Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dr. Bharadwaj ended the recording and leaned back in her seat. “Do you want to pick this up again in a couple days?”

I said, “What? Why?”

She smiled placidly. “Without playing it back, what was the last thing I said?”

^{By homosekularnost}

I opened my mouth, realized I had no clue, considered playing back my recording secretly, and closed my mouth.

“You’re distracted,” she continued. “This has been a heavy couple of sessions. I think we could both use a break.”

She did that a lot, the “we” thing. Like she knew damn well that I would sooner do what she needed than what I needed. But hey, why not shoot two targets with one projectile if we both needed the same thing, right? I would’ve been annoyed at how effective she was at manipulating me if it wasn’t such a relief.

She was right about me being distracted. Three’s scheduled arrival had been bumped back, and I was trying not to be annoyed about it. It’d already been gone for three months, what was another cycle or two?

A lot, apparently, because I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since I got the news that morning.

I fidgeted with the cuff of my sleeve. Then I noticed the fidgeting and stopped. “Fine,” I said, as if it didn’t matter either way.

But this latest documentary really was a lot. The first one had been kind of a general overview of life as a construct, of the general awfulness that facilitated our existence. And the general awfulness that was facilitated by our existence.

This one was different, and a lot more personal. I was really glad Three had chosen to come to Preservation for a while; it might not have been very talkative, but it knew how to answer direct questions about specific events in its past. It still struggled to express its feelings, but hey, don’t we all?

Anyway, it had agreed to be part of the documentary, which meant I had somebody else to share the spotlight with.

I didn’t want to be in the spotlight at all, but by nature of being the first (and for a time only) rogue construct on Preservation, I’d sort of become the poster bot of the whole Construct Rights movement.

I’d tried passing the mantle to Three. But Holism got in touch and came to pick it up before everything was finalized, so it had just been me and Bharadwaj for the last few months. I’d given up valuable media-watching time to help her meet her self-imposed deadlines.

So it wasn’t that I was specifically looking forward to seeing Three. I was looking forward to taking a break from rehashing Murderbot’s Time With the Corporates (with the accompanying ‘talking through my feelings about it’ part that Bharadwaj was so good at coaxing me through) so that Three could do it instead.

Bharadwaj made a point of putting away the recording equipment before she leaned forward, elbows on her desk and chin on her palms. “What’s on your mind?”

“Three was supposed to be back today,” I said without meaning to. I braced myself for Bharadwaj’s face to soften. My PresAux humans loved that I had apparently “made a friend” while away on that survey trip and were always asking after it. (I’d have told them to ask it themselves, but Three apparently preferred the company of a prickly SecUnit over the very nice humans who only wanted good things for it. I know, weird, right?)

Bharadwaj’s face did indeed soften, but only a little bit. Aside from Amena, she was the human Three had spent the most time with while it was here because of the documentary. “I’m guessing that’s no longer the case?”

^{By Errantry}

“It said it’d just be another cycle or two, but...” Irritation prickled over my organic parts. “I had plans.”

“With it?”

“What? No. I was going to hole up in my room and marathon the movie specials for Intergalactic Time Agents.”

“There’s no reason you can’t do that still.”

I glanced at her and then back at the wall I’d been staring at. “Then I’d feel bad for not helping you when you have deadlines coming up. If Three was here, then it could help you instead and I wouldn’t have to worry.”

Bharadwaj’s facial muscles went tight like she was trying to control her expression. (I know the feeling.) “Well, like I said. I’ve been meaning to take a break anyway. Why don’t we return to this after Three arrives?”

“Uh, sure.” Now I could go get started on that marathon.

Why wasn’t that the relief I thought it’d be?

Chapter Text

Like me, Three had never really taken to the concept of a human party. My (our?) humans knew this, and instead of throwing a surprise party like Ratthi had jokingly suggested, a small contingent of our humans + one of my drones showed up to greet it as it disembarked from its transport. (Which wasn’t Holism; Holism apparently couldn’t make it all the way to Preservation due to a scheduling conflict. Three didn’t seem to mind, but it was generally a lot more agreeable than I was about being inconvenienced like that.)

It seemed pleasantly surprised that anyone had shown up at all, and didn’t seem at all overwhelmed by Ratthi, Arada, Overse, and Amena’s presence. It nodded at my drone, its expression entirely relaxed. I think it may have even smiled?

“Second Mom is excited to see you again too,” Amena said as they all turned in tandem and walked with it down the corridor toward the main part of the station. “She said you can stop by her office and say hello, if you feel like it. SecUnit’s there too.”

I startled and nearly dropped the drone’s input. Why had she said that? If Three wanted to talk to me in person, it would have asked me where I was. But we didn’t need to see each other in person. We’re SecUnits, we had the feed. And besides, I liked the peace and quiet of Mensah’s office. It was just me, her, and this small fauna she’d adopted to help with her anxiety. (It was currently sitting on my lap and rumbling. It normally sat on Mensah, but she had been a bit too active for it today.)

“It’s been doing a lot of work on the documentary and I know it’s excited for you to see it.”

