Acrylic electronics cover broken at the rear corner. Two motor wires disconnected. Sensor mast visibly intact. camera lens apparently unbroken. Drive controller hairline fracture beneath a chip that shouldn't have been exposed.
Camille photographed each piece from above and wrote its position in Maya's navy notebook. They used the room's big analog clock to anchor their timeline because everyone's phone displayed a slightly different minute. The center's official demonstration slot had begun at 3:30. Their last logged wheel command came at 3:41. Maya knew it because she'd written down the setting just before Easton approached.
At 3:42, the robot had been switched off. That's important, Kemp said, tracing the notebook entry. Only if we can verify it. Camille's glanced up. You're going to make me that for the rest of my life, aren't you?
Probably. For the first time since the crash, her friend almost smiled. Easton passed on the other side of their taped floor boundary with two North Point teammates at his back. Their matching jackets made them look like a small delegation. You know, he said you shouldn't bring dangerous equipment to a public event and then get mad when somebody helps.
Maya kept her hands on the notebook. Nobody asked you to touch it. People would have gotten hurt. Which people? Easton gave a laugh for the boys behind him.
You want names? I want to know where they were standing. The laugh died. There had been no one between Beacon and the empty test lane. Everyone close enough to be struck by an unexpected rolling robot had been behind a plastic screen.
Easton looked toward the staff volunteer, but she was speaking into a radio. I don't have to explain myself to you. Maya looked up then. Her face showed anger, but her hands remained still. You will have to explain it to somebody.
He leaned over the tape. Don't start acting like this is some big conspiracy. Maybe you should fix your machine. Camille stepped forward. Maya rose between them, not to protect Easton from a fight, but to keep the conversation from becoming the next viral video.
Get off our work area,"she said. For a moment, his eyes went to the broken controller, and Maya saw satisfaction he hadn't bothered to hide. Then he shrugged and walked away. When he was gone, Camille exhaled hard enough to make the sleeve of her overshirt flutter. I don't know how you managed that. Managed what? Not throwing something.
Maya picked up a plastic fastener. We can't replace what he broke by breaking something else. Dr. King returned with the event director's contact information and two copies of the incident form. He asked them to describe physical acts first, then observations that could be independently checked. He did not write Easton's motive into their account.
The most important sentence was painfully plain. Easton Vale lifted Beacon off the Southside test table and forcefully brought it down onto the concrete floor after the team's power had been disconnected. Beside it, Maya recorded what she had heard him say. And beneath that, in another column, she wrote what she was not yet certain of. whether the broken controller could be replaced bes Saturday, whether anyone had a continuous recording, whether the backup camera had finished its upload.
The word backup made her stop moving the pen. Before their best demonstration, Camille had set a second older phone in a blue protective case behind the mesh splash screen. It had been recording a rear angle, mainly so they could study Beacon's wheels on playback. Their front-facing phone did close-up work and stored its clips on a little memory card. The rear phone, when the science center's wireless network cooperated, uploaded video in 30-second pieces to a private folder the two girls shared.
Neither was a security camera. Neither had been placed to watch Easton. They had put cameras around Beacon because their robot sometimes behaved differently on a slick floor than it did on a dry one, and they needed to understand why. Maya walked to the screen and checked the cradle. The blue-cased phone was still there, charger connected.
Its screen showed a weak wireless icon. No clear upload complete symbol appeared. Is there anything? Camille asked. I can't tell from here.
Open it. Maya turned the phone over. The battery was low. She could open the app, but the last item was marked waiting to sync. A list of smaller uploads ended at 3:41.
There was no thumbnail for 3:42. Not yet. Her chest tightened. She could feel Camille waiting for an answer. It may have saved the important part locally, Maya said.
We can't say it did until we see it. The front camera had another problem. Its black phone and clamp were no longer attached to the table. The mount lay on the mat without a device. Maya checked beneath the table and in inside the nearby supply bin.
Dr. King asked the volunteer to search the items collected after the accident. She returned with a wheel cover and two AA batteries from somebody else's team. No front. Easton had been standing close to that table. Maya remembered.
So had at least a dozen other people. A missing object was not yet proof of a thief. The center's doors closed to student teams at 5. In the last few minutes, Camille found a reusable caster wheel in their spare kit, but its axle was too wide. Maya found one good motor.
The sensor mast could be kept. The machine's best part, the careful calibration that helped it recognize low obstacles, still existed in their code files. Those were facts she could hold when everything else seemed fragile. On the bus home, she balanced the broken aluminum frame in a canvas grocery bag on her knees. A child across the aisle stared at the protruding wheel mount.
His father nudged him not to point. Maya turned the bag so the sharp edge faced away from the aisle. Her mother called during a long red light. Denise Brooks had just finished a shift maintaining city transit vehicles. Even over the phone, Maya could hear the big garage fans, the kind of low industrial sound that had been part of her childhood.
Dr. King called. Denise said, "Are you safe?"Yes. And Camille, she is too. Tell me what happened when you get home.
You don't have to make it easier to hear. Maya looked out at traffic creeping past a construction fence. Mom. He broke almost everything. Then that's what you tell me, Denise said.
At home, the kitchen table became a second workbench covered first with an old towel and then with pieces Maya could not bring herself to leave at school. Denise arrived carrying a paper carton of rice and beans and smelling faintly of machine soap. She set dinner aside and inspected the frame without touching it. Your first job, she said, is to decide what isn't safe to reuse. We can replace the board.
I didn't say you couldn't, I asked about safety. Maya pointed to the cracked housing and the harness where the copper conductor had been exposed. Denise nodded. She knew enough about electricity to respect both the machine and her daughter's judgment. She offered a meter from her toolbox, not a miracle part.
They agreed that Maya would test only disconnected components at home. Rebuilding and powered runs would happen at the school's supervised lab. As they ate, Maya described the moment Easton lifted Beacon. She didn't skip the sound of the impact. Her mother didn't tell her to be grateful nobody was injured, although both of them were.