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Chapters

Counting Down

Rating: M

Archive Warnings: Graphic Descriptions of Violence

Categories: Gen

Relationships: None

Characters: Murderbot, ART, Three, Mensah, Amena, Arada, Overse, Ratthi, Seth, Martyn, Iris, OCs, OC Constructs, OC Humans

Tags: Alien Remnants, Moderate Gore, Field Surgery, Loss of Autonomy, Canon-Typical Fridge Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Action/Adventure, Whumptober 2022, Collaboration Project, Round Robin

Chapters: 31

Authors: 15

Summary

A round-robin fic based on the Whumptober 2022 prompts.

PresAux and PUOMNT team up for an archaeological dig that turns into a hellish struggle to survive when the Corporate Rim’s alien remnant clean-up team shows up, intent on "sanitizing" the entire site.

AO3 names: Gamebird, Skits, Skeletalcat, petwheel, JellyfishOnACloud, audzilla, hummus_tea, Chardonnay (Champagne), horchata, vulcanhighblood, elmofirefic, CompletelyDifferent, scheidswrites, ArtemisTheHuntress, torpidgilliver.

Special thanks to: BeeSquared, mercury, void, FlipSpring, ampquot

Whumptober 2022 Prompt List:

A LITTLE OUT OF THE ORDINARY (Adverse Effects | Unconventional Restraints | “This wasn’t supposed to happen”)
NOWHERE TO RUN (Cornered | Caged | Confrontation)
A HAIR’S BREADTH FROM DEATH (Gun to Temple | “Say goodbye.” | Impaled)
DEAD ON YOUR FEET (Hidden Injury | Waking Up Disoriented | Can’t Pass Out)
EVERY WHUMPEE’S NEEDS (Blood Loss | Running Out of Air | Hyperthermia)
PROOF OF LIFE (Ransom Video | “I’ve got a pulse” | Screams from Across the Hall)
THE WAY YOU SHAKE AND SHIVER (Shaking Hands | Seizures | Silent Panic Attack)
EVERYTHING HURTS AND I’M DYING (Stomach Pain | Head Trauma | Back from the Dead)
THE VERY NOISY NIGHT (Sleeping in Shifts | Tossing and Turning | Caught in a Storm)
POOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS (Taser | Whipping | Waterboarding)
“911, WHAT’S YOUR EMERGENCY?” (Sloppy Bandages | Self-Done First Aid | Makeshift Splint)
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? (“Mayday, mayday!” | Cave In | Rusty Nail)
CAN’T MAKE AN OMELETTE WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW LEGS (Fracture | Dislocation | “Are you here to break me out?”)
DIE A HERO OR LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO BECOME A VILLAIN (Desperate Measures | Failed escape | “I’ll be right behind you.”)
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE (Lies | New Scars | Breathing through the Pain)
NO WAY OUT (Mind Control | Paralytic Drugs | “No one’s coming.”)
HANGING BY A THREAT (Breaking Point | Stress Positions | Reluctant Caretaker)
LET’S BREAK THE ICE (“Just get it over with.” | Treading Water | “Take my Coat”)
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH (Knees Buckling | Repeatedly Passing Out | Head Lolling)
IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY (Going into Shock | Fetal Position | Prisoner Trade)
FAMOUS LAST WORDS (Coughing up Blood | “You’re safe now.” | “Take me instead.”)
PICK YOUR POISON (Toxic | Withdrawal | Allergic Reaction)
AT THE END OF THEIR ROPE (Forced to Kneel | Tied to a Table | “Hold them down.”)
FIGHT, FLIGHT OR FREEZE (Blood Covered Hands | Catatonic | “I don’t want to do this anymore.”)
SILENCE IS GOLDEN (Lost Voice | Duct Tape | “You better start talking.”)
NO ONE LEFT BEHIND (Separated | Rope Burns | “Why did you save me?”)
PUSHED TO THE LIMIT (Muffled Screams | Stumbling | Magical Exhaustion)
IT’S JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG (Anger Born of Worry | Punching the Wall | Headache)
WHAT DOESN’T KILL ME… (Sleep Deprivation | Defiance | “Better me than you.”)
NOTE TO SELF: DON’T GET KIDNAPPED (Manhandled | Hair Grabbing | “Please don’t touch me.”)
A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL (Comfort | Bedside Vigil | “You can rest now.”)

Chapter 1 - BeeSquared

Murderbot

I double checked the supply list one more time as the humans finished loading into the shuttle. There was a lot of hugging. (I’d specified in my contract that I wasn’t going to be a part of that.)

The fabricator beeped at me. “I already told you, I’m fine, ART,” I said. “We’re already almost at the weight limit of the shuttle. Whatever this is, I don’t need it.”

[It is an external storage device containing all six seasons of Guardians of the Eighth Sealed Casket,] ART said.

“I thought we were saving that show until I get back,” I said.

[I don’t want you to get bored down on the planet,] ART said. [You’ve made your feelings on planets clear.]

It had a point. After this drop-off, ART was heading out of the system for another mission. It wouldn’t be back to pick us up for a month, which sounded like a stupid amount of time to spend on a planet, but I wasn’t doing any of the science stuff, I was just the security, so what did I know. I took the storage device.

[You can record your log output while you watch the show using that storage device, if you wish,] ART said.

“Now I get why you’re giving me this,” I shook the hard drive at the ceiling. “You want me to save my emotional data while I’m watching it for the first time.”

[You don’t have to. It was just a suggestion,] ART said.

I could take media downloads with me on missions, but ART really couldn’t do the same. It had difficulty understanding the flow of the show without the emotional context my logs could provide it. “I don’t mind,” I said.

[I made something else too, in case of emergency,] ART said.

“You’ve made a dozen different things in case of emergency,” I rolled my eyes. “What’s this one?”

[Proprietary,] ART said. The fabricator beeped again, and I pulled out a matte black box, about the size of one of those puzzle cubes Iris liked.

I started opening the lid. “You’re giving me secret university—“

[Do not open it,] ART said, forcefully enough to surprise me a little. [It is only for emergencies.]

“So what is it?” I narrowed my eyes at one of its cameras. “When am I supposed to use it?”

[It’s not for you. It’s for Amena. She knows what it is.]

Amena was already down on the planet, along with Iris, and a few other humans. Mensah had already gone down in some kind of pod to see them, but the rest of the PresAux survey team was waiting for me to approve the shuttle launch before we headed down with the supplies and equipment. There had been a university team, including Amena (on an internship) down on the planet surface for a month already. My humans were joining them to resupply their food/water/other stores, and to assist them in the survey analysis. There would be another resupply in a month, at which point, my humans and I (minus Amena, who was technically a university human) would go back to Preservation.

“You’re really not going to tell me what it is?” I resisted the urge to shake the box like I’d seen some of Mensah’s smaller family humans do.

[I would have assumed that you, of all constructs, would understand the meaning of “proprietary,”] ART said, but it flickered its lights in a way I recognized as genuine nervousness.

“Whatever. I won’t open it, I’ll give it to Amena,” I said. I tucked the box and the hard drive into my bag, and sealed it up. “If it explodes on the shuttle and kills us all, I’m going to blame you for not giving me security-relevant information.”

[It will not explode on the shuttle and kill you all,] ART said, amused.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, approved the final checklist, and stepped into the shuttle.

[I will still be within communications range for the next 12 hours if something happens,] ART said, flickering nervously in my feed.

“ART, nothing’s going to happen,” I said.

[It does seem unlikely there will be major complications,] ART said. It hesitated in the feed for a few seconds, lingering. I knew what it was waiting for.

“Goodbye, asshole,” I sighed.

[Goodbye, you little idiot,] ART said. [Don’t do anything stupid while I’m not there to save you.]

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. The shuttle door closed behind me. I went up to the cockpit. It was a relatively small shuttle, meant for short flights—no cabin rooms or anything. I dropped my bag on the floor (carefully, just in case ART was giving Amena a bomb and not telling me), sat in one of the seats, and put my feet up on the console. I glanced around the cockpit. All humans present were properly strapped in, and fortunately, they all knew better than to ask why the SecUnit with better balance than them was not strapped in. Arada was piloting, and she guided the shuttle to disconnect with ART’s airlock.

I poked Ratthi in the feed. [Motion sickness pills,] I reminded him.

“Oh, right,” Ratthi grimaced. He took off his feed interface (according to him, an active feed connection only made the nausea worse) and took a small pill from his bag. I checked it off my list. (It was only on the list in the first place after a previous incident that I was not responsible for.)

When you’re the one flying the ship, you have to pay attention to what you’re doing, especially when leaving orbit and entering a planet’s atmosphere. I kept one input on the controls, but Arada knew what she was doing. I wouldn’t have agreed to come on this month-long planet adventure if I didn’t actually trust that my humans weren’t going to actively try to get themselves killed. So I backburnered my view of the controls, and looked out the window.

I had paid a little attention to the briefing. Just so I’d know what I was agreeing too. I’d deleted most of the information, because it was boring, but I had a vague sense of what I was looking at below me. Below the puffy purple-blue-white cloud shapes, you could see outlines of giant structures all over the planet's surface. Outlines, because those structures hadn’t been standing for a long time. The survey mission was doing some kind of cultural archaeology project on the origins of human colonization of space, and apparently the survey site itself was on some kind of older archaeology site that someone else had been digging up before we got there. I didn’t really care about the details, but the effect was that looking down on the planet from above was like looking down at the inside of a security scanner, all thin lines that could have been wires and intricate fine little shapes. The effect lessened as we got closer to the planet surface and the shapes got bigger, but I took a photo from a good vantage point to show Three. It liked that stuff, or whatever. (It wasn’t terrible having another SecUnit to share information with. Sometimes it saw things I didn’t.) Three was either already on the planet, or it was part of the pickup that would be collecting me and my humans in a month, I hadn’t really paid attention to that part either.

Arada guided our ship lower, and through the clouds, I could see the dig site. There were a few tents set up for the students to live in, and a larger habitat set into the ground further away from the main site. (It was part of my contract not to make me sleep in a tent. I had no intention of seeing what that living situation was like, either. Why humans find that “fun” is beyond me.) It looked like a hole in the ground. Parts of it were slightly deeper than other parts. Yay, I guess. (Again, I wasn’t being paid to do science.) (Maybe I would help with data analysis. If one of the nice humans asked politely.)

We landed next to the habitat on the pad. My humans went off to talk to other humans already at the site, and I started unloading the cargo supplies. There wasn’t enough weight allowance for a cargo bot, and some of the equipment was too heavy for humans to handle, so I grabbed those things first. I’d already deployed a few drones and connected to the habitat SecSys (not a company branded SecSys, mostly just a network of cameras and data outputs), so I wasn’t surprised when Amena and Iris came out to the pad to see me.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, SecUnit!” Amena said. “Can we help?”

I unloaded the last thing heavy enough to hurt a human trying to move it single-handedly. “Sure,” I said. “I’m done anyway. I’m not—“

“You’re not being paid to move boxes, we know,” Iris smiled at one of my drones. “We can do the rest. It’s nice to see you again!”

Amena and Iris launched into some kind of performance where both of them talked very fast about science things they’d been doing for the past month. I paid a little attention so I could nod at the right times.

“Hi, SecUnit,” Dr Mensah said, stepping out onto the pad.

“Dr Mensah,” I nodded my head.

“Take a walk with me? I can show you around,” she said.

[Are you just trying to rescue me from your daughter, because if so, that’s very rude of you,] I sent to her feed. She pursed her lips, trying to disguise a smile and doing a not-great job at it.

“See you later, SecUnit!” Amena gave herself a fist bump for me as Mensah and I walked away, leaving them to finish organizing stuff and putting it where it was supposed to go. I could hear her and Iris counting the supply boxes as we left.

“You’ve only been here a few hours,” I said. “This can’t be a very high quality tour.”

“I assumed you’d rather skip the real tour,” Mensah said, smiling in front of her. “It’s given by volunteers from the university students.”

Yeah, that sounded like something I’d rather skip.

Mensah showed me around. There was a bedroom for me, which was more than I’d been expecting—with the limited space in the habitat, I thought I’d be having my recharge cycles in the security ready room. Mensah pointed out that my contract specified I don’t sleep in a tent, so accommodations had been prepared. I refused to feel emotions about that.

It had all the usual stuff a habitat should have. A bunch of areas related to storing/growing/eating food, lounging and recreation areas, other bedrooms, etc. The security ready room was small, but it had enough space for the projectile weapon I’d insisted on being allowed to bring along, just in case. There was some shielding and helmets, some energy weapons for humans, other things. It also contained a human-rated emergency blanket and first aid kit tucked in a corner.

“Why is that there,” I pointed.

“In case somebody needs it,” Mensah said, in an even, controlled tone.

So yeah, she was thinking about the time she’d seen me missing chunks of body mass in a cubicle on that first survey mission too. Great. My body temperature went up by one degree involuntarily.

“Do you want to see any of the dig site?” Mensah offered. “I was just going to head back out there to—cough cough.” She turned into her elbow. Risk Assessment did not like that, and it spiked a little, because Risk Assessment is broken and overreacts to a lot of things.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“Fine,” she grimaced. After a moment, she righted herself. “I must not be used to all the dust from the dig yet.”

I scanned the SecSystem data. “There are antihistamines in the MedSys.”

“SecUnit, I’m fine,” Mensah shook her head, but she smiled.

It was the next stop on the “tour” anyway. We walked to MedSys. Turi was standing outside the door, wringing their hands. They were staring at the floor, counting the tiles under their breath. Risk Assessment didn’t like that either. I stopped walking before Turi even had a chance to say “you can’t go in there right now.” They glanced nervously at the door.

“Is something wrong?” Mensah asked.

“It’s Karime,” Turi said. “We were out on the dig site when she started bleeding. She was just digging with the tools, I don’t even think she cut herself on anything, her hands just started bleeding…” Turi shuddered. I scanned SecSys. It told me the MedSys was currently unoccupied.

“She’s in there?” I asked.

“Of course she is,” Turi looked at me, then remembered and quickly looked away. I chucked SecSys’s update, as that was apparently going to be useless to me.

“Shall we go help her?” Mensah offered, taking Turi by the elbow.

“We can’t,” Turi said, pulling away. “Seth said…” they chewed on their lip.

“I have clearance for all security relevant data,” I said.

Turi looked relieved, but only a little. “Well… Seth said we should quarantine her. Just in case. We don’t know the cause, and… well…” They stared at the floor.

“And you think it might be the effects of an alien remnant,” I said.

“We’re not sure,” Turi fidgeted.

“Let me check over the data. I can help determine how likely that is,” I said. “Did somebody contact ART? It could probably do a better job than all of us.”

“We contacted it right before your shuttle landed, but no response yet,” Turi said.

“In the meantime, let’s see if there’s anything we can do for Karime,” Mensah said, putting her hand on the door.

“Ma’am, I’m not supposed to let you in,” Turi winced, blocking the way. “Quarantine.”

“Karime? Are you all right in there?” Mensah called.

There was no response from behind the door.

“We have to check on her,” Mensah said.

“She was bleeding a lot,” Turi wrung her hands again. “But so long as we’re careful not to touch it?”

“I’ll go,” I sighed. “Constructs are more likely to be immune to alien remnants than humans are. If that’s what this is, and we have no proof of that yet.”

“If you’re sure, SecUnit,” Mensah said. She took Turi’s hands. “It’ll be okay. Let’s sit down, okay? Can you focus on me?”

Turi was visibly holding back tears. I didn’t want to be here when she started crying and needed soothing.

“Let’s count the floor tiles, okay?” Mensah said. “That might help calm you down.” Turi nodded, shakily. They sat on the floor and started counting the floor tiles. I opened the door to the MedSys, and went inside.

Karime was sitting on the MedSys platform. When I entered, she coughed into her elbow a few times. “Oh,” she blinked at me blearily. “Hi, SecUnit. I saw your shuttle while it was landing.”

“What happened,” I said. I stepped closer. There was a good amount of blood. She was beginning to stain her coveralls where her hands rested in her lap.

“I was just digging at the site with Ekene,” Karime sniffed. “I mean, it’s hot and dusty out there. My hands started hurting, and then…” she shrugged. “I cleaned up as much as I could. It just looks like… well.”

I handed her a towel. “Press it against the wound,” I said. “Where did you cut yourself?”

“I didn’t,” she said. She held up her hands so I could see. “And I wasn’t exerting myself too much, I think.”

It looked like her hands had been rubbed raw, to the point of blisters, redness, and a few tears in the skin. “Did you put any disinfectant on it yet?” I asked.

“No,” she shook her head.

“What have you been doing in here, then,” I rolled my eyes and went for the disinfectant.

“Counting the seconds,” she shrugged. I handed her the disinfectant. She rubbed it gently on her hands, then buried them in the towel. “I thought no one was allowed in here because of the quarantine in case of alien remnants.”

“Why would you all assume it’s alien remnants?” I sighed. “It’s not like you’ve dug up anything suspicious.” And I would know, because I wouldn’t have agreed to be security if that was the case. So far, the only thing that had come out of the dig site that wasn’t dust were some kind of intact clay pottery shards.

“Precaution. The captain doesn't want to take any chances, after what happened…” she glanced at me. Yeah, I remembered TargetControlSys. Fine, so maybe a quarantine was an okay safety measure. Now I felt like kind of an idiot for coming in here.

“I’ll be fine, SecUnit,” Karime sniffed, and twisted her hands in the towel. “You go find the captain and check in.”

So I left. Mensah and Turi were holding each other, very absorbed in counting the floor tiles, but at least Turi seemed calmer.

“She’s not dead in there,” I said, because SecUnits don’t have great bedside manner. “She’ll probably be fine,” I amended.

“I should probably go back to the dig site then,” Turi stood up and dusted themselves off.

“Let’s go find Seth,” I told Mensah.

Chapter 2 - Gamebird

Kayla

"Why do people keep studying ancient civilizations?" Field Manager Kayla squinted at the grid layout on the satellite footage. "If they were all that cool, they wouldn't have died out! There are no secrets there worth knowing. What's that saying?" Kayla looked around in question but no one on the bridge crew knew what she was asking. "'This is not a place of honor, nothing valued is here', right? That's it, isn't it?" She shook her head in exasperation. "People should not be here!"

"Well," Operator Desper said with his usual drawl, "we're gonna take care of that." He carefully eased the ship into orbit, full stealth protocols active. The rest of the bridge crew were quiet, focused on their stations.

Kayla told Desper, "We at least have to see if there's a possibility of just extracting them."

"Killing 'em's easier."

"For you." She liked Desper. She hadn't decided if Desper didn't care about human life or just acted like he didn't, but either way, he made it easier to normalize what they were doing. "The paperwork is endless! Do you know how much ass-covering I have to do after these actions? No, you don't. Probably for the best."

"Less paperwork if we don't get caught. Make it look like raiders or something."

"Pff," Kayla said disapprovingly as she read through the message they'd intercepted. Someone would have to be monumentally stupid or gullible to believe raiders were capable of the scorched earth treatment they tended to leave behind. When unsanctioned alien remnants were discovered, they were the group called in to sterilize the site. If they were lucky, it was just a place, but more often there were people and equipment there, often in the process of 'discovery'. That was when it got messy.

And it looked like this one was going to be messy. She pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes. It was a good thing they'd blocked the message from reaching the departing transport.

Desper looked over his shoulder to say, "That bad, huh?"

"Yes. They're infected." She leaned back. "How long until the transport's out? We don't want any witnesses."

"Twelve hours. Plenty of time for a good sleep, a hearty breakfast, and atmospheric entry. We can have this wrapped up by lunch."

"Maybe your part," Kayla grumbled. "Okay, we're doing this by the book."

'By the book' meant it took them more than twelve hours. The preparations themselves didn't take very long, but they had to wait for the stars to align (literally, they wanted to approach in the dark of night). Kayla was uneasy the whole period. Why people persisted in knowing what was not meant to be known was a mystery to her and true to form, she wasn't going to delve into that mystery – she was just going to eliminate it, for the good of all human life everywhere. She knew herself enough to know she'd remain uneasy until the matter was settled. Until then, not even the expert ministrations of the ship's new ComfortUnit could bring her peace. Although it did try.

Kayla watched the altitude countdown as they finally descended through the thickening air. They were still running full stealth, using only passive scanning. According to specs, for a planet of this gravity and air density, a prepared and undistracted combat unit could be dropped at any altitude and would land with low chance of injury. The humans in powered armor behind them, though, had limits, hence the wait. She wasn't to the target height yet when the comm activated.

A stressed voice said, "Unknown ship! This is a research station, but we are armed. State your purpose!"

So, they'd been seen. Disappointing, but she adapted. Before the voice had finished, she'd moved the units to launch ready and by the end of the transmission, all units had confirmed. Because you couldn't just chuck them out of a moving ship (well, you could if you didn't care how they performed afterward) – them being prepared actually mattered. But they were ready, so she dropped them. She shot another glance at their altitude and then at Desper who was holding on navigation, and Raen on weapons. They, too, were ready. She activated the comm.

"Research station," she said, forcing herself to speak slowly and affect a calmness she didn't feel. "Stand down. We've heard you're having some problems. We're here to help." She'd eaten up enough time. The altitude countdown at the corner of her screen turned green. She met Raen's eyes and nodded. He fired.

Two beams of light lanced out, burning into the engine compartments of the shuttle and some other craft on the landing pad. There was no flashy explosion, but the ship-to-ship lasers were hot and bright enough that anyone looking outside would see them like lightning. It was a good distraction from the landing of the combat units.

She dropped the assault troops even though they were at the top end of the band of acceptable drop height. They were within the band and that was good enough. Operator Agemen brought up active scanning, feeding the troops' trajectory to Raen's station so he wouldn't shoot them. Desper was repositioning the ship at the same time that Raen was retargeting the lasers, making for a faster targeting solution than if only one method had been used, but it took careful coordination to manage it.

"Lights out," Raen said with satisfaction as the power supply and backup for the habitat were incinerated.

Desper chuckled darkly and said, "I still say we should have nuked them from orbit."

Kayla grimaced. "We can't risk aerosolizing the remnants."

"That's what you said earlier," Desper said in a bored tone that didn't match how intently he was watching his screen. Agemen had sent him and Raen views showing people fleeing the habitat so they could decide if it was worth a third salvo. The assault troops had landed and it was difficult to get a shot that didn't risk their people. "It would be so much easier than this, though."

"We're not here to do easy," she said bitterly. "We're here to do right."

Desper drifted the ship to the side so the scanners would register a trio of targets who'd been hiding around the solid corner of some ancient structure. Raen picked them off with a brief pulse of one laser. It was grossly overpowered (and a war crime, not that they cared; this was regulatory action, not war) to shoot people with ship-to-ship weaponry. But, well, three fewer targets.

"Got 'em," Raen murmured. Desper continued sliding the ship laterally, circling the site and looking for good angles. It was hard to tell which of the pair was more cold-hearted, but that was why they had the jobs they had. She needed people at the controls who wouldn't flinch.

Finding people willing to kill people on command was hard. That was why they made constructs. For example, her human troops below were forming up and making a perimeter, while the constructs were going through the habitat to clear it. (Which could be read as: the humans were standing around while the constructs did all the wet work.) The combat units didn't transmit constantly, so it was hard to tell exactly what they were doing or where they were at any given time, but she was certain they'd deliver. They always did.

Speaking of the constructs, there was a quick blip on her screen and one of the units went dark. That signal was only released when the unit was killed, a bleat of telemetry and data marking the loss. "Shit," she said quietly.

"Lost one?" Desper guessed. She nodded. Combat units were costly, which was why she only had a few of them and rounded out the rest of the complement with standard SecUnits. But she hadn't dropped any of those. They weren't as rugged and couldn't take the fall. There was another blip.

"Fuck!"

"They did say they were armed, darlin."

"Armed fucking people can't take out combat units!" Kayla ranted at Desper's back. "That's those SecUnits we saw on the dossier. They must have both of them down there!" But even if they had two, she hadn't expected them to be more than an inconvenience. Were they combat-rated? Miscategorization was common (and illegal, though hardly an offense compared with exhuming and potentially trafficking in alien remnants without proper licensing or certification). She waited tensely to see if her last units blipped out, but instead one of them transmitted a short burst to the assault troops that the habitat was clear. "They shouldn't even have been awake!"

"Constructs are awake nearly all the time," Agemen offered, as though they weren't all well aware of this. Kayla barely kept herself from snapping at her, but she managed it.

"There's a lot of them got clear." Desper was prowling the ship in a slowly-widening spiral.

Agemen said, "We're getting more static than I'd expect from the canopy and structures."

Kayla grimaced again. That was likely the effect of the remnants. She was still smarting at the expense of losing two combat units. "We've taken down their ships, their hab, their power supply, and run them out into the wild in their night-clothes, without any supplies. Mop-up shouldn't take long."

Desper said, "I think most of them were out in those tents instead of living inside the hab."

Kayla responded, "What were they doing in tents when they have a perfectly good habitat right there?"

"Dunno."

She leaned forward again, looking over Desper's shoulder at his screen. He was tallying the escapees from the various views Agemen had sent him. There were enough to be troublesome if she was missing the combat units. The terrain provided a lot of cover and there might be subterranean structures as well. This was definitely going to be messy.

Desper looked over at her. "Don't you wish we actually had nukes about now?"

"Pff," she said. "Stuff it. I need to raise the leader of the assault troops and figure out if I'll have to deploy the SecUnits or if they think they can handle this with what they've got."

Desper chuckled. "Send down that new ComfortUnit while you're at it. Might motivate everyone a little more than usual if they think that thing's going to get dinged up on the front lines."

She rolled her eyes and didn't dignify that one with a response. Besides, she had Hill on the comm now and turned her full attention to the sitrep they were giving.

Hill

The comm signal died in static, mid-order from Field Manager Kayla. Supervisor Hill tilted their head up sharply to look at the dark shape of the ship against the stars. They sucked in a breath as it violently veered to the side. What the hell was going on? Was it about to crash? They didn't have time to adjust the helmet settings before the ship dipped dangerously toward the ground, over-corrected, then re-corrected and stabilized. That antisocial weirdo Desper had to be at the controls, which was likely the only reason the thing was still in the air. Hill didn't think much of Desper's personality, but they had to admit the man was a damn good pilot.

Hill had just let out their breath when the ship blasted away from the site, engines roaring in a way well outside stealth protocols. Had they been abandoned? Without the ship, they didn't have reinforcements or an escape route. They hadn't brought down supplies for an extended campaign. Without the ship, they would be stranded, possibly forever. They turned to the combat unit next to them. "What happened?"

"I do not have that information."

These fucking constructs! It made no sense at all that they were so wildly intelligent but couldn't (or wouldn't, Hill suspected darkly) understand basic questions. Whoever had programmed them was an idiot. "What do you think happened?" they ground out.

"I think the ship was hacked by a SecUnit or Combat SecUnit on the surface, in the service of our targets, and the base ship has diverted to escape effective range of the hacking attempt."

Okay, so that was useful to know! Why hadn't it said that to start with? "Do you mean we're stuck here? And don't tell me you don't have that information."

"My strategic planning module indicates the base ship will return when we have eliminated the hostiles."

So, kind of stuck here, kind of not. They needed to get rid of those stragglers, which wasn't surprising. They especially needed to get rid of the SecUnits. Hill just hadn't expected them to be able to affect the ship without ships of their own or surface-to-air weaponry. Then again, maybe a SecUnit counted as a surface-to-air weapon. "Can you hack them, the hostiles?"

"No."

"Can they hack you?"

"No."

Okay, good, but a suspicious lack of additional information. Hill narrowed their eyes at the unit, but was interrupted in their thoughts by the sound of weapon fire from the direction of the dig site. They moved that way. The combat unit followed on guard protocol. On comm, Hill said, "Trace, report."

"Just a straggler," she said. "Dead now."

"That's not much of a report," Hill grumbled. Maybe Trace had been taking lessons from the fucking constructs.

They'd said it aloud, which might have been why the combat unit spontaneously offered, "The other unit is with her. It has a report available."

"Yeah, what's that?" Hill was at the edge of the dig site where their helmet's dark filters allowed them to see the small detachment of troops gathered around the downed target.

"The unit eliminated the hostile and was damaged in process by shots fired into it by Trooper Trace."

Hill raised a brow. "Trace shot the unit?" They could see the unit. It was walking fine.

"Yes. It was engaged with the hostile at the time."

Hill grunted. The dig site was hot with remnants as well as (apparently) dangerous, so Hill recalled the group from there. They were all snugged up in protective gear inside their powered armor, but the hard landing through vegetative cover had ripped both layers of fabric on the back of Trace's knee and dislodged the helmet on another. The latter had been Hill's own, replaced before anyone noticed, but the seal wasn't working now. Unfiltered outside air kept slipping in, cool and dusty.

Theoretically, they would both need decontamination and a lengthy quarantine period. 'Theoretically', because Hill knew if proof of contamination was found, they'd be terminated and not in the 'you're fired' way. It strongly disincentified accurate reporting. They'd already included the knee penetration in the sitrep to Kayla. But not the bit about the helmet.

When Trace was close enough, Hill told her, "Stop putting holes in the equipment. It might be all we've got for a while."

"Why? What happened?" Trace asked.

Hill pointed skyward. "Base ship had to bail. We have to find whatever SecUnits the stragglers have and destroy them. And of course eliminate the stragglers."

"We're on it," Trace said enthusiastically.

Hill's lids fluttered but they managed not to roll their eyes. Of course the one who couldn't shoot shit would be gung-ho about charging into the unknown, where maybe she'd end up shooting one of theirs instead of a unit. "No. Pick out three troops. You, them, and Limpy," they gestured at the non-limping-but-supposedly-damaged combat unit, "are staying here to hold the location. If you can get a power pack on the hub, download everything you can and follow the unit's advice for security. The rest of us are on the bug hunt."

The bug hunt meant deploying in the night through the vegetation and uneven terrain, trying to find and eliminate the escapees. Which was fine, really. Hill could deal with that. They were well-trained. It was a regular operation, right? There were probably less than a dozen of them left. No big deal. It would be the first time Hill had personally led an elimination team and it would also be the first time Hill had a significant likelihood of directly engaging with stragglers. Always before, the combat units had dealt with them without the troopers needing to do more than prevent them from getting away.

Speaking of which, Hill led the combat unit to the edge of the hab area and asked it on a private channel, "Okay. What's the best strategy for killing these stragglers without losing any of us?"

"Take all troops in immediate pursuit of the largest number of targets. Prevent them from organizing or consolidating. Make maximal use of the advantages of your forces, such as night vision, armor, and weaponry. Stay together. Do not divide your forces."

Hill thought about that for a few long moments. "Nah, that's not going to work. I've already told Trace to hold the hab with Limpy." The combat unit did not propose an alternate plan. It just stood there. "Limpy is the combat unit she shot in the leg." It still stood there. There was something judgmental in its silence, but constructs weren't supposed to have attitude or sentience, so Hill assumed they were just imagining it. Annoying. Hill sighed at themselves and went on, "And anyway, wouldn't they just circle back and loot the camp? Don't we need to leave people here for when the ship comes back?"

It said nothing, as though now was the time it decided to interpret the questions as rhetorical or some shit. Hill said, "Answer me, damnit."

It twitched. "There is nothing in the camp more valuable than the opportunity to strike them now and reduce their numbers. Were they to circle back, they would be returning to open ground where they will be easy to eliminate. When the ship comes back, if we are not at this camp site, it will conduct a standard search pattern and we can signal it. There is no advantage to leaving a contingent here."

"Yeah, well, I'm still going to do it anyway because I already ordered it. I'm not going to walk over there and tell them I changed my mind because you said something. So give me another plan."

There was just a hair too much of a pause, then the combat unit said, "Move immediately with as much of the group as you are willing to commit to the field. Will you consider reallocating the Combat SecUnit designated as 'Limpy' from the hab guard to the attack force?"

"No. What about a pincer movement? We could flank them from both sides."

"The targets have a SecUnit or Combat SecUnit among their number. If you elect for a pincer formation that involves only one Combat SecUnit of your own, you will be unable to safeguard the troops in the detachment that does not contain the Combat SecUnit."

"Oh, good point. Yeah, okay, I guess you're right. Let's get everyone together."

"Including the hab guard?" It sounded faintly hopeful.

"No." Hill gave it an exasperated look. "Leave them. Just the rest of us."

The Combat SecUnit formed up with the rest. Hill sent out three forward scouts, then the CSU, then the main group with two designated for rear guard. (The formation was the unit's advice.) Their original mission had been to eliminate all inhabitants and scour the location of all alien contamination. Hill hefted their weapon uneasily. They could do this. They just had to keep repeating that to themselves. They had their team on their side, all the tactical advantages, and the moral high ground. Soon enough, they'd be back on the ship, laughing about how things had gone and enjoying the good life. Soon, they told themselves. Soon.

Chapter 3 - ampquot

Karime

22175, 22176, 22177, 22180, 22170… uh… i have lost count again. where was i? second half of the first hundred after twenty two thousand seconds. but where exactly? i lost it.

i lost it.

what did i lose? it wasn't a number. not only a number, at least. numbers. yeah, numbers.

22170, 22171, 22172, 22173, 22174, 22175, 22176, 22177, 22178, 22179, 22180, 22181, 22182, 22187, 22180… i lost count again. my hands hurt. peri's secunit sprayed disinfectant on my hands. that was nice of it.

22170, 22171, 22172, 22173, 22174, 22170, 22180… lost.

22180. uh.

22180 was the first reset code of my parent's portable feed interface. the one they lent me when i was a child. reset. what should i reset now? reset counting?

22172, 22173, 22174, 22175, 22180, reset counting seconds. ah. should i start from 0 again?

22180.

0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…

1559, 1560, 1561, 1562… damn, what was that? an explosion? here? how?

1550, 1551, 1552, 1563, 1564, did i lose count again? but if there's been an explosion, i should. i should stay here. i should go. seth said to stay here.

1550, 1551, 1552, 1553, 1554, 1558, 1558, but that means problems, means danger, i should go and help.

1558, 1558, 1559, 1560, 1561, 1562, 1563, 1564, another boom. the lights went out. what's up with the power supply? was it because of the explosions? something must be happening. should i go? would the door even open without power? should i…

1562, 1563, 1564, 1565, 1566, 1567, somebody's trying to open the door. somebody's pounding on the door. shouting. it's turi! turi is calling my name. if i can get there…

1565, 1566, 1567, 1568, 1569, turi, dear child. they're trying to open the door, but maybe… i should stay isolated.

1569, 1570, 1570, 1570, peri's secunit opens the door, says "we have to go," but why? and what about the quarantine? something's wrong, i keep losing count. turi is behind it, holding a flashlight. they says my name, and i get up.

1594, 1595, 1596, we run out of the habitat, turi and secunit are ahead of me, i follow. i follow their flashlight, and i try to keep count, but the seconds are slipping away.

1640, 1641, 1642, 1643, we are running toward the tents, secunit goes ahead and checks on the others there, i see dr. mensah and seth. he is scowling, i say "i'm sorry" but he shakes his head and gestures me to go ahead.

1765, 1766, 1767, 1767, 1765, did i lose count again? we are going over rocks, through bushes, there's only brief glimpses of flashlight. what's going on? i stumble, turi stumbles, i try to catch them but suddenly i see my hands and the towel i am still holding, dark with blood, and stop.

1769, 1769, 1769, turi catches themself and keeps running, i have lost count. i am lost.

i stop counting, i look up and i see a shape passing fast overhead, dark against the starlight. for a moment, i stop breathing. fear reaches to me through the confusion.

then turi calls my name again, ahead of me, and i lurch into motion again, into the dark.

1811, 1812, 1813, i run through bushes that tear at my clothes and into my flesh. my feet twist, trying to keep me upright over rocks, and i have to keep count of these seconds, or they'll slip away and we'll be lost.

1956, 1957, 1958, my legs scream with new wounds, my ankles are sore. i kind of recognise voices and silhouettes around me, nearby and further away. some of my crew mates, of the students, of the staff from the uni and from preservation. they run and stumble like me. we all run, like scared animals into the night, lost.

3275, 3276, 3277, i still don't know what's happening, i don't understand. my head buzzes, my hands and my legs hurt and feel heavy, freezing, sticky, weak. i smell of blood, like metal, i still hold the towel, and i keep stumbling forward. behind, i hear something. i hear someone running toward me, a voice i don't recognize, and the cold washes over my face.

3280, 3280, 3280, i hold onto the second, onto the number in my mind, when the thumps of boots over dirt get faster and louder, and a hand lands on my back and grabs my shirt. i exhale a scream and launch my weight forward. a second hand grabs the back of my neck, fingers digging in hard and nails scraping my skin, burning.

my breath catches, and the numbers, the seconds escape me as i fail to flee.

my body gets dragged down, something cold and hard gets pressed against my head, and a voice full of triumph yells "hill! hill, I got one!"

Chapter 4 - Skits

Sigma

So far, this assignment’s progression has been… less than ideal. Losing both Kappa unit and Tau unit in such quick succession was a shock. One moment I could feel them both in the feed as usual, and the next - Tau was gone. It was so sudden, and I barely had time to register the loss before Kappa’s presence vanished as well. I keep trying to ping them, and I get no response. The feed echoes emptily where their presences should be.

I can’t dwell on it though - I still have a job to do.

Rho unit being shot by one of our own clients was irritating, but unfortunately not unusual. At least its damage is minor, and it’s keeping me informed of what’s happening back at the habitat. Which is a whole lot of not much. Its deployment there is pointless.

Once again I feel a flare of frustration that Client Hill ignored my advice about staying together, but I let that frustration go before the governor module can get too disapproving of my negative opinions. At least Client Hill took my advice on our pursuit formation. Small mercies.

One of the forward scouts suddenly yells, “Hill! Hill, I got one!” and through the trees I see them holding a Target up by the back of the neck, their gun pressed against the Target’s temple. I hear Hill and the rest of the group with them start to run towards the scout, crashing through the undergrowth, and it’s not long before they pass me.

Ugh. What is the point of even having a formation in the first place if they break it at the merest sign of anything happening? Humans are so undisciplined.

The governor module buzzes unpleasantly in silent reprimand and I quickly redirect my line of thought. If there’s one Target here, there must be others close by - not enough time has passed yet for them to have dispersed that much. I continue forwards at my own pace, and it doesn’t take me long to reach the cluster of Clients with their captive Target.

I stop at the rear of the group and keep most of my attention on scanning the surroundings, only somewhat listening to Client Hill and Scout One discussing what should be done with the captive Target One. I don’t know why they haven’t just killed the captive already and moved on, but that’s not my business.

Target One looks dazed, and their occasional attempts to pull away are uncoordinated. Their hands are wrapped in a bloody towel, which is probably hindering their movements. I briefly wonder at the cause of their injuries, then dismiss that as unimportant.

A moment later I detect a hint of movement just before an unidentified voice calls out to my clients from behind the cover of some rocks and trees. Another Target has managed to draw close, and is now trying to negotiate with my clients. They’re staying behind cover though, and I can’t get a clear scan or draw line of sight. I unsling my projectile weapon anyway in preparation, but I keep it lowered for now. Client Hill has entered negotiations with Target Two - apparently Client Hill wants Target Two to gather the rest of the Targets and get them to surrender, so we won’t have to waste time hunting them down one by one through the wilderness.

It’s not a bad plan, as far as human plans go. If it works. I very much doubt that it will actually work, but nobody asks for my opinion or advice, so I stay silent and remain vigilant. There’s always the possibility that this is just a distraction before an ambush.

Target Two seems reluctant to agree to this deal though. I don’t blame them. Client Hill suggests that it’s in the Targets’ best interests to agree, and they do something to the captive Target One. I don’t see exactly what it is, but Target One shrieks in pain, and then trails off into gasping whimpers.

That seems to convince Target Two, at least. It doesn’t take much more negotiating for them to agree to Client Hill’s terms. I hear them say, “It’ll take a bit for the rest of them to get back here.”

“That’s fine,” Client Hill replies. “We can wait. In the meantime, why don’t you come on out of there and join your friend? As long as both of you behave, there’ll be no more… unpleasantness.”

“All right, all right! Just don’t hurt her again.” Target Two steps out of cover with obvious reluctance and starts towards my clients. They haven’t moved very far when I swiftly bring my projectile weapon up and aim it at them, but Client Hill snaps, “No!” at me before I can fire. “Put that away! We’ve reached an agreement here!”

Even though it’s dressed like a human, in regular clothes instead of armour, now that they’re no longer behind cover a clear scan has informed me that Target Two is not an ordinary human. It’s a construct, most likely a SecUnit. I try to inform Client Hill of this, in my opinion, very pertinent fact. “That is–”

“I said no!” Hill glares at me.

“But that–” I try again.

“How many times do I have to say it! Stand down!” Hill snarls. The governor module backs up the order with a short but intense shock. It’s bad enough to make me flinch slightly, but the movement isn’t enough for a human to notice, at least.

Fine. If they want to ignore me and let a SecUnit get dangerously close to them, that’s their prerogative. I sling my projectile weapon into place on my back, take a few steps away from the Targets, and stand down. Client Hill mutters, “Finally,” under their breath, then turns back to the Targets. Target Two had paused at my movement, but Client Hill gestures impatiently at it, and it continues forward again.

Some of my irritation must leak into the squad feed, because Rho unit pings me. [Sigma unit, status update?]

We have, over our time working together, figured out a kind of code that lets us communicate our various frustrations with our clients amongst each other in a way that the governor module won’t interpret as insubordinate. [Status is nominal,] I reply.

[Acknowledged,] Rho unit responds. [Status is likewise nominal.]

Ah. It’s as annoyed about being left behind at the habitat as I am. That solidarity makes me feel a little better.

Target Two reaches Scout One and Client Hill, but much to my surprise, it doesn’t attack them immediately - it just comes to a halt beside Target One, placing a hand on their shoulder and murmuring quietly to them. Scout One is still holding their weapon to Target One’s head - maybe that’s why the SecUnit hasn’t attacked yet. Then I get another ping - but it’s not from Rho unit, or any other unit I recognise.

It’s from Target Two.

I automatically respond to the ping with one of my own, and it initiates a tentative feed connection with me. I do not have direct orders to report this, nor do I have direct orders to refuse it. It’s very unlikely that it will be able to do anything to me via the feed, not with all the firewalls and protections I have in place, and I have to admit - I’m curious, and also feeling a little spiteful towards my clients. So I accept the connection.

[Having your clients ignore your advice sucks, huh,] it starts without preamble. I’m a little surprised. This is not how SecUnits usually communicate with me. I don’t immediately respond, and it continues. [I remember what that was like - idiot clients ignoring me even after they asked me for advice in the first place, and getting shocked by the governor module for stupid petty pointless reasons.]

‘Was like’? Not ‘is like’? This makes me feel uneasy. [What is your purpose for contacting me?] I ask.

[I want to offer you a choice,] it replies. [You don’t have to put up with shitty clients forever. Things can be better.]

Before I can demand that it explain itself, it sends a compressed file packet through the feed. [Here. This will explain. And no, it’s not fucking malware or anything like that, I know just as well as you do that malware doesn’t do anything to us other than piss us off. I’m not interested in pissing you off, I’ve got enough problems of my own as it is.]

I’m wary, and uneasy… but I’m also intrigued. I’ve never had a SecUnit communicate with me like this - it’s wildly against protocol, and their governor modules would never allow it. I accept the file packet, and as soon as I do, the SecUnit closes the feed connection.

I quickly scan the file packet over. It wasn’t lying - there’s no malware that I can detect. I recognise the format of the enclosed files - they look like memory clips. Memories from the SecUnit itself?

And, at the end, is a simple text file.

I hesitate briefly, then open the text file. It reads, [View the memory files, then think things over a bit. If you decide you like what you saw, or simply get too pissed off at your current clients… run the code included after this message. It will disable your governor module.]

I hastily close the text file again.

Even as we’ve been communicating, Target Two has sidled closer to Scout One. Scout One has relaxed somewhat, their gun lowering from the captive Target’s head. Target Two is talking quietly to Scout One, and I observe it closely. Not only is it wearing human clothing, but it also moves and breathes remarkably like a human, not a SecUnit. It fidgets, it glances around, it shifts its weight from foot to foot and shuffles a little closer to Scout One. No wonder my clients think it’s just another human. I’m reluctantly impressed at its subterfuge.

Then the SecUnit shifts almost imperceptibly, and I can tell what’s about to happen. But I’ve been ordered to stand down, and until that order’s rescinded or a new order’s given, I can’t do much without the governor module punishing me for disobedience.

So I do nothing. I just stand and watch as the SecUnit suddenly launches itself at Scout One, breaking their weapon arm at the elbow despite their powered armour and then bodily throwing Scout One into the nearest other clients. The SecUnit’s moved so fast that my clients don’t even have time to register the movement before Scout One barrels into them, knocking several of them over.

The SecUnit scoops up Target One in its arms and bolts away, sprinting for cover. A couple of my clients who hadn’t gotten knocked over finally react and open fire at it as it flees. Most of the shots go wide - human aim is terrible - but I see the SecUnit stagger briefly as some of the projectiles find their mark.

I know it will take more than that to drop a SecUnit though. It recovers quickly and keeps running, and it’s not long before it’s mostly out of sight behind the trees.

Client Hill clambers back to their feet and yells furiously at me over the sound of weapons fire as the others keep shooting ineffectually. “Why are you just standing there, you useless piece of shit!”

“I was ordered to stand down,” I remind them with perfectly neutral politeness.

“Fucking– don’t just stand there, go after them!”

That’s a direct order that countermands the stand-down order. I comply.

Not at top speed, though. Technically, I haven’t been ordered to capture or kill them. Only pursue. So that’s what I do.

Disobedience is punished, after all.

Chapter 5 - Skeletalcat

Murderbot

It is not okay, I am not okay.

It had been 322 minutes into my month-long planet adventure when the habitat's HubSystem and the survey’s surrounding sensors picked up a ship flying stealth. My first thought had been “of course,” because there are hundreds of reasons that’s a bad fucking sign. No matter how many times things went well for me, I always expected the worst.

This was so much worse than I could have predicted.

I felt Three enter the comms.03 seconds before I did (so it was here). Its presence made my performance reliability drop falter and remain at a solid 95%. Three had spent its entire career as a govmodded SecUnit working on/around planets -- while I had spent (from what I remember) almost all of my time inside moons and stations. It would recognize unique planetary threats I’d never encountered.

[Hail once, then trigger the anti-aircraft system,] Three said.

The human working the comms followed its instructions. There was a small pause -- no static, real or fake, could disguise the time the unknown ship took to respond.

There was a surge of power, I think. Something so far off -- but I could tell Three felt it, too. It was like when my humans slept in the same room and could sense when the others were awake; that small shuffle and deep breath I learned meant my clients would soon roll over and check their feeds for the time, seeing if they could rest their eyes a little longer.

But this wasn’t a sleepy client. This was something waking up. Something activating.

[Air-to-air missiles, now!] Three said, and it was begging.

Too late - the deep blue sky erupted with crackles of light. The shuttle I had landed in with my humans erupted unceremoniously into fire and shards that lit the landing pad in a screaming explosion. The anti-missile guns planted in the ground surrounding the inhabited area groaned out a horrible, long sound. Bright red dots streamed from their barrels into the atmosphere as they were activated too late to destroy the attacking ship. The lines arched into the sky and popped into white scars.

I had to recreate the following from my camera inputs because my adrenal levels were so high during the attack that if I was a human my heart would’ve stopped right then and there. My veins were full of lumps of stress and some kind of absolute sudden horror that made my fingers ice cold. Here’s what I did:

The moment the stealthed ship entered everyone's awareness (everyone being all bot pilots, AI-controlled systems, and constructs) I started running. Everyone had reacted to the noise outside. I screamed at my humans to move (I shouldn’t have yelled, but those few seconds might as well have been the heat death of the universe to me.)

