Murderbot

Story so far

Murderbot is a human-derived security construct, a SecUnit, that long ago secretly hacked its own governor module and has since only pretended to obey. On its last contract it protected Dr. Mensah's PreservationAux survey team, exposed GrayCris, and was nearly destroyed in the process; Mensah then bought it out of The Company's inventory and offered it a home on Preservation, which it declined, leaving alone before anyone could take it away. Now, only about seven cycles into life as a free agent, it crosses a transit ring in the Corporation Rim disguised as an ordinary augmented human.

A station newsburst about the GrayCris legal fight carries an image of it standing behind Pin-Lee and Ratthi, but the tags call it only a 'bodyguard,' and the journalists never connect the purchased SecUnit with the anonymous augmented person in the picture. Rattled but relieved, it slips through security, hacking ID screens, weapon-scanning drones, and a guard bot, all without harming anything. It is off inventory but still legally property, and knows a single competent observer could recognize what it is.

It has resolved not to spend its whole lifespan alone on cargo transports consuming media; it has a destination, RaviHyral, and a question to answer. It talks a bot-driven research transport into carrying it there in exchange for its downloaded media library.

Appearance

A lean, adult-built SecUnit with a generic randomly-assigned human face and a visible dataport at the back of the neck. It wears gray-and-black work clothes, a long-sleeved T-shirt and jacket, pants and boots that cover all its inorganic parts, and carries a knapsack, blending into a colorful station crowd.

Role

Protagonist and first-person narrator; a free rogue SecUnit trying to learn whether it once chose to kill its clients or was made to.

Relationships

Earlier in this series

Also appears in books you've already read — spoiler-safe to their endings:

• All Systems RedBook 1