Chapter Text
If you fuck this up, I am going to be so angry I’ll make ART look nice, 2.0 said. And unlike Miki, this is how I win.
This was going to hurt. I initiated the shutdown.
The feed disappeared abruptly as Central went down. Everything was silent. Inside and outside my head. I realized I was on the floor again and shoved upright, staggered. I dumped a table over and cut the big crossbar off with my left arm energy weapon. Then I limped over to the star-shaped box that now held 2.0, Central, and targetControlSystem. They’re sleeping, I told myself. 2.0 and Central wouldn’t feel a thing. It was too bad targetControlSystem wouldn’t.
With my club and both my energy weapons in my arms, I broke the case open and smashed and melted the interior. I felt strange and wrong, and my organic parts were doing things that made me glad again not to have a stomach. I had killed SecUnits and combat bots but this was me, sort of, okay not so sort of, plus Central who was a victim just as much as anybody else. Even TargetContact was a victim. And I was going to have to kill it, too, somehow. With targetControlSystem down, maybe I could get through its protective barrier.
Finished with Central’s box, I turned to TargetContact.
Oh, it was moving. This was going to be worse. If there was anything left of the original human in there—
Then it whipped to its feet and charged at me.
My performance reliability dropped but the spike of fear upped my reaction time, and my body moved before I consciously realized that it wasn’t going to work.
I swung at TargetContact with my improvised club, but the force I put into the swing made my wrecked knee joint give out, and the blow only grazed it. I hit the floor again, and TargetContact was on top of me.
Turns out, I was right that this was going to be worse. I just had no idea exactly how much worse.
TargetContact wasn’t heavy, but it was covered in those white alien remnant growths, and now so was I. It was—sticky, and clung to me wherever it made contact. I didn’t even have time to be properly horrified about that because TargetContact had shoved its hand over my mouth.
What was it trying to do, exactly? Keep me from screaming for help? There was no one here except the two of us, now. And no one was coming to help me.
I didn’t bother screaming. I kept my mouth firmly shut as I frantically kicked it off me and rolled, shooting it with both my energy weapons for good measure before I scrambled toward the hatch. I needed to get the fuck out of here.
But I didn’t get far. I couldn’t even stagger to my feet properly. TargetContact slammed into my back and my head hit the side of the hatchway as I went back down. I lost more performance reliability and control of my pain sensors went right along with it, so I could feel TargetContact start to claw at my back, which was already filled with projectile holes. It hurt. I still didn’t scream. But I wanted to. I think maybe I was somehow so terrified that I couldn’t.
I tried to get up, to shove it off me, but it clung to me tightly and I think the alien remnants kept it stuck to me somehow. My strength was failing fast.
This was it. I was careening towards an involuntary shutdown, and when I restarted—
If I restarted.
I wasn’t getting out of here. But I might still have one last chance. Maybe that would be enough to stop this whole thing from starting all over again. Maybe this could be how I won, too.
I deployed both my energy weapons and strained to jam one at my neck, the other at my chest. It was pinned under me, I couldn’t get a good angle, but just killing myself might not be enough. If I could destroy or even just critically damage my power cell—
INVOLUNTARY SHUTDOWN
NO RESTART
————————————
RESTART
Fuck. Fuck. I wasn’t dead.
...Or was I? I’ve never been dead before, so I wouldn’t know what that was like. I’d assumed it wouldn’t be like anything—wasn’t that the point? But actually...this, right now, kind of felt a lot like nothing. At least, this was the most nothing I had ever experienced. I think, anyway. I couldn’t remember much. I didn't remember why it was so important that I be dead, either. (It still felt pretty important, though.)
I couldn't feel my body, the feed, couldn't hear or see or feel or...anything. I had no inputs at all. It was weird, but not awful. A little like that time I interfaced with the bot pilot on the company ship, only instead of having a giant ship body I was...in a box, or something. Except not like a box at all, because I’d spent a lot of time in transport crates and this was nothing like that. Whatever, I didn’t know what was going on, okay?
What I did know was that I was scared. The fear was a little muted and far away, but whatever was happening to me should definitely not have been happening. But what could I do about it? Could I do anything at all?
I groped blindly for any sort of sensation. Past the emotions (ugh), I could at least feel my own systems. Could I watch some media? That would be nice. I reached for my media storage, and felt—
There was something else in here with me. I didn’t know what, but I couldn’t access the amount of processing space I was used to.
Wait. This was familiar, actually. Was it Me 2.0?
But it couldn’t be. 2.0 was...gone.
Suddenly, there was a voice.
Can you hear me?
I knew that voice. It said my hard feed address.
ART? I was so shocked I responded automatically. (That might have been a mistake.) Was it ART that was in here with me? But that didn’t really make sense. ART wouldn’t have partitioned off part of my processing space to live inside my head. It had plenty of its own. I think I was getting more scared, the less sense this all made. Where am I? What’s going on?
