The novella “Artificial Condition” by Martha Wells was published for the first time in 2018. It won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards as the best novella of the year. It’s the second work of “The Murderbot Diaries” series and follows “All Systems Red”.

Murderbot is looking for crucial information to understand its past and to reach the place where it can conduct its investigation, it embarks on a cargo spaceship that has no human crew but is piloted by a powerful artificial intelligence. During the voyage, some exchanges with it lead to it being nicknamed the ART (Asshole Research Transport). Despite this, the two of them begin a collaboration.

Once it reached its destination, Murderbot finds a job as a security consultant for some scientists who carried out work on behalf of a company which then severed the relationship and kept the results obtained. Soon, it realizes that the company’s owner is ready to do anything to get rid of the scientist.