Work Text:
*
I was browsing through my media files, trying to decide what to watch next, when Ratthi dropped his head onto the table and groaned.
The others glanced up with varying degrees of surprise, concern, and annoyance. I didn’t, because Ratthi had been making increasingly frustrated facial expressions for the past hour, and I’d already determined it wasn’t a security threat or anything else I had to care about.
“Dare I ask how it’s going?” Overse asked. She’d finished her own report and was helping with Arada’s, but slid over to look at Ratthi’s screen. She winced. “Ouch.”
“I don’t even know what I did!” Ratthi complained into the table. “Gurathin, could you…?”
“Busy, sorry,” Gurathin muttered without looking up. I took a peek at his feed presence – he was buried in Preservation’s library repository, cross-referencing a few dozen previous reports and appending them to a database.
Honestly, it was really simple stuff, and I probably could have done it a lot faster. Especially if I reconfigured some of my data mining software – picking out bits of data and sending it to the right place-slash-people was basically what I’d been built for, other than the murdering.
But I wasn’t going to offer, because I was trying to decide between a Preservation-made mini serial about a child who’d discovered superpowers and a nature documentary about fauna on Preservation, which might make me feel better about my clients (no longer my clients) going down there all the time.
“It’s probably just a typo,” Overse said comfortingly. (She was right.) “The graph’s just gotten a little confused, that’s all.”
“I’ve been trying to fix it for two hours,” Ratthi complained. (It had been one hour and 23 minutes.) “I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong! The variables aren’t mapping properly, and I need the diagnostic plots before I can work up the models.” He heaved a sigh. “I was really hoping to have this set done today.”
“Why, got a date?” Bharadwaj teased absently, grinning over her own screen.
“Yeah, a real hot date with the new food vendor on floor five, I’ve heard they’ve got amazing soups and you know I’m a soup guy,” Ratthi replied, perking up a bit. “Apparently they’re only here for another week, they’re on a circuit, so this could be my only chance!”
“Well, we can’t keep you from your soup,” Overse chuckled, still squinting at the screen. “Did you try changing the call function? You could try the other package, Nakamoro et al.’s?”
“I started with that one,” Ratthi groaned. “Seriously, if anyone can figure this out, I’ll owe you! Big time!”
Gurathin mumbled something under his breath, hunching closer to his screen.
My useless risk assessment module decided to inform me that Gurathin was growing frustrated with Ratthi, which could indicate the start of a dispute. Which, thanks, I knew that already, and also, wasn’t really my problem. (Plus I knew PresAux didn’t have those kinds of disputes anyway.)
But I was bored and still couldn’t decide what media to watch and was probably just going to fall back on The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon again, so in the meantime, I slid into Ratthi’s code and tweaked the bad line, highlighting the spot so he could see what I was doing.
Then, because I could, I went ahead and configured the models based on a quick comparison of the diagnostic plots to Ratthi’s notes and Nakamoro et al., which I borrowed from Gurathin’s library feed. It was actually pretty straightforward, although it probably helped that the diagnostic plots weren’t doing anything weird. That I could tell, anyway. I added some notes on what I was doing just in case.
“What the – holy fuck,” Ratthi yelped. “SecUnit? Was that you?”
“The soup vendor closes in fifty-three minutes,” I informed him. “It will take you thirteen to reach floor five.”
“Aw, shit,” Ratthi said. “But – hm. Okay. I can finish this. Thanks, SecUnit, you’re a lifesaver. Let me know if you ever want a job!”
“I have a job,” I said. Lied. Sort of.
“Yeah, but like – oh, oh, look at this,” Ratthi hissed to himself, apparently. I didn’t always like when people talked while working, since I was usually trying to watch media, but Ratthi never expected a response. And it was hard not to be at least vaguely interested with him so excited to explain everything, whether or not I was listening. “Look, do you see? Completely unexpected response – Arada, here, take a look, this challenges Menneni’s hypothesis, doesn’t it?”
“Huh,” Arada said, glancing over. “I think you’re right. Better get everything in order though, if you’re going to write a rebuttal – they’re a pretty stubborn bunch.”
“Yeah, I got it. I got it,” Ratthi muttered to himself, quickly throwing things into a report. “SecUnit, how do you want to be attributed? You ran the analysis, that’s grounds for authorship.”
What? “No,” I said.
“Acknowledgments, then? That should be fine,” Ratthi muttered, already typing ‘analyses done with assistance of SecUnit’ at the end of the page. “Look good?”
