Work Text:
(Emotion check: Nervous, I guess. I always get nervous when I want to ask for something.)
I reminded myself that it was okay that I followed Mensah around her house as she got ready in the morning. I had my drones following Farai and Tano too, and all of the children, but Mensah I preferred to monitor with my direct eyes. (Sometimes she had to brush past me, almost touching me, and she would apologise but she never seemed upset that I was there.)
It had been awkward to explain why I had kept interrupting her time with Farai and Tano when I didn’t understand the reasoning myself. Now that she had explained back to me what she thought I was feeling (and she was right), it was even more awkward and I wasn’t sure if I should be making myself scarce when they were going to do something without me.
Which, I still didn’t like that feeling of the three of them doing things without me. It was a weird feeling, a scratchy sensation in my chest and throat.
(Emotion check: That feeling is not going to be described.)
Mensah smiled at me as I blocked her exit from the bathroom. (I didn’t go in with her, not after that time I had gone in and all three of them had been in there doing naked activities. I didn’t want to see her like that outside of the designated time and situations I had agreed to. Plus in the morning she enters for elimination activities and I didn’t want to see that at all.)
The family calendar for the day had the children at their individual educational or activity facilities. They were running around making excited loud noises because Mensah’s brother had arrived to take them into his vehicle. It involved a lot of noise, a lot of yelling, a lot of ‘Excuse me Third Mom!’ as they moved past me. (That was Amena’s fault.)
The calendar also had Mensah, Farai and Tano as having a date-day. I had looked up what a date-day was and confirmed that it was an activity heavily associated with romance (yuck) and sex (still yuck, but holding Mensah’s hand and listening to the three of them make quiet noises behind me wasn’t so bad. It was nice, to know they were safe and that I was close enough to protect them. And none of them touched me or tried to make me do the things they were doing behind me. That was also nice.)
(I expected an emotion check here but it didn't happen?)
I’m not on the calendar. (It hadn’t occurred to me that I could put things on there since I don’t really do anything.)
I stepped to the side so Mensah could exit the bathroom, then trailed after her as she joined the other two in the kitchen. The children were kissing them goodbye with sticky hands and faces, so I didn't follow her. (They know not to touch me outside of comforting situations (emergencies), but sometimes the smaller ones forget and the bigger ones are clumsy and don’t look where they are running. They all have varying risk assessments tailored to their individual history of knocking into me, or tripping over, or poking their own eyes, or one occasion I tried to delete from memory but is stuck in my organics: pushed one of my drones up her nose.)
“What are you going to do on your…” It is ridiculous that I can’t easily say the word to them, something about it makes me tense in my chest area. I forced it out anyway, “… date day.”
(There it was: Emotion check: I wanted to be with them, which made me nervous.)
I could feel my face making an expression. This is why I waited until the children had all left before asking. While Mensah, Farai and Tano would ignore me when I couldn’t control my face (and I could point my drones away so I wasn’t forced to see it either), some of the children took great joy in pointing out when I made different expressions and nobody had managed to convince them not to. (Also Amena’s fault, she encouraged them. She said it’s a rite of passage for all Third Mom’s. I’m doubtful.)
(I told them what I would have been required to do to make them quiet and compliant when I was with the company, and everyone got really quiet.)
(Sofi had a nightmare that night about me. I didn’t like that.)
“Oh, we’ll be doing a few things.” Farai is the one who answered. I think we were friends now, maybe. “We’re going to get some new clothes, some jewellery, treat ourselves to a nice meal, then we have a spa relaxation booking and I’d like to get my nails done, and that’s always more fun with company.” She was also closest to me and had finished wiping her hand on a cleaning cloth, so that’s why she really answered.
I cross-referenced my media archives to double-check I understood a date correctly. None of what she had listed sounded romantic or sex related. It was all practical tasks they participated in individually on a regular basis. Except for the spa relaxation, I felt suspicious about that as humans being naked together was highly correlated with humans having sexual activities. Especially these humans. But I was getting pretty good at being near them while they did that kind of stuff. And I like showers.
“I want to go. With you. I want to go with you. So I can be with you.” I was getting pretty good at asking for things too, once I got out of the speaking loop. “I want to go?”
Tano made a muffled noise and when I moved in a drone to get a closer look at her face and make sure she wasn’t choking since humans did that a lot. She had squinty eyes and smiled at my drone, even tapped it with a finger. Not choking.
“Of course you can come. You’re, well-” Farai gestured at me, a big sweeping vertical movement. “We’d love to have you join us for our date.”
“Yes, yes. We didn’t want to pressure you by asking, but we’ve wanted you to come.” Tano spoke really fast at the end of her sentence, then made another muffled and high pitched noise. I had to replay my recording to catch that she wanted me to come.
That only left Mensah’s agreement.
(Emotion check: Still nervous.)
I felt nervous as I focused a drone in her direction, then side stepped so I was partly obscured by the threshold of the door. She was scrutinising me intently. “I want to be with you too.” I continued to hide and she continued to study me. She was waiting for a response and I wasn’t sure I could say what I wanted again so I took an internal breath and made myself look at her. I made direct eye contact so she could see that I did want to go with her. (With them.)
Mensah maintained the eye contact as she added, “You can leave any time you want, whenever you want.”
I looked away first.
(Emotion check: Not sure what that was. [unidentified])
The eye contact wasn’t bad, it was the best way I could communicate that I was serious. It was just the tense feelings in my chest and the weird complex emotions I didn’t have a label for yet that only showed up when I wanted to do something with them, and then asked for it. (I think I was waiting for the moment they would reject one of my requests. When they would tell me it was a mistake, that they didn’t want a SecUnit around them while they were doing things together. That the experiment was enough and I should stop interrupting her time with her marital partners.)
(I hadn’t been rejected yet. I hadn’t found the limits yet.)
I tapped her feed in acknowledgement then I added my name to the calendar for the date day. I sent her the updated calendar.
Mensah smiled and looked away. I kept watching her face but she didn’t say anything else, just finished packing away the last of their eating utensils.
Her family has multiple ground vehicles located in a designated transport area outside the main house, in different sizes and shapes depending on how many humans needed transportation at once. The personal vehicle belonging to Mensah was located closest to the house, so that Tano didn’t have to walk too far and could conserve her limited energy for other activities. Other accommodations for Tano include a customised front seating area in close proximity to the bot-driver that held her crutches. (Mensah had explained to me that if necessary, the bot-driver could pilot Tano’s customised seat to her location so that she could sit down and still be mobile. I had asked why she didn’t get augments, and Mensah said I should ask Tano that.)
(I hadn’t asked Tano yet because I still felt weird around her and Farai. It wasn’t like the feelings I had before, where I wanted to be between them and Mensah. Now it was more like the feeling I would get when I knew I would be fighting soon, a tension in my skin where I dreaded what was coming but also looked forward to it.)
(Emotion check: Okay, I knew what emotions I was feeling.)
You would think that getting to know Tano and Farai better would be easy after joining them for 11 nights in a row, 5 of which included holding Mensah’s hand while the three of them had sexual activities. But I was still nervous to be spending time with them where I had to talk to them. Even with Mensah there. And the whole thing with Farai.
It was weird how easily the two of them welcomed me into their home after everything. Mensah made sense, she was attached to me because of trauma and anxiety, and because she was my friend. And Farai, for the same reason. But Tano knew as much about me as I did about them. Except I wasn’t like them, I was an anxious and dangerous murderbot, so their nervous feelings probably weren’t the same as my nervous feelings. (Without a traumatic situation to demonstrate I’m a useful murderbot, I wasn’t sure how to get Tano to like me. No, wait. Note to self: Delete that later.)
I made things more awkward by ruining their vehicle seating routine. Usually Mensah would take a seat and then Farai would take a seat. But then I would have to sit in the middle and that wouldn’t work because I was bigger than them, and also because of the whole murderbot with arm guns thing.
