Yulia sat at the lunch table practically vibrating iement.

  “What’s got you so jittery?” Cire ughed.

  “I learned something really in history today,” she beamed. “Wanna guess what it was?”

  “Pass,” both her friends ughed at the same time.

  “You said history was b just st week, what ged?” Sarah asked.

  “Most history is,” Yulia said defensively. “But I learned about something called a racecar. I wanna make one.”

  “What's a racecar?” Cire asked.

  “It’s like those carts Alex built, only desigo go fast.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Sarah added. “I somehow doubt your dad is going to build you something like that.”

  “He won’t have to, I’m going to build it myself.”

  “I thought your printer could only make pstic stuff?”

  “Well… yeah, but I’m going to ask him to make me a little electric motor. I learned all about gear ratios from the stuff I built before, so I know I increase the output speed.”

  Both of her friends looked at each other rather skeptically befiving a collective sigh.

  “Si doesn’t sound like we ge your mind, we might as well make sure you don’t hurt yourself,” Cire responded.

  Sarah just nodded along at Cire’s words.

  Yulia smiled. “You’ll see, it’ll be fun and awesome and you’ll both wanna drive it. Plus, I’ll show it to Alex after I know it works. I wanna surprise him.”

  That expnation seemed to ease some of the worry from her friends.

  After school, the three of them headed back to her house. It would be the first time she ever brought them to her house. Normally she pyed at their homes or the park.

  Dog barked happily upon seeing her and she rubbed his soft pstic head. “Who’s a good boy?”

  He tilted his head sideways and Yulia ughed. “You are silly!”

  Dog barked in firmation of this and the irls giggled.

  “I alictured your pce as being bigger,” Sarah said.

  “Really?” Yulia asked in fusion. “Why?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Your dad does kinda owhing. I figured he would have made a huge unit by eg a few adjoining ones. I heard that’s what rich people do.”

  Cire that. “Your home is smaller than mine.”

  Yulia looked around the spaow that Cire mentio, it was smaller. It didn’t feel smaller though. She wondered why that was.

  “Eh, who knows,” she shrugged. “You two gonna just stand there and stare or are you gonna help me?”

  Her friends rolled their eyes and made their way over to her printer.

  Yulia pulled up the picture of a racecar oablet and showed the two girls. “This is what I wanna make!”

  “Um… That seems really plicated,” Cire stated.

  “Alex told me, start small and work your . So let's start with four wheels and see what the three of us e up with.”

  What followed was a session of giggling and ughing as the two irls helped her design a racecar. The holographiterface Alex had built for her printer made it easy to model anything you could imagi didn’t make it easy to build something that would work though.

  “Ohh! It o have a flower motif,” Cire decred.

  “Pink and white!” Sarah mimicked her enthusiasm.

  “No pink!” Yulia put her foot down, and Dog barked in solidarity causing the girls to all start ughing.

  “Fine, no pink,” Sarah stuck her to.

  The trio worked on the design for another hour before they had to leave for supper. Yulia looked at the result and sighed. It didn’t look anything like the racecar in the picture except for the fact it had four wheels.

  “Dog, you help me make this workable?”

  Dog barked and trotted over to the mae where a cable flicked out from inside his mouth and plugged into the port. Alex had told her about Dog’s ability to learn, so she hoped he could help with the design.

  She watched in awe as Dog flicked through all the designs Alex had entered into the printer before he returo the design she and her friends had built.

  Yulia wasn’t sure it would work, but soon enough Dog was modifying the design. He didn’t seem to ge the outer appeara all, but the body widehen lowered. A hoop was added behind the seat and a framework les was built to support the motor and battery.

  It still didn’t look like the racecar, but it looked fun heless. She checked the dimensions and smiled. It would all fit on her printer.

  ***

  Alexander would have blinked in fusion if he had eyes. He was looking at Yulia’s test iion. It looked like a gocart. A crazy-looking o that. There was a ached to it from Dog, letting him know she needed certain parts to plete it.

  sidering Dog had a hand in building it, he wasn’t as ed as he might be. Alexander had included basigineering in the adaptive learning program for Yulia’s friend. However, he didn’t expect it to be used in quite this manner. He printed out a small half-horsepower motor along with some metal gears and a belt. It wouldn’t be very fast, but it would be fast enough for a reckless ten-year-old.

