Emmy at the Beach

	The day itself was downright dreamy, clouded gently but with bright blue breaks in the sky to reveal a gentle Sun, puffy cumulus obscuring it ever so often. Emmy had been taken aback at her owner’s suggestion of a daytrip, the very idea of a nandroid being taken out for a day of “relaxation” when, indeed, there was much cleaning to be done had surprised her wholeheartedly. It was even more surprising, then, when he proffered to her a yellow sundress, light and gossamer yet still strong in its sunny hues and fabric. It was strange to her that, after only being with him a few weeks, that she’d be offered the preposterous honor of her own individual clothing, even if the palette choice clashed with her preferred blues and whites.
	Noon was approaching and the morning clouds had begun to break further, only a desolate few wispy cirrus and lone cumulus occupying the azure sky, standing tall and mighty over the driveway where, almost nervous, stood the gentleman who had invited her so confidently to the outing. He leaned and sat standing on the black car door behind him, waiting for the dallying maid droid to emerge from the townhome’s narrow door. He swung the keyring about his fingers as he whistled to himself, the creaking of the wooden door betraying the lithe figure of Emmy herself, the white rounded bonnet replaced with the ample sunhat now topping her head and the gentle breeze fluttering the donned sundress. The man smiled and waved her over before graciously opening the passenger side door to her, a gesture she accepted smiling before seating her petite frame in the comparatively large leather seat. She nestled in, buckled up and turned towards the man mirroring her actions at her left. He gripped the wheel, and looked over with a sheepish smile, keys in hand.
	“Ready to go, Emmy,” he asked.
	“Yes, sir!” She was positively beaming, the anxiety of going on an outing long disappeared, now replaced with a nervous joy, tentatively probing its way to the surface in the form of a gentle rosy glow illuminating her face. As the man started the car the enthusiastic rumble of the engine only buoyed Emmy further, a calmness rare to nandroids finding itself in her contented smile as the man reversed out of the driveway and began the long cruise to the beach.
	The dense semistory suburb soon devolved into rolling green hills and fields as the pair blazed across the sun-scorched roads, the AC picking up stronger and more distinct tones of sea air and, to the truly discerning nose, hints of sunscreen and wood smoke. Emmy felt the mechanical gorge within her rise again, however, as the road itself narrowed and twisted towards the ever expanding azure on the horizon. The impending reality of hours, an entire outing, alone with her owner was beginning to dawn once more on her and her sheepishness returned in full flame on her face.
	“Why is he doing this, and for me,” she would silently question. “What does he have to gain, truly?” Her head swirled with all manner of suspicious and borderline conspiratorial thoughts surrounding the intentions of her unassuming owner, the only pause coming in the jerking stop of the car in front of a log, the sandy parking lot lined and cordoned by pieces of driftwood tastefully arranged for just the purpose. As the hard clunk of the parking brake rang in Emmy’s ears the man proffered a prodding hand, a gentle shake of the shoulder to rouse the dazed ladybot still consumed in her own thoughts.
	“Emmy, you with me? We’re here! Emmy?”
	With a start Emmy came to, the myriad passing queries dissolving as she turned her head to the man, her synthetic hair swishing beneath her sunhat.
	“Ready to go,” he asked, a gentle, sanguine smile dominating his face, the noontime Sun crowning his head and shimmering through his roguishly tousled hair. Emmy stared past the beaming face to the sliver of visible beach beyond, the just-brown sand and deep blue water like some dessert arrangement of still-settling gelatin against a judicious mound of brown sugar. She undid her seatbelt and sprang up, her own devious machinations returning to what she would be doing at this brown sugar beach. As soon as she exited the car the man was already digging in the trunk, pulling out an aptly large beach umbrella and other amenities, turning to Emmy as she rounded the car to peer over his shoulder.
	“Here you go, Emmy,” he said, handing her a large woven basket, a gingham cloth covering its top with beach towels looped neatly underneath the handles. Emmy slipped her arm underneath the arched pieces of wood and held the basket neatly to her side, waiting for any further instruction.
