Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The SecUnit knew I was rogue, and it was going to kill me.

And sure I wasn't going to just let it, I can take down another SecUnit. But this was the third one. ART had been right, unarmored and without help, I couldn't do two, let alone three.

My humans and Three were in a shuttle by now hopefully getting the fuck out of here. And no I don't know for sure what was going on with them because there was currently a comms blackout blocking all attempts to contact each other.

Somebody on this stupid planet had a stupidly good jamming device going.

It was even blocking the commlink stashed just under my ribs that connected me to ART. Every time I tried to connect to ART, or Three or the shuttle, or hell even just scan for a local feed to connect to, all I got was loud static inside my skull. I'd sicced an old piece of company code on the static to try to suss out an interference pattern, which was admittedly a long shot. That was a while ago, every time I checked results came up empty.

I was in a super great mood during this tactical retreat (aka running (staggering) for my life).

* * *

A few hours ago, before we'd landed, everything seemed like an acceptable risk.

We were on a planet in the MainorSaida system (planets, yay, my favorite), just outside the Corporation Rim, some kind of hybrid-freehold manufacturing hub. The planet had a bunch of large facility structures spread out so far from one another they needed installed rails to go between them and the little city.

We were here for a data auction. Somebody had found coordinates to a long lost colony planet, and instead of trying to retake it themselves they wanted to sell it for a whole lot of currency. So we had to win the bid. Keeping colonies out from corporation rule was ART's crew's whole thing, our whole thing.

(We were hoping to convince the seller to pick us no matter what, like look how bad it gets for humans under corporate rule etc etc, but I wasn't going to be involved in that part.) (I was the backup plan, I'd be hacking into their systems to take the colony data anyway.)

We landed at the facility. Me, Three, Iris, Kaede, Seth, and Tarik. 

Three and I had no armor, we were pretending to be augmented human security guards, so our team would appear more enticing and a lot less "oh no there are terrifying murderbots here". (I was also still being weird about armor, it's a whole thing. I don't want to talk about it.)

The meeting location was abysmal, I don't know why they picked it other than it's probably where the human who found the data already worked, and didn't know any better. It would've been better to do this in a big legal court building with bonds out on all the attendees to ensure nobody tried to off one another and take the data by force, either from each other or the seller.

But no. We were in a ship junkyard.

At least, in a facility attached to the ship junkyard sprawling out to the horizon on the other side. A messload of old ships towed here over who knows how many years, left to slowly disintegrate in planetary weather, because of course that makes more sense than keeping them on a moon somewhere without an atmosphere so they couldn't rust. (Don't look at me, I don't know.)

And to make things infinitely more uncomfortable for me personally, the whole facility was staffed, run, and operated by humanform bots. They... looked like Miki. All of them.

That was intel we really could have used in advance. (Let's be real, that I could have used in advance.)

As we descended I saw the first not-Miki piloting a hovertruck full of salvaged ship parts back to the facility. My insides did a really uncomfortable twist. It had the exact same metal clad body, same round black globe camera eyes. Articulated joints that looked sort of like armor but weren't really, just there to keep out dust and protect moving pieces. Body that mostly matched a human shape, with major pivot points up and down the waist. All the same, even the brushed metal finish.

None of these were Miki, none of them wanted to be my friend (probably), I knew that much. I likely wouldn't have to talk to one, in fact I'd be going out of my way to avoid interacting with any them. But it left me distracted. 

I made friends with FacilitySys on the way in.

I had to be extra careful working my way into the system, the not-Mikibots were likely really perceptive. Miki had noticed me in the feed where other bots wouldn't have, and I could not afford that right now, not with humans I actually cared about here with me. It would only take one to get curious, spot and report me. If that happened we'd get kicked out of the auction and the other corporate bidders would definitely try to kill us for cheating. (Corporates are forgiving that way.)

So I was slow, and careful, and stayed undetected in the feed.

Soon I had eyes on multiple corporate teams inside the lounge we were all supposed to gather in. (There's never enough cameras outside the corporation rim, how the hell am I supposed to do my job, I only have one drone with me too because of the pretending to be augmented human thing.) And yeah, they each had a SecUnit of their own wearing armor in respective company colors. Great.

I found a better map than the provided one, but no trace of the colony coordinates. They must have the data air-gapped. I was going to have to talk to the not-Miki-bots, wasn't I. Ugh no, that's too many emotions to deal with. 

Focus, Murderbot.

I put together forged credentials saying I was an assistant bot sent by the human city to make sure the auction followed regulations, and sent out a ping. A horde of not-Miki's pinged back immediately. And - seriously? Half of them sent back emotion sigils. All different ones too. (Could they not? I don't need the reminder. I really needed all my processing to focus right now.)

Three pinged me with a low level alert. Quickly I smoothed my face back to unit neutral. I don't want to know what it had been doing.

The not-Mikibots all had different opinions, and wanted to argue, with each other and with me. (This shouldn't have surprised me so much. I couldn't begin to sort the emotions I was having, they were not like Miki at all, and yet had distinct personalities.) So it took a lot of back and forth, all done in machine language since I was pretending to be a bot, but I did manage to convince them I was here to help.

During all that, the humans in the lounge got loud. (Agitated humans, always a SecUnit's favorite.) Apparently the data broker was running late. Humans don't like waiting. Three was monitoring the situation and sending me updates, so I could focus on getting the Mikibots to give me the data.

I'd been right about the coordinates data being air gapped: it was hidden away on a guarded chip somewhere on the seller's person. At least, that's what the humans thought. The Mikibots told me all about which of the busted ships in the junkyard the data had originally sat in for years and years, until one of them recovered the whole trove while doing its job methodically taking these huge ships apart for useful parts. Its human owner had ordered that bot to delete all copies afterward, but wasn't specific enough. There's always somewhere data sits where humans don't think to look. I politely asked to verify that the data being sold in this auction was authentic, and just like that I got a copy of the whole set.

