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The SecUnit is standing there in the corner again. Facing the same direction it stood yesterday. Unmoving. Like those creepy wax portrait statues ancient humans used to make.
Gurathin takes another bite of his printer-produced breakfast (scrambled “eggs” and “bacon” that taste roughly the same as the back of his throat right before he defended his PhD dissertation). He watches the SecUnit as he chews. Something’s…off about it. More off than usual, that is.
He takes another bite before it clicks in his brain: it’s that smudge on the SecUnit’s armor. A jagged arc of rusty, red-brown soil that was present last night, too. Meaning the SecUnit never went to its repair pod overnight like it should have.
“What is it doing?” he stage-whispers to Mensah, sitting next to him at the breakfast table. He’s not sure why he bothers lowering his voice. It’s well-established at this point that the SecUnit has uncanny hearing.
“Hmm?” Mensah lifts her head, her mind clearly still on the sample analyses she was just perusing on her datapad. Gurathin recognizes the look, waits for her to focus before he gestures to the corner.
“I think it’s malfunctioning,” he says. Malfunctioning again. Or, another malfunction layered atop the original ones. Which is exactly what this expedition needs. “It looks like it just stood there all night. Didn’t go to repair or recharge.”
Mensah tilts her head, gives him that oh, Gura look, but rises from the table.
“SecUnit?” she says. “Are you all right?”
No response.
Mensah steps closer, her brow furrowing. “Can you remove your helmet, please?” she asks.
A full eight seconds pass—Gurathin counts—before the helmet finally deactivates, revealing the SecUnit staring straight ahead, as though catching sight of something fascinating in the distance. As usual.
But there’s something different about its expression. Most of the time, the unit looks fairly neutral, or maybe “neutral with a whiff of disgust.” Now, though, its face is uncannily intense. Eyes tight. Jaw flexing. Lips thinned.
It looks like it’s mentally gearing up for battle.
“What are you doing?” Gurathin demands, all his senses instantly on alert. “Is there a threat?”
The SecUnit finally turns its head just a fraction, like it’s noticed their presence for the first time.
“No,” it says, though with an intonation to the word that makes Gurathin feel like there’s a lot being left unsaid. “Not a threat to you, anyway.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Gurathin begins, but finds himself cut off by Ratthi, a living whirlwind practically dancing into the room.
“Seccy!” Ratthi calls out with a grin. “How are those edits going?”
“Edits?” Gurathin says. It takes him a moment to realize Mensah said the same word at the same time. She recovers first, putting a hand on her hip and fixing Ratthi with her longsuffering-leader expression.
“Ratthi,” she says. “Do you know what’s going on with the SecUnit? What, exactly, is it editing?”
It’s almost whiplash-inducing, how fast Ratthi comes to a standstill. “Oh, nothing, really,” he says, casually. Too casually.
“Hardly 'nothing,'” the SecUnit scoffs, then catches itself, looking off into the distance again as soon as glances swing in its direction.
“I just introduced good ol’ SecUnit to the Sanctuary Moon wiki, that’s all,” Ratthi says. “I couldn’t believe it was such a big fan of the show, but basically hadn’t interacted with the fandom at all. There’s so much great fanfic and art and vids out there, it’s almost a crime not to!”
“What’s really a crime,” the SecUnit says, and even Mensah raises her eyebrows at the undercurrent of venom in its voice, “is the state of these wiki pages. Have these people even watched the show? How could anyone not know the correct spelling of the colony solicitor’s middle name?!”
“Let me get this straight,” Gurathin says. “This SecUnit, which we’re paying a substantial amount of money for, to provide security, is now spending all its time making edits on wiki pages for a garbage soap opera show?”
“It’s not garbage,” the SecUnit says. The look in its eyes suggests it wants to remove Gurathin’s fingernails one by one.
“It’s not a soap opera,” Ratthi protests at the same time, then pauses. “Well, maybe it is, a little. But it’s a legal drama at its heart, really. And a good one, too! Pin-Lee says some of the legal tactics used on the show are actually somewhat close to being accurate!”
“Wow,” Gurathin says. “High praise.”
“All right, all right.” Mensah moves between Gurathin and the SecUnit, placing a calming hand on Gurathin’s shoulder. “SecUnit, while we all appreciate your…enthusiasm for Sanctuary Moon, we just want to make sure all the security duties around the habitat are still being taken care of, that’s all.”
“Of course they are.” The SecUnit sounds mildly offended. “I can scan for threats and edit wiki pages at the same time.”
The unsaid undercurrent of how stupid do you think I am? is so thick Gurathin can almost taste it.
“All right, then,” he says, planting his hands on his hips. “When was the last time you checked the perimeter?”
There’s a pause. A long one.
“Thirty-one hours and forty-six minutes ago,” the SecUnit finally mutters.
Gurathin swings around to Ratthi.
“You. Broke. It.” He punctuates each word with a finger-jab. “You broke it even worse than it was already broken.”
“Guraaaa.” Ratthi spreads his arms, placating. “You can’t begrudge the SecUnit for having hobbies. And if anything, you should be encouraging its dedication to accuracy. We’re scientists! We know better than anyone how important it is for information to be complete and correct!”
“Scientific information!” Gurathin says. “Not—not meaningless facts about some fictional county sewer!”
“Colony solicitor,” the SecUnit says through clenched teeth.
“Whatever!”
“Actually, you’re right.” The SecUnit turns toward the door, re-activating its helmet. “I do need to go check the perimeter now. Thank you, Dr. Gurathin, for the excellent suggestion.”
As it marches out of the habitat, all Gurathin can do is wonder why a security construct even has the capacity for sarcasm in the first place.
***
The SecUnit is less than a third of the way around the perimeter when its comm unit chimes.
“Hey, sorry about that,” Ratthi says, sounding about ninety percent breezy and ten percent apologetic. “Didn’t mean to get you in trouble. Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t tell them how many pages are on the wiki, eh? Come to think of it, even I don’t know the exact number.”
“Thirty thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight,” the SecUnit says automatically.
“Right. And how many have you edited so far?”
“Seven hundred and ten.”
Ratthi’s laugh is bright. “That’s my SecUnit. And hey, when you’re done with all thirty thousand of those, let me know, so I can introduce you to the next best part of fandom: the kink meme.”
“The…what?”
“Trust me, Seccy,” Ratthi says. “You’re going to love it.”