#tural (murderbot)

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 1

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which we get to fill in some more gaps in the timeline.

Murderbot scans a dead human, and determines they've been dead for probably about four hours. Mensah seems skeptical, even after receiving MB's report on how it arrived on that figure, and watches Indah for her reaction. MB sees it on the feeds from its new intel drones, rather than its own vision.(1)

The corridor isn't very well-traveled, but it is a weird place to get killed. Anywhere on Preservation Station would be, come to that. Accidental death is close to nil, and the overall threat assessment for murder is at just 7%, the lowest it can be anywhere people and MB are.(2) And yet, a dead body, on the floor.

Just as Indah's finished the report, and is also skeptical, a tech comes in, saying they estimate time of death about four hours ago. Indah sighs. MB asks if there's an ID, since the dead person's feed interface is broken. The tech, Tural, looks to Indah for permission first, then confirms there was nothing scannable on or in the body to indicate ID.

Indah looks dissatisfied, so Tural says they have to wait for Medical to scan the body to match against visitor entry log scans, and Medical isn't here yet because it's the school's preventive health check day. Indah asks if Tural told them it's an emergency, but they say they did, and Medical said it's only an emergency until a pronouncement of death.(3)

Mensah stops Indah from going too much on a rant about what she'll do, and says she'll talk to Medical, as planetary leader, to convey that it's not accidental and it is an emergency. The ports have been closed, at least. She also asks Tural if they're sure the dead person is a visitor, or if they might be local. Tural says they assumed visitor, but no confirmation.

MB interprets Mensah's face to mean she doesn't think anyone's doing a very good job of this. MB thinks Station Security is out of its depth, since Preservation is typically so peaceful. Indah doesn't look much more impressed, and tells Tural to keep working on an ID.

Tural takes off to escape the blast radius before Indah blows up, and Mensah's look grows more pointed. Indah throws her hands in the air and says fine, she'll go talk about it. So, Mensah, Indah, and MB leave the corridor, and step behind a plant in the nearby junction.

MB scans the area for listening devices, and Indah asks if it has experience with murders. MB admits to some. Mensah privately asks MB if it thinks this was GrayCris. It thinks maybe, but tells her it doesn't have enough info yet.

Still privately, Mensah asks it to work this investigation with Station Security.(4) She adds that it will be a great opportunity, even if it's not about GrayCris. MB replies that they don't want it, but Mensah suggests it could help improve MB's relationship with Station Security and thus Preservation Alliance, if it wants to call it home. MB knows she's right, but it doesn't like it.

Indah is waiting for them to finish whatever private conversation they're having and Mensah's still staring MB down, so it answers Indah's question more thoroughly: yes, it has experience with murder investigations in controlled circumstances. There's some discussion of how "controlled circumstances" means "corporate slave labor camps", before Indah asks if MB is willing to work with StatSec.

MB thinks for a couple pages about how its actual memories of those situations are fuzzy, because they were pre-memory-wipe, but it has watched lots of mystery media, so it probably has 30 to 40% useful knowledge.(5) It asks if they'll increase Mensah's security, per their ongoing debate. Indah says she's increasing every security level, including Mensah's, and doesn't need to be told her job.

Mensah clears her throat and asks Indah if an employment contract will be invoked. Indah says yes, if only to keep "the terrifying solicitor" (Pin-Lee) off her back. MB still doesn't know a lot about being a participant in a contract. It asks if it can examine the dead human now, and Indah asks it to call them "the deceased" or "the victim", please, but leaves before she receives an answer.

She missed Mensah mouthing the words stop it at me. (I guess the feed isn’t adequate for all forms of communication, particularly those that involve a lot of glaring.)(6)

=====

(1) Placing this distinctly after Home. (2) The comment about uninhabited planets still being 7% once Murderbot lands on them is just gold, perfection, no notes. (3) When your main sources of death are accidents and intoxication-related aggression, that probably seems like a really smart triage of resources. Just, y'know, to be fair. (4) The book name explanation comes shockingly early this time: fugitive telemetry is the use of telemetry (recording data at various points) to locate a fugitive. So, it's just a reference to the plot being a murder investigation. They can't all be ten-dimensional chess! (5) This is the most hilarious thing to me in this whole chapter, because it's the CSI effect. (6) I beg to differ. Miki used the feed with emoticons. They can convey an awful lot. 😄🫡😒😡

[little-cute-pink-horrible-being]

My suspition of the killer so far (I just got to the part where Murderbot says it knows who it is).

Indah, purely because she asked how would Murderbot dispose of a body when they found that the killer had not disposed of it

Aylen, because the story made several hints toward it being her, but it was probably a red herring and I am glad, because she was obvious. Also, is it on purpose that her name sounds like "Alien"?

Current theories(ish), purely based of vibes

The bot? Somehow? The one who's name starts with a B? Who got access to the secSystms and all that somehow?

Tural? The nice guy? Please, no.

[nerdy-valkyrie]

Just finished Fugitive Telemetry and I swear to the divine, every time I read Tech Tural's name I misread it as "Turgle"

So I just keep imagining that stupid frog (affectionate) following Murderbot around while it investigates

[thepringlesofblood]

Flinging My Opinions Into The Feed Season Finale: Fugitive Telemetry

me: yay I finished all the murderbot diaries now I can interact with fan content without worrrying about spoilers!

also me: oh no i finished the murderbot diaries there’s no more canon content to read aaaaahhhh

i fucking love a murder mystery and this bitch’s no different. highlights under the cut but basically

The day is beautiful. Kevin R. Free. My longtime companion. Has finally, finally learned how to pronounce “holo” correctly. I hit the “go back 15 seconds” button like 5 times to make sure I heard correctly, but “hole-oh” is no more - “hall-oh” reigns supreme. give him a hand folks!!!   

