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rjalker · 1 year

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Murderbot fandom Challenge 2023 challenge #1: Escaped large animal on the station

Word count: 3,101

Summary: Somehow, an animal native to Preservation gets loose on Preservation Station. Fortunately, it's not hostile. Unfortunately, it's looking for a mate, and its species has a very inconvenient way of going about finding one -- being deafeningly loud, and exuding a horrible smell that's toxic to humans and robots alike.

OC POV because my brain just did not want Murderbot to be the narrator this time. So here's Grous, completely out of order of her supposed introduction. Oh well. Just roll with it. Or don't, IDC, lol.

As usual, there's zero spoilers for the books because everything mentioned in this fic is just made the fuck up. Because there isn't actually anything (besides Martha Well's casual bigotry) in The Murderbot Diaries that I'd actually want to change in terms of the story or plot.

You are encouraged to use the animal concept here for your own original fiction or fanfiction for other things. Like I said it's 100% original.

Actually ykw no, no read-more because tumblr's stupid. It's tagged long post.

= = =

This was not one of the small, fluffy cubs the SecUnit from Preservation had had the misfortune of running into down on the planet, when it and Evrim had fallen into a nest that had been dug under the supposedly safe path leading through the woods.

This was also not one of the parents, who'd been only a little bit bigger than their offspring, bristling with spines and spitting corrosive acid, but still very easy to run away from.

No, this was neither of those options.

Turns out, adult animals of this species who hadn't found a mate yet were trying really, really hard to remedy that fact. They attempted to remedy this fact by attracting a mate. By being as attractive as possible.

And you know what these animals thought was really attractive?

Animals who were really fucking big, really fucking bright, and reeked to high fucking heaven of the most cloying smell you can imagine, that burned the eyes and nose with its strength, and could even start corroding certain metals if it was in high enough concentrations.

This trait had evolved so that while these animals were running around in the unbelievably giant forests that were their natural habitat, their scent would be dispersed on the wind over a large area, allowing them, with the additional aid of their literally deafening howls, to find eachother and see if they liked what they saw.

This is what was pacing up and down the thoroughfare of Preservation Station, sniffing at every single thing that it came upon, and growing increasingly more obviously confused.

The scent glands that covered its body were constantly producing more of the noxious chemicals that had already caused several dozen humans, only some of whom had been confirmed to have respiratory problems before this incident, to pass out from lack of oxygen, even now that they were in separate sections of the station.

The air filters were working as hard as they could, but they hadn't been designed with a situation like this in mind. Purposefully poisonous gas they could handle. But even the most advanced poison gas wasn't almost infinitely self-replicating the way this animal's smell was. Not to mention it had stuck to people's clothes and skin, and there weren't enough shower or sanitation rooms for everyone on the station to clean the smell off of them at the same time.

And to make things worse, every few minutes, the animal, viewed only by the surviving, most sturdily built cameras in the highest spots of the high ceiling, stopped its pacing to throw its head back and let out a howl so loud it was literally deafening, which had already broken dozens of display surfaces and other fragile items within the thoroughfare where it'd been locked and isolated. Including all the cameras that were further down the walls.

The first howl it had given (once it got out of the landing pod it had arrived in) had instantly incapacitated over four hundred humans and two hundred bots, knocking them violently unconscious and permanently deafening the hundreds that had been closest to it, before anyone had even realized it was there, let alone before anyone could evacuate.

More humans and bots had had to run in to try and rescue the ones who were now unconscious, with a few exceptionally brave and foolhardy ones attempting (and succeeding, to everyone's shock) to distract the animal so it wouldn't howl again until they could get everyone away, even though they were being overwhelmed by the smell.

Fortunately, this was real life, not a dramatic movie, so the animal did not immediately start roaring and howling and leaping to viciously maul everyone it saw. Because that would be counterproductive to its goals - - find a mate, and stay alive.