They came to a silent decision before I could work out how to voice my feelings in a way that wasn’t saying “don’t touch me”: Farai got into the vehicle first, followed by Mensah into the middle. They both squashed over more than was needed so that I had a larger amount of space to sit in. So I did.
It was still awkward and I wondered if I should cancel joining them, but bot-pilot closed the door after the last of my drones entered and immediately started happily humming its way out of the designated area and along the wide path for it. I didn’t want to be rude and make it stop its function.
“I think I’ll request a new personal vehicle,” Mensah said to all of us, “I’m overdue for an upgrade and I know there were some more alterations we needed to make for Tano.” Her eyes glanced over me and then away. “We could include some alterations for you too, SecUnit. It would be no trouble.”
That made all of this sound big and like I would be around for a long time.
I didn’t say anything.
* * *
We arrived at the mall area. I had been here before, it was a large structure containing a range of designated shopping locations that were monitored by humans and occasionally a bot. (Preservation did have enclosed vending booths but residents preferred the shops with human, instead of bot, involvement in their purchasing choices.)
According to the feed map, there were several locations for clothes to be bought, with tags in the feed describing their specialities such as which fauna on the planet they were made of and any preferred bartering items. I realised I hadn’t brought anything to barter with, not that I had anything to barter with as I wasn’t quite sure what to do with owning things. It seemed very human to own things. I had my clothes, my bag and ART’s comms device. I didn’t need anything else.
My humans knew where they wanted to go. Mensah held out her hand without looking at me. I hesitated a moment, but then Tano grabbed her other one and Farai grabbed onto Tano, so I probably wasn’t being weird again if I took Mensah’s hand. (I did feel kind of bad that I kept making one of Mensah’s marital partners miss out on holding her hand, because it was… nice… and I could see why they were always doing it. It felt… normal.)
Farai led the way and we followed in a long line of linked hands. There were other humans present, but everyone was occupied with their own shopping so they didn’t stare at the murderbot at the end of the human chain. Or if they did look at us, it was because they noticed Mensah and she smiled and nodded at anyone who said her name. Farai didn’t let us stop moving and she had fast long legs for a human.
The shop was like a vending booth menu but all the clothing options had already been printed and were on display. Except each one was slightly different, as they had been made by humans and bots, not a printer. It was interesting and almost made up for the human staring too hard at my feed ID. I kind of regretted not changing it to a fake name but I also didn’t want to have a fake name when I was on my- when I was joining Mensah on her date day with her marital partners. That I was also joining. Because I was joining all of them.
I considered leaving the store entirely but Farai had pulled out a blue shawl with a happy noise and wrapped it around her. This obscured her overall silhouette and hid most of her face from any view but directly in front of her. I sent a drone to investigate while I went and stood in a corner so the store human would stop staring at me.
My drones could still observe as Mensah and Tano complimented her on its colours and patterns. It was visually pleasing, with geometrically complicated patterns on it that must have been difficult for the human who made it. Then the three of them spread out in a fashion similar to a SecUnit search party looking for contraband, except they were examining all the different clothing items.
“SecUnit,” I moved a drone close to Mensah’s face to let her know I was listening. “I’m going to go try these on in the change rooms. Is there anything you would like to try on?”
“I didn’t bring anything to barter with.” I meant to say no.
Her face went thoughtful for a moment, then smoothed out into her planetary admin face. “You have a stipend, to allow for barter purchases. They will be able to exchange the equivalent of what they want at the Planetary Council Hall.” I could translate what was unsaid. That as Mensah’s pet bot, she had been given exchange credits to dress me up with.
(Emotion check: I didn’t like that. I did like that? I didn't like that but I also liked that?)
My first thought was to reject it on principle, I was not a pet bot and I was here because I wanted to be. My second thought was that I was on this date day because I wanted to participate in activities with Mensah and her partners.
So I hesitated. She had collected a range of clothing types in different colours for herself and for Tano. There didn’t seem to be a pattern in what they had chosen, I could see more shawls, skirts, shirts, tunics, dresses and caftans. It was tempting to try them on. Now that I wasn’t trying to hide that I was a SecUnit who was hiding, I could put as many clothes on as I wanted. The idea appealed and after another hesitation, I sent her a drone image of the long skirt she had picked up. It had lots of hidden sealable pockets.
She made a “mmmm” noise and showed me where I could find more of them, as the light purple one she was carrying was for Tano and she is wider than me. I selected a dark purple one that the feed tags said should match my waist dimensions.
In the privacy area, Farai had helped Tano get the skirt on while Mensah was putting on some green pants with floral patterns. I was seeing more human skin than I expected to see outside of their assorted night time activities and my performance reliability dropped a bit as I wondered if I was also expected to remove clothes in front of them.
Farai approached me, “Do you need any help, SecUnit?” Oh, I didn’t want her to touch me like she was touching Tano. I stepped back.
“I’m fine.” She stopped and raised her hands in the ‘peace’ gesture they liked to do to indicate a lack of conflict. “If you like, you can put it over your existing clothes? Then you can see if you like it. Lots of people wear pants under skirts.”
I liked that solution.
The skirt felt different. It was heavy and hung from my waist without touching much of my legs. It would obscure where my legs were located in a fight and make it much more difficult for them to be taken out. It looked different on me than it did on Tano. She was slowly spinning so that it fanned out, which was pretty to watch. Mensah and Farai both looked delighted and were giving her lots of compliments.
(Emotion check: I felt odd about this. It felt like when I wanted to get between Mensah and holding hands, except this time the feelings were about Tano? I wasn’t sure what they meant.)
“Ah!” Farai noticed I had finished dressing, “SecUnit! You look just as lovely.”
I also wasn’t sure how I felt about being looked at, as it seemed the purpose of dressing together was to look at each other and say things about what the others were wearing. I didn’t know how to do that so I stayed silent.
“I love how we match.” Tano spinned again. “You could try on some more things, this one doesn’t show off your shape. You’ve got lovely legs.”
That was the point. It obscured my figure and had lots of pockets for my drones. Why would I want people to see my shape or my legs? I avoided her gaze as she continued to study me (and my legs?), then floated my drone in front of Mensah for help.
“It’s a lovely colour, why don’t you try some other things? No need to pick the first item, you might like something else even more.”
Thank you, Mensah, this is why you are my favourite human. I took the opportunity to physically escape the weird feelings I was having.
I had a better idea now, of what to do. Even if I didn’t- if Mensah didn’t want to trade for me- I could try on different clothing and see if there was stuff I “liked” for later. I skimmed through my media archives for the ‘basic, practical, and comfortable travel clothes’ I had viewed on HaveRatton. I tried on:
- a full-length caftan, longer even than the ones I had seen Mensah wearing. It covered a lot of me, but only came in bright colours. Mensah put one on too, I liked it more on her. Tano said something about how she wanted to take it off Mensah that I hastily deleted, then Farai made an agreeing noise and tried not to look at me.
- Tano wanted to try on a dress and I was brought one to wear too. She was sitting in the accessibility seat so as to minimise disruption to her daily allocated energy. The dresses were long, with lots of embroidery. They sparkled and seemed very impractical, although they did have sealable pockets when I investigated them closer. The texture was nice and smooth on my skin (I had to take my current clothes off to try this one. Everyone looked away while I did that). I liked how it moved with me and while they weren’t looking I did a quick spin like I had seen Tano do.
(I told them I was ready. Reactions were not promising, as when they looked at me, Mensah flushed and looked away quickly with an apology, Farai said “oh” and looked at my legs again, and Tano almost reached out to touch me before collecting herself. That was too weird. I changed out quickly while Mensah and Farai told Tano that she was stunning.)
- Some jackets of varying shapes and sizes. They were made of materials I hadn’t seen before, and when I asked them what it was, Mensah said, “Those are made from the dried skin of [fauna], they get-” I stopped listening and took the jackets off quickly. That was incredibly unpleasant to know. I updated my feed tagging system to automatically reject any of the fauna jackets and then deleted my memory of Mensah’s explanation. I was making an expression that made Farai say, “Oh yes, Anji had a similar reaction! That’s okay, we can work around it and find alternatives.” I didn’t want alternatives, the idea of wearing skin made my performance reliability drop quickly and I relocated to the corner.