	“Alright then, to the beach we go,” the man exclaimed, shutting the trunk door with a heavy chunk. The pair strolled off as the car locked itself, the hushed beeping pushing the two carefree to the waterfront. As they meandered through the thin tidal grass and sandy soil towards the beach proper, Emmy couldn’t help but take in the maritime atmosphere, the squawking of seagulls above and gentle roar of the waves catching in her mind an image of naval bliss, the sea alone with her and her company. She couldn’t smell her surroundings, but she smiled assured that the briny foam of the ocean occupied her owner’s mind as it boiled at the shoreline like an impatient broth. The parallel stretch of beach extended from side to side, at each side lifting upwards to blackened, sea-carved cliffs where greener grass flourished and, at one end, accommodated a candy striped lighthouse overlooking the waters beyond. The scene felt like one befitting some great nautical novel, appropriate to a grizzled captain and his clipper ship, a diorama perfect for a corked bottle.
	“Where do you want to set up Emmy?” Once again the man pulled Emmy from her silent observation with a choice, always thrusting her into decisions, an unfamiliar freedom which only drew more questions.
	“Well, sir, I think…” she paused. “There seems ideal.” She pointed only a few yards off to her and the man’s left, a perfect middle spot between the ocean and the sandy bluffs, a careful defilade towards the water. The spot, to her, would perfectly accommodate the pair and its careful slope would be ideal for reclining in the sunshine; with the wise addition of some artificial shade it would be a perfect spot to crack open a book and spend some time reading (another luxury afforded her).
	“It looks lovely, Emmy. Good eye!” The encouragement drew a flash of warmth to her cheeks before she struck out ahead of the man, moving quickly to claim the spot and lay down the towels before anyone else could seize it. As she flattened out the pair of striped garments the man quickly followed over to her, umbrella leaning rifle-like on his shoulder, a small cloth tote bag hanging from one shoulder. He set the bag down and stretched loudly, working out unsettled crinks and sticks from the stiff car ride before planting the umbrella squarely in between the towels with the basket placed beside it, providing some much-needed stability.
	“I’m going to go change Emmy, I left something for you in the basket!” With that he took off towards one of the conspicuous changing tents which dotted the beach, beachwear slung over his arms. Emmy flipped open the basket after elegantly laying the cloth underneath it, only to find full lunch (clearly not made by someone of advanced culinary knowledge), two books, and a rather weightly glass jar Emmy decided to leave alone for the moment. She selected the thicker of the tomes and eyed its cover in pleasant surprise. It was a piece, almost biographical for her, that she had found herself flipping through when she had a spare moment between chores. It was a large draw for her in the man’s study, to her the chief occupant of the library there. It was no small number of times she had been caught, blushing and apologizing, reading it as she leaned on her broom, only to be soothed and reassured by the man who insisted she take it. She read the cover, it’s mahogany color highlighting the golden letters spelling Domestic Automata in the Modern Age: A History. The exceedingly quick progress of the past few decades was delicately and expertly analyzed in the thin, almost bible-like pages of the piece; Emmy found herself always returning to the chapters surrounding Sterling who, to her, was a father figure, a benefactor, the creator who wrought from a small domestic AI company one of the largest robotics manufacturing and distribution conglomerates of the modern age. It awed her the drive and ingenuity that humans displayed in creating artificial mimics of themselves, down to form and reason and intellectual independence (though often controlled). As Emmy held the weighty work in her hands the man was at last returning, his more conspicuous clothing exchanged for swim trunks and a tastefully cheesy Hawaiian shirt. Emmy smiled as the man approached and sat himself down on his own towel beside her.
	“So I see you got my present,” he said, removing a book of his own from the basket, some smaller piece regarding natural history or some similar subject.
	“O-Oh, yes, sir,” she said, surprised at the almost blunt half-question. “How do you mean ‘present’?”
	“Well you seemed to enjoy it much when you were cleaning, and everyone deserves a book to read. So you own it now, Emmy, it’s yours to read and keep.” A warm smile consumed the small nandroid’s face, the redness once returning to the porcelain cheeks as her synthetic lips trembled and squirmed. With a minute squeak she pulled her sunhat down and covered her face before falling backwards and clutching the book to her chest. After a minute or two, the man waiting perplexed at her side, she arose once more and straightened her sunhat as she regained her composure.
