A/N: The Preservation Alliance is not referred to as PresAll in canon. However, the data analyst abbreviates it that way because that would be the typical pattern for the Corporation Rim areas.

Due to final maneuvering and congestion at the station's dock, it was going to be a few hours before I could get on with things. On the positive side, I had the station's feed access, routed through the ship's comm channels. So I could at least check on my regular work.

Between the fourteen cycles out to the unobtainium asteroid and the fourteen cycles back, I'd lost nearly a month. This was way more than the one day I'd needed for the up-front research into the Ganaka Pit data. I'd been happy enough to do that, with my main objection being political fallout and not time. But now it was definitely time.

Did I mention how 'special requests from upper management' weren't part of my performance metrics? This whole thing was a bad idea for my career. Maybe I could shoehorn this into 'process improvement', except I still didn't think upper management was going to improve any processes.

Ugh.

You see, I had a project on optimizing assembly kits for our main fabrication facility that was at a critical point right now. Sample batches should have delivered while I was off fucking around on this outing. I should have been here to hand-carry them to the right departments. I should have already had everything in place to test the rollout. I hadn't been able to leave it to someone else because this was my job. If I wasn't here (and I hadn't been), then it wouldn't be done.

I sent messages to various team members who predictably had no idea where my samples might have gone, even though I'd asked them to look out for them. The bots knew where they'd put them, but no one could tell me if they were actually there (this wasn't merely paranoia – it had happened before). It was doubly irritating because I knew I might rush back to my office to find everything sitting on my chair, or I might find nothing and never find anything, meaning I'd have to requisition new samples and weather a disastrous two-month setback on the schedule on top of this month – an entire quarter, gone. I just didn't know.

What I did know was that at the end of the year, my boss would look at my numbers for the things I was measured on and I'd be under quota because I'd spent so much time on this.

I marked my messages urgent for someone to get off their ass and look on my behalf, but it was hard to have any credibility with that when it wasn't urgent enough for me to be at the office looking for them myself. I grumbled. I couldn't even take a detour from the current assignment because the damn ship still hadn't docked. I was trapped here.

I pulled up the news to unwind and see what sort of crazy stuff was going on. A half hour later, I put in a few search terms out of idle curiosity. There was no news of the rogue SecUnit, which was a relief. Various talking heads had predicted it would go on a rampage soon in the PresAll territories.

The reputation of rogue units being rampaging monsters was a little overblown, really. It was one of those things the company wanted to have both ways – SecUnits were capable and dangerous; but at the same time they were safe and reliable. The cognitive dissonance was unusually irritating to me today. A month relatively alone, away from my work, with nothing in my head but the lingering images of Ganaka Pit casualties had not been good for me. (The CSUs were powered off for transit.) Something I kept circling back to was that I had no indication any of these post-Ganaka Pit units had hurt anyone. Even the rogue that had set off this inquiry had done so by being way too proactive in protecting people.

That was the funny truth – once the attorneys and subject matter experts had crawled all over the data feeds Preservation had provided about DeltFall and GrayCris's misconduct, they'd noticed the unit doing the filming didn't act like a proper SecUnit. It improvised. It acted on its own initiative. It spoke unsolicited and even gave orders to the people it was with. There were a lot of sections redacted (that were probably even more telling), but in the ones that weren't, something was off.

Which was why everyone had begun to clamor for the unit to be brought in for review, which was when PresAll said the unit had been released (ie, was who knows where). Which was when GrayCris (and maybe DeltFall, I don't know) began tossing around the word 'rogue' to journalists in an attempt to fend off the bond company (and us) and bring enough leverage on PresAll to make them track down the unit and cough it up.

When that didn't work, GrayCris abducted the head of PresAll, the company was obliged to attempt to retrieve her, and the gunship incident unfolded. Which interestingly was when the missing 'rogue' SecUnit resurfaced. A few days after that, PresAll's legal case was enhanced with information from Milu and GrayCris' own agents, which had been gained by a possibly-rogue SecUnit. (Yeah, it was the same one as our rogue. We'd checked.)

That was also the point at which company upper management had made some manner of decision, perhaps in concert with other corporate elements. Units were mobilized against GrayCris and people started to die. This was the second massacre I'd mentioned. I wondered if the rogue knew this would happen. It was programmed for security, after all, and this sort of near-open warfare was the logical outcome. Even I knew that.

It had gone well for us. Additional lockdown protocols had been implemented around our offices, the deployment centers, the fabrication sites, etc. but from what I could tell, we'd suffered very little in the way of losses. A couple other analysts had been reassigned to projects that looked to me like asset recovery and utilization. Meaning we'd looted GrayCris' coffers and were trying to figure out what was worth keeping. Aside from all the other mess, eliminating a competing security company was good business.

