So far we’ve seen Murderbot and humans, Murderbot and other sort of sentient machines, and now it’s time to start putting those things together. Rogue Protocol picks up where book two left off as Murderbot is trying to get away from the areas where it’s dangerous to be potentially identified, and in so doing, Murderbot falls into another adventure when the transport its on turns out to have two human passengers on their way to some kind of security detail job which involves guarding some people doing an inspection of a facility that was supposedly abandoned. To make things even more complicated, the inspectors have a human shaped bot named Mikki. Naturally, there are some for a while unknown dangers and individuals attempting to keep the inspectors from their jobs.
Murderbot of course tries to keep out of things and fails to the point of having to pretend to be a SecUnit sent by Security Consultant Rin (also played by Murderbot). Murderbot also gets involved in wanting to help some of the humans, and also watches and has feelings about how Mikki is treated and how Mikki seems to be programmed to think and act. Mikki in particular suggests that there is more variety in the AI world than Murderbot and therefore me had previously considered given how different it is from Murderbot and ART who are in some majors ways quite similar.
The whole story by the end is also turning back to the GreyCris Corporation that was the villain behind the scenes in book 1, and is still somehow up to no good, and Murderbot decides to take some action about that. Book 4 will hopefully address at least some of what happens next, and maybe bring back the ART too. Things are being set up for major feelings for Murderbot as well as me.
Murderbot as a character is so interesting because it both changes and doesn’t; the way the story is told, it’s more like you get to learn more about Murderbot about the same time as Murderbot learns or recognizes the same. Same goes for the ways of the world in general.