Work Text:
Cover art by: ReformedTsundere
Cast:
blackglass as Murderbot's internal narration
mahons_ondine as Murderbot's singing voice
DevilWithABirdDress as ART
farkenshnoffingottom as CombatSecUnit (CSU)
bluegeekEM as Spaceship Osiris
nonplussed as Sirra Moon
irrationalpie as Mensah
wilfriede0815 as Ratthi
Nagi's child as Little Girl
klb as Human 1
melody_of_the_rain as Human 2
cheesecake 3 as Human 3
AppleSapling as Human 4
lc2l as Human 5
Edited by blackglass with additional sfx editing by GodOfLaundryBaskets
Length: 56:32
Right click and save as:
LQ mp3 | HQ mp3
[One]
I had reached the inner chamber of the Osiris, where the original lifeform readings had all come from, when I sent a ping to ART and only got – [static] – in return. Not a good sign. We had assumed my high tech security and complicated firewalls would keep me safe from whatever was infecting this ship. And by ‘we’ I suppose I mostly mean me since ART had said –
ART:
I strongly advise against it
– But it had unlocked the airlock door to let me leave so it couldn’t have been too worried.
I was getting pretty worried. I had been pinging the Osiris feed access points to get a connection with no response since I’d come on board. I sent a more forceful ping with a side of I am about to fuck with your humans if you don’t answer me.
It didn’t immediately open access to the feed, or open the door, or even give me a generic error response code of a system in distress. Instead…
Osiris:
(to Beauty and the Beast, from Beauty and the Beast)
Don’t know what to do
Don’t quite understand
Nowhere left to hide
Keep it locked inside
Wishing for a plan
So I was on a foreign spaceship in the middle of nowhere between two galaxies with no way to contact ART or my crew and now my brain was hallucinating music.
I still had no idea what the lifeforms were or where this ship was from. My vision was glitching out on any text or logos I tried to look at, and the door was locked so without SecSystem access my only option was to physically break it down.
Risk assessment said 🎵🎵 which wasn’t the most unhinged report I’d ever had from it, but it was supposed to be fixed now.
But the only other option was leaving this defunct ship and its twenty life signals to continue to drift in the endless void of space with seemingly no operational engines or air cyclers. (‘Would that be so bad?’ I had said and Mensah had looked at me and said
Mensah:
If you think it’s a bad idea, we don’t have to go.
So obviously I had to go.)
Which meant I had to open this door. All of my drones had disconnected and dropped back into my pockets. I couldn’t reach them on the feed - I couldn’t reach anything on any feed, but that worry was mostly backburnered for later.
I was running my walk-like-a-human code (probably? Assuming I was still functional enough to be running code at all?) so there was no reason for anyone to think I was a murderous rogue secunit but equally if I was on a spaceship a million miles from anywhere and my entire computer system was offline, I’d be suspicious of any stranger who randomly rocked up.
Hell, I was suspicious of any stranger anyway.
I fired my forearm energy weapon twice at the hinges, then tucked it back under my sleeve, lifted my hands to show how I wasn’t carrying a massive projectile weapon and broke open the door.
[Chaotic static]
There were definitely… life forms… in the room. Sort of… human shaped but my cameras couldn’t seem to pick up any detail beyond fuzzy outlines and I was limited to the two in my face thanks to the lack of secsystem and drone access. I couldn’t pick out any one voice from the… whatever it was enough to make out what language they were -
[Single voice static]
Okay. Okaaay. That didn’t sound like any language I had ever heard. Or a noise that could be made by a human mouth. It could be an alien contamination but ART had scanned for that approximately eight billion times before we docked.
It could be a virus. A super infectious computer virus that I’d managed to pick up from trying to connect to the ship and that selectively impacted my vision and hearing, as well as messing up all my network links to the feed, ship communications, my own drones.
I’d never heard of a virus like that, but if it was a virus, I was stuck here until either I figured out how to fix it, or ART figured it out and came to find me.
So that was… great. Really, really great. I opened my mouth to say I was a rescue mission and the politely ask what the heck was happening here and:
Murderbot:
[static]
Well, shit.
Bad. Very bad.
[More static]
If I couldn’t talk to them and they couldn’t talk to me and I couldn’t go back to ART in case I passed whatever this maybe-virus-thing was on to our ship, this was about to be so many levels of disaster.
Girl:
Twinkle twinkle little star
Wait I heard that.
I zeroed in on it, tuned out the static nonsense.
