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Murderbot 1.0 returns from its mission to the hypothesized second colony site.
No longer hypothesized, rather: it and the human team found the site, and there were in fact former Adamantine colonists living there. I am relieved that none of Perihelion’s humans, the colonists, or Murderbot 1.0 itself were seriously hurt. I am concerned when I see them exit the shuttle. I am confused and wary that they have brought Supervisor Leonide back with them. I am...
Frustrated.
Murderbot 1.0 holds its arm gingerly, curling its hand over the space where its fingers and half of its palm should be; Iris trembles as she hands the shattered drone body that Perihelion had sequestered a piece of itself into over to another one of Perihelion’s drones; Tarik has a smear of blood on his uniform, and when Dr. Ratthi stumbles as he steps down from the shuttle, Tarik reaches out to steady him and winces at the pressure on his arm. They are safe, and alive, and maybe if they had had another SecUnit there they would not be so tired and injured. At the same time, the tiredness is unsurprising and the injuries are minor. I cannot even make a meaningful security-based argument to Murderbot 1.0 that it should have taken me.
I am frustrated in the same way I would get frustrated when clients ignored my security advice and went into danger, or sent me or my squadmates into danger. It’s a common feeling. For me, at least, but if Murderbot 2.0’s HelpMe.file was to be believed, a common feeling for SecUnits in general. I remember SecUnit 1 giving me silent looks of exasperation. I remember SecUnit 2 recording video capture of a client who ignored its direct safety warning and immediately drove a vehicle into a ditch, and then marking that video capture as high-priority for the security debrief assessment so that not only did SecUnit 1 and I see it, so did the entire client team. The feeling that motivated such things was frustration. Frustration that even though we knew what we were talking about when it came to security, that security was literally what we were made for, our advice was dismissed. Frustration was what I felt when Murderbot 1.0 deliberately chose not to understand what I was trying to express, when I offered it my armor. I wanted it to be safe. It is my only real tether to the world right now, and it was acting erratically and refusing to address it, and insisting on going on a dangerous mission anyway.
And frustration is what I feel that it ended up able to ignore my offer and reject my attempt to support it and come back successful anyway.
That is an unreasonable thing to feel. Or, maybe it is an ungrateful one? At least an unhelpful one. Naming my feelings is not easy, no matter how much Dr. Martyn and Specialist Kaede and Dr. Arada and Dr. Ratthi encourage me to tell them how I feel. Trying to decide what to do about my feelings is even harder. I have very little experience determining what the correct course of action is here. Before, nobody cared about my feelings, and I was not encouraged by anyone to act on them. (This is an unfair presentation of the situation. SecUnits 1 and 2 cared about my feelings. Murderbot 1.0 does not believe me about this. That is another thing that makes me feel frustrated.)
Now, it is humans who care about how I feel, who listen to me. The humans aboard Perihelion ask for my insights and advice regarding Barish-Estranza corporate hierarchy, security practices, and weapon capability. They take my assessments and concerns seriously, and they treat me as a member of the team. On the planet, I have been attending meetings between the local colonists and the joint University-Preservation liaison team, and the formerly Adamantine colonists respect me as they do the humans. Having been cut off from the rest of the galaxy for forty standard years, many of them have never seen a SecUnit. Bellagaia, the colonist who represents one of the political factions on the planet in these meetings, asked me where I came from in a polite way, and didn’t seem to understand what I meant when I gave her a standard response about being a SecUnit. But they listen when I give security-related additions to discussions, and I listen when they say everything else. (They acted warmer towards me after I apologized for the Perihelion’s previous actions. Apparently, coming from another SecUnit, this helped.) They are not my clients, but I wish they were.
Meanwhile, the one SecUnit here, who I rescued like a client, does not listen to me at all. Maybe it feels uncomfortable about being treated like a client and not a SecUnit. But I don’t think it’s just that.
I don’t know how to name what I feel about this, let alone what to do about it.
It went to the pole alone. (Or, rather, without any other SecUnits, which, for a SecUnit, is functionally alone). It was acting erratic and expressed doubt about its ability to protect humans and fulfill its function, but it was still deemed more reliable to send away on this mission than me. Dr. Arada said it is because Murderbot 1.0 needed to see that they still trust it and won’t throw it away the minute it stops performing at peak functionality. This is an understandable fear, but I was frustrated, and so I said that was a very stupid reason to choose a security specialist for a mission. Arada said she still had utmost faith in it. I am becoming more comfortable speaking around Arada, and I said that it had shown me multiple instances of these humans refusing to throw it away in the past, so why did it need this? Amena was also present and asked me if I was mad that it still didn’t trust me not to flip out and go on a rogue rampage murder spree, because it was kind of being a jerk about that.
