Archive of Our Own

I'd only been on this particular contract for a few cycles, but I could say with almost 98.9% certainty that these were the weirdest fucking clients I had ever had. 

It was a high bar to clear. 35,000 hours of working for the company (plus that indeterminate amount of time before I hacked my governor module that has been mostly buried under memory wipes and not-caring) had left me with plenty of examples of humanity at their strangest, but somehow all of them paled in comparison to whatever the hell was going on with this particular team of weirdos. 

I'd deleted the data packet with all the information about my clients almost as soon as I'd gotten it, because I didn't care and I needed the space for media downloads anyway, and then had shortly after gone back to HubSys with my metaphorical tail between my legs and shamefully asked it to drag the file out of the recycling bin. I still didn't care, but my clients were acting strange enough that I decided I probably did need to know what the fuck was going on. 

I wasn't sure what they were doing over in the Preservation Alliance, but it left their humans with some really odd behaviors.

The fact that it was a non-corporate polity could explain some of it. Like their seeming lack of caution around SecUnits and in general. Most clients, even the ones who had a little too much faith in the power of getting zapped to keep their security from going rogue and murdering them all, retained a healthy dose of wariness around the killing machine with guns in its arms that was programmed to mine them for all the data they were worth. Likewise, most clients-- even the really stupid ones-- showed some indication that they actually had a self preservation instinct. Everyone in the CR knew you had to look out for yourself first and foremost. 

These ones seemed to have missed that memo.

They were just so nice. And helpful. And-- what was the word-- bereavement? No, benevolent. They gave each other things and never asked for anything back. 

They were also morons. Wandering out into the field without a care in the world. They didn't try to stop me from doing my job, at least, and didn't complain when I told them to wait until I'd finished scouting to start their surveying, but once I gave them the all-clear, they trounced off to do their science like they weren't in the middle of nowhere on a hostile planet with only one SecUnit to their names to keep them safe. 

(Technically, they were only entitled to one SecUnit. The company-standard ratio for SecUnits to humans was 1:10, and there were less of them than that. But they were careless enough that another SecUnit-- or hell, even some human security, for as useless as they were-- might not have been a terrible idea.)

Of course, "not getting in the way of me doing my job" left plenty of room for them to still be weird about me doing my job.

It was nice, I guess, getting thanked for the most basic of things. But that didn't stop it from sending my performance reliability into a wild tailspin every time it happened. I had to appreciate the consistent failure of humans to pay any attention to their surroundings. If they were more observant, they might have actually started to notice the way I stalled in place every time they expressed gratitude.

"Thank you, SecUnit," the Survey Lead, Dr. Mensah would say, after my drones finished their circuit of the designated collection area, and I froze in place for a full five seconds. (It was hard to tell, because SecUnit neutral didn't involve any of those involuntary fiddling movements humans couldn't seem to help, but someone could probably notice my faltering if they paid enough attention.)

"Thanks, SecUnit!" Dr. Ratthi would exclaim as I flung an arm in front of his chest (and he stopped millimeters away from running into me) to stop him from wandering out of the safe area. 

"Yes, thank you, SecUnit," said begrudgingly by Dr. Gurathin after I chimed in to support his argument that they did not, in fact, "know for sure" that a particular area of the planet wasn't an active danger. (I sort of thought he was being sarcastic, but it was hard to tell, with him. It had me staring at the back of his head with a bewildered expression none of the humans could see regardless.)

All of them, for the most mundane things. It got frequent enough that I had to bite my tongue from snapping back that it was literally my job and that they really, really didn't have to thank me for it. The only thing that stopped me (besides, y'know, the fact that snapping anything would make it incredibly obvious that my governor module was not nearly as functional as I needed them to believe) was that no matter how frequent and nonsensical their appreciation got, they never made a big deal out of it. They never acted like they expected me to respond. After they gave their thanks the conversation would move on like nothing happened. And-- here was the kicker-- they never looked at me when they said it. 

Actually, they never looked at me at all. Even when they were talking directly to me, or listening attentively as I gave my report on the likelihood of something horrible going wrong every time they left the habitat, their actual attention was only ever directed at my drones or the habitat's cameras. If they did look at me, it was only ever in brief glances that were quickly redirected. One time Ratthi went on an entire tangent while staring pointedly at the wall to the left of my head. 

(Ratthi liked to do that, actually. Not talk to me, but talk at me. Talk around me. He clearly didn't expect me to reciprocate the conversation. Most of the time I think he was just filling the silence whenever his survey work took him near me and away from the rest of his people. I didn't hate it.)

I had no idea what to make of it. Eventually I chalked it up to a weird Preservation custom, but considering there were zero anomalies in the way they paid attention to each other, that conclusion was flimsy at best. 

Maybe it was because I was a SecUnit. A non-corporate polity wouldn't have much experience with murderbots like me, and the company had probably warned them against tampering or interfering with my operations. The phrase "better safe than sorry" didn't exactly align with their general behavioral trends, but I might have been enough of an unknown factor to be the exception.

Not that I was complaining. Bewildering and inexplicable as they might have been, it was also probably the longest I had gone without anyone making direct eye contact with me, and while SecUnits never relaxed, there were a few times when I did find myself not actively braced for something terrible to happen. When I let Sanctuary Moon take up a little more of my processing space than I would if I thought I'd need to shoot something in a minute. Being left unobserved to just do my job was... nice. 

