Blind Date

“Shit, shit! I can’t believe I did that again!”
Hadil scrambled to dismiss the late alarm on her phone, and tossed it aside as she jumped out of bed, nearly tripping on the hem of her night gown as she stepped to the floor. What’d she even do last night that’d make her so tired? It’s past noon already! Practically hopping over to her vanity, she sat at its red cushioned stool and opened up her makeup caboodle. Seeing as she was a little short on time, the least she could do was put on some simple eyeshadow and liner: today, she picked a soft pink shadow that stood out well from her olive complexion, and did a quick, simple wing liner on both sides - crap, was one side a little longer than the other? No time. She had to keep moving if she had any hope of being on time or even close to it. She grabbed a lipstick from the bottom drawer that had a similar shade of pink to what she’d picked moments before, and shoved it into her purse. She figured that it’d probably be best to wait to put it on until after she had her morning tea. After hastily brushing the small knots from her hair and double checking her looks, she stood and moved to her wardrobe.
She unbuttoned and shed her nightgown, and started putting on the outfit she’d picked out yesterday for her date - this time, she’d picked out one of her favorite dresses, a knee length, three-quarter sleeve blouson dress with a blue and pink impressionist floral print. It was light and airy; perfect for the warm summer day ahead, and it was still plenty modest enough for her personal tastes. Already having in mind a pair of beige flats to match her purse, she put on a pair of skin tone low-cut socks. Luckily, she had the mind as well to set out her Al-Amira - a gentle shade of blue that was close enough to her dress to work out, and she donned that now, as well. Wait, was she even going to have time to make tea? Skipping back to her bed, she took her watch off its charger and put it on - it's already been ten minutes! Maybe a personal record on any other day, but today, it didn’t feel fast enough. She grabbed her purse and flew down the short hallway to the door. In the kitchen, her parents, already long since awake, were sitting at the table with their breakfast.
“Hadil! Took you long enough, come over here and get something to eat!” Her mother called.
“No time, mamá! I’m already almost late for my date!” She answered apologetically, albeit rushed in her urgency.
“Then you better get something good to eat the moment you get out there, you hear me?”
“I will, don’t worry!” She assured, while hastily slipping her shoes on.
Speeding out the door – but still remembering to lock it behind her, of course – she raced down her apartment hallway. Waiting for the elevator felt more like hours than seconds, and when she got to her car, she didn’t leave it any time to warm up before she sped - only somewhat responsibly - out of the parking garage.
She fumbled with the controls on the radio for a moment until she found a station she could tolerate, and tried to calm herself down a little, just think about the date a little more? She merged onto the parkway and settled back into her seat. Okay, really, how bad could this possibly go? Her friends, Esme and Lacy, had set this up for her; said they’d found her a girl that was just her type, and she trusted them enough to go along with it. Sure, once and a while they’d pull some little pranks on each other here and there - all in good fun, she reminded herself - but they’d never gone so far as to really mess with each others’ dating lives, right? She knew she was safe with their judgment. Getting into the zone of driving, she didn’t dwell on it much longer until she was approaching the parking lot leading up to her date spot.
Despite the commute time, it had to have been one of her favorite places in this town - she was still getting used to the area after the mass-move ordered by the new alliance, but this was one of the few drives that she already knew by heart. It was a seaside concert venue - in spite of the great location, it was actually pretty small, but that was all the better since she wasn’t a fan of huge crowds. Given the nature of the landscape where it sat, it had a nice variety of seating choices in the open field in front of the stage - to the east was the water’s edge, It was a sand beach, so one could go barefoot if they so chose without having to worry about getting poked by rocks or any sticks and shells that may get caught among them, and to the west, going up a gentle slope it would slowly turn to grass. Given the fact that she didn’t even think to grab a beach towel, she was hoping that her date had chosen a spot somewhere there, or had the courtesy to bring an extra towel for her.
Gosh, what was her date going to be like? She stepped out of her car and brushed her dress down to make sure it wasn’t bunched up anywhere, took one last look at herself in the side mirror to make sure that her makeup was still okay, and pressed the lock button as she turned to start walking down the hill. She didn’t get any physical description to speak of since Esme and Lacy insisted on it being a blind date - just a name: Llewellyn. It was a bit of a mouthful, but they said that on her profile she could just go by “Lynn” for short. Lynn. That was a pretty name, wasn’t it? She allowed her mind to wander as she scoped out the grounds and called out every once in a while with hopes of tracking her down. What kinds of things could she be into? Reading? What genres? Her personal favorites had to be sci-fi and fantasy - if her date liked the same, they’d be off to a great start, that’s for sure. Any kinds of crafts? She always had a knack for scrapbooking and stamps like her mother - even if her date just tagged along with it, she’d be over the moon - and cooking. Honestly, it might even be a deal breaker if they don’t have the same culinary tastes - she can’t live without her favorite recipes, especially shakshuka, like her grandmother’s recipe. She just had to sleep through her alarm, didn’t she? Now she was kicking herself for not having breakfast. Maybe she could grab something later when she and Lynn finally met up.
