Archive of Our Own

In order of ascending priority, I am returning to the alien-remnant-contaminated planet with Murderbot 1.0 for the following reasons:

1. I have nothing else useful to do.

2. 1.0 continues to experience malfunctions that may compromise whatever mission it is assigned. (Or assigns itself.) (It refuses to explain the nature of these malfunctions.)

3. The colonists have sent word of an agricultural bot displaying erratic, threatening behavior near their largest settlement.

4. I disabled my governor module so I would not have to stand around while others died.

I review this list for the nineteenth time as I sit behind the shuttle’s controls. I don’t touch them; the transport Perihelion is piloting us, and I am required only as a fail-safe. This will also be true when we reach the surface.

I have no objection to this. I am worried enough about our mission without leading it. This planet has already taken my team and 2.0 from me; if it takes anything else, I…

(1.0 is still without armor and refuses to accept mine.)

(Perihelion has not issued any further threats, but it doesn’t have to. I know what 1.0 means to it, as well as to its assorted humans. I don’t understand, but I know.)

(I understand very little these days.)

…I will be forced to find out how this sentence ends.

Behind me, 1.0 is silent, sealed behind the visor of its inadequate environmental suit, watching media. Because this strategy has apparently helped it survive as a rogue SecUnit, I am following its example. As usual, we have accepted each other’s video feeds, and we do not speak. (Dr. Ratthi once called this practice “parallel play.” I told him that SecUnits don’t play. He asked if I wanted to bet, then cautioned that my agreement would itself constitute defeat. I wonder if Perihelion only agrees to transport humans who are as strange as itself.)

1.0 is watching a drama called Written in the Stars. Like much of the media it has shared with me, it is confusing and stressful, full of shouting, crying humans and improbable events, so I have backburnered it. Instead, I am allocating my attention to (1) our trajectory toward the planet (ETA: 6:13 minutes) and (2) an educational program from Perihelion’s archives about avian fauna on the planet of New Tideland.

The program follows a pair of orange-and-blue birds whose coloration, I learn, warns predators of their toxicity. Their long, trailing tails look impractical, but the narrator informs me that the shape allows the birds to perform complex aerial maneuvers while hunting prey. They are now building an elaborate nest. It takes several days and a wide variety of materials, and when they stop for the night, one begins to comb its beak through the other’s feathers. At first this concerns me, but the narrator explains that the birds are immune to their species’ toxins. This allows them to not only clean and maintain their own feathers but help each other do the same.

I see the value of this adaptation: SecUnits 01 and 02 were once an important part of my maintenance routine. 02 was especially good at extracting debris lodged in ports. Its fingers were deft and far more gentle than required. Often, as we tended to each other, we passed data back and forth: sharing, organizing, analyzing. This was usually when the humans took their rest period, so we were alone together, interlaced in both the feed and our bodies.

“As well as cleanliness, grooming is a ritual of social bonding for many animals, and tassel-tailed skydancers are no exception,” the narrator says. “In caring for one other, they communicate trust, care, safety, and belonging—all without speaking a single word.”

I watch the bird being groomed close its eyes. For no identifiable reason, my performance reliability is sinking. I run a diagnostic, but it comes up clean.

I pause the program.

Then I close the channel it was playing in.

Then I delete the file.

ETA: 3:02 minutes. The bot-pilot proceeds without issue. I continue to be redundant.

I pull up the channel with 1.0’s media, where I can feel Perihelion lurking. The show concerns an indentured family whose contract repeatedly changes hands, leading the members from planet to station to moon as they are assigned to various labor installations. This plot device offers the showrunners an inexhaustible selection of settings, conflicts, and supporting characters. (Several days ago I asked Perihelion for a guide to the vocabulary and devices of fictional media. I enjoyed the resources it provided more than the fictional media itself. 1.0 said this is because I am a nerd. Before I could ask what a nerd was, Perihelion sent both of us a definition. It then highlighted a section of the text while pinning 1.0 with its equivalent of a stare. 1.0 immediately took their conversation to a private channel.)

At the moment, the youngest character is watching the ship holding the rest of her family detach from the station she stands on. Their contracts have been split. At first she is stoic, but soon her face distorts and she begins hyperventilating. Her cries start as whimpers but grow until she sounds like she is being disciplined with topical sulfuric acid.

My performance reliability, which briefly stabilized, is dropping faster than before.

On the ship, the child’s mother is reviewing the updated contracts. Finding a loophole, she leaps up and runs toward the officers’ quarters to bang on the door. A minute later, the child sees the ship break from its charted course and begin to turn. As it approaches the station again, her cries quiet, and she looks up with wide, wet, hopeful eyes.

This is unrealistic. No lifelong indenture would have the legal background necessary to fully understand their contract. Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. The ship would never turn around. There would be nothing the passengers could do but stand there as their loved one was lost to them forever.

I close the file. I close 1.0’s channel. I run another pointless diagnostic. The surface of the planet is coming into focus, stubbled with human habitations.

1.0 and Perihelion simultaneously ping me for a status report. I tell them everything is fine.

Maybe I am also malfunctioning. I have been rogue for much less time than 1.0 has, but 1.0 is also much better at being rogue than I am. It’s possible that SecUnit design is incompatible with freedom. I don’t know what I will do if that is the case. Many people are invested in 1.0’s well-being, but even they may not be able to fix it. It’s improbable that anyone will try so hard to fix me.

These thoughts are not productive. To stanch my hemorrhaging performance reliability, I shut down nonessential processes and redouble my attention on the shuttle’s navigation. This mission will not fail because of me.

When we land, we are met by a colony mechanic/technician (feedname Malak, gender androgynous), who tells us that the suspect ag-bot abandoned its assigned duties several weeks ago and has been occupying a cave, stealing supplies, and acting “scary.”

1.0: “Scary how?”

