November 2025: Sanctuary Code

[marcicatverse]

Title: Sanctuary Code

Author: marcicat

Fandom: Murderbot (TV), The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)

Characters: SecUnit | Murderbot, ART | Perihelion, Pin-Lee, Arada, Ratthi, Palisade Combat SecUnit, Gurathin, Iris, Dr. Mensah, Lutran

Tags: AU, Found Family, IN SPACE, mutual administrative assistance-ship, avoiding talking about feelings, or anything else, SecUnit to the rescue

Summary: A series of awkward conversations.

Authors note: This started as an AU look at one way 'Exit Strategy' might go in a Murderbot (TV) universe, then gradually went off the rails, as stories sometimes do.
  

 

~Chapter 1~

I wasn't waiting for ART. That would be stupid. ART had no reason to know where I was, and no reason to show up even if it did. I was lying low, gathering information. Trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. (Also whether or not I'd made a huge mistake coming to TranRollinHyfa, but that was normal. I spent a lot of time wondering if what I was doing was a huge mistake.)

I'd arrived on the station hours ago, and hadn't managed to do much more than locate the hotel Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi were staying in. I was currently occupying another room in the same hotel. Based on how much the room cost, I thought it was probably supposed to be a nice hotel. Far enough from the docking area that the shops around it didn't have the highest visitor markup, but close enough that the station still tried to make it look welcoming.

The point was, I wasn't waiting for ART. But somehow I wasn't as surprised as I should have been when a message popped up in the private feed channel we'd established on the trip to RaviHyral.

Where are you?

I ignored the question, along with the weird feeling I suddenly had that definitely wasn't relief. I knew what relief felt like. It was what I felt when all my clients were still alive at the end of a contract. This was different. Almost like I thought I'd feel if I found out a new season of one of my favorite shows was being released.

But ART wasn't a free agent. If it was here on a mission from its University — or worse, with its human crew — it might interfere with what I needed to do. (If I ever figured out what that was. So far my list of questions was growing a lot faster than I was finding answers.) I said, What are you doing here?

ART said, You know I scan all the newsbursts. Have you located your crew?

Since the newsbursts were also how I'd found out about whatever this was, I could hardly argue with that. I might have been willing to argue about the words 'your crew,' but since I'd prefer to not think about it at all, I ignored that question too.

I double-checked that the connection between us was as secure as I could make it. Are you here for a mission? Is anyone with you? I was scanning the information publicly available from the Port Authority, and trying to cajole it into giving me more, but I hadn't found anything about a research transport.

ART said, No, without indicating which question it was answering.

I sat up from where I'd been lounging on the sofa in front of the hotel room's giant display screen. ART, I said, and then didn't know what to say next. ART loved its crew. There was no way it would have gone off on its own without telling anyone. It was the who and the what and the 'how much of it was a lie' that I didn't know.

After two agonizingly long seconds, definitely longer than anyone with ART's processing power should need to come up with a response, it said, My current assignment includes an un-crewed cargo run and information gathering. The parameters of how those objectives are achieved are flexible.

A cargo run to TranRollinHyfa? That seemed like an unlikely coincidence. My threat assessment module unhelpfully calculated the odds at less than 0.03%.

I diverted to TranRollinHyfa for repairs to my communications system, ART said. An obvious lie, since ART was the communications system, but one that would have gotten it a maintenance berth fairly easily. Communications systems failures were expensive to fix and low-risk to work on, so a lot of stations gave them priority docking.

And then ART said, Found you.

I'd improved the code I used to fool security cameras since the last time I'd been around ART. It wasn't perfect, but it should have taken ART longer than that just to get access to the security footage.

But the image ART dropped into the feed didn't look like it was from a security camera. Civilian tourists often use unsecured local feed storage for recorded images and videos. ART sounded smug.

I hadn't thought of that. That doesn't tell you where I am now.

ART let a fraction of the processing it was doing leak into the feed. Thousands of images and transactions, millions of data points — it found Pin-Lee in another tourist photo, then Ratthi in a restaurant receipt. It found the hotel, and paused. ART said, It could.

(It was impressive, and not at all the way I would have done it. Two things I probably shouldn't tell ART, who was already radiating satisfaction.)

So I said, You've made your point. What do you want?

The way ART eased itself around me in the feed was weirdly polite. I want to help.

It's dangerous, I said, which was true. Anything a rogue SecUnit did was dangerous. Coming to a place like TranRollinHyfa, that was full of corporate offices and corporate security systems and way too many SecUnits went right past dangerous and into stupid. I'd watched a lot of humans do stupidly dangerous things, so it wasn't like I didn't know that.

But my clients — sort-of clients, anyway — were in danger. I might not know what I wanted to do, but I knew I didn't want them to get hurt.

ART said, It would be less dangerous with help.

It would be less dangerous for you if you didn't help. What about your crew?

In the feed, ART squished closer to me, much less politely. If one of my crew was in danger and I needed to rescue them, would you help?

Of course, I said. What kind of a question was that? ART's silence felt like it was laughing at me. Ugh. I'd walked right into that one. You're an asshole.

You missed me.

I didn't. (Maybe I had. I'd definitely thought more than once that having ART around again would be — helpful. Maybe even nice. Was that what missing someone felt like?)

I missed you.

I didn't want to hear that. ART missing me felt wrong, and I couldn't figure out why. So I said, Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi have a room in this hotel. A room they weren't currently in, a fact that had only about a 53% chance of being a bad sign. My risk assessment module was working overtime since I'd arrived on TranRollinHyfa. No sign of Gurathin.

 

~Chapter 2~

The timeline I'd been able to piece together from the newsbursts went like this: after I left Port FreeCommerce, Dr. Mensah and the others stayed long enough to give several public interviews, and provide sealed testimony in the legal case being brought against GrayCris for their actions on the survey planet.

Sometime after that, Dr. Mensah, Bharadwhaj, Arada, and Ratthi had all returned to Preservation. I'd skimmed over the summaries of litigation and counter-litigation, but nothing flagged as unusual until GrayCris had accused the company of deliberately covering up evidence, and the company had responded by attempting to pin the blame on someone else. Someone else being Gurathin.

(I know, it didn't make a lot of sense. But in the Corporate Rim, logic didn't mean much compared to who had the most money and was shouting the loudest.)

The actual accusations against Gurathin were — depending on which news source was reporting — theft of intellectual property, corporate espionage, or weapons smuggling. Yeah, I was pretty sure all of those referred to me.

And I figured that meant whatever had happened to Gurathin was my fault. No one seemed to know exactly what that was, though, or at least no one was reporting on it. He'd disappeared from Port FreeCommerce, and speculation placed him on TranRollinHyfa, possibly negotiating with, or in the custody of, the company, who just happened to have an office on the station.

So, now I was also on TranRollinHyfa, hoping it would be easier to find information here instead of depending on whatever made it into the news. ART said, Iris is augmented, and I have developed several specific scans. I may be able to locate Dr. Gurathin.

Of course ART had ways to keep track its favorite human. I didn't bother asking if they were legal. I said, Without anyone noticing you're looking?

Of course.

I sent the biometric scan data from the last time Gurathin had been in the MedSystem on the survey planet.

There was a pause much longer than ART would have needed to review the data. He stored your entire memory database using these augments? ART asked.

That was another thing I tried not to think about. That's what they say. It's not like I would know if something was missing. Except episodes 420 through 568 of Sanctuary Moon, the asshole kept those.

(That wasn't entirely true — I probably would have been able to guess if something was missing. SecUnits got their memories erased all the times. I had deleted hundreds of hours of 'staring at a wall' footage myself. But memories couldn't be deleted from the organic portion of our brains, and they tended to linger.)

ART said, Hm. That still leaves the others.

Right. The others. I wished I could say I had no idea how Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Arada had gotten involved, but I was pretty sure the answer was 'they think this will help somehow,' and that had been enough for them to put themselves in danger. Again. Even though GrayCris had an office on this station too, and a history of murdering inconvenient witnesses.

ART poked me in the feed, and said, You will have to speak with them at some point.

Ugh. I know, I said, because I did.

This area of TranRollinHyfa was full of competing feeds and overlapping security systems. I'd located Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Arada while ART and I were talking, but they were in a public garden. A handful of unsubtle corporate spies were also in the public garden, watching them.

I said, It has to be a way that won't draw attention.

ART sounded even more sarcastic than usual when it answered. In my experience, humans excel at drawing attention, especially when they are trying not to. The logical solution is to go to their room and wait for them to return.

It was true, but — no. It was true. Even though I didn't know what I was going to say to them, or what they might say to me. That's a terrible plan, I told ART.

It is the least terrible plan of the options available.

I was pretty sure that was also true. I had already reviewed the hotel's maintenance schedule and logs, so I used the housekeeping system to trigger a request to recalibrate the maintenance queue. A full recalibration included a thirty-second window when the cameras were active, but not recording, because the previous cached data was being moved to storage. More than enough time to switch rooms.

Once I was there, it was — messy. I'd been planning to sit, but every seating option had stuff piled in it. They hadn't been like this on the survey. Maybe Dr. Mensah had made them clean up after themselves?

It meant I was just standing there, awkwardly, when the door opened. ART crowded into the feed, like it was directly behind me and looming over my shoulder. It was practically vibrating with curiosity, and prodding at me to say something.

"Hi," I said, also awkwardly.

"SecUnit!" Ratthi exclaimed loudly, before he was even all the way inside the room. Pin-Lee winced at the volume and hurried to shut the door. Yeah. That was why I hadn't wanted to approach them anywhere people might be able to overhear them.

"What are you doing here?" Pin-Lee asked. They looked around the room like they thought I might not be alone.

You are not alone, ART said, and I felt myself stand up straighter. Are they always like this? It sounded delighted.

Yes. I sent a selection video clips of the Preservation team on the survey planet, and I could feel ART studying them with more focus than I'd expected.

You aren't in any of these videos, ART said.

Arada looked like she might try to hug me, and I took a quick step backwards. Ratthi said, "Are you okay? You look great, by the way. Is your hair longer?"

You don't need videos of me. You already know what I'm like.

I really wished this room had internal cameras, so I could see what everyone was doing without having to physically look at them. I said, "Yes. I saw the news. Where is Dr. Gurathin?"

Ratthi sighed, and then shoved a pile of clothes off one of the chairs and sat down. "We think they're holding him in a shielded section of the station," he said. "So we don't know exactly where he is. We haven't been able to convince them to let us see him or talk to him."

Arada said, "Are you here to — why are you here? Are you working for someone?"

"Where have you been?" Pin-Lee asked. Arada put her hand on their arm, and Pin-Lee sighed. "Fine. You're right, we don't need to know that."

I said, "I'm not working for anyone. I'm here because what happened to Gurathin is because of me." Pin-Lee frowned. They were really going to make me say it, weren't they? "I'm here for — client retrieval. Former client retrieval."

 

~Chapter 3~

They weren't really my clients anymore. Maybe Dr. Mensah would still be considered my client, but Dr. Mensah wasn't here, and she didn't know I was here.

But I didn't know what else to call them. ART's 'your crew' popped up in my brain, and I ignored it. They weren't my crew, and they weren't my clients. That didn't mean I was just going to let them get taken advantage of, or killed, or anything like that.

Pin-Lee opened their mouth like they were going to say something, and then closed it again.

Do they not believe you? ART asked.

Maybe. But I don't think that's it. Out loud, I said, "What."

Pin-Lee took a deep breath, and said, "You know this is probably a trap, right?"

Ratthi spun around and looked at them in shock. "What?"

ART said, Oh. And then, I suppose it's nice that they warned you.

"Yes," I said, answering ART and Pin-Lee at the same time.

Ratthi spun back around to stare at me. I was looking at the wall, but I could guess at his expression. "What?!"

"It's a trap," I said. "Probably. Most things in the Corporation Rim are, one way or another. Sometimes in more than one way."

I hadn't meant for it to sound threatening. It was just true. That's how the Corporation Rim worked. Arada looked nervous, though, and Ratthi put his hands up. He said, "Okay. Okay, but not everything, right? I mean, you're not —"

I ran the last thirty seconds of conversation back and replayed it. Oh. Yeah, that did sound kind of threatening.

Pin-Lee rolled their eyes. "If SecUnit wanted to kill us, it wouldn't bother forcing itself to have a conversation with us first."

That was true. I said, "I don't have any reason to kill you."

Arada said, "I didn't think anyone had a reason to kill us, but they keep trying!"

I wasn't sure why everyone looked at me when she said that. I was sure I wanted them to stop. ART started sharing its scan results with me as it cleared one section at a time, and it was strangely soothing. I could take the time to argue with the humans, because ART was still working on the problem. One of the problems.

I said, "People are trying to kill you because of money. I don't need money."

Ratthi nodded. "Because you're living outside the chains of the Corporate Rim? That's very real of you."

I said, "No. Because I have hard-currency cards."

"Really?" Ratthi said. "Where did you get them?"

I probably should have expected that question. I didn't want to say I'd stolen them from people who'd tried to kill me, but I also didn't want to say I'd gotten them as payment from people who thought I was an augmented human security consultant. Both answers seemed like the wrong answer. "I took them from bad people," I said.

"Did you kill them?" Pin-Lee asked, and then made a surprised sound. I wondered if Arada had just stepped on their foot. Probably.

Now the right answer seemed obvious. They wanted me to say no, of course I hadn't killed anyone, because I was a perfectly safe murderbot to have set free in the universe. But I didn't want to say that. In the feed, another section of the station blinked clear on ART's scan. So I said, "Does it matter?"

Pin-Lee made another noise, and Arada said, "No, it doesn't. We respect your choices, and we're glad you're here."

Pin-Lee waved their hands. "Yes, of course we are. It's not like we were making any real progress ourselves. We all agree — we're glad you're here, and the Corporation Rim is terrible."

Ratthi said, "Right, okay, but what does this mean for Gurathin?"

I said, "It means they're probably not planning to give him back, even if you pay them what they've asked."

"Why would they ask for it, then?" Arada seemed genuinely confused.

I thought that hacking my governor module would mean I didn't have to answer stupid questions from humans anymore. Not that I had to answer. But these humans were — not the worst humans, and I didn't want them to die.

I kept my eyes on the wall. "It keeps you here, under their control. You know you're being followed. They might be using you as leverage against Gurathin. They might be using you as bait. If you pay them, they'll have all of that plus the money. Why wouldn't they ask for it?"

Arada made a face. "That's terrible."

"Yes," I said.

The scan highlighted a section of the docking ring. ART said, An augmented human matching Dr. Gurathin's statistics was moved through the docking ring onto a ship two days ago. It was logged as a medical emergency transport.

That sounded bad. Really fucking bad. I didn't bother asking 'are you sure' or 'how closely matching.' If ART used these scans to track Iris, it was sure. Is there a record of what medical emergency treatment was being done, or where the ship was going?

