We tumbled in through the back door, me awkwardly carrying Cassie, spear haft pressed against her back as she thrashed and screamed in my arms. The boys stumbled past me and I slammed the door shut behind us. I laid my daughter down on the ground and started stripping off her gear.

The exterior of her vest had a few gashes, but none seemed to have made it throught the layers of paper. The inside was pristine. I didn’t see any injuries on her legs. I looked at her in confusion, then felt stupid as I realized she was grabbing at her eyes. Doubly stupid: I’d been the one to tell the boys to fire when the monster was diving on top of her.

“Hang on, sweetie!”

What we’d made was basically pepper spray, right? I remembered a video I’d seen of an eight-year-old who’d been pepper sprayed as part of one of the Black Lives Matter protests. Her father had dumped a bottle of milk over her eyes. It had seemed like a weird thing to have with you at a protest, so I’d looked into it a little. Apparently, some people had brought it on purpose since it was a good measure against pepper spray. Something about the fat?

I grabbed a gallon of sour milk and a kitchen towel. I had to practically headlock Cassie to get her to hold still, making pouring the milk difficult. A good amount ended up on the floor, but Cassie’s crying changed in quality. I could actually understand her saying, “My eyes hurt! My eyes hurt!” now.

“Give her a heal, Gavin. Just one, please,” I asked. I could feel tears of helplessness in my own eyes, and I turned away, using my need to grab paper towels and dishsoap as an excuse to hide my face while I wiped them away.

I realized that both boys were crying too, repeating apologies in a background beat to Cassie’s symphony of sadness. I glanced over for a minute. No major obvious injuries or signs of extreme pain. I could deal with Cassie’s problem first.

I’d left a bin of water and a pitcher by the back door and I used them to wet the paper towel. I told Cassie to keep her eyes closed and scrubbed at her face as thoroughly as I could. After I rinsed it, I asked Gavin to heal her again.

“Can you open your eyes, sweetie?”

Cassie opened them, stared at me for a full second, and then burst into tears again. I relaxed. I could tell from the sound that she wasn’t in pain anymore. She was just really, really upset.

I held her in a hug as I turned my attention to her brothers. Both were talking at once, and I didn’t have the emotional energy to make them take turns, but as I let their words wash over me I eventually got the gist of it.

“Micah, I’m sorry. I was the one who told you to fire. I wasn’t thinking about what could happen, and we’ll need to be more careful about this going forward. No more water guns when enemies are close to us. But this time was my fault, not yours. Gavin, it’s okay. You’ll help out next time. This is a hard thing I’m asking you to do. It’s alright if you’re not perfect from the beginning.”

I felt a slight weight as Pointy put a foot on my leg. I grabbed her and passed her to Cassie, who immediately squeezed her close, hiding her face against my chest.

“Pointy, do you have access to Cassie’s interface info?”

“Yes.”

“Did she get any points for… that?”

“Yes, she has four points.”

That was something. Probably. We still had no idea what points did. I was hoping they’d translate into more power eventually, because we really needed that, but they could be useless for all I knew. Still, it was the only metric that seemed to increase every time one of us fought.

Or did we need to fight? Maybe we just had to be present? Cassie hadn’t made anything that had looked like an attack to me.

“Gavin, do you have any points?”

Long seconds stretched by as Gavin peered over his interface, face scrunched and mouth moving as he read. Finally he shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean, you don’t think so?”

“There are a lot of words there.”

I sighed. He was a pretty good reader, for a first grader, but he was still a first grader.

Pointy squeaked, “Gavin, if you will give me access to your interface, I can double check for you.”

“Sure!” said Gavin, before I could jump in.

“Hey!” I said sharply. “If you want something from my kids, you go through me. You understand?” It wasn’t like I would have told him to say no… this time… but on principle, the idea of an alien AI blithely wresting agreements from my children without my involvement gave me the heebie-jeebies.

“I will do as I feel necessary to ensure Cassie’s - and my - continued survival.”

