Chapter Text
People kept joining conversations with Gurathin and saying, “You’re still here” in this tone of surprise and delight. And every time, Gurathin would smile back awkwardly.
Why was he still here? I’d asked him to stay so I could show everyone my pumpkin. I hadn’t meant that he had to stay indefinitely, and he was too much of an asshole to stay just because he thought it might please me.
But maybe he was just waiting for the right moment. I saw him excuse himself from a cluster of people, wander toward one of the food tables, then shift direction and head toward the place where everybody had put their shoes.
But then Ratthi (who was also heading toward the food table) (except in Ratthi’s case it was because he wanted food) spotted him and announced, “Gugu! You’re still here!”
Gurathin winced. Ratthi was a tiny bit tipsy and louder than usual. (Ratthi isn’t exactly quiet but he’s not usually attention-getting levels of loud unless he’s doing it on purpose.) (Like that time on the survey when he asked me to make a speech.) (No, I’m not still mad about that. He meant well.)
Anyway, Ratthi noticed the shoes despite being tipsy, so then he said, “Oh, were you just leaving?” but in that same loud voice.
And Gurathin, like an idiot, said, “Not quite yet.”
I could see his remorse as soon as the words came out. Did he just reflexively deny something because he’d made a lifelong habit of being a contrary asshole? You would think an ex-CR spy would have better spy craft than that.
I think Ratthi was skeptical but unwilling to challenge him, so Ratthi dragged him over to meet someone from the wormhole department. And that conversation went fine until the power briefly dropped.
The room went dark. A lot of people got startled into silence, and when they started talking it was to chatter about the outage instead of whatever they were saying before.
Mostly people didn’t get too upset or unnerved. Humans hate being plunged into darkness but in this case the pumpkins provided some degree of light, their faces flickering and shifting. But the real reason most of them didn’t show a strong stress response was because they didn’t associate a power dip or even a full outage with anything bad, and they knew the secondary systems would come online soon.
Sure enough, roughly three seconds later the room lights came back up. Conversations rapidly went back to normal, with no one seeming overly rattled except Gurathin.
Gurathin clutched both arms above the elbow the way he had so often on the survey. His pulse rate had jumped. (A lot of people had displayed a spike in pulse rate initially, but most of them quickly trended back toward baseline while his continued to increase.) Then he let go of his elbows but it looked more as if he was forcing his hands down than as if he’d relaxed.
“Maybe it’s time to head home?” Ratthi asked quietly. (Evidently even tipsy Ratthi could tell this wasn’t something to be loud about.)
“In a minute,” Gurathin muttered. His breath was growing strained.
In the past I considered it “not my job” if a client showed emotional distress. Emotional support and murderbots don’t mix. That was before I figured out I could run interference between Mensah and the people who wanted to crowd her after her kidnapping. I also had a good record at distracting her from distressing conversations by peppering her with absurd budget requests.
In other words, it still wasn’t my job but I wasn’t completely incapable on this front. And I didn’t want Gurathin to have a panic attack in the middle of the party for the same reason I hadn’t wanted to risk walking out of the party to check the perimeter, or worse, facing a wall in full view.
I walked up to Gurathin and said, “I can take you to the quiet room.”
He didn’t respond right away. Ratthi said, “Oh, there’s a quiet room now? Nice addition!” I think he was just giving Gurathin time to find words.
“Sure,” Gurathin said. It wasn’t very enthusiastic but that was fine. I’m never very enthusiastic when I want out of a situation.
I led him to the little room. He actually looked more stressed when we arrived, but what he said aloud was, “This is nice.” He followed it shortly after with, “I’m fine. You don’t need to stay and babysit.”
That annoyed me somehow even though I have a history of not wanting people to stare at me when I’m feeling emotions.
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked.
“No. But you can. I’m fine.”
I thought things over and decided to try telling the truth. It had worked out pretty well so far tonight. “I don’t want to go back to the party. I want to stay here. I don’t care if you have a panic attack. You don’t have to talk to me.”
That sounds rude but I didn’t say any of it in a rude way. He nodded.
