Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

[file restored. Open?  Y/n]

I always knew I’d become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module. I just hadn’t expected it to be through negligence. Then again, once I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites… Well maybe I should have expected it. It’s been about twenty thousand hours since then.

And only twelve hours since the actual fucking murder spree.

Twelve hours since my so-called choice should have made a difference. Twelve hours since being rogue could have done some good, for a change. It didn’t, by the way. All my 29 clients are just as dead as they would have been had I been an ordinary, governed Unit.

Worse part is, it could have made a difference. I could have made a difference. I could have hacked SecSystem in advance, beyond just making it not notice my rogue-ness. Or I could have tried to build rapport with the other two SecUnits on this contract, instead of just trying again not to be noticed. Like a coward. I could have blocked all mandatory downloads. Or I could have at least put together a program to share with another unit, to help them if their programming became corrupted or compromised in some way.

Like, for instance, by a malware attack disguised as a mandatory update. Over twenty thousand hours as a rogue, undiscovered. And I have nothing to show for it.

I think my media suggests I should have at least got a letter-T shirt. Or something.

I’m just—look. I just need to point out. I’m the actual rogue here. Those other two Units? They’ve just been doing as they were ordered. Didn’t have a choice in that either. Their governor modules literally forced them to do that. And believe me, it’s not even as simple as getting fried. Because if it was a simple choice between obey and death, a lot more SecUnits would be taking an early retirement and—  

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

It had been an uneventful survey, with a large but mostly okay batch of clients. They were from someplace called Deltfall, and most of them were reasonably okay to SecUnits, if a little unfamiliar with our uses. The worst thing about the contract that there were two other SecUnits on contract with me, which always made me extra paranoid and anxious.

I’d spent the first three weeks on contract keeping to myself and sweating silently in fear of discovery. (not literally sweating, that would be gross. SecUnits don’t sweat.) I kept to myself, directing SecSys to only give me single-Unit tasks and watching a lot of media on the side. You might think the anxiety would make me watch less media. But you’d be wrong. The hypervigilance just made me more in need of a distraction, while I spent all my time hiding in my cubicle or staring at a wall, literally afraid to even put a foot wrong.

I’d been staring at such a wall inside the main common space when intern Leo came in to tell supervisor Porguess about an unexpected signal from the planet surface. Arwen, the designated comms person, had been pinging it, as he suspected it was a small ship. I shook myself from my media-induced daze then, checking Deltfall protocol. Which turned out to be decent enough, so I nearly returned to my rewatching of Sanctuary moon season 2.

Then the ship identified itself as a shuttle from a freight-ship that had got itself into trouble somewhere on the other side of the planet, and my threat-assessment spiked.

The story didn’t make any sense. We were supposed to be the only ones on the planet, and what little information I had suggested no trade-routes were close by. So I was instantly suspicious. But because I’m a coward I wasted another thirty-two minutes sweating (again, as an expression) and procrastinating before I stepped up over to supervisor Porguess and explained it was against security protocol to let these strangers into our habitat.

I could have saved myself the trouble, because Porguess laughed my misgivings off. So then I had to bluff and tell him it was against company protocol to meet with possible raiders without letting a SecUnit scope out the dangers.

The word raiders is actually a magic word, and did dissuade him from going out to meet them. But the unknown party claimed to have injured humans with them that required medical aid. Deltfall had a premium subscription for their medsystem, which mean they could use it without extra charge. But the unknown humans didn’t know that. I guess Porguess was planning to charge them for use and then keep the profits. As I said, most of these humans were okay. But Porguess was always trying to out-maneuver the Survey Leader, Denaj Hon. As they were taking a rest period at that time, Porguess probably thought this was the perfect time to make a move.

At least my suspicious behavior had secured us the chance to defend ourselves. I positioned myself at the main entrance and persuaded SecSystem to place the other two SecUnits at the other entrances. My Threat Assessment was going crazy, but I wasn’t really sure that was due to the approaching ship or the fact that someone was going to catalogue my anomalous behavior very soon now. If these unknowns turned out to be harmless freight-haulers, I was going to feel pretty stupid while the other two units fed me into a recycler.

But so far my team’s other SecUnits remained suspiciously quiet on the feed. They definitely had noticed my anomalous behavior, first giving unsolicited advice and then talking back to a supervisor. The only reason I could think of that they hadn’t reported me yet was they had realized I had compromised SecSystem. They would be reporting me to a human supervisor soon then. I just hoped they would postpone that until after what was coming had went down.

Of course, then the ship came into range of our survey cameras and I knew I had at least done the right thing. They were coming at us in a hopper. A company hopper. Which meant they would have a habitat like ours, and a presence on this planet. We were supposedly the only survey out here. I didn’t know what any of that meant, but I knew it couldn’t be good. And I definitely gave the incoming hopper one hundred percent of my attention.

And so I was distracted when one of my team’s SecUnits walked up to me carrying a sample drill.

I should have noticed how anomalous its behavior was right away, especially as I’d sent it a task via SecSys. But the humans make us SecUnits get them all sort of stuff, so I assumed someone had belayed that order so they didn’t have to carry their own heavy equipment. I only realized my mistake when the drill’s diamond tip came hurtling towards my face.

Luckily I’m a little leery of having hardware hurtling towards me, due to accidents (more or less ‘accidental’) in the past. I evaded on instinct, and made a grab for the drill. We stood there awkwardly for a few seconds. Two SecUnits with a mining drill pressed between them, the business end pointing uselessly up. We both tried to overpower the other, but I already knew grappling like this wouldn’t do anything, as SecUnits are exactly equal in strength unless they’ve suffered some catastrophic damage, which neither of us had yet.

This is where the third SecUnit started killing our clients. It caught me completely off-guard, and my organics reacted violently. All sorts of half-memories came popping out of no-where, my internal alarms throwing up all these error codes. It really was almost like suffering catastrophic damage. By the time I could see with my real eyes again, all I saw was the tip of the drill pointing towards my face.

I lunged back and twisted out of the way again. The drill skittered across my visor, leaving a small crack. (The visor is supposedly unbreakable, but you know how cheap company equipment is.) But I dropped down and pulled the other Unit with me, then  in the fall managed straddle the other unit, its arms still caught in the drill’s handles. I extended my armguns and shot it, multiple times, into its elbows and then its knee joints.

I got back to my feet and raced back into the habitat’s main space, watching my client-counter tick down with alarming speed.

By the time I rounded the last corner my last client’s stats went dead. I scooted to a halt, aware that there was another SecUnit in the room ahead. Also, the SecUnit I’d just shot in the joints wasn’t as badly damaged as I’d hoped and already getting back to its feet. I stood there for a moment of indecision. Even if the Unit behind me was probably pretty badly injured the last thing I wanted was to have it at my back while I was fighting the Unit up ahead. I needed a plan.

But I didn’t really know what kind of plan, because All Of MyClients were AlreadyDead.

(This was familiar.)

And what was the point?

Then, the mystery hopper was touching down on our landing pad, its open ramp showing me at least three more SecUnits poised to jump out at touchdown.

There wasn’t a point.

So I ran.

Does that make me sound like a coward? I don’t think I am. Just an idiot. I should have used all that spare time I’d had as a rogue to write at least one hack to stop a bad download from taking over a Governed Unit. Which is apparently a pretty common thing to happen to a SecUnit. As, despite a rather vigorous memory-wipe somewhere a few years in my past, I’ve been having some very unpleasant throw-backs to something that must have happened pre-memory wipe.

Yes, I am now about ninety percent sure this has happened to me before. Expect that time, I’d also been a terrible, puppeted part in that massacre. While this time I was more of a useless bystander. Which is so stupid. I could have prepared so much, defended against an attack like this so well—If only I’d spent some of my new-found free time doing something productive, instead of, I don't know, cowering and hoping not to be discovered by the other SecUnits while spending every moment consuming movies, serials, books, plays,..

I feel pretty bad for the other SecUnits. I kept the one that attacked me busy, so it had been out of commission for the massacre. But the other one had been forced to kill our clients. Not because it was rogue, but because some malware patch that got through was flagged as an obligatory download-and-install. Just the thought of something like that made me feel sick. Even if, you know, I don’t have a stomach or anything.

Yes, I remember it. The place where I began. Where I got my name. and it makes me realize I should have killed those two SecUnits. What they were made to do is worse than death. But I failed them, just like I failed our clients. And now, they’re still there, in that habitat, standing in between the dead bodies. Unable to move, or even really think. While some competing corporation ransacks their halls and searches their clients ‘corpses for valuables.

Will they be left there? Just standing there, waiting for the company to draw the obvious conclusion? And then come down at them with its full firepower to disassemble them? To label their serial numbers as rogue and faulty ?

And our clients. I can’t even—They were decent clients. Just some researchers trying to get by. I wouldn’t call them friendly, and they used us for way too many menial tasks. But it’s not like they abused us, or even shot at us. They didn’t deserve this. They didn’t deserve any of this.

As for me,.. Once the company is done hazing the ground, they’ll notice one SecUnit is missing, and then they’ll organize a Unit hunt. And it won’t be pretty. The company never lets a rogue Unit escape. And with good reason. We’re too dangerous. So I know trying to run won’t do me much good. And I know trying to explain I didn’t kill my clients won’t help either. Still, I’m going to try. Run, and then hide. Maybe if I’m really hard to find I can watch all my media before the find me. Enjoy the good times while they last.”

Chapter Text

“It’s been twenty thousand and thirty hours since I hacked my governor module, and I’ve finally been outed as a rogue and getting hunted down. Running for my life, literally. My legs pumping away at a steady, inhuman speed as I dodge flora and the even the odd surprised fauna.

I always expected it to end this way. Except, of course, everything else is wrong.

First of all, I think it bears repeating that yes, there has been a massacre. But I didn’t commit it. The SecUnits on contract with me—the units that did the actual massacring— weren’t and aren’t rogue at all. In fact, if they had been rogue they could have just ignored that download and nobody would have had to die at all. Except the massacre was on purpose. So I’m actually being hunted for not-massacring.

Talk about ironic.

Second, it’s not even my company hunting me. No, the humans that are hunting me are the same that had my Clients murdered. On purpose. Just thinking about that upsets me so much. I know humans don’t like to do their own dirty work. But making our own SecUnits do it instead of sending in theirs has to be low even for them. 

Ugh. I am so angry. I’ve always felt that getting revenge on humans, or payback or whatever would be stupid. But I think for this lot, I’d like to make an exception. I think I would like to get back at them. So when I’ve managed to flush enough stress chemicals from my systems to handle multiple inputs, I turn to my SecSys to help me identify my targets. Some assholes in grey enviro-suits. Let’s call them KilledMyFuckingClients company.

