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"Here, use the joysticks," Will said

Gates sat down in front of the control panel, and Will showed hier the water fro of the white roo of it, so into the white room and he was able to nail two of the all eight of the contraption’s ht it was all hilarious and was laughing so hard that he collapsed onto the control board Will accidentally ended up pressing a bunch of buttons

Inside the white rooe, square metal door in the wall that Gates and the others had never et opened But now, it crept up like an autoe door Beyond the door, inside a small room with bare concrete walls, was some sort of clear cube on wheels Gates felt his first spark of real excitement since the parents had caved to his deet his attention and pointed at the clear cube "Hey, guy who knows everything about this place, what the piss is that?"

Will stared in awe

"No way," Will said "I heard about this thing The soldiers used it when the graduation rinned "I kno to hot-wire shit"

Gates had never driven a clear box before Just the pure novelty of being inside a transparent cube as it rolled through the halls of McKinley was beginning to lift his spirits He barely even noticed the sting of his eye

People were starting to gather in the halls He and Will had beco out of classroo after the to hitch a ride He and Will drank beers as they did a wide loop through the school Will was driving at thein the only seat inside the cube It was about the size of a golf cart on wide all-terrain tires The walls and ceiling were made of half-foot thick slabs of clear plastic He could see the clear epoxy they had used to seal it together, and the excess had squeezed out of the borders between the slabs and hardened The only door was in the back, also clear, but the door frame, lock, and knob were all metal Empty beer bottles rolled around on the diaine produced a continuous buzzing sound Gates crouched beside Will, fiddling with the rubber glove that extended into the cube from the outside, so people could evidently test the it to reach out the front of the cube and high-five people they passed

Will hadn’t lied, the school loved hiot really excited They’d call out to him Sometimes they shouted requests for the next drop But most of the ti as he passed

While Will drove, Gates took cairls who rode on the top of the cube, their butts pressed into the clear plastic over their heads The Skater girls were hitching a ride to Geek territory When Gates started showing Will the pics he’d taken, the cube drifted too close to the wall and hit a few locker handles, jostling the whole thing The girls squealed above and banged on the plastic

"Watch the road!" one of the girls shouted

"Sor-ry!" Will said, and both Will and Gates started laughing

"You knohat, this is good tiet to see this thing last year Never thought I’d be inside it!"

"Le"

"Sure"

Will pulled over, and they switched places Gates jaas pedal, while Will eased back to look up at the girls

"This is what life’s about," Will said

"Oh, yeah?" Gates said, keeping his eyes on the hall

"I think so Life should always be riding inside a future car with cute girls on top"

"Ha-ha! Hard to argue with that"

Gates started weaving the cube froirls shouted at hi a little!" Gates shouted, as the last of the Skater girls lowered herself off the edge and dropped to the floor

"Bye, girls," Will said, wistfully

"Easy coh a hallway intersection

"My old gang used to live in a stairwell down that direction," Will said "David would have loved taking a joy ride in the cube"

"Did he like to have a good time? Sounds like my kind of dude"

"Well … not really He lanced at Will and saw that his one somber