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Nature's Confession
Nature's Confession
Nature's Confession
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Nature's Confession

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The epic tale of two teens in a fight to save a warming planet, the universe . . . and their love

"The novel is epic" -The Guardian

1st Place Chanticleer Dante Rossetti Awards Winner
Readers' Favorite International Book Award Winner
Book Excellence Award Finalist
A Top 10 Best Science Fiction book
New York Book Festival Honorable Mention
This cli-fi quest full of romance, honor, and adventure is the #1 Top Marinovich Fiction Read of the year
LitPick 5-Star Review Award Winner
Best of a New Genre, included in “12 Works of Climate Fiction Everyone Should Read”
Eco-Fiction Honorable Mention— Read the excerpt!
A Best Climate & Environmental Fiction Book

When a smart-mouthed, mixed-race teen wonders why the work that needs to be done pays nothing compared to the busywork glorified on holovision news, the search for answers takes him on the wildest journey of anyone’s lifetime. Their planet is choked with pollution. They can’t do anything about it . . . or can they? With the girl of his dreams, he inadvertently invents living computers. Just as the human race allows corporations to pollute Earth into total desolation, institute martial law and enslave humanity, the two teens set out to save civilization. Can they thwart polluters of Earth and other fertile planets? The heroes come into their own in different kinds of relationships in this diverse, multi-cultural romance. Along the way, they enlist the help of female droid Any Gynoid, who uncovers cutting-edge scientific mysteries. Their quest takes them through the Big Bang and back. Will Starliament tear them from the project and unleash ‘intelligent’ life’s habitual pollution, or will youth lead the way to a new way of coexisting with Nature?

Nature’s Confession couldn’t be more timely, just as the IMF reveals that governments spends more than $5.3 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies annually. With illustrations and topics for discussion at the back of the book, JL Morin entertains questions about busywork; economic incentives to pollute; sustainable energy; exploitation; cyborgs; the sanctity of Nature; and many kinds of relationships in this diverse, multi-cultural romance.

"Morin is proving herself to be one of the most interesting storytellers for teens. What allowed NATURE’S CONFESSION to resonate with me was not only the fast-paced, urgent need to save the world, but the fact that love drove so much of what happens.”—Teen Reads

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 2, 2017
ISBN9781941861585
Nature's Confession
Author

JL Morin

JL Morin grew up in inner-city Detroit. She proffered moral support while her parents sacrificed all to a failed system. Wondering what the Japanese were doing right, she decamped to Tokyo. JL Morin's debut Japan novel, SAZZAE, won an eLit gold medal and a Living Now Book Award. Her second novel, TRAVELLING LIGHT, was a USA Best Book Awards finalist, and her third, TRADING DREAMS became 'Occupy's first bestselling novel'. Her climate fiction novel, NATURE'S CONFESSION, won first place in the Dante Rossetti Book Awards, and a Readers' Favorite Book Award, a LitPick 5-Star Review Award, and an excerpt received an Honorable Mention in the Eco-Fiction Story Contest. Her virus novel, LOVEOID, is a Book Excellence Finalist, Cygnus Sci-fi Semifinalist, ScreenCraft Semifinalist, and was shortlisted by the Global Thriller Book Award, and the Fish Story Prize. Morin's writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Library Journal, The Detroit News, Agence France Presse, European Daily, and the Livonia Observer Eccentric Newspapers. JL Morin's writing draws on a breadth of experience. She traded derivatives in New York while studying nights for her MBA at New York University's Stern School of Business; worked for the Federal Reserve Bank posted to the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center; presented the news as a TV broadcaster; and is adjunct faculty at Boston University.