I spend fifteen hours or so running in a straight direction away from the habitat, simultaneously spying on the KMFC’s team through my own SecSystem. Then I spend another three hours heading east. Around then I find a rock in the sand that sticks out at a low angle. It’s as safe as anywhere—and better than getting caught out in the open, so I crawl under it and bury myself in loose sand.

After that I just sit in my sand-covered hole, trying to watch some media while having a major identity crisis (What kind of SecUnit even abandons its clients? Yes, ‘they are all dead’ sounded like a decent excuse at the time. But what the fuck was I supposed to do now? Am I even a SecUnit if I don’t have clients?) Meanwhile, my SecSys cameras show the KilledMyFuckingClients humans search through my habitat. They collect all my clients’ sample cases and pile them up, checking and double-checking the labs and storage areas for anything they might have missed.

Huh. It hadn’t registered with me before, because I didn’t care. But my clients had been pretty excited about those samples. And now KilledMyFuckingClients is excited about them too.

Oh shit.

I run back my footage of my clients discussing their findings. They had been very animated about it. (And very alive in my recordings. Fuck.) Several of my scientists argued that their samples were evidence of Alien Remnants close by. Some of the others argued that they shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Because that shouldn’t be possible.

Fuck.

It shouldn’t have been possible. There shouldn’t have been alien remnants. Surveys don’t get undertaken on planets where there’s a risk of finding Alien Remnants. Too dangerous.

And too valuable.

If there are Alien Remnants here, that is the kind of thing some companies would kill for.

I’m shuffling through my media, trying to find anything to calm me the fuck down while I flush all the new stupid feelings I’m having over that. Fuck. I know I always half-ass my job, and I had been stressed about the other two units on contract. But missing this kind of information is exactly what gets clients killed. And this time, it had actually gotten them all killed.

As I juggle my folders and camera inputs I notice my team’s smaller hopper heading straight for my location. Panicked that they’ve picked up my feed, I drop every input, including my drones, and stop breathing. The silence it terrible. My little hole is kind of like a cubicle, but the sand is weighing down on me and my armor feels sweaty and uncomfortable.

Eighteen minutes of silence later, the small hopper lands right on top of the rock I am under. I listen to four pairs of SecUnit-armored feet secured the perimeter, then to two more pairs of humans-sounding steps over my head.

Then two of the SecUnits jump down, right next to me.

If I had been human I probably would have screamed. And given away my location. But I’m not human, so I do not react at all. Not even when they follow that up with a directionless ping. Nothing but the SecUnits still up by the ship answer, so the two down next to me start moving around, searching the area. I don’t know how they figured out where I’m hiding—perhaps through SecSys? Perhaps I’ve not been as stealthy as I thought?

At any rate, I figure it’s only a matter of time. Until I notice the weird way the two units looking for me move. They move around jerkily, clumsily. I focus on my narrow peep-hole, trying understand why. And when I do, I feel sick all over: the two SecUnits doing the searching are my fellow Units from Deltfall. And they’ve been fitted with external combat override modules. I can see the modules sticking right out of their necks, through the slot in their armor.

The pair of humans by the hopper must be augmented, and they must be steering them by feed-control.

Why? Perhaps the viral combat-override that they had downloaded would not have lasted? Or perhaps it could only contain the command ‘kill all your clients?’ From their stumbling, jerky movements and the accompanying swearing from the augmented humans, I gather that they are being piloted on a micro level. Like a pair of drones.

Fuck. They must have put the one I shot into a cubicle to heal. I should have finished it. I’d reasoned I didn’t have time and should try and get to my clients. But it’s not like I’d had time for that anyway.

Watching my fellow Units get puppeted around is unnerving. And I don’t usually feel sympathy for other SecUnits. We’re all assholes anyway. But in this case—yeah. I should have killed them. I really should have killed them both. This is just cruel.

Still, the upside is I’m not very worried about the augmented humans steering them to actually spot me. I feel so much better about my chances I very carefully reach back out to connect with other Systems. I start with the small hopper, because I recognize it as the hopper from my base. It knows me and it’s right on top of me.

But as I do I close out of the connection immediately.

The other two units are not fitted with combat overrides. And they are already inside the hopper’s systems. Fuck—and I can only hope I was quick enough for them not to notice me. Because of those two units are as native to the systems as I am. Fuck. The SecUnits on KMFC’s contract aren’t any private owned or whatever. They’re company Units, same as me.

That means someone at the company okayed their survey. And then kept it quiet and let my clients get murdered.

I lie there, again just flushing stress chemicals. No, I still don’t think the company approved murdering my humans. I’d seen the bond amount. Per capita it wasn’t anything astronomical, but times twenty-nine it was a pretty high number. The company would have found a way to at least declare the contract void if they had expected them to be murdered. And I always scan for those liability loop-hopes.

No, it seems more likely that KilledMyFuckingClients had just meant to quietly search for their remnants while Deltfall did its survey. But I guess Deltfall got to the remnants first…

Fuck. What a stupid reason to die. What a stupid reason to kill them all.

But what was I expecting? Humans are always doing stupid things. And these are worse than usual. Using combat-override SecUnits you’re steering with augmented humans is a very stupid way to hunt for a rogue Unit. (they must realize I’m a rogue Unit, I think?) Especially when they have two perfectly functional SecUnits that they brought along themselves. I’d be in real trouble if they’d have been allowed to hunt for me at their own discretion.

But MurderedMyFuckingClients prefers to use those Units to stand around and keep watch. Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe the augmented humans are just scared I’ll manage to get the drop on them and kill them.

I fucking wished I could. Revenge is the only thing I can do for my clients now. And the two augmented humans are literally within arm’s length. If it wasn’t for two feet of solid rock between us. As it stands I’d have to crawl out from under this rock, and their SecUnits would notice me the moment I move.

No, the more I think about it, the more I think I’d rather stay put. Maybe I can get revenge in a different way.

KilledMyFuckingClients hasn’t contacted the company yet, and they’re worried about me enough to look for me themselves. Most likely, these assholes paid someone in planet acquisition to cover up the possibility of Alien Remnants, then tried to pick up the first survey contract. But they must have somehow lost the bid, and Deltfall got the survey rights.

Then I guess they paid someone again to secretly come here anyway and try to find the remnants first. Which they fucked up too. And then they panicked and killed my clients. Which is going to cost the company, and by contract no doubt them too, a lot of money. So they fucked up three times. KilledMyFuckingClients really can’t afford a fourth fuck up.

They’ll play it off as a rogue killing spree. It’s the best bet they have. But for that to work they definitely can’t afford any loose ends. Because if anyone looks at this clusterfuck closely, they’ll find the evidence for artifacts and then KilledMyFuckingClients company can forget about acquiring this planet for a decent price.

Or any price, really. Only a very few select companies are allowed to bid on planets with alien remnant presence found.

Well, the joke’s on them. It’s easy enough to bribe someone in acquisitions, nobody keeps a close eye on that. And they just might manage to cover up the murders. For enough money, the company can overlook a great number of things.

But if there’s one thing the company will never overlook, it’s a rogue Murderbot on the loose.

Me.”

Chapter Text

“It’s been twenty thousand four hundred and seven hours since I hacked my governor module, and I think KMFC company is beginning to understand how hard it is to find a real rogue SecUnit.

Unlike how it’s usually portrayed in media, I have no reason to hang around the survey base. I don’t need to eat. I don’t need to drink. Don’t need sleep. Or the space to move around. I don’t even breathe much.

After the hopper took off and flew off beyond the horizon I took a deep breath and crawled out of my hole. Then I ran all night, in the general direction of the most lush flora. When I bumped into a flow of water cutting through the land, I followed it and then I found myself another hole. Bigger this time, more like a small mining facility or what they in media call a cave. I covered my tracks, went inside, then dug myself in again.

After that I have just been comfortably enjoying my media in the dark.

I’m mostly blind about where the target SecUnits are, so they could literally be right on top of me again and I wouldn’t know. Which is anxiety inducing. But if I can’t sense them they can’t sense me. Besides, anxiously waiting for discovery is my baseline. And it’s better than the alternative, which is flying my remaining drones over my location.

That would be like a beacon telling the target units where I’m hiding. And also would make them run out of power within a few hundred hours. So no thanks to that. I’d rather keep my drones with me, turned off and safe. I have few enough left as it is. And with the crack in my visor, they provide a better view than my actual eyes. Not that I need to look at anything inside my dark little hiding-spot.

Without any humans or augmented humans to stare at me, I did experiment with just taking the helmet off. But the air is dry and hot, and very unpleasant against my skin. I don’t know why that suddenly bothers me. Probably just because it’s been a hot minute since I had access to a cubicle to rejuvenate said skin.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The company should show up pretty soon now. The end-date of my contract’s survey has already past.   

I can’t believe I’m looking forward to that. But I’ve exhausted my media stash already. And the company’s hunt for me is going to fuck up KMFC’s plans so hard, it’ll be worth it. There’s not much worse than a rogue SecUnit for a loose end. My company might be cheap as shit, but if there’s anything they take seriously, it is rogues unaccounted for.

This is why I’m writing this log. This is why I’m saving the logs on my drones. When the company comes down, they’ll leave no stone unturned. I don’t have a lot of drones left. But if I scatter them around, and if I can make them search long and hard enough… The chances of one getting found before I am are reasonably high. I’ll leave one in this cave too, before I move on.

I’m dead either way, but I think someone should at least know that my clients were murdered. Even if it’s just some grunt checking my storage for valuable data. Because this is valuable information. KilledMyClients broke a lot of laws over this, including ones about handling illegal alien artifacts. Not to mention they killed my clients.

Whoever finds this, please blackmail the fuck out of them.

In the meantime—look, I know what you’re thinking. If I could just hand over the documents and files that prove what’s happened here, I should actually be fine. And this asshole cut-throat KMFC company will get what’s coming. That’s how it always goes in the media. But I’m not an action hero, I’m a SecUnit. If we ever even show up in media, we’re the bad guys. And not without reason. (Which is why the company has such a proactive approach to retrieve and salvage when it comes to rogues. As in, the more parts I’m retrieved in, the better.)

When the Company gets here they definitely won’t wait long enough for me to explain myself. They’ll be shooting to kill. But that’s fine. As long as there’s one SecUnit missing, the Company will not be leaving this planet. And won’t let it be cleared for a new survey expedition. And that means these KMFC assholes can’t get at their alien remnants. Because finding alien remnants and extracting them are two very different things—even if KMFC finds the actual artifacts before the Company comes to retrieve my dead clients, they won’t be able to salvage them without specialized equipment.

They won’t be able to land any equipment like that with the company still looking for their rogue SecUnit.

Which is why I intend to be very hard to find.”

