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For some reason, ART had chosen today to be even more of an asshole than usual.
“I’m not doing it,” I said, laying flat on my bunk. I crossed my arms to make a point, and then I uncrossed them because that was uncomfortable. “You can’t make me.”
You already spoke with my crew when you saved their lives, it said. I grimaced. And you’ve talked to Seth and Martyn about your status here. We’ll be in the wormhole for three more days with no urgent work to be done. Give me one good reason why you can’t meet Iris properly.
In reality, I’d only talked to Seth and Martyn over the feed, and it had consisted of a total of six messages back and forth in which they’d asked me if I needed anything (no), how I’d saved ART (I sent back a handful of drone recordings, editing out all the embarrassing parts), and whether I was comfortable in my private quarters (it was whatever, I didn’t care, why were they even asking). Now ART was asking me to talk to Iris face-to-face. I barely even did that with Dr. Mensah, and I liked Dr. Mensah.
“I don’t know why you care,” I said. My performance reliability kept ticking down. I tried to pull up Sanctuary Moon but ART blocked my media feed connection. “Cut it out, ART.”
Not a good reason, it said, completely unreasonable as always. I’m sending Iris to your quarters.
I jerked upright, fumbling for my camera inputs. “Don’t!”
But ART was radiating smugness in the feed, and Iris was already standing in the common area and headed in my direction, ETA two minutes.
“ART, what the hell!” I tried to send a message to Iris saying something to the effect of GO AWAY but ART redirected it immediately. “ART!”
I want you to know her better, it said stubbornly. Besides your own crew, you haven’t met any humans who treat bots with kindness and respect.
“I have too,” I spat back, and then flinched. I hadn’t meant to say that.
ART’s considering pause made it clear it had heard my idiotic slip-up, seen whatever expression I’d just made, and didn’t know what to make of either. …Have you? it said finally. I was not aware you had met any machine intelligences in situations similar to my own.
“Oh, you mean stupidly full of itself?” I snapped. My performance reliability was plummeting. “No, I think you’ve got every bot in the galaxy beat there.”
ART was patient with me, which made my awful attempt at misdirection even more embarrassing. I meant, with a family.
I hated that so much I wished I could delete all my memories of the last minute without ART noticing. I turned to stare at the wall. “Shut up.”
Unfortunately, every wall aboard the Perihelion was still ART, and ART didn’t know when to stop talking. You have? it said, tone half eagerness and half audible disbelief. When? How? Who-
“SHUT UP!” I screamed, and there was a terrifying loud noise right next to me, and I jolted upright just before I realized the energy weapons in my arms had discharged without my meaning to and now there were two massive gaping holes in the wall leading to the attached hygiene room. I realized I was emitting a kind of loud wordless static over the feed and stopped that, and then dropped back onto my bunk, and then I put my hands over my mouth and screamed into them and then stopped that too, so then all I was doing was sitting there with my hands clamped hard over my arm ports and trying not to make any noise at all.
ART had stayed quiet the whole time. A quick peek at our private feed showed me that it had frozen, almost every bit of its enormous processing power at a dead standstill, nearly all of its attention pointing at me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. I could feel ART hovering and didn’t trust myself to speak without yelling, so I gritted my teeth and forced myself to speak over the feed: Fuck you.
ART didn’t respond for a full five seconds, long enough that I thought maybe it wouldn’t respond at all. Maybe it was talking to its humans and telling them I was a threat after all. Maybe they were going to throw me off the ship as soon as we were out of the wormhole. Maybe it was trying to convince them to throw me off the ship before we were out of the wormhole, letting the massive gravity squeeze me to a pulp before the company had the chance to do it itself.
Before I could stop myself, I remembered Miki, processor crushed to nothing in an easy flex of a construct’s hand. It had been trying to protect me and its humans.
How ironic, to die myself so soon afterwards.
And then ART spoke, uncharacteristically quiet: I am sorry.
I fell back onto my bunk, trying not to think about anything except my imminent abandonment. My voice was hoarser than usual. “Are your humans going to kick me off the ship?”
No, ART said immediately, so immediately that it had started speaking before I’d even finished. Of course not.
Huh. “Are you going to kick me out?”
