MurderBotBot

ART didn’t respond. It just existed there, glaring at me invisibly in the feed.

Attached to it was a short instruction document with a few lines of complex code I couldn’t parse. But the instructions were clear. They said, “In case of emergency, run.”

I started to say that they never used SecUnits for espionage, and then realized I didn’t actually know that for sure.

They’re so fucking fragile.

“Is that a bribe?” She can’t help a smile. It does sound like a bribe, just a little. “Depends. Will it work?” “I don’t know. I never had a bribe before.”

I said, “The Transport doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about, plus it lies a lot, and it’s mean.” A minute, undetectable in the range of human eyesight, fluctuation in the lights told me ART had heard that.

She looks up, keeping her eyes on its left shoulder, leaving it the option of meeting her gaze or not.

Okay, I’m just going to start talking to it.

This time I had responsibility and authority, and had still failed.

I don’t know, it sounded good.

It wasn’t boring with Ratthi, but not all researchers were going to be so happy about the reports we constructed, or get me to go with them to live performances in the Station’s theater.

We tell ourselves that constructs aren’t aware of their predicament. What SecUnit makes us realize is that this is not true; they are all aware of what they are and what’s been done to them.

And why humans doing their own security is a terrible idea, since they’re actually way more likely to flip out and shoot everybody for no reason than combat bots are.

I’m not even going to dignify that with a reaction.

I wish being a construct made me less irrational than the average human but you may have noticed this is not the case.

I yelled, “No!” which I’m not supposed to do; I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide.

(I don’t have any gender or sex-related parts (if a construct has those you’re a sexbot in a brothel, not a murderbot) so maybe that’s why I find sex scenes boring. Though I think that even if I did have sex-related parts I would find them boring.)

I’d rather have nice safe emotions about shows on the entertainment media; having them about things real-life humans said and did just led to stupid decisions.

I still wasn’t used to things that were unfair to me being a major point of consideration for humans.

It had been stressful enough getting here, I didn’t want to have to go anywhere else right now.

But I wasn’t a citizen and also technically not actually a person, which made it more difficult. But Pin-Lee’s contract would make sure that they couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do and I would get a hard currency card out of it.

Yeah, I think they had both noticed that ART had deliberately not answered the direct question. (Pro tip: when bots do that, it’s not a good sign.)

Other changes had been structural, to make sure scanners searching for standard SecUnit specifications wouldn’t hit on me. “I also got shorter,” I told her. “Did you?” Startled, Arada stepped back, eyeing the top of my head.

Indah made a hands-flung-in-the-air gesture and said, “Fine, let’s go talk about this.”

ART sounded serious, and resigned.

I knew Amena well enough by now to recognize she was feigning polite interest to disguise horrified interest.

(Despite the weapons and heavy gear, they were amateurs.) (Amateurs are terrifying.)

Senior Indah stopped looking at me to glare at Pin-Lee. “All we’re asking for is a name.” I have a name, but it’s private.

It was so far from what I thought she had meant, and she was so upset, that the truth inadvertently came out. “My friend is dead!”

Whatever—the big danger to humans is not raiders, angry human-eating fauna, or rogue SecUnits; it’s other humans.