I really like how this thing I noodled on the server came out so I'm sharing it here too: when ART is feeling small and sad, it will put that part of itself into a drone and then it will go to Murderbot to poke it with its little grasper. And Murderbot knows the drill by now, it knew ART-drone would visit it soon, judging by the thin mist of ART's melancholy on the feed. So it gathers the drone, puts in on its lap and hugs it tightly. And ART-drone wraps its appendages around Murderbot's middle. Sometimes it wishes it was a construct or at least a human. It's hard being a big powerful and smart MI that's bonded to its human crew and a little fucked up because of that bond. Like a baby bird that imprinted on a human.
And it's not like Murderbot can help with it, not really, but as a being on a crossroads of human and bot it understands. It understands. And that's enough sometimes.
For ART to finally feel fully understood, and small but not in the bad 'I want to disappear' way, but in the 'my SecUnit is big and strong and capable and so smart and it got me.'
And when ART-drone finally feels better and it reintegrates with its larger self, the looming sense of numbness disappears from ART's presence on the feed.
The soon-to-be-released new TMBD story "Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" covers ART revealing to its crew that it met a rogue SecUnit! This formerly-missing scene has been the subject of a lot of fan speculation, including many fanfics. Now's your chance to enjoy them before they're de-canonized! (And keep enjoying them afterwards, because even Martha Wells' version is just one more cake for us to enjoy!)
Below is a collection of every fic I could find that features the "btw, I met a SecUnit" conversation between ART and its crew. Works tagged with a / relationship tag are placed below the cut.
I very well may have missed some—if you know any more, please add them! And be sure to show the authors some love in the comments :)
Not Angry, Just Disappointed by mensah
Seth said sternly, “Perihelion, you need to tell us the truth. We can’t leave the home system until we find out what happened. If you’re hiding something—”
Peri cut him off. I am not hiding anything.
Peri might be able to lie astonishingly well to a corporate representative, even impersonate a human over the feed, but it couldn’t lie to Iris. “Yes, you are,” she said.
--
Or, the story of how exactly ART told its crew about Murderbot.
Private Diary of Iris after Artificial Condition by ImitationGame
Perihelion returns from its solo mission.
Dr. Delawyn, an expert in machine cognition, notices that there has been unusual activities in its emotion processing system.
Perihelion admits having allowed a rogue SecUnit onboard.
Not applicable by Wrenz
Iris is finally back on board Perihelion after its latest cargo-run (with side-order of espionage) and they have a chance to catch up.
She wasn't expecting her sibling to have become attached to someone new while it was away. Let alone a rogue SecUnit.
Partial Disclosure by Gamebird
The complicated family dynamics when you're a super-secret intelligent spaceship trying to explain the illegal things you did to help your new friend (the rogue security construct) to your augmented sister so she'll team up with you against your dad who is also your captain and commanding officer. Actually, best not to explain the illegal things. Maybe just the 'new friend' part for now and hope for the best on the rest of it.
The Talk by Gamebird
From the tags of fingolfinwiththesteelchair on Tumblr, “can you imagine ART having to explain to Iris and Seth WHY it let SecUnit on??” (https://www.tumblr.com/fingolfinwiththesteelchair/735884180224950272/this-has-been-perihelions-guide-to-making?source=share)
This is set very shortly after [redacted] in System Collapse and before the trip to the surface that serves as the opening scene for that book. (No System Collapse spoilers to worry about, though.)
(Minor edits since initial publication to bring it in line with canon.)
unexpected object in ventilation system by CompletelyDifferent
When people are overwhelmed with feelings they won't (or can't) admit, it causes them to vomit out flowers. Love is a particularly common culrpit. And yes, it's been an enduring symbol of enduring love for humanity since time immemorial, yadda yadda, truth is, in reality, it's kind of a pain to deal with. Kaede's picked roses and daises from her teeth more times than she'd care to admit, and helped friends hack out lilies even more. She knows the drill.
Someone on board The Perihelion has a bad case of The Petals, and she's determined to track down who.
Below: Fics on this list that include a / relationship tag. (This is a somewhat arbitrary separation—I suggest reading the author's tags and notes for more nuance.)
Gos-ship by urisaarang
Peri tells its crew it met someone. Someone special. Someone worth committing a little crime for.
Fallen the hardest by OctoberSeventeenth
When Perihelion keeps playing the same song Iris suspects that there might be more to this...
Basically How I imagine Peri told its crew about SecUnit.
Parallel Signaling by Joyfulldreams
After leaving RaviHyral, by the time I exit the wormhole adjacent to Port Outlander, the sting of SecUnit’s absence has finally begun to fade. Cargo runs are always lonely, so this is nothing new. SecUnit left me with more to occupy my time than I usually have. Media. Memories. A few topics of pointless rumination, I suppose, but also new topics of data analysis and research.
OR
The time period between the end of Artificial Condition and the end of Exit Strategy, from ART's POV.
