"What are you doing?" 62 yelled as he shook the broad shoulders of his teacher against the hard floor. 71's only response was a sleepy scowl and a swat of his hands against the small body trying to wake him.
The heat built again, and 62 could feel his skin burning against the insides of his clothes. Without thinking, he got up and stood above the Man and kicked at his legs. "Wake up, you old duster," 62 cursed, "Wake up and tell me what's happening!"
71 finally roused from his sleep with a snort, and groggily grabbed at the Boy's flailing legs. "I'm up," he said softly. When 62 didn't cease his kicking he boomed, "Stop it, Boy, I said I'm up!"
62 snapped back to his senses at the sound of his teacher's raised voice and sat back down in his hover chair, panting heavily. He unwound his fists, returning his hands to their position beneath him and crossed his legs tightly to keep them from kicking the old Man any more.
"I'm sorry," 62 whispered, "I didn't mean to. I don't understand what's happening." He could feel the heat drifting away, and his burning cheeks began to cool with the trickling of tears falling across them. "I don't want to be a bad Boy."
71 picked himself up off of the floor and examined a scrape on his elbow from the fall against the concrete. "Well, this will take some explaining in the morning when my data is pulled from the scanners. No matter. I'm sorry for making you feel worse, 62, but I was reading my dreams to find answers to help you."
"R-r-reading your d-d-dreams?" 62 stuttered as he fought back the tears that now blurred his vision and wet his cheeks. He sniffled, although was too afraid to release his hands to wipe the tears away.
"Yes. Now this, 62, is a very big secret. You must never tell anyone about this, and never, ever talk to me about it outside the confines of this classroom. Do you understand?"
62 nodded as silently as he could, although his nose kept sniffling as he fought back more tears.
71 sat back down in the chair beside 62, much more gingerly than before, and then leaned close to the Boy so that he could speak in a low whisper. "Dreams can be much more than simple stories and pretty pictures that our minds play for us at night. With enough focus, practice and patience you can use them to learn. You can solve impossible problems through them, and that is the true reason that I wanted to tutor you."
"Did your dreams teach you anything about the heat?" 62 finally felt safe enough to loosen his left hand, the weaker of the two, from the weight of his body and extend it to wipe the tears from his face.
"Yes. I believe the heat you are feeling is an emotion called anger. It's very rare for a Boy or Man to feel anger because Adaline is filled with the peace and security of repetition and structure. I don't know much about it, but in my dream I remembered that when I was a Boy, one of my closest and most favorite brothers told me that he felt sensations very similar to what you are describing."
62's eyes brightened at the idea that someone else had felt what he was feeling and that 71 had known him. "Was he able to stop it?"
"No," 71 said softly. "He couldn't."
"What happened to him? Did the Machines spray him and make him fall asleep?"
71 shook his head slowly, tears brimming in his suddenly sorrowful brown eyes. "No, my young brother. Nothing as simple as that. He died."
CHAPTER 7
"What does it mean to die?"
After the tutoring session when the topic of death arose, 62 spent several cycles trying to forget the sadness in his teacher's eyes. Unfortunately, as with all things, his curiosity was stronger than the feeling that asking this question was a bad idea.
71 covered his eyes with his hands. He pressed his slender fingers hard against his brow and massaged his bushy eyebrows. A soft groan escaped him and his shoulders slumped, making him seem smaller and more frail than before. He spoke into his palms, his voice muted beneath trembling skin. "I keep forgetting that young minds are filled with so many difficult questions. Why must I be the one with such difficult answers?"
62 wasn't sure if he was supposed to respond or not, so he decided to sit quietly and wait. The longer the pause extended, the more he thought he might not want to know the answer.
Lethargically, 71 lowered his hands and with wet eyes and a trembling lip found the words to answer the Boy. "No one knows for sure what it is to die. All I can tell you is what I saw when it happened to Boy 2783." The man leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and again placing his face in the palms of his hands.
