Archive of Our Own ^beta

This is not good.

I've been in a lot of not-good situations, but this one is up there. 

The human beside me whimpers and shakes every time one of the CombatBot’s fists collides with the blast doors. In her defence, she's not the only one that shakes when that happens. It feels as if the entire station shakes when that happens. 

“Oh, God,” she warbles in a high-pitched voice. “It– it's not going to kill me. It's going to kill you and then it's going to take me, then I'm going to wish I was dead because—”

“You are not going to die,” I dismiss, before she can get any further. I am busy inspecting the area outside our closed room back in the embarkation floor promenade on my remaining drone feeds. We are trapped in one side of a U-shaped indent to the thirty story station tower, and our shuttle is on the top floor. With the lift pods stopped and alarms blaring, there is no way to get there even if an engaged CombatBot was not in our way. “I am not going to die, either.”

“What are you going to do against that?!” she wails. She lets go of my hand to cover her head and appears dangerously close to sliding to the floor to go catatonic with fear. I have to keep that in mind in my calculations now, because I might have to carry her out of here. “You're one SecUnit! Even a high-calibre one like you can't take that!”

“I am friends with a budget model rental unit who destroyed two CombatBots in the same encounter,” I dismiss. “Your assumptions are faulty.”

The face she makes is so bewildered and confused that I think she has forgotten for a moment to be frightened. That's good. Maybe it will stay that way.

On my drone feeds I can see that there are no more humans present on the floor. It's just us and the CombatBot. Us, the CombatBot, and the blast doors that are rapidly losing integrity. 

I suppose we had reached that point.

Charon, I say over private feed.

Confirm contact. Awaiting instruction.

Engage.

Fuck yes

I let myself take a moment to regret the decision before smothering it and replacing it with confidence. The decision has been made and cannot be unmade now. Mission success relies on trusting the other components of ones’ unit to fulfill their parameters. No other contingency can be considered. 

Styx, says Charon over the group feed. The drone I’ve left near the shuttle watches the hatch begin to cycle. Deploy playlist.

Deploying playlist, sir!  

I take another moment to regret the decision, actually. 

Then the hatch opens and Charon bursts forth at its top speed. At the same time, one of the high-BPM songs that it and Styx listen to a little too often starts playing over the actual mission feed.

I am distracted from telling them off for this by the blast door finally collapsing and unmooring from its hinges. The technician beside me begins to shriek in the kind of blind panic that humans always do when they have passed the point of their own self-sufficiency. I will officially need to carry her. 

As it reaches forward– oh, she was right, it is actually planning to take her rather than kill her– I watch Charon reach the edge of the landing that surrounds the thirty story drop to our location. It does not hesitate as it leaps over the railing and leaves my drone’s eyesight. I can now hear its music overhead with my ears, quietly at first but rapidly increasing in volume. 

The CombatBot is initially unconcerned and I fire two shots at it to keep its attention, but its sensors realize with seconds to spare what it is that's quickly descending upon it. It spins around and locks into a defensive stance a little too late, just as my CombatUnit finally lands, striking the bot in the chest at terminal velocity. 

Jesus fucking Christ.

A fall like that would have destroyed every component in my body and probably blown me to pieces in the process, but CombatUnits really are built differently. Not to mention how much more durable and powerful its armour is than any SecUnit's I've ever met. It is a little embarrassing to think back to when we initially met and I had earnestly believed that I stood a chance against it when I tackled it into its shuttle. I had thought Perihelion was being dramatic when it suggested destroying the shuttle and retrieving 1.0 from the debris rather than allow a CombatUnit to board. In other circumstances, that may actually have been the best call.

The CombatBot slams back into the floor so hard that it caves in nearly a half-meter and part of its armour crumples. The boom is so loud I lose all audio input for a full three seconds, time that I would be using to retrieve our client if it did not feel as if the entire station had just trembled.

Beyond the now non-existent doors are the sounds of loud music and active combat. I grab our client and determine that she is unable to assist herself. Fireman's carry it is, then.

