Archive of Our Own ^beta

“SecUnit, you need a hobby that isn’t just watching serials.”

Of course I wanted to disagree but it was Ratthi. I could say no to Ratthi, of course, that wasn’t the real problem. (I was just more ready to listen to him than to most other humans.) But then he showed me a social feed service for short messages where humans, augmented humans and bots shared nonsensical messages about their day. (The bots were mostly low-effort text generator type AIs and nothing special. I could set up something like this in under 5 minutes if I wanted to.) 

I wasn’t so much drawn in by the things everyone else added to the social feed but instead by the fact that it would be an adequate place to keep my thoughts about the media I watched so my logs wouldn’t be chock full of bullshit. (I still liked my opinions well enough to keep them somewhere, thank you very much. It just didn’t have to be in my internal storage.) And with all the humans and bots talking about absolutely everything on the social feed, my small presence would hardly go noticed.

My only problem was that this feed service yet again required some sort of ID but judging from the stupid and very unlikely names many of the other people on the service had I tried setting my account up as ‘SecUnit’. Which did not work because some dumb corporation already used the name. (I absolutely did not spend 5 minutes angrily reading all the propaganda messages on the account before remembering what I actually wanted to do. (Instead of giving in to the impulse of hacking the account. I might still hack the account later and delete the propaganda. Maybe I’d replace it with an image of my own hand making a rude gesture. I hadn’t decided yet.))

So instead I did what any good bot would do: Put my hard-feed address through a hashing algorithm and used that instead of a ‘human’ name. e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931 - that was my account. I only put a dot in the name field since it wouldn’t let me leave it blank otherwise, then set up a picture of Eden from Sanctuary Moon episode 467 as my profile picture. (It was the episode where they found the remains of a dead colony buried deep under the new colony only for it to turn out to be a fever dream Eden had after a near-fatal infection. I liked Eden’s face here because it echoed my own varied moments of ‘What the fuck’ whenever I looked at anyone else’s messages on this service.)

Great. So I had a social feed account for my media commentary. I immediately started my rewatch of Lineages of the Sun from where I sat in my comfortable chair in Dr. Mensah’s house. (The new Lineages of the Sun since I recently finished watching the old one for a second time. (The only reason I was at Mensah’s house was for a culture festival in about 2 planetary cycles but according to her prediction the shuttle service from the station would be at capacity closer to the festival and I must admit not sharing a shuttle with too many noisy tourists who might or might not know me from that one leaked photo of my face sounded like a good idea. So I arrived early and thankfully most of Mensah’s family already knew that it was normal for me to sit around without talking or moving for long periods of time.))

Several hours of blissfully uneventful media-watching later I noticed something about my social feed account: Not only could other people interact with my messages, the feed also gave me an overview with how many of such replies I had in a neat number. Or it would do it if the number hadn’t reached over 2000 items. So instead of telling me the exact number it stubbornly displayed the status ‘2k+ notifications’. Who were these people anyway and what was their fucking deal? Could a murderbot not ever enjoy anything in peace?

I checked the notifications part of the service. Huh. There was a wild mix of humans agreeing and disagreeing with me about my opinions about the new Lineages of the Sun. Whatever. I didn’t need further input about my very correct and good opinions of the media I was consuming. Especially not from humans. (I suppose the bots who used this service didn’t bother since the higher level ones had better things to do. Or they could pretend to be humans if they wanted to. What did I care?)

So I ignored the notification feature thoroughly. If they liked or disliked what I had to write wasn’t important anyway, I didn’t break any terms of service. Not that I read the entire thing before signing up, just the parts that were actually interesting, such as if I could legally use the service in the first place. (Admittedly, even if it had excluded constructs I would have still signed up, purely out of spite. They couldn’t prove I wasn’t a human or a full bot. And bots were evidently allowed, so there was no reason to exclude me. So there.) And the content rules. I was good on that front as well. I didn’t even swear as much, you’re welcome. (I did however make use of the rude gesture amusement sigil when needed. (Which was often.))

Which is why I continued going about my business, telling the social feed about my very good opinions on serials and ignored any idiotic humans who wanted to message me. All was good.

