I have to hold myself back from saying that nothing can hurt Mr. Aidact—nothing that a hospital can fix, anyway. Elon Musk, maybe. Not a doctor.

  I bite my tongue. “His student teacher got a concussion. Orienteering isn’t for tourists, you know.”

  For the first time, she takes in the state of my clothes. “I can see that. I guess I’d better get you home to the laundry. I’m not sure those shoes can be saved, though.”

  All the way in the car, she pushes me for information. “Poor Mr. Aidact. He must have been very upset that Mr. Perkins got injured.”

  “Don’t worry about Mr. Aidact,” I reply. “He doesn’t take things too hard.”

  “You don’t know Mr. Aidact like I do,” she insists. “He may seem cool and distant on the surface, but deep down, he’s very sensitive. He’d feel terrible if anything happened to his student teacher.”

  I don’t know whether to laugh or scream. “If there’s one word you should never use when you’re talking about Mr. Aidact, it’s feel.”

  “Rosalie, what are you talking about?”

  We pull into the driveway. Without answering, I jump out of the car and storm into the house.

  Mom is hot on my heels. “I know this isn’t the kind of thing a young girl expects to hear from her mother. But I’m a single woman now, and I think Mr. Aidact and I might have a connection.”

  I just lose it. “No! There is no connection! Zero! There is absolutely nothing between you and Mr. Aidact!”

  I try to run away, but she grabs my wrist and wheels me around. “Rosalie, we need to talk.” Her expression is all sympathy and compassion. She thinks I’m upset that she wants to start dating again! How can I make her see that the problem is a lot more basic than that? “I’m an adult. I think I know more about this relationship than you do.”

  “Trust me—you don’t—”

  She’s beginning to lose patience. “Give me one reason why Mr. Aidact and I—”

  “Because he’s a robot!” I blurt at the top of my lungs.

  “Honey, that’s an unkind thing to say. He may be a little standoffish—”

  Once the floodgates are open, it comes pouring out. “It’s not unkind—it’s true! He’s a real robot, like C-3PO and WALL-E! He’s a pilot project from the Department of Education to create an android teacher! He has more in common with the toaster than he has with you! You can’t have a relationship with him because he isn’t human!”

  I pause to catch my breath, panting like I’ve just run a marathon.

  My mother is staring at me in wide-eyed shock.

  25

  CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

  * * *

  To: Department of Education, Washington, DC

  From: Paul Perkins, PE

  Project: AIDACT

  Recent alarming events have caused me to question the workability of the entire AIDACT project. On a school field trip, the unit took several extraordinary actions, none of which could have been predicted by the Department of Education. In each case, AIDACT was protecting students and/or the project engineer from harm. In that way, the unit’s decisions were correct. But because the situation was so far from anything we could have planned for, I question whether we can ever safely say that an AIDACT unit is truly under control. At one point, the unit operated a motor vehicle full of passengers. As it turned out, AIDACT did well. Still, the mere fact that we didn’t know that until it was actually happening is deeply disturbing.

  The project is on very thin ice now. We must watch carefully and be ready to shut it down at the first sign of trouble.

  PROJECT STATUS: Yellow

  SPECIAL EXPENSES

  See attached file—medical bills

  26

  Principal Candiotti

  The trouble started a week and a half ago when a parent called to complain about Syesha Berg.

  I assured him that Mrs. Berg is one of my most experienced educators. Nobody ever complains about Syesha. Well, that’s not technically true. The students have a lot to say about her endless lectures and her droning monotone voice. But she’s a nationally certified teacher with two master’s degrees.

  “That’s not what I heard,” the concerned father grumbled.

  “Exactly what did you hear?”

  “Okay—this might sound a little out-there. But the kids are saying that she’s—inhuman.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, not inhuman. More like nonhuman.”

  “Nonhuman?”

  “Like—a robot.”

  And there it was.

  What could I do? I gave him my absolute assurance that Syesha is quite human and finished the conversation by adding, “You know how it is with rumors in a middle school.” Then I hung up, sat back in my chair, and gazed out the window at my view of the ravine.

