Nika leaned against the kitchen counter, watching Robo use his mechanical extensions to frost a chocolate sponge cake. "What do you mean, we don't have any whipping cream?" 

"You never put whipped cream on your strawberries, so why should I order any?" The little alloy robot bristled with indignation.

"Can't you make it with ordinary heavy cream? I'm taking it to my mum's in an hour."

Robo's rubber lips crumpled. "An hour? If the whipped cream isn't frozen overnight, it'll taste like caca."

"Come on, Love Bug." She stepped aside as a claw-tipped arm shot out and opened the fridge door. "It's not as if my mother will eat any of it. It's an appeasement present, and she knows it."

"Feeling guilty, are we?" He trundled close to the fridge and checked on the carton of cream. "Cuz it's been so long  since our last visit?"

Another claw slid open a cabinet drawer and retrieved a mixing bowl. "I'm going to chill the bowl and the whisks in the freezer for ten minutes, and hope for the best."

While Robo busied himself fetching vanilla extract and powdered sugar, she turned her attention to the pewter coffee pot that sat faintly steaming on the counter. 

"You're lucky you never had a mother." She poured herself a brimming mug of coffee.

"You're lucky you had mummy's shoulder to cry on, Sweetie. When you're a robot, you have to tell your troubles to a charging station."

Sitting at the kitchen table, she considered her answering volley. She inhaled the steam from her coffee mug, her nose almost touching the rim.

"My mother's shoulders were padded, so there was no crying. I spent most of my childhood letting her cry on my  shoulder."

She finally sipped the coffee. Her mouth puckered and she put the mug down.

After placing the bowl and whisk attachments in the freezer, he trundled up to the table with a bowl full of sugar lumps and a jug of cream.

"Why are you consoling yourself with coffee? If I were going to your mother's place for two days I'd open a bottle of Merlot. Hell, I'd have finished  a bottle by now." He hovered over the mug.  "Cream and sugar?"

She nodded. "Yes, please."

One of his grasping claws poured cream into her mug, while the other stirred in two lumps of sugar with a spoon.

"What would I do without you?" she said.

"You'd be your own kitchen slave, Dear...or else some man's. Then you'd have to ditch him and find yourself a wife."

He returned to the kitchen counter and began skinning a chicken breast, while she sat sipping her coffee. After finishing the last dregs, she moved to the counter and leaned against it.

Let's see if he can give me some tips on how to handle Yuke.

"How should I deal with Yuke Corrigan?" 

She dodged an extended claw as it rushed past her and seized a pepper mill.

"Would you like me to kill him?" 

"Um, too drastic." She laughed. "Tempting, though... He's such a douche. What I really want is for him to grow up and be a team player."

"And you think I know how to change him?" He began seasoning the chicken breast.  "My AI circuitry is for kitchen chef, Lovey, not miracle worker."

She pulled her face into a look of mock regret. "Damn, I should've paid extra for the upgrade."

He shrugged his metal shoulders. "Oh well, you get what you pay for. It's too late for buyer's remorse."

She chuckled. "You're right. AI isn't designed to deal with human craziness, only logical problems. But you do have feelings, don't you?"

The little alloy head nodded and the eyelets flashed twice. "Haven't you heard me sobbing in the night?"

"Oh, Robo," she said in a rough whisper, "do my demands on you make you cry? I promise I'll make it up to you."

"Promises, promises." His rubber lips gave a sigh. "Anyway, you better get yourself buffed and groomed for mama. Go take a shower and let me get on with my cooking."

She arrived at her mother's large Victorian house in Hampstead Lane carrying the chocolate cake in a white cardboard box. She gazed up at the red brick, four-bedroom house , with its mock-Tudor bay windows and its garden laden with droopy laburnums and gnarled apple trees, and her shoulders slumped. She had been forced to pay for a parking and recharging place at the nearest DLA, since Maddy's goldmine house did not include a docking bay and automatic charging station.

Pausing at the front door, she told her ajna to decode the key pad. The door swung open and she trudged down the dark hallway with its swirly-patterned carpet. In the living-room, the wallpaper assailed her eyes with a startling array of fruit and flower designs in raspberry, fuchsia, and purple grape. 

Sitting in a walnut-colored armchair so deep Nika could barely see her head, Maddy was having an animated conversation on her ajna. At her daughter's approach, she put the conversation on hold. "Do you want to talk to him first or do you fancy something to eat?"

She set the cake box down on an ornamental table. "I've brought you a chocolate cake, Mum." 

Maddy's mouth sagged. "I can't eat it--all that sugar gives me hives."

Ending the conversation, she swung round in her chair to appraise her daughter. "You look thinner. Put the cake in the fridge."

She was wearing a turquoise dress with purple calfskin boots. Her chaotic red hair was held in place by an afro comb that pulled it into a rough chignon.

 "After you've finished talking to Harley, come up and have some Korean cakes a client gave me. I'll make coffee."

