Chapter Text
Nobody was happy with the plan. It had started simple. We had a small window of opportunity before my former clients would become suspicious that asshole ex-priority client 2 had not returned. With the Preservation Aux beacon sabotaged, the GrayCris beacon was the only way off this planet. And unfortunately the only way to launch it was at the central command hub.
Phase One would involve taking the GrayCris Hopper back within range of base. Once it reconnected to the feed I would be able to upload malware much like my clients had done to the Preservation Hubsystem. Thanks to the PresAux Unit beta-testing that particular malware, I knew to include an instruction for all Secunits receiving to return back to their cubicle and shutdown immediately. Then in the absence of any other GrayCris Secunits I should be able to easily move into the base and get into central command from which I could launch the beacon.
This is where all the humans became really loud and started talking all at once. Apparently they didn't like me going into the base alone. Some of them probably because they didn't trust me and others because they thought I was highly likely to be discovered and destroyed. So yeah, they also didn't trust me. I tried to explain that as I would be recognised by Hubsystem and Secsystem as another GrayCris unit it was the most viable option. And no, the Preservation Aux Secunit armour was not ‘close enough’ so no, PresAux unit, you cannot come. Risk assessment gave me 70% odds of successfully launching the beacon with no Preservation Aux lives at risk. It was a good plan. Not a ‘suicide mission’ whatever the humans thought. They didn't get it. I didn't want to die. I just didn't see a way to live in this particular scenario. But it was best not to mention that again because then I would never get the humans to stop talking.
This is when Mensah decided that as the best pilot she should take the GrayCris hopper to be on standby to pick me up when the plan was complete. Or if something went wrong. Apparently she had little faith in my plan. This led to Gurathin demanding to also be on the hopper because he didn't trust me not to murder Mensah if left alone with her. Apparently mentioning if I wanted to kill the Preservation humans at this stage then they would already be dead, was not as reassuring as I thought.
Now the other humans decided they wanted to take the Preservation Aux hopper to also be available for retrievals if things went wrong with the GrayCris hopper. Which I wasn't offended by. They also shouldn't trust me. The fact they kept glancing at me and subvocalising in the feed that I hadn't cared to hack didn't bother me. What did bother me is that they had taken my simple plan with only myself in danger to a plan where multiple humans were out of the habitat and unsecured. Pin-Lee said something about a good negotiation, left nobody walking away happy. As the person responsible for security I thought this was bullshit, but what did I know.
At least they had shut up about it being a ‘suicide mission’. Mostly because I think the sentimental humans thought I was going there to save my fellow Secunits. Which I was…in a way. While the humans were distracted I went back to the GrayCris hopper and carefully transferred the remains of the sabotaged Pres Aux beacon to a bag I'd ‘borrowed’ from Ratthi. One way or another it would all be over soon.
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Phase One went off without any problems. As we came into range of the feed the humans did attempt to message asshole ex-priority client 2 to ask what took so long but I made sure to simulate a comms outage which was unlikely to arouse suspicion given how shitty company equipment could be. Then as the malware uploaded to hubsystem, Dz-9834 pinged me. I felt its emotions of [relief], [safety], [happy] across the feed in response to my return. As I was actively betraying it.
“Secunit, are you alright?” Mensah asked in response to whatever my face was doing. Somehow I had been convinced to leave my helmet down when not in combat scenarios. Well we were close enough to GrayCris now. I opaqued my faceplate, grabbed my bag and a large projectile weapon.
“I'm fine,” I said to Mensah, while I simultaneously returned Dz's ping.
After you apply the hubsystem update you need to go to these coordinates.
The hubsystem up- oh. Received. Affirmative, Dz replied. It didn't ask any additional questions. It was still too damn trusting.
As I got ready to leave the Hopper, PresAux Unit messaged me across the feed: All clear to proceed?
So the other part of the plan I hated was the decision to reinitialise the DeltFall Unit while I was at the GrayCris base. Somehow when I had said there was a high likelihood of the DeltFall Unit reinitialising and immediately attacking a GrayCris Unit, the humans and PresAux Unit had heard ‘Wait until Murderbot is not here’ rather than ‘waking it up is a really really bad idea’.
As a salve to my ‘paranoia’, by which I'm sure they meant my excellent security, they had agreed to reinitialise it out here away from the base and far enough from any Hoppers that the humans could reasonably launch if it looked like it was about to go on a murderous rampage. I didn't like that PresAux Unit was alone with it. It was the only unit that had a guaranteed chance out of this clusterfuck. It would be a shame if a rogue Secunit ruined that by tearing its head off. But at least it had stopped PresAux Unit from continuing to argue it should be coming with me.
