“Come along, Noah,” Mrs. Hastings says, turning to me. Her voice softens. “You’ve got a busy morning ahead of you. We need to see where you stand academically. We have your transcripts, of course, but we will do our own assessment. Our curriculum is quite advanced, and we expect to tailor your coursework to build from your current foundation.”

She walks me back across the grassy field and over to the Learning Center, a huge concrete and steel building nestled at a right angle between the stately Residence and the bulk of the dorm building. I spend the morning in a small room with a table and two chairs answering questions, some in writing, most verbally. The tests cover everything I’ve ever learned and a whole lot more. Quantum physics? Organic chemistry? Neuroscience? I was at the top of my class, but why would anyone expect someone my age to know any of this? I do my best, and eventually Mrs. Hastings releases me for a break.

It occurs to me as I hit the restroom that I might want to underplay some of what I know. If the test is any indicator, Mrs. Hastings isn’t kidding about this place being advanced. And if they’re going to base my coursework on what I know now, having some easier classes might make my life here more manageable for the next few weeks. I return to the small testing room where she starts drilling me on computer science. Perfect. I learned that outside of school, so nothing in my transcripts would show I should know anything about it. I don’t even try to answer half the questions, and I tank the rest deliberately. Mrs. Hastings doesn’t seem to notice. Just nods and moves on. 

History and political science come next, and I give a half-decent try on those. She asks some broad open-ended questions and occasionally interrupts me to ask me why I answered something a certain way. Finally, she seems satisfied.

“We’re done,” she declares. She scans through her notes and my test papers. “Not as bad as I feared, given your background in the public school system. Perhaps we can make something of you.”

“Uh, thanks?” I say, not sure if I’ve been praised or insulted.

“Come along then. You’ll have just enough time to meet with your cohort before lunch.” She leads me down a long hallway to the other end of the building. “This way to the computer lab. This will be the only class you’ll attend as a group with your six classmates. The other subjects will be conducted one-on-one with each of your two teachers, who you will meet tomorrow.”

That sounds weird to me, but I don’t say so. I always did fine in classes of thirty, and rarely got one-on-one attention from anyone but Mom.

Chad stands by the doorway of the lab as we arrive, looking like he wants more from me than he got this morning. This time I actually respond when he puts his hand out. I give him a firm handshake like Mom taught me, but he seems to think it’s some kind of power struggle, twisting his arm so that his hand is on top and gripping like he’s trying to crush my hand. I squeeze back, glad he’s not as strong as he seems to think he is. Mrs. Hastings leaves me in his custody and he brings me into a classroom with rows of computers on long tables along the edges and rolling whiteboards and chairs in the middle. He introduces me around like he owns the place.

Evan waves hello and greets me warmly again from one of the computers. I’m glad to see his friendly face in my class. Next to him is Louise, the pretty Asian girl I nearly managed to say hello to in the dorms. This time I manage to give her a greeting she can hear.

“Welcome again,” she says with a friendly smile. “We’ll talk more, but give me one sec to finish this.” She looks back at what looks like Java code on her screen with a look of fierce concentration.

Andrea, the yoga girl from the field, looks at me, gives me a big grin, and nods. She doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s shy. Her hair is still doing that weird floating thing. I’m not sure what’s causing it. It‘s not static or wind, not inside like this. Maybe it’s some kind of fancy hair product she uses.

Chad steers me to Marc next, a brown-haired guy with a slight build. In a school full of people that look like they could all be models, his average looks stand out. What he lacks in appearance, he seems intent on making up for in enthusiasm.

“Noah! Brother!” he gushes. “It’s so good you’re here. We are going to have so much fun! It’s so great you’re part of the family now. I mean, you always were, but now you’re here!”

Another brother? The family? Things start clicking inside my skull. I look at Chad again, then Evan, then scan the rest of my class. Chad’s ears are shaped like mine. Exactly like mine. That little crooked line at the edge of Marc’s mouth when he smiles, I have that. Louise has that same slight upturn at the end of her nose that I have. And Andrea…

Oh no.