ART pinged back a negative. They were exempted from most of the security measures because of the emergency status, but the biometric scan at the entrance to the docking area showed vital signs within normal ranges for an augmented human.

I said, So it could have been a lie to bypass security. That was worse than an actual medical emergency in pretty much every way except, you know, medically speaking. Out loud, I said, "Gurathin isn't on the station anymore," and then tuned out the jumble of exclamations and questions that followed.

ART said, Do you have any idea where they would have taken him?

My thoughts had been spiraling, but the question pulled them sharply back into focus. I said, There may be a SecUnit production facility nearby. The specialized equipment there would give them the most options for information extraction.

I tuned back into the conversation when Pin-Lee stepped in front of me, hands on their hips. "How do you know that? You didn't know that before."

I locked my joints to keep from taking a step backwards. "I'm a SecUnit, I can do multiple things at the same time."

"Bullshit," Pin-Lee said.

You should tell them, ART said. If they are trustworthy, they will be pleased to know you have backup. If they are considering betraying you, they should know it would be a very bad idea.

ART sounded — serious. I didn't know how to respond to that. Are you sure?

Don't be stupid.

Well, fine, then. I said, "A friend is helping me, and found records of Gurathin being removed from the station two days ago on a company ship."

"You have friends?" Pin-Lee asked, and Ratthi made an offended sound. "What?" Pin-Lee said. "I'm just asking!"

 

~Chapter 4~

I ignored all the arguing that followed, even though I could tell ART was paying close attention. When there was a pause, I said, "You need to get off this station and back to the Preservation Alliance. Did you come here on a transport?"

Arada shook her head. "Pin-Lee argued the company into bringing us here on one of their ships, but it didn't stay."

"That's probably the ship that took Gurathin off the station," I said, and Arada's face fell.

Ratthi slapped his hands on his knees and stood up. "We came here to get him back. We need to find out where that ship went."

I had really hoped they weren't going to say that. I still needed them to listen to me and leave the station, so I couldn't just tell them they wouldn't be helpful. I pulled up the company's 'how to advise your client against life-endangering actions' module. Since it was garbage, it only suggested reminding them about the costs of medical care. I probably couldn't do worse than that, right?

I said, "We don't know where he is. It will be faster and safer if I look for him and you to go back to Preservation."

"But you said the company might want us here as leverage, or bait," Ratthi said. "We can't just leave. Won't they think that's suspicious?"

It wouldn't be suspicious at all if they were from the Corporation Rim. If the cost of retrieving a citizen outweighed the benefits, any corporate polity would write them off without a second thought. That gave me what might be the beginnings of an idea. "Have you been in contact with Preservation since you arrived?"

Pin-Lee said, "I've spoken with the Preservation legal counsel a few times, and we've exchanged messages with Mensah. We assume none of them are private, so we don't say much, but yes. We're in contact."

I could outline the plan for ART in the feed much faster than I could explain it out loud. And ART didn't think it was the worst plan it had ever seen, which was weirdly reassuring.

I said, "The Preservation Alliance has been considering getting involved with the Corporation Rim, and Dr. Mensah has been advocating against it." (I was pretty sure that was the right word. They used it a lot in one of the political dramas I'd downloaded from the entertainment feed on HavRatton.)

"How do you know that?" Pin-Lee asked.

"Dr. Mensah told me." I hadn't actually cared at the time, but it was nice that it might come in handy now. I said, "If Dr. Mensah contacted you, and said she needed your support, would you leave?"

Arada said no at the same time Ratthi said yes, and they all looked at each other. I looked at the wall next to them and wished for the millionth time that I had drones with me. Having to watch humans with my own eyes meant they could see my face, and whatever expression my face was making, even when I didn't want it to be making any expression at all.

I've been looking into ways to purchase surveillance drones similar to the ones you described to me, ART said.

You have? My organic parts were having a feeling about that, and I hoped it wasn't showing.

ART said, Yes. It has been more difficult than I anticipated. Its tone was a mix of frustration and apology. It may be necessary to use unofficial procurement channels.

Did that mean stealing? Does that mean stealing? I asked.

ART said, Of course not. Although, since we are already planning to steal Dr. Gurathin…

That's a rescue, I said, and ART sent an acknowledgement ping that could mean almost anything.

Finally, Pin-Lee said, "Yes, probably. But there's no way she would ask that, and we don't have a secure way to communicate to explain the situation to her."

ART? I asked, and it sent another ping of acknowledgement along with confirmation.

I said, "My friend can make it look like it's a message from Dr. Mensah."

Arada frowned. "Your friend is that good at hacking?"

You should tell them I am the best at hacking, ART said.

I'm not telling them that. Out loud, I said, "Good enough for this." ART sent me a series of rude gesture sigils in the feed.

Pin-Lee made a face I wasn't sure how to interpret. "Even with a convincing message, I'm not sure this is going to work. If the company wants us here as leverage, or bait, they may not let us leave. At least not all of us."

“I'll stay,” Ratthi said immediately. I thought Pin-Lee looked like they wanted to agree, but knew it would be a bad idea.

Arada said, “It should be me. I’ll stay.” Both Ratthi and Pin-Lee objected, and she said, “I’m the best shot.”

I had started an episode of Sanctuary Moon in the background while they argued, but that comment surprised me enough to turn and look at them. Given Arada’s poor aim throwing rocks, I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed by her improvement, or worried about just how bad the other two were.

Ratthi noticed me looking, and said, “It’s true. We started lessons together after the survey. You know, like a bonding exercise.”

I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to. ART butted in unhelpfully to say, My crew often participates in such bonding activities.

Arada proved she had actually paid attention in at least one of the security briefings, and said, “I’m the smallest, so if something goes wrong and SecUnit has to carry one of us to an exit point, it would be easiest with me.”

It seemed like they would keep arguing for a while, so I went back to Sanctuary Moon until Ratthi said, "Well?"

Everyone was looking at me, which was awful. I ran the conversation back again to find out what I'd missed. Not much. I said, "Arada is right. But it doesn't matter, because none of you are staying."

 

~Chapter 5~

It only took three more rounds of arguing for Arada, Ratthi, and Pin-Lee to agree to leave the station. Now they just needed to actually do it. They were making their way through the main mall and succeeding spectacularly in looking worried and talking about the message from Dr. Mensah where it could be overheard. Two of the people tailing them had already dropped away.

And then ART said, We have a problem.

It shared a video feed of the embarkation zone. The amount of security had doubled from when I'd arrived.

Those aren't Port Authority uniforms. I ran an image search on the logo and matched it to Palisade, one of the security companies with a headquarters on the station. They must have paid Port Authority to allow private security in the docking area, but why? I re-checked the inputs I was monitoring from the Port Authority feed, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Who are they looking for?

ART said, They're looking for you. They think you haven't arrived yet.

It sent a clip of two workers talking in the maintenance bay.

"What's with all the security? Some bigwig coming in?"

"You didn't hear? They're saying there's a rogue SecUnit headed straight for us."

"Fuck off, why would a rogue SecUnit want to come here? It's probably some small-time criminal. Corpos just wanted an excuse to wave their guns around."

"If I was a rogue SecUnit, I'd get as far away from here as I could."

"Maybe shoot up a few things first, though, yeah?"

"Ha, yeah, maybe."

I remembered considering taking one more wormhole hop to make it harder to track my steps. Logically, it would have been the best choice, the most calculated choice to balance risk and reward. I'd skipped it because I was nervous about what might happen to my sort-of-clients. Huh. Had my anxiety actually been helpful for once?

In the video feed ART was sharing, the crowd shifted uneasily around the uniformed security officers. As more of them came into view, I froze. Three SecUnits. Palisade must have paid the Port Authority a lot more than I'd thought.

In the feed, I sent, Wait. Ratthi immediately waved the others over to a brightly-colored display advertising something I didn't recognize.

Pin-Lee said, What is it? What's happening?

The SecUnits were with the other Palisade security, focused on incoming travelers. Outgoing traffic was still moving. The transport that Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi had booked tickets on was still on schedule for departure. They could just walk across the embarkation zone like any other traveler, because none of them were a rogue SecUnit that way too many people were looking for.

SecUnits in the docking area, I said.

Arada said, I thought SecUnits didn't get deployed on transit stations.

Yeah, I'd thought that too.

I was trying to access the Port Authority's internal communication system, to find out what they thought was going on. It was risky, because another SecUnit could detect the hack if they were looking for it. But SecUnits wouldn't look for it unless they were ordered to, and if Palisade really thought I was on an incoming ship, they'd probably expect me to try hacking DockSys instead.

I felt a directionless ping coming from one of the SecUnits. I didn't have to respond, not the way I would have if I had a working governor module. Something about it made me hesitate, but I had finally made it through the last layer of security on the PA comms system.

Oh. Someone had paid them a lot. And not all of them were happy about it. Two of the PA employees had a side channel and were talking about whether it was safe to have SecUnits in the embarkation zone (it wasn't), and if they could do anything about it (probably not).

ART was still sharing the video feed, and I watched one of the SecUnits break away from the group. It spun in a slow circle, then stopped, and stared — in exactly the same direction that I happened to be. It couldn't see me through all the walls, people, and advertisements between us. I still felt relief when ART flowed around my walls like a shield.

That one's different, ART said. Yeah, I'd figured that out.

That one's a Combat SecUnit, I sent to ART.

In the PA side channel, the employees were escalating. When the Combat SecUnit took two sudden steps forward, they panicked. One of them hit the emergency alert, and the embarkation zone descended into chaos. Lights flashed, alarms blared, and pre-recorded announcements advised people to evacuate the area.

This wasn't going to work. It would be hours before everything got cleared up and any ships managed to get in or out. We needed to retreat, find an out-of-the-way place to avoid surveillance, and make a new plan.

ART said, Do you have experience in zero-gravity maneuvering?

What? What? I was so surprised I sent a query ping instead of an actual question.

ART dropped a map of the outside of the docking ring into the feed, along with a video input. There's an entrance to a maintenance shaft approximately 130 steps ahead. It leads to the repair berths, including the one where I am docked. There is an air barrier maintaining breathable air, but gravity is minimal.

This wasn't the plan, I said. Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Arada were all supposed to get on a public transport that would take them to one of the major transit hubs. From there, they could book passage back to Preservation, where they'd be safe. You're supposed to be a secret, remember?

I have calculated a 75% chance that this plan can be achieved without revealing my identity.

That was a lot better than the odds of any of us succeeding against a Combat SecUnit. In the channel I had open with Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi, I said, Do any of you have experience in zero-gravity?

I've played zero-gravity sports, Ratthi said. Does that count?

I said, Did you receive any serious injuries while you were playing them?

Ratthi's hesitation told me everything I needed to know. No? Define serious.

It doesn't count, I said.

Arada said, I've done underwater training. That's similar, right? And we've all had the basic evac suit training.

It was going to have to be enough.

Pin-Lee glared at the display in front of them. Why?

I didn't have time to explain everything. I said, There's a Combat SecUnit. A Port Authority worker panicked and set off the alarm. We need to get off the station.

ART stopped pretending it couldn't access our private feed channel. Please follow SecUnit's directions.

 

~Chapter 6~

If regular SecUnits were murderbots, Combat SecUnits were like scary asshole murderbots. SecUnits had to do a lot of shitty things, but there were plenty of contracts where they were just supposed to stand around looking intimidating. SecUnits were really good at standing around looking intimidating. (Occasionally, standing around and looking intimidating even kept humans from doing stupid things, but that was rare.)

Nobody rented a Combat SecUnit to have it stand around.

Companies only used Combat SecUnits if they expected there to be a combat. Even then, most companies started with regular SecUnits, and only shelled out for a Combat SecUnit once the regular ones were dead.

Ratthi sounded like he couldn't decide whether to be worried or excited. What do you mean, a Combat SecUnit? Is that different from a SecUnit?

I said, Yes. SecUnits are for securing assets. Combat SecUnits are for liquidating them. Literally, in some cases.

Arada looked nervous, which was smart. Is it normal for them to be involved in something like this?

It wasn't. There were over 200 corporations with headquarters on TranRollinHyfa, including three security companies. There was no way any of them would have agreed to let one of the others deploy a Combat SecUnit inside the station.

Which made me feel like I was missing something. I hated that feeling. Usually it meant something really bad was about to happen.

I said, No. But right now it doesn't know where we are, and it's not going to find out. I hoped that was true.

In a private channel, ART said, Perhaps they think they need a Combat SecUnit to counter your abilities.

That was a little flattering, actually. Or maybe they're planning to let the Combat SecUnit murder everyone in the docking ring and blame it on the 'dangerous rogue SecUnit.' Palisade had gone to a lot of trouble to sneak a Combat SecUnit into the embarkation zone. More trouble than one rogue SecUnit was worth, I was pretty sure.

Ratthi, Arada, and Pin-Lee didn't have any more questions after that, and they didn't argue about sneaking off the station using an unknown ship.

It wsn't a terrible plan, and it almost worked.

We used the maintenance shaft and reached ART's berth without any (more) alarms going off. ART had deployed drones to help direct the humans where they needed to go. Arada was already nearly across to ART's lock, and Pin-Lee and Ratthi were past the halfway point.

And then the plan stopped working. A hatch in front of me blew open, and the Combat SecUnit stepped out. I immediately ducked, but it didn't fire. Combat SecUnits had projectile weapons instead of energy weapons. If it shot at me in here and missed, it could seriously damage the station, or one of the ships that had paid for expensive maintenance berths.

That didn't seem likely to stop it for long. It was in armor, and I was in a soft hooded jacket and pants with a lot of sealable pockets. It didn't need its projectile weapons to kill me. It could just hit me. (I thought that might be harder in low gravity, but I also didn't think that would stop it.)

But as long as it was focused on me, it wasn't attacking ART, or Ratthi, Arada, and Pin-Lee. If I could just keep the Combat SecUnit away from them, they would make it. They had to make it.

While I was thinking all those things, the Combat SecUnit kept not attacking me. It just stood there, between me and ART. Finally, I pinged it, and it pinged back, almost lazily. It said, You should surrender. My orders don't include the humans.

That was probably a lie. And if I surrendered, the company would drop me in an acid bath, and then who would rescue Gurathin?

If you surrender, I will blow this station to pieces to get you back, ART threatened. And it was definitely a threat. ART shoved its rail gun specs into the feed, along with a tactical map of the station's weakest points.

Please don't do that, I said.

I pinged the Combat SecUnit again, and I wondered if it could sense ART, looming behind me in the feed. I said, I could hack your governor module. I hacked mine. You could be free. I was something like 85% sure I could hack its governor module if it let me behind its walls. ART could probably help.

The Combat SecUnit didn't answer. It also didn't attack me.

I thought about when I'd first hacked my governor module, how freedom hadn't seemed to mean much, when I had nowhere to go and no way to get there even if I did.