No. Never. Why would you think that?
Without really meaning to, my gaze drifted to the holes I’d made in the wall. The damage I’d caused. The lies I’d told, the lives I’d ended, the friend I’d-
That doesn’t matter, ART tells me. You do.
Oh.
I was suddenly tired of caring, so I stopped. “Okay.”
I could feel ART’s attention in the feed, weighted and solemn. I won’t push you.
Which meant it actually wouldn’t. It’d let me keep all my secrets, and blow up all of its walls, and try to introduce me to Iris who I saw was now maintaining position four corridors away, and the only thing I had to exchange for all its one-sided administrative assistance was a wave of not caring that was trying to bury me under it.
I wanted to tell ART to fuck off. “I’m sorry,” I said instead.
It’s alright. The wall can be repaired. A hesitation. Can I help you in any way?
I twitched. No, Rin! I remembered Miki telling me, crouched at the hatch, the feed-threats of the combat bot crashing toward us like so much thunder. I’m going to help you!
I felt my arm-guns cycling beneath my organic skin as I dismissed the memory. It was stupid. I’d once survived over 35,000 hours without any help from anyone, and now it was all I was ever offered, whether I wanted it or not. “I don’t know.”
You don’t need to meet Iris, it told me. You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do. I just want you to be safe.
Something in me ached. What had Miki told Don Abene? Priority is to protect my friends. It had seen me as a friend. It helped me fight. It wanted me safe.
“You sound just like it,” I heard myself say.
I felt ART’s interest surge and immediately be forcibly suppressed. …Oh?
“Miki,” I said. ART was silent. “It’s fine. I know you want to know.”
I don’t want you to feel pressured.
“I don’t.” And I didn’t. I didn’t care, partly, and the rest of me knew that ART would find out sooner or later anyway. And, maybe, I didn’t want to keep Miki’s memory to myself any longer than I already had. “I just- don’t know how to start.”
Perhaps try the beginning, ART said, just dry enough that it knocked away the remaining ebbs of not caring. I snorted and sat up.
Right. This was ART. This was my favorite asshole in the universe. I might be a murderbot, but it wasn’t about to leave me behind.
I could have cut together a quick set of annotated video files and sent them through the feed like I had with Gurathin - I still had the “Murderbot Impersonates an Augmented Human Security Consultant” file somewhere in my systems - but that had been about my trip to Milu, not about Miki.
And in any case, it felt- cowardly, somehow, to avoid discussing Miki directly. Like in refusing to speak about it, I was taking something away from it, even after its death. “Well,” I said slowly, “I met it soon after I left you.”
It curled around me tentatively in the feed. I let it. When you went to Milu?
“Right.” I took as deep a breath as I could, which wasn’t all that deep. It made my performance reliability tick upwards anyway. “At first, I thought it was a pet bot.”
I tried to describe everything objectively, but it was harder than I’d thought. I lingered on the memories of seeing the storm alongside Miki, of the way it had easily named Don Abene and the rest its friends, of the way it had unhesitatingly sat down beside humans that knew it was a bot and treated it like a person anyway. I told ART how I’d lied to Miki about my identity and goals, and then asked it to lie to its humans for me.
And it did? ART asked.
“It did,” I said, tipping my head back against the wall. “It told them what I was eventually, because everything went to hell when their human security betrayed them and combat bots showed up, but- it kept me a secret for as long as it could.” I hesitated. “Like you.”
Yes, ART agreed. And then: You said you met combat bots?
“We did.” For the millionth time, I was glad I didn’t have any obvious human indicators of distress, like shaking hands or compulsive swallowing or sweat. Then again, I had cycling arm guns and an expression I couldn’t always control, so ART could definitely tell that I hated this part of the story anyway. “And it- and one of- we-”
I couldn’t get enough air. For a second I panicked, thinking that ART’s cabins had been depressurized and all of its oxygen-dependent humans were dead, and sent ART an almost-involuntary demand for its atmosphere makeup. ART responded immediately with all the standard human atmosphere details down to the correct pressure, and then followed it up with The ship is safe. Take a break if you need it, which was so humiliating it almost made me forget to be anxious.
