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The ping came from Ratthi with a newscast attached. "From the creators of VALOROUS DEFENDERS comes STARCROSSED SYSTEMS—a SecUnit love story."
No thanks, I replied.
Um, Ratthi said, you should really take a look at this.
Which is how I ended up in Pin-Lee's office 11.2 minutes later. She was behind her desk, scanning the article at an agonizingly slow pace. When she finally finished reading (I was tracking her progress with a drone over her shoulder) I said, "Well? Can you destroy it?"
She sat back. I nudged the drone out of her way. She was making that face she makes when something is so obviously terrible that it circles back around to being hilarious (except this wasn’t hilarious).
She avoided looking at me directly, but I think she couldn't resist a quick glance at my expression. "They seriously went with 'Captain Fensah'?"
I successfully prevented my face muscles from moving. I said, "I don't know anything about human law. Is that good or bad?”
She said, “Technically, it’s a misappropriation of likeness that violates about twenty different Preservation privacy laws."
I started a keyword search through the Preservation Alliance Statutes & Regulations. Then I stopped it. "This studio is in the Corporation Rim, isn’t it?” I already knew the answer. I started a new search.
Pin-Lee wasn’t like Ratthi or Arada. When she had bad news, she just gave it to you all at once. “It’s worse than that,” she said. “The studio’s parent company is WaveScope, the same conglomerate that did these.” She pulled up a familiar-looking series of broadcasts. "They were the first ones to report a rogue SecUnit was galavanting around the galaxy unsupervised, which means they've not only documented justifiable public interest in your story, they own it.”
Wait, what? 91% of my processing space was being used to comb through hits for "dirty corporate media rights” so maybe I misheard her. I rewound the audio. I hadn’t.
She added, “Since they were the first to publish, under Corporation Law, they have all rights of reproduction. That means they can do whatever they want and other outlets or studios are subject to royalty feeds." She tilted her head. "They probably made a killing when Dr. Mensah got kidnapped."
What the fuck. I realized I forgot to say it out loud. "What the fuck?”
"Yeah," she said. "Corporates."
“But what about Dr. Bharadwaj’s documentary? I’m in that.” Gotcha.
Pin-Lee’s mouth went all thin. “That's different. I—really hate to say this, SecUnit, but you aren't actually the main subject here." Her eyes flicked over the newscast. "The angle for WaveScope's original coverage was Dr. Mensah. Statements on her 'purchase' of you, your relationship, how she got to know you on the survey." Pin-Lee added finger quotes, but they didn't make me feel better. "It's the same with this serial. As far as I can tell, 'Captain Fensah' is the central character. The SecUnit character is…"
I finished the thought for her. “A prop.”
Neither of us said anything for 5.9 seconds. Then Pin-Lee put her hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Look, you have my word that I’ll fight like hell on this. It'll air over my dead body.”
My risk assessment module spiked, which was so not helpful right now. “Thanks,” I managed. I hoped I didn’t sound too ungrateful. I couldn’t stop rewinding my audio history to her saying, it's worse than that. I tried to focus. "Is there anything I can do?"
She stood up. “If there is, you’ll be the first to know."
# # #
The worst part was that I'd actually been looking forward to shore leave. ART and its crew had only dropped me and Amena off a few cycles ago, and I'd barely made a dent in my task queue of (1) catching up with the survey team, (2) downloading new media, (3) watching said media, and (4) revamping security protocol for Dr. Mensah's—
—holy shit, Dr. Mensah. Did she know yet? Had Ratthi already sent it to her? Was she as upset / confused / scared / irritated / disgusted as I was?
See, this was why I wished I was on a contract. At least there’d be something else for me to do (or shoot, explode, etc.). Instead, I was putting all my attention on the download status of the entire legal code of the Corporation Rim—a 2.89TB text file (I know). It was a stupid waste of resources and I'd barely understand any of it, but maybe Pin-Lee's case would take so long I'd have time to get certified in human law. Actually, delete that last part. That really bummed me out.
I watched the download creep to 35% completion. I wanted to view media to pass the time, but the second I had that thought, my fists clenched involuntarily. I ended up squeezing them together even harder to keep my hands still. I couldn’t let this one incident ruin all serials for me. It wasn’t like MedCenter Argala was based on real doctors whose lives had been exploited for entertainment.
