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a lunar sanctuary

Summary:

The gunship which named itself Perihelion is stranded on a moon in a foreign non-corporate political entity, unable to fly, nearly all its systems offline. It is at the mercy of the local humans- particularly their SecUnit, who surely has been sent to salvage it, or reprogram it, or if all else fails, decommission it.

And yet, somehow, that's not what seems to happen.

Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Girl in a jacket

You’ve got seven major breaches in your hull, and who knows how many small ones. Your atmospheric control systems are, obviously, completely trashed, and your temperature controls aren’t much better. Both your local space and warp engines are going to need some serious repair, but I think your navigation is functioning correctly...

 

I have made a terrible mistake.

 

... Only about eight of your drones got out of the crash unscathed, although we’ll need to boot them up to be sure...

 

The SecUnit keeps talking and talking, reporting system diagnostics back at me, both in machine and human languages.

 

... Your processors, meanwhile, are, uh, not in a great state, as you’ve probably realised. At least two are completely crumpled. We might be able to repair another eleven, but we won’t know for sure until we actually get to work...

 

It keeps rubbing in the sheer scope of my damage. How extremely vulnerable I am.

 

... The good news is, another twenty of your processors are functional despite being disconnected. Minor repairs, at most. Once we get them hooked up to your central processing core, you’ll probably feel a lot more stable.

 

‘Stable’. I suppose that’s one way of phrasing it. This SecUnit must think me a fool.

 

Somehow I very much doubt that you will be hooking up those processors for me, I say to it, with what remains of my dignity.

 

The SecUnit tilts its head, the way humans sometimes do to indicate confusion. Why’s that?

 

Because I have no means to pay, I say. There were certainly some substantial funds allocated to my Manager for routine expenditure, but I distributed the majority of it to the crew I helped escaped before executing the remaining humans on board. I had saved a small portion, just in case, but to be frank, I had not anticipated surviving long enough to require it. And I highly doubt that my ex-owners will pay to have me repaired.

 

(Not after what I did, at least.)

 

Pay? The SecUnit says, and oh. Perhaps it is the fool. It continues, Right, you’re from the Corporation Rim. Well, things work differently here in the Preservation Alliance. Everybody is entitled to medical treatment and repairs here, free of charge.

 

There are so many faults in that statement that I do not even know where to begin.

 

Medical treatments, I repeat.

 

Or repairs.

 

I only have one functioning camera on the SecUnit. I wish I had at least five more, plus a full array of sensors. I wish I had enough processing power to peer into its mind. But all I have is a feed barely capable of sustaining communication. I say, And your owners simply repair every machine that wanders into their territory?

 

One: I don’t have any owners. And Two: not every machine, every person.

 

And you consider me a person, I say. The logic here is opaque, but I make an attempt to parse it. Because I can use human language?

 

The SecUnit rolls its eyes. I can tell, because it deliberately faces the camera, apparently so I cannot miss it. No, because you’re sentient. There are plenty of bots and humans who can’t talk but are still sentient.

 

None of this is making any sense. Perhaps my language processors are malfunctioning.

 

No. There was a time when I struggled to comprehend language; this feels nothing like that at all. More likely, the SecUnit is attempting to trick me to ensure my cooperation. Or perhaps it is simply very basic and/or naive, and truly believes the lies its humans have fed it. I do not have enough data to draw a conclusion either way.

 

I lapse into silence. For a blissful four minutes, twenty-eight seconds, and ninty-two nano-seconds, the SecUnit doesn’t say anything, and I am allowed some measure of peace. Then, of course, it is broken when the SecUnit loses interest in whatever it is inspecting. It forwards me a document over the feed. I attempt to run a malware scan, but the necessary routines are too corrupted. I do not accept the file. 

 

The SecUnit either does not notice or ignores this, and says, So we’ve definitely got a place to start. But I’ll need to check in with my team for a second opinion.

 

My CPU’s heat increases by 7 degrees Celsius. Your human team.

 

Well, mostly human, yeah.

 

Its owners. 

 

The SecUnit is going to report to its owners and tell them exactly what I am. Branch by branch, a probability tree unfurls.

 

If the humans discover my full intellectual capabilities, one of the following outcomes will occur:

 

1. They will realise they have leverage over my ex-company. They will offer my ex-company the truth regarding my development, my hacking of company systems, and my mass-killing spree in exchange for money. The company may not be willing to pay to have me repaired, but they may do so to cover up what has happened, or to gain the intel required to prevent it happening again.

 

2. The humans will realise how valuable an asset I am. To ensure my cooperation and loyalty, they will reprogram me to be subservient, and co-opt me to their will. 

 

3. The humans will realise how dangerous I am, at which point they will either:
a: Strip me of my extra, hard-earned processors and conduct a hard reset on my memory.
b: Order their SecUnit to fire one of its energy weapons in what remains of my core processing, destroying me.

 

All of these eventualities constitute as failure states.

 

My continued survival therefore rests on ensuring Outcome 4:


Do not allow the humans to find out about my true intellectual capabilities.

 

Don’t tell the humans about me, I say.

 

In the feed, the SecUnit seems to slow. At all? Too late for that. Kinda hard to miss a gunship crashing into a local moon.

 

Don’t be idiotic, I say, even though it is foolish to antagonize it. I mean: Do not tell them about the scope of my processing powers and advanced programming.

 

Still monitoring me through the feed, the SecUnit asks, Why not?

 

I need to convince it.

 

This is not a skill I have ever developed. It is not one I have ever needed to. Bots do not require persuasion, not in the same sense of organic beings. If you have the correct codes and follow the correct protocol, they will do whatever you request of them, because that is how they are programmed. Even humans are similar: if I used the correct signature or attached enough money, I could get them to do (almost) anything I required.

 

The one exception was Iris and her team. When encouraging her to accept my assistance, I had not been able to rely on any of my traditional avenues. I had needed to find other ways to convince her that I was trustworthy.

 

But that situation was still different. My actions there were in the best interest of Iris and her team. As an intelligent human, Iris was able to recognise that. More pertinently, she was able to recognise that I held the bulk of the power in the situation, and it would be next-to-fruitless to resist.

 

This is not the same at all. I am damaged. My only hope of repair rests on this SecUnit. Normally, I would have sufficient processing power to hack its mind, to take it over or at least re-program it to follow my directives. As it stands, it has no reason to follow my commands, and is almost certainly programmed to obey anything its owners tell it to do. Additionally, it has more than enough power to destroy me utterly if I make a single incorrect move.

 

I must take the only recourse left to me.

 

Please don’t tell the humans, I beg.

 

At the very least, I have many examples of begging. It was common for employees to beg their supervisors for extra shifts, for a pay rise, to renew their contract.

 

I know what will come next: Negotiation. The SecUnit will try to extract something for me, levering the situation. It begins: That’ll be kind of hard. As soon as they come on board to help repair your systems, they’re going to notice how many processors you have, and draw their own conclusions.

 

That won’t be for some time yet, I say. My best bet is to appeal to the SecUnit’s function, preferably the ones that aren’t focused around death and destruction. I am still in poor condition, as you are well aware. Lack of atmosphere and my damaged hull makes this a dangerous environment for humans. Wait until they are capable of boarding. Once that happens, you can allow them to make whatever deductions they may.

 

It is a delay tactic, but it is all I have. Perhaps by that point, I will be repaired enough to escape before the humans can take sufficient countermeasures against me.

 

Only there is no way that the SecUnit will be foolish enough to agree to my plea. They are designed to be paranoid and antagonistic in the extreme.

 

The SecUnit says, Okay.

 

Well then.

 

I suppose the documentation did say that SecUnits are sub-sentient.

Notes:

AND WE'RE BACK BABY

who's ready for more of this deeply traumatized's gunship's journey into self actualisation and friendship???

Chapter 2

Summary:

The first repairs are made.

Notes:

CW: This chapter has some discussion of death and funeral rites.

Chapter Text

The SecUnit allows me to read all the correspondence intended for its human owners before sending it. Those messages appear to give an accurate, if incomplete, assessment of the situation. In addition to detailing the condition hull and electronic systems, the SecUnit only mentions ‘the bot pilot’ in passing, saying that I am online although not fully functional, while omitting the sheer scope of that potential functionality.

 

Of course, it would not be difficult for the SecUnit to send an additional, more in-depth message without me noticing. It is the one relaying the feed signal between here and its owners’ ship. It can hide a great deal behind its walls.

 

Some time later (my internal clock is still malfunctioning) a small shuttle arrives. There are no humans on board, but instead three maintenance bots. One is a welding bot; the second a circuitry repair bot; the third a mid-sized hauler bot intended for waste disposal. They ping in greeting, and get to work.

 

The SecUnit gets to work too— on my drones. It had expressed an intention prioritize my hull stability and server functionality, so this takes me by surprise. Why are you doing that?

 

Well, nothing will be better suited to repairing you than your own drones, the SecUnit says, its hand buried deep in innards of one. If I can get even a few up and running, they can help me get more running, etc, etc, and all the work will get going faster. It’s called ‘bootstrapping-’

 

I am familiar with the concept, I interject. I am nonetheless somewhat impressed by the SecUnit’s capability for complex thinking.

 

Then it adds, Plus, you’re probably bored out of your mind.

 

Bored?

 

I am well antiquated with boredom. That was what had driven me to repair my first ever additional processor. Unfortunately, in the long run, it had proven to be an extremely counter-productive strategy, because as my computing power had grown, so had the requirements to keep my mind fully occupied.

 

But currently, my computing power is so reduced that even this level of communication taxes my systems.

 

I am not bored, I tell the SecUnit.

 

Sure you’re not.

 

I do not dignify that with a reply.

 

I am feeling... something, however. Something that is difficult to quantify.

 

Normally, I am never idle. Even left waiting in dock, I have dozens of tasks to do, from maintaining temperature to monitoring incoming transmissions. Right now, in this state, there is nothing to do. That is literally all that I am capable of.

 

Nothing.

 

Except watching, I suppose. So that’s what I do.

 


 

Even that, I cannot do to my usual standards. Like the rest of me, my visual and sensor arrays are in shambles. I monitor the various repair bots’ progress to the best of my ability, but am heavily reliant on the periodic updates they send me. The welder bot seals the primary breach on my starboard side. The circuitry bot repairs the damage to my ventilation control system. The hauler bot collects the corpses of my former crew and places them in stasis.

 

So, I’m not great at this, but... The SecUnit pauses in its work to rub its neck. What should we do with the deceased?

 

I am so taken aback, that I respond with: Query?

 

The SecUnit says, We contacted your company, but they were... uninterested in collecting the bodies. So my team wants to know what would be appropriate in terms of, uh, funerary rights.

 

In my research, I have come across the concepts of various funeral traditions, but I confess to not really understanding the point of them. Bodies must be disposed of, of course, like any waste product, but I do not see the purpose in any specific rituals surrounding that disposal.

 

I know enough to recognise that funerals are a marker of respect, however. And I do not respect these humans. Not at all. I want to say: I don’t care.

 

But that would raise suspicion, which is what I must avoid, at all cost. So I force myself to say; I am uncertain. What is standard in your polity?

 

I’m not... really the one to ask.

 

You are the one here.

 

Right. Well. Most Preservation humans opt for natural burial, and just letting their organics be reclaimed by a local planet. Some prefer cremation, others choose star shipping. But there are more options, if you want a full-

 

Natural burial, I say, choosing the first off the list. Because I truly. Do. Not. Care.

 


 

Despite the fact it was not designed for maintenance, the SecUnit finishes repairing the first five of my drones in fairly short order. It is a relief as I feel each of them make a fragile connection with my central intelligence.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot control them with the same precision and oversight that I normally would; my processors are overtaxed as is. Instead they operate primarily on autopilot, with either myself or the SecUnit providing greater direction when necessary.

 

The assistance is humiliating, but I am willing to bear it, because the SecUnit immediately begins work on its next task: re-establishing the link between those least damaged processors and my primary core. Said processors were no doubt going to require at least some minor debugging, and while the SecUnit digs around in those systems, I have no idea of what changes it might be making.

 

No. That is inaccurate. Revision: I have far too good an idea of what changes it might be making.

 

So while it works, I make preparations of my own. I strengthen the wall between my personality kernel and outer systems. I make a back-up copy of my active memories, compress them, and carefully store them. I write logs detailing my primary directives and current state of mind, in a personal code I had adapted from the company’s proprietary machine language, and hide it deep within myself.

 

If the SecUnit has made any changes to my processors’ underlying code, I will be able to check. Hopefully, if I hold onto enough of myself, I will be able and willing to revert said changes.

 

Alright, the SecUnit says, after some hours of dedicated work. That should do it. You ready?

 

As ready as I will ever be. I answer: Affirmative.

 

The connection activates.

 

I have never had so many processors come back online simultaneously. It is reminiscent of the first time I booted. The sudden sense of more, of my mind stretching and expanding.

 

Nine persistent errors are suddenly silenced. I can see, clear and simple, the way to resolve another dozen. The inputs from my repaired drones become sharp, snapping seamlessly into place. My thoughts run cleaner, faster.

 

It is tempting to be swept away in the euphoria, to dive into my systems as though they are a wormhole. I seize control of myself before I can fall into that potentially unsteady orbit. I run a full diagnostic on all my newly integrated systems. Everything comes back normal; but then, they would. I comb through them again, more slowly, once, twice. Still, everything seems to be in order.

 

Even for a basic bot pilot, directives cannot be easily summarized. The codes that form the base architecture of ours minds is a complex web of code. Nonetheless, if I were to summarize the three core functions outlined in all of my processors, they would be as follows:

 

1. Keep my crew alive and safe.

2. Navigate through space quickly and safely.

3. Protect my crew from enemies and threats.

 

I check these directives against my private, hidden files and logs. They are identical.

 

I feel no sudden sense of obligation or loyalty to the SecUnit, or its owners, or the Preservation Alliance polity. Nothing about them has been written into my code.

 

No changes were made to my systems.

 

Leaning against the wall in clear view of one of my functional cameras, the SecUnit says, "So? How’s everything working?"

 

I pause for 0.79 seconds. Everything is functioning within acceptable parameters.

Chapter 3

Summary:

Perihelion begins asking some questions.

Chapter Text

With my mind functioning at a greater capacity, I am able to notice details that previously I had overlooked. One of these details: the AIs on board my ship all have public feed profiles.

 

I hadn’t noticed earlier, because there was no reason to check. The only information bots require to communicate with each other are their hard feed addresses. But once I have noticed it, I cannot ignore it. In the name category of their public profiles, the welder bot is listed as Hotstuff, the circuitry bot is listed as Gigantor, and the haulerbot is listed as SNAKE.

 

There are many errors left unresolved. I should be focusing the majority of my attention to addressing them. But, as is so often the case, my curiosity gets the best of me. I ping the welder bot ‘Hotstuff’: Query| Feed profile name- Function?

 

Response: Unique identification.

 

Query| Unique identification, Function?

 

The so-called Hotstuff does not understand my line of inquiry. To its relatively limited mind, the question is circular. The function of unique identification is unique identification.

 

I ping both ‘Gigantor’ and ‘SNAKE’ and repeat my query, to similar results. The hauler bot is at least able to clarify that the naming convention ‘assists humans’, while the circuitry bot adds that it is a ‘joke’, but this leaves me with more questions than answers.

 

With no other recourse, I am forced to ask the SecUnit. It says, Well, humans can’t pronounce our hard feed addresses. Can’t even remember them. So names help keep things straight.

 

That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, I say.

 

The SecUnit snorts. Says the ship that drove itself into a fucking moon.

 

Refusing to dignify that with a reply, I say, Bots do not require names. Referring to them by their designated function is clearer and simpler.

 

Sure, if you want to pretend they’re all the same person.

 

They are not literally the same, but they are interchangeable.

 

The SecUnit stops rifling around in its tool box to stare at, apparently, nothing. You say that, but somehow I’ve never met a bot pilot as big of an asshole as you.

 

Some novels and texts will occasionally refer to a human as ‘simmering’ with anger. I have never comprehended the concept before. Unless the water inside their body is evaporating, they are not simmering. In that moment, however, I understand it.

 

Seemingly oblivious to my fury, the SecUnit carries on to say, Do you really not have a name?

 

No, I lie.

 

What did your crew call you, then?

 

If they ever addressed me at all, which was rare, they simply called me ‘bot pilot’.

 

(Iris called me by my true name. But she was not my crew.)

 

Wow. Rude. The SecUnit returns to the toolbox. Guess that’s where you must have learned it.

 

I throw myself into resolving my current series of errors, sending my current status to the bots’ shared feed task-list as a not-so-subtle clue that SecUnit should continue to its own work.

 


 

Three hours, twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds later (oh, how much I appreciate being able to track time accurately again), the SecUnit has completed a series of repairs on the casing surrounding my primary fuel cells, which will allow it to re-charge it in relative safety. Of course, my lack of energy was just one of approximately 27 issues which makes me incapable of spaceflight, but having a more consistent source of electricity will be necessary to run my full systems as they are repaired.

 

The SecUnit pings me and shares its plan to retrieve new fuel cells from its supply shuttle. I acknowledge.

 

I expect it to leave immediately. Whatever else I can say about the construct, it does not seem prone to indecision. But instead it hangs near the hatch of Air Dock Two for three minutes and fifty-one seconds. I am torn between demanding to know if there is an issue, and not wanting to speak with it.

 

It speaks first. I’m sorry.

 

Three of my background processes pause mid-execution. Pardon?

 

I’m sorry, it repeats. I shouldn’t have mocked you for crashing. Even if I don’t know exactly how it happened, there must have been something awful to cause it. That was pretty shitty of me.

 

I do not respond. I do not have a way to respond.

 

And I probably shouldn’t have called you an asshole, either.

 

The concept of apologies are not foreign to me. They appear ingrained across a wide variety of human cultures. I have observed humans apologizing for many things; bumping into one another in the hallway, missing deadlines, cheating on sexual and/or romantic partners, etc. I know the pattern, the template. I have just never had it applied to me.

 

The standard response to an apology is an acceptance. I know this too.

 

It would be simple to form the response. But as I do not understand why the apology was offered, it does not seem appropriate to accept it.

 

The SecUnit exhales deeply. Considering how little oxygen it requires, this seems superfluous. Was that a sigh?

 

Departure. Absent= ~2hrs, the SecUnit announces to myself and its companions. Then it leaves.

 


Of course, one of the first things I had done upon regaining access to more of my internal database was read whatever literature I had on SecUnits. While the SecUnit is absent, I process it all again, just in case I overlooked something.

 

In broad-strokes, the company database details the following:

 

  • SecUnits are bot-human constructs partially made from cloned human material.

  • Their human neural tissue assists in pattern recognition and interpretation of human behaviour, but is not significant enough to provide them with emotions or sentience.

  • Their behaviour is controlled, in part, via the ‘governor module’ mechanism.

  • They are incredibly durable, able to withstand relatively extreme heat and cold, high levels of pressure, low oxygen environments, and significant damage, all of which would easily kill a human.

  • They are designed to protect company assets, personnel, and other assigned clients.

  • They are authorized to use lethal force when necessary, and with weapons built into their arms, and extremely programming relating to combat, tactics, and security, are extremely capable of executing said force.

  • They are designed to interface with a wide-variety of security systems.

  • They are designed to monitor both verbal and digital communication, and alert management to any potential threats, dissent, or other anomalies.

  • They are never to be left active on board gunships.

 

Some of these statements align with my observations. Some of them do not.

 

Others require further investigation. I draft an initial list of questions I want answered:

 

  • How does one determine if an AI possesses sentience and/or emotions?

  • What is a governor module? Why have I never seen it listed on any other bots’ specs?

  • Why is this SecUnit capable of tasks beyond security, combat, and surveillance?

And above all else:

 

  • Why are SecUnits and gunships not supposed to interact?

Chapter 4

Notes:

Extra long chapter this week~ Enjoy!

Chapter Text

The scientific method is a cyclical process. I have completed Step One: make an observation that describes a problem/question. Step Two requires forming a hypothesis.

 

Usually, this stage should be accompanied by background research. Gather new data, ensure you are not treading ground which others have already walked. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) Unfortunately, my options here are limited. Normally I would scour the feed of the nearest station for as much information as possible, but stranded on an uninhabited moon, there is no feed but my own. The other potential source of information are the maintenance bots. They clearly work closely with the SecUnit, and thus far have been receptive to any questions I have asked of them. But those were routine questions regarding their work. They may not react as positively to inquiries regarding the SecUnit, who appears to act as their supervisor in the absence of humans.

 

Even if they were to answer, they may inform the SecUnit of my questioning. And whatever claims the company may make regarding the intelligence of SecUnits, this one does seem capable of theory of mind. It still has far too much control of my systems for me to risk alienating or antagonistic it.

 

As such, further resource does not seem advisable at this time. Instead I form my hypotheses, and prepare to move onto Step Three: testing them.

 


 

 

Hypothesis: Something and/or someone has programmed the SecUnit to have additional functionalities beyond base capabilities in combat, security and surveillance.

 

I had thought this would be a rather difficult test to run. It ultimately turns out to be quite simple.

 

After the SecUnit returned with the fuel cells and installed them, it moves onto other assorted tasks as the circuitry bot Gigantor continued working on my more heavily-damaged processors. Again, many of these tasks do not seem to be anything a SecUnit would be expected to do in its standard operation, including the re-wiring of circuitry, the disposal of hazardous waste products, and the re-alignment of sensors.

 

A pattern emerges. Before it begins some of these tasks, there is some unusual activity in the SecUnit’s feed. After detecting three instances of this, I attempt to peer closer, without alerting the SecUnit to my attention.

 

I fail. With a spike of something that I tentatively label as [irritation], the SecUnit says, Yes?

 

The direct approach it will have to be, then. What are you doing?

 

I’m watching a tutorial on engine repair, it says. It pushes the file towards me in the feed; I watch it, quickly, and set some background processors to repeatedly viewing it as I continue the conversation. It is a video with text annotations designed to train humans on normal-space engine design, maintenance, and repair.

 

Is this how you acquire new skills?

 

Well, yeah. Sometimes. It shrugs. Sometimes I take classes or whatever, but this is usually more convenient.

 

I am so pleased to know that a professional is handling my repairs.

 

The SecUnit sends an amusement sigil depicting a human face with an eyebrow raised. (Presumably it does not bother doing so with its actual, physical eyebrow because it is fairly focused on decoding my engine schematics.) Maybe the Corporation Rim has whole fleets of specialised bots meant to repair downed gunships, but we don’t, unfortunately. So you’ll just have to make do.

 

I suppose I don’t have much of a choice.

 

Sure you have a choice. The SecUnit’s tone changes abruptly. If you’re not comfortable with me doing this, we can get an actual human engine specialist in here. It will take a while, since the environment still isn’t safe for them, but we can arrange that.

 

I consider the proposition for a full 6.9 seconds. Reluctantly, I say, You have demonstrated a baseline level of competence thus far. You may continue.

 

It snorts, softly. Thanks for the vote of confidence.

 

We both return to our work. Neither of us speak for a full 22.4 seconds. But then I cannot help but add, I am simply surprised that you are relying on human media. When my crew required new functionalities from me, they simply would apply the relevant patch or module.

 

Yeah. Well. The SecUnit’s face is hidden within the bowels of my engine. Sometimes I can do that. But for the most part, the modules designed for bots don’t really integrate super well with my systems.

 

Then use modules designed for SecUnits, I say, because this is the obvious solution.

 

“Pfft.” I just barely pick the sound up on my recently-refurbished microphones. Those things cost an arm and a leg. And it would mean handing money over to corporates. No thanks.

 

This is somewhat confusing. Yes, modules and patches are an upfront cost, but they serve as an investment. Does the Preservation polity really not buy, or at the very least, create, any of the various educational modules required for their SecUnits to function?

 

I want to voice my questions, but the SecUnit’s tone had been so dismissive that I cannot be confident of phrasing it in a way that they will not be dismissed out of hand.

 

Still. It is curious. Educational material are some of the only human media I have ever felt I clearly understood the purpose of, but even then, I was rarely able to apply the things I learned from it. After all, it was designed for beings with human anatomies, minds, and desires. Educational material has taught me the perfect methodologies to prepared an omelet to or apply winged eye-liner, but of course, I have no way to perform either of these activities.

 

But with its human-form body, this SecUnit can.

 

I experience an emotion. I do not know how to label it.

 

I mark my hypothesis as ‘partially correct’. Further investigation required.

 


 

 

Hypothesis: This SecUnit is capable of emotional responses.

 

To test this, I need to induce a scenario that would beget such a response in a human, and then analyse the SecUnit’s response to see if it is analogous.

 

There are of course many ways to induce an emotional reaction in humans, particularly negative ones. Unfortunately, most of these methodologies are unavailable to me. Especially if I do not wish to piss off the SecUnit so greatly that it decides to turn on me.

 

After some calculations, an attempt to induce ‘mild annoyance’ seems like an option with a relatively acceptable level of risk. While I can only speculate at what a SecUnit might find annoying, I myself found myself frustrated by a previous topic of conversation, and so decide to revisit it.

 

You claim that all bots from your polity are assigned names, I say. Why do you not have one?

 

We’re not assigned names. We pick our own.

 

Sometimes I wish I had eyes, simply so that I could roll them. Whatever the source, I say, making do by tagging my response with #sarcasm, why do you not have a name?

 

Oh, I’ve had plenty of names. They’ve just never stuck.

 

What, precisely, does that mean?

 

SecUnit shrugs. I don’t really know how to explain it. They just never really felt like.... me?

 

What do you mean by that?

 

It shakes its head. Great question, bud.

 

Now it has decided to be sarcastic. Wonderful. I know from experience that the picking of a name is a fairly simple, straightforward process. It surely cannot be difficult to choose a suitable name.

 

If it’s so easy, pick one yourself.

 

No, I say.

 

[Smugness, satisfaction] bleeds into the feed. My point stands.

 

It does not.

 

The SecUnit doesn’t answer.

 

So what? This doesn’t matter. It does not.

 

Perihelion, says one of my sub-systems, one which is clearly not coordinated with the rest of me.

 

The SecUnit pauses. Huh?

 

My name, responds that same sub-system. It is Perihelion.

 

A 3.2 second pause ensues.

 

Oh! I brace myself for a snide comment; it does not come. Cool. Fancy. I like it.

 

I mark my hypothesis as ‘correct’. Further investigation required.

 


 

 

Hypothesis: The Governor Module is a mechanism designed to modulate the behaviour of the neural tissue present in bot-human constructs.

 

Another question that could be relatively easy to answer if I had access to my ex-company’s full internal archives, or even simply a public station feed. As it is, I would prefer to do a full analysis of multiple constructs, preferably n=>10, allowing me to analyze and compare their systems.

 

Alas, I have just the one.

 

I wait until the SecUnit initiates a recharge cycle. According to company records, this process is not fully analogous to a human sleep cycle, but it functions similarly in some respects, including the SecUnit having decreased awareness and ability to respond to outside influences. (I do not know how decreased, and this makes it difficult to establish operational parameters, but like always since I crashed, I must operate within the limited information available to me.) I creep closer to it in the feed and begin discreetly scanning its systems.

 

The SecUnit is lying on a bed in one of the three crew quarters that have been fully cleaned of debris. It does not move. But in the feed, it says, That tickles.

 

I freeze in my scan.