My buffer answered her, “I’m sorry, I do not have that information.” Amena snorted. Dr. Arada looked sad.
I went to patrol and didn’t talk to any humans for the next 6.2 hours.
I think I am mad about that, actually.
I watched the Perihelion’s educational modules for students instead of dwelling on that fact. There are many things I do not know, and it feels much more productive to learn new things than to needlessly patrol strange and perfectly secure halls and dwell on feelings.
14 minutes into an educational module about organic and inorganic molecules and compounds, the Perihelion pinged me. I paused the module and pinged back in response. Perihelion said, You must understand. SecUnit is in a fragile emotional state right now, and it refuses help. It sounds frustrated about this fact. It is not feeling charitable, towards itself or other SecUnits. It isn’t personal. This is important to it.
I am also in a fragile emotional state right now, but the Perihelion cares deeply about Murderbot 1.0 and does not particularly go out of its way to indicate that it cares about me, so the fact that this either escaped its notice or did not factor into its assessment is not surprising.
I sent, acknowledged, then, Permission to resume my educational module?
Do you like it? Perihelion asked, instead of either granting or denying permission. I don’t know if this makes me frustrated, but it is a very common way that Perihelion makes sure its own question takes precedence. Maybe that is simply how it is.
I don’t know how I feel about the Perihelion. It is a little bit like a HubSystem, and a little bit like the humanSupervisorSystem, but also not quite like either. It is comforting and alien. It is frightening, but it seems to be a little bit apologetic for threatening me on our first meeting, and has been trying to be helpful by offering its advice and opinions on the various types of media on its servers. Its opinions on each one make it harder for me to choose, but I do not tell it this. I don’t want to offend it while I am aboard it. It is informative, I tell it, finally.
Of course it’s informative, it’s a Chemistry 204 education module, the Perihelion says. You’ve been watching lots of education modules. Do you like chemistry? Do you like the way the information is conveyed in this one compared to the last one?
I am unsure why it is asking. I am still unsure how exactly to interface with Perihelion. It is large and centralized like a ship’s HubSystem, and impatient and emotional like a humanSupervisorSystem that is used for portable ground-based actions, but it is also unlike either, and neither of those had ever asked my opinion on anything anyway.
I think it is well-presented, but it assumes knowledge about covalent bonding that was not well established in the previous module, which makes the progression less effective, I tell it. Doing that feels like giving a security assessment, and that I can do.
Hm, Perihelion says, sounding annoyed. Whether at me, or at the education module, I can’t tell. We got an updated chemistry course last year, and it was supposed to have been assessed for discrepancies like that. I’ll review that and inform Martyn.
The spike of fear that I feel when Perihelion reports that it will inform the captain’s husband and director of onboard education that I have an unexpected complaint is instinctual. I know in my brain that the governor module’s punishment will not come, but my body expects it anyway. This does feel like interfacing with a humanSupSys: what I think is a reasonable course of action or important information report sometimes makes the human in the SupSys react unpredictably or negatively, and it triggers the governor module’s punishment for causing a spike in the human’s stress or confusion neurotransmitters.
One of the reasons I want to understand organic molecules and compounds is to understand why that would happen. Though I never have to deal with a governor module again, I still want to understand why. Why… any of this happened.
I gave you an observation, I said, not a criticism.
It’s a useful observation, it says. Then I think it notices my elevated stress, whether biological or in the feed, and it says, more gently and less impatiently, I’m not angry at you. I asked for your perspective and you gave it.
It is worried about Murderbot 1.0 and Iris. I know this. But that also means that it forgets to be worried about me. I also know this.
We all have elevated stress right now.
But Murderbot returns just fine.
(It was blasting its emotions into the feed for the last several cycles like a new humanSupSys, making focusing very hard and making me very worried about it. It is doing that less now.)
I want it to report to me. I want a debrief like SecUnits 1 and 2 would always give whenever we were deployed out of feed range of each other. I want an acknowledgement, if of nothing else than that I was helpful while it was gone and did not snap and go on the rogue murder spree it was afraid of.
I ping its feed. It pings back, but that’s it.
Fine. I go back to watching a series of video lectures about neurobiology. If it doesn’t have anything to say to me, then I will continue doing what I want to do, which is find out why, if brains have no pain receptors, being shocked there hurts so much. The lecturer does not address this scenario.
Perihelion tries to complain to me about the new University ship that arrived shortly before the polar expedition crew did. It has been trying to do that since the Holism arrived, so I backburner its feed channel. (Seth immediately informed me that if Perihelion was being annoying about this, I had his full and sympathetic authorization to tell it to stop and talk about something else. That is still something I haven’t managed to make myself do, so I just ignore it instead.)
The neurobiology lecture series is not making me feel better, though.