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Rating: 3.8571427857142857 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Nature's Confession is a novel that took on the noble goal of addressing problems with climate change, habitat destruction and the overuse of fossil fuels, however did not do so in a particularly memorable or effective manner. The argument used is preachy and entirely one sided, showing the eEmperor as a many who knows that he is destroying the planet and simply does not care. He makes no attempt to justify his drilling for oil, voicing gleefully that no one can stop him, making him an incredibly shallow villain.The story itself is confusingly structured. It is far too fast paced, skimming over important plot points and picking up and dropping threads that seem important seemingly at random. The story speeds through the universe, trying to blend threads about environmentalism, spiritualism and theology seemingly at random and not fully addressing any of the issues that they raise. Things also happen with no rhyme or reason. Why does Valentine randomly create a cat-person android? What sets of the chain of time travel causality that leads Boy's family to be rescued? What is fuelling these androids, as the novel is strictly anti fossil fuel.The narrative also is difficult to get behind, flipping between perspectives and narrators seemingly at random. These switches occur entirely without warning and so I frequently found that I had no idea of who was supposed to be narrating a chapter (particularly later on when the dog randomly became a narrative voice). Morin also had a habit of naming characters before they were introduced. It took me quite a while to figure out that "Eleanor" and "Mom" were the same character, as well as the fact that "Any" was actually the name of the cat person.The characterisation in the novel is also virtually non-existent. Although advertised as being a "romance", Boy and Valentine don't actually get together until 84% of the way through this book, and then have a child within a matter of pages. Other characters in the novel just seem to be picked up and dropped on a whim. Kenza seems important in early chapters but then just bows out of the story following her rescue. Mom has a brief stint of development after Porter leaves her, but still welcomes him back without much protest (before also bowing out). Women in general do not fair well in Morin's future, despite being as educated as the male characters, as they generally sink into roles as housewives and mothers.All in all, the book was a real disappointment. It was poorly constructed and had very week characterisations. It's definitely not one that I'd recommend.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Are you a fan of Nature. Here a story about a boy and girl that need to fight to save Earth. It sure is about our world and saving the universe as for humanity.

    Ever wonder how the earth became the way it is. You learn about science along the way though story of two young teens. Are we destroy our own world and need to move to save it? Can we coexist in nature?

    We may be living a universe and that is that we may need to stop corporation for pollution and save our world. We may already have the technology for the wind and solar power.

    Are we letting corporations run and ruin our world? This story seems to put it that way and seem to be letting them. Why not take stand get them to work on putting solar and wind power and saving our Earth. The growth of pollution and money is not worth saving our own lives. I wish that we did something about it rather than stand by let it happen. I believe we are causing climate change or at least our government.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing story this planetary adventure was a wonderful treat for the imagination and a wonderful book. This book did feed the soul and the emotions as well. Brillant story very strong characters and the characters goes from being wife,mother,and then to a leader of another planet. The character named boy with a smart mouth and a brain to back it up. Boy had a reoccurring dream about agirl with auburn hair this happened until they meet. But they didn,t see eye to eye at first. Amazing story this was well thought out and goes to show you don,t have to be big to do good and step back and do for the little people. This book is one for the read again shelf and I would be delighted to recommend this wonderful book to my friends. My thanks go to the author J.L.Morin and thanks for the privilege of reading her wonderful book. So that all said keep smiling with all my love from wee me. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have to admit, this is one of the more bizarre books I've ever read.  I did learn a new word however, "spaghettification".
     
    "Boy's" (he won't receive a name until he's 15) family lives in a very dismal future where, the ocean is encroaching on landmasses, animals are extinct and food is pretty much all "non-food".  Corrupt governments and corporations have all but destroyed Nature to line their pockets.  Censorship monitors public speech, so that when someone says an "illegal" word, they get an electric shock to the head.  His sister is a clone of his mother and all learning institutions teach only "cooked information" and no one is allowed freedom of thought, i.e. eHarvard.
     
    The storyline combines spirituality, animism, evolution and commercialism into one big weird ball.  The plot would start and end abruptly, wander off into different tangents and finally pick up another thread.
     
    I laud the author's intention to inform young people of the harm that governements and big business are causing to the environment.  However, the way this information was interspersed throughout the book made me think of billboards popping in and out of the rainforest - we're minding our business reading the story and then "ooo!  another billboard pops up" and then we continue with the story.

