Week 17, midweek: Back from golf

Golf had been fun. Walking around for hours in the fresh air and green grass has been exhilarating and relaxing, despite some overcompetitiveness all round. Ace still couldn't quite get to grips with the EI's decadence. The grass and trees had been real, and there were four golf courses. Miles and miles of real plants there solely to be hacked to pieces or hide small balls. The game itself was fun, and Ace had found that the same system that made targeting grenades easier also worked with golf-balls. The Golf task chip had been interesting, but ultimately Ace preferred playing games using his own skills. All good things must come to an end though, and as Ace returned home to SWA he was reminded of the reason they were able to have that little company outing. The mission had gone well. Too well. The team had infiltrated a place they should never have had to go and assassinated a being that did not deserve to die. Sure, they had erased the security logs of them ever having been in the building but that didn't erase the fact that they had done the deed. Emden was dead, and Ace was not happy being an assassin.

The garage door rattled open as Ace drove his motorbike, given to him by Darya, and parked it in the back of his Mungo. He then strode into the compound and up to his room. After a few moments Ace emerged, wearing his customary WF fatigues, and put a load of washing on. He was tempted to throw away the ridiculous golf outfit that Ida had bought, but he kept it anyway. It was a gift after all.

As he was in the house, and to signify this fact to others, Ace left the door to his room wide open as was his custom. The room had not changed much since Ace had moved in. The colour of the walls, the furniture and decoration were all as they were when Sosie had prepared the room for him weeks before. The sheets on the double bed were neatly folded back and would have easily passed inspection if anyone cared enough to inspect accommodation in this place. The only major addition to the furniture was the 9ft tall cyberframe with a vaguely feline head and two large guns mounted to its arms which appeared to glare out of the doorway from the back wall of the room.

Ace sat on the couch with a datapad and started to concentrate on it. The golf had been a fun diversion but it had taken half of his week and he had work to do.

Dusty watched Ace from his nest, thoughtfully. He and Bell had been working on.. homework.. from their mother and well, he could do with some hands on research. After a few moments, he stuck his head out from the box and asked, "Ace? How.. tall are you?"

Shortly after Ace came home, Ida's X50 pulled into the complex, driven by Rico as normal, and after parking, Ida and her two replicants got out and walked into the building.

There was a broad smile on Ida's face. In The Room on Monday evening, she'd felt really angry at the others' complete failure at professional conduct, but this was wiped away soon afterwards. The mission in Glasgow went incredibly smoothly - they walked in, took the data, wiped away the AI with effectively no opposition, and then jumped out for a few days' golfing. The mission was actually pretty fun, if simple, and it was nice to play golf again. While all the fields at St. Andrews' were beautiful, Seoul had developed quite a charm to her over the past few months, and she was glad to be home.

"Hi Bell," Ida called out to the house AI. "Is anyone else in?", she asked partly to Bell and partly to the building at large as she walked up the stairs to change again.

Bell did not reply.

"5 foot 10." Ace replied in an offhand manner. He tried to get his head around another few pieces of data before giving up, putting down the pad and turning to Dusty properly.

"Hey, Dusty. How was Shanghai? What do you need my height for?"

Ace also nodded a greeting to Ida, although as he had spent the last few days with her he didn't have that much more to say and was already in a conversation.

Dusty bobbed as Ace mentioned his height, appearing to nod. Good, good. He kept his eye on Ace as he came out of the hole. "Shanghai was interesting! Exciting! I spend a lot of time talking to Auntie Darya, and we learned a lot! And I was the navigator, and I kept guard when she slept." He sounded overjoyed at every single one of these things, almost shuddering with excitement. He took a few more steps forward, and his boyish voice changed. "And I am just.. helping Mom out with a few things. I'm curious! That's me." That was an obvious lie, but he seemed uneager to indulge more in that particular part of the conversation.

"That sounds like fun. Don't worry Dusty, I won't pry. If you don't want to tell me why you want my height you don't have to. Who else are you going to ask?"

Ace sat back on the couch and picked up the datapad again, flopping back to the start to try again.

Dusty would have pouted if he had lips.. or a face. How did Ace know? The little AI wasn't TECHnically lying. He took a few steps back into his fort, almost sulkily. "I already asked about someone besides you. That's all I wanted to know." Dusty retreated so he was half into his box, seemingly content about this end to the covnersation.

"Oh? Who was that?

Actually, Dusty. I got you a present. Well, it's just a small present and I'm not really sure what you're going to do with it, but here you go."

Ace went back into his room and fetched a rectangular prism shaped pack of 3 small white orbs that were pocked with vaguely hexagonal indentations. They had green and black markings on them that made it very reminiscing of Dusty's turret body. Each was marked with the word 'Dusty' in black and had a green number underneath from 0 to 2.
Ace opened the box and tipped them out so that dusty could have a play with them.

"They are golf balls. They are supposed to be used for playing golf and you can have them customised so you know that they are yours I picked up a pack for everyone when we were in Scotland. I doubt you'll ever play golf, but I thought they were nice to look at."

"Oh, no one that you know. ...Or that I know. Or anyone knows. Except Darya. And.. other people." Dusty seemed.. evasive, and even worse at lying... But thankfully didn't have to for long, when Ace changed the subject. He stood to attention at the mention of a present. He had only ever received one before, and like that one, these were also spheres of some kind. These almost looked like him, though, round and white. He tapped the nearest ball a few times, torn between being excited about a new gift and knowing that this, too, was something he would need to protect from the prying paws of Smallest. "Thank you so much, Ace! This is a very generous gift. How do you play them? Are they robots of some kind?"

He pulled a ball toward him, spinning it, looking for an ON switch.

"No. They are not robots Dusty. They are balls, designed for playing a strange game called Golf where you hit one of these balls with a stick and try to get it in a small hole a quarter of a mile away. Ms. Salcedo took me. It was... interesting. The golf balls though, they sold customised ones in the shop. They are slightly bouncy and designed to go long distances when hit with a golf club. I get them because I liked the look of them. They are not robots, they are ornaments. If you want to play with them then you are going to have to invent your own game."

Ace went back to his room and got the rest of the packs of balls out of his mule-tech. He put them on the kitchen table with a note reading "Presents - from Ace." There was a pack each for every human member of the house as well as Bell and Dusty.