr. Ratthi was the first to notice he had disconnected, and now he was approaching with a wide, gregarious smile and arms stretched wide.

He felt his lips pull tighter and knew his expression was that pinched, sour look just the wrong side of blank but, inexplicably, Dr. Ratthi still wrapped him in a tight hug that involved some rocking back and forth and ended, after far too long, with a gentle lift that brought his heels off the floor.

“I made an ishtu - my first parent’s own recipe - so I hope you like a little spice!”

He doesn’t. Or, rather, he’s never had it, ishtu. Nothing that smelled like this.

Dr. Ratthi clapped him on the back. “Come on, mate! You have to be starving!”

That seemed to be the end of the unwarranted touching and, although he preferred to hang back, he followed behind the other man. It was going to be difficult to find the right balance here.

Outside, Pin-Lee was helping Dr. Volescu scoop the stew from a large pot hanging over a fire. Mihai was already eating, standing to the outer edge of the circle of crates. The DeltFall Security Unit was in place near tem, somehow seemingly to loom over the Preservation team even at a distance.

They were so naive. Joking, laughing, dancing while a murder machine was just meters away. Mihai would only have to say a single word and they would all be dead in seconds. Te wouldn’t. That wasn’t what this job was. But, if te knew there were alien remnants nearby, would that change.

He fumbled the bowl Pin-Lee handed him, spilling it. “Sorry.” He kept his voice soft and low, barely more than a whisper.

“Don’t worry about it, dude. We have plenty more.”

They refilled the bowl and he started to drift to the periphery.

Dr. Ratthi noticed and called out, “Novie, got you a seat right here!” He wore a wide smile as he patted a crate beside himself.

The man was so open and unrestrained, even in comparison to the rest of the Preservation team. Dr. Ratthi’s lack of guile was a liability to them, and now it was starting to pull him into trouble too.

Mihai frowned as te caught his eye. It was a delicate dance he was entering into; he’d never had to be a double-blind agent before.

He perched on the edge of the crate, ready to move in an instant, and took a hesitant taste of the stew. There was a certain, light creamy taste to the broth that paired with the rich flavors of the added spices. It was complex in a way he’d never experienced, and left a pleasant heat on his tongue. Nothing like this had ever come from a food printer.

How much of their weight allotment had been devoted to inessential comfort items? The pillows, blankets, plants, and who knows what else up in their rooms. Naive and foolish. The food flavorings though… If he had grown up eating like this, Corporation Rim food would be entirely unpalatable.

Pin-Lee joined them and greeted Dr. Arada with a light kiss.

“Hey, babe,” Dr. Arada asked, “did Mensah already eat? We usually have evening meal together. All of us.”

“She said she’d be out after she checked on SecUnit.”

“It’s awake?” Dr. Ratthi comfortably slid into their conversation.

“I guess? Or maybe she’s going to wake it up.” They shrugged. “Oh, I got a chilli in mine, want it, Dr. Ratthi?”

“Of course!” He leaned across Dr. Arada to eat from Pin-Lee’s proffered spoon.

The loose comfortability of the three was confusing; dialing down his auditory input helped his discomfort. He kept his eyes on the bowl of stew, methodically taking bite after bite, focusing on only that narrow scope. There was nothing he could do to diminish the overwhelming medley of flavors and textures so he pushed on, longing for the simplicity of a protein pack and the ordered solitude when he was deep in the feed.

When he finished, Dr. Ratthi asked if he wanted more, then offered to take his empty bowl to stack with the other used dishes. Mihai was well into a second serving and had moved to a new location so he could just see ter steady disapproval from the corner of his eye. He needed to go back in, back to work, but Dr. Ratthi had waved him down when he had moved to stand. Again, he was caught between pleasing two very different parties.

He was debating trying to explain to tem the benefit of him following the free-holders’ directions when the door to the habitat opened. The Preservation crew whooped and called out to Dr. Mensah, welcoming her to join them. Behind Dr. Mensah, a tall figure stepped out of the habitat, a scowl on its face. There was no doubt this was the Security Unit for Preservation Alliance. Everyone on the crew manifest was accounted for and, even without its armor, the way it moved made it obvious.

He had to force his gaze back down to his lap, hands pinched between his knees to stay as small and still as possible. Why hadn’t he gone back in?

Seeing a Security Unit in the ill-fitting preservation uniform was unexpectedly more terrifying. Logically, it was more vulnerable, but seeing it like this made it feel more threatening. An armored Unit was common-place. Nerve-wracking, but familiar. Seeing one walking around, looking almost human, made it feel unpredictable.

“Who is this?” Dr. Ratthi’s tone was as friendly as it had been with him earlier.

“I’m your SecUnit.” That was not a canned response.

“It insisted pausing its repairs,” Dr. Mensah explained. “I explained that DeltFall’s SecUnity was able to provide any protection while it was in its cubicle, but it felt it best to assess things for itself. Its armor has not been repaired yet so it agreed to wear a crew uniform; I hope you don’t mind, Ratthi, I gave it one of yours.”

“Hey, you make it look good!”

None of this was normal. Maybe there had been something in the stew that didn’t affect the Preservationists but caused hallucinations in humans from the Corporation Rim? He hoped he was keeping his face more neutral than Mihai. Te were projecting clean displeasure at this turn of events.

He tapped tem in the feed. May I return to work?

Te tapped an acknowledgement back.

“Dr. Mensah, I appreciate Preservation’s hospitality, but I wouldn’t want to impose more than I must. Would it be permissible for Novak to return to work?”

“Of course, Dr. Mihai. But, please, we are happy to welcome you; feel free to make yourselves comfortable.”

Mihai gave him a curt nod and, with that, he was finally released back into the familiar seclusion of the habitat.

Chapter Text

He’d worked in the feed for a few hours after eating before unplugging and going up to the room he’d been assigned. He hadn’t allowed himself to sink so deeply into the feed this time, leaving his auditory input dialed up and setting an alert for his name, or Dr. Ratthi’s irritating nickname.

After a while the crew had returned to the habitat, cleaned the dishes, gathered blankets and musical instruments. They did it all together, loudly, happily. It reminded him of a non-incorporated entity he’d infiltrated early in his career.

At first, it had seemed impossible to penetrate the wall of blissful unity. Everything was done in lockstep, every member held the same values and beliefs, and they all smiled the same way. There were no titles or honorifics. He’d been welcomed as Brother Dima, a refuge from the corporate world, now a peer amongst equals. It was irritating how hard they had tried to prove they were all content in that peaceful, perfect utopia. Admittedly, it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to find the first crack, but it had been a good lesson and he left for his next assignment wiser and sharper-eyed. The people of MarTeGnol had learned a lesson, too, as their society came apart and The Company rolled right over them.

Once the Preservation team was back outside the habitat, with discordant strains of what could only be called music in generous terms, he unplugged.

Mihai was in ter room. The DeltFall Security Unit was standing to the side of the door. It didn’t move as he walked past, but he could feel its eyes on him. Then he locked himself in, adding a second layer of security to the lock, and sat on the edge of the bed.

There wasn’t anything of interest in the crew records. Various degrees, lists of papers written or co-authored by, personal information. Dr. Mensah’s file, however, was interesting. A planetary leader. The deductible The Company must have demanded for that! She and Dr. Volescu were the only ones with any real survey experience. Pin-Lee was well read in Corporate Rim law.

He moved on to the data from that morning. The seismic anomalies had occurred just moments before the Security Unit had reacted. By human standards, it had been nearly instantaneous, but for a construct it was a concerning delay.

The Company wouldn’t have sent a defective unit, surely. Not when a member of the crew it was meant to protect was a planetary leader. An average indentured servant putting together a survey packet would absolutely cut corners, but they knew that. The Company would have made sure every check was performed and returned impeccable results. None of the standard “within acceptable limits.”

He checked the location of the attack against the packet maps; it was much closer to the blank sections so, if his theory was correct, the alien remnants could have caused the lag in the Security Unit’s response time.

Readouts from the suits of Drs. Volesu and Bharadwaj might provide more supporting evidence. He pulled it up and checked the downloads for reports from the Security Unit itself. The tight sinking feeling he’d had seeing the Security Unit hesitate returned. There was no download from the Unit. Maybe he missed it when adding files to the queue, he hadn’t noticed whether it was there or not. Damn! A stupid novice mistake. The data from the two crew suits, though, were enough that something was wrong with the Unit.

No wonder they hadn’t been surprised to see it out of armor, to see it had a face. Dr. Volsecu’s suit clearly captured it lowering its helmet and reassuring the man that everything was going to be fine. Then, as it towed the older human up the steep lip of the crater, pressing Dr. Bharadwaj to it to slow her blood loss, it asked him about his offspring.

He was no expert on Security Units but was confident The Company did not provide a module for this. MedSys agreed, indicating the Unit had ignored its directions for helping Dr. Volescu.

A sudden twitch of his hand pulled him back to himself, sitting on the edge of a bed in an unfamiliar room. His hands trembled and his pulse felt like it was galloping through his veins.

He tucked his hands into his armpits to try to still them, crossing his arms tightly across his chest against the chill creeping into his skin. Thank deities, the habitat was dark and quiet. Silently, with a careful practiced tread, he made his way around the balcony and down the stairs. Just as before, the DeltFall Security Unit let him pass by. The Preservation Security Unit was not on the top floor. He tapped HubSys on his way down the stairs. It hadn’t returned to its cubicle yet. He pinged its location. Outside, circling the campsite.

There was rough snoring coming from medical, and he found Dr. Volescu slouched in a chair beside Dr. Bharadwaj.

He kept his breathing slow and shallow as he moved toward the refrigerator, making no noise, and silently berated himself for not noticing if there had been a light that activated when the door was opened.

The door opened fairly easily, the seal was secure but not overly tight, and there was no interior light. But, it wasn’t time to drop his guard. It was risky, remaining in the room to administer a dose of chems, but it was less of a gamble than having to sneak back in to return the kit. His augments allowed him to see fairly well in the dark room and he had years of experience drawing the proper amount and injecting it into a vein.

His eyelids fluttered and warmth rushed through him. He leaned his head back against the wall with a sigh, a lightness taking the place of the anxiety that had gripped him. When it passed, always too soon, he was left wide awake, sharp, and focused. A list of tasks ran through his mind. He closed the case and returned it to the cooler and dropped the spent ampule and needle in the sharps container on his way out.

It was time to go to work.

Chapter Text

The night hadn’t been as productive as planned. He’d barely connected the hardwire before he felt a looming presence in the feed. Despite prowling the perimeter, the Preservation Security Unit must have been monitoring the cameras as well, and now it was watching him work.

That was fine. Nothing ever went smoothly.

He used the time to study the comms relay and write code to send a drone out to find where the interference stopped. Then he dummied a message to Mihai and planted a code to take down the satellite connection, coded to appear like the same issues the team had been experiencing.

That had brought the Security Unit in. It had noticed him and made a point to pass his location several times during each lap of its patrol.

The rest of the night he’d spent tweaking his spyware in a private workspace and watched the Unit. His internal chronometer showed it was keeping a steady pace, hitting each stop in its route at regular intervals.

The habitat brightened as the sun rose, and the humans began to move around. Dr. Volescu stumbled up the stairs, yawning nearly as loudly as he snored. Soon, the sounds of murmured greetings and tired shuffling drifted down to him. He wondered what it would feel like, waking up gradually. He hadn’t always been company property, but he couldn’t remember much about his childhood anymore.

