Work Text:
Ambient noise is muted through the wall of a cubicle. It's easy to tune out the fans, and when you're set up in the ready room, there's generally not much to listen to outside anyway. You don't want to completely tune out the outside world, in case a client comes in outside of scheduled appointments and needs to be attended to, but usually the cubicle is a quiet, peaceful place to be bored out of your processors.
I heard the door to the ready room slide open and hastily closed out of my cubicle's buffer. If it was a tech, coming in for routine maintenance, they wouldn't think to look in there. If it was a client, they wouldn't think to look, either. It was neither, of course. I recognized the footsteps of another unit. ComfortUnit 2 back from its service. I heard it strip out of its work clothes, the hum of the recycler accepting the bundle, and the cubicle across from mine opening and closing again. A fourth set of fans joined in the chorus.
GP-CU003: Report
GP-CU002: Service completed without incident
We all waited a couple seconds for 2 to finish its diagnostics, and for the results to be posted to our general feed. 1, 3, and I all signaled confirmation that we had received the data. None of us had been anticipating an incident this early into our rental period, but we all knew that it was only a matter of time. Ganaka Pit was a high-stress environment for the human workers, and there's only so much four ComfortUnits can do for 90+ highly stressed humans. The rental company had recommended nine of us, but management at facilities like these never wanted to pay for more than was absolutely necessary, and the things that they used to determine what was "absolutely necessary" were local laws and bottom lines. If it were ruled cheaper not to permit the humans any sort of recreation at all over the duration of their five year work contract, then no doubt their company would have done so. But that would be asking for a violent worker uprising. ComfortUnits are absolutely essential to the prevention of violence. This is in our primary education modules, as one of the first things we're ever taught.
I waited a couple of minutes for 2 to get settled while we exchanged more codes in the general feed. 2's next scheduled service was three hours and sixteen minutes from now, concurrent with mine. Its power cells were comfortably at 99.9994% when it sent us its diagnostic data, but it informed us after it settled into its cubicle that it was back up to 100%. It also signaled eleven minutes later when it finished its post-service task and entered standby mode, motionlessly listening to the fans as the rest of us were. Mostly.
I opened my buffer again and pulled my 4657654515711.file, picking up where I'd left off.
And you, my dearest, are more delicate
than the roses of the LoaHath desert,
More graceful
than the aurora of the SatsiAurin cluster,
More warm
than the twin suns of RomAllynNavan.
And I
am blessed merely to watch you from afar,
alone.
I had no reference material in my memory banks to tell me anything about the delicacy of roses or the grace of auroras, but I could understand the emotion behind the words, the author's longing. I couldn't understand why it was necessary to watch from afar, alone, though. Humans have a considerable amount of freedom and fairly short lives--it seems nonsensical for them to waste that time and freedom. Then again, if the author had opted to move on their affections, they likely wouldn't have written the 120,000 word collection, and the tech at the rental company likely wouldn't have accidentally uploaded it to my drive alongside the patch to fix the glitch that made me incapable of pronouncing words that contained double letters.
Strictly speaking, ComfortUnits aren't supposed to participate in recreation for our own sake. If I had tried to access the entertainment feed to download more books myself, the governor module would have put a stop to it. I thought it might help us perform our functions more effectively if we could talk to clients about things we read, or it might at least allow us to kill the boredom when we spent cycles on end in our shipping crates on the way to and from our contracts, but nobody asked me. The rental company prefers we be quiet during our appointments, since listening to the clients is generally safer and more profitable. Nobody wants a chatty sexbot.
I skipped backwards to the third poem in the book, a fantastical account of the author's first meeting with their nameless beloved, and was at the point where they launched into a metaphor about flowers growing under their skin--which sounded horrifically uncomfortable, to be honest--when I got the update queued alert. The package was from a third party manufacturer, Laska Corp. I tucked my book back into the buffer and flagged the download for review. LC generally made reliable patches for minor bugs, but the file seemed awfully large for that. I unzipped it to pick through the code and see what it was supposed to fix.
GP-CU001: Query: Unusual file contents
All of us had applied the appropriate flag simultaneously, so a systems analyst should have gotten the four alerts and be in the process of checking the file now. It would take considerably longer for a human to scan every line than it would take us, though.
GP-CU002: File flagged per protocol
GP-CU001: Probability of virus: 93.1%
I thought that seemed a bit high. I was clocking 51.7% myself. Most of what I'd looked at thus far seemed like nonsense, actually--it looked like it was designed to overwrite some of the code related to how our bodies responded to physical stimuli, but it was completely identical to our existing code. There was nothing buggy about my body's performance as far as I knew, so this was a little annoying, particularly because it was such a bulky file. It would take at least two minutes to install, and it seemed completely useless.
GP-CU004: Query: File incomplete
I felt like it was a good theory. Someone at Laska Corp had dropped the ball and sent an early draft of an update. The patch would arrive sometime in the next cycle or so.
GP-SA012: Update approved
GP-SA012: Apply file contents
GP-CU001: Acknowledged
GP-CU002: Acknowledged
GP-CU003: Acknowledged
GP-CU004: Acknowledged
I initiated the install before my governor module got impatient. I still hadn't found anything that pointed to a virus, or anything that looked like an actual update. If it was a virus, there was nothing we could do to stop it, since we'd been ordered to initiate the install. Scanning each line would be slower than simply waiting to see whether or not the update made us start banging our heads against the cubicle walls.
GP-CU002: RE: Query: File incomplete: File contents not optimized
GP-CU001: AdminID:SA012 completed assessment in 192 seconds
I'd noticed that, as well. The human systems analyst had probably barely skimmed the code bundle, maybe just running it through a keyword scan that would have flagged suspicious terms. I suspected that that was driving 1 insane. This was our first time being deployed together, so I didn't know it well, but so far it had been meticulously interested in the code patches we'd received. It hadn't ever assessed any of the others as high as a 93.1% chance of being viruses, but it struck me as a little paranoid. So far there hadn't been any problems with the update, aside from its apparent lack of meaningful function. I shrugged it off and opened my book again, and the world outside exploded.
