Chapter 16

Katherine Adams was a Brain. Without doubt the smartest student in the school, she was afflicted with the shyness that often goes hand in hand with great intelligence. Now a senior, she had never dated. She wore baggy clothes, her hair in an unattractive cut, and ugly glasses. She spent little time with her few friends. No nicknames for her, she was simply Katherine.

She had been invisible except in the girls' locker room. Her female classmates knew she was hiding an incredible body. They never teased her and never revealed anything about her to others. They felt sorry for her, really. She was very nice, scary smart and beautiful, but completely unable to handle her gifts.

That lasted until the Program began and she had to undress, shower and swim with the boys. Still, when they saw how much pain their attention inflicted on her, they pretty much left her alone. Most of the boys limited themselves to ogling her. Innocent, it never dawned on her that all the erections she saw were caused by her.

Some of the boys, jocks of course, found her irresistible. They wondered how she had hidden such great beauty for so long. They found the combination of her body, her innocence, her naiveté and her deep shyness a guarantee of an easy conquest. The sharks were circling, and she didn't know what to do about it.

Meanwhile, the Program itself was doing wonders for Katherine. She was holding her own at boxing, and successfully managing the anger and fear that went with it. She had even resigned herself to swimming nude and was working hard to improve her skill and speed. She was beginning to realize that people would follow her if she showed leadership.

Sarah was as close a friend as Katherine had, although Katherine had always studiously avoided even slightly embarrassing topics with her. Today, Katherine steeled her nerve and asked Sarah to join her at an empty lunch table.

"Sarah, I'm scared!" hissed Katherine. "I'm suddenly getting a lot of attention from boys. I don't want that. I don't know how to fend them off. Can you give me some advice?"

Sarah smiled and sighed. "Sure, Katherine, I'll do my best. It does take some courage, because running and hiding only makes it worse. It will actually help you if you let your frustration run. One way or another, you'll have to confront them, one at a time. You'll have to tell them you have no interest in them and they should go look for another conquest."

Katherine slumped. "Part of me knew you were going to say that. At least hearing it from you, aloud, is helpful. I see that the more I dodge some of them, the more they're encouraged."

"I'll keep an eye out for you during the day, and check in with you when I see you. Maybe my being with you will help you eliminate the first few. You won't hurt the feelings of the boys bold enough to really pester you. But be careful: a boy who has to use every last ounce of his courage to simply talk to you is easily damaged."

"Oh, Sarah," Katherine said, "that would be wonderful. I really appreciate your offer."

"Once you've succeeded in running off one or two," Sarah said, "it gets easier. I've been fending off the boys for a long time."

Katherine's head fell. "I have an even bigger problem. I have to pick a family, and I have no idea what to do. I'm a virgin, Sarah. I'm naturally shy. I dream I've created my own nightmare, picking the wrong boy."

Sarah smiled sympathetically. "I'm not going to pick a boy at all." Katherine gave her a quizzical look. "Oh, I need a male. But I realized that I need a dad for all the children. Any boy can father children. I want a dad, a man who will nurture and love the children. I'm afraid boys are too young to be a good dad. I'm going to find a shy, grandfatherly man to take. He'll have to be basically happy, and friendly and very considerate."

"Why didn't I think of that?" said Katherine. "That's a wonderful idea."

"I don't suppose your dad qualifies?" Sarah asked. "I'm not taking my dad. I'm going to be the sponsor in my household, and he'd never be able to be my subordinate."

"My dad is long gone, Sarah," Katherine sighed. "I do want to take my mother. She'll be OK with me. She's as shy as I am. How are you going to find such a man? If you find two, will you share?"

"I haven't found him yet," Sarah admitted. "I've put a bug in the ear of some folks who I trust. I'll find him. Yes, if I find more than one, I'll share."

"Thank you so much, Sarah," Katherine smiled. "I hate to bring up another thing. You've done so much for me already."

"Katherine," Sarah's harsh tone was softened by her smile. "You haven't asked anything I wouldn't gladly do for you. Come on, what is it?"

