Friendly Face, page 16
“Oh man,” Derek said as he pushed open Burgerdom’s double glass doors. “Look at the line. This is worse than Friday nights after a game.”
Jessica noted the semi-line-shaped cluster of students pressing into the lobby, waiting their turn to order. Inhaling the smells of onions, french fries, and charbroiled burgers, she scanned the tables in the small dining area. Every one of the orange-topped metal tables was occupied. Every dark blue booth was jammed with kids. And half of them, she couldn’t help but notice, were munchkins, clearly seventh and eighth graders.
“It’s bad enough they’re in our school,” she said, “but now they’re taking over our hangouts, too?”
“I know, right?” Brittany said.
It was amazing that Brittany had even heard Jessica. The noise level in the place was more rock concert than restaurant. Jessica threw back her hair and lifted her chin.
“Excuse me,” she said loud enough to prompt the kids in front of her to turn. She stepped toward them. “You need to let me by.” She said it in the same tone her mother used for everyone who worked for her. It was a cross between imperious and soothing, just the right combination to make a person feel like not only was it impossible for them to say no but they’d feel better after saying yes.
The kids parted, and Jessica swept through the opening. When she reached the next barrier of kids, she repeated the process. In under twenty seconds, she stood at the shiny silver counter in front of a kitchen filled with scurrying orange-and-blue-clad losers who were too poor or too ugly to get a decent job. More such losers stood behind two cash registers. One of those wore a nametag that read, IRWIN.
Irwin was ringing up an order, but he glanced over at Jessica and grinned at her.
“Hey, Irwin,” she said in a tone that suggested she couldn’t possibly be happier to see anyone. “You’re rocking the orange and blue today!”
Irwin, a skinny guy with bad skin and worse teeth, flushed. “Hi, Jessica,” he said as he counted out change to the threesome in front of his register.
As soon as Irwin closed his register and the three kids clutching an orange #17 started to move aside, Jessica stepped in front of the next kids in line. “Could you get us our usual, Irwin?” She turned and gestured toward Derek, Brittany, and Roman, who hadn’t yet made it through the throng. Jessica secretly reveled in her superior crowd-parting skills. Brittany was pretty good at getting a room to do her bidding, but she couldn’t compete with Jessica.
Irwin glanced around and frowned. “Um … ,” he began.
“I know they were next.” Jessica gestured at the kids breathing on her neck … like, literally. One of the girls was chewing grape gum, and not only was her hot breath on Jessica’s skin, the grape smell was strong enough to dominate the grill smells. “But we are in such a rush, with, like, homecoming duties and such. If you could just …” She flipped her hair and locked her blue eyes on Irwin’s pale brown ones.
He shrugged and tapped in the order.
One of the boys behind Jessica protested, “Dude.”
Irwin tried to reassure him. “This’ll just take a second.”
Grape-gum girl, a volleyball player whose name Jessica couldn’t remember—she didn’t have to remember it; the girl wasn’t anyone worth bothering about—sighed loudly, exhaling spitty gum breath into Jessica’s hair. She’d have to go home and shower before she and Brittany went back to the school to start programming Rosie Porkchop.
“Thanks so much, Irwin,” Jessica said. She took money from her backpack and paid for the food. She knew Derek would reimburse her immediately. He never wanted her to pay for anything. That’s the guy’s job, he always said. It was so sweet.
Irwin took her money, gave her change, and handed her an orange plastic #18. She flashed him a smile designed to leave him feeling like he was special, even though he clearly wasn’t; then she turned.
Grape-gum girl gave Jessica a dirty look.
Jessica leaned close to her ear. “Get over it. And you might want to invest in some tweezers. Your eyebrows are growing together.”
Jessica walked away and didn’t care even a little that grape-gum girl was glaring at her back. Jessica could feel it, but it so didn’t matter.
When Jessica returned to Brittany, Derek, and Roman, she handed Derek the #18. “Here you go. Once you get the food, let’s eat in your convertible. It’s way too crazy in here.”
