Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)

by Martha Wells

I can remember (literally, because of the memory wipes)

Target Four ran toward me because assholes love to see your face when they kill you.

Part of my job had been to help record and parse and protect that information until it could be transferred back to the company, and if I didn’t do it in a timely manner indicating complete obedience I got punished by my governor module. (Which was like being shot by a high-grade energy weapon, only from the inside out.)

After a subjective eternity that was actually 1.2 seconds long,

murder bot makes me laugh

I was leaking a lot, and I hate leaking.

Of course not, ART said. I sent them to kidnap you.

I said, “Stop talking to my human.” ART said, Make me.

ART. ART, you manipulative fucker.

and I doubted it was planning a mass murder while also composing messages about how I was ungrateful and also wrong and being a sulky dumbass (not in those exact words but that’s what it meant) and why wouldn’t I fucking talk to it and you get the idea.

“So, you have a relationship with this transport.” I was horrified. Humans are disgusting. “No!”

(Yes, it had actually left out the whole part about telling the Targets that I was a weapon they could use and bringing them to where they could attack our baseship, and using the comm code to locate me. That was fucking incredible.)

I hate it when ART is right.

But I suddenly had 86.3 percent of its attention. (For ART, that was a lot.)

“ART encountered the Barish-Estranza transports before its first forced shutdown,” I told her. “Whatever attacked it and kidnapped its crew, came from one of their ships.” Amena’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.”

ART didn’t answer. I think it was upset. I was also upset, but somebody had to be the adult here. (I was used to ART being the adult.) I said, “From the navigation, sensor,

“Is the explorer armed?” Ratthi asked worriedly. “I hate being shot at.”

It had tricked its captors into taking it to me not because it had some kind of grand strategy but because it needed me. I hate emotions.

On the private channel between ART and me, I said, I apologize for calling you a fucker. It said, I apologize for kidnapping you and causing potential collateral damage to your clients. Amena was watching

“Yes.” I had to look at the wall now. Amena was still worried. “Are you fighting again or are you making up? Because it looks exactly the same from the outside.” We’re making up, ART told her. “Good.” Amena looked relieved.

I love them

was also prepping a squad of pathfinders just in case we had to search the colony planet. (I hope it didn’t come to that. I don’t like planets.)

The hatch was sealed, but not code-locked, which made sense when we thought Eletra and Ras were telling the truth about being captured trying to escape from their doomed transport. (Now that we were certain it hadn’t happened that way, who the hell knew?)

But then an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Or past absence. Whatever, you know what I mean.

She watched me search for seven minutes and forty seconds, then said, “Can I ask you a question?” I never know how to answer this. Should I go with my first impulse, which is always “no” or just give in to the inevitable? I said, “Is it contract-relevant?” Big, adolescent human sigh noise. “I just want to understand something.” I gave in to the inevitable. “Yes.”

Why does ART like adolescent humans? This was exhausting.

ART must be recovering because it had to butt in with, Tell her you care about her. Use those words, don’t tell her you’ll eviscerate anything that tries to hurt her. ART, fuck off. The thing ART has in common with human adolescents is that it doesn’t like to hear the word “no,” either. It persisted, Tell her. It’s true. Just say it. Human adolescents need to hear it from their caretakers. I’m not a caretaker, I told ART. I finished the log conversion and checked my drone view of Amena. She was leaning in the hatchway, her head propped on the seal buffer. (That isn’t a good place to put your head, just FYI.) From her expression, she was either falling asleep or deep in thought. Or possibly both. I said, “You need to sleep.” She yawned. “Okay, third mom.”

but World Hoppers in background would help. It was also bait.) After twenty-seven minutes, it worked. I was aware of ART looming in my feed. (Imagine sitting in front of a display surface and someone eight times your size shoulders in and sits in the chair with you.) It was watching World Hoppers, and also backseat driving my coding

I saw him glance at Amena, who at the moment was an inert pile of limbs under a blanket with a pillow jammed into her face. (Humans do everything weird, including rest.)

Oh, please. I could have played the audio recording I had of what he had said to Dr. Mensah about me, but that was a little incriminating with the whole listening to private conversations in secured spaces and personal dwellings thing. I said,

(The lesson was: if you’re going to fuck with something bigger and meaner than you, use a quick targeted attack and then run away really fast. (This is the way I always try to operate, too.) GrayCris’ attack had not been quick and targeted and they had failed to run away effectively.)

What is that human stabbing you with? Part of a broken chair.

“Yes, please be careful. There was a terrible virus on a company ship and we all nearly died and SecUnit’s brain was compromised.” SecUnit’s brain is always compromised, ART said.

(My skin was less even than hers and it gets completely regenerated on a regular basis due to me being shot in the face.)

I could play it back to listen in on the whole conversation but I could also punch myself in the head with a sampling drill and I was not going to do that, either.

(If I got angry at myself for being angry I would be angry constantly and I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else.) (Wait, I think I am angry constantly. That might explain a lot.)

You don’t have to thank me for doing my stupid job. But it is nice.

Yes, Amena, no shit, I know that.

Lack of attention to detail is one of the reasons humans shouldn’t do their own security.

(Normal = neutral expression concealing existential despair and brain-crushing boredom.)

I was a SecUnit and that Arada had contracted for me as security was true, if in a different way than the corporates would assume. I could have said all that, but instead I said, “It’s my decision and you can shut up.”

oh murderbot

When my crew is at risk, it’s my problem, ART said.

(though anybody who tried to stick a combat override module in there was going to get a violent surprise)

“Surely they won’t suspect anything,” Ratthi was saying to the others at the bulk dock. “Who runs around with a friendly rogue SecUnit? Besides us, I mean.”

but I was going to be paranoid until I figured out how ART had been attacked.) (I mean, I’ll be paranoid after that, too, but only about the usual things.)

As Ratthi put it, “You’d think they could at least pretend to give a damn.”

I could do a lot with that. They were lucky we weren’t here to hurt them.

I let Arada have her feed back, and Overse said immediately, Are you all right? I’m fine, babe, Arada told her. Just some corporate power peeing. Ick.

I needed to talk to ART about it. It was a bad idea. But I had a bad feeling we were going to need it.

ART said, Do you want to watch Timestream Defenders Orion?

Of course I did, but first I had to do this.

ART said, I didn’t mean you.