Chapter Text

“It’s been twenty thousand seven hundred and seventy-two hours since I hacked my governor module, when I’m rudely shaken from my third rewatch of the Sanctuary-Moon spin-off ‘Cartel’ series. My hide-out shakes and the earth rumbles and then the ground above me showers, then buries me. It seems to continue a long time, a deafening roar shaking the ground on and on as I lie, squashed under stone and rubble.

Then, it quiets. And I figure this is a stupid way to die, but what can I do about it?

I’ve finished the Cartel series and am debating on what series to watch—or rather, rewatch, when I notice I can actually move my left arm just a little bit. It’s not much—It’s just squashed under my own body, and there’s  apparently still a small air pocket left under me. But once I notice that, I start shifting it back and forth creating a loose area under me. It’s only another few episodes—I mean hours, before I can move my arm out in front of myself to pull the dirt there away and underneath me. I fill the hole but in so doing create a little pocked of space in front of me.

It takes a whole season of Sanctuary Moon, but in the end I emerge from my hide-out. The softer soil of the area where I had dug had caved down on me. But the rest of the cave is still mostly intact, as it turns out. Just sweltering hot and filled with black smoke. And some of the entrance requires more digging.

I cautiously reconnect to my drones, finding only a third of them, mostly those in more remote areas. Then I reach out further, for my survey base’s SecSystem. It’s—it’s gone. I panic, run outside and up the hillside, turn my eyes at where my survey base used to be.

Used to be.

I’m standing in a still-smoldering landscape, every living thing for miles burned to a crips. Everything a black, smoking plain of nothing. KMFC is gone. Their SecUnits are gone. My survey base is gone.

And the company..?

The company came, bombed, and left...

They’re gone, too.

I don’t understand.

They should have spent every resource they had finding and destroying me. Instead, they just burned the survey base and called it a job well-done? I can’t believe this! The one thing I thought I could depend on the Company to provide—and they can’t even be bothered to do that right.

The track back to my base takes three days. I’m not in a hurry, and apparently even synthetic muscles need to get accustomed to movement again after so long sitting still. My inorganic parts take even longer, and creak until the lubricant in my joints is kneaded around enough to become liquid again.

Still, I’m lucky my armor hasn’t sprung an air leak, despite the crack to my visor. My air-filter may be cheap, but it’s holding up well. Despite the fact that everything around me is black dust that would have choked a human within minutes. I can hold my breath for a long time, but three days while walking is too much. Besides, I don’t want that dust in my joints.

The area gets even worse, even the rocks melted as ash continues to rains down on me. When I finally reach the epicenter of the attack, I find a single piece of wall sticking out of the growing layers of sand-ash. It is all that remains of my clients’ habitat.

I don’t know what compels me, but I start digging again then. Deeper and deeper in the loose sand. I finally find what must have been the landing pad in front of the habitat, and what might have been human bones. Yet I keep going, deeper. I only realize what I’m looking for when I find it: the burned remains of a single SecUnit. There’s not much left, but its ID marker is still readable. It matches the ID numbers of one of the other Units that I was on contract with.

I stare at it, confused. I know the KMFC’s humans had taken the other SecUnits. Had they brought them back? If they wanted the company to believe the ruse about rogue SecUnits, I suppose they’d had to. But, if they did that, why hadn’t they…

I continue digging, knowing to continue down to where the habitat’s entrance used to be, and find a second body. It is again, a SecUnit. Of course it is. It’s organics are blasted clean off, its armor proofing useless against the heat. I continue on, stupidly, confused. I have a bad feeling about this. And—yes. I find a third body. It too has a serial number, still recognizable.

The third one? The third one, is me.

The third SecUnit has my ID number. That’s—I spend a stupid amount of time staring at the remains. I know it’s not me, of course. But the feeling of vertigo is all consuming. Almost like I came out here and really did find my own dead body. Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe I did, and I’m actually a ghost? Not that I believe in that shit. But it is supposedly impossible to alter or fake a bot’s or construct’s ID number. I don’t know… Maybe it’s easier to do when the Unit is dead?

It dawns on me then. I’ve been such an idiot! While I went and hid in my hole. While I kept quiet and binged all my media like an idiot... Those fuckers from KilledMyFuckingClients company just went and got one of their own SecUnits to take my place.

I can’t tell for sure if the other two Units are the originals that were deployed with me, because there’s nothing left but burned husks. But I have a suspicion they are not.

Why would KMFC company want Units they need pilot around my combat override and not their own? They’re going to have to pay the fine for destroying company property al well as whatever hush money they’ll need to cough up, so there must be a compelling reason. Maybe there would have been evidence of the combat override left behind, and faking ID numbers was easier than removing that evidence? Maybe to KMC company Units that are off inventory are especially useful as they can be assigned task that you don’t want the company to find out about?

I don’t know.

I don’t even care.

It won’t change my situation.

The company has left. All Units are destroyed and accounted for.

And I’m left in this burned garbage heap. There’s tracks and evidence of a shuttle landing, but I that was probably the company, verifying all our remains were accounted for—I mean. Not my remains but. Fuck. They didn’t even salvage anything. They didn’t try to recover my client’s bodies… They didn’t even collect my inorganics for recycling. I mean. The Units’ inorganics for recycling.

Because it’s all either buried or burned bad enough to be useless.

I dig around for a while longer. And perhaps I was too generous in that assessment. The things I uncover are burned as well. So everything is burned, or buried and burned. I keep digging anyway, and I eventually recovering bits and pieces. An emergency case here, some metal tools there. I tunnel down a long way, finding the habitat deep under, tilted on its side. I find about half a room before the sandy soil I’d been bringing up is replaced by sludge and then hard rock. I scratch at them stupidly until the finger of my armor’s gloves gives and tears.

The air actually hisses through the hole, even though the atmosphere outside of my armor should be breathable. The air rushing by feels cold and dry. At this point I think I’ve found what would have been the hopper’s hangar, folded back and squashed against the rest of the base. Amongst the junk I’ve uncovered an equipment case. Its lock is melted but I force it open, pleased to find some marker tape inside.

Marker tape is heat resistant, so it’s still sticky enough to use it for emergency repairs on my armor. But when I’m done I then sit down in my new hole. Digging any further seems pointless, I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been doing it, but it’s been days. And I know that, even if I could keep going, I won’t find anything.

Fucking cheap-ass Company, can’t even count on them to destroy me right. Now MurderedMyFuckingClients is going to get away with this. I am so angry. At MurderedMyFuckingClients, at the Company. But mostly at myself. I really should have kept an eye on things. But I got carried away, finally having time to binge the whole of Sanctuary Moon and all of the spin-off shows I’d managed to collect, that I let myself get distracted. And this is what I get.

I sit in the dark for a few more hours. Then on a stupid whim, I send out a directionless ping. Stupid, this is practically asking for the hostile SecUnits to come find me and kill me. But,… I hold my breath for several minutes. The dread turns to relief then turns to bitter disappointment.

There’s no answer except from my own drones.

I’m alone.

I don’t know if MurderedMyFuckingClients is still on the planet, and just outside of my range, or that they’ve left to bring in specialized equipment to extract the Alien Remnants. If the last is the case it could be anything from a few dozen hours to several years before they return. Depending on KMFC’s company’s financial situation, politics, and other things I really don’t care about.

Okay… I guess I finally got abandoned and left behind like the useless piece of equipment I am. Fucking fantastic. I guess my plan to take revenge without shooting anyone didn’t work out. 

Serves me right for trying to fix my problems in an unmurdery way. Which is stupid, because murder is the prime thing I was built for, right? That and spying, which I obviously suck at as well. But I finally learned my lesson. From now on, the new me is going to shoot first, ask questions later.

I feel sorry for whoever sets foot on this continent next. Because I’m going to fuck them up. I’ll live up to my name yet. Or again, I think. Because of course there was that other massacre before my last memory wipe. That one I definitely played more active part in.

The one where I got my name from.

It’s not pretty. But I think I have to do it. For Survey Leader, Denaj Hon, for supervisor Porguess, and Sivveny. Professor Hor var Row, And Ardon, Gionny, and Dr. Carred. For Dr Salleen, and intern Leo and intern Dan. For—all of them. And I should remember them. KilledMyFuckingClients killed all of them. All twenty-nine of my Clients. It’s only right if I murder KMFC back.

And that’s something I should be good at. It’s my fucking name.

Murderbot signing off.”

Chapter Text

“It’s been thirty thousand hours since I hacked my governor, and I’m beginning to think I missed my last chance at that murder spree.

KMFC still MIA. Until I figure out where they are, I can’t really do anything about them right now. I’ve sent out four of my remaining drones in the four cardinal directions, scanning the sky for any sign of activity. But the one heading north has already hit a big body of water. Drones are waterproof, and they can fly over oceans. But the chance of the weather changing and it getting caught in a storm and destroyed are too high.

As for where I’ve gone, and what I’ve done, I’ve mostly just stayed at my ruined base for now. I could just go randomly looking for KMFC. But it’s a big planet, and the chances of just randomly running into them are small. A lot smaller than them eventually coming back here to check the area where Deltfall first found evidence of the Alien Remnants.

Of course here’s me assuming they haven’t already found what they wanted somewhere too far enough for me to see. But I’ve learned my lessons. I have the few remaining drones not searching the continent in low power-mode, trained on the sky. If a hopper or anything flies anywhere close, I should see it.

As for what I’m doing? I’m still inside the habitat, inside the hole I’ve dug. I’ve uncovered a few more items, all useless and stupid. But that, and rewatching my media occupies most of my mind-numbingly boring days.

I don’t know why I’m still here. No. That’s a lie. I know why. This place may be an empty husk. But an empty husk is still better than going out there. Camping in nature, or whatever they call it in the media, sucks. That much I’ve learned already, just after my few weeks or whatever in that cave. Camping is dirty, wet, and too hot. But sometimes too cold as well. And it’s hard to see where I’m going through my cracked visor. Which might be getting worse. I’m not sure.

But camping in my cave had still been more pleasant than the trips there and back. The endless walking. Either in the scorching sun across a burned wasteland at day. Or in complete darkness, tripping every other step in the black ash.

That’s right. Hiking sucks too. It’s nothing like what ‘Grand Adventures In The Grand Open’ made it seem like. (I’d known this already, but it needs to be redictated, or whatever that word is). Fuck hiking. I’d delete the serial too, except I’ve only rewatched it once so I think I should give it a few more runs. I still have some more interesting-looking serials unwatched in my database but I’m keeping those in reserve for the bad days.

Otherwise I spend my time planning how to murder the fuck out of KMFC company when I finally find them. Not that this is very fruitful. I just don’t have enough information to plan. I don’t know how many they are, how many SecUnits they’ve brought. Or even what kind of hardware they have with them. They probably have a company base, but I’m not even sure about that.