I am not, I sent to Amena privately. Stop telling it that.

Are too, Amena replied. Don’t lie.

“I am looking forward to seeing it and Dr. Bharadwaj’s progress,” Three said. It kept glancing at my drone with an unreadable expression on its face, but mostly it paid attention to Ratthi as he excitedly updated it on the project he’d been working on when it left last time.

Eventually, Arada and Overse split off from the group, followed by Amena, but my drone kept pace with Three and Ratthi as they headed for the transient room Three had booked for itself.

“Do you have any plans for this evening?” Ratthi asked as they arrived.

Three glanced at my drone once again, then back at Ratthi. “Not at this time.”

“Would you like to? There’s a visual arts festival going on up on the sixth level that I’m going to with some friends. I’d love for you to join us if you want.”

Ratthi had asked me if I wanted to go, but I’d declined because I had better things to do, like continue marathoning the Intergalactic Time Agents movies (there were a lot of them). And keep trying to remove the fauna hair from my clothes (an ongoing struggle).

Artwork was nice and all, but it was going to be crowded up there.

I didn’t think Three had much appreciation for artwork so I couldn’t see it wanting to go either—if I were it, I’d want a quiet evening in after the long trip. It probably didn’t want to watch Intergalactic Time Agents with me, but I could show it the documentary. Or maybe it just wanted some time away from humans for a while and we could simply exist in the same space while doing our own—

“That sounds nice,” Three said. “I’d be happy to accompany you.”

—things. Or not.

“Great!” Ratthi said. “Why don’t you get settled, and I’ll send you the details so you can meet up with us later?”

“Thank you, Dr. Ratthi. I look forward to it.” Three waved at both him and my drone and slipped into its room, closing the door behind it.

Would it be weird to show up to the festival after I’d already declined? I felt like it would’ve been. That was fine. I had my marathon to get back to.

Sixteen minutes later, Three nudged my feed. I nudged it back. Neither of us said anything for 42 seconds until it sent, Are you going to the festival too?

No. Damn it, that would have been the perfect time to change my mind and tell Ratthi I was going after all. Oh well, too late now.

I see.

I could have replied with any number of polite conversational tidbits that humans like, but Three wasn’t a human. Platitudes like “I hope you have a nice time” or “Have fun” would mean nothing to it. Probably. I also considered giving it an open invitation to come sit in my rooms or meet Mensah’s fauna (which was called a cat) if it found the crowds overwhelming, but again—what would the purpose be? It had its own rooms to retreat to, and I wasn’t sure that it even liked domesticated fauna. So I said nothing.

And so did Three.

Chapter Text

Cats were, apparently, fickle creatures. Mensah’s fled as soon as I entered her office. I wasn’t walking any differently than I had before, so I don’t know what spooked it.

“Don’t mind her,” Mensah said absently. She made little kissy noises at the cat but gave up when it stayed where it was. “She’s feeling a bit skittish today.”

It didn’t matter either way to me. I took up my usual spot on the couch and sorted my inputs—I had music on in the background, the PresAux off-topic feed had dozens of images from last night’s festival to look at, new episodes of Prima Terra had just dropped, and Officer Tifany had sent me the latest news from Station Security. (Indah and I had come to an understanding, but she wasn’t exactly my favourite. Officer Tifany was okay though and I didn’t mind liaising with her instead.) That wasn’t to mention all the usual inputs I dealt with.

I might not have had eyes all over the station like I wanted, but I did have drones scattered across hotspots and the places where my humans spent most of their time. I still hadn’t figured out where Three liked to hang out when it was here; it wasn’t like I needed to keep an eye on it or anything. I trusted it. (Which was a weird thing to think about: Me, actually feeling comfortable around another rogue SecUnit. When had that happened?) But that didn’t stop me from wanting to know.

Query: status? I sent to it as the cat under Mensah’s desk inched its way forward. It was still hidden, or so it thought, but I could see the light reflecting off its wide eyes from my drone view.

Status_update.folder, Three sent back 0.02 seconds later. Apparently it was in the food court with four other people from the expanded PresAux team. Its threat assessment read normal.

Why are you in the food court?

I am visiting friends.

Thanks, Three, I figured out that much. But it didn’t elaborate, so I didn’t ask. Okay, I said, accompanied by an all-clear ping.

I doubted it spent all of its time at the food court—though maybe it did, I don’t know; I didn’t have a drone in there because why would I want to watch people eating?—so that didn’t provide me with a lot of data.

The cat climbed out from under Mensah’s desk and sat at the corner of it, tail tucked around one paw while it licked the other. That was kind of gross, so I stopped looking at it and went back to watching Prima Terra.

Once I was caught up on the new episodes, I checked with Three again. Query: status?

Location: FirstLanding Satellite Campus - Lecture Hall 1 | Status: Listening to a lecture.

Yet another place I didn’t have any drones. My survey academic humans spent most of their time in their own offices/labs/whatever. They occasionally gave lectures but so far I hadn’t been here for any of them, usually because I was on-planet or on a short mission with ART or something. And also because I didn’t particularly care about rock strata (sorry, Bharadwaj) or xenofauna (sorry, Ratthi). I might have listened if Gurathin gave a lecture on systems (mostly so I could correct him afterward) but he didn’t actually give lectures. So, like I said: no drones in the lecture hall.

