Work Text:
To me, roads are planetary novelties.
All stations and colonies rely on transit pods, haulerbots, automated lifts, and small-scale shuttles to move goods and people. But, outside of each human metropolis, there are still roads.
SecPrime (aka, Murderbot) hates roads. Things are always waiting down dark roads to ambush its clients, or eat them, or fall on them. Every time it sees a long, lonely road in its media it groans to itself, even when it doesn’t have its LikeAHuman procedures running.
I have a different opinion, probably because my clients were always on ships or stations or restricted to colony settlements. Roads are how humans have travelled from place to place for at least the last hundred-thousand years of their existence.
Roads on Preservation are lauded for “Keeping our feet on the ground,” a pseudo-spiritual decree expressing appreciation for their adopted home-world. Intra-city travel is still done primarily via trains or shuttles or hoppers, but there is a radius around every minor settlement and major outpost where that infrastructure is not available, but roads are.
And these roads linger even after the greater infrastructure is in place. They’re like old habits, foundation codes that bring up processes in the same order no matter how many times I tweak my programming. Roads are the ghosts in a simulation that feel more like a rehearsal than a challenge. They’re obsolete but still present, and they still get the job done if you take the time to gear up and follow one.
There are no roads in space, or on stations, or on ships. But there are always roads on planets (and moons, which are technically not planets despite SecPrime’s feelings on the matter).
Preservation’s primary star is warm and bright overhead, my visor tinted to keep down the glare. I shut off my piloting assist about nine hours ago when this road pulled away from the shadows of the Pres-1 Trans-Continental Train Line (P1-TCTL). The Pres-1 is one of Preservation’s key transit arteries between its planetary capital and several dozen population hubs on this continent. I think the road I started on was part of the old network that fed the construction of the Pres-1, and now I’m off… somewhere.
I’ve never just gone somewhere before. There’s no HubSys keeping tabs on me, or SecSys preparing a shock for disobedience. I’m not even disobeying anything. I’m just… going.
I’m astride a hired solo-engine driver that zips along a good foot off the ground. It responds more-so to my weight balanced atop it than to the drive-bar I’m holding as I hurtle along. Its wind-screen keeps helpfully pinging the decayed marker paint I pass, and it stops any alerts from jumping into my helmet where they might startle a human operator. I paid the fee with a hard-currency card and it has about 58 hours left on its term before I have to return it, which suits me.
Because this is Preservation, if I don’t return the driver or extend my time with it then I won’t incur a fine: the driver will simply leave because it’s an independent bot-pilot.
Right now, I have the sun and the wind competing against my body’s temperature control, buffeting my jacket where it’s zipped up tight under the chin of my helmet. I’m on a winding compact-matter road that loops over these next few hills like a dropped spool of ribbon, and my scans haven’t picked up a life-form outside of local fauna for hours.
Last night, I watched the stars move irrespective of my speed or direction below them. I really needed my on-board piloting assist until the sun came up and hid them.
The terrain here is lightly forested, layers of red and yellow flora whipping in the low winds. The air is fresh and breatheable without a respirator. Shades of green bloom in places as the hardier terraform species are still working hard in this region, but the heirloom flora have taken root. In another decade or two, this entire region might be green.
Clear and towering in the distance are about half-a-dozen white monoliths with orbiting components swinging lazily in the daylight. I won’t say they were my destination when I left SecPrime at Doctor Mensah’s farm yesterday, but they make a fascinating point of reference now as I cut down between the hills. I think they’re either energy manufactories or a piece of the terraforming infrastructure, neither of which I have clearance to visit, but I can get a good view of them from one of these hills before I decide where to go next.
Speaking of hills: according to the driver’s manual, I should slow down when ascending steep terrain. I’m cautioned to use a lower-power setting to prevent wear-and-tear, but…
I check risk and threat assessment, and they say “go for it.”