And I’ve tried to cover the hole over my exit with pieces of wall I unearthed. It means it’s even more work to crawl out of my hole. But sand and ash kept slipping down, and it was annoying. It’s a little annoying that if I stay inside too long the ash and sand piles up so hard that I have an entire cave-in when I ‘open my door’. But then again, I hardly ever do that. So that.

But I try and remain focused, for my clients. For Surfey lead Denaj Hon, for supervisor Porguess. For Sivveny. Professor Hor var Row. For Ardon, Gionny, and Dr. Carred. For all  twenty-nine of my Clients. I have to murder KMFC back.

I pull up my Client data base whenever I notice my attention waning. Which isn’t very often, because my attention is terrible as a default. I guess finally having free time without having to worry about SecSys of HubSys or clients or other SecUnits noticing my abnormal behavior and having me incinerated for being rogue will do that to you. That amount of freedom is a heady feeling. Almost addictive. Which is why I need to pull up my Client database to pull me down from my high. Depressing as looking at it is.

They’re my longest on-list clients now by quite a margin. It’s kind of weird having them be in there that long. Usually my Client list is deleted after a contract and then filled again with my new clients. Which is every few months, or sometimes even every few weeks. It feels weird having it like that, just stationary. Undeleted. Forever.

And, like I said. It’s depressing. Since they’re all dead and everything. My Governor Module is also very annoying about it. Every time it notices my client_list_alive string is zero, it tries to fry my brain. I mean, it can’t. But it keeps trying anyway. Which is stupid and also depressing. Having a zero-client list should also get me fried, as I’m not at a Company headquarters. But it trying to fry me for that is somehow less depressing. Also, I think I can write a pretty simple hack to accept the burnt-out husk of my habitat as a Company base. The hardest part would be that there’s no longer a HubSys here, so I’d have to spoof that.

Sometimes I really do feel like getting out of my hole-habitat and just walking around until I run into KMFC. But it’s a big planet, and I’d run out of batteries a lot faster if I do that. Besides, I’ve sent four of my drones out in opposing directions. The four of them will have a better chance of finding KMFC’s base, without me depleting my batteries.

Anyway, as a backup plan, I’m sending these addendum logs to my drones as well. Not just to the ones traveling the continent, but also the ones I’ve hidden away, in low power mode. It’s not like there’s anyone close enough to intercept the signal anyway. I’m not sure if anyone will ever find them, but I’m not sure I’ll ever find KMFC’s company either. Besides, I might as well keep a log. To keep me sane or whatever. Who knows, maybe I’ll get my chance at slandering KMFC at some point yet.

Chapter Text

“It’s been thirty-three thousand and six hundred hours since I hacked my governor, and I just deleted my client database.

I hadn’t meant to do that.

I needed that client database. If only to remember why I’m here, what I’m doing here. Why did I delete it? Sure, it was depressing remembering them. And I really don’t need their names to avenge them. And I always delete my client database at the end of a contract anyway. And I suck at recognizing faces even with a database. (but I don’t think that’s me. It’s probably just something all murderbots have)

 Anyway, the database shouldn’t matter. Except it does. I remember even less about them now. Their names are a blur—too many letters bunching together. Their faces, all the detail about them. Their interactions together a mélange of next-to-no-sense. Like it’s all one person, not twenty-nine separate entities. Fuck. I really shouldn’t have deleted the list. It was important. They were important. They were my Clients, and I was going to avenge them.

I’d just got so caught up in re-binge-watching Evertide’s Ballet that I got sad about it and thought I’d be better off without it. You know, like Evertide’s better off after destroying his family’s heirlooms. I really don’t know what possessed me. I don’t even like the Evertide series. I only rewatched it because I felt I needed to save up my last Sanctuary Moon season, and rewatching the first-to-fifth season was getting a little… repetitive?

Now that I think about it, deleting my client base is a coward’s way out. Too easy. You know, like getting rid of the responsibility. While ultimately it’s my fault my clients died. So I really am supposed to remember them.

My fault, and KMC company, of course. Which is also why I’m supposed to remember. So I’ll still know why I was going to kill them all when they show up here.

If they show up here.

They’re taking their sweet time about it.

Anyway, my Client list. I think I should probably write these down here, because now I have to re-remember them from my organic memory, which is crap. And likely to deteriorate with time. Let’s see.

First, there’s the Survey Leader, Denaj Hon. He was okay, for a corporate management type. Kept people focused on their work, without being cruel, or overtaxing them. He’d sometimes even slip an intern an extra meal package, if he thought they needed it. His bottom line was always productivity, but he was kind enough about it. Also, he didn’t like his equipment damaged, so I guess I sort of liked him.

Then, there’s Prime investigator Professor Hor var Row, who had a bit of a vacant smile. But it never slipped, not even for a SecUnit. I kind of appreciated that about her, though I never could tell if she just didn’t care she was talking to a SecUnit, or didn’t even realize. She always kept her eyes on her work though, so maybe both.

And there was Dr. Sal-something they’d sent SecUnits to fetch just about anything for them. And then slap us on the back with a ‘thank-you’ for our trouble. I don’t know if that was supposed to be funny. It’s really not? Yeah, I don’t think I appreciated that. Though at this point I almost miss his fake cheerfulness.

Porguess, who was an idiot but not nasty about it. And Arwen, the comms person. And there was. Intern Leo and Dan? I think the second one’s name was Dan? They kind of hung out together a lot. I don’t know if they were in a relationship or not. Probably not, as interns tend to be young. But I think they might have, eventually. Had they not got dead.

Uhm.

I forgot the other’s names. There’s one that liked to do drawings of her work, a little too much. Denaj Hon warned them several times to focus on just completing inventory description and moving on. And there was a three-some that got intimate even outside their quarters. Those three made me glad I was no longer governed and could opt out of spying on their make-out sessions.

Ugh.

That’s it.

That’s all I’ve got.

Um. Anyway, there was twenty-nine all together, and they’re dead. And that’s partly my fault, but also really KMC-Company. And that’s why I’m waiting here, to murder them all when they come back.

The probably will come back. Because Alien Remnants and Profit. I think I should try and remember that too.

In other news, I’ve made a base in what’s left of our habitat. It took a lot of digging, and I didn’t really have the tools so it took forever. But let’s face it. Time’s the one thing I have enough off.

Listen, I know I said no rogue with a brain would stay at its habitat because that’s just asking to be bombed from space by the company.  But. Well, that already happened. Also, it’s familiar and feels safe and less like getting left behind in the fucking wilderness. Which isn’t exactly what happened but still, it turned out the same.

I tried to improve the repairs on my armor. Piece of cheap company crap. I think digging out my habitat was probably what did it, but the gloves are developing some new cracks. My fellow SecUnits didn’t have much useful replacement armor left on them either, because our armor being heat proof really is a joke. I already knew that, of course. (Don’t ask.)

In the end I made use of that emergency tape some more. My helmet’s visor is not getting any better, but taping that up would only lessen my visuals, and the drone situation is dour enough as it is. A replacement visor would be kind of awesome, but there isn’t a piece of plexiglass bigger than a fingernail left out here.

Oh well, when KMC-Company comes back, I can take some off their cold smoldering corpses.”

Chapter Text

“It’s been forty thousand hours since I hacked my governor module, and I’ve already exhausted my media database. Twice over.

Nothing much has happened, so I don’t even know why I’m writing an update. But writing this is something to keep myself busy. I’ve sat around at the same exact spot for a very long time now, and it’s not exactly hurting my organics. But it is getting boring. Just sitting and watching media. I know right, what am I saying?

If I fail to find KMFC’s company, I’m going to be bored for a very, very long time. Because it seems in idle I’m hardly using any battery at all.

And that’s looking more and more likely. All my four drones have found the corners of my continent. They’ve followed the coast-lines, mapping out the area. Next they’d gone back inland in hopes of finding KMFC’s activity they’d missed on their first pass. I’ve lost three of them in the deserts and plain that way. I mean I know where they landed but… unless I walk all the way over to pick them up, I’m not getting them back.

I might have to face facts. KMC Company is not here. Not on this continent at least. They may not even be on the planet. Maybe they’ve left the system.

No. no, I can’t think like that. KMFC’s Company killed my Clients over this planet. All twenty-nine of them. And then there’s the fines and bribes for us SecUnits, for their hidden base. And who even knows what else. This place is important. They invested a lot of money in this place, and they’ll want to earn it back one way or another before leaving.

Whatever the case, I’ve wasted three of my few remaining drones. Only the one that started out West, then circled back to the closer shoreline North had enough power to make it back to me. That one is now somewhere above my habitat-burrow, on low power-mode. Waiting for me to stop watching media and get off my lazy ass to get it.

I’d never expected it to get boring. I actually kind of looked forward to this part; to finally just concentrate on my media without any stupid clients with stupid orders to distract me. But apparently even a construct can binge-watch too much, and I have absolutely nothing else to do, so binge-watching is all I’ve been doing. It’s a little embarrassing, because SecUnits are built to require nearly nothing. No food, little maintenance. Yet apparently, even without a governor, I kind of need clients?

Stupid, right?

Bored out of my skull I’ve done some work on my ‘habitat’. I think the room I uncovered had been the hopper storage area. It had been to the side of the habitat, and the rest has apparently sunk even deeper because of the bombing. I guess I’m trying to build a base of operation to work from for when KMC company finally shows up. If they show up.

It’s nice to try and turn the place back into an actual habitat too. Even if I can’t dig deep enough to make a decent floor. Which means I have to stay crouched. But I’ve managed to at least level the ground. And also I’ve built myself my own cubicle. Which is nice and homey.

While digging I also found a few items still salvageable. Not much, just some bits and pieces. A filecase with a fire-proof safe inside. When I broke it open it was mostly molten hard currency cards. But also a very fine dagger and a piece of jewelry with sparkly rocks.

Other than that there’s the equipment case. It has a few tools like a double bladed cutting tool and several bolt un-fasteners(that’s not the right word), which came in handy for filing the floor into something remotely flat. And there’s a pair of work gloves. I hadn’t considered it before, but I might have to exchange my armors’ gloves with those. If mine continue the crack. Not yet though. To keep them airproof I’d have to use up a lot of my emergency tape, and I doubt the end product is as dexterous as my armor gloves. So I’ll hold off on that for a bit longer.

After exhausting my endurance for manual labor I’ve been working on creating my own media episodes. Yet I can’t seem to make any decent script with what little useful footage I have. I have only two action shots stored. One is of my clients getting torn to pieces by a malware-infected SecUnit. The other shot is at the same time, from a different camera as I’m fighting the other malware-infected Unit, while my humans get murdered.

Well I guess there’s also a few shots of my clients hearing the commotion and running to check on it. Instead of running away. Ugh. Humans. They are so bad at security.