It wasn't interested in taking a human as a mate, and it also wasn't interested in picking a fight when it was outnumbered by animals who were each almost as big as it was. It also wasn't interested in hunting or eating right now, but even if it had been, it still wouldn't have tried to hunt any humans, because they were way bigger than what it had evolved to eat.

Also, again, it was outnumbered, so even if it was hungry, it wasn't going to pick a fight it clearly couldn't win. Real animals did not just randomly start hunting people for no reason, and especially not when they were in a new environment.

So the successive waves of humans who volunteered to try and herd it back into the landing pod it'd come out of /did/ manage to keep it distracted and busy long enough for everyone who'd been knocked unconscious by its first howl, or the toxic fumes, to be either dragged away to safety further into the station, or dragged to safety into the nearest ship, and then the hatch sealed, without getting themselves mauled.

They also weren't deafened or knocked unconscious by any new howls, because, again, it can not be stressed enough: this wasn't a movie, so the animal reacted like a real animal. And a real animal isn't going to keep performing its mate-attracting ritual while it's being harassed by many large other animals. That's just not the kind of behavior that gets passed down the evolutionary line, because that's the kind of behavior that guarantees you'll be killed before you can pass your genes on in the first place.

Fortunately, no one had died of their injuries yet, and most people were recovering enough that the medics thought that could be avoided altogether.

As for the SecUnit from Preservation?

Well, it wasn't dead. But it had been unlucky enough to be standing close to the pod the animal had come out of, so it'd been knocked unconscious as the internal structures of its ears, as well as a few other crucial systems in its head, literally shattered from the sheer volume of the animal's howl.

When it woke up - - and the medics assured that Grous that it would, hopefully at some point soon - - it would be mostly fine, except for the inability to hear through its ears. But the SecUnit from Preservation usually used drones or cameras for audio anyways, so that hopefully wasn't going to be as big of a deal as it would be for anyone else. Heck, it might even enjoy the fact that humans wouldn't be able to talk to it unless it wanted to be able to hear them.

Yes, Grous was 100% aware that was not the likely outcome of this event at all, but it was trying to keep optimistic. Imagining how devastated the SecUnit from Preservation would be when it found out it'd never be able to hear again without additional augments was not doing anything to help her mood. She'd been far away enough during the initial howl that she hadn't been knocked out, though her ears were still ringing with the after-effects. She'd never been able to smell, not in the way humans or other constructs described it, so the animal's scent wasn't bothering her, since her lungs were able to filter in enough oxygen past it with only a slightly noticeable difficulty. She knew it was there because her chemoreceptor was constantly giving her updates on the percentage of atmosphere it was making up.

Right now she was locked inside one of the spaceships stranded in the port. She'd grabbed as many humans as could hold onto her at once (Which was four when they were all conscious and cooperating) and dragged them all inside. They'd been joined by twelve other humans and five robots, one of which was another construct.

None of them knew how to fly this kind of spaceship, but fortunately the the bot pilot, Thrive, who used fe/ir pronouns, hadn't been damaged, and was more than happy to help, so the whole shipful of them were currently in the process of disconnecting from the station so the pilot could ferry those who wanted to get off down to the planet, before fe'd bring Grous and 6210311, the hauler bot who'd also volunteered to return and help out, who used he/him pronouns, back to the station.

(Fe would have let them off before bringing everyone else down to the planet, except that the animal'd wandered over to where fe was docked by that point, and even if the animal itself wasn't hostile, opening the airlock would let in too much of its smell than would be safe for the humans.)

[Pheromones], Thrive the bot pilot had corrected Grous. Apparently the smell this animal was releasing was specifically called a pheromone, because it was used to communicate a specific purpose. In this case, the purpose was finding a date.

Everyone was grateful that it was not attempting to seduce any humans or robots so far. Grous had heard stories of animals on other planets who were so social and bonded so readily with humans they'd perform mating dances at them, even if humans were dozens of times bigger than them and of a completely different body plan.

