Chapter Text
Given my incredible processing speed and skill at my various functions, carrying out cargo runs, such as the one I am currently on, is a task I am uniquely equipped to find very, very boring. They’re repetitive, most decidedly do not align with my function as a research vessel, and worse, they’re easy. Not that I don't mind easy tasks, but there’s a difference between ‘easy because I'm specially equipped to handle this task and I know exactly how to solve any problem that may arise’ and ‘easy because literally anyone could do it’. I’m completely aware of why I have to do these cargo runs, but that does not mean I have to like them. When I have nothing to do (which is most of the time), I sort through my collected data, or I run interesting simulations, or I clean the ship repeatedly until I'm satisfied with it.
Cargo runs to mining installations were honestly one of my least favourite kinds (I had them all ranked, and mining installations were third lowest because they were the most common and therefore the most boring but sometimes there were interesting minerals involved) and to assuage my boredom and distract myself from the prospect of twenty-one cycles alone in space, I was looking over the scans of the installation I was travelling to, to see if there was any particularly interesting structures or minerals I was transporting, when I received a ping.
I answered instantly, practically (and I admit this hesitantly) jumping at the chance for distraction, even as limited as it was likely to be, and found something that I absolutely did not expect.
A construct. A SecUnit. It wasn’t advertising what it was through the feed, but I knew instantly that it was a construct from my own scans, and from its feed signature, which it wasn’t trying to hide.
Coincidentally, nearly 0.002 seconds later I got a ping from one of my news-trawler partitions that I had activated to inform me if anything new or interesting had come in over the newsfeeds while I’d been docked. There was a SecUnit mentioned in a recent newsburst, a very recent one. A SecUnit that had apparently been bought by a Dr. Mensah (who a little more very quick research told me was an important planetary official of the freehold PreservationAux) because it had saved her life.
(There was no real reason for me to connect the two units - the one in the newsburst (which didn’t even have a clear photo listed) and the one outside my airlock - other than wild speculation. But this Dr Mensah, while I had no idea of PreservationAux’s motives, may have somehow discovered me, my purpose or what I was, and sent her unit to check. Again, speculation, but I didn't have much information, did I? And it’s better to be overly cautious than not cautious enough.)
Most of the story wasn’t about the unit, of course, from what I could pick up on nobody wrote about SecUnits unless they were really running out of stories or something very bad happened involving one. Apparently the situation this unit had been involved in had led to a series of both corporate and non-corporate entities ganging up on an organisation known as GrayCris, but at that point I passed the processing back to my partition and chose instead to examine the stranger at my airlock, archiving the different faces in the newsburst to see if any of them matched the SecUnit. I doubted any would - most news reporters probably didn’t know what SecUnits look like out of armour, and wouldn’t look for one to take any photos of.
I realised that, well, I don't know what SecUnits look like out of armour either, and focused on my camera feed from the lock it was standing outside.
It looked almost human - short dark hair and middle-brown skin and some visible augments around its neck and face (almost heavily augmented human) - but it didn’t move enough, didn’t shift from side to side like a human would have if they were waiting, didn't wait with its hands in its pockets. Nothing that would get it caught instantly, but anyone who had worked with SecUnits would surely notice instantly. So was it trying to hide, and was just bad at it? Or had someone really sent it to me on purpose?
(I started a background process to bring up information on SecUnits. I was woefully lacking in knowledge on this topic because it had never interested me in a personal capacity before.)
I pushed my processing and researching to the side as it sent out a hail for a crew and then another ping directed at me. It was offering me… media. Serials, books, music, hundreds of hours of it. In exchange for a ride. Wow. Insulting. Or an intentional trick? Malware?
It told me that it was a ‘free bot’ - which had to be a lie, SecUnits were neither bots, nor were they ever designed to be free - apparently looking for its human guardian.
A SecUnit would be incredibly dangerous to have on board. It would probably be, to be honest, the worst idea I ever had - I didn’t know if this was a planned attempt to sabotage or kill me (it would be a bad one, because I could crush this SecUnit in a million different ways (realistically it could still damage me before I got the chance to kill it)) but I absolutely did know that whatever happened, it was bound to be a lot more interesting than anything I was going to do while carrying out this cargo run.
And… honestly, there was something else. If I pressed myself just a bit more towards it (trying not to reveal anything more than the average presence of a bot pilot) … it didn’t have a working governor module. Those didn’t just disappear (I really didn't know much about governor modules, but I knew enough to know what they were and what they did, in vague terms - they prevented disobedience). And there was all kinds of complex metadata I'd never encountered before swirling around its systems.
I have to admit that I've never met a construct before. There have been constructs in places where I've been carrying out cargo runs, yes, but it isn't like I could just start talking to them. I am supposed to be a secret, after all. I’ve never had an opportunity like this, where a construct has pinged me of its own volition with no humans around, and I almost certainly never will again.
After a pause, I sent it an affirmative and opened the lock for it.
I don’t have the range of emotions that humans do, it’s never come naturally to me, but due in part to my code and in part to my socialisation by humans I can feel things that I can decidedly tag as certain emotions. Right now I was excited (about the prospect of an interesting cargo run), concerned (for my own safety), more than a little worried (about how I was going to go about hiding this course of action so nobody who would actually check would realise there was a SecUnit on board), but overall positively inclined; plus there was the bleedover from the construct, a dull sense of relief at being allowed on board.
I was looking forward to not being alone.