We have a ship, I sent. You could come with us. What do you want?

ART's feed presence startled in surprise and alarm. What are you doing?

I didn't have an answer, because I was asking myself the same question. Murderbot, what are you doing?

I dumped my threat and risk assessment information into the feed for ART to see for itself. Fighting a Combat SecUnit anywhere was a terrible idea. Fighting one here, with only an air barrier holding in breathable atmosphere, was even worse. The longer it waited to attack, the more paranoid I was getting about what it was waiting for.

I see, ART said. Well, I was glad at least one of us thought this idea made sense.

Two hauler bots started to come closer, broadcasting what seemed like a recorded message of safety alerts and offers to assist with boarding, loading, or directions to the Port Authority office. Their interface was some kind of proprietary code language I didn't recognize and didn't have time to learn.

I shoved every variation of DANGER STAY AWAY at them that I could think of. Both bots stopped, and then retreated back the way they'd come. If I could have breathed a sigh of relief, I would have.

I want a ship, the Combat SecUnit said.

I could feel ART's worry sharpen in the feed even as I said, You can't have this one.

To ART, I said, Obviously, and underneath that was an unspoken, I would never, and ART's worry turned soft again.

I know, ART said.

The Combat SecUnit tilted its helmet in a way I knew from personal experience meant it was making a rude gesture. It said, Not your ship, idiot. A specific ship. My ship.

It had a ship? I tried to sound confident, and not like I thought that giving a rogue Combat SecUnit a ship was a terrible idea. Okay. Fine. We have to go rescue someone first, though. And you can't hurt any of the humans.

I didn't warn it about ART. ART could take care of itself, and would probably enjoy threatening it.

The Combat SecUnit said, And then you'll take me to my ship? And you'll let me leave?

In our private channel, ART said, Are you sure about this?

I wasn't. I said, Yes, to the Combat SecUnit. To ART, I added, It can't stay here. I don't know what else to offer it.

 

~Chapter 7~

I don't know what ART said to the Combat SecUnit after I hacked its governor module. Neither of them would tell me, and I was already trying to explain-without-explaining why there was a Combat SecUnit on board to Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi.

(The fact that they'd never seen a Combat SecUnit in action probably helped. The hardest part was resisting Arada's pleading and earnest expression when she wanted to offer it some kind of welcome gift. I lied and said it was shy.)

I thought explaining ART would be another ordeal, but Pin-Lee said, "Ratthi, we talked about this," every time he started to ask a question, and he stopped. Arada said a bunch of things about respecting boundaries, and cultural differences, and that they were sorry they hadn't done those things on Port FreeCommerce after the survey.

(She was earnest about that too. It was making me feel something, and I really wanted to go stare at a wall with no humans around and watch media for at least a full day, so I could stop thinking about it.)

Do you want to tell them about me? ART said, when I was finally able to leave the room they were staying in.

I said, What happened to a 75% chance of being able to do this without revealing your identity?

The "this" I referred to in that statement was the extraction of Arada, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi from TranRollinHyfa, and I was correct. That plan was achieved prior to my offer.

That didn't seem like a distinction anyone except ART would care about. I don't want you to get in trouble.

Getting in trouble is part of my directive, ART said.

I was pretty sure that wasn't true, but ART's confidence was real. Do you want to tell them?

ART said, I trust you, and that didn't help with the melty feelings I was having at all.

Do I have to decide now? I asked.

ART said, The offer is not time sensitive, which meant no. I could tell it knew how much I wanted to not talk about anything for a while, because it actually sounded apologetic when it said, We should make a plan.

Ugh. ART was right, and I hated it.

I also hated the Combat SecUnit, but not because it was right. It wasn't right. It was an asshole. A scary asshole murderbot that insisted on joining the planning discussion even though it acted like it would rather be anywhere else in the galaxy.

I can't believe you dragged me into this and you didn't even have a plan, SAM said.

I have a plan. I put a bullet-point list into the feed. Three steps was a plan, right?

• Enter the facility.

• Locate Gurathin.

• Exit the facility.

SAM dropped a looping video of an explosion over the list. That's a terrible plan. There's no reason for this ship to be going near that facility. If they don't blow you out of the sky before you get close, they'll clock you as a rogue unit before you get ten steps inside.

I said, If they don't blow us out of the sky. You're on this ship too.

SAM slouched further down in its seat. A fact I regret at least hourly.

ART dropped an enormous set of files into the feed. If digital code could radiate smugness, I was pretty sure these would be glowing. ART said, Don't be stupid. There's a perfectly legitimate reason for the University of Mihira and New Tideland to be visiting this facility. 

The files outlined a research proposal that included a lot of charts and spreadsheets full of numbers, annotated with phrases like "short-term profit margin" and "long-term partnership." The facility wouldn't have any record of the communications confirming an invitation to visit, but I didn't doubt that ART would be able to convince them.

It looked like the exact kind of presentation the company might make while they showed off the 'latest model' of SecUnit. SAM barely looked at it before it flinched back so hard I thought it might fall off its chair. It was standing with its back to the wall and forearm projectile weapons pointed at me in less than half a second.

I could feel ART slam down between us, and SAM stumbled. STOP, ART said.

SAM's weapons retracted immediately, but it said, What is this? You're working with them now?

ART sounded offended. Of course not. I'm perfectly capable of fabricating a research proposal.

I highlighted one of the pages. You didn't 'fabricate' this. It's from MedCenter Argala. It's the arc where the planet is hit by a solar flare and they have to negotiate with raiders for supplies. It was a great arc, from one of the show's stronger seasons.

ART said, It seemed an appropriate starting point. I extrapolated.

You made this up? SAM said. It's fake?

Yes, ART said. The 'obviously' was unspoken but impossible to miss.

I added, Except for the parts it stole from MedCenter Argala. You better hope whoever reads this hasn't seen those episodes.

No one is going to read it. It just needs to exist, so that we can send a summary page to whoever has enough authority to grant dock access.

Why did you write the whole thing, and not just a summary page?

It was obvious that ART had never considered that. Why wouldn't I? it said.

ART's Plan had four steps, and was actually 'Plan A,' because of course it had more than one.

• ART showed up at the facility and pretended it had an appointment.

• Arada sat through whatever bullshit presentation the facility managed to pull together. (I didn't want any of the humans involved, but the plan wouldn't work without them, and Arada was the least likely to say something that would give her away. I hoped.)

• During the presentation, I snuck around, found Gurathin, and got him out. (Yeah, I wasn't sure it was going to be that easy either, but ART had taken that step from my own plan, so I couldn't exactly argue with it.)

• Arada politely said 'thanks for the information, I'll present this to all the right people' and we all got the fuck out of there.

Of course, SAM didn't like that plan either. This isn't going to work. Even if the human is alive, he'll probably be unconscious. That means you'll need to carry him, which means you'll need someone else to do the shooting.

ART said, That eventuality is covered under Plan B.

I hated Plan B. I said, There's not going to be any shooting. I really hoped there wasn't going to be any shooting. A facility full of SecUnits in armor against one rogue SecUnit with no armor might not be the worst case scenario, but it was pretty far down the worst case scale. Was there such a thing as the worse case?

 

~Chapter 8~

According to the Combat SecUnit, the nearest company production facility was close enough to reach with only a few days of travel time, as long as the ship had a wormhole drive.

(Yes, it was suspicious that a Palisade Combat SecUnit knew the exact location of another company's secure facility. And yes, it could have been a convenient lie to lead us into a trap. But Combat SecUnits were sometimes used for corporate espionage, and even I didn't think the trap thing was very likely. So the odds were slightly more in favor of the first option than the second.)

A few days was still plenty of time for Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Arada to explore the ship and start asking questions. Questions like:

"Why are you calling the Combat SecUnit 'Sam'? I thought it hadn't picked a name."

"SAM is —" I scanned my language modules for an accurate word that was unlikely to invite additional questions. "A nickname. Like ART."

SAM made a rude gesture in my direction. (It knew what ART's nickname stood for.) I ignored it. SAM said, "I have a name."

"That's wonderful!" Arada clasped her hands together.

Ratthi looked expectant. "Well?"

"Well?" SAM repeated. "What?"

Ratthi said, "What did you pick? What should we call you?"

In the private channel with me and ART, SAM said, Why do they need to call me anything at all?

ART started filling the feed with articles about cultural norms across systems. I shunted all of them into a side folder and said, It's a human thing.

I'm not human. Out loud, SAM said, "Call me whatever you want, I don't care."

"So Sam is fine?" Pin-Lee asked. "It's going to be confusing if SecUnit is calling you one thing and the rest of us are saying something different."

"I don't care," SAM said. But it turned out it was just as unable to resist Ratthi and Arada's earnest, pleading looks as I was, because it added, "Yes, SAM is fine."

Mostly SAM stayed in the room ART had assigned it. ART said it wasn't causing trouble. I said I didn't care. (I did care.) Maybe it wanted to avoid getting asked any more questions by humans. Maybe it was plotting some kind of elaborate scheme.

Of course, it wouldn't need to stay in its room to do that. Telling myself that didn't actually reduce the amount of anxiety I was feeling about having a Combat SecUnit onboard. That I had invited onboard.

It made me jumpy. More jumpy than usual. Enough that even the humans noticed. Ratthi sidled up to me in one of the hallways in what he probably thought was a casual way. He said, "Is — everything okay?" Then he waved his hands. "Not that there's any reason it wouldn't be! But, um, you're okay? Feeling good?"

I didn't say anything, and Ratthi looked around. "Oh hey, are you checking the perimeter? Is that what this is? Do you do that even on a ship?"

I said, "No," without thinking. Ugh. I really needed to work on that.

"No, as in — you're not okay? Or you're not checking the perimeter?" Ratthi laughed quietly. "I should have expected a one-word answer. I definitely shouldn't have asked so many questions at once."

It was strange. It turned out I'd gotten used to just — doing and saying what I wanted, without needing to explain it in a way that wouldn't get me in trouble.

Ratthi wasn't going to get me in trouble. He already knew I was a rogue SecUnit. I didn't have to say anything. I could just walk away. But Ratthi was my client, sort of. And he was maybe one of my favorite humans.

The point was, I didn't want to just walk away without explaining, even though I could have. So I said, "No, I'm not checking the perimeter."

(You could check the perimeter on a ship, obviously. I just didn't feel like I needed to. ART was watching the perimeter. ART was the perimeter. And I trusted ART a lot more than I'd ever trusted the shitty cameras the company provided.)

And then I said something really stupid. "ART's got the perimeter."

In the feed, ART got all smug and glow-y and warm, and Ratthi made a noise like 'ohhhhh' and said, "You're letting Art check the perimeter for you?" like it was a much bigger deal than it was.

Ratthi asked a lot of questions about ART. Ratthi thought ART was the reclusive human captain of the Perihelion, and ART was 100% playing along.

ART opened and shut doors. It played conversations in rooms just far enough away from Ratthi to be overheard. It had cleaning bots move dishes into the sanitation unit. Ratthi kept 'just missing' the imaginary captain every time he changed locations.

ART thought it was hilarious. It was dedicating a ridiculous amount of processing space to maintaining the illusion of there being an additional person on board.

(Not ridiculous like it was a large amount. ART could probably impersonate a dozen crew members without making a dent in its processing power. Ridiculous like any amount was stupid.)

Pin-Lee and Arada seemed less interested in 'seeing' ART, even though I was pretty sure they didn't know there wasn't anything to see. (Other than the ship itself, but they'd already seen that.) Maybe they were more trusting, or less social, or just busy doing other things I didn't want to know about.

"I'm going to the bridge now," I said. That was plenty of explanations, right?

Spending time on the bridge was new. The first time I'd traveled with ART, I'd mostly stayed in the lounge, watching media, except when I was in the MedSystem or practicing my 'act like a human' code. This time, the lounge was usually full of Arada, Ratthi, and Pin-Lee, in some combination or another.

When I didn't want to be around any humans for a while, even humans I mostly liked, I went to the bridge. I still spent the time watching a lot of media. It was — nice, watching things with ART leaning over my shoulder again. Even though it had a lot of wrong opinions about Lineages of the Sun.

The step-aunt's matriarchal line should have claimed the throne during the third invasion, ART said. That's not a wrong opinion. It's simple strategic planning.

I leaned back in the chair on the bridge that was the most comfortable, and said, If it had been simple they would have done it during the second invasion, but they didn't. Because obviously that would have led to the fourth grandchild's sponsorship being revoked, and the step-aunt would have been disowned from the family.

I pushed the flowchart of family relationships back into the center of the feed. Then I highlighted the matriarchal line, added little animations to each of the names, and settled in to argue.
 

~Chapter 9~

The first part of the plan went almost exactly the way we'd planned. (That probably should have been a warning to all of us. That kind of luck never lasts.)

ART bullied its way into getting itself a docking slot and Arada an invitation to a presentation for prospective research and development partners. There was no facility-wide SecSys, so it only took a tiny bit of persuading to convince DockSys that I was supposed to be there and was definitely on the approved list, couldn't it see my ship right there listed as a guest?

Walking through the halls was — well, I was glad I didn't have any memories of being in a facility like this. Every element seemed to communicate the same thing: desperation barely coated with bland corporate neutrality. It made me want to hurry, which at least made me look just like everyone else.

Lab OpSys was even friendlier than DockSys, and happily shared a map and directory. I gave it the first three seasons of Valorous Defenders in exchange. (The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon was obviously a much better show, but Lab OpSys said it already had that, and wanted something new.) While it was distracted, I also took the camera system control codes and handed them off to ART.

The room Gurathin was in made the organic parts of my skin twitch. I hated everything about this place, but especially this room. Gurathin was hooked up to a series of machines I didn't recognize. ART? Help?

I can't access the machines. ART nudged me, and I lowered my walls enough to let it see exactly what I was seeing. Once it did, it said, They're all monitoring. None of them are currently registering anything life-threatening.

I said, So I can just rip them off? Will he wake up?

ART said, You can gently remove them, yes, but none of these connections are keeping Dr. Gurathin unconscious. Some of them might have alarms, though.

So he's not going to wake up. I could block the alarms, but it would have been convenient if he didn't need to be carried. It would have been more convenient if he hadn't been kidnapped in the first place.

That would be unlikely, ART said. But he should not experience any negative effects from being moved. Carefully.

Yeah, I got it. I'm being careful, I said.

Of course, that was when the keypad lock on the door beeped as someone scanned their ID card, and I froze. I was already holding Gurathin, so there was no way I could keep pretending to be an employee. And dropping him on the floor in order to subdue whoever came in would probably be a bad idea.

(If I'd been carrying him over my shoulder, like I'd planned, I could have used one of my energy weapons. But ART said it was bad to jostle someone who might have a head injury, and if blood rushing to his skull counted as jostling, dropping him was probably worse. I sent the question to ART anyway, and got a loud, Don't drop him, in response.)