Ahead, she spotted a lone woman laying out a large blanket on the grass with a small cooler slung over her shoulder, could that be her? She became a little hopeful as she looked them over - she had long, blonde hair, and had a sort of fit build, like she enjoyed getting out often. She began to approach, but before she could get a word out, a man jogged in from the parking lot with some folding chairs and began setting them up on the blanket. Definitely not Lynn. She awkwardly perused the venue for another few minutes, calling out every now and then, and-
“Hey, up here!”
Hadil whirled around to search for the source of the voice behind her - the field was really filling out now, and there were quite a few people there. The first band of the night was beginning to set up their instruments and tune them up. The voice came from around where the hill crested, on the outskirts of the field. There were plenty of friend groups and couples that she could see, but no one up there had seemed to have come alone until…
She felt as her heart sank to her feet. “Lynn?”
“Yeah, that’s me!”
Now that she was paying full attention, she noticed how unnaturally well her voice carried over the crowd, and in that moment she could all too clearly see why. Llewellyn was not human.
To save herself the full embarrassment of blowing a fuse alone in the middle of a crowded field, she began to scale the hill towards the… woman that her friends had set her up with. She could feel her face getting redder with every passing second. She trusted their judgment, right? And she was working on being as open-minded as possible lately, right? As she got closer, she could see the almost strained smile in Lynn’s eyes and she looked down upon her, and it really only made her feel worse for her reaction. Hadil, pull yourself together. If… she’s doing her best to be nice, then you need to do the same. Just for tonight, okay? She had on the grass laid out a beach towel with a grey trellis print on its entirety. It looked brand new, with some creases still left in it as if she’d just bought it on the way out. With one of her utility arms, she gave a gentle little wave - despite its sheer size, and patted the towel to invite her to sit. Hadil let out one last, deep sigh, and sat, fixing her dress as she did so. Lynn’s optic, the one she could see from this side, gazed down upon her with what seemed was supposed to be pleasant curiosity, and in the waning daylight it reflected in the general vicinity a pale green glow.
“So… Stockton, right? I’ve only been here once or twice before - this is my first time visiting the concert venue, it’s really nice.”
Lynn started. She’d had the courtesy of positioning the blanket forward of her wings so Hadil wasn’t underneath the one on this side- she’d have probably felt a bit cornered if that were the case. Even despite that, and the few feet of separation between them, she was fully enveloped in the shadow of the hulking AI. There was something in the back of her head that was nearly telling her to just get up and leave, but at the same time - Lynn was still a person - even if she had a really, really hard time wrapping her head around it, and she didn’t want to upset her too greatly. That, and if even her friends saw some kind of rea potential in her, then she would be damned if she wasn’t gonna give it a shot - what would her parents think, though, if they ever even considered getting together? How would that even work? She’s a- what kind of jet is she? There were so many thoughts swirling around in her head that she didn’t have the slightest clue on how to answer, and was so occupied with them, in fact, that for almost a whole minute, she completely forgot that -
“You okay down there?”
Oh. Right. She just asked me a question.
“Yeah! Yeah, sorry, I got distracted by something. You were talking about - Stockton?” She instinctively reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear as she squirmed in her seat, but making contact with fabric, she tried to play it off by just lightly stroking it. She wasn’t doing a very good job hiding her disconcertment.
The AI knit her brow in what she could only fretfully assume was along the lines of concern, or dismay, but if that were the case, she’d opted to just keep with the subject regardless.
“Yeah, I was just saying, it’s charming little town. You been around here for a while? Know any fun spots?”
Hadil had to take a moment to bite her tongue before proceeding.
“I’ve only been here for about two years, actually.” She explained, “I don’t really get out as much as I’d like to, but there’s a few places I’ve visited here for in that time.” She turned around as best she could without shifting her legs, and pointed towards the northwest. “There’s an arcade a few blocks over that way that one of my friends showed me - it turns into a bar after-hours, which is pretty neat.”
“Ohh that does sound fun. I’m not sure I’ve ever played on a real arcade cabinet before.” Lynn lit up a little - almost literally - her pupil shrank minutely, and as the membrane around it stretched, more of the backlight filtered through it. “There’s another park further inland that I found last time I was here that was quite nice. I spent the day there while I was in town, saw some neat birds.”
“Is birdwatching one of your hobbies?” Hadil inquired. It wasn’t an activity she really thought about often, but it sounded like something nice to get her out of the house more often.
“I guess you could call it one.” She replied. “I just think they’re pretty, all the colors they come in. If you think about it too, they’re kinda like the organic version of what I am, right?” She chuckled, and glanced to the stage, “Oh, look - they’re really getting set up now, they might be starting in a moment here.”
She thought about the comparison for a moment. With all the current notions she’d had about “MAI,” as they were apparently called in short, she wouldn’t exactly call any of them “birdlike.” Dragons, maybe, but birds? It was a silly thing to dwell on, it occurred to her, but it was true, wasn’t it? She’d always thought that they were at least a little bound to the purposes of their bodies - it sounded hard to be anything but a weapon when you were born full of them. Maybe that was just her, though. She was skeptical. She didn’t know what to think. Regardless, her attention had already been stolen away by Lynn’s next comment, and the lead singer of the band removing the microphone from its stand.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, are we having a good evening out here so far?”