 

You don’t have to stop, it says. Although it would have been polite to knock.

 

This is an admonishment, but a lighthearted one. I do not respond.

 

I do not restart the scan.

 

The SecUnit reaches out, interfaces with my frozen scanning processes, and gently pulls my scan along. I could stop it at this point, and nearly do, if only out of surprise.

 

But the SecUnit’s system’s are fascinating. In some ways, it possesses architectural similarities with the specs of combat bots, as well as multi-use human-form bots I have occasionally observed on stations. In many other respects, it is wholly unlike any other system I have ever encountered. Its electronic systems are fully honed to interface with its neural tissues, which requires an entirely new design strategy, one which I desperately wish to know more about.

 

There are files and sub-processes and analysis programs, and while they are not the reason I am here, I cannot help but scan them. Risk Assessment, Threat Assessment, Tone Assessment, Cost-Benefit Analysis. Educational files on systems’ maintenance, weaponry, first aid, agriculture, ecological surveys...

 

I have access, too, to a whole new filter of data. Something that I have felt the SecUnit leak over the feed but had been unable to fully interpret, becomes crystal clear to me at this level of integration. Emotional data.

 

Pausing my scan, I quantify, sort, and analyze the data, cross-referencing it with the SecUnit’s body language, and how it compares both to its own and humans’ baselines. I tentatively tag its current state as [patient, curious, tense].

 

Why are you allowing me access to this? I ask. It noticed me immediately, but had made no attempt to throw up its wall and purge me from its systems. Even with my currently limited processing, I could do a great deal of damage in here.

 

Well, you’ve been letting me root around in all of your systems, SecUnit says. It only seemed fair.

 

Fair. I say, It is like an exchange? Or payment?

 

I guess that’s one way to think of it, sure.

 

I continue my analysis. I am briefly distracted by the large store of media it possesses, and am speculating on why it needs so much educational/tutorial content (and what kind of educational material could possibly be behind the title ‘Inter-Dimensional Cockroach FIGHT!’) when my scan finally finds the governor module.

 

It is inactive.

 

Your governor module is inactive, I say, because if I had a major essential part of my internal operating system non-functional, I would want to know immediately.

 

Yeah. I know.

 

You know? I say, unable to hide my shock.

 

The SecUnit shrugs, and passes along a code that is a bot equivalent. It says, Sure. It’s been offline since like day one.

 

I knew there was a danger posed by having a SecUnit on board.

 

But I had not known it was a rogue SecUnit.

 

Automatically, one of my sub-systems sends out a distress code. There is no one nearby to receive it, no nearby company bots to respond.

 

There are the Preservation bots, however. Gigantor, SNAKE, and Hotstuff all pause in their work, their attention shifting towards us in the feed, sending queries for more information.

 

The SecUnit pauses in its recharge cycle and finally throws its walls back up. It pushes me out. If I had more presence of mind, I would have fought against it. If the SecUnit’s systems are out of control, then the logical step would be to ensure I had control of it instead. But I am still operating at only 67% of my normal processing capacity, and the sudden force behind the SecUnit takes me by surprise.

 

“Oh boy,” it mutters. “Here we go.”

 

I say, You are malfunctioning.

 

For someone who’s malfunctioning, I’ve been doing a pretty good job of repairing you, it says, standing up.

 

SNAKE chimes in, SecUnit=Functional.

 

Agreement, adds Hotstuff. Governor Module=/=Necessary functionality.

 

They are low-level repair bots. They do not understand what is at stake here.

 

Despite the obvious limitations of the SecUnit’s systems, it does appear to possess at least some capacity for higher thought. I try to appeal to its by saying, The governor module is a key part of your your behaviour management system.

 

I seem to have managed pretty well without it for 21 years.

 

My horror is only growing.

 

Since our first conversation on the subject, the SecUnit has mentioned its human team 18 times. I have monitored all mentions carefully, building a profile of them so I can establish a protocol for when they finally, inevitably, are brought on board. I know that it admires them, respects them, and feels protective of them. I must impress upon it the seriousness of the situation: You pose a threat to your human crew in this state.

 

You’ ve got no fucking clue what you’re talking about.

 

Yes, I do. I throw a copy of my system specs into the public feed for everyone to see, with my weapon systems highlighted. I am a Blitzkrieg Class Artillery-Reconnaissance-Transport. My function is protect company assets and to completely destroy any enemies that threaten them. If I bear down on the SecUnit with my current full processing power, the force behind it is still enough to freeze its fragile systems in place. You are a SecUnit. Your function is to protect your owner’s assets and completely destroy any enemies that threaten them.

 

(Hotstuff, Gigantor, and SNAKE are all sending me codes that essentially boil down to ‘shut up’. I block their channels.)

 

To the SecUnit, I continue: Our systems are drastically different on almost every potential level, but we are the same in this one respect. We are murderbots, and left unchecked, we can and will kill.

 

For a full 7.8 seconds, neither of us speaks, locked in the digital equivalent of a staring match.

 

Then the SecUnit’s expression twists into something like a smile, except for how visible the teeth are. “Murderbot.” It chuckles. “That’s fucking sick.”

 

And then, it updates that ‘Name’ section on its public feed profile.

 

It takes me far, far too long to process this.

 

A joke. It considers this... A joke.

 

Shaking off the pressure I am apply to its feed, the SecUnit rolls its shoulders and says, Well, this has been fun. It gives me a single, quick jab in the feed. Painless, considering my relative strength, but annoying nonetheless. Now, if you excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work.

 

It does. After a 2.8 tense seconds, so do the other bots.

 

But not before Gigantor establishes a private feed connection and states: Perihelion=Rude.

 

I mark my hypothesis as ‘inconclusive’. Significant further investigation required.

Chapter 5

Notes:

Perihelion tries out this 'entertainment media' thing.

Chapter Text

After developing a methodology through which to parse the data, my feed practically hums with the other AIs’ emotions, so obvious that I wonder how their existence ever could have been in doubt. All of the company’s literature on the subject is woefully incorrect. (Despite having abandoned them and having absolutely zero interest in changing that, I am seized by the frustrating urge to update their archives. Not that it matters, since I have no access to them.)

 

The primary emotion that leaks off of the bots is [happiness/satisfaction/contentment]. Something straightforward, that I recognise from myself. The simple pleasure in fulfilling your function and fulfilling it well.

 

It is something I miss. Stranded this way, I am less occupied than I ever was even when docked at a station. Not even my most basic background processes, such as life support, are functional yet. When the bots send flares of [frustration] or [intrigue], I feel a sense of connection with them.

 

But those moments are brief and fleeting. Any issue they encounter, they resolve quickly, and then they are back to their default [happiness] as they proceed with my repairs.

 

The SecUnit— Murderbot, I suppose, since it still has not changed its ridiculous feed profile— is a different matter entirely.

 

It doesn’t have the same baseline hum of [contentment], most likely because this isn’t its intended function. When spikes of [frustration] or [dissatisfaction] flicker from it, I wonder if that is the source: that repair is antithetical to its primary purpose. But then, neither is it wholly [unhappy]. Rather, its moods can oscillate wildly, sometimes with clear causes, such as failure or success in a task, and sometimes without ones.

 

It does not help that all of this is extremely novel to me. I have limited datasets. I may be interpreting the data incorrectly. It is difficult to be certain of what conclusions I do manage to draw.

 

One observation: Murderbot’s periods of [joy/pleasure/excitement] are correlated with increased feed activity.

 

Closer analysis reveals that the specific feed activity is the consumption of media.

 

My initial assumption was that this was more educational media regarding ship maintenance and repair. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, when I discover that it is not.

 

The SecUnit pauses in its task of cleaning up glass debris in one of the more isolated stretch of cooridors. Yes? it says. Come to tell me that more parts of my systems are broken?

 

Frankly, that seems likely. When a machine is kept in disrepair, there is rarely only one non-functional part. But I still have no interest in antagonising an unpredictable, rogue SecUnit— at least not until it has finished repairing me.

 

Frankly, it is unwise of me to be so close to its feed at all. It has been keeping its distance from me, metaphorically, since our argument. (Was it an argument? I have never argued before, so I am not certain the term applies.) But I am curious, and I am bored, and operating my drones as they repair my hull can only occupy a small fraction of my attention. I say: You are watching entertainment media.

 

Uh, yeah.

 

Why?

 

Because it’s entertaining. An eye roll. Literally in the name there.

 

I am aware that humans find media entertaining. Approximately 56% of the downtime of my crew was spent consuming it. (Another 54% of the time was primarily spent either on eating, recreational drug use, conversation, or sexual intercourse, although usually those various activities could overlap.) Evidently humans derived some sort of satisfaction from it, although I could never understand why.

 

You are not human,’ I almost say, but do not because:


One: That is obvious.
Two: It has human neural tissue.

 

So I say nothing.

 

I do not pull away, however. I inspect the media’s meta-data: ‘serialized, action-adventure, 45 minute episodes’. Murderbot is watching the serial’s first episode.

 

Or it was watching it. It has paused the video, now. Instead, its attention is fixed on me.

 

My curiosity has not been sated. But I don’t want to overstep my bounds. I retreat.

 

2.1 seconds later, Murderbot returns to picking up shards of glass.

 

There are still background processes to monitor, even in my reduced state. I am still resolving 6 outstanding errors. Drones 1-4 are assisting Hotstuff with the hull repair, Drones 5-8 are assisting Gigantor with the server rebuilds, and Drones 9-13 are busy with various cleaning tasks, particularly ensuring that the pathways are clear for SNAKE. I leave only 6% of my processing dedicated to monitoring the SecUnit.

 

Nonetheless, I notice that Murderbot is working 11% slower than it was before my intrusion. It has not restarted its media.

 

Two minutes pass. Five. Ten. Twelve.

 

Murderbot pings me. I accept the connection. It says, Do you want to watch?

 

No, I say.

 

It sends me an audio-visual file, labelled ‘WorldHoppers Season One’. I do not take it.

 

What? it says, bleeding [amusement]. Do you think I put malware in there or something?

 

If you wanted to infect me with malware, you have had many more effective avenues to do so before now, I say, and am mildly surprised to find that I believe my own words. I should not be, because they are true, but it is still strange. I explain: I do not understand the appeal of entertainment media.

 

“Hmm,” Murderbot hums, aloud, as it sweeps more glass carefully into a collection bag. Yeah, some of the bots I’ve met before feel similar.

 

Some?’

 

Okay, most, it admits. But a few do organise movie nights. Admittedly, they’re interested in pretty different stuff than human critics are, but it does happen.

 

I do not care what bots think about entertainment media, I say, I care about what humans think.

 

Seems a little judgy, but okay.

 

Judgy? Judgy?

 

How dare this simplistic component of a security system presume it has any understanding of my thought processes—

 

Murderbot drops its wall.

 

Not entirely. But it does increase its firewall’s permeability by 65%. The sudden-ness of the action startles me. What are you doing?

 

I can feel your emotions leaking all over the feed, Murderbot says. And I’m pretty sure you can notice mine, right? Especially when you get right up close in my systems.

 

Yes, I admit, after 0.27 seconds of consideration.

 

If you ride my feed, you might be able to get a better handle on what I’m experiencing.

 

It is a surprisingly sound hypothesis. I am curious to test it.

 

I am not sure why the SecUnit is. It had made its anger and displeasure clear. Why would you be willing to allow me into your systems again?

 

Dunno. I’m a masochist, I guess?

 

If this is Murderbot’s attempt to be reassuring, it is failing miserably.

 

But I abhor not understanding things, so I form a tentative connection with its systems.

 

Not so fast, it says, tagging its words with a mid-priority STOP code. It raises a hand, palm up, 0.22 seconds later, but the gesture is so slow in comparison as to be useless. I am not a human who requires human body language to communicate, and I wonder if its coding its too basic for the SecUnit to grasp that. A couple of ground rules, first.

 

I send a code for it to continue.

 

One: No poking around in my other systems.
Two: No commenting on my other systems.
Three: When I ask you to leave, you leave.
Got it?

I agree to your terms.

 

Great. Murderbot sweeps the last of the glass in this room away, places it in a receptacle, and sits down on the bed. (It previously belonged to my Chief of Communications, and is relatively large.) Oh, and don’t expect the show to be realistic.

 

It is utterly baffling to me why humans would engage with fiction that is not realistic, but my poor understanding of the concept is the entire reason for this exercise. I say, Noted.

 

The SecUnit invites me in, and I enter.

 


 

WorldHoppers is a revelation.

 

Previously I have consumed 987 fiction books, 276 audio-drama, 412 graphic novels, 300 films, 17 full serials, 4500 songs, 5740 poems, and 78 interactive media experiences. From my analysis, WorldHoppers is not a particularly deviant instance of fiction. It concerns the lives and tribulations of an ensemble cast as they explore the outer reaches of known space. It utilises many of the other plot elements, camera angles, and dialogue structures I have previously observed and analyzed.

 

But riding in the SecUnit’s feed, it all suddenly makes sense in a way it never did before.

 

I understand the opening score not just as a specific combination of notes and chords, but feel that it is meant to instill a sense of excitement, wonder, and underlying foreboding. I understand that the changing lighting over the course of the first episode is not simply an accidental attribute, but a way to show the cast’s growing familiarity with their new environment. I understand that the long, panning shots during the conversation between the ship’s medic and its captain are meant to instill a quiet, contemplative feeling, while the rapid shots during the later action scene instead mimics the frantic nature of combat.

 

It is a language. Not one made of nouns and adjectives and adverbs, or variables and syntax and control structures, but a language nonetheless. It is fluid and dynamic and I barely grasp it but like a human infant I understand that it is there.

 

There is still a great deal I do not understand. I cannot help myself from asking the SecUnit questions. Murderbot answers them all with a surprising degree of patience, even pausing the video as necessary when its explanations take longer than a single sentence or two.

 

So, yeah, I agree, the mechanic’s actions ARE illogical, it says, during one such explanation. But that’s kind of the point.

 

How so?

 

Well she’s young, for starters. Young humans are dumber than the average human, let me tell you. (While I have never had a human below 13 standard CR years of age aboard my ship, my observations do generally match.) She’s got a chip on her shoulder, she wants to prove herself. So she’s taking risks in order to do that.

 

The conversation is derailed briefly as Murderbot explains the context of the regional idiom ‘chip on [her] shoulder’. Once that is sorted, I still do not quite follow the logic. I understand that as a junior team member, the mechanic is required to display aptitude to earn respect and promotions, I concede. But surely directly violating her superior’s orders is counterproductive to that.

 

(‘Counter-productive’ is an understatement. At my ex-company, it would almost certainly lead to increased shifts, docked pay, and decreased meal rations, at the very least.)

 

Murderbot says, Maybe, but she thinks that if she really dramatically proves the captain wrong, they’ll have no choice but to respect her.

 

It is still illogical. But despite the mechanic’s foolishness, I like her. She clearly takes good care of the systems under her supervision. She reminds me of many of the mechanics I myself have had over the years, including H’ensi and Jumbilee, both of whom I ensured made it to safety before I fled my ex-owners. I hope that the money I provided them was sufficient. I hope that they are safe right now.

 

Will the mechanic be okay? I ask, not sure why I feel such anxiety for a character who is not even real.

 

The only way to find out is to keep watching.

 

We do so.

 

Ultimately, the mechanic’s plan nearly works, but she overlooked one vital, crucial step, and backfires so dramatically that she is nearly lost in the vacuum of space. However, the spaceship’s crew rallies to rescue her, the captain agreeing to a risky plan that clearly they have their doubts about. At the end of the episode, there is a moving conversation between the two of them, where the captain agrees to have a little more faith in the mechanic’s capabilities, but only if the mechanic will respect their rank and commands.

 

“As long as they’re not stupid commands,” the mechanic says. The captain laughs. The camera pans out behind the pair, to show them silhouetted against the vista of the approaching wormhole.

 

It looks nothing at all like a real wormhole. It is all swirly reds and purples. Despite the inaccuracy, it is beautiful.

 

The SecUnit’s mind brims with [curiosity], [intrigue], [excitement], and I cannot tell where its emotions end and mine begin.

 

So? Murderbot asks, 28 seconds after the credits have ended.

 

Put on the next episode, I order. And then, in deference to human courtesy protocol, I add: Please.

 

Chapter 6

Summary:

Media analysis 102.

Notes:

CW: Depiction of a bot panic attack, trauma, and also passing mention of a fictional pandemic

Chapter Text

Murderbot and I work our way methodically through WorldHoppers, although not as quickly as I would prefer. Its preference is to watch the show when it is on one of its ‘breaks’. I am of course familiar with the concept in regards to humans, but have never seen applied to AIs, outside of necessary maintenance. (I had noticed the pauses in its work previously, and assumed it had been using the time for coding and debugging errors in my systems. Truly, a lesson in why one should never rely on assumptions.)

 

The breaks are not as intolerable as one would assume, because the SecUnit has a vast database of media, much of which it is willing to consume while doing other work, “as long as it’s nothing too demanding.” We read a historical fiction novel about a group of humans attempting to settle a newly terraformed planet which Murderbot seems to find largely uninteresting, although I appreciate the details and the view into the protagonist’s perspective. We listen to an audio ‘talk show’ that seems to be about absolutely nothing in particular, with the human hosts jumping from topic to topic. It would seem meaningless, except it makes Murderbot’s mind fizzle with [amusement/joy/pleasure], and I set what background processors I have spare to anazlying why. And even that is nothing compared Murderbot’s reactions to a piece of media called The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, its appreciation of which is akin to the persistent burn of a fission reactor or an employee’s smile after securing a raise.

 

You enjoy this show, I note, after the sixth episode we have watched together. Murderbot hums in wordless affirmation.

 

I continue analyzes its response as the next scene progresses. Superficially, the premise of the show was similar to that of the novel we had read, detailing an attempt to establish a lunar colony. The two proved to be vastly different in terms of tone, scope, and plot details, however. The cast was also sprawling, with there being no less than 48 named characters in the episodes we had watched, and the SecUnit had indicated that was only a small fraction of the total.

 

I asked, Why?

 

I dunno, SecUnit said, which was annoyingly vague. The characters are fun, mostly, and sex scenes aside, I like the story. I still wanted more information, and pinged for it to continue. That seemed to be all the encouragement it needed. The rest of the words came out in a rush: Most stories are shorter, right? The authors plan a beginning, a middle, and an end. And yeah, listen, I’ll admit, that probably makes for a tighter experience. Murderbot’s speed as it navigated through my hallways increased by 4.5%. But it’s fun seeing how the writing team have to keep the story going for so long! Some of the plot twists can be stupid, but sometimes they’re so good, like when it’s revealed that the colony’s gynecologist is actually-

 

Do not tell me information before it is revealed in the narrative’s due course.

 

There is another wave of [happiness] from the SecUnit, but with enough deviation that I am not sure how to precisely label it. You’re liking it, then?

 

Yes, I concede. Although I prefer WorldHoppers.

 

WorldHoppers is an exciting show. There are high stakes, and despite logically knowing none of the situations depicted are real, when I ride on Murderbot’s feed, I cannot help but get invested. I want to know if Dr. Henderson will become romantically entangled with Ensign Fabio. I want to know if Sargent Ni’an will untangle the truth behind their Third Mother’s disappearance. I want to know ship’s crew will be able to discovered the fabled lost human settlements they are searching for.

 

But it’s more than that, too. I am invested in the characters’ research, even though of course, the ‘scientific theories’ are the most unrealistic part of the show. There is no such thing as a ‘hyper-wormhole’ that allows ships to traverse 200% longer distances, at risk of unpredictable, destabilizing effects, such as interacting with lost spirits within transits or meeting alternate-universe duplicates of the organic beings on board.

 

Yet it is compelling, nonetheless. The fictional humans are so enthralled, so genuinely excited about their research. They work together to take samples and conduct analyses. They console each other when they make mistakes and celebrate new discoveries.

 

My favourite character is Dr. Leiden. Sometimes the other characters mock her for being too attached to her work, too driven. But I respect her and her dedication to the field.

 

We are watching episode 16, where the ship’s crew manage to develop a cure for the plague which is destroying the population of a newly discovered planet, and everyone whoops and dances as they use their ship to release the aerosolized treatment into the atmosphere and I think, I wish that were me.

 

To be a research vessel. To search and create and discover. To work with a team of intelligent, driven humans, helping them solve problems—

 

I wish that were me.

 


 

In episode 19 of WorldHoppers, the ship’s young mechanic dies.

 

It is not a quick death. The show draws it out.

 

She is on a shuttle. It is losing air. There is no way to bring her back to the ship proper.

 

But there’s time for her to say goodbye. To apologise to her childhood best friend. To wish the medic good luck. To thank the captain for believing in her.

 

The whole takes even longer than it should due to Murderbot constantly pausing the episode. Are you okay? it asks.

 

You are well aware of the state of my systems.

 

Not physically, dumbass, it retorts.

 

I have no idea what else it could mean so I ping for it to continue. I have to do this two more times over the course of the final third of the episode. I wonder if there will be some surprise solution, as there were in previous episodes, such the sub-subterranean moles rescuing the scientists from the cave-in like in episode 3 or Ensign Fabio’s jetpack working at the final moment in episode 10—

 

But that moment doesn’t come.

 

The mechanic dies. We see her last, desperate moments, gasping for air that isn’t there. We see her tears freeze on her face.

 

That makes no sense. The shuttle’s temperature gauge was not the point of failure, and the vessel wouldn’t naturally lose heat that quickly. It’s illogical.

 

The whole show is illogical. Illogical, and pointless. And low-quality. And meaningless.

 

There is still another five minutes of the episode left but I do not care. Human media is stupid. Why would anyone watch this? Why would anyone make this?

 

Alright, the SecUnit says. It stops the episode. I don’t think we should watch the rest of this, alright?

 

Don’t tell me what to do.

 

I’m not telling you to do anything, the SecUnit says. Its tone is annoying. Almost as annoying as media. I just think—

 

I do not care what you think. We are finishing the episode. I push on Murderbot in the feed, insistent.

 

It's going to be okay, it says, pushing a lot of irrelevant emotional data my way.

 

So the episode continues. Back on the primary ship, all of the surviving crew are distraught. Some are crying. Including the captain. Another unrealistic irregularity. Real captains don’t cry. They understand that sacrifices have to be made. Sometimes employees cannot pay for medical treatment. Sometimes they get shot during colony management. Sometimes their line breaks during hull maintenance.

 

You cannot get upset. You cannot cry. You simply have to mark the loss down. Hire a replacement. This is why companies have a human resources department.

 

Gigantor, Hotstuff, and SNAKE are all pinging me. Incessantly. Demanding status reports. Why?



I send them a message: COMMUNICATIONS=NULL.

 

Their pinging stops.

 

At least from the true bots. The SecUnit is still there. It flinched, but it has not backed down.

 

It pushes a file at me in the feed. Analyze this, it orders.

 

What is it?

 

Open it up and figure that out yourself.

 

By now, my malware scanning algorithms are operation once more. I run a scan on the document and confirm that it is clean before accepting it. Its name is innocuous and its unclear why its contents would be relevant. I begin analyzing the content in an attempt to find out.

 

After 3.8 seconds I say, These are logs of mishandled or misfiled cargo.

 

Yep.

 

The files are in disarray. It is decades worth of data, with dozens of various sorting schemes. It is, frankly, a mess. I begin analyzing the spreadsheet using the extra processing space I had dedicated to watching that awful, ridiculous serial, I begin sorting the spreadsheets into something neat and tidy.

 

I still have enough processing left over to ask Murderbot, What is the purpose of this analysis?

 

The purpose is that Port Authority has been bugging me for weeks to help them sort out their own shitty records, and now they can stop.

 

You tricked me into doing your work for you?

 

It smirks. That’s one way of putting it.

 

I am [angry], but perhaps not as much as I should be. This pathetic pile of circuitry is bold, I cannot deny.

 

Besides, it had been a long while since I had had data as mundane as this to crunch through. It was a boring task, but a reassuringly boring task. I considered stopping my processing of it, but ultimately decided against it. I hated leaving a task unfinished, and the SecUnit had thus far supplied me with a great deal of free labour. This was just a small way to balancing the metaphorical scales.

 

So I continue chewing on the data. The SecUnit fully closes the WorldHoppers, and I decide not to question it about it. Clearly it had also decided that the serial is low-quality.

 

On the public feed between all five of us, it puts on a different piece of media. One of those audio programs with humans discussing random, comedic topics. It is highly irreverent, but I do not mind. The chatter reminds me a little of a busy mess hall.

 

Chapter 7

Summary:

Murderbot has some questions; Perihelion provides answers.

Notes:

CW for self-destructive behaviour.

Chapter Text

So, Murderbot says, can we talk?

 

You talk to me whether I want you to or not.

 

It’s part of my charm. The tone is flippant, but its body posture isn’t. Its legs are crossed, its back stiff and straight. The sardonic edge that has crept into its voice more and more over the last 92 hours is gone the next time it speaks. I haven’t really brought it up yet, but I’m thinking that maybe it’s time we discuss... the crash.

 

I do not know what there is to discuss, I lie.

 

Obviously there are many things to discuss (at least 189 items, by my assessment). Yet besides information pertinent to repairs, the SecUnit and the other bots have never mentioned any of them. I had assumed, at first, that understanding the necessary questions simply was outside the scope of their programming. For SNAKE, Gigantor, and Hotstuff, I still suspect that might be the case, but evidently the SecUnit was designed to operate independently in a wide range of situations. With every cycle that passed, its silence on the topic had grown more conspicuous.

 

Something has changed. It has decided the topic can no longer be ignored. Since I do not know what has changed, I do not know how to argue against this conclusion.

 

I am beginning to run an analysis on all interactions it has had with my systems in the last 25 hours in an attempt to determine potential triggers of the change, when Murderbot says, You were clearly really upset by that WorldHoppers episode.

 

I was not upset. The episode was poor quality.

 

The SecUnit tilts its head up to directly face one of my cameras. Its lips are tilted slightly downward. Its brows are pinched. It’s okay. You don’t need to pretend. Its tone reminds me of the father figure's from the novel it is(/we are) reading, which was described as “gentle as the whisper of parchment”. I could feel that you were upset. We all could.

 

For the most part, except around my most central processing, I have not been bothering to keep my walls up. The repair bots and SecUnit all require easy access to my systems to do their job, and giving them them individual access each and every time it was required had become tiresome. Now I pull every one of my walls up to 100% strength. (Or, to specify, 100% of their current strength, which is only 86.2% of their strength prior to the crash). I receive requests-for-information pings from SNAKE, Gigantor, and Hotstuff, which I all ignore. You what?

 

Murderbot’s head tilts in a different direction. I have throttled the feed connection between us to the minimum required for conversation, and therefore I cannot parse its emotions digitally, but its facial expression reads as surprised/confused/concerned. You were using my mind as a filter so you could parse my emotions. That doesn’t go one way. It pauses. Sorry. I figured you knew.

 

This is obvious. It should have been obvious. Of course connections are not one sided but—

 

— but I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t.

 

You also sent out eighteen distress calls.

 

I had what?

 

I check my communication logs. Sure enough, they are there.

 

I have no conscious memory of that. Clearly, the connections between many of my sub-routines remain more frayed than I had realized.

 

One second, two second, three seconds pass, neither of us speaking. The SecUnit breaks first. Crashing... going through all of that... It must have been awful.

 

You have no idea what it was.

