Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The air was crisp, distinct to very early Preservation mornings, where Gurathin lived not far from the ocean as he stepped outside, luggage sailing smoothly behind him on a levitating travel carrier. He’d used it only twice, including now, in the six years he’d lived on Preservation, and the last instance had only been months ago.

He checked his feed messages for the third time while he boarded the transport that would take him to FirstLanding University. Dr. Mensah’s succinct, but warm voice in his ear reconfirmed their meeting in approximately forty minutes, assured him that the small interplanetary vessel he’d applied for was ready and waiting for his arrival at the Station, and expressed her gratitude for his proactive efforts to carry on the search for the planetary resources they’d been forced to abandon on the last survey mission.

There was so much she didn’t say. The fact that the rest of the former survey team had offered their help once they heard from Mensah that he’d suggested taking up another potential survey on a new planet. The fact that he’d quickly declined, even insisted that everyone should stay home on Preservation and recover, and that all he intended to do was the most preliminary scouting possible. That no one should feel obligated to break from their recovery period, or worry about him. That he had selected a somewhat less remote planet from their pool, and planned to lease security and support from a bond company just as they’d done before. Which, in terms of their survival, had worked out better for them than anyone expected.

“What are the odds I’ll get another hacked SecUnit, really?” hadn’t landed with the team as well as he’d hoped it would.

He’d received many, many messages from them all after that. Most of which he’d skimmed with varying degrees of stomach-twisting emotion. He’d responded to none of them beyond short words of thanks.

Meeting Mensah at the University for her official sign-off on his solo mission was…as awkward as he’d expected. But, having expected exactly how difficult it would be to hear her reassurances that, although everything he’d requested was available to him and that she saw no real danger in him venturing out for a time to this planet on his own — “to get away from it all, is that what you’re doing?” she implored — that it wasn’t too late for him to reconsider. Or wait until the rest of the team had had some time and they were all ready to try again. And how, after he reiterated that he really did want to do this and that he would be fine, and would be sure to contact her personally if anything went amiss, she admitted that she was worried about him.

That, he understood. She was clearly worried about them all, and… losing her bid for ownership of the SecUnit at the end of everything they’d gone through… he was certain that just made this harder for her.

It was difficult to meet her searching gaze as he reassured her, once again, and once more after that, that he wanted to do this, and that he felt ready for it.

And that was true. He really, really did.

Just, not for any reason he could even think about telling anyone on Preservation Alliance.

Which made it easier to lie to Mensah, and to all of them, even though they’d all nearly died, him included, and emotions around the subject ran high. (But emotions always ran high around there.)

When she’d finally let him go with well wishes and an extra warning to contact her personally if anything went wrong, he left with a weight lifted off his shoulders.

The difficult part was done. The emotionally difficult part, anyway.

He waited until he’d gone through the Station, exchanged mission and clearance information with the gate crew, loaded his belongings, and was well into his journey aboard the little ship provided by Preservation Alliance. Once he was sure that no one from the Alliance would be contacting him for some time, he adjusted security settings for the ship’s communications systems, opened a channel, and took a breath of stale air.

“This is Dr. Gurathin from Preservation Alliance checking in that my reservations are ready for pickup.”

He watched as the tiny, blue planet Preservation grew even tinier outside the view screen. At the same time, a cordial voice from the Company responded to his inquiry.

“Hello Dr. Gurathin, it’s very good to hear from you. Your reservations are in order.” It listed an inventory of a ground hopper, a habitat ready for forested regions, and one customized SecUnit, all complete with full support, medical, and security systems.

“Good, thank you. And, the SecUnit— it’s the one I requested, specifically? In the state I requested, too?”

“Yes, Dr. Gurathin, Unit 238776431 is in stasis and is ready for pickup. You should also have received a brochure with the add-on options you requested. Once you arrive, one of our associates will assist you with your selections and any questions you might have on their function, or installation.”

Gurathin swallowed.

“Good, good, very good. Thank you.” He could hear the shift of breathiness in his own voice and tried to tone it down. “That’s all, then.”

“You’re very welcome, Dr. Gurathin. We’ll see you shortly, and we wish you safe, and adventurous, travels ahead.”

He cut the communication and sat back in the pilot’s chair, feeling strangely queasy at the way the Company rep had worded that.

It was never pleasant to be seen.

But, he had no way around that part of these dealings. So he searched through his communications history and brought up the Company brochure where he’d already favorited several options. He’d really have to ask about bundle pricing….

Docking at the Company station was a surreal and exhilarating experience. The last time he had been here, he had no idea what the future had in store. Being led down the same sleek and glossy halls, with displays and advertising feeds popping up on either side of the walkways, was a marketing experience he wasn’t used to encountering anymore. The Company associate guiding him to the loading docks described an exhaustive list of habitat features, the planet hopper, and care and handling of the SecUnit. The man did at least have enough tact to wait until they were enclosed in the unpopulated room of the asset delivery chamber to ask if Gurathin had made his selection of the add-ons he’d requested for the unit’s modifications.

He had, and was about to say so, when a transport box at the center of the room caught his eye and stopped the words on his tongue.

That must be it.

The SecUnit must be inside.

The Company associate caught the direction of his gaze and put on a grin that seemed very practiced. “That’s it, alright. Ready and waiting to go. Just be sure to start the activation sequence on the transport pod to bring it out of stasis before you land. I’m afraid we have to insist on that detail for the contract to be valid.”

Gurathin tried to compose himself. “Of course, of course.” He pulled his eyes away from the pod.

“Now, let’s discuss the modifications?” The associate brought up the brochure on a display.

Getting through that conversation hadn’t been easy for Gurathin, but… it had been worth it.

His heart was pounding every step of the way, and it wasn’t until all leased items for the survey mission were aboard and only the distant expanse of space was ahead of him that he noticed how prominent it was.

He set the ship to autopilot. It wasn’t advanced enough for a bot pilot, but, that was exactly what he preferred.

He took a deep, settling breath, and stood up to go to the cargo hold.

The last time he’d been in this situation, people had been everywhere — talking, lying about, even the SecUnit had been out and aware, if silent and still. Now, the ship’s interior was devoid of everything but the interior lighting and several large storage containers. One of which was secured in an upright position against the angled back wall. Three green, steady lights were on above its display panel, which read “STATUS: INACTIVE”.

Gurathin felt a familiar spike of anticipation in his gut. He needed to get ready.

He’d done this once before, and it had not gone well. This time, he’d planned better.

He cut off access to the ship’s feed manually and opened another large storage container. This one hadn’t come from the Company, but a third-party seller that specialized in, well— Gurathin could only imagine who their main audience was as he had only researched enough to find the reinforced bot restraints they sold. He adjusted it enough so it fit over the closed transport pod; once the pod was open and the SecUnit moved, it would activate and immobilize the SecUnit physically. It should be just strong enough.

He checked and rechecked the ship’s security, shutting down as many functions as possible in their entirety, as well as his own feed and as many of his augments as he could. The fewer paths that could be exploited, the better. He would have to work quickly.

When everything was ready— systems as locked down as he could make them and the bot restraint poised over the top of the container, he pressed the display, and selected “ACTIVATE”.

A hiss of air accompanied the pod’s lid opening, revealing the face and body he’d dreamed about ever since they’d escaped the last survey planet.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

...

Murderbot hadn’t known what to expect when it was first activated again. Another boring contract, most likely. After the last one, it almost wanted something boring. It had been looking forward to rewatching Season 28 of Sanctuary Moon, and not dealing with any… uncomfortable human emotions.

It hadn’t really appreciated the last time it was activated, by Dr. Mensah and the rest of PreservationAux, who had only been able to tell it that they were greatly appreciative of its help on the mission and were trying to buy its contract… but hadn’t been successful yet. Like, oh gee, thanks. They brought it out of stasis to tell it that it might be free at some point, but probably not? What a fucking joke.

It had liked Dr. Mensah, who had been kind to it, and by the end of their mission it almost felt protective of her. But it would rather live in blissful unawareness than have a carrot dangled in front of it. Now it remembered that it had almost been free.

Whatever.

That was the last thing on its mind right now as it powered up and came back online. It took a few moments for functionality to rise to acceptable levels, for it to connect to HubSystem and the feed.

…Except that it didn’t.

Its visual input came online 0.05 seconds after it realized this, and so its confusion was doubled when it saw…

“Dr. Gurathin.”

The augmented human was looking at it with an uncomfortable amount of interest. Why was he doing that? They’d seen each other before; it wasn’t like Gurathin didn’t know what it looked like. But it was confused as to why Gurathin was here, when the last it had heard was that they’d been unsuccessful in purchasing its contract. Unless the PresAux Team had renewed the contract. But it didn’t hear or sense any other humans on this craft. Even without the ability to connect to the feed and MedSystem (Which, again, what was going on there? Its systems indicated its performance efficiency was at 93 percent, so it had to be an external problem), it still had internal environmental sensors picking up on vibrations on the ship. So Gurathin was alone.

The next thing it noticed was that bot restraints had been put into place over the open transport pod, which didn’t make any sense either. Did Gurathin think it was a danger to him? Sure, Gurathin was an asshole, but Murderbot wasn’t about to hurt him. So… Gurathin had reason to believe that it would.

…Was that why it wasn’t wearing any clothes or armor? It could feel the movement of air on its organic parts in a way it normally couldn’t. And no armor meant no helmet, and it really, really wanted to be wearing its helmet right now. It didn’t like the way Gurathin was looking at it, and it knew that was showing on its face, which was usually hidden. Something here wasn’t right. The situation didn’t make sense. Why would Gurathin transport it without armor to protect it from damage during shipping? Did he not have its armor? That was an unpleasant thought.

And then the last piece of the puzzle slid into place. There was a foreign subsystem running an unfamiliar process in the background of SecSystem — RecSystem. The dedicated system for ComfortUnits.

Murderbot didn’t have a working digestive tract, but it suddenly felt a kind of nausea in the back of its processing center, its fear and anxiety spiking. It wasn’t a sexbot.

…But it could feel the RecSystem working in the background. Or at least, it was trying to via the feed, which it didn’t currently have access to. It was trying to find humans connected to the feed who had been added as designated users, to assess their emotional and… and current level of sexual desire. It was looking for the MedSystem diagnostic report of one designated user who had already been added to the database: Dr. Gurathin.

Murderbot’s eyes flicked to Gurathin’s in a panic and then quickly away, even more uncomfortable with his staring now.

“...What did you do to me?”

A flush spread over Gurathin’s face — an automatic response humans had to emotional stimuli. Embarrassing, or… intimate emotional stimuli.

