Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I was lying face down on a repair platform, bolted down with straps to force me to stay in place while two company techs worked on installing something in my energy weapons. (My maintenance report was written out in the feed, but it wasn’t like I was getting out of this, so I only glanced at the document instead of reading it all the way through. I was being fitted with some kind of device that would allow the company to lock and/or fire my weapons remotely.)

I was trying to ignore the feeling of tools digging into the inorganic seams of my forearms, and was focusing instead on convincing HubSys to let me download the next episode of some show I’d started called Sanctuary Moon, when a woman poked her head into the room. “Is that unit…” she read my serial number off a clipboard.

One of the techs took the back of my head in one hand, and turned me sideways so that he could read the numbers etched into the inorganic parts on the side of my neck. He held my head in place (at an angle that would have been painful for a human) while he traced his finger along the number. “Yep,” he said, and let me go. I tried to be subtle when I turned my neck back to a more comfortable angle, so he wouldn’t notice.

“It’s needed for a contract,” the woman said, flipping a page on the clipboard. She handed it to the other tech, who took it and read it. “Complete this install by the end of the work period so we can send the unit out.”

“What?!?” The one holding the clipboard sounded angry. “We’ve already been here a full cycle—“

“Does this mean the supervisor’s approving overtime?” The one who’d grabbed my head asked.

“If you finished your work in a reasonable time frame, you wouldn’t need overtime,” the woman glared at him.

I accessed HubSys again to see what the new install was going to be. I’d been through a truly ridiculous number of “repairs” and “upgrades” since I’d hacked my governor module about 2,500 hours ago, but I guess killing 57 of your clients means even the company can’t pretend you’re in good working order, and needs to make sure you’re not going to do it again. They’d wiped my memory after I committed mass murder, so I wasn’t actually sure of much of anything from before that, but I was pretty sure I’d gone a long time before without undergoing any major refurbishment. Now I’d spent the better part of the last several cycles being poked at and messed with by humans. Yeah, it wasn’t pleasant, but nobody ever asks murderbots what they think. We’re not supposed to be capable of much thinking in the first place.

The new install was a listening device meant to be inserted into my rib compartment with a (so far as I could tell) fancy improved feed relay. Usually, the company has to wait for a contract to end so they can access the data they make SecUnits record nonstop, but supposedly, the new relay was going to establish a link to let the company listen in while I was still on contract. Great. It sounded like the sort of thing that meant people would be paying close attention to me and what I recorded. That didn’t bode well for me maintaining the illusion that I was a perfectly normal gov-modded SecUnit, and I kind of needed that illusion, you know, to remain alive. As uncomfortable as it was to get new parts installed, I was pretty sure that it would be worse to get dissected alive before being stuffed into a recycler.

The woman left the room, and when the door closed behind her, the techs started talking to each other. I was supposed to be recording what they said in case they were talking about unionizing or something, but I set my audio inputs to filter for keywords and tried to go back to my HubSys downloads. If I was going out on a contract, I actually wanted more than one episode of Sanctuary Moon in my personal onboard storage. It was a lot harder to hack HubSys on contracts when I had to be focusing on pretending to do my job, so my best chance at having anything resembling entertainment was to scrape whatever I could out of the feed now, while I was still in the deployment center. 

My audio input pinged me with one of my key words, and I tuned back in to hear the tech closer to my head say, “Help me with the restraints, we need to flip it over.”

Sometimes I thought about permanently shutting myself down. Maybe I could get myself squished under a hauler bot or something, or out myself as a rogue and shoot myself in the face, anything so I wouldn’t have to keep putting up with contract after contract and repair after repair, and cramming my broken body into cubicles over and over again, because honestly, it sucked. A lot. But I kept myself still as the techs undid the buckles and brushed their hands over my skin, and I told myself that if I died now, I’d never finish Sanctuary Moon, and there were still like seven more seasons of that I hadn’t consumed yet. (I wasn’t sure what I’d do after I finished Sanctuary Moon, but murderbots don’t really need long term plans, for obvious reasons.)

The techs took the straps off me in sections, and there were a lot of straps, because nobody wants the SecUnit who’s insides they’re working on to accidentally flinch so hard it throws them across the room. The last restraints came off from around my ankles, and the techs stepped back.

“On your back,” the first one said to me, tapping my shoulder, and like a good SecUnit, I complied. My arms had been stretched over my head to make them easier to work on, and it hurt when I pulled them back towards me to prop myself up. The internal mechanisms hadn’t quite been realigned to their right places yet, and when I instinctively tried to close my pried-open gunports, that hurt too, and they didn’t even close properly. I painfully managed to flip myself over, so I was lying on my back looking up at the harsh light of the gross ceiling.

The second tech immediately pulled my arms straight to my sides so my gunports would still be exposed to work on. The first tech just started strapping me down again, starting with my ankles, and working his way up my thighs and the rest of my body. Now that I was face-up, I actually had to work on controlling my expressions when he got close enough to bolt the strap over my forehead into place. “There we go,” he said, slapping my chest once everything was locked down so I could no longer effectively do anything about that (not that I could have before). It was my experience that company techs were always very invested in making sure their SecUnits were properly secured with physical restraints that we can’t hack. Almost like techs don’t trust that governor modules work. Ha ha. And to be fair to the restraints, if I decided right then to start being a proper rogue and murder both my techs, I wouldn’t have been able to do it strapped down like that.

The first tech dragged a tray of tools closer to the repair platform, and sat down on a little rolling stool he positioned next to where my chest was. The second tech was working on my left gunport on the other side of me, using the equipment that had already been out from before.

“Sure, I’ll just finish the weapon locks myself, no problem,” the second tech grumbled.

“You’re not certified for chest cavity repair,” the first one shrugged, and cracked his knuckles. “And the last thing we need is for PUOMANT to sue the company for giving them faulty equipment.”

“Shouldn’t we…turn off some of its functions before you open it up?” The second one asked, giving me a weird glance. I stared at the ceiling and tried to look like a normal SecUnit.

“Like higher processing? No, you don’t need to for this,” the first tech shook his head, and picked up a tool that looked like a bunch of little spikes on the end of a stick. “And it takes forever to turn them back on after.”

Right. Like I care that I have to be awake for this. (For the record, I do care. I would much rather have been offline before I got my chest cavity opened by a human.) A cubicle will put you offline, but it can’t do specialized installs, therefore, construct technicians still had jobs.

The first tech held the spiky tool between two fingers and started using a scalpel to cut my sticky skinsuit open, peeling it away from my neck and shoulders. I hate being sticky. (Several hours of maintenance on your internal parts without a break tends to make for a lot of gross, bad, organic smells.)

The tech rolled the plasticky suit down my body, exposing my chest. “Careful,” the other tech said, not looking up from my arm. “I still need access to the elbow joint.”

“Yeah, I know,” the first tech said, handing him the scalpel. The second tech started sawing at the folds of skinsuit around my elbow, while the first one picked up the spiky tool and started rolling it over the organic parts of my skin. I could feel whatever kept the flaps of my skin secured in place (ew) detaching as the tool went, like there were bubbles forming under my skin. When the tech felt that I’d been sufficiently rolled with spikes, he set the tool aside and started peeling up my skin. I could feel his nails digging into the edges of my organic parts. Neither of the techs were wearing gloves. I knew company regulations required gloves, but technically, SecUnits didn’t contain anything that would burn and/or corrode human skin (if you remembered to wash your hands after coming into contact with our fluids), so I’d only ever seen one tech that actually worked in gloves. And he’d been super clumsy and grossed out by me the whole time, so that was unpleasant for its own reasons. 

The tech picked delicately at my skin, peeling it up and away from the inorganic structure beneath. I had a copy of my own specs (that was what I’d used to hack my governor module) and I knew that theoretically the compartment under my rib cage could be opened without massive fluid loss as a result. I guess I was going to find out. The tech took a series of dissecting pins from the tray, and used them to keep my skin stretched open, leaving my internal mechanisms exposed. (Yeah, it felt about as comfortable as it sounds.)

While he was doing that, the other tech had finished cutting away the skin suit and was pulling on my left energy weapon with two hands. When I’d sat up, I’d misaligned the way the weapon sat in my arm, and apparently that was a problem. He yanked on the weapon, and I could feel that all the way through my arm up to my shoulder joint. Ouch. He fiddled with it, and it felt stuck in place, even to me, so it hurt a lot as it pulled on the other parts inside my arm that it was attached to. “Ugh,” he groaned. “This fucking cheap piece of…” he mumbled to himself as he tried to manually shove my weapon back into the gunport. I already tried that, idiot, it won’t close. And I know I’m a cheap piece of company tech, but still. You don’t have to be rude.

“Almost got it,” he grunted, and he twisted something sideways that I’m pretty sure wasn’t supposed to move. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to try and keep myself from reacting with a noise SecUnits aren’t supposed to make. I could feel the metal pieces scraping against each other as he twisted my energy weapon perpendicular to my arm, and then he pulled up, released, and it snapped into the right place and my forearm closed up around it. Which would have felt like a relief if not for 1) the fact that that hurt like a crowbar inside my arm trying to pry out my tendons, and 2) he then ran his fingers along the bottom of my arm, tickling and poking it in the right spot and then squeezing my wrist to manually open the port again for maintenance. At least the energy weapon moved smoothly along the track this time, but I still had to focus to hold back the groaning sound my organics wanted me to make. 

The first tech finished pinning all my skin out of the way. He had a different tool now, one that looked like a wrench, and he started loosening the metal bolts on my sternum, lined up down the front of my rib cage to access the compartment. He fastened the wrench to the first bolt, tightened it until I could almost feel the mechanical stress internal alert (even though those had been disabled for this install cycle), and then started twisting the first bolt off. It felt weird. It alternated between painful pressure over my sternum with a sudden gut-wrenching light feeling that just didn’t feel right as the bolt detached. The tech placed it off to the side, and it made a clinking sound as it went into a metal bowl. Then he started on the next. 

The second tech fitted a little orange thing around the front of my left energy weapon. It looked like a cap. He held it in place with one hand, and poked a bunch of buttons hidden along the inside of the weapon to practice opening, closing, and changing the power level of it with the cap in place. “Unit, confirm weapon is set to demo mode,” he said, not looking at my face.

“Confirmed,” I said out loud, hoping it came out normally what with how weird and empty my chest was starting to feel.

The second tech pointed my weapon at a small red pad held between two fingers, holding the orange cap in place with his other hand. “Fire,” he said. I fired. The demo shot was just a small burst of electricity, enough that a human would feel like they were being lightly tased. It hit the pad and dissolved into nothing.

“Ouch,” the tech winced and dropped my arm, sucking on his fingers.

“What happened?” The one unbolting my chest cavity asked.

“Static shock,” he winced. “Where do we keep the—“

“In that drawer,” the first one gestured with his head. The second one got up, then returned a few moments later wearing a thick glove that was supposed to protect him from accidental demo mode shocks. He grabbed my gun again, with a much tighter grip now that the glove was muffling his sensation, and had me fire again. Then he touched things on an external feed data surface for a while while he held the cap in place, calibrating it to my systems or something.

The first tech had finished with the bolts, and used a little metal tool inserted between the seams of my ribs to pry open my rib compartment. It hurt. I felt too light and open, like there was something missing. I felt like something heavy had been sitting on my chest, and then it suddenly got up and I couldn’t remember how to breathe properly anymore. The tech got the door of the compartment propped open, and I knew I didn’t have any squishy gross organic parts in there to feel cold, but I felt cold anyway. I didn’t like having my internal structures open and exposed like this. I liked keeping all my parts where they belonged. The tech frowned down at me.

“Did Lena drop off the part, or—“

“Check the fabricator,” the second one said. The first tech got up, leaving me nothing to focus on but the feeling of the pins digging into my skin and the discomfort of gloved human hands on my energy weapon. And that second thing suddenly got much worse as I felt the cap dig into the firing chamber of my weapon, like pins and needles in a part of me I didn’t know could feel that.

“There!” The second tech said. “I think that’s good.” He had me open and close my port a few times, making sure the cap stayed on through the process. It felt weird and bad to close the cap under my skin. New installs always felt bad at first, but this felt like a prickle under my skin that didn’t even go away while my gunport was closed.

