Freelancer (5 page)

David cheered for a brief second but abruptly stopped himself from celebrating. Several people who had placed bets on him to win patted each other on the back in resigned celebration. The rest of the class seemed disappointed to see David have any measure of success. Thomas glared before disappointedly dismissing class until next Friday. Thomas promised the following class would be a more rewarding learning experience than today’s activity had been.

But this class was actually very rewarding, Thomas.
Kari finally knew how to beat the simulation she was stuck on.
Such a simple solution to the puzzle. How did I not think of this before?

Thanks, David.

Without thinking, Kari climbed into the first auto-auto that pulled up to the school. She instinctively connected to the navigation of the auto-auto from her mind chip and gave it the directions to a coffee shop not far from where her factory was located at the edge of town. As soon as she had confirmation that her destination was in the travel path for the auto-auto, she loaded her simulation and overrode nearly all her vision. She was eager to beat the simulation after the disappointing amount of time that it had frustrated her so far.

Kari left part of her vision focused on the real world because she liked to know with whom she was traveling. She was especially concerned about it because her traveling companions were bound to be her peers, which meant she most likely didn’t like or trust them.

The brightness of the sun from the simulation served as a stark contrast to the dreary day in the real world. A couple of younger boys shuffled into the vehicle and took seats across from her. Kari made no effort to acknowledge the boys as they entered; instead, she took another glance at the military encampment in the simulation. She studied the base intently, no longer intimidated by its formidable defenses. David entered the auto-auto and took a seat next to her.

He was looking at her. Kari couldn’t be sure because she hadn’t looked over at him, but she could feel the weight of his stare.
I don’t care if you are going to look at me; I’m not going to look at you.
The auto-auto’s door slid shut, and the vehicle started forward, heading to drop off the first passenger, automatically programming the most efficient path to reach its different destinations. Even without checking to see who would be the first person the auto-auto dropped off, Kari had a feeling that this ride was going to last longer than she wanted it to.

Just ignore him. He has no right to be upset about today; you were only staying out of trouble.
Kari tried to focus on the simulation; she even overrode her entire vision so she wouldn’t be tempted to check if David were looking at her.

Kari couldn’t help it. She acted like her neck itched right beneath her short hair, and she turned slowly, trying to stare out as if she were still overriding her vision. She found David’s green eyes burning back at her.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what, participate in class? Trust me, I didn’t want to.”

“Not that. But now that you mention it, you could have just said you weren’t paying attention, but then you had to attack me.” His eyes seemed to lighten a bit as he said it.

“I tried. But you know how Thomas is, I had to say something.” She felt her face becoming a little hotter.
I don’t have to defend myself to you.

“But then—”

“I don’t have to defend myself to you, anyway.”
That’s right.

“And you never gave me a chance to defend myself,” David said, his voice rising as well. The two younger students in the car were noticeably uncomfortable now, fidgeting in their seats awkwardly.

“What does it matter? We all know what you were going to say: ‘power to the states,’ ‘less enforcement,’ ‘poor people are lazy,’ blah, blah, blah.” She used the same voice she had used to make fun of boys as a child. David looked to be in disbelief. For a moment, Kari felt embarrassed.

“You’re just like everyone else,” David said with disdain.

The words would have hurt more if Kari weren’t in battle mode looking for ways to strike back. The last thing she wanted was to be like everyone else.

Kari hesitated for just a second—she almost said,
You don’t even know me—
before deciding to go with something more pointed. “Have you ever considered that everyone else is right and you’re the one who’s wrong? It would make more sense, wouldn’t it?”

David looked as if he might say something, but Kari’s words gave him pause. After winning years of arguments with various opponents, Kari instinctively knew to take advantage of such a hesitation.

“But I do agree with you on one thing. The Middle States are stupid enough to actually start a war. But that’s good news for you, because then you can move there and find people who can stand you. That’s if you’re lucky, because there certainly aren’t any of us here in the sane part of the United States who can.”

The auto-auto slowed to a stop. The door slid open, and one of the younger boys across from Kari dashed out of the car, leaving behind his desperate-looking friend. Kari glanced over to watch the boy leave. She turned back to David, ready for another round, just in time to see him silently push his way out of the auto-auto.

The military base in the simulation was as impressive as ever, but Kari was no longer intimidated by it. She didn’t feel much besides anger.
Why is he even mad at me? Everyone else in class is way worse to him than I am.
That was true, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

Kari dropped in a dozen of the drones she had programmed for school today and immediately started modifying them. First, she made them bigger and more powerful, as they would need to be fast. She replaced the LED light with a small energy gun. It needed to be lightweight so it wouldn’t slow down the drones, but it also needed to be powerful enough to attract attention.

Kari took a few minutes to update the software so that her drones would no longer try to flash other drones to the ground but instead follow whatever orders she gave them. Within a few minutes, she was satisfied that the drones would be adequate to solve the riddle of the military camp. Her upgraded drones floated barely off the ground in a small flock. They were unimpressive, bumping into each other and struggling to maintain their distance from the ground.

On Kari’s orders, the modified school drones shot up into the air and then raced toward the military camp. She looked over the hill and watched as the drones’ small energy cannons opened fire on various targets. She wasn’t sure whether to be happy that the drones had managed to draw the attention of the much larger gunships or frustrated that all the drones had attacked the same target. They would need lots of work before they were something she could be proud of.

The gunships and mechs began to open fire on her little flock of drones, but their energy blasts were too large and slow, and Kari’s drones slipped around their fire. Now that her drones had the camp guardians’ attention, she ordered them to fly away as fast as they could in the opposite direction. The drones raced out over the desert sands, leaving the tiring sun behind. The gunships and cheetahs raced after them, whereas the mechs and ground troops followed at a much slower pace.

