...maybe I’m just a robot with enough human neural tissue jammed in my head to make me stupid who should have stayed with the company, guarding contract labor and staring at walls. [loc. 1159]
This novella takes place after Exit Strategy but before Network Effect, so Murderbot is not quite as far along its journey of personhood as it was in the most recent update. The action takes place on Preservation Station, which has a ridiculously low crime rate except for the dead human that has been found in a public area. Murderbot has to work with (ugh) humans, and comply with their stupid rules about not concealing its identity and not accessing private systems. The humans, especially security chief Indah, are no more impressed with this collaboration than is Murderbot. Murderbot is also keeping watch for any signs of the GrayCris corporation, and wondering if the dead human is anything to do with previous conflicts.
Murderbot does seem to be perpetually tense here. (I was becoming exasperated by the increasing parenthetical asides until I reinterpreted them as sub-processes, or perhaps those nagging back-of-the-brain headpigeons that afflict humans.) (That afflict me, anyway.) But the crime gets solved, the interactions are satisfying, there is personal growth for all and a thrilling denouement. Perhaps Murderbot, whose actual murder-mystery experience -- as opposed to dealing with human clients killing or maiming other human clients -- has been confined to its highly-dramatised favourite shows before this, will work with Station Security again some time.
But I miss ART, and I yearn to read about post-Network Effect Murderbot. And the other characters introduced therein ...
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