(i hope this doesn’t sound too sarcastic I’m genuinely excited and I love Kevin R Free and his work and this one was bomb as always thank you Kevin)


Ratthi and Gurathin were born to be goofy sidekicks, I love it so so much. especially bc it shows that humans have social anxiety too, I never expected to relate to Gurathin this much!

usually with a murder mystery you have the old grizzled detective and the bright optimistic rookie and they have to learn to get along, but what’s great about this is that mb and indah are BOTH the old grizzled detective and BOTH see each other as the rookie

Pin Lee still owns my soul, in related news. “everyone else gets to choose whether to have a feed ID. consensually, one might say” iconic we love her

that bit about mensah buying mb drones so it can “fully interact with its environment” i’m not crying you’re crying plus mb being like “clearly this is a bribe” like no dude she wants you to have the accommodations you need bc she cares about you

it’s probably no surprise that I would die for JollyBaby. I decided this when it privately messaged mb to let it in on the inside joke, a kindness most humans don’t often think of

when mb goes up to Tellus like “you don’t have to pretend to be human around me” fuck man the allegory. lately I found out my cousin was autistic and I felt a similar emotion of “thank god, I don’t have to pretend to be neurotypical around you”

I love that when restricted to not hacking, mb’s strategy is to just go up to bots and politely ask them things. and it works! 
we’ve seen it before but it was peak quality in FT

martha wells, what exactly do you think counts as a swear in the future? drop your location i just want to talk

I don’t know if I’ll ever be over the moment when JollyBaby smashes Balin and all the bots in the area are gathered around looking at it like “we know what you are, and we know what you did.” 


its just such a powerful show of solidarity that I don’t think mb has ever experienced and shows that the bots of the station have social links same as humans and idk it just fuckin gets to me

Tural is just trying to do their job and is so much chiller around mb than indah and I love them

speaking of, indah. damn, now that’s what I call and interesting and complicated character. 


mb is always thinking 5 steps ahead about what looks suspicious and what doesn’t look suspicious and trying to avoid suspicion which makes it that much more hilarious when it acts INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUSLY without meaning to 


I’m sure there’s more rattling around my brain somewhere, but for now I will leave you with a meme

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 6

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which these bot names are getting out of hand.

For all that, it takes Murderbot six minutes to establish that there is no hack. It's sure it's missing something, and it's not ready to give up yet. It relays its lack of findings to Indah, who looks briefly disappointed(1), surprising MB, before she revokes its admin access.

Aylen returns saying she's about to head out with a couple of others, and Indah suggests she take MB as well. The Lalow search has already confirmed the refugees were aboard long enough to make it from BWH, which makes the chance the crew killed them very low. Indah has told the special investigation team that if the Lalow are telling the truth, they'll be released without charges, to help more BWH refugees, so they only have a day or so to wrap things up.(2)

MB isn't doing the ship-to-ship search, because SecUnits cause panic. Instead, it's searching utility areas with hazmat techs and cargo bots. One of the techs asks MB to move a cabinet, and MB suggests they find a cargo bot to do that, but they say that JollyBaby can't fit to do it, gesturing to the nearest cargo bot.

“Its name is not JollyBaby.” Tell me its name is not JollyBaby. It was five meters tall sitting in a crouch and looked like the mobile version of something you used to dig mining shafts. JollyBaby broadcast to the feed: ID=JollyBaby. The other cargo bots and everything in the bay with a processing capability larger than a drone all immediately pinged it back, and added amusement sigils, like it was a stupid private joke. I said, “You have to be shitting me.” I already wanted to walk out an airlock and this didn’t help. (The only thing worse than humans infantilizing bots was bots infantilizing themselves.)(3)

MB asks where the PortAuth bot is, but the human just says it doesn't work in this part of the docks, and JollyBaby says Balin is for cargo management, not hauling. MB grumbles and asks where the cabinet is.

In the feed, Matif is asking Indah about the theoretical camera-jamming device, and Tural and Aylen discuss why the refugee smugglers wouldn't have made Preservation their destination. MB is thinking harder about why it couldn't find a hack, and how it feels like a massive fuck-up. It even considers asking Mensah's advice, but it can't even prove that it fucked up in not finding anything.

One of the techs, tells Aylen that an empty module is missing. The whole StatSec team leaps into action, Matif confirming with PortAuth whether it was signed out legally, and Aylen confirming that they can be pressurized. MB runs back to the "mobile command center", as they confirm that the the module wasn't signed out, it's just plain missing. They find this faster than they have other things because this is their usual sort of job.

Tural confirms for Aylen that the modules are only designed for short-term pressurization, setting them up for long-term occupation would take much longer than it's taken. MB also considers that there was no disturbance on the docks, so the refugees didn't know they were in danger while they were there.

MB theorizes they met Lutran, who loaded them into the module, but BWH agents redirected the module before it attached to Lutran's transport. The module must be somewhere and look legitimate, or an alert would have pinged or the responder would have found them by now. So, it must be attached to a ship, still out there somewhere. A BWH ship that hasn't run or tried to fight the responder, to keep its mission quiet until they get all the information they can from following the Lalow.

Which leads MB to the conclusion that it has to stop the search.

It could ask Mensah's help with this, but that would be like when Mensah's youngest called her to make an older sibling stop being an older sibling. Instead, MB tries Indah directly, privately, and explains that if the BWH agents know they've found the module, they'll kill the refugees and run, and all the systems have to be treated as compromised. Indah protests MB didn't find a hack, but MB pushes past its pride and says whoever hacked the systems must be better than it.(4) Indah finally asks how MB can be sure BWH haven't tapped this conversation, but MB says it can secure its own internals, it just can't secure PortAuth or StatSec.

Something about MB's fervor convinces her, and she redirects the search teams and calls for a reorganizing meeting with Aylen, comms-off. Indah asks MB if it can get a secure connection to the responder. MB says absolutely, and taps Mensah to ask for use of her private office, which is on a separate system that MB can better control.

Indah tells the responder to scan ships holding position outside the station, and only communicate through this secure channel. MB bounces a call from PortAuth for Indah, which can probably wait five minutes.(5) It does tell Indah she was wrong to think it wasn't a local actor. They banter about it a bit, with Aylen watching them like a tennis match until she realizes they feel secure enough to talk about it.

Only, the question is, who would have gone over to help a corporate? MB says they thought it was the culprit, but Indah says they disproved that hours ago, and Aylen adds that if it were, it wouldn't have showed them the original crime scene or helped find the Lalow. Indah adds that MB is the most paranoid person she's ever met in twenty-six years of criminal reform.(6)

The responder finally chimes in that it's found the module, attached to a ship hiding in the colony ship's shadow. Indah says the priority is to retrieve them alive. Aylen says it won't be easy, at that distance, and any operation is going to let BWH listen in and know what they're doing.