A forceful tap in his private channel with Mihai made him flinch.

Why is the comm system down?

Interference. The relay needs to be moved. I was looking at it last night and I think I could code a drone—

Is the spyware in place?

Yes, he lied.

Good. Brandt needs the hopper back. The other one won’t hold a charge and they’re going to lose a day in the field as it is.

I need to fix the relay.

No.

If the relay continues to lose connection I cannot guarantee that any of the research culled by the spyware will be sent to DeltFall. I need more time.

Upstairs, there was a loud thud. Likely, quite a bit of profanity as well.

After a moment, Mihai returned. I can’t reach Brandt, te sent.

He closed his eyes and allowed the indulgence to mentally roll them.

I have to go back to DeltFall. You are going to stay here and get that relay moved. Once Brandt receives the first info dump I imagine he’ll be sending me back to pick your ass up. Don’t dick around, got it? And listen, Novak, if you fuck this up I will personally make sure The Company adds another decade on to your indenture.

The threat of another decade when his contract was already set to terminate well after his expected lifespan was laughable.

He sent an affirmative ping.

The morning progressed quickly. Mihai explained ter need to return to DeltFall to Dr. Mensah. Te said that he would stay behind to help with the communications, explaining his plan to find an area with less interference. Meanwhile, Dr. Ratthi dragged him out by the fire pit again to join them all for the morning meal, a thick paste that was refreshingly bland.

The team had shared a horrified look seeing him eat a spoonful of the tan porridge. It was meant to be eaten with additives, apparently, but the suggestions quickly turned into a disagreement as Dr. Arada argued a fruit medley was the best option, Pin-Lee preferred a more savory dish, and Dr. Ratthi declared that a rich syrup was the only correct topping. He silently continued to eat and finished while they were still debating.

Mihai had sent one more warning through the feed before leaving with the DeltFall Security Unit. Unless, by some celestial grace, the other hopper was actually malfunctioning, te would be back in just over two cycles and te would not be happy.

Dr. Mensah gave him one of the survey drones to reprogram. When he was done, she called the entire team together, forming a circle in the lounge area.

“Novak, would you join us, too? Thank you.” She turned to the group without checking if he would comply. He did, of course, as Dr. Mensah brought her hands together. “DeltFall has graciously allowed us the time and expertise of their systems engineer to find out the problem with our communications system. Novak, please tell us what you have learned.”

She stepped back and took a seat. Five humans stared up expectantly. He glanced at the camera pointing directly at him. Life on the Rim had given him a sixth sense. The cameras were always there, but he knew when someone was actually on the other side. He was being watched.

“There’s interference. Maybe something in the soil.”

“But, you have a plan?” Dr. Mensah prompted him.

“I have reprogrammed a drone to perform autonomous scans to identify locations for the communication receiver. It will analyze the signal-to-noise ratio and map out optimal satellite communication points.”

“That’s amazing,” Rathi said, “I didn’t understand it, but, just, good job!”

Pin-Lee held their hands. “Wait. So, what happens once we find a different location?”

“The array will need to be moved.”

“We can’t just set up a relay? Moving the whole thing seems complicated.”

“A relay will have the same connectivity issues sending a wireless signal back here.”

His lips were pursed, tighter than normal, and he kept his gaze fixated on a point on the floor, just to the right of Dr. Arada’s boots. The pain from where he dug the nails of both thumbs into the quick of their respective index fingers kept him calm with so many eyes on him. It was grounding and distracting all at once.

“How are we going to even move the thing? Can a hopper lift it?” Pin-Lee continued their interrogation.

“The company brought it here,” Dr. Arada reasoned, “so it must come apart or fold up somehow.”

“Right, but how? Everything was done by The Company before we got here.” Pin-Lee seemed determined to find a flaw they could pick at.

Dr. Mensah saved him from having to speak again. “Novak has thought this through. I trust that if we run into difficulties, we will be able to find a solution.” She stood up and held her arms out.

The Preservation team joined her, grasping each other’s hands. Dr. Arada had her left hand extend toward him, waggling her fingers.

“We’re reaching a consensus, darling,” said Dr. Mensah, her right hand still extended to him.

“Come on, Novie! Get in here!”

He took a small step back. The carefully schooled mask must have slipped showing some of the horrified uncertainty, because they didn’t insist again. The gap in the circle was maintained, Dr. Arada and Mensah still reaching his way, but they closed their eyes and hummed. With them distracted for the moment, he frantically flipped through his files of customs and came up empty. Not terribly surprising. The Company didn’t have many records on Preservation Alliance.

Eventually, the humming stopped. There was some sense of unspoken agreement as the five free-holders opened their eyes, looking at each other with smiles.

Dr. Mensah nodded. “Very well, then. Let’s get started.”

Chapter Text

While waiting for the drone to return, he connected to the array and pulled its schematics. He looked through them carefully, checking the data against the actual device and making a checklist of what he’d need to dismantle it.

The Preservation Security Unit dogged him. Outside at the antenna, and then following him inside as he gathered tools and additional wiring. It wasn’t hanging over his shoulder, but it stayed close. It should have been patrolling, shouldn’t it? It seemed to be neglecting its clients. Certainly, it couldn’t keep a visual on all of them all the time, but it seemed to prioritize monitoring him despite the recent discovery of very large and aggressive fauna not that far from the camp.

He’d never worked directly with a Security Unit, but had had plenty of assignments in places that utilized them. They had reactive systems, only focusing on an individual if a potential threat was detected. But, he hadn’t done anything for it to perceive him as such.

He glanced up at the wire he was stripping. Dr. Mensah stood with her back to him, over in the laboratory, a hand on Dr. Arada’s shoulder. Maybe the friendly naivety was an act. Had she ordered it to watch him?

When the drone arrived, he downloaded the data and prepared to compare it to the map in the packet.

Dr. Mesah sat down beside him as he disconnected the hard wire. “Is there anything we can do to help,” she asked.

“No.” After a pause he added, “I can share the report with you when it’s ready.”

“That would be much appreciated. Thank you.

“In the meantime, is there something we should be doing to prepare? Pin-Lee has some coding experience and, despite his age, Volescu is quite good with technology.”

He pushed the schematics to her in the feed. “Do you think they would be able to dismantle the array without causing damage?”

“Let me check with Pin-Lee.”

Instead of leaving him alone, he felt Dr. Mensah open a workspace and add them.

Would you be able to use these to begin taking the antenna apart?

Hmm. Not really my strong suit. Hang on.

Then, Dr. Volescu joined.

He inspected the diagram carefully before assuring everyone that he would be able to guide the others through the disassembly process with Pin-Lee’s help to maintain the more delicate components.

With that settled, Dr. Mensah said she was going to check on Dr. Bharadwaj. The other four carried the tools he had gathered out to the small hopper. Only the Security Unit remained. Conspicuously inconspicuous.

Just as he was sinking into the feed, an urgent ping pulled him back out.

MedSys is discontinuing the sedative for Bharadwaj! She should be awake soon and up in about an hour.

At first, he thought Dr. Mensah had accidentally responded to the communication thread with Pin-Lee and Dr. Volescu, but checking the data he realized she had added him to the PresAux channel. He shook his head, then closed his eyes and launched a correlation algorithm.

It wasn’t too difficult to find several viable locations. He marked them on the map and added annotations along with his recommendation, then pushed it to Dr. Mensah in a new channel.

After a couple of minutes, the team channel pinged him again.

Novak has identified several places we can move the receiver to. Please find time to look over the map and his notes. I would like to discuss this over the evening meal.

He was glad none of the others were augmented. The wave of frustration had to have bled through, but wouldn’t be noticed by anyone using a basic interface.

Why was everything a discussion with these people? If they tried to make him hold hands again… He’d do it. It was what he should have done the first time.

It wasn’t what a subservient, indentured engineer would have done. But then, if someone on the Corporation Rim asked him to do it, it would have been a trap of some sort. It was, however, what a Preservationist would do. They didn’t understand and his hesitancy could easily lead to suspicion, or questions at least.

Remember the objective.

When he opened his eyes, there was a woman sitting on the sofa, watching him. Dr. Bharadwaj, his augments helpfully provided. He hadn’t actually looked at her last night, too focused on not disturbing anyone while taking his chems. She was wrapped in a quilt that she let drop to give him a small wave. He nodded back.

At least tonight the medical bay would be empty.

The final meal of the day was just protein packs. There had been no time this evening to make anything and most of the four who’d been out working on the antenna were showing signs of exertion. Dr. Ratthi was on the ground, arms and legs spread wide, panting. Dr. Arada’s face was still blotchy and red, and both she and Pin-Lee’s clothes showed heavy sweat stains.

Seeing Dr. Bharadwaj joining them quickly lifted their spirits. Dr. Ratthi jumped up and helped Dr. Mensah direct her to a suitable seat. The others cheered and whistled, which made Dr. Bharadwaj laugh aloud.

“We’re all here,” Dr. Mensah said. “Did everyone look at Novak’s recommendations? Any thoughts or opinions? Who wants to go first?”

Everyone looked around the circle, then Pin-Lee shrugged and said, “All the spots looked fine. I think his analysis is correct. The one he had marked as ‘recommended’ is the best option. It's relatively close, there is a nice, big, flat area to set up and land the big hopper.”

“We’re going to need the big hopper,” Dr. Arada confirmed. “There are a lot of parts and if we also have to get at least four of us there…”

Dr. Volescu nodded. “It would definitely be too much weight for the little hopper.”

“Oh, deities! We still have to load the hopper. And then we’ll have to unload it tomorrow!”

“Ratthi.” Dr. Mensah shook her head. “I believe we could ask SecUnit to help. Would you mind, SecUnit? Helping to load the array into the big hopper?”

“Yes, Dr. Mensah.”

“Very good. I think that task can wait until the morning. We’ll leave first thing, pick up the parts, then head to the new site.”

“You’re coming with us?”

“Are we all going?”

Dr. Mensah shook her head. “I think Bharadwaj should stay here. She could use more rest - no, no, dear, you do - and Arada, could you look after her tomorrow? I believe Novak has well earned an easier day, too.”

Once the plan was fully settled, everyone was exhausted and ready for an early night. Dr. Arada insisted that Dr. Bharadwaj needed a shower and took her by the arm to help her up the stairs.

Dr. Mensah was firmly suggesting to the Security Unit that it should return to its cubicle for the night beside the entry door. She paused and stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.

“Novak, if you would like, you are welcome to clean up in our refreshers as well. If you need any toiletries or a change of clothing, please let one of us know. I did as Volescu to leave some soap and a towel on your bed; I hope that wasn’t overstepping.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mensah.” He bobbed his head and stepped out of her reach.

He waited in his room until the sounds of the others moving around had turned to slow breaths. Then he showered, changing into the fresh pair of clothes he’d brought and brushed his teeth. He raked his fingers though his damp hair to get it into a sort of order.

Leaning on the sink, he stared at himself in the mirror, letting his eyes wander over the reflection of his face. It was good to remind himself, every once in a while, what was real with all the lies he swam through each day.

The Security Unit was showing offline in the feed. He returned his items to his room, then slipped down to Medical. Tomorrow was practically a holiday; he took two bottles from his case and tapped out a pill from each. He swallowed the oblong, blue capsule dry, packed the kit back into the refrigerator, and slipped the round white tablet under his tongue on the way out.

He made his way back up to his room, locked the door, then added his own code to enhance its defence.

