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I didn’t know at what percentage I restarted; too low to even check, which meant definitely still below 20 percent. All I knew was that the pain was too intense to process, which was very different from not feeling it at all. It hung there at the edge of my awareness, ready to slam down on me the moment I stopped focusing all my attention on it. Just like the threat of the government module frying my brain had hung over me when my clients ordered a freeze, leaving me to wonder if they were simply paranoid or if they were planning something that would make me prefer getting my brain fried.
And then the pain was just gone. As if I was back in a repair cubicle, which could tune down my pain sensors automatically if I went back online before I could do it myself. If anything else had given me the slightest indication I was back in one, I would have gone straight into another shutdown. But with the pain out of the way, all I could feel was the warmth enveloping me, so different from the cold plastic beds and walls I had spent many hours shivering against. I didn’t need my temperature sensors to tell it was the exact temperature of ART’s MedSystem (I had clearly spent too much time there. Enough that something in me relaxed even though something must have gone pretty fucking wrong.)
For a while though, that warmth was the only thing my mind was able to focus on. It seeped from my organics directly into my systems in a familiar way. It reminded of my experience in the isolation box, with ART.
It wasn’t until my performance reliability hit 15 percent and my thoughts finally cleared a little that I realized that this almost dreamlike state should have made me worry more. Especially since I couldn’t even access my log files yet. I’d given ART permission to dial down my pain sensors when I wasn’t able to do it myself (no danger of accidentally moving if I couldn’t even do that), but that usually took about a millisecond. If my internal clock was working right, which, granted, was one of those big ifs, I’d been lying still for 2.3 hours, and ART had been in my systems just as long. Which wasn’t a good sign.
I thought about tapping ART’s feed and it reacted instantaneously, The surgery hasn’t concluded yet. Or rather, ART-drone reacted. Which meant it hadn’t had an opportunity to handoff again. Which meant we were still on the planet. My performance reliability threatened to dip again, especially when I wrapped my head around what ART-drone had actually said. (With it all up in my processing space, my thoughts were annoyingly sequential.) ART-drone played the soundtrack for The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon for me, but the notes flowed together awkwardly, like I was listening to them underwater. I tapped the feed to show it I appreciated the gesture though. It didn’t respond, initiating a diagnostic instead. My thoughts slowed to a crawl while it was running, but by the end of it, I could finally access my logs too. I decided to go through them first, which had been the right choice, because now I also knew what to expect in the other file. The only surprise being the lack of the annotations ART usually enjoyed adding. (Not that I needed its annotations to read my own diagnostics.)
We’d been looking for survivors in a black-out zone, because we’d learned our lesson from the Adamantine colony fiasco. Someone had actually built habitation structures there at some fairly recent point, though there had been no sign of life, safe for faint low-power signal from what initial analysis showed was some kind of beacon.
On-site analysis revealed in the shittiest way possible that it was a sensor meant to repel hostile fauna, when it gave out and the ground started quivering just a few seconds later. With my feet actually on the ground, I realized it an entire second earlier than ART, which gave me enough time to push Kaede, who’d been scrambling to hook up an external power source to the beacon, away from the projected eruption point. If I’d noticed another second earlier, I might have had time to push away myself too. But I hadn’t.
My diagnostics told the rest of the story. Extensive damage to my organic and inorganic parts, which was no wonder given that those claws had practically torn me in two. Practically because some tissue and struts and my spinal column had remained intact. And it sure hadn’t kept me from discharging my weapon until my performance reliability hit single digits. That hadn’t happened in a while.
And then it was just about to happen again when I remembered our humans. I was gripped by a sudden impulse to jump up from where I was lying, and since I couldn’t, I tried the next best thing, which was to push ART out of my systems so I could focus on my buffer, try to scramble for any inputs I could grasp right now.
They’re safe, ART said, with an undertone I’d rarely heard from it. I’d have expected these words to sound reassuring, but instead ART sounded like it was metaphorically gritting its teeth. Do not distract me.
For a moment, I considered redoubling my efforts. I knew I could do it. But its words had sunk in despite the flurry of stress toxins, and suddenly I just felt drained.
So instead I said, Since when do you get distracted?
It pushed an array of images at me. It was annoying to have to view them one by one. But I guessed it was a good way to distract me from distracting it.