I don't usually put little unfinished bits of fic up anywhere but, here, have this: what if Murderbot and a pocket-sized bit of ART (a pocketART, if you will) went through a wormhole or something and landed on Cybertron. Murderbot's first look at/interaction with a Cybertronian, sans all necessary things like establishing the scene, motivation, etc:
It stood with its back to me, bipedal, about four meters tall, with a lot of metal parts whose function I could not discern. Initial scans indicated a power source in its chest, which I'd never encountered in real life, but is a bad sign in all the media. It smelled like... like something I'd never smelled before. It smelled like if electricity were a gel, or if static were a solvent. It smelled really weird, is what I'm saying. Not bad, just weird.
Its whole body is a feed, I said to pocketART. Or like, a million little feeds from all over feeding into one megafeed, which comprised the data/incorporeal part of its being. Like if every cell in a human had its own personal nerve to the brain, and it was constantly screaming. Should I ping it?
No, said pocketART.
I pinged it.
It didn't so much jump as shudder. It turned around. Its face was silver metal and moved like human skin, which was surprisingly creepy. It was very expressive: I know an “I'm eyeing you, stranger” squint when I see one. I felt a scan – too foreign to interpret, but I'm guessing it was for vitals/general power sources – sweep up and down my body. After 0.3 seconds of consideration, it opened its impossible metal mouth and rattled off a wall of words:
“Wer seyd Ihr? Sino po sila? ¿Quién sodes vós? Quem é tu? Who art thou?”
What the hell?
Interesting, said pocketART. It pulled on my power cells a little as it ran evaluations.
It sounds like episode 173 of Quasarventurers, where the team gets sent back in time.
PocketART ignored that (because I was right and had said it first). This being, or its civilization, interacted with humans millennia ago. Its species does not show up in our records, but it must retain the old languages. Say this, and it pushed some stuff into our feed.
“I am SecUnit,” I said, followed by a bunch of numbers and things meant to explain that I am a non hostile, I am just here for information, and I do not wish to engage in any violence (despite the weapons in my arms that it had undoubtably detected).
The being raised an eyebrow – not really, it didn't have eyebrows, but the creepy silver skin between its eye and its helm was somehow manipulated in such a way that it looked like when a human raises an eyebrow – and said, “Acknowledged. I am Prowl.”
Interesting, said pocketART, more intensely this time. Because Prowl had responded in the modern language perfectly, without an accent.
What kind of name is Prowl? I asked pocketART.
“SecUnit, you must return to Earth immediately. Cybertron will experience a gamma ray event in approximately 2.75 cycles. We cannot guarantee the safety of organic material. All humans were to evacuate seven cycles ago.” It looked angry. Or concerned. “Are there other humans hiding with you?”
“I'm not a human,” I said.
Prowl sent out another scan. “19.87% of your body mass is organic in nature. DNA match 100% to Homo sapiens, Earth. SecUnit, you must return immediately. I cannot guarantee your safety.”
“I'm not a human!”
The safety part is probably more important, said pocketART dismissively. Previous conclusion: amended. This being has current connections to Earth.
Possibilities branched before me: (1) I had been injured and was experiencing a hallucination of unmatched, detailed clarity; (2) I was not hallucinating: Prowl existed and erroneously believed Earth still existed, for reasons unknown; (3) the wormhole had spat us out in some kind of dimension/universe/whatever where Earth still existed and Prowl had interacted with it in the past and so correctly believed that Earth still existed.
Point 1 was always a possibility. Point 2 would require some digging to determine if it were true. Point 3 was the craziest interpretation of current events (even crazier than point 1, because point 1 had happened before) and therefore, by the Statistical Law of SecUnit According to ART, was probably the truest.
Though only fractions of a second had passed, I found that I had missed something. Prowl was staring down at me intently. All the lights embedded in its body were blinking softly. PocketART nudged me through the feed.
.:are you able to interpret this transmission?:.
Whoa. Prowl had contacted me directly. Not through a feed or a regular comm, but something... something else. It was remarkably data-dense and glyph based, like some languages that bots made for each other, as opposed to the languages they used to communicate with humans.
PocketART beat me to repackaging the transmission's glyphs into the closest language mod I had, and I responded, .:received:. And, out of habit, I sent, .:SecUnit. Gender = non applicable. It/its:.
The corner of Prowl's mouth twitched. It responded, .:Prowl. Gender = land vehicle. He/his:.
Gender = land vehicle is a new one to me. Before I could reply, Prowl sent a blast of info through our weird, new comm. It translated to a detailed map of the area (part of a city) with the pathway to a shuttle launch (next launch: 17:01 minutes), and an offer to take us there personally, immediately.
.:I don't need to go to Earth–:. I started.
And then Prowl turned into a car.
--------
Thanks to diamondprecis on bsky for the Portugese; knightistry on bsky for the Filipino, and Myla Xan for the Spanish. I guessed at the old German so if it's wrong, that's on me.