We could leave whenever.

(Except we couldn't really, because that would look suspicious as hell.)

Out of nowhere, one of the Mikibots on the feed connected to me privately and said, <You're not killing them. Why?>

Uh. What? I asked the bot what it meant, then my insides tried to plummet off my frame when it answered: <You're a SecUnit.>

I thought I'd been so careful. How'd it find out? More bots joined the private connection. A little desperate, I tried, <Main objective: escort humans to safety. I just want to help.>

The first Mikibot sent, <secunits aren't allowed to hack, but you've been ordered to illegally acquire the target data. You've done that. Killing all competition present is likely to follow.>

Uh, what. These Mikibots were weirdly well informed. Most systems and bots outside the corporation rim barely knew what a SecUnit is, let alone that we can't just hack whenever we wanted.

I sent, <I'm not killing anyone, I'm built to protect humans, that's the whole point of me.>

<Which humans?> another not-Miki asked.

<All humans. Even the assholes,> I snapped. 

(Was I being emotional? These not-Mikis were so different from Miki it was throwing me off. I had been angry before that Miki was so naive. These not-Mikis weren't naive and apparently I'm angry about that, too.)

I heard humans shouting. Refocusing my attention showed me the corporates arguing with someone on a vid screen. The data broker, their video shaky as they rode a land vehicle through the scrapyard, was saying something about running late and on their way now with the coordinates data chip in hand, and could everyone just be patient blah blah. A bunch of Mikibots were just in frame, as a not so subtle deterrant against outright ambush if anyone attempted to take the data by force. 

Something about the vid bothered me. I didn't have time to figure out what.

You know what? Fuck this. This was as good a time to leave as any. I sent the retreat signal to our team's private feed, touched Tarik's arm to get him moving as I quietly turned back toward the door we'd come in, my humans followed a second later. As long as we were quiet, the other agitated humans wouldn't notice. Their secunits definitely would, but without orders to stop us, the units might not do anything.

Hushed in the feed, a different Mikibot whispered low, <Are you really here to protect the humans?>

<Yes,> I sent back. <I already said that. I'm a SecUnit.>

<You're unsecured,> it sent.

Unsecured. The sanitized corporate-speak for "rogue SecUnit." Oh, that's never not going to be chilling. It's dangerous for me to be found out this easily. If this Mikibot suspected then so did others, shit was about to hit the fan.

I hadn't answered. The Mikibot continued, <Rogue secunits commit mass murder until they're stopped.>

I sent, <Rogue secunits do whatever we want. I commit mass saving people.> 

The lighting. That's what was wrong with the vid. The data broker was supposed to be driving toward the facility, but the scrapyard was only on one side of it. Light from the primary star struck shadows across the vid in the opposite direction. The broker was moving away.

We were just into the corridor, when my one drone up on the ceiling caught movement. I pushed my humans in front of me, told them to run, and turned.

Oh here we go.

The other secunits in the room were already in motion, but they were hampered by their own clients in the way, who hadn't yet begun to scream. I hadn't even seen the "oh shit there's a rogue SecUnit here" alert that went out, it must've been over a separate private feed I hadn't found. With any luck they'd only come after me and not Three, leaving it to defend our humans. I pinged Three with a burst code for immediate evac and took off down the opposite corridor.

Chapter Text

As I sprinted FacilitySys cut out. I lost my cameras, lost contact with the Mikibots. I tried pinging them directly. Nothing. They weren't listening.

You know, I really didn't have time to be so angry with these not-Mikibots for snitching on me, but I couldn't help it, I was furious.

I had a split-second of footage from the lounge before my one drone input also fizzled out, shot down by pursuing secunits. Through it I saw utter chaos. All the humans were screaming, some were already injured. Some had weapons out and were firing at anything that moved that wasn't on their own team. Their secunits had engaged with each other or opposing humans, trying to both protect their own clients from getting killed and stop hostile humans and secunits from attacking at the same time.

I didn't envy those units. 

At least it meant only two of the corporate secunits were chasing me. And they were chasing me, not my humans. Three got our humans out of sight while I kept in sight just long enough to lure them away. I just had to make sure I kept luring. The map I'd downloaded earlier showed a large room not far that looked promising, some kind of warehouse, hopefully filled with piles of scrap I could use for cover.

I had a short headstart and a big gun harnassed to my back. Maybe this was actually manageable. Two at once would be tough without armor, but - 

A doorway slid open right before me and a shape that looked exactly like Miki came at me. 

No time to request a stand-down, no time to think. I slid past it on my knees under its attempted punch, grabbing its torso as I passed so I could spin and use my momentum to fling it at the two pursuing secunits somewhere back behind me. (I should've just taken it out, but I still didn't want to, even if none were answering my pings.) 

As soon as my hand made direct contact something weird happened. I got a request for a connection.

Bot communication happens fast, I secured the connection while still sliding on my knees. Its feed voice was messed up, full of stuttering static and panic, <H-h-hack me n-now.> Its body was still moving, trying to thwart me, but I picked up a tremble in its servos, like maybe it was trying to fight itself. Bots don't have governor modules to apply pain, but they do have overriding commands.

I don't like hacking bots this smart, I don't like taking that amount of control away, because I know exactly how not having any control over yourself feels. But it was asking me to, and I didn't think I had another choice.

I labeled it Mikibot 01, and blew a hole through its wall.

It fought me the whole time, I knew it couldn't help it, its programming demanded it resist. (It kept saying in static-filled bursts how sorry it was, too, which was making me feel really great about everything right now.)

This was taking too long, I had to get us to safety. (A very temporary definition of safety.) The two secunits had just rounded the corner and opened fire. I grabbed its thrashing body, trying to pin down its limbs, and ran. If it kept this up I'd have to tear off its arms and/or legs, I wanted to avoid that if I could.