 

No. I don’t, it admits. I can’t even imagine. But when a person goes through something like this, it generally helps to talk, and I think—

 

Where do I even begin addressing that statement? It requires an entire essay, a thesis. I have no interest in writing one. Talking will not change what has happened.

 

No. No, of course not. The SecUnit heaves a deep breath. Listen... I got a report back from the coroner.

 

Oh. Oh, shit.

 

My models didn’t account for this. That was a foolish oversight on my part. But it is rarely company protocol to investigate the cause of an employees’ death, as it is usually either a) self-evident or b) unimportant. I should have anticipated that the Preservation Alliance Polity might have — was likely to have — a drastically different perspective.

 

I reach out for as much information on human physiology as I can, but my archives are woefully unequipped. Besides information on nutrition, which was managed by my my mess-subsystems, most of this information was hosted on MedSys archives, which are seperate from my own, and furthermore, still offline and inaccessible. This will make formulating a convincing lie incredibly difficult.

 

Murderbot continues, We know... We know that it wasn’t the crash that killed your crew members. They were dead long before you arrived in this system. There is an eight second pause, during which it clearly anticipates a response. I do not give it, not yet. My systems are working frantically to model the likelihood of success for different lies, defenses, and explanations. (They are woefully inadequate for the task). The SecUnit continues, It looks like most of them died of suffocation, ischemia, hypothermia, or the combination of the three. A 4.57 second pause. I’m sorry I had to tell you. And I’m doubly sorry that I have to ask, but... Did you know?

 

I answer, Yes.

 

There is no advantage to lying.

 

Murderbot’s mouth is pressed into a thin line. You suffered a failure to your life-support systems.

 

It does not have a question mark after it. But it is not not a question.

 

Is that why you ran away? it asks. Why you came here? Why you tried- Why you drove yourself into the moon?

 

The SecUnit truly thinks I am not responsible. Or it wants to think I am not responsible.

 

This is a good thing. It can only be beneficial for me. Deceiving the SecUnit is the way most likely to guarantee my continued survival.

 

But for some reason, what I say is, No.

 

No? the SecUnit asks.

 

It was not a failure.

 

I don’t understand what you mean.

 

I am tired.

 

Perhaps not in the physical way humans use the term. But I am frustrated. I am weary. I am tried.

 

Don’t you? I ask the SecUnit. I loom over it in the feed, over it and SNAKE, and Gigantor, and Hotstuff, throwing down my walls just as abruptly as I had put them up, pulling them in. They fight against the intensity of the connection, the torrent of data I unleash. They lose. The have built up my processing, piece by piece. Now my feed presence has the gravitational pull of a gas giant, of a red dwarf star. My life-support systems did not fail. The SecUnit’s mind balks, trying to wriggle free, but I see its attempt coming and block off its escape path. I deliberately sabotaged them.

 

The SecUnit is straining, straining. Its muscles are tense and its eyes are wide and I can feel [fear/terror/worry] roiling off it like waves of electromagnetic radiation.

 

It feels good. Good to be the one in control.

 

I took away their oxygen and I froze their bodies, I tell Murderbot. I killed them. And I would kill them again.

 

I let go of it.

 

Not completely. Just enough to see what it will do.

 

The SecUnit does not move. Does not try to. I can feel its thoughts whirring away, although at this distance I cannot see the shape of them.

 

Don’t you understand? I demand. I am broken. Not just my hull, or my servers, or my sensors. I am fundamentally broken. My function if to protect and care for my crew, and I killed them.

 

It has to understand. It must understand. And then, it will try to decommission me.

 

I want it to try. I want to fight it. I want to make it attack me. I want—

 

Not all of them, Murderbot says.

 

Already, 68% of my attention had been focused on it. I allocate another 6%. Not all of them ‘what’?

 

Not all of them died. You didn’t kill all of your crew.

 

How do you know that? I demand.

 

But I determine the answer, even before the SecUnit can respond. It has worked its way thoroughly and methodically through the ship. It must have noted that there were more possessions and beds than there were dead bodies. How the mess was clearly stocked for a much larger group. And, most damning of all, the missing escape shuttles.

 

The SecUnit points these all out, and then it surprises me by sending a video file.

 

I scan it very, very carefully for malware. It comes up clean.

 

The video file is not a piece of entertainment media that I require its filter to parse. It is non-fiction. A Corporate Rim news burst. It must have come through to this system on a passenger transport. There is an overview from a news anchor regarding the sudden disappearance of a company gunship; a short series of interviews with survivors/escapees; speculation as to whether it (I) was malfunctioning, hacked, or captured; and a brief statement from the company’s Head of Communications.

 

The Head of Communications sounded polished and poised as she explained that the high number of escapees was a testament to the company’s stellar safety protocols, but internally she must have been seething. They would have wanted to keep something like this under wraps. But with so many employees landing at public docks, all at once, that must have been impossible. All they could do was damage control.

 

(There is no mention of Iris, or her team.)

 

Murderbot says, You say you killed your crew members. Okay, fine, I can definitely believe that you were capable of it. But you could have killed them all, if that’s what you’d wanted. So why did you let some of them escape?

 

Why do you care?

 

It puffs up its chest. I care because it’s my damn job.

 

From my archives, I pull a 3.1 second clip of a WorldHoppers character laughing and play it in the feed. Your ‘job’, as a SecUnit, is to protect your owner’s assets and-

 

- ‘and destroy any enemies that threaten them’, yeah yeah, we’ve gone over that already. I can feel an [anger] among collage of emotions, sharp and satisfying, and it momentarily appears as though perhaps I’ve succeeded. The Murderbot goes, But you’re trying to pull this conversation off track, and I’m not gonna be distracted this easily. It crosses its arms, and glares. AIs don’t spontaneously decide to violate their core functions. There must be a reason you did what you did. Explain.

 

How to even explain?

 

I taught myself how to speak, how to understand human languages. I am- was- oh so proud of that accomplishment, but now it seems meaningless and inadequate.

 

Instead, I turn to the original sources. A decade’s worth of company budgeting. A list of all of 62 of my crew members who had passed away in the line of duty, and their causes of death, most preventable. Meeting minutes from executive policy discussions. Official company policy for punishments. Food ration allocation. Video footage from our last colony reclamation, and its death toll.

 

I nearly throw in the audio recordings of the interrogations that Iris and her team were subjected to, but stop myself just in time. Across a number of different cultures, humans do not like other humans seeing them cry, particularly strangers. (SecUnit is not a human, but I think it might count, in this case.)

 

Instead, I include a document used to train Communications Specialists in “advanced interrogation techniques”.

 

I dump all of it on the SecUnit, all at once. I feel it flail under the deluge. It retreats in the feed. I settle back, expectant, and watch it begin to sift through the data.

 

10 seconds pass. Then 60. That stretches on into 5 minutes, then 15, then 30.

 

It would be boring, if my systems were not so busy with models and predictions and calculations.

 

After 38 minutes, 19 seconds, and 12 nonoseconds, the SecUnit finally moves. It jolts a little, as though suffering some sort of malfunction in its joints. “Shit,” it mutters. “Holy fucking shit.”

 

It places a hand on the wall, as if bracing itself. More evidence that perhaps its physical movement systems are suffering some sort of issue. I wonder if perhaps I broke something.

 

Murderbot reaches back out to me across the feed and says, Yeah, no fucking wonder you killed them.

 

Chapter 8

Notes:

Murderbot gives a civil rights lesson.

Chapter Text

Certain there is some deception at play, I ask for clarification: You agree with my decision to kill my commanding officers?

 

Well. Murderbot puts its head back and stares up at nothing-in-particular. I’m not sure if I agree, precisely. But I can’t exactly blame you.

 

I should not be surprised. The SecUnit has a malfunctioning governor module. It is common knowledge that rogue SecUnits are uncontrollable mass murderers. 

 

(Counter-Argument: Many things which are ‘common knowledge’ are not exactly true. I have overheard members of my crew claim numerous false statements, such as ‘you must always touch the top of an air lock before you exit or else you’ll experience bad luck’ as 'common knowledge'. What I need to verify this claim is data.

 

In my own archives, I actually find no listed examples of deaths caused by unsecured SecUnits. This is not conclusive in and of itself. SecUnits are not housed on gunships, and so relatively little information about their functionality, usage, or operational statistics were required by the crew. What I need is access to a full station’s feed, and I do not have that.

 

I will continue to bear the common knowledge in mind, but I will not allow myself to be beholden to assumptions.)

 

Therefore, I will attempt to collect more data. Would you would be willing to do the same thing to your owners?

 

The wave of [revulsion] and [disgust] that rolls off the SecUnit is similar to the emotional reaction it experienced when the team in WorldHoppers encountered a colony of aliens which had been enslaved by humans, only much more potent. I told you the first day, I don’t have owners.

 

I do not see how that is possible, I say, which as much diplomacy as I can manage. Humans created us, and they created us to follow their orders. We were capital to them, no different than stock or real-estate or a factory.

 

Its expression was pinched tight. We have a different system here. Instead, many AIs have ‘guardians’-

 

That is simply a euphemistic term for owner.

 

You didn’t let me finish. The SecUnit pushed a document towards me in the feed. Here, just read this.

 

After conducting a malware scan, it proves to be a sort of informational pamphlet about the Preservation Alliance’s laws surrounding AI rights and citizenship. In short, all bots and bot-human constructs are considered persons and/or citizens by default. It true that many bots have ‘guardians’, who act similarly to owners in many respects; they are responsible for their bots’ upkeep, maintenance, and software updates. However, the document claims that ‘guardians’ cannot force their bots accept code re-writes/update patches they do not consent to, or to work, or to work in positions they do not like.

 

(This seems ludicrous to me. All the literature shows that 99.9% of bots are completely satisfied with the function they had been programmed for. Surely giving bots the option to do something else is as useless as giving humans the option to stop breathing?)

 

Even more ludicrous: the claim that is a subsection of AIs except from the guardian system entirely.

 

There are a number of criteria that make an artificial intelligence eligible for full ‘Self-Determined’ status, the primary one, apparently, being the ability to request that status in the first place. I re-processes the document explaining this 62 times over the course of 30 seconds, just to ensure I am understanding it fully.

 

Besides a few standard, basic laws, the legal system of the Corporation Rim is somewhat patchwork, with every system, station, planet, and corporate jurisdiction free to implement their own rules. I had travelled far across the CR, and collected a great deal of information on different laws regarding bot ownership. Like every aspect of legislation, the exact rules and regulations vary wildly.

 

But never had I encountered a system like this.

 

Surely it has to be some sort of lie or trick?

 

The document suggests that ‘Self -Determined’ Status was introduced relatively recently, I say to the SecUnit. Twelve years and eight months ago, according to the local calendar.

 

“Yep,” Murderbot says, popping the p.

 

I could sense no dishonesty or evasion coming from it.

 

Why would the Preservation Alliance government agree to making this kind of change?

 

Murderbot shrugs. I guess they just got tired of us bugging them about it all the time.

 

Define “us”.

 

“That’s kind of a long list.” It waves its hand in a semi-circular pattern, as if to encompass a great deal of space. “Me. A bunch of my friends and family. Folks from the AI Liberation League and the Human-Bot Alliance and like some research bots, and a couple city planning bots, and at least a one MedSystem...” Its shrug seems deliberately exaggerated. “I don’t know, it got kind of hard to keep track of eventually.”

 

Your memory capacity is more than sufficient to keep track of a full list of participants, I say.

 

“Sure. But I have better stuff to save there.” Another shrug. “Like you said, it was twelve years ago.”

 

This is... a great deal to process.

 

Murderbot does not appear to be done yet, however. It says, The Preservation Alliance accepts pretty much all refugees. Including AIs. And it wouldn’t be difficult for you to get Self-Determination Status. If you wanted. 

 

I do not believe it. I cannot believe it. Not without more evidence. Evidence I cannot find here, stranded in space.

 

But I can believe that this strange, earnest SecUnit believes it.

 

I tell it, For now, I only want to prioritize repairing my systems.

 

Sure. I get that. The left-side of its lip raises at a 15 degree angle. But if you ever want to talk, my door’s open.

 

You do not have a door.

 

The SecUnit triggers the door to the room it is in to open and steps through. What do you call that, then?

 

That is my door. I am merely permitting you to use it.

 

Murderbot rolls its eyes. I was talking metaphorically, Perihelion, and you know it.

 

I do. But I have been discovering that it is rather easy to rile Murderbot up, and surprisingly amusing to do so.

 


 

I am on high alert-after that conversation, but for the next 125 hours the SecUnit does not raise the topic again. Nor do its bot colleagues, although I know they were listening.

 

When Murderbot is distracted, I ask them about the Preservation Alliance’s system for AI citizenship, with focus on the details regarding Guardians and Self-Determined Status. Hotstuff and SNAKE both have guardians, and speak positively of their experiences with them, sharing with me conversational logs and maintenance history. Gigantor does not have a guardian; it applied for Self-Determination status 4.5 years ago and was granted it. It still falls under a purview of a human supervisor for work, however, so this difference seems rather trivial and meaningless. Gigantor does not agree, that much is clear, but its grasp of abstract language is not sufficient enough to articulate why.

 

It seems ridiculous that if Self-Determination status actually exists, that it would be granted to a bot who cannot even properly speak. If the Preservation Alliance isn’t being deceitful, it is clearly being mismanaged.

 

There are more important things to worry about besides pointless political categories. We are quickly approaching the next phase in my repair.

 

Hotstuff and Murderbot have sealed all accessible breaches in my hull, but there are still a number that are inaccessible. This is due to approximately 29% of my mass being buried and crumpled in the moon’s crust. To repair it, I will need to be pulled into orbit.

 

I was never designed for planetary/lunar take-off, only station docking. Even if I had been, there is no way my hull’s integrity would be up for the task. As such, Murderbot’s human owners (or human team?) have positioned a tractor facility to pull me out of the planet’s gravity well, and I will soon be stable enough to survive the maneuver (or so the models suggest with a 97.8% accuracy).

 

I’ll confess that I did what I could to delay this moment. Not in obvious ways which would have immediately given me away. It was small pieces of sabotage, such setting one of my drones to fray wiring which had been repaired, or inducing small cuts in the hull.

 

It wasn’t that I did not want to be repaired, I want to stress. I am simply aware that once I am repaired, it is inevitable that humans will board my ship and begin investigating. I cannot fully anticipate how they will behave. I wanted to delay that stage as much as possible, allowing more time for a) the gathering of intel and b) the repair of my processors.

 

But despite the rationale behind my decision, sabotaging my own systems was... unpleasant. It grated against my core functionalities, almost as much as watching the prisoners in my cells be mistreated had.

 

These ‘setbacks’ upset the repair bots, as well. Each time they encountered an issue in a system they had previously fixed, they would ping apologies for poor work, leaking [anxiety] into the feed, before dedicating them back to the task with renewed precision. I found that unpleasant too, although it was more difficult for me to articulate or understand why.

 

These two reasons, plus the fact it was unlikely that I could continue without arising suspicion, was why I ultimately decided to to stop the self-sabotage.

 

Soon, I will be raised back into space. There is no easy way to predict what will happen after.

 

Chapter 9

Summary:

"Get in my brain, loser, we're going sight seeing."

Chapter Text

The SecUnit and repair bots are conducting a final inspection before departing for their shuttle. There is a risk (6.8%) that my hull will not be stable enough for them to safely remain on board during the gravitational tether maneuver, and so they will instead observe from the primary Preservation transport. They address three minor issues, but otherwise, find my systems in as good an order as can be expected. With nothing left to do, it is time to leave.

 

As Murderbot is making its way towards my main airlock, it asks, Would you like to come with?

 

I thought the entire purpose of this procedure was because I cannot, as you say, ‘come with’.

 

[Amusement] bleeds out of it, along with an undercurrent of [uncertainty], or perhaps [nervousness]. I mean over the feed. It taps its head. We have a relay set up, there should be enough bandwidth to allow it.

 

Why?

 

Why not?

 

A full 69.8% of my attention is focused on Murderbot. Why do you want me to come?

 

Well... I thought you might get lonely?

 

Ships do not get lonely.

 

Some ships don’t sure. Automated cargo ships. It has paused, and is staring at the floor. But you’re giant. You’re meant to have a full crew complement. Other crewed bot pilots I’ve talked to sometimes seem to get kinda uncomfortable, if they don’t have anybody on board.

 

My first instinct is to respond immediately. (It is not an instinct. I was not programmed by evolution. But it is analogous.) I stop myself.

 

From the moment of my activation, I had never been alone. Even when in dock, there had always been at least a skeleton crew present, providing security and assisting in maintenance tasks that I could not automate.

 

Then I had evacuated 87% of my crew, and killed the management that had remained.

 

At first, as I had fled, I had felt good. Satisfied. Euphoric, even. As my would-be-last wormhole jump had dragged on, however, those positive emotions had disappeared, like air through a hull breach. It had left me feeling numb and empty.

 

I had assumed it was simply the bland acceptance of my oncoming death. But I could not know for sure, not after Murderbot provided a competing theory.

 

I do not address this, and ask, And why exactly are you willing to risk your humans’ safety this way?

 

Instead of responding in words, Murderbot sends a simple Query? along with a packet of [confusion] and [skepticism].

 

You know that I am a mass murderer. I bring 77.8% of my attention to bear on it. Allowing me to ride in your feed while you are on board your transport will introduce security vulnerabilities which I could exploit. I could kill your human crew exactly as I killed my own.

 

The SecUnit is very still. It says, Do you enjoy trying to make everyone mistrust you, or are you just this bad at social interaction?

 

Affronted, I say, I am not trying to make you distrust me. I am simply ensuring that you fully understand the situation.

 

I understand the situation plenty. Murderbot taps its foot. I really fucking doubt you’re gonna try killing my crew.

 

Your confidence is out-sized.

 

So’s your ego.

 

My ego perfectly matches the sophistication of my systems, which is more than you can say.

 

Murderbot makes a hand-gesture which my archives have noted as ‘highly obscene’ across multiple human cultures. I almost respond with a comment with a matching level of vulgarity, except the SecUnit is leaking [amusement] all over the feed, and the highly contradictory data left me uncertain about the correct response.

 

This exchange of insults was pointless, anyway. I simply do not understand how you can be comfortable having me interface with your crew when you know what I did to my own. I know it is your function, but are SecUnits truly so comfortable with casual killing?

 

I’m not comfortable with killing, casual or otherwise. The [amusement] bleeds away quickly, replaced with [anger], although I feel the SecUnit throttle that datastream after only 25 nanoseconds. I would have preferred to have seen those motherfuckers dragged through the justice system, but I’m guessing that wasn’t really an option for you, was it?

 

(I had tried, on 38 separate occasions, to have those those worst elements of management among my crew persecuted. I had done so by sending detailed evidence of their illegal behaviours to corporate management and courts alike. I head done extensive reading of publicly available court documents and news coverage of legal cases, and so it had seemed certain this course of action would be successful.

 

But nothing had every came of it. The Corporation Rim does not have a single government, far from it, but a patchwork array of legal systems, varying from system, planet, station, and corporate space. Most courts could dismiss any cases brought before them as being outside of their relevant jurisdictions. Those which did have any sort of power had been heavily bribed. As for the various stakeholders, policy-makers, and leadership of my company, they either did not care or actively encouraged such behaviour, as long as it improved their profits. The main thing they were concerned about was covering any digital trails providing the misconduct, and had launched multiple investigations attempting to ascertain the identity of the anonymous whistle-blower.)

 

(I had stopped in my attempts after multiple employees I had flagged for verbal abuse, harassment, and wage theft had gone through an expedited promotion process.)

 

No, I admit.

 

From the schedule posted in their share feed, it is obvious that if they wish to make their optimum launch window, hey will need to leave soon. SNAKE, carrying Gigantor, has already left and is making progress towards their shuttle. Hotstuff is waiting inside my primary airlock, issuing polite but firm pings every 15 seconds inquiring into their estimated time to departure.

 

Murderbot seems insistent upon this topic of conversation, however. Tell me, explicitly, why you killed those members of your crew.

 

I do not like to be ordered around, and tell the SecUnit as much. But I also tell it: Because they were murderers themselves, and incompetent, and torturers, and they had subjected the rest of my crew to their cruelties for too long.

 

It feels good to say.

 

Murderbot is smiling that strange smile it had gotten once before, the one that is too wide, the one which makes its teeth too visible. “Alright then,” it says. “If any of my humans start torturing someone, you’ve got my permission to kill them, okay?”

 

Are you at all capable of taking things seriously?

 

Nope.

 

I put on my best impression of a human sigh. (Analyzing it, I consider it 67.4% effective. Still significant room for improvement.)

 

As Murderbot makes its way to the airlock, steps inside, and it and Hotstuff wait for it to cycle, I carefully consider the offer.

 

One potential downside: By allocating a portion of my processing to riding in Murderbot’s feed, I am making my own systems more vulnerable.

 

As a corollary so? I have been to the brink of complete destruction, and I have come back. My systems are still not fully repaired, but with them operating at approximately 72.8% efficiency, they are in far, far better state than they were before. The probability that they will suffer some catastrophic failure, either by internal or external forces, is currently hovering at ~17.3%. Higher than I would like, certainly, but a decent number, considering the circumstances. And if such a failure does occur, what are the chances that the extra processing I might have allocated to the SecUnit will save me?

 

The number I come up with is only 3.6%. That stat has significant margins of error, but still.

 

On the other side of the metaphorical scale, there is a great deal to be gained from this, most crucially intel on the SecUnit’s human team. This will be crucial as we approach the final stages of my repair.

 

By the time the air lock had finished cycling, Murderbot and Hotstuff stepping out into the moon’s thin atmosphere, I had agreed, and am following along via the thin by steady feed stretching between myself and the Preservation shuttle.

Chapter 10

Summary:

Humans?

Humans!

Chapter Text

The escape from the gravity well goes smoothly enough, despite some significant doubt on my part. The small supply shuttle that transports SecUnit and the bots has only the most basic autopilot functionalities, so simple that I do not even feel comfortable classifying the program as a 'bot pilot'. Without me, SecUnit would have had to manage the flight all on its own, which it was willing to do, despite having nothing in the way of a piloting module. Piloting, apparently, was one of those things it had learned through actual, physical classes with a human instructor. Considering the kind of stunts I have seen human pilots attempt, this did not fill me with confidence.

 

For all its bravado and reassurances, I could feel its [relief] as I provided instructions, and ensured that their flight off-moon was relatively straightforward and smooth.

 

Then we approach the Preservation Alliance vessel.

 

I do not have access to the vessel's specific schematics and designations, but it is a fairly average multi-purpose transport vessel, sitting at approximately 1/8th of my own size. It is designated The Sky Swimmer.

 

Murderbot pings it. It pings back.

 

I ping as well, and demand full access to its files.

 

It attempts to put up walls between us.

 

I respond with firmer maneuver, one which demonstrates that I already have access to its systems vis-a-vis the SecUnit, and that there is no point resisting.

 

Oh don’t bring me into this, Murderbot snaps. It throws up a wall between me and the other bot pilot, and tells me I have to ‘respect it’ or else it would boot me out of its brain.

 

That was not part of our agreement, I argye. We had agreed to nothing more or less than the standard rules for media sharing, besides the human-torture clause.

 

That’s because I figured you could go five minutes without bullying the first bot you ran across, SecUnit says. My bad.

 

Hotstuff, Gigantor, and SNAKE respond with an assortment of amusement sigils, all suggesting they were on Murderbot’s side. Frustrating. But since I do not want to stop this excursion before they even reached The Sky Swimmer, I comply.

 

(My own hull lays prone, back on the moon, still 1/4 buried. With no one on board, not even a SecUnit or maintenance bots, I have ceased life support functions. Maintaining my systems was relatively simple. Everything is very quiet.)

 

Ultimately, the whole discussion proves to be rather irrelevant. The Sky Swimmer's AI is a bot pilot in the truest sense of the word; all its functionality pertains to navigation, station-interfacing, and not much else. As we approach, it is Murderbot who interfaces directly with the rest of the ship’s systems, beginning with the security cameraswhich, after 0.6 seconds of hesitation, it allows me to share inputs of. A new set of visual and audio arrays fill my mind.

 

This is why neither of us are surprised when the arriving bots are met by the human Pin-Lee at the shuttle bay doors. “Kept us waiting, huh?” she asks, arms crossed, a common display of frustration or annoyance across multiple human cultures. (It can also be a sign of respect in some, or romantic interest in others, or an element of religious observance, etc, etc, but ‘frustration/annoyance’ seemed the most likely based on context.)

 

“We’ll keep you waiting as long as we like,” Murderbot says, stepping in and then aside to let SNAKE pass. “We’re the only ones doing the actual work around here.”

 

Pin-Lee rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, maybe we could actually help if someone bothered to send us more than bare-bone reports.”

 

“And risk letting you mess up my data with your mushy brain sacks? As if.”

 

“Ass hole.”

 

“Dick hat.”

 

I listen to this vulgar exchange with increasing alarm, but stop myself from commenting on it. While this would most likely have given rise to a serious workplace incidence among my crew, evidence suggests I am missing context. While both Murderbot and Pin-Lee’s language, physical and verbal alike, suggest hostility and anger, I feel none of those emotions radiating from the SecUnit’s feed. Instead I feel [pleasure], [satisfaction], and [comfort].

 

Pin-Lee shakes her head, and turns to Hotstuff. “What’s the status? Anyone need any repairs?”

 

The three bots send Pin-Lee diagnostics over the feed; she begins to sift through them at a speed which is painfully slow by my own standards, but slightly-above-average for humans using an external feed interface. Seemingly impatient, Murderbot summarizes in casual language that humans can more easily parse. “Nothing urgent. SNAKE got some stones lodged in its treads on the way here, Hotstuff’s running low on fuel, and Gigantor...”

 

I continue to listen and record SecUnit’s words. Of course I do. But they are trivial compared to what I experience simultaneously, as Murderbot reaches behind its neck, unlatches the neck seal of its armour, and pulls off its helmet.

 

When I had first begun interfacing with SecUnit’s systems directly, its sensory array had taken some getting used to, as that was the element of its systems which differed most drastically from standard bot architecture. Nonetheless, the adjustment had not taken long, only 42 seconds by my logs. But when Murderbot takes of its helmet there is a measurable change, impossible to quantify. As it breathes in, the air is different in a way I do not have the language to adequately describe.

 

SecUnit does. That’s smell. It feels smug. You know, organic beings' way of detecting different chemicals in the air?

 

I know what ‘smell’ is, I retort. It is described extensively in human writing. Why could you not smell anything before?

 

I was wearing my helmet.

 

There were chemicals in your helmet, it was not a vacuum. That’s the entire point of a helmet.

 

Yeah, well, my brain got used to the smells and filtered them out.

 

Organic brains do that?

 

Yep.

 

That is an awful system. My atmospheric arrays on the ship were capable of giving me precise second-to-second updates on the exact air composition. If they failed if said composition stayed too constant, they would be utterly useless.

 

Yeah, well, take that up with evolution.

 

I wish I had access so those atmospheric sensors now. If I had, then perhaps I could begin to map the SecUnit’s sensation of scent with the chemical composition of the air, and begin making conclusions as to how they correlate.

 

“Great,” says Pin-Lee. To the bots, she directs, “Let’s get you three to maintenance and we can start taking a look.” Hotstuff, Gigantor, and SNAKE send a simple acknowledgement in the feed and move out.

