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“There is a Barish-Estranza party approaching on foot, interception estimated in 4 minutes,” Three said into the mission feed channel.
I sat upright where I was sitting in my bunk. “What?” I said.
ART was faster than me. What?
“What? Who?” asked Iris from the ground. “How did we miss them?”
Iris, Karime, and Matteo had gone to the planet's surface to continue diplomatic negotiations with Bellagaia and the other colony leaders. Three had gone with them as security. (Despite how much I’d improved in that whole visual-flashback area, I reserved the right to not go back to the planet's surface whenever Three was available.)
Three said,“It is the diplomatic team from the primary Barish-Estranza faction. They are arriving early.”
ART leaned into the channel sourly. They must have made that decision independently, they didn’t use their comm to communicate with their command ship. Otherwise I would have noted their change in movement.
I pulled the camera stream from Three’s drone to the front of my inputs. It, Iris, and the others were leaving the colony and coming back to where they had left the shuttle. They were on foot, taking the short road down the less-steep side of the plateau. Unless Three wanted to let the humans start scrambling down the slope, they would run head-on into the Barish-Estranza party.
“Noted,” said Seth as he joined the channel. “Just be polite and keep your interaction brief.”
Iris sent an acknowledgement. After 3.8 minutes, a group of five humans in B-E envirosuits rounded the bend in the road. Everyone stopped.
There is one SecUnit waiting by their shuttle, said Three into the feed.
Three was wearing an envirosuit, not armor, and had been pretending to be an augmented human to not freak out the colonists. It stood with Matteo, slightly behind Iris and Karime.
“Hello,” said Iris with impressively icy politeness. “We were told you wouldn’t be arriving until the afternoon.” Barish-Estranza and the university had been coordinating their visits to the primary colony site specifically to avoid this kind of situation.
The leader of the B-E group stood a little in front of the others, feed ID feed ID Sub-Supervisor Nicolo. “The winds from the northwest are building. We determined it was safest to hold our council and return to our ship before it builds into a storm.”
That’s a lie, said ART in the channel, the storm will pass well south of there.
Three’s threat assessment said B-E most likely had wanted to surprise Iris and Karime to intimidate them and make them feel wrong-footed (human posturing crap), and they probably weren’t, say, plotting some roadside ambush. I agreed.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to be caught in bad weather,” Iris continued dryly.
Three accessed each of the B-E crew members’ public feed profiles to match them to company files still in its archives. That is Technician Redmond, it said sharply.
Technician Redmond was a medium-sized human, standing a few steps behind Sub-Supervisor Nicolo.
Three continued, He was a crew member on the explorer ship I was stationed on. He was rescued with Karime, Turi, and Martyn.
Redmond was staring at Three. Actually, he was gawking at it with confusion.
Three, I said into the group channel, is there any chance he’ll recognize you?
There is a chance, yes. It sent me the report from its Risk Assessment, which said it was a whopping 42% chance. I was on duty without armor only rarely, but he saw my face on at least two occasions.
From my view from Three’s drone, I could see Matteo shift nervously, and Iris’s smile became even more strained. It was a constant risk that B-E might realize that our story about the last SecUnit from the explorer didn’t add up. And if they found out that that “destroyed” SecUnit was actually walking around working for us, it could lead to a lot of awkward questions. (Like “hey did you steal our SecUnit?”)
The envirosuits Three and our humans were wearing didn’t have an opaque visor, and there was no way for Three to hide its face now without looking extremely suspicious. Three had grown out the hair on its head and eyebrows, and most humans’ attention slide right off of SecUnit faces, so maybe Redmond wouldn’t recognize it.
Karime gave a little wave, breaking Redmond’s (who I was starting to think of as “StareyOne”) gaze. “Technician Redmond, it’s good to see you. You’ve recovered fully, I hope?” she asked, smiling.
“Oh, yes…” said StareyOne. There was a pause as he pulled up her feed profile. “Karime. And you and your crew are well, too?”
In a direct channel, Three sent me a request for an urgent status review.
You’re doing fine, I said. Did you disable the Anxiety SubModule of the human-movement-code?
