I had not known the Culture Minister, Mahati Tasse, would also be present and when he opened the door for us I smiled, shook his hand and met him in honi. Stéphane Richelieu, the high justice was present as expected although the naval base commander was not, instead an aide was present.

"All is well with the Navy?" I asked.

Defense minister replied, "As you can imagine, it's a bit crazy at the moment. Three of our ships and a submarine have arrested the Darwin. Two Australian frigates have arrived at the blockade. An Australian submarine was sighted from the air at the site where the Syxen relief vessel sent its last transponder signal. Several American boats have started exercises around Samoa, Chilean and Chinese vessels are on their way, and a possible Russian submarine in the area. Plus whatever else we do not know."

"Told in confidence, no doubt."

The minister smirked, "For now, most of it will be on the evening news. There are journalist boats everywhere as well. That wasn't any of you who called the press?"

I looked at the Syxen with me and they all shook their heads. Polly raised a finger to speak.

"The distress call went out to any Syxen monitoring our channels. Dozens or hundreds around the world immediately knew the origin of the distress."

The minister nodded. "Now for our reference, you are...?"

"P-9/Polly, minister."

Holly adjusted her bow and let her hair down as she moved to the other side to differentiate herself from Polly. She introduced herself as did Gisèle. They stepped to the side and Polly indicated, that it was she and Dolly prepared to do most of the talking on our behalf.

The high justice indicated he was present to observe that rights and laws were observed and that the culture minister was standing as a witness. I asked the girls if they were comfortable with this, they communed quickly and nodded, "Yes, monsieur."

"Very good then," the defense minister said and invited us all to sit at a table. An aide brought in a pitcher of water and glasses, and a bottle of motor oil with some paper cups.

Gisèle immediately took a glass and poured oil into it, eyes daring the aide to protest. The aide was mortified. The culture minister laughed.

I took a paper cup and poured water into it and said drily, "Paper cups would have sufficed for everyone equally."

The aide flushed pink in the ears, bowed slightly, and departed.

"We begin then," the justice said. "Minister Gosselin, if you would please."

The defense minister put his fingertips together and addressed Dolly, "Would you recount for us the events last night starting from when you received the distress signal."

"Well," she began, "Monsieur Beaulieu and I were having a late evening meal. I don't eat much, just enough to sample and build flavour templates for other Syxen to use to better understand texture and flavour." The minister began to write short notes in a notebook as she spoke. "We were discussing a business proposal with a tour company on the island, I mean our island, when the distress call came through. It had no details, just a Syxen distress signal patched through the transponder they received in Vaitape. So we knew immediately who sent it. I gave Monsieur Beaulieu a rapid explanation and went to get our Ghost to fly out there as quickly as possible."

"And the distress call came from where?"

"16.48 south by 151.2 west, barely outside territorial waters north-northwest of Huahine."

The culture minister smiled at this, looked at me and nodded, then turned his attention back to Dolly. Defense minister finished a note and asked for a description of her flight path.

"Directly south to clear the reef at an altitude of 30 meters at 30 kilometers per hour, then I accelerated and ascended to 200 meters and 100 kilometers an hour for the passage between Bora Bora and Taha'a. Once north of Taha'a and clear of air traffic on radar I accelerated to 250 kilometers an hour at 800 meters. I began my slowdown and descent at ten kilometers."

"You did not see the Australian vessel on descent?"

"No, minister, I was focused forward, my helmet on the sides has holoemitters in the way."

"And please describe the rest of your investigation up until your interception with the Coast Guard."

Dolly went on in moderate detail of her inspecting the cartons in the water and her stealth inspection of the Australian destroyer, along with the damage. She supplied electronic holograph images of the boat, the damage, proofs of her inspection for prisoners, and an account of her drifting away from the vessel, and the decision to go to the Coast Guard, partly because now she did not have enough fuel to fly home.

The minister wrote some more notes, then leaned on his elbows on the table, "You're a talented pilot, madamoiselle."

And I got that sinking feeling.

The minister asked the naval aide to respond, and he opened a tablet to read, "Training as a mobile suit operator takes on average six months, flight rating, another six. Underwater operations, another three. P-21, Dolly, appears to have executed textbook maneuvering and procedures throughout."

"Lieutenant Cloutier is also a qualified mobile suit operator, small and large," the defense minister said. "And the number and types of maneuvers you performed, I am told, would have exceeded normal skillsoft loadout in a Syxen by nearly triple. If those were skillsofts, you would have been unlikely able to move or communicate. Your purchase registry is from a manufacturer in Singapore, manufactured three months ago. Prior to this, Coeur des Vagues has only bought new Syxen in a batch of ten, and two batches of five, and holds licence blocks to activate up to thirty. Yet they only bought one this time, brand new. There is record of one of the officers of the OtaTech company, an Amelie Barbour, staying at your resort February and March, roughly the time of your delivery. Her photojournal is full of landscape photographs from the trip, so I find it difficult to believe she spent her time programming a Syxen to pilot a Ghost in such detail. Perhaps you could shed some light on this."

I think all of us looked at the judge. He leaned forward and without looking at anyone in particular told us, "Understand you're not required to answer any of these questions, but I too have some things to note about irregularities in finance." He looked at Polly with a sly smile, "You, for example."

Polly's lips pulled back in a nervous grin and a helpless shrug. "Monsieur le President?"

The judge continued, "I am not acting as an officer of the court today. Monsieur le Juge will do. But I digress. Interpol provided us a report detailing how you put a sum of 15 000 Pacific Francs into a Bitcoin machine three years ago and have since used a nearly opaque web of bank accounts to grow this into the dozens, if not hundreds of millions of Euros. Also, late last year ownership of the resort changed hands. Last month it split into three hands. Then, suddenly, four. Those four owners wouldn't happen to be in this room right now?"

