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I woke up in a MedSystem.
That was new. On my last assignment, I’d mostly just pieced myself together with whatever construct cubicles Murderbot and Three had left half-filled with biorepair equipment. After all, there hadn’t been any need for a human-oriented MedSys aboard the Perihelion, where the only sentient beings living full-time were bots and constructs. The human engineer/slave wasn’t supposed to get injured, even if the normal maintenance job I’d been sold for had been replaced by a repair the bots and constructs before they finish getting infected by a combat override and kill me instantly job and I’d ended up barricading myself in a cubicle several times, twice for clumsy medical assistance and once because it was basically the only place in the ship the Perihelion wasn’t automatically allowed admin access.
I shivered at that memory as I shrugged off all the medical equipment attached to me and sat up. Being on a ship trying to kill me had not been a pleasant experience. I couldn’t really hold it against it, except, wait, no I could. Deity, the Perihelion was annoying. I was glad to be off it.
But- wait.
I looked around again at the MedSys that definitely did not exist on the ship that, last I remembered, had finally stopped trying to kill me and still hadn’t apologized about it.
I was in the company MedSystem.
And my feed interface - you know, the interface designed to look like an external augment so the company never figured out I was actually unaugmented - was nowhere to be seen.
My breath hitched.
I know, I know. Nice going, Ayda. It took you a full three minutes - maybe more, but without an interface, that was the best estimate I had - to start panicking. In my defense, once I started panicking, I started panicking hard.
Was my slave contract with the Perihelion over? Did the company know I was unaugmented? What was going to happen to me?
Before my choked breathing and racing heartbeat could devolve into a full-blown attack, the MedSys door opened.
“Hello!” Miki said brightly, like how Miki said everything. I hurt everywhere, I was exhausted, and I was more than a little nervous about the fact that I wasn’t back in a slavehold or outshipment to my next assignment, but the friendly voice made me almost forget all that regardless. Even when Miki’d been infected by the GrayCris feed-virus and tried to kill me, it had been nice about it.
“Hi, Miki.”
“Oh, good!” it said, mechanical smile ticking upwards. “You remember me.”
I frowned. “My interface didn’t fry my head that badly.” I didn’t think I even had much of a headache after my MedSys treatment. I was probably healthier than I’d been in years, actually. Shame it had taken almost dying in a hypersentient ship to reach this point.
“Bots sometimes accidentally get memory-wiped in cubicles,” it said, which was completely untrue. Simple bots did sometimes get wiped in company cubicles, but I had enough engineering expertise to know that there were a number of safety checks beforehand. Nobody wanted a precious sentient bot to get wiped, after all. That would be murder, and murder meant insurance payouts to next of kin, and nobody - read: corporations - wanted that. Probably Miki just didn’t know better, and this was one of its misconceptions about the Corporate Rim that Murderbot and the rest hadn’t yet corrected. “I worried that it might have happened to you through your augments.”
I stood. My everything ached, but I ignored it. “I don’t have any augments, remember? My body can’t adapt to them.”
“Oh,” it said, audibly sheepish. Leave it to Miki to forget about how my lie’d been revealed in a spectacularly ugly fashion. It had been hard to miss - I’d been the only one completely unaffected by the GrayCris feed-virus since, you know, I didn’t have continuous access to the feed. “Right! I forgot. Sorry, Engineer.”
I hesitated. If this had been Three, I would’ve been a little more cautious with my next question. If it was Murderbot, I would’ve thought about my wording for at least a minute. If it was the Perihelion, I wouldn’t have asked at all. But this was Miki, and Miki was harmless - at least to me. “What am I doing here?”
It smiled wide. “Good news! Murderbot’s permanently bought your contract! You’re coming home with us!”
Huh.
Okay.
- - -
Getting to the hotel room without a fake augment was… strange. I was wearing the same standard-issue engineering slave uniform that I wore on the Perihelion, though this one was free of the oil stains (and bloodstains) that I’d managed to accumulate during the few weeks I’d spent alternately bored out of my mind and running for my life. Everyone we passed avoided my gaze, which was normal - nobody liked looking directly into a slave’s eyes and seeing what stared back.