I rev the engine and disregard the roadside marker paint that flashes an acceleration limit when I exceed it. I fly down this hill, getting a light dose of adrenaline from the gravity mercilessly tempting the driver to kiss the ground (and leave me with repair costs far exceeding what was on the card). The ground levels, and I rapidly accelerate before hitting the base of the next hill and shooting up it.
As security, I shouldn’t take risks like these. I shouldn’t even be manually operating a vehicle that has a bot-pilot (an excessively simple one, but I set it to standby before leaving). I shouldn’t zip around bends on this long-abandoned road. I shouldn’t be tens of miles from the nearest human, and certainly not 17 standard hours away from the humans I am actually contracted to.
But, I’m also… going really fast.
I initiate my pilot assist just to check my accuracy as I follow a gentle bend in the road at 150— no, 200 percent the acceleration limit. A rush of adrenaline prickles my skin as the red line in my load out forms and I’m following it with 98 percent accuracy around the turn, down the next hill, and then shoot into an old tunnel that bursts me immediately back out into dazzling daylight.
LikeAHuman.file prompts my vocalization mod, and I make a high-pitched sound inside my helmet, only loud enough for me to hear, and keep grinning as I keep my speed steady, looking for the next chance to throttle up.
Six kilometers later and more marker paint splashes up on the wind-screen. Old warnings pair with sudden divets in the road’s surface, forcing me to slow down. My joyride turns into an equally interesting this-way-not-that to avoid bashing parts of the hovering solo-engine on the ground. I’m going at half the acceleration limit now, almost like I’m apologizing to the sleeping bot-pilot for my recklessness.
But, that won’t stop me from blitzing off again once the road evens out...
An hour later, I reach a decades-old pullout on the side of the road and stop. Since leaving Preservation Station for the planet, my energy levels have degraded to sub-50 percent, but I don’t consider this low enough for a recharge. The solo-engine, however, is sitting at about 35 because I’ve taken it beyond its typical range, so I cruise off the old road and deploy the landing struts.
If it becomes necessary, a 30 percent charge on the driver is enough to get it back to a decent-sized settlement for a solid-state recharge. If I absolutely have to, then I can feed it from my own power core, provided I recharge immediately before or after doing so. These scenarios in risk assessment come in at 15 and 9 percent likelihood each.
The red/yellow/green mixed foliage crowds close to the pull-out, various shrubs and tall trees staggered over each other. I scan my surroundings and find no sign of recent human activity, and my pings only register the sleeping bot-pilot.
There’s a dilapidated feed relay rising from an outcrop above the pull-out, and an abandoned building at ground level that has otherwise already been salvaged by Preservation. It was probably a fuel or habitation stop during the Pres-1’s construction, but now its artificial stone husk is here to be re-wilded by the terraforming. Faded marker paint tells me I’m en-route to the Pres-1 manufactory depot (now decommissioned because Pres-1 is operational), and close to the restricted Mono-helio Processor Complex Site 3, which are probably the white monoliths I’ve been chasing.
The engine purrs as it settles down, and I pull off my helmet before nudging the bot-pilot awake to run through a basic diagnostic. It chirps at me, spitting out a set of novelty facts about our journey so far (hours of travel, top speed, engine efficiency, transportation violations (oops), etc.). I download the novelty facts and also the proper diagnostic report.
I ask it if it would like to recharge while we’re stopped and confirm that I’m satisfied with waiting 2-4 hours for it to do so. It says sure before sending me a reminder about proper hydration and to avoid intoxicants while under its rental contract. It also apologizes that it cannot locate any restaurant or habitation locations in its scanner range.
I ping back no worries, and let it go down for recharge.
The air-temperature is balmy as I dismount in the sun, toggling open the collar of my black jacket and unzipping it over the dark green shirt Iris insisted looked good on me. I carry my helmet under my arm as I peel off my gloves, tucking them in the jacket pocket before pulling out a case from the breast-pocket with some of my drones.
I stopped here because… I could. I’m not due back on Preservation Station for several cycles and SecPrime had no itinerary after escorting Doctor Mensah home for a seasonal festival that concluded yesterday before I left. I’d mentioned seeing more of the planet and SecPrime provided me with the currency card I used to hire the driver last night.
