serialskiller | SAIL IC Inbox

"Fucking glorious!" Erin claps her hands in genuine excitement. "Then the thing you need to understand is that the Muppets are real actors and not, in any circumstance, not real actors, no matter what else you might see or hear to the contrary."

"...Actually, one of 'em is legally the only non-human person to testify before my homeland's government," she adds. Erin finds a spot on the floor to sit, her posture almost meditative. "...Hey." Her voice is softer now. "I realize I probably upset you the other day. But. If you have questions about anything I said...I'm trying to be more open about that, with..." the word 'people' dies on her lips. "Friends. I can't promise you answers if you ask questions. I can't promise not to upset you again. But you're free to ask."

“I don’t know what to ask, really.”

It rolls over in the bed to look at her quietly. It’s easy with her, there isn’t even the risk of eye contact. So it looks at her, more freely than almost anyone else.

"I'm not really used to inventing leading questions about the worst part of my life," Erin admits. "...But I should maybe clarify, at least a little, that all this," she gestures to her entire body, "is the result of being owned. I was taken from my home to a place that is...different. To exist there, I had to be different too. The man who owned me is not human. Man might not even be the right description, but there's not a lot else to call a Patriarch."

She tilts her head up at the ceiling with a soft sound, from low in her throat. "...I don't want you to not talk about the things that are important to you, even if they might upset me. But I can't promise I won't upset you when I react to them. It's taken me a really long time just to accept that I'm not doing okay, that I'm not supposed to be doing okay after everything I've been through. I do not have a fuckin' grip on myself, and I'm told that I need to spend some time being like this because of all the time I spent squeezing myself until I broke. And I'm getting all of this out of the way now because after Treasure Island the only thing I'm gonna want to talk about is Muppet Treasure Island."

"What do you mean, 'squeezing yourself until you broke'?" It's probably not the question she's expecting, but...that turn of phrase makes something in its mechanical chest feel inexplicably tight and heavy, makes it feel warm like someone is staring at it, even though she can't be looking at it, not really, not actually.

It feels familiar.

Erin considers finding a polite way to not answer. She considers it for a good long time. SecUnit...

It hasn't asked for her help. But it's also been understanding in a way few people in her life have ever really been.

In the end, Erin hangs her head and lets her cloud of black hair conceal her face. "I don't know if it's like this for...Units," she begins, softly. "Psychologically or physiologically, I genuinely have no idea. But for humans, even humans like me, there's...god. How did the Bishops say it."

She gets out a knife and turns the blade over in her hand, rolling it from the back to the palm over and over in a steady rhythm. "...For a long time. For a very, very long time, for my whole life you could say, there was a series of people I was expected to be, or that I thought I was supposed to be. A good student, at first. Then, a monster. I spent decades in that second role, and playing dozens of other roles inside it - trader, bait, mercenary, murderer. Each one of them with expectations, every expectation of just. The most dire fucking necessity. There was no time to just be Erin Peters. No one around whom I was really myself. No...no chance to share my genuine feelings. I had a grip on myself but it was like squeezing a delicate glass. I was cracking under it, and now I've got to try to be just Erin, at long last, with all those long and deep cracks in the me of me. Something tells me you understand."

It exhales heavily.

Which is weird, objectively speaking, because its rate of respiration is much, much lower than a human's. It sighing like that is absolutely a willful thing.

"Yes. I do understand. Not...the multiple people you've had to be, quite. But the necessity of filling a role instead of just...being. And, maybe, being cracked. On the inside. I wouldn't know how to begin to just be myself."

Or, perhaps, it wouldn't recognize what it's already done toward that end.

"I've been lucky in a sense. I ought to be dead; instead I met people willing to believe in me when I couldn't even understand that I wasn't being me. They've all been...very kind."

Erin halts the roll of the knife and holds it by the tip. "Most of the advice I was given presupposes being a human person. You're... familiar enough to my frame of reference there, but I'm sure you see the trouble."

When she mentions having people willing to believe in her, it almost seems...wistful. Nostalgic? Something of a hint of Winter mingled with Spring's desire, and not jealousy.

It had people, once upon a time.

"Being a human person seems highly overrated, Erin."

"You don't have to tell me twice. Sometimes folks like me get all lovey-dovey, all-life-is-sacred, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I prefer to fight, and to kill, if I can get a good excuse."

She finally lifts her head, looking up at the ceiling. "But I've seen what happens with my people when we decide we're not human. It gets ugly, SecUnit, and I do mean even in comparison to me saying just now that I like to kill. They end up hurting themselves and so many others."

"Do you think I'm at risk of hurting anyone because of my stance on my own personhood?" That question is so, so quiet. The sort of quiet that makes anything feel more serious, like a child whispering their most solemn secret to a trusted adult.