  It wasn’t so much what I said to that father as what I didn’t say. I didn’t tell him that while Mrs. Berg is not a robot, we just so happen to have another teacher who is.

  So I’m in it now. If there’s one parent, there will be five by the end of the day, and fifty by the end of the week. And by the second week, it’ll be all of them. And they won’t just be asking about Mrs. Berg or Ms. Muro or Mr. Zelcer. They’ll know. Pretty soon they’ll be an angry mob surrounding the school, waving torches and pitchforks.

  The angry mob comes in the form of our PTA president, Peggy Arnette. Her daughter, Rosalie, is in Mr. Aidact’s homeroom and is one of his field hockey players. I actually thought Peggy liked Mr. Aidact. She always spoke very highly of him to me.

  Well, that’s over.

  She catches me at a hectic time. It’s the evening of the field trip to the Hickenlooper Center. I’ve just gotten home from picking up Mr. Aidact and Paul Perkins from Mercy Hospital, so it’s been a marathon day when she calls my cell phone.

  “A robot?” she shrills. “Mr. Aidact is a robot and you didn’t tell anybody? Not even the PTA?”

  “Calm down, Peggy,” I try to soothe, but I’m even less calm than she is at this point. I’ve known this moment would come ever since I got off the phone with that irate dad. And even though I’ve had plenty of time to prepare, I’m just not ready for it. “Our school was chosen out of every middle school in the country for this special project. I wish I could say more, but secrecy was one of the conditions.”

  “No wonder!” she raves. “It’s a disgrace!”

  “It’s a rare opportunity,” I argue. “Mr. Aidact is very popular! Did you know that the students voted him Brightling Teacher of the Year?”

  “I don’t care if they voted him Motor Trend Car of the Year,” she snarls.

  “And surely Rosalie has told you what a wonderful coach he is,” I press on. “The girls are only one win away from a state championship. That hasn’t happened since 1974!”

  “I want him gone,” she says firmly.

  “Not possible,” I insist. “The school board made an agreement with the Department of Education.”

  “The school board thinks it runs things, but it doesn’t,” she informs me. “It’s the parents who are in charge of a school. I’m going to make sure that every single family knows their children are being taught by an unfeeling piece of technology. We’ll see who’s Teacher of the Year then!” And she hangs up on me.

  I sit on my couch for a long time, hyperventilating. Now what? Now what? I can’t even imagine the firestorm that’s going to hit my office tomorrow.

  Maybe I’ll take a sick day. It’s not unheard of to cut school when you feel overwhelmed.

  But you can’t do that when you’re the principal.

  It starts early the next morning. By the time I get to school, there are sticky notes covering the entire surface of my desk. I shuffle the mouse to bring my computer out of hibernation. I have 211 unread emails.

  My secretary appears in the doorway. “Channel Four News is on the phone. What should I tell them?”

  My mind reels. Among the parent emails, there are messages from reporters and bloggers, even Educator’s Digest. How long have I dreamed about the wonderful day when Project AIDACT would finally become public and Brightling would get credit for hosting such a groundbreaking experiment? Now it’s happened, and there’s nothing wonderful about it. The whole world is pressing to interview me, and all I want is to be left alone.

  “Take a message!” I exclaim. “Take messages from everybody. As far as you know, I’m out of the office all day!” And to back up this claim, I march out the door. Destination: the seventh-grade wing.

  The halls are crowded with students arriving and heading for their lockers. It’s a loud, rambunctious time. Within reason, I’m fine with it. It’s my policy to let kids be kids as they transition to the learning portion of the day.

  But outside room 233, the corridor is quiet as a tomb. Mr. Aidact stands at his door, his hand raised in the high-five position that students used to line up to slap. Now he has no takers. The kids who used to jostle each other to get close to him cross the hall and hug the opposite wall just to avoid him. There’s no hustle and bustle here, only awkward silence. Fans who competed for his attention just yesterday won’t even meet his eyes.