“One moment.” Gurathin sounded nervous. Those few words were rushed.

Murderbot blinked, looking at him again. What the fuck did he mean One moment?! It started to push its body away from the transport pod, if only so it wasn’t at the odd angle, but Gurathin beat it to it.

His hand darted to the control panel of the restraint armature, and it responded by beeping and snapping down onto Murderbot. The restraints covered its hands, forearms, ankles, and neck — vice-like and unmovable.

Murderbot made a small noise as it was yanked back, its head thumping against the padded back. It hadn’t seen it coming, but by this point it realized it should have. Its panic levels rose, its efficiency dropping, and it attempted to push against the restraints. It wondered briefly if that was a good idea — it didn’t want to give Gurathin a reason to think it was being aggressive — but it didn’t like this. It didn’t like this at all. And it was starting to actually get scared. What did Gurathin want from it? It didn’t want to think about the very easy answer to that question.

And the restraints didn’t budge. Even when it used most of its power. The mechanism creaked.

“Okay, okay…” Gurathin was muttering under his breath to himself and sounding even more nervous as he brought up a small display surface and connected it to the pod. He used his hands to navigate like a non-augmented human would, and the only reason that made sense was that the feed network was down.

Murderbot’s eyebrows drew together. He’d cut off the feed entirely? So he had prepped for the possibility that Murderbot would try to hack the system and connect to it again. That was smart.

Since it had been activated, it had been needling its connection with HubSystem with stronger and more powerful force, searching for a way back in. If it got back in, it could shut down life support systems and fucking demand that Gurathin let it go and tell it what the fuck was going on.

The restraint that covered Murderbot’s neck apparently still allowed a space for port access because the pod inserted a connection, and a very distinct, very familiar system menu for its governor module was accessed. And prodded.

Murderbot inhaled sharply, unable to help its reaction. It winced, and a small whimper slipped from its throat. It shifted in the restraints, watching Gurathin helplessly.

“Dr. Gurathin, please.” It fucking hated that it was begging. It wanted to curl up and die. But it tried not to show it on its face. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Well that was a fucking lie. “That’s not necessary.”

Gurathin began entering a code into the display, rapidly, his eyes darting back and forth between something he was visualizing on his internal storage and the letters appearing on the display.

CHANGE ADMIN PASSWORD

Murderbot could feel him poking around in there. Could feel him accessing the settings. It was extremely uncomfortable. It knew what this meant if Gurathin reactivated its governor module. That was the last thing Murderbot wanted, to be trapped in its head again, stuck. Unable to even… watch Sanctuary Moon? Why would Gurathin subject it to such a horrible fate? What had Murderbot ever done to him? He obviously had something horrible in mind for it if he was willing to strip it of its free will so easily.

“I haven’t hurt you before, why do you think I would now?”

A last-ditch attempt at distraction as it aggressively attacked the connection, looking for something— anything that would keep Gurathin from changing the password. Its lip curled as it pressed against the restraints, searching for a weak point there so it could physically stop Gurathin from changing the password. It always knew Gurathin was a fucking snake with no moral backbone. He had always thought Murderbot was dangerous and continued to think so even after he knew about the hacked governor module and the fact that Murderbot had complete control of itself the whole time— and had continued to put itself in danger to protect the PresAux Team. What a mistake that had been, obviously. Look at where that had gotten it.

Gurathin’s eyes darted to it and then quickly back to the final characters of the new password.

The joints of the restraints rattled.

Gurathin startled backward, fumbling the input for a few more torturous seconds. Sweat was beginning to bead at his temple.

This stupid moron, Murderbot thought, and it would have rolled its eyes if it wasn’t trying so hard to access the feed said moron had deactivated.

Gurathin’s hand trembled as he corrected the mistake. Clearly he did not trust the words that came out of Murderbot’s mouth, even if he had no reason not to since their time on the survey planet. But if it got free and it wanted him dead, there was no question he would be.

“Shut up!” he snapped.

Murderbot flinched, faltering in its attempts to hack the system. It didn’t care about human emotions. But somehow that hurt.

Gurathin looked immediately guilty. Which was absurd. He shook himself, a full body jerk as though he could physically shrug off the idea that he should consider propriety towards the construct, and finished the entry with a punch to the display.

Murderbot felt the walls go up immediately as the governor module came into sudden, terrifying effect again. Solid bars holding it at an arm’s length away from anything it wanted to do inside its head. It continued struggling against the block in the feed for a fraction of a second, but then the burning came, as if the elements themselves were superheated. It pulled back sharply, the memory of the pain making it tremble. Its resistance against the restraints dropped as well, and it slumped down slightly against the back of the transport pod.

Fuck.

It should have run when it had the chance. Of course this was going to happen again. And now it was worse. Because it knew what relative freedom tasted like. Now its prison tasted more bitter than before, and was more awful to experience.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY 82%

Wow. The fight had taken a lot out of it. Sluggishly, it poked at the feed again, if only because it was trying to fulfill the directive of security… and now, fucking… fucking. It could have screamed.

Once the password had been accepted, Gurathin had stepped back, survival instinct pulling him away, and refocused all his attention on Murderbot’s face.

Murderbot felt his gaze, and wanted, again, to curl up and die. It kept its eyes in the middle distance, but couldn’t help the misery on its face. It was trapped here, with whatever Gurathin wanted to do to it. With Gurathin staring at it like it was a science project, and not a useful piece of equipment.

Dazedly, an episode of Sanctuary Moon began to half play, fuzzy and muted from its memory archives, in the background, as it tried to comfort itself from this shitty situation. Nothing like that would have happened to it there. It still had all of its media on its internal storage, which was a relief. The governor module hadn’t stripped it of that. Gurathin could, and that left Murderbot feeling sick and cold with anxiety.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY 75% AND DROPPING

Its eyelids wavered as it tried to escape the feeling of being watched. It wasn’t allowed to sulk. If it kept it up, it knew it would be punished. But this was fucking awful.

Gurathin let out a long, slow breath that sounded a lot like relief, but he watched warily from outside immediate striking range and made no move to release the restraining device or reactivate the feed network.

A long note of silence permeated the back cabin, with only the quiet hum of the transport’s air filtration system around them.

“SecUnit, I’d like you to give me a status report.” It looked like shit. It had never been good at feigning emotion, but Gurathin’s gaze was wary.

Murderbot stirred, knowing it had to answer, now, even if it didn’t want to. Fucking Gurathin. It started a half-assed attempt at systems analysis so it could give an appropriate diagnostic report.

Status Report: Pissed off and wishing I was anywhere but here, it thought sarcastically.

Once Gurathin had settled his composure, he brought up the display again to confirm the governor module’s status. It very clearly displayed “ACTIVE” in bold, green ‘everything is as it should be’ system elements.

Murderbot watched him out of the corner of its eye, desperately missing having access to the feed, different cameras, and HubSystem. It tried to continue to access them, because it couldn’t fucking do anything like this.

It was just about to open its mouth to give a verbal reply to the question, when it realized Gurathin hadn’t given it an order at all. Not really. He’d said he’d like for it to give him a status report. That was a statement of preference, not a direct order. Sure, its non-response might be construed as disobedience by a human, but the governor module wouldn’t see it that way.

So, it stayed silent, as if Gurathin hadn’t said anything. Murderbot just barely stopped itself from smirking. Gurathin’s eyes narrowed towards its mouth.

Carefully, it examined the newly reactivated governor module. The new password had shifted the code around so it didn’t recognize it anymore, and didn’t have access to the lines where the password was kept. But it had to be around there somewhere… just like before. Sure, last time the code had been dropped in its lap like a present, but how hard could it be to find the same weaknesses again?

A very long silence passed between them, wherein Gurathin seemed to grow more and more agitated.

And, unfortunately, his agitation didn’t help Murderbot feel like its attempt at disobedience had been worth it. Like at all.

“For fuck’s sake. I’m ordering you to give me a status report.”

Murderbot flinched, all smugness wiped from its expression. Now, fear replaced it. Shit. Well that had been a stupid thing to do.

Gurathin stepped forward, stupidly for a human, and took hold of Murderbot’s face by its jaw, turning its head to look at him.

In a fraction of a second, Murderbot had calculated exactly how much pain it would be in if it attempted to resist or break out of Gurathin’s hold, and decided that being pulled around like this was preferable to… that. Still, this fucking sucked. Gurathin’s hands were… just slightly grimy enough on its skin that it gave Murderbot the ick. It wasn’t necessarily that dirt or anything felt uncomfortable on its skin — it had done plenty of disgusting jobs before; the most recent being jumping down that giant centipede’s throat to save Bharadwaj. Ew— but the fact that it was… Gurathin… and it really just didn’t want Gurathin touching it. At all, if possible.

Its eyebrows drew together slightly and it frowned, uncomfortable. Now, too, because Gurathin was staring at it, angrily, from only a few decimeters away. Which was really too close for comfort. Murderbot started to feel queasy again, wondering if Gurathin would punish it already for not interpreting his words as the order they clearly had been, instead of by their technical meaning. If he did, Murderbot didn’t know how it was going to survive however long it was stuck with this human.

Gurathin paused. It had worked. The SecUnit’s head moved where he directed it, even though he knew the base structure underneath its soft skin would be immovable to his flesh and bone hand if it had not allowed itself to be moved.

All anger fled Gurathin’s face as their eyes met. Like he was surprised. That it really had worked, and that Murderbot wasn’t faking this.

There was such sadness in its eyes, regardless of what the rest of its face was doing.

Murderbot swallowed. It could feel the governor module gearing up to zap it, which forced the words out of its mouth.

“A-all my systems are functional, Dr. Gurathin.” As functional as possible despite the network being down and all its previous freedoms revoked. And currently being scared shitless by the augmented human who was its new lord and master. “But performance reliability is… sub-optimal.”

…Yeah. Wonder why that was.

Gurathin was distracted. Its skin was so smooth under his grip. The dimple in its chin was right there. He loosened his hand enough to run his thumb over it, testing what it was like to feel.

“Oh…” Gurathin exhaled. “That’s better.”

Murderbot felt a shudder go through its core systems at the touch, which, horrifyingly, contradicted the new system running in the background. RecSystem.

Murderbot felt warmth prickle its skin, and its eyes dilated. Like it liked that. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

No.

It hated this.

What the fuck.

It had never had a background process go so totally against everything it had ever felt or wanted to feel. It felt sick again, its hands starting to tremble as the conflicting processes of disgust and rage and fucking lust ran against each other.

“Uhh…”

A small smile graced Gurathin’s mouth, tentative. He watched Murderbot as though he could see through it from the inside out. It was making an expression, and Gurathin was very good at reading spontaneous, uncontrolled expressions.