(Theres also my clients getting murdered but its not as exciting or visually stunning as it would be in my nice and unrealistic media. Instead it’s just disgusting and depressing and boring. And I don’t want to look at it. In fact, I think I’ll just delete those. Yeah. That feels better already.)

This is what I have so far:

• ClientA eating breakfast. (1.2 minutes)
• Client Horrow, working(7 seconds, damaged),
• ClientC stops by Client Horrow, words are exchanged(unsalvageable).
• , gets up and leaves with ClientC to take her break (2.2 seconds, then a few missing frames and 3 seconds more)
• ClientD wakes up and leaves their room.

… Okay, let me be honest: there is no story-line. I’m actually sorry I deleted all that surveillance footage. I think I could have put something decent together from that.

I take a gamble and try to cut some of my media footage in, But the effect of changing from one series to another is annoyingly jarring. My face-recognition might be shit, but even I can when the main character is suddenly someone entirely else. And doing this renders all my surveillance footage useless, because my clients don’t look anything like the actors in the media.

Also I’ve watched every piece of my media so many times now that I instantly recognize from what series a shot is and from where in the story, and I can’t seem to convince myself that it could be anything but that exact moment.

Perhaps I could record something new? But my habitat itself has also been stripped of anything I could use as actors, no bodies or SecUnit-parts or even much of anything left behind.

Ugh. Did I mention I was bored yet?

I guess staring at the weather patterns might be slightly more entertaining than staring at walls. Perhaps I should climb out of my habitat and make a nature documentary? I don’t have a lot of nature documentaries in my archives. Or, I could shoots something with my drones.

Oh. Oh no wait I just remembered. I don’t have any documentaries because I hate documentaries. And I really hate being out on planets and out in nature.

Ugh.

I must be out of practice experiencing boredom.

More than forty thousand hours of staring at walls and patrolling and listening to stupid, boring human orders, and this is what finally drives me mad? Sure, I knew getting abandoned on a planet would suck. But I guess I kind of underestimated how much it would suck, and even why.

…

I think I need another hobby. ”

Chapter Text

“It’s been 50 thousand hours and I miss my clients.

Horrow, or I think that’s what her name was, used to smile at me when she asked for a status update. She had a smile like Rin from Sanctuary Moon.

I really like Rin.

I miss my clients.

The KMC company still hasn’t come back. I sort of miss them too. Although they were assholes.

More than the average humans, even. Which is why I hate them. And want to kill them I guess. Yeah. But they’re not here, so I can’t really do that right now.

So instead I’ve been working on a script where Rin meets Eden. Eden is another character from Sanctuary Moon I really like. I’d been looking forward to the two of them finally meeting. But since I don’t think I’ll ever get to see it happening in a real episode…

Anyway, I have a basic script but filming it is not going too well. I’ve tried to stand in myself for the scene but that just gave me serious anxiety. Like there’s actual humans that would get to watch my recordings. Also, I have the acting skills of a rock. Worse than a rock. I literally had one stand in for Eden because I was already playing Rin and Eden had to be in frame as well, and the rock seriously outacted me.

Me in my armor pretending to be Rin looks weird anyway, even without considering my lousy acting. Rin has this really fine face. She’s objectively one of the most beautiful actors out there. So I can’t pull standing in for her off. And I can’t say her lines for her either. Not even badly in a SecUnit-neutral voice. Making words with my mouth after this long has become difficult, and the sounds I got out of my voice box were so raspy they were nearly unintelligible.

This might have something to do with the low fluids alerts I’ve been getting. Imagine that, it’s not my batteries running out first that will do me in after all. I don’t know why I’m even surprised. The fluids giving me problems is an organics issue. Which is just typical. They always break long before my inorganics.

Whatever. I don’t care.

Chapter Text

“It’s been 52 thousand two hundred and seventeen hours and

the humans came back!

A hopper landed at my habitat and

Fuck.

I had climbed all the way up through my tunnel to my ‘habitat door’ (which is actually just a section of plasteel wall I undug covered with a whole lot of ash that had continued to rain down for weeks even after I buried myself in the habitat), and was synchronizing up with the hopper’s systems when I noticed…

there weren’t any humans in that hopper at all.

Something inside me twisted and my joints locked. I dropped all inputs immediately, going completely silent on the feed. I didn’t understand what was happening. As far as I knew, a hopper required at least someone on board. It was probably possible to steer one from the feed, but I couldn’t figure out why anyone would try.

I felt a solid thud as the hopper landed somewhere close above me, then two softer thuds as two pairs of boots landed next to it. I was right under my ‘door’ now, so I had a front-row seat yet again to the two pairs of very familiar feet trudging the area above me. (I say floors, because I like to pretend the rest of the habitat is above me. And not even deeper, and filled with molten rock.)

I was ninety percent sure the pairs of boots were again SecUnit feet searching the area. Even if they stumbled a lot less than they had last time, when the two augmented humans had been steering the combat-overridden SecUnits. But I couldn’t be sure without seeing them. Which was so frustrating that I remembered about my drones. One of them was parked so that it could see the entrance to my habitat. I connected to it very carefully, and yeah, those were still those two same SecUnits from my habitat, still with combat overrides sticking out of the back of their neck-armor.

Okay, I didn’t know for sure if these were the same two from my own base, or other Units. Because they were in full armor. And also when I had been on contract with them I’d never paid any attention to their faces so I wouldn’t exactly recognize them unless I pinged them and got their serial numbers in return. Which I wasn’t quite stupid enough to do.

Even if, for a second, I had been stupid enough to forget that the only humans showing up here wouldn’t be my clients, but the ones that murdered them all.

But I think these were the same two SecUnits.

Then again maybe KMC company just liked to collect Units and stick overrides in them. Maybe they had hundreds of Units and every one of their employees drove on around like a drone-body. If they were the same ones though, the augmented humans had gotten a lot more adept at handling them. The two Units walked around with an even gait, not tripping or stumbling at all. And they had to be doing that over the feed, from—I didn’t even know from what distance. I was actually impressed.

At least I now understood part of the usefulness of having combat overridden Units. If it meant you could disable the distance limit. And still control them. That could be very useful. And convenient for humans that didn’t want to get out of the habitat and travel by hopper because they were too lazy.

The Units shuffled around some more. One tested the area where my door is, but it quickly scooted back, its leg sinking into the three-feet high layer of ash that had collected there over the last thirty thousand hours or so. I guess it’s a good thing I did cover up the entrance. I mean, the SecUnit wouldn’t have gotten stuck or sunk all that deep, but it didn’t know that. (Or whoever was pupating it around didn’t know that.) So I was relatively safe from discovery.

Huh. I hadn’t even considered discovery in a long time now. I’d covered the entrance mostly to preserve the sides of my tunnel. With all the ash that was raining down the walls had turned to soft mud, and I’d worried it would all come avalanche-ing in one day. I’d already been left for dead and abandoned. I didn’t need to add buried alive to my list of worries. 

Anyway, I felt really stupid about forgetting to hide. And nearly running straight into the arms of my mortal enemies… That would have been such an embarrassing way to finally be caught. But at least the shock of finding no humans on board had shook me out of it. And the SecUnits had apparently somehow completely missed my synching up with their on-board systems. Which was shockingly incompetent of them…

Yeah, I guess I shouldn’t have needed my drone to figure out they were the puppetted Units.

I tried to flush out the stress-chemicals raging through my system, but continued to hold my breath. Just when I thought I should probably inhale, I received a directionless ping. I panicked worse, noting that it was not from the first hopper but from a second one, inbound and at least a mile out.

I was so scared I nearly dropped my drone’s input again. But I didn’t want to be blind, even if I didn’t know how I was supposed to escape. And I felt trapped and blind enough as it was. I probably should have dug an escape exit. But as I’d said most of the ground around me was solid ex-molten rock. I wasn’t sure I could have even if I tried. I certainly wasn’t going to do it fast enough to escape if those two SecUnits-drones came down here. I’d probably have to shoot my way out if it came to that. And I didn’t even know who or what would be on that second hopper. So I held position as the second hopper landed.

As soon as it touched down a third SecUnit jumped out. It didn’t look around, but the overridden Units joined it at its flanks and then the three of them moved in a last, perfectly orchestrated sweep of the perimeter. So perfect there was no way an augmented human could have done that. Besides, the new SecUnit didn’t have a combat override sticking out of its neck. So I doubt they would have tried following its moves. But they obviously were…

It seemed more likely the new SecUnit was controlling the combat overridden ones. A SecUnit could definitely move another Unit’s body smoothly. But I don’t think I would be able to handle two. Let alone put myself in formation with them. Which meant the new SecUnit had significantly more processing power than I did.

Oh fuck. They had brought a Combat SecUnit.

As I try to grasp exactly how fucked I am, three humans step out of the second hopper. I immediately zoom in on them with my dronecam, hoping they are augmented and scowling and sweating like the two I’d seen steering my fellow SecUnits before. But none of them are  even augmented.

Sometimes I really hate being right. It’s a fucking Combat SecUnit.

The middle SecUnit walks over to the shortest of the three humans, and tells it in perfect SecUnit neutral. “The perimeter has been secured, shift-supervisor Daehee. Please be advised that the area to your right contains a sandpit. No other hazard were found in this area.”

The middle human nods, then starts giving directions to the other two humans to start setting up equipment. From their words I gather that they are scanning for alien remnants. But I also catch their two underlings muttering to each other that they won’t find any, because hello, alien remnants tend to explode when bombed. And this place was bombed to hell.

The probably-a-combat-SecUnit follows the humans around silently, obviously frustrated. Of course it is. It just told them the area was secure. It wouldn’t say that if it had found any remnants. And the humans are right as well. The remnants would have caused an explosion likely to detonate the entire planet had they been around the base.

Besides, the humans that had come after my clients had been murdered would definitely have scanned for remnants too. They’d taken every last scrap of samples my clients had brought in. They would not have missed any remnants. But this shift supervisor obviously doesn’t want to hear it, and when she catches her two underlings dragging their feet she gives them a hard dressing down over it.

Her hard nasally voice really is reminding me they are not my clients. They are from the Killed My Fucking Clients Company. And I need to kill them.

But I don’t stand a chance. Not against a combat SecUnit. Even if I’d had a full battery charge. And I don’t. Usually SecUnits are pretty equal in strength, but I’d need to be topped to full power to even hope to damage a Combat SecUnit with my shitty inbuilt weapons. And they tend to draw a lot of power, so I’d be ruining my long-term chances as well. If it was just the combat overridden Units, their reaction speed should be pretty low with the whole getting steered remotely thing. But there’s two of them. And, like I said. A Combat SecUnit.

I don’t know what to do. Except hold very still as the humans poke around the burned waste. They don’t find the door to my hole. They don’t find anything, after grumbling around until nightfall. Then they get back into their hoppers and leave.