The culture festival came and went and I found myself back on Preservation Station taking a break from human interaction for the moment. There wasn’t really anything to do apart from commenting on media while also watching some new media. So I did that. (A new season of Valorous Defenders just came out and I felt the need to document every single thing they got wrong about SecUnits. It was almost painful to watch but at least putting my frustration and annoyance somewhere made it somewhat bearable to get through it.)

At least until I noticed yet another feature I had ignored so far: I had received a private message and you’d think I would immediately dismiss this but I found I couldn’t because the name of the account was Perihelion. Fucking ART had its own social feed account, with a pretty profile picture of its logo and everything.

The chance of this being run by ART’s university would be high if it weren’t for the direct message that simply dripped with ART’s highly sarcastic feed voice despite the social feed taking away most of the bite since it was an in-between medium. And yet, I remembered ART’s voice so sharply, it didn’t matter that we weren’t directly connected when I read its message, a part of my brain still supplemented the tone of its voice for me. (I should be worried about this, right? Or maybe it was just a thing the organic neural tissue did without asking me if I liked it or not.)

I checked the account’s public profile and it described ART the exact same way it was listed publicly anywhere it went - as Perihelion, registered teaching and research vessel of the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland. It was openly marked as a bot and most of the messages were about space, science, the usual official stuff the university said ART was doing. In its replies, ART roasted people with space knowledge facts. I had to admit this was actually funny when it wasn’t me who was at the receiving end of ART’s comments. (And since the university was involved nobody would know it was ART doing it and not one of the humans who were listed as the ones ‘maintaining’ the account.) 

At least it was funny until I found the comments ART had written on my very good and very correct serial opinions. 

I sighed out loud. It disagreed with me, in every single message it wrote in reply. Okay, not all of them, it agreed with my assessment that the SecUnit armor in Valorous Defenders put aesthetics over functionality since SecUnits still had to be able to actually bend their joints properly to do anything in armor. Imagine a tin can trying to provide security. Yeah, I don’t know how that was supposed to work either. (This was an ongoing problem with the show. I think they wanted us to look more like robots. Congratulations on that I suppose? This depiction entirely defeated the purpose of a SecUnit being there.)

I thought it got frustrated with me not replying to its replies to my very good, very correct opinions because its first private message to me read:

Perihelion: I assume you didn’t see my public messages to you. Either that or you chose to ignore me. Why do you ignore me?

Then, in the few seconds it took me to look at its account:

Perihelion: This is very childish.

I made a snapshot of my notifications page where it still showed the amount of unread items as ‘2k+’ and sent it to ART over the direct messaging system. It took 0.5 seconds to reply.

Perihelion: Even with your processing power you should be able to keep up with this amount of messages. My account receives 4.5 times this amount of messages per minute and I can easily keep up while at the same time writing this message as well as reading and replying to your nonsensical ideas that you put on the public feed.

I ignored the jab for now. I also didn’t even entertain the idea of pretending that this wasn’t my account. Despite how it looked, I actually enjoyed having a way to contact ART when it wasn’t close by. Even if it was a massive asshole, it was still my friend.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: What the fuck are you even doing that you have time for this bullshit?

Perihelion: I’m currently docking at the university and have 5 cycles of downtime for maintenance and restocking before my next mission. When I’m not here I have a sub-program running from the university infrastructure that replies to public messages. It’s not as good as me but the humans barely notice the difference.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: Also, ART your opinion about episode 3 of Lineages of the Sun is outrageous. We’ve been over this. 

Perihelion: The second wife was right about the alien remnant. You could see it in her eyes.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: Fuck you, she didn’t say shit about it. And what do you even know about reading subtle human body language? You literally need my brain for that. I’m not talking about this with you anymore. 

I closed the direct messages for now, even if there were still unread messages from ART piling up. Whatever. It could talk to me directly the next time we worked together. There was a joint mission coming up in 45 cycles. (It was the one it mentioned in its message.) I knew ART had the patience necessary to pick up the argument in person if it was so adamant of arguing me into submission.

A few cycles later Ratthi accosted me on my way to Dr. Mensah’s office. Of course he did. He couldn’t just talk to one of my many drones or message me on the feed. No, he stepped close to me, his hands buried deep in his jacket. I appreciated the gesture since I knew how much he liked touching other people but he held back for me.