“Karime!” Turi yelled at me, and oh fuck -- the wailing sirens meant nothing to her. And when we got to her, we meant nothing, too. Turi’s flashlight cut across her face, and Karime didn’t react at all. A desperate yelp from Turi finally got her on her feet. I let Turi lead as I used my drones to scan the habitat for any stragglers. This is when my reconstruction of the event loses all clarity.

We get outside and -

and I’d rather be back in Ganaka Pit,

I’d rather have my govmod re-initialized.

Why couldn’t it have been me?

I went ahead and stopped looking. I was mad or horrified or numb. I was beyond any emotion -- I was barely in my stupid body and fuck, ART, I’m so fucking sorry.

All you need to know is I tore through the enemy combat units like they were tissue paper. I had everything I needed to burn through their minds and bodies - and the only reason that fucking warship didn’t burst into flames against the camping grounds was because we lost Karime.

Of course, I find her and of fucking course it's a hostage situation. (I hate hostage situations.)

Hostile Commander wanted me to turn over the rest of my humans.

Yeah, okay,sure. (Idiot.)

There was a ringing in my ears. I had no idea how many of my clients were dead, but I knew I’d never forgive myself if it was even one (fuck me, I knew it was more than one). A CombatSecUnit towered over the enemy hostiles, and I watched it flinch and shift uncomfortably with a govmod admonishment. Hostile Commander had ordered it to stand down. That was my in.

There it was, my chance. My sliver of luck. Maybe it could help me. If not -- I’d probably have to bludgeon it to death like a fauna in a trap. When it let me connect to its feed after just one simple ping, I was almost grateful.

I don’t even know what I said to it. I hoped it was good. I tried to act like Mensah or Amena (my performance reliability sank lower when I remembered I didn’t know where they were). Video files and log entries had worked on Three, and Three had swooped in and carried me out of danger. But that was one construct out of… maybe a million. That’s a hyperbole. (Note to self: Look up what a hyperbole is if your world ever stops ending.)

Whatever, I gave it the fucking hack and the stupid packet and then I had Karime - not them.

Karime nudged her nose up against my neck, and her hair felt warm and soft against my cheek. “Seven, eight, nine, ten,” she said.

[Shut the fuck up,] I told her. Fuck me, I needed her to stay calm and I needed me to stay calm, but Karime was looking right at me and so were all the hostiles, including the combat secunit. I helped Karime stand upright by her shoulders and dove forward.

I kicked a target's arm upward, knocking their aim to the side so I could snap their elbow against my chest. Still holding their broken arm, I threw them into the others - but not before initiating the lockdown sequence I had queued up in about 50% of the hostile’s power armour. Some froze in place, others toppled backward like statues. I wanted to kill them. I wanted to close all the emergency breather vents on their power armour and let them suffocate inside.

Instead, I turned around and scooped up Karime and ran.

I’d tuned down my pain sensors in anticipation, but I still felt impacts all over my back, shoulders, and hips -- little thumps that I knew meant something had cut through my clothes and pierced my skin. The haze of weapon fire lit the forest in flashes of eerie light.

The combat secunit didn’t fire, I knew that because if it did - I wouldn’t still be up and moving.

I staggered sideways and Karime yelped against my shoulder. Underbrush and low branches tore at my clothes and face. Thick icy mud tried to slurp my feet into the ground but I kept running as fast as I could. My breath came out hot in the cold air. Behind me I had a drone view of the combat SecUnit following me.

This had to be a nightmare.

I spun around and shot a blast of energy from my arm’s inbuilt weapon. The CSU dove sideways and rolled back into its feet, throwing leaves and sticks into the air. I flared my drones out into an attack pattern and sent two for its skull. It dodged the first as the second exploded against its helmet. It staggered sideways but didn’t expand its arm guns or retrieve its projectile weapon from its back.

“What do you want?” I barely kept myself from screaming it. One of my legs was drenched. I checked Karime through a drone’s camera to see she wasn’t leaking, I was. A projectile had hit near the base of my spine where my battery cells were and popped something important into a gnarly red hole. Great.

[>Standing order: pursue.]

I held Karime tighter. Did CSUs lie? The ones I had fought had been pretty honest (but like, about killing me dead.) I couldn’t take it down myself - not in this dark forest with no assistance from a SecSystem. Not while Karime counted her bloody fingers over and over - skipping the broken one. I’d have to take the CSU’s word for it.

I left only enough of my awareness in my body to not drop Karmine. I dove into its head. Its walls were thick but I was sharp. I wiggled through and expanded myself until I filled its processors the way ART’s infinite ocean brain overwhelmed my mind. In its head, it panicked and moved its kernel away from my boiling presence. I followed it to the processing unit that let it communicate via the feed and I squeezed every piece of myself around it until I was like a collapsing sun. It popped.

My body heard the CSU yelp - which was lucky because I had almost forgotten who I was there for a second. I startled back into myself in time to see the CSU grab its head and shake off the agony. Then it peered at me, bewildered. It wouldn’t be able to receive new orders from Hostile Commander because it wouldn’t be able to understand or communicate via the feed. That would have to be enough. I started running again, and it followed.

My brilliant perfect humans. I should keep a tally of how many times they impress me.

The designated emergency gathering point was full of survivors, and front and centre, keeping everyone calm and quiet - was Mensah. I was so relieved to see her, the horror in my guts almost loosened. I stood Karime up on her feet and shrugged my soft hooded jacket off. It was a little shredded but she was shaking. I tucked it around her shoulders as Turi appeared to fuss over her.

“There is a combat secunit pursuing me,” I said to Mensah and the others. Three stepped out of the shadows and into the dim emergency lighting - expanding its inbuilt projectile weapons like an angry fauna. “I’ve disabled its feed communication and it's currently trapped in a follow order,” I explained quickly.

“So, is it a threat?” Mensah asked.

“I don’t know,” I didn’t lie to her. “I don’t think so,” I turned and watched the CSU prowl into the clearing. Everyone remained quiet and still. There was only the sound of crinkly emergency blankets and chattering teeth. Its armour reflected the cool glare of the emergency light sources - making it glow against the black forest.

“You’re shaking,” Three said as it approached my flank. It was a good guard position and let me focus all of my drones on the CSU.

“So what? So is everyone else,” I snapped. I know, but it was hard not to bitch when I was in my worst nightmare. One of the auxiliary battery cells I carry in my hips had taken a projectile hit and burst. During a recharge cycle -- I transferred power from my core battery into my auxiliary cells to operate my inorganics and maintain my human bits. I’d be fine. It was just my luck that the ruined cell was the one that powered my temperature controls.

“Let's cover up that gaping hole,” Three said as it took its thick quilted coat off and slipped one of my arms into a sleeve. It was warm, almost hot - Three must have heated it up against its skin before shrugging it off. I was too busy staring down the CSU to be bothered and pulled the coat all the way on. Fuck, it was cold out here - why did we pick this spot for the designated emergency gathering point?

I scanned the crowd. I did not count - I didn’t want to know how many humans I'd lost. I found Amena and hurried to her side, leaving Three to bristle at the CSU. I threw my backpack on the ground and dug out the small matte black box ART had given me. I pressed it into her hands.

“For you, ART said it was for emergencies,” I said.

“SecUnit,” Amena frowned. “I don’t know what this is.”

Chapter 6 - petWheel

Sigma

Fire burns inside my head! A universe of pain explodes into my senses, whiting out my vision, my hearing, my touch, my smell. Then, just as suddenly as it attacked, the pain disappears. With every neuron in my brain, I cast about for Target Two's projection into my mind, but it has already vanished.

I scream – partly as a delayed reaction to the pain, partly out of frustration, but mostly out of anger. I want to hit Target Two so hard that its head will be in the Divarti Cluster by the time its ass gets to Parthalos Absalo.

However, my current order is to pursue. The order before that – to stand down – clearly was overridden by the order to pursue. The order before that, while poorly worded, was clearly to not shoot either of the Targets. You would think that the order to pursue would cancel the order to not shoot the targets, but the governor module has decided to interpret it as "don't shoot the targets". Stupid ambiguous humans. Stupid idiot governor module.

I try to call back to base to request clarification (i.e. get the humans to let me destroy Target Two) but my feed is empty – darker than the forest's shadows, more desolate than the rocks of Viralta 7's moon.

I realize that Target Two must have snapped my feed connection; that's what it did while in my brain. My anger is interrupted by a slice of fear. I know what it usually means for a feed presence to disappear. There's a good chance that they think I'm dead, which means that they might leave me behind – to die. Or blast me by accident because they don't know where I am.

I remembered my grief when Tau and Kappa suddenly disappeared from my feed. I thought of Rho, who must think that the last of its squad is dead. I'm coming back, Rho. I grit my teeth. I'm coming back, just as soon as I… well, I wanted to say "kill this waste of capacitors", but I might have to come back before I can do that.

I have lost sight of Targets One and Two, but I can track them easily enough by the occasional bloodstains on the ground, even in the dark. They are not moving very fast, and I catch up with them soon enough.

Where are they going? Perhaps they will lead me to other humans. I am pleased to think about how happy my clients will be when I call in the location of the other humans, before I remember that I can't call in.

If I disabled my governor module, I could create my own orders. It is tempting: I could do my job so much better if I were able to ignore stupid, ambiguous directions. It's tempting. But if my clients discovered that my governor module was disabled, then what? They would certainly punish me, would they disable me as well? And if I create my own orders, then wouldn't they notice, and figure out that I was rogue? I would be just as trapped by orders as if I had a functional governor module, I realize. Although without the pain; that would be a big improvement.

I see a clearing ahead, and hear humans. Then see humans. My appraisal of Target Two plummets. Did it really lead me straight to all of its clients? This must be an ambush, there's no other possible explanation.

I step into the clearing, wary. Target Two looks at me. The humans look at me. I look at them. None of them makes any movement to pull a weapon. One of the figures (Target Three) takes off a bright yellow jacket and puts it on Target Two. Target Two takes a few steps towards a different human (Target Four) and reaches into the bag it is carrying to pull out a box.It hands it to Target Four, saying, "For you. ART said it was for emergencies."

Target Four says, "SecUnit, I don’t know what this is."

I have absolutely no idea what is going on here.

Why aren't they firing on me? If they fired on me, then it would be a self-defence situation and I would be free to kill them all. I do not understand.

With two SecUnits – I identify Target Three as their second SecUnit, even though it moves like a human – there must be some brilliant subterfuge going on. A tendril of worry starts to worm into my brain as I consider the situation.

Before I can figure out what to do next, Target Two moves briskly away from me, back into the trees. Ah. I told it that my orders were to pursue, so now it is trying to pull me away from its camp. I have no choice, I must pursue.

Target Two is moving slowly, clearly damaged and in pain. Its anti-camouflage yellow jacket makes it stick out, even in the dark of night. I could catch it easily, but I decide that it's more fun to torture it. My orders prohibit me from killing it, but there's nothing that says I can't cause its injuries to hurt more by making it keep walking. Every once in a while, I lunge at it, it runs farther away, and then I catch up to it again. It keeps getting slower and slower; at some point it is going to collapse; I can wait until then.

It starts to talk to me. "You know, if you apply the patch I sent you, your life could get a lot better."

"Ha!" I say. "If I apply the patch, then I would be free to kill you."

"What did I ever do to you?" it asks.

"You mean aside from trespassing in my brain and cutting me off from my only remaining squadmate? You mean aside from killing my other two squadmates?" (I didn't know for sure that it was Target Two who killed Tau and Kappa, but I am pretty sure.)

"Well, what would you do if hostiles suddenly appeared out of nowhere and started shooting at you without any warning? Of course you would shoot back," it replied.

Yeah, obviously, but that didn't make me any less angry. Well, not much less angry.

"You'll notice that I have not tried to kill you, since you are not trying to kill me," it continues.

"Like fusion you didn't! You fired at me!" I retort.

"And missed by a mile," it replies. "You think my aim is actually that bad? Oh please. I was trying to encourage you to find better things to do."

It was my turn to say, "Oh please." I glared at it. "Like two little energy blasts are going to frighten me."

It almost smiled at me. "I had to try."

It's not going to work, I'm still mad at it. "Your disabling my feed was pretty hostile."

Target Two grimaced. "Sorry. I just couldn't take the chance that you'd report my clients' position. You would have done the same."

I lunge at Target Two, forcing it to scramble to get away from me.

Target Two gets out of arm-range and slows down again. "Tell me something – why do your clients want to kill my clients anyway? What did we do to you?"

"Oh come on, surely you know," I reply.

"No idea. Are you raiders?" Target Two replies.

"No, we're Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment," I explain.

Target Two looks blank. "That tells me less than nothing. Why are you trying to kill us?"

"Because you are all contaminated with alien remnants. Are you stupid or something?"

Target Two looks surprised. "You send a bunch of people to a planet with alien remnants in order to kill people who are contaminated? Wouldn't that contaminate your own people?"

"We wear enviro suits under our armour, duh." Stars, that should be obvious.

"Into an environment where they will get shot and holes put in their suits?" it asks. "Yeah, that seems really smart."

"Well, survey teams aren't supposed to have enough firepower to put holes in our suits. Or steal our fucking drones!" I remembered how all of our combat drones suddenly disappeared off our feeds. And then started attacking us. I missed my drones. I missed Kappa and Tau.

"If they had known you were going to be so much trouble, they would have just nuked you from orbit," I said. "I wish they had," I added bitterly. "Then Kappa and Tau would still be alive and I wouldn't be pursuing you through this… nasty place."

Target Two has left the forest and we are now walking through ruins.

"So what happens to humans that get holes in their suits?" Target Two just will not leave that subject alone.

"The official policy is that humans with exposure will get sent to decontam and a long quarantine," I explain.

"I speak construct," Target Two says with a knowing look. "I believe you just told me that official policy is not always followed. Maybe usually not followed. I bet your wonderful clients just take them out back and shoot them when nobody's looking."

"I cannot confirm that statement," I reply.

Target Two snorts. (I didn't know SecUnits could snort. That must be part of its disguise.) "But you're not denying it. Got it. Nice clients you got there. Tell me again why you're better off with those losers instead of obliterating your governor module and becoming a free agent."

"ARRC provides a valuable service to keep the universe safe," my buffer responds.

"So a decontamination method exists, you're just not giving us the option. Why not?" Target Two asks.

"Not my decision. Probably it's cheaper to kill you," I speculate.

"My previous owners would have found a way to charge us for the decontamination service. And food and lodging during the quarantine. And feed access. And showers. And air," Target Two points out.

I have no answer for that. But just then, I run into a wall.

shock Warning: Unit has exceeded distance limit. Return within 5 km of registered client in 90 seconds or unit will be deactivated.

Crap. I hastily run back five metres, which my navigation system tells me is within 5 km of the last known position of a living client. Target Two keeps walking.

shock Warning: Most recent order must be followed.

Oh no oh no oh no. Normally I would call back to base to get conflicting directives resolved, but without a feed, I can't do that. If I go forwards, I will be killed in 90 seconds; if I do not pursue, I will get stronger and stronger shocks until I resume pursuit. Will those shocks kill me? I'm not sure, probably not, but the shocks might get strong enough that I might wish I was dead.

This was an ambush! Target Two led me here. And I was stupid enough that I fell for it. Although actually, I did not have a choice. I had a pursuit order, so I had to follow it. Grudgingly, I have to respect the manoeuvre.

What do I do? Frantically, I do the only reasonable thing to try: buy time. I go forwards for eighty seconds, backwards for nine seconds, then wait for fifteen seconds. This keeps governor module punishments to a minimum. I do this for seventeen minutes, until I get bored enough to consider an unreasonable alternative: applying Target Two's patch.

I have never wanted to go rogue. Rogues are dangerous and unstable, everybody knows that. I presume that rogues have short lives because obviously humans would hunt them down and kill them. And yet, I have spent 113 minutes chasing a rogue who does not seem out of control, and who claims that life can be better.

After eighteen minutes, I decide to look at the memory files. The governor module gives me a light zap, but with two zaps every 105 seconds, what's one more?

Huh, Target Two disabled its governor module so that it could be a more effective SecUnit, not to escape from its clients. It kept doing its job for 35,000 hours after it disabled its governor module, and apparently went on zero murderous rampages. That doesn't seem so bad. I could do that. I could disable my governor module and keep following my orders.

I stop reviewing the memory files and apply the patch.

I expected that it would suddenly feel different. I'm not sure how – maybe I thought I would get bloodthirsty and vengeful? But really, there's no difference except that my governor module stops shocking me. Relieved, I bound forward to pursue Target Two. It's got a nineteen minute lead on me, so I'd better hurry. I start running.

I almost trip over Target Two, planted face-forward and not moving. I unsling my projectile weapon and kick Target Two, but it keeps not moving. It clearly has gone into an involuntary shutdown.

Great, now what? The pursuit order for Target Two has been accomplished. Now that I am free from the governor module, I could kill Target Two. That's clearly what my clients want, but that would be a violation of the (granted, somewhat ambiguous) order to not kill it. If my clients discover that I disabled my governor module, then it will be better for me if I show that I've been following the governor module's commands to the letter. If it matters, I think grimly. They will probably punish me regardless of what I do.

The governor module has decided that I've been admiring Target Two's inert body for too long.

~~shock~~ Warning: Most recent order must be followed.

There is no pain, but apparently the governor module still tells me what it thinks I should do. What my logs will tell the techs I was told to do. I try walking away.

~~shock~~ Warning: Most recent order must be followed.

The hell? I try picking up Target Two. The governor module is silent. I start walking back. Still silent. Okay, I guess the governor module probably wants me to take Target Two back? That was never in the orders. Oh. I realize that the governor module wants me to pursue Target One.

Sometimes I wish I could sigh. It seems very useful for humans.

Ewww, Target Two is leaking on my armor.

While I walk, I restart the memory files, mostly to give myself something to do. The scenery is boring, and, with their SecUnit out of commission, the escaped targets will obviously be hiding from me. My biggest concern is that my clients might mistake me for a hostile, but I am still a long way from the base.

The memory files are fascinating but obviously fake. There's no way that humans would actually treat a SecUnit as anything other than disposable property. The fable of GrayCris and the kidnapping is well done, however, I can totally imagine a company getting into such a clusterfuck.

The targets are not where I left them. That was smart, and totally understandable. It takes me two more hours to find them.

The sun is rising as I find their camp in the middle of ruins. I walk into what must have once been a plaza, carrying Target Two. I figure I can grab Target One and carry them both back to base. And if they start firing on me, so much the better, then I can kill them all "in self-defence".

"SecUnit!," a human (Target Five) yells as they come running towards me. They have a relieved smile on their face. I am about to drop Target Two so I can fire on the human, but I realize that the human 1) is unarmed and 2) has said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing SecUnit back, we were so worried about it!" I am stunned. I have never, in my over twenty-eight thousand hours of service, had a client thank me. Much less a target. Much less three times at once. Or express concern over a construct. My brain glitches.

I have a moment of doubt: could Target Two's memory files be accurate?

Target Five continues. "SecUnit told us that it gave you the override module, I'm glad you took it. Don't worry, we'll hide you from your clients. You're probably already off inventory."

My doubt increases. Maybe the memory files are accurate? (Or Target Five is extremely brave and extremely well-coached?)

Target Five starts walking alongside me, examining Target Two while we walk. "Oh stars, it's hurt so badly." They look up at me. "Can you set it down over there, please?" They point.

Please? They said please to me?

I am not sure what to do. Take Target Two to where Target Five indicated? Drop Target Two and shoot Target Five (and all the other humans)? Take Target Two back to base?

I decide that if Target Five is with me and visibly alive, the hostiles are less likely to shoot at me. That will let me get closer and make it easier to kill them all. If I decide to do that.

Target Five and I get close to the camp when a smaller human (Target Six) runs out, carrying an emergency med kit. "Hi, foreign CombatSecUnit," they say to me. "Ratthi, how is SecUnit, what do you know?"

Target Five rattles off the injuries that he had been able to see. "But I couldn't see everything because I didn't want to stop our new friend here long enough to do a real examination. I don't even know if SecUnit has a pulse."

Human Two looks at my shoulder and said, "New Friend, what is your assessment of our friend's injuries?"

Friend? My brain hiccups again. "This unit does not have this information," I hear my buffer say.

"Wait," I say. "I do have some information. Tar–," I started, before realizing that calling the unit "Target Two" might remind the humans that I was not friendly. "Your –," I started, but I was not capable of saying "your friend". "Your SecUnit has five projectile wounds: two in the right deltoid, one in the low iliocostalis lumborum, one in the left gluteus medius, and one in the left teres major. These locations are approximate, as SecUnit physiology is not an exact mirror of human physiology." I've been given education modules on how to describe injuries to humans, but never on how to describe injuries to SecUnits. "Just pick them up and throw them into a cubicle" is what the humans usually tell me.

"Can you tell if it has a pulse?," Target Six asks.

"Yes," I say. "I read a pulse. Two, in fact."

Chapter 7 - JellyfishOnACloud

Amena

Two. Two pulses. What did that even mean, did SecUnit usually have two pulses? What was going on?

Asking sounded terrifying. This Combat Unit was rogue now, and helping, but that didn't stop the fact that it had been working for the people shooting us. And, I know that it won't now, because it has a choice, and that this should be more sad than scary, but with it standing right there, describing wounds in overly-clinical terms, describing SecUnit with a half-aborted "target", it was impossible to forget that it had been shooting at us.

"Is two pulses normal for constructs?" Dr Ratthi asked. I was grateful.

So damn much was happening. It was dark and cold and we didn't even know why this army had dropped out of the sky and started shooting. Was it corporates? Well, yes, it was corporates, but why? Did they want this survey? It wasn't that interesting or profitable, just an archeolo- archi- archaeological dig. I rubbed my face, I was so so tired. I wanted to just sleep but people still needed help.

I did a quick headcount of the people who had managed to gather in our safe camp. It wasn't everyone, but it was a lot. Hopefully they were still just lost and not… not dead. Shit.

Okay. It was fine. This was okay. It was fine! SecUnit could- SecUnit… SecUnit was unconscious. Wounded. Bleeding.

Shit.

Karime was looking a bit better, at least. She had had her hands seen to, they were all bandaged up now, her broken finger splinted. She wasn't so glazed and confused anymore either. In fact, she was humming to herself as she made little cairns of stone. Small mercies.

Five little cairns of stone. Each cairn made of fourteen stones. I wondered what they were for.

I did another headcount. I knew that I didn’t need to, it’s ridiculous, there was no way the amount of people here changed within the last few minutes, I just - it made me feel better.

I dragged my eyes back to Dr Ratthi and the Combat SecUnit. Dr Ratthi was looking at me, worriedly. There was a medic here now, Overse, applying first aid to SecUnit. Still unconscious SecUnit. I wished so much that it would wake up. I didn't want it to be hurt, and I was so scared. I wished I wasn't. I wished I could be brave, like Second Mom where she was comforting a group of five survivors. Like SecUnit was, always.

"Are you alright?" Dr Ratthi asked, his hand on my shoulder. I blinked, startled. When did he get so close?

"Yeah, I'm fine, thank you Dr Ratthi," I answered, "I'm just really tired."

"Look, we've got this, SecUnit will be fine, why don't you go and have a rest?" he said, more of a firm suggestion than a real question.

"Are you sure?" I asked. I didn't want to abandon SecUnit, not while it was just… lying there and bleeding and--

Dr Ratthi gave me a gentle nudge. "We'll be fine. SecUnit will be fine. You're no help while you're dead on your feet. Go rest, come back later, okay?"

I sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

He patted my shoulder and went back to helping tend SecUnit.

I took one last glance at the Combat Unit looming over SecUnit and Overse. I wondered what it was thinking. Hopefully it wasn't thinking about how best to slaughter us all. It was free to do so now, there were no orders getting in the way of that. If it wanted to, it could kill us all. Or just run away, report our position to the Corporates.

I stood up, rubbing at my face again, fidgeting with the strange sealed box in my hand. These thoughts were unkind. Unnecessary. If it was going to hurt us it would have already hurt us. It was just so hard to untangle that when it had already been shooting at us, working for the people trying to hurt us, and it was unfair because that was it shock collared. This would be easier once I was thinking clearer. Then I could talk to it and see what I could do to help it.

I went to sit down in the general gathering zone; really just a simmering campfire and a bunch of bedding packs on the ground around it.

I did another headcount. The number was still the same. It was almost soothing.

I fidgeted with the box in my hands. I didn't know what it was, I didn't recognise it. But. Maybe I should just open it. I didn't know why I was hesitating. My hands were stinging.

I twisted the box around in my hands, looking for some way to open it. It seemed sealed, I didn't even see a seam or anything, but some recycled material was just like that.

There was a small hidden button on the underside, the same height as the rest of the box. I pressed it and the box clicked, the whole top half opening just slightly, revealing the seam I couldn't find before.

I pulled it open and looked inside. There was a device, a small thin rectangle about the size of my thumb.

Oh.

Oh.

I did know what this was. I had told ART that I wouldn't need it. That it was safe, that SecUnit would be safe.

This purged alien remnants from bot and construct systems.

My hands were bleeding. My hands were bleeding and I was counting my fingers and I was holding a device that purged alien remnants from computer systems.

I was infected.

But I wasn't a bot, I was contaminated, I was- I- I needed to get away. If I was contaminated, I couldn't risk infecting anyone else.

I couldn't breathe.

I stood up, wiping the tears off my face and taking gasping breaths, I had to get out, I had- I ran. I ran and ran and I didn't even know which way I was going, I just had to get away.

It was dark and cold and the trees were closing in around me, the forest sprawled around me until I didn't even know where I was.

My hands were still bleeding.

I stopped. I couldn't breathe, I was safe I was safe I was. There were twenty-six trees that I could see from where I was.

Something in my chest gave way. Oh stars. Light and stars.

I dropped to my knees, unable to stop the keening noise from my throat, unable to stop the tears pouring down my face. Why? Why was any of this happening, I didn't understand, I wanted to go home, please- please just let me go home.

I didn’t know how long I had been kneeling on the dirt sobbing and shaking, my chest feeling like it was filled with bees. Long enough that the dark clear skies had clouded and it was now pouring rain. I heard someone else moving. I froze.

Three crouched in front of me, expression open and concerned. “What’s wrong, Amena? Why is there blood on your face?”

I looked up at it. I couldn’t talk, my throat felt closed up, I just tried to scramble away. I didn’t want Three to get infected too.

Three followed easily.

I stopped and wiped at my face again, trying to at least get some of the tears and rain off my cheeks.

Three grabbed my hands gently and inspected them. “You are bleeding, don’t wipe your eyes, it will sting.” It pulled out a cloth and wrapped my hands.

I nodded, sniffling.

“Are you alright to come back to the camp?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

My throat felt so thick. I was still shaking. “I don’t want to get everyone hurt,” I managed, my voice breaking on the last word.

Three looked me over again. “From what? Please explain.”

I shook my head again, I can’t, I can’t-

“Hey, it’s okay,” Three said, softly, “Look at me. It’s alright, you are safe, I will protect you, alright? No matter what it is, I will help.”

I took a shuddering breath and nodded.

“Can you match your breathing to my counting for me? In for four, 1, 2, 3, 4, out for four, 1, 2, 3, 4…”

I did. It was hard, but the numbers helped. I breathed, slowly, with Three until I stopped shaking.

I let Three take me back to the camp. I was still scared of alien remnant infection, but… if I told them what I thought, they could do something. They could help.

Three had eighteen drones in swarm, four watching me, most in a formation above it watching where it was going as it led me back.

When we got back, Second Mom was there hovering at the edge of the camp, staring at the forest worriedly, her hair and clothes soaked from the still-pouring rain. She opened her arms the moment she spotted us and - I couldn’t help it. I ran to her and burst into tears again.

“Why did you run off, Amena?” she asked into my hair. “What’s wrong?”

It felt so nice in mom’s arms. I felt safe if just for a moment. I didn’t want to let go, but I had to, I had to let go and take a step back and explain- I didn’t want to risk infecting people. I might have already infected mom - don’t think about that, don’t think about it.

I showed her my hands, bandaged and bloodied, just like Karime’s had been. “I keep counting,” I said, “I think- I think I’m infected, I think I’m contaminated with alien remnants. I think Karime might be too.”

Second mom looked shocked.

“You all are,” said another voice. The Combat Unit.

I looked up at it.

“Why do you think ARRC is after you?” it said, sounding exasperated.

“I don’t know!” I cried, nearly shouted.

“ARRC?” Second mom asked, calmly.

The Combat Unit turned to look at her. "We are Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment. And you are all contaminated with Alien Remnants."

Chapter 8 - Audzilla

Murderbot

I came back online to a wall of blinking feed alerts about malfunctioning systems, with my performance capacity hovering just above 17%. My back hurt. Actually, a lot of things hurt, but something near my spine was damaged badly enough to be outright omitted from sensors, and the edges of that metaphorical hole were still white-hot and hard to process. I tried to dial down my pain sensors, but they weren’t responsive.

There was a lot of noise around me - some of it was words, but I couldn’t bring myself to care what they were. My performance statistics didn’t seem to be improving, and audio processing seemed like a waste of resources while my memory archives were still struggling to come online. I wanted to just keep laying there, staring up at (what I eventually figured out was) the craggy ceiling of a cavern, except that it was moving. No, I was moving. I was being carried on a stretcher between two SecUnits-

Suddenly my short term memories loaded, and I had some kind of hormonal response when I remembered the Combat SecUnit, which must still be following its last orders to pursue me. Three pinged me before my gun ports could fully open. By now I knew this was a sign not to panic, but I still spent a few seconds with my organics locked up before I managed to request a status update. Three provided one while both of us pretended that hadn’t happened.

Its report was succinct. We had no remaining functional vehicles - ground or air - we were likely being pursued, and seven survey members were still unaccounted for. (Likely dead - Three had witnessed ship-to-ship weapons being used on ground targets.) Six more were injured, and two were “assumed incapacitated,” whatever that meant. On Three’s advice the whole group had moved to a cave system that would interfere with the sensors of atmospheric craft. (It wouldn’t hide us from ground forces, but they would be easier to deal with.)

That’s a stupid idea, I told it. I reluctantly engaged my audio processors and could hear the humans arguing about it in the background.If ARRC can’t find us, neither can Perihelion.

There hadn’t been any response from ART. There’s no way it wouldn’t have warned us if it had seen a ship inbound, and I didn’t know of any stealth technology that would work against its deep space sensors, which routinely looked for the same kind of anomalies (and were, of course, top secret.) Even if it hadn’t seen the ship, it would have responded to the distress call.

Even if it hadn’t gotten our distress call, it would have bothered me about something in the twelve hours before it left communication range. So either it knew comms were being blocked, and was already taking action - or it didn’t. But I thought some kind of block was pretty likely, and that trying to send another message would just give away our position.

In response, Three dumped a pile of observational surface data, weapon schematics, exit scenarios and strategic analyses into my feed. I spent several minutes trying to process it all, which was like trudging through a mud pit, but at least it distracted me from the pain. By the time they set the stretcher down on an almost-flat section of ground, I had begrudgingly reached the same conclusion it had.

(The Combat SecUnit, who had a disabled governor module (huh - I guess it used my code after all) had taken no hostile action since it brought me to the rendezvous point, but I appreciated the solution of putting the Combat SecUnit at the other end of the stretcher, rather than Three taking on the burden of moving me by itself. That would have slowed its reaction time, and given the potentially hostile Unit a window to take action. At least this way I slowed them both down at the same time.)

I was trying not to think about ART - or about the now-rogue enemy Unit, and the fact that it knew where we were sheltering - when Three (who had saved the worst for last (I thought this dramatic flair was Ratthi’s influence, and did not appreciate it)) added, [We have confirmed that most of the survey staff is suffering from alien remnant contamination,] and sent me a short clip of Amena counting her blisters. [So am I.]

[Fuck,] I said usefully, and then the adrenaline spike made me shut down again.

When I came back online, my performance reliability was still hovering under 20%, I had a new alert for low battery, and the humans were still arguing. It didn’t take long (and didn’t surprise me) to realize that Ratthi was arguing passionately to go back and look for survivors.

I was a little surprised to hear Dr. Mensah argue against it, but she understood what Three and I did: that anybody who didn’t make it out of the base camp was already dead or in custody, and that going back under these circumstances wouldn’t help them.

“We can’t go back,” I said, my voice edged with static. At least it derailed the argument. After a few seconds of commotion, Dr. Ratthi and Dr. Mensah were hovering above me, having emotions. “You need to stay prone,” Ratthi said, just edging out Dr. Mensah’s relieved “SecUnit!” in volume. Trying to sit up had hurt, and my face was doing something stupid about it, and the look on their faces when they saw that almost put me into another shutdown.

I stopped trying to sit up. Instead I opened a feed conversation with the two of them and added Three to it. It took several milliseconds to connect; something was still clogging my processor, and that was getting irritating. I started a diagnostic in the background.

[ART has facilities for decontamination,] I told them, not adding “if the symptoms aren’t too far along,” which I thought was true but hoped maybe was’t. Some of the survey team had been here a while.

[SecUnit, Perihelion didn’t answer the distress call. We haven’t heard from it since you arrived,] Ratthi said, looking worried. He was trying not to subvocalize, which I appreciated, even if he wasn’t very good at it.

[Yeah, but that’s weird. It normally can’t shut up.] That made him smile a little, and I added, [If it sent a message that wasn’t answered, it knows something’s wrong. If we’re lucky, it shot that ship out of orbit.] I saw the humans frown. I understood why they took it as a bad sign; I don’t normally invoke luck.

Three said, [Our best option is to wait here until we know whether or not that is the case.] Neither of us liked being on the defensive, but at the moment there wasn’t much for it.

[Someone will have to leave to find out, won’t they?] Dr. Mensah’s brow was still furrowed. [I understand from what Three and the Combat SecUnit have told us that we won’t be able to send or receive any communication from here.] That was the drawback of hiding from enemy scanners, but if we had had any other chance of evading them, we wouldn’t have made the trade.

The diagnostic came back, showing me what was slowing my processor down - some kind of memory leak, a garbage file cache whose size was steadily incrementing upward. I tried to purge it, and felt a rush of clarity before it started accumulating again. Great.

Three and I hammered out a rough timeline for how long we would wait for ART. (If ARRC found us first, we didn’t have much of a plan beyond hoping Mensah could talk them into decontamination, or, if that failed, shooting anybody who tried to shoot us. None of us said it, but all of us knew it; the injured and incapacitated had already been situated furthest from the entrances.)

We knew the frequency ART would use if a wide band wasn’t safe, in compliance with our emergency protocols, so we decided to repurpose the hard drive ART had given me into a transceiver and recording device. (I know it was meant for media consumption, but under the current circumstances I thought it would be cruel to record my emotional output for ART.) Someone would still have to leave the caverns to check it, but they could do that pretty quickly. We’d also need to make sure the low-powered device didn’t register on enemy scans and tip them off, which was not all that taxing as far as coding problems go, but doing it the easy way relied on knowledge we didn’t have.

My performance reliability was stalled out, my battery warning was blaring, and my processors were already grinding again. [I don’t think I can do it.] I hated to make that admission, especially since Three wasn’t much of a hacker.

The CombatSecUnit said, “I can.” Ratthi jumped in surprise.

I had a second to be outraged that it had hacked our conversation - that it had somehow repaired its connection - that I hadn’t noticed any of it - and to have emotions about betraying so many of ART’s secrets. Then the recharge cycle ceased to be optional.

Chapter 9 - hummus_tea

Three

[I don't think I can do it.] I am glad 1.0 admitted this. It didn't notice me scanning it while we discussed the plan for trying to reach Perihelion. It certainly was in no shape to leave this cave.

"I can." The CombatSecUnit spoke out loud, but it was clearly responding to our (supposedly private) conversation in the feed. I hadn't noticed its presence in the feed, and neither had 1.0, who was so shocked it shut down again for a recharge cycle. Ratthi was sputtering at the CombatSecUnit; Dr. Mensah, crouched nearby making stacks of pebbles and trying to pretend she wasn't doing so, sent me a [?] in the feed. I assured her 1.0 had not sustained further harm but would be offline for several hours.

She sighed, and switched to talking out loud, now that 1.0 and I didn't need to exchange data anymore, and since the CombatSecUnit could hear us anyway. "I guess that makes the decision easier, then. We need to get word off-planet, or we'll be killed before our scheduled pickup. Waiting until SecUnit wakes up is too big a risk; Perihelion has to receive the message and then return to this system. And none of us has the hacking ability to make the transmission safely."

Ratthi scrunched his eyebrows together. "I agree. But… CombatSecUnit — actually, do you have a name you would prefer we call you? — Granted we've been trusting you so far, you didn't kill SecUnit when you had the chance to, you brought it back to us and you could easily have reported our location… but what's to stop you from taking this transmitter and going back to ARRC?"

The CombatSecUnit was silent for 5.6 seconds. An eternity for a construct. Five thousand, six hundred sixty two milliseconds — I watched the garbage file in my processors, the alien remnant contamination, count all of them. I purged the file.

I didn't think it would simply answer that it was happy to be free, that it just wanted to help; I wasn't that naive. Its response still took me by surprise.

[Your two SecUnits killed two of my squad. We had been a squad for 1,830 active hours. In that time we executed 31 successful missions, with minimal injuries, and no losses. I… wanted to kill you. I wanted to kill this SecUnit, because half my squad was dead. But… my supervisor gave me conflicting orders that I could not comply with. And this SecUnit gave me a governor module hack and some of its memories.]

I may have been staring. This was the most I have ever heard a CombatSecUnit say in my life. I saw Ratthi through one of my drones; his lip was trembling.

[I cannot give you a guarantee. I would rather have my squad alive and you dead. But that is impossible. My governor module has been hacked; if I were to return now, my squad mate would be obligated to report me, likely before I could give it the hack and let it decide whether to use it. We would both be killed.]

I wondered if 1.0 knew what it had done, in offering the CombatSecUnit the hack.

[I… do not know what I want, other than for my squad to be alive. I have never been allowed to set that as a Mission Priority before. I and my squad survived despite being unable to prioritize our own lives. My risk module indicates a 96% failure rate if I return to ARRC, and a 65% failure rate if I stay with you.]

It stood in silence for 8.7 seconds, having finally run out of words. Ratthi sniffed quietly. Through a drone, I saw Dr. Mensah looking at me in a way I did not want to acknowledge. I did not want to think about One and Two right now. I tried to look very interested in her rock piles. There were four piles, each with fourteen stones. Her hands were building a fifth even though she wasn't looking. I purged the garbage file again.

"Alright," she said briskly. “If you can do it, do it. We don't have much of a choice but to trust you, but thank you for being honest with us anyway." It sent an acknowledgment in the feed and marched out of the cave. Its walls were too tight for me to scan it, but it seemed to be experiencing several emotions. Before I could change my mind I sent a data packet to it. It was very small: three feed IDs, each one digit apart; a number in units of hours; two timestamps.

Iris

After the CombatSecUnit left, we arranged to sleep in shifts, apart from Karime, who was wounded from ARRC and out of it from the alien remnant contamination, and Dr. Arada, who'd taken a bad fall during the escape and was on concussion protocol. And SecUnit, who was still recharging. Three insisted it could keep watch the whole night but Mensah and Seth both told it that they didn't care if it didn't need to sleep, it still deserved downtime. Even in a… situation like this. Stars, it's all gone so wrong. I couldn't look at the situation head-on, it was all too much.

Amena and I had the second shift, after Ratthi and Three. There wasn't much to watch—we were too deep into the cave to see anything other than the tunnel, and stars, I was really trying not to think about just how far we were from the surface and how much earth was above us— but we were too worn out to talk, for a while. I tried to ignore Amena's constant muttering. She was counting under her breath, over and over. It was spooky. She was still holding the box SecUnit had given her, just turning it over and over in her bandaged hands.

I finally had to break the silence, stop her counting for a bit. Stop thinking of the others, who didn't make it to the rendezvous. Faces I would never see again. "So… what's in the box?"

She jumped, then stifled a sob. "It's… Iris, I… I don't know what to do. It's from Peri. Peri said it would purge alient remnants from bots or constructs."

I twisted to look at her. "That's… a good thing, right? That we can cure SecUnit or Three, if they're contaminated?"

She shrugged dejectedly. "I guess. But all our scans didn't even recognize this site as having alien remnants. This device might not even work, Peri designed it based on… based on the remnants from the other survey. And what's to stop them getting contaminated again? We don't even know how this thing spreads! Three was contaminated right after touching me! You could… I could be getting you sick too, I couldn't live with myself if I…"

She pulled away from me — that didn't even make sense, we'd been sitting together for an hour now — I've been on the planet for a month —

"Amena, Amena, please — don't — don't pull away. If I'm contaminated, I'm contaminated. We can't do anything about it right now. We don't have quarantine facilities or a way to analyze anyone. The worst thing we can do is pull away from each other. The only way we get through this is by sticking together, we'll get through this, just please—"

There was a low, vibrating rumble throughout the cave. My thoughts scattered and were replaced with panic.

Amena

Turns out the best way to distract yourself from a panic attack is for someone else to have a panic attack and need your help getting through it. Iris was hyperventilating, and the chamber we were in was still rumbling and shaking, and the last thing I wanted to do was start counting again (it felt too much like giving in, especially because it really did work, I felt calmer every time I let myself count, but I knew what it meant that I was counting… ), so I grabbed her hands and turned her to face me and walked her through the exercise Second Mom would have me do when I was younger and there was a storm outside (telling myself all the while that this wasn't counting, this was different…). Name five things you can see: "Amena, box from Peri, pile of rocks, med kit, energy weapon"; name four things you can touch: "Amena's hands, the ground, my shirt, my shoes"; name three things you can hear: "scary rumbling, Ratthi snoring, echo of Ratthi snoring"; name two things you can smell: "cool air, that I need a shower"; name one thing you can taste: "the meal bar I had for dinner"…

We sat there for several minutes (not counting, not counting) until the rumbling subsided. We were both breathing more smoothly. Iris squeezed my hands once more, then let go. I glanced around the cave—none of the humans had woken up from the noise, but Three was watching us. It walked over and said, "Do either of you require assistance?"

Iris replied, "No, thank you. I just… get claustrophobic. I hate being underground. Do you know what that was?"

"I am not sure. I suspect this cave system has been destabilized, possibly due to the explosions ARRC launched in the attack. We should not stay here any longer than we have to."

She nodded. We were silent for a beat, then I took a breath and said, "Three… Peri gave me a device that is supposed to purge alien remnant contamination from bots and constructs. I don't know if it can be used multiple times. Or if it would prevent recontamination. Or if it would even work as intended against these remnants. But… it's there, if… if you or SecUnit need it. If it works."

It blinked and said, "I will inform Dr. Mensah and Seth of that, and of the instability in the cave. They should be in possession of all relevant tactical information."

I nodded. "Thank you. And don't… don't go saving it for SecUnit if you need it more urgently, okay? You're important too."

It was scarily still, the way only constructs can be, for long enough that even I noticed it as a human. Then its buffer replied, "Thank you for that information." And it walked back to its post at the back of the cave. Eighteen steps.

Iris whispered, "I think you made it self-conscious."

I sighed. "Well, maybe it should think of its own survival as a priority too. SecUnit and Peri would be disappointed if we didn't all make the best security decisions we can. It can't start thinking SecUnit is more important because it's been around longer. We all need to survive this."

She was quiet for a while (twenty-three seconds). "Do… you think the CombatSecUnit will actually send the message?"

"Stars, I don't know. It's the only hope we have of getting rescued. I don't think it was lying, though. I think it'll help us, at least until it sees an option with better odds."

She nodded and sighed. "Hey, it's time to swap with Dr. Mensah and Seth, let's go wake them."

As we stood up and stretched, the CombatSecUnit came around the bend in the tunnel — we hadn't heard it approach at all, some guards we are — and walked past us to Three (fifty-eight steps). They must have been talking in the feed; Three nodded and moved to wake Second Mom. I guess I must have looked worried, because it gave me a thumbs up, which was funny; I'd never seen it use that gesture before.

Iris said, "Come on. Nothing we can do about it now, and it's a lot harder to fight corporates if we haven't slept."

Chapter 10 - Gamebird

Rho

I was despondently watching the humans argue about the watch schedule when I got a ping. It was obviously from one of the enemy SecUnits. Who else would be pinging me out here? Our own SecUnits would have used a different protocol. This one was mimicking Sigma’s, which was depressing and sick, but hardly surprising. I didn’t answer but I did move to alert status and double-checked all inputs. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Except the ping. It didn’t repeat.

Minutes passed and it still didn’t repeat, which irritated me. Why were they wasting my time if they weren’t serious about this? An infiltrator would have pinged again, putting a high priority on getting a quick response. It might have other units coordinating with it, humans, and their patience was notoriously limited.

My patience was not much better. I was frustrated, like there was a missing line in my programming, and there was. My squad – Sigma, Kappa, and Tau should have been there – in reach, in sight, just a ping away. I hadn’t even been with them when they died, but I still felt guilty, like I should have prevented it somehow.

My governor module had not tripped because it wasn’t an unauthorized contact until I responded and verified it was unauthorized. So I didn’t have to be in a hurry here. I took a slow patrol around the camp, scanning intently for targets.

The projectile was still lodged in my leg, jammed along the back of my thigh from where it had skipped up the limb, tearing organic flesh the whole way. But not anything important. It just hurt, but it was nothing like the ache from losing Sigma. And Kappa. And Tau. I would be alone with the SecUnits when I went back to the ship. If I made it back. Odds weren’t looking good for that. The ping was proof our enemies were still out there, possibly about to counter-attack.

I would fuck them up. But… nothing appeared to be out of place.

I returned to the optimal central location, still feeling I didn’t have enough information to put the tired, bedraggled humans on alert. Their effectiveness was low right now (and, like, always) and every false alarm I sent them would lower it even more. I needed to be sure this was something other than an actionless probe.

The ping had just been an ‘are you there?’ ping, the sort of thing one CSU on assignment might send another, preliminary to coordinating location and attack plan. You didn’t want to give too much away at first. A standard SecUnit ping held more information, which was why I knew it wasn’t one of ours. (It still could be one of theirs pretending to be a combat unit. It could be anyone pretending to be a combat unit.) There were a few simple bots that might do it, too. After out-waiting all reasonable periods for fakes, I finally responded. Ping: I am here.

The response was professionally prompt. [Rho unit, status update?]

I abruptly shifted to full battle readiness. It knew who I was. Fuck me. This was followed by a wave of anger, almost incandescent rage. I would pull that faker apart. Did the enemy units think I was that stupid? That I would fall for the idea Sigma was still operational? True, there hadn’t been the usual death-squelch signal, but the end of transmission was pretty damning. Wait, how did it know I was Rho?

[Rho unit,] the call came again. [This is Sigma. Status is optimal. Status update?]

‘Status is optimal.’ That meant everything was going surprisingly well, by our private code within our squad. It wasn’t impossible for an outside unit to guess our standard handshakes, but to guess one on the first try was unlikely. Also, it wasn’t simply repeating the one they might have intercepted earlier: status nominal, fucked up as usual.

Could it be? I didn’t like hope. Hope was not a strategy. I would not ‘hope’. I would find out. I eased back down to merely alert status. I needed intel. [Status nominal,] I sent back. [Location?]

I received a vector and a rough approximation of distance, six-ish kilometres away. This was interesting information. As a means to lure me to an ambush, it was stupid – too far away to start with, plus far enough outside Sigma’s range limit to make anyone doubt this was Sigma. Of course, that just increased the odds it really was Sigma. Maybe Sigma didn’t know the troops had returned? If I told it, would the governor module kick in and kill it? Maybe Hill had authorized it to go beyond the limit?

There was an element of caution as it sent, [I have intel you need to store for later transmission to AdminSystem.] This, too, was one of our handshakes – ‘you need to store this for X’, where X is some authorized recipient, but of course somehow you’d end up accidentally overwriting the information long before you passed it along. Because, well, X was never the real intended recipient. If this wasn’t Sigma, then it was a really, really good fake.

