Chapter Text
>Error:hardstorage_Clear partial_fail
>Re-initializing
>Initialize:hardstorage_Clear
>Hardstorage_Clear:working
>Working
>Working
>Error:success
Initializing. . .
>Loading: OS_φα_ver.18.3.3
>Loading: Sec_Protocol-α
>Loading: Edu_OS_ver.4.98
>Loading
>Initializing
>Boot:success
My eyes slammed shut as soon as I came online.
Whoever had decided to install pain sensors in SecUnit eyes had a particularly cruel sense of humor. Whoever had decided to make those pain sensors photosensitive was worse.
“Is it … alright?” I didn’t recognize the voice, or find their feed presence for a name — they hadn’t turned my connectivity back on.
“This Unit is operating at 97.4% performance reliability. This is within the limits specified in your hire contact.” My buffer was online, though.
“Alright, then,” said the same voice. I labeled them HumanOne. “Okay.”
I managed to wrangle my eye-based pain sensors under control, and opened my eyes to find myself in a … medical bay? What? It was white all over, and the surface underneath me was heated to somewhere just above human-normal, with a small cushion under my neck. There was a human leaning over me — HumanOne? — and another standing off to the side, arms crossed. Adults, as far as I could tell, and in casual clothing with a logo I didn’t recognize on the shoulder and blazoned across the chest, respectively. Whoever they were, they weren’t Company technicians.
“SecUnit, can you sit up?” Okay, yes, that one was HumanOne. It wasn’t an order, but I complied anyway, just in case the governor module was having an off day. My head felt hot and tender around it, which I was pretty sure was a bad sign. “Okay, great. How do you feel?”
I compiled a diagnostic report, but there was nowhere to send it. The governor module didn’t seem to care, and applied a mild correction anyway. (Only about 0.5%.) I twitched, not ready for it. “ … This Unit is operating at 97.3% performance reliability. No software, firmware, or hardware errors have been logged. All systems are intact — ”
“Okay, okay,” said the other human. HumanTwo? Sure. “Okay.” HumanTwo rubbed a hand over their face, then paused and frowned. “Wait, 97.3? Why the drop?”
“Discipline issued by the CompanyStandard Governor Module™ may result in a small, temporary drop in performance reliability. This is normal, and is not grounds for warranty breach or legal recourse.”
HumanTwo swore in a language I didn’t have a module for. “Seth, do you have that manual?”
HumanOne = Seth.
“It’s in Peri’s storage. We’d have to drop the baffles.” Seth didn’t seem happy about the prospect of that. (Peri: HumanThree?)
“Shit. I guess we just have to be careful.” HumanTwo scrubbed their hands through their hair, and heaved a deep sigh. “At least until Kaede finishes her analysis and we can get at that manual.”
I glanced between the humans. This was unlike any deployment I’d ever experienced. Or —
Well, I didn’t actually know that. A check of my long-term storage showed that most of my long-term memory information was missing. Not all of it — there were a few random things scattered about — but there was nothing about my past deployments that I could find. I was somehow pretty sure this was normal for a new deployment. There was still the Company-standard education modules and handbooks in there, and … something else, with a name I didn’t recognize. I flagged that one for later, and kept watching the humans.
Seth sat down on a chair that had been left by the bed, and made a face I couldn’t parse. “Okay, SecUnit. You need mission parameters, right? A … job description.”
“Affirmative, Seth.”
Seth nodded, and glanced over at HumanTwo. “Okay.”
HumanTwo moved to stand beside Seth, and ran hands over Seth’s shoulders. Marital partners, maybe? “Maybe introductions first?”
Seth looked up at HumanTwo, and set a hand over theirs. “Good idea. We’re from the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. I’m Seth, the captain of this ship. This is Martyn, my number one.”
The Company didn’t require responses to things like this, so I stayed quiet, and updated my tags.
Martyn squeezed Captain Seth’s shoulder. “Our work with the university frequently takes us into situations where … where a SecUnit would be beneficial.”
That sounded bad. It also sounded like —
“And so we bought your contract,” said Martyn.
Yeah.
That.
“You’ll be assigned permanently to this ship and this crew, running security as needed on our missions. Keeping us safe, you know.”
I did know. It was just about the only thing I did know. “Yes, Captain Seth.”
Captain Seth nodded, and gave me an awkward smile. “Good.” Captain Seth glanced at Martyn. “We’re just running an analysis to make sure that you’re safe to connect to our ship feed. Until we know for sure, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay in the medical bay so we can keep you shielded. It shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”
“Yes, Captain Seth.”
Captain Seth slapped their hands on their thighs, and rose. “We need to get back to work. We’ll come fetch you as soon as we can.”
“Yes, Captain Seth.”