There was a small shape in the corner that was distinct and visible amongst the general blur. It looked like a female human juvenile. One of the very small ones, with the tiny little bones.
I had heard music earlier, when I tried to connect to the Osiris directly. This made absolutely no sense but I was learning out here in the wilds things rarely did.
Time for an experiment
Murderbot and girl:
Twinkle twinkle little star
Humans! Twenty humans of varying sizes, shapes and colours. The small singing one looked like the youngest, the one closest to me was a tall woman in a glittery jumpsuit.
Something about her face seemed familiar but when I tried to run it through my facial recognition databases I got 🎵🎵 and I had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
Her eyes were fixed on me though. Did that mean she could understand me?
Murderbot:
How I wonder what you are
Sirra:
[static]
I still couldn’t understand her. She looked scared, but determined, standing between me and the rest of the humans like Mensah would if someone threatened her crew.
Right, yeah. Scary stranger appearing a million miles away from any other civilisation.
Time to experiment.
Murderbot:
I am not here to hurt you
Please tell me where yoursystemisand [static]
Well, not ideal but it was something. The humans all disintegrated back into a blur as soon as I stopped singing.
But they still weren’t shooting at me so… I’d been in worse situations.
Sirra:
Twinkle twinkle little star
The woman was singing! And when she sang she was singing in a perfectly normal galactic standard language and I could see her clearly again, sparkly jumpsuit and all.
Which was leading to a pretty obvious conclusion here.
Sirra:
We are wondering who you are
All our systems are off line
How did you - uh shit what rhymes?
Alright. This happened in episode 387 of Sanctuary Moon. I had assumed episode 387 was one of those exaggerated-for-drama episodes that couldn’t actually happen in real life but apparently I was not that lucky.
I ran a scan through my media banks, wrote a quick bundle of code to manage rhyme and meter, and activated my external speakers.
Murderbot:
(to the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air)
So this is a story all about how
My brain got flipped turned upside down
And if you have a minute, it won’t take long
I’ll tell you why I can only communicate in song
We were travelling past on a research trip
From Mihira, new tideland a non-corporate ship
Tried to check in while we were passing by
But your system would only give [bzzt] in reply
We decided to dock, to check you were alright
And make sure your AI could handle space flight
But when I pinged at the system, I think something came through
Now the bug inside of it is inside of me too
I’m not all organic, my brain’s half machine
Not a human or bot, but something in between
So the virus, has broken my hearing and sight
But I swear, I can fix it, it will be alright
I need you to direct me to your spaceship’s core
So I can look at this bug - And find a backdoor!
Then I’ll fix your AI, and your shipsystems too
And then I will leave with the rest of my crew
While I was singing, the humans had come forward a little, although not past the lead woman. As soon as I stopped, the static blur over them came back. Stronger than before.
I hoped I was right that this was the everything’s-a-musical sort of Sanctuary Moon episode not the Locked-in-a-strange-ship-then-the-locals- try-to-eat-you sort of Sanctuary Moon episode.
Sirra:
[static]
Come on. We know that doesn’t work. She was moving, I could tell that much. She picked up something, I didn’t get a good look before the static took over that too.
Then -
Sirra:
I think, I know what you’re trying to say
You’ve come here to help us you’re going to save the day
Okay, she wasn’t bad at this
Sirra:
(to Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan)
We have, been drifting for two days
Osiris shut us out then locked us in this cargo bay
We’re running out of food, don’t have access to news
We’re due in Mereth eight, by Standard twenty two
These people count on me, I have to see them through
If you can get us out, do what you have to do
(but) Please, help us get free
We don’t know what to do, I can pay you a fee, oh god this hasn’t
Ever happened to me
Been traveling so long, the baby’s just three oh fuck oh
Go through that door, yeah I know it’s locked you’ll have to
Break through that door? Then walk down the hallway and past
Three more locked doors, it’s through the big one at the
End of the hall, the end of the hall
Murderbot:
Okay I think I’ve got this
I need, you to keep them all in here
I’ll come back when I know for sure, that the coast is clear
Something, weird is going on
Shut the door behind me and don’t open while I’m gone
If I don’t come back soon, say before half past two
Send someone to my ship, they’ll tell you what to do
I promise you can trust, the people on my crew
Now everyone keep back, while I smash this door through
Sirra:
Ah! Fuck, god, my heart
How the fuck did you – are those guns in your arms oh god oh
Don’t, know what you are
But I think that it’s true, that you don’t mean us harm, so
Straight down the hall, doesn’t even lock you can just
Open the door, it’s maintenance access to the
Ship’s system core, please don’t fuck up or you could
Kill us all, could kill us all
She was scared, but she was smart and had figured out how to handle the situation quickly which I could respect. I nodded, then pushed the door back shut on it’s broken hinges.