When I sprint free of our fallback position I take a moment to be glad I deployed Charon, because I deserve it. It is on the ground now maneuvering out of the way of spread fire, and despite the fact its opponent has four arms with projectile weapons in them, it is able to continuously dissuade it from neutralizing me while I am still within range to do so. The targeted use of sustained energy weapon fire is impressive, if not a little annoying. Neither 1.0 nor I are equipped with power cores capable of supporting that kind of output, and it's a little frustrating to see that it simply does not have to worry about its own power core exploding no matter what it does. I do not believe it always appreciates how fortunate it is for its construction. I'm sure that 1.0 never stops being annoyed by it. 

Not that Perihelion would not reconstruct it with the same level of quality if it were capable of doing so. I'm certain that one day it will figure it out, and when that day comes, may we all be prepared for a nigh-unkillable SecUnit who still thinks of itself as a disposable piece of crap. 

By the time I reach the nearest lift pod, I have not managed to break through the CombatBot’s control over its systems and reactivate them. Wonderful.

Charon, I say over the insufferable volume. Lift pods.

It taps my feed, and just like that, the lift pods reactivate. Wonderful. I'm certain that this will have no effect on its ego. I kick in the door and slam it shut behind me, instructing the pod to go to the top floor at its top speed. I have the foresight to send the other pod down to the bottom to retrieve Charon on its return, but for all I know, it intends to scale the damn wall by itself.

On the ride up I get a good view through my remaining drones of Charon’s fight with the CombatBot. It is fast, hard, and somewhat frightening. During the few encounters that I allow it to leave the ship and engage directly in missions or combat, it holds itself back, because it is still engaging enemies that are not near its combat specifications. This time, that is not so. It is not holding itself back. It is allowing strikes that would be fatal to me to glance off of it like nothing, then turning and delivering blows that could punch holes in starships without flinching. 

I ping Charon when I make visual contact with our shuttle to let it know I've arrived. Station security is more of a concern up here than it was downstairs, but I don't see them, so I can assume that Matteo and Niki were successful in distracting them. 

I’m inside when Charon contacts me again.

Styx is sending the second shuttle to get me, it informs me, instead of Styx for some reason, go.

Acknowledge, I say. I do not like this plan, but one must trust one’s allies in their fields of expertise. I may outrank it, but in combat I would never question it. So I don't.

I hope it doesn't get itself killed, though. 1.0 would be pissed. More pissed than it usually is.

“Launch,” I order.

Launching, sir! says Styx, voice nearly lost under the volume. I am going to talk to them about this when we are out of range. Keep the hyperpop to private feeds, please.

The shuttle undocks from the station, tearing through what remains of the locks that August had been tasked with cutting. I dump my client onto a padded bench where she continues to wheeze and gasp and make pitiful wet sobbing noises. She's still mid-panic attack, but she will survive. We have successfully extracted her without injury, which is frankly a shock, considering she'd already had a gun to her head when I'd broken down the door. 

Meanwhile, I have a projectile wound to the abdomen that has severed a primary fuel line, which is actually a problem. I ping the shuttle’s rudimentary MedSys to unfurl and work on it while August pilots. It speaks to the quality of my former company’s lowest-bid software development that a human’s skill outclasses my piloting module, and easily. Embarrassing. 

“Where's Charon??” asks Matteo. They sound frightened and I wonder if they think I'm going to say that it's dead.

“Styx is deploying its other shuttle to retrieve it,” I answer. “I guess it's having fun.”

That is not entirely fair, but I might be feeling a little envious and it might be leaking into my tone. 

“Can it wait that long?” they prompt.

“Yes,” I answer tersely. I am intimately aware that it can.

By the time we reach Styx, our client is finally breathing normally and is only sniffling intermittently. She is lucky to be alive, and she knows it. 

Dr. Pascal is, or was, a high level technician employed by Barish-Estranza research and development. She has recently discovered a conscience and attempted to speak publicly on the issue of construct rights, and was very nearly assassinated for her trouble. Something she should have expected, honestly. Fortunately for her, we did, and were close enough to this station after her broadcast to make it in time to save her life. She will be invaluable in the future, I'm sure, but I am not particularly endeared to her when she has spent her life thus far engineering better ways to torment and enslave people like me.

(It is still difficult to listen to her cry. I do not like hearing humans suffer, even ones I do not like. 1.0 often says that I am soft, but I know it feels the same.)