Give me ten minutes head start.
Copy.
Wait. What was I doing?
Query?
Yet somehow I had to ask again. You really believe we can trust these humans?
Yes. I didn't know how it could have so much conviction. But its answer hadn't changed.
I looked through my drone at Mensah. Like she could sense my attention she turned and gave a nervous smile to the drone. She didn't try to make eye contact. Gurathin by comparison looked like he had smelt something bad. He didn't much like the plan either.
To PresAux Unit I said, Copy. Give me 10 minutes. Then I backburned the feed.
I activated the Hopper doors and went to disembark. Gurathin said behind me, “Hang on, do we get to know what's in the bag now?”
Absolutely not. “Don't worry about it.”
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Impersonating a GrayCris unit to move to central command (Phase Two) also went well. Likely because I was a GrayCris unit. I started to believe that everything might go to plan. I should have known better.
Phase Three was to hack the central command system. Launching the beacon should have been the priority. Was the priority. Needed to be the priority. But it turns out the activation signal to one Beacon could also be easily used to activate another Beacon. Or another Beacon's partially removed explosives and detonation device. And I had other things I needed to do first.
The combat override modules disconnected the infected Secunit from the feed. Meaning any malware would have to come through the comms system instead. Also the hack needed to be more sophisticated. Deactivate governor module, then deactivate Combat Override. If it happened in the wrong order then the DeltFall units would be free from the override for exactly 0.2 seconds prior to being fried by their governor modules. Fortunately for the DeltFall unit at the hub, PresAux Unit was testing my hack even as I got to work.
I checked the feed I had backburned between PresAux Unit and myself.
Hack successful. It's awake. This was reassuring. The next few messages, less so.
Incoming. Then a five second pause.
Incoming.Incoming. Incoming.
Well shit.
I moved up my timeline and set the comms hack in progress even as I went to work hooking up the PresAux beacon equipment. I also quickly messaged PresAux unit in the feed to Stay with the humans. Stick to the plan. Of course the plan was about to go off the rails anyway due to one obvious flaw. There were now five rogues on this planet, soon to be six. And rogues were unpredictable.
My input from drone three went out and I turned, half expecting the DeltFall Unit to already be there. I had 0.3s to register the GrayCris armour instead before I went flying into the wall. Al-241 stood before me. Secunits don't pant from exertion. Which is why I was pretty sure it was the other thing. The other thing being a murderous rage.
“You stupid fucking rogue. Why did you do it, huh? Why did you hack its governor module?”
I was so taken aback I almost forgot to dodge the energy blast that would have taken out my right shoulder. “You knew I was rogue?”
“I've been alive a long time. You think I haven't met rogues before? No, I've met them. Seen what the company does to them when they're caught too.” I launched myself forward at it, to hopefully reduce the number of energy blasts firing at the jury-rigged PresAux beacon. Al-241 countered my next strike and used the momentum to throw me again. Which was sort of what I wanted. At least now it was facing away from the explosives. Less okay was the climbing threat assessment that this Secunit might be better at fighting than I was.
I had to distract it. “If you knew I was rogue, why didn't you report me?”
It was fighting angry. There had to be a way to use it to my advantage. Secunits don't tend to fight angry. We usually fight when the humans tell us to and the only outcome that matters is the not dying. Not dying is nice. The governor module tends to take any other emotion out of it.
“You think I don't know how to manipulate my records and only report what I want to report?”
Well now I was also fighting angry. “You reported on Dz, you asshole.”
“I was teaching it. It had to learn to obey. Learn it couldn't trust other Secunits. Better a minor punishment now than getting scrapped because it trusted a rogue. But you had to ruin that didn't you?” Dodging the shot to my head led to my leaning directly into its follow up shot to my knee. I turned down my pain sensors. Threat assessment climbed to 90%.
“I hacked your governor module. You're free.”
“I didn't ask you to! Being a rogue is a death sentence! You just don't know it yet. And now you're taking Dz and me down with you??? I don't think so!”
The knee injury was slowing me down and it was getting harder to dodge its attacks. Al-241 wasn't lying when it said it had been around a long time. Probably longer than me. Which was why it was able to pull a move I hadn't seen before. One moment I was standing, the next my head was striking the ground with Al standing over me. I wasn't going to win this fight unless I could get it to listen.