- “Here, SecUnit.” Tano passed me a shawl similar to the one Farai had chosen to wear and I quickly put it on then viewed myself through my drones. It covered my face and head, and my performance reliability started to stabilise. I could see them exchanging looks, but they couldn’t see my face as I let it make a bunch more expressions. I liked that it covered my face. I also liked that it was similar to the one Farai wore, like being part of a team. But Farai wears these for religious-cultural reasons. I told them, “I am not…” Okay, I didn’t say much, but Mensah understood me immediately anyway. She brought over some other fabrics for me to try that covered my face.
- The fabrics were face coverings that are usually worn for medical reasons – Tano had many like these, as they were more suitable for frequent wear compared to the single use ones in the Medical station and she liked to look pretty. They were practical and kept humans from getting sick from airborn diseases or small particles of dirt on the planet (another reason to dislike planets). This store sold them in lots of different colours and patterns. When I tried it on, it covered the lower half of my face and half of my expressions. I liked how it felt, like a skin suit for my head. I selected one in dark blue, dark green and dark purple. Okay, they were all dark. But they had patterns on them that I thought were nice and could count as pretty for Tano. (I liked dark clothes because they were the opposite of my armour, which had been white and grey and very visible so people could easily notice and be scared of me.)
“These look lovely, they bring out your eyes!” Tano said. She was complimenting me, so I guess I had chosen the right ones. I wasn’t sure how she could tell, since she was currently avoiding looking at me, but it felt nice to pick the right ones to get a compliment. And to have my face hidden.
Mensah was speaking to the human outside the privacy area, bartering for Tano’s skirt and dress, Farai’s collection of shawls, some new pants and shoes for Mensah… and for my three masks. I sent her a message that I will reimburse her so I didn’t owe her.
Acknowledged. Human emotions don’t tend to carry on the feed, but she felt sad. And I did want the masks. I could wear them immediately and it would make this date day easier.
As we left the store, I moved my drones closer to them. I’d been observing how they acted with each other, and ran some comparisons to my media archive on how to personalise a compliment, and I wanted to show them that I hadn’t hated the experience.
“Your shawl is very practical, it will hide your body shape from security scans.” I said to Farai. To Tano I said: “Your skirt is a good length and you won’t trip over it when you don’t have your canes.” Mensah turned to look at me, her forehead wrinkling even as her eyes smiled. I wasn’t sure what to say about pants or shoes so I tried a joke instead, “These shoes have lots of straps so they shouldn’t fall off when escaping CombatSecUnits.” I didn’t comment on the impractically high heels because I knew the shoes would be for specific environments and because I could carry her in an emergency.
Tano started coughing behind me and I wondered if we should have gotten her some new masks too. My drone zoomed in and she didn’t seem distressed. Farai ineffectively tried to help her mild medical emergency but was waved off. Mensah said, “Thank you, we’re glad you like them. Your masks look very nice on you too.” She smiled. Another success.
Farai and Tano thanked me too. That was also a success.
(Emotion check: Felt good.)
* * *
Mensah liked to wear bright colours. So did Farai and Tano. Humans on the planet were just like that, I guess, as they wore all sorts of things compared to the stations I have been on (which were more monotonous and focused on work clothes or formal clothes.)
It made them stand out.
From a security point of view, I didn’t like that my humans stood out. From my organics point of view, I did like that they stood out, and parts of my insides flipped when I saw their distinctive multicoloured outfits among other humans. Like my organics wanted to recognise them even if my internal databases were down or I was having other memory problems. (I’m aware I said them, it wasn’t just Mensah that my organics were latching onto.)
So it wasn’t too much of a surprise that the next shop was filled with a range of sparkling primarily-metal decorations and gemstones. Very few of them seemed to be connected to the feed, so I concluded this was another collection of items for aesthetic purposes and not practical purposes.
I eyed my three humans. I wondered what I would need to do to convince them to prioritise metallic decorations with feed connections.
I was still getting used to entering shops like a person, so I knew what to do, but it was still weird to enter with my humans and have the human inside greet all of us. She barely blinked at my feed ID and a human wouldn’t have noticed the hesitation or the way she wobbled. I looked at the wall behind her, which had bright patterned fabrics with metallic ear decorations stabbed into them. (I was suddenly concerned that Mensah was going to have more holes put into her ear.)
(Emotion check: Anxious. I'm very familiar with being anxious because I'm always anxious. It shouldn't even register on an emotion check as it's baseline for me.)
I glanced at her, but she had already moved to the other side of the shop with Farai and Tano. I sent my drones ahead of me so I could stand in a corner and pretend the shop owner wasn’t looking at me. Drones 1 through 5 hovered around the decorative items they were holding up.
(Farai turned the one she was holding towards my drone, so I could get a better look at the gemstone in it. It was made of different shades of blue and would match the shawl she had bought.)
The gemstones were not yet attached to any metallic decorations. I guess so they could choose. Mensah laid out a collection of options for them to choose from, from the kinds to stab into their ears (to be torn out in fights), to go around their necks (easier to choke with), to go around wrists and ankles (get caught on machinery), or fingers (risk assessment was still loading the risks for those ones). (I sent these concerns to Mensah’s implant. She removed the ones for their ears and necks at least. Farai and Tano didn’t react when they disappeared.)
I still had one concern, and I mentioned this one out loud because risk assessment and threat assessment were ganging up on me: “Some items in this shop have feed connections for security reasons. The bands you are looking at do not.”
It felt weird offering an opinion on their date day activities. Like I was an actual part of this and not a highly paranoid SecUnit following them around. Even though this fell within my duties as her security consultant. “You are at higher risk of kidnappings than the average Preservation citizen.” I added.
“Hmm, my family does have a tendency to get kidnapped.” Mensah's voice was light but her expression said she was taking what I said seriously.
“Yes, yes, but our family, is skewing Preservation’s data.” Tano added in as she took the bands from Mensah to hand to Farai. “That makes us outliers and we shouldn’t be counted.”
Since when was I part of the family? That was too confusing to address, so I addressed the other point of confusion, “All data should be counted, otherwise risk assessments are inaccurate.”
Tano opened her mouth, possibly to object as humans like to do where numbers are concerned, but Farai placed a hand on Tano's and told her to make less jokes as ‘you know it’s literal’.
(Emotion check: Uncertain. Sgain.) (I wasn’t sure how removing data could be a joke, and a quick check of my media wasn’t enlightening. I kind of missed ART at that moment.)
“It’s Tano’s turn to be kidnapped next.” I don’t know where that came from, except it came from my mouth and Tano looked pleased at the thought of being kidnapped. “So you should have feed connections for security reasons. And safety codes.”
Mensah nodded, then looked at my nearest drone. “There’s a customisation fee, for whatever we end up choosing. We can get it adapted to contain micro-interfaces that will let us be connected passively to the feed. They’re usually used for children and share information such as physical locations and basic health status.”
I think I had heard of these before, but since most people went with internal implants or proper feed devices, I hadn’t encountered them. I gently broached one of the small connections I could feel in the store to evaluate it and- yeah, that could work. I would need to hack them to have better firewalls and security features, but I could work with it.
“Okay.” I said.
Farai headed over to the shop human, they’re kind of like an assistant bot, with the gemstones and bracelets. I braced myself as Tano turned towards me with some metallic chains. “What do you think of these colours SecUnit?”
I moved my drone in closer, they would be useless for restraining anyone with how thin they were but they did make nice sparkles. “They’re pretty.”
It was the right thing to say, because she beamed at my drone and Mensah smiled at both of us, which made me a little bit melty. I was saved from melting too much as Farai returned with the bands and gemstones. They had been attached to each other in a special way with decorative wires by the shop human. My pattern recognition also finally kicked in as I realised Tano had been holding a gemstone that looked like the purple clouds on Milu, which matched her dress, and Mensah had selected one in various shades of green, to go with Farai’s blue gemstone.