The tablet was fast-acting, dissolving under his tongue and quickly being absorbed by his blood stream while the capsule slowly released its medication. One to make him fall asleep, one to keep him asleep.

It was still morning when he woke. Technically.

He’d expected to have to skulk around while the Preservationists dawdled through another meal, that “first thing” on their world meant “whenever you wake up.”

He was surprised to see that HubSys had recorded the four people going out to set up the array were up while it was still dark. They had performed all the pre-flight checks and, as the sun was breaking over the horizon, the Security Unit had come online. The big hopper had taken off just a few minutes later.

Staying in bed sounded ideal. His muscles ached and he knew things would only get worse as the day went on.

He set a countdown clock.

Downstairs, Drs. Arada and Bharadwaj were curled together on the couch, sharing a blanket. They both held steaming cups and were watching an interface that lay in their laps.

He crossed, unnoticed, to the monitor bank and began running tests against the spyware. The search parameters became more detailed and the queries more complex. Any time his hidden code was flagged he’d go in and tweak it.

He wasn’t so deep in the feed that he couldn’t hear the other two. So, he wasn’t startled when Dr. Arada gave a small yelp.

“Deities! How long have you been down here?”

She looked like she expected a response.

“Not long.”

“Well, come join Bharadwaj and me. We’re watching old episodes of Medcenter Argala.”

There wasn’t a viable reason for him to continue working, at least not as far as they knew, so insisting would have been odd. He was still nearly certain that these free-holders were perpetual optimists bumbling their way around a foreign planet, but there was a small part of him that suspected they might not be as naive as they seemed.

Dr. Bharadwaj said up a bit and moved over, patting the cushion beside her. He sat in a chair opposite her.

“Do you want a throw?”

“No, thank you.”

“We didn’t realize you were awake or we would have invited you sooner!”

“It’s fine.”

She looked better today, though her thick hair was still a little tangled and wild. It was clean and her eyes were alert.

“Here, let me set up a connection so you can watch with us on your interface.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Oh! No, I guess you don’t. I just assumed but didn’t really pay attention. Sorry! This is mine, but Arada would let you use hers, or we can and you can use mine. You’re a technician, right?”

“Systems engineer.”

“Right! Sorry! I wasn’t even out two full cycles and I feel like I missed an entire year.

“You do have access to the feed, though, right? You must if you work in systems.”

“My augments allow me to interface without an interface.”

She was, very gamely, trying to get him to engage.

“Have you seen Medcenter Argala? We’re watching older episodes, just random ones we had downloaded. I guess you don’t really need to know the show, though. Everything should still make sense. You can ask questions, too, if you get lost.”

Dr. Arada returned with the tea tray. She urged him to join them in eating the small foods, stacked on dried bread, but the tea was non-negotiable.

So, he sat straight on his chair, cup in his lap, watching them as much as he was watching the show playing on his augments. He laughed when they did, showed surprise and concern to mirror theirs, performing the “proper” emotive responses, but significantly more subdued.

When the time came, they all went out to watch the southern horizon for the signal the rest of the team was ready to test the antenna.

Dr. Bharadwaj had kept her cup with her and fiddled with it absentmindedly. Dr. Arada clung to her arm.

Then the flare went up, Dr. Arada whooped and flung her arms around Dr. Bharadwaj, who returned it. Together, they bounced on their toes, clutching each other and laughing.

He went inside. Made one last little check that the activation of his code would be buried in the array reboot data and executed it.

We are receiving the signal, he sent. I am testing the connection and checking for any interference.

“We are receiving you as well.” Dr. Mensah’s voice was confident and warm, clearly quite pleased.

He received a ping from his augments and saw the package on the alien remnants he’d prepared had been delivered.

After a few tests and minor adjustments, Dr. Mensah said, “Thank you, Novak! I appreciate you helping us with this. I imagine, though, that you are eager to get back to your team. If everything looks good, we’ll head back. In the meantime, please reach out to DeltFall and let them know that you are ready to return.”

Yes, Dr. Mensah.

Dr. Arada took control of the comms and began chatting with Pin-Lee. Dr. Ratthi was loudly exclaiming in the background before what sounded like him wresting the microphone from their hands to flirt with her and Dr. Bharadwaj.

The chaos was too much, so he dialed his auditory input down and put in a call to DeltFall.

Hello Dr. Brandt, on Dr. Mensah’s request I am messaging to let you know that the Preservation task has been completed successfully. I am prepared to return to DeltFall. Please contact Dr. Mensah to negotiate.

He frowned and resent the communication. The connection felt wrong. There was a sort of hollow reverberation. DeltFall wasn’t disconnected, but wasn’t exactly receiving. It felt like the message was slowly leaking out instead of being picked up as a single packet.

Chapter Text

He was spiraling. He knew it and he knew that he needed to stop it.

After a couple of attempts to reach DeltFall he had quietly disconnected and gone up to his room, just able to shut the door before completely losing his shit.

What did they do? How did they know? Why hadn’t he noticed?

If he couldn’t calm down, he wouldn’t be able to go back down and try to fix things. To figure out what the damned free-holders had done to the comms. Had they hidden a code to lock down the connection outside of Preservation if an unauthorized message was sent?

He paced the small space chewing on his thumb. The other hand fluttering around, landing briefly on his shoulder, elbow, snaking through his hair.

Why the fuck had he let himself sleep last night?

Struck by inspiration, he pulled up the cameras reviewing a couple at a time on hi-speed. No one had left their rooms except to go into the refresher, and they went straight back.

He stumbled back, hitting the door with a thud, and slid the floor.

Lock the door. He scrambled in his augments. How could he have forgotten?

The countdown showed he still had the better part of the cycle left.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck…” He knocked his head against the door in rhythm with each metered utterance.

Get your shit together!

He dug his thumb nail under the nail of his ring finger and scraped again and again until it finally found purchase. Continuing to rip at the fragile skin in his nail bed, he curled forward, forehead to knees, and tensed every muscle. He opened his mouth and bore down as though to let a scream rip from his throat. Instead, a nearly inaudible whine was all that escaped. He pushed until his body shook, then his body relaxed. He tipped to lay on his side, panting.

He had about five minutes before he lost control again so he couldn’t luxuriate in the relative peace for long.

In a workspace he began to formulate a plan.

     query <lockout_code>
                if lockout_code=True
                   query <alert_sent>
                         if alert_sent:
                            query <detailed report sent>
                         if detailed_report=False
                                  execute <alert override>
                else               
                         if detailed_report=True
                                  execute <RUN>
        else                        
                if lockout_code=False
                   run: localnetworkdiagnostic.exe
                          if local_network_diagnostic=True
                                  execute <patch>
                else
                          if local_network_diagnostic=False
                                  execute <query DeltFall>

It was a start. He could adjust as needed as long as his head was clear.

The countdown hadn’t changed much. He wiped it clean.

“Fuck it.”

He heaved himself up and made his way back down to the main level. Drs. Arada and Bharadwaj were still talking to Pin-Lee and Dr. Ratthi. They hadn’t even noticed he’d left and certainly weren’t aware of his return.

There would be no way to keep from being caught in Medical without creating even more questions, having to pass back and forth between there and his room a second time had a higher risk of his being noticed.

With trembling hands, he drew up a dose of the stimulant. He fumbled trying to get the tourniquet tied off, but from there it was a simple matter of following the track marks. He let out a shuddering breath as he depressed the plunger. The chems flooded his system. He couldn’t quite suppress a moan. Relief mixed with pleasure.

He sagged against the counter until the initial euphoria dissipated, then, quickly, cleaned up.

Out in the common space, Drs. Arada and Bharadwaj were back on the sofa. They invited him to join them again in watching entertainment media.

He politely declined.

Dr. Bharadwaj sat up, her face pulled into a concerned frown. “If you’d like to do something else, another show? I think I have some Sanctuary Moon episodes.”

“No. Thank you, but no. I still need to do some work.”

“But the antenna is up and everything is running great. Isn’t it?”

“Dr. Mensah asked me to check a few things before I leave.”

“It’ll take a while for someone from DeltFall to get here. Is it Mihai who is coming back for you?”

Dr. Arada was up now. “Oh! You should call DeltFall back and invite everyone to come! That would be so fun!”

“I don’t know, Arada. That seems like a big decision to make without the others, especially without Mensah.”

“But if we wait too long they’ll already have a hopper en route and it will be too late! Think about how awesome it would be! We could have a big evening meal together. Two cultures coming together!”

“DeltFall has a lot of work, as I am sure Preservation does. The time it takes to travel here and back would be prohibitive.”

Dr. Arada looked crestfallen, so Dr. Bharadwaj wrapped an arm around her. “It was a good idea, honey! It’s just a lot to spring on everyone right now. Maybe we could ask if they would like to get together for a post-survey potluck. How does that sound?”

Her spirits didn’t seem to lift noticeably but Dr. Arada nodded in agreement. She was shepherded back to the sofa, Dr. Bharadwaj flashing an apologetic smile his way. None of it mattered to him at the moment. Now, he just needed them to go back to watching entertainment on the interface, safely distracted.

He didn’t have to wait long before he could hear their quiet murmurs. With precautions in place - a proximity alert for twenty feet around his person, auditory inputs scanning for key words, and a tracker on the hopper - he connected his hardline.

Code after code, he probed HubSys and SecSys, turning up nothing. As concerning as the thought of having been caught was, reality was setting in and it was even more unsettling. There was no lockout and everything on Preservation’s end was functioning normally. There wasn’t even a disconnection, as he continued to interrogate the feed. It should work. It technically did work. The messages were reaching DeltFall but then they just seemed to fall apart. He didn’t have an apt metaphor, nor had he ever encountered something like this.

DeltFall wasn’t sending any data back, which was even more odd. Normally, he’d be able to feel some back flow of metadata. He continued to poke at it until he received a ping letting him know Preservation hopper would be struts down in five minutes

Drs. Arada and Bharadwaj must have received a similar notification because Dr. Arada flung the blanket aside and bolted for the habitat door, making a high pitched sound as she went. Dr. Bharadwaj followed at a slower pace with a wide, eager grin.

Slowly, he disconnected, coiled the hardline, and tucked it into his breast pocket. Cheers and exclamations rolled in through the open door, far ahead of the team that came tumbling in, a knot of elation. Dr. Mensah followed, smiling broadly, but in her serene, stately way.

She caught his eye. “Thank you, Novak.”

“Three cheers for Novie!”

Pin-Lee and Dr. Arada whistled and howled along with Dr. Ratthi, while Drs, Bharadwaj and Volescu clapped.

He felt his heartbeat tick up and his face warm. He would never understand these free-holders and their need to be loud and showy about every little thing.

“Were you able to contact DeltFall,” Dr. Mensah asked when the others had begun to quiet down. “Did they let you know when we can expect them?

“No. I- No, I was not able to reach DeltFall.”

There were confused looks shared between all the Preservation team members, but it was Pin-Lee who spoke first. “We just fixed the connection issue, though. Didn’t we?”

“Ugh! If we have to take it apart and move it again..!” Dr. Ratthi collapsed onto Dr. Bharadwaj.

“The connection is fine. I misspoke. I have sent a message to DeltFall and it is reaching their comms but… Something is wrong. It’s not being received. Not properly, at least.”

Dr. Mensah took a step closer. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I actually have never encountered this. I have been running diagnostics but it makes no sense. The message gets to DeltFall and just…” He made a small gesture with his hands.

