Page 6 - Eighth Grade vs. the Machines

“Surrender!” she shouts. “To the superior skills of
Beckenham Pierce!”
Becka and me. On opposite sides.
I take a deep breath, kicking myself for losing my
own laser blaster somewhere uptown.

At least I’ve still got my Pencil—a portable 3D
nanoprinter. Last year, my best friend, Ari Bowman,
hacked the source code, which allowed his school Pencil
to print basically anything. When he eventually fessed
up to Principal Lochner, we thought Ari’s Pencil would
get confiscated for sure. Instead the teachers agreed to
let the rest of us eighth graders have unrestricted Pencils
too. They even maxed out the number of nanobots each
Pencil carries. If it’s up to us to save humanity, we can at

least have nice things.
I click and start writing in the air. Ari and I joined
after-school shop club this year and have been prepro-
gramming all sorts of apps into our Pencils. That way
you don’t need to code everything out. You can just write
keywords in the air. Click. And out pops your creation.
We’ve programmed some practical stuff, like MAG-

BOOTS and HYPERSONIC EARBUDS. And some
not-so-practical options: ZERO-G SLIP-AND-SLIDE
(warning: very dangerous) and HAMSTER MECH (for
Ari’s pet, Doctor Shrew, who can jump like ten feet
in the air when Ari straps him into the tiny exoskele-
ton). Ari’s got a bunch more programs in development:
TRACKER BUG. LIE DETECTOR. MUFFIN TINS.

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