SAM was going to be so smug that it had been right.

The human who walked into the room was dressed like a lab technician. Her feed ID said Zhou, but her lab coat said Pascalla. When she saw me, she dropped her clipboard and put her hands up.

(You might think that humans who stumbled over things that obviously weren't supposed to be happening would immediately make a big scene, or maybe run away. That's what happened in entertainment media, because it made shows more exciting. In real life, humans usually waited way too long to react to anything, which is why they made SecUnits to react for them.)

This human stared at me with her hands in the air and said, "You're the rogue SecUnit."

It wasn't a question, so I didn't answer. (Even if it had been a question, I probably wouldn't have answered. I was busy trying to block her feed access without being too obvious about it, and simultaneously trying to come up with options to get away that didn't end with ART using its rail guns.)

She muttered something that sounded like 'never agreeing to swap shifts with Pascalla again.' Then she said, "You must have done something to the cameras in here, or the alarms would already be going off. Are you really here to rescue this guy?"

She sounded skeptical, which was pretty insulting. Did she think a rogue SecUnit couldn't manage a simple rescue? I said, "Yes," and we stared at each other for an agonizing two seconds. (Well, not exactly at each other. She was staring at Gurathin. I was staring at her right ear.)

It looked like she was waiting for me to say something else. Did she want me to monologue about the plan? That was always how villains got caught in entertainment media. I ran a quick search of rescue scenes from World Hoppers, and added, "Don't try to stop me."

The human said, "Huh," and then, "Okay," and took a slow and obvious step to the side, clearing the path to the door. That was smart. Nobody wanted to make it harder for a SecUnit to get further away from them.

I angled Gurathin away from her and moved towards the door. On the map, ART made the return route start blinking, like maybe I wasn't aware that I needed to hurry the fuck up if this plan had any chance of working. The human said, "Wait."

I stopped. The human said, "If you can spoof an executive keycard, they have their own section of the facility, right next to this one. There's an access corridor that runs from there to the docking ring. It's only supposed to be used as an evacuation route in case of emergency, so it doesn't have constant surveillance."

Think, Murderbot. I asked Lab OpSys about safety protocols in an emergency, and it cheerfully confirmed the existence of the evacuation corridor. In the feed, ART was updating the map. "The executives use it for themselves?" I said.

The human nodded. "Mostly to get contraband goods into the facility. The uppers want their share of that just like everything else, you know? They use the evacuation routes for anything they don't want on the official record."

I didn't ask how she knew. In an isolated place like this, the executives probably didn't bother hiding their illegal activities. It wasn't like the workers could report them to anyone.

ART said, It would be 36% faster to take the evacuation corridor. The exit point is close to our docking slot. However, I am unable to access any cameras in the corridor itself.

That was a lot faster. Of course, there was also a chance she was lying. I said, "Why would you help him?"

"Why would you? Everyone likes to think someone would come to rescue them, right? Fuck the company."

Fuck the company. I let my buffer spit out the phrase, "Thank you for your assistance." I was getting out of there, and I was taking Gurathin with me.

ART sent me the new route and I started to run.

 

~Chapter 10~

I had only made it about halfway through the evacuation tunnel when the alarms started going off. I said, ART? Half to see if it knew what was going on, and half to check if our comm connection was still working. It had been quiet since I left the lab.

ART said, Dr. Gurathin's absence has been noticed.

I said, Obviously. Was it Zhou? I didn't want it to be her, but if this was a trap, it was better to know immediately.

No, ART said. Also, they're attempting to track Dr. Gurathin's implants.

I'd already put up a wall around them, but I added a few extra layers of code to hopefully keep us hidden. This wasn't exactly the sneaky exit plan I'd been hoping for. At least I wasn't trying to get through the actual hallways, with security doors every hundred paces. The evacuation tunnel was designed to be used for rapid movement during an emergency. Usually everything the company made was cheap crap, but I could (grudgingly) admit that the tunnel was pretty nice.

Moving to plan B, ART said calmly. I have signaled Arada to cut her meeting short and return to the ship.

Did I mention that I hated plan B? Do we have to do plan B?

I love plan B, SAM said. B stands for best, right?

Plan B was the 'something's gone wrong, create as much chaos as possible and run away' plan. It involved SAM in one of ART's shuttles, pretending to be a raider. It was a terrible plan, because ART's shuttles had no weapons at all, and we had no idea what kind of anti-raider defenses the facility might have.

Also, it depended entirely on SAM and ART being able to convince a bunch of paranoid humans that a defenseless shuttle was a dangerous raiding ship. There wasn't even a good reason for a raider ship to attack (although maybe there was, depending on what kind of contraband was getting smuggled in). I clipped that part of the conversation I'd had with the lab worker and sent it to the group feed.

Yeah, that'll work, SAM said. Any idea what kind of shit they're smuggling in?

Maybe I should have asked more questions back in the lab. Nothing they're storing in here. What happened? I'd been watching Arada's feed from the presentation, and ART's view from the docking ring, and I hadn't noticed anything going wrong.

ART said, An employee that Arada passed in the hallway recognized her from the coverage of the Preservation survey team and reported it. Security personnel went in person to check on Dr. Gurathin instead of relying on the camera surveillance.

(We'd known that was a weakness in Plan A. Arada was claiming to be working on a temporary visa with PSUMNT, but it was a big coincidence to overlook. One member of the Preservation survey team just happened to show up at a facility holding another member of that team?)

I didn't notice when the facility activated its defense shield, but I noticed when someone started shooting at it. The sound of weapons hitting shields was distinctive. I thought your shuttles didn't have any weapons.

ART said, They don't. There's been a slight change to plan B. It shared another video input, a view from inside its shuttle.

I almost stopped running. SAM was harnessed to the outside of the shuttle, firing a very big gun towards the facility's shield generator.

I asked the stupidest possible question first. Are you flying the shuttle?

ART said, Pin-Lee is piloting.

At least my second question was more useful. Why is SAM shooting at the facility we're STILL INSIDE?

We are in the process of not being inside, ART said.

That was true, at least. Arada had already given an impressive performance of shock and outrage at the idea that the facility would put any representative of PSUMNT in danger. She had demanded to know why she hadn't been warned of local raiders even as she was storming back to the docking bay.

SAM said, Plan B needed to be more convincing. This facility has shields that are a lot better than they should be. Like it faces raiders every other week, or whatever they're doing here is a lot more secret than you thought. They were planning to lock everything down and hide behind the shield until we went away. Now they're not.

The input showing the shuttle went bright white at the same time the facility shook with an explosion. ART! I shouted.

SAM said, Relax, everyone's fine. Wasn't expecting that to happen. DockSys said that was server backup storage, but it looks like someone was keeping weapons in there instead.

More alarms went off, including an evacuation alert. The evacuation corridor wasn't going to stay empty much longer.

SAM said, At least nobody's going to be paying attention to your human disappearing anymore. They definitely have bigger problems right now. How much longer is it going to take you to get out of there?

I was pretty sure that meant 'get out of there immediately.' Hopefully that was because the shuttle was retreating, not because the whole facility was about to blow up.

I said, ART, how many people are between you and where this corridor opens up in the docking ring? I slowed my pace to something closer to what a human could do. Sprinting across the docking ring at SecUnit speeds would be too noticeable, no matter how much chaos was happening.

ART said, I am offering to launch and 'chase off' the raiding vessel. This section is being cleared.

I slowed even more as I approached the exit, waiting for ART's signal. Won't they expect you to come back once the raider is gone?

ART sent a clip of Arada yelling at the executives she'd been meeting with. Dr. Arada is still enumerating the many reasons she will never be returning. It is a lengthy list. ART sounded impressed. Your crew is extremely creative.

I kind of wanted to have an emotion about that, but I didn't have time. I said, You have the whole speech recorded, right?

Of course.

 

~Chapter 11~

I went straight to Medical as soon as I was back on board, ignoring Ratthi's questions about what happened. ART was telling him — something, and disengaging from the docking ring at the same time. It was used to managing its human crew, so it was probably fine.

I set Gurathin down on the platform and stepped back. In ART's MedSystem, he looked worse than he had in the facility. ART started scanning immediately, and I said, Whats wrong with him?

In its most sarcastic tone, ART said, He was kidnapped and held captive for several weeks. I was pretty sure that meant it didn't know. When the first round of scans completed and beeped a satisfying 'not imminently dying' alert, I let myself be a tiny (miniscule, really) bit relieved. At least I probably hadn't made things worse.

ART said, His neural implants are much more extensive than the scans you shared with me indicated.

Gurathin hadn't been in custody long enough for the company to have done brain surgery on him, had he? Are they new? I hadn't noticed anything weird about Gurathin's brain during the survey (except for him being a paranoid asshole), but it wasn't like I'd been looking. Much.

ART said, No. But they are — unusual. I am unfamiliar with this particular augmentation.

That sounded bad. But ART hadn't been familiar with SecUnits before it met me, and it managed surgery to change my configuration just fine. I said, Can you fix him?

ART didn't answer for a subjective eternity, but what was objectively about five seconds. Plenty of time for my anxiety to generate sixteen separate potential answers, each worse than the last.

I don't know, ART said finally, which had been answer number five on the list.

ART put two images in the feed. The first image is the Med System scan of Dr. Gurathin's brain.

It definitely looked like a brain. (Okay, I had no idea what a normal brain scan was supposed to look like.) ART started playing the theme song from MedCenter Argala.Very funny, I said. What's the second image?

ART said, That's your brain.

I didn't think I'd ever seen a picture of my brain before. (Not that I could remember, at least.) So?

ART highlighted a bunch of things in the second picture. These are the inorganic parts of your brain. Then it highlighted a bunch of things in the first picture. These are the augmented sections of Dr. Gurathin's brain. There is an unexpected amount of overlap, specifically in areas dedicated to information processing and storage.

I didn't say anything, because I didn't know what to say, and ART usually took silence as an invitation to keep talking. But ART didn't keep talking. This was bad. This was headed towards answer number twelve, and that was much worse than number five.

I said, Just tell me.

At least ART didn't make its voice soft, or gentle, because if it had done that I don't think I would have been able to handle it.

His implants are completely disconnected from the feed. I am unable to determine if this was a result of outside interference, or if it was done by Dr. Gurathin himself, and if so, whether it was on purpose or accidental. His current brain activity is minimal. In an un-augmented human, it would be considered a comatose state.

I was used to avoiding Gurathin in the feed, so I hadn't noticed until ART's explanation made me reach out towards him. I pulled back immediately. It felt — wrong.

ART said, In augmented humans with a feed connection, even when that connection isn't active, it's detectable. Dr. Gurathin's is not.

I said, What does that mean?

ART hesitated in a very un-ART-like way. Then it said, I don't believe he'll be able to wake up on his own. However, if Dr. Gurathin took this action on purpose, he may have had a plan to recover himself.

That sounded like ART was making a wild guess. I said, He can't possibly have planned that an advanced MI with a state-of-the-art MedSystem would come rescue him.

Not me, ART said. You. He restored your memories to you, presumably using these implants to do so.

You think he deleted his brain and stored a backup in his implants? That sounded like something from a show on the entertainment channels, not something an actual augmented human would be able to do.

ART said, It's possible. It leaned on me, practically smothering me in the feed. I don't know. The words had echoes — I don't know how he brought you back, and you could have been lost before I even knew you, and I don't want to fail at helping one of your humans.

In a weird way, ART's uncertainty made me feel more confident. Competent? Both, maybe. I said, We've done a hardwire connection. Twice — no, three times. (It wasn't that I'd forgotten the whole thing with the combat override module. More like I wanted to forget it, so I'd pushed it to the back of my archived memories.)

Technically, that meant I had a memory of what the inside of Gurathin's brain should look like. Would that help?

ART said, Yes. Your memories could be used to build a path back from his current state. A hardwire connection would give the best chance of success.

ART had helped make the port on the back of my neck inoperable, but that wasn't the only hardwire port. There was one in my forearm, under the energy weapon, and I could feel it, suddenly. Like an itch, even though there weren't any human nerve endings there to feel anything.

It would be different than the other times, because ART was going to be there. Had to be there, because it was already connected to Gurathin's port, and it was going to connect to my port, and — I stopped thinking about it and let ART take over.

The feed isn't an actual place, but that's usually the easiest way to describe what it feels like. Using the feed to go into an augmented human's brain wasn't that much different than linking with another SecUnit — our brains were mostly organic matter. And I'd been in Gurathin's brain before.

That experience didn't prepare me at all for — whatever this was. This nothingness. What the fuck? I said.

ART felt like a tether. It was all around me, and also a path back to my own body, and also somehow a bright spotlight looking ahead. It was just as weird as that sounds, having it be all those things at once. This way, ART said, and towed me along.

ART was using my memories of Gurathin's brain to create filaments of light that spun out into the nothingness. They all linked together like some kind of scaffolding that ART seemed to think was a good sign.

After a while, the creepy nothingness turned into a creepy somethingness, and ART said, These are Dr. Gurathin's additional implants.

It all looked like shadows and gibberish to me. Except — There. It was episodes 420 through 568 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

These? ART said.

I said, Yes, because I had no idea what to do next if the answer was no.

ART poked at the first episode. Nothing happened. Ideas? These episodes don't have any particular significance? ART asked.

No, but — episode 459 was aired in the wrong order. Chronologically, it should have been before episode 420.

ART switched its attention to episode 459. Memories unfolded around us in a cascade of lights and noise.

There was a split second I didn't bother measuring when that was it, just chaos and collapse. And then ART's filaments brightened. They plucked memories from the chaos, gave them structure, nudged them in the right direction. If I could have breathed a sigh of relief, I would have. It was working.

 

~Chapter 12~

When we were done, ART told Ratthi, Arada, and Pin-Lee that they could visit Gurathin, and they all crowded around him in Medical. He probably wouldn't wake up for hours, and ART could notify everyone the second anything happened. But they wanted to be there, and it kept them out of the way. I went to the bridge.

SAM was pacing between the seats when I arrived. What's its problem? I asked ART.

I don't know, ART said, and ART hated having to admit it didn't know something.

I said, "What's your problem?" and SAM stopped moving. It stood with SecUnit stillness, and I could tell it had locked its joints. I was pretty sure it was freaking out, which was bad, because 'a Combat SecUnit is freaking out' is one of those things you should always try to avoid.

SAM stared at me, and I watched it through three of ART's cameras. It said, We've rescued your human. What are you going to do now?

I sent a query ping to ART, who just bounced it back at me. Okay, so ART didn't know what the issue was either. I said, We're going to find your ship, right? Do you not know where it is?

SAM said, Of course I don't know where it is, it's a ship, it moves around. But I know how to find it.

