Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries Book 8)

The only reason I agreed to it was that the mental health module didn't actually try to adjust my processing or core programming or anything; it just monitored my organic neural tissue. When my neural tissue started to generate weird chemicals and whatever, it would ping me to "check in with my emotional state." Seriously, I could have coded that myself.

(I told Dr. Bharadwaj that, and she said, "Would you have ever coded that yourself?" which was totally unfair and also correct, I would never have done that.)

* * *

Everything went dark as I lost access to Three's sight and hearing, but I still had access to the torus feed. I found the intel drone I'd stationed inside the cargo module, in the far corner. Its camera and sensor view showed the undisturbed racks of cases, all identical except for the bills of lading on their individual feed markers. Which was a relief.

Obviously they would be scanning the cargo containers for contraband, if not stray SecUnits, and we had accounted for that. We were using the stealth field that the alien-remnant-infected targetSystem had used on its drones. The small battery and generator was attached to the outside of the case that I was packed in. Humans and augmented humans would see the physical case, but any scans would pass over it like it didn't exist.

This wouldn't have worked if they used human workers to open the modules and manually scan—even a human doing a half-assed job had a 70 percent chance of noticing the discrepancy. But that would cost B-E more money so the scan of the cargo modules was from the outside, and done automatically.

If my case had been surrounded by B-E security and CombatBots, waiting for me to open the seal, I would have felt really stupid.

The rest of my body came online and I opened my eyes. Not that there was a lot to see, just the pitch darkness of the case interior. (This wasn't as creepy for me as it would be for a human or augmented human; this case is actually pretty nice compared to the ones that SecUnits are shipped in.)

According to the cargo and motility systems, my module was in a cargo receiving bay, which was two bays over from the one that Three was currently wreaking havoc in. Like all the cargo bays, it had heavier than usual security since B-E was expecting unwelcome guests. But via the cameras and my hack into their SecSystem, I knew all that security was currently on the move toward our original target bay to deal with Three. The responders had no idea what the situation was in that bay, since I'd cut off their camera access in there.

Which was why I couldn't cut it off in this bay; the last thing I needed was for them to start looking for a secondary breach. It would make this tricky, but what else is new.

One of the things we didn't know was how their cargo reception procedures worked, so I had to search MotilitySys for it. Time was somewhat of an issue; I had limited air in the case because it couldn't have full life support without that showing up on the cargo module's power usage stats. (I don't need as much breathable atmosphere as a human but I need some; enough to keep my organic tissue alive.)

Finally I found the right way to nudge MotilitySys to send the module into the queue for "pickup on demand." This got it moved across the bay and six levels up, and parked in a module storage rack. It was a good choice because the rack was near the wall with the entrances to the facilities area.

I disarmed my case's seal and the side slid upward. I shoved out and hung in the (limited) air, because the module's internal gravity was turned off. I could use my dark vision filters in here because the readouts on the other cases provided enough light for me to work with. The space between the racks was tight, but I'd tested it to make sure there was enough room before we decided to use it. I grabbed my bag out of the case and unclipped the stealth field generator. (Barish-Estranza does not know it exists and absolutely cannot be allowed to find out. I'd like to destroy it now, but I wanted to hold on to it in case I needed it.) (If it comes to it, I'll have to eat it or something, seriously.) (It's three centimeters across, so I can probably manage it, it just won't be fun.)

A rumble echoed through the thin air. My outside camera feed showed me the module had just slid into place in the temporary storage rack. I pushed off gently and floated up to the ceiling, and ordered the drone there to follow me. I was wearing the same type of safety suit and helmet as the legitimate human workers and the fake worker security personnel. I unsealed the hatch in the top of the module. The helmet had a filter, which was good because even through it I could smell the contaminants. I didn't have a good camera view because the giant rack was packed with other modules above, below, and to both sides of this one. I let the drone peek out first.

The space outside was dimly lit, and wide enough for me to slip out and reseal the hatch. I climbed along its top, the low gravity making it easy to be quiet. There was audible movement not far away and the cameras showed me a platform extending out from the wall next to the rack, about five meters from my position, with human workers clumped around one of the control kiosks there.