Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, #6)

by Martha Wells

“Yes, I’ve had experience with investigating suspicious fatalities in controlled circumstances.” Indah’s gaze wasn’t exactly skeptical. “What controlled circumstances?” I said, “Isolated work installations.” Her expression turned even more grim. “Corporate slave labor camps.” I said, “Yes, but if we call them that, Marketing and Branding gets angry and we get a power surge through our brains that fries little pieces of our neural tissue.”

had archives of everything that had happened since I hacked my governor module, but I hadn’t had as much relevant experience in that time. But what I did have were thousands of hours of category mystery media, so I had a lot of theoretical knowledge that was possibly anywhere from 60 to 70 percent inaccurate shit.

Being the top Preservation expert in dealing with contract law in the Corporation Rim apparently made Pin-Lee like the CombatUnit version of a lawyer.

Lee had promised, “Don’t worry, I’ll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like.”) (I said, “It takes one to know one.”) (Mensah said, “People, please. I’m scheduled to mediate arguments between teenagers on my next commcall home and I need all my patience for that.”)

the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module.

have energy weapons in my arms and it’s not like I can leave them behind in the hotel room.) (I mean, my arms are detachable so theoretically I could leave them behind if I had a little help but as a longterm solution it was really inconvenient.)

“No. They told me they didn’t need my help.” “Did they tell you that?” Ratthi said. His expression was doubtful. “What exactly did they say?” I pulled it from memory. “They said, ‘We’ll call you if we need you.’” Gurathin said, “I can’t tell if that’s you being passive aggressive or you being willfully obtuse.”

“How would you dispose of a body so it wouldn’t be found?” I’m not the public library feed, Senior Officer, go do your own research. I said, “If I told you, then you might find all the bodies I’ve already disposed of.” “It’s joking.” Ratthi managed to sound like he completely believed that. “That’s how it looks when it’s joking.” He sent me on the feed, Stop joking. Gurathin sighed and rubbed his face and looked off into the distance, like he regretted all his life choices that had led to him standing here right now. On our private feed connection, he sent, Or you could just show them where you were when this person was being killed.

Right now Aylen and the other officers were explaining to their individual Targets what rights they had as detainees in Preservation Alliance territory. (It was a lot of rights. I was pretty sure it was more rights than a human who hadn’t been detained by Station Security had in the Corporation Rim.)

“Well, it’s in a small space and JollyBaby can’t fit.” They gestured to the cargo bot looming over us. “Its name is not JollyBaby.” Tell me its name is not JollyBaby. It was five meters tall sitting in a crouch and looked like the mobile version of something you used to dig mining shafts. JollyBaby broadcast to the feed: ID=JollyBaby. The other cargo bots and everything in the bay with a processing capability larger than a drone all immediately pinged it back, and added amusement sigils, like it was a stupid private joke. I said, “You have to be shitting me.” I already wanted to walk out an airlock and this didn’t help. (The only thing worse than humans infantilizing bots was bots infantilizing themselves.)

I didn’t need as much air as humans did, but I needed some, and it was really cold out there, in the colony ship’s shadow. This meant that if the life-tender failed it would take me longer to die so I’d have longer to feel dumb about it than a human would.