1 Examination Day

Friday, August 13, 2257. 0600

Riley Romero awoke to the sound of his alarm clock. He was lying on the bed, his neck and arms bent at an uncomfortable angle.

"Morning brother, time for breakfast!" Said a singsong voice. It was his 12-year old sister, Ivanka.

Riley sat up and rubbed his sore neck and arms as he looked around the room. It was a small apartment, measuring four meters by five meters, sparsely furnished. On one end there was the kitchenette with a fridge, sink, oven, and dishwasher. A tiny bathroom was next to it. The remainder of the room was the living area, consisting of Riley's bed, Ivanka's bed, and her workplace.

Riley stepped off the bed and onto a mechanical construct roaming on the floor.

"Ow!" He grunted and sat back down on the bed, clutching his foot. The thing turned around and bleeped in protest, holding one small "arm" with a brush at the end up like an accusatory finger.

"Watch it! If you break Wally, you won't have breakfast!"

Riley rubbed his foot and glared at the cleaner bot, which gave out a huff-like bleep and continued moving. Ivanka had put it together from various parts she scrounged together. It worked well enough, but its collision-avoiding sensors were all aimed at the floor and around its height. Movements from above, like what Riley just did, was undetectable by the bot. So it was entirely his fault. Not that he would admit to Ivanka.

"Woe is me! I'm even lower in ranking than a trash collector!" Riley said with mock sadness.

"Silly brother, of course, I'm fond of you more!" Ivanka turned to look at him. Her green eyes twinkled mischievously. "It's just that you're a lot more durable than him. And clumsier."

With a giggle, Ivanka turned back to her work. She was sitting at her table, staring at the monitors, her hands dancing between the keyboard, trackpad, and touchscreen. On the screens were a bunch of graphs, bars, and codes that might as well be hieroglyphics. Riley couldn't make heads or tails of them.

"I know, I know. Lucky me, then. What are you doing?"

"I'm finishing up the helper droid's protocols for feeding the fish and cleaning the tank. I'm almost done. You wash up and eat breakfast before it's cold."

Ivanka was a natural-born technopath. Since she was 8, she began displaying interest in programming, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering. After Riley bought her a used smartpad, she managed to teach herself the majority of basic, intermediate and even some specialized knowledge. Soon, with Riley as the proxy, she began helping neighbors with repairs or programming in exchange for credits. Her taking side jobs like those were a big help in putting food on the table.

Most of the apartment was dominated by Ivanka's workplace. It was probably more accurate to call this a workplace with a kitchen, bathroom and sleeping area added as an afterthought. There was a large U-shaped work table in the middle of the room, splayed out with a variety of parts and tools. Smaller tables and stands and containers and shelves scattered around the apartment, each containing more tools and parts. The table next to Ivanka's bed, the one she was sitting at, had a computer hooked up to several wall-mounted monitors and touchscreens Riley had bought for cheap over the years.

Riley made his bed, which folded up and hid in a depression on the wall. Taking care to avoid Wally, he walked around the work table into the bathroom and took a quick shower and brushed his teeth.

Riley took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. His long brown hair was a mess. His green eyes were slightly bloodshot from lack of sleep. They looked much more tired and weary, the eyes of someone who had been through much more hardship than his 17 years of age might suggest. He struggled with the comb and the gel tube for a second to make his hair more presentable. He got dressed and left the bathroom.

"Why didn't you wake me up sooner? I could have helped cooking."

"You went home so late, so I thought you could use some more sleep."

Riley checked the time. 6.30 a.m., which meant he had had 5 hours of sleep. It was because of his courier job. The package was to be delivered at a rather distant part of the city, and navigating was a nightmare. He didn't want to work so late, but the pay was too good to pass up. When he got home he was exhausted that he passed out immediately on the bed.

"Right. Sorry for making you worried, sis." Riley made coffee, having just enough left for one cup. He made a note to buy some later. He opened the fridge and noted down what else needed to be bought.

