It had the audacity to sound offended. I assist my crew in many procedures.

I got up, paced, stared at the bulkhead for two minutes, then ran a diagnostic. Finally, I said, “Why do you want to help me?”

I’m accustomed to assisting my crew with large-scale data analysis, and numerous other experiments. While I am in transport mode, I find my unused capacity tiresome. Solving your problems is an interesting exercise in lateral thinking.

“So you’re bored? I’d be the best toy you’ve ever had?” When I was on inventory, I would have given anything for twenty-one cycles of unobserved downtime. I couldn’t feel sorry for ART. “If you’re bored, watch the media I gave you.”

I am aware that for you, your survival as a rogue Unit would be at stake.

I started to correct it, then stopped. Rogue was not how I thought of myself. I had hacked my governor module but continued to obey orders, at least most of them. I had not escaped from the company; Dr. Mensah had legally bought me. While I had left the hotel without her permission, she hadn’t told me not to leave, either. (Yes, I know the last one isn’t helping the argument all that much.)

Rogue units killed their human and augmented human clients. I … had done that once. But not voluntarily.

I needed to find out whether or not it had been voluntary.

“My survival isn’t at stake if I continue to ride unoccupied transports.” And learn to avoid the asshole ones that want to threaten me and question all my choices and try to talk me into getting into the medical suite so they could do experimental surgery on me.

Is that all you want? You don’t want to return to your crew?

I said, not patiently, “I don’t have a crew.”

It sent me an image from the newsburst I had given it, a group image of PreservationAux. Everybody was in their gray uniforms, smiling, for a team portrait taken at the start of the contract. That isn’t your crew?

I didn’t know how to answer it.

I had spent thousands of hours watching or reading about, and liking, groups of fictional humans in the media. Then I had ended up with a group of real humans to watch and like, and then somebody tried to kill them, and while protecting them I had to tell them I had hacked my governor module. So I left. (Yes, I know it’s more complicated than that.)

I tried to think about why I didn’t want to change my configuration, even to help protect myself. Maybe because it was something humans did to sexbots. I was a murderbot, I had to have higher standards?