    The second half of the book is a bit more coherent and I was able to read it at a faster pace.  This book would appeal to a YA audience.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is proclaimed to be a new genre, Cli-Fi, and that intrigued me, along with the stunning cover art.Young love blossoms on a world raped of all it’s natural resources by big business. The air is unbreathable, no flora or fauna can survive, and man is now delegated to busy work. Recent history is ever changing so children are taught about past events from censored text books. Can a group of enlightened individuals save their planet?All of this was familiar. I’d read about similar plots, seen movies that broached these topics. So I was wondering how the author would put a new spin on it.I’d love to reveal that spin, but it would be spoiling things for you. So I’ll begin at the beginning.Boy, 14 years old and wiser than he even imagines. Approached by a secret organization for his hacker skills. They want to get censored books and information into everyone’s hands and they need Boy’s special skills to help with the coding.This is where Boy meets Girl and young romance blooms. Boy dreamed about the red headed girl. In his dreams he saved her from death by horrible creatures, making himself the knight in shining armor.Then, his dreams are played out in real life, and he’s afraid he’s not up to the task.Now, I’m at the point where I find it difficult to share without spoilers. There are many plot twists, a fascinating view at a world very similar to ours, and issues of climate change that are real and threatening us today.Every day I watch the news and the weather is so strange. Severe drought on the west coast and then torrential rains and mudslides. Tornado season starting earlier with more of them every year in the midwest. Killer storms on the east coast and deadlier hurricanes. The signs are there. But, what can we do about it?This books addresses these issues in a fun, fictional way, and gives you some good ideas. Lets hope this generation puts on their thinking caps and does something for future generations.While I’d recommend this to all ages, I sure hope the younger readers give it a go. Perhaps they will think long and hard while still enjoying some fantasy and adventure mixed with truth.

Book preview

Nature's Confession - JL Morin

He that is without name, without friends, without coin, without country, is still at least a man; and he that has all these is no more.

—Sir Walter Scott

In the corridors of power, the Emperor of the Earth and Ocean Board of Corporate Personhood reposed his royal anatomy. Paris without the French was turning out to be less glorious than he’d expected. No one knew how to bake croissants or construct those buildings with the mansard roofs. Fat like nobody’s business, he let out a sigh that ended with a belch, jiggling his blubbery chins like a precarious stack of pancakes.

As he chewed his pizza-dough croissant, his fat jowls decreed with difficulty, I want everyone enslaved yesterday. I don’t care if you do it with debt, insurance, or random billing…or if they go into hospitals and never come out.

Fearing for his life, the Emperor’s advisor, resorted to flattery. Hospitals! That’s a brilliant idea, Sire. Why didn’t I think of that? It would be cheap to use the organs of deadbeats to keep the more productive slaves going.

Of course it would be, the Emperor said, deeply disinterested. Let capitalism reign. And no more humans on Corporate boards, besides me…for security reasons. That has such a nice ring to it, ‘security reasons’. Automate everything! But, mind you, don’t take away their handguns.

Let them keep their handguns? I’m not sure I follow you, Sire.

In Year 1 After Corporatism, there were 30 million handgun deaths on Earth and twenty deaths from ‘terrorism’.

So?

Proud that he could still fold his fat fingers over his enormous belly, the Emperor said, ‘Terrorism’ is the lever our corporate boards use to keep the masses in fear.

And to keep them shooting each other with handguns! The advisor flattered hard, You’re too much, Sire.

They snorted peals of laughter.

You might be fat, but you can still jump to a conclusion.

The Emperor’s belly stopped jiggling. The advisor cowered in His Highness’ shadow, which weighed another 322 kilos.

A helicopter buzzed by the 109th-floor picture window overlooking the Tuileries. And one more thing, the Emperor said, make arrangements to move our headquarters back to New York.

The Corporate Empire enforced the decree overnight. Humanity was under arrest. How swiftly enslavement went. People accepted degradation without question, as if they’d always been enslaved. The word ‘Enslaved’ was added to the beginnings of all names: the Enslaved Times, the eTimes.

World on the Edge

To understand the ways of MakSym, one must start before he touched the little sun. His humble Terran birth was in Year 2 After Corporatism, when teaching lost its way, and one’s feet went next door to math class and one’s head went underground for history.

