Chapter Text
As I waited two tables away in the busy food court for my humans to finish their meal, I started another list of possible ways to prevent us from ever going down onto a planet again. Number one was convince ART to not let them leave the ship (unlikely; Iris could convince ART to do just about anything, and she liked planets—and especially the aquatic lifeforms found on some of them—far too much). Number four was hack the newsfeeds to say that all the planets had been blown up, and I had stalled out there. Yeah, it wasn’t my best work. My performance reliability was hovering around 90%, which I attributed to the chewing noises assailing me from every side.
Of all the places you could possibly go on a planet, this might be the worst: A large public area, crammed as full as possible with tables and chairs, where humans and augmented humans wolfed down cheap food as quickly as possible so they could get on with their shopping or whatever else they were in this mall for. It reeked of old fryer oil and food spices, and the high ceiling made all the chatter and gulping and squishing echo weirdly so the sounds were coming at you from all sides. Also, the environmental control system was malfunctioning and it was freezing.
I hunched down in my seat, hood pulled up over my head, and tried to focus on the episode of WorldHoppers I was rewatching. All the noise was giving me a headache, and I almost regretted not letting my humans make this outing on their own. The planet was a little rock with no resources or native lifeforms that had been terraformed into a sparsely populated farming world. The crime rates were so low they almost didn’t register with my risk assessment module, and the place was so far off any regular trade routes that there was no reason for anyone to be here unless they worked here or were doing deep-space research. Iris, Tarik, and Matteo were smart and careful; if anyone could take a day trip to a mall without getting themselves killed, it was them.
But.
A new reboot of the old adventure drama To the End of Time was coming out today. For some nostalgia-related reason, the initial premiere was not being released straight to the feed like any normal entertainment, but screened in actual physical theaters. Of course, I could have easily hacked into the private feed where the theater got its media downloads to watch in the comfort of my room back on ART. (In fact, I had already pulled the files to watch with ART when we got back.) But Iris insisted that watching the movie in the physical theater was an important part of the experience , and maybe ART was rubbing off on me because I found myself agreeing to go with her and the other two humans.
Now that I was here on the planet, surrounded by dozens of humans slurping noodles and crunching slices of fried vegetables, I was second-guessing that decision. I could feel the headache tightening around my temples—and the broken environmental system was just annoying. I was tempted to hack into the mall’s systems and try to fix it, but it would be even more annoying to get myself thrown out before I even got to see the movie, so I just ticked up my internal temperature a degree or two to make up for the frigid room.
Finally the waiting was over (there was really no reason to get down to the planet with two hours before the showing we had planned to watch, but the humans had wanted to make a day trip of it) and we were able to leave the eating area and make our way into the cool, quiet darkness of the movie theater. We paid the ridiculous price for tickets (paying to watch media, why was this a thing) and settled into our seats, the humans congratulated themselves on their foresight in sneaking in snacks purchased at a mall kiosk earlier that morning instead of paying for the theater’s overpriced food. My headache was still a nagging pressure/pain behind my eyes and I nudged down my pain sensors so I could fully enjoy the film. Despite the absolute pointlessness of this activity, the theater was more than half full as the lights dimmed; probably a result of the limited leisure activites on this little planet.
It was . . . okay, it was an interesting experience to see a movie on a big screen with a whole group of people. Having the sounds of explosions and dramatic music thrown at you from big speakers so your chest thumped with the bass was very different from having it piped directly into your skull from the feed. And it was kind of nice to hear the reactions from other people—the murmurs of satisfaction around the theater as important characters from the old media made their reappearance; the laughs at callbacks to the original series; an audible gasp from a person two rows in front at a big plot twist, followed by nervous laughter. I’d watched lots of media with ART, of course, but this felt like a social activity in a different way—one that I didn’t actually hate.
It would’ve been better if it hadn’t been so damn cold. I wondered if the people here, way out on the edge of their sun’s habitable zone, were used to a lower ambient temperature. I had to nudge my internal temperature up again during the movie to stay comfortable, and I was a little distracted by worrying about whether the humans were uncomfortable in the cold. Nobody said anything about it, but I couldn’t help but glance over at Iris next to me, wondering how she wasn’t shivering.
