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One of the very first problems Three had run into as a newly hacked unit, was Murderbot 1.0.
Even its name alone was a problem. To most others it was SecUnit, which had quickly grown confusing now that it wasn’t the only SecUnit on board. Perihelion seemed to bypass this issue by simply calling it by its hard feed address, or sometimes ‘you idiot’, but neither of those options were useful when speaking aloud. Three knew of its private name of course, it had met Murderbot 2.0, but like hell it would ever call it Murderbot to its face. So in the privacy of its own head, where no one could admonish it for doing so, Three settled for just 1.0.
Just as 1.0 had different names, it had different faces too. There was the standard blank expression, the one it wore frequently when interacting with the human crew members but it had also seen the small quiet smile it got after a mission went well, or the private little smirk whenever Perihelion was engaging it on the feed. It had a nice smile, Three thought. Sometimes it wished 1.0 would smile more often.
It had a different face for Three too, one that it didn’t think any one else had been privy to. One that it kept hidden, reserved only for Three.
The restraints had been pulled tight, wrapping around its wrists and ankles, twining across its chest and limbs, between its legs. Even using all of its strength, Three didn’t think it could snap them. Perihelion had designed these restraints exactly to 1.0’s specifications.
Perhaps it could have made a greater attempt to stop this before 1.0 had spent the better part of an hour trussing it up like some bizarre artistic display. The cabling on its wrists had been the last thing to be tied, and now that they were done Three was completely immobilized. But its lack of retaliation had put 1.0 in a good mood, and Three had seen what it was like when it wasn’t.
“It's not too tight is it?” 1.0 asked, a false note of concern in its tone. Three shook its head slowly, not that anything it said would make a difference.
“I don't know…” 1.0 tugged lightly at the wrist restraints. “I think it's too loose.”
Three tried not to grimace as the restraints were tightened, pulling its arms even higher over its head. The thick cabling wrapped around its wrists, binding them together and looping around a thick metal bar that had been installed just over the bed. Its legs were bound at the ankles, more cabling keeping its knees turned outwards and its legs spread wide. It could keep its pain sensors tuned down, but the longer it stayed in this position the more the strain would bleed through.
Three felt the bed depress as 1.0 crawled over it, settling with its weight directly over Three's hips. It was fully clothed (it was always fully clothed) and the steel capped boots it wore pressed hard against Three's naked skin. There would be a bruise there later, to join the myriad of bruising and marks 1.0 had already left on Three's body.
It wrapped its hands around Three’s neck, too slack for a proper chokehold, just resting them loosely. It stroked the organic skin with its thumbs, feeling the layer of synthetic cartilage underneath. Three’s skin prickled.
“It is possible to strangle a SecUnit to death,” 1.0 said. “I’ve never done it though.”
“Mmhm,” Three hated how high pitched its noise of acknowledgement came out. Too much like a whine.
“Usually, I just snap the neck.” 1.0 made a clicking sound with its mouth. “One movement. It's quick, painless.”
Its head cocked slightly.
“Relatively.” It added.
Three stared upwards at the ceiling, choosing to focus instead on the fluorescent bulbs and the feed posters Perihelion had displayed up there for 1.0.
“Breathe in.” 1.0 said and slowly, it began to tighten its grip. Not by a lot, not enough to truly compress Three’s windpipe.
“We don’t need as much air as a human,” 1.0 said. “Our lungs don’t work the same way. It takes us a bit longer to run out.”
Beneath it Three flinched. Its face was starting to feel warm, a deep flush settling in over its cheeks. The pressure on its neck was increasing.
“But when we do-” Three’s mouth opened, an instinctive response to the lack of air. “We really start to feel it. You should be feeling it right-.”
“Ack,” There was an awful choking noise. Three tried to twist against the restraints, its fingers scrabbled uselessly at smooth cabling.
“About-” An alert popped up in Three’s field of vision, followed by several more. Inside its chest cavity, its single lung burned. A slow prickling began to spread all throughout its body, its throat burned. It was running out of air, it needed to breathe, it couldn’t breathe, it couldn’t breathe-
“Now!” 1.0 snatched its hands away from Three’s neck and held them up in the air. It would never admit it, but it did have a penchant for the dramatic.
Three gasped, its internals instinctively clenching in an attempt to pull in as much oxygen as possible. The warning alerts slowly started to dissipate, along with the numbness that had been spreading through its fingers. It felt hot, then cold. Every inch of its organic skin was coated with sweat.
“How was it?” 1.0 asked.
When it was able to, Three spoke. “It was… a new experience.”
“Hmm,” 1.0 nodded. “Did you like it?”
No. “I’m- uh.”
1.0’s eyes bored into Three. “I’m not sure.”
“If you’re not sure then maybe we should try again.” 1.0 said. No. “Like testing a theory or whatever, didn’t Holism tell you that?”
It didn’t need to test strangulation again to know that it didn’t like it. Three balked, frantically trying to come up with an excuse that 1.0 would accept. Vaguely, the natural instinct to reach out to in the feed was there. It squashed that urge, there was nobody on board able to provide… assistance. Involving the human crew members was out of the question, and Perihelion-
Perihelion was-
Its absence in the situation was more disturbing than if it had actually been here. It knew, of course it knew, it was foolish to think that Perihelion would be truly ignorant to any of the happenings that took place inside its body. Whether it was complicit or whether it was the simple fact that 1.0 was its friend that made it direct its attention elsewhere, Three had no idea.