My on-board terrain scan picks up a curiosity around the back of the ruin. I release some my drones, setting one swarm to watch over the driver and keep the rest with me.
Another reason I stopped here was the ruin itself, and the way the hill it stands atop is capped with a rocky outcrop shrouded in shrubbery and spindly trees. The relay doesn’t appear active, but I ping a few times and then open up my feed.
There’s no local network to connect to, just the planet-wide feed. There’s a flag hovering in the corner, probably SecPrime wondering where I am, but I filter through my drone inputs first and make my way to the curious terrain behind the ruin.
I’m pleased to find overgrown artificial stone steps and, careful not to disturb the encroaching flora too much, make my way up. The purpose of this location’s abandonment is to give the local ecosystem something to reclaim, not for random rogue SecUnits to come and crush the delicate runners biting into the eroding surface.
It’s just part of my programming that makes me flex my hands and check my weapons system. On-board projectile weapons are far less likely to self-detonate than energy weapon cores, and my weapon widget shows full magazines in both arms. Life form scans, again, give me nothing larger than local avian nests and small ground-going mammals. I also have no one here to protect except myself and the driver bot-pilot.
I make my way up and around the curving stone steps until I reach the hollowed-out belly of the feed relay. Like the building ten meters below me, the station operators stripped every viable resource and cleared out the rest, leaving only the biologically-inert shell. The relay antenna is here, but most of its components appear to have been replaced with artificial platforms designed for local fauna to nest on.
There’s a historical plaque bolted to a small plinth next to the door, commemorating the construction of the Pres-1 and congratulating me on locating this site as part of a wider geographical scavenger hunt.
I note this for later. SecPrime won’t care but Dr. Ratthi probably knows all about a planet-wide history game.
This station sits on a wide circular platform that’s half the outcrop and half artificial, and I walk past the gaping door to a carpet of green grass populated with several shrubs that appear to have been planted intentionally and left to go wild.
The relay extends up into the clear blue sky behind me, and from where I’m standing above the terrain, I have a remarkable view of the Mono-helion monoliths in the distance. They’re still perhaps a hundred kilometers away, stand like sentient pillars reaching thousands of feet up into the sky, each with two or more white orbs that drift around them in perpetual motion. They draw energy from the primary star and convert it into energy cores like mine and the solo-engine’s.
I capture an image of it, trying to get the colors right and writing up a request for a photography module to submit when I return to Perihelion. I’m sure Doctor Mensah will appreciate one of her planet’s many vistas. SecPrime won’t be outwardly interested in a picture of Preservation, but I’ll share it regardless and let it decide.
There’s a breeze up here and the grass absorbs much of the heat. I shuck my jacket and drop it on the tangled grass, flattening a space for myself and sitting down.
I’ve never done this before: I’ve never sat down to enjoy the sun and a pretty view. This is exactly when a human would choose to rehydrate or nourish themselves in their travels, but I require neither and want them even less.
What I do have, stored in my arm compartment, is a memory clip of lectures I downloaded from Perihelion a few days ago and neglected to listen to. I thought about playing them while driving, but enjoyed the ride too much to distract from it… I was also going extremely, extremely fast.
I let my legs rest long on the grass and the sun beats down to warm the metal components under my clothes. I lean back on my arms, helmet resting beside me, and tune up my audio processing to record several of the bird-calls I can now hear blipping around me. When I get back, I can help Amena identify them for one of her courses.
I access the planet-wide feed properly this time, looking for a map to help decide—
Oh no.
[Social Feed Inbox: 403 Messages]
I had 2 when I left last night.
My stress levels, which I thought I abandoned at the Mensah family farm, creep up and drag my performance reliability down 3 points.
Social feed profiles must be created for each planet, station, or ship a person registers with. Mine is currently registered to Perihelion, who is docked at Preservation Station, but the station and the home-world overlap their world-wide feeds. It’s all very complicated data-infrastructure with a lot of benefits and limitations that I won’t get into now because I have to brace as I open my—
SecUnit: I’m sorry. Just know that I’m so sorry. So please, just be careful.