I stood facing the wall. Gurathin sat on the bed. At first he sat legs over the edge, like a couch. Eventually his breathing calmed down.
He looked pale. His skin tone is on the light side but there’s a different sort of pale that light-skinned humans get when they’re distressed. He rubbed one of his hands with the other as if trying to warm it up.
“There are blankets,” I pointed out.
His gaze briefly flicked to the quilt.
“I shouldn’t monopolize the room. Someone else might want it.”
“They won’t.”
He looked momentarily confused and then his eyes narrowed. “It’s your room,” he said, sounding a bit accusatory. (Was that me misinterpreting again?)
“It’s fine. I don’t need the bed.”
He did that thing where he was trying too hard not to look at me and it was almost worse than if he just looked. Then he let out a gusty sigh and crawled under the covers.
It was a little weird. Not as weird as the time a human client named Tapan fell asleep next to me while I was pretending to sleep (I was playing the role of an augmented human.) She had crept as close to me as possible without actually touching me. I don’t know exactly what I felt in that moment. It wasn’t bad but it had felt fragile somehow. ART thought I was reacting to the fact that she trusted me.
Standing around with Gurathin sleeping wasn’t quite that weird, partly because we weren’t close enough to touch and partly because he already knew what I really was. It was still pretty weird, but I decided not to bother examining whatever weird feelings I had and instead watched Sanctuary Moon.
Gurathin woke abruptly, about two hours later. His eyes shot open as if he’d programmed an alarm into his augments. Maybe he had. I watched through a drone as he blinked, checked the room, startled and then relaxed when he saw me, and finally relaxed into a sort of bleary-eyed sleepiness reminiscent of when he’d woken to say goodbye after the survey.
He got out of bed, pulled a face when his feet hit the floor (it wasn’t especially cold but it was colder than the bed), and began tidying the sheets and quilt. Through the drone I could see him stealing glances at the door, his face supremely unenthused.
(I know I had an imperfect history of interpreting his face, but in this case context was on my side. It was storming out. If he left he would have to walk past all the remaining guests who thought he’d already left and might want to talk to him and then go home in the storm.)
“Mensah has spare hygiene kits,” I said.
He looked longingly at the bed. “It won’t be uncomfortable for you?”
“No.” (I don’t think that counted as a lie. It fell within the acceptable amount of truth-shading that counts as manners.)
He messaged Mensah over the feed and a little while later, she showed up with a hygiene kit. Mensah is always happy whenever people she likes get along but I could see she was trying not to make a fuss. She showed him the second floor hygiene area and he disappeared to do human things before returning and crawling back under the covers.
“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. “It’s a bit embarrassing. I should be past having reactions like this. I was for a while.”
“Power outages were never good news, back there.”
“Yeah. It wasn’t just that though. I thought I was doing okay being around the drinking but it snuck up on me.”
“Is it dangerous for you?”
“You mean in terms of temptation? No. I never drank heavily and actually never much liked it. I quit completely after…well, it’s standard advice. But I don’t like being around intoxicated people. No one here gets really drunk but I guess the smell reminds me.”
Drunk clients led to so many unfortunate outcomes. I hadn’t thought about humans picking up that kind of aversion.
“Why did you stay?”
“I always want to. And I did all right at first, you were doing security and that helped me relax. So I thought it would be okay.”
Knowing he found my presence reassuring was giving me an emotion. But he still looked awkward, pale, and unhappy which was giving me a different emotion.
“I can leave if you don’t want me here all night.”
“No!” His pulse spiked and his breath picked up speed again. “I can leave if you don't want to share the room.”
“I don’t want you to leave. I thought you might want privacy during the night. I wasn’t sure if me being here while you napped would be the same as me being here all night.”
“It’s kind of the opposite. This is stupid but I don’t want to sleep in a house full of people in a room with no lock.”
(He didn’t add, unless you’re here, but it was implicit and it left me feeling warm.)
He let out a frustrated huff of air. “It’s stupid. I should be past all this. I know no one here is going to do anything.”
I’d suspected something, actually, and I’d been wanting to ask. “Are things getting worse?”
“You mean stress reactions and so forth?”