Affirmative, Three sent. I couldn’t tell what it was feeling. From its drone feed, it looked like an alert but unworried augmented human.
The conversation moved on to stiff human pleasantries between Karime, Iris, and Nicolo. Over Nicolo’s shoulder, StareyOne was staring at Three again, only now he was subvocalizing, too. The eyes of two of the other B-E crew members darted toward him reflexively, like they were talking to him in the feed. Humans and augmented humans do that unconsciously when they talk to someone on the feed in the same room. They subvocalized back.
I can hack into their local feed to learn what they are saying, said Three, but their SecUnit will likely notice what I am doing.
No, don’t risk it, said Seth.
They have not sent any communications via comms, said ART. Presumably they would if they suspected anything.
I said, Just keep pretending to be an augmented human.
“We had better be on our way,” said Iris finally, through a particularly menacing smile.
Matteo and Three were just stepping past the B-E group when StareyOne blurted. “Did we meet on your research vessel? I unfortunately don’t have any data saved from your profile.” He stepped forward, angling toward Three.
Three flinched away from him. It wasn’t the human code. It was an actual flinch.
Easy…, said Seth.
All of the B-E humans were staring at it now, and all of our humans were staring at them. No one moved for 2.2 seconds.
Iris broke the silence first. “Keturah” (the name on Three’s current feed profile) “helped us during our rehabilitation on our transport, along with Dr. Arada, Dr. Ratthi, and the others, if you remember.”
That could work. It could make StareyOne think Three looked familiar because he had seen it on ART. The humans that had been implanted had been groggy and sick for a few cycles. The ones from B-E probably didn’t remember any of me and ART’s humans very well.
“Right,” said StareyOne uncertainly, “of course.”
“Have a pleasant meeting,” said Karime, with a smile convincing enough to explain why she was always the head of diplomatic operations, and she continued down the road.
Iris, Matteo, and Three followed behind her. The drone showed Nicolo and StareyOne exchanging a look, before they also kept walking, but toward the colony.
“They only have the one shuttle on the ground, right Peri?” asked Iris.
Yes, and I’m preparing to engage with any additional Barish-Estranza craft that enter the area.
“I thought you disarmed the pathfinders,” said Matteo.
There was a telling silence while ART pretended not to hear them.
Is your way back to the shuttle clear? asked Seth.
“We will need to pass the Barish-Estranza shuttle and the stationed SecUnit to reach our shuttle,” said Three, before I could, “The SecUnit has not moved.”
ART gave me the live visual stream of the cameras on the exterior of the shuttle. The B-E shuttle was 50 meters away, with the SecUnit positioned at its front.
Shit. Three was being really calm about this, acting all professional for the humans. We should have made it look like a governed, “university model” SecUnit and kept it in armor. I should have been the one to go down to the planet. Three was always at risk around B-E, but I was too–what? Scared?
This is not your fault, ART said to me, because it knows me too well.
Seth said into the team feed: Keep going, they haven’t initiated any hostilities yet, I want you out of there as quickly as possible. Three and I both sent acknowledgements that we agreed with his assessment.
It was unlikely B-E would assume Three was rogue, since it was working cooperatively with the university crew and not murdering them indiscriminately. But if they knew it was stolen, they would know we’d done something to its governor module to transfer its ownership. That could put extra scrutiny on the B-E SecUnits I sent helpme.file to, and they could get caught. (Insert some joke about “responsibility for my actions” here.)
Iris and the others came to the landing area at the bottom of the plateau. The SecUnit was standing in a standard guard position at the front of the B-E shuttle. I stood up in my cabin, as if I could do anything.
It is not one of the units 1.0 met in the secondary colony site, Three sent.
The SecUnit didn’t move as they passed in front of its shuttle, but Three had positioned itself so it was slightly between it and the humans. The vitals of the humans increased, and Matteo kept glancing over their shoulder.
Three boarded the shuttle last, and as soon as it stepped aboard, ART-pilot slammed the door behind it and launched into the air.
“Peri, it’s okay, we’re fine,” said Iris from the pilot’s seat, patting the control column.
Three hadn’t sat down, it was standing in the back by the door gripping an overhead grab strap.