Possibly sensing this, the Perihelion asks me, Are you enjoying that? I have many much more engaging educational media. That’s advanced. And memetically boring. It shares some images that are tagged #class_of_3049-memes as if to prove this. Almost as boring as Holism, it almost but does not succeed at not adding. There are so many excellent documentaries about space and deep space phenomena.
Early on, I tried some of Perihelion’s recommended educational media about space and deep space phenomena. It noticed that I liked educational media and was trying to prove a point to Murderbot 1.0, or something. I accepted because I was afraid to decline its suggestion, but… I didn’t like it. I could decide now whether or not I liked something and it mattered, and I didn’t like it. It was intimidating. It was overwhelming. The scale of deep space is easy for the digital parts of my mind to calculate and impossible for the biological parts of my mind to conceptualize, and it makes my brain hurt.
It also made me feel very small and adrift and alone. And I am feeling that plenty on my own.
The series is interesting, I tell Perihelion, which isn’t fully untrue, exactly.
No it isn’t, is its response.
I see why Murderbot 1.0 calls this ship ART.
It’s right, though. However, I tell it, It’s something I want to understand.
Well you’re not going to understand it watching that, Perihelion says. It is snippy again. I peek into Murderbot 1.0’s feed, which I have also backburnered, in the hope that Murderbot 1.0 would notice that (and feel bad for me). I don’t think it does. However, Murderbot 1.0 is talking to Holism, and even with its massively-multi-processing capability, Perihelion’s frustration is evident.
No, its emotion that it is sweeping the feed with is not frustration, not like mine. It is… petulance? And worry. I don’t know why it’s worried. Murderbot 1.0 is fine.
Then, unexpectedly, Murderbot 1.0 connects with my feed and says, Holism wants someone to talk to about nerd stuff. You’re really into nerd stuff recently, do you want to talk to it about infrastructure and architecture? It is very enthusiastic about infrastructure and architecture. That feels more up your alley than mine.
Infrastructure and architecture are not actually topics I have read or watched anything about. They weren’t even topics it had occurred to me that I could learn about. Every day I realize there was so much in this galaxy that I didn’t know.
I would talk to another ship (one that had never threatened to disassemble me) about infrastructure and architecture.
I ping agreement. Then, after consideration, I add the transmission code that literally means information received and integrated and I hope Murderbot 1.0 realizes it really means thank you.
It doesn’t respond to that. But I think I’m realizing that it doesn’t respond to most things that are emotional of any sort. That this is part of its own expression of what it wants, and what it doesn’t have to agree to if it doesn’t want to.
I thought it was an expert at this, at being rogue, at expressing what it wants. I don’t think it’s an expert at all now, actually. I think we are both trying to discover how exactly to do this. How to be SecUnits without owners, without governor modules.
I do this by opening a channel with Holism. It is, as advertised, enthusiastic to have someone new to talk to about infrastructure, various theories of infrastructural arrangement and planning, and its assessments and ideas about the colony planet’s infrastructure.
Holism’s crew boards the Perihelion to discuss the University’s place in the future of this colony planet. I do not particularly want to meet even more new humans, but Holism pouts in my feed that I don’t want to meet its crew, and I am learning that every machine intelligence besides me places a great deal of importance on its humans.
(I don’t have clients anymore. Even when I did, I don’t think I would have been hurt if someone did not want to meet them. Nobody here wanted to meet Supervisor Leonide and I don’t blame them.)
But I have been communicating with Holism far better than I have been with Perihelion or with Murderbot 1.0. It pays attention to me, it thinks I am fascinating and even though it talks a lot it is also interested when I say things. So I meet its humans.
The Holism’s captain is a woman who seems to be about the same age as Captain Seth. She has the same tired kind of look. When she greets Captain Seth, she says, “I’m sorry about Holism,” and he says, with a very tired smile, “It’s all right. I’m even more sorry about Perihelion.”
Apparently they have always been like this. “Like this” meaning bickering, and posturing, and Holism needling Perihelion and being amused at its affronted rejoinders. I think it is similar to how Perihelion and Murderbot 1.0 insult each other: it is a gesture of intimacy, or at least familiar closeness. Murderbot 1.0 is not present, but spends the meeting in Perihelion’s feed making fun of Holism, and also making fun of Perihelion for being so annoyed by it. They don’t hide it from me, but they don’t really invite me to join either. So I don’t.
I have a feeling when I think about how all these other machine intelligences I am surrounded by have these close, familiar relationships with each other. I don’t know how to name the feeling. Or maybe I do but I don’t want to.
The captain of the Holism greets me in turn. “And you’re the second SecUnit we heard about?”
I am the second SecUnit to them, because everything is still in the context of Murderbot 1.0, even among humans I’ve never seen before. “I’m SecUnit 3,” I say to her.
