The Proving (20 page)

“We were told not to take any risks,” Skye said, glaring at Gabriel. “Your mother told us that. Driving at night is the
worst
kind of risk.”

“Staying out here is bad, too,” Gabriel said. He shook his head and sighed. “We screwed up. We lost track of time.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Skye said. The edge in her voice softened. “This was supposed to be a routine Proving with a simple task, not a Specter hunt. The road was in horrible condition. No one could have expected we would find what we found.”

“Fortune assigns the day,” Gabriel whispered.

Ben sighed. Neither option seemed all that good. “Tahlia, go get Cleo. We’re holding a vote.”

AGNI. That was going to be her name. And she was definitely a “she” as opposed to a “he.” AGNI’s main multi-optic component port was a female port, meaning that in order to connect her to any sort of diagnostic reader, a cable would have to be inserted. In techie terms, the cable had a “male” component that slid into the port’s “female” component. It was just the sort of awkward lingo that Clan Persia prided itself on.

“And so that’s why you’re a girl,” Cleo told her. “I know it sounds stupid, but you deserve a personality. You’re an amazing device. And you’re kinda like me: I can’t read people’s faces, either. But you can distinguish features and shadows and layers, and that’s pretty much all a robot needs.”

AGNI hovered near Cleo’s head, waiting for a recognizable command. She was currently shaped in her “standard” form, which was slightly human-shaped: a human torso with a little square head and two eyes (one LED light, currently off, and a small pan-optic HD camera). At the end of one arm was a pair of pincers and at the end of the other was a heating coil.

Perfect for very delicately repairing a pair of exposed wires on the northernmost solar panel. The last piece of this weird, weird puzzle. To get there, AGNI’s three little high-speed propellers at her base whirred while her six-axis gyro system kept her upright. Inside, her little ultra-efficient 7-ION battery (Clan Persia invention) kept her running while simultaneously sucking extra juice from the little solar panels on her exterior. And that wasn’t even the best part. The absolute best part was AGNI could be commanded to transform into an entirely new shape simply by rearranging her minibox structure. Goodbye, heating coil . . . hello, screwdriver. Goodbye, oddly unsettling humanoid shape . . . hello, snake shape.

All in all: pretty awesome.

“I have an idea,” Cleo said as she tied off the last wire underneath the southernmost solar panel. She pushed the wire back inside the small black elements box. She closed the box, running her finger along the seal to ensure there wasn’t any damage — AGNI had pried it open in a moment of callous disregard for the delicate nature of a decades-old solar circuit.

“What’s the idea, you ask?” Cleo smiled, unlocking the solar power box and pressing the power button. All six status lights glowed green. Such a soothing color. She used her brain chip to recall the solar array’s schematics, double-checking the circuits behind the power box’s panel. A green circuit diagram popped up in her right contact lens, along with a white pointer cursor. The chip in her brain, sensing her biofeedback, moved the cursor to the left-hand side of the diagram, effortlessly magnifying the battery pathway. “See, I figure that lady was chased here by a Specter, and she actually managed to unlock the door. But weather damage screwed up the door’s locking mechanism! So she smashed the locking panel, which probably sounds like a good idea if you’re from Clan Athens or Clan Sparta. But the computer system probably just assumed it was a vandal, so it tried going into lockdown. But instead of going into lockdown, it just accidentally fried its circuits and shorted the whole system.”

AGNI hovered near Cleo’s head, watching through her little camera. She reminded Cleo of BEE-BO 9X, the unfortunately named service bot in the critically acclaimed holo-flick series
Apocalypse Earth
. That bot had had a square head, a square body and a couple extra arms to hold pretty much anything it wanted (in this fictional universe, weight wasn’t an issue). BEE-BO 9X also had been programmed with killer AI. Totally illegal AI. AI smart enough to compute a dozen different sarcastic quips for any situation.

