Preface

ExSec Tree
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/31082996.

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Category:

Other

Fandom:

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

Relationship:

Asshole Research Transport & Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Asshole Research Transport/Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)

Character:

Asshole Research Transport (Murderbot Diaries), Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Dr. Gurathin (Murderbot Diaries), Iris (Murderbot Diaries)

Additional Tags:

Gurathin betrays Murderbot, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, hurt murderbot, comforting ART, Dismemberment, POV Third Person Limited, for all the characters, starts with gurathin's POV 3rd person limited tho, ART and Murderbot are nonsexual romantic to me so that's like a gray area for "&" and "/", so I put both 😆, Betrayal, Angst, Outsider POVs observing Murderbot, Outsider POVs observing ART, Outsider POVs observing Murderbot & ART, and kinda melting over them like I do when I read these books, Post-Book 5: Network Effect, The Company - Freeform, 'the company' trauma, My First Work in This Fandom

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2021-05-04 Updated: 2021-05-09 Words: 3,686 Chapters: 3/5

ExSec Tree

by fogsrollingin

Summary

It wasn't as satisfying as Murderbot thought it would be, watching every detail of Gurathin's face as realization dawned they were completely fucked.

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

Chapter 1

When Gurathin saw in his augmented feed that SecUnit was close to discovering the chartered course of their ship lacked docking confirmation on Preservation, he knew he was out of time. He'd grown up in the Corporate Rim and he knew SecUnits were often called to the sites of accidents to retrieve the injured parties and take them to medical. There was nothing to suggest SecUnit wouldn't still follow that protocol.

So much was at stake that Gurathin didn't fake much. He took a small multitool, stepped out of view of one of SecUnit's stationed drones (all spaced evenly around their temp ship they were taking back to Preservation Station), cut his arm and spread the blood over his skin to make the injury look worse. He was already trembling over what he was about to do, betraying a rogue SecUnit, which would lend an air of authenticity, like he was going into shock, for when SecUnit would arrive and register his rapid heartbeat, scan his trembling body.

SecUnit arrived quickly, a single drone hovering over its head. Gurathin had situated himself just inside the airlock. When it walked inside, Gurathin threw a temporary jam on its closest drones to confuse and blind the SecUnit for a second. That second was all he needed. He nearly tripped rushing out of the airlock, turned and threw the door closed behind him, and whirled the door's locking mechanism shut.

He'd done it. He'd trapped SecUnit.

Breathing heavily, he peered through the small window to the airlock. 'Murderbot' had turned around and it just looked interested. Its eyes were unfocused, but blinking as it took in its predicament. It kept its eyes on the wall beside the window though. Gurathin understood that meant it had gotten the drones he'd jammed back up and running. It was back to using them instead of the cameras in its eyes like Gurathin knew it preferred.

There were five of SecUnit's drones onboard total. One was in the airlock with it, still circling its head. The other four could harm him, but instead they all coalesced at the end of the corridor within line of sight of Gurathin, and then cautiously proceeded forward. They rose to Gurathin's face and it was intimidating as all hell but he stood his ground. SecUnit tilted its head again inside the airlock; it must be seeing itself from his point of view now, in the chamber standing at the window.

Gurathin turned to the drones. "I'm sorry, SecUnit. You're compromised. This is the only way." He was sweaty, stressed, but certain. He'd already seen evidence of the construct's compromised state down on the planet they'd been surveying. He was positive he was right. 

The SecUnit's expression darkened. 

"I'm not compromised," the SecUnit gritted out. 

"You are. I've made arrangements to have it fixed."

"What kind of arrangements?" It glared at him. Its drone stilled and settled next to SecUnit's head right along its eyeline. 

Before Gurathin could answer, he needed SecUnit's drones neutralized or the SecUnit would just order them to shoot through his body. He had a killswitch he'd obtained for this mission, and with his augmented feed, he initiated the program.

They dropped to the ground, unharmed.

SecUnit jolted, startled. It blinked its eyes wide, looking down at the drone that'd fallen at its feet, and turned its head to glare directly at Gurathin. Before it could make any threats, Gurathin answered its question from earlier.

"I'm taking you to Solaris system."