I checked the images from Drone1 first, the one closest to us. It hovered close to the ceiling, offering a view of the entire bunk room at the base we’d picked before setting off to the beacon/sensor/hostile death trap, and as much of the next room as the angle allowed. Iris was sitting in front of the bunk that ART had turned into an improvised MedSystem platform with an emergency kit’s sterile field engaged and a partly-opaqued privacy shield that still showed enough for me to see that it was working with six of its arms at once on me. No wonder it was borrowing my processing space. On the desk next to Iris was an assortment of attachments, a sterilization device, and various other things that she must have retrieved from the three emergency kits on the floor next to her. I assumed she’d needed all three for the organic regrowth material, to treat injuries that were severe but survivable. They were not exactly intended to treat someone who’s been torn apart (practically). That’s what we have pathology kits for.
The next image was from Drone2 in the adjacent room, where Tarik was sitting in front of a surface display. The angle wasn’t ideal, but I assumed he was monitoring the drones’ feeds. Kaede was sitting at what was intended to be the kitchen table, though right now she’d laid out parts of the sensor on it for closer inspection. She had a bandaged cut on her forehead and her hand wasn’t fully closing around the tool she was holding, but she seemed unharmed otherwise.
I looked at the other images too, but they only revealed empty hallways with windows that were splattered with rain drops, and a 360 degree view from the shuttle on the building’s roof that showed we were alone.
By the time I’d finished my review, my stress levels had evened out again, and I felt ART drawing back just a little, just enough that I could grasp at the live feed it was offering me from its own camera. I considered declining. I’d seen my parts with my own eyes at various stages of injury and had never had much interesting in watching myself get pieced together again.
I wasn’t sure why I accepted this time. ART had zoomed in on the damaged area, barely leaving a view of my shoulders let alone my face. If it weren’t for the almost invisibly fine hairs on the intact planes of skin, the company logos on my toxin filtration system (one of the most easily accessible internal logos. Ask me how I know, or better don’t) could have let me pretend it was another company SecUnit’s body. I tried, anyway.
And I thought about how lucky that SecUnit was that ART was the one taking care of it, if it had no chance to access its cubicle. Its limbs worked in perfect concert, re-establishing neural connections, mechanical connections, regrowing flesh cell by cell, knitting together alloys and polymers. Sometimes it would zoom out slightly, and I could see the privacy screen flicker as it reached through it to switch to a new attachment Iris had prepared and continue its work, swiftly, diligently, every bit as efficient as its own MedSystem, which it could usually operate with a fraction of its processing capacity.
I dropped the input again, returning the space I’d used to ART, and focused on the audio it played instead. At ten minute intervals, I received message packets containing images from the drones’ feeds, though I was surprised to find that were not transmitting by ART directly, but by ART’s bot pilot iteration on our shuttle. It trusted itself to monitor the situation. I tried to imagine it briefly, foregoing backburnering in favor of relying on another iteration, then I interrupted that thought process because it got me way too close to 2.0.
My performance reliability was climbing steadily as ART continued. At 60 percent, I should have been able to see through my eyes again, but it wasn’t until I hit 62 percent that ART left me with enough processing space to actually rely on the input. The first thing – and pretty much only thing – I saw was ART-drone. It had anchored itself to the top bunk with four limbs, the others still working on me.
My eyes followed them towards my torso, to where the soft whirring that filled the space around us was coming from, but I couldn’t actually see much with the way my head was angled, so I glanced back up at it instead of switching to its camera again. If it had been organic, I might have compared it to the vaguely arachnid monsters in some of the space horror movies I’d watched.
Flattering.
Fuck off, ART, you haven’t even watched them. Besides, I had said if. But I made sure my other thoughts were private. Because seeing it above me, intact and safe, was more than just a relief. And I didn’t hate that like this, all it could see was me. I didn’t hate it in the way I didn’t hate wearing the uniform with its crew logo. Maybe even less. Or did I mean more?
Thankfully, ART withdrew the set of limbs it used for mechanical repairs right then, giving me an opportunity to try upping my pain sensors carefully. Yeah no, it wasn’t done yet.
I’ll tell you when I’m done, it assured me. This part, I knew, was something it hadn’t read in my thoughts.
I tapped its feed in affirmation, tuned down my pain sensors again and finally accessed the general feed. I could finally handle multiple inputs now, so while I was watching ART, I also checked the two internal drones’ feeds myself.
Iris was still sitting where I’d last seen her, though she relaxed when she noticed I was online again. In the feed, Iris had set up a workspace for a preliminary mission report we could all contribute to. Kaede had added schematics of the fauna repellent sensor along with drafts of a portable version. Tarik was checking those files, which would have alarmed me a little if Drone2 hadn’t been showing that Kaede had taken up his place by the display surface. Without glancing away from it, she smiled and gave Drone2 a little wave when I made it hover closer to her while examining the room in more detail (not that much had changed since last time, except that I finally noticed the fluid stains someone had perfunctorily tried to scrub away). Meanwhile Tarik was doing some stretches, waiting for water to boil in a small electric heater.
