Alex sat in the schoolyard, which hung on special gravity platforms, the air filled with a mixture of aromas – the sweetish scent of blooming gravity gardens, the metallic tang of ventilation systems, and the barely perceptible aroma of synthetic food from the canteen. He watched the bustle around the broken window in the history classroom, which opened directly onto the schoolyard – teachers gathered in a circle, discussing who could have committed this act of vandalism, their voices mixing with the excited shouts of students. The principal was already interrogating a group of older students known for their pranks, clearly intending to find the culprits among them. His voice sounded sharp against the monotonous hum of the climate control systems.
"It was definitely them," Alex heard a snippet of conversation from Mrs. Keyris, a math teacher from a parallel group, whose words cut through the noise of the operating holoprojectors in the neighboring classrooms. "Who else could have broken the window like that? Those hooligans from the tenth grade are always causing trouble."
"They need to be punished," the chemistry teacher chimed in, adjusting his glasses. "Damage to school property is a serious offense."
But something about the situation bothered Alex. He stood up from the bench – old, worn, with faded engravings of former students' names – and slowly approached the scene, pretending to be merely curious. Small shards crunched under his feet.
The window was broken from the inside – this was obvious from the arrangement of the shards on the ground, which sparkled with iridescent glints under the light of the schoolyard's artificial sun. But the impact was too high for a student, even the tallest of the older ones, to have made it. Moreover, according to the janitor – a stooped man with calloused hands, smelling of disinfectants – the window was intact at seven in the morning, and the first class in that room didn't start until ten.
Alex walked around the building, his steps echoing off the durasteel-clad walls. He peered into the classroom through a neighboring window. The desks stood in neat rows, their surfaces reflecting the cold light of the fluorescent panels, and the board showed traces of yesterday's lesson on trade wars – the holographic maps of trade routes still flickered with a dim light. Nothing indicated a fight or disorder.
"Interesting," he muttered to himself, his words drowned out by the constant hum of the ventilation systems.
The bell for the long break rang sharply and piercingly. The corridors instantly filled with a din – hundreds of voices merged into a single stream of sound. Somewhere, older students were shouting, discussing the latest holopgame, younger students were squealing with delight, chasing each other between desks. Snippets of conversations could be heard: "...and then he said my essay on the Republic was complete nonsense...", "...the new chemistry teacher is so strange, he's always muttering something...", "...they have this synthetic porridge in the canteen again today...".
Alex pushed through the crowd towards his classmate Jack, whose father was the head of security for the skyscraper where the school was located. Along the way, he involuntarily listened to conversations: two seventh-graders were loudly arguing about whether the history teacher had unfairly given them failing grades for a "wrong" interpretation of the Mandalorian Wars.
"He wasn't even there himself!" one of them, a red-haired boy with freckles, exclaimed. "How does he know what really happened?"
"He's just nitpicking," his friend chimed in. "My sister says he fails everyone on purpose."
Alex winced. The unfairness of teachers was a constant topic of school conversation, but he was more interested in facts than emotions.
"Listen, what do the surveillance cameras say?" he asked Jack as if casually, when he finally reached him through the crowd.
"Oh, nothing special," Jack shrugged, chewing on a synthetic sandwich that smelled of artificial meat. "Dad says there was no one in the corridor from eight to half-past nine. Only a cleaning droid passed by a couple of times."
"A cleaning droid?" Alex repeated, noticing a dispute flaring up in a nearby group of students about the fairness of physics grades. "Could it have accidentally hit the window?"
"Nah," Jack laughed, his laughter drowned out by the general din. "It's programmed not to break anything. Besides, it wasn't cleaning in the classroom, but in the corridor."
But Alex was already mentally constructing a different picture. After classes, he stayed late at school under the pretense of independent preparatory work. The corridors were empty, and now only the monotonous hum of the ventilation systems could be heard. He carefully examined the corridor near the broken window. On the floor, almost invisible, were traces of lubricant – oily spots that shimmered with iridescent glints under the artificial light if viewed at a certain angle. This kind of lubricant was used for droids.
The next morning, Alex arrived at school an hour earlier than usual. The corridors had not yet filled with the morning din; only the footsteps of a few teachers and the monotonous hum of awakening systems could be heard. He found a secluded spot in the data storage room, from which the corridor was visible, and began to observe the U-3PO cleaning droid.
