She grimaced. “Right, sorry.” Then she looked away and rubbed her eyes.

And I’d made her cry. Good job, Murderbot.

I knew I’d been an asshole and I owed Amena an apology. I’d attribute it to the performance reliability drop, and the emotional breakdown which I am provisionally conceding as ongoing rather than an isolated event that I am totally over now, and being involuntarily shutdown and restarted, but I can also be kind of an asshole. (“Kind of” = in the 70 percent–80 percent range.) I didn’t know what to say but I didn’t have time to do a search for relevant apology examples. (And it’s not like I ever find any relevant examples that I actually want to use.) I said, “I’m sorry for … being an asshole.”

That made Amena make a noise like she was trying to express her sinuses and then she covered her face. “No. I mean, it’s all right. I haven’t exactly been nice to you, so we’re probably even.”

I’m going now, right now. Right now.

I was at the hatch when she said, “Just don’t stop talking to me on the feed.”

I said, “I won’t.”

HelpMe.file Excerpt 2

(Section from interview Bharadwaj-09257394.)

“I noticed a thing about your transcript.”

“Was the font wrong?”

“No, the font was lovely. But whenever the company is mentioned you edit out the company and change it to the company.” Checks session recording. “In fact, you’ve just done it now.”

“That’s not a question.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” pause “Is it the logos? You’ve mentioned them before. I did think at the time, that you wouldn’t have known they were impossible to remove if you hadn’t already tried.”

“That’s one of the reasons.”

“We’ve talked a little about trauma recovery treatments. I wonder if you’ve ever thought about taking one yourself.”

:session redacted:

7

I gave Amena a view of what I was doing via my main video input, so she would know I was still there and I didn’t have to think what to say to her.

(Also, if there was an engineering aux station and it showed we were trapped forever, then she could see it for herself and I wouldn’t have to tell her.)

As I went down the corridor, Amena said, Why is the vid so jumpy? Is it from a drone?

It’s from my eyes.

Oh. I’d left the task group of eight drones with her, and I could see her via their cameras. She sat on the platform next to Eletra, elbow propped on her knee. This is creepy, she said. I was passing a lounge attached to the galley, with blue padded couches along the walls. Three cups with ART’s university logo sat on a low table, and a gray jacket, one of the kinds humans wore for exercise, was draped over the back of a chair. The way everything looks so normal. Like somebody could walk in any second.

She wasn’t wrong. Except for those few cabins in the living quarters, I hadn’t seen any areas that were trashed, or where it looked like a struggle had occurred. Is there anything about this situation that isn’t creepy?