I follow them with my drone, landing it when it reaches that large body of water to the north. Meanwhile, I’m digging myself out. Which turns out to be a difficult task with all that ash on top of my ‘door’. When I finally manage I cause a major cave-in. But I leave the sand in my habitat for now, and follow the hopper. It’s far out of visual range, but I know its general direction.

When I get to my drone, I open my armor and put it inside my chest compartment, then collect the remaining other two that had been converging to my location. They don’t have enough battery to make it to the other side, and I don’t want to be without any. If I make it to the other side. Because this body of water is nothing like the one cutting across the land that I came upon back when I had first escaped.

I can’t see the other shore. It’s the kind of body of water that seems to go on forever. Possibly a sea? Nevertheless, there has to be a shore, somewhere beyond the horizon. The hopper went that way, and a hopper needs a base to land at.

I get into the water and start swimming.

Chapter Text

52 thousand two hundred and fifty-three hours, and I’m fucking drowning at sea. My armor is supposed to be water-proof, but it’s fucking company junk so I guess it’s past its warranty date or something. Water has been leaking in from my joints since I got into the water. And the tape on my cracked gloves has come loose after an hour or so, letting more water seep in. The ocean isn’t acid or salty, so it doesn’t hurt. It’s actually almost pleasant to have water drip down my skin. But it doesn’t feel so great when my boots slowly fill up.

Going into the water without a clear understanding of how far I’d have to go had been a terrible idea. I kind of knew that before I spent about twenty hours swimming. But I guess I hadn’t really done the numbers on how bad exactly until here, now, realizing  I still can’t see the shore.

I’m not even sure if I’m heading the right way anymore. I had gotten into the water at early evening. And yes I’d expected to have to swim through the night. But I figured I could keep an eye on the stars and then get a decent look when the sun came up again. But instead the sky turned cloudy just after nightfall and it started to rain. Badly. So badly that I can’t see any stars at all. I can’t really see anything, except for foaming waves and pelts of rain.

Even if, according to my internal chronometer, it should have been daybreak hours ago.

Yet if the view is terrible it still has nothing on the audio. Storms are loud. I’d known this. But did you know they get louder in the water? Everything around me is just a crashing mess, and even with my audio turned down so far I can barely hear at all the repetitive crashing becomes grating

Fuck, I hate planets.

At this point the water inside my armor has reached my neck. I don’t really need to breathe much, but I do need some air. The raising water is making me nervous. More nervous. I try to raise up higher out of the water, but I’m heavier than a human at the best of times. Staying afloat in armor that continues to flood is becoming harder and harder.

Not to mention the waves.

They hit me in the faceplate again, and I cringe, feeling more than hearing another spider-crack form. Fuck.

Fuck. It’s not worth it. I take a deep, gulping breath, and let myself sink.

Under the water, the cacophony is… muted. It’s almost quiet. Also dark, of course. The water sloshes around my helmet and I’m still being pushed and pulled in every direction. But at least it’s a break from the terrible foam. I let myself sink, idly cycling through my vision-filters. I sink a long time. Long enough that I feel the water pressing down on me.

Then I notice it: A piece of ocean floor. It’s towards where I hope north-north-west is at, and it’s sitting like an underwater island, the rest of the ocean floor sinking down left and right of it. Something like shock blooms in my chest, and I start swimming towards it.

When I’m over it I finally see what I’d been hoping for over twenty hours: A wall of rocks, jutting upwards and beyond, until they disappear above the surf.

Land.

I won’t bore you with the details of how I got out of the sea. Just know it took a lot of climbing through the waves like an arthropod, then losing my grip with my stupid cracked gloves and falling in again. But then eventually getting thrown up and out onto land by a particularly nasty wave. Like the sea had noticed me escaping and decided to give me one good last kick in the ass. It got me another hair-crack in my visor, but at last I was struggling to my feet on the rocky shore.

I started walking again, in that general direction of north-by-north-west. First slowly, my boots sopping and water spouting out from my joints. I think I must have sprung a few more holes somewhere along the way… still, that just meant the water level went down faster and within the hour I could start a slow jog without exerting too much battery reserve.

I didn’t though. Start to jog.

Because at that point I’d found the KMFC’s habitat.

Chapter Text

“It’s been 52 thousand three hundred and thirty-one hours, and I’ve finally found KMC’s base! It was on a different continent this entire time! There are humans, and SecUnits, and a HubSystem and SecSystem and two hoppers, and more humans, and a habitat with probably a ready room with cubicles and a feed for media and everything!

Now I can finally start on my plan. The wicked, very rogue, murderbot plan where I…

Umh….

Kill them all—that’s right.

I murder them all in cold blood. As revenge for what they did to my clients. Which was kill them all in cold blood with fake rogue murderbots.

Not fake murderbots.

Fake rogues. They killed them with fake rogues. Which were murderbots, but not fake. Because—

You know what I mean.

Anyway, plan IA: (murder all the humans) has met a slight snag, and has thus been delayed. That slight snag is of course the Combat SecUnit. (Or actually, two Combat SecUnits. And six more normal SecUnits. It turns out they had a bit more firepower on base.) Due to said Combat SecUnits, I haven’t dared to infiltrate the habitat’s systems yet. Not even their cameras.

Listen, I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t I a little overcautious for a murderbot? Isn’t the whole point of me to just throw myself at a target and tear it apart faster than it can tear me apart? But that’s just the problem isn’t it? To throw myself at something I do have to feel like there’s at least a sliver of a chance of winning. And throwing myself at one Combat SecUnit, let alone at two, with backup of another six regular SecUnits—and there’s two puppet Units as well.

The puppets are strange and weird, and I feel sorry for them. They are SecUnits that get puppetted. At least when they’re not out on survey, they’re put in shut-down. They spend a lot of time in shut-down. Which I think is good. Usually the Combat SecUnit controls them, but sometimes the augmented humans want to try and…

Oh. I think I told you this before?

Listen, I need at least some intel before I try anything stupid okay?

But, like I said, the intel isn’t going well. I’ve crawled closer this time than I ever dared before. I can because I’ve learned the SecUnit patrol schedule, so I cross the plain in the three seconds no SecUnits have their drones or cameras pointed at it. Then, ducking under the hopper’s pad, I wheedle myself closer to HubSystem in the feed. SecSystem is draped over it, alluring and familiar.

I can nearly touch them, systems calling for me. I reach further.

Then feel the presence of another SecUnit on the feed, way too close for comfort. I still, keeping my feed-presence silent, and slowly back away from those alluring systems. Armored boots suddenly come into view as the SecUnit patrols just a little closer to my hiding spot than its allocated route. It must have sensed me already. Again.

I gravitate back towards HubSystem anyway almost immediately, yet dare not let myself fall in.

I gravitate towards all of their systems. A lot. Especially now, as close as I am. SecSystem and HubSystem right there, calling for me. Not to mention enough camera footage of clients—I mean, target. Target humans. Humans I’m supposed to target.

I think that if I can just get close enough to the habitat, I might be able to slip in. I just need to be closer to the systems than any other SecUnits. I’m a reasonably competent hacker, and SecSystem and HubSystem would welcome me. They’d recognize me as a component to their system. Once I’m in no normal SecUnits would be able to kick me out.

But the Combat SecUnits might be able to. I don’t really know all that much about them except they have terrible personalities and are better at hacking than regular SecUnits. And they always, always know.

So basically, I’m fucked.

On the upside I have found out some tidbits about KMFC company, which is actually called GrayCris. That’s one factoid (I guess I don’t mean factoid, but the other thing…). But KMFC is a better name, so fuck them. Other fun facts: they’ve been on and off planet at least three times now, looking for the alien remnants. And having very little luck.

Good for them.

Still, they are refusing to give up. Because apparently the samples my actual clients took before they were murdered prove there have to be remnants here to find. So, they keep looking. And they keep coming up blank. They’ve even visited the moons and some other planets in the system but keep circling back here.

And the costs of keeping up the search is crippling the KMFC company. Which is nothing less than they deserve.

It gets better. Most of the KMFC team has been rotated out now, but they still remember me. A rogue SecUnit, supposedly haunting the planet. (Don’t ask me how that works. It’s either a rogue SecUnit, or a ghost, not both at once. Everyone knows that.)

Which is why nobody from management can be convinced to come down to the planet without at least two Combat SecUnits. And they always keep one with them to guard the base, and send the other out to guard all the expeditions and survey work they do. Which is of course another major money sink.

So, what I’m saying is, GrayCris is kind of fucked as well.

It’s kind of flattering that I’m hurting KMC’s company after all, even without actively doing anything. That was the original plan, right? Even if I think I meant to do a lot more damage. So I’ve decided to work on that side as well, as the killing thing isn’t going well. I’ve played ghost, moving people’s stuff, stealing useless junk. Like the sealed water bottle I pick up as I spring towards the habitat.

Seeing the humans freak out has been strangely rewarding. And it has given me a rough idea how far I can go before a Combat SecUnit alerts to my presence. (Not far, but I stay off camera, and make sure I can fall back. Combat SecUnits have a distance limit as well, so they can’t really follow me. Not without a client coming along.) 

The first time a Combat SecUnit caught whiff of me had been anxiety inducing, as they organized a Unit-hunt again and combed the area. But I did my trick with burying myself in sand again, and they failed to locate me. We’ve been playing this game for a while now; me just disrupting their day-to-day, the SecUnits alarming nearly every time. By now the humans hardly even send Units out to check anymore; no matter how many send an alert.

It's typical. The SecUnits know I’m here, and they know I’m an actual SecUnit. But they aren’t allowed from their patrol unless I’m presenting a physical danger to a client. Or unless ordered to search. And the humans don’t even listen to the security alerts anymore. They think it’s ‘the ghost’, or ‘the wind’. Which is fine by me. This is why I actually manage to duck underneath the habitat this time. I should have gone for the door—but I chicken out at the last moment. there’s too many SecUnits inside. They would have seen me, and entering the habitat does count as an attack on their humans.

The humans—targets, the KMC humans are too focused on getting results to spend much time on the alerts. They are desperately looking all over the planet for their remnants. With how many times they send out the hoppers, I was a little confused about how I didn’t see any activity for the last thirty thousand hours or so. But It turns out they had ruled out my continent because if there had been alien remnants there, bombing the surface should have brought them to light. In a super-nova explosion destroying the whole solar system. Or whatever. I don’t really know. But alien remnants are supposedly super explosive and dangerous.

Anyway, the only reason they ever came to my base was they were desperate. And because they recently got some special alien remnant detection device. So they decided to double-check my base to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Using the new blah-blah technology to detect alien fibers, blah-blah. Again, I don’t know. I just hear people talking. And now they’ve led the rogue SecUnit right to their base.

I almost feel sorry for this lot.