“Uh. Fine,” I said, not sure what else to say. Ratthi was already saving the page, with my name, or something like it, there at the end. That felt… weird.
It wasn’t like running some models was difficult for me. I had barely done anything. It didn’t really feel like enough to be acknowledged formally like that.
I’d never had any of my work acknowledged before.
Huh.
“Alright, that’s enough for today, I’m out of here,” Ratthi said, quickly throwing his stuff into a bag. “Anyone else for soup? Soup?”
“No, thank you, Ratthi,” Mensah replied smoothly. “Maybe tomorrow.”
With one last quick thumbs-up, Ratthi disappeared out the door. Gurathin heaved a sigh of relief, and everyone got back to work.
Except me. I kept pulling up Ratthi’s report in my feed to look at it.
Huh.
*
Hey, SecUnit!
I blinked out of my media reverie at the message from Ratthi. Hey?
Listen, I have a friend here who’s really struggling with their analysis. Your notes were really clear and helpful on our survey report – would you mind taking a look?
Uh. So, it wasn’t like I was actually doing anything right now. I mean, I was re-watching my favorite episodes of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, but that was more to pass the time than anything else.
Mensah had gone to dinner with Farai and Tano; I had a drone floating unobtrusively behind a plant, far enough not to pick up what they were saying – see, I did know how to give people privacy – but I hadn’t spotted any threats or potential threats so far, and my risk assessment model was convinced the chance was very low.
I didn’t sleep, so I had a lot more time than anyone else. I’d mostly spent that time catching up on media, looking through the Preservation-based entertainments, and monitoring Mensah and the PresAux team. Nothing had happened so far, although GrayCris could make a move at any time.
In summary, I was bored.
Sure, I sent back to Ratthi. What analysis are they running?
Ratthi sent over the files, including the friend’s notes on their planned analysis and expectations. It was a bit more convoluted than the survey data – some sort of meta analysis, integrating data from multiple sources – but it wasn’t that different from packaging data from all the different systems I’d been made to hook up to, with some analyses done to the dataset.
I listened with half an ear as Ratthi explained his friend’s work and how it all connected to Ratthi’s ideas and the ‘greater scientific body of literature’. He managed to make it sound interesting, which considering how much of my life I’d spent hanging around scientists doing whatever scientists did on surveys and not giving a shit about it, was kind of impressive. Meanwhile, I set up and ran my analysis.
It took a bit longer than I’d hoped, but eventually spat out some results that looked reasonable enough, I guessed. I packaged it up, appended my notes, and sent it off to Ratthi.
That was fast! Thanks! he responded, interrupting his chatter to open and page through the files. Ah, that’s what I thought – okay, that makes sense. Interesting outlier here, did you see?
I quickly looked up “outliers, science” then ran the suggested analysis. Yes? I said once it was done, and I did.
Wonder what happened there. Do you have the datapoint handy?
I sent him the relevant file.
Hm, interesting. That’s from the Duerkson study, see? They reported some odd interactions but also had some wonky equipment issues – worth reaching out, probably. I’ll look into it. Thanks, SecUnit!
No problem, I said, pulling up my media feed.
Oh hey, wanted to ask – there’s a theater play on tonight, the local troupe. I have tickets, do you want to come? Ratthi sent.
I blinked, pausing the episode and pulling up the relevant information. Amateur group, some sort of comedy drama – live performances weren’t really my thing, or at least, I hadn’t had the opportunity to see if they might be my thing. But the play looked interesting.
Wouldn’t you rather go with your friends? I asked Ratthi, knowing that he had a group of people he usually hung out with after survey team meetings.
You are my friend, Ratthi said. Which, I should have expected, but still made me stare at the far wall for a moment, and almost miss his followup message. Also, none of my other friends like situation comedy dramas. Well, Jay does, but they’re busy.
That’s because situation comedy dramas are silly and pointless, I told him.
I know, that’s why they’re so fun! Ratthi replied cheerfully. So, are you coming? No pressure or anything, just wanted to offer <smile emoji>.
I’d realized, somewhere in the midst of staring at the wall and replying to Ratthi, that I’d never had a human call me a friend before. I mean, I’d been thinking of them as my friends, and Mensah had called them my friends, but she hadn’t said “you are my friend” or “this is my friend, SecUnit” or anything like that.
It was a stupid thing to notice, because I did know that we were all friends, and they all treated me like a friend, and what was a stupid word against all that. But I did notice.
…Sure, I said.
It was nice to have friends, I decided.
Especially friends who shared media.
*