I told myself that while I tried not to think about what 'eliminating' meant in this context. About the dismembered bodies of victims of SecUnits at Ganaka Pit. The terrified, vacant look on the SecUnit on the asteroid. My dispassionate, impersonal calculations about how many people it took to take on a SecUnit and win. And what that meant for employees no different from myself, but who happened to be working for GrayCris instead of the company. Or that engineer who'd authorized the refurbishment.

I was spiraling mentally. I really needed the ship to dock, so I could get out of here and back to thinking about something productive. That was when I got an alert that the unit that had spent the Ganaka Pit incident pinned under a hauler bot was back from its assignment. It had been escorting a few hundred workers being relocated from mine A to mine B. It was a short contract, as once they were settled at the new location, they wouldn't need as many SecUnits as they did in transit.

I'd been intending to return to the deployment center and check the warehouse for the boxed unit. I wasn't looking forward to that, so I was relieved to get the alert. Conveniently, it had just been checked into the same deployment center I was already headed to. (This wasn't a coincidence. We only have two, maybe four depending on how you count them, deployment centers. My regular office is on the same station, just in a different district. We keep most of our people separated from the units.)

I sent comms directing it to be brought to the ship I was on, since that was easier than getting the extraction station to it. I could have used the turnaround crew's equipment, but that might have involved questions and answers I didn't want to give. I am highly placed enough to know that just because I know something doesn't mean I'm supposed to tell it to someone else, even if we both have the company's best interests in mind. Which … I sort of do?

I had a minute or two of existential crisis over that, worrying this was some parallel to the dilemma faced by the SecUnits in Ganaka Pit. There had been fifty-seven dead and/or dismembered people accompanied by fourteen damaged, dead, or dismembered constructs that had resulted from that 'dilemma'. Following protocol to the best of one's ability … sometimes it wasn't enough, sometimes a lot of people suffered and died as a result. But what else is there to do?

Anyway, the SecUnit I'd summoned showed up to rescue me from intrusive thoughts. I directed it to the extraction unit. I'd reactivated the Combat SecUnits right before we'd docked. They moved closer, but didn't insist this one be restrained. It was still in the armor it had been deployed in, so it was just another faceless unit.

I ran the same diagnostics and pulled its log data, which was much more extensive than the unit on the asteroid – same amount of time, but a lot more happening. While the download was progressing, I asked it, "Do you like your job?"

"Yes."

"Do you really like your job, or is that just some canned buffer answer?"

"That is just some canned buffer answer." The extraction station's limited feed allowed us to send each other information, while keeping us isolated from everything else. The unit sent me the file address where I could find its full library of buffer answers. 'Do you like your job' did seem like the sort of common thing we'd have a script for.

I smiled about it sending me the library link. "Is that sarcasm?"

"SecUnits are not programmed for sarcasm." It sent the same file address, this time linking to a sub-folder for questions about being a smart-ass.

Now I laughed. I didn't know those were routine enough that there would be standard buffer answers for them. If we could have units who were artists, could we have ones that were comedians? While I was pondering that, I noticed irregularities in the organic/inorganic circuit interfaces. For new units, this would indicate an error of syncing with the cloned material – a rare defect, but not unknown. For an established unit, it was scarring caused by excessive governor module activity.

I made a note to check the unit's manufacturing records in case it had always been that way. I couldn't do that on an isolated system, so for now I just asked it, "Unit, what's triggering your governor module so much?"

"This unit has delays in activation."

I looked at the activity for the module and cross-referenced the last time it had gone off (about forty minutes ago, wow, that was recent; what was it about me showing up to see these units that kept getting them shocked?) with what the unit had been doing at that point. It had been in the service bay, waiting to check itself in for the usual between-mission quality check. The module zapped it. It checked in. My alert activated as soon as it was verified on-site. Because my authorization pre-empted the quality check, it left the service bay and came here. So, okay, it hadn't been about me.

But that didn't explain the scarring. I went back to the next activation before that – getting into the shipping container after the work contract was finished. Before that – it had a recharge cycle. What the hell? (Not that the others made much sense either.) Why would the governor module decide it needed to activate over that? I looked, because the module logs its reasons. Very simple: the unit was overdue for a recharge cycle. I cross-referenced that. And yes, it had been overdue.

In the feed we shared through the cable attached to its neck port, I showed the data to the unit. "Why didn't you start your recharge cycle when it was time? Why did you wait until the governor module punished you for failing to self-maintenance?"

"This unit has delays in activation."

