Renegade World: Future Past (11 page)

She walked down the first row to the furthest column of
students. The windows behind her looked out on brown grass and withered bushes.
At least, the walls in the room are a cheery, pale yellow
, thought Naami.

Mrs. Bright announced that she was going to go around the
room and get everyone’s names. She pointed at each student, asked his or her
name, and repeated that name out loud three times. As she said their names,
their pictures appeared on the screen in the appropriate squares with their
names underneath, and their names disappeared from the list at the bottom.

Naami looked up and spotted the two cameras that were
capturing their images. Naami repeated each name silently along with Mrs.
Bright, and Abraham captured their names and images without being asked. When Mrs.
Bright finished, there was one name left at the bottom.

Mrs. Bright announced, “We have one student, David Brown,
missing today. He will be here tomorrow. OK. Listen up!” Mr. Parks strolled
down the first aisle and leaned against the back wall. Conversations in the
back died off. She continued, “Until I say otherwise, these are your assigned
seats. Sometimes we will work in teams of four. Look at the screen, and you
will see who is on your team.” The areas around each group of four now became
shaded with a different color: red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown,
black, and silver. “I will refer to each team by its color.”

Nice. I’m on the yellow team with Kim, Eddie, and Raul
Martinez.
She glanced over at Raul.
Martinez. Just like Camila. Abraham,
pull up images of Raul and Camila side by side. Raul looks like he could be
Camila’s son. He has the same brown almond-shaped eyes and slightly hooked
nose. Camila is a little darker than him, though.

Mrs. Bright said that the schedule for the day would be
math, recess, reading, lunch, social studies and gym. She said that in order to
get an assessment of their math skills, they would take a test for the next
hour, completing as many questions as they could.

Mrs. Bright broadcast a command to each of their implants
or earbuds that in theory prevented the device from supplying the answers.
Abraham,
don’t help me.
The command had no effect on
Abraham.

As Naami connected with the testing session shown on the
main screen, she looked around at the other students, about half of whom wore
glasses and half contacts. With her neural splice, she didn’t need the glasses
with the embedded camera that she wore. Abraham fed the video and audio through
the splice and captured video and audio, enhancing either as needed. She didn’t
need to fake wearing earbuds because auditory splices were becoming more
common. Almost one-third of her classmates didn’t wear earbuds.

The first questions were on counting by tens, hundreds, and
thousands.
These are so easy.
She answered them slowly, trying to guess
how fast others might answer. Next, there were questions about odd and even
numbers. The questions became progressively harder, but she easily answered all
the questions that tested addition, subtraction, and multiplication.
I need to know
how many questions to miss.
Before she started on the division questions,
she took a break and hacked the real-time test result summary.

Mrs. Bright and Mr. Parks were watching the summary
displayed by their glasses. Each student was given the same amount of time for
each section of the test. Though each student started with the same question,
the test program adapted from there depending on whether they answered each
question correctly or not. After each section, the computer posted the results
as thirty-five bars on a graph, only accessible by the two teachers. As the
time wound down, both teachers noticed that the students' scores followed the
normal bell-shaped curve except for three outliers. They both independently
asked the computer to show them the names of the three students. The three were
Eddie Wong, Raul Martinez, and Naamah Schmidt.

After the test, Mrs. Bright had them all stand up, jump up
and down, and then stretch both arms high in the air. After she waved them back
into the chairs, Mrs. Bright spent time reviewing some of the math concepts on
the screen while the whole class watched. Then they broke up into their teams
and worked problems together. Eddie and Naami helped Kim with problems on
fractions while Raul looked on.

As recess approached, Eddie frowned and leaned over close
to Naami. “Watch out at recess. Brenda and her friends don't like you. They
don’t like me or Raul either. We’re not white enough for her.”

“That’s illogical. In most states, people with all European
ancestors are in the minority. Naami looked at the class chart for the two friends’
names. “I don't think Lori and Jennifer dislike me.”

Eddie's frown deepened.  “Well, it doesn't matter if
they dislike you or not. They will do whatever Brenda wants them to do. Last
year Lori faked an ankle sprain so that the playground lady wasn't watching
while Brenda and Jennifer pushed me around.”