"2783 had been feeling something similar to the heat you describe for many cycles. Every time the feeling came over him it was stronger than the time before. The anger. It consumed him until whenever we spoke all that he talked about was how he felt like bursting out of his cube and attacking the Nurses. I never knew what made him start to feel that way but once it grabbed a hold of him and he wasn't able to break free of it.
"One morning, we were in line waiting to shower and dress. I was standing a few Boys behind him. I heard him speak harshly to the Shower Assistant. He was saying something about wanting to do it himself, although what he meant I still don't know. Then, he climbed onto the Machine and pulled at the nozzles, banging on it with his fists. None of us knew what to do to help, so we all raised our hands to alert the Nurses that there was a problem. Once a Nurse came, it pulled him down by the ankles. He slipped down the slick metal of the Shower Assistant and fell hard on his back. The fall didn't stop him though, and instead he started to punch and kick at the Nurse, too.
"The Nurse alerted more Nurses to the problem. Three or four more came, pushing us out of the way and crowding the stall where 83 was. All of them grabbed an arm or a leg and pushed him down onto the floor. He was screaming; a louder scream than I have ever heard. He told them to get off of him. They pushed in harder and harder until they were all on top of him. And then, the screaming and kicking stopped. When the Nurses pulled away, he lay on the floor perfectly still. He didn't even blink any more. We all waited, but he never moved again."
62 sat stunned, mouth agape. As much as he didn't like the sticky sleep-spray, he had never seen a Machine hurt a Boy before. He thought about all the times the Nannies had held him close when he was younger and cradled him gently while the sing-song of their whirring gears lulled him to sleep. They had always treated him so carefully. Although the Nurses weren't as tender, they too were always gentle when they touched him; their fingertips light on his skin.
"After a while, a group of men from Defense came and picked 83 up to take him away. My brothers asked them why he wasn't moving, and they told us that he died. I asked one of them if they would repair him and bring him back and he told me that sometimes humans can't be repaired. That death is like turning off a switch that can't be turned back on."
The Man shuddered a ragged and painful sigh, then finally looked up from his hands. The wet stains of tears streaked across puffy cheeks and his eyes were red and swollen. He heaved two more jagged sobs and then wiped his face with his sleeve. He sat for a few moments, and when he finally regained his composure he smiled faintly at 62.
"Do you think that could happen to me?" 62 tucked his hands back under his thighs and crossed his legs tightly. "Will I become such a bad Boy that I will die, too?"
71 shook his head slightly and folded his arms against his chest, resuming a stance of calm assurance. "Highly improbable. You and I are going to find a way for you to adapt to your anger. As I have said, though I've never seen it done, I do believe that there is a way for you to manage it. I think we should start with your dreams, since you are already having them."
"But in my dreams I also feel the heat. The anger. Sometimes even more than I do when I'm awake." 62 remembered the dream he had the night before and began to worry. "I don't want to dream about anger. I don't want to dream about being bad."
62 began to cry, rocking back and forth in his hover chair and looking at the blank tablet on the desk beside him. He thought of the drawings he created while his brothers toiled away at their tests. None of them s
eemed to want to draw. He hadn't even seen any of them make a mark outside of the spaces reserved for answers. 62 turned to the old Man and sobbed, "I just want to be like all of the other Boys. Without anger, without dreams, without drawing."
The teacher reached out and placed his hand on the Boy's shoulder. 62 was surprised by the feel of warmth radiating from his teacher's skin. It was different from the cold touch of the Nurses. It reminded him of when he would hug and wrestle with his brothers in the Nursery, before they were taught the proper way to behave. It seemed like so long ago, and he was surprised at how much the gentle grasp of his teacher's hand on his shoulder made him miss it.
"My dear, dear Boy. I know that what you are going through is difficult. But I think in time you will find that you can do so much more than your brothers because of these talents. Eventually you'll find that you are glad to not be like everyone else."
"Why do you think that?" 62 couldn't think of a time or place when the disorder of his anger, the exhaustion of his dreams, or the distraction of his drawings would possibly be something to be glad about.