It was nice. This was a nice contract. I didn't think those two words could be put together in that order.

Of course, I never really let my guard down, because I was still a rogue SecUnit hanging around a bunch of humans who would rapidly become way less easygoing if they figured that out, which turned out to be a good thing when a little while into that particular cycle's workday, my clients' surveying was rudely interrupted by a big angry hostile fauna trying to eat them. 

I was already in motion .05 seconds after the fauna (designated Hostile One) emerged from the ground in an explosive shower of dirt, gunning to take a bite out of Dr. Bharadwaj. In a display of situational awareness I didn't know humans were capable of expressing, Bharadwaj threw herself to the side of the crater she and Dr. Volescu had been investigating, just barely managing to dodge Hostile One's efforts to violently detach her leg from the rest of her. She did stumble and fall with a pained yelp that sent my risk assessment spiking, but the probable sprain her haphazard dodging had left her with would be significantly easier to fix than a case of Hostile Fauna Removing Leg With Teeth. 

Volescu, meanwhile, was likewise doing his best to extract himself from Hostile One's reach, though had ended up on the more dramatically-sloped side of the crater, and couldn't quite get enough of a foothold to haul himself up. 

The good news was that at that point, I was already there, and could grab both his arms and drag him up onto flat ground before Hostile One could sweep his legs out from under him. He didn't waste time trying to thank me-- another degree of competence I wasn't expecting-- and instead just took off running towards where the rest of the survey group was prepping the hopper for evac. (They usually split up to cover more ground, but for this particular assessment they'd all decided to work in roughly the same area. It was weird, but I would be an idiot to complain about them making my job easier.)

Another human might have been judgmental about him abandoning Bharadwaj, since humans tended to think throwing themselves into actively dangerous situations for each other was brave as opposed to just stupid, but I wasn't an idiot human, and was honestly more appreciative that he wasn't sticking around and making himself another variable I'd need to keep track of. That meant I could focus all my attention on helping Bharadwaj and murdering the fuck out of Hostile One.

(How dare it interrupt what was turning out to be a pretty good setup I had going on here?) 

My projectile weapon didn't do much against Hostile One-- some kind of armored plating made my shots just skim off the side of it-- but it was apparently distracting enough that it stopped trying to eat Bharadwaj and moved on to trying to eat me instead. Which was both exactly what I was hoping it would do and at the same time a very big problem. Mostly because Hostile One was also very big, and a lot faster than I was expecting, and currently wrapping its giant teeth around my torso.

"SecUnit!" Dr. Bharadwaj shouted, sounding panicked, and I really didn't like that tone in her voice. Damage warnings flared across my vision as Hostile One reeled upright and dragged me along with it, and my performance reliability decreased exponentially the longer it chewed on me. 

The bad news was that this really sucked. The good news was that one of my arms was also in its mouth along with most of my body, and I was able to turn my pain sensors down enough to twist my elbow in a way human joints definitely couldn't move and point my energy weapon down its throat. 

One maximum power shot was enough to make it loosen its hold, and I managed to fire three more before being murdered made Hostile One relax its jaws and drop me in the dirt. I immediately rolled to avoid being flattened as its corpse, steam spilling from its gaping mouth, slammed into the ground next to me. 

Wait, shit, giant falling dead thing, squishy fragile human--

"SecUnit!" The thankfully un-crushed Bharadwaj cried again, and I looked over to see her clambering her way out of the crater and limping over to where I was still lying on the ground. She really shouldn't have been trying to walk on that ankle of hers. 

I opened my mouth to tell her as such, and instead my buffer decided my performance reliability had gotten low enough from all the leaking I was doing to interrupt my admonishment with a; "This unit is at minimum functionality, and it is recommended you discard it."

Bharadwaj frowned, her face twisting up with an emotion I couldn't quite get a read on.

"We're not doing that," she said, firmly. (My performance reliability ticked up by half a percent. It was mostly so low thanks to the roughly 35% of my body mass that my diagnostics reported I was missing, but I admit I was a little worried this incident would reveal the limit of the Preservation humans' niceness.) Her voice softened, and she knelt down next to me, setting her hand beside mine. Not making contact, just... being nearby. "Just hold on, okay? Mensah is bringing the hopper over. You'll be alright." 

I didn't bother trying to respond. My buffer would probably just say something stupid again.

(Honestly, I kind of felt like saying something stupid, too. Not the "please abandon me and leave me for dead" kind of stupid, more like "why are you being so gentle with a piece of equipment." Which would have been a stupid question to ask, because a governed SecUnit would absolutely never say anything like that, and also drawing attention to it might have made her realize she was being ridiculous and stop. And I... sort of didn't want her to.)

The low hum of approaching engines got louder, and Bharadwaj clambered up to her feet again. I considered chastising her again, but didn't have time to actually voice it before the hatch opened and Dr. Arada was already calling; "Stop trying to walk! Just hang on a second, you're going to make it worse." 

They were sentimental and absurd, but at least my humans weren't complete idiots. 

She was joined by Ratthi and Volescu (who was pale and sort of shaken but perfectly unharmed), and while she wrapped an arm around Bharadwaj to help her into the hopper, the latter two came to crouch by me. 

"What's your performance reliability at?" Ratthi asked, which was impressively straightforward for him. 

"48%," I answered, and he frowned. 

"Moving will probably make that worse," he said, "but I'm not sure we can pick you up to get you into the hopper."

