Chapter 14. In Which My Robot Dies on the Floor, and I Follow Suit Posthaste
IN WHICH MY ROBOT DIES ON THE FLOOR, AND I FOLLOW SUIT POSTHASTE
My back slides down the hallway wall. I hit the floor like a miserable, cold, lifeless anchor.
A few doors down, chatter comes from Dr. Li’s laboratory. The teams who got significantly further with their robots than us.
I barely perceive the noise as I pull my knees into my chest and bury my face. The pit in my stomach is too overwhelming. Too painful. There’s no way my cabin will make it to the final Medal of Victory contest. We hate one another.
My image is done. My chance at freedom.
Mom and Dad will never look me in the eye again.
Coming to brAIN was for nothing.
“Prince Charming?”
I struggle to lift my gaze from my lap. After I destroyed Luca’s jacket last night due to my severe lack of charm, the nickname skyrockets my embarrassment to a new level.
But he’s here. Now. Standing before me, forehead wrinkled with concern.
At any other time, I would scramble to straighten my posture, erase my despair with my media-training-approved smile, and pretend everything is fine.
That’s who the world is supposed to fall in love with.
That’s who could stand a chance at winning over brilliant, charming Luca.
Not the real me, who can barely keep it together.
But as failure is twisting a dagger into my sternum and my hangover is shoving another into my temple, I don’t care. All I can do is squint up at Luca, my already-sensitive blue eyes fighting hard to combat the migraine-inducing fluorescent lights.
“The floor isn’t a place for a prince,” Luca says. More worry peeks through his tone, like he can’t fathom why I’m, as stated, on the floor.
As if he still doesn’t realize the reason why is him.
I stay silent.
“You okay down there?”
“What do you think?” I finally answer, letting my head fall back onto my knees. Letting him continue to look down upon me. Like always.
“Still sick, huh?” Luca scuffs his sneaker against the floor. “It’s my bad. I shouldn’t have started pouring shots.”
Mortification whips through me all over again. I want to ask Luca what happened last night—how I got back to my mattress, where our sheets went, and how the cabin magically cleaned itself—but I also never want to know.
Maybe Luca is here because he’s an evil, demonic Satan incarnate, and he knows that his presence will force me to recount all of this. He wants to twist the knife more.
Something gently knocks against my arm.
I lift my head.
Luca sits beside me. He’s wrapped his arms around his knees, resting his elbow against mine. “You didn’t do that bad. On the test.”
I rarely ever sit this close to anyone. Let alone my enemy.
My nerves make me scooch away. “Our robot killed itself.”
“It was able to kill itself,” Luca corrects, but his voice comes out a bit distanced. He’s looking at the space I added between us. “You made it walk.”
I scoff, then return to my staring contest with the blank concrete wall on the opposite side of the hall, wishing I felt as blank on the inside. Instead, the defeat is nearly making me feel sicker than my hangover. “I guess.”
“It seemed like your cabin was having a problem.”
“They won’t get along. They won’t even come to the study sessions I scheduled.”
“Do you want me to step in?”
“What do you mean?”
Luca shrugs. “I can, I don’t know, help. Make sure you guys don’t get off track.”
Help. He’s asking if I want his help.
Because a genius like Luca should offer help to the son of the most famous tutoring company in the world. He’s Expert Everything. And I’m just some guy. Apparently.
An unmatched wrath simmers in my gut. “Help?”
Luca must sense my offense because he leans away slightly. “I don’t have to. But having someone else there might convince them to show up? Sometimes, on my hockey team, my coach brings guests to practice to help us work on specific things. It can give us new energy. Break up old rhythms.”
Excited voices surge from beyond the laboratory.
“Results are out already!”
“Show me the email!”
“Gamma again.”
Luca and I exchange a quick glance before I pull my laptop out of my backpack.
An email with the test results is in my inbox. The no-elimination bracket is the same as last time: Cabin Gamma with another win, and us with none.
Two more tests left.
The odds of all eight planets in our solar system aligning with one another is virtually impossible, estimated to occur only once every 13.
4 trillion years. Now the odds of us reaching the Medal of Victory contest feel on the same level.
To be chosen as one of the two teams that will compete at this point, we’ll need to win both tests to tie with Luca’s cabin. And Luca’s cabin can’t win any more.
No way that will happen.
Not unless I sabotage Luca, after all.
“What do you say?” Luca asks beside me.
I turn toward him again to see that he’s holding out his fist, waiting for it to be bumped. He doesn’t need to check the email. He already knows his team won their second test. “Let’s all meet at the Catenoid Meadow? After today’s new lab?”
“The what?”
“The meadow. It’s shaped like a catenoid.”
My woes from a moment ago vanish, my shoulders snapping taut. “That’s not possible. A catenoid occurs specifically when rotating a catenary curve about an axis. Like when bubble soap stretches between two rings. The shape is inherently three-dimensional.”
“I think the meadow is just shaped like one. Like, two-dimensionally. Like an hourglass.”
“Then call it an hourglass.”
“Is that a no, then?”
I inspect the golden rings decorating Luca’s fingers. Last night may be a hazy memory, but I remember Luca not understanding when I said I like you.
With the current state of the bracket, sabotaging Luca feels necessary. But can I really do that? Can I go in with the intention to hurt someone? Even if that person is someone I hate?
I’m not sure.
The studying session would at least buy me time while I figure it out.
It kills me to accept help from anyone, even as a facade, but I still bump his fist with my own.