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Eden (the construct formerly known as SecUnit, up until the very first Collective Construct Meeting. After a whopping twenty minutes of debate (a very long time for constructs) the Preservation construct community had agreed that nobody could name themselves after their make, model or corporate manufacturer. This put an end to such names as SecUnit, Secunit, Security Unit, ComfortUnit, ComfortUnit Plus, ComfortUnit Luxe, ComfortUnit Gold, ComfortUnit Platinum, and Security the Unit. The Collective had agreed that hard feed addresses were acceptable names, and that the individual could take on that amount of human confusion if they so chose. Only SC-333J58900L-HGKLM200.4 had accepted that challenge thus far.) was having some trouble handling the stress in its new responsibilities as a member of the Preservation Intersystem Security Board.
The Preservation Alliance had long flown under the corporate radar because it was small and poor and of little strategic value. That was until they started stealing corporate property and claiming, ludicrously, that said property had simply chosen to walk away and into their hands. When someone starts assembling a miniature army made of very expensive and ill-gotten weaponry and spouting deranged political rhetoric, people take notice.
Eden was the most paranoid person in the Preservation Alliance, save perhaps Rubix, the CombatUnit who hadn't left its lodgings since the day it arrived on Preservation. It was for this reason that Eden was appointed to the Intersystem Security Board, and also for this reason why it was not given a central leadership position. This was a very new venture for the people of Preservation, and they wanted to ensure that their values would be embodied by the new Board. Eden was, by now, a trusted member of the community, but was (and not without reason) considered far more comfortable with violence than the average Preservationer, and therefore perhaps not the best choice for Leader of the Board.
The Board Leader was a well-respected older man named Forren. He had served as a diplomat and envoy for Preservation for many years, and was also experienced in music therapy and education. He was very even-keeled and considerate. Eden found him infuriating.
Eden (the name felt weird even after a Preservation year of use, but it hadn't come up with anything better) sat with Gurathin and Ratthi on the station while the humans ate lunch.
“I don't know why you dislike him so much,” said Ratthi.
The past few years had been very stressful, and Ratthi's thick head of hair was steadily going greyer with every near-death experience.
“Because he won't let it bomb foreign ships indiscriminately,” said Gurathin, who had been prematurely grey to begin with.
“I'm annoyed because he won't even buy bombs.”
Ratthi made a face.
“I'd feel weird about arms deals as well,” he said.
“I don't care if you feel ‘weird’ about it, we need a bigger armory.”
“Can we even afford that?” asked Gurathin. “We're not exactly flush.”
“The Construct Collective has been developing a weapons fund for the past year.”
That had been the second agenda item at their first meeting. It had required almost no debate. They all knew without a doubt that one day their owners would come to collect them, and they were not going to give up their newfound freedom without a fight. A paranoid and analytic bunch, there were thousands of contingency plans between them.
Ratthi gave a shocked laugh.
“Wow! Were you going to tell planetary admin about that?”
“We just did, at today's meeting.”
That decision had taken a full half hour of debate. They still weren't telling the humans the full truth (Rubix's experimental gun designs, for example, had been omitted from their report). Eden felt a little bit bad about lying to its human friends, but it didn't feel bad at all about lying to the government.
Gurathins eyebrows were all the way up and he leaned back in his seat, giving Eden his full attention while keeping his eyes on the wall over Eden's shoulder.
“How'd they take that?”
“Mixed results. They're still talking about it, we're on a recess.”
Ratthi looked like he was thinking hard.
“The idea of a weapons fund kind of goes against Preservation's ethics,” he said. “But we do value community self-governance. . .”
“It’s smart,” said Gurathin, resigned. “I wish you guys weren’t right.”
“You really think it’s necessary?” asked Ratthi.
“Of course it’s necessary,” said Gurathin. “For the same reason the Intersystem Security Board is necessary. Corporates are fucking dangerous, and we’ve fucked with them enough that we need to be careful.”
Ratthi was frowning at the table.
“I guess so,” he said. “It feels wrong.”
Eden (it really missed being called its hard feed address by a mutual administrative assistant. As the situation got more tense in Preservation it got harder and harder to work with PUoMNT without implicating the University and uncovering their covert actions. Eden would never admit to yearning, but you and I can read between the lines.) knew that Ratthi wouldn’t respond well if it tried to explain that Preservation already had an armory: the Construct Collective. Ratthi didn’t like to hear Eden describe itself as a weapon, even if it was empirically true.
“It is wrong, but you can’t remain totally moral while dealing with corporates. They’ll eat you alive.”
Eden hated it when Gurathin was right, but he was right.
Ratthi sighed and rubbed a hand across his face.
“I know, I know. We’ve seen it enough times. It just makes me angry that we’re forced to stoop to their level just to survive.”
Simultaneous to this joy of a conversation, Eden was talking to another SecUnit named Gilligan. Gilligan was manufactured by the same company (Eden had a long habit of calling its manufacturer “the company” (very ominous) while Gilligan tended to call it “Corpo Death Squad 1 Million”, which was more fun, but did not make it into Eden’s logs) as Eden, and there was an ease of communication between them stemming from similar protocols. According to Eden, their relationship was not any deeper than that (but come on). Gilligan was speculating on how best to get some of the more pacifist (and “pacifist” on Preservation really meant something) members of the board to chill out about the weapons fund, while Eden was complaining about the existence of pacifists at all. Mensah had once noted that it was a lot easier to be a pacifist on a planet surrounded by other pacifists than on a planet surrounded by a greed so malicious it turned the very air to poison.
