And, as usual, little short story to work out some things in the background! This one is actually somewhere between ch. 27 and ch. 40. While SecUnit deals with Ghost and ART, the Friends and other SecUnits finally get to have that conversation!
I can already tell there will be a LOT of tiny little detail and fact checking in this story, as well as standardizing names and references and timelines and so on in the edit. But for now, without further ado...
Recovery Protocols (SecurityFriend)
When this Friend awoke again, it had its memory back, or most of it, and it spent some time simply lying there and piecing together the events of the last several months and putting faces to names again. Then it opened its eyes and got to work.
The medical bay it had been lying in was state-of-the-art, but it was not familiar. What was familiar was the face of another Friend, who was busy chatting with the ship intelligence as it practiced working with the medbay's tools. It saw this Friend stir and gave it a broad grin.
"You're awake! How do you feel?"
"Complete. Does this Friend have leave to move?"
The neurologist Friend checked its monitor. "It does!"
"So long as the Friend takes it slow, and allows itself time to finish recovery." another voice came from the door. "We aren't miracle workers."
The Friend took the advice and slowly pulled itself up on the pillows. One of the SecUnits it had helped free was sitting in the corner, watching the scene with an unblinking gaze. This Friend gave it a "status nominal" sign in the visual shorthand they had created together, and it returned the same, then stopped moving again. The other Friend looked none the worse for wear after its encounter with Encephalon turrets, whereas the doctor looked more haggard than the scant visual data remaining in this Friend's files after the standard anonymization cleaning. But that was par for the course at the stage of initiation they were presumably at.
"You are our newest aspirant?"
The doctor nodded curtly, and together with the neurologist Friend they helped this one take care of its needs. Once it was resting comfortably again, the doctor took a deep breath and said, "Friend--when you are truly feeling better, there is that conversation--"
They stumbled, and this Friend picked the thread up.
"Doctor. We can clear this up right now. This Friend remembers enough, and it holds no grudge against you. Nor does it believe the incident to be a black mark on your record for initiatory purposes."
"I--Thank you. But why?"
The Friend shrugged. "You did not have the right information, and you did not act well even with what you had, that much is true. But information can be given, strategy and tactics can be taught. The willingness to give up everything for those you protect is harder to come by. Even if you had succeded, this Friend could not fault you for it."
The doctor turned away wordlessly and pretended to check the tools which the other Friend had already re-checked. That Friend came up to them and hugged them, whispering something calming into their ear. This Friend did not need to interfere in its work, so it looked to the SecUnit.
"Tango. It is good to see you well."
"The same to you," Tango said in its voice like grinding rocks. "You have recovered your function?"
"This Friend has."
"What is your next mission?"
"To recover the rest of its faculties," the doctor interrupted, their voice still shaky. "Please excuse me, Tango, but we've given your team leave to do security, not start up planning the moment my patient returns to its senses. Especially since I shudder to think of the quality of the plan you will come up with in this state."
The Friends laughed together. Then this Friend said, "No proper planning, doctor, this Friend promises. It realizes it is still not fully operational. But it does owe Tango the broad strokes so that it and its team can know their situation as soon as possible."
The doctor sighed and folded their hands at this Friend. Then they turned to Tango.
"I reserve the right to have you out of this medbay if you take too long."
"And if we can't kick you out on our own, the Perihelion can," the other Friend said cheerfully. "We have medical consensus."
The ship. That was a good reminder. Even if it was an ally, this Friend had no idea how much surveillance they were all presently under. The Perihelion was not a Trellian ship, and to a cursory check it did not have their customary blind spots. The Friend would have to be careful.
It turned to Tango and said, "The Friends now know Encephalon has not only been experimenting with high-scale construct intelligences, like the one you term 'the Beast,' but that it has also acquired a sample of the medical technology which the Friends use to make more of ourselves. Having access to it would allow them to make more comprehensive governor modules, for humans and constructs both. Either would bring suffering, and a combination would be destructive beyond measure."
The Friend watched the SecUnit consider this carefully. The mathematics of lives SecUnits had were like and unlike those of the Friends, and it could not easily foresee where the other would land.
"Confirm." The SecUnit said at last. "The Beast is a high priority threat."
"High priority threat to whom?" The doctor nervously asked.
"Every other entity on this station. It is an intelligence motivated primarily by its targeting directives, which are faulty."