He spoke into the mic, and there was a momentary bout of shrill feedback as he looked around at the crowd. There was some light applause and a few whoops and hollers, but they’d been hardly riled up thus far. Now that she was really getting a good look at them, she realized that this band seemed to be an odd lot. They were all in costume… no, wait. She squinted a little as she looked at two of the bigger members, and realized they may actually have been AI, as well. For the longest time, she wasn’t really sold on the idea of AI songwriters and instrumentalists. There was a whole era after the introduction of them where it seemed like they were taking jobs away from human artists – but in this case, it at least was apparent that they were playing physical instruments. It took some skill to master those even for a robot, so she was inclined to give these guys a pass. Further scrutinizing them, she figured that the bassist was cosmeticized as an anthropomorphized lion, wearing formal military garb, or something? And the drummer looked sort of like a stereotypical sci-fi robot, with the bolted joints and a large, sharp jaw. Even given the AIs’ outlandish looks, even the humans were dressed up in a similar vein – was the lead singer wearing a traffic cone on his head? This was apparently going to be an interesting concert night.
“First song, we’re gonna be singing a little score called ‘Computer Wife,’ this one goes out to all the ladies here tonight!” The Bassist shouted into their own mic, and he pointed to the drummer to get the tempo started.
“Oh man they’re just getting right into it, huh?” Lynn said through a grin, and clapped her hands together for a moment. “I actually love these guys, this is the first time I’ve seen them on a real stage.”
“You’ve seen them before?” Hadil inquired with her brows raised.
“Yeah, it’s half the reason I picked this spot!” She explained, “For a while they were just setting up on street corners and preforming like that, at least last time I encountered, but I guess they’re really starting to get big – when I heard that they were performing here, I just had to come out and see them. Hope you enjoy it – they're kinda different.”
“Definitely.” She said. She leaned back so she was resting on her elbows, and settled in to take in the show. There was a sudden hissing noise beside her, and she looked over to Lynn as she was apparently lowered down on her suspension, as if to do the same.
They sat through four songs this way, but as the concert progressed and the crowd started getting more and more worked up, there were more people either moving towards the back of the field where they were, or more attendees that were arriving late. Soon enough, there were so many of them that Hadil could barely see the stage standing up, and the proximity was starting to become claustrophobic. By the middle of the fifth song, she was straining to get any kind of view, and the crowd was starting to intrude into her space close enough that it was beginning to freak her out. As she noticed her pulse beginning to become more and more noticeable, Lynn shouted to her over the noise,
“Hey, do you need some help down there?” She’d since raised her gear into its usual relaxed state, and as she was, her optic was a good foot above Hadil’s head.
“Could we move back any further?” She shouted back, “These people are starting to get WAY too close.”
“I could do you one better if it’s the crowd you want to get away from.” There was a distinct ‘shunk’ noise that came from Lynn’s frame, and her cockpit shield swung open with a controlled haste. “Do you mind if I pick you up?”
“Oh-“ Hadil couldn’t help but let slip, and she felt very clearly the absurdity in the fact that she was blushing a little at the proposition. Isn’t that supposed to be kind of personal? Well – no one ever told her that it wasn’t, at least. “In there? You- want me in you- your seat?” She nearly sputtered.
“Uh, yeah?” The jet replied casually, “You’re gonna have a way better view up here, too. I won’t let anyone else climb me, I promise.” She continued with a grin in her tone.
Pull yourself together! It’s apparently just a casual thing, okay? No big deal, just say yes and you can – get away from all the people down here who’ve thoroughly forgotten what personal space is with all the booze they’ve probably been drinking.
“Okay- okay! Please get me out of here!” She relented, and without missing a beat, Lynn wrapped a single hand – the entire way around her torso – and lifted her up. Just the sudden upward motion, compounded by all of the flashing lights of the stage and the sounds of the blaring music and the people shouting were enough to nearly make her sick, but as soon as it started,
“Get your feet to straddle the stick and the center column, I don’t wanna turn you into a pretzel on accident.”
Before she realized the context and she noticed her foot brush the control stick, the sheer left-field nature of the sentence managed to half snap her out of it with pure confusion. She looked down to make sure she was going to settle in properly, and she was eased the rest of the way down into the seat. This was the first time she’d ever actually been in the pilot’s seat of a plane, and the first time she’d ever gotten a really good look at the controls. There were just so many gauges and switches and buttons, it all looked utterly alien to her beyond whatever she’d caught passing glimpses of in pictures and movies. With this newfound confusion and slight curiosity, it was almost a little tempting to reach out and touch some of them – until she remembered where exactly she was. If it wasn’t awkward to just sit in the seat, it might have been awkward to touch the buttons. Within her better judgment, he restrained herself. Just a moment after she herself was placed in the cockpit, the beach towel she’d been resting on gently fell to her lap.
“Don’t want a drunk person puking on that, am I right.” Lynn jeered. “Anyways, you can make yourself comfortable in there. Just don’t lean on anything that looks too expensive, because the military won’t pay for it.”
It was only now that she noticed the similar green optic in the forwardmost space of the cockpit glancing up at her, and she nearly jumped the moment she did.
