HELPER12

by Jack Blaine

  “Stop your whining, girl.”

  I got out of bed too, and went to try to calm Motie down. We could all get in trouble if we got caught up after last bell.

  Cinq was white-faced when I got there, covering her cheek with her hand, staring at Motie like she wanted to kill her.

  “You,” she said, low and hard. “You don’t know enough to know what it’s like when you’re not meant for . . . for this.” She swept her hand out at the room, at the beds, at all of us. “They made a mistake with me. My initial tests showed an Artist, not a Baby Helper.”

  Motie was unimpressed. She grabbed me and dragged me in closer, and shoved the sleeve of my tunic up.

  “They make mistakes all the time, girl, and they correct their mistakes.” She twisted my arm up close to Cinq’s face.

  “You see that—see that, girl? That’s a B. Benna showed as a Breeder, girl, in her initial tests. And now she’s here with the rest of us, with a nice black H on her arm. So you may as well shut it about your artistic leanings.” Motie let me go.

  “And another thing, girl.” Motie leaned down until she was spitting her words on Cinq’s face. “You better stop grabbin’ it with that boy. I’m not getting a CBA because you want some Society ass.”

  The whole dorm went silent. I wonder now, how many of the other girls knew as much as Motie did then. I was oblivious to it all until that moment. That the boy with no tattoo was a Society boy, that Cinq was having sex with him, that all of us could be Charged By Association and be sent to labor camp because of it. I had no clue. But Motie knew. And now, so did everyone else.

  Of course, someone told. Because they were afraid, I imagine. And after our showers the next morning, before we were dressed for training, they came and took Cinq away. They had to drag her, because she knew where she was going. The next time the air filtration stopped working, there was a new boy, with a black L on his arm.

  Motie told me later that the Society boy had probably done something stupid and been sent here to put a scare into him. It turned out she was right; before I left training for the Ward, three more boys with no designation tattoos showed up. They worked for a week and then vanished. And none of us ever looked in their direction.

  I haven’t thought about Motie in years. I remember how I felt that night, when she shoved my arm under Cinq’s nose. I hadn’t told anyone else there about my lasered-out B. I was ashamed of it for some reason. When I told Motie, I told her it was our secret. She’d said of course it is, Benna, of course. And I’d believed her.

  I don’t know what happened to Motie. She didn’t get assigned to the same Ward as me, and I never sought her out. I hate to say it, but I think she was the one who told on Cinq. I understood, even then, why she did it. But I could never look at her the same way after that.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Thomas hasn’t come back yet. Dinner was over hours ago, Jobee’s asleep in his crib, and I’m in my bed, lying awake in the dark. Tomorrow, the Sloanes are due back from their trip, and I can’t stop crying. I’m being very quiet so I don’t wake Jobee, but I can’t stop the tears. I feel like poor Cinq must have felt, as though someone has made a horrible mistake.

  Helper made a point of setting one plate at the formal dining table for me. When I came to the kitchen with Jobee to eat, she turned me away.

  “I’m sure you would prefer the dining room,” she said. “Your place is set there.” And she sneered. The Driver wouldn’t look up from his own plate.

  When I went to the dining room I found a covered dish waiting. Underneath was a bowl of thin, cold soup. Nothing else. I started to eat it, but then I thought about what Helper might have done to it and I couldn’t. I fed Jobee his bottle, and came upstairs hungry.

  I am so tired. I just want to be unconscious, but sleep won’t come. I get up and splash some water on my face, to see if that will help. As I’m climbing back into bed, I hear a door downstairs—I think it’s the door to the courtyard. Thomas must be back. I tiptoe to the window, and see that the Driver has parked the vehicle in the courtyard—he left to pick up Thomas after dinner. I shouldn’t care, but I feel relieved. He was so angry when he left this morning.

  I hear something downstairs, some sort of scuffle I think. I open my door to the hall, and creep out onto the landing. Light floods upward from the main floor.

  “Sir! Mr. Thomas, stop!”