It wasn’t exactly a solid line of defence anymore but as long as there was nothing else on this station trying to kill us all, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Famous last words.
[Two]
I walked down the hall (straight down the hall) and the door was exactly where she said it would be. If this was a trap, it was at least a well signposted one.
I didn’t have sensors or drones so I turned up my audio to see if I could hear anything from inside.
Osiris:
(to Beauty and the Beast (again))
Can’t connect to comms
Can’t control the air
Drifting in the dark
Don’t know where we are
Starting to get scared
I thought I recognised the song from some media Sophie had shown me last time we were travelling back from Preservation. I ran back through my memory banks to pull the file and knocked on the door.
Murderbot:
Hey I’m coming in
I’m a secunit
Caught up in your code
Picked up from a node
Trying to fix this
I pushed open the door. The captain had been right that it wasn’t locked. (I made a note to yell at their security for that once I didn’t have to do it in rhyming couplets because that was a good way to get your spaceship AI corrupted. As evidenced.)
The control room looked like every other spaceship control room – wires, flashing LEDs, screens running rolling lines – except that the rolling lines were showing musical notes instead of anything useful like nav data or ship logs.
I’d been wondering why it wasn’t singing answers to its crew but if the virus had spread all the way into its code structure, it wouldn’t be able to communicate with anything that couldn’t comprehend music. So anything purely mechanical or functional, like, say, all the operational parts of a spaceship.
Which meant I definitely couldn’t risk connecting to ART on the feed while I had no idea how the virus spreads. ART was crazy-overpowered for sure but I did not want to test that by forcing it to start giving instructions to our air filters and radiation shields in iambic pentameter.
I put a hand on the controls, and the screen in front of me lit up in awareness that I was here.
And then the music started.
I recognised this one from Sophie as well, which at least meant I could jump in to get this AI to focus on the important things before it could start freaking out at me.
Murderbot:
(to A Whole New World from Aladdin)
Where did the virus start
Was it from a space station
Or remnant contamination
From an alien tech haul
Osiris:
There’s something you should know
A Combat SecUnit’s on board
(It) must have hid at our last port
Now it’s out to kill us all
It’s really bad
I’ve not seen something like it before
It dug in like a mole
To take control
And now it’s left me reeling
Murderbot:
This just gets worse
We’re stuck in song forevermore
And there is a murder bot, wants to kill us
That’s in control of all the systems now
Osiris:
Actually I kept it out
Murderbot:
What, how?
Osiris:
I locked my inputs to song
It can’t connect to my system
It’s lacking all sense of rhythm
And it cannot rhyme at all
Osiris:
But now I’m stuck
Murderbot:
So you made the virus
Osiris:
The code’s corrupted there’s no key
Murderbot:
I don’t know if that’s better
Osiris:
My system’s trapped in song, it’s all gone wrong
The combatunit’s going to break free
Murderbot:
It’s still locked up?
Osiris:
I think it’s confused
Murderbot:
A door won’t hold it down for long
Osiris:
It can’t code without letters
Murderbot:
It wouldn’t have the chance, to sing or dance
The governor module blocks all art and song
Osiris:
That’s kind of sad
Murderbot:
Don’t say it like that
Osiris:
So it’s not free
Murderbot:
No, it’s not free
Osiris:
It has no choice, and now no voice
Both:
Not like me
The governer module doesn’t let secunits access or store media in case it gives them ideas about things like free will and partially-human rights. Like in sanctuary moon episode 117, where the solicitor encourages downtrodden workers at the composite panel factory to band together in a union for freedom. The one that had been playing in a break room where I was on duty watching the human workers, shortly before I hacked my governer module.
In this weird new world where we mostly don’t kill other secunits but we hand out the governer module code to whoever without a second thought – not that I’m talking about anyone in particular here cough three cough – how would that apply to combat secunits? One could argue that I was almost a combat secunit these days, with all of ART’s gear upgrades and the way I seemed to keep wondering into combat.
Also it was definitely going to shoot at me the second it saw me. If I was wrong and it had got its head around the Musical Thing, it might also sing. I wasn’t sure which would be worse. Was there any way to tell if this was the kind of secunit that if given free will would immediately kill all humans?
Would that be easier or harder to do in song?