Katherine blushed. "I said it, but we blew right by it. A lot of girls are really frightened that they'll be virgins at the pickup. I'm a volunteer, but I'm still a virgin. I don't want to be a virgin when we're extracted. I don't want my concubine to be my first."

Sarah sighed, but smiled. "For that, I have an easy answer. I heard the girls sharing their fears. A lot of them don't have a brother or a father to do the deed. You're one of those girls. I asked a man that I know and respect to help some of those girls. He's such an honorable guy that, at first, he didn't want to. I went to his wife and prevailed upon her. She's all for it. Together, they've helped at least three girls that I know of. I talked to those girls. It was the most magical night they've ever had."

"Oh, Sarah! Will he help me, too?" breathed Katherine.

"Of course he will. I will tell you who it is, but I don't want you to brood about it. Tell me which night you want to do it. If the schedule works, I'll let you know. You tell your mom you're sleeping over at my house. I'll cover for you if she calls. I'll escort you to their house. They'll both greet you warmly and treat you like a princess."

"I trust you, Sarah," said Katherine. "Please tell me who it is."

"He's one of our proctors," Sarah said. "The mass extraction was his idea. He's on the Core Group committee guiding the Program." Katherine's mind flashed on the answer before Sarah said, "Bob Minter."

"The daytime segment of the Program is going very well," Jean reported at the beginning of the fifth Core Group meeting. We are beginning to see the attrition we expected. At my request, Dave buttonholed some students late last week. We chose the students who had natural ability but were slacking through the Program. Dave offered them the chance to proctor the adults, and perhaps to go on to manage the paintball, on condition that they personally put on the afterburners on their own effort. The alternative given them was that they were wasting their time and our resources, and that they should drop out. Seven did drop out, but we got a good group that really got religion. They tore through the work on Friday, Monday and today. I'll let Dave tell you about the evening segment.

"We did get more attrition yesterday morning. Six students came to me and withdrew from the Program. Amy is doing a nice job of re-constituting broken teams to keep the remaining teams at full strength."

Dave added, "We had about 120 adults show up last night for their first night. I'll bet eighty percent of them were men. I thought it went very well. My fear-of-God speech at the beginning wasn't as good as Jean's was for the students, but it worked out OK. Last night was the first night. I don't know if the buzz will bring more people in. I don't know how many from last night are jokers who won't stay. We'll just play it by ear. The student proctors did very well, by the way."

Ellen asked, "Were there very many injuries last night?"

"Amazing you should ask that, Dr. Waters," laughed Dave. "Typical weekend warrior injuries. Mostly pulled muscles. A couple of bad landings trying somersaults. Nothing serious that I know of. No problems in the boxing or pugil stick areas. I think the proctors kept them on a tight rein there. Some of those guys will hobble on those pulled muscles for weeks."

"Now that I think of it," quipped Bob, "it might not be a bad idea to choose some students who aren't natural leaders and make them proctor. The student, boy or girl, would have to demand obedience and respect from adults. Whaddya think, Jean?"

Jean answered, "That's a good idea. Maybe we can isolate some good candidates from the CAP sub-scores as well as from the teachers."

"Jean," John said, "I appreciate the segue. A truck and trailer containing CAP testing machines will be here in the morning. I'm not sure how many machines there'll be. Ellen, there's also going to be a 'med pod' in the truck. Can you clear your schedule long enough to learn how to use it? Sounds like those remaining in town should be fit as a fiddle when we go."

"Wonderful," said Ellen. "Maybe I ought to get my patients to see me in the truck, or something. Let me see what I have to work with, and what the technician wants to do. They are sending a human to teach me, aren't they?"

"Yes," said John. As I understand it, the driver won't even know what cargo he's hauling. The driver will drop off the trailer and leave. A Confederacy representative will arrive first. They didn't say how or when. How many of you can meet me tomorrow on short notice?"

When they thought about it, just about all of them could. They couldn't just drop-everything-and-come-running, but they could assemble well within an hour.

"Before we get with the Confederacy rep tomorrow," said Jim, "why don't we try to get our heads around where we are and what we want?"

