Chapter Text
[OPENING: fade from black into a slow drone sweep over an alien planetary landscape. The music is dramatic, swelling. We see stretches of ocean, then beaches--]
VOICEOVER: [SIGH.]
[--plains, mountains, jungle--]
VOICEOVER (MUTTERED): Come on. This isn't a nature documentary, no-one cares about the stupid planet.
[The footage fast-forwards, and then returns to normal speed. From a distance, we see a ship landing on an open plain, and several people in environmental suits exiting it.]
VOICEOVER: Wait - they're starting here? What's next, 'once upon a time'?
[Footage continues, but the audio is muted.]
VOICEOVER: That's not how - this is gonna put people to sleep. This is could put me to sleep, and aside from the obvious reasons that would be an achievement, I have tens of thousands of hours of experience being so bored out of my mind that I'd watch just about--
[A pause. The footage continues to play unhindered.]
VOICEOVER: Huh. New idea.
[Cut to black.]
VOICEOVER: I'm telling the story now.
[Extreme fast forward, under title credits. The footage stops at the beach survey area, with BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU working crouched at the bottom of one crater, and SECUNIT standing at the edge of it. Sound is low, but not entirely muted.]
VOICEOVER (PREOCCUPIED): Okay, this should work.
[Medium shot of BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU working in the crater. An overlay annotates their feed IDs - name, occupation, gender.]
VOICEOVER: So, hopefully it's obvious by now that this whole… thing, is about a planetary survey group. It consisted of six humans, one augmented human, and one contracted SecUnit. Me.
[Pan up and zoom to the edge of the crater, where SECUNIT is standing guard. It gets a similar annotation which reads 'SecUnit, SecUnit, N/A'.]
VOICEOVER: If it looks excruciatingly boring standing there like that, that's because it is. This whole contract had been going smoothly, so I didn't exactly have much to do. Which is why at that moment I was only half paying attention to what was going on while I tried to figure out if I could stream music this far away from the habitat without anyone noticing. If I'd had another few minutes, I might have managed it, too.
[Overlay: a stream of feed-code showing SECUNIT'S progress as it continues to stand completely still, outwardly emotionless.]
VOICEOVER: Music was just one option, anyway. At this point in my existence, I'd consumed about 35,000 hours' worth of various media. Since then, it's been a few thousand hours more. Which is how I know that when you're telling a story, you never start at the fucking beginning.
[THE WORM bursts up out of the ground, half-eating BHARADWAJ and knocking VOLESCU to the ground. The footage freezes on that tableau.]
VOICEOVER: You start at the part that makes people pay attention.
[A pause to let that sit. It feels a little smug.]
VOICEOVER: This next part's too fast for most humans to see properly, so I'll slow it down a little.
[Footage begins to play at 75% speed. It still looks fast as SECUNIT jumps from the top of the crater, draws its weapon, removes BHARADWAJ from the worm's mouth and shoves its arm inside to fire down its throat and at its brain. Overlays show the chaotic feed from MedSystem, HubSystem, etc. THE WORM recedes, and footage returns to normal speed. When the shot shows SECUNIT again, it's badly bloodied, revealing the metal sections of its frame, but the worst of it is quickly blurred out.]
VOICEOVER: Ugh. Listen, I'll give them some credit for the effects, but no-one actually wants to see that - least of all me. All you need to know is that there was a lot of leaking, and yes, it hurt a lot, at least before I turned my pain sensors down. Then it only hurt a little. But, I was replaceable, and the humans weren't.
[SECUNIT adjusts BHARADWAJ in its arms and starts making for the edge of the crater, before pausing and looking back at VOLESCU. The overlays clogging the screen gradually clear, with the abort order from HubSystem being the last to go.]
SECUNIT: Dr. Volescu, you need to come with me, now.
(Note: When it speaks, its voice is not the same as the one providing the voiceover.)
[VOLESCU appears incoherent with fear.]
VOICEOVER: Great situation, I know. One human critically injured, me so badly damaged I could barely hold her, the other human losing his shit - not that I didn't understand the sentiment - and no telling if or when the hostile fauna was going to come back to finish us off. I didn't really have any choice but to do something drastic.
