Gen Four- Chapter Five

I waited, frozen. It could very well be that this abrupt tense situation had nothing to do with what I'd done. My panicking mind couldn't think of anything other than that grandpa had been hurt somehow, which wasn't any better, but maybe there was something I missed.

Or there wasn't.

     "I will give you one opportunity," dad bent forward, linking his fingers together seriously and studying to me, "to tell me why you think we're here like this."

My hands shook, so I clasped them upon on another as well. The innocent, unknowing expression I tried to hold fell impossibly fast while my stomach vigorously churned. I'd been caught. Someone figured out I'd altered DV2. Still, a stupid and naive part of me kept me silent. What if that wasn't it? Could I have accidentally done another troublesome thing without realizing it? What if they only thought I'd taken Mr. Plantain's keycard?

     "Nutmeg," dad prodded.

My gut burned with fire.

     "I..." My voice barely made any noise. "I took Mr. Plantain's keycard and used it to sneak into the robot room to mess with DV2's code."

Gen Four- Chapter Four

Dad worked on something during lunch. I couldn't find grandpa, so I downed the granola bar from my packed lunch and called my meal over. My whole body burned with a rage that tickled sweat on the back of my neck. Every vein pulsed with indignance while my stomach protested the thought of anything more than those quick bites inside it. Thus, my lunch break turned into me furiously bolting around the track again and again until my lungs could hardly keep up. Even then I kept going. With each step I imagined Ms. Cranberry's face underneath my foot. The harsh impact of my heel into her stupid mouth spouting lies worked wonders in keeping me from exploding.

The only truth she'd given me was that I had been a bit stupid. Stupid to expect anything of value from her. I wonder if I would have caught her off guard revealing I knew about her and dad's little get-together.

Gen Four- Chapter Three

In order to make up for the crummy Monday, on Tuesday Mr. Mint said we could have classes outside. It meant more effort for him as he had to trudge everything with us and rely more on traditional media like paper and pencils than the computers and stuff we typically used. We both worked with increased vigor though. The serious lack of windows meant being cooped up inside all day most days had us suffering from a lack of vitamin d among the other benefits of being connected to nature. It was why I spent a lot of my time outside when at home.

     "That was a terrible story," I complained, closing my book firmly.
     "Was it actually poorly written, or is it terrible because it has an unfortunate ending?" Mr. Mint probed studiously.
     "Both. I don't like it because it makes me feel sad. It's also badly written because the situation is deliberately set up to make the girl's death inevitable. No real organization would allow such shoddy engineering where a small amount of additional weight would require the pilot to jettison the girl out the airlock. They'd save more money and resources that they're trying to conserve if they use more of those resources to allow a margin of error. Then the flights wouldn't be so risky and catastrophic if something small goes wrong."
     "A fair point," Mr. Mint acknowledged. "Because you had good reasoning, I'll save this reading of 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' for another day."
     "What, is it another depressing story?"
     "Mayhaps," Mr. Mint smirked.
     "Why are you giving me all these harder-to-read dark tales anyway?"
     "Despite your dislike of most literature, you read at an exceptionally high level. These are standard stories for study, and I thought it'd be best to get them out of the way so I don't have to continually throw them at you."
     "I'd rather you actually throw the book at me if it meant I didn't have to read them," I mumbled.

Mr. Mint just laughed.