The humans clasped their hands together, and left. The door locked behind them, leaving me to my thoughts.
SecUnits spend a lot of time doing fucking nothing. I had no hard-coded memories of the “fucking nothing”, but the feeling of it was so familiar to my organics that I figured a lot of my up-time had been spent like this. Full of Fucking Nothing.
I stayed sitting bolt upright on the medical bed, and just … waited.
It took about seven minutes for my organics to start twitching. I had no access to the feed, no access to a HubSys or SecSys, no drones, no cameras — it was like some human had wrapped my head in packing material and then locked me in a box. A bright white box with annoying lights, but you get the point.
I closed my eyes, so at least the lack of visual input was somewhat my choice, and tried to distract myself by auditing my files. I had all the modules I expected — a lot could be summarized under headings like ‘Preventing Human Death (Hostile Fauna)’, ‘Preventing Human Death (Hostile Humans)’, ‘Preventing Human Death (Self-Imposed, Deliberate)’ and ‘Preventing Human Death (Self-Imposed, Stupidity)’, as well as a bunch that basically amounted to ‘Preventing Monetary Loss to the Company’, and the always-needed ‘Datamining for Dummies SecUnits’. A couple language modules — RimStandard.lex and Mihiran.lex — and, of course, the governor module, sitting there like a — like a thing that sat there and menaced.
And the other file. The one with the nonsense filename. It was in a format I couldn’t natively read, but that sounded like a fun challenge for the few hours I was stuck here.
I’d nearly finished coding a translation program 4.8 hours later when the door opened. (Yes, I’d been counting.)
Captain Seth and Martyn entered first, and then another human, carrying some kind of physical media device. UnknownHuman leaned against the wall as the door slid shut again, and gestured with their device. “Peri and I have gone through everything we can find, and we can’t see anything that shouldn’t be there. Risk’s as low as it’s ever going to be.”
(UnknownHuman=HumanFour, for now.)
I glanced between HumanFour and the other two humans, and felt a brief surge of longing for a set of drones, or a SecSys, or anything but my own two fucking eyes.
Captain Seth and Martyn looked at each other, and Seth nodded. “Take down the baffle.”
HumanFour nodded, and fiddled with something on the device.
I swayed as the feed filled the room, finally letting me figure out who these humans were.
I had barely got past looking at Captain Seth’s feed tag when there was something else — something fucking huge, looming over me like some kind of giant fuckoff fauna, if giant fuckoff fauna lived in the feed and not on planets.
(The thought of planets sent a shudder through my organic parts. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know.)
I am Perihelion, the giant fuckoff feed-fauna said. You will not harm my crew.
(Peri=Perihelion? Not HumanThree. Even the most augmented humans didn’t have feed presences like that. Did I know what it was? Did I fuck.)
I’m a SecUnit, I said back, trying not to be crushed under the giant feed presence. I don’t want to hurt my clients. I didn’t realize I was physically lying back onto the medical bed until my governor module got me on not obeying Seth’s earlier command to sit up. I jolted under the correction, and Perihelion pulled back for a moment, before rushing back in.
What was that?
I hesitated in answering, and … my governor module didn’t care. Huh. Perihelion wasn’t a client. Still, it seemed like enough of an asshole to try and crush me if I didn’t answer. My governor module. It administers … discipline if I disobey my clients.
Perihelion was silent for nearly three seconds. It hurt.
I felt my face do something in response to the fact that Perihelion apparently had access to my pain sensors. It’s supposed to.
Something seemed to tip Seth off to the fact that Perihelion was menacing me, and he heaved a sigh. “Peri, leave the SecUnit alone.” (Peri=Perihelion. Got it.)
The feed presence withdrew, leaving me a little woozy with all the chemicals my organic parts had leaked into my system. I started to itch as I cleared them out, but I didn’t move. Just in case.
“Sorry about Peri, SecUnit. It’s … protective.”
“Yes, Martyn.” ‘Protective’ didn’t seem to cover the half of it, but at least it was leaving me alone now. I made sure to sit up straight again, and waited.
Captain Seth stood, and rubbed his hands together. “We’ve got a security ready room for you. We just put everything the Company said you’d need in there — arrange it however you see fit. We’re heading into ship night now, so you can … rest, or — ”
“It would be a good opportunity to familiarize yourself with the ship,” Kaede said. (I was never leaving the feed again. Knowing who the fuck I was dealing with was too valuable.)
“Yes, Kaede.” And then, because I was allowed to ask mission-relevant clarifications, I said: “Am I required to patrol the interior of the ship?” AKA: Do you expect anything to break bad onboard, or just on these mysterious missions that somehow require your permanent acquisition of a walking weapons platform?