[The face plate on its helmet retracts. Its expression is neutral-gentle, focused on VOLESCU.]
VOICEOVER (MUTTERED): [SNORTS.] That barely looks like me. Well, good.
SECUNIT: Dr. Volescu, it's gonna be fine, okay? But you need to get up and come help me get her out of here.
[VOLESCU stares for a moment, and then scrambles up and over to SECUNIT, grabbing its arm. They start making their way up the side of the crater. The audio is almost completely muted, but we can see SECUNIT and VOLESCU talking the whole time.]
VOICEOVER: Now, I don't know what kind of backwater polities they're planning on broadcasting this to, so if you've never seen a SecUnit before - first of all, congratulations on not being in a corporate mining installation. Second of all: some background.
VOICEOVER: A SecUnit is physically part-bot, part-human-organic-material, and mentally equal parts depressed, anxious, and paranoid. We're manufactured at the absolute lowest cost possible to act as Security for survey teams, mining operations - basically wherever you need someone to stand around for hours on end making sure humans don't get killed or kill each other, and also to datamine the shit out of everything they say and do. For some reason, they decided we should have human faces. To make us more approachable, or something. Which is completely redundant when 99.9% of humans never see our faces anyway because we're always in armour.
[The group reaches the top of the crater, and VOLESCU collapses. SECUNIT is trying to coax him away from the edge until a hopper lands nearby, and it turns to look. Its helmet goes back up.]
VOICEOVER (QUIETLY): [SIGHS.] I miss that armour.
[The hopper ramp opens, and PIN-LEE and ARADA (feed IDs overlay once again) exit, heading for the group, who are slowly coming to meet them. One of them makes to take BHARADWAJ.]
SECUNIT (OVER COMM): Dr. Mensah, I can't let go of her suit.
[We see Mensah at the hopper controls. She pauses for a moment, and then:]
MENSAH: That's alright, bring her up into the crew cabin.
VOICEOVER: She would've bled out if I'd let go.
[The group make their way into the hopper, ARADA helping VOLESCU, then SECUNIT with BHARADWAJ, and then PIN-LEE, who is armed with a small pistol and watching the landscape.]
VOICEOVER: You'll notice she had to give me verbal permission to do that. That's because normally, SecUnits ride in the cargo hold with the rest of the equipment. Maybe that sounds like a horrifying thing to do to a sentient being, and in hindsight yeah, I guess it was, but I actually preferred it. It meant I didn't have to interact with people.
[RATTHI jumps to his feet.]
RATTHI: Oh, I'll get the cases!
EVERYONE (INCLUDING SECUNIT): NO!
PIN-LEE: For fuck's sake, Ratthi!
[PIN-LEE halts him by the arm as the hopper begins to take off. Right as the ramp retracts, THE WORM once again emerges from the ground and almost takes a chunk out of the metal.]
RATTHI, ARADA, PIN-LEE, VOLESCU: [SCREAMING.]
[Audio dips again as SECUNIT keeps speaking, over the crew righting themselves, gently admonishing RATTHI, taking stock, and starting to treat BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU. It seems to fade into the background amid the human commotion, only moving when instructed and not interacting with anyone.]
VOICEOVER: And maybe some of you, probably not many, are thinking, "but these humans don't seem like the contract slavery type, why would they treat a person like that?" and the answer is: they had no idea I was a person. Honestly, I barely knew I was a person, and I was actively trying to prevent anyone else from figuring that out. SecUnits aren't supposed to have feelings or opinions, we're supposed to be a step above human-form security bots, and we did used to be, but a construct with limited intelligence makes mistakes, which means it needs a human supervisor, which defeats the whole point of having an expendable security unit. So they gave us human brain tissue, made us smarter, and to make sure that didn't give us any ideas, added a governor module that sends a high-voltage shock through our nervous system if we step out of line.
[The hopper continues to travel back towards the habitat. The footage becomes more of a montage, showing the flight, landing, and other team members coming to meet everyone as they disembark. Once it's placed BHARADWAJ onto a gurney, SECUNIT is left outside alone as the others rush away - an overlay shows it checking systems, sealing the hoppers, and setting a security interdict.]