“My kids’ survival is the highest priority for me, as well. ALL my kids. If I feel like I can trust you, we’ll be able to work together much better. That will help all of us, including Cassie. And you.”

Pointy was quiet for a moment, her face holding in that frozen way that I was coming to think meant she was using all her processing power. Then, she spoke. “I can make no absolute commitments. The future is uncertain. But I do wish you to regard me as an asset and an ally, as I regard you. If there is no emergency and you are readily available, I will consult you before making requests of your other children.”

Wow, if that wasn’t full of loopholes. If I was ‘readily available.’ If there was ‘no emergency.’ She’d ‘consult me.’ So, if I said no, she might just go ahead anyway?

I wasn’t sure what more I could ask of her, though. I had little leverage. If I tried to get rid of the turtle, I’d deprive myself and all my kids of the information she could give us. Not to mention that she was housed inside Cassie’s favorite stuffy. I’d still get rid of her if I had to, but I knew Cassie might not forgive me If I did. The only other thing I could affect that Pointy seemed to care about was Cassie’s well-being, and I could hardly put that at risk.

I nodded, stiffly. What else could I do?

“You can have read-access to my interface as well. Micah, let her see yours. Maybe Pointy can find something useful from our data. Gavin, please tell her that you will only let her look at your interface, not change anything.”

“Uhhh… sure? I say that?”

Pointy didn’t react to the limitation. “It appears that Gavin did not receive any points for the last encounter. Either the system counts receipt of an attack as involvement in the battle, or Cassie moved in a way it counted as an attack while the monster stood on top of her.”

I’d suspected as much when I’d heard that Cassie had gotten four points. Each monster seemed to award 12, split among everyone who fought. If she’d gotten four, it seemed unlikely that all of us had been rewarded. I’d hoped there’d been some sort of bonus experience, but it didn’t look like that was the case.

I peered out the window, seeing the sun still low in the sky. Breakfast, gearing up, and our two skirmishes had only taken a few hours. We still had plenty of time before lunch. No one was injured. Our armor was in good shape.

I tried to pull Cassie away from my chest, but she resisted.

“Sweetheart,” I said gently. “Will you look at me? Mommy wants to make sure your eyes are okay. Are they still hurting?”

Cassie looked up at me, briefly. “No. They are not hurting. But that was really bad. Like... twoteen bad.”

I preemptively held up a hand to stop Micah from telling her that twoteen was not a number.

“I know. And I’m really sorry. Mommy was worried about the monster getting close to you, and she made a bad call. Some stuff got in your eyes that was meant for the monster. We will make sure that doesn’t happen again.” The swim goggles! I should have thought of them to begin with.

“I know that was very scary, but do you think you can come out with us and try again? I can give you goggles to keep your eyes safe.”

Cassie stared up at me in shock, then started yelling as she hid her face behind Pointy. “No! No! I am not going out there! That was not fun! I don’t want to!”

I felt sick. I knew I’d almost certainly have to make her eventually, but I couldn’t bring myself to force her to do it right now. It might be another poor choice to add to my list of poor choices, but taking her out when she was this panicked seemed cruel. Plus, how confident was I that these points would really help her? Even if she needed them, it might be better to let the boys get practice without me needing to protect Cassie as well.

“Okay,” I said, trying to be heard through Cassie’s freakout. I raised my voice. “OKAY. You don’t have to come out this time. Do you think you can stay in here with Pointy and try to watch us from the windows? You and Pointy can try to be good noticers and give us advice when we come back. And maybe Pointy can help explain to you what we’re doing.”

Cassie sniffled. “You and the brothers should stay here with me.”

“None of us want to go. But we have to. Can you be a good girl and listen to Pointy and stay in the house?”

“Yes…” Cassie’s voice was quiet and her face was confused. Betrayed. She didn’t understand any of this. She hadn’t expected the pain she’d felt a few minutes before. She didn’t understand why I wouldn’t stay to cuddle her. She didn’t understand why I was heading outside again.

And I had no way to really explain.

So I refilled the water guns and headed out again, leaving my three-year-old in the care of an 8-inch alien AI.