I hadn’t realized how much I would miss my constant companion. Most of my friends felt naked without their phones, but since Ms. Jensen had taken my notebook, everything had felt a little off. And sure, I had other notebooks at home filled with invention ideas, but my current one was like a part of me. I’d had to jot down the ideas and thoughts I had the night before on scraps of paper.
I’d head over to the editing suite at lunch. Ms. Jensen should’ve had enough time to make sure all my designs had been scanned in by then.
When the bell for lunch rang, I hustled out of class to be the first in line. After grabbing my tray, I made my way to the editing suite. Dan was at the controls, cutting together segments for the show. On the main screen, I saw Jessica Mercer in a heated discussion with Mia Trevino. I didn’t catch what they were going on about because my attention was grabbed by a new, smaller workstation off to the side. Amy sat in front of a computer, her lunch bag open beside her.
“Hey,” I said as I pulled up a chair next to her. “You working through lunch too?”
Amy nodded as she swallowed and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin. She reached across her desk and picked up my spiral notebook. “Looking for this?”
“Oh yeah,” I replied as I reached out, trying to act casual and not at all like how I felt—a toddler reaching for his favorite toy.
Once my notebook was back in my hands, I let out a small sigh of relief. “You’ve scanned in everyone’s invention plans?”
“Most everyone’s,” Amy replied. She reached over and patted a small portable hard drive. “The entire wisdom of Swift Academy is right here.”
I wondered how much something like that would be worth. Sure, not every student came up with a million-dollar idea, but I bet there were plenty of cool innovations crammed onto that drive. Again, it was a good thing the academy didn’t have a black market.
“What are you doing with the scans, exactly?” I asked.
Amy beamed with excitement. “Let me show you.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she pulled up a list of file folders on her screen. Different students’ names were printed beside each one. Amy scrolled through the list before selecting one labeled MILLS, JIM.
She opened the folder and then another file. Suddenly her screen was filled with a crude drawing of a two-seated vehicle that looked like a go-kart without wheels. Instead, enclosed fans were mounted to all four corners of the machine. A tubular roll cage was mounted over the seats.
“This is Jim’s hovercraft,” Amy explained.
I nodded and took a bite from an apple. “So that’s what his roll cage was for.”
A few weeks ago, a bunch of the students had participated in a lock-in at my father’s company next door. I remember that Jim had spent his time in the machine shop a building a roll cage. He just didn’t say what it was for. Of course, after working on my project, burning circuit boards, babysitting a junior reporter, and stopping some high-level corporate espionage, I had forgotten all about Jim’s project.
“And here’s what I did,” Amy said as she tapped a key on the keyboard.
Suddenly, Jim’s crude drawing sprang to life. The four fans began to spin, and animated wind lines blew through the blades. The craft lifted off the ground and hovered there, slowly bouncing up and down.
“Wow, great job,” I said. It seemed as if Amy’s animation skills were getting better and better.
Amy grinned. “Thanks.”
“She’s quite the little animator,” Dan added without looking up from his work.
Amy blushed and stared at her lap.
“So what are you going to animate with my stuff?” I quickly asked, hoping to get Amy to refocus.
She pulled up the list of folders again and scrolled down to the one labeled SWIFT, TOM.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said as she opened the folder and began to toggle through the scanned pages.
With all of my private sketches and designs displayed there for the world to see, my lunch suddenly didn’t taste very good.
“Do you have an invention in mind?” Amy asked. “Something you’re going to show off during the Olympics, maybe?”
“What?” I asked. “I mean…” I pointed to the glasses on my forehead. “My AR glasses, I guess.”
Amy cocked her head. “I’m not sure what to animate there. What else do you have?”
“Oh, how about my robot?” I suggested. I explained how I could control it with my glasses and the controllers from my console. I told her about my cooking attempt. “It should be fine as long as I don’t try to make pancakes for everyone.”
Amy laughed. “That might work.” She began clicking through the pages in my file.
“There,” I said as she opened the page showing my rough sketch of my robot.
“Tom!” said a voice behind me. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
I turned around as Joey entered the editing suite. “Oh, hi.”
He clamped a hand on my shoulder. “We don’t have enough confessional footage of you,” he said. “You have time for another go?”
I glanced at my unfinished lunch tray. “Uh, sure… I guess so.”
“Good, good,” he said, ushering me toward the curtain separating that section of the editing suite.
“I’ll see you later, Tom,” Amy called as she gathered her lunch bag and headed out of the room.
Joey pulled back the curtain and I took a seat in front of the camera. The setup was the same as before: the camera pointing at me, the microphone hovering over my head. But one thing was different. A small video monitor was now mounted on a stand next to the camera.
Joey took a seat facing me and turned