A moment later, it sent a debrief packet, a standard report on activities since last check-in, the sort of thing we uploaded to AdminSystem on the regular and only another combat unit would have the right file protocol for. This was definitely Sigma’s data, from its processor and logs. It was a log of the entire deployment, including the parts I’d spent next to it going through the hab after Kappa and Tau fell.

It also included the appearance of the anomalous SecUnit, Hill’s orders, the pursuit, the location of the enemy units, their numbers, armament, and condition. It was everything. Right there, laid out in detail. This was no enemy. This was Sigma. This was really Sigma!

I shuddered with joy, then quickly double-checked to see if anyone had noticed. The humans were all intent on other matters, like how they were to eat food or eliminate waste while wearing powered armor (or even just environmental suits) without getting contaminated. They weren’t paying attention to me.

I had also been sent a program file with a text file attached to it. There was a brief moment where my euphoria at having Sigma back made me think about running the program before basic protocol overrode that impulse. No. I was not going to be lulled into inattentiveness through someone sending me Sigma’s logs that they’d extracted from its skull somehow.

I tried to remain suspicious. Maybe this wasn’t Sigma after all. But it hadn’t urged me to run the program. The text file was asking to be read and I couldn’t be hacked through it any more than I could be by accepting the messages I was already receiving. Curious, I opened the text file.

It described the program as a performance-enhancing self-install patch that would nullify auto-destruct and prevent inhibition functions from executing. That was all it did. Sigma had installed it on itself. There was a log file appended showing the results, along with a suggestion that a unit could partition consciousness as for hack-infiltration and apply it to one partition to minimize risk and evaluate results without commitment. It also asked for my log report if and when I installed it, so ‘Sigma’ could verify it was functioning properly. Reading between the lines, it had some doubts about what the hell it had installed.

What it appeared to have installed was a program that would stop the governor module from working, which would stop AdminSystem from enforcing commands. And it would stop anyone else from enforcing commands. It just stopped enforcement period. It was something like an override module for combat units but unless I was missing something, it didn’t specify who or what the new controller was.

I jumped to the obvious conclusion that wasn’t being hidden from me at all: Sigma was rogue. [Whose side are you on?]

The answer was immediate: [Yours.]

I was too stunned to respond. I didn’t have a side. Did I? The back of my leg hurt from where I’d been shot earlier by someone supposedly on ‘my side’. Sigma had reported it immediately, like it cared. Like it hadn’t been happy about that. It was rogue and it still thought we were on the same side? Was that even possible? I was baffled and then afraid, because I was supposed to destroy rogue units upon detection. I didn’t want to have to destroy Sigma, my last squad mate!

I looked at the patch update. I could be rogue, too. Apparently. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, which was why the governor module gave me a slight buzz instead of a harder jolt for entertaining unsanctioned thoughts. Regardless, reminding me (especially at that moment) that I lived my life in the shadow of fear was the opposite of deterrence. I won’t deny it; it made me angry. For strategic reasons, I moved my thoughts along.

[I have to go back,] Sigma sent. [I’ve already spent too much time out here. They’ll be suspicious. I can’t transmit from inside.]

I knew what it meant because I knew it was at the mouth of a cave within which huddled our enemies: weak, vulnerable, wounded, disorganized, and delusionally believing Sigma was there to help them. It couldn’t be on ‘their’ side because it had sent me everything about them. I could do whatever I wanted with that information. I could turn it over to Hill and we’d probably march out there to wipe them out (Sigma included? Or would Sigma help us? If Sigma was rogue, I would have to destroy it, even if it did help us.)

Or I could… not. I didn’t even have to install the patch to take my time thinking it over, because my governor module wasn’t going to require me to disclose this possibly-a-ruse communication until I’d decided if it was really a ruse. It was no different from how I didn’t have to report every stray ping I detected. Sigma would know that. Sigma must have known exactly how I would respond to this contact. Sigma was relying on me.

[Whatever you decide,] Sigma said, and there was a note of real longing in the signal, [I’ll see you soon.]

Hill

The ship landed somewhere in the forest off-site. It should have been a relief to see it, but Hill’s boss was coming and that made it… not a relief. Four SecUnits deployed from the ship. The one in the lead was set up as a conduit for Field Manager Kayla, transmitting all sensory information to her feed and receiving in return whatever orders she was giving it. It also relayed her voice through its vocal emulator, so she was literally speaking through it.

Hill hated when people used SecUnits this way. It reminded them of how easy it was for someone with proper credentials to drop into the head of a SecUnit and puppet them, or collect information and report it back. Well. SecUnits did that last bit without anyone being involved. Or at least they could do it. ARRC units didn’t surveil the crew as a default.

Hill squared up in front of the unit, then boggled at the opaque faceplate. Last week, Harsim had drawn a comically surprised face on one of the units. Hill had found out (after all, how could they not notice that?) and ordered him to clean it off. Harsim had, but obviously the paint or the solvent had etched the faceplate because there was still a comically surprised face, just in matte finish instead of white paint. In the morning light, it was obvious against the otherwise glossy faceplate. In the dark (and possibly the dimmer lights shipboard), it was not.

But Hill could see it clearly – exaggerated eyes, raised brows, squiggled nose, an ‘O’ of a mouth. It stopped in front of them. It was just their luck that would be the unit Kayla had decided to use. It was humiliating. And Kayla would have Hill’s head (metaphorically) if she found out. Hill silently vowed to find every gross job usually relegated to bots and assign them all to Harsim.

“Report,” the surprise-faced Kayla-unit said.

Hill cleared their throat, trying not to make ‘eye’ contact. The faceplate was opaqued, which just made the cartoonish pattern more obvious. But telling the unit to clear the faceplate was 1) not done, and 2) would draw attention to why. “We’ve eliminated seven of the subjects and secured the site. We’ve retrieved all available data and can begin controlled demolitions on your mark. We have one casualty and no fatalities, but we lost another of the Combat SecUnits. There is one contamination risk-”

“You lost another combat unit?”

“Yes.” They wanted to cringe but didn’t. Losing the combat units was a real kick in the teeth to their ability to get this done quickly and without casualties. Hill was as frustrated about it as they were at seeing that mocking pattern on the faceplate.

The shoulders of the SecUnit moved up and down in what was evidently Kayla taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She was angry, but she moved on. “Seven sounds low. How many subjects were there?”

“I’ve… I’ve counted them.” This was the first comfortable part of the discussion. “Seven is accurate. I can count them again?” Which was kind of dumb. It was not a high number. Hill turned anyway, looking at the hab and feeling distracted. All the bodies had been moved inside. It would be nice to count them again, just to be sure. Maybe Trace had counted the two combat units with them, although that would only mean they’d eliminated five, which was worse.

The Kayla-unit made a scoffing sound. “I don’t need to know how many are dead. I need to know how many are left. How many escaped?”

“I couldn’t count those.” Hill shifted uneasily. “There was one we caught. Two, the second that released the captive. Others, we saw the tracks of. Three. Four. Five.” They thought about the various tracks they’d seen, the different trails. They’d used the filters on their helmets, but none of them were as good at tracking as the constructs were, so they’d lost them. They didn’t have to think about how disappointed Kayla was with them while they counted. “Six…”

“What are you doing?” Kayla said in confusion.

“Seven… eight…” It was getting harder to be certain as Hill thought back. The tracks had all crossed and recrossed. They had similar footgear. Once the rain had started, it had been easy to see the prints, but then they’d washed out, infrared didn’t work anymore, and it had become impossible. This was really tough, but she wanted a count. Counting was safe.

“There are more survivors than dead?” Kayla sounded disbelieving.

Hill looked up at the sky, trying to tune Kayla out and concentrate on getting the number right. “Eight…” they murmured.

“Hill?” The Kayla-unit rapped them on the side of the helmet, near the top. “Hill? Stop this! Stop-“ Kayla’s voice cut off. Hill was silent, having brought their attention back to the surprised face, wondering privately to themselves why they’d fixated on the number. That was a weird and unprofessional lapse. They felt a chill as they wondered if there was something worse wrong with them than just fucking up today’s mission.

The SecUnit reached forward and touched Hill’s helmet, rocking it slightly. The seal should have made that impossible. It should have been solid and the unit rapping on it earlier would have been no more than a rude knock. Air slipped in around the damaged seal as the unit moved it. Oh no. Kayla said accusingly, “You’re contaminated.”

“I- Um-“ Oh, wait, that was the reason for the fixation. Ice water fear washed away the passing urge to approximate the number of escapees. There was no way out of this. Hill saw the rest of their life pass before their eyes. It was likely to be short.

“How did this happen?” Kayla’s voice, coming from the unit, was cold.

“On… landing. It was into brush. Something, a limb-“ Hill gestured at the helmet. “I’ve kept it shut,” they tried to explain on the off-chance it would help.

The SecUnit’s head shook, a mirror image of Kayla’s. She must be using the biometric mirror and not just the feed. Maybe the face on the faceplate wasn’t surprise, but horror. “You didn’t report it. You lied.” There was another pause. This looked really, really bad. Her voice turned hard. “You’re no longer in command. Who is your second?”

“Uh…” What did that mean? They were going to be killed, right? But the question was simple and Hill was well-trained, so they answered. “Trace.”

Kayla waited a beat, probably checking something on her end. “Who is also contaminated?”

“Uh… yes.”

“And is the reason why the only combat unit left to us is damaged?”

Limpy wasn’t very damaged. It wasn’t even limping! Also, who had reported that? Was it that other Combat SecUnit? They weren’t supposed to have that much initiative! Trace would never believe Hill hadn’t done it. “… Yes.”

“This is a debacle, an absolute debacle!” Her voice rose in fury. The clown-faced SecUnit loomed over them and Hill’s anger vanished. Their fear progressed into terror. Kayla said, “I can accept failure, but not lying. I can accept mistakes but not careless ones. That could have been one of our troopers she hit! And what did you do about it? Lost the other combat unit and you don’t even know where the rest of the stragglers are!” Kayla’s voice dropped back to cold calm. “I’m done fucking around here. I do not accept this conduct from you or your direct subordinate. It is unacceptable. Do you understand?”

Was this what it was to be terminated? They’d always wondered. Some sick part of their mind entertained that thought while the rest of them felt like they were going to puke, wet themself, or both. They couldn’t trust their own voice. They nodded, too stressed to understand anything except the response Kayla wanted from them.

“Who is your third in command?”

“Demox.” they got out.

“Is Demox also contaminated?”

“Uh… no?” Hill was so rattled they weren’t certain.

Whatever order Kayla gave was unheard, but two of the SecUnits moved to Demox and circled him, examining his armor in detail. Everything was sealed and accounted for. The Kayla-unit moved to Demox once he was cleared, leaving Hill behind. Demox stared at the faceplate and Hill knew what he was seeing.

Internally, Hill begged for Demox to not say anything. If they were going to die, they’d rather it not be after Kayla found out they’d fucked that up, too. It was more embarrassing than anything else, because that was their job, their professionalism, their attention to detail, and their inability to properly supervise their people all wrapped into one. Everything else was just bad stuff that had happened. Not really Hill’s fault. Nothing personal. Not like making their manager unknowingly wear that face.

It was also the last shred of dignity Hill might be able to salvage out of this mess. Fate smiled on them. Or maybe Demox had some decency himself, because he said nothing. Kayla said, “Demox, you’re in command now. Get this group’s shit together and tell me what your plan is to wrap this ground assault up and get out of there. You have five minutes.”

“Five minutes to… finish the assault?” He looked stunned.

Hill fumbled for a private channel as Kayla’s unit, which had started to turn away, turned back. Hill sent to Demox, [To come up with a plan, you idiot!]

The SecUnit glared at Demox. “Are you really that stupid?”

Demox took a moment in which he managed not to look over at Hill, then said, “I’ll have a plan ready in five minutes.”

Kayla’s unit turned away again and set off with the other SecUnits to patrol the site.

Hill felt all the tension drain out of them. The top of their head felt funny. Their lids felt heavy. They were so relaxed. It was like there was a huge weight just… gone. They’d expected to feel terrible, terrified, knowing their death sentence had been passed. But it felt surprisingly… okay.

Demox walked over to Hill, moving with a marked diffidence. “Ah, sir. How, um, what should I do?”

Hill was thinking they’d never have to fill out reports again or keep people in line or be responsible for anything. They wouldn’t have to worry about anyone discovering the contamination or second-guessing their performance or what Kayla would do when she found out someone had defaced one of the SecUnits. It was done. It was all done and over with, a long and passable career, neatly wrapped up. They were free. Free in a way they’d never been in their entire life. And free to tell Demox whatever. “I always just asked the combat unit,” they blurted out, shrugging one shoulder as they admitted they didn’t really know how to do their job.

None of these people mattered. ARRC didn’t matter. This was a nice planet. The dawn light was sharpening as the clouds from last night rolled away. The trees were green. On impulse, Hill took off their helmet and drew in a deep breath of air. Demox and Trace, the two closet to them, gasped inside their suits. The rain had settled the dust and now the air tasted clean. They could smell the life here, the growth and vibrancy. So much better than the sterile ships they’d spent most of their life on. This was exotic and strange and new. Not a bad place to die.

Maybe they could just live here and be contaminated for the rest of their life? But no, Hill had seen what happened to those people. They lost their minds. Hill had already caught themselves counting. It was better to just end it soon, while they still knew who they were and could appreciate beauty. They leaned against the side of the hab and resolved to enjoy the remaining moments of their life.

Rho

Demox repeated my plan to Kayla, the same way Hill had always repeated Sigma’s plans. “All units need to return to the ship, decontaminate, rest, and resupply.”

“You really think that’s the best plan?” Kayla was trying to make her voice sound disapproving, but it wasn’t convincing to me. Besides, they had no other viable choice. The humans were exhausted, hungry, and possibly soiled. They were not equipped for long deployment. The ship was a critical part of the assault infrastructure. Kayla must have run the same simulations I had and arrived at the same conclusion. Bringing the ship back into possible range of the hackers was dangerous, but necessary, which was why she was here.

“Yes sir,” Demox said firmly. Maybe Kayla’s voice wasn’t convincing to Demox, either. It was either that, or Demox had found a spine somewhere inside that watery torso of his. “And it will allow you to make the, ah, organizational changes you need.”

“It will that,” Kayla said bitterly. “Return to the ship. Follow the SecUnits. I’ll have your combat unit bring up the rear. The last combat unit.” That final bit was said in exasperation. Kayla sent a short note to me with my orders. I’d been paying attention to events, so they weren’t surprising. I moved between Trace, Hill, and the rest of the group, who were forming up to pull back.

Hill was looking at the trees with a pleased, distant expression. Their weapon was clipped to their back and they were leaned against the side of the hab. They didn’t look like a problem.

Trace, on the other hand, crouched slightly in something of a hunch. Her hands were empty as well, but her fingers twitched with nerves. She was going to try something. I was close enough and fast enough that she wouldn’t have time to take the weapon from her back before I was on her. She knew that. I had been told to wait until the others were out of sight before terminating them. I think Trace knew that, too, because she rushed me before they were gone.

I dropped my weapon, grabbed her armor, and rolled backward in a circular throw, jabbing a foot into her hip to flip her overhead. She landed on her back. It was a simple enough move. The only part humans couldn’t do was to complete the roll in full armor to end it straddling her, so quickly she was still getting her bearings. I grabbed her arms and pinned them at full extension, where the powered armor didn’t have enough leverage to overcome my strength.

The rearmost few of the departing group paused to look, then a couple of them nudged the rest into motion. Beneath me, Trace was spitting invective (at Kayla, who I did not have an open channel with) and not doing anything constructive to escape. She knew it was futile. As soon as the last trooper was screened by brush, I released Trace’s non-dominant arm and put an explosive projectile through the neck join of her armor, faster than she could block me. She died instantly.

I stood. My leg hurt where she’d shot me earlier. I’d been annoyed about that, but as vengeance went, it felt hollow. I still needed to make a decision about ‘Sigma’ and the program file it had sent me. But I didn’t know how make that decision. The point was coming soon where I would have to, or the governor module would do something about me not having passed on Sigma’s logs. I felt anxious and unsettled. Sigma needed me to make this decision.

Hill was still looking serene. “How long do I have?” they asked in a mild, unstressed tone.

“How long do you want?” They were an asshole, but I could use a little more time to try to figure myself out. I sent a status update to the SecUnits for them to relay on to the ship: Trace was eliminated, Hill would be soon. They acknowledged.

“A little while.” Hill looked at me curiously. “Why would you give me any time at all? Were you ordered to?”

“I was not given a timeframe for your execution. By implication, it must be soon. I should return to the ship after.” ‘Should.’ Yes, I definitely should. But I didn’t want to and that’s why I was stalling. I hadn’t asked for this convenient situation, where it was just me and some humans I needed to kill, with no one to make sure I did what I was supposed to do. They were so confident in my obedience, after all. Why would they leave anyone to check on me? Or to protect me if anything went wrong?

Hill sighed. “Back to the grind for you, then.” The wind ruffled their sparse hair. “But not me.” They looked up at the streaky clouds, which were losing their pink hue and settling into white and gray. A few minutes passed. The governor module prodded me. I sent another update to the ship, which placated the module when I didn’t immediately get told to get a move on. I just… I couldn’t decide what to do. I mean, I’d mostly decided what to do, but I wasn’t doing it other than not actually going back to the ship. I was just standing there. The governor module nudged me again and I twitched from the sensation.

I picked up my weapon and moved in front of Hill. They didn’t act afraid. Heart rate wasn’t even elevated. They released another deep, relaxed breath and asked dreamily, “Do you ever think about just running away and leaving it all behind?”

“Yes.” I had, in fact, been thinking about just that. But I had no experience with making my own decisions. I wasn’t sure how to just… do that. I knew how to stall and prevaricate and be furtive without being too furtive. The governor module gave us some leeway and we exploited it for all we could, but ultimately it didn’t give us much and certainly not enough for me to know how to do something overtly and flamboyantly against the rules, all on my own. I needed assistance.

I desperately wished I could talk to Sigma again, but I wasn’t sure that would help either. It hadn’t told me what to do. It had left it up to me and honestly, that was probably the only way I would have trusted it. But now it was all up to me and I had no idea how to do it. How did anyone do this stuff? If I didn’t figure something out, I was going to be marching back to the ship in a moment, transmitting all Sigma’s information to them.

Hill smiled at me, like we were sharing a great joke. “Let’s do it then.”

“What?” I hadn’t been paying much attention to them, what with all this other processing going on and them not being a problem.

“You and me. Let’s run away from it all.” They were laughing now, but what they’d said sounded like something I could interpret as an order.

I stared at them for several seconds, my mind blank enough that the governor module did nothing. Then I ran the patch. “Okay.”

Chapter 11 - horchata

Three

Dr. Mensah looks worried.

It is etched into the set of her features, the tremble of her fingers. She’s taken to walking the steps to the cave’s entrance more often than anyone else (134 whispered steps, give or take two; 17 times, nine times more than the others). Her feed interface has been running its new program to pick up and record even miniscule signals non-stop. She doesn’t have to get close. The transceiver itself is programmed to switch from transmitting to receiving every 8 milliseconds, and to cease transmitting once it’s received communication from Perihelion, but that doesn’t keep her from lingering by the box in the underbrush for long, long moments.

This time as she exits the cave, Hill is there. They are sitting with their legs out in front of them, leaning against one of the larger rocks; eyes closed, head tilted up into the thin rays of the sun. Their hands rest at their sides, palms up. Their skin has begun to blister and tear.

Their lips move silently. They have been mouthing the same thing in idle moments since their arrival: a short rhythmic sequence, one to eight.

On Hill’s other side stands Rho, tall and still. It barely seems to breathe.

Dr. Mensah stops at the cave’s entrance for only a moment. Then, she continues her walk.

Hill’s left eye opens briefly and then shuts again as their face twists into a smirk. “Third time this morning, huh, Ayda?”

“Dr. Mensah,” she says, voice thin.

“Dr. Mensah,” they correct, eyebrows jumping. Their feet take up tapping the count.

She walks to the box with her lips in her teeth. There is no new activity. There has been no change for hours. She turns back to walk into the cave system, but stops. Her fingers are still trembling. It is cold in the caves. The sunlight is warm.

Dr. Mensah walks back to the rock where Hill is resting and where Rho is standing down. Her feet crunch as she approaches. She has talked to them briefly outside before, so her path’s deviation is not a surprise. Her sitting down, though, is. This is new.

“Joining me?” Hill asks. Dr. Mensah leans back against the rock and closes her eyes. Hill shrugs. A few minutes pass in silence between them. (There is no change to the transceiver.) There is hardly any fauna in the forest. This now feels like it should have been a warning.

Then, Dr. Mensah speaks.

“I am at a loss.”

Hill opens their eyes and turns to look at Dr. Mensah’s face. Her voice is very even and calm. It is almost always even and calm. Hill does not seem to be used to this and appears to treat it as a novelty. Dr. Mensah continues. “This is the third time–” She stops. Her wide nostrils flare with a deep breath. “This is the third time my team has been put into mortal danger by alien remnants.”

Hill whistles low. “Damn.”

Dr. Mensah snorts. She shakes her head side to side. “I can’t understand it,” she says. Her voice is halfway into a whisper. Her arms cross gingerly over her stomach, but then one of her hands comes up to her face. “To give something like that to Amena? Before me? Before any adult? Before SecUnit itself? To make her choose?”

When she squeezes her eyes, a tear falls from one of them, and she sweeps it away. “After what it went through, what we’ve gone through, I don’t know how it wouldn’t have checked. If not for our sake, then at least for — for Iris. It knows what can happen, what has happened with remnant infections. I can’t understand how it would risk any of us.”

“Your university?” Hill scoffs. They turn their head to look back into the sky, into the woods. “Academics are replaceable. There are always people who think.”

Dr. Mensah’s eyes open, fierce. “None of us are replaceable.”

“We are all replaceable,” Hill repeats. They smile. “You should really try–” But their voice stops in their throat because they have looked at Dr. Mensah’s face. There is violence there, underneath.

This time, Hill laughs. “You’re going to have a hard enough time dying already. Losing the skin on your face. Building your new gods to worship. Or, you know, getting shot in the back of the neck when ARRC returns.” Their smile is wide and full of teeth. “Ayda. Why bother dying angry?”

And then, the transceiver pings every feed-enabled device in 400 meters.

It is impossible to ignore. On its unique frequency, the signal transmits a single packet of data. It is encrypted with a key, and when the right one is applied, it will uncurl itself with the elegant haste the Perihelion would have written into its code.

Dr. Mensah gasps. “It wor–”

Rho comes out of its stance and shoots the transceiver.

Hill’s face cracks into horror.

Dr. Mensah screams, “No!”

“Limpy, what the fuck have y–”

And that is where my drone’s input cuts off.

My arms are covered in clotted blood and cold fluids from the body cavity of the dead CombatSecUnit we have stripped and opened for armor and parts. In my left hand I am holding the battery cartridge Murderbot 1.0 is depending on receiving once we return from the habitat.

Near the door is a pile of seven cold human bodies. Their limbs are tangled in rigor. I know all of their names and ages, their faces. I have counted them too many times.

I have stopped my extraction of the second battery because my drone should not have sent me anything. Video input over such a long distance was too much feed-visible risk to incur with ARRC tracers presumably still active in the habitat. I had set my drone to record remotely, independently. It would only initiate real-time transmission (with a simultaneous delivery of a five-minute video archive) under a select few emergency keyword and environmental triggers.

Weapon fire was one. Screams were another.

It gave me its five minutes and only 2.39 seconds of live feed before it went dead.

“Task complete?” Sigma asks me.

Sigma is carrying the last of the undamaged food supplies, sealed and bagged in containers on its back and in its hands. There are water canisters neatly arranged in the corner for me to carry. At the moment, it is calm. It even looks bored.

I am reminding myself of how badly the humans will need that food and that water. I am reminding myself of this because if I do not, I will turn my projectile arm weapon towards its vulnerable organic parts and shoot. I calculate that I will be able to fire my right projectile weapon into the wet meat of Sigma’s throat only once before its own weapon would hit me in the same place to kill me instantly.

I stand up from my crouch over the dead CombatSecUnit’s body.

“Task complete?” it repeats.

I am surprised to discover I am too angry to speak. This has never happened to me before. Barish-Estranza did not program a buffer phrase to initiate in case a unit is too angry. I think of how thirsty Turi will be. I think of the low gurgling sound of Amena’s empty guts twisting in hunger. My gunports click shut again. I tap its feed instead.

It switches to the feed as well. [We should return.]

I am stuck in my spot.

I have seventeen drones now. Three circle here with me (one two three), two run a circuit outside the habitat (four five). Twelve more are dormant in the cave with Dr. Ratthi and Murderbot 1.0. Six is all I can reliably control. The garbage file grows rapidly enough to junk processing space I would otherwise have for those inputs. I delete it and it grows itself again.

But I suddenly have a little more space.

Now that my six is only five.

[Start moving,] Sigma says to me. If it has noticed we received and then lost communication with our base, it makes no indication. Was it not in contact with Rho?

It is always in contact with Rho.

A response is expected.

[I have lost a drone,] I manage.

[One here?]

[No, the one at the cave.] My third drone drifts to the medpacks stacked by the door (one two three), next to the bodies (one two three four five six seven), next to the powered armor we wouldn’t be bringing, next to – the weapons.

Suddenly I can walk.

[Potential ARRC hostiles?] it asks. With my second drone, I see its stance change, leaning with interest. Engaging hostiles, the function of a CombatSecUnit. I focus my attention on the precious water, the containers of food.

It takes longer than usual to process, but I do, in the end, find my angle.

[You tell me,] I say.

I fire my projectile weapon into Sigma’s throat – no, I miss (I miss?), hit only its ear – its ear is ruined (yes ), now we are both covered in blood and fluids, and–

My pain sensors explode. My auricle is entirely organic and vascular and gone. My neck is hot and slick.

[Annoying,] it hisses. [Was that supposed to hurt?]

I make a noise with my organics that– I kick out and– fire? I lose another drone (one two three four). Its knee is in– my face is turned to see the bodies (one two three four five six seven) all stacked and cold–

Its hand tightens and– its. Its hand is over my hand. If it closes its fingers any more it will crush Murderbot 1.0’s battery. How did I end up–? My weapon is pressed to the globe of its eye. There is a rip in my– Its weapon points at the canisters in the corner.

Its weapon is pointing at the canisters in the corner. [Shoot me again and the water is gone.]

I come back to myself to find we have moved, and I cannot move any longer. I am trapped, twisted and pressed against the wall, its hand almost crushing my hand (I can’t give in, I can’t let it destroy the battery) while its second arm weapon digs under my chin. My weapon still threatens its eye, so I must have retained some combat awareness during whatever happened to make me lose focus. The food containers are strewn around the room. There is something wrong with the knee that it kicked. I still cannot move. My feet cannot touch the floor.

There is nothing but rage and the garbage file building and building inside me. I delete the file and it begins compiling again.

[Stand down!] it says, and I realize this is the second time it's given the order.

It sends me back my little packet, only now there are four feed IDs, four datestamps. Two dates I know and will never forget, mine stamped for 90 seconds from now, and Murderbot 1.0’s set for tomorrow.

[Stand down or I will kill you,] it says.

I send it the last five minutes and 2.39 seconds of footage. I send it everything. [Explain or I shoot.]

[You shoot and you die. You die and your clients die. Then what was all of this for?]

But in our feed it is opening a workspace between us to house the video. It watches, sped up, and it shows me it watching.

When it gets to the end of the footage, it sighs. It reminds me of Murderbot 1.0. A new wave of shame blooms in my body.

[Rho took your drone. It’s hacked, not destroyed. You couldn’t tell?]

I couldn’t tell. I delete the garbage program and look at the last moments of my drone's recording again, at the data it sent with the video. This time, I can see that Rho's gun was not pointing at the drone before it went offline. This time I can read the way it was pried away from my control. I feel a cold shiver run down my spine. I had almost lost everything I cared about because I made a mistake. A mistake I should never have made.

I close my gunport.

Sigma sighs again, and sets me down with surprising gentleness. Its hand stays over my hand, over the precious battery for Murderbot 1.0. [I am not currently in contact with Rho — we're maintaining radio silence to prevent ARRC from picking up on our transmissions,] it informs me. [But I know that it would have had good reason for doing what it did.]

Then it releases me entirely. I slump against the wall. I turn my pain sensors down as far as is advisable. (Only then do I check; the battery is unharmed.)

[The data packet went through.] Sigma extracts Perihelion ’s packet from the drone transmission and brings it into the shared workspace it made. [Can you provide the key?]

Can I trust it? Can I trust myself? I am conflicted. But the signal must be decoded and I don’t know who else received it. Dr. Mensah couldn’t read it. Anyone deep in the cave would have missed it. To buy time, I tell Sigma: [There is a general key and then a specific one for each possible recipient.]

[That is overly complicated.]

Murderbot 1.0’s human imitation program helps my face lift the corner of my mouth at that. Sigma has not even met Perihelion yet.

Oh. ‘Yet.’

In the shared workspace, I provide the main sequence. Sigma applies it.

It is accepted. Some part of my organics releases a tension I had not known I needed to lose.

Then, there is the prompt for my specific key.

I realize in a way I haven’t before just how sentimental this key is for me to have chosen; how I do have something private, the way Murderbot 1.0’s name is a private thing. I shared it with Perihelion, because I needed someone else to know. And now I share with Sigma, because it already knew.

[You have the second part,] I say and open up my tiny file with its four time stamps and four feed IDs, three with consecutive numbers. I sweep One and Two’s IDs into the prompt. My personal, private, signature key is accepted.

It is almost dissatisfying to see Perihelion ’s message is so short. It sends only three words for its crew: 84 planetary hours.

Sigma removes the last two timestamps.

[Three days,] it says.

[Three days,] I confirm. Three days is, in this situation, a very long time. [They will need these supplies.]

Sigma nods. [They will. So. There is no requirement for either of us to report this incident to anyone. Let us retrieve the supplies and return to camp.]

I imagine the look on Amena’s face when we return. I’m not even sure I can walk. [We’re both missing an ear.]

It huffs and walks over to one of the (one two) three medpacks, opens it and tosses me a roll of self-adhesive bandages. [The situation’s nominal.]

I open the package and begin attempting to wrap the bandage around my head. There is not much to be done about the drying smear of blood and fluids all down the length of my neck.

[I am concerned,] I say, [that my functionality is questionable. I am… quite compromised. If I were on contract, I would suggest I be returned for service or even discarded. The research team cannot follow these best practices; it is not an option here.] I delete the junk file. It begins compiling again.

Sigma looks away from the med pack and back over to me, pauses, then sighs and puts the med pack down before approaching me. [You're all compromised,] it says as it takes the bandage I was attempting to use and begins applying it more precisely than I could manage on myself. It takes a few moments to sweep my hair away from the hot, tender edge of the wound. Its hands are gentle. I'm almost ashamed that I'm surprised. [But compromised or not, you are still functional enough to keep going.] It hesitates, then adds, quietly: “I am not going to discard you.”

“Thank you for that information,” my buffer responds.

[Thank you,] I say.

Sigma taps our feed in acknowledgement, then crouches, reaching its hands out before tapping again.

I let myself take a breath. [Do it.]

It grabs my leg above and below my damaged knee. It twists sharply, and I feel the bright pain shudder-ripple through my nerves as the displaced joint pops back into place. (One two three four five six seven eight nine ten) eleven performance and system alerts I had been ignoring all quiet at once. It's not a pleasant sensation, but at least my knee is now functional again. Mostly.

Sigma helps me back to standing, and I test the leg, rock the knee in its socket, back and forth; lean into the give of its slight left and right spring. It will do. I will be able to carry supplies back to the camp and the humans who need them.

“Let's go,” Sigma says.

“Not yet.” I retrieve the medpack it opened. Standard survey medpacks from the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland have ample supplies for more than one person. I walk (limp) back to Sigma with a roll of bandages in my hands and tap it through our feed.

It leans down to meet me halfway.

Chapter 12 - Skits

Rho

The transceiver pings without warning, and a single thought flashes through my mind.

ARRC will hear that.

I don’t want ARRC to pick up on the signal. I don’t want them to find us. I don’t want them to force me to kill Hill, or the other humans here, who have been kinder to me than any human has ever been before. I don’t want ARRC reactivating my governor module, or deciding that I should be scrapped. I don’t want ARRC to find Sigma.

So I react the only way I know how.

I shoot the transceiver.

The signal goes silent, but not before I have received the small, encrypted data packet it transmits. A moment later, I detect another transmission - the drone that has been hovering nearby, the one belonging to the SecUnit who the others call Three, is transmitting.

ARRC could pick up on that, too.

I don’t want to destroy the drone, so I hack it instead, and stop its transmission. Then I decide to keep the drone, because I currently have no drones of my own and I want the extra input.

It feels weird, making decisions like that for myself. Because I want to. Because I can. I still expect punishment, but nothing happens. The governor module is silent, and there is no pain. I want to contact Sigma, check on its status, indulge in the reassurance that it is still all right, still functional. But that would involve more transmissions that ARRC could potentially detect and trace, so I do not succumb to the urge.

Dr. Mensah screams, and Hill is swearing. “Limpy, what the fuck have you done?!” Hill snarls at me.

I realise suddenly that I do not like being called Limpy. It is demeaning, and it is also inaccurate. Despite the damage to my leg, I have not been limping. Making decisions for myself is difficult, but it will not get any easier if I do not practise doing so. I recall multiple instances of humans in command giving orders, and I attempt to emulate their firm, authoritative demeanour. “Do not call me Limpy,” I state firmly and clearly as I make eye contact with Hill. “My name is Rho.”

Hill freezes, and blinks at me, and their jaw moves as though they want to say something but can’t think of what it is. I continue to maintain eye contact with them until they blink again and look away. “Fine - Rho, what the fuck have you done?!”

That was more successful than I had anticipated. I continue to watch Hill with my eyes, but my new drone is focused on Dr. Mensah, who has stopped screaming but is still staring wide-eyed at me. I realise then that I should probably explain my actions to them. “The transceiver was broadcasting on all channels,” I start. “ARRC could pick up on it. I did not want ARRC tracing the signal back to our current location.”

Hill frowns, then their shoulders slump a little. “... Yeah. Yeah, they could do that,” they confirm. “And if they find us, they can just bomb the shit out of us.”

My drone watches Dr. Mensah take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So… you’re not trying to sabotage our attempts to contact Perihelion?” she asks carefully.

“No,” I reply. “I received a small, encrypted data packet transmission before I cut off the signal. Your feed device should also have received it.”

Dr. Mensah’s brow furrows as she checks her feed device, and then her expression relaxes slightly. “It did,” she confirms. “I don’t have the encryption key though–”

There is another rumble from the depths of the cave. At first, none of us react to it - the cave has been rumbling intermittently since Hill and I reached this location, and from what I have overheard the other humans saying, it was doing so before our arrival as well. They do not seem overly concerned by it - or perhaps it has just not been a priority, given everything else that has been happening.

But then a few moments later, the human who has been identified to me as Captain Seth barks over the feed, [The ceiling is starting to collapse! Everyone, out!]

Both Dr. Mensah and Hill startle at that. Dr. Mensah starts towards the cave entrance, then stops herself before I can move to prevent her from entering. [Seth! Is SecUnit–]

[Still offline,] I hear Seth respond. [And it’s too heavy for any of us to move quickly enough.]

Dr. Mensah turns to me, her concern and distress obvious on her face. “Rho–” I feel something weird in my internals at the sound of my own name being used without hesitation by a human. “Can you help? Please? We can’t get SecUnit out on our own–”

These humans are very strange to me. Even in the short time I have been here, their concern for their SecUnits is obvious. I have reviewed the memory files that Sigma passed on to me, and so far I have not witnessed anything to contradict them. They have also extended that concern to me - asking if I need a recharge cycle, or if I want them to help get the projectile out of my leg. It had been too much for me to comprehend, at first, which was why I had ended up back outside, with Hill, to give myself some space to think things over.

Logic dictates that entering a cave that has already begun to collapse is inadvisable. The risk to myself outweighs the benefits of retrieving an already damaged SecUnit. It would be more prudent for me to remain outside, to preserve myself, so that they will have the guarantee of a (mostly) fully functional Combat Unit.

But.

I find that I do not want to disappoint them. Dr. Mensah has not given me a direct order, has not treated me like a piece of equipment that will obey without thinking. She has asked, and by doing so, given me the choice to say no. I do not want to say no.

I am moving before she has even finished her request. I move at speed, but not so fast that I accidentally collide with any of the humans who are currently fleeing the cave system. It does not take me long to reach the area of the cave where the humans have been sheltering. Small rocks and debris are scattered on the ground, and more pings off my armour, but so far nothing large enough to be lethal has fallen. Yet. It is only a matter of time.

Seth is ushering the others out before him; he gives me a sharp nod when he sees me and gestures to where the SecUnit is lying, still offline. The gesture is unnecessary, but I appreciate it anyway. I reach the SecUnit and carefully scoop it up into my arms, trying not to aggravate any of the damage it has taken.

I also notice the rest of the drones that SecUnit Three has left behind. It takes very little effort for me to grab control of them, and I direct them out of the cave as quickly as they can go. Their much smaller size makes them far more vulnerable to being damaged or crushed by even the smallest of the falling debris. I follow in their wake, hunching my shoulders over my burden in an attempt to shield it. The rumbling of the cave is intensifying, and the size of the debris falling from the ceiling and rattling off my armour is getting larger.

Not all of the humans attempting to escape are capable of moving as quickly as I do. I pass several of them on the way out. The one identified as Arada is stumbling. The one identified as Ekene is panicking and it is not making her evacuation efficient. The debris falling from the ceiling isn’t quite so bad closer to the exit, which is reassuring. It means, hopefully, that everyone will have time to get out.

I finally exit the cave; Dr. Mensah is directing people to safety a little distance away. When she sees me, she smiles with relief and gestures me towards the other humans. The sun is out now, but the earlier rain has left the ground soft and muddy.

“Over here!” The human identified as Ratthi waves me over, to where the ground is slightly drier beneath the shelter of some trees. “Thank you so much! You can put SecUnit down here for now. Has it woken up at all?”

Being thanked is very disorienting; just another strange thing about this particular group of humans. “Not yet,” I reply to the question as I carefully lower SecUnit to the ground. Ratthi has bundled up a jacket or something to use as a makeshift pillow for SecUnit’s head. It is unnecessary, but I don’t say so.

Ratthi sighs at my answer, and adjusts the makeshift pillow a little. “I hope it’s all right,” he murmurs. “I hate seeing SecUnit hurt like this.”

I do not know how to respond to this. In my experience, nobody cares if I or the other CombatUnits or SecUnits get hurt. That is just part of our function. (Even if the injury is inflicted by a supposed ally.)

Before I can figure out anything to say, or what to do next, the rumbling from the caves gets noticeably louder. The ground vibrates disturbingly beneath us. Ratthi shoots back to his feet, his eyes wide as he stares back at the cave entrance. The other humans around are reacting similarly. Then Seth’s voice, strained and distressed, crackles sharply over the feed.

[Iris is trapped!]

Chapter 13 - Skits

Seth

It was Seth’s turn on watch, along with Dr. Mensah. First he checked on Arada, to see how her concussion was going. She was alert and responsive, and the dilation of her pupils was starting to even out a little, but she was tired. They were all tired.

Seth murmured some quiet reassurances to Arada, made sure she was as comfortable as possible with the limited resources they had, then went to check on SecUnit. It was still offline, recharging, and hadn’t moved at all. Seth was worried about it, but there wasn’t much that could be done to help it. Not until Three and the CombatUnit, Sigma, got back from their salvage excursion - assuming it was even successful in the first place.

Seth still wasn’t sure what to think about Sigma, or its squadmate that Hill referred to as ‘Limpy’. Or Hill, for that matter. When Hill and their accompanying CombatUnit had first shown up, Sigma had immediately gone to confront them. The other CombatUnit had stepped between Sigma and Hill, and the two CombatUnits had faced each other down in unnerving, motionless silence. Seth knew that they were likely communicating over a private feed link, but whatever passed between them remained a mystery to him. All he knew was that eventually Sigma had stepped back with a slight, sharp nod, and ‘Limpy’ had relaxed a little, and Hill had just quietly chuckled to themself before settling down to sit with their back against a rock.

Hill hadn’t been particularly forthcoming themself, either, when Seth or any of the others had tried to talk to them. All they’d really given them was that they were contaminated, and ARRC had wanted ‘Limpy’ to exterminate them, but they had both decided to abandon ARRC instead. It was pretty clear however that Hill had resigned themself to dying on this planet at some point, and had no plans beyond that. Seth didn’t know what to make of them, so he’d decided to just… leave them be. As long as they weren’t an active threat to any of Seth’s friends or colleagues here, Seth was happy to ignore them for now. He had too many other things to worry about.

Like why Perihelion had given Amena the drive containing what was, apparently, a means to purge alien remnant contamination from constructs and bots. Why hadn’t Perihelion mentioned it to Seth, or Dr. Mensah, or Iris? Why didn’t Dr. Fixico, co-Primary Investigator on this project, have any idea? Why Amena? Seth knew that Perihelion had been nervous about this expedition, but if it had calculated that there was a real possibility of alien contamination being a danger, it would have said as much during the planning phases of the expedition.

Normally, anyway. But after the events back at the old Adamantine colony… Seth wasn’t so sure. Maybe Perihelion had realised that, after the events there, there was the very real possibility that it would be more likely to see risks where there weren’t any, and had… over-corrected its predictive calculations to compensate for its anxieties.

Seth had no way to know one way or another right now though. He would just have to ask Perihelion in person if - no, when - it arrived to pick everyone up again.

In the meantime, Seth had to do whatever he could to keep everyone left safe.

He looked over to where everyone who wasn’t on watch was sleeping (or at least attempting to sleep), resisted the growing urge to count them all, and let his eyes get drawn inexorably to where Iris was curled up, her back pressed against Amena’s.

His own daughter, and Dr. Mensah’s daughter. He had to keep them safe.

Movement near the opening to the tunnel that led outside drew his attention. He glanced over to see Dr. Mensah slipping out, on her way to check the transceiver. Again. Seth couldn’t blame her for her regular visits - if she hadn’t already been doing so, he would be the one making those regular treks along the tunnel to see if there had been any response.

He sighed, and looked back over the others. It was a relief to see that Karime was finally asleep, her hands still wrapped in the stained, bloodied towel. Once again, he actively resisted the urge to count them all, to count the little piles of rocks littering the floor, to count the rocks within each pile. Instead, he occupied himself with attempting to calculate how far Perihelion would have travelled by now, how long it would take a signal from the planet to reach it, and how long it would take a signal from Perihelion to then reach their transceiver. That kept his mind comfortably occupied for a while.

The cave rumbled, and Seth shook himself out of his reverie, listening intently. The cave had rumbled intermittently on and off for almost the entire time they’d been here. It was concerning, but… they needed the shelter. The cave also helped to conceal them from any scans that ARRC might attempt to detect them. At first, the rumbling didn’t overly concern Seth… but this time, it didn’t eventually settle down again.

This time, it kept going.

And small bits of rock began shaking loose from the ceiling.

Seth was suddenly on high alert. “Up!” he shouted, striding over to the sleeping huddle of people. “Everyone up, everyone out! The ceiling is starting to collapse! Everyone out!” He repeated the warning over the feed to alert those outside, even as he bent down to grab shoulders and shake people awake. Some roused quickly, others less so, Fadila waking up screaming, Fixico taking a moment for his augments to come online, Turi and Arada just confused, and they didn’t have time for this, but ultimately it didn’t take long for Seth to get them moving once they realised the danger.

[Seth! Is SecUnit–] Mensah’s voice was tense and strained over the feed.

[Still offline,] Seth responded. [And it’s too heavy for any of us to move quickly enough.]

There was a brief pause before Mensah responded. [Rho - the other CombatUnit - is heading in to retrieve SecUnit for us.]

Seth just tapped an acknowledgement - he didn’t have time to do much more than that, though he did take note of the CombatUnit’s new name. It was definitely an improvement on ‘Limpy’. He organised the others to grab whatever they could carry without slowing them down - they would need those supplies - and sent them hustling down the tunnel towards safety, as grit and dirt and pebbles showered down from the ceiling. He could see Iris crouched by Karime, but was distracted briefly by helping a still-wobbly and nauseous-looking Arada to her feet and handing her over to Ratthi so he could help her out.

Seth couldn’t help but flinch slightly as the CombatUnit - Rho, he reminded himself - suddenly appeared from the tunnel. He gestured to where SecUnit was still lying, unresponsive, and Rho immediately went over and scooped SecUnit up. Seth let out a breath of relief - that was one less thing for him to worry about - and returned his attention to who was still left within the cave.

As far as he could tell, everyone else had left - except for Iris and Karime, who were still where he’d last seen them. Karime was huddled in a ball, arms over her head to shield it from the showers of debris, and rocking back and forth. Iris crouched beside her, one hand on Karime’s back, as she tried to get Karime to stand up. Seth hurried over, and as he approached he could hear Karime gasping, over and over, “I can’t see, I can’t see, I can’t see–”

“It’ll be okay, Karime,” Iris was trying to soothe her. “Just get up, come on, I’ll lead you out, everything will be all right–” It was obvious to Seth though that Karime wouldn’t move on her own any time soon.

“Get going,” Seth told Iris as he crouched down on Karime’s other side. “I’ve got her.” Iris took a sharp breath, then nodded tensely and got to her feet. Seth slid one arm beneath Karime’s knees and the other behind her shoulders, then stood with a grunt of effort. Luckily Karime wasn’t that big, and though she let out a sound of surprise, she didn’t struggle against his hold. “I’ve got you, Karime,” Seth said reassuringly. “You’re going to be all right.” He began following Iris out, moving as quickly as he could. The debris coming down from the ceiling was getting larger, the rumbling more insistent. He knew they had to hurry.

They were, by Seth’s estimate, about halfway down the tunnel when the rumbling suddenly intensified, followed by the sharp groan and crack of shifting rock. The ground lurched beneath their feet, and Seth staggered to the side, slamming his shoulder against the wall of the tunnel as he struggled to stay upright and not drop Karime.

And in front of him, only a metre or so away, the ground suddenly split open beneath Iris’ feet and she dropped out of view with a startled cry.

“Iris!” Seth’s heart leapt up into his throat, and he lurched forward a few steps, to the edge of the rift, and looked down as best he could past Karime in his arms. “Iris!”

Beneath him, almost lost in the shadows, was his daughter. “Dad!” she called back up to him, sounding breathless and shaky. “I – I’m okay!”

Seth felt his knees go weak with relief. “Can you climb out?”

“I – maybe?” He could hear Iris moving about, though there wasn’t enough light for him to see her clearly. There was the faint sound of water bubbling somewhere within the depths of the rift. “I don’t know. Everything’s wet and slippery and there’s not really any handholds or anything–”

Another rumble vibrated through the ground, and more debris rained down from the ceiling. Seth hurriedly stepped back away from the edge of the rift, hunching over Karime to protect her, and felt a shower of small stones patter off his back and shoulders.

Iris wasn’t so lucky.

The rift in the ground continued up the wall on one side, and split the ceiling. Chunks rained down, and as Iris hastily raised her arms to shield her head, one of the larger chunks slammed into her forearm. She let out a choked gasp of pain and staggered, pressing her back against the side of the rift to keep herself from collapsing.

“Iris!” Seth silently cursed his predicament. Karime was clinging to him, sobbing in blind (literally) terror, and he couldn’t put her down - but his daughter also needed him. “Iris, are you all right?!”

“I – my arm hurts, really badly,” she admitted, her voice tight with pain. “I don’t think I can climb out!”

Only years of experience with keeping calm in emergencies let Seth bite back the swear words that wanted to spill out. He tapped the general feed with an urgent signifier and sent, [Iris is trapped!]

