As it spends more time with a series of caring entities (both humans and artificial intelligences), it starts developing friendships and emotional connections, which it finds inconvenient.

Wells noted in 2017 that the All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy novellas "have an overarching story, with the fourth one bringing the arc to a conclusion.

"[1] The stories are set in an advanced space-faring society where travel between star systems is routine, using "wormhole technology" which initially was unreliable but has improved to the point where "lost" colonies are being found.

Sentient and semi-sentient artificial intelligences perform tasks such as operating starships, mining, controlling habitats, providing security, or waging corporate warfare.

The Corporation Rim is a profit-oriented, cutthroat part of this society that indulges in espionage, assassination, indentured slavery, and ruthless exploitation of resources.

The SecUnit has a vested interest in keeping its human clients safe and alive, since it wants to avoid discovery of its autonomy and has an especially grisly expedition on its record.

Remembering small incidents that now appear to be attempted sabotage, Murderbot and the group determine that there must be a third expedition on the planet, whose members are trying to eliminate DeltFall and Preservation for some reason.

Murderbot reluctantly befriends the powerful, intrusive bot that pilots the research transport in which it is making the final leg of its journey to RaviHyral, the station where the incident occurred.

Murderbot allows this artificial intelligence—which it has dubbed ART (Asshole Research Transport) due to its sarcastic personality—to make physical modifications to the SecUnit's body that will better allow it to pass for an augmented human, and to disconnect the data port at the back of its neck which had been used to insert a combat override module in the previous book.

To gain access to the RaviHyral facility, Murderbot takes a contract as a security consultant for three scientists who are meeting with their former employer, the head and namesake of Tlacey Excavations, to negotiate the return of their research, which they believe was illegally seized by the company.

Murderbot returns to the site of the massacre and learns that it was the result of another mining operation's sabotage attempt using malware, which made all of the facility's SecUnits go rogue.

Murderbot goes after her, accepting a combat override module that is intended to control the SecUnit but actually has no effect, due to ART's previous modifications to its data port.

Murderbot makes its way to a recently abandoned GrayCris terraforming facility in orbit over the planet Milu to collect further evidence of the company's past crimes.

Befriending a pet-like humanoid bot named Miki as a means to keep its presence hidden, the SecUnit secretly follows a team of humans sent to assess the facility before a new company takes possession of it.

Hiding its lack of a governor module and pretending to have been sent by "Security Consultant Rin", Murderbot attempts to guide the humans—most of whom have never worked with a SecUnit before—while still seeming to defer to them.

Theorizing that Wilken and Gerth had been secretly hired by GrayCris to destroy the facility before anyone could discover the illegal mining activities going on there, Murderbot leads Miki and the researchers back to the shuttle.

Murderbot sneaks off the craft through a rear airlock, and soon confirms that an armed boarding team is waiting to storm the ship in search of a rogue SecUnit.

Murderbot convinces Mensah to escape, intending to sacrifice itself for her, and seizes control of all nearby drones and hauler bots to create chaos.

After awakening in a med bay with Mensah and the team as they arrive at their home base, Preservation, Murderbot begins a lengthy self-repair process.

Arada and the others, who have followed the ship into the wormhole, are able to board as Murderbot finishes off the hostiles and manages to reload a deleted ART with a code phrase left for it.

They have developed the grey skin condition to varying degrees, and have separated into warring factions representing the least contaminated versus the most, who seem controlled by an alien hive mind.

Murderbot is rescued with the help of another SecUnit whose governor module it disabled, as well as a software version of itself set loose on the colony's defenses.

Aylen and an official from Port Authority locate a suspicious transport caught in the post-crime lockdown, and are trapped inside by hostiles.

Luckily, a Port Authority bot named Balin jams the door open and Murderbot rescues them, taking the five transport hostiles into custody.

Following the events of Network Effect, a Barish-Estranza explorer, accompanied by their own SecUnits, arrives and engages in skirmishes with Murderbot, ART's crew, and the humans from Preservation.

We learn that since the events of Network Effect, Murderbot experienced the construct equivalents of panic attacks and hallucinations, and recognizes the need for trauma recovery treatment.

A second short story "Obsolescence" takes place during the early colonization of Earth's solar system aboard an education space station in orbit near Jupiter.

A third short story, "Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory", taking place between Exit Strategy and Fugitive Telemetry, was published on Tor.com in 2021.

Publishers Weekly wrote that Wells "gives depth to a rousing but basically familiar action plot by turning it into the vehicle by which SecUnit engages with its own rigorously denied humanity".

[17] James Nicoll observed that the plot relies on "opportunistic corporate malevolence", and noted that only Murderbot's personality prevented the setting from being "unrelentingly grim".