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It’s a good thing she understands SecUnit’s sense of humor.
SecUnit is not so much taunting her with its abilities as refusing to pretend to be anything other than it is. And that’s for the best, because being honest about that is the only way forward.
Ephraim is a good person and he won’t make the argument that SecUnit is not a person, not qualified as a refugee under Preservation law.
Because they are all refugees in the Preservation Alliance, descended from people who were left to die because rescue was deemed not cost-effective. Because they stand on this station built from the ship that saved their grandparents’ lives, that helped them for no other reason than because it was there and it could. Instead Ephraim asks her, “Can you separate that person from the purpose they were created for?”
The Corporation Rim has always been a slave state, though it calls its institutionalized slavery “contract labor.” The production of human/bot constructs is just a more horrific twist, a mental slavery as well as a physical one. At least victims of contract labor are free to think their own thoughts. But we tell ourselves that constructs aren’t aware of their predicament. What SecUnit makes us realize is that this is not true; they are all aware of what they are and what’s been done to them. But the only choice they are ever offered is obedience or pain and death.
But it had taken a sentient being who understood fear and pain to talk its way through Volescu’s blind terror. Bharadwaj’s expression turns serious. “We can’t ignore the fact that SecUnits are capable of being very dangerous. Glossing
It must be hard to respect other people’s privacy when you’ve had to fight and scheme for every minute of your own. Hard not to be paranoid when you remember all the times your paranoia was justified. It’s about being treated as a thing, isn’t it. Whether that thing is a hostage of conditional value, or a very expensively designed and equipped enslaved machine/organic intelligence. You’re a thing, and there is no safety.
She didn’t want a corporation’s excuse for a trauma support specialist poking around in her emotions.
SecUnit is looking at the far corner, as it usually does.
stupid bond company lets you get abducted and then wants you to pay for medical assistance afterward?”
“Yes, the trauma unit at Makeba Central Medical has a whole section for emotional support. Volescu said he’s been attending regularly. The one at Station Medical isn’t as extensive, but I find it helpful.”
there something you actually want?” There’s a considering pause. “Drones. The small intel ones.” Drones, of course. Like the ones they had on the survey, which had been extremely helpful. They would be eyes for SecUnit, in the many places where Preservation has no cameras. “I’ll see what I can do.”
