SCMR Chpt 15

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==Chapter 15 - Self Configuring Modular Robot==
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It would take nearly a year and a half...
...for the search to uncover candidates. Jess Harper's from Arluna, the son of a rock-miner in the Hill Country who got noticed for tinkering with a trashed motorized bicycle recovered from a landfill. His mother's a widow, living on a starvation pension paid by the mine owner. Katty Harper's got that starved look you get when you give half your own food to the kid and go hungry while working day-work.
"It's an opportunity." the man from the Government said, "Your son will have a better life than he'll get working in the mine."
It's the promise of a real education for her boy. A chance to be more than 'hillfolk trash' used up like toiletpaper in the Diego owned mines. She didn't take much convincing.
She signed the papers and kissed her son goodbye-giving up her parental rights to give her boy a better life than she could.
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Sierra Lowry's from Filtvelt. Her father died in the war, her mother too. She's a gift to the Orphan House-she figures out how to make the broken toys work, she watches the toddlers (She's EIGHT! she'll tell you.) and she's reading books to try and make something of herself and stand out for better shares on Friday's desert. 
Sierra got MIIO's attention when she picked a man's pocket in town, and stole his ground car. She could JUST see over the dash if she sat on her left leg, and used a stick to push the brake and gas pedal.
She was tested by the police when they caught her, and the local constable contacted MIIO with the results.
Sierra's status as a ward of the state makes it less about permissions, than about explaining to the girl where she's going.
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Penelope Doons blew up her room. She did it with a home chemistry kit meant for someone twice her age and labeled 'safe for all ages'.
The purple wall of silence that appears when Nobles are bad parents? did not apply this time. Permission from her Grandmother, Duchess Margaret Doons, took a short conversation with the Archon. Unlike the others, this isn't a fosterage situation in the fullest sense, she's being 'loaned' to the royal family as a noble hostage and mark of fealty-with the stipulation that Maggie can, at any time, demand the girl be brought back to her.
Social Class has some importance.
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Terry Warden is seven. His father's a Tech with the Syrtis Fusiliers, and he got noticed because he tore apart his father's expensive laser pistol, then put it back together in working condition...with twice the output and half the battery life. This unwanted modification got him a beating that was witnessed and stopped by officers inspecting the Enlisted Housing. Social Services were deployed, and lawyers, and a simple investigation showed the boy had a habit of taking things apart to see how they work, with maybe a fifty percent chance of putting them back together again-hence the beating.
His parents got to meet with Judge Advocates. His father got dropped into counseling, while the mother into a cell awaiting trial. As for their boy, he was given a ticket with an escort to the spaceport for New Avalon and "a remarkable educational opportunity".
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The last one is the daughter of military parents, one of whom is also a Duke's son. All Katrina had to do, was ask Dinh Ngo to authorize fostering his youngest grandchild to the Royal Family.
Dinh Ngo suffered two imprisonments-once for criticizing former Archon Alessandro Steiner, and again when he used his company's resources to protect the location of Katrina and Arthur Luvon during their flight into the periphery. The man is, down to his broken bones, loyal to Katrina Steiner.
Elizabeth's already gotten noticed. It's an honor, and one that her parents won't object to. Little Lizzie has taught "Hermann"-a remote miniature 'Mech, to speak almost well enough to fool an adult's ear, and she spends hours playing with the code. She's also seven. She uses her 'toy 'Mech' as an extension of her hands playing out in the Folly, and it's the terror of the local wildlife...or maybe the girl is. 
Convincing her to give up her other pet? Well, she threw a tantrum when the officials told her she couldn't bring her pet fursnake 'slinky' with. The animal is after all, a dangerous, venomous animal...
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