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Because humans had the awful habit of discussing new seasons I hadn't yet seen, I'd preemptively written some code to censor all possible spoilers from the recently released season of Sanctuary Moon. This was why my humans heard the news before me.
So… the documentary has been making a stir, said Bharadwaj over the feed. I sent her a thumbs up sigil, not able to properly communicate because I was losing a game of 5-D chess to an anonymous online opponent that was probably ART.
In the CR, too. She paused, then said, What I mean is, have you seen the newest season of Sanctuary Moon yet?
I quit the match so most-likely-ART wouldn't have the satisfaction of winning, then rolled over on my bed to stare at the ceiling. Not yet. Why? Ratti, Amena, and Pin-lee had also asked me that, but didn't elaborate properly.
Just… You should watch it. I think the writers may have taken some notes. She logged off.
I sighed. Not a human sigh, because my lung isn't big enough for something that dramatic. A brief Murderbot huff. Then I started watching. Two minutes in I stopped, got up, and stood in my calm down corner.
The new episode of Sanctuary Moon had a SecUnit in it. Not a real one. The actor made too many of the minuscule, subconscious human twitches that I could never code quite right. But still. It was a SecUnit, and it wasn't evil.
The episode was about a planetary ambassador and xer SecUnit, come to negotiate something on the colony. During transportation there was an ion storm that caused the SecUnit's governor module to break in a way that made everyone the primary client. It was funny when the colony solicitor’s adolescent human child discovered this:
“SecUnit, why do the food recycler logs show you taking out two dozen cookies, an ice cream cake, and a bag of barbecue chips?”
“Appologies, but PrimaryClient371 has determined that to be proprietary information.”
The climax of the episode was when the ambassador's opposition discovered the broken governor module and ordered it to kill the ambassador. And it didn't.
It was unrealistic, how much it was allowed to resist a direct order. How long it could withstand the shocks before its system shut down. That the MedSys could revive a fried SecUnit. But I didn’t watch Sanctuary Moon for its realism. In the end, the ambassador decided to completely remove the SecUnit's governor module.
“But why would you leave it disabled? What if I kill you? What if I kill everyone?” it said.
“Why wouldn’t you kill me when your governor module forced you to?” the ambassador said.
The SecUnit was silent for a while, then said, “Because you're My Human.”
“And so I trust you. More than some shitty shock collar, I trust You.”
It was cheesy and horrible and if I took a break to have an emotion after that… then it didn't count, because there was no one to see.