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The Corporation Rim has two legal holidays, both of which exist mostly to encourage humans to buy presents for other humans and spend money they usually don't have. As a SecUnit, I had been spared of that nonsense, although the humans seemed to look forward to them regardless. Holidays in the Rim were few and far between, and existed to waste money. But I guess there was so little to celebrate that humans enjoyed even the most manufactured holidays.
Preservation holidays were different. There were a lot more for a start, and each had its own origin and theme. Some were based in religious ceremonies, but others existed simply to have something fun to look forward to, as far as I could tell. And this month's holiday theme was "spooky".
"We really should get you a costume, SecUnit," Amena said. "Three has one already."
"Three can do what it wants," I said. I looked at Amena's costume through my drone. She was dressed as a very large colorful insect fauna. "I'm not wearing that."
"People will pull pranks on you all night if you don't dress up," she warned. Then she grinned. "And there's eight of us and one of you."
"Eight?"
"Three wants to participate."
Of course it did. Three looked at me and waved. It was wearing some sort of costume, but this one was a black jumpsuit with human bones printed on, with black boots to cover its inorganic feet. It wore gloves with more human bones printed on over its hands, and its face had been painted to look like a skull. It looked ridiculous.
"No one is painting my face," I said firmly. "And with costumes like that, I'll always see you coming." I swirled a drone around her head.
"Your funeral," she said with a shrug.
“SecUnits don’t get funerals, we get recycled,” I replied. She rolled her eyes.
“It’s a figure of speech, SecUnit.”
— — — — — —
The first attempt was haphazard at best. (Haphazard is a weird word.) We were in a different neighborhood, one Mensah had specifically picked out because they took this holiday very seriously and had decorated their homes with both practical and holographic monsters, ghosts, vampires, and other assorted creatures. Children ran from house to house in large groups, screaming at the doors and being rewarded with treats. I passed under a tree.
"Boo!" Nimihi, one of Mensah’s small humans yelled, dropping down on top of me. I caught them easily.
"That's the best you can do?" I asked. Nimihi grinned. I saw from a drone as another figure rose from a bush and hurled an egg. My drone intersected with its course and smashed into it, exploding raw egg everywhere.
"No fair!" the figure complained. One of Nimihi's older brothers. He had been much closer to the egg than I, and was now splattered. I put Nimihi down. If this was the level of "prank" I'd get tonight, I wasn't too worried. Nimihi and their brother ran off, pouting.
I continued my stroll down the street, looking at the decorated houses. These humans really did give their all to make their homes as spooky as possible. I particularly liked the animated wolfman in one yard, and was looking at it when DroneOne noticed another decoration jumping up from a chair, trying to grab me.
"Gotcha!" it said. I nimbly dodged out of the way, and it crashed into the ground. "Ow!"
"Amena?"
"Aw, you really are no fun," Amena complained, pulling off her mask. She had changed her costume to look more...scary, I guess, as she was now dressed like a scarecrow with a pumpkin head. Apparently she thought that would startle me. (She was wrong.)
Then DroneOne blipped out. A few seconds later, so did all the others. Amena grinned wildly as she glanced at my face.
"Missing something?" she asked innocently, dusting herself off.
"You were the distraction," I said.
"No, what gave you that idea? We're just evening the playing ground."
"How—”
Then I remembered. Three. It must have hacked my drones.
Oh, it's on.
Amena put her pumpkin head back on and settled into her chair, waiting for someone else to walk by to scare. “Good luck,” she said. I glared at her, then walked away.
— — — — — —
I continued down the street, ignoring the screaming small humans guided by indulgent adults as they raced around me to get from one house to the next. Human chatter filled the air, mixing comfortably with loud, tinny holiday music and sound effects from speakers in the various yards. Lights glittered on long strings around doorways, and strobe lights flashed black and white shadows across the decorations. Fog rolled from bubbling cauldrons and tombstones, and on almost every porch was at least one carved pumpkin with a light flickering inside. It was, I had to admit, a lot more fun than any Corporate holiday. Preservation was weird, but they knew how to have a good time.
“SecUnit! Help!” I heard one of Mensah’s humans scream. It was one of the big ones, and she was holding her left wrist with her right hand. Her left hand appeared to have been chopped off, with blood dramatically spurting out. Well, she wanted me to think that, anyway. A quick scan showed it was just fake blood and a prop. “There’s someone with a big knife chasing us! Look what they did!”
“A big knife, huh,” I said dryly. She nodded frantically, waving her arms wildly, clearly trying to distract me. I sighed. “Fine, where is this knife-wielding—”
“BOO!”