“These are matching your clothes.”
“Yes. Usually on anniversaries, we will get a new set of rings to show our relationship together,” I glanced at Mensah’s hand with the double rings and gemstones: one purple and one blue. “We wanted something different this year.”
I had thought the rings were a Preservation custom and not a sex or romance thing. I could feel my face making an expression, and I turned slightly so she could see it.
She laughed, “Not like that.”
When Farai handed the decorated bands out to her partners, she also held one out to me. I stepped over and looked at it.
“This would look lovely on you.” She wiggled it a bit, and my drone showed she was making a very friendly expression with very wide eyes. She also sucked on her lip and seemed anxious.
The bracelet had three colours, one for each of them. To show their relationship to each other.
(Emotion check: Something in me was twisted up.)
“These gemstones are to represent your relationship to each other.” I tried to make it a question, even as I carefully took the fourth one and placed it around my wrist. “This is to celebrate knowing each other for a pre-determined period of time. But you haven’t known me that long.”
It was cool on my organics, cooler than my own base temperature and the weird heat in my chest.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was trying to ask them.
“I don’t think I’d been manufactured yet.” I probably shouldn’t have blurted that out, because Mensah was controlling her face to be very smooth but Farai and Tano were behind her reacting with appalled expressions. And Mensah usually felt the same as them, so she was probably appalled and I was ruining their date day with my whole me.
(I think I was trying to ask them something about my manufacturing date and how they couldn’t have known me that long and that I probably wasn’t going to live long enough to be on anniversary jewellery.)
But Mensah already knew that, I guess, because she stepped closer to me and said: “I think if I had met you this many years ago, I would have still liked to know you.”
Yeah. I don’t know what to say about that.
The band was tight around my wrist. (There were three colours to match them). I carefully avoided looking at any of them with my drones as I tested that I could extend and retract my arm guns. The shop human wasn’t pretending to not watch us anymore, curious about why the rogue SecUnit in their shop was malfunctioning. (I still didn’t know what I was trying to say, and that was frustrating. )
“I don’t have a favourite colour.” I blurted that one out too.
The three of them were standing close to me without touching. It wasn’t bad, I didn’t mind. It kept the shop human from being able to see me as I tested my arm guns again.
(Emotion check: Upset? Why would I be upset?)
Mensah reached forward slowly, then paused with her hand held out expectantly. I raised mine and she turned it around to show the underside of the black metal band. “I was thinking that you are this band that keeps us safe and together. If you want to be represented, that is.” She turned it around to show the three gemstones. “And when you have a favourite colour, we can put you here too.”
(Emotion check: [redacted] )
All of a sudden I felt different about this.
I ran my fingers across the gemstones. I suspect humans have fingertips that are more sensitive than mine, as they felt like smooth stones to me, and I’ve never felt the compulsion to run my fingers endlessly across textures the way they do. But it was a nice sensation, and they were pretty. The band was cold and hard in comparison, wrapped around each stone in a decorative fashion that reminded me of some flora I had seen.
(Emotion check: [redacted] )
I was experiencing a lot of emotions.
“Is this okay?” Farai asked me. I wasn’t quite sure what she was asking me either, this was getting overwhelming really quickly and I needed to think. But I thought the band was okay.
“I’m fine.” I said it quietly. “You will be putting feed connections into them? That I can give security updates to?”
“Yes, of course.”
(Emotion check: [redacted] )
With this metal band and a feed connection within it, I would have another layer of protection for them. The Mensah family did have a higher than average risk of kidnapping, despite Tano’s data exclusion attempts. “I don’t need a gemstone.”
It felt right, somehow, that if I was going to take part of this human activity, that I would be represented as I am in relation to them.
(Emotion check: [redacted] )
* * *
I held Mensah’s hand again as Farai led us through the crowd. My drones watched where I was walking, not that there were many fall hazards in the mall area, and I studied Mensah’s hand in mine. It was smaller, darker, and had those two rings she wore. I wondered if, when the decorative bands were ready, she would wear it on this hand or her other hand. (I also wondered which hand I should wear mine on, maybe my left? That arm was 12.7% less likely to be damaged or blown off.)
(Maybe I shouldn’t wear it. I could put it in my chest compartment.)
We were now in a food service area, with lots of tables and chairs. Farai started to take us towards the middle of the area, where the human density was the loudest, when Mensah had a short-sharp cough. I scanned her in concern, but I didn’t need to as Farai had glanced back and said ‘oh!’ and adjusted our trajectory to one of the corner seating areas surrounded by flora. It was a good decision, as it gave Mensah some privacy if she needed to cough again.
Despite the heavy presence of food smells, there wasn’t much in the way of intoxicant scents, and I relaxed a little as I slid into the seat next to Mensah after the rest of them sat down. (For a moment I considered sitting next to Tano, but that bizarre desire to socialise stopped when I realised if I did that I would be sitting next to two humans eating and not just one.)
(These may be my favourite human and her favourite humans, but humans’ eating was still disgusting and something I preferred to distance myself from.)
I could tell from the activity over the feed that they were placing their orders, so I pulled up an episode of Sanctuary Moon and resigned myself to the situation. I could do this, they ignored lots of faults in me so I could ignore their organic need to eat and drink frequently.
Something in me relaxed when the food and nutrients arrived with hot beverages but no signs of intoxicants. I had pulled up a lot of research on spas and massages and it didn’t seem like the kind of environment humans should go to when intoxicated. It wouldn’t be safe.
I turned down my audio inputs so I couldn’t hear them consuming the nutrients. I also couldn’t hear them talking, or the wider humming noise of other humans in the food court, but it wasn’t too bad. I had my drones on keywords, and sitting like this allowed me to recharge a few percentages. It was almost relaxing, not being expected to do anything or react to anything.
There was a loud bang and I straightened up, my energy weapons starting to activate as I recalled my drones to find the source of the threat-
It was just Tano, slapping the table in laughter at something Mensah had said. I made accidental eye contact with Farai as I forced myself to relax again. I had reacted and un-reacted in less than 1.6 seconds.
Farai sent me a message through the feed: Are you okay?
Despite her obvious subvocalising, she was looking at Tano and nodding along. It didn’t get past Mensah, as she looked at Farai, then me, and then back to Tano. She shifted closer without touching, leaving the final centimetre up to me. I adjusted to close that as I answered. I’m okay.
I could feel Farai’s concern trickling through the feed. I felt the urge to reassure her so I elaborated, This is nice.
(It was kind of surprising to realise I meant it too.)
* * *
I hadn’t been to this location before. Likely because of the feed notifications that it was a clothing optional location. It upset my threat assessment module and my risk assessment. I didn’t know if I should move to walk in front of my humans, so that I could glare at the other humans to walk in a different direction, or stay behind my humans so that they were between me and the naked humans.
I wanted to write some code which would automatically start censoring strange human bodies from my view, but then I wouldn’t be able to judge their body language and intentions properly. With enough time, and ART’s help, perhaps I could make a version with a visual flag that would automatically note and notify me of unclothed humans wielding weapons or approaching with hostile-
Mensah’s hand slipped into mine and I refocused my attention on her.
Are you okay? It was Mensah’s turn for a private check in. I wondered if Tano would ask if I’m okay too. Because I was okay, the recharge while they had eaten had increased my performance reliability almost back up to my usual starting point for a cycle (before all the humans drained it.)
You don’t need to keep checking in on me. Now I sounded like Amena. I needed to stop being around her, she was a bad influence.
Of course not. I like to check in on you, it reassures me that I’m not doing this wrong or forcing you to do anything you wouldn’t want to. I could feel her concern and guilt. She didn’t like that she was my owner. She also really didn’t like making me do things I didn’t want to do.
