Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4)

by Martha Wells

(Possibly I was overthinking this. I do that; it’s the anxiety that comes with being a part-organic murderbot. The upside was paranoid attention to detail. The downside was also paranoid attention to detail.)

ART thought would lessen human suspicion on a subliminal level. (ART’s pretentious like that.)

this was the first time I’d had anything on me that officially labeled me as human. It was weird. I didn’t like it.

info about the real history, which were supposedly accurate. It was odd to see that there had been a variation of SecUnits back then. They didn’t use cloned human parts, but actual human parts from humans who had catastrophic injuries or illnesses, and had decided to have their parts used for what they called Augmented Rovers.

(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.)

which gave me something to do with that arm. How humans decide what to do with their arms on a second-by-second basis, I still have no idea.)

I was having an emotion, and I hate that. I’d rather have nice safe emotions about shows on the entertainment media; having them about things real-life humans said and did just led to stupid decisions

grabbed his wrist and forced it down, and sent a targeted pulse through my arm to fry the power cell of his tiny, cute little gun.

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

I’m going to touch you, don’t freak out. Uh, okay.

“I’m not going to kill him,” I said, and dumped him on the couch. “I know what I’m fucking doing.”

there was nothing like that in the newsfeeds. Disinformation, which is the same as lying but for some reason has a different name, is the top tactic in corporate negotiation/warfare. (There had been a whole episode about it on Sanctuary Moon.)

In the shows, I saw humans comfort each other all the time at moments like this. I had never wanted that and I still didn’t. (Touching while rendering assistance, shielding humans from explosions, etc., is different.) But I was the only one here, so I braced myself and made the ultimate sacrifice. “Uh, you can hug me if you need to.”

“Why is Sanctuary Moon your favorite?” Yes, that we can talk about.

brought it back, vividly, as if it had all just happened. (Stupid human neural tissue does that.) The words kept wanting to come out. It gave me context for the emotions I was feeling,

It sounds all self-sacrificing and dramatic, telling it this way. And I guess it was, maybe. What I was mostly thinking was that there wasn’t going to be one dead SecUnit on this embarkation floor, there were going to be four.

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

“I am so furious with you.” Ratthi drew back nervously. (Me, Ratthi wasn’t afraid of, but when Dr. Mensah was mad it was better to be in another room.)

(“I don’t want to be a pet robot.” “I don’t think anyone wants that.” That was Gurathin. I don’t like him. “I don’t like you.” “I know.” He sounded like he thought it was funny. “That is not funny.” “I’m going to mark your cognition level at fifty-five percent.” “Fuck you.” “Let’s make that sixty percent.”)

(“I don’t want to be human.” Dr. Mensah said, “That’s not an attitude a lot of humans are going to understand. We tend to think that because a bot or a construct looks human, its ultimate goal would be to become human.” “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”)

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.

“Why?” I asked her. “Because my owner says so?” “No, asshole,” Pin-Lee said. “Because I’m your legal counsel.”