	“Everything alright Emmy?”
	“O-Oh! Yes, sir! Just the Sun… Overloaded my sensors, yes!” It was a pretty pathetic lie on her part, but it would fry her motherboard if she admitted how touched she was by the gift. She figured he’d know anyways, so it was no use telling him anymore than was needed. “I appreciate the thought, sir. I’ll read it posthaste!” With that she slowly scooted around and turned away from the man as the great pink spots on her face, like some Jovian storm, flared uncontrollably. She buried her face in the book in a vain attempt to appear engrossed in something other than the utterly bizarre treatment she’d been subjected to in the past few hours.
	“Well, I’ll leave you to your reading, Emmy,” the man said, unfolding a dark pair of shades and nestling them on the bridge of his nose before picking up his own book and flipping through however many pages.
	As the Sun crawled slowly across the sky past its zenith and Emmy feverishly tore into her new book, the man at her side began to grow restless.
	“Hey Emmy, you wanna have lunch?” This question caught her right in the middle of a fascinating passage about the first domestic home appliances, at the time no better than talking light switches or shopping lists, and she had to pause and process his words.
	“L-Lunch, sir? You do know-”
	“Of course I know, but you should at least get to enjoy something,” he responded, as if feeding robots was the most obvious thing in the world. As he dug inside the picnic basket, hands worming around other hidden goods, Emmy watched with anxious eyes and baited breath, awaiting some inevitably generous and thoughtful gift that she felt she didn’t deserve. She heard a distinct jingling, the metallic slosh of, as he pulled out the mason jar, dozens of immaculately polished baubles of all sorts: bolts, marbles, washers, all manner of small trinkets. Again her face flushed as she remembered a time, not too long ago, when she paused to examine the ‘mouthfeel’ of some decorative glass beads, grabbing a few as her owner walked down the main staircase of the home only to catch her mid-marble-swishing and stare, wide-eyed, as she obliviously examined the decorations, and only afterwards did she turn and see the man staring at her, mortified.
	“I figured you’d enjoy some, er, mouthfeels,” the question was probing, almost provocative and playfully so, a subtle dig at some shared (and very embarrassing) secret. It was the sort of question meant to collapse one’s pride and reduce him or her to a harrumphing effigy of flusteredness, as Emmy was now becoming before his eyes. She rolled her eyes as she accepted the jar and worked it, twisting back and forth, into the sand, and was preparing a sharp retort for her return to the man on her left. Her plans were foiled immediately as he nonchalantly pulled out a ready-made lunch that he’d prepared for himself, clearly leaving Emmy to enjoy herself at her leisure. She screamed in her head in frustration, humiliation; she’d desperately wanted to throw back some retort and bring him down a notch some, but it was impossible for her to find an opening. Defeated she resorted to hiding herself from him and held her sunhat as a makeshift blinder against the indescribable foe next to her; her right hand found its way to the jar as she sampled the metal trail mix within, the man’s growing smile hidden from her view.
	It was not long before the man unceremoniously finished his lunch, the crinkling of parchment paper and wrappers signalling some grand, satisfied conclusion; meanwhile Emmy thought of just how boorish a meal he had prepared for himself, without the guiding and erudite culinary knowledge she possessed. The man was becoming, very quickly, a teenage boy who revelled in pranks of all kinds and was no more than a well groomed slob who managed, somehow, to hold a job. Emmy was growing feisty, ready to shoot back. She was ready to strike, now, holding a slender thumb in between the opposite covers of her book and resting her hat back on her heady, but before she could utter a single volley against him he was already yards off playing in the sand. He looked up, briefly, and smiled at Emmy while waving a neon plastic spade at her. The waves lapped at his behind as he sat in the damp intertidal zone and dug trenches and built walls, forging a kingdom from the sand.
	“Come on, Emmy! I have another shovel and bucket if you want!” Emmy was horrified again, but couldn’t resist the allure of being able to outdo him in castle-working. She grimaced as she dogeared a page in her book, bemoaning her lack of a bookmark, and then strolled over towards the man before seating herself opposite him, taking care not to let the salty foam wet her dress.