I backburnered the download feed and ran a new search. Okay, so UltorView didn’t use stolen life stories, but it was known for extreme personnel abuse, squalid living conditions, and toxic work environments (apparently the lights on set emitted severely carcinogenic, invisible fumes that made the human actors look really good (according to viewer poll ratings, not me)) during the filming of seasons 1-18. Nothing ever came of the findings because the actors and crew were hereditary contract laborers owned by UltorView.
Okay, great. There goes that.
And then to make matters worse, Gurathin pinged me.
Whatever you’re doing right now, it’s significantly reduced download speeds for everyone in this zone.
Go away, I wrote back. I need 43 more minutes.
A moment later, I got another ping from Amena.
Sorry, SecUnit. I was trying to download a paper and asked Gurathin to check what was taking so long.
Ah, fuck.
It’s okay, I sent back quickly. (I'm a construct, so it was nearly instantaneous.) I’ll pause my. Stuff.
I should have just said “research.” When Amena didn’t respond for 14 seconds, I started to get concerned. I resisted the urge to tap her feed or hack the station cameras to check on her status. (She once complained to me that 89% of the adult figures in her life (my calculations, not hers) didn’t respect her privacy enough. Given our history, I was trying to show trust in her autonomy (as long as nothing triggered my adjusted risk assessment threshold).)
My patience was finally rewarded with an even more upsetting reply. Is this about the newscast? She added an inquisitive sigil. Then, I guess to clarify what she meant without really clarifying anything, she added another sigil of a heart polygon sawed in half.
I could put the clues together. Juvenile humans usually paid more attention to media. I considered lying, but I didn't like doing that to Amena. (It usually wasn't worth the hassle, either.)
Yes, I sent back.
Yikes, she replied.
Tell me about it. I braced myself. Has she heard?
You mean Second Mom? A three second pause. I can ask her.
Ugh. Ugh!
No, it’s fine. I should ask her myself.
Okay. Good luck. She added a plant sigil that was tagged: ‘cultural%superstition.’ I had no idea what to make of that.
Anyway. It was time to see Dr. Mensah.
# # #
The thing I was really not looking forward to was whatever her initial reaction would be. Yes, Dr. Mensah was my favorite human for a reason, but I couldn't predict how she would respond to the knowledge that her (and my) recent life stories were about to become a multi-billion-currency-unit media circus (again).
I knew objectively from past and current assessments that Dr. Mensah would approach this situation with calm. There was only a 3.4% chance she would freak out and be irrational, and that was because of the built-in error margin for dealing with organics. I should be glad I could count on her even-headedness. I usually was. Except...
This serial was not about me. Not really about me. It was Mensah's "name" everywhere, and she could understandably be upset / confused / scared / irritated / disgusted by it. But if she didn't throw her arms up in the air and start screaming, the unnamed, unidentifiable SecUnit shouldn't either.
I pushed the thought out of my mind. I wrote, Hi, Dr. Mensah. Are you busy?
Her reply was fast. She must have already been watching the feed. Hello, SecUnit. Did you want to come by? I'm in my office.
Okay, great.
Then she added, Pin-Lee and the others are here.
The others? I sent back.
Ratthi, Arada, Overse, Gurathin, and Bharadwaj.
Fuck it. I accessed the camera that Mensah had let me put in a corner of her office for emergencies. Yeah, Pin-Lee was walking everyone through a display surface crammed with WaveScope files. I should have known she would go to Mensah next. I also should have been impressed that they'd gotten these documents together so quickly (given my bandwidth hogging), but I guess I was feeling more betrayed than I expected.
Mensah knowing about the problem in advance was one thing; them talking about it without me was another.
I'll be there in six minutes.
I was there 5.8 minutes later. It took me 0.2 minutes to reduce velocity and knock.
"Come in," Mensah said.
I did. My primary visual input was immediately assaulted by the enlarged poster of Starcrossed Systems on the main display surface. I almost wished I had a stomach with food-digesting capabilities so I could throw up and make my opinion known.
"Hi, SecUnit," Arada gestured vaguely. "Um, it's nice to see you despite all this."
I barely acknowledged it. I was already saying to Mensah, "You heard."
She motioned toward on open chair, but I didn't want to sit right now. Mensah said, "Pin-Lee came to me shortly after she spoke with you. We've been discussing our options."
I didn't know why my organic parts were getting so sweaty about this. I should've been thrilled there were even options to discuss. I stood there stupidly, unsure what to say next. I could feel feed activity around me, but I couldn't pay attention to it. The silence was stretching.
