Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)

by Martha Wells

A forensic sweep might show that I’d been there. If forensic sweeps worked like they did in the entertainment media, which, come to think about it, I had no idea if they did or not. (Note to self: look up real forensic sweeps.)

That type of scan is only 62 percent reliable under most conditions and while that’s fine for half-assed company security work, I didn’t want to miss my targets.

With luck, I wouldn’t need it, but … Let’s face it, I would probably need it.

A burst of feed advertising explained that the bubbles were a cup-shaped lift platform lined with padded benches, with a transparent bubble shield over the top so the humans couldn’t manage to fall out no matter how hard they tried. (The ad didn’t describe it that way.)

The bubble had a camera feed, but it was the kind meant to alert on certain words, sounds, and motions, probably only there to cut down on random murders.

By tricky I meant I was getting an average of an 85 percent chance of failure and death, and it was only that low because my last diagnostic said my risk assessment module was wonky.

It wasn’t a terrible plan. It probably wasn’t even in the top ten of terrible plans.

So the plan wasn’t a clusterfuck, it was just circling the clusterfuck target zone, getting ready to come in for a landing.

“It was an accident,” I said. She nodded. “What part was an accident?” “Most of the parts.”

That sounded good. Not that it wasn’t true, but I had a lot of conflicting motivations and that was the only one that made sense, even to me.

I hate having emotions about real humans instead of fake ones, it just leads to stupid moments like this.

It would have been hilarious if I wasn’t about to die. It was still a little hilarious.

Okay, aside from the fact that that was actually my intention at the time, that was not my fault.

The company crew incompetently pretended not to try to eavesdrop.

SecSystem did the system equivalent of staggering drunkenly to its feet.

It was very dramatic, like something out of a historical adventure serial. Also correct in every aspect except for all the facts, like something out of a historical adventure serial.