Chapter 2

Of course it wasn't that simple. We didn't just throw a switch and things happened. We had to play with the memories of the kids we couldn't let back into Claiborne. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Fortunately, I think, Shannon had an answer.

"We let them change their memories," she said as we huddled in the computer lab.

"Beg pardon?" Irene asked. "How on earth do we do that?"

"We let them choose what their fantasy high school is," Shannon replied. "I've been working on something like that."

"Before we do that," Jared said, "we have some questions that need answers."

"Not about me, I hope," Shannon said. Her eyes narrowed, and I could see the tightness in her lips. "I'm not answering them."

"Not about you," Jared said, "though I'll confess I've got questions about what's going on with you. No, I have the same questions I've had all along. Why all of the sex? I know this place was designed subconsciously by a sex addict. We established that weeks ago. If you do it right, you can spend half the day having sex. Why? Why not be like normal people?"

"How about because we like it?" Shannon said. "I can't speak for Cynthia or Irene, but I like the sex. I know it isn't traditional in the classic sense, but I'm not exactly a traditional girl." She tossed her head, throwing her long brown hair back over her shoulder. "Given my upbringing and family politics, random sex should actually be normal for me. Certainly everyone who hung around the house acted that way."

"Can we leave politics out of it?" Irene asked. "I get too much of that where I live."

"I got nothing but that where I lived," Shannon said. "But that aside, what's your take?"

"I got burned by confusing sex and love," Irene said. "I thought I was in love, and he wanted sex. The result is in kindergarten right now. But if I take love out of it—"

"Can you?" Jared cut in.

"A girl isn't supposed to," Irene said. "We're only supposed to open our legs after we've got the ring on our finger, and then use it to keep the guy in line. Or haven't you been reading your history."

"I've been focusing on other things," Jared confessed.

"My personal opinion," Irene said, "is that line of crap stems from a number of things. First, it gives women power and control, and I'm sure Shannon will tell you all about the dangers those two things provide. Second," she continued before Shannon could do more than nod her head, "sex is a lot of fun, if a bit messy. And if teenage girls found that out, and were put in an environment where they could actually get sexual satisfaction—"

"That's especially important," I said, interrupting. "You know as well as all of us: guys don't come as fast as they do outside, and every girl here climaxes nearly every time she has sex."

"I can't speak for every guy," Alex said, "but when Shannon and I were together in Denver, it was awfully hard to hold back, a lot harder than it was here."

"That's my point," Irene said. "I've been with more than a few guys in real life; it was one of those things that was expected of girls where I went to school. And some of those guys had hair-triggers. They'd last about 20 seconds once they put it in. That never happens at Claiborne. And when guys take longer, the odds go way up that the girl is going to get where she wants to be. In two years of sex in the outside world I think I came from intercourse exactly twice, and both times it was with an older man. Usually I had to use my fingers to get some relief. I can't think of the last time I didn't come at Claiborne.

"You do feel possessive after sex with a boy," I said.

"That's hormones," Irene said. "Your body says you just made a baby, and the hormones want to keep the guy around so he can protect and feed you and your baby."

"So you want to keep the sex," Jared said.

Irene nodded. "I do. I get a lot of satisfaction out of it, and I can take or leave as much as I want. I'm 20, my body has quit changing every day, and I like the intimacy and sex, especially because I'm a woman, and my major sex organ is between my ears, and that's the kind of sex I get here. I vote to keep it."

"I wasn't going to advocate that," Jared said. "If someone wants Claiborne without the sex, we have the clone."

"It sure sounded like it," Shannon said. "All right, Irene says she wants the sex. I do, too. I get really turned on by a guy paying attention to me. It happens anyway, but I like the touching and intimacy. Sure, he puts his thing inside me, but I'm a girl, and that's the way girls have sex. We're not a unisex world, regardless of what some people think."

"I agree," I said. "I like the sex. I think it spurs us on. I've looked at the other two Top Tire schools. Mary Magdalene is a Jesuit school on steroids. And the other one, the all-girls school with the horseback riding? That's the spur they use to get girls to raise their grades. Here it's sex, an even more basic drive than horses."

"I thought girls liked horseback riding because they had something powerful between their legs, but didn't have to socially interact with it," Shannon said.

"That may be it for some girls," I said, laughing. "But there's a lot more than just getting off like that. You get into a horse's life, and it's a whole different world.

"Now I'll admit, I have reservations. But when I consider the alternative, I welcome all of the screwing and sucking. The girl who dreamed this up found a way to get rid of most of the petty little dominance games, cliques, and social pressures we all know about. You guys don't see it, but there's almost none of the female competition you get elsewhere, and almost none of the jealousy, either. Boys don't see what it's like to be a girl in junior high or high school with all of that going on.

"I agree," Irene said. "School can be a social cesspit for a girl. We don't have that. In the outside world you call a girl a slut if she has sex with three different boys in one day. That's normal around here."

"And don't forget the cliques," Cynthia said. "It's hard to flaunt designer clothes when everyone's naked, and a lot of girls use their clothes to set themselves off from the rest."

"You've given me reasons why we shouldn't tone things down," Jared said.

"And we've given you reasons why we want all the sex," Irene said. "A teenage girl can be a mess of insecurities and uncertainties. That's one of the things you have to resolve before you leave home. We can do that here without a lot of the other pressures a girl has to endure. I can give into my basest desires, and it's socially acceptable. Try that anywhere else."

