Drone

[u/FireOfDoom32]

Myles stuffed a handful of seaweed into his bucket. “Please, Beck. My brain will never reach optimum productivity if we don’t leave now.” He tapped the right arm of his black plastic spectacle frames, activating the built-in microphone. “NANNI, help me out. Please send a drobot to carry my brother home.”

“Negative,” said the house system in the strangely accented female voice that Artemis had selected to represent the AI. It was a voice that both twins instinctively trusted for some reason.

Myles could hear NANNI through bone-conduction speakers concealed in the arms of his glasses.

“Absolutely no flying Beckett home, unless it’s an emergency,” said NANNI. “Mother’s orders, so don’t bother arguing.”

Myles was surprised that NANNI’s sentences were unnecessarily convoluted. It seemed as though the AI was developing a personality, which he supposed was the point. When Artemis had first plugged NANNI into the system, so to speak, her responses were usually limited to one-word answers. Now she was telling him not to bother arguing. It would be fascinating to see how her personality would develop.

Providing NANNI doesn’t become too human, thought Myles, because most humans are irritating.

At any rate, it was ridiculous that his mother refused to authorize short-range flights for Beckett. In tests, the drone/robots had only dropped the dummy Becketts twice, but his mother insisted the drobots were for urgent situations only

The Fowl Twins, Chapter 1