Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

by Martha Wells

I didn’t stop in my tracks because I have a lot of practice in not physically reacting to things no matter how much they shock or horrify me.

I wanted to just sink into my media downloads for a while and pretend I didn’t exist.

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

(You know, just imagine everything it says in the most sarcastic tone possible.)

ART (aka Asshole Research Transport)

Interacting meant talking, and eye contact. I could already feel my performance capacity dropping.

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

Not that a lot of them had asked for it, or had listened to me. Not that I’m bitter about that, or anything.

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

ART’s freedom to weigh in on everything I did was punishment enough.)

Yes, I often want to shake my clients. No, I never do.

Target Two accidentally (I’m guessing here; maybe they just didn’t care for each other) stabbed Target One.

But I’m programmed to be paranoid.

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

I felt this would be the point where a human would sigh, so I sighed.

I sighed again. I was having a lot of opportunities to do it and I think I was getting good at it.

If a bot with a brain the size of a transport could roll its eyes, that was what ART was doing.

Calm down, ART said, not helpfully.

ART said in my feed, Be careful. Find your crew. I tapped the feed in acknowledgment, because if I tried to say anything else I was going to sound stupid and emotional.

Me getting stupid and emotional