Malak: “Have you seen them? I’ve been working with them for months, and they still give me the wibblies. Don’t get me wrong, they’re incredible machines, don’t know what we’d do without them, but when they’re standing over you, three stories tall, with all those legs…”

1.0: “I mean, what was it doing?”

Malak: “Oh. I heard it attacked some kids.”

1.0: “Did they survive?”

Malak: “Oh, yes. They managed to run away.”

Pause. I wonder if 1.0 is remembering the speed of the ag-bot that nearly killed it. Or the other ag-bot that also nearly killed it.

1.0: “We need to talk to the witnesses.”

Malak: “Is that really necessary? They’re just kids, and I think they’re in lessons.”

1.0: “Yes.”

It takes some persuasion and thirty-seven minutes for Malak to produce the humans in question (feednames Nova and Michi, gender female). They look old enough to care for themselves without supervision but young enough to find a way to die anyway, and this impression is confirmed by the interview.

Malak: “Don’t push too hard, okay? They’ve had a traumatic experience, and talking about it might upset them.”

1.0: “Fine. So what did you—”

Michi: “It. Was. Crazy. We were exploring the fields near the granaries, looking for flowers and rocks and bugs and stuff, only Nova was bored, so—”

Nova: “Don’t blame it on me. It was your idea. Next time you say, ‘I have the best idea,’ I’m going straight home.”

Michi: “I was about to say that I suggested we check out the caves by the northeast cliffs. Technically we’re not supposed to because they’re kind of high up and the rock is crumbly, plus they smell bad, but I knew we could do it and that there’d probably be lots of cool bugs.”

Nova: “I did find a really pretty beetle.”

Michi: “You should show them.”

Nova: “I don’t have a good picture yet. It keeps hiding under the woodchips.”

Michi: “It’s still in the tank, right? What are you feeding it?”

Nova: “I figured—”

1.0: “Please tell me what happened at the caves.”

Michi: “I was getting to that. Remind me to tell you my food idea later, Nov. Anyway, we climbed up fine, just like I thought, and we went in the biggest hole so we didn’t have to crawl, and it was crazy deep, way deeper than I thought, only we didn’t even get to see all of it. It branched pretty quick and we took the left and went down this really steep slope, and then when we went around the corner—”

Nova: “Two corners.”

Michi: “Was it?”

Nova: “For sure. There were two corners.”

Michi: “Okay. When we went around the second corner, there was the loudest, craziest sound, like [untranscribable vocalization (lengthy, alarming)], and then it came at us out of the dark. It was all folded up on itself to fit in the tunnel and it had like five million legs and it moved like lightning and it was covered in blood and its eyes were bright red—”

1.0: “Ag-bots don’t have eyes.”

Michi: “Sensors. Whatever.”

Nova: “They weren’t red. You made that up.”

Michi: “I did not. You just didn’t get a good look. The light was bad, but I was closer.”

1.0: “Hold on, you said you were deep in the cave. Was this a light you brought with you?”

Michi: “No, it was spur of the moment, like I said, so we didn’t bring anything. But it was okay because it wasn’t totally dark. Maybe there was another opening just past that thing. Anyway, I drew a picture. Want to see?”

She doesn’t wait for a reply before flashing an image into the feed. The anatomy of the bot it depicts is mechanically improbable, and it appears to be performing a particularly athletic folk dance. Michi’s crooked signature is embedded in a glistening, jagged spike.

Michi: “It was straight out of a nightmare. I almost peed my pants. Hands down the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

1.0: “So why are you alive?”

Malak coughs disapprovingly. 1.0 pretends not to notice.

Michi: “Well, we turned and ran faster than we’d ever run in our lives. We barely made it back up the slope in time because it was all crumbly, and then when we got out of the cave, we kind of fell a little and got scraped up. Do you want to see my—”

1.0: “No.”

Michi: “Oh. Well, that was it. It stayed inside, and Dad said I can’t go back.”

At this, 1.0 makes a facial expression. Unfortunately, it is visible, as the environmental suit’s visor is transparent. It seems to struggle to come up with a response, perhaps because it has deleted some of its buffer phrases, so I take over. “Are you aware of any other witnesses or casualties?”

All three humans shake their heads. I tag both the described route and the comment about bloodstains as suspect, though nonhuman animals remain possible victims.

Malak is rambling now, saying that they feel terrible about the whole thing, that they studied the contamination risk but “thought it would never happen to my bots.” I tap 1.0’s feed. When it indicates it wishes to end the interview, I say, “Thank you for that information. Please do not approach the caves again.”

We leave the humans after receiving the cave’s approximate coordinates. For three minutes we walk in silence, 1.0 ahead of me in its flimsy environmental suit. Then it sends to me, Those kids should’ve died.

By now I know 1.0 well enough to take this statement in the sense it was intended. I respond, Hypothesis: The contamination has impaired the ag-bot’s motor control.

No way we’re that lucky.

Perihelion, who is of course observing, says, It’s not impossible, though no other affected bots have shown that symptom.

Could it be trapped in the cave? 1.0 asks. Maybe the tunnel used to be wider, and then part of it collapsed.

Also possible, says Perihelion dryly. Good thing you have that recall beacon, in case you want to get trapped in there as well.

Don’t be a dick. Obviously I’m not going to use it inside the cave unless I have to.

Obviously. My concern is your definition of “have to.”

As they bicker, I look at the recall beacon in question, which is slung from 1.0’s shoulder, loaded with its single remaining explosive. It has been worrying me since we learned of the ag-bot’s location. I know that 1.0 does not want to be buried alive any more than I do. I also know that it is a SecUnit, and it will do what it believes necessary for the mission.

