Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Evan’s right. This journaling gets easier with practice.After just a few days of it, I hardly need to do more than think to get exactly what I want here. I’ve got a computer in my brain. Well, in my pocket, but it’s hooked to my brain so close enough. What else can I get this hardware to do for me besides control nanobots? The possibilities seem endless.

I’m thinking of adding some kind of database. I could make it do lookups automatically on whatever I write here. Like if I write down a name, I would get everything I know about them to pop up in a window in my overlay. A coursework load that’s brutal now could become a piece of cake, giving me time for some proper plotting and scheming on how to find the evidence to bring down Father.

Putting something like that together would be a lot of work though. Implementing a decent database would take forever if I have to write it myself without any standard libraries or anything. There are off-the-shelf open-source tools that I could hook up to do most of the work if I were on a computer hooked to the internet, but that doesn’t help me get it into the implant phone where I actually want it. I could maybe look at the code and type it all in, but that would take forever, plus even with careful typing I’d make so many transcription errors that I’d have to spend months debugging it.

Maybe I can plug the phone into one of the lab computers and just download code from the internet. I pull out the phone and examine its port. Hmm. It’s nothing standard, definitely nothing that I have a cable for. It doesn’t even have a charger cable, since it uses the same nanotech batteries as the bots that can self-charge using ambient heat. No luck there.

The only way I know to connect with it is with the gear in Father’s lab. Unfortunately, that bank-vault door only opens when Father goes inside. Maybe if Father leaves me alone in there again I can see if there’s a spare cable in one of the cabinets. But then the security camera would catch me. No good.

There’s got to be a way to solve this. Maybe I just need another way of looking at it. I think I’ll pick Jeff’s brain tomorrow. He seems to be the best programmer out of my sibs. Plus, I’m sure he’d keep quiet about whatever I asked him. He owes me that for not ratting out his bad code that gave him a worse haircut.

“You seem especially contemplative tonight, brother,” Evan says, startling me. I was so lost in thought I didn’t even notice that he had come into the common room. He flops down onto the couch next to my chair.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I’m tempted to talk to Evan about my idea, but since the big reason I want to do it is to cheat on all my classwork, I decide not to. I feel like he’d get that out of me once we started talking about it. Evan’s a straight shooter, and I’m not sure he’d be on board. I don’t think he’d report me or anything, but he’d at least try to talk me out of it. Besides, he’s one of the few people here whose opinion I care about, and I’d just as soon not have him think less of me.

“Up for a game of something?” he asks, turning on one of the video game consoles.

“Only if that something has a lot of mindless shooting.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, brother.” He tosses a controller onto my lap. “Deathmatch incoming. Prepare to be fragged.”

“No chance, big man. You might as well give up now and save yourself the humiliation.”

Twenty minutes later I’m up on him, ten kills to his seven. Chad comes swaggering in through the big double doors, his workout clothes all sweaty from whatever he’s been doing in the rec room.

“Come on, guys,” he says, giving us a patronizing look. “Curfew time. You too, Becky and Jen,” he says louder. Two girls across the room turn off their screen and hop to their feet. I think they’re from the class just younger than ours, but I have trouble keeping them all straight. Anyway, they head straight to the girls’ wing. Evan and I keep on playing with Chad glaring at us until I get one more kill.

“You got lucky,” Evan says to me, shutting down the game.

“Sure,” I reply, handing him my controller and pointedly ignoring Chad standing there with his arms crossed. “No skill involved there, just you lucking right into my shots every time.”

“Maybe just a tiny bit of skill,” he concedes.

Chad looks down at his watch. I’m not sure why, since he has a clock in his head like I do. “And now you’re past curfew.”

“As are you, brother,” Evan says, pushing past him.

“Good night, Chad,” I say, following Evan toward the hallway. “Better get to your room or I’ll have to report you for being up late. It’s my duty as the oldest brother, you know.”

Evan laughs. I leave Chad fuming behind me, which makes me smile all the way to my room.