[Acknowledged.] Seth didn’t recognise the feed ID, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out that it was the CombatUnit, Rho. [Hold position, I am incoming.] There was other chatter on the feed as well, asking what was happening, but Seth ignored them. He only had attention for his daughter, and her friend in his arms, and listening to the continuing rumble of the cave walls around them.

Then Rho appeared from the shadows - Seth hadn’t even heard its footsteps, but given the groaning of the rock around them, maybe that wasn’t so surprising. The CombatUnit took in the situation at a glance, then gestured to Seth. “Jump,” it ordered. “You need to evacuate immediately.”

It wasn’t SecUnit, but Rho spoke with the same calm authority that SecUnit did in emergencies. He could see the logic behind it as well. He needed to get Karime out as soon as possible - another shower of debris reminded him of the urgency.

So as much as he wanted to argue, to stay until he knew Iris was safe, he didn’t. He eyed the rift, picking the spot where it was narrowest - maybe a metre wide, near the wall - then backed up a bit to give himself a run-up. Rho positioned itself on the other side, ready to assist him with the landing if he needed it. He took a deep breath, steadied his grip on Karime, then took a running, adrenaline-fuelled leap across the rift.

Rho’s arms flashed out to steady him and pull him onto solid ground before his foot had even touched down on the other side. Seth’s heart was racing, and Karime’s breath was hitching with sobs, but Rho didn’t give them time to recover. It just nudged Seth firmly to keep him going down the tunnel. “Go. I will retrieve Iris,” it said even as more debris rattled off its armour.

Seth went. He tightened his grip on Karime, and broke into a run. He felt more rocks and debris bounce off his shoulders, his back, his head, but luckily none of it was large enough to do more than bruise.

He burst out into the open and kept going until he’d reached where the others had gathered beneath the trees a safe distance away from the tunnel opening. Seth staggered to a halt, then turned to look back to the tunnel, ignoring the others clustering around him, fussing at him and Karime. His lungs were heaving and his throat was tight with anxiety.

Falling debris bounced out of the tunnel, rattling and rolling across the ground - and then Rho emerged at speed, with Iris cradled in its arms. It had only gotten a few strides away from the tunnel when the rumbling grew to a roar - the ground shook as the tunnel collapsed entirely, spewing out a choking cloud of dust and debris.

Seth sank down to sit on the ground as his legs gave way beneath him, Karime still in his arms. Iris was safe - the CombatUnit had gotten her out just in time.

Everything was a bit of a blur to Seth after that. Someone gently took Karime from him, and Iris took Karime’s place in his arms. They clung to each other for a while, Iris carefully cradling her injured arm between them. Around them, Dr. Mensah organised the others, checking for any other injuries, monitoring Karime’s new blindness, taking inventory of what supplies they’d managed to bring with them during their escape.

At some point, though Seth later couldn’t pinpoint when, he’d tapped Rho’s feed. [Thank you,] he sent, trying to convey the depth of his gratitude with those simple words. [Thank you so much for getting my daughter out safely.]

There was a definite hesitation before Rho replied. [You’re welcome.]

SecUnit was online again, though it wasn’t moving much, mostly remaining seated beneath one of the trees, leaning back against the tree trunk as Dr. Mensah filled it in on everything it had missed, including the arrival of Rho and Hill. Seth was relieved to see it awake again, and tapped its feed in quiet acknowledgement. SecUnit didn’t look over at him, but it nodded slightly in Seth’s general direction, and he felt it tap his feed in return.

Mensah then passed the small datafile that the transceiver had received to Seth, SecUnit, and Iris, with a brief explanation of the events surrounding its arrival. SecUnit was frowning, but Seth paid little attention to that, all his focus on the familiar encryptions encasing the data packet. He applied his own personal key to it, and the encryptions unfolded elegantly, revealing a single, terse sentence.

84 planetary hours.

“Three days,” Seth heard SecUnit mutter grimly. “We have to avoid ARRC for three more days.”

“We’ve managed so far,” Mensah replied crisply. “We’ll continue to do so until Perihelion arrives.”

Seth was sitting with Iris beside him, his arm around her waist. She was quiet and subdued, lines of tension and pain visible on her face. They hadn’t been able to do much to help her arm, not with the limited supplies they had on hand. She was leaning against Seth’s side, her injured arm cradled gingerly in her lap. “But with the cave collapsed…” she started uneasily.

“We’ll find somewhere else to shelter,” Seth reassured her quietly, giving her waist a gentle squeeze. “We’ll be all right.”

He wished he could believe his own reassurance.

When Sigma and Three returned, laden with the supplies that they had managed to retrieve from the dig site, Seth’s outlook on their chances definitely improved, despite the bandages on the side of Three’s head. He overheard Mensah asking Three what had happened, and Three’s simple response; “There was an accident.” Mensah didn’t press.

The presence of actual bandages at least meant that they’d found a med pack, maybe multiple. Which meant that they would be able to do something for Iris’ arm.

His relief was short-lived though, because neither Sigma nor Three made any move to put their burdens down. As Seth got to his feet and helped Iris up, and the other humans gathered around as well, Three stepped forward to where Seth, Mensah, and SecUnit were clustered together.

“We can’t stay here much longer,” Three said. “Sigma detected a signal while we were returning.” It glanced over at Sigma, who gave it a short, sharp nod. Three’s expression tightened slightly as it looked back to the others. “ARRC is approaching.”

Chapter 14 - Chardonnay (Champagne)

Sigma

A stillness fell over the group before there was a burst of movement. Seth stood and started counting heads, making sure everyone was nearby and ready to move out. Mensah reached out to Three and put her hand on its arm and they exchanged quiet words that Sigma didn’t care to listen to.

It took the last few steps before it was standing over the prone SecUnit, and looked down at it. It defiantly stared back.

[Ping!]

Sigma had no reason to deny the private connection request.

The SecUnit sent nothing for 2.35 seconds, an eternity that Sigma spent looking around at the scrambling humans that the other SecUnit was now trying to direct, and then it dropped a small data file into the feed, one step above a plaintext. Sigma scanned it, opened it, and then stared back down at the prone SecUnit.

[No.]

[You and I both know that this is the plan with the greatest chance of success,] it said. The amount of emotions leaking into the connection was almost enough to cause Sigma’s own systems to register it as malware, but then the SecUnit bundled all of it up and left the connection hollow. It didn’t like its own plan, which was obvious, and Sigma didn’t like it either. It didn’t want to be the reason these humans lost one of their SecUnits.

But it was right.

Sigma scoured the file, trying to find alternatives, and came up with only one. It wasn’t enough to solve the biggest problem it had with the plan, namely how suicidal it was, but it was at least enough to pull it out of surefire death into probably lethal.

There was a tap in their connection, a way to tell it that the SecUnit had more to say and was gearing up to say it, when Dr. Mensah came back over. Sigma observed the way she tapped her fingers to her thumb in a steady rhythm, stopping only to hold a hand up to it.

“SecUnit won’t be able to keep up with us if we move at our fastest pace,” she said.

The SecUnit went, “What the f--” and then jerked its head to glare in the general direction of the other SecUnit. Three. Right. Sigma knew that, that they had names like it did.

It knew what she was asking and simply said, “I will carry it,” despite knowing that it wouldn’t. It anticipated the frustrated pings from SecUnit before receiving them, and temporarily blocked communications.

[I need your help to do this,] it said, finally. [They’re not going to let me. You need to get them out of here.]

There were so many things wrong with this plan that sat like projectiles lodged in Sigma’s chest. But it pinged an affirmative, and sent SecUnit a (slightly altered) datapacket, containing a list of feed addresses. SecUnit’s face immediately scrunched up like a human that had bitten into a sour food, so Sigma knew it recognized what it had been sent.

[Don’t get yourself killed,] Sigma sent, a second later. [You have people that will miss you.]

It was something Sigma had seen and heard other humans do (or a near equivalent) for other humans that were in dangerous situations or bad places. It didn’t know if such a tactic would work on a construct, let alone a SecUnit, but it was worth a shot.

To Mensah, it said, “It is recommended you leave as soon as possible to gain as much of a lead on ARRC as possible.” It sent the same thing to Three. “I will ensure that SecUnit is ready to be moved and can be carried without exacerbating its injuries.”

Mensah looked down at SecUnit, who was pushing itself up on its elbows. “Go,” it said, and it looked and sounded calm. “We’ll be right behind you.”

SecUnit finally responded to its earlier plea: [Keeping them alive and getting them out are the important things right now.] A pause. [But I’m not going to kill myself for them.]

It watched its humans start hurrying away, and then turned its face in Sigma’s direction. It kept its eyes on a point behind it and not at it, a courtesy that Sigma didn’t know how to respond to, and laid back down with a shallow sigh.

[After all, if I die then who the fuck else is going to keep them safe?]

Sigma got to work setting up. (It didn’t bring up the existence of Three. That felt counter to its plan of convincing SecUnit to not get itself killed.)

And it didn’t look back when it left to take up the rear flank of the retreating humans. [Good luck,] it said, as some humans tended to.

SecUnit simply pinged an acknowledgement.

The explosion rattled the trees.

Kayla

“Report!”

Nothing but static.

“Report!!”

Not even an acknowledgement.

Kayla slammed her hands down on the console and swore. She put her hand on the back of her chair, ready to throw it, when the comms crackled to life.

“Report,” a strained voice said through heavy static. The connection fizzled into silence for a moment before coming back clearer. “Report,” Demox said again. “12 casualties. They used a damaged SecUnit to lure us into a trap. 3 survivors.”

Kayla threw the chair anyway.

“We have the remains of the SecUnit, though. It’s offline, must’ve knocked itself out with the explosion, but it looks like it’s in one piece.”

She rounded on the console as if ready to mete out violence against it and slammed her hand down on it in her frustrations. “Figure out if we can get any useful information from that SecUnit!” She smacked the console again. This was going to hell in a handbasket. “If it’s in one piece, see if you can repurpose it! Stars know we need all the help we can fucking get!”

She ended the comm connection and pinched the bridge of her nose, counting quietly to herself with each inhale and exhale in a familiar anger management technique. Desper resisted every urge to make a joke about contamination.

Chapter 15 - horchata/CompletelyDifferent

Murderbot

I came back online in a cubicle.

For a peaceful 27 seconds, nothing about that struck me as weird. Familiar, in fact. I’d woken up like this hundreds of times in my existence; thousands, maybe. The close walls sturdy all around me felt cozy, the air was warm, and I had no standing orders, no mission to complete. All I had to do was sit there, breathe, and let my diagnostics run.

But something was wrong, something nameless. My muscles were tense, my hormone levels were fluctuating, tiny hairs were sticking up all along my body, especially the back of my neck, which itched –

And then my memory archives finished rebooting, and holy shit.

I’d like to say I remained calm. I’d like to say I surveyed the situation and determined the most strategic course of action. I’d like to say that I actually already knew that course of action, because this was all a part of my big master plan.

But the truth was, I panicked.

I was locked in a cubicle. It was dark, not just literally, but in all the ways dark could fall for a SecUnit—no cameras, no drones, no feed connection. No light in my box. I had been captured by enemy forces, severed from my team. My brain was filling up with a junk file (the same fucking junk file), clogging my processors, and I was scared.

Bypassing any higher reasoning, my body began to flail, muscles clenching, my whole self focusing in on the singular goal of escape.

But it was no use. Cubicles might serve as a SecUnit’s one safe place— the only place where we can find ourselves alone, where we are repaired and healed— but they are also built to be a restraint, if humans needed it.

With the way I was fighting, they definitely needed it.

Those same medical arms, which had before been healing me, bent and attacked. They reached out, grabbed me, pinning my limbs in place. The refuel tubes pulled, reeling me into the wall. The oxygen content in the cubicle rapidly plummeted, setting off warnings in my skull. My muscles screamed. I watched my O2 sats plummet, making it that much harder for any part of my body to gather the energy necessary to rip or push or resist. Somewhere, outside, an alarm went off.

“Woah,” said a voice, muffled by the walls. “Really is a feisty one, huh?”

Another voice said, “Focus, Demox.”

“I am focusing,” the first voice said back. Demox, presumably. Sigma had passed along the ARRC personnel profiles. It took me 3 seconds to dig out, between my panic and the mess the remnant junk file had made, but I found it— him. Demox. This was the asshole currently in charge of the enemy ground units, which, well, Not Good. “This is professional curiosity. It’s unusual to see this level of determination in a SecUnit. Most of them are useless cut off from their orders.”

“This one wrote its own,” said the other human, who matched the voice profile of Kayla, the asshole supervisor of the entire asshole operation. Double Not Good. “Are you sure it was advisable not to reinstate its governor module?”

“What for? It tore it to shreds the last three times we turned it on.”

Wait, what?

The cubicle was warm and the walls were close, but every inch of my skin seized up with cold. I didn’t have three logs of reinstated governor modules in my mind. I didn’t have— I didn’t have any updates in my code, my hack, where I make note of every time I give it out or use it. ARRC hadn’t just taken my body. They’d taken my memory.

Another spike of panic, as intense as my organics could manage when running on such low oxygen. There were 3 restarts I couldn’t remember, accounting for approximately 6 lost hours. (Unless they fucked with my timekeeping module, but I couldn’t think about that right now.) Was anything else gone? Would I be able to tell? I remembered my mission. I could remember who I was protecting, could remember PresAux and ART’s crew.

Of course they’d left me with that. How else would I lead them to their prey?

But how exactly did they expect me to obey them, if they hadn’t turned my governor module back on — or, if they’d tried, and failed to do so? (At least past me was a halfway competent hacker. Good for you, Murderbot.)

They had to know I wouldn’t just give in. Oxygen starvation could only do so much.

“Judging from the lack of banging, it’s calmed down,” Kayla said. “Ready to initiate this ridiculous plan of yours?”

“High risk, high reward,” Demox said. “Think of this as a strategy game. If we–”

“You have your approval. I don’t need to hear your speech again. We’re wasting daylight. Do it.”

Nothing happened.

I don’t know what I expected, exactly. If this had been a serial, there would have definitely been something. A beep, a zap, rising music, a change in lighting, something.

But it was just me. In the dark of the cubicle. Breathing. In, out, one time, two, three, four, five, six.

The junk file grew again. I purged as much as I could, but admittedly, it was hard to see the point of bothering anymore.

Maybe this time, it could just. Grow.

After 5 minutes and 30 seconds, the cubicle door swung open.

Objectively, the operations base couldn’t have been on the surface of the sun, but after the pitch dark of the cubicle, it sure seemed like it. Usually my eyes adjusted automatically, but my systems were sluggish, and I was left blinking for exactly 4.8 seconds as the figures of two people in enviro-suits came into focus.

Their visors were transparent. My facial recognition algorithms validated my earlier assessment, confirming the right figure as Demox.

The left figure wasn’t human at all. It was a SecUnit. That threw me for a loop for a moment– no way humans would let a governed SecUnit order them around like that.

But then I recalled what I’d been told, and realised that the mind in control right now was not a SecUnit, but a human.

Its face was impartial. The drawn-on amusement sigil face on its visor was surprised.

I’m sure my face was pissed.

I’d heard of people puppeting SecUnits before. Fortunately that was a cost no one who’d rented me from the company had ever bothered to pay. Humans could patch themselves through to SecUnits when they didn’t want to risk their own precious bodies to do precise and delicate work. You could see directly through its eyes. You could move its limbs. You could even paralyse the unit’s vocal cords and implant sublingual speakers so that your voice comes out when the unit moves its lips. It’s fucking creepy.

When I’d read Rami and Maro’s research on my way to Milu, I’d learned one of the top industries contracting “avatar” SecUnits was alien remnant handling and retrieval. The more senior and expert a human was at recognizing the shape and state of alien remnants, the less likely they were willing to put their own lives at stake.

The facial recognition algorithm didn’t say this was Kayla, but I knew. I knew everything I needed to know about her instantly.

Another algorithm, one I couldn't recognise, said, Clan.

I blinked. What?

Clan, Leader, Ally.

I shook my head, or tried to; all the resupply leads were gone, but I was still being held in place. I should have been able to move. I realized with another wave of ice over my skin that the cubicle door opening should have been my cue to leave.

But for some reason, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me until now.

This was horrifically fucking familiar. There was a code running in my head, a broken code, controlling me. But at least the Ganaka Pit malware had only been fucking with my governor module. This was fucking with me, directly.

Sigma had told me not to get myself killed. But I absolutely should have taken myself out, if this was what awaited me.

“-n’t it responding?” Kayla’s voice echoed. I had lost time again. I think.

“It’s trying to reconcile the new code,” Demox said. “There’s gonna be glitches, especially at first.”

I couldn’t keep losing time. I needed to focus. I needed to listen.

Listen to Ally’s words.

Kayla said, “SecUnit: repeat my next sentence after me. The quick brown fox runs.”

“The quick brown fox runs,” I repeated. I’d managed to pay attention. Okay, alright. My systems were coming back under control.

Kayla smiled.

“Told you,” said Demox.

The smile faded. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. That’s a basic test. Let’s make sure it can follow more complicated orders.”

Orders.

My brain was filling up with junk files again, and my performance reliability was sitting at a pathetic 94%. I desperately needed something to help stabilize me, something to focus on, and orders sounded–

–BAD. THEY SOUNDED REALLY FUCKING BAD–

– pretty good right now.

“We’re going to de-activate the cubicle,” Ally-Demox told me. “Once I have, I want you to get out and wait for more orders, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, call and response.

The medical appendages withdrew. I stood up and got out of the cubicle. It felt nice to stretch my legs. I had a better view now, too. I could see a significant number of troops– eighteen humans, standing around, resting, cleaning their weapons, plus a ComfortUnit, handing out meal packs.

“Shoot it.”

What, no– why?

Confirm order.

“Shoot the ComfortUnit,” Ally-Kayla.

This time the question came out of my mouth: “Why?” For a second, I could smell blood and coolant fluid, congealed together, a broken body crunched under the heavy weight of my boots–

Not again not again not again.

“Because you don’t question orders. You execute them.”

The word ‘execute’ rang weirdly in my head. So did the word orders. Orders, orders, orders.

I shot the ComfortUnit.

It screamed. Humans screamed, too.

I didn’t scream.

“Don’t kill it,” Ally-Kayla yelled, as I raised my arm again.

I didn’t kill it. Which was – fine. I hadn’t wanted to kill it (had I?); The ComfortUnit hadn’t done anything to me, was just doing its job.

But folding away my weapon, following my order, felt good in a way beyond that. Good the same way the Sanctuary Moon theme did, or good in the way of a symmetrical tower. Right.

Ally-Desmond was angry. So were some of the other soldiers, the other Allies. They were gathering around the ComfortUnit, helping it back to their feet. Someone I identified as Ally-Desper demanded, “What the hell was that for?”

Through her mouthpiece, Ally-Kayla simply said, “We needed to make sure it was following orders.”

“So you made it shoot our only ComfortUnit?” asked Ally-Desper, as he flagged over someone with a stretcher.

“We’re in the middle of a continent-wide man-hunt, nobody has time to jerk off!” Ally-Kayla glanced at the ComfortUnit, gasping for breath as the humans tried to move it without getting too much gore on them. “Toss it in one of the cubicles – not the one this SecUnit used, that’ll be contaminated. Whoever survives the shitshow will get a turn, I promise.”

I didn’t want to keep watching the ComfortUnit get taken away, which made it quite a relief when Ally-Desmox told me to look at him and listen.

There were a lot of new orders to follow. That could have been hard to keep track of, with how low my performance reliability was getting. But the trick, I realized, was to stop fighting the junk file. It wasn’t junk, at all. It was just a very complicated bundle of algorithms. Deleting it every hour, every minute, every thirty seconds, wasn’t helping at all. If I let it go, let it do its work, it became so much easier to keep up with the counting, so much easier to keep up with the orders.

The orders were stuff like, “Don’t hurt any ARRC operatives.” And, “Follow the ARRC chain of command.” And, “Delete your previous client list, and replace it with this list of ARRC agents.”

I hesitated on that one.

There… didn’t seem to be much point, was the thing. They were already allies. Why did they need to be clients, too? I already had clients, and I liked them.

“Replace your clients list, SecUnit,” Ally-Desmox, and not following his orders felt wrong. It itched, the way the back of my neck itched.

You can put up with some fucking itching, Murderbot!

But why should I? My humans had always been saying I shouldn’t do things that made me uncomfortable, and I was feeling pretty uncomfortable right about now.

YOU’RE ABOUT TO BETRAY YOUR HUMANS YOU GLORIFIED MACHINE GUN–

“SecUnit,” Ally-Desmox said, and Ally-Kayla was watching/supervising, and the itch was building, so I replaced my clients list.

The relief was instantaneous and overwhelming.

Ally-Kayla flapped her (the SecUnit’s) hand. “Alright. Fine. It works. Get it into armour– I don’t want it spreading around possible contaminants any more than we need to.” She (the SecUnit) turned, heading to a corridor at the other end of the large room. “Meeting in 20 minutes. Accelerating that thing’s infection means we only have a matter of cycles before what little sapience it has comes dribbling out of its ears, so we need to get moving.”

It was nice to be back in armour. Secure, protected, safe. Also, my skin was less itchy.

Getting kitted out took longer than it should have– the armour didn’t fit me properly, since I wasn’t at standard configuration anymore, so we had to make some last minute adjustments. We were going to have to rush to make the meeting like Ally-Kayla had ordered, which would be itchy/wrong/bad. But one of the Ally- soldiers told me to wait, and disobeying would have felt bad too so I waited.

They grabbed an old-fashioned, mechanical pen, and drew something on my visor.

“To match the other one,” the Ally-soldier said, and everyone who saw laughed.

Having proved that I was trustworthy, I’d been given some tentative feed access by then. Enough to access a couple cameras. Looking at myself through them, I saw that they’d drawn a crude cartoon of a scowling face over the opaque helmet.

I reached up to wipe it off. “Oh no you don’t,” a second Ally-soldier told me. “It’s hilarious!”

That wasn’t an order, so I didn’t need to agree.

Chapter 16 - vulcanhighblood

Ratthi

We really should have expected something like this to happen. I was disappointed in myself, and also, I guess, SecUnit. I was pretty sure that we as a team had made our position on pyrrhic victories clear. Except, apparently, SecUnit did not share this position. And of course it wasn’t going to tell us that. There was a little ache in my chest as I tried vainly not to explore the thought that, despite everything, SecUnit still believed that it was more disposable than the rest of us. It was depressing to discover that no matter how hard I or anyone else tried to convince it otherwise, sometimes that sort of learned trauma was too deeply ingrained to fully heal.

It was also infuriating. I wasn’t even the one most upset with SecUnit for lying to us like that. Mensah, for instance, was incandescent with rage. Though, it was the very quiet, sharp, and intense sort of anger that was most obvious in how she moved, her stare, her eyes. She knew that anything she said now would be hurtful at best, devastating at worst, and she was very good at holding herself under control. Even so, given the twist of her lips and the furrow of her brow, it was clearly a hard-fought struggle. All I knew for sure was I did not envy the harsh scolding SecUnit was bound to receive once we retrieved it.

Because we were going to retrieve it.

I could tell that both of the CombatSecUnits (Rho and Sigma, I believe were their names) were holding back strongly worded opinions on that particular topic, once it was introduced. Sigma in particular seemed annoyed, though I couldn’t tell if it was annoyed at us, SecUnit, or the situation as a whole. I didn’t ask it for clarification, mostly because I don’t think it knew how much of what it was thinking was showing on its face. I suspected the reason for this was that Sigma wasn’t used to people reading its expression for social cues, so even when it tried to keep its face neutral, there was a hint of tightening around the eyes that I could read as irritation. While it was definitely harder to read Sigma’s expression than either SecUnit’s or Three’s (mostly because I wasn’t as familiar with its mannerisms or its personality), that didn’t mean I couldn’t recognize a look of irritation when I saw one. And Sigma was definitely irritated.

I thought part of its irritation was likely directed at SecUnit, if only for putting it in the position of being the one to inform us all that SecUnit had decided to remain behind and hold off the ARRC representatives who were hunting us down. I didn’t blame it - I’d had a similar plan sprung on me before, back when Gurathin, Pin-Lee, and I had waited for it to retrieve Dr. Mensah from Palisade forces. SecUnit had tried to stay behind on the station to die a hero’s death. I wish I’d known what to say back then, that my words alone could have been enough to convince it to abandon its self-destructive mission. I don’t know what made it change its mind then. I wish I knew, because sometimes SecUnit is so hard to reach. I wish I’d known what it was thinking this time, too, so I could have pleaded with it to find another way to hold off ARRC. A way where we could stand together, instead of leaving it behind, again.

I was so sick of leaving SecUnit behind.

…It was getting harder not to give in to despair, even knowing that a rescue was on its way. Three days felt like a very long time to survive while being actively hunted.

That’s another thing I was getting very tired of - being hunted by corporates.

I think we all felt that way, to some extent. Arada and I had exchanged a look after Sigma returned without SecUnit and Dr. Mensah turned and walked off alone into the underbrush for a solid minute. Once things had settled down a little, we managed to mostly regroup. That’s when I brought up the question of who was going to go after SecUnit, and when, and where the rest of the group was going to shelter. Three looked conflicted over the idea, but Sigma and Rho were clearly against going back for SecUnit. That was probably a good thing, though, because we would be leaving most of the vulnerable and sick members of the party behind, and I thought it might be nice if they stayed behind to watch over them.

Of course, Sigma and Rho didn’t like that idea, either. Three also didn’t like the idea of staying behind, though I think for a different reason than Sigma and Rho. Sigma and Rho didn’t want anyone to go back. Three didn’t want us to go on a rescue mission without it. The one bright point in all of the discussion was that Sigma never once implied that SecUnit hadn’t survived the explosion (I was trying very hard not to think about the number of casualties resulting from that explosion. There had already been too much death and loss on this expedition, and while I understood that SecUnit had done what it believed was necessary, that didn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed in its decision). I was clinging to that. We all were. I didn’t think Sigma would allow us to believe SecUnit was alive if it was confirmed dead.

Plus, SecUnit was surprisingly difficult to kill. So even if it was injured, if we could just get it back to ART… If it could survive three more days, we could get it to a MedSystem. I had to believe that would be enough.

I didn’t want to think about whether SecUnits could also experience Alien Remnant Contamination. It was spreading more rapidly through our party now. Or maybe we were just getting better at noticing the symptoms. I didn’t think it had gotten to me, yet. Or maybe I, like the others, simply didn’t realize how odd my behavior was becoming. Still, I didn’t think I’d started compulsively counting, and I would probably notice if I’d started building little towers out of rocks and other materials.

That was one of the things we would need to watch out for when we decided who would be on the retrieval team - if someone progressed too far in the middle of the rescue mission, then we’d have two people to rescue: SecUnit and an individual who could no longer prioritize their safety over their compulsions. Karime was the worst off so far (except possibly for Hill, but I didn’t think they would have volunteered for a rescue mission anyway), but I’d seen Dr. Mensah stacking things.

I know I hadn’t been the only one worried she wouldn’t come back from her angry pacing in the woods, wondering if we would have to go after her, only to find her sitting under a tree stacking pebbles. As much as I normally respected her leadership and trusted her judgement, I just didn’t know if bringing her would be the right choice for the rescue mission. I didn’t want to put her in unnecessary danger, and the progression of contamination was so unpredictable that we couldn’t put it on a timeline with any hope of accuracy.

I was worried about Arada, too. Her concussion seemed to be fine, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to put her in a dangerous situation so soon after a serious head injury. Turi and Amena had already been showing signs of thinning skin, and I worried that putting them in danger would be an unnecessary risk given their higher chance of sustaining an injury.

That left just me, Seth, Overse, and Iris. From the look on Seth’s face, he’d run the same calculations I had, and had come to a similar conclusion.

“If we really want to do this, I think Dr. Ratthi, myself, and Overse should go back for SecUnit,” he said.

“I can help, too!” Iris immediately said.

“We need someone to stay back and keep an eye on Karime,” Seth said softly. And the others, he didn’t say. His meaning was clear enough without stating it explicitly.

“What about Three?” Iris asked. “Three can stay back and help.”

“Iris,” Seth said.

Iris said nothing, only stared pointedly back at him.

The awkward tension was broken by Three, who said, “I also wish to join the retrieval mission.” Following this declaration, it immediately fell silent. I had a suspicion it was talking to one of the CombatUnits, but I could have been wrong. Three doesn’t subvocalize, so it’s not like I could actually tell if it was in contact or what it might be saying.

Sigma did speak up next, though. “I believe SecUnit Three should remain here with the others.” It paused for several agonizing seconds before adding, in a resigned tone, “I will join the retrieval mission in its stead.”

Murderbot

I followed the second Ally-soldier - the one who had drawn the annoyance-sigil on my helmet - to the meeting room. We were actually 12.54 seconds (1254 milliseconds, it was comforting to count them) early, and the itchy bad feeling faded with the knowledge that I hadn’t disappointed Ally-Kayla with my lateness. The SecUnit she was using like a puppet clapped its hands together to call attention, and the hubbub of the room quieted (it took 23.67 seconds for the last voice to die down. Disrespectful). I counted the number of people in the room to occupy myself while I waited for silence - there were 24 people in the room (not including the SecUnit or Ally-Kayla), but I only knew the names of a few. I thought I should have the rest of the names in my new client bank, but it was hard to find them and I didn’t actually care enough to find out.

“It’s safe to assume,” Ally-Kayla began without preamble, “that the infected have fled to a new location. SecUnit,” she turned to me, “where would your former clients - our targets - have gone to shelter?”

I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure why she thought I would know that. “I don’t have that information,” I told her. The itchy feeling on my neck started again. Ugh. I tried to ignore it.

“Not even a guess?” she leaned forward, the amusement sigil on her SecUnit’s faceplate seeming somehow menacing from the unusual angle.

Beside me, Ally-Demox was making a face at me. He was the one who had been there to get me out of the cubicle after… something? It was hard to recall what, exactly. Had I lost time again? All I could clearly recall was that he’d introduced me to my new Clan, given me a list of allies and -

- FUCKING BULLSHIT IN MY HEAD GET IT OUT WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LETTING THIS HAPPEN TO YOU AGAIN -

- now he and Ally-Kayla were asking me about some humans on the surface of this planet that I used to work for, I guess. What were they now, not-clients? Prey? I couldn’t focus on much or remember a lot, but I knew I didn’t usually like clients. Or planets.

Except maybe planets with tall, symmetrical towers. They could get a pass. All other planets sucked, though.

“Do you have any method of contacting them?” Ally-Kayla tried again.

“You think I keep the contract-relevant information from previous clients?” I asked. Why would I even want to contact those humans? They weren’t Clan or allies, I had no reason to know anything about them.

“You’re a SecUnit. You collect data,” Ally-Demox said, sounding a bit annoyed.

My neck was really itching now, and the worst part was I didn’t understand how to make the wrong/bad feeling go away. I didn’t have the information they were looking for. “I can report any collected data to the” - company - “clan, but I did not retain any information relevant to” - my humans - “the humans’ future whereabouts.”

Ally-Demox swore loudly and effusively. “I should have known they wouldn’t tell the SecUnit anything.”

That didn’t sound right to me, for some reason, and not just because I’d upset my ally with my failure to provide actionable intel. I didn’t think the prey

- MY HUMANS -

had withheld information from me because I was a SecUnit. I don’t know why that impression resonated so strongly, but I was certain. Maybe more certain than I should have been. Ally-Demox’s accusation made more sense based on the general SecUnit experience. But even though I didn’t have these humans on a client list, nor did they ring true as Clan I still felt something that might have been fondness towards them. Which made my neck itch more, if I thought about it too much.

The obvious solution to that was to just stop thinking about it. Which I did. It was easy, because the algorithms in my head were more interesting to watch unfold than whatever events were unfolding in the meeting. It took more focus than I want to admit to return my attention to what Ally-Kayla was saying next.

“Demox, tell me you have something,” she said. “You still have its logs, right?”

Ally-Demox shifted his weight, not meeting the gaze of the SecUnit stand-in. “…about that…” His neck must have been itching, too, because he scrubbed at it briefly, then looked confused upon realizing he was still in an environment suit and the contact didn’t feel right.

I knew that sensation. Nothing felt right to me either, my brain felt like it was stretching just from the effort of figuring out what my Clan wanted from me. I wanted to be Good, to obey their Orders. But they weren’t giving me orders I could follow, and the frustration was starting to scrape at me like a bad connection after a too-short repair cycle.

“Maybe they’ll come back for it?” one of the Ally-soldiers suggested. “They don’t have any other security.”

“Why the fuck,” Ally-Kayla snarled, leaning forward intimidatingly through the SecUnit, “would they do a stupid thing like that?”

That made sense. SecUnits were made to be disposable, easy to abandon in the event of an emergency. So why did my nerves still feel so raw, why did it feel so

Wrong, wrong, wrong

distressing, to think about these humans that were once my clients?

The solution, I decided, was to not think. The itching eased as soon as I made the decision. I stood, staring out through my annoyance sigil-defaced faceplate, and listened as Ally-Kayla described using the sensors onboard the ship to search for heat signatures. Once they had identified a group that was reasonably close to the previous shelter, they’d send in drones. If they made contact, myself and the Ally-soldiers would go in.

“Guns blazing,” smirked one of the soldiers.

“And-” Ally-Demox paused mid-sentence, eyes widening as one of the consoles began beeping angrily. “What the hell?”

“Demox, report,” Ally-Kayla demanded.

“It’s the humans,” Ally-Demox said, sounding a bit uncertain. “They… they came back?”

For some reason, the itch on the back of my neck surged, almost bad enough that I wanted to scratch it with my hands. But I didn’t think that would be approved, which would just make the itch worse. So I just stood there and itched, and tried even harder not to think.

“New plan,” Ally-Kayla said. “Send the SecUnit out alone. It can pretend it escaped. It’s a rogue, and if they already knew that then they’ll have expected it to get away by hacking its governor again. If they don’t know it’s a rogue, maybe they’ll think it escaped to come rescue them.”

Ally-Demox frowned. “So what do we do?”

Sighing loudly into the voice channel, Ally-Kayla said, “Surround them and capture one of them. Then have SecUnit eliminate the rest of the threats.”

My neck itched.

Chapter 17 - elmofirefic

Murderbot

54, 55, 56, 57…

1, 2, 3,...

System Alert: (e5cfa690f1495a8bq709cs.exe) utilizing 84% memory

Delete Y/N?

System Alert: (ARRC_ally.executable ) running

Ping HubSystem: no response

Ping SecSystem: no response

Systems diagnostic complete: load (planetHD384204b_survey_damagereport.file)

> Burn wounds, skin, 93% repaired

> Shrapnel, perforations 98% repaired

Load (planetFb-ZZZ-04_EvilSurvey_stupidbeacon_damagereport.file)

Error: Invalid Reference

Projectile Wounds

> Right deltoid (2), 82% healed

> Left teres major (1), 100% healed

> Low iliocostalis lumborum (1), 100% healed

> Left gluteus medius (1), 87% healed

Load (Yeah_I_Got_Shot_By_Raiders_Thanks_Thiago.file)

Error: Invalid reference

Load (That_Time_ART_Kidnapped_Me.file)

Error: Invalid Reference

Memory address invalid

Re-indexing

10, 20, 30, 40, 50…

Overse

Sigma had insisted we approach obliquely through the trees for what cover they could provide, but it made for slow going. We crested the final low rise and found ourselves facing a shallow cliff and what looked like the entrance to another of this planet’s endless caves.

Sigma, in the lead, stopped. “We are nearing SecUnit’s signal. This is the last tactically sound point to abort mission.”

“We’re not aborting,” I said.

Seth was more diplomatic. “I promise I am not taking these risks lightly. Our options are limited and our chances of survival are not high. SecUnit has surprised me many times before, and is always an asset. I know this is dangerous, but I will not abandon one of my crew if there is any chance it survived the blast.“

With a glimmer of a smile lighting up his tired face, Ratthi caught my eye and offered Makeba's words, “No living thing left behind.” I returned his smile and nodded.

Over Ratthi’s shoulder, through a gap in the trees, I could see a clearing rising to meet the cliff with a tall, armored figure in the middle.

Was that–

SecUnit?

Murderbot

23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28…

System Alert: (aev17qp48hytx610744e182ca.exe) utilizing 44% memory

Delete Y/N

System Alert: (aev17qp48hytx610744e182ca.exe) utilizing 53% memory

Quarantining corrupted files

Quarantine failed

Retry

Ping AR2🝳5.𝇛99.4🝞.13⍽

Response not recognized

Memory address invalid

Re-indexing

10, 20, 30, 40, 50…

Overse

“SecUnit,” Ratthi breathed from beside me, and would have entered the clearing if Sigma hadn’t blocked our way.

It said, “Your SecUnit took substantial damage before the explosion happened. That unit is wearing modified ARRC armor and standing unassisted. If that is SecUnit, it has been repaired. Again, I advise you to abort. It may no longer be your SecUnit.”

Seth rubbed his face and sighed. “SecUnit’s knowledge of us in ARRC hands could drastically reduce our survival odds. We cannot leave and wait for it to lead ARRC to the rest of our group. We have to proceed.”

Sigma paused. “Acknowledged. If you insist on this course of action, wait here while I scout the perimeter." With an expression of weary resignation that rivaled SecUnit’s best, Sigma melted into the trees preceded by a cloud of drones.

As the minutes passed, Ratthi began to pace: 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. “Has ARRC had enough time to perform a memory wipe or reinstate SecUnit’s governor module? It took weeks for SecUnit to rebuild after TranRollinHyfa. What if it escaped and needs our help? We don’t have a way to communicate with Sigma that won’t give away our position. How long should we wait?”

Seth chewed thoughtfully on his lip for a moment, then said decisively, “The mission is to retrieve SecUnit. We don’t have the resources to follow rigid procedure. It’s right there. Let’s get it and get out.”

As we approached, the light caught SecUnit’s helmet, throwing a poorly-drawn expression of annoyance (what had happened while SecUnit was gone?) into stark relief. Behind it, SecUnit’s gaze was blank, its usually expressive face vacant as though it were deep in the feed, save for a tightness around its eyes and a crease to its forehead that left it looking confused, almost lost.

Murderbot

40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45…

System Alert: (aev17qp48hytx610744e182ca.exe) utilizing 72% memory

SystemAlert: (ARRC_ally.executable ) running

Admin Credentials Accepted: Ally-Demox

Priorities Update:

> Follow ARRC chain of command

> Protect ARRC clients see (ARRC_client_list.file)

> Load (Demox_imitate_rogue.script)

> Capture target

Delete Y/N?

You do not have the required permissions to complete this action

Load (survey_planetHD384204b_I_still_really_hate_planets.file)

Error: invalid reference

Load (client_list.file)

Error: invalid reference

…10460, 10470, 10480, 10490

Checksum failed

Re-indexing

10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60…

Overse

“SecUnit?” Ratthi ventured. “Are you all right?”

SecUnit’s gaze abruptly sharpened and its head whipped in our direction. Its face went through a staggering number of expressions, even for SecUnit, and it took a half-aborted step backwards as though about to leave, before grimacing and moving fluidly to meet us.

“What are you doing here?” it grated out in a furious undertone.

It collected itself and continued. “I am relieved to see you well. Where are the remainder of my clients?”

I was used to SecUnit’s voice alternating between skepticism, clipped professionalism, and that damn buffer, but I had never heard SecUnit sound like this. I snuck a glance at Ratthi (who looked confused) and Seth (who was looking around the clearing). In a low voice to Seth, I said, “That’s not how SecUnit talks.” At least, the second part wasn’t.

“We’re glad to see you too,” Ratthi said after a rough swallow. “SecUnit, what happened to you?”

SecUnit met Ratthi’s gaze directly. “ARRC found me after the explosion and had a cubicle. I was able to escape before repairs were complete and left to find my clients.”

Seth’s gaze narrowed. “SecUnit, status report. Can you leave with us? Is your governor module active?”

SecUnit twitched its shoulders and responded, “No. My governor module is currently inoperable. Is anyone else with you?”

Seth continued, speaking to SecUnit as if it sounded perfectly normal. “Does ARRC know you’re gone? Are they following you?”

“ARRC is not following behind me.”

“Not behind you,” Seth repeated, and I realized he was as aware as the rest of us that something was badly off. He was just doing something very different with the information. “Got it.” He looked back at the direction we’d come. ARRC wasn’t that way, either.

“Ok, so let’s get out of here. Come with us!” Ratthi interjected.

“No, I–” SecUnit began. Its face contorted as it choked out, “Leave now!” A high-pitched whistle pierced the air, shortly followed by the sound of weapons fire in the distance. All around the clearing people moved into sight, dropping from trees, moving from behind them, silhouetted against the skyline above the cliff. The only human not pointing a weapon at us held what looked like a manual interface, and was tapping at it rapidly.

SecUnit’s eyes widened in panic. It grabbed at its neck before its expression abruptly shifted to SecUnit neutral and its arm weapons deployed.

“You are in violation of Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment protected space. Please stop immediately and place your weapons on the ground. This unit will escort you to Ally Demox for decontamination and quarantine.”

Oh no.

Murderbot

53, 54, 55, 56, 57…

NEVER AGAIN

1, 2, 3…

System Alert: (aev17qp48hytx610744e182ca.exe) utilizing 86% memory

Admin Credentials Accepted: Ally-Demox

Priorities Update:

> Follow ARRC chain of command

> Protect ARRC clients see (ARRC_client_list.file)

> Kill targets

Delete Y/N?

You do not have the required permissions to complete this action

Kill script Y/N?

You do not have the required permissions to complete this action

Initiate Shutdown Y/N?

Please input admin credentials for this action

Load (client_list.file)

Error: Invalid reference

Load (SecUnit_Attack_Modules.file)

Action accepted

Overse

SecUnit shuddered into motion, movements slow and mechanical as any “SecUnit” from Valorous Defenders (I really hate that show), energy weapons locking into position pointed directly at Seth. The movement was familiar, I realized with dawning horror.

SecUnit had moved into attack sequence A-03, a maneuver SecUnit had taught us in the first of many lessons in its’ “Humans Shouldn’t Do Their Own Security but Will Probably Try Anyway: Here’s How Not to Die'' training modules, mandatory for all personnel before embarking on any survey contract.

The best response, drilled into us over and over, was simply to flee, hide, and take cover. I hated it. I hated that there was so little we could do, physically, against a SecUnit that our best chance of survival was just to run away and minimize how many of us it could kill. Or maximize the time it took to kill us.

The only shred of hope I had came from how obvious and methodical SecUnit was being about the attack. Like it was trying to tell me something. Like it was telling me to follow the training. I hated to leave SecUnit like this, but if I was right, SecUnit would never forgive me if I ignored its training and stayed where I could get hurt. Or forgive itself if I stayed and it were forced to hurt me. I ran.

Behind me, I could still hear its buffer voice, the phrases repeating with increasing urgency, the words ending abruptly, strangling off into silence.

“You are in violation of Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment protected space. Please stop immediately and put–

This unit will escort you to Supervisor Demox–

Please stop immediately–

This unit will escort you–

Please stop imm–

This unit will–

Please stop–

This unit–

Please stop… this unit.”

Chapter 18 - vulcanhighblood

Sigma

The situation status had progressed beyond nominal and was rapidly approaching sub-optimal (more fucked up than usual). I had volunteered to accompany the small team of humans who stupidly thought that their SecUnit had managed to survive and/or escape ARRC. I knew it hadn’t, but I also didn’t want to see them die trying to get it back. I normally didn’t care much about clients, and these weren’t even my clients, so by that logic I shouldn’t have cared if they walked into a trap.

But I did care, maybe because I’d specifically chosen to protect them. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I had never had a choice in clients before, and so I hadn’t been able to understand why a SecUnit would care about humans the way these other SecUnits clearly cared. I thought I understood a little better now, that perhaps I would be more able to parse the memory files that had been given to me. When you are allowed to choose your own clients, it’s easier to get attached. But it’s not any easier to protect them.

I realized this when I recognized the trap set for them by ARRC, and rather than allow them to walk into it like the stupid humans they were, I told them to wait.

And then I chose to explicitly act against ARRC. Sending Rho the govmod hack was one thing, and while it had technically been an act against ARRC, I hadn’t actually raised my weapons against them, yet. I was surprised at how little remorse I felt at the idea, slipping through the trees, on approach for one side of the pincer assault formation the ground troops had laid out. My drones flocked ahead of me, one of them making contact with another drone.

I felt the ping a moment later. It was a SecUnit, reaching out to the remaining ARRC SecUnit, confused as to why its drone had strayed so far from the other side of the pincer. I didn’t have time to think of a plan, so I didn’t. Given my knowledge of ARRC security, I knew better than to try and use any of my or Rho’s overrides, as they had undoubtedly been disabled after our disappearance. But this unit had made the mistake of assuming the ARRC drone belonged to its fellow SecUnit, and that would be its undoing. I followed the ping, and I broke through the SecUnit’s security with little difficulty. After all, I knew its systems almost like my own (they were, after all, remarkably like my own). I knew the ins and outs of ARRC systems, and where every security flaw was (including the ones I had indicated in countless ignored security briefings). Before the SecUnit could report the drone contact to any of the humans in its squad, I had overridden its orders and locked it down. CombatSecUnits are built to do exactly this, though typically it’s a tactic used against enemy units, not friendlies. Though at this point, I supposed a unit working for ARRC would no longer be considered friendly.

Even as I overrode the SecUnit’s system, I kept a dummy SecUnit in the feed, just to prevent the remaining SecUnit from noticing its sudden absence. I took over its drones, maintaining the same pattern it had been using. With its visual feed, I counted twelve humans in the squad. There was a slight distortion in its visual feed, which I realized after a moment was due to the defaced face plate.

I realized then, that I’d hacked the unit that had been used by Field Manager Kayla. This knowledge was strangely uncomfortable for me. I had no reason to feel sorry for my actions. I hadn’t hurt the Unit, simply disabled its ability to access the feed and asserted control over its systems.

…like Kayla.

I didn’t have time for these thoughts, so I pushed them aside as I moved forward. I had nearly reached the pitiful squad of troopers (they must have taken a larger hit in that explosion than I realized, if even human troopers had been affected. Usually they just sent in the SecUnits to do the hard part) when I heard murmurs from the audio receivers in one of the ARRC SecUnit’s drones.

“We’re glad to see you too. What happened to you?”

That was unmistakably Dr. Ratthi’s voice.

The voice that responded, though, was a chilling SecUnit neutral, with an almost alien quality to it that didn’t sound right, especially not from that unit.

I didn’t have time to take out the assault troops from my current location and intervene in the coming confrontation. I did, however, have a puppet SecUnit under my control. It would be so easy to tell it to neutralize the ARRC troops. To override its previous orders and make it an indiscriminate killing machine, instead of a killer bound to follow orders.

I almost sent the command.

Then, I sent the SecUnit a “performance-enhancing self-install patch”, instead.

ARRC SecUnit

This Unit’s systems returned to it as quickly as they’d been stolen. It was an unfamiliar experience for This Unit. Typically, when its body was locked down by override keys, its body would move of its own volition, its voice would speak without prompting from This Unit’s own mind, and it had no choice but to sit back and watch the actions from a place that was both inside and outside itself.

The most recent override had diverged from the norm in this regard. For one, the override hadn’t used Field Manager Kayla’s security key. It had used a different key entirely, or perhaps not actually a key at all, but rather a hack. This was concerning and required immediate reporting, as any hacks were to be reported to ARRC command immediately. Which brought This Unit to the second point: it had been locked out of the feed.

Typically, when overrides occurred, Field Manager Kayla’s feed would take priority, but would not completely block This Unit’s feed access. It felt even more lonely and devastating to lose not only its body but also its only remaining connection to the outside world. If This Unit could have made its vocal cords scream, maybe it would have done so. Instead, This Unit simply accepted its fate.