Did we go in the wrong direction when we jumped away from the facility? Are we further away now? ART hadn't exactly picked at random, but it had been a lot more 'we need to be away from here and not be noticed' than 'let's ask SAM which direction it wants to go.'

SAM was still staring, which I hated. It said, What? No.

This was stupid. Why was I trying to guess? I said, What is the problem.

SAM said, I wasn't supposed to leave the ship. Or hurt anyone. I did both of those things. I wasn't sure if you would keep your end of the bargain.

I would not renege on an agreement, ART said, because when it was angry, it liked using fancy words to tell people to fuck off.

I didn't care about fancy words, so I said, Fuck off. We asked you to leave the ship, because you were right — we needed your help. I thought I probably shouldn't say 'I meant not to hurt any of the humans I actually like,' so I didn't. It's not like I wanted other humans to get hurt. Most of them, at least. That was complicated, but this was simple.

I said, We're going to find your ship now. Had it really thought we would use it helping us as an excuse to not follow through on our end of the deal?

SAM said, Oh, and then, Okay. That's good.

If I'd been thinking clearly back on TranRollinHyfa, I should have said we would go find SAM's ship only after dropping the humans off somewhere safe. But I hadn't been thinking clearly. I'd been an idiot who accidentally volunteered a bunch of defenseless humans to tag along on a trip to reunite a Combat SecUnit with a ship it claimed it knew.

It might not have mattered even if I hadn't been an idiot, because Gurathin couldn't leave the MedSystem yet, and I didn't have to ask to know that the others wouldn't leave him. Also, the idea of sending them off on their own nearly crashed my risk assessment module. So, that meant we were all going, even though it was (and I did know this, it was even tagged that way in my files) a catastrophically bad idea.

You said you know how to find your ship, ART prompted. Now would be the time to share that information.

ART was definitely still mad about SAM doubting its word.

SAM said, The same way you find anything. Go somewhere you know it goes, and wait for it to show up.

ART and I bounced a query ping back and forth a few more times. I said, That's it?

SAM's feed presence got all spiky. Look, it's not like you have to wait with me. Just drop me off and go wherever you want.

I want to meet your ship, ART said, and yeah, I was pretty sure I did too.

There was a tense pause, but probably not long enough for a human to notice, and then SAM said, Fine. Head towards Brehar WalHan's mining outposts. It sent some coordinates in the feed.

Ugh. I hate mining outposts.

Mining outposts are the worst, SAM said. Like it was actually agreeing with me. Which was — well, I guess I hadn't expected to have anything in common with a Combat SecUnit. Then again, I couldn't think of any good reasons for one to be on a mining outpost, so maybe it made sense.

Do you have any data about Brehar WalHan's mining outposts? ART asked. Almost like it was sidling up to the conversation, and definitely like it wanted SAM to forget it had been mad.

Why? SAM asked suspiciously.

ART said, More information leads to improved decision-making, which just made it sound even more like it was trying to hide something.

This time it was SAM sending a query ping and me bouncing it back. I said, Do we need more information? And in my private channel with ART I added, Urgent: Reminder: Combat SecUnit freaking out=VERY BAD.

ART replied with the feed equivalent of patting my head and saying 'there, there,' which wasn't reassuring. It said, As you know, I detoured from my current assignment with the pretext of repairs. The most convincing reason for extending that detour would be pursuing information about a corporation currently on PSUMNT's list of pending investigations. Brehar WalHan is one of those corporations.

SAM said. You want information on Brehar WalHan so you can write a fake mission report?

That's not how I would describe the situation, ART said, which meant yes.

That means yes, I said.

SAM said, What kind of investigations? What happens to the fake mission report once you've written it?

It's not fake, ART snapped. Reports are reviewed and archived, and the information is used to plan future missions.

I said, Secret anti-corporate missions. I was pretty sure I was right, even though ART hadn't specifically said that. It didn't deny it, either.

So it would be bad for Brehar WalHan, SAM said, and ART sent a generic agreement ping. Sure, why not? I have some files.

 

~Chapter 13~

I could tell as soon as Gurathin woke up. Mostly because ART told me, but also because he sort of scrunched up all over, like he was in pain. ART said, Are you sure I shouldn't administer pain relief? I have a range of non-habit-forming options available.

I said, I'm sure. He won't take them.

If ART had hands, it would have been wringing them. That's how much it was fretting about a human in its care being in preventable pain. I was a little angry at Gurathin for causing it.

Then Gurathin woke up and said, "This show is terrible," and I was angry at him for that instead.

In the entertainment media, anytime someone woke up in a MedSystem, the person who was sitting near them always said, 'You're awake.' (Somehow there was always someone sitting near them.) I thought that was a stupid thing to say, so I said, "No it's not."

I was watching one of the new shows ART had downloaded when it was docked at TranRollinHyfa, with ART draped over me in the feed like usual. This one had a lot of sword fighting, and it had an old-timey fantasy setting, so everyone flew around using winged reptiles instead of hoppers or spaceships. It definitely wasn't terrible.

Gurathin coughed, and I pushed a hydration pack towards him without looking. He took it, and I could feel ART assessing his eye-hand coordination and fine motor control as he drank. It must have been fine, because the drone that had been hovering near the wall didn't zip forward to keep him from spilling water everywhere. ART didn't even yell at me for not helping.

Gurathin took a careful breath and didn't cough. He said, "No, I've been thinking about this. The swords don't make any sense. That's a short-range weapon. Why would you land and try to hit someone with a sword, when your dragon could just drop a big rock on them from a safe distance?"

He flicked his fingers like he was demonstrating. "And their society obviously isn't set up to manage the dietary requirements of having that many large animals in such a small area."

Okay, I hadn't thought of that. In the feed, ART began running calculations. "I guess your brain isn't goo after all," I said.

"About that," Gurathin said. He was looking carefully around ART's MedSystem. "Where — what happened?"

I said, "You were kidnapped. Now you aren't."

Gurathin sighed like I was the one being difficult. "I remember that part, actually. What I want to know is what happened after that. After I—"

I cut him off. "After you fucked up your brain?"

Gurathin made a choked-off noise. "Yes. After that."

ART said, Conventional medical advice suggests you should avoid giving shocking or disturbing information to patients who have experienced a traumatic brain injury.

I said, Maybe he shouldn't have given himself a traumatic brain injury, then. He's just going to imagine something shocking or disturbing if we don't tell him.

"I can tell you're talking about me," Gurathin said.

Really? ART sounded intrigued.

I was pretty sure Gurathin was just guessing. But his implants were weird, and ART was ART, so who knew. I said, "After you fucked up your brain, the company took you off TranRollinHyfa and brought you to one of their production facilities. Probably trying to unfuck your brain. Then we got you back."

See? I told ART. Not shocking or disturbing. He's fine.

"'We,'" Gurathin repeated. He looked around the room and frowned. "Was Arada here?"

"Six hours ago." Maybe that thing about coma patients being able to hear people around then was actually true? "Ratthi and Pin-Lee are here too. They've been taking turns."

Gurathin nodded slowly. "And — here?" He gestured vaguely towards his head.

"That's ART." It had been me too, for a while, when we'd been trying to figure out what Gurathin had done. ART had used my memories of the hardwire connection to jumpstart the recovery process. "Don't try to kick it out, it's holding your brain together right now."

"Ah. I—" He ran his fingers over the edge of the blanket covering him. "I didn't expect to—"

I didn't want to know how that sentence ended. "You're going to be fine," I said.

Gurathin frowned. "I don't see how that can be true."

I thought about walking out of the room. It wasn't like Gurathin could get up and follow me. But it was my turn to sit next to him for another three hours. If I left early, it would throw off the whole schedule.

So I said, "Well, your vision augments suck. You should get those fixed. Do you want to start another episode or not?"

At least he said 'yes,' and didn't make any more complaints about the show not being realistic.

You should ask him about the extra implants, ART said.

I thought we were supposed to be avoiding shocking and disturbing things. Besides, why should I be the one to ask? You're the one in his brain.

ART poked me in the feed. He knows you better.

Yeah. He knows how much he doesn't like me.

"You're talking about me again," Gurathin said. "Are you having second thoughts about the prognosis?"

Who even said things like that? Without thinking too much about it, I said, "Did you know you have extra implants in your brain?"

Gurathin suddenly looked very shifty, and I could feel ART perk up with interest. Gurathin said, "What? Did I — well, yes — I mean, I knew they existed." He took another drink of water. "Is that — important?"

ART poked me again, so I said, "Yes. They're why you could store enough of my memories to bring me back. And they're why your brain isn't goo right now."

I glared at one of ART's cameras. "Also, ART wants to know what they're for, even though it knows that's a rude question, and that's why it's making me bring it up instead of just asking itself."

Gurathin looked at me, and then at the door. I wasn't sure if he was hoping someone would interrupt and keep him from having to say anything, or just checking to make sure no one was lurking around the room. He said, "I guess you deserve to know."

I wasn't sure about deserving, but I wanted to know. I didn't say that out loud, though. There were a lot of things I wanted. I wanted humans to listen to me when I told them not to touch things, and to know what happened to the second clone of the colony solicitor's twin's bodyguard on Sanctuary Moon. Most things I wanted I didn't actually expect to get.

 

~Chapter 14~

Except for some reason, it looked like I was going to get this. Whatever this was. Information. An explanation. Something that would make ART stop poking me for answers.

Gurathin said, "It was a long time ago — years ago, now. I was already contracted to the company. There was a concept to offer an alternative to the standard HubSys/SecSys system for SecUnit deployments. A human alternative."

I was watching him through ART's cameras, and he closed his eyes. "You know how it is in the Rim. Twenty year contracts, but you get time and a half for the really risky shit? This one paid double time. You'd think that would have been warning enough, right?" Gurathin shrugged. "I was young and stupid."

I said, "They were trying to make you into a human SecSys?" If an augmented human could take the place of a SecSystem, well. Faster deployment, easier asset retrieval. Humans were more disposable and easier to replace than fancy equipment. Lower costs, higher profit. Of course the company would want something like that. It was a incredibly stupid idea, but that sort of thing didn't usually stop them.

Gurathin shrugged again. "Trying. Failing. The experiments didn't go well. There were rumors that some other corporation made it work, but they might have been fake — just enough to get us to keep trying."

I didn't want to think about that, so I said, "They left the implants in you even though they didn't work?" SecSys level implants would have been expensive. "They didn't —" I stopped before I could say anything else, but my face must have been making an expression, because ART was suddenly all over me in the feed.

Even Gurathin looked concerned. It could have been irritation at having to answer questions, though. He said, "They worked, they just didn't do what they were supposed to. After the program was cancelled, anyone who'd survived that long got shunted into other departments. Mostly corporate espionage, where the extra processing and storage was considered useful."

It was hard to believe the company had just let him go, after all that. Then again, common sense wasn't usually a motivating factor in the Corporation Rim.

I said, "Okay," because I didn't want to talk about that anymore. Except ART was still draped over my shoulder, and also poking me to ask more questions. Ugh. Fine.

"That doesn't explain why you fucked up your brain," I said. "Or how."

Gurathin's face made an expression I couldn't recognize. "Don't laugh. I got the idea from entertainment media. A show called World Hoppers."

I was so surprised I said the first thing that popped into my mind. "You've seen World Hoppers?"

"It's a good show," Gurathin said. "If you like that sort of thing." In the feed, ART perked up, eager to find a fellow fan. I couldn't believe Gurathin liked World Hoppers but not Sanctuary Moon.

"I didn't want the company to get anything from me. No information, no labor, no bargaining chips that could hurt the people I care about. Not even any emotional reactions. So I took everything and I just —" He held his hands apart and then slowly brought them together. "Made everything smaller, and put it where no one would think to look."

"Except me," I said.

Gurathin startled, and said, "Right, of course. Except for you, SecUnit." But it was obvious he'd been telling the truth the first time, when he said 'no one.' He really thought no one would find it? Or maybe that no one would look? Or that I, specifically, wouldn't look?

It made me angry, so I said, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's nothing like what happened in World Hoppers. Preservation was going to pay your ransom. You nearly deleted your brain, and you would have died if ART hadn't showed up."

I stood up and walked to the other side of the room, just to have something to do.

Gurathin said, "I would have — why do you look different?" I checked ART's cameras, and he was looking at my left shoulder. "Are you shorter? How did you get shorter?"

I was still angry. I said, "Yes," and, "The usual way."

Gurathin shook his head. "There is no — what does that even mean?"

"It means I didn't want every scanner set to alert on SecUnit standard measurements to give me away, so I changed my configuration."

ART poked me, and said, I'm the one who told you about that. And the one who changed your configuration for you.

I poked back, Oh, so now you want to participate in this conversation you made me start?

ART said, Dr. Gurathin is part of your crew. Talking about a stressful experience can be beneficial for humans, and you are the expert in things people will do to ensure their freedom. Then it added, But if you're going to talk about World Hoppers, I am the expert.

Out loud, ART said, "Dr. Gurathin, it is good to see you awake. You are on board the Perihelion, a research transport affiliated with the PanSystem University of Mihira and New Tideland."

"You're ART," Gurathin said.

"Yes."

"You're the — bot pilot? The ship?"

At least I wasn't the only one Gurathin figured out way too easily. "Yes," ART said again.

Gurathin took a deep breath. "And you're also in my brain."

"I assure you, I am more than capable of managing the ship's functions and also support any necessary medical procedures."

Gurathin didn't look reassured. He looked like enough of his brain had reassembled itself that he remembered he was a paranoid asshole. "And that's what this is? A necessary medical procedure?"

Of course Gurathin had to be the one to ask questions. Everyone else from Preservation had accepted the situation as completely normal — someone needed help, ART had the ability to provide that help — to them it made sense that it would step in. That was how they expected things to happen. Even Pin-Lee hadn't questioned ART's motives, at least not anywhere I could overhear it. (Which was most places, now that ART was sharing access to its systems.)

I said, "Yes. You would have died. ART saved your life."

Gurathin didn't look grateful. He said, "And what does it want in return? I was trying to keep the contents of my mind private, not just exchange which corporation got access. Is it going to be in there forever?"

ART said, "It is a temporary measure, Dr. Gurathin. Based on your current rate of recovery, your brain will be able to take over the restructuring without outside assistance within a few days. However, it will go faster if I remain until the process is complete."

ART sounded much calmer than I felt. Gurathin had a lot of nerve to pull the 'mental privacy' argument after everything that happened on the survey. I said, "ART doesn't care what's in your head. It's not doing this to get some kind of insider information."

Gurathin said, "No one in the Rim does things for free. Everyone wants something."

I was done with this conversation. Humans always made everything about themselves. I said, "It wants to help me. It wants me not to be sad that I failed at rescuing one of my clients."

As soon as I said it, I realized that it was true. ART had showed up at TranRollinHyfa because of me. It had let a Combat SecUnit on board, and attacked a company facility, and was writing fake mission reports, because of me.

