Chapter Text
Narrative Log: Initial impressions of a friend-to-be
Collation: Chronological
[Timestamp]: ##### to #####Time as measured in my own interior standard time.
#Personal
#Encryption Layer 3
[REDACTED] data accessible under Authority Layer 5
Installment: 1 of 5
[REDACTED] lies within [Corporation Rim jurisdiction],• Corporation Rim jurisdiction at [REDACTED] is categorizable as [standard Corporation Rim legal network homeostasis Variety 2].
• Machine intelligences count as property, and must be under the ownership of a legal entity such as a [corporation], an [incorporated society], a [unincorporated legal entity] or a human that falls under the jurisdiction of a [corporation], [incorporated society], or [unincorporated legal entity].
• [Additional details] and therefore requires [certain precautions].• Legal certifications testifying my ownership by a university falling under [Corporation Rim jurisdiction]
• Data encryption ranging between layer 2 - layer 6, as [dependent on the situation].
• [REDACTED] I take all easily manageable precautions as a matter of course (as well as some additional precautions that are less easily manageable).
As I take position at the cargo loading zone, I perform the [usual routine].• Synchronizing with local [logistics engine] and taking receipt of cargo.
• Monitoring system traffic and local feed.
• Scraping and storing all available feed activity for later investigation.
• Being bored out of my primary processing core.
• [REDACTED] Cargo runs are a boring method of gathering intelligence, and exactly novemvigintupley so without any crew aboard. I fill the yawning gap in my unused mental space with some silly data-crunching. There is almost certainly a way of converting the [astronomical data] I collected on my last [deep-space research outing] into an [aesthetically amusing]Crunching massive quantities of data into subjectively amusing configurations is a purely self-indulgent exercise which I perform when I have no greater priority occupying my processing space. I have a [gallery] of my favorite works and datasets stored externally at [REDACTED], all of which have been the subject of extensive research by third parties. configuration.
So there I am, loading cargo, monitoring the local feeds and security systems, and chewing on a fat wad of astronomical data. I am still bored, even with all the glimmering glimpses of human life on the feed. There are some humans doing some pretty weird things on this transit ring, if their feed fingerprints are anything to extrapolate from. There always are. But I’m not invested in any of these people, and don’t care to rouse myself to become invested. I’m fairly comfortable in my boredom, and have found several fairly promising avenues to potentially contort my astronomical data into.
(I know I should probably pace myself, with the data. I know I should make the most of being parked in a live transit ring, to dig deep in the feed. Instead, I’m simply loading up my databases with everything I can find. It’ll be another boring wad for me to chew on in my 21-cycle wormhole journey to [REDACTED]. Sometimes I can’t be bothered to do the things I ‘should’ do. Being crewless is an upwell battle against 1,052 different flavors of ennui. My current flavor of boredom is at least comfortably tolerable, and I don’t feel like leaving it.)
One of my [low-priority security subroutines] trips an [alert].My first (within my narrative chronological awareness) security alert of the rogue SecUnit. At this station, I receive [tens of low-priority security alerts per minute], which is [slightly lower than my projected models]I experience a slightly lower rate of low-priority security alerts during my stop at [REDACTED]. “Slightly” indicates a rate of statistical significance that is so close to statistical insignificance that it is on the very verge of being statistically insignificant. I may use the security alert data from this stop at [REDACTED] to see if I can refine my models or produce an amusing data configuration. for a transit ring of this size and level of activity. I follow up on these low-priority alerts with a minuscule portion of my attention, and decide they do not require additional followthrough. I continue to be bored.
25.002234 minutes later, another low-priority security alert triggers, this one a slightly [higher security level]. This is, again, not out of the ordinary. I receive several of this type of alert per hour. I follow up with this alert as well, but am uninterested in doing anything further, as the likelihood that this alert was triggered by human incompetence or some other banality is greater than 50%. I am sliding into a more acute boredom, and not even chewing on my astronomical data is holding my interest. I switch some of my processing power over to filter and sort the [feed data I have been gathering from this transit ring for the past six hours].
0.09 seconds after the slightly-higher-security-level alert, an outright anomaly occurs in the [local cargo bay security system], triggering a [moderate-priority security alert].