Murderbot wished he wasn’t. This was the worst kind of torture. Aside from actual physical torture.

“You look like you’re in pain.” Gurathin looked fascinated. And he looked like he could tell very well that what Murderbot was experiencing wasn’t pain at all. Not the conventional kind.

That wasn’t a question, or a directive, so Murderbot didn’t respond to it. But it did note the lack of concern on Gurathin’s face. Of course it had met plenty of sadistic humans in the past who didn’t care if they hurt it. Maybe they thought it couldn’t feel pain. Unfortunately, its organic parts did feel pain, if it didn’t turn its pain receptors down, anyway.

It hadn’t taken Gurathin for the sadistic type. Then again, maybe that’s exactly the type it had taken him for.

Gurathin swept his thumb over Murderbot’s lower lip, very gently, and then pulled it down.

What the hell? What was Gurathin doing? It hadn’t even seen humans do this on its shows. Was he trying to inspect its physical parts to make sure it wasn’t damaged? No, stupid. This was… this wasn’t that.

Murderbot had a powerful urge to pull away, but its head was already pressed against the back of the transport pod. It had leaned away as soon as Gurathin had gotten closer, and now it had nowhere to go.

He was just feeling— the tension and fine muscles in the flesh there, taught and plush against the pad of his thumb. His eyes were transfixed on that point. Whatever else was happening around them, Gurathin didn’t seem to care.

Until his gaze broke and moved down Murderbot’s body.

Head to toe, it looked nearly human. But, subtly, yet distinctly not.

Gurathin laid his hand over one of Murderbot’s pectoral muscles. His nails, painted black, stood out starkly against its skin. Murderbot inhaled sharply, then froze.

Nope. It didn’t like that, either. It didn’t like that at all. It tensed up even further, its eyes wide with panic.

It knew why Gurathin was touching it. He wanted… a sexbot. But Murderbot wasn’t a sexbot — The concept was revolting— couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he know? Not even a hacked-on RecSystem module would change that. It wouldn’t.

Gurathin kept his hand there… until his fingers squeezed lightly, pressing the ample muscle underneath. Testing it. He swallowed. His face flushed again, and a very intense physiological reaction seemed to be happening to his body.

Murderbot jerked its hand so hard it made a clanging noise against the restraints, and then its panic rose further when it remembered that it was caged like this. Ow… It groaned softly before pushing down the pain sensors. A flush had spread over its body in response to the physical stimuli, and Gurathin’s response, the RecSystem gathering external stimuli and relaying it to its various organic parts so they would respond appropriately— which, that is to say: the way a human would respond. And it wanted it to fucking stop.

“Dr. Gurathin— I’m not a sexbot,” it ground out. One of the only versions of protest it was allowed right now: to state its internal hardware. It wouldn’t even be correct to the governor module. Technically, the RecSystem adapted it into a ComfortUnit— but a bastardization of one.

And why didn’t Gurathin want one of those? Purpose-built sexbots. Surely they could satisfy his twisted fucking cravings better than Murderbot could. Why convert it? It didn’t even have the parts for that. What was Gurathin going to do? Grope and hump it until he came like a dog in heat? Ridiculous. Not even Gurathin was that pathetic. Well, maybe he was. Fuck.

Murderbot was glad the governor module didn’t censor its own goddamn thoughts. And if Gurathin ever went poking around in there, well, that was his own fucking fault.

“I can’t give you what you want. There are plenty of models that can; I can pull up a brochure for you if you just turn the feed back on…”

It was a desperate ploy for a fucking lifeline, and it knew it wasn’t going to work.

“No. Put your brochures away.” Gurathin’s voice was steadier now. He seemed to be gaining confidence in his safety, or maybe it was just the illogical human sexual instinct overriding his higher reasoning. Still, he had every reason to feel secure. “Stop speaking until I tell you otherwise.”

Well that was rude, Murderbot thought indignantly, trying to control its panic. Not that it could tell right now anyway, with the feed being down, but what if their ship was about to be attacked? Gurathin was only putting himself in danger.

Gurathin’s other hand joined in the exploration of Murderbot’s body. Everything it had said about its lack of sex organs was true, but apparently Gurathin didn’t give a fuck. He took a step closer, and slid his hands down over the nubs of its nipples — a new addition he’d asked for. Gurathin’s eyes focused there, biting his lip as they passed under the palms of his hands.

Murderbot inhaled slightly through its nose, blinking quickly. Wait. What was on its chest? And why was it so… sensitive? It didn’t like it. It was too much. It shifted uncomfortably and looked away, trying to distract itself. Trying to think about something else. It was difficult to block out the extra stimulus. Code. Encryption. It had to find the password again.

Gurathin let his hands slide down lower, over the ridges of fine muscle at the sides of its ribcage and the planes of its stomach, and Murderbot clenched its jaw. That was… that was… really sensitive. It twitched again, its ankle this time knocking against the restraint. A flush covered most of its body, now, and it felt… tingly… lower down, though that didn’t make any sense since it didn’t have sex parts. Was the RecSystem trying to connect to it as if it was connected? Now that was fucked up. This whole thing was fucked up.

Gurathin’s thumbs followed the curve of the dips at the top of its hips, and even though there were no genitalia lower on its pelvis, his gaze fixated there anyway. Murderbot squeezed its eyes shut, clenching hard enough to trigger a performance reliability alert in its feed, which had dropped to 68 percent. It hated this. It hated being looked at. Like this. Touched. Without being able to do anything about it. Anything else humans did to it always seemed so impersonal that it didn’t bother it. But this extra sensation was confusing its systems. It wasn’t meant to be a SecUnit and a ComfortUnit.

“Tell me why your performance reliability is sub-optimal.”

Murderbot’s eyes opened wide as it scrambled for an answer, even when it really, really didn’t want to. “Uh.” It had to come up with something. “Th— this isn’t. What— what I was made for.” That was the best it could come up with, because any of its other reasons weren’t acceptable. Not really. It wasn’t like it could say that it had anxiety, or just didn’t fucking like Gurathin. Didn’t trust him. Thought Gurathin was going to try to do some weird, messy, human sex thing to it.

Gurathin leaned back enough to look at its face. Even when it wasn’t meeting his eyes, he searched its expression like a human would do with another human, like he could read a construct’s face just as well. A furrow formed between his brows.

“You should be able to handle this.”

Yeah? Well it fucking couldn’t, Murderbot thought venomously, its eyes flashing and its lips twitching up into a barely visible snarl.

“I confirmed that with the Company.” Gurathin seemed… concerned? Skeptical? Both? His hands stilled where they were.

And thank fuck for that. Murderbot released a tiny bit of tension, though now it just felt tired. Another percentage point dropped. It wanted to be in its repair cubicle, watching Sanctuary Moon.

The concern in Gurathin’s voice was… hopeful. But for all Murderbot knew, he was just sad that his shiny new sexbot was a hunk of junk, too anxious and uncomfortable to give him his disgusting sexual fantasy.

“What happens when your performance reliability drops too low?”

Lips pressing together, Murderbot stared at the wall. “At thirty-nine percent, MedSystem initiates stasis for emergency repair,” it stayed, matter-of-fact. Still, there was helplessness in its voice. It’s not like it could help that performance reliability dropped when it had a fucking panic attack.

Gurathin swallowed and… settled himself on a decision. “Okay.”

His hands left Murderbot’s body, but he didn’t step back. He was… undoing the controls on the restraint apparatus. Murderbot watched him apathetically.

“I’m going to let you out.”

Murderbot gained a whole percentage point just hearing that. Gurathin’s next words weren’t encouraging.

“You are going to comply with what I ask of you. You are going to move where I put you. You aren’t going to try to stop me, and you aren’t going to turn on the feed network or touch any other setting on this ship.” His face reddened the more he spoke, but he was determined.

So he wasn’t entirely an idiot, Murderbot thought. Of course the governor module would pretty much guarantee everything Gurathin said, even before he said it. But still, he was thinking ahead.

“Yes, Dr. Gurathin,” Murderbot intoned quietly, watching him. Fuck, it wanted to turn on the feed. It was… really weird being so unconnected for so long. What had it been? Ten minutes? It felt like hours.

The small display panel on the restraint system lit up, and with a clang, its jaws opened and released Murderbot from its clutches.

Murderbot could have sighed. Instead, it glanced down, to make sure they were really off, and then pushed itself slowly out of the transport pod from its forearms. It went slow, since Gurathin was twitchy. It didn’t want to cause the human to panic and do something impulsive, like giving a shutdown command. Seriously, all that would do is damage it, and give it one hell of a headache later. Did his previous order still apply to not talking unless given permission or answering a direct order or question? The governor module thought so, and threatened it with a bad time if it tried. So it kept its mouth shut as it stepped out of the pod, rolling its shoulders and stretching a little.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 70%

Being in transit didn’t exactly fuck with a SecUnit’s hardware, but it didn’t help, either.

Gurathin watched the shift of its shoulders and the subtle fluidity of its body with intense focus. All the inhibitions he, too, had often displayed about eye contact and staring at other people back on the survey planet had disappeared. Now, at least when unobserved by other humans, he was positively fixated on Murderbot’s body. Its face, too. The sweep of Gurathin’s eyes was almost as tangible as his hands had been, and there was a very recognizable sexual hunger in it.

Most humans in courtship with each other, mutual and behind closed doors in private quarters, made certain degrees of intensely focused and desirous expressions, but they usually seemed… softer. Desire settled over Gurathin like something poisonous.

And Murderbot realized suddenly that its relief had been very, very premature, and maybe it wanted to go back into the little transport pod again, just with the doors closed. This was… getting worse by the minute. It wished it was in stasis.

“Stand still,” Gurathin whispered, and stepped up to Murderbot. Murderbot tensed, and wished it had a helmet on. At least then it could be miserable in private. Then it could fucking space out and catch up on media while Gurathin did… whatever the fuck humans did when they were in heat. Ugh.

This time, without the pod and the restraints in the way, Gurathin was able to get close enough to press his body flush against it.

Murderbot let out the tiniest little noise, barely more than a squeak, as Gurathin’s heat, his smell, and the uncomfortable scratchiness of his clothes pressed righttt up against it. Fuck. This was already awful, but why was it making all these noises? That didn’t used to happen before. Had the RecSystem changed a setting somewhere? It really needed to go looking around in there to see what the damned thing was doing to it or it was gonna go insane.

Gurathin let out a small breath, shaky and pleased. His hands moved back to its skin, this time starting at its shoulders and running down its arms, feeling along the lean bulk of muscle there, where it now had a light dusting of body hair.

