62 ran after his brother and they ducked between several lines of Boys waiting their turn to shower and change. They made it to the stall where the pants and tunic lay just as the Boy in the front of the line began to raise his hand to indicate that there was a problem.
"Put your hand down!" 62 shouted as he and 99 both grabbed hold of the other Boy's arm and tugged it back toward his side. "Don't tell the Machines about the clothes, they belong to me. I forgot them."
The other Boy, who they could see was Boy 57, looked shocked at the sudden assault. "You forgot them?"
"Yes, he forgot them. Now let's get him changed and you showered before all three of us end up sprayed," barked 99 as he grabbed hold of the clothes and thrust them at 62. He glared at 62 until he started to change his clothes, then pushed 57 toward the Shower Assistant and turned him so that the Machine could scan his chip. Once satisfied that everyone was in their place and doing what they should 99 turned to the line of Boys waiting their turn. He made a fist and snarled, "And the rest of you, you didn't see anything. If I hear that one of you told the Machines about this, I'll use everything I know about Defense on you!"
Not waiting to find out what 99 might know about Defense, the Boys all nodded their agreement to not tattle. He lowered his fist and now that 62 was changed, grabbed him by the arm and led him toward the exit.
"Thank you for that," 62 said briskly. "I don't even want to think about what might have happened if I'd passed the scanners at the exit in a dirty tunic. Or if the Nurses found out that I'd lost my clothes."
"Don't mention it," said 99. Obviously irritated that he had gotten involved in the mess to begin with he added, "And don't do it again. I'd hate to lose another brother to the Machines just because he forgot to put pants on."
"I was just thinking."
The two Boys walked in silence toward their classroom. Once they reached the door without being stopped by Transportation Aides, they each exhaled the nervous breaths they had been holding.
"You said that you were thinking," 99 said. "What is there to think about? You were just getting dressed. Hardly anything to think about in there other than lifting your arms to make sure your pits get scrubbed."
"I can't tell you." 62 shrugged and looked away.
Both Boys entered the classroom and took their seats. 62 was glad that there were still a few empty desks, which meant that they weren't late yet. 99 looked at him out of the corner of his eye, obviously curious about what was on his brother's mind, but didn't say another word about it.
After the last seat was filled, the door closed and the tablets began to glow their pale white light. Man 71 stood and rapped his hand loudly against his desk. "It has come to my attention that there was some trouble in the Dressing Hall this morning."
Both 99 and 62 turned in their seats to glare at 57 with daggers of accusation.
The old Man caught the three Boys assaulting each other with their eyes and cleared his throat. "As I was saying, I was told by sources unknown that there was a bit of confusion this morning. While none of the parties involved made a report of the events..."
57 turned up his hands and opened his eyes wide in exasperation, signifying to the other two that he had stuck to his promise and not said a peep.
"... we would all do well to remember that every action we make, or do not make is seen and recorded by the sensors, Aides, Assistants and other Machines around us. You may think that you can act or react in a certain way and just because a bot doesn't come barreling down the corridor at you, that you haven't been caught. Fortunately, or not, this is not the case." The teacher wrapped his fingers through the heft of his beard and twisted it in a knot before continuing. "Because of this fact, I am pleased to present the first behavioral award in this class, which provides the opportunity to tell you about them."
Behind him, digital images of Boys 99 and 57 flashed onto the wall. Below their image their full identification numbers were displayed in large, bold numbers.
"99, you were presented with an unsatisfactory situation and immediately, without prompting, produced your own directive to correct it. For this, you are being awarded the Defensive Leadership Award. This award, along with your current test results, will be saved in your data file and will be considered when the time comes for the Head Machine to assign your career duties."
Beneath 99's photo the words "Defensive Leadership" appeared.
"And then there is Boy 57." Man 71 looked kindly at the exasperated Boy. "In a time of stress, you displayed loyalty and discretion. For this, you are being awarded the Labor Allegiance Award."