The construct went rigid, its eyes went distant for a moment. Gurathin licked his lips, nervous as he watched. This was the first time he'd ever seen or heard of a SecUnit taking so long to process information. He felt a little sick to his stomach when it dawned on him the SecUnit might be having a panic attack or flashbacks. It'd been about 6 seconds (forever, Gurathin knew, for a SecUnit's processors) when it finally unfroze.

"That is unacceptable," it said quietly. Gurathin couldn't tell if the tone was dangerous or deeply fearful. 

"SecUnit, all the constructs in your line of production had sleeper cell kernels embedded into them."

"No, they didn't."

"My sources are the best," Gurathin promised. His connections with a dozen intelligence agencies both outside Corporation Rim and in were active and trusted. "You don't know what you don't know."

SecUnit clenched its jaw a couple times.

"Take me to Perihelion. If I were compromised, which I'm not, ART would fix it. Like it did with the alien remnant that'd infected me."

"Perihelion has a crew to think about. I'm not letting a compromised rogue SecUnit anywhere near them."

"So have the crew disembark."

"Stop, I'm not changing course. Solaris Corp. will honor the contract."

SecUnit cringed so hard it closed its eyes.

"What contract?" 

"Removing the sleeper cell kernel is a propriety service. I negotiated a contract- what?"

Murderbot's face had shifted. Exhausted incredulity. "The company honors its contracts," Murderbot agreed. "The company might kill you and they will certainly destroy me and they will never breach contract ." 

"Those would all be explicit breaches of contract."

"They find loopholes, Gurathin," it shot back, frustrated.

"I've plugged every one of them." He'd gotten Pin-Lee to draw the papers up (without telling Pin-Lee exactly what they were for; it had pissed her off but she'd done a great job). He would also have a couple witnesses livestreaming the meeting to a secure channel on a Preservation relay. "Give me some credit." SecUnit knew Gurathin had been raised in and heavily augmented by Corporation Rim before he escaped. He knew how things worked in its hellscape. But the construct just scoffed at him.

"I promise you, SecUnit. Solaris will only do what needs to be done. And then I'll take you back. We'll come back to Preservation. You'll be clean, and safe to see Mensah, ART-"

Gurathin stopped abruptly. Murderbot's face had contorted again. Eyes closed, lips pressed tight, brows furrowed, the faintest tremble in its chin. Gurathin knew constructs couldn't cry but SecUnit was looking like it was desperately trying not to.

Gurathin softened. He knew this was SecUnit's worst nightmare. It had to be done though. 

"It'll be fine," Gurathin reassured. He wouldn't really feel sorry for it though, not until he knew he could trust it. "If you try to break through this door," Gurathin said, making sure the construct saw he'd made his way to the airlock controls. "I'll jettison you."

SecUnit stood down. 

Chapter 2

It wasn't as satisfying as Murderbot thought it would be, watching every detail of Gurathin's stupid face as realization dawned they were completely fucked.

What an orchestration, Murderbot thought in between waves of overwhelming terror it'd been having ever since it lost its drones, for the company to have found and convinced the one augmented human that had such low odds - but the highest among its Preservation associates - of capturing it, betraying it. 

Its organic parts’ temperature went up a point or two as Murderbot thought about how it had saved Gurathin's life countless times. Even on their most recent survey (when Murderbot had had to be extra murdery because they'd been on a planet outside Corporation Rim that was in fact all raiders killing each other and cannibalism.) (Murderbot hated planets but it really hated that one in particular now.) Even then, Murderbot had saved Gurathin's life a couple times. Voluntarily too, even though Murderbot never liked Gurathin. 

It wasn't that Murderbot thought it was owed trust. Its entire existence before Preservation had been as a disposable construct meant to save lives and other valuable assets. It was used to that perception. Rather, it was how Murderbot had somehow somewhere along the line come to trust Gurathin.

Knowing betrayal from The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon and experiencing it firsthand was different. Murderbot hated it.

Oh, good, another wave of company-inspired terror to distract from Gurathin's betrayal. No, Murderbot wasn't afraid of annihilation. Yes, it was petrified over what the company might do to it instead.