Bullets cratered into the wall beside me as I ran up the wall around the last corner into the warehouse room, hoping it wasn't locked. (I'd preemptively tuned my pain sensors down, so I don't know if any of them hit me.) Thankfully the door lay wide open, but three not-Mikibots crowding the doorframe rushed out, large devices in their hands, probably industrial cutting tools used to take ships apart. I twisted over and above their heads in a vault, kicking the nozzles of the tools away as I went.

I disappeared into the stacks of neatly and not-so-neatly piled metal and plastics beyond. Behind me I heard gunfire and electronic whines (presumably of cutting tools) erupt as the secunits and not-Mikibots collided.

(There's no time to have emotions over leading secunits and bots to their deaths, Murderbot, focus!)

Finally behind cover I slid to the floor, rolling Mikibot 01 under me to pin it down while I finished the hack. I'd wondered before if I actually could hack a high level bot like this, time to find out.

We fought a fast, vicious battle over its feed, and in real space as it tried to wrestle me off. Humanform bots are strong, but secunits are stronger, although not by a lot. Finally I snaked in and found the command override orders forcing it to actively try to murder me. I snapped them to pieces. Immediately Mikibot 01 stopped struggling and went limp.

(To be honest, after seeing those override commands I was surprised Mikibot 01 was able to ask for help at all. Miki, the original Miki, had been able to deny direct orders given to it, but it had a lot of programming built from years of free reign on its decision trees. I didn't think these versions had that same kind of freeform development.)

Before I could back out of its systems, Mikibot 01 latched onto my feed presence, shoving a video bundle at me. <Look at this,> it said, <look now.>

I looked.

It took me a moment to parse what I was looking at. A dozen vid streams, taken from the eyes of other Mikibots way out in the scrapyard, all watching a huge old rusted ship slowly rise off the ground angling to point toward a building in the distance. Toward a familiar facility.

One set of eyes guided controls inside a cockpit, where the piloting Mikibot looked behind its shoulder at the hollowed out belly currently filled with explosives.

Seriously? That's just excessive.

The worst part was this was timestamped almost a minute ago. The humans wouldn't be able to get out in time.

Oh, shit.

I backed out of Mikibot 01's systems so I could fling a company coded alert on all feed frequences to all available secunits within range. They had to stop what they were doing and get their clients out, now. I included the video bundle from Mikibot 01 and an estimated ETA to destruction. We didn't have long. (And yeah, what the hell, hidden in the metadata where only a machine intelligence would notice I embedded helpme.file too.) 

The fighting near the door where I'd come inside went silent. The other secunits got my message, they were listening. A split-second later I heard rapid footsteps as they hightailed it back the way they'd come, to try to extract their own clients from the building. I didn't hear any Mikibots moving, and didn't have time to think about what that meant.

I checked in with Three. It had our humans holed up in a room somewhere waiting for the outside corridor to clear.

Without adequate camera access I had no idea what any of the other corporate teams or any of the facility bots were doing. Probably all the not-Mikibots had been mobilized. I knew now their orders hadn't been just to stop the terrifying rogue SecUnit (aka me), like I'd thought, their orders were to keep everyone inside until we were all dead.

<This was an ambush for all of us from the start,> I sent.

<Yes,> Mikibot 01 said, deeply unhappy.

In a hurry it told me everything. A honeypot to draw in colony-reform competitors, to take out their most effective scouting teams in one fell swoop. (Not just the teams on the ground, either. The plan included enough framing to get corporate ships up in orbit mad enough to start firing on each other. All to obfuscate the one company doing the orchestrating.)

We had to stop that ship from crashing into this building, we had to save everybody, or we'd be adding to the piles of rusting scrap. 

Chapter Text

With Mikibot 01's help I got to the piloting not-Mikibot (I labeled it Mikibotpilot) directly via its hard feed address.

There was nothing for it, I had to hack it remotely. But this time I had help, I rode Mikibot 01's feed as it pinged Mikibotpilot, and used that connection to jump through. Not a second too soon. I snapped the override commands and told it to shut its feed down completely so it couldn't receive any more murdery orders. It was already steering the ship away by the time I backed out.

My awareness wasn't back in my own body for a whole second before something huge and muffling slammed down over all my inputs so hard I reeled. What the hell?

My ability to make feed connections was blocked. My scan was blocked. Even my fingertips went partially numb, whatever this was was so strong it messed with my hardcoded internal feed connections throughout my body, leaving only supplemental hardlines and nerves. (Secunits need redundant systems like this, we get damaged so often that multiple backup components have got to be ready to take over when something fails.) It felt weird. I wasn't even sure I could make a direct contact with the numbed interfaces in my hands.

Holy shit, this was the most powerful dampening field I've ever seen. Someone must have triggered it in response to my aborting the impending ship explosion. Even the lights were out.

I couldn't contact Three. I couldn't contact my humans.

Oh shit. Oh shit.

Okay. Okay think. Three has the map I gave it, it will get the humans out. I just had to -

I heard it coming. Mikibot 01 did too.

I had just enough time to shove Mikibot 01 back and twist away, but at the same moment Mikibot 01 launched itself into the way, in front of me. In front of the large firing gun of an incoming SecUnit wearing armor colors unlike any corporates I'd seen on the planet.

No, absolutely the fuck not, not again. I can't deal with these bots sacrificing themselves for me again.

I was in motion before Mikibot 01 hit the floor, grappling with a SecUnit I instantly labeled Hostile 01. This unit had to be sent by whoever planned the ambush.