"That's one of the reasons I didn't drop out," I said. "You didn't know that, did you? There's a point in Orientation where you can opt out of the whole Claiborne thing before you get into it."

"I'd forgotten about that," Shannon said. "We can use that to help weed out those who would wreck the place."

"Enough questioning, Jared," Irene said. "We could debate this for weeks and I think you still wouldn't hear the answers you want. I'm not even sure that answer exists."

Jared shrugged, but I could see she'd made a point. I'm not sure he was convinced, but that was Jared being stubborn. In the end he went with the wishes of the girls in the group, just as men always have when consensual sex is concerned.

"So we screen everyone, and select people for Claiborne One, and the rest go to Claiborne Two," Shannon said. "You realize that that word—"

"I suppose it has all sorts of political connotations," Jared said. "Can we avoid you bringing them up?"

"I'll try to rein it in," Shannon said. "I'm just saying we need to use a different word."

"Okay," Alex said, "we divide people into two groups, and each gets a version of Claiborne. How's that?"

"That's certainly accurate, and not even offensive. The trouble is," Shannon added, "if you look at something the right way, it will be offensive to someone. Selection—selektion—is one of those words. And if you don't know it, go read German history from the 30s and 40s. Oh, and don't read the official textbooks. People have tried to gloss over what happened for years.

"What I think we should do is call the clone Claiborne One."

"And this one?" Jared asked.

"Claiborne Zero, if we have to, or just Claiborne."

"With the politics aside," I said, "I think that's a good idea. Why don't we all put together a list of what will send someone in one direction or another."

We did, and by the time the session ended we had even run a few people through a version of what we wanted. It was by no means complete, but it worked well enough that we could see how to do it in the future. Shannon had already done a lot of this work, and was surprised at how easily it could be adapted.

"I might have some other uses for this," she said as we left.

"Something you want to talk about?" We paused at the base of the circular stairs that lead to the main floor of Claiborne. The boys were already climbing, and we both admired the view. I love watching rippling, powerful muscles as they flex.

Shannon, when the show was over, shook her head. "No, just something I need to do, and this'll be a tool."

I had an inkling of what she was up to. "For God's sake, be careful. Make sure you always have some deniability."

"And misdirection." She gave me her cold smile. "Remember where I grew up. I'll always be a suspect. I just have to make sure there are sufficient cut-outs between me and what happens that it can't be traced back to me. Now come on, I feel a certain need."

"I think I do, too." I giggled as we shared a smile. "Sometimes I wonder about Jared."

"I blame it on his father," Shannon said. "Too much psychology, and not enough just having fun for the sake of having fun."

"Yeah, everything has to have a reason."

She nodded. "And saying that you like sex because you like how it feels isn't enough for him."

We reached the top of the stairs and walked out into the hallway. You didn't have sex in the library, that was one of the few things everyone agreed upon. Instead you reserved it for right outside the door. And there were quite a few kids around us who had reserved it.

I gave Shannon a smile, and turned to the first boy who wasn't already busy. At a time like this I wasn't too particular: breathing and male were about the only things on my list, and Bill was both. He was most enthusiastically male, and his breathing got a bit ragged over the next few minutes. It was only fair, mine did, too.

We kissed after we'd calmed down a bit. It was a friendly kind of kiss, not the deeply passionate ones I gave Jared. But this led to a second kiss, and a third as he found other places to kiss. And suck. And nibble. So did I, and soon he was all stiff and pointy, and I was wet and receptive. He couldn't go to class with his thing sticking out like that, but I had a way of solving that particular problem. A few minutes of vigorous exercise took care of the stiffness. It also took care of my particular female itch. We were both in a much better frame of mind for Differential Equations.

When I got home my mother quizzed me about school. Part of it was because she was worried about Shannon, but part of it was her parental concern.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," I said. And that was true. It'd been a typical day at Claiborne: sex with Jared and two other boys, a presentation in class, a ton of homework, and work on our project.

"I'm just worried about this school of yours," she said. "I've been reading things on the web, and there are all sorts of questions being raised about online schools."

"I can arrange it so you can visit the place," I said after some quick thinking. "You wouldn't be actually present, but you could observe what was going on." Whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to spend time in the clone.

"You can do that? I thought ... I read that that wasn't possible."

"That was one of the things they had in the original schools," I said. "It got out of hand, though. Parents were going everywhere, and disrupting things when they didn't like what they heard from the teachers."

Mother's mouth tightened. "Yes, well, you're going to get a lot of that."

"If people are going to use schools as a babysitting service," I said, "then they have to learn to live with the consequences."

"That's only part of it," Mother said. "There was so much political indoctrination—"

"Still is," I said. "Ask Shannon."

"If I ever see her, I will. But there was so much of that, and so little actual learning, that parents had to take control of the education their kids were receiving. You were in grade school when it happened, but there was a huge stink about it."

"I read a few things about it." I didn't add that Shannon had told me all about it. The girl was a wealth of information on any subject involving politics.

"Still, I worry. I have to. Parents are responsible for their kids, and that includes school."

"I'll check," I said, "but I know we can set something up. There are limited facilities, so you can't do it all of the time. Other parents would want to do the same thing." Mother's face had started to cloud up, but eased when I said that about the other parents.