“Oh no,” I verbalize, despite being at least sixteen square kilometers from the nearest human.
Obviously, the newest message opens first. I don’t have the fortitude to start at the first frantic/angry/curious query from SecPrime and work my way forward to contextualize this comment that absolutely oozes melancholy. I’m just not strong enough, because messages left on a feed profile aren’t directed to hard feed addresses: they go to the profile on the public feed. And they are private! But they’re only text or audio or visual, not machine language, not code.
SecPrime has sent me nearly sixty messages in the last 18 hours, and every last one of them has required it to put what it wants to say in corporate standard words. There is not obfuscation or clarity via code, it just had to say what it wanted to say.
Judging by the last one, I’m terrified of the preceding 57.
Mortified, I clap both hands over my face and tip backward onto the grass with a groan. I fling open the solo-engine driver’s manual, scanning through it and the terms-of-use contract just in case—oh, fuck…
“You—! No!” I ping the sleeping driver several times, then several dozen more, just to give it a problem to wake up to.
To prevent feed activity from distracting human operators, the driver’s bot-pilot automatically suppresses notifications. The same permissions I granted it to have my loadout port to the wind-screen also silenced any incoming messages. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t also told the bot-pilot to sleep, because normally it would have chirped, ‘Hey, you’ve received 48 urgent messages in the last 5 minutes, would you like to pull over and go through them?’.
It wasn’t even jamming my feed; it was just acting like a helpful buffer. It’s not the bot-pilot’s fault that I rode 65 percent of its charge away because I was having fun…
There is a non-zero percent chance I just go offline right now and pretend I got kidnapped or fell down a mine-shaft or am actually Rogue SecUnit Four now, not Three. Who is Three? Not me.
I almost delete the entire feed inbox, but rapidly scanning through it I find 14 messages from Doctor Mensah, 102 from Amena Mensah, 122 messages from Doctor Ratthi, and I somehow missed an additional 17 messages from Doctor Karime. The final 68 messages are spread across various humans including Overse and Thiago and Turi and Captain Seth, who already doesn’t like me.
Somewhere on this planet I have created an emotional outburst in a rogue SecUnit, and I’m getting close to experiencing one myself.
I tap SecPrime’s social feed with System system all clear, which is extremely uncomfortable to see written as four words instead of a code string. I don’t even know what to follow-up with. Do I send it a picture? My location? One of those animated drawings Amena sends Doctor Mensah whenever she doesn’t want to answer a question? Do I just go offline?
SecUnit: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?
Three: I am so sorry.
SecUnit: Location now! Status now!
Three: I’ll be back as soon as I can! I didn’t know there was a feed-redirect protocol on the driver.
Communicating via the public profiles is agony for speed: I’m relaying off distant satellites and the server delay makes this akin to talking to a human. Neither SecPrime or I are human. We don’t speak to each other in words, we use code, and it is so, so hard to format emotions into words especially when neither of us are good at this to begin with.
SecUnit: What driver? Kidnapper!?
SecUnit: Location! Status! Fucking hell, Three!
I don’t fucking know where I am. I send it the snapshot and immediately query the planet-wide feed for a coordinate pin.
Three: I hired a solo-engine driver last night, like I said I would.
SecUnit: Are you injured? Are you safe?
Three: The bot-pilot is recharging so I don’t have its satellite link, I’m searching!
This delay is going to crash both of us.
SecUnit: S T A T U S
Three: I’m fine! I am absolutely fine!
SecUnit: Where are you?
Three: Running diagnostics right now to prove it.
I do run the scan. I can’t send it over the feed, because the profiles don’t have the back-end support for file transfers. How do I send this?
SecUnit: Mensah pulled fucking planet security off their asses looking for you!
Three: Why??
SecUnit: S T A T U S, T H R E E.
I take a snap-shot of my diagnostics which is absolutely not helpful because reports are coded, and fling that into the feed.