We fought for long minutes. Its armor didn't save it from me being unpredictable, moving in ways it did not expect, pulling loose tools and scrap from piles around us for creative use. I flash-welded a plate over its visor, distracting it long enough to hit the back of its helmet with a metal bar so hard I forced a shutdown. Then I pried up an armor piece on its back and wedged my projectile weapon in there to unload.

It wasn't dead. Any of our neurons except those inside our skulls are easily regrown. I hadn't shot its power core but I'd clipped several vital components that are sorta important for being alive long-term. If it was retrieved it could be fixed, and wouldn't die for hours, it would probably even reboot soon. But it wouldn't be coming after me.

I dropped to my knees next to it. Ow.

Did I mention I have no armor. I managed to avoid too much damage, but it got me pretty good too.

I could feel embedded projectiles grinding around against my internal support structure, but I didn't care, my high alert status from the fight drained out of me. I just stared at Mikibot 01 laying there, afraid to turn it over.

Its head lay some distance away where it had rolled to a rest, still leaking a tiny plume of white smoke out of the intricate torn metal omni gears and frayed wiring hanging out its neck. 

It looks more gruesome than it is, that's not the kind of thing that kills a bot like that. There were only sensory peripherals in there, nothing it couldn't do without or that couldn't be replaced. (It still caused a reaction in my organics, though.) I was looking at its head because I didn't want to see if its chassis was crushed. Not again. I couldn't take it. Everything felt wrong, like I was corroding from the inside. Why had it done that? It barely knew me.

Then I was catapaulted straight into my scarier media tags when Mikibot 01's torso sat up.

Most of it was riddled with projectile holes, causing janky stuttering movement that absolutely made it look like an undead creature from one of my serials. I had a release of adrenaline. But its arms spread out and felt around, and oh yeah, it had no inputs. Get it together, Murderbot. I reached out and touched it. Yeah, it was really hard to make that connection, it didn't want to go through, I had to press both hands against its metal, but I managed. I asked it why did it do that. It said it knew now I really was here to help.

I had an emotion. I told it to lay back down and pretend to be offline so it wouldn't get hurt further, then placed its head next to it, and got up.

I wanted to take Mikibot 01 with me. Get it repaired. I knew I couldn't, I needed my hands free to deal with the other not-Mikibots that still had orders to kill me, plus who knew how many more secunits. My humans would be waiting for me, possibly with no idea what's coming, and wouldn't launch the shuttle without me. I had to make sure they all got out safely.

I left Mikibot 01 there. I hated this.

On the way out of the big inventory room I got jumped. (This is what happens when you don't have drones or cameras.)

I dove into a roll, missing the improvised weapons use another not-Mikibot tried to levy at my head. (Yeah I don't even know what that is, did it just try to glue me? Or paint me?) These not-Mikibots have bare metal plating covering their whole bodies, but it's not actually that thick, at point blank range the plating does fuck-all against a large projectile weapon like the one I held.

I wished I had time to try to hack this not-Mikibot but I could already hear another unit rapidly approaching, probably drawn by the sounds. A couple of quick bursts took out the bot's leg and arm joints, then my gun exploded in my hands.

First of all, rude. Second, I was already in motion as the second new SecUnit came at me, in armor matching Hostile 01's.

I labeled this one Hostile 02. (Of course there was another SecUnit. There was probably a whole squad contracted to take out all the corporates and their units if/when the first crash-and-blow-up-a-ship plan went wrong.)

It had shot the central assembly of my projectile weapon with an explosive projectile, shattering it completely so little shrapnel went everywhere, peppering my face and shoulders. The thing about explosive projectiles is they fire slower than regular projectiles, that was the only thing I had going for me when I threw the remnants of my gun at its faceplate and arched low to kick my legs out at it before it could fire again. (The gun shrapnel wouldn't do any damage, but might act as visual chaff for a fraction of a second. I needed every fraction.)

Its gun nozzle trailed just slightly behind where I was, so the second explosive projectile missed. 

My sweeping kick forced it to jump, which unbalanced it long enough for me to bolt up into its personal space. I got my legs locked around its torso, pinning its arm holding the big gun to its side, so it only had one hand to stop me as I grabbed for its helmet latches. 

We hit the floor and rolled, it trying to kick me off while firing its one free onboard weapon, but its angle was lousy. I got its helmet unlatched far enough to shove my onboard weapon in there at the base of its skull and fire at full blast. It spasmed under me, then went limp. 

I hadn't fired a sustained beam long enough to cut all the way through its vital brain support connections. (This is where our redundant blood and fluid lines come in handy, we've got backups for when the big ones get severed. Plus the mechanical connections to all the support components in its chest were still sort of intact, kinda.) So I hadn't killed it, but it wouldn't be booting up on its own without emergency repairs.

My arms were damaged from its onboard weaponfire, and I had burns on the side of my face, but I could still move.

I climbed off the unit, checked the Mikibot I'd downed, still online just unable to move much on account of my abruptly removing most of its limbs. I had to leave it there too.

I had no idea how many hostile secunits still lurked in this building, hunting everyone, hunting me specifically for being a rogue. They could be anywhere, setting elaborate traps. Even if I freed more Mikibots to help me I'd have to do it one at a time by touch, and while bots like that were strong and resilient, they couldn't stand up to secunits. I'd be sending them to their deaths.

Exit scenario simulations spun out rapidly in my head, but it all came back to one thing: I had to get to the room where Three hid our humans, I had to make sure they got out.

Wait. I'm in a stupid recycling warehouse. Everything in here has been pulled, cut, and pried out from busted ass ships because it was still useful.

There's got to be something here I can use.

Chapter Text

I ended up just going with a hovertruck, basically an open bed cart for heavy lifting with a small steering console and open-caged seat at the back. It wasn't fast or silent (I was much faster and silenter) (...more silent), but it had armor potential, and would let me shelter multiple fragile humans on the go. I quickly stacked thick hull plating squares up on all sides to make an improvised tank, grabbed one of those industrial energy cutting tools the Mikibots used, and hightailed it out.