I checked the publicly available schedule. Three was listening to a lecture about the composition of adhesives. (What the hell?)

Query: relevance?

I like learning how things are made. It is a fascinating topic.

I pinged in acknowledgement. It pinged back.

Dr. Mensah sighed loudly and leaned forward to repeatedly (but gently) bonk her forehead against her desk in frustration. The reason she was more active today was because she was preparing a report for the steering committee about the planet’s terraforming sector, and she wasn’t looking forward to being in a room with all of her former colleagues while they were all looking at her. Or so I’d gathered. That’s the part that would bother me, at least.

“Would you like me to accompany you to your meeting?” I asked, the first words I’d spoken aloud since I arrived. Both she and the cat looked up at me in unison, and the startled look on Mensah’s face warmed into something else.

“You don’t have to come. I’ll be okay. Thank you.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I know. But really, I’ll be okay.”

I waited because I knew her well enough to know she had more to say.

“It’s just that some of my former colleagues were very tiring to work with. They were lovely people, but some of them had difficulties communicating their needs to the rest of us. You’d think that’d be a prerequisite for being a planetary admin,” she added under her breath. “Not to mention that many of my colleagues did not... agree, let’s say, with my resignation.” The muscles around her eyes tightened, her lips falling into a frown. “I am not looking forward to them pressuring me to renew my candidacy.”

“Not much I can do about the communication issues. If they can’t tell you what you want, then they deserve what they get. But if I’m there, I can intimidate them out of trying to guilt you.”

She gave a little snort, frown wavering. “I know you can. But I also know I need to face them on my own. Thank you, SecUnit, really.”

I was still going to send a drone with her.

---

Query: status?

The station’s rest cycle was well underway, which meant most of my drones were in keyword activation mode. They were set up to alert me if Three came into the vicinity of any of them, but so far, nothing. Which meant that it wasn’t in its room, because I’d stationed a drone there while it was at the lecture hall.

Instead of sending a data packet or just telling me where it was, Three sent a short video of the cascading water feature that fell from one of the upper floors all the way to a basin at the bottom of the atrium. I had never seen it during the rest cycle.

It was backlit with a constantly morphing light array that encompassed the entire visible spectrum. It reminded me of the storm on Milu. It was objectively beautiful.

Is anybody else there? I asked.

No. Just me.

I could have gone to join it, but it was probably enjoying the time to itself. I know I always liked visiting spots around the station when they were devoid of humans, augmented humans, and bots.

Maybe I would go to the atrium on my own one of these cycles.

I notice that you do not share your own location data when you ask for mine, Three said.

That’s because I don’t really go anywhere, I replied. Just Mensah’s office, my room, the occasional live show with Ratthi.

Where are you now?

My room. I considered asking if it wanted to join me, but nothing here was as visually interesting as the water feature. Three liked nature-y things a lot more than I did.

It sent a belated acknowledgement ping two seconds later. It probably wanted to be left alone to enjoy its nature thing in peace.

I returned its ping and pulled away from the feed.

---

I sent additional status checks over the next few cycles at semi-regular intervals. Three wasn’t always in the same places at the same time of day, but the activities it participated in at those times were similar: spending time with people in locales other than the food court, watching lectures on different topics (one time it was on the topic of... snails? as in those weird gross gastropod fauna that were everywhere during Preservation’s growing season? why Three wanted to know more about those was beyond me), and visiting various attractions around the station such as the low-grav gardens, the permanent art installation in one of the plazas, the ever-changing contents of the exhibition hall, that sort of thing. Stuff people often blocked the flow of traffic to take pictures of.

It got to the point where I was starting to predict with about 87% accuracy where it would be at any given moment. Its routine was a lot more varied than mine, but it was still pretty easy to follow.

I was sitting beside the upper observation port overlooking the docks, plugging some values into an algorithm I was working on, when the construct in question walked up to me looking visibly confused before its features settled into pleasant-neutral.

“Oh. Hi,” I said, tucking the algorithm away for later.

“This is a little far from Dr. Mensah’s office,” it observed.

I let my human-movement code shrug for me. “She’s taking a personal day.”

“I was planning to spend time here before the lecture I want to go to starts. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“It’s a public space, Three. Sit wherever you want.”

“Okay.” It sat next to me on the same bench, a meter and a half to the left.

^{By homosekularnost}

After a few minutes it sent, Query: status? 

Very funny.

It smiled and settled into a relaxed posture, crossing its ankles and gazing out into the void of space.

There hadn’t been much ship activity since I sat down here half an hour ago, so all there was to see were the guide-lights on the station’s exterior and the crescent horizon of the planet below.

Do you come here a lot? it asked. Its expression had gone all soft and it tilted its head like a human lost in thought.

Nope. First time. Why, have you been here before?

I have not. But I’ll probably return later. It looked over at me. Nice find.

Yeah. It’s not too bad. It didn’t hurt that this was proof in progress that my algorithm was working.

