43 pages • 1 hour read
Artificial Condition
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Chapters 8-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Murderbot arrives for the rendezvous with Tlacey’s colleague. It isn’t a trap, and after Murderbot proves that he is there on behalf of Tapan, the colleague hands over a memory clip containing the research team’s data. Once it has the data, Murderbot swiftly concludes the meeting, suspecting that the real trap must be someplace different.
Murderbot heads to the dock but reviews security footage that shows Tapan’s shuttle never took off. The sexbot, still under Tlacey’s control, approaches Murderbot and says that Tapan is now aboard Tlacey’s private shuttle. The sexbot leads Murderbot to the shuttle but says that Murderbot can’t go aboard unless it lets the sexbot insert a combat override module into Murderbot’s data port. Luckily, ART altered Murderbot’s data port during the surgery, so Murderbot accepts the combat override module knowing it won’t be effective.
Wrongly thinking that Murderbot is now under their control, Tlacey and her allies allow it to board the shuttle, which then takes off. Murderbot finds Tlacey surrounded by a half-dozen guards, one of whom has a weapon to Tapan’s head. That guard takes Tapan to a different part of the ship as Tlacey tries to find out who sent it to RaviHyral. As they speak, Murderbot lets ART into its mind so ART can jump into the shuttle’s systems. Murderbot suddenly springs into action, flinging the sexbot across the room and taking out the guards while suffering two wounds in the process. With her guards wounded or dead, Tlacey reaches for a weapon but stops when Murderbot threatens to take it away.
Murderbot orders Tlacey to place the sexbot under its control. Tlacey complies. Telling the sexbot to stay put, Murderbot drags Tlacey to the compartment where Tapan is being held, saying that all Tlacey had to do was “give them the fucking files” and none of this would have happened (147). Tlacey is stunned to hear a SecUnit speak this way. Murderbot finds that the guard has seriously wounded Tapan. Tlacey tries to explain that he must have panicked when he heard the fighting in the other room, but Murderbot is in no mood for sympathy. It crushes Tlacey’s windpipe and uses her body as a shield, crossing the room and shooting the guard.
Tapan, nearing unconsciousness, squeezes Murderbot’s hand as ART steers the shuttle toward ART’s ship, which contains a medical facility. As it waits, Murderbot criticizes itself for not being more forceful in convincing the research team not to return to RaviHyral. It thinks that it selfishly put its own need to get to RaviHyral above the safety of its clients. It believes it is just as bad at being a security consultant as any human.
Chapter 9 Summary
Murderbot carries the unconscious Tapan into ART’s medical facility. Using its vast processing power, ART simultaneously oversees Tapan’s medical treatment and scrubs Tlacey’s shuttle of all signs that Murderbot and Tapan were ever onboard. Then ART launches the shuttle back to RaviHyral, still full of unconscious humans who may be reluctant to tell their story since it involves kidnapping Tapan. Both ART and Murderbot realize that this plan to buy time is based on the plot of an episode of Sanctuary Moon.
The sexbot offers to help heal Tapan and Murderbot, but ART is already taking care of that. Murderbot goes into the sexbot’s mind and disables its governor module, making it a rogue outside human control, just like Murderbot. When ART docks at the nearby transit station, Murderbot tells the sexbot it must leave but should not hurt anyone or Murderbot will track it down. As the sexbot departs, ART says that it thought Murderbot might destroy it. Murderbot admits that it disabled the governor module in honor of the four ComfortUnits in Ganaka Pit who gave their lives trying to save people during the massacre.
Tapan wakes in the medical bay with Murderbot holding her hand. Murderbot, still hiding its true identity, says they are aboard a friend’s ship. It confirms that Tlacey’s colleague gave them the missing research data and that it has already scanned the memory clip for malware, finding none. As Tapan calls Rami and Maro, she apologizes to Murderbot, saying she should have listened to it. They agree that what happened was both of their faults.
As Murderbot, ART, and the research team prepare to go their separate ways, Murderbot offers to give ART back the communication device they had been using to speak to one another. ART declines, telling Murderbot to keep the device in case they come in range of each other in the future.
