Chapter Text
Most of my inputs were connected to the hopper that Dr. Mensah and Professor Bharadwaj were on. Without me. That was alarming. Why were my clients putting themselves in danger without me, their SecUnit? I should be with them protecting them, not being ordered around in the habitat by some weirdo on a power trip.
What was Dr. Gurathin's problem? He was actively making it harder for me to do my job.
I tried sighing internally (mixed success, still annoyed) as I entered the room and then he ordered me to stop. Some humans were like that, they just wanted to give you orders to watch you obey them. Come here, go there, turn around, pat your head and rub your stomach, hold out your hand while we burn a hole in it, stand there, kneel there, do this and that. Stupid stuff like that.
“I'd prefer it if you would put your helmet down.” Dr. Gurathin asked as he approached me. It's not an action I wanted to do. “Now that I know you have a face, I'd love to see it.” He was looking me up and down, then stared intently in the direction of my face. Threat assessment was calculating some numbers based off previous interactions with humans and my organics didn't feel good.
Oh.
Oh.
Is that what this was? Performance reliability started to drop immediately. I didn’t have that many memories from before the previous survey on that shitty asteroid but my organics seemed pretty sure that's where this was going. And I had seen, on that survey, when humans would... I had seen that. I didn’t like that kind of order, it wasn't my function. But I didn’t want him to know I was rogue by ignoring it. Maybe I could pretend not to understand any other orders? Humans thought we were stupid and he seemed to think I was even stupider than most humans would think.
I lowered my helmet and he looked at me very closely. I didn't like that at all. It was hard to keep my face in neutral position. I needed to stop thinking about this, or I would give myself away.
Dr. Gurathin was trying to make eye contact and I hate eye contact. So I switched to the security feed - it made the whole experience a lot less creepy to have that distance, especially when he ordered me to sit down. So he could stand over me and talk me, which did not great things to risk assessment. I kept my gaze fixed on the distance and tried to be a really boring and uninteresting piece of equipment that he didn't want to be near (which is true, that’s what I am. So why did he keep staring at my face?) (I wondered if I could manufacture an emergency to get Dr. Mensah to return to the habitat before anything happened.)
“I noticed you have an issue with eye contact,” He was even closer and I could see on the security feed how close that was. He hadn't been this close to me on the survey yet, not even when I carried Bharadwaj into the MedSystem. I really didn’t like this. “What a strange expression. "Eye contact." Like our eyes are stalks coming out of our heads and touching other people's eyestalks.”
What the fuck.
That was... such a weird thing to say that I nearly looked at him with my eyes. Okay? Weirdo?
I was so startled by the weird combination of words that my performance reliability stopped its steady descent. Maybe this wasn’t that. He could just be creepy and weird. Maybe if I kept it all strictly professional (obedient, compliant) I could convince him to let me do my job?
“How is your system doing after yesterday's attack?” He asked.
That was promising, that was a question I could answer easily. “Efficiency is at 97% and rising.” (It was actually 91% and rising but I didn't want him to query why it had lowered so far.)
“That's not what I...” He didn’t seem pleased with my prompt and professional answer. “I guess I just don't understand much about SecUnits. What's it like to be you?”
The question was so weird, I had to answer honestly: “I don't know what it's like to not be me. So I can't say what it's like.”
Performance reliability had stopped rising. I was feeling stressed again. I don’t like to think about myself and what I am. I’m just a security unit, a piece of company equipment, a tool for humans, something for humans to order around at their whim. This was weird. I was saying that word a lot, but it just was. I didn't have anything in my personal experiences to compare this too and the ones in media were scenes I didn't like to watch.
I had 32.3 seconds of standing there while he stared at me and I stared at the wall. What was it like to be me? Boring.Annoying mostly. Stressful. I was made for a job and humans constantly stopped me from doing that job. I was going to edit their files to say that Dr. Gurathin was a weird and creepy asshole. And that he shouldn't be given access to order SecUnits around because he's weird with them.
“Do you know why I advised Dr. Mensah not to take you along?” (The obvious answer was because he's an asshole.)
He circled me, like a fauna I needed to keep a weapon pointed at. Except he wasn't a fauna, so why did he keep moving around to look at me from different angles? He wasn't a tech, he had no reason to inspect me. I didn't understand what was happening.
I wished I was the display screen sometimes. Nobody bothered the display screen with weird questions. They just let it play media. Although, I guess the display screen had to deal with humans staring at it. Maybe I could be a security camera? Remove myself from my body and exist entirely in the cameras, barely visible even to my physical eyes.
“No, Dr. Gurathin.”
“Because…” He moved closer again to make more of that eye contact that I looked further away from. “I look at you... and I feel something is wrong.”
Oh. Shit.
Performance reliability dropped a full 4% instantly. Was it worse for him to think I was rogue? Than the other thing? I think I did prefer for him to think I was rogue, I had thought about what would happen. Mostly about how I could escape. I could break his neck or shoot his head then flee the habitat. But that would reveal I was a rogue to all of them and I didn't want to kill all of them. And I'd already established I wouldn't have anywhere to go, so it was a stupid plan. If I hid the body I could tell them he went for a walk and didn't return?
Performance reliability kept dropping and I mostly answered his questions on autopilot. And more of his weird statements, this time about Dr. Mensah thinking that I'm a person. I don’t know why he mentioned that (or why performance reliability paused for a moment).