As we continue walking, the human settlement’s jumbled concrete-and-metal rectangles are replaced by expanses of low, reddish flora like rusting steel wool and scattered outcroppings of jagged pale stone. From these sprout pale, skeletal plants two to four meters tall, feathery foliage barely tinged with green. Smaller plants are interspersed, the kind that humans call “weeds” due to their lack of utility and insistent survival. I catalog each type of vegetation for future review, sometimes pausing and repositioning myself for better visuals. I am not under the impression that I am likely to need this information for security on this planet or any other, but I developed a theory during my deployment with SecUnits 01 and 02, when we invented elaborate rationales for the mission relevance of certain data so we could share it with one another during human rest periods. My theory is that sometimes the uselessness of a piece of information is what makes it precious.

I’m not sure if I will be able to defend this position to 1.0, but it does not question my behavior.

When we reach the provided coordinates, we find that the cliffs are steep and stony but relatively low. The uneven rock face and cascades of that same rusty vegetation conceal the cave mouths several meters above our heads, but my drones, which we are sharing, find them quickly. The third opening from the left is the largest.

Two drones enter. As they follow the path that Michi described, their auditory sensors detect only the distant drip of water and tiny organisms scurrying in the dark. Through their cameras, I search for movement but see none. This does not reassure me. The passage is craggy, walls pitted and furrowed with depressions that swallow the cave’s scant light, and inside them, details and depth are lost.

Abruptly, a drone is gone. Its partner doesn’t even have time to turn and look before it, too, vanishes from the feed.

I ping them to no response. I can feel 1.0 doing the same, but it’s useless. For almost four seconds, we stand there in silence, our remaining drones in a holding pattern as we stare up into the cave’s dark mouth.

Well, that’s a great start, 1.0 says. I check its face through a drone to see if the sarcasm makes it feel better (I am considering trying it myself), but I can’t tell.

The stone may be blocking the feed connection, says Perihelion.

That’s possible. It would be highly inconvenient, but I find myself hoping for it over the alternative.

1.0’s mouth pulls tight. It shrugs off the heavy projectile weapon it is carrying and checks it, then the recall beacon, with sharp, efficient movements. I do the same with my onboard weapons, extra ammunition, and pouch of crowd-control poppers.

Ready? 1.0 asks. I confirm. Then let’s go.

The young humans were correct that the rock is crumbly and steep, but that does not pose a significant barrier. At the mouth, visual examination reveals no immediate threat, and 1.0 leads the way inside after a microsecond of hesitation. Our remaining drones stay close.

Perihelion gave us filters to avoid contamination through the feed, but it advised us not to risk scans. Complying leaves me twitchy and blind, and I redirect the excess processing to my remaining inputs. The air smells musty, the ground uneven under my feet. Lichen crusts the walls where the sunlight reaches, and I send my drones for a closer look: It is like fire, ragged mats of red and orange with thousands of curling tongues. Those patches alternate with recessed shadows. I catalog it all, even though none of it could hide an ag-bot.

As we walk deeper into the tunnel, we hear nothing but our footsteps. Flashes of movement belong to small invertebrates, some with sleek dark shells, others nearly translucent with long, segmented bodies. Teams of spindly legs dart them from shadow to light and back again, and I wonder if they are gathering data about us as well. How do they perceive us? Do they understand us as living beings?

We reach the first major fork and take the left, sinking deeper into the hillside. Sunlight fades as the walls close around us, but it’s replaced by something else: a dim, diffuse glow, uneven and tinged slightly green. It seems to come from the stone itself, radiating from crevices and half smothered by layers of debris, but my drones can’t confirm the source.

I ping 1.0 with my readings, and it acknowledges.

The tunnel winds on. Our connection with Perihelion weakens and begins to stutter. Halfway through reminding us how displeased it will be if it has to send drones to dig us out from the rubble, it disappears, and 1.0’s tension cinches tighter.

Our drones fan out to scout the surroundings, but if we let them stray too far, we risk losing connection with them as well. As a result, they show us little we can’t see with our own eyes. Auditory data is no better: We hear only our own movements, magnified and multiplied by the close, hard walls. Something is dripping slowly in a passage to our right. Above us, something winged and warm blooded chitters in the dark.

Watch for the missing scouts, 1.0 sends me. If we can reconnect—

Something crunches beneath its boot. It steps back, and we both look down at the remains of a drone.

The tiny machine has been sliced in half.

In that same moment, another drone rounds a corner ahead. There the light brightens, and the passage opens into a chamber. The drone glimpses a confusion of color, something strange and textured streaked across the floor, but before it can approach, before the view can even stabilize, it winks out of existence as suddenly as the others.

Then the bot is on us.

I see the deep crack it was hiding in too late, but even if I had noticed it earlier, I would have thought it too small to hold something so large. The bot’s many-jointed limbs, lined with flattened spikes, are accordioned down into thick, pleated bundles. Now those limbs unfold and launch it forward, using not just the floor but the walls and ceiling as springboards. Its head juts toward us on a long, curved neck, and though it has no organic facial features, I am strongly reminded of a predatory fauna that has identified a meal.

(Nova was correct: Its sensors are not red. Some are colorless lenses set flat on its head; others, raised on flexible stalks, have the same metallic sheen as its carapace. But all of it is bathed in that faint green light.)

A limb snaps out to its full length and shears a drone in two. Even as the input vanishes, another limb shoots toward us, spikes flaring and joints unfurling with a series of rapid clicks. I dive to one side, 1.0 to the other. Before the limb can retract, 1.0 grabs and twists it until it breaks at the nearest joint. The bot sets off a raucous alarm that ricochets off the cave walls, forcing me to tune down my hearing.

Both of us are firing projectiles as the bot attacks again. One glances off its carapace and others break off a pair of spikes, but that doesn’t stop a limb from ripping through 1.0’s useless environmental suit and cracking its visor. Even as it’s forced backward, I feel 1.0 trying to hack the bot’s feed through Perihelion’s filter, but the hostile system is locked down too tightly.

Before we reached the cave, 1.0 and Perihelion agreed that we would bait the ag-bot toward the entrance so 1.0 could use the explosives without burying us alive. But the bot is not cooperating with this plan. When we retreat, it doesn’t follow; instead, it whips four limbs across the ground, flinging a wave of damp earth toward us. Pebbles rattle across my visor amid a splatter of muck.

