A Solid Core of Alpha Read Free

expanding the holodeck, of cannibalizing parts of the seats—which all had the fiber optics and screen components—to make the deck longer, to make it wider, to make it more accommodating for a family of three. It was Kate who told him to take some of the seat covers and stitch them together into a large mattress and then use the seat parts to make a bed, so he might sleep there at night, and to program sleeping quarters for them so he could listen to other people breathing as he slept. It was his own idea to make sure the synthesizer was inside the holodeck—that way, he could stay in there and have his meals and generally create anything his little world needed to remain self-sustaining.
    He hardly ever needed to go outside the holodeck to see the big blackness beyond his little shuttle, because after his first two years, the holodeck was the shuttle.
    He incorporated the biosphere as part of a park program for him and his friends to play in, and programmed a house, with a sleeping room and a kitchen, and—this surprised him too!—a school.
    Five out of seven mornings, Kate woke them up by coming into their bedroom and singing some random song she fancied, then throwing their clean coveralls at them and telling them that if they didn’t wake up soon, she would program the food synthesizer for something really noxious, like sardines.
    “You always threaten that,” Bobby would groan. “Then we run in there, and it’s fresh fruit and pancakes.” Bobby liked pancakes. This was not a preference Anderson had given him, but he didn’t mind, so that was fine.
    The boys would dress rapidly, and then Kate would chivvy them about brushing their hair, washing their faces, brushing their teeth—big sister things, in general, before they started their day.
    On their rest days, the three of them would sit down and hash out a plan—would they play Frisbee golf at the park? Would they swim in the surf? Ski down a mountain? Would they watch a vid and eat popcorn or go to an amusement park? Amusement parks had been foreign to Anderson until he’d opened the shuttle files and done his research. He found that he and Bobby liked them very much, although Kate often complained that they made her stomach hurt and her neck ache, so they didn’t go every weekend.
    Whatever they chose, Anderson would go to the console in front of the bridge and bring up the program they wanted. They spent their free time imagining things they wanted to do based on the archives of books and movies they accessed and created new environments, new diversions, or entire new worlds.
    During the other five days of the week, they went to school. There were students there—faceless at first, like the workout drones that the holodeck was supposed to have, but Anderson and Bobby got creative, and watched more vids together, and read books, and soon, all of the material that he’d read and digested on his own in his first two years was being discussed by a teacher who looked a lot like the young action star in one of his favorite vids.
    Kate didn’t go to school with them. She attended a class with slightly older students, and every now and then, as Anderson and Bobby were chafing in the class that they’d created, they would see Kate, sitting under a tree and reading a book or riding a hoverboard over one of the meandering walks that made up the campus that she’d helped program, and they’d wave.
    In the months approaching Anderson’s sixteenth birthday—Bobby was a few months older than he was, but not many—Bobby would frequently blush when they waved at Kate. Anderson had a hard time figuring out why.
    Anderson didn’t raise his hand often in school. He liked to watch the other kids do that, and watch the teacher, Mr. Kay, answer questions instead. Mr. Kay had dark hair and green eyes and grooves around his cheeks when he spoke. He was animated and had the sense of humor from Anderson’s favorite comedy vid of all time, and he was kind—so kind,