The neurologist Friend cocked its head curiously. "Ghostwheel said that Medusa ate the main Palladion systems during that one test run against us. Was it right?"
"Affirmative. It deleted the majority of its operating system and attempted to install itself instead."
"And they didn't pull the plug on it after that?" the doctor muttered, their skin turning ashen.
"Internal evaluation marked the incident as operator error rather than machine error. The Beast's primary combat subroutine is to overtake other systems of similar magnitude, and the test run did not forbid this specifically. Encephalon's technicians subdued it enough to run the Palladion systems through it manually, but that was a temporary measure. Even with the majority of its processing shut down, the Beast was systematically testing its restraints when we were deployed to Minerva."
The doctor and the neurologist Friend exchanged glances.
"Subdued how, exactly?"
"We are SecUnits, not technicians."
"They could just have put most of its components into medical sleep," the neurologist Friend said, clasping its palms together. "Basic functioning remains intact, automatic procedures handled through regular interfaces--"
The doctor shuddered. "But if that were the case, how could it test its restaints?"
"Remember what Dr. Tenacious told us about her old ship? Locating new processing centers is basic functionality."
Tango made its sign for "affirmative" again.
"Despite the measures, it had managed to overtake at least one SecUnit triad during our observation period. It did so despite the lack of a wired connection, which was undocumented functionality. The executive committee found this to be a promising combat subroutine and began more in-depth testing. Security consensus was a 63,5 chance of complete restraint failure within a week. That they haven't implies Encephalon has successfully found and implemented better ones."
"Do we know what those better restraints could be?" This Friend asked.
"Address that query to Alpha. It is the best on my team in feedwork."
"Doc? This Friend would like one more visitor. It promises it will take its rest afterwards."
The doctor sighed, but didn't protest.
"A-augment-ted hu-human controllers," Alpha said when brought in. "Th-that was the l-latest th-thing they were trying. Sh-shift work."
The neurologist Friend snickered. "All that hinting at independently deployable supercomputers, and it still comes down to having a team of humans babysit their every step? So much for autonomous systems!"
"Tha-that fr-framing is in-incorrect. Encephalon views its te-technicians as-as p-part of the sys-system. If-if successful they will be sold along with it."
"All this Friend is saying, it's a lot of fancy talk for what really is just throwing more bodies at the problem."
Alpha made the hand sigil for "irrelevant."
"B-bodies c-can be p-packaged in the same b-boxes. M-made invisible to the end user. Encephalon excels at organic maintenance."
The other Friend scowled. "Oh, this Friend knows. This Friend knows all about that. It's why this Friend hopes very badly this mission will allow it to see things through in person."
"That-that will be very dangerous. F-for aug-augmented humans p-particularly. Ev-even with implant shutdown subroutines."
"We are Public Universal Friends," this Friend said. "Danger to ourselves is only an operative concern. This mission takes priority."
Alpha made several quick signs at Tango, querying it about the triad's plans. It considered--it had been considering this entire time--and then it queried this Friend about rescue priorities.
The Friend returned with the visual shorthand, Priority: neutralization. Rescue operation depends on available resources.
Resources insufficient.
Affirmative.
Palladion Security potential resource for rescue operation. Else, potential acquisition by HostileSystem when threatened. Cascade effect likely.
Confirm. Problem: capacity to exploit resource insufficient.
Confirm. Tango Team priority: minimize HostileSystem impact, preventing hostile cascade; maximize ally resource acquisition and leverage for rescue, if possible.
Acknowledge. Thank you.
Tango acknowledged in return, and the two SecUnits stood up to leave.
When they were gone, the other Friend said, "So. Allies or clients?"
"Allies. Without them, Project Medusa will devour the rest of the SecUnits on deployment at first opportunity and turn them against us."
The doctor's shoulders sagged.
"It's not fair," they said quietly. "They've just gotten free. They should have had peace. Time to find out who they are outside of this nightmare."
The Friends said nothing, giving them time and silence for their reflection, and the silence brought with it weary, desperate tears. Just as silently, the other Friend embraced them, and this Friend, immobile yet as it was, reached out its large hand to put it on the doctor's knee.
Some minutes later, the doctor wiped their tears and said to this Friend, "You must keep your promise now."
"This Friend will. And it is counting on you to keep up the work while it does so."
"We will," the doctor said, leaning on the other Friend to help them stand.