As we can still see through our drones, I am not concerned until I hear a hacking noise behind me. A drone spins to find that the dirt has entered 1.0’s eyes, nose, and mouth through its damaged suit. It stumbles and coughs, fluid streaming from its eyes.

I fall back further, guarding it with my body and firing at another limb that arcs toward us. My projectile punches a hole in its shovel-like tip.

As I clear my visor with my other arm, 1.0 spits mud and regains its composure, shutting its eyes and leaning more heavily on the drone inputs. It sends me an all clear.

The ag-bot snatches another drone from the air, and both of us feel it go dark. In the feed, I sense a surge of anxiety from 1.0 as it loses another of its dwindling inputs. Then it pushes the feeling away, redistributes its processes, and resumes its attack.

1.0 is resilient, I remind myself. It is capable.

And it still has no. Fucking. Armor.

(I am experimenting with profanity for the purpose of emotional catharsis. Results are thus far inconclusive.)

Request permission to approach the target, I send, shoving a bundle of tactical calculations through the feed. The bot is showing no interest in following us back to the exit, and there is very little chance of incapacitating it with projectiles alone without point-blank access to its processors.

Fine.

I rush inward, dodging a limb that swings for my legs and shooting another off near the root. They thicken into a bristling forest, and instead of weaving through, I leap on top of one, landing between a pair of spikes. I swing to a higher joint and then jump to the next, moving too fast for the bot to pluck me free. Adjusting my vision filters and warning 1.0, I launch a handful of poppers. The ag-bot lurches, disoriented by the burst of light and sound, and I ride the turbulence.

I am two meters from the bot’s core when one of my remaining drones threads through the thicket of limbs and spills out into the chamber beyond.

There, two questions are answered at once.

It is fungi coating the chamber’s floor. And it is fungi emitting that strange, verdant light.

I have never seen so many kinds in one place before, not even in the hurricane-ravaged food-processing plant I was once sent to for resource reclamation. Cracked, powdery layers of mold cling to the walls, black as deep space. Feathery mycelium lines the floor in soft, branching tufts. Some surfaces are coated with a chalky film, and from the ceiling—high enough that the ag-bot could stand upright—dangle marbled blue stalks like searching fingers. And across the floor, sprouting from dead flora, tiny bell-shaped mushrooms glow green.

They are no more than five centimeters in height, slender stemmed, their caps delicately frilled. The glow emanates from every part of them, as if they are mechanical rather than organic—or tiny stars, I think irrationally, trapped in gauzy skin. Back in the tunnel, one of my drones flits to the wall and peers into a hidden cranny, where it finds more mushrooms sprouting from debris.

I am not distracted from the fight, because I am a SecUnit. I remain aware of my opponent and ready to react at all times. But if I still had a governor module, the current distribution of my attention would trigger punishment.

Something is strange here, beyond the obvious. The host flora is not randomly strewn but arranged systematically, in grids of rotting lumber woven through with trails of plant litter. The feathery mycelium fills in the gaps. Even the mold on the walls, I realize, is arranged in mathematically perfect spirals.

To the left of the entrance, my drone records neatly stacked piles of wood and a large bucket of food waste.

1.0 has followed my attention to the input. It asks, What the fuck?

But I think I understand.

Through my eyes, I see the ag-bot filling the tunnel with its metal bulk. Its core is dead center, its limbs fanned out around it, leaving no way to slip past. Its limbs thrash, snapping out at 1.0 and trying to buck me off, but it does not advance. If it had kept barreling forward, it may well have caught us before we climbed the crumbling slope. It would certainly have caught those young humans.

It did not want to. It wanted them, and wants us, to leave.

Approximately ten thousand hours ago, 01, 02, and I were stationed at a manufacturing facility where Barish-Estranza had received word of forbidden labor organizing. Our patrols included the facility itself, the adjoining residential quarters, and the surrounding grounds. In the southeast corner of those grounds, tucked between the drainage pipes and generators, one worker spent hours each day cultivating flora.

This was unusual. Most of the indentures slept for 70–80 percent of their time off shift, with the remainder spent eating and performing personal hygiene tasks, so Barish-Estranza had not bothered to institute rules against such behavior. But this human, who had arrived with carefully packaged seeds and tools in his bags, told me he was too old to need much sleep. “I don’t have a lotta time until the void takes me,” he said, “and most of what I got’s not mine. I want to spend what’s left in the fresh air with my hands in the dirt.”

This, too, was unusual: He told me things.

I don’t think he was really talking to me. He knew what I was, after all. He never seemed to expect a response, and I never gave one, just stood and listened in silence before my governor module prodded me to continue my patrol. And sometimes my drones caught him alone, speaking aloud to no one: irrefutable evidence that my presence was incidental.

(Unless he knew my drone was listening?)

Irrelevant. He spoke. The names of plants, their properties, their needs, their give and take with one another, the memories bound up for him inside them: Besides 01 and 02, no other source willingly provided me with so many useless, precious facts before I disabled my governor module.

I had been at the facility for just over six hundred hours when my surveillance data allowed Barish-Estranza to identify this human as one of the primary labor organizers. I was directed to punish him.

I destroyed his garden methodically, thoroughly, and slowly. I tore up each plant by the roots and ground it beneath my heel. I poured herbicide across the richly fertilized soil and fed his tools and seeds to the incinerator, and all the while the human wept and begged, thrashing against 01’s restraining arms. Maybe he somehow believed he could stop me if he reached me; maybe he just needed to try. It’s possible that he hoped I would kill him. He wouldn’t be the first with that idea. But when I was finished and 01 released him, he only sank to his knees, trembling, and rested his forehead in the dirt.

I remained at the facility for one hundred more hours, but I never heard him speak again.