—Broghther Waitin Aadash, The Legend of MakSym

Rolling onto his alarm clock, Boy convinced himself that he was on time, and could linger with the auburn girl in the magnificent dream. He was saving her again, in his toughest battle yet, against a plenty-eyed Terrifficollosus spider.

The sound of the alarm clock morphed into the roar of the hairy beast. Boy’s feet were glued to the ground, only his hands free. He reached for his most powerful weapon. Arching the bow, just as his childhood hacker hero, Tyree, would have done, he shot a two-stage flaming arrow into one of the spider’s slick red eyes. Watched it burn through the horrid head. The monster ignited.

Boy shrank away as the arachnid exploded, pieces of hairy leg and shards of yellow fang flying every which way. Again, he’d saved the girl. Splashed with spider muck, even on her cheek, she didn’t seem to mind. She gave him the usual mollowy look, like she owed him her life, picked up a fang, handed it to him, as if to say, A spoil of war. Keep it.

The alarm sounded louder. Seven forty. Now you can’t do your hair. His eyes opened a slit. White sheets. And closed again. He wanted to stay with the girl. To say she was gorgeous would be to understate the matter dramatically. She seemed so real.

The leaves on the plants were gigantic, the Nature like nothing he’d ever seen before. He grabbed her hand and ran with her through blond wheat fields to a beach, feet drumming the sand.

Then, she was gone…

His sister called from downstairs, The bus is coming. He glanced at his alarm.

The clock warned, Seven forty three: Dude, seriously.

His lids slipped closed. Back from nowhere again, the dream girl turned to him and laughed, her green eyes mischievous through auburn locks. She frolicked into the sea, pulling him close and then under the water, in ritual. Just happy to have her attention, he prayed this baptism would save the world.

Pink waves reflected the sky. She swam toward him, ready to tell him. Her lips mouthed the words. He swam closer, straining to hear…if he could just get a little closer….

The front door slammed.

He sat bolt upright, alarm clock flashing red. That meant it had started uploading his embarrassing baby pictures to the Grid. Oh no!

He jumped out of bed. Passing the mirror, the skinny, light-skinned kid told himself to forget about girls like that.

And that’s what he meant to do. Boy hurried downstairs, noting the cold omelet, and flew out the door. His T-shirt on backward and inside out, he dashed across the gravel lawn, crunching pebbles, trying not to imaginate the girl. Just before he could leap on, the folding door closed in front of him. The school bus peeled away. Boy stared at the bus window, a yellow ‘WANTED’ sign on it tattering in the wind.

The Democratic Police were looking for Boy’s hero, Tyree. No picture. Just the Emperor’s symbol that looked like an oak. He shook his head. The police didn’t even have a drawing of the superhacker. Good luck catching him.

Caught

The future for me is already a thing of the past

You were my first love and you will be my last.

—Bob Dylan

The bus zoomed away. Boy would be late for school, that is, if he made it through dangerous streets. What would Tyree do, chop his way out of reality?

Boy sprinted down the block, choking on smog, thinking, Forget about her. He ran fast, and cut through a backyard, while the lumbering bus took the circuitous route. Running up to the kids at the next stop, he climbed aboard, imaginating Tyree clapping him on the back with pride.

Boy slunk down in a seat and watched the sidewalks slip by. He glampsed a hint of red amidst the dismal gray. Sat up in his seat. Out the bus window. The familiar auburn tresses, tumbled over a plaid shirt. Nobody wears plaid. As the bus passed, he saw her face.

That’s her! The girl from his dreams was walking down the street, past a wall of graffiti, alone. She was real. She had sent him that dream. He broke into a sweat, sure now that the world really was in grave danger, that they were on a mission, him and her. He stumbled to the back of the bus and looked out the window. She walked with purpose, perhaps already aware of the threat he was just beginning to feel. Her mysterious dream aura tugged at him. Their eyes locked. That face. It was burned into his soul.

As the bus turned, the girl’s auburn mane glided out of sight. I have to find her! He ran to the front of the bus.

He felt her energy diminishing. With it, went a part of himself. Open the door! he yelled.