“Oh! Sorry, I – didn’t realize you had any eyes in here.” She commented, a little dumbfounded, and she had a somewhat hard time looking away from it as it made its micro-adjustments to focus on her.
“Ah right, yeah, we kinda have them everywhere.” The AI gave a deliberate, thoughtful pause, then continued, “I know some humans are kinda weirded out feeling like they’re being stared at all the time, if you want to, you can cover that one up with uhh –“ The optic darted around for a moment, before landing on “- your purse, or something? I won’t touch it if you set it there.”
“You don’t want to be able to see me?” Hadil asked.
“Not if it’s going to make you uncomfortable the whole time, not really.” The aircraft’s frame suddenly lifted upward for a second, then returned to its original position. “…That was me shrugging. By the way.”
She choked on a small laugh at the last comment. This whole interaction transpiring before her was almost more surprising than the fact that she’d even been set up on a date with an AI in the first place. She didn’t realize any of them were so… considerate? Empathetic? Lynn wasn’t even human, and it felt like she was acting with more common decency and care than most people he’d spent time with. Even with such a small gesture as that – it felt like some kind of display of trust, as well. Honestly, she was a little moved by it all.
It made her a little mad, as well.
All these years, all this time, it had been pushed by so many people that MAI were some lot of emotionless, bloodthirsty machines that were hardly any more caring than the weapons embedded in their faces, and for the longest time she had no reason to discredit them. She believed them. This morning, she believed them! She was born only a few years before they were introduced to the battlefield, so when activists would rave on and on about how CoreAegis never intended for their AI cores or technological advancements to be used in such a way, she had just figured it was some morally questionable company trying to save face to the daft public. Today, daft felt like an apt way to put it. She was still clutching her purse in her lap, among the blaring music and raised above the shouting people by an individual that for her whole life she was raised to discredit and despise. All that, and because she made the choice to come sit with her, she was given the opportunity to see that they were real, and that they maybe, just maybe were a little more than their outward appearance.
Here she was, assuming the worst of her date from the second she laid eyes on her, but all she found instead was a genuinely polite, courteous person. It felt like she’d been robbed of a more diverse, fulfilling life by people that didn’t know how to open up their hearts or minds despite the truth sitting right in front of them, and were bitter enough to drag others along for the ride. And that made her angrier still – her parents moved to this country before she was born to give her a chance at equal opportunity, and here they were closing the door in the faces of people that started life in an even more unfortunate lot than they themselves.
“Woah, woah, hey, are you doing okay in there?” Lynn projected the question through a smaller, interior speaker. Precisely what had gotten her so upset in the first place, she was trying her best to be as quiet as she could over top of the noise.
“I, um, n-not really.” Great, and now she was crying about it. Just what an already awkward, sweet date, and her makeup needed. “Could we – get out of here? I think all the noise is getting too much for me.”
“Yeah, of course, of course.” She replied gently, and with her exterior speakers, projected two brief tones at the crowd to signal that she was moving. Once she was able to navigate out to the parking lot she pulled off towards its far end and stopped.
Both sat to collect themselves in relative quiet with the concert now in the distance. Hadil needed a minute to stop the shaking in her breath and the tightening of her throat, but there wasn’t much to be done about her ruined makeup and the red, puffiness in her face. Lynn gave her the decency of averting her gaze as best she could, given the inability to make her interior optic appear closed. Even once her breathing had - mostly - calmed, there was a momentary silence that hung between them.
“I’m sorry. I know tonight probably wasn’t what you expected. Sort of blind date, and all.” Lynn spoke quietly. “I can drop you off at your car, if you want.”
“That’s not – that's not what this is about.” Hadil managed to stammer out, and she motioned to her face as she did so. “I came out here, and – and the moment I saw you, I feel horrible about it now, I was crushed. I thought my friends might have been making some kind of cruel joke by setting me up with a – machine, and I only ended up walking over because-” The tears started returning, and she hiccupped as she took a breath in, “I didn’t want to freak out and run away with so many people around, but I ended up staying – and – and I realized that you’re probably already once of the nicest people I’ve - I’ve ever met.”
She picked up a corner of the towel in her lap, and dabbed her face with it – hardly even noticing the eyeliner that departed along with it.
“I came out here and the moment I saw you, I – I was already planning on never coming back, but I realize that – that would have been so cruel to you. I’m the one that needs to apologize to you for what I used to think when I – I woke up this morning.”
Lynn was looking right at her now. Her internal optic couldn't properly emote, but the emotion behind her stare was almost palpable.
“You... didn’t have a very good opinion on folks like me before, I assume.”
Hadil shook her head, practically deflated.
“Not at all, but I’d never even met one before you.”
The jet cast her optic down for a moment, feigning a particularly contemplative pause. And spoke
“How do you feel now?”
She couldn’t believe she was about to say this. Never in a million years could she have predicted she’d want to say this, but here she was. All she had to do was manage the courage to spit it out. She choked back one last light sob, and looked up. Not just at some machine with some faint sense of a personality, not at some robot that didn’t know how to grow past its most basic function, no. She looked at Llewellyn.