  Steinke Newhouse is directly in front of me. As he approaches the doorway, Mr. Aidact tosses out, “What’s poppin’?”

  Steinke deliberately looks away and keeps on walking.

  So the word is out. It was all fun and games when it was wild speculation about Syesha. But now that it’s official—now that the real robot has a name and face—everything’s changed. Kids pick up on the anxiety and suspicion that they see in their parents. And suddenly, Mr. Aidact is someone to be avoided, maybe feared.

  So help me, I actually experience a pang of sympathy to see one of my teachers so ignored, so rejected. I even fancy that I detect a hurt expression on his face. It’s impossible. A machine has no feelings. And his arm will never get tired no matter how long he leaves his hand up there, waiting for a high five that’s never going to come.

  “Good morning, Principal Candiotti.”

  No, that isn’t wistful sadness in his voice. There’s no human emotion in his tone. I’m the one providing the human emotion. He’s greeting me the way he always does.

  “Good morning, Mr. Aidact. Good morning, Paul.”

  Paul Perkins is perched on a desk, his large case balanced on his lap. The project engineer doesn’t look well at all. No wonder. His bruise has bloomed beyond the bandage on his forehead, and his skin is pale and waxy.

  “The jig is up, Paul,” I say quietly. “The kids know. The parents are in revolt. The media is waiting for a statement. What does the Department of Education want me to tell them?”

  He shrugs helplessly. “I have no idea. I’m just an engineer. I’m in charge of the technological part of the AIDACT project. I don’t have anything to do with public relations.”

  It’s what I expected him to say, but it’s still a bitter pill to swallow. It means that all this is my problem.

  I go back to the office and return a few of the parent calls. The day doesn’t get any better. My right ear throbs from being yelled at. I switch the phone to the left. Pretty soon it throbs too.

  The complaints stack up: How could I allow such a thing to happen at Brightling? Why didn’t I inform the parents? How could I let my students be taught by someone who doesn’t have a soul? Who do I think I am, anyway?

  Parents threaten to homeschool their kids or send them to private schools. Some of them talk about suing the district or withholding their taxes.

  Just to get away from the phone, I make several trips to room 233 to check on Mr. Aidact. He’s teaching to half-empty rooms. A check of the roll shows that a lot of his students are absent today, kept home by their parents. Those who do attend his classes are staring blankly straight ahead or looking deliberately away from the teacher.

  I also visit the cafeteria during his lunch period. It’s normally a free-for-all. At any given time, there would be at least a dozen hands in the air—everybody yammering for Mr. Aidact’s attention. He’d scramble from table to table to reach his fans, all of them determined to stump him with a trivia question or hip-hop rhyme. Howls of gleeful outrage would ring out when he’d come up with the answers—because he always came up with the answers. The cavernous room would echo with applause and cheers.

  I didn’t love the noise. But the silence feels wrong too—so many faces studiously buried in trays and brown bags. I speak from personal experience when I say that the chicken nuggets we serve at Brightling don’t deserve that kind of devotion.

  What must Mr. Aidact think of all this, as he walks between the long tables, waiting for the calls and waves that are no longer incoming? Well, maybe think isn’t the right word, but surely his AI notices that something is different.

  I go back to my parent calls, which keep me busy for the rest of the school day. That’s when Mr. Aidact hails me through the intercom system.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Aidact?” I ask warily.

  “Nobody’s here,” he informs me. “In detention. Where are all the pupils?”

  “Maybe nobody’s in detention today,” I suggest. But as soon as the words pass my lips, I realize how ridiculous they are. Steinke is always in detention. And Mia—I seem to remember her rolling up to school twenty-five minutes into first period.

  I conjure a picture of the hall outside detention. Students packed belly to belly, jockeying for position to be the first inside when the three thirty bell sounds—to score the best seats, to capture a little more of their hero’s precious time. Mr. Aidact’s fans come from every grade, clique, and corner of the school, from athletes to outcasts, from emo kids to metal heads to skateboarders to the beautiful and popular. Detention hasn’t really been detention for quite some time here.

