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.)

How humans decide what to do with their arms on a second-by-second basis, I still have no idea.)

Okay, I was scared. Or nervous. Nervous-scared. Were they my sort-of human friends? My clients? My ex-owners, though legally that was only Dr. Mensah. Were they going to see me and yell for help, alert security?

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

On the feed the humans settled some details of what I was designating as Operation Not Actually A Completely Terrible Plan.

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

Disinformation, which is the same as lying but for some reason has a different name, is the top tactic in corporate negotiation/warfare.

my ongoing relationship with hotelSecSys and my new best friend, MobSys.

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.”

ART and Tapan had both apologized to me, so it wasn’t like it had never happened before, but I still had no idea how to respond.

“You are a person.” Oh, that we can’t talk about. “Not legally.”

“It kept me company without…” “Without making you interact?” she suggested. That she understood even that much made me melt.

Sending SecUnits after me was one thing. But they sent SecUnits after my client. No one gets to walk away from that.

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

For fuck’s sake, these humans are always in the way, trying to save me from stuff.

when you’re told what to do every second of your existence, change is terrifying.

“I’m going to mark your cognition level at fifty-five percent.” “Fuck you.” “Let’s make that sixty percent.”)

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.

Note to self, never, ever jump into a gunship with a bot pilot and fight off a construct Attacker code again. You almost deleted yourself, Murderbot.