The slender fingers of 71's hand squeezed reassuringly against 62's small shoulder. "Because I've seen the spark of intelligence in you and as I told your class shortly after we first met, while we may all look the same on the outside there are vast differences within us. You have a mind, young brother, and I hope that when the time comes you will be prepared to use it."
CHAPTER 8
The cube seemed particularly small as 62 stared at the steel grey walls. Already he missed the few nights when sleep came swiftly to him at the end of the cycle. As he rolled over to find a more comfortable position, he wished that he could forget his tutoring and all of the things that 71 had told him.
He pulled the blanket over his head, hoping that the thin fabric would mute the sounds of his brothers' heavy breathing and dim the haze of blue light that crept in from across the hall. As he lay there, trying his best to block out the peaceful quiet of the night, his anger burned deep within him. Why couldn't he simply drift off to sleep like the rest of them? And what bothered him even more, why did his sleep have to be interrupted by dreams?
He rolled again, this time accidentally brushing one of the sensors on the wall as he grabbed at the blanket. The tiny sensor blinked red, illuminating his hand with the ebb and flow of a cautionary light. He held his breath and lay still, anticipating the Nurse he knew would respond to the indicator.
A Nurse did appear and he peered at it through faint slits in his eyes as he pretended to sleep. The Nurse leaned close to the wire window on the door and explored the room with its glowing silver eyes. It plugged itself into his cube's data monitoring and sat for a moment, analyzing the information pouring out of the system.
"Are you awake?" The cold, mechanical voice filled his cube through hidden speakers. "Boy 1124562, do you sleep?"
62 lay as still as possible, still holding his breath and doing his best to not twitch or squirm. His lungs burned with the effort of holding his breath in, and he silently begged the Nurse to hurry up and move on. The longer the machine stood there, the more his chest felt like it might explode.
"1124562, you are a good Boy. Goodnight." The monotone voice echoed slightly against the metal walls. 62 strained to hear the Nurse's wheels turn as it moved farther down the pod to check on other Boys.
Once he was sure that the Nurse couldn't possibly hear him, he exhaled and almost choked on the hiss of escaping air. He covered his mouth and nose with the blanket to muffle the sounds of his coughing, careful this time to not brush against the sensor that had just been reset.
The anger took hold of him a little more, and he swallowed hard. He couldn't understand why the anger was coming, or why none of the other Boys seemed to have it boiling through them. This thought, the thought that he was the only one suffering, caused the heat of his resentment to flare more than it had before. Why should he be the only one affected by this anomaly?
62 forced his eyes shut and willed himself to sleep. Eventually, slumber did overtake him, although it was brief and not very restful. In his tossing and turning he accidentally brushed against two more sensors during the night, and again had to pretend to be asleep to avoid discipline.
When the slight hum and static of the lights illuminating above him finally roused him, he found that he was so tired he could barely lift his head off of the floor. He sluggishly put away the blanket, crawled back into the center of the cube and sat cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and his heavy eyes buried in the palms of his hands.
As breakfast came rolling through the tubes and the Nurse returned to download his data, 62 noticed that the Machine was taking longer than normal to tell him he was a good Boy and unlock the door. He looked up at it through the mesh window. The Nurse peered back at him with an almost curious expression. He had never seen any expression on the dull faces of the Nurses before; he didn't even know that a change in their stoic glare was possible.
The Nurse held his gaze for a moment before finally stating, "You look unwell, 1124562. May I assist you?"
62 wasn't sure how to respond to the question and tried to think hard about what the Machine meant by "unwell". He thought he had heard the term somewhere before, but his groggy mind couldn't place the meaning or the context. He peered back at the silvery eyes of the Nurse and finally said, "I don't require assistance now."
"I disagree, Boy 1124562. Your report says that you have only accumulated 4.235 hours of sleep; 47.0625% less than the required amount for optimal functioning. I also read that your sleep was broken up by times of wakefulness. The loss of cumulative sleep function creates a less advantageous position for learning." The Nurse whirred and its arm clicked against the buttons on the panel outside 62's door.
