Chapter 3

"Admirable."

False flattery? No. Something else. Manipulation.

Shannon knew she was being played with, but it was still her choice to play. Elizabeth Fisher's games made her feel not simply naked, but exposed.

"Admirable? All I did was attend a barbeque."

"How did you enjoy it?"

With all that she had done recently, Shannon hesitated to use the word. But it was the closest to explaining her feeling.

"It was obscene. Frat boys from Columbus. Sorority girls from Exeter. A bunch of freshman gawkers, all buying into the mythology of the Greek system hierarchy. And everywhere you looked was consumption. They were all showing off their most expensive new footwear, unnecessarily caressing their cells, drinking too much beer ... and the food. I don't know how many whole pigs I saw roasting. The smell was nauseating."

"This is pig country, Shannon. You know that. This whole region is built on pork subsidies. Your friend Bethany's father is prominent in the industry."

"She's not my friend."

"She's the only friend you have," Elizabeth stated patiently. It was as if she were instructing a very small child. " If you want to make it into Alpha Nu Omega, you'll have to remember that."

"Knowing Bethany might be an advantage to me, but she's made it clear than I'm not a friend. I still don't see how you could say buying into this sorority bullshit is admirable."

"It's a choice against your nature," Elizabeth Fisher explained, never straying from her calm, superior tone of voice. " Everything in your profile predicted an effortless and irreversible surrender to girls like Patty and Ruth. It looked very much like you had found your place, as a pet for them to toy with, as a work animal for their amusement, as a sacrificial offering for their appetites. Your choice to leave them is confounding. Now you're seeking the status and success of the elite sororities. It belies what you are."

"And what am I?"

"Let's just leave it at that."

"Let's not," Shannon pushed back, uncharacteristically.

She was pushing back a lot more these days. Her self-discipline restored, she would give herself no room to waffle. It meant being brutally introspective, and it meant forcing herself to be much more assertive than she was comfortable with.

It was this or it was surrender. And she knew how close she was to that edge too. So she challenged Elizabeth to explain her meaning.

"You keep dropping these hooks," she continued, "about my test results. You take meticulous notes every time we talk. What's it all for? It doesn't make any sense. If I'm as weak and pathetic as you claim, then why would someone like you..."

Someone commanding. Insightful. Bright. Too bright to simply be a college guidance counselor, Shannon had to conclude.

" ... why would you bother with me? You push me to follow Bethany into her world, the world of the privileged. Why? You seem sure that I'll fail, and I'm taking the bait. I'm just foolish enough to try to prove you wrong. What are you hoping to see? Are you watching to see how fast and hard I can run before I crash to the ground?"

Shannon's temper was flaring now, and for just a shadow of a moment, she felt she'd seen a reaction from Elizabeth. Was she close to the truth? Shannon had exposed everything about herself to this woman. She had recounted every sinful detail of her surrender to Ruth, and had admitted her every shameful reaction to those humiliations.

But Elizabeth Fisher always held back, carefully calculating her words to achieve her goals. Shannon was trying to push her now to reveal what those goals were.

"You know, you're much more interesting than Julia ever was."

With that statement, the session was over, and Shannon was left to wonder the meaning of this most recent clue.

The Political Science professor was, once again, carefully managing his exasperation. He had tried repeatedly this semester to seed independent thought in the girls. Shannon wondered how much he ever succeeded these days. Critical thinking was a dying art form.

"Have any of you ever heard of climate science?" he started this time, to no response. "Okay, how many of you ladies are enrolled in physical anthropology? Evolutionary biology? Just over a hundred years ago, these were legitimate avenues of academic study. Now, they're gone. Discontinued."

He was looking for a more engaged reaction. As it was, Shannon could see most of the girls were studiously avoiding his glance, hoping not to be called on to guess what any of this meant.

"Let me try this another way. Biology and genetics are still approved, in a limited way, so long as we don't try to apply it directly to humans. Before the courts stepped in, however, human genome work was advanced. Gene therapy was already in medical use. Human genetic engineering was absolutely a possibility – then, overnight, the work became illegal. Everywhere. The EU had, for different reasons, banned human genomics years earlier, leading to an exodus of their best scientist to America. And China ... where was China in this?"

He put the question out to the class, but was met with silence.