Beneath 57's picture, the words "Labor Allegiance" appeared and the Boy sighed, frustration showing in his flushed cheeks.
"Now, don't fret, 57. First, there is nothing wrong with being a Laborer. Without their steady hands, consistent output and reliability the entire Community would collapse. But, just because you receive one award in a category does not mean that is where you will be placed when the time comes. This is just the first of many awards you will earn during your time here." The old Man waved his hands around the room and added, "Yes, there will be a great many awards. Each one of you are continuously monitored so that you can be caught in the act of doing good deeds, and can be rewarded swiftly and appropriately."
The photos and the words projected on the wall faded back into the white background. Each of the Boys' tablets made a slight dinging sound and text filled the previously blank screens.
"Before you, you will find a complete description of the award system. For the remainder of the class, you are to read the description and then select those awards that you are most interested in achieving. Please take special care when you read through the sections that mention the removal of awards." 71's expression became long and tired as he added, "The removal of awards can be very painful and can have very long lasting effects."
71 returned to his hover chair, swiveled it around so that his back faced the class and didn't utter another word.
CHAPTER 5
When the tones signaled the end of class all of the Boys quickly set down their tablets, got up from their desks and formed a line to exit the room. All of the Boys, that is, except for 62 who lingered a moment while the drawings on his tablet faded away into the white screen. Once the last line vanished, he set the tablet down and folded his hands in his lap politely, just as he had been taught back in the Nursery.
The Nursery had its own classroom with smaller hover chairs placed in a large circular formation. The Boys were taught to sit with feet flat on the floor and hands folded neatly in their laps while they waited to be called on by a Nanny.
62 waited although he didn't know exactly what he was waiting for. Man 2871 was still sitting in his hover chair facing the far corner of the classroom. All 62 could see of the Man were his two thin legs dangling off the far side of his seat and a sliver of skin atop his bare scalp. After the last of the Boys had been gone for a while, and the sounds of Boys and Men shuffling down the tunnels to their pods had faded, 62 began to wonder if something was wrong.
Nervousness caused 62's left leg to begin shaking, and without thinking, his toes tapped the hard concrete floor beneath them. He waited just a bit longer and then his anxiety overcame him and he stood up too quickly, accidentally knocking his tablet off of his desk. 62 tried to dive down and catch it before it hit the floor but it fell through his fingertips and landed with a slap against the concrete. The noise caused 71 to sit up abruptly and let out a thunderous snort.
71's chair turned toward the source of the noise. The teacher yawned wide and looked over the classroom with an expression of sleepy surprise. Not knowing what to do, 62 abandoned the tablet. First he stood up as straight as he could, then he fell back into his hover chair and folded his hands in his lap.
"62," Man 71 said in a gravelly voice as he rubbed his face with his hands, "where are your brothers?"
"Class ended, Sir." 62 did his best to sit still but his nerves made his toes start tap
ping again. "I thought I was supposed to stay for the tooting? Or torting? That thing that you said before."
Man 71 rolled his head, neck and shoulders slowly. He arched his back and stretched his arms as wide as they would reach. "Ah, yes. Tutoring. Certainly not tooting, that is something completely different. I'm not sure that torting is even a word, although I know there are still many words that I have never heard before."
62 was confused by the Man's sleepy eyes. "Sir, were you... asleep?"
"Yes," 71 replied with a sly smile. "Yet, at the same time, no. I was dreaming the most interesting dream. I wish I could tell you, but I'm afraid that I have to keep this one a secret. At least, for a little while."
The old Man winked at 62 with one eye, a gesture that the Boy had never seen before.
"A secret?" 62 began to feel like there was nothing 71 would say that would make any sense. "What's that?"
71 sighed and turned to the blank glowing wall behind him. The second that his back was turned, 62 tried to make the same winking motion with one eye and then the other. 71 had performed it so effortlessly, but 62 wasn't able to make his eyes work the same way. Instead of winking, his face contorted into a mixture of scrunches and grimaces.