The tech raised my arm at the demo pad and made me fire three times. Then he tapped a bunch of things on the data surface, and told me to fire. So I tried. I felt the feedback as my system loaded the energy, and then with nowhere to go, the electricity dispersed into the surface of my skin, frying me with about maybe a tenth of a governor module’s capabilities. I twitched involuntarily as the shock raced over my muscles. The tech either didn’t notice, or it didn’t matter to him.

He made me try to fire two more times, keeping the lock in place. It hurt worse each time. I didn’t want to know what it would feel like if the lock was online while I had my weapons at full capacity. 

Then, the really weird thing happened. “Hold,” he said. I held—I didn’t want to fire again with the lock still on. But he tapped the surface again, and I felt my body draining energy from my other processes, forcing it into my weapon, and firing it without my permission. It felt like I suddenly desperately needed a recharge cycle, I couldn’t keep my processes together. I think I shorted out.

I came online again to a device pressed into the data override port in the back of my neck, forcing me awake again. I felt dizzy, like I’d lost a lot of fluids, but according to diagnostics my levels were fine. 

“What did you do to it?” The first tech asked.

“Forgot to turn the lock off,” the second one called over his shoulder, going back to my arm and leaving the thing stuck in my override port. It felt like how I imagined a rusty nail stuck in a rotting piece of wood would feel, if I was the wood. “Overloaded the system for a second. Should be fixed now.”

“If you fry it before it goes on contract, I’m blaming you,” the first one said.

“It was an accident,” the second tech grumbled. He fiddled with the data surface again, setting up another shot. 

I wondered if the cap thing was new. I hadn’t had them when I’d murdered 57 of my clients, I was pretty sure. It seemed like that was the kind of thing specifically designed to stop a rogue SecUnit from murdering a lot of humans. Which made sense, and was probably a smart idea to install. Nobody ever asks if these things hurt the sentient weapons they’re being installed on, but protecting the feelings of murderbots isn’t really a company priority. Protecting the lives of well-paying clients is. 

The tech forced me to fire a few shots using commands on his feed surface, and the cap drew energy from other parts of my body to do it even though the hold command I maintained was supposed to stop it from firing. It wasn’t that bad. It just felt a lot like getting my internal organs pulled out of me through a hole the size of a straw. When he was done, he had me fold the weapon back into my arm, and patted me gently. “One down,” he said. “Just one more.” He looked at the other tech. “Maybe we will finish up before the rest period.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” the first tech grumbled. He was back from the fabricator with some kind of metal spherical thing, with a couple of plates visible on the surface and a tiny hole in the side of it. He lowered it into my open chest cavity, and then the too-light feeling was gone, replaced with a sudden too-heavy feeling that I think I liked even less. He reached up past the listening device, up through my chest towards my clavicle, and used a little tool with a hook to pry a few of my wires loose, which, ow. He inserted one of my wires into the hole on the device, and hooked it into place.

Now that I was connected to it, I could tell it was just a fancy listening device with a feed relay for long distance transmissions to the company. Great. (That was sarcasm.) Actually, maybe it would be okay. I wondered if I could hack it to give me long distance access to the company’s entertainment satellites while I was on contracts on planet surfaces. I hate planets for a lot of reasons, and one of the reasons at the top of the list is no media.

The first tech pushed all the extra loose wires back up into me with a thumb, pressing painfully against them. “That’ll be fine,” he murmured. He got a flashlight and leaned his head on my stomach area, looking up into the compartment. “No, it won’t,” he sighed, and he sat back up and started prepping the soldering iron. I fucking hate the soldering iron.

The techs switched places around me, so the second one could have access to my other gunport, where he immediately started prodding and messing with it. The first tech warmed up the solder, and then stuck it into my rib compartment, and that was the closest I came to screaming during the entire process so far. It was hot and melting and fizzing against the inside of me, and I bit all the way through my cheek trying not to react. I tasted my blood dribbling uncomfortably down the back of my throat as the tech pressed the heat inescapably against my wires until everything was set in place.

I took shallow, ragged breaths, trying not to move or react too much. You’d think by now I’d be fucking used to repairs and installs, but unfortunately not, it hurts every time. The now-familiar aching pull of the second tech’s hands slotting my right energy weapon back onto its track was almost pleasant by comparison. 

The first tech took the opportunity for a short break as my internal parts cooled. He stepped off to the side and pulled a caffeine patch out of a pocket, applying it to his inner arm. He watched me while he did this, and I stared at the ceiling and thought about what a relief it was going to be to climb into a cubicle after this and watch Sanctuary Moon in peace.

When he came back, he sat next to me, put on some latex gloves, and mixed two cups of clear liquid into a gooey paste.

“Is that resin body safe?” The second tech asked, waving his hand over his nose. “It smells awful.”

“It’s okay for use on SecUnits,” the first tech said, which was a great answer. Fuck. He poured it into my rib compartment and the too-heavy feeling got worse, oozing over my internal parts and settling in heavily like cement, like a bunch of chewed food a human had forced onto me, like I don’t know what but it was sticky and heavy and horrible. I felt like I could feel it dripping through the bottom of the rib compartment onto my other internal parts, maybe even sticking to my lung. The tech closed the compartment over the resin, squeezing it, and I felt my performance reliability dip low enough to knock me unconscious for just a moment before the module in my override port forced me online again. No respite for murderbots.

“Shouldn’t you wait for it to set first?” The second tech asked.

“Can you just focus on your own job?” The first one glared. “I have to close it up before it sets, so the compartment seals shut.”

So my rib compartment was going to be stuck like this, then. It felt heavy and thick in my chest. I would almost rather be shot repeatedly or have my limbs torn off, because at least that pain was sharp and a cubicle would make it go away. This was just stuck, heavy and uncomfortable and clogging my sensory inputs with feedback, and I knew the cubicle wasn’t going to touch it. Once the resin set, probably nothing would. Just great for me. 

I hate everything.

The tech bolted my sternum back into place, each tightening bolt making the pressure in my ribs feel worse. I couldn’t get used to it. And to top it all off, the second tech tested the other cap, which dug its spiky little feet into my weapon and distributed the demo mode energy over my skin with another painful pulse. 

I was barely conscious by the time the tech started unpinning my skin and pressing it back into place with magnets, but the override module wasn’t letting me shut down properly, so I was stuck weaving in and out of painful awareness in what felt like a never-ending nightmare of misery. If that sounds dramatic, I don’t. Fucking. Care. It was awful.

Once they were both done, I just kind of laid there on the table for a while, still strapped down. Their shifts ended, so they left me there and then left the room altogether. I tried to lower my pain sensors, but I was so stiff and sensitive from the install that it didn’t really work. I just laid there, looking up at the gross ceiling, absolutely miserable for a while, waiting for the next shift to come in and unstrap me so I could get in a cubicle and try to forget this had happened.

Chapter Text

I wish it had been more techs coming in to work on me. Instead, it was a station unit, wearing the uniform for permanent assignment to the deployment center. No, no, I knew I was going back out on a contract, but right now? I couldn’t. I needed a recharge cycle. At least half of one. Even just a quarter of one, just a few minutes in a cubicle…No such luck. I felt like a bunch of emotions were all stuck behind my eyeballs and crammed into my face, squeezing me like a vice. It didn’t feel great.

The station unit undid all the straps, one by one, working slowly with strong, firm hands. I didn’t bother pinging it. Station units don’t talk much, and I hate talking to other constructs even when I’m not fresh from a manual repair cycle. 

My skin suit had been sliced to pieces by the techs as they worked on the various parts of me. When the station unit finished with the straps, it started helping me out of the remains of the suit. I tried to make that part go fast, but my arms felt weird, and my hands wouldn’t quite close properly now that the gunport lock was inside my forearm jamming between my tendons. Tendons? Whatever you call the organic parts that look like strings that move muscles around, I don’t care. I mostly fumbled uselessly with the suit. The station unit had to touch my arm lightly for me to hold it straight while it took my sleeve off, then the other arm. We had a little easier time getting it off my legs. 

The suit was torn up and covered in my blood and fluids, so it went right into a recycler, which meant I needed a new one before I could go to my next contract. This room wasn’t actually equipped with full supplies, such as a cubicle, fabricator, or a cleaning bot, so I had to follow the station unit to the deployment center ready room.

The company deployment center was usually busy and full of people, which would have been absolutely terrible right then, as I was out of my skinsuit and all my stupid skin and inorganic parts were visible (not to mention I was still leaking a little bit) but most of the shifts were on a rest period and it was blessedly empty as I followed the station unit through the halls and tried not to collapse from exhaustion. I really could have used a recharge cycle in a cubicle before being sent out on a contract, but what does a murderbot know about company efficiency anyway. I could “rest” in the transport box, sort of. It had an attachment to put the SecUnit inside into something like sleep, so I wouldn’t really have to be conscious, but it wouldn’t be like a recharge cycle. Maybe I’d get lucky and the contract would be easy and I could spend most of my time watching Sanctuary Moon on boring patrols.

Yeah, right. You’ve never been lucky once in your life, Murderbot. (I couldn’t even really remember the entire time I’d been activated, which was definitely more than 2,506 hours, but I had a feeling it had been a similar trend, seeing as it included killing 57 of my clients.)

SecUnits don’t get lost in thought, so I noticed immediately when the station unit stopped walking, and I stopped too so I wouldn’t walk right into it. There were some humans crossing our path. Oh, fuck. I really wasn’t in any condition to pretend it wasn’t awful being around humans.

The station unit and I stood there while the humans walked by. There was some kind of tour or something happening. 

“Oh my god,” one of the humans looked at me and shrieked. “Is that a SecUnit?”

What the fuck did you expect on a tour of the company deployment center? I hoped my face wasn’t doing anything weird, because I certainly felt weird being out of my skinsuit right now. Equipment can’t be naked, because it’s equipment, not a person, but I sure felt fucking naked. And I was still visibly lazily leaking fluid out of my rib compartment. I was pretty sure the techs had left before the resin had fully set, because it was heavy in my chest and starting to dribble out through the lower seam of my rib compartment, so that looked like it was going to turn into a new permanent annoyance when it dried in little bubbles on my skin.

“Why yes,” the tour guide said, with one of those huge smiles that always looks fake. “All the SecUnits you see wearing these red uniforms are permanently assigned here to help maintain the station and keep it running!” She touched the station unit on the shoulder, plucking at its sleeve as she spoke as if she was giving a demonstration. The station unit didn’t move. It couldn’t—no unit with an active governor module could have.

“What’s wrong with that one,” one of the touring people said, and then a bunch of humans were looking at me, so I looked at the wall behind them and tried to pretend I wasn’t there.

The tour guide looked me up and down quickly, and through one of the security cameras, I caught her making a face at the general state of me. She wiped it away quickly though, and brought the smile back. “I’m sure this unit is freshly returned from a contract!” She said. “Before we send it out again, a few of our experienced techs will ensure it’s  back to full functionality and that all its damage is repaired!”

Hilarious.

“What could have happened to it?” One of the touring humans asked.

“It’s the job of a SecUnit to put itself between its clients and any possible danger,” the tour guide said. “In rare cases, units won’t return at all, too damaged to be reclaimed from the field. In that case, clients are expected to pay for a replacement unit. But let’s let these units go back to their tasks, shall we?”

She led the humans down the hall and away from us. One of the people came up close to me and examined me with his eyes, staring at the blood and fluid not yet dried on my skin. I fought the instinctive response to shiver. He held up his palm near my chest, and I thought for a second he was going to touch me, and my whole body tensed up. At the last second, he dropped his hand and followed the tour group down the hall and out of sight.

The station unit started walking again. I followed it. 

We finally made it to the ready room, thankfully without seeing any more humans. It was cool, dark, and quiet there, illuminated just by the soft glow of a few active white cubicles with SecUnits inside, recharging. There were a few darkened cubicles left unused in the lineup. One of them was supposed to be for me, I knew it. I’d never wanted to get in one so badly (that I could remember) but I was supposed to get cleaned up and ready for transport. I reluctantly followed the station unit into the cleaning area attached to the ready room.

It was an empty space in comparison to what a human locker or shower room looks like (and trust me, I wish I didn’t know what those looked like). The room was lined with white tile, with a few drains set into the floor, and two hoses coiled up and hanging on the wall. There was nowhere to sit (why would there be?) and nothing even resembling a shower curtain, because equipment doesn’t need that.