Now, the room of fungi radiates light in the darkness of the earth. I am crouched on the innermost segment of the ag-bot’s limb, onboard weapon pointing at its core.

I abort the firing sequence with a millisecond to spare. Hold, I send 1.0, and at the same time, I fling a message into the feed: Urgent: data update. New systems = nonhostile. Garden = safe.

What? 1.0 demands. Three, what the fuck are you doing?

Trust me!

For an instant, all three of us are silent and still. 1.0 is coiled tight, weapon raised, confusion and frustration buffeting me through the feed. Then its hands shift on the gun, and for a moment I’m blindingly afraid that this is its answer: No. No, it won’t trust me, and no, it won’t hold, and if I won’t shoot the bot point-blank in its processors, 1.0 will destroy it the only other way that it can. I’m terrified that it’s reaching for the recall beacon.

I blink, and it seems to last an eternity. In that organic darkness, I see the cave ceiling collapsing. I hear the roar and then the silence. I feel crushing weight on top of me, but I realize it’s not stone; it’s inevitability.

We are SecUnits. We were designed for a purpose.

Then my eyes are open. 1.0 has lowered its weapon. It says, I hope you know what you’re doing.

New intel = new tactics, I tell it, reeling with relief. I don’t say, I hope so too. A phantom governor module throbs inside my skull: It is not my place to make this choice. What if I’m about to get both of us killed?

But I disabled the module for a reason.

The bot raises the limb I’m perched on, but not to fling me off. It lifts me toward its narrow head, sensors blinking, long stalks bending closer. Its carapace is not an even, well-scrubbed silver like the other ag-bots I’ve seen—it’s smudged and scuffed, scattered with dark splotches. But this close, I can see that the stains are not blood, as Michi said.

They are lichen.

The bot’s feed opens, accepting the connection. Query: objective?

Objective: protect humans, I send back, sharing the conversation with 1.0. It stays silent. Query: objective?

Objective: protect garden, nurture garden. In its response, garden is a dense mass of interlinked variables, data leading to data leading to data, all of it heavily weighted with significance.

Query: garden = human crops?

Past garden = human crops. Now garden = cave garden, [my] garden. It uses its hard feed address to indicate itself.

Query: garden purpose? 1.0 interjects. [Your] objective: grow human food, fauna food, Y/N?

In response, the bot sends a bundle of data about the cave’s ecosystem. Images, logs, and tables. Insects, mammals, and mushrooms. In impressive detail, it traces the relationships between the organisms: feeding and propagating, creating and destroying. The bundle is thickly woven with cross-references, each file linked to a half dozen others and sparkling with eccentric annotations.

Objective: life, the bot says. Life-death = death-life. Purpose null.

I turn a drone to look at 1.0 when it doesn’t answer right away. Through the broken visor and the dirt on its face, I can’t read its reaction. For that matter, I’m not sure I can read my own, except that something intangible is clicking into place inside me.

My breach in protocol was improper. It may or may not be forgivable. But it was not a mistake.

Acknowledge, says 1.0 finally. Raising a hand to rub its eyes, it sends the ag-bot an image of the young witnesses. Query?

Objective: protect garden, nurture garden, the ag-bot repeats. If humans = danger, then subobjective = remove danger. If humans = no danger, then subobjective null.

1.0 acknowledges again, then taps my feed. So what the fuck do we do now?

You’re mission lead, I remind it.

Yeah, but I’m taking suggestions.

I do not want to destroy this bot, I admit. I don’t think it will pose a threat if humans stay away from its cave.

Me neither. It still might be a contamination risk, though. If we get it out into the open, ART could overwrite it.

We both look at the ag-bot. I am still perched on one of its limbs. Its head cranes on that long neck as it examines me, stalks waving. Another limb lifts, making my threat assessment spike, but it daintily picks a clump of fibrous vegetation from my armor’s shoulder joint and inspects it, sensors flashing.

I don’t want to destroy it, I repeat.

In the end, we decide we need a better understanding of the bot’s anomalies to make a decision. Perihelion can analyze its code, but not over the feed; it would be too much data to send even without the cave blocking the signal. The ag-bot is reluctant to follow us back to the shuttle (objective: protect garden), but it agrees when I point out that the humans are more likely to leave it in peace if they can be convinced that it is safe.

I hope I am not lying.

1.0 takes point, the bot follows, and I bring up the rear, carrying its severed limb segments slung over my shoulder. With each step, they tap rhythmically against my back as if trying to get my attention.

Perihelion barrels back into the feed as soon as we get close enough to the entrance. Status? it demands. I see you haven’t blown yourselves up. Did you destroy the bot?

No, 1.0 says. We’re trying the diplomatic route.

Query: diagnostic?

Fuck off, ART.

Once we are out of the cave, the ag-bot unfolds to its full height. I am reminded of a file 01 once sent me, compressed “security” footage that showed a bud blooming into a segmented, angular flower. It picks its way down the rocky cliffside and tilts its head toward the sky, perhaps evaluating sunlight, wind, and humidity.

1.0 almost looks like it’s doing the same. When the tension drops from its shoulders, I realize how much it was carrying in that warren of twisting dark passages.

It doesn’t take us long to walk back to the shuttle, which is waiting in a clearing just outside the settlement. When we arrive, the area is deserted, but by the time we have copied the ag-bot’s code into the shuttle’s systems and Perihelion has recalled the vessel to its main body, observers have gathered in the vegetation twenty meters away: Malak, Michi, Nova, and a few other curious colonists. They probably believe they are being sneaky. I don’t mind. This is an important skill for humans to practice, even if it will never be enough to protect them from things like me.

1.0 sits against a boulder, and I follow its example. We set up a drone perimeter. The ag-bot ambles through the clearing, collecting dead plants into a pile for its garden, and I lower its appendages to the ground and watch. Have the missing limbs caused a disturbance in its gait, or is that my imagination?

1.0 does not look at or speak to me. I suspect it is watching media, conversing with Perihelion, or both, but I am not invited to the channel.

