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

“But don’t forget what you have here, either, if you know what I mean.”  He laughs.  “You can handle him.”  He hugs me, gently because I have Jobee in the sling.  I whisper my thanks in his ear.

As soon as we reach the corner, the tram pulls up.  Thomas helps me up onto the platform, and we look for seats. There are two near the back.  Thomas is managing both bags, despite my protests.  He wrangles them under the seats and we settle in.

“How long is the ride?”

“It’s just under an hour,” says Thomas.  “I’ve got a bottle handy if Jobee needs one.”

I look around the tram.  It’s almost full in our car, with all kinds of people, most from the lower designations.  There are some Society members, but not many.

“Thomas, how did Deen know Greg?”

“Through Rob,” says Thomas.

“How did he know Rob?”

Thomas looks out the window.  “Rob was Deen’s son.”

I don’t understand.  Deen is a lower designation.  Even if he is running a restaurant instead of doing whatever labor he was tracked for, he couldn’t have a son.  Or, maybe he could.  But even if he had a son, his son wouldn’t be allowed to go to the same school as Greg.  I turn to ask Thomas, and he’s watching me.

“He had a woman.  She was a Breeder.  She developed some sort of health problem, and they were going to send her to the labor camps.

“I don’t know how he got involved, but he did, and he got her out before they sent her.  I don’t know if he bought her or what.  They hadn’t yet sterilized her when she turned up gone—I assume she was reported as dead.  And when he and she were together, well, he fathered Rob.  She didn’t make it through the labor.

“He raised Rob himself, from what I know, and when it was time for him to go to school, Deen bought forged papers for him. He worked night and day to pay the tuition.  Rob was a smart kid.  He did better than Greg in some subjects.  He was Deen’s joy.”

“Where is Rob?”  I realize I’ve never been told.

Thomas looks down at Jobee.  He reaches over and touches Jobee’s hand.

“Rob killed himself, when he heard that Greg had been wiped.”

Neither of us says anything for a long while.  There’s really nothing to say.  We hold hands, and watch the city go by out the windows.

The tram is crowded for a few blocks, and then lots of people get off.  Then we go a few blocks more and lots of people get on.  I see Laborers and Helpers and some designations I don’t even know.  One man has a Z on his arm—I have no idea what that designates.  There are two Society boys at the far end of our tram, school boys from the looks of them, and they make me think about Greg and Rob.

We slow again to pick up more people.  I watch them as they board.  There are three Domestic Helpers, probably on their way to shop for the Society members they work for; there is a Thinker; I’ve never seen a real Thinker.  I wonder where she’s on her way to; is it some windowless room where she sits with other Thinkers, and discusses some grave issue that must be solved?  I’m pondering this, idly watching other passengers climb aboard, when I see her.

I freeze, and it feels as though my heart has stopped, as soon as I see her face.  She still has the same bow-shaped lips, and the same beautiful eyes.  One of them is blackened now, though; someone has beaten her.

It’s Kris.  I don’t know what she’s doing on this tram, but if she sees me, we’re doomed.

What I see next chills my blood even more than her black eye.  Walking slightly behind her, clutching one of her hands in his, is the Director.  The man who sold me.

They sway up the aisle toward us, looking for two seats together.

Thomas looks at me, frowning, and I realize my grip on his hand has tightened.  I look down, and see that my knuckles are white.  I loosen my grasp, and whisper to him.

“We’re in trouble.”  I try not to move my lips at all.  I glance at him, wondering if this is the last time I’ll be this close to him.

Thomas puts a pleasant expression on his face.

“What’s happening?”  He speaks under his breath, so only I can hear him.

“The Ward Director is here.”

The seats in the tram are arranged in sets of four: two attached seats face forward, and two face back.  Thomas and I are sitting in two seats that face the front of the tram.  One man sits in one of the pair of seats that face us—a Laborer on his way home from a night shift somewhere, from the looks of him.  He’s been sleeping for the last twenty minutes of the trip.

I do a quick scan of our car; there are no empty seats, except the seat across from us, and a seat a little ways behind us.

Kris and the Director keep coming closer and closer, until they are two rows away from us.  I watch their feet, afraid to look up.  Jobee is awake, but quiet, and he stares up at me, smiling his baby smile.

I see Kris’s feet almost pass us, but then they stop.  The Director’s hand points to the seat across from us.

“You sit there—I’ll take that one.  Don’t forget I’ll be watching.”  He uses the same tone with her that he did when he told me that he’d sold me.

Her feet side-step into the tiny space between our seats and the ones facing us, and she sits down across from Thomas.  The Director’s feet move on, and I hear him settle in the seat behind us.

I can’t look up.

We ride in silence.  I don’t know how long—time seems to be suspended.  Then, the tram jolts, and we all jostle in our seats.  The Laborer