Willful Machines (4 page)

I looked around the auditorium. A few suits lingered here and there muttering into their pucks, and a few technicians had started packing lighting equipment into big metal boxes, but almost all the students had left. I glanced up. No more news cameras hovering over our heads. “I'll do it for you,” I said. “If you want.”

That grin again. Goofy and sly and dangerous, all at the same time. He drew close and pulled open his gray tweed blazer, wafting a scent in my direction: coconuts. Like he'd just stepped off a Chilean beach. Chile
did
have beaches, didn't it?

My mind scrambled around, doing quick calculations. What message had I sent by offering to tie his tie? Did it mean the same thing as giving him my puck handle? Had I crossed some line of no return yet? I reached out and unfastened his upside-down silver raven.

The back of the pin where it had rested against Nico's chest felt hot in my palm. Maybe I hadn't imagined that odd warmth
radiating from his body after all. I untied his tie, wishing I could also untie my own. The thing was strangling me now.

“You have cute ears,” Nico said.

They tingled and probably turned bright red. “Thanks,” I mumbled as I looped the wide end of his tie around, over, and down.

“So let me get this straight,” he went on. “At Inverness Prep, you have to tie your tie a certain way and you can't flirt with other boys. What kind of dictatorship is this?”

“This isn't a dictatorship. This is America, remember?” I nodded my head toward the podium America's freely elected commander in chief had vacated minutes ago.

Nico laughed loudly.

Then he stopped laughing.

When I looked up, his grin had disappeared. “If I'm barking up the wrong tree,” he repeated, “tell me.”

My fingers stopped looping. I swallowed, my Adam's apple bulging against my collar. “The thing is—”

A hand landed on my shoulder. I jerked away from Nico and knocked into something large and brick-wall-like. I whirled around.

“Hi, Trumbull,” I stammered.

My Head Armed Babysitter frowned at me, one of his eyebrows rising above his sunglass frames. “I didn't mean to startle you, sir.”

I couldn't stand it when Trumbull “sirred” me. I must've told
him not to do that a hundred times, but he always did it anyway—especially on important occasions, like today, when he got more caught up than usual in playing secret agent. I wondered if he'd noticed the ambient strangeness floating in the air around me and Nico. If he had, he gave no sign, but then again I never could tell what was going on behind those dark lenses of his.

“Your father wants to see you before he leaves,” he said. “The chopper's taking off in thirteen minutes, so there isn't much time. He's waiting for you in your room. You'd better come with me.”

“Okay. Just a second.”

I turned back to Nico. He smirked. “Your father?”

He seemed more amused than annoyed, like to him this was just one more example of how incredibly interesting and funny the world could be. I put out my hand for him to shake. It felt silly and overly formal, especially after the conversation we'd just had, but with Trumbull standing there, what else could I do?

“Nicolas Medina,” he said.

“Lee Fisher,” I answered sheepishly.

“Right.” When we finished shaking, he folded his arms and stood, holding me with his light brown eyes and that knowing, but not nasty, smirk.

“Well.” I followed the awkward shake with an awkward wave. “See you around.”

Only as I walked away did I remember I hadn't even finished tying his tie.

T
he main hall had mostly emptied by the time Trumbull and I reached it. Without all the jabbering people around, you could hear the low-pitched rumble of the river passing under the stone floor and the accompanying whisper of the chandelier overhead. I glanced through the back windows at the terrace, with the lake beyond mirroring the dark clouds above. On my other side, through the front windows, the river ran in a straight iron-gray line down the middle of the front lawn, reined in by stone walls on either side. The trees of the forest across the highway, most of them already leafless, bucked and tossed like wild, leashed dogs, and behind that, a lone mountain lost itself in more clouds. Nico was right: this place did sort of feel like Count Dracula High. When you peered up from the lake at the school perched at the top of the cliff, with the waterfall roaring out from the base of the building, and the spires twisting upward like thorny plants, and the blunt blue mountain looming in the background, it looked sinister, but also beautiful.

I climbed the stairs to the third floor and headed toward the boys' rooms, Trumbull following close behind me, the floor releasing soft creaks as we went. A mobile security camera hovering near the ceiling turned to watch us go by. Up ahead, a Spider picked its way along on four of its six slender legs, its blue, lamplike eye sweeping over the wood-paneled walls, and its two forelegs, wearing cleaner spray and buffing attachments, polishing away smudges only it could see. When it noticed us, it folded its lanky eight-foot-tall body against the wall to give us more room to pass. “Excuse me,” it murmured.

Outside my room, two more Secret Service agents stood guard. “He has to be in the chopper in eleven minutes,” one of them said. Wishing I'd walked upstairs more slowly, I went in.

Dad stood studying the shelf of little machines I called my Creatures. They were the only things to look at in there, the only personal touch except for a small framed photograph of Mom on my nightstand. Otherwise, I kept my room neat and anonymous.

“You still play with these toys, Lee?”

“Dr. Singh says I have a knack.” From the shelf I grabbed a wadded-up ball of black fabric. “This one I just finished a few weeks ago. A hovering sunshade. He automatically positions himself between you and the sun.” Glancing out the window, I added, “Not that we need something like that around here, I guess.” I tossed the ball into the air, and it exploded into a floating canopy that began to undulate around the room like a black jellyfish.

Dad paid no attention. He leaned closer to a machine the approximate size of a cat and eyed the sharp silver teeth lining his oversize jaws. “What does that one do?”