After the movie, we had some time to kill before we needed to get back on the shuttle to return to ART and so we wandered up the mall again, the humans browsing the stores but not buying anything (another human activity I could not understand; why would you shop if you didn’t absolutely have to?) and discussing the movie. Even though I didn’t have any interest in the shopping, I did want to talk about the movie, so I followed along into jewelry shops and novelty T-shirt stores and one horribly over-perfumed shop that I think sold soaps.
I was distracted, though; something was wrong with my systems. I kept getting blank error notifications that popped up two or three at a time but never led to anything. I ran a diagnostic but it didn’t turn up anything other than a slow processor speed. But there was definitely something wrong; now I was down to 85% performance reliability. I paused the episode I’d been watching and backburnered all my nonessential inputs so I could put all my attention on keeping the humans safe until we got back to ART and I could do a restart and see if that fixed the problem.
A squeal from Iris made my organic parts clench up, but a moment later I realized she had just stumbled on an array of To the End of Time merch, tie-ins for the new movie. Mostly it was insulated cups for hot and cold drinks with funny lines from the original paired with the characters from the rebooted version, but there were also some T-shirts that were printed to look the crew uniforms from one of the ships. (They were really stupid uniforms; flimsy spandex things that didn’t look comfortable at all and got ripped any time the characters got in a fight. Plus, the logo of the government/corporation that they worked for was prominently displayed on the left chest area.)
“We need these,” Tarik agreed. Matteo was already going through the pile of shirts, looking for our sizes.
“SecUnit, large or XL?” they asked.
I tried to do the laugh that people do to imply that what the other person said was obvious just a joke and dispel any tension about not taking them seriously. I’m not sure it worked, so I said, “I have enough shirts.”
“Will you at least try one on, just to take a picture?” Iris asked. I could tell she expected me to change my mind about buying the shirt once I saw myself in it. I reminded myself that these humans wanted to be my friend despite all the murdering, and this would make them happy, and shrugged my agreement.
We got some annoyed looks from the human working the kiosk, so we ended up buying the shirts before putting them on (sure enough, Iris bought the one intended for me, saying it was “for Seth”). For reasons that I didn’t quite follow, the picture couldn’t be taken back on ART, we needed to go back to the small area of greenery in the center of the mall. I followed my humans, not entirely sure why they were having such a good time with this simple action of purchasing clothing and putting it on, but glad that they were. So often, I saw the crew under stress; it was nice to get to watch them happy and relaxed.
Of course, I was the one who messed that up. We were lining up to take a group photo, and the others had their arms slung around each others’ shoulders. I stood awkwardly at the side, and Iris glanced at me. “Um, do you want . . . ?” She half raised one arm, as if making a space for me to slip into. “It’s okay if you don’t,” she added hurriedly.
I didn’t bother hiding my eye roll. I don’t like touching just to touch, but it’s okay if it’s for an actual purpose, like carrying a client out of danger or boosting a human into an escape vehicle or putting pressure on a bleeding injury. Obviously, this wasn’t an emergency situation like those, but there was a reason to touch in this case (to make a better photo, which would make the humans happy, and incidentally please ART) so that put it in the category of “annoying but acceptable touching.” Even better, the contact would last a defined, short period of time. I stepped into the circle of Iris’s arm and put my arm over the others’ shoulders.
The humans grinned for the camera and I tried to keep my face SecUnit-neutral. The shutter snapped two shots, and the humans shifted their positions, because they were humans and couldn’t stand still for fifteen second without fidgeting. Matteo rolled their shoulders and stepped back a little, and it brought the bare skin of their neck in contact with my hand.
They yelped and flinched away.
My energy weapons had clicked out and I was already shoving Iris behind me before I realized Matteo seemed more surprised than hurt or scared. They were rubbing the back of their neck and frowning, but in confusion. I checked them for injuries anyway and saw a crescent-shaped red mark against their brown skin, faint but slightly raised and irritated. The weird thing was, I knew that shape. I stared down at my hand, at the curve of the line where my organic parts met my metal casing.
“What the fuck?” Matteo said. “SecUnit, why is your hand so hot?”
I touched my hand with the organic skin on my other hand. It felt a little warm, but not enough to hurt anyone. I hadn’t even nudged up my internal temperature enough to take care of the chill of the station air.
“It’s not,” I mumbled, bewildered.
