Artificial Condition--The Murderbot Diaries

ART watched it walk away through its lock camera. It said, I thought you might destroy it.

Too tired and numb to talk, I signaled a negative through the feed. It hadn’t had a choice. And I hadn’t broken its governor module for its sake. I did it for the four ComfortUnits at Ganaka Pit who had no orders and no directive to act and had voluntarily walked into the meat grinder to try to save me and everyone else left alive in the installation.

I turned to see Tlacey reaching for one of the fallen weapons. I said, “Touch that weapon and I’ll take it away from you and insert it into your rib cage.”

She froze. She was panting from fear, eyes staring. I said, “Tell your sexbot to stop fighting.”

It was still struggling to get up and it was just going to hurt itself further. Especially if it made me mad again.

Tlacey straightened slowly, her jaw working, and the sexbot relaxed. I said, ART, cut off Tlacey’s feed.

Done, ART said.

Tlacey winced as her feed went down. I told Tlacey, “Give the sexbot a verbal command to obey me until further notice. Try to give it any other command and I’ll rip your tongue out.”

Tlacey huffed out a breath, then said, “Unit, obey the crazy rogue SecUnit until further notice.” To me, she said, “You need to get better threats.”

I put a hand on the nearest chair seat and shoved myself to my feet. “I don’t make threats, I’m just telling you what I’m going to do.”

What do you propose to do?

There was a pause. A long one, five seconds. We could kill them.

Well, that was an unusual approach to its dilemma. Kill who? Tlacey?

All of them. The humans here.

I leaned against the wall. If I had been human, I would have rolled my eyes. Though if I had been human, I might have been stupid enough to think it was a good idea.

I also wondered if it knew a lot more about me than what little was in the newsburst.

Picking up on my reaction, ART said, What does it want?

To kill all the humans, I answered.

I could feel ART metaphorically clutch its function. If there were no humans, there would be no crew to protect and no reason to do research and fill its databases. It said, That is irrational.

I know, I said, if the humans were dead, who would make the media? It was so outrageous, it sounded like something a human would say.

Huh.

I said to the sexbot, Is that how Tlacey thinks constructs talk to each other?

There was another pause, only two seconds this time. Yes. Then, Tlacey believes you stayed behind to steal the files for the tech group.