Yeah, not we, me. I said, “This is the part that’s my job.”

=====

(1) There's a vagueness here as well that I'm just rolling around like sniffing wine before you drink it. Because, there's the element that Indah is disappointed that the answer wasn't so easy, and then there's the bit where Murderbot might interpret it as disappointment in itself. (2) Nothing like a time crunch to motivate. (3) Like Miki embracing its inner kawaii? (4) Which we see in a couple pages tracks with what Indah's been suspecting, hence the earlier disappointment in not finding a hack. (5) You know, it's lines like this that really stand out when you slow down and think about each chapter. (6) I do love that it's not law enforcement, per se. That's a part of it, but the focus is here stated explicitly to be to help rehabilitate and reform those people for whom the social supports being, well, superior to your and my real world, is still insufficient to prevent crime. (7) Let's GOOOOO!

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 5

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which the plot thickens.

Aylen makes it clear that Ratthi and Gurathin are not invited on the trip, but Gurathin already wanted out, and Ratthi is relieved at his understanding that Murderbot has been cleared of suspicion.(1) She does not, however, indicate whether she welcomes MB's assistance, which makes it hard for MB to know if it should be an asshole or not.(2)

So, MB, Aylen, two more StatSec officers (Farid and Tifany), the PortAuth supervisor (Gamila) and the PortAuth bot all head over to the other ship in question. On the way MB looks up Aylen's official title, and finds that she's brought in to investigations regular security can't figure out, and otherwise serves as an arbitrator for family and workplace issues, which is much less cool than "Special Investigator" sounds.

Gamila says the cargo transfer's been on hold for two days, waiting for authorization. She doesn't know why, and there's no record of cargo being offloaded. Aylen doesn't react, but Farid and Tifany share a look, and MB agrees with their suspicion. MB tries pinging the transport, but gets only a standard registry name, meaning it has no bot pilot. MB isn't sure what else it can contribute to the group without that.(3)

Aylen hails the ship's comm, and introduces herself. MB steps out of the hatch cam's view range, as a good SecUnit does. A voice says only Aylen and Gamila can enter, the "port heels" have to stay outside. MB wonders what the feed's translation algorithm was given to work with, to come up with "heels". It notes Faris and Tifany wondering the same silently.(4)

So, Gamila and Aylen go inside, and as the hatch closes, MB realizes it's made a mistake.(5) Farid asks if it's really a SecUnit. MB ignores him, and asks if either of them has a feed connection to Aylen. They don't, but Farid asks Balin(6) if it's connected with Gamila. MB is confused until it realizes Balin is the PortAuth bot's name. Balin says it's not. MB notes that StatSec officers are only armed with batons, not energy weapons, which means Aylen is now in there essentially unarmed.

MB tries to ping in the feed, but receives no response from Aylen or Gamila. Something is jamming it, ever since the hatch closed. Tired of being stonewalled, MB hacks PortAuth's SafetyMonitor system, and breaks the ship's secure feed connection. Eventually it finds Aylen's feed inside, broadcasting an urgent assistance code. It tells the others it needs to get entry. Farid sends another urgent assistance code, but Tifany orders Balin to get them inside. Balin stretches to its full height, twice MB's, and uses a decoder interface to open the hatch. MB remarks that the bot does sometimes do something besides stand around, and isn't that neat.

Sending drones first, MB enters the ship, and finds a first Target with an energy weapon. Aylen and Gamila are backed into a corner beyond them, with four additional Targets, two armed. A short action sequence later, the Targets are disarmed and knocked down. MB reports all listed crew accounted for in this lot, and no additional occupants located on its drones' recon.

Aylen and Gamila report no injuries to themselves, but Gamila doesn't quite know what happened or why they were attacked. Target Two accuses them of being corporates, come to take the ship with a SecUnit. MB says they didn't know there was a SecUnit until it broke in, and to try again. Target Five tells Two to shut up.

Finally, a StatSec Response Team roll in, and Balin comes to escort Gamila off the ship before Aylen orders all the Targets arrested. As they get to the StatSec office, MB remarks on how odd it is to walk into one, as a SecUnit, particularly a "rogue" one, and spends a page talking about the layout.(7)

There's a moment of hilarity as the weapons scanners, not programmed to allow MB's particular quirks, go off and the security officers assume they failed to search the prisoners correctly. MB waits two minutes and twelve seconds wondering if they'll figure it out, before it pulls up its sleeve. Target Four mouths off about how stupid StatSec are, but MB says they're the one that got taken into detention.

Aylen yells to get them inside, then quietly tells MB she's just received a report from PortAuth's inspectors that there was no cargo on the ship. MB, trying to process the sudden spike to threat and risk assessments, wonders aloud what the transport was waiting for, then, since it didn't even have a cargo module attached. Aylen says it's a good question.

In the interests of potential professional goodwill, MB offers that the crew know an awful lot about SecUnits, for being on a non-corporate ship. SecUnits aren't usually contracted except to isolated installations. Aylen suggests they ask them why.(8)

There's a delay, of course, because the paperwork needs to be done to process them in, and they need medical checks, and so on. Also, a team is searching the ship for the cleaning field generator, anything that might jam camera systems, or the missing body transporting cart. MB has messages from Ratthi and Gurathin, asking for friendly updates, and Pin-Lee saying she needs to talk to it immediately. It goes into a corner of the main second-level office to tap Pin-Lee.

Pin-Lee's first question is, as everyone else has asked, whether this is GrayCris's work. MB still doesn't know, but it still can't rule it out. (Farid sees MB and asks if it wants any tea, but MB says it doesn't eat, and Farid leaves again.)(9) Pin-Lee also offers that StatSec seem to be looking into a smuggling or fraud investigation related to the murder, and asks if MB wants a copy of whatever report she sends them. It says it would, but then Farid is back and waving at it to follow him, so it lets Pin-Lee go and follows to a conference room with Indah and Tural. Three displays have been set up, showing different officers in separate questioning rooms with Targets Five, Two, and Four. One and Three, MB judges, are probably still in Medical.

