A TMBD fic inspired by the weekly prompt from @murderbotprompts! Thank u murderserver for encouraging me to write fic for the first time in YEARS! I might continue this I have many ideas!
There were parts of me (my inorganics mostly) that I couldn’t do anything about without really fucking with my shit. Sure, I was able to remove my own hand or let ART add 2cm to my femurs, but that was easy compared to what it would take to get to my inorganics, locate the pcompany’s logo, and sand or file or melt it off.
The logos will just have to stay there.
Thankfully, there were parts of me that I could do things about, without needing a medical suite or a super-intelligent AI’s help. I mean, I asked ART for help anyway but that was because I figured someone should know what I’m planning on doing. But I didn’t need it.
We were on a “cargo run” in the Tranguli system to investigate if the rumors of colony collapse were greatly exaggerated (so far the answer is yes), so I had plenty of downtime to make my plan. Once it was ready I shoved the data packet into our shared workspace and immediately started episode 56 of Worldhoppers in a futile hope it’ll ping back in acknowledgement and that’ll be that.
0.05 seconds later it paused the episode and shoved the packet back at me.
This is a black market tattoo parlor on a mercenary planet on the edge of the corporation rim.
I pinged it an affirmative.
It gave the feed equivalent of pinching the bridge of its nose and sighing deeply.
I pulled the coordinates to the front of our shared workspace.
It started playing Worldhoppers again, while it continued the feed equivalent of staring at me pointedly.
I sighed and gave in. I should have just started with this but my decision making is shit, obviously. I sent it a copy of an old company contract, with the relevant section highlighted.
Any alterations made to the Contracted Company Security Unit(s) (hereafter “the unit(s)”) must be approved by the company. Exceptions may be made for functional alterations completed during the contract period which are essential to ensure the functioning of the unit(s) and that are necessary for the completion of security related functions. The Company reserves the right to charge the undersigned for the cost of adjusting or fixing any modifications conducted during the contract. Allowed modifications are functional only. Any modifications that require significant alteration upon completion of the contract and/or return of the unit(s) that are solely cosmetic in nature are not allowed. Cosmetic modifications will constitute a violation of the contract and the unit(s) will no longer be covered by the Company warrantee and the warrantee will be considered null and void.
It took a subjective 10 years and objective .000003 seconds for ART to process the information, and stop staring at me to through the feed. I didn’t think it would need me to explain, which was good because I didn’t want to. Another .000001 second passed, and I felt its attention shift.
It put in the coordinates and sent a message to Seth that we had another lead and would be delayed by 10 cycles in our return to PSMNT, before leaning on me in the feed and starting the episode from the beginning.
I leaned back, sank into the episode, and let ART take us towards what was probably a terrible idea.