Grous wasn't sure exactly what she'd do once she and 6210311 got back to the station, but she figured that with her anosmia and the fact that she required less oxygen than humans would help in the toxic fumes department, if nothing else.

Thrive was talking to one of the systems on Preservation on a channel with a free invite so they could all listen in if they wanted, talking to a bot who studied the species of animal that had somehow gotten onto the station.

Thrive had sent down a description of the animal along with visual and audio recordings, and the bot on the surface, whose feed signature read, “Xeotherial, xe/xir/xirris” sent back a quick summary of the species, highlighting most of what they'd already figured out - - that its territorial howls were dangerous for most life forms not native to Preservation, that its pheromones were toxic to humans, and that it was generally non-hostile in its current state.

All of this they already knew, but Xeotherial also had some new information to share - - like the fact that long enough exposure to the pheromones could start to damage bots as well as humans, by physically clogging filtration systems and corroding some materials, though there wasn't yet enough research to say what effects it would have on constructs. Based on the effects it had on humans and bots, it wouldn't be anything healthy.

And speaking of the pheromone, Grous' scanner was showing that it was still present in the atmosphere inside Thrive, clinging to her skin, clothes, and mechanical parts. It was like it was more than just a smell, it was like a sticky residue. She couldn't see it except with one of her visual overlays, but she could feel it when she experimentally pinched the fabric of her shirt between two fingers. It was making the fabric stiffer, less soft than it should be, and made it stick to her fingers slightly as she pulled away.

All of the humans who'd gotten aboard Thrive had immediately fled to the bathrooms, and Grous could hear them all through the doors they'd left open along the way, very noisily complaining about the smell and trying to wash it off their clothes, skin, and hair.

6210311 had happily accepted Thrive's offer of a charging station, and was in standby mode at the moment while he, from what Grous could gather from his reactions on the open feed channel, watched a documentary about the animals in question.

Which were called mostly just Preservation grey foxes, though the grey part of the name applied to the adult and juvenile forms only, not this bright intermediate stage. Grous had never seen an adult or a baby for herself, just the recording the SecUnit from Preservation had shared with her of its (mis)adventure with Evrim.

She'd had no idea their middle stage looked anything like this. From the complaints the humans were making, (shouting and exclaiming in disgust and horror and confusion and some begrudging humor), she was guessing none of them had, either.

Thrive informed her that it would be at least half a Preservation standard hour before they were able to land, and offered her a charging station across from 6213011 if she wanted it.

But Grous didn't need to initiate a charge cycle for another few Preservation-standard days, so she thanked ir, but declined, showing ir her pantry of full power batteries.

But her chemoreceptor analysis was still showing a high concentration of the animal's pheromones on her skin and clothes, so it would be a good use of her time to try and wash it off, if she could, like the humans were. No point carrying around the smell unnecessarily.

So she left the main area and went to join the humans in the communal bathroom, who'd progressed almost all the way to being optimistic and cheerful and thinking the situation was funny, rather than just being afraid and worried. They'd left all the doors open between them and the rest of Thrive to help keep the air circulating, and most of the pheromones that had been stuck to them had been successfully washed down the drains. That would pose problems in the future if the chemicals weren't easily broken down for re-use, but that would be a problem for later.

Grous had estimated that the amount of pheromones still left hanging around her were at a level humans would find unpleasant, and was proven correct when she stepped into the further bathroom, which was less crowded than the first, and was gratified to be immediately met with a wave of “ewww!!” “aaah!!” and “uughh!!!” as she stepped in and the humans caught scent of her.

One of the naked humans closest to the door, whose short bio was listed as [Jikar, alternating he/him, they/them] in the feed, covered his mouth and nose with one hand, and waved Grous over with the other, saying urgently, their voice muffled by his hand, “Oh, quick, quick come under the water, get that stuff off of you! I'll grab you some more solid soap, we used it all.” They quickly but carefully fast-walked past her toward the door. Grous started for the shower of water that was still running over the tiled floor. Jikar's clothes had been left scattered by the drain in the floor, presumably so they'd keep getting rinsed out.

