Rogue Protocol

by Martha Wells

  And there was no way their bond company would have guaranteed the survey without some kind of professional security. That was unrealistic. Heroic SecUnits were unrealistic, too, but like I had told ART, there’s the right kind of unrealistic and the wrong kind of unrealistic.

  I had stopped watching it when the mutants dragged off the group’s biologist to eat him. Seriously, this was exactly the kind of situation I was designed to prevent.

  Thinking about the probable fate of Transport’s passengers put me out of the mood, too. I didn’t want to see helpless humans. I’d rather see smart ones rescuing each other.

  I sorted through indices of available info, then started new downloads and queried the schedules and transport guide for ways to get to Milu.

  Nothing this cycle, nothing the next. Even when I widened the search to thirty cycles from now. Well, that was possibly a problem.

  I had been thinking about my plan a lot in between bouts of passenger-wrangling, and now I hated to give it up; I really wanted to hurt GrayCris, and if I couldn’t do it with explosive projectiles, this was the next best way. Maybe the schedules hadn’t been updated; humans are so fucking unreliable when it comes to maintaining data. As we slowed for final approach and docking, I searched the station’s public destination catalog, and yeah, Milu was listed. As usual, an independent company operated the transit station, so it was listed as still active even after the facility had been abandoned. The population of the station was floating and under one hundred at most.

  Floating was good as it meant there were few permanent residents; people came and went constantly. But under a hundred was bad. Even if I could get there, with no legitimate reason to be there, I’d have to make sure no one saw me.

  ART had altered my configuration so scans wouldn’t read me as a SecUnit, and I had written myself some code to make sure I behaved more like a human or augmented human. (Mostly randomizing my movements and breathing.) But I had to avoid other SecUnits, and it was best to avoid humans (like deployment center personnel) who had seen SecUnits without armor. GrayCris contracted for SecUnits in the Corporation Rim, and they might have used them on the Milu station, too. GrayCris was supposed to have removed any offices from the transit station when they abandoned the facility, but the humans who were still there might have seen their SecUnits. It was a calculated risk, which meant I was doing it even though I knew it could be like shooting myself in the knee joint.

  I could have given up on the whole idea. There were transports leaving for destinations far away from Corporate territory, destinations I didn’t know anything about. But I was tired of pretending to be human. I needed a break.

  I tried the schedule for privately owned ships and didn’t see any marked for Milu. But there were several ships scheduled to leave in the next cycle or so with no listed destination. One was a small bot-piloted cargo ship that was just large enough to carry supplies for about one hundred to one hundred-fifty humans for one hundred-plus cycles. I checked its history in the knowledge base and saw that it left and returned on a regular schedule. It could be a private contractor supplying Milu station, and not listed on the schedule because they didn’t want any random humans trying to go there until the terraforming facility debacle had been sorted out.

  The cargo ship had actually been scheduled to leave eighteen cycles ago, but had requested a hold. Six transports of varying sizes and points of origin were arriving on HaveRatton at the same time as my transport. The supply ship might have been waiting for one of those, if it was fulfilling specific cargo orders. It might have been waiting for a repair.

  To find out more, I’d have to ask in person.

  Chapter Two

  ONCE TRANSPORT COMPLETED DOCKING protocols, I climbed out of my bunk, collected my knapsack (I had a few things in it but mostly it was just so I could look more like a human traveler), and took a shortcut down the maintenance shaft to the passenger lock. The others would be going out through the cargo lock, into a transport module that a cargo lifter would tow to the ship taking them to their new home. This was billed as for their convenience, but their contractor wouldn’t want them to walk through the station where they might change their minds and escape.

  I didn’t want to say goodbye. I couldn’t save this many humans from where they were going, where they thought they wanted to go, but I didn’t have to watch it, either.

  I did say goodbye to Transport, which let me out of the lock and then deleted the record from its log. I could tell it was sad to see me go, but this wasn’t a trip I’d be anxious to repeat.

  I had practice at hacking different hub and ring security now, so it was much less nerve-racking to get past the weapon scans. SecUnits are designed to be mobile components of SecSystems, every kind of SecSystem, so the company can rent us to as many different clients as possible, even those with proprietary equipment. The trick to hacking a SecSystem is making it think you’re supposed to be there, and the company had helpfully provided us with all the code necessary for that. Practice and terrifying necessity had made me good at altering it on the fly.

  I did stop in the ring mall, at an automated kiosk that sold feed interfaces for non-augmented humans, portable display surfaces, and memory clips. The clips were for extra data storage, and were each about the size of a fingertip. They were used by humans who had to set up new systems or travel to places that didn’t have the feed, or who wanted to store data somewhere that wasn’t feed accessible. (Though company SecSystems had ways of reading them; clients sometimes tried to hide proprietary data on them.) I bought a set of clips with my hard currency card. (I saw it still had plenty of money left on it; Tapan and the others must have paid me a lot.)