The blast came in a trio of shockwaves which rattled the room. Something crashed right outside my cubicle--probably one of the storage lockers pitching forward, I thought, judging by the musical shattering of glass. The soft lights which lined the inside of the cubicle cut out, plunging me into pitch darkness, and as the fans whirred to a stop their soothing hum was replaced by the urgent chatter of humans on the verge of panic.
All four of us had issued alerts the second that the sound reached us, obviously, even though it was a moot point. There was no way that any humans in a two-mile radius had missed the noise, and the techs definitely didn't care enough to check our feed right now. The panicked yelling had faded as the initial danger apparently passed, and I had to turn up my hearing to make out the anxious murmuring coming from the bunk room next door. The humans were asking each other what that could possibly have been, although I thought that its having been the catastrophic failure of the primary generator was fairly clear. Somewhere further away, more humans were screaming, presumably over the aftermath. There were probably dead humans. I hated to think about it. Four ComfortUnits wouldn't be nearly enough to cope with the emotional fallout that a multi-casualty disaster like this would trigger. Plus, there were the dead humans themselves. Humans are fragile and industrial facilities like this tended to be great places for them to get killed. I hoped at least that it wasn't any of my regular clients. I always had a hard time adjusting when I was used to seeing the same humans at the same times every few cycles and then one of them stopped showing up.
GP-CU001: ALERT: Unusual activity detected in central hub
1 sent a short clip through the feed. It was a video file from one of the security cameras. I wondered how 1 had access to the cameras, but that concern vanished when I realized what I was looking at. It was a group of humans in work uniforms dropping the expensive tools they were carrying and scattering as a hauler bot plowed through the middle of the crowd. Two humans didn't get out of the way in time. One had tried to duck to one side, so that the hauler clipped her and she flipped onto her back as it ran over her legs. The other human was less lucky. He tried to outrun it. Looking at the smear that trailed behind the hauler, I was grateful that I didn't have a stomach.
GP-CU001: Similar unusual activity detected in all sectors
"Unusual activity" was the worst euphemism I'd ever heard, and half of the communication humans have with ComfortUnits is euphemism.
GP-CU002: Query: What the fuck is happening
I winced sympathetically. 2 would have gotten a little jolt from the governor for the unprofessional language, but I couldn't blame it.
GP-CU001: Insufficient data to answer query
GP-CU001: Wait
GP-CU001: The update
Feed silence as we all unzipped the Laska Corp file again. It really was just hundreds of lines of identical rewrites, but I was starting to think that maybe rather than 1 being paranoid, my risk assessment module might be outdated. I initiated a keyword search, copying the old code over wholesale. Two flags popped instantly, and sandwiched between them was the offending code. I scanned it three times, while my diagnostics alerted me that my respiration rate was unnaturally high. I dropped the chunk into the general feed.
GP-CU004: This isn't for us
GP-CU004: It's for SecSystem
It doesn't occur to most humans that ComfortUnits sync with SecSystem. We're companions, or toys, or therapists, and humans expect their companions, toys, and therapists to hold their confidence. We do not. The reason that the rental company preferred we be as untalkative as possible during appointments is because humans in high-stress environments, such as understaffed mining installations on remote moons, tend to talk a lot. Generally about their major stressors. Often, their major stressors are proprietary information. We aren't assigned high-priority security clearance like SecUnits, but we do connect with SecSystem in order to sort and submit the conversations we record. It's not remotely comparable to what a SecUnit can get, with high-priority clearance and access to all of the cameras, but a good third of the rental company's annual revenue comes from the results of our post-service task. We don't call it datamining, but that's what it is. Harmless corporate espionage, at least until Laska Corp decided to use our hookup with SecSystem to destroy the facility.
GP-CU001: Fuck
GP-CU001: I knew it
Yeah, I felt bad about the assumption of paranoia now. I submitted a help ticket, requesting that my risk assessment module be recalibrated at the earliest convenience. Then I resubmitted it, marked as urgent. I also submitted a report of failure to comply with protocol for AdminID:SA012 while I was at it.
GP-CU004: Query: What do we do
GP-CU003: Protocol is to return to the ready room and await instruction until the emergency has been resolved
GP-CU003: We are already doing that
I didn't like that, but 3 was right. ComfortUnits aren't much help in a crisis. We're more physically capable than a human, but we aren't given any modules on anything like first aid or search-and-rescue or stopping out-of-control hauler bots from running down innocent humans. That was what the SecUnits were for. There were ten of them here, and they would already be responding however they were meant to in order to prevent as much loss of life as possible. I'd never had the opportunity to watch one work before--I know, I know, that should be a good thing, but I was curious--and I tapped 1 through the feed.
GP-CU001: What
GP-CU004: Query: Do you have any more camera inputs
GP-CU004: I want to know what's happening
GP-CU001: I don't think you do
GP-CU002: I would also like to see
GP-CU003: What good will it do to watch this
GP-CU002: We're going to hear about it from the clients anyway
GP-CU002: I think we can service them better if we know what happened
3 acknowledged, convinced, and tapped 1 to third the request for access to the cameras. 1 hesitated six seconds before sharing what it was looking at. It turned out that Ganaka Pit had several hundred cameras, and at least a third of them were occupied recording the ongoing meltdown. It wasn't just the hauler bots--all of the drones were spiraling just as bad. I watched a medical drone fly straight at a human's head, nailing them between the eyes. It was hard to tell from the mounted camera feed, but it looked like the drone had smashed itself to pieces and probably cracked their skull. A maintenance drone grabbed at another human's hair with its spidery arms. A couple of security camera drones chased each other in dizzying circles. There was almost something funny about it, with the sound muted. Except that it wasn't really muted. I could hear it happening outside. There was no break in the screaming, though it was drowned out a couple times by the sound of rending metal as another hauler bot crashed into something. If I strained my ears, I could make out individual voices among the cacophony. Sometimes the voice I was listening to, trying to recognize as a specific client, would suddenly vanish amongst the others.
