(no subject)

[awkwardbot]

 I had been able to get to Milliways pretty reliably for a stretch, and then for some reason or other I was effectively shut out of the place for approximately 2,000 hours. Which was a real pain in the ass because I had no idea how Bucky’s memory reconstruction had gone and I ran out of Star Trek episodes for ART.

ART and its crew (including me) had spent most of that time supporting an Underground Railroad network (which is not what we call it, and it’s a pretty reductive term, but it’s something Earth humans will get, I hope). I had to do that thing where I pretended to be an augmented human security consultant, because the humans we were smuggling out of contract labor were guarded by SecUnits. In my experience, those humans didn’t distinguish between me and the constructs with standing orders to shoot them if they tried to escape.

(3 could not pass for human yet and the crew had told our passengers it was a SecUnit, against my advice. It wasn’t the <i>worst</I> fucking disaster it could have been, but it was still a fucking disaster and hopefully they’ll listen to me next time.) (And maybe 3 would listen to me next time, too.)

So if I seemed a little more paranoid and cranky than usual when Milliways finally showed up in a freehold station that didn’t show up on anyone’s official star charts, I had my reasons, okay?


[Tinytag: Murderbot]

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

He wasn't entirely certain whether or not he'd be able to find a path to the bar from Jabari lands, but given that he's been able to do so from weirder places over the last seventy-plus years, he figures it's worth a try. Bucky waits until he can be sure no one's going to come knocking on the guest room door, then waits longer, then gives it a pull.

The light and noise of the bar surrounds him, and he's smiling a little when he walks in - more so when he sees a familiar figure.

"SecUnit. Hey."

[awkwardbot]

Well, that’s one item I could delete from my (long) list of anxieties. “Bucky! So the memory reconstruction worked?”

He said it would work or he’d be gone, so it must have worked.

[nerves_of_ice]

He smiles.

"It did. Everything's there that should be, as far as we can tell, and the controls are gone. I know for sure because we tested it by trying to activate me," he says.

"Shuri's a genius."

[awkwardbot]

“I’m inclined to agree with you.” Mostly because I didn’t think anyone in settled space had figured out how to do a complete system refresh on an organic brain.

“Does it…feel like you thought it would? Having all the control code cleared out?”

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm not sure there are words to describe it," he says, with open honesty. "But it's one hell of a relief and a weight off my shoulders, I'll tell you that."

He tips his head toward the bar. "Let me stand you a round?"

[awkwardbot]

This kind of thing would never not be awkward. “Thanks for offering, but I can’t eat or drink. I don’t have anywhere for it to go.”

Being around Milliways and meeting so many humans wanted to share food with me, it had seemed like a good idea to come up with a polite and not-too-detailed way to explain why I couldn’t.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay," he says, matter-of-factly. "If there's an equivalent that you enjoy, scent or VR experience or whatever, then feel free, otherwise that's okay too."

He places his hand flat on the bar and murmurs a request for a cup of black coffee.

[awkwardbot]

I didn’t have to think about that one very long. Or at all, really. “I like media,” I said. “Bar has a big free media library, but her search indexing is terrible and there are no recommendation algorithms.”

Although Bar wasn’t tracking anyone’s media consumption habits for surveillance or targeted advertising, so she might not see a need for that kind of thing.

“If you can recommend something good, that would help a lot.”

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky grins at him.

"You want something like the kind of thing we listened to on the radio back before and during the war, or something more recent?"

[awkwardbot]

“I haven’t listened to any radio yet, actually.” Mostly I’d been watching television and film. Radio had been a major medium on Earth in the first half of the twentieth century: I was probably missing a lot.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Hey, Bar?" His smile is bright as sunrise and somehow makes him look much younger than his years. "Think you could come up with a way for SecUnit here to listen to the old Sherlock Holmes radio serial, the one from back in the thirties? Or, wait, I know, maybe The Shadow?"

A napkin appears with a smiley-face on it, and a link to a set of audio files appears in the feed.

[awkwardbot]

Bucky was a lot happier after getting his brain refresh than I’d been right after hacking my governor module. Although it wasn’t like I could have celebrated back when I’d done it, unless I wanted to get my organic parts liquefied and my inorganic parts recycled.

“Thanks, Bucky. I’ll play these later,” I said, as I pulled the audio files off the feed.