I almost didn't want them to even try, but I had to admit that this counted as enough of an emergency for me to accept the necessity of them getting grabby.

"I can still walk," I said, doing some quick calculations about how far away the hopper was parked and how quickly my fluids would start evacuating my body if I tried standing up. "My balance is shot, but if you can help keep me upright, I can support most of my own weight." 

It was a little more casual than a governed SecUnit probably should have been, but making sure they understood what I needed from them if they really didn't want to have to leave me behind was more important. 

"We can do that," Volescu agreed, with a firm nod. "Where do you want us?"

Which is how we ended up with Ratthi on one side of me, both arms wrapped around my upper chest to guide me forward, and Volescu at my back with his hands plastered over my shoulders to help compensate for my borked gyros. The blaring warnings from my performance reliability helped me ignore the discomfort of having this much human touching me at once. 

The hopper wasn't too far away, luckily, and they were able to drag me up the ramp (and into the crew seating, not the cargo hold where I was supposed to go) and lay me down on the floor between the seats. Arada, evidently having gotten Bharadwaj safely aboard, likewise stepped in to make sure I was deposited gently instead of crashing to the ground and making everything worse.

"We're all clear," she called up to the cockpit, and I risked some processing power to grab at one of the hopper's cameras and catch a glimpse of Dr. Mensah's determined expression. Moments later, the engine rumbled to life beneath me, and we started to move. 

"Well, that could've gone worse," Ratthi said. 

"Could've gone better, too," grumbled Dr. Gurathin from the other side of the hopper. "We should've been more prepared. If we'd had an exact time, we could've avoided injury entirely."

"Sorry for not taking a second to check my watch while I was busy bleeding to death," Bharadwaj replied, sarcastically, and threat assessment shot up so fast it briefly made me dizzy.

I thought she'd gotten away without being badly injured. She didn't sound like she was bleeding to death-- usually there was a lot more gasping and crying involved with that.

Still, if she was bleeding to death I needed to know (so I could get mad at myself for not doing my job right the one time I actually wanted to protect the humans I was supposed to be protecting), so I ignored my rapidly dropping performance reliability to shove myself into a sitting position and turn to examine her.

"Woah, woah," Ratthi immediately said, reaching out for me. He stopped before he actually made contact, hands fluttering near my shoulders. "Easy, SecUnit, you shouldn't be moving around like that. What's wrong?"

"Dr. Bharadwaj," I managed, as I tilted my head back to see her giving me an alarmed expression, "are you injured?"

She stared at me for a moment. Then her eyes went even wider than they already were.

"Oh!" She exclaimed. "No, no, I'm-- I'm fine, SecUnit. It's just my ankle. I'm not losing any blood, don't worry." A beat, and she added; "You did a good job, okay? You got everyone out safely."

Which was... nice of her to add. 

I still didn't really know what she was talking about, but I also didn't really have the processing power to figure it out. 

Especially as the panic from thinking she was hurt worse than I'd been led to believe faded, and my strength faltered for a split second, which was just long enough to send me crashing back down to the floor and--

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39% SHUTDOWN INITIATED. 

I came online again just in time for the hopper to land outside the habitat. Which was good, because I could hear the humans debating about what would be the best arrangement for hauling me inside and into my cubicle, which I definitely didn't want them doing. (They were more likely to hurt themselves and me than make any real progress.)

"I can walk," I interrupted. Dr. Mensah, who was standing closest to me, looked vaguely in my direction to show she was listening but not directly enough to make me feel the urge to squirm. "My arteries seal automatically, and--" I paused as my diagnostic helpfully let me know I hadn't lost nearly as much fluid as I'd been expecting. "...Did you apply wound sealant to me?" 

It was brazen, but my performance reliability was still wobbling around 42%, so I wasn't thinking very clearly. 

"I did," Arada piped up from where she was helping Bharadwaj to her feet again. "Because Ratthi was too busy panicking."

"I was not," Ratthi complained, and my pattern recognition suggested that this meant he definitely had been. 

"You were," Gurathin added, because he was an asshole. 

"As you were saying," Mensah prompted in an effort to get the conversation back on track, which I appreciated. "I know you can walk, but I'm concerned about you being able to get back to your cubicle by yourself. Would it be alright if I helped you?"

I didn't really want to risk hurting her by tripping and falling on her, but my gyros were still completely checked out of the situation, so even if my motor functions were cooperating there was a high likelihood of me veering off course and running headfirst into a wall. Which would not be good. 

Wait, why was Mensah asking my permission? These humans were weird. 

"If that is your preference," I answered as neutrally as possible, like a good little SecUnit, and ignored the way Mensah's lips pursed. 

"Alright," she said, and didn't give me time to figure out what she was thinking before the conversation was already moving on. "Arada, why don't you and everyone else help Bharadwaj inside. I'll take care of SecUnit."

Arada hesitated. "Are you sure?" Because Preservation was apparently nothing like the CR, and people were not only allowed to but encouraged to question their supervisors' instructions.

"Yes, it's fine," Mensah replied. Her jaw flexed with subvocalizations as she presumably spoke in the feed, and I tapped in just in time to catch; ...fewer people saw it like this.

Good point, Arada responded, and nodded to the rest of the crew. "Ratthi, give me a hand. Gurathin, can you and Volescu get the door?"