  It’s the Driver, and he sounds strange. I’ve never heard him speak to Thomas in that tone. There’s a bang, and some more scuffling.

  “Let go of me now, Driver or I’ll—”

  I hear the Driver shout, but I’m listening for Thomas. Shadows flash on the walls and I see someone stumble into view. It’s him. He grabs the rail of the stairway, and begins to pull himself up the stairs as though he’s hurt, or so tired he can barely stand. The Driver is hovering behind him, trying to steady him. But when he reaches out to touch him Thomas strikes out at him almost blindly, shoving him away.

  “Just leave me!” His voice is ragged, hoarse.

  I must gasp or something, because they both stop and look up.

  Thomas’s face is ashen, and his eyes are swollen. He’s crying, so hard I don’t know how he can see through the tears. But he does—he sees me, standing on the landing looking down. And if it’s possible for him to look more anguished, for one split second, he does. Then, his face stills, though his tears still flow. He shakes his head, such a slight movement I might have missed it easily, and he looks away from me, straight ahead, at nothing.

  “I’m fine Driver,” he says, in a dead voice. And he goes to his room and closes the door, so quietly and carefully I can’t make out the click of the latch.

  I stand there frozen. The Driver looks up at me then, and his face is like a reflection of my own—sorrowful and torn. He wants to go after Thomas, I can tell.

  “Go,” I whisper down to him. “Go and help him, please.”

  He shakes his head at me.

  “I’m not who he needs, miss.” He stares up at me for the longest time, and then he bows his head and backs away.

  I check on Jobee; he’s sleeping soundly. I tug on my robe and slip out my door, shutting it as softly as I can. I tiptoe down the stairs, and down the second floor hall to Thomas’s room. I put my ear to the door, but I can’t hear anything. I tap lightly on it and wait. Nothing. I’m afraid to knock any louder; who knows where Helper lurks after dark. I try the door, and the mechanism gives—he hasn’t locked it.

  Slowly, as silently as possible I open the door, just wide enough to let me slip through. It’s dark in the room, and I stand there trying to let my eyes adjust.

  “What do you want?”

  It’s a low growl, almost inhuman, and I jump when I hear it. He’s sitting on his bed across the room. The moonlight is streaming in through his windows, and as my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, I can see the shape of him. He’s shirtless, and his shoulders are gleaming.

  “Thomas, what happened?” I whisper, almost afraid to speak to him.

  “What happened? What happened?” He laughs then, a wild, guttural sound with no mirth attached to it. He shakes his head. “She killed him. That’s what happened.”

  I stand still, shocked. Then I cross the room quickly. I’m sitting next to him in a moment, my arm around his shoulder.

  “Thomas, what are you talking about?”

  He rocks back, throwing my arm off of him. He grimaces, and shakes his head back and forth. I know he’s fighting more tears. He covers his face with his hands.

  “Go away, just go. Please!”

  “I can’t leave you, Thomas. Not like this.” I get off the bed, and kneel in front of him. I take his hands in mine, and pull them away from his face. His eyes are glittering in the moonlight, brimming with tears.

  “Is Gregory dead?” I whisper, as though perhaps if it’s only whispered, it won’t be true.

  Thomas’s face crumbles then. He nods, but he can’t speak. He reaches for me, and pulls me in, holdi
ng me so tight I feel like I might not breathe again. Then, suddenly, he pushes me away, gently, but firmly.

  “You should go,” he rasps.

  I can’t go.

  I rise from the floor, and carefully, I kneel on the edge of the bed facing him, one knee on either side of his thighs. I lower my body until I’m sitting on his lap. I touch his forehead, gently smoothing my fingers across his brow. His head hangs down; he’s oblivious to me. I rake my hands through his hair, combing it back from his face, tangling my fingers in it.

  “Benna,” he whispers, his breath coming faster. He takes my hands in his, and brings them to his lips, kisses them both, one after the other. Then he starts to let go. But I won’t let go of him. I squeeze his hands, and push them down to his sides, then behind his back. I kiss his lips, more slowly, more gently than I’ve ever kissed anyone’s. Then I kiss him a little harder and press my breasts against his chest, tilting him back just a bit. He gasps, and I kiss him again, even harder, holding his hands tight behind him. I nuzzle his ear, and then I lick it.