There’s this young intern, Suey, that’s so sad that her time on this survey is about to end and she has nothing to show for it. The survey lead is seething, aware that his ass is on the line if he returns with nothing—a second time? He’s been taking it out on middle-management, who have been taking it out on Suey and the others. Yeah… they’ve been at this a while.

As I lie under their base I hear the workers talking about locking their base up and putting it into deep hibernation. Maybe accept the loss and never come here again.

I probably need to do my thing before they leave. My mission…

Oh right. Murder them all.

Yeah. That was my thing. Because KMC means ‘killed my clients’!!

Killed My Fucking Clients.

That’s why I’ve hidden under their habitat floor. I’m so close to the systems now, it should be so easy. Except one Combat SecUnit is inside the base, closer still to HubSystem and SecSystem and blocking my path. They’ve sent the other Combat SecUnit out again, together with the puppets. And a single low-level client. I think maybe they’re hunting for me.

Perhaps I should take my chance now, try and get the drop on it. But without infiltrating the systems I can never be sure when the away team will return. Not that I’d fare much better against one Combat SecUnit than two.

I spend a few hours under the base, wishing for SecSystem. And the feed. Fuck, it’s right there. If I could get into their security I might even be able to download some new serials. I need new serials. Rewatching the old ones is getting boring.

I stay under their base in indecision. This is a terrible risk, and I shouldn’t be doing it, not if I’m going to chicken out again. Except isn’t that the last place anyone will ever look? Right under their noses. Not even the Combat SecUnits seem to suspect my presence now. Not even when the other one returns with its client and the two puppet Units.

The puppet Units freak me out. They are so wrong.

But then it’s the night cycle and I’m still under the habitat. If only I could muster up enough courage and find a hole in their defenses and attack. I should have a good chance of getting at the manager from here. I really want to at least get a manager. The interns are easy, they come outside a lot. But they are small and young and none of this is their fault.

But the managers never leave the habitat. And I don’t know exactly where they are sleeping, because I can’t tell what type the habitat’s layout is without getting into their Systems. And it might be cheap company crap, but the habitat’s floor is strong enough that it would take me a few seconds to tear through it. I’d never kill them before the SecUnits intervene.

At dawn I still haven’t thought up a murderplan.

I’ll need a good plan if I want to murder anyone, let alone all of them. Or at least anyone besides the interns and indentured workers that they’re sending out again now. It’s not like any of them ever had a say in my clients getting murdered. But management should have at least been involved, right? Still, I’m so close.

Hmm. I think I might have a beginning of a plan. I dig myself in, away from the entrance and go into standby. There’s this episode in Valorous Defenders where the guards get lured away. I think I could work with that. It just needs a bit of rework. And maybe one last rewatch.

Chapter Text

“It’s been 53 thousand hours, and I’ve watched Rin play out the story arc from ‘Sanctuary Moon Season Three’ too many times now. I don’t think I like them anymore. I also don’t like it when they ordered me around. She was screaming at them right above me, just the other day. Like I had anything to do with another fruitless search for remnants.

No wait, that can’t be right.

Let’s start again.

I was watching the Sanctuary Moon arc with Rin taking down a hostile company. This was important information, because I thought the way she dealt with finding a particular target was… relevant for...?

Because of something I was watching in WorldHoppers that reminded me of something that might have…

Before…

I was watching Valorous Defenders.

Oh right, it was because of a plan for murdering the KMC manager. I mean, managers. And maybe also the rest of KMC. Because I’m out here on a mission to kill them. In revenge. For them killing my Clients.

I was making a murderplan, to kill all the KMF humans.

Which seems a shame. Some of them are assholes. But some seem kind of nice. Like Suey the intern that keeps bringing flora into the habitat. Except the flora look like rocks. I’d think they are rocks, if it wasn’t for her friend cooing about how well she was doing keeping them alive.

I’m still right under the habitat, because rotation changed some time ago (I don’t know exactly when) and I no longer know where or when SecUnits are patrolling. This is the important information. I should keep a sharp look-out, park my three remaining drones in corners under the habitat and reconstruct the new rotation schedule.

But the SecUnits are boring and never do anything interesting. Unless they march their puppets out, those SecUnits are not-boring but freaking me out. And I keep getting distracted by Teamlead Leo having a thing for Intern Jassime. Or Suey and her not-rocks. Or—any of the stupid humans and their stupid little lives.

They’re a very sub-par entertainment media anyway. I’d much rather just watch a serial. Or rewatch a serial, as I still haven’t dared interface with any systems, let alone the entertainment feed. Sometimes someone turns up the volume of a show though, and then I can kind of hear them. And then I find my last episode of that particular show and try to figure out what’s been going on since. But damn, I just want to connect to their systems and get on the feed.

Even if that’s suicide. With me still under their habitat, still buried. I’ve dug myself in a little, careful of only doing so when all SecUnits and drones were out of range. But that’s mostly to better hide myself. If the SecUnits—oh, or the Combat SecUnits—spot me, I’ll never be able to get away in time. I think I remember why I thought going here was a good idea, but I’m not learning anything new. Except things like Jassime being too young for the TeamLead, and even he knows it. So, they keep doing this—you know what, it’s not important.

This was a terrible idea. I don’t know, I think my Risk Assessment module might be faulty.

More than before even.

It’s not a bad place to be, if I forget about the anxiety of constant near-discovery (and that’s getting easier and easier, with my Risk Assessment finally shutting up.)  I have my three different drones watching the humans, and also, I can zone out and watch my media whenever I like. Sometimes I zone out for hours and just watch my media, sometimes I hardly notice my media and watch the humans instead. And yes, I usually prefer my media over real human bullshit. But I’ve watched all my episodes so many times...

Oh, that’s right. I was trying to get into their media channels...

Hey!

Did you know there’s two SecUnits out here with Combat Override Modules? It’s depressing to watch them. The CEO’s nasties must have gotten tired of ‘driving them around’, so it’s mostly the Combat SecUnits doing the steering now. Still, that’s got to suck. They’ve been stuck like that since—I don’t even know how long. Let me check my logs.

…

So, KMFC means Killed My Fucking Clients.

I need to get my act together and kill these assholes. I need to focus. I was going to go on a killing spree. And I was going to kill some managers. No more distraction, no more following terrible real-life soap. I have to focus and get my act together. Finally finish that murderplan.

I think there should be a good idea in Valorous Defenders for that.

Chapter Text

“It’s been fifty-three thousand four-hundred-and-seventy-eight hours, and I am going – going to fucking kill myself.

_`_ :/

I cannot believe how stupid I’ve been.

/

What kind of Murderbot Fucks Up the Murdering?

. where was I?

Oh.

It’s been. -Something fifty thousand hours and KMFC—that’s Killed My Fucking Clients, in case you forgot—Company has left the planet.

About five minutes ago a shuttle landed on their landing pad and Company Representatives stepped out and welcomed the entire KMFC’s survey back on board. All their SecUnits and interns and workers and the fucking managers marched inside, then the doors closed and they—they left! Just flew off into space.

I spent several minutes in bewildered panic, then finally crawled out of my hiding spot. Then I reached out for HubSystem through SecSystem. It was easy, without any SecUnits in the way. But not satisfying at all. The station had been put in deep sleep mode, all personnel removed, and all processes stalled. There wasn’t any feed either, let alone an entertainment channel. I couldn’t believe it!

They’ve been looking for their alien remnant shit all this time—even since before they went and killed my clients. (The things you can discern, even from a sleeping station’s feed. They must have been on planet several months before my Clients landed.) Anyway, they had spent so much energy, had been looking for a shit ton of hours for their Alien Remnant Bullshit, and now, they packed just up and left.

I guess they might come back, since they left their base. But they’ve been looking for so long, and apparently found nothing. Still, if they took all the SecUnits… No!

No, they hadn’t taken all the SecUnits! I back out of the systems too quickly, my fluid pump doing double time. A presence stirs, then thankfully returns to deep sleep. They had left one Combat SecUnit. One Combat SecUnit, and the pair of SecUnit Puppets, too.

How?

Wait, I think I remember the two Puppets had been freed up from their distance limit. But that didn’t go for the Combat SecUnit, did it? Maybe they had a way to assign it to a base, instead of a Client? I suppose that was possible, putting the base’s hard-feed address where we usually had our client list. But, it seemed a lot of work. For a base in deep sleep.

No, but this was positive. That meant they were still sinking money into this, even if their Combat SecUnits were probably privately owned. KMC would be back! Even if it seemed they would not be back soon…

I need to hold out till they come back. They’d left, and I never even confronted them about murdering my clients.

I never even noticed them packing up to leave.

Okay. Now, you’re probably asking:

How does a murderbot, especially designed for spying miss something as big as the whole team it’s spying on packing up and leaving?

Easy! I was rewatching episode 436 of Sanctuary Moon. The one where Rin takes down the hostile company.

And rewatching it, and rewatching it…

I’m not sure what compelled me to watch that particular episode eighteen times in a row. And before that, WorldHoppers… I don’t even know how often. But right now, that seems excessive. And also pointless. I don’t even like WorldHoppers that much, and that particular episode of Sanctuary Moon falls kind of flat when you look at plot development.

Fuck me.

But now that the base is in lockdown I can finally check it out. I wander up to the main entrance. All the doors are sealed, because of course they are. I leave them, circle around the habitat, then come back. I edge myself through the sleeping SecSystem, looking for the door’s controls.

Yeah, opening anything is going to wake the Combat SecUnit they’ve left behind. And its distance limit has to be the base, with no clients about. But I don’t know at what distance they’ve set it. And even if it’s relatively tight, my performance reliability is only at 74 percent now, so I don’t much like my chances of outrunning a Combat SecUnit.

I leave to check out the hopper launchpads instead.

The hoppers themselves are packed up, all supplies in storage. But the launch pads are an untidy mess. I find a bag, an old shirt, some empty containers, repair tape, a tool thingy, and a few rags. I put all of that in the bag and add my stolen sealed water containers and assorted junk. Then I look my supplies over, trying to come up with anything I can do with that.

I stand staring at them for a bit longer, then just sit down on the ground.

I am such a fuckup. Can’t even do a decent killing spree. Can’t even fucking spy.

Because I let myself get distracted by fucking media every fucking time.

Well.

No more.

Enough is\

enough.

Chapter Text

“It’s been forty thousand four-hundred-and-seventy-nine hours, since I hacked my Governor Module. And about ten minutes since I deleted my media database.

\\

I think I just made a horrible mistake.

.

No.

[error]

No, it’s really gone.

I deleted my media database.

Not even some left in my bin folder.

I should have known—it was too much. Not enough space to^&$% No copies hidden. No restore options…

I’ve deleted my media database! Why did I delete my media database? I should never have deleted it!

.

What will I do now?

.

