Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

by Martha Wells

I didn’t care what humans were doing to each other as long as I didn’t have to a) stop it or b) clean up after it.

But even I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my lifespan alone riding cargo transports and consuming media, as attractive as it sounded.

had done a historical search in the feed for its movements and found it was owned by a university based on a planet in this system, which rented it out for cargo trips in between assignments to help pay for its upkeep.

Meet cute moment

So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression were side effects.

You were lucky. I sat up. It was so unexpected, I had an adrenaline release from my organic parts.

Hahaha creepy

How the hell was I supposed to know there were transports sentient enough to be mean?

Haha

I said, “Watch it yourself.” I tried. I can process the media more easily through your filter.

That's Art's way of saying it wants to watch it with MB

When a major character died in the twentieth episode I had to pause seven minutes while it sat there in the feed doing the bot equivalent of staring at a wall, pretending that it had to run diagnostics. Then four episodes later the character came back to life and it was so relieved we had to watch that episode three times before it would go on.

Haha poor Art was traumatized

At the climax of one of the main story lines, the plot suggested the ship might be catastrophically damaged and members of the crew killed or injured, and the transport was afraid to watch it. (That’s obviously not how it phrased it, but yeah, it was afraid to watch it.)

More trauma

guess you can’t tell a story from the point of view of something that you don’t think has a point of view.

I liked protecting people and things. I liked figuring out smart ways to protect people and things. I liked being right.

I am not allowed to accept unauthorized passengers or cargo, and have had to alter my log to hide any evidence of your presence. There was a hesitation. So we both have a secret.

Awww, sharing secrets already 🙌🏻😍

had figured out twenty-seven different ways to render it inoperable and three to blow it up. But a mutually assured destruction scenario was not something I was interested in.

The love is real hahaha

Did I really care what an asshole research transport thought about me?

Yes, you care

ART (aka Asshole Research Transport)

The first sign that someone is your bestie: you’d give them a cute nickname

“Either I killed them due to a malfunction and then hacked the governor module, or I hacked the governor module so I could kill them,” I said. “Those are the only two possibilities.”

Are all constructs so illogical? said the Asshole Research Transport with the immense processing capability whose metaphorical hand I had had to hold because it had become emotionally compromised by a fictional media serial. Before I could say that, it added, Those are not the first two possibilities to consider.

Hahaha

You look like a SecUnit. You move like a SecUnit.

Because it is a secunit

I hate it when ART is right.

Haah

Rogue was not how I thought of myself. I had hacked my governor module but continued to obey orders, at least most of them. I had not escaped from the company; Dr. Mensah had legally bought me. While I had left the hotel without her permission, she hadn’t told me not to leave, either. (Yes, I know the last one isn’t helping the argument all that much.) Rogue units killed their human and augmented human clients. I … had done that once. But not voluntarily.

“I don’t have a crew.”

:(

I wished I had gone with Plan Sixteen to render the ART inoperable, the one with the best statistical chance of success without me taking catastrophic damage in retaliation. Plan Two to blow it up was looking pretty attractive at the moment, too.

Having multiple plans to kill your bestue whe it anoys you is a love language hahaa

And now I knew why I hadn’t wanted to do this. It would make it harder for me to pretend not to be a person.

Yes, the giant transport bot is going to help the construct SecUnit pretend to be human. This will go well.

Haha

Humans are nervous of me because I’m a terrifying murderbot, and I’m nervous of them because they’re humans.

I feel you

But then yesterday Tlacey finally answered our petition, and said we could have the files back if we returned our signing bonus. We have to go down to RaviHyral to do that.”

Its obviously a trap

“Yeah, but Tlacey wants to do it in person.”

IT'S A TRAP!!!!

It was a great idea to go if you wanted to be murdered.

Hahah

“Maybe Tlacey wants us to work for her again,” Tapan said hopefully.

Tapan its too naive

You don’t have a weapons system.

Hahha you dont know the half of it

I have a debris deflection system

Understatement Of the year

You have a weapons system. ART repeated, For debris deflection.

Hahaha

“Sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.”

This place was creepy. I reminded myself that the terrible thing that had most likely happened here was me.

Someone working for Tlacey—a friend—said he had copies of the files and he’d give them to us.”

Tapan, you are so naive that I dont know if I should pitty you or dance in your grave

I had forgotten that I had a choice, that I wasn’t obligated to do what she wanted just because she was here. Being asked to stay, with a please and an option for refusal, hit me almost as hard as a human asking for my opinion and actually listening to me.

Hsving the freedom to acept or decline is so new to it

“In the creche, our moms always said that fear was an artificial condition. It’s imposed from the outside. So it’s possible to fight it. You should do the things you’re afraid of.”

Some part of my organic systems remembered what had happened there. In the feed, ART started to play the soundtrack to Sanctuary Moon and weirdly, that helped.

The fact that Art knows how to help MB to overcome a crisis

Young humans can be impulsive. The trick is keeping them around long enough to become old humans. This is what my crew tells me and my own observations seem to confirm it.

Picking up on my reaction, ART said, What does it want? To kill all the humans, I answered. I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases. It said, That is irrational. I know, I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media? It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say.

you may have noticed that for a terrifying murderbot I fuck up a lot.

Retrieve your human and make Tlacey regret this

Art is piss

I was just as shit at being a security consultant as any human.

Be careful. Find your crew.

So cute