Actually, that was a lie. The humans glanced away, but most of the bots we passed didn’t seem to have a problem with facing me directly, maybe because the older-gen ones like Three and Murderbot had started out as slaves - or worse - themselves, with internal torture infrastructures like the now-extremely-outlawed “governor modules”. Three had never had much trouble making eye contact with me, after all, and Miki - so freshly made it was more clueless about bot/slave relations than I was - didn’t have any issue either. Murderbot was an obvious exception, but it didn’t really meet anyone’s eyes, so I’d never taken it personally.
The walk was ten minutes long, maybe fifteen. During this kind of trek, I’d usually be busy trying not to think about my aching head. Seeing as it wasn’t aching, instead I tried not to think about what Miki had told me.
My contract had been bought. Permanently.
I’d seen this happen before - had pretended to have an augment for the majority of my life to avoid it, in fact. I’d known slaves who scarred themselves or pretended to be far older than they were for the same reason. Youth, beauty, inability to record or scream for help in the feed - all of it made you vulnerable, and the labor-intensive slavery I’d been born into was always only one interested owner away from sex slavery. It was never a good thing when an owner took a permanent liking to you.
And now, Miki was leading me into a hotel. One that loudly and persistently advertised that it had bedrooms without cameras.
Right.
I breathed deeply to suppress my panic. Alright, Ayda, think. I knew Miki and the Perihelion well enough to know they weren’t interested in organic-body activities like that, and Murderbot was scornful enough of “sex bots” for me to know it’d be actively repulsed by the idea.
So… Three, then?
“Miki, Engineer, hello!” Three’s voice said. I tried not to flinch as it approached us in the hotel lobby. With my interface, I could always at least sort of sense its proximity on the feed. Without it, I was wholly unaugmented and blind because of it. It smiled at me, helmet off. I’d never seen it without armor before. It looked oddly relaxed. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I said.
I wasn’t usually so stiff. Three’s head cocked slightly. “I’m glad you’re doing better. We were worried.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
Its gaze flicked to Miki’s. “I’ve been speaking to the DeltFall and GrayCris representatives on my own for hours. Could you help me?”
“Sure!” Miki said agreeably. “I’ll just drop Engineer off in her room first. Is that okay, Engineer?”
“Okay.” I didn’t know why they were asking me all these questions. I was their slave. I didn’t have much of a choice.
They walked me up the stairs to a second-floor room. Murderbot was waiting inside, armor on and surrounded by a swarm of drones. Its posture looked tense and impatient, but it relaxed as soon as a few of its drones turned to focus on me.
“Hello,” it said, almost gently. It unsealed its helmet, which I knew it hated doing, just so I could see its face untainted by the strange blankness the feed-virus had caused. I’ll admit it was nice seeing it in control of itself again. “How are you feeling?”
That question again. “Fine.”
It looked in my direction dubiously, then cleared its expression and turned away. “Did Miki tell you what happened?”
“Yes,” I said on instinct, because I didn’t want Miki to be punished - although, this was Murderbot, who despite the name wasn’t cruel, so deep down I knew Miki would be fine - and then realized, no, wait, it hadn’t really. “But I still don’t understand.”
“I bought your contract,” it said. Which, yes, I knew that. What I didn’t know was whether that meant I was a permanent slave, a permanent sex slave, or something worse than both options that I hadn’t yet considered. It continued, “You’ll stay with us, now. You’ll be a free agent there.”
Huh.
I noticed, suddenly, that though three of my clients - ex-clients? New owners? - were in front of me, the fourth was noticeably absent. Obviously it couldn’t appear in front of me, and I didn’t have my interface on, but this was a nice hotel. There had to be a few speakers in this room for emergency evacuation purposes, if nothing else.
But they were all stunningly, worryingly silent.
“Is the Perihelion okay?” I asked.
On cue, a very familiar - and very smug - voice crackled out of the corner of the ceiling. “Worried?”
