Blue Star Enterprises

Yulia sat at the lunch table practically vibrating in excitement.

“What’s got you so jittery?” Claire laughed.

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

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

“You said history was boring just last week, what changed?” Sarah asked.

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

“What's a racecar?” Claire asked.

“It’s like those carts Alex built, only designed to 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 plastic 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 can increase the output speed.”

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

“Since it doesn’t sound like we can change your mind, we might as well make sure you don’t hurt yourself,” Claire responded.

Sarah just nodded along at Claire’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 explanation 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 played at their homes or the park.

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

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

Dog barked in confirmation of this and the other girls giggled.

“I always pictured your place as being bigger,” Sarah said.

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

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

Claire nodded at that. “Your home is smaller than mine.”

Yulia looked around the space. Now that Claire mentioned it, 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 on her tablet and showed the two girls. “This is what I wanna make!”

“Um… That seems really complicated,” Claire stated.

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

What followed was a session of giggling and laughing as the two older girls helped her design a racecar. The holographic interface Alex had built for her printer made it easy to model anything you could imagine. It didn’t make it easy to build something that would work though.

“Ohh! It needs to have a flower motif,” Claire declared.

“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 laughing.

“Fine, no pink,” Sarah stuck her tongue out.

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, can you help me make this workable?”

Dog barked and trotted over to the machine 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 returned to 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 change the outer appearance at all, but the body widened, then lowered. A hoop was added behind the seat and a framework of triangles was built to support the motor and battery.

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

***

Alexander would have blinked in confusion if he had eyes. He was looking at Yulia’s latest invention. It looked like a gocart. A crazy-looking one at that. There was a note attached to it from Dog, letting him know she needed certain parts to complete it.

Considering Dog had a hand in building it, he wasn’t as concerned as he might be. Alexander had included basic engineering 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 worrying 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 comforting. Yulia was allowed to be in here, but Alex had been very specific that she never crossed any of the yellow and black 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 getting near them. Thankfully, she didn’t need to get close to those areas to get to Alex’s workstation.

Dog followed her inside, a small plastic 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 plates 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, can you help me lift this?”

Her companion barked and his front two legs grabbed the motor. She heard some distressing whirring sounds coming 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 and set them all into the basket. The only thing she didn’t find was a battery or a controller. She looked at Dog. He had a battery and a controller. She wasn’t going to take it out of him, but maybe he could connect to the motor like he did with the printer. If not, she would need to ask Alex or one of the other engineers to see if they could print the components 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 and get 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 connecting with the motor. It worked. She pumped her fist in the air before patting Dog on the head. “Good boy. I’ll be back in a bit, I gotta clean 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 cleaning 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 and reheated food was fine, it 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 later.”

“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 can ensure that is handled, I won’t need to 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 answer to 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 lately.”

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

“Still,” Alex said. “I think I need to 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 glanced back toward her room and her project.

Alex laughed 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 even then it 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 can 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 needed to head back to his workshop to finish up some work. That was perfect.

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

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

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

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

She climbed into the plastic 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 concrete floor as they headed for the wall. “Dog, stop!”

Dog barked in confirmation, but not before the car bumped hard into the wall with a plastic cracking 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 control the speed and a way to make it stop,” she said. Unfortunately, she had no idea how to do that. “Any ideas?” she turned to her companion.

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

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

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

It didn’t take long to print the components and install them. Then she tested them out. Dog was much quicker to adjust the speed or slow her down with the change. 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 pointed at 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 pink helmet.

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

It wasn’t as fast as she would have hoped, but considering how badly she had damaged it already, it was probably 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 playground.

The car felt much slower in the large 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 lap around the central post before the car started to shake and she could smell something foul. Before she could stop, one of the front wheels popped off and went bouncing away.

Yulia screamed in panic and 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 playground 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 inspected the damage, she could see that the piece holding the front wheel had melted off.

“Is this available in the exchange?” 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.