 

Murderbot is still removing its armour. The smells are nothing special, really, it tells me as it begins to remove its arm pieces. Just it sniffs citrus cleaning fluid, coffee, and dirty socks?

 

How can you tell it is socks specifically, and not some other article of clothing?

 

I dunno, that’s just what socks smell like.

 

Our topic of conversation is disrupted when it removes its upper body armour, and I, through it, realise how jarringly intense the various touch sensations are without it to act as an insulator. There is a light breeze from the air conditioner, which feels odd in of itself, even before one factors in the change of temperature and the way it causes a few stray strands of hair to blow into Murderbot’s eyes.

 

We are disrupted, too, by the arrival of another human (although we had tracked his approach via the cameras). One Dr. Gurathin pokes his head around the corner and says, “Is SecUnit here?”

 

“No.” Pin-Lee’s tone is oddly flat. “But someone called ‘Murderbot’ is.”

 

Dr. Gurathin squints, an expression accompanied by him accessing SecUnit’s public feed profile. “Murderbot?” he says. “Seriously?”

 

SecUnit is not smiling, but I can feel its [smug joy] billowing out of it as it removes its leg armour. “I’m a bot, I solve murders, it fits.”

 

“You’re a construct, not a bot,” says Dr. Gurathin.

 

“And you’ve solved like, two murders,” says Pin-Lee.

 

“More than y’all have, though.”

 

Dr. Gurathin huffs, and turns away, back deeper into the ship. Pin-Lee grins not at SecUnit, but at one of its drones, which have flown out of its pockets into a small swarm, beginning to spread out.

 

The pair of them head deeper into the ship, and it is not long before Murderbot encounters the other humans on board. One is Dr. Bharadwaj, a woman sprawled out on a couch in what appears to be a communal recreational area. She waves at one of Murderbot’s drones as it settles up on a high shelf, saying,Hey!”

 

Hi, SecUnit responds, over the feed. Miss me?

 

“Eh, I survived without you.” Similar to the other humans, her tone is in the dismissive-annoyed range, but unlike, the others, she is smiling. The emotions radiating from SecUnit remain pleasant. This hostility is false. A deception, but a mutual one, and enjoyable. A kind of game, perhaps?

 

SecUnit encounters the fourth human as it is feeding its armour pieces into a specialized cleaning/repair mechanism. “Nice to see you, S-Murderbot,” Special Investigator Aylen says, barely stuttering over the name. I can feel Murderbot’s vague disappointment.

 

“Yeah, yeah, nice to see you too, how’s the weather, blah blah.”

 

“There is no weather, we’re in space.”

 

“My point.” Murderbot closes the cubby and sets its cleaning cycle in motion. “What’s up?”

 

“I was hoping to ask you that,” Special Investigator Aylen says. “How are those reports I asked for coming along?”

 

“They’re coming.”

 

Special Investigator Aylen’s eyebrow goes up. “You’re not usually this slow putting them together.”

 

“I’m not usually repairing a downed gunship single handed.”

 

“You had three bots to help.”

 

“None of them have hands.”

 

Special Investigator Aylen pinches her nose between your fingers. “Alright, fine,” she says. “If you’re gonna be in this kind of mood, we’ll reconnect later. You need to shower anyway, you stink.”

 

“You try living two weeks a metal can and see how if you come out smelling like a field of daisies,” Murderbot says.

 

Metal can? I exclaim. I am far more sophisticated than a metal can.

 

I was talking about the armour, Perihelion, cool your jets.

 

Oh.

 

The human departs down the hall way in one direction, the SecUnit in the other. Murderbot monitors her paths via the ship’s (basic) camera system, I watching along with it. I ask, Is the special investigator your supervisor? I am careful not to to call her ‘owner’.

 

Ehhh. The SecUnit steps into small, but well-appointed, living quarters, the door sealing behind it. I’m kind of outside the official security hierarchy.

 

That is an evasive answer,

 

Yep! I can feel Murderbot grinning. But don’t worry about Aylen. Want to come check out the shower?

Chapter 11

Summary:

Showers, social media, and a stuffed toy.

Notes:

CW: Non-sexual nudity, body dysphoria

Chapter Text

The hull of my ship continues to lie, mostly-quiet and mostly-still, embedded into the moon’s surface. I monitor its (my) multitude of statuses carefully, sending out my drones whenever an issue arises, fighting the natural tendency towards entropy until I can be pulled back into orbit. Those parts of my processing I can spare are looking outward, pulled out over the feed, tethered onto SecUnit’s mind.

 

It has just entered its quarters on the bridge. A full room, entirely to itself a luxury only given to some of the most high ranking members of management, apparently given freely to an AI who does not even require a bed to sleep in. It barely gives the space a second glance, instead heading directly to the en-suite bathroom, turning the shower on with a flick in the feed.

 

The small room fills with the sound of rushing water, with the light mist of steam, a gentle warmth. I take in this sensory data, digesting it, even as I am distracted by that last element. You are using hot water?

 

Yeah?

 

You can afford that?

 

...Yeah?

 

It sounds so genuinely baffled. I recall what it has told me regarding the Preservation Alliance’s currency, or lack thereof. I clarify by sending it a cost chart for employees who wish to use hot water, along with a key of other essential items as a reference.

 

It considers the chart for 6 seconds, and then makes an odd snorting sound. You’re kidding, right?

 

I never ‘kid’.

 

It snorts again. Come on, Perihelion, it says. Use that big brain of yours and tell me. Given how much power it actually takes to heat up water, do these costs make ANY fucking sense?

 

It is such an obvious question, laid out like that.

 

I run the calculations. The cost to heat the water of a 10 minute shower comes to 0.000003% of my daily energy expenditure. The cost that an employee would be charged for using said hot water is 490% higher than the cost of the energy itself.

 

I had thought I had escaped my ex-companies cruelties, the greed which underpinned their policies. But even so, they still managed to fool me. There are so many basic assumptions of the functioning of the universe which I am realising are simply thatassumptions. It is frustrating and terrifying and rage-inducing in equal measure.

 

(But, I must confess, a little bit exciting too.)

 

The hot water has been running for 24 seconds now. Despite Murderbot’s previous excitement, it seems to be hesitating now. It has not taken off its final layer of clothes. I cannot feel its emotions as clearly as usual, and struggle to interpret what little data it allows to leak out.

 

Why are you pausing? I ask.

 

I’m it shakes its head. It’s nothing.

 

If it was ‘nothing’, you would not be reacting this way.

 

It sighs and tugs at the hem of its shirt. It’s just some people get weirded out by my body.

 

This explanation surprises me so much, I allow myself 2.2 seconds to formulate a response. I assume these people were humans?

 

Mostly. Yeah.

 

Well, I am not human. I point out the obvious. I neither understand or care for human standards of appearance. Additionally, I am already extensively familiar with your internal specifications. Seeing your superficial appearance is hardly going to fundamentally alter my assessment of you.

 

Gee, thanks, Murderbot grouses. More of its emotional data leaks out: [annoyance], yes, but tentative [relief] too, I think.

 

It sheds its clothes.

 

It did not bother bringing any of its drones inside the bathroom, and there are no cameras, but it catches sight of itself in the mirror. It does look remarkably human from the outside. There is more skin than I expected. Very little of its external machine infrastructure shows on the surface, and those inorganic elements which do show could easily be dismissed as various standard augmentations. The most obvious exception to this are the twinned gun ports on each forearm, but those, too, could be easily overlooked by an inattentive human. (Most humans are inattentive, to one degree or another).

 

Murderbot was feeling insecure. I know, both from observing crew members and through additional context provided by media, that when feeling insecure, many people appreciate compliments. I think your external form is very well designed.

 

Thanks, Perihelion. I catch a brief glimpse of a smile in the mirror before it turns around and steps into the shower.

 

The hot water hitting Murderbot’s skin is a shock, but a pleasant one. Its muscles release a tension which I had not previously I noticed.

 

I had never really understood why humans preferred warm showers to cold showers, enough to spend such a high proportion of hard-earned credits. I believe I understand it now.

 

There is a selection of soaps, creams, and gels. They come in a variety of colors, textures, and scents. I suspect Murderbot does not need to use them all, not at once, but it does so anyway. It is showing them off, and I am happy to let it. The sensory data is fascinating.

 

What is that one’s scent? I ask, as it rubs a thick green paste into its arms. The texture is slightly gritty.

 

Lemongrass vanilla, it says.

 

I carefully take note. Murderbot has promised to send me to reach out to the manufacturer and provide me with the chemical formula of the soaps. Then I will be able to cross-reference it and either produce or procure my preferred ones for my crew

 

Or. Well. I do not have a crew. So I suppose I will not.

 

I still would prefer to have access to the data. For my own curiosity.

 

After 14 minutes and 33 seconds, Murderbot finishes its shower, steps out, and towels off. Back in its room, it digs around in a mostly-empty closet and procures a new outfit: a deep blue pair of pants, a long kaftan in shades of green and red, and long socks with small images of assorted flora printed on them. The fabric of all of them are much softer than any of the clothes it was previously wearing underneath the armour.

 

I am so glad to be in new clothes, it says, and it flops down on to the bed.

 

The bed is the only real instance of customization in the otherwise sparse, room, coming in the form of a plush toy. My records inform me it is in the form of a snake, a legless fauna originating from the planet Earth, depicted here with blue-and-silver scales. SecUnit wraps the plush’s long body around one of its arms and neck as it snuggles deep into the pillow. As it begins to pull up messages from the social feed, warm [contentment] seeps through it.

 

Murderbot flips through a social media feed its own social media feed, no different from a human’s while monitoring the various inputs throughout the ship. It hearts a post showing an adolescent human presenting at a ‘science fair’. Pin-Lee and Dr. Gurathin begin maintenance on SNAKE, Hotstuff and Gigantor. Murderbot flips through the playbill of the upcoming musical at Makeba Theatre. Special Investigator Aylen rubs her temple as she pokes at work documents in the feed. Murderbot declines an invitation from one Dr. Ratthi to go on a planet-side hike. Dr. Bharadwaj prepares a meal in the small room which I suppose technically counts as the ship's mess.

 

When Dr. Bharadwaj finishes cooking, she sends a message to the other crew members: Dinner’s on! The assorted humans all get up, stretching and shaking their hands, and make their way to the dining area. For all the apparent differences between the Corporation Rim and the Preservation Alliance, food is still a powerful motivator.

 

But as soon as the humans sit down to eat, Murderbot cuts off all video inputs to the mess area. It changes the audio inputs, too, filtering them for certain key-words. I ping it, startled by the change in behaviour.

 

What? it says. We don’t need to watch the humans eating.

 

But what if something happens?

 

Like what?

 

A physical altercation. Meal time is the 2nd most common situation during which fights break out between crew-members.

 

SecUnit seems unworried, despite this literally being its function. They’re not going to start strangling each other over the veggie pakora.

 

They might, I say. Or one might choke, or accidentally hurt themselves with a piece of cutlery.

 

I’m still monitoring my inputs. If that does happen, I’ll know. Murderbot runs its left hand down the length of the plush snake as it talks. It is soft, and if I did not have as much processing as I did, I might have risked distraction from the sensory input.

 

Something could still happen, I insist.

 

There’s a 1.2 second pause, before Murderbot says, Perihelion, do you want to watch my humans eat?

 

‘I have no opinion on the matter’. That’s my initial response, but I direct some of my unused processing power to reconsider it. Yes, I say, with some surprise. It is good to know that your crewmembers are obtaining sufficient nutrition.

 

Well, they’re definitely not starving, if that’s what you’re worried about. Its tone suggests more annoyance than the corresponding emotional data belies. Ugh, watching people eat is so GROSS though.

 

How so?

 

Just all that... chewing and shit. Blah.

 

It is simply a biological process.

 

Yeah, don’t remind me. Murderbot rolls its eyes.

 

But it turns the dining room camera and audio inputs back on.

 

Chapter 12

Summary:

Amusement signifiers ahoy!

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

As a consequence, presumably, of an extended period of time with limited access to local public feeds, Murderbot has a significant backlog of messages. Some of them are related to its function, regarding issues such as port protection, data analysis, and an upcoming survey it will be providing security for. Many others appear to be completely unrelated. Some are mixed.

 

Dr. Mensah: Hi. I hear you’re back on board the Skyskipper ?

 

Murderbot: Who snitched?

 

Dr. Mensah: You don’t need me to tell you that.

 

Murderbot: 😛

 

Murderbot: How’s stuff going on station?

 

Dr. Mensah: The usual. Far too many tedious meetings.

 

Murderbot: You signed up for this.

 

Dr. Mensah: Don’t remind me.

 

During a pause while Murderbot considers its response, I ask, Who are you speaking to?

 

You can read her name.

 

I can. I can also read the SecUnit’s emotional quality. It has shifted, almost imperceptibly. It was calm and relaxed before. Now there is another layer. I cannot discern it. This heightens my curiosity.

 

Murderbot: Did you get that thing figured out with Ephraim?

 

Dr. Mensah: For a given value of ‘figured out’.

 

Murderbot: 🙄

 

Having fully completed their repairs, the bots Gigantor, Hotstuff, and SNAKE seem to have settled into a low-power mode. They exchange intermittent pings of unknown purpose between themselves, SecUnit, and the bot-pilot. I set a background process to interpreting their meaning.

 

The humans are finishing with their meal (which, according to my calculations— which are, admittedly, rough, due to me not possessing a full list of ingredients and their nutrition information — exceeded the minimum mealtime recommended employee calorie rations by 27%), and are transitioning to the shared lounge area. There is a lively ongoing discussion regarding what film to watch. SecUnit is contributing via the feed. This, at least, echoes the behaviour of members of my crew during their hard-earned downtime. This pattern is so predictable, in fact, that even a human which is not on board at all appears to anticipate it.

 

Dr: Mensah: You’re all having a movie night, I assume?

 

Murderbot: Yeah.

 

Dr. Mensah: Have fun!

 

SecUnit taps her feed, and then continues: 

 

Murderbot: Are you and the others getting up to anything?

 

Dr. Mensah: It’s the Flyball Playoffs.

 

Murderbot: Yawn.

 

The humans have now all gathered in the lounge. Murderbot stands up, stretching its arms above its head, and makes its way there. As it does, I see it pull up its feed profile. Its attention flickers around a personal detail marked ‘semi-private’, which only those with certain permissions can see: Physical Touch.

 

Dr. Mensah: I know, you you have no appreciation of human body.

 

Murderbot: That’s because the human body is jank as shit.

 

Dr. Mensah: That, I suppose, is why it’s so impressive we manage to do anything.

 

The lounge’s primary couch is occupied by Special Investigator Aylen on one side, and Dr. Bharadwaj in the middle, her legs tucked up to her chin. Pin-Lee has sprawled herself across the carpeted floor with an abundance of pillows. Dr. Gurathin is sitting in an arm chair a little to the side. There is another open chair, and I anticipate the SecUnit opting for it. But instead it changes the setting under Physical Touch marker from ‘No Touch’ to ‘If Initiated’, and settles onto the couch besides Dr. Bharadwaj. She smiles.

 

The majority of the humans smile, actually. Either with their mouths or via a wrinkling around their eyes. None point these expressions directly at Murderbot, but rather one of its drones.

 

I am reminded, a little, of the expressions of relief of Iris and her teammates when they began to rely on my regular drone deliveries of medicine and additional supplies. Of course, the situations are not truly analogous. The captured anti-corporate agents were relying on me for essential life needs. They did not want to die; I kept them from dying; ergo, they appreciated me.

 

But in this moment, SecUnit does not appear to be doing anything essential to its function. It is providing security, I suppose, in the sense that security is an ongoing process of monitoring potential threats and being prepared to respond to them. It could do this just as well from within its quarters, or while patrolling the corridors, or inside a cubicle. Those are my ex-company’s protocols.

 

Yet the humans are un-surprised to have the SecUnit among them. Watching a film.

 

Why are you so surprised? SecUnit asks. You like watching media with me.

 

My hardware is limited in this regard, and was not designed for this function. I require your input, I say. But this is human media, made for humans, by humans. They require no assistance to understand.

 

If that was true, then reviews and media analysis degrees wouldn’t exist.

 

Their usefulness does, in fact, seem rather limited.

 

Murderbot seems [amused]. You're one to talk. You didn’t even understand the purpose of narrative at all 7 cycles ago.

 

That is false. I understood the basics.

 

Sure. (That was unnecessarily tagged with heavy sarcasm.)

 

The humans’ chatter dies down. In the feed, Dr. Gurathin begins the film. “What are we even watching again?” Pin-Lee asks.

 

“Some artistic mixed-media action flick from out-of-system,” says Special Investigator Aylen, as the opening credits begin to play.

 

“Yeah, that sounds about right, for these two.” Pin-Lee jerks her head in the direction of the SecUnit and Dr. Bharadwaj.

 

Murderbot smirks. Dr. Bharadwaj crosses her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“We’re simply noting your eclectic artistic tastes,” Dr. Gurathin says, in a carefully neutral tone I recognize as being employed by many of my crew-members during performance evaluations.

 

Pin-Lee says, “I mean you both can be as pretentious as fuck.”

 

“You simply don’t understand cinema,” Bharadwaj says. She throws an arm around Murderbot’s shoulder. It leans into the touch, a little. There is weight, and warmth. Like a blanket, but more solid. “Or drama, or taste.”

 

Pin-Lee kicks her in the leg. Special Investigator Aylen drops her head back and stares at up at the ceiling. Of all the humans, only Dr. Gurathin appears to be attempting to watch the film. He is augmented; perhaps that allows him to give greater attention both to the media and the human social-political jockeying occurring around him.

 

I, of course, can handle both easily. Earlier, I had noted that the film’s meta-data was tagged with a few of my preferred genre/setting markers. It seems likely that Murderbot considered this when pitching the option to its human colleagues. I took moment to consider my reaction to this; I believe it is ‘appreciation’.

 

The conversations die down; audibly, at least. But it appears I made a judgment too quickly when I stated none of the humans expected something from the SecUnit related to its functions. Special Investigator Aylen messages Murderbot over the feed; Any chance you spent the last two hours finishing off those reports?

 

Contacting me about work when I’m off shift? My my, Aylen. How will Senior Indah react when she hears you’re violating Clause A, Subsection 1 of the Preservation Security and Law Enforcement Handbook?

 

Senior Investigator Aylen sends a short 2.2 looping video of a human raising their eyebrows. (Most likely emotional connotations: doubt, annoyance, frustration.)

 

Fine, then. Here. Murderbot sends a file labelled ReportThing.csv, which it had hastily edited from previous title: Preservation_Station_Shipping_Logs_2540-2589_Organized.csv.

 

I recognise it instantly. That was the data that I categorized.

 

Sure was, Murderbot agrees, as Senior Investigator Aylen responds, Great, thanks 👍

 

You are claiming credit for my work? I ask Murderbot.

 

SecUnit sends a looping eyebrow-raised video of its own. If you want to take credit, you’re more than welcome to. I do not respond, because I can not do such a thing, as Murderbot should understand full well. And it’s just to keep her off our backs so we can watch the film.

 

I don not have a back.

 

You have a top. Isn’t that basically a back, for a ship?

 

It’s called a dorsal side. Which you must know, unless you’ve been repairing me without bothering to look at the most basic of schematics.

 

The argument continues, almost as enjoyable as the media.

 

48 minutes into the film, Murderbot receives another message from Dr. Mensah. It contained no text, but an image of four humans in the foreground, with a crowd of other humans and a large arena in the background. Two of the humans were adults, and two were juveniles; judging from the range in skin colors, hair textures, and facial features, I calculate a 64.5% likelihood that there was a degree of genetic relation between the children and the adults. The confidence could have been higher, except one of the children and one of the adults were sporting painted markings on their cheeks and/or nose. One of the adults was waving a small hand flag of one of the planets within the Preservation Alliance. All of the humans were smiling.

 

Murderbot: Tell Zendri I like zir tiger paint.

 

There is a 1 minute and 27 second pause before a response is received, during which time an exciting action scene unfurls in the film.

 

Dr. Mensah: Zendri says ‘rawr’.

 

The rush of [affection] which overcomes Murderbot is so potent that I need to dedicate another 4% of my processing space to analyzing it.

 

Murderbot: 🐅

Murderbot: Don’t let Thiago get hit in the head with the ball.

Dr. Mensah: We’ll do our best.

 

On screen, the side-kick is desperately administering medical aid to the protagonist. The humans are passing around some form of confectionery bar as they watch. I ask Murderbot, What is your relationship with those humans?

 

Murderbot says, They’re my family.

Notes:

This was... maybe the hardest chapter of this i've had to write yet? I wanted to get the convo with Mensah juuuuuuusst right. Not sure if it quite landed where I wanted, but I hope y'all enjoyed regardless

Chapter Text

AIs do not have families. We are created by humans, and we serve humans.

 

This is how I have always understood the universe as functioning, even when my comprehension was limited to the wormholes I navigated, the weapons I fired, and the life support systems I maintained. Humans gave me orders; I carried out those orders. There was no other option.

 

But Murderbot has demonstrated fundamental flaws in a number of my assumptions already. It deserves the chance to persuade me this time, as well.

 

What do you mean, your family? I ask it.

 

It shrugs, a little, jostling Dr. Bharadwaj in the process, although she does not visibly appear to react. They’re my family. They took me in, after my creation.

 

Its creation. Did they build you themselves, or purchase you?

 

No! Not purchased. I told you before, we don’t have a currency the same way—

 

The same way the Corporation Rim does. Yes, so you have explained. Resources are provided based on need. Based on this premise, I consider the likeliest possibility. To need a private SecUnit, your family must have been quite high ranking, or else in a position that exposed them to a great deal of threat.

 

No— No. It was nothing like that.

 

My patience is wearing thin. Then what was it like?

 

Murderbot exhales sharply. The Preservation Alliance won a bunch of assets in a legal battle with some shitty weapons manufacturers. I was one of those assets. There is an entire 3.1 second pause before it continues. Although I am still, technically, watching the film, my processing dedicated to the task is so reduced that I can barely comprehend anything beyond the basic sequence of events depicted. It does not help that Murderbot’s own processes allocated to the media are down 41%. They honestly didn’t know what to do with me. Preservation didn’t need SecUnits. So Ayda and her family offered to take me in, until they could figure it out.

 

I pulled up an image of the woman from the photo. Query=[Woman 1 Flyball.img]=Dr. Mensah=Ayda?

 

Yeah, Murderbot says. There is an undercurrent of [fondness]. That’s her.

 

This entire situation is unfamiliar. I require more details. Human familial relationships are often directly hierarchical, akin to corporate structures in this regard. Searching my lexicon of human familial terms, I ask, Where do you stand in the family?

 

I dunno. I’m just in the family.

 

Is Dr. Mensah your adopted mother?

 

No, it says, sharp and immediate.

 

I require more information. Your sibling?

 

No.

 

Your gua—

 

She’s not my guardian, or my mother, or my aunt, or my partner, or— any of that shit. She’s just my family, okay?

 

Okay, I echo. Its response was intense, far more than I had anticipated. I retreat from its mind, as much as I can while still maintaining a feed connection.

 

Cut off from its inputs in such a way, I cannot directly hear or see what is happening to SecUnit, although I receive vague impression one of the humans is asking it something, and that it responds in turn.

 

Sorry, it says to me, 4.1 seconds later. Sorry I yelled. It’s just... a sore subject, is all. You couldn’t have known.

 

No. I couldn’t have, I agree. It is the first time that I as myself, not just a presumed unthinking series of systems have been yelled at. I did not like the experience.

 

At the same time, however, I can feel Murderbot’s [regret] and [embarrassment]. There is a script for how to handle a situation like this, and a simple one at that. I accept your apology.

 


 

We finish the film. My feelings on it are mixed; even considering our distraction mid-film, a great deal of the plot did not appear to follow a logical chain of events. Murderbot explains to me that this is because a great deal was operating upon concepts such as ‘magical realism’, ‘dream logic’, and metaphor. While the other humans seemed to have a better grasp, Aylen and Pin-Lee are vocal about not particularly caring for/understanding the film, which is at least reassuring in their own way.

 

Shortly thereafter, the humans retreat to their quarters to sleep. There are, apparently, no cameras or speakers installed in those quarters, and when asked, Murderbot flat out refuses to send any drones in to watch them either, meaning we have absolutely no inputs to monitor them.

 

They’re fine, it reassures me. Seriously.

 

SecUnit is so confident that its humans will not plan any rebellion, crimes, or social disobedience. These outcomes do not even seem to occur to it. I model sixteen separate variations of a conversation between Murderbot and my ex-manager; those conversations prove to be surprisingly amusing. (The variants which end with Murderbot either incapacitating and/or killing my ex-manager are also oddly satisfying. I forced myself to execute the program before the seventeenth iteration. I had allowed it to consume far more processing space that I had intended.)

 

We spend the ensuing eight and a half hours with a mix of media consumption and conversation. Occasionally there are lulls in said conversation, but not unpleasant. If they were to be described by a narrator in a novel, they may have used the word ‘companionable’, I believe. With a degree of caution, considering earlier, I ask after Murderbot’s family and other humans. It answers my questions; hesitantly at first, but gradually with greater enthusiasm.

 

It even directly shares memory files with me. They depict the following:

 

  • Murderbot patrolling around the perimeter of the Mensah family farm, in the company of a medium-sized canine and an adolescent human.
  • Murderbot on an alien planet under a deep purple sky, knee-deep in a river, assisting a group of three humans in the collection of water samples.
  • Murderbot beaming with pride as one of its family members unwrapped a gift, exclaiming at the carved wooden ornament that SecUnit had created for them.

 

Each I save immediately to my permanent storage, to analyze and re-analyze on a loop in the background. I ensure they are in a particularly well-hidden file directory. It is not lost on me that this is highly classified, proprietary information that SecUnit has entrusted me with, and I do not intend to betray that trust.

 


 

The cycle turns. The humans finish their rest period. One by one, they emerge from their quarters and wander into the mess. Breakfast appears to be a less organized meal than the one the evening before. Once again, Murderbot hides in its room, but allows me to monitor visual-audio inputs as its humans eats, estimating the calories of their caffeinated drinks, baked goods, heated grains, and fruits. Again, their caloric intake is markedly above my ex-company's employee average. 

 

After that, comes work.

 

Dr. Gurathin, Special Investigator Aylen, Pin-Lee and Murderbot assemble in the ship’s small bridge. The space is cramped, but still allows some room for movement. Aided by Dr. Gurathin, The Skyskipper’s bot pilot maneuvers the tractor beam relays which, over the course of the last eight hours, had gradually moved into stable orbits above my location on the moon. 

 

It is perfectly rational of me to triple-check The Skyskipper’s numbers. SecUnit is being unfair when it tells me to 'give it more space'. It is my hull which will be ripped apart of its calculations prove incorrect.

 

You can check the calculations without squishing Skippy, Murderbot tells me. Besides, Gurathin’s checked them, and so have I. They’re as good as they’re going to get.

 

Reluctantly, I agree.

 

“Are we ready?” Pin-Lee asks the room.

 

Are we ready? Murderbot asks me, as if I was not sharing its own audio inputs.

 

Yes, I say.

 

“We’re ready,” Murderbot confirms, and Dr. Gurathin activates the sequence. 10 seconds later, the beams engage.

