Catfishing on CatNet, Naomi Kritzer [best e ink reader for manga .txt] 📗

bot,” Rachel says as we sit in art class, drawing with pastels. I’m trying to draw a cat. Rachel’s been giving me periodic pep talks about how my cat totally looks like a cat.

“It probably wouldn’t be that hard,” I say.

She puts her chalk stick down and gives me a sidelong look. “What do you mean, ‘It’s probably not that hard’? Did you hack those drones?”

“I didn’t hack the drones,” I say. I probably sound nervous. I know I didn’t hack the drones. I’m not 100 percent sure that I don’t know the person who hacked the drones. Marvin and Ico talk about hacking a lot, and it’s hard to tell if they’re joking. CheshireCat doesn’t talk about it quite so much, but when they do, they actually seem to know a lot more about it than either Marvin or Ico.

“Okay, but could you hack the sex ed robot, or do you know someone who could?”

“Maybe,” I say. “A lot of robots start with a default password. Possibly no one’s changed it. And if I had the model number of the robot, I could look up the manual online, probably.”

“And then?”

“What would you want it to do?”

“Right now, it answers all the questions about gayness with ‘You’ll have to discuss that with your parents!’ Also all questions about birth control. I want it to give real answers.”

“Does it work off a script? We could maybe give it a different script.”

“Supposedly, it’s not a script, exactly. It’s supposed to be adaptable. There’s definitely some script-like bits, though. Like ‘You’ll have to discuss that with your parents.’”

I don’t actually know how to do this; I just know that it’s probably a thing that someone could do. I’m opening my mouth to tell Rachel that I’m just not that good with computers when she adds dreamily, “If you pulled this off, you would totally be my hero.”

My heart thuds in my chest, and I rip a page out of my math notebook and start making a list. “I can’t promise that I can do this, but if I can, the first thing we need is the model number and manufacturer of the robot.”

The school’s instructional robot is a Robono Adept 6500. It came out two years ago, and the ads for it showed it teaching middle school science. There was this one school in South Carolina that tried to use it for that, and the aide who was supposed to be supervising the students fell asleep, and the students popped open the access panel on the back to mess with it and damaged something and started a fire. It was one of those news stories that made headlines everywhere.

I definitely don’t want to be in headlines. But if I’m in trouble, at least, that should get me out of New Coburg.

Also, I like Rachel. And Firestar would definitely approve of this project.

“I need hacking help,” I tell my Clowder, and I explain my goal.

“I was afraid you were going to try to hack in and change your grades,” Hermione says. “That would be wrong. This seems totally okay to me. Are you worried about being caught?”

“If I get in trouble, we’ll move. Which would be fine. Maybe the next town will have Spanish 3.”

“I wish that worked for me,” Icosahedron says. “The manual for the RA 6500 is easy to find, but the password isn’t in there.”

“I found it,” CheshireCat says. “The default password is ‘INSPIRATION2260.’ All caps. I found it on a discussion board where people are complaining about how much of a hassle it is to change this password. So, probably they haven’t changed it.”

“Are you going to go in and rewrite the script it works from?” Boom Storm asks. “So it says different stuff?”

“According to the manual, the robot has a question-and-answer bank, and it will answer questions to the degree of detail specified by the person who set it up,” Hermione says. “If you don’t want it talking about a subject, it’ll say something like ‘You should discuss that question with your parents.’”

“This one apparently says ‘You’ll have to talk to your parents’ for anything about LGBT issues,” I say. There’s a chorus of dismay in my Clowder.

“Well, if you got into the setup, you could switch it over so it’ll give better answers,” Hermione says.

“I bet even on the super-liberal settings it doesn’t say anything about nonbinary people,” Firestar says. “I bet the programmers who set it up had never heard of nonbinary genders.”

“What I really wish I could do is let some actual person answer the questions,” I say.

“IF YOU CAN FIGURE OUT A WAY TO DO THAT, I WILL SKIP SCHOOL TO DO THE ANSWERS,” Firestar says.

Firestar got in trouble for truancy last year, so I really don’t want to let them do this. “Aren’t there homeschoolers in here?” I say. “Who wouldn’t have to skip?”

“Me,” CheshireCat says. “I would not have to skip anything. And I promise to say only things of which Firestar would approve.”

“I guess I trust you, but I WANT VIDEO,” Firestar says. “I know you don’t have a smartphone, LBB, but maybe your friend does?”

“Is this even possible?” I ask.

“You’ll need to get it online,” Ico says. “The WingItz USB drives have an Internet Everywhere chip that would do that. To make it into a drone … I bet I can figure out how to do this. Give me a few days.”

“This will be fun,” CheshireCat says. “I’ll go read the manual so I can at least start out sounding like the robot.”

I climb out of my bedroom that night to explore New Coburg.

Mom likes to barricade the door at night. She doesn’t just lock up—she drags furniture in the way, which has always made me nervous. What if there’s a fire? The first time I climbed out my bedroom window, it was totally a practical decision: I should test out this evacuation route in case I ever need it. Mom prefers to live on second floors for the same