“Can I?” Tarik asked. When I nodded, he carefully put a hand on my wrist, then hissed. “ Shit. ”
“Are you okay?” Automatically, I reached out to grab his hand so I could check if he was injured, then remembered just in time that my hands were kind of—maybe—the problem here.
Tarik showed me his fingers; his skin didn’t show any damage, at least. “Fine, but what is going on?”
“Why can’t I feel it?” I touched my own wrist again and didn’t feel anything.
“Is it okay if I touch your organic skin?” Iris asked. The weirdness of that question made some of my internal organic parts shrivel up, but it was for an actual reason, so I nodded. She carefully pressed two fingers to the organic skin on my fingertips, then, after waiting for another nod, my neck. “Your skin is really warm too,” she said. “Maybe that’s why the metals parts feel normal to you.”
“Is there any reason why you might be overheating?” Matteo asked.
I shook my head, then reconsidered. I had intentionally raised my body temperature—but not enough to burn anyone. Or had I put it up more than I thought? I ran a scan of my memories and found that throughout the course of the movie I’d bumped it up (and then promptly forgotten it) no less than eight times. Yikes.
“Shit. I was raising my temperature because it’s so cold here,” I explained. “I’m having some, I don’t know; something’s weird with my memory and I lost track of how many times I’d done it.”
The others exchanged weird looks. Bad weird. “It’s not cold here?” Tarik said, and it came out like a question.
That didn’t make any sense; I’d been freezing for the past four hours on this stupid planet. Something juddered inside my brain and I found my buffer saying, “Can you please confirm that information.”
“It really isn’t cold,” Iris said.
She glanced at Matteo, who nodded. “I’ve been comfortable this entire time.” They raised their arms, showing their short sleeves.
I was starting to feel like a bug under investigation, and I fixed my eyes on a storefront in the far distance, beyond the greenery. “I think . . . maybe there’s something wrong with me,” I muttered.
“Let’s get back to the shuttle,” Tarik said.
“Can you turn your temperature back down?” Iris asked. “It probably isn’t good for it to be that high.”
Oh yeah. I reset my internal temperature systems, and immediately felt like I was sitting in the middle of a snowstorm. I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.
We made our way quickly to the other end of the mall, where we could take a shuttle bus to the spaceport. Outside the planet’s atmosphere was dry and hazy with dust, and smelled faintly of animal waste products. As we waited for the shuttle bus, the others were quieter than they’d been all day.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“For what?” Tarik asked, at the same time that Matteo exclaimed, “No, don’t be!”
“You have no reason to be sorry,” Iris insisted.
You’re going to force me to say it, aren’t you? Iris, you’re not my favorite anymore. “We were supposed to stay longer.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Matteo said. “Obviously, getting back home is the priority now.”
I stared at a group of insects busily dissecting a dead reptile at the edge of the road. “Exactly. You were having fun. You still would be.” If it weren’t for me.
“You didn’t choose for this to happen,” Matteo said stubbornly. “Things go wrong, it happens.”
“On missions, sure. This was supposed to be leisure time.”
Iris frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
It made sense to me before I said it, but now I’d lost track of the logic behind it. Was that part of the issue in my systems too? Now that I’d admitted there was a problem, it was hard not to assume everything I experienced was a part of it. I ran another diagnostic, but sure enough, other than the slow processing speed (that could probably be attributed to me accidentally boiling myself with my own internal systems), it didn’t show any problems.
The shuttle bus finally arrived, and we got on, the humans doing the thing where they’re careful not to look at me directly but are all watching me out of the corners of their eyes. I gritted my teeth and tried to pretend that they weren’t there, and also that I didn’t exist. It didn’t really work.
I realized I was still wearing the stupid To the End of Time T-shirt, and I stripped it off and handed it back to Iris. Pulling my hooded sweatshirt back over my head brought my performance reliability up half a percentage point, and also made me feel like I was maybe just in an arctic wasteland instead of in the absolute zero of the void of space.
Are you still cold? Iris asked softly over the feed.
No, I lied instantly. I realized I was shivering a little and I instantly killed that process.
Want my jacket?
I did. I would have rather ripped my own arm off (yes, I’ve done that) than taken it. No.
::expression sigil::gentle sadness
I almost sent back the middle finger symbol before remembering this wasn’t ART. Instead, I closed the feed connection (and four more empty error messages that had popped up) and pretended to be watching media.