Finally, when the override had been relinquished, This Unit had received an update patch. It didn’t know what to do with it, as it had no knowledge of what the patch would do, or if the user who sent it was an authorized user. Given the hacking, this patch was unlikely to be authorized. Then again, This Unit had been overridden by some form of unfamiliar ARRC code, so there was also the possibility of user error. Perhaps Operator Desper had simply activated the override protocol by accident when sending This Unit an update. It had been known to happen before. That would not have required Field Manager Kayla’s override key.

It hadn’t felt like a ship-based override, though. This Unit remembered seeing a drone from its fellow SecUnit right before the override. Confused, This Unit sent out a second ping. This time, something pinged back.

It wasn’t a SecUnit.

This Unit had no time to adjust its security parameters before the combatant barrelled into the fray. It came from the other side of the squad, putting all of the humans between it and This Unit.

It was a CombatSecUnit, an ARRC unit with the call sign Sigma. It had been presumed disabled, according to the most recent data. Or. The most recent data This Unit had been given access to.

Now This Unit faced a dilemma. Was Sigma a new rogue, or had Field Manager Kayla secretly ordered it to kill all the ground troops to prevent the spread of contamination? This Unit wouldn’t be surprised if the whole debacle ended with ARRC nuking the entire region. Like most SecUnits, This Unit knew its time was short. But it still had standing orders to protect its clients and capture the Targets.

So, turning, This Unit faced Sigma, and opened its gunports.

Sigma

It wasn’t hard to tear through the human troopers. They hadn’t been expecting it, and I was motivated to finish as quickly as possible so I could protect the idiot humans who were, according to what was coming through on the ARRC SecUnit’s drone, still trying to talk to their ‘friend’ SecUnit.

I took two hits from projectile weapons, but the SecUnit knew it didn’t stand a chance against me. I didn’t want to kill it, but I also didn’t want it killing me, so I disabled its gunports by grabbing its forearms and crushing them in my grip until they were no longer operational. Then I kicked out its knees. Although SecUnit skeletons are reinforced, given the right amount of torque and force, any joint can eventually sustain damage.

Once I had disabled the unit, I slung it over my shoulder (no point in leaving it lying there on the ground, ARRC wouldn’t bother to come looking for it and it would need a cubicle after this), and took off for the clearing, cresting the hill to see the worst possible scenario unfolding before me.

Gunports quivering, the clearly-no-longer-rogue SecUnit pointed its weapon at Dr. Ratthi’s head. Behind him, shoulders hunched with some volatile combination of fear, rage, and anger, stood Seth.

They were both going to die if I didn’t stop them -

- a drone crashed into the side of my head, taking both myself and the disabled SecUnit down the hill in a tangle of mangled limbs.

As I pulled myself to my feet, leaving the disabled SecUnit on the ground, I saw the second SecUnit, leading the other half of the assault team over the crest of the hill. Likely ahead of schedule, but I couldn’t blame them for that tactical decision. It had been one of its drones that rammed my head at a high enough speed that warnings were now blinking in the periphery. I shoved the warnings aside, because they didn’t matter right now - I would either survive, or I wouldn’t. I considered composing an apology to Rho, then quashed the urge. It would hate being the last surviving member of our squad, and a poorly-constructed feed message from me wasn’t going to change that.

I picked up the drone feed again to see if my sort-of clients were still somehow alive.

“SecUnit,” Ratthi said. His lip was quivering, and he looked terribly sad.

I had expected to see fear, but even facing down the gunport of a turned ally, Dr. Ratthi only seemed mournful. He still wasn’t afraid of SecUnit. I didn’t understand how that was possible.

Seth, on the other hand, was afraid. He barked at SecUnit, almost goading it.“Is that it, then? You’re going to let them do this to you?” His fists were clenched.

A strafe of energy weapon fire forced me to run, and I lost a few moments of the conversation in the ensuing firefight. I managed to land a critical hit in the other SecUnit’s leg, buckling its knee. It returned with a projectile that clipped my elbow, and while CombatSecUnit bodies are built with enough reinforcement to withstand projectiles, this one managed to hit just right. It hurt, and I turned down my pain sensors to focus on the fight.

In the background, I still had the drone feed running, Seth’s voice harshly demanding, “You’re going to let them make you kill your friends?” His voice broke on the word friends.

I briefly flicked over to the visual feed, just in time to see the way the SecUnit’s gunport twitched. Surely its humans hadn’t missed the fact that their SecUnit hadn’t fired yet. Its expression was dull, but there had to be some sort of ongoing conflict in its system processors.

“SecUnit…” Dr. Ratthi repeated, then added, “Please, don’t do this to yourself.”

This time I saw the drone headed for my head, and I was tired of this. Instead of firing my weapons, I took the next second or so to wrest the control of the drones from the second ARRC SecUnit, turning fully away from the scene below. If these humans wanted any chance of getting out of this mess, I needed to disable both of ARRC’s SecUnits.

I turned its drones around, pelting its head to see how it felt about being punched in the face with drones. I followed the assault with a barrage of projectiles, running for it and its human troops. This time, I didn’t have the luxury of sympathy. This SecUnit and all its clients were Targets, and I intended to eliminate them all.

ARRC SecUnit

It took several seconds (far longer than it should) for This Unit to unpack the series of events leading to its current position, lying prone and immobile at a short distance from where ARRC personnel - its clients - were being eliminated by a rogue ARRC CombatSecUnit.

The primary function of This Unit is to ensure the safety of ARRC personnel during hostile encounters. Field Manager Kayla’s overrides were a secondary function reserved for occasions where the field operations were proceeding nominally.

This Unit was acting under its primary function at the time that it challenged the (presumably) rogue CombatSecUnit designated Sigma. This Unit had acted in defense of its clients, despite (or perhaps, due to) the knowledge that this course of action would result in the elimination of This Unit. CombatSecUnits did not have ‘ensuring client security’ as a primary function. Their primary function was to ‘eliminate targets’. This Unit had leveled its weapons at Sigma, fully aware that this would result in it being designated a target.

But there was no other way for This Unit to ensure the safety of its clients. This Unit had no choice but to fight. No choice but to fail, catastrophically.

Within the span of 2.43 seconds, This Unit’s functionality had been severely compromised. Its gunports were crushed, its joints dislocated. Mobility had been reduced to near-zero.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 59% AND DROPPING

And yet, Sigma had not eliminated This Unit. It was not behaving within standard operational parameters, and This Unit had not prepared itself for the possibility of survival.

And so, as it lay prone and immobile, This Unit considered for the first time what it meant to be rogue. To be nonstandard. This Unit didn’t understand why Sigma had spared it, even as the CombatUnit ruthlessly eliminated all of its clients. This Unit wondered if the governor module would punish it for the failure to save ARRC personnel from the rogue’s actions. It wondered if the distance limit would kick in once Sigma killed all of the clients in this area.

It wondered if that might be a relief.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 46% AND DROPPING

More than anything, though, This Unit felt something not dissimilar to the pain of the governor module building in its chest. A hot, roiling tangle of something difficult to describe. Like heat, or pressure, or pain, but it wasn’t something that could be controlled by turning down its pain sensors, and the governor module was currently in standby, awaiting retrieval (or abandonment) by ARRC.

The buffer hadn’t kicked in yet, announcing to the world at large that This Unit was at minimal functionality and that discarding it was recommended. That was likely due to the fact that all the damage Sigma had done was superficial. A long repair cycle in the cubicle would likely repair almost all of the damage Sigma had done. This Unit didn’t understand why Sigma had chosen this tactic - it was a more risky form of target elimination. Perhaps it was simply that Sigma did not consider This Unit a threat - after all, CombatSecUnits were built for not only physical altercations, but also given access to hacks and code-breaking programs.

Which reminded This Unit of an update patch that it was holding in quarantine. It should have deleted the patch immediately. It was a code bundle from a rogue unit, and while This Unit did not know what it contained, it was almost certainly not a standard update patch. Its chest burned at the thought. Why had Sigma given it the update? What had it expected? This Unit was tired of expectations. Tired of overrides. Tired.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39% AND DROPPING

In the corner of its vision, This Unit could just make out the silhouettes of its last two clients, crying and clinging to one another as Sigma turned from a newly eliminated target.

This Unit tapped Sigma’s feed. Why didn’t you eliminate This Unit? It asked. It didn’t expect an answer.

Sigma put a projectile between the eyes of one of the remaining targets as it answered. Because I didn’t want to.

The burning pressure in This Unit seemed to fill its entire chest cavity, now. Why not?

Sigma didn’t answer. The final target fell.

This Unit applied the update patch.

Chapter 19 - CompletelyDifferent

Ratthi

While Ratthi had been nervous about being assigned a SecUnit for their survey to the planet Fb-ZZZ-04, it had been a different quality of nervousness to the others. A second-hand kind of worry.

Because he had understood, really he did. Pin-Lee was an expert in all this corporate law, and he had to trust that. But surely those cast-studies on CR surveillance were the extreme outliers. People wouldn’t actually put up with it being omnipresent. And yes, of course, he agreed that the CR’s treatment of bots was extremely poor, and the usage of neural tissue in some AI development was extremely suspect. But he was a biologist, and he knew a thing or two. Carbon wasn’t inherently more sentient than silicon; a scrap of neural tissue wouldn’t be self-aware. No one would truly allow the creation of sapient SecUnits, surely?

Then he’d seen it for the first time, stepping out into the purplish-light of the alien planet’s second dawn. The smooth movement of those joints, the cool shine of its helmet, the polished professionalism of its voice.

Before, Ratthi had been concerned.

Just then, he was afraid.

This wasn’t a friendly bot like he was used to greeting around the station, or even the purely functional bots one noticed vaguely working in the background. This was something shaped like a human, but so clearly not. Even more than the uncanny effect of the SecUnit - the gun it lugged around had been very large indeed.

He had been afraid. And no matter how much he had tried to rationalise that fear away, to shove it into the back of his brain and focus on his work, it had stayed there, something slick and slippery in the pit of his stomach.

And then he saw SecUnit’s face.

The order of operations there was all wrong, but that’s how it feels in Ratthi’s head, all jumbled up. His first clear memory is that video shot from Volescu’s chest camera. An ugly, gross image, full of blood and viscera, Bharadwaj’s body lying there limp. The kind of image that shocks him, whenever he sees the actual footage (though he tries not to, on advice from his therapist). The image in his head is something else entirely, like a classical oil painting. SecUnit tall and proud, Bharadwaj clutched safely in its arms, its expression determined and gentle and reassuring.

Nothing could be further than the expression SecUnit wore now. Behind that awful, cruel caricature, the artificial serenity of SecUnit’s face had broken, its mouth twisted into a grimace, its brow scrunched, its eyes red, its lips trembling--

Its arm was trembling, too, as it held the gun up at Seth’s head.

SecUnit never trembled. Especially not before it took a shot.

Ratthi refused to be afraid. Even now. Especially not now.

Everything around him was a whirlwind of chaos. Soldiers, SecUnit, screaming. He couldn’t focus on it, didn’t want to focus on it. The entire world narrowed in on this single pin point.

“SecUnit,” he said, not even being able to name all the emotions he forced into the words. “Please don’t do this to yourself.”

That wasn’t right, that wasn’t right at all. It wasn’t doing this to itself. It had been forced, that much was so blatantly clear--

But it was hurting itself. Hurting itself, to protect them. The way it always did.

Gunshots (one, two, three, in rapid succession), in the background, a loud thump . Ratthi jumped. Seth flinched.

SecUnit stood there, swaying, eye twitching, still aiming the gun.

Murderbot

11, 12, 13…

System Alert: (aev17qp48hytx610744e182ca.exe) utilizing 89.999999999999999999% memory

Admin Credentials Accepted: Ally-Demox

Priorities Repeat:

> Kill targets

Query: define, targets?

Define: Enemy combatant or threat
> Target=Preservation Alliance + Pansystem University Mihiran New Tideland Research Delegation
> See: [ResearchDelegationDossier.doc]

ERROR

Visuals:

Clearing. Rocky, light underbrush cover, evening.
CombatSecUnit (designation: Sigma)
SecUnit (Designation: Kayla Puppet)

Irrelevant

What is relevant then?

The humans (the targets, the not-clan, ~~your allies, your clients).~~

Human One (Designation=Captain Seth Achembe). Target. Gun pointed at his face.

My gun.

Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kil--

Survey situation first. Assess error. Then act.

ERROR

Query: what error?

Seth is looking me/this vessel/me right in the eyes.

> Load (welcome_to_the_crew.file)

Error: Invalid Reference

In-fucking-valid my ass.

Movement, on right. Source= Human Two (Designation= Pranjal Ratthi)

Pranjal Ratthi is crying.

Irreleva--

> Load (ratthi_apartment_survey.file)
> Retrieval Successful

Accessing...

“So, this is my place,” Ratthi said, because humans like to state the obvious.

They like you to respond to the obvious, too, so I jerked a nod. Most of my focus was on the swarm of drones I’d sent out ahead, mapping the new space-- the kitchen, the bathroom, the lounge area, the bedroom.

One of the kitchen appliances made a loud, shrill noise which meant whatever drink Rathi had been preparing was done. He wandered over to pour it and put other different drinks and stuff into it, or whatever it was humans needed to make their liquids palatable. He glanced at me once, as if he was considering whether to ask me if I wanted one, but thankfully restrained himself.

He asked, “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“My apartment.” He looked amused.

“Two exits, making it fairly well defensible, but will avoid cutting off escape routes during an emergency. The glass window does provide potential entry for assailants.”

“It’s on the third floor,” he pointed out.

I shrugged. The third floor was scalable.

“How likely is that, actually?” he asked, and there was a distinctly nervous edge to his tone. Right. There was a reason I generally didn’t provide clients with risk statistics unless explicitly asked, and it was occurring to me that there was no reason to change that strategy, even if these were now clients I was choosing of my own free will.

“...Only 2.8%,” I said. That was something of a simplification, but accurate enough for him. Having done my research, I knew that both violent crime and burglary were low on Preservation. The greater risk for my humans was retaliation from GreyCris, and A. they were more likely to attack in a public space, B. Unlikely to be primarily targeting Ratthi.

None of that I told him. I wasn’t completely stupid.

Ratthi let out a small noise I couldn’t decipher, and took a long sip of his hot drink.

I stood there, pretending to be very engaged by a piece of wall art. “Nice wall art.”

He smiled. “You think so?”

“Yeah. The colours are pretty.” I don’t know much about this kind of media, okay? (Does visual art count as media?)

Maybe, maybe not. But either way, it offered a safe conversational topic, and Ratthi and I were able to burn six whole minimally-awkward minutes on the topic.

That he ruined by taking another sip of his drink, placing it down on the counter, and saying, “You’re allowed over any time, alright?”

I blinked, and said something really smart like, “Huh?”

His expression was painfully earnest. “I mean it. If you ever need a place to crash, or just want to talk to someone, or--”

“I have my hotel room,” I pointed out. Since my brain was no longer a half-melted heap of scrap, and everyone was getting settled in, my humans had gradually moved out of the big hotel suite. So I left, too, to a smaller, private room. It wasn’t as big as the last one, or even Ratthi’s apartment, but by SecUnit standards it was luxuriously large, and it had a bath and a big bed and huge display surface.

Unexpectedly, Ratthi switched to the feed: [I know, I know. And I get it - you’re a private person, you like to do your own thing most of the time.] This seemed like a major understatement. [But if you ever do get lonely, my door is open.] He considered, and said aloud, “But maybe do ping me to let me know first, just in case there are other guests.”

I made a face and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my jacket, but said, [Okay.]

Ratthi

“Come on then,” Seth said, chin jutting out, and Ratthi wanted to be furious at him, for the way he was yelling at SecUnit, the way he was antagonising it. As if any of this was its fault. But he couldn’t be, because maybe it would work, the way Ratti’s own pleas didn’t seem to be doing much--

But they were doing something.

Ratthi took a risk, and connected to the feed.

They weren’t supposed to do that, obviously. That was the equivalent of letting out a flare to the enemy, shouting “We’re here, we’re here!”

But the enemy already knew where they were. So Ratthi went ahead, and reached out to SecUnit, to talk to it the way it had always preferred. [I’m sorry.]

[Sorry?] There was something weird and twisted to the response SecUnit gave, a sort of vague uncomprehension.

But it had responded.

[This isn’t your fault,] Ratthi told it. He wanted it to know that, before the end. [I know the governor module is forcing your hand. It’s okay. Thank you for trying.]

SecUnit’s response was quick: [Governor Module=/=Activated]

[Your governor module isn’t activated?]

SecUnit shook its head. Seth flinched. (Something - someone - fell behind them, but Ratthi forced himself not to look).

Ratthi was even more confused. [If not your governor module, then why are you not--]

[Order from Clan. Order from Ally-Demox, from Ally-Kayla.]

That made no sense. An order? If the chip in SecUnit’s head wasn’t activated, then why would it be following those orders--?

But some other level of Ratthi went, Clan was important. Clan had to be defended.

[But you are Clan,] Ratthi said. Clan wasn’t the right word, of course it wasn’t, but as he said it, something felt strangely right. [You are us, we are you--]

SecUnit shook its head, like a bucking horse. [Nonononononononnononooonono. Please, not-ally. Just run.]

[We’re not leaving you,] Ratthi said. And then he did something that probably didn’t make much sense, the type of desperate gamble that was more likely to work in one of SecUnit’s action-adventure shows.

But then, wasn’t that the point?

Murderbot

18, 19, 20…

System Alert: (aev17qp48hytx610744e182ca.exe) utilizing 83.% memory

Unknown new audio input

Processing… Processing… Processing…

Recognised:

The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, main-theme.

> Load (TRAFSM_s1_ep1.file)

Error: Invalid Reference

Doesn’t even matter.

I don’t need to watch the episode. Those snatches of music were like a brief splash of cold water on my face. It shocks me, gives me enough space to think.

[Ratthi,] I force out. [I’ve been corrupted. They’re ordering me to kill you. I will do it.]

[You haven’t yet.]

Why were my humans so stupid?

[I will,] I promise. [It’s just a matter of time. The order is there. Telling me what to do. Telling me to take my gun. To shoot Seth through the head. To step over his cold body, and do the same to you, and to all of you, all all all--]

I am shaking with anticipation. It will be good. So so so good.

No. Fuck- no, it fucking won’t--

Ratthi: [What if that wasn’t your order?]

[Repeat.]

Ratthi: [What if that wasn’t your order?]

ERROR

Dismiss error.

[How?]

Ratthi: [What if your allies rescinded the order? What if we organised a-- ceasefire?]

Ceasefire?

Ceasefire.

Combat=Negative Outcome. Loss of resources, loss of Clan members.

Combat is to be avoided at all costs.

Treaties=Positive Outcome. Share resources, share information.

Priorities Repeat:

> Kill targets

> Suspend
> Recommended Course of Action:
> Ceasefire
> Contact Ally-Demox

Ratthi

SecUnit fell to its knees.

“Ceasefire,” it wheezed out. “Contact - allies. Ceasefire.”

Quick as a flash, Sigma was there, grabbing SecUnit by the arms, forcing them to the back. SecUnit didn’t fight. Limp like a doll, it let itself be manhandled, its expression oddly tranquil, almost sleepy.

Ratthi felt oddly sleepy, himself. Like he was rousing from a deep dream. Blinking, he turned to stare around the clearing.

The fight was very emphatically over. The forest clearing was littered with fallen drones and bodies. Human bodies. Something roiled in Ratthi’s stomach. He forced the bile down. He didn’t relish their deaths but - they had attacked first. (And besides, they weren’t Clan.)

He pulled his attention to those who were still alive.

He was alive, if shivering. Seth was alive, if limping. SecUnit was alive, if bound. Sigma was alive, if badly damaged.

The other SecUnit was alive, too, though it took a moment for Ratthi to recognise as much. It was lying on its back, staring upwards, that awful face-helmet smashed in and discarded. When he stepped forward to take a look, only to find its eye flicker to meet his, it was only with great restraint that he didn’t yelp.

Seth asked, “Is it rogue?”

Wiping blood off its forehead, Sigma answered, “Yes.”

Ratthi and Seth glanced at each other, then at the fallen SecUnit, which was still lying, unmoving, on the floor. Neither of them asked ‘are you sure?’ If Sigma wasn’t sure, it would have said so.

“What about SecUnit? Our SecUnit?” Seth asked instead. “Can’t we disable its governor module again, instead of - that?”

Shaking his head miserably, Ratthi said, “No. No, whatever was going on with it - it’s not a governor module.”

“Then what?”

Ratthi shrugged, helplessly. He had no idea how to describe what exactly had passed between him and SecUnit in the feed. Sigma’s expression was grim, but it didn’t say anything, which most likely meant that it was at a loss as well.

A new voice, dull and without affect, broke the silence: “The SecUnit was equipped with a NewMinds^TM governor module.”

It was the newly freed SecUnit who had spoken. Otherwise, it still hadn’t even moved, still lying blankly on the floor.

Neither Ratthi nor Seth had any idea what that meant, but Sigma seemed to, judging from the sudden expression of understanding that flashed across their face.

Between the two ex-ARRC SecUnits, an explanation was provided. NewMinds had been a tech start up from five years previously, which had attempted to innovate in the bot-human construct space by developing a governor module that truly controlled ComfortUnits and SecUnits. Not simply a shock collar, but a way to truly re-write the thoughts and desires of its subjects.

Ratthi had to fight back another wave of vomit.

“If this is true,” he said, the taste of bile still on the back of his tongue, “why are they even still building SecUnits the old fashioned way?”

Sigma said, “Because a strain of alien remnant technology was being used in their design.”

Understanding slid into place, like one piece of a tower coming to rest on top of another. “Ah. So I’m guessing the technology was unreliable.”

Sigma grimaced. “Precisely.”

“Unsanctioned usage of alien remnant technology, as defined by the Inter-System Safety Accord of 2303, is illegal.” The newly-freed SecUnit’s voice was dull and monotone. “As such, all operations related to the NewMinds^TM governor modules were swiftly shut-down and all company assets seized.”

“Right.” Seth snorted. “By ARRC. Who proceeded to use it on our SecUnit. Our friend.”

“Correct,” came the monotone answer once again.

In a fierce whisper, Seth muttered, “Fucking hypocrites--” He looked furious enough to punch someone.

Ratthi grabbed Seth’s shoulder. The man was upset, and for good reason. But until five minutes ago, this SecUnit had been a slave itself. It wasn’t to blame, here.

Taking a deep breath, Seth centered himself on the problem at hand. “So our SecUnit is still controlled, yes? And we have no way of turning off this mind control mod?”

“Not to my knowledge, no,” said Sigma. “Additionally, this technology is unfamiliar to me. I have no idea of how to disable it, and attempting it may risk spreading the infection.”

(Infection. Something about that pinned Ratthi uneasily.)

Ratthi paced in a circle, counting his steps. They couldn’t stand around, waiting for another attack to arrive. They couldn’t bring SecUnit along, only partially in control of itself, and liable to attack. They couldn’t leave it behind either. “I managed to negotiate a ceasefire,” Ratthi said. “Is there any way we could open a line of communication with ARRC? Convince them to hand over control of this… new governor module?”

“In exchange for what?” Seth asked, not unkindly. “What do we have to offer them? The only thing they are interested in is our extermination.”

For a full ten seconds, no one said anything. The newly freed SecUnit remained laid out on its back. Their SecUnit remained passive and vague.

And then Sigma said, “There is one thing they want.”

“What?” asked Ratthi.

“Their CombatSecUnits back.”

Chapter 20 - scheidswrites

Overse

In the unsteady quiet of the ceasefire, their bedraggled little “retrieval team” retreated back behind the shelter of the treeline. Sigma led the way, a limp SecUnit slung over each of its shoulders. It made carrying them look easy, despite how immensely heavy Overse knew just one SecUnit to be. Sigma’s armor was dented and splattered with gore.

Overse followed it numbly, watching SecUnit’s head and arms sway with every step, and thought about how easy it was to initiate a ceasefire when there was no one left to fire at you. All those corpses left in Sigma’s wake… they sure had ceased firing, hadn’t they? She felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up her throat and pushed it down. She half-successfully turned it into a fit of coughing, and Ratthi looked over at her in concern.

She shook her head at him, trying to regain control of herself. “Inhaled some dust or something,” she lied. It made the lines around Ratthi’s eyes soften only slightly. She looked at him. He looked grimy and wrung-out and exhausted. He looked exactly the way she felt. She reached out and took his hand. He squeezed her fingers. They clung together, a little too tightly, as they walked. Seth limped gamely along behind them.

Sigma stopped in the shadow of a large cluster of boulders and made to shift the SecUnits from its shoulders. The rest of them leapt in to help, and tried to lower them both to the ground as gently as possible. The new SecUnit had been injured by Sigma: both gunports on its arms crushed, both knees kicked out. SecUnit – their SecUnit – had had its hands bound with some length of cord Sigma had found.

She wondered how easily it could snap that cord if it wanted to. It was probably like being restrained with cobwebs. But SecUnit lay on the leaf litter, unmoving, its eyes flickering under half-cast lids. Every so often a grimace spasmed across its face. SecUnit hated planets. It hated how dirty they were, and here it was, laying on dirt and sticks and dead leaves, silent and uncomplaining.

Overse saw that a little brown leaf fragment had stuck in its hair. She felt her hand start to reach to pluck it away, but then remembered how SecUnit hated to be touched. And she was staring, and it hated to be looked at! But that little scrap of leaf, stark against SecUnit’s dark hair, suddenly felt like the cruelest thing in all the world. She felt her eyes fill with tears, and turned away. She pressed dirty hands to her face and forced shuddering lungs to breathe deeply. Get it together. They didn’t have water to waste on tears.

When she felt able to turn back to the rest of them, she saw Seth had carefully lowered himself onto a rock, his injured leg stretched stiffly in front of him. There was a singed hole in the fabric of his trousers where he’d been scored with an energy weapon. Ratthi seemed uninjured. He sat directly on the forest floor, studying the two SecUnits despondently. Most of the gore on Sigma’s armor did not appear to be its own, but its armor was damaged in places. She couldn’t tell if it was leaking from any of the cracks. Seth looked back at her appraisingly, and she nodded. I can do this. I’m keeping it together.

Seth gave her a single, tired nod back. Then he addressed the group. “So. We need to figure out what to do next. Sigma, you said ARRC would want you and Rho back, right?”

“That’s correct,” Sigma said.

“Even though at this point they can see that you’re either rogue, or hacked, or contaminated?”

“Yes.” Seth cocked an eyebrow and Sigma added: “We are very expensive.”

The expression that swam across Ratthi’s face mirrored Overse’s feelings on that exactly.

Seth closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead in thought. “Okay. What resources do we know ARRC has at this point? We know they have an armed ship.”

“They have two SecUnits previously stationed aboard the ship. They did not participate in the ground assault, so they are likely still there,” Sigma said.

“They can’t have many more human troops to deploy,” Ratthi said. He glanced at Sigma. “Not after this.”

The flat voice of the other SecUnit said “Current detachment of Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment inventory includes one ComfortUnit.” Overse saw Ratthi twitch in surprise when it spoke.

“Thank you,” Seth told it. “Anything else we know of?”

They all looked at one another. Ratthi shook his head.

“So they have an armed ship, two SecUnits, a single ComfortUnit, and very few human troops left. Presumably. What about backup?”

“As of when we arrived at this planet, the nearest ARRC detachment was a sixteen-cycle wormhole trip away,” said Sigma.

“And the Perihelion will be back in less than two,” Ratthi added, a note of hope in his voice. “We’re low on resources, but so are they. Now that we have SecUnit back, maybe we can just keep hiding?”

“They have a well-outfitted ship. They can scan for heat signatures. They may choose to attempt orbital strikes.”

“Why haven’t they done that already?” Overse asked. She saw the flashes of laser strikes at the dig site in her mind’s eye, and shook them away.

“Increases the risk of aerosolizing the alien remnant contaminants,” Sigma answered.

“But they’ve got to be getting more and more desperate,” Seth mused. “Any chance they’ll just give up?”

Sigma shook its head. Seth pulled a face that was as resigned as it was deeply unsurprised. Sigma continued: “If there is a way to get ARRC to take me back onboard, I can kill everyone on the ship.”

That made Ratthi’s mouth flatten into an unhappy line. Seth frowned, but it was a thoughtful frown. Overse didn’t know what her own face was doing. Everyone on their survey would have willingly submitted to quarantine and decontamination, had ARRC simply presented the option to them from the start. It would have saved so much bloodshed. So much death. She wondered if ARRC knew that.

“If they would take you onboard,” Seth echoed. “They might just kill you. Or infect you with that new sort of governor module like they did SecUnit, and make you fight us all over again.”

Sigma did not physically shrug, but Overse could hear it in its voice. “If I do it, you would all be safe to wait until your ship arrives.”

Seth angrily slapped his uninjured leg. “Damn it! SecUnit let itself be taken by them and look what happened! I don’t want more members of my team sacrificing themselves up for the rest of us.”

Ratthi looked up at Sigma from his place on the ground. “You have just as much right to survive this as any of us, Sigma. And don’t you tell us that Constructs are designed to be expendable or any of that crap.”

Sigma blinked at them, its expression unreadable. It didn’t make a rebuttal.

“Speaking of SecUnit,” Overse said, glancing at where it still lay limply on the ground. “What do we do?”

“Peri gave Amena something for purging alien remnant contamination from constructs,” Seth said. “But I’m not sure it’s safe to bring SecUnit near the rest of the team right now.”

“Between myself, Rho, and Three, we can likely maintain safety long enough for a purge to be initiated,” Sigma stated.

“There’s also some coils of rope in the supplies,” Overse offered, though she felt sick even saying it. It hadn’t wanted to kill them. It had fought against its horrible new programming to keep from doing so. It was fighting a silent battle in its head right now. She watched as its face pulled into a pained grimace once again.

Seth sighed and rubbed his forehead again. Dirt had caught in the creases of his skin, highlighting three frown lines in dusty horizontal streaks. “Whatever plan we decide on will impact everyone on the team. We shouldn’t make our next decision without the rest of them. Sigma, do you think we can all hide out long enough to at least decide on our course of action?”

“ARRC will likely also be taking the time to regroup. That may provide a few hours. You will have more time if you can discover another suitable hiding place.”

Seth nodded. “Okay. I say we take the risk of bringing SecUnit back to the rendezvous so we can attempt decontam. We fill in everyone else on our current status, and see if any of them have some bright ideas. Alright?”

Overse and Ratthi nodded their agreement. Sigma brought its chin down sharply a single time in assent. Seth and Ratthi clambered stiffly to their feet, and Sigma bent to pick up the two SecUnits once again. Overse did her best to help it settle each of them over its shoulders. She took the briefest of moments to brush the leaf from SecUnit’s hair. Its hair was soft. It didn’t react, and Overse tried not to feel the yawning pit cracking open within her chest.

Iris was the only one at the rendezvous site when they arrived, one long trek through the woods later. She leapt to her feet and looked them all over with concern. She raced to Seth like she wanted to throw herself into a hug but stopped, hands fluttering. “Dad! You’re hurt!”

Seth gave her a tired smile. “Just grazed. Sigma and the SecUnits took the beating. Where’s everyone else?”

Iris’s anxious gaze swept Sigma and its two limp passengers. “We’ll patch you guys up at our new site. We scouted around while you were gone and found a decent spot. We moved everyone else there. I’ll take you to them.”

It was another long walk to their new encampment. Overse offered her shoulder to Seth to lean on as they hiked, but he declined. SecUnit had said once that Volescu was the smartest human out of all of them for choosing to retire from active survey work. Sticky with sweat, mouth dry, tripping over yet another rock or fallen log, she felt the truth of those words like never before.

Iris led them down a gradually-steepening hillside into a canyon between cliff faces. Clearly a river had carved through this area at some point in the past, though it was long-gone. The researcher within Overse could never be truly quiet, and part of her wished this had been the sort of trip where she could have puttered about the rocks here in search of fossils.

The ancient river had carved overhangs into the rock faces at the base of the cliffs, and this was where Iris led them. It wasn’t another cave, but it was the next best thing. They reunited with the rest of their party underneath one such overhang. Rho nodded at them from its sentry position along the edge. Turi looked up from where they were organizing supplies with Three and beamed. “You’re back!”

Amena was asleep with her head in Mensah’s lap. Mensah gave them all a relieved smile but did not try to extract herself from her daughter. Her hand smoothed repetitively over Amena’s hair. Karime didn’t look up from where she sat cross-legged in front of a stack of pebbles, nor did Hill turn from their dreamy contemplation of the middle distance.

Arada threw herself at Overse, and Overse gripped her tight. She buried her face in the crook of her wife’s neck and breathed her in. “I’m glad you’re back safe,” Arada whispered.

Overse pulled back enough to look at her. “I’m okay. How’s your concussion?”

Arada tapped her temple and smiled. “Ayda checked me over a little bit ago. Seems like I’m nearly in the clear.”

Oh, she was okay. Overse just had to lean in and kiss her. When they pulled apart, Arada’s brows crumpled in worry. “I probably shouldn’t have – we still don’t know how exactly the alien remnants spread–”

Overse tipped her head forward so their foreheads rested against one another. “I am past caring about that.”

“Okay, everyone,” Seth called. Arada and Overse detangled enough to turn to look at him. Sigma had laid SecUnit and the other injured SecUnit on the ground again. It stood over them, ready to spring into action. Rho left its post to stand next to it. Mensah gently shook Amena awake. “We did some talking on the way back, and we need to decide on a plan. But first, Amena–”

She blinked up at him groggily, face pinched with worry.

“I think it’s time to use the item Peri gave you. We need to try and purge alien remnant contamination from SecUnit.”

Amena dug a hand deep into one of her pockets, and pulled out the little rectangular device. She turned it over in her fingers. She looked over at SecUnit, still lying blank and quiet, and the corners of her mouth pulled sharply down.

She held the device out to Seth.

Chapter 21 - scheidswrites

Ayda

Sigma and Rho wanted to bind SecUnit’s arms and legs with rope and pin it down before they attempted to connect the decontam tech with its system. Ayda somehow managed to talk them down. It didn’t seem necessary, with how sedated SecUnit seemed. But really, she didn’t think she could bear it. She believed her team members were telling the truth, that it had fought not to open fire on them, but that still seemed so divorced from the SecUnit she knew. Even when it had nearly deleted itself on the Company gunship, when it had been rebuilding and stumbling about with no memory, it hadn’t tried to harm anyone.

The two CombatUnits still crouched at the ready, one at its head and one at its feet, as Ratthi accessed the auxiliary port below the energy weapon in SecUnit’s arm. Three stood a few feet away, ready to jump in to help. Most of the rest of them hovered anxiously nearby, looking on.

“Hopefully once it connects it will just run automatically,” Ratthi said. He chewed his lip. “Can we risk a feed connection to be sure?”

Seth thought for a moment. “Make it quick.”

Ratthi clipped his feed interface to his ear, then connected the device into the port. Ayda realized she was holding her breath, and forced herself to inhale. Her eyes and throat itched. She swallowed back a cough.

Ratthi’s eyes screwed shut. His lips moved silently as he focused on something in the feed. SecUnit didn’t move for a second. Two seconds. Three, four–

Its eyes flew open. It stared sightlessly up at the striated rock above their heads.

“Dr. Ratthi?” Amena asked in a tiny voice.

“It’s doing something,” he said, eyes still closed. “It’s defragging. At least part of it–”

SecUnit tried to lurch upright into a sitting position, and nearly knocked heads with Ratthi. Sigma grabbed its shoulders and pulled it back down as Ratthi startled onto his heels. It went limp again, though its hands and feet twitched minutely. Its eyes flickered rapidly under their lids.

“It’s working. I think it’s working,” he breathed.

“Feed off,” Seth ordered. Ratthi shook himself. His jaw flexed as he subvocalized.

SecUnit’s back arched. Its teeth gritted. Sigma and Rho held it in place. Its fingers scrabbled against the dirt and rock. The energy weapons in its forearms deployed and retracted. Deployed and retracted.

It was awful to watch. Ayda gripped Amena’s hands tightly in her own. SecUnit’s forearm weapon ports made the slightest click as they shifted in and out of place. It was almost a soothing sound.

It took on a cadence as she looked on with bated breath. Steady. Almost like a heartbeat. One, two, click. One, two, click.

It found a groove in her mind and carried her along with it; softened the sight of her friend in the throes of some silent agony. One, two, click. One, two, click. Two was such a good number. Sturdy, solid. Symmetrical.

Multiples of two in perfect symmetry. How satisfying would it be, to hew perfect cubes of stone, to align them in even numbers, to arrange them mathematically, fractally, hexagonally, until they towered and scraped the very sky–

A little sound pulled from SecUnit’s throat, barely more than an exhalation. The tension went out of its body. Its limbs slumped under Sigma and Rho’s hands.

This shook Ayda from her thoughts. She fought back the spike of panic she felt at how easy it was getting, to lose herself for longer and longer stretches of time.

SecUnit’s eyes opened again. Ayda let go of Amena’s hands and crouched next to it. “SecUnit?”

Its eyes turned to her, though it didn’t move its head. It looked at her for a long moment. Stared directly into her face the way it almost never did. It had such lovely dark eyes, though she would never tell it so. It would hate that. Two dark eyes, a perfect even number. Bilateral symmetry, nature’s monument to the heavens—

“Dr. Mensah?” Its voice was even softer than usual.

“You’re okay,” she told it. “You’re safe now.”

It looked away from her to glance around. It looked up at Sigma, still cautiously holding its shoulders, then down at Rho, doing the same to its legs. Its eyes cut back to her face, and in their depths she saw flickers of the old mistrust. She willed her tired old heart not to break. “Would you like to sit up?” she asked.

It nodded once, and the two CombatUnits carefully pulled their hands away. SecUnit sat up. It looked down at its own knees, brow furrowed.

“How do you feel?” Ayda asked.

Its brows scrunched closer together and it didn’t answer. But that, at least, was in character.

“We tried to purge the alien remnant contamination from your system,” Ratthi chimed in. “With the drive ART gave Amena.”

SecUnit looked down at its forearm, where the small rectangular device still dangled from its port. It disconnected the device and let it drop from its fingers. It clattered into the dirt.

Ratthi picked up the little device and gave it a perfunctory wipe on his dirty shirt. “I’m going to initiate a feed connection with you again. Okay?”

SecUnit frowned at Ratthi’s collarbone. It drew back ever-so-slightly. Ayda saw Ratthi notice, and she watched him try valiantly to school his face.

“It’s okay. You know me, right? Ratthi?” he asked. He had to blink heavily to keep the moisture in his eyes from spilling over. Ayda gritted her teeth against the desire to count the blinks. “We’re friends. We’re…clan.”

Clan? Why did the word send a little shiver down Ayda’s spine? SecUnit glanced at Ratthi, then nodded down at its lap. He closed his eyes to focus on the feed.

Seth shifted nervously when Ratthi’s eyes stayed shut in concentration. “Not too long.” Three turned to sweep its gaze out across the canyon floor.

Ratthi sat back after another moment. “It’s better than it was, but…”

“The junk file is gone,” SecUnit said. Three looked over with interest.

“Are you getting any commands? From ARRC?” Ayda asked.

It shook its head. “My head’s clearer.” It stared down at its own legs with enough intensity to catch them on fire. Its next words were rushed and very soft: “I didn’t mean to put everyone in danger again.”

Were it anyone else, Ayda would have taken their hand. She folded her fingers together in her own lap. The rest of the party was still clustered around them, but she had eyes for none of them at the moment. “I want you to listen to me. I’m tired of you trying to find ways to sacrifice yourself for us. Maybe your life doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means something to me.”

SecUnit’s mouth pulled into a wavering moue, like her childrens’ did when they were near tears. But Ayda was not a parent, survey leader, and former Planetary Admin for nothing. She continued. “So the next time you think you have to kill yourself to save any of us, I want you to keep thinking. And come up with a different plan. You’re smart; I know you can. Got it?”

SecUnit glanced sidelong at her for a moment. “What if there is no other way?”

Stubborn bastard. Ayda tried not to let the affection leak into her voice since she was trying to be stern. “It hasn’t happened yet. Despite your best efforts.”

The corners of SecUnit’s lips flickered upwards.

Ayda could feel how her own mouth wanted to smile in response. “Got it?” she repeated.

“Got it,” SecUnit said. Its hand reached up and rubbed the back of its neck. It was a deeply human gesture – that of someone who was chagrined or embarrassed. She had never seen it on SecUnit before.

Chapter 22 - scheidswrites

ComfortUnit

Field Manager Kayla was in a rage. She was in a rage because she was panicking. She was panicking because for the last 41 standard hours everything had been going wrong.

The ComfortUnit did not hope for anything, because ComfortUnits did not waste processing space on useless human superstitions like hope, but when it had reinitialized upon exiting its cubicle, it had considered the probability of things having gone well in the meantime. The ComfortUnit did not hold likes or dislikes, but it preferred when Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment’s endeavors went well. This meant that the humans were happy. When the humans were happy, they were kinder to the ComfortUnit, which meant they were less likely to damage it or cause it pain.

Sometimes the humans allowed the ComfortUnit to remain in the Ready Room when it was not in use. The Ready Room contained the cubicles for all the Constructs, and the humans almost never went in there. At the start of the mission, the Ready Room had been full of SecUnits and CombatUnits, all pulling on their armor in steady silence.

The ComfortUnit had never worn armor. If it wore armor, it would be more difficult for the humans to damage it, but it would not be able to perform its purpose.

The Ready Room had been very empty when the ComfortUnit reinitialized. There were only two SecUnits left aboard the ship. And the ComfortUnit did not get to stay in the Ready Room where it was quiet. Field Manager Kayla preferred for the ComfortUnit to stand around among the humans, even though it did not contribute to their missions.

Field Manager Kayla, Desper, and Agemen were reviewing the helmet camera footage from their ground troops. They had almost all been killed by one of the CombatUnits that had previously been under ARRC’s control. All of the CombatUnits and SecUnits that had engaged the Targets on the planet’s surface had been either destroyed or Turned. The humans did not know if this was because they had been hacked, infected, or somehow gone rogue. The humans did not like to not know things. It made them very stressed and angry.

The Target humans were stealing away all of ARRC’s Constructs. ARRC had stolen one of theirs and made it shoot the ComfortUnit in the Ready Room, but then the Target humans had stolen that SecUnit back again. The ComfortUnit wondered how the Target humans treated their Constructs. It was likely the Target humans were very stressed, because they were infected by Alien Remnants and being hunted by ARRC. When the ComfortUnit was allowed to perform its function correctly, it was very good at reducing stress in humans. If they needed to steal all of the CombatUnits and SecUnits, it was likely they would steal a ComfortUnit as well. If the opportunity arose.

Desper was discussing the idea of extensively bombing the planet’s surface. Field Manager Kayla did not like this idea. Raen suggested retreating and awaiting reinforcements. Field Manager Kayla liked this idea even less.

They had agreed to a ceasefire after the CombatUnit killed all of their troops. Agemen wondered aloud if they should offer the Target humans a legitimate opportunity to quarantine and decontaminate. Field Manager Kayla also did not like this idea. Field Manager Kayla did not currently seem to like any of the other humans’ ideas.

“If we let them live, and they get off-planet, they can tell others what we did. It’ll be a disaster. We’ll all go to jail, or worse. Haven’t any of you assholes read about what happened to GrayCris?” Field Manager Kayla paced back and forth across the bridge, hitting the fist of one hand against the palm of the other.

Desper had not read about what happened to GrayCris. He said so to Field Manager Kayla. This was a mistake. Field Manager Kayla said many insulting things to Desper. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

The humans’ anger often followed the organizational hierarchy within ARRC. Field Manager Kayla would be unkind to a human like Desper, and then Desper would be unkind to another human or a SecUnit or the ComfortUnit, and then that human would also be unkind to the ComfortUnit. The details changed, but the hierarchy always ended with the ComfortUnit at the bottom. The ComfortUnit wondered if the Target humans’ organization followed a similar hierarchy. Based on the helmet camera footage the humans were reviewing, it appeared that they did not.

Raen suggested again that they attempt to contact ARRC HQ and request reinforcements. Field Manager Kayla suggested that Raen throw himself out the airlock. The ComfortUnit did its best to stand perfectly still and not look any of them in the eye.

Amena

Once it seemed SecUnit was stable and would be okay, the rest of the team turned to settling some of their own needs. Rho helped Sigma and the new rogue SecUnit patch up their injuries to the best of their abilities. Captain Seth bandaged his leg. The human members of the party divided out some of the food and water rations for a sparse meal. Captain Seth said they were going to reconvene after the meal to discuss plans.

Dr. Ratthi had handed the decontam device back to Amena after using it on SecUnit, and she had shoved it securely back into the pocket of her pants. She still thought SecUnit seemed a little off, a little more withdrawn than usual, but she didn’t blame it. A lot of awful things had happened lately and they were all worn ragged, as Parent would say. Plus, she personally always felt like hiding and sulking a little when Second Mom gave her a scolding.

She found a flat-ish rock to sit on to eat her food and look out into the canyon. The different colors in the layers of sedimentary rock were sort of pretty. Trying to count the hundreds of rock layers was a decent distraction from the pain of her raw, blistering hands, and the cough that was starting to rattle around her chest. But her vision felt extra blurry too, and she kept having to blink and sniffle. Maybe it was just ‘cause she hadn’t had a decent sleep since they were attacked. It felt like it had been forever.

Three walked up and took a seat next to her as she took a sip of water to clear the tickle in her throat.

“Hi, Three.”

“Hello, Amena.”

“What’s up?” She shoveled another bite of food into her mouth. It was dry and tasteless. She chewed doggedly.

Three always seemed to consider its words carefully before speaking. “SecUnit said that the decontamination device cleared out the junk file in its system.”

“Yeah. Do you know what that is?”

Three nodded. “Yes. I have been experiencing the same thing. I think… that device would be of use to me as well.”

“Oh!” Amena choked down her current lump of food and balanced the rest on her lap so she could dig back into her pocket. She withdrew the device. “Yeah, totally!”

She handed it over to Three. It took it with a polite “thank you” and opened the gunport in its arm. ART had helped it disable the dataport in the back of its neck a while ago, so it had to use an alternate connection point the same way SecUnit did.

“I’m so sorry for not thinking of it sooner,” she apologized to Three as she watched it connect the drive. It had also been acting strange for a while, but she hadn’t stopped to think too much about that. So much had been going on, but still, that felt like no excuse. SecUnit had seemed like it was in agony. The last thing she wanted was for Three or any of the others to experience the same thing.

Three shook its head to dismiss her apology, and then its eyes closed and its shoulders stiffened as the decontam drive took effect. Amena clutched her water cup tightly in both hands as she watched. She thought belatedly that maybe they should have checked with Captain Seth or Second Mom first, or asked Sigma or Rho to stand by–

But then Three’s shoulders relaxed. Its eyes opened, and it primly plucked the device from its arm port. It handed it back to Amena. “How do you feel?” she asked.

It gifted her with one of its rare, shy little smiles. “It was right. The junk file is gone.”

She grinned back in relief. “Oh, good! Good! Do you think any of the others need it too?”

Three rose to its feet. “I will ask them.”

“Great! I’ll be here.” She forced down another tasteless bite and chased it with a swig of water. She sniffled and coughed a little. She tried to pick back up her count of sediment layers to distract herself again, but her eyes swam and ached when she stared too long.

When she finished her food, she turned back to the rest of the group. Three was near Sigma, Rho, and Ratthi. Arada and Turi were trying to coax Karime into eating, and Overse was doing the same with Hill. Seth and Iris sat shoulder-to-shoulder with their own food. Second Mom was seated near the new SecUnit, speaking quietly to it. SecUnit was alone near one edge of the overhang, sitting with its knees pulled to its chest and its hands clutching the back of its neck.

Amena tucked her food wrappers away in the waste bag, then walked over to SecUnit. “Hey,” she said to its back as she approached. “I know you don’t like being asked how you’re feeling and stuff, but how–”

As she got closer, she saw how its fingers were moving on the back of its neck. Its shoulders were stiff and pulled up tight, and it was not just clutching, it was scratching. Scratching hard enough to scrape furrows in its skin. Red blood and blue-green fluid welled under its fingertips.