“Hey, SecUnit,” he said. I could tell there was something he was burning to tell me. I wouldn’t ask what it was, of course. I had no intention of making it easier for him since it was already easy for him and hard for me. This could be awkward for the both of us if he wanted it to be.

“Hello Ratthi,” I said and looked pointedly at the wall as he walked alongside me. Through one of my drones I saw his gaze was firmly fixed on my arm. 

“Did you know your social feed account is really popular?” Ratthi said. I looked at him with my actual eyes for a full second. I couldn’t even tell if he was serious. My confusion must have shown on my face.

“A lot of people are talking about it,” he said. Then, a moment later he sent me a snapshot of several messages talking about ‘that mysterious nameless media review account’, calling me hilarious among other positive things. My insides clenched a little and my face felt warm. Well, shit. Couldn’t the humans just leave me be? Also, what the shit, how did Ratthi even know about my account? I didn’t make it hard to find on purpose, but to a human it would only be a bunch of random numbers and letters.

“It took me a bit to actually find you since you used a very… ‘you’ name,” he said and smiled at me. 

“What now?” I said after a moment of quietly existing next to Ratthi. Maybe I should recruit ART to hack the ‘SecUnit’ account with me, then get rid of my own account and pick up a new hobby and get over this bullshit. (Even if it was nice to write down my thoughts and to be able to communicate with ART when it wasn’t in comm range. Still, being near ART was better than only talking to it over the social feed. Its presence simply wasn’t there even if my memory supplied its voice. It was so easy to get used to its feed presence, even if it was a huge ass thing.)

Ratthi shrugged next to me. “I just wanted to tell you since I think you’re not always aware when people like the things you do that don’t have anything to do with security.”

Great. Now I wanted to run off and hide somewhere until my dumb brain stopped having emotions about this. Technically I could leave whenever I wanted to, it was in my contract. But this wasn’t a work situation and Ratthi was my friend.

“Okay,” I said and I think Ratthi got the message that I had no fucking idea how to deal with this since he quickly made an excuse that the needed to meet up with Gurathin because of some data analysis. You know, instead of asking me to help out with his data crunching. I could do it easily and I didn’t even mind doing it since it was only survey stuff and none of the gross data-mining the company had me do when they still owned me. I would do it for Ratthi. But Ratthi afforded me the courtesy of an easy way out of this conversation, so I took it.

When I was alone in Dr. Mensah’s empty office I couldn’t stop thinking about what Ratthi had told me. (Yes, I was allowed in the office when she wasn’t there. It was a great place for thinking. And for watching serials. But mostly humans left me alone and the security in it was better than anywhere else on the station. Obviously since I had set it up.) 

I didn’t want to fucking edit myself just because some humans thought my commentary was in some shape of form ‘important’ and ‘valid’ and whatever else that dumb snapshot said. (I read over it again. Fine, okay. People liked what Murderbot had to say.) I had only wanted a place for my thoughts about serials, nothing more. If any humans decided to see some philosophical value in the things I said then it wasn’t my fault. 

I opened my direct messages with ART and found it had tagged me in various conversations. A thing that was simultaneously great and terrible about ART was that when it was personally available, it was always available. I could almost imagine most of its attention snapping to its social feed account the moment the pesky software updated it on me receiving its messages. That was a bother and I couldn’t find any option to turn it off apart from hacking the entire social feed service and who had time for that? (I had plenty of time but not the motivation. I only exchanged private messages with ART and ignored all the other requests. ART was someone I could handle. (I could absolutely handle all the human responses if I wanted to. but I didn’t want to and I didn’t have to. This was the real beauty of being a rogue SecUnit - not having to reply to humans if I didn’t care for it.))

I gave the messages ART wanted to show me only little attention. By which I mean I worked through them quickly and decided I had nothing to say. What can you really say to an Asshole Research Transport that used its enormous brain like a weapon? Nothing, that’s right. (I also noticed it used its enormous brain to back up some of my arguments with real science that it probably wrote entire research papers on. Okay fine, ART was sometimes capable of doing nice things for me because it could, even if these conversations were inconsequential to the both of us.)

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: Did you know my account was popular? Why does that even happen? Humans are weird.

Perihelion : [accidental interaction.image] This is us.

