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The Mensah farm was alight with activity. Their home was nearly bursting with family members at the best of times; now it was positively riotous with the inclusion of Ayda’s former survey team members, Three, and Amena and SecUnit (both on ‘shore leave’ from aboard the Perihelion).
She had escaped the crush of people inside the house to the relative peace outside. The kids had hauled an agreeable Three and a reluctant SecUnit into the wide yard for some type of ball game. Gurathin and Overse had already found their way out to the shaded porch. Overse waved a welcoming hand at the other open chair and Ayda fell into it gratefully. Entertaining was fun but it was so much work. Gurathin raised his glass at her in greeting.
“What are they playing?” she asked.
“I believe it was originally digitball, but Ilara keeps trying to add inscrutable rules,” Gurathin said.
“And Adao mostly wants SecUnit to do cool trick shots,” Overse added.
She could just hear Three’s soft voice patiently explaining the rules of digitball to the children. SecUnit stood with its face pointed towards the open field that extended behind the yard. She assumed it was watching a show while the kids quibbled over the rules. She was thrilled it was engaging at all, rather than finding a place to hide until the party ended.
(It would never admit to having a soft spot for the kids, but she knew. The shared media downloads, the quietly overprotective hovering. She had a treasured photo–slightly blurry with how fast she’d snapped it in the feed–of it patiently walking alongside her youngest, hand-in-hand. Esha was at the tail-end of toddlerhood and too young to understand that any adult may not want to hold hands while walking. And she knew, she knew, that those little fingers were sticky and that SecUnit would have hated that, but it allowed Esha to tow it along anyway).
The game eventually resumed with minimal bickering, and Ayda watched them chase the neon orange digitball back and forth across the yard. Overse occasionally hooted encouragement. Ayda reclined in her chair and shucked off her shoes with a sigh of relief. The sun was lowering in the sky but the heat of the day had yet to diminish with it.
The kids seemed not to notice the heat, despite the sweat Ayda could see shining on their faces. SecUnit and Three appeared unaffected, of course. Adao stole the digitball from between Madhu’s feet and darted away. Madhu bent to place hands on their knees, breathing hard.
Adao realized he wasn’t being followed and turned around. “Come…on,” he called between gulps of air.
“You all need a rest period,” Three said. Ilara started to protest, curls sticking damply to her forehead.
At that moment Tano called out “Dessert!” from inside, and the children miraculously regained enough stamina to race one another to the door.
Incoming, Ayda sent over the feed.
Tano responded with a sigil of a shocked face.
There was the mighty racket of children stampeding into their home. Then: *fainting face* *gritted teeth* Oh my. Take them back.
Ayda laughed to herself. No returns.
SecUnit followed the kids’ mad dash at a more leisurely pace, returning to where Ayda, Overse, and Gurathin were seated on the deck. Behind it, Three picked up the ball from where it lay abandoned in the grass and seemed to study it. It bounced the ball twice.
Then lobbed it at the back of SecUnit’s head.
SecUnit spun and caught it, of course. Its back was to Ayda now, shoulders tight, and she could imagine the expression on its face. It flung the ball back at Three and moved like it was going to turn back around and continue walking. But Three threw it back again, almost faster than Ayda’s eyes could track.
SecUnit threw it back. Three did it again. If they threw that ball any faster it was going to catch fire. She’d seen transports reenter the atmosphere at lower speeds.
“No,” SecUnit snapped as it heaved the ball at Three, but Three passed it back again. SecUnit, gripping the ball in both hands, turned and began walking back toward the house.
She and Overse exchanged amused looks over their wine glasses. She wasn’t sure if SecUnit and Three were also communicating over the feed but regardless the message was clear: Since you can’t stop bothering me with the ball, I’m confiscating it.
Three strode rapidly after SecUnit until they were walking abreast. It reached out an arm to snag the ball. SecUnit pivoted away and aimed a blistering glare at it. Ayda was vividly reminded of when her parents had introduced the family’s grizzled old cat to a new kitten. Oh, how he had growled every time she batted at his tail.
Three made another swipe and SecUnit dodged away. It lunged for the other side but SecUnit passed the ball behind its own back. SecUnit swept at Three’s legs with its foot, which Three deftly jumped over. They stared at each other for a moment, and then it was as though a switch flipped because it was on.
The series of motions were a bit too fast for her eyes to follow, but suddenly Three had the ball in hand. SecUnit lunged and Three took off running. SecUnit raced after it, all pretense abandoned.
It was one thing to know logically that the SecUnits were gentling their behavior around humans, it was always another thing entirely to see it in action. Watching the high-speed, brutal game of keep-away now playing out in front of her, Ayda was reminded just how delicate they were when they played with the children. The digitball game must have seemed excruciatingly slow to them. A soft spot for the kids, indeed.
Three elbowed SecUnit with enough force that it doubled over. SecUnit grabbed the offending arm and used it to flip Three onto the ground. It hit with a small poof of dust. It lost hold of the ball, which went rolling. SecUnit scooped up the ball, but Three was already back on its feet. The chase resumed.
Ayda sent a message at their rapidly retreating figures. Please don’t injure each other. She received two simultaneous pings of acknowledgement back. She sighed and took another sip of her wine.
“I hope they’re careful,” she commented to Gurathin and Overse. “I don’t want to spend tonight taking either of them to a MedSystem.” She assumed there were drones around that would also relay this reminder.
“I felt that elbow in my diaphragm,” said Overse. Her face scrunched sympathetically over the rim of her glass.
“You know,” Gurathin said, “I think we’re witnessing something very noteworthy.”