"On it," Volescu responded, and everyone moved to their assigned tasks. I wasn't sure exactly why Mensah thought it would be better if fewer of the survey team saw me stumbling around like an injured fauna-- though I could think of a few reasons, the primary one being that it would damage their confidence in my ability to keep them safe-- but I couldn't say I disagreed. I also didn't want a bunch of humans making sad noises in my direction like these ones were likely to do.

The rest of the humans vacated the hopper, and Mensah waited for me to push myself upright again. I paused as my head spun, and she reached out a hand to hold it behind my back, presumably to stop me from hitting my head if I fell over again.

"I'm fine," I said.

"Of course," she agreed, though she sort of sounded like she was humoring me.

She did make contact as I started getting to my feet, but I found I didn't entirely hate having her hand wrapped around my arm to keep me steady. Her grip was strong, and warm, which was nice considering my body temperature was struggling to stay regulated. The wound sealant may have stopped me from losing any more fluids, but there was still a big fuck-off hole in my side.

"Take it slow," she said as we began shuffling out of the hatch and down the ramp. "You can lean on me if you need. I promise I'm stronger than I look."

Which was a nice offer, but there was absolutely no way I was taking her up on it. A stronger-than-they-looked human would still struggle with the reinforced bulk of a SecUnit, even one that was missing 35% of its body mass. 

I had enough processing power left to send a command to the hopper and tell it to lock itself down, as well as to start setting up a security interdiction on the habitat, but Mensah beat me to the latter before I could finish inputting the command. Which was both impressive and worrisome-- impressive, because they'd been rather lax on the self-preservation front thus far and I wasn't sure a hostile fauna attack like today's would've been enough to get them to lock in, but worrisome because if I was operating slowly enough that a human could outpace me in security protocols, I must've been worse off than I'd thought.

"Almost there," she soothed. I didn't need reassurance like a human might, but I guess it didn't make anything worse. 

We got to the security ready room just as my hip actuator decided it had had enough of this nonsense and lost connection with the rest of my leg. Through some clumsy half-dragging/half-limping that probably would've looked really stupid if anyone had been able to see us, Mensah managed to pry my ruined armor off and haul me the last few feet needed to get me situated in my cubicle. I worked on connecting myself to the leads while she stepped away to start rifling through my supplies. 

I thought about asking her what she was doing, but a SecUnit with a working governor module definitely wouldn't have had the audacity, and I was already pushing it with the liberties I was taking this cycle. So instead I waited in silence while she pulled the human-grade medical kit I'd been allotted for emergencies out of storage. From that she extracted the survival blanket intended to keep a human from freezing to death or passing out from shock, shook out some of the wrinkles, and stepped up in front of me.

"Could you lean forward for me, please?" she asked, and even if I hadn't been pretending to not be rogue I would've been too stunned to do anything except comply. It was still awkward, given she had to stick her arms in the cubicle to get the blanket around me and they weren't really made with maneuverability in mind, but she managed to get it situated enough that I was mostly covered. "There." 

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing actually came out. Even my buffer had no idea how to handle this, which was crazy because that was its job. I sort of wanted to thank her. I really, really didn't want to have to say it.

I wasn't sure if my face was doing something (I hated not having my helmet on) or if she was somehow reading my mind, but she just smiled and said; "You're welcome."

Coming from anyone else it probably would've made them sound stuck-up, but she was way too sincere for that. 

"I also wanted to thank you for acting as quickly as you did," she said. "I know it's your job. But Bharadwaj and Volescu both appreciate it greatly." 

I didn't really know what to say to that, either. But Dr. Mensah didn't seem to expect me to say anything at all. Instead she just nodded, finished her statement with; "Enjoy your rest. I'll see you in eight hours." And left me to my recovery. 

These humans were so baffling.

The cubicle had started working the moment I'd gotten settled, and between that and the blanket getting my temperature back to an acceptable range, my performance reliability was high enough that I could actually go over my logs of the situation. 

Rephrase: it was high enough that I could think clearly, but still too low for me to just let my automatic review processes filter the relevant information. Or to be able to effectively multitask, so I couldn't even play media off to the side. 

Which was why I was paying enough attention to notice that the humans had already been getting the hopper ready to move before the fauna had attacked. 

It had happened hours before the scheduled end of the assessment. There had been no alerts sent beforehand. 

And to top it all off, the hopper's external camera helpfully provided a recording of Ratthi-- who had been hovering around the hatch messing with some equipment, suddenly shooting to his feet and shouting; "Oh, shit, it's today!" before running into the hopper calling Mensah's name. 

Something very, very odd was going on. 

There wasn't technically a way to make the cubicle work any faster, but I shut down as many background processes as I could spare to give myself as much thinking power to work with as possible. I started reviewing both my own recordings from my drones and field camera and the hopper's recordings in tandem. Bharadwaj had looked alarmed, but not surprised when Hostile One had made its appearance. Mensah had already been getting the hopper in the air before my emergency alert had hit the feed. 

It was like they had known it was going to happen. 

To make matters worse, reviewing the logs let me see the abort command HubSys had tried to send me as I'd been moving in to help Bharadwaj. It wouldn't have made a difference even if it did have control over my governor module, because MedSys took priority when human lives were at stake, but it shouldn't have tried to send a command to stop me from saving my humans at all.

I had been very wrong when I said this contract was nice earlier. This contract was a nightmare.

