Children

-

People talked to her, their voices helpful and deceptive. The girl who had first interfered with the other explained she would live in the room until they decided to put her somewhere else, and that she had to be very, very good. The girl did not explain why. She was smiling falsely, painfully.

The others were looking at her, curious and dangerous. Some of them had expressions the child remembered seeing on the faces of children looking at fish behind glass. She wanted to get away before they decided to tap.

The girl was asking meaningless questions as she talked. "How did you get that pokemon?" she said. "That was an umbreon, wasn't it?"

"I found it," the child said, which was the best answer. Her eyes had mostly returned to normal. She still did not understand what had been wrong with them, but it was becoming less important now that it was no longer current.

"I'm surprised your parents let you keep it," the girl said, her voice staying the same speed, a babble filled up the silence and was just slow enough not to sound anxious. "But that's good, you'll have something with you. You're lucky you managed to hold onto them."

"Lucky," the child repeated, finding the word odd.

"Most of us don't get to keep our pokemon. We get some assigned to us later instead. Did they take any of yours?"

The child did not want to explain. "I have all of them with me," she said, which was answering the question in one sense and not the other.

"Anyway, don't be scared," she said again. She said the phrase at every pause, to fill up silence. "It'll be okay, don't worry."

-

The child did not find the new place she was in particularly hard to understand. There was an odd sound under the other girl's voices, though, so she watched them closely, waiting for any threat, but nothing more unpleasant than being picked up happened. They thought she was a child.

They seemed curious about her, in the oddly not-dangerous way the child remembered from the two children who had asked her pokemon's names.

There weren't any windows, so the child did not know the time, or how much passed. Presently the door unlocked from the outside again and the other girls scrambled up.

"Come on," one told her. "You must be hungry by now."

The child had never understood the 'by now' in that phrase. She was usually hungry. She made no effort to ask about this. They herded her out, keeping her near the center, as if they didn't want her getting lost, or perhaps seen.

She could see better now. The hallways were slightly larger than she was used to, although, she thought, somewhat small for the size of the group currently traveling them. The ground, which earlier she had noticed was not as hard under her feet as something truly solid, appeared to be made up of a thin sort of carpeting, dark in color with a hint of red. The lighting was much dimmer than she was used to in other buildings, but was bright enough she thought it was adequate for them to see by – she did not think she would be able to travel around without being seen.

They went through several hallways, turned left, right, and left again. They passed doors, some of which the child could hear faint sounds behind, often people talking and sometimes others she couldn't identify. They came to an open room with brighter lights and large tables, and the child narrowed her eyes, which were still sensitive. The group moved to one table, moving her with them.

"Who's getting food?" someone asked.

"I'll go," offered a blonde-haired girl. "How about you come with me, Jamie?" Another girl nodded.

"I'll go too," said a third, and they left the group, looking about them as if uncertain.

"We have a couple people get us all food," explained the girl next to the child. The child did not understand why they kept explaining things, or why they kept explaining things that she had just seen. "Um, it's the way a lot of people here do it, especially ones like us, well, because…"

"Sometimes the food is poisoned," said another girl. The first glared. "What? She's gotta learn sometime."

"You don't need to worry about that," said the first, and the child wondered why they kept saying that. Their voices were strange, humming and uncertain. "It's just, sometimes, people get mad at someone, so, maybe, if that person went up to get food, people might put something in it maybe. But if a couple people get food for everybody, then they don't know who's eating what and they won't make everybody sick, so they don't do anything." The girl's voice was falsely certain, as if she were trying to convince the child. "It's not going to matter, don't worry, nobody'd do it to you." She sounded more confident of this. "You don't need to worry, the food's fine."

The food was fine. It was palatable and there was enough of it. The child ate cautiously, watching them to make sure she wasn't eating too much.

Not too much times passed and then the group stood again and left. They began to retrace the route they'd taken.

They came upon an adult going in the other direction. He was dressed in black with a red twisted line on the chest, just like all the girls. He paused, looked at the child, pointed. A girl next to her gripped the child's arm. "Why isn't she in uniform?"

"She just got here," said one of them.

"That's no excuse. You know the rules."