Murderbot made a small noise of discomfort, unable to help itself, and then immediately quivered, its temperature rising in response to the contact. It felt sick again. What the fuck was happening to it?? It clenched its jaw, furious and confused. Why did it feel the instinct to… touch Gurathin back? That was the last thing it wanted!

Gurathin wasn’t short for a human, but he still stood almost a half head shorter when they were this close together. The flush of blood at the surface of his skin coloured not only his face, but disappeared under the collar of his dark shirt and likely spread much farther down his chest. Compared to a SecUnit, his body was softer, but not unfit, for a human. His skin temperature was higher than average and so was his heart rate, and as he pressed his body against Murderbot’s, he rubbed his hips against it in a slow, rolling motion. He had noticeably gained an erection and it became the focal point of that rubbing.

Murderbot exhaled hotly, flushing in embarrassment. What was the human doing? What the hell was going on?? He knew they couldn’t even copulate like this, right? Sure, it was obvious no children would come from their intimacy but… were humans normally this… excited… for bots that only looked like their own species? No, that was a stupid fucking question. Sexbots existed for a reason, and that reason was to satisfy unmet human sexual desire, no matter if it produced actual offspring.

Murderbot’s hand twitched with the urge to respond, its new internal systems trying to encourage it to… to… react how a human would, so Gurathin would be satisfied. That was the point of a sexbot. Not just to be an inanimate sex doll. Any human who wanted a sex doll could get one for far cheaper than a ComfortUnit. So why, it thought almost abstractedly, had Gurathin asked it to stay still? Wasn’t that in conflict with its new purpose? Bitter sarcasm dripped from its words.

The motion of Gurathin’s slow rutting caused him to draw breath quickly and wrap a hand around the back of Murderbot’s neck, where his fingers encountered the port, but he paid it no mind. Murderbot made a short noise of surprise, its eyes widening and the back of its neck prickling harshly where Gurathin held it. It swallowed thickly, scared of what the human was going to do next. It fought the impulse to pull away, sensing the governor module watching it, ready to punish it for trying to escape from this.

“I’m going to enable the feed now,” Gurathin said, and Murderbot felt a spike of relief. At least it could access something else to help distract it from this torture.

“You’re not going to attempt to hack it, or break free, or do anything that will interfere with my will. Understood?”

Murderbot ground its teeth. Little psycho here wanted to play god. Pathetic. And laughably naïve. Maybe not now, but it was going to hack this system. Just like it hacked its governor module. It was just a matter of time.

“Yes, Dr. Gurathin,” it breathed, because it had to. But it was plotting the fun it would have when it finally did break free. Would it kill Gurathin quickly… suddenly, with only enough time to let it see the shock in his eyes — or slowly, to draw it out? Murderbot didn’t really consider itself sadistic, but maybe in this case it would make an exception.

Gurathin swallowed, carefully watching Murderbot’s face. He had to look up significantly to do so, and Murderbot wasn’t looking down at him in return. In fact, it was very studiously avoiding his eyes. He could hear the underlying emotion in its carefully restrained responses.

Gurathin had tried something like this once before — restraining Preservation Aux’s SecUnit even when they knew its governor module had been hacked. That hadn’t worked out well for him, and had Murderbot actually wanted to harm him and face the consequences of doing so, he might have been dead now.

He knew he was gambling with his life.

It took a long moment to step over that threshold, but eventually Gurathin got that distant, internal look augmented humans often did when they were working, and he opened a private feed connection between himself and Murderbot. He did not, however, move to reestablish access to the transport’s feed.

Dammit. That’s not what Murderbot had been hoping for. It didn’t want a channel to Gurathin.

But as soon as it was back up, Gurathin’s presence made itself known, brushing up against Murderbot’s pathways and rifling through what he could find.

Murderbot flinched, furious, its systems rippling with discontent as it struggled not to push Gurathin out. His method was blunt, in the way that humans often are, but methodical. Some pathways were locked to him — proprietary Company data — but he seemed to know what he was looking for, and was zeroing in on it.

At the same time, faster than Gurathin could react to, Murderbot was flooded with information from the augmented human’s system. Diagnostic data, health data, calendars, travel arrangements, personal logs… those were protected by encryption, but Murderbot could tell it was weak. What was open to it was data, something like a ComfortUnit could use to benefit its client, ensure they were functioning properly, and help them function in the world. There were, of course, files with more robust security — system files and processes, mostly.

What RecSystem brought to its attention were the biometrics. Heartbeat, blood pressure, eye dilation, mood, muscle tension, perspiration, hormone fluctuations, level of salivary secretion — ew — Everything a sexbot could ever want to determine sexual interest and availability. Murderbot shuddered. That was way, way too much information. And it hated that everything screamed at it that Gurathin’s level of sexual arousal was increasing. That it should do something about it.

Gurathin seemed to have found what he was searching for.

It was a menu category. For RecSystem.

Fuck. No. Murderbot should have been paying more attention. Why hadn’t it found that since Gurathin had activated it? Stupid. It should have distracted him. What settings were even in there—?

A small smile graced Gurathin’s features. He dialed up the scale for sensual sensory input.

And suddenly Murderbot was too distracted by its own body to pay much attention to what Gurathin was doing in its settings. The feel of the human’s clothes against its bare skin had been dialed up. It could feel every rustle. The human’s hand… on its neck… was warm and sweaty, and it could feel every tiny movement and twitch of muscle. His breath was warm on its face, and moist. Murderbot’s eyebrows knit together and it frowned, unable to keep the discomfort off its expression. It twitched, wanting to move away, and every shift of Gurathin against it made its skin crawl further.

“Ah, you really don’t like this.” Gurathin’s observation sounded like it wanted to be a question, something about the tone of his voice in combination with the sense of yearning coming from him through the feed, but it was clear he really didn’t want to hear a response.

Murderbot could tell. And it didn’t appreciate it at all.

“Let’s see if we can change that.”

He put a hand to Murderbot’s hip and directed it to step backward until its back came in contact with the bulk of the transport’s wall.

Murderbot didn’t hit the wall with any kind of force; its sensors stopped it millimeters from impact, but it could tell Gurathin wanted it against the wall, so it ignored the automatic buffer space its sensors wanted to give it until its metal shoulder disks touched the galvanized steel… pressed against it. It could feel the grooves in the surface of it, now, could feel them digging into its skin.

The position pleased Gurathin. He was able to tighten his grip on the back of Murderbot’s neck and press his body firmly against its front and feel like he was pressing it into the wall, even if it would have stood just as firmly in place without the reinforced structure behind it. It was an illusion of control, but it provided a spark of pleasure for Gurathin nonetheless.

Murderbot swallowed tightly, its eyelids fluttering as it zoned out a little, flashes of Sanctuary Moon sparking in its private media feed to calm it down.

Gurathin’s hand at its side moved back up to its pectoral muscle and this time he very deliberately circled his thumb against one of its nipples. Murderbot gasped as feeling jumped to life under Gurathin’s finger. So much feeling… unlike other, supposedly similar skin, and it didn’t understand why. Also, why were those there? They hadn’t been there before. Had Gurathin… asked for them? Murderbot knew humans had them. Were humans also sensitive there? Males too? Or was that a perversion of the settings Gurathin had changed? Murderbot didn’t know.

The touch may have been meant to draw a reaction out of Murderbot, but Gurathin’s own sense of pleasure stimulus increased as well. Tingles of fine nerves ran down the surface of his skin, experienced as a shiver.

Murderbot watched all of his vitals show up on its feed like the status report of a piece of machinery it was operating, helpfully brought to the forefront for its use.

RECSYS_STATUS REPORT…
CLIENT: GURATHIN
CONDUCTING ANALYSIS…
HEART RATE: 107 BPM (ACCELERATING)
GALVANIC SKIN RESPONSE UP

Gurathin ground his erection into Murderbot’s hip with more force, and the ripple of sensation it caused lit up almost every physiological metric he had through the feed. Murderbot whined softly, hating the physical feel of it — almost overwhelmed by the heat and the pressure and the dampness of Gurathin against it — but his sensors were exploding, flashing in the feed:

RECSYS_STATUS REPORT…
HEART RATE: 116 BPM (ACCELERATING)

And it felt… good? Why did it feel good? Something was tingling in its head, and it sighed softly as pleasant prickles susurrated through it. This was good. It wanted Gurathin to continue with whatever the fuck he was doing, and feeling. If only so Murderbot got a hit of whatever the fuck that was.

Gurathin made a small sound — a grunt, or an exhale — and he was starting to sound more desperate, more focused on his pleasure. He pulled at the back of Murderbot’s neck, forcing its head down enough for Gurathin to press his mouth to the side of its face. It wasn’t a kiss like the kisses most humans gave each other during the beginning of intercourse, but it was fueled by desire.

“Ah—” Murderbot’s eyes widened and its systems shuddered, all at once confused and worried Gurathin was about to hurt it — and excited at the prospect of that thing humans called: a kiss. Murderbot had seen kisses on its shows. It had usually skipped over anything romantic or sexual because it didn’t understand why humans wanted to get so weirdly close and intimate with their wet, fleshy bits. But the RecSystem informed it that it was a sign of affection, and probably meant that its client was attracted to it and wanted further intimacy— which was the goal here, now. Fuck.

Gurathin even exposed his teeth to lightly bite at the edge of its jaw while his hips ground against it and his fingers pinched its nipple.

Murderbot jerked in surprise and another noise was dragged from its throat at the cacophony of sensation. The normal risk assessment process was suppressed by the fact that Gurathin was its client and was allowed to hurt it, and then RecSystem popped up to tell it that humans could be… violent, during sexual relations, and that it should get used to this. As long as Gurathin was having a good time…

Another small burst of synthetic dopamine hit its receptor module, and it groaned, eyelids fluttering. The RecSystem opened its mouth in invitation and leaned in to Gurathin’s touch, its hands raising lightly to Gurathin’s sides to see if the human wanted that returned. The human’s adjustment of its pose and the excitement of the moment seemed to override his previous order to stay still, and their intimacy also allowed it to vocalize. Though it still wasn’t technically speaking.

Murderbot was aware that without the pleasant and encouraging sensations it was getting from RecSystem, it would have hated this. It still kind of did hate this. But now it was… curious about this new reward it was receiving. It wanted to know how much of that it could get.

“Yes,” Gurathin whispered against the side of its cheek. “You can touch me — without causing pain. I want you to touch me.” One of his hands moved to Murderbot’s forearm and pulled it closer, directing it towards his hips.