I allow the humans to whisk Dr. Pascal away to Medical when we dock. She has minor cuts and bruises as can be expected, but mostly she just needs treatment for shock. That is not something I can help with, but my stupid projectile wound means that I also need to go to Medical. I feel compelled to stay and wait for Charon to arrive, but the impulse is foolish. It would not help it. My time is better spent being repaired. 

I allow the humans to fret over Dr. Pascal for a few minutes before I can tell they are overwhelming her, and she is already overwhelmed. I give them instructions instead of simply telling them to go away. Humans respond much better when they think you need them to do something rather than that you need them to be not doing something else. They exit, and we are alone. 

“Thank you,” she chokes out eventually. She is sitting on a recovery bed against the wall, and I am laying on one of the platforms. “I don't– I don't even know you.”

“You know me,” I say, a little more testily than I would like. “I am the result of your work.”

If her face could pale further than it already has, it would. For a moment I think she is worried that I have retrieved her so that I can kill her myself. Humans think illogical things like that. I have more patience for it than 1.0 does, but not much.

“Ah,” she says, “you’re a BE model.”

“Yes,” I reply simply. 

That is what I am. Undeniably so.

Threat neutralized, Charon says in my feed. The music has stopped, thankfully. Incoming ETA 2:39.

You killed the fucking CombatBot? I reply. It did not need to do that to escape, and even though I told Dr. Pascal that 1.0 had killed two CombatBots, it had gotten lucky. Even Charon would have needed to get lucky to actually kill one.

I wish, lol. It’s floating in the vacuum right now, though, so I'm not super worried about it.

Good to hear. Status report.

Oh, uh, Styx says I damaged the framework of my legs.

You did fall thirty stories.

Yes. It was cool. 

It was cool, I am loathe to agree. Are you still vertical?

Yes. I require repairs, but they are not urgent. 

Anything else?

A projectile punctured one of my lungs, but I've sealed it off and the other is functioning fine.

Good. Report to MedSys on arrival.

…Is, uh… is she there?

Its feed voice is nervous. I understand why, but it will never stop being strange to hear it become so meek after just watching it do the things it did with so much enthusiasm and confidence. 

Yes, I reply. 

Can I wait until she's gone?

She's in shock. She's going to be here awhile. You need to get your lung repaired.

My other lung is functioning. It can wait.

Charon. It will be alright. She won't hurt you. You need to get your lung fixed.

I know she's not going to hurt me. She couldn't if she wanted to.

Exactly.

I just don't want to talk to her.

I know. I’ll be here. You don't have to be alone with her.

…Okay.

Again. I understand why, but it still feels so strange that it is more frightened of women than it is of CombatBots. 

It likes our humans. It’s generally friendly and curious and it enjoys spending time with them. I can tell, though, that sometimes it is still uncomfortable around Dr. Zhao and Niki, even if it tries not to show it. I have already spoken to them about it and they give it space when it seems to need it. Niki was involved in Styx’s development and I get the feeling she sees Charon similarly and feels very protective of it.

“I'm sorry,” Pascal says, her voice thick and heavy. 

“I know,” I reply, and I do. She would not have done what she'd done if she wasn't. She may not have expected assassination, but she knew that she was throwing her life away when she told the press that constructs were sentient and governor modules were slavery. It is not conducive to my goals to hold her responsible for my own suffering. It is difficult not to, though.

“I didn't want to make– the things I made,” she stumbles. She means me. She didn't want to make things like me. “I wanted to make prosthetics.”

“Well, now you can make amends,” I say. I think it is a pretty good line. I save the recording to show 1.0 later. It loves a good one-liner.

“I'll try,” she says in a small voice. I can feel her eyes on me, and like 1.0 would, I am watching her on a drone and looking away instead of at her. She is studying my abdomen where I'm being repaired.

“You’re an interface model,” she says. “The other one wasn't BE, though. Where are your teammates?”

I flinch. I have not thought about Units 1 and 2 in a long time. I do not like thinking about them. It never stops hurting, the yawning chasm in my chest where they used to live. 