"A secret, my dear Boy, is something that you know that no one else knows." He turned around and caught 62 trying to wink.
62 was holding his right eye open with one hand and pushing his left eye closed with the other. The sight made the Man laugh, and he walked across the room to the desk nearest 62 and sat down in the too-small chair.
71 continued. "The only way that someone else might know a secret is if you tell it to them. You must be very careful to whom, or what, you mention your secrets. You never know what they might do with the information."
"I don't understand." 62 abandoned his attempts at winking and folded his hands in his lap again.
"Your drawing, for example. That is a secret. It is something that you do that only you know about. Unless of course, you've told one of your brothers." 71 raised his thick eyebrows. "Have you mentioned your drawing or your dreaming to your brothers?"
"No," 62 whispered. "I didn't want them to think that I am doing something bad. I don't want to be a bad Boy." 62's eyes suddenly lit and he asked excitedly, "Is tutoring a secret?"
71's eyebrows returned to their usual spot on his forehead. He folded his hands under his arms and then lifted his chin to pull his beard out of the tangle. "Tutoring is not a secret, as I had to get permission from the Head Machine to do it. However, what I would like to discuss with you during our hour together is not exactly what I told it we would be working on. So in that way, the content of our tutoring is a secret."
"I like secrets," 62 decided aloud. "It makes me feel..."
"Different?" 71 asked.
62 nodded. "Different."
"There is much that you have to learn about the values of sameness and difference. Although many Men would not agree with me encouraging it, I am pleased that you enjoy the feeling of difference." 71 pulled his right arm out of its tangle under his beard and as his sleeve fell back, glanced at a small square tablet strapped to his wrist. "Unfortunately, I think my dreaming lasted a little too long. We've only a few minutes left. There is a question that I wanted to ask you. When you dream, what do you see?"
62 sat in silence for a moment and tried to decide how to describe the things that filled his dreams when he lay asleep in his cube. "Usually just shapes and equations from class. Numbers and letters that I chase, and playing with my brothers in the Nursery."
"Is that all that you see?" 71 leaned forward until he was so close to 62 that their noses almost touched. He whispered quietly, "You can tell me. I will keep your secrets."
The small Boy closed his eyes and breathed in deep, and held his breath for several seconds before letting it out again. Without opening his eyes, he reached his hands up in the air and said, "A place with no Machines."
CHAPTER 6
His first tutoring lesson complete, 62 was escorted down the long tunnel and back to his pod by a Transportation Aide. The Machine repeated the same phrase over and over again.
"This concludes your supplementary lesson... This concludes your supplementary lesson..."
62 ignored the repetitive statement and focused instead on keeping up. The Aide had no concern for 62's short strides and didn't pause when he started to take gasping breaths from the effort. By the time he made it back in his cube with the door shut behind him, he was seeing spots in front of his eyes and his chest burned. He was glad to be back in the small room where he could lie down and rest. He sprawled across the floor, closed his eyes and did his best to pace his breathing.
Once able to open his eyes without seeing spots, and could both inhale and exhale normally, he reached over and pulled his blanket from the cabinet. He adjusted into his favorite sleeping position and pulled the blanket up over his head to block out the light creeping in from across the hall. Sleep came quickly. Rather than the blank and dark emptiness that accompanied most Boys sleep, 62's mind pushed him into vivid dreams.
He found himself in a large room surrounded by thousands of his brothers, all of them answering questions on their test tablets. When he looked down at the tablet in his hands, just one word blinked in and out of the white background.
DISSASSEMBLE
DISSASSEMBLE
DISSASSEMBLE
62 felt the heat build inside of him. It filled his chest until it seemed he would burst, and then swept through his body to the ends of his fingers and toes. He felt the boiling inside and heard a loud drumming in his ears.