Best of all, there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic. The main viewport was a few levels down and had been a lot more crowded. There were a lot of places on this station that didn’t see as much use as I’d expected. On Corporation Rim stations, every square meter was utilized—even pretty things had a dual purpose, usually to advertise or to surreptitiously capture visitor data/biometrics/etc. Here, there were a lot of quiet spaces that didn’t really have other uses than to spend time in them. Quietly.

Places like this always ease my anxiety, Three said like it’d been reading my mind. And help me mentally prepare to be around a lot of humans.

You know, you could always send a drone to watch the lectures. You don’t have to go in person.

I do know that, yes. There it went, smiling again. But I like taking part in the discussion portions.

I zoomed in on it with a drone to see if I could tell whether or not it was being sarcastic. What opinions could you possibly have on… ‘Board game design: game mechanics and player motivation’? (I checked which lecture was coming up next. Unless it was planning to go to the one after, which was about designing and mixing various plant-based dyes.)

None, yet. That’s why the lecture portion comes first. Speaking of which, I should go so I have some time to socialize before the lecture itself begins. Thank you for allowing me to sit with you.

It’s not like I could have/would have stopped you. I didn’t bother to comment on the ‘socializing’ thing.

I know. But thank you anyway.

I pinged in acknowledgement. After it left, I went back to working on my algorithm now that I had new data to input for it.

Chapter Text

Three was already at Bharadwaj’s office for our joint interview when I arrived. Granted, I was a little late—Mensah’s cat spent the day unsure if it wanted to sleep on its bed, on Mensah, or on me. It had finally settled onto my lap ten minutes before I planned to leave, so I gave it an extra five minutes before carefully transferring it to its bed. (Then it complained the whole time I was moving it despite how gentle I was being.)

I’d messaged ahead to let Bharadwaj know I was running behind. One change of clothes later (due to all the cat hair, which I didn’t want to get all over her guest chairs and which I had so far not been successful at removing manually), and I finally made it.

“Dr. Bharadwaj and I were discussing the work you have done together,” Three said as I settled in. “I watched the updated project files a few cycles ago.”

Oh. I’d wanted to show it the new stuff we’d done, but had forgotten that Three still had access to the feed workspace we’d been collaborating in before it left with Holism. I guess I waited too long.

My face must have done a thing, because Three rushed to add, “I liked it. You’ve made good progress.”

What it thought about the documentary wasn’t the issue (or, not the main one, anyway) but I wasn’t about to correct it. “Uh. Thanks. So what’s this about a joint interview?” I said, turning to Bharadwaj before any uncomfortable silences could creep in.

---

Four questions in, I was starting to realize that the purpose of this particular segment in the documentary would be to showcase that SecUnits are individuals. I had no idea Bharadwaj knew Three as well as she did, because her questions seemed tailor-made for us to give opposite responses.

I presumed she was going to intersperse clips from this interview throughout the documentary because the questions were disjointed and didn’t flow well from one to the next. Or maybe Bharadwaj was still tired and required an extended break and was not at her best, I don’t know. I’m not a human-brain scientist. Psychologist. Whatever.

“How do you like to spend your free time?” she asked, which I know for sure she asked for the first documentary too, but we didn’t have Three with us then. I highlighted the relevant passage and sent it to our feed anyway, but she just smiled and waited expectantly. “Three?”

“I spend my free time in many ways. Could you be more specific?”

“You can list all of them or just your favourites, I don’t mind. We have time.” Bharadwaj’s eyes flicked to me, then my drone, then back to Three.

“Well, in that case...” Its human-imitation code had it shuffle in its seat, or maybe it had just gotten uncomfortable sitting in such an upright, rigid position. “If Holism’s crew member Aander is off-duty at the same time as me, we like to work on the mosaic e has going in eir room. It is slow and time-consuming, but I enjoy the process. If e isn’t off-duty with me, then there are many activities I choose from. Sometimes I’ll turn my raw-data logs into a narrative, like 1.0 does.” It gestured to me with its head, smiling benignly. “Most of the time, however, I will work on the PSUMNT education modules Holism makes available to me. I decided to go through them manually instead of integrating the data; that way I won’t run out of modules too quickly and will always have something to look forward to. I have also begun cultivating various kinds of flora in my room, but that is not particularly time-consuming after the initial set-up.” It turned to me, expectant. I guess it was done.

“Uhhh,” I said. “Same as I said last time. I watch a lot of serials. Ratthi and I like to go to live performances like concerts, plays, that sort of thing. Pretty much all of my time here is free time unless Station Security pulls me in on some false alarm or another, or if someone wants to temporarily hire me for an outing or something.”

“How about when you’re working with the university?” Bharadwaj prompted. “I understand that your time is a little more structured when you’re aboard Perihelion, is that right?”

“I mean, I guess. It’s kind of more of the same? Except instead of watching live shows with Ratthi, I’m watching media with—” I almost said ‘with ART’, but since its existence is a secret, we couldn’t really talk about it as much as I’d like in the documentary. “—with whoever wants to watch media with me,” I finished.