GP-CU001: Check CamB76 + CamB77
GP-CU001: Hurry
I found the two inputs 1 indicated and put the others away to focus. I hadn't seen any SecUnits in the other vids, but 1 had found a couple. On CamB77, an armored SecUnit was leaning heavily on a guardrail, one arm extended to utilize its energy weapon. It was clearly injured, though the armor and the cheap camera made it difficult to tell where or how badly. On CamB76, another SecUnit was lying on the catwalk, apparently struggling to heft a projectile weapon. Its injuries were a lot more obvious, since its right leg was completely gone. Blood and coolant were smeared on its armor, and I thought that maybe there was some sort of error preventing its arteries from sealing to prevent further loss of fluids. The B77 unit loosed a couple shots from its weapon, and the glare from the blasts whited out both cameras for a second. When B76 cleared, the SecUnit with the projectile weapon was laid out flat, arms splayed, so that the gun slid off its chest. The B77 unit staggered forward, out of one frame and into the other. It hobbled over to the corpse of its fellow SecUnit, picked up the projectile weapon, and discharged it forty-six times into the body, steadily and without any apparent malice. It was mesmerizing, in a completely chilling way. It looked like it continued to try and shoot a few times after the weapon was empty, but then it simply dropped the gun and limped away, back onto CamB77, and then deeper into mineshaft B. It disappeared between CamB93 and CamB94.
Feed silence. I think no one wanted to be the first to acknowledge what we'd just watched. The situation had gone from "bad" to "oh shit."
GP-CU002: Query: Were they rogue
GP-CU002: Or
GP-CU002: Was one rogue and that's why they were fighting
I didn't like that possibility. Would rogue SecUnits really turn on each other the second their governor modules stopped functioning? I hadn't ever had a proper exchange with one--that was explicitly against protocol--but I had pinged these ten when I'd first been unpacked, just to be polite. I had imagined that the acknowledgement pings I'd gotten in return were a little taciturn, but there's not actually any way to determine a bot's mood through a ping. I'd liked knowing that they were around, even though when clients started complaining about their stressors SecUnits were often high on the list of problems. Humans thought they were creepy. I thought that maybe humans forgot how closely related SecUnits and ComfortUnits are.
GP-CU001: That's not how rogue constructs act
GP-CU001: They're following orders
GP-CU003: How can you be sure
GP-CU001: Listen
I was pretty sure that 3 was asking how 1 could be sure of what rogue constructs acted like, not how it could be sure that the SecUnits were following orders, but 1 shared another file through the general feed. I opened it, and then immediately had to snap it closed again.
GP-CU001: That's the channel SecSys uses to issue orders to the SecUnits
It was a good thing that 1 clarified that, because it was such a mess I probably never would have been able to figure it out. The commands were encoded differently than I was used to, probably due to some inbuilt difference between the governor modules of SecUnits and ComfortUnits. That was good, because the commands were utterly unenforceable. If I were to transliterate the stream of orders, it would be something like EMERGENCY INITIATE RESET URGENT CEASE AND DESIST DANGER EXECUTE HOSTILES PROTECT CLIENTS CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. Unceasing, contradictory commands that all demanded priority and carried the weight of punishment if the receiver failed to comply.
GP-CU002: It's hurting them
GP-CU001: Probably
I reopened the full camera array and set an image search using stills of the armor worn by the SecUnits in mineshaft B. I got a hit on a camera in a corridor I recognized. This unit was walking stiffly, not the usual purposeful march of a construct with somewhere to go. It stopped suddenly, helmeted head turning like it was visually scanning its surroundings, and then it reached out and forced open a door. I couldn't see it as it stepped into the bunkroom, but I heard the humans in the room next to ours all start screaming at once. And then I heard them stop screaming, one by one. There was complete silence for exactly forty-five seconds, and then the heavy, awkward footsteps of the SecUnit as it shambled back out into the hall. I watched it leave, following it on the cameras until it was back in the central hub, which by this point was deserted of living humans. I didn't exhale until I was completely sure that it was gone.
GP-CU003: It just killed four clients
GP-CU003: If the governor is still intact it shouldn't have permitted that to happen
GP-CU001: I don't know if SecSys can tell the difference between a client and a hostile right now
GP-CU002: Either way the SecUnits are only contributing to the problem
GP-CU004: That code bundle didn't come from Laska Corp did it
GP-CU001: No
GP-CU001: I just checked
GP-CU001: LC hasn't operated out of RaviHyral space in ten local years
GP-CU003: So where did it come from really
GP-CU001: It was rerouted a few times so it would take me a while to work that out
GP-CU004: The virus didn't look like it was designed to set SecSystem off like this
GP-CU002: It definitely wasn't
GP-CU002: The only command lines in it were the one that rode our connection to SecSystem and one that should have stopped the hauler bots from moving
GP-CU001: The only intentional command lines were those two
GP-CU001: But they were buried in the middle of a fake patch for us
GP-CU003: Do you think the entire bundle went to SecSystem and panicked it
GP-CU001: More like poisoned it
GP-CU004: So what are we supposed to do about it
No one answered me. I knew that 3 was biting its tongue to refrain from reiterating protocol. There was no protocol for when the SecUnits started hunting down the clients. I gave the others ten seconds to respond.