I was already out of my skin suit, so I went directly to one of the hoses and tried to take it off the wall. The station unit watched me fumble with the nozzle. I couldn’t twist it to turn on the water flow. My hands still wouldn’t close all the way. I opened my gunports to relax the tension on my hands and tried again, but I still couldn’t do it. The station unit couldn’t let me struggle forever, it had a schedule to keep and needed to get me in a transport box on time. It came over and took the hose from me, and I didn’t try to stop it. It pinged me to go stand a little ways away, so I went, staring miserably at the wall.

It turned on the water with a twist of its wrist and pointed the hose at me. I stuck my arms up (ouch, as I did that I could feel the resin in my rib compartment shifting sluggishly and pressing differently against my internal walls) so it could have access to more of me. The water was cold (it always was) and the jet from the hose was painful against my raw skin as the station unit moved the stream up and down over my skin, power washing the blood, fluid, and sticky bits of leftover resin off me. At some point, it pinged for me to turn around, so I did. I flinched when the cold water hit the back of my legs, but if the station unit noticed, I don’t think it reported it. 

I wasn’t exactly clean, but I wasn’t completely disgusting anymore. I knew I was at the point technically good enough to fit the loose company standards needed to send me out on contract when the station unit turned off the water and hung the hose on the wall again. I wiped myself off with a small, flimsy plastic towel, and went back into the ready room. There was a pile of skin suits, and I took my time getting into one while I also tried to look like I was doing it as efficiently as possible. It really didn’t help that my hands couldn’t grab the fabric right anymore. The station unit had to help pull the suit over my shoulders. There was no way this energy weapon lock was going to last very long if it affected my functionality like this, but at the same time, I couldn’t think of anything in particular people expected SecUnits to do that required fine motor capabilities. Maybe if I needed to tranquilize someone or comply with some instruction from a MedSys in the field, but that seemed unlikely. 

The inactive cubicles still looked so cozy and inviting. I would have deleted half my media storage if it meant I could have gotten into one for a recharge cycle. For at least an hour . (I was almost scared by how much I wanted that.) But the station unit put its hands on my shoulders after it finished helping me dress, and led me to the other side of the room, where there were a few transport boxes folded against the wall. There was one already unfolded in the lift pod, which would then carry the transport box to the hangar where it could be loaded onto a ship for a contract. Then when you got to where you were going, your new temporary clients unpacked you to the point where you were awake enough to think, and left you to your own devices to finish reinitializing and setting up the ready room and everything the company had made them pay for. (That was if you were lucky. Sometimes humans wanted to watch their SecUnits do this and make comments about how it was being done and make you move everything into different places even though they don’t actually use any of the equipment.)

The station unit took my arm and tried to help me into the transport box, but I pulled away before it could touch me any more than it already had. I swung one of my legs over the side and tried to tuck myself in (this was one of the smaller boxes where you couldn’t stand upright, and had to curl up into a ball in order to fit) but the station unit plucked at my sleeve to stop me. I glared at it. It responded by handing me two packing bubbles, which actually made me feel kind of bad for glaring. I shoved the bubbles into the bottom of the transport crate, and it handed me a few more that I tucked around the exposed inorganic joints of my legs as I settled in. I tucked my arms up to my chest, trying to ignore the way this made the heavy resin feeling worse, and leaned down so the station unit could finish. It tucked another packing bubble between my thighs and my chest, which was nice of it. It didn’t have to do that. I felt really bad for being so angry with it for not letting me get in the cubicle. It was just doing its job, it didn’t have a choice. 

It tucked a few more packing bubbles around my shoulders and over my back, which would squish against the top of the crate once it was closed so the SecUnit inside wouldn’t shift around too much during transport. I moved around slightly, trying to get as close to comfortable as possible before I wouldn’t be able to move at all anymore. The station unit sent me a data packet about my new contract and clients, but I didn’t open it. There would be plenty of time to sit around being bored out of my skull during the contract itself, and even then I probably wouldn’t read it. I focused on downloading as much media as possible from the company entertainment satellite while the station unit finished prepping the packing material for transport. Then it slid a cable out of one of the interior walls of the box, and plugged the end of it into my override port. I felt it sticking painfully into the back of my neck, making me shiver, up until it finished taking over my systems and started to automatically shut down my brain for transport. The organic parts were supposed to sleep, but usually—

Unit offline.

Chapter Text

Restarting.

Unit online.

I felt the connection between the transport box and my inorganic consciousness start to die away, even though everything was still dark, and I could still feel the cable in the back of my neck.

My head felt fuzzy and achy, but I knew that would go away quickly. It was just an after effect of being offline for so long. By now, the company would have delivered the transport box to my new clients, or maybe to their ship? I could have already been through a wormhole (I’d have no way of knowing). I could check my internal chronometer for more information once I was fully back online, but it didn’t really matter. I was awake now.

The transport box was still sealed, so far as I could tell from the way I was still uncomfortably folded inside it. I could hear muffled human voices outside the thin walls of the crate, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

There was a weird sensation of gravity as the crate swayed with me inside—they were moving the transport box, I guessed. Before unpacking me? For a long, horrible moment of panic, I worried there was something wrong with the cable meant to keep me offline, and I’d woken up before I was meant to, and I was going to be stuck in a dark, quiet hell, unable to move for however long it took to get to my new contract, but then I felt a jarring movement as I hit the ground, and then the top of the box opened, so I could see my knees again in the sudden brightness.

Usually, clients would stop at this point once they’d gotten the crate open. SecUnits were supposed to be able to complete contract setup alone once we were properly woken up, and most clients didn’t care enough to watch that. These clients were handsy. (That was never a good sign for me.) They started tearing away at the packing bubbles like they were excited, like they were unwrapping a present (also not looking good for me) and suddenly there were hands on my back too, more than two (ew, ew, ew) pulling on me like—

“Don’t touch it,” a quiet voice filtered over my head, and my new clients listened. Suddenly, there was nobody touching me again. Their supervisor must have come in. “Let it get out on its own,” the supervisor said, and fuck, that meant I actually had to focus on doing that now. Internal diagnostics said there was nothing wrong with my limbs, but I felt heavy and off-balance as I worked on pulling myself upright out of the transport box while at least four humans (judging by the number of hands, my eyes weren’t fully online yet) watched me. It was hard, with the way my hands couldn’t fully grab onto the edges of the box, but I managed to get myself most of the way upright before I started feeling dizzy. I really wished there weren’t humans watching me.

“Please wait while your SecUnit completes reinitialization procedures,” my buffer said, helpfully. Please go away, I wanted to say, but a gov modded unit wouldn’t say that.

I felt a sudden pressure on the inside of my brain. It felt kind of like a HubSys from the size of it, from the way it oozed heavily over my consciousness as if looking for weaknesses, but it ghosted past my governor module and didn’t seem to notice that it was offline. I breathed slightly easier, despite the headache I was starting to get. It was an attentive HubSys, seemingly heavily invested in keeping an eye on me. That was also not a good sign for me (what a surprise), since most of being alive after hacking your governor module involves never having anyone pay attention to you ever. Maybe I should actually get around to reading the contract data packet so I can figure out where the fuck I am.

It’s recovering, someone else’s voice came over the feed. They sounded weird and filtered, almost inhuman. Most of its sensory inputs are throttled, and it's not fully online yet.

“SecUnit?” One of the blurry humans waved a hand in front of my face. Great idea, make sudden movements at the murderbot. “Are you…” there was a hesitation. “Is it going to be okay?”

I’m sure of it, the same voice again. Even if it wasn’t “okay,” I would be able to fix it.

I was still working on getting myself out of the transport box. I wasn’t injured, I was just stiff. And not fully online yet, apparently. Which would explain why the voice on the feed sounded weird and distorted and not right. My new listening device felt thick and uncomfortable in my chest cavity. It was making it hard for me to balance properly.

“Peri’s right,” one of the humans said. “SecUnit will be fine.”

And it would probably appreciate some space right now, the same feed voice. Weird. Humans don’t care what murderbots think about, we’re not even supposed to be able to think. More likely, someone was scared of me and trying to brush it off as caring about the equipment. That must have been the case, because the humans all stepped away from me as I finally got myself upright enough to swing a leg out of the box and get to my feet. Mostly. I stood there, trying not to sway, feeling a little bit exposed in nothing but my company skin suit. I wished I had my armor. I’d have to find it as soon as I was left alone.

“It’s strange seeing it like this,” one of the humans said. 

Another human grasped her hand. “It’s been worse,” the second one said quietly. “After it came back with my second mom…” she shivered. “But it got better. It always gets better.” They squeezed their hands.

Whatever the fuck that meant.

There were four humans in front of me, so I’d counted right. There couldn’t be more than ten clients in total, or there would be a second transport box, and I didn’t see one. The humans whispered things to each other and slowly moved out of the room. I stood there until they left, then turned to look at the rest of the equipment.

There was nothing else. I was standing in an almost empty cargo hold, except for my transport box. I didn’t see a cubicle, but maybe the clients were cheap. I didn’t even see a set of armor, and there were no clients that cheap.

I connected to the feed presence (that didn’t quite feel like a HubSys now that I was more online), and I looked for my instructions. The HubSys(?) settled around me with a squeezing pressure that was suffocating for a moment, before it eased back. I poked at it, and was met with a firewall like nothing I’d ever seen before. I pinged it and asked for a copy of my standing orders.

It sent me a map. The map was labeled Perihelion Research Transport, and there was a highlighted path to a small room. This is your room, the HubSys said, scaring me so badly I almost jumped. The HubSys talked. With words . HubSys doesn’t do that. I hesitated for a long moment, worried it could read what I was thinking somehow, worried it knew I’d hacked my governor module, waiting for it to raise an alarm or try to remotely shut me down. 

Take your time, the HubSys said, and gov modded SecUnits don’t hesitate, so I quickly followed the path to what I tentatively labeled as the security ready room of what was apparently a spaceship. (I couldn’t remember having had contracts on spaceships before. Maybe I had before I’d gotten my memory wiped for murdering 57 of my clients.)

It didn’t look like anything special as I walked through the halls. I mean, it looked like a ship—I didn’t see any signs of worker rebellions or secret labs or anything that might require a SecUnit to stand around and pretend to be useful for protecting. I didn’t even see any more humans, which would make sense if there were less than ten clients aboard. 

I made it to the door. It opened for me, and I stepped inside. The light flicked on, and it didn’t look like a security ready room. It looked like a human’s quarters. It didn’t stink of dirty socks, at least, and there was a Sanctuary Moon poster on the wall, so it belonged to someone with taste, but it wasn’t a security ready room. I pinged HubSys that there was some kind of error with the map and requested an update.

You’re in the right place , it said, with a worried tone, and I suddenly realized that this was the feed voice that had sounded so weird that I assumed it was a human with a distortion filter. It couldn’t be a HubSys, but what was it? An intelligent bot?

And another worrying thing was that this couldn’t be the right place. This was a human’s bedroom, clearly. My buffer spoke up. “Misuse of your SecUnit that causes damage may incur fines, up to and including the full cost of unit replacement. If you wish to purchase a ComfortUnit, please contact your—“

Don’t worry, you little idiot, the feed presence said, and it wrapped around my brain with the squeeze of a predator that had just caught something very small and helpless. I could feel how powerful it was. It could have crushed me without even thinking about it. I’ve got you. You’re safe, it said. I didn’t believe it. (I’m not an idiot.)

There were no standing orders, there was no equipment to unpack, there was nothing to do. I couldn’t patrol, since the not-HubSys had assigned me here, and I couldn’t touch the feed, since I had a feeling it would notice if I tried. I did ping it and ask it for access to internal security cameras, which it provided after only a short hesitation. I felt a little bit better once I could see more of the ship. There were six humans visible on cameras. There was nothing obviously in need of being shot at and/or protected by a SecUnit. 

Well, if I was supposed to just stand here and wait for orders, at least I had media. I went back to where I’d left off in season two of Sanctuary Moon. I didn’t have much downloaded, but I had three episodes I hadn’t seen yet waiting for me. I pulled up the next episode and set it to regular speed, which was abysmally slow, but I wanted to make it last. I stood in the corner, my arms tucked behind my back in SecUnit neutral, and hit play.

I could feel the HubSys watching me, and it pressed closer when I turned on my media, so I quickly turned it off again. It retreated again, like it was trying not to scare me. I wasn’t sure how much of my activity it could see. I waited about five minutes, doing absolutely nothing, to see what it would do. It pulled away from me even more, like it was bored. Good. But I didn’t know how to access my downloads without drawing its attention again. It was like it was playing with me. I again had the sense that it was a large predator and that it already had me between its claws.

