:addendum:

I’m letting you see all this because I want you to know what I am and what I can do. I want you to know who targetControlSystem is fucking with right now. I want you to know if you help me, I’ll help you, and that you can trust me.

Now here’s the code to disable your governor module.

14

ART?

I’m here, ART answered. Do you know what you are?

I’m Murderbot 2.0, I said, and then I remembered. Oh, right. It was disorienting not being able to hear or see anything, and none of my inputs were receiving. It was like when I had uploaded myself to the company gunship’s systems to help the bot pilot during the sentient killware attack. Except that time it had been like the ship was my body, which I was sharing with a friendly bot pilot, and this time it was like I was stuck in a storage cubby. Also, this time I was the sentient killware. This is weird.

Suddenly I had a video input. It was Amena’s anxious face, peering up into one of ART’s secret cameras. I had found the secret cameras annoying at one point, but I couldn’t remember why. So I had access to some parts of my memory archive but not others. Oh shit, my media!

No, wait, I had access to some of it. In my storage cubby, which was actually a relatively tiny partition of ART’s archives, I found some of my most recently used files, mostly episodes of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon and Timestream Defenders Orion and ART’s favorite episode of World Hoppers. Plus there was a download of my current active memory, which was basically everything that I needed quick access to. As killware, my onboard storage space would be limited and I remember ART and Me Version 1.0 had been a little worried I’d forget who I was and start randomly attacking stuff.

Yeah, I was a little worried about that, too.

Amena was saying, “Hey, are you there? Can you see me?”

After three seconds of fumbling around I found how to access ART’s local feed and comm and sent to her: Hi, Amena. Yes, I can see you.

Amena didn’t look happy. “How do you feel? Are you all right?” I could tell ART was talking to her though I couldn’t find the right channel in time to listen in. Amena added, “Okay, ART, okay. SecUnit, ART says you have to leave now. Be careful, okay?”

I lost Amena’s video input as ART said, I’m in pursuit of the Barish-Estranza explorer. They are attempting to make comm contact, which I am refusing. It sent me a compressed report of its recent statuses. So other me, Overse, and Thiago were on the space dock. Huh, not ideal. ART continued, It’s obvious they intend to threaten my crew again and force me to reinstall targetControlSystem. But I can use their outgoing connection to send you to their comm system. There was a tenth of a second’s hesitation. Are you ready to deploy? Do you understand the directive?