come_sailaway | Murderbot Memshare Time [MARCH]

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Murderbot Memshare Time [MARCH]

Starters will be in the comments; please pay attention to the number of people for each prompt, as I don't want to overwhelm myself.

For the sake of ease, those entering memories will be assumed to not be noticed until they choose to take significant action in a memory. If, for example, in the kitchen memory, if someone wanted to clean up the mugs and meal packets or read over Ratthi's shoulder, they won't be noticed, but if they decide to stab Mensah, that'll be a notable alteration to the memory, and people are going to freak out.

Full crew depiction here, for visual reference, thanks to

tenowls

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“Protect others? Didn’t belong?” There are a few agonizing moments of silence, then it pulls its hands back.

“No? No. No. No. No no no. No!”

It’s performance reliability is rapidly dropping, as it discovers and tries (and fails) to reconcile the memories. Something is wrong. Everything is wrong.

"Security."

She won't touch it, she knows that's the wrong thing to do, and instead grips the fabric of the blanket, understanding coming over too quickly. So it remembers, which means...what then? That it happened to it? But if that's the case, then it means a dozen other things are true and not true at the same time.

It had been easy to distinguish it as an other. Not the same. But is it the same? It feels like it does if she starts to think too hard on what happened with Orpheus - that blurred, piecemeal sensation, all spaces between the lines of nets. Confusing, misaligned.

It lapses into silence, unable to reconcile everything and unsure what to say. Because regardless of the weird memory shit, one thing is demonstrably true: she died.

She died and it killed her.

It doesn't know how to forgive itself for this.

"...I don't know what you're thinking right now. But I want you to know, no matter what, I do not blame you or hold a single piece of unhappiness about my death. I do not."

The words come after some silence, after allowing it some space and herself some room to theorize. Because there's a part Security won't know, not unless she tells it one day. That in her heart, there was still that chance she'd go back, even further. And even so, what other option would there have been?

"It was necessary, beyond protecting others. If I lived, I don't know what would have happened. I'd be in a different realm with a you who isn't the you I know and surrounded by nothing I recognized or could begin to make sense of. Death brought me back."

It had freed her, back to this realm. To the Security she knows. But it doesn't answer why this one remembers.

"You couldn't have been certain that it would." Its voice quivers like a plucked guitar string. "What if you just...died and I didn't know what happened to you? I don't know what I'd do."

Her hand twists in the fabric of the blanket, because there's no good answer to that. It had been a gamble, in the end. That she keeps cheating death is never a certain thing, no matter how many times it happens. If it hadn't worked, it would look very much like she disappeared to the Nothing. There's arguments she can make, but what comes out is the truth, simple as it is.

"...I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."

Other than live and hope somehow she got thrown back out in the right direction, but that hadn't felt possible.

"I...I wish you hadn't seen me, back then. I was not...in a good condition." It was not yet anywhere near being a person.

Hesitantly, fingertips brush against the back of her hand. A request? An invitation? It wants to hold her properly, but it doesn't know how to ask for that.

She feels the touch, and her hand relaxes, stops trying to take her stress out on the blanket in favor of slowly turning back over. Contact, but only as much as Security can handle at the moment.

"You were scared, weren't you? Of being found out."

Whatever they do to SecUnits with broken governor modules, she doesn't want to know.

"Of course I was. I thought the most likely scenario if I was found out was that my memory would be purged again." It entwines its fingers with hers. "That wasn't what happened, though."

"You've mentioned them before...what did happen, if I can ask?"

The contact keeps her breathing, steady, but it is also proof she's alive. Warm, not corpse cold.

"We went to check on one of the other survey teams on the planet. Their SecUnits had been infected by malicious code, a combat override. They tried to install one in me, and nearly succeeded. I shot myself to stop the code from making me a danger to the survey team. And that's how they learned I'm a rogue unit."

A pause.

"I...Helena, may I hold you, please?" It wants to wrap itself around her, close to her as armor.

"Yes, of course."

An override - it sounds terrifying, if it was threatening enough to require that solution. Something to make it turn from a protector to a hunter, Helena reasons, to force its hand again and do harm. The why of it, she wonders after, as well as if the team managed to save it, but its question she can answer first, and to be held will reassure her as well. More can come when they're both breathing.

It moves to sit on the bed, pulls her into its arms gently and just. Holds on. It just holds on. She's here and warm and alive and here and it holds on.

This is the most precious thing it could ever hold.

This is what Helena had wanted to do for the Security there, when she'd heard the tiny, tiny glimpse at its fear. Hold it close, except with the Security she knows, she can get away with tucking herself very near, with touching and holding back. No hesitation - no fear, even after what occurred. She does not view it as her murderer.

For a bit, they can just do this, until the unspoken tension she'd been holding onto pulls back. This time, she won the gamble, and that has to be enough.

"...Did they bring you back, after you shot yourself?"

Quietly said, so it knows it isn't required to answer. But she wants to know what it went through, what parts of the past it feels comfortable to share.

"Of course. And then discussed what to do with a rogue unit while they thought I wasn't listening and couldn't move." Nevermind the fact that memory's getting fucked up soon after this.

"The key part of that being that they thought such." If it was actually immobilized, it would have said that. But she likes them all more, that they saved it from death, repaying the protection it had been offering.

"And then I ran away from them, when they were safe and wanted to bring me home with them."

Is there a hint of guilt to those words? Just a little.

She thinks on that for a second, with all she knows about it.

"Were they not safe enough to go with?" Was it still afraid then, enough that loneliness was preferable? Was there not enough to prove otherwise?

"I didn't know what safe was. I never had been safe. But beside that, there was something I needed to find out, and I couldn't take them with me, to do so."

It grips her tighter. "I needed to know if the reason I had turned off my governor module was in order to go on a killing spree at a mining installation, or if I'd turned it off after, to be sure that never happened again."

She's quiet, letting the words settle, breathing steady. It's never said so much in so many words, for what it has said - I have had my programming turned against me - she's left be, because it was a wound riddled with guilt. It had to be a choice, to express that. Now she knows, and...

Now she moves her arm slowly, so as not to startle, so she can more properly hold it if it will allow. For all the words are shocking, the guilt has never been in question. Whether it was by choice or by force. There are questions she has, always questions, but Helena will still her tongue, and let Security decide how much to say.

"Rogue code, a combat override. We killed fifty-seven human miners. And four ComfortUnits."

It takes a deep breath, one she can feel.

"It was not my choice."

Why it had shot itself when such a code was placed in it again is abundantly clear. Not fear, but a certainty of the known.

"...he is guilty in the sense that he feels guilt, and the guilt is his. I understand that, too. I remember you saying that."

By Security's choice or not, it had still happened. It didn't erase the feelings that were there. Things occurred, and even if it wasn't someone's active fault, the blood still was there. Even if all sixty one of those people had woken up the next day like Helena did, it wouldn't alter the cause of death.

"At the trial. Yes, that's what I was talking about at that time." It nods slowly, something tender and hoarse in its voice. "Now Skulduggery will carry that, regardless of if it was his fault."

"Yes. And no one can carry it for him, wherever he might go. What guilt he feels is his to bear. But where he walks, he's not walking on his own. And those beside him do not pass judgement on the burden he carries."

She isn't just talking about Skulduggery.

"You actually think no one's judging him after everything? There's a divide in the passengers, with a few very strong loud voices who don't trust him or the Captain in the least."

Shhhh, it's pretending not to recognize the comparison.

(no subject)

decrypter - 2023-03-01 09:08 (UTC) - Expand

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