  “Thomas,” I say. “Lie back.”

  Chapter Twenty Six

  I lay in my bed, letting the sun wake me slowly. I stretch, and turn toward Jobee’s crib. He’s awake too; I can see his hands waving above his head. When I came back to my room last night he was still sleeping peacefully. I kissed his forehead softly and covered him back up with the blanket he always shrugs off. Then I slipped into my own blankets.

  Thomas was sleeping when I left him—fitfully—but sleeping. I hope he still is, right now. He needs some respite.

  When Thomas went to the facility where his mother put Greg, he found a locked room where his brother had been staying. When he found the Director of the place, he was told there had been an accident and that his brother was in the medical unit. On the way there, they passed his brother’s old room again, but this time the door was open. There was a person inside, an old woman in a Helper uniform, cleaning blood off of the walls. The Director tried to stop Thomas from going in, but Thomas went crazy, grabbing him by the neck, threatening his life if he didn’t tell what had happened.

  That’s when he told Thomas that Gregory was dead. He said the other person in the room—a man who was admitted just that day—had turned out to be completely unstable. He said the man attacked Gregory and before anyone was aware of what had happened, he’d cut Gregory’s throat with a knife. They didn’t know where the knife came from, or what set the man off. They only knew that Gregory was dead. He’d bled to death on the floor of the room before they could even try to get him to the medical unit.

  Thomas insisted on seeing Gregory’s body, where they had him covered up in the medical unit. He said there was nothing left of his throat, that he had been nearly decapitated. He couldn’t say anymore about it.

  I shudder remembering; and make myself think of other things. Like Thomas’s gentle, knowing fingers, and his body next to mine. I shake my head, still in wonderment at how it was. It was like nothing I’ve ever done—no grabbed touch from a complex boy even approached it. It wasn’t just the pleasure of it, it was something else—some connection I felt to Thomas. I feel it still, though we’re not together in the physical sense. I think he felt it too. No, I know he felt it.

  But his parents arrive back today. He’ll be sent to a new school, and I’ll be here. I don’t blame Thomas, but I know how things have to be from now on. I just hope he does. Last night he kept saying we can’t do this Benna, we can’t. But I don’t think he meant what I mean. I think he wants to try to be together somehow. He still thinks there is some way. But he’s wrong. Motie knew that. I know that, too. I’m a Helper. He’s a Society member. Any mistakes that were made have already been corrected. We can’t be together.

  I wrote him a letter last night, when I got back here. I told him how it is, how it has to be for us. I took the drawing I made of him during our day in the country and I slipped it and the letter under his door. Then I came back here and slept.

  I don’t see Thomas until right before the Sloanes arrive. I’ve kept Jobee upstairs most of the morning, but he wants the courtyard—he reaches for the window and cries when he wants out. So I relented, and took him down into the afternoon sun.

  In just a few minutes, Thomas comes out to the courtyard. He walks over and sits in the chair next to me. He doesn’t look at me; instead he watches Jobee.

  “I got your letter,” he says, quietly.

  I nod, but say nothing. I look over at him. He is gaunt today, shadows under his eyes, grief in them. Nothing will bring Gregory back.

  “I know you think we have to be apart.”

  “I don’t think it.” I look away from him. This is so hard. “I know it.”

  “You’re wrong, Benna.”

  “I’m Helper12, remember?” I stare at him until he looks at me. “I’m a Helper, nothing more.”

  “Do you know why you’re a Helper, Benna? Do you?”

  “I tested and tracked as a Helper. I have the correct aptitude to—”

  “Why did they mark you with a B first, Benna?”

  “There was a mistake.” I recite it from memory. “Initial tests indicated that I could be tracked for Breeding, but then they must have found . . . something wrong with me. So they corrected the mistake, and made me a Helper.”