“I feel like... I want to try and make this work. For us. Take us to that nature trail you were talking about earlier. I’ll get out there. With you.”
Lynn shifted on her wheels in a way that almost felt like a disconcerted squirming, and for a few seconds she remained silent. This time, however, it felt an awful lot less deliberate, and more like a genuine bout of mental short circuit.
“And I feel... Honestly I am feeling so many things right now. In reaction to that.” The MAI replied in a near dumbfounded tone.
Hadil almost feared that she was going to recoil from such a proposal, but she was suddenly pressed back into the seat by the jet’s gradual acceleration. She sat up some and turned around as there was a sort of clatter upon the fuselage behind her, and she watched curiously as Lynn clasped together the hands of her utility arms over her back, and folded them upwards. Their wheels lifted off the ground, and they hung about her like an odd, and frankly rather uncomfortable looking pair of saddlebags. It must have been obvious on her face the question she was about to pose, so it was answered without prompt. “I can drive a little faster without having to worry about the arms keeping up with me like this – also I don’t give a shit about my standard paint anymore, I’m getting it redone once I have the money saved up for it.”
Understandable.
For the bulk of the drive, they seemed to have wordlessly opted to just take in the sights as they made their way to the park. The sounds of the concert drifted further and further away as they went, and as they went down one street in particular, Hadil was able to point out the arcade that she had talked about before. By the time they’d arrived at the park, it was already mostly sundown. Lucky for them, however, it had no posted closing time, so they were free to explore regardless. When they passed though the gates and ventured deeper into the park, for a moment it felt as if they had entered into a different world. The trees further masked the sounds of the city beyond, crickets and peeper frogs called out to each other in abundance, and the cool air somehow felt cleaner and more crisp than before. Hadil mindlessly reached her arm out the side of the cockpit and allowed it to dangle as if she were just in her car, but pulled back for a moment as she felt a chalky, almost coarse paint as opposed to gloss.
“Oh! I wasn’t even thinking, I just-”
“No no, you’re fine! Sit however you want, I don’t mind – Oh, didn’t you say you wanted down out here, though?”
“Oh right, yeah, you can set me down here.”
Lynn went through the process of setting her utility arms back down onto the ground, and then moved to pick up her date in the same manner that she had before, making sure her feet were planted on the ground before letting go of her. Hadil made sure her dress was still laying correctly, then set off at a leisurely pace for Lynn to follow along. The path they were on was paved, but it seemed like in recent years it’d become somewhat neglected. It was littered with cracks and the occasional small pothole, and it had developed a handful of raised and dipped features from the shifting of sediment and root growth form the surrounding trees. Despite the disrepair, it seemed like Lynn had little issue dancing around the faults, seeming to know just where to steer her nose wheel in a way that her main gear would clear the worst of it, as well. In a manner as such, she first thought, that she didn’t even have a need to look at the ground beneath her. As her eyes traveled further aft, however, she noticed the familiar green light emanating from either sides of the bottoms of her wings, near where they met her main body. Really, she wasn’t lying when she said she had eyes all over her. Turning her attention again to the park around her, even in the low light, she could make out all the different types of flora that occupied its space. She wasn’t knowledgeable on picking out the different species by any means, but it was beautiful all the same.
“What was - ?”
There was a rustle in the bushes somewhere off to their left, already close to where they were walking, and Hadil stepped back a few steps.
“Hey, watch out for a sec!” Lynn exclaimed lightly, and put a hand out to contact Hadil’s shoulder – otherwise, she’d have bumped right into her. The both of them stopped for a moment in anticipation of whatever was about to appear before them as the rustling grew closer, and the moment the mysterious creature entered out onto the path – an opossum waddled up over the lip of the road.
“...Huh. False alarm?” Hadil shrugged.
“Hah! Were you scared for a bit there?”
“I mean – a little! What if it was something dangerous?”
Lynn seemed to ponder this for a moment, as she watched the opossum make its way to the other side of the path and push its way back into the foliage. Though mostly neutral, her expression was quite intent upon it, almost intensely so.
“Dangerous? Most animals you guys seem to consider dangerous are just trying to be out living their lives.” She started, unblinking, ultimately unmoving beyond the micro-adjustments of her optics upon the spot from which the opossum disappeared. “I think they’re usually more scared of you than you are of them, because the only time I’ve ever seen an animal lash out is when a human threatens them. I don’t know, it feels a little backwards sometimes.”
“...I guess you could be right.”
Hadil pondered. The way in which the AI spoke, despite her outward focus, it almost sounded as if she wasn’t... really talking about the animal in front of them. As if she had been more than simply talking about opossums, or raccoons, or what have you. The underlying air of discomfort compelled her to recall a story on the news she had watched once; it was about MAI, and how a whistleblower in a postwar air force base sounded the alarm on internal abuse and harassment. It was one of the main drivers of the infamous 2011 “Loophole Law” that was passed only two years ago and granted many equal rights to MAI, including their discharge from forced military service. At the time when she watched the news segment, it puzzled her how such a type of beast could possibly be hurt by a human that was much smaller, much weaker than them, but now, fretfully, she was starting to question that notion, as well. The two of them lingered for a moment in the spot as the sound of rustling leaves and popping twigs grew fainter, then, it was Hadil who decided to shift to less pressing topics as they set off again.
