The Winter of the Robots (11 page)

“Sorry.”

Sergei shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t you know I’m on probation?”

“No,” I said. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t that surprised. I shoved the envelope back in my jacket pocket. “What did you do?”

“Look, I’m glad Dim is making friends. You and that other guy and that girl all seem nice. But stay out of my business, all right?”

“I didn’t mean to get in your business. I was just curious.”

“I mean, this. My business.” He circled his finger. “This place. Steer clear.”

“OK. Sorry.”

“Keep the dough,” he said. “It’s money for being cool.”

It wasn’t a big deal to be home an hour late—I could have stayed at school or stopped at Oliver’s house—but I still had a long walk in front of me. I hurried past the flashing kangaroo and the Laundromat, crossed First Street, and got to the corner just in time to wait for a train. There was some early rush-hour traffic, too, backed up for half a block or more, belching exhaust fumes into the winter air.

I stood there shivering while the train went by. It was a long one, one after another BNSF car carrying who knows what to who knows where.

And something bounced into my brain like a flashing kangaroo. Ted, the donut scavenger who’d asked Sergei about his brother, was Ted Whaley, the guy at the Laundromat who’d found Dmitri. Heck, I’d
seen
him there. He’d been there the day Oliver and I went to the junkyard.

I might have turned then, run into the Laundromat, and asked Ted what he knew about robots turning on people. But the end of the train was in sight, and I had to get home.

We tried calling our robot Octy, Octobot, Cephalobot, and Rocktopus, but the name that stuck was Polly—short for Polymer. I attached every limb and soldered every connector. Oliver talked me through it, but I was adamant about doing all the work myself.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said. “I said you can enter it in the mall contest even if we build this together.”

“It wouldn’t seem fair. Shh. I need to concentrate.” I carefully threaded a polymer leg through a hole on an omni-wheel and tightened a nut the size of a squashed pea. The omni-wheel was actually going to be part of the head—it would give the robot the ability to twist around without shuffling its feet.

“Nice work,” said Oliver. “You know, I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Seen me like what?”

“Really getting into something. Last year I had to do all the work.”

“You wouldn’t
let
me help last year,” I reminded him.

“You didn’t come up with any ideas last year, or read a book, or spend all day figuring things out. If you had, I would have let you.”

“Good point.” It never occurred to me that he was as frustrated with me for being a deadweight as I was with him for running the show. “Sorry I wasn’t much help.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s just cool to see what you can do when you’re motivated.” The way he said it was annoying and loaded with implication.

“It’s not what you think,” I said. “It’s not about Rocky.” It wasn’t, really. I wanted Polly to win her battle against Rocky and Dmitri’s robot, but not to get even. I just wanted to prove myself.

“I was talking about the mall competition and the prize money,” he said.

“Oh, right.”

The epoxy was dry. I attached another leg, Oliver keeping silent so I could focus.

“Hey,” he said when I was done. “Did you ever learn about Rocky and Dmitri’s robot?”

“No,” I said. I thought about Dmitri. “Let’s still assume it’s a car.”

“Or an otter?” Oliver suggested.

“Right.”

“I wish we knew more,” he said.

“Well, they don’t know anything about ours, so I guess it’s fair.” What would Rocky think when she saw the octopus?
Would she remember the one from the aquarium? Would she know I’d built it for her?

We finished up around midnight. I plugged in the logic controller and turned it on. Polly beeped hello and went for a walk across the living room floor. She stopped at the door.

“She still needs weapons, but she’s looking good,” said Oliver.

“And a better program,” I said. “She doesn’t do much right now.” I’d taken some simple code from Oliver’s robot book and tweaked it to work with the polymer legs. Peter had sent us the instructions.

The door handle turned. I felt a moment of worry that the robot would get whapped, but Polly sensed an object was coming toward her and hurried out of the way.

Oliver’s mother came in, saw the thing, and screamed.

“Mom. It’s OK. It’s a robot.”

“I should have known,” she said with a relieved smile. “At first it looked like a giant spider. Gorgeous robot. You’ve outdone yourself.”

“It’s Jim’s,” said Oliver.

“Really?”

“Really.” He sounded like a proud papa. “Hey, is everything all right? You said you wouldn’t be home tonight.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “Peter proposed … and I said no. It kind of ruined the evening.”

Oliver blinked. “You said no?” He sounded disappointed but not especially surprised.

“Did you know he was going to pop the question?” she asked.

“I suspected,” said Oliver.

His mother sighed. “We can talk in the morning, OK? I could use some sleep.”

Oliver had two beds. I picked up a stuffed bear from the extra one.

“Danny,” I said. “Long time no see.”

“Hello, James,” said the bear. Oliver’s dad’s voice sounded from across the years.

“Want to play animals?” I asked.

“Yes,” said the bear. “What does a doggy say?”

“Moo,” I answered.

“Are you sure?” said Danny. “What does a doggy say?”

“Oink.”

“Are you sure? What does a doggy say?”

“Woof woof.”

“Right!” Danny raised his arms like I’d scored a touchdown, then lowered them. One arm stuck halfway up. “And what does a kitty say?”

“No more animals.” I put the bear down.

“Come here, Danny,” said Oliver. The bear took a few steps and fell over.

“He’s seen better days,” I said.

“Yeah. I’ve tried to keep him working, but I guess I was just too hard on him as a kid.”

