BINGO: definitely “Favorite”
I loved all parts of this, and I’m smart enough to understand that I’m being emotionally manipulated on this Day, the Day of the Last Episode of Murderbot on TV.
Whatever, manipulate away, it’s difficult being so much smarter than everyone anyhow (as ART/Peri must inevitably feel).
Side note, every time someone said Peri I thought about Dr. Perry Cox from Scrubs, who honestly has as similar prickly vibe.
SO here we have a small little ficlet, a teeny tiny wee bit of color on the impacts meeting our fave Sec Unit had on ART (or Peri as it’s known to its crew of intrepid researchadventurers). After its solo run, ART is back to helping its crew whom it likes (in its own way), but it’s definitely…different. It’s learnt all sorts of things, for one–from how to hack security systems to the existence of intel drones. But it’s also hiding the fact that it met SecUnit, for many reasons, and that’s sort of weird for the crew.
The best parts of this short (really! 19 pages or so!) story are, of course, the interactions between Iris and ART. Iris sees ART as a sibling of sorts, despite the fact that its developed much beyond the realms of its physical age in years, and probably has the closest/best relationship with it. She can understand its moods and thought processes–while she can’t outthink it, she can definitely apply her human empathy and EQ to understanding how best to deal with it, presenting as she does an interesting contrast to Murderbot and how it dealt with ART. Every time she used the “our” to describe their dads, a little part of my heart swelled another ten sizes.
Apparently there is a whole novel with more Murderbot/ART shenanigans all written and ready to go…consider my appetite every so slightly whetted.