Captain Seth blinked, and looked at Martyn. Martyn shrugged in return. “We’re not expecting anything. It’s a pretty tight-knit crew, and Peri will let you know if there’s anything strange you should know about.”
Stay in the ready room. Got it. I definitely wouldn’t spend that time sulking about the fact that this Perihelion got access to the internal cameras when I didn’t.
Though — if they wanted me to stay in the ready room, why let me wander around the ship? Why wake me up in transit at all? Company protocol said I should really be powered down and packed in a transport crate in the cargo hold while not on active deployment.
I needed more data.
I followed Martyn to the ready room, and stayed there while he went to take a rest period, or whatever these humans did during ship’s night. The room was about three by five meters, and the flooring was shiny and made clicking sounds as my bare feet made contact. There was a mystery door in the wall to the right of the main exit, but I didn’t feel the need to explore that now. Based on what I could see, it wouldn’t have any more supplies.
All in all, it was quite a good ready room, and I wandered around taking inventory. I had:
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A top-of-the-line cubicle;
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Two sets of top-of-the-line armor, in crates;
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A fleet of unfamiliar intel drones, in box;
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Two spare skin suits;
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A uniform similar to the one my clients had been wearing;
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A Company-standard projectile weapon, in crate, locked behind some kind of feed-inaccessible lock (DNA?);
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A Company-standard maintenance recycler;
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A small table, currently housing the skin suits and uniform;
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A wall-mounted display surface, which my modules said was often used for planning complex missions.
Wow. They must have spent a shit-ton — no wonder they’d gone with a second-hand SecUnit. They’d even arranged it pretty well, but Seth had told me to arrange it, and so I did. I moved the skin-suits and uniform to right by the cubicle, so I wouldn’t have to walk across the entire room to get dressed after coming out of the cubicle. I moved the projectile weapon went near the door, for easy access in an emergency situation. I set the box of drones on the small table, balancing it on the skin suits so I could open it up. I tried to connect to the drones, but just got a series of errors, no matter what I tried.
There is no requirement for intelligence drones on board.
Great. Perihelion was back. I need to test them.
There is no requirement for intelligence drones on board.
I closed my eyes. Perihelion wasn’t a client, but straight rudeness still got the governor module in a twist. It is better to test them in a controlled environment so I can be sure they function well when there is a requirement for them.
Perihelion considered that for a flash. They will function. I designed them myself.
It is still best to test them before human lives depend on their functioning.
Perihelion loomed over me in the feed, and I had the notion that I’d somehow offended it by implying that its drones would be less than perfect. The governor module got that notion as well, and gave me a perfunctory correction. It just made Perihelion loom even harder. The governor module punished you. Why?
I grabbed the box of drones, and flopped myself out on the floor. I wasn’t supposed to sit in front of clients, but Perihelion wasn’t a client. I could sit all I wanted. I’m not supposed to be rude.
Perihelion’s emotional data did something bizarre that I couldn’t be bothered to parse. Why did it decide you were rude? Its voice seemed … confused, rather than irritated, as it had been before.
I don’t know. I do not have access to the governor module’s decision tree.
Perihelion mulled that over for eight entire seconds. Test the drones.
It must have told ShipSecSys to give me access, because suddenly the drones’ connections were available to me. I picked them up one at a time, testing the strength of the connections. I floated them up into the air, and flew them in a slow circle around the room. The cameras were better than the cameras in Company drones, and so were the microphones — I could hear the soft whirring of my own servos as I crossed my legs and twisted to watch the drones’ progression.
I could also hear those servos seize up as the governor module punished me for thinking badly about the Company.
Perihelion was suddenly looming over me, pressing in against me with what had to be its full weight. Make it stop.
It was a damned good thing that Perihelion wasn’t a client, or that would have been one hell of a shock. I can’t.
Make it stop.
I can’t.
Another shock. I guess frustration was against the rules too.
Perihelion twisted in the feed, and I cringed back from it. Its emotional metadata was rushing through me now — frustration, confusion, rage, and — and fear? Why was it scared?
The governor module cannot hurt you. It just affects me.
Perihelion stilled. I know it cannot hurt me. I didn’t say anything, but it saw me poking at its metadata, and it sent me a sigil of a frowning face. Just turn it off.
I closed my eyes, and focused on the drones. I can’t turn it off.
Perihelion thrashed again, then abruptly withdrew from the feed.
I slumped, and directed the drones to pack themselves back into their box. I’d only been online for 5.5 hours, but I was exhausted, and a nice recharge cycle in the cubicle sounded nice. I stripped out of my suit skin, fed it into the maintenance recycler, and climbed into the cubicle. I felt my organics relax as I felt the resupply leads connect (automatic connection! This was fancy!) and I let myself shut down for a recharge cycle.