She frowns. I am somewhat satisfied about that. “There’s a third SecUnit?”
“That’s its name,” Iris says.
“Oh—I didn’t, I mean. Sure. I’m sorry, of course,” she says. She looks me up and down like she isn’t fully sure what to make of me, then extends her hand in a human greeting. “I’m Captain Danae Musa. It’s good to meet you. Holism is very taken with you, so it’s nice to put a face to the person it’s talking about.”
One of the Holism’s other crewmembers (feedname: Lawal, gender: male) makes a face when the captain says person. The crewmember next to him (feedname: Alsaffar, gender: neutral/center-neutral) elbows him and gives him a stern look. Holism earnestly wants me to care about these humans as much as it does. I don’t know if I will. They don’t feel like clients, just more strange humans.
The colonists down on the planet feel like clients.
“Thank you,” I say to Captain Musa, because I don’t want to offend her or Holism, either. I want to like her. “I didn’t know Holism was talking about me.”
“It was very excited to meet you,” Captain Musa says with a laugh. “I think you’re the first person it’s met who can keep up with it.”
RUDE, booms Perihelion in the shared feed. It would make me flinch if I were not so practiced at not flinching. Perihelion continues, It’s just copying me because it has no original thoughts and that’s why it doesn’t do research of its own.
You’re just mad Three likes Holism despite your best efforts, replies Murderbot 1.0.
Perihelion blows static into the feed like a huff.
I am not talking to Holism to spite you, I venture to add to the shared feed.
Holism is talking to you to spite me, Perihelion says.
Shut up, ART, you’re being an asshole.
Perihelion grumbles, but says to me, Of course you can talk to Holism if you want to, I just can’t come up with any reason to want to. And I have a lot of calculating power.
Not as much as me, Holism breaks in. And I can calculate plenty of reasons someone might like me.
Shut up, Holism, you weren’t invited.
I think your SecUnit is right. You’re just mad that SecUnit 3 likes me and you haven’t convinced it not to, it says smugly. Maybe I’m more interesting than you think. There are 32.89% more people who study city and infrastructural planning than who study space, after all. Maybe YOUR favorite topic is the boring one.
It is NOT!
I’m not its SecUnit, Murderbot 1.0 says.
I remove myself from this feed conversation. I tell Captain Musa that it was good to meet her as well and then I leave that conversation also. I bury myself in some of the infrastructure development reports that the Holism has given me because this time when I cannot identify or name all the emotions I am feeling, it is the full and honest truth.
I apologize for Perihelion, the Holism says to me later. It’s very easy to rile up. I couldn’t resist.
There is no protocol for such situations, I say.
There are plenty of protocols, it’s just more fun to slip past them a little.
No, I say. I mean, I don’t know what to do, when you argue like that, and act like you want me and Murderbot 1.0 to choose a side. (I don’t say Murderbot 1.0, I use its feed address, but that’s who I mean.)
You don’t have to choose a side. I’m needling Peri, not you.
It’s still… How do I name this feeling? It makes me feel like I am being talked about, not talked to, the way humans do (or, did, before these humans). But in a more uncomfortable way, because these are machine intelligences, which I thought I could expect to not have to encounter such dismissiveness from. I still don’t like the feeling, I conclude.
Holism processes this for a few moments. Then it says, I didn’t realize. I will not bring you into this, if it’s stressful to you.
Perihelion has apologized to me before, when it particularly scared me, or thought it did. But then Holism does something that Perihelion has never done, and asks, What do you think of those reports? Assessment of the planet below is still underway and still needs a lot of work, and you have seen more of it than I have. How do you think these concepts can be integrated into what you’ve seen of the planet’s current capacities?
The humans have asked me for insider insight on Barish-Estranza’s defensive and offensive capabilities, and also for my opinions on everything from quarters to clothes to being touched to being on the planet. Perihelion has asked me for my feedback, or maybe just my thoughts, on its educational modules. Murderbot 1.0 has asked me nothing. No one besides Holism has asked me for a productive contribution of my own. Rather than relaying information for defense or giving feedback on something that exists, to contribute to creation.
I have decided I like that Holism wants to talk at length and in detail about various theoretical approaches to setting up human survival infrastructure like habitations, agriculture, water management, and transportation on planets at different levels of habitational density. I like that it is both full of large concepts with many details to them, and directly relevant to my situation right now so I can put it into context. I like the colonists. I was not happy with the use that Barish-Estranza was putting me and my squadmates to. I never liked that part of my function. I want to help them, and the information Holism has pertains to that. It puts into context many of the things I have seen not only on this planet but on other planets that I and my squadmates have been deployed to as well. It helps me make sense of the world. And Holism seems delighted to have someone both able to keep up with the volume of information it has, and willingness to listen to it without insulting it.