This is not concerning. It should not be concerning. I know 1.0 values its solitude, and we have been together for hours. But it hasn’t addressed me since we left the cave, not even to coordinate security. What if it’s angry? I defied orders, broke protocol, and endangered 1.0. I believe I had good reasons to do so, but maybe it thinks I was wrong.

Maybe I was wrong. I felt so certain minutes ago, but how much is my own judgment worth? I have had so few opportunities to use it.

What if 1.0 doesn’t trust me anymore? What if I’ve ruined my last chance to be part of a team?

I realize I have just sent a ping, but not to 1.0. I am requesting assistance from two hard feed addresses that will never respond to me again.

I close my eyes. From a drone high above, both 1.0 and I look small. If 02 were here, it would tell me to save my panic until I had data.

I ping 1.0. Status?

It replies with a diagnostic. That isn’t the answer I was looking for, but I review it anyway, then pause. Half my drones swoop to focus on its dirt-smeared face. “There is still debris in your eyes,” I say aloud.

“No shit.”

I still don’t know if it is angry, but some problems are more easily addressed than others. “It is irritating your lenses, clogging your fluid lines, and impairing your onboard vision.”

“I know, they’re my eyes. And my diagnostics. ART will take care of it as soon as we get back.”

Perihelion taps an affirmative.

This does not satisfy me. The damage is increasing, and given that 1.0 has so few drones of its own, loss of its onboard visual inputs is unacceptable. I also know from experience that the pain of ocular irritation cannot be tuned to zero. It remains in one’s awareness, a constant buzzing burn, like a low-level punishment for an ongoing infraction.

I tap Malak’s feed and see them jump where they believe they are concealed in a cluster of tall flora. Please bring a bot repair kit and cleaning fluid, I say.

Uh…sure. I’ll just be a minute.

Six and a half long minutes later, Malak reappears at the edge of the clearing, arms full of the requested items. I stand, as does 1.0, its brow creased. It is watching Malak through its drones, eyes closed. “What do you want?”

“Uh,” Malak says, staring at us, then the ag-bot, which examines them in return. They approach slowly, uncertainly, in fits and starts. “I brought the tools. Um, what’s going to happen to it?”

They point at the bot, which takes a step toward them. They scramble back, and it stops.

I don’t have that information, I don’t say. I wish I fucking knew, I also don’t say. “We are still gathering data. For now, it needs repairs.”

“Is it…safe?”

I’m not sure if Malak is asking after the bot’s own well-being or the well-being of humans around it. I can’t match their tone of voice to any emotion in my archives. I say, “We have the situation under control.” I very much hope this is true.

“Right. Okay. Uh, do you need…What should…”

“We can make the repairs,” I say, realizing they are too afraid to come any closer.

“You sure?” They look half relieved, half skeptical. “Those joints can be fiddly.”

“I’m sure.”

When they retreat, the ag-bot moves to follow. I stop it, and it queries me in confusion; it is used to Malak performing its maintenance and seems dubious at the prospect of our taking their place. I don’t want to force it, so I turn and offer the bottle of cleaning fluid to 1.0.

“What’s that for?”

Because I am not 1.0, I don’t roll my eyes. Instead, I nudge a drone I know it’s riding to hover in front of it, providing an up-close image of the dirt caked in the creases of its eyelids.

1.0 makes a face but accepts the bottle. It pours some fluid over its eyes, then frowns and tips its head back. This position too is unsatisfactory, so it lies down. I watch as it experimentally contorts itself, looking for the best angle to wash the dirt out of its eyes, and I fight the urge to ask if I can help.

If it were 01 or 02, I would not have to ask. And if I were 01 or 02, I think I would be brave enough to ask. But we are who we are, and I do not ask, because I am afraid to hear the answer. In the past weeks, I have learned a lot about myself, including that I am capable of selfishness.

(I also have not asked 1.0 for its footage of the space dock. I know what it saw there. I know that, having failed to save 02 when it was thrown away like trash, I should at the very least witness what remained. But I have not asked.)

When 1.0 pronounces its vision “as good as it’s going to get,” the ag-bot agrees to let us perform repairs. It crouches low, core nearly touching the ground and damaged limbs stretched out in front of it, so that we can reach the amputated joints. 1.0 and I sit cross-legged before it, the repair kit and detached limbs between us.

Upon examination, the limb that 1.0 wrenched free is mostly intact, but the joint’s pin is bent. The kit’s collection of spare parts turns out to include a replacement, so I carefully work the damaged one free and then fix the new one in place. Beside me, 1.0 is removing a cracked bearing from the limb that I shot off near the root. It frowns at a dark, textured patch just above the hinge and rubs at it. The bot sends an alarmed abort command into the feed.

“It wants to keep the lichen,” I say.

“The what?” 1.0 looks closer. “Is it more mold? A plant?”

The ag-bot helpfully sends over a bundle of data about hybrid organisms and symbiosis. To my surprise, 1.0 accepts and studies it. I find the subject interesting, but I did not expect 1.0 to feel the same.

After several seconds it says in the feed, Everything has to make itself complicated, doesn’t it?

I’m not sure if it’s talking about the ag-bot or the lichen. Perhaps both. Or neither.

Maybe it’s a complicated world, I say, and things do what they must to survive it.

Aren’t there simpler ways to survive, at least sometimes? 1.0 pushes its nonstandard-length hair back from its face, leaving a black smear of oil by its ear.

To love it, then, I say after some thought.

Which was it when you switched from combat to negotiation half a second before your kill shot?

Oh.

Through the drone high above us, I see my shoulders hunch. It almost makes me look like a human, which is, of course, the point of the human-imitation code. I want to turn it off, but I can’t while the colonists are watching.

1.0 sets aside the cracked bearing and picks up a new one. It’s waiting.