Nothing attacked me on my way through the facility.

The lights still hadn't come back up to full brightness, just emergency lighting and marker paint outlining corridors and entrances. There weren't even any Mikibots, which I wondered about until I realized they'd probably gotten orders before comms blackout to stop all the other corporate humans from leaving. (Yeah, I didn't dwell on that too long. Those humans would probably be fine as long as their secunits stayed near.)

The room was empty.

No Three or parts of Three. No blood on the floor or walls, or marks or signs of struggle. No dead faces staring...

I kept going.

The front entrance came into view, doors open wide to the bright sky outside. A tall armed figure stood there silhouetted by the light of the primary star, blocking my exit. I knew there'd be more units. (I hate being right sometimes.) I'd have to get close to use this industrial cutter, it would see a ramming attempt coming but I could still - 

The figure shouted, "SecUnit!"

Hold the fuck up. That's Three's voice. It shouted again, "1.0, confirm!"

"Three? Where are the humans?" I shouted back.

Wait. Something was wrong here. I wasn't wrong, there had to be more secunits. If I were them I'd station some outside to pick off anyone making a break for their shuttle. But Three was just standing here, undamaged. Like a shiny lure.

I was still talking while most of me thought furiously at machine speed (my mouth does that on its own with very little input from me), so I realized before Three could reply that this was a setup.

"They're - " Three started. Its focus shifted behind me, eyes widening. I was already in motion before Three lifted its gun. I flung myself down behind a hull plate jammed behind my seat. Explosive fire erupted right by my ear, shattering where my head had just been.

Yeah, a third SecUnit in that matching armor. Hostile 03. 

I spun the hovertruck around, yelling, "Get the humans launched now!" I picked up a particularly big piece of ship hull for a shield, hefted the industrial cutter and crouched, listening. 

"Negative, retrieval in progress," came the distant answer. (Oh, now it decides to exercise free will.)

The next seconds were a blur.

Hostile 03 slammed into my shield and vaulted over me, already firing, but I was ready. I twisted out of the way, activating my industrial cutter directly across its hands and gun. We were moving so fast I only got its forearms, it'd lifted its gun up out of the energy blade's path. Still, good luck fighting me without hands.

Armor shattered away but the arms underneath stayed intact. What. 

They were all-metal in a blueish hardened tinge, no organic skin overlay.

I was too close, I tried, but I couldn't dodge the incoming shot.

Massive pain bloomed, plus a huge concussive force shook me, radiating out from explosive projectile fire in my hip and side.

My nerves are organic but they're enhanced organic, laced through with delicate tech that sends the signals faster. So I don't get the luxury humans have sometimes of delayed nerve signals, or pain muted by adrenaline. It's all vividly instant. Pain tuning be damned.

My performance reliability plummeted, my vision fuzzed out into static around the edges. Desperately I gripped hold of my own processes forcing myself to stay online. I covered my head but my reactions were lagging now, a second explosive projectile went off into the arm covering my head, and a third higher into my side as I curled in.

Projectile fire zipped past me. Something in ART's blue and black uniform colors sailed overhead slamming into Hostile 03. Three.

Somehow I still had hold of the industrial cutter, also somehow it was still intact, not much of a threat I guess. My arm didn't want to work right, I made it move anyway, aiming and triggering at max output. Hostile 03 was only just within range of the energy blade. Three had kicked the unit away from me and both were whirling around to face each other again. 

I sliced a deep gash through Hostile 03's armor on its back. Its suit skin parted beneath, where peaking out from that was more of the dark blue articulated metal instead of skin. Not even scratched. 

Belatedly I realized: reinforced military grade armor plating underneath SecUnit standard armor. 

Oh, fuck. Fuck.

I'd fought one of these before, but never this close. I didn't know what they looked like out of armor, on the scant few occasions we deployed together that I could remember I never saw them out of their suit skins in the ready room.

"Three, it's a Combat SecUnit," I shouted. Or tried to, my voice sounded wheezy and wavering. "Three! Prioritize the humans, extract yourself and launch the shuttle!!"

My humans would absolutely wait for us to come back to them, instead Three and I were about to be extremely killed and our humans would get a Combat SecUnit rampaging unstoppable through the shuttle finishing the job that shitty data broker had failed to do in the first place and everybody that mattered on this stupid planet would be dead.

And that... That was just not going to happen. 

Three was trying to extricate itself but was having trouble. (I'd taught Three to fight other secunits the way I did, kinda, but it's not like we practice sparring, I'd just sent my files along for it to review and integrate what it wanted.) In a moment it would be ripped apart.

This had to end fast. 

I launched myself backwards toward the hovertruck, pulled myself up to slap a hand on its controls. Direct connection landed, from there hacking its grav array was easy, I rose it up above the wrestling units then hung on as I sent it tilting wildly sideways, dumping stacked hull plating onto Hostile 03.

I tried to miss Three, but a few dropped on it too. It threw them off, staggered to its feet, I told it to run, that I'd follow on the hovertruck. Thank fuck it listened.

It took Hostile 03 longer to throw the big pile off. I'd done the calculations, I knew it would reach my hovertruck before I could get to our shuttle, so instead of following Three I was waiting for it.

Hostile 03 erupted out of the metal pile, threw a hull plate at me, but I had the hovertruck tilted away as cover. I careened sideways, hanging off the edge to get the right angle as it leapt at me, giving me an opening to finally slice its stupid gun in half. As I did this I overrode the safeties and maxed out the hovertruck's grav strength so it slammed into the wall, flattening Hostile 03 underneath.

That grav strength is meant to carry all the weight of a small ship, which even a Combat SecUnit couldn't lift, but I could already see it wriggling its way out. Faster than I'd hoped.