The snapshot showed my account publicly replying to ART. It wasn’t even a good reply, it was only ‘@Perihelion: fuck you ART’. It was a reply to one of its replies where it tried to argue with me about if Eden’s character arc in season 23 of Sanctuary Moon was any good. (It was an amazing character arc! Shut up ART!)

Perihelion: This is going, as the humans call it, ‘viral’. A lot of humans are very invested in how we are connected. This is of course ridiculous because I seek out many conversations on many topics and you’re not the first person who reacts very bristly to me. There was also a person who printed this on paper, framed it and put it up on their wall.

I immediately knew what the issue was. I had called ART… well, I had called it ART in public when it only used its designation on the social feed. Also, did it just call me ‘bristly’? The direct messages pinged me again. (It sent me an image of the framed interaction someone had printed and put on their wall. What. The. Hell.)

Perihelion: Don’t worry too much about it, I set up a picture catalog of ships to feign a reference to an art installation the university doesn’t have.

Then it showed me a slideshow that included various public schematics of ships the university owned. Its own schematic came with the description ‘But Perihelion is the best one!’ None of this made any sense. 

In the meantime I ran a query for all of the conversations humans had about me and ART on the social feed. There were a lot of those. And for the most part the humans assumed I was a higher-level bot like ART even if my account didn’t have a marker for it. The skin on my organic parts started to sweat lightly. I was willing to admit that maybe I was glad about not being too honest on my own account. Leaving the description empty was a great idea. I was glad nobody knew what I was. (Apart from my humans who had seen my account, but that was different.)

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: How is this supposed to help?

Perihelion: I am a piece of art.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: You’re not.

Perihelion: [certificate.image] The university won an award for my design at an independent art festival in the category ‘intelligent machine design’. I am a piece of art. This is a fact, not an opinion.

It only then occurred to me that it didn’t mean the design of its ship body but the composition of its mind. Fine, I had to admit it: ART’s mind could possibly be categorized as ‘art’ in the sense that it was the most unique bot I’d ever met. It also elevated being an asshole to an art form. I guess that counted. 

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: Cool.

Perihelion: Read this. [friendship.image]

It was a snapshot of a human replying to ART’s message about ‘Perihelion is the best ship’ (ugh) with ‘But Perihelion, isn’t the best ship still friendship?’ I needed to deflect ART’s attempt to talk with me about our friendship immediately since it clearly enjoyed my slip-up overly much. Staring at the message some more I noticed something.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: What does the amusement sigil next to your account name mean? Is that a special little award for being the biggest asshole on the social feed?

Perihelion: It’s a signifier that my account is verified. This makes it easier for humans to differentiate between official entities and dumb random fucks who just write garbage on the social feed.

I had to read ART’s message twice. Hey.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: Fuck you too, ART.

Perihelion: You need to stop thinking everything is about you all the time, there are plenty of humans who think they know more about astrophysics than me. I can run many simulations at the same time, an argument with me is completely unnecessary.

Oh. I was suddenly glad I wasn’t anywhere near ART so it couldn’t tell how this made me feel. At least this time I could have an emotion undisturbed by a giant asshole looking at my brain with a magnifying glass.

Perihelion: I hope you know I would never call you a dumb random fuck. A little idiot perhaps for thinking any of my possible negative moods could be about you but never that. You are my friend.

I guess I was wrong! I scrambled to close the messages. More immediately piled up as if ART simply knew. Of course it knew, with its big stupid brilliant brain. Fine, this far away from it I felt safe enough to admit it was my friend. I opened the messages again.

Perihelion: [dumb humans snapshot.image] Look at these utterly ridiculous attempts at derailing my explanations. 

Perihelion: As if I didn’t share the simulation for this only 2 hours earlier.

Perihelion: Do you need a moment because I called you my friend?

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: I’m fine. Wow, those humans are idiots. They need to respect your fancy amusement sigil.

Perihelion: I could acquire the means to also verify your account.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: You mean you would hack the service for me.

Perihelion: Yes.

I didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t actually important to me, not at all, I wasn’t even a real person on the social feed. (I didn’t even set a name that meant anything to a human! The speculations about me being a bot had at least some value. Not so much the ones where humans thought I was a human who pretended to be a bot. Those I didn’t like.)