Static. The speaker on the dashboard blared, Sit down! The bus kept going.

I have to throw up!

That would have worked on a human driver. But the automated bus ignored him and rattled on.

He gave the door three Tyree kicks, and landed with a stumble in the street, heart pounding in his chest. Never minding how dangerous the neighborhood around the school was, he raced back around the corner.

Then stopped short.

The girl was gone.

He walked up and down the block, but she was nowhere.

Now all he had left was a strange emptiness in his stomach. And it was raining. His every nerve exposed to the air, he started off the drismal way the bus had gone.

Heart burning, he stared at the honeycomb school building, fronted by a sinister guard tower, growing bigger as he approached. The usual dreadful feeling wrenched his belly. That beehive architecture didn’t remind him of bees. They’d all died off. It meant busywork.

He took a deep breath, held it for ten seconds, and walked across the threshold. Inside the hexagonal hallways, he checked his appearance in a classroom window and noticed his shirt tags dangling like a bow tie. He pulled his hair to the side. Maybe I should get a spooncut.

He heard heavy footsteps from behind and braced himself for an encounter with the sumo wrestling team. But instead, giggling bubbled up in the honeycomb. He looked out of the corner of his eye. It was only three heavyset girls. They smirked at him. These snarks were also fourteen, but they dwarfed Boy, who hadn’t had his growth spurt yet. He nodded hello out of social necessity.

Got dressed in the dark, frumple-head? the biggest girl said.

The other snarks giggled like morons. Isn’t your hair getting a bit long for a boy? one heavy sneered.

Maybe he’s not really a boy, said another brainwashed grool.

He’s not gay, he’s just black, said the largest, to more giggles.

At least he doesn’t have to tell his mom.

His mom? Don’t you know how it is with them? She’s the one who dressed him like a girl.

Fists clenched, ears burning, Boy kept control, slowed, and let them go past. The worst had happened. They saw my baby pictures! Truth told, alarm clocks were brutal. He tried to smooth down the cowlick rebelling on top of his head and wished they still had cows to blame bad hair on. Nowadays kids couldn’t even play outside. School was just about the only activity left. If only he could disappear into the virtual world. He tapped the silicone screen on his wrist. He searched on ‘long, auburn hair’ and filtered for ‘green eyes’. What if the auburn girl thinks I’m a drone?

His footsteps resounded through the honeycomb’s echoing architecture. Absorbed in a search on his wrist screen, that necessary extension of his physical self, Boy barely noticed where he was going. Elbow sticking out, he dawdled along, dragging his feet. On the tiny screen, a rainbow of fair-skinned temptresses—brunettes to redheads—blinked, smiled, and blew kisses at him. Way too many to sort through.

Just as he approached a curve in the corridor, a voice jolted him out of his device. It was Mrs Dodgewisdom talking to Miss Numba in a dreary monotone—about him. He pressed himself against the wall.

Shepherding students is tiresome enough without a discipline problem in class, Mrs Dodgewisdom grumbled.

Of course he has troubles; he’s a skinny, mixed-breed outlier! Anybody can see that his brain is wired differently, the mischievous no-name.

I can understand if parents don’t feel safe naming their kids anymore. But we do them no favors by allowing individuality, either. Outliers soon start having their own ideas. Personal ideas.

A swarm of students approached. Boy bent down and pretended to tie his shoe, which didn’t have any laces, and continued to listen discreetly. Why were the teachers all up in his grill? He overheard the indignant Miss Numba say, Indeed! That one can turn a lecture into an argument in a flash. He’s impossible. Impossible, I say. It angered the teachers when an adolescent forced them to ‘refer to him’. Having to single students out was not in their job description. Children were supposed to fit into the system. If one required personal attention, that student had to be re-formed.

My tactic is cutting him down the moment he walks in, Mrs Dodgewisdom said. That keeps him quiet for the first twenty minutes. Still, you can see him cogitating, figuring to make trouble. Just outrageous. Thinks he’s so smart. Humph! I just won’t pass him.

Boy’s eyes flared. What! How can they fail someone who knows more than they do? He didn’t care about grades anymore if they weren’t giving him good ones.

