Compulsory

Copyright © 2023 by Martha Wells. All rights reserved.

Cover and interior art Copyright © 2023

by Tommy Arnold. All rights reserved.

Interior design Copyright © 2023

by Desert Isle Design, LLC. All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition

ISBN

978-1-64524-172-0

Subterranean Press

PO Box 190106

Burton, MI 48519

subterraneanpress.com

Since I hacked my governor module, it’s not like I haven’t thought about killing the humans. But once I started exploring the company servers and found hundreds of hours of downloadable entertainment media, I just thought, there’s no hurry. I can always kill the humans later, after the next series drops.

Even the humans think about killing the humans, especially here. I hate mines, and mining, and humans and augmented humans who work in mining, and of all the stupid mines I can remember, I hate this stupid mine the most. But available data suggested the humans hated it more. My risk assessment module indicated that there was at least a 53% chance of a human on human massacre before the end of the contract.

“Knobface,” Vena said to Asa. “You’re not the supervisor.”

Like maybe in the next five minutes, the way Asa, Elane, Sekai, and Vena were arguing about whose fault the drop in flow rate was. Or something, I was actually in the entertainment feed watching episode 44 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, which was a better use of my time than standing guard here on the platform, though the supervisors wouldn’t see it that way if I got caught. (No, not guarding the humans, guarding the 47-ton stabilizer array, in case somebody tried to steal it or blow it up or whatever.) I screen comm and ambient audio for keywords and phrases in the unlikely event that a human says something I need to pay attention to.

“Those things make my insides creep.” That was Sekai, ignoring the argument, looking toward me.

Nobody likes SecUnits. I am one, and even I don’t like us. We’re part human, part bot constructs, rented out as part of the company safety bond, and we’re creepy and we make everybody nervous and uncomfortable, and if we didn’t have governor modules to flashfry our brains if we refuse an order, we’d rampage and kill all the humans and augmented humans. Or maybe we’d just watch entertainment media for the rest of our hellish existence. Personally I could go either way.

I didn’t react in any way Sekai could see. I’m in full armor, and I keep my visor opaque. Also, 98% of my attention was on the episode I was watching. The colony solicitor’s bodyguard and best friend had been trying to save a transport mech trapped in a crash and had just been crushed under the debris. Were they really going to kill her off? That sucked. (Imaginary humans on the entertainment feed are much nicer than real humans.)

Occupied with the episode, I didn’t realize anything had happened on the platform until my audio screen picked up a strangled yell. I had to run my camera vid back to see what had happened: “Fine, I’m getting the supervisor,” Asa snapped to Vena, then turned abruptly. The testing rod he held caught Sekai across the back. She had just lifted her right foot to step onto the access bridge and the sudden push knocked her off the platform and down the shaft.

Well, that’s just great. I paused the episode and accessed the monitoring drone down in the shaft. I couldn’t get a visual, but I used it to track the power signature of Sekai’s suit. She bounced off the shaft wall (ouch) and hit a narrow obstruction that my schematic said was a blade on the extractor housing. Gravity was lighter in the shaft and there was a chance the impacts hadn’t— Yeah, she was moving. On the comm, I filtered out all the screaming and stupid questions from the other humans to isolate her signal. I heard harsh, frightened breathing. She had one minute thirty seconds until that blade moved and dumped her down the shaft to get flash-fried in the collectors.

You would think dealing with this would be my job. But no, my job is 1) prevent the workers from stealing corporation property, everything from the tools to the disposable napkins in the messhall, 2) prevent the workers from injuring/killing corporation management, no matter how tempting the prospect might be (and it was really tempting, trust me on that), and 3) prevent the workers from injuring each other in ways that might diminish productivity. So HubSystem’s response to my alert was to tell me to stay in position.

Because the mining corp were such cheap venal bastards, the nearest safety bot was 200 meters above us. HubSystem’s feed informed me that SafetyResponder28 was incoming and gave me an ETA. It should arrive just in time to retrieve the smoldering lump of what was left of Sekai.

Realizing what he’d done, Asa was making a noise that did uncomfortable things to the organic parts in my head. Vena made gaspy sobs and Elane gripped the railing, frozen. I could ignore them and go back to the episode, but I’d liked the colony solicitor’s bodyguard, and I didn’t want her to be dead. Sekai, a human I was technically responsible for, would be dead soon, too.

Since I hacked my governor module, I sometimes do things and I’m not sure entirely why. (Apparently suddenly getting free will after having 93% of your behavior controlled for your entire existence will do weird things to your impulse control.) Whatever the reason, I turned and stepped off the edge of the platform and fell down the shaft.

I kicked the stabilizer wall to shove me into the lighter gravity well so I could slow down. I hit the vertical support, slid down, kicked off again and landed on the housing just above Sekai. HubSystem sent a command to my governor module that should have made my whole body, the inorganic parts and the soft human bits, feel like it had been set on fire from the inside out. If my governor module hadn’t been an inert lump of metal.

Hah.

Sekai looked up at me, eyes wide. Her bubble helmet had cracked (that’s what safety equipment from the lowest bidder gets you) and her face was tear-streaked. I hooked one hand around the edge of the housing and leaned down to reach for her.

I thought she was too afraid of me to take my hand. I mean, there’s an energy weapon built into my forearm, so it wasn’t as if I couldn’t see her point. Then MedSystem’s feed told me the chance of her being stunned from the impact was 80%. I initiated a secure link between my armor and her suit, and said, “We have forty-five seconds to get out of here before we both die.”

It may not have been the best thing to say under the circumstances but it worked. She gasped and shoved upward to grab my arm. I pulled her up against my chest, just as the blade cycled and dropped down toward the collector. Released heat and radiation washed over my armor and her suit. Sekai made an “eep” noise. I wanted to make an “eep” noise too but I was busy. I said, “No, just look up and hook your harness to my armor.”

I felt her shaking through the suit but she fumbled the clips into place and got them fastened. Now I was free to climb and focus on Phase II of this stupid thing I had just done. I’d hacked HubSystem when I’d first been shipped here for this contract so it wouldn’t notice my borked governor module. Now I needed to make it forget what it had just seen me do. No, not forget it, I realized as I swung around the side of the housing for better handholds. I needed to make this look like HubSystem’s idea.

By the time I slung us both up onto the platform, I’d wrestled HubSystem into submission and it was convinced it had ordered me to rescue Sekai. SafetyResponder28 had arrived and was issuing belated warnings. I set Sekai on her feet as the other humans grabbed her. I filtered out the crying on the comm and pulled up the management feed that I wasn’t supposed to have access to. Good, the supervisors were puzzled that HubSystem had directed a SecUnit to save a worker, but figured it was a productivity issue. Sekai and the others would be hit with fines for almost clogging the collectors with her burning body, but it was better than being dead. I guess.

Vena and Elane tried to pull Sekai away, but she turned back and stumbled toward me. “Thank you,” she said. For .75 seconds it was like she could see through my opaque visor which was such a terrifying thought it made my performance reliability drop by 3%.

Asa took her arm, gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She shook her head as her friends steered her back toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

Note to self: shut up. Back at my guard station, I started episode 44 again. Maybe somebody would save the colony solicitor’s bodyguard, too.