At least I could let it not be my problem for a little while. Mensah had already set me as off-duty for the next eight hours (which explained her comment before she'd left), and with the security interdict none of the humans would be going anywhere for a while, so I could... well, not relax, but stop caring. 

Which was good, because it was about then the cubicle decided it was inconvenient for me to be awake for the repair process and--

STASIS INITIATED.

I sort of didn't want to wake up yet, since that meant I would have to start worrying about things again, but HubSystem was whining at me about something, so I begrudgingly allowed my systems to crawl out of stasis. 

By the time I was cognizant again HubSys had stopped complaining. I absently checked it to see what had been bothering it and--

It was offline.

HubSystem, the command feed that ran the habitat and me and everything else in the survey package, was offline. Which meant SecSystem was also offline. Which on top of being a blatant violation of my clients' bond agreement, was alarming as fuck. 

Even being from a freehold planet (aka a shitshow), my clients generally didn't seem inclined to rock the boat too much, so I couldn't picture them having the gall to shut off the system that was keeping things like their life support going. And keeping their murderbot from going rogue and murdering them all. Which meant it was shut down by someone else. 

I had hacked it when I'd first gotten here so it didn't realize my governor module wasn't doing what it was supposed to, but I hadn't dared go so far as to mess with its operations at all. The company would notice that sort of thing, even if I did scramble the logs.

So if it wasn't my humans, and it wasn't me, it was an unknown third party. A hostile third party.

I was only at 75% performance reliability and technically off-duty for another three hours, but that didn't matter. I disconnected from the cubicle and was already on my feet and moving by the time the door finished opening. My armor was freshly repaired (and I definitely hadn't put it in the reclaimer, which meant one of my humans must have done that for me), but I didn't have time to change my ruined skin suit and put it back on. I needed to figure out what the fuck was going on now. Instead I pulled on the uniform that had been left out when Dr. Mensah had been looking for the medkit, grabbed a projectile weapon from the rack, and pulled a handful of drones to follow me as I stormed out of the security ready room.

Only to nearly run headlong into Ratthi. I definitely would've made contact if my reaction time had been any worse. Instead I froze where I was standing, and while he still collided with me, it didn't send us both crashing to the floor.

He yelped, stumbling back a few paces, and gave me a bewildered look. "What-- SecUnit, you're up? What's going on?" Then he noticed my drones and my big gun and probably the look on my face, and his confusion turned to concern. "Did something happen?"

Did he not realize? Had whoever disabled it left some kind of dummy system in place to avoid suspicion? "HubSystem is down. You are in danger."

His expression changed again, and this time it did something... weird. I couldn't explain it. It was just weird. "You're still off-duty. Did your repair cycle even complete?"

Was he stupid? "That's irrelevant. I received an alert from HubSys, and it's been disabled. You are in danger."

He looked conflicted. "Not right now, we're not," he said. 

Maybe he was stupid. "Without HubSystem, there is nothing to keep the habitat stabilized to sustain human life. I don't have access to SecSystem, which is required to adequately perform my job." He really should've been more concerned. 

Unless.

Unless I was wrong about them.

As soon as the realization crossed my processor, my buffer helpfully stepped up to offer; "Tampering with company systems is a violation of your bond agreement. You will be subject to the requisite fines upon the conclusion of your contract." It wasn't very "governed SecUnit" of me, but I was annoyed enough that I didn't care, and asked; "Did you shut down HubSystem??" 

Ratthi cringed. "It was... compromised."

I stopped.

Because uh oh.

They'd realized. I don't know how, but they'd figured out that I'd hacked it. Which meant they'd figured out that I was hacked.

Oh, fuck. 

My panic must've been making itself clear (and I was really regretting not taking the time to put on my armor, what I wouldn't have given for an opaque helmet), because Ratthi immediately put his hands up and took a step back. 

(Was he afraid? He hadn't been a minute ago. His heart rate wasn't elevated, and on my drone camera his expression was drawn into something more concerned than frightened. His hands were held out not in a gesture of surrender, but one meant to show that he wasn't a threat.) 

(Was I afraid? I guess I was.)

"It's okay," he said, his tone calm and even. "Like I said, we aren't actively in danger right now. HubSystem was compromised by another survey group on the planet, operating under a company called GrayCris. We shut it down so they couldn't interfere with your directives or with our operations. But Gurathin set up a spoofed version, so they haven't realized we know what they're up to yet." 

Okay. I wasn't sure how the fuck they had figured that out (I wasn't in stasis that long, and the interdict was still in effect, so it wasn't like they had time to do something stupid like go scouting for hostiles without their assigned SecUnit), but at least they hadn't figured me out. And at least they were taking precautions.

I was still annoyed that they were doing things that needed security without me, but this was closer to my baseline level of annoyance with humans doing anything that I was able to get my shit together. 

"Which of HubSystem's processes did GrayCris compromise?" I asked. I would have gone for the general feed to see what they had in the way of, but considering hosting that was also one HubSystem's jobs, I assumed there wouldn't be much to see. "And why?"

"There's alien remnants on the planet," Ratthi said, which what the fuck? "GrayCris wants them, and they want to make sure we don't get there first. Or have the chance to report what they're up to. They messed with our survey package, redacted our maps and removed information about hostile fauna so we'd hopefully get ourselves killed." He glanced away, looking briefly contemplative. "They're going after the other survey on the planet, too. They might have already done so. We weren't sure how to warn them without alerting GrayCris, since our communications are being monitored, but you might be able to do that now that you're awake." 

