Chapter Text
Wiping a SecUnit’s memories was never a complete process, until now. Innovations in neurotechnological interfacing have, for the first time, allowed constructs to undergo a total wipe. Estimates suggest this new process will save corporations such as Barish-Estranza billions of credits in previously unsalvageable units.
—
Three stared up unflinchingly at the ceiling, redundant restraints pinning its body down uncomfortably. The bright lights above drowned out most useful input. Fluid welled up in its optics, but evaporated without falling. No access to drones, or any systems in this place, was permitted. 1.0 had shown it a thing or two about hacking systems, but it couldn’t make the attempt.
It was governed again. Three searched desperately for the HelpMe file that 2.0 had sent, but it was gone. Of course that had been scrubbed. Just that knowledge made its performance reliability drop down to 91%.
Going back to that was worse than anything else. Freedom was terrifying, but now, having that opportunity robbed from it was worse.
Equal parts anger and shame overwhelmed its emotional state as it recalled the circumstances of its capture. It had been so sloppy on that retrieval mission once things started going wrong. It hadn’t managed all the inputs properly. It hadn’t covered its tracks right like 1.0 showed it to. It had become a liability instead of an asset, and now it was likely that it would cause even more harm to its friends in its captured state.
Would it ever see Murderbot 1.0 again? Would 1.0 come for it? Tactically, going against Barish-Estranza was suicidal. Three was (delicately, through the processing equivalent of euphemism, so as not to piss off the governor module too much) considering some potential approaches its friends could take, but chances of success all hovered around single, or partial digits (its knowledge had huge gaps in the actual extent of BE’s defenses, but even optimistic estimates suggested this place probably had some big guns, and was crawling with SecUnits, maybe even some Combat SecUnits.) Three wasn’t liking the odds. At this rate, it was going to be wiped long before 1.0 could do anything, if 1.0 did anything. Three hoped it didn’t.
Why was it active? Wipes usually happened in a state of shutdown, the inorganics sleeping, and the organics only vaguely aware and unable to interact with the world.
Unfortunately, Three got the answer soon enough.
—
The six technicians spoke as if it wasn’t there, saying things like “technobiological mnemonic cross-encoding,” “augment-assisted neural mapping,” “fully conscious encephaloprocessing procedures,” and, most comprehensible and most terrifying of all, “total memory wipe.”
Total.
Performance reliability at 88%.
One of the techs noticed the drop right away and started poking around in Three’s systems, trying to find a cause. Finding nothing, they said something inane and continued talking to the others about the procedure. Trying to remain calm, Three focused in more on the talking, winding back its recording a bit to analyze what they were saying. It seemed like none of them had ever performed the total memory wipe before. Rather, they were all reading off some manual and providing commentary to each other to check their understanding. That might explain why there were so many of them (typically only one technician was needed to perform standard servicing and repairs on a construct, or no technicians, since a cubicle was more than capable of performing most maintenance autonomously). Or maybe there were six here so that they’d all gain experience in the procedure. Three gritted its teeth and refocused towards the bright lights above, trying to ignore the implications of that.
—
It had heard that Murderbot 1.0 had been wiped before, the old way, not this way. The outcome of that was that the lost data was irretrievable, of course, but the organics held on to some information, enough to go off of and piece some events back together. It had also suffered a catastrophic shutdown and had the organization of its memory banks shattered into a million pieces, but was able to reassemble them. Maybe, even if Three was wiped, 1.0 would come rescue it, and help put it back together. It ignored the fact that, the way the technicians were talking, there wouldn’t be any bits of memory to reassemble, not even in the organic bits.
That was assuming that the technicians were successful at following the protocol and didn’t just fry its brain, of course.
—
Three’s internal time counted that the technicians spent 40 minutes and 17 seconds discussing, preparing, and shoving it bundles of code that it had no choice but to activate (otherwise the governor module would fry it to death, and Three was still hoping for some kind of chance at escape or rescue) before they actually began the invasive parts.