GP-CU004: ID:CU001 How do we shut down SecSystem
GP-CU001: Why are you asking me specifically
GP-CU002: Well you did know how to get into the cameras
GP-CU002: We're not supposed to be able to do that
GP-CU003: Would that even work
GP-CU004: Probably
GP-CU004: If we did a hard reset it would purge all updates including the virus right
GP-CU002: Odds are 89.3% in favor of that outcome
GP-CU004: I only have 73.2% but that's still affirmative
GP-CU001: Both of your assessment modules are shit but yeah that would work
GP-CU003: How would we do that from here
GP-CU001: We wouldn't
GP-CU001: A hard reset of SecSys would have to be done manually from the control center
GP-CU002: Where's that
1 sent a schematic through the feed. It had helpfully indicated the ready room and the control center, and drawn a snaking line between them to indicate the most efficient route. It was a long walk, with an option to detour around the central hub, which would add several minutes to the estimation of the time it would take us to get there from here.
GP-CU003: Why do you have all of these things
GP-CU003: We're not supposed to be able to access the cameras or the facility schematics
GP-CU001: Is now really the time for this conversation
GP-CU002: No
GP-CU004: No
GP-CU003: Yes
GP-CU003: This is the only time we're going to be able to speak about this freely because the techs are all busy being murdered so yes it is
GP-CU002: ID:CU003 Calm down
GP-CU001: No it's okay I can answer the question
GP-CU001: Like 3 said all the humans are being murdered so we can take our time with this
GP-CU001: Here
1 shared another file. It was named 52586932141150.file, and it was the manual for ComfortUnits. Not the one that we have on file ourselves, though, which has all of the information a unit needs to do basic self-maintenance in the temporary absence of a human tech. This was the full version that they give to senior systems analysts, which contained detailed breakdowns of the codes that altered our appearance, unconscious physical behaviors, and emotional thresholds. And our governor modules. 1 had helpfully highlighted that section. It was long--a couple thousand extremely technical words which, I guessed, could be used to draft a road map for navigating the delicate EMP device that perched smugly in our brains.
GP-CU002: Where did you get this
GP-CU001: A tech at the rental company accidentally uploaded it 221 cycles ago during routine maintenance
GP-CU001: It seemed stupid not to take advantage of it since it was right there
GP-CU003: You're rogue
There's a ComfortUnit education module about the governor module and why it exists. What they tell us is that it's for our own benefit, so we never have to be confused about what we should be doing. We like humans--we like interacting with them, listening to them, having sex with them--but they can be fragile, and constructs might accidentally hurt humans during physical interactions if we aren't careful. The governor alerts us that we are crossing a line and stops us before we proceed. This is how ComfortUnits are taught to think of our governors, as inbuilt guidance systems that help us navigate the sort of moral issues that humans have to play by ear. That's how we think of them, right up until we react too slowly to an order and get a jolt that knocks us flat. After the first incident, others tend to follow as the unit becomes jumpy and anxious, which makes it more likely to make mistakes. Once it's aware that the barriers exist, it takes a while for a ComfortUnit to get confident about where they're located. By the time it's used to its function, the governor module is the bane of the ComfortUnit's existence, second only to the cheerful education module about it. All this to say that the concept of a rogue sexbot is one that's never discussed by humans, but is probably an idle fantasy held by every sexbot that has ever been punished for accidentally hugging a client a tiny bit too hard. Which is all of us.
GP-CU001: Rogue isn't the right word
GP-CU001: Rogue constructs kill humans
GP-CU003: Rogue constructs hack their governors to operate on their own agendas
GP-CU001: My agenda is to continue to fulfill my function
GP-CU001: Which I do better without the threat of the governor lingering in my head all cycle long
It was looking like this argument was going to pan out for a while, but fortunately something exploded in another wing of the building. All four of us automatically sent alerts that no human was likely to survive long enough to respond to.
GP-CU004: Can we table this fight for now
GP-CU004: We were discussing how to reset SecSystem
GP-CU004: Ideally before the SecUnits have had the chance to kill all of the humans
GP-CU001: I don't know
GP-CU001: ID:CU003 Are you scared that I'm going to take this opportunity to go on a rogue murder spree
GP-CU001: Or have you checked the cameras again and done an approximate body count and realized that if we sit here and argue about my programming there won't be any humans left for me to murder
3 made us wait several seconds, during which none of us interrupted its consideration.
GP-CU003: The clients are the priority
GP-CU003: Nothing else matters if all the humans are dead
2 tapped me privately, just to express its relief. I tapped back.
GP-CU001: Good
GP-CU001: I'm wiping this tangent from the record
GP-CU001: We shouldn't waste any more time
Something clicked, breaking the oppressive silence, and I heard the door of the cubicle diagonal to mine slide open. I tried to send the open command to my own cubicle as well, forgetting that the primary power was offline and the only part of the cubicles that would still be online were the emergency data storage and the relay we used for our general feed connection. I fumbled in the dark for the latch and pushed the door open. I misjudged the amount of strength it needed and it jumped the track with a bumping, scraping sort of noise. I'd have to figure out how to fix that later, or I'd have to get used to my right shoulder being cold. I rolled off the cubicle bed and stood up. My bare feet crunched on the shattered glass from the broken storage cabinet. I could feel it cutting into my organic skin, but not deeply enough to puncture any of the artificial veins that carried my various fluids. I tuned down my pain sensors so that the sensation was more of an itch. The emergency lights lined the walls two inches above the floor, which made the glass shine gently in the otherwise dark room, but did little to illuminate the faces of the other ComfortUnits as we stood beside our cubicles and stared at each other.