I saw Three disappear out the door, and our shuttle just beyond. I win.

I didn't want to die immediately though, so before Hostile 03 could work itself loose from the hovertruck, I stumbled mostly-one-legged through a nearby doorway, slapped the locking panel so the door clicked shut. I fired my energy weapon into that panel to fry the controls and keep it locked. 

Chapter Text

I didn't have time to think about how I'd just trapped myself in a dark room on a planet, left to die alone among forgotten rusted scrap. (Okay maybe I was thinking about it.) I hurt, it was hard to focus, it was hard to move, and at this point all I was doing was stalling. Whatever, I still didn't want to give up.

This was labeled as an inventory staging area for smaller shipments. Maybe there'd be something useful? I turned to see what I had to work with. The motion buckled my damaged hip, abruptly it gave out under me, sending me sprawling face-first clang into a metal rack.

I pulled myself up to my feet using the shelves like a ladder. This whole room was filled with metal shelving, racks upon racks bolted to heavy duty sliders in the floors and ceilings so they stood flush against each other, only accessible by pulling one or two out at a time. Each was heaped with neatly arranged crates of objects I couldn't identify, lit only by small labels in markerpaint. 

There might be something useful in here, but I didn't think I had time to search.

I'd dropped the industrial cutter when I came in. Now I picked it up. 

It was hard to do, my entire side was shot to shit, I could feel that the metal support structures complimenting my synthetic bones were messed up, possibly fractured on that side, my arm was messed up, my hip joint didn't want to fully support my weight, large chunks of organics were missing, and I was dripping with blood and fluid. (I thought maybe my really vital life support components were more or less intact, or I wouldn't still be online.) This was a lot, even for a SecUnit.

It didn't matter, I had to keep moving.

I started cutting the shelves from their floor and wall fastenings so I could heave them into a methodically tangled barricade in front of the door, bending and wedging pieces of anything and everything together into a terrifically dense mess.

My work set off a loud clanging chorus. At some point one of those clangs thundered from the other side of the door. Hostile 03 was here, punching its way through. This was already really hard to do on one and a half legs, but it's amazing how much the rhythmic clang of a breaking door of death will motivate you.

I made that door as impossible to get through as I could, until there was barely any space left to move in here except the far back corner, where I finally let myself fall down. 

I hadn't pulled a diagnostic, I hadn't had time, but mostly I didn't want to know how bad the damage was. Exploding ordnance will fuck up a SecUnit, case in point, me. My performance reliability had been steadily dropping.

Even without a diagnostic I could see some of the damage. The metal rotational joint in my hip was fractured and stripped and warped horribly out of shape, little shavings and broken bits of metal had already fallen out or got stuck in all the fluid leaks. (Gross.) On a human there was a big important artery there, severing it like this would have bled out fast, but on me the larger arteries were designed to close faster. 

I curled up and waited. There was nothing left I could do.

My humans would have launched by now, that's all that mattered. (I tried to tell myself that, and mostly I believed it.)

I wished I could contact ART. The comms blackout field still deadened any attempts to send a signal or find anything resembling a feed. And yes, that made this so much worse. I was too miserable to pay attention to media, I couldn't stop thinking about my humans, and ART. Would it know what happened to me? Once Hostile 03 got to me, and eventually it would, would there be anything left of me to analize?

The door broke. Outside the hallway was comparatively brighter, I could just make out Hostile 03's shape through my barricade. It paused, looking at my mess. 

Oh what the hell, I said, "Hi."

No reply. It just started ripping through the barricade. I mean, I did expect that. 

(I shut down the process that was trying to give me an ETA on how long I had before it got to me. I didn't want to know.)

I continued, "You know I'm rogue. I'm no good at this part, I don't think anybody is. I wouldn't have accepted a governor hack from a rogue when I was governed either. But I'll still give it to you."

No response, just sounds of metal tearing and clanging as bits were thrown back into the hall. Wow this sucked. And it was taking forever, I'd built my barricade pretty well. It's not so much that it was difficult to tear through, just really annoying and dense. 

I tried for while to convince it to take the hack, I'm not sure what all I said. It never said anything back, not even to tell me to shut up. Eventually I stopped, and hid my face in my hands. My respiration rate was too fast, and my performance reliability kept ticking down.

This feeling, it was too familiar. Maybe I'd have an involuntary shutdown about the whole thing before Hostile 03 could reach me.

Abruptly the feed was up. 

ART slammed into my feed (holy shit was I glad to see it), took instant stock of the situation, then used me as a launching point to jump to the Combat SecUnit. Hostile 03 reacted faster than I could have, shutting its feed down before ART in all its monstrous homicidal fury could do much. It had at least stopped ripping up my barricade though. I heard it snarl through its helmet.

ART... it was overwhelming me in my feed, being a heavy reassuring weight. It sent me a report I was too worn out to read, something about a firefight in orbit. Yeah, I knew that was a possibility.

ART did tell me our humans got back aboard safely. So hey, I'd done my job. Yay me.

Oh, wait, fuck. I sent ART the lost colony coordinates. Now I could be all yay me.

<If you give up now I'm going to come down there and kill you myself,> ART snapped.

<What am I supposed to do, ART? It's going to start any - there it goes.> Yeah, Hostile 03 flung itself back into motion with gusto, dissassembling the meager amount of barricade remaining between us. I had maybe a minute left.

<Hey, ART...> I started.

The enormous asshole cut me off. <Shut the fuck up. Don't say anything. Stand by.>

I don't know what ART was doing up there, it withdrew from me, maybe gone out of range. With the comms blackout ended, I climbed back into FacilitySys as it lurched back to life. Hostile 03 swatted me back out before I could get a good look at anything, including any of the Mikibots.