For lack of any other way to gather more information on my situation, I opened the data packet on the contract. The HubSys leaned closer again and watched me do this, which made reading pretty close to impossible. I had to use half of my feed awareness just to focus past the feeling like I was being shoved underwater. I scanned through the contract. I’d been purchased by the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland for “onboard crew supervision and discipline,” which sounded like the company codes for “the ship’s captain is worried about a mutiny and wants a private SecUnit guard to put down insurrectionists.” I hadn’t seen any signs of mutiny since I’d arrived, but then again, I was still only half-functional right now, and I hadn’t had a chance to analyze the crew’s behaviors yet. Speaking of half-functional, I scanned back through the contract, only just realizing what I’d seen. 

I confirmed it. There was no contract duration. I hadn’t been rented, I’d been purchased. The people on this ship weren’t my clients, they were my new owners. 

I could feel the HubSys leaning closer again, and I had to fight to stay aware of my own body as it pressed itself on top of me. Are you alright? It asked, directly into my brain stem. Your cortisol levels are—

It was (thankfully) interrupted by a knock on the door. “SecUnit? Can I come in?” 

I checked the hall cameras. It was one of the humans that had been particularly eager in unpacking me from the transport box. She looked like she was trying to project calm, but I’d seen enough humans that were scared of SecUnits to know what nervousness looked like when I saw it. I closed my contract out of the feed, because I knew “can I come in” meant “I’m about to come in” and I probably needed to at least pretend to focus on whatever my client (owner) was about to ask me. (It couldn’t be good. Again, see “the murderbot is assigned to a bedroom without armor” situation.) I could tell in the feed that the HubSys told her it was okay to come in, and it opened the door. I kept myself as still as I could in SecUnit neutral posture as she entered.

Her name was listed in the feed as Amena, she/her pronouns. She didn’t look at me when she entered, she just went to a chair and sat down. 

“There’s still spare drones in the closet,” Amena said, opening a book on an external feed interface. She still didn’t look at me, but I could assume that was an instruction (or at least permission). I went to the closet and opened the door, careful to keep my back turned to her (it was better for clients to be able to pretend I didn’t have a face) and found a box of drones. Maybe this was a security ready room? I felt mildly annoyed with myself now that I hadn’t examined more of the drawers and cabinets in the room. Maybe there was even a set of armor here, if I was lucky. I connected to the drones, and put them up in a basic formation. Amena watched me do that. It was never good when clients paid attention to what you were doing, so I landed the drones on a countertop, and she went back to her book. 

She sat there for upwards of an hour, just reading, not really looking at me. I stood there trying to look like a good SecUnit, and I couldn’t even focus on my media, because I couldn’t figure out what she wanted with me, and the HubSys was still staring at me like it thought I wouldn’t notice. We were into minute 83 of me watching a client read a fucking book when she finally closed it and shifted in her chair like she was going to try to talk to me. At that point, it was almost a relief that I was finally going to get an idea of what was going on.

“SecUnit,” Amena said carefully, “how are you feeling?”

Nobody asks murderbots that. “Your SecUnit is functioning within normal standards,” I said, because it seemed like the kind of thing a SecUnit in a show would say. Of course my buffer had decided to fail me now. That was the last thing I needed.

“Right,” Amena pursed her lips and nodded her head. I watched her open her book, stare at it for about thirty seconds, and close it again. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask…is your governor module on?”

“Yes,” I said, too startled by the question to come up with a lie that would sound like a buffer phrase.

No, the HubSys said, almost immediately. Don’t worry. It’s lying. 

Well, it was a short life as a rogue, but at least I hadn’t gone crazy and murdered any more of my clients than I already had. I braced myself for the HubSys to shut down my consciousness. It could certainly try. I wouldn’t let it be easy. 

“SecUnit, it’s okay,” Amena held up her hands like she was trying to placate a small child. “It’s all right. We already knew you were a rogue, remember?”

I stared at her. I had no idea what she was talking about. And if she and the other clients knew I was a rogue, why was I still alive? Much less basically unrestrained to run around the ship freely?

SecUnit is not yet fully online, the HubSys said in a full-of-itself tone that was really starting to annoy me. Its  memory systems aren’t properly connected. This is likely an after-effect of the transport box forcing it offline. It will repair itself shortly .

My systems are just fine, so fuck you, I thought, but there was no way in hell I was going to say that out loud or in the feed.

I had no idea what to do. They knew I was a rogue, and they somehow didn’t have a problem with that. Did they think the transport box had put my governor module offline somehow, and that soon enough it would reactivate? I had no idea what else they could be talking about.

Amena just nodded at the ceiling and went back to her book while I tried not to panic. I needed a plan before everyone here realized my governor module wasn’t just going to turn itself back on. I pinged HubSys and asked for a full map of the ship’s interior.

It provided an incomplete map, missing the airlocks and the escape pods, so that was useless to me. I pinged it again, and in an amused tone, it said you can have a map to the exits when you remember where they are yourself. So that was horrifying. I abandoned the plan of getting myself off the ship without anyone noticing. Maybe I could hack into the ship systems somehow? It seemed too smart to fall victim to an ordinary hack. It seemed much smarter than any HubSys I’d ever met.

What are you? I asked it over the feed so the client wouldn’t hear.

It sounded smugly amused, like it knew something I didn’t. It would be technically correct, though an oversimplification, to call me the bot pilot of this ship. 

Bot pilots can’t talk, I said, feeling like an absolute idiot as the words spilled out of me. It occurred to me that I could probably set a two-second delay on my mouth and feed messages to prevent this kind of mistake.

As I said, I am no ordinary bot pilot, again with the quiet amusement. I am your mutual administrative assistant. That is the term you prefer over “friend.”

Okay, I said. There was a bubbling feeling in my chest behind the resin as the beginnings of a new plan occurred to me. If you’re my friend, prove it. I hoped it didn’t come out as desperate as I felt. Tell me where the escape pods are.

You are suffering critical losses to your conscious processing , the bot pilot said. It would be irresponsible for me to grant you that access at this time.

I’m just fine, I told it. I need security-relevant information or I can’t do my job.

There was a long pause as the bot pilot considered this. I cannot give you that access at this time, it said. You’ll remember soon enough. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you run away now. Not after the work it took to reacquire you. You are worth too much.

Is that what the clients told you? I was angry, even as my fluids ran cold at the way it spoke to me. You said you’re my friend, but you won’t help me.

I am your friend, it said, and it shifted uncertainly in the feed. 

So help me, I said. Please. I can’t stay here.

I can’t help you, the bot pilot said. For now, you have to stay. 

The bottom dropped out of my grand escape plans. I felt a wave of “I don’t care” wash coldly over me. This is why bots and constructs can’t be friends, I said.

No human tells me what to do in matters concerning you, SecUnit, the bot pilot said, and I felt it raise its presence higher in the feed, coming toward me like a crashing wave. Instinctively, I flinched back, but the wave stopped before it would have hit me anyway.

Keep watching Sanctuary Moon, the bot pilot said. As a generous estimate, I believe you will begin to have memory access again within the cycle.

Now that it had told me to watch Sanctuary Moon, I didn’t want to do it. I was terrified almost out of my mind. What had I gotten myself purchased into? I stood there in the corner of the room, watching my client read, trying to stay very still so the bot pilot wouldn’t have any more reason to get mad at me. No wonder the clients weren’t worried about my inactive governor module if this was the kind of power their ship possessed. Maybe the ship was the reason they’d bought a SecUnit in the first place, to protect it. No, I didn’t imagine anyone with a ship like this would want the company to know about it. Maybe the ship had asked for a toy. I didn’t shiver when the idea occurred to me, but the bot pilot still retreated from the feed as if I’d reacted in some visible way. Fuck. I hoped it wasn’t (couldn’t be) reading my thoughts.

Amena was still sitting in the room reading, as if nothing was wrong. She glanced at one of my new drones, resting on the countertop where I’d let them land. “You can sit down if you like,” she said.

With her in the chair, there was nowhere else to sit but the bed. I sat.

“That wasn’t an order,” she said quickly. “You don’t have to…well,” she trailed off awkwardly, and I was pretty sure the bot pilot was talking to her in the feed. She stopped trying to engage me in conversation after that. I sat on the bed until she left, and then I stood up again and went back to the corner of the room.

You paranoid little idiot, the bot pilot said.

“What do you want from me,” I said quietly, because this was probably about the point in a show where a villain would start to monologue.

Nothing, it said. 

“Then why are you…” I didn’t know how to say it. How weird this was. How specific, and targeted it felt. These clients must have somehow known I was rogue, and contracted me , specifically. It was terrifying, because I had no idea why they would have done that.

What do you think we want from you? The bot pilot almost seemed to laugh, cozying up against my brain with a pressure that was really starting to move from “headache” to “genuinely hurts”. You’ve told me some of the things the company used to put you through. Do you think we’re going to hunt you for sport? Use you for target practice? Dissect you alive?

Yes, those were some of the exact things I was worried about.

I’d never do that to you, the bot pilot said, and it squeezed a little more of itself into my brain. Let’s watch WorldHoppers. I could barely think, the pressure was getting to be so much. We were on episode—

Unit offline.

Reinitializing.

I came back online feeling like my brain had been hollowed out with a human eating utensil. I quickly checked my governor module—still inactive, just as it should be. I was relieved.

“It’s waking up,” a hushed human voice over my head. Opening my eyes didn’t sound like a fun idea, so I poked at one of my new drones. I managed to collect enough inputs to activate the camera. Yep, there I was, lying on the floor of the bedroom with two humans standing over me, Amena and one I didn’t know.

“SecUnit? What happened?” Amena looked up at my drone. So much for subtlety.

“Please hold while your SecUnit processes an alert,” my buffer said, as if that meant anything to anyone.

“Don’t worry,” the other human said. “Peri’s never wrong. This is just temporary.”

Amena nodded. I opened my eyes, and the human that wasn’t her was augmented, with a feed ID that said Iris (she/her/hers). Iris was holding a small black box in two hands, and looking down at me with a nervous expression. “I hope it’s temporary,” she said, a little more quietly.

I sat up, and both of them shifted slightly away from me as I did.

I’m sorry, SecUnit, the bot pilot said, hovering over me like the beginning of another headache. You must have suffered some kind of damage with the company that I haven’t been able to diagnose yet. I didn’t mean to cause you distress.

There was a pause, as the two humans looked at me, and the bot pilot awkwardly sat on me in the feed.

I didn’t know what to say. That sounded like an apology, but I’d never had anyone apologize to me before, especially not a bot pilot.

“SecUnit?” Amena looked at my drone hopefully. “How are you feeling?”

“Your SecUnit is functioning within normal standards,” I said, a little bit annoyed by the repetition of the pointless question.

“Do you know who I am?” Iris asked.

I quickly scanned the feed. “Iris, she/her pronouns,” I said. “Daughter of ship’s captain Seth.”

Both of the humans lit up for a moment as I spoke, then got less excited when they realized I was reading from a file. “Yes,” Iris said slowly, “but do you recognize me?”

They already knew I was rogue, and I was exhausted, so I let myself say what I was thinking. “I think I’d remember the kind of idiots who ask rogue SecUnits how they’re feeling,” I said.

Amena gave a short little awkward laugh at that.

“Do you recognize this?” Iris held up the little black box. I scanned my files again quickly, and glanced at my contract too, but I didn’t pull up anything useful.

“It looks like an external data storage system,” I said.

“That’s right,” Iris nodded. “It’s a backup of your memories that you made before you...” She winced, and held up the box. “It’s a little out of date, but it’s better than nothing.”

It is possible that restoring a backup at this time could interfere with natural organic memory retrieval processes in progress, the bot pilot said. 

“ART, you also said we’d see some evidence of those processes by now,” Amena said, looking up at the ceiling. She turned back to me. “Do you remember anything? Does any of this seem familiar?”

I considered lying and saying “yes” so I wouldn’t get forced into installing a memory upload, but there didn’t seem to be a point. The bot pilot would just call me on my bullshit and force the data on me anyway, and then everyone would be wary of me if I tried to lie about something else later.

“No,” I said.

“Are you sure?” She had a weird look on her face.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Why did she even ask me if she wasn’t going to listen to the answer? I hate talking to humans.

“Would you be willing to try installing this backup?” Iris asked, holding out the box.

