Martha Wells: All Systems Red

Dr. Mensah stepped close, looking up at me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” I had clear pictures from my field camera of her being hurt, but all her damage had been repaired, too. She looked different, in business clothes like Pin-Lee’s. “I don’t understand what’s happening.” It was stressful. I could feel the entertainment feed out there, the same one I could access from the unit processing zone, and it was hard not to sink into it.

She said, “I’ve purchased your contract. You’re coming back to Preservation with us. You’ll be a free agent there.”

“I’m off inventory.” They had told me that and maybe it was true. I had the urge to twitch uncontrollably and I had no idea why. “Can I still have armor?” It was the armor that told people I was a SecUnit. But I wasn’t Sec anymore, just Unit.

The others were so quiet. She said, even and calm, “We can arrange that, as long as you think you need it.”

I didn’t know if I thought I needed it or not. “I don’t have a cubicle.”

She was reassuring. “You won’t need one. People won’t be shooting at you. If you’re hurt, or your parts are damaged, you can be repaired in a medical center.”

“If people won’t be shooting at me what will I be doing?” Maybe I could be her bodyguard.

“I think you can learn to do anything you want.” She smiled. “We’ll talk about that when we get you home.”

Arada walked in then, and came over and patted my shoulder. “We’re so glad you’re with us,” she said. She told Mensah, “The DeltFall representatives are here.”

Mensah nodded. “I have to talk to them,” she told me. “Make yourself comfortable here. If there’s anything you need, tell us.”

I sat in a back corner and watched while different people came in and out of the suite to talk about what had happened. Solicitors, mostly. From the company, from DeltFall, from at least three other corporate political entities and one independent, even from GrayCris’ parent company. They asked questions, argued, looked at security records, showed Mensah and Pin-Lee security records. And they looked at me. Gurathin watched me, too, but he didn’t say anything. I wondered if he had told Mensah not to buy me.

I watched the entertainment feed a little to calm down, then pulled everything I could about the Preservation Alliance from the station’s information center. No one would be shooting at me because they didn’t shoot people there. Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.

Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of. He was called away to answer questions from a solicitor, which gave me time to think.

I didn’t know what I would do on a farm. Clean the house? That sounded way more boring than security. Maybe it would work out. This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want.

Supposed to want.

I’d have to pretend to be an augmented human, and that would be a strain. I’d have to change, make myself do things I didn’t want to do. Like talk to humans like I was one of them. I’d have to leave the armor behind.

But maybe I wouldn’t need it anymore.

Eventually things settled down, and they had dinner brought in. Mensah came and talked to me some more, about Preservation, what my options would be there, how I would stay with her until I knew what I wanted. It was pretty much what I’d already figured, from what Ratthi had told me.

“You’d be my guardian,” I said.

“Yes.” She was glad I understood. “There are so many education opportunities. You can do anything you want.”

Guardian was a nicer word than owner.

I waited until the middle of the offshift, when they were all either asleep or deep in their own feeds, working on their analysis of the assessment materials. I got up from the couch and went down the corridor, and slipped out the door.

I used the transport pod and got back to the lobby, then left the hotel. I had the map I had downloaded earlier, so I knew how to get off the ring and down toward the lower port work zones. I was wearing a survey team uniform, and passing as an augmented human, so nobody stopped me, or looked twice at me.

At the edge of the work zone, I went through into the dockworkers’ barracks, then into the equipment storage. Besides tools, the human workers had storage cubbies there. I broke into a human’s personal possessions locker and stole work boots, a protective jacket, and an enviro mask and attachments. I took a knapsack from another locker, rolled up the jacket with the survey logo and tucked it into the bag, and now I looked like an augmented human traveling somewhere. I walked out of the work zones and down the big central corridor into the port’s embarkation zone, just one of hundreds of travelers heading for the ship ring.

I checked the schedule feeds and found that one of the ships getting ready to launch was a bot-driven cargo transport. I plugged into its access from the stationside lock, and greeted it. It could have ignored me, but it was bored, and greeted me back and opened its feed for me. Bots that are also ships don’t talk in words. I pushed the thought toward it that I was a happy servant bot who needed a ride to rejoin its beloved guardian, and did it want company on its long trip? I showed it how many hours of shows and books and other media I had saved to share.

Cargo transport bots also watch the entertainment feeds, it turns out.

I don’t know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn’t that, it’s that I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me.

That’s why I left you, Dr. Mensah, my favorite human. By the time you get this I’ll be leaving Corporation Rim. Out of inventory and out of sight.

Murderbot end message.

MARTHA WELLShas written many fantasy novels, including The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads ),and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and nonfiction. She has had stories in Black Gate, Realms of Fantasy, Stargate Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and in the anthologies Elemental, Tales of the Emerald Serpent, The Other Half of the Sky, The Gods of Lovecraft, and Mech: Age of Steel . She has also written media tie-ins for Stargate: Atlantis and most recently Star Wars: Razor’s Edge . Her newest book in the Books of the Raksura series, The Edge of Worlds, was released in April 2016. The last book in the series, The Harbors of the Sun, is forthcoming in July 2017.

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The Cloud Roads

The Serpent Sea

The Siren Depths

The Edge of Worlds

The Harbors of the Sun (forthcoming)

Stories of the Raksura: Volume I (short fiction)

Stories of the Raksura: Volume II (short fiction)