Erin gives this serious consideration; a minute into an a long and silent Think, the knife starts dancing around her hand again.

"That's difficult for me to answer," she says at last. "Not least because I barely know you. If I'm being honest I still emotionally conceive of you as a person, because you meet me a lot of what I think of as the markers of personhood. But like...I would assume a talking book is a person, my definition is rather fuckin' broad. So let's reframe my statement instead, yeah?"

The blade gleams merrily in the light of Erin's gunpowder. The scent of sandalwood drifts into the room.

"The people I've talked about conceive of not being people because they've been hurt; further, their essential needs aren't being met. They're deprived: of food or shelter, of safety, of agency over their lives, of community, of love. Their decision not to identify as people is a symptom of this deprivation; so is the harm. Some hurt themselves to escape it, and might even die. Others, to feel powerful, to feel in control, think of themselves as more than people, and hurt others to demonstrate their power. I used to...I still do that. You've expressed needs that are not met, at home. How's that going here?"

"Ask me that again after the next shore excursion where we're encouraged to kill one another. This moment might be safe enough. That doesn't mean things will stay that way. The battle royale showed what's possible, here. I had flashbacks during it, up until I was killed."

And it is at least self-aware enough to name those as flashbacks. At least. With her. Here in privacy.

"I have those too," Erin admits in a soft murmur. "And it explains a lot of why you were so jumpy at the beach. With a gun to hand."

Erin sighs. "I wish Ramona could have this conversation. Like she's had so many with me. I...well, I feel a bit like the blind leading the blind here, SecUnit. It's taken me so goddamn long to even start trying to heal. To look for my renewal instead of cheap thrills. I still love cheap thrills and I've got to figure out how much they factor into my life these days, but... you're asking questions that have beat the ass of philosophy since humans could talk."

She raises her head. "But... There's never going to be a good time to ask. Not here, not at home. It sucks to have to work on your shit while you're living under siege but that part I'm good at. So I'm gonna ask a hard question, and I want you to really think about it. Work on it with others if you like. What is it you really want? Try to imagine a you that's happy with you."

Murderbot is silent for thirty seconds. Still and silent, not even blinking.

"You don't have to answer now. You don't have to answer at all. Your field is not mine to tend and I will only help if you invite me. But..."

She sighs. "Like I said before: we are none of us sovereign. Even the lonely are not alone. I won't bring it up again."

She gestures at the DVDs. A peace offering.

"Don't." There's a much briefer pause as it deconstructs language briefly, then gives up on proper grammar. "Don't not bring it up again. It hurts. It hurts a lot, but I don't know that that's a reason not to."

"You're braver than I was. When Ramona asked me that question I became her first subject since she became Queen of Spring to hit her right in the face," Erin confesses, frankly. "...Still, what I said about there being no rush is true. I've had something like two years to sit on this question and if I'm being generous I've got maybe a third of an answer, mostly about who I don't want to be. That, too, is important to know...but it's incomplete."

She sighs. "SecUnit...there won't be a time when you have peace and safety enough to solely work on yourself. There just won't be. If you wait for your perfect moment, you'll wait forever. Consider that, alongside the question. You've got to live on this fuckass boat next to all of the rest of us, after all. Just like we have to live next to you."

"I've tried not to be too awful to live with. I've only ever shot two passengers. One was during the battle royale. I told her about the flashbacks."

A pause, a glance in Erin's direction. "I told her about what I was flashing back to."

"You'll find quickly that I'm not going to ask," Erin replies in a soft voice. "If you want to share, I'll listen, but the Lost don't ask. In that way we ensure that we won't be asked in turn."

The knife vanishes back from whence it came.

"Asking you feels really...pushy? Rude? No, more than just that."

It shakes its head. "Would you rather stop this conversation and just watch the movies?"

Erin opens her mouth to say no, thinks, and then says, "Yeah, I think I would. This has been...a lot for me too."

"...I was going to ask if you mind me singing along but this is your first time. You need the unvarnished glory of Tim Curry as Long John Silver."

"I don't know the actor or the role. So...yes, let me see it as it is." It pulls out its media player, offering it to Erin. "There's enough room for us to share the bed without touching, if you want."

"Genuinely appreciate the offer but hand to God I'm enjoying floor time. This boat has been the most floor time I've gotten in fucking months and it pleases my lizard brain. The floor is my ally."

Erin does, however, shrug out of her armor in a series of motions that each get their own grunt. The layers under it are utilitarian, hard-wearing and comfortable.

"It'll take you to a menu. Just hit play and let's do an it."

"Do you want a blanket? Not my weighted blanket, but the regular bed blanket and a pillow?"

Even as it asks, it's going to hit the play.

"Hrmm...no to the pillow but yes to the blanket, I could stand to be entombed in the coziness."

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