"Let me try to answer," said Andy. "In a nutshell, we've got all the students and a whole bunch of adults in a program that's designed to indirectly teach them attributes we hope will raise sub-scores, and thereby the total CAP score, so that more can volunteer or the volunteers can take more concubines. Even the Confederacy doesn't know how to equate sub-scores with the total CAP score."

"That's pretty good, Andy," said John. "The Confederacy tells me they regard what we're doing as an important experiment. Nobody else has ever examined sub-scores, sent prospects off through a training program, and looked at what happens. Maybe the guy I'm talking to is a big fish in a small pond. But he says this experiment has huge potential for the way they teach students in the colonies.

"The guy tells me that, because this is an important experiment, they have waived all restrictions on the CAP testing centers. There is virtually no limit on the number of uses of the CAP testing machines. We can test people as often as we want. They asked us not to test those under age 14, but they won't stop us.

"They want us to do our analysis of sub-scores in an office built into the trailer that's coming tomorrow. The trailer is equipped with an AI -- whatever that is -- that will help us and will absorb our thinking and conclusions.

"So, let's go back to the students. We know already that most of them won't be volunteers. We haven't looked closely at individual CAP sub-scores. I think the first thing we should do is re-test every student, compare the sub-scores with the prior scores, and see if we can make any sense out of it."

"Wait a minute," Sarah said. "I think I just heard you say you want the Program only for those we think have real potential to significantly improve their CAP scores. Who is going to babysit the majority of former students who get expelled from the Program?"

"Hmmm," said John. "I guess I did mean that, and I hadn't thought of the consequences."

"There is merit to John's thinking," said Jim, "and Sarah's issue is also valid. The kids do OK during summer vacation but, in this case, I don't know how the former students will respond. It's like we're on a journey to paradise, and they've been abandoned to die."

Bob put in, "I heard another unspoken assumption in John's suggestion, that the Program should somehow be changed to make it better for those that remain. I'm not sure the Program should be changed. I don't mean this as disparagement, but we've always known that the Program would not benefit most of the students. I don't see why we ought to rub their noses in that."

"At the same time," said Amy, "the Program is one-size-fits-all. We don't need to teach leadership to the quarterback, and we don't need to teach mathematics to the nerds, for instance. It might be time for us to try to tailor the Program to emphasize some attributes over others."

The members fell silent for a time, contemplating. "This is the essence of this group," said Andy, "but we've digressed. Let's get the comparative data. The solutions we seek may jump out at us. But, for tonight, let's get ourselves back on track."

"OK," said John, "we re-test the students, Michael and Amy and others study the results and the changes, and we meet again to hash out the meaning. Let's go back to the test center."

"Where are they going to put the trailer?" asked Sarah.

"I'm sure the truck driver will drop it wherever we want," said Jim. "Where is that?"

"If we're focused on re-testing students," said Michael, "then it ought to put it in the school parking lot." There was no disagreement there.

"John," asked Amy, "what do you know about who is going to run the test center, how long it will be here, hours of operation, accommodations for the personnel, and such?"

"They were kinda hazy about that," allowed John. "The trailer will be here as long as we need it. I can't see them hauling it away nightly. I got the impression they'd follow our lead on when it should be open for business. How the technician gets here, and where he stays, weren't discussed."

"I guess tomorrow's meeting will be very useful," said Bob. "Let's move on."

"The shooting is about ready to go," said Jim. "Abner Honig insisted that we use two separate pastures to shoot skeet. We need four structures for the clay pigeon throwers, but that won't take long."

"It won't take any time at all," laughed Bob. "They're already out there. We talked on Saturday. Fred told John Underwood what we needed. John and his friends just went out to Abner's with materials, and built them. I think those structures would withstand artillery. The attendants will be safe. Abner's wife wants us to use their house to store guns, ammo and supplies. That way, Margaret gets some visitors."

"Bill's got the indoor shooting range completely done," added Jim.