“So, where have you settled down now? You said you’ve only been here once or twice before, earlier.”
“Oh, oh, you’re gonna love this – project volunteers decided to set me down in Wicomico county, right - apparently there’s this town called Jesterville that they’re padding out, and you know I had to opt into that one.”
“Are you serious!?” Hadil laughed, “That’s got to be one of the best town names I’ve ever heard. How do the locals feel about it? The new moves?”
“How do the locals feel about it everywhere?” Lynn scoffed jokingly, “Two words: not happy. It’s not like any of us can decide where they toss us in this stage of the project, anyways.”
“Yeah, true, true. I’m kind of in that boat with them.” She chuckled, then sighed. “I never really had plans to move out of Arizona, either, where my family settled down when they came here from Egypt - to give me a chance at a better life, they told me - but as we’ve all noticed, Ponderosa had other plans.”
She looked back and up at the jet to meet her eye for a moment, continuing to walk. “Our home city was in the middle of one of the zones they selected for forced rewilding, and it just feels like we got pushed aside with no regard for how we felt about it, y’know? I’ve been trying to get used to it all - I’m still not fully over the culture shock, but, we didn’t have a choice. I’m trying to make the most of it though, if you’ve noticed.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear about that. I know it was hard for a lot of people to leave their homes, especially on such short notice. I feel like I was almost lucky for once in that regard, not having had a home to start with.”
“Yeah, I can see that being kind of nice, almost. What’s your situation right now?”
“Better than some, worse than others.” Lynn shrugged in a similar manner to the way she had before. “Me and a few other bots are sharing an old warehouse – accommodations for us are slim right now, so we’re making do with what we can until we can afford some proper renovations over top of the rent.”
“Well,” Hadil snickered, “you look pretty good for living in a warehouse, I can’t lie about that.”
“What can I say? I’m built to be a little tougher than the average outside elements that sneak in once in a while. Anyways, where did they decide to put you for the relocation?”
“My parents and I all got set down in Pomona, some town in Kent County, so about two hours from here; you’re a lot closer to this place than I am, in that case. ...So wait, you live closer to here than I do, but I’ve been here more times than you have?” The human raised her brows almost skeptically.
Wordlessly, Lynn simply brought her utility arms forth, and motioned to... her entire body.
“Oh right, metal. And salt water. Huh.”
“Yeah, I just wasn’t missing that band for the world, I don’t mind being just a little rusty as a byproduct. Oh, you mention you parents coming out with you, do you live with them? Do they mind you bringing girls home?” She interrogated jokingly.
“Pfft, no. A few years back when I just came out? They’d have been up the wall, but I think they’re mostly over it now.” She said, then paused. “On second thought. I don’t know how they’d feel about... not-human girls. Given, y’know, the whole, ‘I literally just had my mind blown today' thing.”
“Oh, god, you’re right.” Lynn replied. “What are we gonna do about that?”
“You don’t have to worry about what my parents would think.” Hadil spoke, her tone turning more serious for a moment, “We can probably keep ourselves low profile to them for a while. I’ll try to scope out how they’d feel about it as a hypothetical before I’d ever consider telling them upfront. Maybe I’ll just tell them you’re a human woman for now, or something, so I don’t have to skirt around talking about this?”
“Yeah, that seems like a safe bet. Oh, what would my human-sona be?” She sped herself forward to be right at Hadil’s shoulder – optic at her eye level. “You could make me like a hot blonde babe with long, wavy hair and some rockin’ hips.” She feigned a motion of brushing her hair back and waggled her flight surfaces, and Hadil covered her mouth to stifle a chuckle.
“OR. Or I could be a huge butch motorcycle babe. Tell them all about how big my ride is; I’d have like the whole package deal, with saddle bags and those huge ape hanger handlebars or whatever they call those things. And I wear all black leather because I’ve totally got hella money.” She put her utility arms out in front of her, and as she squatted down on her rear suspension as low as she could go while maintaining the height of her nose gear, she raised her hands up balled into fists like she was holding onto the handlebars of a motorcycle. At this point, Hadil was doing everything in her power to not burst out laughing – and she failed.
“Oh that’s TOO perfect.” She managed to spit out once she was done losing it. “I’ll make sure to make you at least reasonably wealthy.”
“Much appreciated,” She pushed her optics into a grin.
Hadil was about to continue on with something else, but her phone suddenly chimed from within her purse, and she took it out to see what it was. Flipping it open and navigating to her texting app, she saw that it had come from her friend group chat, where it was she, Esme, and Lacy. As she read the message, her expression fell.
[Lacy: How’s your day with our little surprise going? Break the thing’s heart yet?]
She stopped in her tracks. Lynn quickly caught on to her current state of emotion as the grip on her phone began to turn her knuckles white and her face reddened, and tried to peer over her shoulder. She promptly side stepped and pulled her phone to her chest.
“Don’t. Please. I need a minute to handle this.”
“Wait, what? Did something bad happen?”
“Very. I can make short work of it, though.”
How did she know. From the moment she spotted Llewellyn, that something was going to go wrong today? In the moment, she thought it was going to be their date, but now, it occurred to her that the issue had been long since brewing. With friends that had begun pushing boundaries, and being a little too vocal about subjects she now understood were just a little too cruel.
[Hadil: Both of you call me. Now.]