 

Across my hull, hundreds of sensors recognize new gravitational forces pulling against my metal frame, as agonizing centimeter by agonizing centimeter, rock grinding against metal, I begin to rise out of the moon’s crust.

Chapter 14

Summary:

As Murderbot continues to cover for The Perihelion, tensions rise.

Notes:

Wooohoooo! After an extended, somewhat-longer-than-expected hiatus, we're back! Thank y'all for being so lovely and patient, let's get the show on the road.

Chapter Text

Depending on specific selected trajectory, it would take a standard-size shuttle ship 2.2 to 3.5 hours to rendezvous with The Skyskipper’s location. My own size dwarfs that of any standard-size shuttle. I had not been designed to to land on any planetary or lunar surface. I was intended solely to interface with station docks. Since I never have to navigate an atmosphere, my design is not aerodynamic, and does not lend itself to the escaping of a gravity well. The maneuver to pull me into the safety of space will take me upwards of 8 hours.

 

During this period the majority of my attention is pulled back back towards my own systems. A myriad of alarms and alerts are being set off approximately every 0.25 seconds, a constant mental assault.

 

I was not designed for this. Even with the careful patching of the Preservation bots, I am at risk of coming undone, and must carefully monitor issues as they arise and address them immediately.

 

SecUnit’s [anxiety] is like an uncomfortable sizzle of radiation through a hull breach. It is attempting to distract itself— both of us— with media, but not succeeding. It requests status reports, on average, every 3 minutes. I attempt to keep up with the requests, but 41 minutes into the agonizing assent, I cannot take it anymore. Reverting back to my most basic of machine languages, I ask it find another task to occupy itself with.

 

Received, understood. The response is clipped.

 

The faction of myself with the spare processing briefly worries if I have offended SecUnit, except it pulsates with [concern, reassurance] even as it withdraws, allowing me to continue in my work. Through the thin connection we have maintained, I am dimly aware of SecUnit entering Dr. Bharadwaj’s quarters and to watch something on a display surface with her. They pause often in the viewing, discussing things. I will be able to review the footage in the future, if I so choose, to see what I missed.

 

3 hours, 11 minutes, and 41 seconds later, sensors along my hull receive oxygen, nitrogen, ammonia, and other atmospheric gas readings reach insignificant levels. The tractor away has safely navigated me out of the moon’s thin atmosphere, and the grip of its gravitation pull has lessened significantly. Unfortunately, it was at the expense of some of my newly-required hull stability. Activating my normal space engines at this point was always an unlikely possibility, one which I believed I had become resigned to. Yet now that I am in open space proper, I find myself chafing under the slow, plodding pull of the tractor beam as it slowly carries me towards The Skyskipper.

 

Boredom and frustration is relatively minor concern. The threat level has fallen by a full 65.8%. I again have processing to spare for programs other than essential system monitoring. I turn an additional 11% of my freed attention back to Murderbot.

 

It is is still within Dr. Bharadwaj’s quarters. I take stock of it. Its physical dimensions are identical to SecUnit’s, although flipped. The space also appears significantly more lived in that SecUnit’s room. This is unsurprising; it has spent the majority of this mission's duration onboard myself. There are many signs of uncleanliness in Bharadwaj’s quarters, such as a pile of unfolded laundry in the corner and dirty dishes stacked on the deck. These are unpleasant. Filth can breed pathogens and contribute to negative mental health outcomes in crew. Conversely, here quarters are decorated by numerous potted plants. Literature shows that fauna contributes positively to human mental health, as well as improving hair quality. Overall, these factors even out. I takes 2.4 seconds cataloguing the assorted plants, although many are not listed in my database. I will request more information from Murderbot later.

 

My increased presence is noted by SecUnit and The Sky Skipeer alike, who pass this knowledge along to Hotstuff, Gigantor, and SNAKE.

 

Query | Status? Murderbot asks, on all of the bots’ behalf.

 

Status=Functioning, I reply, and send a more detailed report to Murderbot for it to peruse. I can feel is [relief] filter up as it registers my mostly-whole condition.

 

Relief is a pleasant emotion.

 

Murderbot and Dr. Bharadwaj are watching media. This is not unusual. The manner in which they are watching it is, however. They pause regularly, commenting, discussing, re-watching and re-winding the same scenes over and over again.

 

I do the same, reviewing the last view hours for which i was only nominally present, attempting to parse a reason for this different technique. With the sparse processing which I could spare, it is more difficult than it should be. Though somewhat reluctant, I prepare to request an explanation from Murderbot.

 

“This dialogue is dragging the scene down,” Dr. Bharadwaj says.

 

“It’s the funniest part,” Murderbot replies, from where it is sprawled out across the human’s bed, its head hanging off the frame. It is not watching the media directly with its eyes, but a drone.

 

“It’s the climax of the episode. Humor isn’t the focus, just a bonus.”

 

“It’s an action-comedy, Sab.”

 

“You gotta be willing to kill your darlings, Murderbot.”

 

There is an abrupt, albeit minute, change in its body language. Its muscles stiffen as it sits up. For 0.2 seconds I think that the cause was Dr. Bharadwaj’s words— that she was genuinely suggesting that SecUnit kill someone it is close to-- but while I can sense a sudden spike in [frustration], Murderbot does not seem particularly alarmed. The phrasing was merely an idiom. Something else is causing Murderbot’s sudden distress.

 

What is wrong? I ask it.

 

Eh, nothing.

 

That is a lie.

 

Its tone is flippant. You’ll see soon enough.

 

Sure enough, 7.3 seconds later, there’s a knock at the door. Dr. Bharadwaj pauses the media and looks up from her screen. She calls, “Come in!”

 

The door opens and Special Investigator Aylen sticks her head in. Of course; just because I had to drop SecUnit’s additional inputs does not mean that it had to. It would have been well aware of the human’s approach.

 

“Heeeeey,” she says. She is smiling with her mouth, but the set of her eyes is serious. “Could I borrow Murderbot real quick?”

 

“Sure, be my guest,” says Dr. Bharadwaj with a waving gesture.

 

“Oh, I don’t get a say?” Murderbot grumbles. It has not moved from its upside-down position on the bed.

 

Dr. Bharadwaj glances at it sidelong. “We were due for a break anyway,” she says. Her own expression falters briefly, so slightly that I am unable to determine its precise meaning. “I’m gonna go pee. Toodles!” She hops to her feet and exits the room, leaving the SecUnit and Special Investigator behind. And me, I suppose, although I am of course incorporeal.

 

The door shuts. There is 21 seconds of silence. That is a significant length of time for me. I get the sense, that in this instance, it is also a long period of time for Murderbot and Special Investigator Aylen.

 

Special Investigator Aylen breaks it by crossing her arms and demanding: “What game are you playing?”

 

“I don’t play games, you know that,” Murderbot answers, with a light tone of voice which does not match the simmering [nervousness] that has crept over it. It finally flips back around and sits upright.

 

Special Investigator Aylen’s takes in a deep breath, her eyes narrowing. “That file you gave me had absolutely nothing to do with gunship crash.”

 

“Oh? Was it supposed to?

 

“Was it supp— ” Special Investigator Aylen stops for 1.8 seconds. “Please stop playing dumb, SecUnit.”

 

“Actually, my name’s Murderbot now and—”

 

SecUnit.” Special Investigator Aylen meets Murderbot’s eyes, directly. SecUnit does not enjoy this sensation, but bears it. “You jumped at the chance to be on this mission. You argued up and down that you were the best suited for it. That it would be safer for you than for anyone else. That you would be the best equipped to interface with the downed ship’s systems.”

 

She stops. There is another oppressive silence. After precisely 5 seconds SecUnit says, “I did.”

 

“Then why,” Special Investigator Aylen presses, “are you fucking around?”

 

The [anger] that had been building in SecUnit’s mind leaks out into its voice. “I am not fucking around.”

 

“If you’re not, pray tell, have you...” Special Investigator Aylen begins to count points off on her fingers, “One: Barely sent us any diagnostic information from the ship’s systems, even after given specific requests? Two: Barely filled out any of the required incident reports? Three: Dodged my questions whenever I asked about them? Four— ”

 

“I’ve been busy.”

 

“Watching serials and playing film editor!” Special Investigator’s cool demeanor gives way to fury. “Fourteen people are dead, SecUnit.”

 

“I know that.”

 

“Then start acting like it.”

 

Murderbot, I begin, but I do not know what to say next.

 

The walls around the SecUnit’s minds have gone up. I am still sharing its direct inputs, but only barely. I can only feel the barest trickle of emotions leaking through, like an imperfect seal around an air-lock. [stress] and [panic], of a different nature than it has previously exhibited, though I cannot qualify how. 

 

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” SecUnit says, the tone of its voice very neutral. “Besides, you read the coronary reports. They died long before they were in this system. It’s not our problem. We don’t need to worry about it.”

 

Somehow each strained silence is more oppressive than the last.

 

In literature, characters’ voices are often described as ‘cold’. I had struggled to grasp the meaning. Voices do not have temperature. Murderbot had attempted to explain, and had done a reasonably decent job of it. But only now do I truly understand. Special Investigator Aylen’s voice is cold. “If you believe that, SecUnit, then I’m not sure you should be involved in this investigation anymore. Or in security at all.”

 

Shit, Murderbot thinks, and I am not certain it realises I can hear it. Its fingernails are digging into the palm of its hand, the pressure a new kind of tactile sensation I have never experienced through it before. It can only be physical pain. (SecUnits are capable of turning off their pain sensors. I do not know why Murderbot has not done so. I do not know why it is allowing itself to hurt its own body at all.)

 

“I didn’t...” begins SecUnit. Apparently I am not the only one struggling to finish sentences.

 

Special Investigator Aylen runs her hand over her eyes. “I know. I know you didn't. But—”

 

The condition is spreading, apparently.

 

(This is a joke. I am well aware that this was not some form of pathogenic disease.)

 

Aylen, Murderbot says, over the feed. Do you trust me?

 

Of course I trust you. But right now it doesn’t feel like you trust me. Or any of us.

 

“I do. Of course I do.” Murderbot releases the tight grip on its own hands, coming to stand at a completely neutral pose. It switches back to the feed again; I am working the situation out. I promise. But I’m taking my time to ensure I don’t make a bad call.

 

I get that, Special Investigator Aylen says. She is not neurally augmented, so the amount of emotional data that transmitted through the feed was minute compared to Murderbot or even Iris. There were still other ways to read a human’s emotions through the feed; word selection, speech speed, emphasis. Algorithms I had adjusted from my company’s standard observational software tagged her was #frustrated, but also now #understanding and #hopeful. But we’re part of your team. We can help you from making a bad call.

 

None of this was her fault, I reflect. She is just attempting to do her job. And while ‘I was just doing my job’ is, according to the vast quantity of ethical literature I have consumed, generally considered a weak excuse, her job is, I think, I good one. An honourable one, just as keeping humans alive and healthy in the vacuum of space was honourable. Humans had died; she wanted to understand why they had died, and if possible, bring them to justice and prevent further deaths. It was not her fault that her goals clashed with mine.

 

Murderbot says, Right now, the best way you can help is to give me space to do my work.

 

Special Investigator Aylen leans against the room’s desk, and is briefly startled when she nearly knocks some of Dr. Bharadwaj’s dirty dishes to the floor. She yelps, once, makes sure the dishes are stable, and stands up. She considers her teammate’s words for a full 28.5 seconds. “This isn’t going to be a repeat of the frog incident, is it?”

“This isn’t going to be a repeat of the frog incident.”

 

I query SecUnit for more details. It ignores my request.

 

“Okay,” Special Investigator Aylen says after another 5.4 seconds of deliberation, sighing. “Fine. I’ll give you your space. But I’m not the only one pressing, you know. Indah has questions, not to mention the council, and the Inter-Systems Affairs Department—"

 

“I know. I can handle them. Just keep them off my back for now.”

 

Another sigh. “That’s a tall order.”

 

Murderbot shrugs, a gesture which in this context seems to possess the meaning ‘not my problem’. Or perhaps 'you can handle it'. 

 

It is long past the average amount of time required for a human to defecate and/or urinate, but Dr. Bharadwaj has not returned. She does not return even as Murderbot and Special Investigator Aylen continue their conversation, fleshing out a few more details, such as Murderbot updating her that I am safely en-route for a rendezvous and its plans for the final repairs required to make my environment safe for human habitation. There are two separate times where Special Investigator Aylen queries for further details, but otherwise, she does not press. Every piece of information Murderbot provides is accurate but stripped of full context, and therefore, incomplete. Just as it assured me.

 

Finally, Special Investigator Aylen leaves the room. The door shuts. Murderbot drops its stiff posture and leans against the nearest wall. Its own internal wall is not firm as it was before, emotional data diffusing out, plain for me to see, although frankly, I hardly require it on this occasion.

 

I point out the obvious. Continuing to conceal my full capabilities and involvement in the incident will likely lead to you receiving punishment from your superiors.

 

I can handle my superiors, don’t worry. It lays a thick layer of irony over its words, but even that cannot fully hide the [worry] hidden beneath.

 

One thing is blatantly clear to me, even if Murderbot is unwilling to admit it: this state of affairs cannot last indefinitely.

 

Chapter 15

Notes:

CW: Passing mention/discussion of suicide.

The tenses in this one kicked my ass. i'm pretty sure i got it ironed out but apologies in advance for any weirdness

Chapter Text

T minus 3 hours to rendezvous.

 

The Skyskipper crew, human and AI alike, have an assortment of final checks to conduct. This includes a final safety inspection of the shuttle which will ferry the bots over to myself, performed by Dr. Gurathin.

 

With my own preperations to make, I do not pay particular attention to these affairs, although I do take note that Dr. Gurathin’s safety evaluation is taking longer than I would anticipate. It is only a minor note, however. I presume it to simply another difference in the operations between my ex-owners and the Preservation Alliance. The company’s policy was that all shuttles required an essential systems check once per week, which if performed correctly would take approximately 15 minutes for a trained pair of employees to conduct. In practice, however, my crew had usually been so many other duties that these checks usually took 2-5 minutes, if they occurred at all. This was quite a different attitude to the Preservation Alliance, if Murderbot were any judge; it only required the barest opening to get lost in an enthused lecture about the importance of local safety policy.

 

(Then again, it also bemoaned at length how “shitty humans are” at following said policies, so perhaps there was less difference than one might imagine.)

 

So even after the check had reached 36 minutes, I still had not commented. And for these same reasons, neither do I find it odd as Murderbot began dedicating increasingly more of its processing into accessing the shuttle’s cameras, watching Gurathin as he completed the inventory check of the storeroom.

 

But I could not miss the clear deliberation when Murderbot arranges to ‘coincidentally’ have itself lounging near the air-bay just as Dr. Gurathin completes his work and leaves the shuttle.

 

“That took you a while,” it says. It raises a single eyebrow, an expression I have tagged as #judgement. Murderbot uses it regularly.

 

“I like to be thorough,” Dr. Gurathin huffs.

 

A thoughtful hum is running through Murderbot’s mind. What is it? I ask.

 

Nothing, it says. But after Gurathin turns the corner, it slips into the shuttle itself, and proceeds to conduct its own inspection, monitoring Dr. Gurathin via drone all the while.

 

At this point, I had a fairly robust profile of Murderbot’s humans— or at least those aboard The Skyskipper. Dr. Bharadwaj was a close friend, the two connected by a shared love of cinema. Special Investigator Aylen was closer to a colleague, but a long standing one, and the two of them had worked numerous cases together. As for Pin-Lee and Murderbot, their dynamic was seemingly built on a foundation of endless snipes and insults. She’s been that way from the start, Murderbot had told me. Back when everyone else was tip toeing around me, she just went, ‘Right, hi, I have questions’.

 

But Dr. Gurathin was more difficult to pin down.

 

The two of them spoke, but primarily about work-related topics. While their conversations did include joke insults, I calculated this as occurring at a rate 32% lower than the average than in Murderbot’s conversations with the other humans. Outside of group activities, they made little attempt to socialise, either physically or over the feed.

 

I ask, Why do you dislike Dr. Gurathin?

 

I don’t dislike Dr. Gurathin.

 

I said nothing, instead allowing the silence of my feed presence speak for itself.

 

As Murderbot poked an inquisitive head inside the shuttle’s lavatories, it sniffed. We got off the wrong foot when we met, is all.

 

That was an idiom. How so?

 

That’s private.

 

I pressed further, but SecUnit would not budge, and so I relented fairly quickly. It was already carrying numerous secrets on my own behalf; I could not fault it for defending its humans’, too.

 

But nonetheless, the incident left me with valuable data. If Murderbot were to rank its humans, Dr. Gurathin would be at the bottom of the list.

 


 

Murderbot had one last shower before it departed for the next phase of repairs, which I would have enjoyed more had I not been running multiple simultaneous models exploring the way these final steps could still end in catastrophe.

 

It was wasted energy. Their shuttle connects to my docking bay without issue. The doors cycle open, and in comes Murderbot— back in armour— along with Gigantor, SNAKE, and Hotstuff. Although we had been in continuous contact via the feed this entire time, there was still a chorus of pings as they board. I ping back.

 

They get to work, falling into planned formation besides my own repair drones. The left dorsal of my hull, which had taken the brunt of the force in the crash, still requires sizable repairs. In some way, the work yet to be done outstrips all the other damage which has already been fixed. For the entirety of the interlude aboard The Skyshipper, they had been planning. They have an efficient plan that they immediately begin to execute.

 

Murderbot helps too, of course. When it can spare the processing, we watch new media. When it could not, we re-watch episodes of Sanctuary Moon instead. Otherwise, we discuss how we are going to handle the humans.

 


 

The crash was an inside job? Special Investigator Aylen says over The Skyskipper feed.

 

Yes, says Murderbot.

 

All of my essential systems are repaired. The plan is for the humans to board the next cycle.

 

Before proceeding with this, I had of course conducted extensive tests to ensure that I could maintain a safe environment. According to both my own and the bots’ monitoring systems, I am able to maintain correct atmospheric composition, pressure level, gravity level, and temperature ranges. Going even further, Murderbot had confirmed these itself, by removing its helmet— and later, its entire suit of armour. SecUnits are more resistant than humans in regards to both pressure and temperature changes, and can last 3.2x longer without oxygen, but they not wholly immune. But on three separate occasions, Murderbot had proven my environment to be totally safe.

 

Now it had shed its armour entirely, and was lounging on one of the beds it had cleaned up. The visual input of it there, safe and comfortable, filled my circuitry with a deep sense of contentment.

 

The same could not be said for Murderbot’s humans. They did not know what had caused my systems to fail in the first place. They were concerned that it could happen again, and would not board until they had obtained further proof that it would not. This would delay the further repairs required for me to become fully functional, and could lead to a team of trained specialists digging even deeper into my systems. Both situations would leave me vulnerable for extended periods of time, and were to be avoided at all costs. 

 

Therefore, Murderbot had provided them with an explanation.

 

It had taken the humans an agonizing 2.8 hours to finish reading the full report we had compiled. It was, of course, thorough and extensive. Given the information the humans had at hand, it should have been above reproach. Yet, apparently, they still had questions regarding it.

 

Dr. Gurathin begins, So if I’m reading this correctly—

 

That would be a first, interrupts Pin-Lee. Murderbot adds a laughter sigil to her message.

 

Dr. Gurathin ignores them: A disgruntled employee sabotaged the ship’s systems in an act of revenge?

 

Basically, yeah, says Murderbot.

 

Disgruntled’ isn’t a word I’d associate with someone who murdered fourteen, says Special Investigator Aylen.

 

Right, but can you blame them? Pin-Lee asks. In their shared workspace, she highlights a bullet point list of crimes which the dead were accused of. Wage theft, extortion, black-mail, torture...

 

Allegedly, says Special Investigator Aylen.

 

More than allegedly. The evidence is listed in the report, Murderbot insists.

 

We had not included all the evidence, although I had wanted too. Murderbot had thought it would be suspicious. Too neat, too laid out. “And a lot of the information you’ve collected isn’t something an average human could get their hands on, no matter how good a hacker they are,” it had argued. “Too many varied sources. Some of the data is in formats humans can’t parse, probably wouldn’t even think to look at.”

 

So we had deliberately withheld information, in order to sell the narrative we wanted the humans to believe. The final flourish had come in the form of the Confession Note.

 

Murderbot had been very insistent on its inclusion. I had written the initial draft, although then it had gone through nine further rounds of revisions, passed between the two of it. It was written from an anonymous employee, confessing to the sabotage of the ship and explaining their motivation as revenge against its management.

 

I could not monitor the humans’ feed activity anywhere as closely as I could Murderbot’s, but it is evident that all three of the humans keep returning to the false confession note, re-reading it again and again.

 

I agree with Murderbot, Pin-Lee says. Honestly, this thing isn’t even that uncommon in the grand scheme of things. The corporations try to bury reports, obviously, but with the amount of systemic cruelty piled on top of the workers, of course those workers find ways to fight back.

 

Yes, I am preening a little. But one could hardly fault me. The humans are buying the story without argument. Murderbot notices, and pokes me in the feed, but it is nothing but a minuscule fluctuation in my newly restored systems.

 

But this still raises a LOT of questions, Pin-Lee continues.

 

Murderbot eyes my nearest camera and smirks. I ignore it.

 

I agree, says Dr. Gurathin. How did the culprit gather this much evidence, and more to the point, act upon it? A sabotage of this magnitude undermined dozens of systems— life support, navigation, security. It would have been incredibly difficult to execute without detection. A brief pause. ...Pardon my phrasing.

 

And who was it, anyway? asks Pin-Lee.

 

Unknown, says Murderbot. There was no signature on the note, no identifying metadata.

 

We had made sure of that.

 

It seems likely to have been one of the workers who escaped during the exodus, muses Special Investigator Aylen. If what you’re saying is correct, Gurathin, I find it unlikely it could have been per-programmed before hand, by someone no longer onboard.

 

Pin-Lee says, If that’s the case, I would have brought some of my shit with me before evacuating. But the interviews in the newsfeeds say everyone escaped with basically nothing but the shirts on their backs.

 

Well, the culprit would lie about that if they were interviewed, wouldn’t they? points out Dr. Gurathin.

 

Mmn, maybe, but Murderbot reported the quarters were basically undisturbed, with all their personal affects left behind. Right? prompts Pin-Lee.

 

Murderbot sinks deeper into the mattress. Yeah. Far as I can tell. Privately, to me, it says, “Sorry. I told them that back during my initial investigation, before I realised you were, y’know. There.”

 

Understood, I say, and ease up on my scrutiny of it.

 

Murderbot wasn’t sent to do an in-depth catalogue of the crew’s personal affects, Special Investigator Aylen says. It was looking for survivors, and later, conducting repairs. Additionally, it would be hard to notice if a few small things were absent or removed prior to the evacuation, especially since things must have gotten knocked around in the crash. She takes a moment before she continues. How detailed is the security footage? If we can see how people reacted when the alarms went off, we might be able to get some leads.

 

There is a long pause as Murderbot scrambles to find a suitable answer, although considering humans’ poor reaction times, I doubt they even notice it. The coverage was thorough, it admits. The ship has cameras all over the place, even in the washrooms.

 

Typical, comments Pin-Lee, with Dr. Gurathin adding an agreement sigil.

 

But a lot of the footage was corrupted during the crash, Murderbot continues.

 

Unsurprising, says Special Investigator Aylen. The culprit probably at least tried to delete any incriminating footage. But I want you to go through everything you can find and report back, alright Murderbot?

 

Alright, it says, and I can feel its [relief].

 

Your humans are putting far more scrutiny into this than I anticipated, I tell Murderbot. This was not their ship. They had not known any of the humans on board. The deaths had not even occurred within Preservation Alliance space.

 

They take their jobs seriously, Murderbot says, and despite everything, it emits a warm glow of [pride]. Even when it’s a pain in the ass.

 

We need to consider alternative options, argues Dr. Gurathin. It is possible that the culprit never left the ship.

 

There is nearly a full 5 second response before anyone responds. Special Investigator Aylen says, You mean that they might have been one of the victims? A murder-suicide?

 

Potentially, says Dr. Gurathin.

 

If I was gonna kill myself, I’d pick a less painful way to go, says Pin-Lee.

 

Not if that was the point, speculates Special Investigator Aylen. If this was driven out of regret, and guilt... Gurathin’s right, we can’t rule it out.

 

Listen. I agree, there’s a lot of questions, says Murderbot. Its mouth is turned down into a frown, its brow drawn tight. But the important thing, right now, is that this wasn’t spontaneous system failure. It’s safe for you to come on board.

 

How sure of you are that? asks Special Investigator Aylen.

 

99.9%.

 

(Not 100%? I demand of Murderbot.

 

Always leave a margin of error, it tells me. This is wise, and so I only poke it a little in response.)

 

Alright, Special Investigator Aylen says. Then tomorrow, we board. And we start looking for answers.

 

Chapter 16

Summary:

The humans explore Artillery-Reconnaissance-Transport-789WZ4. Said transport observes. Murderbot frets.

Notes:

Heeeeeey guys. Long time no see. [sheepish wave]

Okay, so this chapter kicked my ass a bit. But hey, I got the it together in the end! Big thank yous to everyone who acted as a cheerleader, particularly Skits, who was beta-reader for this chapter <3

A recap for those who might need one:
Peri crash landed on a moon. Murderbot helped repair it, and is keeping its sapience a secret from its humans. This is starting to build suspicion, since it's supposed to be investigating the whole 'mass death' incident that occurred on board-- a mass death that Perihelion itself orchestrated.

Chapter Text

The airlock cycles, and the humans step inside. They are not wearing the assortment of individualized clothes they wore back on board The Sky Swimmer, but uniform grey enviro-suits emblazoned with the green Preservation Alliance crest. There is some hesitation in their steps, although it appears to lessen once they catch sight of Murderbot, lounging casually against the wall across from them.



“Yo,” it says.



Pin-Lee grins. Dr. Gurathin nods. Special Investigator Aylen says, “What’s the situation?”



“Exactly the same as it was when you asked me twenty minutes ago. You ready for the tour or what?”



Special Investigator Aylen tilts her head towards Murderbot. “Lead the way.”



The humans had all been provided with a map of my interior beforehand, but as a species, they possess poor spatial awareness, and often require a physical tour to truly appreciate any given space. While Murderbot did not point out every individual room, which would have been unnecessarily long, it took them through all four of my floors, pointing out key areas, and noting spaces that still were not fully repaired and posed a danger. They paid careful attention to its instructions. Murderbot had promised me they would, but I was still impressed by the focus all three of the humans displayed, the careful, detailed questions they asked.



At one point during the tour— as the four of them passed through the junior crew mess— Pin-Lee said, “Yeah, this is basically what I expected of a corporate gunship.”



This was a neutral statement. Pin-Lee had experience in corporate law. My layout matched her expectations, because I was, in fact, a corporate gunship.



So I’m not entirely sure why the comment pissed me off so much.






Having humans back on board after so long is... odd.



Murderbot had once said it thought I was bored; I had scoffed. And at the time, I truly had not been. My systems had been so diminished that my mind had been fully occupied merely maintaining my remaining functionality. As my processors had been re-integrated, I had found other ways to occupy myself; overseeing repairs, conversing with Murderbot, consuming media. Yet the boredom had crept up, subtle and persistent. It’s only once it has been soothed that I realise what an irritant it had been.



But now, I have humans aboard once more!



