Little Murderbot Fic Snippet I Wrote Inspired By The Discord A While Ago! It Appears The Cracker Wrapper

little murderbot fic snippet I wrote inspired by the discord a while ago! it appears the cracker wrapper incident from rogue protocol left some lasting damage...

"Oh SecUnit! You're early!"

To be honest, Ratthi hadn't actually expected SecUnit to show up, but he was still pleasantly surprised to see it here. Since Gurathin's apartment on the station was too small for him to host his own birthday party, Ratthi had volunteered his own for the occasion. SecUnit had returned from its latest trip with the Perihelion quite recently, and Ratthi had figured that it would still be working on recharging its limited social battery, and unwilling to subject itself to even the small crowd that would be here. He gestured with an enthusiasm he hoped it would pick up on and said, "Come on in!"

SecUnit didn't reply verbally, but it sent an acknowledging ping to Ratthi's interface as it marched past him, followed by a small flock of its surveillance drones.

"I'm still getting some things ready in the kitchen, but feel free to make yourself at home," he called after it. SecUnit's idea of making itself at home involved more patrolling and hazard assessments than the average person's, but it was nice to see it feel comfortable here, in its own way. Ratthi hoped that the way he had arranged the decorations this time wouldn't get him another written notice about unsafe obstructions to the automated fire suppression system.

He closed the door, making a point to lock it behind him, and followed SecUnit down the hallway and into the kitchen, where he found it standing completely motionless, staring at his sink wearing the most appalled expression he could ever remember seeing on its face.

"SecUnit?" he asked. "...You okay?"

"There's a cracker wrapper in your sink," it said, pointing a finger at the offending wrapper. Its voice was flat, a striking contrast to its face, which now looked like it had when Ratthi told it that the newest season of Sanctuary Moon had been kind of boring.

Ratthi was too afraid to ask what kind of horrible security hazard could be caused by a stray cracker wrapper, but he carefully reached past SecUnit and fished the wrapper out of the sink and put it in the waste bin.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't know you were so tidy," he said, flashing a smile towards its shoulder. "I'll get things straightened up before the party starts, don't worry."

SecUnit was apparently too shaken to even acknowledge this. It kept its eyes focused on the now empty sink, which Ratthi quickly checked himself just to make sure there wasn't some insanely poisonous spider or something hiding there. Nope, nothing but some crumbs that he didn't think deserved this kind of horror.

The silence stretched on awkwardly. Ratthi broke it to say, "I'm just gonna--"

"I need to go check the perimeter. I'll be back soon," it interrupted, and it was out of the room before Ratthi could muster more than "Okay?" as a response.

Well, he supposed that everyone had their own eccentricities.

TIHI

been repeating this in my head all day

MB’s internalized CR prejudices against other constructs and MIs, along with its tendency to both intentional and comically accidental hypocrisy are some of the realest things about it.

MB: I’m an individual with a name! (it’s Murderbot).

Also MB: Call me SecUnit

Also MB: Free bots name themselves and everything about it is stupid.

Glorious.

Murderbot is really judgy of bot's chosen names for someone who named itself 'Murderbot'

@blessphemy look upon the fruits of your deeds

been repeating this in my head all day

If I, some rando, were to be in charge of the Murderbot show 1. It would be animated. 2. It would be framed from the perspective of Murderbot retelling its story to us. So it would have drones the whole time that most of the footage would be shot through, or stationary surveillance cameras or from its own perspective. Very found footage. During silly moments we'd get future Murderbot's internal monologue VO and during serious moments that would subside to let the audience live in that moment. But most importantly, every time MB had its helmet off in the first book, it would be shot from behind or there would be a convenient leaf or something over their face. It gets to the point that you can tell it's deliberate. That finally changes when it makes the decision at the end of All Systems Red to go off on its own, only then do you see its face as an act of self determination and vulnerability.

There is extremely little that MB thinks about from its old life with even a hint of positivity, but it does remember the safety notices on one installation that actually seemed to expect humans to read them. Were they phrased as threats about how much money an incident would cost? Yes. But they did seem to help.

You can't afford to lose your scrap, now can you?

something about those old safety posters are so fun to me, just the way theyre drawn. reference and un aged version below the cut

edit: added image ID's.