Lynn only sat in anxious anticipation as Hadil moved off to the other end of the path, and kept quiet as her phone began to ring about a minute later.


“Are both of you on the line?” Hadil asked calmly.


“-es.”


“Yeah, why?” The phone cut into a higher volume as she put the two of them on speaker.


“Listen very carefully to what I’m about to say, because this is probably the last time I’m ever going to speak to either of you.”


“What? Haddie, is this about-”


“LISTEN. You asked me about how my date went? I’ll tell you.” She cut them off with a curt, stern tone, and took a deep breath before she continued. “Llewellyn and I met up in the west end of the venue field, and let me tell you, I was surprised. Not about what you skeeving assholes wanted me to be surprised by – by some monster that I was supposed to scream and run away from. I was surprised that in a few hours – HOURS – I was shown more KINDNESS, CONCERN, and EMPATHY, by a robot than you two have shown me in several YEARS. I always knew that I was at the bottom of the pecking order in one way or another, but now I just realize that you two were treating me like shit, and dragging down other minorities while you were at it.”


As Hadil’s voice raised itself in rage, Lynn almost found herself recoiling, but she was equally dumbfounded by just what she was hearing. Dumbfounded in the way that she didn’t realize that hearing someone yell, for the first time, could manage to make her love them even more.


“I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being treated like a third wheel to your bullshit, I’m sick of you guys being bullies, and now, I’m SICK of your opinions blinding me to the feelings of real, actual people that have just been trying to live this entire time. Happy? If you’ll excuse me now, I’m going back to my date, which, by the way, was going amazing until Lacy decided to text me and show both of your true colors. Have as nice a life as the two of you can, apparently being as miserable as you are. Good night.”


“What the fuck is WRONG with-


“Are you seriou-”


Almost as quickly as it began, the twos’ voices were once again silenced as she hung up on them, and she then spent another minute pressing buttons on her phone before shoving it back into her purse.


“I blocked both of them, by the way.” Hadil said bluntly.


“Okay I’m just talking to prevent an awkward silence now, but I genuinely do not know what to say to that right now- are they able to call your parents about that?”


“That was one of the only good decisions I made with those two, apparently. I never gave them either of my parents’ numbers. They’ve always been into prank calls, and both my parents are a little gullible when it comes to phone calls.”


“...Wow.” Lynn reached up a utility arm to cup the back of her cockpit glass, as if to put a hand on her neck. “That was, uh, that was pretty ballsy. Really. ...Thank you. For doing that.” There was a tone to her voice that indicated some anxiety – more on behalf of Hadil rather than towards her, and her optics had dilated as if she were almost a little teary eyed. If it were even possible, it sounded, too, as if she were choking on her words like she was poised to begin crying.


“Don’t mention it.” Hadil shrugged, walking back to the jet’s side. “After what you showed me today, you made it a lot easier to lose them than I’d have ever imagined before,” she smiled at her, then looked out to the west as the last waning light of the sun was beginning to slip behind the earth. Towards the east, the brightest stars in the sky were beginning to poke through. Lynn looked along with her, and turned on her landing lights.


“It’s getting pretty late now, do you want to head back to your car?” Lynn asked gently.


“Not really, but my parents might want to kill me if I get home too late.”