MB taps into all three feeds, to save a copy of goings-on for its own review later. Their stories are essentially the same, once rights have been read: they're traders originating from a station they call WayBrogatan, which MB confirms exists, and they ship modest cargo on a route that never, ever intersects the CorpRim, and never, ever take on passengers. Tural snarks about them being sticklers for licensing limits, and Indah agrees, saying they're obviously afraid of revealing something about passengers and cargo.

Officer Soire, with Target Two, and Officer Matif, with Four, ask questions about the cargo and route. Aylen tries that with Five, then asks why they took Aylen and Gamila hostage. Farid asks Indah if it's too soon, but Indah says it might not be. Five says it was a misunderstanding, and MB gets a vibe that this much is true, they did think the officials were someone else. It says so aloud, that the crew thought Aylen and Gamila were lying about being station officials. Tifany nods, and Indah agrees.

MB notes that Four has screwed up the route explanation, and is winging it, badly. It wonders if they just have a memory issue, but Indah's focused on Aylen and Five, who's suggesting some other transport rings have raiders who pull a con pretending to be officials to board. All three are shown an image of Lutran and asked if they recognize him, but none do, and MB says its estimated chance that they're all lying is under 20%.

Everybody looked at me again, then at Indah, who nodded, her gaze not leaving the display of Target Five’s face. It looked like she knew what she was doing. It would be interesting to compare her data to mine. Then I remembered the main reason I was doing this was to make sure there was no connection to GrayCris and I wasn’t going to refine my methods, such as they were. (What they were being mostly: crap I made up on the spot as I needed it that sort of worked, and leftover company code analysis.)

The Targets are then shown an image of Lutran, dead. Still no recognition, until they're informed the victim's name was Lutran. That gets a reaction out of all three. When pressed, Five shuts down, Two says they can throw her in detention, she's not saying any more, and Four worries about the others. Matif asks what others, their names and descriptions, and Four describes ten humans, including three adolescents. Neither MB nor the scanner think he's making it up.

According to Four, Lutran was supposed to be bringing them somewhere, and the Target crew never met him, because they compartmentalize to make it hard for "them" to catch everybody. Matif asks who "they" are, and Four can only offer a partial name, Brehar-something. MB finds a mining corporate, BreharWallHan (henceforth BWH in these notes) operating in a system one wormhole jump from WayBrogatan. Tural whispers the conclusion: the Lalow was smuggling people.

Matif continues to press, gently, and Four confirms that they were slaves where they came from, and they were being smuggled to freedom. A ship can slide up to the edge of the asteroid belt and pick up a few at a time, taking them through a sort of underground railroad setup. Four and crew are descended from the original miners, who have been there so long they have grandkids. The smugglers are taking the next generations out of the system.

Aylen is reassuring Five that Four is telling them everything, and that it's not illegal to be a refugee of contract labour here. Five suggests Four has a head injury.

Matif asks what Lutran had to do with things, and Four says he was "the plan person", handling what happened next, but can't clarify any further. Five, however, says Lutran was always their contact, no matter which station they went to, and if someone killed him, they know about the smuggling ring.

MB observes the killer must be a BWH agent. Indah says not necessarily, and they need to know what happened on the transport to know more for sure. MB asks a trick question about what the review of dock surveillance showed. Indah says if it's asking for permission to review it, it has it. MB thinks it could have handled that better.(10)

As MB is downloading and reviewing footage, Five gives in, and confirms Four's story. They both insist they have no idea what happens after the refugees disembark, only that Lutran would get them off the station safely from there. MB finds the footage of the refugees leaving the Lalow, which gives them more to work with than Four's descriptions. They didn't catch any particular attention in the busy docks, probably intentionally waiting for that effect.

After sending the relevant footage to Indah and Tural, MB checks the video at the Merchant Dock exits, but that's where things get weird. As the interrogators rejoin the others, MB says they never left the merchant docks. Indah exclaims, and MB displays the video on one of the display surfaces in the room. No sign of any of the refugees leaving, they just disappear between the dock-side and the exit-side cameras' views.

Soire suggests they changed their appearances, but MB says not even body types match. Aylen says they need to get to the Merchant Docks and find them. MB completes the thought, because they must still be there somewhere.

Privately, MB acknowledges that the chances of GrayCris involvement are slim to none now. It could leave, and let StatSec do their thing, catch up on media. Pin-Lee even wrote its contract so it could leave when it wanted. Only, it doesn't want to.(11)

When Indah is done ordering the search teams in, MB asks if anyone's run diagnostics of StatSec and PortAuth systems. Indah says no, not since MB first asked and the analysts found no alerts tripped. MB asks if they ran diagnostics or relied on alerts. Tural listens with their expression one of knowing someone else is getting in trouble for once. Indah says she doesn't know, but the analysts said their opinion was there was no hack.

MB asks if Indah is sure she doesn't want a second opinion, with this much at stake. Indah accuses it of just wanting access to the systems it's been denied. MB considers going into all its gathered evidence and risk assessments, and considers suggesting that Indah is afraid to make use of MB as the best asset she could have for this. Instead, it just says it only wants to check for hacks. Tural, bless their heart, agrees with MB that they should make sure. Interference could mean they're looking in the wrong places.

Indah says nothing for a bit. MB realizes if she turns it down, it's going to have an emotion, probably humiliation and shame with a side of feeling like an idiot. Instead, Indah asks how much access, and how long. MB gamely says admin access, but under five minutes, thinking how five minutes is much longer than necessary, but it wants time for a good look around.(12) Indah, however, is surprised at how fast five minutes sounds for such an in depth check, and says they do have data protection on the systems. MB scoffs internally, and says TRH had data protection too, and it had no problem taking Mensah out under their noses.

Murderbot still sees Indah's skepticism, and asks if the security offices are monitored for breaches. Indah's brow furrows as she says yes. MB stages a demonstration, suspecting the security office is less likely to twig their perp to its abilities, and takes control of all the audio and visual interfaces in the main workspace to play Sanctuary Moon episode 256, then puts a camera feed of it on a nearby display surface. Everyone outside is causing a fuss asking what's going on, but Indah asks where the camera feed is from. MB says, Farid's vest camera. Indah takes the point, and asks MB to fix the screen, and check the systems.