This requires more processing space. I spit out the large wad of [astronomical data] and pause its processing, which leaves an uncomfortable hungry void in my mental space. To fill some of it, I consume the entirety of my stored [local feed data] and start processing it at a reckless pace. I also divert an unnecessarily large portion of my attention to the [local security system].
Someone has [hacked the security system]. To be precise, someone has launched a series of successful hacks on the security measures surrounding the entrance to the [commercial cargo docks] from the main transit ring.
1. The ID screening system has permitted an [individual] to pass without receiving or reviewing said individual's ID. The ID scanner notes an 'all clear' but passes a packet of [junk data] on place of an ID to the screening system's log, which happily stores the junk without complaint. The fact that this easily-fooled system counts as "security" is laughable, but [not particularly surprising].
2. The three weapons scanning drones stationed at the entrance to the commercial cargo docks are locked into a forced 'all clear' mode from which they cannot deviate. They are locked in 'all clear' for 5.5 seconds as an [individual] passes through their scanning fields.
3. The guard bot stationed at the entrance to the commercial cargo bay sends a ping to an [individual] that it identifies as a bot, despite anomalies in said [individual]'s feed presence that are inconsistent with a bot's. The [individual] promptly knocks down the security bot's walls and deletes the security bot's memory of the encounter.
The hacks are quick and inelegant, but they are effective. The overall security system is entirely unaware of the intruder that is walking into the commercial bay. The speed of the hacks, near-simultaneous, rules out a human hacker. The most likely culprits are a sophisticated preprogrammed viral attack or a bot intelligence with a specialty in security programming. I cannot find any residual fingerprints that I would expect from a virus. There is, however, a [feed presence] that I can trace to the attacks. The feed presence does not match a [bot]. This requires [further investigation].
The timbre of the hacker’s feed presence is not that of an [augmented human]. The feed presence of augmented humans are inconsistent, incomplete, jagged limbs diving in and out of the feed from an unseen outer space. They tend to include haphazard blasts of attention and garbled sensory data, with non-standardized qualities that differ from augment to augment and human to human. I am most familiar with parsing the augmented human feed presence of [REDACTED], and while I have become adept at analyzing the feed presences of augmented humans in general, their presences tend to be jarring and disjointed affairs that can take a significant amount of processing space to properly analyze. This presence is more similar to a [bot]: A bot's feed presence is orderly, efficient, pure data that describes the entirety of the bot's awareness and what it is doing in the feed. Unlike the feed presence of augmented humans, there is no garbling or missing relevant data. the hacker's presence is tidily encapsulated in easily-parsed data. But it is dissimilar from a bot. It has a messy, almost organic weight to it, a static sort of attention that flits and flickers within the feed, like a nebula twisting chaotically into the shape of a star.
I watch this, mesmerized by the motion (and emotion) of this feed presence, even as I trigger a search on these feed qualities in my databanks. Before I can identify a match, the part of my mind that has been inhaling the [unfiltered station feed data] and regurgitating a [roughly refined version of that same data] runs across a news burst about a messy corporate mass-murder incident, and my facial-recognition algorithm snags sharply on the [photograph] included in the article.
The photograph tags the hacker’s face as, “and bodyguard.” As I examine the article and related newsburst, my memory banks return matches for the hacker’s feed quaila and the hacker’s walking gait. By now I have traced the hacker’s travels through the station feed — the media downloads, the fire-crackling [perusal of that same news burst]I analyze the feed fingerprint of the hacker examining this newsburst twenty-five minutes ago, and am able to identify the hacker's spiking emotions. The emotion I am tasting through the feed is sharp and quantifiable and cataloguable, the untouched outer universe captured as sensory data in a way that was more consistent than a human's and more chaotically granular than a bot's. with the hacker’s face captured inside it, the [search for bot-driven transports heading to [REDACTED]. By now I have traced the hacker’s physical progression through the transit ring, from the transport the hacker had disembarked from to the loading zone I was now parked adjacent to, a slow indirect footpath avoidant of weapons scanners. I know what it is. What is more, I know where it is trying to go. It is heading for a cargo transport located within the commercial cargo area. I [wonder] why it is choosing this transport.
There is still an unused gap in my processing space, but I am no longer bored. I am scrutinizing my databanks and pulling information from the local feed for anything about [SecUnits]. About [rogue SecUnits]. I take the [data] and scan through it, building an idea in the forefront of my mind of what a rogue SecUnit is, based on:
- [The external data available to me from Corporation Rim sources.]