They were led to an ornate subterranean conference room that had a secret door which opened into a sterile white research and development lab. As Murderbot stepped in, it counted 5 SecUnits, 1 Combat SecUnit swarming in from the door opposite. It pinged them, received nothing back. Probably their governor modules restricting engagement with rogue SecUnits. A good call on the company's part. Murderbot didn't know what it'd say to them anyway. It glanced over and took .15 of a second to note Gurathin's unsatisfying reaction.

The man's eyes were practically popping out of his head, color had leached from his skin, his heartbeat sped up, he was leaking so profusely Murderbot was pleased it wasn't near him to smell it. Gurathin was furious but panicky, speaking to the humans representing the company. Murderbot gave up caring what he said to them. Gurathin was probably trying to save himself.

Despite everything, Murderbot begrudgingly hoped he could.

Gurathin's vocalizations got louder, alternating between pitchy and guttural, almost like cries.

Everything was hollowing out. Murderbot partitioned space to watch its favorite episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon one last time.

The order came through. The constructs launched themselves at the rogue SecUnit. 

When fighting each other, constructs were "unnervingly quiet," Murderbot had once heard a human say. Unnerving. When it was humans that did all the explosive, anxiety-inducing shouting, grunting, jeering. When they ordered constructs to fight as a spectacle for entertainment, it got even more disgusting with bodily fluids and alcohol that made it so they could barely coordinate their hands to bring food to their mouths. They’d scream for one SecUnit or the other, whichever one they'd arbitrarily chosen to root for.

Yeah, this wasn't like that. Whatever orders the SecUnits had gotten, it wasn't to draw things out for the spectacle of a fight. It lasted 5.77 seconds which, Murderbot had to admit, was longer than it thought it'd take. It'd learned a few things without its governor module, like how to dodge and strike. Its sensors registered weapons discharges from all the hostiles in the room and Murderbot elegantly moved faster than the human eye to avoid impacts. By the third second, Murderbot was getting hit only 23% of the time but it knew it was losing because it'd only managed to take one SecUnit down and the Combat SecUnit hadn't even engaged yet. 

The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon was still playing in the background. Two of Murderbot's favorite characters were laughing in a hospital room together. One took the other's hand and they made another joke.

The CombatUnit entered the fray on the fifth second.

Murderbot was thrust to the floor and the constructs piled on to hold it down, stretch its limbs out. The Combat SecUnit crouched over Murderbot's chest and carefully pressed the nozzle of an energy weapon under its armpit. 

In Murderbot's backburnered peripheral, it heard Gurathin shouting, outraged as its whole body shuddered and shook under seizures induced by the weapon's high voltage electrocution.

It stopped.

Murderbot lay still, dazed, dread seeping in though that it hadn't been destroyed like it'd hoped. Murderbot ran diagnostics and found what'd happened. Either as a function of the electrocution or some time in its duration, Murderbot's pain sensors had been turned up to the max then disabled.

Okay, now it was scared.

As the Combat SecUnit came around and bent down, Murderbot looked away, straight at Gurathin, eyes blown wide and lit up from behind the retinas with panic.

Murderbot couldn't hear anything over its own screams. Not the metal wrenching or its organic parts stretching and squelching as the Combat SecUnit torqued and ripped Murderbot's arm off at the shoulder. 

The pain was unbearable; Murderbot couldn't remember having ever experienced this agony.

Murderbot stopped its cries suddenly, disabling its vocals so it could better access and process its audio sensors.

The Combat SecUnit quietly stepped over to another one of its limbs. Gurathin babbled sounds, now in tears. 

Murderbot blinked and choked through it as the SecUnits removed the rest of its limbs. Its organic parts leaked red over the pristine lab floor, circling the drains.

When he’d realized SecUnit had been right all along, Gurathin had tapped Mensah on a secure feed he'd kept hidden with his augments. But who knew how long it'd take her to respond. 

Now, Gurathin was horrified, wishing the SecUnit would just shut down but whatever these SecUnits had been ordered to do, it seemed to be by complicated design. They were dismembering the construct on the floor and making it feel it the whole time. All in front of 4 SecUnits holding it down, watching with neutral but dark, shadowed eyes. They had the slightest nervous flinches and ticks, they adjusted their holds on SecUnit's body like they didn't want to be holding it down at all.