  He left the items in a box marked ‘Spare Parts’ that he kept handy for Yulia to rummage through. She occasionally came by to dig through it for a screw or something to use in her projects. Hopefully, the motor and parts wouldn’t make her too suspicious. He wanted her to explore her creative side as much as possible without w about what he might think. That being said, Alexander just wished Yulia’s engineering exploits had taken on a more risk-free path.

  Given how his daughter seemed to gravitate toward activities that brought the most excitement, he probably should have expected something like this eventually.

  ***

  Yulia poked her head in Alex’s workshop, but he must have been out. The printers and robots were whirring away like they always were. She found the sound rather f. Yulia was allowed to be in here, but Alex had been very specific that she never crossed any of the yellow and bck lines painted around the robotic arms.

  As curious as she was to see what they were making, when she saw how fast those arms were moving, she didn’t even think about gettihem. Thankfully, she didn’t o get close to those areas to get to Alex’s workstation.

  Dog followed her inside, a small pstic basket strapped to his back. She hurried over to the box of goodies Alex let her dig through. She wasn’t allowed to take anything that wasn’t in the box though. Alex told her some of the items in the workshop were dangerous or hazardous but everything in the box was safe to use.

  There were random ptes of metal, some screws, some gears. Oh! She found a motor. She wasn’t sure she would. Yulia grunted as she lifted the motor out of the metal box. “How is this small thing so heavy? Dog, you help me lift this?”

  Her panion barked and his front two legs grabbed the motor. She heard some distressing whirring sounds ing from his arms so she had to help her friend lift it into the small basket.

  She dug out a few more parts and a belt ahem all into the basket. The only thing she didn’t find was a battery or a troller. She looked at Dog. He had a battery and a troller. She wasn’t going to take it out of him, but maybe he could ect to the motor like he did with the printer. If not, she would o ask Alex or one of the io see if they could print the pos for her.

  When she arrived home, she found Alex making dinner. “Hey, Alex!”

  “Hello, Yulia, how was your day?”

  “It was…” she tried to think of the word. “Informative.”

  Alex smiled at that. “I see you have a new project printing. Anything special?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “Very well. Just make sure you follow the rules and stay safe. Your project will have to wait for now. Go put your stuff away a washed up. Dinner will be ready shortly.”

  She did that, sliding the box of parts off Dog as he crouched on the ground. Before she washed up, she had Dog try eg with the motor. It worked. She pumped her fist in the air before patting Dog on the head. “Good boy. I’ll be ba a bit, I gotta up.”

  Dog barked and Yulia hurried to wash the dirt and oil off her hands. This is one of the times she didn’t mind ing up. Digging through a box of metal scraps was dirty business.

  Yulia tried to eat her meal as quickly as possible so she could get back to her project, but the roasted vegetables that Alex made were really good, so she couldn’t help stopping to savor each bite. She had been on Eden’s End long enough to know fresh food wasn’t always a guarantee. And while the freeze-dried aed food was fi wasn’t the same.

  “Ish really good!” she stated while swallowing another mouthful.

  Alex admonished her for speaking with her mouth full. “We talked about this, Yulia. Please swallow before you speak, and take your time. Your project will still be there ter.”

  “I want to be like you though, and you hurry to get back to work.”

  Alex sighed. “That’s different.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because my work is for the safety and security of everyone on Eden’s End. Once I ehat is handled, I won’t o work as hard.”

  “Does that mean you will slow down?”

  Alex smiled. “I would like to say yes, but I think you already know the ao that. I won’t be as pressured though, which means I will be able to spend more time with you. I’m sorry I haven’t been around very much tely.”

  “You’re busy, I uand,” Yulia said. She was getting old enough that she uood people had other priorities. She was used to being alone, even though she knew she could go seek out Alex any time she wahat helped.

  “Still,” Alex said. “I think I o do more. We could do a game night, or simply walk through the facility and chat? What do you think?”

  “Tonight?” she asked as she gnced back toward her room and her project.