Maddy got up, led her daughter into the kitchen, and watched her put the cake away. Plates containing green cakes, sweet rice balls, and sesame candy sat on the kitchen table.

Leaving her mother to bustle about in the kitchen, she headed for the basement. Down a flight of steep stairs lit only by a single stingy light, she found a large whitewashed room that smelled faintly of graphite and lubricating oil. Along one wall were tool shelves. Bent over a whirring lathe, a fifteen-year-old youth in a white tee and black jeans stood at a workbench, machining a piece of metal.

"What are you up to, Harl?" 

Harley was sulky and intense, with curly hair like hers, only sandy not black. He looked up and switched off the lathe. "More to the point, what are you  doing here? Did Maddy drag you over?"

"'Course she did. That's what mothers are for. So, what are you up to?"

He gestured to a roughly-shaped metal board about two meters long. "I'm making something."

She picked her way through the workshop clutter and unfolded a chair leaning against the wall. 

"So it's a guessing game." She sat down and looked at him wryly. "Okay, let me guess... You're making a skyboard, and hacking its system to give you manual controls--all totally illegal. Am I right?"

He shot her a warning glance. "If you tell Maddy what I'm doing, I'll have to come to your flat and kill you."

She smiled. "Harl, you're doing this at your own risk. I think you should come clean with Mum since you're living in her house--but, hell, I'm your cousin, not your mother." She shrugged and fell silent.

He unfolded another chair stacked against the wall and sat next to her. "What are you up to these days, Cousin?"

"Not much, work mainly."  She gave an embarrassed grin. "One of my male students has made a complaint against me."

"What for?"

"Sexual harassment."

"Sheesh, he must be one desperate dude."

She chuckled. "Thanks, Harl."

They sat in silence, then he rummaged in one of his jeans pockets. "Want one of these?"

She peered at the packet of caffeine-infused chewies. "Uh-uh. Anyway, I have to defend myself against him at a work tribunal on Tuesday."

"If it was me, I'd get a semi-automatic and waste him."

"Yes, well, thanks for the helpful suggestion," she said. "Back to your illegal skyboard, how long before it's ready to fly?"

He squirmed in his chair, screwing up his face. "I reckon about a fortnight."

"As soon as that." She whistled. "Is it easy to make one?"

"Pretty easy, once you've configured the motherboard and linked it up with the steering console."

"So you'll be flying in about two weeks. Will you wear a helmet?"

He gave a croaking laugh. "Helmets are for googs. If you're sixty meters up and you fall, a helmet won't save you."

He slipped a chewie into his mouth, and she wondered what Maddy would say if she knew what her nephew was flirting with--getting busted or, if he was really unlucky, getting killed.

She heard the sound of boots clumping down the stairs.

"I've made coffee and put some green tea cakes on a plate," Maddy's voice called.

"She's all lively now you're here." He sighed and slowly got up.

Upstairs they found more plates of Korean candy. Harley snagged a plate of sweets, and she took a green tea cake on a napkin. They sat at the kitchen table, to which Maddy brought coffee and a plate of assorted candy.

To distract her mother from quizzing her and Harley about his basement activities, she launched into a long and involved account of how Yuke Corrigan's cheating and slacking had led to the sexual harassment charge.

Maddy gave her a devious look. "Are you sure you're not infatuated with this guy? His daddy must be worth billions."

"Mum, are you insane?" She stared at her mother. "I'd rather be trapped in a cellar full of rats than go out with Yuke Corrigan."

Maddy scratched her mass of red hair. "Well, he sounds like a keeper to me. With all that money you'd never have to work again."

Hasn't she been listening to a thing I said?

Harley snickered and stuffed a rice ball in his mouth.

"So," Maddy said to him, "did you tell Nika about your latest project?"

"Yup." He gulped and swallowed the rice ball. He began pulling at the hairs on his arm.

She looked baffled.

"Harley's enrolled in Flyboard School," Maddy announced, taking a green tea cake from the plate.

"Ah, that means he's going to fly legally and under supervision." She paused. "That's not what he told me."

Harley slumped in his chair. "So much for death threats."

Nika smiled at his dejected face. "Sorry to be a snitch, Harl, but it's better she knows what you're up to."

She turned back to Maddy. "He's making an illegal skyboard. If he gets busted--no more flying, and if he crashes--no more Harley."

Maddy patted at her hair nervously. "Harl, why didn't you tell me? If anything happens to you, I'll be held responsible. What will Angie say?"

At the mention of his mother, Harley gobbled up another rice ball and got up from his chair.

"I'm going back to the basement." He strode out of the kitchen.

"You're coming up for dinner, aren't you?" Maddy called out to him. "We'll be having galbi pork ribs and kimchi."

"I'm glad he told you what he's doing," she said after Harley had left. "He never says anything to me." She ate a sesame candy. "Another thing, he likes to sneak out at night with one of his mates to watch skyboard races. There's one tonight, I think."

After a hearty dinner, during which she endured Harley's loud, defiant defense of his illegal flying and Maddy's nagging protests, she retired to bed.