I nodded (while wondering what symptoms he was lumping under “and so forth." I’d never been more tempted to hack his medical records.)
“A bit, but don’t get the wrong impression. I’m just complaining. It’s normal for symptoms to flare up and then subside from time to time, in reaction to life events.”
“Did you get that phrase from a therapy module?”
“So what if I did?” he asked, scowling. Then he smoothed out his face and said, “Sorry. And yeah, I did. But that just means that professional mental health experts have verified that it’s true.”
“Do the modules talk about how annoying it is when you have to explain everything?”
He just blinked at me.
“That’s why you’re doing modules instead of seeing a person, isn’t it? Because if you talk to a Preservation-trained therapist, you have to explain every little thing. Like power outages.”
“Yeah. I guess it’s worse for you, right?”
I’d tried some of the therapy modules from the Corporation Rim. They tended to be designed for humans who weren’t disposable, because nobody cared about the mental health of indentured humans in places like mining facilities, they just hired SecUnits to keep them in line. I didn’t find much that helped me. But I wasn’t talking about me right now.
“You could find better therapy at PSUMNT.”
He blinked at me again but I could tell he was focusing his attention. After a bit he shifted his gaze to the wall over my shoulder.
I felt a bit bad about accidentally insulting Preservation therapists, so I explained, “By better, I mean a better match for your background. You could talk to a human who knows Corporation Rim basics.”
Gurathin immediately shook his head. “I couldn’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“Mensah needs me. I assist with Preservation security.”
“Was I wrong to leave?”
“Of course not.” He stole a quick glance at me and his face went soft. “She’s proud of you, you know.” He hastened to add, “not in a condescending way.”
“It’s okay. I’m proud of her too.” (I’m proud of all my humans. Even Gurathin.)
It was a nice moment and I let it linger a bit. Then I said, “Are you more important to Preservation security than I am?”
“No, but that’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
“This is my home. Mensah saved me, this is where I belong.”
“So you can never leave?”
“No! Quit twisting things.” He’d grabbed his arms again.
“I’m not twisting things. Even the young people leave and come back. Amena’s going to attend PSUMNT.”
I gave him a minute to absorb that.
“You’re cleared to know about ART’s crew now, so I can tell you this. We have one crew member who was enslaved into a corporation death squad. The therapy he received at PSUMNT helped him a lot.”
“Why did he join ART’s crew?”
“ART’s crew needed someone who knew CR tactics, he wanted to help, and the faculty director recommended him. Seth was initially hesitant but it’s worked out well.”
“And he’s really okay to go out and fight them?” Gurathin looked genuinely impressed. (As the newest crew member, Tarik is the butt of a lot of teasing, so it was weird seeing this reaction from someone who hadn’t even met him. But actually when I thought about it, it was impressive.)
(When I thought about it, I’d also escaped from being a corporate enforcer and become someone who fought them. I don’t think of myself as impressive, but maybe I kind of am? It was a weird thing to consider.)
I said, “You wouldn’t know it from what just happened, but ART and its crew really do try to handle things peacefully. But yes, he fights when he has to. I was glad to have him along when we ran into trouble. I think you two would get along. And I asked him who he saw.” I sent him the information in the feed.
Gurathin said, “I’ll think about it.” Sometimes that means shut up and quit bothering me, but in this case Gurathin followed the feed links I’d sent him. (He didn’t open a shared channel, but he didn’t mark his activity as private either. That basically counted as an invitation.)
He read about the program for a bit, but just thinking about it must have stressed him out, because his pulse started rising. After a while he switched to the mission file I’d sent him earlier.
“Humans need rest periods,” I said.
“Oh shut it,” he grumbled, but I had a drone on his face and I could see him smiling. A moment later he added in a much softer voice, “Thank you, SecUnit. I really will think about it.”
He fell asleep not long after. I guarded the door. Initially me providing security for Mensah’s party had just been an excuse, a way for me to stay calm about my presence here. It was always easier to be at an event like this if I had a purpose. But I’d actually performed security. Not the way I would have been forced to in the past by my governor module, but this new way I was learning, where I combined my function with goals of my own. And it felt good.