Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)

by Martha Wells

(For one thing, the shows and serials were trying to communicate accurately with the viewer. As far as I could tell, real humans usually didn’t know what the hell they were doing.)

I picked up the feed but it was crammed with advertising, with the transit schedules and service listings swamped by corporation ads that were dissolving into static because other corporations had paid fees to drown them out.

I had all the security checkpoints light up, annotating the ones that barred entrance to anyone with a non-station citizen ID, which was all of them. “It’s that we would be leaving territory controlled by neutral TRH security and entering GrayCris’ corporate jurisdiction.”

Huh, why did I like Sanctuary Moon so much? I had to pull the memory from my archive, and what I saw there startled me. “It’s the first one I saw. When I hacked my governor module and picked up the entertainment feed. It made me feel like a person.”

The words kept wanting to come out. It gave me context for the emotions I was feeling, I managed not to say. “It kept me company without…” “Without making you interact?” she suggested.

We set up a little network. I hope it helps. I cautiously initiated a search. They had put cameras in all the suite lounges and connecting hallways, so I could see everything. I had a complex emotional reaction.

Preservation doesn’t have an internal currency economy and these are drawn from the citizens’ travel fund.” “Why?” I said. “Because I want you to know we’re serious, that you’re not some kind of prisoner or pet or whatever it is you think.” And then she stomped out.

“It’s illegal to own a SecUnit,” Mensah corrected. “They want to hire someone who may or may not be called Rin, who they suspect is based somewhere in the Preservation Alliance, whose citizenship status will be considered immaterial.” She smiled. “I think that’s how they put it.” I still couldn’t believe this. “They want to hire a SecUnit.” “They want to hire the person who saved their assessment team from combat bots and contract killers, and they don’t care what that person is.”