Kim said, “My dad told me to stay away from her. Brenda’s
mother joined some weird religious group that believes in the supremacy of
white people.”

Mrs. Bright called out, “Recess!”

Naami dug into her backpack and pulled out some almonds. Looking
up, she saw Brenda glare at her as she walked past with Lori and Jennifer
following her. Naami giggled at them. “Hi, Lori! Hi, Jennifer! See you down at
recess.” They gave her strange looks.

Eddie, Kim, Raul, and Naami went down to recess together. As
they stood talking, Naami saw the three girls walking over. While Eddie and Kim
backed away, Raul stepped forward next to her. She whispered, “Thanks, Raul. Let
me handle this. I don't want you to get in trouble.”

Brenda walked up to her and reached out to grab her, but
Naami slapped her hand and yelled, “Tag!  You're it!” As she danced back away
from the surprised Brenda, Naami yelled, “Raul! Brenda's it! Run!” Raul ran backward
a couple of steps. Brenda appeared frozen in place. Naami taunted her, “Come on
Brenda! Bet you can’t catch me!”

Brenda took the bait and charged after her. Naami let her
get close and then sprinted away as she teased, “Try harder. You almost got
me.”

Mrs. Lehrer and Mr. Parks didn't see the very start of the
action, but they watched Brenda give chase for the next three minutes. At that
point, gasping for air, Brenda gave up and tagged Jennifer, urging her to get
Naami as she sank to her knees.

Mrs. Lehrer laughed. “I think Brenda needs to get in
better shape.”

Jennifer started chasing Naami but quickly gave up and
tagged Lori. Lori didn't bother to try to catch Naami but made the mistake of
chasing Kim, who was almost as fast as Naami.

When recess ended, Naami and Kim walked back to class together.
Naami pulled some almonds out of her pocket and stuffed several in her mouth.  She
held out her hand and offered some to Kim. Kim shook her head, so Naami stuffed
the rest of them in her mouth. She mumbled, “I'd never make it to lunch without
a snack.”

Mrs. Bright had them get back into their teams and take
turns reading out loud to each other. After Raul's turn, he ran his hand over
his buzzed hair and laughed. “It’s OK to criticize. I can take it.”

Mr. Parks had been observing their team. “How long ago did
you learn English, Raul?”

“My parents didn't speak any English when I was little. I
really didn't start learning English until about three years ago.”

Kim said, “I can understand everything you say, and I think
your accent is cute.”

Raul's face turned a bit red. “I want to lose my cute
accent.”

Naami giggled. “Tu lees y hablas muy bien.” She giggled
again. “Your English sounds better than my Spanish.”

“Where did you learn to speak Spanish?”

“I mainly learned from programs on the net because even
though Granpa Evangelista spoke Spanish, he wouldn’t speak it with me. When he
was little, he lived in Argentina, and he said that the Spanish in Argentina is
kind of strange.”
Let’s see how Raul reacts to this, Abraham.
She looked
at his eyes and mouth as she said,
“
I sometimes speak Spanish with
Camila, our housekeeper, but she’s usually busy, so I can’t talk with her too
much.” Raul’s eyes briefly widened, and his jaw dropped slightly.
I was
right.

She giggled. “How about if you correct my Spanish, and I
correct your English.”

Raul looked like he was holding back a smile as he replied,
“It’s a deal.”

Kim leaned forward. “My mom says that English is harder to
learn than Spanish because it has more exceptions than rules.”

Eddie nodded. “I think it’s because English borrowed words
from so many other languages. They should have changed the spellings. Why
couldn't they have spelled information i-n-f-o-r-m-a-s-h-u-n? Lucky for us our
earbuds have text-to-speech software.”

Raul laughed. “That’s the only way I learned to read. When
I got my earbuds three years ago, I would choose an easy e-book and have my earbuds
read the words to me as I read them. It must have been much harder to learn to
read before text-to-speech. I still need my earbuds to help me pronounce a word
when I'm stuck or not sure. I can't imagine having to go ask someone every time
I get stuck on a word!”