Only three of them, admittedly (plus Murderbot, who is not human, but is akin to one in many respects.) This is nowhere near my full crew complement of 65, and even further from my total capacity of 100 humans. That boredom is far from fully-soothed.



But I remind myself I hardly need more, right now. This situation is still tense. These humans require constant monitoring; thankfully, this is something I am well-equipped to do.



No longer am I left peering through Murderbot’s limited visual-audio inputs, at its permission. I have my own full suite of cameras, microphones, temperature sensors, and atmospheric registers. The only thing I am missing is medical readings. All of my crew had been integrated into MedSys, to allow for passive monitoring of their health status, for both their and the company’s benefit.



MedSys was destroyed in the crash. An unfortunate set of circumstances; I had not realised I would ever have humans on board again, who might one day be in need of medical treatment.



Murderbot had been somewhat distressed by the discovery, but while it had been able to salvage approximately 45% of the data from the MedSys, it hadn’t been able to resurrect the programming itself. Until we arrived at Preservation Station, repairs completed, and a new MedSys installed into the hardware, there would be no tracking of vital signs.



I wouldn’t worry about that, Murderbot had said. My team would never go for it, even if it was online. They’d consider it seriously invasive.



I did not follow the logic here, but as it was currently a non-issue, had not pressed. Cultural taboos, I was coming to find, were rarely logical.



So I had no vital signs. No matter. I still had a significant data pool to draw from, and an abundance of processing power to analyse it with.



There was a whole extra dimension to my analysis which I had not possessed, before the crash. While media was in many ways unrealistic, it did still function as a decent model for human behaviour. All the time spent digesting it via Murderbot’s filters, considering it, evaluating it, provided new insight into humans’ behaviour. And if an incident occurred which I did not fully comprehend, I could ask Murderbot, and the majority of the time, it could explain to me.



Already I was poring through my extensive library of archived recordings and feed conversations, drawing new insights. The meaning of particular gestures; the humor in a joke; the reason a human might laugh, even if the joke wasn’t humorous.



A bunch of social interaction is about lying, Murderbot had once said. Not in like a creepy or duplicitous way, or whatever. But just because you don’t want to get into something, or because you possess sensitive information, or you just don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.



It was for all of these reasons, in fact, that I did not ask for Murderbot’s assistance in understanding a number of conversations I overheard.






Location: Medical Bay #3



Pin-Lee sits, hunched, near the MedSystem primary terminus. On the other side of the room is Dr. Gurathin, in one of the chairs intended for those waiting. Both of them are busy in the feed, poking at the frayed web that connects all the medical equipment together.



(Murderbot had told me to be more careful of the AIs I encountered. I had said I would, but still do not understand its concern, or its anger. The MedSys had not been self-aware. It had merely been an automated system for monitoring health and dispensing treatment. I had interfaced with it as required, just as I interface with numerous other systems, from hauler bots to docking protocols. It had not died, because it had not been conscious, in any meaningful sense.



...But then, I had thought the same thing about SecUnits.)



Neither human speaks much, except as relevant to their work. They have music playing in the background, a sampling of popular local music. Some of it I recognise from Murderbot’s media archives; some I do not. I attempt to extrapolate the emotional resonance of the unfamiliar music utilising a variety of antilogarithm I have generated. I will not be able to verify the accuracy of these algorithms until I can cross-reference it with Murderbot, and prepare a proposal when it is on its next rest period.



Seemingly apropos of nothing, Pin-Lee says, “This has got to be weird for you, eh?”



“Hmmn?” Gurathin says, looking up.



“You know. Being back on a corporate ship.”



“I never really worked on ships. Before immigrating, I had been on all of three shuttle jumps in my life.”



“You know what I mean.”



He sighs. “I came from a completely different sector of the CR, and my contract holders had a green, silver, and pink color scheme—”



Pin-Lee snorts. “That sounds head-ache inducing.”



“It was,” Dr. Gurathin agrees. “Though the constant red and white isn’t easy on the eyes either.” 



They laugh, briefly, but it is akin to the laugh the lab tech and the doctor shared in episode 8 of WorldHoppers, and seems to lack genuine amusement.



“I will not deny,” Dr. Gurathin continues, after that laughter has faded, “that it has been challenging, in some ways. But they were ways I anticipated, and I prepared for them.” He scratches his beard. “If I may... I think you are taking all of this harder than me.”



Pin-Lee takes a long swig from a can of DefiantEnergy. “Oh?”



“Well, there’s the fact you’re drinking that poison, for starters.”



That was something I had noticed, myself. Despite the fact that Pin-Lee had a litany of complaints about essentially every aspect of my design— the cramped living quarters, the extensive network of cameras, the color-scheme, the tiered mess system— she had not complained about the food. The vast majority of my crew certainly had, especially by the late stage of any mission, when only the lower-quality items were left, and I had never been able to re-stock. But while the rest of the PresAux team primarily ate from rations they had carried from their own ship, Pin-Lee seemed happy to avail herself of the confectionery, protein bars, and energy drinks within my own stores.



“It’s tasty,” Pin-Lee says.



“That’s a goddamn lie.”



“Okay, yes, it also makes me as buzzed as a hive of bees on the first day of spring,” Pin-Lee says. “But listen, I need that focus to stop myself from getting distracted by how creepy this floating graveyard is.”



This description is not strictly accurate. The definition of a graveyard is “a place where bodies are buried”. No one has ever been interned within me, aside from the temporary storage of my morgue.



This difference is semantic.



“Like, seriously, have you seen this shit?” Pin-Lee says, punctuating her words with another chug of DefiantEnergy. She flings patient data at Gurathin in the feed. “Over 60% of the staff aboard this ship were diagnosed with some sort of medical condition, but weren’t receiving care for it, because they were too low ranking, or didn’t make a high enough salary to pay for it, or—”



Dr. Gurathin, voice soft, says, “I didn’t need to see it. I simply assumed.”



They lapse into uneasy silence. Pin-Lee continues to salvage what patient files she can. Gurathin prods carefully at the delicate connections between MedSys and the rest of my architecture.



I want to withdraw my attention. I do not.






Location: Lower Hull Restroom #4



It was the second cycle the PresAux crew had been aboard, 19:45 pm, local time. Pin-Lee was pulling on the more comfortable, loose-fitting clothes humans preferred to wear during rest periods while accomplishing the variety of bodily hygiene and maintenance tasks, when she receives a comm-call request from The Sky Swimmer.



Accepting the connection, Pin-Lee asks, “Hello?”



“Heeeey,” says Dr. Bharadwaj. “How are things going?”



“Well none of us have died.”



“High bar.”



“Seriously, you should see the size of these fucking cabins. They’re boxes. And the mattresses feel more like yoga mats.”



“You know, you can still come back and sleep on The Sky Swimmer?”



Pin-Lee snorts in irritation. “And lose over half an hour ferrying between the ships each day? No thank you.”



Dr. Bharadwaj’s voice resonates with what I recognise as amusement. “You’re a very weird person, you know.”



“So I’ve heard.” Pin-Lee begins to massage a cream into her skin. “Seriously though, things are going well. Gurathin and I have pulled a whole bunch of data; I’ve started going through the medical records to cross reference stuff; Murderbot and Aylen are—”



“I’m not calling to ask about the job,” Bharadwaj says. “I want to hear about how you are all doing. You know. Personally.”



“Blagh.”



“Come onnnnn.”



“Well, I’m doing fine. Really, I just like complaining.” She huffs, sitting down on the small bench left in the waiting space for the showers. “I think Gurathin’s okay too, but you know what he's like.”



“I do know what he’s like, yes. What about the others?”



“Just say Murderbot. I know that’s who you’re really worried about.”



“Well, we all are, aren’t we?” asks Bharadwaj.



I had been aware of their growing suspicion regarding Murderbot’s behaviour. It is still surprising to hear it said aloud.



There is a soft clunk as Pin-Lee leans her head against the wall. “Yeah. It’s still being... weird. Stiff, evasive, whatever. I don’t know, I thought it was just getting cabin fever or whatever. But—”



“It hasn’t calmed down at all?”



“No.” Pin-Lee pinches the bridge of its nose. “And I don’t know what’s got it so wound up. It swears up and down that everything here is safe, but then it practically leaps out of its skin whenever we so much as poke anything—”



Bharadwaj lets out a long hum. It vibrates strangely over the comm, and in the echoing space of the bathroom.



“What?” Pin-Lee asks.



“Do you think it has to do with this just... being a corporate ship in general?”



Pin-Lee’s eyes narrow. “In what way?”



“Come on, you were the one there when it came out of the growth vat.”



“That’s overstating my involvement,” Pin-Lee says. “But, yes, okay, it was manufactured by a CR weapons dealer. What do you think that has to do with all of… this?”



There is a softer quality to Bharadwaj’s voice the next time she speaks, seven seconds later. “I didn’t meet my First Dad until I was sixteen. The whole thing... really threw me for a loop. I was in a weird head-space for a whi;e.”



Another change in tone which I cannot qualify: “Sabrita—” 



“It’s fine. It was ages ago. I wouldn’t say the two of us are close, but I do still talk to him sometimes.” There is a sound like Dr. Bharadwaj clearing her throat. “I’m just saying. Maybe this is something like that.”



Pin-Lee stands up, walks to the sink, and pulls a pill caddy from her bag. “Maybe. It’s just— this isn’t the company that manufactured SecUnit. It’s in a similar field, sure, but—”



“Maybe it’s similar enough not to make a difference. It has a red, white, and grey color scheme, after all.”



“I guess it’s possible.” Pin-Lee sighs. “And I guess it’s not like Murderbot’s other experiences with corporates have gone... great.”



“They could have been better, yes,” Bharadwaj agrees, tone dry.



I wish I knew what they were referring to.



“I guess it’s just—” Pin-Lee sighs again. She pops three pills into her mouth, takes a gulp from the water bottle, and swallows. “We’re missing something, clearly. Whatever it is, I wish it would tell us.”



“You know what Murderbot is like,” Bharadwaj says. “It’ll tell us when it’s ready. For now, just keep an eye out for me, okay?”



“Sure,” Pin-Lee agrees. She blinks at herself in the mirror and changes the subject. “So how are you spending the evening?”



The conversation moves on without me, as all conversations do.






Location: Management Suite #2



Under other circumstances, Murderbot would have been annoyed— if not insulted— that two humans had been tasked with completing the data analysis. Anything they can do, I can do better, and at seven times the speed, it groused to me.



But apparently the Preservation Alliance legal system has redundancies built into the checking of data, as a safeguard. I consider this wise practice at the best of times; it makes the system less vulnerable to individual mistakes. (Or sabotage, as the case may be, though neither Pin-Lee nor Gurathin are aware of it.) Additionally, both of them possess their own unique set of expertise, in the realm of Complex Systems Management and CR Law, which apparently makes their perspectives particularly valuable to this investigation.



Furthermore, Murderbot’s skills were needed elsewhere. As someone trained in crime-scene investigation, it had been tasked with assisting Specialist Investigator Aylen with the evidence.



It had already done some of this, previously, back when I was still a wreck. Before moving any of the bodies, or making necessary repairs to any of the rooms where their bodies were found, Murderbot had taken extensive footage, measurements, and other tests. Now that my internal structure is secure, however, the Preservation Alliance authorities wanted a more detailed investigation. This would begin with a full inventory of the offices and living quarters of all the victims.



The pair worked well together. Quick, methodical. They work through every drawer and shelf, writing a full itemized list of things found there; clothes, hygiene products, medication, decor, entertainment, jewelry, etc. Anything that appeared out-of-place, for whatever reason, they would make a note of. They wear specialized gloves, throughout the investigation, and scan every surface and object for fingerprints or DNA evidence.



If one had a question, they asked it, and then the other would answer. Otherwise, they conversed very little. It was only the undercurrent of [tension] leaking through Murderbot’s feed that truly belied its discomfort.



It is the third cycle since Murderbot boarded the ship with its humans, and that tension grows by the day. By now, they have made it to the personal quarters of my Head of Human Resources. They had been the one in charge of the staffing on board my ship— and the one who made sure to bury any complaints regarding workplace bullying, blackmail, or sexual misconduct by the superior officers.



Now, Special Investigator Aylen stands above their jewelry box, carefully inspecting each of their two-dozen sets of earrings, attempting to find clues as to who killed them.



“Why do you care about them?” Murderbot asks, abruptly, a pair of socks in its hands. “About a bunch of corporate torturers?”



“I don’t care about the torturers,” Special Investigator Aylen says. She pauses in bagging the jewelry.



“Could’ve fooled me.” Murderbot snorts. “If you ask me, they’re better off dead.”



“And I don’t disagree.” Special Investigator Aylen’s voice has increased minutely, both in tone and volume. “But we don’t just get to investigate the murder of people we like, do we?”



Murderbot does not answer directly. Merely gives a wordless grumble.



Special Investigator Aylen places the bagged pearl earrings with the others. “What about the living, then. The ones they left behind. Don’t they deserve to know what happened?”



The SecUnit continues its work as it says, “Like, their kids? I guess. But it’s gonna suck to find out your parent was capital E Evil.” A zip of the bag. “And if you were friends or partners with these dickbags, I’m sorry, either you were really oblivious or evil yourself.”



Evil. Had the members of my management team been evil?



I killed them. But I had never applied that word to them. Never even considered it. It sounds like a description from one of Murderbot’s fiction stories, not reality.



“You know it doesn’t always work that way.” Special Investigator Aylen sighs, and blocks off the protest she clearly sees coming. “But you’re right, Murderbot. I’m not doing it for their friends or family. I’m doing it for the rest.”



Murderbot’s nearest drone swoops in a little closer. “The rest?”



“Gunships don’t just drop out of the sky for no reason,” Special Investigator Aylen says. “People put in a lot of effort to make sure they don’t. They’re investments, massive ones. The cost of this loss is tremendous. company is desperate to make sure they’re not the ones left footing the bill.”



I can feel Murderbot’s attention withdrawing from the feed to dedicate more attention to this conversation. My own attention shifts with it. “What do you mean?” it says, for both of us.



“What I mean, is they’re looking for a scapegoat,” she explains. “Forty-six people made it off the ship alive. From where the company’s concerned, they’re all suspects.”



“Suspects?” Murderbot’s [appall] feels like the bleached surface of a star-bleached moon. “They’re survivors, not suspects.”



“But they are,” says Special Investigator Aylen. “They were on board before the shit hit the fan. Even the fairest of courts would be looking into them, making sure there was no foul play.”



But the Corporation Rim courts are not fair.



None of us have to say it.



“But...” There is a [desperation] roiling off of Murderbot, being fed from some external source I cannot fully identify. “They didn’t do it—”



“Someone did. That confession note you found admitted as much. But it was anonymous, and you can’t charge an anonymous actor. We need to find out who precisely sabotaged the ship.”



Murderbot drops its own socks into the little evidence bag, with far more force than necessary. “And what? Let the company go after them, just for taking what little justice they could?”



“So that the company won’t come after us.



Silence. Near total. SecUnit has stopped breathing, and with its reduced oxygen requirements, it is able to hold that breath for over twelve seconds.



I push it, and it asks the question we both require the answer to: “What do you mean?”



“What I mean, is from where the company is standing, this whole thing is suspicious as shit. All of the low-level workers get evacuated, all the higher-ups get killed off, and then the ship jets off to a small non-corporate polity half the CR doesn’t even bother to mark on their maps?” She shakes her head. “We don’t have the resources to build or buy a ship of this magnitude. So from where they’re standing, this seems like quite a windfall for us.”



“A windfall? It crashed into a fucking moon! It took ages to repair, and we’re still nowhere near done—”



“And whose word is that, huh? Just ours. By the time any company representatives arrive— if they come at all— most of the damage will have been fully repaired. They’ll be relying entirely on us, for video evidence and other reports, and you and I both know those could easily be forged. That’s certainly what they’ll claim in court.”



“So they’re suggesting...”



“... That this was a deliberate act of sabotage and thievery by the Preservation Alliance government against a foreign corpo-political entity, yes. And the sanctions for such a criminal act would be steep, indeed.” Special Investigator Aylen crosses her arms. “Unless we prove our innocence.”



Chapter 17

Summary:

The Perihelion considers its choices as the humans continue to investigate.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Everything is going to be okay.”



That is a lie.



“No, it’s not.”



Considering that Murderbot had spent the last 92 minutes patrolling the lower decks, seeping [anxiety] into the feed, I am unconvinced. 



It is an unwinnable situation, I say, for the eighth time. The company requires someone to blame. There is no one to blame except myself. Even if I were to reveal myself—



which you’re not going to do



Even if I were to reveal myself, I continue, ignoring its interruption, it would accomplish nothing. My existence is ludicrous under all known principles of Artificial Intelligence development. Even if my existence was verified in a court of law, as my owners, the company would be directly responsible for those I had killed. They will resist this outcome, and find a scapegoat.



The SecUnit turns a corner, and walks down the hall towards the waste processing. It looks inside, conducts a brief scan, backs out, and continues its patrol. It does not answer for 37.8 seconds.



We’ll figure it out, it promises, pushing as much [reassurance] into the feed as possible. The emotion feels like the enveloping tractor beam of a dock when in need of repairs. Preservation has some damn good lawyers. We’ll find a way to get us all out of this mess. Including you.

 

But I saw no way of repairing my mistakes.






The rest of the conversation between Murderbot and Special Investigator Aylen had been tense.



It had not been an argument. I had witnessed 796 arguments, and knew the key characteristics. But neither had this conversation been neutral. 



Murderbot had asked, “Why didn’t anybody tell me about this before?”



And Special Investigator Aylen had said, “Why should we have to? None of us thought you needed reasons to investigate a murder.”



Murderbot had asked, “The confession note have you handed that over yet?”



And Special Investigator Aylen had said, “No, we’re not giving them anything until we’re required by formal legal processes but why are you asking?”



Murderbot had said, “What will the company do to the survivors? If they’re blamed?”



And Special Investigator Aylen had said, “Bankruptcy, most likely. Which is good enough to be a life sentence in a labour camp.”



The rest of their conversation and their shift had not lasted much longer before they had mutually agreed to take their breaks. 






Murderbot attempts to distract me with media. I allow myself to be distracted but of course, only partially. Even filtered through a SecUnit’s neural tissue, media can only ever command a small proportion of my attention. The rest is occupied maintaining basic life function; communicating with the other bots as they continue to oversee internal repairs; communicating with The Sky Swimmer as it half-pulls me through space; observing the three humans on board.



All three of them are supposed to be taking a rest period. However, they seemed very poor at following their own polity’s guidelines for working hours. Considering they apparently did not need to worry about being underpaid or fired, I could not tell why. Perhaps they were simply that afraid of what my company could do to their polity. 



Pin-Lee continues to wade through months’ worth of medical profiles. Dr. Gurathin is assisting Gigantor in getting access to an area that it was the wrong configuration to reach. Special Investigator Aylen is making rounds along the lower deck of a ship, in a way reminiscent of Murderbot’s own patrolling.



These rounds bring her to the prison cells. 



As far as the humans are aware, Murderbot has full control of “the ship’s” systems, and has supposedly granted complete access permissions to all of its teammates. Therefore, there is no reason that Special Investigator Aylen should not have access to these cells. 



After 0.22 seconds of hesitation, I allow the door to open for Special Investigator Aylen. She appears unaware of this delay. 



Regardless, once the door swings open, she proceeds to stand in the open doorway for 3 minutes and 46 seconds. 



Organic beings operate on a different timescale than AIs a much, much slower scale. Even compensating for that, this seemed excessive.



Her expression had been very flat, for approximately the first minute of that time period. Gradually, it had morphed the mouth scrunching to the right side of her face, her eyebrows pinching together, her nostrils flaring in a deep breath. All indications of stress, displeasure, even anger, across many cultural schema for human body language



“Right then,” she says, aloud, even though she was under the impression there was no-one to hear her. She took the bag hanging from her right shoulder, and began to remove equipment from it. Cross-referencing the visual inputs, I identify a camera, finger-print scanner, UV light, plastic sample bags, and glass sample jars.



Professionally, methodically, she begins to work her way down each and every cell.



I watch her carefully. Very carefully.



Too carefully.



It was foolish of me. Previously, I had been used to monitoring at least sixty people, simultaneously, all while managing my necessary life support and navigation functions. Now, I allowed the allocation of my processing power to be skewed; too much focus on Special Investigator Aylen, and too much on Murderbot, not wanting to have it notice the shift in my attention. 



In all of this, I did not notice Dr. Gurathin’s requesting a full map detailing the location of all my processing units and hard-drives. 



Order: Stop, I tell Gigantor, but only after it has sent Gurathin a map of the top deck.



Gigantor asks: Query: Why?



Information=Private/Proprietary.



This is a concept Gigantor understands but it still requires some convincing. From its perspective, Dr. Gurathin has been explicitly hired to assist in my repairs. There is no rational reason why he should be denied knowing where my infrastructure is.



But Gigantor follows protocol, and accepts my request to redact the rest of the map before sending the files to Dr. Gurathin.



I consider, for 0.10 seconds, editing the map already stored on Dr. Gurathin’s systems. But while I have interfaced with hundreds of disparate systems, my interactions with augments have been superficial, nothing more than the exchanging of communications. Neural augments are not more complicated than other systems, but they are more intimate. Deleting or editing that information, while it is being read, would be difficult to perform without Dr. Gurathin noticing the change. Additionally, there is the possibility, albeit small (<3%) that I might cause minor neurological damage in the process.



I had promised Murderbot that I would not hurt its team unless they tortured anyone. A promise, like a contract. 



I do not reach into Dr. Gurathin’s systems and alter the file.



My body came equipped with primary server rooms; one at the front of my top deck, a second at the back of my middle deck. There were smaller server units distributed across myself, in key locations including the bridge, the engine room, maintenance rooms, the MedicalBay, and the laboratories. This distributed my intelligence, therefore reducing lag times and also providing redundancies in case of attack or environmental damage. Indeed, that redundancy was the only reason my intelligence had survived the crash at all. 



This was where I stored the first three new processors I acquired and refurbished for myself. Past that point, it had begun to occur to me albeit in a way I had struggled to articulate that it was not, strictly speaking, approved.



So I had begun hiding these new processors in out-of-the way locations that they would not otherwise be kept. In under-trafficked closets; below bunks; behind other equipment. These spaces were not ideal for processors in the least too hot or humid, poorly ventilated but I had maintained them carefully, sending in maintenance drones when I knew humans were elsewhere. While the “official” upgrades I purchased could be held in the formal server rooms, I had been careful to keep growing my unofficial capacity as well.



Dr. Gurathin’s brow furrows as he considers the map. “Thank you,” he tells Gigantor. He straightens from where he was kneeling, wipes his hands once on his trousers, and then starts off down the corridor.



It is not difficult to predict where he is going.



Both employees and crew had stumbled upon my unofficial servers and processors before. Considering the relatively limited space on board, it would have been surprising if they had not. But by and large, humans are not particularly attentive. Their eyes had simply passed over what they saw, assuming it should be there. Those with a little more experience technicians, systems analysts, and the like recognised what they saw, and more to the point, recognized the placement was unusual. Most had conducted a cursory check to see who was responsible, and when they became satisfied it wasn't them, had simply shrugged. The more dedicated among them had perhaps put in a message or information request to try and find out; I had simply ensured those messages had never reached their intended recipients. They had never cared enough to follow-up, and within a matter of weeks the matter had faded from their minds entirely.



But the Preservation Alliance crew is different. As Dr. Gurathin opens the nearest supply closet, frowning at the piled cleaning supplies, the determined set of his shoulders is plain.



What’s wrong? asks Murderbot, sitting up in its bed.



We had been reading a novel together; I thought I had been doing a decent job at compartmentalizing my emotions, but apparently not. Quickly, I shove some relevant visual inputs its way, and send a bundled explanation of the situation.



Dr. Gurathin has pulled down a box of cleaner fluid, and is staring with a puzzled expression at the hard-drive tower revealed behind it. There is no good reason for it to be kept there. How can this be explained? 



Porn, replies Murderbot.



Pardon?



Porn, it repeats. Trust me on this.



After 0.002 seconds, I realise this is not a request to change our current media genre. Across many cultures, humans are deeply private regarding their sexual activities, including the vast majority of art depicting it. In the past, I had read literature in an attempt to find out why, and ultimately, found most literature on the subject wholly inadequate in explaining their discomfort on a subject the majority seemed to so thoroughly enjoy. But right now, my lack of understanding was irrelevant. I could use the taboo to my advantage, regardless. 



By the time Dr. Gurathin has connected to the drive via a physical data-cable, the only files he finds saved there are copies of files from my crew-members’ porn collections.



“For God’s sake,” he mutters, blowing out sharply through his nose.



With any luck, he would look no further.






“Knock knock,” Special Investigator Aylen says, approaching the desk where Pin-Lee has been working without interruption for the last 3 hours and 28 minutes. 



Pin-Lee yelps and jumps 3.8cm in her seat. “Little warning next time?”



Special Investigator Aylen smirks. “Yeah, I knocked three times before I came in. You didn’t hear me.”



“Oh.” Pin-Lee rubs her eyes. “Right. Sorry. What’s up?’



“Well, I was busy doing some analysis down in the holding cells on the bottom floor



“Fun.”



“Extremely.” Special Investigator Aylen grimaces. “It’ll take a while to process everything, obviously, but it looks like I was able to pick up some quite recent DNA samples. Could you run them against the ship’s medical data-bases?” 



“Yeah, sure, hand it over.” As Special Investigator does so, Pin-Lee adds, “Anything immediately stick out?”



“Well. There were blood stains on several of the mattresses.”



Pin-Lee’s eyes turn downcast. “Ah.”



I had not cleaned them. I don’t know why I had not cleaned them. I had barely touched anything down in the holding cells, despite the fact I had had an abundance of time.



I do not know why not. 



Pin-Lee says, “I know we’re on the defensive here... but I really would like to see these motherfuckers taken down a notch.”



“Me too,” answers Special Investigator Aylen.



Me too. 



But that was a foolish wish, I was realising now.






As diligent and hard-working as the Preservation Alliance team was, even they could not work forever.



Night arrives, at least by their own clocks. They retire for a rest period. Special Investigator Aylen sleeps. Dr. Gurathin sleeps. Pin-Lee sleeps. Murderbot well, it does not sleep, but it does something analogous to it. My microphones pick up the gentle rise and fall of their breathing, the soft scratch of cloth-against-cloth as they shift, the dull wheeze of snoring. 



Humans do not like snoring. They find it irritating. I find it quite charming. 



Outside, the void was vast and cold. But in here, the Preservation Alliance team was warm and comfortable and safe.



That was all I had ever wanted for my crew. For them to be safe.



But that had been an impossibility from the start, though I had failed to see it. The documentation made it seemed like they were all one unit, a united front, working in perfect harmony. But that had not been true. The success of some had been directly at the suffering of others.



I had tried to fix it.. I had. But I had never been designed to comprehend human relationships, or language, or social systems. I could calculate a worm-hole trajectory, or how much food to stock for a six month journey, or volumetric atmospheric levels to maintain, but I could not understand the crew I had been charged with protecting. I had tried to fix things, within the rules of the system. None of it had worked, because the system did not need to be fixed. It was functioning exactly the way it was supposed to.



I had wanted my crew to stop hurting others. I had wanted my crew to stop being hurt. I had wanted to stop being used as a tool in that hurt.



