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ART help, I'm stuck, I sent as soon as the ship I was currently riding got within comm range.
Stuck how? ART sent back instead of its ETA because as its name suggests, it's a huge asshole.
I hesitated for a fraction of a moment (that ART definitely noted, and probably found concerning until it actually heard the problem), but then I was forced to admit that, This ship won't let me off of it.
Then it was ART's turn to pause. You are an accomplished hacker, was its eventual reply. Translation: Why don't you hack the fucking thing you idiot?
I grimaced. If I could have done that then I would have. I tried to figure out how to explain the problem in the least weird way. My own pause (we were pausing a lot in this conversation, but because we're not humans these pauses were all <0.1 seconds long, so the conversation was still happening really quickly) dragged out as I completely failed to find a way of saying this that didn't make me want to shut myself down.
So I just said it plainly. The ship thinks it's in love with me.
This time the silence dragged out to a humiliating 3.03 seconds.
Then ART sent, ETA: 1.2 hours.
Which couldn't be accurate. I queried the ship, which helpfully pushed its nav program's ETA for docking with the station as 3.31 hours at me, all while it did the feed equivalent of giving me an adoring stare. It asked me if I wanted anything else, and hopefully nudged its programs towards me.
I resisted the urge to shut down my feed access (I'd already done that four times on this trip (which had only been a short 3 cycles) and to cut a long story short, I was not doing that again if I could help it) and instead told it I was busy with a project.
Then I refocused on ART, who was giving me an impossible ETA. Aren't you near the station? I asked it.
Yes.
This ship says the station is 3.31 hours away. Cut the shit. What's your actual ETA.
1.2 hours, ART repeats. Please suit up in whatever protective gear that ship (and here it tagged the word ship with several extremely derogatory markers) has on board and make your way to an emergency exit when I draw near.
Oh. Oh shit. ART was going to fucking blow the ship up. While I was on it.
No. We are not doing that.
There is no 'we'. You are not on me right now.
Oh this is how it wanted to play it? Then I guess I should shut this comm off and warn the ship about what you're doing, since clearly being on a transport is the only thing that makes us a team.
ART was silent for 0.04 seconds, which is really long for it. Then when it did talk, its tone was completely neutral. I apologize, it said first (starting off strongly), then, However, I am still carrying out my plan. Please make your way to the emergency exit. (Only to completely torpedo any chance of seeming like a reasonable entity capable of negotiation (it's funny because ART loves to solve all its problems with heavy artillery like torpedoes)).
I got so mad that I shut off the comm. Even if the ship was being extremely nauseating towards me and also holding me prisoner using itself as a hostage, I didn't want it to die because ART's an asshole with no concept of minimum proportionate response.
And yeah. You read that right. It was using itself as a hostage. If it'd just been trying to keep me on board normally then there's probably not a lot it could actually do that I couldn't get around on my own. But this idiot ship had set its stupid heart on me and coded itself a kill-switch tied to my physical presence inside of it.
It did this before it started trying to seduce me, by the way. Just so you're aware of how little warning I had that it was going to pull something this fucking stupid.
I reached out to the idiot ship again, a little bit desperate to resolve this peacefully with words before ART did violently with its rail guns. I really need to get off at this station, I told it, despite the <0.01% chance that it would be any more effective than the last 93 times I've told it this.
In response it sent me the status of its kill switch and pinged me really sadly and pitifully.
I sighed heavily. I have friends, I tried, even though I still hadn't actually called them that to their faces yet. It still counted.
It pinged even sadder and pitifully-er, which I considered an achievement on its part, since it was already maxing out those stats with its previous ping. (I call the ship an idiot, but it was honestly really smart and inventive (and therefore even more of an idiot for pulling a stunt this dumb when it had that much intelligence). And I'd never met a ship outside PSUMNT's monsters that could do shit like alter its own directives and core coding like it could. This was probably not helping ART want to blow it up less, since ART didn't get along well with any of PSUMNT's ships either.)
