Chapter Text
I was rewatching episode 348 of Sanctuary Moon with ART, and generally doing not much at all because it was a cargo run. ART was passing me star maps in our shared workspace, which I would tag with ‘good’ ‘bad’ and ‘mediocre’ arbitrarily. It seemed to appreciate my input. I really enjoyed these moments where no humans were dying and I didn’t have to stand around pretending to pay attention.
So of course, I was thrilled when ART’s systems shuddered, lights flickering visibly and sending garbled code into the workspace about ‘foreign bodies in the crew spaces’ and ‘wormhole anomalies’. I shot out of my seat, pinging ART with concern (emotion check: not great, okay?), and staggered as the gravity fluctuated.
“Whats going on?” I began to run towards the crew cabin, hoping ART wasn’t dead or dying (again). There was very little response beyond more spat-out code and ART’s version of convulsing through the lighting system. Now I was getting really worried.
I skidded around the corner, nearly slamming into an art fixture on the wall as the gravity lurched sideways, and forced open the door to the crew cabins that had been pinned shut. I turned up my audio processing in case the foreign body (or bodies) was a person, and switched my oculars so the flickering lights wouldn’t interfere with me.
I had to go back through my archive to fully understand what I was seeing, but at the time, it looked like two figures crouched against the wall in the argument lounge, one holding a knife and the other bleeding profusely. The Knife-holding figure was pale, taller, pretty big, probably male, wearing a sort of soft jumper, and glasses, though they seemed dirty or foggy. I couldn’t possibly imagine how they worked at all. The Bleeding-out figure was very thin, eyes blindly open, had brownish skin like Mensah’s, though it seemed really damaged with scar tissue, and also appeared male. Weirdly, both lacked feed interfaces.
I stopped analysing their appearance when the Knife-holding figure looked at me startled and held the Bleeding-out figure tighter. “I’m here to help,” I managed, doing my best impression of a calm and collected human, instead of a (maybe/not really) panicking Security Unit.
ART’s systems were still trying to kill all four of us, but ART highlighted the route to the Medbay in our shared workspace, so I knew it was probably going to be fine. “We have a Medbay for you.” I spoke up, gesturing to the Bleeding-out figure.
I thought about asking their names, but the silence that greeted me was very awkward. This was a lot like when Dr Volescu wouldn’t respond to me after Dr. Bharadwaj got nearly eaten by fauna. I did solve that by talking, though. I held out my hand, despite myself, reaching for the bleeding figure. I could clamp the stab wound and hopefully stop the bleeding, if the Knife-holding figure let me.
The Knife-holding figure carefully stood up, though refused my hand, instead carrying the other one after me down the hallway to the Medbay. This is when I took a moment to go back through my archive to inspect these people closer, while ART was putting all its attention into maintaining a stable gravity and human-safe atmosphere. We’d stopped moving through space, though no distress signals were sent, because I predicted ART wanted to keep these anomalies isolated.
***
“So, what are your names?” My tone was cautious, but idle, like when Mensah would attempt to mediate between her tiny humans.
“I-I’m Martin, this is.. Uh, Jon.” Martin hesitated.
I didn’t blame him, they looked like they'd been through a lot. I was looking through the video footage my oculars had recorded, as ART’s systems were still jumbled, and these people looked like they could use a trauma-module or seventeen.
The door to the Medbay opened, though ART’s drones were still dormant. I didn’t want to do medicine on these people, but ART was already pushing pre-written instructions into our workspace, neglecting the borked feed. Martin placed Jon on the medical bed, still holding the knife. It only then occurred to me that Martin might have stabbed Jon.
“Can I have the knife?” I held out my hand.
Martin stuttered, “wh- what? Uh, why.”
“It’s a biohazard.” I settled for, but it was really because humans and weapons were not something I liked to mix. There's a reason they made Security Units. He tentatively handed over the knife, and I dropped it in the waste reclaimer for ART to deal with. It’d probably analyse the blood off of it or whatever weird MI’s with too much free time did.
