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Perihelion recovered SecUnit 2's body for me. That information in and of itself was enough for only buffer responses to come out for a full minute. I finally managed: Why?
I am certified in trauma protocol, Perihelion sent, managing to sound significantly less sarcastic than usual. It is important for people to say goodbye to the body of the person they're grieving.
Grieving. I knew what it meant abstractly, but I'd never considered that it could apply to SecUnits. I supposed I was grieving, for SecUnit 1, and especially SecUnit 2. I'd been activated approximately 1300 hours and my first moment of awareness was their pings in my feed.
Murderbot 1.0 sent me examples of funerals in entertainment media and Perihelion sent me some documentaries about contemporary and historic funeral practices. The media representations were not very helpful. I'd never cried so it seemed unlikely I would begin screaming and leaking out of my eyes when I saw SecUnit 2's body and need to be dragged from an airlock. I sent this to Murderbot 1.0 in the feed and it sent me an amusement sigil. There was an example in Perihelion's files that I liked though. The humans in a non-corporate entity burned their deceased's bodies and compressed the ashes into a small sphere that the humans could keep as a reminder. I also liked the community that used the bodies of loved ones as compost for flora, but I thought SecUnits had too many inorganic parts for that, and what remained of SecUnit 2 was fused with its armor now.
I was stuck on the question of who to invite for an entire cycle. Perihelion would be there whether I liked it or not. I did want it there though, so that was fine. Murderbot 1.0 would come which I knew was a significant sacrifice on its part because it hated feelings, was terrible at communicating with other SecUnits and I could tell it didn't entirely believe that SecUnit 1 and SecUnit 2 had been my friends. I tried to express my appreciation by leaving it alone for a cycle. All of the humans had made efforts to talk to me about my feelings and what I wanted which was frankly overwhelming. Dr. Mensah was the best at it (she must've had a lot of practice with Murderbot 1.0) so I invited her which she accepted immediately. I also invited Seth. As the captain, he had a calm authority that I found soothing. It reminded me of SecUnit 1.
The two humans, Murderbot 1.0, one of Perihelion's drones and I gathered around a gurney in engineering. Dr. Mensah had purchased flowers from the colonists after I sent her the clip of the human funeral I liked. This was so thoughtful and so extravagant given the ongoing alien contamination, tension between colonists, and Barish-Estranza's attempts to enslave the colonists, that I'd just stared at her for 32.4 seconds. I'd also never received a gift before. She squeezed my elbow (I was experimenting with minimal physical contact with humans) smiled and walked away. When I got myself together, I'd frantically pinged Murderbot 1.0, desperate to communicate my gratitude to Dr. Mensah without any idea how to.
She knows, Murderbot 1.0 sent.
I placed the flowers around SecUnit2's body. The colorful petals against the ruined armor made my stomach twist and pressure build behind my eyes. When I stepped back, Seth said,
"Today we gather here in memory of SecUnit 1 and SecUnit 2. While I never had the pleasure of meeting them, I am grateful for the many lives they saved. They deserved better than the suffering they experienced in life, and I will keep their memory with me."
There was a long pause. Hearing a human talk about SecUnits' existence as suffering was still unbelievably strange.
"Would you like to say something, Three?" Dr. Mensah asked.
I'd created a video for this moment that I sent into the feed, explaining that it was my best memories of SecUnit 1 and SecUnit 2. The video contained moments of stolen affection between the three of us. SecUnit 1 would try to position a drone to capture sunsets on planets for me because it saw my performance reliability percentage increase when I watched them. SecUnit 1 enjoyed videos of the humans falling in amusing ways when we were in cubicles, so SecUnit 2 and I would assemble reports to entertain it. SecUnit 2 had been disciplined by the governor module more than once for touching baby fauna affectionately so I included those moments, without the consequences.
"Are these recordings of you?" Dr. Mensa asked as SecUnit 2 wrestled with a baby fauna. It'd gotten away with that one because HubSystem thought it was a potential threat and didn't understand that SecUnit 2 and the baby fauna had been enjoying themselves.
"SecUnit 2 and I were created from the same sample of cloned human tissue."
The humans got very still. I pinged Perihelion in question and it sent me the definition of twins with relevant examples.
"We weren't twins," I said. The human definition clearly did not apply to SecUnits. "It was… special to me though."
We stood there quietly until the video ended. Perihelion pinged me to ask if I was ready. I stared at SecUnit 2's opaque helmet surrounded by flowers until I was confident that I'd captured every detail. I pinged it back and the aperture of the machine in engineering opened and Perihelion used its drone to transfer SecUnit 2's body and the flowers inside gently. The doors slid closed.
"You can leave, thank you for coming." I managed to say to the humans and Murderbot 1.0. Murderbot 1.0 tapped my feed and strode out of the room, clearly having reached its emotional capacity for the cycle, or more likely several cycles. Seth squeezed my shoulder (I'd decided I liked minimal physical contact with humans and was working up to a hug) and left. Dr. Mensah lingered for a moment.
"That was a lovely video," she said. "It's clear that SecUnit 1 and SecUnit 2 were important to you. SecUnit may have told you that Dr. Bharadwaj on Preservation is working on a documentary about constructs. I think she would be curious about your video if you'd be willing to share it."
I nodded and she squeezed my other shoulder and left. I stood there for several hours as the machine in engineering did whatever it did. Perihelion was there of course, it was always there, but it left me alone. Eventually the doors opened and Perihelion's drone floated inside. It emerged with a sphere, shining bits of organic parts mixed with dark inorganic material. The drone dropped it into my palm.
You can get it set into jewelry if you'd like, Perihelion sent.
Jewelry is not optimal for combat, I sent.
Perihelion was silent, but in a patient way, not a sarcastic way.
Not everything needs to be optimal for combat anymore, I sent.
Perihelion pinged me in agreement and left me alone. I stood for a while, holding what remained of my friend in the palm of my hand before opening the jacket pocket on my chest and placing it gently inside. I didn't know what I wanted, not really, but it was good to have my friend close.