Mannerly
It's a hell of a thing, the power of a 'thank you'. Of a 'please'. The automatic doors were where it started for me - the town I grew up in was quiet and out of the way, we didn't have automated anything. If the door got opened for you, it was because someone had gotten there and turned the handle to welcome you. So when I walked into the reception area, and the doors opened with that odd pneumatic hum, I said, "Thank you!" - even as I realised there was no one there (belatedly remembered that city doors were often automated. But it was manners, it was polite! My mam would've had my ears if I forgot my manners just because some extra layers of machinery were involved.)
And the habit just built from there, I guess. Can't move here but for tripping over something else that's automated or semi-automated, or otherwise programmed or coded. I thanked the taps for turning on and off, the security lights for letting me know when things were occupied or not, the lights that came up at a clap. I started saying goodnight to the alarm as I set it to leave and good morning when I arrived for my shift and set it back to idle. I chatted to the security cameras on my rounds, and to my chest lights, and if they were always focused where I needed them to be - well, that was the point, wasn't it? I always thanked them for doing such a great job keeping the compound - keeping me - safe. In the break room, sometimes Joe would ask me to do the coffee run, since he said I had better 'luck' with the maker. I figured he just didn't want to do the extra walking.
Sometimes there'd be intruders, the kind with nasty high-calibre guns that looked far too specialised. The kind all in black, bulky with body armour, that weren't interested in keeping staff alive (or anyone else, for that matter). That's when the warmachines got activated and their priority was the facility, not the staff. Coded. Programmed. No choice about it - the job was the job.
Only, no intruders ever managed to get their weapon sighted properly at me before they were taken out with extreme prejudice. Even when I had been caught walking back from the break room and truly wasn't near anything that ought to be so protected.
I didn't connect the dots, not properly, for far too long honestly.