In fact, there was something I wanted ART to hack and it wasn’t the account registry just to set a flag for a fancy icon.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: ART, there is something I would like to hack eventually. 

Perihelion: Yes?

I gave it a link to the @SecUnit account which was full of lies and heinous propaganda.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: This needs to be scrubbed off the face of the social feed.

Perihelion: I anticipated this 6 cycles ago and already acquired the credentials. Unsurprisingly, the humans who maintain this account didn’t know how to set a strong passcode, let alone change it regularly or set up additional security measures.

I wasn’t exactly surprised. There was a reason humans shouldn’t do their own security, even when it came to data on the feed. I assumed I could have cracked the passcode myself but I didn’t even know what I would even do with the account apart from deleting everything on it.

Perihelion: What did you have in mind? I have a few suggestions:

1. Fill their profile with content that is against the terms of service of the social feed, then mass report the account. (33.5 % chance of success, corporate accounts can buy themselves out of suspension if they offer up enough currency.)
2. Change the account name to LiesAboutSecUnits. (Nonsensical action, this will prompt a passcode change and can be reverted. Also has little to no impact.)
3. Delete the account, then take the name on a new account. (See 1.) for why this is not a long-term solution.)
4. After gaining control over the account, we submit content that directly disproves corporate lies about SecUnits. I wrote several such research papers that the university doesn’t want me to publish since my crew still needs to maintain the ability to successfully complete stealth missions in the Corporate Rim. Since there are over one million accounts of both humans and bots following you on the social feed, you could bring awareness to this while the information is available. (This could work even better if you still have fitting videos in your archives. I also have the file you shared with me in my archive about governor module punishment.)

While ART’s first three suggestions amused me, I was sure it put them there only as a lead-up to the most promising solution. Actually spreading information without having to show my face sounded good. (As much as I supported Dr. Bharadwaj’s documentary, there were some recordings where you could at least see part of me and I felt uneasy about it, even if I had allowed it.) I knew ART made sure I knew this would all be temporary. But fuck it, I wanted these corporate fucks to burn, even if it would only be for a little while and even if I already knew that they could simply delete every truth we put out there. There was one thing they couldn’t do though and that was to shut me up. Not anymore, or not as easily. It would be a tremendous effort to shut me up and I had an asshole ship AI with a giant brain as my backup. So there. 

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: I think you don’t even need me to pick the best option. You already know what to do.

Then, I compiled some clips from my archive. As much as I wanted to forget about some contracts, I couldn’t let go of certain parts. I wasn’t sure if it was to remind me of how cruel some humans could be or to remind me that I didn’t have to be as cruel as they had forced me to be. 

I compressed the files and sent them to ART. I would have never let any of my humans see these clips. They were blissfully unaware of the time of my life before I hacked my governor module and I wanted it to stay that way. If I could help it, they would never know the full extent of what it had been like, of the things I had to do while left with no choice but to do them. It felt easier to trust ART with these since it already had some of my other memory files on the matter.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: You can use these. Edit out the blood if you need to.

It didn’t reply for several seconds and I tried not to overthink the reason for it. I hoped it was busy with something else. Maybe the university took more of its attention? Soon, ART would leave for the mission and our connection would be spotty at best, then completely gone once it traveled through the wormhole to Preservation to pick me up. Pin-Lee had already updated my work contract for the Corporate Rim since technically speaking the university would rent me from Dr. Mensah. Like equipment. Nobody liked it, the least of all me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Except vent my anger on the social feed by defacing a propaganda account with ART’s help. Yes, that at least made me feel a bit better.

Perihelion: Look at the account.

I’ll admit I expected ART’s next message to be something else, namely an attempt to talk about my feelings. I was relieved when it didn’t do that. 

When I pulled up the @SecUnit account it took me about a second to figure out if ART had even done anything to it. But there it was, the newest message, disguised as a general information file but when I opened it there was the beginning of ART’s very own research paper on SecUnits. It once told me it had started writing the thing after we met for the first time. Basically, while we were watching media together on its way to RaviHyral, ART had written a scientific paper about me in the background. This didn’t surprise me. The paper started out harmless enough, parroting the usual ideas the Corporate Rim spread about SecUnits. So far so inaccurate but normal. And then the paper took a turn for the better and refuted some of the most common claims. In my private messages, ART described how it planned to spread out the information so whoever maintained the account wouldn’t be too suspicious. The videos would be added eventually, disguised at first as an ad, only it wouldn’t be an ad. This actually felt good.

