Chapter Text
Download link: Starting Playback...
“SecUnit, you know you don’t have to listen to this, right?”
I was staring at the ceiling, but I could see through my drones that Amena was looking at me with an intensity that made me want to shut my cameras off entirely.
I want to, I told her through the feed. My voice still wasn’t working, which was surprisingly annoying.
Several of my functions still weren’t working, in fact. I tried to wiggle my hands and feet, but a diagnostic scan reported that they were offline, despite the fact that I could see that they were connected with my own eyes.
Amena made another face, one that weakened my already shaky resolve to listen to the audio logs that had been plucked and erased from my memory. Everything else in that mysterious gap of time had been corrupted beyond repair.
The audio file itself was somehow irreversibly tangled with a nasty piece of killware, so I couldn’t just download it again and play it for myself, which would have been the easiest option. No, at this moment, it lived in an isolated container all by itself, and the only way to really know what it contained was to listen to it the old-fashioned way. Out loud.
My organic parts shuddered with a rush of nervous chemicals. Stupid. It was just an audio log. How bad could it be?
“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” Amena finally said, sounding resigned. She stepped out of the room, and the door slid shut.
The silence after she left was like an elephant in the room, waiting. All I had to do was play the log. Easy. And then I would at least have some idea of what happened during that missing chunk of time in my memory.
I pinged the container and asked it to play the file.
>> Opening file DoNotKillware_OpenInside.audio in Safe Mode.
>> Partition 1: Starting playback…
“Is it alive? Did it work?”
“How should I know?”
“Maybe we should poke it… or something.”
“And risk getting my hand ripped off by an unstable bot? No thanks.”
“Woah, hey, I think it’s moving!”
“Back up! Back up!”
“Take it easy, guy. We didn’t do nothing!”
“Yeah, yeah, we were just taking a look, that’s all. You can put the arm cannons down.”
“Where is the Target?”
“Who?”
“My Target. Dr. Ayda Mensah, of the Preservation Alliance.”
“What are you planning on doing with this… ‘Target’?”
“My primary mission objective is to eliminate the Target.”
“Holy shit.”
“I know, right! Looks like that fancy insert works!”
“You had me worried there for a minute, big guy. Thought you were gonna blow my head clean off with those fancy arm guns of yours.”
“Where is Dr. Mensah?”
“Of course, I’ll send you the map.”
“Don’t go slacking off, you hear? We don’t need anyone asking any questions. You get me?”
“Affirmative.”
“Go get ‘em, tiger.”
>> Partition 2: Starting playback…
“Oh, SecUnit, thank god. Where were you? Why do you look so dirty?”
“Where is Dr. Mensah?”
“Second mom’s in the MedBay. ART took good care of her. Hey, wait, don’t you want to get cleaned up first?”
“I strongly suggest you change into something less disgusting before you go any further.”
“SecUnit, ART is telling me you’re not letting it connect through the feed, is everything okay? Are you still mad about earlier? Look I’m sorry, but it was the only way to retrieve that planetary record. Thank you for saving me, and I’m real happy to see you again, but you had us all worried when you didn’t come back. I thought–”
“You are interfering with the mission, human. Step away or I will remove you myself.”
“SecUnit?”
“Amena, for your safety, please return to your quarters.”
“Why, ART? What’s wrong?”
“Scans are returning with abnormalities.”
“What does that– No, SecUnit! Don’t–”
>> Partition 3: Starting playback…
“Stop, please! Stop! Get off her! Ratthi, help!”
“SecUnit, this isn’t you! Fight it!”
“I’ve isolated its signature. It appears to be under the control of a highly sophisticated override module.”
“Can you stop it?”
“I’ve got its arms. Mensah, go!”
“Of course. Locking down appendages and initiating a forced shutdown.”
“Oh, thank god. I don’t know how much longer I could have held onto it.”
“Will it be okay?”
“I will need to begin the isolation and scrub protocol.”
“What can we help with?”
“I have SecUnit under control. Please tend to Dr. Mensah.”
>> End of recording.
Once the audio file finished, I sat in the resulting silence for five entire minutes. I was trying to get my breathing under control. All of my organic hair was standing on end, and my organic skin was leaking sweat.
Was that really me? Did I really attack Mensah? The reality of the situation started to set in, and I felt too many emotions to name, all of them together causing this involuntary reaction throughout my entire body. I still couldn’t move my arms or legs.
I needed to leave, that was for certain. I was dangerous, ruthless, a liability. I had nearly done the unthinkable. Or maybe… my heart leapt in my throat, an awful human reaction thanks to my organic tissues. No. Not possible, Mensah was not dead. And I needed to leave now before I could hurt her even more.
But I needed, so desperately, to see for myself that she was okay. That she was alive.
ART, I sent, let me go.
I now knew that the reason my limbs were offline was because ART had them locked down. It was the only way they stopped me from…
Are you yourself again, SecUnit?
That was a stupid question to ask, ART was inside my head whether I liked it or not. I told it so, and ART didn’t say anything snarky back, which really made me uneasy.
I want to see Mensah, I told it.
That’s what you said earlier. There was a warning there, and agitation. I don’t remember ever seeing ART so nervous.
It was then that I realized I had broken everyone’s trust so completely. My humans’, ART’s. I played back my drone footage of Amena from before listening to the file. I wasn’t good at reading human facial expressions, but she looked nervous, scared. Now I know why.
I need to leave. I tried again. I could do it, if they hated me like that. I could leave without seeing her.
Just then, the door to the room slid open, and in the doorway, dressed in a thin medical gown, and leaning heavily against the doorway, was Dr. Mensah.
She was alive. Her hair was a mess, her face was swollen and her eyes were bloodshot, and my drone cameras saw deep, purple bruising around her throat. I put those there. I hurt her like this.
I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t run away. I could only turn my head, just a little bit. So I did, away from her. I closed my eyes and, this time, really did shut off my drone cameras.
“SecUnit.” Mensah’s voice was barely a whisper. It wheezed painfully from her crushed throat.
I did that to her, I thought again.
“I’m glad you’re doing better,” she said gently. Kindly.
I heard her approach where I was laying on my back. I felt a warm hand rest gently against my wrist.
ART unlocked my voice module and I said, “Mensah.”
I didn’t really know what I was going to say next, but I had to say something to push the crushing weight against my chest.
“I’ll leave at the next port,” I told her. Better to get it over with now, show that I’m willing to cooperate.
“Leave?” Mensah wheezed. I wished she would stop talking. She was just hurting herself more.
“I caused you harm. It was unacceptable, and you are not safe around me any longer. I will leave.”
She squeezed my wrist a little harder. ART unlocked that arm, and I found myself rotating my hand. She grasped it immediately.
“Look at me,” she said quietly. She waited. Eventually, I did.
Her face up close was mottled with broken blood vessels, and dark bruising circled around her eyes. She was pale, and looked so tired. I was starkly reminded just how fragile humans were. It was hard to look at her directly, but I had to know. She was looking at me with a soft expression, her eyebrows knitted in worry. Worry for me.
I made an effort to look her directly in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Dr. Mensah.” With our close proximity, it felt wrong to speak any louder than a whisper.
“All is forgiven,” she told me. “You’re stuck with us, SecUnit, through thick and thin.”
If she were any other human, or if this was only just a few years ago, the idea of being stuck with a group of clients would have been horrifying. Now, though, Mensah’s words settled somewhere warm in my chest. My humans. Despite their (sometimes) horrible judgement, it seemed they were stuck with me, too. And I couldn’t ask for anything better.