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

“I only have analgesics.”  I bowed my head.

“What?”  He twitched some more, and scrunched his eyebrows together.

“Pain relievers.  But not the fun kind.”

“Can you get more then two?”

I looked up, shocked.  I’d expected curses from him.

“Yes.”  I thought about it.  “I can get a half dozen by tomorrow.”  I could, as long as I was careful.  Analgesics weren’t tracked as closely as some of the other medications.  Sometimes Helpers took them for their own headaches during shifts.

The Jacket nodded.  “I get the worst back pain,” he said.  “Standing here all day, gets pretty bad.”  He did some mental calculations.  “I’ll give two pencils for a half dozen.  Be back here tomorrow, same time.”

And I was.

My Jacket kept me in pencils and I kept him in pain killers.  It worked out well.  And I could draw all I wanted, as long as I was careful.  I folded wrappers for my sterile gowns each shift, and stashed them in my pocket.  When I got back to my cube, I lay down with my back to the camera, and lost myself in sketches of tiny worlds, complete with roads and buildings and trees and parks.  I drew faces, of no one I had ever known, faces that looked back at me from the wrapping paper almost as though they were trying to speak to me.  I made up stories about some of the faces, and drew the places I thought they might live.

It was my way to forget.

I destroy all of my drawings.  I have to, to be safe.  I couldn’t take the chance they might be found in my cube during one of the police searches, infrequent as they may be.  I carry them out of my cube the same way I bring the paper in, in my pocket.  During my shift at the Ward, I take them out and shred them up into tiny pieces when I can, hiding what I’m doing from the cameras.  It’s easier there, because there are many places the cameras don’t cover. Once I have the paper shredded, I flush them down one of the toilets.

There are three drawings in the sack next to me, along with my shoes and underwear.  I haven’t been able to shred them.  I planned to do it on my shift last night, but then the Director had showed up.  And now, I can’t bring myself to do it; I may never draw anything else again.  I know it’s stupid, but I leave them there, inside one of the shoes.

The buzzer sounds.

Chapter Six

The man standing outside the door isn’t in uniform; I guess Private Drivers don’t come under the same regulations as the lower designations do.  He is very tall, so tall it doesn’t look like he will fit in the door without ducking.  He doesn’t try to come in—just stands in the hall.

“Helper12?”

I nod.

“I’m the Sloanes’ Driver.”  He looks both ways up and down the hall.  “We better go.”  He turns and walks away.

I grab my sack and follow him down the hall, into the elevator, outside.  There is a private vehicle parked by the entrance to the building, black and shiny.  He walks to it and opens the back door.

I feel like I’m about to climb into a hole.  A dark, dangerous hole that I don’t think I’ll get out of again.

The Driver tilts his head toward the car interior, eyes scoping the area for witnesses.  “Get in,” he says.

I do.  And as we pull away I see my only friend, Helper15—Kris is her baby name—walking toward the building.  We trained together as Baby Helpers, and by coincidence ended up in the same section of the same complex.  She’s the only person who knows my baby name.  It’s Benna.  It was given to me by some unknown Baby Helper, who told it to the Transport Helper who took me to Tracking, who told it to the Tracker Helper who received me, who told it to the Trainer who picked me up from there.  When I was old enough to wonder about myself, to wonder what my real name might be, I knew it—Benna—a gift from a series of nameless givers.  It’s the only thing I have that hasn’t been recorded in some file somewhere, or listed on some form. It’s my secret, my way of holding onto myself.

Kris tells her baby name to people the second she meets them, practically, but I’ve not shared mine with anyone but her.  She really only knows it because we came up in training together, and I was a lot less private about things back then.

I want to wave, but I can’t.  She couldn’t see me anyway behind the tinted windows of the vehicle.  We were supposed to meet tonight, to cut each other’s hair.  Somehow Kris has managed to get a pair of trimmers.  I don’t know where she got them and I’ve never asked.  But they work, and it’s easier than going to the shops every time our skinners get longish.  If you’re one of the lower designations, you can get a pretty ugly fine for hair that’s longer than the regulation skinner cut.  Kris says the regulation is because skinners are easier to keep clean and tended than long hair styles would be, but I think that’s because skinners keep us nice and recognizable, so the police can spot us right away.

Tonight, when she buzzes my cube, there won’t be an answer.  I wonder how long she’ll stand in the hall.  I wonder what she’ll do; if she’ll report me missing immediately, or if she’ll wait until tomorrow.

She’ll never know what happened to me.  The only person who knows my baby name, the only friend I have in this world, is walking into our building like it’s just another day, not knowing that she’ll never see me again.  I feel tears running down my cheeks.  I wonder if anyone will ever call me Benna again.

The car