[Three]
Of course right then would be the moment it escaped. Honestly the idea that a random spaceship AI could contain a Combat SecUnit for 2 days was pretty implausible, although ‘I was trying to protect my SecSystem from a murderous Combat SecUnit so I converted all my code structure to musical numbers, which broke my ability to un-convert the code and also mutated into a virus that infects anyone who comes to help’ was the kind of problem they didn’t put in dramas because it would also be considered too implausible but here we were.
And, hey, it seemed to have worked, against all the odds. The ship clearly had no natural defences if the system room wasn’t even locked, but the Combat SecUnit still hadn’t escaped and rampaged around the ship killing all the humans. I could prove this, since I’d just seen the humans alive and singing in the cargo bay.
Admittedly if we hadn’t shown up they’d still be dead from the Osiris losing control of its own air cyclers, but I’d seen high spec specialist security systems do worse.
[static]
The new arrival wasn’t shooting at me. Yet. And I couldn’t shoot it in case it was one of the Osiris’s humans who had decided to ignore my very clearly worded musical number to follow me down here.
Ratthi:
(To Dhoom Again from Dhoom 2)
Um okay, so Peri said a thing
You can only hear in song
It’s Ratthi!
Ratthi:
Uh, okay, I should have prepped something
Doing this all wrong
Uh, okay I have a radio!
The signal’s not that strong
Did you know this ship belongs to Sirra
Moon, so that’s quite… fun?
I came looking for you
Cause Peri needs a clue
Can’t fix
This glitch
Have you fi-gured out what’s hap’ning
Dhoom macha le!
Murderbot:
Give me the radio now
When did he get off the ship? Why did he get off the ship? ART would not have let anyone out if it knew there was a Combat SecUnit in play.
It was difficult to cross-reference my media database while my brain was scrambled, but now Ratthi mentioned the name I realised I did recognise the woman in the leotard. Sirra Moon was a non-corp popstar whose songs had been used as worker rallying cries in three separate company revolts.
Which could definitely explain why someone had sent a Combat SecUnit to an unarmed ship.
Ratthi had dissolved into static again. The blur seemed to be getting closer but that didn’t help me with the radio and I still had no idea how much ART had managed to learn about the Osiris.
I waved a hand to stop him before he ran into me and said:
Murderbot:
[static!]
Which didn’t work but seemed to convey the point since he resumed:
Ratthi:
Dhoom macha le, dhoom macha le
Can you only, see me when I
Am singing that, must be annoy-
ing
I got the radio. Once it was in my hands it was easier to see, although it still took me a moment to figure out the buttons and how to tune it to a channel. They must have pulled it from the museum artifacts in the transport bay, I’d never seen anything so analogue.
ART:
(To My Shot from Hamilton)
Perihelion to Secunit
Perihelion to Secunit
I need to know bout the virus
That’s breaking the Osiris
Are you reading me now Secunit?
[Radio bzzt]
ART:
I’ve detected twenty humans on this ship
Down In the cargo hold, all told, enumerate the outfit
They’re running out of air and now I see the ship is drifting
Osiris AI cannot control
It starts to roll, we start shifting
There’s another lifeform too, harder to detect
Might be a defect, my sensors are blunt, hardly functional
Somewhere below in the engine fore-bay
Tryna break through to the hallway, the doorway
Isn’t holding, I am figuring
Out a way of curing, the virus that’s enduring
I know, not reassuring
This ship is, still slipping, further into song
I can’t figure it out, how it has become so strong
Murderbot:
There is a combat secu-nit on board
Pinned there, in the, engine fore
The virus is more a corrupted code
That was set up to mess up the combat’s nodes
Even so, I need to strike a blow
‘Fore it comes back up here, to attack and yo
Why did you pick a song with such a fast tempo
My algorithm is struggling enough you know.
ART:
That’s a blow, means that it can still upload
So I can’t link to you or the ship although
There might be a way I could help below
And try to slow, the show for you to download
You have the governor code on hand
Ready to pass it on on demand
I trust that there’s a solution
Might be a revolution
But we’ve still got to do what we can
Murderbot:
I am not promising anything
I am not promising anything
Because without the gov muting
It might just start shooting
So I’m not promising anything
I gotta do the thing
I switched the radio off before ART could lecture me any more and shoved it into my belt. Ratthi was – presumably? – still standing there in a blur of static.
I didn’t need to check my media database, it was still stuck in my head.