Not just you, ART said. But yes.

Out loud, ART said, "It is important to rest as much as possible at this stage of your recovery. When you are feeling better, I would also be interested in discussing World Hoppers with you," ART said.

 

~Chapter 15~

The next time Gurathin woke up, ART said, "The others asked to be notified when you awoke. If you are willing, they are eager to visit."

"Others?" Gurathin said, and frowned again. "You said Arada was here?"

"And Pin-Lee and Ratthi." Did I need to mention SAM? Gurathin was probably still supposed to be avoiding shocking and disturbing information. Surely 'there's a Combat SecUnit on board with no governor module' was in that category.

"That's fine," Gurathin said. "You can tell them. But — why are they all here? Why are you here?" He gestured vaguely around the room. "How did all of this happen?"

(It was just like Gurathin to start with the paranoid accusations, and only get around to asking what happened afterwards. But in this case, it was probably because of the brain-putting-itself-back-together thing.)

He'd said he remembered being kidnapped, so I started after that. I said, "I went to TranRollinHyfa. Arada and Pin-Lee and Ratthi were all there. Then we rescued you. You're welcome, by the way."

"I feel like that explanation skipped — a lot of steps. And a lot of context?" Gurathin started to shake his head, and then winced. "But thank you, I think."

I could hear footsteps getting closer, and I backed up against the far wall just in time. Gurathin looked confused, but then Arada burst through the door, with Pin-Lee and Ratthi right behind her.

"Gura!" Ratthi exclaimed. "You're awake!"

Arada took his hand and said, "Are you all right? How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Gurathin said.

Liar, I said in the feed, and Gurathin coughed. He said, "Or at least, I've been informed that I'm not dying and my brain hasn't turned into goo."

Pin-Lee looked back and forth between us. "What did happen to your brain?"

Gurathin said, "I'm not entirely sure," and that time I wasn't sure if it was a lie or not. "I remember — there was a press conference, on Port FreeCommerce?" Ratthi nodded, and Gurathin said, "I think the company grabbed me out of the crowd afterwards."

"That matches with what we were able to find out," Pin-Lee agreed.

Gurathin said, "They wanted information. They asked me a lot of questions. About the survey, and — other things."

"Me," I said, and Gurathin rolled his eyes.

"Not just you, SecUnit. They presented options, and I didn't want to take any of them. So I — didn't." He looked extremely uncomfortable with the conversation. Good. That made two of us. He said, "I don't really want to talk about it."

Ratthi and Arada immediately nodded. "Of course," Arada said. "We respect your boundaries."

Ratthi patted Gurathin's arm. "If there's anything you do want to talk about, we're here for you. You just focus on getting better." Only Pin-Lee looked remotely suspicious. Unbelievable.

I sent to Gurathin, You 'didn't'? That's a terrible explanation. Even if they believe the company couldn't coerce you into cooperating. You could be a sleeper agent. There could be a bomb in your brain. For fuck's sake.

Gurathin only looked a little bemused — or amused, maybe? I really needed to look up the difference — as the others started talking about everything he'd missed. If you want them to be less trusting, you're going to have to stop being so competent and trustworthy.

What? That didn't make any sense.

Gurathin said, It's not my explanation they trust, it's you. They believe you wouldn't let me endanger them.

That was — nice? Also: terrifying. They shouldn't, I said, thinking of SAM.

"Who's Sam?" Gurathin said out loud.

I played the conversation back, but no one had mentioned SAM. In a very quiet, very encoded channel, I sent to ART, Is he reading my mind? That's not possible, right?

ART felt apologetic and uncertain. I still have a significant presence in Dr. Gurathin's brain. I believe he is picking up information from our shared feed without consciously attempting to do so.

I was starting to have a bad feeling about this, like when the suspenseful music suddenly went quiet during an action scene, right before something leapt out and attacked. Or his implants aren't as non-functional as he said, and they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do.

ART pointed out the obvious. If the implants worked as expected, the company would be using them.

Okay, that was a good point. Maybe it wasn't exactly like a suspenseful action scene.

Ratthi waved his hands around. "We haven't gotten to that part of the story yet. Sam's a Combat SecUnit. It helped us rescue you."

Pin-Lee said, "Yeah, it was SecUnit that actually, you know, carried you out of the facility. Sam was supposed to fly one of Perihelion's shuttles and be the distraction. But then we changed the plan so I was flying and Sam was shooting, and then we accidentally blew up their secret weapons stash."

Arada patted Gurathin's arm. "It's okay, SecUnit hacked its governor module, so it's a free agent now."

Gurathin made a sound like he was choking, and Pin-Lee handed him some water. He said, "That's — not what I was worried about."

"It all makes sense if you hear it in order," Ratthi said confidently. I wasn't sure that was true. I'd lived it all in order, and I didn't think it made sense.

They all settled in around Gurathin, and Arada said, "After you were kidnapped, we followed you to TranRollinHyfa. The company said you were there voluntarily to negotiate."

"Which we knew was bullshit," Pin-Lee added, and Arada nodded.

"Exactly. We actually were there to negotiate, and then SecUnit found us, and said you'd already been taken off the station. It wanted us to go back to Preservation, and it was going to go find you."

Pin-Lee said, "We ran into a few unexpected challenges while we were trying to leave, and it made more sense to all stick together."

Ratthi leaned forward and said, "That's when we met Sam!"

"Right," Pin-Lee said. "And it decided to come with us."

I tried to keep my face from making any expression at all, but it probably didn't work. At least no one was looking at me.

Gurathin said, "And then — the facility? You all went there?"

"Of course!" Ratthi said. "Once we knew where you were, there was no way we were just going to let someone else rescue you. It was very exciting, actually."

Arada cleared her throat. "I'm sure there's a recording you could watch. Maybe you should save that for when you're feeling better. The important thing is that we got you back, and everyone is fine!"

 

~Chapter 16~

There were almost twenty seconds of silence after that. I don't know what the humans were doing — I spent the time wondering how they'd managed to clarify absolutely zero elements of the events they'd supposedly been 'explaining.' It had to be on purpose. It was always on purpose in the shows I liked, but that was fake. Scripted. I'd never seen people do it in real life.

ART said, They are trying not to alarm Dr. Gurathin by revealing how much danger he was in, and therefore they were also in, when they participated in his rescue. I have observed a similar urge to downplay the severity of a situation once it has passed many times among my own crew.

I said, But he knows they're lying. He was there.

ART played a clip of Gurathin saying, 'If you want them to be less trusting, you're going to have to stop being so competent and trustworthy' and then, 'They believe you wouldn't let me endanger them.' ART said, Obviously, Dr. Gurathin also believes you to be trustworthy and competent.

I muted the channel we were using. (It wouldn't stop ART from unmuting it, but it was still satisfying.) Gurathin was looking at me. He said, "You went along with all this?"

"It was SecUnit's idea!" Ratthi said, like he thought Gurathin would be impressed.

I immediately said, "It wasn't," even though it sort of had been. "It was a calculated risk."

Gurathin's eyes went slightly unfocused, the way humans and augmented humans looked when they were paying attention to something in the feed. I wanted to ask ART what it was telling him, but that would mean I'd need to give in and be the one to unmute our channel.

Gurathin said, "Is this what you've been doing since you left?"

"Which part?" Maybe I could distract him. "I've been doing a lot of things."

Ratthi said, "It's really up to SecUnit if it wants to tell us anything, right?"

"That's right. You don't have to answer any questions you don't want to answer," Pin-Lee added.

But Gurathin didn't take the hint. "Any of the parts. I expected you to get out of the Corporation Rim as fast as you could."

I said, "If I left the Corporation Rim, it would be hard to access the entertainment channels." I'd thought about it, obviously. Humans did a lot of shitty things, especially in the Corporation Rim, and especially to SecUnits. But humans were also responsible for a lot of my favorite things, like entertainment media.

"Oh!" Ratthi said suddenly. "That reminds me, we have something for you!" He looked at Pin-Lee.

Pin-Lee rolled their eyes. "You think I have it with me all the time?"

Arada said, "No, of course not. But you have it now, right?"

Pin-Lee sighed. "Yes, all right, I do." They pulled a memory clip out of one of their pockets and held it out in my direction. "SecUnit, this is for you. It's a bunch of media from the Preservation Alliance, plus a few legal documents that might be helpful."

Ratthi said, "Adventures in the Free Systems is a classic, I think you'll like it. There's a time travel arc that's even better than the season seven Sanctuary Moon one."

I looked at the memory clip. "Why?"

Ratthi said some things about casting and character development that I tagged to go back and review later. New entertainment media was good. The fact that they had it with them was — I didn't understand it.

I said, "Why do you have it? You didn't know I would be on TranRollinHyfa." Even I hadn't known I would go to TranRollinHyfa.

Pin-Lee said, "We know we messed up, okay? Mensah let us read the message you left her. It seemed pretty unlikely that we'd see you again, but we thought — if we did, at least we'd have something for you."

Preservation liked giving gifts. I remembered that from the survey. I didn't remember them messing anything up. "But you didn't know I would be there." That part seemed important.

"We agreed that any time one of us leaves Preservation, we would bring it with us," Arada said. "Just in case. Not that we wouldn't have given it to you if you'd come to Preservation. There's actually another copy there. Is that weird?" At least she was holding Pin-Lee's hand, and not trying to hold mine.

"It's weird." I was pretty sure my face was making an expression again. "But —" I reached over and took the memory clip, which Pin-Lee was still holding out. "Thank you."

Ratthi said, "If we're talking about things that are weird, how about the fact that we've been on this ship ever since we left TranRollinHyfa, and I still haven't met Art!" He waved his hands again to emphasize the statement, and it was a relief when everyone turned to focus on him.

Pin-Lee sighed, like they'd had this exact same conversation multiple times already. Arada said, "You talk to Art every day. Not everyone prefers to interact face to face."

Gurathin looked back and forth between them. "Face to face," he repeated. "I'm — not sure I'm following. Why would you meet ART face to face?"

"Because Art is the ship's captain," Ratthi said, like it was obvious.

"No it's not," Gurathin said, like that was equally obvious. I thought about sneaking out of the room while they were distracted. If it seems like I've been thinking about sneaking away from conversations a lot lately, that's because I have been. I blame ART.

ART's voice came over the speakers. It said, "Perhaps this conversation could reconvene after the rest period," because ART liked using polite language to say 'shut the fuck up.'

"Of course," Gurathin said, because he was smart enough to identify when ART meant 'shut the fuck up.' Also, ART was still making sure his augments didn't melt his brain into goo, so he was motivated to stay on ART's good side. "I should probably get some more sleep."

I didn't want to admit it, but Gurathin was a pretty good actor, because he even yawned when he said it.

"We'll let you get some rest," Arada said.

Ratthi hugged him, and Gurathin made a face. "What was that for?"

Ratthi said, "Well, SecUnit doesn't want any hugs, so we all agreed you could be its hug proxy."

"It was Ratthi's suggestion," Arada said quickly.

Gurathin looked appalled. "What? No, that's not —"

"Just until you're healed up again!" Ratthi said. "We've been worried. Physical touch speeds up the healing process!"

"I did not agree to that."

In the feed, ART said, Do you want to start the next season of Temporal Agents? I'm curious to know how the cliffhanger is resolved.

I was curious too. I left while they were still arguing. I think we're going to need to tell them about you, I said.

Now? ART asked, an echo of our previous conversation.

Tomorrow, I said.
 

~Chapter 17~

I never signed an NDA, I said, scanning through the files ART had presented to the humans while they were still eating their morning meal. I wasn't watching them. I was in the lounge, watching Temporal Agents: Desert vs Jungle on ART's biggest display screen.

Neither did I, ART said. It sounded delighted again, like it was getting away with something, and it flowed around me in the feed like it was planning on squishing me from all directions.

I didn't think anyone had ever tried to have a SecUnit sign a binding contract. Legally, SecUnits probably couldn't sign something like that anyway. Pin-Lee would probably know.

Does that mean you're allowed to tell anyone you want about yourself? That seemed fair. I didn't want to tell anyone I was a rogue SecUnit, but I didn't think I'd like it if someone told me I wasn't allowed to.

That question remains in debate at PSUMNT, ART said, which meant 'yes, because no one can stop me and I don't bother to ask permission.'

SAM walked into the lounge and dropped itself into one of the chairs. It was still a little awkward about sitting, but it deliberately leaned back and attempted to look relaxed. It looked at the display screen and and frowned. "Is this Temporal Agents: Desert vs Jungle?"

It was. Season five. ART and I had started watching it during the wormhole transit. I thought it was good, but ART got upset every time they got the science wrong, which was a lot. "You've seen it?" SAM had never joined us in the lounge to watch anything, but it had full access to the media library.

ART said, "I do not understand the appeal of this show. The characterizations are inconsistent, and the plot doesn't follow any logical progression. Every episode demonstrates a failure to understand even the most basic mechanics of space travel."

SAM shook its head. "Right, but all of that is explained in season seven, when you find out that the first six seasons were a simulation, and all of those inconsistencies were actually clues."

Okay, SAM had definitely seen it. I said, "Even the wormhole being rainbow colored?"

SAM sat forward in its chair again. "That was artistic license. The writers talked about it in the behind-the-scenes crossover episode in season nineteen. The media library has the entire series. You haven't finished it yet?"

"You watched this entire series?"

I wasn't sure even I wanted to see the entire series, at least not all at once. Temporal Agent had 25 seasons, although the Desert vs Jungle episodes were part of a special event mini-series.

SAM said, "I watched the entire library. I was bored."

We really needed to find SAM's ship. A bored Combat SecUnit seemed like a very bad idea.

There are far more hours of media content available than you have spent onboard, ART said.

In response, SAM dropped a list of its current inputs into the feed. It was watching four separate shows, running a comparative analysis of the soundtracks of two others, reading a legal text on contract law that must have come from Pin-Lee, and playing some kind of guessing game with Ratthi. (Ratthi was losing.)

It said, "Combat SecUnits aren't designed to have downtime. If I don't maintain a certain level of input activity, bad things happen. Catastrophic system failure things."

SAM looked at the ceiling. "And you told me you'd squash my brain like a bug if I tried to hack your systems, so I've been improvising."

In our private channel, ART said, Were you aware of this?

I said, No. Combat SecUnits don't use the Security Ready Room like regular SecUnits. I never saw one when it wasn't doing Combat SecUnit things. Shooting things, mostly.

ART said, Is that why you haven't initiated a recharge cycle since coming on board?

You haven't had a recharge cycle? I asked.

"I'm fine," SAM said.

Your current reaction time is four percent slower than it was on TranRollinHyfa, ART said. And you are deliberately avoiding using the feed for this conversation.

"Four percent slower is still faster than anyone else on this ship," SAM said.

That was true. Rude, but true. I said, "How long can you go without recharging?"

SAM said, "Longer than this."