“I know I’m right.” Cleo stood up and stretched her sore legs. She walked slowly around the massive solar panels, double-checking the weatherproof (“weatherproof”) status screens to make sure they were all gathering energy. “But you gotta remember these emergency supply depots don’t get much love. This facility is old. And they’re using pretty old fiber-optic cables, obviously not the sort of superconductor stuff you see in the city. So it was bound to happen eventually. It just happened . . . at a really bad time.”

Something inside AGNI made a clicking noise.

“Yup. It’s a bummer. Scary, too. Being so close . . .”

“Cleo?”

Cleo spun around. The Athenian girl, Tahlia, was standing in the doorway that led back downstairs to the first floor.

“Who are you talking to? What is that? Should I get help?”

“I’m talking to AGNI. This is AGNI. No, you should not get help.” She waited, but the girl didn’t move from the doorway. Cleo’s facial recognition software identified the look on her face:
curious
. “You can come take a look at her, if you want. She’s just a maintenance bot. She won’t hurt you.”

Tahlia stepped closer. Hesitant, like a good little Athenian experiencing the wonders of modern technology. That was the difference between Clan Persia and everyone else. In Clan Persia, new technology was celebrated. Everyone else was wary about it, as if it might turn around and bite them. As
if
AGNI could bite. Maybe after Cleo tinkered with her a bit.

“Want to see something cool?” Cleo asked. When Tahlia nodded, she turned to AGNI. “AGNI, mode two.”

AGNI’s fans slowed. She lowered to the rooftop, and then began to disassemble. It was a slow process; each one of the thousands of pinhead-sized cubes making up her body moved, switched position, and transformed her body into one very long, narrow snake-like object. The camera was positioned in the front, and the pincers had detached at their base and separated. Even the fans had separated, broken down, and transformed into sections of the body, carefully disassembling the motor so its parts could be used elsewhere.

All in all:
totally
awesome.

“Why did it do that?” Tahlia asked, bending down to examine her. She looked curious, but not particularly impressed by AGNI’s flexibility. The facial recognition program confirmed it, isolating the girl’s facial expression and alerting Cleo to the distinct lack of interest.

“So she can sneak into tight spaces to make repairs,” Cleo said proudly. What was with this kid? How did she not see how great AGNI was? “See, robots like AGNI used to be really, really good at squeezing into tight spaces that humans can’t fit inside. Watch.” She used her VRacelet to send a command to the robot. A handful of miniature treads — now positioned underneath — slowly moved AGNI across the cement rooftop. “AGNI can rearrange herself cause she’s made up of these little cubes with billions of microscopic computer chips inside them. And I can form new designs, too! All I have to do is make sure she follows some basic algorithms . . . and . . .” She stopped, looking down at Tahlia. “You don’t care, do you?”

Tahlia shrugged. “It’s neat, I guess.”

“It’s amazing!” Cleo cried out, unable to contain her excitement. “AGNI was decommissioned because one of the fans was jammed and she needed a memory wipe and I totally got it working and it only took an hour! And then she squeezed in between those giant solar panels and replaced a faulty wire I could never reach in a million years! It’s a shape-shifting robot!” Out of breath, she stopped, waiting for some kind of reaction from the Athenian girl. “Really? This isn’t cool at all?”

“I guess. Everyone’s doing a vote. You need to come down now.”

Cleo watched her walk back to the rooftop doorway. “I bet you’d be excited if I had a petri dish full of bacteria,” she murmured. “AGNI, mode one.”

The robot’s little blocks shifted again, back to the familiar torso-and-head shape. The treads detached, transforming into the circular fans. Three reassembled without difficulty, but the fourth got stuck, clicking again and again as if begging Cleo for help. She bent down and snapped the fan attachment in place. Immediately, the fans whirred to life. AGNI finished her metamorphosis in mid-air by clicking her little toaster-shaped head into place, each little cube knowing exactly where to go.

“AGNI, follow.”

Cleo went downstairs, nodding at the blinking green power light on the emergency console sitting near the front door. “We did that, AGNI. Never forget, my precious little pet.”

