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Title: Exit Strategy Authors: Martha Wells Category:supplementals Number of Highlights: 8 Date: 2024-05-17 Last Highlighted: **
Highlights
I might be wrong. I knew interpreting the emotional subtext in the speech and appearance of real humans was completely different from interpreting it in shows and serials. (For one thing, the shows and serials were trying to communicate accurately with the viewer.
SecUnits are never allowed to sit down or use human furniture whether on or off duty, so I sat in one of the chairs and put my feet up on the table. Then I took my feet off the table because it wasn’t comfortable.
In the shows, I saw humans comfort each other all the time at moments like this. I had never wanted that and I still didn’t. (Touching while rendering assistance, shielding humans from explosions, etc., is different.) But I was the only one here, so I braced myself and made the ultimate sacrifice. “Uh, you can hug me if you need to.”
(Possibly I was overthinking this. I do that; it’s the anxiety that comes with being a part-organic murderbot. The upside was paranoid attention to detail.
Disinformation, which is the same as lying but for some reason has a different name, is the top tactic in corporate negotiation/warfare.
So the plan wasn’t a clusterfuck, it was just circling the clusterfuck target zone, getting ready to come in for a landing.
(Humans never think to tell their bots things like, say, don’t respond to random individuals wandering the outside of the station.
(And I could hook my right hand on the strap, which gave me something to do with that arm.