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

She had fine golden hair that looked like spun sugar, even in a skinner cut.  I remember her name—Cinq.  I bet a lot of Helpers remember her name, because of what happened.

We were all pretty new still, all about 15 years old.  We’d just been split into smaller groups for our generals, the part of training where we learned the first bits about our particular designations.  Some of us were excited that we’d tracked as Baby Helpers, but some weren’t.  Cinq was not; she’d wanted to be an Artist.  She wasn’t quiet about it at all, either—she’d tell anyone who would listen that her initial testing showed an aptitude for spatial relationships.  Sometimes at night you could hear her crying.  I always felt bad for her.

There was a man—he was a boy, really, probably only as old as I am now—who worked in the dorms, whenever something broke down.  If the lights were flickering, or the air filtration wasn’t functioning properly, he’d show up with another man and they would fix whatever needed fixing.  I noticed him because he didn’t have a designation tattoo; no L for laborer—nothing.  Well, that, and the fact that he was disarmingly attractive.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed him.

Cinq started hanging around when he showed up, and he returned her interest.  She even stayed behind once when he came to our dorm to fix a heater.  We were all going to lunch; third bell had already rung, but she stayed behind.  One of the other girls warned her that she was risking it, but she didn’t care.  I’ll be along was all she said.

One night after she’d been late for third bell several times, I could hear her weeping in her bed.  Another girl, Motie, told her to shut up the noise.

Motie used to be a friend of mine; at least that’s what I thought.  We were closer at that time than Kris and I were; I was closer to Motie than I’d been to anyone.  I ate all my meals sitting next to her, and we laughed at the sorts of things we were learning in our generals, things about baby penises and vomit.

Motie had grown tired of listening to Cinq cry at night, and even more tired of something else.  She threw off her blanket and marched over to Cinq’s bed and slapped her right across the face.

“Stop your whining, girl.”

I got out of bed too, and went to try to calm Motie down.  We could all get in trouble if we got caught up after last bell.

Cinq was white-faced when I got there, covering her cheek with her hand, staring at Motie like she wanted to kill her.

“You,” she said, low and hard.  “You don’t know enough to know what it’s like when you’re not meant for . . . for this.” She swept her hand out at the room, at the beds, at all of us.  “They made a mistake with me.  My initial tests showed an Artist, not a Baby Helper.”

Motie was unimpressed.  She grabbed me and dragged me in closer, and shoved the sleeve of my tunic up.

“They make mistakes all the time, girl, and they correct their mistakes.”  She twisted my arm up close to Cinq’s face.

“You see that—see that, girl?  That’s a B.  Benna showed as a Breeder, girl, in her initial tests.  And now she’s here with the rest of us, with a nice black H on her arm.  So you may as well shut it about your artistic leanings.”  Motie let me go.

“And another thing, girl.”  Motie leaned down until she was spitting her words on Cinq’s face.  “You better stop grabbin’ it with that boy.  I’m not getting a CBA because you want some Society ass.”

The whole dorm went silent.  I wonder now, how many of the other girls knew as much as Motie did then.  I was oblivious to it all until that moment.  That the boy with no tattoo was a Society boy, that Cinq was having sex with him, that all of us could be Charged By Association and be sent to labor camp because of it.  I had no clue.  But Motie knew.  And now, so did everyone else.

Of course, someone told.  Because they were afraid, I imagine.  And after our showers the next morning, before we were dressed for training, they came and took Cinq away.  They had to drag her, because she knew where she was going.  The next time the air filtration stopped working, there was a new boy, with a black L on his arm.

Motie told me later that the Society boy had probably done something stupid and been sent here to put a scare into him.  It turned out she was right; before I left training for the Ward, three more boys with no designation tattoos showed up.  They worked for a week and then vanished.  And none of us ever looked in their direction.

I haven’t thought about Motie in years.  I remember how I felt that night, when she shoved my arm under Cinq’s nose.  I hadn’t told anyone else there about my lasered-out B.  I was ashamed of it for some reason.  When I told Motie, I told her it was our secret.  She’d said of course it is, Benna, of course.  And I’d believed her.

I don’t know what happened to Motie.  She didn’t get assigned to the same Ward as me, and I never sought her out.  I hate to say it, but I think she was the one who told on Cinq.  I understood, even then, why she did it.  But I could never look at her the same way after that.

Chapter Twenty Five

Thomas hasn’t come back yet.  Dinner was over hours ago, Jobee’s asleep in his crib, and I’m in my bed, lying awake in the dark.  Tomorrow, the Sloanes are due back from their trip, and I can’t stop crying.  I’m being very quiet so I don’t wake Jobee, but I can’t stop the tears.  I feel