“Sure, babe. Way to rush the line.” He pantomimed a defensive forward charging toward the quarterback. Jessica made a kissy face at him and then linked her arm through Brittany’s. “Let’s let the boys handle the rabid crowd.”
Brittany nodded. “For sure.”
She and Jessica tossed their hair in unison and strode from the restaurant, their steps in perfect sync.
* * *
It was after eight before Jessica and Brittany got back to the school. Between hanging out with the guys and then going home to shower and then taking time to redo their hair and makeup and decide what perfect programming outfits were, it just took a while before they could return.
Letting themselves in the back door of the deserted wing, they stood in the long, quiet hallway and contemplated the hundred feet or so they had to go to reach the classroom.
The hallway was only dimly lit by emergency lights, which put the bare tan walls, the scuffed beige linoleum floor, and the lockers lining the hall in gloomy shadows. The lockers in this part of the school weren’t used, at least not officially. Jessica knew that some kids left messages for each other in the lockers. She couldn’t help but wonder what else might be hidden in them.
Because of the empty lockers and equally bare walls and floors, all sounds seemed amplified. Jessica’s and Brittany’s breathing sounded like it was coming from twenty girls instead of two.
“It’s so, like, creepy here when no one’s around,” Brittany said. Her voice echoed down the hall.
“You said that last time we had to stay late,” Jessica reminded her, bumping shoulders with Brittany.
“Yeah, I probably did. But it’s still true.”
“Yeah.” Jessica turned and checked to be sure the outer door locked behind them. When it clicked into place, she nodded. “We’re locked in.”
“Yeah, but, like, with who?” Brittany asked, visibly shivering. “You know it wouldn’t be hard for some perv to sneak into the school during the day and then hide and wait until after everyone else has gone and—”
Jessica smacked Brittany’s arm. “Stop it! You’re going to freak me out, too.” She rubbed her arms, which were now covered with prickly hairs.
“Sorry.”
Jessica took Brittany’s wrist. “Come on.”
“We should’ve brought the guys,” Brittany said.
“Then we wouldn’t get anything done,” Jessica pointed out.
“True.”
“Let’s go. Once we’re in the classroom, we’ll barricade the door like we did last time, if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Me? You’ve got goose bumps, too,” Brittany accused.
“Okay, so I don’t like it in here, either.”
Brittany tugged on Jessica’s arm. “Let’s hurry.”
Their footsteps echoing around them, Jessica and Brittany hurried down the hall. Neither commented when they both occasionally checked over their shoulders.
Jessica was relieved when they reached the robotics classroom and shoved the door open. Brittany scrabbled for the light switch before the door could swing shut.
The previous time they’d been in after-hours, they discovered that the classroom door didn’t lock. Some discussion had ensued about whether to get over their paranoia or just give in to it. The conversation had resulted in a “give in to it” strategy: shoving one of the classroom tables in front of the door. This time, they didn’t waste time with discussion. Without speaking, they moved together to the nearest table and shoved it over to block the door.
Then they both turned, exhaled, and surveyed the room.
The overhead fluorescent lights in the classroom did relieve some of the creep factor of being in the deserted wing. However, that relief was countered by the eerie presence of all the robotic parts in the room. Metal arms and heads and disembodied torsos weren’t exactly comforting decor.
Jessica and Brittany went to the back of the room where Rosie still lay on her cart. Hooked up to both the wall and the laptop, it looked like she was in intensive care or something. At this point, if Rosie were to move, Jessica would have run screaming from the room.
“Um, Jessica?” Brittany said.
Jessica shook her head. “Sorry. You’ve got me all spooked now.”
Brittany put an arm around her friend. “Come on, let’s go sit and try out our new lip gloss. That will make us feel better.”
Jessica nodded.
On their way over to the school, they’d stopped at the store to get some munchies in case they were here a while. Their favorite celeb had just released a new lip gloss that caught their eye; of course, they had to buy some. Brittany pulled Jessica down into a chair next to the one she settled on.