“No,” I said stiffly. I had been, though. That disturbed me. Slaves weren’t supposed to be worried about their owners.
“ART’s recovering,” Murderbot said, though now it was frowning. “It’s still rebuilding after the feed-virus ripped its internal codes to shreds. It’s not supposed to access any of the station feeds until it gets at least one all-clear diagnostic, ART.”
I’m fine, the Perihelion said, although I could hear its feed voice breaking up into static as it overexerted itself. Sto- worr- about me.
You’re hurting yourself, Murderbot said firmly over the feed, voice taut. Get off the feed, ART. We’ve got it here.
I was surprised when the Perihelion only pinged an acknowledgement and faded almost entirely from the feed. The virus must have really taken more out of the ship than I’d thought.
Miki nudged me. “It’s okay, really,” it said. “It just needs to rest. Like you.”
I didn’t need to rest. I had too many questions. “Can I have my interface?” I asked.
Murderbot’s expression spasmed.
Three’s face wasn’t as easily readable, but I could still tell it was confused as it glanced towards the drawer under the room’s viewing screen. “It nearly killed you.”
Yeah, when I hadn’t had the chance to take it off in private for three crazy cycles in a row, after the inconvenient genetic sequence that made me incompatible with long-term augments sent me into shock. It’d kept me alive for over a decade before that.
Fine. I had more questions anyway. “What work would I do?”
“You wouldn’t need to work,” it said. “ART can repair itself, and if we ever need repairing,” it gestured to itself, Three, and Miki, “ART’s cubicles can handle it.”
I fell quiet at that. After a few moments of silence, Three and Miki went off to talk to DeltFall or whatever. I stayed put, thinking.
What Murderbot had said wasn’t entirely true. There were some good reasons why the company that owned me - that used to own me? - had sent an engineer slave along, reasons that’d been pretty clear right at the beginning of my assignment when the cubicles had been near-irreparably damaged by the ion storm. My presence had become all the more important when the Perihelion struggled against a hostile feed-virus and had no energy to spare in making sure the combat-overridden DeltFall SecUnit that had half-crushed Miki’s chest didn’t actually destroy its processors and memory.
Still, it had a point. Situations like the one that’d necessitated my presence couldn’t exactly be common on the Perihelion.
I glanced up. Murderbot was staring at the wall, per usual, but it didn’t look like it was watching media. It looked like it was trying not to look at me. “If I won’t be working, what will I be doing?” Maybe I could be a kind of permanent maintenance engineer. Those existed, didn’t they?
Murderbot’s drones turned towards me. “I think you can learn to do anything you want.”
“I don’t need to learn anything,” I said. “I’m already an engineer.”
“You’re- slave that kn- how t- fix bots,” the Perihelion said out of nowhere, its static-filled voice tumbling from the speakers. I jumped. That’s- -imited skillse- we can help you discov- -eally want t- do.
There were a few things I wanted to say to that, namely My skillset wasn’t so limited when it saved your life, was it? and It’s what I was raised to do so it has to be what I want and Go to hell, actually. Thankfully, before I could actually try to commit suicide, Murderbot stepped in, brow dark.
“ART, what did I just say?”
“I’m bored.”
It scowled. “You nearly died yesterday, you can take a couple hours of focusing on Worldhoppers without complaining. I can see your performance reliability dropping already. I’m blocking you from the station feeds.”
“Wai-”
The voice cut off abruptly. I looked at Murderbot with faint respect. I already knew it could go up against the Perihelion and win, but it felt strange to see it happen even when the Perihelion wasn’t deranged and virus-ridden. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“I’ll get hell for it as soon as it breaks through the encryption on the blocking package I sent over,” it said, shoulders sloping in a half-shrug. “But that’ll take a couple hours at least. For now, make yourself comfortable here.”
I nodded.
It saw something on my face I wasn’t able to keep hidden. One of its drones came closer to me, then drifted further away.
“Listen, Mensah-”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped on instinct.