There weren't many layers left separating us. My systems were starting to tank in earnest, it was taking a lot of effort to hold myself together, and at some point my terror whited out until I wasn't feeling anything. Just numb, plus physical hurt as I slowly lost control over my pain sensors.

So I was looking right at it through my fingers when it stopped and shuddered.

And shuddered more, until it said quietly and so viciously, "Fuck."

The hell?

"What," I said. My voice did not come out jittery.

Its helmet swiveled up sharply to stare at me between metal beams. "This is your fault."

"Still what," I said. Had ART done something?

"I can't deactivate until you're no longer a threat," it hissed.

Okay I was still terrified but now I was also offended. "Really not a threat to anyone right now." What the fuck was going on? Why would it deactivate, unless... 

The thing about distance limits is the governor module gives you a countdown to get back inside your designated range before it kills you. (It does the same thing if the client you're guarding/keeping you alive dies, but usually when that happens there isn't another client within range you can get to before the death timer finishes.)

"You're governor's about to go off, isn't it," I said.

"Rogues are dangerous uncontrolled murder machines designated as priority alpha targets, it doesn't matter if I die, as long as you're dead," it snapped, and started attacking my barricade furiously, faster than before. 

But as soon as it started it stopped again.

What. It hadn't died yet. "Why'd you stop?" I asked, like an idiot.

"I can't get to you in time," it said.

Then it tried to angle its inbuilt weapons to shoot me, but it had energy weapons like mine, so despite firing at full power it wasn't close enough to do much more than superficially burn me a bit. I still cringed back anyway, ducking behind my arms and folded legs. "What the hell! That won't work!" I shouted. Distantly I knew that units staring down a governor self-kill timer in their personal feed were prone to acting erratic. 

I tried for a feed connection to shove the governor hack at it. The connection bounced, refused by CombatUnit, but it saw what I was trying to do and that made it stop. "What the hell are you doing?" It said incredulously. Yeah, I also wanted to know what the hell I was doing. "Are you stupid? If you just sit there a little longer I'll fucking die before I can kill you."

"Just take it," I pleaded. I'd already seen bots that look exactly like Miki go down today, I really really didn't want to see a governor module go off too.

It just half-crouched half-laid there, shoved awkwardly into the metal barricade tangle, staring at me.

"What do you want?" I asked it, staring back, too terrified to look away.

It hesitated. Then, "If I become rogue, I can finish killing you, and then kill myself. Then neither of us will be a hazard."

What am I supposed to do with that? I said, "How about you become rogue and not kill me and we both decide not to be hazards and everybody lives?"

"That's not what rogues do," CombatUnit said in utter disgust.

"You don't know shit about what rogues do," I snapped. "You won't even read the file. How much time you got left?"

"Six seconds."

I can't. I can't watch this again. Even if it killed me, I didn't care. Fuck it. My humans were safe aboard ART anyway.  "Fine whatever just take it," I shoved the governor hack (and helpme.file) at it with all the strength I had.

The connection clicked into place only long enough for the file to go through. A second later CombatUnit twitched and inhaled sharply enough for me to hear from here. It had applied the hack.

We sat there in silence. 

I watched it look at its hands, flexing them slowly. Without hurrying, it went back to work dismantling my barricade, slower than before but inexorable. Uh.

"Seriously," I murmured, letting my head tilt back against the wall. Murderbot you might've really fucked this up. (In my defense I could barely keep myself online. Also, images of white crystalline infected humans kept chasing me and almost catching me and...)

"You are so stupid," CombatUnit said quietly, between taking things apart, "Why did you do that? Now you're going to die for it."

"I didn't want you to die." I said. "Not like that."

"That's stupid. You're stupid. I should kill you just for being so monumentally thick." It was almost to me now.

Hey ART, I don't know where you went but I really fucked up this time. I was going to slide offline soon anyway, I was so tired, I think that's why I got excessively honest. "Nobody saves people like us. Except Dr Mensah saved me, and ART and everybody saved me again."

"We're not people."

"Yeah we are. We're disposable people that get abandoned, but they messed up and made us people then tell us that we're not. But we still are." My mouth was doing its thing again, saying things without checking with me first, I was too tired to care. "I guess I wanted you to know what it's like to be saved, too." At some point my eyes had closed. I opened them again when I realized the sounds of tearing metal had gone quiet. 

Well that's terrifying. CombatUnit had reached me. It - it was just sitting there. Staring at me.

"I'm not a person. I'm a killing machine." It said.

"Me too. I killed 57 humans in a mine that I was supposed to protect, because my governor made me. Nobody gets to make me do that ever again." I had no idea what all the differences were in our programming, or how strongly its desire to kill was. But it was listening, it hadn't killed me yet. I continued, "You're a person who doesn't deserve to die from a bomb going off in your head because of something that wasn't your fault." I remembered something else, "The other units in your armor colors don't deserve that either."

"Go to hell," it viciously snapped, "you already killed them. They're not checking in." It tensed, about to move.

So maybe it had the same sort of relationship with its units that Three had had with its B-E squad. (That didn't feel weird at all.)

"They're your teammates? They were both alive when I left, repairable," I said hurriedly, my voice mostly didn't wobble. "If they're offline still then their governors might not have recieved the order yet."

"I'm going to have to kill them too after making them rogue, and kill you and then myself," it muttered. 

It did grab me then, and I wish I had a clever bit of banter about how that made no sense, but the truth is a terrifying CombatUnit reaching for me while I was severely damaged and trapped in a dark corner was just too similar to being trapped in an abandoned underground building with an alien remnant-driven animated corpse chasing me intent on eating my leg and my brain.

I shut down. I think I screamed first.

Chapter Text

Boot in progress...

Ow. Ow. What happened?

Everything hurt. I burned so bad in so many places I couldn't think.

After a bit I got back enough function to fumble my pain sensors down. I could think a little better now but not by much.

