Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)

by Martha Wells

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.)

No, don’t shoot at us. For fuck’s sake, ART. If everybody would just let me do my stupid job for one minute.

For a being as sophisticated as you are, it is baffling how little understanding you have of the composition of your own mind.

(I know, it’s a logo, but I hate it when humans and augmented humans ruin things for no reason. Maybe because I was a thing before I was a person and if I’m not careful I could be a thing again.)

“Just remember you’re not alone here.” I never know what to say to that. I am actually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.

moribund

I’m letting you see all this because I want you to know what I am and what I can do. I want you to know who targetControlSystem is fucking with right now. I want you to know if you help me, I’ll help you, and that you can trust me. Now here’s the code to disable your governor module.

It’s a good thing I don’t have a full human digestive system because I was so startled something would have popped out of it involuntarily.

She just looked more certain. “You’re Peri’s SecUnit.” Oh, ART’s humans had a cute pet name for it.

(Confession time: that moment, when the humans or augmented humans realize you’re really here to help them. I don’t hate that moment.)

Other things were happening at the same time, three of which were: 1) CodeBundle.LockItDown had closed all the hatches on board except those directly between SecUnit 3’s position and the shuttle access. 2) CodeBundle.FuckThem had fried all targetDrones. 3) CodeBundle.FuckThisToo had cut the connections between the solid-state screen device and the humans’ implants. Oh, and I shut down life support on the bridge so the Targets in there would be thinking about other things besides restarting their screen.

Oh, and I was upside down, which was just insulting since it didn’t affect me the way it would a human.

wan

Hey, is that you? It was loud, right in my ear, and I almost screamed. It was a feed contact but so close it was like it was already inside my head. Who are you? It said, I’m Murderbot 2.0. If this is going to be like one of those shows with the character trapped in a strange place and then ghosts and aliens come and mess with their mind, I just can’t do that right now.

Then it said, Diagnostics show structural damage and a sixty-eight percent performance reliability. That’s not so bad, considering. I said, Alien remnant contamination isn’t going to show up on my diagnostics. It said, You don’t know that. Oh, for fuck’s sake, I can’t sit here and argue with myself all day.

Also, in Adventures in Living with Your Own Killware Cozied Up Inside Your Head, 2.0 had partitioned off a corner of my processing space. It would have worried me more if it wasn’t in there watching episode 172 of Sanctuary Moon.

There is a lot about what is going on here that I don’t understand. But I am participating anyway.

The thrust almost knocked me out of the seat as the shuttle flung itself upward. (ART must be driving.)

and there was a company armed ship that was attacked and another ship from a security corporate that got blown up.” “Rescued by a…” Matteo trailed off and they all stared at me. Which was not what I needed right now, cut off from the feed and ART’s cameras and my drones. I said, “ART, I thought you told them about me.” ART said, I told them I had met a rogue SecUnit. I didn’t imply that you were every SecUnit ever mentioned in the newsfeeds.

“Peri was going to bomb the colony with the armed pathfinders until they gave you up.”

I was glad I could pretend to be too overwhelmed by being reassembled to respond, because I kind of was overwhelmed. That was ART, and my humans, and humans I had known for maybe five minutes, and a Barish-Estranza SecUnit that 2.0 had randomly found, all cooperating to retrieve me. I’m going to stop talking for a while now.

“I guess I’m not surprised. How do you feel about it?” My expression must have changed because she rolled her eyes. “Oh sorry, I used the f word there.”

“Because change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying.

ART watched with me for some of the episodes but the idea of Dr. Mensah coming aboard made it weirdly excited and it had its drones clean its whole interior again and was doing things like yelling at Turi to put their laundry in the recycler.