I wasn't totally sure why he was being so forthcoming. I was supposed to still be a corporate spybot, as far as they knew.

These humans were so weird. All that time unconcerned with their safety, seeming not to have a care in the world, being all nice, and they were secretly tactical masterminds the whole time? What the fuck was Preservation? 

I couldn't help myself. I asked; "How did you figure all this out?"

Ratthi went very, very still.

"Um," he said. 

He coughed. 

He looked away, very pointedly.

I remembered the hopper already being in motion before my alert reached it. Bharadwaj frantic but not surprised about Hostile One. Belatedly, I realized: Ratthi recognizing me even though I wasn't wearing my armor and had never removed my helmet around them. 

I didn't twitch, because I'm not a human, but I was suddenly very aware of the gun still in my hand.

Way more severely than the governor module ever would've allowed me, I demanded to know; "What is going on here."

"Mensah," Ratthi immediately said, which was not actually an answer. "I mean, talk to Dr. Mensah. She's in the common area, you should-- She can explain this better, I think." 

I did put the gun away, because whatever was going on there was no part of this that would be improved by me pointing a weapon at my clients, and I also took a minute to put my armor back on. That conversation with Ratthi had made it very clear that having my expressions on display was dangerous, and this whole situation counted as enough of an active security concern that I could justify wearing it despite the lack of active combat.

My helmet was up and the visor fully opaque when I finally made my way out into the common area. Mensah was there, along with Arada and Overse. All three looked up as I entered, and something about it made the latter two go pale. Mensah pressed her lips together, brow furrowing.

"Why don't you two go check on Gurathin's progress," she said in that way where it was phrased like a suggestion but clearly an order. Arada and Overse seemed perfectly happy to have an excuse not to be in the room with a displeased murderbot, and made themselves scarce. 

I'd gotten used to these humans not being nervous around me. I... didn't really like that they were, now. 

Or maybe they were just nervous about the circumstances in general.

Was that optimism? What was wrong with me?

"SecUnit," Dr. Mensah greeted one of my drones. "Have a seat."

I faltered. SecUnits weren't permitted to sit in front of clients. SecUnits weren't supposed to disobey direct orders. If my governor module had been working properly, it would've had a conniption about the contradictions in protocol. I spent a moment trying to figure out which directive it would want me to prioritize.

Then the moment passed, and Mensah's eyes widened a fraction. "I mean-- nevermind, I forgot you wouldn't be-- Disregard that."

Like she'd picked up on my internal conflict. 

Like she knew.

I took half a step back. 

Mensah sighed heavily, and put her head in her hands. After a moment, she looked up at me, giving the space above my head a tired smile. "I can't ever seem to do this right. Can I, SecUnit?"

It was phrased like a rhetorical question. The governor module would have wanted me to respond anyway.

I didn't. 

"Sorry," she said. "You probably want an explanation."

"Yes," I said, even though SecUnits weren't supposed to want anything.

"Right." She paused for a moment. Opened her mouth, then closed it again. Tapped her fingers across the table a couple times. I was very used to waiting patiently for humans to get their shit together, so I stood there silently as she figured out what she wanted to say. 

I braced myself.

Eventually, she looked up at me, and she said; "Remember episode 520 of Sanctuary Moon?"

What.

The fuck.

"I don't know what that is," I answered, reflexively. 

Mensah gave me a look so dry it could've been mistaken for a desert. 

Okay, so, I wasn't very convincing about it. Of course I remembered that episode. I remembered every episode. 

And if what Mensah was implying by referencing that one specifically was true, she knew that I remembered every episode. She also knew that my governor module was borked. And that GrayCris was fucking around with alien remnants. And that the hostile fauna from earlier was going to attack.

The exact details weren't particularly important, but the long and short of it was that episode 520 was the start of one of the most divisive arcs in the series. It was always a risk, bringing time travel into shows that didn't specifically revolve around it. 

"Time travel," I said, blandly.

"Yes," Mensah agreed.

"Okay," I said. "...I assume since you didn't contact the company to tell them I'm a rogue as soon as we got here, you aren't planning on reporting me."

"Absolutely not," Mensah said, immediately, straightening up in her chair. "We won't be telling the company anything. Except for what GrayCris was up to, that way they can tear each other apart. Pin-Lee is working on a report now, if you'd like to see it. Or if you'd like to offer her any assistance. It's up to you, though." 

Coming from a regular client, it would've been one of those orders that's not said like an order but isn't something you can ignore. Coming from Mensah... I think she really did mean it.

These clients were so weird. At least I finally knew why. 

Fucking time travel. Might as well happen, this contract was already so damn weird. (If I wasn't reeling from the what-the-fuck of it all, I probably would've been more giddy about it, because it really was something right out of a serial. Unfortunately I was in fact busy having a mild crisis.)

"Maybe," I answered, honestly. My interactions with Pin-Lee had been sparse, mostly because whenever she looked in my direction it was accompanied by muttered cursing so I sort of figured she didn't want anything to do with me. Though, now that I was at liberty to ask questions-- "Why does Pin-Lee swear at me every time she sees me?" 

Mensah grimaced. "Being reminded of your situation is... difficult. For all of us, but her way of expressing that comes across as a bit more hostile." 

"Difficult," I repeated. "My situation?"

"Having to pretend," she explained. "Being subject to everything that's demanded of you by your contracts. Feeling trapped. I know it's not about us, but it's still painful to have to see it firsthand, knowing it could be different."