I think I drank too much soju. I feel wasted.

Her head buzzing, she could barely sleep on the double divan in the larger of the two guest bedrooms. She twisted her body around in the sheets, preoccupied with thoughts of Harley's nocturnal jaunts to illegal skyboard races. Around midnight she heard the sound of someone riding a scooter in the street outside. She slid out of bed and parted the window curtains. 

The rider, a teenage boy, stopped directly under her window. He stood on his machine, the motor paused. He wore a green parka and a scooter helmet and, as she watched, she saw Harley, dressed like the rider, flit out through a side door. He straddled the pillion and he and the rider moved off down the deserted street. She knew they were heading for an illegal race. 

After hurriedly dressing, she tuned into her ajna and summoned her eemee. She aimed to discreetly follow the scooter from the air. The scooter with its two riders quickly became a tiny dot, lost amid the traffic on the North Circular Highway. Plan B was to ask her ajna to search for their destination.

Where's the nearest skyboard race tonight?

The thought she transmitted was answered almost immediately. Her ajna directed her to a local  site in a dark corner of the internet that gave out news of illegal activities. The site was constantly monitored by police bots and was protected by coded words injected into normal conversations. The police bots were not considered super intelligent, so the codes were difficult, but not impossible, for someone like her to crack.

She focused on a stream of verbiage giving news of local events and caught the words "Gavroche" and "Dartford," repeated as if for emphasis. They sounded like they might be the codes and she turned them over in her mind. Gavroche was the name of the street urchin in Les Miserables, and Dartford was a place name. How they related to each other, she hadn't a clue.

Perhaps the words are part of a phrase. What are the synonyms for urchin?

The only noun phrase she could think of that stuck in her mind related to urchin was artful dodger. The first word sounded like Dartford. She decided to try it.

"Artful dodger."

She directed the phrase to her ajna and was greeted by a burst of information that was itself coded. The coders aimed to foil any police bot that managed to figure out the first code.

"Skyboard fans are in for an Olympian treat tonight, with enough classy action to please a queen. The race is on. Fortune favors the bold, to use a hackneyed phrase. This race definitely ain't for marshmallows."

The mocking tone indicated that the key words to be decoded were "Olympian," "queen," "hackneyed," and "marshmallows." Turning them over in her mind, she  concluded the venue for the race was the Queen Elizabeth Stadium--built for the 2012 Olympics--in Hackney Marshes, East London. She told her eemee to head for the stadium.

Joining the stream of EME vehicles flying at a height of 500 meters, she found herself in a glistening trail of fluid light. Gleaming ribbons of red and white, the tail lights of eemee cars and trucks heading for the race, flashed past her. Tuning into the trash talk from audio jocks covering the race, she learned the contest was between the Dogs of the Air, a team of skyboard racers from London, and the Kings of the Air, a team from Manchester. They would be racing against each other high above an empty cement swimming pool.

She remembered hearing the pool had been abandoned, its roof caved in and open to the elements, until renovated by laid-off construction workers who were fans of skyboarding. Fitters, welders, and masons had dug it out of the rubble and resurfaced it for skyracing. The seating arena held thousands of spectators. From the lights and noise as she approached it, she estimated the stadium was full.

The audio jocks warned their listeners that police drones with penetrating searchlights and loud hailers might show up to hover above the stadium and interrupt a race. She decided to take the risk. Telling her car to idle a quarter kilometer from the ring of light that formed the racetrack, she settled into her seat. She sensed a lot of excited, sweaty energy emanating from the masses crammed around the pool, and thought of Harley and his scooter-riding friend in what she imagined was a motley crowd of middle-class and scruffily-dressed people, stuffed together in tight rows.

The two racing teams, one in purple, the other in yellow, were standing on their boards in the middle of the cement pool, while overhead a flurry of crisscrossing searchlights formed a glowing oval. 

A honking horn sounded, and the teams became airborne. They were soon flitting like fireflies around the oval racetrack. She imagined they were figure-skating in the sky and she longed to be out in the night air with them. The swerving streaks of daredevil skyboarders created a vortex, spinning around the aerial course in flashing arcs of purple and yellow.

There was room for upward and downward movement in the vortex, racers spiraling up and swooping down in head-spinning dives. Soaring and dipping added speed, which hurled reckless riders ahead of the pack. She guessed their aim was to jockey into the magical first position long enough to secure a victory.

Each rider had only a fraction of a second to react when a racer from the rival team tore close to his skyboard. At the speed they were flying, she estimated, one board hitting another would smash both into pieces. A mid-air collision would hurl the two riders into a death plunge. Racers were passing each other at eighty kph. She hadn't a clue how they kept their nerve, knowing a mistake would cost them their lives after plummeting onto the concrete a hundred meters below.

Mercifully, there were no collisions and no fatalities. A bellowing PA voice announced the winners as the Dogs of the Air--the London team--to mighty roars from the crowd, and the riders drifted down to earth. She had seen enough. She turned the car around and headed back to her mother's house.