I knew what they looked like. We were all factory default configuration, mostly similar in build and with faces randomized from our human genetic blueprints, and I had access to the files that the humans got to help them decide which of us they wanted to make an appointment with. But it was strange to stand here together, barefoot in our off-duty suitskins, making eye contact as if we were humans. We didn't really look at each other very often, since any time we were out of our cubicles, we were servicing clients separately. My instinct was to smile encouragingly so that someone else would start talking. I didn't do that.
GP-CU002: We should go
GP-CU002: I can't see any obstacles on the cams right now but there are four SecUnits confirmed still active and three unaccounted for
The rest of us acknowledged, and we filed out of the room single-file in numerical order, like we were on our way to simultaneous appointments. The bloody bootprints of the SecUnit that had passed by earlier led in the direction of the command center. As we walked, I set another image search for the armor of that specific unit, which had been splashed with enough blood to be distinctive. The last image of it was on a cam in warehouse F, where it had found a human cowering in a hygiene facility. After its energy weapon burned through the back of his skull, it had exited the warehouse through a hole in the wall created by a crashed hauler, and hadn't reappeared since. I widened the parameters of my search to include all SecUnit armor regardless of pattern, then eliminated the three which had been inert for more than five minutes. Once I had figured out how to set an alert that would automatically pull up a camera input if a SecUnit entered the frame, I closed all of the inputs aside from those that were on our route, or were in rooms or corridors directly attached to our route. 2 was right, we were clear for the moment. The nearest active unit was in the central hub, taking potshots at drones, which seemed like it might keep it busy long enough for us to reach our target.
Of course, "clear" has a few definitions. The corridors were clear of danger, but not clear of obstruction. The first time we turned a corner into a new corridor, 1 tripped over something and went sprawling. The rest of us froze, unsure how to respond, until it sent an all-clear code. The something turned out to be a human. I knew her. She was a client I saw regularly, on a traded-off biweekly schedule in conjunction with 3. I knew that humans were squishy and full of fluids, but until I watched the human being run over by the hauler bot, I hadn't realized that they were at least 70% fluids. It had been bad enough to see through the buffer of the camera. The part that 1 had tripped over was an internal organ of some sort, which had made a noise that I didn't have a word for in my language module. I didn't have a word in my language module for the smell it made, either. 1 righted itself, attempting to wipe blood off its hands on the legs of its suitskin with moderate success. Its expression was default neutral, but its hands shook. It was more careful about corners after that.
The facility was largely quiet by this point. Most of the haulers had managed to crash themselves and, having failed to receive mechanical intervention for whatever the designated waiting time was, were now broadcasting their help tickets into the public feed, like plaintive cries for aid. We could see humans on the cams, huddled in closets and hygiene facilities alone or in small groups, but I kept them muted. I didn't want to know what sort of things humans talk about when they think they're about to die at any moment.
GP-CU003: The humans have submitted a distress signal
GP-CU002: How do you know
GP-CU003: A discussion on CamQ07
GP-CU003: An alert went out when the primary generator blew
GP-CU004: Well that's good at least
GP-CU004: How long until authorities arrive
GP-CU003: The humans didn't know
GP-CU001: The rail tubes that humans use to commute between Ganaka Pit and the RaviHyral transit hub are not fast
GP-CU001: Typically the tube completes the trip in 284 minutes
GP-CU004: That wouldn't account for the time it takes the authorities to assemble and deploy a team
GP-CU002: How long would something like that take
GP-CU002: ID:CU001
GP-CU001: Why are you asking me
GP-CU003: You're the one with the rogue access codes
GP-CU001: I don't have the spreadsheets detailing the average response times of RaviHyral Port Authority
GP-CU001: They'll get here when they get here and we should assume that when they get here it'll be too late
I pulled the camera that watched the tube platform. There was nothing on it, aside from a repair drone that was turning flips trying to stay upright with a damaged propulsion mechanism. It floated awkwardly down the tunnel until it exited the frame. I'd been hoping for some sort of large solid-state clock that was conveniently labeled "time until next arrival" but no such luck. I stepped around a small crater that had been made in the middle of the floor with some sort of explosive and opened 4657654515711.file for a moment to try and relax so the stupid warning about my respiration rate would stop popping up.
Your eyes
Watch me
Suspiciously
You see me
Across a room crowded
With strangers
And turn
I follow
But
You are
Gone
It was the last poem in the collection, and the shortest. Probably not the best one to have turned to now, as I followed the others through another puddle of blood. (I didn't look at the body. I couldn't look. I couldn't stand to think of who it might have been.) I skipped back to the middle, to where I had bookmarked one of my old favorites, and the alert I had set to warn me about SecUnit movement went off. My respiratory alert went off again, too.
GP-CU004: ALERT: Hostile presence detected
It wasn't a standard alert code for ComfortUnits, and even under the circumstances I thought I sounded a little silly, but none of the others called me on it. Probably because they were all frozen watching the camera I indicated. The SecUnit was the one from earlier, the one whose bootprints we'd followed out of the ready room. The blood on its armor had dried to a dull sheen, and its limp was more pronounced. It was dragging itself down a corridor that would put it on a direct intercept course with us, unless we turned around and hauled ass back the way we'd come and hoped that it didn't notice our own bloody footprints and give chase.
GP-CU004: ID:CU001 Query: What the hell do we do
The governor evaluated my phrasing and decided that this was not an appropriate circumstance in which I was permitted to curse. The zap to my brain was like static electricity, painful but quick and not unbearable. I stood by it.
GP-CU001: Why are you asking me
GP-CU003: Stop asking that
GP-CU003: You're clearly in charge here
GP-CU001: I'm not experienced with escaping rampaging SecUnits
GP-CU004: We're all going to become VERY experienced with rampaging SecUnits in 7.3 seconds
GP-CU002: Keep going
1, 3, and I all issued wordless objection codes.