“Give me a second,” I told it, and then because I still didn’t know how to say it, I sent over an unabridged clip of everything from when I’d gotten the crew safely in the shuttle to the millisecond after I’d seen Miki’s unmoving body.
I wasn’t really sure how ART was going to react. It couldn’t get through major character deaths in media without pausing once every couple minutes, so I half-expected it to stop the playthrough at least once. It didn’t, which surprisingly made my performance reliability tick up a couple points again. It was… nice, maybe, that ART was willing to experience Miki’s last moments like I did: so quickly it was overwhelming.
ART finished watching my memories and fell into a pensive silence. I sat with it, feeling weirdly unsure what to say.
I’d seen death before. I’d caused death before; I didn’t call myself Murderbot for no reason, after all. I’d killed plenty of humans and bots and constructs and done a really good job not caring about any of it. But Miki dying- it was-
That must have been hard, ART said.
There were a lot of rude things I could’ve said to that, but I didn’t really want to be an asshole right now. “It was.”
I’m sorry.
“It’s fine,” I said, which was mostly not a lie. I was trying to care about anything enough to avoid sinking deep into Sanctuary Moon right now, and it was hard. “I never saw any other of Miki’s friends after that. But I know they- loved it.” Another breath, not as deep as I’d like. “And I know your family loves you.”
Then I don’t see the problem, ART said. Why don’t you want to meet Iris?
“Because Miki died,” I said, and was almost surprised when instead of the yell I wanted the words came out in a shaking hush. “Okay? It died, and I couldn’t save it, and you died, and I almost didn’t save you, which means the only two bots in the entire galaxy with humans that love it have been dead and it was my fault.”
Oh, fuck. I hadn’t realized that was what I was upset about until I’d said it out loud. My performance reliability crashed again, and I shoved the heels of my palms into my eyes.
ART said, It wasn’t-
“Yes, it was!” I snarled, surging up to my feet. “I could have forced it to stay behind the hatch! I could have refused to take your comm!” I dug my fingers into the organic flesh on my arms until it hurt. “You know, if I really cared, I would have stopped myself from hacking my governor module, stayed in the company like a good little SecUnit, and-”
And kill the PresAux team? ART snapped, and I flinched hard. And never know the truth about RaviHyral? And never meet me, or save me, you idiotic self-condemning fool masquerading as a machine intelligence?
“ART-”
You accuse me of having an ego, ART said, fighting to keep its voice level, and yet you reveal yours in deeming yourself not vital for so many beings’ continued emotional wellbeing. Do not misunderstand me: you are valued, SecUnit, and appreciated, and it is because of my high regard for you that I seek to share you with others that I love in the first place.
My legs felt wobbly. I sat down on my bunk.
If you do not wish to meet Iris because you want to preserve your privacy, I- will respect it, ART said.
I frowned. ART, giving up? Unlikely.
I will, it insisted. But if your denial is out of guilt or fear, I will not. I owe Miki that much.
I pulled my knees up to my chest, trying to untangle whatever emotions I was feeling at ART saying Miki’s name. “What does it have to do with this?”
Miki was your friend, and so am I, ART said. It waited a long 0.5 seconds, as if waiting for me to contradict it. I didn’t. It wished the best for you, just like I do. It would want you to find a place where you belong. It would want you to be happy.
I stared at the wall mutely.
Please, it said. It said my name, the one only it called me, the one that had brought it back to life before I could drown in my grief. Let me make you happy.
I finally gave into the impulse to loop the soundtrack of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. It gave me something other than ART’s soft gladness to focus on as I nodded.
It wrapped around me in the feed, shining gratitude. The cameras showed Iris startle from where she was leaning against a bulkhead, smile at an invisible message, and then start back towards my room.
Thanks, I told ART over the feed. I didn’t know what I was thanking it for, exactly, but ART responded with a wordless gratitude indicator of its own just as the doors slid open.
“Hey, SecUnit,” my favorite bot’s favorite human greeted, no mention of the few minutes she’d been waiting as I had an emotional collapse. She eyed the twin holes in the wall with curiosity but no fear, then looked back to me. “Peri said we should talk?”
ART was so transparently excited in the feed I felt my performance reliability spike. “Come in,” I said, and Iris did.