“Falls apart?”

“For lack of a better term. It’s like… DeltFall is there but not.”

“A ghost,” Dr. Ratthi whispered.

“There is no feedback either. While I don’t agree with Dr. Ratthi’s assessment, metaphorically speaking, it does seem apt.”

Dr. Mensah pressed her hands together and brought them up to rest against her lips. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

“Pretty ironic that DeltFall lends us their engineer to fix our comms only for theirs to go down.” Pin-Lee’s voice betrayed a bit of uncertainty that he thought they had probably intended to disguise.

“We’ll take you back,” Dr. Mensah said. “If DeltFall needs help then we need to give it.”

Chapter Text

It was decided that Drs. Mensah and Arada, along with Pin-Lee and the Security Unit, would escort him back. There had been discussion, of course, but he’d managed to not have to join another “consensus circle” using the excuse that he needed to pack.

In reality, he’d lived out of his sling bag. One change of clothes and toiletries were all he’d brought, aside from the chems, so it was actually ready to go. But, he took his time and kept an eye on the camera in the lounge. His hardwire and tool kit were always on his person and, once the free-holders had settled things, he went down to Medical for the hard case.

He sat on the bench across from where Dr. Arada and Pin-Lee sat speaking softly to each other, heads together, hands held, and legs intertwined. It was impossible to look away without looking like he was intentionally averting his gaze, but it was so uncomfortable to see. A private vulnerable interaction playing out so publicly in front of a stranger. He could toggle his auditory inputs up to hear what was being whispered, but Preservation wasn’t his objective and HubSys was already capturing this data for The Company. The two giggled and he looked away, to the rear of the little hopper.

Dr. Mensah was striding up the ramp, the Security Unit in proper formation except… Except it was coming up the ramp, too.

“Are you alright, Novak?” Dr. Mensah paused to look at him.

“Yes, Dr. Mensah. I just– I’m fine, thank you.”

She glanced back at the construct. It had tucked itself into a corner and stood facing the bulkhead.

“It seems to like that. Staring at walls.” She continued to the pilot’s seat and prepared for liftoff.

He scanned back through the images from Dr. Volescu’s helmet camera, to the Security Unit asking the frightened scientist, “Do you have any children?”

Security Units weren’t Comfort Units. They didn’t coax and coddle, they didn’t make connections. If one wanted someone to do something they would do one of two things: physically move the human, or point a weapon at the human and command them to move.

Security Units, above all else, didn’t “like” things.

He pushed down his concerns and initiated an in-flight map. He was on his way back to DeltFall and in about a cycle it wouldn’t matter if the Preservation team was just insane or if they had tampered with company property.

As the sky darkened, Dr. Arada traded places with Dr. Mensah, joining her spouse at the controls. Dr. Mensah sat on the opposite bench for a few moments before getting up and coming to sit next to him. Deities, he’d never wished he was reliant on an interface before but he did now. They were useful ways to deter over eager companions from striking up a conversation.

“You’re concerned about your friends at DeltFall?”

There was so much wrong with that question.

He replied, “I am continuing to dissect the data to see if I can find the problem and patch it.”

“Hmm. You seemed a bit rattled earlier. I wanted to make sure you were doing alright. Really, doing alright.”

“Security Units– It’s unsafe to transport Company equipment in the cabin. The hoppers have specialized lockers.”

“But it isn’t equipment. It’s a person, and a member of this team.”

Right, so “crazy” it was.

It wasn’t his position to disagree so he bobbed his head. “Understood.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, Dr. Mensah.”

“Although our time together has been brief, you are a member of this team as well. And a person.”

“Yes, Dr. Mensah.”

“I’m going to get some sleep, you should, too. You look tired.”

He gave another small nod and she moved away again.

Laying down on his side, back to the side of the hopper, he closed his eyes and increased his auditory input. Pin-Lee was telling Dr. Arada about setting up the array and how Dr. Ratthi had managed to fall off the edge of the mesa. Dr. Mensah’s breathing was slow and regular.

He tapped the camera at the front of the ship and backburnered it while he returned to studying the connection with DeltFall.

After a few hours, Pin-Lee woke Dr. Mensah for her shift and they laid down on the bench with Dr. Arada. Dr. Mensah made herself a cup of coffee then sat staring into the blackness. She twisted back and forth in her chair a bit before walking back to the Security Unit and inviting it to join her. At least, it seemed to be posed like an invitation, complete with “please” and “thank you.” The Security Unit hesitated as if it, too, was unclear if it had just been issued an order, then it followed her and sat in the co-pilot’s chair.

Dr. Mensah began what seemed like a very one-sided conversation about how her partners back on Preservation felt about her going on this survey, the concerns of her fellow planetary leaders, and how much she missed her children. It was slightly less awkward than having watched the other two earlier, if only because the undetected eavesdropping allowed him to feel at arms length.

In the morning, after Dr. Mensah had traded again with Pin-Lee, they were all awake and starting the day with a meal of protein packs. Something in the feed stung him. He glanced over at the Security Unit in time to see it stepping closer to the wall. The camera, played back, showed it stagger back at the same time he winced.

“The satellite just went down,” Pin-Lee reported.

That wasn’t quite accurate. He could ping the satellite and get a responding ping, but only had access to the local feed. The connection to the satellite felt like the connection to DeltFall. There, but not.

Dr. Mensah asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes! I’m only getting the local feed and when I try to connect with the satellite I get the same error on my interface I got at our habitat every time we lost contact. I had been tracking and recording it.”

“You were not!” Dr. Arada nudged them.

“Yes, they were.”

Everyone turned to look at the Security Unit. It had turned so it was looking back at all of them.

“What the fuck,” Pin-Lee demanded. “Have you been spying on me? On all of us?”

“Babe…”

“That’s an invasion of my privacy! Delete it. Now!”

It couldn’t. Not without getting its brain fried. Although, that might be happening anyway as not deleting the data was now disobeying a direct order. He could believe he was actually feeling sorry for a construct, especially one that was a mobile killing machine.

“It can’t help it.” He kept his eyes on the metal floor grating. “It’s in the contract you signed.”

It truly didn’t have a choice. Almost no one in the Corporation Rim was able to afford that level of freedom. He certainly couldn’t.

“Where?” It was rhetorical. They swiped and poked at their interface. “This? ‘The Company informs you that, for the legitimate business purposes of protecting Company assets, ensuring compliance with policy, and maintaining the security of its systems… may collect and process electronic activity and audiovisual data related to Company‑issued devices and systems… Collected data will be retained only as long as needed... By using Company‑issued devices and systems, you acknowledge receipt of this notice and consent to the described monitoring.”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t saw “every fucking second of your life is going to be recorded!’”

“It actually does. The Company can’t know, beforehand, what might be pertinent to the terms so it makes sure to record everything and go through it with a fine-tooth comb.”

“This is my interface!”

“That you connected to the Company’s satellite and feed.”

“Fuck.” They dropped back onto the bench. “I’m sorry, Mensah! Shit! I never should have let you sign.”

“Darling, it’s fine. You did your best and I’m proud of you.”

They scoffed but let Dr. Mensah hug them, and Dr. Arada joined.

The Company didn’t fight fair. Free-workers either learned this or they were forced into The Company’s growing collection.

Even as they got closer to the DeltFall habitat, he couldn’t get a message through. Pin-Lee had been correct that the satellite and feed gave the same initial error he’d seen on Preservation’s comms, but the metadata was completely different. Theirs had made sense. This… Whatever was happening at DeltFall was something he’d never seen before, not even in his textbooks.

The Security Unit advised landing outside of the habitat’s perimeter and directed Dr. Mensah to a safe location.

It was a long walk from the hopper to the edge of the clearing, but fairly easy. He wasn’t winded, but was glad to rest and get some water.

Despite being well into the cycle, the camp was quiet. No one was moving around outside and both hoppers were still parked in their usual places.

Why hadn’t Mihai left?

The Security Unit hefted its projectile gun and walked toward the structure. Dr. Mensah had agreed to leave if it wasn’t back in ten minutes, but she didn’t look like she’d meant it. Somehow, she’d actually bought into the idea that it was truly a member of her team on par with any of the humans.

“Maybe you all should go back to the hopper and wait,” she suggested after the Security Unit disappeared through the door.

“Absolutely not!”

“Pin-Lee, we may need to leave quickly, or move the hopper closer. I need you on the hopper ready to take off.”

“Ok, then you come, too.”

“I can’t. What if SecUnit needs help?”

“If SecUnit needs help, then we’re all dead!”

“Return to the hopper. That’s an order!”

Pin-Lee’s face was furious, but they turned and stomped back the way they came. Dr. Arada trotted alongside, trying to calm them down.

“You, too, Novak.”

“I can’t.”

She sighed. “I know you are worried about your team but—“

“My medication is in there. And, no, it can’t be printed. It’s a proprietary drug from The Company.”

“We could analyze it and put the formula in the printer.”

“No, you can’t. It isn’t that the formula isn’t in the printer, it’s that it’s excluded from the printer. The printers are specifically programmed to not print it.”

“But these are Company printers. If it’s a Company formula then I don’t understand why—“

“If you can print it they can’t control it, or charge you.”

“What happens if you don’t have it?”

“My brain liquifies and leaks out my nose, ears, eyes…”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“I’d rather not find out.”

Chapter Text

Ten minutes had passed and the Security Unit had stopped responding to Dr. Mensah. She’d just had another fight with Pin-Lee through the feed; now she was pacing in a circle rubbing her hands over her face.

“I’m going.” His hands had begun to shake and despite the way the skin on his arms prickled in tiny raised bumps, he felt overly warm.

Dr. Mensah grabbed his arm. “Wait. We should go together.” She didn’t move, though. “Should we get an energy weapon from the hopper?”

“Stick close.”

He pulled away and crept along the clearing’s edge, staying low. He didn’t check to see if she followed him because it really didn’t matter. He had one goal. Get the chems. Yesterday had been bad enough and he hadn’t really been in withdrawals.

When he got closer, he darted from the treeline to one of the hoppers, using its bulk for cover. He ducked and wove around several stacks of crates and under the belly of the other hopper. From there it was just a short run to the habitat’s door, but it would be completely exposed.

In HubSys, he was able to access the camera but most were reporting lost connection or compromising damage. The exterior cameras were fine but there was absolutely nothing to see. The camera by the entrance was staticky, but he could make out what appeared to be a body.

A soft touch startled him. Dr. Mensah was crouched beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

“Are you able to reach anyone,” she asked.

“They’re dead.”

“What? How– What do you mean?”

“I am able to see a few of the camera feeds. Not clearly, but I am not seeing anything moving in there.”

“That doesn’t mean–”

“Allow me to clarify: I see what appear to be humans, or maybe constructs. None of them are moving.”

This mission was quickly going belly-up and it was all he could do to try and keep up. With DeltFall dead, he could drop that facade at least. The game was now survival.

“If you’re coming, stay low, move fast. You see the door? Head straight there. Inside is going to be bad. A lot of blood. It’ll probably smell, too.”

Dr. Mensah squeezed his shoulder once and dropped her hand.

One more quick check of the working cameras before sprinting to the entrance. She was right behind him. It was admirable, considering she really had no reason to not just get back in the hopper and leave. Brave but stupid.

Inside was worse than he’d expected. The body he’d seen was one of DeltFall’s Security Units covered in blood and lubricant, half of its head completely shorn off. Behind him, she made a strange gasping gagging noise.