Grous started to lift her shirt over her head, but was stopped by another human's voice- -

“Don't bother getting undressed yet, just go right under the water with your clothes still on first, it'll be easier to get most of it off that way.” Grous turned to look at the voice, and saw a human sitting on one of the benches in one of the bath-showers, with new water falling down from above and the rest of their body submerged below the shoulders. Several pieces of clothing were floating or had sunk to the bottom of the small pool. A pair of crutches were visible thorugh the water sitting on a small shelf next to the human.

A quick fumble for the feed bio displayed, [Ask for my name, pronouns: sie/syr/syr/(syrs)/syrself. I am part of – ]

The human spoke again before Grous could finish reading, saying:

“When Jikar gets back with more soap, just start at the top and go down, it'll help rinse more off with the soap.” Sie gestured as sie spoke, lifting one hand out of the water and then moving it back down with the palm flat to demonstrate. “Then you can take your clothes off and wash them again. It seems to stick more to natural fibers than the synthetic ones. It shouldn't take long for your shirt, but your pants you're probably gonna have to use a whole bar on.” Sie gestured to syr clothes in the water. “I'm just going to let mine soak until we're almost ready to land. Apparently it sticks really well to dagro.”

Grous knew from her scouring of the information for Preservation that dagro was the name of an animal fiber commonly used for clothes. The species it was harvested from (nunam) were native to the same sorts of ecosystems as the Preservation grey foxes. Which sort of made sense. The foxes' pheromones had probably evolved specifically to stick to the fur of other nearby animals so they'd spread it even further than the wind could.

Jikar returned at that moment, carrying several bags of packaged soap bars. “Here you go!” He said, handing one of the bags to Grous, their nose crinkled up in reaction to the smell still sticking to her. “Ugh!” They exclaimed, “I just can't believe how bad that smells! I've lived here on Preservation for two years now, and I never knew anything that smelled that bad was living here! How can anything find that attractive?” He used their free hand to wave the air in front of his nose for emphasis.

If there was ever a time that Grous was glad for her inability to smell, it was times like these. She gratefully accepted the soap, though, and went to the next empty shower to wash off. She couldn't smell the horribleness like everyone else, but it was creating a weird texture on her skin and clothes, and just because she couldn't smell it didn't mean she wanted to subject everyone else to it.

She set the bag down and took out one of the packages of soap. It said it was clofus scented, with an artistic painting of the bark of the kiius tree on it, dotted with bright purple sap. Grous' chemoreceptor feedout informed her part of the composition of the soap did indeed match what she'd recorded the few times she'd seen kiius trees in person.

She checked the timer Thrive had been nice enough to set in the feed for everyone, and saw that there was still most of an hour left before they got to the planet. And then it would be an hour again before they could get back to the station.

Plenty of time to wash off the pheromones, and maybe start watching that show the SecUnit from Preservation was so obsessed with, to see if it was actually any good.

She sat down under under the warm shower of water, and put on the first episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.

#Murderbotfandomchallenge #Murderbotfandomchallenge2023 #Challenge 1 Escaped large animal on the station #Long post #Murderbotfanfiction #MurderbotOCs #The Murderbot Diaries #Grous the anthroid #also various other OCs who were created just to fill this one #aliens #alien animals #very long post

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trashmancer · 3 years

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Again, been reading a lot recently, and here's some recent reads and my thoughts. (All very spoiler-free)

Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

I'd heard about this series for a while, but had always kept putting off reading it, and finally I was in the mood for some comedic (yet dark) shenanigans--and a villain protagonist as charming as Johannes Cabal really hit me just right. I really enjoyed the first of this series and the introduction to this 1920's-ish universe similar-yet-different to our own that Howard's created. His writing is crisp and clever--and Johannes is a villain protagonist worth cheering for. He's duplicitous, arrogant, and cold, yet sharp-witted and competent enough to be engaging, and even though he's amoral (driven predominately with an "ends do justify the means" mentality) there are glimmers of a conscious buried in there.

