Humans ignore danger signs daily. Not only on mining installations but everywhere. This place is as isolated as any such installation, even if it is... populous. Not for long, Murderbot thinks. The sea has been throwing alien monsters—wrong in horrible ways—and now offers a glowing path down into the waves. Murderbot noticed it before. It's keeping an eye out on things. Not because— no it has not signed up to work security here. It cannot keep all these humans safe. There's too much stupidity for that. Even if the ratio were 1:10, it'd likely be too much. No company contract.

Which is why it doesn't know why it bothers. "Hey!" it shouts at someone, "What are you doing? Don't just walk into the ocean. That's a good" (bad) "way to die." It holds little hope of being listened to, but it moves quickly in that direction.

Adrenaline and other neurotransmitters flood its system upon the conversations it overhears. Only affects Sleepers some locals whispered. Comes from exploring under the water others suggest. Infected. Cursed. Pthumerian. It hardly hears more. Even as it returns to a safe location, the well fortified building its been cleaning up, Murderbot starts running diagnostic scans. It isn't as good as 2.0 was at this (its design too foreign for TargetSystemController to infect), but Murderbot has its notes, what it looked for, what had previously been tagged and removed. It comes back negative, empty, nothing so far as it can tell in the code.

That makes sense. There's no system shown to be behind this. Trench, this contaminated city, fits traditional ("traditional" since so much is secret, not shared) descriptions of alien remnant contamination. It wishes it could ask Thiago— it's glad Thiago isn't here to get contaminated. That's the smallest comfort. The humans it's had—those from Preservation and ART's crew—aren't here. What's a little death to a murderbot, it jokes flatly. That's what a MedBay is for, or that... lacking the Company cubicle.

Sure enough, back and far away from everyone else, it finds a small patch of rubbery inhuman skin on its back. Performance reliability drops 10 percent. It freezes, its bare organic hand touching the horrible substance. Murderbot stands, sits, and stands again. It can regrow its body tissue. It's lost more of its body mass in the hours it remembers than its made of hundreds of times over. There's only one thing to do.

It goes to the knife it obtained here, sharp and cleaned many times over because Murderbot doesn't trust anyone else. Anyone else that's here. Briefly, it stands there, unsure where the best location to dispose of infected tissue is. One of the levels has a fireplace (because yes, on top of everything else, what everyone here really needs is an uncontrolled fire source). It's a risk worth taking. That's what its later review of memories clearly show. Otherwise it wouldn't do this, right? It's thought processes are 87 percent swearing, 10 percent action, and 3 percent existential dread.

The swarm of drones spread around it, offering full visibility of the infected tissue. Murderbot starts the fire and builds it up. It closes the other exits in hope to isolate the issues to this room. Then, there's nothing for it. Murderbot lowers its pain receptors, gives the infected tissue wide margin, and cuts into its own flesh. The process is as gross and unhygienic as anyone could expect. It ends up with a mess of tissue in its hand. For whatever reason it is dusted in... powder? For the injury, the leaking has been—

Oh, that powder came from it. Yes, its veins closed themselves naturally, but the edges of the injury where it's removed the alien tissue is also covered in the dark powder. That cannot be good. One problem at a time, Murderbot throws the tissue into the flames where it crackles horribly, blackens, and slowly turns to ashes. It lingers longer, perhaps, than it should to ensure its disposed of as close as it can to pathology standards. This whole place is a pathology nightmare.

It goes to the Company cubicle, sits in the small space, has absolutely no feelings about sitting in one again not a single one, and watches a familiar episode of Sanctuary Moon. Once its notified everything is finished, it stays until the end of the next episode. The cubicle's handled worse.

Murderbot feels that it handled that well. That's that.

Until it catches sight of that terrible flesh on its wrist mid-performance at the festival. It backs away, leaving a drone to record the remaining, and stands at a railing, staring into the sea far enough down the boardwalk not to be near anyone else, not to put them in danger. Really living up to the ridiculous stories about rogue SecUnits.