He started forward but she grabbed his arm.

“Can you go back in the feed and see where SecUnit went?”

“Sure.” That was true. He could. But he wasn’t about to stand in a gore coated killbox looking for a construct. It either killed whatever was here and would return to its client or had failed and was of no use. “This way.”

The route to Medical took them through the comms center. Parts were still sparking and smoking. It had been shot repeatedly by projectile weapons; the strange response he’d gotten when sending his message quickly made sense.

They continued on, slowly edging down a long, curved hallway. Ahead, he could hear a voice but the words and speech pattern didn’t make sense. Then the crashing started. Energy weapons fired rapidly and heavy bodies slammed against the walls.

“SecUnit,” Dr. Mensah breathed its designation out and started forward.

This time he grabbed her and shook his head. She looked ahead again, then pulled away and went back the way they’d come. Good.

The med cooler was in the room across the hall. He’d load one of the specialized insulated bags with more than enough vials to see him through the end of this damn job and be right behind Dr. Mensah getting to the hopper.

Heavy steps were headed his way. Dr. Mensah struggled past carrying a mining drill.

Fucking free-holders!

There was more crashing and loud thud, then dragging sounds heading further down the hall.

He kept stacking boxes of vials in the bags until it was full. Forget syringes and all the other minutia. He could get it from the Preservation medical supplies.

As he was walking out into the hall, there was an explosion from the opposite direction he’d come in. Checking the cameras, he could see clearly a Security Unit with an unrecognizable insignia was firing at Dr. Mensah, while the Preservation Security Unit stood by, seeming to be unaware that its client was about to get killed.

Fuck his luck. Going out the main door, the one they had used would put him directly in the line of fire. But, maybe, if he followed the others and used the hole blown out the side of the habitat he’d be able to slip into the trees before the new Security Unit noticed. It was having trouble hitting its target - another item for the “weird shit on this mission” list - but he wasn’t going to let a turn in his fortune go to waste by over analyzing it.

Unfortunately, the Security Unit was not as inexplicably incompetent as it had appeared. It was playing with Dr. Mensah, herding her around the clearing. It also spotted him immediately and began firing one of its arm weapons his way while continuing to target Dr. Mensah with the other.

He ducked back into the habitat. Deities! It would be easier to think with a fresh dose of chems on board.

If he got a big enough projectile weapon, and managed to get it in here, aim it, and fire a round before the strange Security Unit noticed he might be able to hit it without it dodging out of the way. The Preservation Security Unit had had a large projectile weapon. He hadn’t noticed it on the way in but he hadn’t been looking, either. Maybe he could go back–

          <I/O Error>

          <Abort, Retry, Fail?_>

Chapter Text

<Abort, Retry, Fail?>

     <R>

<Retry…>

<I/O error>

<Abort, Retry, Fail? _>

     <A>

<_>

<CMD: _>

     <Reboot>

<Attempting Reboot>

<Initializing…>

His body felt disconnected. He could move his fingers but they felt a thousand miles away. Through closed lids, the room still seemed too bright, so he reached up to shield them. 

A hand caught his, and somewhere to the side a person spoke. He couldn’t make out the words; his auditory input was distorted and muffled. The voice was unrecognizable but his senses were unreliable at the moment.

He felt his chest tighten. Was this his handler? Had he fucked something up? Or, was it Anders and he’d taken too much again? 

Had he actually tried to go through with it? A thought he tossed around whenever there wasn’t enough work to keep his mind occupied and he was forced to sit alone in his tiny apartment, remembering the new lows he’d sunk to for The Company.

Backburning the repairs on his sensory augments, he frantically snatched at every scrap of memory, trying to piece together why he was wherever he was. He knew he was on an assignment, he remembered that. His objective. The DeltFall database and Brandt. He found what he was looking for, but not with DeltFall. A different corporation that Brandt had sent him to.

The headache wasn’t helping. He tried to pull away from the person holding his right hand but this only brought more muddy words and a hand gently rubbing his shoulder.

Not his handler.

Not Anders either. Probably.

He shifted his attention back to recalibrating his augments. With his visual input dialed down, the sharp pain in his forehead began to dissipate. He opened his eyes just a bit. The room was dim and blurry, as was the shadowy figure beside him.

The person squeezed his hand and jostled him a little by the shoulder. 

“Hey, that’s it, mate.” The voice seemed a bit familiar, but the syllables were stuck together.

A memory took shape. Eating a thick porridge by a fire pit.

It wasn’t another corporation that Brandt had sent him to. It was a free-hold. Preservation.

There had been others by that fire, arguing about how they preferred their hot cereal. 

“Novie, mate?” Dr. Ratthi. Eager but subdued.

Everything fucking hurt and the port in his neck felt like it was on fire.

He managed to gasp out, “Meds.” 

The stims would make the stinging in his port worse, but might relieve the chills and ache. The important thing was cutting off his withdrawal as soon as possible, then he could cut any pain with an analgesic.

“Yeah, we have your meds. We, uh, we didn’t know how much to give you, or how often. MedSys couldn’t help either so we just sort of waited…”

“How long?”

“I guess about two cycles. Mensah said she found you unconscious in the DeltFall habitat.”

More images flooded in with that piece of information.

DeltFall had been a blood bath. After the Security Unit near the main door, he’d compartmentalized the horror he was walking through, but his augments had recorded it all. Blood splattered across the smoking computer bank. Bodies strewn across the floor, some having fallen across others. 

Most of the massacre had taken place in the comms room. Or, at least, that was the area most concentrated. But he and Dr. Mensah had stepped over Brandt just inside the medical hall.

His free hand shook as he pressed against his temple. 

“Do you want me to get your medicine? If you tell me how much of what that you need, I can help.”

He nodded and Dr. Ratthi squeezed his hand.

“Vial, syringe, tourniquet. Alcohol swabs.”

“Ok.” Another squeeze before letting go. “I‘ll be right back.”

While Dr. Ratthi was away, mumbling to himself as he dug through drawers, he worked on restoring his visual input. And by the time the other man had returned with the requested items, he’d calibrated the brightness to a tolerable level. There was still some bleariness but, coupled with the continued auditory distortion, that could be chalked up to the migraine.

He tried to draw up a dose but his hands spasmed to the point he nearly dropped the vial.

With a soft murmur, Dr. Ratthi took the supplies back. He talked Dr. Ratthi through most of the steps, then MedSys stepped in for the injection.

He basked in sudden lightness and euphoria. It felt like liquid heat spreading through his shivering body. It felt good. So damn good. 

He wanted to lose himself in the wave, but when Dr. Ratthi had finished putting everything away, he pulled himself from the blissful drifting. He began running a diagnostic on all his systems.

“Dr. Mensah, she wasn’t killed?” 

“No, thank deities! Pin-Lee and Arada landed the hopper on the evil SecUnit - wish I’d been there to see it - and killed it.”

“Your Security Unit didn’t intervene?”

“Yeah, no. The evil SecUnit planted a combat override module in its port.” Dr.Ratthi’s voice had lost its excitement and was now morose and worried. “It managed to remove the module but I guess the information had downloaded already. It shot itself to keep it from hurting Mensah or the others. Ultimately you too, I suppose, I just mean you weren’t there right then.”

The systems summary report popped up.

Neural-OS // System Diagnostic Interface

User ID: Gurathin
Timestamp: 00:00:00 // Chronometer Sync: Disabled
Cognitive Access Level: Limited — Memory Partition Offline
Core Integrity: 71.8%

 

Primary Augment Status
Component	Status	Percentage	Details
Core integrity	Degraded	71.8% Functional	Structural cohesion stable, but efficiency reduced
Cognitive Output	Limited	24% Baseline	Secondary organic cortex handling decision routines
Processing Core	Partial function	Load: Moderate	Thread stability reduced; predictive model accuracy 47%
Memory Lattice	Offline	0% Accessible	Hardware isolation unconfirmed; external assistance required
Sensory Systems	Degraded	89% Average	Visual & auditory interfaces generating pain feedback loop
Medical Subsystems	Stable	100% Operational	Cardiac, hepatic, and renal augments within normal limits

 

SYSTEM SUMMARY // STATUS: DEGRADED

Risk index: HIGH

Directive: Reduce task load | Limit Sensory Input | External Diagnostic Required

 

Interesting. Whatever had disrupted his cranial implants hadn’t affected the medical augmentations in the rest of his body.

“Oh! They found another DeltFall survivor! LeeBee. Are you two close?”

“No.” That was the short answer. The full truth was that he was unable to access any data from his augments and was completely reliant on his organic brain. He preferred to bury himself in the feed and avoid human contact as much as possible.

“Ah. Uh, well, it will still be good to have each other. Camaraderie, shared loss, all that.”

He cut Dr. Ratthi off before the man attempted another stumbling backpedal. “Could I get some pain meds?”

“Yep! How much do you need? I think we have a couple of options. I’m not really sure what the differences are but MedSys can help with that.”

Pushing aside the full-body stiffness and ache, he got up. “That one is fine,” he said, taking a bottle from the collection on the counter.

“Mate, you shouldn’t be up! Wait, let me get you a cup of water!” 

Dr. Ratthi seemed stuck. Frozen between guiding back to the recovery platform or getting him something to wash the pills down. When he swallowed them dry, that was when the man truly broke, as if he couldn’t understand what he had just seen.

Ignoring Dr. Ratthi, he cupped both hands around the back of his neck to massage the muscles a little, relieve some of the pain. The heel of hand pressed down around his port and he gasped. 

“Careful! You had some kind of burn or sore there. We figured the evil SecUnit must have just barely missed you. You can’t see it now, but there must be bruising or something.”

He tried to imagine the trajectory that would have been needed. Had the other Security Unit even noticed him? He tried to remember but could visualize both scenarios. He needed to get his systems up and running at full capacity. Organic memory was highly unreliable, and his processing speed was plodding, at best.

He pulled his attention back to more urgent concerns, but started a list of questions to circle back to.

“You said the Preservation Security Unit killed itself..?”

“No, well, it shot itself and we thought it was dead, but Volescu suggested we put it in the cubicle just to be sure. It’s been recovering really well.”

Desperately, he reached out for the feed and found it. HubSys indicated repairs were at 97%. Taking it out of the cubical at this point would not hinder any of its functions. The team had been lucky their Security Unit had had some flaw in its coding or an unknown module in place that it had acted completely out of character for a construct. And these idiots were going to turn it back on and let it try again to kill them all.

He swore a long, muttered string of very uncharitable words in his first language and hurried for the door. Hospital gown be damned. He’d rather run through the habitat in an unseemly state of undress than die at the hands of a Security Unit in any type of clothing.

Dr. Ratthi caught him as he staggered off the door jamb. 

“Hey, Novie, slow down!”

“Novak.”

“Yeah, ok, Novak. Sorry. But you need to go back to Medical, mate. You just woke up and, honestly, I sort of figured you’d have fallen on your face by now.”

“They can’t reactivate it!”

“What? SecUnit?”

“Yes! The module is still in there.”

“No, it removed the module. Back at Deltfall.”

“It removed the delivery system, but you said the code had downloaded. You can’t switch it off and back on again and everything will be fine. The code is still there!” He was yelling, now. 

They were in the pseudo hallway, a segment wall that added structural integrity and separated the utilitarian labs, ready room, and Medical from the more comfortable lounge, systems, and kitchen.