The basic gist of the first book is that Johannes Cabal is a necromancer dead-set (ba-dum-sh) on thwarting the biggest plague affecting mankind: Death. As such, he's willing to go to extreme lengths to hone and perfect his necromantic abilities. In the pursuit of this knowledge, Cabal sold his soul to Satan, but he comes to realize he actually needs his soul for his necromancy to work more properly (apparently without a soul it gets very unpredictable). In order to win his soul back, he strikes a wager with Satan: he will accumulate 100 souls for Satan in return for his own. Satan, ever the fair player (not), gifts Cabal with an infernal carnival to help Cabal reach his goal within the year. Shenanigans ensue.

While I read some books in-between this one and the next in the series, I'll write about the other here--

Johannes Cabal: The Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

So clearly I enjoyed the first installment enough to keep going, and I am glad, because I enjoyed the second one even more than the first. It feels like Howard got more comfortable with the characters and world than before, and in this one he expands his universe with some made-up countries that are similar-to-yet-different than countries on our Earth. In this one, Cabal does less fantastic tricks, as he dons the role of investigator (there's been a murder--on an airship!), but the plot was very fun. I will say this is one of the first books in a long while to genuinely make my world-weary ass laugh out loud in public. Howard truly does know how to turn a phrase and comes off with some great witticisms.

Guns of the Dawn by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky has been on my radar for a while because I have had Children of Time on my reading list for what feels like an age (and I still haven't gotten around to reading it, but I will soon). To prime myself, I looked up other works by Tchaikovsky. This was around the time I was look for good "stand-alone" Adult Fantasy novels as well, so the two linked up and I had this on my TBR for a while and got around to finally cracking it open.

I really loved this book. If I could describe it in any way, it would be sort of like Pride & Prejudice if Elizabeth Bennet got drafted into a war. Seriously. That's how it reads--and Tchaikovsky made the allusions to Austen's work very clear. The setting is very English-inspired, and the time period mimics Napoleonic times. Definitely the first "Flintlock Fantasy" I've had the pleasure of reading.

The themes of the book are about the caustic nature of nationalism, the blurring of truth during war, and what is true patriotism in the face of falsehood and horror. Definitely my kind of questions--and I love watching characters thrown into completely unfamiliar environments. A genteel woman (Emily Marshwic) being tossed headfirst into grisly, mosquito-infested swamps armed with a musket? It's a fascinating journey she undergoes.

Plus the novel featured a romantic subplot that hits my enemies-to-lovers buttons hard. (It's not at all like one of those tired YA enemies-to-lovers stories, but something more grown-up and messy, which I approve of, because I love drama.) But this is more of a personal note. It's definitely not going to be for everyone.

Retribution Falls (Tales of the Ketty Jay #1) by Chris Wooding

After Johannes Cabal, I got into the mood for some steampunk, and I hadn't actually read much in the way of steampunk, so I looked up some recs and the Tales of the Ketty Jay series seemed to appear on a lot of lists for this kinda thing. The basic gist of this one is... imagine steampunk Firefly. That kinda gives you the whole vibe and feel. It's about a crew of disparate and colorful characters all running from something who meet on the ship the Ketty Jay and have to learn to work together to survive.

