[open] test environment

[serialmurderbot]

Who: SecUnit and OPEN
What: The husk hatches! This is actually good news.
When: Around the 19th.
Where: In and around the Convoy.
Warnings: Insectoid features, depictions of PTSD, others TBD.

1. Reactivation

[Forced shutdown: restart

failure: retry
failure: retry

retry

restart]

There's something wrong with its eyes. They won't focus, and it's staring at a... something. Wall? It takes a whole 7.9 seconds to determine that the abstract line it's looking at is, in fact, the corner of a room where the ceiling meets the walls. Which feels wrong. It's pretty sure the last time it was stuck like this, the ceiling blended into the wall.

It hopes this isn't like the last time it was stuck like this. It mostly remembers being very fucking bored.

Then the rest of it snaps online, and SecUnit has access to all of its memory files. Which doesn't help, actually, because there's something wrong with its systems. Analysis of visual records indicates that the light coming in through the slatted window and the hints of terrain are distinctly different from the time it shut down, and yet its internal record has no record of how long it's been shut down.

Okay. No need to freak out just yet, even if the situation starts to send prickles through the organic parts of it, and threat assessment is beginning a slow climb. It starts to get off of the bed where it's been leaning back, and promptly fucking overbalances and hits the ground with a crash.

It doesn't move for a second, because this really is like its memory rebuild, and maybe it should just sink into the floor and never move again instead of paying attention to the diagnostic warning it now has unhelpfully warning it that its legs need calibration before use due to extended inactivity and potential obstruction. There's shards of - something on the bed and the ground around it, metal that leaves the remnants of a shell.

One hand and arm is still coated in it.

SecUnit reacts, extremely fucking reasonably by its measure, by punching the hand into the closest wall, it's entire mind a scream of oh shit.

-

2. Around the Convoy

By the time it's gotten its legs working again - and, more importantly, ensured that there's no corruption to its memory archives, SecUnit slips away from the room it's apparently spent the past two weeks in. The Convoy is stopped for the evening, and most of the humans and human-adjacent organics should be handling their meal break, leaving SecUnit the chance to patrol the shields mostly undisturbed. It makes a sweep, aiming ultimately for the weird floating islands that start spiraling up from the ground at the edge of the shields.

It gives the strange glowing plants a wide berth, remembering the weird colored water of the oasis. Threat assessment keeps trying to spike at every unexpected twitch of movement, every unfamiliar noise, flooding its organic parts with stress chemicals, so it's slow going for SecUnit, who's trying not to stop dead and keeps doing so anyway.

It has to start running processes in background, filling its head with three simultaneous floods of data to try and even out the performance reliability that sits somewhere in the low seventies as it does - one analyzing all of the vehicles around it for signs of damage, a second in background playing Sanctuary Moon (Episode 206, which it's paying less that 18% of it's attention to, it's just there for background, and isn't working as well as it would hope at making it feel better), the third plotting a route to ascend to the top of one of those floating islands, all the while it patrols, alert for any signs of monsters. Or worse, people.

And underneath it all; there's no corruption, code analysis comes up clean. Get it together, Murderbot.

[ooc: feel free to use brackets or prose! I'll swap to match. Also if your character has any of the plant effects this month, feel free to have them pick up on what Murderbot here is thinking/feeling.]

Comments

[serialmurderbot]

SecUnit weighs the options, visibly unhappy with either. But -

"If it doesn't work you'll have to go back," it says, tense and unhappy, even as it reaches up with its free hand to tug up its hood, a gesture that doesn't actually do much to mask the insectlike features, but at least seems to make SecUnit feel marginally better. "Let's get it over with."

[solitarysoul]

"I-I wouldn't mind, but maybe it is better if we both go..." Levi nods and heads out towards the med bay. He stiffens a bit, automatically going into security detail mode.

[serialmurderbot]

There's a moment of disconnect, where SecUnit starts to do the same thing, attempting to fall in at Levi's shoulder and stopping when it notices Levi going on alert, immediately trying to determine what the threat he's reacting to could be.

It takes 2.4 seconds of scanning the area for it to realize what's going on here, and then it feels - weird. And it doesn't want to argue about it, so it hunches its shoulders and just starts forward. It wants to say it doesn't need a guard, even with one energy weapon encased in weird metal it's fine, but - at least it can make Levi deal with any humans they encounter on the way there.

[solitarysoul]

Levi's not sure if he's protecting SecUnit from the convoy or the convoy from SecUnit in case it goes berserk but it barely mattered as it worked out the same way. He doesn't think he expects monsters line in Prehevil here, but who knows. At least if anyone tried to talk to them he could default to solider-mode and tell them they have somewhere to be.

He knows the way to the sick bay, though, so it should be a quick and easy trip.

[serialmurderbot]

It is a quick trip, though SecUnit might not describe it as an easy one, even if the encounter rate for other Drifters is low and the percentage of hostile fauna encounters is zero and it is objectively better than a lot of walks SecUnit has been on, even here. It does okay at walking casually, even though it's definitely not casual about the whole thing, and doesn't relax until they actually get into what counts for medical facilities in the Convoy.

And even there, it starts searching through the various cubbies, looking for anything that might turn out useful.

[solitarysoul]

Levi's been in the medbay and few times and once went through all the drawers and cubbies out of curiosity, so he knows where the scalpels are kept. He pulls one out and looks between it and the husk remaining on SecUnit's arm. These things were sharp and he'd seen Daan do a lot of damage with one, but he had no idea if it had the strength to cut off the husk remains.

What he does know is that SecUnit wouldn't appreciate him just trying so he holds the scalpel out, handle first. "H-here. I've never cut anything like that but I've done some field medicine so, um, I-i dunno. I can try to help, if you want."

[serialmurderbot]

Good choice, Levi - a human walking up to it with a sharp object is always a little bit alarming, even if a scalpel wouldn't do excessive damage to it. Spotting the handle being extended towards it, SecUnit takes it, weighing the options. Its hands are steady and it trusts its own ability to keep from using too much force and accidentally stabbing itself, but the leverage it has on its own arm isn't great, either.

It also doesn't want to see how easily its fingers can be reattached here.

"Start up at the joint," SecUnit says, holding back out the scalpel. Once Levi takes the blade back it pulls up the sleeve, to expose the part of the shell still collected by the elbow.

[solitarysoul]

Its basic safety, you don't hold a knife out to someone with the blade first. But it making him appear non-threatening is also good. He blinks when the blade is offered back to him but takes it and moves to get a better look at SecUnit's arm and the remaining husk.

"O-okay..." He takes a moment to study it, so he can figure out what the best angle is to go at it, before starting where SecUnit's noted. He's not sure how tight the thing is on there, or exactly where the husk meets the skin, but he tries to stick the knife in right at that point.