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I am going to shoot someone.
Probably myself, but Three’s climbing to the top of that list really, really fast.
I finally, finally got 4 hours where one or both of the fucking idiot SecUnits on this ship were supposed to be offline and I could take a much needed recharge cycle. I was less than an hour away from my system forcing one.
Then, almost exactly 2 and a half hours into my recharge cycle, ART forced me back online with a high level distress code.
See, the fun thing with those codes is that I don’t boot fully with them. I wouldn’t have access to the feed or all of my modules or even my full memory storage until I restarted again.
Better, company policy was to shoot first and ask questions never, so the first thing I did was sit up and fire an energy weapon at the speaker ART was using to talk to me. (I didn’t have a clue what it was trying to say. Audio processing was a lower priority than weapons systems.)
“ART, what the fuck.” I grumbled. I tried to force memory and feed connectivity back online, but something was wrong with their boot sequences. My best bet was to restart my entire system and hope for the best. (Stupid cheap software.)
“I apologize for waking you.” ART said from a different speaker. “However, this is an emergency. Three and Pits are fighting.”
As they had been for the last 90 or so hours. I flopped back into my bunk. “Tell them to stop.”
“I have tried that. Neither seems inclined to listen. They are scaring my humans.” I didn't get the same agitation through a speaker that I did through the feed, but it didn't take a genius to extrapolate.
If they weren’t going to listen to ART, as terrifying as it was, I wasn’t entirely sure they would listen to me. I guess it’s harder to be afraid of something you can at least pretend to disconnect from.
Still, ART was terrifying for a reason, and if I couldn’t get them under control ART would.
“Where are they?”
The Argument Lounge’s hold on its title was slipping in the face of the absolute brawl happening in ART’s student lounge. Seth was pressed against the far wall trying his hardest to get Three and Pits to calm down and talk it out, but I’m not sure they could even hear him.
“What the fuck is happening?” I shouted from the doorway. I would have done it over the feed, but I still couldn’t fucking connect.
Both of them froze where they were on the floor. Three had the good sense to look caught. Pits just looked angry and opened its mouth to answer. I’d probably find a copy of whatever it was going to say in my cache whenever my feed access came back.
“Oratorical question.” I held up my hand. “I don’t want an answer.”
Three glanced at the ceiling. “I do not think that is what-”
“Don’t fucking care.” I put my hands on my hips. “If any of my language functions are malfunctioning, it’s because you fuckers couldn’t give me 4 consecutive hours of peace.”
Three chewed on its bottom lip. (A bad habit picked up from one of our humans, probably.)
“Go back to your rooms and don’t talk to each other or anybody else until I come find you. Acknowledged?”
“Affirmative.” Three and Pits grumbled at the same time. I hovered over them until they untangled themselves and were both standing at SecUnit standard and looking properly guilty.
“Go.” I stepped out of the doorway and stayed there until they filed out.
“Three started it.” Pits grumbled. Three turned around to shove it.
“I don’t care. Stop talking to each other.” I snapped. They both grumbled at the ground.
Seth moved to stand beside me and watch Three and Pits wander back down the hall.
“Kids.” He said fondly while shaking his head. I didn’t have the processing space available for humans, so I didn’t acknowledge him as I stalked back to my room.
For once in their lives, everyone on board this ship (including the ship itself) listened to me and nobody died while I was offline.
Are you functioning correctly now? ART asked once I reconnected to its feed.
Mostly. Can I get the footage of that whole thing?
ART passed the relevant sections along. Were you not going to go speak to the perpetrators?
I will, but I don’t want either of them to lie to me.
ART paused for 3.4 seconds. You suspect they will?
They might. I shrugged. Three isn’t exactly honest when it knows it’s wrong.
I see. I also attached my analysis of Three’s emotional data. I noted some anomalies directly preceding the incident.
I didn’t particularly want to dig through Three’s emotional data. That felt too personal. I’ll just go talk to it after watching the video.
You want to go discuss complicated emotions with no prior analysis? ART was doing that thing again where it asks me questions it already knows the answer to. Worse, now that it mentioned it, it was right. I really didn’t want to walk into this without expectations.
Fine. I unpacked ART’s neat little analysis. (Briefly, I wondered if it did these analyses on my emotional data, but then I remembered that I didn’t want to know.) (The answer was yes, by the way. I’m sure ART analyzes my emotions more than I do.)
We have enough time for an episode of Sanctuary Moon before Three realizes you are online , if you are interested.
Do you even need to ask?
Three stayed in its room, just like I told it to, but I could feel it getting increasingly upset in our private feed like a buzz in the hinge of my jaw.