  The private docks were never as busy as the public ones, with just a few humans heading in or out, and lots of hauler bots moving cargo. I scanned for drones as I crossed the embarkation floor, but there were only two there to monitor hauler bot activity. I found the supply ship’s lock and pinged it to see if anyone was home. The bot pilot pinged back.

  It was a lower-level bot, not high functioning enough to be bored while in dock or interested in the prospect of something to do. Like the transport bots I’d run into (ART was the exception) it communicated in images. Yes, it was a supply ship. Yes, it was going to Milu, it went to Milu on a forty-seven-cycle schedule. An update had come from transit control that it was to hold its departure, but it expected clearance sometime in the next two cycles. It was like talking to a recorded travelers’ information ad.

  But I figured I’d gotten lucky for once.

  I made it think I had Port Authority authorization and asked it to let me board, and it did. Then I gently excised my entrance from its memory. As far as it was concerned, I had always been onboard. I didn’t like to do it; I like to negotiate with bot pilots. But this one was so limited, I was afraid it was incapable of making a deal and sticking to it. I didn’t want to risk it telling the Port Authority about me because it didn’t understand why that was a bad idea.

  I went down a short corridor into the main compartment and found the passage into the cargo and supply storage. It was small, just big enough for a console used to attach and remove the two cargo modules, and the lockers for onboard supplies. Both modules were already attached, so if the ship were waiting for cargo, one would have to be detached and reloaded. With the configuration of the crew area, that shouldn’t affect me, though.

  I used the time to search around, mostly because I was a little edgy and it’s still programmed habit to patrol. Ship’s repair drones followed me, attracted by a moving body where there wasn’t supposed to be one, but without direction from Ship they didn’t bother me. There were no private cabins, just a couple of bunks built against the bulkheads up on the control deck next to the pilot suite, and two more in cubbies behind the cargo station, next to the emergency MedSystem and a tiny restroom cubby. I didn’t need it, and it would be a relief not to have to pretend to use it often enough to look human. Though I was getting used to having
access to a human shower. Compared to a company security ready room, the accommodations were lavish. I settled on one of the bunks on the control deck and started sorting my new media.

  (Okay, I should have realized that the pacs of bedding and other supplies in one of the lockers were probably there for a reason.)

  After trying and rejecting a few newly downloaded shows, I started on a first episode that looked promising. It took place in an alt-world with magic and improbable talking weapons. (Improbable because I was a talking weapon and I knew how people felt about me.)

  Some twenty or so hours later, I was still deep in the show, and enjoying my human-free vacation. Fortunately, when the life support cycled on, I felt the air pressure increase. (I don’t need much air, and can always go into hibernation mode if I run out, so the minimal atmosphere on automated transports is fine for me.)

  I paused the show and sat up. I queried the bot pilot and asked if anyone was coming aboard. Yes, the two passengers were coming aboard, and it had received an update from transit authority that it was now cleared to file for a departure time.

  Another one of those “oh shit” moments.

  I’d searched the ship already, at least, so I had a couple of likely spots in mind. I rolled off the bunk, remembered to grab my bag, dropped down the vertical passage to the main compartment. I crossed the compartment and went down the passage to the cargo area. I picked the locker that was the least accessible, and shifted the contents around until I could squeeze myself into the back, the supply pacs screening me from view. I cozied up to the bot pilot and reminded it I was supposed to be here and there was no need to mention me to anybody else, including its passengers and the Port Authority. It didn’t have any security cameras (transports not controlled by corporate political entities rarely do) but it did have the drones. With their scanners, I had a good view of all the interior compartments, once I filtered out the maintenance data I didn’t need.

  Sixteen minutes later, the lock cycled and two passengers came aboard. Two augmented humans, carrying traveling packs and a couple of cases I recognized immediately. Combat gear, including armor and weapons.

  Huh. Bots were more common for combat than humans for the same reason SecUnits were more common for security contracts: if we don’t follow orders, we get our brains fried. But there were joint corporate and other political entity treaties about the use of combat bots. (Though everybody seemed to find ways around that. It was a pretty common plot on some of the serials from outside the Corporation Rim.)

  I listened in with the drones and Ship’s feed, but the two humans didn’t talk much, just stowing their gear with occasional remarks to each other. From their feed signatures, I knew their names were Wilken and Gerth. It was too much to expect that they would chat about why they were going to Milu, but there were ways.

  As a SecUnit, a large part of my function was helping the company record everything my clients did and said so the company could data mine it and sell anything worthwhile. (They say good security comes at a price and the company takes that literally.) Most of the recordings are just junk that gets deleted, but it has to be analyzed first and the good bits pulled out. Normally this is done in conjunction with a SecSystem, but I can do it alone and I still have all the code for it. It was taking up space in my storage that could have been used for media, but it was also something I couldn’t replace on the fly.

  While the two humans pulled some supply pacs from the locker I wasn’t in and got settled, I adjusted the drones’ code to let them record. Once I collected enough data, I could start the analysis in background.

  As Ship disengaged from the lock and started its trip to Milu, I was already watching my new show again.