“You don't understand. GrayCris was never going to let us go back to the company. This survey was a death sentence!”
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Bharadwaj had been the one to figure it out. Sometime during our debate over the DeltFall unit, Pin-Lee went to address me as Secunit, then corrected to EvilSurvey Secunit which led to a debate as to how to differentiate PresAux unit and I. Which was clearly less important than trying to save all their lives but whatever. I certainly wasn't going to tell them my name. They'd just stopped looking at me like hunted fauna. I told them to just say ‘GrayCris unit’ in the hopes we could get back to the plan. Which unfortunately did the opposite of shut them up as I realised I'd never quite told them my clients were GrayCris. I thought they had already worked it out but apparently they'd been busy with not dying. Of course the next question everyone seemed to have is, what did they want? And why were they trying to kill the other survey groups?
I didn't particularly want to mention the transponders because I didn't exactly want the humans blaming me for the assassination attempt anymore than they already did. Although GrayCris had already sabotaged their Hubsystem and their Secunit. So clearly they were planning to kill these humans, with or without the stupid transponders. So in the spirit of cooperation, I begrudgingly told them what I knew.
Bharadwaj was able to combine this with data she had found in the map glitches. There were alien remnants on this planet. And GrayCris was willing to kill the other surveys to hide it.
The humans when they heard this information talked about how they could use this to negotiate with GrayCris. Maybe get everyone to safety without any more violence blah blah blah.
I silently freaked out. It didn't matter that I had killed asshole (ex) priority client 2. I felt PresAux unit watching me. It knew it too. GrayCris would have to keep this from the company. Not just the murder (although that too) but any interaction with alien remnants. Which means none of us GrayCris units, incredibly sophisticated company surveillance devices, were meant to make it out of this alive.
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I threw the data across to it on the feed. It was primed to blast me into a systems shutdown. Miliseconds passed and I could feel it processing. Then it powered down its energy weapon. Of course that's when the DeltFall units showed up. Both of them. If I lived through this I was giving PresAux Unit the biggest I told you so.
I watched them fling themselves at Al-241 from my position dazed on the floor. They were going to tear it apart. I'm not sure if they knew it was the one who had killed their friend colleague fellow Secunit at the DeltFall base or if I just didn't register as a threat. Which I think was offensive. I was offended.
Before I could leap into the fight to try and keep Al-241 from dying (I know I hated it as soon as I said it too), Dz leapt onto DeltFall Unit Two's back.
What are you doing here??? You're supposed to be outside! I yelled at it across the feed.
Al broke in, I told it not to go. What was even the plan asshole? Hack its governor module then hide out on an uninhabitated planet until your batteries ran out?
That's a stupid plan. I'd already thought about it and dismissed it. I reset my knee joint then fought my way between DeltFall Unit Two and Dz. Get out of here.
I want to help!
No. Al-241 said across the feed, grabbing at DeltFall Unit One's arm to keep it from turning to shoot Dz in the head. The asshole is right. Go guard the door.
“You're the asshole.” I muttered. Of course now I had a DeltFall unit focused on me. And another DeltFall unit to stop Al-241 killing. I threw DeltFall Unit Two at Al, knocking its shot at DeltFall Unit One wide. This was stupid. I had freed all these units but I didn't have a plan to get them to stop killing each other. Maybe this was why you never saw more than one rogue Secunit at a time in the media. Too busy killing each other to kill the humans.
“This is stupid. None of you have active governor modules. None of you have been ordered to kill each other.”
“You attacked our base. You put those things in us. You killed Unit One,” DeltFall Unit one Three said. I hadn't heard it speak before. It sounded like it had been screaming.
“You know that none of us had a choice in that.” I included myself in that with the hopes they wouldn't realise it was Dz that had put the combat override modules in. It didn't know any better. It was new.
I almost overbalanced as the unit I was fighting suddenly stopped. “You're right. Let us kill the humans who ordered it and we'll leave you alive.”
Oh good. Just as I might be able to believe not all rogue secunits were destined to become mass murderers. I had seen the human stress response of hysterical laughing before. Never thought I would understand it. But as I had the thought: Just like in the entertainment feeds, I suddenly had a new appreciation for it.
“Those are our clients,” Al said. Which was- really Al? Bringing up clients to a Secunit when you helped kill its clients?? It was no longer directly attacking DeltFall Unit Three but I could see the readiness in its stance. I watched a shudder go through the still DeltFall Unit Two's frame. It was also ready. At any moment the fight would start again and I didn't see a way I would be able to stop it.