	“Here you go,” he proffered to her a hot pink shovel and bucket, produced from where she had no idea, before he busily returned to shaping the parapets on a new tower.
	“This is really quite childish, sir. I’m surprised with you.”
	“Nothing wrong with some sandworking, is there,” he questioned. He turned his nose up, snootily. “I figured you of all people could appreciate the philosophy of it, the impermanent artistry and struggle against nature.” She recognized the last snippet he spoke. He was quoting Sterling, now, who saw his work in artificial humanoids as a constant battle against nature’s will, the act of creating an artificial being in the shape of the ‘real deal’ the ultimate score for humanity’s superiority over nature; it seemed a lot less menacing in nandroid training, she thought. As she contemplated his clear attempts to fluster her she noticed the exponential growth of his keep, and the likewise pitiful progress of hers, towards which there was none, other than some scratchings in the wetted sand. She snapped to attention and scooted away on her knees to a spot of her own before digging heartily into the beach beneath her, planning with lightning speed an entire kingdom in her head, the moats and walls forming in front of her, towers and bastions taking shape in the small patch of beige wasteland she’d claimed for herself.
	Plunging with capitalistic greed she got to work, and even the man had to stop and watch her furiously work her shovel and pale in tandem, loads of earth forming great towers and chiseled walls, Emmy narrowly and precisely carving the very brick-laid patterns of a peasant’s day labor into the walls. The man paused himself, marvelling at the speed and diligence with which Emmy traced her fingers on the sandy defenses, gently tunneling through and creating a fine sandy arch, supported by splinters of driftwood and a stray popsicle stick produced from seemingly nowhere. The immaculate creation lying beneath her only grew in size and complexity with each passing second as he sat in an awed stupor observing the fervent, vengeful work of the dainty nandroid. He returned to his own now inadequate kingdom trying, vainly, to mimic the artistic workings of his newfound foe, only to collapse long-fragile towers and aged walls of his now defunct beach bastion.
	After only so many minutes, the Sun budging a few degrees in the sky, and beginning his descent to the horizon, and scant few clouds wafting overhead, Emmy leaned back, her narrow thighs pressing into the balls of her dainty feet as she took in the sprawling creation she had manifested from the sandy depths. She turned her head to the man again and crossed her arms in defiant triumph, a final blow against his seemingly insurmountable cockiness on the beach. He didn’t lift his head to her, however, as he was evidently engrossed in whatever futile effort at besting her he had concocted. Emmy rose up and strode slowly, taking the time to savor each stride towards victory. She sat cross legged at his side, now, and watched him apishly tear at the wetted sand beneath him and try to mold it into a structure able to rival Emmy’s. Emmy smiled with demonic intent and smirked at the work of the man. Some deep instinct in her positronic mind, no longer inhibited or halted, would work its way to the mechanical face of the robot as she leaned over the man.
	“Truly a fine castle, sir, it would be a shame,” she began, readying a hidden hand splayed open, “if something were to happen to it.” Just as the man turned up to ask for a repeat, he was so engrossed in his work that he couldn’t have heard her, he watched in powerless dismay as she smooshed without hesitation one of the larger towers constituting some outer defense (clearly incapable) of the larger kingdom. The man’s head turned in horror as Emmy, giggling and smiling impishly, leveled other parts of the kingdom, the slackened restraint and roguish behavior a clear shock to him. He knew his kingdom was lost, fallen as England to William, Gaul to Caesar, or any other great lost empire to the strains of time, but rising with superhuman speed he sprinted from his lands to the border of Emmy’s and with one sandaled foot laid waste to the scaled acres she had cultivated there. Emmy paused her anarchistic revelry and turned in horror as, stomp by stomp, her work was levelled and returned to the sands beneath it, the foamy waves of the now rising tide aiding her owner’s demolition.
	“Wait no,” she yelled and charged over at him waving her hands in front of her in vain before stopping dead in her tracks as a glob of wet sand was catapulted upwards square into her chest.