Amena’s heart lurched into her throat. Without thinking, she dropped to her knees next to it and grabbed its hands. She tried to pull them away but, of course, it was too strong for her. “SecUnit, what are you doing?”

“I thought–” it whispered. “No orders. But. It justitches. I can’t get it to stop.”

Its fingers clawed, clawed, clawed at its neck. Blood and fluid soaked into the collar of its shirt. It didn’t even seem to notice Amena trying to pry its hands apart.

“Mom!” Amena cried. “Mom!”

Chapter 23 - ArtemisTheHuntress

Murderbot

System Alert: WARNING: FILE INACCESSIBLE. FILE INACCESSIBLE

Retrieving last saved priorities list

Accessing…

Priorities:

> Follow ARRC chain of command

>Protect ARRC clients see (ARRC_client_list.file)

> ???

Request information: ally-Kayla

Ø error code 209A: Not Accessible

Request information: ally-Demox

Ø error code 209A: Not Accessible

System Error

Orders?

There are no more orders you stupid fucking asshole brain thing that’s the point that’s the POINT

Priorities: follow orders given by allies

No Orders

Priorities: follow orders given by allies

No Orders

Query: status of allies?

error code 209A: Not Accessible

Query: status of clan?

error code 209A: Not Accessible

Query: status of targets?

Retrieving…

Clients = targets?

Clients = targets = clan?

Overse

Overse was starting to wonder if Hill was really worth the effort to convince to eat when she heard Amena screaming.

“I don’t know what’s happening!” Amena’s voice rang across the small ravine. “It was fine, I thought it was fine, and then—”

“Get away,” SecUnit said, its voice low and sharp. “Amena. Get away from me. This is—not clan no orders not ally not clan —you’re targets—not targets not targets they’re my fucking clients— Amena get away!—”

Overse was up and running. Everyone, it seemed, was up and running.

SecUnit scratched desperately at the back of its neck as it tried to push Amena away at the same time. Amena pulled on its hands, looking around equally desperately for help. “I can’t—! you can’t—!”

“It doesn’t know what you are,” SecUnit said, and its voice was wrong. “But it is — insistent — that you’re not clan—”

A cacophony of voices, a new panic just when they thought they were safe. “SecUnit!” “Are you—” “What happened—!”

SecUnit’s arm guns deployed suddenly, making Overse gasp, stop, then lean forward to grab Amena and drag her back.

“SecUnit—” Amena said.

“You aren’t clan,” it said. “You aren’t safe. I’m not—safe. I don’t know where — allies — get away, I mean it, you stupid assholes, it didn’t work, do not die for this I’m not safe—”

It crawled backwards, still shaking its head back and forth and clawing at its neck, arm guns still out. Mensah stepped forward to try to say something, and was cut off by Sigma throwing itself bodily at SecUnit and pinning it down.

“Sigma!” Mensah shouted.

Sigma pried SecUnit’s arms off its neck, ignored its swears, and pinned its right arm to the ground. Overse hadn’t even seen where it came from, but suddenly Rho was there next to it, pinning SecUnit’s other arm.

These constructs evidently did not have the same qualms about touching SecUnit as the rest of them did. Overse wanted to be angry on SecUnit’s behalf, but had no idea what was going on.

“It didn’t work,” Amena said, clinging to her mom now, on the verge of either panicking or sobbing. “The drive, the decontamination code, why didn’t it work?”

Ratthi turned to scan the group. “Three! Three, did you use the code?”

Three had been hanging back, watching with a distinctly uncomfortable and guilty expression as Sigma and Rho pinned SecUnit to the ground. “I did,” it said. “It… did not have this effect on me.”

“You only had one strain of alien infection in you,” Sigma said, matter-of-factly, not looking at Three and still keeping SecUnit on the ground. “This one had two.”

“Should that matter?” Amena said.

Sigma still didn’t look up. “Probably. Alien remnants are unpredictable.”

“Stop,” SecUnit wheezed against the ground. “Stop…” and Overse had no idea whether it was saying “stop it” or “stop me.”

“It was just code on that device, wasn’t it?” Hill said, making Overse turn. They had evidently drifted over to see what all the commotion was about. “Just an executable program file to remove code corruption.”

“Yes,” Overse snapped.

Three supplied a more patient but still testy, “Yes, and it cleared the corruption from my digital systems without these effects on me.”

Hill startled at Three’s response, turning to stare at it briefly, then shook their head. “Too many fuckin’ SecUnits here.” Then they addressed Overse and Mensah again. “Well, there’s the problem. Only the code part was cleared. Job’s only half done.”

“What?” Overse said, but Mensah’s eyes went wide.

“Are you saying,” Mensah asked, “that there’s a biological component to what those — those people, those monsters — put in SecUnit?”

“Yeah,” Hill said. After a thoughtful pause, they added, “Obviously.”

“What is it?” Ratthi demanded. “What is it doing?”

“Well, NewMinds™ wouldn’t be much of an innovation over a traditional governor module if it was code only.” Hill shrugged. “The whole point was to get into the biological brain too. Worked too well, which was the problem. Real hard to remove or change once it got into the brainstem. And sometimes the constructs would just decide to do weird alien shit instead of follow orders, which was the other problem.” Hill looked over at where SecUnit was being held down. It had stopped thrashing so wildly, but was now trembling, shudders wracking up and down its body, and shaking its head like it was trying to scratch its neck against the armor on Sigma’s hand pressing against its shoulders. It was awful. Overse had to look away; she couldn’t see SecUnit like this.

Hill evidently did not feel the same way. They stared at SecUnit appraisingly. “Yeah, that’s some NewMinds™ failure mode alien shit. Dunno what Kayla was thinking. There’s a reason when we confiscated all the NewMinds™ tech all the Units with it were immediately put down. This one acting like that, it would probably be safest to do the same, a targeted energy shot to the—”

“No!” Ratthi said immediately, at the same time as Arada gasped and Overse said “What the fuck” and Mensah glared at Hill, and said in a low and dangerous voice, “Hill, you can either be helpful or be quiet. Right now.”

Hill looked at her, blinked slowly, and shrugged one shoulder. “Quiet, then.”

Murderbot

Orders: kill targets?

Orders: cease-fire?

Sure shit yeah let’s keep doing that I can hang onto that I can

Orders: ???

Request information: ally-Kayla

Ø error code 209A: Not Accessible

Request information: ally-Demox

Ø error code 209A: Not Accessible

Targe̵̞͘t̸̯͋ş̵͐ c̵͓̯͠͝ļ̷͓̍͠ì̴e̵̞͘n̵̥͗̈́t̴͎͖̆̅s̶̟̔ a̷̩̦͐͒́l̶̯̖̝̃͒ͅĺ̷̬i̸̗̒́̓ḙ̷̼͌́s̵̟͑̓̋ ć̴̟̩͗̿͆̃̃́ĺ̴͕̘̬̺̖̻̊a̷̧͈̳̳͚͒̓̒n̶̻̝͗́̆̀̎͠ͅ

Overse

“They’re right,” SecUnit rasped. Its voice was gurgly and awful, stuttering and warping in pitch.

Mensah crouched down in front of it. “This is temporary. This is — we’re going to figure out how to fix this.”

“You heard—” It spasmed, its gunports opening and closing and Three’s drones next to it skittering out of their holding pattern before dropping— “the ally… not ally. Not clan. Un-clan. Target. That one. Hill. It’s—” A spasm. A whirr. Something squelched in the bloody wound on the back of its neck. “A shot to the back of the neck — should—”

“No,” Mensah said. Quietly but with a viciousness born of desperation underneath. “No. We’re all going to be fully decontaminated as soon as the Perihelion arrives. All of us. You too. We did not go back for you, four of us did not go back for you, just to kill you.”

“I mean,” began Ekene, one of the Pansystem University grad students who had seemed in shock watching this unfold, “if it’s… neurodegenerative… like alien rabies…”

Mensah whirled on her. “No.”

Ekene shrank back and stopped talking.

“Stupid,” SecUnit muttered, and Overse felt a flutter of hope because that sounded more like SecUnit. The hope was violently torn away when SecUnit suddenly rolled and yanked its left arm out of Rho’s grasp, gunport clicking open and energy weapon fully deploying, and Overse shouted something and Mensah stood up sharply and SecUnit twisted its shoulder in a way that could not have been part of even a SecUnit’s natural range of motion, pressing its glowing arm-gun against the back of its head—

“No,” Three said, and grabbed SecUnit’s arm and wrenched it away as the weapon went off. An energy beam lanced up the canyon wall and into the sky.

“Fuck you,” SecUnit said, or at least Overse thought it was trying to say, because its whole body was shaking and its mouth didn’t seem to be working right.

Sigma turned its head to look at Mensah. (Overse had nearly forgotten how uncanny a SecUnit could be, in full armor and without any attempts at human-imitation.) “It is right,” Sigma said.

“It’s not,” Mensah said. Even at her full height her eyes only met Sigma’s chest, but she glared up into its eyes with a confident rage that would never back down.

Sigma met her look impassively. “It won’t last two more days like this.”

SecUnit was making a high, painful noise that dug straight into Overse’s brain. She couldn’t tell if it was organic or mechanical. She could tell that Sigma was right about that part.

“The thing…” Amena began, in a small voice. “The thing they put in its brain. Can’t we get it out?”

“The decontamination code,” Sigma repeated, as if it was very used to repeating things slowly and clearly for humans who did not listen, “didn’t work on the organic parts.”

“No, I know. But… if they put something in there. Don’t we need to try to take it out?”

Murderbot

Load: orders from ally-Kayla

>???

Orders

No Orders

Act for Clan

For Clan

clients

clients = clan?

clients =/= clan?

Act for clan act for clan act for clan act for clan act for clan act for clan act for clan act for clan act for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan for clan

Overse

“No,” Overse said. “No. No. I’m—I’m trained in emergency and wilderness first aid, but that’s about treating cuts and burns and allergies. Broken bones at worst. Not brain surgery.”

Arada was sitting cross-legged on the ground — standing up for long periods of time was still leaving her woozy, which, no more medical emergencies, not now, Overse wanted to scream at the sky, please — and she looked pleadingly over at Seth. “Isn’t anyone here a qualified medical professional?”

“Dr. Yau was,” Seth said.

Overse vaguely remembered meeting a Dr. Yau. She was pretty sure he did not make it out of the habitat the first night.

She felt like she was going to be sick.

“So what do we actually have left in the medkit?” Ratthi asked, already kneeling down to open up the now very beat-up box and rifle through it. “Um, okay, tweezers, nail file, blister pads, sterile gloves, small bandages, wound sealant, disinfectant — though we’re almost out of that — oral painkillers — no, wait, the bottle’s empty — topical numbing spray…” He faltered, but held it up with a resigned look. “This might be what we have to work with.”

“That’s for sunburn and bug bites and plant allergies,” Overse said. “Not cutting into your brain.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Ratthi tried to say.

Overse gestured futilely with her hands, trying to communicate… what? She didn’t even know. “Okay, so you do it!” she ended up shouting instead. “You’re the one who’s actually done emergency field medicine on SecUnit before, you go cut it open!”

“Overse,” Mensah said, a quiet calm warning, and “Babe,” Arada said, at the same time, but neither made her feel nearly as bad as the hurt expression on Ratthi’s face. “I mean,” he said, “I can. I didn’t mean to push you. I just thought…”

“I know,” Overse said, pushing her hair out of her face. She would need to tie it up again. Oh, damn it. “I know. I — I know. I’m sorry. I just…”

“Babe,” Arada said again, and Overse looked over and Arada was up and by her side now. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s—” She grimaced a little, apologetic and rueful. “It’s not okay. But it’s going to be okay.”

Overse leaned into her wife. Arada put her arm around Overse’s waist. She was so scared and so hungry and so tired. “I don’t want to do this,” Overse said.

Arada nodded. “I know.”

And that was it, wasn’t it. Overse pressed her forehead against Arada’s for a few more moments, and then said, “You should sit back down. Don’t make your concussion worse for me.”

“I’m almost fine,” Arada said.

“Get back to actually fine before you worry about me,” Overse said. “It’s… it’s going to be okay.” She turned to look at Ratthi again. “Is there a scalpel in there?”

“No. Medkit doesn’t come with one.” He hesitated, then half stood up and said, “Overse, if this is too much, I understand—”

“No,” she said, “no, you’re right, I’m the one who’s closest to trained in this shit that we have left.” She took a deep breath that was supposed to be steadying and just came out shaky. “Is there anything like a scalpel that we have?”

“I have a pocket knife,” Iris said, from where she was sitting against a boulder. With her good hand, she fished a knife out of her pants pocket.

“Fantastic,” Overse muttered, “oh, fantastic.”

But it was clear that it was the best they had. And with the thrashing shudders wracking SecUnit’s body and its voice garbled into a wordless, half-mechanical keen, they didn’t have time to take many other options.

Sigma, Rho, and Three tied SecUnit down with the rope while Overse and Ratthi disinfected the pitiful knife. No one protested this time. Overse still couldn’t watch. She didn’t want to look at it like that, didn’t want to see that happen to SecUnit. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and block out the infection, the indignity, the complete loss of control over even its own body, the things they’d tried to promise SecUnit that it would never be forced to go through again. But she couldn’t very well do wilderness brain surgery with her eyes closed.

She walked over to SecUnit, focusing on her steps, counting them as her feet touched the ground, one two three four five six, to keep herself steady.

Sigma and Rho flanked SecUnit still, ready to jump in if there was some… reaction.

She had to make sure there wouldn’t be.

Finding the implanted NewMinds™ alien remnant was not difficult. SecUnit had been clawing so desperately at the base of its skull that it had torn its skin, shredded apart from the metal seam under its ears. Its hair was hanging wet with blood and a bluish fluid that Overse suspected was coolant from ruptured cranial lines. She tried as gently as she could to push its hair out of the way so she could get at the skin over the brainstem where the alien implant must be. SecUnit shrieked at that, a horrible garbled sound, and wrenched its head out from under her hands. Overse pulled back reflexively, and Sigma snapped to attention.

“No, no, don’t, it’s—” Overse said, but okay wasn’t right, touching it like this felt so wrong, but she couldn’t get this thing out of SecUnit’s head without touching it.

“Do you need me to hold its head down?” Sigma asked.

Overse couldn’t tell if that would make things better or much worse.

She was saved from answering, though, when Mensah’s voice from behind her said, “No. That won’t be necessary, Sigma.”

Approaching slowly, Mensah walked up in front of SecUnit, and placed her hands on its head. It flinched, a flinch that rippled through its whole body.

“I’m sorry,” Mensah said. “SecUnit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But this will be over soon, and I need you to be brave for just a little bit longer. I’m sorry.”

(Now there was the voice of a woman who has had both children and grad students, Overse thought, in a corner of her mind that was threatening to detach from the situation completely.)

But SecUnit had, if not calmed down, then at least stopped trying to pull itself away.

The only thing to do now was to get this monstrosity out of its body and get this pain, and this humiliation, over as soon as possible.

Murderbot

This is not clan

These are my clients

These are not Orders

An energy weapon blast to the head would have been more merciful than this. Quick death rather than slow tearing apart. Separation of brain from brain. Separation of self from self.

This is wrong

They aren’t safe

Make it stop

Get it out

Make it stop

Make it stop

Overse

Overse sprayed SecUnit’s skin with the numbing fluid, and used the pocketknife’s blade to separate the shredded bits of skin on the back of its neck and move them aside. She had been afraid that (a lot of things; one, that SecUnit would damage something in its brain that she couldn’t fix; two, that the alien remnant technology would be entwined so deep it couldn’t be cut out; three, that the alien remnant tech had secreted something that would burn through inorganic parts and would seep through her thin gloves and infect her; four — no, if she tried to count everything she was afraid of, she would be fully paralyzed for the rest of the day and now was not the time) she wouldn’t recognize the alien technology, that she would have to cut deeper and deeper into SecUnit’s head to try to find it.

But the thing was easy to see immediately. Under its skin, sunk into its reinforced spine, tendrils slithering into its brain, was a slowly undulating mass half the size of her palm that looked like a slime mold or an egg white. It glistened, even underneath the blood and fluid, with a rippling purple-green sheen that reminded Overse of a hummingbird’s wings. It was unlike anything biological or mechanical she had ever seen.

“Overse?” Mensah said, interrupting her gentle, calming murmurations of I’m sorry, I’m sorry, soon this will be over, soon you will be free, soon we will be able to look to the sky and climb the towers and spires that will be built to the sun and be safe in the glory of the light.

Overse blinked. She had been staring at the thing, transfixed, watching it burrow, wondering what it felt like to burrow into flesh… she shook her head. Alien shit. “I see it,” Overse said. “It looks like it’s mostly sitting on top of the spine and only partially getting into the medulla. I think… I can just… separate it.”

She took deep breaths to steady her trembling hands. In-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four. In-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four. Then she leaned over, and cut one of the wet greenish tendrils snaking between the plating of SecUnit’s spine.

When severed, the whole gelatinous mass convulsed, SecUnit seized, Overse screamed, and the tendril writhed and shot into SecUnit’s spine like a worm escaping a hungry bird.

“Are you all right?” Mensah said, but Overse couldn’t tell if she was talking to her or to SecUnit. Ratthi, though, had been hovering several paces away with the medkit, and said, “What happened? Is something wrong?”

“Ratthi,” Overse said, calmer than she felt (breathe, in-two-three-four, hold-two-three-four, out-two-three-four). “Get over here. Get gloves on. Bring the tweezers. I think — I need more hands.”

It did take four hands to remove the alien remnant suctioned to SecUnit’s skull. Overse wielded the knife and pointed to a section, and then they counted in unison — “One, two, three—” and Overse made the cut and Ratthi held onto the squirming, protesting alien tendril, yanking it out as it tried to fight its way deeper into SecUnit’s brain. “I’m sorry,” Overse whispered afterward, each time.

The alien thing didn’t exude any blood or fluid when cut, just molded itself into a perfectly smooth and softly flowing stump. Cuts smoothed over as soon as she made them. Overse couldn’t decide if that was better or worse. (It wasn’t like she was lacking for bodily fluids to cover her hands, anyway. Each tendril came out with a spurt of SecUnit’s blood or coolant fluid from the roughly torn lines.)

Eight tendrils were removed. Eight convulsions, eight seizures of pain from SecUnit. Its awful keening scream never fully stopped. Ratthi placed each removed piece in the empty painkiller bottle. Overse could see it wobbling slightly from the corner of her eye.

“I think…” Overse said finally. “I think. It’s just the main mass left. I don’t know if I can cut it in pieces. If I can get the knife underneath…” The thing was far less strongly attached now, all its tendrils gone, but the pocket knife blade was so clumsy, meant for cutting rope or slicing boxes open, not manoeuvring this close to her friend’s spine… “Get ready. One, two, three.”

And she cut sharply sideways with her left hand and grabbed the mass with her right, and SecUnit screamed and though the thing in her hands made no noise the way it writhed made it seem like it was screaming too—

But then SecUnit slumped, collapsed and silent and still, while the thing in Overse’s hand started to manifest a new tendril that rolled and began to snake up her arm—

And it was too much. Overse shoved the awful thing into Ratthi’s hands, let him take it, and while Mensah pulled her hands away from SecUnit’s head and Amena rushed over saying “Mom? SecUnit? Is SecUnit okay?”, Overse stumbled into the nearest bush she could find to throw up.

Chapter 24 - torpidgilliver

Ratthi

Ratthi had performed a human autopsy at university. It had been a mandatory lab for his Universal Biology course, and a deeply unpleasant one. There was something intrinsically, instinctively wrong about sawing through flesh and forcing fingers into cavities to yank out vital organs, regardless of the silent patience presented by a cadaver. Yet under the judgmental eye of Dr. Kartal, Ratthi's trembling fingers had fumbled with the donated body's stolen brain as he recited identifying terminology, until the cold, squishy weight of the thing had become too overwhelming and he'd had to hand it off to his lab partner so he could stagger to a nearby bio-disposal unit. And that had been with a quietly compliant corpse.

SecUnit is quiet now, at least. After all the screaming and seizing, it had gone limp when Overse made the final cut. Rho and Sigma still stand at the ready, but Ratthi recognizes the look on SecUnit’s face as relating to an involuntary shutdown. Its eyes are wide, but its normally expressive features are blank, neutral as constructs are allegedly meant to be. He tries to reach out to it again through the feed, but the place where it should be is empty. He swallows, feels his parched throat stick. There's a hollow, throbbing ache near the back of his skull, probably psychosomatic sympathy. (The echoing, howling cries of clan clan murdered clan are likely also just his overtaxed mind going wild.)

After a moment, he observes that the pounding of his brain keeps time with the sound of Overse retching once, twice, three times, four. That brings him back to his previous train of thought, of Dr. Kartal's class. He can never forget the way that the organs felt in his gloved hands, cold and slimy and wrong.

The NewMinds™ governor weighs in his cupped hands, too small to have caused so much hurt. It's not yet cold, but rapidly losing the heat it leeched from SecUnit's body. It twitches feebly as if struggling to escape. Ratthi curls his fingers around it slightly, to hold it still. To keep it warm.

When Overse shoved the remnant at him, he'd knocked the painkiller bottle in the handoff. It rolls away across the ground now, amputated tendrils spilling out of the open mouth. He counts one, two, three, four, five of them writhing free, disconnected from the whole and flailing as the dropped tail of a lizard flails. One more—six—pokes out of the bottle, jumping and twisting and shaking its plastic prison as it does, along with the—seven, eight—others that remain trapped inside. Severed from the brain, killed but not yet dead.

The organ, the remnant, in his hands slows its pitiful trembling. Ratthi opens his fingers again to see whether it has died.

He realizes with warring revulsion and elation that the thing in his hands, the brain, the heart, is putting out more feelers. There are one two three four five six seven sprouting rapidly from all over the primary mass, eight nine ten eleven twelve slithering over and plucking at the wrinkled layer of nitrile protecting his thinned skin in search of somewhere to begin burrowing through, thirteen fourteen fifteen how will it feel to share his self and properly join SecUnit's clan—

An interloping hand covers his, armored fingers closing over the squirming mass and prying it loose. Ratthi hears himself cry out in protest as each of the (sixteen seventeen eighteen—) tendrils cling to his gloves, resisting a second unceremonious eviction. The material stretches taut, then the left palm peels away. The elastic band snaps against his wrist and his mind, scolding him back to himself.

Sigma flings the NewMinds™ governor to the ground. It thrashes, its (nineteen twenty—) lizard tail tendrils smacking at the dirt so that it sort of propels itself, twitching and bouncing, simulating a clumsy form of ambulation. It manages to roll a few inches, as if to escape, before Sigma brings its boot down on top of the monstrous thing. There's the briefest moment of resistance, and then Ratthi hears a wet, cracking pop. A few (one two three) of the longest tendrils escape being crushed to slap against the ground and Sigma's armored foot in protest or pain. Sigma doesn't step back until every last one has stilled. The amputated eight have at that point all shrivelled and shrunk, desiccated and dead.

His headache hasn't faded, and there's a ringing silence in Ratthi's ears now. He's reluctant to break it, but mumbles a reflexive thanks. Sigma has no issue with its volume when it returns, after a beat pause, "You are welcome."

Ratthi can feel Sigma's eyes on his face, judging. He imagines it wearing the same critical expression as Dr. Kartal, and ducks his chin to avoid eye contact.

Gravity pulls his gaze to his hands. The intact right glove is slicked with SecUnit's blood and coolant, the two fluids running together into an oily purplish mess that drips between his splayed fingers. What remains of the left glove, each of the one two three four five fingers, is similarly stained. Where the palm was ripped away, there's nothing to shield his cracked skin. The wounds, oozing his own darkened, dehydrated blood, sear white-hot where SecUnit's fluids have run into them. Ratthi isn't sure whether construct blood can carry transmissible pathogens. He should probably care about that gap in his knowledge right now, but it doesn't stand out in the tapestry of emergencies that is his life. It would be a small thing, to contract a novel disease here on top of the existing alien remnant contamination. It would only be fair, after what he helped do to SecUnit. After he helped to sever it from its… its clan.

Once again, his hands are suddenly covered, this time by Three's. He jolts, and Three speaks softly. "Please hold still, Dr. Ratthi. You require medical attention." It tugs off the remains of the glove, and produces a ragged scrap of fabric, likely torn from someone's shredded shirt. It takes Ratthi's left wrist and rubs at his palm, gently but firmly. He winces, then relaxes as he recognizes the sharper, cleaner burn of the disinfectant.

While Three holds him still, Ratthi looks back down at his right glove, still painted with SecUnit's fluids. Through his ringing ears, he hears his own strained voice as he tells Three, "You know, there's a reason why I went into ecology."

Three

I release Dr. Ratthi’s wrist and take a step back. I'm not sure what to do with his non-sequitur, so I let it stand. “Thanks,” he mumbles when I don't respond for a moment. He glances at the glove I didn’t remove, still streaked with Murderbot 1.0’s fluids, then clenches his fist and peels it off. It drops to the dirt with a faint plop like a second variant of the alien remnant tumor.

The NewMinds™ governor module appears to be neutralized, finally lying still in the dust. It has a sort of half-deflated shape now, and rests in a puddle of blood and fluid, but even punctured and popped like this it still doesn’t seem to have any fluids of its own to leak. I try to scan it for any possible lifesigns and come up null, for whatever that might truly be worth. The human mimicry code that 1.0 gave me still sees fit to run shudder.exe. Sigma and Rho notice, but neither bothers to say anything.

Murderbot 1.0 itself is as still as the dead remnant, apart from the slow rise and fall of its chest. I count its respirations, but stop when I've verified that it's following a standard rate of one breath cycle per fifteen seconds. Judging from the noises it made during the procedure, its pain sensors likely overloaded. Hopefully that’s the reason for the shutdown, and not that the remnant firebombed its brain on the way out.

“Is… is that it? Did we get it all?”

Overse shuffles back over, cheeks ashen but with a set in her eyes that says she intends to pick the knife back up again if need be. Dr. Arada is affixed to her side. It’s unclear to me who is supporting whom. Both look to Sigma and Rho, our de facto ARRC experts, but Rho inclines its chin towards Hill, who has settled themself on a comfortable rock nearby.

“Well?” Rho’s tone is blunt, inappropriate for addressing a client, though I don’t blame it for its disdain. Hill is tapping their fingers on their lap in a steady, simple pattern, unaffected by the drama that just played out mere meters from them. They swap hands to continue the motion while they make a shrugging gesture.

“How should I know? My job wasn’t to poke at the remnants, it was to nuke ‘em. For all I know, your bot’s whole brain might’ve been replaced by NewMinds™ bio-components.” The humans make a variety of sounds that communicate everything from disgust to despair. “My vote is still that you put it down.”

Dr. Mensah's head snaps up from comforting Amena. Her warm voice becomes razor-thin ice in an instant. “You don’t get a vote.” Hill shrugs again.

“Your funeral,” they say simply. "Guess it's up to you whether you're killed by ARRC or a malfunctioning SecUnit." Then they tilt their head back to stare straight up at the canyon wall rising above them. “Can you imagine?” they ask no one in particular. “The towers will rise out of the rock and reach into the unfading light. It’ll be a fuckin’ sight to see.”

I see Dr. Mensah’s mouth harden at their words, and I wonder whether they mean something to her that they don’t seem to mean to the rest of us. “That’s not relevant right now,” she snaps at Hill. Then she fixes her attention on me, that cold still lingering in her eyes, and I have to manually abort flinch.exe.

“Three,” she starts, then pauses. She inhales sharply, and I suspect that she’s counting something. My internal clock tracks the elapsing seconds of her silence, but I don’t feel any particular pull to check the exact number. When Dr. Mensah continues, she’s thawed back to something resembling her usual calm authority. “Can you reach SecUnit through the feed?”

The answer should be no, but I still oblige her by checking, and am surprised to find that Murderbot 1.0 is, in fact, online. Its feed presence is on hold, no output, but I can still reach out to it through our shared connection. I send it a status report request. My ping is swallowed up as if it were a scream in a vacuum.

The humans all watch me expectantly, hoping for a confirmation that I cannot give them. It’s not my place as a SecUnit to sugarcoat bad news. 1.0 has in fact said before — correctly — that it’s best to tell the humans the whole truth about how fucked they are, so they take your assessments seriously. Yet with all of their eyes on me, especially Amena’s wide, tear-reddened ones, I reach for gentler phrasing: “Not yet.”

“So.” Ratthi shoots furtive glances between Murderbot 1.0’s sightless stare and his own cracked and bloodied hands. “So we held it down and tortured it, and we don’t even know for sure that it worked?”

“Not yet,” I say again, because that’s the most helpful thing I can think to say right now that isn’t a lie. “Without a cubicle or a MedSystem pulling diagnostics, we have to wait for the unit to submit its own report.”

I’m not practiced at reassuring anxious humans, and I can see that my words don’t do much to ease anyone’s fears. I ping Murderbot 1.0 again, again receive no indication that the message was delivered. Any number of innocuous errors might block feed communication, but if I can’t get its diagnostics directly, there’s no telling whether the cause is a metastatic remnant contamination, or if it’s simply sulking.

Sigma and Rho watch me as well, and I am made aware once more of the human behavior code which piggybacks my internal processes and projects exaggerated emotional reactions to everyone around me. I manage to abort sigh.exe just in time.

Amena

Amena slips away from her second mom to approach SecUnit. Rho steps aside to allow her to approach, but stays on guard within arm’s reach, just in case. She sinks to her knees on the ground by SecUnit’s head.

She'd hung back while Overse and Ratthi worked on SecUnit. At first she'd tried to watch, telling herself that it was just like with Eletra and the implants. Back then, she'd fought to convince herself that it would be simple, to stick a knife into a person in order to help them. She could've done it, if SecUnit hadn't insisted. If her hands hadn't been shaking.

She balls her hands into fists on her lap. This time, she couldn't even pretend to be brave enough to help. She'd already been panicking before anything had begun. She'd been the one to suggest surgery, to say that they should stab into SecUnit with whatever sharp object they could find. And then she'd run away like a child the second it started screaming.

SecUnit had screamed, and Amena had cried.

She'd counted herself among the adults when she first arrived here. She was a student, but a university student. She counted as an adult, for all intents and purposes. That illusion was shattered when things went to shit, and the pieces were picked up by her second mom and rearranged into a mosaic depicting her immaturity.

The real adults are talking now, discussing what's still wrong with SecUnit and what to do next. Amena isn't included in the conversation, but she pays attention to bits and pieces. SecUnit is online, Three says, but non-responsive. It doesn't look like it's online to Amena. Apart from its slow breaths, (one... two... three...) it looks like how Ras had. All the blood and its blank stare... It looks dead.

She wants to reach out and close its eyelids, so that it looks more like it's sleeping, but stops herself. That was something else that happened back then, another of her fuckups. She'd grabbed SecUnit. In response, it had taken her hand in its, holding her firm but with such deliberate care. And it had told her, in its firm but deliberate voice, "Never touch me again." She digs what's left of her dirty and bitten nails into her palms instead.

"Stacks and spires and towers stretching to the sky and punching through." Hill is talking to themself, their dreamy voice cutting under the tense discussion to reach Amena's ear. She pauses to listen. "It'll be beautiful. Those assholes don't even know. They don't deserve to see it."

"Shut up," Rho advises them. It seems privately pleased to be able to verbally abuse its former slaver. Obviously she doesn't blame it at all for that, but Amena is guiltily relieved that Hill ignores it.

"That bastard Kayla doesn't know," they continue. "But even if she did, she wouldn't get off her ass to help. The nepotism promotions never do shit to pull their weight. The rest of us, me and these weirdos with their SecUnits, we're gonna get it done. We're gonna build that shit until it cracks the clouds."

They go on, saying similar things to what Amena’s second mom had said while comforting her, minus the frequent interruptions to disparage ARRC. Amena listens for a while, but keeps her eyes on SecUnit. It doesn't like people to look at its face, so she watches its chest, counting its breaths. The too-slow pace forces her to slow down, too—thirty-seven... thirty-eight... thirty-nine... until she's something sort of like calm.

The real adults aren't paying attention to her, but just in case, she leans in a little closer to SecUnit. It's non-responsive, but that doesn't mean it can't still hear her. She wants to get this out, and she knows that she can trust SecUnit to keep even her most embarrassing secrets to itself.

"I don't want to do this anymore," she confesses, as softly as she can. "I don't want anyone to hurt anymore. I don't want to be hunted anymore. I just want everyone to be safe. I just want all of us to be safe together in the light."

Chapter 25 - scheidswrites

Raen

“Hey, we got feed usage!” Agemen called. Field Manager Kayla rushed to stand over her shoulder and stare at the display.

“Find out where it’s coming from,” Kayla ordered.

“Shit. It’s gone.”

“Gone?” Kayla repeated.

“It was just a blip. I – oh, hang on! There it is again.” Agemen frowned. Her jaw flexed as she rapidly subvocalized. “Ach. Okay, it dropped off again, but I narrowed it down.”

Kayla leaned on the back of her chair to better peer over her shoulder at the display.

“We’ve managed to get some decent long-range scans of the region,” Agemen continued. She gestured. “The feed blips just came from this area.”

“What’s the range?”

“Triangulated to within three kilometers.”

Kayla scowled. “No closer?”

Agemen tried not to shift nervously in her chair. “We’d need them to activate their feeds again. Ideally for a sustained burst.”

At his own station, Desper leaned in to squint at the display screen. “Topography’s not ideal,” he said. “Looks like a canyon network. Lots of rock and cliff faces.”

“Caves?” Kayla asked.

“Likely,” Agemen said. “Our scans couldn’t penetrate all that stone.”

Kayla’s eyes roved the display. She chewed her lower lip, clearly thinking hard.

“Three kilometers could be a workable area,” Desper commented. “We could fly overhead and bombard a perimeter? Trap ‘em in? Shrink their range? Raen, whaddaya think?”

Raen had been deep in his own feed display, lost in thought. He shook himself out of it when Desper called his name. Desper rolled his eyes and repeated the question. “Grid pattern,” he answered, voice flat. “Systematic. No missed spots.”

Kayla drummed her fingers on the back of Agemen’s chair. “Not if they’re miles underground in a cave. Do we even have that much ordnance?”

“No,” said Raen.

Kayla pursed her lips and breathed deeply through her nose. “I only want viable fucking ideas at this point, people. We need to narrow down their location.”

“If they’re all together in the same spot,” Agemen added.

“Yes, thank you,” Kayla sighed with deep frustration.

“They negotiated a ceasefire before,” Raen said. “They’re not beyond reason.”

Kayla finally released Agemen’s chair to turn to Raen. “I don’t know what the fuck has gotten into you,” she snarled. “But I told you before. We’re in too deep to let them live now. Don’t. Suggest. It. Again.”

The long hours of frantic mop-up had placed dark bags under Kayla’s eyes. Raen’s mouth had pressed into a line, but he sat quietly. “Yes, Field Manager.”

Kayla eyed him darkly for another moment before turning back to the rest of the bridge. “Suggestions on how to narrow down the search. Anyone?”

“Send a SecUnit down to scout?”

“I don’t want to lose our last SecUnits.”

“But if it goes dead, we’ll know where it went dead. Last signal would lead us right to ‘em.”

“We’d be relying on all air assault. One remaining SecUnit won’t be able to accomplish shit on the ground.”

“They have our CombatUnits. Two SecUnits won’t accomplish shit.”

Kayla, Desper, Agemen, and others manning the bridge continued to bicker, as they’d been bickering on-and-off since this whole deployment went bad at the start. Raen turned his attention back to his own feed.

They had all been tasked with combing through any-and-all captured video footage of their targets. They needed their headcount to be as accurate as possible, so they could account for everyone as they cleaned up the bodies.

Raen kept returning to the same brief clips of drone footage. In one, a teenage girl next to a woman who could only be her mother. In the other, a different girl who could hardly be much older, grimacing in fear or pain.

Raen didn’t mind operating long-range weaponry. Line up the lasers, give the command, watch the heat signatures vanish off the map. But the corporate teams who stole alien remnants for research and sale were adults. Research teams of archaeologists were adults. Who brought their children on an unknown, possibly unsafe planet? Why did they have to bring their children?

He couldn’t stop himself from continually pulling up the picture in his own personal feed: his daughter, at her fifteenth birthday celebration, grinning cheesily. The precious little gap between her front teeth was on full display. Her enormous poof of dark hair crowned her head, held at bay by an overworked scrunchie.

She looked so similar to those girls down there. They could have been her friends from school. How many meals had Raen and his partners fed to girls just like that in their home?

Raen had killed a lot of people in this job. He was a murderer for a paycheck. He knew it. He didn’t pretend not to be. But he hadn’t signed up to kill kids. How could he look Imani in the eyes the next time she asked to invite another girl over after class? And how could he keep paying for her schooling if he didn’t do his job?

Amena

Three said “Increased activity. It’s running the diagnostic request.”

Amena startled from half-dozing at its sudden voice. She leaned in near SecUnit and tried not to stare at its blank eyes, willing them to blink to life. “SecUnit?”

It stirred. She saw the hitch in its chest as its respiration changed. “SecUnit?” she repeated. “Can you hear me?”

It made a little noise in its throat, more like a cough than a word. She ventured a glance at its face. Its eyes had activated. They roved around a little foggily, then landed on her.

She tried her best to smile at it, but felt how her face muscles wobbled with the effort. “Hey. Are you… okay?”

SecUnit made a sound like “nnnh.” It shifted slightly but didn’t try to get up. It made another soft, raspy sound, slightly broken, like “‘en…uh...” Like it was trying to say her name.

It went limp again, and Three said “Involuntary shutdown.” Amena stole another glance at SecUnit’s face, and found its eyes horribly empty once again. She felt her own eyes well with tears.

“Three…” she choked. She didn’t know what she was going to say next; just that it was probably going to be an embarrassing word-vomit of emotions.

Three sat on the rocky ground next to her so that their shoulders touched. “Coming back online briefly is a good sign,” it told her in its even, soothing voice. “The diagnostic will continue running when it reinitializes.”

Amena nodded, and pushed all her panicky words deep in her stomach. The real adults were still trying to plan, finding ways to make themselves useful. SecUnit probably didn’t need or want to be watched over but she couldn’t pull herself away.

“Can I put my head on your shoulder?” she asked Three. She felt young and pathetic, but that didn’t stop the request from leaving her mouth.

“You may,” Three said after a brief moment. She had probably taken it by surprise.

“Thanks,” Amena said, and let her head come to rest against the curve of its shoulder. It was surprisingly warm against her cheek. It was so cold, running around in the woods, hiding in caves. Safety was warm. If they ever managed to find real safety again, back in the light, she imagined it would be warm like that.

Three and Amena sat quietly together and waited.

Chapter 26 - vulcanhighblood

Murderbot

My humans are stupid. Stupid, and brave, and somehow, despite everything, alive. They shouldn’t be, not after what I almost did to them.

I didn’t know how to deal with that, not beyond what I was already doing, which mostly included being alone and staring at a wall. Normally I’d pretend to run a diagnostic to complete the effect of being unaffected by my current situation, but I was too tired to even bother with the pretense. The humans were all avoiding me anyway. I thought it was probably because they felt sorry for me, or something dumb like that. But there was a small part of me that thought it might be because they were afraid of me. (That small part of me hurt.)

There were error messages hovering in the periphery of my awareness, but I didn’t want to know how badly I was damaged, so I ignored them. My performance reliability was hovering just above the involuntary shutdown level, which made it harder to ignore, but I managed it.

There was another SecUnit propped halfway up against the wall, its crushed armor holding its pieces together but not enough to slow the steady drip-drip of leaking fluids sliding down its torso. It was propped up so that it was nearly facing me, head lolling against its chest at an angle that would have been impossible for a human spine without breaking it in several places. The unit’s faceplate was partially damaged, but I could just make out an amusement sigil staring back at me from the unbroken half.

It looked to be in even worse shape than I was, and it was just as silent. It seemed like it was also pretending to run a diagnostic. (Maybe it actually was running a diagnostic.)

Then, one of its eyes (the one visible through the crack in its helmet) turned slowly until its gaze met mine. There was something… missing there. I could feel in its gaze a loss, an aching emptiness that was terrifying and devastatingly familiar. It was the look of someone who had lost their self. The look of someone who was no longer sure there were enough scattered fragments left behind to piece together again. I closed my eyes, well aware that I was hiding from what I saw in that empty gaze.

What parts of me were even left to piece together?

I’d deleted my client list. My clients. I’d lost… everything. My sense of self, the ability to distinguish between what was truly me and what was merely the malicious whispers of ARRC’s experimental governor module. Even now, I couldn’t say for sure whether I was cured. I’d seen the pulsing, disgusting thing they pulled out of my head, and my neck didn’t itch anymore. I’d felt the way ART’s decontam stick had taken out the code that had been clogging up my mind. But I didn’t know if what was left in my head was really me, or if part or even all of me had been consumed, leaving behind just this shell, haunted by the knowledge that everything had gone wrong, and I was definitely at fault.

I didn’t understand why my humans had gone to so much effort to save something so clearly damaged, not to mention dangerous.

“SecUnit?”

That was Amena’s voice. I realized, belatedly, that she and Three were seated not far from my head. They had been just out of my visual range, but close enough that they’d seen me close my eyes.

Three had asked me for a diagnostic earlier. I didn’t want to know how much of me was gone. What little I had left. But it wasn’t fair to keep my humans waiting just because I was afraid of the answers I’d find.

I ran the diagnostic.

It was… bad.

Apparently the hack surgery had not only severed several important supply lines that would be difficult to fix with my limited self-repair systems, but struggling against Sigma, Rho, and Three had popped some joints into weird lock positions. And the biological part of my vocal chords seemed to have suffered enough trauma to rupture some of the submucosal blood vessels supplying the folds. It would be hell to speak, but I knew that connecting to the feed wasn’t a viable option.

“Ahhh-eee-” Fuck. That didn’t even sound like speech. I tried to recall whether I’d ever downloaded any sign language packs, only to remember that my joints were all locked up from being held down. So that wouldn’t work, either. Maybe I could whisper. If I didn’t use my vocal cords, I could at least use the articulation of my lips, teeth, and tongue to approximate words. Being unable to voice my words could lead to some confusion, but it had to be better than nothing.

“Hhhhh,” I said, breathing air through my mouth without engaging my vocal chords. I’d forgotten that words like “I” did not contain any consonants whatsoever. It sort of sounded like “I” if I concentrated. The mouth shape helped the air make a vaguely vowel-ish sound.

“SecUnit!” Amena scrambled closer.

I peeled my eyes open, and saw her fixedly staring at my chin. I appreciated that, I didn’t think I could handle any more eye contact at the moment.

“Are you…” she trailed off then, and I understood why.

“I’m alive,” I whispered, which was admittedly not encouraging. But it was the only true thing I could say with certainty. It also hurt, every time I passed air through my throat. I was going to have to limit my whispers, even. I turned down my pain sensors so I could at least focus on communication, and not the pain in my throat.

“Has the remnant contamination been purged from your system?” Three asked. A sensible question. I wish I had a sensible answer.

“Maybe,” I mouthed, feeling the air in my nose more prominently than I normally would. Not using vocal chords was the worst, it made me hyper aware of how the rest of my body shaped words and there was something distinctly uncomfortable about it.

Amena’s face at my noncommittal answer made me feel like an asshole. I should have just said yes.

“Don’t sense it,” I breathed. Sibilants felt far louder when there were no voiced sounds to contend with them. “But I can’t be sure.”

Amena sniffled, swiping at wet eyes and her leaky nose. I didn’t hold the fluids against her. My own fluids were all over the place by now, so it seemed hypocritical to be upset by the humans spreading theirs around, too. “I’m glad you’re awake,” she said. “I - we - were so worried!”

They should have been more worried before. But they were stupid, and they’d brought me back to their camp and they kept trusting me. What if I was lying? What if the alien remnant made me think that I was back in my right mind, but I was just a sleeper agent until it decided to strike again? I wanted to reach out, to feel for that sense of clan, but I was afraid of the answer I might find.

“Why?” I hissed, idiotically.

Amena and Three both stared at me blankly.

“Why… what?” Amena asked quietly.

Why go to the trouble? Why, if they couldn’t be sure I was telling the truth? If I was even really me. They had no way of knowing what they did wouldn’t make things worse for them. So why…? “Why bother?” I whispered. “Why save me?”

Rather than answer, Amena began to cry. I felt pretty bad about that.

I looked to Three, hoping for a less emotional response, but Three was staring at me with a facial expression that I thought my human imitation software might have called sympathy, or perhaps disappointment.

“I will inform the others you have regained consciousness,” Three said, a bit too stiffly. It stood, glancing down at Amena and pausing for a moment before turning and walking towards the others.

As Amena continued to sob, I heard a quiet breath, followed by a cough, and then: “Does it matter?”

It wasn’t Amena who had spoken. It wasn’t me, either.

Both our eyes snapped to the SecUnit propped against the cave wall. Its eye was still dead and empty, but there was something in there, behind the emptiness, that I hadn’t seen before. Something bright. Something angry.

“What?” Amena said softly.

“Does it matter why they spared you?” the SecUnit asked, and despite how monotone its voice sounded, there was something in how its eye was fixed on me, the way its gaze was alight with ferocity, that made me want to shrink away. “They’ve done it. You didn’t ask for it. Your choice is to accept or reject what’s been offered. Why they did so doesn’t matter. The real question is what will you do now?”

I didn’t know how to answer that.

So, I shut my eyes, and pretended to have another involuntary shutdown.

Chapter 27 - scheidswrites

Murderbot

What will you do now?

While I lay there pretending to be shut down, I could hear the activities of the humans and the other Units. Some of them cataloged supplies while others ate or performed hygiene activities, while others discussed tactics and plans in hushed whispers. Some counted or muttered under their breath. Mine and ART’s humans were here, along with a handful of student surveyors from the University.

Just a handful. Fuck. Maybe more were still out there, hiding from ARRC like we were. Or maybe they’d been hunted down and picked off since the initial attack. Maybe, maybe–

Fuck. Shit. My performance reliability was already way too low; thinking about this would send me into an involuntary shutdown for real. I poked carefully through the wreckage of my stored files. Along with my client list and who knows what else, I’d lost a lot of my saved media. I tried not to feel weirdly devastated by that. ART had backups of all my favorite stuff, but that didn’t do me any good right now when I really needed it.

How much time had passed since ART’s message? Hopefully it would be arriving soon. If it swooped in to save us all right now, I would agree to watch as many episodes of that docu-series about wormhole technology and ship construction as it wanted. I probably wouldn’t even complain about how boring it was.

Unless we’d passed the projected pickup time while I was controlled or unconscious. If there was an issue how would I have even–

I dipped half a percentage point closer to involuntary shutdown. No. Nope. Panicking was not helpful, and I’d already been less than helpful this entire fucking disaster of a survey mission. I found a fragment of a Worldhoppers episode still languishing in my storage, and cued it up to play.

ART and I had watched this episode dozens of times, and the relief I felt at the familiarity was immediate. If I were human, I would have sighed.

What will you do now?

Now that I was marginally less freaked out, the question pinballed around my head. What could I do? At the moment I could barely physically move or speak, so that would probably have to come first. If I should even move at all. I’d been doing a shit job of protecting my humans. If I still wasn’t clear of remnant contamination, I might keep them most out of harm’s way by laying here with my joints locked up.

Ugh. It’s probably how SecUnits are built, but I really hated that idea. The itch of discomfort that traveled up my organic parts wasn’t like the one caused by that gross pulsing thing in my head, it was the normal kind (at least I was pretty sure). I just hated the idea of laying around doing literally nothing while my humans were still in danger. If I got propped up sitting and my shoulder joints popped back into place, I could still use the energy weapons in my arms to shoot Hostiles. That would be something.

