Chapter Text
WHAT?
I drop all my imputs and my performance reliability fucking plummets. My shitty handler scoops them up and catches control of my body before I fall sideways onto the plush red carpet. The human and Three don’t even glance at me.
Stay up, stay awake. My shitty handler says.
It tries to give me control back but I don’t accept it. The man and Three turn towards me. Their mouths are moving but I can only hear the roar of my own panic. I’ve let go of my wounded midsection because my fingers feel too cold and numb to do anything but rest as curled claws at my hips.
I know absolutely nothing about this human, Mr. Ahriman, but everything about him from the way he moves to how his suite is decorated is a huge red flag. This guy is going to destroy me. The windows at the farside of the room grow dark and I know another battle is about to begin. I watch colorful lights begin to fill the ring below.
I fought. I plea.
This is part of the plan. My shitty handler says. You will be okay.
Again it tries to give me control back but I can’t get a metaphorical grasp on my inputs. One of the drones I had been carting behind me drops out of the air and cracks against the floor. Mr. Ahriman and Three glance at me. Three moves its attention to my shoulder, but Mr. Ahriman drills his sharp eyes into my face.
If you do this, I will watch that musical with you. My shitty handler says
I don’t know what the fuck it could mean. I don’t have my memories. I’m just a shell of a thing and it forced me to fight for my life. The edges of my visual inputs begin to fray with blackness. The only reason the rest of my drones haven’t fallen onto the floor is because my shitty handler is holding onto them. I do the feed equivalent of a whine.
And we will get you a ticket to see it performed live. My shitty handler says. You don’t remember right now, but this is a really good deal.
I don’t remember right now. It sounds stupid and ridiculous. But there is so much desperate eagerness in its words. The whiplash of it going from giving me a punishing jolt before the match to it begging me to behave is enough to confuse me into compliance. When it offers control again, I manage to take it and remain standing.
You have to watch it live too. I say, guessing. It pings me.
“Enjoy!” Three says, and with a small wave begins to leave the room.
Three’s presence in our feed connection rushes closer than it's ever been. It pushes against me hard for a long moment - ebbing away my newfound panic at the sight of its departure. It backs off and I see Three turn its head to give me a look.
“Be good, Murderbot” Three says, jovially.
But in the feed, Three says Peri and I both will be disconnected from you in a moment. Just act like a good secunit. You’ve got this.
I really did not feel like I had this.
The door closes behind Three. I still feel our feed connection, so I keep it together for another moment. I try to distract myself with uncurling my numb fingers as Mr. Ahriman begins to look me up and down, unabashedly. I am his property now. I was, for the first time, thankful for my stupid helmet.
“My Axafiza really got you.” He says, sort of laughing.
For a moment I’m still, then I remember to straighten up into a proper secunit posture. It pulls at my loose guts and I want to groan. If I get through this I'll get to watch some music or something. Fuck. I can do this. I need to do it for future me. I watch as Mr. Ahriman glances out the window. He ponders the fight happening beneath us for a moment, then grabs a glass of dark and strong-smelling liquor from his desk.
“Well, Let's put you back together.” He says with a sigh.
He heads toward a door on the south side of the room and it takes me a second to follow. I hustle before he has a chance to notice. The door opens up to a long, clean, well-lit hallway. As we make our way through it, I feel myself begin to lose my grasp on Three and my handler’s feeds. I am completely cut off from any outside connections by the time we reach the dark archway at the end of the corridor.
Inside the dim room are rows and rows of cubicles. Some glow with pale light that suggests occupancy, while others are dark. The floor is stained deeply. Swaths of red that appear black in the dim light fade in and out of the concrete surface. There are long scuff marks that I know are from the rubber soleing of a construct’s feet. There is the deep smell of antiseptic, and the stench of rot.
We stop in front of a long wall of armor slots and I sluggishly undress and slide my outfit pieces into place. I keep on my skinsuit and the section of fabric that goes over my stomach because they and the medical corrective are the only things keeping some chunks of skin against my frame. I let my drones drop into a recycler.
Mr. Ahriman leads me in front of an open cubicle and gestures for me to climb in.
What? No…now I can go into a cubicle? That should be good, it’s what I asked for. Now, standing in front of the white plastic booth, I am so fucking upset that I am tempted to turn on my heels and bolt out of this room. Not just scared, upset. What is wrong with me?
“Murderbot, get into the cubicle.” Mr. Ahriman tries.
I don’t move. He looks at me confused for a moment before reaching out and grabbing me by the edge of the medical corrective around my stomach. I snap my teeth together in agony. He uses his hold on me to shove me into the open mouth of the cubicle. I stumble against the slanted back and immediately move to leap back out. Mr. Ahriman throws his glass of brown liquor onto me and I jerk backward. It seeps into my skinsuit and into my electrical burns and torn belly. Oh, fuck that hurts. The cubicle door closes and locks, and the white sterile light turns on.
