Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth (15 page)

“Trauma? He got
tackled
,” said Patrick. “And how did they get here so fast? How could they have known so quickly?”

“POP.”

“Who?”

“They saw what you did and dispatched a unit.”

“But it's only kids out here,” said Patrick.

“POP sees what happens at all times,” Kempton said, pointing up at the sky.

“What are you talking about? What's POP?”

“The Public Operations Panel? Tell me you don't have POP on Earth!?” Kempton dropped his jaw in horror. “To spot problems and dispatch assistance?”

“They spotted me decking that kid?”

“Of course.”

“But how?”

“Probably when everybody hit their Inform buttons, duh!”

Patrick looked at Kempton to see if he was kidding around. He didn't seem to be.

“Okay, so if I'd tackled him and nobody had reported it, they wouldn't have known?”

“Well, a video algorithm probably would have picked it up.” He pointed at a nearby security pole topped with a black plastic bubble.

“Security cameras,” said Patrick.

“And the drones, too,” Kempton said, nodding up at the sky.

“Drones?”

“You don't have drones on Earth?”

“We do, but, like, not over our schools and stuff.”

“Why
wouldn't
you have them over your schools? Don't you care about the safety of children?”

“Well,” said Patrick, looking up. “So there are drones up there right now?”

“Why would the drones
not
be there!? You don't have a PSN on Earth!?”

“What's—”

“The Public Safety Network? You don't have one?”

“They have drones flying all the time watching everything you guys do? So, you have, like, zero privacy when you're outside?”

“What's privacy got to do with it?”

“Well, I mean—you're being watched all the time.”

“We're not watched; we're
monitored
—for emergency responses just like this. And POP's data feeds also supply MA, whose algorithms and analytics suggest appropriate long-term development initiatives and organizational course corrections.”

“MA?”

“The Ministry of Awareness.”

“Oh,” said Patrick.

“Anyhow,” the boy continued, turning his attention back to the paramedics. “I'm frankly a little surprised MA only sent an MHY and didn't send cops, too.”

Patrick shook his head. “The police?”

“O-M-S!” squealed Kempton, smacking his palm against his forehead. “What are you—from the dark ages? KOPs are Community Officers of the Peace. You know, to arrest you.”

“Arrest me!? For what?!”

“For physical assault.”

“What?”

“You
attacked
Breeden.”

“Attacked? I
tackled
him.”

“Which is a form of attack. Hello?”

“Look, I told you, I didn't know he'd gotten rid of the ball. And what's the big deal, anyhow? It's kill the carrier!”

“It's
not done
.”

Patrick looked over at the sideline. The entire school seemed to be there. He spotted Oma standing a row back, smiling as if at an inside joke. He locked eyes with her long enough to feel a blush coming on.

The medics helped Breeden to his feet and the boy gave a celebrity-style half turn, giving his well-wishers a limp-wristed wave. The crowd, with a few exceptions—notably an amused-looking Oma—burst into cheers and applause as the medical technicians backed away.

“But, don't worry,” said Kempton. “You're an emissary—you probably won't even get in any trouble for this.”

“Puber!”

Kempton jumped with surprise.

A small man had come up behind him. He was thin-waisted, big-chested, had a fresh crew cut, and generally looked like a comic book superhero except that he was wearing gym shorts, a tank top, was a little on the short side, and—like everybody Patrick had met today—his face was covered with makeup.

“Hello, Kempton,” said the man.

“Hello, Gymnasiarch Frayne,” said Kempton.

“Erm,” said the man to Patrick, and then, “Umm.”

“I'm Patrick,” said Patrick, offering his hand and then—as the man's eyes went wide—remembering to stick out his elbow instead. The man looked greatly relieved and quickly knocked elbows—rather harder than Patrick would have preferred—with him.

“There's been a change of plans,” said the man as he turned back to Kempton. “Your appointment with Provost Bostrel has been moved to
two twenty-five
.”

“But—but—” said Kempton, whipping out his binky and confirming the update with a sigh, “well, maybe we'll
still
have time to grab smoothies and oat—”

“No time. Get cleaned up,” said the man. He made an unconvincing effort at a smile and stalked back to the school building.

“But that's not—” said Kempton, but his words were drowned out as the ambulance roared into the sky, forcing Patrick to stick his fingers back into his ears.

“—and anyhow I don't see why we have to go in
now
,” concluded Kempton as the aircraft disappeared over the trees. “I mean there are still three full deuces to kill before our meeting with the provost. But getting you cleaned up will only take a few terts.”

“What does he mean by ‘cleaned up'?” asked Patrick.

“Look at yourself!”

Patrick looked down at the grass and dirt stains on his jeans and T-shirt.

“Oh,” he said. “But I didn't bring other clothes.”

“Why would you need other clothes?”

“But … what am I supposed to wear while we wash these ones?”

“What?”

“Am I supposed to sit around in my underpants while they get washed?”

“You don't wash your underpants on Earth?”