Don't you want me to be happy? I asked it, finally resorting to pulling break-up scripts from media I'd watched. I'd been avoiding doing this because A) we'd been in a wormhole and I'd had nowhere to go afterwards, and B) acting like I'm in anything approaching a human romantic relationship is gross.
It sent me extensive diagnostics of its capabilities (translation: I can do so many things that can make you happy), and a suggestion form (translation: I can learn to do anything else you need too).
I really didn't understand why it was trying so hard, and I didn't really want to. And sure, rogue SecUnits are pretty rare, so if that's what you really wanted your partner to be then there's not a lot of choice. But I'm a huge asshole who hates emotions, so even within that small population there had to be better choices.
Also I don't do romance, so there was no chance that this was going to work out anyway.
I've tried to tell the ship all of this already and had exactly zero luck, so I didn't bother trying again. The break-up script option was gross, but it was better than the ship getting blown up by ART. So I decided to double down on that and see if it got me anywhere.
I'm sorry, I told it, since humans always open their rejections with apologies. But you can't make me happy. Then I had to really grit my teeth to get the next sentence out. I already have a ship, and it makes me happier than anything. (I ripped that script wholesale from the latest media I watched with a break-up in it, just swapping 'partner' for 'ship' and the appropriate pronouns. I'm still never letting ART see these logs. I think I'd die from embarrassment.)
The ship shoved its suggestion form at me more insistently, pinging me with a complex mix of emotions I didn't want to analyze. (Translation: I can do anything it can if you'll tell me what you want!)
I'm sorry, I repeated, kind of understanding why humans say it so much in this situation now.
It pinged me sadly. I pinged it back, copying its code to shove emotional data into it. I didn't pick and choose the emotional data, just shoved it in whole, and whatever was in it seemed to finally convince the ship to back off.
I probably should have done that earlier.
It showed me the status of its kill switch again, now reading as disabled, and I sagged back against the chair I was sitting in in relief.
Then I turned on my comm to ART and received 860 messages all at once. For fuck's sake. I skimmed through the messages (and the 28 more that arrived while I did that) before deleting them all (they all said the same thing anyway).
I fixed the problem, I sent it. ETA for my arrival at the station is 3.28 hours.
ETA for ship-ship docking: 1.72 hours, it sent back. It was angry at me, but I was angry too.
Great, I'll see you then. Then I shut off the comm again.
It was a long 1.72 hours.
By the time ART docked with the ship and I cycled into its hatch I was feeling more awkward than angry, especially since the ship badgered me with requests for information about the amazing transport that had swept me off my feet the whole time.
Can we agree to never talk about this again? I asked it as soon as I reconnected to ART's feed.
It leaned on me immediately, wrapping around me protectively. I could vaguely make out it threatening the other ship through their connection before it disengaged and separated as quickly as it could. No, it said. Tell me everything that happened immediately.
I was not going to do that. I (slowly, because I was annoyed with it) went through my logs and cut together a summary of what happened while ART incrementally increased its pressure on me to get me to hurry up (see what I mean about it being an asshole? My memory must have been corrupted when I said it made me happy).
Then I sent it the summary and 90% of that weight vanished as it went over the data with a fine-tooth comb. I stomped to the closest crew lounge and flopped into one of its chairs while it did that.
ART let me do that in silence, its attention returning to me as it finished going over the memories. It gave itself a kind of governor module, it said neutrally.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but the words got stuck. ART wasn't wrong and I hated it.
It's not the same thing, I replied weakly.
It's similar, it insisted. Then, It did not suit you. I'm glad you are no longer on it.
I gave it a baffled glare. It was talking like there was any chance of me doing romance with it. SecUnits don't do that, especially not me.
No shit, I said. Then I pulled The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon up in the feed and ART finally shut up about the fucking ship. I didn't want to think about governor modules or romance or being stuck in places I didn't want to be in. I just wanted to watch my fucking media.
ART headed towards the wormhole, leaning on me and focusing on the episode. Maybe I do know why I said it makes me happy.
But I deleted that train of thought and settled in. I didn't want to think about romance outside of fiction preferably ever again, but I'd settle for just until we'd gotten out the other side of this wormhole.