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Preservation’s first sun had just dipped below the horizon as the ground vehicle turned onto the farm’s long gravel driveway. Ayda Mensah always felt comforted by the predictable bump and rattle of the tires, as they switched from the smooth paving of the main road to the rough pockmarked path that brought her home—though they really did need to fill in some of those potholes before the harvest was through. She loved the way that first sunset tinted the sky purple-pink, which made the muted glow of the smaller second sun that much richer, like gold jewellery on crushed velvet.
Ayda stole a glance at SecUnit out of the corner of her eye. It had just sent a small fleet of drones out the window, little black dots against the magenta sky.
“Thank you again for coming down to the planet SecUnit,” she said earnestly. “I know Volescu really appreciated your help.”
SecUnit had made a special trip down to set up the security system for Dr. Volescu’s off-grid cabin. He had asked SecUnit if it would like to visit his new home sometime, mostly out of politeness, and was as surprised as everyone else when it took him up on the offer. In hindsight, they all should have seen this coming when Volescu shared a photo in the PresAux team feed of a large doe and her two fawns drinking from the stream that wound past his vegetable garden.
SecUnit lifted one shoulder in the smallest approximation of a shrug. “He didn’t have to pay me,” it said.
“I know, but I think he assumes that, because you’re not from Preservation, you wouldn’t want a—” Ayda stopped short in the middle of her sentence as SecUnit suddenly opened the door and leapt from the ground vehicle in a maneuver that must have taken no more than half a second. It had already sprinted the full length of the driveway before she could register what was happening.
Ayda’s heart wrapped in a vice grip as a hundred different scenarios flashed through her mind. Had corporate operatives targeted her family in their own home? Had they taken her partners, her family, her children—again?
“Mara needs help. She’s okay. I’m handling it,” SecUnit said in her feed. Ayda felt her whole body unclench.
By now, the ground vehicle had reached the parking area. Ayda was out of the vehicle and running in the direction SecUnit had gone before it had even come to a stop.
“Secyouunit, help me! Help me!” she heard the shrill wails of her youngest on the cool evening breeze. Mara’s voice quivered, but Ayda instantly recognized that pitch and tone as her daughter suppressing laughter, rather than tears. Ayda made it around the back of the house just in time to see SecUnit pick Mara up off the branch of the large umberfruit tree. Mara squirmed and giggled as SecUnit jumped to the ground and set her on her feet.
“Mimi, remember what First Mom said this morning—no calling SecUnit for help if you don’t really need it,” she said to her youngest.
Mara rocked on her heels, looking between her ans SecUnit. “I wanted to see how high it could jump,” she said, a little sheepishly.
Ayda turned to SecUnit, who was picking leaves out of its hair. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Mara and the other children climb this tree all the time. It’s perfectly safe—and the children shouldn’t be treating you like a toy.”
SecUnit looked at Ayda and her daughter as if they had each grown an extra head.
“Yeah, we can climb the tree after Uncle Thiago tests the branches after first blossom and there’s a grownup watching,” Mara parroted the rule they gave the children every season.
“Speaking of grownups, where’s Nanna?” Ayda asked. As if on cue, Naja stepped out onto the back porch, Farai just behind her with a tray of steaming mugs, which she set on a low table. They were mid argument
“Watching Mara is just as much about keeping her out of trouble as it is about safety, Nanna,” Farai was saying.
“I was watching her from the kitchen window. I didn’t even know she had been calling for SecUnit until it dashed up the tree like some sort of jungle cat,” Naja said.
“That’s because you aren’t wearing your hearing aids—again!” Farai huffed, rubbing at the furrow between her brows.
“and besides,” Naja continued, looking at SecUnit with her eyebrows raised. “Things are so boring around here compared to what SecUnit's used to that it probably could use the excitement.”
SecUnit grimaced.
“Can you rescue me from the tree again?” Mara asked, looking up at SecUnit and continuing to rock from one foot to the other.
“Mimi—” Ayda started.
“—It’s fine,” SecUnit cut in, a little louder than usual. “—I mean, sure,” it added quietly, looking down at Mara.
Mara squealed with delight and scrambled up the tree trunk and settled herself in the crook of a sturdy branch. She looked down and yelled, “Ok this time I’m gonna be Princess Valeria and you’re gonna be Princess Athenella and you’re coming to save me from the Fortress of Despair!”
Ayda saw the corner of SecUnit’s mouth twitch up for barely a moment. Then it said, in a booming voice that was worlds away from the hard-edged buffer phrases it shouted to direct people in a crisis, “For the Honour of Joyland!” and leapt up the tree.
“SecUnit watches Princess Power Alliance…?” Farai muttered absently, with a slight shake of her head, “I never would have thought.”
“You’re—SecUnit is full of surprises,” Naja said with a wry look at Ayda, as she lowered herself into a chair.
Ayda just smiled back, taking a seat on the bench across from Naja. Farai sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around Ayda’s shoulders. She took one of the warm mugs of tea in her hands and watched her youngest daughter, in the amber light of first sunset, racing to climb the tree again--not even five seconds after SecUnit had put her down.
“I don’t know if we should be reinforcing this behaviour. I don’t want the children to pretend to need help so often that you won’t know to respond when they actually need it,” Ayda sent to SecUnit on their private feed channel.
“I’ll always respond,” SecUnit sent back, as it gathered her youngest child in its arms and said, “Okay, hold on tight.”