Read Skye Object 3270a for Free Online Page B

to the balcony.
    â€œYes. Major domo? Call the elevator.”
    â€œYes master Devi. The elevator will arrive in twenty two seconds.”
    â€œDid you really build that telescope yourself?” Skye asked.
    He shrugged, while she reached up to scratch Jem behind his purple ear. “I mined the design from the library. I refined it some, and put the components together. Is that building it?”
    â€œGood enough for me. All my projects have been virtual.”
    The elevator door opened, spilling more light onto the wide balcony. A woman started to step off the elevator, but she hesitated, staring at Skye in surprise. She had creamy skin and red hair in complicated braids that lay flat against her head. She was slender, and at least three inches shorter than Skye. Her eyes looked like Devi’s, green flecked with gold . . . and very pretty when she finally remembered to smile. “Divine, I didn’t know you’d invited a friend,” she said, stepping out of the elevator at last.
    â€œWe were just going out, mother.”
    Divine? Skye turned to stare at Devi. Beneath his golden skin his cheeks had flushed a rosy hue.
    â€œMother, this is Skye—”
    â€œYes,” Devi’s mother said. “I recognize her.”
    Skye frowned, resenting the way real people could link to the city library and withdraw any information they might need at a moment’s notice. They could do this because every real person had an atrium—an artificial organ that grew in tendrils throughout their brains. Atriums were biomechanical tissue, capable of receiving and sending subtle radio communications—and of translating those communications into words or pictures or smell or even a sense of touch. When Devi’s mother had looked at Skye, she had probably captured Skye’s image, sent it to the city library with a request for identification, and received an answer, all in less than a second and in perfect silence.
    Ados were not permitted to have atriums, and so they had to rely on fallible memories. It was a rule Skye resented, but she could not hold it against Devi’s mother, not in the face of her warm smile.
    â€œHello, Skye. I’m Siva Hand.” She extended her hand and Skye shook it. “Say hello to Yulyssa for me, will you? I haven’t seen her in ages.”
    â€œI will, ma’am.”
    Next Siva turned to Devi. “Divine, you won’t be out too late?”
    â€œNo mother.”
    â€œYou need to practice the sitar.”
    â€œYes, I know.”
    â€œI’m glad to see you going out with your friends. Well . . . goodnight.”
    The elevator car had waited for them. Skye hurried aboard, turning in time to see Siva Hand at the apartment door, gazing wistfully at Devi as he followed Skye onto the elevator.
    The doors started to close. Ord slipped in just before they sealed. Jem hissed, and Devi took a startled step back. “What’s that?”
    Skye held out her hand so the little robot could climb aboard. “My dokey, I guess. Its name is Ord.”
    The elevator began its descent, dropping at stomach jolting speed, like a jump off the column except the sensation lasted only a second.
    An awkward silence came over them. Might as well talk about it, Skye thought. Get it over with. So, staring straight ahead and stifling a giggle, she said, “Divine?”
    Devi groaned. “Don’t ask.”
    Skye wasn’t good at following instructions. “Divine Hand ?”
    â€œCute, isn’t it?”
    Shut up , she told herself. Shut up. It ’ s not your business. But she really was bad at following instructions. “You’re sixteen, Devi. You could change it.”
    â€œYou don’t know my mother.”
    â€œOh.” Siva had seemed very nice. “She must think a lot of you.”
    â€œYou don’t know the half. So who’s this Yulyssa my mother mentioned?”
    â€œOh, you must know her. Yulyssa