Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Saturday, April 9

The quiet grind of rubber on asphalt calls to my siblings like the Pied Piper as the electric buses pull in front of the campus. The younger ones rush forward in a mass, a tidal wave of small Butlers flowing through the open gates. I start to follow, but Evan puts a beefy arm out and holds me back. I turn and see my cohort and the class just younger than us still waiting patiently back on the grass.

"They fill them up front to back," Evan explains. "So we wait until they're all loaded, then we claim the whole unoccupied back of the last bus. They get to go first, we get whole benches to ourselves, everyone is happy."

"Gotcha," I reply. I look around again. "Hey, where are Louise and Jeff at?"

"Louise never comes anymore," Marc answers. "Not for months now. And Jeff doesn't like the outdoorsy ones ever since he got that epic sunburn at Lake Tahoe. He turned all red and the next day his skin was peeling and then he was shouting about someone putting chemicals in the water that made his sunblock dissolve too fast. I didn't know what he was talking about but anyway he doesn't go on any trips anymore when they're out in the sun. Plus we can't bring our bots with us and you know how Jeff always uses those for everything and also he doesn't like hiking and that's what we're doing mostly today and..."

He keeps going but I stop listening. It's more of an answer than I was looking for, but that's normal for Marc. He tends to overshare even if you don't ask any questions, so I guess it's my fault for asking anything near him. Thinking of Jeff's pallid skin, I'm not surprised he's opting out of our trip to Death Valley today.

Louise, on the other hand, that's less obvious. She must be putting in more hours on her secret project. I asked around and none of the sibs have any idea what she's working on, just that she works on it a lot.

The kids in front of us all eventually get loaded in, and Evan gives me a nudge. I follow him and we head past the first two buses to climb into the third. As predicted, the back half of the bus is empty.

"Settle in, brother," he tells me, flopping himself across one of the empty double seats with one leg extending into the aisle. I grab the seat behind him. Andrea follows, taking the row behind me. Chad sits across the aisle from her. Soon everyone that's coming is on.

There's a big enough gap between the seat and the window that I can see the side of Evan's head in front of me. The curls of his hair push up against the window as he settles in. We don't even make it to the freeway before he starts snoring. No company there. I turn and look through the gap behind me instead. Andrea has a sketch pad open and is scribbling away with a charcoal pencil.

"What are you drawing today?"

She looks up at me and smiles. She turns the pad in my direction and shows me the outline of a girl in a dress seated on the floor with her hand on a dog's back. The girl's face is still blank, but the dog has some features to it already.

"Nice," I say. "Did you ever have a dog on campus?" She shakes her head. Her face tells me that she wishes she had one. "I used to have a dog. A big, black Newfie."

She gives me a blank look.

"A Newfoundland? Never heard of that breed?" She shakes her head with a look of curiosity. "Picture a dog. Now picture a black bear. Smash them together, you have a Newfie. Huge, hairy things, but they're the sweetest dogs you'll ever meet."

She smiles at that, and her eyes twinkle with interest.

"Best dog ever. His name was Zeus. Mom used to say he was the god of dogs. Then when he died, she said he was off to be the dog of gods." Andrea gives me a sad look and traces one finger from her eye down her cheek. "No, It's OK," I reassure her. "It was a couple of years ago. And he had a great life. Lived to be twelve, which was a good age for a dog like that. He was so old at the end, he just slept all day. Then one day, he just didn't get up."