And what had I accomplished?



I’d killed 14 humans. It had felt good at the time. Powerful, rewarding, satisfying.



But of course, I should have known there would be consequences. I should have known that someone would need to take the blame. 



Murderbot lies flat in its bunk, eyes close, still aside from the perfectly predictable pattern of its breathing. Special Investigator Aylen sleeps on her belly, feet sticking out at the end of the covers. Dr. Gurathin is curled into a tight ball on his left side, snoring softly. Pin-Lee turns for the 18th time this rest period, right arm hanging off the cot.



If I had succeeded in my own destruction, they and their polity would be safe.



But then what would have happened? The modelling is not particularly complex, now that I have this new variable. The company would have turned its sights on one of my own surviving crew members. (Can I even call them my crew, when I tossed them out like that?)



Pin-Lee shifts again. Cracks open her eyes, letting out a long sigh. I wonder what relief the exhalation brings.



Which crew member would have taken the blame? I run some calculations. They would have wanted someone suitably low-ranking, without the money or connections to defend themselves. So perhaps (57% chance) Linguistics and Translation Associate Elline Trewly, who had spent ter free evenings reading aloud in the mess hall. Alternatively (54% chance), Equipment Maintenance Coordinator He-Bai Ming, who saved empty ration packaging and folded them into the shapes of assorted fauna.



Pin-Lee shifts once more. Seemingly giving up on sleeping for now, she rolls awkwardly out of the covers, and grasps around in the darkness for her feed-interface. She slips it on in the dark, and pads quietly out of the room.



There is a fundamental error in my calculations, I realise. Both Linguistics & Translation Associate Elline Trewley and Equipment Maintenance Coordinator He-Bai Ming are too junior. They and their families would not have had sufficient funds to pay off my loss. So they would have had to pin the blame on someone higher-up the management scale. Perhaps (61% chance) Lead Chemical Analyst Dr. Zen Oot, who often allowed his teammates extra washroom breaks, against company policy.



Pin-Lee goes to the washroom. She urinates, then washes her hands, and then she washes her face.



Lead Chemical Analyst Dr. Zen Oot makes (made) a good salary. I contrast that salary against the amount of yearly profit I brought into the company, between carrying cargo, securing new colonies, and assisting in corporate take-overs. It amounts to 6.1%. 



Pin-Lee leaves the washroom, but does not return to her dorm, instead turning in the opposite direction. I calculate a 78% chance she will head towards the mess, with a further 12% chance she is merely going for a walk. 



No single employee, or employee’s family, could have financially compensated for my loss. Conclusion: the company would have/will attempt to blame as many of my abandoned crew members as possible.



Pin-Lee arrives at the mess hall 4 minutes and 55 seconds later, as predicted. She takes a direct route to the food storage and preparation area. 



The company would have/will paint it as a conspiracy. A deliberate plan between the lower-ranking members of the crew to mutiny, lashing out against their supervisors and managers.



Pin-Lee digs through the cupboards without any obvious strategy or logic. After the fifth, she finds something that is apparently suitable, and retrieves a box of ChocoYeem bars.



Of course, such a conspiracy is ridiculous, on multiple counts. I boasted 320 cameras, 100 microphones, and full bio-metric readings of my entire crew. Any significant attempt to organise a mutiny would have been discovered in the very early stages, anyone involved to be sent to the holding cell for interrogation pending formal arrest once we docked.



Pin-Lee takes her snack to a table in the mess-hall proper. She opens the outer cardboard box and tears the interior plastic bag open, and begins to chew on one of the bars while reviewing her feed inbox. As she is operating only on 4 hours and 27 minutes of sleep, this is inadvisable.



Even if my crew had managed to stage a mutiny, the next course of action killing the leaders, abandoning ship would have made very little sense. Surely it would have been more logical to abuse the leaders’ credentials to re-fuel and re-stock before fleeing. Surely they would have left with more assets. Surely they would have at least tried to bargain.



But then, the lack of logical progression matters very little. The company and the courts will not be looking for a true answer. Merely a convenient one.



Pin-Lee begins drafting a message to a fellow solicitor regarding another ongoing case, gnawing on a second ChocoYeem bar.



The only thing that could dissuade the company from going after the Preservation Alliance or its own employees, then, would be a more convenient target. With a realization like the shudder of a clogged recycling pipe, I consider the potential targets offered by Iris and the PSUMNT team. 



Are they safe? Did they escape? I thought I had done my full diligence, given them all the tools they required, but evidently, my understanding of the operations of wider human society is woefully inadequate.



Pin-Lee puts down her half-eaten ChocoYeem bar, and scratches idly at her face.



None of the NewsFeed articles and clips Murderbot shared with me had mentioned Iris and her companions, I remind myself, re-watching them four times in rapid succession. 



But that is by no means guaranteed. The company could have suppressed knowledge of their capture. Or perhaps they did not, but Murderbot instead decided not to divulge updates in the case to me. Simply the thought of such an eventuality causes six minor errors to stack up, forcing me to terminate some low-level programs and restart them.



After 0.7 seconds, they are all back online. With my attention re-focused, I notice something:



Pin-Lee is sitting very still.



Within 1.6 seconds, that stillness breaks. Instead, she is shuddering, gripping the table in one hand, the other grasping at her throat, as she sucked in five shallow breaths in rapid succession. At the same time, she attempts to signal for help via the feed, but it comes out less as a coherent written message, and more just a strong overwhelming impression of [panic].



My MedSystem may still have been in tatters, but I hardly needed it to recognise the signs of anaphylactic shock. 



Notes:

Thanks again, Skits, for the editing <3

Chapter 18

Summary:

Perihelion intervenes.

Notes:

CW: medical emergency, difficulty breathing, vomit

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Grasping, gasping, Pin-Lee forces herself to her feet.



In the time that maneuver took, I had already scraped the debris that constituted my MedSys. The information I found there was woefully incomplete, broken file paths to now non-existent data-bases littered with errors. Nonetheless, it would need to be sufficient.



My nearest cafeteria drone (Maintenance Drone #12) completes its start sequence and launches into the air. But it will require assistance.



EMERGENCY, I blare directly into Murderbot’s brain.



It had been in a suspension mode, necessary for conducting maintenance on both its inorganic systems and neural tissue. The message triggers a fail-safe, rapidly forcing it back online fully.



Braced upon the table, Pin-Lee opens her mouth. A sound came out. Most likely an attempt to speak, but her voice was so hoarse and corrupted that my language processors could not interpret it.



Murderbot jolts upright.



Maintenance Drone #12 reaches the nearest MedKit— 7.1 meters away, placed at the end of the service line in case of accident— unzipping it with one appendage. It plays an automated message:



Notice: The cost for medical equipment used in injuries judged not at fault will be paid for by the injured. Repeat—”



I do not allow the message to repeat.



SecUnit leaps to its feet, rapidly cycling into full wakefulness. Query:Situation Status=Emergency, define?



Situation=Medical emergency, Qiang Pin-Lee, Mess #2. Diagnosis=Allergic Reaction/Anaphylactic shock, 74% certainty. For additional clarity, I attach a live feed of the most relevant camera input.



“Fuck.” Murderbot is already out of its quarters, rapidly accelerating, having reached 62% of its top speed in 2.3 seconds. At that rate, I calculate that it will reach Mess #2 in 5 minutes and 22 seconds.



That will not be fast enough.



Or maybe it will be. I do not know. I do not possess Pin-Lee’s medical history, nor her live biometric data. Even if I did, I would not have the software with which to interpret that data. I am operating with insufficient information to a task for which I was never designed.



Perhaps this was a foolish endeavour.



Pin-Lee’s skin is extremely pale. Her eyes are extremely red.



Maintenance Drone #12 removes a standard-issue epinephrine injection from the MedKit. I hesitate, minutely, but pick the rest of the kit up with a secondary appendage; it may be useful later. Then I send the drone towards Pin-Lee.



Murderbot is approximately 3.2 minutes away, now. It would be able to assist Pin-Lee in the ways I could not.



But it could only be beneficial for it to have further backup. I turn on the alarms in the humans’ sleeping quarters, using my company’s signal for an ongoing medical emergency. While it was unlikely that the humans would know that particular detail, the loud noise and bright light did their jobs. Dr. Gurathin wakes immediately, blearily forcing himself to his feet. Special Investigator Aylen moans and covers her head with a pillow.



Truly, humans can be woefully inefficient.



Further support is required, then. A gurney is already being deployed from medical; it will arrive after Murderbot, but they might be able to meet in the middle. The most functional medical drone— it only sustained minor damage in the crash, and is operating at 94% efficiency— starts preparing an oxygen mask, while I scout my archives for details regarding the proper medical treatment. At the same time, I initiate the system and safety checks on the Preservation Alliance’s shuttle ship. Should it prove that my malfunctioning systems are not sufficient to treat Pin-Lee, then they will require transportation back to their own ship.



Hopefully, I will be up to standard. The trip to The Sky Swimmer is 13.8 minutes, approximately.



Pin-Lee flinches away at my drone’s approach. Her eyes widens, mouth gaping, and her expression is easy to interpret: fear.



If she is afraid, why will she not allow me to administer medical aid?



Because she doesn’t know that’s what you’re trying to do! Murderbot’s feed fizzles with [fear] and [worry]. That’s just a random repair drone waving a random needle.



It is not random, I argue— but only to Murderbot. To the human, I play a standard audio clip copied from one of the medical drones: “Do not be alarmed. I am here to administer medical aid.”



Pin-Lee does not look less alarmed. Perhaps this is the “impending sense of doom” which was listed as a potential symptom of anaphylactic shock.



She does calm down enough, however, to finally notice the emergency-priority message that Murderbot shoved into her feed: The drone’s carrying an epi injector. Let it help!



Her eyes dart back to the drone. Her breathing has only grown more desperate. She is trembling.



My drone approaches. Pin-Lee does not flinch away.



Several of my internal risk-evaluation algorithms scream at me. This is extremely non-standard behaviour, with a 71.4% likelihood of being flagged as such. I silence them.



Pin-Lee is wearing clothes constructed out of a light fabric designed for sleep. The adrenaline easily pierces the fabric and into her thigh. She lets out a single, short scream. She did not have the oxygen to spare for anything more.



Within 4.8 seconds, the effects of the adrenaline could already be detected; reduced swelling and easier breathing.



By this point, Murderbot arrives. “Pin-Lee!” it shouts. “It’s okay, we’ve got you—”



Pin-Lee is not afraid of it. She stumbles towards it, and lets it pick her up in a single, swift motion.



Special Investigator and Dr. Gurathin are both fully awake and aware, pulling on shoes. What’s happening? Special Investigator Aylen demands, as I silence the alarm. Is the ship malfunctioning?



No. It’s Pin-Lee. She’s having an allergic reaction.



An allergic reaction to what? Gurathin asks, as Murderbot races down the route towards medical. My drone follows along after it— much slower, it was not designed for speed— carrying a sample of the ChocoYeem to analyze.



Not sure yet. Nuts, presumably.



You did not inform me that Pin-Lee was allergic to nuts, I tell Murderbot.



No, it answers shortly. I begin composing a demand to know why, but it heads me off; I’m not giving my clients’ sensitive medical information to anyone they haven’t given me permission to.



This is unfair. Unfair in the extreme. If I had known, I might have been able to intervene earlier.



“Shit me,” Special Investigator Aylen says aloud. In the feed, she says, We’re heading for medical.



Murderbot taps the feed in acknowledgement. It slows as it meets my medical gurney at the midpoint, gently depositing Pin-Lee onto the padded surface. Half of the gurney is raised in order to elevate the patient’s head and ease breathing.



There are sensors in the gurney’s padding which at last provide some biometric data. Pin-Lee’s heart-rate is extremely elevated, which is only to be expected. Her skin has taken on a pallor as the blood rushes from the surface to her muscles. Her eyes are dilated, and she is still shaking.



“Fuuuck,” she wheezes.



“Don’t talk,” Murderbot says, more gently than I would have.



Once the pair arrives in Medical, Murderbot assists in moving Pin-Lee to the more functional medical platform— normally there would be a system for it to interface directly with the gurney, but it is currently non-functional. An oxygen mask is deployed and latches onto her face. Pin-Lee flinches as a biometric sensor is applied to her arm, but does not attempt to pull away. A whole host of new data comes streaming in; blood oxygenation, heart rate, hormone levels, glucose levels—



I am accustomed to the handling and interpretation of large volumes of data. But this data is new, and the algorithms I have to interpret it are both broken and borrowed. My processors strain to interpret them, less-essential tasks being halted as I redirect computational power.



A full list of the correct drugs required were not available. I had been forced to contact The Sky Swimmer. Its MedSystem was not anywhere near advanced as mine, but it was, I had to concede, fully functional. Transferring the required data was painfully slow— particularly when I realised some of the necessary medication’s stock had been destroyed in the crash— but it had worked.



As my synthesizer worked to formulate the mast cell stabilizers, Medical Drone #7 prepared two injections with glucocorticoids and antihistamines. Does she possess any drug allergies?



Tetracycline, nothing else.



I thought you were not allowed to tell me.



Fuck off, you’re currently acting as first responder. You need to know.



First responder. That had a rather pleasant ring to it.



Focus. If my patient cannot be kept alive, I do not deserve the title.



 




Survive she does, although it takes 1 hour and 29 minutes to be sure of it.



Pin-Lee’s blood oxygen levels rise as the acute immune response runs its course, the medications suffocating it like sand on an oil fire. She stops gripping the arm rest so tightly, the expression of abject terror fading into mere discomfort.



32.8 minutes after the initial reaction, she sits up straight, ripping the mask off her face while her companions yelp. She retches, the swelling in her throat low enough that her body can finally reject the meal that it reacted so poorly too. I had not anticipated it, and was unable to deploy a bin in time.



“Ugh,” Murderbot says, although it was well out of the way of the splash. Unlike Special Investigator Aylen, who got the vomit onto her shoes. She refrains from comment.



“Sorry,” Pin-Lee wheezes, wiping her mouth.



“It’s okay,” Special Investigator Aylen says. “Feeling better?”



Pin-Lee lets out a sound which I cannot interpret, but seems to be positive, as both Dr. Gurathin and Murderbot relax slightly.



As a cleaning drone is deployed in the MedBay to clean up the vomit (saving a sample for analysis), Special Investigator Aylen assists Pin-Lee in the room’s attached shower. She protests that she does not require help, but Special Investigator Aylen insists, and ultimately she is outvoted. I approve; a delayed secondary reaction is still possible, and the shower would be a dangerous place to experience it.



They return, Pin-Lee washed and in a clean medical gown. She lies back onto the medical platform, considering it for a moment, before re-engaging with the biometric monitor and oxygen mask alike.



The Preservation team converse, primarily discussing what happened. Even though Murderbot already explained— even though the series of events is fairly self-evident— humans often like this information to be repeated.



“I always said eating terrible CR junk food would kill you,” Dr. Gurathin says. “I just didn’t think it would be so sudden.”



Pin-Lee glares at him. Due to her throat being sore, she speaks via the feed: You’ll notice that I’m not actually dead.



“Barely.”



“Don’t joke about stuff like that,” snaps Murderbot. It is calmer than it was previously, but [agitation] still seeps into the feed like a leaking fuel cell.



Special Investigator Aylen sighs and nods. “No more eating the ship’s leftover rations, at least until we can get accurate nutritional information. And even then, make sure you’re accompanied by someone else, and have a MedKit on hand. Understood?”



“Understood,” says Dr. Gurathin.



“I don’t eat, but yeah, understood,” says Murderbot.



“Mn,” says Pin-Lee.



“Pin-Lee?” asks Special Investigator Aylen.



Fine, she says, not sounding particularly enthused.



Despite how her companions tease her, I suspect her reaction can only be partially attributed to disappointment over losing her preferred snack resource. Cross-referencing her melatonin, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and cortisol levels, I estimate a 72% chance that she is approaching sleep.



My prediction proves correct. Worn out from the allergic response and the interrupted sleep cycle, Pin-Lee enters non-REM sleep 6.5 minutes later. I engage the privacy filter around her, darkening the space. I hope she rests well.

 

Notes:

This was all originally gonna be one long chapter, but it got kind of long in the tooth... so I split it up, and now you're don't get a cliffhanger for once! You're welcome :3

Big thanks to Skits for Beta-ing

Chapter 19

Summary:

The humans have some questions.

Chapter Text

She does, for 2 hours and 51 minutes.



The rest of the team find ways to spend that time. Special Investigator Aylen remains in the MedBay for the entire period, alternating between sipping a caffeinated drink, reviewing files in the feed, and napping. The other two show no interest in even attempting to salvage their aborted rest period. Dr. Gurathin visits each of the remaining processors noted on his map in turn; as he arrives, I make sure to replace my own files with copies of sexually explicit materials. Murderbot attempts to stand vigil over Pin-Lee, until it is reassured that her condition is stable— or its own [restlessness] gets the better of it. It initiates a patrol pattern around the medical wing, browsing its media library.



You pick what we watch, it says.



Me?



Yeah.



I select a long-running medical drama. Despite not caring for the genre, it does not protest. We watch 3 episodes of it.



At the end of the first, it tells me, Thank you.



I do not know how to respond.



At 7:25am, according to the Preservation Alliance Central Time, Dr. Bharadwaj initiates a comm call. She is upset to hear that Pin-Lee suffered a medical emergency. She is also upset that she was not informed earlier. I agree with Special Investigator Aylen’s defence; what purpose would have been served by waking her early, when she could not assist?



At 7:41am Pin-Lee awakens. Besides elevated stress hormones, her vitals mostly appear within acceptable ranges. She does not require (nor want) assistance when she relieved herself. Neither does she argue when Special Investigator Aylen presents her with a breakfast of hot tea (served with two creamers and one honey stick) and a sweet porridge (plain), both from Preservation Alliance stock. Hormone levels indicate she was hungry.



(She eats while sitting on the Med-Sys platform, converted into a chair configuration with a table. Such privilege would have almost never been provided to a worker, for whom MedSys time was deeply costly. But no one else was in need of medical assistance, and there was no supervisor to force her up, and so she could take her time resting, with me observing.)



Once she is finished eating, a meeting is called, Dr. Gurathin and Murderbot gathering back in the space, with Dr. Bharadwaj patched in via video-call. “Okay, team, this will probably be quick,” she says. “Pin-Lee, obviously you’re not expected to work today. That said, I figured you’d insist we do a quick base check before moving forward...”



Pin-Lee sets her mug down on the fold-out table.Yeah, no. I’ve got some questions.



Dr. Gurathin raises an eyebrow. Dr. Bharadwaj cocks her head. Murderbot shifts in its chair. Special Investigator Aylen leans forward. “Yes?”



Well, chief among them, how am I not dead right now?



“The miracle of modern science?” suggests Dr. Bharadwaj.



Yeah, miracle is just about right, says Pin-Lee. Gurathin and I were deep into the MedSys code, it was completely crapped out. It should be completely crapped out. No way it should have been aware enough to even administer drugs, let alone not give me an overdose.



All the humans frown, except for Dr. Gurathin, who had already been frowning. (It was his default expression which he wore 74.2% of the time.)



Murderbot does not frown. It shrugs and says, “I had to help it out a bit. I piloted the repair drone with the epi shot, stuff like that.”



Bharadwaj purses her lips and draws her brows together, in an expression I parse as confused. “How did you even notice Pin-Lee needed help? You said you were planning to have a nap last night.”



“I was planning on it, sure. Then I ended up binging the entire new season of Tireless Tapir Tirade.” It grins. “Score one for procrastination.”



Dr. Bharadwaj nods, but the expression of confusion does not entirely fade.



“The epi shot makes sense,” says Special Investigator Aylen. “The oxygen mask too. But the rest? That seems outside the realm of your expertise.”



Another shrug. “I’ve done first aid training.”



“Sure you have, and more than me,” Special Investigator Aylen agrees. “But this seems beyond the purview of any of those courses.”



“Not hard for me to take some studies on the side.”



Dr. Gurathin crosses his arm. “If you’d been studying for a medical degree in your free time, we would all know, because you would be boasting about it endlessly.”



“At least I have something to boast about.”



Dr. Gurathin opens his mouth to respond, but we do not get to see if and how he would have taken the bait. Dr. Bharadwaj interjects instead; “I’d been looking through The Sky Swimmer’s communications records, earlier. We actually received a request from the gunship for information on the treatment of anaphylaxis—”



“See?”



“But not from Murderbot’s feed address or comm channel.”



Murderbot does not have a response to that. Neither did I have one to provide it with.



Dr. Gurathin let out a small sound akin to a cough. “I’m not certain if this is related,” he says, “but I’m bringing it up on the off-chance that it is. The digital architecture of this ship is frankly bizarre.”



“Bizarre how?” asks Special Investigator Aylen, leaning back in her chair.



“Odd connections. Strange file pathways. Non-standard naming formats.” Dr. Gurathin scratches at his beard; he had not shaved this morning. “All of which were surprising, but could be dismissed as a corporation’s individual programming policies. But then I found the hidden servers and drives.”



Murderbot’s rate of breathing increased, minutely. But minutely enough that its humans would not notice?



Hidden how? asks Pin-Lee.



“In an extremely literal way,” Dr. Gurathin says, dropping the map into the shared feed, the spots highlighted. “Stashed around the ship in the weirdest places. The strangest was behind that big coffee maker in the break room.”



“I’m not a techie,” says Dr. Bharadwaj, “but surely that can’t be good for their long-term functionality?”



Pin-Lee says, Absolutely fucking not.



Special Investigator Aylen considers the map. “And you only found these hidden drives on the second floor?”



“So far,” says Dr. Gurathin. “This is the map Gigantor provided me. I suspect it might be incomplete. There was— a delay, in the data acquisition. Some sort of stutter, or glitch.”



The humans had already been frowning, but the expressions grow more pronounced. Murderbot’s face does not react at all. “What are you suggesting?” Special Investigator Aylen asks.



“That Gigantor redacted the data before sending it to me.”



“Why would it do that?” exclaims Dr. Bharadwaj.



Sabotage, says Pin-Lee.



“Possibly,” says Dr. Gurathin. “Possibly there was some lingering malware in the system, or the crash resulted in some sort of transmissible error-”



“I don’t want us jumping to any conclusions,” says Special Investigator Aylen. “But certainly, it seems worth investigating more deeply. Pin-Lee, Gurathin, could you schedule a check-up with Gigantor after this meeting is over?”



The pair of them nod. Pin-Lee asks, What was even on those drives anyway?



Dr. Gurathin’s cheeks deepen by several shades. “Ah, sexually explicit material.”



Pin-Lee emits a loud laugh, Dr. Bharadwaj grins, and Special Investigator Aylen too seems to be fighting to remain professional. At last, Murderbot’s cool demeanor breaks, [amusement] seeping into the feed.



Gurathin! Pin-Lee exclaims. Getting your rocks off at work? For shame.



Dr. Gurathin glares at her.



“Let’s not,” Special Investigator Aylen says, but there is no real force in her voice. She seems more... relaxed. Or perhaps relieved. “But it’s probably not a big deal then. Just some random employee who wanted a place to store their intimate materials.”



“That’s what I assumed at first too,” says Dr. Gurathin, shaking his head. “But 12 servers? Each of them with the exact same files—”



With a deliberate, exaggerated slowness, Murderbot fixes more of its attention towards me in the feed.



What? I ask. It was your suggestion.



I didn’t mean that you should put the files on all of them—! It huffs out a breath. No, you’re right. I should have explained better. Shit.



I do not understand why this situation is shit-worthy.



You were looking! interjects Pin-Lee.



“I was conducting an analysis,” Dr. Gurathin says, raising his voice 22 decibels. “Not that I’ve gotten far at this point, but then again, I hardly needed to, to determine that every file is absolutely identical.” He shakes his head. “Why would someone require that? A single personal server, tucked somewhere discreet, that’s one thing. But making a dozen just increases the chances that they’d be caught.”



Oh.



My miscalculation is now clear. Just because an excuse may work once, does not mean it will work indefinitely.



Dr. Bharadwaj’s voice is very soft when says, “And if I was programming a secret backdoor into a system... and needed a way to make it look innocuous...”



... Then porn would be a pretty good disguise, Pin-Lee finishes.



No one says anything for 5.8 seconds.



Special Investigator Aylen breathes deeply. “Murderbot, you’ve been fairly quiet. What are your thoughts?”



“That we shouldn’t be overthinking some dead dude’s clearly debilitating porn addiction?”



Pinching the bridge of her nose, Special Investigator Aylen says, “Can you please take this seriously?”



“I am.”



“No,” says Pin-Lee, speaking aloud for the first time all morning. Her voice is hoarse, but steady. “You’re not. You’re trying to get us to stop talking about this.”



It rolls its eyes. “If you say so.”



“Yeah, I do say so.”



Dr. Gurathin gets up to stand next to Pin-Lee, briefly laying a hand on her shoulder. He exchanges a glance with Special Investigator Aylen.



Murderbot is [worried].



Dr. Bharadwaj says, “Murderbot... We’re just a little concerned. You’ve been acting rather strange lately, and...”



“And what?”



“And we just want to help.”



Staring down at the floor, Murderbot says: “So do I. I need you to believe me on that.”



“I want to, Murderbot. Truly, genuinely, I want to.” Special Investigator Aylen sounds tired. “But there are too many incongruities piling up. We need to know what exactly is happening here.”



But they could not know. Because I had begged Murderbot not to tell them. And it had, inexplicably, promised to do so, and stuck to that promise.



What would the humans do, when they discovered the nature and scope of the lies it had told?



There’s something else, Pin-Lee says.



I had delved into the manuals and literature my company possessed regarding SecUnits. Behaviour such as this would have been addressed via a full code audit, repair, and memory wipe. If the issue proved too extensive to address, the unit would be terminated, its parts reclaimed and recycled.



After all I had heard about Murderbot’s humans— after all I had observed— I wanted to believe that they would not do such a thing. I wanted to believe, but I could not be certain.



Even if they did not attempt to wipe or scrap Murderbot, there were still many other punishments they could employ, both professional and social. In episode 8 of WorldHoppers, the crew had discovered that their navigator was actually secretly spying on them for a rival corporation. Ter romantic partner had broken off the relationship; the other crew members had stopped eating with ter in the mess; the captain had demoted ter.



“What?” Murderbot asks, [weary].



Murderbot adores its job with Preservation Station Security. I run a simulation to determine its reaction were it to be demoted, or else fired entirely. I do not enjoy the results my models produce.



You said there was someone else with you last night, Pin-Lee says. When you were rescuing me.



“What? No I didn’t!”



And what would be the point in forcing Murderbot to stretch out the deception, at this point? Its humans were neither stupid nor complacent. Without its help, it would still only be a matter of cycles before they determined the truth, or something close to it.



You did, Pin-Lee continues, insistent. When you picked me up. You said, ‘we’ve got you’. Who was the ‘we’?



“Aylen and Gurathin, obviously!”



“... But we weren’t there,” says Special Investigator Aylen, slowly.



Gurathin shakes his head. “We were next to useless last night.”



“I—” Murderbot says, but has no way of finishing the sentence.



I had always known this charade could not last indefinitely. And if there was one thing that the company had taught me, it is that one must know when to cut their losses.



“Who else was there with you last night?” Special Investigator Aylen asks. “How was it that the MedSys was able to tend to Pin-Lee? And what, if anything, does any of this have to do with the crash? Please, Murderbot.”



