“Uh, yeah, I had to use the backup,” I said. “Was starting to get some bad sectors in the main one.”

“Then why did you eject it?” the carbot asked. “That’s supposed to be for emergencies only!”

“But it was so neat!” I protested. I made an arcing gesture with my hand. “Foom, and off it goes!” I hoped I wasn’t laying it on too thick.

But the carbot seemed to be buying it. “I knew it. Another wild damn goose chase. Well, here.” He held out a hand, and in it was the storage cube containing my host body’s original personality. “You need to keep this until you can have it reformatted at an outpost. They don’t grow on trees, you know.”

“Uh…right, thanks.” I took it. What do I do with this? Then my internal schematics came to my rescue, and I slid open the backup slot and plugged it in. I very carefully did not access it; I didn’t need the schmuck coming back to life on me now.

“Good. Now maybe we can get back to our mis—”

The SUVbot spoke for the first time—a deep, grating voice. “We got inbounds!”