serialskiller | SAIL IC Inbox

Performance reliability stable enough. You weren't at the party. Also for the best, I think.

[Yeah, it noticed and cared about that so okay shut up times two.]

I left early and decided to not come back. Everyone who died is starting to wake up, back on the single day turnaround. I think we can assume things are back to normal. Though we probably shouldn't. Was anyone close to you affected?

Define parameters for 'affected' as you mean it here. Everyone on the ship was, at least a little, affected.

[That includes you, even if you weren't there, asshole.]

[This pause brought to you by Max staring into the middle distance for a while. He doesn't need to look at his phone to text he merely has to hold it, so he's just going to stand here with his phone in a death grip, watching the horizon ]

Overtaken.

No one I was particularly close to was overtaken before I was killed at the party. However, I did have conversations with some of them while they were. [It can't bring itself to say the word 'possessed', right now. Perhaps because talking with Max, it's thinking of them as 'infected', as if by malicious code.] My choice to not immediately kill one of them led to him passing word among them that I was a potential friend. This was, of course, before he started killing people himself.

[Which is a whole other weird bag of fish.]

I was told that's how it spread, killing people allowed others to use their bodies as hosts. Do you think its better if they remember what their bodies did without their control, or to remain unaware...

[ It's not really a question more just random wondering, filling time before he gets to the real thing that's bothering him. ]

They're not going to be okay. Most have not experienced such a thing before. This month is going to be as terrible as the last.

Better question: is it better for them to remain unaware, or to be told by the ones they harmed? All over the ship, that's the decision people are actually having to make: what, if anything do you tell someone about what their body did? I can answer the question of 'would I rather know' from experience. I went back to find out.

[Max's last text hits something deep. Murderbot...well, as it just said, it has experience. It knows what it's like. But Max surely isn't talking to it because of that. Right?]

They'll band together. Small groups and large. Drink about it. Cry about it. Humans have mechanisms for processing emotions like this. For making it through trauma.

[They. The organics. Not Max and Murderbot. They're on the outside of this thing.]

Was that worth it to find out? I know what I've done, and sometimes think I'd rather not. But that decision wasn't left up to me. Do they? Good for them. I hope it helps.

[ The humans obviously. Because the inorganics don't need such things. Except. Well...]

Prior to the party, did you speak to Maeve at all?

I didn't talk to Maeve. She and I don't talk much, in general. We don't have much in common [Or perhaps they have too much in common. Either way, Murderbot hasn't made a point of building that connection. Speaking of connections, it can make this one:]

She was one of those who was overtaken?

Yes.

[ He almost leaves it at that. A single word that says everything that needs to be said right? ]

I knew for a while, but I didn't do anything about it. That was likely a mistake.

I knew about Giles and about Crabb. I wonder, now, if I owe those two an apology. For not handling them then and there. It's not like Crabb and I can be any more awkward with one another. I shot her during the battle royale.

[...like Max shot Murderbot. But it's not holding onto that, obvs.]

I think we probably owe a few apologies.

[That's easier to admit if he's not the only one at fault. If they all fucked up together then it's fine right? ]

This conversation with Maeve is going to be the absolute worst. To be clear, I didn't know they were planning to murder everyone, and that would have changed the actions I took had I been aware. Though Chase did probably warn me in a way, but I didn't realize what he meant at the time. The main question I'm wondering is how do we prevent this from happening again? Or even ensure they're all back to being themselves?

I didn't know about the murder plans either. When Ginger, the one in Giles, and I first talked it was about the futility of living up to expectations. The advice he gave me was almost reassuring. And now I don't know how to think about it. Again, that was before he murdered Ossie. Anyway, I'm not someone who has answers about preventing this. But I can help monitor people to see if there's any continued problem. Analyze movement and speech patterns with my drones.

Someone killed Ossie? Well, that's unfortunate. That he spoke to you as an equal makes it worse. Knowing what they would do, that they were planning this, and still they tried to get to know others with full knowledge they would kill us later. A coordinated and planned strike against our group of passengers they've never even met before. I suppose that makes it easier for them if we're simply non-entities. Numbers on a spreadsheet in a way, determining they need X amount of bodies for X number of previous passengers. So it doesn't make sense if they attempted to make friends. Unless they were hoping for the sadistic pleasure of the eventual betrayal. Reminds me of home in the worst possible way. That would be appreciated. I think should there be suspicious circumstances in the future we should end it immediately and not hope for a better outcome by waiting. I'm willing to do that. People trust you, no one trusts me. And I can be extremely discreet should the need arise.

[He doesn't mind getting his hands dirty with a little murder here or there if it means he doesn't have to watch anyone else lose control of their own body.]

Their mistake.

[Right, that's horribly self-loathing and not entirely true, but it can't bother itself into trying to retract that statement. Though maybe the mistake is, just as equally, people not trusting Max. He's self-centered, craven, greedy. And reliable, in his way.]

Is that so? You believe that do you?

[You're not getting away with that SecUnit.]

The last time my body was controlled, I killed fifty-seven human miners. And four ComfortUnits. That's almost better numbers in one night than the ghosts of the ship managed in what, three weeks?

And how many have you killed when your body wasn't controlled by someone other than you? The idea behind trust, is that it's in you specifically, not the body itself. I'd commiserate but I generally get forced into doing paperwork, serving drinks, being a poor excuse for a butler, and a valet. My body count is relatively low when I'm not sentient.

I was built to be a murderbot, as much as everyone here wants to pretend I'm a nice tame pet bot. Also, you WOULD make a really shitty butler.

Extremely doubtful anyone thinks of you as a pet. You said yourself how hard people resisted the idea of you being an appliance, they're not going to subject a different sort of servitude on you.

[ Max may not understand pets. But the sentiment is there anyway. ]

I was an absolutely abysmal butler. I'm surprised I wasn't crushed into a cube at some point.

It's not an explicit thing, it's an expectation. But I might be projecting. I was bought by the last survey crew I worked for, with the intent of bringing me home with them to care for.

Did they say that or did they say they wanted to save you? Those are two different scenarios.

Within their polity I would be a provisional citizen with a mandated human guardian. That's just an owner with extra steps.

Knowing next to nothing about your world I can already think of dozens of exploitable loopholes you could use to your advantage. That's what I did. Technically I'm not permitted to own property, being that I am property. But I do own several businesses and shell companies and don't belong to anyone. It starts somewhere.

I did not trust that they'd let me start. It's irrelevant, now. I'll never see any of them again.

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makesomedeals - 2022-11-03 05:59 (UTC) - Expand

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serialskiller - 2022-11-03 14:10 (UTC) - Expand