[nerves_of_ice]

"You're welcome," he says, and takes a sip of coffee. "I know it's not for everyone, especially these days, but radio serials used to be a big deal back before it was common for everyone to have a TV."

"Anyway. You've heard my big news. What's new with you?"

[awkwardbot]

“There’s a…” Wait, no, I had to back up a bit. “Okay. Corporate space doesn’t have chattel slavery for humans and augmented humans, but they do have contract labor, and sometimes the contracts can last a really long time. Long enough that people get old, and they have kids, and the kids have to serve out their contracts if they don’t complete them.”

Yeah, I know, there’s not a whole lot of difference between that and chattel slavery, is there.

[space_puffin]

Plip plapping around on his webbed feet, Puffy is wandering around. Upon spotting SecUnit he plip plaps excitedly over. "Hello!"

[awkwardbot]

A Puffy-related item from my task list came up: Get Puffy to levitate something with the Force. I’d put it there a while ago after talking to a Jedi about him.

“Hello, Puffy,” I said. “Are you interested in trying a fried protein snack?”

Since I can’t eat, it’s hard for me to figure out what humans might like to eat, let alone a Porg. But the little fried protein shapes popular with small humans on Preservation seemed appropriately Porg-sized, so why not?

[space_puffin]

"Food? Yes! Food! Please!" Fortunately, Puffy is very easy to please. Which is also why he is so 'puffy'.

He chirrups excitedly at the prospect of food. Fried protein snacks. Whatever.

Also, he's excited to see his friend.

[awkwardbot]

Good, because I didn’t know what other novel food to offer Puffy. I don’t know food. It usually isn’t that important to me.

“Okay. I’ll have to get some from the Bar. Come on.”

I walked over to the Bar and asked her for a container of fried protein snacks like they had on Preservation station, and a long serving fork (because I didn’t want to touch the food with my hands, ugh). I also asked for some marbles, for what I wanted Puffy to do next.

“Okay. These are shaped like different fauna on Preservation, but they’re not made of meat, it’s all cultured protein,” I explained, opening the container. The contents smelled of edible oil and yeast, from whatever they coated the protein with before they fried it. I stuck one of the snacks with the serving fork and offered it to Puffy. “Don’t ask me what kind of fauna it is, I have no idea.”

[space_puffin]

SecUnit is followed by the porg who hops up onto the counter waiting expectantly.

Yes, those are words. Do they have anything to do with food? Apparently. Does the porg care? No. Puffy isn't too particular about what sort of food he gets as long as it's food. Sure, he doesn't like coffee. But so far that's been it.

The offering is sniffed and then snatched with nomnomnomnoms. "Yes. Good."

[awkwardbot]

Okay, the Porg liked the protein shapes. Although it may have eaten just about anything. I fed it a few more textured protein shapes.

“Puffy, since I’ve given you some tasty food, can you do me a favor?”

I picked up one of the marbles. “Can you…” Would the Porg understand the word ‘levitate?’ Better be on the safe side. “…can you make this float in the air with the Force?”

If Puffy could do it, I’d take a recording to show Fives. I had a couple of drone cameras trained on us right now.

[space_puffin]

The offerings are gobbled up. They're not wrong; Puffy is not picky.

He tilts his head curiously at the request. Then at the marble.

One of the other marbles rapidly shoots off the table without him touching it. It's not being levitated but it is moving without him touching it.

[awkwardbot]

Well, that wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping for, but it wasn’t nothing, either. “Close enough.”

I offered Puffy another protein snack.

“If I were a small egg-stealing scavenger, I wouldn’t want to mess with you.”

[space_puffin]

After getting the snack, another marble goes shooting off the table.

Puffy gives him an expectant look. "Nother?"

Look what you've done now. Sure he's gotten them for free before they asked him to move the marbles but... maybe he can train his friend to give them to him whenever he shoots a marble.

Porg logic.

[awkwardbot]

“You don’t have to shoot any more marbles. I’ll just give you the rest of the protein snacks.”

It was kind of interesting, but I had to worry about Puffy hitting someone with a projectile if they passed by at the wrong time.

[space_puffin]

A long think here.

Unfortunately, for Murderbot, what Puffy has just learned is that he will get fed if he moves things around with the Force around them just to make him stop.

If this realization holds up remains to be seen, but it appears to be a good hypothesis.

"Kay!"