All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

by Martha Wells

point. I ran the recording back a little and watched Pin-Lee and Overse use the surgical suite to deftly remove the combat module from the back of my head. It was such a relief, I played the recording twice, then ran a diagnostic. My logs were clear; nothing there except what I’d had before entering the DeltFall habitat. My clients are the best clients.

“I showed Volescu my evaluations and he agrees with me.”

“What do we do when they come here?” I said, “Be somewhere else.”

I got my helmet on and opaqued it. The relief was intense, about even with finding out that the combat override module had been removed. I love you, armor, and I’m never leaving you again.

(“You have to think of it as a person,” Pin-Lee said to Gurathin. “It is a person,” Arada insisted.)

I kept an eye on him through one of the drones. He kept looking at me, or trying not to look at me, which was worse.

(“I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.” “Then stop being mean to it,” Ratthi told him. “That might help.”)

The problem I was going to have is that the way murderbots fight is we throw ourselves at the target and try to kill the shit out of it, knowing that 90 percent of our bodies can be regrown or replaced in a cubicle. So, finesse is not required.

If the other survey group hadn’t bribed somebody in the company to delay it. I hadn’t mentioned that possibility yet.

“But this situation is different. It would be better if they could think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you.”

But they can’t make two whole survey teams disappear unless their corporate or political entity doesn’t care about them. Does DeltFall’s care? Does yours?”

I also didn’t want them knowing any more about me than they already did.

“I don’t think they’ll stay long. There’s nothing there they want.” For just an instant, Mensah let her expression show how worried she was. “Because they want us,” she said softly. She was absolutely right about that, too.

We didn’t know who EvilSurvey was, who we were dealing with. But I bet that they didn’t either.

It didn’t comfort me and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t comfort the humans to know the stupid company would avenge them if/when they all got murdered.

I wanted to go alone, but since nobody ever listens to me, Mensah, Pin-Lee, and Ratthi were going, too.

At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what I was doing.

I just hoped they didn’t realize how messed up I actually was.

They were going to let me get close, which was a relief. I’d hate to be wrong about this. It would make me feel pretty stupid.

(Last night Gurathin had said this was a weak point, that this was where the plan would fall apart. It was irritating that he was right.)

Also, depending on how strictly they had limited its voluntary actions, it might not be able to call for help unless the GrayCris humans told it to. Maybe that was the case, because all it did was try to kill me.

“I’m going to be it and it’s going to be me.”

Yellow came toward me and touched the side of my helmet. It took a tremendous effort for me not to rip his arm off, and I’d like that noted for the record, please.

I hadn’t ridden in the cargo container for a while. It would have been comforting and homey, except it wasn’t my cargo container.

They must mean to delete all that before the pick-up transport showed up. Client groups had tried that before, to hide data from the company so it couldn’t be sold out from under them, and the company systems analysts would be on the alert for it, but I don’t know if these people realized that.

I really wanted to look at Mensah for instructions. If I was alone, I could have sprinted for the end of the plateau, but I had to get her out of there.

Beacons don’t have safety features, and use the cheapest possible launch vehicles. There’s a reason you put them a few kilos from your habitat and trigger them from a distance.

I made it around the hopper and saw Mensah. I tackled her off the edge of the rock, turning to land on my back, curling an arm over her suit helmet to protect her head from impact.

We had meant to go pick them up in the little hopper if everything didn’t go to shit. Which it did, but only partly, so yay for that.

“This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was.

That was a relief. It meant they were all safe, and I let go.

I had never seen the human parts of the station before. We went down the big multilevel center ring, past office blocks and shopping centers, crowded with every kind of people, every kind of bot, flash data displays darting around, a hundred different public feeds brushing my awareness. It was just like a place from the entertainment feed but bigger and brighter and noisier. It smelled good, too.