"I recommend a cumulative period of rest to bring you back to full function." As the Nurse spoke, the sticky thick fog of discipline began to seep through the screen that separated the Boy from his mechanical caretaker.
62's heart raced as the fog collected around the door and then began to fill the cube. Without thinking, he reached toward the bin where he had put his blanket just moments before. He had the crumpled blanket halfway out of the bin when the door suddenly snapped shut and he heard a click as it locked. Unable to pry the remainder of the blanket free, and becoming surrounded by the fog so completely that he could barely see his hands, he buried his nose and mouth into the bit of fabric held in his weary fingers and did his best to not breathe too deeply.
Although he desperately tried to stay awake, the fog clouded his eyes and he fell, unable to hold himself upright any longer. Just before he lost consciousness he heard the door to his cube open, felt the cold grasp of the Nurse as it pried the blanket from his grasp, and heard the Machine whisper, "There, there, now be a good Boy and get your sleep. You can resume learning tomorrow, so long as you regain your health."
The Nurse crouched above 62 until its readings indicated that his heart rate and breathing had slowed. Once satisfied that he was no longer awake, the Machine clicked its wheels against the metal floor, left the cube and locked the door behind it.
CHAPTER 9
62's eyes fluttered open, and the dim blue light from across the pod burned them as if he were looking directly into an electrical arc. He rubbed his gritty eye sockets as a dull throbbing filled his head. The sounds of rest filled his ears and although he couldn't tell just how deep into the night it was, he was aware that he had slept through the previous cycle in its entirety.
"Nurse?" He tentatively whispered through the grate on the door. His call was answered by the familiar clicking of metal wheels. He flinched and squinted painfully as the illuminated eyes of a Nurse peered in through the door. Anger flickered within him, but he found that it gave him enough strength to continue speaking. "Nurse, I need to evacuate. May I please go to the Dressing Hall?"
A screech that made 62 shudder filled the corridor as the machine shook its head. "It is not permitted for a Boy to w
ander around the pod outside of scheduled transport."
"Nurse," 62 said a bit louder and firmer than he probably should, "I need to relieve myself. It can't wait until morning. I missed the opportunity to go earlier. Will you please allow me to go to the Dressing Hall?"
Silence filled the space between 62 and the door as the Nurse calculated the appropriate response to the request. Again the Machine shook its head, the un-oiled squelch sending a shock of discomfort through 62.
"It is not permitted." The Nurse began to turn away from the door, and then as if it received some new download of code it stopped abruptly and said, "You may use the hatch provided in your cube."
As the Nurse rolled away, 62 heard a faint click behind him and turned around to find a door open in the wall that he'd never noticed before. A faint white light peeked out from behind what looked like a miniature version of the urinary receptacle in the Dressing Hall.
62 rolled his eyes in exasperation and muttered to himself, "That would have been helpful to know about the entire time I've been here." He quietly and quickly relieved himself, and as soon as he finished the receptacle slid quietly back into the wall and disappeared behind a panel.
With nothing left to do but wait for breakfast, 62 lay down once again in the center of the floor and did his best to go back to sleep. Although he had been in a deep sleep from the fog the cycle before, he felt groggy and tired. The pounding in his mind made him anxious to get some real rest. Although it took time, sleep did finally find the Boy. No sooner did he succumb to slumber than his dreams took hold.
In his dream, he sat in a vast space with a green floor beneath him and a blue ceiling above him. The ceiling was so high that he couldn't measure how high it was, and the area was so vast that he couldn't see the walls that surrounded him. The green floor below his bare feet was filled with millions of individual green spikes which stood firmly erect, but were surprisingly soft against his skin. He turned around in search of the close walls and enclosures that he was so accustomed to; his peering to and fro interrupted by a soft tickle on his toe. He looked down at his feet and was amazed to see a tiny Machine with six miniature legs marching its way across his foot.
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