Bharadwaj’s cheek twitched into a half-smile. We’d talked about ART (off the record) pretty extensively this time around.

“What about all the media curation you do?” Three interjected.

“What?”

It pulled up an example of what it meant and sent it to the feed: an image capture of my media storage.

“I don’t get your point,” I said.

“Oh, this is very well-organized,” Bharadwaj said as she looked at the image on her external feed device. “What an extensive tagging system.”

“I like to keep my media organized,” I said. I don’t know why I felt defensive; they were being really nice about it. For some reason.

“I’ve seen libraries with far worse archiving than what you do,” Three said. “And I know you take time out of your day to sort through new downloads and apply tags.”

“I wouldn’t exactly consider it a hobby, though.”

“Dr. Bharadwaj did not ask about hobbies. She asked how you spend your spare time. Ergo, this counts.”

“I don’t mean to gang up on you with Three, SecUnit,” Bharadwaj said in a tone that suspiciously implied she was ganging up on me with Three, “but it’s right.”

“Okay, fine. I like to extensively catalogue my media so I don’t have to spend time sorting through it later. Happy?”

The gentle, patient look on Bharadwaj’s face immediately made me feel guilty for snapping.

“It’s a better way to use those algorithms than tagging all the footage I had to record for the company for techs to look through later.”

“I imagine so,” Bharadwaj said at the same time Three made an agreeing “hmm” noise. “Thank you both for sharing. Next question: What’s an unexpected thing you’ve recently learned that you like?”

Three looked lost. “Activity-wise?” it ventured. All this time and it still hadn’t gotten used to not having protocols for conversations. (I wasn’t going to admit it out loud but I felt the same way sometimes.)

“Activities, sensory experiences, social dynamics, anything you can think of.”

“Oh! I like that my crew asks me questions because they want to engage with me, not because they require a response. They are very respectful of my right to give a partial answer or not to answer at all. Which is why I enjoy answering their questions whenever possible.”

Huh. I’d always thought Three was weirdly agreeable because it still hadn’t gotten the hang of saying no, but I also hadn’t gone with it on any of Holism’s missions and didn’t know much about its dynamics with that crew. I said, “Did you assume they respected your right because they told you that you didn’t have to answer, or did you actually test that out?”

It turned to look at me, face completely neutral. “I’m not going to answer that.”

Bharadwaj ducked her head to hide her smile, but she couldn’t hide the snort-laugh that accompanied it. “Well-said, Three,” she said once she regained her composure. “SecUnit?”

I hadn’t known how to answer the question until she mentioned sensory experiences, and it occurred to me that petting a cat was technically a sensory experience, and I technically didn’t expect to enjoy doing it. “It was weird to discover humans are kind of onto something with the whole ‘therapy fauna’ thing. Petting cats isn’t as weird and gross as touching a human. I thought it would be worse, but it’s actually kind of relaxing. If I don’t think too hard about how it bathes itself.”

“How does it bathe itself?” Three asked.

I booped one of its drones with mine. “I just said I don’t want to think too hard about it.”

Three dug into the feed to research the answer for itself. “Ah,” it said.

“Yeah.”

“I love hearing your answers to these kinds of questions,” Bharadwaj said. “You both often point out things I’ve taken for granted. I think a lot of Preservationers felt the same way when they saw the first documentary, and I think this one will do wonders for their ability to even further connect with people who really aren’t so different from themselves.”

“I hope so,” Three said, because in addition to being weirdly agreeable it was also an optimist.

---

Once Bharadwaj was finished with the questions she’d prepared, she went through the usual routine of turning off her recording equipment and chatting with me/us off the record. This time it was mostly her chatting with Three, because I didn’t have much to add and she and Three had a lot of catching up to do.

Technically Three and I did too, but we hadn’t really gotten around to it beyond superficial greetings and the occasional longer conversation. Once I’d figured out my algorithm, I hadn’t felt the need to confirm its movements around the station as much so we had gone back to not seeing each other as often.

Eventually, Bharadwaj said she had other commitments but told us we could stay if we wanted to. It was as good a place to hang out as any—Three and I were already here, the chairs were comfortable, and it was a familiar space for both of us.

I started an episode of a media serial that was written by someone with expertise in the field they were writing about. I figured Three might enjoy the accuracy of the portrayal so I left the input available so it could connect if it wanted to. It definitely noticed—I could feel it poking around the periphery of my feed—but it didn’t follow through.

That was fine. It wasn’t as much into media as I was. We could just hang out until one or the other of us had to go.

It was nice, up until Three said, “I’m going to go back to my quarters.” It looked at me with its drones, so I looked at it with my drones. Its face was doing something I couldn’t parse.

I was enjoying being in the same room as it, but I guess I wasn’t going to stop it if it wanted to leave. Would it be weird to ask if I could go with it? It probably had better things to do, or had plans with other people. I’d noticed it was a lot more social this time than it was last time. Yeah, I wasn’t going to ask to go with it.

I said, “Okay.”

It lingered for another 1.45 seconds before standing, still making that expression I couldn’t read, and walking out the door.