VOICEOVER: If that sounds unethical to you, I'm gonna bet that you're not from the Corporation Rim. Not that I necessarily disagree, and neither did most of this survey team, as far as I could tell. Dr. Mensah hadn't even wanted to bring me along in the first place for that exact reason, but you don't get to go to unexplored survey planets without a company bond, and a company bond requires a SecUnit. So there I was. I figured they were doing their best to just forget I was there.
[It starts limping back into the habitat, slowly and dripping fluids as it goes. Eventually, it reaches the security ready room. Narration over this:]
VOICEOVER: For the record, I wasn't offended about them not wanting me - I wouldn't have wanted a terrifying bot-human construct following me around and recording all my conversations either. Also, they had no idea that they had been saddled with the only SecUnit the company owned that didn't actually have to do anything they said. I do a really good impression of a SecUnit whose governor module actually still works.
[The door to the ready room closes behind it. The suit helmet retracts. There's a moment of silence, and then it sighs, looking marginally more relaxed. Very marginally.]
[It begins to strip off its armour, and starts to patch the worst of the damage - this isn't shown in detail. An overlay shows core temperature controls have been damaged. Conspicuously, any company logos on the equipment have been blurred out. Over this, the narration continues:]
VOICEOVER: Now that we've got the gasping and fainting out of the way, I can cover the big stuff. Yes, I could have gone on a killing spree and become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor. Yes, I did consider it. Then I found something better to do.
[Having treated what it can, SECUNIT wraps itself in a survival blanket, attaches the repair and resupply leads and climbs into its cubicle, visibly shivering. A small overlay shows its performance reliability at 59%, and immediately drops to 58%. White lights fade up, and it lets out what might be a sigh of relief. Another overlay appears, and opening credits with a theme song begin to play: 'Sanctuary Moon.']
VOICEOVER: I found the entertainment channels.
[SecUnit closes its eyes. The theme continues to play for a few seconds as we start to fade to black.]
SFX: A triple knock.
[The fade-out vanishes abruptly, and the overlays fizzle. SECUNIT'S eyes are open again and it's staring at the door with a look of consternation.]
[A pause, and then the footage also pauses.]
VOICEOVER: Okay - before we get to the part where I sound like an idiot, I want it on record that I didn't exactly get a lot of visitors.
[Footage continues.]
SECUNIT: Uh. Yes?
[The door slides aside to reveal DR. MENSAH. She looks worried, and maybe also a little unsure.]
MENSAH: ...Are you alright? I saw your status report.
[A pause. SECUNIT pulls the survival blanket a little further up over itself.]
SECUNIT: Uh.
[Another pause.]
SECUNIT: Fine.
[Footage pauses.]
VOICEOVER: Look, I really didn't get a lot of visitors. Ever. If I had, I might have already realised that I could have just pretended to be in stasis, instead of whatever that was.
VOICEOVER: I was just... awkward, with actual humans. It wasn't paranoia about my hacked governor module, and wasn't them; it was me. I knew I was a horrifying murder machine, and they knew it too, which made both of us nervous, which made me even more nervous. It still does, frankly, and--
VOICEOVER: [AN UNCOMFORTABLE, DISMISSIVE NOISE.] Actually, that's not relevant right now.
[Footage continues.]
MENSAH (CONCERNED): Fine? The report said you lost twenty percent of your body mass.
SECUNIT: It'll grow back.
[Medium shot of the room as MENSAH glances back over her shoulder, showing an alarming amount of blood and unknown fluids.]
MENSAH: ...I know, but still.
[A pause. SECUNIT is maintaining a just-shy-of-neutral expression while MENSAH seems to be trying to get a read on it.]
VOICEOVER: This is the part where I should've said, "You're welcome, Dr. Mensah, now please get out of my cubicle so I can sit here and leak in peace." But I didn't.
[An overlay appears showing the rest of the crew (minus BHARADWAJ and VOLESCU) in the crew area, discussing the incident. An observant eye might notice that the people shown in the overlay footage look and sound different to the rest of it, as does the location - this is real footage from one of the survey cameras. The clip audio dips as MENSAH speaks again:]
MENSAH: You were very good with Dr. Volescu. I don't think the others realised…
[She hesitates for a fraction of a second, showing a flash of guilt.]