Gurathin felt sick.

The company was showing other SecUnits what they did to SecUnits that went rogue. 

"This unit is at minimum functionality," Murderbot's buffer announced suddenly. Its voice was scratchy wet and bloody fluid bubbled over its lips and down its neck. "It is recommended that you discard it."

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

This fic is expanding now - I've decided I'll write a bit more and add another expected chapter.

I hope y'all like this one. My favorite chapter yet! (I think I'm getting the hang of this 😅)

Iris was in the mess hall when the lights went out. She jumped out of her chair and shouted, “Peri!?”

The emergency lights flicked on, drenching the whole ship in red, an effect that Peri knew caused anxiety in humans. The interior hatches of the ship shut all around her except for one, the entry that would take her to- 

"Captain," Peri announced, its tone surprisingly urgent, demanding, "please make your way to the control deck.” Iris started jogging through the halls to get there. “Retrieval of all Perihelion crew from planet SD-2005/2020 will be complete in 1 minute 45 seconds, at which point transit to Solaris system will commence."

"Solaris system?"

"Yes."

"Care to elaborate?"

"Once you've entered the control deck I will secure and encrypt a network for only those present. Then I will elaborate."

"This better be good," Iris whispered, picking up the pace. She trusted Peri but her worry was valid. The last time it had tried to hurry the crew off a planet, it’d been intending to blow it up. 

"On the contrary, it is very bad."

Iris vaulted up onto the deck and stopped, surprised. She was alone.

"Peri?"

"Network secured. Solaris system is the headquartered location for Solaris Corporate. The company that created SecUnit."

"Your SecUnit?"

"No, all the other SecUnits we know," it replied testily. Iris smiled but it faded when Peri got quieter in the feed. "Yes, my SecUnit. Its company has it."

Iris winced and nodded. 

"So you want to go rescue it."

"We already are," Peri replied. Iris rolled her eyes. Not even the pretense of asking permission? SecUnit was right to call it an asshole as often as it did.

"Acknowledged, proceed," she said needlessly. "You know at some point somebody's gonna realize you're the one calling the shots, Peri."

 "I do not," Peri bickered back. "I've never been this unilateral."

Iris scoffed. "Are you serious-"

"Approach to the wormhole will be approximately five minutes," the ship interrupted.

Iris was going to press her point until she heard the time: five minutes? They'd never gotten to the wormhole from this planet as fast as that. Peri had been holding out on her.

She sat down in a huff, defeated.

What an asshole.

The rest of the crew were approved back up to the control deck after Peri had informed Iris what it was doing.

'Never been this unilateral,' my ass, Iris thought. Plan A01 had been pretty fucking "unilateral." Not to mention how Peri went on solo trips all the time. It was how it met SecUnit in the first place.

She remembered back to the first expedition the crew had gone on after the two had met. 

Peri hadn't told them outright about the SecUnit. It was up to them to notice and ask about the androgynous person featured in the sleepy montage of pictures that played on inactive displays in the common area consoles. Peri answered their questions telling them it was a rogue SecUnit, which alarmed them, but then added it wasn't particularly dangerous and it was an inferior construct.

Matteo had mouthed the word "inferior" to Iris, perplexed.

"Not particularly dangerous, Peri?" Iris prompted, not completely willing to let that detail go without further inquiry.

"It prefers to watch media than pose a danger to anything."

The humans exchanged baffled expressions. "Okay, well..." Iris looked around at the displays. "You have a... lot of pictures of it." Matteo covered their mouth so they wouldn't laugh. There really were about 3,000 pictures in the storage file.

"I had to observe it. It needed to alter its appearance. These images were used as references, as they were the best I had based on resolution, angle and lighting."

Matteo turned and whispered into Iris's ear. Iris laughed.

Peri had a brand new favorite media too. It had never been interested in media before yet all of a sudden it wanted everybody to watch World Hoppers. Finally on a scheduled leisure period, the crew sat down to humor their ship. 

Peri failed to withhold its enthusiasm, dimming the lights, ordering people to watch if their eyes went distant to look at their feeds for a second. 

