Slapdash Neural Wiring | The Murderbot Diaries | SecUnit Nine #2 [✓]

9. Vision

How do you feel? I said. I had felt a lot of complicated emotions through Cy's wall.

I feel great!

Not about fighting a fire. That was pretty great. I mean in general.

Stellar!

At work you feel stellar?

Yes!

Wow. Not the answer I had expected.

I mulled over whether I should show Cyan where I'd hidden Crypsis.

Everyone was potentially under corporate control. If Cyan stayed here, it would be. Then again, if I was lazy and did things because they were easy, and not because they were the right things to do, then maybe it was staying because it thought staying was easier, not because it was right. Maybe I could make leaving Deontologic a little easier. I decided to show it Crypsis.

I told it where I was going and I told Cyan that it didn't have to come with me if it didn't want to. I didn't trust Cy, but I wanted to.

Cyan said, If you're going to hide in a cargo container, then I'm coming with you.

We climbed back up the pile of cargo containers. It was challenging with only one arm but I managed by relying mostly on my legs and squinching myself upward like some kind of weird fauna that squinched.

What the fuck? Cyan said.

We had to move slowly because of me, but maybe Cyan would be thankful for that, since it didn't have eyes.

We're almost there, I said. As we neared the top of the pile, we scraped along the ceiling. I didn't fit with my arm attached to my back, so I braced myself in a nook with my legs, let go of handholds with my left hand, and carefully removed the arm from my back. Then I held my own arm and squished ourselves next to the ceiling.

What the fuck? Cyan said again as we crawled toward the cargo container.

Why do we swear so much? I said. I mean, we're constructs so where did we pick it up from?

Sailors.

That made me relax a little. Though it might have literally been true, because Cyan remembered more about my life than I did.

(Memory wipes had to be used more judiciously with Units like Cyan. It was a big advantage to have a Unit in enemy territory that had already learned from experience. Units working Security didn't need a personal history—humans thought that any dumbass could work Security, I guess. But a broad knowledge of human affairs was really important for a ComfortUnit who wanted to steal ciphers or get people to reveal proprietary information. Its ability to do its job came from integrating its data and experiences across domains, so memory wipes weren't great.)

We arrived at the cargo container with Inhalation Hazard and Crypsis inside.

As Cyan lost sight of itself from the cameras, it moved more slowly, operating by touch. Cyan must have trusted me a great deal because I could have pushed it off the pile of cargo containers or something. Not that the fall would kill it.

Why are you taking me to the least convenient place possible? Cyan said.

I'm really dumb, I admitted.

We climbed into the cargo container. I had to hang from above, one handed, and swing myself inside. Cyan followed me and closed the container, but it hesitated at the threshold.

I climbed into the passenger side and waited for Cyan, but Cyan just stared.

The vehicle is directly ahead, I told Cy.