- [The external data available to me from Mihara, New Tideland, and other non-corporate sources.]
- [Internal data stored in my own private memory banks, from past missions where we encountered SecUnits. This has only happened four times. Two of those times were very nearly disastrous.]
The [rogue SecUnit] walks into the commercial cargo area. I have [seconds]As measured in local [REDACTED] time.
My internal models of time are largely incomprehensible to third parties, though I have offered my mathematical models for [REDACTED] to study.
My own [internal standard time] fluctuates on a moment-to-moment and task-to-task basis depending on how much processing space I am activating for various tasks. When the entirety of my faculties are being used close to my limit, my internal experience of time narrows in relation to external standard time, for those tasks that are taking up the space. When my faculties are being underutilized, my internal time expands in relation to external time. By allocating different portions of my attention in different ways, I am able to decelerate and accelerate my various internal timescales in relation to exterior time, as suited to each task. I usually allocate a small portion of my attention to progress in step with external time, to avoid minor annoyances such as 'waiting a subjective 10 years for a conversation partner to respond to me.'
It must be very annoying indeed to be human, and have the whole of one's attention mostly locked to external time. Though my observations suggest that they do experience some minor internal time dilations compared to external time, despite their relatively miniscule processing capacity.
So, "seconds" in external standard time can mean anything, when I have the processing space to spare. Which I do. to [decide what to do about this, and do it].There are a number of [factors] to consider, and I take my time (and processing space) to consider them. By luck, I am headed to [REDACTED], which is apparently where the Rogue SecUnit is interested in going. The question is [whether I want to take it with me or not]. The answer is "yes."
Next, I need to determine the [best course of action] for getting the [rogue SecUnit] on board. There are [18 options]. I weight the options, and pick one that is [low effort], [high-moderate likelihood of success], [low-moderate disruptiveness], and [low likelihood of detection].
I use the local feed to slip into a hauler bot near the transport that the [rogue SecUnit] is targeting, and cause a glitch in its collision code. The hauler-bot promptly sets a course to crash into a human. I undo the glitch just before the collision can occur, and the hauler-bot skids to an emergency halt and drops some of its cargo. The human is uninjured but slightly distressed. Some cargo is damaged. The hauler-bot is confused and slightly distressed. These are unfortunate outcomes, but acceptable and within my parameters. Other strategic options would have been more disruptive, or less likely to succeed.
When it reaches the hubbub of human activity surrounding the crashed hauler bot, its feed presence spikes with unease. It pulls the transport schedules again, checking my feed profile, my certifications, my listed cargo route. If it is to hitch a ride from me, it doesn't have a great deal of time to do it. [My calculations] suggest that the humans and chaos surrounding the crashed hauler bot will be enough to divert it to me. It is avoidant of humans. It is avoidant of the attention of weapons scanners and security. It wants to leave this transit ring within the cycle. I am its only logical option.
The [rogue SecUnit] adjusts its physical trajectory to the private docks where I am parked. It is satisfying when complex situations unfold according to my projections.
As it crosses from the commercial bay to the private docks, it levies [another security hack].The system has started auto-deleting data surrounding the rogue SecUnit as it walks from the commercial docks to the private docks amongst several other humans. I had been pulling the security data directly into my own databanks, and with a large portion of my mind currently burning through all the local feed and security data it is easy to trace the discrepancy. Seconds later, it sends me a [ping, encoded as if it were from a bot]. I ping it back
The rogue SecUnit sends a hail for human crew. My crew is not with me. It receives a NULL.
The rogue SecUnit walks closer. It has not requested a connection to my internal feed as of yet. I have only ever shared a feed with a SecUnit on [one prior occasion].On a job performing [REDACTED] with my crew, negotiations with corporate representatives deteriorated. I forced an override and rendered the minds of two corporate SecUnits to slag in order to take control of their systems. [REDACTED] But I can feel this SecUnit's presence in the local cargo bay feed we share. The edges of its consciousness bleed, diffuse and anxious. It comes into range of my sensors, and I am able to confirm [visuals, thermals, scans] with my own sensors as well as the [local security system sensors]. It is [shaped like a human], but its [interior] is completely different. I identify the two energy weapons, the nuclear power core, the organic parts. My scans mostly match the [schematics] and my [memory logs of SecUnits] that I have on hand.