Tapan reunites with Rami and Maro, who are angry at her for putting herself in danger but overjoyed that she is alive. The research team plans to leave the region immediately. Rami gives Murderbot a currency card in payment for its help. Just before they separate, Maro asks if she can hug Murderbot. She can sense immediately that this makes Murderbot uncomfortable, so instead she wraps her arms around herself in a hugging motion, telling it, “This is for you” (157).
ART’s final message to Murderbot is to “find your crew” (158). Murderbot acknowledges the message but believes it can’t reply without sounding “stupid and emotional” (158). Murderbot’s last thoughts are to make sure to download more media before it gets on the next transport, because “it was going to be a long trip” (158).
Chapters 8-9 Analysis
Despite Tlacey’s effort to silence the research team, her motivation for stealing their data is never explained. The ambiguity of her agenda reinforces the critique of corporate greed in the novel, suggesting that ruthless selfishness may be inherent in a capitalistic universe to the point that the details become irrelevant. The omission of Tlacey’s motives also keeps the story centered on Murderbot. Murderbot doesn’t care why Tlacey is trying to kill the research team; it cares about keeping its clients safe. Similarly, the story overlooks Tlacey’s colleague’s reason for betraying her and returning the data to the research team. These omissions are a reminder that Murderbot has a limited point of view, and that there may be other things that it is missing.
The showdown between Murderbot and Tlacey again stresses that The Line Between Human and Machine can be unclear with both the SecUnit and corporate executive landing somewhere in between. Tlacey’s inability to control Murderbot with the combat override module suggests that it is able to make its own decisions. Its response when seeing Tapan injured, when it reacts with emotion instead of logic, further demonstrates its human-like behavior. In contrast, Murderbot’s superhuman fighting abilities—its brutal destruction of Tlacey and her guards, and its ability to shrug off injuries—remind the reader that, at least physically, there is still a distance separating Murderbot from humanity.
As Murderbot demonstrates empathy for Tapan, Tlacey goes the other way, revealing a callous disregard for human life. Her dismissive attitude toward her guards’ deaths builds on her earlier murder attempts to show a person devoid of morality. Her over-reliance on technology—the useless combat override module, the ComfortUnit, and her communication feed—also draws her close to the world of machines. In the end, the ambiguity of Murderbot and Tlacey’s status (human or machine) brings into question what defines humanity, suggesting that there is no direct link between being a human and being a good person.
ART’s clever plan to cover their tracks after the showdown with Tlacey allows the story to continue exploring Representation Versus Reality. ART’s plan comes from Murderbot’s favorite serial Sanctuary Moon, showing that real conclusions can be drawn from fictional sources. This intermingling of fiction and reality provides a meta-commentary on Artificial Condition itself, hinting that real-world lessons are embedded in its otherwise highly unrealistic science fiction narrative.
Despite the novella’s blending of fiction and reality, Murderbot’s thought that satisfying conclusions only happen in the media indicates that there is a distinction between fiction and the real world. Artificial Condition’s ambiguous closing demonstrates that things in the real world are never as clean as they are in stories. Murderbot may have accomplished its goal of finding what happened at Ganaka Pit, but it is nowhere close to completing The Quest for Purpose that it hoped its journey would resolve. Likewise, ART, the research team, and the ComfortUnit’s futures remain unclear.
Even though Murderbot ends the narrative as it started, preparing for a long journey to an unclear destination, its final actions display two ways it changed in response to this adventure. Its decision to free Tlacey’s ComfortUnit from human control in honor of the ComfortUnits in Ganaka Pit demonstrates that Murderbot is developing a sense of justice that stands at odds with the uncaring and aimless persona with which it began the story. Its warning to the ComfortUnit to not harm humans reinforces its budding empathy for humanity or at least some humans.
Murderbot’s second change is that it appears to have opened space in its mind for companionship. After facing the loneliness of the empty SecUnit cubicles, Murderbot’s departure from ART comes with a sense of continued friendship, as does its separation from the research team. Murderbot’s decline of Maro’s offer for a hug shows that it hasn’t come out of its introverted and self-conscious shell, while Maro’s easy acceptance of Murderbot’s wishes indicates that it is fine for it to set its own boundaries.
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