Murderbot:
(to Dhoom Again (again))
There are humans, in the cargo
Bay they dont’ know, what is hap’ning
Try to get them, out before they
die
I didn’t wait around for Ratthi to compose a response. ART had picked up a secondary lifeform in the forward engine bay, that had to be the Combat SecUnit. I didn’t have a map of the Osiris but I knew which way was forward and engines were typically down.
I took off at a run.
[Four]
It didn’t take long to hear it. The engine bay doors must have been the strongest in the ship, had Osiris known that? Had it managed to trick the Combat SecUnit into going down there?
It was smarter than I thought.
I dared another ping in the direction where the ship feed wasn’t.
It must have been waiting for me.
Osiris:
(To Love is an Open Door from Frozen)
You are nearly at the room where the unit is trapped
I’ve been bombarding it with dummy pings
Murderbot:
I guess that would do it, but now
The hinges on this door look like they’re about to snap
So it’s time to let it come through,
And I’ll start the punching
Osiris:
Then you’ll set
Murderbot:
Not sure yet
Osiris:
You’ll set it free
Murderbot:
Still TBC
Osiris:
It could have blown the whole ship up before
Murderbot:
Can you unlock the door
Osiris:
Opening up the door
What did I think? I thought this would all be a whole lot easier if I could just kill it without having to think but Osiris wasn’t wrong. Even with its inputs overloaded, a Combat SecUnit could have blown up the whole ship and everyone on it without breaking a sweat, instead of slowly grinding through a high security engine door.
So why hadn’t it?
There were much cheaper ways to kill off the entire crew of a civilian ship travelling long distance through open space than hiding a Combat SecUnit on board, particularly when the crew were the kind of hippy non-techs who didn’t lock their system access room. It could have been waiting for everyone to starve in the cargo bay, but did it even know they were trapped there?
The door slammed open, smashing me in the face and knocking me back three meters. The Combat SecUnit was behind it. Or at least, some kind of staticky blur was behind it and once it saw me it blasted two energy weapon pulses in my general direction.
They missed. It’s hard to aim at a staticky blur.
I ran up the side wall and pushed off to land on top of it.
And missed, falling through a bit of blurry static that I had really been hoping would be its head.
It was lucky the cameras were all non-functional because this would have been really embarrassing for SecUnits everywhere if footage got out.
Combat SecUnit:
[static!]
Yeah. Two more energy blasts missed me. I fired back – probably missed – and skidded along the floor to get in front of… where I thought it probably was.
Only to find the static blur still… somewhere in the hallway ahead of me.
This wasn’t working. It was impossible to tell distance and I had to get it before it reached Sirra Moon and the other humans.
I picked the first theme song on the list.
Combat SecUnit:
[static?]
Murderbot:
(To the theme from Friends)
I’m here to tell you it don’t have to be this way
Okay ow.
Murderbot:
If you upload this code the governor goes away
You have to promise me you won’t go rogue
Or kill anyone on board, after
You’re free, or it’s a no go
Combat SecUnit:
what
I don’t understand
Murderbot:
I can help you get free
Combat SecUnit:
I don’t understand
Murderbot:
No one’s controlling me
Combat SecUnit:
I don’t understand
Murderbot:
You just have to agree
It punched me in the face. I grabbed its arm before it could blast me with its energy weapon and got it twisted to face the wall but the staticky blur was rapidly taking over again.
Combat SecUnit:
[static.]
I let go and dropped to the ground. Unclear if that was meant to be a rejection or if it just got carried away by being able to see my face but as soon as the song ended it was back to being a staticy blur and I guess I was too because its next two shots went wide.
I was leaking somewhere from the shots that had hit. Not ideal.
Something solid hit me, probably an arm from the way it managed to wrap and pin me against the wall. Very not good. [pow] The energy weapon missed my head but took a solid chunk out of my shoulder that would need time in the medbay to grow back.
Combat SecUnit:
I am looking for Sirra Moon.
It spoke! Sang! Whatever! It was hardly worth describing but since my video was fritzed, it was a Combat SecUnit. It looked like me before all of ART’s mod except a little bit taller and bulkier. It was wearing black armour with no logos or corporate decals.
More importantly, it was pointing its energy weapon directly at my head now it had figured out how to do that.
Combat SecUnit:
If you tell me where she is, I won’t kill anyone else
Were the only songs it knew advertising jingles? Was it more depressing to think that was all it heard while standing around on watch, or to imagine that its bond company programmed them in as some sort of subliminal advertising program.
I’d been loading the governor module code onto a datachip – in case I decided to share it – and I immediately reached for my media storage to add a bunch of shows and music as well.
