Chapter 3

One Month Later

I lay on my stomach on the bed, absently petting Puppy. I was half-conscious of Jana and Melissa studying at their desks, but most of my attention was on the hanging scripts I was reading. I heard footsteps pounding down the hall. I smiled, it had to be Runner. I was a little surprised—Runner was usually watching television at this time, sometimes by himself, sometimes with one of the students who took turns sitting with him and fielding his questions. The students seemed to enjoy being with Runner, teaching him and making love with him. I thought watching television would acculturate Runner more quickly than anything the students could tell him. His present schedule called for two hours of news, talk shows and soaps each morning and a movie every evening. Melissa, Jana, Holden and I would join him for the movie, however many of us were free.

His afternoons were usually spent in the library—he was reading simple children’s books now, sharing and giggling over his favorites with me. The library had acquired a number of books for kids over the last month. Going over the plots of the books had given me the opportunity to explain family relationships to Runner. We decided that his mother was most likely a rare female work slave impregnated by her owner, rather than a breeding slave. Runner said that none of his pen-mates had looked much like him. I was sure, from my own observations of the island population, that several of them would have shared some of Runner’s native genetic background, but none looked much like him.

Runner’s library routine was interrupted twice weekly for sessions in the conference room with Dr. Chase, a sociologist from the university, who was excited by the opportunity to publish the first research describing day-to-day life in a Purity Island breeding pen. The professor, laughing, had told me that she wasn’t sure whether she or Runner had asked more questions in the just-finished session.

The footsteps were followed by a hurried tap at the door, another of Runner’s recent acquisitions in social etiquette. My smile spread to a grin. “Come in.”

The door opened and Runner burst in, an excited look on his face. He was fully dressed—he did that more often now, and I suspected the khaki outfit, cut like a student uniform, added to Runner’s feeling of belonging, as I’d hoped. “Amy, I figured out about money!”

“Ummm...” I wasn’t quite sure what the issue was. “What did you figure out about it?”

“What it’s for! Why people have it! It’s so cool!” A recent addition to Runner’s vocabulary.

I sat up and patted the bed beside me. “Tell me about it.”

Runner sat down on the bed, crossed his legs and leaned back against the wall. Puppy, as usual, licked his face in greeting, and he giggled.

Melissa and Jana had turned to listen as Runner spoke, each with a smile on her face.

Runner started, “I’ve been watching on TV, and I kept seeing people trade pieces of paper for things they wanted, and I couldn’t figure out why the pieces of paper were such a big deal. The boys would tell me it was money, that this person was using money to buy that thing he wanted, and I get it about trading except I didn’t see why the second person wanted those pieces of paper. But I get it now!

“Everybody has a job they do, like maybe they work in a...” Runner hesitated, “ ... a fictory...”

I tried to follow the context. “A factory?”

Runner laughed and pointed at me. “Right!! I was mixing it up with fiction, I think. Anyway, suppose you work in a factory, where you make...” He looked around the room. “ ... chairs. So you have these chairs you made. And you want food, but all you have is these chairs. And you see a woman who has food, but she doesn’t want chairs. You find some man who wants chairs, but he doesn’t have food, he has...” He looked around again. “ ... shoes that he made. And maybe he does want a chair, and maybe the woman with food wants shoes, so you could trade your chair for shoes and take the shoes to the woman who has food ... But the man with shoes, maybe he doesn’t want a chair, so you have to keep looking for somebody who wants a chair and has something the woman with food wants...

“But money is so you don’t have to do all that! In the factory where you make chairs, you have a boss, and he gives you money, the pieces of paper, because you made the chairs for him. And you can take the money to the lady with the food, and you can trade it to her for the food, and she takes the pieces of paper because she knows she can use them the same way! She knows she can trade the money for something she wants. And your boss at the factory ... He gets money because people buy the chairs you made—maybe more money than he paid you to make the chairs, so he has extra money left and he can buy things he wants!” He beamed at me. “It’s so simple! When you want to have something, you trade money for it, and people take it because they know they can get things they want with it!”

Runner leaned forward for a hug—he always distributed hugs freely, and usually kisses, when he was this excited. I held Runner, and reflected on how many complex ideas seemed “simple” to Runner. He is very special in so many ways, I realized.

Suddenly, Runner broke off the hug and frowned. “Why don’t we use money, Amy? On TV they do, but we don’t.”

I wasn’t sure how to start. I looked at Melissa, who tentatively offered the same thing that had first come to my mind. But it seemed so far from a complete explanation that I hesitated. “We’re slaves, Runner.” I looked at Runner hopefully, with a does-that-help-at-all? expression.

Runner’s frown deepened, and he seemed to go into some internal zone. I could almost see the wheels turning inside his head, the collation of all available information.

Runner suddenly took on an astonished expression, his eyes wide, and whispered, “People don’t give money to us, they pay money to have us.” His excitement flooding back, he bounced slightly on his seat on the bed. “We’re not the man who makes the chairs. We’re the chairs!! People want us! Because we can hang!! I don’t see anybody hang on TV like we can! There was a boy on a game show, but he couldn’t do it anything like us!” Runner had increased his hanging time to five minutes, and was making a number of advanced moves—his ability now went far beyond that of any boy outside the building. “People buy us because we can do something they want to see!”

I looked at Runner in amazement. I could now check off several items on my mental to-do list. I hadn’t felt ready yet to explain why there was such a place as the Academy, and what a “slave” really was. The explanations would involve so many ideas that Runner had not yet grasped. Now Runner seemed to have worked it out entirely on his own.