Three: Who would kidnap a SecUnit? On Preservation? Show me your threat assessment.
I mean “query =” but words are clumsy. I haven’t even messaged Karime because while I can have multiple inputs into the profile system open, I can’t actively output human words in more than one stream at a time. Thank you for nothing, processor.
SecUnit: Mono-helio Site 1? Where the fuck is that?
Three: Signage said it’s Site 3.
I get an urgent message from Doctor Mensah, but before I can switch to her—
SecUnit: 2000!
Oh no.
SecUnit: YOU ARE TWO THOUSAND FUCKING KILOMETERS AWAY?
I take my hands off my face and stare at the sky. At least the sun is still warm and the grass is still comfortable. I have another 3-hours 36-minutes until the bot-pilot finishes its recharge.
Three: I think the distance worked out to just under 1,800KM, not 2000.
SecUnit: Did you steal a fucking hopper how the fuck did you get so far out!?
Three: In my defense, I was going very fast.
SecUnit: I’m ripping your fucking piloting modules out!
Three: And I didn’t steal anything! I hired it! With the card you gave me!
SecUnit: Two thousand kilometers!
Three: ART didn’t even ping me, why would you need planet security?
SecUnit: Two thousand FUCKING kilometers!
The delay is actually making this argument easier to have, because we’re shouting past each other rather than meeting point-by-point.
SecUnit: ART can’t fucking FIND you!
I frown at the sky.
Three: ART can find you anywhere, why can’t it do the same for me? There’s no interference out here, there isn’t even a local feed.
SecUnit: Are you carrying one of its feed relays inside you that I don’t know about?
Oh, so that’s how Perihelion can always find SecPrime. I don’t know why I’m surprised considering how the two of them interface with each other, but I am. I thought Perihelion just had that level of geo-satellite precision.
Three: I’m sorry I scared everyone, but please call off planet security.
SecUnit: Mensah’s already doing that. Send me your location for extraction.
“You’re such a jerk,” I say at the sky. I’m talking about SecPrime but also a little bit about myself.
Three: Do not do that.
I pull several resources off the planet-wide feed and then have to lay here staring at them, trying to figure out how to format my argument and send it over these stupid profiles.
To be very annoying, I process part of my log for the last 18 hours from visual to code to text. It takes me about three minutes to finish this, during which SecPrime and I volley back and forth repeatedly over extraction?-no-extraction-EXTRACTION! The three minutes is also enough time for me to write a little script for myself that is going to send SecPrime from overbearing to apoplectic, but I’m about two-thousand kilometers outside its weapon range.
I only transcribe the first hour after I left Dr Mensah’s farm. The tram ride, the feed-map check, the rental kiosk, the safety checks, the test drive, then the choice of which street to turn down and the signs toward the Pres-1, from which I followed maintenance routes and eventually reached the old road.
Three: No extraction! No hoppers, no shuttles, and no orbital drops! Just follow me if it bothers you so much!
I send it the text log (approximately 37,000 characters long), and I clip it into about 370 feed profile messages to emphasize that I’m being a jerk. Then, I launch the script to just fill-and-send all this data to SecPrime over the next six minutes, while I finally turn my attention to Karime.
Three: I apologize, Ismal, I wasn’t aware of a safety redirect on my profile notifications. I am safe and did not mean to worry anyone by disappearing. I misapplied your advice regarding wanderlust.
I add a sad emotion sigil and wait. Karime is not an augmented human. Even if she was, she might still be emotionally overcome for a moment or two.
Karime: Merciful Deity, at least you’re safe, Three. That’s what matters.
Karime: Are you really all the way at Site 3? Doctor Mensah’s showing it on the display.
Three: Yes, it’s quite beautiful.
I send her the snapshot. I check the script and it’s only sent approximately 93/370 messages to SecPrime.
Karime: You didn’t say anything mean-spirited to SecUnit, did you? It’s stopped talking and is just standing in the corner.
Oh.
Karime: It’s been very worried about you.
Hmm.
