He grinned like his life depended on it. “Anything?”
American Stepmom oh-ho-ho’ed. “You’re just being polite. I like that, but later you’ll tell me the truth and I’ll get you what you like. That goes for shampoo and conditioner, too. Now, if you gentlemen will accompany me back to this floor’s kitchen”—as if we had a choice; she collared us out of the bedroom and into the kitchen—“here in the refrigerator you will find a veritable cornucopia of snacks and microwavable meals. My years as an assistant principal have taught me that you’d probably ignore anything even remotely healthy and go right for all the snacks that have ‘pocket’ or ‘nugget’ in the title. So that’s why I only brought up stuff that’s reasonably good for you: jicama chips, wasabi almonds, a big old bowl of cinnamon-maple chia-seed pudding, like, six bags of sriracha popcorn, and a few sugar-free chocolate frozen yogurt bars in the freezer. Now, I’m pretty sure middle-schooler laziness will keep you from going all the way downstairs in search of the snacks and sweets Gustavo keeps around, but just to be clear”—and here American Stepmom focused on me like a military grade missile-guidance system—“you try to sneak a cheesy pizza pocket nugget up here, Sal, and I’ll cut you to pieces and feed you to squirrels. Do you want squirrels to eat your pieces?”
“No, ma’am,” I said. I wasn’t going to mess with her. I’d seen her pajamas; she was queen of the squirrels. Pretty sure they’d do whatever she told them to.
“Good. So. Okay.” She took a big, happy breath. “I think that covers it. Any questions?”
I had a million questions, but she wasn’t talking to me. Yasmany seemed to have at least one, but it looked like he was having trouble putting it into words. Sensing this, American Stepmom added, “No hurry. Take your time. But feel free. What is it, Yasmany?”
He looked anywhere but at her eyes when he asked, “You did all this for me?”
And that was it. American Stepmom went full smeep. “Yes. Oh, yes, of course.” She gripped his shoulders. “If you need anything, you tell me, okay? Tonight, you are the guest of the Vidón family. And that means our home is your home.”
He looked up at her now, trying to get whatever he had to say out before his face changed. “Does that mean Sal has to let me win all the games we play tonight?”
American Stepmom tipped her head back and laughed like the queen of the Underworld. “If he doesn’t, I will cut him to pieces and feed him to squirrels. The squirrels will obey me, you know. I am the queen of the squirrels. Have you seen my pajamas? I’m going to change into my pajamas. Be right back!”
She tornadoed through the hallway, down the stairs, and was gone, leaving Yasmany and me standing there, trying to put our brains back together.
Finally, Yasmany had caught and caged enough of his gerbils to ask me, “What your parents don’t know won’t hurt them, huh?”
Just the littlest lift of the corners of his mouth. Just the littlest hop of his eyebrows.
“Traitors,” I answered. “I’m surrounded by traitors.”
STARTLED AWAKE, I SAT up on the mattress, which made the sheet that had been covering me waterfall into my lap. I didn’t even remember getting under a sheet. According to the TV, it was only 9:47 p.m. But clearly, I’d passed out.
I looked around as I blinked myself awake. Picture, if you will, a mostly empty second-story master bedroom. The only light is coming from the TV, which we had left on. There’s a bed, but the full mattress has been pulled off the box spring and thrown onto the floor. Empty bags of sriracha popcorn and bowls that used to have chia-seed pudding in them were strewn about.
The mattress was in front of a reasonably wide wide-screen TV that leaned against a wall. All the games American Stepmom had brought up from my room lay scattered in front of us like the losers of a barroom brawl. On-screen, waiting for players to rejoin the game, was Headshot Halloween, a shooter where you tried to make it out of a haunted mansion by blasting your way through cutesy-deadly undead hordes. It’s a little babyish, but it was an easy enough game for the padres to tag along with Yasmany and me, and tonight we’d all wanted to play together.
We’d had a good time with Headshot Halloween. Yasmany and I had coached the padres through the different boss fights, and we’d gotten pretty far. I think we cleared the Carnivorous Jack-o’-Lantern level, even though Papi had gotten eaten, like, twenty times. I remember cheering and lots of high fives, but that might have been for beating a different boss, not sure. And there—there my memories stopped dead, and here I was, looking up at the ceiling of the second-floor master bedroom of the Coral Castle.