=====

(1) Ratthi has such massive golden retriever energy, doesn't he? Every team needs a precious himbo cinnamon roll. (2) Tempting as it is, I'd suggest trying to err on the "not" side until someone proves they're not worth the effort. (3) Oh, sweetie, you bring SO MUCH to this ballgame. (4) They seem like good investigators. (5) Do you think it JUST means leaving itself open to conversation with the other two, and it doesn't notice the jamming until after, or that it should've gone with them for security's sake in the first place? (6) Almost certainly a throwback to The Hobbit, or perhaps LOTR's brief use of the name again later. Balin was one of the dwarves who went to the Lonely Mountain (he was also on the expedition that scouted it for a return in the first place!) and became one of Bilbo's dear friends. Later he led the expedition to Moria, to reclaim the ancient dwarven stronghold of Khazad-dum. The Fellowship found his entire expedition killed and long since rotted to dust. I wonder if there's a deeper intention to using the name for the PA bot, or if it's just a fun thing. (7) Part of me gives a big ol' shrug at all this description (it's basically meaningless to my brain processing, see: all my grumbling about aphantasia in other posts) but it's useful for most people to have a description of the visual, and it makes sense for MB to have schematics plus it makes sense for it to be extra curious about Station Security. (8) Admittedly, the professional goodwill is my interpretation, but it did just earlier say it wasn't sure whether to be an asshole or not, so I think my interpretation is solid. And hey look, Aylen's stopped being hostile to it. Maybe it's partly the competence it showed in rescuing her and Gamila, but maybe it's also that she recognizes that it's good at what it does, and it has good ideas. (9) It's so sweet how nearly everyone tries to be so hospitable to MB except the authority figures who feel threatened by it, and Amena until she understood what its motivations were. (10) Maybe, but it had little reason to trust that a more diplomatic question would get a better response. They're only just starting to open up to its help. I think it's perfectly fair. (11) Of course it doesn't want to leave. More humans are in danger, even if they're not its humans, they're still people who deserve to be found safe if at all possible. MB values human life right up to the point where one human decides another's life is worth less. (12) So cheeky, this one! Indah has no way of knowing MB's faster than that. Its own team might, though.

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 4

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which I was right!

Ratthi asks if they should call StatSec for help.(1) The transport wants to let Murderbot in, but can't open the lock. MB, trying to force it open via the feed, says StatSec told it they didn't need its help. Ratthi asks exactly what they said, and MB quotes from a memory file. Gurathin wonders if it's being passive-aggressive or willfully obtuse. MB would be more upset except that he's right, and he's not stopped blocking the nearest port authority camera.

MB offers that the transport wants it to come in, and if the door's jammed, it could be a maintenance issue, which would fall under Port Authority jurisdiction, not Station Security. Gurathin says it sounds like Pin-Lee. Ratthi says Pin-Lee's worse, and would be swearing by now. As he's observing that MB and Pin-Lee swear alike,(2) MB finally gets the hatch open.

Gurathin obligingly moves out of the port camera view, so that MB can demonstrate that the door is not damaged, and was opened from inside (ish), so they should have a few minutes to snoop before Port or StatSec show up. Ratthi asks if anyone's aboard, and MB can't be sure, though the transport reported being human-less.

Inside, they smell something wretched, as if the air filtration needs maintenance. They find suspicious stinky stains, as well as a simple blue travel bag. Gurathin wonders if someone was sick, but MB makes a note to tell him to get his visual augments adjusted, as Ratthi says someone was dead, and asks if they call StatSec now. MB finally agrees to that.

It takes StatSec seven minutes to arrive, during which time MB takes plenty of images and scans of the transport.(3) They proceed with their investigation, and the Port Authority bring in techs to help repair the transport. MB isn't quite surprised to learn this is a free service by Preservation, but remarks how in the Rim, the ship would sit idle, racking up fines and fees until its owner or a rep arrived to arrange repairs.

Gurathin suggests leaving, but Ratthi and MB want to stay, so he stays in slightly uncomfortable solidarity. Indah and Tural show up a while in, and Indah says she read MB's report identifying Lutran, they received the body scan results soon after to confirm it, but asks how it knew Lutran was a passenger on this ship.

Ratthi had shifted from acting defensive to acting like this was a meeting we were all having. He said, “So it was him who was killed in there, then? The person who was found?” Tural said, “Unless it was spoofed, there was a DNA match. Spoofing isn’t unlikely, but in this case—” Indah glared at Tural and they shut up.(4)

MB clarifies that the transport identified him, but was unable to report the incident to the PortAuth with its damaged systems. Indah, skeptical, asks how MB knew it was this particular transport. MB says it didn't, it was checking ALL the transports, hence why it took so long.

Officer Aylen, the one who'd showed up first, asks if MB had anything to do with it. MB gets pissed, but then realizes Aylen thinks Lutran was from GrayCris, and MB might have killed him privately and now be trying to obfuscate the investigation. This, MB can't be angry at, because it knows it didn't do it but the assumption is perfectly logical.

MB's reponse is to say it would have made the death look accidental, or disposed of the body so it wouldn't be found. Indah asks how it would dispose of such a body, but MB says if it told, she might find the bodies it's disposed of. Ratthi cuts in VERY fast to say it's joking, while Gurathin sighs, regretting some life choices, and tells MB it should show them where it was during the murder interval.

It realizes it might have gone too far, since a human might get away with that line but a SecUnit would absolutely raise more suspicion with it,(5) and that now if it DOES have to kill some GrayCris agents, it's going to have to be very careful with the bodies afterward.(6) So, MB clips the video from its drone archive and shares it with Indah and Aylen.

Indah sighs, and tells Aylen to continue. Aylen says she had to ask, because of another clip, which she shows MB. It shows Lutran going up to the transport, entering, and then nothing. No one else was inside before, according to records, and nobody entered after, and yet Lutran was murdered and his body moved.

MB thinks how this is even more seamless than when it redacts itself in active memory in camera systems. Its organic bits get goosebumps at the thought it could be another SecUnit, or worse, a CombatUnit.

Aylen says she knows from reports on Mensah's rescue that MB can do something similar. It says yes, but only under certain circumstances, and asks if the StatSec system is compromised. Indah says there's no indication PortAuth or StatSec were hacked, so it seems like a jamming device. MB says it doesn't know of anything that could do that, and it's very unlikely such a tool would be available in the CorpRim, since they live and die by their surveillance.

