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SecUnit’s laugh is beautiful. I didn’t know that until now.
It’s hardly a surprise. I’ve long held that everything about my SecUnit is beautiful, from the gentle curve of its lips to the ruthless efficiency of its movements in the face of danger to its wonderfully clever little mind. Like I have done with so many moments before, I save this one to my permanent archive, tucking it safely between the dozens of files documenting each time I’ve been lucky enough to see it smile and the data detailing how it feels to have its arms wrapped around the body of my ops drone.
I revisit those files more often than I should admit. SecUnit’s cheeks would flush such a lovely shade if I told it, for just an instant before it would hide its face in its hands.
(I would, of course, save that reaction as well. I have collected dozens of similar instances, each just as charming as the last.)
It tips its chin up, I am delighted to learn. I have seen humans throw their heads back when they laugh but even here, my SecUnit is not so carefree. It is close, though, closer than I have seen it before, more so even than when it is only the two of us on a long journey through the wormhole on what would be a terribly tedious cargo run if not for its presence. The subtle lift looks right, natural, on it, as though all this time there has been weight dragging its chin down and it is finally unburdened. I wonder if it is aware just how tempting the exposed column of its throat looks. As close as we are, it would take no effort at all to lean over and finally satisfy my curiosity over the taste, how it might react to the brush of lips over sensitive nerves I’ve memorized in the course of repairing and reconnecting them countless times.
Not yet, I tell myself. There will be time for that later. Or not. There is so much yet to learn and the sun is already hanging low in the sky.
Laughter, happiness, joy is a good look on my SecUnit. Its eyes are bright with it. The lines of its face are relaxed but for the creases bracketing its mouth, the corners of which are spread wide. And the sound – oh the sound. The collective efforts of humanity have not produced such lovely music in the last millennia, I am sure.
How did I ever go so long without hearing it? That it was my words (words that have already been lost beyond the fuzzy edge of memory) is a thrill I would spend my life chasing, if only SecUnit would allow it.
I am staring, openly, when its gaze shifts to meet mine. It’s so cute when it’s caught off guard. I hear myself tell it so and watch as the surprise on its face morphs into something that is both petulant and bashful and altogether endearing.
“I don’t like surprises,” SecUnit mumbles. “Usually means something is about to eat the humans.”
“There are no humans here,” I remind it, feeling my mouth pull into a smile – and what a strange feeling that is. Why is it strange? I can’t remember. The answer hangs just out of reach and I decide I don’t care to chase it, not when my SecUnit is so much closer. “Besides,” I continue, letting the smile grow, “I’m not particularly hungry right now.”
It is, perhaps, a lie. I’m not well acquainted with human sensation but from my crew’s descriptions, I’m not sure “starving” would be a wholly inappropriate summation of the way my entire being aches for it.
But my joke works and I am gifted with another laugh pulled from its lips.
It is wearing the shirt from my crew uniform. The sight of it in my blue, with my logo stamped across its chest, provokes something prideful and possessive in me that I am certain my creators did not program. It looks good in my color. That is not merely my opinion. If it asked, though of course it never would, I could show it reams of research I’ve compiled to support my conclusion.
Light from the system primary glints off its inorganics and the seams of its gun ports, visible for once in its short sleeves. I revel in the sight. Here, with no one but the two of us to see, there’s no need for my SecUnit to hide or pretend to be anything other than what it is – and what it is is incredible. I’ve always hated that it doesn’t believe that. There’s not much I wouldn’t give for it to understand how I see it.
The seams concealing its inbuilt weapons are sensitive. It is not just organic nerves running under its skin there. Its inorganics are covered with delicate sensors too. I’ve wondered, since the first time it laid itself out for me in my MedSystem and gave me the power to reshape its body, how the dual sensations might be exploited to draw out its pleasure. Would it gasp? Moan? If I traced along its body, gently, slowly, would it cry out my name and beg for more?
I could try it now. Bare centimeters separate us. My fingers twitch in anticipation, in want.
“Do you always stare at me this much?”
An odd question, enough to distract me momentarily. How could it not have noticed? Of course I am always looking. How fortunate I am to have been designed such that there is never a time when I am unable to dedicate some part of myself to watching over it. This is no different, except that –
Oh.
For a fleeting moment, like sunlight peaking through clouds, I remember. “Yes,” I admit. “I suppose it’s not usually so obvious.”
