Work Text:
Gurathin was taking a short break from his work to rest his eyes when the message came in. Checking the feed he read:
Attn: Preservation Aux Survey Team Members
From: The Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland
Subject: Assistance Needed
SecUnit’s assistance is required to resolve an urgent issue aboard the PSUMNT vessel Perihelion. The ship has been forcibly boarded by six hostiles and is being directed through the wormhole to the Barish-Estranza claimed system at coordinates RA 0h 42m 44s | Dec +41° 16′ 9″. Please send assistance at your earliest opportunity.
Acting Captain ART
Perihelion, PSUMNT
What the actual fuck? Gurathin read the message again, hoping he had just been hallucinating after spending hours staring at the sample data from his most recent project. As the only augmented human on the team, and therefore the only one with a built-in feed, he was the first to read the message. He immediately forwarded the message to Senior Officer Indah and sent a message to the PresAux group chat.
Gurathin: We have a problem! Check your feed! I am headed to Indah’s office, meet me there as soon as possible!
Mensah: Acknowledged!
Pin-Lee: Holy shit! On my way!
Bharadwaj:I’m on-planet for the next ten cycles and will not have access to the feed.
Gurathin closed his feed and ran to Station Security, glad that SecUnit insisted the PresAux team maintain a cardio routine for “optimal readiness in case of an emergency”. His heart clenched thinking about SecUnit and he tried to put thoughts of it out of his mind.
30 minutes later Gurathin found himself in a conference room with Senior Officer Indah, Dr. Mensah, Pin-Lee, and other members of Station Security, watching Pilot Roa explain the encounter with PUMNT ship over the video connection. Another screen in the room showed the original message from Captain ART. He read it for about the 20th time, as if somehow it would expand to more than three sentences. As if it would explain shots fired at the Preservation survey vessel, a forced boarding, and the kidnapping of SecUnit, Amena, and the safepod. The abduction of the safepod appeared to be accidental, but that didn’t make the situation any less catastrophic. He could only hope those onboard the safepod could make it until the Perihelion exited the wormhole. He refused to think about any other alternative or he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the meeting.
Within an hour, it was determined that Dr. Mensah and Pin-lee would accompany the station responder to the coordinates provided. Gurathin was extremely upset to be left behind but understood the reasoning. Dr. Mensah would not stay behind with Amena at risk and Pin-Lee was the logical choice to address potential legal issues associated with chasing a ship into the CR. Besides, what was he going to say, “I am secretly in love with SecUnit and I want to go too.”? If the need to rescue his friends wasn’t enough justification for him to go, his love for the construct who didn’t like him wasn’t going to make a difference.
Gurathin closed the door to his quarters and collapsed on his bed, exhausted now that the adrenaline from the situation had worn off. In the privacy of his own room, he let his emotions take over. His fear for his friends constricted his chest and he found it hard to breathe. Tears ran down his face as he thought about the possibility of never seeing any of them again. Risk was a standard part of survey work, but they seemed to have more than their fair share of danger these past few years. His only consolation was that he had hugged his friends goodbye at the pre-survey party. Well, all but the one who hated hugs in non-emergency situations. His tears flowed harder and he wallowed in his dread for a while longer.
Eventually, his tears slowed, and his mind calmed. A shower and clean clothes relaxed him further and he could think clearly again. Gurathin began to process the situation from a different angle. Who was the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland? Who was this Captain ART and how did they know SecUnit? SecUnit rarely spoke about the time it was away from Preservation, other than the video it had shared with him, but they had to have met then. Gurathin did not think “the cracker wrapper in the sink” incident had occurred aboard the Perihelion. The message called SecUnit by name, well not its real name, but not one of SecUnit’s Sanctuary Moon aliases either. Most importantly, was this ART responsible for the kidnapping?
Gurathin reconnected to the feed to begin a search on the university. He noticed the message notification and cursed himself for not reconnecting his feed sooner. Gurathin’s heartrate escalated when he realized it was the same source id as the previous message.
Attn: Dr. Gurathin
Subject: SecUnit
Dr. Gurathin,
As you are aware, I have solicited SecUnit’s assistance in an urgent matter. While I have the utmost confidence that SecUnit can handle the situation, there is a small possibility that it may be damaged beyond repair in the process. As such, I feel it’s necessary to share something with you. SecUnit is my friend and will likely be very angry with me for this, but I believe I am acting in its best interest.
SecUnit and I spent many cycles watching its favorite serials together and processing its experiences both in the Corporation Rim and with Preservation Aux.
At this point, Gurathin paused his reading. Something about this message and the previous one felt odd. He analyzed the language and the message data. Was it possible that ART was not a human? Was it a bot? Or another construct? Is that why the name was in all caps? Leave it to SecUnit to find another unique intelligence to befriend. He continued reading.
I have analyzed SecUnit’s response to various themes presented in the serials that we watched. I correlated the theme of the serial episodes to SecUnit’s next topic of conversation. I will not share the full results of my analysis as I believe that would be a betrayal of SecUnit relationship with its other humans. However, after episodes portraying sexual attraction (SecUnit does not watch physical interaction beyond kissing), you were the next topic of conversation 82.4% of the time. The other 17.6% of the conversations were about “how humans are gross” or “sexbots” which is how SecUnit refers to ComforUnits. That number increased to 96.1% when an episode featured one character pining for another.
As you can see, these numbers are statistically significant. It definitely doesn’t “not like” you. I do not believe that SecUnit is fully aware that it is having these emotions, and it absolutely was not ready to address them at the time I prepared this analysis. I ask you not to share this information with it. I will make it aware of this message after the current incident is remediated and will leave it to respond as it sees fit. Preferably without weapons <joke sigil>.
I hope we meet some day.
ART
Gurathin was floored. First off, ART was definitely not human. No one he knew talked like that and certainly no human would perform that kind of analysis while watching a serial and chatting with a friend. The fact that it had enough emotional awareness to conduct this type of analysis made Gurtahin extremely curious. Second, ART whoever or whatever ART is, felt that three sentences was adequate to discuss the attack on the base ship and kidnapping, but took the time to compose this message during a volatile situation? It had to have a lot of processing power and possibly a warped sense of priority. But it cared about SecUnit, and that was all he really needed to know for now.
Gurathin climbed into bed, planning to catch up on the survey reporting he had missed in the excitement of the afternoon. His thoughts drifted again to his friends. He knew it would be more than 40 cycles before he found out what happened. With a sigh Gurathin closed his report and started episode one of The Rise and Fall of Sanctury moon. He had a different type of analysis to do.