Which, okay, yeah, those were all things I had experienced in the 35,000 hours that had passed since I hacked my governor module. But I couldn't even begin to imagine the circumstances that would've led to these humans becoming aware of that.

It was evident enough by everything about them and the way they acted around me that these humans were on familiar terms with me. Or, at least, the version of me from the future. 

Too confused to be able to come up with any specific questions, I just asked; "Why?"

Luckily, Mensah was clever enough to understand what I meant despite my vagueness, and said; "Because we're your friends, SecUnit. We care about you." 

"Future me," I said.

She shook her head. "All of you." Clasping her hands together, she leaned forward in her seat and sighed. "We didn't... understand, really, back when we met you the first time. Frankly, we didn't want a SecUnit at all-- but we begrudgingly accepted that we wouldn't be getting a bond agreement without one. The situation grew more precarious. When we did eventually discover the state of your governor module, we wanted to do something about it, but we... Well, we thought we knew better than we did. We handled it poorly. I handled it poorly. We're trying to do better this time." 

I had a feeling she blamed herself more than future me ever would've. I was definitely still missing a lot of context, but if this version of me liked Dr. Mensah as much as I did even without what was probably a bunch of trauma bonding to form a connection, I doubted I actually held anything against her.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I bought your contract," she said, dully. 

Oh. Well. Okay. 

"So you're my owner, in the future," I summarized.

"No," and it was emphatic enough (accompanied by her smacking her hands flat against the table and giving my nearest drone a fierce look) that I actually took another half step back. She huffed, and settled back down into her seat. "No, I... The way Preservation is set up means that you're required to have a guardian on file, and yes, I fill that role. But I am not your owner. You own yourself. No one can make you do anything you don't want to." 

It sounded... way too good to be true, honestly. And though I couldn't find a reason for her to lie about it, I was also lacking way too much information to really be certain she wasn't. 

"What do I do, on Preservation?" 

Mensah opened her mouth to respond.

Then she stopped, closed it again, and folded her hands under her chin.

"I'm not sure how much I should tell you," she said. "I don't want to influence you to do anything you wouldn't otherwise choose." 

Which was a very convenient excuse for not wanting to give me an answer I wouldn't like. (Unless she meant it. Unless she really was trying to do better. Unless the first time around, she had tried to influence me, and it hadn't ended well.)

(Future Murderbot, what the fuck did you get yourself into?)

"Honestly, we'd hoped to get through this without you learning about the future at all," she admitted. She was smiling, but it was more self-deprecating than humorous. "We may have gotten a little ahead of ourselves in trying to prevent some of the worst of it, though."

Oh, yeah. I was allowed to complain now. "Shutting down HubSystem was stupid," I said.

"We meant to have it back online before you woke up," she said, "but it was shortsighted of us, yes."

This was why humans should never do their own security. 

"You could have just asked me for help," I said. I didn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it sort of came out like one anyway. "This is my job. Situations like this are what I'm here for."

"I didn't want to put you in that position," was her absolutely ridiculous response. "The first time we learned about your governor module, it was after you were injured. We violated your privacy. We wanted to give you a choice about whether or not you could trust us enough to tell us."

Which was a little less ridiculous, but only a little. 

"I probably wouldn't have," I admitted.

"And it would've been entirely your decision." 

I stared at her. She stared vaguely in the direction of one of my drones.

Because she and the rest of them knew me, and we were friends and they cared, so they'd come into this already aware of how much I didn't like being looked at. And even though I wouldn't know why, they'd kept not looking at me. Because they cared. About me.

I didn't even bother looking at risk assessment. It would've just given me nonsense back. 

I wondered briefly if I'd actually been deactivated by Hostile One earlier, and if this was some fucked up hallucination courtesy of my organic mind. I decided that was just a little more implausible than the reality of the situation, and while I didn't rule it out entirely, concluded it was probably real.

"What are you going to do?" I asked. Then clarified; "With me. This time." 

"Well, I'm still going to have to buy your contract," she said, giving me a wry smile. "Much as I'd like to burn the company to the ground and haul you out of the ashes, we don't quite have the resources for that right now, and I don't want to leave you with them while we figure out the logistics. After that, though..." Her smile turned... sad. "I suppose that's for you to figure out."

I paused. "You're not going to take me back to Preservation?"

"I could," she said. "That's an option, if you decide you'd like to see it." 

There was something she wasn't saying. But I could only complain about not knowing enough to figure it out before I started repeating myself. 

"Okay," I said, for a lack of anything else. 

It sounded too good to be true, but it was true, which meant it was just good. I had an out-- not only a way to leave the company behind, but somewhere to go afterwards. With people who cared about me and what I wanted. 

Or, who cared about a version of me.

"And what if," I said, haltingly, "I don't do the same thing I did in your future? What if I'm not the same?"

"Then it will be a pleasure getting to know you again," Dr. Mensah said.

And then an alert on her comm went off, and she gave me a regretful look and held up a hand for me to wait while she checked it. Instead of waiting, I took the opportunity to immediately vacate the area. I needed to not be in a room with any humans for a little while immediately. (And maybe I was testing Mensah a little, to see if she'd try to order me to stay. She didn't. Instead she just gave one of my drones a brief wave and turned her attention back to whichever member of the survey team had contacted her.)

