“Are you guys coming to the afterparty at my apartment?”
The way Maria’s cheeks bunched up told Coop that was probably the first such invite she’d received. He threw an arm around her waist and pulled her close.
“We’re so there,” Coop said.
“Nice.” She alerted the others in their group.
“Thanks, Coop,” Maria said. “I hope you don’t mind going to another party.”
Coop gazed up at the luminous moon. He wanted to pinch himself on nights like tonight. He was exactly where he wanted to be, a million miles away from the past and those personal details that never needed to be brought up again, no matter how much his clients pried.
“Remember what I told you. For the night, I am yours.”
Chapter 2
Matty
The early birdcaught the worm, and Matty took that phrase to heart. It was why he was always the first person to class. Being first meant that you cared more than anyone else.
This classroom didn’t have desks, but rather a series of workstations that sat up to three students each. They were on a raised part of the floor, arena style, with the professor’s podium and his slides at the center of the room. One by one, his fellow students entered the room. It was like watching people board an airplane. Each student took his own workstation first, then more students sat in the far seat of each workstation, and finally, those who arrived last had to suffer in the middle seat.
Matty supposed he was lucky that nobody ever chose to sit with him. He had his workstation to himself and put his backpack on the empty seat next to him. He managed to smile as he stared at the blank projector screen, waiting for the professor to show up, and ignored the chatter around him.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
His dad had told him that Gandhi quote after another day at school back in Dallas, a day filled with the standard taunts and snot-stained paper airplanes and half-baked insults hurled at him.Shouldn’t you be at a 7-11?Thank goodness his classmates never found out he was gay. That was a secret he chose to keep to himself. Matty survived years of teasing, but at least here he wasn’t the only South Asian in his engineering program. He could survive some side-eye and sitting alone at a table. No way would he let his classmates derail him.
Like the kids growing up, these classmates were threatened by him, threatened by his intelligence. Nobody in high school could ever catch up to his GPA, no matter the amount of name-calling he received. That only made him work harder, and he graduated as valedictorian, better than all of them, and was now at one of the top schools in the country. And in this class, Introduction to Robotics, being number one came with an added bonus a million times better than having to give a speech to a roomful of kids who made fun of you. The top student in this course was awarded the undergraduate research position in Professor Chertok’s robotics lab.
Speaking of Professor Chertok, he had yet to show up.
“If he’s not here in five more minutes, we should leave,” Kelvin Zhang said. He had a ballpoint pen with a gold tip that cost more than Matty’s outfit. Hell, his shoelaces cost more than any item in Matty’s closet. “All in favor of the five-minute rule?”
The other students nodded in agreement with Kelvin, who twirled his expensive pen between his fingers.
“He’ll be here,” Matty said. “He didn’t send an email to cancel the class. I don’t think it’s right for him to show up and none of us be here.”
“It was a joke, Matty.” Kelvin smiled at the kid next to him.
Before Kelvin could respond, the door to the classroom swung open and a robot on wheels maneuvered down the row. It was low to the ground and wide, like a mini-Mars rover, and rolled along leisurely. It scooted around Kelvin’s desk and did a figure eight with the workstation next to his. If the robot were a person, it would have a huge ego because right now, the students couldn’t take their eyes off it, especially Matty.
The robot reached the step to the center level. The wheels stopped and two front legs extended out touching onto the floor below. The robot took short steps forward, and when it looked like it was going to fall backwards, a set of back legs extended to the floor. The robot took another few steps, then sunk back down into wheel mode and zipped to the center podium.
“His name is Matchbox.” The harsh, clipped voice of Professor Chertok echoed from the door. Half of his shirt was untucked from his wrinkled khakis, which drooped over his faded tennis shoes. It seemed as if he dressed up as a mad scientist one year for Halloween and forgot to take off the costume. “And no, he is not remote-controlled.”
Professor Chertok breezed down the aisle so fast that Matty got a gust of wind. He squatted down and petted his machine, which reminded Matty of a faithful dog. “Matchbox is fully autonomous. He uses 3-D imaging to navigate and detect any changes in terrain, like this.” Professor Chertok kicked the step. “This little fella represents hours of direct research and testing in the Robotic Development Lab, not to mention decades of work in artificial intelligence, imaging, and motion planning. Future iterations of Matchbox will be able to bring supplies to people in areas hit by natural disasters, and I’m sure the military will find a way to get Matchbox to do its dirty work, too.”
Matty’s eyes widened with awe. Matchbox circumnavigated the podium, wheeling around the professor’s shoe.
“Whichever one of you ends this course as the top student will get to work intimately on Matchbox version two-point-oh.”
It was music to Matty’s ears.
Professor Chertok reached into his bag, but then seemed to forget what he was doing halfway through. “Did I assign homework last class?”
“You did,” Matty said.
“On chapter seven?”