Chapter Text

Dr. Mensah had guests first thing, so I arrived an hour later than I usually did to give them time to visit. They were members of her extended family—Farai’s sister’s daughter and the sister’s daughter’s marital partner—so they knew who I was, and it was only a little awkward when everybody stopped talking until I’d crossed the room and sat on the couch. Mensah’s cat had been purring away on Farai’s sister’s daughter’s lap, but as soon as I sat down, the cat was off of her lap, trotting over, and hopping up onto my lap instead.

Farai’s sister’s—you know what, I’m just going to say niece, that’s quicker—didn’t seem too disappointed. Her marital partner tried to coax the cat back over, but the cat wasn’t having any of it.

“Well, she clearly has a favourite,” Farai’s niece said.

“Oh, yes,” Mensah said. “I’m starting to wonder if I should get a second one, but then SecUnit would probably wind up with two cats in its lap.”

“One is enough,” I said quickly, which the humans found funny for some reason. I did feel a little bad that I’d accidentally stolen the affections of Mensah’s therapy cat, but two cats would mean twice the hair—and I was already fighting a losing battle against one furry animal. Besides, I knew she got plenty of cat time in when I wasn’t here, so it probably balanced out in the end.

Farai’s niece and her marital partner left not too long after. Something about going on a cruise for their wedding anniversary, I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. Because one of my drones had just picked up Three telling one of its human friends that it had received another job offer with Holism’s crew. (Before you make any assumptions, I wasn’t following Three with my drones. I had them wandering on set paths according to my algorithm. It’s not my fault Three’s movements are predictable.)

“SecUnit?” Mensah said. “What’s—Is everything alright?”

Had I had a facial expression? Probably. I didn’t want to check just then. “Three’s leaving,” I said faintly.

A little crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Right now?”

“No. But it’s gotten another job offer with Holism.”

“I see.” She was not-looking at the wall beside my head intently, hands clasped on her desk. “That was fast.”

It had been back on Preservation Station for weeks at this point, but with how long messages took to get through the wormhole network... Yeah, that offer had to have been sent not too long after it left them.

“Has it even been by your office to see you yet?” I asked.

“No. Perhaps I should invite it for a visit.”

“Uh. It’s probably busy. If it had time to come see us, it probably would have already. Right?”

Mensah physically turned to look directly at one of my drones.

“I mean,” I continued, “it’s had a full social calendar since it got here. Every time I ask what it’s doing, it’s always either with someone or decompressing by itself from being with someone. It’s a wonder it finds the time to fit all these people into its schedule.”

“SecUnit. Have you tried asking it to spend time with you?”

“Of course not. If it wanted to hang out, it would have asked. I’m not going to impose my company on it.”

She was making a face like I’d missed the point. “You receive a lot of social invitations, right?”

“I decline most of them.”

“But you do receive a lot.”

“Sure.”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe it hasn’t been the one initiating? Perhaps it has also been receiving a lot of social invitations. And accepting them.”

That... would explain a lot. Like why Three kept having social interactions despite the need to recharge from them every time. I’d thought it was weird that it was socializing so much when it didn’t really prefer the company of humans before.

Maybe that was still the case? Maybe it still felt bad saying no sometimes, despite what it had told Bharadwaj? (Which was even more reason for me to leave it alone.) But its social adroitness or lack thereof wasn’t my concern.

My concern was the weird emotion I had when Mensah said, “I am going to invite it for a visit.”

“Wait.” I said it before I even registered how much I did not want her doing that.

Mensah waited.

“It’s going to think I asked you to invite it. I don’t want it to think that,” I added when she didn’t seem to get my point.

“How about you invite it, then?”

This might have been easier if Mensah was teasing me like Ratthi might, or being sarcastic like Pin-Lee. But no. She was completely sincere.

“I... can’t.” In my drone view, Mensah’s face was expectant. I cycled to a different input. “I don’t want it to think—”

“SecUnit,” Mensah said in that gentle voice she uses when she’s worried I’m going to run away from an emotionally fraught conversation. “You do like spending time with it, don’t you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m trying to understand why you’re avoiding it.”

I wasn’t, was the thing. We’d spent time together. I’d even enjoyed it. I thought it had enjoyed it too, but it was always the first to leave, and it never invited me along to do whatever it was planning to do next.

“I’m not avoiding it. It’s avoiding me.”

Mensah’s face softened the same way Bharadwaj’s had all those weeks ago when I was annoyed about Three’s arrival date being pushed back. I didn’t know what that meant. Or maybe I did.

“Are you sure?” Mensah asked.

The late arrival hadn’t been Three’s fault, but it hadn’t even come by to say hello in person after it did arrive. I had to figure out where it would be and show up; it never showed up in the places I was going to be unless specifically invited, like when we did the interview with Bharadwaj. Obviously it didn’t want to spend time with me as much as I did with it. So, yeah, it was avoiding me. How else was I supposed to take that?

“Pretty sure.”

“SecUnit. I think you need to talk to it. Invite it to do something you’ll both enjoy.”

