The bus is pulling up in front of the campus gates for the first of Marc’s social nights. I send out my million silent and invisible fingers to do a quick scan for drugs and weapons as the kids from Durango and Silverado High Schools pile out through the doors. The community college contingent should arrive soon, they’re the ones I’m more worried about. Not that I expect anything major, but you never can be too careful. I don’t find any weapons, but the fifth girl I check has a couple of marijuana joints in her purse, which I discreetly remove and destroy. I don’t know what the interactions might be of mind-altering substances and our implant, and tonight is not the night to find out. One of the boys near the tail end of the group, a skinny guy with black hair and a bad haircut, has a larger bag of pills in his pocket. A quick analysis with my bots tells me that they’re something in the MDMA family. There’s way too much there for personal use, so I assume he plans to sell the ecstasy tonight, either to my sibs or the other visitors.
I feel a little bad for the kid as I quietly dispose of the drugs as a fine powder in the gravel outside the gates. I’ve got a pretty light touch, and he doesn’t seem to notice at all as his pocket lightens. I’m sure that bag of pills wasn’t cheap, and based on how the guy is dressed, he doesn’t have a lot of money to spare. I’ll slip a couple of bills into his pocket once I figure out the wholesale value of what I destroyed. The last thing I need is some petty drug dealer getting shot by his supplier for failing to turn over his profits immediately after attending an event here. Besides, something about him makes me think he’s not so different from friends that I must have once had but can’t remember.
The bus full of college freshmen and sophomores pulls up and I go through the same routine. None of them look like they were planning to deal tonight, and there’s no other serious contraband.
I turn to the screen on my desk to see if I can figure out the going rate for ecstasy in the Las Vegas area. Another message from Lin pops up. I read it while another chunk of my brain keeps tabs on the whole campus. Marc is herding nervous groups of siblings and visitors into the Residence foyer where the speed dating tables are set up. I form a few mics around the campus so I can listen for any trouble that I don’t see first.
Looks like a couple hundred should let our would-be drug dealer break somewhere near even. I slide a pair of bills from the petty cash supply in the locked drawer in Mrs. Hastings office with invisible hands and fold them tightly. I float them along the baseboards to where the guy is coming in through the Residence doors and slip them into his pocket where the bag had been. I give him a little poke there so he’ll notice. He sticks his hand in his pocket, and I can feel him panic for a moment as he realizes the pills are gone. Then he pulls out the folded hundred-dollar bills and looks around in wonder. His pulse starts to go back to normal and he gets a little bit of a confused smile. I must have gone higher than what he paid. Oh well, no harm done. I’d worry he might try it again, but Marc has enough schools in the rotation for these visits that he won’t have another opportunity for almost a year.
I finish writing back to Lin as Marc runs the speed dating event. A few of the sibs that are participating can’t seem to handle socializing with new people and get all flustered. Charlotte and Wendy from the Roadbuilders class run out through the front doors, taking refuge in the common room in the dorms. Maybe they’ll do better next time. Some of the rest act almost normal-ish. For the rest, this is good practice in dealing with regular human beings.
The food arrives, stacks of pizzas from the best place that is willing to deliver this far out in the middle of nowhere. Everyone seems to get more comfortable and the sibs and visitors start mingling more naturally as they eat.
I notice Phil from the Geologist class trying to slip off with a blonde girl with a very mature figure for her age. With his height and good looks, I’m not surprised that he’s the first to find a potential snogging partner. They’re halfway down one of the hallways that leads to the guest bedrooms when I form a speaker right in front of the pair.
“Phil,” I announce, probably louder than necessary.
He startles. The girl jumps a little.
“Phil,” I repeat, “please head back to the public areas.”
His vitals signal a lot of disappointment, hers mostly just show surprise. They turn back and rejoin the pizza party.
The computer dings, Lin again. Since she got herself some privacy, we’ve had the best talks. Well letters, I guess, but it feels like talks. She’s got a lot of interesting opinions on which coding tools are the best. I honestly hadn’t expected her to be such a techy, but coding was one of her only outlets for her creativity for years when she didn’t have the strength to do more than sit at a keyboard. We’ve been comparing notes all afternoon on software frameworks we like and hate.
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Steph and one of the boys look like they’re about to try the slip-away too. I let them get partway down one of the hallways before I post up a big, flashing, red X floating at eye level in front of them. When they see it, they turn back so fast that Steph’s carefully styled giant afro gets lopsided.