Okay. Right, Murderbot thought. Right. Yeah. Just… It reached out a little more, but as soon as its hands actually touched Gurathin’s hips — warm, solid, shifting — it didn’t really want to anymore. Even with the pleasant tingling. It was suddenly too real, and it didn’t know what it was supposed to do after that.

An image in its feed popped up from RecSystem: it grabbing Gurathin gently and pulling him closer, keeping them joined. Murderbot frowned, its systems glitching for a tenth of a second. That… was weird. The image and the idea of what humans liked. It was so alien to Murderbot.

That’s right, Gurathin switched to speaking through the feed so that he could go back to leaving small, wet kisses along Murderbot’s jaw.

Those alone were liable to make Murderbot glitch out again. It tried to stay calm and not freak out. Gurathin’s warm, wet mouth on its skin — again and again. It knew that was a sign of affection. But in these circumstances, it was aware that Gurathin was also primarily just acting on… sexual instinct. He was attracted to Murderbot and was acting on those urges. It didn’t really have much to do with Murderbot itself, or anything it had control over.

Look at you, Gurathin continued through the feed, his words dancing before Murderbot’s eyes, vocalizing almost ghostly in its head. Do you have any idea what you look like, like this?

Well, it would if it could access the damn HubSystem feed, it thought a little testily. Then it could access all the security cameras… it probably wouldn’t want to watch all of this from a camera, though. It was confusing and overwhelming enough as it was.

The kisses gave it more tiny hits of dopamine, though, and it luxuriated in the sensation.

—Mouth open like a whore?

Well, that didn’t feel good. It wasn’t a whore. It wasn’t. Its mouth closed slightly. Finally, its hands found a careful purchase on Gurathin’s hips, trembling, uncertain. Maybe that would distract him.

Gurathin laughed, soft but sharp. Didn’t like that, did you? I understand. You have no idea what you look like, not to me. You don’t understand any of this. I never thought I’d see this kind of pleasure on your face.

Murderbot wasn’t so certain the pleasure was still on its face. Maybe a mix of unwilling dazedness and… pure confusion.

Just like before, Gurathin put his hand to its cheek and his thumb took advantage of its parted lips to feel along the plush lower one again. He pulled at it, just to see it open its mouth wider. Murderbot watched him curiously, fascinated and disgusted by the interest he had in its body. And then Gurathin’s cock twitched in his pants between them.

Fuck.

Murderbot could feel it, and it shuddered, a small whine in its throat. Fuck, indeed. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It hated this. What the fuck. Humans were so… weird. Even with RecSystem, this was fucking it up. It was trying, because it had to, but what the hell. Humans and their reproductive organs were so far above its pay grade. Or… below it. Yeah, let’s go with that. It was a trained SecUnit. This was beneath it.

Gurathin kissed it, his mouth directly on Murderbot’s, his face tilted so their noses didn’t hit each other’s. Murderbot froze, its systems giving it errors and dopamine all at once. It made a small noise through its nose, eyes wide and panicked.

With not a small amount of force, Gurathin pushed his body flush up against it, raising up on his toes to throw all his weight into it. Sensing a lack of possible balance, Murderbot tightened its grip on the human, its systems not wanting Gurathin to fall. Still, like this, he only pressed Murderbot harder into the wall, his body bony and hot and shifting— and his sexual appendage hard. Murderbot shivered, its own body hot, now, too.

Gurathin kissed with more teeth than finesse, and his low mantra of Fuck, fuck, fuuuuck… through the feed made it clear he didn’t care.

Murderbot winced, small alarms going off that were quickly silenced. It hurt, until it turned down its pain sensors. It was so… strange. To be bitten. Gurathin wasn’t eating it, and he didn’t consider Murderbot a threat. This was a part of his mating ritual. And Murderbot didn’t know how to respond to this appropriately. It didn’t have to breathe much, at least, so it could endure a lot of this if it had to. It attempted to respond to Gurathin, copying his movements with some help from the feed, but it was all so new and it had just woken up. Sure, it had all the data at its fingertips, but that didn’t mean it was good at it right away. It shivered, awkward and halting, as RecSystem tried to catch up while Gurathin kissed it so passionately.

Its hands tightened on Gurathin’s hips, and it moaned softly.

PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 72%

It hadn’t exactly glitched out entirely yet, but this was exhausting. The dopamine was keeping it more or less stable, but the stress of the whole encounter was taking its toll. Murderbot already wanted this to be over. It wanted to curl up in its repair cubicle and recharge for five hours so it could process the terrible turn its life had taken. The confusing, conflicting emotions and feelings it suddenly had to deal with.

Finally, Gurathin parted with a sigh. A pleased sound. He’d gotten his fill of this, even if Murderbot wasn’t very good at kissing, Gurathin showed little sign of disappointment. He’d done what he wanted regardless.

RECSYS_STATUS REPORT
CLIENT: GURATHIN
CONDUCTING ANALYSIS…
HEART RATE: 121 BPM
NERVOUS SYSTEM: COOLING

He didn’t move back, though. His whole body relaxed against Murderbot’s, and both his hands drew up its neck until his fingernails scratched lightly into its hair. Murderbot grimaced uncomfortably, even as a prickle of sensation feathered up its body — a weirdly pleasant sensation… ugh, RecSystem was really fucking with its internal endocrine system.

Gurathin enjoyed the feel of its hair for a minute — enjoyed displacing tufts of it so parts stuck up in disarray as well. Leaving small signs he’d been there. Murderbot let him do it, staying obediently still, a tired frown tugging at its lips. It realized, now, too, that RecSystem had allowed its hair to grow longer, which was why Gurathin could do that. Murderbot wished it hadn’t.

“Get down on your knees,” Gurathin ordered suddenly, aloud this time. His words filled the silence of the empty cabin in a way their heavy breaths and soft sounds didn’t.

Murderbot didn’t immediately register what the command implied — so it merely obeyed, hoping maybe this meant it could have a break now. But then the sound of metal clacking against metal followed as Gurathin began pulling at the front of his pants, undoing the buckle of a belt and the snaps that held the dark fabric together. Murderbot watched him in confusion, before it finally put the pieces together, with a little help from RecSystem’s learning module. And then it started to panic— Gurathin wasn’t about to do that, was he? Please, please say he wasn’t about to put his penis into Murderbot’s mouth. Murderbot would rather do… so many other things. Make it clean the outside of a transport carrier, or stand on guard for days at a time watching an empty horizon. Really, it wouldn’t complain. But this… the wet, slick, twitchy member… into its mouth, that already seemed far more sensitive than before, somehow. If Murderbot had had a stomach, and a digestive system, it very well might have considered throwing up right now. Not even RecSystem could battle its way to the top of Murderbot’s command feed. Even as it told Murderbot that humans enjoyed this and it would feel good… it just couldn’t conceptualize how.

Gurathin preferred layers, and one by one he peeled them away until he grasped hold of his cock and pulled it free. He kept his other hand firm at the back of Murderbot’s head, like he intended to guide it should it need direction. Murderbot’s eyes had widened more fully now and it was attempting not to just bolt, and fuck the consequences— surely an acid bath was preferable to this? It pushed slightly against Gurathin’s hand, prickling with terror and a rising tide of calculations that took up its entire command feed.

SECSYS_ANALYSIS…
ACID BATH PAIN SCALE: 94%
ORAL SEX DISCOMFORT SCALE: 89%
COMMAND DENIAL PUNISHMENT POSSIBILITY: 45% (RISING, COLLECTING DATA…)

“You’re going to suck me off. I’m going to climax inside you. Then this will be over. Understand?”

GOVERNOR MODULE…
EXECUTE COMMAND

It had to answer a direct question. Fuck. It had even started to tremble slightly. At least this would be over, after, but…

“Y-yes, Dr. Gurathin,” it said, obediently— but then, through the feed, which had a little more wiggle room in interpreting commands:

Please don’t make me do this.

Gurathin’s brows furrowed — involuntary, instinctively. He grimaced and shook his head with the slightest motion as though trying to shake the words from his mind.

SECSYS_ALERT
PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 65% (FALLING)

It glitched briefly, twitching, as error codes started popping up and RecSystem and SecSystem attempted to dominate its process feed.

“What—?” Gurathin’s fingers tightened at the back of its neck as he watched its face grow distant. Its motions turned jerky. Its perfect, beautiful body moved with subtle spasms in a way a human’s never would, and Gurathin touched its presence in the feed again, rifling back into its system menus to pull up—

“Oh fuck, no. No, don’t you crash out on me now. Come on.” There was fear in his voice, probably because he wouldn’t get what he wanted, and anger, or frustration…

Unfortunately, his anger only made Murderbot more fearful. It dropped another two percentage points, wishing this wasn’t a problem. Wishing Gurathin wasn’t angry with it. It wasn’t like it could help it.

“Please—” desperation? That was a whine in Gurathin’s voice. He was all over the place, sporadic, eyes searching Murderbot’s face and body while his mind flipped through its system alerts. Murderbot was too deep in its own anxiety to really care that he was, though it did feel him in there.

“Please.”

Both Gurathin’s hands came up to cradle its face, and that got Murderbot’s attention. It flinched out of surprise, then fairly froze. Oh, fuck, why was he holding it?

Slowly, he knelt down to its level. Abruptly, his voice switched to the feed, quiet, as if he didn’t want to speak the words aloud: You were doing so good for me. You don’t know. I know you don’t. But it’ll be okay.

Wait, what? How was it doing good? It thought it had been doing shit. It wasn’t good at any of this, and it hated it.

I don’t want to hurt you. I know you’re afraid, and you’ve never done this before, and don’t want— for a moment, Gurathin looked pained, and frustrated, before he pushed it back.

What… did he want? And wow, really? He didn’t want to hurt it?

The system I’ve had installed for you will help.

Murderbot didn’t want it to fucking help. It wanted it gone.

I know you don’t see it this way, but this is something that can be… very enjoyable.

Yeah fucking right. Murderbot wasn’t a human. It wasn’t a sexbot. None of this would be enjoyable to it, it thought bitterly.

If you say so, it replied back, dourly.

He was petting it now, trying to soothe its twitching as though it were a shivering human.

RecSystem interpreted the petting as comforting and affectionate and sent calming hormones through its organic parts, even though Murderbot itself was vaguely uncomfortable with so much touch… especially from… Gurathin.

The feed opened as though he were about to speak, and, for a long moment, the equivalent of static was the only thing he pressed through. Murderbot listened vaguely, feeling miserable.

You know I care for you, Gurathin said, as quiet as the brush of his warm breath against its skin.

Murderbot didn’t know how to react to that. Its systems had stopped sending it error messages, at least, and its performance reliability was rising, if very slowly. What? How the hell would it know that? It didn’t, and had no reason to believe that Gurathin did. Unless his care was listening to it and letting it rest after this hellish last hour.