“He’s still amazing.”

“You can buy toys like this at Babies ‘R’ Us now,” said Oliver.

“Not as good as Danny.”

“My dad just made it because he felt guilty for working all the time and not being around. Never occurred to him he could sell it for a gazillion dollars.”

“He did make a gazillion dollars, just making a different kind of robot.”

“Well. Not quite a gazillion.” He picked Danny up and set it on the desk. “Good night, Danny.”

“Good night, Junior.” The bear sang “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” and I think I fell asleep before the second verse. I woke up before dawn and slipped out of the house. I figured it was best if Oliver and his mom had the morning to themselves.

I went to work as soon as I got home. Ninety minutes later, I sent Celeste rolling into Penny’s room.

“Good morning, Penny!” the robot said in a flat voice. The echoes from the tin head made her sound extra robotic and evil. “Wake up. I want to play.”

Penny’s eyes popped open.

“Good morning, Penny!” Celeste said again. “Wake up. I want to play.”

Penny yelped and pulled the covers over her head.

“Good morning, Penny!” Celeste started again.

“Make her shut up!” said Penny.

I picked up the robot and turned off the switch. “It’s no big deal,” I said.

“That wasn’t funny. I’ve had nightmares about robots lately,” she said. She lowered the covers. “How did you do that?”

“I got a text-to-speech device from Oliver.”

Penny’s eyes turned from cross to conspiratorial. “I have an idea.”

She invited Maggie over later that day. Maggie was as much a rival as a friend—she and Penny were always trying to one-up each other. Penny would get a new toy, and Maggie would brag that she had a bigger, better version. Maggie would start reading a thick book, and Penny would get it from the library and race to finish it first.

“Say hello to Maggie, Celeste,” Rocky said.

“Hi, Maggie,” the robot said.

“Hold up some fingers,” Penny told her. “We’re teaching Celeste to count.”

Maggie held up three fingers.

“How many fingers is she holding up?” Penny asked.

“Three,” Celeste answered.

“You got lucky!” said Maggie. “Do it again.”

They played several rounds, Celeste getting the answer right every time—even when Maggie held up two fists. “None,” Celeste answered. It was possible to program a robot to do that, but we’d cheated. Penny just waved
a hand in front of one of the sensors whenever Maggie held up fingers. Celeste counted the times Penny waved her hand.

Penny and I spent the next week in a sea of curly brackets and parentheses, programming Polly to sense if an enemy was approaching and to know when her opponent was exposed. I would type up the code while Penny read aloud from the book. She was pretty smart, figuring out stuff right along with me.

What slowed us down was computer time. We could only use the office when Mom and Dad weren’t in there, which was frustrating. I really needed my own computer.

“Is this supposed to be the octopus from the aquarium?” Penny asked the first time she saw the new robot.

“Yeah.” I was glad she recognized it.

“Did you show it to Rocky yet?”

“Not yet,” I told her. “Why?”

“Because. I just wondered.”

She was on to me. I went with the octopus as a message to Rocky. What exactly the message was, I wasn’t sure.

“It’s cool,” said Penny.

“Thanks. Let’s see if it works.”

We plugged in the logic controller so we could test our program.

In a few days, Polly and Celeste could play tag or hide-and-seek. They could even “talk” by flashing colored lights
at each other. Polly would flash a random color, Celeste would sense it and flash back the same color.

“We need to test them in a mock battle,” I suggested.

“Nuh-uh,” said Penny. “I don’t want Celeste to beat up Polly.”

I laughed. Celeste didn’t have any weapons.

“Nobody will hurt anybody,” I told her.

“All right, but I get to stop the fight at any time,” she said.

We cleared a space on the kitchen floor and let them at it. We decided the first robot to tag the other one three times was the winner. Polly could use any of her eight legs to tag Celeste, and Celeste could use any part of her cardboard frame to tag Polly.

The first round went beautifully, Polly dropping and letting Celeste roll over her, just as I’d planned. I’d disabled the jump feature so she wouldn’t send Celeste flying, but the second the cardboard robot was past, Polly reached out and tagged her.

Celeste turned back and Polly dropped again. This time Celeste stopped midway and rolled back the way she’d came. Polly was confused, hopping up and reaching forward while Celeste tagged her from behind.

“Score!” Penny shouted.

“She’s not supposed to change directions!” I said.

“I made some changes,” said Penny. “I wanted it to be fair.”

I remembered what Rolf said about adapting to what the
programmer didn’t expect. If Polly had been programmed that way, she’d figure out Celeste’s trick and change her own behavior. But she couldn’t, and Celeste won the contest three to one.

The boxy robot raised her wire arms in victory.

“What the—she can’t do that!” I said.

“I’ve been making all kinds of changes,” said Penny.

The science fair was on Wednesday. We had the regular part of the fair first, where people could come by and see the robot and ask questions. Oliver had thrown together the poster and report—our hypothesis was something about the new-era robot parts.

“Where did you get these?” one of the judges asked, squinting at the polymer legs.

“An old colleague of my dad’s,” Oliver admitted.

“Hmm. Well, it’s certainly remarkable,” the judge said. I had a feeling we’d just lost points for having an inside connection, but I didn’t care if we won the science fair. I was only interested in the battle at the end of it. I wanted to see how Polly would do in a competition, and even more than that, I wanted to see Rocky’s face when she saw Polly.