So I wasn’t alone in my reaction, and they hadn’t even seen the horror show in the original Pre-CR structure except for the very end, via Three’s mission recording.
Ugh.
Okay, right, this whole thing might be a nonevent. There was still a 78 percent chance that the splinter group of colonists who had decided to live here were dead. They might have died long before the more serious contamination incident that produced the Targets.
But we were going to have to find out. If they were still alive and needed medical intervention and decontam. If this was a clean site and they had managed to avoid the viral attacks. If they needed to evacuate before Barish-Estranza found them. If this was just a mass grave.
I said, “You both should wait here with the vehicle. I’ll go ahead on foot.” Uh, should they wait? Or just take the vehicle back to the construction access and have the shuttle pick them up? I should know this. I used to be good at this, what the fuck happened to me. Oh right, that happened.
They both turned in their seats to look at me. Even through the environmental suit faceplates, I could see objections coming in as big as cargo drop modules. Tarik said, “You know we’re all certified by the University in hazardous exploration, right?”
Ratthi, maybe not unexpectedly, came in on my side. Through the comm, he said, “I have a specialist survey certificate from Preservation’s FirstLanding and seven years of on-planet experience, but it didn’t stop me from nearly being murdered on a survey. SecUnit stopped me from nearly being murdered.” He added, “If these people are still alive in there, we don’t know anything about them. If they were attacked by some of the other colonists under the influence of the contamination, or if they were in contact with the contamination and were affected themselves.”
“We’ve done this kind of thing before,” Tarik said, not quite arguing, but not not arguing. And great, I know ART wants this to work out, but even if I were still capable of doing my fucking job, if they don’t listen to me, I’m useless.
Then Iris said, “Tarik used to be in a corporate combat squad.”
Wow. Okay. That was unexpected, and it caused a reaction in my organic parts. I had been staring forward down the tunnel while ScoutDrone1 circled my head, keeping watch. Now I and my drone turned to look at Tarik. Even ScoutDrone2 far ahead in the hangar entrance did a pivot.
I still couldn’t read any expression through his face plate and I was pretty sure he couldn’t read mine, if I was making one, but he immediately held up his hands, palm out. He said, “I don’t want to fight you under any circumstances, period, end of story.”
I wasn’t the only one who had reacted. On the shuttle’s comm, Ratthi had made a startled but somehow not startled noise, like an “ah.” Tarik’s head made a minute jerk, like he wanted to respond but didn’t let himself.
ART-drone hadn’t reacted at all, so obviously it knew. It just hadn’t told me.
His voice deliberately ironic, Tarik added, “And thanks, Iris, anything else you want to tell the new people about me?”
“Yes.” Iris was looking at me. As far as I could tell, she was the only one not having a moment right now. “He hates corporates more than any of us. They made him kill.”
It hadn’t seemed quiet before, even down here underground, with the hum of the vehicle’s motor and the humans talking and ART-drone. Now it was quiet.
Iris added, “Sorry, Tarik, but I wanted to get that out in the open. I don’t like surprises and I’m assuming ex-SecUnits don’t like them either.” I remembered to tell ScoutDrone1 to go back on watch. She continued, “So Tarik does have some experience in these kind of situations, where we’re making contact with a group that might be perfectly friendly, might be hostile, or might have good reason to be terrified of strangers. You two should work together, but Dad and Peri were agreed that SecUnit would take point on all issues dealing with mission security.”
(You were? I asked ART-drone on our private feed.
Of course we fucking were, it said.)
I needed to respond to Iris. I said, “Okay.”
“It’s not an ex-SecUnit,” Ratthi corrected gently, before the quiet could get too quiet again. “You can’t be an ex-SecUnit until you’re dead. But thank you for your honesty.”
So it was still my decision, and I needed to make it. At least the talking had given me time to process and check threat assessment. Did I want to go on alone, without ART-drone? Fuck no. Did I want to send Iris and Tarik back alone, without ART-drone? Fuck no. Fine, okay, fine. “We’ll go on to the entrance to the hanger.”
Iris nodded. “Thank you for listening to us.”
On the team feed, ART-drone said, You can have your emotional reactions and phatic communication after you restart the vehicle.
Yes, it’s just as rude to its humans as it is to everybody else.
Tarik lowered his hands, still looking at me. “Right. We should talk about this later.”
We probably should but we absolutely are not going to, not if I can help it. Wait, had Tarik been ART’s mission security before me? Had I taken a human’s job?
Under normal circumstances that would be kind of hilarious.
He got the vehicle started again and we proceeded down the stupid tunnel, into the stupid danger. I sent ScoutDrone1 flying ahead at its highest speed, so it could at least scout the hangar a little before we arrived. I still didn’t want to move ScoutDrone2 from its watch position at the tunnel opening.
ART-drone let go of the vehicle and flew a little ahead of it. It looked like the ominous, scary-looking bot from a horror drama that ends up trying to kill everybody in the deserted space station/deserted planetary installation/deserted generic underground habitation.
Without good scan data I had to pay more attention to visual input, even though currently the tunnel was boring. The humans had stopped talking. (It should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. Weirdly, I’d gotten used to humans talking in background, like music that isn’t your favorite but is still vaguely nice to listen to.)
ART-drone and I might be having our own awkward silence. On our private feed, I said, You knew that about Tarik.
Yes. It’s been a complex situation. Seth registered an objection when Tarik was first assigned to me, and I seconded it. Seth thought he would be too rash, and that having been required and often compelled to display aggression toward humans in the same situations as those we were trying to help would be a habitual behavior that might recur under pressure, even for a human who was actively trying to suppress it. The faculty director persuaded us to give him a chance. They were correct, it has worked out. So far.
The “so far” was interesting. The thing with ART is that it isn’t a construct, it has no human neural tissue, and the way it processes its emotions and impulses is completely different from the way I do it, let alone the way the humans do it. That’s why it prefers to watch media with me, because it can understand the emotional context better with me as a filter.
Did I understand how it processed its emotions? No. But I don’t understand how I process my emotions, either.
So with everything that was going on right now, it was particularly stupid that what I felt was, you know, whatever it was. Not jealousy. Sort of like jealousy. If Tarik after all the time he had been on the crew was still a “so far,” what was I? I said, If you already have a security consultant—
ART-drone interrupted, He’s not a security consultant, he’s a mission specialist. He has a good knowledge of the tactics that corporates like Barish-Estranza employ. You are a security consultant.