Eye of the Storm by Kate Messner Read Free Book Online

started.”

Chapter 6
    The rest of the week flies past in a blur of computer screens, robotics, radar and satellite panels, stainless steel counters, test tubes, and greenhouses with more monitoring equipment than I could have imagined. Each day, Van leads us through a different research center on campus. Sometimes we do lab experiments and try out equipment. Van asks us questions along the way to see who might be best suited to each area of study.
    I figured kids who have spent two and three summers here would be way ahead of me, but I can actually answer most of Van’s questions. Especially when it comes to meteorology.
    â€œYou’re doing great,” Risha whispers to me as we walk between buildings.
    â€œThanks. I’m surprised I’m not further behind everybody who’s been here before.”
    â€œYou’re not behind at all,” Risha says, pulling open the door to the bio-botanicals building. “The program this year is way more intense than what we did last summer.”
    Even so, Risha knows the answer to almost every question in the bio-botanicals lab, where she spent last summer.
    â€œAre you sure you want to switch to cloning?” I whisper.
    She glances sideways at Tomas, smiles and shrugs at me, and answers another question. Her bracelets clink together whenever she raises her hand, and finally, when Van turns to explain some new kind of lower-carb sweet corn, I reach for her wrist. “What are the numbers supposed to be?”
    She slips a bracelet off her hand and passes it to me. “It’s binary code, the sequence of ones and zeros they used to represent processing instructions for a computer.”
    I run my finger along waves of numbers etched in the gold. “So what will this tell a computer to do?”
    â€œNothing.” She wiggles the other two off her wrist. “This is just regular text.” She points to the first line of numbers on one bracelet. “See this sequence?”
    I read it aloud. “01011001.”
    â€œThat’s
y
.”
    â€œThat’s all one letter?”
    â€œAnd then here . . .” She points to the second set of eight numbers, 01101111. “. . . is an
o
. It spells out, ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.’ It’s a saying from some old Indian guy, Gandhi. My grandmother’s always quoting him and trying to get me to read about him.” She waves at the air with her green-and-black-striped fingernails. “She figured if she translated it into in a language I like, I might actually pay attention, so she had these made for me.”
    â€œYour grandmother sounds awesome.” I try to imagine what Grandma Athena would be like if she were alive. What would she talk to me about? Risha slides the bracelets back onto her wrist as Van leads us down a hall toward the next lab.
    â€œIs the code on your notebook a quote from the same guy?” I ask Risha.
    â€œNo . . .” She pulls me off to the side, tips her head toward Tomas, and whispers, “It’s his name. In binary code.”
    That makes me laugh. I should have guessed. “Now I understand why you like it, even if it isn’t really used anymore.”
    She shrugs. “Not everything has to be useful.”
    I think about the book of poems in my nightstand. “Don’t let my dad hear you say that. You’ll be tossed out of this place faster than you can blink.”
    She laughs and pulls me along to catch up with the boys.
    On our second visit to the Storm Sim Dome, Van skips the quiz and sits us down on a row of long benches along one wall. “Instead of asking you questions here to check on your knowledge, we’re going to try something else.”
    He pulls a box of DataSlates from under the bench and starts passing them out. “These are preloaded with the same software we have on the core system in the dome. You’ve all been asking me when you’ll get to see the