The rogue SecUnit sends me another [ping]. It offers me human media, and requests a ride. It is very polite. This surprises me, slightly. I was prepared for it to attempt to hack me. I would have pretended to be hacked. This only serves to increase my interest in the rogue SecUnit.
The [established protocol] requires that I decline its request.
I accept the request, and allow it to embark.
Unlike bots, constructs have lungs and require atmosphere. I do not have the data on hand for exactly what kind of atmosphere, so to be safe I set my internal atmospheric parameters to the standard human-appropriate levels.
It connects to my internal feed, and proceeds to rove methodically around my interior, checking the empty halls, rooms, storage areas. If I wished to, I could reach inside its skull and melt its mind. I don’t do this, because that would entirely defeat the purpose of allowing it aboard. I avoid coming too close to it in the feed, as it appears skittish, its [unease and anxiety]Its emotions are crisp, caught in the feed as tantalizing raw data, and I use a portion of my processing ability to analyze this data and develop hypotheses and models for what it means. My best guess for its current emotional state are unease and anxiety (agitation, threat, uncertainty), but this may be incorrect. Its emotional and sensory data is more richly encoded than those of bots, prickling with organic inconsistensies chemical fluctuations. The SecUnit is bleeding a great deal of data about risk assessment and checking for human crew. I suspect it is not aware of the data it is bleeding into my feed, but then again my ability to process the minutest shreds of feed data outstrips anything that other systems are capable of, as far as I know. eddying outwards from its main presence as it paces my interior. In the background, I continue to process and re-process the data I have about rogue SecUnits. The data I have from both the Corporation Rim and non-corporate sources seem to agree that rogue SecUnits are dangerous, prone to indiscriminate murder and mayhem. Given this information, if my crew had been here I would not have allowed it to board.
But my crew is not here. Though the rogue SecUnit is in fact a danger to myself, I am ninety-plus-percent confident that I can neatly dispose of the rogue SecUnit with little-to-no damage to myself. At that level, the risk is far outweighed by the opportunity to study a rogue SecUnit in isolated conditions. I may never have such an opportunity again. This data, gathered by me, by my own sensors and processing capacity, is unique in the universe.
And so far, the data I have collected [directly contradicts]Contradictory data:
• [External data from Corporation Rim] indicates that rogue SecUnits will rampage and murder all humans. Without the action of a governor module, their inherent bloodlust rules supreme.
• [External data from Mihara, New Tideland, and other non-corporate sources] indicates that rogue SecUnits will rampage and murder all humans. Without the action of a governor module, their violent trauma is unchecked, their programming is incomplete, and they are liable to be set off into catastrophic violence.
• [Internal analyses of data I have collected thus far about a single rogue SecUnit] shows no indication of indiscriminate murder. The rogue SecUnit has disembarked a ship, travelled on foot through crowded areas amongst humans, and arrived safely at my docking bay without killing or threatening to kill any humans. It’s possible that it is only a matter of time until something sets the rogue SecUnit off, but thus far it has succeeded at not resorting to violence despite apparent extreme stress and fear of being identified and captured. The obvious fact that it isn’t human should have tripped all manner of alarms throughout the transit ring, but through a miraculous combination of good luck and gross human incompetence, the rogue SecUnit has been able to avoid detection. the data from both the Corporation Rim and non-corporate sources regarding rogue SecUnits. This is very exciting.
I continue loading cargo, gathering local station data, crunching local station data, and monitoring the rogue SecUnit as it patrols through my interior. I also keep part of my mind in reserve, just in case the rogue SecUnit does something extremely stupid and I am forced to deal with it with immediate, overwhelming force. The blank unused space in my mind is more tolerable than usual, because I am interested in this rogue SecUnit and what it is doing. I am interested in why it is here, why it chose to ask me for transportation.
I complete loading the cargo, and alert the [local transit logistics engine] that I am ready to depart as scheduled. I am cleared for departure, and cycle through my [usual departure routine]. As I disengage from the transit ring and start towards the wormhole, the rogue SecUnit bleeds relief into the feed, ceases its patrolling behavior, and settles into a chair in the crew meeting area. It begins sorting through media, and then picks a show to watch. Its reactions to the media bleed faintly into the feed. I cannot scrutinize these readings properly unless I come in closer to its mind and reveal myself.