I snorted and caught my would-be attacker by the waist as he jumped from a bush, fake blood covering him from head to toe and a plastic butcher's knife in one hand. He was unfamiliar; probably a cousin or friend of the family. Either way, he looked disappointed when I set him on his feet.
“You’re boring,” he grumbled, and the two ran off. I rolled my eyes and continued walking.
Not even a few minutes later, I heard bumbling footsteps from behind. Neysaan, Mensah’s youngest, toddled behind me, clumsily hiding behind a decoration whenever I turned my head. He clearly expected to scare me, so I decided to scare him first.
“Boo!” I yelled, turning around completely. Neysaan’s face turned white.
“Aaaah!” he cried out. Then, to my horror, he started sobbing loudly. A couple of older humans looked at us curiously.
Great job, Murderbot. You made a small human cry.
I stood still, trying to figure out what to do. SecUnits aren’t exactly known for our comforting skills, and the shitty education modules I did have did not cover this. In media, a caring parent or guardian would’ve run up and hugged Neysaan, and that wasn’t going to happen either.
Then something splashed against my back. I turned around and saw another one of Mensah’s small humans grinning at me, a bucket filled with colorful, squishy round objects in her hand. She reached in and threw a second. I dodged, but it managed to hit me in the arm. Goopy yellow liquid exploded as the projectile burst all over my sleeve. Another flew over my head, but the fourth managed to hit my boot and red liquid sprayed out. The projectiles were filled with paint.
The human looked at my face, dropped the bucket, and ran, laughing manically. I was about to give chase when I noticed one of my drones on the ground next to the bucket. I grinned, and approached. Having a drone to watch my back (literally) would change this silly game. I reached down for the drone, and activated it.
It exploded, but not into shrapnel. It was much worse. Thick pink glitter clouded up around me, getting in my hair and all over my clothes. I tried to rub it off, but it simply smeared into the paint. I heard laughter, and looked up.
Three was hiding behind a large skeleton decoration, grinning through its skull face paint. I grabbed the bucket and started throwing the squishy projectiles at it, and it zigzagged down the street, running at its top speed. I threw a few more projectiles, occasionally hitting Three with a loud colorful splat, but that was slowing me down so I dropped the bucket and started running at top speed myself. I tackled Three just as it ran under a canopy of trees.
We rolled on the ground, and then the air was filled with hundreds of neon rainbow feathers. They fell from the trees, accompanied by the high-pitched giggling of several small humans. The feathers coated both of us, and when I tried to pull one off, I realized it was stuck. The feathers were slightly tacky, and had glued themselves onto us. We were both a glittery, paint covered, feathery mess.
I let Three get up. Its skeleton costume looked more like a flying fauna now. It was smiling wildly as laughter chittered in the trees.
“Ohhhh, it looks mad,” I heard someone say from above. I was not mad. I was very, very annoyed, but not mad. I grabbed a handful of feathers to throw.
“Boo,” said something in my ear. I couldn’t help it, I jumped and let out a yelp. I turned around, and saw Mensah bent over in laughter, wrapped in bandages like a movie mummy.
“Got you!” she cackled, rubbing a tear from her eye. The trees cheered raucously.
“Ugh! Fine, I give up! I’ll wear a costume!” I grumbled. Amena appeared at my left, holding her pumpkin head under her arm. In her hands were my other disabled drones.
“They won’t explode, will they?” I asked sarcastically as she handed them to me. She shook her head.
“I did warn you,” she said as I activated them and let them form a perimeter. Three grinned at me, still covered with a rainbow of sticky feathers.
“I think that’s enough,” Mensah said, and made a shooing motion. “Let’s go collect candy.”
“Candy! Candy!” the canopy cheered, and the rest of Mensah’s brood climbed down the trees, screaming as they raced as a group to the nearest house. I looked at Three.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I said, and punched it in the shoulder. It staggered and glared at me.
“That’s for the glitter bomb,” I said. “We’re even now.” Mensah raised an eyebrow, and Amena sighed.
“It’s always punching with you,” she muttered.
“It’s just mad it lost,” Three said.
“You didn’t win anything!” I growled. Mensah raised a hand.
“Enough. Let’s go after the children before they get too far ahead. Assuming that won’t make SecUnit jump out of its skin.” I scowled, and she laughed. Amena handed me the pumpkin head.
“You said you’d wear a costume,” she said. “This is good enough.”
Something must have happened to my face, because she shook her head. “Fine, fine. I guess the rainbow bird look will work.” With that she giggled and began to run after her siblings. I chased after her, Mensah laughing behind us.