The old droid looked worn out – its once shiny корпус had dulled and was covered in scratches from years of service. The paint had peeled off in several places, revealing metal darkened by time, and one of the sensors was blinking. The droid's left manipulator was particularly worn – there were signs of numerous repairs, and the joints emitted a characteristic squeak with every movement. The droid moved methodically down the corridor, wiping the walls and floor, its servomotors emitting a characteristic hum, interspersed with the squeak of worn joints.
But Alex noticed that every few minutes, the droid's left hand twitched – barely noticeably, but regularly. At first, it looked like normal operation, but gradually the twitches intensified. The metal creaked, and a barely perceptible smell of overheating lubricant appeared in the air.
Alex took out his notebook and began to record the time of each twitch. After half an hour of observation, he noticed a pattern: the malfunctions occurred every 47 minutes and became stronger. With each malfunction, the droid emitted a quiet grinding sound, and its optical sensors flashed red for a moment.
"Servo drive wear," he concluded, his words drowned out by the morning hum of the awakening school. "Or an overload in the control circuit."
When the droid twitched its hand once more, Alex understood what had happened the morning before yesterday. U-3PO was cleaning the corridor, and at the moment of malfunction, its hand jerked sharply to the side, hitting the glass with such force that it shattered.
***
The school filled with familiar sounds. The voices of students, the patter of feet, the slamming of doors echoed in the corridors. The smell of synthetic breakfast and the clinking of dishes wafted from the canteen. Someone was loudly discussing their homework in galactic history, complaining about the unfairness of the teacher, who, in their opinion, deliberately assigned impossible tasks.
"He didn't accept my essay on the Old Republic again," a girl from the eighth grade complained. "And I spent three hours writing it!"
"He just doesn't like it when we think for ourselves," her classmate replied. "He wants us to only repeat what's in the textbook."
Passing by the restrooms, Alex heard muffled sobs from one of the stalls. Someone was crying bitterly, and between sobs, fragments of words could be heard: "...now my parents will kill me...". On the floor of the stall, shards of a broken datapad were visible – apparently, someone had thrown it straight into the toilet in despair. Alex hesitated, but decided not to interfere – school dramas happened daily.
But how to prove his theory about the droid? And was it even worth it? He pondered this all day, watching as the older students were unfairly accused. Principal Veylan had already summoned their parents and threatened expulsion, even though there was no real evidence of their guilt.
The solution came on its own. The next day, based on his calculations, Alex approached the electrical engineering teacher, Mr. Tarren. The class had not yet begun, and the air was filled with the smell of holoprojectors, mixed with the aroma of coffee the teacher was drinking.
"Sir, what happens if a droid's servo drive control unit malfunctions?" he asked as if out of curiosity.
"Well," Tarren mused, setting aside his cup, from which fragrant steam rose, "it can lead to unpredictable movements. Servo drive controllers control the precision of movements, and if they start to malfunction... Why do you ask?"
"Oh, just curious. And if the malfunctions happen regularly, can you predict when the droid will completely break down?"
"Theoretically, yes, if you know the pattern..." Tarren looked at Alex with curiosity. "It's a rather complex topic. Progressive wear follows certain mathematical laws. Progressive wear usually follows an exponential curve."
Alex nodded and stepped back. Now all he had to do was wait.
Three days later, precisely at the time Alex predicted, U-3PO stopped in the middle of the corridor. Its left hand began to twitch uncontrollably, the metal creaked and screeched, and strange sounds came from the speaker – a mixture of static interference and distorted audio signals. A sharp smell of overheated components and burnt insulation filled the air. The droid tried to continue cleaning, but its movements became chaotic, the mop flailed from side to side, splashing cleaning solution on the walls.
"It seems U-3PO has broken down," Alex informed the duty teacher, who happened to be passing by, chewing on a synthetic apple.
When the repair technician arrived – a short man in a greasy jumpsuit – he confirmed the diagnosis: critical wear of the left arm's servo drive. His tools clinked as he disassembled the droid's access panel, and the smell of burnt insulation intensified in the air.
"Strange," the technician muttered, his words mixing with the noise of the working tools, "usually such breakdowns develop gradually. There should have been warning signs... Although, judging by the condition of this servo drive, it should have been replaced a month ago."
"And could it have accidentally broken something?" Alex asked cautiously.
"It certainly could have," the technician nodded, extracting the worn part. "With such wear, the arm could have jerked with a force of several hundred kilograms. Any glass would have shattered. Good thing it was glass."