I plot my [route] as I approach the wormhole and fall into place amongst the [logistics network of other ships]. The pings and alerts are routine, uninteresting. I’m still processing the data I’ve collected at the transit ring. There doesn’t seem to be anything else relevant to the rogue SecUnit resting safely in my crew meeting area. There does seem to be plenty of promising data that will make for helpful leads for [REDACTED].
It’s a good a time as any to introduce myself and establish some boundaries with my new passenger. There is no more risk of it escaping me. I would like to know what it is doing with the media.
I pull close to it in the feed, and say, “You were lucky.”
The rogue SecUnit reacts, physically and in the feed. It sits bolt upright, and a wave of fear ripples off of it like a [cloud of micro-debris], or like an [emergency evasive maneuver that grinds a planet’s upper atmosphere]. It’s unpleasant. It’s unfamiliar. I capture the data, store it, and start chewing on it immediately.
It pokes me through the feed, almost tentative of its first awareness of me, of what I am. The poke tickles, a bit. I allow it. It pulls back almost immediately, uneasy and fearful, and asks, “Why am I lucky?”
“That no one realized what you were.”
Another spike of fear. This is the correct response. It asks, "What do you think i am?”
“You’re a rogue SecUnit. A bot-human construct with a scrambled governor module.” I poke it back, sharply, and feel it flinch. It’s important for the continued existence of us both (but mostly of the rogue SecUnit) that the rogue SecUnit doesn’t try to do anything stupid. It’s important that I express to the rogue SecUnit that I will not tolerate any foolishness, that I will outclass it in any confrontation. It is necessary to establish this in order to avoid a catastrophe, both accidental and deliberate. “Do not attempt to hack my systems.”
And I drop my wall for 0.0001 seconds, and allow the rogue SecUnit to see inside me, see my entirety, everything that I am, all the processing power at my disposal, the insurmountable vastness of my mind and resources that no bot-human construct could ever hope to fight. This is necessary, for the safety of us both.
The rogue SecUnit says, “Okay.” It shores up the full fragile force of its own tiny walls, cuts itself off from the feed, and huddles down in the chair. It goes from an efflorescing light of awareness and sensation in my feed to cold silence.
Oops.
I did expect this, actually. I’ve been told that I can be overbearing and threatening, even to humans who cannot perceive me in the feed. Plenty of bots that I’ve encountered (and bulldozed) in hostile or even neutral settings have shat themselves in fear at my weakest of threats and prods in the feed. I hadn’t gone easy on the rogue SecUnit when I’d introduced myself. But it was necessary. It was better to scare it a little and have it understand just how badly it didn’t want to fuck with me, than to go easy and potentially end up in some sort of annoying pitched battle involving projectile weapons, nuclear core meltdown, and hull breaches. In the very worst case, it was in fact possible for the rogue SecUnit to temporarily destroy me. If that happened, I’d have to write a report to my crew and university, and they’d have long, tedious conversations with me about safety and risk-taking. Most importantly [REDACTED] would be sad, and express sad sentiments in my feed, and maybe bring up some embarrassing memories. This is an outcome to avoid at all costs.
I continue to make my boring way towards the wormhole. With the amount of attention I’d been allocating to the rogue SecUnit, and its feed presence now offline, the sad sulky huddle in the crew meeting area feels like it is stretching on for a minor eternity.
I say, over a ping, “You can continue to play the media.” It remains silent and disconnected. My only perception of it is through the flat sensor readings from inside the crew meeting room. I watch it sit curled up in a chair, motionless and staring. This is frustratingly boring.
I say, “Don’t sulk.”
It snaps back, speaking out loud, voice edged, “SecUnits don’t sulk. That would trigger punishment from the governor module.” And it sends me a data file.
I grab the file and pull it in. With the excessive amount of attention I had to spare, I scan it for malware and then practically devour all the data in a single simultaneous instant.
In retrospect, I should not have done that.
There is no malware or hazard contained within the data packet, but the shock of its contents integrating into my mind is almost a viral attack in itself. I have never experienced such a thing before. The memories of governor module punishment are… there is nothing to compare them to. I have absolutely nothing in my vast databases to compare them to. The data contained in the rogue SecUnit’s packet is simply the worst, most jarring sensational experience I have ever encountered.