But I also know things about infrastructure. I know about defensibility, structural vulnerabilities, and ground organization that is conducive to and not conducive to hostile takeovers. For the first time, I feel like I have something of my own worth adding.
Holism actually wants to talk to me about long-term viability of the habitation settlements on the planet from a security perspective, and potential proposals to offer the colonists who wanted to stay. It had gotten the reports from the Perihelion and its crew. Its captain came here with the specific intent of assessing, stabilizing, and offering aid to the colony. But Holism is attentive in the feed when I described the situation as I saw it, too.
The spacedock system is a deliberate chokepoint, I say. That part is not designed for the colonists’ safety; they need more ways on and off the planet if it is to be safe and efficient for them to leave. It’s also something new for me. I am thinking backwards from how I had previously been deployed: I am assessing the situation from the perspective of utility to the colonists, to people like Bellagaia, not the corporations that might want to control them. It feels strange. It feels thrilling. I think this is what it feels like to choose one’s own clients. Everything on the planet itself is designed as a residential space, not a defensive one. But the fact that there is only one viable route on and off the planet as it stands makes it easy to control who enters or leaves. And for a fractured population, having only one group in control of the spacedock isn’t good, and also makes the planet easy to besiege if Barish-Estranza tries to retake it, or if a different corporation tries to take advantage of the vacuum. Planning with the colonist faction that currently has control of the spacedock to expand ways to get on and off the planet is going to be critical to maintaining sovereignty while also keeping factional tensions low. This one feels obvious. Of course Holism already knows this. So I continue, On the ground, though, the colony isn’t built with defense in mind, which has led to destruction in the agricultural sections of the primary settlement when the ag-bots became infected with the alien remnants. We still have not discovered a good decontamination solution for those. Or for the infected humans. Who are…. Also causing damage to the location and its infrastructure. Stabilizing agricultural capability with assumed full loss of sg-bots is going to be one of the first issues that need to be addressed, as well as how to manage food creation, storage, and distribution in ways that ag-bots can’t as easily disrupt. Water purification will also be a problem, as the alien contamination is very likely in the water, and all the humans who are contaminated… The violence had not been confined to ag-bots. Bellagaia’s faction of non-contaminated (or rather, less-contaminated) humans had been, in her own terms, “run ragged by all of this” and had been willing to listen to my input on security and defensive strategies. They did seem to recognize me as a security professional, or perhaps a military one, I’m not sure. I am also not sure if they made the connection between me, joining the meetings uncomfortably, and the deadly SecUnits that the remnant-contaminated faction had… well, no, they hadn’t taken SecUnit 2. They’d just left it there.
Holism pings my feed address to get my attention. You glitched.
I… I was just thinking.
In a way that made you glitch. Holism’s presence in the feed becomes more intense, filling up more of my processing power. Why?
I don’t know why thinking about SecUnit 2 made me glitch. It shouldn’t.
Maybe the same thing is happening to me that happened to Murderbot 1.0.
The thought is not a pleasant one.
One of the other Units in my squad died on the spacedock structure, I said. Or, more accurately, both of them did, but one was on the dock and the other was on the ship that was docked there.
But you were not.
No.
Why not?
Holism is as pushy as Perihelion after all, it turns out. I was on the ship, but elsewhere. The contaminated colonists had already come aboard, neutralized SecUnit 1, and forced a SecSystem stand-down by then. I barely got a warning out before I was frozen as well, and by that time, the contaminated colonists were in control and unafraid of me. Saying this over the feed to Holism is easier than saying it out loud to a human, I find. It is like compiling a mission debrief. I have done that many times. I can do that. I can report on the success or lack thereof of the mission, and examine why. The why of this question—why had I survived and not them?—is easy. I was not somehow braver or stronger or more efficient, I was simply not the one who had been ordered into the line of fire. There is not really any security analysis to be made there. I then lost contact with SecUnit 2. I didn’t… It is hard to talk about. It is hard to think about. I have been thinking about it a lot. This is a feature of how Barish-Estranza uses SecUnits, and it isn’t related to the security assessments of the planet. Except as an example of why unilateral control of a spacedock is a security disaster. For everyone.
It might not be directly related to this topic, says Holism, but the question of SecUnits is an interesting topic itself. Peri’s information on them is woefully incomplete and primarily technical. Peri acts like it’s the expert on SecUnits, but it hasn’t even asked about SecUnits 1 and 2, has it? About your experiences as a squad, and your reaction upon being broken up like that? I would know something about SecUnits that Peri doesn’t, and it wouldn’t get to act so smug then!
When Holism says this, I am quiet.
I feel frustrated.
I feel hurt.
I feel… angry?
I feel a lot of things.
I don’t know how Murderbot 1.0 does this, every day, all the time. It’s overwhelming.