The augmented human on the team, Sanj, had asked about the extra code embedded into the file. Peri explained it was SecUnit's code, its comprehension and reactions to what was happening in the media as it watched, that had contextualized and translated the series so Peri could understand it.

"So whenever you watch media you like now, you're actually watching a recording of when you watched it with the rogue SecUnit?"

There was an awkward silence. Then Peri said, "That is a profound misunderstanding of this code." 

Iris secretly didn't think it was. Especially because Peri kept finding ways to bring SecUnit up. There was always an insult laced in, but… Iris suspected Peri was deliberately tempering itself with them to save face. The one time it didn't was while humans were watching a bad fight scene in their media. Peri had been the one to inform them it was bad, and further informed them that its SecUnit would've swept the floor with all of them while managing to save all the humans in the process. In between the crew's muffled laughter over how Peri had just bragged about its friend , Iris sighed with relief. She finally trusted this rogue SecUnit. Because this SecUnit hadn't just convinced Peri it "wasn't dangerous." It had convinced Peri it was a hero . 

A high bar to clear, considering how damn nitpicky and critical Peri could be.

A voice made itself heard in the room: Matteo joked that Peri had a crush on it. Peri bantered back and accidently revealed Matteo's real crush on the ship who was sitting across the table from them. That'd been awkward.

Still, everything had been charming and funny. Light-weight exploration into Peri's thoughts and feelings over a construct.

That was before they realized Peri would raze a colony of innocent humans (some infected by an alien remnant hive mind though they were) in a lost colony for it. After that, there was some unease. 

Most everyone wondered what Peri wouldn't do for this SecUnit now, and nobody could get a straight answer out of it when they asked. Peri would faster insult the SecUnit for getting itself into the hypothetical situations the crew gave it than explain what it would do to save it in them. Classic Peri, but also somewhat concerning. Iris in particular thought Peri was never quite so unhinged as when it thought SecUnit was in true danger. Like now.

Iris comforted herself with the knowledge that they were headed for Solaris system, to Solaris Corporate's headquarters. Because honestly if Peri intended to rain destruction down on one of the most evil corporations in the Rim, she didn't mind. 

She'd sleep fine.

They were only hours out to Solaris and Iris had been napping when Peri went berserk. The lights flickered, alarms went off, the consoles went down, every system and device attached to Peri whirred and shuddered. 

"Peri?! What's going on?" Iris shouted.

"We know exactly where to go now, down to the building."

"Uh okay and that's, that's good news, right?" Iris asked. Peri didn't respond. "How do you know what building?"

A siren screeched out, the one used for diverting power. Peri shut it off quickly. "Peri, hey, what're you d-"

"I intercepted an automated package update. They update Solaris SecUnits on any new parameters, directives, policies-"

"Yeah, I get it."

"This automated package update consists of five SecUnit viewpoints footage and-"

"What's the footage? Let me see it."

"No."

Iris blinked. She'd never gotten that response from Peri before.

"Solaris is torturing SecUnit." Iris's breath caught. "The relevant details have been documented. They're available to read in your feed under filename Project ExSec."

"ExSec?" Iris asked distractedly as she found the file.

"Extract and Secure."

Iris nodded. Secure the security unit, hah. 

She went quiet to read. Peri waited.

The embedded digital message read to all SecUnits in the package update that this was what the company did to their own SecUnits when they went rogue. Peri’s description and analysis of the video footage began: SecUnit’s pain sensors had been turned up and disabled to stay that way. Forced consciousness for agony through slow and systematic dismemberment, disembowelment by 4 SecUnits and 1 Combat SecUnit. Organic parts skinned off the alloy skeleton… there was more. Iris hurried to wipe the tears off her face as she kept reading. She nearly missed a linked file. "Peri, what's this?" she sniffed.

"My ExSec decision tree."

She opened it. It took a few seconds to understand what she was looking at. 

"Oh shit," she whispered. 

Peri was modifying everything , basically anything that moved on this ship. 

"You found a way to weaponize our microscopes ?"

Afterword

End Notes

Thank you so much for reading. Please kudos or comment if you can spare the time! 🤖💛

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