“No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall.”

In Fugitive Telemetry, when Murderbot discovers a body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

System Collapse follows the events of Network Effect, where Murderbot, ART, and the humans from Preservation are work to protect a human colony from being abducted by the Barish-Estranza Corporation. But with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!