in retrospect, it should have considered firing its guns at the encroaching vegetation overkill. but the plantlife was far too similar to the agricultural growth-infection it had seen in that forgotten colony for murderbot to not be cautious of it, especially when it was able to access multiple reports coming in of unusual effects of the flowers’ spores. it hadn’t breathed in any or touched any, as far as it was able to discern - keeping its oxygen consumption to a minimum with its’ visor down and firing from a distance.
“ ...well. shit. ” murderbot mumbled in exasperation, sending one of its tiny drones to inspect the plants. its weapons hadn’t even scratched any of the flowers. all it had done was stir up more of the pollen - and draw the attention of a nearby human, apparently. it lifted its’ visor to glare at the man. “ the vegetation is potentially dangerous. please do not approach it. ” that sounded authoritative and knowledgeable - right? way more than it actually knew about what was going on, which was next-to-nothing.
“ i don’t need a- ” it fell quiet abruptly as its performance reliability dropped by three whole percent, and it registered an uneasy sensation; not quite pain, but definitely difficulty in stating that it didn’t need any help from any fragile and likely-to-get-hurt humans. it paused, trying to re-word the sentence. “ ... i don’t want any help. ” that made it all kinds of uncomfortable to admit ( it felt more personal ).
