Chapter 44

Nine years later...

Time: February 27, year 204,883 7:52 PM Peruvian Local Time

The door opened and an angry young girl stomped into her dorm room. She then froze in astonishment and yelled, "Who the sink are you?!"

"Hi! My Short is 714. I've been transferred here from Kangnung."

"The plunge?! They're transferring kids now?!"

"So it would seem. Hello 825."

"You expect a sinking hello back?! You have a lot to learn! Get the plunge out of here!"

Short-714 shrugged her shoulders. "This is my home... And I like to learn. I don't mind."

The other girl looked momentarily bewildered at this strange eight-year-old girl on the second bed. She was calmly lying prone on top of the blankets in her pajamas reading a book. Her bare feet were up and relaxed in the air behind her. Short-825 couldn't understand why the girl wasn't running from the room in fright. She tried to sound menacing as she whispered, "You like to learn, huh? Well, listen and learn this 714. You really, really don't want to room with me."

"I was assigned here. It's not my choice. But really, I don't mind."

"Sinking yet!" The young girl slammed the door and threw herself down on the other bed in the small two-child dorm room. "You don't mind sinking yet! Do you know who I am?"

"Just your Long and Short. Your full ID was listed in my transfer log. 349877535:999:784:007-825."

"You sinking piece of filth! You've memorized my long?! What are you, a 999 too?! And tell me, you sinking 714, do you know what that double zero means?!"

Short-714 sighed. "Please, I'm not your enemy. You don't have to abuse me. And to answer your questions, yes to both. My aptitude index is 999, just like yours, and I know what that double-zero means. You've been black flagged. And seven is the code for O.C.D."

The other girl whipped out her black ID card waved it wildly in 714's face. "Sinking yes! Sinking Oppositional Conduct Disorder! So why the plunge don't you plunge yourself out of here?!"

Short-714 stared at Short-825 for a long moment, and then sat up on her bed and faced her directly. "I don't like wars. I don't like to fight them. There was a reason I was looking forward to meeting you, but if you want, we can pretend tonight that neither of us exists, and I'll request a transfer to another room first thing tomorrow morning. It might be a minor social demerit for me, but you've been black flagged. The last thing you need is... No... Wait..." Short-714 gave a long sigh. "It's not my place to judge. I apologize. Just tell me what you want."

"I want you to go plunge yourself!"

Short-714 astonished Short-825 by starting to laugh. "Oh, I don't think so! But I do understand you. Goodnight 825. I'll talk to housing in the morning." Short-714 turned off her reading light and went under her blanket, facing the wall by her bed.

Short-825 was quiet for a while, then rooted around for her bathrobe, hissed "Sink you!" and slammed the door on her way out to the common showers. Short-714 lay quietly, tired from her long day but far from sleep. Short-825 returned about a half hour later and did not slam the door again. She read briefly, and then turned off the light and lay on her bed.

The hours passed slowly. A few minutes past midnight, Short-714 heard the faintest of a whisper, "Asleep?"

Short-714 turned and faced the other bed in the darkness. She whispered back, "No. It's been a really big day for me..."

"Yeah... so you're a 999 too huh? You're the first one I've met in years..."

"Really? A city this size... two million... Shouldn't there be some others?"

"Oh, there are a few. Child Control keeps me isolated from them..."

"Oh... I've been isolated too... I was raised in a child incubator... the nine-year ones..."

"The plunge! Yes! I've heard about Korea! You've spent your whole life isolated in a tube?!"

"Yes. They cracked my seals less than a week ago. After the usual gestation incubator, I was put in a tube for another eight years and three months. All my life, my studying, my exercising, my social interactions... They were all computer simulations. The control systems used electrodes to develop my muscles..."

"The plunge! That doesn't sound fair..."

Short-714 sat up on her bed. "Well, maybe not. It's efficient though." She paused for a moment. "It doesn't sound fair what they did to you either, the isolation I mean. And the Black Flag..."

"Huh? Oh..." Short-825 shrugged. "Yeah, well... You don't know... There was an incident a few years ago... With me and some of the other 999's... Things got pretty ugly..."

"Oh..."

"Yeah... An incubator kid, huh? Gosh, I feel like excrement, the way I abused you. Welcome to the real world 714."

Short-714 felt a deep pang of guilt over her deception, but she kept it well hidden. "Yeah, thanks..."

"May I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"When I first walked in... You said... You said you had a reason... for wanting to meet me... What was it?"

"Well... I guess I do know a bit more about you. On the jet from Kangnung, I pulled up your public bio from your Long..."

"There's nothing in there..."

"It's got what you listed for a vocation, physics. That's what I've listed too."

"Get out! We must be the only two 999's on the planet listing physics!"

Short-714 yawned. "Yes... For our age, very likely... What is it, about one a year for the whole planet?"