My mind reels as Chad leads me to Jeff, the tall, gangly guy that slid silently past me in the dorms. He’s sitting off in a corner by himself. In front of him, a metal ball bounces around his keyboard striking keys as text forms on the screen. I shake my head and look again. I wasn’t imagining it. Jeff’s eyes are intently tracking a metal ball as it jumps all over his keyboard, typing stuff out.

“Is he psychic or something?” I whisper.

“No, he just uses his cloud for everything,” Chad replies. He seems irritated by the question. “Jeff, stop showing off and come meet your new brother.”

“His cloud?” I ask. “What cloud?”

“His cloud,” Chad repeats, like it should mean something more the second time. My blank stare seems to baffle him. “His nanobot cluster?” He says it slowly, like he’s not sure I speak his language.

My jaw goes slack. Nanobots are dangerous. Basically illegal. No sane person would let a teenager like Jeff go anywhere near them.

Chad gets a sharp look in his eyes, then laughs at me. “You don’t know what we do here, do you?” he says, his voice dripping with condescension. “The whole purpose of the Butler Institute?”

Tom Butler’s Institute. The Tom Butler who saved the world from the Gray Goo. The mysterious billionaire who’s been using his experimental nanotech to single-handedly halt climate change, cure cancer, stop wars, and clean up after disasters across the globe for the last twenty years.

He’s been having kids. Lots of kids. And he’s been training his kids to do what he does.

I’m one of his kids.

I fall into a chair. Chad is talking but I’m only catching half of it. Something about our father and the institute. I catch phrases like “preserve life,” “end suffering,” and “elevate humanity.” The information is coming faster than I can process it, but I catch that my classmates all had implants installed over the last year to let them control their own nanobot clouds.

I remember reading about Tom Butler’s brain implant. It’s part of his legend. The only one of those implants in existence is the one in Tom Butler’s head. He used it to control the nanobots and work his miracles. He’s never made a copy, never given access to anyone else. At least that's what I knew was true until right now.

Andrea smiles at me again. My sister Andrea. I carefully keep my eyes from going south of her face. I’m glad the morning has been so busy that I haven’t had a spare minute to dwell on her or Louise. A rainbow ribbon that looks like it’s made of pure light appears from nowhere. It swirls up and around her head, weaving in and out of her floating hair.

Louise winks at me then puts up an index finger. A point of green light appears, then stretches and elongates. It worms its way around her finger then disappears into her palm. Marc, not to be outdone, puts both of his hands up. A pair of shining orbs materialize out of thin air. He waves his hands and they start flying around in front of him. I’m not sure if I’m more floored by the impossible magic they are doing, or the fact that they’re all my half-siblings.

“Hey, Marc,” Louise says, “I thought you hadn’t solved the math for those yet.”

Marc ignores her as he grins and waves his hands more, his eyes fixed on his flying creations. The balls accelerate, moving in crazy patterns so fast that I can barely keep track of them. One comes dangerously near my head and I duck out of the way just in time to feel it breeze through my hair.

“Watch it!” Chad barks at Marc. "They are not toys!"

Marc takes his eyes from the balls for a second to glance at Chad. The two ball-bearings take one last spin around the room then head straight toward Chad’s face. They look like they’ll put a pair of holes right through him, as fast as they’re going, but instead they puff into dark dust as they hit his skin. The dust fades to nothing as Chad stumbles backwards and falls to the floor. His face contorts with fury.

“I told you to watch it!”

He gets to his feet and balls up his fists, advancing on his smaller brother. Marc sees the look on his face and braces himself for a blow. I jump up and step forward to put myself between them, but I don’t think I’m going to get there in time.

A deep laugh comes from my right, and I turn to see Evan’s face filled with mirth. Chad stops and glares at him. Louise is clearly trying hard not to laugh too, but she’s not doing very well at it. Andrea chortles with an awesome snorting sound at the end, which makes Louise just give up and laugh out loud. Even Jeff, still off in the corner by himself, starts chuckling. I find myself laughing too. Laughing for the first time since Mom’s accident.

