All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

by Martha Wells

And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.

They were people who had been doing a job and suddenly found themselves in a terrible situation.

I love you, armor, and I’m never leaving you again.

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.”)

We were operating on an assumption: that since They, whoever They were, didn’t know that we knew They were here,

As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.

I hate having emotions about reality; I’d much rather have them about Sanctuary Moon.

what was I supposed to do? Go off on this empty planet and just live until my power cells died? If I was going to do that I should have planned better and downloaded more entertainment media.

even to me, that sounded like a stupid thing to do.

even without the governor module, old habits die hard.

“You don’t know who we are? They didn’t tell you?”

Wow, that was brave. And very, very stupid. To me, he said, “I want to make certain you’re not under any outside compulsion.”

“You need to give it time. It’s never interacted with humans as an openly free agent before now. This is a learning experience for all of us.”

Mensah sent me a private message through the feed: I hope you’re all right. Because you need me. I don’t know where that came from. All right, it came from me, but she was my client,

Of course I need you. I have no experience in anything like this. None of us do.

You’re the only one here who won’t panic. The longer this situation goes on, the others . . . We have to stay together, use our heads.

I panic all the time, you just can’t see it, I told her.

this was another way all the thrillers and adventures I’d watched or read were finally starting to come in handy.

was also planning to use the time to watch some Sanctuary Moon and recharge my ability to cope with humans at close quarters without losing my mind.

If it showed the bots hanging out watching the entertainment feed all through the day cycle with no one trying to make them talk about their feelings, I would have been a lot more interested.

was depressed this morning.

reality was too intrusive.

It was hard not to think about how everything was going to go wrong and they were all going to die and I was going to get blasted to pieces or ...

“I remember every word ever said to me.” That was a lie. Who would want that? Most of it I delete from permanent memory.

After a moment I realized he was waiting for my permission. That was weirdly new. It was tempting to ignore him,

poking a rogue murderbot is a whole different proposition.

liked the imaginary people on the entertainment feed way more than I liked real ones, but you can’t have one without the other.

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

I’d like that noted for the record, please.

had flashes off and on. The inside of the little hopper, my humans talking, Arada holding my hand.

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

“Good news! Dr. Mensah has permanently bought your contract! You’re coming home with us!” That was a surprise.

Nobody had ever come back from a survey and decided they wanted to keep their unit.

“I’ve purchased your contract. You’re coming back to Preservation with us. You’ll be a free agent there.”

“We can arrange that, as long as you think you need it.”

“You’d be my guardian,” I said.

Guardian was a nicer word than owner.

I don’t know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn’t that, it’s that I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me.

That’s why I left you, Dr. Mensah, my favorite human.

Out of inventory and out...