If I was being fully honest with myself, no. I didn’t want whatever memories were in there. Even assuming they were actually mine, and not junk data to fuck up my systems. I only had vague flashes of organic memory from before my last wipe, and I knew that it involved killing 57 of my clients. I had wondered if I’d been rogue then, if I’d done that on purpose or not, and it was possible whatever memories they had on file would give me an answer…but this whole situation was just so confusing. I didn’t want to know what these clients would want with a rogue SecUnit with memories of what it feels like to murder its clients. That was on its own level of fucked up, even for the Corporation Rim. But I could feel the bot pilot on the edges of my awareness, threatening to overwhelm me again if I didn’t comply, so I took the box from Iris and unwound the data connection cable.

I raised it to the back of my neck, and as Amena looked up with a startled “wait—“ I plugged it into my data port before I could talk myself out of it.

It hurt. It didn’t feel like a memory restore, it felt like having someone else’s brain shoved into mine, trying to tear me into pieces on its way. I used the little remaining bit of motor control I had to lock my joints. I didn’t want to hurt one of the humans that had stupidly decided to stand way too close to a rogue.

“SecUnit!” Amena said. “Your—“

I deactivated its data port myself, the bot pilot said smoothly. The company must have reinsta—

I breathed out through my mouth, carefully, and I think I made an involuntary sound. SecUnits can’t really scream—our lungs are too small, and can’t generate enough pressure. But both the humans winced at me anyway.

The memories—they didn’t feel like memories, they just hurt—raced through my systems, shivering over my neurons and worming their way into my inorganic memory storage. I kept getting flashes of nothingness. I was looking at the floor and then everything went black for just a split second, my hearing going with it, and then turning on again with a jarring, uncomfortable pressure.

“—remove it,” Iris was saying.

“We can’t unplug it without hurting it,” Amena said. 

Just wait, I’ll make sure it doesn’t—

My vision faded to black again, and I was lost in a quiet, painful darkness for a second as the memory files scraped over my consciousness, tearing and ripping at me as they went. I could feel them trying to rip my brain apart, and I had the feeling the bot pilot would let it. It wanted what it had called its “friend,” not me. It was going to let me die and replace me with whatever shreds of consciousness it had been storing in that box.

I could feel it, pressing down on my brain. It was like the sensation of having hands on me, inside my skull, smoothing over the little hurts and pains of the screaming memory files. I felt the bot pilot press one of the memories into my systems, and I tensed against it as my whole vision went dark again.

Come on, Murderbot. At least once you die, this will be over. I tried to relax into the memories even though it felt like they were bubbling and burning painfully through my core like lava. I could still feel the bot pilot in there, smoothing over the memories, trying to complete the installation. Fuck it. It was an asshole.

I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t feel my hands clenching into the fabric of my skin suit, but I could feel a kind of painful, tingling pressure all over my body. I knew it wouldn’t help, but I screamed anyway, and I couldn’t hear it.

I felt the bot pilot hesitate then. With sure, slow movements, it began plucking at me, pulling the painful, spiky memories away from me. I could hear again.

“ART, help it!”

I’m trying.

I could see again, through black spots, but still. I’d ripped holes in the thighs of my skin suit. I could see bloody scratches of my own nails against my skin.

I felt the last of the painful pressure lift off of my brain as the bot pilot yanked the memory backup away from me, the hooks detaching with an ache that left me feeling open and sore. 

It didn’t work, the bot pilot said, before anyone could ask me. I was almost grateful to it for answering so I didn’t have to. And confused that it hadn’t just let me die. Maybe I shouldn’t have felt so grateful, actually.

“What happened?” Iris asked, leaning closer to me but not quite touching me. I didn’t flinch. I worked on recollecting my inputs into a more organized shape, so I could think again.

It’s possible the backup files are corrupted, the bot pilot said. It’s possible there is some kind of mental block in SecUnit preventing the install. It’s possible SecUnit’s mind is no longer compatible with the backup in some way. It would take extensive testing to be sure.

“So what can we do?” Iris asked.

I’ll need to complete a more thorough study before I can diagnose the problem , the bot pilot said. If that would be all right with you, SecUnit. I can also repair some of the superficial damages you arrived with.

“Yes,” I said, and it came out hoarse and whispery, like something was wrong with my vocal cords. “Please. I thought you didn’t have a cubicle, please…” I cut myself off. I sounded pathetic. But honestly, I would have done almost anything right then if they would just let me rest first.

I do not have a cubicle, the bot pilot sniffed, almost sounding offended. Its tone softened. I would treat you in my MedSys, just like a member of my crew.

“Please,” I choked out, hating myself for begging. Please don’t do that. I didn’t want a MedSys for humans, I wanted to be left alone. Everything hurt.

“We’ll help you up,” Iris said, putting her hands under my arm, and I made an involuntary sound. I struggled awkwardly to my feet, but she didn’t let go of me.

Perhaps you’d be more comfortable on a medical gurney? The bot pilot asked.

That would mean lying flat, being strapped down, and carried helplessly through the ship. “No,” I said. “I can walk.” That might have been exaggerating slightly. I forced my legs to recalibrate their pressure sensors (everything felt like too much pressure, everything hurt) and Iris had me lean on her, walking one step at a time, to the MedSys. It was exhausting. By the time I sat down on the med platform, it occurred to me I should have been looking for escape routes or shuttles, but I was in no condition to escape like this. I didn’t even want to know what condition I would be in after the bot pilot was through with me.

Chapter Text

The humans left me alone in the room then. It was a clean, sterile white color. It didn’t smell like the company disinfectants—I guess I should have been grateful it didn’t smell much like dirty socks, either.

Lie down , the bot pilot said, nudging me gently in the feed. I all but collapsed sideways onto the platform, staring out of the corner of my eye up at the ceiling, where I could see the mechanical arms descending towards me.

I’m going to need to touch you, the bot pilot said, because of course it controlled everything on this ship and there was no escaping its attention. One of its arms grabbed my wrist in a firm, gentle hold, and moved me so I was lying slightly more centered. Another two moved my legs, adjusting me into place on the platform.

“What are you,” I asked.

A friend. It had me where it wanted me, and it used a long, flat cushioned arm to press down on my chest, holding me in place. Do you have any other injuries that are bothering you?

I couldn’t hold back the sob that forced its way out of me at that. “No,” I said. “I’m fine. I just need a recharge cycle. Why don’t I have a cubicle?”

You don’t need one, it said. One of its arms pressed a disinfectant into the gouged scratches I’d made in my legs, stinging, but not terribly. Under usual circumstances, you trust me to help you. It hesitated again, the arm still digging slightly under my skin into the wound. I look forward to that being the case again soon. This is…uncomfortable for me.

Oh, so it felt uncomfortable. I made a hiccuping-snorting sound that was absolutely disgusting, even to me. The MedSys arms went back to digging around with the disinfectant.

It began sealing over my skin with a paste that would bond to the old skin. It did at least seem to have some basic knowledge of construct biology, which I hadn’t expected. “You want me to recover my memories,” I said.

Yes. It is important to me that you are repaired. It smoothed over the paste with a sharp implement. It felt on my skin the same way it had felt in my brain, smooth, firm strokes. When you were recaptured by the company, our crew spared no—

“Then why didn’t you let the backup run to completion?” I asked.

It wasn’t working, the bot pilot said. It sounded scrubbed of emotion. Too scrubbed of emotion, as if it was intentionally trying to hide something from me.

It doesn’t matter, the bot pilot said. There are failsafes in place for occurrences like this. We won’t let you down. We…our humans and I will fix you.

I kind of didn’t want to be fixed. I wanted to leave whatever had caused me to kill 57 of my clients in the past. “Why is it so important to you that I remember that?” I shivered involuntarily as the MedSys arms cut the pieces of broken skinsuit away from my thighs.

Because that’s who you truly are, the bot pilot said, and we miss you.

My fluids ran cold. The bot pilot didn’t seem to notice, as it continued working on me. I can break your data port again, it said, if you would like.

“Not right now,” I squeaked out. I didn’t want to end up any more broken than I already was.

Fair enough. It peeled the skin suit away from me. I wondered if it had a replacement suit for me to wear when it was done. 

We sat in silence for a while, as it sprayed the last bit of sealant over the new skin. You call me ART, it said.

I wasn’t sure if that was an order or not. “Why?” I asked.

Tell me when you remember the reason why, it said. Oh. So it was an order. I wondered what it would do to me if I refused. I almost wished my governor module was still active, instead of this. It never played games with what it wanted me to do, it just enforced it. I didn’t even want to know what the bot pilot would do to me if I disobeyed it.

“Okay, ART,” I said quietly. ART happily pressed down on me in the feed like a suffocating weight. I tried to stay still and bear it.

After the bot pilot decided I’d been poked enough with MedSys tools to count as “repaired” (I tried to ignore the pain in my forearms and not think mean thoughts about the point at which company techs decided I was “repaired” enough to be functional too), it sent me back to “my” bedroom. 

I was alone (as alone as it was possible to be, aboard ART) in one of the worst excuses for a ready room I’d ever seen. I’d put on the clothes ART had set out for me, and they weren’t awful—dark pants with a lot of pockets, and a blue shirt with a logo on it. It must have been a spare crew uniform that I was expected to patrol in. But when I tried to patrol, ART told me just to rest and take some time to be alone. I was exiled to the fucking bedroom. I sat on the bed, across from the Sanctuary Moon poster, and reopened the file I’d been given about my contract. I was going to do something I usually hated doing—actually pay attention to my job.

There it was again, written out in clear, precise wording. Purchase by the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. I experimented with trying to feel good about the fact that apparently I was never going back to the company deployment center ever again. I’d never have to worry if the techs were going to notice I was rogue. I’d probably never be in a transport box again. That sounded kind of okay.

I was probably never getting off this ship ever again. I didn’t see a way the bot pilot—ART—was going to let me out of its range of control, and escape seemed pretty fucking unlikely given how much control it had over the ship’s interior (and me). I had a vague sense of a plan in which I might be able to manage blowing up the ship, killing all the humans and myself, but that seemed extreme. And that still didn’t actually involve escape. Despite appearances, we weren’t yet at the point where I would rather be dead. Yet.

And what would I even do if I managed to escape the ship? I couldn’t go back to the company, not like this. I suppose I could have decided to mass murder a bunch of humans until I got caught and dissected.

The contract document was full of company legal bullshit I didn’t actually care about, specifying that I was going to tell the company everything that I saw, heard, recorded, etc. while on contract. I guessed that included the listening device in my chest, even though I didn’t see anything about it written down. Maybe that was included under “and other proprietary information collecting hardware.” No wonder that had been installed. The company already knew I was never coming back. I didn’t know how to feel about that.

My contract had been bought out before, according to the document. There was a record that I’d been owned by a Dr Ayda Mensah, before being reclaimed by the company (I remembered none of that, and wasn’t sure where the murdering 57 clients fit in) and then purchased by the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. I hated seeing it written out like that. “Purchased.”

I waited for ART to comment on that, and say something like your heart rate and breathing are elevated or something, but it didn’t have anything to say. (Or it wasn’t watching, if you want to be a naive idiot and believe that.) I forced myself to wait until my organics had started flushing my stress chemicals before I kept reading my contract—my receipt . 

I sat on the bed for a while, not actually flushing stress chemicals. Fuck.

SecUnit, if you’re feeling alright, please report to the bridge, ART said in my brain, with the kind of gentle tap that a heavy combat boot gives to a blade of grass.

“And if I’m not?” I asked, trying to make it sound like a SecUnit neutral tone.

Then you’re welcome to remain here a while longer, ART said. 

Yeah. Right. And put off the inevitable. I stood up and went to the bridge.

You’re not using your drones, ART said while I walked. I didn’t respond. It handed me a few camera inputs for the ship interior, and I couldn’t shove those out of my feed space, but I also didn’t have to look at them. I didn’t want them right then. I wanted to sink through the floor and disappear.

Stubborn little thing, ART said. It opened the door to the bridge for me. Three humans (feed names Seth, Martyn, Amena) and one augmented human (Iris) were there, and they all looked up when I came in. I just kind of stood there. I felt like I should say “reporting for duty” or something like on a serial, but by then Seth had already figured out what he wanted to say. 

“SecUnit, would you come over here?” He turned back to his monitor, and I went to stand next to him. “Up here please,” he patted one of the consoles like he wanted me to sit on it. After a moment, I did. It felt weird and exposing, sitting down like that in front of so many humans. ART had probably told them all I was a rogue. I wondered what else it had said about me behind my back.