What remained was to get across to Runner that a Noosemeister was bought for a single performance, ending in their death. But now I wasn’t worried that Runner wouldn’t understand that yet. It was the way the subject related to my own future that made me hesitant.

We have to talk about that very soon, I reminded myself again.

Puppy was excited by the flow of affection, and rubbed against Runner with a yearning whine. Runner began stroking him.

That Afternoon

Tina smiled as I arrived at the Dean’s office. I knew from her face that something was up. Tina was struggling to avoid giggling.

I entered the office, and saw Holden sitting in one of the chairs. That was a bit of a surprise: I’d thought he was working out in the gym. I smiled and nodded to him. “Hi, Holden.” I turned then to the Dean, with Holden’s sudden giggle adding further to the mystery. “Sir?”

The Dean simply turned to Holden, smiled, and shook his head in wonder.

I loved jokes as much as anyone, but I preferred to be in on them. I turned back to Holden. “Okay, come on, what...”

The expression on Holden’s face stopped me in mid-sentence. The amusement, the air of something mischievous going on, that all seemed normal. Behind that, though, were clear indications: this was a boy who had never seen me before.

I gasped and slapped my own cheek. I had rarely felt so stupid. I had known this was coming. In fact, I was expecting it in a few days. Holden, Melissa, Jana and I had all been growing tense with anticipation. Especially Holden. Yet when I first saw this boy, there was just no visual cue to tip me off that this was anyone other than Holden.

“You’re Hamish, aren’t you?” I breathed. I looked to the Dean for confirmation.

The Dean nodded, smiling again. “I did have a sense that they look quite a lot alike. But I haven’t spent nearly as much time with Holden as you have. I thought your reaction might be different.”

I just stood staring at Hamish, who colored a little at the intense examination. Yes, I thought, I’ve spent a lot of time with Holden, sharing meals with him in the caf, helping him with hanging practice, and many, many nights in bed with him. “Hamish...” Even calling him by his correct name wasn’t easy. Hamish was the distant unseen brother, Holden the one present in my life. “I’m Amy. I’m ... sort of your brother’s mentor, I guess you’d say.” Hamish had already been processed in as a permanent resident—he was wearing the standard white First Year uniform and “Slave Boy” collar; that also made it hard to tell him apart from Holden. “Do you want to go see him?”

Hamish looked ready to leap out of his chair. “Oh yes, please!...” He turned immediately to the Dean. “May I go, Sir?” His voice was Holden’s as well.

The Dean nodded, and said, “He’s all signed in. I’d like to see all three of you in a few days, to talk about their joint presentations at parties. I’m sure you and Holden will fill him in on the details by then.”

“Yes, Sir. Ummm ... Sir?”

“Yes?”

“It really would be helpful to have some way of telling them apart.” I rubbed my chin in thought. “What if ... You know those letters students sometimes wear on necklaces? Their initials? I think if we got a letter ‘O’ for Holden, and an ‘A’ for Hamish, that’s all we really need. The letters could attach right to the ring on the front of their collars, maybe.”

The Dean nodded. “I’ll have Tina order something like that.”

I grinned at Hamish and took his hand. It was trembling with excitement. “Let’s go see if Holden’s back from the gym.”

Almost breathlessly, Hamish said, “Okay,” and picked up a bookbag from the floor beside his seat. I blinked—students were allowed to bring a few personal possessions from home, but it wasn’t often a load of books.

The top of the bag was slightly open, and I saw a three-ring binder on top. Oh, of course. I guessed the rest of the bag contained more of the same. I pointed. “Diary?”

Hamish looked a little startled. “For Holden, yeah.”

I smiled. “I know all about it.”

I couldn’t stop shaking my head in amazement. We had passed a half dozen students in the hallways; each of them had smiled at Hamish and me with barely a glance, one of them saying, “Hi Amy, Holden.” Not one perceived Hamish as a stranger. I was eager to see the reactions of those who knew Holden much better.

I pushed open the door to our room. Melissa was industriously scribbling at her desk for a class assignment. She looked up and smiled at me. “So what’d the Dean want? Oh, hi Holden. You done already?”

I burst out laughing. Every student’s first meeting with Hamish would be a one-time-only thing. I wanted to savor the moments. “Where’s Jana?”

Melissa gestured with her head toward the window. “Out jogging with Puppy. I imagine Runner’s still in the library.”

“Could you signal Jana to get back in here? Then I’ll go find Runner. I want everybody here when Holden gets back.”

Melissa looked back and forth between Hamish and me, puzzled. “Amy, he’s standing right...” Then she must have seen the same meeting-a-stranger look on Hamish’s face that had given it away to me. Her eyes got wide, and she squeaked in a near-whisper, “Hamish?”

Hamish and I both laughed. Melissa stood and crept closer for a better look. “Wow!” She threw her arms around Hamish. “It is so nice to meet you. Holden’s tried to be patient, but he’s been biting his nails for the last couple of weeks. I imagine you’ve been the same.”

Hamish brushed a sudden tear away. “Oh yeah.”

I said to Hamish, “You are used to the mix-ups, right?”

Hamish shrugged. “Not exactly. We’ve spent a long time around people who know both of us, and they’re kind of used to us. Every once in awhile in the last year I’d run into somebody and they’d say, ‘I thought you went to the Hanging Academy,’ but mostly they know about us. People we’re really close to can tell us apart. Some of the time, anyway.”

I gestured to Melissa again to go to the window, and said, “Everybody gets pretty close around here.”