Somewhere inside her little X029 computer chips, AGNI was obeying the vague order (“Never forget!”), storing the memory coming in from her camera. And
that
, in Cleo’s opinion, was going to be the funnest part about AGNI: learning all of her sweet little tricks.

Outside, it seemed as if half a day had passed since Cleo had been on the roof. The sky looked so much darker, and now only a few orange-tinted clouds were hanging around the western mountains. Then her contacts adjusted, increasing light sensitivity. Oh, right — no wonder she hadn’t noticed the afternoon sun dipping. It was so easy to get used to these special lenses that she hadn’t even realized it was getting late.

Above the northern mountains, the Ring emitted a hazy red glow that bled into the sky, hiding any early stars. One big red washer, that’s all it was. A problem waiting for a solution. Unlike a lot of her classmates, Cleo took an optimistic outlook when it came to the Ring. Clan Persia had perfected the Xenoshield systems. The Xenoshields protected the cities. Specters couldn’t get past the shields. That was about as close to a win as could be expected, under the circumstances.

Everyone was standing outside the Tumbler.

“Family meeting?” Cleo asked.

“We’re voting,” said Gabriel, “on whether or leave tonight or tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Cleo said. “Tonight. Tonight, tonight, tonight.”

“If we leave tonight, we risk putting the premier’s son in danger,” said the Spartan girl. The FR program registered
anger
. Of course, in Cleo’s experience, most Spartans
always
looked angry. Even when they were eating, they looked angry. They probably danced angry. They probably watched funny movies with a frown.

“We can’t stay out here,” Gabriel said. “Not with the possibility of other Specters nearby.”

“You’re asking me to drive in the dark,” Skye said, “on a road that hasn’t been maintained in decades, through over a hundred kilometers of wilderness. Without any satellite backing us up. If we stay here, we can leave tomorrow in the morning when we know it will be safe.”

“This is insane,” Gabriel said. A green box appeared on his furrowed brow, then his narrowed eyes and tense cheek muscles. Cleo’s FR program determined that he was
frustrated
. Duh, she thought, using her VRacelet to turn the program off. The green box disappeared.

“We’re losing the last bit of light arguing about this,” Ben said. “Let’s put it to a vote. Uh, do the kids have to vote in this manner?”

They all looked at Seamus. He cleared his throat, which was apparently a nervous habit (and one that seemed of particular interest to the Athenian dude, Cleo noticed). “Under the circumstances, a vote by only the New Adults would be appropriate and binding.”

“Good. Those in favor of leaving tonight, raise your hand.” Gabriel raised his hand. Cleo raised hers. She looked to Ben. His hands were on his hips. “All right,” Gabriel said slowly, “those in favor of leaving tomorrow morning, raise your hand.”

Skye raised her hand. Ben half-raised his hand, looking down at the ground.

“Ben!” Tahlia whispered. “Why don’t you want to leave?”

Gabriel rubbed his face with both hands. “I don’t believe it. I thought Clan Athens was full of rational scientists! Don’t they breed the idiocy out of you?”

“Benjamin’s lineage has been responsible for remarkable advances in gene therapy and stem cell production,” the Historian pointed out.

“You have to break the tie,” Gabriel told him.

“What?!” Cleo exclaimed. She had to fight the incredible urge to run back into the supply depot and lock the door behind her. It would be perfect: she could spend the rest of her life surrounded by electronics and old robots and plenty of spare parts. And a computer console, to boot. What did she need these weirdoes for? “We’re gonna put the tiebreaker vote in the hands of the only person here who’s even
more
socially awkward than my brother?”

“Hey!” Reza said, punching her in the thigh. He cried out as his soft, fleshy fist connected with the spidersilk weave.

“As honored as I am,” said the Historian, looking around, “I’m bound by our code to not interfere. I watch. I record. I provide historical context when necessary. Beyond that, I —”

“The Proving is over,” Gabriel said. “We accomplished our task. You said it yourself. You’re no longer bound by your official duties. You can join our Coterie under Parliament law three-three-four-seven.”