Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Andrea is out twirling on the grass this morning instead of doing yoga. She spins and dances, hair extended and glowing. Swirls of color dance with her, punctuated with bursts of light and pops of sound. A rolling, joyful beat emanates from what look like jumping golf balls as they crash into the sidewalk and each other. A tuneless melody fills the air, like a whistle but softer and smoother. The grass rustles and I can feel a light breeze on my face from the wind her cloud makes as it moves. She’s wearing a flowy, summery dress today, maybe in celebration of the weather starting to get hot.

“Come on, hurry up,” Evan says. “All the bacon is going to be gone if we don’t get in there soon.”

I pull my eyes away from Andrea. She’s my sister.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I tell him, and step faster to keep up.

We follow the sidewalk around the edge of the field so that we don’t disturb Andrea’s dance. I don’t think she would mind if we walked through, but the other sibs are all giving her space so I figure that’s the thing to do.

Through the doors of the cafeteria, the warm smells of pancakes, eggs and fried pork products greet us. We grab trays and Evan and I split the last four pieces of bacon and load up with a couple of waffles each. I go for the maple syrup, he slathers on some jam, and we move to our usual table.

A couple of tables over, Marc is regaling a bunch of the younger kids with stories about Father’s exploits. “So he’s in the Oval Office, talking about the solar program, telling the President how he’s going to save the planet from climate change. Then he sees him grab his arm and hunch over and Father knows he’s going into cardiac arrest. But he’s got a pack of medical bots with him, right? Cause he always has them with him just in case. So he breaks them out and sends the medbots into the President’s bloodstream. He clears the arteries right then! Bam! Saves the President’s life!”

The kids fawn and ooh and ah like they always do whenever they hear more about how heroic Father is. The official propaganda is bad enough without Marc adding his own exaggerated versions. According to Jeff, the real story is that the President called him in for a consultation on renewable power. They ended up going golfing the next day, and while they were out on the course, Father gave him a nanobot powerscrub of his major blood vessels. The only reason anyone even thinks there was a risk of a heart attack was because Father said so.

I push down my growing anger. At least Evan doesn’t seem taken in by the embellished version. He glances at Marc and his audience and shakes his head. We make short work of our breakfasts then slip out through the side door as Marc finishes the one about the Pope’s cancer. At least that one is mostly true. Andrea is wrapping up her dance as we head back across the field, past the Residence and into the Learning Center.

“Later,” Evan waves.

“Later.”

Evan turns into his classroom, and I head down the hall to mine. Mr. Johnson is up first today. He’s already there in our room, crowding the whiteboard with Greek letters and math symbols.

“Good morning, Noah.” His balding hair is unkempt and his shirt is wrinkled, as usual. “I hope you came prepared to discuss the partial differential equation sets that I assigned you yesterday. We’re going to apply them to comparing the efficiencies of different power distribution schemes.”

Thanks to my staying up until two in the morning, I am prepared. Mr. Johnson’s math classes are brutal, but I like them. We’re past probability and ordinary differential equations and into the realm where there are no concrete solutions, only theoretical solution spaces. Between my natural aptitude and his truly amazing instruction, I’d be able to walk into the third year of any college math program and do just fine. And I haven’t even started cheating yet.

The symbols on the board quickly go from nonsense to mind-opening as Mr. Johnson pours distilled knowledge into my brain.