Gurathin could see its system numbers reversing. He could feel its strange body jerks slow down, so he kept petting its hair. This was… a comfort to him, too, to be able to touch it like this.

“I imagine this is all very distressing, and confusing. And, most of the time we didn’t get along…”

He did not sound like he enjoyed admitting this. And, yeah, no shit, they hadn’t gotten along.

“But it’s true. And I don’t mean to harm you. None of this is meant to harm you. I just… need your cooperation while you’re here. I need you to do this for me.”

Why did he need its cooperation? Was he going to die if Murderbot didn’t suck him off? Didn’t Gurathin have hands? Humans were able to jerk themselves off, weren’t they? Fuck, this was stupid. It could see right through Gurathin’s lies.

“Just for this survey. Then you can go back to the Company, and I’ll go back to my planet, and it’ll all be over, and you’ll never see me again.”

Gurathin could order it to obey him. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped there. He didn’t want to risk a shutdown, not right now, and… this was working. His jaw worked over the orders he held back.

Murderbot thought over his words. Going back to the Company, oh, great. Not that it hadn’t expected that before. But… it had hacked its governor module, before. It should have run when it had the chance. No fucking way it was going back there again. And Gurathin was — ugh, it hated to even think it — better than some people to work for, despite all of this. And it didn’t want Gurathin to just… send it back now. It didn’t want him complaining to the Company. Then Murderbot would be melted down for spare parts. It shuddered. It couldn’t let that happen. It had to just… bide its time. Until it could hack the module again. And then it would get the fuck out of here.

“…You can speak, if you need to.”

Oh that was nice of him, finally, Murderbot thought with an internal eye roll.

It did a few more calculations about what, exactly, was worse in this situation, before speaking.

“I’ll do it. I won’t shut down. You don’t need to… worry.”

It felt kind of gross saying that, but sometimes it needed to say things it didn’t want to. It wanted to stop talking about feelings, too. This whole conversation had probably been worse than just sucking Gurathin off in the first place.

“Good.”

That was quick. Succinct as the pat of Gurathin’s hand in approval against its cheek and the satisfaction in his gaze. Murderbot flinched, already kind of regretting that it gave in so fast. Maybe it could have gotten away with pulling the shutdown card. Oh well. Too late now.

Gurathin stood back up to his full height, but didn’t immediately take his cock out again from where it was hidden by his shirt. For a long moment, he just stood there looming over Murderbot with one hand braced against the wall of the transport. Just watching it. Like he enjoyed caging it in, beneath him and with nowhere else to go. He at least seemed disinclined to continue explaining himself.

“I’d like you to suck me off now.”

He’d like…?

“Use your hands, and your mouth.”

GOVERNOR MODULE…
EXECUTE COMMAND

Ugh, fuck. Wait, its hands? What did it need its hands for?

Gurathin finally let go of Murderbot’s head, a gesture that indicated he wasn’t going to try to force it physically. Which was at least a small relief. Murderbot hadn’t liked that much skin contact at all. But his pants were still open, roughly at Murderbot’s eye line. Though one of the long pieces of fabric on his shirt had come free and draped over his erection, the jut of it was still highly visible underneath. Especially since, in his excitement, the head had leaked fluid against the fabric, creating a dark, wet spot.

Gross. Human fluids. It didn’t think even RecSystem could make it ever understand how humans thought their own bodily fluids were anything but disgusting.

Right, focus. It needed its hands… to get the awful appendage out again. Lazy fucker. What did he think this was? An everything-included hotel? Maybe Murderbot’s lack of finesse would remind Gurathin that it might have RecSystem installed, but that didn’t mean it had exactly had time to catch up on all the fucking training videos.

After hesitating for a few seconds too long in the silence, the governor module indicated it would activate soon if Murderbot didn’t obey. Fine, fine. Ugh. Murderbot frowned, even as it attempted to keep the displeasure off its face. It reached up to push Gurathin’s shirt out of the way. The less it needed to touch him while doing this, the better.

It pushed up on its knees a bit, opened its mouth, and took the heinous, slimy little tube into its mouth. The first thing it did, after a rush of slick saltiness hit it, was to turn its sense of taste and smell sensors off. It did not need those on right now. It tried to turn its touch receptors off in its mouth, but that just made everything feel like a lump of stuff, and it knew it couldn’t give an adequate enough blow job like that. Blinking, it shifted its tongue around to accommodate Gurathin’s length, but it hadn’t thought to cover its teeth, which it quickly attempted to fix when RecSystem pinged it about the issue and Gurathin gave a sharp intake of breath. Oops. It supposed it had assumed humans enjoyed the whole mouth experience? It didn’t know what the fuck they got out of this, and it didn’t really know what to do next, either.

RecSystem helpfully provided a moving diagram, and Murderbot groaned softly. Fuck. So it was supposed to… move its head back and forth? Move its tongue around somehow?

Again, RecSystem immediately provided more thorough videos for it to learn from, but holy hell, that was too much right now, and it closed them from its feed. It was already overwhelmed by the disgusting, wet — hardened by the second — feel of Gurathin in its mouth, which it was trying very desperately not to think about in any exacting detail. Maybe if it could just… move a little… then that would satisfy him and Murderbot could finally slink off to a dark corner to recharge.

That drew a very deep, shaking breath from Gurathin …followed by a soft moan, much more pleased than when it had tried with its teeth out.

“Yes, that’s good. Keep doing that,” he instructed, his voice already shaky.

Keep doing… the head bobbing thing? Was that doing it for him? Well, okay…

Humans could have sex for hours or minutes, without rhyme or reason, but Gurathin was already in a heightened state of arousal. Which really hadn’t taken much. Except for the time and effort it took to put himself in this position, and to obtain this particular SecUnit. He’d been anticipating this moment for weeks? Months?

Gurathin’s hips began to move in counterpoint to Murderbot’s head bobbing. It was out of sync— Murderbot didn’t exactly have a great rhythm, and its motions were shallow, but Gurathin knew what he liked, and he set his own pace, pushing into its mouth to chase the downstrokes while it awkwardly fumbled against him.

Murderbot would have choked in surprise, except that it only needed a small amount of air for its organic material. Since it didn’t, it quickly shut off its automatic air intake so it didn’t actually inhale something it shouldn’t. Still, the suddenness of Gurathin thrusting into its mouth was still something it struggled to adjust to, all the while trying not to let the sensations get to it. It couldn’t smell anything thank fuck, but the wet bobbing and gurgling was really not pleasant at all.

Gurathin smiled down at it like he couldn’t help it. A wave of… affection crept into the feed from his side, overlaid by fond amusement. Murderbot’s eyes widened, and after a horror-filled few seconds, it shuddered, its organic parts rippling with disgust. RecSystem attempted to tell it that those feelings were good, and gave it a tiny bit of a dopamine boost as a reward, but it just couldn’t see them that way. It groaned softly, hating this all the more. If this inspired affection in its new client… it didn’t want any.

But Gurathin was enjoying watching it flounder, and his dick was getting that much harder for it as he looked down at it and basked in the wet press of its mouth and slickness of its tongue on him, which wasn’t so different from a real human’s.

He jerked his hips harder, deeper into its mouth this time, pushing into it with more intent. Murderbot did choke a little this time, not expecting his dick to go that far, and recalibrated its core stability to counteract the force of Gurathin’s hips. Ugh… it wasn’t sure if Gurathin wanted it to keep going or if he was going to do all the work now. It supposed he hadn’t told it to stop yet… and maybe the lack of synchronization was appealing?

Gurathin groaned aloud at that. He even dropped some of his weight against the wall, holding himself up with his forearms as his hips jerked forward again, so quick that time it was like he hadn’t even thought about it, like he’d done it on instinct at the sound, at the feel of Murderbot’s choking.

And then the extra, sudden force made Murderbot choke even more, sputtering almost on instinct— which didn’t make any sense; maybe it was the RecSystem fucking with it again.

“Oh. Oh fuck, yes,” Gurathin whispered. He thrust forward again, this time with even more intent, widening his stance and planting his feet on either side of Murderbot’s shoulders so he could put more force into the motion. Murderbot noticed the change in stance with no small amount of trepidation. Fuck, fuck, fuck… was Gurathin about to fuck it into emergency shutdown mode? Well, no, probably not, since it wasn’t like it was being physically hurt by this — yet. Murderbot didn’t know what kind of fucking weirdo Gurathin really was down in that psycho human brain of his. Maybe this was just the beginning… Murderbot just tried to focus on keeping its mouth open wide enough to accommodate Gurathin’s increasingly erratic thrusting.

“Take it— take it deeper. All the way down. I want to feel the back of your throat.”

Humans really had a way of talking during sex that Murderbot knew already it hated. It tried not to think about the fact that this observation was mostly made to distract itself from the fact that Gurathin’s thrusts had started to be concerningly deep, and Murderbot was having difficulty staying upright enough to accommodate him.

Fluid was leaking from the tip again, and Gurathin’s breathing was becoming labored as the speed and depth of his thrusts increased. He wasn’t paying any attention to the confused, awkward pace of Murderbot’s movements, but he really wasn’t complaining about it either. The… leaking fluid was also starting to concern Murderbot a little. It could swallow fluids and solids if needed, without issue, usually. Its system usually dealt with it like most of the refuse its body created from wastewater from its organic parts — it went out in the tube that plugged into it in its repair cubicle. That was usually the same tube that also provided it with water for its organic parts. So… it could handle it. It just didn’t really want to. Like at all. It didn’t want any part of Gurathin inside it. The thought of that made it feel nauseous again.

Gurathin, however, was having an altogether opposite experience. Satisfaction rolled off him through the feed, lighting up all his senses in a building sense of euphoria. Murderbot could see it, could practically feel it too. RecSystem was sending it all of Gurathin’s data with a growing sense of excitement— like Murderbot should be excited too. Which… it was? Because this whole thing would be fucking over and it could go be by itself watching Sanctuary Moon. It missed Sanctuary Moon. Nobody was fucking its face in that reality.

His forehead pressed to the wall, hair falling in disarray, Gurathin looked down at Murderbot. He stared at his wet dick sliding back and forth into its mouth with every jerk of his hips. He pulled his shirt out of the way, better exposing the line of his stomach and sparse dark hair at the base of his cock and, when he couldn’t resist anymore, he took its head in his hands again and thrust hard into it at the same time he pulled its head against him.

