Марта Уэллс - Network Effect

I said, “Limited duration?”

Mensah explained, “I’ll ask for a five PPS-year data seal, though the judge-advocate will probably only grant two years. Our information suggests that GrayCris is dissolving fast, so that should be more than enough. In two years, what happened today will go into Preservation’s public records, and some news orgs will choose to report on it. But with GrayCris hopefully moribund by that point, it won’t matter.”

Indah was pinching her lower lip, thinking. “Yah. And the agent’ll do better at trial if he admits to guilt. I don’t see how his advocates can mount a defense, with everything we have on video.”

Mensah’s gaze narrowed in speculation. “Or if we can get him to turn and testify against GrayCris. Not that we need it, but it would help build our case for the order of data protection.”

So I’d been right to trust Mensah, trust them. Mensah said, “And SecUnit, you still need to go to Medical.” When I didn’t reply, she said, “Are you all right?”

I said, “I just really like you. Not in a weird way.”

“I like you, too,” Mensah said. “Senior Indah, can you make sure SecUnit goes immediately to Station Medical?”

“Copy, I’ll take it there myself,” Indah replied. She made shooing motions at me. “Come on, let’s move.”

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.

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?

Obviously some things had happened since ART had pulled my copy. And ART was right, it couldn’t risk a comm contact, even to get intel. If the Targets managed to deliver the threat to kill ART’s crew, it would put them in control of the situation and we had to avoid that any way we could. I said, I’m not actually a human baby, ART, I remember the fucking directive—I helped write it.

You’re not making this any easier, ART said.

You can either have an existential crisis or get your crew back, ART, pick one .

ART said, Prepare for deployment .

This was tricky, since once I arrived via comm I’d have to hack into the explorer’s feed. If the explorer was using a filter with properties we hadn’t accounted for, or if it used the brief contact to deliver another viral attack to ART, we could be in trouble.

I was expecting to feel something, like a sense of motion, or to see light streaking by. That’s what would have happened on a show. (I need to get this over with fast. I don’t know how long I can stay me without access to my longterm storage.) But there was nothing.

Then abruptly my existence was all comm code. The suddenness of it shocked me, then I realized this was it, I needed to get moving.

I was still disoriented, and having a moment where I wondered if hey, maybe all the humans were right for once and this was a terrible idea. But then I recognized a code string and snapped out of it. I was onboard the explorer, in the comm system’s receiving buffer. Right before the contact was cut, I pulled over my files from ART’s partition. Now I needed some safe temporary storage.

I used the protocols and proprietary code I’d pulled off the supply transport to put together headers for a test message packet, the kind a comm system would send internally to make sure all the connections were active. To the security system, it looked like a locally generated message, and I used it to slip me and my files through the filters.

I could have forced my way in like the Palisade killware had forced its way aboard the company gunship but then they’d know I was here. (There were a lot of ways for killware to slip through a system’s defenses, but if ART was certain targetControlSystem’s initial attack hadn’t come through the comm… How had it come aboard?)

Now that I was in I hit the SecSystem first. Something, presumably targetControlSystem, had wiped it down to the barely functional level, all its archived video and audio deleted. Think of it like finding yourself in a deserted transit ring, giant echoing embarkation halls and a mall with places for hostels and shops and offices but all of it empty. (Or not, I was software so it really didn’t look like that at all.) I disguised myself as one of SecSystem’s maintenance processes and made a partition for my files. I fortified it, and that made me feel a little more secure. If I did start forgetting who I was, I could come back here to remember.

Before I started tearing shit up, I needed to (1) get intel, (2) find out if ART’s crew were here, (3) then figure out a plan to get them out.

Yeah, I thought step 3 was going to be the tough one, too.

I had eyes now, the SecSystem’s cameras. Barish-Estranza’s setup wasn’t quite as “physical privacy breeds trouble” as my ex-owner bond company but they were close. Flicking through the different views I realized I was having trouble handling the influx of data and interpreting the images, even though I was borrowing processing space from the SecSystem. Apparently the organic parts of my brain were doing a lot more heavy lifting than I gave them credit for.