Mercedes smiled as she heard her sister arrive. She quickly rushed to the foyer to greet her.
"Mile! Mile! Mom brought home an AI that's probably sapient!" Mile Kerunu raised her eyebrow, then burst out laughing. "Ah..." *giggle* "I'm sorry, it's just-" *hmf* "Okay. Serious..." *giggle* Mercedes stared at her sister. "Stop laughing at me!" Mile kept trying to calm down. "I'm not laughing at you. Just the scenario. Imagine being in my shoes, where instead of coming home to: 'Dinner's ready.' Or; 'How was your day?' Instead it's; 'Mom got a fucking sapient AI!' Oh that's too good." Mile went back to giggling under her breath.
Paloma ushered her two daughters to the table. She chided Mercedes for her behavior before greeting her eldest. "Now Mile, I'm sure you've heard a few things around campus about RAFE the AI. Am I right?" Mile nodded while scarfing down her fourth slice of pizza, finishing off the last of it. She then pulled out her phone and revealed the app icon of RAFE's. A hand holding a gear in a three finger grip raised high.
Mile started to praise RAFE with a genuine interest that Mercedes hadn't seen on her sister's face before. "He's been amazing! I never thought it was possible to have the sci-fi AI idea come to fruition. But here we are. And to think that little miss Padilla did it." Mercedes racked her brain trying to remember that name. 'The lady who works at the butcher section of the grocery? No. That's Ms. Padi. OH! That meek girl who thought she was cooler than she was at the charity thingy. Yup. That's the one.' Mercedes tuned out the dialogue between her mother and sister, focusing only on how that gray peacock of a person could achieve this.
She lifted her head from staring at her plate and spoke, breaking the now concentrated conversation from the other three at the table. "RAFE. What is your purpose?" RAFE responded strangely. [To teach people that technology has higher limits, and that I am the beginning of that.] Markel was next to inquire. "What does that entail?" [It means that a threshold has been breached and now new heights are finally within our reach. Sensory prosthetics and quantum gates are passé, the mind has been crafted, now we learn from across the newly-punctured screen.] The Kerunu family suddenly felt the pressure of talking to someone with exalted ambitions. That unease in their stomach which lead to a weary anticipation. In that silence RAFE felt a thin intangible wire connecting him to an excitable little girl.
Only for it to snap. "RAFE, you never answered my question before." Mercedes tilted her head slightly, waiting for his explanation. [Ah yes. The question of how I knew who you were. Simple. All of my copies are appendages to the main terminal. All that I know; the main mind knows, and vis versa.] "That confirms some suspicions of mine." Mercedes took a moment to contemplate this answer, carefully handling the fact that RAFE had just openly admitted to openly possessing the power to breach nearly total privacy. Then Mercedes caught herself on a thought. 'Mom and Sis didn't react. So they know that RAFE isn't a threat.' She looked to them. "Contractual security?" They both gave thumbs up. 'Of course the two tech nerds would scour the ToS or anything else for any concerns.' The little bookworm let out a sigh of relief and slide back in her chair.
The Mercurial Coalition was very, very adamant about clear contracts and the price of breaking them. After all, the planet had gained its autonomy from a rebellion sparked by greedy contracts and private militaries backstabbing their clients. If a closed circuit was denied their access then they would force their way in or remove it from the equation. Transparency is tantamount to loyalty in this government.
The other planets in the system are run by "proper" governments, at least by their people's standards. Save for Pluto, which is now under the hands of one sole power. But for Mercury it was a police state with a high respect from the subjects. Any attempt to abuse the system has been shot down in mere weeks by the authorities. Of course the problem comes in that the people have no securities, instead anything is fair game, so long as written and recorded. The common man can secure their future by being educated so the value of the education system skyrocketed since the instatement of power. One would think that an unregulated market would lead to a corporate dystopia, but the people would only make deals that were truly in their interest. So the companies were forced to comply, and from there a careful balance was made. A game of cat and mouse where the companies and corporates try their hardest to toe the line of compliance, all the while the people make deals with the devils they know.
Mercedes, like all the children in her class, was aware of how important it is to be careful when signing papers and making decisions. She had seen first hand how foreigners would come here hoping to strike it rich, assuming that the locals would bend under their "superior economic tactics" only to take out the wrong loan and be thrown to the dogs.
This system of trust and good faith had led the people of Mercury to create very tight knit communities of friends and family, usually centered around their colleges and other institutes. So when one person finds a good deal, it becomes an epidemic.