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English
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Part 1 of A Murderbot and its Humans
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Published:
2024-12-18
Completed:
2025-03-02
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18/18
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Wolves and Sheep

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

I had tried several times to send Gurathin my threat assessment and risk assessment reports. Maybe then he'd get a clue that the Hazardous Cargo Zone was an extremely unsafe place for a squishy human to be. But he'd proceeded to block all of my communication attempts, as well as ignore any messages on the public feed.

Then one of the combat bots pinged me with a request to show my company ID. Oops. I'd gotten too close.

I didn't have a company ID. I didn't even know what a company ID should look like in DeltaCon, since there were zero company personnel on site whose ID I could steal/forge.

The combat bot unfolded its projectile weapon, as an incentive to cooperate.

Alright. This was going to be one of those retrievals.

I ran for cover as a barrage of projectiles bounced off the floor at the spot where I'd been standing just 0.3 seconds ago. Reaching a wall of stacked crates, I leapt and caught myself on the edge, then pulled myself over. I ran along the top of the crates, shooting my arm weapons at the combat bot's optical sensors. I'd fought this type of CombatUnit before and knew my way around its specs. It was a rather old model, and in poor maintenance due to the station's abandonment.

I managed to hit a few of CombatUnit1's sensors and leave it disoriented for 2.6 seconds, but then CombatUnit2 decided to join in the fun. It fired a large explosive projectile at the crate I was standing on and it blew up, throwing me down behind the wall. Oof.

I needed to move this elsewhere, away from the Hazardous Cargo Zone, before we manage to blow up something big enough to wipe out half the station.

On the warehouse camera, I could see Gurathin going through a minor panic attack. He was pacing around the area and trying not to hyperventilate, pressing the palms of both hands against the lower half of his face.

I ran through the aisles of stacked crates, as the weapon fire followed close behind me. Two bots at once was proving to be a bit too much to handle, so I needed to get sneaky. I contacted HubSystem and asked it to call them off. At first it seemed to work, but then CombatUnit1 responded with its own hack to it, and the two of them resumed the attack. Combat bots were assholes like that - they got competitive and wanted to neutralize their target at all costs.

Another idea struck me. The hauler bots. They were non-sentient and ridiculously easy to hack. So that's what I did, sending all sixteen of them after CombatUnit2. The haulers managed to surround it from all sides. It started shooting at them instead of me, which was a relief. This way I could focus all my attention on CombatUnit1.

I got on top of another large pile of crates, then  lunged at its face, shooting both of my weapons at the same time. It fired as well and managed to get a chunk of flesh off my thigh, but it wasn't enough to deter me. I landed on its front and reached into a seam at its chassis (it didn't have a 'head', or 'face' in the traditional sense; I just meant the place where most of its sensors are located), then grabbed a piece of its plating and pulled. For a moment, I was forced to dodge a clumsy attempt of its too-large arms to dislodge me. Then reached into the brand-new gap in its plating and grabbed a fistful of cabling that seemed important. I yanked it out. Sparks and fluids rushed everywhere.

I shoved my weapon inside the hole and fired multiple times. CombatUnit1 made a metallic groan, then went offline for good.

In the meantime, CombatUnit2 had managed to destroy three of the hauler bots and was still busy shooting at the rest. I made one of the larger haulers shove at its legs from behind. The impact was strong enough to make it lose balance. As it toppled over, it kept shooting and managed to hit one of the crates from the Hazardous Cargo Zone. The crate made a large explosion, setting up a chain reaction to nearby crates.

"Fuck!" I yelled as I dove for cover behind the massive hull of CombatUnit1.

The explosion managed to hit one of the smaller cargo bots. It burst into pieces, throwing shrapnel everywhere. One piece managed to embed itself into the ceiling and damage some sort of hub that powered the lighting in this area. All the lights started to flicker erratically.

Meanwhile, the remaining haulers were clambering on top of CombatUnit2, crushing its chassis. Soon, they got it pinned down. I walked over to it, unconcerned, and fired the finishing shot.

Fucking hell, what a fiasco. The warehouse was a mess, but thankfully, nothing was burning. I checked my performance reliability and was surprised it held out so well. My leg was leaking and there were at least a dozen bullets jammed somewhere in my back, though I suppose most of them were from the fight with Tarik. Also, a small chunk of my face was missing, but all in all, nothing hurt too much.

Next, I checked on Gurathin, and that's when all the good news ran out.

I felt a cold pit form in the organic parts of my chest. Fuck my life. How did I manage to screw this mission so bad? Why did I have to let Ratthi poke that fucking moss? It was my fucking job to know that shit would hit the fan like this.

A couple of shrapnels had managed to hit Gurathin by chance. One was stuck in his thigh. The other - in the chest, near the left collar bone. He was still standing upright, but leaning on the nearest wall, sort of breathing through the pain.

The white PresAux logo on the front of his jacket had become drenched in blood. I vaguely remembered staring at it through a haze of anger and bloodthirst. It had been the only thing that had kept me from killing him at that time. Over the years, I'd come to think of the humans wearing this logo as branded by my protection, and it had been difficult to break that conditioning.

Why did contaminated-me become so obsessed with this particular human over all the rest?? And how the hell did he turn out to be so guilty? There must have been a link between the two events, but I could not remember what had set it off. I'd just always had a hunch.

On camera, Gurathin grabbed the first piece of shrapnel and yanked it out. He gritted his teeth and pushed through the agony, then did it again. The deformed metal plates clattered to the floor, then he sat down next to them and started tearing off a piece of his t-shirt to make a tourniquet for his leg.

Four fucking years. He'd held my company codes for that long and never breathed a word about it to anyone. I wanted to be mad, to confront him about it right here and now. But I'd already tried killing him twice today, so another confrontation didn't feel like a productive thing to do. Apparently, almost-dying twice in a day was what it took to make him finally use them. I could sort of sympathize with that, and wasn't that even more fucked up?

I was a mess. And tired of being angry all the time. And he was terrified of me, I could see it clearly now. Not of contaminated-me, but the REAL me; terrified enough to have panic attacks and choose to take his chances with hostile combat bots, rather than deal with me. And for some reason that hurt, in more ways than I cared to explain.

ART poked me, and I realized I'd been standing there for 3.2 minutes doing nothing. "Go inside." It urged.

I stared ahead, over the smoking hulls of the combat bots, the scattered remains of the haulers and all the debris left from the exploded cargo, feeling lost. "I can't. He's got codes that could bite my head off. He's going to hack my governor module again and fry me for real this time."

"I will keep you safe from further hacking attempts." ART declared with confidence, and I believed it.

"Okay." I said. I didn't feel okay at all.

Well, here goes nothing.