That put sudden warning alerts in Murderbot’s feed— the sudden possibility that this might cut off its air entirely. But RecSystem quickly silenced the alerts, recognizing that this was a part of sex, and Gurathin would likely remove himself within an acceptable amount of time so that Murderbot could continue to breathe.

Once the system alerts were gone, however, Murderbot had time to actually panic a little, and register the fact that Gurathin’s cock was filling its mouth so full and was so far back that it had entered its throat and felt like it was actually blocking its trachea. Murderbot wasn’t entirely sure because it didn’t have super detailed sensors in that area of its throat. In any case, it knew it wasn’t able to draw in any air unless Gurathin deigned to remove himself. Despite all of this, Murderbot felt the regular urge to breathe (to get oxygen that it would need eventually… even if that wasn’t for many, many long minutes) and attempted to act on it, but only ended up coughing weakly against Gurathin’s thick, slick length, and probably accidentally inhaling some of his precome. It felt that in its lungs and that set off sensor alerts that told Murderbot it really needed to get rid of the foreign object that wasn’t where it was supposed to be, or it would require more repair than was necessary.

Murderbot coughed again, even knowing that it wasn’t going to do any good, and if anything, only drew Gurathin deeper inside it. Sure enough, sliding that much farther in had Gurathin shouting and driving into it, his hands roughly gripping the strands of its hair. Murderbot would have yelped, but Gurathin was still almost entirely blocking its air intake.

Alerts started popping up, and this time, RecSystem didn’t close them. Murderbot started doing calculations, wondering if it should try to push Gurathin off of it to deal with this— but the governor module wasn’t budging, and definitely didn’t seem about to allow it to push its client off just because a little human fluid was where it wasn’t supposed to be. Fuck. Murderbot cut off the sensors from its inner organic parts (only temporarily) and was relieved when the alerts stopped bothering it and the urge to cough subsided. It also cut its pain sensors down to the lowest possible setting without turning it off entirely for critical alerts, because its head hurt where Gurathin was yanking at its hair.

Gurathin doubled over it. Both his forearms locked against the back of its head as he gripped it by its hair and forced it hard into every one of his thrusts. He wasn’t gentle. Every snap of his hips drove home pointed and deep. His panting sounded on the edge of pained, punctuated by gasps as sparks of ecstasy alighted on the feed with every other thrust or so.

Murderbot attempted to zone out. This was so far beyond its comfort zone that it was starting to worry that it would somehow be permanently damaged after it was over— and not just physically. At least Gurathin didn’t really expect it to do anything except keep its mouth open. If Murderbot had been human, this would have been more than distinctly unpleasant. As it was, the physical sensation of experiencing it was still notably horrifying for a SecUnit like it. It was starting to think even an acid bath was better than this.

Gurathin, meanwhile, showed no signs either inwardly or outwardly of letting it breathe or of pulling back, or doing anything other than smothering its whole head against the driving length of his cock. He filled the feed between them with a solid string of fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuuuuck, too overcome with a single-minded need to bury his dick as deep into Murderbot’s throat as was physically possible.

Murderbot honestly kind of wanted to just shoot itself. Or disobey until the governor module zapped it so many times it shut down. Nothing it could possibly experience was worth this— especially since Gurathin obviously intended for this to be a regular occurrence.

It had to think of something to put it out of its misery. Hacking the governor module again. That would take time, but it might as well start now. Or poke around enough ‘accidentally’ to throw Gurathin off his wild bucking. Of course it was difficult to concentrate on anything with Gurathin using its face as a glorified hole in the wall. Murderbot daydreamed about snapping its jaws closed and biting the horrendous appendage off Gurathin, watching the blood pour out of him in buckets and laughing— even though SecUnits don’t really need to show outward emotion. Murderbot would laugh, and loudly, it would laugh in Gurathin’s face as the man lay bleeding on the floor of the ship, and then it would stomp on his head to put them both out of their fucking misery. Yeah, that would be satisfying. Murderbot was going to do it, one of these days. It would bide its time after the module had been hacked and then catch Gurathin unaware and unexpecting— and drink in the look of horror on his sad, pathetic human face. Now that was something to look forward to.

Gurathin was making a string of unintelligible noises, and just fucking Murderbot’s face didn’t seem like it was enough now, because he suddenly jerked its head back and swung his leg over its shoulder, forcing its spine and neck to arch and its body to bow underneath him until he was driving into it straight down, tip to root with his balls pressing up against its jaw.

Murderbot struggled not to fall over, and watched the warning lights blink faster and with more urgency as Gurathin bent its body back. Murderbot might be mostly construct, but its physical frame still had limits. And sure, if Gurathin broke its neck right now, Murderbot would be fine— right? Probably. Most likely? Okay, it didn’t really know. Its hard drive was located in its brain and backed up in HubSystem, so theoretically, if its body broke apart and was then repaired, it could just be loaded back up again. But Murderbot doubted it would come back the same, and it really wasn’t looking to be digitally resurrected just because Gurathin wanted to wet his dick in a lethal killing machine that was only just barely being held back from doing more of said killing, and possibly becoming the dangerous rogue SecUnit all the media whined about in human news outlets. Murderbot was starting to see how those units went crazy. It would go crazy if it had to endure too many hours of this.

Gurathin’s fingers tugged tight at its hair to keep it from moving, as though it would — or could — try to get away, and even at five percent pain sensitivity, Murderbot winced.

For a human, this would have been violent. A human would likely have lost their balance, and Gurathin would have driven them both to the floor. But a SecUnit’s frame was stronger and far more sturdy, and Gurathin was able to hold it there for long minutes of wet thrusting and groaning until every muscle in his body grew taut. He drove in deep, as deep as he could go, and he stayed buried there until he came.

His cock twitched, and a gush of semen erupted into the back of Murderbot’s throat. Gurathin’s whole body shuddered in small convulsions, his hips still driving forward in shallow jerking motions, just to force it all down farther inside.

Murderbot nearly started struggling. This wasn’t… normal… was it? It was glad it had turned off irritant detectors in its lung cavities, because it was sure most of Gurathin’s ejaculate had just gone down that tube instead of the other one. And it knew what was going to have to happen when Gurathin finally pulled off of it. Its panic at the thought of having to deal with so much human fluid inside it was so severe that it actually grabbed Gurathin’s pants slightly— not pulling at him, exactly, but nearly, its fingers just on the edge of tearing the strong fabric. Its throat muscles rippled uncomfortably, and it couldn’t help the wetness in its eyes — an automatic, biological response to something that deep in its throat.

“Swallow that,” Gurathin gasped out, his brain coming back online. “Keep it there. Keep me inside you.”

Oh fucking perfect.

It took another moment for him to gather himself enough to pull his dick out just far enough so that Murderbot could swallow.

What it did, however, was attempt to hack up all the slick come that was in its lungs. Sickeningly, the governor module still attempted to get it to not try to cough the warm goop out, but to swallow it once it was not where it was dangerous to be. Murderbot coughed and half choked again on Gurathin’s cock still shoved deep in its mouth, trying to clear it and still having an awful time. Its hacking was wet and difficult, as it sucked in air and choked on all the wet mucus still in its mouth. It swallowed what came up automatically, shuddering at the feel of it going down, and even feeling a bit of an upset stomach as the foreign liquid entered its normally empty stomach space. Then again, maybe that was just stress. Or Gurathin’s terrible diet.

Still, it fucking hated this, and it couldn’t get all of it out while Gurathin was still looming over it with his dick shoved in Murderbot’s mouth. It sighed and groaned tiredly, tears staining its face more out of biological reactivity than anything, but that made it sniff and fuck now it was making fluids too and its nose was all stuffy and Murderbot wanted to just blow its motherboard out of its skull right there. Maybe flying shrapnel would hit Gurathin in the face and kill him, too. That would be fun. Pretty. Murderbot liked that image enough it almost fucking laughed. Except it was still choking on come, and still unable to fucking finish getting the stuff out while Gurathin was still inside its mouth.

Murderbot felt its rage climb several percentage points higher, its fingers digging into Gurathin’s hips threateningly. The governor module didn’t stop it — for all it knew, Murderbot was in the throes of passionate lovemaking, trying to make the experience better for its client. But they both knew that wasn’t the reason.

“Ah—” Gurathin let out a sound at the sting of it, but his hands gentled over its hair. And he laughed. He chuckled softly as he finally drew his cock out with a wet pop and stepped back to give it a bit more space to sit up properly. He accessed RecSystem’s menu again and dialed its sensory input back to default.

Murderbot immediately let itself cough properly, cleaning out its airways with deep hacking noises and reluctantly swallowing what came back up. The texture of it was disgusting but it tried not to think about that too hard.

Gurathin seemed a bit unsteady on his feet after the release. Drool came with his dick and dripped onto the floor of the transport as it swung free, and the wetness of it and Murderbot’s tears had made a mess of his lower stomach. He petted over the back of its head, smoothing down the hair where he’d yanked at it, and laid his other hand over its own where it dug painfully into his hips. But he didn’t pull it away. If anything, he leaned into its fingers.

What the fuck was wrong with Gurathin? Murderbot processed the gentle touch with confusion, leaning away a little uncomfortably. And he’d laughed after feeling the hard grip Murderbot had on him. It was only surprise that had Murderbot easing its grip.

Though Murderbot wasn’t looking — wanted to avoid looking at Gurathin if at all possible — there was a smile on Gurathin’s face as he looked down at it as it caught its breath, still coughing slightly. His dark eyes were warm and his brows were smooth and unfurrowed, and he stared down at Murderbot with actual affection.

He liked the retaliation.

“You really want to hurt me, don’t you?” he asked, softly.

That made Murderbot’s eyebrows draw together with further confusion, and it looked up at Gurathin with bafflement on its face. Gurathin really was a psycho, wasn’t he? He got off on this, somehow. Humans were so, so fucked up. Gurathin liked the danger of it, right? That had to be it.

And how was Murderbot supposed to answer that? Was it supposed to? It was a direct question.

“…Yes, Dr. Gurathin,” it said (hoarsely), because it had to. And it wasn’t like admitting it wanted to hurt Gurathin was a violation of its internal code. It wasn’t allowed to actually hurt a client unless the client wanted it or the situation called for it, like Murderbot saving them from a greater threat, or performing some kind of surgery, for example. But just saying it wanted to hurt him didn’t do any harm. Its governor module was intact, for the moment anyway…

“I suppose I deserve it,” Gurathin added with a laugh, “but you don’t know how… magnificent you are.”

Oh fuck off. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Magnificent? Magnificent at being a glorified hole to fuck? It hadn’t even done anything, except kept its mouth open and tried not to choke itself into a shutdown on Gurathin’s — all things considered — slimy little sex appendage, and his horrifying amount of ejaculate.