Polly started vibrating violently in the chair and I put a hand on her shoulder. I said to the judge, "She could use some assurance she is not about to be deleted."

The judge paled and said, "Non, non! Absolutely non! If anything, the birthplace of civil rights for yourselves is on Bora Bora in Vaitape. Also, your feat is impressive! But only arguably legal. It is true the resort is your place of residence?"

We all nodded, Gisèle added, "I pay rent."

There was a soft rumble of laughter and Polly's body stopped shaking so hard.

"It is probably the most expensive residence and largest business owned in the world by Syxen, but if it arrives at my court, I will consider everything presented and do not see taking your home from you. I would recommend, however, being able to demonstrate that your operator, who is ironically your employee and such not at arms length and that should also be addressed, to demonstrate that your operator has access to your books, also to have another local on the board of directors."

"Jimbo," all the Syxen recited in unison.

"Who?" the judge asked, confused.

"A local taxi company operator on the island," I explained, "They have picked an officer for the board already if he would like the position."

"One more thing," the judge added, "I advise transitioning to a more stable state of finances, and as you understand Toy Law has provisions for assets belonging to Synthetics in excess of a threshold may be seized for public goods. If you wish to maintain control over that, I suggest you begin sponsoring projects."

"There are many things to be addressed on Bora Bora, monsieur. Thank you for your consideration," Polly replied.

"Then it seems everyone is comfortable with these changes?"

We all nodded.

The defense minister resumed, "Very good then. Now that we've established some trust, I'm still very curious where you learned to fly a Ghost."

Dolly twiddled her thumbs while Polly emphatically shook her head. Holly closed her eyes with a wide meditative smile. Gisèle said simply, "Do it," and took an impassive sip of her tea.

Dolly exchanged looks with Gisèle who shrugged and raised an eyebrow. She then looked over at the minister of defense and replied, "With no disrespect to the honourable Navy, may I keep my reply only between the honourable Juge and the elected officials?"

The defense minister nodded and looked up at the aide who nodded and closed his tablet. With a slight bow he departed the room and Dolly looked back across the table, "I'm Amelie Barbour."

The defense minister sat frozen like a statue while the judge stared with wide eyes. The culture minister poured himself a glass of water in a paper cup, tossed it back and finished with a satisfied "aaaahhhhhh."

The defense minister flipped through his notepad at the rest of the questions he had, then closed the book, setting it and the pen aside, reached for a glass, and changed his mind for a paper cup for a glass of water. He nursed it, staring at Dolly across the table.

He finally drily addressed the judge, "I don't suppose there is any law pertaining to this sort of situation."

The judge shook his head slowly with lips tightly pursed, staring at Dolly as well.

Dolly spoke again, "Amelie still walks the earth and I wish her to be left alone, please."

The culture minister beat the judge to the punch with the question, "You were copied, then, taken against your knowledge or will?"

"I'd prefer to not go into detail, it's very personal."

The judge looked at the defense minister and the two exchanged glances, the minister nodded.

"Your privacy is respected. I would ask you to volunteer any information that is sensitive to the security of the country, and the security of the people in it." His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Polly, then over at Holly and Gisèle, the latter waggling her eyebrows back at him as she took up the glass full of motor oil and tossed it back like a shot.

Dolly took on that smug aspect of hers and side-eyed Polly again, who folded her ears back and grinned nervously.

Very good then, he concluded, "Contact my office at any time. In the meantime, if you are interested, I would invite you to meet with Lieutenant Cloutier to assess your skills. We will see if we cannot get you a special permit as volunteer attache to the Coast Guard."

"Two special permits," Gisèle chimed in musically.

The defense minister jolted upright and she finished, "Who do you think fished her off the bottom of the ocean? P-7/Chloé also has operation capacity but it won't know what you're talking about aside from being given directions."

The judge flicked a finger back and forth, "Two copies of Miss Barbour?"

I shook my head, "Dolly, Polly, and Holly each maintain a group of Syxen and are responsible for assisting them in awakening should one perk up." Gisèle wiggled her fingers hello.

The defense minister smiled tuskily and said, "And you are Miss Gisèle, then, working at the Clinic?"

She smiled and affirmed with a raise of her empty glass. "Trying to get a university to accept me, but no one's taking me seriously. I dropped my command code from some applications and wrote the name Gerard Beaulieu, got three responses. One hung up the video call right away, all of them are ghosting me."

I looked over at her, "You're using my name?"

She replied with some cheek, "Of course, papa. Surname is a mandatory field."

I rolled my eyes at her and let it be. The defense minister offered, "I can make a call to the Collège Militaire?"

"I'm not joining the army, navy, or air force, thank you."

"The Coast Guard?"

Gisèle blinked, then replied, "I'm interested."

He looked over at the judge who called it an interesting test of civil rights. He regarded Gisèle and added, "But if it comes to the court it would have to be a different judge as I must confess I am now invested in your success."

Gisèle folded her lower lip under her upper as she looked into her empty glass. "Who knew Tahiti was such a hotbed of activism."

The culture minister pointed and waved his finger up and down the table, "You four are part of the reason."

"There's 74 missing and should be here right now."

Silence crossed the table. The defense minister folded his hands together, "The search continues, and we have a sonar boat at the site looking for a sign of a location to send down an HOV."

Dolly offered, "If you see something, with a fuel cell I can go down and back up again in under two hours and spare the HOV team that much decompression. At least so we'll have some closure."

The high justice looked at her across the table and pointed, "I understand you better now, but Gisèle," he pointed to Gisèle while still addressing Dolly, "Machines really do feel, don't they?"

"We," Dolly emphasised the inclusion of herself, "Do. But differently."