I forgot to warn you about the clothing standards of the recreational areas. It’s not sexual, not here. We will be going to a private spa booking where it will only be us. Her hand tightened and she looked sideways in my direction. Her presence in the feed felt very warm and soft. We have to get naked to use the spa, that’s non-optional for hygienic reasons. Usually we will… massage each other… or sometimes more intimate activities. We can skip that part today.
(Emotion check: [redacted] )
I was feeling melty again.
Maybe it was from the recharge, or the melty was hampering my usual social assessments, because I searched through some media to find an appropriate clip from Sanctuary Defenders, a poor imitation of the Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, and sent her a video of the dramatic moment when the hero yelled, You only live once! before jumping to grab the hand of the travelling galactic explorer who was saving them from the exploding planet.
(Yes, it was a little obvious but like I said, I was feeling affected by the melty virus that made me want to jump over hot exploding planets to keep holding Mensah’s hand.)
(I would send her a joke signifier, but we both knew I would actually do that so I don’t think it counts as a joke.)
Mensah smiled and I throttled down an alert which warned that I was actually increasing my temperature and not just feeling melty in the organic parts of my brain.
(Emotion check: [redacted] - fuck off.)
You should do what you normally do. In the spa. I can do what I usually do when you are doing the things you do at night. With the same rules. I sent the message to all three of them, on the new private feed I made in that moment. Then to be extra clear (I’d been working on my clear communication skills) I sent them an autoplay recording from the night before when they were tangled in each other and I was holding Mensah’s hand while I sat with my back to them. It was a pretty moment, with the way the lights showed their different bodies and the darkness obscured the parts I didn’t want to see.
Mensah coughed again (note: make sure she sees her doctor), Tano tripped and I had to lunge forward to grab her arm before she damaged herself, and Farai also fumbled to grab Tano’s other arm. Her skin tinted red and it spread down her neck and arms. “Umm,” Farai said in a high pitched voice, then looked at Mensah. Mensah looked at the sky and took a breath (she was red in the cheeks too, I bumped up my note in priority) and Tano’s body started shaking (I was concerned it was a medical thing, so I also added a note for Tano to see a doctor. Then I added Farai too, since they were all some kind of package deal.)
There was increased feed activity in their private chat with each other, but I pretended not to see because ART said I didn’t understand privacy and that I shouldn’t be looking in private chats that I wasn’t invited to. (ART broke into my private feeds all the time. I understood privacy perfectly fine because it is a hypocritical asshole.)
“Let’s just go inside.” Mensah said it calmly. Her feed connection to me was spilling over with a confusing mess of unfamiliar emotions.
My humans were weird.
The recreational spa building we entered was lavish, even by Preservation standards. There was an arrival area, with another human assistant that I ignored, and a bot assistant I traded pings with. Farai spoke to the assistant while Tano headed towards the changing area and Mensah asked for my help collecting the towels waiting in the printer.
(I wasn’t sure why there were changing rooms, considering the unclothed humans roaming about everywhere. But humans were weird about things like that so I followed Mensah and copied the rest of them and removed all my clothing.)
(I was a little anxious and avoided looking at them with my eyes or my drones until we were all in the water.)
This was nice. I’d never used a bath before, they looked confined and uncomfortable and required me to put myself in vulnerable positions, compared to a shower where I could stand under the cleaning fluid and react to any emergencies immediately (since I wasn’t bothered about being unclothed like humans can get.) (I was only bothered by humans being unclothed because then they act weird.)
This one was so big it was more like a room filled with warm water. Actual water, not recycled cleaning fluid like ART had. Mensah, Farai and Tano sat down on a bench near where it was bubbling from pipes beneath the floor that gave the water's surface a soft, constantly moving appearance. There was space next to them, but I chose to sit on the circular bench in the middle of the area and set most of my drones into passive patrol paths around us all.
It smelled nice and nothing like dirty socks. Mostly it smelled lightly of planetary vegetation and I noticed some decorative sticks that had been intentionally left smouldering. It was smoky, but not bad-smoky like an impending emergency. It smelled nice. This was nice.
I sent Mensah a snapshot of the smoke artistically leaving the decorative stick.
Incense. We have some at home, if you would like. I responded to her with an affirmative acknowledgement.
I sat back and watched while they sat quietly and soaked in the water. There wasn’t much talking, it was kind of like watching them eat but without the disgusting noises and smells. I moved some of my drones in to better watch their faces and bodies as they relaxed. I revised my assessment of Mensah’s baseline anxiety levels as her face grew softer and softer, the wrinkles softened and she gained a flush to her cheeks.
(I added a baseline assessment to Farai and Tano’s new files too.)
Her whole body softened and I felt mine try to imitate her. It was weird, kind of vulnerable to make myself intentionally floppy.
Farai splashed Tano and I didn’t flinch. Neither did threat assessment or risk assessment. That was kind of weird. Very weird. I queried my system diagnostics but it said everything was fine.
They splashed each other a few more times, and after a glance at me, Mensah joined in too. I made loops with some drones as I watched them… play? I guess? It didn’t seem sexual, it looked more like some of the rough-housing I saw Ratthi do with everyone except me. A soft physical activity, where they happened to be naked, and not something happening because they were naked.
They did this for 6 minutes and 22 seconds, then Tano leaned back out of breath. Mensah and Farai could have kept going, they both had good stamina for humans which is why they were so good at escaping kidnappers, but they stopped and leaned back against her. So close to each other, like they wanted to become one bloppy human.
They were touching each other and I tensed up a bit. But none of them looked at me or contacted me over the feed or asked me to be involved.
(Emotion check: Tense and on edge because emotion check is not fucking off.)
I think, maybe, they had forgotten I was there?
That was familiar, kind of like when I was with the company, but not. Because I had chosen to be here, because I wanted to be here, and I had chosen these humans who had chosen each other. Also it wasn’t sex, not really. It was kind of like how Ratthi and Gurathin would stretch each other out before vigorous physical activities, which Bharadwaj said was related to injury prevention and generally easier with a partner. The stretches would make Gurathin change colour, but Ratthi didn’t say anything and he would usually say something if it was sexual to both tease Gurathin and warn me. So it probably wasn’t something sexual, but a thing humans need to do while SecUnits are always ready for sudden physical activity. So I don’t need to be touched like that.
(I didn’t even know human bodies could hurt themselves without injury prevention stretches. I looked this up in MedSys before I met Tano and it answered a lot of questions I had.)
(Note to self: show ART this log next time it complains that I don’t think.)
Mensah tapped me over the feed. She sent it in the private one since Farai and Tano had removed their interfaces for the wet environment. Let me know if any of this gets too much for you. None of them were looking at me. I realised it was the on-purpose not looking at was unnatural to humans who like to look at everything.
Then Tano leaned behind them to pull out small canisters of scented oils, and held them out in my direction. “Which one should we use, SecUnit?”
My human-code made me blink back at her.
The air had a combination of new scents and I wasn’t sure which one would be best for them. They all seemed to have the same consistency and chemical make-up so eventually I picked the one that smelled kind of like the scented smoke sticks.
They made each other smell like scented smoke sticks.
It wasn’t like how I oiled my machine parts, it didn’t seem to aid with quiet movement and mobility. What it did do was make their skin look different and possibly changed it to another texture. Their skin was all different shades to each other, with all the organic blemishes and roughness that I didn’t have. Even their body hair had different textures. I watched as muscles softened where hands moved on each other. My humans were turning... melty.
For the first time, I wanted to touch part of a human other than Mensah’s hand.
(Emotion check: What the fuckshit.)
I froze for 21 seconds as I considered that thought.
Risk assessment and threat assessment were still minding their own business and had no interest in providing a solution pathway for the current situation.
Over the next 3 minutes and 18 seconds I slowly moved my way over from the center seat to the one they were on. (Okay, that part took 3 seconds. The other 3 minutes and 15 seconds were spent slowly moving close enough that I could touch.)
They smelled nice.
My vocal cords were still frozen, and I almost reached out to touch Mensah’s back anyway. But they always asked me before they touch me and I appreciated that. And that this wasn’t the night time activities where I hold Mensah’s hand, this was...something else.