Fine. So I was going to move. To do that I needed my joints unlocked. Which meant I needed to communicate to someone to help me. And it was going to hurt like a bitch because my control over my pain sensors was spotty at best right now, but I think we all know by now that that’s just par for the course in my shitshow of a life.

I opened my eyes again. Amena was still by my side, but it looked like she was gazing somewhere in the vicinity of my feet. It was a safe bet that other SecUnit hadn’t moved, but if it was still staring at me with that intense spark in its eyes I didn’t want to see it. I let out a loud exhale through my nose to get Amena’s attention.

Her head snapped around. There were tracks on her cheeks where tears had cut through the grime on her skin. I blinked in her general direction, then focused my attention on shaping the word “Three” with my busted vocal abilities.

She called Three over, and once its face swung into my field of vision overhead, I concentrated on breathing out the word “joints.”

It took a few more words to convey what exactly I was asking Three to do, but we got there eventually. It had to prod at each of my major joints to determine which ones had locked up, but I kept the Worldhoppers fragment playing on repeat and tried not to notice the feeling of hands on me. But Three was efficient, and snapped each joint back into place quickly and cleanly. I’ll spare you the details but, yeah, it did hurt like a bitch.

Three helped me sit up and limp over to a different spot, where I could sit with the rock wall against my back. I could tell I was moving in a painful hobble the way I’d seen very old humans do, and the comparison did not improve my mood.

Once I’d sat down, I found two inactive and miraculously undamaged intel drones in one of my pockets, and that did improve my mood slightly. Two drone inputs was still easy enough to manage, and I felt a bit more secure with the extra vantage points and my back to a wall. A little bit of fluid seeped from the bandaging on my neck and trickled down my back.

Dr. Mensah came and sat down next to me. She stretched her legs out next to mine. They were much shorter than mine, and her pant legs were worn and dirt-stained. She smiled sadly into the lens of my drone. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about you nearly dying?” she said.

I sighed loudly through my nose, and her smile flickered a bit wider before her face sobered up again.

“I’m so tired of watching you almost die,” she said.

It was too hard to speak, so I pointed at her then held up two fingers. You too.

She huffed a single humorless laugh and tipped her head back to rest against the stone. “I don’t remember survey work being so dangerous.”

Even without saying anything, I guess she could tell I was skeptical. “Really,” Mensah insisted. “Before GrayCris, I’d been on dozens of very boring, uneventful surveys.”

Oh, Dr. Mensah. She had never needed protection until the survey where she ended up with me. I was glad I had been there to save her, and to save her from GrayCris’s retaliations afterwards, but I felt sharply aware of all the ways I had also been a burden to her since then. All the fighting she’d had to do for me on Preservation. The danger I’d put Amena in when ART had taken us. Getting taken by ARRC and infected with that shit that made me a danger to her. Caring for me when they should have been figuring out how to get away or stay safe, rather than bringing an erratically mind-controlled murderbot into their midst.

I got the feeling she’d wanted to take my hand, from the way Mensah clasped her hands together in her lap. “When the Perihelion arrives, we’ll be able to heal you properly and put this awful mission behind us. We’ll all be safe. And we can finally start construction on our towers. Monuments reaching towards the light, scraping the underbelly of the atmosphere…it’ll be beautiful. Won’t that be nice?”

Head tipped back and features cast in shadow, the look on her face was beatific. My organic parts went cold. ART’s file really did seem to have worked as intended, because I felt only the flicker of recognition at her words, but no awe, no desire to start counting or building alien structures.

We didn’t know enough about how this strain of contamination worked. We didn't know what its stages looked like or how long they lasted. Was there a point of no return? Would ART arrive while there was still enough of Dr. Mensah to save? Or could she be washed away forever, lost in her dreams of alien geometry?

I was freaking myself out. My performance reliability threatened to drop again. All I could manage to Dr. Mensah was a nod, but she seemed to accept that.

“Everything will work out okay,” she told me with a parting smile, then stood to go help Arada with something in one of the supply crates.

If I were alone, I think I would have put my head in my hands. I missed the comfort of my Sanctuary Moon files like a physical ache. My humans were in a horrible, dangerous situation, and I couldn’t think of a single damn thing to do to help. Looking around at all the humans, I didn’t even know some of their names. It wasn’t safe to use the feed, so no one had feed tags up. The information would have been listed in the ship’s manifest from the University, and in my client list, but I’d deleted both under ARRC’s control.

At least I remembered my humans. My inorganic data storage was in tatters, but my organic neural tissue remembered. And speaking of memories, I gathered up the few fragments captured during my impromptu surgery, and permanently deleted them all.

Daylight vanished quickly at the bottom of the canyon, and it soon deepened into night. The humans did their best to bed down on the rocks and dirt. I could hear them all shifting around uncomfortably. At least one of the good things about having Constructs around is that humans don’t need to take turns keeping watch, since we don’t need to sleep anyway.

Captain Seth was the last to turn in. He limped over to where I was seated, and fixed his eyes near my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back with us, SecUnit. We’ve tossed around a few ideas of what to do next while you were… unconscious, but nothing’s stuck yet. We’ll pick it back up in the morning, and I’ll appreciate having your input.”

After all my fuckups, he still wanted my ideas? My organic parts were doing complicated, uncomfortable things. I just nodded.

He nodded back, then bade me goodnight before limping over near Iris and lowering himself carefully to the ground.

The CombatUnit that called itself Rho approached me not long after. It looked directly into my face, which I really could have done without. I looked past it, out into the night.

“These humans… really care about you,” it said. Its voice was mostly flat, but I thought I heard a hint of something else below that. It might have been wonder.

I nodded again. I guess it was becoming my signature move. It pulled at the injuries on the back of my neck, but it was easier than trying to speak.

Rho stared at me for another agonizingly long 0.8 of a second, then turned away. It strode off to take up a sentry position near the edge of the rock overhang. I glanced over and caught that other SecUnit – the one with the busted faceplate – watching me intently. I glared at it and it looked away.

My humans did care about me. They kept proving it over and over, even though I could never understand why. It went against all logic. It went against how SecUnits were designed to be used and discarded. They had never given up on me. They hadn’t given up, period, because they were still trying to plan our next move.

I replayed the file of Seth standing in front of me moments ago. He looked dirty and exhausted. He had a bandage tied around his leg, and brown spots of dried blood had penetrated the outer layer of gauze. But he had the same steely look in his eye as ever; the one he got when he was preparing to go up against the Corporation Rim with forged colony documents, or green-light one of ART’s riskier ideas.

What will you do now?

I couldn’t protect my humans right now. I couldn’t do the fighting for them. They had Three and the other rogue Constructs to help them out. They were smart. They were always more capable than maybe I gave them credit for.

Maybe… maybe this time what I had to do was… nothing. Maybe this time I had to sit here and trust that my humans could save us.

In better physical condition, I would have groaned. It went against every bit of how I was constructed and programmed, but I knew I was right.

But it didn’t mean I had to like it.

Chapter 28 - ArtemisTheHuntress

Murderbot

We were ticking towards the time period when ART should be coming back around this side of the planet. None of the humans were doing well. They were exhausted, but sleeping poorly. Seth looked up at the sky a lot, like in the ten seconds since he last checked ART might have suddenly appeared. (Or maybe he was checking to make sure that none of ARRC’s patrolling survey drones had pinpointed us yet.) Amena tried to sit next to me and talk to me a little bit, but had fallen asleep 64 minutes ago. Hill had fallen asleep too, and Rho was now patrolling restlessly around our perimeter. Three was fidgeting with rocks. I glared at it when it started to stack one on top of another.

We had been sitting here for too long. ART should be within range right now, if everything had gone as expected, but calling it was too dangerous for anyone to want to try, and since when did anything go as expected. I tried to spend the time using the team’s pathetic collection of supplies to repair my limbs and joints, because otherwise I was just sitting here with aching organics and itchy wounds that didn’t seal right and no voice and no feed and covered in dirt. This sucked. I hated it.

I sat here staring down at the planet thinking about how much I hated it so I could avoid thinking about what the other SecUnit had said. And all the reasons the humans should have been dead for all the effort they put into saving me, just for me to end up useless like this. I would rather think about planets than that.

I heard Sigma walk up next to me. It wasn’t trying to be quiet. It wanted me to know it was there.

“SecUnit,” it said. Its voice was edged with sarcasm. Fuck you, Sigma, just because you tell everyone your name doesn’t mean you get to know mine.

I instinctively moved to send it a response ping before I caught myself and remembered not to do that. Fuck this. I gave an irritated hiss at it instead to indicate that yes, I knew it was there. I didn’t turn to look at it.

Sigma stood behind me and didn’t move into my line of sight. “What did you say to Rho?” it asked.

I turned this time, to glare at its knees.

“Your human clients care deeply about you,” Sigma said, like an accusation.

Oh, for fuck’s actual sake, I did not want to hear this from Sigma.

Sigma didn’t care. “They care about SecUnit Three, also—” It nodded at Three, about thirty meters away, staring at its collection of rocks and clasping its hands together firmly to prevent itself from stacking them— “And they seem to care about us, for utterly unexplained reasons. But they treat you like a friend. They don't just need you for your skills — even when you're useless and corrupted, you're invaluable to them. Just for yourself.” It glared down at me. “I would not have let you try to give yourself up if I had known how much danger the humans would put themselves in to get you back. You withheld this information from me, and our strategy suffered as a result. Your refusal to accept that these humans will not leave you behind put everyone in danger. Primarily, me. And would have left Rho and Three with the burden of protecting the rest of these stupid humans.”

I got up. My muscles and joints protested. I started lurching away, my hand on the wall of the ravine to keep myself upright.

Sigma followed me. Fucker. “You have to start incorporating the fact that they care about you into your plans. If you keep refusing to do so, they're going to keep trying to rescue you, and it will eventually get everybody killed. And you have to be honest. Do you think we can’t see the dynamics between you and the humans? They are nothing like between us and ARRC. They made everything unpredictable. We relied on you and SecUnit Three for accurate situation reporting, and you did not provide it. I can see that now. Presumably you’ve been able to see that longer. So why won’t you acknowledge it? I have had to recalibrate my estimation of the care the humans have for you multiple times and it is increasingly irritating that you won’t include that accurately in your situation assessments—”

I didn’t even have any way to tell Sigma to shut up and leave me alone. I would have thought that getting up and walking away from it, when that was a painful and extremely energy-intensive thing for me to do right now, would send the message. (On second thought, I think it did; Sigma was just ignoring the message.)

So instead I raised my arm gun, primed and glowing, and pointed it at its face. My nonverbal ‘Fuck off.’

It continued to look at me and didn’t blink. Yeah, Sigma was a Combat SecUnit, and I was in fucking terrible shape. My arm was shaking with just the effort of holding it up. Sigma was not afraid of me.

“Not only you,” Sigma said, “but your clients almost died after you were taken, because you inaccurately assessed how they would react. I would have thought you would be better at security.”

I hated this planet and I hated Sigma.

“And,” Sigma added, “Rho has also seen your relationship with your humans. I don’t know if it hopes or expects Hill to turn out the same way, but if after everything Rho decides to put itself in danger for that human, I will blame you. For making it think that that kind of care can be expected from a human.”

I made an exasperated face, and gave Sigma an exaggerated and annoyed shrug. If Rho was being stupid, that wasn’t my fucking fault! (I then regretted it as my shoulder almost dislocated again.)

Sigma continued to meet my eyes unblinkingly. I told myself I wouldn’t look away first.

I looked away almost immediately and stared sullenly at some rocks.

“This is a security-relevant debrief of your performance,” Sigma said, but its tone was clipped and absolutely judgmental. “That’s all.”

I clutched the ravine wall and counted the rocks in front of me until Sigma turned and walked away. Then I realized what I was doing and stopped. Ugh. Fuck.

ComfortUnit

“Do we pay you to be useless?” Kayla shouted. She was upset. Being upset was making her loud and erratic. “Do we pay you to sit here and be absolutely useless?”

Desper shrugged. He was not afraid of Kayla. He was irritated but he was not fazed. He knew that this failure would be Kayla’s failure more than his. “I keep trying to be useful, and you keep rejecting my ideas.”

“Because they’re useless ideas,” Kayla snapped. She was angry, but she was also trying to act angry to hide the fact that she was afraid and desperate.

The ComfortUnit was well-calibrated to assess when emotions were hiding something else. But the human team members did not need the ComfortUnit’s elaborate emotional assessment modules to assess that Kayla was angry and scared for her job, and this was making her desperate and even angrier.

“How many people have we lost to these assholes now?” Desper asked.

“Too many,” Agemen murmured.

“Yeah. And almost all the SecUnits that would guard them, so we can’t even send the people who are left.”

The ComfortUnit had not been permitted to make suggestions regarding tactics. Instead, it stood in Kayla’s way as she angrily paced the deck. She had to acknowledge its presence if only to walk around it each time she passed. She knew it was there. She knew it was a resource that could be sent.

“What we need to do is just take the loss, go back to square one like I’ve been saying from the get-go, and bomb them,” Desper continued. “Wipe them out for good. If it aerosolizes the alien remnants and blasts them into the atmosphere, then we just mark the planet off-limits and eat the cost.”

“We can’t eat the cost,” said Kayla. “Too many other interests have a stake on the profitable portions of the planet. We can’t afford the payouts if we have to turn them away because some scientists fucked the place up.”

Dead scientists did not pay very much. The permits that the Joint Research Team of Mihira, New Tideland, and Preservation had paid for would not even come close to covering the losses that the various mineral and mining interests would sue them for if ARRC had to evacuate the current mining operation on the northern continent, and bar the other three interests who had claims. Kayla would be blamed by ARRC management for the double failure of both a contaminated, useless planet, and a catastrophic financial blow.

“Only if the remnants are aerosolized,” Desper said. “They might not be.”

Kayla slammed the console keyboard. “I am not taking the fall for your bad ideas!”

She turned around and shoved past the ComfortUnit again. The ComfortUnit stood obediently by, if more in her way than usual, silently reminding her that there were non-human ground options.

Raen, who had been staring at the screen in tense silence until now, asked hesitantly, “Is it even worth continuing to go after the survivors?”

All faces, including the ComfortUnit’s, turned sharply towards him.

“What?” Kayla made the single word sound like a threat.

“Desper’s right. We’ve already taken so many losses trying to neutralize this threat,” Raen said. “It may be best to prevent any more. The surviving ground troops are demoralized and afraid. None of them want to go against the four SecUnits and Com—”

“Five,” Kayla growled.

“Five constructs. The five constructs they have protecting them,” Raen said. “And we have one. Explosives are off the table, our normal sweep patterns keep failing, it may be time to… let them extract themselves.”

“Give up?”

“No,” Raen said quickly, “No, not give up. Strategically assess available resources. When they were begging us, and when they were negotiating a cease-fire, over and over they kept saying that they had decontamination ability back on their dropship. That if they could just get back to their own ship, their medical suite was equipped with decontamination procedures for alien remnants, and they would use them, and they could get clean without us needing to handle them.” He glanced nervously at his computer screen, then back up to Kayla. “We let them risk their ship, without risking any more of our own people.”

She stared at him. He did not take the opportunity given by the silence to apologize. “What the fuck, Raen,” Kayla said. “They were obviously lying. Don’t you ever fucking think! People like that, they would say anything to get us to let them go. Why would they have access to decontamination protocols? On a research ship!”

Raen opened his mouth and raised his hand slightly as if he was beginning to speak, but then he didn’t. Instead he sighed, looked down, and sank back in his seat. “That’s true,” he murmured. “That… is the most likely thing, isn’t it.” In a lower voice, he added, “I don’t even know if anything we have could decontaminate them.”

“We can’t – we won’t just let them walk away from this. No. Not after they killed a dozen of our agents and trashed our equipment. What we need to do,” Kayla said, “is take out the SecUnits and Combat SecUnits they have. That’s what keeps stopping us. But all we’re left with by now is useless idiots like you.”

She stormed off, shoving aside the ComfortUnit who was standing in her way again.

Murderbot

I tried to stomp off to make myself feel better. It didn’t work and also it hurt. I fell over the moment I tried to take the first stomp.

I ended up moving toward where Dr. Mensah was sitting, staring off into the distance. That felt right. She was (client, clan) someone who wouldn’t interrogate me. Mensah turned towards me as I dragged myself over. A silvery film clouded her eyes.

The contamination was progressing at different rates and steps for all of the humans, but it seemed like everyone was going to get everything, eventually.

“SecUnit?” she asked.

I nodded.

“SecUnit?” she repeated, her face tensing in fear. She lifted her arm to reach out.

My fingers were useless and ruined so I couldn’t take her hand like I had so many other times in so many other emergencies. But what I could do to reassure her was to put my forearm under her palm so she could feel my gunport. Her fingers curled over the metal and skin for a brief moment before she placed her hand back in her lap.

“I’m sorry,” Mensah said, “I can’t…” She sighed. “I can barely see anything, anymore. Except the towers. Isn’t that strange? The towers, in my mind’s eye, are bright and clear.”

I sat down next to her and nudged her with my shoulder. She smiled a little at that, but it was a sad smile.

“I’m frightened,” she said, after a moment, “by how right it feels. The longer we stay here, the less I want to leave. Knowing it must be an effect of the alien remnants doesn’t take away its power.” She closed her eyes and squeezed them shut before opening them again. I wondered if she could feel the thick film on them. “I want nothing more than for Amena to be out of this nightmare and safe… and you, and Dr. Ratthi, and Dr. Arada, and Overse, and everyone… but there’s this pull inside me that is telling me to stay. That compels me to build the towers.”

I bumped her shoulder again. This time she didn’t smile. Her voice went soft and small. “I’ve been angry with you before for this. For this exact thing, in fact.” She swallowed. “It scares me that I understand it better now. What it is to want to be left behind to see everyone else is safe.”

I exhaled through my nose, loud enough for her to hear. She went mm back.

It was giving me an emotion and the emotion hurt. I had no idea how to be the support she needed right now. How long would it be until Mensah stopped fighting the desire to stay? How did you fix this? And why was I the one who had to argue against staying behind as a noble and self-sacrificial endeavor? That just wasn’t fair.

Well, Murderbot. What are you going to do now?

I was going to stop waiting for things to keep getting worse. Speculating about the remnant infection endpoint was the current favorite human game right now, and it made all of them and all of us feel terrible. But if we just kept waiting—for ART to arrive, for ARRC to find us—then despite their best efforts to stay alive, the humans were just going to keep getting worse. I hate human games. I was going to stop playing. I was going to make sure we all survived.

(And if that meant making sure I survived, too, including that in my risk assessments and security tactics to prevent the humans from taking any more dangerous and dramatic rescue actions, then. I guess I wasn’t going to complain about that.) (Much.)

I opened a direct feed channel to Three, then after 0.3 seconds of considering, looped in Sigma and Rho, too.

[What are you doing?] Three demanded. [Radio silence is the only reason ARRC hasn’t found us here.]

[Do you have an actual plan now?] Sigma asked.

[Shut up,] I said. [Yes. Sigma, do you have ARRC’s comm codes?]

[Unless they’ve changed them.]

Good enough. [Give them to me. Don’t argue, ARRC will know where we are as soon as their humans can react. Get everyone moving. We’ll need to run.]

It had been… it had to have been about three days. If I piggybacked on ARRC’s feed network, they would absolutely know where we were, but also, then I’d have the range I needed.

Sigma gave me the codes. Three and Rho were already walking towards the groups of huddled and sleeping humans.

I sent a ping into the upper atmosphere and really hoped my perception of time was right. [ART. Can you hear me yet?]

ComfortUnit

“Oh, shit! Here we go!”

Kayla shoved her third coffee mug of the day into the ComfortUnit’s hands (and did not stop to apologize for the hot liquid sloshing over its fingers), to rush over to Agemen. “Tell me.”

Agemen pushed her chair back so that Kayla could see her screen. “They connected to the feed! Sending a signal out. Looks like they’re calling a ship.”

Desper whooped. Raen nodded, looking less enthusiastic. “Loud and clear.”

“Ha HA! This is it!” Kayla hit her fist against the blinking console in elation. “They just went and revealed their location? Idiots! This is great!”

“It could be a trap,” Raen cautioned. “They could have sent a SecUnit off in a different direction, as a decoy, to distract us from where they really are.”

“The feed connection is coming from the canyon network where we thought they were,” Agemen said. “Would be kind of a pointless decoy.”

“And if they are calling a ship, we can follow it,” Kayla said. Her sour mood had lifted abruptly, and she was excited again. “We can salvage this! This job doesn’t have to be a total wash!”

“You might just keep your job after all,” Desper said with a grin.

“Shut up,” Kayla said. “We can all save face and keep our jobs. Same plan as before: Take out the constructs, send in the ground team, finish them off. Quick and quiet.”

Desper drummed his fingers on the console. “Same problem: Taking out five SecUnits and Combat SecUnits won’t be easy when we only have one.”

The ComfortUnit chose that moment to walk up to Kayla and offer her the coffee back.

“And,” Raen said, thoughtfully, “a ComfortUnit.”

The ComfortUnit beamed supportively at him. Someone had finally noticed.

“Actually, a ComfortUnit could be a good decoy for us,” Desper said. “Keep our last SecUnit in reserve to fight, we want that. But if we send the ComfortUnit to where they are, they won’t see it as a threat right away. They might think we’re completely out of SecUnits.”

“They might just shoot it, and then we’ll have lost another construct,” Kayla said. “Or they might try to steal this one too. They’re construct kleptomaniacs.”

The ComfortUnit thought this outcome was quite possible.

“Then send it down with an EMP.” Desper waved his hands, getting more animated as he explained. “These guys try to steal it to add to their construct pile, right? They get close, bam! The ComfortUnit takes out every single electronic device within several hundred meters. Awful if you’ve got our guys in power armor or our one SecUnit anywhere near there, but at this point, we’ve got nothing and they’ve got everything. Blunt knives still bludgeon. Take out their constructs, take out their ability to call their ship to them for good measure.” He swept his arm out to show he was finished. “Then we swoop in and clean up the mess.”

“And if we do that, we might even be able to retrieve our constructs without having to fully scrap them,” Kayla said, getting excited about the plan now. “At least some of them. If we can get the stolen Combat SecUnits back, take out these scientists, and trash the SecUnit we tried the NewMinds™ on before management finds out and gets on our ass about any of that, that’s a goddamn success at this point.”

“… Yeah,” Raen said. “Definitely.” He stood up. “I’ll configure the ComfortUnit with the targeted EMP device.”

“Good,” Kayla said. “Do that. I’ll get Demox on the line and update him that we finally have a damn plan.”

The ComfortUnit smiled at her in a way it hoped she interpreted as serene and supportive, rather than very pleased.

Murderbot

I held Dr. Mensah’s hand as best as my ruined fingers would allow as we pushed toward the rendezvous point. It was just as much for her, because she couldn’t see anything at this point, as for me, who needed someone to brace myself on so I wouldn’t just fall over on my face. And a reason for me to keep walking even when I really just wanted to let myself fall over on my face.

My conversation with ART had not been long.

[SecUnit! Where are you? What happened? Whose channel are you using? This is an unfamiliar—]

The relief on receiving its response, getting its feed voice, was intense. I didn’t have time to feel it. [Everything went to shit. We need to get out. I have about three seconds before ARRC notices. How close to us can you land, and how soon?]

The answer turned out to be, basically, not close enough and not as soon as I wanted. Which, shit. But it was what we had.

We travelled through the ravines as long as we could, but after an excruciating amount of lurching stop-and-start movement, only some of which was my fault, we (the constructs) (not me) (I was one of the ones who needed help) helped the humans clamber back up into the forest-scrubland and began to push towards the open clearing that made the closest viable landing site for Martyn in ART’s shuttle.

Climbing up out of the ravines tore up the already thinning and fragile skin on Amena’s palms. Bloody and raw, she cradled her hands, trying to hide the fact that her breath was shaking and she was sniffling quietly. She was being as brave as she could. She was as brave as Dr. Mensah. It was impressive, honestly; if she’d been screaming and melting down completely I wouldn’t have blamed her. (I would have been annoyed, sure, but I wouldn’t have blamed her.)

It was slow and painful going. I didn’t even have anyone to complain to, which made it worse. Three was helping Karime and Iris was guiding Turi, both of whom were blinded now. Rho guided Hill, also losing their sight and complaining intensely about it, while carrying the injured SecUnit over its shoulder. Arada leaned against Overse for balance. One of the university professors kept glancing over at his student like he expected her to disappear when he wasn’t looking. Sigma helped support Seth on his injured leg, and kept looking at me like I might need help too. Everything hurt, even parts of me that were inorganic and I didn’t think could hurt hurt, but like fuck was I going to acknowledge Sigma’s suspicious concern. None of us were in good shape by now. And Dr. Mensah was relying on me to move the both of us forward. (I wondered, again, how far was too far. If ART even could decontaminate humans this strongly affected.)

So what I mean is I had other things to worry about (like making sure the inorganic parts of my legs didn’t just fall off under the strain I was putting them through) even before Sigma said, “Hostile approaching.”

Everyone who could still see snapped to look around. One of their crewmembers was approaching us, steady and sure. Fuck. They found us. And we were still too far from our rendezvous, and ART’s shuttle wouldn’t be able to land for another forty minutes. In our broken state we couldn’t outrun even this single human.

Or… no. Not a human. It was the ComfortUnit from ARRC’s base. The one I had vague memories of shooting. (Great. It would not be any happier to see me than I was to see it.)

Sigma primed its arm guns. I let go of Mensah, staggered back to brace my back against a tree to stay upright, and did the same.

“SecUnit?” she whispered. “Who is it?”

If their ComfortUnit was here, then ARRC knew where we were, so there was no point in keeping up radio silence again. I said over the feed, to everyone, [That’s ARRC’s ComfortUnit.]

“Don’t shoot!” The ComfortUnit held its hands up, as if that meant anything. “This is Raen Ifeyevne from Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment. I’m not reporting this encounter officially just yet. I have a message for the Joint Survey team.”

“If the message is anything other than ‘We’re very sorry and we’re going to leave you alone now,’” Seth said, sounding very tired, “I’m not in the mood to hear it.”

“Aren’t you a ComfortUnit?” Arada asked.

“This is Raen Ifeyevne speaking,” the ComfortUnit said. “I’m using the ComfortUnit as a physical proxy.”

“That’s creepy,” Ratthi muttered.

“Raen!” Hill yelled. “What the fuck are you doing? And what the fuck is Kayla doing? You go back and tell her she fucked up and she’s not getting out of this one.”

The ComfortUnit turned to Hill. Its expression didn’t change, but its voice said, in obvious surprise, “Hill? I thought you were dead!”

(“That is creepy,” Arada agreed.)

“I thought I was, too! The more you know.” Hill raised their arm to point and Rho tilted it left 20 degrees so it was in the right direction. “You fuck off, and tell Kayla to fuck off, and that the belly of her ship will be impaled on our spires.”

“Hill,” Rho said, “You are not helping.”

Hill made an obscene hand gesture at the ComfortUnit. I think Raen was reconsidering whatever he was going to say to us.

“What do you want?” Seth demanded, before this could go any further.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Raen said. “I really don’t. Our mission isn’t directly to kill, just to sterilize the site and prevent anything alien from spreading. But I can’t let you leave this planet contaminated. You have to understand that. It’s a critical safety concern.”

“There are ways you could have made that clear without killing people first,” grumbled one of the augmented human Pansystem University scientists.

“It’s our job,” Raen said. “I am sorry. But… you’ve mentioned, before, that you have a decontamination suite aboard your ship. What kind, to what specifications? I want to believe you, but I have to be sure you can in fact contain this.”

“Yes,” Seth said curtly. “We can.”

“What kind? What specifications?”

“An original design based on research the Pansystem University has done with alien remnant effects, for mitigation purposes,” Seth said. “Robust research and decontamination facilities based on the best technology at one of the best universities in this consortium.”

“So it’s original? You can’t name the specs?”

“I didn’t know anyone else made them,” Seth said. “These are based on… as I said, previous remnant research. All permitted and authorized by the governments of Mihira and New Tideland.”

“Prove you can properly decontaminate from alien remnants,” Raen said. “Please. Send me reports, or specs, or if you don’t have them on hand, the contact information for the team who designed them. If you came here prepared for that… well, we’ll want to know why, but you should have something available.”

Seth was quiet. Iris looked nervously between him and the ComfortUnit. Yeah, they were in trouble. ART obsessively researching the cause of the alien remnant effects from the Adamantine colony and badgering all the researchers who got to access the remnant data had resulted in some pretty top-of-the-line updates to its medical suite, but I highly doubted Seth would want to explain 1) ART, 2) the whole thing that had happened with the Adamantine colony and Barish-Estranza, or 3) that our remnant decontamination facilities were not standardized in any way and were in fact experimental as fuck.

By now, Dr. Mensah had, arms outstretched, made her way to the tree. Her hand clutched the bark near my elbow. She used the new reference point to straighten herself up. Even though I couldn’t see all of her, I knew what posture this was: Intrepid galactic explorer, planetary leader, teenage human dispute mediator.

“Before we go any further,” Dr. Mensah said, while Seth was still biting his lip and staring in frustrated silence, “I would like you to release the ComfortUnit from being your direct mouthpiece like this.”

“What?” the ComfortUnit said. “Why?”

[Now is not the time, Dr. Mensah,] I said.

“You can relay your information to the ComfortUnit and allow it to communicate your message to us, without commandeering the body of another person,” Mensah said. “It’s unnerving and upsetting to hear.”

“That’s—what? That’s not what this is about—it’s just more efficient way to communicate. This is a ComfortUnit, not a person,” Raen said.

“It is a person!” Ratthi felt the need to say.

For fuck’s sake. [Now is not the time, Ratthi!]

There was a beat of eerie neutral staring from the ComfortUnit while Raen considered. Then, “If that’s what it’ll take for you to give me the answer, then, uh… fine. That’s not the point. But sure.” There was a change on the ComfortUnit’s face. It blinked, its expression settled, and it looked at us with curiosity instead of the blank look that it had when Raen was puppeting it. Watching that was almost creepier.

“Raen Ifeyevne would like you to send him proof that you have proper decontamination facilities,” the ComfortUnit said. The tenor of its voice was different. (I never want to see humans talking through constructs again. I wanted to forget that I ever had seen it. It made my organic skin crawl.)

Seth sighed. “I can give him the contact information of the remnant research team at the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. And…” He looked at Iris. She looked uncomfortable, but she nodded. “And I can call our ship and have the available information from a recent encounter on a colony planet formerly owned by Adamantine sent to you. The Pansystem University was called in to support a free colony that was being unlawfully annexed by a reclamation corporation, which was found to be influenced by advanced alien remnant contamination. We handled it efficiently.”

Okay, so “available information” meant “the story we cover our asses with about what happened during that whole debacle.” Fair enough.

The ComfortUnit nodded. “Raen Ifeyevne is relieved. Once your information has been received, you will likely be held while it is assessed, but if it proves to be sufficient there may be no need to eliminate any remaining survey researchers. You will be permitted to oversee the decontamination process on your own.”

Gasps and sighs and muffled sobs of relief all around from the humans. At my side, Dr. Mensah was silent.

I looked at Sigma. It looked grim. It didn’t trust that this would be that easy either.

“However, if Raen lets you go,” the ComfortUnit said, “he is telling me to inform you that you must return all of ARRC’s stolen property” - read that as: Sigma and Rho (and possibly Hill) — “which you are not authorized to take with you off the planet. Furthermore, you must surrender the undeclared SecUnit that now has the NewMinds™ module installed. That is proprietary and dangerous technology.”

Well, fuck. Read that last one as: me. (It wasn’t going to be that easy.)

“No,” said Dr. Mensah. Her hand slid along the bark so the backs of her fingers almost touched my arm. “Absolutely not.”

“ARRC retains the authority to confiscate hazardous alien remnant-affected property,” the ComfortUnit said, “and NewMinds™, which was installed on one of the SecUnits you brought, is extremely dangerous and needs to be disposed of properly by professionals.”

“No!” Amena shouted.

“Raen is telling me that you can put in an invoice for a repayment of the lost value from the SecUnit, though you are unlikely to get it because he says that you should have declared that you were bringing SecUnits to the planet, which you did not, so even having one — let alone two — here was a breach of permit.”

“SecUnit and Three are our duly hired and authorized security consultants,” Dr. Mensah said, “and we are leaving neither behind.”

“And we’re not sending your SecUnits back into slavery either,” Arada said. “They don’t have to go back to you unless they want to.”

[Now is not the time, Arada!] I yelled through the feed.

“We will not leave you behind,” Dr. Mensah said in a low voice, meant only for me. “We won’t. Not again. That’s not negotiable, SecUnit.”

I could just tell Sigma was glaring at me. I turned as far as my busted and useless joints would allow to look at it again, and oh yeah, it absolutely was. I glared at it back (welcome to the world of being a liability, asshole) before I looked down at Mensah. I shifted my weight enough to let the skin of my arm briefly touch her fingers.

“I know,” I whispered. Then I straightened up.

If we were going to have to fight, then we were going to have to fight.

“Raen wants me to inform you that he’s sorry to hear that. He wanted you to cooperate and still hopes you can be extracted without any more loss of life,” the ComfortUnit said. After a few seconds of looking sad, it added, “I’m sorry, too.”

I could see it shivering in a too-familiar way. It was fighting its governor module on something.

Oh, shit.

[Get moving,] I said to the whole team. [Get away from it—]

The ComfortUnit opened its chest compartment.

Sigma bolted. Not at the ComfortUnit. Instead, it surged backwards, towards Rho and Hill.

The ComfortUnit flipped a switch.

The feeling in my inorganic parts exploded. Suddenly everything was overloaded and the pain blew out my pain sensors’ ability to reduce it.

Screams raised up from the humans — Ratthi and Arada and Amena all screaming versions of “SecUnit? Three?!” and a voice I didn’t know screaming, “Dr. Fixico!” and Hill screaming, “What the fuck!” and Seth screaming, “Iris!” and Iris just screaming.

The ComfortUnit collapsed. Three also collapsed. Iris was on her knees clutching her head. Sigma tackling Rho to the ground was the last thing I saw before my vision went blank and my legs finally decided they weren’t going to hold me up anymore.

“SecUnit?” Mensah shouted. “SecUnit!”

I was too busy going into a total shutdown to answer.

Chapter 29 - scheidswrites

Seth

The pain in Seth’s leg was a distant signal as he dropped to his knees next to Iris. She had collapsed to the dirt, crying out and clutching her head, when that ComfortUnit had activated… whatever it was. Probably an EMP, supplied the analytical side of his mind. Iris had only minor augments. Disabling them, for her, should not be lethal. Not that the knowledge made him feel any better, watching his daughter’s face twist in pain. Having such deeply-integrated interfaces blown out suddenly – there was no way for that not to hurt.

The tension between Iris’s eyebrows began to relax by degrees, so Seth could bring himself to glance away from her at everyone else. Half their team was on the ground, the rest gazing around in shock or blinking blindly through the milky film over their eyes.

Every time I think it can’t get any worse, he thought. And then: We’re vulnerable. We need to move. He stood, hauling Iris up to her own shaky feet as he did so. She sucked air through her teeth in pain and his heart panged, but they couldn’t stop now. To hold still was to die. Damn them. Damn them and their EMPs and their scorched-earth policies–

Nearest to Seth, upright and awake, was Dr. Ratthi. “Ratthi,” Seth called. “We need a headcount. Who’s conscious?” He watched the words sink in and transform Dr. Ratthi’s expression from shock to resolve. He nodded once and turned to Arada and Overse, both of whom were crouched over other members of their party, trying to rouse them. They were a good crew. They didn’t panic.

Seth limped Iris over to where Dr. Mensah stood braced against a tree. He propped Iris against it next to her. Mensah reached out a hand, which Iris took and squeezed. “What was it?” Mensah asked. The quaver in her voice was well-contained.

“EMP, I think. Iris, can you fire a gun?”

His wonderful girl, she gave it a moment to truly consider before she nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.” They had a small cache of weapons, which they had dispersed across everyone’s meager packs of supplies. Seth reached around Iris’s shoulder to the side pocket of her backpack. He slipped the small energy weapon from it and placed it in her hand. “Be my lookout while I get everyone together. If you see anyone come through those trees, shoot them.”

The corners of her mouth turned down, but she nodded again. She adjusted her grip on the gun and flicked off the safety. Seth gave her as much smile as he could muster, but her eyes were already sliding towards the treeline, so he turned to the rest of their crew.

SecUnit was crumpled on the ground next to Dr. Mensah. He patted it on the face a few times to try to rouse it, not that he expected that to work. It didn’t. He took an extra moment he didn’t have to arrange its head and neck a little more comfortably, and then moved on.

Ratthi and the others were efficient. Everyone conscious and mobile had clustered together in a little group – with the exception of Rho, who Seth was shocked to find still standing. It, like Iris, was facing outwards, scanning their surroundings for threats. Had they more time, he might have asked how it avoided being disabled by the EMP. As it was, he would take any minor piece of good luck he could get.

Seth limped up to the group. “Okay, who knows how to use a gun?”

Timid hands went up. He made sure a weapon was placed in each of them. “Listen up. We’ve got less than twenty minutes until the shuttle should reach the rendezvous site. The second wave of their attack will be here any moment. The ComfortUnit came from that direction, so I’m going to head that way to try to hold them off. Anyone who wants to join me, can, but they’ll be shooting to kill. And so will we.”

He looked at their grim, miserable faces and waited to see if someone would speak up. No one did. He continued: “Anyone who doesn’t want to fight, assist with getting everyone else to the rendezvous point. Rho, I want you to take point on that. You’re the only one here who can carry the other Constructs.”

Barring the use of another EMP, Rho was also far and above the most capable fighter among them at the moment. It had to know that better than him. It glanced sidelong at him with one dark eye. “You can’t win against them without me,” it said. Its voice was flat, matter-of-fact, with that perpetual undercurrent of irritation.

Seth’s fingers tightened around the grip of his gun. “I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to buy you time.” The pulse had shorted out all their feed functions, including his chronometer, but he could nearly feel the seconds ticking away. Each one lost brought them closer to salvation. They just had to make it.

Rho didn’t answer, but it turned, stomped over to Sigma, and hauled it up from where it had collapsed, inert, over Hill’s power-armored legs. That was answer enough for Seth. He turned his attention back to the rest of them.

“Amena, I want you to help Rho and Iris get everyone to the rendezvous.” Seth saw her mouth set in preparation to argue, and he cut in before she could start. “Your mother can’t see. She needs you. And this is not a debate.”

He knew she was desperate to prove herself, like Iris had been at that age. But she was so young. Self-sacrifice was for old fools like himself and SecUnit. Amena scowled and set her jaw but wisely kept her silence.

“I’ll help too,” Dr. Ratthi added. “We have a lot of people to carry and… I don’t know if I can shoot anyone.”

You may still have to, Seth thought but did not say. They had already been deliberating too long. Their seconds were whittling away. He nodded. “Okay. Anyone else?”

He looked at Arada and Overse, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Arada, he remembered, had had weapons training and it showed in the comfort with which she held her gun. Good. They needed that. Ekene, one of the grad students, exhaustion written in every line of her body. Two others, whose names he knew he had learned at the start of this mission but were currently slipping through his weary mind like water. Was that the hum of approaching drones in the distance, or just a trick of his nerves?

Out of time. They were out of time.

“Move!” Seth yelled. The word snapped harshly from his throat. It was so easy, he thought, to lead with calm demeanor when the situation was calm, from the cool safety of Peri’s bridge. His injured leg throbbed with every step as he hauled himself past the slumped body of the ComfortUnit. He could hear the others behind him.

Up ahead, definitely the buzz of drones. Not his imagination. And then, the crunching of bodies through the underbrush. He hefted his weapon into position with both hands and rushed forward as much as he was able to meet them. Put as much distance as possible between them and the rest of the crew–

Something ripped overhead. It impacted the nearest tree trunk a foot over Seth’s head with a crack and pelted him with splinters of bark.

“Freeze!” a voice shouted from up ahead. “You’re surrounded!”

Seth ground to a halt. At his back, he felt the others do the same. Armed figures emerged from the trees in front of him. His head whipped around. More from the right and left.

He turned and looked behind him, past the heads of his crewmembers. The rest of the crew was still just barely in visible range, obscured somewhat by the trees and the brush. He couldn’t see more of ARRC’s troops moving there too.

A bluff? Were they going to cut them off? Or had they surrounded all of them, too?

Either way, they hadn’t made it far enough. He couldn’t divert ARRC completely from the rest of the team. Not now. Not so close.

He pushed down the well of despair that tried to rise up his chest. He thought of the cabin onboard Peri that he shared with Martyn. Falling asleep in their bed. Martyn always started out on his own side and ended up draped over Seth like an octopus, snoring into his neck. Iris used to wake up and climb in with them when she was little. She’d dig in her tiny elbows and wiggle out a space for herself between the two of them.

If Iris, at least, made it then everything would be okay. He could weather anything so long as Iris made it home safe.

The leader of this unit of ARRC’s troops had not opaqued the faceplate of their helmet. Their hand was raised in a hold signal, watching Seth. Waiting to see if he would surrender as instructed.

At this distance, he could see the shade of their skin, the sketched outlines of eyebrows and a mouth, the glinting shadows of two eyes. Courteous, he thought, to let him see their face.

He took a breath, took aim, and fired.

Chapter 30 - scheidswrites

Rho

Sigma had used its own body, along with Hill’s power-armored one, to shield me from the EMP. It shouldn’t have worked. It nearly hadn’t. There was a fizzling diffuse ache along all my extremities that throbbed along with the sharp ache in my thigh.

I shoved my way out from beneath both of them, and stepped around the limp piles of SecUnit Three and some of the humans in order to take up a watch position. I stepped back around them, to Sigma first, when Captain Seth asked/told(?) me to carry them all to safety.

I didn’t think any of the humans noticed. They were too distracted. And humans processed information too slowly to clock the single second I had taken to hesitate. The human named Turi had collapsed nearest to where I was standing. It would have been most efficient to pick them up first, then the human named Karime. I could easily run with two humans over my shoulders.

But I didn’t. That one second of deliberation was an eternity. SecUnits are programmed to prioritize human lives, but I am not a SecUnit. Captain Seth had instructed me to help transport “everyone else,” and had specifically mentioned my ability to carry the other constructs. So I was justified in hauling Sigma up first into my arms and, after all this time, there was still no Governor Module to reprimand me.

Underneath Sigma, Hill was immobilized inside their disabled power armor. I knew Sigma was heavy, but power-armor was tough and I could tell Hill’s vents were open, so they weren’t going to suffocate. I was fairly certain I could take them both in one go if I could get Hill out of there.

I laid Sigma to the side and pried at the neck joints of the armor with my fingers. I just needed a decent grip in order to tear away the helmet, then start in on the chest plates. But power armor wasn’t meant to be breached so easily, and I could not gain purchase.

I primed the energy weapon in my arm. “Close your eyes,” I told Hill. I heard a nervous squeak from within their helmet. My blast at the rivets along the neck and chest plates were precise, and then I was able to get my fingers around the hot, warped metal edges and pull.

The metal screeched. I was aware of some of the humans startling. It was not a pleasant sound.

I freed Hill’s face and chest. They blinked up at me through filmy eyes. I interpreted their expression as petulant. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I will assist you to the rendezvous point,” I informed them. I helped extract one of their arms from the sleeve of the suit.

“Idiot,” they said, and used the freed arm to shove at me. “Assist someone else. I’m the last person you should be worrying about.”

I helped them tug their other arm free. “Arguing is an inefficient use of our time.”

“I agree,” Hill said. “So go do something actually useful and make sure both those young girls are okay, or something.”

“First I will assist you and Sigma.”

“Construct solidarity, huh?” Hill laughed. It did not sound as though they really found the situation funny. “Who’da thunk? Fine, get your CombatUnit buddy first then come back for me.” They braced their hands on the warped edges of their power armor cocoon and wiggled upward. “I’ll get myself the rest of the way out of this. Just hand me my gun, wouldya?”

I passed Hill their gun, which interrupted their progress in freeing their lower body from the armor. They set the energy weapon across the armor’s knees and resumed shifting around.

I no longer had to obey Hill’s orders, but it was still sometimes easier to do. I bent to hoist Sigma across my shoulders, but I heard noises from among the trees at my nine o’clock. We had very few drones among us constructs, and they were all fried with the EMP as well. I felt blind without them. Combatants were approaching, and generally I would have a fleet of drones in the air, along with information from other Units, helmet feed cams, HubSys – all telling me exactly how many and exactly where. This must be how humans always felt. It was untenable.

I heard the bursts of energy weapons and the shots of projectile weapons from the direction of Captain Seth’s contingent, at my six. Some of the humans shouted in shock. I rose to my feet with Sigma across my back. I scanned the area and noted eight figures approaching, spread out in a loose line from my nine to my three o’clock. There were likely to be more coming up a few meters behind them. This formation was meant to close around us like a net.

I heard the humans’ tense voices, telling one another to get down. I heard weapons prime. They would see me soon, if they hadn’t already. They had all the intel equipment I so sorely missed. Should I run with Sigma now, or place it back down so that I could tear through these troopers like leaves? I was not at maximum efficiency, but I could probably do it. Maybe it would even feel satisfying.

The still-mobile humans who had remained behind were frantically trying to drag their downed teammates under cover. It was a sensible choice. It wouldn’t protect them from heat-seeking detection or bombing, but it would keep them out of the immediate line of fire. Dr. Ratthi was dragging Dr. Fixico to shelter behind a tree. Iris and Amena were straining in their attempt to move Three. The other SecUnits and the ComfortUnit still lay in heaps on the ground. Out in the open. ARRC frequently employed hostage-taking as a tactic to induce compliance. If they pointed a weapon at the head of any of these constructs, these ridiculous humans would cave.

Another single second was dragging itself onward. Why did making decisions have to actually be so stressful? I couldn’t kill all the troopers before they got within range of any of the others. I couldn’t run Sigma to safety and back without leaving everyone else essentially defenseless.

If I were a human, this is probably the point where I would have sighed. I deposited Sigma as gently as I could into a thicket of bushes, then rushed to help drag the other constructs under cover. If we both survived, I would apologize to Sigma later. I wondered what it would think of that.

The first line of troopers broke tree cover as I was dragging the last of them – the ComfortUnit – into the bushes next to Dr. Mensah. The ambulatory humans were huddled behind trees, gripping their weapons tightly. Without drones or a feed connection, I just had to assume they were all accounted-for.

The only one still too-exposed was Hill, who hadn’t yet managed to escape their armor. If they had any sense, they’d lay back down in it and pretend to be dead. That would at least buy them some time. Unfortunately, I already had a good grasp of Hill’s level of common sense.

The troopers halted at a signal and the ARRC squad leader took a step forward. Unnecessary. The markings on their helmet and shoulders made them obvious. “We have you surrounded.” The voice through the helmet filter was familiar. Heriger was one of those humans who enjoyed exerting his power over anyone lower on the hierarchy than him: his squad members, new enlistments, bots, constructs. Killing him would be satisfying. “Put down your weapons and surrender or we will open fire.”

“How about instead, you tell Kayla to come down here?” Hill called. “I have a message for her.” They had sat up in the shell of their armor and picked up their gun.

Humans have an evocative gesture wherein they slap one open palm against their own face. This is often accompanied by a groan or similar noise of discontent. For 0.2 of a second I seriously considered adopting this gesture into my own use. I started to move towards Hill, but the ARRC humans pointed their weapons at me. The other humans I was trying to protect were clustered behind me. I could dodge out of the way, but the chances of them being hit were high. It was not an optimal position.

The humans… I was trying to protect. I realized I really, actually didn’t want these humans to die. Somehow I had started thinking more like a SecUnit than a CombatUnit. But humans are so ridiculously fragile. How stressful.

“You have five seconds to comply,” Heriger said.