Just like David’s drones—too fixated on a target to keep a handle on the full situation.

Kari jumped over the little sand dune she was hiding behind and strolled toward camp confidently. She even deleted the stealth device she was wearing; she deemed it no longer useful in this situation. The simulation did a good job replicating environments and models, but its depiction of how a camp would look like if real soldiers lived it in wasn’t as accurate. It was in pristine order; all the equipment and tents looked as if they had never been touched. Kari would have been unnerved if she weren’t inside a simulation.

Kari reached the center of the camp unimpeded. Unopened supply boxes formed a sort of platform, and in the center of the platform was a table, where Kari assumed the treasure was waiting for her. In the corner of her eye that still showed the real world, she noticed the other boy exit the auto-auto. He made an obvious effort not to look in her general direction. She didn’t blame him for that.

Kari refocused on the simulation. She picked up a golden watch that rested in the middle of the table. The watch’s hands ticked time away, unaware of the trouble she had taken to recover it. She studied the watch for a brief moment before the simulation froze, marking its completion.

Too fixated on the target. Too fixated on winning the argument to stand up for David.

Kari closed the simulation and stared out the windows as the auto-auto rolled down the streets, drawing closer to her destination. Beating the simulation hadn’t made her feel any better; in fact, now that she didn’t have the simulation to think about, she was left with only David and a potential civil war.
I really need a new project to work on.

Kari climbed out of the auto-auto, feeling the brisk fall air in front of the coffee shop at the edge of town. This time of year was colder than it should be. She wanted to spend time complaining about the weather, but there wasn’t anything she could think about besides her exchange with David.

He had no right to expect anything else from me.

It was at least the tenth time she had told herself the exact same thing, and it still hadn’t served to make her stomach loosen. It had been twenty minutes since David had left the auto-auto, at what was clearly not his stop, to make it to Leeworld’s Coffee on the edge of town. Twenty minutes had been more than enough time for Kari to beat the simulation that she had been stuck on all day, but it wasn’t enough time for her to forgive herself for what she’d said.

She knew she would eventually have to face the truth that David hadn’t deserved what she’d said. If anyone else in the school felt alone, that person was likely him.
But he brings that on himself. Besides, if he thinks I’m just like everyone else, then he shouldn’t be mad at me
.
Her stomach tightened again slightly—the familiar feeling of fighting a battle against herself that she knew she would lose.
Did I bring it on myself when Sarah and her friends picked on me, and David was the only one to do anything about it?
The same thing happened whenever she cut a corner in a project; she went back and fixed it every time.

Fine. I’ll apologize. I was wrong to say those things. It doesn’t matter that I don’t agree with him on things; I can still be decent to him. Since when do I care enough about politics and stuff, anyway? Besides, I have to admit that I do enjoy the way he gets under Thomas’s skin, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

Her confession didn’t have the affect she had hoped, for her stomach was still in a knot. Once the auto-auto was out of sight, she started the long mile-or-so walk down the road to her factory. She was much too paranoid to enter the location of the storage lockers directly; that could lead to questions. Not many high school girls made frequent, unaccompanied trips to a storage locker, and Kari didn’t like questions, especially when she had no logical excuse. The exercise didn’t hurt, either. Luckily, it had been raining this morning, so she had thought to bring a jacket.
North Carolina isn’t supposed to be this cold already, especially out here away from the ocean.

The walk down the road to her factory went by quickly as she debated whether to call David or wait until next week at school to apologize to him. She settled on the latter option. Only a single auto-auto passed her on her way to the storage-locker facility, which she causally entered and walked directly to her factory door.

Kari looked around slowly, making sure no one was around to watch her enter the storage locker. That was stupid. If someone were watching her, the odds were that he or she would be doing it from a drone a few hundred feet in the air, and Kari could do nothing about it. Nothing was more suspicious than someone acting suspicious, but Kari took one last look over both her shoulders nevertheless.

The inside of the storage locker was hot and smelled like melted plastic and metal, which was extremely comforting to Kari
.
The air was easy enough to breath, which was nice because the air got a little thick inside the factory at times. The walls were completely covered with twelve commercial-grade printers. It was an impressive sight; she had spent years assembling them here. She had created a factory that most professional printing companies would envy, and she had purchased and built the entire thing in secret. The only part of the walls that weren’t covered in printers housed shelves that were full of previously printed projects and the tools she needed to maintain the printers.

Next to the door was a small cot with a pillow on it. That’s where Kari spent the majority of her time in the factory while she programmed; the printers did the manual labor for her. She was cold, so she connected to one of the printers with her mind chip and ordered a blanket. She had at least three hours until her parents would expect her home from her study group, which didn’t really exist. She felt bad about lying to her parents, but it was easier for everyone this way. Her blanket finished printing, and she grabbed it before settling into her cot.

Three free hours. No clients and no school. Time to have some fun.

Kari loaded her development environment and started to code.

Kari floated in the silent, black void that was her integrated development environment. She took a second to bask in the familiar scene of infinite black, feeling weightless and godlike. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to exhale the day’s frustrations.
And I thought middle school was bad.

She burst into productivity, her mind reaching out to perform tasks as fast as she could think. The electronic beat of music flowed through the void, matching her frantic work pace. She had spent the good part of her fifteenth birthday fine-tuning the algorithm to match her music to her mood, energy, and pace of work. That had been the first birthday that her parents had stopped forcing her to have a birthday party and begrudgingly allowed her to choose what she wanted to do. They hadn’t been too pleased when she’d told them she just wanted to have cake and then spend the night coding.