“What if it says no?” Oh. That made me have a second, even worse emotion. What the hell, was that what this was about? I was worried it would say no? I said no to things all the time, it didn’t mean anything. My humans occasionally said no to things I invited them to—because, yes, I did invite them to things sometimes—and it was fine.

But Three? Three didn’t say no to things. Except it had, hadn’t it? It’d declined to do things I suggested or asked it to do all the time. I didn’t understand what the problem was.

“What if it doesn’t want to?” I said.

“What if it does?”

I stared at the cat on my lap as it rumbled. It looked back up at me, its eyes soft and whiskers relaxed. It blinked slowly and made a trilling ‘mrr’ sound before tucking its head under and flipping over onto its side/back. I stroked its soft underside.

“Then... I don’t know.”

“Well, it sounds like you’d both be wanting the same thing,” Mensah said.

I stopped petting the cat. It looked at me and made a noise I interpreted as “what are you doing? keep going” so I started petting it again.

“I guess. But on the other hand, if it doesn’t want to and I do, then what?”

Mensah gestured at the small display screen on her office wall. “Then maybe we can watch a show together to take your mind off it, just the two of us.”

“Just the three of us, you mean.” The cat made a noise that sounded like it was in agreement. (Could cats understand human speech? I made a note to look it up later.)

“Just the three of us,” Mensah corrected herself with a smile.

The cat wrapped its paws around my hand and pulled it toward its chin, one of its favourite spots to be scratched.

“We could just watch something together anyway.”

“We could. But I really do think you should get in touch with Three. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

---

Query: status?

Three looked directly at the drone I had hovering in its periphery and lifted an eyebrow. Counter-query: why are you asking if you are watching what I am doing?

Updated query: what will your status be at Preservation_Station_Time:17:45:00?

That was about an hour from now, plenty of time for Three to conclude its visiting time with friends and begin heading to one of those quiet areas of the station it liked so much. It’d run out of prominent art/educational displays and had moved on to less-obvious locales (while occasionally returning to a few of its other favourite spots).

I have not yet decided.

Uh. That didn’t make sense.

Don’t you have your days meticulously planned out? I asked.

No.

Oh. Huh.

It said, query: why do you ask?

I’m going to a performance at Makeba Hall. It starts at Preservation_Station_Time:18:00:00 but the doors open fifteen minutes early. I dropped it a map pin even though I was pretty sure it knew where Makeba Hall was.

Three glanced at my drone again and sent an acknowledgement.

^{By homosekularnost}

Chapter Text

POV: Three

“Something wrong, Three?” my friend Aisha asked. For a human, she was very perceptive of the minute changes in my demeanour and cared enough to check in with me when she noticed. I liked spending time with her. She was one of the first new-to-me humans I connected with after coming to Preservation Station the first time, after Dr. Ratthi introduced us.

Because I knew 1.0 would be listening to our verbal conversation, I switched to the feed. What does it mean if someone asks you what you’ll be doing at a specific time, and they tell you where they’ll be at that time, but give no other information? 

Aisha took the conversation mode switch in stride. That sounds like an invitation to me. 

But it isn’t an invitation. It’s stating a fact about its own location/future location in response to me informing it that it never reciprocates when it asks about my own whereabouts or what I’m doing. 

Ah, you’re talking about SecUnit, Aisha said with a little smile. I kinda wondered. 

You did?

Remember when I told you that it being nosy was its way of seeing if you wanted to hang out? 

Yes. And I replied that it should make that clear, if that’s the case. I looked over at its drone, still hovering just within audio-pickup range.

Aisha sighed, clasping her hands together and pressing her index fingers to her lips in a gesture I have learned means she’s thinking about something. I don’t really know it personally, she said, but from what Ratthi has told me, it doesn’t often, ah, communicate very well?  

It communicates just fine. It often expresses its desire not to do something, or tells me how ridiculous it finds things. It also has strong opinions about media.

I mean, that’s better than what I get. I’m lucky to receive its acknowledgement of my presence when we’re in the same room. But I meant more along the lines of communicating about things it does want to do. Hanging out is a joint operation, Three. It requires two people to agree.

1.0’s drone had been inching steadily closer as Aisha and I continued our conversation over the feed. I looked at it again.

Maybe I should just ask it what it means, then, I said.

Yeah. That’s a good start.

To 1.0 I said, What do you want me to do with this information?

Its drone stopped and hovered in place before looping back to where it had started. Whatever you want.

I should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy to get information from it.

---

Local_Time:17:45 came and went. At 17:52 I sent a drone to Makeba Hall and, sure enough, there was 1.0 loitering around the entrance next to the “No Entry After Program Begins” sign.

I said, Why haven’t you gone inside yet?

It startled—not visibly like a human would, but I could feel it freeze up in the feed for a moment—and looked around. Did you get here before me? Where are you?

I sent it a location pin: I was sitting on a bench at the perimeter of a plaza two floors and a long hallway away.

Its face scrunched a little bit. Oh.

I sensed I’d done something to upset it. Query: what’s wrong?

It’s nothing. I just thought— it’s nothing.