  Thomas looks at me with such sadness. He inhales, a deep breath, and exhales it. Then he speaks.

  “Do you know what my father does for a living, Benna?”

  If he wasn’t speaking so quietly I would get up and leave, just to stop him from saying my name. If Helper heard, we’d both be in trouble.

  “Do you?” He waits.

  “He’s in some sort of business, I imagine.”

  “Yes, he is,” says Thomas. “He’s a consultant, actually, for the government. He reviews statistics, makes predictions about future requirements for maintaining the infrastructure, that sort of thing.” He leans toward me. “The government pays him to let them know what they’ll need in the future, Benna.” He waits to see if I’m following his words. “What they’ll need, Benna, in terms of labor.”

  I stare at him. I know he’s trying to tell me something, but I have no idea what.

  “So?”

  “So. If the government gets statistics from my father, and from other consultants like my father, which all indicate they will have a high demand for, say, Laborers of one sort or another, in twenty years, then that’s what they plan for—lots of laborers in twenty years. Or if the consultants all come back with reports that Surgical Helpers will be in short supply, then that’s what they plan for.”

  “What do you mean, plan for?” I’m confused. “What if there aren’t enough babies testing out as Surgical Helpers?”

  Thomas watches me in silence. I frown at him and shake my head.

  “Sometimes,” Thomas continues, “the consultants will make a mistake. There will be a faulty algorithm, or something, and they’ll get results that aren’t accurate.

  “For example, about seventeen years ago, the consultants all came up with reports indicating that there would be a huge need for Breeders, around now. But then, they did some more figuring, and they found that there was a problem with the model they were using. So they retracted their first predictions, and scaled down the number of Breeders they said would be required.

  “Some of the quotient had already been defined, as my father calls it.” Thomas looks down at my arm. “So they had to fix that.”

  “And then, horror of horrors, years later they found out that the original modeling was actually correct. That can be troublesome, because then you have a shortage, in this case, for example, of Breeders. Which means you have a shortage of babies, right about now.

  “Had you noticed a shortage of babies, Benna, before you left the Ward?”

  I stare at my arm, at the pale, lasered B—a ghost of what was—and at the faded black of my H.

  “They just . . . assign the babies to tracks?”

 
“Yes.” He says the word gently, as though he can stop it from hurting me.

  “I could have been . . . anything?”

  “You still can.”

  I laugh. I laugh at him. Because he’s so stupid.

  “No I can’t,” I say. And I take Jobee upstairs.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  I hear them screaming all the way up in my bedroom. The Sloanes arrived shortly after I took Jobee upstairs, and they were greeted with the news that their oldest son had been expelled from school and their youngest son was dead. Ms. Sloane started at top volume, right away. I can’t make out many words, but I can feel the anger.

  “ . . . saying you didn’t know, Mother?” That’s Thomas, shouting. I hear her shrieking something and then he roars back at her.

  “ . . . like to have me wiped, too—”

  That’s cut off by Mr. Sloane’s voice, sharp and short. I don’t know what he says but I can hear Ms. Sloane’s shrieks getting quieter. Doors slam. I stand behind my door on the third floor, trembling.

  I have to go down finally, to get Jobee some cereal. He’s been fussy all day; I think he can feel the tension as much as I can. He needs something more than formula to help him settle. I carry him with me, and creep down the stairs past the second floor as quickly as I can.

  The kitchen is empty. I find the cereal and mix some up. I’m searching for a spoon when I hear something behind me. I turn.

  It’s Ms. Sloane. She looks awful. Her eyes are red and her hair is flat on one side of her head. She jumps when she sees me.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammer.

  “Oh!” She shakes herself, as though a spider is crawling on her. “I had no idea you were in here.” Her expression softens. “My baby, my William. She reaches for Jobee. “Give him to me.”

  I don’t want to, but I have no choice. She takes him, too fast, and he starts to cry.

  “There, there, now William, there.” Ms. Sloane jounces him on her hip. Jobee cries harder and reaches out for me. She turns him away from me immediately. He cries harder.