System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries, #7)

by Martha Wells

So the next time I get optimistic about something, I want one of you to punch me in the face.

“You can’t do therapy on a whole colony,” Tarik said, “no matter how much they need it.”

She had large yelling capacity for a human her size. I had the feeling it came in handy.

You’re stalling, ART-drone said. I am not. I can stand here and be useless without any ulterior motives, thanks.

humans have a bad habit of assuming that if they know a thing, all the other humans in the vicinity know it, too. Either that or they believe none of the other humans know anything that they don’t know. It’s either one or the other and both are potentially catastrophic and really fucking annoying.

I was trying to lighten the mood but that one absolutely did not stick its landing.

ART-drone said, Your attempts at emotional manipulation need work. But your point is taken.

(“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I had told Mensah. “I think you might know,” she had said. “You just don’t want to talk about it.”)

I am so not in the mood to listen to banter.

I was as indifferent to human gender as it was possible to be without being unconscious.)

Was it me? Was I looming?

Autistic Thoughts™

I was actually really in the mood for a good long stare at a wall.

I had fifty-seven unique sources of concern/anxiety, speaking of checking in with my emotions, but nothing I could do anything about right now.

there was only so much I could take and I thought I’d hit my limit about, I don’t know, four years ago.

I can’t handle that right now so I’m just going to archive it for later.

Yeah, I’ll just code a patch to stop feeling anxiety, wow, why didn’t I think of that earlier. (That was sarcasm, I have too much organic neural tissue for that to work.) (Of course I’ve already tried it.)

Ratthi made an eek noise.

Wow, you don’t think it can get any worse, and it always does.

It sent back, End session. There was a pause, then: Be safe. I can’t deal with that right now.

Iris said, Right, let’s go. SecUnit, we’ll wait for you up top. I know they will, which is why I’m willing to die to get them up there.

It wasn’t dead, it was just catastrophically damaged. (I know, who isn’t?)

I wanted to send a message to Dr. Bharadwaj about it—I don’t know why, but just telling her stuff made it easier for me to figure out what I wanted to do.

And I had decided, for real this time, which ship I would be on when I left. Do you know where we’re going next? I asked ART.