	“I’ll play dirty if you will,” said the man, smiling as his chest rose and fell in grand, powerful breaths. Emmy was taken aback at this behavior, horrified at how quickly the veneer of domestic civility had dissolved because of her actions, the heat of passion pulling her into her head once more.
	“I’ll show him,” she thought menacingly, “that this behavior has no place on the beach!” She squinted her eyes as her eyebrows raced down their tracks into a mechanical scowl framing the delicate calculations within. In a few milliseconds she had figured the ballistic trajectory of the scoop of sand shovelled into her pale palms and angled herself perfectly, launching a return salvo of sand right into the single open button just beneath the man’s neck, the lumpen sand falling perfectly within his shirt.
	“Hey no fair! That’s a dirty shot!” Emmy ignored his pleas as she fanned blast after blast of sand into each vulnerable joint of his body, sand occupying toes and back-knees as he tried vainly to block the incoming blows. He stopped the fruitless attempts and defense and dredged a great fistful of the muddy beach upward before launching it into the relatively unsullied fabric of the sundress, nailing the delicate ball joints which only served to propel more sand at the recoiling man. The two took a panting reprise, staring the other down, before each collapsed to the ground laughing, the man cringing at the newfound scraping across his body as he retreated to the towels with Emmy in tow, her dainty hands wiping off as much sand as possible in an attempt to regain the enigmatic elegance befitting her. She could only pretend for so long, however, before the abrasive sand found its way into her intimate mechanical pieces, joints and pistons scratched and rubbed in ways only her soldered nerves could detect but registered just as annoying (if not more given the risk to her delicate circuitry) as the grains scattered across the man. She stood up slowly, careful not to dislodge any errant grains and push them further towards her fragile mechanisms.
	“You okay Emmy,” the man asked as he brushed sand off of his skin with a hand towel. Emmy turned, overtly like a robot now, and tilted her head slowly towards the man.
	“Fine, sir, just some sand in... unseemly places.” She smiled wanly before becoming still once more, carefully analyzing her situation and considering the few options she had available to herself, scanning the sparsely populated beach for a private area to evacuate herself of the pesky quartz. The man, ever prepared for any beachley eventuality, fished once more in the seemingly endless picnic basket before producing an aluminum can of compressed air.
	“Here, Emmy,” he said. “Maybe this can help. I’m sorry if I was overzealous in my sand-slinging.” Emmy reddened again at the implication of having to experience the invasive blasts of air as the only respite from the coarse scrapings within. She extended an arm too quickly and froze at the grating in her elbow, the panic on her face growing as the can sat out of her reach and the man quickly realized her predicament.
	“I see I took it further than I thought,” he said, too coolly Emmy thought, before he maneuvered himself behind Emmy and, with a deep breath, grabbed her on both sides just above the waist. Emmy froze in pure shock, near terror, as the man lifted her up like a store mannequin. Emmy hadn’t even realized the compressed air had been deftly slipped into her open hand where her fingers now curled around it, she just looked around as her core heated up and the man continued carrying her closer and closer to one of the pinstriped tents dotting the beach. Arriving at the welcoming flap the man set Emmy down gently and she, still unmoving, let out a deep sigh as she assumed the man had left to allow her some privacy.
	“Not so,” she realized as he again lifted her up and into the tent, a small number of beachgoers eyeing the pair with part suspicion and part disgust. As the flap was closed and the tent shrouded in darkness the man inhaled deeply and began to speak.
	“I’m sorry I was too rough Emmy, let me make it up to you,” he spoke, gentle as before but cowed, coy even, knowing full well this was his doing. He removed her sunhat and laid it gently on the ground, careful not to let any more sound into its inner bowl, where it could then cause greater havoc in Emmy’s hair.
	“Please, Emmy, allow me.” He again placed his hands on her but lower, at the very bottom of her sundress before pulling it slowly up and off of her still form, her arms still splayed outwards as her cheeks lit the dimmed tent, her intense white eye-lights only adding to the scattered shadows playing in the tent’s corners. She was on the verge of shutting down and falling over, like some startled goat when, in a voice now commandingly cool, he asked Emmy, now in nothing but her royal blue underwear, how to access her joints. She was shocked at his relative unfamiliarity with nandroid maintenance and chose now, of all times, to scold him further.
