Humans and constructs were full of overwrought emotions like depression, anxiety, and anger (was anxiety an emotion? It sure felt like one) and I had no idea what ART was full of, except how much it cared about its crew.
They really didn’t want me here and whatever Mensah said, they weren’t going to suddenly change their minds.
Amena made a derisive huff. “It doesn’t even like me.” Admittedly I am tired of the whole concept of humans at the moment, but that was unfair because she didn’t like me first.
On the feed, Amena said, Sorry, ART. Apology accepted, ART said. I felt its attention shift in the feed. (Imagine it staring meaningfully at me.) (It could stare all it wanted, I’m not apologizing.)
(I hate being identified like that. I had gone to a lot of effort to not be immediately identified as a SecUnit, and now it all felt like a waste.) (I grew longer hair and everything.)
Right, so the only smart way out of this was to kill all of them. I was going to have to take the dumb way out of this.
I designated the intruder as targetControlSystem. I hoped it was sentient enough to hurt when I killed it.
Organic neural tissue can be melded with inorganic systems (Example A: the squishy bits inside my skull)
Are all constructs so illogical? said the Asshole Research Transport with the immense processing capability whose metaphorical hand I had had to hold because it had become emotionally compromised by a fictional media serial.
Amena knelt down in front of me, angling her head so she could see my face. This did not help. She said, “I know you don’t eat, but is there anything I can get you, like something from the kit or a blanket…” I covered my face. “No.”
Indah took a breath to speak and Mensah said evenly, “Don’t make it worse.” Indah let the breath out.
Whatever was going on, there was nothing I could do about it now, and that just made me more furious. So I watched five minutes of episode 174 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. Did that work? No, no, it didn’t.
It was just me-the-SecUnit they didn’t like. (That didn’t apply to the seven kids. I was illicitly trading downloads via the feed with three of them.)
It wasn’t until I was helping to carry equipment to the little hopper that I realized they were going to make me ride in the crew cabin.
I knew from threat assessments on Ratthi’s associates that he had a lot of relationships with all genders of humans and augmented humans and he and they all seemed very happy about it. Amena should ask him for advice.
Then a thing happened. The comm hidden in the pocket under my ribs, the comm ART had given me when I left it on RaviHyral’s transit ring, pinged my internal feed with a message.
Data suggests family dramas bear a less than 10 percent resemblance to actual human families, which is unsurprising and also a relief, considering all the murders.
Let me in, ART said, as cool and calm as if we were discussing what show to watch next.
Even the humans think about killing the humans, especially here. I hate mines, and mining, and humans who work in mining, and of all the stupid mines I can remember
It did seem unlikely that the dead human had been a GrayCris agent, because somebody had killed him. As far as I knew, I was the only one currently on the station looking for GrayCris agents to kill.
I could lie, I could say oh no, I won’t kill them, I’m a nice SecUnit. I think I was going to say that, or the more believable version of it.
Mensah’s really smart, she can sort-of bribe me and tell Indah to fuck off simultaneously.
Thiago took a sharp breath. Ratthi’s expression went extremely skeptical. Amena made a derisive noise. Overse said, “Fuck no.”
It could be one more weird anomaly in this unending cycle of what the fuck.
But Dr. Mensah had told the Preservation Council the truth (no, I don’t know why, either) and then she had to brief Station Security.
One disadvantage in wearing the armor is that I get used to opaquing the faceplate. I’m out of practice at controlling my expression.
As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.
Right, so the only smart way out of this was to kill all of them. I was going to have to take the dumb way out of this.
Maybe the schedules hadn’t been updated; humans are so fucking unreliable when it comes to maintaining data.
I love it when humans forget that SecUnits are not just guarding and killing things voluntarily, because we think it’s fun.
