“Nope. You need the distraction.” Molly clutched her book of airplane trivia and grinned. “I’ve got at least fourteen hours’ worth. Enough for the whole flight!”

“You wanted to sit by her!” Anna said from the row behind, and Oliver laughed beside her.

Javi groaned, wishing the plane would take off so he could lean back and pretend to sleep.

Telling Molly that he was afraid of flying had been a terrible idea. Because that made it her job, as team leader, to distract him—with engineering problems, of course. At Robotics Club every afternoon, Molly always talked while she worked, explaining what she was doing, challenging others to do the same. For her, making robots wasn’t just a hobby, it was a conversation.

The funny thing was, the distraction was actually working. Once Javi’s brain had latched onto her question, the plane became more than a huge unknown carrying him away from home for the first time ever. Now it was an engineering problem.

How many miles of wire? Javi thought.

The four members of Team Killbot, along with their adviser, Mr. Keating, were sitting in economy. Brooklyn Science and Tech had lots of rich people who donated money to the school, and when the team had qualified for the Robot Soccer World Championships, some millionaire had stepped up to pay travel costs.

But first class to Japan for five people? Nobody had that much money to give away.

Even so, this was what Mr. Keating called “fancy economy,” designed for fourteen-hour flights. Javi’s seat was surrounded by buttons and lights and a video screen. All of which were connected to wires, right?

He’d already tested the buttons on his armrest. They controlled the angle of his seat, a reading light, the screen. There was a button for summoning a flight attendant, and a rocker switch with volume symbols. There was even a little remote control for games (which also seemed to be a phone, in case you needed to call someone from halfway across the Arctic Circle).

Javi found himself wanting to strip it all down, to see those wires, motors, and gears out in the open. He’d been taking things apart as long as he could remember, starting when his mother had let him take apart her busted microwave when he was five years old.

He imagined the wires under the cabin floor, snaking up and around the curves of the chair. And another bright web above him, bringing power to all those lights and air blowers in the ceiling—

“Conjectures?” Molly prompted. “Conclusions?”

Javi’s brain buzzed. Each seat would need at least a hundred feet of wire, and there were about five hundred people on the plane. That was ten miles right there, on top of the ailerons and engines, the cockpit crammed with gauges, the extra wires needed for the huge business class seats a few rows ahead.