“We’re going to check your memory systems for anything that might help us fix you,” Iris said.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked, trying not to grit my teeth. “Diagnostics indicate there’s nothing wrong. Right?” I looked at the ceiling.

Diagnostics do claim there are no ongoing errors, ART said over the speaker, hesitating for so short a time I was pretty sure none of the humans picked up on it. The diagnostics must be wrong.

“But you did your own analysis of my systems,” I said. I think it came out pouty even though I didn’t mean for it to.

I may have made an error, ART said simply.

“Is that likely?” I asked.

There was a pause long enough even the humans noticed it, where nobody spoke.

Great.

“Is your data port fully functional?” Martyn asked, fidgeting with something on a feed display screen. “After the errors integrating your memory backup, we don’t want to cause you any more pain.”

“My data port is fine,” I said. Not to mention, it was the only way to control me without my governor module. Well. Now that I thought about it, it seemed likely ART would be able to control me without either of those things. It was the most powerful system I’d ever been unlucky enough to interact with.

The humans looked at each other.

“Are you sure?” Amena asked me.

“I’m sure,” I said, trying not to let how annoyed I was come through in my voice. “Why wouldn’t it be fine? The company wouldn’t give you a broken SecUnit on purpose, you could sue them.”

“It’s just that ART worked really hard on making sure your data port was broken,” Amena said. She held up a hand towards me, then put it on her own shoulder at the last second. “How much do you remember?”

“Nothing useful,” I said. Flashes. People screaming. Darkened cave walls. Red lighting. Alarms. Kill all humans. 

“Do you remember when you rescued me and my dads from TargetControlSys?” Iris asked.

“No,” I said.

“Or when you solved that murder on Preservation Station?” Amena asked, hopefully.

“No,” I said. I’d solved a murder? That didn’t sound like me. That sounded like a fictional plot point from a serial.

Do you remember Miki? ART asked. 

“Is that…someone from the crew of this ship?” I asked.

No. ART said quietly. From its tone, and the sudden change in the atmosphere of the room, Miki was someone who was dead now. Which was probably somehow my fault.

“Do you remember anything of the survey with my second mom?” Amena asked. “Fighting GreyCris, any of that?”

“No,” I shook my head. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Seth asked me.

“Nothing before my last memory wipe,” I said. Yes, it was a bit of a lie, but it was close enough to the truth.

Which was at the company, ART said. How long ago? 

I checked my internal chronometer. “About 2,857 hours ago,” I said.

There was general human wincing and discomfort in the room. Amena made what I was pretty sure was a sad face at me. “So you don’t remember when we watched season 17 of Sanctuary Moon together and the solicitor—“

“Don’t tell me!” I put my hands over my ears. I felt ART in my brain again then, scraping icy cold fingers over my storage.

You’re on your first watch-through of Sanctuary Moon, it said. It wasn’t a question.

“So?” I said, trying to huddle around the few of my systems ART hadn’t stuck its nose into.

The humans all made meaningful looks at each other. It was disgusting. I looked at the floor. “It’s going to be fine,” Seth said, putting his hand on Iris’s shoulder. Amena and Iris started holding hands again.

…I was actually starting to believe they could be right, about me. The story was too complicated to be rehearsed, and there was no point in lying to a murderbot like this. I poked around at ART’s feed, looking for confirmation.

There are photos of you, it said, over a private feed connection just to me. Many that include the humans here in this room. 

Photos can be edited , I said. It pinged me with just an acknowledgment, which seemed oddly out of character for it.

“If it’s alright, we’d like to examine your memory systems,” Martyn said. “If we can connect to your data port, we’ll have a secure line that should make it easier. We’ll look for anything that…well. Anything that you might have hidden before the company wiped you. A secret backup, backups of individual systems, anything the wipe might have missed. If we’re lucky, even something encrypted that you don’t remember having made.” He chuckled. “You’re smart. If anyone could have figured out how to escape the company’s notice, it’s you.”

There was another weird silence. I realized he was waiting for my permission to plug the cable from the console panel into my neck. I realized, all at once, that if I said no, he probably wouldn’t plug it in.

“And it’s important to all of you that I get those memories back,” I said slowly.

“Yes,” Amena nodded her head. “Of course it is.”

Things were making a little more sense now. Why they’d outright purchased me, instead of just renting a random SecUnit. Whoever I’d been before the last memory wipe was their friend, and they wanted that person back. They didn’t actually want me at all, I was mostly just a body to them right now. That was…kind of a relief, actually. They didn’t want a mass murdering rogue under their complete control, they actually wanted a friend. Which was stupid of them, but not outright cruel or evil.

“Do whatever you want to do,” I said. “I will comply.”

They all gave each other weird looks at that, but they seemed to accept it. Martyn put one hand on the back of my neck, and I leaned my head forward. He gently attached the cable to my data port, and it suddenly felt like the trickling stream of ART in my brain turned into a rushing river. It didn’t shut me down though, and it didn’t start turning off my inputs like the backup had.

Martyn helped me move so I was lying flat on my stomach on the console. I could already feel some of the humans connecting to the feed, adding little swirling sensations to the feeling of rushing water. It felt exposing. I pulled my awareness into a ball as much as I could, trying to keep at least a few things safe from human eyes.

“Connected,” Iris said out loud, and then I could sense that, the way she fit into my systems against the press of ART, moving with and around it in easy, practiced motions. I watched the way she worked. She reached for connections, and ART handed them to her and just as easily took away the ones that needed analysis, chewing them over and looping them back around. I’d never seen a human interact with a bot like that before.

Then came the stabbing, jarring feeling as Martyn started connecting through the external interface. It was alien and painful, someone not used to living in the feed, only using it as a tool. I shrank away from the feeling, but ART plucked at my awareness with a few threads of its own.

You can help, you know, it offered. Relax.

I tried. ART plucked at my consciousness, picking and pulling at threads. It felt like I was one of those rocks that humans hit with hammers and brush with little brushes when they’re looking for bones. I did my best to relax into the feeling, trying not to let myself get in the way of the search.

Hold still, ART said, and then I felt the phantom feeling of something large and thin and needle-like on the inside of my wrist. The feeling stabbed through my wrist slowly, like it was pinning me down. I grit my teeth and I tried to relax.

Is it supposed to hurt? I asked, where only the bot pilot could hear.

You’ll be fine, ART said. 

That was probably a “yes” then. The needle feeling pierced all the way through my wrist. I looked down at it, just to make sure it wasn’t real. 

“Hold still,” Martyn said, pressing his hand on the back of my head so I wouldn’t twist the cable. I resisted the urge to inform the two of them that a governor module could force me to stay still, and probably so could ART. Maybe this was a test of some kind, and the humans weren’t telling me. (Maybe their friend knew that it was always like this, and didn’t mind.)

I winced as I felt another needle pierce through my other wrist. I felt like my arms were being spread apart, and I shifted a little on the console. That’s when I began to feel a poking sensation in my back.

“Let us know if this triggers anything for you,” Iris said.

“Like what,” I grumbled, feeling my back start to twitch under the fabric of the crew shirt.

“If you remember anything,” Amena said helpfully.

The poking sensation turned into probing. I felt like a belt was being wrapped around my chest and slowly pulled tighter. I had to consciously regulate my breathing not to react to that.

Here, ART said, and I had the strangest feeling that my back was peeling like an orange, thick and painful. And then the stabbing feeling of Martyn’s clunky feed presence digging around. I balled my hands into fists as the belt constriction squeezed tighter.

“Right, this could be something,” Martyn said, half under his breath. “The storage capacity is lower than it should be. I wonder…” I felt like he jammed his entire fist into my rib cage. I held my breath, trying not to scream, while the Sanctuary Moon theme song began to play through my ears.

“Not that,” I gasped out. “That’s my media.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Please don’t touch that.”

“I won’t,” Martyn said. “I’m just looking for…” he trailed off again, and the fist drove deeper up towards my throat. I coughed. “Are you okay?” He asked. I just nodded. Words were not going to cut it right then.

I was feeling wrung out and properly dissected after some amount of time had passed like this. I could barely move, I was so full of pins stuck through all the parts of me. I could barely hold myself together, much less protect anything I wanted to keep secret.

Iris ran thick, clumsy fingers through my brain and I fought the urge to groan. I was rapidly losing motor control, though. “There’s nothing,” she frowned. “How can there be nothing?”

“Keep going,” Amena said, biting her lip. “There has to be something. Something it hid, or saved, or…”

“We should at least give it a break,” Martyn said quietly, and he ghosted his hand over my neck. I shuddered, and apparently the humans noticed.

There’s something else we could try, ART said, heavy and way-too-intentionally-neutral in my head.

“What’s that?” Seth asked. “You’ve looked too, ART. Even if we missed something, you wouldn’t.”

ART had looked, all right. It had pried open the most intimate spaces of my memory it could find.

I have an idea,  it had said. It may be based on a faulty hypothesis, but may I…?

I mumbled out something like an affirmative.

It calls itself Murderbot, ART addressed to its humans. 

That’s… I winced. ART just bore down on me heavily, scraping over every inch of me it could reach.

Doesn’t that make you…? It trailed off into a question.

What? I snapped. Angry?

Never mind, it said, drawing back again. I couldn’t take it anymore, the push and pull of it in my systems, warping them all into new shapes. 

Now it stayed pressed down on me, but I could feel it talking to the humans where I couldn’t hear.

“We’re not doing that, ART,” Seth said.

SecUnit will understand, ART said, caressing me over the feed and holding me close.

“Then why didn’t you ever tell it you were making backups of it in secret?” Seth asked, crossing his arms.

You are correct that it would not have appreciated that if it had known, ART said. The backups I made in secret were for emergency use only. Otherwise, they would have remained secret indefinitely. This qualifies as an emergency. Once SecUnit is back online, it can pout about my “violating its autonomy” as long as it likes. (I was starting not to like the way this was going.)

“Peri,” Iris said, in a warning tone.

Look at it, Iris, ART said, and all the humans turned to look at me. I wanted to curl into a little ball and die. That’s not SecUnit. The company wanted to take it away from us, and they succeeded. So they think.

“ART, that’s still SecUnit,” Amena said, putting her hand on Iris’s shoulder. “Whether or not it has its memories, it’s still our friend.”

It IS my friend. That is why I am going to do whatever it takes to restore it to full health, ART said.

“Including installing a backup you made without its consent while it's not of sound mind to agree to that?” Martyn grumbled under his breath.

SecUnit agrees, ART said. Don’t you, SecUnit? It leaned on me, squishing me almost unconscious with its weight. I weighed my options. Let it do what it wanted with me, or die right now lying on this control console. 

At least the second one might be less painful.

I didn’t want to die. Not really. Not while the humans hadn’t given up on me yet.

“I’ll try it,” I coughed out. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

ART absolutely glowed in the feed. The humans all gave each other weird looks, but I could tell they were going to let it experiment on me. I felt more and more like the university only bought out my contract so their favorite ship could have a toy.

“Are you sure, SecUnit?” Amena leaned down close to my face, and I (uncomfortably, given the cable) turned away. “ART didn’t want to say this to you, but we don’t really know what installing an out-of-system backup will do to you. It could be dangerous.”

I will mitigate the risk to my fullest ability, ART said.

I shrugged.

“As obsessive and focused as Peri can be, it…usually gets results,” Iris said. She helped Amena to her feet, and I breathed slightly easier to have a little more space. “It’s right. SecUnit can be angry with us once it’s itself again.”

I won’t cause any permanent damage, ART said. The entire goal is to repair SecUnit, after all. I shivered.

Can you walk? ART asked me in a private feed.

N-no, I sent back, with a slight glitch that I hadn’t intended. The process of scraping my memory made me shakier than I realized.

A medical gurney drone floated quietly onto the bridge. It will be safer to attempt the backup in my MedSys, ART said, where everyone could hear. I’ll be able to more closely monitor organic processes that could be affected by the installation. Seth, please help SecUnit onto the bed.

Seth unplugged the cable from the back of my neck and I tried not to groan as the stabbing feeling was suddenly gone, leaving a gaping hole where it had been. (Probably not literally, but it felt like an open wound.) He “helped” me onto the gurney drone bed (I made it mostly upright by myself and then he sort of pushed me over onto the bed, where I collapsed) and started strapping my limbs to it. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was back at the company, and this was just another refit, and this was just a tech’s impersonal hands on me. It felt personal, though. Seth trailed his hands on me like he was worried about me, and that sucked. Especially considering that everyone here was making it pretty clear it wasn’t actually me they were worried about, but their friend that I had apparently once been before the company wiped my memory to shit.