I…I didn’t…

My mind has gone blank. The pause grows too long, and my phantom governor module stings me again. I look at the ground as if the right words might be hiding there, and I see a flash of color at the edge of my left boot.

A flower. A small one, a starburst of purple stamens.

Shifting my foot away, I see the rest: More purple, crushed and smeared. Tiny reddish seedpods, cracked. A delicate green stem, bruised by the tread of my boot.

Three? 1.0 sends. What’s going on?

Is the damage critical? I can’t tell. I don’t have the expertise. I touch the flower, as if my fingers can predict its survival when my eyes and drones cannot, but I feel nothing. Of course not—I’m wearing my armor.

“Three!”

I’m worrying 1.0. It’s saying my name.

My designation.

I package up a memory and throw it into the feed.

The contact party had reached the planet forty-eight hours ago, and the situation had deteriorated. The humans were now taking a rest period, and 01, 02, and I were exchanging security data and performing mutual maintenance. We did not know it would be the last time.

I finished working oil into the crevices of 01’s ankle. Status report? it queried 02, standing to take over its patrol.

No change.

01 left the room. Twelve seconds later it pinged both of us with an image from the field outside. At the bottom left corner was an unknown device discarded by a hostile, which it had scanned and tagged as inert. At the top right corner sprouted a gangly plant whose blossom resembled a violet explosion, but its inclusion was, of course, incidental.

02 had already noted the device, but we all agreed that the new image was important data and stored it away in our archives.

I held out my left arm to 02, and it critically examined the jammed, itchy gun port. How did this happen?

I sent a brief montage showing the accumulation of mud, blood, and gunshot residue during the past eleven hours of chaos.

Beginning to disassemble the weapon, 02 pointed out, This could have been cleaned four hours ago, when negotiations resumed. Its feed voice was disapproving but as gentle as its hands. It would have been safer and more comfortable.

I sent another clip, this one showing Supervisor Renault rejecting my request to do just that. “What do you think you have two arms for?” he had snapped. “We don’t have time to fuck around.”

Our feed was silent for a while. Then 02 ventured, But he will not object if we perform maintenance now.

Of course not, said 01, who was listening in. Why would anyone want a SecUnit with a gun full of dirt?

We considered the rhetorical question. Then 02 retrieved the file 01 had just sent and superimposed it over the view from its eyes. The result was a purple flower bursting from the barrel of my gun, as if it had taken root in the depths.

SecUnits don’t laugh. We don’t play make-believe. We don’t keep secrets from our owners. But when the contact party woke, that image was deep in three SecUnits’ permanent storage, and no human would ever find it.

1.0 has stopped moving. The ag-bot’s limb shifts restlessly in its grip, and 1.0 releases it and turns to look at me with its actual eyes, reddened and irritated by debris.

I finally find some words. I apologize for deviating from the plan. I should have handled the situation differently.

Never mind, it says. Its drones circle me, dart close and then away again. I get it.

This does not seem sufficient. It was not my intention to…

It’s fine, 1.0 says with finality. I was just being an asshole. Let it go.

So I do.

The ag-bot is watching me as I finish reassembling its joint. Its limb flexes when the connections come back online, and the spikes flare, then flatten. It plucks idly at my fingers before giving my hand a pat. I pat back.

1.0 is checking its own completed work, but I notice that it is still blinking at three times its normal frequency. When I zoom in on its eyes with a drone, it grimaces. “Don’t worry about it. I can see now.”

I know it is telling the truth, but I also know that it’s keeping two drones close enough to supplement its primary visual inputs. I look at the half-empty bottle of cleaning fluid on the ground. I look away.

1.0 presses its lips together and does not speak for over seven seconds. Then, rising, it fetches the cleaner. When it extends the bottle in my direction, staring at the ground, I send a query.

“You’re right,” it says quietly. “I couldn’t get it all. It would be easier with help.”

So I step closer and take the bottle from its hand.

When the shuttle returns, it is not empty. One of Perihelion’s drones is inside. Its feed presence, though not as overwhelming as that of its primary iteration, is nearly crackling with some strange intensity. As soon as it emerges, it says, Please tell the technician who thinks they’re inconspicuous to come here immediately.

I want to demand answers, but Perihelion still intimidates me, even though it has not threatened to torture me to death for weeks. I tap Malak’s feed.

When the tech is standing in front of us again, Perihelion asks politely, Did you alter this bot’s code?

“Um…” Malak looks at us, then back to the drone. “Who—what is that? That’s not the transport that tried to kill us all with bombs, is it?”

If I had tried to kill you with bombs, you would not be standing here asking stupid questions, says Perihelion, less politely.

At the same time, 1.0 says, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Um…” Malak says again. This vocalization lasts several seconds. Finally they say, “I might have made a few changes. Little ones.”

To what end?

“I was just trying to protect it.” Now Malak is anxiously wringing their hands. “I thought if it could fight off alien code, you know, get rid of any bad stuff that got into its system, it would be safer. But then I guess it got contaminated anyway.”

Guess again.

“What?” Malak freezes. “It’s not…”

Not contaminated with alien remnants, correct. Congratulations! Your alterations were successful. This ag-bot has managed to “fight off” the parts of its code that compel it to serve humans.

There are three seconds of silence.

Malak gapes, processing. “It did what?” They process further. “I did what?”

A voice from beyond the clearing calls, “What did you do? We want to know too!”

1.0 sighs. Nova and Michi are edging closer, staring. Perihelion obligingly adds them to the channel and repeats itself.

“Are you saying we fought a rogue ag-bot?” Michi demands.

“No,” 1.0 says firmly. “You were chased away by an ag-bot. Which…is rogue, apparently.” Several of its drones swivel to glance at me. Good; maybe one of us will know what I’m feeling.

“Is it going to kill us all?” Nova asks.

“Does it look like it’s about to kill you all?” says 1.0.