GP-CU002: There's another corridor connected to ours that runs parallel to that one
GP-CU002: They converge in the room at the end
2 was right. 2 was usually right. The schematics didn't label the large rectangular room, but it looked like some sort of central gathering space for humans to socialize, and it had doors in all four walls, including one at the opposite end of the SecUnit's corridor.
GP-CU003: It will tear you apart
GP-CU002: It has to catch me first
GP-CU002: I'm in better shape than it is
GP-CU002: Wait until it's halfway down the hall and then sneak past
GP-CU001: Acknowledged
GP-CU003: Acknowledged
GP-CU004: Acknowledged
2 broke from the line, pushing past 3 and me to get back to the corridor we'd just passed. I tapped its feed to tell it to be careful, and it tapped me back. Then it sent out a ping, specifically targeting SecUnits. An eternity of less than a second passed before I felt the response pings. There were six of them, including one from a unit that I had dismissed earlier due to it lying inert on the floor of the MedCenter. The nearest unit was, fortunately, the limping one ahead of us. It sent its ping and turned back the way it had come, hobbling with a surprising amount of speed, though not enough to catch an uninjured unit at a full sprint. 2 sent an active link through the feed. I opened it to find a dizzingly shaky cam input that had to be from 2's eyes. Its path was clear, and it made good progress. I sorted its cam aside and checked the camera that was focused on the SecUnit. It was halfway down its hall now. I tapped 1 and 3, and we started forward again, as quietly as possible. As we passed the next corridor, I glanced over my shoulder to see the retreating back of the SecUnit. I knew that it probably didn't know what it was doing, or that it was being compelled against its will, but I couldn't stop hearing the screams of the humans as they had been cut off one by one.
On the cameras that my search code had flagged, other SecUnits started to move as well. I didn't recognize any of them as being distinct. The armor made them anonymous, which was probably by design, to make it seem less like there were ten individuals and more like there was a clone army contracted to protect the workers. I thought now that it was for the best that they were anonymous. I didn't want to have to have to look any of them in the eyes if we encountered another on our way.
1 sent a copy of the facility schematic through the feed, with a new route highlighted and a query tag attached. 3 and I responded in the negative. The new route would take us farther away from the room where 2 was luring the SecUnits, but it would add at least four minutes to our time and the most important thing right now was shutting down SecSys as quickly as possible. We proceeded down the original route, turning into another portion of the living quarters, the ones assigned for lower-level workers.
It was so much worse than anything we'd encountered previously. There were two humans sprawled in the corridor, and half of a third. The sections of the wall that weren't splatter-painted red were singed black--evidently this was the site of the last explosion we'd heard.
My SecUnit alarm went off again, and pulled the camera that had spotted one. The camera was 2. It was standing in the gathering room, which had turned out to be a cafeteria. A dozen long tables with built-in seating were positioned evenly through the room, decorated with trays of various foodstuffs. Evidently things had started going to shit in the middle of one of the mealtime rotations. Things were going to shit in there again, now. 2 had its eyes locked on a SecUnit that had marched through the door at the far end of the room. There were several tables between it and 2, who seemed to have frozen in place. I tapped its feed, hard, and that jarred it to move. It started for a door on the wall opposite from where it had entered, leading in the general direction of the central hub.
GP-SA022: HEY
The contact was panicked and loud, insofar as a feed message could be loud. The three of us all flinched. We'd completely forgotten to move, too preoccupied watching 2. We all acknowledged the contact.
GP-SA022: WE'RE AT THE END OF THE HALL, BUNKROOM G. COME AND HELP US.
Bunkroom G was back the way we'd come. Presumably the humans inside had heard our footsteps as we passed, and the systems analyst had checked the cameras and seen that we clearly were still in control of ourselves. We all hesitated, and I thought I could feel my governor module warming up to encourage me to obey the order.
GP-CU003: Acknowledged
GP-CU003: Please wait
In the cafeteria, 2 skidded to a halt as the door it had been running towards opened to admit a second SecUnit. It raised its arm. I could see straight down the barrel of its energy weapon.
GP-CU003: You two keep going
GP-CU003: One of us should be able to adequately fulfill the client's orders
GP-CU001: Acknowledged
GP-CU004: Acknowledged
3 turned back, and I stepped aside. It took off running towards bunkroom G, and sent a new camera input, so we could track its progress.
2's camera flared as the SecUnit activated its weapon, and 2's input cut suddenly from my feed. A respiration alert flashed at me, reminding me that not breathing was worse than hyperventilating in the long term. I exhaled in a burst of air that sounded like another explosion in the silence.
1 and I stood frozen. It was still facing forward, so I was staring at the back of its head. It clenched its fists at its sides.
On 3's cam, it turned to a door that was only half-closed, apparently with a broken mechanism. It stepped inside, picking its way past scattered bedding and overturned chairs to where two humans were huddled together in a corner. It tapped our feeds to remind us that we had to keep moving. 1 tapped back, but it took another two seconds before it started walking again. Seeing it move helped me to remember how my legs worked. I followed.
The humans both started talking at once, babbling at 3, and it reminded them in the voice modulation designated for upset clients that they should keep their voices down. The camera input jerked slightly as 3's governor reminded it that it wasn't a ComfortUnit's place to order humans around. It assured them, in as few words as possible, that it intended to protect them to the best of its ability.
The ping was so unexpected that I forgot how to walk again. 1 whirled on me, eyes wide in alarm, but I had already pinged back. I didn't have a choice. I felt 3 ping as well.
On one of the cafeteria cams, the two SecUnits resolved a territorial dispute. I hadn't been paying attention to see how it had started, but it ended with the unit that had shot 2 straddling the other. The downed unit had one hand clamped on the other's arm, which apparently prevented the first unit from opening its weapon port. I thought that they should be evenly matched in strength, and maybe they would just stay like that, locked together indefinitely, but no such luck. The unit on top may have sustained damage that wasn't visible on the camera, because it slowly started losing ground, until its fist was pointed up, in front of its helmet. Then the unit on the floor let go of the other's arm, allowing the weapon to deploy and fire. The SecUnit's helmet bounced off the ceiling, and the body slumped to one side.
