Short story series about a woman with a sentient computer chip or suit

Question

The series of short stories I am trying to remember are probably from Analog magazine or perhaps Asimov's or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I subscribed to these around 10 years ago.

I recall a series of stories about a woman (or man?) who might have been a miner in the outer parts of the solar system. She had either an implanted computer chip or a suit that became self aware.

She didn't want to go back to Earth because she didn't want to be found out, so she studied and she took mining jobs on the edges of civilization.

In one of the stories she was stuck on some asteroid that turned out to have a huge diamond inside it.

Answer 1

I think these are the Floyd and Brittney stories by Richard A. Lovett published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The stories are:

• "The Sands of Titan" (Analog, June 2007)
• "Brittney's Labyrinth" (Analog, June 2008)
• "Neptune's Treasure" (Analog, January/February 2010)
• "Music to Me" (Analog, January/February 2014)
• "Defender of Worms" (Analog, January/February 2015)

Floyd Ashdown is a loner, a spacer working contracts in the outer solar system. Brittney is a self-aware AI that's implanted in a chip inside Floyd's chest. They have various adventures, e.g., crash-land on Titan, find an alien spaceship on Triton. You know, the usual. Later Brittney gets a new host, a spoiled rich girl named Memphis.

The June 2007 issue of Analog has cover art depicting the story. The artwork shows a spacesuited man (that would be Floyd) on a barren world (Titan) and a virtual teenage girl (that's Brittney, the AI).

I can't verify the plot point about a huge diamond inside an asteroid; my older back issues of Analog are in the attic and until my kids grow up and move out and I can turn their bedrooms into a library, I won't be able to easily access my collection.