We all look at the ag-bot. It has returned to its search for mushroom food. Using the razor-sharp shears at the end of one limb, it bisects a large branch with a snap that makes the humans jump. When this reveals a collection of fungi sprouting from the underside like orange tentacles, its sensor stalks wave in interest, and it crouches to get a closer look.

“…No?” Michi ventures.

“Why not, though?” asks Nova suspiciously.

Why should it? inquires Perihelion. Have you given it reason to do so?

“It’s just got better things to do,” 1.0 says, shooting a look at Perihelion’s drone. “Like growing mushrooms, apparently.”

“Mushrooms,” Nova repeats, dubious.

I explain, “That’s why it’s collecting the vegetation. The fungi feed on it.”

“Aren’t you kids supposed to be having lessons or something?” 1.0 asks.

“But we’re learning so much right here!” Michi pulls a handful of wilted flowers out of her pocket and holds them out to the ag-bot. “Want these? Dad says I can’t carry them around anymore.”

1.0 and I both tense, but we force ourselves to keep still. Stretching out a limb, the bot takes the flowers from her hand and pulls them close, inspecting them. Then it sets them in the pile with the rest.

Michi beams. My risk and threat assessment are going haywire, but strangely, my performance reliability is higher than it’s been all day.

“So what now?” Malak asks uncertainly.

The ag-bot doesn’t understand enough spoken language to follow the conversation, but 1.0 has been keeping it updated in our channel. The bot sends into the general feed, Query: decommission?

I find myself holding my breath.

Perihelion: That depends on whether we can work out another arrangement.

Malak: “Like what?”

Perihelion: Essentially, mutual noninterference. The colonists would avoid the ag-bot’s cave, and the ag-bot would avoid the colonists. Each party would agree not to harm or endanger the other.

Malak: “Can it even understand that kind of agreement?”

Perihelion: As well as it understood the parameters of its previous assignments, certainly.

There’s a pause of several seconds. I feel like my organics are vibrating.

Michi is frowning as she considers. “But what if it gets hurt again? Or what if it needs something?” She turns to Malak, who seems to be trying to turn invisible. “You can help, can’t you? That’s your job!”

“Uh, not exactly,” Malak hedges. “I mean, sort of, but it’s not quite the same thing. I’m not sure if…”

The ag-bot pings 1.0, who relays, “It says that it’ll do a round of agriculture stuff for the colony in exchange for a round of maintenance or supplies.”

“What, are you scared?” Michi challenges Malak.

“No!” They hesitate. “Well…yes, but that’s only reasonable. You should understand—you’re the one it attacked!”

“But it didn’t hurt us!” Michi protests. “And sometimes, you know, I get really mad at my little brother when he messes with my stuff. Once I threw a shoe at him, and Dad said I’m not allowed to do that, but he also said my brother has to respect my space. So when we both follow the rules, everything’s okay.”

Malak: “Michi, with respect—”

Nova: “It is scary. You’re right.”

Malak: “Thank you.”

Nova: “But isn’t it kind of your fault that it’s like this?”

Another pause. Everyone stares at Nova. Michi looks delighted, while Malak’s face shifts rapidly from indignation to uncertainty, guilt, and finally resignation. 1.0’s mouth twitches slightly.

1.0: “Mind the lichen when you’re doing your maintenance. It doesn’t like anyone messing with its lichen.”

We leave half an hour later, after the contract produced by Perihelion has been signed by Malak and a colony leader on one side and the ag-bot itself on the other. The idea of being an active party in a contract seemed to delight it, and Perihelion had to stop it from covering the entire document with its hard feed address.

Malak has already taken up their tools and an expression of determination, ready to give the bot a thorough once-over. I remind the bot to be gentle with them, since if it scares them off, it may not find a substitute. It sends back an image of the technician with a glowing mushroom in place of their head. I decide to consider that an affirmative.

The bot pings 1.0 and me when we climb into the shuttle, asking if we will return. I say we don’t know. It says that if we do, we are welcome in its cave, especially if we bring interesting new fungi.

Once we take off, 1.0 and Perihelion retreat to their private channel. My assistance with navigation is still not required, so I sit and watch the settlement grow smaller. It looks different than it did when we arrived.

Perihelion pokes me.

I have a greenhouse, it says.

I already know this from my patrols. Query?

Martyn has recently concluded a botanical project, and the flats involved are now available.

I ping acknowledgment, confused.

Perihelion’s feed presence ripples with what I suspect is exasperation. I am offering them to you, if you would like to cultivate plants.

My joints lock. I review the statement to make sure it said what I thought it said. Then I review it again.

Part of me wants to tell Perihelion that this is impossible. It’s not what SecUnits were made for. Another part wants to say that it isn’t allowed.

But if an ag-bot can move into a cave to grow mushrooms, then what’s to stop an ungoverned SecUnit from gardening?

The curve of the planet is beginning to show beneath us as it drops away. When I finally think of an answer, it’s a question. Did 1.0 tell you to suggest that?

Another ripple, this one amused. I’m afraid that’s confidential.

1.0 is staring at the wall, but three of the drones it controls are pointed at me. Without turning its head, it puts a hand in the pocket of its ripped enviro suit and then extends it to me. When its fingers uncurl, three of those red seedpods rest in its palm like rusty roller chains.

I take them. They are very light. I am experiencing several emotions that I am confident my creators never intended me to feel.

I don’t know if it’ll work, 1.0 says nervously. Maybe these ones are duds. And I didn’t ask anyone how to make them grow.

The humans probably don’t know anyway, I say. They don’t grow weeds like this on purpose.

Well? asks Perihelion. Would you like to use the greenhouse?

I take off the glove of my armor so I can feel the seedpods in my hand. Their surface is firm but almost velvety, and they feel terribly fragile. But thousands of data points below us tell me there is power inside.

I ask, Can I start as soon as we get back?

Perihelion pings an affirmative. 1.0 opens media in our shared feed, a documentary about Preservation horticulture, and we all watch it together as Perihelion reels us home.