Children No More-ARC Read online

  I wandered into the last dome, the one nearest my destination. One of the guards followed me.

  I turned before he could reach me. It was Long again. "How many jobs do you have," I said, "and don't you ever sleep?"

  He smiled and shrugged. "Too many, and every now and again. I do whatever Lim needs; it's a great cause, and she's a remarkable woman."

  "She is that," I said. "So, what'd I do wrong this time?"

  "Nothing," he said, "because none of us briefed you. We hadn't expected you to stay."

  "So, what didn't you tell me?"

  From five meters away, a handful of boys watched us and whispered to one another. A few pointed at Chris; others pointed at me. More streamed toward them from other parts of the dome.

  Chris also noticed them and faced the growing crowd. "We're just talking. There's not going to be any fighting."

  "The big one looks like he could beat you," a young voice said. "Are you afraid of him?"

  Chris smiled at them, shrugged again—a combination he'd obviously developed to disarm people—and said, "We're friends. Why would I be afraid of him?"

  "So you have fought with him?" another voice said. I couldn't spot the speaker.

  "No," he said. "Like I told you: We're not here to fight."

  "If you haven't been in battle together, you cannot know if he is truly your friend." Bony, the kid who'd tried earlier to get his buddy, Nagy, to fight me, stepped from behind two taller boys as he continued talking. "Only then do you find out who he really is." He turned, pulled Nagy forward, and patted the taller boy on the shoulder. "I know Nagy for my true brother, because we have killed together."

  A bunch of the boys cheered.

  "I don't need to fight to learn that," Chris said, "because he is my friend. You, too, can learn other ways to identify your friends."

  "Your friend is a coward," Bony said. "As big as he is, and he would not fight us." He spit on the ground. "A coward is no one's friend."

  More boys yelled and whistled their approval.

  Chris glanced at me, clearly annoyed, though I had no idea why. He focused again on Bony. "Choosing not to fight is not a sign of cowardice. Choosing not to fight is what most people do most of the time. They find other ways, better ways, to solve their problems."

  "So they are weak," Bony said. "We learned that only the weak do not fight back." More boys cheered. Emboldened by that support, Bony stepped closer to us. "If they were strong, they would fight."

  "No," Chris said, shaking his head. "Not all those who choose not to fight are weak. There are many ways to be strong. We will teach you—but not now. Now, my friend and I must go."

  As he turned to leave, he stared briefly at me, his eyes hard and clear.

  I followed him.

  "Cowards!" Bony yelled.

  "Cowards!" others screamed.

  The word became a chant.

  Chris maintained an even pace, so I did the same, though I hated having my back to that many angry people. They were boys, but they had also until yesterday been killers.

  Chris led me past the barracks where I was to report soon, around the corner of another building, and finally a few steps past Lim's small HQ. When he'd verified that no boys were in sight, he stopped and faced me.

  "You're supposed to report all confrontation attempts," he said, his voice hard and tense.

  "No one told me," I said.

  He shook his head, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, the anger was no longer visible. "I'm sorry," he said. "Their behavior is nothing unusual, and we've trained on multiple techniques for dealing with it, but I haven't slept in a very long time. They got to me a little."

  "It's only natural," I said.

  "Natural isn't good enough. We have to rise above our worst natures if we're going to show these boys how to become different people—how to be kids again." He rubbed his eyes. "What someone should have explained to you is that we're trying to identify leaders and troublemakers so we can help them first. Turn one leader around, and many others may follow. In any case, I'm sorry for putting you through that little show. With some of these kids, violence is all they've experienced for a long time."

  "What Bony said isn't entirely wrong," I said, "and you know it. You learn a lot from fighting beside someone."

  "No argument, but that doesn't matter. We're here to help them move past all the fighting and all the training that turned them into soldiers."

  "As if that's possible," I said. "Have you ever been able to shake your training?"

  He shook his head, no. "Fair point. Let me put it differently: We're here to teach them how to handle their pasts and live in the world of normal people."

  "If that's the job, why didn't we stay with them and talk to them? Why are you and I out here?"

  "Because they're not ready for that conversation," Chris said, "and I had to get you out of the tent before you ate. For the first couple of days, we have to stick to our own food and let them eat theirs."

  "Why?"

  "Their food contains drugs targeted at their dependence on the root. The drug won't do you any serious damage, but it could cause you to spend a lot of time alone with stomach cramps."

  I didn't want to tell him that it probably wouldn't bother me because my nanomachines would react to and ultimately remove the drug from my system, so all I did was nod. "Thanks for the warning. Isn't it a bad idea to start off lying to them? I don't know the first thing about reintegration, but I have to assume that building trust must be an important part of the process."

  "Yes," he said, "it is. We'd planned to explain how we would help them cope without the root, make this drug and other medications available, and gradually wean all of the boys from their dependence, but late this afternoon Lim told all the counselors that we were doing it this way. She said we needed to accelerate wherever we could, and this was a way to save a lot of time. Plus, given how unreceptive they'd been when she'd mentioned root in her speech, a less direct approach seemed more likely to succeed."