  * * *

  It took twenty cycles by Ship’s local time to get to Milu.

  I hadn’t expected it to bother me. I’ve been in transport boxes and cubicles for much longer, and a lot of those trips were before I hacked my governor module and started downloading media. But I wasn’t used to traveling as cargo anymore, even with new shows, serials, and several hundred books to go through. The transient rest tube hadn’t bothered me, and I had spent three other transport trips, including the one with ART, mostly without moving. I wasn’t sure what the difference was. Okay, maybe I was sure: in all the other spaces, I’d had the ability to move whenever I wanted.

  Whatever, it was a relief when Ship reported that it was on approach to Milu. Two minutes later I realized I was picking up the station feed, but there was nothing on it. Usually there’s traffic and docking information, potential navigation hazards, travelers’ news, that kind of thing, but here there was nothing. I checked with Ship, who reported that there was no other traffic on approach, but this matched with its previous experiences docking at this station. (I had watched a serial once that featured a dead haunted station and okay, that was unlikely, but it’s better to make sure.)

  The silence was still weirdly unnerving. The station was triangle-shaped and smaller than RaviHyral. The scan showed two ships in dock and a scatter of shuttles, a fraction of its capacity.

  Ship had moved into docking position before I finally heard anything on the feed. The welcome message sounded normal enough, but the station index looked like the info system had glitched. There was a list of businesses and services, but each entry had been updated with a closed/inactive notice. So the place might not be haunted, but it was teetering on the edge of dead/inactive status.

  While I waited for Ship to finish docking, I checked the results of my analysis. Wilken and Gerth were security consultants, hired by a fact-finding research group contracted by GoodNightLander Independent. GI had filed the abandonment markers on GrayCris’ deserted terraforming facility, and set up the tractor array to protect it from disintegration, and now they were starting the process to take formal possession. The research group’s job was to go into the facility and to make a report on its status.

  This was exactly the kind of contract that bond companies supply SecUnits for, the kind of contract I had done more times than I still had in my memory. But from Wilken and Gerth’s conversations over the past twenty cycles, it was clear there was no bond company, no SecUnits. I tried not to take it personally.

  (If a bond company with SecUnit security had been involved, I would have had to abort this … whatever it was I was doing. The change in my configuration would fool scans but not another SecUnit, and any Unit that detected me would report it to their HubSystem immediately. I sure as hell would have reported me. Rogue SecUnits are fucking dangerous, trust me on that.)

  While I was waiting for Ship to finish its docking procedure, I figured the clanking of the docking process would mask any noise from small movements. I pulled my knapsack around, opened the skin of my right arm where it met the edge of my energy weapon, and inserted all the memory clips I’d bought into the space. They felt weird and bulky, but I’d get used to it. I was going to leave my knapsack here in the locker.

  We docked, and Wilken and Gerth gathered their gear and went out the airlock into the station. As I unpacked myself from the locker, I used the station’s public feed to hack its security system. Most of the cameras weren’t active, and the scans were checking exclusively for environmental safety and damage detection. They were more worried about their equipment failing than people attempting theft or sabotage, but maybe that was because there weren’t that many people.

  Once I’d repacked the locker and made sure I hadn’t left any traces of my presence, I poked around a little to see if the humans had left anything behind. No luck. I hesitated, considering Ship’s drones. With not many cameras to rely on, drones would be nice. But the repair drones were much larger than the ones I was used to working with, mostly to accommodate the little arms and hands they needed for maintenance. I decided depriving Ship of any of them wasn’t worth it.

  I did make a few other adjustments. I had Ship note itself in the port’s schedule as under maintenance and made it think it needed my authorization to leave.
Since Ship took care of itself and the company that owned it didn’t even have so much as a kiosk in this system, I didn’t think anybody would bother to check on it as long as it didn’t outstay its schedule by more than a few cycles. With so few ships in dock, I didn’t want to get stuck here.

  When I cycled through Ship’s lock, the embarkation area was empty. A lack of adequate lighting created lots of shadows, which didn’t disguise the scuff marks and stains on the big floor panels. A lone food wrapper drifted along in the breeze from the air recirc, like they weren’t even running the cleaners anymore. There were no drones, no hauler bots. There were two big bot-piloted lifters outside now removing Ship’s cargo modules for transfer, and I was glad to be able to hear them banging around out there and sending each other data over the station’s mostly silent feed. I don’t like having to navigate halls crowded with humans staring at me and making eye contact, but the opposite was oddly just as creepy.

  I found Gerth and Wilken on one of the few working security cameras and started after them. They were heading down the embarkation hall, not up to the habitation levels. There was no tourist map info in the feed, but hacking the cameras gave me access to the station’s maintenance system and I pulled a schematic from there. All the areas except for what was essential for minimum station operation were shut down. I wondered if GoodNightLander Independent’s petition for reclamation from abandonment was popular up here on the transit station. I already didn’t like this place much and I didn’t have to live here.