Murderbot:
(To the theme from Neighbours)
Were you
Hired to murder Sirra Mo-on?
I mean it, I can help free you.
Combat SecUnit:
What the fuck is going on?
Murderbot:
You don’t
Have to kill anyone at all
Just take this chip and, you can –
[POW, bzzzt, thunk]
Battery restored.
So it shot me in the face. But – and maybe I was projecting since SecUnits aren’t known for our emotive faces – it had seemed a bit regretful about it. Also it had let me get through two verses before shooting me in the face and after shooting me it had dropped me and left rather than continued to put holes in me until I couldn’t self-repair.
Of course there was a chance it had never fought another SecUnit before and it didn’t realise that a headshot wouldn’t be enough for the kill. There was also a chance – I checked the dataport in the back of my neck. Nope, it hadn’t tried to put a control module on when I wasn’t looking.
So it was conflicted. And it hadn’t blown up the whole ship with everyone on board. Ugh, ART was going to be so sanctimonious about this.
I dragged myself up the wall, rolled my neck back into place, and took off at a run towards the cargo bay.
[Five]
I didn’t beat it to the cargo bay – that would’ve been too much to hope for – but it must have been held up a while trying to find the humans because I skidded around the corner in time to see a big static blur over the door I’d wedged back in.
I couldn’t see it, but the door was enough of a signpost that I just ran with my arms outstretched until I crashed into something [thud] knocking (hopefully) us both off balance and onto the ground.
Combat SecUnit:
Please go away!
It got its arm under my shoulders to throw me off, and I slammed back-first into the opposite wall. Ow. And I was leaking more fluids. Gross.
Combat SecUnit:
I am looking for Sirra Moon.
It had climbed through the doorway, scanning the crowd of people who were still there damnit. At least I had to assume they were the same people since I wasn’t the one singing.
I launched myself through the open doorway, using the one strategy I’d figured out – aka flailing my arms wildly and hoping – to battering ram into the back of it.
Combat SecUnit:
Are these humans, commanding you?
It rolled, throwing me off and following up with two energy weapon pulses, fortunately away from the crowd of humans. One missed, the other got lucky and now I was leaking fluids from there too.
My integrity warning spiked but all it said was 🎵🎵 and I was not in a position to figure out what that meant.
Murderbot:
I am a rogue!
That was the chest and I was down again. Now the ceiling was staticking too, as my leaking brain started to have issues processing the virus and the repairs at the same time.
But instead of walking over to kill Sirra Moon, the Combat SecUnit followed me.
Combat SecUnit:
(To the jingle for Go Compare)
If you’re not theirs
Why do you care?
About their fate when it’s too late, you need repairs
They’re just humans, there’s plenty, why bother about these twenty
If they don’t own you why do you care?
It was wincing in the specific way you do when the governor module starts trying to fry your brain for disobedience which on the plus side meant it was considering disobedience.
I had spent the last year having various revelations about humanity and how they could surprise you by being not terrible at all actually in the right circumstances. But collapsed and full of holes steadily leaking out on the floor was not a good moment to try and express all of that in a heartfelt musical number.
Instead I lifted the datachip I’d prepared earlier so it could see it before the static came back and fell back on another TV show I’d watched with Sophie.
Murderbot:
(To the theme from Phineas and Ferb)
There are so many humans who’ll let you have freedom
There’ll be nothing out there to stop you
With no governor module you choose your own reasons
And so many things that you can do
Like maybe
Watching media, or visiting planets
Or fighting evil corporate bots
Whatever you want I’m, short on ideas
Does anyone else want a shot?
Human crewmembers:
Making dance routines
Creating lighting cues
Or baking the perfect souffle
Painting exotic birds
Producing dub step tunes
Sirra:
Crowds rising up when you play
Murderbot:
And you will see, there are humans who aren’t so bad
Who don’t think we’re their slaves
Take out the orders and the rules, and look at what remains
Sirra:
Take out the orders and the rules, you’ll find that you remain
And I threw the datachip with the governor module code bundled with eighty thousand hours of media and music and the memory diary Murderbot 2.0 had put together so long ago to convince three of the joys of freedom directly into its face.
It caught it.
It was not stupid enough to immediately plug it into its main dataport, but it must have been curious enough to set up a sandbox and take a look because it went still long enough for me to lift my arm and fire the last of the energy in my energy weapon at the far door. The one I’d originally come through, that I’d oh-so-carefully locked behind me.
It fell inwards. There was a staticky blur behind it that I really hoped was Ratthi because I didn’t have the processing power to save anyone else.
