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.

Or punch ART in the face. I sent back, I wish I could punch you in the face. ART said, I wish you could try.

At least it was making me nervous for a survival-based reason instead of … redacted.

(For however many corporate standard years, all I got from humans was “Run in there now no matter how likely you are to get blown to tiny pieces when a quiet tactical approach has a higher percentage of success” and now it’s “Oh no we’re fine, we can hang out in this objectively terrifying immediately hazardous situation for however long.”) (I’m just saying that it would be nice for the humans to give me a realistic situation report for once.) (Dr. Bharadwaj says even good change is stressful.)

ART: If Karime is present at the colony and the colonists or corporates attempt to harm her, a threat to bomb this site may be ineffective. Seth: Peri, can I speak to you in private for a moment? Iris: It’s just joking. Ratthi: Is it. Me: You can bomb the terraforming engines on the other continent, it’s a better target anyway. Thiago: I suppose SecUnit is joking, too.)

Three’s drone saw Karime’s face sink and her shoulders tighten. Me too, Karime, me too.

Ugh, I wish I felt like I was prepared for complication. Or prepared for anything. Redacted

It should be reassuring that humans don’t get what other humans are thinking, either, but it just highlights how fucked up human neural tissue can be.

(I know I get pissed off when humans don’t acknowledge my work, but why is too much acknowledgment also upsetting? Sentience sucks.)

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

Murderbot, you have got to stop this. Do your fucking job.

What happened i'm dying to know

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.

“Be safe, SecUnit,” she said. I don’t know how to respond when humans say that. It was always my job to get hurt.

(Okay I wouldn’t, but then I’m not a human who was panicking about getting murdered or whatever.) (I’m a SecUnit who was panicking about getting murdered or whatever by panicking humans.)

I tapped my private feed connection with Ratthi and said, Can you burn out your ability to feel that a place is creepy? Ratthi answered, I think that’s called being in shock.

Then ART-drone said, I’m picking up a nonstandard transmission. I froze.

I guess machine intelligences of that era were too polite to say “that sounds fake but okay.”

“Stop, stop it. This isn’t you talking, this is just your…” Yeah, I’d walked into that one, too. My certification in advanced trauma protocol? it said. Of course, that can’t possibly be useful in this situation. I said, “That’s for humans.” Yes, conversational trap, snapping shut. ART said, This affects the part of you that is human. I said, “I’m not talking to you anymore.”

Ah, but what do you consider human characteristics? Ratthi said. Tarik said, Oh please, don’t start with it. Why not? Ratthi’s voice in the feed was amused. Tarik is confused by philosophical debate, ART-drone said. Because it likes to win and it won’t shut up until it does, Tarik said. Tarik has an issue with projecting his emotions onto others, ART-drone said.

(I asked because the humans would bug me for the information; I was as indifferent to human gender as it was possible to be without being unconscious.)

But since the thing that happened I don’t think I’ve had an emotion that wasn’t the visual equivalent of a wet blanket crumpled on a floor.

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.)

(I wouldn’t kill her myself unless I had to, to protect another human from her, but I wouldn’t have to watch a lot of Sanctuary Moon episodes to cope with it if it happened in front of me, let’s put it that way.)

I used every bit of force I had and we hit the artificial stone floor hard. It wasn’t expecting to suddenly have me wrapped around its face and hadn’t been able to brace itself. Because this is not how SecUnits fight. (We shoot at each other and take hits until we can’t anymore.) But it was how this SecUnit fights when it doesn’t have armor, so get used to it, asshole.

Was it a good idea to go in there? We were on teamFeed+Leonide, but you know what, who cared. I said, Fuck you, ART. You haven’t spoken to me that way in weeks. I’ve missed it.

He obviously knew his new guns were pointless because he was snarling to himself in a language I didn’t have a good translation module for. It sounded sweary with religious overtones.

Tarik said, That explains why there’s so many of these <untranslatable>.

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?)

ART-drone reached out a limb to Iris. My function is impaired, Iris. So is SecUnit’s. Will you shut the hell up? I said. You shut up, it replied.

Oops, I guess there was a little bleedover, probably from ART-drone’s end. Deadpan, Tarik said, “I always watch entertainment when I fly.”

Don’t just sit there, ART said to me and Iris as it brought the shuttle into its docking module. Console each other. I said, You fuck off at the same time as Iris said, Oh, shut it, Peri, and that felt even better.

A message came back: I could help you learn about it, if you’re interested. ART said, Stop talking to it. I think it’s just bored, I said. I don’t give a shit, ART said.

ART said, 7.32 minutes at the same time as Holism said, 7.3247 minutes. The resulting silence on the feed was stony, except for Seth’s exasperated sigh.

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.