Karime turned in her seat to look at it. “Three, are you alright?”
“This unit is functioning at 94% performance reliability.”
Well, shit. I guess it hadn’t been as calm as it let on.
Matteo frowned at it. “Is that good?
It was low as shit for a SecUnit with all its limbs still attached. “I am within functional parameters,” it said.
They exchanged a look with Karime. “Yes…but,” they said carefully, “that must have been scary, right?”
“I am within functional parameters,” it repeated, staring straight ahead. Three was still getting used to expressing its emotions to humans–this was a major setback in its progress. A governor module would have zapped it for being unhelpful.
Barish-Estranza is not talking about this diplomatic group or Three through its comms network, said ART. No alerts or alarms have been triggered.
“Well, that’s good,” said Matteo with an uneasy smile, “they must have bought Iris’ story.”
They left off the “for now” part. StareyOne might be waiting until he could check B-E records or compare notes with other survivors of the explorer before he decided to make a big stink.
I used my direct channel to Three. They want to know about your emotions. They’re worried about you.
It didn’t answer me.
Are you okay?
No reply. It had turned off its act-like-a-human code and was standing completely still in SecUnit neutral, except where it held onto the grab strap.
Okay, it was a stupid question. If I knew the company suddenly had a new reason to come looking for me, my performance reliability would be tanking, too. But the university crews had plans in place in case B-E ever found out about Three. Those plans boiled down to (in increasing order of “oh shit”):
- “Yeah, we stole your SecUnit. Here’s a bunch of money if you just leave us alone about it.”
2. Corpo-political negotiation to prevent the seizure of an asset that may or may not have a working governor module.
3. Defensive maneuvers to protect a harbored refugee.
Three knew about these plans. It had consulted on these plans.
It isn't speaking to me, either, said ART.
The humans took turns trying to casually start conversations that weren't about Three, but they petered out as it continued impersonating a pillar. The rest of the shuttle trip was spent in stiff silence. They were worried about what B-E would do, and they were worried about Three.
As the shuttle got closer to ART, I got up from my bunk, went to the landing bay, and took up position at one of the walls. Seth was already standing grimly at the lock, and he nodded in my direction.
I reached out to Three as it came into range and connected to ART’s feed. A wave of anxiety and fear hit me so hard I nearly fell face first into my staring wall. Fuck–if Three were a human, I would say it was having a panic attack.
Ah, said ART, unhelpfully.
I pulled myself away from Three's feed presence enough that I didn't feel like I was drowning. Seth raised his eyebrow at me.
I said, “Three is….”
In emotional distress, ART finished.
Seth nodded. “What do you and Peri advise?”
ART, annoyingly, shifted its attention to me expectantly. If Ratthi were here, I'd say he should talk to it. But Ratthi and the other Preservationers were on the responder, and it would take upwards of an hour to get him on a shuttle and back to ART.
“I’ll talk to it,” I said.
Seth nodded again. When the lock cycled open, Iris, Karime, and Matteo came through, making typical human greeting noises. Three followed a few steps behind, then marched past them, Seth, and then me. The humans switched to startled concerned noises, and I followed after it.
I kept a distance of 5 meters between us as it left the shuttle bays and ascended into the scientific corridors. It had gotten halfway around the engineering sector before I realized it wasn’t going anywhere–it was patrolling.
I pinged it. Three.
It didn’t answer. ART’s attention weighed heavily on me in the feed. I pinged again. “Three.”
No response. It hadn’t turned its human-movement code back on, and it was marching like it was still governed.
I dug through my media and grabbed a slow-moving nature documentary about insects. It was the type of thing Three usually watched–it had a slow, droning narration and everything. I dumped it in Three’s feed and set it to play. I could feel a bit of Three’s attention land on it, breaking through the anxiety.
I found two more documentaries and set them to play next to the first. One of my three Final Drones was watching our crew where they debriefed in the conference area, and the other two were buzzing over my head. Three had its own drones positioned all over ART, but I dropped my inputs into Three’s feed anyway.
Three did the feed equivalent of pausing to stare at them. There was a small hitch in its stride.
