Compulsory (The Murderbot Diaries, #0.5)

by Martha Wells

Nobody likes SecUnits. I am one, and even I don’t like us. We’re part human, part bot constructs, rented out as part of the company safety bond,

and if we didn’t have governor modules to flashfry our brains if we refuse an order, we’d rampage and kill all the humans and augmented humans.

Or maybe we’d just watch entertainment media for the rest of ou...

(Imaginary humans on the entertainment feed are much nicer than real humans.)

You would think dealing with this would be my job. But no, my job is 1) prevent the workers from stealing corporation property, everything from the tools to the disposable napkins in the messhall, 2) prevent the workers from injuring/killing corporation management, no matter how tempting the prospect might be (and it was really tempting, trust me on that), and 3) prevent the workers from injuring each other in ways that might diminish productivity.

Because the mining corp were such cheap venal bastards, the nearest safety bot was 200 meters above us.

I could ignore them and go back to the episode, but I’d liked the colony solicitor’s bodyguard, and I didn’t want her to be dead. Sekai, a human I was technically responsible for, would be dead soon, too.