Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)

by Martha Wells

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

Then it said, I’m sorry I frightened you. Okay, well. If you think I trusted that apology, you don’t know Murderbot.

“It’s not realistic,” I told it. “It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s a story, not a documentary. If you complain about that, I’ll stop watching.” I will refrain from complaint, it said. (Imagine that in the most sarcastic tone you can, and you’ll have some idea of how it sounded.)

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.

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

The transport thought that over for 1.6 seconds. In a less sarcastic tone, it said, You dislike your function. I don’t understand how that is possible.

But it said, 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.

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.

“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.”

“All you had to do was give them the fucking files and none of us would be in this situation.” The look she threw back at me was startled, incredulous. I didn’t sound like her idea of a SecUnit, rogue or otherwise, I guess. Humans should really do more research. There were operating manuals that would have warned her not to fuck with us.