MB asks if they did the same when the body was removed, but no. Aylen sends another clip which just shows a delivery cart arriving, then leaving seven minutes later, with no apparent human involvement. She says they're looking for the cart, but it's likely been sterilized, since they know the murderer had access to a cleaning field.

Gurathin asks why they didn't clean the transport, and MB suggests they thought they'd have more time to come back and do it.

Indah makes a thoughtful noise, though Aylen still looks like she suspects something of MB. Indah asks what the next step is, and Aylen says she's going to speak to the ship that was due to bring this transport's next cargo. She calls it an "outsystem ship", so MB knows it's non-corporate. Indah tells Aylen to take MB, which surprises them both.(7)

=====

(1) Sweet Ratthi, never had reason to learn that the cops aren't always the best tool for the job. (2) I don't know if I follow Ratthi's guess that Murderbot learned to cuss from Pin-Lee. There are slightly fewer cusses in the earlier books, I think, but I'd have to grab a bigger sample size of instances where each of them cuss to start doing any sort of comparative analysis. Has anyone done this yet elsewhere? (3) Very clever, take advantage of every second to gather your own data pre-contamination. (4) You know, I think we'd like Tural a lot, given a bit of time and better circumstances to get to know them. (5) Which is very discriminatory and biased but y'know, you play the hand you're dealt not the one you want. (6) Not that MB has ever shown much desire to kill people, besides the RaviHyral blackmail incident. (7) On the one hand, I'm sure Indah knows the value of "keep your enemies closer". Also, if MB is getting itself involved in the trouble anyway, it might speed things up to just let it participate instead of going off on its own and doubling the work. Plus, she can't deny it found the murder site faster than her team did. So, I'm not all that surprised at all.

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 3

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which someone wants to display their cake and eat it too, sort of.

Murderbot isn't surprised to have been more or less kicked out of the investigation. StatSec still don't want it there, and they're not going to change their minds so easily, no matter what Mensah says.

As a demonstration of this, MB goes into the other restriction imposed on it by the negotiations with Indah: it must broadcast a feed ID, and stop concealing its presence. MB really, really didn't want to have a feed ID, because either it lists all the human markers, like a name other people can use and a gender, or it lists a local feed address,(1) indicating that it's just a bot.

Neither of these is MB's ideal(2) but it understands why Indah thinks it's not that big of a deal. And, maybe choosing something basic to broadcast would have been worth it to get out of that meeting. It chose to broadcast a name of "SecUnit" and a gender of "not applicable". It's not sure what Indah did afterward, but Mensah and Pin-Lee sought comfort in their own ways.

Two days later, someone sent a photo of MB to a news stream on the station, identifying it as the rogue SecUnit from the corporate rumours. The photo was not taken from security footage, more likely from a capture camera in an augmented human given the angle. And, it was taken after its memory repair incident, given the location and the company it was in. Supposedly, nobody in StatSec sent it to the news feed, but MB isn't buying it.

After that, Mensah gave it the two boxes of intel drones. Indah objected, but Mensah said it was necessary for MB's mental health.(3) MB is pretty sure she'd already ordered the drones as the bribe from the end of the Home short story, though it wouldn't put it past her to use the drones for both that and telling Indah to fuck off.

In the present, such as it is, MB does have things to do other than the investigation. Like visit Bharadwaj again, as they've started research for her documentary, and she wants to see MB regularly for more meetings and interviews. It finds talking to her comforting. It's also bene helping Ratthi with data analysis for his reports, and he's been suggesting MB could do that as a job for other researchers. MB thinks that would be boring, though, at least with anyone except Ratthi, who is excited about MB's reports and invites it to go watch live performances at the theater on the station.(4)

Still, it can't help but want the intel for the investigation, so that it can figure out if it needs to worry about GrayCris on this or not. It could've done quite a lot before StatSec even got Medical down there to scan the body, if it still had systems access. It's not likely to be a GrayCris incident, but there's so much MB doesn't know about what happened, and it hates acknowledging that.(5)

MB's train of thought finally comes to a slow point thinking about how the dead human would need housing of some sort. It doesn't have systems access to find what it needs, but it might have another way. It goes to the transient block, as the most likely place they were staying. It sends a ping, and receives an answer 1.2 seconds later, probably taking so long because of startlement. MB enters the hostel, and finds a restocking bot. The bot follows MB as it walks in, a behaviour programmed for human comfort rather than practicality since it has visual sensors all over.

(I don’t know why bot behaviors that are useless except to comfort humans annoy me so much.) (Okay, maybe I do. They built us, right? So didn’t they know how this type of bot took in visual data? It’s not like sensors and scanners just popped up randomly on its body without humans putting them there.)

The bot first greets MB as a human, but MB says it doesn't have to pretend it's human, and they have a more programmatical exchange where MB asks the bot to identify the victim. The human supervisor asks if everything's alright, but both the bot (who the human calls "Tellus") and MB confirm they're just talking. The supervisor is clearly uncomfortable, but returns to their business.

MB knows it makes humans particularly uncomfortable, because humans like neat categories like "human" and "bot", and MB is both and neither. And, the "free" bot guardian system is like a magnet for humans who like to be patronizing(6) which compounds both their reactions to MB and its annoyance with them.

At any rate, Tellus helps MB identify the victim, and to narrow down the number of potential rooms they might have been staying in by sharing only rooms where the occupant left before the time of death and hasn't returned. Tellus is concerned about occupant privacy, but invites MB to come on an unscheduled maintenance inspection of unoccupied rooms as long as it deems MB's item search not in violation of it. MB offers that it only needs to look at clothing, on a hunch, seeking to match what the victim was found wearing.

Together, they do find a scarf that MB determines matches the clothes in material and pattern, and it assembles a report for StatSec with images of the scarf as well as the location of the room and the feed ID associated with it. It sends the report to StatSec tagged for attention by Indah and Tural, so it's not ignored, as well as to Tellus so it knows what's up when StatSec come to ask questions.

MB signals that it's ready to leave, and Tellus accompanies it back to the lobby, but as it goes to help clients, it asks MB about its next action. MB still doesn't have enough information, so signals "task complete", but Tellus suggests querying the arrival data before the victim, if he is Lutran, arrived at the hostel two days ago.