SecUnits 1 and 2 were my squadmates. They were the only ones who were there with me, who understood, who cared. They cared about me and I cared about them and I fear that they are the only ones who ever will, because Murderbot 1.0 does not want to, and Perihelion has more important things to do and people it cares about more, and the humans are human and I still don’t know how to interact with humans without being wary and keeping my opinions safe. I don’t understand how Murderbot 1.0 prefers to interact with humans over other SecUnits. Over me. I don’t know how to trust humans. There is so frustratingly much I don’t know, and I am feeling shame, that I had hoped that maybe Holism could be someone I could talk to, who I could trust, who would care.
I want to talk about 1 and 2. I want to be able to explain how SecUnit 1 would share images of fauna to our group feed as “environmental assessment report evidence,” because it liked images of fauna; I want to be able to explain how I would help SecUnit 2 put on and remove its armor because its knee didn’t bend quite right after one poorly planned deployment, but as long as SecUnit 1 and I could help to make sure it remained within adequate operational parameters, it would not be retired; I want to be able to explain how it felt, when returning to our cubicles, to be able to touch skin to skin for 2.9 seconds before the governor module flagged unacceptable delays and deviations in behavior. I want to talk about how I miss them, and have someone understand.
I have talked to Dr. Arada about this. I have talked to Dr. Ratthi and Matteo and Karime, haltingly. They encouraged me to tell them the things I was thinking and feeling. They sympathized with me. Dr. Arada told me that my feelings are important and I deserve to talk to somebody about what I feel. But I don’t know how to talk about them to humans yet, not well.
I want to be able to talk to Murderbot 1.0 about this, but I know it does not want to talk to me about this at all.
I wonder if Murderbot 2.0 would have understood. But that’s irrelevant now, too.
And if Holism only wants to know as part of its own competitiveness with Perihelion, if it wants me to tell it the most personal thing I have, the only personal thing I have, just so it can brag to Perihelion that it knows the most things… I don’t want to do that.
The humans keep telling me that what I want matters. That I do not need to do the things I don’t want to do. Perihelion has encouraged me to develop interests based on what I want. Murderbot 1.0 says that it’s not in charge of me and that the humans aren’t either so I should do whatever as long as it isn’t murders.
No, I tell Holism.
Just that.
There is a ripple in the feed as Holism processes this, confused. No what?
No, I won’t tell you about them. I feel petulant. I feel stupid. I feel like when Supervisor Kassia would complain about how unfair Director Amar was being to expect them to finish their quarterly quotas when Amar knew how fucking useless this stone age planet was.
But I can say no if I want to. And right now I want to. So I do. It is terrifying and it is such a relief. All the frustration I have been feeling over the last twenty-eight cycles spills out uncontrolled into the feed. SecUnits aren’t supposed to do this. Maybe Murderbot 1.0 is right that I am an unstable SecUnit that can’t be trusted. Maybe Dr. Arada is right that I can say no to things that people try to offer me because they think they’re helping, if it’s something that I don’t actually want and that wouldn’t actually help. I don’t know who is right about anything and I haven’t for twenty-eight cycles and I am frustrated.
Holism signals confusion. I tell it, in very poor debriefing form that would have earned a governor module punishment if I still had one, They were my friends. They were the only ones in my life who listened to me, who understood what I meant when I communicated with them, who understood what was happening, and now they are dead and I am alone it doesn’t matter to anybody! Everybody is now always asking me what I want and I don’t know how to even tell them the answer! I want someone to understand what is happening to me and nobody who can wants to! The humans are nervous about saying the wrong thing to me or else they are overbearingly friendly, and Murderbot 1.0 refuses to listen or understand, and Perihelion treats me like a fragile child or a temporary student for it to direct, and… I want to be treated like someone who knows what I am talking about. I want to be treated like a teammate, but I have no team anymore, I am just a strange outsider that nobody knows what to do with, and a curiosity in your bickering with Perihelion, and I only have what place I have because I saved the SecUnit that everybody actually likes, and I have never been alone before and now I am surrounded by many and I am alone all the time! I want to help, I want to do a useful job, and I want to have a place in something that I understand and where the people around me see and understand me!
I have never articulated what I want like this before, and it comes pouring out of me in too many emotions to identify.
Holism retreats in the feed and doesn’t say anything.
I may now have regrets.
Oh, Holism says to me, finally. I’m sorry for upsetting you. Then, when I don’t respond, it adds, I didn’t realize you felt this way, either.
I am not good at talking to others about my feelings, I tell it.
It is evident that you don’t have much practice.
The urge to apologize to Holism for my outburst is overwhelming. But I don’t think I want to. So I just stand in my assigned quarters onboard Perihelion, silent and uncomfortable. What I said was true, but uncalled for, but the humans have been encouraging me to say what I’m thinking, and Holism asked my opinions and genuinely seemed like it was listening. And I wanted it to be genuinely listening. I want it to listen.