DISSASSEMBLE
DISSASSEMBLE
DISSASSEMBLE
All of the other Boys in the dream stopped working on their own lengthy problems, and turned to look at him. He could see himself from their perspective almost as if he were floating beside himself. His face was flushed and blotchy, red creeping over the skin of his cheeks and his knuckles turning white as he began hitting his tablet with clenched fists.
DISSASSEMBLE
DISSASSEMBLE
DISSASSEMBLE
His mouth was forced open by the heat and it began to escape him, coming out in a great howl as he rounded on the Machines that now surrounded him. He hit and kicked them, tearing at their gears and smashing their charging panels with his bare hands and feet.
He grabbed at the face of a Nurse and spun it around towards him, looking deep into the whirling gears in its cold mechanical eyes. He yelled, "WHY?"
The Nurse opened its mouth and simply stated, "You’ve been a very good Boy, 1124562. Welcome to cycle number 3,005. Please make your way to the Dressing Hall and prepare for class.”
62 sat up, awake and panting. The bright white glare of the lights above him hurt his eyes. His breakfast lay waiting for him in the food bin, and the sounds of Nurses unlocking doors told him that he'd awoken just in time. He folded his blanket carefully, the heat of his dream still filling his body. As he gently formed creases in the folded blanket, he fought the urge to tear the thin fabric apart. His white knuckles strained with the effort to keep his hands moving calmly.
He couldn't help but grunt as he closed the blanket door a little too hard. To keep from doing anything else that might draw the attention of the Nurses, he swallowed down his breakfast with a swift gulp of the liquid from his drink tube.
Going through the Dressing Hall and moving through the tunnels was a blur to 62. He was so distracted with trying to keep from kicking at the walls and throwing his tablet across the room that he barely completed his test in class before the end tones sounded, and then the heat boiled even more fervently as he thought on how there was no time left to draw.
Again he waited for the teacher to address him after the last Boy left the room, although this time he wasn't filled with excited anticipation... only boiling heat. He crossed his legs as tightly as he could without losing his balance in the hover chair and shoved his hands under his seat so that the entire weight of h
is body held them in place.
Once the tunnel outside the class was empty 71 sat next to him and calmly eyed 62's rigid frame. In contradiction to the severity of his neighbor's tiny strained body, 71 folded his hands behind his head and reclined back as far as the hover chair would allow. "Hello, 62. You've been terribly quiet. Is everything all right?"
"Yes, Sir." 62 answered through clenched teeth. His jaw so tight that it felt like it might break if he bit down any harder.
"Are you sure? You don't seem all right. Is there something you'd like to talk about? Perhaps there is some way that I can help?"
"The heat!" 62 exclaimed, his hands breaking free from their position under him and automatically curling into tight fists. He spun the hover chair around with enough force that it lost its balance and bumped into the desk behind him. "What is it with this heat? I can't make it stop. Do you feel it?"
71 nodded silently and leaned forward, kneading his fingers through his thick beard. He closed his eyes, and 62 could see them rolling silently back and forth beneath the thin skin of his eyelids. His eyebrows quivered up and down so slightly that it was hardly noticeable except for the vibration of a few hairs on his brow. At first, 71 seemed to be in deep thought but then his breathing deepened, his head lolling forward until his chin lay against his chest. His arms slowly dropped to his sides as his shoulders relaxed and his spine slouched against his seat.
62's mouth dropped open. The old Man was asleep! He couldn't believe what was happening. He had finally admitted to the teacher his problem after trying to manage it himself, and asked him if he knew what it was, and 71's answer was to simply fall asleep in his hover chair. Thinking about it made the heat flare up hotter than it ever had before, and 62 lost control of it. Before he knew what he was doing, he lunged forward and grabbed the Man by the shoulders. The chaotic motion knocked 71 out of his comfortable pose and caused both of them to tumble onto the floor.
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