“The most violent game ever played on Preservation?” Overse said. In the distance, Ayda saw SecUnit tackle Three around the waist and they both went down amid another small cloud of dust.
“The only two free SecUnits we know about, engaging in spontaneous social play,” Gurathin said. “Research papers have been written on less.”
“Thinking of wading back into academic publishing, Doctor?” Ayda teased, even as the gears in her mind creaked to life.
He made an exaggerated face of disgust. “Gods, no. But imagine the implications for the case on Constructs as autonomous beings.”
They were all quiet for a moment as they thought. He was right, of course. Many species engaged in play. For humans, among others, it was understood to be an essential part of development. SecUnits weren’t programmed to play. By SecUnit’s own report, they were frequently instructed to stop humans from playing as well. So this…it was noteworthy.
It was also, she noted–as she watched Three jump on SecUnit’s back and SecUnit execute a perfect somersault to knock it off–infinitely more physical contact than SecUnit normally allowed outside of life-or-death scenarios. Roughhousing was part of how humans and other social species learned physical limits, safety, emotional and social intelligence. It was assumed that SecUnits didn’t have critical developmental periods, but she did wonder about the differences between SecUnit and Three. SecUnit– touch-averse, avoidant, who sought safety in not being perceived– and who had mostly worked in isolation among strangers. And Three– sociable, curious, who sought safety in adherence to decorum– and who had mostly worked within a familiar, amiable group of other Units.
Who could safely engage in rough-and-tumble play with a SecUnit other than another Construct? Certainly half the stunts she was currently watching would land her in a MedSystem, piecing bone fragments back together.
“Didn’t mean to kill the mood,” Gurathin said drily, and Ayda was pulled from her thoughts. It had been quiet for an awkwardly long time. She glanced at her near-empty glass and wondered if she was actually a little more tipsy than she thought.
“No, sorry. You’re right. I was just thinking it over.”
“It is easy to forget,” Overse mused. “How unique this situation is. I’m just used to having them around, you know?”
Ayda and Gurathin both nodded. “You’re right about the implications,” she told Gurathin. “Not that our own personal reports would constitute much evidence.”
He tapped one of his augments. “I saved some video, but I’ll delete it if either of them want me to.”
“Do you think–”
“Cheating!” Three exclaimed, its voice carrying across the field. There was a pause as the two opponents sized each other up.
“There’s rules?” Overse commented to Ayda and Gurathin.
Apparently there were, and they were being respected. SecUnit tossed the ball underhand in Three’s direction, and then they were both blurs of movement again.
“Were you saying something?” Gurathin asked.
Ayda shook her head. “Oh…I forget.” The fading day was beautiful and warm, and she felt content never to leave this chair.
“Strong, huh? Arada went inside for another glass and never came back out,” Overse joked. Ayda laughed, and even Gurathin cracked a smile.
“Just wait until my hellion children get their sugar-rush from dessert. If that doesn’t drive her out of the house, nothing will.”
Gurathin said “They’ve stopped again.”
"What are they looking at?” Overse asked. SecUnit and Three were facing each other, both looking down at something.
Ayda received an invite in the feed for a chat between herself and the two SecUnits. She accepted. SecUnit sent an image that seemed to be a still taken from its eyes: a first-person view of something neon orange and melty-looking held in one of its hands. Below the image, one word of text: Oops.
She didn’t try to contain the laughter that burst out of her. At their bemused expressions, she dropped the image to the other two. Gurathin angled his snorts into his cup. “Could have seen that coming,” Overse giggled.
We apologize, Dr. Mensah, Three sent. We will acquire a new ball to replace this one.
Her continued chuckles made subvocalizing difficult. ‘Oops!’ Just oops! Yes, she was definitely buzzed. Thank you, but don’t worry about that. I believe the kids have another one in the shed.
Three: The green one?
Ayda Mensah: Yes.
There was a short pause, but one that was still longer than normal for two SecUnits.
Three: I’m sorry, but that one is also broken.
Ayda Mensah: Oh?
Murderbot: Yep.
Ayda Mensah: When did that happen?
Three: 5.4 Preservation Standard Cycles ago.
Ayda Mensah: I see.
Ayda Mensah: Was it Adao or Ilara?
*error.script*Three: ~message deleted~
Murderbot: We’re not required to answer any questions.
Three: Yes. This is proprietary information.
Ayda Mensah: Well then. I suppose we’ll leave the green one to the culprit. But I’m sure the children would appreciate if you replaced this one.
She received two more acknowledgement pings, and she saw them begin walking back toward the house. They kept pace with one another, SecUnit dangling the deflated ball from one hand.
Ayda knew SecUnit, Perihelion, and its human crew engaged in direct anti-corporate action, but didn’t know the details. She wondered if they ever freed other Constructs on these missions. Now that Bharadwaj’s documentary was out, she wondered if more of them might make their way to Preservation. And mostly, she wondered what a group of free SecUnits might really look like. A group, a community… a city? A planet? What might they do that her human mind, with all its foibles and preconceived notions, could never predict?
The clatter of approaching footsteps shook her again from her maudlin thoughts. The future of Construct rights was still on the horizon. It would hold until tomorrow.
The children burst back out through the door as the (dusty, disheveled) SecUnits drew up to the porch. “What happened?” Madhu cried as they saw the orange blob that had until recently been a digitball.
“I apologize,” Three said. “We broke it.”
The kids let up a groan. “Aw man!” Adao cried. “Now we don’t have any since Ilara pop–”
Ilara jabbed him with an elbow and he clammed up, glancing over at Ayda with wide eyes.
Aha. Busted.