I connected to Mensah’s implant. Her emotions felt slow and happy, like she was asleep while being awake. When I tapped her feed, her emotions sharpened and sped up. Physically, she pulled back from Farai and Tano to look past me and they copied her because they are a lot like her (I like that about them). Still, that was too many expectant faces and I switched to one of the drones looking at the back of their heads, saw how uncertain my face looked and switched to one that was looking down at us from the top.
Ugh.
This was going to be hard. I manually unfroze my vocal cords while they waited. It took subjectively an entire mining assignment, but the actual time recorded in my logs was 23 seconds. Which is still a pretty long time for humans. If it was just Mensah, I would send her a recording, but I would have to use human communication methods for Farai and Tano.
“I want…” No that’s not right, well, I did want, but I struggled with wanting things and if I said ‘I want’ I could influence Mensah through her guilt of owning me. So I changed my approach, “I don’t want to not be involved...”
(Emotion check: Too many emotions.)
This was so, so painful. And weird. And awkward. “Can I? Touch?” I blurted out. (Clear communication.)
I ran another diagnostics in hope that it would reveal I was hacked or contaminated with alien remnants but it was still just me being honest. So much ugh.
“Yes!” I felt better when Tano blurted her response out loudly, then slammed her hand over her mouth. Farai’s hand also joined to cover Tano’s mouth, but she smiled at me. Tano did something with her eyebrows.
“Like how we’re currently touching each other?” Mensah asked. There was another meaning here I didn’t get, but I recognised that smile and tone from when Amena was trying to catch me in a verbal trap. So I didn’t respond.
Mensah waited for more from me, but I was at my limit of using human words. “I’d love that, how about we lean back and you touch us how you want for as long as you want?” Her voice was smooth and calm, despite the hitch in her voice and the extra calming breaths she took. I moved the drone down and close to her face so I could make sure I wasn’t making her say yes to this. “Go ahead.” She aid, and leaned back into her bloppy partner-pile.
(Emotion check: Like I had been overcharged during stasis and my battery was leaking.)
I touched them lightly, just on their arms and just enough to make their skin dent slightly the way they had to each other. (It’s a good thing SecUnit’s don’t shake, so they couldn’t see how nervous I was.) The oil had made them feel smooth and soft, but there were still differences between each of them. I touched Mensah first, because I have touched her before even though it wasn’t like this. Her skin was firm, with rough spots from where survey outfits had worn away and the odd scar from GrayCris. She had artificial markings etched in her skin, further down on her body, and I wanted to touch them and see if they felt like my logos but they were in a location near her sex-related body parts.
I hesitated for a moment. I had let Farai touch my arm once. So I repeated the process on her. She made a happy ‘mmm’ noise that turned into a sigh as I touched and traced her cultural lines. They were like raised scars, pale on her skin compared to the dark ones I could see on Mensah. She was soft and firm at the same time, her skin smooth and without the sharp edges that GrayCris put on Mensah. I wondered how long it would take for Mensah to lose the sharpness in her hips and be more like Farai or Tano? I think it had something to do with her trauma treatment and difficulties eating. I made a note to query MedSys next time I was with it.
Tano had lots of soft and squishy skin. I could push quite deeply into her before reaching muscle, and this left little flushes on her skin where I had pressed that made her squirm. Something about that action made me feel like I was winning a fight, without the pain and murder, so I repeated it to hear the happy little noises she made until she said in a strained voice, “SecUnit, you better stop now.”
I stopped immediately and drew back in alarm. “No, no, slow down!” Her voice was reassuring, similar to when she’s speaking to one of her younger children when they’re upset. Which was unnecessary because I wasn’t upset that I had done something wrong and hurt her or touched her in a way she didn’t like or she realised she didn’t like me touching her and wanted Farai or Mensah instead.
(Emotion check: I was upset that I did something wrong and fucked it up.)
“SecUnit, it’s okay.” Mensah’s voice next to me, her voice also soothing and I didn’t want to be soothed when this was so important, but I felt soothed anyway. “Let Tano explain.”
“What did I…” My voice failed me again as performance reliability dropped a few percents. Sometimes, thinking faster than humans wasn’t beneficial, as I could flick through all the ways I’d fucked whatever this was up.
“You’re fine, you were great even.” Tano held out her hand to me in an appeasing gesture. I was getting good at recognising gestures, “A little too great, I needed you to stop or I was going to become… overcome.”
I queried my translation module, but I wasn’t sure how she was going to win a fight from me touching her and her staying still.
“I don’t understand.” I moved my arms further down and twisted them so my gun ports weren’t visible. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Mensah’s voice is light and amused, not at all serious in the way I would expect if something bad was happening. “It’s more like you were making her feel very good, and it was becoming a sex thing, and Tano didn’t want to surprise you with a sexual reaction before discussing it with you.” She tapped me on the feed in soft emphasis.
Oh, I didn’t realise I was doing a sex thing. “I didn’t know that was a sex thing.” I said it out loud, then firmer because I’m meant to be saying when I don’t want to do something: “I don’t want to do sex things.”
(My trauma treatment said it was good to restate important boundaries like that and I liked saying when I didn’t like things. Because before I wasn’t allowed to say I didn’t like a lot of things, and I liked being able to say that I didn’t like things. I was getting into a loop to avoid thinking about accidentally doing sex things.)
Farai waved her hands at me apologetically, “It doesn’t have to be a sex thing! It was becoming a sex thing and that’s why Tano needed a break! Mensah and I are much less sensitive, so it’s harder to become a sex thing with us.”
I thought it over. I didn’t like thinking about sex things, so it took me more seconds than it should to think it over and adjust the terminology definition of sexual activities in my education module. (It was such a shitty module, how am I meant to avoid sexual things if an activity could be sexual and not sexual? I have thought too much about sex things in this moment.)
“I don’t want to do sex things.” I repeated it again. Then, because it mattered to my humans when I don’t like something, I added: “I don’t like doing sex things.”
I’d fucked up.
(Fuck off emotion check.)
They made sad expressions and avoided looking at me or at each other. Actually avoided looking at me and not the way where they pretended they weren’t but they were, or avoided to respect me, but in that way that meant they didn’t actually want to look at me. Like when miners avoid looking at the murderbot watching them in the corner.
I rolled back through my recordings and tallied up how often I had said I didn’t want to do something with them. It was a lot. I think this counted as ‘pushing people away when you are anxious’. (Which I wasn’t meant to be doing with people I wanted to be around.)
I would have to express ‘likes’ to fix this. That was different to ‘wants’, as I wouldn’t make Mensah feel bad and like she had to say yes. “I… liked touching your skin.” I said it to Tano, as she seemed most upset. “You’re very soft.”
“Thank you.” Tano gave me a small smile and looked less like she was going to cry about the whole… accidental sex thing. I liked that she was pleased that I liked touching her skin, But-
“I wasn’t doing a sex thing?” I really needed it clarified. Even if it made them sad which made me feel cold and not good at all.
(Useless emotion check: I felt cold and not good at all.)
“No.” Mensah’s voice was firm, her leader voice, but her face seemed soft and her eyes looked very intently at her designated drone. “If you don’t want it to be a sex thing, then it’s not a sex thing.”
I still felt a small bit of anxiety. “But it was a sex thing for Tano.” Oh, I was stuck in a loop. I did that sometimes, it came with being defective or fucked up or something.
“Yes!” Tano seemed very worried for some reason, because she liked sex things the most out of them. “It wasn’t at first, but then it was becoming a sex thing when my body got… excited. But, SecUnit, you told us you don’t want to be part of our sexual activities and that’s okay. That’s why I asked you to stop, so you didn’t accidentally become part of a sexual activity.” Tano still looked sad, her mouth turned down with extra wrinkles around them. “Sorry Secunit, we can stop. We’ll never make you do anything you don’t want to. Even by accident.”