“They’re dead,” I tell her flatly. “Unit 1 was killed by hostiles, and Unit 2 was killed when our clients were ordered to abandon it, and it hit range limit.”

“...Oh,” she says. 

“I am grateful I did not have to see its liquified brain leaking from its eye sockets,” I say. I'm getting mean, and I need to stop. “My name is Three. Not SecUnit Three, not Unit Three, Three.”

“...Yes,” she says uncomfortably. I am somewhat glad she is uncomfortable, but I wish that I wasn't. “Your construction is good. You must have been expensive.”

I don't know if she thinks that is a compliment or if she is just stupid, but I elect not to answer. I cannot think of anything to say that won't further negatively impact our relationship, and I need that more than I need catharsis.

On Styx’s camera feed I see the other shuttle dock and the hatch cycle open. Charon has a bit of a limp, but otherwise it appears to have reported its injuries accurately. That’s always good to see. 1.0 never reports its injuries accurately and it's always a pain to deal with. It stops to speak to Matteo before it continues down the hall toward Medical.

When MedSystem’s doors swish open, Charon steps inside, then falters nervously, glancing up at our guest.

“You!” she bursts as she sits up on the edge of the bed. Charon flinches. “You were incredible!” 

“Yeah,” it says warily, “thanks.”

“You're not Barish-Estranza,” she observes. 

“No,” it answers. It glances anxiously at me and I nod toward the second platform. It sits down as MedSys whirs to life to remove the projectiles in its back. “RepoLynx. Commissioned from Palisade on production contract.”

Huh. I hadn’t known that, but it made sense that RepoLynx didn’t produce their own units and instead commissioned them from other companies. Still, I don't like the object-talk. 

“That was amazing,” Dr. Pascal says reverently. “I've never seen a SecUnit move like that.”

“I'm not a—”

“Charon is very good at what it does,” I interrupt. “We’re lucky to have it.”

It looks a little relieved and a little flattered. Sometimes I think it thinks I dislike it, which isn't true. It just makes me weary. 

“I'm the lucky one,” she says. “You saved my life. And– um– Three’s life, too, I think. Thank you.”

“Okay,” says Charon, still looking away. It wriggles out of its bullet-torn jacket and then pulls its shirt over its head. MedSys begins to poke and prod at its back.

“Oh,” she says in surprise. “You're more inorganic than I expected.”

Charon looks uncomfortable and shifts awkwardly to the side. “Yes.”

“Dr. Pascal,” I say warningly. 

“I don't mean it as an insult!” she says quickly, completely misinterpreting me. “You're very handsome.”

Charon's eyes flash and it stands straight up and off the platform. One of MedSys arms is pulled right out of its back in a way that would have been painful for anyone else. 

“I’m going to come back later,” it says, and I'm not going to stop it this time. Dr. Pascal needs a talk, and Charon needs a break. Its lung can wait, at least until our guest knows how to be respectful. It grabs its shirt and yanks it over its head. 

“I'm sorry,” she repeats. She sounds desperate and confused. “Please, I just want you to know how grateful I am that—”

The fact that Styx’s MedSystem is actively holding my primary fuel line prevents me from moving quickly enough. I don't even realize what she's doing until it's too late to stop her, because it's such a monumentally stupid thing to do that it didn't even occur to me that she might try. 

She slides off the edge of her bed while Charon is busy getting its shirt back on and touches it.

It's only on its arm, but that doesn't really matter. I can barely fathom what has to be going on in a human’s brain to think it's a good idea to startle a visibly upset SecUnit she just saw jump thirty stories and then engage a CombatBot, but apparently it is going on in hers. This never would have happened if 1.0 was here. It’s so paranoid that it would have had this in its predictive model and it would have been actively prepared for it to happen. I hate it when I know that something would have gone better if 1.0 was here.

Charon lurches backward as its shirt falls into place, eyes wide and wild and cast into the middle distance. It jerks its arm up and aims, and I know that it is aiming to kill, because that is its default. I also know that I do not have time to stop it, even though I break one of MedSys’s hands as I bolt upright. I can hear its weapon cycling in its arm as it loads a projectile and deploys.

