Took me several hours to think of this one, but I think it fits for this scenario.
There's another accident, this time, it's the CEO who ends up killed. The "indispensable worker" uses the equipment to put their boss into a less than ideal automaton, before limping the very, very badly damaged ship toward alliance space, as they are the closest, sending out distress signals.
@internutter/challenge-03763-j110-recycled-staff -- Lessons
Rule one of surviving executive incompetence: keep copies of EVERYTHING. The security tapes, the direct messages, the corporate paperwork, the post-its. All of it.
And... yes. I even made a copy of my boss.
I succumbed to temptation and fabricated a "spare backup" of my own brain backup pillow. I got away with it by pointing out the corporate rule of law. He put up with it because it was easier than debating with the corporate lawyers. Then I swapped out his pillow with the spare. Just like the bossman said, I didn't need it, and he didn't care where it was stored.
There were a few moments when I wondered if I was doing the right thing... and then that asshole demanded we go into a high-velocity debris field. Without matching pace with the majority of the flack.
It was a stupid order, but it was an order I had to follow or get rebooted into an even worse body. Bossman had it hanging opposite my charging booth so I'd never forget the threat.
So I followed orders and sent the current log of the security feed to the backup black box hard drives inside the sole life pod of the ship. Even if I perished, he'd have a record of his crimes going with him.
It was very close. Things got rough. Rougher than anything I'd existed through. I remember telling Bossman to put his livesuit on and seal it. I remember him telling me that it wasn't that rough and I was being overly cautious.
Then a piece of debris shaped like some weird banana shuriken split open the whole crew habitat as easily as you'd open a tear-bag of Nurti-food.
I abandoned my post to cram Bossman into his livesuit. I set a course out of the debris and rushed him to the medbay.
He was dying.
And preserving his "business genius" was my top priority. Enforced by code.
So I hooked him up, and made a copy of his brains in full. Right up to the moment his dying body hit the medbed.
There was only one place to put him.
My threatened shitty body. The one that had to stay close to the rails on board so it was connected to the power necessary to run it. The one with weak servos and the bare minimum mobility necessary to do my job.
He'd come online in a few hours. I backed up the black box again, and then set a course for the only place guaranteed to help us.
Alliance space. The nearest shipping lane.
The shuriken took out most of the systems. I locked the plants in the remaining complete room. Neither of us needed air any more, but I wasn't going to let the plants die.
Looking after them kept me grounded.
What signal I could broadcast was weak, even with the best jiggery-pokery I could manage. I set the message on loop, set the engines to as fast as they could safely go... and prayed.
Bossman woke up about then. I remember a lot of complaints. Especially about the lights. I had to turn off the internals to save on power. He wanted to escape the wreck and go home, because he'd be a criminal in Alliance space.
Thing about the power rail he's attached to? It doesn't reach the life pod. Yeah. I'm indispensable until Bossman's life is on the line. Then I'm disposable property.
I didn't gloat. I didn't have the power to spare. My priority was to preserve his "business genius" and flakk to everything else. So I had just enough light to see what I was doing, and monitor the plants as they were part of company property.
I remember... even that light fading. I remember being annoyed at my own LO BATT warnings.
I knew I was at twenty percent on a slow charger.
I muted Bossman's ability to communicate in order to save power and preserve him for posterity.
I knew I was at fifteen percent.
I restricted his ability to roam to the hallway between medbay and his quarters.
I knew at ten percent.
I turned off his motors, but I did leave him where he could see the plants.
They were dying too. No way to water them.
Damnit, I knew I was at five percent!
And then, like every other hero in every other drama, they arrived in the nick of time. The CRC.
I remember the two percent warning obliterating my view of their ship-swallowing Hungry Caterpillar extension. I went into battery-saving mode shortly after everything went dark. Using just enough power to preserve my backup.
Then I came online.
Not in the threatened body, but some top-line stuff I'd only ever heard about. The kind of tech that's better than an organic body. The best that B'Nar could possibly create.
I missed being able to feel textures. Or enjoy tastes. Or being able to sleep. I missed dreams.
I didn't know how much had been taken away before I had it restored.
As for Bossman?
He's in my discarded corpus, going through remedial education and then working to repay the debts incurred by all of his crimes counter to cogniscent rights.
It really pays to keep copies of everything.
Even yourself.
Even your boss.
[Photo by Art Wall - Kittenprint on Unsplash]
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