At the table, Gurathin sighed. Eden and Gurathin shared, amongst many things, a complex love and resentment towards born Preservationers. Eden could tell that Gurathin was struggling to respond kindly to Ratthi’s statement, because it was doing the same.
“Life isn’t fair,” said Eden.
“I know,” said Ratthi, cowed.
Things were silent and awkward. Gilligan was talking through its plan for if (and when?) Preservation decided this whole construct project was too big a risk. Eden (a name it used for human convenience) stood up and walked away from the conversation with the humans, and ignored Gilligan’s messages.
Mensah was down on the planet, but Amena was on station for a co-op with Station Security. Why she wanted to do her co-op semester at the shittiest Station Security maybe ever was beyond Eden, but it was happy to have her nearby. She was number three on its definitely non-existent list of people to talk to when emotionally distressed.
Eden (the name its friends called it) found Amena through the cameras (surveillance on the station had increased over the years as corporate violence ramped up. Eden hadn’t thought that getting what it had wanted the whole time would feel like a loss.) at her desk, goofing off in the feed.
“Eden!” she said when it walked into the office.
“Hi.”
“How’s running the government?” she asked, putting a foot up against the desk and balancing her chair on the back two legs while playing with a fidget.
“You are putting yourself at risk of injury,” it said, and she laughed.
“What’s a construct meeting like? Do you guys all just tell each other to be more careful all the time? No wonder Rubix doesn’t leave its room. Wait, don’t tell it I said that.”
They did, in fact, spend a lot of time talking about security. And she didn’t have to worry about Rubix; it was definitely watching through the cameras anyway. Eden pinged it, wondering if it found Amena’s comment funny, and it sent back an image of a fauna in an underground burrow, then a video of children playing tag. Okay. Eden didn’t really get Rubix.
“Yes,” it said to Amena. “And everyone sits in their chairs properly.”
“That’s a lie, I’ve seen how Tina sits. You’re just paranoid.”
“It’s not paranoia if it’s evidence based,” it said, and sent Amena a clip of her falling out of her chair.
“Holy stars, that was forever ago, would you let that go?” she said, laughing.
Ratthi sent Eden a message asking if it was okay.
“Ratthi was pissing me off,” said Eden to Amena, ignoring Ratthi.
They knew each other well enough by now that Eden could admit stuff like that, and that Amena could figure out how to decipher a contextless statement like that.
“That’s new,” she said. “Gurathin’s on station, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” it said. “He was being reasonable.”
“What was Ratthi being?”
“. . . Preservation.”
“. . . Elaborate.”
Eden thought for a moment and then said, “After all this time, it seems like you guys still don’t really understand the risk the corporates pose to your existence.”
It paused for a moment, considering if it should continue. It was Amena, so it did continue.
“I don’t know if Preservationers realize how dangerous it is to allow us to stay here.”
“Us” meaning, of course, constructs. Amena thought for much longer than Eden did.
“I think. . . I think we do understand the risk they pose, materially. They could blow us up. I know that. I think it’s just that we also understand the risk they pose more. . . spiritually. If we abandoned our morals, kicked all of you out or whatever, we wouldn’t be Preservation anymore.”
“But you would be alive.”
“I dunno. How much do you give up just to live?”
“A lot,” said Eden.
She glanced at it for just a moment, then brought her eyes back to the fidget in her hands.
“You’ve risked your life for us loads of times,” she said. “We can do the same for you.”
It didn’t know how to respond because it wanted to say, “It’s not the same”, “My life isn’t worth what yours is”, “I’m supposed to die for you”, but it knew she wouldn’t let it get away with that. It was frustrating.
“The recess is almost over,” said Eden. “I have to go back.”
“Remember that you’re Preservationers too,” she said. “Our ancestors came here in a time of need. So did you all. We’re the same. We want to protect you.”
It took an incredible effort, but Eden said, “We want to protect you too.”
Amena smiled.
“Then where’s the problem?”
***
It took another day, but the Intersystem Security Board did actually reach a conclusion on the weapons fund. Had Eden been the one to speak, it probably would have said something like, “If we wanted to kill you all, we never would have told you about the weapons fund,” and everyone would have freaked out. Luckily, Gilligan was a little more personable.
Eden (ART sent messages via wormhole often, and suggested other names almost every time. Once it had listed every character from Worldhoppers it started listing its favourite scientists, then famous anti-corporate activists. Eden hadn’t acknowledged a single suggestion.) apologized to Ratthi for walking away in the middle of the conversation. Ratthi was, as always, extremely gracious about it. Gurathin said, “Don’t I get an apology? I was there too,” and Eden said, “No, you don’t count.” So that was that sorted.
Amena wasn’t shocked when she heard about the weapons fund. She said it was exactly the kind of dramatic shit she expected from SecUnits.
“Fuck,” she said immediately afterwards. “Don’t tell anyone I said that. Fuck, that was so bad.”
“I’m going to tell everyone you said that, and they will all come after you,” said Eden. Rubix already knew, anyway.
“See what I’m saying? Dramatic!”
Eden (the name it chose for itself that served well enough) smiled a little bit. And that was a lot for a SecUnit.