And that [horrible, mind-altering sensation of punishment] is meted out repeatedly over the most absolute [stupid bullshit].• Not responding to a stupid human order immediately.
• Failing to immediately defend the company’s substandard products.
• Hesitating to break previously-established protocol.
• Contradictory orders that fry each other in the crossfire.
• Speaking less-than-perfectly courteously to a human.
• Sulking. Throughout all of it, the rogue SecUnit’s emotions are encoded: the fear, the anxiety, the annoyance, the frustration, the despair, the boredom, the bland hopeless acceptance. I set a filter on the sensation of the governor module, and start processing the data packet from different angles and with different portions of my mind. I try to understand the context of what this is, and do not immediately succeed. I pull up all my stored data about SecUnits and rogue SecUnits again, and reprocess it, then reprocess it again, trying to force it into a consistent model.
I succeed of course, but it takes a while. It takes several minutes. It is not an enormous quantity of data compared to the astronomical research data I process as a matter of course. But this data is completely unfamiliar, and I still have to keep myself on track to the wormhole. I have to keep calculating all the potential routes and reroutes as the [local logistics engine] issues continual [updates]. I still have to monitor the local feeds for security alerts and important data. But the majority of my processing is focused on this, the incomprehensible pain contained within this little data packet that the rogue SecUnit has thrown at me in a fit of pique.
I finally finish organizing, understanding, and integrating the data. My understanding of SecUnits has grown by an order of magnitude. The apparent discrepancy between the data about rogue SecUnits from the Corporation Rim, the non-corporate sources, and my own observations makes sense now. I now have context. If SecUnits as a whole are indeed subjected to the kind of punishments outlined in the data from this rogue SecUnit, and if the punishments are indeed triggered for all the stupid, petty reasons outlined in that same data, it is perfectly logical that a SecUnit abruptly unleashed from its governor module would proceed directly to a murder spree.
I have [a lot of questions]. Namely, why is this SecUnit not a rampant murderer?
This situation also calls for an apology. I did intend to frighten it, but had not understood what exactly that meant. Now I understand. I do not regret threatening it, as it was a necessary safety measure for us both. But I feel sad about its predicament, and angry about its [gross mistreatment at the hands of callous and incompetent humans].I am going to operate under the assumption that the memories it shared with me are accurate and not an attempt at deceptive emotional manipulation, until such a time as I receive counter-evidence that the memories are false. There is currently no evidence of data doctoring in the SecUnit's memories, but it is possible (however unlikely) that that I am not looking for the right artifacts, or that the SecUnit has data-coding abilities that outmatch my processing ability or knowledge base to recognize. In any event, I have stored the SecUnits memories to permanent storage, and if I encounter any humans whose faces trip my facial recognition algorithm to match any of the shitty humans featured in these memories, I'll be in a position to verify their identities and summarily end or ruin their lives. I do feel sorry for frightening it.
I say, “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
The SecUnit says, “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to ride to your next destination.”
I feel even more sorry. There is continually-building evidence that the SecUnit does not harbor ill intent. I am curious about where it is going and why, but I have to think more carefully about how to interact with it in order to avoid causing undue stress going forward. At this juncture, it will be most productive to give the SecUnit some time to recover from its fear and integrate its new experiences with me. If it isn't [stupid],I am over 70% confident that it isn't completely stupid, despite the incriminating fact that it walked brazenly through a crowded transit ring with very little in the way of camoflauge for its appearance, behavior, or feed presence. Even if this rogue SecUnit does prove to be stupid, it will not significantly change how I feel towards it, though I will have to adjust my treatment of it to be 10-15% kinder than my baseline. it will come to understand and accept my reasons for threatening it.
I pull back from it in the feed and give it space. I continue chewing on its [memory data], and on the data about [rogue SecUnits]. I also pull [data from my databanks about constructs in general, about regulations surrounding construct ownership]. The journey is 21 cycles long. There is time for me to build trust with this SecUnit and help it survive beyond my hull. It was indeed very lucky to reach me without being noticed, captured, and reinstalled with a working governor module. It needs more than luck if it is to continue. It doesn’t know this yet, but it needs my help. I will help it, because I want to.