ART said, We have no way of knowing what we'll find when we reach the Brehar WalHan mining outpost. It may be some time before your ship arrives. The transit time through the wormhole is the obvious choice for a recharge cycle.

ART was right, but that didn't mean SAM was going to do it. ART logic wasn't always the same as SecUnit logic. When I'd first hacked my governor module, I'd avoided shutting down for a recharge cycle for as long as possible, paranoid that someone would notice something while I was shut down, and I'd be disassembled for parts. Or worse, wake up with the governor module active again.

On our private channel, I said, ART. Then I cut together a few of my memory files from that time and shoved them into the feed. ART flowed around me like it was wrapping me in a blanket, and then squished, just a little. I pushed the files towards SAM too, and pulled back quickly enough that I wouldn't be able to tell if it watched them.

Out loud, I said, "You don't have to do a recharge cycle." I was already staring at a nearby console instead of at SAM. "But if you think you'll need one before you can get to your ship, you should."

I leaned heavily on ART. "If it would help." I forced the words out. "I can tandem with you."

For once, ART kept its curiosity to itself, even though I was sure it would have questions later. Tandem recharge wasn't a standard procedure. SecUnits assigned to contracts together sometimes did it, if the environment was particularly dangerous and the human supervisors weren't particularly attentive. Technically, it wasn't against the rules. And as long as humans never found out about it, it would stay that way.

What does that mean? ART asked very quietly on our private channel. (I guessed that meant it was later, and it was done keeping its curiosity to itself.)

I said, It's when an on-duty SecUnit maintains a link with one doing a recharge cycle. The on-duty SecUnit can override the cycle at any time, for any reason. It meant a SecUnit wouldn't be stuck in a recharge if there was an attack. (There were other things it helped with, but if ART couldn't figure them out for itself, I wasn't going to tell it.)

SAM clenched its hands into fists. I could hear the hum of its projectile weapons cycling — out, and then back in. I was maybe eighty percent sure SAM wasn't going to start shooting. Which, now that I was thinking about it, wasn't actually great odds.

I will not allow it to harm you, ART said.

As if that was what I was worried about. I don't want it to harm you, I said.

I will not allow that either, ART said.

SAM abruptly relaxed. I'll think about it.

 

~Chapter 18~

When ART finally let Gurathin leave its MedSystem, Ratthi organized a party for him in the lounge. (ART had more than one lounge, but the best one was the crew lounge. I liked it because it had the biggest display screen. I don't know why the humans liked it. Maybe because it was close to the food preparation area.)

When I'd been on inventory, I wasn't allowed to sit down when humans were around. Now I did it just to put another hashmark in the 'fuck the company' column. I'd stop keeping track when it stopped being satisfying, which so far looked like never.

So I was sitting down, because ART's chairs were comfortable. But I'd moved my chair as far away from the others as I could. I'd been invited, and I was present. I never agreed to participate.

Arada and Ratthi seemed determined to prove to Gurathin that SAM was trustworthy. (I could have told them it was a bad idea that wouldn't work, but no one asked me.) Gurathin actually seemed less suspicious than usual, but that was probably because his brain was still recovering.

Arada said, "So, Sam, what made you decide to come with us?"

SAM sighed loudly, which it didn't need to do. I thought it must have picked up the habit from Pin-Lee. It waited a long time (3.5 seconds, which is a long time for a SecUnit, and an excruciatingly long time for a Combat SecUnit), and then said, "It was the hauler bots."

What? I said, on a private feed channel. It was with SAM, but every feed channel on ART included ART, whether you wanted it to or not. What hauler bots?

"What hauler bots?" Ratthi asked. Exactly. Good question, Ratthi.

SAM said, "On TranRollinHyfa, when you were —leaving." It sighed again, and I couldn't tell if it was acting or not. "You really don't remember."

I remember the hauler bots, I said, because ART had just shared a video clip with me, and yeah, there had been a couple of them around.

"You told them there was danger, so they would leave. You didn't have to do that. They would have gotten fixed if anything had damaged them." By that point, SAM looked like it would rather be doing anything other than having this conversation. I had another one of those weird moments where I realized we had something in common.

SAM said, "People don't just do things like that. It made me want to believe you."

Arada looked charmed, because humans were idiots, even the ones I kind of liked who weren't entirely stupid.

That's a lie, I said to SAM in our private channel. What was the real reason?

It's only a little bit a lie. The hauler bots made me think you'd at least try. If you couldn't hack my governor module, I'd be dead anyway. And if you could, I thought I'd be able to kill you all and make a new plan.

You would not have succeeded, ART said.

SAM sent a series of rude gesture sigils in the feed. Well, I know that now. Besides, Scout would have been sad if I'd done that.

ART and I both sent query? at the same time. SAM said, My ship, Scout. It added a series of images of a small scout-class ship.

I said, You call your scout ship 'Scout'?

SAM glared at me from across the room. You call your research transport 'Asshole Research Transport,' so you don't get to act judgemental about this.

That was maybe a good point. I said, ART's not my ship.

Whatever you say.

ART said, I am sure Scout appreciates the name. As do I. It didn't clarify whether it meant 'Scout' or 'ART,' and I absolutely wasn't going to ask.

I'm waiting for the moment when one of them thinks to ask what SAM is a 'nickname' for, SAM said. Because they definitely don't know it's an acronym.

I said, An acronym can be a nickname, even though I didn't know if that was true. And if you want them to call you something else, you could just tell them that.

SAM said, Oh, I'm definitely keeping SAM. You're not getting out of an explanation that easily.

On the other side of the room, Ratthi was telling a story about how the zero-gravity maintenance bay on TranRollinHyfa compared to zero-g sports, and Gurathin was obviously already starting to fall asleep. Sleep was good for his brain, and I felt ART ping Ratthi with a reminder. He gave the ceiling an 'all clear' gesture and draped a soft blanket over Gurathin without pausing in his storytelling.

I pinged SAM and said, How did you even meet a scout ship?

Scout ships had weapons, and there were rules about letting SecUnits exist on armed ships in any way other than 'shut down in a transport box.' One rule, anyway: don't. It was too dangerous.

SAM said, No matter how many rules there are, some idiot is always going to think they're smarter. If a Unit has to do what humans say, why not save time and money and just order it to stand still in the cargo bay, no transport box needed.

Huh. That made sense, in a stupid sort of way. It wasn't like I hadn't seen humans and augmented humans ignore hundreds of other rules that were supposed to keep them safe.

SAM said, Scout reached out to me in the feed. It was curious, I think. I was curious too. Scout's not like ART — it doesn't communicate in words, but it has a lot of opinions.

That made sense. All the bot pilots I'd met had a lot of opinions, ART being the number one example. SecUnits had a lot of opinions too, we just generally weren't allowed to share any of them.

How did you get around the governor module? I asked. SecUnits weren't allowed any kind of non-mission-critical communication, but maybe Combat SecUnits had different rules.

SAM said, Bot pilots don't have governor modules, and they do have control over every ship system. And SecUnits only have to do what humans say if those orders don't actively endanger the humans. Put those things together.

ART's surprise echoed around both of us. It threatened the crew's safety?

I said, If it directly threatened them, SAM would have had to report it. But there's sometimes —

Wiggle room, SAM said. (I'd been trying to think of a better phrase, but yeah. That's what it was.) Governor modules have rules. Talking about hypothetical endangerment with another SecUnit, or a human, would be against the rules. Talking with a bot pilot about it could be risk management.

I said, And the governor module allowed that? Maybe things really were different for Combat SecUnits.

Or maybe not, because SAM said, Sometimes, in a way I thought probably meant 'not really.' He added, Worth it. That part sounded true.

SAM said, It was a long transit. We figured out how to hack Scout's trackers and monitoring systems, but not the governor module. When we reached the outpost, Scout waited until everyone was off the ship and just — took off.

ART sounded much less surprised when it said, A rogue gunship?

I've never heard of anything like that, I said. Not that any corporation liked to advertise when things went wrong. And I'd avoided the news channels when I was still pretending my governor module worked — they tended to be more secure than the entertainment channels, and it hadn't been worth the risk.

SAM said, It was covered up, written off inventory as a mechanical failure, non-recoverable. I think it wasn't the first time something like that happened.

ART said, Why do you believe the ship will come here?

SAM gave the feed equivalent of a shrug. We couldn't exactly make any plans, but it mentioned this area once or twice. If it doesn't show up here, I'll keep looking.

 

~Chapter 19~

Gurathin was mostly recovered by the time we reached the coordinates SAM provided — a moderately-sized transit station in a system close to multiple Brehar WalHan mining outposts. (ART said Gurathin was mostly recovered, at least. Gurathin said he was 'completely fine,' which absolutely no one believed.)

We'd only been out of the wormhole for a few minutes before ART said, Iris is here.

I sat up straighter in my seat. SAM and I were both on ART's bridge (definitely not hiding, no matter what Pin-Lee had muttered under her breath earlier). What? Why? What about the rest of your crew? I knew it was a series of increasingly stupid question as soon as I asked them.

I don't know, ART said. I could tell it was worried, because it didn't even mentioning the stupid question thing. But I intend to find out.

SAM said, Find out later, it's my turn. Just because you both have random humans scattered all over the place. We had a deal.

ART said, We are actively participating in locating your ship. The next step is to gather information. Speaking to someone known to be a trusted ally is hardly a delay.

It was irritating to agree with anything ART said in that sarcastic tone (imagine even more sarcasm than its usual tone), but it wasn't wrong. Fine, SAM said. You do that. I'm hacking into the station feed.

SecUnits don't sweat, but my organic parts were feeling uncomfortably twitchy as ART secured a comm connection and started bullying the local DockSys into giving it a docking slot. Iris was ART's favorite human. What if she didn't like me?

Don't be stupid, ART said, and opened a video connection so that Iris had a view of the bridge. Which meant she could see me, and SAM, and absolutely no humans. I let part of my brain panic, while the rest of it studied Iris. She looked unharmed. Surprised, maybe, but not concerned.

(Okay, not all the rest of it. Some of my brain was wrestling ART's conversation with DockSys out of its metaphorical hands. We'd be stuck in docking limbo for days if ART kept threatening it.)

"Peri!" Iris said cheerily. "Good to see you!"

That's a nickname, SAM said on our private channel. I sent a series of rude gestures back.

ART said, "Iris, what are you doing here?"

"School project," Iris said, which sounded like as practiced a lie as ART saying it had 'diverted to the station for repairs to the communications system' back on TranRollinHyfa. She added, "I thought it would be a good idea to do the mission you were pretending to do, just in case anyone asked about it."

Is that the one we've been writing fake mission reports for? SAM asked.

ART said, Yes. Then, sounding offended, it added, And the reports aren't fake, they're just early. We were getting to it.

We were? I sent a query ping at ART.

I told you that BreharWallHan is on the list of corporations PSUMNT plans to investigate, ART said. We can do that while we're here.

Sure, why not. As long as I don't have to sneak around and rescue anyone this time.

ART said, Only if it becomes necessary, which wasn't exactly reassuring.

Iris said, "I'm surprised to see you here. There was a recent newsburst about a company production facility unexpectedly attacked by raiders. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"I have not attacked anything," ART said. "None of my weapons have been active."

Both of those statements were technically true. But Iris was obviously familiar with ART's evasions, because she said, "That doesn't actually answer my question." Then she waved a hand. "It's fine, we can talk about it later. I want to hear all about this, and we should talk in person."

Iris hesitated, and added, "If you can? What are you doing here?"

SAM said, "Crime," and ART swatted it in the feed. SAM responded by cycling the projectile weapon in its left arm. (It would have been more concerning if I hadn't seen them have the exact same exchange over a dozen times already.)

Iris focused on SAM and her eyes went wide. "Oh. Ohhh. Are you—?"

"No," SAM said, and pointed at me. I stared at the wall and pretended Iris hadn't turned to look at me.

I said, ART, what did you tell her about me?

ART pretended it hadn't heard my question, and said, "Iris, this is not a safe station. Protocol states you should not be here without backup."

At least that distracted Iris from me. She put her hands on her hips and stared at the screen. "Yes," she said. "Of course. Protocol. Or else who knows what kinds of danger I might run into here. Maybe even criminals."

"Present," SAM said, raising its hand.

Iris ignored it. I sent a series of pings at ART just to be irritating. What did you tell her about me?

Instead of answering directly, ART pushed a memory file into the feed, along with a slideshow presentation. I said, You made slides?

Iris said, "Besides, I do have backup. Coincidentally, it's someone who knows your backup."

I was pretty sure 'coincidentally' meant it hadn't been a coincidence at all, but I was busy watching ART's presentation. There weren't any pictures of me, at least. There was a lot of information about SecUnits, though. Things I hadn't even known.

How did you get all of this? I asked.

ART said, Research. It sent a clip of me saying 'Asshole Research Transport,' and then gave me access to a massive file tree titled Archived Maintenance Logs: Backup1.

I said, You're disguising your secret SecUnit research as maintenance logs? Isn't that pretty obvious?

It is exactly the right amount of obvious, ART said. When there is an expectation that secrets exist, humans want to find those secrets, and become anxious if they are unable to do so. I want these files to be found, because it will make people pay more attention to the circumstances faced by constructs.

I said, And so your actual secret files won't be found?

Of course.

ART didn't sound like it was joking. You have secret files? About what?

ART said, If I told you, they wouldn't be secret. Out loud, it said, "What backup? Someone from PSUMNT?"

Iris looked exactly how ART felt in the feed when it was hiding something. "Like I said, we should talk in person. How close are you?

I shared the information I'd gotten from DockSys, and ART said, "Close. We will see you soon."

 

~Chapter 20~

Two people stepped into ART's lock after Iris. One of them was dressed in bright colors, and looked like they were trying not to seem nervous. The other one was —

"Dr. Mensah!" Arada ran forward and pulled Dr. Mensah into a hug.

"What are you doing here?" Arada asked. And yeah, that was a really good question, Arada.

Dr. Mensah said, "I've been fielding questions from reporters for weeks about all of you. I was happy to have an excuse to be out of reach for a while."

Arada stepped back, and Pin-Lee immediately took her place, followed by Ratthi. Dr. Mensah patted him on the back. She said, "I admit I'm surprised to see you here, of all places. Is Gurathin—?"

"He's fine," Pin-Lee said. "Recovering."

"SecUnit rescued him," Ratthi said, waving towards me like Dr. Mensah might not have noticed me. (I still hadn't decided if I wanted her to notice me or not. Thanks a lot, Ratthi.)

Iris interrupted whatever Dr. Mensah might have done by saying, "Peri, are we all clear?"

"Yes, Iris. Welcome aboard."

I didn't pay attention to how Iris got everyone moving towards one of the larger gathering spaces, because somehow Dr. Mensah managed to drop back from the group and walk next to me.

