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Language:
English
Series:
Part 9 of Tidal Locking
Stats:
Published:
2025-11-30
Words:
533
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
32
Kudos:
171
Bookmarks:
8
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506

Schemata

Summary:

SecUnit gives Kaede what she'd asked for.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Kaede had taken to using her assigned drone for rubber-ducking. She’d used a small ball with her alma mater’s logo embossed into it before, but the drone was a lot more responsive, especially after SecUnit got its hands on bigger ones with a little grappler built in. (She suspected Peri’s hands in that one.)

Before the drone, she’d tossed her little ball in the air while she spoke out loud to it. She’d kept up that habit after the first drone showed up. It made her smile when the little intel drone’s camera bobbed up and down, following the motion of the ball. When the second, grappler-enabled drone had taken over, it had surprised her by plucking the ball out of the air when she started to toss it to herself. It had made her laugh, when previously she’d been on the verge of frustrated tears.

They’d started to play catch after that, tossing the little ball back and forth. SecUnit was a much better catch than she was, but it was also a better throw, so they rarely dropped the ball.

That day, she’d finished her work about fifteen minutes previously, but she was still hanging out at her desk as she ran numbers on one of her side projects. She was testing SecUnit’s drone, mostly for fun, tossing the little ball in random directions and challenging it to make trick shots. It must have been a little bored as well, because it hadn’t told her to fuck off yet, so she was only a little surprised when it pinged her with an invitation to a feed workspace.

She ran malware scans on it first — it got pissy at her when she didn’t, and would send her passive-aggressive excerpts from her own feed security publications — then accepted it.

She fumbled the next catch when she saw what was in the workspace.

Just two files. They still made her breath catch in her throat.

Technical Information for SecurityUnits: Models φα-1 – אα-4

Full Schematics: SecurityUnit_452.δ6μ.βA3.1ρא

She ran another scan of the contents, mostly to give herself a second to process what SecUnit had given her. She had its user manual, for all the good that load of propaganda was, and she’d done her best to extract anything usable from it, but she still knew she was woefully under-prepared for anything that really went wrong. She’d tried to reassure herself with the thought that Peri would probably be all over things, but — well. Peri wasn’t always there.

You asked for this, SecUnit said, after she’d just stared at the files for a while.

She startled, and leaned forward to start extracting the files from the schematics. When?

It paused, then sent her an excerpt from its logs. Based on the timestamp, it was from the time it had rescued her and Martyn on Alvurna.

She’d stuck her fingers into its internals and basically asked for scans of it.

She groaned, and buried her face in her hands. Sorry about that. I was really, really stoned.

It was fine. Anyway, you asked. So.

She smiled, and rubbed her hands over her face and then raked her hair back off her face. Thanks, SecUnit.

Notes:

I'm always open to conversation, questions, and requests in my comments or over on my tumblr at Inkinhart!

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