AUGUST EVENT: DRAGSTRIP RIOT

[sailmods]

[it begins with a PA announcement on the morning of the 12th, Friday’s voice coming through clear and cheerful.]

Any passengers that wish to debark to our latest port of call can exit the ship through the metal detectors on deck zero! Please be advised that all alcohol will be confiscated prior to your exit!

[and whoever heads down to the lowest deck will find that what she said was true: there is a metal detector set up there, with Friday manning it. after placing all metal objects (including weapons, and all your weapons) onto the tray, she gestures for the passenger to step through the metal detector.

they exit in an entirely different location. suffering from a splitting headache, and wearing an entirely different outfit than they had put on this morning, but unscathed. they even got their weapons back!

the interior of the diner is essentially your average jonathan rockets establishment. the narrow lane between booths and counter is manned by an entirely mute Friday clone, who cheerily takes orders and serves up food (cooked??? somewhere???) with an almost unnatural talent for roller blading. there is a jukebox in the corner that can be fed with quarters passengers will inexplicably find on their person. the available songs range from the 50s to the 80s, with a particularly wide selection of songs from the platters.

outside, the diner is a great chrome boxcar, circled by a small parking lot. a large neon sign proclaims it to be GIL’S; it buzzes and flickers on and off often. passengers who have regained vehicles will find these vehicles parked outside. there are also a handful of midcentury American cars; none of them seem to require keys, and the gas tank seems set at full.

past the parking lot is a seemingly endless expanse of desert sand and scrubland, bisecting by the empty highway that the diner abuts. a few miles down this highway, the road forks into a smaller one, which winds its way up a steep, ragged mountain until plateauing into another parking lot, with only a small, old wooden fence between the cars and the edge of the cliff.

should they wish to return to the ship, passengers can leave at any time the same way they entered: walking through a doorway that now claims to be a mop closet. passing through will leave them on deck zero, again with a splitting headache. it’s probably fine.]

Comments

[serialskiller]

"The last planetary survey I was on, I had to rescue the scientist doing soil samples from something very large, predatory and hungry. He retired from fieldwork after that project, for Some Reason."

There's almost a hint of something fond when it talks about that survey team.

[light_mischief]

Though there are cars gleaming far away down the road, Skulduggery doesn't expect to catch up with them as he tacks on speed. Everyone out here is mostly trying to go as fast as they can.

"I can't imagine why that would put him off!" He chuckles. "What's natural science without a few terrifying escapes from predators?"

[serialskiller]

"He was getting too old to run away. I had to carry him to get away, that last time. Talk to him to calm him down. That was, ah. When the rest of the survey team heard me talking to him, that was their first clue I was rogue."

Murderbot looks out the window as they go, instead of at Skulduggery.

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery hums thoughtfully. "Their first," he says, "But not what tipped them off?"

cw: mention of a suicide attempt

[serialskiller]

"When I chose to self-terminate when malicious code was injected into my programming, rather than killing all the humans, that really gave the game away. The one augmented human on the team went through everything thoroughly when he and Dr, Pin-Lee fucking cleaned my code and repaired me and realized my governor module was disabled."

Any SecUnit who wasn't rogue wouldn't have been able to shoot itself, as Murderbot had. And it had truly expected not to come back from that, after disobeying orders, acting out like that.

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery absorbs that information in contemplative silence. "I see," he says after a pause, followed by another, shorter one. "That's understandable. That they chose to repair you, I mean. ...People are uncomfortable with others sacrificing themselves, I think."

[serialskiller]

Murderbot lets that hang in the air for a long moment. When it finally speaks again, it almost sounds like it's...sulking? Defensive? It's not content with that, somehow.

"I don't feel like I deserve that."

[light_mischief]

No judgment, just curiosity. "Why is that?"

[serialskiller]

It shrugs, ducking its head almost evasively.

"I dunno."

Certainly nothing to do with guilt over Ganaka Pit or anything. The reasons it calls itself Murderbot. Nothing like that.

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery doubts the problem is as simple as not knowing. But needling Rin has been hit-or-miss, and it never does much to clarify I dunno.

"...It... isn't always about the person they're saving," he says, slowly measuring out the words that he's had in mind since Valkyrie pulled him back through the portal. "Sometimes, it's more about proving to themselves that they did everything they could. Or about... mitigating the feeling of responsibility over another's choices."

[serialskiller]

It's that last part that makes it huff out a bit of a sigh. "There wasn't much of a choice in that moment at all. Self-terminate or let malicious code turn me into a mindless killing machine ag..."