"The communist government negotiated for what was important to its own survival. Criticism over human rights issues evaporated. American companies were suddenly very cooperative with Chinese censorship policies. The annexation of Taiwan was met with little foreign comment. In return, China killed its own efforts in human genetic engineering."

"So where did all of these scientists go?" asked the professor, his tone of voice suggesting that the answer was amusing enough to make the whole lecture worth the punch line.

"Right here," answered Bethany, matter-of-factly.

She'd stolen his punch line, but the professor didn't seem to mind. " Care to be more specific?"

"Here. Iowa."

"Iowa? Now that's very interesting. Up to that point, I'm not sure Iowa would have been taken seriously as a destination for world-class research scientists to make a career. And suddenly, a good majority of the genetic researchers from America and Europe were flocking here. Why?"

"They needed work," answered Bethany. " Maybe it wasn't what they thought they'd be doing, but the pork industry was willing to pay them good money."

Shannon saw her opportunity. She didn't raise her hand. She pressed herself in, trying to emulate Bethany's air of confidence.

"I wouldn't say it was the pork industry paying the bills."

All eyes turned to Shannon, and despite her resolve to fight past these insecurities, she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks.

"I mean, it's well known that the pork industry was highly government subsidized at the time, and still is. These weren't legitimate hog producers who just happened to have millions of dollars lying around to hire geneticists. The pork business was consolidating down to a handful of companies, each well connected to back-room Washington politics. They scored some massive research grants to hire all those unemployed geneticist. I'm not sure the American public got back so much as a better tasting pork chop for their tax dollars. It was corruption, plain and simple."

It was an assault aimed at Bethany and her family, but in this crowd, there would definitely be collateral damage. Many of the girls here were connected through family ties to the pork industry. In fact, the one student who didn't join ensuing debate was Bethany.

Her words came a few minutes later, as Shannon was working her way towards the library.

Bethany pulled Shannon by the arm and led her around the corner of the building.

"You need to stop."

Shannon was actually a little proud of the commotion she had caused, and pleased to see that it had the intended effect on her rival.

"What? Can't take a little criticism of daddy?"

"Not that, you dope!"

Shannon cocked her head.

"The sorority. You need to withdraw your pledge."

"Why?"

"You don't belong. There are lots of reasons why, but you just proved one of them in that classroom. These girls will eat you alive. Honest."

Bethany was terse, much as she had been all semester to Shannon. She said only that, and then walked away.

Shannon was confused. More confused than she had been for a while. The clearest interpretation she could make of Bethany's manner was something...

... something like concern. And at the moment, it seemed genuine. It was like nothing she had seen previously in her friend, and it threw her off.

Both of the people who seemed to see past Shannon's defenses had now weighed in on her decision. Bethany was pushing her away from pledging, and Elizabeth Fisher was pushing her towards it.

The puzzle was not yet complete, and Shannon had very little time to work at it. The initiation ritual would commence this evening. There was just too much to process.

Julia. That was another one she was picking away at. Elizabeth wouldn't have dropped the name without some purpose. The only Julia that Shannon had ever known was a girl she'd lived with briefly at a foster home. They weren't close. Julia was several years older, and was into her own life – enrolling in Exeter College herself at the time.

It seemed so random. It would have to remain a loose thread, until Shannon had time to pursue it further.

The sun had fallen back behind the tops of the mixed canopy of trees, and shadows were lengthening across the arboretum grounds. Shannon wondered idly how the Greek societies had managed to arrange the arboretum gates be locked early, but with the kind of money available to these groups, it was a short contemplation.

A London plane tree, its thick trunk seemingly clad in military camouflage, was the starting line for the Pig Run. Shannon was nervous. Hazing like this was forbidden by the colleges, of course, but that was part of the hypocrisy. Everyone knew it was happening. School administrators even had some idea of how extreme it had become. They just didn't acknowledge it unless some tragedy caught media attention, and then they adopted their outrage.

As the patches of sky above took a deeper shade of violet, the start of the race was imminent. Shannon could feel it in the nervous tension of the other girls who were running tonight. The boys who were pledging to the affiliated fraternity, Beta Sigma, were milling about at the edges of the scene. There were something close to fourty of them, drinking beer and joking amongst themselves. They jostled each other excitedly, apparently having heard stories about what they were in for tonight.

Kit and Kat were in charge. The duo clearly relished their power over the pledges, both of the sorority and fraternity.