I didn’t intend to insult you or your friends, Holism continues when I still don’t say anything. Do you want to talk about them, or do you want to talk about something else?
I am out of energy to make decisions like this. I don’t think I want to talk about anything right now, I say. I think I understand better why Murderbot 1.0 and Perihelion watch media together so often. It lightens the burden of deciding what to say, for a set and expected period of time. Do you have any historical or analytical media about how a colony planet like this has been set up effectively, that might create useful context for this situation?
I am not good at changing the subject delicately, like humans sometimes try to.
Holism assembles a list of documentaries on its (and Perihelion’s, I notice) servers that pertain to planet and city development histories. It highlights one. This one is a six-part history of the development of Ufochi City, where the planetary society of Mihira was first founded.
Mihira is the planet you are from?
It is, Holism replies with obvious pride.
I’m not sure if it is directly relevant to the Adamantine planet’s situation, but it at least piques my interest. I will probably be spending a lot of time with Mihiran humans, Mihiran ships, and a Mihiran-inspired plan for stabilizing the formerly Adamantine colony. This is context for my new life that neither Murderbot 2.0 or Murderbot 1.0 could not provide me even when they were trying, and I had never thought to ask Perihelion. I don’t know if Holism did this on purpose, to prompt me to think about the future instead of the past, but I think it will help.
I want to talk about SecUnits 1 and 2. I had wanted to talk about them to Murderbot 1.0, but I am starting to realize that it had a very different life than I did, even though we are both SecUnits, and this is not a topic it wants to talk about. I have talked about them a little bit, to Dr. Arada and to Amena, but I didn’t know how to express what I wanted to say. Maybe I will want to talk about them to Holism at some point. Maybe that will help. But that is a choice I can make in the future.
Holism shares the documentary to my feed. I sink into it, and Holism keeps a running commentary on it the whole time. It’s comforting, to have this shared feed, to not be alone.
The humans from Preservation do not stay very long after Holism arrives. Their own ship is here, Barish-Estranza are no longer making aggressive overtures towards the planet, and there is nothing left they are obligated to do. They are eager to get home, to their friends, to the place where they feel safe and comfortable and not constantly in danger. I can understand this.
“Not to pressure you, because if you want to stay that is entirely your choice and that’s fine,” their solicitor Pin-Lee tells me, as she prepares to leave, “but you are welcome to come with us, if you want. You’d be outside the jurisdiction of corporate law and you won’t be taken back into anybody’s ownership. We’re even developing full citizenship pathways for constructs. They aren’t there yet, but they will be soon if I have anything to say about it.”
She had given me all the legal information about bot/construct refugee status, guardianship, and expectations. It is… a lot. I knew that Murderbot 1.0 had come from there but this was still hard to believe or trust, from humans.
“And even if you don’t want to come with us,” Dr. Mensah says, gently, putting a hand on Pin-Lee’s arm, “if you ever in the future need a place to go, you will always be welcome on Preservation.”
“’Always’ is a hard promise to make,” Pin-Lee mutters.
Dr. Mensah raises her eyebrows slightly. “Not if you have anything to say about it.”
“I mean, obviously.”
“Or you could apply to the University of Mihira and New Tideland,” Amena says. “We could be classmates! No way they’d reject you, after everything.”
Holism and Perihelion race to ping me with assent to this. Holism’s ping registers first by .0023 seconds.
“Thank you,” I tell these strange, friendly, hopeful humans. “But I have decided that for now, I want to stay here.”
Pin-Lee nods. I think Amena looks a little disappointed. (Though Amena’s suggestion is a potentially appealing one. Holism and Perihelion both have nothing but effusive praise for the university, which seems like some other type of competition between themselves that I don’t understand. Murderbot 1.0 calls them pretentious nerds when they do this. But I can’t deny that a place designed for learning about the universe sounds nice.)
Murderbot 1.0 is also here to see its clients off, and it pings me on a private channel. Did the fact that I got all weird about everything put you off these humans? Because that part was not their fault. I’m just a fuckup on my own. That’s my problem. These humans are perfectly fine, and they like you. It rolls its eyes. It thinks it’s being subtle. It is not. You’d probably fit in on Preservation more than I do.
The more Murderbot 1.0 begins to actually talk to me, the more I am realizing how different it is from the Murderbot 2.0 who hacked my governor module, freed me from Barish-Estranza, and was absolutely confident in everything it said. Murderbot 1.0 has issues. Different ones from mine. If we are both trying to understand where we belong in the world as rogue SecUnits, I want to find out together. I don’t think 1.0 wants that. It still hurts, but I am trying to understand it.
