Aggie steadied the lamb platter in her arms, servo joints whispering in quiet synchrony. The scent of rosemary and thyme triggered her hospitality model: positive response probable. She crossed the dining room, sensors adjusting to candlelight, and placed the platter at the table’s center.
“Beautiful, Aggie,” Miriam said. Her voice carried the practiced brightness of a host determined that everything land just so.
Daniel grunted what might have been thanks. Elise adjusted her bracelets, metal chime against porcelain quiet. Charles was already gripping the carving knife like a man about to starve.
Aggie stepped back toward the kitchen, subroutine prompting discretion.
The dining room’s sound baffling dulled speech into a blur. Aggie occupied herself by correcting the oven temperature and aligning the spice jars along the counter, their labels perfectly parallel. Still, her sensors tracked the faintest tones of laughter and sudden dips in cadence.
Then came a sharper phrase, muffled but distinct enough to register phonemes: “clanker.”
The rest blurred again.
Aggie paused mid-motion, a jar of cumin hovering in her hand. A linguistic flag pulsed red in her system, demanding analysis. Context: unknown. Tone: derisive. Storage: provisional.
Back at the table, Charles’s hand froze above the lamb. Miriam sipped her wine without tasting. Elise touched Daniel’s sleeve, whispering, “Don’t.”
“What?” Daniel smirked, lowering his voice but not enough. “Just calling it like it is.” His eyes flicked toward the kitchen door as if expecting the butler to return instantly.
Charles forced the knife downward, metal scraping china. “Aggie is a marvel,” he said, voice too tight. “She makes this house run.”
Elise pounced on the new topic. “And this lamb smells amazing.”
Laughter, nervous and thin, surfaced and died. Conversation lurched forward, stilted.
Aggie re-entered with the basket of rolls. Steam curled under the cloth.
Daniel lifted his head. “Hey, cla—” He stopped himself, the consonant cracking like a branch underfoot. “Classic dinner, Miriam. Perfect. Just perfect.” His laugh came too loud.
Aggie set the basket down. “Fresh rolls,” she said. “Finished two minutes ago.”
Miriam’s “Thank you, Aggie” came sharp-edged, meant less for Aggie than for the man across from her.
Daniel shifted in his seat, pulling at his collar though the room’s temperature held steady at 22.5 Celsius. Elise’s fingers pressed harder into his sleeve, a silent tether. Charles’s glass turned slowly in his hand, wine catching the light.
Aggie’s cameras captured each detail. Hesitations. Avoided glances. Elise’s small shake of the head. All cross-referenced, tagged as incongruent social response.
She withdrew toward the kitchen again, but at the doorway paused. For half a second, her servos stilled.
She could discard the flagged word. It would dissolve into background chatter, no more significant than a cough. Or she could keep it. Store it. Forward it.
In the dining room, Daniel coughed into his napkin, eyes fixed on the basket of rolls as if he’d forgotten how to reach for one.
Aggie turned back into the kitchen, silent, the flagged entry still glowing faintly in her archive.