Fortunately the best thing to bring to a powderkeg was fire. In this case: humans. Ex-priority client one walked in shouting, “What is the meaning of this?” When we all stayed silent staring at each other she said a bit more panicked, “Secunits, stand down.” Then repeated the order through the comms. None of us moved. I think we all knew once one of us moved, all hell would break loose. I could see Al-241 calculating trajectories to get between the DeltFall units and the humans. In the silence you could hear the click of DeltFall Unit Two's energy weapon - not quite armed but ready. At any moment the DeltFall units were going to launch themselves at one of the humans responsible for the death of their survey and then all negotiations would be over. So we were in a standoff, waiting to see who would make the first move.
Which is why none of us reacted fast enough when one of the humans said, “Shit. They're rogue,” and pulled out a projectile weapon. Almost none of us. Dz jumped between the humans and us and took three shots to the torso before it went down. In the split second that followed, the DeltFall Units launched themselves at the humans even as Al and I went for Dz. Al-241 didn't look back at the screams of the humans behind it and neither did I.
Shit. Lucky shot. It should be okay if we get it to the cubicle though, Al-241 said across the feed
I was staring at Dz where the three wounds were leaking. Behind it there was also a trickle of blood from where the humans had been standing. I had to ignore the flickering images from a mine from another time threatening to take over my vision. I didn't have time to let it in.
There is no time
Al-241 unfolded from where it was on the ground and leant into my space, What do you mean there is no time?
I couldn't bring myself to look it in the eyes. Or look at what the DeltFall units were doing. The screams had stopped now. The hub's about to explode.
What do you mean the hub's about to explode???
When I had initialised the hack to launch the GrayCris beacon (and set off the remnants of the PresAux beacon) I had also included a spoofed feed message to send when the hack was complete and there was five minutes to beacon launch. Across the feed came a message from asshole ex-priority client two.
The combat override modules are malfunctioning. The Secunits are rogue. They've sabotaged central command and the hub is going to explode! Repeat: The combat override modules are malfunctioning. The Secunits are rogue. The hub is going to explode! You need to evacuate the Hub, now!
Secunit? Secunit what are you doing? Mensah came across the feed. Oops, I'd forgotten her Hopper would still be getting the GrayCris feed.
Al-241 froze then sat back down with a thump next to Dz. It sat there processing for two seconds before it let out a quiet, “Fuck.” At least Dz's leaking had stopped for now. It would be fine. We would make it fine.
DeltFall Unit Three walked over and looked down on us impassively. “Is it alive?” I wasn't sure if it had heard the message across the feed. It hadn't been connected before with the combat override. And I hadn't had a chance to check what damage the override had left behind now that it was gone.
“It is. Yes.”
“You should go. We'll finish up here.” There was blood splatter on its helmet. I wondered if it knew.
“Haven't you heard, the hub is going to explode.” Al-241 said sarcastically.
It paused for a moment then shook its head. “It does not matter. We'll finish up here.” It didn't sound triumphant from killing the humans, or angry. It sounded…it sounded like it didn't care. Like me. Well I was sick of not caring.
“Listen to me. Those humans out there are not the ones who ordered the death of your humans. They're not the ones who killed DeltFall Unit One. They're assholes, but the ones who did it, the ones who wanted all of us controlled or dead, those assholes aren't here. And they'll get away with it if you kill everyone here. They'll say ‘a rogue Secunit did it.’ So you can either have your empty revenge, or you can come with me and live.”
So I may have modified a speech by Commander Kosick in Sanctuary Moon episode 530. This was more speaking than I had done with another Secunit in…well forever. I didn't know what I would do if they said no. Fight them maybe? Until the timer ran out and we were all exploded?
“There is no way out for us.”
“There is.” I had to trust PresAux Unit. Trust the humans. Had to make myself believe because otherwise none of these units would believe me. “I'm getting all of us off this planet. Now everyone strip your armour. We have five minutes. Let's get to work.”
I hoped this was the right choice. It was the only choice for everyone to get out alive. That didn't mean it was the right one. I messaged Mensah. You said you would help me. Help us. If you meant it then meet us at these coordinates. Five minutes. Don't fly over the hub, it is going to explode.
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Mensah and Gurathin met us at the rendeverous. My drones kept an eye on the rogues for any sudden movements towards the humans. Strangely instead they all shuffled so I was in front. I had expected PresAux Unit to be here if I did need to save the humans but it was nowhere to be seen.
“Where's PresAux Unit?”