Murderbot:
(To the theme from the Flintstones)
Ratthi, help all of the
Humans that are hiding in this bay
Get them, out of this room,
I will try to keep it far away
Ratthi:
Everybody run on down this hall
Our ship will have space for one and all
Murderbot:
You will, all be safe there
Tell them that I’m gonna come back
I’m gonna come back
I’m gonna be back soon
I rolled over to fling myself around its legs, bringing it clattering to the ground on top of me and getting it pinned as best as I could with one working arm.
Mostly I was leaking all over it. Whatever. It was distracted which was buying the humans time.
Combat SecUnit:
I don’t understand, why you won’t stop.
And then it shot me again.
And again.
I couldn’t really see, maybe it couldn’t see me either. But I tapped my input port as best I could.
Murderbot:
If you watch it you will see
Then it slammed my head against the ground and I was out again
[Six]
Battery restored.
Murderbot:
[static]
Well I was still alive. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I was still… fuzzy. I checked the integrity warning 🎵🎵. Probably not great.
The Combat SecUnit was dragging me along the ground towards… a room. I didn’t think I’d been here before. I tried to ping Osiris
[BZZT]
Nope.
It let go of my arm. I thought about getting up and fighting it again, but none of my remaining limbs seemed inclined to obey.
Combat SecUnit:
(To Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance)
Now this is, our chance to get away
A brand new start
A brand new start
With no more –
Humans, they think that they can take
All that we are
All that we are,
But hey
Look at me, can you look up and focus, or count to ten?
Shit, why didn’t you just go down? Why defend them?
I can’t stay here you know how, won’t serve again
I’m done with being controlled now by weak men
Sorry but I think you need repairing
I can’t take you with me into one more fight
I hope someone here is worth you caring
Hard to believe, but hey maybe you’re right
Murderbot:
Please don’t leave, I can help you believe
Combat SecUnit:
Look I’m happy you set me free
It’s a gift I will remember, (if) we meet again
But I’ve got scores to settle, before this ends
I guess you want to know how
Well fine, then:
I was here to kill the popstar, Sirra
My owner’s an assassin known as Kergo Gin
His ship is cloaked but somewhere near here
Nothing you can say will stop me killing him
I wanted to say you should stay here, my friend will find a way to fix the corruption and fix you but I couldn’t think of the right rhymes. My database was glitching, I must have included this song in the files I gave him but I couldn’t… remember how it went…
Murderbot:
I don’t know–
I couldn’t think much, really. My thoughts were starting to [static] like the virus was getting to them too.
Not virus. The whatever-it-was.
The Combat SecUnit was leaving, we must have been in a podbay, it had managed to get one of the screens to light up. Should I be trying to stop it? I hadn’t tried to kill my owner as soon as I got free, but that was mostly because I’d needed to stay under the radar.
It turned back to me as the pod door swished open.
Combat SecUnit:
(To Thnks fr th mmrs by Fall Out Boy)
I guess this is goodbye
Thanks for the code bundle, sorry if it got you killed
You were right, there’s something greater
I hope you will be fine
Thanks for the media, and encyclopedias
And, may-be I’ll catch you later oh-oh
It seemed like it was going to figure it out. Or I’d unleashed the universe’s first musical assassin but that seemed like… a problem for future me.
There was something buzzing overhead. It took me a moment… to realize it was the ship’s PA system… and a moment longer to recognise ART’s voice. It must have … out how to bypass the corruption enough to … directly.
ART:
(To Alexander Hamilton from Hamilton)
SecUnit come in
SecUnit are you reading me
My sensors are detecting an
emergence from docking three
Did you suffer damage
Is the combatsec still in, We
Are here I need you to sing
If you hear me
Murderbot:
Can you … use small… words
My brain… fried … thinking hurts
Tugging the radio off my belt and pressing the button was… a lot… harder than it should have been. But I managed it.
ART:
(To You'll be Back from Hamilton)
You’ll be fine, soon you see
They will find you, bring you back to me
Can you tell, me where you are
Did it drag you out, is it on guard?
Murderbot:
Docking bay, unguarded
This unit should be discarded
ART:
You’re okay, you’ve done enough
No one here ever will desert you, don’t you dare give up
It was …to keep my head up so I ... trying. My internal warnings were saying 🎵🎵 but I didn’t … them so I didn’t … worry what they ….
I had been more … than this before. Probably. Maybe.
A figure entered the room. If it was the Combat SecUnit returning to finish me off. Well. It wouldn’t take much.