It had irritated me enough when the Perihelion poked around in my interface to figure out the name my parents had given me before they died, like my title wasn’t enough. She calls herself ‘Ayda Mensah,’ it’d snarked at Three just to win an argument while I sat injured in Murderbot’s cubicle. I’d said it was private. Miki had understood pretty quickly, and so had Three, but the Perihelion and Murderbot were a little weirder about it.
A day after the twin revelations of my name and illegal status as an unaugmented human, Murderbot had pointed its drones at me and quietly said it used to not like giving out its own name either. I told it that that had nothing to do with my situation. “Murderbot” was an objectively insane name for an objectively insane SecUnit, and one it had chosen itself. My name was the only thing in the universe I owned. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t just leave it alone.
“Fine,” Murderbot said, bringing my attention from the frustrating past back to the frustrating present. “Engineer. All we’re saying is that you have choices, now. We want you to take advantage of them in a place that supports you.”
I swallowed. “You’d keep me safe,” I said.
“Yes.” Murderbot looked relieved I understood. “There are so many dangers out there, especially for unaugmented humans. On ART, you can do anything you want.”
Keep safe sounded better than keep enslaved.
It sighed. “We can talk more when we get you back to the ship.”
Three walked in then, and Murderbot turned to it in the way that meant they were communicating over the feed. “DeltFall’s representatives are asking for me?” it said aloud, and I felt strange when I realized the only possible reason it’d say that would be so that the unaugmented slave in the room knew why it was about to leave. “Alright, I’ll head out. Is it alright if I leave you with Three, Engineer?”
I nodded.
Murderbot slipped out, and Three gave me an unpracticed smile. “Hello, Engineer. How are you feeling?”
“Anxious,” I said truthfully. “Could you call Miki in here?”
“Okay,” it said, and presumably - hopefully - did so in the feed. “Why?”
“I just want to see it,” I said. I walked over to the foot of the bed, away from the door, and sat down. “Can I give you a hug?”
Unlike Murderbot, Three had neither a problem with physical touch nor an inhibitive amount of interpersonal distrust. It smiled and came towards me, and I wrapped my arm around it and drew out the datastick inside my sleeve and plunged it into Three’s neck in one smooth motion. Three didn’t even have a chance to gasp before it plummeted to the ground, dataport covered by the carpeted floor.
On cue, Miki arrived. “Hi, Engineer,” it said, looking around. “I thought Three was in- Oh! What happened?”
“I think it still has active remnants from the feed-virus,” I said. I had maybe fifteen, twenty seconds. “I had to shut it down. I don’t know if it’s in you as well.”
“Oh no!” it said, looking horrified. “What should we do?”
“How about you initiate a shutdown sequence?” I said. “Set it on a delay, so you’ll come back online in two or three hours. Don’t ping Murderbot or the Perihelion in case the virus is still in them too. I need time to figure this out.”
“Okay,” it said, eyes shining with concern as it sat down. “I trust you, Engineer.”
It powered off. I tipped it over so that it was lying as if it had fallen over mid-step.
Then I crouched in the doorway and panicked.
My breathing was at about three times normal speed when the stairs doors slammed open to reveal Murderbot in all its murderous bot glory.
“Three and Miki just went offline,” it reported, so quickly I could barely parse the words. Its drones raced inside as it yanked me up, shielding me with its chest against invisible enemies. “What happened?”
I sobbed, heart pounding so hard it hurt, and Murderbot rubbed my back. “Breathe, Engineer,” it said, voice far away as I threw my arm around it, dry heaving. Its gaze instinctively flicked away when I tried to meet its eyes. “Breathe. It’s okay. Tell me what happened. Did-”
And then it stopped, and in the reflection of the viewing screen I saw a drone crouch beside Three’s neck, and then I saw its face twist in horror at me, at how I was already sliding a second datastick into its own neck port. The weapons in its arms swiveled upwards, aiming on instinct, and I had only a moment to feel an overwhelming mix of betrayal and regret before it collapsed in a heap.
Unlike Three and Miki, its face wasn’t peaceful. Its empty eyes were wide with shock, its cheeks were flushed with fear, and its mouth was open, like it’d been about to say something before I overrode all its functions and shut it down for the next full cycle like Three- shorter if Miki got to it and removed the datastick first.