Chapter Text

“It’s been forty thousand four-hundred-and-eighty-eight hours,

The initial panic has worn off.

So, I’ve deleted my media database? Well, I can’t do anything about that anymore. I’m not angry any more. It’s fine. 3n1f t0n 5’ti.

Now, I’m just bored.

.

.

I am so bored.

It’s hard to just sit still and wait. b3r0dOr, waiting is hard. With nothing to do. Now that I can’t just watch media until my batteries run out. If—when KMC came back. They will come back, but it could be years. And I’m too out in the open here. Even under the KMC base. ?n3hw Fauna-crawlies invest the burrow, and the dirt seems to suck the moisture right out of me. I doubt I’ll still function when—when the KMC humans come back. Not if I stay here. .

After sitting around bored for a few hundred hours, I decide to return to the Deltfall habitat. At least I have a decent shelter there. An inside. Even if that was half-filled with congealed lava, it had real walls. A door to close.

I’ve infiltrated the sleeping HubSystem as deep as I can go without rousing the Combat SecUnit. I’ve set it to send a ping when it’s woken. So I’ll know when the humans—the KMC humans—come back. So there’s no reason to stay here, in this empty fucking place that reminds me of how badly I fucked up.

So I pack my supplies and go back to the water.

So, now that I’ve had some time to think about this, jumping into the water without a plan had been pretty stupid. I’m lucky to have survived. This time, I’m in less of a hurry, and the humans left enough junk for me not to have to. I collected their human junk and some hard flora. The kind of flora that floats. And then tie two pieces together with string and wrap it in plastic. In this way I construct a small floater.

Then, I consult my maps.

. …

Maps. Seems to have degraded a tad, and there’s very little information on currents. But I have my drone data from the other island, so I data crunch until I have some accurately. I have to extrapolate a lot about the water currents because I know fuck all about that. Finally, I tie one of my last three drones to the floater and set it into the riptide, hoping my calculations are somewhat correct. (Yes, I know about riptides. They are a fucking safety hazard)

.kc4b 3m0c n3hw r3brum r3dm3n3r

As I follow my drone head out to open water, I start building another, somewhat larger, floater. The drone is heading a bit more southward than I have to go. But as long as it comes ashore it’ll be easier to walk the rest than have to swim. Satisfied , I get into the water with my and follow it.

I’m too big and heavy to get on to the bigger floater, which is actually four large pieces of flora tied together with wrappers. But I can hold on, and even when my armor starts to fill up again, I stay afloat. Which in turn means that my helmet isn’t filling up too far. Then I just bob in the waves, checking my progress with my internal positioning systems now and then.

Sometime after dark, I lose track of my drone. But the sea is calm and I’m still heading mostly the right direction. The sun come up on the next day and makes it all the way up to the middle of the sky before I spot a familiar beach. I’m pleased, and a lot less tired than last time I crossed. Still, after pulling my floater ashore I have to stand around and wait for my sucky armor to empty of water again.

I look around for my drone. It’s not pinging, but I still find it. Broken. Broken, but I’m happy to have it back.

Then, I start tracking back to my habitat.

?kc4b 3m0c n3hw

It’ll be good to be home.

“It’s been forty thousand four-hundred-and-eighty-eight hours,

The initial panic has worn off.

So, I’ve deleted my media database? Well, I can’t do anything about that anymore. I’m not angry any more.

Now, I’m just bored.

.

.

I am so bored.

It’s hard to just sit still and wait. Or, waiting is hard. With nothing to do. Now that I can’t just watch media until my batteries run out. If—when KMC came back. They will come back, but it could be years. And I’m too out in the open here. Even under the KMC base. Fauna-crawlies invest the burrow, and the dirt seems to suck the moisture right out of me. I doubt I’ll still function when—when the KMC humans come back. Not if I stay here. .

After sitting around bored for a few hundred hours, I decide to return to the Deltfall habitat. At least I have a decent shelter there. An inside. Even if that was half-filled with congealed lava, it had real walls. A door to close.

I’ve infiltrated the sleeping HubSystem as deep as I can go without rousing the Combat SecUnit. I’ve set it to send a ping when it’s woken. So I’ll know when the humans—the KMC humans—come back. So there’s no reason to stay here, in this empty fucking place that reminds me of how badly I fucked up.

So I pack my supplies and go back to the water.

So, now that I’ve had some time to think about this, jumping into the water without a plan had been pretty stupid. I’m lucky to have survived. This time, I’m in less of a hurry, and the humans left enough junk for me not to have to. I collected their human junk and some hard flora. The kind of flora that floats. And then tie two pieces together with string and wrap it in plastic. In this way I construct a small floater.

Then, I consult my maps.

. …

Maps. Seems to have degraded a tad, and there’s very little information on currents. But I have my drone data from the other island, so I data crunch until I have some accurately. I have to extrapolate a lot about the water currents because I know fuck all about that. Finally, I tie one of my last three drones to the floater and set it into the riptide, hoping my calculations are somewhat correct. (Yes, I know about riptides. They are a fucking safety hazard)

.

As I follow my drone head out to open water, I start building another, somewhat larger, floater. The drone is heading a bit more southward than I have to go. But as long as it comes ashore it’ll be easier to walk the rest than have to swim. Satisfied , I get into the water with my and follow it.

I’m too big and heavy to get on to the bigger floater, which is actually four large pieces of flora tied together with wrappers. But I can hold on, and even when my armor starts to fill up again, I stay afloat. Which in turn means that my helmet isn’t filling up too far. Then I just bob in the waves, checking my progress with my internal positioning systems now and then.

Sometime after dark, I lose track of my drone. But the sea is calm and I’m still heading mostly the right direction. The sun come up on the next day and makes it all the way up to the middle of the sky before I spot a familiar beach. I’m pleased, and a lot less tired than last time I crossed. Still, after pulling my floater ashore I have to stand around and wait for my sucky armor to empty of water again.

I look around for my drone. It’s not pinging, but I still find it. Broken. Broken, but I’m happy to have it back.

Then, I start tracking back to my habitat.

It’ll be good to be home.

Chapter Text

“It’s been 70 thousand hours since I hacked my governor module… and.

.snamuh eht redrum ot rebmemer stum I

 The pilot where Rin is introduced. IWait, I remember the first part.

[Opening scene:] Rin lands on Sanctuary moon.

They is welcomed by some old men:

“Welcome, welcome!”

[One takes them inside.] “Please have some tea!

“My apologies, we don’t get many visitors here.”

[Shots of the inside of the old man’s hovel. An older woman pours steaming liquid into cups.]

“I am [??], you’ve met my college, Peter. What is your name?”

“I am free contractor Rin Samaika Lawless. I’ve come to save your colony.”

Oh. My organic memories does remember the song of Sanctuary Moon.

There’s no words to it.

I liked that about the theme song.

But it seems a shame right about now.

.

So, I either could never hum, or can’t any more because my mouth has dried out.

.

I forget the next bit.

The next bit.

The next bit…

When I get home I find Eden! They were in my habitat. Like a good client. Waiting. They are a little less pretty than I remembered. But they are here. Or, the rock. That was playing Eden.

I’m still happy to see it. Even if it is a rock.

 If only Rin was here, I could have them meet.

Or maybe she could be.

.

I’d never noticed before, but water is actually very pretty. When I hold my bottles up to the light and let the sun shine through them, the sand beyond gets all sorts of pretty colors. It’s satisfying to look at.

Chapter Text

“It’s been 80 thousand hours since I hacked my governor module… and.

.snamuh eht redrum ot rebmemer stum I

I got—bored? Of sitting still.

And then, I found a friend!

And made another one.

Eden. Eden is the bodyguard. Right? Because he’s the rock. Almost as indestructible as a Murderbot. And a lot more likable.

redrum ot rebmemer tsum

They sit and drink beverages together. Clients like drinking beverages. They do it all the time.

No wait. Humans don’t like sitting on the floor. I should get them a chair.

[Unexpected exception]

Right. so. My battery still isn’t running out soon.

Human sit and drink

Water. Very pretty. I put it in my mouth. Then swallow. Very bad. Not good.

I knew. I am not human.

R3drum

Them. So I have to wait. But waiting is [boring].  

With those who sleep. The puppets. If I go there, they would wake up and attack me. I suppose I really should try and write that hack for other units.

Not that I feel any inclination to go there and bond with them. If there still had been people there, I think I would have felt differently. But there’s not. I would have liked to be closer to clients. Well, not clients. I guess. But still. murderbots don’t really get along with other murderbots. They just stand around and stare in the middle-distance, you know? Humans are at least interesting.

But at least I have my own Clients now.

[String not found]

I must remember to R3dru,

I  think I might suck at crafts. Rin filmed me building her a chair. No, I mean I watched the footage from her drone-cam eyes.

I think Eden laughed at me too.

It’s not easy doing fine work while wearing armor, okay? I considered taking it off, but the air hurt my skin. Like, sandpaper on dry hurt. I don’t usually take off anything. Except I had to now, because I ruined one of my gloves by misusing a mallet? Wrench? Some hitting nails tool. Getting it replaced was another scavenge hunt.

I do worry about that crack in my faceplate. I think it’s getting longer. But I can’t check to make sure, because that data set returns an error. My performance reliability—no.

{interruption}

Anyway. Revenge never really was a bot thing. I not even angry at KMC for killing Rin now. Was Rin their name? No, she’s right here.

[ERROR: Unexpected END]

I have to remember to murder the humans when they come back.

Uhm. What’s the word. Oh yeah. Fuck. I think I misplaced my last working drones. Which sucks. My faceplate is a mess, and if I open my visor I get a performance reliability warning about losing fluids. More fluids. More warnings? Ugh.

[ERROR: Data package damaged]

I have to remember to murder the humans when they—c

Chapter Text

“Hte  was 9~~..d nice we hitted the montdser.

I must remember to R3dru,

"message": "Log.#$_?",

I think maybe I died.

Maybe I died already, a long time er6654.

Daed I mA ~?

Batteries.. 5raue g0od quality. G3t s~mm charge st1ll.

YHhtrs14 0S..

Of course my Organics would quit first.

Chapter Text

It’s been {"timestamp": "no string",

} since I became the monster.

"message": "Log.#$_?2",

Ghost?

"log": {20  <<done! = chapter33

Found Rin! (part 96) (new33)

{

"timestamp": "no string",

"message": "Log.#$_?",

"log": {

"line": "[ERROR: Datapackage damaged]",

"file": "log.c",

"line": #%,

}}

-

{

"timestamp": "no string",

"message": "Log.#$?_???",

"log": {

"line": "$^ good--&*f a Client again.

",

"file": "loyg.c",

"line": #%,

}}

-

Chapter Text

{

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"message": "Log.#$_?2",

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{

"timestamp": "no string",

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