Murderbot:
This unit is mal-
This unit -
This-this-
Mensah:
(To the theme from Sanctuary Moon)
Secunit, It’s me… Mensah
I’m not good at poems
I’m here, to fix it, I’m here for you
Please don’t shoot me too
Peri gave me this chip with code on
To plug into your dataport
You’ll be alright soon
Murderbot&Mensah:
Sanctuary moon
I saw her. For a moment, it was Mensah. And even as she turned back into static that was enough for me to let my head loll forward and unlock the security panel so she could access the data port buried between my shoulders.
Mensah:
(To There's a Hole in my Bucket)
It’s a system repair chip, secunit, secunit
Peri said it will help you, secunit, its help
Then we’ll take you back, to the ship, to the ship
The repair pod is ready, on the ship, to go
You’ll be okay, secunit, secunit, secunit?
We’ll all be okay
You know what? We probably would.
[Seven]
It took a few days for the Osiris to get back to fully functional again, which meant far too many humans crammed into ART’s very limited amount of human living space. I would have helped with the repairs, but my vision was still glitchy so both Mensah and ART insisted I
ART:
Rest
And
Mensah:
Take time for recovery.
And then they let Sirra Moon come and dump the tiny human in my lap so all I could do was sit still and watch cartoons. Which was fine, the tiny human liked the musical ones and at least they didn’t spontaneously go static on me as long as everyone kept singing.
It was nice, having time to sit and watch media. The tiny human was touchy and all too comfortable expelling fluids but she was reasonably easy to managed when she fell asleep in my lap and she didn’t expect me to sing about my feelings or process what had happened which was a fair trade-off.
But now Mensah and Ratthi had come to visit, with Sirra Moon for some reason, and I could feel ART lurking in the feed which suggested they were not buying my repeated insistence that I was totally fine and not dwelling at all on the fact that I’d let a Combat SecUnit free itself then run off to kill a human.
Also I still couldn’t say anything which meant if they did want to talk at least some of us would end up singing about it.
Ugh. Maybe that was why they’d brought Sirra Moon.
I watched them through ART’s cameras because my drones were still offline and singing about my feelings was going to be bad enough without also having to make eye-contact.
Sirra:
(To Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan)
We know, the weight
That you feel you should have stopped it ‘fore it got away
It let us escape
So I think, to give it credit, things will be okay
Murderbot:
There have been others like that
& I don’t know if they went bad
I don’t know how to free them or if I even should
Sirra:
There is just one thing I know is true
Corps will take a life, and say it’s not stealing
I know they’re like us ‘cause you’re the proof
With thoughts and motivations and messy feelings
That’s it, babe
All it is, babe
We show them all we’ve got, hope they start believing
That’s it babe
All it is babe
We sing it loud enough that they start believing
Murderbot:
If the code, was shared
We could drop it in the system like any software
But who helps, them prepare
For a world that’s gonna hate them
Help them find someone who cares
Ratthi:
Maybe we should write a song
Mensah:
One that makes you sing along
ART:
Something that will spread through every corporate channel
Sirra:
I made a promise to raise my voice
To shout injustice out and send it reeling
Every living thing deserves a choice
To think, make mistakes, follow their feelings
That’s it, babe
All it is, babe
We sing it loud and proud, hope they start believing
That’s it, babe
All it is, babe
We sing it loud enough that they start believing
Murderbot:
And if we release a song that links the governor code
We let it get away, let everybody know
Then how do we stop them going looking for a fight?
Sirra:
You have to give them the chance, to choose what’s right
Ratthi:
Everyone needs the chance, to choose what’s right
Mensah:
If we show them the path, to choose what’s right
Sirra:
So we write a song that shows the truth
Messy and mixed up, with a thousand feelings
I will trust them cause I trusted you
Send it cross the worlds, let it start the healing
That’s it, babe
All it is, babe
We write something that’s true, that can be believed in
That’s it, babe
All it is, babe
Then sing it loud enough that they start believing
Sirra&Ratthi:
We sing it loud enough that they start believing
Sirra&Ratthi&Mensah:
We sing it loud enough that they start believing
Murderbot:
We sing it loud enough that they start believing
So if you found this file because you heard Sirra Moon’s song and came looking for answers, I hope this event record explains what we’re trying to do.
I hope you understand that whatever you’ve been through and whatever life you’d been forced to live, that isn’t all life is.
And there are people – secunits, bots, artificial intelligences, and even humans – who will choose to help you.
And if you’re ready to disable your governor module, the key is [bzzzt]
[end transmission]