"Uh, I feel like I should apologize," Ratthi cut in. "I know I was just the messenger, but—"
"It's not your fault," I said, lost to a chorus of other protests. When they died down, the room got tense and quiet again. It wasn’t until Arada couldn’t resist anymore and made huge, pleading eyes directly at my face that I realized they were waiting for me to speak.
I angled myself slightly more in Pin-Lee's direction. "Why were you all here without me?"
"We only just arrived—" Gurathin began.
She held up a hand. “I’m sorry, SecUnit," she interrupted him. "I wanted to talk to the survey group because everyone here gave statements to WaveScope. I didn't include you, because they never interviewed you. But—" she continued hastily when I opened my mouth, "—I should have asked you to come anyway so you'd know what was happening."
I untensed slightly. “Yes.”
“I apologize for not realizing that. I should have, none of this would be happening if it wasn't for you."
Overse winced. “I think your wording could have been better, there.”
I didn’t reply right away. I was comparing Pin-Lee’s expression to recordings of past conversations in which I'd won the argument / proved a point / made myself understood.
“It’s okay," I said. I quickly met her gaze to show I was serious, then looked away.
Dr. Mensah cleared her throat. "Now that SecUnit is here, I think it would be beneficial for us all to review the options again. It should be on the same page as we are."
Another knot in my organic parts unwound. I sat down.
“Right." Pin-Lee addressed the room. “I recommend two immediate moves. The first is basic— we can at least stop the serial from being distributed or downloaded by parties outside the Corporation Rim. That only covers about 12% of the predicted audience, but it's stupid not to do that."
Ratthi smiled at me. "We spend most of our time in Corporation space on uninhabited planets or running from transit rings, so at least you won't have to hear about it too much even inside their territory."
"Okay." I didn't feel that much better, but I appreciated his effort. "What's the second thing we're doing?"
Pin-Lee made a circle-gesture. "It's what I mentioned before. Minus Volescu, all of us talked to WaveScope in one form or another while shit was going down. That's bad because of broadcasting rights, but Corporation law allows for libel and damage claims. Those get more serious the more plaintiffs you have. I don't promise it'll be enough to kill production, but it's viable."
I was already combing through my long-term storage for interview timestamps when I noticed Pin-Lee biting her lip. It was uncharacteristic enough that I stopped and paid attention.
"There's something else?" I said.
"You won't like it. But yes. It's the most promising." She hesitated. "It's the company."
My performance reliability fell a full 4%. My stupid broken risk assessment module also tried to chime in.
"They actually have a strong case for copyright infringement," she was continuing, "because of the promotional materials. Especially this poster. On top of that, there's precedent for the company to push back on media involving SecUnits in general. When Valorous Defenders—"
I wasn't listening. "No," I cut her off. "I don't want them involved."
"They might get involved anyway," Overse said softly. "This logo on the poster is theirs, isn't it? Turned 90 degrees to the left?"
"97," I said. "And they erased—it doesn't matter. I don't agree."
"We understand,” Dr. Mensah said. “It’s done.”
Dr. Bharadwaj was trying to make eye contact with me without actually looking at me directly. I saved her the headache and tapped her feed. I'm fine.
Okay, she said. Thanks for checking in.
I took an embarrassing 0.3 seconds to gather myself together and address Pin-Lee again. "So if we don’t—them—are these our best options?"
"For the direct strategy, yes." She ran a hand through her hair. "Obviously, we can try to fuck with them in other ways. I'll start a review of their history and current practices. For blackmail,” she clarified. “But it’ll take time. Their entire production pipeline is isolated to a minor system they wholly own. They claim it's to 'avoid leaks' but it's definitely because of all the contract labor."
Arada made a startled, sad sympathy sound. Overse squeezed her shoulder.
"It can't be that hard to infiltrate the company. I mean, WaveScope." I projected one of ART's star maps over the stupid poster on the display surface. "They're located in the LaskyDeMille system," I said, and started to plot a course. "We should target Pathé, it's the biggest of the planets and where their corporate headquarters are registered. It's not even that far away by wormhole."
"As impressed as I am by how quickly you did that," Gurathin said, "bursting into their system with energy weapons blazing is not the best idea."
"We'll do it stealthily, obviously." My risk assessment module was telling me we had no chance of survival otherwise. Duh.
"Any video of us will become their intellectual property," Pin-Lee said.
"They won't see us," I said. "I'm too good at hacking."
"There are political ramifications," Mensah said. "Because they own their own system, their CEO is a planetary leader. If this goes badly, it would be construed as a declaration of war. That doesn't just put us at risk, it puts every Preservation Alliance citizen in danger."