	“Really sir you should have read the manual and saved me the embarrassment.” Even in the dim light she could see him recoil in his own way, the dual-flashlights of her eyes exposing the growing redness on his face as well.
	“It’s not like that! I have to fix what I broke!”
	“I’m not broken, sir, nearly indisposed,” she chastised further. The shoe, or sandal rather, was firmly on the other foot, despite the clear imbalance in the pair’s clothing. “I’m not that old. Really, sir, I expected at least some more decorum if you’re going to strip me.”
	The teasing was working, she saw, the large hands trembled briefly before he took a deep, swelling breath and exhaled just as ceremoniously.
	“Please, Emmy, show me where the ports are.” Unable to probe any further Emmy finally gestured, with eyes and words mostly, where the numerous maintenance ports on her body were located. Intimate details of her design were made plainly familiar to the man who patrolled her exposed exoskeleton and opened each small hatchway, places meant only for a nandroid to go (when they weren’t working, of course). As each small joint or bank of circuitry was revealed to him by the tiny swivelling hatches, each organically segmented and implemented to conjoin with the humanoid motion of the robot, the man would clear it out with a gentle puff of air which could only be said to be ticklish, eliciting a stifled giggle or shriek from the nandroid. The work was meticulous, deliberate and, most of all, painfully slow. It was more than a couple of hours before the man could lean back, his back popping and flexing, satisfied he had evacuated all of the sand contained within the nandroid. Emmy slipped once more into her sundress, the sand on it all but gone save for an unsightly brown splotch, and her sunhat too was nestled once more on her filamented hair. The man peeled back the tent hatch, a few beach denizens looking over with wide, unknowingly knowing smirks, and saw just how long it had been; the Sun was now embracing the horizon in a gentle, warm red-orange kiss as the dark purple of dusk and eventual night crept ever forward, the sky accented by the first few, bright stars peering their way through. Emmy marvelled at the scene but instantly began tugging at the elbow of her owner, gesturing towards their small encampment.
	“Sir, we were gone so long, everything's been stolen probably!” Without a hint of hesitation the man hefted the nandroid onto his shoulders and ran, unimpeded by her modest frame, herself frozen once more by the cavalier and brash attitude he took to moving her. As they crested the small dune which had split the beach and returned to their small dip in the sand they were pleasantly surprised to find their spot almost unscathed. Not only was the basket still there, untouched, but only one of the towels had been stolen and the umbrella pilfered (though the wind could easily be at fault for either caper).
	“Well Emmy, it seems you assume too little of people,” he joked. “They left our books at least.” Emmy hopped off of his shoulders and onto the sand below, taking care not to take on any more unfamiliar silicon compounds, and dashed towards the derelict basket and pried it open, only to jump up and pull out her new book and nuzzle it closely to herself.
	“See Emmy, what’d I say?” The man himself pulled out his own book before setting it back into the basket. It’s getting late Emmy, what's to say we head out, hm?” Emmy nodded subconsciously but was too engrossed in the safety of her new treasure, holding it tightly while the man marched forth basket in hand, only one towel and one parasol lighter. As they returned to the car the Sun had finally slipped beneath the glassy sea horizon and the Moon, which had been chasing it for most of the day, took a place above the horizon where it painted the obsidian waves in shimmering white slivers, each bobbing in time with the satellite itself. The pair piled into the car whose once scorched leather seats now chilled, and a prompt blast of hot air from the AC was just what the man needed before turning the key. The dim, backlit console and the small glow-in-the-dark numerals on the radio provided little ambient light to the car, Emmy being calm enough not to cast a sharp red glow on the driver next to her, and she had opted to preserve her battery and keep her eyes ‘off’. The pair cruised up the coastal road, but as they came to a small intersection the man took an off turn, catching Emmy.
	“Sir, you missed our turn onto the highway. There’s a spot up ahead that we can turn around at.” She counseled her chauffeur delicately, consulting the available map data stored in some composite file in her vast bank of information.
