Page 30 of Jinxed

‘That’s for sure,’ I mutter.

‘What was that?’ asks Tobias.

I cringe. I’ve already become so used to Jinx’s voice in my head that I forget it’s a bug in his code that I have to fix. ‘Sorry, just talking to myself.’

‘Oh great, I’ve got a potential psychopath on my team,’ he says, but I notice that he doesn’t actually ask me tostop what I’m doing. Instead, he watches my hands intently, as if he’s interested in seeing what happens next. The thought of Tobias watching me sends a shiver down my spine. ‘Any chance we can turn the lights on?’ I ask. The lights might mean he can see my blush – but I’m hoping the more clinical, less – ahem – romantic, atmosphere might help me to concentrate. Plus I can hardly see what I’m workingwith.

Tobias shakes his head. ‘We’re not exactly supposed to be in here this late. And besides, the lights are on a timer. Energy saving or something.’

‘Hmm,’ I say, followed by a short, sharp exhale as I take stock. ‘Jinx, turn on your light.’ He rolls his tail over and turns on his flashlight. At least that helps me. ‘This okay?’ I ask Tobias, who nods.

I use Jinx’s camera to take picturesof the damage, and set him to scan the internet for the original schematics for the eagle baku. He finds them within seconds, and he projects the blueprint on to the eagle’s back. I take my safety glasses from out of my jacket pocket (I’m such a nerd that I carry them around with me), and crouch down closer to the eagle. Kai has botched one of the main connections between the motherboard and thecircuit that controls the eagle’s head and neck movements. I wrinkle my nose. ‘I hope he didn’t damage the electronics with what he did,’ I say. ‘Why didn’t he use the correct schematic to fix it?’

Now it’s Tobias’s turn to look confused. ‘What do you mean? My eagle is a level 5 baku – unique and customized to me. There aren’t any typical schematics for this.’

‘Then what...’ I stop talkingbefore yet another one of Jinx’s secrets is revealed.

>>Told you I have my ways.

Shut it, you.

Out loud, I say: ‘Oh, right. I mean – I’m just looking at a schema for one of the other bird bakus, and you can see that he’s soldered this wire to the wrong connection. You’re never going to get proper movement that way. Not only that but it looks like he’s used old solder here.’ Instead of the connectionbeing shiny and smooth, it was dull grey. ‘That won’t conduct electricity well. If I clean it off and replace it, it will be a lot more conductive. Let’s move him up on to the table.’ I get Jinx to switch to layer a level 3 bird baku’s schema over the top of the eagle’s connections, to disguise how clever he’d been. From that point, it’s easy to show Tobias exactly what I mean.

‘Um, hang on asecond. That’s so cool – how did you get your baku to do that? Cat bakus don’t have projectors on their tails.’

‘Well, that bit’s easy. I just added in the projector from an old rodent baku that I found.’

Tobias scans my face, but the open admiration on his is what makes me blush again. ‘You’re telling meyoucustomized this baku?’ he says.

‘Well, yeah...’

‘Maybe Kai isn’t the best companioneeron the team after all...’

For the next hour, Tobias and I work together, stripping wires and melting solder, and I end up using a little compressed air to clean up the dirty work surface that Kai has left me. Thankfully he didn’t heat up the PCB too much, so it isn’t damaged. I also use a good old-fashioned hammer to help sort out some of the dents and welts in the eagle’s casing – it seemssuch a shame for such a beautiful creature to look anything less than perfect. The whole time, Jinx projects different measurements at me – from the perfect pressure to apply to a dent, to whether the connections are working properly – so that I can test my theories even before Tobias leashes him up to full power. Once the neck twitch is sorted, I give the rest of the baku a quick look over – mostlyso that I can admire the beautiful tech. It’s truly a masterpiece. To make a baku that can fly as smoothly as this eagle, each component is feather-light, dusted with solar nanoparticles that draw power from the sunlight.

>>Pfft, he’s nowhere near as cool as I am.

Whatever, Jinx. Can you fly?

>>I could if I wanted to. If you built me some wings.

You’d be a Pegasus cat then.

‘Okay, I thinkhe’s ready to be leashed up,’ I say. I pull the glasses down off my nose and rub my eyes, the familiar prickle of dryness entering my awareness now the focus is gone.

Tobias leashes Aero and it takes only a few seconds before he is fully booted up. He runs a diagnostic check. ‘Well, holy crap. You did it. Diagnostics say that he’s back up to full functionality.’

I shrug, trying to control thegiant smile that wants to plaster itself on my face. Instead, I concentrate on stretching out my fingers, which are stiff from gripping the soldering iron so tightly. ‘It wasn’t too hard.’

My eyes flick up and catch his – and to my surprise, the expression on his face is one of pure and simple admiration. ‘You’re just full of surprises.’

He seems genuine, and it’s the first time that I realizemy skills might end up being more valuable than I thought. I’m touched.

‘Good job, teammate.’

‘You’re welcome.’ In my awkwardness, I put out my hand. Inwardly, I’m cringing.

Jinx echoes my thoughts. >>A handshake? That’s really what you’re going for in this situation?

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