2.0 said, Uh, potential problem. Why hasn’t targetControlSystem called for help? There has to be proximity detection of some kind. Plus, targetContact there can see us.

Oh. That was a good question.

Central said suddenly, query: client population deceased? Y/N.

It was asking about the humans. I told it acknowledge: No. Client population endangered.

It said, query: client population assistance?

I didn’t have the right code and I didn’t want to lie to it. Everything was so much worse even than it looked. I said, acknowledge: unknown.

It didn’t respond.

I said, query: proximity alert in progress? It was aware of its situation, it might be able to tell if targetControlSystem knew we were here.

It said, acknowledge: No alert. No proximity alert. No unknown organism present. In network only.

Uh. It was saying the targetControlSystem wasn’t reacting to me because it read my presence as non-hostile. It thought I was a Target, an infected colonist.

I couldn’t respond. SecUnits aren’t supposed to be able to go into shock like humans but my performance reliability had dropped another 5 percent, which is kind of a lot all at once.

I’m not in network, I told the central system. I’m not infected.

2.0 said, Uh. I think maybe you are. I read diagnostic anomalies. Hold on.

Central System sent me an image, a connection map of the room, like the one 2.0 had made. My hard address was on it, and a connection to targetControlSystem.

Oh, no.

Human to machine. Maybe that was the way it had to work. Human to machine to human.

We’d been doing it wrong. I’d been trying to get ART to avoid contact with potentially infected systems, when it was infected augmented humans we had to worry about.

And I had scanned this room, the infected human. It had been hoping to contaminate me in the shaft, and I had wandered in here and helpfully done it myself.

2.0 said, I found anomalous code in your active processing space, I’m isolating it and tagging it. I’ve tried deleting it. Oh, it’s out of isolation again. At least I’ve got it tagged.

I thought I was immune, because I’m a SecUnit. Wow, that sounded pathetic. Like the “I want to be special! How come I’m not?” crap humans pull all the time.

2.0 said, It can be deleted. ART deleted it.

Yeah, that was ART. This is just me.

Me who could be taken over by targetControlSystem at any moment. It would be like having a governor module again.

No, not again. Never again.

I had an entry into the Targets’ network. And maybe I had an ally.

I sent to Central: query: permissions to initiate purge and restart.

It said, query: client population assistance?

If I helped its humans, it would help me. I said, acknowledge: If possible. I’ll try.

It replied: acknowledge: permissions assigned.

Suddenly I could see the whole node, central and target and how they were intertwined, with TargetContact on the periphery. I accessed central system and initiated the purge.