 

CHAPTER 24

Four-Child Garage

Though hired gardeners and maintenance men did the bulk of the groundskeeping, the Tondorf-Schnittman garage held a decent collection of power tools—a WeedWacker, a hedge trimmer, a cordless power drill, a leaf blower, and a reciprocating saw. And, though these implements perhaps held even less fascination for the children than they did for their father, Mrs. Tondorf-Schnittman was not one to take chances with her daughters' safety: she kept the door between the garage and the playroom locked at
all
times.

A lock best prevents passage when the latch is shut, however, and on this particular Saturday, Mr. Tondorf-Schnittman, in his haste to get to tennis, had not quite secured the door behind him.

And so it happened that as the four twins became first bored and then frustrated with their tower-building project, Cassie Griffin noticed a shadow around the door's edge, went over to investigate, and casually pushed it open.

“Garage?” she asked Phoebe.

Phoebe nodded emphatically at this delicious observation.

Paul Griffin reached up high along the wall inside the dim doorway, feeling for the light switch but instead finding the button for the automatic garage door opener.

A grinding mechanical sound filled the room and a widening slit of light appeared on the floor, gradually revealing the glinting silhouettes of Mrs. Tondorf-Schnittman's Toyota Sequoia and Mr. Tondorf-Schnittman's beloved but never-driven-in-the-rain Maserati.

Like civilians staring into the glowing interior of a just-landed alien spacecraft, the four-year-olds gawked past the cars into the expanding brightness beyond.

Mrs. Tondorf-Schnittman, hands-free Bluetooth in one ear and the blender just then grinding up her morning's second kale-mango-supplement-powder breakfast smoothie, didn't hear the
thunk
as the door reached its apex and the motor disengaged. And she certainly didn't hear the four silent, wide-mouthed children descend the three steps to the concrete floor and then pad softly past the barely used power tools and out to the rain-dampened driveway.

 

CHAPTER 25

Sannytation

Kempton stepped inside the clear cylinder he'd called a
sanny
. It basically resembled an airport security body-imager.

“How does it work?” Patrick asked.

“Wide-spectrum sonic agitation and hyperpolarizing antistatic fields, mostly. Some antibacterial ultraviolet, too.”

The sanny's door slid shut as Kempton looked at his binky. Then he closed his eyes and the machine began to
whir
and
thunk
. His sweater vest billowed, his hair whipped about like he was standing in the teeth of a storm, a bright blue light bathed him from head to toe. A humming noise began, then stopped, there were a couple moments of silence, and then a dysphonic buzzer sounded.

Patrick had to admit he did look pretty clean after the process—not that he'd had any visible dirt on him to begin with.

“Your turn,” said Kempton.

“What do I do?”

“When you're inside, just select Activate on your binky and follow the instructions. All you have to do is stand still and close your eyes. It won't start if you leave your eyes open. Safety feature.”

Patrick stepped inside the capsule. He looked at his binky and saw a big green
akt
Ə
v
A
t
cube in the center of the screen. The icon swelled and grew brighter, and then winked out of existence. The door slid shut. His binky's screen was now occupied by a countdown clock and the two instructions Kempton had mentioned:
k
LŌZ
IZ
and
b
E
sti
L
.

He obeyed both requests and a moment later the process began. His hair and clothes tousled and flagged, and his skin felt warm, kind of like he was taking a shower only he was completely dry. But then the center of his chest started to get a little too warm and he wondered if he should open his eyes or say stop or something because it was getting pretty uncomfortable—really starting to burn, actually—but before he could make up his mind, there was a ripping noise, a whiff of smoke, and a wheezy buzzer sounded.

The They Might Be Giants logo on his T-shirt—squid and all—was simply gone.

The decal had been fairly wide and both his nipples and his navel were now visible through the smoldering, black-ringed hole where it had been.

“What happened to your shirt!?” Kempton exclaimed as Patrick stepped outside.

“I have no idea.”

“Well, we can't take you to the provost like that.” He rubbed his chin as he thought aloud: “Where. To. Get. You. Another. Shirt …
Bing Steenslay!
”

“What?”

“Bing Steenslay got niched!”

“What got what?”

“Well, most of us have emptied our lockers for break, but Bing was niched last week and they won't have gone through his stuff yet.”

“He was neeshed?”

“On-boarded,” said Kempton as he led Patrick down a row of lockers. “He was granted his career niche last week.”

“Oh,” said Patrick. “So he, like, graduated early?”

“Yeah,” said Kempton, stopping and opening a locker. “He's a publicity cadet, working for MuK.”

“Who's Muck?”

“MuK's not a who; it's a
what
—M-uh-K, the Ministry of Communication.”

“Oh,” said Patrick as he tried to make sense of the hideous black-and-yellow garment Kempton had just passed him.

“As you might expect of a future publicist, Bing was
pretty
cleanly,” Kempton said, nevertheless wiping his hands with a fresh dollop of sanitizer.

“Great,” said Patrick, holding the garment out in front of him. It appeared to be a long-sleeved exercise shirt and he doubted it was going to fit. The label read,
x-L-sm
, which he took to mean
extra-long small
. At least it didn't smell bad. And he supposed he really couldn't go around all day with his chest bare. He took off his ruined T-shirt.