And that last word is cut off midway through and it abruptly looks out the window. Nope.

[light_mischief]

There's no flinch, no surprise, no noticeable reaction at all to the abruptly ended sentence.

"You still had a choice," he points out. "And you chose to save them."

[serialskiller]

"I liked them." Beat. "I still like them. I hope they're all okay, wherever they are. Even Gurathin."

[light_mischief]

That's all sacrifice really takes, in the end.

"Gurathin?"

[serialskiller]

"The augmented human. The team's data analyst. He was the one who told them I'm rogue. And other things I didn't want them to know."

Murderbot glances at Skulduggery briefly. It's considering whether it ought to tell him its name.

[light_mischief]

"Bit of a dick move," Skulduggery replies. It's maybe a little too flippant, but hey. Sometimes you have to tell the truth as you see it. Even if that flippancy prevents him from learning more about his SecUnit friend Rin...

[serialskiller]

"Right? Paranoid ass..." It lets out something that's short of a laugh, but not by much. "But he was trying to protect his team, I suppose."

[light_mischief]

"By that point, I think you'd made it pretty clear that you were trying to do the same thing." There's no denying that it was probably a contextually sensible thing to do, but plenty of sensible things are still rude as hell.

[serialskiller]

"Yeah, well. I guess when you find out your SecUnit calls itself 'Murderbot', sharing that with your team feels like relevant information."

It snorts softly, looks out the window. "You don't get to call me that, though."

[light_mischief]

Okay, yeah, he definitely makes a surprised noise at that. What a name to choose for yourself... Then again, he's heard way worse.

"I only ever call people what they tell me to," he says. "Sort of a sticking point in my reality." He wants to ask more, but it might not appreciate that. Best to keep things vague, so he doesn't risk Rin just... stepping out of the speeding vehicle.

"You chose it for yourself, I take it?"

[serialskiller]

"It's what I am."

It folds its hands in its lap and looks down at them.

[light_mischief]

That is precisely what Ghastly had said when he took his name.

"...Magic in my world relies on the power of names. There are three of them: a true name; a name given to us by others; and a name we choose for ourselves. Our true names are something we're born with, but very few people ever find out what theirs might be."

He slows down in preparation for the upcoming turn to the lookout.

"It's said that if you can discover what your true name is, you can unlock your full power and potential. ...I know it isn't an exact one-to-one comparison, but all of that is to say that I understand the importance of having a name that is both powerful and private." He tilts his head to glance over at Rin. "I also understand why you might have felt the need to choose that name, in particular."

[serialskiller]

"You do? Alright, let's hear it."

It's pretty sure that Skulduggery only has the vague outline of its reasons, not the whole truth of Ganaka Pit.

[light_mischief]

Skulduggery only knows the pieces he's been told, but he is, in the end, a detective. Pieces of the whole are usually all he needs.

"Sorcerers choose their names for any variety of reasons back home. Some choose names with sentimental value. Some choose a name they think will be cool. Some... choose names to carry a memory. You would think they would choose happier ones, but I haven't met anyone named New Love or Happy Birthday."

He takes it easy on the turn and leisurely starts up the windy road. "Because you said again, I assume it's only happened once before. I don't know if you were 'rogue' by that point, but I feel you probably weren't. Something happened to disable your 'governor module,' either during or immediately after. Although, perhaps it happened by accident when you were being repaired afterward..."

He tilts his head.

"...Those sorts of moments shape a person. And choosing a name to remind you of that moment can serve as both a warning to other people and a reminder to yourself." He huffs a quiet, unhappy laugh and adds, "Feel free to tell me I'm wrong without elaborating on how. I won't ask questions unless you encourage it."

[serialskiller]

"You're not wrong. When I woke up after the incident, they'd purged my memory. The thing about memory purges on cyborg constructs is that they can wipe the digital, but they can't flush the organic memory completely. Hellish compromise, not being able to access the data of what happened, but having it engraved on the limbic system. I didn't know, for over 35,000 hours, if I'd disabled the module in order to kill...a lot of people. Or if I'd disabled it to prevent myself from being controlled and forced to do anything like that again."

It seems resigned to the telling, now. Or at least large chunks of it. The kaleidoscope turns, a new pattern is revealed.

"After the PreservationAux team bought my contract and I ran away from them, I went back to the Ganaka Pit. Because I needed to know the truth. I could have fled anywhere in the known universe, and I went back. Because I needed to know."