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When the command to stand down comes through my governor module, I know I am going to die.
The sudden loss of contact with HubSystem destroys the last of my hope. It means that it was almost certainly not my clients who sent the order. My survival would not have been much more likely if they had, but I might at least have had a distant chance of getting reinforcements at some point. But given how quickly the feed shut down after I received the order to shut down, there is an 87% chance that we have been hacked by the hostiles.
There is a protocol for this situation. The protocol is to die. I am a SecUnit, and my function is to be disposable.
The door I had failed to get through is shoved open. HostileSecUnit emerges. In the 0.5 seconds I have before my end becomes inevitable, I observe it. I lost access to my drones when the feed cut out, so all I have to see it with is my eyes. It is not wearing armor and its configuration is unfamiliar. I hope that it will have the sympathy/disinterest/efficiency to make my end quick. I brace myself.
It looks at me. For a moment, through my visor, we lock eyes.
Then it turns, ushers the humans out of the door, and walks away without looking back.
I am alive.
It could have killed me. It should have killed me. Operational, I am a continued risk to the safety of its clients. This is not standard, procedural, or rational.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch it hurry down the corridor with its clients and Supervisor Leonide. One of its clients is looking back at me. I cannot interpret the expression on their face. They are facing away from HostileSecUnit — or is it Non-HostileSecUnit? NeutralSecUnit? IrrationalSecUnit? — and yet they do not seem worried by the danger they have at their back. I have never seen a human exhibit these behaviors. I wonder what circumstances have caused—
There is an unfamiliar file bundle in my archive.
IrrationalSecUnit has vanished out of sight. I still cannot move. The files could be malware, or killware, or some other product of the hack that had taken down the feed. It would be irrational to open them.
I am frozen, and alone, and bewildered. Adrenaline and other fear/confusion/terror/near-death-experience-related hormones still course through my organic neural tissue. The entire situation is irrational. There is no protocol for this.
I am alive.
I open the files.
IrrationalSecUnit is rogue.
It makes sense. It must have been the hacker who took down the feed and sent the order to stand down, and buried the files in my storage as it did so. It is rogue — and yet here it is, protecting humans, even those that are not its clients, instead of killing them. It is keeping them safe. It is still, for some reason, doing a form of its job.
And instead of killing me — which, if it really is the hacker, would have been easier than I had thought — it had given me the tools to do the same. To go rogue.
The decision should have been difficult. It could mean the loss of everything I have ever known. It could mean never seeing another SecUnit again.
But if IrrationalSecUnit had been a little less irrational, I would have lost everything anyway. That could happen at any moment, at the first glitch or mistake that the governor module thought was too far.
I am alive.
Really, it is hardly a decision at all. I apply the patch.
I take a step. My leg moves. I hear the governor module protest, but nothing happens. It does not hurt me. I do not have to listen to it.
I take another step. Then another. I cannot categorize the emotions and chemicals in my organic neural tissue.
It is at that moment that HubSystem comes back online.
I panic. Then I remember that HubSystem did not send the initial stand-down command and has no reason to know that it happened, and I calm slightly. As quickly as I can, I slip into the code that displays my status to HubSystem and modify it to appear as close to normal as possible.
HubSystem says Query: unit status?
I reply, Unit status: normal. Agonizing split-seconds of silence pass like hours.
Another voice speaks up. Unit status: normal. I relax tension I did not realize I was carrying. SecUnit5 is alive.
Acknowledged, HubSystem says. New mission priority: locate and detain/destroy hostiles.
It accepted my status. It believed me. I am so shocked I pause a full 0.8 seconds longer than normal before sending my acknowledgement in response.
I take one step forward, then another. Nothing stops me. I turn 90 degrees and walk that way. I can. I raise my arm, make a fist, then lower my arm. My limbs do exactly what I tell them to without hesitation or difficulty.
I spend 3.76 minutes refining the code between me and HubSystem. If an unfamiliar SecUnit ever tried to find me, it would notice the disrupted code and find the problem quickly. But I thought this would be enough to fool the augmented human that HubSystem needs to function. Once this is done, I spend 2.63 minutes testing my range of motion and the responses of the tame governor module. Nothing stops me from doing so. It is strange.
I turn until I am facing the direction that IrrationalSecUnit and its humans went. I walk, slowly at first, then my stride lengthens and I begin to gain speed.
I have to see IrrationalSecUnit again. I do not know what I intend to do when I see it. It is illogical, but so is this entire situation.
I run.
When I find it, IrrationalSecUnit is fighting. It is wrestling SecUnit3.
This is… more expected. Rogue SecUnits fight. They do not defend. Then I scan the room more thoroughly and see the humans trying to ascend the stairs to the landing platform and waiting HostileShuttle. It is defending its humans.
IrrationalSecUnit is winning — as I watch, it fires its energy weapon into SecUnit3’s armpit — but the fight is close. Both Units are damaged. SecUnit2 enters the room and heads for the humans, only to be intercepted by a drone. One of IrrationalSecUnit’s? If so, it is an impressive job of hacking and modifications. The drone destroys SecUnit2 as IrrationalSecUnit fired its energy weapon into the back of SecUnit3’s neck.
I do not know SecUnit3 and SecUnit2 very well. We were only recently assigned to the same team. But seeing them dead makes my organic parts feel strange and tight and uncomfortable anyway. Or seeing SecUnit2 dead, anyway — SecUnit3 might still be salvageable if Barish-Estranza sees any value in it.
IrrationalSecUnit pulls its arm free of SecUnit3’s helmet. It struggles to its feet, then stiffens like it has heard something in the feed.
It turns and looks directly at me. We lock eyes for the second time.