It did not seem like nothing. You told me to do whatever I wanted with the information that you would be at Makeba Hall at the timestamp provided. I chose to send a drone to accompany you like how you send drones to accompany me while I go about my day.

I don’t send drones to accompany you.

That was patently false. I sent it a wordless query ping.

I like to keep tabs on people.

Then why do you not have drones everywhere around the station? I sent a get-location ping to its scattered swarm. It allowed them to ping back: most of them were situated in or around the living quarters sector, where its humans likely were.

The drone it’d had on me and Aisha had left shortly after she and I parted.

I meant, like, my humans and augmented humans. And you. I don’t care about everyone else.

I felt something in my organic parts go what 1.0 would describe as ‘melty.’ I was excluded from its definition of ‘everyone else’, about whom it did not care. Which implied that it cared about me in some capacity. I knew it didn’t dislike me—I’d seen how it acted with the augmented human it dislikes, and that wasn’t how it acted with me—but I didn’t know it felt anything other than neutral toward me. (That’s not quite true—I knew it cared about my wellbeing, and it often fussed about whether I was agreeing to things out of a sense of obligation, and it had sent its drone to welcome me back to the station.)

Okay, I said.

Okay, it replied. Then, after 19.2 seconds, it added: So I heard you’re going on another contract with Holism’s crew. Its face was SecUnit neutral as it said this, but my drones have excellent optical zoom and I could tell its facial muscles were tense.

No, I said, you heard that I was invited on another contract with Holism’s crew. I have not sent a response.

But you’re planning to go.

I did not say that.

One of its drones flitted up to my location and hovered in front of my face. So you’re not going?

I didn’t say that either. I’m undecided.

I thought you liked working with it.

I do.

Then why haven’t you decided?

Because I also like being here. I had many friends on Preservation Station now, and I enjoyed spending time with them. I also enjoyed working on the documentary with 1.0 and Dr. Bharadwaj. It was nice to have so many options.

Oh. Me too. It still hadn’t gone inside Makeba Hall, and now it straightened up from where it was leaning against a railing, shoved its hands into its pants pockets, and walked away from the entrance.

I sent another wordless query ping.

It didn’t reply. My drone followed after it.

---

1.0 stood in front of me with its face turned slightly to my right. Neither of us had said anything as it approached, and now it had been standing there for 20 seconds with its fists clenched at its sides.

“Didn’t you want to view the performance?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So why aren’t you?”

“I left a drone to record it.”

I didn’t often view live performances, but I knew that being there and experiencing the energy was a large part of the draw for the people who went. Sort of like why I liked to attend the lecture hall myself. “But you wanted to go in person.”

“Yeah.”

If I were human, I would have sighed. There was a 72.8% chance my next query might be taken defensively. I said, “Why are you here, then?”

It fidgeted with the sleeve of its sweatshirt. “Because you weren’t there.”

Because I wasn’t...?

Oh.

Oh.

 “You wanted me to go with you.” Why hadn’t it just said so?

“Yes.” Its shoulders slumped and it actually did sigh. “When you didn’t show up, I thought—” It made a half-shrug, glanced at me, then looked away again. I didn’t like the expression on its face; it looked sad. It waited three seconds for me to prompt it, and when I didn’t, it closed its eyes. Even its drones found something to do other than looking at me. “I thought it was because you didn’t want to.”

^{By Errantry}

I hadn’t gone because I didn’t realize it was asking. Because it hadn’t asked, and it had been vague when I requested clarification. I could have said so, but I didn’t feel like getting into an argument with it right then.

“Three, please say something,” it said.

I hated vague instructions. It knew that. I sent it a little jab in the feed, which startled it into looking at me again. Query: like what? And if you say ‘whatever you want,’ again, I’m going to walk away. 

It opened its mouth to say something, then stopped when I highlighted the feed message where it had said those exact words not even two hours ago. It made a little grunt noise in the back of its throat before responding in the feed, I don’t know.

I shrugged helplessly.  

“You’d think between the two of us, we could figure out how to say what we want to say,” it muttered.

“You first?”

It snorted. “Promise you’re not going to say yes just because you think I want you to say yes?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“Ah, no.”

“Then okay, I promise.”

lt took an unnecessary breath (or maybe it was necessary; we might not need as much air as humans do, but a nice rush of oxygen to the brain can do wonders even for constructs) and nodded. “Three,” it started.

“1.0.”

“Would you like to go with me to the live performance at Makeba Hall?”

“No,” I said, and its face did a little vacillation between expressions I read as ‘anxious’ and ‘confused’ respectively. It opened its mouth to speak again, but I interrupted: “It’s 18:04. They will not let us in.”

Its confusion cleared, replaced by mild exasperation. “Oh, that. Okay, if I knew a way for two SecUnits who are especially suited to the task to sneak in without ‘disturbing the audience members’ or whatever, then would you like to go with me to the live performance at Makeba Hall?”

I let my human-imitation code pull my lips into a smile. “Yes. I would like to go with you to the live performance at Makeba Hall.”

It was having an emotion and trying to hide it; I politely looked away while having an emotion of my own.

“We better get going then, or we’ll miss the best part.”