The surgery is now complete, ART declared, and I switched back to the view from my own eyes to watch it retract its limbs slightly before depositing the medical attachments outside. I couldn’t help glancing at the flickering privacy screen every time it pushed through with one of its limbs. Though I appreciated that Iris wasn’t looking at me but at ART-drone instead, smiling.
“Glad you’re back with us, SecUnit,” Iris said, opening a pack that contained sterile cloth and offering it to ART. Her arm drooped a little when Tarik called out to her and she turned around. I switched to Drone1 just in time to see something like curiosity flicker across Tarik’s face as he stood there waiting with two cups in his hand. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to see how ART had finished the job, but I was glad he resisted the impulse to lean forward and look through the gap in the privacy screen before ART drew the limb back in and it returned to the semi-opaqued state. Or quarter-opaqued, now that I thought of it. I could recognize my features through it. Either way, he’d already handed the drink to Iris, who, after a brief exchange with ART, got up to follow him to the sofa on the opposite side of the room.
Then I felt something soft and damp against my skin and dropped the input.
I didn’t mean to startle you, ART said when I prioritized the view from my eyes and glared at it. It still hadn’t released my entire processing space back to me, so I supposed it wouldn’t get too distracted if I switched to its view again.
It wasn’t like I was surprised to find myself whole again, but the sight was impressive in a way it wouldn’t have been if I’d just been fixed by its MedSystem. I could see where it had improvised after the regenerative material had run out, relying on sutures or wound sealant instead. The non-organic parts showed no trace of injury. What never changed though was that I was covered in blood and fluids. Which ART was now gently dabbing away.
I watched it run the cloth over my chest and switched back to my own eyes, unable to look at what I could feel, my skin prickling slightly in its wake, those fine hairs ART had given me rising. It upped the heat radiating from the limbs it used to anchor itself in place and slowly continued.
As it did, it slid a little deeper into my processing space again. I dropped the other drone input, and if the humans were talking, I couldn’t hear a word they were saying. And for once, I found that I didn’t care, because I could feel the full weight of ART-drone’s attention on me. More than that, really, given how much of my space it was borrowing. Still just a fraction of the weight of ART’s attention, but the knowledge that it was all focused on me…
My performance reliability skipped past 70 percent, and my facial muscles relaxed. I should have tuned up my pain sensors again to keep myself from accidentally moving, just in case. But I didn’t, and ART didn’t remind me. It ran the cloth over the rib compartment where I kept its comm so delicately and I held absolutely still. If the fauna’s attack had been aimed a little higher, it would have been destroyed. And while all parts could have been repaired and/or replaced, I didn’t like the thought of having to replace this part of ART.
It ran the cloth over the compartment again, with just a little more pressure, like the same thought had occurred to it just now, and my eyes lidded.
And then I realized what kind of expression I must have been making.
My first instinct, which ART quelled by pointedly pressing the cloth against my shoulder, was to roll onto my side to stare at the wall. My second instinct was to cover my face, but before I could move, ART increased the privacy shield’s opacity to 100 percent.
Better? it asked.
I didn’t respond because I didn’t know. I gave up on the view from my eyes to switch to Drone1, looking for the humans, expecting… I didn’t know what I expected. (I did know. The familiar view from behind my opaque helmet, staring humans who didn’t even bother hiding what they were doing, while I was endlessly glad they couldn’t actually see my face.) What I did see, however, was Tarik back in his monitoring spot, Kaede’s heat signature in her bunk behind her own opaqued privacy shield, and Iris curled up on the couch and sipping from her mug as she scrolled through her feed. Nobody had seen anything, and if they had, they didn’t seem to care.
I looked at ART-drone again with my own eyes. Its carapace was as unreadable as ever, but I felt every emotion that was coursing through its systems right now. A drop of water ran down my shoulder where ART had been holding the cloth entirely unmoving. I couldn’t tell anymore what kind of expression I was making. Probably one I should still hide.
Slowly I raised my arm, and curled it over my face to cover my eyes. I felt ART taking in every slightest twitch of my muscles. I felt the pressure of the cloth ease, heard the quiet whisper of its limb retracting just a little. I wasn't sure why this was the wall I couldn't bear lowering for it, when I had let it past all the others. But I didn't want it to stay on the other side of it either.
“Yes,” I murmured finally. And sighed as it settled deep in my feed and gently brushed the cloth over the compartment once more.