On the lab roof, Toma played a sky-racing game on a handheld console. Nell’s kite lay beside him with its tail caught under his shoe.
“Lift your foot,” she said.
“Look at my score first.”
“Lift your foot first.”
He moved. She pulled the painted cloth free and checked the seam. A gust caught the kite’s edge. Nell let out a little string rather than pull against it. The cloth settled.
Toma’s uncle Paz had let him use the lab’s sky-racing game while Nell finished her kite. The roof was fenced, and the lab door stood open beside them. Inside, a wall display showed the position of a survey satellite. It was due to photograph a valley that night.
“Simulation only,” Paz had told Toma. “If you see LIVE, stop. This old console was used for lab tests too. I haven’t finished separating it.”
Then he went downstairs to receive a delivery.
Toma had played the ordinary race twice. He was still fourth. The players above him had bright badges beside their names. He wanted Nell to see him at the top, though she never asked who was winning.
An old test badge appeared in the game menu. He selected it.
LIVE came up beside his race marker.
He paused with his hand over the control.
He knew what Paz had said. But the badge let him turn faster. He told himself LIVE meant the race was now showing his moves to other players.
He pushed left.
Inside the lab, the satellite dot on the wall display moved left too.
“That’s new,” Nell said. She stood at the door with the kite under one arm.
“It’s showing my race.”
“It says survey.”
Toma moved again. The race marker shot past another player. Third place. Then second.
On the wall display, a line marked PLANNED PATH separated from the moving dot.
Nell set her kite down. “Toma. Stop.”
He gave one last turn. His name reached the top of the list.
An alarm sounded inside the lab.
Paz came up the stairs two at a time. He read the display and removed Toma’s console from its connection.
The race froze. The satellite dot kept drifting away from the line.
“I stopped,” Toma said.
Paz put the console on the floor. “The new commands have stopped. The turns you already sent still happened.”
He sat at the authorized control desk. Toma stood behind him, searching for a reason this might be someone else’s mistake. The badge should not have been there. The old test system should have been fixed.
All that was true. LIVE had also been plain enough to read.
“I selected the test badge,” Toma said.
Paz did not look away from the display. “Tell me every move. In order.”
Toma did. He had moved left, climbed, turned again, then made the final turn while Nell told him to stop. Paz wrote them down and called the survey office.
There was no clever move Toma could make to set everything right. Paz had the training and permission to restore the satellite’s position. It took longer than the time left before the valley passed beneath it.
The night’s survey was canceled.
When Paz ended the call, Nell had rolled her kite up. The wind outside was falling.
“Did you win?” she asked.
Toma looked at the frozen game. His name was first.
“It wasn’t a race anymore.”
“I told you to stop.”
“I know.”
Paz put the console in a locked drawer. “I’ll fix the test link. You have no lab or game access for a month.”
Toma wanted to say that a month was too long. He saw the canceled survey notice on the wall display and said nothing.
Nell carried her kite toward the roof stairs.
“Can I help?” he asked.
“You can leave me alone for a bit.”
He let her go.
The next Saturday, he met her on the public roof garden below the lab. Paz was still working upstairs. Toma had brought no console. Nell was tying a fresh strip to her kite’s tail.
“Could you hold this?” she asked, giving him the string reel. “Just while I finish.”
He held it. She did not say she forgave him. She wanted both hands free for the knot.
A gust caught the cloth before she was ready. Toma’s first urge was to pull it back.
“Let some out,” Nell said.
He opened his grip enough for the reel to turn. The kite rose a few feet. Nell caught its frame, finished the knot, and took the string from him.
Then she went to the open side of the garden and flew it herself.
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