She browsed BNL’s website for the millionth time, looking for information on postactivation life, and this time stumbled upon a section she hadn’t noticed before: a Pilot parent forum. There were only a few dozen posts, all of them positive, which made her all the more suspicious. Everything got at least some negative reviews, from peanut butter to puppies. If she posted something negative, would it be deleted? She was tempted to try, just to test that paranoid theory.
Julie and David were gone for three hours, returning with a clatter of groceries.
“Celebration!” Julie announced, sliding an ice cream cake box onto the table. Val wished she had thought of it. “Where’s the young ’un?”
“Still sleeping.” Val turned to David. He didn’t look any different. “So, Extra Brainy? Are you solving world hunger yet? How does your new improved brain feel?”
He grinned. “Enormous. Electric.”
“Are you doing the exercises now?” Val caught his chin with her hand and gently turned his head to see the light marring his perfect skin. He grunted and nodded.
“So you’re talking—well, grunting—and unpacking the groceries and doing what?”
“The exercises, Ma. I’m doing times tables, like they told me to. They said it’s like rubbing your head and patting your stomach.”
“Rubbing your stomach and patting your head. Keep practicing.” Val pointed him toward the groceries and turned to Julie. “Cake now, or cake later?”
Julie glanced at the clock. “Lunch cake, in an hour, if Sophie’s awake. Otherwise, after dinner. Maybe by then the boychild will be doing quantum physics.”
“I’m not deaf, you know. Soon I’ll be paying better attention than ever, and you’ll have to be extra careful what you say when you think I’m not listening.”
“What have we doooone?” wailed Julie, mock horrified. “Back to the doctor, quick!”
He finished unloading the groceries, tossing a head of purple cabbage like a basketball between his hands. “Do we really have to wait an hour for lunch? I could eat a horse.”
Definitely still the same kid.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DAVID
David knew what it meant that his parents had agreed to get him a Pilot. Money when they had none to spare; elective brain surgery when his little sister had seizures. As long as he could remember, he’d always felt the responsibility of being the one who didn’t need anything from them, who could do what was expected of him without being asked. He’d really, truly waited until he was the only one left in his class without a Pilot before asking, and they’d seen that, too, and even then he’d felt guilty.
Which was why, whenever anybody asked, he said he loved it. Those words came easily enough. There were parts of it he did love. The feeling of doing two things at once, three things, of attention smoothly shifting, carried a euphoric energy that didn’t fade. Nobody had told him it felt good, but it did. Powerful. Electric. Capable, or more than capable—competent. Studying was less of a chore when you could do other stuff at the same time, and it turned out studying actually made school a little easier. Those were the good parts.
All of which made the weird sensation harder to express. David didn’t know how to phrase the thing he needed to ask, or who to ask even if he did. He didn’t want to bother his mothers, not when he couldn’t say for sure something was wrong. Not when he’d sworn he needed this; that it was safe, tested, something to give them fewer worries, not more.
His best friend, Milo, was the most obvious choice of confidant. They were supposed to be studying for their bio exam, which meant they were alternating five minutes quizzing each other with twenty-five minutes of Forger Heist. Forger Heist had been designed to teach people getting used to new Pilots how to maximize the implant’s potential. You were supposed to play it while a certain podcast droned in the background and afterward answer questions about the podcast and the game’s details. It wasn’t a great game, but on the plus side it counted as studying.
Except it was part of the problem, too, or at least it contributed to his feeling that a problem existed. David used part of his new attention to watch Milo. The game had him tense, of course, leaning forward from the waist, both feet on the ground. His left foot tapped an awful nonrhythm, no beat David could count, different from the music on the screen. Now that he’d noticed it, it joined the long list of things he couldn’t unnotice.
Even with that foot going, Milo exuded control. Focused on the game, not on David or their surroundings. He didn’t look like he knew there was a fly in the room with them, or that David was watching him; if he knew, he didn’t care.
“What are you seeing?” David asked. They were in this clichéd laser-alarmed room, the same level they’d lost a few times already. You had to track all the laser beams, and there were mirrors throwing everything off, and a steady stream of changing access codes and a guard, and speed metal that you couldn’t turn down blasted from the guard’s earphones, and even though the guard was an NPC and there was no real person to think about, you couldn’t help wondering how he wasn’t completely deaf with his music playing that loud into the room.
All of which was the point, overstimulation to get you to focus on the things that mattered: the guard’s patterns of alertness, the lasers, the jewel case at the room’s center, your own steady progress. Except. Except David couldn’t shake the nagging feeling he was doing it wrong.
This was the first time he’d had the guts to ask Milo.
“Ssh,” said Milo. “I’m almost to the jewels. Get to the access panel.”
“I’m at the access panel.