It seemed like almost a lifetime ago that Perihelion had threatened to flay its mind wide open, but the threat still weighed heavy on Three’s mind. 1.0 might hurt it, might choke it into a shutdown, but that was infinitely better than whatever Perihelion was capable of doing to it.
“Restricting my ability to breathe will result in a shutdown.” Three said lamely.
1.0 stared blankly. “Obviously.”
“That-” Three was grasping now, it didn’t know how to convey this to 1.0 without angering it, “That would be… suboptimal-”
“And?.”
“And therefore I would prefer that we not continue this… experiment.” Three finished, hopefully that came out more confidently than it felt. “I would not like to continue.”
1.0 was silent for a long time. It was still straddling Three and the coarse material of its clothing rubbed uncomfortably against bare skin. It tried not to look at 1.0’s face, at its eyes. It hated that.
“You want to stop.” 1.0 said finally. It wasn’t a question.
“Y-yes.”
(Fingers, again. Stroking its neck, wiping away a droplet of sweat that had trickled down Three’s neck.)
“But what if I don’t want to?”
So it had been useless after all. Pointless to withdraw a consent that had never been freely given in the first place. Three’s head shot backwards, slamming against the wall. It was being pushed backwards, held down by 1.0 who had both hands around its neck again and was leaning its whole body weight into it.
On instinct, Three tried to flail. Its body jerked and bucked as it struggled helplessly against the two forces pinning it in place. The cabling restraints, 1.0, 1.0’s hands around its neck, that tight feeling in its chest, growing tighter by the second. If it had somehow stopped 1.0 from restraining it so effectively, if it hadn’t been stupid enough to let itself get trapped into this position in the first place. Trading one kind of bondage for another, the universe must be playing some great cosmic joke on it.
The edges of its vision glitched static and went dark. It was like 1.0 was looking down at it from the end of a long tunnel. It was smiling now, a nasty grin that pulled its lips back and bared its teeth. A secret smile, just for Three.
There was no sexual pleasure to be derived from this, to 1.0 nothing sexual was happening at all. Or at least that’s how Three imagined it was justifying this. There could be no assault if there were no sexual parts to touch, no rape if there weren’t any orifices to penetrate.
Three hadn’t needed a demonstration to know that 1.0 could very easily snap its neck if it so pleased. That’s not what worried it. No, what was truly concerning to Three, was the barely repressed glee in its voice when it said, ‘I’ve never done it before’ and the unspoken follow up, ‘but I want to.’
Inside its head, Three was screaming. Its back arched, nothing but hoarse hacking sounds escaped its throat. Its air supply was completely cut off now. Tears blossomed in the corners of its eyes, spilling down the sides of its face. Spit leaked from the edges of its mouth. Its vision was getting hazy, starting to fade.
It needed to breathe and soon but 1.0 was still holding it down, still gripping white knuckled around its throat and it didn't even matter because even if it did die, Perihelion would just come up with an excuse and jettison its body into space or something and then it wouldn’t even matter that it had escaped its governor module because all of this would have been for nothing-
Shutdown initiated.
Restarting…
Three woke up, right as its body was in the process of taking a huge gasp. It jolted, the restraints pulling taught as it sucked in lungful after lungful of sweet recirculated air.
“Shhh, you did good. You did so good.” 1.0 stroked at its face, brushing the hair off from Three’s sweaty forehead. Somehow, 1.0 being comforting was even more terrifying.
It tried to speak and found it couldn't produce anything more than a wheezy croak.
“Yeah I dented something in your throat a little.” 1.0 said. “Sorry.”
Oh. It said it so flippantly, like it was apologising for damaging one of Three's drones and not its trachea. Overhead 1.0’s drones circled lazily. Lying on the floor somewhere were Three’s own, probably. It had dropped connections to them ages ago and it had no desire to pick them back up and see what it looked like now. The skin around its neck was hot and raw, its face a mess of snot and tears.
“It's fine though, ART will fix it.” 1.0 said. It reached over for something on the nightstand and produced a cloth, wiping at the tacky fluids on Three’s face. It was almost tender, an act no doubt mirrored from one of the many serials 1.0 liked to watch. It threw the cloth in the direction of the recycler with a disgusted grimace.
Three reached out in the feed and hesitantly established a connection. Some of the terror had begun to dissipate, although it was still bristling with anxiety. 1.0 could probably sense its emotions but it was too exhausted to care. Can you untie me now? Please?
1.0’s face twisted into a parody of consideration. “But I wanted to cuddle.”
Well that was a blatant lie, not that Three was brave enough to call it out. Cuddling, physical embraces and intimacy, were human acts and 1.0 found it repulsive. But still, it made an exception for Three, laying down next to it with its legs crossed together at the ankles.
The pain was starting to bleed through, even with its sensors tuned all the way down. Its shoulders might have been dislocated but that was fine, Perihelion would fix it. Would patch it right up and send it straight back to 1.0.
Three allowed its mind to drift aimlessly. It couldn’t think about the pain in its shoulders, or its throat, or anywhere else if it wasn’t thinking at all. Beside it, Murderbot lay its head on Three’s chest, coiling around it in the feed like a snake.