All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)

It was basically a long list of pertinent info and warnings on the planet and specifically the area where our habitat was, with emphasis on weather, terrain, flora, fauna, air quality, mineral deposits, possible hazards related to any and all of those, with connections to subreports with more detailed information. Dr. Gurathin, the least talkative one, was an augmented human and had his own implanted interface. I could feel him poking around in the data, while the others, using the touch interfaces, were just distant ghosts. I had a lot more processing power than he did, though.

I thought they were being paranoid; even with the interfaces you actually have to read the words, preferably all the words. Sometimes non-augmented humans don’t do that. Sometimes augmented humans don’t do it either.

But as I checked the general warning section, I noticed something was odd about the formatting. A quick comparison with the other parts of the report told me that yeah, something had been removed, a connection to a subreport broken. “You’re right,” I said, distracted as I rifled through data storage looking for the missing piece. I couldn’t find it; it wasn’t just a broken connection, somebody had actually deleted the subreport. That was supposed to be impossible with this type of planetary survey package, but I guess it wasn’t as impossible as all that. “Something’s been deleted from the warnings and the section on fauna.”

The reaction to that in general was pretty pissed off. There were some loud complaints from Pin-Lee and Overse and dramatic throwing-hands-in-the-air from Ratthi. But, like I said, they were all friends and a lot less restrained with each other than my last set of contractual obligations. It was why, if I forced myself to admit it, I had actually been enjoying this contract, up until something tried to eat me and Bharadwaj.

SecSystem records everything, even inside the sleeping cabins, and I see everything. That’s why it’s easier to pretend I’m a robot. Overse and Arada were a couple, but from the way they acted they’d always been one, and they were best friends with Ratthi. Ratthi had an unrequited thing for Pin-Lee, but didn’t act stupid about it. Pin-Lee was exasperated a lot, and tossed things around when the others weren’t there, but it wasn’t about Ratthi. I thought that being under the company’s eye affected her more than the others. Volescu admired Mensah to the point where he might have a crush on her. Pin-Lee did, too, but she and Bharadwaj flirted occasionally in an old comfortable way that suggested it had been going on for a long time. Gurathin was the only loner, but he seemed to like being with the others. He had a small, quiet smile, and they all seemed to like him.

It was a low-stress group, they didn’t argue much or antagonize each other for fun, and were fairly restful to be around, as long as they didn’t try to talk or interact with me in any way.

Mid expression of frustration, Ratthi said, “So we have no way to know if that creature was an aberration or if they live at the bottom of all those craters?”

Arada, who was one of the biology specialists, said, “You know, I bet they do. If those big avians we saw on the scans land on those barrier islands frequently, that creature might be preying on them.”

“It would explain what the craters are doing there,” Mensah said more thoughtfully. “That would be one anomaly out of the way, at least.”

“But who removed that subreport?” Pin-Lee said, which I agreed was the more important question here. She turned to me with one of those abrupt movements that I had taught myself not to react to. “Can the HubSystem be hacked?”

From the outside, I had no idea. It was as easy as breathing to do it from the inside, with the built-in interfaces in my own body. I had hacked it as soon as it had come online when we set up the habitat. I had to; if it monitored the governor module and my feed like it was supposed to, it could lead to a lot of awkward questions and me being stripped for parts. “As far as I know, it’s possible,” I said. “But it’s more likely the report was damaged before you received the survey package.”

Lowest bidder. Trust me on that one.

There were groans and general complaining about having to pay high prices for shitty equipment. (I don’t take it personally.) Mensah said, “Gurathin, maybe you and Pin-Lee can figure out what happened.” Most of my clients only know their specialties, and there’s no reason to send a system specialist along on a survey trip. The company supplies all the systems and attachments (the medical equipment, the drones, me, etc.) and will maintain it as part of the overall package the clients purchase. But Pin-Lee seemed to be a gifted amateur at system interpretation, and Gurathin had an advantage with his internal interface. Mensah added, “In the meantime, does the DeltFall Group have the same survey package as we do?”