  At least until today.

  I pause at the intercom, waiting for him to reason it out. His processors can sift through the collected knowledge of humankind in a matter of seconds, but he doesn’t seem to be capable of understanding this. Maybe that’s because he’s always known exactly what he is, so why would anybody make a big deal out of it?

  “I’ll be right there,” I tell him, and head down the hall.

  Mr. Aidact stands outside room 233, looking back and forth down the corridor, still waiting for the crowd. I can’t help picturing a camera pivoting on a tripod. Even more strangely, I feel guilty for thinking of him that way.

  Paul is seated at the teacher’s desk, watching his charge and writing in his notebook. I’m almost tempted to slap him for showing no sympathy for a coworker in distress.

  I try to be businesslike. “I don’t think anyone’s coming, Mr. Aidact.”

  I can’t escape the sense that he’s upset, even though I know he isn’t.

  He says, “I don’t understand why the pupils are avoiding me. It’s—wack.”

  I swallow a lump in my throat. “I don’t think they mean anything by it. They found out you’re—what you are. People often have trouble dealing with someone who’s—” My voice trails off under his piercing blue gaze.

  He tilts his head in that way he has. “I understand,” he announces finally. “It’s because I’m—different.”

  Paul is amazed. “You learned that from the internet?”

  “Not directly,” Mr. Aidact explains. “But I accessed a database of books and movies. It’s a common theme among humans.”

  “Well, no sense wasting your time here,” I forge on. “Get an early start on field hockey practice. Don’t forget, the big game is coming.”

  It must be the right thing to say because he turns his back on me and strides away. Paul scrambles to keep up with him. I bring up the rear.

  We follow Mr. Aidact down the stairs and out to the athletic field. I hug my blazer around me in the chilly late-autumn breeze. It’s something I remember from my own field hockey days. The season stretches into early December. By the time the championship is determined, the weather has turned cold.

  The first thing I notice is that the Bobcats aren’t in practice gear yet, which I assume is because we’re early. Then I see the lineup of cars in the parking lot—mothers and fathers beckoning and honking.

  The players stand in a group, caught between the urgent signals from their parents and their loyalty to their beloved coach—who has suddenly transformed into something odd, unacceptable, and even scary. The girls are torn, their expressions uneasy. They’re not running for the parking lot, but they’re edging away from Mr. Aidact’s approach.

  Out of the lead car jumps Peggy Arnette. She marches onto the turf, loaded for bear, her back ramrod-straight in a posture worthy of Mr. Aidact himself.

  “Rosalie!” she calls. “We’re leaving! Now!”

  Rosalie doesn’t answer, flinching uncomfortably on the windy field.

  “Rosalie!” my PTA president all but snaps.

  Mr. Aidact speaks up. “Mrs. Arnette—”

  “Don’t speak to me!” She turns on him. “You’ve got some nerve pretending to be something you’re not. You may be hot stuff at Dave and Buster’s, but you’re nothing but a big phony!” And she marches away, dragging Rosalie by the arm.

  The girl is distraught. “Sorry, Coach,” she tosses over her shoulder.

  As they approach the parking lot, the line of cars breaks into a cacophony of impatient honking.

  That shatters whatever resistance is left. The other Bobcats offer tearful apologies and slink off toward their parents.

  I can’t quite explain why, but it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen in my career as an educator. A principal should be able to defuse situations like this, make things better.

  Instead, I’ve never felt so helpless.

  27

  CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

  * * *

  To: Department of Education, Washington, DC

  From: Paul Perkins, PE

  Project: AIDACT

  Now that AIDACT’s identity has been revealed, the entire school community is in full revolution. Parents are angry at being kept in the dark, and their children now regard AIDACT as suspicious, alien, and possibly even dangerous. There is no way the unit can be an effective teacher under these circumstances—especially since the AI system is dragging AIDACT inexorably toward a mental age of twelve.