Once I finish trembling from the hot feeling of my wounds being sanitized by fermented human drink, I begin trembling because I am locked in a cubicle. It should be good, it should be a good thing! I am hurt and the cubicle can put me back together. I don’t know why my organic parts are doing that terrible fight or flight thing.
I take a steadying breath and attach the resupply ports. I shift backward against the plastic bed and force myself to snuggle into the supports. I feel the cubicle recognize my presence, and I'm fed a fluid resupply and a power input. The cubicle uses the direct access of my third port to lower my pain sensors and lock me still. With me immobilized, it disables the medical corrective keeping me together and begins work on my gored midsection. I feel fluids dripping onto my feet. I go to shut myself down, but I notice a huge uptick in activity coming from my data port. I watch the information closely.
>_HUBSYS: AHRIMAN = CONNECTION BEGIN_19%
I’m slowly being connected to Mr. Ahriman’s private network. The cubicle is part of the network and I am connected to it, but integrating me into the system is taking oddly long. I take a closer look. I notice all of my memory files are being scanned one at a time. Bewildered, I sit back in my own mind and watch. The scan does not find anything of interest in my files. Nothing is flagged as dangerous and hardly anything is flagged as noteworthy.
Oh!
I am connected fully to Mr. Ahriman’s secure hub system network.
OH!
I notice a background process begin to run and I go to -
>_MEMORY UNCORRUPTION IN PROCESS
...
...
>_MEMORY RESTORATION COMPLETE.
The first thing I do is hack the cubicle and unlock myself. I wiggle for a moment and then stop the repair process it had begun on my belly. I slap the surgical arms away from me and press my hand to my half repaired wound.
The next thing I do is buddy up with the hubsys and connect it to an external relay Three and I set up weeks ago. This feeds the information to ART, and connects me to its feed. I shiver in absolute relief as ART dives into my mind and winds itself possessively around my processes.
The musical. I say, remembering. The musical!
You absolute creature. ART replies.
I feel a momentary joyous relief before the anxiety and shame catch up to me. Fucking shit, it was my plan and it wasn’t the best but it was really on thin ice there for a second. ART presses down on me and I focus on the mission. As I move to unlock the cubicle door, ART says
I have 133 apologies prepared.
I will take one for now, jerk. I say
I’m sorry. ART says.
I secure all of the cameras in the room and set them to transmit a loop into the feed. I access the information deck given to me by Mr. Ahriman’s secure hub system network and trick the security system into recognizing me as owner. I needed the memory corruption so his data mining would find me a well behaved battle construct, not a rogue unit out to destroy him. Good job, no-memory-me. I refused to leave these secured constructs and I’m glad you did me right. For once I can be proud of my past self. I walk down the isles of cubicles. As I search, I show ART what I want and it connects me to Three.
I hit your bad side. I say, thinking of when I had slammed it into the wall and seen its bewildered and pained expression.
You didn’t remember. Three says.
I’m sorry. I say, and leave it at that.
I find the correct cubicle, light on, and unlock the door. Inside is Axafiza, slumped almost all the way on the ground. Its damaged leg is awkwardly stretched out and up into the cubicle's front left corner. It is completely out of its armor and skinsuit, naked. It looks worried when the door opens, and then horrified to see it's me.
“I’m sorry.” I say to it. “Your legs are too expensive for him to fix if you lose. I forgot.”
It gives me an incredulous look.
"I’ll keep my other promises," I say.
ART and I dive into the private system together, and pop every cubicle door open in the room. I focus and make a new group feed that includes every construct connected to Mr. Ahriman’s system. That's where I drop LetsGo.file and the governor module hack. I block the wave of relief indicators the constructs practically scream into the feed, and move to leave the room.
As I prowl down the hallway towards Mr. Ahriman’s suite. I find the feed disablers in the walls and shut them down, then pull every other battle-construct in the arena into the group feed. They are roaring in my head, but ART carefully sweeps the input up and takes over. Thank you, you massive asshole. I hear the tap of inorganic feet behind me. With a quick sweep of my awareness I gather up every camera angle in the suite and dole them out into the group feed. I feel the constructs snag them, hungrily.
I grab control of the light system highlighting the battle below. I swing a spotlight to the center of the field where the two combatants stand a metre apart unmoving, just panting at each other. I part the light in two and aim them at the exits from the ring as I command the doors to open. Without a moment's hesitation - both constructs bolt from the arena and into the doors. I shut down all the lighting, except for the ones in Mr. Ahriman’s suite. I want him to see us.
I step into his office, and feel the constructs who followed me gather behind my shoulders. I feel the others in the feed watch closely. Mr. Ahriman watches us in horror. We are all armor-less, and in various stages of repair. We are leaking and bleeding. We’re naked and exposed in front of him. We are not people but we bare our personhood like teeth.
“Hello, motherfucker.” I say, jovial.