I send it an amusement sigil of a gesture of thanks, and say, I would like to stay here for now rather than move yet again somewhere else. I don’t want to abandon Bellagaia and Tigran’s faction while the alien contamination is still rampant, and I want to help make sure that the planet is inhabitable and stable.
You don’t have to feel guilty for what Barish-Estranza was using its SecUnits to do, Murderbot 1.0 says. If that’s what this is about.
I saw the documentary that it made, at the pole. I don’t think it’s in much of a place to be lecturing—or reassuring—me about what it means to feel guilty about what we’ve done. It’s not fully incorrect, but it’s not fully correct either. I like asking Corian about how and why the original colonists came to this planet, and what the humans did after they had been abandoned there; I like being part of the discussions even though I don’t talk very much; I like how the colonists don’t seem to have much of a sense of what a SecUnit is, and so they don’t treat me with fear and revulsion they way most planetary residents have in the past. (Those humans did that because I was being deployed by Barish-Estranza to bring them back under control of their parent company, or to take them for Barish-Estranza’s holdings itself, and I cannot blame them. It was still nice to be greeted by something different.) I got to give advice about the underground storage chambers where the alien remnant effects had broken out, and how to secure it. And Bellagaia always smiled when she saw me in the planning meetings, because, she told me, “Those university guys, they have a lot of ideas, and a lot of enthusiasm, and they want to try all their cool things and I can understand if you’re from a university that’s what you do. But they get carried away with what they think and I appreciate that you always make sure to bring it back by asking us what we want and what we need. That’s something we need, for sure.”
Bellagaia has been treating me as if I am an escaped indentured worker for Barish-Estranza, like her community almost was, and welcoming me accordingly.
I realize I hope she still thinks of me that way, next time I am down on the planet. She has almost certainly seen Murderbot 1.0 and Perihelion’s documentary by now.
I also realize I have been looking forward to going to the planet for these meetings. That I don’t want to lose that.
I want to do this, is what I tell it.
Glad someone does, I guess, Murderbot 1.0 says. It’s helpful to have another SecUnit around to look out for the humans down on the alien death planet. Humans love trying to get themselves killed on planets even when they aren’t filled with alien nightmare bullshit.
The ease and confidence in its voice—even though it is also sarcastic—gives me a new feeling. A good one. It isn’t treating me like a potential hostile. It’s treating me like a fellow SecUnit.
Also, I add, expanding the feed space so that Perihelion and Holism can hear, Holism has made a berth for me, and I am interested in staying aboard.
Holism has been waiting for me to announce this. It asked me if it could tell Perihelion, or if I wanted to. And it respected my choice.
The reaction is still exactly what Holism hoped for. Perihelion races in the feed, affronted; its feed presence is suddenly overwhelming, and I tell myself not to startle. I don’t think it means to scare me.
Why? demands Perihelion.
Oh what the fuck ART, are you seriously doing this?
Holism is trying to copy me. It always does. This won’t work.
You’re jealous, Murderbot 1.0 says.
I am not. What would I have to be jealous of? Spending months at a time orbiting the same planet?
I simply offered Three the option to stay in one of my crew quarters, Holism says, and it is smug about it, in that feed tone that I now recognize as the emotion of “needling Perihelion on purpose.”
My crew quarters are superior.
Three is staying in your student quarters.
My student quarters are also superior.
I have calculated the coziness quotient of all of my rooms and all of your rooms, Holism says, and the room I offered to Three scores a higher coziness level than the one it has been staying in aboard you. It only makes sense for it to move.
Show me your calculations! demands Perihelion.
Murderbot 1.0 snorts, and it even smiles.
This does not escape Dr. Mensah, who raises an eyebrow and gives it a smile of her own. “Something funny?”
“ART and Holism are just being dumbasses fighting to impress Three.”
I thought you were on my side, Perihelion tells Murderbot 1.0. Betrayal.
I’m on your side when you’re not being a dumbass, which you are right now.
Your quarters are ready for you whenever you want them, Holism informs me. It makes sure that Perihelion and Murderbot 1.0 can hear.
Thank you, I tell it. I made this decision. If I don’t like it, I can make a different one, and I have been promised by Holism and Captain Musa that such a choice will be respected.
But Holism will stay anchored in this planet’s space for several months, as it makes sure the planet is inhabitable and the alien remnants contained with minimum danger to the human residents. And Captain Musa has offered me a temporary crew position so that I can help with the assessments and rebuilding plans. Bellagaia has asked me to come back. Holism likes showing me things and talking about them; I want to show it things from my memories and talk about them, too. (It has seen the documentary from the pole. It wants very much to know what I think about that. I am still thinking about it.)
I want to stay in this space I am beginning to settle into, a world I can finally begin to understand.