I thought about what it had said before: You have choices, now.
And what it had said after that: We can talk more when we get you back to the ship.
And I looked down, and saw that it had retracted its energy weapons milliseconds before it had gone offline. It hadn’t been about to hurt me.
I took five seconds to breathe deeply, forcing down emotion I couldn’t afford to feel, before I turned toward the room speakers. I could hear nothing but faint static, which either meant the Perihelion knew what I’d done and was furious but too weak to fight me about it, or - what I hoped, and what was more likely - that it was still holed up within itself watching Worldhoppers and trying to break Murderbot’s encryption.
If it was the latter, I had just under two hours. It’d have to be enough.
I went to the drawer Three had glanced towards earlier and pulled out my interface, sticking it back on. The familiarity of the immediate low-level headache that accompanied it was less comforting than I’d expected, but the influx of feed information - the port map especially, as well as the still-stored code Murderbot and I had developed to edit ourselves out of the Perihelion’s surveillance systems - was more than welcome. I slipped out the door and left, not looking back.
I used the transport pod and got back to the lobby, then left the hotel. It took a few minutes to parse the map, but soon enough I’d figured out how to get off the ring and down toward the lower port work zones while keeping myself off the station security camera footage. I was wearing a generic engineering slave uniform and passing as an augmented human, so nobody stopped me or looked twice at me.
Still, wearing something that marked me a slave made me feel itchy, short of breath. If someone came towards me demanding to know where my owner was, I’d hardly be able to respond with the truth.
At the edge of the work zone, I went through into the dockworkers’ barracks, then into the equipment storage, where the non-slave human workers had storage lockers. I went through them until I found a few that hadn’t been closed properly - these were impossible to close until you put your whole weight on them, since nobody cared about properly building equipment made for human workers, slaves or not. I felt bad about stealing, but any contracted worker careless enough to forget to lock up their only material possessions probably deserved the wake-up call. You’d never catch a Rim slave forgetting to lock up their belongings.
In any case, I’d never had so much access to non-slave clothing in my entire life. I swapped out my slave-marked uniform for a standard-issue one and took an enviro mask that covered most of my face, hoping that it’d stump Murderbot and Three’s security cam analysis for at least a few extra hours. Once I took a knapsack and filled it with necessities from the lockers - a dozen ration bars, sealed water bottles, a charger for my interface - and swung it over my back, I looked just like a dock worker. An augmented human. A non-slave.
I was taken aback by just how easy it was to emerge from the work zones and join the flow of the hundreds of travelers heading for the ship ring. I’d passed as an augmented human for most of my life. I’d never even come close to pretending to be free.
After checking the schedule feeds, I came to the transport I wanted. It was planning to leave in just under thirty minutes to an outer-Rim freehold planet where slavery was outlawed, which either meant I would actually be safe there or its reputation was a clever ploy to trap people like me specifically. I hoped for the former, but I’d never been that lucky. In any case, the ship was supposed to be free of humans, enslaved or otherwise, and was one of the only transports heading out of the Rim core before my two hours were up. Now it was just a matter of getting myself aboard.
A month ago, I might have tried to hack into a transport and place myself on the roster. But I’d learned a few things on my time aboard the Perihelion. Namely, that bots - even supposedly simple transport bots - liked media much more than they let on.
I didn’t have much: even true augments don’t store much data at a time, and feed interfaces store even less. But I had the leftovers from what Murderbot and the Perihelion had recommended, and the transport cheerfully accepted ten episodes of Sanctuary Moon and most of the first season of Worldhoppers and let me walk right in.
All bots share the same awful media taste, it turns out.
Look, I’m sorry about how I left, truly. But I’m not sorry that I did.
I don’t know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn’t that, it’s that I don’t want anyone to keep me safe, or keep me enslaved, or keep me at all.
That’s why I left you, Murderbot, my favorite construct. By the time you get this I’ll be leaving Corporation Rim. Unseen and unowned.
Ayda end message.