Too much to calculate, so he multiplied his first guess by ten.

“In the whole plane, maybe a hundred miles of wire?”

“Not too bad.” Molly waved her book. “But it’s more like three hundred. A technical tour de force!”

“Okay, wow,” Javi said, though amazement was the surest route to more trivia questions. “It seems like a waste, using a machine this complicated to fly our dinky little robots to Tokyo.”

“The Killbots are not dinky,” Molly said. “They’re the reigning US champions of robot soccer, junior division!”

Javi shrugged. “May I remind you that the other team’s robots got broken in shipping? We lucked into this.”

“We would’ve won anyway.” Molly’s expression dared him to argue.

Javi wasn’t sure. He’d seen videos of the robots built by the unlucky finalists from New Mexico—scuttling four-legged scorpions that whacked the soccer ball with their tails. In stark contrast, the Brooklyn Killbots were toasters on wheels. Mindless bullies that swarmed the ball, knocking other players out their way.

“Like how five-year-olds play soccer,” one of the judges had muttered in the semifinals.

And there were, what, maybe twenty feet of wire in each Killbot?

Not exactly a technical tour de force.

Last night, Javi’s whole family had gathered for a send-off dinner: uncles, aunts, and cousins all telling him how proud they were. His mother had told stories of him helping on her superintendent rounds when he was little, fixing locks and faucets at age seven. But for the whole dinner he’d felt like a fraud.

What kind of engineer was afraid to get on an airplane?

“Next question,” Molly said. “How many Aero Horizon flights have ever crashed?”

He stared at her. Was she just trolling him now?

If building robots had taught Javi anything, it was that way too much could go wrong with machines. No matter how carefully he tested them, the Killbots were always doing unpredictable stuff in the middle of a match.

He thought about those three hundred miles of wire in the airplane, the millions of rivets and seals and screws, the engines and tanks full of flammable fuel. All those parts that could break, warp, fail, or explode.

“I’m going to go with … two?” he said hopefully.

“Nope,” Molly said. “Zero!”

“Really?”

“Yep. No crashes in the whole fleet, in forty years.”

“Huh.” Javi felt a relieved smile reach his lips, and his irritation with Molly faded. Even when she was trolling him, she always had a plan. “Thanks.”

She shrugged, as if to say that his fears were forgotten. “Just enjoy the flight, Perez. We’re going to win for real this time.”

Javi gave her a fist to bump. “Team Killbot!”

Mr. Keating leaned forward from the row behind. “Um, guys. Maybe no more discussion of airplane crashes?”

“Actually,” Molly said, “we were discussing the total absence of airplane crashes.”

“Still,” Mr. Keating said firmly. “Some people are nervous about flying.”