I didn’t respond because I don’t need a critique from a “free” bot(7) and I couldn’t access the arrivals data without Station Security’s permission anyway, and fuck that. Huh, I just thought of another way to do it. It was annoying that the “free” bot was right, but I needed to go to the transit ring.

MB finds a chair near another plant biome and sits. It wants to identify the ship Lutran came in on, but doesn't want to hack the system. It promised it wouldn't, and StatSec will do just that with permission as soon as they read its report. But, asking for information worked once, why not twice?

So, MB slips into the feed, and queries the available transports. It's tedious, and it can't be backburnered to watch media. But, after 57% of the transports in dock, it finds an anomaly: a cargo-and-human transport that responds, not with a protocol, but a salutation. When MB queries it further, it starts spewing error codes.

MB assembles its drones and makes its way toward the malfunctioning transport. The weapons scanners detect it but stand down, and MB knows the system will probably alert StatSec of its whereabouts. At least one human recognizes what MB is, a SecUnit, and watches it closely. It hates being ID'd so quickly after all the work it did to blend in, even growing out its hair.

Still, nine minutes later it's at the transport in question, and there's an urgency to its transmissions. It needs to get onboard, but it can't give StatSec any room to fuck it over. Mensah and Pin-Lee, its first choices, are in separate meetings, and several of the other team members are on-planet, Bharadwaj visiting family, Arada and Overse preparing for the survey they've got planned next,(8) and Volescu having retired.

That left me with the human most likely to want to drop everything and come watch me break into a damaged transport and the human also most likely to come watch me break into a damaged transport but only so he could argue with me about it. So I called both of them.(9)

=====

(1) See, I feel like this kinda backs me up that the local feed address isn't what Art used as MB's passcode, because it's not something unknowable to humans. Yes, it implies that it's not actively broadcasting that address, but (2) The mortifying ordeal of being perceived is Murderbot's worst fear. Its "Murderbot" name is private, even though its friends know it, they know not to use it. It's not quite a dead name, it still thinks of itself as that name, but at the risk of projecting a little of my bias and interpretation onto it, I think it (fairly) fears what people will think of it if it admits that it still sees itself as a killing machine, when it's not even really ready to think about what that means for itself. I have a feeling if the series ever ends, it will end with MB setting aside that name and choosing a new one. But, for now, this is where I think MB wants to do the thing in my chapter tagline. It wants to be a person, but it doesn't want to do person things or be perceived as a person. We're six books in and we've only just begun to scratch the surface of its issues. I'm just as grateful it fell in with Preservation, a whole society that, once they understand its intentions, is absolutely primed to help and support it in whatever it needs. (3) It's not even a lie, it's much more comfortable looking through drones than with its own eyes. Being cut off to just itself is limiting in a way it's not accustomed to. Totally justified. (4) For all that he was a little overbearing in his attempts to be helpful in the first book, Ratthi and MB have become real buds. I love it. (5) One of the most relatable things it's ever thought. (6) At least on Preservation it's just people who have a patronizing streak, and not… well, guardianship over adult humans has been in the news a lot lately and I have my own set of emotions about it and the sort of people it attracts. (7) As much as it complains about human biases toward it, MB has its own biases toward both humans-in-general and bots. (8) Hey look, Network Effect setup. (9) Who does that leave? Who's coming to "help"? From those not named, I'm guessing Ratthi and Gurathin respectively. MB has so little faith in the latter.

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 2

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which someone makes unlikely allies.

Station Security were unhappy with Murderbot's presence in Preservation, when they first learned about it. Indah in particular wanted MB sent away. Mensah refused, Indah called MB a weapon, and Mensah reminded her, cold and angry, that MB is a person. Even when Indah regained her composure after the wave of fear, Mensah told her not to talk and make it worse. She agreed to forget what was just said, despite Pin-Lee's hiss of protest, and start negotiating how to agree that MB stayed.

MB was given two restrictions, the first of which is not accessing non-public systems without permission, including other bots.(1) MB is still unhappy with the situation, but it's not like Preservation's systems are top of any line anyway.

When the call came in about the murder, Mensah asked if this was the GrayCris attack they'd been preparing for. MB said maybe, and Mensah half hoped it was, so they could get it over with.(2)

Now, MB stands over a dead human, with Tech Tural and two others. It's set up a bit of a surveillance network with its drones, particularly following Mensah back to her office. Tural says they still don't have an ID, but DNA testing didn't turn up any results in the database, so the deceased isn't related to 85% of Preservation residents. At Indah's and MB's stares, Tural clarifies that the body scan should help more.

Indah looks at MB as if to ask what it's got for this. MB asks Tural if they've done a forensic sweep, and apparently those are correct keywords,(3) because they confirm it, and say they'll send the report when it's ready. MB asks for the raw data, and at Indah's confirmation that this is okay, Tural sends it. MB runs a quick analysis, and determines that someone used a cleaning field after the murder, because there aren't many DNA samples on the victim's clothes. Tural and Indah are both a bit surprised when MB relates this, and sends them its version of a report.

While they examine that, MB leans down to examine the wound at the base of the deceased's skull, which may be the cause of death. It's certainly deep, but there's not enough blood or brain matter around to suggest they were killed here. This was a dump site. Indah already knew that, though, and dismisses it.

Indah tells Tural they need to search for cleaning field doodads that fit the criteria, especially if they can fit in a pocket or bag. Tural suggests the clothing is distinct enough to offer some information, but MB is quite familiar with the materials, as it's just recycler fabric from the Corp Rim, very like what it's wearing. Tural takes a sample anyway, but Indah frowns and says then the clothes might indicate origin, or might have been changed to blend in.

Tural's analysis of the fabric comes back, confirming it's from a recycler. They suggest it could have come from a store, like MB's, but MB says it could also be from a transport, as some of them have quite fancy recyclers. Indah asks if the clothes are at all helpful. MB says the deceased might have wanted to look like a visitor to Preservation. If you're worried you're being followed, you can either try to fade into a crowd, or make yourself stand out and look unafraid. Privately, MB thinks it could never pull off the latter, but a human with normal human body language could.

The StatSec pair look thoughtful, and Tural suggests they see if Medical can tell if the deceased's skin or hair colour was changed recently. Indah admits she wouldn't think twice about a visitor who looked like this. MB says they'd also need a bag, to indicate having somewhere to go,(4) but there's none here. Indah says StatSec will keep an eye out, and orders a search of adjacent areas for any sort of travel bag left unattended.