“Catches rodents and insects. He doesn't actually kill them, though. The spiky teeth are just for show. He releases whatever he catches outside. I call him Mouthtrap.”

When Dad talked to the American public, he had fatherly crinkles around his eyes and smile lines around his mouth. When he talked to me, his face bunched up in different places. A deep vertical crease formed between his eyebrows, his mouth pressed itself into a hard, straight line, and he watched me with a mixture of disappointment and fear, like he suspected I might be planning a school shooting.

The room darkened. My sunshade had drifted in front of the window to block out the light. “Move, Shadow,” I muttered. The Creature floated off. Milky daylight filtered in through the window again.

“What's Dr. Singh been teaching you?” Dad asked.

“Nothing illegal, if that's what you mean.”

He nodded toward another Creature perched at the end of the shelf. My latest project, she looked just like a real raven. “How about that one?”

“One hundred percent synthetic. The feathers are artificial. If you look close, you can tell. That's not against the law, is it?”

“Almost.”

He was referring to the law banning machines that mimicked
the appearance of humans or animals—another piece of legislation the Human Values Party had pushed through. How much a robot could resemble a living thing was a point of legal dispute, but so far most courts had drawn the line at machines that incorporated an outer layer of living organic material. Fleshjackets, people called them. My bird wasn't one of those. Still, I knew I was pushing it.

“I built her to look like the Inverness mascot,” I added, as if my show of school spirit would make it all okay. “I'll show you.” To the robot, I said, “Wake up, Nevermore.” (Bex had come up with the name. I wasn't much of a reader and had never even heard of Edgar Allan Poe, but she'd assured me I'd like him.)

The bird came to life, shaking out her silky black wings and darting her head from side to side. Dad remained unimpressed.

“I'm really good at robotics, Dad. Isn't this exactly what you've been saying I should do? Find a direction?”

“But why
this
one?” He walked over to the window and gazed at the stone wall opposite. Most rooms at Inverness Prep had a view of either the lake or the mountain, but the Secret Service had decided the exposure would pose too big a security risk, so my window looked out on a minuscule courtyard instead. Outside, it had finally started drizzling. Drops of rain flicked against the glass and then twisted their way down. “This isn't a tech school,” Dad said. “Students don't come here to learn robotics.”

“They should. Dr. Singh's the greatest roboticist in the world.”

“She didn't come here to teach either, Lee. She came here to recover.”

“She likes teaching
me
, I can tell.”

“Trust me, she has no interest in becoming a robotics guru. It's better for this country that she doesn't, after what happened.” His gaze dropped to the picture of Mom next to my bed. “You of all people should understand that.”

A sort of desolate trance came over Dad as he looked at Mom, with her rumpled lab coat and her fiery red hair in a messy ponytail just like Dr. Singh's. His bunched face went slack. His eyes glassed over behind his glasses. I usually noticed a similar expression on my own face when I saw myself in photos.
Do I really look that miserable?
I'd always wonder. Am
I really that miserable?
But Dad only got that expression every once in a while.

My room had gone dim again. Shadow had floated back to the window. This time I said, “Shadow, sleep.” He crumpled himself into a ball and thudded to the floor.

The light poured in. Dad snapped back to himself. The line between his eyebrows reformed. He adjusted his silver glasses. “And it would also be better for this country if you directed your energies elsewhere. Stop spending all your time holed up in that robotics lab and
do
something. For God's sake, play a sport, son. Trumbull tells me you go running every morning. So why don't you join the cross-country team?”

“That would ruin it, Dad. I like the time alone. Although even
when I'm running, I have my stupid detail tromping after me.”

“Don't call them stupid. Trumbull and his boys are just trying to keep you out of harm's way. You don't give them a hard time, do you?”

“No, I don't give them a hard time.”

“Well, if you're not into sports, at least work on your social skills. Make connections. That's what this place is really for. Twenty years from now, your classmates will be among the most powerful people in the world.”

I stroked Nevermore's sleek synthetic feathers. “I'm not like you, Dad. I didn't inherit the social gene.”

“Apparently not. You're the son of the president, and still you can't seem to make any friends. That's an accomplishment.”

“Believe me, you're not the only one who's noticed the irony.” I didn't bother to add that I had one friend, at least. Dad knew about Bex, but he didn't count her as a worthwhile connection. Last year I'd introduced the two of them, and she'd spent the whole time haranguing him about his policies.

“You have to make an effort, Lee. Take advantage of your time here.” He gestured toward the rain-spattered window like it looked out on a magnificent view instead of a stone wall. “This place helped me become a man.”

I remembered Headmaster Stroud had said something similar during the assembly. The way the two of them talked, you'd think Inverness Prep was some kind of military training
camp. I glanced at my puck, and it flashed the time. Four minutes down. Still seven minutes to go.

Dad asked me a few questions about my classes, but he didn't really listen to my answers. Then he talked for a while about how busy the fallout from the Statue of Liberty attack had kept him. I didn't pay much attention to what he said either.

That ate up another three minutes. We'd just sunk into a glum silence, both of us staring out the viewless window, when Trumbull knocked on the door and stuck his head in.

“Sorry to bother you, sir.” Then, to me, “A friend of yours is outside. He says you have his tiepin and he needs it back.”

I glanced down. The fingers of my left hand uncurled. In the center of my palm lay Nico's silver raven. “Oh,” I said stupidly. “I didn't realize.”

I started to hand it to Trumbull, but Dad said, “So you
do
have a friend here. Tell him to come in, Trumbull. I'd like to meet him.”