At that, the AI couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle, but within it it seemed as though she wasn’t fully over the events of the call yet.


“Yeah, I can try to get you back quick.” She said. “Want a ride again?”


Hadil simply raised her arms up in invitation, and Lynn gingerly picked her up and set her back in her pilot’s seat. For the rest of the ride back, Hadil leaned over the jet’s side, and rest her head atop her arm as it draped over the lip of the cockpit. With her free hand, she outstretched it into the air, and pretended to glide it through the cool night air. Though it couldn’t emote, she could still feel the warmth in Lynn’s gaze through her interior optic, and she looked back with full intent to return it. What of the commute before felt like a small eternity, now felt like just a blink, as the music of a new band from the set list returned to her ears, and the still packed parking lot appeared around the corner of a town block.


“Kind of a bummer that we missed a lot of the concert.” Hadil sighed. “Thanks to the whole freak-out thing.”


“Oh, don’t sweat it. Someone will probably post everything online. Even then, the songs are still gonna exist when they pack up tonight, right?” Lynn pointed out coolly.


“Speaking of still existing, and things like the foreseeable future,” Hadil started as she was once again removed from the cockpit and lowered to the ground, “Do you want to try and find a date spot where we could meet in the middle somewhere? Compromise on the drive time?”


“I’d actually been thinking about that a little. So you’re a little closer to Baltimore by drive than I am, right? But,” She motioned to herself, “I wouldn’t mind flying out if you wanted to spend a day exploring the city.”


“I would actually love that – I'm sure we could probably find some fun stuff for both of us to do out there.” Hadil grinned, “By the way, speaking of flying, I never asked what kind of plane you are?”


“Oh yeah! I’m an F-15E; Strike Eagle, if you don’t want to have to remember the numbers.”


“Badass, fitting, I like it.” She said ponderously, “Anyways, this was probably one of the most wild days of my life, can’t wait to do it again in Baltimore.”


She almost turned to leave, but paused for a moment, turned back to Lynn, then looked her up and down for an odd few seconds.


“Need something else?” She said quizzically.


“...In a way, yes.” Hadil said. “This might be kind of weird, but I was about to like, try and kiss you? But now I’m looking at you and I’m - not really sure how to go about that.”


“You were-” Lynn’s optics widened, and she dumbly pointed to herself. “That, I never thought about, I mean-”


The two had somehow perfectly left each other sputtering messes for almost a full minute. Clearly, this was the greatest challenge they had faced today thus far.


“Do I kind of go towards the base here and tilt my head back, like?-”


“I don’t know maybe you could go – no, what about- no, wait-”


“Should I aim farther back, like where is the equivalent to your cheek?-”


“OKAY! CALM!” Lynn reached out and grabbed Hadil by the shoulders simultaneously as gently and as firmly as she could, and shook her a tiny bit. “Calm now! I think I figured it out.”


“I’m listening.”


“Okay so like – cheek equivalent, I’m pretty sure that’s just directly behind my side eyes, right? Right there do it right there.”


“...”


“...”


“You have to let go of me first.”


“Oh shit, right.”


Lynn dropped her arms away, and Hadil approached her left forward optic. After a moment of deliberation, she finally got up onto her tip-toes, braced her hands gently underneath the optic, and gave Lynn a small peck on the cheek. She lingered there for a moment, the both of them looking each other in the eye and apparently reveling in the moment.


“That has got to be the most awkward first kiss I’ve ever had.”


“And that is the first kiss I’ve ever had. Which means we can only go up from here.”


They stared for another moment, then both burst into a roar of laughter. So strong, that Hadil nearly fell over. Lynn, luckily, caught her without a sweat, and they stayed that way until Hadil could finally wipe the tears from her eyes. Finally standing again, she turned to go back to her car. For real, this time.


“Okay, I really need to get home before my parents start a search party for me, or something.” She sighed.


“No worries. Like we planned, anyways, I’ll see you again in Baltimore. Oh shit – wait do you have my number?”


“I don’t have your number!” Hadil yelped, “Oh I would have been really crying if I went home without that.” She hastily pulled a pack of sticky notes and a pen out of her purse, jotted it down, and placed it squarely on – Lynn's index finger.


“Okay for REAL real now I need to go! Baltimore!” She began jogging, and raised her fists as she exclaimed their next date.


Lynn watched her go. Watched her lose her stamina and start panting as she slowed to a walk half way through the lot, watched as she fumbled for her car keys and poked at the keyhole a few times in the darkness before getting it properly seated, and watched as her little blue sedan pulled out of its space and found its way out to the road. She had to admit, the moment she realized that her date was a human, she was just as terrified as her date herself had been. What would the rest of the world think; a human dating an MAI? This afternoon, it really felt impossible, but Hadil had the good graces to prove her so, so truly wrong. Yeah, she was scared out of her wits the moment she laid eyes on that little woman.


Luckily, she had an excellent poker face.

---

holy fucken shit I wrote this in like a week - pray for my hands