It’s getting dark outside, which Marc takes as the cue to start the dance. Over the last couple of weeks, he’s been picking my brains over the last couple of weeks on what my high school dances were like before I came here. I couldn’t remember much, so I made up most of what I told him. It didn’t matter, since he ended up rewatching every Hillside High episode that had a school dance and using those as his template anyway. Marc and the Geologists installed a large dance floor in the center of the grassy commons. I’m not sure exactly what materials they used, but it looks good and has enough bounce that it makes a great dance floor.
The sound system deployed on one end has my sister Lisa, our resident volunteer DJ, gets into position to work her turntables. I think she watched a few too many movies getting ready for this, but she looks as happy as I’ve ever seen her there with her headphones on. She puts on something with a throbbing beat and rocks out at her station. The bass is intense enough that I can feel it with my body from my office. My thousand eyes see the colored lights spring up around the dance area, flashing and changing with the beat. The high school kids seem impressed as they watch my siblings working their magic.
Some kids dance. A lot more just mingle around the dance floor. Charlotte and Wendy come back out from the dorms, drawn by the music and the lights. I’m glad to see that there’s a pretty good level of interaction between the Institute kids and the visitors. I was a little afraid that the school kids would just come and hang out with each other, but I guess Marc did a good job of finding kids that actually wanted to meet the famous Butler children. I make a note to congratulate him on how well he prepared all of this.
The music slows to one of those songs where people just stand and hug on the dance floor. Evan and Valerie are the first ones out, his giant arms wrapping around her petite frame as they sway on the dance floor. I’m sure hanging out with a bunch of high schoolers isn’t exactly her idea of a good time, but she doesn’t seem to mind taking any occasion to spend time with Evan. Phil and the curvacious girl he tried to sneak off with earlier join in the dance, as do Steph and her chosen boy. Louise approaches a pretty girl in a tight red dress like she’s going to ask her to dance, but then suddenly veers off and hides in the Residence for a few minutes, breathing deeply and slowly. The dance floor fills up without her, and a bunch of couples are out there doing their thing. I smile, picturing myself and Lin joining in. I wish she were here.
I nudge a few more couples that are trying to slip off back to the well-lit areas. I get a surprising amount of work done even with watching the campus and all the emails with Lin. I’ve got most of the changes written up that I want made to the draft of the proposed licensing agreement that Robert put together. The Mekong trip details are almost all buttoned up, we just need to finish getting the filters working now.
The last message from Lin was twenty minutes ago, which probably means that Yang Song or one of her tutors is with her now and she’s done writing to me for the morning. I guess I can take a few minutes and go join the party. I get up and head outside where the early fall air is pleasantly cool. Evan and Valerie are standing near the edge of the dance area and I join them. Andrea is center stage with a dance and light show that has every visiting boy slack-jawed and drooling. She’s gorgeous and talented by any standard, but the way she punctuates her movements with special effects from her bots makes her dance beyond amazing. Eventually the song ends and another slow one comes on, and Andrea has the tough decision of which of the dozen boys and four girls circling her to dance with. Evan and Valerie pair up again, and a lot of the group is out dancing now.
I think one of the girls is trying to get my attention. She’s looking at me and playing with her hair, and her vital signs practically scream attraction, but I’m not interested. It’s probably unfair to her. She’s not bad looking, and she might be great, but I don’t think anyone could compete with the image of Lin in my mind right now.
Lisa switches the music back to something with a fierce beat and dozens more kids swarm the dance floor. Louise, recovered now from her panic attack, posts up in the center and does her own light show. She doesn’t move her feet, just waves her arms. Geometric holograms that remind me of fractals inscribe themselves on the ground in purple light then lift off and spin, transforming into what look like anatomical diagrams of neurons pulsing and moving in three dimensions, then fading away in a shimmer of a hundred colors. It’s a cool enough act that I’m glad I came out to see it all with my physical eyes. Louise beams as she ducks out of the center of attention, and grins even bigger when the girl in the red dress approaches her for a dance.
I see Marc over by Lisa’s station and head his way.
“Good work, brother,” I say loudly so he can hear me over the music.
“Thanks!” he shouts. “I think it’s going really well. Any problems you’ve seen?”
My bots head off Michael as he saunters towards the dorms with a boy on one arm and a girl on the other. I’ve got to give him credit for the ambitious attempt there.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I assure Marc. “You just enjoy the party.”