"Hmph, who's worried? Sit down and eat already, silly brother!"

"Okay. Oh, pancakes? What's the occasion?" Riley asked as he said down at the kitchen counter.

"Well, somebody's got an exam today. So I thought some pancakes would make a nicer breakfast than the usual protein gell."

"Wow, thanks, sis!" Riley said, a little moved.

"Thank Gordon too, he made those. He's gotten pretty good at it." Gordon was another of Ivanka's creations, which was responsible for cooking, doing dishes and laundry among other things. Its main body was connected to a series of rails affixed to the ceiling. It has several mechanical arms, each adept at a few specific tasks, and was coordinated by an array of sensors made of old cameras. At the moment, Gordon was making the last batch of pancakes.

"Hmm, indeed he has. The pancakes are only 20% burned this time." Riley said, inspecting the finished pancakes. Gordon glanced him with one of his "eyes."

"Those cameras he has are crap, and he doesn't have a nose. He kept getting the timing wrong." Said Ivanka as she copied her finished work to a memory chip and turned off the computer.

"Yeah, I'll see if I can dig up something for you today."

Riley stacked pancakes on two plates, making sure to pick out the most burned pancakes for himself. There was a whir as Ivanka settled next to him at the kitchen counter. Her wheelchair secured in place, she fiddled with the control panel to adjust its height to a comfortable level. Gordon finished making the last batch of pancakes, delivered them to the plate next to Riley, then folded itself neatly and rested on top of the kitchen cupboard.

Ivanka handed him the memory chip. "This is the helper droid's protocols for Mrs. Lee, room 3037."

"Well done, sis." Pancake in his mouth, Riley took the chip and put it away. "What would I do without you?"

"You'd get a job, find a girl and get married. What else?" Ivanka said with a smirk. It was a conversation they'd had many times.

"Nah, I'd never do that. In fact, I'm only gonna get married after you do."

"Oh please. Don't tell me you'll find another cripple for me to marry." She said with an eye roll and a wrinkle of her nose.

"Of course not! It'll be a strong and handsome man… Well, almost as strong and handsome as your brother."

"Pfft, you wish! Then why would he marry me and not some tall and pretty girl?"

"Well, you're already pretty," Riley said, taking in her face with curly brown hair, green, intelligent eyes, her freckled nose and her smiling mouth. "I'll just need to get you a nice, solid pair of industrial-grade extendable legs and you can be as tall as a house if you want! Ow! Ow!"

"Stupid brother, you meanie! Go choke on a pancake!" Ivanka giggled as she jokingly punched her brother. The rest of the breakfast went by pleasantly as they ate and chatted about mundane things.

"Okay, I'm done. Thanks, sis." Riley stood up from the counter. He grabbed his backpack and gave Ivanka a quick hug and ruffled her hair.

"Thank Gordon, too!"

"Right. Thanks, Gordon!" Riley called up. Gordon briefly poked its "head" out in acknowledgment.

"Be careful, brother. Give the chip to Mrs. Lee. And don't be home too late!"

"Got it!" Said Riley as he pressed a few buttons at the keypad near the apartment door. The door slid open with a hiss and he stepped out to the corridor.

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Riley stepped into the corridor, feeling the musty and damp smell of old wallpaper.

The Romero brothers lived on the 62nd floor of the mega-block called Sakura, one of several hundred scattered all over the megacity of Arcology-1.

Sheltering over 12 thousand citizens, this 100-floor housing project tower contained shopping malls, food courts, medical clinics, and other facilities the residents might need. On each floor, there were about 50 apartments ranging from 20 to 120 square meters arranged into a figure eight, with two large light wells for ventilation and lighting.

Riley walked to the nearest elevator. He went to Mrs. Lee's home at floor 30, installed the memory chip for her worker droid and took the payment. With that taken care of, Riley made his way to the ground floor, left Sakura mega-block and began making his way to the subway station.