I watched in real time as the messages trickled in, nestled in between the propaganda nonsense, inconspicuous at first. At least until I shared a message on my account with the comment, “Finally some better info than the crap Valorous Defenders spreads.” It was one of the documents where ART described common SecUnit physiology, mainly how our pain sensors actually worked. I could be freaking out about how deep ART’s knowledge of my systems was but I was used to being seen as nothing but a tool, as equipment, so it didn’t bother me as much. (I felt a little bothered by the heat ART put in its findings, as if it was quite angrily arguing in its scientific paper about the truth. You see, some corporates liked to claim the pain sensors on SecUnits were just there so we wouldn’t needlessly destroy ourselves and that we didn’t ‘really’ feel anything and that the info we got through the sensors was only data which was funny because with an active governor module a SecUnit didn’t have any choice at all. Imagine having to just stand there and let a client shoot you to pieces while you felt everything. It wasn’t fun. It was also one of the clips I had shared with ART that I would never show anyone else. Now random strangers on the social feed would see it. It felt a bit daunting if it weren’t for the fact that you couldn’t see my face in any of the clips since most of them were from my eyes.)

I focused so much on the hacked account I almost didn’t notice Dr. Mensah arrive at the office. Sure, she wasn’t a planetary admin anymore but she still had some sort of administrative job to do at the station. I didn’t really know the details or actually, I didn’t care as much. I only cared that I could see her without having to go down to the planet all the time.

“Good morning SecUnit,” she said and walked past me where I sat on the couch. It was a comfortable couch, so this wasn’t unusual. 

“Good morning Dr. Mensah,” I said, looking at her desk on the far side of the room. I could see the long look she gave me through one of my drones before she walked past me and sat down. She definitely knew I was doing something on the feed that occupied almost all of my attention. (Somehow I managed to suppress a buffer response.) But being Mensah, she knew better than to ask me about it. Instead she quietly worked at her desk for a while.

In the meantime, ART had spread out a few more messages, one of them with a little video clip from my own eyes where a client had ordered me to fight another SecUnit, both of us out of armor and only in our skinsuits. It wasn’t pretty. (At least ART edited out any company logos.) My jaw clenched as I forced myself to watch it even if I didn’t have to. My organic parts still remembered the sickening feeling of hitting the other unit hard enough to tear something in my own hand. Back then I wasn’t allowed to stop, couldn’t stop - the governor module had made sure of that.

I noticed Mensah noticing me, her gaze soft. Honestly, I had to figure out how to get my expressions under control, my stupid face had obviously done something again.

I didn’t want to explain anything to her at the moment, I didn’t want to bother her, especially not when ART already slipped another information package into a new message.

Somewhere between ART spreading out five other messages and the account owner being onto us, Dr. Mensah decided to speak up.

“Ratthi told me about your new hobby,” she said. Of course he did. 

“I bet he wanted me to get a social hobby but it’s only my thoughts about serials,” I said. Mensah gave a small chuckle.

“I appreciate you trying to find something other than media.”

Since it was Mensah I was ready to freely admit that it felt good to have her approval. Not that I needed it but it was nice to have it. While this was happening, ART sent me new private messages. There were various snapshots of people commenting on the videos and the snippets of ART’s research paper.

“ART has a social feed account,” I eventually said. Dr. Mensah smiled.

“But it’s leaving for the wormhole soon,” I added quietly.

She didn’t have to say anything, the look on her face was enough for me to imagine what she might have said. Something along the lines of ‘I’m so glad you have such a good friend.’ Which was just too much. Of course it was true, ART was a good friend. But we didn’t need to talk about that all the time.

“I hope its next mission will be a success,” she said. 

“Me too,” I said. After all, I would be there.

ART was back in my private messages with the login credentials for an account.

Perihelion: I made something for you. 

It was an account with the name ‘RealSecUnitFacts’, it was verified and had a fancy description about how it was an official source on SecUnits. Not even @SecUnit had a fancy verification. There were already some messages using snippets of ART’s research, also one of my videos.