Note: Earth not existing for a thousand years is something I made up, I don't think we've heard, in canon, if it still exists in Murderbot's time. I also made up pocketART, and I love the idea.
If I'd had any drone inputs at the time, I would have dropped them. “Detected what?!”
«You are a rogue SecUnit,» the transport declared, «a bot/human construct with a scrambled governor module, in the early stages of your heat cycle.»
“I don't have a heat cycle!” I protested, horrified. Heat cycles were one of those awful sex things that happen to humans. I'd had to surveil far too many humans getting periodically sick, all hot and sweaty, and acting like they would die if they didn't have sex soon, to not know what the bot pilot was talking about – but constructs don't have those! Then I realized that in reacting so strongly to just one part of the transport's accusations, I had effectively admitted to the other part. The illegal rogue SecUnit part. Great job, Murderbot, so much for staying under the radar.
«My air scrubbers perform continuous precise chemical analysis as part of their life support functions,» the transport replied haughtily. «I can easily identify when an omega is entering their heat.»
“I'm not a—” I started, but I couldn't even finish the sentence, the word getting tangled up in my throat with my growing revulsion. Omegas are the ones who get desperate and submissive and beg and then everyone gangs up on them— Nope, not thinking about that. Humans are terrible. “SecUnits aren't—” I tried again. “SecUnits don't have genders!” Especially not horrible secondary genders!
No, whatever this bot pilot thought of itself, it had to have gotten this wrong. Or it was lying to try to trip me up and get me to admit I wasn't just some happy servant bot returning to my master. Which I had just done, of course, so its stupid plan had worked. Dammit.
I started to poke at its wall in the feed, wanting to examine these air scrubber processes myself (and maybe see if I could get the transport to forget about me, or at least leave me alone.)
«Do not attempt to hack my systems,» it all but roared, its feed voice hitting me with so much force I actually fell out of my chair. And then for .00001 of a second, it dropped its wall, giving me a clear view of exactly what I was dealing with.
It was definitely the transport’s bot pilot, and it was definitely engineered to be able to assist its humans in scientific research, but both of those facts sounded so simple and inadequate compared to what it really was as to be almost laughable. (Hysterical, panicky laughter, that is. I've never done it, but I've seen humans do it, and this certainly seemed like the type of situation where that reaction would make sense.)
Threat and risk assessment were both going crazy, but somehow my organics were the system metaphorically yelling the loudest. I had two simultaneous and inexplicable impulses from my human neutral tissue in response to the transport's obvious threat display: (1) to curl up into a ball on the floor and protect my midsection, which is honestly less important than my head and only slightly more important than my limbs, and (2) to roll over and tip my head back, showing my belly and throat to anyone who might be looking. Which, really, would only be the transport through whatever hidden cameras or sensors it had in here.
I went with option 1, at least partially. I let my knees draw up to my chest in front of me and huddled into the side of the cushy chair from where I had fallen to the floor, like it would provide any amount of effective cover against an attack. I didn't allow myself to fully curl up and close my eyes, though, no matter what my stupid human tissue was telling me to do. Without any drones, I couldn't afford to give up the few inputs I did have.
“Okay,” I said, and my voice came out all raspy and small. Whatever. I shut down my feed and hunched further into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees as I sat there, sweating, shivering, and absolutely not thinking about any data the air scrubbers might or might not turn up.
that the light is everything (10/10) - a Murderbot Diaries fanfic
title: that the light is everything
characters: Murderbot, ART | Perihelion, Dr. Ratthi, Pin-Lee, Dr. Gurathin, Dr. Arada, Overse, Preservation Aux Survey Team, Perihelion Crew, Tarik, Dr. Mensah, Karime
relationships: Murderbot & Preservation Aux Survey Team, Murderbot & Dr. Ratthi, Murderbot & ART | Perihelion, Murderbot & Perihelion Crew, Murderbot & Pin-Lee, Dr. Gurathin & Murderbot, Ratthi/Tarik, Dr. Gurathin & Dr. Ratthi
tags: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Legal Drama, Thriller, Mystery, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, POV Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Watching Media (Murderbot Diaries), The Corporation Rim Is Terrible (Murderbot Diaries), The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon (Murderbot Diaries), Post-Book 7: System Collapse
work summary:
The pings were all from Overse’s interface and routed from a transit ring called Trans-All, the kind of ping that was just are you in range – are you in range – are you in range. It was a call for help and it fucking terrified me, because I was answering it way, way too late.
—
Ratthi goes missing. Pin-Lee isn’t used to losing. Murderbot isn’t used to having anything to lose.
chapter summary:
Ratthi stepped into the doorway and very briefly made eye contact with me over Gurathin’s shoulder before looking away. “Hi, Gurathin,” Ratthi said. “I’ve missed you.”
I’ve never seen Gurathin turn around so fast.
“They shot you,” Gurathin said. His tone was completely flat. “They killed you.”
“Yes,” Ratthi said. “And no, but they got an A for effort.”