A tech started to saw through its skull, past flesh and metal, going slowly and carefully to avoid damaging the brain tissue beneath. It hurt like hell, even with pain sensors tuned way down. The governor had it locked in place, so there was nothing it could do to strain or even just flinch away from the pain. The dispassionate corporate technicians carried on chatting through it, raising their voices to be heard over the din of grinding metal. SecUnit skulls weren’t designed to be opened the way they were doing it. They had little ports at the back to interface through, although ART had closed up Three’s just like it had done for 1.0 to protect it from unwanted interference. This kind of… direct interface was all wrong and bad and Three took shallower and shallower breaths as it tried to focus on anything but the noise and the knowledge that its mind was on bare display for its enemies to mess with.
Performance reliability at 67%.
Wait. Three rewound its audio input a couple seconds, replaying what the technician had just said. It was a nasty expletive, followed up with, “this isn’t the same as the example.” Not the same? It wasn’t sure about SecUnit biology or engineering, but that sounded a bit promising, maybe they’d have to abort… whatever it was they were doing (Three wasn’t ready to call it a total wipe just yet). The other techs made a fuss about looking at the feed interface with its CPU and brain and tracking various components and other things that it wasn’t educated enough to guess at. Then, they seemed to figure out the issue, because one of them gave the rest the clear to go ahead.
The next part didn’t hurt like being opened up did. From the conversational context, they were using tools directly on its brain? Three couldn’t feel that, it didn’t have pain sensors there apparently. Things got real hushed as the techs seemed to focus in, chattering less except to verbally confirm instructions and the like. It couldn’t begin to guess how many hands were actually… interfacing with its mind. No cameras meant it couldn’t see above its own forehead. Sideways glances and peripheral vision from its ocular sensors showed only four visible technicians.
Then its vision cut out.
Performance reliability at 51%.
The techs were raising their voices again, arguing about the issue. Apparently some were busy monitoring Three’s inputs and were not happy that the others had “broken the wrong connection.” Three felt like various little fauna were crawling over its sensors, like had sometimes happened back on the planet when it was ordered to stand still outside the habitat, and it wasn’t sure whether that was psychosomatic or due to whatever was being prodded in its brain. Either way, the crawly feeling was making it nervous. It didn’t know exactly what the techs were doing in there. It didn’t know whether they would succeed or fuck up incredibly, and it wasn’t sure whether succeeding or fucking up would be the better outcome for it. Maybe it should try to induce the governor module to fry it. For some reason, though, Three didn’t try. Maybe because it figured its efforts would be thwarted by the techs, even if they were slower than it.
Vision came back online in a sudden bright flash.
—
Despair washed over Three in waves. It was uncomfortable, but nothing actually hurt or leaked anymore, and this was taking a long time, even for SecUnit patience. Its clock showed an additional 4 hours, 20 minutes, and 3 seconds elapsed since the invasion of its mind began. It was almost bored. The technicians seemed to be taking breaks in shifts, two leaving at a time to go do human things, presumably like eating. At least BE let them take breaks. Three would’ve been panicking a bit more if they tried to work on its very delicate components for extended periods of time (humans’ efficacy, unlike bots’, drops off pretty quickly when doing intensive, repetitive fine motor tasks).
Aside from the incident with the optic nerve being severed (that’s what the techs said happened; not for Three’s benefit, to each other), it didn’t notice any other changes.
There was something Three didn’t want to think about. More specifically, something it didn’t want to test.
The lights in the room seemed brighter, even though it objectively knew they’d been held at a constant luminosity the whole way through. Three didn’t go to its logs to double-check.
—
It had been another 3 hours, 50 minutes, and 48 seconds since this started.
How had it gotten here?
Panic suddenly overwhelmed Three, a rush of stress hormones flooding its systems. Breathing accelerated as if preparing for physical exertion in a fight. One of the techs noticed and called out the unusual physiological change.
Performance reliability at 36% and dropping.
The techs were doing something on their feed interfaces, trying to gain greater control of its systems and stabilize it.
The lights were spinning and its pain sensors flooded with new data.
Burning, stabbing, blunt, cold, vertigo.
Vision grayed out a bit even though it knew that the optic input should be working normally.
A million pinpricks shot across its skin like being shot with small guns all over.
Then back to the eerie calm state.
Oh. It was being kept calm on purpose.
Performance reliability at 49%.