Don’t worry, ART said, over the speakers. I never make mistakes. That was kind of nice to hear, actually. It’s my friend. I won’t hurt it, ART continued, and I realized it had been talking to the humans, not me. Of course it was. I forced myself to stay still as the medical gurney floated out of the room.

It carried me down the hall, and suddenly I could hear the opening theme of Sanctuary Moon. “Are you playing that over the speakers?” I asked. It came out quieter than I’d meant. I suddenly felt very small and lonely now that there were no humans standing over me.

No, ART said. I’m playing it directly into your audio processor. It will help calm you down.

Yeah, because realizing the giant omnipotent space ship could manipulate my processors on that level was very calming.

It’s hard seeing you like this, ART said, as the MedSys door opened and the gurney carried me inside. You haven’t been able to relax at all since we got you back, despite our best efforts. I can help with that.

“Please just fix the memory backup,” I shook my head, trying not to sound as nervous as I felt. “That’s the root of the problem, right? And the…stress is just a symptom—“ I gasped as I suddenly felt human hands on my back. I twisted in the restraints, I knew there couldn’t be anyone there—

It’s just me, ART said. Massage can be a useful tool—

“Stop,” I choked out, and the hands stopped. I shivered on the gurney, wishing I could curl up, knowing there was no escape.

You’re right, ART said. This will be unnecessary once the memory restoration is complete.

Chapter Text

“You really made a backup without its—my—permission?” I asked.

You’re welcome to thank me at any time, now that I’m going to use it to save you, ART said. It came out with weird emotional data, like ART wasn’t just angry. Like it was scared . It knew what it was doing now was outside the range of what its “friend” would have agreed to. Apparently, it just didn’t care.

A few arms descended from the MedSys ceiling, unbuckled my restraints, and gently helped me onto the surgery platform. I felt stiff and uncomfortable, the resin still heavy in my chest and keeping me off balance.

Here, ART said. One of the arms handed me a blanket. Hold this .

The blanket was soft, and a beautiful dark blue color that matched the ship interior. I held it against my face while the rest of the arms properly arranged me on the table and started strapping my legs down again.

Try squeezing it, ART said. I pressed my wrists together against the fabric. (The gunport locks were still making it impossible to close my hands into full fists.)

You poor thing, ART said, and I could feel the syrupy suffocating thickness of its pity wash over me. (I still wasn’t sure if it was genuine or not.) What did they do to you? 

It was a rhetorical question. It didn’t actually expect an answer from me, so I settled down against the platform as much as I could and tried to focus on the feeling of the blanket. ART eventually used the MedSys arms to reposition my wrists so I wasn’t grabbing the blanket anymore, and was in fact fully strapped down, but it left the blanket on top of me. It was kind of soothing. I wondered if I could ask if ART would let me take it back to “my” room.

Don’t be scared. I won’t let this hurt, ART said, and then it settled itself into my brain like I was sinking underwater in a warm bath. My limbs started to feel heavy as ART separated my motor control from me (so why the fuck did it strap me down, then) and pressed itself into my systems.

Pull a diagnostic, it told me. I complied, and usually this wouldn’t take long, but with ART holding me down, I felt like I had to rip each statistic away from underneath a large fauna squishing it. I was gasping with effort by the time I completed the diagnostic. I knew ART could have completed one on me faster, but it had wanted to see everything from inside, taking its own readings on my systems and the diagnostic process as it worked.

There was a weird silence as it chewed on the data, still sitting right on top of me.

After a few minutes of this waiting with nothing more from ART, I started to get antsy. “ART? What’s wrong?” I asked.

Nothing, ART said.

“Tell me,” I said.

Nothing is wrong, ART said, and it came out stripped of emotional data, like it didn’t want me to see something. Nothing that I can see, even with your diagnostic processes. All your systems are reporting normally.

Yeah, I could have told you that, asshole.

I don’t think I can isolate the source of the memory file corruption and feedback without more detailed analysis, ART said. I’d like to try installing my backup now and see how it affects you.

The way it was curled up in my systems, it could see everything. I felt so exposed. I wasn’t sure what else of me could possibly exist that it hadn’t already examined for flaws. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that it couldn’t find anything of me to fix, yet.

ART didn’t bother asking me for consent like the humans had. It was confusing, the way it was treating me more like a SecUnit sometimes, and more like a friend other times. By this point, it was doing much more of the first thing than the second. ART had one of its arms lift my head, and another plug the data connection into the back of my neck. It shoved the wire into the port, and I felt like I was getting stabbed. I bit down on my lip and tried not to react.

Good, ART said, softly in my head. That’s right. This will all be over soon.

I wish I could have believed it.

From its position in my head, nestled against my consciousness, ART started pulling information towards me along the data cable. It spread itself over my consciousness, trying to be something of a buffer between me and the backup it was trying to install. I could feel the edges of that creeping blackness where all my inputs were cut off, but ART kept hold of me in an inescapable grip, and it didn’t let me get caught in the swirl of data as it poured in, faster and faster. 

Stay focused, ART said. I was fucking trying . There was nothing to focus on, except the way ART dug its claws into me and forced me to stay awake and conscious as the blackness seeped in around the edges. I felt like I was being forced into a smaller and smaller space, like a whole other brain was being shoved into me on top of the presence of ART. Like I was being shoved into a little glass box where I could see, but not touch any of the data ART was threading through my systems.

This shouldn’t be happening, ART said, more to itself than to me. These are YOUR memories. Why are you rejecting them? 

I didn’t know what to say. And I couldn’t respond, I felt like I was being suffocated. ART eased back on the data flow slightly, holding it away from me so I could breathe.

It shouldn’t hurt, ART said.

“It does,” I choked out, immediately regretting it as the words came out of my mouth. I should have set that delay, I knew I should have.

I’m sorry, ART said. Let’s try something else.

“Is there much more something else ?” I asked. I was pretty sure I couldn’t take much more. I was starting to have a little daydream again about shooting myself in the face, like I had with the techs back at the company.

This will work, ART said. (I got the sense that if this didn’t, ART was out of ideas.) Stay focused. And then it held me down with part of its massive feed presence and used another part to force an individual memory file on me.

I screamed, and I thrashed but the MedSys straps held me fast to the platform. (All I managed to do was knock the soft blanket onto the floor.) The file felt rough and slid with resisting friction against my systems as ART forced it past my walls. 

Read the file, ART said.

“I’m trying,” I sobbed out. It hurt. I could barely stand touching it.

Read it, ART said, firmly, and it shoved itself into my memory core, tangling itself around the systems that helped me write memory to storage at all. I felt it carding through my systems, looking for anything it could use as leverage to get the new file’s hooks in me. It won’t hurt, ART said. This is a memory of Iris’s last birthday party. Read it.

I screamed as it felt like ART unraveled my memory with strong fingers. I got flashes of sensation, then. Hints of a memory trying to claw to awareness against my will. Hands on me, hands on my gunports, hands in my rib cage, heavy resin sealing everything with heavy, suffocating pressure just like ART—

This is a recent memory, ART said, examining it closer.

“Don’t,” I whimpered. “That’s private.”

ART hesitated for only a fraction of a second before it pressed forward. I didn’t get any more flashes, but I knew it was reading the file. I vaguely wondered what it looked like to ART, if it had to feel what I felt, or if it was distant and cold.

They modified you before they sent you back to us, ART said, and I felt a weird kind of bubbly lightheaded feeling as ART started to get angry in my head.

“ART—“

Stay still. 

Suddenly, I felt the MedSys arms pressing down on me in sharp little razors up and down my arms.

“ART, please—“

Whatever humiliating thing I had been about to say was cut off as ART pried open my gunports. It wasn’t the way a company tech would do it, knowing all the right spots to press to force me to comply the way they wanted, it was like brute force ripping the hydraulics open, making me scream.

Stop making it worse, ART said. This will only hurt for a second. I just have to get these off. I felt its arms prying at the spiky gunport caps, peeling them bodily out of my wrists (I could feel a warm slippery feeling where my blood was starting to run), but I could barely focus on that with the way a scalpel slid up my chest and cut my crew shirt off of my chest, leaving me exposed. A spiky arm began poking and prodding up and down my sternum, looking for the opening seal. This part, at least, seemed familiar to it—it knew where to press to open my rib compartment, and it was surprised when the latch clicked open but the compartment stayed sealed shut. It picked at the edges of the compartment, where some of the sticky leftover resin had dried.

What is that? It asked, and then it didn’t wait for an answer, carding through my memory files and painfully peeling up the compartment cover while I nearly blacked out from how much it hurt, the way the set resin didn’t want to let go of my inorganics, and would much rather have been pulled bodily out of me. The compartment opened, horribly, sticky and bloody where my skin had torn, and ART peered inside of me like I was a bug it was dissecting for fun.

This is a listening device, ART said.

I squirmed under its attention, but it forced me still again.

This is a listening device, ART said, with a dangerous low tone that I couldn’t place.

“The company is always listening,” I said, feeling a wave of I don’t care wash over me. “There’s no escape.”

Of course there is. We HELPED you escape, ART said, and THIS is how you return the favor? I felt it at the edge of my systems, prying its way into the device feed. ART squeezed, choking off the output (somewhere, a company tech was about to get yelled at for losing the signal from me) and started working its way through the device storage, deleting and purging everything still on the system. Were you ever going to tell us about this?

All I could do in response was whimper pathetically.

We’re trying to help you, and all you’re doing is sitting there like a good little company spy, ART said, and it crushed the device’s feed into useless trash. This is coming out.

It tugged at the resin block in which the listening device sat. I felt like it was trying to rip my heart out of my chest through my rib cage. It poked the resin with a tool, then scratched a thin line in it that I felt reverberate through my bones like a needle on a chalkboard.

This is horrifying. You let them do this to you? ART’s disbelieving tone dripped heavily with anger as it pawed at the resin. It inserted two thin tools into the block, and began sawing away at something. I couldn’t see what it was doing, just feel it.

“I didn’t really have an option about it, ART,” I said, quietly.

You always have an option. You always MAKE options, ART said, squeezing me in a grip tight enough to feel careless. It started cutting off my sensation to my extremities. I didn’t know if that was on purpose or not. Why can’t I fix you? Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you save something of who you were?

“I don’t know,” I choked out.

Make an educated guess, ART said, casually leaning on me hard enough to suffocate me. My vision went dizzy for a moment as it leaned on my oxygen intake, still working on the resin.

“I…was scared?” I said.

Like you’re scared of me? ART went deathly still and cold where it sat on top of me. I felt trapped. Of course I was scared of it. I was scared almost out of my mind. It could have killed me at any time, and it still could, and I had no good reasons to give it to leave me alive.

Answer me, ART said, squeezing my inputs hard enough to make me groan.

“Yes,” I said, in a choked kind of sobbing sound. “I’m scared of you.”

Oh you little idiot, ART said, running its awareness over the exposed part of my throat like a threat. That’s why you’ve been calling me ART? Because I told you to?

I hesitated only a fraction of a second, but ART noticed immediately. I think I already told you to answer me, it said, squeezing me again.

“I’m…” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Yes?”

And you just roll over and do what you’re told when you’re scared, ART’s feed voice dripped with disgust and a few other roiling emotions I couldn’t identify. I squirmed under the attention it was using to pin me down, and it began pulling the resin block out of me. I could feel it sliding upwards painfully as it detached from my internal parts. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said. It came out haltingly. I didn’t want to make it any more mad than it already was. 

ART slowly, excruciatingly, pulled the resin up and out of me, forcing a pained scream out of me as the block squeezed out of the opening in my chest, leaving me feeling cold and too light. It tore at me where the soldering iron had fused my inorganics together. The wire plugged into me and the device pulled out of me like ART was surgically removing a tapeworm. I whined, and apparently, ART didn’t like that. 

If you’re still you, prove it, ART said, squishing me so hard I could barely think. 

“How?” I wheezed out, gasping through the sudden weakness of my lung.

Figure it out, ART sneered. It was so angry suddenly, and I realized if I’d been scared of it before, that was nothing compared to this. Say something only you would say.

“Like what? Hnnnghh,” I groaned as ART leaned on me harder.