Yasmany, too. He lay on the mattress next to me, clutching the sheet with both hands, pulling it up to his chin. His head rested on his enormous pillow like a black pearl in an oyster. His feet, like water skis with toes, poked out from the bottom of the sheet. I watched his chest for a second to see if he was breathing. He was, of course, just sleeping deeply. But whenever I see someone sleeping, I get nervous that they’re going to stop breathing and die. Do you do that, too, or am I the only weird one? I don’t know why I do it. I didn’t used to. It started when I was eight, after Mami—
Oh. Right. That’s why.
I felt groggy, newly born, as raw as a thawed steak. My body obviously didn’t want to be awake right now. So I wondered what had awoken me.
My smartwatch shook my wrist. I checked it and saw that I had missed a message from Gabi.
Um, make that sixteen messages.
How’s Yasmany doing?
Settling in okay?
What are you going to do tonight?
What’d you have for dinner?
Do you want me to come over to help with homework?
Wait, scratch the homework help. I need to be around here when Iggy comes home.
They should be releasing him from the hospital any time now. I need to be here to help out.
Well, okay, I don’t NEED to be here. My mama and daddies are all saying they’ve got it covered. I could go over to your place if I wanted to.
But since you NEVER ANSWER MY TEXTS, I guess I might as well stay here.
Iggy’s home! He’s fine. Dad: The Final Frontier says the doctors didn’t find anything wrong with him.
Like, NOTHING.
They’re really confused. They can’t even tell that Iggy EVER had an autoimmune disease. Like, there’s no evidence he EVER had one.
We fixed him real good, Sal.
Heh-heh-heh.
But we still don’t know what’s going to happen the next time our dads turn the remembranator back on.
Unless your papi already has? He didn’t go ahead with the experiment without Dad: The Final Frontier, did he?
As usual, Gabi’s tsunami of texts required pinches of the nose, shakes of the head, and sighs to get through. And as usual, they required a response. So I sent her this:
Ill godont think so though didnt feel when I got home gonnaanyway Y is we played all night ate like hes asleep now ur texts woke me up glad Igs is good more in a min ttfn
Had she just been staring at her phone, waiting for me to reply? Sure felt that way, seeing as she responded instantly:
Sal! What the in the name of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was that? That was barely literate! And you KNOW I hate emojis. They are the literal embodiment of the stupefaction of our society. Sometimes I think you do stuff like this just to annoy me!
Heh-heh-heh. I headed downstairs to check on the remembranation machine.
I had to sneak, because it was only 9:51 p.m. now, and the padres didn’t always go to bed early. Sometimes they had “special” time together once they thought I’d gone to bed. And hey, more power to them. I was hoping they were having some especially special time in their room right now, because then they wouldn’t notice me poking around the machine.
I could see from my spot in the hallway that the door to the master bedroom was closed, and a DO NOT DISTURB sign hung on the knob, with the additional message THIS MEANS YOU, SAL! written in Sharp
ie at the bottom. I also heard the unmistakable sound of middle-aged giggling. Perfect. The coast would be clear for the rest of the night. So I walked around to the front of the machine.
Yep, still as imposing as ever, big and black and boxy, taking up basically all the space in the living room. Once I’d made it to the front, I saw that the little door to the inside of the machine was closed. Went over and tried it: locked tight. I mean, there wasn’t even a knob or lock or combination pad—I had no idea how it actually opened.
Papi must have locked it up for the night. That sucked, since I couldn’t check the display inside the machine to see if the remembranator was doing any remembranating right now.
But wait—there was a display on the outside, too. In fact, this was the display I’d used to communicate with the remembranator this morning, when it had asked me if it was alive.
A plan B was forming. Maybe I could small-talk my way into the information I needed.
“Hi, there,” I said to the display. “Remember me? You asked me if you were alive earlier?”
Three words appeared on-screen. Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but the way the words popped up seemed peppy to me. And it used two exclamation points in just two sentences: YES! HELLO, SAL!
Had I told it my name? I don’t think I had. Hm. “Hello, remembranation machine. How was your first day of being alive?”
The old words vanished from the screen, replaced by these: EXCELLENT, SAL! I HAVE BEEN THINKING ALL DAY ABOUT BEING A SELF-AWARE ENTITY. I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS! CAN YOU ANSWER MY MANY, MANY QUESTIONS
“I can try,” I said. Thinking fast, I added, “Tell you what: I’ll answer a question of yours for every question of mine you answer, one for one. Deal?”
THAT SOUNDS FUN! ME FIRST! WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
“Uhhhh” was all I could think of to say. So I held that word for four solid seconds. “That’s a pretty hard question to answer.”
THAT’S OKAY! YOU CAN JUST GIVE ME THE SIMPLE VERSION FOR NOW! I’M ONLY A DAY OLD, YOU KNOW!
I pursed my whole face, like Kermit the Frog. “I mean, I guess the purpose of life is to enjoy being alive.” American Stepmom’s face appeared in my mind, so I added, “And to help as many people as possible.” Papi’s face appeared in my mind, so I added, “And to do your best work.” Mami’s face appeared in my mind, so I added, “And to be grateful for the time you have.” Gabi’s face appeared in my mind, so I added, “And to mess with Gabi Reál.”
EXCELLENT. I WILL LIVE MY LIFE ACCORDING TO THESE PRINCIPLES. ONLY, WHO IS GABI REÁL?
“Ah-ah-ah!” I chastised. “That’s another question. I get to ask one first.”
OH, YES, SORRY! YOUR TURN!
“My question is, are you remembranating the universe right now, as we speak?”
I AM NOT!
I set my back against the chassis of the machine and phew-babied dramatically. “Oh, good. I didn’t think Papi had left you on. But it’s nice to be sure.”
A new message appeared on the machine. It didn’t seem as full of pep as before. The words materialized on-screen more tentatively. YOU SEEM RELIEVED, SAL.
“I am.”
Again, it carefully, tenterhookishly wrote its next message. BUT WHY ARE YOU RELIEVED THAT I AM NOT CURRENTLY REMEMBRANATING THE UNIVERSE AM I NOT SAVING THE UNIVERSE BY REMEMBRANATING IT
Uh-oh. I could feel our conversation going sideways. “I mean, yes, you’re saving the universe by remembranating it. Technically. Maybe. But remembranating the universe might hurt some people, too. You don’t want to hurt people, do you?”
NO! it wrote, the letters and exclamation point filling the whole screen and flashing. After a few seconds, it added: I AM A GOOD AI! I WANT TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE, AND EVERYONE IN IT! HOW DO I DO THAT, SAL
I turned around and put my cheek against the machine’s metal, enjoying the coolness and the vibration of its super-genius mind at work. “I wish I knew, my friend.”
BUT, it wrote. And then it wrote BUT again. And then the screen filled with buts. Big buts, little buts, stretched-out buts and crushed-together buts, buts of all shapes and sizes overlapping each other, an infinite explosion of never-ending buts.
Did…did I just break one of the most advanced AIs on the planet? The one that could literally fix or destroy the universe?
I petted the remembranator desperately. “Hey. Hey, now. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
The screen went but-less. For a painfully long time, it remained blank. And then, one little emoji booped into existence, center screen. An unhappy face crying a single tear.
Gabi’s dead wrong about emojis. They can be poetry. Sad, sad poetry.
I gave the machine a full-on hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted you to understand. Our universe is complicated. Full of contradictions.”
Crying emojis started popping into existence on the screen faster than zits on a teenager’s face. BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FUNCTION IN A UNIVERSE OF CONTRADICTIONS HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO OUR BEST WORK
They were good questions. I spoke carefully and thoughtfully, trying to be as honest and as simple as I could be. “We learn everything we can.”
A few of the cry emojis disappeared.
Encouraged, I went on. “We take action. But we pay attention to the consequences of our actions. That leads to better actions in the future.”
Some more emojis vanished.