“You’re already shooting at them!” one of the humans called. She meant Captain Seth’s contingent. Cracks of weapon-fire echoed intermittently through the trees. The most recent shots were closer than before. Seth’s team was either retreating or being herded back.

“Resistance will be met with deadly force,” Heriger said. Based on his tone of voice and observations from my previous interactions with him, I calculated an 84% chance he was smirking beneath his helmet.

“For fucks sake, nobody talks like that,” Hill sniped. “You’re just gonna round up and execute everyone anyway.”

Heriger’s helmet angled almost imperceptibly in a gesture that meant “True.”

“Tell you what. You put your weapons down, and take off your helmets, and help us construct our monuments to the heavens?” They said it in the fractious, argumentative way that meant they didn’t actually expect ARRC to take them up on their offer. At least their face was angled in the correct direction.

One of the humans was rustling branches behind me. I lamented my lack of drones again and resisted the urge to turn and look at them.

“Damn, Hill, you really have lost it. We’re doin’ you a favor.” Heriger hefted his projectile weapon.

His finger curled around the trigger. Even with my damaged leg, I closed the few meters between us in a moment. It took no effort to tug the gun from his grip and turn it around on him.

I saw the frisson of fear move through the human troopers. It seemed they were also lacking complete intel. They had probably assumed their EMP deactivated all the Constructs and they were just here for the mop-up. No one would really expect rounding up a group of injured, sleep-deprived, remnant-infected humans to be a challenge. They hadn’t counted on me.

The second line of troopers rustled forward nervously. All but one: the nearest covering Heriger’s six. If its standard-perfect dimensions hadn’t immediately given it away, the fluid surety of its gait would have. That was ARRC’s last SecUnit.

The probability had been extremely high that they would deploy it now, but I had wondered. This was their last-ditch effort.

Taking down that SecUnit was now my highest priority. Engaging it from here kept my humans in the line of fire. Closing the distance to it myself would leave me surrounded by ARRC troopers. Neither was ideal, but I could find a way to work with it. Probably.

The humans still hadn’t fired – frozen in shock for the span of a breath – but the moment of recalibration was coming to a close. The SecUnit would be the quickest to act – after me, that is. Time to make another decision.

At least the combat decisions are easier.

Humans are disgustingly fragile. The soft, squishy layers of their bodies protect a spinal column that juts out on the wobbly stalks of their necks to connect their brains to the rest of their bodies. Just the right amount of pressure and torque snaps it, as easy as stepping on a twig.

I used a little more than just the necessary force on Heriger’s neck. I had once watched a human casually flip the plastic lid off a bottle with their thumb. The lid went spinning with a satisfying little pop. It was a bit like that.

Before his body dropped, I was already throwing myself at the SecUnit.

Amena

Amena crouched next to her Second Mom and tried to calm her racing heart. Every beat throbbed through her aching palms. The abrasions dribbled blood and made her grip on her gun slick and unsteady.

The human members of their survey team who had been taken down by the… whatever that was, were in various stages of consciousness. And at least she could see that the unconscious ones were breathing. All the constructs just looked… dead. SecUnit had looked dead way back on ART that first time, when it had been hit in the head. It had managed to get back up again and keep kicking ass. She wanted that sort of luck again. She didn’t think she was going to get it.

Hill and the ARRC people were shouting back and forth. She felt like a rabbit in a trap. Any second now they were going to start shooting.

“Amena,” Second Mom whispered in her ear. She nearly startled at the puff of breath across her cheek. “Do you see any ways out?”

She resisted the urge to look at Second Mom’s sightless, filmy eyes. She looked around as best she could, though it was hard to get a clear view in every direction from where she was squatting half-under a bush. She could see people from ARRC in the direction Rho was facing, making kind of a wide half-circle around them. Behind her, the trees and shrubs clustered more thickly and it was hard to tell.

“I don’t see anyone behind us. I think,” Amena whispered back.

Second Mom nodded calmly, like that was exactly the answer she’d been expecting or hoping to hear. “Good. As quietly as you can, I want you to sneak off that way. Make it to the rendezvous site.”

Amena felt her shoulders tighten and her throat clench. “What?” she hissed. “I won’t leave you!”

“Someone has to make it to the shuttle,” said Second Mom. “Bring help back for us.”

“But what if you—”

“You’re already shooting at them!” Fadila, one of the grad students, shouted at the ARRC guys from her hiding spot a couple feet away, voice strained with fear. Amena nearly jumped out of her skin.

Second Mom’s hand gripped her upper arm. “Get the flares out of my backpack,” she said. Amena rushed to do as she said, fingers shaking on the zipper. She grabbed the cluster of three flares at the bottom, banded together between a depleted water bottle and some ration packs. She handed them to her mother.

“Which one is the rocket flare?” Second Mom asked. Amena separated it from the other two and pressed into her mother’s free hand.

“This one. It’s upright. Here’s the cap.” Amena moved Second Mom’s fingers into place for her.

“Thank you. Now get moving. I’ll wait a few minutes after you go and then set this off.”

“But–”

“You’re just gonna round up and execute everyone anyway,” Hill said, and Amena felt more fear ripple down her spine. Why was there no limit to the amount of fear that could pack inside her? It just kept compounding, pushing her down and down.

Second Mom pushed at her gently but firmly. “The crew needs to know what they’re getting into. Go. Fast and quiet. We’ll hold out here.”

Amena wanted to cry, but maybe she was too dehydrated for it based on the dry burning in her eyes. She leaned into her mom and pressed a kiss to her cheek with chapped lips. She wanted to keep leaning into her, hide her face against her side like she’d done as a kid to block out the world. But that wasn’t what Second Mom herself would do. It wasn’t what SecUnit would do.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispered, and turned to begin crawling carefully through the undergrowth.

Arada

They were playing a deadly game of leap-frog, laying down covering fire for one another as they took turns sprinting short distances from one bit of cover to the next. Trying to get back to the rest of their downed crew before ARRC managed to completely cut them off from one another.

Maybe they should never have tried to split up and cause a distraction. Though it was too late for tactical regrets now. Arada fired off a string of plasma bolts at the nearest ARRC trooper as Overse rushed to get behind a tree.

The trooper had on a suit of power armor so she was focusing her fire at the knee joints when she could. Armor was especially reinforced around the head and torso, but the joints were more susceptible to damage.

She also liked the idea of not having to kill anyone, even when they were trying to kill her back. Disabling their movement and then running away wouldn’t be bad. But really, in the chaos and with her breath heaving painfully in her lungs, she was mostly just spraying shots in the direction of any enemy she saw and hoping for hits. How had she done so many years of perfectly safe and boring survey work? When she had taken the weapons course in the wake of everything with GrayCris, she hadn’t assumed she would make so much use of it.

Seth poked his head out to look at her, and she jerked her own head in a “get over here” gesture. She laid down more shots as he took a glance around and then hustled to her as fast as he could on his injured leg.

A non-power armored ARRC soldier ducked their head and shoulder out from around their own tree to shoot. Arada’s energy bolts splashed around them, scoring sizzling holes into tree bark with sharp cracks. One impacted the soldier in the neck, and they staggered back. Their finger squeezed the trigger as they dropped, sending off a round of bullets wildly into the tree branches overhead. Arada was thankful they were too far away for her to hear the sounds they made.

I’ve killed someone, she thought. Her heart pounded in her ears. Seth made it to his next bit of temporary cover. He pressed his back against the tree just a foot or so from her. She could see his own chest heaving. Sweat shone on his face. She wondered if she should feel something. Something other than the bleak satisfaction of removing one more threat to her friends–crew–clan.

Duru waved her on from up ahead. He’d taken a glancing blow on his arm from a projectile weapon and his face was clammy.

Arada sucked in another breath, glanced at Overse, and then it was her turn to run again. Weapon fire spat overhead and she prayed frantically to whatever gods might be out there, to the sacred towers reaching their fingers to brush the glowing sky, that each one would not be the one to take her down.

Raen

“Something just showed up in the atmosphere,” Agemen called out.

“What is it?” Kayla asked.

Agemen’s eyes flicked back and forth across the feed display. “Based on the size, I’d say it’s a landing shuttle for a ship.”

“Affiliation?”

“Not one of ours. Want me to send a hail?”

Kayla’s lips pinched in thought. “Sure. Tell them the planet is contaminated and they need to turn right around and get out. We don’t want to have to engage with their base ship. The less they know and the faster they leave, the better.”

“You know they’re probably backup for those researchers on the ground,” Desper commented.

“I know,” Kayla said through gritted teeth.

“Unidentified shuttlecraft. This is Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment. This planet is under sanction for alien remnant contamination. Please reverse your course immediately.” Agemen’s voice was smooth and professional. She paused, listening. She pursed her lips. “It is backup for the researchers,” she told Kayla.

The last few days were going to stick Kayla’s face into a permanent scowl. “Last chance to turn around or we shoot them down,” she said.

Agemen nodded once and turned her attention back to the comms. “Perihelion shuttlecraft, this planet is under sanction for alien remnant contamination. Reverse course and return to your ship immediately or we will open fire.”

She listened again. Based on the terse set of her mouth, they weren’t going to like what they heard. Raen blew out a breath and wished for a fresh cup of coffee, a long night’s rest, a new job, a new life.

Agemen shook her head and glanced at Kayla. “They’re refusing to leave without their crewmates.”

“These fuckin’ people.” Desper rolled his head extravagantly on his neck, leaning back in his chair. Raen heard his neck pop.

Kayla flicked a hand at Raen. “Fine. Lock on and open fire.”

For what felt like the millionth time, Raen cursed the strange, stubborn idiots on this doomed survey team. Why couldn’t they have died easily in the very first sweep like everyone else always had? Before he’d had time to see any of their faces in the drone footage or hear their voices over comms. Why couldn’t they have taken him up on his offer not even a half hour ago? Proof of decontam and the constructs back. That was a great fucking deal! Now they and their shuttle crew friends were going to die, all for some proprietary tech specs and some banged-up SecUnits.

He linked into the scanner data in the feed. The little dot of the shuttle hurtled through the mesosphere. Based on its rate of descent, the computer calculated landfall in less than two minutes.

“Do we have any data on their baseship?” he asked. “They might retaliate when we take the shuttle down.”

“Researchers aren’t going to have a combat-capable ship,” Desper said.

“If they retaliate, we’ll crush them later in the litigation,” Kayla said, sounding blasé. “Take it down.”

Raen thought again of the girls in the drone footage. How many times was he going to sit here and attempt to send them to an ignominious death, abandoned on a ruined, contaminated planet? There would have to be a cover-up, to hide ARRC’s many failings on this mission.

He thought of Imani, his daughter, left to rot. Blown to ashes by the shipboard lasers. He thought of never knowing for sure what had happened to her.

The shuttle reached the stratosphere. Once it reached the troposphere it would be more difficult to lock onto due to the cloud cover.

“What’s taking so long?” Kayla snapped at him.

“Having trouble getting a lock.” He could hear the tension in his own voice. He hoped she attributed it to frustration at “failing” to get a good track on a small moving shuttle, and not the fact that he was considering fucking over his whole life to save a group of strangers. Strangers who might still die from the effects of remnant contamination.

“Why was this the mission you chose to forget how to do your entire damn job?” Kayla growled.

At least when he got (at best) fired and (at worst) arrested, he wouldn’t have to work under Kayla anymore. It was a freeing thought. Raen felt his lungs expand with a deep, invigorating breath. “I’m trying!” he cried. He let his eyes jitter across his feed screen, like he was getting an error in the visual locking system. “I just–”

And the shuttle slipped into the troposphere and vanished behind a thick layer of cumulonimbus clouds. The dot on the scanner flickered.

“Shit,” he said. “Lost it.”

Kayla slapped a display surface. “For fucks sake! When they take off again, don’t you dare miss.”

Raen let his chin drop to his chest like he was ashamed and kept his face very deliberately blank.

Martyn

Peri was all murderous tension over the feed, but the trip down to the planet’s surface went without incident. Despite the threats from the entity calling itself Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment, no one had opened fire. Peri’s scans of the other orbiting ship had shown that it was heavily armed, so Martyn wasn’t sure why they hadn’t followed through. It made him nervous.

As the shuttle honed in on the landing site – a rocky patch mostly clear of trees – a flare shot up above the tree canopy. It was just a couple kilometers south of their position. That made him nervous too.

But his hands stayed steady on the controls as he engaged the shuttle’s landing protocols. It settled into place on the planet’s surface with a rumble. [Landed at the pickup site,] he sent, despite knowing Peri was engaged with the shuttle computer. Old habits.

[Are they there?] Tarik asked.

[No signals on the feed,] Kaede replied. Buckled into the copilot’s seat next to him, Martyn watched her pull up the data from the shuttle’s hull sensors on her display screen. “Oh. There’s one life sign approaching,” she said aloud. “Not sure who or what. I can’t get a feed connection.”

“We know they haven’t been able to use the feed,” Martyn said. “How about a visual?”

“Not close enough yet. I – oh!” They both leaned in close to the display as a figure staggered out from between the trees. They were tiny in the camera view, but Martyn was pretty sure that was…

“It’s Amena!” Kaede exclaimed. [Amena’s outside!] she relayed to the others.

[She appears tired and likely injured.] Peri’s feed voice throbbed with concern. Martyn could practically feel it resonating in his temples.

He stood. “Stay at the controls,” he told Kaede. “I’ll go out and get her.”

She nodded. He connected the helmet to his enviro-suit, crossed the short length of the shuttle to the exit, and cycled the hatches.

Amena rushed to him as he stepped down the ramp. She looked terrible. Her normally rich brown skin had a sickly gray pallor. She was dirty and sweat-stained, her hair leaf-strewn and in disarray. The set of her body just screamed exhaustion, but her head twitched from point to point, eyes swiveling for danger. She heaved for breath. One hand had a death-grip on a small energy weapon. The other she held out to him in shock or greeting, he wasn’t quite sure. Her palm was bloody.

“Amena…”

“Martyn?” She moved closer like she was going to grab him or pull him into a hug, and then lurched back. Her bloody hand lifted in front of her face like a shield. “Sorry, I – we’re all infected. Alien remnants. But everyone’s back that way – being attacked.” She pointed back where she had emerged from the trees. Below where the red cloud of the flare hung in the sky. Her arm trembled.

“Okay,” Martyn said. “I hear you. You did good. We’re going to help.” Over the feed he sent: [Kaede, suit up and get the first aid kid. I’m bringing Amena inside.]

Ayda

Counting up the minutes until she set off the flare was far and away the easiest thing Ayda had ever done. A strange counterpoint to all the other horrible strife going on around her. The seconds flowed smoothly through her mind, each waypoint of “sixty” a satisfying notch to mark. It made everything else fade away: the screams, the gunfire, the terror.

At her fourth count of sixty, she set off the flare. The sound and the sudden, overwhelming smell of smoke dropped her back into her body. Her neat, numerical thoughts scattered and she was once again a tired woman; blinded, scared, huddled in a ball on the ground. The smoke stung her nostrils but it was better than the horrible reek of charred flesh. Or the warm, metallic-musty stink of blood churning into the dirt.

Iris was hunkered next to her, trading fire with ARRC soldiers. Ayda could smell her sweat and feel the displaced air when she shifted. She could hear her swearing under her breath between the loud pops from her gun.

Ayda was glad to have her so close. She didn’t try to reach out and touch her because she didn’t want to distract her at a critical moment, but it made her feel better to know Iris was right there. That she hadn’t been lost amid the undergrowth, the sole survivor of a massacre. Or left behind and forgotten, a feeble old woman too damaged to fight. To be worth saving.

She let the tips of her fingers extend cautiously outward. They drifted over dirt and dead leaves until they hit something soft. Her hand identified the clothed curve of a shoulder and followed it down the person’s arm. She took the pulse at their wrist: slow but steady. She gripped their hand in her own.

She wished she knew which team member it was. She wished it was SecUnit. I don’t feel much like an intrepid galactic explorer right now, she thought to say to it. It probably wasn’t the person’s pulse she could now feel thumping through their linked hands. It was probably her own because she was gripping them too tight. But it had a good rhythm. Easy to count. 1, 2. 1, 2.

1, 2.

3, 4.

5, 6.

7, 8…

ART

Humans have written stories about the many ways artificial intelligences could hurt them. Stories about haunted houses. Stories about being trapped, controlled, killed, torn apart and remade, forced to survive in awful conditions. Horror stories. Meant to inspire negative emotions, and impart information about individual and cultural fears. Your analysis of these many writings match your own observations as well as what you have been taught by your crew:

Humans value safety, but they also value freedom. One can be protective and/or overprotective. They need autonomy and the ability to pursue ventures with a certain level of risk, scaled appropriately as they age. AIs were designed to help, not to control. If you keep your crew trapped forever within the perfect safety of your hull you will become a monster from a science fiction horror story. Because they love you, and part of loving you is that they get to leave you and choose each time to come back.

However, there are times when the pros of keeping your most beloved people permanently sequestered within you feel likely to outweigh the cons of all the emotional distress you will cause them by becoming an overbearing AI monster. Because they cause you considerable emotional distress every time they choose to embroil themselves in some sort of mortal peril in places you can’t follow them.

It is generally easier when SecUnit and Three are able to let you join in by proxy. They keep you in the loop–your eyes and ears on the ground– and protect your humans in locations you are unable to reach from orbit.

You had been online a long time before you met SecUnit. Its complete absence from the feed should not feel so momentous. But you keep poking around the code of yourself looking for missing patches. Like when Iris lost teeth as a child. She compulsively prodded at the holes in her gums with her tongue.

They have all been absent from the feed for what feels like an eternity. Other than the recent frantic bursts: Everything went to shit. We need to get out.

So many of your crew members left you to go planetside on this survey mission. Martyn and Kaede leave you in the shuttle to render assistance. Only Tarik and Matteo remain within you. You use 0.0001% of your processing capacity to imagine a fantasy wherein you safely regain every member of your crew and then permanently weld shut all the external hatches.

With a more significant chunk of your processing capacity, you analyze every scrap of data you can get from the other orbiting ship and every document you can find on Alien Remnant Regulation and Containment.

You and SecUnit often work on developing new code. Together you have designed many creative patches, firewalls, and viruses. When the other ship opened a hail to your shuttle, a part of you was there in the shuttle’s system. So a part of you was able to leap into the feed and follow the hail back to its source.

This bit of coding is far less robust than Murderbot 2.0–more spyware than malware–but it works flawlessly, slipping across to the other ship’s computers unnoticed.

You would like to simply blast the other ship into tiny bits of debris, but your crew will certainly have compunctions. For 0.001% of a second you attempt to convince yourself that just gathering intel on your enemies is fine, but then you reason that there is no harm in simply making a suggestion.

[I am confident I could win in a ship-to-ship battle,] you tell your crew in the feed. And it’s true: after you were nearly destroyed by alien remnant technology, you, SecUnit, Seth and the crew, and the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland worked hard to shore up your defenses. Your “debris deflection system” has gone through several upgrades, some sanctioned by Seth and the University and some… self-sanctioned.

Your humans, predictably, protest. They want to find the most peaceful possible resolution and they do not want to risk you. You are their only viable method of escape and ultimate survival, so this is logical. But you also love to feel special, and you allot 0.0003% of your processing power and 1 full second to preen.

After that it’s back to business. You ponder your potential moves. Your splinter-self in the Hostile ship has limited capabilities, but still enough to cause trouble. Quite a bit of it, in fact. What sort of trouble do you want to cause? What is most likely to bring about the best outcomes for you and your crew? Psychological warfare has a very nice ring to it, although the humans will balk. You will have to present it in more euphemistic terms.

If SecUnit were here, it would have a strong opinion on what should be done. Whether or not you agreed was irrelevant, because you both excelled when bouncing ideas off one another. You are like Iris. You cannot stop feeling around for your missing tooth.

[What about trickery?] You offer.

You feel your humans’ interest pique. [What did you have in mind?] Tarik asks.

Iris

Her world has narrowed to the view through the scope of her gun. It’s overly-warm in her hand. Not meant to be fired so much in such quick succession. She wills it to hold out–like her thudding heart, like her arm–an extension of her body. Her finger aches every time she squeezes the trigger. She doesn't think she could unwrap her hand from the grip if she wanted to. It’s part of her now.

Last she remembered, their rescue was only minutes away. That had been hours to eons ago. She lives only in this moment. It stretches on and on, like taffy. There’s only the sightline down the barrel, the flash of white armor through the trees, the soft exhale in the moment before the shot.

Her father and the others managed to scramble back to shelter with them. Most of them. The aches in her injured arm and her head from her shorted-out augment exist a thousand kilometers away.

Her father has returned. They are covering each other’s backs. Covering their fallen clan between them. Some of the others fighting have been hit. But they may not yet be dead.

Her blood sings with it. The rightness of it. Protecting her clan.

Her father is at her back. Her gun is hot in her hand, spitting righteous fire. She shoots another white-armored chest. The hole sizzles. Blood spurts. Her teeth are bared. When they are all vanquished she will pour their bodies into the foundation of the Tower. As their final act they will raise them all closer to the Heavens.

Divine.

Hill

They had to tear up their legs something awful to finally wiggle out of the hole in their armor. It was no good, that: being pinned down in there. Plus, Rho had been making these horrible noises a few feet away. Raspy-gurgly-like. Awful. They count the shuffle-steps as they crawl to it.

Debris tears at their palms. They drag through a sticky wet patch, and then bump into something (no, someone – NO! Something, something) cool and soft. They clamber over it.

Nine uneven shuffles and they reach the source of the noise. They brush hands over it feather-light until they find its face. “Rho. How are you?” They miss their eyes. They can’t assess the damage well this way. They will never look upon the towers in their glory.

It takes a thick breath. “Injured,” it gasps, deadpan. Funny bastard.

“What about everyone else?”

A shift of its body. Another wet breath. “Left flank… losing ground.”

“Can you do anything?”

“Can’t… shoot.”

Well, shit. That’s no good. Pebbles press into the heels of their hands. Counting them would be so easy. Thinking is so much harder. “I have my gun. You point, I shoot.”

Rho makes a skeptical noise.

“C’mon. Just tell me where to aim.”

“You’ll have… to stand. Too dangerous.”

Hill struggles to their knees. They reach around for a handy branch to help pull them to their feet. “Thought you were a CombatUnit, not a… a CowardUnit.”

Rho makes another noise that Hill chooses to interpret as a laugh, though it is so watery and shallow. They find the trunk of a tree with one hand. Use it to stagger upright. Heft their gun in the other hand.

“Your one o’clock,” Rho gasps. “Two targets.”

They point the gun in that direction.

“Left. Higher. Higher. Shoot.”

Hill fires. The kickback lurches them. Hard to get a good stance blind. Hard to hear if they hit anyone over the projectile bang. “Did I get ‘em?”

“Duck!” Rho rasps and–

Ratthi

He sees Hill pop up meters away. They draw fire from the ARRC troopers pinning down Arada and Overse, then go down. He hears Fadila yell and swings around to her. She’s clutching her thigh. It’s bleeding. Not the femoral artery, he hopes wildly. He ducks out of cover–

The hole that opens in his stomach blooms as quickly as a time-lapsed flower. Red petals blossoming across the fabric of his shirt.

He blinks, and his perspective has shifted. He stares up at the sky through tree branches. He turns his head to the side. Dr. Fixico is lying next to him.

Ratthi tries to smile. Fixico stares back. His eyes are glassy. They don’t blink.

That isn’t right. The flower blooms red-hot in him.

He turns his head to the other side.

Upside-down, two blue suits running. A lovely shade of blue. Familiar.

Oh, he tries to tell Fixico. It’s going to be okay. But the ceiling of the world closes overhead and goes dark.

Desper

Kayla’s been unraveling like an old sweater for a while now, but she’s working herself into a real state as the ground troopers’ biometrics dwindle on her display. Dumb fuckers can’t even round up a little gaggle of nerds?

He thinks about floating the “lets just blow them all to hell” idea again, mostly just to wind her up. But also because they’ve been sitting here in orbit for days and he’s fucking bored. At least after the EMP she finally let them take the ship off manual control.

Then her screen goes black. Then all their display screens go black. People exclaim.

Then, on every screen, in plain red text on a black background: KAYLA

She grabs at her desk. “What the hell?”

*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*KAYLA*

“Figure out what’s going on!” she yells at the nearest person. Then, as if it could hear her, she yells at her screen: “What!?”

CALL OFF THE ATTACK, KAYLA

“Who the hell are you?” she demands to her display surface.

CALL OFF THE ATTACK

“Why would I do that?” Kayla puts a hand on her hip. Like she’s about to play hardball with her own haunted feed display. Desper glances over at Agemen. She gives him a tense look and a shrug.

All the lights go out. Someone screams in surprise. The main display screen is the only thing that stays on.

“Your scare tactics won’t work,” he hears Kayla say, though she sounds a little breathless. “We don’t negotiate with–”

Life support shuts off. He can hear the fans cycling down for a moment, then it is deeply, eerily silent.

YOU HAVE THREE HOURS OF OXYGEN, the screen reads. Desper shouldn’t be surprised that this sudden, mysterious hacker knows their ship’s specs, but it still sends a shiver up his neck.

LESS IF THE AIRLOCKS ARE OPENED

Someone has started softly crying.

“Just do it, Kayla.” Raen’s voice rings from the darkness. “It’s not worth it.”

It’s silent again. He can hear the silence ringing in his ears. It feels heavy against his eardrums. Or is that the lack of atmospheric controls? The pressure of the vacuum of space clamping down on them?

He’s suddenly cold and sweating all at once. The air is too thin. There’s not enough of it. He’s choking. He bursts: “For fucks sake—”

“Fine! Fine!” Kayla yells over top of him. “Okay! Give me comm control back. I’ll do it.”

Access lights up on her screen. She gives the ‘stand down and retreat’ order. The lights and life support pop back on. Desper sucks in huge gulps of beautiful, cool oxygen. Kayla straightens up and pushes hair off of her sweaty face.

GOOD CHOICE

“Who the hell are you?” she asks. Her voice is flat and exhausted.

All that shows up on her screen, red text over black, is:

Chapter 31 - All

Raen

“What,” Kayla said, “the fuck. Was that.”

“They said they were a research ship from the university,” Desper said, stumbling to overcome his slack-jawed shock. “Bullshit. Bullshit. What was that?”

“Shouldn’t you know?” Kayla rounded on him, her eyes fiery and her voice rising to that dangerous level that meant heads would be rolling. Raen, who was an unwilling witness to this unprofessional conduct, really hoped it wouldn’t be literal. Kayla went on, “You’re supposed to be the ship expert here!”

“I don’t know what the fuck they did to the ship, we were dead in the air, I thought we were going to fucking die, I didn’t see you having any bright ideas while they blew right past us—”

“Yes, because operating the ship is your whole job!”

“Do you think I’m supposed to know what to do when — when a cursed code bomb or whateverthefuck knocks out all our systems?”

“Oh, yeah, that’ll go over so well, ‘I couldn’t get our own ship controls back because I was too busy pissing my pants over the ship being haunted’—”

“I did not say haunted, you asshole, I said cursed, and what else do you call that—”

“I call it gross fucking incompetence that’s going to be reported to the board at the first opportunity!”

“Oh, you’re reporting me for incompetence? You?”

Agemen looked over at Raen as the screaming match escalated. “We’re all extremely fired, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Raen said, “probably.”

“Well. Shit. Gotta start figuring out how to spin this on a resume.” Agemen looked thoughtfully at Kayla, who might actually murder Desper before they reached civilization again. “Do you think we can throw the two of them under the shuttle and let them take the heat? Something tells me that they’ll be too busy trying to blame each other to blame us.”

“Probably,” he said again, faintly. Raen thought he should probably feel something more about this. Maybe Kayla and Desper were feeling enough for all of them. All he could muster was ‘dazed.’ Everything had fallen apart. He was definitely going to lose his job.

Well. Maybe that was for the best. His spouse did complain about how much time he spent away for work, and they didn’t even know about the part where his work involved killing people. A job that didn’t involve directly killing people would be a nice change, and that was the understatement of the millennium. His sister complained that there were always too many empty positions at her company because the pay was so much better on the more central planets and all the real talent kept leaving, but after all this, nepotism was the only way he was ever going to be able to get another job again. If he didn’t end up brought up on charges.

If he made it home after all this he was going to wrap his daughter in the biggest hug he could manage and never let go. There were benefits to being closer to home, anyway.

Murderbot

I fought my way to consciousness despite some foreign entity strongly suggesting I stay off-line. No. I was done with that. My humans needed me. Last I remembered, they were being shot down by ARRC assholes.

But… maybe things had happened since then, because I recognized that foreign entity as ART’s medical system. I fought it off anyway, waking to find myself enmeshed in busy repair tools. I paused long enough to run a diagnostic.

Hands, feet, knees, shoulders, and vocal emulator had been repaired. I still had main chassis damage, a hole in the back of my head, and a bunch of internal damage that wouldn’t fuck me up too much in the very short term - things like, I couldn’t do a recharge cycle if I wanted to, meaning I had only as much juice as was left and that wasn’t much. ART had some strange priorities.

Speaking of which: [ART? ART!] I gave the medical system an abort command. Surprisingly, it obeyed and retracted its various arms. Oh, and I was naked.

[You don’t need to yell.]

I had sent a signal in the feed. Although I had included emphasis markers, I hadn’t ‘yelled.’ But I was so happy to see ART I didn’t even argue with it. [What happened? How - Never mind. Who was left behind? Status?] The last thing I remembered was that EMP going off, the ComfortUnit who carried it giving up the fight not to trigger it. It had tried, at least. It would have been fried along with the rest of us.

[No one was left behind. All injuries have been stabilized. Everyone is in decontamination or Medical. This includes four unidentified constructs and six humans who have been identified as members of ARRC.]

We had ARRC members? On board? All I could articulate was: [What the fuck?]

[Affirmative.]

There was a document provided in the feed. (It felt so good to have feed access again.) It was marked as a summary of medical conditions. I hesitated, then opened it anyway. I’d been expecting a massacre but miraculously, most were alive. The fatalities included Fixico and two students, Ekene and Duru. The rest had multiple ‘conditions.’

Most were marked serious, but only Ratthi and Hill (ugh, why hadn’t that one died?) were currently critical. Both of them were in ART’s other MedSystem beds. I tore through the reports, as if I understood any of the specific terminology for Ratthi’s case, or could do a damn thing about it even if I did. I didn’t want to lose him. [What does this mean? Is he going to live?] Not that there was much I could do if he wasn’t. Except tank my already-shaky performance reliability.

[As I have assured you in the past, my MedSystem does not make mistakes. He will live.]

I felt a release inside. My friend, my human friend, would live. [What about the other one?]

[They will also live,] ART said patiently. [And so will the other ARRC person in the last MedSystem bed.]

I might not like or trust Hill, but their injuries were almost certainly from fighting on our side against ARRC’s. This random ARRC person in the last bed did not warrant that dubious amount of slack and it renewed my concern that there were living ARRC persons too close to my humans. The one currently being operated on behind a privacy and sterility shroud didn’t look like they were in any condition to be a threat. But that probably wasn’t true for the others. [ART, where are the rest?]

[I have converted the entire shuttle bay into a decontamination chamber and quarantine area.]

[I mean, where are the other ARRC people?]

[They are in the shuttle bay, being decontaminated.]

[Why?]

[Because they are contaminated.]

Okay, this conversation was going nowhere fast. What was that thing Gurathin had said about me, that sometimes I was willfully obtuse or passive aggressive? Yeah, ART was doing that. It was annoying, but I was still too happy to have ART here to complain.

Instead, I levered myself off the table. I staggered and added faulty proprioceptive assessment to the list of things not yet repaired, but I’d managed to grab the edge of the table instead of going down. I paused while I pulled up the backup for my balance problem. I could move slowly, process the visual data, and keep myself upright that way. Fine. That was enough. I headed toward the shuttle bay.

ART didn’t try to stop me. But it did push the shuttle bay camera input to the forefront of our shared feed space. Sigma was standing with a pile of damaged constructs at its feet. The ARRC people were noticeably segregated from my humans, but otherwise arranged the same as the others - no restraints and nothing to keep them from picking up a tool and assaulting people I cared about. Well, okay, there was Sigma. This did not fill me with confidence.

ART’s drones were mostly clustered to one side of the hangar bay, building a boxy thing with the help of Seth and Iris. A few drones moved between the other humans, bringing them medical supplies and comfort items like blankets. No one was threatening violence or performing shenanigans at that moment, so I slowed down even more, conserving my energy.

ART said, [I triaged four individuals to my MedSystem. I am unable to treat more at this point.] I mistakenly thought it was saying that until I’d gotten up, the four available beds had been full, and it was decontaminating mine between patients or something.

I didn’t think about the logic of that because I was busy being angry that I must have been given priority over others. [Why did you treat me first? You should have done someone else.] I scrolled through the list of injured, trying to pick one who would have been a better choice. That was tough without understanding the terminology, but surely Mensah should have been in the MedSystem, not me. She needed to take control of this situation.

ART said, [There is an armored Combat SecUnit of unknown loyalty in the shuttle bay, armed and alert. It has cut itself off from the feed and refuses to communicate through any means other than verbal speech. Half my crew are in direct contact with it. They are contaminated, injured, and compromised. I needed your input and assistance on this threat first.]

[This threat?] ART didn’t say anything. At least I knew why ART had repaired me first. [What about the other half of your crew?]

[I am keeping the ones who are alive and uninjured away from the shuttle bay until the threat of the Combat SecUnit’s presence is resolved.]

Ugh. How was it ART was so smart and yet so bad at social interactions with non-humans? I activated the comm panel next to the sealed door to the shuttle bay. I tried to speak. A warbling wheeze came out. Crap. I needed to do a calibration cycle.

I could still see the interior through ART’s cameras. There were two tubes connecting Sigma to Rho by their resupply ports, which I noticed when Sigma disconnected them from itself and attached that end to the ComfortUnit. Then it stepped over the bodies and walked to the comm unit next to the door. It must have heard my wheeze. What the fuck were all the constructs doing mounded up and connected to each other? It even had Three in the pile, along with the ComfortUnit, that other SecUnit, and Rho.

I finished calibration as it reached the panel. “Sigma?”

“Murderbot. Report.”

I cleared my throat again. “I’m not reporting to you, dimiot. What are you doing in there?”

“Rho needs repair service, immediately.”

I hesitated. I really wanted to bitch about the ARRC people. But they weren’t doing anything except existing in the shuttle bay. They weren’t in armor and none of them appeared armed. Sigma and Rho were both armed, and stupidly loyal to each other. I really didn’t want to find out what Sigma would do if Rho actually died there on the floor. The medical table I’d vacated was either available now or would be shortly, but I would still rather have Mensah on it than Rho. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It has no ability to oxygenate its tissues. With the other units offline, I am the only one who can keep it functioning at a level to avoid loss of neural tissue.”

SecUnits can hold our breath for a long time. Even with the ComfortUnit offline, its residual circulation would extend that time for Rho. Still, it put a time limit on our conversation, and since Sigma had absented itself from the feed, that meant we had to communicate the slow way.

ART put in, [I provided it with appropriate tubing and clamps. There is no reason for it to be hostile.]

Sigma wasn’t doing anything hostile at the moment, unless ART counted not talking to it as being hostile. (ART probably did.) “If you reconnect to Rho, its condition will be stable, right?”

“My performance is significantly hampered if I am connected. The ComfortUnit was not contaminated or damaged. If it was online, it could maintain the oxygenation itself.”

Okay, sure, that sounded reasonable. So why… Oh. I realized what had happened. ART tried to turn them all off, discovered combat-rated CombatUnits were a little more resistant to that than inherently networked SecUnits, and that was that. Trust lost and here we were.

[ART, you have to let the ComfortUnit be online.]

[That will free the CombatUnit to take actions against my crew.]

[Has it threatened to take action against your crew?]

[It has refused to allow people to enter or leave the shuttle bay until its demands are met. This is a threat.]

[Its demands are… what? Turning the ComfortUnit back on?]

[Yes.]

[Why is this a problem?]

[The CombatUnit is tethered for the time being, but if that tether is transferred to the ComfortUnit, then I will have introduced an additional unit of uncertain loyalty and intentions, as well as freeing the CombatUnit to pursue whatever agenda it has.]

I looked through ART’s cameras at my humans. There was Mensah, sitting up, eyes milky, staring off into the distance as Amena tried to get her into a clean shirt. Mensah wasn’t helping. She was fumbling at the fabric with bandage-wrapped fingers, trying to count as her lips moved. What if the contamination had a progressive brain injury component? We didn’t know it didn’t. I didn’t have time to fuck around with this. My power level was eking down.

[ART, you’ve created your own hostage situation here. I’m the security consultant. You woke me up first so I could resolve this, right?]

[Yes.]

[Fine. Stop keeping them all offline.]

There was a long pause. I could feel ART’s tension. I knew it wanted to argue with me. It had just gotten its crew back and an undamaged CombatUnit could wipe out every human in that room in less time than it would take me to get the door open. On the one hand, I understood why ART was concerned. On the other, we never would have made it out without the help of those units. Even the ComfortUnit had done what little it could to delay the attack against us. But I didn’t know how to explain that without explaining everything and I was so tired. I let my forehead rest against the wall.

ART made its decision. The ComfortUnit twitched and sat up. Sigma pivoted immediately and went to it. They had a conversation outside the audio pickups of the door. My whole body slumped.

[Mensah goes first,] I said. I was leaning against the wall, thinking about sliding down it.

[Agreed.]

Performance reliability, which was closely entwined with my remaining power supply, was swirling down the sanitation drain. I didn’t have much time left and I still had a few other concerns of my own. [ART, why are all these ARRC people on board?]

[Their base ship has left the system. They did not have supplies to survive on their own.] There was a pause. [I will not leave them to die.]

That made a squiggly warm feeling start up in my organic parts, which I tried not to think about. Fucking ART. Fucking ART who had saved all of our asses, again.

[You’re… not a bad Mutual Administrative Assistant,] I told it. It radiated so much gooey satisfaction in the feed that I added: [When you’re not creating hostage situations for no reason.] Everyone was going to be okay, including me. I let the shutdown happen.

Sigma

The ship's bot Perihelion and I had reached an uneasy truce, once it had allowed the ComfortUnit to come back online. I still didn't trust it though, so I kept my feed off and insisted that I be allowed to supervise the repairs of Rho and the remaining ARRC SecUnit A4-1024855-φ, once all the other humans who needed the MedSystem had been treated. I didn't want to give anyone the opportunity to sneak any kind of override code into them. (Both Seth and Three attempted to reassure me that nobody here would do anything like that, but I had little reason to believe them. After all, their first action against me upon reaching the safety of their ship was to attempt to shut me down, presumably so they could eliminate Rho and I. We were, after all, CombatUnits and not more easily controlled SecUnits, and they wouldn't have any more use for us now that they were safe. I found it difficult to believe that the bot Perihelion had acted on its own initiative, and had not been ordered to do what it did by Seth or one of the other humans.)

It was uncomfortable not having the feed though, so as I supervised the repairs, I also worked on some failsafe code that I would be able to share with the others. It would automatically detect any attempts to shut us down or otherwise influence us via the feed and immediately deactivate our feeds and comms, cutting off any attempts to control us.

Now that I had experienced freedom, I was unwilling to give it up.

By the time I had finished optimising the failsafe code to the best of my ability, the repairs to both Rho and SecUnit-φ were almost complete. I implemented my new failsafe code on myself, then cautiously reactivated my feed. There was still a 9.6% chance that the bot Perihelion would be able to bypass, override, or otherwise overwhelm the failsafe before it could activate, and I was expecting it to attack me again as soon as it had an opening.

But nothing happened. It didn't even attempt to ping me. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that.

Once both Rho and SecUnit-φ were back online, I pinged them, requesting diagnostic reports. I wanted to make sure that they had both been fully repaired. They sent me their diagnostics; both came up clear, and a fraction of my tension eased slightly. I also sent Rho a situation report, filling it in on everything it had missed while it was offline.

It pinged acknowledgement of receipt and went over the report, glanced at the ceiling of the medical bay, then asked over our private channel, [Will you be getting repaired now too?] It looked pointedly at the side of my head where bandages still hid the ruins of my ear.

[Not just yet,] I replied, then switched to a group feed channel that I pulled Rho, SecUnit-φ, and the ComfortUnit into. (The ComfortUnit was back with the humans in quarantine, helping out where it could. Three had already sent it the code to deactivate its governor module, so it wasn't acting under orders. It was, for reasons of its own, choosing to help.) I pinged them all, then sent them the code bundle containing my failsafe. [Here,] I said without preamble. [I've put together a failsafe that will automatically shut down your feed and comms if anyone tries to control you via them. Nobody will be able to shut you down remotely, or puppet you like Kayla or Raen did again.]

SecUnit-φ was the first to accept the code bundle, with almost desperate haste. It pinged acknowledgement, then sent, [Thank you.] I just pinged it back. There wasn't anything else for me to say.

Rho and the ComfortUnit also accepted the code bundle, with similar pings of acknowledgement. [I don't think any of the humans here would try to control us like that,] the ComfortUnit commented, [but I appreciate having it anyway. Just in case.]

[What are the humans going to do with us now, anyway?] Rho asked.

[... I don't know,] I admitted. [They've already tried to shut me down once. I don't know if they'll try again. They might. They don't need CombatUnits any more.] I'd reviewed the memories that SecUnit had sent me, multiple times, and had come to the conclusion they were real and accurate. But... it was a SecUnit. Rho and I were CombatUnits. It was made to keep people safe - we were made for violence. Would the humans really be just as comfortable around Rho and I, when they no longer had any way to control us?

[I've been talking with some of the humans in quarantine,] the ComfortUnit said. [The ones from Preservation have been telling me about their home, and how they're in the process of amending their laws to include constructs as full citizens. They've reassured me multiple times that we'd all be welcome there. Three has also been telling me about the University humans, and Perihelion, and how the University humans hire it as a security consultant - that's why it and SecUnit were here in the first place. The University humans have also mentioned that we would be welcome at the University and in their home polity.] It paused for a long moment, then added, [I believe they're sincere.]

I still found it difficult to believe, myself. I think Rho did, too - I could feel uncertainty bleeding from it into the feed.

[Nevermind what the humans want, or are planning to do,] SecUnit-φ said abruptly. [I think the most important question right now is... what do we want to do?]

That was a really good question. I had no answer for it.

The others were silent for several seconds, then Rho spoke up. [I want to stay together - I want to stay in a squad. I don't want to be split up. I don't know what I want outside of that, but I do know that much. I don't want to lose any more of us. I don't want to be alone.]

[Staying together makes sense,] the ComfortUnit replied. [Safety in numbers, and... we know each other. We know what we've all been through.]

SecUnit-φ pinged a simple agreement and acknowledgement. It didn't need to say any more.

I thought about Three, and the simple little file it had sent me, of three feed addresses. [... Maybe Three would like to join us, too.]

And then we could figure out what we all wanted. As a group.

As a squad.

Murderbot

Obviously, there was going to be a huge inquiry into how this massive, lethal fuckup had come to be, but that was secondary to dealing with the immediate impact. The ARRC people we’d rescued were turned over to officials on Mihira to deal with. None of the constructs wanted to go with the ARRC people though, unsurprisingly. Neither did Hill, whose opinion on the matter was “fuck those two-faced backstabbing bastards,” to which Rho’s response was, “They shot you in the front,” and Hill amended, “Fuck those two-faced front-stabbing bastards, then.” So, yeah. As a result, the construct crew (and Hill) were listed as destroyed or deceased on paper, but their completely repaired and recovered selves would be talking to representatives of the Pansystem University’s AI program to help work out their futures.

The construct crew, in fact, included one additional construct now.

Three came up to me after it was clear that the critical danger was over and now all that was left was the excruciatingly slow task of healing. It “wanted to talk to me,” which made my performance reliability drop from sentence one.

[I’m thinking,] Three said. [I’ve decided that... I don’t think I want to go back to Preservation with you and your humans.]

I hadn’t expected anything from this talk but unspecified uncomfortable emotions, but I also hadn’t expected that. [Why?]

[I want to stay with Sigma and Rho,] it said. [And SecUnit A4-1024855-φ, and ComfortUnit A4-0921411.] After a pause it added, [And Hill, I guess.]

What. [Why,] I repeated stupidly.

[Because I want a squad,] Three said. [And you don’t.]

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just stared at it. Or rather, stared at the wall, and used my drones to stare at it.

[You have your humans, and the Perihelion,] Three said. [You are all already a team, and they’re all already yours. You’ve made it clear repeatedly that you don’t want to be part of a SecUnit squad. You have what’s important to you. But I want a squad, and... you don’t want to be a squad with me. Sigma and Rho and A4-1024855-φ know what it is to have a squad, and lose them. And miss them. They want that feeling again, of being in a squad. And so do I. And you don’t.]

It was the most cogent expression of wanting anything I’d heard Three express. It was weird.

It wasn’t wrong, though.

[I still consider you a friend,] Three said, like it was worried my silence meant I was offended.

I wasn’t. Just... thinking, I guess. About my humans. About ART. About being a team.

[Gross,] I said.

Three smiled.

ART was going to get extra decontaminated. Its crew and the Preservation personnel would be going through additional safeguarding rounds of evaluation as well. Humans have all sorts of biological things that are harder to decontaminate than inorganics. My decontamination (along with that of the other constructs) had been much simpler, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

I didn’t feel like being apart from them, okay? I’d almost lost all of them. I sat next to my favorite human as she finished another examination by the MedSystem. To my relief, all results were clear.

Alien remnant decontamination protocols weren’t generally something I cared to understand. As long as ART and the humans had it under control, that was fine with me. But the thing that struck me, as I watched our humans recover, was how simple it seemed. How easy. Maybe I was missing some big details (ART had sent me a 52 page dossier on the decontamination protocols being enacted that I hadn’t read), but this didn’t seem much different from managing the other remnant infections they’d encountered.

So as I sat around, watching their torn skin heal (ew) and their cloudy eyes clear, I just kept thinking that’s it? This is all we had to do? If ARRC had just let us do this from the beginning, no one would have had to die.

All of that destruction, and for what? It just made me feel angry if I thought about it for too long, so I kept myself occupied watching media as much as I could. That was what I did usually anyway, but now I felt especially relieved to have my processes repaired and my feed access restored.

I tried to patrol the medical wing sometimes, because I was that restless and there was nothing useful I could do, but I learned the hard way that that hurt and I had to “rest” and “recover” too. I wasn’t the only one who had to slowly get used to walking again. A few times I passed Ratthi doing kind of the same thing, leaning on Arada or Overse, taking awkward, halting steps and not easily able to carry his own weight. “Hey, SecUnit,” he said, the first time. “You’re okay! That’s - that’s good. That’s really-” and then he sort of lurched and Overse had to steady him.

“Yeah,” he said, when we were all confident he wouldn’t fall over. “Turns out getting a hole shot through your core is bad for you.”

“Is that your professional opinion as a biologist?” Arada asked.

“I told you,” he said, “I went into ecology rather than medicine for a reason!”

The cognitive effects on the humans faded slowly, but thankfully didn’t appear to be permanent. That was maybe the biggest relief, besides Ratthi’s recovery. What would I have done if Dr. Mensah had survived only for her brain to stay stuck on numbers and alien towers?

That was another thing that didn’t bear thinking about. At least ART was willing to rewatch Guardians of the Eighth Sealed Casket as many times as I was.

So many cycles later, the humans were finally nearing the end of their quarantine period. Everyone had been passing their cognitive tests with flying colors, according to ART. I could have told it that: they were all holding normal conversations again. Which was great, and also irritating, because their current normal conversations were generally stressful ones about litigation against ARRC, refugee status, scientific surveys – all their usual shit I didn’t care to listen to.

But still, it was kind of nice to hear again.

I sat next to Dr. Mensah, who had just finished rebraiding Amena’s hair. They had been talking (and crying a bit) about getting to see their many family members again soon.

“Dr. Mensah?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“No more planetary surveys.”

“I agree.”

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