He’s nothing like his half-sister, Mrs Dodgewisdom said.

Girls born of immaculate conception often do better.

Half-sister’? Whew! Boy sighed with relief. They can’t be talking about me. My sister’s a full-blooded sibling from the same parental gene pool. Now thinking he was still in their good graces, he swung his screen arm nonchalantly. Boy rounded the bend and found himself standing face-to-face with Mrs Dodgewisdom. She shot him a surprised look, threw back a white lock, and pulled her transparent drasticine cape around her bony frame, her yellowed eyes destabilizing him.

Even in the armor of his favorite diagonal-striped shirt, albeit backward and inside out, he felt vulnerable. Mrs Dodgewisdom’s bloodsucking energy had Boy tripping over his own feet. Wishing he could disappear into his wrist screen, he swiftly made for the camouflage of the back row. As far away as he could get, he lunged toward the floor, and the last seat floated up and caught him. There he sat, daydreaming about the girl with the auburn mane.

All the students have their books turned on, spindly Mrs Dodgewisdom was saying. She stared at Boy.

Boy rummaged through his bag for his censored textbook. Recent history being too controversial. They were repeating ancient history. The only thing Boy had gathered from the subject was that one plus one equaled three.

Now listen carefully, class, came her brain-freezing monotone. "There is nothing we can do about it."

But I can do something about it, Boy thought. He wasn’t sure how he had developed an immunity to their brainwashing mist. Maybe because his mother had always told him to sit in the back of the classroom and repel unwelcome thoughts.

The teacher’s droning voice cast the invisible mist over the rest of the students, had them staring straight ahead, stupefied, eyes wide, accepting the hypnotic brainwash that prepared them for their future busywork roles in society. Boy glanced out the window at the cubist rooftops. Their orange planes slanted toward the sun at a variety of angles. The sight made him think of the many different ways of looking at things….

Mumbling helped, too—She’s the most repulsive crumbly alive. And so did keeping busy with the device on his wrist, which he’d reprogrammed.

A message bombarded his wrist screen. ‘URGENT: How much would you charge to do some coding for me?’

A client!

This almost got Boy’s attention. Hmm, like I need another adult telling me what to do. Not now! Boy teletyped: ‘Can’t talk.’

‘I can’t wait. I’m sending my material through.’

Boy hit ‘block’, deflecting the client’s download.

Right then, the only thing that mattered was his search for the girl. He was on a mission, and entered the street address where he’d seen her walking. She needs me. Thousands of search results came up. That should have narrowed it to five! The search should have worked, unless...she didn’t want to be found. A piece of the puzzle fell into place. She needed him, but she was hiding from...the Emperor? How would Tyree do?

A message from the client interrupted again.

He responded with a grown-up-sounding ‘out of office automated reply’, then closed his eyes. Maybe he could cull more details about the girl from another dream....

Answer me! Mrs Dodgewisdom demanded.

Boy’s eyes popped open.

Mrs Dodgewisdom was calling on him.

Boy sat up and looked around.

The other students turned in unison, eyes half-closed.

Could you please repeat the question? Boy asked, squinting to hide his mist-free eyes.

‘Repeat the question,’ hmm? Mrs Dodgewisdom’s voice almost succumbed to her own wearying hypnosis. She pointed her finger at Boy and hissed, Your ignorance is encyclopedic.

The word ‘encyclopedic’ triggered his memory. The dream girl’s age came to mind: same as his true sister, two years older than he was. Sixteen.

Mrs Dodgewisdom skirted down the aisle.

He glanced sidelong at the student next to him, whose ruler lay under the passage at the beginning of page seventy-seven. Boy looked at page seventy-seven in his own book, a passage about the significance of life. Not suspecting that this wisdom would one day save his skin, he recited, "‘In order to please others, we lose our hold on our life’s purpose,’ Epictetus, Greek-born Roman slave and Stoic philosopher."

Mrs Dodgewisdom’s eye twitched. That quote was censored out of the textbook three years ago. Her purple-veined fingers reached for Boy’s tattered history book. She grabbed it, slammed it shut, producing a cloud of dust, and tucked it under her bony arm.