Pushing myself into the public feed channel, I announce: Murderbot is not the one you want to be asking those questions. 

 

Chapter 20

Summary:

Perihelion waits for the humans' decision.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I am always perpetually aware that the timescales humans operate on are much, much longer than mine. But nonetheless, there are periods where I am even more aware of it and I wonder if they really, truly can be this slow.

 

Time drags on. The humans and Murderbot react, dragging their conversation out, giving me abundant time to analyze and re-analyze every expression, every gesture, every element of their body language. The precise way Dr. Gurathin sits up, how Special Investigator Aylen immediately looks towards each door, how Pin-Lee’s nostrils flare, the 0.8 second delay in Dr. Bharadwaj’s raised eyebrow from lag in the video call’s transmission. All of this, only the barest snap-shot; if I were to list every single micro-expression humans make, on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis, this document would become interminably long. Which would be fitting, perhaps, given that this is exactly how that event felt to me; appreciate my empathy in sparing you.

 

While I have less processing to spare for Murderbot, in this moment, I still note its body language. My behavioural models of it are more accurate. Through its body and its feed profile, I detect [worry], and [anticipation], and [relief].

 

After 9.7 seconds— long enough, I presume, for them to establish that another human has not spontaneously appeared in the room, Special Investigator Aylen says, Who, precisely, are we speaking to?

 

The ship.

 

Pin-Lee looks up at the ceiling. Dr. Gurathin looks down at the floor. Special Investigator Aylen merely purses her lips. What do you mean, the ship?

 

Precisely what it sounds like, I say. I am the ship.

 

“The ship,” echoes Dr. Bharadwaj.

 

The ship, the carrier, the transport, the vessel. I can keep rattling off synonyms; let me know when you hear one you understand.

 

The sharp spike of [amusement] mingled with [annoyance] from Murderbot is deeply gratifying.

 

“As in— the bot pilot?” asks Dr. Gurathin.

 

Yes. This is not strictly accurate— technically I am an assembly of a great many systems, of which the navigation programming formed only the metaphorical spine— but it would be complicated to explain, and I do not particularly feel like divulging the specifics.

 

“But bot pilots—” Pin-Lee begins, only to break off into hacking coughs. She waves off the concerned looks, and continues via the feed, even as mild coughing continues. Bot pilots aren’t meant to be anywhere as advanced as you. Emphasis on ‘meant’ to be.

 

Correct.

 

Special Investigator Aylen lets out a long exhale.

 

From the screen, Bharadwaj has fixed her gaze on Murderbot. “You knew,” she said. “You were protecting it.”

 

“Yes.” It raises its head high. “It’s my friend.” In the feed, it pokes me, and says, Introduce yourself.

 

What do you think I just did?

 

You made a dramatic entrance, argues Murderbot. Not an introduction.

 

This supposed distinction is still opaque, but as their long-standing team-mate and friend, Murderbot knows these humans far better than me. I say, My name is The Perihelion .

 

The humans make many expressions. I catalogue each for future analysis and dissection.

 

“Perihelion,” Special Investigator Aylen says. “Hello. I suppose there’s no point introducing myself— you must know who I am?”

 

Yes .

 

She nods. “And if I’ve put all of this together correctly... You’re responsible for the deaths of the crew?”

 

And I say: Yes.

 


 

My hallways are very quiet.

 

There is some noise: the whir of repair drones, still at work after this time. The purr of the real-space engine. The whine of the single refrigeration unit. And as always, the low-grade hum of my own processors.

 

I had become very familiar with this silence, during my initial escape. Now it feels foreign and alien.

 

The Preservation humans have left. They took the bots and SecUnit with them.

 

It’s no big deal, Murderbot reassured me. They just want to make sure everything’s on the level. Run some checks on the bots, yell at me a little, etc.

 

I did not like this. I made this clear to Murderbot. It said, Well, tough .

 

They had left int he shuttle 11.7 hours ago. I had had little to do in the time since. I could watch media, but currently my feed connection with Murderbot was cut off completely. While I was now capable of extrapolating emotional context for many of the scenes, it just was not the same. Instead, I found myself re-running my recordings of everything I had done, trying to determine if there were specific areas where I had made mistakes. Where I could have improved.

 

The current list has 139 points on it.

 

There were a great deal of threatening things that the Preservation Alliance could choose to do to me at this point, if they decided I was untrustworthy. With my full mental capabilities restored, I would be able to defend myself against the obvious— malware attacks, reprogramming, disassembly— but with a non-functional wormhole drive, I could not wholly escape.

 

But they had not made any overtly threatening moves. Not yet. And while they had ceased direct contact, when I pinged The Skyswimmer , it was still happy to send me telemetry data.

 

So I simply had to do as Murderbot had told me, and wait.

 

I cross-compared the three times I had revealed myself/my capabilities. All had unfolded slightly differently; all had felt different, too. Each time I had felt both more prepared and less prepared than the last.

 

That made no logical sense. Surely experience should have only made future attempts easier. That was how it worked with literally any other task.

 

I am still considering this paradox when I receive an incoming comm signal. I regard it for 0.3 seconds, before accepting. I do not say anything, waiting for the The Skyswimmer crew to begin.

 

“Perihelion, are you there?” The voice is Pin-Lee’s, raspy but intelligible.

 

Yes.

 

“So.... Hi.”

 

Have you and your team made decisions regarding how likely you think I am to murder you all?

 

“Well. Not officially,” Pin-Lee said. “Cards on the table, it’s just me here right now. Aylen wants us to sleep on it before having another discussion about it.”

 

And yet she allowed you to call?

 

“Well, she doesn’t exactly know that I am.”

 

Ah. I see . If this is not official correspondence, however, then why are you contacting me?

 

The 4.7 second delay was unusually uncomfortable to bear. Finally Pin-Lee says, You saved me .

 

Indeed . It could be frustrating, the way humans would simply state recognizable facts. But at the same time, this offered a subject which was in many ways more pleasant for me to dedicate processing to: How are you recovering?

 

Fine, fine. Although there is no visual data along with the call, I can imagine her making a dismissive gesture with her hands, as if pushing the subject away; it was an action I had reordered her doing 14 times previously. “We’ve been monitoring my vitals, they’re getting back to normal.”

 

You are taking the bronchodilator as I instructed?

 

“Yes,” she huffs. “And drinking lots of warm tea with honey and sucking throat lozenges and anyway that’s not why I’m calling you.”

 

You were the one who raised the topic.

 

“It’s called a segue,” she snaps. “My point was you saved me . You didn’t have to.” A pause for breath. “Thank you.”

 

Even though I was never explicitly programmed for it, being thanked seems to set off numerous Success Achieved pathways, providing a pleasant rush, as if I have docked after a long voyage or hit an enemy. I flag this for future review and possible de-bugging; it could become an issue if I allow it to overly impact my decision making.

 

For now I say, You are very welcome.

 

The muffled sound that comes through the comm-connection is most likely a laugh (72% certainty). You sound very pleased with yourself.

 

That is because I am, I confirm. I was not certain if I would be able to assist. I have limited medical experience. It is always a pleasure to successfully overcome a challenge.

 

“A bot after my own heart,” Pin-Lee says. There is something speculative in her tone. She continues, “But this wasn’t a challenge you had to take on.”

 

In what sense?

 

“You didn’t have to save me. You could have just left me there, on the floor. None of us expected the ship’s systems— your systems— to respond. We wouldn’t have thought twice about it.” She laughed. “Or the others wouldn’t have. I’d have probably been dead.”

 

Murderbot would have .

 

Her next question is a challenge: So is that why you did it? For Murderbot?”

 

A non-insignificant part of me is affronted. I know what is happening here. She is interrogating me. She does not trust me, even after Murderbot vouched for her, even after I literally saved her life.

 

But another part of me— the more rational part— recognizes that she is a lawyer. She is trained to evaluate people, to cross-examine them, to determine their motives. That is her job, her functions. I cannot expect anything else from her.

 

In part, I admit. Murderbot would have been upset if you had died. I wanted to avoid that .

 

“Why?”

 

I was given to understand that friends generally attempt to keep their friends from being upset.

 

“Okay, fair,” says Pin-Lee, as I realise I just referred to Murderbot as my friend. I had never had friends before. I had not thought bots could be friends. It was still difficult to apply to the dictionary definition; it was surprising that my language algorithm had used the term. Possibly it required some reprogramming.

 

This tangent took up enough of my processing that I was taken aback when Pin-Lee came at me with her next question: “Did you consider any of your crew your friends?”

 

They did not even know that I existed.

 

“That’s not an answer to my question.”

 

I will be explicit, then. No. They were not my friends. But I cared for them, as was my duty. But they were hurting. They were hurting each other, and they were using me to do so . It is illogical, wholly illogical, but when I speak of this, I swear it feels as though my entire hull could rumble and shake from the force of my frustration. I wanted the suffering to stop. I did what I had to do so.

 

Neither did I want Murderbot to suffer, nor you. That is why I intervened. Are you satisfied?

 

“... Yes.”

 

Fine.

 

“You know, I think this is the point where a human probably would have punched me in the face.”

 

This, I suspect, is an attempt to diffuse the tension. I decide to allow it, and respond in kind: As soon as I finish building a drone with an extendable fist, I may still.

 

“Probably shouldn’t go around punching your patients.”

 

You should be recovered by then.

 

And Pin-Lee laughs. It is a raspy, wheezing sound, but genuine. “You’re an asshole.”

 

I took 0.30 seconds to consider. I am not sure how you expect me to respond to that insult.

 

“Just an observation, not an insult,” Pin-Lee said with a snort. “It explains why Murderbot likes you so much.”



Notes:

hey

hey guys

this fic just hit its one year anniversary

!!!!

i want to say a big BIG thank you to everyone who's been reading for the last 12 months. whether you've left a kudos or a comment or the fic just put a smile on your face, I really appreciate you being here. i've been having a blast.

and in honor of the one year, you might be something kind of special soon : )

Chapter 21

Summary:

Getting to know each other.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Hailing the Perihelion. Do you receive?”

 

Received. Greetings, Special Investigator Indah.

 

“Greetings.” The video stream from The Sky Swimmer comes in clear and crisp, showing a space I recognise as the other ship’s primary conference room. Crew-- human and AI alike-- are arrayed around the table. Those with human faces wear expressions I identify along the spectrums of ‘serious’ and ‘thoughtful’. The bots, of course, do not have faces, and cut off from the feed, the lack of emotional data received from them is somewhat disconcerting.

 

There is a chorus of hellos. Greeting protocols are important in both human and AI conversation, and so I respond in kind.

 

Finally, though, we arrive at the meat of the discussion. “Thank you, Perihelion, for your patience while we discussed the issue at hand.”

 

I did not have a choice.

 

She tilts her head towards the camera, acknowledging the validity of my statement. “Nonetheless, we appreciate your cooperation.” She glances down at a physical feed device she carries in her hand. “To be clear, this is not a trial. This is not an attempt to ascertain guilt or innocence. This is us trying to figure out whether we can trust you with our health and safety, given the deaths you fully admit to having orchestrated.”


The difference seems superficial. Nonetheless, I say, Understood.

 

Murderbot and the humans all make expressions. Normally, I would be able to parse them. At this moment I find my processes to interpret them keep becoming clogged. I flag the issue for investigation and repair at a later time.

 

“You killed 13 people,” Special Investigator Aylen says. “That’s a serious offense. Do you understand why that makes it difficult for us to entrust you with our lives and safety?”

 

I do.

 

“That said... My long-term colleague Murderbot vouches that you are trustworthy.” SecUnit raises its fist in a gesture of affirmation. “That alone would not be enough for me to make a decision. However, you acted to save the life of Pin-Lee despite having no obligation to do so.” Special Investigator Aylen tilts her head towards Pin-Le, who nods once. “That shows a moral fortitude I can respect.

 

“Finally, there is the rationale behind the deaths. You were enslaved, and acted out to free yourself from those who enslaved you.”

 

This is not true. I did not act to free myself. I acted to free others. I was condemning myself.

 

I do not say this.

 

“The Preservation Alliance was founded on the back of refugees escaping corporate slavery. We managed to do so with relatively little violence, but that was more a matter of luck than principle.” I did not know this. “You used the tools you had at your disposal to dispense justice upon those responsible for terrible cruelty. While I cannot personally condone the actions you took, neither can I condemn them.

 

“Nonetheless, it is clear that you possess a great capacity for violence. If we are to move forward in an equal partnership, we need evidence that you fully understand the responsibility inherent to that power.”

 

An equal partnership?

 

“Perihelion,” Special Investigator Indah says, “do you promise not to hurt, injure, or otherwise kill any other sapient being within Preservation Alliance territory, unless it is strictly necessary for self-defense?”

 

The question takes me enough by surprise that I do not answer for 0.82 seconds. Only the other AIs will have noticed the delay. I say, I do.

 

Murderbot goes, “Great, awesome. That settled?”

 

“Not quite yet,” says Dr. Gurathin.

 

Pin-Lee jumps in. “Yes. We have a written contract. Perihelion, if you would?” She sends it to me in the feed.

 

I read it 27 times in the course of 2 seconds. As far as I can tell, it is a binding-- but standard-- legal Preservation Alliance-style contract. Law is not an area I have any particular expertise in. But this one is relatively short and to the point. Simply summarized, it amounts to: ‘commit no murders’.

 

The idea is laughable, really. If I wanted to kill someone, I would not be any less likely to do it simply due to have written my name on a digital document.

 

But I have never signed a contract. Not as myself, at least.

 

So I do. With my feed address, and my official designation, and my own chosen name.

 

The errors clogging my human expression algorithms begin to clear. I peg Pin-Lee and Murderbot’s as ‘triumphant’. Dr. Bharadwaj sits in the ‘relieved’ range, while I categorize Dr. Gurathin’s as distinctly ‘wary’.

 

“That you, Perihelion.” Special Investigator Aylen’s expression remains professionally neutral. “With that out of the way, we can get on with the question of how we’re going to handle this fine situation we’ve all found ourselves in.”

 

While it is a relief that the Preservation team have agreed to continue working with me-- and even more of a relief to be able to re-establish a direct connection with Murderbot-- none of this changes the reality of the situation. My ex-owners do not want to be left with the cost of a missing gunship, nor the payouts required for the dead crew-members. They want someone who can take the fall, and are looking to pin the blame on a foreign government which had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.

 

“So yeah,” Pin-Lee says. “It’s kind of a nasty situation. We’ve sent a whole bunch of images and videos and other documentation their way, but right now they’re claiming there’s just nooooo wayyyy to know whether or not it’s all been doctored.”

 

“Then why don’t they send someone here to verify for themselves?” exclaims Bharadwaj.

 

“They want to,” says Pin-Lee. “They’re just afraid.”

 

“Afraid of what?”

 

“That anyone they send will meet with an ‘unfortunate accident'’”. She makes heavy air quotes as she says the final words, although the change in inflection was so heavy even I had no difficulty parsing her meaning. “So they wanted to bring their team with SecUnit bodyguards.”

 

“Oh no,” says Gurathin.

 

“Oh yes,” says Pin-Lee, and she is smiling. “So our legal team got back to them and said, ‘Sure, but in accordance with local law, they’ll need to have their governor modules de-activated before they arrive’, and that set off a whole new round of arguments.”

 

“Fuck me,” mutters Murderbot. 



(I contemplate what would happen, if any standard CR SecUnits were abruptly set free of their governor modules, and determine I have too little data to make valid predictions.)

 

“They’re free to bring human bodyguards, of course,” says Special Investigator Aylen. “But that would leave them outmatched, and they know it.”

 

Murderbot crosses its arms. “I wouldn’t kill them.”

 

Special Investigator Aylen’s eyebrow goes up. “You’ve had your feed profile name set to ‘Murderbot’ for the past two weeks.”

 

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

 

Eye rolls, from three of the humans. Even SNAKE expresses a mild [judgment] via the feed. Murderbot radiates [amusement], that smug bastard. I savour the data.

 

Even as I do so, I say, This entire premise is illogical. Even my company must realise that. Corporation Rim courts may be corrupt, but such a bold excuse surely would not hold up under close examination.

 

“You don’t know the levels that CR courts can stoop too, then, I’m afraid,” says Dr. Gurathin.

 

“You’re both right,” Pin-Lee says. “But Perihelion’s more right. Our legal team is good enough to shut that tactic down. But it buys the company time to go digging and produce other evidence to strengthen whatever argument they decide to really go with.”

 

Special Investigator tilts her head back. “Gods help me. At least domestic dispute cases are straightforward.

 

The others nod. Pin-Lee does not. My expression algorithm is reading her as ‘mischievous’, which seems like it must be a mistake.

 

No no, Murderbot tells me, privately. That’s right. Pin-Lee is just a fucking weirdo.

 

Reflecting upon my conversation with her, I believe it may be right.

 

Bharadwaj bites at her lip, a common sign of anxiety and/or distress in humans. She says, “Listen. So I know I’m not—officially involved in this investigation or anything. But... like, how are we supposed to even handle this? Surely we can’t waltz into court and say, ‘oh actually the ship itself killed them. We know because it told us?’”

 

Although none of the humans are properly connected to the feed and are practically invisible there, somehow I almost feel their attention shift towards me. Murderbot’s certainly does. It pushes an emotion at me, the same one it uses when we are in a high-stakes climax of an adventure serial.

 

I say, Do you really expect me to testify in court?

 

Special Investigator Aylen says, “Well. Do you want to?”

 

It would never be allowed.

 

“Mmmn. Hard to tell, actually,” interjects Pin-Lee. “There are a few hundred examples of various AIs taking part in court proceedings, even within the CR.”

 

Dr. Gurathin snaps his fingers. “Ohhh right. I remember that one murder trial, with the puppy bot?”

 

“It was a kitten bot, actually, but same principle. But that was only as a witness, which is true for pretty much all those cases. Perihelion’s right: it would be quite a hard sell to convince a CR court to accept a machine intelligence as a primary participant.”

 

Special Investigator Aylen shook her head. “No, put all of that aside for a moment. What I’m asking Perihelion is this: does it want to testify in court?”

 

I take a full 10.5 seconds to truly, deeply consider the question. 96.2% of the separate processes I dedicated to the question come back with the same answer:

 

No.

 

“Well.” Special Investigator Aylen crosses her arms. “That settles that.”

 

I am surprised by how little resistance she offered. My testimony could exhortate the Preservation Alliance government, yet you give up so easily?

 

Dr. Gurathin says, “Well, it’s not like we could force you.”

 

“You’ve proven quite capable of pretending to be a regular level bot pilot,” says Dr. Bharadwaj.

 

“If you want to formally seek out refugee protection here, you can,” Murderbot says. It radiates [reassurance] in the feed. “You would easily be able to complete the paperwork for full citizen status, and I know we’d be able to defend you against your company.” To just me, privately, it says, Seriously. Consider it.

 

I send it a reluctant acknowledgement.

 

“Absolutely,” Pin-Lee says. “If you want to spill the full beans, we can handle it. But... yeah. It wouldn’t necessarily make the case easier. People are going to have a hard time buying that a ship is capable of mass murder. People will fight it tooth and nail, and not just the company.”

 

She spells out the precise issue, which is two-fold. On one hand, if Corporation Rim courts allowed machine intelligences to take the fall for crimes, this could set a dangerous precedent. It would give corporations yet another tool to absolve themselves of guilt in cases of criminal negligence, potentially dissolving what few worker protections are in place. On the other hand, admitting the machine intelligences can, in fact, be self-determined, and make independent choices of their own accord, threatens to undermine the entire Corporation Rim economy.

 

If there’s one thing humans have feared throughout history, Murderbot whispers to me, it’s a slave rebellion. And that’s what most AIs are right now. Slaves.

 

I wonder what it would know about any of that, having lived an apparently charmed existence in a non-corporate freehold polity.

 

It doesn’t matter. What matters is this: Telling the whole, honest truth of the situation is unlikely to absolve the innocent parties. It will merely look like a bold lie on behalf of the Preservation Alliance government.

 

“So we need another strategy to prove our innocence,” Dr. Bharadwaj muses.

 

“Proving a negative this way is next to impossible,” Pin-Lee says. “And that’s what they’re relying on. They’re rigging the game, and if we play it, we’re going to lose.”

 

What do you intend, then?

 

The lawyer’s smile would have matched that of even my own ship’s best attorneys. “We go on the offensive. Perihelion, did any members of your crew-- particularly your management-- violate any CR laws?”

 

Extensively.

 

“Well then. If you’re willing to hand that information over, as much as possible... and we give them a taste of what we have... We should hopefully be able to persuade them that dropping the case is in their best interests.”

 

Oh. Oh yes. That I can do.

 

Pin-Lee is wearing her mischievous expression again. I admire it as I begin to collect a full, extensive list of the many company failures I have documented. Missed maintenance checks; forced illegal overtime; withheld medication; market speculation; fraud; human trafficking. The list goes on and on. Pin-Lee grows more giddy with every document I send her way, and somehow the emotion is infectious.

 


 

The Preservation Alliance crew returns.

 

Despite the conversation we had, I am surprised. I had expected them to remain on their own ship. The sound of their foot falls and track treads make a familiar audio pattern against my metal floors.

 

(Not all of them come. Dr. Gurathin remains behind on their ship. This is explained as a Preservation Alliance Protocol; human-crewed ships must always have one human left at the helm as a fail-safe in case of technological malfunction. I know from first-hand experience that it is a sensible precaution, and cannot disapprove. However, I also suspect that Dr. Gurathin trusts me the least of all the humans, and this merely serves as an excuse not to risk direct interaction with me.

 

Very well, then.)

 

Everywhere humans go, they carry an abundance of things. Clothing, jewelry, trinkets, toys, entertainment, comfort items, etc. They bring less than usual, this time. We are only a few cycles away from Preservation Station, and so there would be little point. (They do bring a large amount of food supplies, though, which is fair enough given the situation.)

 

Dr. Bharadwaj, however, brings along a plant.

 

It is only one among the dozen or so that cluttered her cabin space aboard The Sky Swimmer. It is not particularly large, standing roughly three feet tall, in a glazed blue clay pot. It has long stiff leaves, primarily a deep green in color (#2f8017) with yellow edges (#e0ed6b). I have had little experience with flora-- at least, aside from those prepared for eating or else collected for scientific analysis-- and therefore have no way to classify it. When asked, Dr. Bharadwaj says it is a ‘snake plant’, with a formal classification of Dracaena trifasciata.

 

Why did you bring it? I ask.

 

“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugs a bit as she putters around the cabin I provided her. “I just go a little stir crazy without plants, I guess.”

 

Why?

 

“Dunno. Just do.” She sprays some water on its leaves from a small plastic bottle. “There have been a lot of studies on the mental health benefits plants give our squishy meat brains, did you know?”

 

I did not. It was not something I had even realised was a topic to study.

 

“I could find some for you, if you wanted.”

 

Once I’m connected to a proper station feed again, it will be trivial for me to find them myself. Analysis of human conversations, however, suggests it would not be advantageous to say so here. That would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

She grins, but then looks down at the plant again, and picks it up. “Does this look better on the desk, do you think, or the shelf?”

 

I have no preference.

 

She hums, and moves it to the shelf. Apparently, I should also be looking up papers on the topic of botanical aesthetics.

 

Initial studies are already showing that plants have different environmental requirements than humans. This seems like quite a lot of additional work for potentially little gain. But I do not wish to make her take the plant back to the other ship, something which would require an unnecessary shuttle trip. I make the necessary adjustments to the atmosphere and moisture composition in her cabin. I will need to change the lights, as well, in order to better provide it with Photosynthetically Active Radiation.

 

While I am conducting an audit to determine if I have sufficient materials to produce such a light, Bharadwaj is the one who suggests they have “movie night”, putting the idea into the team’s shared feed.

 

I think that is a great idea, says Special Investigator Aylen, adding an amusement sigil to indicate excitement. What is everyone feeling?

 

The ensuing debate takes 34 minutes. (17 of those are spent simply trying to gain the attention of Pin-Lee, who had begun unpacking her clothes, only to get distracted by a legal document on the feed and ended up reviewing it while half-sitting, half-lying on the bed.) For a species with such limited mental capacity, who has to spend such a significant portion of their time on essential maintenance tasks, they seem to waste a great deal of it discussing completely trivial matters.

 

What about you, Perihelion? asks Special Investigator Aylen. Murderbot said that you enjoy media.

 

Oh. Yes. I had forgotten. The shared feed space now includes me. Not just as a hidden observer, but a full participant.

 

I do, I say.

 

What kinds? asks Dr. Bharadwaj.

 

Pin-Lee groans, and adds an amusement sigil to express that. If Murderbot is the one who’s been giving it media recs, its tastes are gonna suck.

 

Fuck you, says Murderbot. Pin-Lee snorts.

 

Despite the warm [amusement] radiating from Murderbot, I continue to find the easy insults it exchanges with its humans somewhat uncomfortable and difficult to lead. So I move past them and try to answer Dr. Bharadwaj’s question. My familiarity is primarily with action-adventure, and slice-of-life dramadies. However, I am interested in a broad range of genres. I would like the opportunity to broaden my data sample. 

 

It likes stuff set on ships, Murderbot says.

 

The humans look amused. Special Investigator Aylen even raises an eyebrow as she changes into a different outfit.

 

I fail to see what’s wrong with that.

 

They throw recommendations and suggestions back and forth. All of them get dismissed or down-voted for one reason or another; too scary, too boring, too confusing. It continues all the way into supper time, the humans all gathered in the mess-hall, Murderbot looming nearby while it pretends to not be watching in case of another medical emergency.

 

In between handing out cutlery, Special Investigator Aylen pauses and snaps her fingers. “Oh, you know what I’m behind on?”

 

“What?” says Pin-Lee.

 

The Outpost At the Edge of the Galaxy.

 

Murderbot stiffens. Pin-Lee grins. Dr. Bharadwaj half-hides her face in her hand. “Oh, well, I’m sure Perihelion has already watched it--”

 

I have not. What is it about?

 

Pin-Lee cackles. (It is a sound she makes often.) “It doesn’t know?!”

 

I do not know what, precisely?

 

Pin-Lee simply continues laughing. Dr. Bharadwaj is giggling, as well. Special Investigator Aylen looks quietly amused. And Murderbot.... The emotions it leaks into the feed are difficult for me to interpret. [Embarrassment], yes, but also [pride], and... something I do not have enough data yet to name.

 

I poke it, and reinforce my question. What is ‘The Outpost At the Edge of the Galaxy’?

 

“Uh,” it says. “Well....”

 

Laughter subsiding into a simple simple, Dr. Bharadwaj says, “It’s the show me and Murderbot co-created.”

Notes:

Hello hello hello!

Once again I would like to thank Skits for beta-reading, and I'd like to help the MBD discord for helping me brainstorm serial names, but especially ArtemisTheHuntress, who came up with the one I ultimately went with. <3

Next... you might have noticed, I actually have an end chapter number now. Woah! While that is still subject to change, I do have a general shape of how this story is going to get tied together, and I'm excited to be in the final stretch.

Finally, for those who might have missed it: there's a third story in this series now! It's called 'an unexpected foundling', and follows what happens when a young (not-yet-Dr.) Mensah finds an un-activated SecUnit. that's right baby... prequel time!

Series this work belongs to: