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iviarellereads · 11 months ago

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Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 5

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which the plot thickens.

Aylen makes it clear that Ratthi and Gurathin are not invited on the trip, but Gurathin already wanted out, and Ratthi is relieved at his understanding that Murderbot has been cleared of suspicion.(1) She does not, however, indicate whether she welcomes MB's assistance, which makes it hard for MB to know if it should be an asshole or not.(2)

So, MB, Aylen, two more StatSec officers (Farid and Tifany), the PortAuth supervisor (Gamila) and the PortAuth bot all head over to the other ship in question. On the way MB looks up Aylen's official title, and finds that she's brought in to investigations regular security can't figure out, and otherwise serves as an arbitrator for family and workplace issues, which is much less cool than "Special Investigator" sounds.

Gamila says the cargo transfer's been on hold for two days, waiting for authorization. She doesn't know why, and there's no record of cargo being offloaded. Aylen doesn't react, but Farid and Tifany share a look, and MB agrees with their suspicion. MB tries pinging the transport, but gets only a standard registry name, meaning it has no bot pilot. MB isn't sure what else it can contribute to the group without that.(3)

Aylen hails the ship's comm, and introduces herself. MB steps out of the hatch cam's view range, as a good SecUnit does. A voice says only Aylen and Gamila can enter, the "port heels" have to stay outside. MB wonders what the feed's translation algorithm was given to work with, to come up with "heels". It notes Faris and Tifany wondering the same silently.(4)

So, Gamila and Aylen go inside, and as the hatch closes, MB realizes it's made a mistake.(5) Farid asks if it's really a SecUnit. MB ignores him, and asks if either of them has a feed connection to Aylen. They don't, but Farid asks Balin(6) if it's connected with Gamila. MB is confused until it realizes Balin is the PortAuth bot's name. Balin says it's not. MB notes that StatSec officers are only armed with batons, not energy weapons, which means Aylen is now in there essentially unarmed.

MB tries to ping in the feed, but receives no response from Aylen or Gamila. Something is jamming it, ever since the hatch closed. Tired of being stonewalled, MB hacks PortAuth's SafetyMonitor system, and breaks the ship's secure feed connection. Eventually it finds Aylen's feed inside, broadcasting an urgent assistance code. It tells the others it needs to get entry. Farid sends another urgent assistance code, but Tifany orders Balin to get them inside. Balin stretches to its full height, twice MB's, and uses a decoder interface to open the hatch. MB remarks that the bot does sometimes do something besides stand around, and isn't that neat.

Sending drones first, MB enters the ship, and finds a first Target with an energy weapon. Aylen and Gamila are backed into a corner beyond them, with four additional Targets, two armed. A short action sequence later, the Targets are disarmed and knocked down. MB reports all listed crew accounted for in this lot, and no additional occupants located on its drones' recon.

Aylen and Gamila report no injuries to themselves, but Gamila doesn't quite know what happened or why they were attacked. Target Two accuses them of being corporates, come to take the ship with a SecUnit. MB says they didn't know there was a SecUnit until it broke in, and to try again. Target Five tells Two to shut up.

Finally, a StatSec Response Team roll in, and Balin comes to escort Gamila off the ship before Aylen orders all the Targets arrested. As they get to the StatSec office, MB remarks on how odd it is to walk into one, as a SecUnit, particularly a "rogue" one, and spends a page talking about the layout.(7)

There's a moment of hilarity as the weapons scanners, not programmed to allow MB's particular quirks, go off and the security officers assume they failed to search the prisoners correctly. MB waits two minutes and twelve seconds wondering if they'll figure it out, before it pulls up its sleeve. Target Four mouths off about how stupid StatSec are, but MB says they're the one that got taken into detention.

Aylen yells to get them inside, then quietly tells MB she's just received a report from PortAuth's inspectors that there was no cargo on the ship. MB, trying to process the sudden spike to threat and risk assessments, wonders aloud what the transport was waiting for, then, since it didn't even have a cargo module attached. Aylen says it's a good question.

In the interests of potential professional goodwill, MB offers that the crew know an awful lot about SecUnits, for being on a non-corporate ship. SecUnits aren't usually contracted except to isolated installations. Aylen suggests they ask them why.(8)

There's a delay, of course, because the paperwork needs to be done to process them in, and they need medical checks, and so on. Also, a team is searching the ship for the cleaning field generator, anything that might jam camera systems, or the missing body transporting cart. MB has messages from Ratthi and Gurathin, asking for friendly updates, and Pin-Lee saying she needs to talk to it immediately. It goes into a corner of the main second-level office to tap Pin-Lee.

Pin-Lee's first question is, as everyone else has asked, whether this is GrayCris's work. MB still doesn't know, but it still can't rule it out. (Farid sees MB and asks if it wants any tea, but MB says it doesn't eat, and Farid leaves again.)(9) Pin-Lee also offers that StatSec seem to be looking into a smuggling or fraud investigation related to the murder, and asks if MB wants a copy of whatever report she sends them. It says it would, but then Farid is back and waving at it to follow him, so it lets Pin-Lee go and follows to a conference room with Indah and Tural. Three displays have been set up, showing different officers in separate questioning rooms with Targets Five, Two, and Four. One and Three, MB judges, are probably still in Medical.

MB taps into all three feeds, to save a copy of goings-on for its own review later. Their stories are essentially the same, once rights have been read: they're traders originating from a station they call WayBrogatan, which MB confirms exists, and they ship modest cargo on a route that never, ever intersects the CorpRim, and never, ever take on passengers. Tural snarks about them being sticklers for licensing limits, and Indah agrees, saying they're obviously afraid of revealing something about passengers and cargo.

Officer Soire, with Target Two, and Officer Matif, with Four, ask questions about the cargo and route. Aylen tries that with Five, then asks why they took Aylen and Gamila hostage. Farid asks Indah if it's too soon, but Indah says it might not be. Five says it was a misunderstanding, and MB gets a vibe that this much is true, they did think the officials were someone else. It says so aloud, that the crew thought Aylen and Gamila were lying about being station officials. Tifany nods, and Indah agrees.

MB notes that Four has screwed up the route explanation, and is winging it, badly. It wonders if they just have a memory issue, but Indah's focused on Aylen and Five, who's suggesting some other transport rings have raiders who pull a con pretending to be officials to board. All three are shown an image of Lutran and asked if they recognize him, but none do, and MB says its estimated chance that they're all lying is under 20%.

Everybody looked at me again, then at Indah, who nodded, her gaze not leaving the display of Target Five’s face. It looked like she knew what she was doing. It would be interesting to compare her data to mine. Then I remembered the main reason I was doing this was to make sure there was no connection to GrayCris and I wasn’t going to refine my methods, such as they were. (What they were being mostly: crap I made up on the spot as I needed it that sort of worked, and leftover company code analysis.)

The Targets are then shown an image of Lutran, dead. Still no recognition, until they're informed the victim's name was Lutran. That gets a reaction out of all three. When pressed, Five shuts down, Two says they can throw her in detention, she's not saying any more, and Four worries about the others. Matif asks what others, their names and descriptions, and Four describes ten humans, including three adolescents. Neither MB nor the scanner think he's making it up.

According to Four, Lutran was supposed to be bringing them somewhere, and the Target crew never met him, because they compartmentalize to make it hard for "them" to catch everybody. Matif asks who "they" are, and Four can only offer a partial name, Brehar-something. MB finds a mining corporate, BreharWallHan (henceforth BWH in these notes) operating in a system one wormhole jump from WayBrogatan. Tural whispers the conclusion: the Lalow was smuggling people.

Matif continues to press, gently, and Four confirms that they were slaves where they came from, and they were being smuggled to freedom. A ship can slide up to the edge of the asteroid belt and pick up a few at a time, taking them through a sort of underground railroad setup. Four and crew are descended from the original miners, who have been there so long they have grandkids. The smugglers are taking the next generations out of the system.

Aylen is reassuring Five that Four is telling them everything, and that it's not illegal to be a refugee of contract labour here. Five suggests Four has a head injury.

Matif asks what Lutran had to do with things, and Four says he was "the plan person", handling what happened next, but can't clarify any further. Five, however, says Lutran was always their contact, no matter which station they went to, and if someone killed him, they know about the smuggling ring.

MB observes the killer must be a BWH agent. Indah says not necessarily, and they need to know what happened on the transport to know more for sure. MB asks a trick question about what the review of dock surveillance showed. Indah says if it's asking for permission to review it, it has it. MB thinks it could have handled that better.(10)

As MB is downloading and reviewing footage, Five gives in, and confirms Four's story. They both insist they have no idea what happens after the refugees disembark, only that Lutran would get them off the station safely from there. MB finds the footage of the refugees leaving the Lalow, which gives them more to work with than Four's descriptions. They didn't catch any particular attention in the busy docks, probably intentionally waiting for that effect.

After sending the relevant footage to Indah and Tural, MB checks the video at the Merchant Dock exits, but that's where things get weird. As the interrogators rejoin the others, MB says they never left the merchant docks. Indah exclaims, and MB displays the video on one of the display surfaces in the room. No sign of any of the refugees leaving, they just disappear between the dock-side and the exit-side cameras' views.

Soire suggests they changed their appearances, but MB says not even body types match. Aylen says they need to get to the Merchant Docks and find them. MB completes the thought, because they must still be there somewhere.

Privately, MB acknowledges that the chances of GrayCris involvement are slim to none now. It could leave, and let StatSec do their thing, catch up on media. Pin-Lee even wrote its contract so it could leave when it wanted. Only, it doesn't want to.(11)

When Indah is done ordering the search teams in, MB asks if anyone's run diagnostics of StatSec and PortAuth systems. Indah says no, not since MB first asked and the analysts found no alerts tripped. MB asks if they ran diagnostics or relied on alerts. Tural listens with their expression one of knowing someone else is getting in trouble for once. Indah says she doesn't know, but the analysts said their opinion was there was no hack.

MB asks if Indah is sure she doesn't want a second opinion, with this much at stake. Indah accuses it of just wanting access to the systems it's been denied. MB considers going into all its gathered evidence and risk assessments, and considers suggesting that Indah is afraid to make use of MB as the best asset she could have for this. Instead, it just says it only wants to check for hacks. Tural, bless their heart, agrees with MB that they should make sure. Interference could mean they're looking in the wrong places.

Indah says nothing for a bit. MB realizes if she turns it down, it's going to have an emotion, probably humiliation and shame with a side of feeling like an idiot. Instead, Indah asks how much access, and how long. MB gamely says admin access, but under five minutes, thinking how five minutes is much longer than necessary, but it wants time for a good look around.(12) Indah, however, is surprised at how fast five minutes sounds for such an in depth check, and says they do have data protection on the systems. MB scoffs internally, and says TRH had data protection too, and it had no problem taking Mensah out under their noses.

Murderbot still sees Indah's skepticism, and asks if the security offices are monitored for breaches. Indah's brow furrows as she says yes. MB stages a demonstration, suspecting the security office is less likely to twig their perp to its abilities, and takes control of all the audio and visual interfaces in the main workspace to play Sanctuary Moon episode 256, then puts a camera feed of it on a nearby display surface. Everyone outside is causing a fuss asking what's going on, but Indah asks where the camera feed is from. MB says, Farid's vest camera. Indah takes the point, and asks MB to fix the screen, and check the systems.

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(1) Ratthi has such massive golden retriever energy, doesn't he? Every team needs a precious himbo cinnamon roll. (2) Tempting as it is, I'd suggest trying to err on the "not" side until someone proves they're not worth the effort. (3) Oh, sweetie, you bring SO MUCH to this ballgame. (4) They seem like good investigators. (5) Do you think it JUST means leaving itself open to conversation with the other two, and it doesn't notice the jamming until after, or that it should've gone with them for security's sake in the first place? (6) Almost certainly a throwback to The Hobbit, or perhaps LOTR's brief use of the name again later. Balin was one of the dwarves who went to the Lonely Mountain (he was also on the expedition that scouted it for a return in the first place!) and became one of Bilbo's dear friends. Later he led the expedition to Moria, to reclaim the ancient dwarven stronghold of Khazad-dum. The Fellowship found his entire expedition killed and long since rotted to dust. I wonder if there's a deeper intention to using the name for the PA bot, or if it's just a fun thing. (7) Part of me gives a big ol' shrug at all this description (it's basically meaningless to my brain processing, see: all my grumbling about aphantasia in other posts) but it's useful for most people to have a description of the visual, and it makes sense for MB to have schematics plus it makes sense for it to be extra curious about Station Security. (8) Admittedly, the professional goodwill is my interpretation, but it did just earlier say it wasn't sure whether to be an asshole or not, so I think my interpretation is solid. And hey look, Aylen's stopped being hostile to it. Maybe it's partly the competence it showed in rescuing her and Gamila, but maybe it's also that she recognizes that it's good at what it does, and it has good ideas. (9) It's so sweet how nearly everyone tries to be so hospitable to MB except the authority figures who feel threatened by it, and Amena until she understood what its motivations were. (10) Maybe, but it had little reason to trust that a more diplomatic question would get a better response. They're only just starting to open up to its help. I think it's perfectly fair. (11) Of course it doesn't want to leave. More humans are in danger, even if they're not its humans, they're still people who deserve to be found safe if at all possible. MB values human life right up to the point where one human decides another's life is worth less. (12) So cheeky, this one! Indah has no way of knowing MB's faster than that. Its own team might, though.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #fugitive telemetry #murderbot #secunit #indah (murderbot)#tural (murderbot)#ayda mensah #pin lee #ratthi #gurathin #officer aylen #farid (murderbot)#tifany (murderbot)#soire (murderbot)#matif (murderbot)#gamila (murderbot)

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