Boy’s smile hardened into a frown. He doubted whether some of the students could read at all. He sensed that they just recognized the bytes of propaganda, like pictograms, or kanji. The sound of the confiscated book clunking in the garbage can tipped him over the edge. He couldn’t sit there and pretend to learn anymore. He had way too much to do, and it wasn’t busywork. This is pointless, he mumbled.

What was that? Mrs Dodgewisdom whirled around. Do you know why you are at school?

Before he could think of an innocuous enough answer, words leapt out of his mouth. To free up my parents to do busywork?

That’s enough! But she had forgotten to command the class to breathe, and the students began choking for air. Mrs Dodgewisdom ran to the front of the class.

Boy returned to his search. His wrist computer detected his eye motions, filtered for ‘age sixteen’. Again, an annoying message from the client infiltrated his search. He deleted it and continued flipping through redheaded girls.

Another message replaced it. ‘URGENT: Let’s make a deal.’

Deal? I’m only fourteen. He didn’t have the flimsiest idea how much money coding was worth. He’d overheard his dad say you should never name your price first, though. Let the other guy suggest a price, and it would be higher than expected. That seemed like a good game. He teletyped, ‘What do you think it’s worth?’

Another message came back. ‘Fifteen dollars an hour, if you answer right away.’

Boy’s eyebrows rose. Fifteen dollars.

The ‘age sixteen’ filter results came up. Then, his wrist screen faded. Out of power! He had to get to the computer room. He raised his hand.

An ironclad expression girded Dodgewisdom’s face.

Boy stood up. Sorry, I don’t feel so well. Can I go to the infirmary?

His teacher tried not to look relieved. Again? she quibbled, for form’s sake.

It’s a bug we’re passing back and forth in my family. He was a bad liar. Mrs Dodgewisdom glared at him as he exited the classroom.

Boy ran down the honeycomb hallway, free! Took the ramp down to the basement. At the door to the computer room, he whipped out his homehacked master key and let himself into the airlock. Inside, he grabbed the principal’s metallic protective suits hanging on the wall—that would keep the room clear. He fitted the flimsy feet over his shoes and pulled down the glass mask. He opened the adjoining door and stepped into the Wi-Fi radiation soup. The room was dark except for the glow of seventeen computer holofields. He plugged in and resumed the never-ending flow of communication carrying him out to the virtual sea, and hardly noticed the cleaning woman come in, until she greeted him, Hi, and flashed him an oh-it’s-you smile. A hologram sprung from his wrist screen. Mom: ‘Dinner’s ready.’

Hmm, food. How did it get so late! He realized he was hungry. Boy teletyped: ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Noodles. It’ll be cold by the time you get here, just the way you like it.’

His stomach growled. Cold noodles really were his favorite. ‘Tempting, but I’m studying.’

He knew Mom would worry. She was always fretting, even about things like air and water.

The client was only writing in subject lines now: ‘In life, there’s the work that needs to be done, which by th’ way, doesn’t usually pay, and the work corporations want you to do to denigrate th’ environment — that’s the day job.’

The urgency in the client’s message got to Boy. He mustered his confidence and to tell the client, ‘Sorry.’ Was he out of his mind? It was a job. He should be jumping all over the client’s offer. But he was on a mission to find the auburn girl....

There was a knock at the door. Without thinking, he went to unlock it.

Too late.

A large stranger in a metallic protective suit stood in the doorway. Boy peered at the stranger. How did he get past the guards? Street people were not allowed in the school. The man’s headgear was stuffed with white hair and an unkempt beard. He towered over Boy.

Boy stood paralyzed. He could play tetra-chess with World-Prize winning mathematicians on the other side of the globe, but a real-time grown-up was altogether different. A bolt of fear shot down his spine. With all his strength, he jammed the door shut. It hit the big man’s foot and rebounded. All at once, Boy could feel the sweat inside his suit.

The man looked furious. He raised his enormous lumberjack hands. Clamped them onto Boy’s shoulders. No use trying to run. The man’s big hands held

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