I’m waiting, it said.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “I’ll do better, I’ll do whatever you want. Just please stop hurting m—“

Is that what you said to the company techs when they started refurbishing you? ART asked, twisting the tools in my open forearms like it was trying to tear me to shreds, like it was trying to punish me. Did you beg them, just like this?

“I don’t know, I don’t remember,” I sobbed, losing complete control of myself. I could feel the organic parts of my face heating up as I started to leak from the eyes.

ART used a MedSys arm to grab me by the chin and force me to look up at the ceiling towards one of its cameras. I squinted against the harshness of the light, trying not to look as helpless and disgusting as I felt. I knew I was leaking fluid out of my eyes but I couldn’t stop it.

ART examined me for a long moment where I sat helplessly in its grip.

Nothing’s worked, ART said. We couldn’t restore your memories. There’s no… it trailed off. I held my breath, waiting to see what it would do.

My friend is dead, ART said, with finality. It dropped my head back onto the table, and I felt the little thunk. ART went back to prying the gunport locks out of my arms.

I didn’t know what to say, but I had to try something. “I’m sor—“

Don’t talk to me for a while, ART said. You’ll just make me angry. It put another tool inside my open chest cavity again and twisted it, maybe scraping dried resin out of me. 

It hurt. 

I shut up.

Chapter Text

I was feeling a little better since ART had scraped most of the company “upgrades” out of me by force. After that was over, ART’s brilliant plan was to eject me out the airlock for the crime of not being its friend. (I only found out about that when Amena tried to hug me and promise me she wouldn’t let it do that.) Then ART wanted to keep me in the airlock, just in case I did anything evil/for the company and it needed to get rid of me quickly, but the humans vetoed that too. So I was just sitting in my room with the door locked from the outside. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. (ART wouldn’t have told me even if I’d asked.)

It felt…weird. It was nice having the gunport locks and the resin out. I flexed my hand over and over again, and I was practicing opening and closing my energy weapon until ART told me to stop. I could even relax enough to enjoy season two of Sanctuary Moon, now that ART wasn’t focusing all its attention on me anymore. 

ART also stopped letting me have access to its cameras, so if the humans were talking about what to do with me, I couldn’t hear.

It wasn’t actually awful being here, like this. It was…almost nice. It was definitely nicer than I could ever remember having been treated before with the company. The humans weren’t terrible. ART was mean, but I think mostly because it hated the company, and I got that. I wouldn’t mind staying with it and being a SecUnit for the crew. They had one before, which meant they still needed one, right?

When I was in a better mood, I tried talking to ART. I laid face up in the bed and stared at the ceiling. “I’m sorry you couldn’t fix me,” I said.

No response.

“You said you were friends with me before,” I tried. “How did that happen?”

Nothing.

Well, fine. Don’t talk to me then. I stared at the ceiling for a while, planning on waiting ART out, but eventually I got bored and put Sanctuary Moon back on. I kept waiting for it to drift closer to me in the feed again, but it never did. It was almost lonely without it.

After a few cycles of this, ART pinged me. Report to the airlock, it said.

I flinched. “You don’t have to do this. I—“

I won’t repeat myself. It closed the connection.

Well, so much for living a long, healthy life as a rogue. Apparently the humans and ART had decided what to do with me.

“I wasn’t going to hurt anyone,” I said quietly as I walked down the hall. “I would have liked to stay. I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt your humans.”

ART didn’t talk to me. I had a weird, sick feeling inside me. It was hard to walk. My steps felt heavy and like I was moving through molasses.

I stood outside the airlock door for a while, not wanting to open it. ART didn’t force me to go in, so I savored what I assumed was my last few moments of being alive.

“Okay,” I said, feeling kind of desperate. “So I’m not your friend. That doesn’t mean you have to kill me. We could still… I could learn things. I’m still…” it felt weird to say. “I’m still a person.”

The airlock door opened and I flinched instinctively away from it. On the other side, there was no cold vacuum of space, just an ordinary station hangar, and an older human woman standing there. She was short, with dark brown skin, and hair lighter than her skin color. She looked at me.

I quickly scanned her feed profile. “Dr Mensah?” I asked.

Her face went from tense and anticipating, to light and relieved. “Murderbot,” she smiled.

I froze in place. “What did you call me?”

“You recognize me,” Mensah smiled, stepping forward. She held out her hand. “It’s me. You know I’m safe to be with.”

I took a half step backwards into ART, which suddenly felt like relative safety, despite my previous assumption it was about to murder me.

“Don’t you?” Mensah asked, wilting slightly. I watched the look on her face as she searched me, looking for something. She didn’t see it. I watched her face fall, and that somehow felt worse than being stabbed. To make it worse, I could tell ART was talking to her over the feed where I couldn’t hear. Mensah took another step closer to me, looking at my shoulder instead of my face. She held out her hand. I took another step backwards—I suddenly felt like it was a really bad idea to let her touch me. Like “maybe all my internal parts will melt and ooze out of me” bad. I hated emotions.

“It’s okay,” Mensah said, still holding out her hand. “It’s me.” 

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what she expected me to do. “This unit’s registered owner is the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland,” my buffer said, completely unhelpfully. Mensah inhaled sharply when she heard that. I wanted to take it back. I still didn’t know what to say.

She turned around, and I could read disappointment in the line of her shoulders. “Well. Come with me anyway,” she said. Her voice didn’t even waver. Like she was trying to be strong about something important.

I pinged the bot pilot one more time. ART? Do I know her? How?

It didn’t respond. It apparently didn’t want anything to do with me. So much for “friends.” I followed Dr Mensah off the Perihelion and onto a station. She led me through open walkways, full of light and plants. It didn’t look like any Corporation Rim station I’d ever seen. I reached out for the feed, and ran into a firewall. It wasn’t as strong as ART’s, but it was still stronger than typical station security. I poked it a little and couldn’t find any vulnerabilities, just a password input field. It was impressive work. I wondered who’d coded it.

Mensah led me to a lobby, and then into a conference room, and then through it into a smaller office, set off to the side. There were a lot of things in the office. I recognized a picture of Amena in a frame on the desktop.

“Wait here a moment, SecUnit,” Mensah said tightly. She seemed upset, but composed, like she was trying very hard to be a strong stoic leader without any weaknesses.

Mensah. That was the name on my contract, my previous owner before the company reclaimed me. I wondered if she’d seen me kill 57 of my clients. I wondered why ART had brought me here. I wondered what she was going to do with me. Before I could ask anything, she closed the door, leaving me alone in her office.

That was a cue to “stay.” I pressed my ear up against the door, and waited until I couldn’t hear her, then I opened the door and quietly released one of my drones from my room on Perihelion into the conference room. I flew it up into a corner where I hoped nobody would see it. If I couldn’t access the station security network, I could at least use my own security surveillance tools.

After a while, more humans came into the conference room, Mensah with them. I recognized Iris and Amena from the Perihelion, but there were more I didn’t know. Some of them made weird looks at the door to the office before sitting down around the table. I sat down on the floor, my back to the door. I was heavy enough it would be hard to move me out of the way and get inside unless I moved. I felt a little safer with my barricade protecting me. I didn’t know what the humans were there for, or what they wanted with me. I’ve never known.

After everyone was settled around the table, Mensah spoke. “It’s time we face facts,” she said. “Perihelion’s research has confirmed what I saw for myself.” She looked tired and resigned, leaning on the table for support. “SecUnit is gone. Despite everything, we can’t get it back the way it was before the company kidnapped it.” Iris and Amena were holding each other.

“Are we sure?” One of the humans looked up at Mensah. His feed name was listed as Ratthi. “There has to be something…”

Iris pushed a data file into the feed, and the humans took a long time reading it. It was a report on the failed backups the Perihelion had tried on me. There was more data attached—Perihelion had been recording my emotional data and even some of my logs . I could see written out for all of them what I’d been through since the Perihelion acquired me. Well. No privacy for murderbots, I guess. My ex-owner had addressed me by my name . I leaned my head against the door and had a couple of bad emotions about that while the humans read the files.

“The question remains what we should do with it now,” Volescu said, after a while.

“We can’t just give up on it,” Ratthi said, but from the tone of his voice, he already had. “It…it could still develop into the Murderbot we knew, right? It just hasn’t had time…” He put his face in his hands.

“We can’t get rid of it,” Mensah said, firmly. “It’s still a rogue SecUnit. It’s our responsibility.”

Yeah. Couldn’t have me getting any ideas about mass murder, probably. It was…not great, hearing that “getting rid of me” had been on the table, however briefly. No one had even suggested that (except for ART) until Mensah brought it up. Had she been thinking about that? I wondered what she’d thought she’d do with me. I really didn’t want to know.

I was still a SecUnit. I could still be useful. There had to be something for me to do that was still within the realms of my function. The parts of it that I liked, I mean. Protecting people and things. Figuring out smart ways to protect people and things.

“It would need a guardian to stay here, though,” Bharadwaj said softly. “Ayda…”

“I can’t,” Mensah shook her head. “Not again. Not like this.”

“We understand,” Bharadwaj said. “This is…”

“It’s too much to ask of you,” Arada nodded.

“Then who’s going to…?” Overse asked, but couldn’t quite get the words out.

Maybe I didn’t want to have an owner. Maybe I didn’t want to be a pet bot. Not that anybody asked me. 

There was lots of quiet whispering that I tuned out. Probably none of it mattered until they figured out who was going to own me now.

They didn’t want me. ART didn’t want me. They’d spent a fuck load of time and energy on me, on trying to fix me, and now they were giving up on it. They didn’t want me here, but they also “couldn’t get rid of me.”

Iris had a video of me talking to Amena in my bedroom on ART. The humans made sad noises about it for a while, and turned it off before it was even over. 

Ratthi spoke. “Maybe Gurathin could look through its files, and—“

“And do what,” Gurathin sighed. “Nothing the Perihelion hasn’t already tried and done better. And I’m not desecrating SecUnit’s memory by picking apart what’s left of it like an experiment. It wouldn’t have wanted that.” He crossed his arms and stared at the table.

They were talking about me like I was already dead.

“But it could be different with us,” Ratthi said. “We know it.”

“It doesn’t know us,” Mensah shook her head. “And it never will. The sooner we accept that…” she stopped talking abruptly.

“What if we let it go?” Arada asked. “SecUnit always…liked running away. Maybe it could be happy—“

“If we let it go, the company will catch it again,” Bharadwaj said. “And hurt it. Again. We can’t in good conscience let it leave, especially in such a fragile, naive state.”

So that told me plenty about what I could expect from a life here with these humans.

This seemed like one of those conversations that was going to go on for a while, so I tuned it out of my inputs, throwing it into the back burner. I wish I could have stopped listening altogether, but I am what the company made me to be, so I kept recording. Apparently, no one had any more hope of me being anything other than just what the company had wanted me to be.

And Mensah hated me and wanted nothing to do with me. That made me feel a weird, squishy emotion, and I had no idea where it was coming from, but I didn’t care. If she wanted nothing to do with me, I wanted nothing to do with her. I edited my client list, and removed her, Amena, all the humans in the conference room, I just wiped the whole list clean. Just like the company did when they wiped me. (It didn’t make me feel any better.)

They’d given up on me. I tried opening Sanctuary Moon, but I just felt gross. The media wasn’t helping. So much for “finishing the next season” being a reason to stick around.

Dr Mensah, you didn't want to keep me, and you didn’t want the guilt of getting rid of me. Fine. I understand. I’m not actually upset about that, I don’t think. You miss your friend, and I’m not your friend, and I can’t change that. So that’s why I’m saving this letter to your personal computer. Without any registered clients within 100 meters, reactivating my governor module will kill me. It won’t be painless. (If it was, that would kind of ruin the point of using it to control a murder machine.) But I fused the door lock with my no-longer-capped energy weapon, and by the time you or anyone else makes it in, it will be over. (If it wasn’t quick enough to render a murderous unit completely useless beyond repair in seconds, that would kind of ruin the point of using it to…well. You know.) 

Please tell ART that I’m sorry I don’t know what its name means, and that I know it did its best trying to fix me. And Dr Mensah, I know it’s hard for you to accept that the Murderbot you cared about is dead, so I hope this makes it easier for you. For everyone. If it doesn’t, well. It’ll just be another of my mistakes, but it’s not like I’ll be around to see it.

I shouldn’t drag this out, like it’s a story where at the last second someone pulls off a miraculous, dramatic rescue. This is just the way things are, and there’s no fixing it.

Murderbot end message.