“Novak,” Dr Mensah’s tone was gentle and low. “Darling, what is the matter?”

She was in one of the openings, Pin-Lee and Dr. Arada with her. Drs. Bharadwaj and Volescu had poked their heads out of the lab.

He took a deep breath and pushed the terror back into its little box. “Dr. Mensah, the Security Unit is compromised. If you reactivate it it will be rogue, and a rogue Security Unit means certain death.”

A slight keening sound came from the lounge area, and it caused Dr. Arada to turn away, making soft comforting sounds.

“Ratthi, go get Novak something to wear. Volescu and Bharadwaj, could you please help him back to Medical so he can get dressed in privacy? We’ll all sit down and have a talk then.”

Instead of returning to the med bay, he was talked into climbing the stairs to freshen up. He would have never agreed but, in the short time he had been with the Preservation team, he knew nothing happened without consensus. No one was going to activate the killing machine downstairs before having a good long talk.

He checked his systems recovery progress and made some slight adjustments to the code. Everything was on the rise except the memory lattice. He’d need to borrow an interface to get started on that. Then, he scoured MedSys for every last piece of his data and scrubbed it. Nothing had been pushed over to the other systems yet; he made sure of that, too.

By the time he stepped out into the hall he felt better. There were still gaping holes, but he’d regained his composure. 

The three Preservationists who had come up with him were waiting just outside the washroom door.

Dr. Volescu studied him before saying, “You look better. A nice warm shower fixes most things, or at least prepares you to deal with them.”

Ridiculous.

“Do you want to hold on to me while we go down?” Dr. Bharadwaj held her arm out.

“No.”  

No one moved and he was beginning to suspect that had been a politely packaged directive, then he remembered they were free-holders.

“Thank you.”

“Sure thing, buddy!” Dr. Ratthi clapped him on the back and led the way to where the others waited.

Chapter Text

In the lounge, Dr. Mensah sat with a pensive look. One knee crossed over the other, two fingers pressed to her lips. Pin-Lee was on a stool beside their wife, who was comforting a woman with blonde hair and deep circles under her eyes. Dr. Bharadwaj hurried over to the sofa and curled up on the woman’s other side. She and Dr. Arada both huddled closely, as if trying to shield her.

Dr. Ratthi had said a survivor had been found at DeltFall. It must be her, but his organic brain was coming up blank. 

Doubt flooded into his mind and he had to forcibly shove it aside. If his augments were working at full capacity he could have trusted the suspicion that she was not, in fact DeltFall, but without it… Truthfully, he only  remembered three people. Brandt he knew was dead, then there was Mihai, and finally a lab technician who had fallen silent and stared at him every time their paths crossed. But, she had long dark hair. This woman was blonde with a shorter, blunt cut. 

He sat in a chair directly opposite her.

“Novie, this is the woman I told you about. The other DeltFall member, LeeBee.”

“It’s LeeBeeBee.” The venom in those two words didn’t match her wide-eyed, tear-stained appearance.

Dr. Arada made small tutting noises and stroked the woman’s hair.

“Let’s discuss your concerns, first, Novak,” Dr. Mensah said. “You said we shouldn’t reactivate SecUnit. Why?”

He matched her calm, even tone. “Once a module is loaded into a construct the only way to get rid of it is to actually remove it. Or wipe the entire unit and start fresh, but that would require passkeys.”

“And you’re not fucking deleting it!” Pin-Lee was on their feet. “You can’t just lobotomize it!” 

“I recommend leaving it offline and activating your beacon.” 

“We’re not just abandoning our research without cause,” Dr. Bharadwaj argued.

“Everyone.” Dr. Mensah clapped her hands. “We are not activating the beacon and we are not deleting SecUnit. Novak, you said that the code. We noticed there are some wires, parts of the module still in its port. Dr. Volescu was going to remove those once SecUnit is repaired, and Pin-Lee was going to scan it for any malware. Would that be sufficient?”

“No. Removing the threads would be good, but not necessarily impact whether it immediately kills everyone or re-activation. And, considering I needed to fix your communications disruptions, as well as your general… unfamiliarity with Company technology, I have my doubts about their ability to identify the right code and remove it completely.”

“Asshole.” 

“Could you do it?” 

“Theoretically.”

“Will you try?”

He considered it for a few moments. His augments were already compromised, so, if the override module was coded to infiltrate any system it came into contact with, he wasn’t sure he’d have a strong enough firewall in place.

“Once Dr. Volescu removes the remnants of the module, I will use an interface to identify the malware. From there I will have to decide if it is advisable to proceed. If so, then, yes, I agree to hardwire to the Security Unit and remove the code.”

“Thank you, Novak.” 

She reached out to him, but he simply nodded at her.

“I’ll need to borrow an interface.”

To his shock, Dr. Mensah passed him hers without hesitation. He could have laughed at the sheer stupidity of it. Maybe “naivety” was more appropriate, but on the Corporation Rim was there really a difference? 

He plugged in and created a segregated workspace to troubleshoot his memory augment malfunction. The external device was significantly less powerful than his internal systems, but was not using all its spare power to shore up the other implants.

“It must be a relief to have a friend here with you after what happened.” Dr. Bharadwaj was addressing LeeBeeBee, but spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, I did just see our Security Units tear my entire team apart and lived in absolute terror among the dead until you all arrived and nearly shot me. But, yeah, I’m glad I’m not the only person who survived.”

His gaze flicked over to her. 

“I’m sorry! I just meant, if something like happened to me, having someone I knew with me would give me some comfort, at least.”

“We don’t know each other. I was just ancillary. I didn’t see many other people. Not that they pay attention to indentured workers. We might as well be bots.”

“That’s barbaric!”

“I didn’t have a choice. Not really. I want to get a baby license and this is the only way I can afford it.”

“A baby license?” Now, Dr. Arada had joined the conversation. “You have to have a license to have a baby?”

“Is there a specific amount you need to have to qualify? Maybe we could help? When we get back to Port FreeCommerce.”

“What do you mean ‘qualify?’” 

“Uh, well, they have requirements you have to meet before you are given the license, right? Boxes to check?”

“I know what ‘qualify’ means.” There was that sharp snap again, just a flash before more tears. “I mean, you don’t really do anything. Once you can afford the fee, they give you the license.”

Dr. Mensah pinged the group then, letting everyone know that Dr. Volescu was set up in Medical. 

He let himself lag behind, watching the others. They were clingy with LeeBeeBee, but he was starting to understand this was normal for the Preservation Alliance team. The strange thing was, she was leaning into it. Drs. Bharadwaj and Arada pulled her close and, not only did she not pull away, she basked in the attention.

The interface pinged. A report began populating, but he wanted to check on Dr. Volescu’s set up first. There was an arm with fine, articulated digits that was controlled by a pad built to enhance control during fine motor movements. Dr. Volescu was testing the sensitivity and giving adjustment instructions to Pin-Lee. A lens was situated to allow the operator to see the thread-like wires protruding from the Security Unit’s access port. He counted five tendrils but would need a better angle to make sure there weren't more.

Pin- Lee was watching him over Dr. Volescu’s hunched back, and he made it a point to meet their eyes, then let his gaze slide away again.

Everything seemed in order for now. He let Dr. Mensah know that, once Dr. Vollescu was satisfied that the configurations were satisfactory, he should be fine to attempt the extraction, but he reminded her that no further actions should be taken without his approval. Politely, of course. He was just an indentured systems engineer, after all.

He checked the report.

          External Diagnostic Interface

          User: Gurathin

          Access Port: AUX-MN/07

          Subsystem: Neural Memory Augmentation

          Connection Status: Hardline established- limited handshake

               >INITIATE SYSTEM CHECK

               [RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC . . . ]

               >>>STATUS: OFFLINE

               >>>RESPONSE: NULL

               >TRACE SINGLE PATH

               ERROR: Circuit integrity compromised

                    - Source: Electrical surge detected (localized to dorsal interface cluster)

                    - Damage pattern consistent with high-volatage discharge

                    - Surge propagated through memory core baseline

                    - Auto-isolation protocols engaged (SUCCESS)

                    - Data retention integrity: UNKNOWN

His eyes went to LeeBeeBee. 

Security Units didn’t use electric weapons. They could easily overpower a human, and for more lethal interventions they had energy weapons installed in their arms.

Another human, though, would use any advantage. 

He needed to get his memory augment functioning again.

          > RUN INTEGRITY TEST

          > Attempting handshake . . . 

               [Timeout: 5s]

               [Timeout: 10s]

               [Timeout: 15s]

          >>> Result: No ACK Received 

Dr. Volescu had extracted three of the wires. He was focused, staring hard into the magnifying lens, mouth moving slowly. The others were watching intently. Barely anyone was breathing. 

          > ERROR LOG SUMMARY 

               [ERR-3421] Memory module unresponsive to internal ping

               [ERR-3422] Sector map not accessible 

               [ERR-3425] Firmware flag set to SAFE_MODE_LOCK

               [WARN-1011] Neural feedback loop inactive 

               [WARN-1017] Power draw stabilized at baseline (0.03A)

               [SUGGESTION] Manual intervention required 

“That should be all of them.” Dr. Volescu leaned back, rubbing his eyes. “Want to take a look, Pin-Lee?”

They leaned over and peered at the Security Unit’s data port. After a moment, they stood back up and gestured at him to look as well. 

Their eyes scrutinized him. 

The port looked clear but he fished a penlight and probe from his kit to be sure. The port was damaged. There were scratches around the socket, and he could see bent and broken pins inside, but nothing from the override module remained.

He nodded and put his tools back away. “The port is clear.”

           > EXECUTE RECOVERY PROTOCOL?

                [1] Attempt soft reboot (Recommended)

                [2] Force reinitialization of firmware

                [3] Bypass damaged circuits and reboot in restricted mode

                [4] Abort (maintain isolation)

          > INPUT SELECTION _

He opened a new workspace and unclipped the hardwire from his port. All Company equipment had the same port connectors. It made things easier for the company, but anyone from outside would have to pay a hefty sum to acquire an adapter or appropriate cord.

Since the main port on the Security Unit was damaged, he accessed another one that was tucked in with the gun port in its arm. This caused Dr. Ratthi to momentarily lose focus on his concern for the construct and lean in for a closer look, rambling with rapt curiosity about how none of them had known there were other access points. Dr. Arada pulled her colleague back with a small tug up his sleeve.

Through the interface, he was able to study the code. It was insidious, covering its own tracks as it reprogrammed the Security Unit to identify its clients as hostiles. It was also very much present. Fortunately, it did not have an attack rider, so it would be safe for him to connect directly to it.

He closed his eyes and dimmed his auditory input to allow himself to focus more closely on his work. His fingers twitched as he worked; motor shadowing was a common habit for deeply augmented humans. Largely unnoticed by others around them as anything other than fidgeting, the small movements were involuntary side effects of processing a large amount of data within their heads instead of on some type of interface. 

The code was brutal and efficient. Elegant enough to hide itself unless someone already knew it was there and dug in deep, but well protected. Whoever was responsible likely hadn’t expected anyone to wire themselves to a rogue Security Unit. He was able to quickly begin dismantling the code and found himself struck with a recent recollection from his organic memory. 

It shot itself to keep it from hurting Mensah or the others. 

The footage of its face, talking calmly to Dr. Volescu as they climbed out of the crater together.

It insisted on pausing its repairs.

