Work Text:
Where are you, SecUnit? What is even a definition of "whereabouts" for a being like yourself?
Are you where your physical body is - somewhere in our general vicinity, but not in an immediate line of sight, stuffed in a cozy unpopulated nook to dip into the First Landing University Library feed without pesky onlookers interrupting you?
Are you where your drones are, little flashes of metal sometimes appearing in our peripheral vision as you silently evaluate if whatever we're doing is safe enough for your pessimistic standarts?
Are you where you can see and reach through friendly (not hacked, I hope, but I've heard enough about you convincing anyone and anything who technically shouldn't give you closed access to do just that with nothing more than a few polite messages and a bribe) systems - in the sensors of Preservation bots letting you sneak an occasional look, in the databases when you agree to help me manage a few spreadsheets for a paper, in the feed convos you choose to ignore most of the time until you find something worthy of commenting?
I rarely see you "in person" compared to my other friends and collegues. Yet when you're here, on Preservation, it's hard to forget your subtle presence. I guess I just settle in that uncanny-but-not-scary mindset that you're here with us, somewhere, in some form, even when I don't see you.
...you know, this is something you and your friend Perihelion - ART - have in common. Both of you are influencing so much more space than mere vessels of your minds do. You both were created to look in far more directions than I or even someone augmented like Gurathin could ever manage, and it would be very mean to make you close all of your eyes just to make it "fair" for us, humans. Which you are not.
I have no idea how much of us you actually do observe, besides knowing what things you decidedly and vehemently don't (which is great, it would be pretty awkward otherwise). Maybe you're settled by a simple understanding that all of us are accounted for and don't pay attention further, far more interested in Preservation's museums and musicals than in our boring little talks about food and research deadlines. Maybe you're watching closely enough to count how many times by now I have bonked my head against a poorly-located shelf in my lab.
I'm okay with that either way. Maybe I shouldn't be, knowing the horrifying ways corporates abuse surveillance for their profit. But then again, you know that even better than I do. In the end you do remember what we consider as lines of privacy and decency, even if they differ from yours, and we try to follow in kind. I think that's more than enough.
But I digress. The important part is: wherever is your ephemeral "true" location, you're never out of range of being someone we got to know, who changed our lives. You will always stay our friend.