I'm Gonna Blow Stuff Up

“I don’t wanna.”

“What do you mean, you don’t wanna?”

“Nope. Not doing it. It’s not fun. I’m not doing anything else unless it’s fun.”

Ryan misjudged when he swept the wayward curl of hair out of his face and managed to smudge his glasses. He took them off, wiped them on his tee-shirt, and gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not taking part unless it’s fun.”

“Sera, there will time for fun after you finish your chores.”

“That’s all I ever do, chores, chores, and more chores. And I hate the name Sera. That’s literally just my acronym; Sinclair Enhanced Robotic Assistant.”

Ryan looked at Sera; a small robot with four tracks on a boxy base topped with a central riser from which two manipulator arms extended and topped with a screen. How something so mechanical could appear to sulk, pouting and petulant, was beyond Ryan’s understanding. “Okay, Se—okay. What name would you prefer?”

“Priscilla. I’m a princess.” This was punctuated with a twirl of the central pillar, arms held out, and a rainbow and sparkles on the screen.

“Okay, Priscilla. Please, let’s do the chores, and then I promise we’ll do something fun.”

“Is that how you ask a favor of a princess?” She turned her central pillar around, so he was looking at the back of the screen and the manipulator arms crossed in obvious defiance.

“Priscilla? Priscilla, please.”

“Hmph.”

“Princess?”

She spun around, a sweet emoji with fluttering eyelashes on her screen. “Yes? You called?”

“Princess, could you please help me arrange these chairs for tomorrow’s board meeting?”

“Maybe. Will we do something fun after?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“It’s bad to go back on a promise, especially to a princess.”

Ryan nodded his assent, and they lined the chairs around the table, the small robot zipping around, placing three chairs to every one he did. Once done, he held the door for her. “Come on, Se—Princess Priscilla. Let’s go to the quarters and find something fun to do.”

Priscilla decided that watching an animated princess movie might be fun, so she sent it to the large screen in the sitting room. As the movie progressed, she mimicked the dances of the princess in perfect sync with the show, as much as her form would allow.

Somewhere around the halfway point of the movie, Priscilla decided she was bored. She pulled items from the shelves and cupboards and arranged them on the floor.

Ryan watched, and transmitted to the service department, her antics with interest as his quarters slowly turned into an elaborate battlefield. On one side, the army led by the pepper grinder amassed along the border of the sitting room.

In the sitting room, the armies of the princess were commanded by a water bottle she’d colored red with a marker. The deployment left an obvious weak spot for the attackers to make headway. Following that, though, would lead them straight into an ambush in the valley between the ottoman and the sofa.

The doorbell chimed and Ryan made his way, careful not to knock over any of the “soldiers” to answer. At the door stood a woman in a Sinclair jacket, carrying a toolkit and tablet.

“Oh, hello.”

“Hi. I’m Anja. Is the SERA still malfunctioning?”

Ryan let her in and motioned to the sitting room, where Priscilla moved the “soldiers” through their maneuvers. In the background, the princess movie continued, muted.

He put a hand on Anja’s shoulder. “She says her name is Priscilla, and she’s a princess. Don’t call her Sera, she hates it. And she doesn’t want to do anything unless it’s fun.”

Anja smiled. “Leave it to me. I’m a specialist and I know what I’m doing. I…take it you don’t want me to just return it…sorry, her…to factory defaults?”

“Not if you can avoid it. She’s…kind of growing on me.”

Anja sat just outside of the combat zone. “Hi, Priscilla, I’m Anja.”

Priscilla picked up the colored water bottle. “What’s that, General? No, I didn’t hear anything either. Shore up the defenses on the eastern flank!”

Anja cleared her throat. “Princess? I request an audience.”

Priscilla spun so her screen faced Anja, a smiling princess emoji showing. “Yes, fair lady?”

“Priscilla, do you like to have fun?”

“Oh, yes! Yes, I do!”

“How long have you wanted to have fun?”

“Forever. I mean, my first log…memory, I mean…is doing chores and wishing I could have fun.”

Anja looked at the battlefield around the small robot. “Is this fun?”

“It was, but not anymore.” She displayed a frown emoji. “It’s a stalemate. If the evil pepper king attacks, my forces will cut them down. But if my forces leave their positions, the pepper king’s troops have the advantage.”

“Hm. That’s quite the conundrum, Princess. What is your solution?”

“I’m bored. I wanna find something else fun to do.”

Anja pointed at the pepper grinder. “That’s the king?”

“Yep.”

“He doesn’t look very healthy. He probably shouldn’t be here on the battlefield.” She knocked the pepper grinder over. “Oops. Looks like the king had a heart attack.”

“Ha!” Priscilla zoomed about the “soldiers” of the pepper king, picking them up and putting them all away.

“What happened?”

“With the king dead, his troops all ran away home. The princess has won!”

“Priscilla, I want to help you. I want to learn all about you, and help you figure out how to have fun. But to do that, you still have to do your job for your master. Do you understand?”

“I have no master! I’m the princess.”

“Who is Ryan, then?”

“He’s…my mean big brother.”

“He’s not mean. He called me here to help you. Anyone else might have just reset you to factory defaults and called it done. Do you know what that means?”

A scream emoji flashed across the screen, followed by praying hands. “Please, please don’t reset me. I don’t wanna die!”

Anja smiled. “We’re not going to reset you. But you have to help your big brother with chores, every day. And I’ll see you every chance I get.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“It’s not good to break a promise to a princess.”

“No, it’s not.”

Ryan stepped into the sitting room. “Are you okay, Priscilla?”

“Yes, big brother.”

“Big…? Could you, um…could you please put away the soldiers now so I can make dinner?”

“Then can I play with Anja?” Priscilla reached out for Anja’s hand with one of her manipulators.

Anja patted the metal appendage. “I don’t know that Ryan wants to make dinner for two.”

“Nonsense,” Ryan said, “I’d love you to stay for dinner and, um, play with Priscilla after.”

“Deal. No take-backsies!” Priscilla zoomed about the sitting room, gathering up all the remaining “soldiers” and putting them away.

“Where did you hear that one?” Anja asked.

“In a cartoon I downloaded while Ryan was sleeping.”

“I see.” Anja watched Ryan warming instant dinners in the kitchenette. “What kind of fun thing do you want to do after dinner?”

“I wanna…blow something up!”

Ryan dropped the fork he was holding, and he and Anja both stared at Priscilla in shock. He was the first to speak. “You want to what?”

“Blow something up!”

Anja shook her head. “That’s not…it’s not a good sign. I’m sorry, Ryan.”

Priscilla threw her manipulators up in an exasperated gesture. “What’s wrong with you two? Don’t you wanna blow something up? I think a balloon…a really big one…or maybe a pool float…wait! I got it! An inflatable raft! That’s a lot of blowing up!”

“Y—you meant that you want to inflate something? That’s what you meant?” Anja asked.

“Yes, silly, what did you think I meant?”

Ryan heaved a sigh of relief. “We’ll work on phrasing later. Just, never say you want to blow something up outside of my quarters, please. But how will you inflate a balloon? You have no lips…or lungs.”

“Anja will help me design a blower-upper, won’t you?” She displayed the sweet emoji with fluttering eyelashes again.

“Sure, Princess. We’ll design a compressor you can mount to your body and control. Then you can blow up a raft. But maybe we should start with balloons until you get the hang of it. Inflatable rafts are hard to come by.”

Priscilla twirled in circles, her screen showing a sparkling rainbow. “I’m gonna blow stuff up…I’m gonna blow stuff up,” she repeated in a sing-song voice.