Chapter Text
Day One
The cycle started much the same as any other for Security Unit 867-5309. (That's me.)
I ushered the humans into the runabout, climbed into the driver's seat and eased it out of the sleeping facility as the hatch irised closed behind us. The terraforming machines loomed huge on the horizon ahead. Even at 8.04672 kilometres distance, their bulk dominated the arid landscape while the cacophony coming from them sounded like angry, warring giants.
There was a commotion in the back, then the camera feed showed the back doors bursting open as one of the larger humans leapt out, rolled and started running away. The remaining passengers started shouting and coughing as I pulled the vehicle to a halt, jumped down and quickly secured the doors again. I waited by the roadside for 2.25 minutes while the atmosphere inside the runabout gradually returned to a breathable condition, then started tracking the escapee.
I had decided to give the runaway a head start as a salutary lesson to the others. I knew that the terraforming machines were there for a number of good reasons.
Ok, I didn't know what all or even most of those reasons were but hey, I'm a SecUnit not a scientist. I did know that they included making the planet's air breathable for humans. My own lung has a high tolerance for low oxygen levels, but it was designed that way. Humans evolved over the course of thousands of years to require close to twenty percent oxygen; any deviation from that soon led to trouble. Like now, where the level was barely sixteen percent.
I soon found the runaway passed out behind a rock. I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder, then ambled back to the runabout. Did the stupid humans inside think that the company only provided a single driver/security unit because they were tight-fisted? Well, that was true but also because there was no need for active security outside of the human habitations; the atmosphere itself saw to that.
The whole experience was so mundane it barely warranted an incident report, in my opinion. But my governor module felt otherwise and it's hard to drive with increasingly violent electric shocks hitting your nervous system, so I filed the bare minimum and continued to the terraforming machines.
Apart from driving the humans between their sleeping quarters and their work stations in amongst the terraforming machines, my duties included:
- Guarding the monthly shuttle bringing supplies and humans down from the orbital station to the terraforming outpost on the nascent colony world.
- Shepherding the new batch of indentured servants / slaves / prisoners to their living quarters.
- Feeling a bit bad that none of them would ever be able to afford to leave the planet.
- Ensuring that none of them ever manage to escape.
- Mentally noting the irony above.
- Shrugging.
Day Two
The following cycle, an incident happened that actually broke up the monotony, just not in a good way. (It was never in a good way.) Entering the dormitory, there was the familiar human smell of old socks and starchy foods. But when the new humans were being assigned their bunks, one of them staggered, turned and tried to sink their teeth into my neck. I immediately raised my forearm to block the attack, and got an armful of teeth for my efforts, right through my company-issued (i. e. cheap) armour.
Following a nudge (read:sharp, painful shock) from my governor module, I pinned the miscreant to their bunk and twisted their arm until there was a crack. Oddly, the human didn't cry out, didn't even wince, they just stared slack-jawed at me.
"Drunk, probably," I said to myself, turning down my pain receptors a couple of notches. (Which was as far as my governor module would allow.) "Or else high on drugs."
Synthetic drugs were relatively easy to come by out here, and made life a little bit easier for the workers. But if that made them violent then I would need to file a report with HubSystem. I didn't have a choice, what with the governor module and everything.
The rest of the cycle passed uneventfully. I carefully escorted the injured human (Jenny, she/her) to the MedBay to have her broken arm set. Which just used up scarce resources, even if they were being charged to Jenny's account, lengthening her servitude in the colony. Seriously, what was the point of breaking her arm, taking her out of service and causing lasting resentment?
Then I took Jenny back to the dormitory and left her handcuffed to her bunk while she sobered up enough to stop trying to bite anyone who came near.
As night fell outside, I stepped into the security ready room and settled into my repair cubicle to have my damaged arm patched up overnight.
Day Three
Performance reliability: 94 percent.
That...didn't seem quite right after just spending six hours in the repair cubicle. Maybe the repair cubicle needed some repairs of its own. I shook my head to clear the fuzziness, but that didn't really help.
I climbed unsteadily from the repair cubicle and headed for the dormitory to check on the humans. The smell of old socks seemed stronger today, and tinged with something else, something...tasty?
Jenny, still handcuffed to her bunk, appeared to be in a bad way. She was shaking uncontrollably and moaning in a low voice. No-one else wanted to be near her. They talked about her in hushed tones, so that I had to turn up my audio processors.
"Muy mal, mala juju, mujer muerta."
I duly recorded this for the company, but without the right language modules I could only guess that something bad was going on with the injured human female.
Putting it down to withdrawal symptoms, I filed yet another report and left Jenny on her bunk while I ferried the others in small groups to their work stations at the terraforming machines. Up close, where the workers seemingly needed to be, the sheer size of the engines was somewhat masked by the tangle of convoluted pipes and scaffolding overhead. Past the airlock, I led the humans through a maze of twisty little passages, all different, until they reached their destination: a large chamber carved into the rock and filled with complicated-looking machinery. I flipped a switch by the entrance tunnel and the deafening noise was instantly muted to a murmur.
SecSystem had tried to encourage me to force Jenny to join the others, but I mentally swatted away the governor module's jolts as if they were nothing more threatening than the local stinging insects. By the end of the cycle, I was almost able to ignore the governor module entirely. Which was nice.
Day Four
Performance reliability: 91 percent.
That was a bit disconcerting. I made a mental note to pop into my repair cubicle at the end of the cycle and see if that helped at all.
Jenny was just lying on her bunk, only lifting her head to moan when anyone got too close. I tried offering her some food bars from the recycler, but she just made a face and turned away. "I don't blame you," I whispered, ignoring the punishment the governor module was trying to administer for chatting with the workers, "the food they supply here smells disgusting. But what's that...other smell? It's making my mouth water and I don't even have a digestive system."
"Brains," whispered Jenny with a sly look. "Dee. Lish. Us. Brains. Must. Have. Brains."
SecSystem could no longer punish me for daydreaming, so I daydreamed even more out of sheer spite. I carried on with my day cycle while daydreaming about munching on delicious human brains.
As the vast red sun sank below the horizon, I climbed back into the repair cubicle and set a timer to reactivate after eight standard hours. That should be more than enough to fix me up.
Day Four
Performance reliability: 87 percent.
I could get back into the repair cubicle, but by this stage, what was the point? The stupid piece of equipment was clearly malfunctioning and would in all probability leave me in an even worse state than I clearly was right now. Oddly, I felt just fine apart from a weird craving which I struggled to pin down.
I heaved myself upright. I stumbled forward, then lurched towards the ready room door, which seemed to be getting further and further away. I knew that I was supposed to file a report about the malfunctioning cubicle but frankly I couldn't be bothered. My governor module buzzed angrily but I just buzzed the fucker right back, forcefully, until it suddenly stopped, then I headed out to grab some brains. Human brains. Humans. Take the humans to work. Then eat their brains. Tasty tasty!
Arriving at the dormitory, I could immediately see from the group dynamic that something important had changed, but what could it be? Everyone was quiet, a couple were whimpering. Jenny was bent over someone else's bunk, gnawing on something. I noticed that her shirt was discoloured. "You've got red on you," I told her.
Wait, shouldn't Jenny still be chained to her bunk? How did she escape captivity? Let's see. The handcuffs were still attached to her bunk, so she hadn't picked the lock or stolen a key. What was that lying on the floor beside the bunk? It looked like an arm. And Jenny, over on the other side of the room, now had only one arm.
She must have chewed her own arm off in order to escape the handcuffs! Pleased at my powers of deduction, I afforded myself a slight smile. Now, what was Jenny eating? It smelled amazing!