Free Forever Begins Tomorrow by Bruce Coville

Trip.
    â€œYou ignored the fact that an army is a team,” replied Caesar sternly. “Each of the men you selected was a good fighter. Unfortunately, the group as a whole was an explosive combination of opportunists and malcontents—superb soldiers with no loyalty to any cause but their own.” Caesar paused, then asked temptingly, “Care to try again?”
    The question was hardly necessary. Trip had about as much chance of quitting now as a moth has of turning away from a flame. When he finally stumbled to his bed, sometime well past midnight, his head was swimming and his arms ached from the hours at the keyboard. But if he was tired, he was also exhilarated. He had finally managed to out-think Caesar!
    Along the way, and almost by accident, he had learned more about the Roman empire, Latin, military strategy, philosophy, mythology, and politics than he would have thought possible in a single evening—or even a single month.
    He was asleep the instant his head struck the pillow. But all through the night he wandered the hills of ancient Rome, mighty Caesar at his side.
    About the time Trip was tangling with Julius Caesar, Wendy was finishing her own “homework”—a project considerably different than refighting the Gallic Wars.
    Humming to herself, the Wonderchild stretched a cord between her electronic tutor and the terminal that had been installed in her bedroom when she first arrived on Anza-bora.
    â€œADAM, meet Creepy,” she said, as she moved from keyboard to keyboard, typing in commands and making adjustments. “I think you two are going to like each other. After all, you’ll have a lot to talk about!”
    When everything was finally ready, she typed the command “Test” on the electronic tutor. When the menu appeared, she pressed a key, then sat back and watched the two machines begin to interact.
    Soon the nearby printer began spewing out pages of perfectly typed questions and answers.
    â€œWay to go, ADAM!” cried Wendy. “I knew you were one smart computer!”
    Satisfied that everything was functioning properly, she sat down at her workbench and removed the head from a stuffed frog she was trying to program to dance with another robo-doll, Mr. Pumpkiss. Reaching inside the toy’s body with her micropliers, she began adjusting the circuits she had installed the day before.
    She hummed as she worked.
    It was kind of nice to have the most powerful computer in the world do your homework for you.
    In the secret room beneath the Brain Cell, Black Glove was playing for higher stakes than mere homework. Typing a command, the spy waited nervously to see how ADAM would react.
    When the computer had made no response at all after several minutes, the spy shrugged and tried again. When you were building a back door, there was no point in getting angry or trying to hurry. It had to be done slowly, with the utmost caution. And you had to expect a lot of setbacks; mistakes were part of the process.
    The problem was, they were also dangerous, since a big one could get you caught.
    Black Glove typed another command, a more daring one. Beads of sweat broke out on the spy’s forehead. Would ADAM accept this one? Or would the computer rebel, claiming the command violated previous programming?
    If the command was considered too outrageous, ADAM might even raise an alarm…
    The moment of silence while the machine dealt with the input stretched into another… and another. Without realizing it, Black Glove stopped breathing.
    Suddenly a message appeared on the monitor:
    â€œInput accepted. Is there any more?”
    Smiling triumphantly, Black Glove stepped away from the keyboard. Though this had been only a small step, in many ways it had been the most dangerous one. A single slip here might have alerted someone to what was going on.
    How quickly things could change. This breakthrough meant the end of the struggle to sneak information off the