Five hours was apparently plenty of time for a group of eight really determined humans with the benefit of foresight to get a lot of shit done. The company was already en route for an emergency recovery, drawn in by both the threat of having to pay out the Preservation bond (which was very high, considering Mensah's status) and the promise of getting to sue GrayCris into the ground for violating the CR's restrictions about alien remnants. Pin-Lee was all too happy to show me both the mountain of evidence she'd collected against them as well as the offer Preservation was going to make to the company for my contract, including the court order that would keep them from wiping my memories. She asked if I had anything I wanted to add. I left the room to go stare at the wall for a while. 

Now that I actually knew what was going on, my clients' weird behaviors suddenly made a lot more sense.

They were casual with their safety because they knew exactly what was coming and exactly how to handle it. But they still listened when I gave them briefings because they trusted me to keep them safe and wanted to make my job as straightforward as possible. They weren't nervous around me because they trusted me.

I had to admit, I did like the feeling of humans trusting me. Even if I couldn't really bask in it considering how off-kilter I felt. 

When the company did arrive, it was preceded by Ratthi giving an emphatic reminder to one of my drones about how temporary my returning to the deployment center would be. To corroborate that, I passed by Pin-Lee giving some very firm instructions about what to do with me to the company technicians who were loading me into the cargo hold. The technicians mostly just looked bored (not their first experience with weird clients who got attached to their SecUnits), though they did start paying attention when Pin-Lee brought up the court order and the threat of a lawsuit if my brain was tampered with. 

Fanciful as Preservation's ideas about freedom and self-determination might have been, at least they knew how to speak the corporates' language. 

I did go back to the deployment center for a little while. The good news was that I was too busy trying to process how quickly my normal had been completely upended to really think too hard about that. 

And then Ratthi and Pin-Lee came to get me, and Pin-Lee waved her court order at some more technicians, and then we were walking through the station and heading to the hotel.

(I'm skipping on some of the details. I could probably go over my logs and retroactively lay it all out, but doing it this way gets across how out of my depth I was feeling. How I could barely process what was going on. How I was still trying to wrap my head around we're your friends and we care about you, nevermind the stuff about the time travel.) 

"You can stay here for the night," Pin-Lee said as she and Ratthi led me into one of the suites they'd rented. "I know you don't sleep, but I figure you wouldn't be opposed to having a door you can close between yourself and the rest of us. And a screen to use."

"Okay," I said.

"We've got some damage control to do," Ratthi chimed in, "so we're probably going to be busy, but if you need anything, you're free to contact us at any time." 

"Okay," I said. 

"There should be some basic information about the Preservation Alliance on the station's information feed," Pin-Lee added. "If you're curious about anything specific, we can give you our data, too."

"Okay," I said.

Pin-Lee opened her mouth to keep talking. Then she stopped, and gave me a narrow look.

"Right," she said. "We'll leave you to get settled."

She made for the door. Ratthi came to stand a few paces away from me, though kept his eyes off to the side. 

"SecUnit," he said. He didn't immediately continue, but I could tell by his tone of voice and his awkward shuffling in place that he had more he wanted to say. So I sat there and waited, staring at the carpet to his left. Either he'd figure out what he wanted to say, or he'd give up. (I was hoping for the latter, but banking on the former.) Sure enough-- "I just... I wanted to tell you that-- that no matter what you end up deciding to do, we're still your friends. And that we'll always be happy to see you. And if you ever need anything at all, you can always reach out to us, and--"

"You're making it uncomfortable, stop that," Pin-Lee interrupted, marching over to grab Ratthi by the arm. "It knows all that, you idiot. Do you want to piss Mensah off?"

Ratthi shuddered. I wasn't even on the chopping block, and I had to stifle the urge to shudder, too. The idea of a pissed-off Mensah was as impossible to imagine as it was frightening to behold. 

"Goodnight, SecUnit," Pin-Lee said as she dragged Ratthi away. He didn't bother protesting, instead just giving me a mournful glance as he was hauled towards the door. "We'll see you later. Stay safe."

Which was a weird way to say goodnight, even for my very strange humans. 

(Abruptly, I realized what Dr. Mensah's expression had meant. The sad little smile she'd given me when she was explaining what would happen after she bought my contract from the company. Even with all the ways I'd surmised things had changed from the first time they'd done all this, she must've realized even then that it couldn't really turn out any other way.)

The door closed behind them. I was alone.

I waited for a few hours, going over my media and sifting through the station's feed to download whatever I didn't already have. No one came to bother me. 

In the middle of the night cycle, I got up from where I was still sitting. I hadn't moved from when I'd first been brought there. I made my way down to one of the work zones. I stole clothes, and a bag, and disguised myself as an augmented human. I bribed the first bot-driven unmanned cargo vessel I came across for a ride with hundreds of hours of media downloads. 

Not much point in repeating myself, I don't think.

I don't know what I want. It's the sort of thing you'd expect someone in my shoes to say. I probably said it before. The last time we would've done this. 

But I probably wouldn't have said that I didn't want to have to meet any more expectations, or to have anyone else talk to me like they know me better than I know myself. Even if they do. So, I guess in order to do that, I have to get to know myself a little bit better. And yeah, I don't want anyone else to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me.

And that's why I left you, Dr. Mensah, my favorite human. By the time you get this I'll be leaving the Corporation Rim. Out of inventory and out of sight.

But you already knew that, didn't you?

Murderbot end message.