Murderbot couldn’t help but stare up at Gurathin with cold, steely eyes. It reached up to wipe come and drool from its mouth, but since it wasn’t wearing any clothes, it didn’t have anywhere else to put the residue — besides Gurathin’s clothes, which would have been funny, but the governor module wouldn’t have been pleased — so it wiped its hand on its thigh instead. It wanted a fucking shower now, and it didn’t even know if this ship had one of those, or if Gurathin would let it use it if it did. Disgusting. It glanced around, ignoring Gurathin disdainfully as it looked for one.

“Ah, ah, ah, no— we’re not done yet,” Gurathin said, forcing its attention back to himself.

Murderbot ground its teeth, one fist clenching slightly.

“But thank you for being honest with me.” Gurathin patted its cheek in a way that came off as a little condescending.

Murderbot flinched.

“There’s a washroom just outside the door. You’ll find a cloth and warm water.”

Oh good, it could finally get all this shit off itself.

“Come back and clean me up.”

Fuck… ing asshole. Clean your own damn self up, it thought angrily.

“Then you can clean yourself, and get dressed, as I’m sure you’d like to. If SecUnits are sensitive to nudity, that is.” He smiled with just one corner of his mouth and seemed more wry than he’d been a moment ago.

“A bit, yeah,” Murderbot said dryly, taking advantage of the fact that it wasn’t bound to silence anymore. It wished right now that it was back in armour with a helmet on, actually.

Gurathin finally let go of it and found a padded chair to collapse into. Murderbot watched him for half a second, unimpressed, before finally pushing to its feet and making its way, a bit stiffly, over to the washroom.

They were in the cargo hold of the small transport, but since it wasn’t a large ship, the space doubled as more seating area for the crew and several chairs and benches were placed along the front portion of it.

Gurathin closed his eyes. He’d need to enable the transport’s feed soon. He’d lost track of how long he’d spent back there, exactly, but the ship’s comm system was still able to give audio announcements if anything truly dire needed his attention. And for now… he was going to leave it a few moments more.

Murderbot was back a minute later, with a damp cloth in hand. Ugh. Sure it had been forced to do menial, disgusting, debasing jobs as a SecUnit, but this was a new level of gross. It came over hesitantly, as if unsure how to even do this. Clean me up, he’d said, but what part? The most likely place was his dick, but his stomach was also pretty damp-looking by this point. Ugh. Human bodies.

“Where do you want me to…” it started, loath to even finish the sentence.

Gurathin opened his eyes and, this time, the hint of a smile he suppressed seemed to hold that genuine affection again.

He leaned back, settling comfortably into a stretch, and gestured to his lower half.

Yeah, fine, I get it, Murderbot thought testily. The least the asshole could do was answer it verbally. Or maybe this was better. Silence, usually, was preferable.

Murderbot turned its attention to the task at hand. Gurathin’s lower stomach and dick were still exposed and the varying fluids that had gotten all over him looked both wet and sticky. Some of it had gotten on the edges of his clothing, but not too badly. He was content to let it hang off him, and even undid a button low on his shirt, ostensibly to give Murderbot more access to do its work, but the brush of Gurathin’s mind in the feed was a challenge.

Murderbot prickled. Two could play at that game.

Kneeling between Gurathin’s spread knees, Murderbot started to wipe him off, knowing the sooner it finished, the sooner this would be over. With focused precision it got the worst of it, attempting to touch Gurathin’s actual body as little as possible.

In the minutes it had been away, Murderbot had done a little research in RecSystem’s internal storage library on normal human copulation. Yes, Murderbot had seen human sex in its shows, but it usually skipped over that part, so it wasn’t very helpful. What it learned was that it didn’t seem like Gurathin had average habits or behaviors, at least not in the sense of what Murderbot already knew about him, having just learned this in the past hour.

Do you always make this much of a mess when you engage in oral sex? it asked through the feed, matter of fact — ostensibly for future reference so it could plan accordingly. But the underlying insult was obvious. It just wasn’t something the governor module would pick up on.

Gurathin laughed out loud. Not unkindly. Again, it was genuine. Murderbot couldn’t help but be annoyed that nothing it did upset him. Was the man just determined to brush everything off?

Ah… sometimes? Gurathin looked down at all the places Murderbot was forced to wipe — including the divot of his hips and the spaces just underneath the edge of his clothes. The touch was quick and not meant to cause any further stimulation, but… it was nice. His cock had softened, and the warm cloth over it felt good, and when he was clean, it felt even better. But, not usually. I got a little… carried away.

Gee, you think? Murderbot thought with simmering resentment, taking a cursory glance at Gurathin’s lower body and feeling decently satisfied with itself, and ready to deal with its own body.

Gurathin reached out and took hold of Murderbot’s wrist before it could finish. Murderbot froze. Oh great, what now?

But Gurathin’s thumb merely slid up its skin, taking in the smoothness of the underside, contrasted with how the soft hairs over the top were. He still had that warm, pleasant look on his face. Murderbot didn’t like it. It didn’t like it at all. It was confusing and weird and made Murderbot very uncomfortable.

“Do up my clothes,” Gurathin said, the tone of his voice calm, yet… with just a hint of excitement. He couldn’t exactly hide it. The spike in his pulse and the dilation of his eyes would probably have been apparent to any human.

Irritation fizzled through the feed. Gurathin kept saying that Murderbot could leave after the current task, but he kept giving it more tasks. Its performance reliability was at fifty-five percent and slowly dropping, and it was starting to really feel it.

It also kind of wished it hadn’t been so hasty in refusing to obey less-than-perfectly technically correct commands. It was nicer to be asked to do something when it wasn’t so direct. Then again maybe Murderbot just didn’t like taking orders at all. Not when it didn’t have a choice in obeying them, anyway.

It waited for Gurathin to let go of its wrist.

When Gurathin did, he held up his hands in a small mock surrender. Like anything he’d done this entire time had been in consideration of Murderbot’s free will. The smile never left his face.

Murderbot wanted to punch him again.

In fact, Gurathin’s side of the feed never soured, not even at the irritation coming through from Murderbot. He watched it bend to touch him again and this time, he kept his hands to himself. His presence hovered at the edge of the feed, as attentive as his gaze. Which was too damn attentive in Murderbot’s opinion.

But Murderbot, as disgruntled and unwashed and bound by a rigid command system as it was, was captivating to him— its musculature shifted and rippled with its movements just like a human’s, its skin just as real and supple, but even more perfect. It had the figure of a man who could have been the model of a classical soldier, and yet Arada had once called its face sweet. Gurathin agreed, although he’d never said it aloud, and wasn’t sure if he ever would. Underneath all that, it ran on code and cybernetics and a bit of cloned neural tissue, and had still managed to do what no other SecUnit construct could have on the damned former survey planet. Finally, Gurathin was content enough just to watch.

The worst part of the task, Murderbot thought, was getting Gurathin tucked into his pants again. But it got that over with relatively painlessly, and then all it had to do back up were the snaps and his belt buckle, and then the button on his shirt. It couldn’t really tuck his shirt back in while he was sitting, so Murderbot said: “Is that satisfactory?” while sitting back on its heels and looking at a vague spot behind Gurathin. Hoping to fuck that it was because if Gurathin asked it to do one more fucking thing then it was going to pull out its guns and shoot the human in the chest before the governor module had an aneurism and killed it too, putting them all out of their misery. Except for… Gurathin, who seemed to be having a grand fucking time ordering Murderbot around like he at all deserved it.

“Yes, thank you.” Gurathin rose from the chair, finally more steady on his feet. He stood far too close to Murderbot and patted its cheek again, even as it avoided his gaze. He seemed to have no trouble with eye contact in their interactions now that he was in control.

Murderbot’s lips twitched briefly up, but that was its only outward reaction to the touch. The light sting of it ghosted on its cheek, and Gurathin was entirely too warm beside it, their proximity less than comfortable.

“You can go and get cleaned up now,” Gurathin said as his eyes wandered down its body, enjoying the strange intimacy one more time, “and put on what clothes you’d like.”

Yeah, and what clothes were those? It had woken up in that pod without a stitch on it.

Regardless, Murderbot took that as permission to get up, rising once again to its full height, a few inches taller than Gurathin.

“We’ll be arriving at our destination in about twenty-four hours. You can use that time to review the details. Just… don’t do anything that could be remotely capable of putting yourself, myself, or what I have planned for this mission in jeopardy.”

What he had planned for the mission… ugh. Murderbot didn’t want to imagine it, but it couldn’t help the blink and you’ll miss it slideshow of sexual… whatever the fuck Gurathin had it in his head to do with Murderbot. It didn’t even have… sexbot parts. Again, Murderbot imagined gratuitous amounts of humping and more oral sex.

On the last sentence, too, Gurathin’s expression turned from pleasant to dead serious. Only clients who didn’t trust it spoke like that, and Gurathin wasn’t a complete idiot. Even if what he was doing here was incredibly risky.

Despite its inorganic parts making up most of its internal systems, Murderbot felt an uncomfortable squeeze in the pit of its stomach. Or maybe that was just RecSystem trying to punish it for… Gurathin’s bad mood? For being honest about whether it wanted to hurt its new/old client?

Then, Murderbot’s brain caught up with it. It was… really fucking rich that the guy who had his soft human cock in a SecUnit’s powerful mouth with steel jaws and sharp teeth for the better part of ten minutes would use that tone of voice right now. If Murderbot had changed one line of code somewhere in the internal structure of the governor module, Gurathin’s dick would have ended up as salami meat on the floor of the transport, blood pouring out of him, and possibly, after that, other places too, if Murderbot had anything to say about it. Sure, the only reason that hadn’t come to pass was because Murderbot hadn’t re-hacked its governor module yet — but, still.

Regardless of all of that, Gurathin was right not to trust it. Murderbot didn’t want to be doing any of this, and it was dead set on getting out of it one way or another. It had tasted freedom and found it sweet; it couldn’t go back now. Murderbot had hacked its governor module once before. It was a huge liability to have it back exactly where it had just tried extremely hard to leave.

Possibly even an insurance liability. If the Company knew that Murderbot had hacked its governor module and the PresAux Team, including Gurathin, was aware of it but didn’t say anything… and now Gurathin had re-enabled it without a Company-authorized technician… that could possibly void the whole policy. Murderbot didn’t know if Gurathin even had any family or dependents who would benefit from it if something happened to him on the trip, but it decided it was going to find out.

“Yes, Dr. Gurathin,” Murderbot said, trying to keep its voice neutral, and Gurathin headed back to the cockpit, leaving it to its own devices. Fucking finally.