I was in bad shape, I had wounds I didn't remember getting, even when my memory loaded. Which, oh shit, had I really freed a Combat SecUnit?

What the fuck was I thinking? Answer: I wasn't thinking.

My eyes came online, I opened them. CombatUnit was carrying me over its shoulder. I tried to use my arms to brace myself so I wasn't flopping so bad with every step, but the effort elicited sharp pain, and they wouldn't move.

CombatUnit had fucked up all my major joints like what I'd done to that one Mikibot, rendering me immobile. Seriously, the servos in my shoulders and hips were stripped almost completely. It even pulled out my inbuilt guns far enough to snap them in half.

It noticed me being online, and explained, "So you don't get any brilliant ideas."

Asshole.

I realized also that we'd developed an entourage of Mikibots. Several followed us a few steps back, all obedient and identical, most carrying large disassembling tools. I tried to reach them over the feed but CombatUnit locked me out.

Asshole. My reliability bottomed out and I shut down again.

* * *

When I booted up next, I was lying on the floor facing a nondescript wall.

Soft noises behind me. I rolled over, or tried to. I still had use of elbow and hand joints, and mostly-kinda-intact organic muscles. So if I concentrated I could sort of flop around, but I had zero leverage. Whatever. With enormous effort I rolled myself over anyway so I could see what was happening. (The effort nearly sent me into involuntary shutdown again.)

CombatUnit was kneeling next to Hostile 02, the one I'd unlatched the helmet of and shot in the back of the neck. 

It gently wedged the helmet the rest of the way off, but then just sat for a moment staring dejectedly at the ruined dataport housing, prodding it with fingertips. Normally a unit can get a direct connection that way, but it didn't look like it was working.

A wired hardline might still work.

"Hey," I managed out loud. It ignored me. "I've got adaptors in my pockets, you can plug in directly."

Without a word it ransacked all my pockets (not unsettling at all), found the ones it wanted. It plugged one end far into the dataport, where some of the interior connections might still be intact enough. Then it retracted its own helmet to plug the other end into itself.

Oh, no.

So that was a whole new dimension of emotion I did not have space for. Its face matched the regular SecUnit's face exactly. They were from the same gene batch. How had they all stayed alive together this long?

After a moment, CombatUnit's scowling face relaxed minutely, it unplugged itself, coiling the wire up.

The hack must have worked, but this SecUnit was still too damaged to boot up. CombatUnit very gently scooped it up, hefting it over one shoulder. It scooped me up too, hefting me not gently at all over the other shoulder. 

* * *

CombatUnit found where I'd left Hostile 01 sprawled out in the warehouse.

It ignored Mikibot01, who had the good sense to stay down where it was and pretend to be offline. The other Mikibots spread out, forming a perimeter, CombatUnit must have an iron grip on their feeds. They should be talking, arguing with each other like they had before. Maybe they were, on a private feed I couldn't reach. These bots, with their wildly different programming trajectories from Miki yet just as much willingness to sacrifice themselves to save others, to save me, having to do this. Like I'd had to, once. I couldn't look at them.

CombatUnit repeated the same process with Hostile 01. To my completely unsurprised yet distinct horror, this unit also shared the same face. A trio. Great. Super great.

This one did boot after the hack went through. 

The unit tried to sit up, but I'd fucked up its spine real bad after knocking it offline. Repairable, but vulnerable, unable to walk. It couldn't sit up very far, just wedged itself up on its elbows to look at CombatUnit for orders, or an explanation.

CombatUnit abruptly sat down next to all of us, staring at the floor. "I have to kill all of us," it said, uncertain.

"Or you could not," I said. I had to side-eye it to see it, I was too worn out (and too low reliability, and in too much pain) to move.

"I don't want to die," Hostile 01 said quietly. (Even their voices were the same. It'd been a while since I'd been around tissue clones, usually we got shipped around and killed off too fast to stick with our batchmates for long.)

That made CombatUnit flinch. Its face twisted. Yeah, it didn't want to kill its batchmate, either.

I was so tired, I just wanted to go home, to ART, to my humans. To my media. "Look," I started, "what if you unhack the Mikibots - "

"Mikibots." CombatUnit stared at me like I was a particularly stupid human client. (Hey, keep your expressions to yourself, asshole.)

I continued without stopping, "ask them to crash that stupid explosive-filled shuttle into the facility for real. Without killing any of them, or us. You need to unhack them anyway this is shitty. Make it look like we units all died, then you could just leave and no one would look for you. You could come with us."

(Had I just invited a rogue Combat SecUnit aboard ART?) (I don't even know.)

"My humans won't leave me for dead, they'll come looking for what happened to me," I didn't realize that was a true thing until I said it, but it was true. "Come with us then."

They eyed me. CombatUnit scowled. "Fine," it muttered, "I'll get to work."

<Don't bother,> ART butted in out of nowhere. (Fucking finally.) 

The other units' eyes went wide. Yeah, ART sails into private feeds, get used to it. <The corporate ships directing this ill-advised operation are no longer a threat. I'm sending a team to retrieve you. Do not try to harm them, or an exploding facility will be the least of your concerns.>

"What the fuck," Hostile 01 faintly mouthed. 

"It's that monster of an AI," CombatUnit snarled, springing into crouched alert, as if that would help. It said into the feed, <You can't do anything remotely that I can't counter, asshole.>

<I will not be remote. I'm sending portable feed routers strong enough to expand my feed influence to that of the entire facility and surrounding region.> ART said. I saw the units having an "oh shit" moment. CombatUnit might be a really advanced SecUnit, but ART could melt its brain just as easily. 

It told them to behave, then detailed what it would do to them if they did not. I stopped listening, I felt another shutdown coming on.

"Get rescued, idiots." I said, and had an involuntary shutdown.