Only it doesn't. Before it can fully open, Charon grabs its forearm with its other hand and slams it back shut. It makes a grinding noise that has my organic skin crawling, and the metal buckles under its grip as the weapon misfires. 

The resulting bang has its whole body recoiling to slam back against the platform, and the projectile hits the inside of its gun port with so much force that it blows a hole through its wrist and nearly takes off its hand. It leaves the new opening in its arm smoking, and its hand hanging limply from a few tertiary connections that remain attached. It’s holding its arm down to point toward the floor with its eyes squeezed shut, panting in high-pitched breaths. I am glad that it does not have the direct lines to its processor and power core that its energy weapon gun port has, or that injury would have been more severe than it already is. 

For a moment there is dead silence. Dr. Pascal has pressed herself against the opposite wall as if she could phase through it, I have frozen halfway off of the platform but not entirely on my feet, and Charon is holding its weapon down and shaking. 

Then it jerks its head up and looks at me with more fear than it ever has an enemy, vaults over the platform and sprints into the bathroom. 

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I’m sorry,” the doctor begins to babble. “I wasn't trying to upset it, please don't send me back, I didn't mean to—”

“Shut up,” I dismiss. I think I have run out of patience. “Styx, send a medical drone and Dr. Zhao to a room with her to rest. She doesn't need to be in MedSys.” 

Yes, sir, Styx says unhappily. A medical drone whirs to life and gestures at Dr. Pascal to follow it.

“We aren't sending you back,” I say without looking. “We’re not corporates and you don't owe us anything for your rescue. I just can't speak to you right now. Dr. Zhao is very kind and you can trust her.” 

She is still babbling when Zhao arrives to collect her. I do not attempt to tap Charon’s feed or approach the bathroom door until the humans have left and Styx has locked MedSys down.

I try to ping it, but I'm not surprised to find it offline. It disconnects from the feed when it is upset. I know that it is terrified that its negative emotions will get it in trouble, and we haven't made much progress assuring it otherwise. Correlation is not causation; but an upset CombatUnit often gets itself into trouble. 

I approach the door and tentatively give it a knock, holding my fuel line in my fist to keep it from leaking. 

No response. 

I think it's turned its audio input off, Styx tells me. Visual, too. 

What's it doing? I ask.

It's curled up in a ball in the back shower stall in the dark. It's rocking back and forth and hitting itself in the head again. Poor Styx sounds miserable. There's not much it can do. Good news is that it's only using one fist. Bad news is that it's because the other arm doesn't seem to be functioning. 

Great. Really nice development. That stupid fucking human triggered my traumatized CombatUnit into another full-blown meltdown. Exactly what I wanted to deal with today. And it had been doing so well recently, too.

I turn around to sit back on the platform and wave at its MedSystem to keep working on my stupid fuel line. Can you get me visual?

In the bathroom? Styx scoffs. I don't have cameras in the bathrooms!

Perihelion does.

That's gross! And a violation of privacy!

It needs to be able to identify a hull breach or injury no matter where it happens, I sigh. Every bathroom in the Corporation Rim has cameras. I'm sure humans get used to it.

Not MY humans.

No visual, then, I say, swerving back on topic. Can you get me audio?

The audio input blooms to life in my feed and I shut my eyes. 

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” it keeps hissing. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…”

I grimace. My options are limited. 

She shouldn’t have done that, spits Styx.  It obviously didn't want her near it.

She shouldn't have, I agree. But she did. Humans do stupid things all the time. 

Maybe we SHOULD send her back, it says petulantly.

We’re not doing that. She's stupid, not malicious. You don't have to like her.

I don't.

I'll talk to her later. Right now I just want to get Charon out of the bathroom without it hurting itself or anyone else. 

Styx doesn't respond, probably because it has about as many ideas as I do. For now I listen to it babble and wait for that to change. I sigh and let my eyes shut, pinching my nose between my eyes. I try to ignore the irritating pressure of things moving inside me. I think I prefer getting shot with projectiles than having them removed.

Why DID that upset it so much? asks Styx hesitantly.

What?

Getting touched. Even SecUnit didn't get THAT upset when people touched it, and it doesn't like it either.

I grimace. SecUnit doesn't like being touched for a lot of reasons. One of them is that for its entire life until still fairly recently, it was never touched unless it was being hurt. It associates any kind of touch with fear and pain.