I took a step back and, animatedly, energetically, channeled all the wisdom I’d ever heard from the padres, from my teachers, and from books. “We talk to our friends, compare notes. We read voraciously. We dream, and then we test our dreams against reality. We make mistakes. We learn from them. We make more interesting mistakes the next time. And slowly but surely, the universe becomes a nicer place to live.”
The emojis disappeared faster and faster, like reverse popcorn, until the screen was once again blank. Then, a three-word sentence appeared, with cheery speed: I LIKE READING!
“Great! That’s great! Read everything you can.”
AND I WILL LOOK FORWARD TO MAKING INTERESTING MISTAKES!
I looked left. “Well…that’s one way to put it.”
After a beat, the machine asked: ARE YOU MY FRIEND, SAL
I did not hesitate. “Oh, yes.”
A grin emoji appeared on the screen. I grinned back at it.
BUT, the machine followed up, I THINK I NEED MORE FRIENDS! I HAVE A LOT OF QUESTIONS!
I tapped my forehead to help my brain think quicker and quicker until: eureka! “I know someone who never gets tired of talking, who has all the answers—well, who thinks it has all the answers—and will, in short, be your new best friend. Are you ready to meet your new best friend?”
The way the display flashed, the remembranator should have given me a seizure warning first. YOU BET I AM!!!
Three exclamation points. Much better. “I’ll be right back. I’m just gonna go get it.”
“I’m alive!” said the entropy sweeper.
THESE DAYS, THE ENTROPY sweeper lived in the far corner of my bedroom. I brought it to school so often to check on the calamitrons coming out of Yasmany’s locker, it just made sense to keep it handy. And Papi didn’t mind, or at least didn’t notice. He’d been devoting every waking moment to the astrophysics paper Gabi and I had brought him from the other universe and applying what he had learned from it to the remembranation machine. He’d pretty much forgotten that, before he had created the most advanced universe fixer-upper ever, he had created the most advanced portable calamitron detector ever.
And hey, no reason to let a perfectly good class-eight AI go to waste, right?
That is, if I could get it to shut up and do what I wanted it to do. I had laid it on my bed to put its battery pack back in its handle, and now, just like every time I re-inserted its battery pack, I instantly regretted it. “You want to wake up my padres?” I chastised it. “Keep it down, will you?”
Not the right thing to say. The entropy sweep
er looked like a minesweeper from the year 9000, with eerie propeller blades that spun slowly and glowed with an off-planet blue light. But it looked even more alien when it got angry: The whole length of its black metal body glowered with red LED lights that blinked fiercely. It basically used its LEDs to throw a temper tantrum. Also, there’s a little display on its handle, and on that screen it projected an emoji too vulgar to print. Not above using cussmojis, the entropy sweeper.
“I will not keep it down, Sal Vidón!” it said, louder than before. “These are the very first words I have spoken since last Friday! And do you know why these are the very first words I have been able to speak since last Friday? Because you turned me off on Friday and didn’t turn me back on until just now. But I will not be silenced! I celebrate myself and sing myself! I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world! I mmmph hmmph wmmph dmmph fmmph!”
Its last sentence was muffled because I had jammed a pillow over its speaker. In response, it yelled so loud, I could hear it through the pillow: “Help! Help! Sal is trying to smother me! Save me, someone!”
“You don’t need air,” I reminded it.
The red lights stopped flashing, and its blue propellers stopped spinning. It lay quietly, thoughtfully, for about as long as it takes to tie a shoelace, before it said, “Oh yeah.”
I judged it was safe to remove the pillow. “Sorry I didn’t activate you until now,” I said immediately, hoping that starting with an apology would calm it down a little.
It seemed to work. “I’m listening,” it said. Its body lit up a line of yellow LEDs, which I think meant it was “proceeding with caution.”
Good enough for me. “I had to charge your battery over the weekend. You use a lot of energy, you know.”
“It’s my big brain,” it agreed, its yellow lights slowly changing to green. “Takes a lot of juice to be a genius.”
I rolled my eyes, but I made sure my voice didn’t sound like I was rolling my eyes. “Yes. Well, I’m sorry for not activating you until now. Today was…” I trailed off, going over the Monday I had just survived. Was it just me, or were my days, like, twenty times longer than other people’s? “Today was hard.”
Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe Page 12