I grabbed episode 410 of the Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon–because why not?--and played it from the clip where the solicitor’s sister talks her down from an angry shouting rampage.
After 1.6 seconds, Three stopped.
I stopped, too. It didn’t turn around. We stood there for about 20 seconds, staring at not-each-other.
Three said, “You wished to speak to me.”
“You weren’t responding to the humans,” I said. “Or to pings.”
It didn’t answer. It didn’t answer for so long, I started wondering if this had been a bad idea.
Then, it said, “If Barish-Estranza knows the university is in possession of me, the negotiations over the colony will be threatened. I am illegally stolen property.”
“Karime and the legal team will handle that. Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t know how they would do that, but they were good at that kind of thing. Three, at least, wouldn’t need to think about it.
That didn’t seem to relax it. It still had all of the media open. Through my drone, I saw it frown, its brow creasing. “It’s not advantageous to the university to keep me when it puts the mission at risk.”
Oh. I knew what was going on. It was worried the university would turn it over to Barish-Estranza. I opened the file with all of the protocols ART’s crew and the university had planned around Three–the ones Three had helped write–and dropped that in its feed, too.
It didn’t open it, just left it sitting there. (I know it didn’t need to read it, it knew what was in there, but it was annoying that it didn’t.) Its skepticism radiated into the feed.
“You think the crew lied to you?” I said. (Yes, it came out sounding more like an accusation than I meant to.)
It hesitated. “I do not have that information.”
“You’re being irrational,” I snapped.
Emotions are often irrational, ART said primly, as if it had any business sticking its nose in.
I glared at Three’s back.
“It does not make sense for the crew to protect me,” it said. “I am a SecUnit, and SecUnits….”
I dug into ART’s recordings archive and found the footage of its humans clustered over me with their handheld medical equipment after my interaction with TargetContolSys. I dropped them in Three’s feed, too, all 24 angles of it.
You’re angry, ART said to me.
No shit, I said. Except, I hadn’t actually realized I was angry until just then. Which just made me angrier.
Angrily, I said, “You, ART, and the humans helped me, and I’m a SecUnit.”
“You were part of their crew,” said Three uncertainly.
“You’re part of the crew now, too.”
It frowned. “They already knew you.”
“You didn’t. And neither did ART’s humans.”
“...No.”
ART skipped forward in the footage to when Ratthi and Thiago were explaining how it and the others had launched a full rescue mission… for me. I was starting to feel less angry, and ART leaned on me significantly.
“I know it’s weird,” I said. “But our humans aren’t going to let Barish-Estranza take you. They’re not like that. They’re… different.”
“They are.”
Three’s anxiety in the feed lessened slowly. We stood there for another 58 seconds, with all of the media still playing. I started watching one of the documentaries. After awhile, I started to think maybe it wasn’t so boring after all.
Finally, ART said, There have been no communications from the B-E ground negotiation party to any other B-E parties regarding the PSUMNT staff member “Keturah” or anything related to SecUnits.
Relief washed over me. This was good. Threat Assessment calculated there was only a 11.7% chance that, if StareyOne had figured out where he’d seen Three before, that he wouldn’t have sounded an alert by now. And there was only a 22% chance he would eventually remember, and that was dropping over time. (Human memory is squishy. Most of the time, their neural tissue grabs onto the most likely explanation, and if there’s no video or other recording to check against, that’s what they’ll think they remember. (Sometimes even when there are recordings.)) After Karime suggested it, StareyOne probably thought he could have seen Three helping in the medical bay. Then he was distracted by something else, and now that’s what he will think he remembers.
We weren’t in the clear yet, but we were getting close.
But Three didn’t seem as relieved as me, not completely. Something complicated and not-happy joined its emotions in the feed.
“That is… fortunate,” it said flatly.
“He didn’t recognize you,” I said.
Like I said, most humans don’t pay much attention to their SecUnits. Even when you save their lives over and over. Like when you pull them from a dying habitat, or dig them out of a collapsed mine shaft–or when you rescue them from a commandeered explorer ship.
“No. He did not,” said Three.
“Our humans are different,” I said.
“Yes,” it said.