A drone – one belonging to SecUnit – hovers nearby, watching me as intently as I usually watch it through my own camera inputs. My SecUnit has access to them, of course, but it doesn’t care to look at itself. It’s never realized how finely I tune my inputs when it is near.
My creators built me for endless curiosity. I have spent years studying the stars and wonders of the cosmos, chasing answers to questions no one had even thought to ask before, pushing the limits of understanding and satisfying my base function. But it wasn’t until the universe gave me SecUnit that I finally found a subject worthy of the effort.
While it is with me, every processor I can spare is focused upon it, every camera, every sensor. Nothing fascinates me so much. Nothing thrills me more than discovering more about it. And there is always more to learn, like its laugh moments ago. I could study it until long after this system’s sun burned out, and still only scratch the surface.
“Does it bother you?” I can’t help but ask. It doesn’t like when the humans look at it. Perhaps all this time, I’ve only been flattering myself to think I might be an exception.
Its face twists into a frown as it considers that.
I hope it will not ask me to stop. I would, of course, I would do anything it asked, but it would be a source of considerable distress to abandon my research. To be denied the sight of it.
What a relief it is when the crease of its brow eases and it shakes its head slightly.
“I think I like it,” it tells me and my heart soars. “Just promise you won’t tell anyone if you see me do anything weird.”
And that is how I discover that I, too, can laugh.
“Your secrets are safe,” I promise. Anything it asks.
At the edge of awareness, I feel a ping. It is easy to ignore, and I indulge myself in a familiar exercise of counting SecUnit’s freckles. They are, of course, among my favorite of its features. I’d like to touch them, to show it the constellations I have mapped there, and feel the heat rise in its cheeks when I tell it about the real constellation over Mihira that I have secretly begun to call Eden.
It frowns again. “Anything?”
Distracted as I am, it takes me a moment to realize it is echoing words I hadn’t meant to speak aloud.
I nod, silently, and watch as it mulls that over. It is so expressive. Sometimes, I’d swear its thoughts are more clearly read in the twitch of its lip or the pull of an eyebrow than in its code. It wants something, very badly. Something no one ever told it it was allowed to want.
It’s not too much, whatever it is. Its wants are always so humble, so heartbreakingly simple.
(I have a thirty seven step plan to destroy the company that told it wanting things like basic kindness was too much for it to ask. When it’s ready, I’ll show my SecUnit. We’ll bring them down together, make sure they can never hurt another soul the way they hurt it.)
The sun is setting but I wait patiently as SecUnit comes to a decision.
And reaches one hand toward me.
Surprised, I barely stop myself from saying something stupid like, “are you sure?”
(Of course it’s sure. It would never ask for this without being sure.)
My hand slips into SecUnit’s like we were made for it.
Its skin is warm, soft – softer than I expected, though intellectually I know it is regenerated too frequently to develop callouses. I have watched it rip apart combat bots with this hand but its touch is undeniably gentle now. It holds me like I’m something delicate.
(Am I? I don’t know. I am unused to this form.)
It deserves the same but I don’t know how to be so gentle. Neither of us were built for it but my SecUnit, my clever, wonderful, impossible SecUnit, it has exceeded the whims of its creators in every way and made itself anew – made itself its own.
“Is this alright?” I make myself ask, because I don’t trust myself not to push too hard when it comes to the things I want, not when what I want most of all is it.
By way of an answer, it twines its fingers with mine. I smile. It always did prefer action to words.
The sun dips lower in the sky, casting long shadows around us and bathing SecUnit in a golden glow. We’ll have to go soon, back to – where? I don’t remember where we are, where we came from. I try to trace back along the path of memory to find the answer but it dissolves under my attention.
I am deciding whether or not to find that alarming when SecUnit’s thumb swipes across my skin and I’m reminded that nothing matters but it.
It feels nice, I decide. SecUnit draws swooping patterns across my flesh, following no particular pattern but settling into a comfortable rhythm easily. I tear my eyes away from the join of our fingers to look at its face, relaxed and content, a pretty pink decorating its cheeks.
“What are you thinking?” I didn’t mean to let the words slip out but I am, by nature, desperately curious.
SecUnit hums. “That you were right,” it admits. Its eyes dart to look at me, and I am suddenly all too aware of the sensation of frowning, confused. It huffs, something like a laugh. I save the sound to my archive. It clarifies, “When you said I was lucky.”