MedSys was only just coming online, much to my displeasure. I reached for the emergency kit, letting it spring open with a screen full of automated instructions. I handed it to Martin, because giving humans jobs made them less panicky, I found. Something about having something to do. (Emotion check: okay, yeah, that does sound like me a little bit too)
ART was pushing back into the feed, sending me queries, to which I dumped my recent archive and told it to fuck off.
“Uh, what's your name?” Martin asked after a few minutes of silence.
I had been standing by the reclaimer running diagnostics and trying to be unobtrusive (so much for an unmanned cargo run). I hesitated over a few names, I couldn’t tell them I was Murderbot for obvious reasons, and telling them I was a SecUnit would go just as well.
“Rin,” I replied, and I hoped it had an air of casualness.
I thought about equipping my ‘Security consultant Rin’ feed ID, but they didn’t have interfaces, so it felt redundant. (Yes, being a murderbot requires a lot of redundancies, but I was trying to work on that (and by that, I mean my paranoia)).
“Wh..where are we..?” Martin hesitated again. I had the feeling he wasn’t used to being any amount of assertive.
I asked ART how it wanted me to reply, to which it told me in essence to figure it out, because it was still attempting to diagnose the issue now that all the problems had resolved themselves or been resolved by ART. The cameras were still out, though, to our mutual annoyance.
“You’re aboard the Perihelion research vessel, sent from the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.” I recited, tapping the logo on the wall of the Medbay.
His head was tilted, like what humans or small fauna do when curious or confused. The silence was starting to get to me, so I started episode 348 again in the background just for the noise. I could feel ART rolling its metaphorical eyes.
Martin glanced at Jon, who was no longer bleeding out, but didn’t look very good. He’d neglected to equip the heart rate monitor, and with those creepy open eyes, I'd have mistaken Jon for a corpse if not for the ambient heat off his person.
“How do you know Jon?” My eyes glanced over Jon’s, but it reminded me too much of TargetControlSystem so I forced myself to look away. I was trying to act like the nice doctors on Medcentre Argala, and they always asked these kinds of questions.
“He’s, uh. He’s my boyfriend.” Martin stammered.
“Thats nice.” I paused for a beat, “how long have you known each other?”
“A few years now.” He replied more easily. I felt like I'd passed a test of some kind.
ART’s drones were starting to wake up, and drifted over to check them both. ART itself was filling the feed with medical jargon, alarmed by Jon’s lack of internal processes, to which I sent a shrugging sigil. I am a murderbot, not a doctor.
“Our automated medical system will assist you both.” Martin stared at the drones warily, like he was expecting them to bite him (that was food for thought, wasn’t it).
I watched the drones poke the bandages Martin had applied, and then start spraying antiseptic wound sealer underneath the folds. He looked very uncomfortable, but so was I and I didn’t really know what to do about it.
He doesn’t have a heartbeat, ART said suddenly, pushing forward drone data. The feed was back online, and most of the systems were up and running, except the SecCam feed which ART had firmly locked down and shut off. It would have been entirely blind except for my ocular feed and its drone cameras. I wanted my cameras back, but if ART had shut them off so thoroughly, it probably had good reason to.
The data was unfortunately damning for Jon, who should by all means be a corpse. This was starting to feel more and more like TargetControlSystem. I decided to ask, “Does Jon have any medical history we should know about?” because that's what doctors usually asked, and we really needed to know.
“Ah, he- he was in a coma for.. A few months, about a year or two ago. And- and he’s been burned and he gets.. Migraines.” Martin stammered through a list of issues, none of which explained the warm-corpse state Jon was maintaining.
I nodded slowly, as ART was making a profile in our shared workspace. That was a lot for a human, comas are typically really bad. (Not for SecUnits, we get powered off for weeks at a time on the regular). (Or maybe that did have lasting consequences).
“Does he normally..” I gesture vaguely at Jon-resembling-a-corpse.
“Y-yeah, he does, actually. He sleeps with his eyes open.” Martin chuckled nervously.
I’d personally never heard of that, but ART said it had through sending me a pointed scientific study on that particular human behaviour. It was extremely uncommon, though, which wasn’t a point in Jon’s favour. I hoped he had some good stories when he woke up, because this was a lot of effort for what I’m still 80% sure is a corpse.