  Alex ughed lightly. “Not tonight, but once or twice a week. Maybe even explore outside the facility if you’re up for it.”

  That got her attention. None of the kids were allowed outside without adult supervision, and eve was a rare occurrence. She nodded enthusiastically at the suggestion.

  Alex smiled. “Alright. I’ll make time for that this week. Now hurry up and finish your food, I see you practically vibrating to go work on your project.”

  She did just that.

  Alex hung around for a bit but let her know he o head back to his workshop to finish up some work. That erfect.

  Once he was gone, Yulia dragged all of the items into the living room and began strug the car. There weren’t many pieces to it. She popped the front wheels onto the pstic spindles and with the help of Dog she got the motor in pce along with the gears a. Then she popped the rear wheels on and stepped back to look at her new racecar.

  It didn’t look anything like the inal picture, but as long as it worked, that was all that mattered.

  She saroblem though. “Dog, how are you going to fit on it to power the motor?”

  Her friend barked before climbing onto the pstic cage so his head was fag down and back toward the motor. Yulia saw the wire s of his mouth and ect to the motor and she smiled. “Good thinking, Dog! Now let's test it out.”

  She climbed into the pstic seat and sat behind the steering wheel. She gave it a tentative twist and watched the wheels move. Then she realized an issue. “How do I make it go.”

  Dog barked and the wheels squealed across the crete floor as they headed for the wall. “Dog, stop!”

  Dog barked in firmation, but not before the car bumped hard into the wall with a pstic crag sound. She hopped out and looked, but other than the front being a bit dented from the impact, it seemed to be fine.

  “I think I need a way to trol the speed and a way to make it stop,” she said. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to do that. “Any ideas?” she turo her panion.

  Dog barked and climbed off the car before moving over to the printer. He selected ahat had two regur bits and two pstic rods attached to it. She looked at it before realizing they would attach to the nubs on the floor of the car. She wao ask why Dog hadn’t added them to the inal print, but she remembered Alex tellihat Dog could learn, but that he didn’t always make the best choices until he had experience.

  “That’ll work, but where do the pstic rods attach to?”

  Dog lifted his front legs and Yulia spotted where the rods could attach. She chuckled. “Ok, if you think you trol the car that way, we test it out.”

  It didn’t take long to print the pos and install them. Theested them out. Dog was much quicker to adjust the speed or slow her down with the ge. It still wasn’t perfect but it was good enough.

  “We need a bigger space to try this out.” Luckily the door was wide enough to fit the car through without having to take it apart again. Before she could do that Dog barked and poi the printer where the other item sat.

  “Do I have to,” she sulked.

  Dog barked again and she sighed. “Fine.”

  She trudged over and picked up the helmet. The pi.

  Yulia couldn’t help ughing as the car raced down the hallway. It took her a bit to get the hang of steering and using the pedals, the pstic exterior had the scrapes to prove that, but she had eventually managed.

  It wasn’t as fast as she would have hoped, but sidering how badly she had damaged it already, it robably a good thing. It was still faster than she could run though, so she screamed in delight as she raced through the hallway and into the atrium with the pyground.

  The car felt much slower in the rge open space, but she could tell it wasn’t by how quickly she was crossing the area. The kids stopped to gawk at her as she raced past. She waved at them and they tried to chase her, but quickly gave up.

  She did a full p around the tral post before the car started to shake and she could smell something foul. Before she could stop, one of the front wheels popped off a boung away.

  Yulia screamed in panid tried to steer, but the car turned sideways and tipped over. She fell out but wasn’t hurt, thanks to the helmet. She could also see the point of the bar behind the seat. If she had been strapped into the seat, she would have been protected.

  The kids from the pyground rushed over to see if she was alright and to ask about her car.

  As Yulia answered their questions she thought about how to improve the design. When she ied the damage, she could see that the piece holding the front wheel had melted off.

  “Is this avaible in the exge?” one kid asked.

  She looked at the boy, his eyes were wide in delight. “It’s a prototype,” she puffed with pride, remembering the word Alex had used to describe some of his unfinished projects.

  The kids all oohed at that, although she doubted most knew what the word meant. She only knew because of Alex.