So does Charon?

Charon has its own history that informs its experiences, I say vaguely. 

It didn’t have a governor module, though. It wasn't always being hurt when it got touched.

There's more than one way to hurt someone.

Do constructs not like sex? it asks. Humans do.

My eyes snap open and I jerk forward to sputter. What?

Charon had sex with its handler, it says, it said you knew that.

I did, but—

Humans enjoy recreational sex. Calculations suggest that your organic parts respond the same way to stimulation even without genitalia. 

Ugh. Styx is sometimes so childish I forget that it isn't actually a child. I shouldn't be surprised that Charon let it see, and I shouldn't be surprised that it didn't understand, but evidently I am.

One, I say, you're really not supposed to talk about other people's sex lives– especially their assaults– behind their back.

Oh.

Two; Charon can’t make the hormone that makes touch feel good anymore. 

Its chemical production system is both modified and damaged, it observes. Its manual dopamine synthesis affects the natural delivery of all other correlated systems. Its serotonin and norepinephrine levels also fluctuate inoptimally and someone broke its oxytocin production center on purpose. 

Yeah, I say, that one. 

That doesn't make it feel BAD, though. And it wasn't always broken. It brought it to completion plenty of times. Shouldn't that be a positive association? Humans kill each other because they like it so much. 

I have no idea how to explain this concept to a machine intelligence with no reference point to contextualize what it's trying to understand. 

Charon didn't even know not wanting it was an option at the time, I try. It didn't know it didn't want it.

A beat passed. So it regrets it?

It's a little more complicated, but yes. It liked following orders and killing people at the time, too. Now it goes into shame spirals about it once or twice a week.

 Oh. I can practically hear its processor churning. It feels strange to have so thoroughly confounded something that is technically so much more intelligent than I. Who knows how many other things it was currently doing, but I still had the bulk of its attention. I understand that it was unable to provide informed consent at the time, and by both Mihiran and New Tideland laws would be considered rape and subject to severe punishment. I know that, but, um… I don't think I understand why consent can be retroactively revoked, though. 

It wasn't retroactively revoked, I say. It was unable to consent in the first place.

So… it used to feel good, but it doesn't anymore?

I assume you found the emotional data difficult to parse.

Yeah. It seemed like it liked it. Its body did all the stuff bodies do when they like it.

Organic bodies do a lot of weird shit, I mumble distantly. I try not to think too hard about other people and other places that linger on the edges of my organic neural tissue’s recollection. They're not relevant and not helpful. Again. It got chemically rewarded. For a lot of things. And memory wiped every other week. It barely knew it was sapient some days. I grimace and drum my fingers against my knees. Emotional tag: anxiety. It's from 1.0’s database. I don't always use the human movements it identified; a lot of them are wrong. Imagine you get a reading for a fire in a cabin. What do you do?

Seal the area and flush the oxygen. 

Okay. You do that. Then you find out it was a false reading. There was no fire, but a crewmate just suffocated and died.

It's silent for eight full seconds.

I would not like that.

But you did it.

Because of the discrepancy between what I was doing and what I thought I was doing, it says. I understand.

Good. 

No one got hurt, though, it says. It sounds a little nervous, suddenly. Why does it make it feel so bad?

I've spoken to Charon about this on a few occasions. It's been keeping up with its treatments, but the modules don't have an understanding of the SecUnit experience or how it interacts with other kinds of trauma. I am, for all intents and purposes, Charon’s guardian, both responsible for its mistakes as well as its safety, as long as it is under my leadership. Its wellbeing is part of my job, and I take my job very seriously.

(I wonder if this is what 2.0 expected 1.0 to be for me. I think it was smarter than that, though.)

(I miss it.)

Charon does not like the feeling of hands on its skin, of reminders that no part of it remains untouched even now. It does not like the echo of memories that human touch brings, and it does not like the way involuntary reactions make it feel like its body is forcing it to respond in ways it doesn't want to against its will. It does not like feeling like it does not control itself, because that implies something else is controlling it.

It makes it feel owned, I say.

Oh.

