Page 107 of Chaos Theory
My hands start tingling. I take a step closer to look at the laptop. Josh could be a genius. Josh could be insane. ‘Does this mean what I think it means?’
He points to parts of the code. ‘I had Kobi’s TIL files on my RoboTron laptop. Then at the conference, I made a copy onto an external drive. I kind of forgot I had this, to be honest, until I read Kobi’s email this morning.’
‘Wait, does Ron know you have this?’ The tingling extends from my hands up my arms. The back of my head feels light.
Josh smiles. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘So this means—’ Shane starts.
I interrupt. ‘What’s the proposition you made to the Farmers?’
Josh meets my eyes. ‘I think you know.’
I feel a slow smile spread across my face.
‘Shane, please step away from the tractor,’ I say.
Noon
‘I’m just going to leave this bit of lunch outside here for you,’ Claire calls through the open barn door.
‘Thanks!’ I yell back. ‘Please don’t come in yet!’
I look up from my work. The tractor’s dashboard has been removed. Wires connect Josh’s laptop to the tractor’s innards. A sack of potatoes lies open at my feet. Shane grabs three of them and starts juggling.
‘Are you sure this is going to work?’ he asks.
‘Of course,’ Josh replies.
‘Of course not,’ I say at the exact same time.
Shane shakes his head. ‘Tell me again why you need the spuds.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘we have a digital copy of Kobi’s memory and personality, as it were. The tractor will be his new physical form – his body. And the potatoes – well, we lost Kobi’s neural network when we lost him back at RoboTron. But if we use something organic, in combo with his code…’
‘We can try to grow his brain back,’ says Josh.
2pm
Matthew, Claire and Lizzie are gathered before us in the barn, at my invitation.
My hair’s come loose again. I tie it back and clear my throat.
‘Okay. Now, the first thing I should say is, this is a work in progress. The second thing is – we’re not sure if this is going to work.’
‘What is it? What is it?’ Lizzie hops from one foot to the other.
‘But if it doesn’t work,’ says Josh, ‘we’ll keep trying.’
I smile up at Shane, who’s positioned behind the wheel in the tractor cockpit.
‘Yes. We’ll keep trying,’ I say.
Josh gives me a nod. I signal to Shane.
‘Okay, ready? On my command, turn the ignition.’
I adjust a few wires while Josh frowns at the laptop. Finally, he gives me a thumbs up.