	“Don’t worry Emmy, we’ll be home soon enough.” As he pushed onwards up a perilously narrow dirt road the incline only became steeper, still gentle, surely, but enough to put Emmy at instant unease. As the car summited the much larger hill Emmy immediately recognized where he had brought them, the flat plateau harboring the pinstriped lighthouse from before, the rocky cliffs beautifully dazzled in flowers yellow and white which shimmered in the gentle moonlight. He stopped the car and turned to Emmy.
	“Is a small detour okay, Emmy?”
	“O-Of course, sir, whatever you’d like!”
	“Are you sure?”
	“If it’s with you, absolutely.” She caught herself before she said any more and passed it off as a trust becoming a nandroid, covering up the gaffe by offering to carry the basket up the rest of the hill. The man declined and took only the sole surviving towel and his nandroid in tow to the secluded hilltop, nary another soul there but the two now coming to the cliff's edge. Just a yard or so away the man laid the towel flat, horizontal and sat on the one side as he gestured for Emmy to sit with him. The man was bunched up, quiet, holding his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms tightly around them as the slim robot came up next to him and sat down, sideways, leaning up against the man for some support. It was a bold move, but Emmy again lawerly justified it as the only way to sit in her dress without being ‘indecent’. The man could only smile at her verbose defiance of her own frailty or vulnerability. He pointed out onto the glimmering night horizon and Emmy followed the directing finger to its destination a mile or so off.
	“There, Emmy. See it?” Emmy, even with her vastly superior eyesight, struggled against the unknown spot suggested to her. Her eyes made out a splay of starlight, twinkling bulbs incandescent or otherwise forming great wheels and shapes, veritable terrestrial constellations that she could only piece together as some great display of lunar trickery, the stars dallying about and teasing watchful eyes with some game of cosmic pictionary. But then, as she stared longer, the man patiently letting her analyze and study the distant lights, she pieced together the ribbons of steel and wheels, the distant forms resolving themselves into a great pier-based carnival.
	“You’re not taking me there, are you?” She wasn’t as much worried for herself, or the man for that matter, but it was so late already, and her battery was becoming precariously low for the time of night.
	“Maybe another time,” he gently reassured her. “We can just watch awhile if you like.”
	“That would be very nice, sir,” she sheepishly said back, a shy yawn escaping her mouth before being stifled: a hidden, and random, subroutine meant to assimilate such domestic servants and give even them the concept of sleepiness. Emmy’s eyes fluttered at the captive lights dancing before her before a distant booming ruptured her rest. Twirling, zooming, booming over the pier were explosions of color and sound, the wind picking up the faint hints of gunpowder as a brilliant fireworks show erupted, briefly, over the small fun fair. The simmering display cast gentle glows of hawkish purple or volcanic oranges and reds on the pair’s faces, small spots and tracers chasing the bright explosions in the human pair of eyes. After the display wound down into a bombastic final display a new quiet settled onto that small hill as, her battery near drained and emergency ‘sleep mode’ activated, Emmy slumped fully onto the shoulder of the man next to her, the sunhat pitching abruptly up as it sheared from her head onto the soft, waiting grass. Smiling, the man rolled the towel up and roped it behind his neck, donned Emmy’s sunhat, and hefted the little robot into his arms before strolling down the hill a distance and laying her into the passenger seat and replacing the sunhat, now on her lap. He tossed the towel into the rear seat with the picnic basket and, his face once more illuminated by the dials and gauges before him, he took the roundabout turn back onto their path homeward. Emmy stirring quietly as the internal machinery randomly generated dream scenarios to flavor a robot’s often brief interludes into the unconscious sleep of a dying battery. With a last smile the man stopped the car and removed the sunhat, replacing it with the blanket he had kept in the trunk, hidden well, and draped the sleeping nandroid in the warm cloak. As he once again shifted into drive, the heavy clunking of the transmission causing Emmy to stir wakelessly, he began the long drive home through the sodium-light yellow of the highway and its black, endless ribbon, taking care at every stop to keep an eye on Emmy.