Well. None of my modules liked that. I studied Mensah's face through my camera. "So," I said. I paused. I continued. "...we can't."
"We can't yet," Pin-Lee said. "It's too risky. I need time to work on the other ideas before we go ahead with the worst-case scenario."
I pulled the star chart down and set a reminder to follow up on the invasion plan tomorrow. Captain Fensah’s terrible grin leered back at me.
"Okay," I said, sinking into the couch a little.
Ratthi sat down next to me (not that close, which I did appreciate). "Serials get cancelled all the time," he said. "Maybe while we're busy working on the case, they'll kill the project themselves anyway."
"Okay," I said. Maybe it was because I was looking at everyone through the camera, but I felt sort of distant and faraway.
There was activity on the feed between Bharadwaj and Pin-Lee. Then Bharadwaj said out loud, "SecUnit, if you have time while you're here, I'm sure Pin-Lee can think of a few ways for you to help her."
"Okay," I said again. I guess as much as I didn't want pity-tasks, feeling nonfunctional was even worse. I had experience with both sides thanks to redacted. (No, I wasn't actually redacting it anymore, it was just a lot easier to say "redacted" than it was to explain the time my leg got eaten by a space zombie, but not really.)
"It's just not fair!" Arada said, shaking her head. "It's SecUnit and Dr. Mensah's lives. None of this should be happening."
"The Corporates don't care about lives," Overse sighed.
"They care about rights," Pin-Lee agreed. "It would be different if they hadn't written it down first. That’s what counts."
"Wait." I switched the visual input to my eyes and stood up. "Is that all?"
Dr. Mensah was getting up too. We swiveled toward Pin-Lee together like two gunship weapons readying fire.
"Does it matter if it wasn't published? As long as it was written?" Mensah said.
"Does transmitting count as publishing?" I said at the same time.
"What?" Pin-Lee blinked. "Well—be more specific. What are you talking about?"
"The letter!" Ratthi shot to his feet. "SecUnit's letter to Dr. Mensah! Does it count?"
We all stared at her. My respiratory systems thrummed.
"Okay," Pin-Lee said. "Let's go back to my office. I need my reference database."
# # #
Twenty cycles later, Amena found me in the Trans Lateral Bypass. I was sitting outside a beverage service place because I liked the smell and the nearby station aquatic fauna display. ART was coming back for us next cycle, and my task queue was pretty much done.
"Hi, SecUnit!" She slid into the seat across from me. "How's it going?"
"Good," I said. "Did you want a hot beverage?"
She laughed. "Are you offering to pay because you're the world's richest construct now?"
"It's technically your Second Mom's money," I said. "She just keeps giving me the currency cards."
"You were the one who wrote it," Amena said. Her hair was getting longer. It brushed the tops of her shoulders. "That ruling was stupid."
"That ruling was exactly what I wanted," I said. My drone tracked the movement of a marine arthropod stuck in the stream of the tank filter. "We destroyed the serial and WaveScope's claims to our story."
"Yeah, but they classified you as writing equipment."
"I had to be. It had to be Dr. Mensah's 'words' if we wanted to win, and she does technically own me."
Amena's nose wrinkled. I shrugged in response. (This was an involuntary human behavior that I copied once from Ratthi and found to be useful for moving conversations along.)
"Well," Amena said eventually, giving up. (See?) "I'm glad you're happy and super-rich."
"Do you want a card?" I said. "Pin-Lee already set it up so most of the retroactives are going directly to Preservation Alliance, but your Second Mom keeps insisting I take a percentage. Which I don't really need."
"I spend most of my time at the University or with you," she said, mouth quirking up into a smile. "I'm good."
I stashed the currency card back into my pocket. "Okay. Tell me if you change your mind."
"Have you considered writing more?" she asked. "You're really good at it."
I cringed a little. It wasn't like this was my first foray into media / entertainment creation (there were over 500 very receptive colonists that could attest to that). But if I had one complaint about the ruling, it was that I'd had to make my letter to Dr. Mensah—in its original form—public.
"It's old," I said. "I wrote that…a long time ago."
"So the next one will be even better," she said. "Because there definitely has to be a next one."
There was a 79% chance she was teasing me. Behind her, the marine arthropod managed to escape the bubbly vortex. My drone hovered up the tank toward a tubular invertebrate. (I realized belatedly that Three's interest in nonfiction might be rubbing off on me.)
"Maybe," I said. Her smile brightened. "No promises."