The girls applied their gloss—pink for Brittany, red for Jessica—and looked at each other. “Gorgeous,” Jessica said.
Brittany grinned. “I know, right?”
Jessica took a deep breath and reached for her computer, which was just where she’d left it. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s see if we’re good to go.” She tapped a key to take the computer out of sleep mode and looked at the screen. According to the display, the upload was complete.
Jessica began tapping at keys.
“Do you, like, know what you’re doing?” Brittany asked.
Jessica laughed. “Probably not. But how hard can it be?” She gestured at the screen. “See? Rosie’s system is run by a software program that can be modified.” She frowned at the screen for a few minutes, reading the lines of code that were already there.
Brittany leaned in and read over Jessica’s shoulder. “It looks like you just input the descriptive phrases … like that one.” She pointed to line 41 of the code, then read what came after the line number. “ ‘Reaches out #7V800.’ I think it assigns a number to the plain word commands.”
“I think you’re right,” Jessica said, twirling a lock of super-soft hair around her index finger. “We just need to make a list of all the commands we want to program into Rosie, and then we can assign the right numbers to them and input them.”
“Exactly, right?” Brittany said.
Jessica peered at the code. “Okay, realistically, we’re probably limited in what we can have Rosie do, but how about we make a wish list, then see what we can do?”
Brittany nodded. “Great idea.”
Jessica minimized the software screen and opened a blank doc. “Okay, so what do we want our little servants to do for us?” She grinned.
“Well, it would be nice if we never had to go get something for ourselves.” Brittany leaned back in her chair. The chair creaked, which sent a tremor down Jessica’s spine. She ignored it.
“So, basically the command would be ‘fetch,’ ” Jessica said, laughing.
Brittany broke down, too. “Yeah. Maybe just for fun, we could do ‘roll over’ and ‘play dead.’ ”
Jessica threw her head back and guffawed. “Oh my gosh, stop it! That’s too good!” She typed in her document, ROLL OVER. PLAY DEAD. Jessica laughed harder. “This makes me think of Titan. If he was here, he’d be giving you five.”
Brittany grinned at Jessica. “They should do that, too.”
Jessica nodded enthusiastically. “They should do all of Titan’s tricks.”
“Spin,” Brittany said. She grinned. “And bow.”
Jessica chuckled and typed, GIVE FIVE. SPIN. BOW.
“Okay, seriously, though,” Jessica said, “this is all good for laughs, but what could they do that would be really helpful?”
Brittany tapped her lower teeth as she pondered. “Carry our bags, polish our nails—especially our toenails—dry our hair, brush our hair, style our hair … But first Rosie has to, like, grab those little freaks, pick them up, and put them inside her belly.”
Jessica tapped the keys on her computer but then reached for the papers Mr. Thornton had handed her earlier.
“What’s up?” Brittany asked.
Jessica waved her off. “Trying to figure out how we can get Rosie to recognize and make a beeline for the two brats first thing tomorrow.” After skimming through all the possible commands, she noticed a section called Vocoder System.
Apparently Rosie’s vocoder system, which allowed her to interpret spoken commands, could also differentiate between the voices of adults and children. She was currently programmed to approach children and avoid adults—made sense for a kiddie animatronic, she guessed. Jessica smiled. Cindy’s and Mindy’s chirping kid voices hadn’t dropped yet, so Rosie would be sure to zero in on them. Jessica just had to take the code one step further for Rosie to approach, then grab kids …
As she started typing, a noise from the front of the classroom spun her around. “What was that?”
Brittany had spun, too. She was staring wide-eyed toward Mr. Thornton’s desk. “I saw something move!” Brittany hissed.
“I thought I did, too,” Jessica whispered back.
Both girls stood.
Holding hands, they took a tentative step toward the front of the classroom. The second they did, something shifted on Mr. Thornton’s desk.
They both jumped back.
“What was that?!” Brittany yelped.