Three: It was over-reacting to my answers that I am fine and not in any danger. I am sending it my transcribed log with instructions to retrace my path out here.
She takes a long pause before answering me, long enough that I actually read through some of my inbox and send my apologies to Ratthi and Dr. Mensah and Iris. I also begin drafting a detailed explanation for Captain Seth, because I don’t think ‘oops, sorry I scared my supervisor’ is the right tone.
Karime: Is sending it your transcribed log the kindest way you could explain the issue?
Laying on my back, I let my eyes unfocus. It’s a novel thing to do, to just not use my eyes for anything but color and light and sink into the ground. I’m still receiving input from my drones of course, so I can see myself and my surroundings all the way down to the recharging driver down in the pull-out.
I take a deep breath in, let it slowly out, and abort the spam-script. I tell Karime, No.
I switch over to SecPrime’s profile again.
Three: I don’t like talking to you over text.
No response.
It’s probably still staring at the wall, pretending I didn’t just hurt its feelings. I walk back our conversation and realize I think it hurt mine too.
Three: I have another 3.25 hours to wait for the driver to recharge. The terrain is hilly but not rugged, there should be a place to bring down a hopper.
No response. I probably deserve this.
Three: I bet you couldn’t find me out here anyway.
SecUnit: Excuse me?
That’s better.
Three: Even with a hopper and my current location, you’d probably never catch me and my stupid piloting modules.
SecUnit: You’re literally restricted to roads: it’d be child’s play to get a visual on you.
Three: Nah.
I fold my hands together across my chest, crossing my ankles and letting LikeAHuman.file prompt me to tick one foot back and forth. I’m comfortable up here, and in no hurry.
SecUnit: Nah!?
I don’t need a social procedure to tell me what I’m about to send is both inflammatory but also going to be extremely funny.
Three: I mean, you can’t even fly one. How would you even get out here?
SecPrime leaves me on read for several minutes, long enough that I debate that recharge because I’ve tempered my body-heat and am enjoying the way the sunlight is permeating my organics and soaking gently into my cybernetic components. One of my lectures and this gentle breeze is a compelling combination…
I get a tap from Doctor Mensah, saying “I’m sorry, Three, but I am not authorizing a hopper excursion to humor SecUnit war games.”
My smile shows teeth at the sky.
Three: I understand, Doctor Mensah.
Three: You would not be able to find me either. :)
From two-thousand kilometers away, Karime sends me a looping sigil that indicates laughter.
SecUnit: What the fuck did you say to her? We’ll have a hopper secure in two hours, less with the way she’s going.
I queue up my lecture. It’s on advanced principles of wormhole stabilization technology and I’ve heard twice, but the name alone indicates how dense the material is and a third listen will help the connections settle.
Three: So, 1.5 to secure, .5 for flight ready checks, and 2.5-3.0 for the flight out here?
SecUnit: Something like that. Give it 1.5 for flight ready: Amena wants in on this and she’s got class for another hour today plus rendezvous and gear-up. Planetary map suggests low day to twilight conditions.
A pause. But not a long one.
SecUnit: We can’t get within 50 clicks of the Mono-helio site, keep that in mind. Conditions?
I have to word my response several times because the query keeps trying to load instead of the gummy human words.
Three: Can you check if there’s a roadblock that matches the no-fly zone?
SecUnit: No, you can find out if you play cheap-shot like always and try to hide in a dead-end.
Fair. But, of the two of us, I’m the SecUnit with more experience hunting run-aways from hoppers. I know all the best tricks and part of me probably deserves to be the one on the run.
I log that thought for later, for after the game and when I’m back in Karime’s study.
Three: If I make it more than 200 kilometers from my start position without visual contact, I win.
SecUnit: Acknowledge.
Three: Acknowledge.
I pause, but not for long.
Three: And I’m sorry for scaring you.
SecUnit: Just get ready to lose, damn it.
I send a few more “quick” replies over the feed profiles, then close the widget, let my eyes drift half-open with the lecture going, and initialize a 4-hour recharge.
In time-minus-6 hours, it’s game go.