  Though I didn't like it that Lim had to lie, it was probably the right move given everything she was facing. I was particularly glad that she was taking Wylak seriously, because the more I thought about him, the less I trusted him.

  "It's her decision to make," I said. "She's in charge."

  I smiled at him and added, "So, where do I get some food?"

  Chapter 35

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  Light like amplified moon-glow bathed the inside of the dome and washed everyone under it in cool white tones. Schmidt and four other adults stood in front of twenty of the boys, all apparently residents of the barracks my team had first captured. I'd thought we would meet in that building, but Schmidt wanted to avoid trespassing on their turf as much as was reasonably possible under the circumstances. I sat in a chair a good five meters off to the side from the other grown-ups; Schmidt had requested a clear separation between the counselors and me. Bony and Nagy, as they had in the other meal dome, hung behind the front row of their fellows—reasonable positioning, not the first to get shot in a fight, but close enough to return fire easily should the initial rounds take out their comrades.

  The boys ignored the grown-ups and talked to each other, but they were obviously curious about what was to come, because none of them left.

  "My name is Portia Schmidt," she said. She spoke in a normal tone of voice and at a normal volume.

  They ignored her.

  "When you want to know what's going on, be quiet, and I'll tell you."

  She turned her back on the boys and spoke to a few of the other adults.

  "Shut up," one of the boys said. The words came from somewhere in the middle of the group. In a loud voice, he continued, "We must all remember what we learned: Know your enemy."

  "We don't need to know these people to beat them." Bony, talking from his safe position. I recognized his voice.

  Murmurs and a few cheers of approval rippled
through the group.

  "Still, if they're dumb enough to give us information," he continued, "we might as well listen." He stepped in front of the other boys. Nagy followed him and stood to his right. "Go ahead, Schmidt," he said, almost spitting her name. He crossed his arms. "Say what you have to say."

  A few more boys cheered, but after some half-hearted jeers, they all fell silent.

  "Thank you for listening," she said, "and welcome to your new school."

  "School?" many voices yelled. "This is no school! This is a prison!" A few of them edged closer to the four counselors.

  I stood, ready to help if the boys attacked, but Schmidt and two men on her team looked at me and ever so slightly shook their heads.

  I sat. If they thought they could take twenty boys without my help, I'd let them try. I could always get involved later.

  Schmidt returned her attention to the kids, her face impassive, neutral, not frowning, not smiling, not tense—just waiting.

  The boys stopped moving and quieted.

  "You're right," she said. "This is a prison, because we won't let you go—at least, not yet."

  After an unintelligible murmur swept through the boys, Bony said, "When will you let us out?"

  "When you're ready," Schmidt said. "Ready to live like normal people. Ready to stop being soldiers. Ready to go back to being boys."

  "Being weaklings, you mean!" one boy from the back yelled. "Why would we want to do that?"

  "We're strong, not weak!" another screamed.

  "Yeah! Yeah!" Many of the boys chanted their agreement.

  Schmidt waited again, her face once more neutral.

  I was amazed at her ability to stand in front of so much emotion without reacting. The boys were ignoring me, directing none of their anger in my direction, and yet my body was responding, my pulse picking up, all of me preparing to fight. Lim was right; even if I had a great deal to teach these boys, if being a counselor meant showing the kind of self-control Schmidt had, I wasn't ready.

  When the other boys had wound down, Bony said, "You called this place a school. What do you plan to teach us—other than how to be weak?"

  More chants followed his question.

  He crossed his arms, smiled slightly, and sidled forward and to the right half a step.

  "We will teach you how to live normal lives," Schmidt said when the boys were silent again. "We'll show you how to get along with others. We'll help you learn how to resolve conflicts without fighting. We'll prepare you to go home—or to new homes, if your home is gone." A low wave of murmurs swept the boys, but this time Schmidt didn't wait for them to be quiet. She spoke over them, for the first time raising her voice slightly, not yelling, simply talking a bit louder. "Wouldn't you like to go home? If you have no home, wouldn't you like a new one?"

  "This is our home," Bony said, his voice shaking, though whether with anger or sadness I could not tell. "We are family now, brothers, warriors together."

  "You are," Schmidt said, her voice sad for the first time. "I understand."

  "No!" Bony said.

  "No!" many of the boys said.

  "You can't!" a voice from the back said.

  "I can," Schmidt said, "and I do. I've been a soldier for more than ten years. My unit, like yours, is a kind of family, and we have all fought together many times. But we are adults, and we chose as adults to live this life. None of you did that, and all of you are still children."

  "Fight us," Nagy said, his voice flat, "and then see if you want to call us children." He spit as far as he could and hit the ground half a meter in front of her. "If you are still alive and able to speak."

  Schmidt shook her head. "No. We won't fight you."

  "Then you are less than our enemies," Nagy said. "You are nothing." He glanced at Bony.

  "Nothing," Bony said. He turned and walked out of the dome.

  Nagy followed, less than half a step behind him.

  Another boy took off. Two more followed. In less than a minute, they had all left. Only the five counselors and I remained.