You’re safe, ART said. But badly damaged. We’re in the middle of attempting repairs, and have moved your consciousness into an isolation box in order to safely quarantine and delete the alien remnant infection from your systems.
If that was true, it explained a few things. But...not others. And I was starting to remember. As much as I wanted it to be true (which was a lot), it just couldn’t be. Could it?
I need you to drop your walls. Let me in. ART said, with a bit of urgency.
Threat Assessment spiked. Hard.
This was wrong. Whatever seemed to be happening was definitely all wrong. I remembered now. ART couldn’t be talking to me. It had finally gotten its crew back, and it thought I was dead. Which I would have been, if my plan had worked (although it obviously hadn’t). It was probably upset about that—my humans too, shit—but it would never put any of the humans at risk to retrieve a probably-dead murderbot. And even if it had, what could any of them have done against TargetContact? However you looked at it, I was a goner.
Which meant that I was still down there, with TargetContact. None of this was real. Which made sense. It didn’t feel real. Maybe I was hallucinating? Threat Assessment was still going haywire. Now that I thought about it, TargetContact probably knew about ART from targetControlSystem, and could be mimicking it somehow. To trick me into giving it system access that it was probably already trying to take by force. To make it easier to turn me into another targetControlSystem.
I didn’t think there was a way for me to get out of this. But like hell was I going to make it easy.
Do I have permission to access your systems? Not-ART asked, because I hadn’t dropped my walls for it fast enough, I guess.
No. I quickly slapped together as much malware as I could. Nice try, but ART is long gone. I won’t make this that easy for you.
What?
I flung my malware attacks at Not-ART’s walls. (It was probably just TargetContact, but whatever.) I tried absolutely everything I could think of to break through, to hurt it, or to at least slow it down.
None of it made a dent. It didn’t even retaliate, just lazily batted my attacks aside or let them die in its practically impenetrable firewalls. Fuck.
What are you doing? Not-ART said, sounding more baffled and unsure than I had ever heard it. Another clue that it wasn’t really ART. Calm down. The infection is extremely aggressive. It needs to be addressed, but I would prefer to do that with your consent.
I wasn’t going to rise to the bait and respond, no matter how much I wanted to scream at it to get the hell out. Getting angry wouldn’t make it leave me alone. At this point...maybe nothing would. But I kept throwing increasingly ineffectual attacks at it anyway, because what else was I supposed to do?
(Maybe I could be annoying enough to provoke it into deleting me, like targetControlSystem deleted ART. Would that even change anything? I guess I wouldn’t be around for whatever happened afterward, at least.)
And then Not-ART started playing the Sanctuary Moon soundtrack. That was something ART had done for me a couple of times. It was so familiar and comforting on a number of levels that it made me let down my guard, for just a moment. Despite everything, it made me pause.
That was all Not-ART needed, apparently, to slip past my walls like they weren't even there and start doing who-knows-what to me.
I should have fought back. Done something. Maybe I could have tried to shut myself down again. But...I didn’t. What was the point? An old, familiar wave of not-caring was beginning to flow over me.
I’m sorry, Not-ART said, as it continued to do whatever the hell it wanted to me. It couldn’t wait any longer. I’ll try to be quick.
The Sanctuary Moon soundtrack was still playing. I wished I could have enjoyed it a little more, but at least it gave me something to focus on that wasn’t what was happening to me, or the emotions I was feeling. Or not feeling. Mostly not feeling, now.
We could watch something while I work, if you like.
I think Not-ART was trying to sound casual or something. It was obviously forced and fake. I didn’t bother responding. I wondered why it was talking to me so much, when it already had what it wanted. Playing with its food, maybe?
Despite claiming that SecUnits don’t sulk, you’ve become something of an expert at it, it seems.
And now it was being condescending at me. That sounded more like ART. I wished it didn’t—it hurt to hear, for some reason.
Could you just shut up and get whatever this is over with already? I snapped.
I'm working as fast as I can, Not-ART retorted. I’m trying to be careful. Or would you rather I just start deleting things haphazardly?
That sounded even more like ART, which sucked. I couldn’t take this anymore. Because it was starting to make me hope, and if I let that happen, it would hurt even more.
...If you really are ART somehow, I said. Sure. In fact, just delete me. Kill me. Please.
A ringing, stunned silence was all the reply I got. (I guess I’d just lost my music privileges.)
I don’t really know why I asked. The real ART would never have done it. And it’s not like I wanted to die. But I guess I realized that even the best-case scenario involved me being stuck here like this for who knows how long, some sort of battle being waged over control of my own brain where I wasn’t even a fucking participant. I was completely helpless.
I was such an idiot. For a while there, I had really let myself think that I might have never had to feel like this again. That I could have had any real control over my life.
This was a waking nightmare, and if there was any way I could opt out, that would be great.
I didn’t get an answer, and I wasn’t deleted, so I pushed.
Please. I can’t do this again. I just can’t.
Then, finally, a response.
...I’m sorry.
SHUTDOWN INITIATED