HELPER12, Jack Blaine [reading in the dark .TXT] 📗

“Yes.  I assumed you would prefer your privacy.  Sir.”

He looks up at me at the word sir.  “You assumed incorrectly.”  He narrows his eyes.  “William is a part of my family now.  He’s meant to be my new brother.  I want to have every opportunity to get to know him.  Tonight, you’ll attend him at dinner in the dining room.”

He walks out of the room, taking my drawings with him.

I want to run.  I want to hide somewhere.  But there’s no place to go.  I wonder what he’ll do to me; how he’ll use the drawings against me.  He didn’t take them with him by accident.

Jobee and I are at the dining room table when he seats himself for dinner.  A place setting was laid for me, so he must have informed Helper that I would be eating with him.  Jobee’s high chair, the fanciest thing I have ever seen made for a baby, is set up next to my place, as it was before the Sloanes left on their trip.

I keep my eyes on Jobee while Thomas sits down. He’s just started to eat cereal, and he loves it.  It’s fun for me to watch him gobble; babies in Pre Ward usually didn’t start solids until they had already left my care.  They were just getting old enough then.  I’ve been worried that I might not know how to care for Jobee as he gets older than my Pre Ward charges; I know everything there is to know about babies through six months of age, but I’m not trained for anything after that—they all leave Pre Ward at six months.

“Helper12.”  Thomas places his napkin on his lap.  They are real cloth napkins.  I didn’t know what to do the first night here, when I sat at this table with the Sloanes.  Mr. Sloane saw me looking at all the utensils and glasses and he caught my eye.  He held up his own napkin and put it in his lap.  When I’d done that with mine, he smiled, and pointed at one of the several forks next to his plate. I looked at my own place setting and took the same one—the third one out from the left.  After that, I just watched what he did, and followed his example.

“Sir.”  I still don’t look at Thomas.  I focus on Jobee, wiping some cereal off his chin, spooning up a bit more to tempt him with, moving his bowl out of reach when he threatens to knock it off the table.

Helper comes out of the kitchen with covered dishes on a tray.  She sets them on the table, giving Thomas a simpering smile.

“Your favorites, Sir.  Just like when you were little.”  She hovers next to his chair.

“Thank you Helper.”

“May I bring you anything else, Mr. Thomas?”

“This is fine, Helper.”

When she leaves, I glance at him.  He’s staring at me.

“What?”  I say the word before I can stop myself.

“I want you to call me Thomas.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No.”  He keeps staring.  “Not sir.  Not Mr. Thomas.  Just Thomas.  Do you understand?”

I stare back.  I’m not sure where he’s going with this, but I need to do whatever I can to appease him.  I hate him for the power he holds over my head.

“Yes, Thomas.”

He doesn’t like the way I say it; I can tell by the sour look on his face.  But he doesn’t say anything to me about it.  He just dishes himself some of the food from the covered dishes.  Then, as though he’s done something he finds unforgivable, he apologizes to me.

“I’m so sorry.  My manners . . .”  He stands, and carries one of the covered dishes over to my place.  “This is what Helper thinks is still my favorite dish, even though it hasn’t been since I was twelve.”  He shows me—it’s some sort of pasta dish.

“It’s really not bad,” he says, with a grin.  He puts a scoop on my plate.  “More?”

I shake my head.  He picks up the other dish, which is a leafy salad, and serves me some of that, too.  Then he sits back down.

“Thank you.”  I’ve never been served my food, not by anyone.  It feels . . . it feels like I am important, for a second.  I don’t like that he can make me feel that.

We eat in silence for a while, each picking at our plate.  Jobee is so full of cereal that he is dozing in his high chair.

“What do you know about where he came from?”  Thomas gestures toward Jobee with his fork.

“What do you mean,” I ask, though I know pretty well what he means.

“Don’t they generally provide the Breeder’s data?”

I chew my pasta and wait.

“I mean, don’t they list what the specs were, for that particular Breeder?  I thought they did.”

He’s right; they do.  And his mother doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would buy a sub-standard baby.  So he probably already knows more about Jobee’s Breeder than I do.  All I know is what is always included in the chart—the general stats regarding health and genetic predispositions.

“I imagine you have already seen the data,” I say, dryly.  “So why are you asking me?”

He nods.  “I have seen it.  Mother was very thorough in her research once she decided to . . . adopt.  She wanted to be certain she got what she paid for, and that she didn’t get certain . . . things.  But I asked,” he tilts his head at me, “what you know.”

I watch him for a minute.  I don’t know what game this is he’s playing.

“I know he’s healthy, with a 90th percentile chance of developing no serious health issues during his first 60 years of life.  I know he’s smart, though not genius-range.  I know he’s heterosexual.  I don’t know what his tendencies are in terms of tracking—it was too early for any of that to have happened yet.”

“Ah, yes.”  Thomas smiles, a smile that conveys nothing at all to do with happiness.  “Mother would be certain