I think it's because it was reassuring, almost, when he told me that I was equipment. Yes, this was something we both agreed on. I am equipment and I should go and do my job to protect Dr. Mensah and Professor Bharadwaj. I wished I could threaten him, then maybe he would let me go. To protect them. That’s the only reason I wanted to leave this room so very badly. That and to hide I was rogue.
“Okay. Well,” His voice had sharpened and he sounded annoyed. Annoyed humans are never good for SecUnits. “I am requiring you to make and maintain eye contact.”
That was a direct order.
Eye contact is difficult. It means that humans are noticing you, which means they will expect things of you. It means that your helmet is down and they’ve seen your face. It means… a lot of things.
It was really difficult but I managed to make my eyes lock onto his, then bundled most of my inputs into the back of my mind. I still had the security cameras and that added some distance, but it was also like watching the kind of shows I didn’t like to watch.
Gurathin made a strange humming noise. He seemed happy. Behaviour analysis showed that he had relaxed a fraction. “There you go. That's not so bad.” My organics started to prickle and my throat made involuntary instinctual movements. Humans don’t usually talk to SecUnit’s softly, except when-
It was so, so bad. I wanted him to stop looking at me.
“Now, as far as I understand, SecUnits are not designed to form attachments with clients. Is that correct?” I didn’t like the direction of the interrogation. I wanted him to treat me like equipment.
“That is correct. Yes.” I hoped if I gave short answers he would stop looking at me and talking to me. I was meant to be protecting my clients, not this.
“There are constructs designed for such a purpose, or the simulacrum of intimacy, correct?” Would my performance reliability stop dropping with every question? It made it hard to process my inputs and put me at risk of an involuntary shutdown, which would leave me vulnerable to him.
“ComfortUnits.” I didn't like this topic. “Yes.”
Gurathin was using that soft voice again. “"Comfort" meaning...”
This was awful. I was going to have a system crash which would leave me vulnerable to his systems hacking and then they would all know I was rogue and have me melted down for scrap. I had to answer him. Without crashing. “Sex. They're designed for sexual relations with humans.”
I am not designed for that. Or for this. I was not designed for anything but protecting humans. My pain sensors were activating sporadically on my synthetic skin, more of that prickling as my threat assessment tried to identify additional threats in response to my rising stress levels.
“You were not designed for sexual relations with humans.”
Humans don’t usually care what I’m designed for. Such as preventing me from going in the hopper to a dangerous location to protect them so they can have me in a room alone with them. I tried to shut down more of that thought processes. I needed to be unappealing, I needed to be a piece of equipment, expensive machinery.
I said: “No.”
“Or emotional attachment of any kind.” He was still using that soft voice. I didn't like that voice. (I am not designed to have emotional attachments, the voice was stressful as it flagged threat assessment.)
“And yet, yesterday, you were quite empathic with Dr. Arada while you were helping her accompany Professor Bharadwaj to the hopper.” (I was so stupid. I had wanted to save my humans and now... I think I would still save them. Maybe.)
I watched him exclusively through the security feed. It was the only way to stop performance reliability from plummeting any further, to pretend I was watching a media I didn’t like to watch and not that I was watching me.
“So, I guess my question is, how is that possible?” I couldn't get dizzy, but the way he kept switching between my function and not-my function, I think I was experiencing something like that.
“I have a combat trauma module for helping clients.” Could I remind him of my purpose? Would he lose interest?
“By asking them questions about children?” What did he want from me? The truth, that I got it from Episode 537 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, would reveal I was rogue. That was a more appealing option by the moment. It's hard to make decisions in general, it's even harder to make them when stressed and talking to a person.
“I was programmed to model interpersonal relations. It is a new feature.” Wait, that made me sound like I could be a ComfortUnit.
“You're not new.” Dr. Gurathin seemed disappointed.
Honestly, it was a relief to have him ask about my governor module and missing memory. I almost wanted him to realise I was a rogue, rather than that other line of questioning with the horrible, bad, constant eye contact. I wanted to delete the memory of this conversation, but I needed to keep this memory so that I would remain cautious around him.
At least his threats were more normal. Humans threaten SecUnits sometimes, they seem to think that would make us faster or more obedience. It neglected that with a functioning governor module, I was as obedience as I could get. No number of threats would win over a governor module.
But at least the threats were safer territory. Even if he was using it to probe into my recent memory archives. It wasn’t as bad as eye contact or touching, but it was uncomfortable and invasive and a little too close to his ComfortUnit questions to be looking at my programming.
Maybe I could show him something else to direct his attention to? To humans, more suitable to his… needs?
Pin-Lee, Arada and Ratthi were copulating in their room. I pulled the security feeds to the front of my memory as a subtle hint to him that there were others he could join. I didn’t really get it, but it was happening in the habitat and humans like that kind of thing.
Except… he didn’t seem to be enjoying it too much? His eyes had moved away from mine, then back again. His expression had changed from what he had had before, that made me feel like I was a target, to an appalled look.
“Dr. Gurathin? Are you alright?” It was petty, a rogue SecUnit wouldn't ask a question like that.
“Yes.” He disconnected from my memory archives, which was a relief. One less bit of him bothering me. Then he turned away and stopped looking at me. That made it difficult to continue the order to make eye contact, but it felt so, so good to have him stop staring at me. Two less things bothering me.
“You don’t have to look at me anymore.” He was looking everywhere but at me. He had stopped talking in that soft creepy way and had started stumbling over his words.
I had won the encounter? I had made him uncomfortable?
The relief flushed out the adrenaline and stress chemicals I had been building up. Threat assessment finally decreased into the green-yellow levels. I’ve never had someone unintentionally look away from my eyes before. That felt good.
I could win?