“Have you ever read a printed book?” asked Kim. “If you're
not sure of the word, you have to guess how to say it and hope that you are
close enough so that your speech to text interpreter can suggest the same word,
or you have to spell it out.”

Naami giggled, “Just think before there were any computers.
You'd have to search through a big printed dictionary to find out how to spell
a word or what it meant. Talk about slow!”

“I can't wait for neural splices,” said Eddie. “My mom says
that in ten or fifteen years, people will be able to get one. Being able to
record what you are seeing, save it, and then view it later, how cool would
that be?”

Naami didn't react to Abraham's jibe,
Until you run your
implant out of memory!

“Hey, I'd settle for just better earbuds and glasses,” said
Raul.

Mrs. Bright called out, “Lunch!”

The four of them sat together at lunch and talked. Naami
loved to talk, and she enjoyed the rest of the afternoon too, especially gym.
They had obstacle races, and the yellow team won easily.

N
aami and Camila are pulling into the driveway.

Is it that time already
? Anita turned and walked
towards the garage entryway.
Play Naami’s message, Hypatia.

Naami jumped out of the car and ran through the four-car
garage. The door from the garage to the house opened, and she saw her mom
waiting for her. “Mom, I made two new friends, and Kim from gymnastics is on my
team too!”

Anita crouched down and gave her a hug, which wasn't easy
because Naami was bouncing up and down. “I know kiddo. I listened to your
message. Do you want to tell me all about it now or do you want to wait for Dad
and Dr. Lieber?”

She bounced higher. “Oh goody, Doc Larry is coming! Is he
going to have dinner with us? Is he going to be here more than one day? Can he
come watch me at gymnastics class?”

“Easy does it. Slow down.” Anita waited for her to stop
bouncing. “All I know is that he’s coming to dinner. He’s here tomorrow and the
next day, but he has a busy schedule. He probably won’t have time to watch one
of your classes.”

“I'll ask him myself, and I'll tell all of you about school
at dinner. When are we having dinner?”

“In about an hour.”

“Can I have a snack now? I'm starved.”

“I knew you’d be hungry. I’ll bet Camila’s already fixing
you a snack. Go on. I’ll see you at dinner.”  

Naami gobbled up two pieces of whole wheat toast with
butter and apple jelly before Camila even put the glass of milk in front of
her.  “Gracias, Camila.” She downed half of the glass.

“De nada.”

Naami downed the rest of the milk and went outside. She
conversed with Abraham as she exercised, and her AI kept a detailed record of
what she did. After she finished ten muscle-ups, she thought,
I'm not going
to have time to do everything before dinner.
 A suggested schedule of
exercises appeared in response.
I can finish those.

She jumped up and grabbed the bar again. While she hung
from the bar, she lifted her legs, touching her toes to the bar, and then
lowered them slowly until they were hanging straight down. She repeated this
eleven more times.

Naami was holding eight-kilo weights and stepping up and
down off of a two-foot-high box, just starting a set of thirty.
Naami, Dr. Lieber
is at the front door.

I'll go see him when I finish this set.
By the time
she finished the set, she had changed her mind.
Connect me to Dr. Lieber,
Abraham.

Abraham connected her.
Hi, Doc Larry! Will you come out
and watch me?

Sure. I'll be right out.

A couple of minutes later, Dr. Lieber came out and watched
as she did chest presses with the eight-kilo dumbbells. “You are really getting
strong.”

“Not as strong as I want … yet. Watch these.” She did
another set of muscle-ups.

He watched and wondered who taught her how to do those.
“Wow!”

As her dad walked out of the house, Naami dropped down from
the bar. “Hi, Dad. Watch how high I can jump.” She stood next to the left post
that held the bar, stretched up as high as she could, and touched a horizontal
mark, one of the thirty-six that she had measured and drawn on the post.  She
brought her arm down, coiled, launched herself upwards, and slapped the post.

Her dad thought,
Isaac, what's her vertical jump?

Just over twelve inches.

He watched her jumping again and again and added his own
encouragement to Dr. Lieber’s.