His patch to destroy the infiltrated code was running smoothly and didn’t require constant observation. He backburnered it and pushed into its memory logs pinpointing those moments and studying the metadata. 

At DeltFall, it had felt fear, confusion, and something not quite sadness. He found the megafauna’s attack and scrubbed back and forth through the recording. There were a lot of emotional tags in the metadata, in and of itself concerning. Security Units didn’t have emotions. They weren’t bots but they weren’t human either. On the second review, he noticed the message from MedSys directing the Security Unit to provide stabilizing care to the injured client. It hadn’t. It shouldn’t have had the option to dismiss that.

The governor module recorded the violation and correction but there was nothing he could find indicating the unit had received the correction.

It was rogue.

It had been rogue. The entire time.

He pushed deeper. He needed to know when that had happened. How it had happened. The Company wasn’t careful but to send a rogue unit out into the field? No, Preservation had to have done something to it.

The further he pushed the more terrifying the revelation of its status was. It had been years. He couldn’t tell exactly. The memories were becoming spotty from having been scrubbed on past missions, but there were still indicators of a lack of correction received.

Then, a memory so deeply ingrained, as if the Security Unit had reviewed it so many times a specific pathway had been formed, and he was there. Not viewing the memory from an outside perspective, but there. Surrounded by heat and fire, energy and projectile weapons firing all around as a cacophony of screams and sobs echoing through the cavern. He was walking down a corridor with arms outstretched and energy weapons firing indiscriminately. Fear so heavy it was hard to breathe.

Murderbot.  

He ripped the cord from his port. Gasping for air, he could feel his hands shaking in a way they hadn’t since, well, in a very long time.

Pin-Lee snatched the hardwire from his hand before he realized and connected it to their interface.

“The code looks like it’s been erased.” They pushed the report out to the PresAux feed channel. “I guess we just need to recycle and reboot, right?”

“No!” He stood quickly, then staggered a bit. “Not yet.”

A hand gently came to rest on his shoulder and he flinched. Dr. Mensah’s calm voice followed, asking, “Are you alright, Novak?”

“I just… Can I please have my wire back? I need to finish a couple of things first.”

He was managing to drag himself back to neutral standard. Deities, did he want something though. 

Pin-Lee handed the cord back with a glare that seemed to say, “I am watching you.” And they did. Even unable to see what he was doing, their presence felt larger than they actually were, looming behind him.

He double checked Pin-Lee’s assessment and found the hostile code was definitively gone. A reset and reboot should bring it back online as it had been before the trip to DeltFall. Not that it just being a rogue Security Unit instead of an infected rogue Security Unit was much comfort. He grabbed a report that he’d been running on the data the unit held as well as an analysis of its activities and began the reset process.

While it ran, he disconnected the wire from its arm port and connected himself back to Dr. Mensah’s interface.

“It is restarting.” 

From the corner of his eye, he could see Pin-Lee cross their arms. Across the room, LeeBeeBee’s eyes had gotten wider.

          > EXECUTE RECOVERY PROTOCOL?

                [1] Attempt soft reboot (Recommended)

                [2] Force reinitialization of firmware

                [3] Bypass damaged circuits and reboot in restricted mode

                [4] Abort (maintain isolation)

          > INPUT SELECTION _

               >>> [1]

          > EXECUTING SOFT REBOOT . . . 

          >Power cycling NMA-C17 core . . . 

          Power state: OFFLINE → STANDBY

          [ . . . signal latency: 312ms . . . ]

          Handshake established

          INITIALIZING . . . 

He wiped the interface of any trace of this workspace and passed it back to Dr. Mensah with a murmur of gratitude.

Dr. Ratthi shouted, “It’s awake!”

Dr. Bharadwaj shushed him, but there was no real bite to it. The mood of the room had pivoted completely as it filled with joy.

Dr. Mensah had moved near it and asked, “SecUnit, can you hear me?”

He said, “I had HubSys immobilize it.”

“You fucking what?”

“You can’t do that!”

“I know you mean well.” Dr. Menash spoke over the others in her quiet, yet powerful way. “That isn’t how we do things.”

“This unit was already rogue, well before even coming to this planet. It’s hacked it’s governor module.”

“Way to go, Seccy!”

Pin-Lee crossed their arms. “I find that hard to believe.”

“I have been noticing odd behaviors from it since I came here. It doesn’t have to follow your orders; there is no control over its behavior.”

“I think the fact that the Unit has been acting to preserve our lives, to take care of us, while it was a free agent, gives us even more reason to trust it.” Dr. Volescu was shaking his head slowly, disbelieving the danger.

“Somthing odd is definitely going on.”Dr. Mensah said, slowly. “There were only three SecUnits for DeltFall in their specs, but there were five units in their habitat. Someone is sabotaging us, but I don’t think our SecUnit is part of it.”

He could feel a migraine starting behind his left eye. If he could just get his memory working again then the majority of the questions fomenting in his mind would have answers. Had there been five Security Units, or three? Who was the woman glaring at him from across the room? Why were seven hundred hours of entertainment programming clogging this Security Unit’s files? Had The Company mentioned the shadow client being on world? The harder he chased down these answers the more his organic memory twisted the answers. He cupped his face in his hands. The ambient stimulation was getting to be too much again.

Outside of his head, the others were arguing. The Company couldn’t have told the Security Unit to kill them or it would have. Telling them about the combat module and shooting itself wasn’t in line with it wanting to hurt them.

“The Company isn’t trying to kill you.”

It had spoken. 

Dr. Mensah asked, “SecUnit, how do you know that?”

“Because, if the company wanted to sabotage you, they would have poisoned your supplies using the recycling systems. The Company is more likely to kill you by accident.”

“But surely that would—“

He cut Dr. Ratthi off. “This unit has killed people before, people it was charged with protecting. It killed fifty-seven members of a mining operation.”

LeeBeeBee gasped and pulled Dr. Bharadwaj in front of her.

“I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. My governor module malfunctioned because the stupid company only buys the cheapest possible components. It malfunctioned and I lost control of my systems and I killed them. The Company retrieved me and installed a new governor module. I hacked it so it wouldn’t happen again.”

That wasn’t true. At least, it didn’t feel true, thinking back to the horrors he’d just experienced. But, he couldn’t tell them that. The amount of augmentation he would need to have found that was more than anyone could tell, and would violate his contract if he let it slip.

Instead, he tried to redirect. “It’s downloading seven hundred hours of entertainment programming. Mostly serials. Mostly something called Sanctuary Moon. It could be using it to encode data or bury transmissions. It can’t be watching it, not at that volume. You would have noticed.”

“Seccy, have you seen the one where the colony’s solicitor killed the terraforming supervisor who was the secondary donor for her implanted baby?”

“She didn’t kill him, that’s a fucking lie.”

“It’s watching it!”

“Such a deep cut,” Pin-Lee confirmed. 

They were clueless and so easily distracted that it was agonizing.

Dr. Mensah cut in. “SecUnit, do you have a name?”

“No.”

“It calls itself ‘Murderbot.’” 

“That was private,” it snapped.

Good. Maybe they would finally start to see why he was so terrified. 

“Dr. Mensah, you don’t have to believe me just yet. Just, please, keep it immobilized a little longer.”

“That won’t work,” it said.

“And why is that?”

Then, he was against the wall, the Security Unit’s hand around his throat with just enough pressure to let him know there was no escape. They made eye contact across its outstretched arm.

“Because HubSystem lied to you when it told you I was immobilized.”

That wasn’t true. He hadn’t asked HubSys if it was immobilized, he had used HubSys to do it himself. The Security Unit had accessed HubSys itself and overridden his code.

“SecUnit, I’d appreciate it if you put Novak down.”

Its hand remained while it stared hard at him. “I don’t like you. But I like the rest of them, and for some reason I don’t understand, they like you.” And it released him.

Chapter Text

Leebeebee fled the room with a stifled wail, three members of the Preservation Alliance team following. As dramatic as Leebeebee’s reaction was, it was at least reasonable.

The remaining three members of the crew had surrounded the rogue Security Unit and we’re peppering it with questions. They had it cornered, seconds after it had displayed the ungoverned aggression, asking if it had a preference for the style of clothes it wore, and its favorite episode of that stupid show.

Dr. Mensah was apologizing for not having treated it better and made it feel safe enough to reveal its hacked status. Pin-Lee was swiping away on their interface ranting about “evil corporate bastards.”

No one paid him any attention as he placed the borrowed interface on the counter, the private diagnostic workspace scrubbed from existence. No one noticed as he palmed a packet of strong analgesics and slipped out, slinking up the stairs to his room. He slammed his personal locked code into place as the door shut.

The Security Unit hadn’t actually harmed him. He’d been held against the wall with no way to break free, but it hadn’t put any actual pressure on his throat. That was not reassuring; it felt like the construct had been played with him. But, at least he didn’t have to add a bruised trachea to the pounding migraine.

He popped two pills out into his hand. Deities, he wanted to crush them into a fine powder, scraped into a neat line, and just disappear into it. Powder left residue, though, and he wasn’t sure of his ability to clean up appropriately in his current state.

Instead, he chewed and swallowed one, then chewed up the second. He fell onto the bed with the coarse, bitter pieces dissolving under his tongue. It hit fast. Not incredibly strong at first, but the pressure in his head eased and his thoughts began to drift.

All of his systems were running their repair sequences and didn’t require any further input from him, so he allowed himself to settle deeper and deeper into the peaceful darkness. It wasn’t so much sleep as a numb unknowing, hard from the pain and disorienting sensory stimulation.

An urgent ping pulled him from the void. He took in the feed with blurry confusion. Dr. Mensah had pinged him several times in increasing frequency. He sent an acknowledgement ping back.

There had been a long conversation thread in the PresAux channel about how to proceed now, spanning two hours. The number of messages made his head begin pounding again. He wasn’t going to try to catch up. 

Dr. Ratthi had asked the group, he noticed, if anyone knew where he was. Others chimed in with concern about his silence.

By Corporate Rim standards, it would have been beyond strange for a low-tier technician to comment. Insubordinate.

There was a soft tap on his door, and the camera outside his room showed Dr. Mensah standing there with her hands tightly clasped under her chin. He ran the video back at double speed. She had first knocked nearly ten minutes before she sent her first ping, nearly thirty minutes before. Tapping into HubSys, he saw the Security Unit had gone to patrol the perimeter as soon as it had been able to dress in clothing more substantial than the paper gown it had been wearing in the medical bay.

He got up, shoved the medication packet into his tool kit, and took a deep breath. He’d allowed himself to slip earlier, saved from suspicion by the naïveté of the free-holders. He’d been lucky.

With the carefully crafted "Corporate Neutral” mask back in place, he told the door to unlock and open.

“Ah, Novak! Is everything alright? We weren’t sure where you’d gone and when you weren’t responding in the feed, well, you had us all a bit worried.”

“My apologies, Dr. Mensah, for causing you and your team concern. Some of my augmentations needed to be recalibrated.”

“Do you need any help? I’m sure Pin-Lee or Volescu will be happy to do anything they can.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“Alright. Good. Good.” Dr. Mensah paused, uncertainly clearly displayed on her face and the way her hands fidgeted.

He ran a new diagnostic test and received a clean report. 

“We had been discussing what we should do now, but we wanted to make sure you had a voice as well.”

“I agree with the consensus.”

“Oh, well, you have the right to hear all sides and share any concerns you might have…”

“Thank you, Dr. Mensah, but the conversation in the feed appears comprehensive. I think launching the beacon is the right choice.”

