Autonomous: A Novel

Hundreds of bots crisscrossed the room, floating or rolling or walking or lolling in a stupor after crashing on really good worms downloaded from the free wares menu.

These feelings came from programs that ran in a part of his mind that he couldn’t access. He was a user of his own consciousness, but he did not have owner privileges. As a result, Paladin felt many things without knowing why.

The simplicity of her job was a kind of GABA regulator, she realized, de-spiking her moods while she dealt with whatever the fuck was going to happen next.

When Jack handed a box of antivirals to one of the drones, the machine used directional sound to speak into her ear: “Thank you. It’s time for humans to understand that property is death.” Surprised, she didn’t have time to reply before the drone surged upward, on a mission that went far beyond the goals of this protest.

These students loved their work at Free Lab so much that they came here when they weren’t in class, first thing in the morning, just to find something “intriguing” to research. It had been a long time since she’d worked on a drug project with people doing it for the thrill of discovery. Usually her lab teams were motivated by death or money, half-c

“Exactly! You may be a hydrocarbon guzzling bot, but he likes you because you’re dealing with the same problem. Just figure out a way to share their problems.”

Everybody is an outsider, if you go deep enough. The trick is reassuring people that you’re their kind of outsider.”