Honestly, if they manage to capture this in the show, I’ll be impressed.

«Another tech walked up to me. “Um, SecUnit, we need someone to help move this cabinet—”

“Then you should find someone to do that for you.” I was not in the mood.

“Well, it’s in a small space and JollyBaby can’t fit.” They gestured to the cargo bot looming over us.

“Its name is not JollyBaby.” Tell me its name is not JollyBaby. It was five meters tall sitting in a crouch and looked like the mobile version of something you used to dig mining shafts.

JollyBaby broadcast to the feed: ID=JollyBaby. The other cargo bots and everything in the bay with a processing capability larger than a drone all immediately pinged it back, and added amusement sigils, like it was a stupid private joke.

I said, “You have to be shitting me.” I already wanted to walk out an airlock and this didn’t help. (The only thing worse than humans infantilizing bots was bots infantilizing themselves.)

JollyBaby secured a private connection with me and sent: Re: previous message=joke. And it added its actual ID, which was its hard feed address. So it was a stupid private joke. I don’t think that made it any better.»

62% through “Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries Book 6)” by Martha Wells.

I feel like there’s a lot going on here. (Of course, it might just seem like a lot to my sheltered, privileged self.)