Марта Уэллс: Artificial Condition

ART said, You are correct that further research is called for before the incident can be understood fully. How do you plan to proceed?

I stopped pacing. It knew how I planned to proceed. Go to RaviHyral, look for information. There hadn’t been anything in the company’s knowledge base that I could access without getting caught, but the systems on RaviHyral itself might not be so well protected. And maybe if I saw the place again, it would spark something in my human neural tissue. (I wasn’t much looking forward to that part, if it happened.) I could tell ART was doing that thing again where it asked me questions it knew the answer to so it could trap me into admitting stuff that I didn’t want to admit. I decided to just skip to the end. “What do you mean?”

You will be identified as a SecUnit.

That stung a little. “I can pass as an augmented human.” Augmented humans are still considered humans. I don’t know if there are any augmented humans with enough implants to resemble a SecUnit. It seems unlikely a human would want that many implants, or would survive whatever catastrophic injury might make them necessary. But humans are weird. Whatever, I didn’t intend to let anyone see more than I absolutely had to.

You look like a SecUnit. You move like a SecUnit . It sent a whole array of images into the feed, comparing a recording of me moving around its corridors and cabins with recordings of various members of its crew in the same spaces. I had relaxed, relieved to be off the transit ring, but I didn’t look very relaxed. I looked like a patrolling SecUnit.

“No one noticed on the transit rings,” I said. I knew I was taking a chance. I had gotten by so far because the humans and augmented humans in the commercial transport rings didn’t see SecUnits except on the entertainment feed or in the news, where we were mostly killing people or already blasted into pieces. If I was spotted by anyone who had ever worked a long-term contract with SecUnits, there was a good chance they would realize what I was.

ART brought up a map listing. The RaviHyral Mining Facility Q Station was the third largest moon of a gas giant. The map rotated, with the various mining installations and support centers and the port highlighted. There was only the one port. These installations will employ SecUnits/have employed SecUnits. You will be seen by human authorities who have worked with SecUnits.

I hate it when ART is right. “I can’t do anything about that.”

You can’t alter your configuration.

I could see the skepticism through the feed. “No, I can’t. Look up the specs on SecUnits.”

SecUnits are never altered . Skepticism intensifying. It had obviously pulled all the information on SecUnits in its database and assimilated it.

“No. Sexbots are altered.” At least the ones I had seen had been altered. Some were mostly Unit standard with a few changes, others were radically different. “But that’s done in the deployment center, in the repair cubicles. To do anything like that I’d need a medical suite. A full one, not just an emergency kit.”

It said, I have a full medical suite. Alterations can be made there.

That was true, but even a medical suite as good as what ART had, able to carry out thousands of unassisted procedures on humans, wouldn’t have the programming to physically alter a SecUnit. I might be able to guide it through the process, but there was a big problem with that. Alterations to my organic and nonorganic components would cause catastrophic function loss if I wasn’t deactivated when they took place. “Theoretically. But I can’t operate the medical suite while I’m being altered.”

I can.

I didn’t say anything. I started sorting through my media again.

Why are you not responding?

I knew ART well enough by now to know it wouldn’t leave me alone, so I went ahead and spelled it out. “You want me to trust you to alter my configuration while I’m inactive? When I’m helpless?”

It had the audacity to sound offended. I assist my crew in many procedures.

I got up, paced, stared at the bulkhead for two minutes, then ran a diagnostic. Finally, I said, “Why do you want to help me?”

I’m accustomed to assisting my crew with large-scale data analysis, and numerous other experiments. While I am in transport mode, I find my unused capacity tiresome. Solving your problems is an interesting exercise in lateral thinking.

“So you’re bored? I’d be the best toy you’ve ever had?” When I was on inventory, I would have given anything for twenty-one cycles of unobserved downtime. I couldn’t feel sorry for ART. “If you’re bored, watch the media I gave you.”

I am aware that for you, your survival as a rogue Unit would be at stake.

I started to correct it, then stopped. Rogue was not how I thought of myself. I had hacked my governor module but continued to obey orders, at least most of them. I had not escaped from the company; Dr. Mensah had legally bought me. While I had left the hotel without her permission, she hadn’t told me not to leave, either. (Yes, I know the last one isn’t helping the argument all that much.)

Rogue units killed their human and augmented human clients. I … had done that once. But not voluntarily.

I needed to find out whether or not it had been voluntary.

“My survival isn’t at stake if I continue to ride unoccupied transports.” And learn to avoid the asshole ones that want to threaten me and question all my choices and try to talk me into getting into the medical suite so they could do experimental surgery on me.

Is that all you want? You don’t want to return to your crew?

I said, not patiently, “I don’t have a crew.”

It sent me an image from the newsburst I had given it, a group image of PreservationAux. Everybody was in their gray uniforms, smiling, for a team portrait taken at the start of the contract. That isn’t your crew?

I didn’t know how to answer it.

I had spent thousands of hours watching or reading about, and liking, groups of fictional humans in the media. Then I had ended up with a group of real humans to watch and like, and then somebody tried to kill them, and while protecting them I had to tell them I had hacked my governor module. So I left. (Yes, I know it’s more complicated than that.)

I tried to think about why I didn’t want to change my configuration, even to help protect myself. Maybe because it was something humans did to sexbots. I was a murderbot, I had to have higher standards?

I didn’t want to look more human than I already did. Even when I was still in armor, once my PreservationAux clients had seen my human face, they had wanted to treat me like a person. Make me ride in the crew section of the hopper, bring me in for their strategy meetings, talk to me. About my feelings. I couldn’t take that.

But I didn’t have the armor anymore. My appearance, my ability to pass as an augmented human, had to be my new armor. It wouldn’t work if I couldn’t pass among humans who were familiar with SecUnits.

But that seemed pointless, and I felt another wave of “I don’t care” coming on. Why should I care? I liked humans, I liked watching them on the entertainment feed, where they couldn’t interact with me. Where it was safe. For me and for them.

If I had gone back to Preservation with Dr. Mensah and the others, she might be able to guarantee my safety, but could I really guarantee her safety from me?

Altering my physical configuration still seemed drastic. But hacking my governor module was drastic. Leaving Dr. Mensah was drastic.

ART said, almost plaintively, I don’t understand why this is a difficult choice.