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.

heavily armed judgmental machine intelligences pretending to be ordinary transports,

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 didn’t say anything. (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.

Get it together, Murderbot.

He got the vehicle started again and we proceeded down the stupid tunnel, into the stupid danger.

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.)

There are no easy answers, as Dr. Bharadwaj says. And this will never be an easy question.

(Let’s face it, actual solid physical or visual evidence will often not change human minds.)

Did humans ever fucking listen to anybody—human, augmented human, bot, SecUnit—who was trying to tell them that they were in danger, that their world was about to fall apart?

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.)

Who wrote this fucking module, for fuck’s sake, it’s not factoring in the exceptions. No wonder

taking advice from Sanctuary Moon was better.

Put the fucking panic module away, you kn...

know, believe me, I know. This is an illustration of the phrase “grasp at straws.”)

I am not meant to function without multiple simultaneous inputs. If this was what being

a human was like, it sucked massively.

arguing about who knew more about flying semi-derelict aircraft jury-rigged from parts left behind by terraformers, but they were both working over the controls in the piloting interface.

“People who get shot don’t get to argue about safety protocol,”