It avoids people. It wanders the streets of Trench with only the weapons it cannot separate from itself, the inbuilt energy weapons. Whenever it hears anyone, it hightails for any path to avoid them, moving faster than humans are capable of. It loses itself in quick travel. Even the most deserted places seethe with humans. This city is too populated. All of them in danger, not only from Murderbot, but it's among the horrors crawling ashore.

That makes the sea the wrong place to go. The growing patches of damp skin resembles water fauna. Monstrous fauna. Surely it will thrive there, grow strong, and return to slaughter people the way SecUnits are so capable of. Never mind it won't be a SecUnit anymore. It's been on one murderous rampage it knows of. It doesn't know how to stop this one. It cannot even destroy itself properly. Sleepers come back from the dead. That might only accelerate the process.

It finds an edge of town and continues down the road until the horrors catch up to it. Performance reliability at 45 percent. It cannot think properly enough to put the existential dread into words. Abruptly, it stops, sitting by the side of the road near nothing and no one else. Murderbot shutters. The rescue feels like a dream. Something it might have dreamed to make itself feel better. The networking isn't here, the terrible presence on the network. That part is real, yes. That threat stopped (?). The original contamination—

New contamination. Old contamination. Does it matter? It's doing all it can to keep anyone safe. Even if it doesn't know most of these people. Even if it tries not to care about them. It's out here alone, and that's where it will stay until it ends, whether from its power cells running out (it locks the process to recharge, so it cannot access it if it gets worse) or from a violent death at the hands of some other monster. Until it's a voice locked in its head unable to control what happens. Performance reliability drops again.

Murderbot waits for the forced shutdown. It's doing poorly enough, sure. It sits and sits.

What crawls down the street does not match SecUnit standard or sleeper standard by any imagination. Stripes run the course of the massive shape, signaling danger if somehow the four large tentacles, pocked with suckers down their length in row after row. The monster isn't purely a mass of tentacles and flesh. Metal reinforces the muscles. Two of the tentacles crackle with electricity, and a sharp beak can be spied at the right (wrong) angle.

Most of the people are ignored, free to scurry away to safety. Natives no more interest to it than worms at the bottom of the ocean. It tracks something else, something cursed or soon to be. Acting more on instinct than control, living what feels again like a combat override module, its scan brings up a Sleeper. They're different than the residents, and the overwhelming programming takes over. Target acquired.

When the city floods again, the smart thing would be to stay safe indoors. The entrance to its shelter has proven decently waterproof. It could sit there watching something new or rewatch some unrealistic show that always ends better than things do here. It could make sure it doesn't become a threat to others again. It could avoid the Company cubicle that let it down. It could do anything smarter than staying out when the water reaches its waist. Let no one ever say that Murderbot is too smart for its own good.

In regular clothing, the kind that covers all signs it might be more or less than human but offers no true barrier to water, Murderbot wades down the streets looking for signs of distress. It's not trying to be a hero. It owes the city, especially the Sleepers, something for the attempted... murder? eating? It's not entirely sure and can live without the answer to that question. Not all buildings are meant to withstand this. It scans the environment as it goes, drones exploring side streets to give it a heads up of someone in distress.

This stupid planet lacks a feed. The slightly less stupid city has one, a local network like that on a ship or station. It asks nicely there for copies of whatever anyone has. It's not enough. The responses are not enough. The supplied media isn't enough. The cavernous space longs for more, an empty ghost of what it could be (what it once had been? Murderbot doesn't know its history, only that it was empty when it found it).

It stalks the streets. The need for more serials, more books, more plays, more music (the soundtrack to a show its less fond of, one of those 'stuck forever in a wormhole' ones, plays in its head, a constant reminder that being trapped with a limited amount of media is a special kind of torture). It spots a likely prospect alone and makes a bee line for them. That last distance isn't closed, yet, but Murderbot stands closer than it otherwise would. "What's the last thing you watched? Read? Listened to?" it demands with no introduction. Its eyes stare deeply into their forehead.

[ Contact me at inoctavo or silyara#7604 on Discord to plot other options. Permissions here.]