  "You let them walk out?" I said.

  Schmidt walked over to me. "What would you have me do?" She leaned over me.

  I stayed seated. "Make them stay until you're done," I said. "Can you imagine a sergeant letting any of his squad walk out in the middle of a lecture?"

  "I'm not their sergeant," she said, "and this isn't the military."

  "Even a school has to maintain discipline," I said.

  She nodded her agreement. "And we will, but initially only when absolutely necessary, when they do something that will endanger their own safety, the safety of other boys, or ours."

  I shook my head. "If you're not going to make them learn, what are you going to do?"

  "Feed them," she said, frustration finally evident in her voice. "Get them off the root. Treat them like boys, not soldiers. Play with them. Encourage them to play with each other. Teach them every now and again, when they let us. Help them learn to resolve problems without fighting. Make it as easy as we can for them to act like boys again. Care about them, really care."

  "That's it?" I said. "That's the plan?"

  She looked down for a few seconds and pinched the bridge of her nose. When she stared at me again, fatigue and sadness and frustration had replaced the calm of moments ago. "There are a lot of therapeutic techniques we'll use," she said, "and quite a few different tactics, but yeah, that's the plan."

  Before she could continue, I stood and put my hand on her shoulder. "Okay," I said. "I'm sorry for pushing you. You guys are the experts. Tell me how I can help."

  Chapter 36

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  As Lim had warned, Schmidt told me that what I could do to help was provide both janitorial and guard services. I spent the next few mornings cleaning the barracks while the boys sat on steps or squatted on the ground near the buildings, kicked around some of the many small leather-covered balls that appeared with the sun on our second day there, talked in small groups, and searched for ways out of the complex. Cleaning included both literal cleaning and locating and removing anything that looked at all like a weapon. Soap, sticks, dinner utensils, pieces of plates, hard chunks of roofing material—if you could shape it and sharpen it, the boys were busy turning it into a weapon. Each day at lunch, all of us on the clean-up crew—mostly counselors who'd drawn the job that day, but also a few other support staffers who were there only for the type of work I was doing—pooled our discoveries in a locked room in the back of the best guarded of the half dozen supply sheds.

  No counselor reprimanded any boy for these weapons. Every now and then, a boy would be bold enough to ask one of his counselors to return the weapon someone had stolen from him. The counselor would always respond calmly that weapons weren't acceptable because the goal was to learn how to live and resolve conflicts without fighting.

  In the afternoons, I had what passed for guard duty: I walked a section of the interior perimeter of the wall around the complex, quietly reported over my comm any boy I spotted within five meters of me, and in as nice a voice as I could manage encouraged those boys to go elsewhere. The clear area outside the walls was still infested with mines, so Lim wanted to make sure that no one escaped and accidentally killed himself. A few boys made early runs at the wall, of course, but the rebels had blasted its surface smooth and slick enough that none of them made it very far before one of the guards spotted him and made sure he came down safely. Most of the boys had yet to accept that the rebels had also wanted to make sure none of them left the complex.

  I was on patrol about a hundred meters from the corner where I'd first entered the place when I heard shouting.

  "Kill him!"

  "You can take him!"

  I sprinted ahead and to the left, toward the voices. As I rounded the end of the second barracks up from ours, I saw one of the larger boys attacking one of the adults. The boy was swinging wildly at the man, who was sidestepping and blocking blows but not hi
tting back. I ran to help the man, but before I could reach him, he spotted me and said, "No!" It was Long, who was also working in this quadrant of the complex.

  I'd distracted him enough that the boy managed to clip his chin.

  Long stepped back, shook his head, and focused again on the boy.

  "There's no root here," a voice from the crowd yelled, "but none of us are sick or shaking. They're poisoning us."

  Long looked in the direction of the voice and said, "No, we're not. All we did is give you something to help you get better, so you won't need the root anymore. We—"

  The kid facing Long was almost as tall as the man. He straightened from his fighting crouch as if done and threw a slow, lazy fake, clearly hoping Long would either not see it coming or step back to avoid it and lose balance for a second. Long didn't do either one, so when the boy followed by lowering his shoulder and charging, Long was ready. He stepped to the side, spun the boy, and grabbed the kid around the waist. They might have been nearly the same height, but Long was well fed and strong and much heavier, so he easily held onto the boy and kept his head close enough to the boy's back that the boy couldn't do any real damage to him.

  The other boys continued to cheer and to call for blood.

  "Stop!" Long said. "I'm not going to fight you."

  "You people killed my family!" the boy screamed. "Our brothers told us. You killed my mother and my father and my sister, and now I'm going to kill you." He twisted and tried to escape, but Long held onto him.

  "No," Long said, "we didn't. The government didn't kill them. We didn't kill them; most of us aren't even from this planet and had never been here before a few days ago. The rebels weren't your brothers, and they weren't telling the truth. They killed your families, and they made you fight for them."

  "You're lying!" the boy said.

  "No," Long said, "I'm not. I'm sorry for what those soldiers did to you, but all I can do now is help you learn how to live normally. I won't fight you. I won't."