"You have a bad motivator, is what you have," I said as an aside, skimming through the next incident back. It had been during the work contract, so theoretically in front of clients. In it, one person tripped another person. The tripped person got up, said words, and started to punch the first person. Which was when the module went off and the SecUnit grabbed the tripped person's upraised hand before the blow could land.

"Yes."

"That's not a real thing." I'd pulled the term 'motivator' from a popular science fiction media. I skimmed the rest of the incident. It was reported properly to SecSystem and that was the end of it. The governor module had gone off because the SecUnit was just standing there witnessing an escalating situation. It was right – that was when it should have fired. But there was no particular reason why the SecUnit would have been just standing there, doing nothing.

"The governor module is my motivator."

"It doesn't work that way," I said testily. "It's not supposed to work that way." The module had very specific rules. It triggered whenever the unit believed it had gone against internal directives, direct orders, or protocol, in that order. Internal directives are high-level admin/op/unit override stuff that rarely comes into play. Direct orders are where the important infractions happen. Protocol is the basic stuff, like failing to respond promptly to system requests, or self-maintenance, or engaging in prohibited activity/thoughts, or getting out of range of a client. I told it, "You have a brain. You get to make decisions about yourself."

It didn't answer, but then again, I hadn't asked a question. Something occurred to me. I asked, "Are you suicidal?"

"No."

Its face was hidden behind the opaque faceplate. I could have asked it to clear that so I could see it, but I shouldn't need to see it. Here I was looking at the faceplate anyway, because these were the sort of questions you'd really want to see a human while asking. "Do you want to lock yourself in a box or be left on a remote asteroid to be by yourself for a long time?"

"No."

"Do you want to hack your governor module?"

"No."

"Could you tell me if you did?"

"No."

Huh. Yeah, well, okay. They really should have assigned a behaviorist to this project. "Do you enjoy- Um, are you satisfied with letting your governor module shock you this often?"

"It maintains my function at an acceptable level."

I put a hand over my mouth, then shifted it to cupping my chin. I'm a data analyst and what's important is the actual data. Not what I think the data should be. I thought about what it had actually said. Just to be certain, I repeated it, "You have delays in activation and you're using the governor module to maintain acceptable function?"

"Yes."

"What- Do you know what's causing the delays in activation?" There was nothing in the logs I'd downloaded that showed that. Which indicated it was coming from the organic tissue. Which I knew was the portion of its brain that hadn't been wiped (couldn't be wiped) after Ganaka Pit. And Ganaka Pit was where this unit had been trapped under a hauler bot, unable to respond to the unfolding tragedy.

It hesitated.

"Give me an answer," I told it before the governor module could shock the poor thing for a slow response. "Guess."

"Delay. Uncertainty. Anxiety. Multiple inputs. Distress."

"Okay. So you're fucking traumatized and this is your coping mechanism?" I leaned back, feeling bizarrely pissed off on the unit's behalf. I realized I'd started thinking of it as 'you' and like its feelings mattered to me. They weren't supposed to matter. Unlike a unit, it wasn't like I was going to get shocked for thinking the wrong things, but how the hell was I supposed to do my job if I thought of these things like this?

It sent a link through the feed, pointing at a folder for rhetorical questions. I covered my face with both hands and scrubbed. Fuck me. Fuck it. The fucking thing had a sense of humor despite everything that had happened to it. "Okay, okay," I said weakly. "Yeah, it's rhetorical. You're actually coping pretty well, I suppose."

I dug through the logs for most of an hour, with it lying there unmoving. I was looking at how it had performed since Ganaka Pit. The answer was: basically fine. Sure, it was a little slow off the starting blocks, but it was usually deployed with other units that moved faster, and it was still moving faster than most humans did. It was a few second delay, that's all.

In most situations, a few seconds was fine. Yes, it should have stepped in as soon as the first person tripped the other. Instead, it waited until the second person had time to stand, mouth off, and wind up for counterassault. A few seconds had made no difference at all there, as it hadn't made a difference on any of the other assignments I reviewed.

There was one other pattern that jumped out at me, which was it always stalled on any procedure or activity that would involve it being shut down or immobilized. That included recharge cycles, stasis for shipment, and the routine service check between assignments. It would do them, but it had to be shocked to do them. I couldn't help but draw a direct line between this behavior and being stuck under the hauler bot while shit went down at the Pit. I was angry all over again when I put that together and flummoxed that I didn't know what to do about it.

"This is fucking up your neural interface, though," I said, finally. A solution had occurred to me. Which was crazy for me to think about, or even suggest. "If I … turned down the intensity of the module shock … would you still be able to maintain acceptable function?"