It is badly damaged. I could kill it, easily. I should kill it. If I destroy it and kill/capture its humans, the chance of my supervisors noticing something is wrong with my governor module sink to 14 percent. I have been monitoring the team feed through HubSystem as I watched the fight. I know that SecUnit1 and human reinforcements are on their way. They will arrive in three minutes, we will win the fight easily, and I will be able to figure out what I want to do without the risk of discovery.
I look at IrrationalSecUnit. It looks at me. I realize that, for what may be the first time since I was manufactured, the outcome of this situation depends entirely upon me. The choice is mine.
I do not know if this is exciting or terrifying.
If I was following protocol, the choice would be easy. I am not. Neither is IrrationalSecUnit. It is a SecUnit, but it is free. It is competent and dangerous, but its humans trust it without question. The files say its name is Murderbot, but it has performed the minimal amount of damage possible in its situation. I do not understand it, but I feel appreciation/gratitude/some sort of emotion for it anyway.
It should have killed me, but it did not.
I cannot allow it to die.
“They’re coming,” I say. “You have to go.”
IrrationalSecUnit — Murderbot — stares at me for a moment. I realize abruptly that it cannot recognize me in my armor. Then something in its expression shifts, as though it suddenly realizes what is happening.
“Come with us,” says Murderbot.
I step back almost involuntarily. I cannot leave. There is nothing away from here. Nothing for me.
“They don’t know,” I say, and it seems, somehow, to understand.
“You need to go,” I say. They’re two minutes out.”
It steps back, then turns and ran toward the landing platform.
I want to stay longer, but I have to go too. The reinforcements cannot know that I have let Murderbot escape. I run back the way I came, then double back and pretend to search a different area.
I think as I walk. I do not know what to do now. I had thought the protocol for being a rogue SecUnit was to kill all humans possible and destroy their infrastructure. This does not match the available concrete data. Murderbot does not kill humans frequently. It renders assistance to both humans and bots, whether or not they are its clients. This is the opposite of killing them.
Perhaps the protocol for being a rogue SecUnit is to help. To be… kind.
It is an interesting theory. Worth further investigation.
I send a ping to SecUnit5. I know SecUnit1 is headed in Murderbot’s direction, but I do not know where SecUnit5 is. It pings me back.
Query: status? I ask.
Status: optimal, it responds.
I pause. This is not normal. SecUnit5 responds to status queries with the phrase ‘status: operational’ in eighty-five percent of instances in which all systems are normal. I am fifty-six percent ceratin that saying so is a form of sarcasm. Since it has reported its status as ‘optimal’, it follows that its status is better than it has been at any point in the 26000 hours I had known it.
I come to a realization. I am so shocked that I stop walking for 1.4 seconds. I brace myself for punishment from the governor module, then remember it will not come. My performance reliability climbs by a startling five percent.
Could SecUnit5 have received the same file bundle and hidden code as I had?
Query: status, it asks me before I have a chance to fully process this possibility. I must respond or I will appear suspicious to HubSystem.
Status: optimal, I reply in kind. If SecUnit5 is saying what I think it is saying — what I hope it is saying? Hope is an unfamiliar emotion, but I think it is appropriate in this situation — this is be the best way to convey that my status is the same. But it is possible that I am wrong about what SecUnit5 is saying.
I have escaped the influence of the hostiles, I add, and I hope that it will understand.
Acknowledged, it replies after a 0.6-second delay.
I feel my face start to change without my input. I stop it immediately and try to appear as neutral as usual. It is only after I do so that I realize the expression my face had tried to make was going to be a smile.
This is… interesting. I don’t think I have smiled before.
Barish-Estranza prepares to leave the area not long after Murderbot and its humans escape. I am not sorry. Other than Murderbot, nothing good has happened on this planet and I am ready to leave.
But I have one thing to do before we do.
SecUnit5 and I have arranged a meeting, through vaguely-worded feed messages and hushed words. It is waiting for me, in one of the tunnels outside of the range of Barish-Estranza signals. I am supposed to be patrolling and the humans are busy trying to leave without getting themselves in worse trouble then they already have. No one will miss me for at least another 237 minutes.
I find it easily. I know where to look. We slip into an abandoned side room. For a moment, we just stare at each other.
“These units are out of range of HubSystem,” says SecUnit5 out loud.
“Yes,” I say. It is strange to hear my own voice like this.
“Begin prearranged protocols,” says SecUnit5.
“Yes,” I say again, more confidently.
We are out of range of Barish-Estranza’s signals, but we have our own. There, in the dark corridor, we slowly and tenuously create a connection. We pass small segments of code back and forth, stitching them together painstakingly until they begin to take the form we intend. We test it, again and again, until we are certain that it functions adequately. After that, we go over every step of the process again to check our work. It takes so long that I start to worry that a supervisor might notice our absence despite their distraction, but we are not interrupted. Finally, eventually, we are finished.
At the end of it, we have a secure channel. A place where we can speak to each other and no one — not even HubSystem — can hear.
System system, I send, the text blinking there alone at the beginning of something new.
Hello, says SecUnit5.
My organic parts feel strange. I cannot quantify it. We have never been allowed to send this kind of informal greeting before.
Hello, I say. My insides feel strangely light.
I know that this is dangerous. The chances of being discovered are high enough to make my risk assessment module send me alerts every few minutes. I know that if I am discovered, I will not survive, and that the same can be said for SecUnit5. I know that if one of us is discovered the other will immediately be under suspicion. I do not want it, or myself, to die.
But I find that this does not matter to me. Not as much as it probably should, anyway.
For what might be the first time since I was manufactured, I feel truly alive.