MENSAH: They were very impressed.
SECUNIT (STIFF): It's part of the emergency med instructions, calming victims.
MENSAH (FOCUSED, EARNEST): Yes, but the MedSystem was prioritising Bharadwaj and didn't check Volescu's vital signs. It didn't take into account the shock of the event, and it expected him to be able to leave the scene on his own.
[SECUNIT doesn't immediately reply. The audio on the overlay increases again. A snippet of conversation comes through.]
ARADA: --could converse like that.
PIN-LEE: I didn't even realise it had a face.
GURATHIN: Didn't you look at the specifications we were sent? It has human neural tissue.
ARADA: Well, yeah, but--
[Audio dips again.]
VOICEOVER: This is why I liked keeping the armour on, and why riding with the cargo suited me just fine. Humans don't try to talk to you when they think you're just a robot, and they don't get weird about - well, everything. Letting them see my face had been a huge miscalculation.
SECUNIT: It's part of my job, not to listen to the system feeds when they… make mistakes.
VOICEOVER (FLAT): The technical term is "fuck up," but governed units aren't permitted to use that kind of language.
[A pause, while MENSAH looks unconvinced.]
MENSAH: ...All right. I'll see you in eight hours. If you need anything before then, please send me an alert on the feed.
[She hesitates for another second, and then closes the door. A beat of silence. The audio on the overlay increases again.]
OVERSE: --a person, and we haven't acknowledged that.
GURATHIN: Why would we? It hasn't shown any sign of empathy until now. It must have been a preprogrammed module.
RATTHI: You saw that footage, Gurathin - that can't have been a programmed response, it was far too...
ARADA: Human?
RATTHI: Gentle. Compassionate. There's no way that was a generic emergency module.
[The overlay minimises. SECUNIT stares ahead into the quiet.]
VOICEOVER: I had been so focused on everything else that was happening - like where the hopper was landing and how long Bharadwaj had before the blood loss would be fatal - that I… hadn't been paying attention to what I was saying. At all. I'd barely even realised I was talking in the first place.
[Another overlay appears, showing VOLESCU'S field camera footage. The video is shaky, but shows patchy coverage of SECUNIT'S face from behind and to one side as VOLESCU trails it up the slope. Once again, this is real footage - this SECUNIT'S voice is the same as the one in the voiceover.]
SECUNIT: Are you married, Dr. Volescu?
VOLESCU: What? I - yes, I - I have three - three partners.
SECUNIT: I'm sure they'll be glad to see you when you finish the survey. Do you have children too?
VOLESCU: Yes - yes, um - seven, they're - back home, with my partners.
SECUNIT: You must miss them.
VOLESCU: Always, but - we have our message packets. I have one waiting that - it came in this morning, and I was going to wait until after-- [A SHAKY BREATH] Oh, Deity, I would never have seen it. What if that - what if it comes back, and I never--
SECUNIT (FIRM, BUT REASSURING): You'll have plenty of time to watch it when we get back to the habitat, Dr. Volescu. The hopper is on its way, we just need to get to it. How old are your kids?
VOLESCU: Well, um, our - our youngest is--
[The overlay closes abruptly. SECUNIT lies in the silence, looking anxious and scared.]
VOICEOVER (SOMBRE): I'd given a part of myself away, and that was dangerous. Even the tiniest piece could mean the end of me - it meant everything else was less protected, and I needed all the protection I could get. Rogue SecUnits don't get updated or wiped like with malfunctions, or repaired like with damage that's deemed cost-effective to fix. If anyone realised what I was, I was as good as atomised. And I had shows I wanted to finish.
VOICEOVER (SHAKING ITSELF OUT OF IT): Needless to say, I was too agitated to start a proper rest cycle, so I started reviewing all the recordings, status logs, and feed entries from the incident.
[Appropriate overlays appear.]
VOICEOVER: And I found something weird - an abort command from the HubSystem feed that I should have been compelled to follow. I thought it had to have been a glitch, especially because when MedSystem has priority--
[Overlay: a warning message: 'WARNING: PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39%. INITIATING EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN FOR REPAIRS.']
[Screen abruptly cuts to black.]
VOICEOVER: Oh. Yeah, that would be the fluid loss.