Kit was a blonde woman, older than college age. Like much of the sorority leadership, she was an alumnus. A pledge to Alpha Nu was a pledge for life. In her other life, the woman was probably a professional ... a doctor, or something similar. Here, she stepped effortlessly back into a youthful demeanor.

Kat was an Asian woman, also somewhere past thirty years old. Other than the difference in racial heritage, Kit and Kat carried themselves identically. They wore cute casual sportswear, expensive enough to demonstrate their status. The duo were energetic and in control.

"Welcome girls. Welcome boys. It's time to get warmed up for the Pig Run!"

Kit punctuated her sentence with the short burst of an air horn.

Kat explained the rules. " Now, boys, you've been released to Alpha Nu to complete your initiation. We expect you to treat our sisters with courtesy. We are ladies, after all."

"Our pledges, on the other hand ... well, they're not sisters yet," added Kit. " You don't need to treat them like ladies. In fact, for the night, you'll be treating them very much like pigs!"

"Alright boys ... remember the rules!" Kit continued. " You can take trophies from the runners, but you can't hold them down or block them from running. The real fun begins when we reach the finish line!"

Trophies? Shannon didn't like the sound of that. She was seriously beginning to think she should back out.

She fought back against this anxiety. These were just silly rituals, she told herself. They were designed to intimidate. The sorority leadership was testing the girls, and Shannon desperately wanted to pass. She needed a way forward. The only way she could every equal Bethany or her crowd was to become one of them, she reasoned.

The air-horn sounded abruptly, in two long determined blasts.

"Run, piggies, run!!" shouted Kat excitedly.

Adrenaline kicked in, and Shannon began to run.

I'm fine, she tried to convince herself. I'm a good runner. I can beat these girls.

And at first, it looked like she was right. She had a decent idea of where the path was leading – to the back buildings of the sorority complex at Alpha Nu. Even though the trees were casting an increasingly deep shade over the path, it would be a few minutes yet before the girls had any trouble seeing. And so far, the boys were hanging back from the group.

Shannon was keeping up with the front of the pack.

As the she could hear the boys closing in from behind, at full pace now, an unreasonable panic began to set in.

I'm fine, she tried to convince herself again.

But I'm being hunted, for fuck's sake. Chased down by a pack of drunken frat boys.

Her leg muscles were beginning their familiar burn, and her breathing was irregular now.

"Uhnf," a cry from behind, as one of the stragglers was knocked down by the hunting party.

"Take her blouse," the boys decided, before letting the girl go again.

It's getting too dark, Shannon began to worry. The boys had flashlights, and would be able to follow easily now. As the girls ran deeper into the shade of the arboretum, the sorority pledges were beginning to trip and stumble their way through the underbrush – missing the path completely.

Another girl was tripped up by the boys, and had her shorts taken as a prize.

Jesus, don't let them get me, Shannon begged, and then ran headlong into the trunk of a tree.

They were upon her before she could recover.

The light of a flashlight caught Shannon in the face as she tried to right herself. One of the boys shoved her back down, knocking the breath from her again. They were laughing, enjoying this part of the sport.

One of the boys pried off her right shoe, while another pair of hands pulled at her blouse. Shannon tried to cross her arm, but another boy caught up, and wrestled her hands away. It was long enough to help have her blouse torn away.

Shannon cried out in fear, convinced for a moment that it would all end here, with the boys assaulting her so that she couldn't finish. But then, as suddenly as they were upon her, the boys pushed her to her feet.

"Go on, piggy! Run," teased the largest of the boys, as he slapped her on the ass. Hard.

And she did. Shannon was breathless and scared, but she pushed forward, following the voices and lights around her in the woods. She could feel her lower lip swelling from where she had run into the tree, and she could taste a bit of blood on her tongue too.

Shannon paused for a moment to kick off her other shoe. The uneven ground and the darkness were enough of a challenge without having to deal with that.

"Half way there!" shouted Kit or Kat. Shannon couldn't tell the difference. " Come on boys! Are you going to let these pigs outrun you?"

Shannon tried to think of where she was in the pack. She wanted this over, but there was another worry now. She remembered the rumors that more severe hazing awaited the slowest runners. She was no longer near the front, but there were definitely girls behind. She could hear their cries as the boys took their trophies.