Indah then gets a message indicating Pathology is ready, and need the area cleared. Tural takes the broken feed interface to analyse, and Indah tells MB they'll call if it's needed.

I know a “fuck off” when I hear one. So I fucked off.

=====

(1) We don't get the second in this chapter, you didn't miss anything. (2) I certainly can't imagine living in that kind of fear, day in and day out. (3) Chalk one up for the crime serials. (4) Funny how much of MB's experience from going rogue is coming in handy. Almost as if this series was planned out or something. And on that note, did you see anything in this chapter to indicate what might be coming up?

[iviarellereads]

Fugitive Telemetry, Chapter 8

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which Murderbot's request is exactly what I'd say, too.

Murderbot and Indah board the responder, with the refugees and hostiles, and leave. MB checks its messages on the way: Mensah asking for a check-in, Ratthi asking if it's okay, Gurathin asking if the life-tender worked, Tural with an updated cause of death for Lutran: a "needle-like device" stabbed into his head, and Pin-Lee with a report on the refugee-rescuer operation, at least Lutran's cargo records on the station over the last several years. It acknowledges all of them, but watches episode 132 of Sanctuary Moon instead of replying.(1)

MB follows Indah as it does all this, and watches her lie blatantly about what the ship and the responder are doing to Port Authority, then follows her down to disembark. She stops them at a junction, and MB realizes it's because the refugees are leaving, and might freak out to see it.

While standing and waiting, MB suggests an idea to Indah, to lure out the traitor. They settle on using Human Three, Mish, one of the refugees. At first he refuses, saying they have a SecUnit and it's probably reporting to BWH. MB is surprised when one of Indah's team defends it, and Indah backs them up. Mish comes around, still grumbling about how out of place a SecUnit is if their laws are so great.

As the station reaches the end of the standard day cycle, MB finally gets approval for the systems access and resources it needs to start the audit. Indah tells it that Aylen wants to see them at the Security Office, and the responder team will be taking Mish there, so Indah will meet MB there shortly. MB notes a threat assessment spike.

When MB presses, Indah says she has to stand-down the search teams personally so not to alert the traitor. MB snarks about Indah setting herself up with a murderer on the loose, and Indah asks if MB talks to Mensah like that. MB says yes, and it's part of why she's still alive. Indah agrees to take some responder crew with her.

Examining the threat assessment spike, MB almost misses when a threat sneaks up on it, except that its drones are keeping a perimeter wide enough to give it a half second's response time to a noise. It encounters nothing, so MB calls for Aylen, but Farid answers. MB asks him if Aylen asked for it and Indah to meet her at the office, and Farid doesn't know, but Aylen just took off for a quick break. MB tells him to find her and make sure she's all right, hoping she's just in a restroom and not dead.

Signing off, MB realizes its last query got results. Reviewing them,(2) it realizes Pin-Lee was right and it overcomplicates things all the dang time. It contacts Indah, and tells her someone spoofed Aylen's ID for the last message. It asks Indah if she told Gamila in PortAuth about the trap. Indah says no, but she did ask for the PortAuth data dump for the audit. She tries to defend Gamila, saying they grew up together, it can't be her. MB says she's not the traitor, but it knows who is.

MB enters the PortAuth offices, another first for it, sending its drones to scout ahead. It walks right into Gamila's office, and tells her to run as it points its projectile weapon… at Balin.(3) They show down, and MB shoots Balin several times.

On the way over, it ran a search of Balin's record, and found that it was the only bot to ever get off a corporate transport and request refuge, which should have told the humans something.

Unfortunately, all those shots were not enough to properly damage Balin. It never once requested maintenance, because it would have revealed its internal structure: military-grade armour. Balin is a combat bot.

A short action sequence follows, and MB reviews all the assumptions and mistakes it made. Just as it thinks it's lost, JollyBaby and many other cargo bots have showed up to help. When MB queries it, JollyBaby says Balin has been destroyed by an invader, its interpretation of events when Balin disappeared from the network and a CombatBot appeared in its place.

I wasn’t sure they were wrong. [...] None of these bots knew how to fight, but they were high functioning and would move to protect humans and each other from a violent intruder. Balin could try to fight; a CombatBot could destroy a cargo bot, no problem. But it couldn’t destroy this many cargo bots plus one slightly banged up SecUnit, not all at once. Balin’s mission had depended on stealth. Now its mission was over. Its presence in the feed faded as it dropped into a resting configuration and shut itself down.

MB tells Mensah it's fine, which is a half truth. It's thinking hard about how Mensah and Bharadwaj want to make SecUnits less scary, but CombatBots like Balin are running around murdering humans. It thinks about Lutran's refugee escape network, now cut off. Still, Mensah suggests they go see a new musical theater production with Ratthi after, and MB gives in.

Later, MB is getting its ankle treated in StatSec's MedUnit, and Indah comes to see it. MB asks if she read its report, and she says yes. It's a good reminder that they did good work, except for the assumption of a human perpetrator who entered the transport from the station side, and not a CombatBot that could enter through an outside hatch. MB isn't so happy with their performance, especially its own.

Indah tells MB she didn't send the photo to the newsstreams. MB is startled at the topic swerve, and she continues that she wouldn't do it that way. If she has a disagreement, she'll take it up directly, but she won't undermine MB because she knows they're on the same side.

As its treatment finishes, MB, not sure what to say, defaults to saying it has to meet with Mensah now. Indah doesn't try to pester, as if she knows how uncomfortable MB is with the conversation, which makes it worse.

She said, “I’ll authorize the hard currency card payment for you. And I assume you’re open to another contract the next time something weird happens.”(4) I paused in the doorway. The expected wave of depression at the idea of ever doing this again had somehow not happened. Huh. I said, “Only if it’s really weird.” She said, “Understood.”

=====

(1) First, mood. Second, I wonder if the episode numbers for the show hold any significance over the course of the series. Anyone been tracking them? (Do… do I need to do it?) (2) I'm leaving my phrasing like this because I don't even really follow Murderbot's logic on this one. A consistent theme in this book, unfortunately. (3) Well, so much for being a narrative parallel to Bilbo's friend. (4) MB, I think you've made at least one more human friend this book.