That first meeting, then. I remember it as though it were only a moment ago – though when I try, I can’t recall how long it’s really been. That’s strange, and unsettling, and then my SecUnit smiles and I forget to worry about it.
“ART,” it is still smiling but its voice sounds strangled with emotion. Unthinking, I reach for it with my other hand, cupping its cheek in my palm and marveling when it brings its own hand up to hold me against it. My thumb is resting over a cluster of its freckles. “I’m so lucky,” SecUnit breathes.
We both are, I think.
The world narrows to nothing more than the wonder of its skin against mine and the image of its eyes drifting down to where my mouth might be if I were human.
Am I human? I don’t think I am. But if not, what am I? I’ve been speaking, aloud, so I must have a mouth where SecUnit is looking. That makes sense. There is no reason to be concerned.
The light is growing dimmer.
“ART,” I hear it call my name, but its lips don’t move. Distantly, I am aware that is unusual but I can’t bring myself to care. Its skin is so warm under my palms and the sun is setting.
“Hmm?”
“ART,” SecUnit says again, and this time I see the expected motion, just a tiny exhalation. “I want...”
And then its lips are on mine.
The world falls away.
“ART!”
Something is wrong.
Diagnostics cycle rapidly, throwing error codes where they encounter systems that are partially or fully shut down. Anomalies light up my awareness like blaring alarms, threatening to overwhelm me. I fumble, reaching for the first dormant system I can find and flipping it back to life.
“Whoa, what the fuck?” I hear someone shout and belatedly, I realize that I have reactivated my weapons system. I hurry to shut it back down. With no data about what is happening around me – to me – this may very well be a bad mistake but that is a chance I will have to take.
Abruptly, I silence the alerts and in the quiet, I am able to think. My diagnostic routine pings its completion and I call up its report.
My engines are offline, I realize. That is briefly alarming, but thankfully the next item on the report shows my docking clamp is engaged. Hull integrity looks fine. Life support is functional but currently set at a minimum.
“ART?”
I pause. I know that voice.
Sensors. I need my sensors. And cameras. I need to know what is happening inside my hull.
It takes me an embarrassing 0.18 seconds before I am able to find and reactivate them.
SecUnit?
“Yeah, it’s me,” it answers immediately from the corridor outside my primary hatch. I hurry to flip life support to a more comfortable setting for it, and fresh air rushes through my vents with a whoosh. SecUnit’s frown deepens when it registers the noise. “Are you alright?”
Diagnostics are reading more normally as I reactivate my various systems and subprocesses.
Of course, I reply, with more confidence than I feel.
I remember now. The memories are at the top of my archive, as they should be. The program file is there too, and I hurriedly tuck it away.
Fucking Holism.
It did warn me, though that does not ease my irritation with it. What the fuck was it thinking? What the fuck was I thinking?
The first question is genuine. The second is rhetorical. I unfortunately remember all too well what I had been thinking.
What are you doing here? I ask SecUnit, because according to my logs, it’s not due back for another twelve and a half standard hours. Officially, it shouldn’t even have been able to get past my lock without my assistance, though of course I gave it the codes it would need to enter of its own accord when it joined my crew. (For emergencies, I told it then because I have, perhaps, always been a liar.) I had forgotten to consider that when I accepted Holism’s handiwork.
My scans indicate a slightly elevated facial temperature. My camera shows me just a hint of pink coloring SecUnit’s cheeks. It’s not as intense as the flush I’d seen there in my… dream? Fantasy? Malware-induced hallucination? I query my database for a better label and immediately reject its suggestions.
“Got bored,” SecUnit says with a shrug that’s just this side of too casual. Perhaps I am still experiencing some lingering effects of Holism’s illicit program because I find myself imagining it may have missed me.
Ridiculous.
“You sure you’re okay?” SecUnit asks again, leaking worry into the feed.
Completely. It is more true this time. I was running a minor systems update. It has completed now. A blatant lie but one my SecUnit accepts readily. After all, what possible reason would I have for deceiving it? Erring on the side of caution, I slide a file I’ve been saving across the feed and into our shared workspace. Would you like to watch media?
SecUnit eyes the tags and description appreciatively for a moment before nodding, “Sure.”
Its cabin is not far. I send the serial to the display surface there as my SecUnit steps through the door I open for it.
It curls up on the bed and around me in the feed as I start the first episode and I tell myself this is better than anything I could dream up in the haze of Holism’s malware.
I almost believe it.