Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

by Martha Wells

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

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

“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.”

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.