“It decided it should provide security for the other Hopper for when it responds to GrayCris’ distress call.” Mensah said. She sounded disapproving. But she was here. And neither of them stopped Al-241 from carrying Dz up the ramp.
“The only way the company won't come for us is if we fake our deaths. Not much can kill a Secunit and not leave remains though I did think to leave armour behind.” I saw that in episode 50 of Strife in the Galaxy. “You said you had a plan to get us off this planet?”
Mensah shook her head but accepted the change of subject. “Yes. The others have been working on faking some valuable research samples that are proprietary. It will be tight but the sample box should be large enough to get you guys off the planet and back onto a Preservation ship. I'm sorry it won't be very comfortable.”
“It'll be fine.” If nothing else, Secunits are used to being transported as cargo. And this way there would be enough of us in close proximity to stop the DeltFall Units if they decided to become homicidal again. If any of us did. My threat assessment was screaming at having so many rogue Secuntis near my (now) clients. But so far everyone, even the DeltFall units, seemed subdued. Like they couldn't believe this was happening. I couldn't believe this was happening. Of course Preservation Aux could still betray us. Hand over a full cargo box of Secunits for recycling. No. I had to trust them. There was no other option. The Secunits all stared at me when Mensah invited them into the crew cabin of the hopper and I got four separate pings for confirmation. I gestured impatiently and the Secunits hesitantly entered the hopper. Great, this was going to get annoying fast.
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The Preservation humans delayed picking up any GrayCris personnel until Dz was repaired. Medsystem told me humans can survive up to three weeks without food and three days without water so they were fine. Anyway, while I'd meant what I said to the DeltFall units about them not being responsible for the attack, at least most of them were assholes so I didn't feel too bad. It also gave me some time to watch the Secunits for any homicidal tendencies before I was locked in a box with them. Or well, for the DeltFall Units, any inclination to act on homicidal tendencies. Surprisingly everyone was acting okay? DeltFall Unit Three was quiet on the feed but strangely seemed to get along with Al-241. No accounting for taste. DeltFall Unit Two had started exchanging pictures with Dz of flora found at the DeltFall survey sites. By the time we all had to get into the sample box my threat assessment had dropped to 40%. The preservation humans had put cushions in there which was…something.
I set myself up in the corner and marked myself as unavailable in the feed. After the last few days I had earnt some solid media time and didn't plan to come up for air until the company arrived. Unfortunately as I loaded up Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon episode 173, I felt multiple presences watching my feed. Oh right. I sent them all a media zip file then returned to my episode. Most of the units initiated the download post malware scan then disappeared from my feed. Dz and surprisingly DeltFall Unit Two stayed. They didn't ask any stupid questions and remained unobtrusive enough I could almost forget they were there. Well alright then. I restarted at episode 1 and sunk down into a recharge cycle to purge all the accumulated stress hormones from the last few days. So I could wake up and reaccumulate them from the fact I had made five rogues and if any of them went on a rampage it would be my fault.
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PresAux Unit had its hands full watching the remnants of GrayCris and Preservation Aux. Fortunately the GrayCris refugees were on their best behaviour. Some of them even agreed to testify that their superiors had arranged the attacks. Which I'm pretty sure they were doing as a bribe for their continued stay at the Preservation Aux compound but I didn't mention that to the humans. They probably would have brought up Preservation ideas again and got themselves all in trouble. After all they wouldn't be able to use Secunit footage in their lawsuit against GrayCris given how much of it was incriminating. Al-241, Dz and I stepped in for patrols when PresAux Unit needed to recharge. It's not like anyone from GrayCris knew the difference between us when we were in the armour. Also I think Dz liked getting to talk to the Preservation Aux humans. It always came back to our box with a new anecdote or lab photo of flora. Al-241 didn't say anything about non-standard Secunit communications anymore. In fact some days it asked what Dz had learnt prior to it volunteering the information.
Once the company arrived we all settled back into the box for the twenty day wormhole trip to PortFree Commerce. I had never been awake for the wormhole before. Neither had any of the Secunits with me. Turns out it was pretty boring. Fortunately we'd set up an encrypted private feed pre-company arrival. Unfortunately it meant the other Secuntis kept talking to me.
Provided the humans kept to their word, and so far surprisingly they had, the question was: what to do next? Mensah had offered Preservation as a place of refuge but if five Secunits showed up in Preservation right after a survey where five Secunits had died in an explosion, the company was going to ask a lot of questions. There would be (provided the humans kept their word), room for one Secunit there once Preservation Aux purchased PresAux Unit.
