The Robot by the Fireplace

This I can take care of:
Small homunculus on the roof, a pack animal
Pulled conveyance, and entry through the exhaust chute.

I am not so sure I was supposed to overhear
The details of this plot, to catch uninvited the briefing
About this expected home invasion, though I wonder why.
Protection is part of my programming.
The safety of the family’s offspring is a persistent subroutine,
Running even when I am in recharge state:
The first memory location upgraded, the highest
Interrupt, the largest amount of direct access allocation
Set aside for any of my subroutines.
I am not designed for security, but, at the last,
Every extremity I am capable of is allowed in progeny protection;
And I suspect there is even some code hidden within me
That, upon recognition of severe enough threat,
Would swap into my execution registers and turn me

Fierce. I can take care of this.

I ignore the excitement, assist with mechanical professionalism
The laying about of greenery, the installation
Of lights, the festooning of fire-retardant coated
Garland. I calculate with idle processor time
That I will be able to hear animals on the shingles,
Even trace the lithe footsteps of anyone who could fit
Greaselessly down this relatively narrow chimney, and that I will be ready
No matter the agility or commitment of the intruder.
The family, they have admitted, will all be in bed,
Bedecked in foppery set aside for the season.
I would typically be away in standby. The house
Locked down would normally be as secure as rain.
This new endangering vector, though I do not understand it,
Seems to have not been properly considered.

Entry through the chimney?
Not my choice of ingress. This curls
More of a ruse, more of a process designed to
Fool, with an agent decked out to resemble
Immature fantasies of the little people who roam
The littered imagination of human history. A wink
And a nod and a child might be sucked in,
And adult momentarily set aback.

Left would be only my industrial grade programming,
Unimpressionable and beyond folk lore,
Running in core to keep this family from ruin, from all of them being
Assimilated into whatever druid plan the rogue
Gift-giving criminal might have in his deliriously twisted holiday engrams.

The innocent conversation about this openly expected visitor
Has been anything but menacing: no worry, no defensive preparations,
Nothing to indicate that the projected territorial violation will cause
The least bit of alarm. It is good that I have solid
Auditory fidelity, and wide enough data pathways
To act independently, decisively on my perceptions.
I report nothing of my fears; but this night I will stay
On auxiliary power, show everyone I am worth the price of upkeep.

Even now I am listening overhead for those tiny, murderous hooves.

This poem originally appeared in Issue 20 of Eye to the Telescope, the online journal of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association.