She nodded and reached out to touch his arm. “You probably haven’t eaten much today; we all were starving. It’s nothing special, just flatbread with an assortment of proteins and vegetables, if you’d like to come down.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mensah,” he said, dipping his head.

He couldn’t imagine what she would come up with to try to coax him down if he turned down the food, but it would probably involve Dr. Ratthi bringing an overloaded tray to his room.

He began a three pronged search through the DeltFall manifest.

     [MEMORY QUERY : PERSONNEL_MANIFEST]

     Input

        > Image: 9FC3-P63O-0D3N-FH85

        > Name: “Leebeebee”

        > Title: “Ancillary”

        > Status: Indentured 

     RUN QUERY . . .

Down in the common area, Dr. Mensah laid a hand on his shoulder. “I have talked with Novak about our situation and, after reviewing our conversation, he agrees to our plan to launch the beacon.”

“Fucking finally!” Pin-Lee ignored their wife’s gentle attempts to calm them. “Let’s get this ball rolling then. We just have to press the button, right?”

“I think we should do it together,” Dr. Bharadwaj said.

The rest agreed. Of course they did. He was beginning to believe that a key pillar of Preservation society was finding the most complicated way to accomplish the simplest of tasks.

When Dr. Arada unfolded her legs to stand, Leebeebee clutched her sleeve tightly and whimpered.

“I’ll be with you all in spirit.” Dr. Arada sat back down and clasped Leebeebee’s hand with both of hers. 

As repulsed as he was by the whiny, grasping neediness, Leebeebee did provide him the precedent to also decline. However, he thought his performance was far more nuanced. 

He swayed ever so slightly, just enough for Dr. Mensah to feel. When she glanced at him, he had his eyes closed, fingers lightly rubbing at his temples.

“Oh, darling, you need to eat! Do you want someone to help you?”

“No, thank you, Dr. Mensah. I’ll be fine.”

“Go to the kitchen. It should all still be laid out for you. Make what you would like.” Then, with a pat, she left him.

He checked on his search and was unsurprised by the information.

     RESULT:

        > Image: NO MATCH

        > Name: NO MATCH 

        > Title: NO MATCH 

        > Status: 1 MATCH

              > Novak

From the cluster around the computer bank, Dr. Ratthi announced that he’d let their Security Unit know they were about to launch the beacon. HubSys showed it was still standing on the edge of camp.

The Preservation team counted down. They had their hands stacked on top of each other and pressed down together.

“That was anticlimactic,” Pin-Lee complained.

Dr. Volescu asked, “Shouldn’t we receive some sort of acknowledgment? It’s sort of odd that we would have no idea if the emergency beacon launched, isn’t it?”

“I’ll see if I can see it,” Dr. Ratthi announced. He sprinted to the door. “It’s south of here right?”

“Yes,” Pin-Lee called after him, “but you are pointing west!”

“I’m not sure he heard you, babe.”

On second thought, perhaps Preservation Alliance teetered on a single tenant: chaos. 

He tapped HubSys again. Then, hoping that there had been a glitch in the system communications, he checked SecSys. The beacon hadn’t launched.

I don’t see anything, Dr. Ratthi messaged.

Pin-Lee began pushing the button rapidly, then slamming it with their fist. “Deities-damned, motherfucking, Corpo piece of absolute rat shit!”

Dr. Volescu sent: Pin-Lee’s trying again. Anything?

Nothing.

The mayhem was mounting. Pin-Lee’s continued pounding and shouting was winding Leebeebee up more. Dr. Mensah had Dr. Bharadwaj in her arms while trying to discuss troubleshooting the connection with Dr. Volescu. The noise was building as multiple people competed to be heard over each other.

His migraine was coming back. Chewing another tablet, he messaged Dr. Mensah in their private channel.

If I hardwire in, I may be able to override or recode whatever is blocking the signal. At the very least, I will be able to provide a definitive explanation for the failure.

She responded immediately. Please!

Aloud, she managed to sound almost stately as she commanded Pin-Lee to stop and give him room to work.

Unfortunately, the reason was easily discovered and impossible to override.

“It’s not connected.”

Dr. Ratthi had rejoined them in the habitat and stood behind Pin-Lee, a hand clamped on either shoulder. This was fortunate.

They lunged forward. “What the fuck do you mean it’s not connected?”

With a small flick of his fingers, he sent the workspace to the largest screen. 

“When the company set up the habitat, a test ping was sent. You can see that a response ping was received from the beacon, here. But, when a ping is sent now…” His attempt showed on the screen. “There is no reply.”

Dr. Mensah asked, “Is it like at DeltFall? The ping, how did you describe it? Dissolving?”

“This is different.” Another twitch and the screen zoomed in. “The large spike is my ping, the smaller ones are the echo. At DeltFall, the message was, essentially, received but fell apart before the code could be translated into words. Here, there is a dead end. There is nowhere for the code to go so it bounces, for lack of a better term.”

“Did we do something wrong when we moved the communications array?” Dr. Bharadwaj’s voice was soft. “Was there something we didn’t connect right?”

Pin-Lee cut in before he could answer. “Hold on, how do you know that it’s a physical thing? Could there be a problem with the coding or something? Somehow, the computer thinks there is nothing attached, but it really is?”

“There wouldn’t be a bounce. If the program code was damaged, the system wouldn’t try to send the message. Besides,” he hurried on so they couldn’t interrupt, “this is the program at the time of the initial check and this is the code now. They are the same. I did drill down to check for any tampering that may have been covered up, but even the metadata is identical.”

He sent all of it to screen, letting it scroll through, side-by-side.

“Dr. Bharadwaj, to answer your question, the beacon is completely separate from the communications array. This isn’t due to an accident.”

An alert, just a small nudge from HubSys, let him know the Security Unit was returning to the habitat.

“It is possible that a signal could be sent from much closer to the beacon. There are firewalls in place that make it very difficult to trigger the beacon without a hard wire, but it could be done.”

“Sorry, can we just go back to the part where the Company is trying to kill us,” Pin-Lee asked. 

“The Company isn’t trying to kill you.”

He’d never realized how quiet Security Units could be. Granted, he hadn’t had a lot of first-hand experience. 

The others jumped, and Leebeebee made a sharp, strangled sound. He could see her reflected in one of the unused screens, burrowing deeper into Dr. Arada’s arms. There was a small moment of satisfaction for him, knowing that had likely been an authentic reaction from her. 

Dr. Mensah told the Security Unit the plan to launch the beacon, and that the attempt had failed. She explained what he had just told them, that there was physical damage interrupting the message, that the company had checked everything before departing, and that nothing in HubSys seemed to have been altered.

Hardwired, he could feel it enter HubSys, sliding through the feed. It left no trace and only a gentle brush as it went.

“What makes you so sure the Company isn’t behind this?” Pin-Lee had their arms crossed.

“The Company forced you to take out a sizable insurance policy before permitting you to leave Port FreeCommerce.” It wasn’t asking. “Considering that Dr. Mensah is a planetary leader, this would have had a higher deductible and payout.”

“So, the Company would lose more by killing us…”

“Yes.”

“Then, who? Aside from DeltFall, we're the only people on this planet.”

He felt it slide past again, then pause.

“Ow!” It had stung him. A sharp, electric spike that felt like it stabbed out from his augments into his organic matter.

“Sorry, I didn’t feel you there.”

It had and it had very much intended to inflict pain. The asshole.

“Technician Novak is correct,” it said. “There is physical damage to the connection between the habitat and the beacon. I can take a hopper closer and trigger it.”

Dr. Mensah asked, “Will that work?”

“Yes,” it answered. 

“Maybe,” he corrected.

He dropped out of the feed and disconnected before the Security Unit could “accidentally” bump into him again.

“An augmented human would likely not be able to bypass the firewalls, but my processing abilities are far more advanced.”

“Which is only effective if the beacon hasn’t been further sabotaged.” 

“Alright,” Pin-Lee said, “then I am going to ask again: who could have done it?”

“Maybe DeltFall had done something? They would have had an opportunity since we literally invited them here. No offense, mate.”

Dr. Ratthi’s suggestion was not offensive in the least, even as he felt all eyes shift to him.

“That would be counterintuitive.” He shifted from watching Leebeebee’s reflection to observing her from the camera pointed directly at her face. “You were competition to DeltFall, but not much. No offense; a free polity is out of its depth. You hadn’t even brought a technician. If DeltFall wanted you gone they could have simply declined to send me to assist and leave you to either activate your beacon, or fall prey to the fauna.”

“But they did send you.” Pin-Lee was not as gentle in their suspension. “Why?” 

“As I said, they likely weren’t worried about you. In a way, you’d even be helpful. Whatever research you were able to complete they could buy after the survey was over. DeltFall isn’t a large corporation, but they have solid backing and would have been almost assured to outbid you for any further development.”

“And we’re back to my first question. Again.”

“The Company took a bribe.” It was impressive that, without knowledge of there having been an interested third party, the Security Unit made the connection.

“But, you just said -“

“Not to kill you. There is a third entity on this planet. The company took a bribe to hide them from you and DeltFall.”

Leebeebee had stilled, listening carefully. 

The pieces had slid into place as soon as his memory review had been completed and she had just confirmed it. Now, the real game started.

“And,” he said pointedly, “an entity as calculating and vicious as the one that attacked DeltFall wouldn’t leave an opening for you to trigger the beacon remotely. It would leave the only options to be to trigger it at the source, or wait until the scheduled pickup.”

“There isn’t a delay, is there,” Dr. Bharadwaj asked softly. “The beacon launch would be immediate, right? So whoever went to launch it directly would… The launch would -“

“Incinerate them,” Dr. Ratthi finished.

“I will take the small hopper.” The Security Unit was still suggesting that it launch the beacon. “You can take the large hopper and go somewhere safe until the Company comes for you.”

The explosive negative response was dulled to muted background noise. Deities! Leebeebee was so far out of her depth.

The corner of her mouth twitched, unable to push down her pleasure as Dr. Mensah stated that the Security Unit would not be going anywhere alone. If it went to the beacon, so would she.

“It’s rigged to explode, isn’t it?” He wasn’t addressing Leebeebee directly, hadn’t even turned away from the screens. “The Security Unit was rogue before it was forced to receive the combat override module so it disabled itself to prevent another massacre. I imagine the other entity hardly had time to begin planning their next move without a scapegoat before your unit was repaired and functioning properly again. Well, not properly.” 

Dr. Mensah spoke deliberately, asking, “But, how would whoever this mystery company is -"

“EvilCorp.”

“Thank you, Ratthi. How would ‘EvilCorp’ know what was happening here?”

“The same way they knew what was happening at DeltFall. They had a spy. Perhaps someone pretending to be a Preservation Survivor.” The damned Security Unit had the finesse of a loader bot.

“And DeltFall just let them in? Why would they do that without checking?”

“You did.” 

Leebeebee had shifted, one hand no longer visible.

Fuck it. There wasn’t time to get the PresAux team onside.

He threw the personnel query and result into the Security Unit’s feed and, with a twitch sent everything to the screens.

The entire panel lit up suddenly, successfully pulling all attention. The insignia from the “EvilSecUnit,” the entirety of the DeltFall manifest with names and images, his memory check.

It was far too much for a human to process in a single second, but it was enough of a distraction to keep Leebeebee from pulling a weapon. And, for a Security Unit, a single second was more than sufficient.