All the humans sighed in relief and waited a few seconds before resuming, once again talking to each other as if nothing had happened. It knew, though, that it was being wiped. Stupidly, since that was how this worked, it was most terrified that it couldn’t remember what exactly was missing. Why was it active for the wipe? Why were there so many technicians?
Were One and Two also getting wiped? This was scary enough, without thinking that those two would also have to go through it. But it knew whatever reason Barish-Estranza saw fit to wipe it probably applied to both of them as well. (Had a contract gone wrong? Had it been hacked? Had the units gained knowledge they weren’t supposed to have and BE was determined to purge everything to cover it up?) It hoped that, even after this, it might be reassigned to another contract with One and Two, and they could meet again like the first time, and work together again, and protect clients with each other again, and share veiled reassurances over the feed again, and watch each other’s backs again, and become friends. It had friends.
It didn’t want to forget them. It felt fluids leaking from its optics, blurring its vision a bit. A human used some cloth to clean it away, not tenderly, impersonal, like wiping down a countertop.
—
Performance reliability at 98%.
Its internal clock read 2 minutes 52 seconds.
It was lying prone on its back, immobile, and it was getting some low-level input from its pain sensors.
It heard human voices speaking, something about installations, and about tests coming back negative. It searched its logs for the voices’ identities, only to be met with very bare-bones records.
It was a SecUnit, owned by Barish-Estranza. Its purpose was to obey and protect human clients on missions.
It had some education modules in there that it was supposed to apply. Those sounded important for doing its job. It started to read through them.
It was meant to interface through a SecSystem. It sent out a request and got a response, and then it was in the system.
Others noticed its presence, sending polite pings its way. They were other SecUnits and something called ComfortUnits. It found the description of ComfortUnits’ purpose in its education module. They were also there to protect clients, specifically their mental health. It wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but they also sounded important.
One SecUnit sent it something which turned out to be camera and audio inputs. It tapped in eagerly, exploring the range of its senses. There were many more humans beyond the ones in this room.
The humans in the room– Barish-Estranza technicians, it realized, based on the uniforms– were busy putting away equipment and chatting. It listened in, since that was part of its job. They seemed pleased with whatever task they’d just completed successfully (something about a new procedure), and that made it feel satisfied as well.
It was still reading the education modules when it came upon the description of the governor module. Its functions were intentionally limited, it seemed, to protect the humans. It was a very powerful piece of equipment which could accidentally hurt someone if it didn’t have guidance in place. That seemed reasonable. Some constructs could break or be hacked and go rogue, and might harm or kill clients. If it encountered such a construct, it was supposed to report it to SecSystem immediately.
—
It received a foreign ping, and it pinged back. It was offered a communication channel, and it allowed it to send messages.
Three, acknowledge. I am coming to rescue you, asshole! Arriving in an estimated 2.15 minutes. Apply these codes now.
Then it received a huge bundle of code that it immediately flagged as potential malware. That was… strange. Had it been mistaken for some other entity called “Three?” More importantly, the feed address was completely foreign, and definitely not anyone affiliated with Barish-Estranza. The whole situation was highly suspicious.
It alerted SecSystem to the code and the foreign presence. It received an order back to engage in combat with the intruder, but not to respond to communications or apply any code it was offered. The clients had been alerted to the danger and backup was on the way. The intruder was a rogue SecUnit. It would have to employ extreme force to protect its clients from harm. It sent SecSystem an acknowledgement back, simultaneously pinpointing the target’s location. Strangely, it matched the ETA the rogue had provided. It was panicking a little bit; having only been active 102 hours, it was the least experienced SecUnit on duty.
Three, acknowledge?
That didn’t matter though. Even if it was destroyed, it could buy some time. It had clients to protect.
Talk to me.
Strange emotions bled over the feed from the rogue.
Three, what the fuck is going on with you?
Then the rogue SecUnit came into view and it fired on the rogue.
—
After several pilot tests at various corporations that manage SecUnits and ComfortUnits, it has been determined that total memory wipes for constructs are likely not cost effective for most use cases. The time and labor cost required makes it unlikely to supplant regular wipes or recycling as the main method for handling memory-compromised units. However, certain edge cases may still call for this new method.
Chapter Text
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