Overall, it was a fast-paced read (I read this 400 page sucker in a single day--while doing other stuff) and Wooding knows how to write action and interesting character interactions. The world had some glimmers of brilliance (the wizard analogs in their world--daemonist--were the most intriguing part), but otherwise it was very typical steampunk. I had no real quibbles with any of that (aside from the fact some of it read as very cliche and Wooding's inspirations seemed a little obvious--Fullmetal Alchemist and Firefly being the two big ones that kept hammering me over the head), but my main complaint was with the writing and treatment of female characters. First, there is only one main female character in the Ketty Jay's crew--Jez. I had no real issues with Jez's character or writing (in fact she's refreshing in some ways), but she's completely isolated from any other female characters (and is also the only crew member who isn't really allowed to be a complete screw up--she's somewhat sanitized, which, I guess the heroic women characters aren't allowed to be fuck ups like the men?). Second, the other predominate female characters, of whom there are only three, are mute/dehumanized (Bess), characterized as stupid and unhinged (Amalicia), and have rape-as-a-backstory-written-TERRIBLY (Trinica). All that said, as much as it was cringe, this was written in 2009, and I am sure Wooding has had some growth as a writer since then.

I liked this one enough to decide to check out the next in the series (even knowing the writing for the female characters leaves much to be desired).

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

A Fantasy taking place in an Americas-inspired world? Absolutely refreshing (and more please). The main gist of this one is that a cult sets out to resurrect a dead god (seriously that's the main plot crux) while political machinations are going on in the central city of this country where the resurrection is going to take place. As the novel progresses, it's like a countdown clock to game time. There's four POV characters we follow: Xiala (a Teek sea captain who is kind of an outcast from her native people and has a love for beautiful people), Serapio (the man who has been groomed since birth to be the vessel for the resurrected god, part of this process has included blinding him), Naranpa (the Sun Priest of the capital city who is trying to garner back control the priesthood has lost), and Okoa (who really doesn't even appear until way later into the book; he's been separated from his family to train to be a warrior). For the most part, I was primarily engaged (re: 90% engaged) with Xiala and Serapio's story. They were the most interesting characters, and the journey of them on the sea trying to get to the city before the ceremony was exciting and emotional. The political dealings in Naranpa's segments kind of bogged down the action--and I didn't feel anything for that. Overall though, definitely a thrilling read with a beautifully constructed world. If I had one big criticism, it's that it ended incredibly abruptly without any resolution. I knew going in this was a part of a greater whole, but I still felt the ends could've been knotted a little tighter. I'm left dangling! But I'll be sure to pick up the next one (if anything just to find out what happens to Xiala and Serapio).

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

As an unapologetic villainfucker, I had to read this one, right? It's about not just one, but two villains! How could I lose? And they're in an intense rivalry? Revenge? Betrayal? Superpowers? Gah! Be still my heart!

I'll say I enjoyed this book (fun characters, solid writing), but I didn't love it as much as I thought I would (I wish I could love yooouuuu!). Definitely worth a recommendation to anyone who loves villains and fast-paced narratives, but... there were a few things that tarnished what could've been sparkling. The biggest for me was the jumping around in the first half. For a length of time, the novel leaps between three different points of time, sometimes 2-3 pages at a time, and it was jarring (not confusing, mind you, but it was a jolt each time). I get it was done to create an air of mystique and intrigue, but it felt like I was getting dragged around by the ear. Along with this, the plot just seemed... very convenient? As various moments kept happening, it all felt too tidy and paint-by-numbers. The characters were certainly messy and fun (and I love messy and fun), but the action itself seemed to glide on well-oiled rails with no hiccups. This did lead to the magnetic pacing of the book (which I also read in a day), but it didn't do the drama any favors. Never once did it feel like the characters were caught with their pants down--and I think that's part of the point, but it kind of dampened the tension.

I liked it enough I am definitely going to check out the sequel Vengeful though. If anything I am reading for Sydney, Mitch, and Victor. I gotta know what happens to them!

Right now I am reading some fluffy fluff to cleanse my palette because I've been reading so much moodiness. I'm mid-way through the light and breezy Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater (and it's super cute so far) and then I am finally going to crack open Andy Weir's The Martian (because I have put off reading it for far too long).

#recent reads #book review #just jotting my thoughts down somewhere #seriously though i am itching to read the next johannes cabal but i gotta pace myself #i don't want to burn through those like i did murderbot lol

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