I got another two percentage points of performance reliability just from walking into ART’s shuttle—but it had dropped more than five percent over the course of the bus ride, so it still wasn’t really a win. Before we were even off the ground, ART was looming into my feed, demanding diagnostics and status updates; one of the humans must’ve contacted it as soon as we were in range.
ART, calm down, I sent. I didn’t have the energy for this. I settled into one of the flight seats and shut my eyes. Here. I sent it all the diagnostics I’d run over the last hour or two, and the history of all my internal temperature system adjustments.
Why did you do that to yourself?
Okay, fair question. I don’t know. I felt cold.
According to data from the planet’s political administration and my shuttle sensors, the ambient temperature on the surface has been well within the range of—
Fuck, ART, I know ! I think something’s wrong with my sensors.
Let’s run some assessments. Can you cover your left eye and try to read the text at the screen at the front of the shuttle?
As Tarik lifted us out of the spaceport and started the shuttle toward our rendez-vous with ART in orbit, ART ran me through a series of tests: Visual was fine, and so was hearing. After a very awkward five minutes where I had to sit with my eyes closed while ART instructed Iris to touch different parts of my organic and inorganic skin (with the end of a pen, or I would’ve put myself out the airlock), it concluded that my pressure sensors were also okay.
What about pain sensors? ART asked me. Pinch yourself.
I rolled my eyes and followed the instructions—but I didn’t feel anything. Huh. Then I remembered I had dialed them down because of my headache. (I usually remembered stuff like that. I was starting to think that . . . well, I wasn’t sure what, exactly. But it wasn’t good.) I reset them to normal.
Oh. Oh, shit.
It turned out there had been a lot of pain going on in the background, pinging away at my dulled sensors. My head was still throbbing like it was being held in a vise, and my organic skin was stinging at all the edges from prolonged contact with my heated metal parts. There was also a lot of inexplicable pain firing off randomly around my body, especially around my joints. It felt like I’d been in a fight three or four days ago, and maybe also jumped under the treads of a hauler bot.
Ow.
StatusUpdate - STATUSUPDATE, ART sent in such quick succession I thought it was glitching.
Okay, ART, chill. I sent a summary.
Why did you have your pain sensors off ? Even through the thin shuttle feed instead of the full shipboard feed, I could feel the barely restrained frustration/worry in ART’s voice.
I had a headache. It was too noisy down there. Before ART could jump in, I added, NOT malfunctioning-sensors noisy, just . . . too many humans eating noisy.
Did you notice anything else unusual this morning, before leaving for the planet?
I thought back. I’d been tired, but I thought it was “I have to socialize with humans for eight hours” anticipatory tiredness. Now I wasn’t sure. I sent the feed equivalent of a shrug. I don’t know. I was tired but that’s kind of my normal.
You should rest, ART said. I’ll be able to know more when I have you on board. It immediately negated this instruction by demanding another diagnostic and a history of my recharge cycles during the past four weeks.
Apparently, it was also busy in the background spilling my business to the humans, because Iris came up and crouched down beside my seat. “We’ll be there in just over two hours,” she said, unnecessarily; the shuttle’s status display showed the estimated arrival time, and also I had my own internal clock. “Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable until then? I could get you some ice for your head, it helps Kaede with her migraines sometimes when medication doesn’t do anything.”
My face must have made a reaction, because she drew back, but she didn’t go away entirely until I shook my head violently, gritting my teeth against the stab of pain it sent through my brain. Even after she went back to her seat, she kept glancing over at me, her face worried. Fuck you, ART, you told them?
I tell you when they need help.
This is different.
I fail to see the difference. It really wasn’t fair that ART could put so much smugness into a disembodied feed voice. The price I pay in exchange for my superior processing power is a physical form with, admittedly, some limitations. I have long since accepted that I must rely on my crew members to accomplish some things that I cannot. Supplying on-planet security for my crew is one of those things. Supporting an unwell crew member while away from me is another.
I’m not sick, I snapped, disgusted. SecUnits don’t get sick. Something’s messed up in my brain, that’s all.
Again, I fail to see the difference.
I flipped ART off in the feed, and shut my eyes, hoping that if I ignored the humans they might ignore me too. I tried to watch the latest episode of a detective serial set in the early CR days, but the story was too complicated and I kept missing important plot points and having to back up to figure out what was going on. I shut it off and opened an episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon at random.