Chad’s face goes bright red and he gives every one of us a death glare as he slumps into a chair. It takes a minute or two, but we eventually stop laughing at him. 

“Are you all done?” he demands, as if he were somehow the mature one in this situation. When no one says anything, he gets back up. “Good. Let’s forget all this. Come on, Noah. You need your lab account set up. I’m taking you to the admins.”

He storms out of the room and I glance over at Evan to see if I should really follow him. The big guy nods and I hurry out the door to catch up. At the far end of the long tiled hallway, he turns into a small office.

“Hey, Janet,” he says, his confident swagger back and his face hiding the humiliation he just endured. “The new guy is here. You got his account ready?”

A dark-skinned woman with long hair in tight braids who looks like she couldn’t be much out of college turns from the screen at her desk. Like most of the other staff I’ve seen working here, she’s very attractive. Does Tom Butler only hire models to work here?

“Morning, Chad. Yes, I’ve got him all set.” She looks past him to me and smiles. “And you must be Noah.”

“Yeah. Noah Kimball,” I reply.

“Well, this is a little different for me,” she says, beckoning me over to a second rolling chair next to her desk. “Usually I have to explain the rules to six-year-olds when they get their computer accounts. I guess I don’t need to break out the sock puppets in your case.”

I push past Chad and take the seat. “You’ve never had transfer students before?” I ask, a little surprised. She gives me a funny look for a second.

“You’re the first,” she says. “Everyone else was born right here on campus, or so they tell me.”

I’d figured out my class, but I’m somehow still surprised to hear it’s the whole school. “Oh. I wasn’t sure how unique my situation was.”

“First time I’ve heard of any of Tom’s kids being raised outside,” she says. “Anyway, you have much of a background with computers from your time out in the real world?”

“I used them for school. You know, writing papers and stuff,” I tell her. I definitely don’t mention that I used to spend evenings and weekends helping my mom find backdoors into the systems of whatever corporation she thought was the worst that week, wreaking havoc on their servers in whatever ways we felt appropriate. I guess I’m technically sort of a criminal, but since it was always hacktivism for a good cause, it couldn’t have been too wrong. At least that’s what Mom always said. Anyway, I suspect that I know my way around computer networks better than Janet does.

“I can use Windows, I guess,” I continue with the lie I started with Mrs. Hastings. I don’t mention Linux or SynTechOS or the whole suite of scripting languages and hacking tools that Mom had been teaching me since I was old enough to type. “And I’ve played some games.” That should make my story more believable.

She nods and smiles, not looking at all suspicious. “Good,” she says. “Rules are simple. No contact with anyone outside the campus that makes your identity known. No tampering with the workstations. Don’t do any shopping, that’s all supposed to go through the campus purchasing system. We take care of filtering the internet access, so other than those rules, you don’t need to worry about what content is allowed. If you can get to it, it’s approved.” I take that as a personal challenge to make sure I can access every chat group, forum, web site, and bulletin board on the internet. “Your user name will be ‘noah’ in all lowercase letters. Hopefully that’s easy for you to remember. Here, go ahead and set your password.”

She clicks some keys and gets a password prompt up on her screen. I put my body between Chad and the keyboard as Janet politely looks away while I type in MyN3wL!f3, hit enter, then type it again. I smell a trace of her perfume as I pull back from the keyboard, and can’t help noticing again how pretty she is. If I can’t dream of my fellow students, at least the staff can keep my mind occupied.

“All set then,” she says. “If you forget it and need a password reset, or have any issues with the computers or the network, just come see me or Roxanne. One of us should be in this office anytime you need us.”

“Thanks,” I tell her.

“Thanks, Janet,” Chad echoes with his stupid movie-star smile back on his face, like she just did him a personal favor. He steps out and leads me back toward the computer lab.

“Are all the staff here hot young women?” I ask him quietly once we’re far enough away from Janet’s office.

“Talking like that is a good way to get them fired and yourself into trouble,” he says without looking at me, his voice harsh. “Don’t even look at them like that. They’re not for you.” I shake my head. I had written off my cult compound theory about this place, but now I’m less sure.