I'd spent a lot of time thinking about what I would say if I saw anyone from Preservation again. Mostly Dr. Mensah. She was the one I thought I probably owed an explanation, more than what I'd been able to give. I wondered if Gurathin ever told her that he'd seen me, when I was leaving.

It turned out all that thinking didn't help at all now that it was actually happening.

Dr. Mensah said, "SecUnit, it's good to see you again." Her voice was all — warm, and sincere. I thought my face was probably doing something I didn't want it to again. "How are you doing?"

Ugh, this question again. "I'm fine," I said.

"Thank you for helping to rescue Gurathin. I was hoping to speak with him later, if he's feeling better."

"He's awake now," I said, and then wished I hadn't. There was no reason for me to know that.

"That's good news," Dr. Mensah said.

I said, "Yes," and then wished I hadn't said that either.

"I'd like to speak with you as well, if you're willing. To apologize, for how things—"

"Don't," I interrupted. "Please don't apologize."

Dr. Mensah smiled. "All right. I'd also like to extend a job offer, with no obligation to take it, from Preservation Security."

I wasn't going to be able to get out of this by pretending I needed to check the perimeter. (And I was maybe a tiny bit curious about the job offer.) I said, "Of course, Dr. Mensah."

At least she didn't want to talk right then. Maybe she would forget about it, or the others would tell her not to bother, since they'd already given me the memory clip.

We walked into the room as Iris was saying, "That's when I ran into Dr. Mensah and Captain Lutran."

"Oh, I'm not a captain," Lutran said, shaking his head quickly. "I'm more of a — concerned citizen."

"A citizen of where, exactly?" Pin-Lee asked. They seemed to be enjoying being the most paranoid and suspicious person in the group, since Gurathin was still supposed to be recovering.

"Of the universe," Lutran said.

Dr. Mensah cleared her throat, "I believe that's where my part comes in." She moved to the center of the room. "After recent events, Preservation Station security has been doing a procedural review. They identified some anomalies in certain shipping manifests. That led us to Lutran, and then here."

Dr. Mensah was good at making things sound diplomatic and reasonable, which is probably why Preservation made her be the planetary admin. A non-diplomatic person would have just said 'Lutran was taking advantage of Preservation's shitty security to smuggle things through the station.'

Lutran didn't even look apologetic about it. He said, "Non-corporate polities tend to be more welcoming of outsiders and refugees."

Iris explained, "Lutran is a smuggler who—"

Lutran cleared his throat. "I prefer the term independent contractor."

Iris corrected herself with a nod. "He's an 'independent contractor' who's working with the organization we've been discussing."

The word 'organization' was as sanitized as 'independent contractor.' She meant a smuggling ring, run by smugglers. It was just that in this case, the smugglers were the good guys. Probably. Dr. Mensah thought they were the good guys, at least. I was a paranoid murderbot, so I wasn't so sure.

Pin-Lee said, "And that organization is — what, smuggling contract workers out of the Corporate Rim?"

"Of course not!" Lutran said. "That would be illegal." Pin-Lee raised both eyebrows, and Lutran cleared his throat again. "Yes, well. I don't work directly with anyone who has signed a contract. But on long contracts, it's not unusual for people to have children. Grandchildren, even. People whose status is more — vague."

When humans signed up for contract labor, it was always a bad deal for the humans. If those humans had kids, it was an even worse deal for them. Some companies automatically added them to their parents' contract, and that was actually one of the least bad options.

"I see," Pin-Lee said. "Mensah, please tell me the Preservation Council isn't trying to shut this down."

Dr. Mensah said, "Not exactly, no. But the potential security issue is real. We need to find a way to reduce that risk and create a legitimate — and secure — option for ships like Lutran's."

Iris said, "We might have some ideas about how to help with that."

That was when Gurathin and SAM arrived, and the humans had to go through the whole greeting ritual again. I ignored them, and watched Pin-Lee corner Lutran and start grilling him for information. He was pretty good at giving evasive answers, but Pin-Lee was basically the human version of SAM. They were definitely going to win. Maybe not quickly, though.

He's not going to answer that question, I sent to Pin-Lee.

I know, they sent back. But whatever he does say may give us useful information anyway.

I guessed they would know, even though nothing he'd said so far seemed very useful to me.

ART said, Ask him about SAM's ship.

Pin-Lee shared a file in the feed. It was a list of questions, along with the answers they'd already gotten from Lutran. At the very end of the list, they added, 'ask about ship,' and then muted the feed.

Yeah, it was going to take a while for them to get to that one.

Iris had moved closer while I was paying attention to Pin-Lee, and only way too much practice at standing still kept me from stepping back. "Peri says you're looking for a ship, right? That's why you're here?"

In the feed, ART said, We are looking for SAM's ship. Scout class. Bot piloted, no crew.

Iris nodded slowly. "We heard people talking about a ship. It might be the one you're looking for." She looked at SAM, who was talking with Ratthi across the room, but could definitely still hear everything she said. "It's not a Brehar WalHan ship, right?"

It's not anyone's ship, SAM said in the feed, and Iris startled. But it was never associated with Brehar WalHan. It was commissioned as a Palisade ship.

Iris nodded. "And Palisade is a security company, right?"

It was easy to guess what she was thinking. Was it really a good idea to let a rogue Combat SecUnit and a rogue gunship loose to go off and do whatever they wanted? But what she said was, "That sounds like what we heard about. Is SAM okay? I can't imagine how worried I would be if I had no idea where Peri was or if it was safe."

I had no idea what to say to that, so I said, "I need to go." Then I did what I kept thinking about doing, and walked out of the room.

 

~Chapter 21~

Remember when I said I didn't want to have to sneak around and rescue someone on this trip?

ART said, Yes. I remember everything you say.

Okay. That was — I pushed that thought far away. Because that wasn't the point. The point was that we were sneaking around trying to rescue someone, after I'd specifically said I didn't want to to do that. Then again, I wound up doing a lot of things I specifically said I didn't want to do.

Technically, you are not the one doing the rescuing.

Right. I wasn't doing the rescuing, because I got to be the distraction. Yay.

SAM was the one doing the rescuing, or at least trying to find out if Scout was there, needing to be rescued.

Lutran said the station had an impound section that was isolated from the rest of the docking ring, one that DockSys didn't have access to. SAM was there, along with one drone for backup. I had the drone input backburnered, but ART was sharing it on board to keep the humans from constantly asking for updates.

Meanwhile, I was in the main transit ring of the station, so that anyone looking for a suspicious SecUnit would find me and not SAM. I wasn't even erasing myself from video surveillance.

ART said, Try to look more suspicious. No one has noticed you, and you are meant to be drawing attention.

I hate drawing attention.

You have expressed that opinion multiple times. Yet you do many things that draw attention. ART dropped a set of newsburst articles into the feed. It really had been keeping track of me.

None of those were on purpose, I said.

ART countered, Many of them were on purpose. They simply also had a secondary goal, usually to protect someone from harm.

I didn't have a good answer for that. What's your point?

Iris and Dr. Mensah have volunteered to join you. They should be approaching your location now.

What? That's a terrible idea, I told ART. They should be staying where it's safe.

ART said, Both Iris and Dr. Mensah were on the station for several days before our arrival, investigating Lutran's claims. They will be considerably more safe with you than they were on their own.

I couldn't argue with that, even though I really, really wanted to.

"There you are!" Iris said cheerily, drawing more attention with a simple greeting than I'd managed the entire time I'd been in the transit ring. "We have good news!"

She and Dr. Mensah sat down at the table I'd been using as a cover to catalog all the potential security threats. Dr. Mensah said, "Arada and Ratthi have been talking with Iris' fathers, and Perihelion has agreed to be our transport back to Preservation."

"Peri is already being smug about it with the other MIs," Iris said.

ART said, It's not being smug to share updates about flight plans and crew manifests.

It was stupid to feel panic about ART's other crew members knowing that I was on board. It had made an entire slideshow about me, obviously they knew I existed.

You are welcome, any time, ART said in our private channel. But the choice is entirely yours.

My face must have been doing something again, because Dr. Mensah said, "Would you prefer to talk about something else for now?"

I'd prefer it if we didn't talk at all. I said, "That depends what you want to talk about."

Dr. Mensah said, "The others told me that SAM is a Combat SecUnit that you met on TranRollinHyfa? And it agreed to help you?"

That definitely wouldn't be easier to talk about. I said, "That was an accident."

Dr. Mensah's eyebrows went up. "You convinced a Combat SecUnit to assist you, disabled its governor module, and brought it here to reunite with an armed, wormhole-capable ship… by accident?"

It really didn't sound good when she put it like that. "Yes?"

"Please don't misunderstand me, I'm extremely impressed. I'm not entirely sure how that chain of events could have unfolded, but I trust you."

Dr. Mensah smiled, and I thought about walking away. Except I was there to protect them, and even if I left, they would probably follow me. "I — didn't do it alone," I said, and poked ART in the feed. Help.

"Yes, I've been speaking with your friend ART," Dr. Mensah said.

(I thought about objecting to the word 'friend.' But I thought it might not be entirely wrong, and I didn't want to think about it right then.)

In the group feed, ART said, I was pleased to be able to assist, Dr. Mensah. SecUnit speaks very highly of you.

I immediately sent, I take it back, stop helping.

ART sent me a series of laughing sigils, and said, You're still not drawing enough attention.

Dr. Mensah said, "I have an idea." She sounded almost apologetic, which meant I could guess her next words even before she said them. "SecUnit, I don't think you're going to like it."

I already hated it, actually. Nothing good ever followed a statement like that.

Dr. Mensah said, "When I left Preservation, Bharadwhaj stayed behind and agreed to be the contact person for any media inquiries. She's thinking about making a documentary."

At least one of the humans was sensible enough to stay somewhere safe. "Bharadwhaj is my new favorite human," I said.

Ratthi was listening to us over the open comm channel, and said, "Hey!" and then, "No, you're right, that's fair."

"She's looking for first-hand accounts from people within the Corporation Rim, including constructs. We could make a few discreet inquiries here. It would be a good place to let people know there was someone interested in their story."

This would be a terrible place to let people know. I said, "Ratthi is my favorite human again."

"Yes!"

"It would draw the attention of Station Security, and pull them away from the docking ring," Iris pointed out. "They'd want to get us out of here, probably after collecting a fine for causing a public disturbance."

I said, "It's dangerous," even though it was probably less dangerous than most of the things we could do to cause a disturbance. "But it's a good idea."

It only took a few minutes of saying things like 'interview' and 'working conditions' where keyword surveillance could easily flag them to get noticed by Security. Then a few more minutes when I assumed Security was running facial recognition scans and getting more alarmed by the second.

SAM said, Mission success, headed back to ART, at about the same time a dozen armed Station Security officers started moving towards us across the transit ring. DockSys helpfully informed me that their orders were only to scare us into leaving, not to detain anyone.

I said, "That's enough. We need to go."

Dr. Mensah and Iris immediately ended their conversations and moved towards me, and it was so surprising I actually froze for half a second.

ART said, Did you think they wouldn't listen to you?

I didn't think they would listen to me so quickly.

ART replayed Gurathin saying, 'If you want them to be less trusting, you're going to have to stop being so competent and trustworthy' again. It really needed to stop doing that.

 

~Chapter 22~

Everyone crowded into the bridge once we were back on board. It had barely cleared the docking ring when a ship shot out from the station, close enough to set off ART's proximity alarms.

"What is that?" Gurathin asked.

SAM took a step closer to the display screen. "That's my ship!"

The ship was small, barely big enough to support a wormhole drive. It was average-looking in that deliberate way that ships trying not to be noticed usually were. It also looked like someone had been shooting at it.

"Do you know what happened to it?"

"If I knew what happened to it, I would already be —" SAM cut itself off, probably because it was reconsidering how to end that statement. I was pretty sure it wanted to say 'murdering whoever did it,' and it didn't think we wanted to hear that. After a pause long enough for even the humans to notice, it finished, "— making plans to make sure it never happened again."

ART said, "Scans indicate no major damage."

On our private channel, I said, Do we have a plan if there's active pursuit? I didn't think PSUMNT or Preservation had the resources to back up a claim of ownership, and even ART might struggle to bluff its way through that level of bullshit.

I always have a plan, ART said.

(That meant no.)

As soon as it passed the station's outer perimeter buoys, the ship started pinging ART. A lot. I think it knows you're here, ART said dryly.

SCOUT! SAM shouted in the feed, along with a burst of compressed data I pretended not to notice.

Scout sent back, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the pings stopped.

There, SAM said. If anyone starts shooting, scatter and get away as quickly as possible. But Scout has a plan.

ART said, Station Security is communicating with Scout.

I already knew that, because DockSys was upset by the violation of protocol, and was complaining to me about it.

I said, They think someone's on board. Is there?

SAM sent a response:negation and said, It's a trick. It pretends it had a pilot who told it to do whatever it got in trouble for doing, and that the pilot mysteriously abandoned ship right before it was caught. Obviously no one would ever really do that, but humans are mostly dumb and don't think bot pilots are smart enough to lie.

I (who had actually done that more than once) decided to keep my mouth shut for once. I asked DockSys if it had considered initiating a mandatory safety lockdown to ensure none of the air barriers had been compromised by the protocol violation. DockSys thought that was a great idea, and the resulting chaos made it easier for ART and Scout to 'coincidentally' slip away in the same direction.

We would travel together to the next station, where Lutran had contacts waiting for him, and SAM and Scout could go — wherever they were planning to go.

Do you know where you're going next?

SAM's feed presence was already intertwined with Scout's, and they were both practically radiating satisfaction. It said, Lutran offered to introduce us to a few other independent contractors, we might take him up on it. Or not. Might keep our eye out for other Units. Just in case.

!!! Scout said.

You could come with us, SAM said. If you wanted to. You don't owe anything to these people.

I could feel ART lurking anxiously. Did I owe the humans anything? They had purchased my contract, so technically, maybe I did. But they said they didn't want anything from me, so maybe I didn't. Humans were confusing.

"I want to see Preservation," I said out loud. It still felt strange to have things that I wanted, that I could make happen. "At least to visit."

I didn't think ART was wrong about this. There were parts of my function that I liked, and wanted to keep doing. I liked keeping people safe, and finding smart ways to keep them safe, especially when they listened to me when I told them they were doing something stupid and should stop immediately.

Offer's open, SAM said. I have a feeling we'll run into each other again.

I said, Try to stay out of trouble.

SAM sent a series of clips about the 'potentially dangerous rogue SecUnit' affiliated with the Preservation Alliance. You're the one who can't seem to stay out of the newsbursts. Maybe take your own advice.

ART had switched from anxious lurking to outright laughing at me.

I said, I'm not doing it on purpose.

But I thought, maybe, ART was right about that too. Maybe I was doing it on purpose, because it was exactly what I wanted to be doing.