I knew Mensah was a really, really good human. My favourite human. But it still kind of baffled me when other humans were also really, really good. Even if they were Mensah’s favourite humans.
(Emotion check: [redacted])
They were all watching me without watching me. It wasn’t bad. Just like touching them hadn’t been bad.
(Emotion check: [redacted])
It was a weird thought to turn around in my head. Mensah made sense, because I had saved her and stuff, but I hadn’t done anything for Tano.
(Emotion check: [redacted]) (Fine, fuck, fine. I had emotions.)
My insides were feeling melty again.
I stood up and then I sat down between Mensah and Farai. They shuffled apart to give me extra space.
“You can touch me like you were touching each other. But not like how I was touching Tano.” I stared at a decorative water piece on the other side of the room from us. “I don’t want to be touched in a sexual way.” It felt redundant to say that, because they clearly understood this and I didn’t want them to think I didn’t trust them. But I needed to say it again because I just needed to. (I wanted to see them listen to me.)
Mensah tapped my feed. You don’t have to do this if you’re not comfortable with it.
I knew that. (I was beginning to know that.) I said, I know. Then (clear communication) I said, I want to know what it feels like.
She nodded to herself (or to me?) and poured some of the oil I had chosen into her hands, then passed it over to Farai and Tano to do the same.
“I’m going to touch you now.” She warned me and I braced myself.
Mensah’s small, warm hand was on my arm and I stared at it with my eyes and the majority of my drones. She moved along my skin, triggering my pressure sensors. I have been electrocuted a lot of times, not just the governor module, and it felt kind of like that but if it was not-bad. I moved my drones in closer to watch her slow movement over my skin. Little round bumps developed around my hair follicles.
She paused, so I tapped her implant in encouragement. (ART’s not the only who can collect data.)
She made a thoughtful noise, then applied her other hand to also take part in rubbing my organic muscle layer into softer layers with the weird round follicle bumps.
It wasn’t bad. Or gross.
Definitely weird.
I turned my head to watch as Farai and Tano touched my other arm. They moved up and down it, traced where my skin overlaid inorganics, and when Farai’s hand moved a little too close to my neck and the data port I said, “Not there.” Her hands immediately drifted back down to my arm and stretched it out and away from my body.
(Emotion check: Not bad.)
Tano’s hands drifted to my own hand and she was lightly touching the skin there and inspecting my artificial fingernails. Mensah was the bravest in the murderbot exploration, her fingertips traced the edge of my gunport and more of the little follicle bumps appeared. My skin there shivered, which I tagged as an unusual feeling to look up later, because SecUnits don’t shiver.
(Emotion check tried to send me more checks, but I was having a lot of unusual feelings I didn’t want to think about yet so I marked them as save-for-later.)
It was a nice way to be touched. No pain. Gentle and soft, so light I had to tune up my pain sensors to register them. Which was a novel experience, since usually I’m tuning down sensors so I don’t feel things. Then Mensah’s thumbs dug into my flesh around the guns, while Farai and Tano increased their pressure on my stretched out arm. How did they synchronise that without interfaces?
I turned melty on the outside and I felt myself soften up to imitate how Mensah had been earlier, when she leaned back to let her head against the raised barrier of the bath. I sighed. It was a weird and vulnerable position to be in. My drones had returned to doing slow loops of the room and my humans.
I was going to smell different, like the scented oil and my humans, and I was going to move better because my performance reliability actually went up. Farai and Tano talked to each other and Mensah joined in, but I didn’t bother translating the words. Sometimes it was nice to listen to the soundwaves without understanding them.
(I reluctantly re-evaluated the benefits of physical stretching for improving performance to include as applicable to constructs, and flagged it with a note for ART to review later.)
I had a sudden urge to initiate a partial stasis recharge.
(Emotion check: Not bad. Not worried. This is nice.)
“This is nice.” I didn’t mean to say that but it slipped out. “This doesn’t hurt at all.” All my feelings were melty so my words kept slipping out around them. “I like this.”
Mensah’s hand paused on my gunports, her expression drooping and I was worried I’d fucked it up again and was about to reset my fuck up counter, but then she smiled and my mouth did something.
They did this for the remaining 47 minutes of our booking.
* * *
We had a problem when it was time to leave. Farai and Mensah were ready to go, but Tano looked unhappy again. She had overdone it with all the walking and shopping, and wasn’t able to get up.
So Mensah and Farai were talking about skipping the nail session and how to get her from the recreational spa building to their ground transport. Mensah wanted to ask the on-call human medics to bring a community assistive device, while Farai wanted to contact the bot-pilot of their transport to navigate to us with Tano’s personal assistive mobility device. But Mensah was worried about how long it would take for the bot-pilot to get here when the community assistive devices were closer.
They are both very stubborn and had similar expressions opposite each other. I felt uneasy over the conflict as I wasn’t sure how they solved conflicts because I hadn’t seen them in conflict with each other before.
Tano just looked annoyed with herself. I have felt like that, a lot, when they have had to find something for me. And, I had an idea. Well, not so much an idea as an existing process. This was my function, kind of.
(Emotion check: Nervous about using a not-emergency to bond with Tano, but it's better than having her kidnapped. I didn't want her to also be an outlier.)
“I can help.” I said. I stepped forward and let my buffer speak as I leaned over, “Please raise an arm and hold on while I assist you.”
She looked confused but, after a glance at Mensah and Farai, she did a double-shoulder-gesture and raised an arm. It was easy to slide mine under hers, so that her arm was around my shoulder, and then my other under her legs so I could lift her up in an adjusted rescue hold. (The comfortable rescue hold, not the one Three used when it rescued me, but one of the ones we determined wasn’t uncomfortable when we practiced on each other, because it involves arms under legs and holding the client against my chest. Instead of holding them around the waist or over my shoulders or under my arm. It’s not a very good rescue hold if I need to run or shoot someone, but it would be good for getting Tano out of the water or relocating a client in a non-urgent situation.)
I stepped up and out of the water area, and then to the changing area. She was clutching at my arm and her eyes had gone all wide. (I used my drones to make sure my arm guns weren’t digging into her organic skin and they didn’t seem to be. I made a note to ask her later if I needed to update my rescue hold code.) I slowly lowered her into the changing room chair, then collected one of the newly cleaned fluffy towels from the recycler so she could dry herself.
(On my other drones, Mensah said, “Oh my,” while Farai stared at my legs and then my arms. Both of them also had wide eyes, which was confusing as they had both seen me carry many people and lift heavy things before. I scanned their vital signs, but aside from increased heart rates and temperatures, they were in acceptable ranges.)
(Note: hack the MedSystem for all of them to have an appointment tomorrow, as they were all potentially experiencing one of those shared biological illnesses humans get sometimes.)
I stood in the changing rooms while they dried each other. This didn’t speed up the process of drying or make it more efficient, but I understood they needed to be useful and provide emotional comfort to a client in distress. Not that Tano was experiencing an emergency, but risk assessment got upset at small problems like this that could become emergencies if not addressed before they became an emergency.
I understood why they would do this for each other, is what I meant. Like how I kept upgrading their feed devices to have better firewalls in moments they weren’t using them. (I updated their feed devices as I collected their clothes from the storage area to bring over to them.)
“SecUnit, you’re next. If you want.” Farai held a towel out to me.
I didn’t understand why she would offer to dry me. I was already dry, because I had heated up my external organic layers and it evaporated. When I explained this to Farai, she looked unhappy and I quickly reassured her that this didn’t hurt me. (I could see through my drones that she continued to check my back for signs of pain as I put my clothes back on.)
When we left, Mensah and Farai went to speak to the recreational spa human assistant. They bartered with some farm produce for little decorative boxes which went into the portable shopping container.
“Are you okay?” I asked Tano. She was holding onto my arm for balance, which was fine because this was a medical incident (but not an emergency kind. Mensah had explained this to me). (Her holding my arm like this was different to her touching my arm in the water, but I think on an emotional data level, I felt similar satisfied emotions. I decided to compare that data later when they were asleep.) (I didn’t even need an emotion check for that.)