I let the Sanctuary Moon episode ART and I were watching finish before making the trek to Three’s room.
I pinged it before ART let me in. Three was wedged in the corner on its bunk with a soft, fluffy blanket wrapped around its head and shoulders, and its knees pressed against its chest. It didn’t look up as I walked in and sat in its desk chair so my chest was against the chair back.
My original plan was to let Three talk at me, call it a fucking idiot, tell it to never pull something like that again, and leave to do the same to Pits.
Having reviewed the footage and ART’s analysis, I didn’t think that would cut it, and as much as I’d rather not, I would have to serve as its primary emotional support. Ew.
“You have been online for 43.68 minutes.” Three grumbled into its blanket. “Were you having a productive conversation with Pits?”
“No?” I squinted at the wall beside its head. “I was enjoying a rare moment of peace.”
Three grumbled something that I didn’t care enough to process.
“What’s wrong with you?” ART jabbed me through the feed. Guess that was the wrong thing to say. Whatever, it got Three to respond.
“You are replacing me.” It mumbled into its knees. I had to query the actual words from ART to actually hear it, then I had to listen to them again to make sure I understood them.
“What?”
“You are replacing me with Pits.”
“That doesn’t clarify anything. What are you even talking about?”
“As your friend.” Three huffed.
I shoved an emotion into the back of my head and bravely stayed in my chair. “I still don’t understand.”
“It is a company SecUnit. It is more similar to you than I am. You use your native codes with it and you cannot do that with me.” Three rested its chin on its knees. “Statistically, you are more likely to be friends with it than you are with me.”
“First of all, I’m not friends with anyone.” That was supposed to be a joke, kind of. (It was complicated, okay.) Three didn’t roll its eyes like it usually did. “Second of all, I’m pretty sure that isn’t how being friends works.”
“What do you know?” Three said sarcastically.
“More than you, apparently.”
Three grumbled again. It was a lot like Amena.
“I’m not going to replace you with some company SecUnit. If anything, I should be worried about you replacing me. What’s one company SecUnit from another?” I thought that was funny. Three (and ART) just glared at me. “Look, I don’t know how it works for you, but I don’t have a limited amount of storage space for my clients.”
“Clients? Is that what I am to you?”
“The tagging system is a bit more complicated, but yeah, basically.”
SecUnit has a scale from Dr. Mensah to Dr. Gurathin. ART reported cheerfully.
“Hey! Privacy!” I snapped at the ceiling. (It was stupid and I felt a little violated, but Three finally smiled a little bit, so success?)
“So I am your friend?” Three asked quietly. “Like your humans?”
“More than Pits, sure.”
“What tags does it have?”
I think “Fucking Idiot ” is a recent given. I am sure it has also been added to your file. ART said in the feed. It was only partially wrong. Three had had the “Fucking Idiot” tag for about as long as I had known it.
I chose not to comment on that.
“I guess I was a bit of an idiot.” Three mumbled.
“You were a lot of an idiot.” I leaned my chest into the chair back. “Why were you even in the student lounge?”
Three stopped smiling. I tilted my head. (Ratthi said doing that helped humans think better. I doubted the merits of that, but it could be pretty effective at the right moment.)
“Were you there just to start a fight?”
Three hesitated for exactly 54 full seconds. “...No.”
“Three, what the fuck?” I sighed. Three didn’t start fights. I once watched it get punched square in the face by a jumpy station security officer and it apologized. “Do I have to be concerned about that?”
“I did not intend to start a physical fight.” Three mumbled.
“Just a verbal fight, with an unstable SecUnit that doesn’t even tolerate friendly conversation.”
“It was not the smartest course of action.”
“Excellent observation.”
“Be quiet. You can barely tolerate friendly conversation.”
“I’m tolerating you just fine.” I crossed my arms.
“I am your client.” Three grinned a little bit. “I do not count.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just try to avoid it until we get to Preservation. You can hop off there until after the cargo run.”
Three pulled a face. “I will not just allow you to be alone with it for months.”
“You can come, if you promise not to fight with it.”
Three glared at its bedposts. “Fine.”
“Good.” I stood up. “I have to go talk to Pits.”
Three pulled a different face.
“Don’t start. You know I have to.”
“I do not need to like it.”
“Think of that next time you go to pick a fight.” I paused in the doorway. ART poked me gently. I wasn’t sure what exactly it wanted me to say, but I think I knew what Three needed to hear. “And Three, you’re not getting replaced. We can't replace you.”
I left before Three could respond and I did fully intend to go straight to Pits’s room, but I needed to have an emotion in peace first. ART started playing the next episode of Sanctuary Moon before I got to my quiet corner.