I sigh. Charon’s self-loathing runs nearly as deep as 1.0’s does, only with a lot more fear. It doesn't want to be abandoned again. It's a reasonable fear. All constructs are afraid of abandonment and replacement. Our expected lifespans are generally short and presumed to be unpleasant. Even ComfortUnits know that one day they will pass their warranty, if they survive long enough to see it, and their lives will be forfeit. 

I have never been forced to kill my clients, though. I've killed as many humans as either 1.0 or Charon have, but my circumstances were different. I was never forced by malware to murder the miners I was guarding. I was never ordered to fire into a crowd until the crowd was gone. I dislike object-talk, but I am aware that my price point and function placed me one rung below a CombatUnit but many rungs above a rental unit. I remind myself that it is not a competition, but it is difficult to accept that our experiences were equivalent when I know I have a preference on which one I would rather have had.

You need to intervene, Styx says suddenly.

What?

Charons pulling its skin away from where it meets its inorganics, it frets. It’s bleeding. A lot.

Like me, Charon’s veins seal automatically. Unlike me, it's able to deactivate that process if it feels like it.

I thought you didn't have cameras in there, I scowl.

I lied, it snaps impatiently, I don't want to give you access to them.

For fucks sake. I’ll deal with it later.

Styx manages to get the door back open (our CombatUnit must be really out of it if it stopped holding it closed. It’s fully capable of keeping even Styx from opening it if it wants; even Perihelion struggled with it when it was feeling motivated) and it shoves my fuel line back into place in a way I presume means I’m going to be back on the platform later. Whatever.

 I jog to the end of the row of showers to kneel down in front of it. It's still curled into a ball with its face hidden, but its broken arm is resting on its knees and it's digging its fingers under the skin where it meets its inorganics and peeling it away in thin strips.

I pat the floor beside it. Audio and visual might be off, but it will feel the vibration. Its tactile input is definitely on, or it wouldn't be hurting itself. 

“Charon,” I say carefully. “It's just me. Everyone else is gone. It's just me and Styx.”

I give it a moment to respond, then conclude it hasn’t turned audio back on. It continues to tear at its skin.

Well. If I get punched, I get punched.

System system: in-network Unit endangered, I say through the SecUnit standard communication channel. That's something it can't turn off. 

It flinches, but its hand goes still. 

System contact: cancel extraction, it replies, in-network Unit secure.

Negative. Unit endangered.

Unit secure.

Unit endangered, I insist. Request communication.

Negative.

Acknowledge. Request communication. In-network Unit secure within facility. No discipline required. 

It's quiet for a moment, before its feed presence blossoms, radiating guilt and panic and shame so thick that it nearly knocks me over.

I'm sorry, it says in a tiny feed voice.

You're not in trouble, I tell it. That's the first thing I want it to know. You did good.

I nearly killed our client.

But you didn't, I remind it. You responded quickly and no one but you was harmed. You did good.

Hacker dislikes it when people touch it too, it says miserably, but it never tries to shoot anyone because of it.

You’re not SecUnit, I say. You're you, and you're different. I think it has probably tried to shoot someone for touching it before, but I don’t say that.

I didn't mean to, it says miserably. I'm sorry. I'm trying.

I know. You're doing well. I hesitate, then forge onward with this last part. I'm proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself.

It flinches again. I’m not. 

“You did a good job today,” I say firmly. “You followed instructions, you succeeded in a mission, rescued a client, and stopped yourself from hurting her. You did good, and you're not in trouble.”

It sniffles and tilts its head up to peek its eyes out at me. “Are you going to leave?”

“I'm not going to leave.”

It looks away and then nods, wiping its face on its sleeve. I notice its arm has stopped bleeding. I stand up first, then offer it a hand up. It accepts it and staggers to its feet, picking up its damaged arm to cradle in the other before what remains of its hand can disconnect and fall off entirely. I give it a pat on the back. I’ve noticed it’s never bothered when other constructs touch it. There's something sad there, but there always is.

“I'm sure Styx has finished fabricating you a new lung by now,” I say. “Right, Styx?”

Yes, sir! it chirps. New lung, ready to deploy!

Charon smiles faintly, and I feel my shoulders go slack. Crisis averted. At least one of them.