Principal Veylan, upon hearing the explanation, frowned. His face turned red with embarrassment, but his voice remained stern against the din of students gathered to watch the repair. The accusations against the older students were dropped, but no one apologized to them, which Alex found extremely unfair. Among the crowd of onlookers, indignant voices could be heard: "See? And they accused us!", "If they hadn't figured it out, we would have been expelled!"
"How did you guess the droid would break down today?" his classmate Mira asked him during lunch in the canteen, where the air was saturated with the aromas of synthetic food and dishes clinked.
"I just noticed it was behaving strangely," Alex shrugged, stirring the artificial mashed potatoes with his fork. "Sometimes its hand twitched."
"But you said the exact time!" Mira insisted, her voice almost lost in the general din of the canteen, where hundreds of students were eating, talking, and laughing simultaneously.
"Well... I guess I got lucky."
Alex didn't explain that three days ago he had calculated the progression of malfunctions and determined the moment of critical system failure. He didn't say that he had understood the connection between the droid's breakdown and the broken window on the very first day.
In the evening at home, where the air was filled with the aroma of dinner being prepared by K-7PO, and the quiet hum of domestic systems could be heard, he wrote in his notebook: "People only see what they expect to see. Technology breaks down according to predictable laws. It's important not to stand out, even when you know the right answer."
K-7PO, serving dinner – its servomotors worked quietly and smoothly, unlike the school droid – asked as usual:
"How are things at school, young master?"
"Fine," Alex replied, inhaling the aroma of real, not synthetic, food. "Kay, do you ever have system malfunctions?"
"Sometimes minor calculation errors occur," the droid replied honestly, its voice sounding even, without the distortions of the school's U-3PO. "But the self-diagnostic system usually corrects them. Sometimes errors appear in updates."
"And what if the self-diagnostic system also malfunctions?"
K-7PO froze for a moment, as if contemplating the question. Its optical sensors blinked blue.
"That's... an interesting question, young master. I suppose in that case, errors will accumulate to a critical level."
"And then what?"
"Then a specialist will be needed to restore normal operation."
Alex nodded, mentally adding another entry to his growing list of questions about how the world around him actually worked.
At dinner, his father talked about problems at the shipyard – one of the assembly droids had started making defective parts, and no one could figure out why. His voice sounded tired against the quiet hum of the domestic systems.
"The droid technicians say all systems are normal," Kairon sighed, cutting a piece of real meat from which appetizing steam rose. "But the quality of work is declining every day. The third batch of parts has already gone into scrap."
"You know, they almost expelled innocent older students at school," he began, putting down his fork. "Because of a broken window."
"Those hooligans again?" his mother sighed, gathering napkins. "It wasn't like this in our time."
"They weren't hooligans at all," Alex said and told the whole story: about the lubricant traces, the worn servo drive, his calculations, and the precise prediction of the breakdown.
When he finished, silence fell in the kitchen, broken only by the steady hum of the exhaust fan. His father chuckled a short, dry chuckle that held no amusement.
"You know what this means, son?" he asked, taking a sip of tea. "It means your janitor is probably stealing. Saving on spare parts for the droids, and pocketing the difference. Just like us."
"Kairon!" his mother hissed, casting a quick glance at Alex. "What are you saying in front of a child! What if he blurts it out at school? We'll have a scandal out of nowhere!"
"Well, I was just joking," the father spread his hands with exaggerated innocence, but a genuine, tired bitterness flashed in his eyes. "Of course, I was joking. It was probably… a complex technical malfunction. Completely accidental."
"And Alex is great! He has a technical mind."
"Just logic," Alex replied modestly, but felt a warm satisfaction inside. He was beginning to understand that his ability to see patterns where others saw chaos could be very useful.
But he also understood that he had to use this ability cautiously. It was better to guide people to the right conclusions than to give ready-made answers.
Before bed, when the house was filled with silence, broken only by the quiet hum of the night systems, he reviewed his notes again. The story with the cleaning droid was just the beginning. Around him was a whole world full of mysteries and patterns waiting for their explorer.
He picked up a pen and wrote on a new page: "Rule one: observe carefully. Rule two: look for patterns. Rule three: don't show that you know more than others."
Looking at the third rule, he understood that he would often break it. But for now, it was better to learn caution – in a school where the teachers' injustice and students' dramas created a constant background of tension, where old droids broke down according to predictable laws, and people saw only what they wanted to see.