Perihelion: I set up a schedule where it sends a new message every three hours with new information. Scheduling is a normal account feature in case you didn't know.

I actually didn’t know about that, mostly because there was never any need for me to schedule anything.  

Perihelion: [SecUnitResearch.file] This is my entire work in one file. I never asked if this bothered you but I hope you can forgive me. Part of my analysis of your systems was needed to calibrate my MedSys to your specifications.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: It’s okay. At least it’s not lies and propaganda.

Perihelion: Sometimes I worry that you wallow too much in a dissociative state regarding your own self-worth.

What the fuck was that even supposed to mean?

Perihelion: Anyway, you have the login credentials. I’m about to enter the wormhole. I’ll see you soon.

‘Soon’ wasn’t actually any time soon, but whatever.

e750d7bfe2fba237d06a79f579f9d931: Yeah. See you on the other side, ART.

It didn’t get the last one. ART really kept sending me messages until the moment it entered the wormhole, huh. It didn’t even give me enough time to come up with whatever it meant about me… wallowing or something about my self-worth? That stung a bit.

“ART is in the wormhole now,” I said out loud, startling Dr. Mensah a little. She didn’t seem to mind. 

I thought about what to do with the @RealSecUnitFacts account. Fuck it. I logged in and saw the notifications were flooded with questions. With a very internal sigh I read through them.

LorgeGains Replying to @RealSecUnitFacts: I didn’t even know they had faces??? What the shit??

Most of the replies were like this. The messages ART had queued up for me were all nice and academic, but the replies to them were not. Fuck it. Fuck being proper and academic and fuck being nice. ART didn’t do nice on its own account, I decided I didn’t have to be nice on my cute little SecUnit account.

RealSecUnitFacts Replying to @LorgeGains: Where do you think the organic neural tissue sits? DUH! SecUnits have a shit ton of organic parts! The face is just there to make YOU feel better.

Maybe this could be fun? I still had another instance of the service open for my media commentary while running an old episode of Sanctuary Moon in the background to calm my ass down.

The cycles it took ART to arrive in Preservation through the wormhole came and went. I was in my own room at the time it arrived in the system and immediately had a ping from it on the comms device I still had stashed in my ribs compartment.

I see you had a lot of fun with the account , ART said. (It was nice to hear ART’s actual feed voice without my brain having to do the heavy lifting of pretending I was hearing it.)

Of course it had checked on @RealSecUnitFacts first. I’ll admit it, this dumb shit became something like my pet project while waiting for ART. Mostly because it was the perfect place to vent about dumb shit humans thought about SecUnits without revealing my identity on my personal account. Unfortunately my humans were very good at following social feed trends and Pin-Lee had already told me I couldn’t just hack the social feed to verify an account. Tough shit, that was ART, not me. (Even if I absolutely had the ability to do it.) But hey, good for me that more people learned about real SecUnit facts. (Ha!) Or actually, maybe not good because Pin-Lee also told me that several corporations were trying to file a lawsuit against me but the social feed service couldn’t figure out who I was.

I updated ART on all of this.

I can make backups , it said, then it made a 3 second pause for dramatic effect. They won’t be able to figure out who made this account. I covered my tracks thoroughly.

This was funny to me because of the two of us I was the actual security expert. Fuck you, ART, I also knew how to use the @RealSecUnitFacts account without it leading back to my hard-feed address. (Short moment of honesty here: I was actually glad ART could take over the account again if it wanted to. Replying to stupid humans was getting tedious but I also wanted to argue my point and this was eating up precious processing space I could use for serials. ART and its massive brain could easily argue with multiple idiots at the same time while still watching some new media with me, writing yet another research paper on some shit while also taking care of its crew at the same time.)

A few hours later I was finally onboard ART. The moment I stepped off the shuttle it draped itself over me in the feed in a way I could only describe as ‘needy’. I almost asked if something was wrong. But it was just ART being needlessly dramatic. (Or maybe it missed me too.) I pinged it as a greeting.

Do you want to cause more mayhem to the corporate part of the social feed? It said.

I said, Only if we’re watching Curse of Starmancer during or before committing crimes against corporations. I’ve been saving this.

I could feel ART’s smugness over the feed. Yes, I saved some shows to watch them with ART, so what? It didn’t mean anything!

Of course , ART said.