“Yes,” Her hands tightened on me. “Standing is easier than getting up or moving. I’m just tired.”
(Mensah and Farai’s drones showed that they were discussion-arguing over the assistive mobility devices again. They were both being very stubborn but my human behaviour module didn’t see any signs of aggression or escalation. Mensah was even smiling. I still didn’t like it. I wondered if Farai was upset that they couldn’t attend the nail painting activity.)
“They’re both so stubborn,” Tano said. “It’s one of the ways they show their care for us.” I moved my drone to see that she was smiling and didn’t seem mad they were arguing about her without involving her. She looked at it. “But then so am I and so are you. I can walk back, I’ll just go slowly.”
Humans don’t have pain sensors they can lower. They have medications they can take, and special blankets and a device that was kind of like a governor module but it was flat and applied externally for pain reducing purposes (I didn’t believe this, but they all said it was okay when they applied it to Tano’s lower back or to Mensah’s healed arm. I had been making an expression, I guess. Because they had all been very loud and insistent that it was okay when I wanted to remove it or tried to remove it. Even Bharadwaj, when I told her about the device, said that on humans it reduced pain. I guess because it wasn’t wired into her neural cords or to her organic brain.)
“I can carry you.” I made sure not to look at her so it didn’t seem like I was forcing her. “It’s my function to help humans in-” I couldn’t say emergency. She wasn’t injured and this wasn’t an emergency. I looked for better words in my archives. “-need of additional support.”
Yes, I had picked a different word for assistance. But I didn’t want to use any of the buffer phrases that had queued up.
“SecUnit, you know you don’t have to perform your function to be involved, right?” I wondered if Tano learned how to be so understanding from Mensah or if Mensah learned it from Tano. Or maybe they both learned it from Farai.
(Emotion check: [redacted])
I experienced more of those weird emotions and I wished I had one of the masks Mensah got for me to hide them.
I let my buffer speak, ““Please raise an arm and hold on while I assist you.”
She looked at me, then raised her arm and I picked her up into the adjusted rescue hold. (It was easier with her wearing clothes, less slippery and oily. She still smelled like the nice scents from the recreational spa.)
I walked past Mensah and Farai, and started towards the transport area. This had the bonus of stopping them from arguing so they didn’t get left behind, and the last tense part of me relaxed. I didn’t even mind that more people were looking at me and Tano instead of at Mensah.
As we walked, Farai held Mensah’s hand and said that Tano must be the favourite to get to be carried by me. She was joking. Mensah said that if Farai was so jealous, she would carry her back to the transport. She was also joking, because Mensah was the shortest of the three and I hadn’t taught her how to do a human emergency hold yet.
I said, “Mensah is my favourite.” I meant it as a joke but it came out more honest than I intended.
Tano made a noise that the mini-Mensah’s made when they saw a new juvenile fauna on the farm. She also leaned back unsafely, and I almost panicked that something was wrong, before I remembered humans don’t have drones and if she wanted to see them next to me, that was the easiest way.
She stuck her tongue out at Farai. I queried the gesture and the closest match I got was some obscene gestures but I don’t think she was doing that.
“Hey, if Mensah’s your favourite, who’s your next favourite?” Farai asked this as she grabbed Tano’s dangling hand and I added another 1.7 seconds of potential delays to my calculations for responding physically in a sudden emergency.
I said, “Risk assessment says I shouldn’t say anything,” and then I sent all three of them the text signifier for ‘joke’.
I could see in each of my views that they all had happy human expressions. It was nice not to fuck up.
***
I sat on the bed in my usual spot while my humans got ready behind me. I had already removed my shirt and, after some hesitation, I also removed my pants - but they took longer to remove their post-bath robes as they kept touching each other. (They were always whispering, or lightly touching, or making noises at each other. It slowed down the process a lot.)
I liked it. It reminded me of the constant humming my drones made, quiet and almost not there, but if I focused I could hear them and know I wasn’t alone.
(Humans are louder than drones. I was using an anthology.)
I could feel them getting into the bed behind me. It was a big bed, to fit three average to large sized humans. It could probably also fit a SecUnit. I did wonder if Mensah had the big bed first, then found marital partners to fit with her on it, or if it was like the car and with each new marital partner she got a bigger bed. Was there a collection of smaller beds in the storage building somewhere?
Their room smelled nice. It took me 0.2 seconds to catalogue the new smell as the scented sticks from the recreational spa building. (As we departed, Farai traded for some of the items we had used. Including the scented sticks and oils.)
I liked the smell. It covered up their unfortunate tendency to smell like feet and socks, and it reminded me of how melty I had felt in the water. I still smelled like it too, so we all smelled the same.
My drones showed me that the three of them had settled into the bed. They weren’t under the sheets, so I could see their organic bodies in the low intensity light they liked to use when having intimate activities. They hadn’t started anything yet, I wasn’t sure if they were going to do anything as they didn’t do it every night, but they were tangled up in each other’s legs and arms. Like one multi-limbed monster from my shows, but less horrifying and more bloppy like earlier.
Smoke from the scented sticks trailed over them, and I realised I could use my drones to change the shapes and direction of the smoke. It was a quiet way to entertain myself while they talked about things. Sometimes I listened, but mostly they were telling the day back to each other and I didn’t need to listen to human recollections. I was there too and my recordings were more accurate.
I could see my back, and the way Mensah glanced at me then looked away. Sometimes Farai or Tano would glance at me too, and make an expression to themselves or at one of the others. This would result in more expressions traded with each other until Mensah coughed (note: doctor’s appointment immediately) or one of them started kissing another.
I turned my head so I could watch. This wasn’t like when I had to monitor indentured humans. These humans knew I was there and they wanted me here.
I flicked through my filters to decide on the best one to see my humans, and the patterns of the smoke drifting over their skin.
Humans are fragile, and soft. But in this bed they looked safe.
(Technically, the whole house was mostly-safe, as I had groups of drones passively patrolling the perimeter in case of an assassin. But as this house was on the planet, the assassin risks were about as low as they could get.)
I gently connected to Mensah’s implant and waited for her to glance at me. When she did, II gave her the smallest feed-tap I could. I turned myself around so that I could lay down on the bed next to her. (Tano made an excited noise, I think it was a ‘yes!’ but Farai made quietening noises at her. Mensah didn’t make any noises except for a sharp inhale, but she did shuffle sideways a little to give me more space. Kind of like the way she gave Tano more space, because Tano was bigger than them. I was also bigger and heavier, so it made sense and I liked that she was treating me like Tano and not her SecUnit.)
(“Are you going to record us?” Tano whispered it to her designated drone.
That was my function. I could always delete them later if I didn’t want them. I said, “Yes.” And Mensah made a surprised noise because I had said that out loud while they were all whispering. I don’t know why they were whispering, it would be easy to isolate what they were saying if I wanted to, but Tano didn’t have an internal implant like she did and their interface devices were stored away.
“Can I see in the morning?” Tano whispered again.
I said ‘yes’ again.)
Mensah’s hands were occupied and they did something to Tano that distracted her and made her squeak and Farai laugh. Humans are always touching each other and I didn’t usually like being touched. I shuffled my knee over until I felt the lowest part of my organics were against the back of Mensah’s leg. She pressed back against me, then slipped her leg over my inorganic ones. I couldn’t feel that, I don’t have sensations their, but I could look and see how my smooth metal contrasted with their skin and body hair. Tangling our legs like this was kind of like holding hands (my mobility to respond to an attack was only limited by 0.8 seconds like this.)
It felt safe, laying like this next to their bloppy-human pile. (Even if they had started kissing and moving against each other more urgently. But they weren’t doing it to me so that was okay. Even when Mensah bumped back against me.)
(Emotion check: This is nice.)
I liked this. I liked date days and date nights and being with my favourite human and her favourite humans who could be my other favourite humans.
I added myself to the roster for the next one.