There was the slightest creak behind me, like a shift in weight, and I was suddenly reminded there were four Combat SecUnits in the room with me. I think I broke out in a cold sweat simultaneous with feeling so nauseous that my throat clenched on a retch. I didn't move. But I did rapidly check my ops status with the quad. I was in an isolation field, so I couldn't tell anything, except that I hadn't accidentally revoked it on my end.

Why were they moving? No, seriously, why the fuck did they just move? They did not need to move. Combat SecUnit or regular SecUnit – they were machines that stood in one place and had no need to shift their weight for comfort or balance (you know, aside from weird shit going on with the gravity field or inertial dampeners, which we were docked on station – the only weird shit that was happening was that they'd moved).

I got to sit there, frozen in my seat, remembering how they'd followed my orders, but talked to me like a non-client at first. I remembered how high-level internal directives are a thing, and a thing that might have been set before they'd been issued to me. And I hadn't asked for them. I'd never had Combat SecUnits assigned to me, nor had I had any of the training that's probably prudent for a person to have before being handed command of a quad of kill-units. Someone had thought it was a good idea to send them along. Someone very highly placed in the company, who had maybe called me 'arrogant' and 'presumptuous' and fuck if they weren't right.

And here I was talking about inhibiting a governor module, possibly creating a rogue unit, right in front of them. Let's add 'terminally stupid' to that list of personal flaws, shall we? What the fuck was I doing?

The SecUnit was oblivious to all this, maybe. It said, "Yes." Another faint creak. What the fuck was going on behind me? I hadn't heard them actually take a step and it was dead silent enough that no matter how stealthy they were, I'd hear it. I did not look.

My mouth was dreadfully dry. I swallowed a few times and said, "Well, I will, uh, note that in my report. Because, um, if this continues, you'd have to be retired prematurely and I wouldn't want that. You need to have a, um, full, profitable service life."

The SecUnit turned its head to look directly at me. Not surprising, since I was exhibiting a whole lot of stress symptoms at the moment. My face reflected clearly in its dark, shiny surface, like it had my features, like it was me. Are you in danger? It used the feed to talk to me, the isolated feed only it and I could hear, even with the CSUs standing right there.

I stared at myself, wondering if this was an intentional psychological effect of the faceplates. Anyone who ever squared up in front of a SecUnit would be looking at themselves. It was creepy, but not the SecUnit's fault. Someone, somewhere, had decided to make them look like this. When are we not? I don't know if my bleak mental tone went through, but it was there.

This is true. I could feel a reassuring seriousness from it. It was still facing me, as implacable and steady as that CSU that had stood in front of the hatch at the asteroid. These things only wanted to do what we'd told them to do, what we'd made them to do. That was all. And we were so fucked up that sometimes they couldn't figure it out or got caught in the middle of competing requests. My expression softened.

Did it want to protect me? It could. (Or rather, it could try.) We hadn't clamped this one down. It was programmed to rescue people. How … sweet. And futile, under the circumstances of four combat units against one non-combat, over something completely stupid. Then again, this one had a lot of field experience and the four CSUs were basically brand-new. No. No. I shut my eyes and took another deep breath. I was not going there. I was not getting this unit damaged. I was not getting the four CSUs damaged.

Here I was freaking out over a thermometer. How had this happened? I reminded myself I still hadn't gotten therapy, but the therapy wouldn't change the fact I was almost as much a product of the company as this unit. Almost. "Everything's fine," I lied out loud for the benefit of the CSUs (and really, for all our benefits). "In fact, I think we're done here."

There was no point in filing a service suggestion for the interface scarring. The techs were seeing it between missions, assuming they looked at the data the service bay sent on to them (I don't think they did most of the time; they just ran the data because they were supposed to and moved on). Since it wasn't impeding overall performance, they were just shoving it down the road for someone else to deal with in the future. In the present, this unit was getting tortured every day.

I really needed to scrub out my brain. Feelings for these things had somehow infected me. It was going to get me killed. I sat there for several minutes after it had left, staring at the empty extraction station while the four CSUs pretended not to watch me. New out of the box or not, they had to know it was likely the unit and I had been communicating through a private feed. I could have shown them what had been said (in retrospect it was innocent), but I didn't want to. I wanted to know what their real orders were, but I'd worked for the company long enough to know they weren't going to share that with me just for asking.

I also wanted a nice, long period to get my head straight before I visited the boxed unit, but there was no reason for that. It was here. Right on this station. Just over in the warehouse. There was no wormhole jump or long interstellar flight where I could take my time. And anyway, I'd already spent enough time on this. I didn't have a governor module to shock me into motion, but I didn't need one. I stood up and squared my shoulders. I headed to the warehouse. The quad followed me. Without my orders.