“...as I crossed the transit ring’s mall, a recent newsburst from Station was in the air, bouncing from one public feed to another. I skimmed it but most of my attention was on getting through the crowd while pretending to be an ordinary augmented human, and not a terrifying murderbot. This involved not panicking when anybody accidentally made eye contact with me.” (Artificial Condition)
Artificial Condition is the second novella in The Murderbot Diaries series. It was published on May 8, 2018. It is preceded by All Systems Red, and followed by Rogue Protocol.
Publisher's Summary[]
It has a dark past – one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.
Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue.
What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…
Synopsis[]
In the second novella, Murderbot investigates its past, while traveling with a bot-piloted ship with a number of secrets of its own.
Murderbot revisits the RaviHyral mining facility to discover why it went rogue and killed 57 humans. It befriends the sarcastic transport ship's bot and nicknames it ART (Asshole Research Transport). ART reconfigures Murderbot's body to better disguise it as an augmented human and also disconnects a data port in Murderbot's neck.
To gain access to RaviHyral, Murderbot takes on a security consultant contract from three disgruntled scientists. The scientists are negotiating with their former company, Tlacey Excavations, to regain their research. Their transport craft nearly crashes from sabotage, but ART and Murderbot are able to safely land. Realizing that Tlacey is trying to kill the scientists, Murderbot successfully navigates their meeting and prevents yet another assassination attempt.
Murderbot eventually learns the past RaviHyral massacre was caused by a rival mining operation using a malware attack. This caused all the SecUnits, including Murderbot, to go rogue. The RaviHyral facility's ComfortUnits died attempting to stop the massacre.
In the present, Tlacey's ComfortUnit expresses its desire for freedom and willingness to help Murderbot against Tlacey. But, while Murderbot is getting a copy of the scientist's research, Tlacey kidnaps one of the scientists, Tapan. Murderbot tries to rescue Tapan when one of Tlacey's SecUnits inserts a combat override module into Murderbot's data port. Thanks to ART's previous disconnecting of the data port, Murderbot is unaffected and pretends to follow the other SecUnits. They go to Tlacey's shuttle, where Murderbot takes out Tlacey's guards, kills Tlacey, and rescues Tapan. Murderbot frees the ComfortUnit by disabling its governor module. Finally, Murderbot continues its journey onwards.
Cover Art[]
Notes[]
- Perihelion was originally a throwaway character mentioned in passing during Artificial Condition's early writing, and the early segments of the book were rewritten to feature it more heavily.[1]
References[]
- ↑ Facebook live interview with PBS-Author Talk, https://www.facebook.com/PBSBooks1/videos/266521178347039/, Timestamp 37:31.