1.4 MAX'S HOUSE
Constant UpGrade didn't just cause Max trouble at school. The computer system's instant communication with her parents often meant that she'd come home to find them all worked up about something that was really nothing.
And today was no exception.
Don and Carmen Zelaster had received texts about Max's two discipline tags, along with a reminder that Max needed to study for the weekly UpGrade test.
So she tried to explain the whole scene with the robot to her parents, but that just made it worse, because her mother did not share Max's interest in robots. In fact, ever since she and their city's other police dispatchers had lost their jobs to a computerized communications system, she had become anti-computer, anti-robot, and, Max thought, anti-everything. Now she was working at a small local library, downloading e-books for its patrons—at least until some robot took over there, too.
"I don't understand it," Carmen Zelaster said. "You just step over the robot and you go to class. End of story. No discipline tags. How hard is that?"
"I couldn't just leave him there—"
"'Him'? Honey, robots aren't 'hims,'" Max's mom said, clearly struggling to hold on to her patience. "They aren't 'hers.' They're machines. And if people start treating them like people, then we're really screwed. Just today I was reading about that failed Mars mission. The robot crashed the ship and it was just lucky there were no people abooard. Because, listen: They don't treat us like people. We're nothing more than just another machine to them, and once they're in charge—"
"Do we have to go into this again?" Don Zelaster interrupted quietly.
"It's important," said Max's mom.
"I know it is, but so is her test on Friday. If she does as badly as she did last week, her … uh … #CUG score is going to drop again, and she's really going to be in trouble!"
"She sure is!" agreed her mom. "Maxine, you—"
"So, that's why she needs to go study," said her dad firmly, and Max was grateful.
She didn't know how to talk to her mom about anything anymore, and her test scores were a particularly touchy subject. She had studied for the test last week. And the ones before it. And she thought she had done pretty well on them. She couldn't understand her poor performances.
But whenever Max tried telling that to her mother, she would just get angry and snap, "Well, you better figure it out!"