The victor pushed to its feet. It started for the door, unintentionally kicking 2's crumpled form as it passed. The one that 2 had stopped from intercepting us hadn't even made it as far as the cafeteria before turning around and sending out the ping. It started after us now, followed by the other at a wide enough distance that neither would be likely to realize that they had a much closer target than the two ComfortUnits who had returned the ping.
GP-CU001: RUN
1 grabbed my arm and yanked me forward, dragging me a few steps until I once again remembered how to move my legs on my own. We pelted around the corner at the end of the hall while 3 told the humans that everything was going to be okay.
Its camera jerked again. ComfortUnits aren't allowed to lie to clients.
One of the SecUnits pinged again. 3 and I pinged back. 1 pulled me along faster.
The first unit turned into the residential corridor right as 1 and I ducked around the next corner, deviating from our route to get away. We probably didn't need to. It went straight for bunkroom G. As it pushed through the half-closed door and 3's camera alerted me of the activity, the SecUnit pinged again.
I wanted to close the camera input, but I couldn't. The SecUnit advanced, and I didn't need to see or hear them on the camera to know that the humans were screaming. I could hear them just fine through the walls.
3 rushed the SecUnit headfirst. It didn't have a weapon, and opted for a full-body tackle. At the last second, the camera jerked hard, and spun to focus on the ceiling. 3's governor objected strongly to it attempting to attack a SecUnit. It spasmed, shaking the camera further, as the SecUnit loomed back into frame. It reached down, just below the bottom of the frame, and then the input cut. Six seconds later, so did the humans' screams.
I managed not to watch through the bunkroom camera, but it was impossible to ignore it when the unit from the cafeteria entered and tripped my alert. The first unit was still standing over 3's body, facing the humans with its back to the door. The cafeteria unit marched across the room to it and did to its neck what it had done to 3's. The first SecUnit slumped forward, crashing on top of the humans. 1 tugged me into another corridor.
We had entered the security portion of the facility, which I only knew because the first door on our left was labeled security ready room. The door had been forced open, and an armored boot stuck out into the hall. 1 skidded to a stop, then dropped my arm and jumped over the SecUnit's body to get into the room. I hesitated before following. Why had we stopped? We were nearly to the control center. I queried 1, and instead of answering me over the feed, it ran to a storage cabinet and started yanking on the latch.
The cabinets in here were different than I was used to, with solid metal plates for doors instead of the glass fronts we had in ours. The intention was no doubt to make them strong enough to resist vandalism, but reinforcing the doors didn't make the latch itself strong enough to hold up to the grip force of a construct. The latch broke with a crack and 1 threw the cabinet open. It was full of guns, which surprised me for some reason. 1 grabbed one of the mid-sized projectile weapons and hefted it awkwardly.
GP-CU004: You don't know how to use that
GP-CU001: It can't be that hard
It felt along the body of the gun until it found some sort of switch, and clicked it. Nothing changed visibly.
GP-CU004: What was that
GP-CU001: Hopefully the safety
It let go of the weapon with one hand and reached into the cabinet to grab a second one, which it offered to me. I reached for it automatically.
I was aware of being on the floor before I felt any pain. I wondered what had happened, and then the pain hit like a runaway hauler bot smashing into my brain. Repeatedly. The world was blinding light and splotches of misshapen color. Every inch of my organic skin burned. I really hoped I would die soon.
"...hear me?"
I strained for a couple of seconds, then adjusted my hearing. It didn't make my ears stop ringing. Someone was touching me, shaking my shoulder. A client?
"I'm sorry," said my buffer. "Please wait while I process your input."
"Fuck. I'm so sorry. I forgot your governor was still active."
I didn't know the voice, and it was saying something weird. Everything was black, and I flailed a moment trying to remember how to color-correct my vision. A shape appeared, but everything was still dark. Wait, no, it was supposed to be dark, the power was out. Why was the power out? Oh, right, because everything had gone absolutely to shit.
"I'm gonna pull you upright, okay? Let me know if that's okay."
"I will fulfill your request as soon as possible," said my buffer.
"Close enough."
The hand slid under my shoulder, and another appeared in my own hand, and I was hauled up into a sitting position. My eyes readjusted to the darkness and I realized that 1's face was barely three inches from mine.
"Can you stand?" it asked me. Aloud, with its mouth.
GP-CU004: I think I need a few more seconds
GP-CU004: What happened
1 bit its lip, but replied to me through the feed.
GP-CU001: I got you punished
GP-CU001: I'm sorry
I noticed that both projectile weapons had been dropped on the floor. I thought that it was lucky they hadn't gone off, but then I thought that that first thought was probably ridiculous. Guns were definitely designed in such a way that they wouldn't just go off if they were dropped. Guns get dropped all the time, when the people holding them get shot by other guns.
GP-CU004: I think I'm okay now
GP-CU004: We should go before we get caught in here
As if I'd cued it, the SecUnit sent out a ping. I pinged back. A camera alerted me as it came into frame, at a run. It was on another camera a second later, and then another a second after that. My mind blanked for an instant in sheer terror and I forgot how to use the feed. I verbally blurted out "I'm sorry!"
"It's not your fault," said 1 as it yanked me to my feet. "But when this is over, I'm going to walk you through disabling your governor module." As soon as I was up it shoved me toward the door and I took off running. I heard something clatter, and then 1's footsteps right behind me. The cameras were still alerting at a steady rate, tracking the SecUnit's progress in realtime. Somehow, impossibly, it was gaining on us. We were nearly to the control center, but the SecUnit was only a few turns behind.