Jessica shook her head and frowned. She looked around the classroom. It felt like all the robot eyes in all the robot heads were watching them.
She tugged on Brittany’s hand and moved forward again. Brittany pulled free to grab a robotic arm off one of the pegboards.
“Good thinking,” Jessica said.
“I know, right?” Brittany nodded several times.
They crept forward together … until a click stopped them. Jessica cocked her head, listening. She heard a fluttery sound, like a bird flapping its wings.
Brittany raised the robotic arm, readying for a fight.
Jessica shook her head, but she moved forward again, looking hard at Mr. Thornton’s desk. Brittany was right at her side.
Suddenly, something shot out from behind Mr. Thornton’s desk and skittered over the floor toward them. Jessica screamed.
Brittany screamed, too, but she also charged. Running forward, still screaming, she brought down the robotic arm and slammed it into the ground. The impact made a metallic crack. No, not into the ground, into … something on the ground. Brittany raised the arm and brought it down again. Another metallic crack.
“What is it?” Jessica asked.
Brittany stepped back, robotic arm still poised for action. She looked down, and she didn’t wield the arm again. So, Jessica stepped up beside her.
“It looks like a rat,” Brittany said.
“Yeah, if rats were made of metal.”
Jessica and Brittany looked at each other. “A robotic rat?” Brittany asked.
They looked back at it. A flexible steel cable originating at the back of the robotic rat twitched. Brittany stomped on it. The cable stopped moving.
Brittany looked at Jessica, frowned, and then looked around the room. “Do you, like, think anything else is going to come to life?”
“Besides Rosie? I hope not.” Jessica gazed at the robotic parts on the pegboards warily. A chill slithered through her body. She shook it off.
“Come on, let’s do this so we can get out of here.”
“For sure,” Brittany said.
Jessica sat down at the back table again and peered at her computer screen. “Where was I?”
Brittany sat down beside Jessica, still holding tight to the robotic arm. “You were putting in the ‘grab the kid’ commands,” Brittany said.
“Right.” Jessica started typing again.
When she finished, she asked, “Okay, what else do we want them to do?”
“Well, they seem pretty brainy. I wonder if their, like, brain power could, um, interface with Rosie’s AI. Could they do homework for us?”
“Hmm,” Jessica said. “That would be rad, but I think it would take a programmer better than me to code that.”
Brittany sighed. “Yeah. Just thought I’d throw it out there.”
“I like it. Maybe it’s something we can add later. We could talk one of the computer nerds into helping us.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant,” Brittany said.
“So back to everyday commands.”
“Make your smoothie?”
“Good one!” Jessica typed. “And packing your lunch.” She typed some more.
“Right!” Brittany said. “What about cooking?”
Jessica screwed up her face in thought, then started typing.
Brittany leaned over and watched. “Oh, basic cooking commands. Good thinking.”
“It’s something we’ll have to do later, but I figured we should put it on the list.”
Jessica sat back. “Okay, well, I should probably start coding for Rosie to pick up the girls and put them in her belly. Then I’ll do the commands for getting things and bringing them to us.” She started typing.
Brittany pointed at the computer screen. “I think you got that backward. Isn’t that the code for the kids, not the adults?”
Jessica looked and shook her head. “Good eye. Sorry. Blonde moment.” They looked at each other and laughed.
Jessica returned to typing.
The programming was a lot harder than she thought it would be, and after an hour or so, her eyes were tired. She reached up and rubbed the back of her neck and shrugged her shoulders toward her ears.
“I’d offer to take over for a while,” Brittany said, “but you know I totally suck at programming.”
Jessica nodded. “It’s okay.”
Brittany shoved her chair back. “But I could rub your shoulders for you.”
Jessica smiled. “That would be great. Thanks!”
Brittany affected a British lady’s maid accent. “You’re welcome, milady.” She started rubbing Jessica’s shoulders. Then she stopped. “We should have Rosie call us ‘milady.’ ”