"Our giant supply order hasn't arrived yet?" asked John. Bob shook his head. "I guess I oughta tell you that I authorized Fred to bill the town for about $40,000 worth of shooting and paintball supplies," he chuckled. "That brings us smoothly to the idea I spoke about earlier."

John produced a financial statement for the town. "This is for last year-end. You can see that there's a lot of money. A lot of the surplus is in the pension fund for town and school employees. There's only a handful of people that won't be extracted. More money is for maintenance. There's no sense maintaining empty buildings that'll never be used again.

"We can't do anything about the fact that some of us won't be extracted. If we do nothing, all of the town assets escheat to the state. There won't be enough people around here to have a viable town anyway. Let's have your thoughts."

Andy asked, "Can the state reverse our actions and make the town folk pay the money back?"

"No," said Jim, "if we observe the ritual, ordinances and such, it'd all be legal and it'd stand up. The question is, should we?"

"I hate to point this out," said Jean, "but this isn't the town council."

Andy laughed. "Anybody who gets extracted won't care. Anybody who stays gets a pile of manna from heaven. Who's gonna complain?"

"That was easy," chuckled John. "I thought we'd struggle over that for a long time. I'll get the town council on the paperwork, and paying off our bills and such. The effective date would be the date of extraction."

"Remember," said Jean, "that the extraction could occur at any time, no matter what that Confederacy guy says. The charter cancellation and payout should be all teed up for execution on short notice." There were murmurs of agreement.

"What's next?" asked Amy.

"A report on the database would be good," said Andy. "Matchups and such."

"That's my cue," chuckled Michael. "Of the original 1,187 total population we recorded, there are only seventy male and twenty female volunteers, a total of ninety. The total population was 802 adults and 385 children, so ninety volunteers isn't as bad as it sounds. So far, thirty-seven people have moved back into town and checked in using their CAP cards. Only one of those is a volunteer. The matchups, and the family-building, are still going slowly. There doesn't seem to be any hurry, I guess, or some want to keep their plans secret."

Jean said, "Again, the extraction may occur on very short notice. We need to strongly encourage people to formalize their family groupings. I guess it starts at the top. We need to show some leadership, and I'll tell you what we've done. Mike and I are both volunteers. Our Brandon is in service, and can't go. We're taking our Megan with us. We're also taking Amy and her sister Angie. We still need three more and we haven't decided who they will be."

John, Jim and Andy admitted they had not begun working on this issue for themselves, except that all were taking their wives and children. The group teased Dave that he had so many choices, he couldn't make up his mind. Sarah had only decided on her mother. Michael was taking his mother and probably his sister.

All eyes turned to Ellen. With a sigh, she began. "No secret survives for long in a small town. I have invited Bob, his Kathy and daughter Sandy to join me. They have accepted. I'll take my housemate, Julie. I haven't decided on the rest. If Bob's CAP score improves sufficiently so that he can volunteer, we're going to have a joint family."

Ellen was surprised at the very favorable response she got from the group. She and Bob exchanged significant looks. The entire team promised to put serious effort into formalizing their family-building. Michael said he'd get the information shared at the meeting into the database.

They soon wound up the meeting and headed for their various homes. As they parted, they expressed support and pleasure to Jean and Amy and to Ellen and Bob. When the others were out of earshot, Jean told Ellen that Amy, her sister and the two children had moved in with them. When Ellen expressed hesitation to follow suit, Jean pointed out that now was the time to discover whether the new family could live in harmony. After the extraction, their options would be greatly limited.

Jean and Amy waved goodbye and walked toward their home, arm in arm. Bob persuaded Ellen to drop in on Kathy and Sandy to discuss it. They headed toward Bob's house, but maintained a distance between themselves.

"You didn't mention the boys," Bob said to Ellen.

"I just couldn't bring myself to reveal that just yet," Ellen admitted.

"I think that's fine, Ellen," Bob murmured. "You've made miles of progress already and, from what I can see, you're doing very well."

"Bob," Ellen giggled, "I can't tell you how well I'm doing. But let's get to your house before we start on this. Kathy and Sandy should participate."