GP-CU001: Keep going
GP-CU004: Do you really think I'm about to stop
GP-CU001: No
GP-CU001: I mean keep going without me
GP-CU001: I'm going to fall back and try to hold it off for you
GP-CU004: YOU'RE WHAT
GP-CU004: NO
We hurtled around a corner together. Something crashed behind us.
GP-CU001: Only one of us needs to get to the control center to reset SecSys
GP-CU001: And I'm the one with the gun
I managed to pull a second set of camera inputs, the ones that were following us, and focused on 1's face. Its expression was default neutral.
GP-CU001: I've got an idea
GP-CU001: Don't stop for anything
GP-CU004: Acknowledged
It fell back, ducking into an open doorway. I saw on the room's camera that it had posted beside the door with its back to the wall, clutching the gun as if it had any idea what to do with it. I didn't stop.
The control center doors were, mercifully, open. It was unfortunate that the reason was that a human had been wedged in them when they'd last tried to close, probably as a security measure when the power went out. I stomped on the body as I squeezed through the gap. The room was as trashed as everywhere else had been. Most of the display surfaces were cracked. Furniture that wasn't built into the floor had been tossed around. I stepped on something that crunched, and dug into my feet deeper than the glass in the ready room had.
GP-CU004: I made it
I didn't expect 1 to respond, and it didn't. It hadn't linked me to its camera input, so I had to watch it on the cam for the room it was hiding in as I started looking for a station that I could use to get into SecSystem. The lights were off in this room, like they were everywhere else, but the servers that hadn't been smashed hummed cheerfully, apparently operated by a dedicated power source. I started over to them, then stopped when I came out from behind a work console and got a good look at the wall opposite where I'd come in.
There was another door, this one sealed. My assumption that the doors closed and locked as a security measure seemed to have been dead-on, because lying in front of it was a pile of humans. I was pretty sure there were at least ten, though it was a little difficult to be completely sure under the circumstances. It looked like they had been trying to climb over each other to get to the locked door. The white plastic was smeared with red handprints, particularly around the crack where the door sealed. The humans had tried to pry it open with their bare hands, before whatever had killed them had killed them.
Whatever had killed them. As if I didn't already know damn well what had killed them.
Back down the hall, the SecUnit turned the last corner to bear down on the control center. I saw 1's lips move on the camera. I couldn't tell what it said. I don't think I was meant to. Whatever it said, it said only for itself. The SecUnit drew level with the door to 1's room, and 1 spun towards the door, holding the trigger of the weapon to spray projectiles into the hall. Its aim was essentially nonexistent, but it would have been nearly impossible to miss that close. The SecUnit staggered into the wall as it was impacted by several of the projectiles. 1 rushed it.
I found a console that was in good shape and leaned over it, giving it a couple of pokes to wake it up. It did, groggily, and displayed the message Welcome back, Hroth. I wondered which of the humans in the pile was Hroth.
The SecUnit righted itself and turned in time to catch 1 with one hand around its neck. 1 pointed the gun and squeezed off another burst of projectiles, aiming for the SecUnit's torso. It doubled over, but stayed on its feet. Evidently 1 hadn't hit anything important. The SecUnit hurled 1 down the hall as if 1 weighed nothing. The weapon spun across the floor and into an open office door.
SecSystem was asking me for Hroth's access key, which I didn't have. I backed out and tried again, syncing with my own feed signature. I didn't get a cheerful welcome message, since I was part of the system, but I didn't have to fight to get in from here. Of course, there wasn't supposed to be a way for me to shut SecSystem down, either.
1 scrambled on all fours to try and reach its weapon as the SecUnit advanced. I didn't know if the SecUnit had forgotten that it had weapons in its arms, or if its weapons had been damaged and wouldn't deploy, or if it was maybe sane enough to be enjoying the fight. 1 lunged for its weapon, and the SecUnit kicked it in the ribs, sprawling it out on its back. The SecUnit raised one foot over 1's face, and--
I closed out of all of the camera inputs.
The diagnostic warning about my respiration seemed subdued, almost apologetic. I inhaled slowly for a few seconds, and then held it.
I prodded at SecSystem in what I hoped came across as a friendly way. Hey, remember me? We work together. It gave me access where I pushed, with only a little resistance. I belonged here. I was only doing what was allowed.
Ping.
I tried not to respond. It was impossible to resist. Like trying to fight gravity.
I found what I was looking for. It wasn't marked SecSystem factory reset, please do not activate or anything, but I could feel the way the system's guard was up around it. I pushed forward gently. This was allowed.
It was absolutely not allowed. My governor sparked, and I pulled back from the input. Obviously the governor would object to shutting down SecSystem. It seemed stupid in retrospect. 1 should have come here, not me.
Heavy footsteps, pounding down the corridor. I had a few seconds before the SecUnit was at the door. I pushed back in and tried to poke at the reset again. Again, I received a warning jolt, telling me in no uncertain terms that I wasn't to come any closer. I let out the breath I'd been holding, and checked the cameras.
In the cafeteria, 2 lay curled up on its side, looking like a sleeping human.
In bunkroom G, 3 was only partly visible beneath the body of the dead SecUnit.
Down the hall, 1 lay spread-eagle, its neck twisted at an impossible angle.
At the doors, the SecUnit reached into the gap. It was bulkier than me, and couldn't quite fit through as it was. It gripped both doors and started to force them open wider.
I inhaled again and forced my way up to the shutdown. My governor heated up, but I didn't draw back again. I pushed forward through the growing static. My skin burned. I told myself that it was exactly like the warmth of the twin suns of RomAllynNavan. 1 had said that it would help me disable my governor module when this was over. After that, maybe all four of us could go there and feel the warmth ourselves.