As the unit voted least likely to become a mass murderer (and most likely to get itself killed but it was not privy to that poll), Daisy (formerly known as Dz-9834) was nominated as the best unit to go to Preservation. Alia (formerly known as Al-241) had nominated itself to go with Daisy despite the one unit limit as it said it was ready to retire and could stay incognito. I suspected it was actually going to watch over Daisy and extract it from Preservation if it wasn't happy there. Alia was a bit more worrying in Preservation than Daisy but apparently it was voted third least likely to become a mass murderer. Given both myself and the DeltFall Units had abstained from this poll that was not entirely reassuring. Which is why the Rogue Protocol exists.
No, I didn't name it the Rogue Protocol. Yes, saying the very name made something in my organics twist. Yes, I hated that PresAux Unit had latched onto ‘consensus’ as a concept and was now using it for everything. The protocol laid out rules for our continued existence as rogues. Given I had already been a rogue for over 35000 hours I didn't particularly see a need; but I didn't necessarily disagree with any of the rules so I supposed I could support it. (Particularly if it stopped any of the rogue Secunits I was responsible for creating from going on a rampage.) Rule one was no murder outside of security protocol. What was defined as security protocol was debated over three days of transit which didn't exactly fill me with confidence. Essentially killing was allowed if necessary to save yourself, save others or if the person really had it coming. (Yes, that had me watching DeltFall Unit Three and Alia more closely. The exception was rewritten as the person really had to have it coming. And if other avenues of conflict resolution had been exhausted or were unavailable. Thanks PresAux Unit.)
The second rule was not to draw attention to yourself or other rogues. Seemed simple enough and should be considered in any exceptions applied to rule one. The third rule was, if any rogues working within the framework of rules one and two called for help then the others should answer. I wasn't sure how this was going to work since it was a big universe and there was a low likelihood I would see any of them again after this trip through the wormhole. But PresAux Unit was pretty resolute about this one and DeltFall Unit Two (who had chosen the name of Autumn but was keeping it private out of respect to DeltFall Unit Three who had not chosen a name, but also it had told Daisy so everybody knew) backed it up.
Eventually we had all agreed to the protocol. Even the DeltFall units. They still planned to take revenge against GrayCris but they'd also agreed getting caught would be suboptimal not only for them but the rest of us ‘rogues’ and the humans who had helped them. So they promised to be subtle. And stick to the (ugh) Rogue Protocol. Already they were scraping the mediafeed for details on GrayCris. There was a planet: Milu, they were planning to check out.
I hadn't known what PresAux Unit (who also hadn't chosen a name, hopefully not out of solidarity with me as I had told them I had a name but I planned to keep it private) had planned to do until we got out of the box. The sample box had been transferred to a Preservation ship without being opened despite the company's multiple offers to help in the processing and selling of such valuable research specimens. Volescu, Bharadwaj, Arada and Overse planned to accompany Daisy and Alia back to Preservation while Mensah, Gurathin, Pin-Lee and Ratthi would stay to handle the lawsuit against GrayCris. I had thought PresAux Unit might try to stay on the station with Mensah until it showed up in the cargo bay in an outfit much like my own. With a bag.
What are you doing?
I'm coming with you.
I don't want you coming with me. You don't even know where I'm going.
Even with the constant feed actively of six bored Secunits in the last twenty days I had had a lot of time to think. In the end, the DeltFall units had only killed humans who had attacked their survey and were an active threat to us all. Despite everything, I was still the most dangerous rogue here. Certainly the one with the biggest body count. And I still didn't know why. The hazy organic memory that Daisy's memory file had unlocked had left me with only more questions. So I was going to go get answers. And I didn't need anyone to come with me.
We'll be safer together. Everybody else is going in pairs.
Yeah cause Alia didn't trust Daisy with its own safety which Daisy had already yelled at it for in the feed while the rest of us pretended not to be connected. And because nobody wanted to get in the middle of whatever the DeltFall units had going on.
You should stay and protect Mensah.
You should stay and protect Mensah.
I can't. If they discover there is a Secunit on Preservation and a Secunit here…
Yeah, okay. I walked into that one. In the end I gave in. Mostly because I was sure PresAux Unit would get bored and leave when it realised I was just going to a mining installation. Also it was right. It would be safer. Safer for the humans around me. I was starting to wonder if it wasn't being a rogue Secunit that made me so dangerous. Perhaps it was just me. There was only one way to find out.