"It's not our fault," said the girl who had tried to take the child's pokemon. There was something unrecognizable underlying her voice. "We've been in our room, we can't go-" The man hit her in the face, knocking her down.

"Go get her a uniform," he said flatly, and then he continued on.

"Julie, you okay?" asked one, helping the girl up.

"Fine. We've got to hurry, though." She looked worried. "You guys go back, I'll bring her."

"Sampson, please!" The girl's voice was pleading and high. "We don't have time. Just let us in and we'll get it and be gone."

"If you're supposed to be doing this, don't see why you're in such a hurry," said a voice behind the half-opened door almost lazily.

"Come on, you know it's not like that! Clement told us to!"

"No concern to me."

"Janie's not with us now, she's out!" The girl's voice was fast and high, was…something. "Just open the door, we don't have anything for you!"

"Which is the root of your problem."

The girl turned. "I'm sorry," she mumbled quickly, grabbing the child and shoving her in front. "Look, isn't she cute?" she said, her voice too fast. "She needs a uniform, you don't wanna get her in trouble."

The man made a sort of laugh in the back of his throat, amused. The door opened somewhat and the girl moved inside so fast they stumbled and almost fell.

The man was looking at the child, who was frozen in place by the eyes and the girl's grip just below her shoulders. She slid her hands smoothly behind her back, kept her eyes lowered.

A moment passed. The man made a second sound, looked up. "Tiny. She really assigned? Seems like she should –"

"Don't say it!" The girl's fingers tightened almost painfully, digging into the child's arms.

He looked unconcerned. "Whatever. Don't have stuff that'll fit."

"We'll be okay." The girl turned her head, glanced quickly at the door. She was agitated. "Just hurry up, would you?"

The man shrugged, turned. He pulled on the wall, and it slid to the side, exposing shelves of black cloth. He picked something from the bottom and tossed it at them. The girl caught it.

"Clothing's counterfeit. You've got to turn it in here," he said.

The girl handed it to the child. "Here," she said, and pointed. "Go over there. You can change behind the screen."

"I did let you in," the man said, voice calm but humming dangerously underneath.

"Leave her be! She's just a little kid."

The child was behind the screen, so she could not see them. She was pulling the shirt over her head. She heard a sound that was like a shrug. "She's here now," the man said. The sleeves reached past her hands, and the bottom of the shirt halfway to her knees.

"I'll tell Janie," she said, angry and something.

The sound again. "Fine," he said, and the dangerous sound had faded.

The child transferred her pokeballs to her new clothes and walked out. The girl grabbed her hand and pulled her out quickly. Back in the hallway she stopped suddenly, looked down at the child. "Your poke – you remembered to take – you didn't forget –" she started to say.

"Have them," the child said, not understanding how she could have forgotten. The less she understood what they wanted her to say, the less she wanted to say.

The girl's breath came out suddenly. "Good." She bent so they were at eye level, but she wasn't really looking at the child. "Listen, you can't let anybody else know you've got those. It'd be really bad. Okay?"

"Said I had to get rid of them," the child said, not understanding.

The girl sighed. "I'm sorry, I won't get rid of them. But you can't let anybody find out or they'll take them, okay?"

"Okay," the child said. Take them. Why would they do that? That had already happened. But she didn't ask.

-

Some of the others began to do something pointless with pieces of hard paper, a game. They explained the rules to her in fragments, and she looked attentive enough, as if she had not already seen people play it. People explaining were completely harmless. Their attention was focused inside, thinking, so the child could be sure they were not watching her.

They were trying to make her stay in one place. One of the girls had cut the sleeves shorter and was trying to tie down the edges with a thin piece of metal and something like a fiber from a string, but more supple and a different color. She kept repeating, stay still, stay still, over and over again, even though the child was not moving. The stack of paper dwindled and was rebuilt several times.

There was noise at the door, pieces of metal clicking and rubbing against each other. It opened. The girls in the room suddenly stopped, their attention attracted. There was something in their faces, mixed with readiness, wariness, as if they were expecting something dangerous. This vanished when the door opened.

The girl who entered was around sixteen, perhaps even as old as seventeen. There were only a handful of girls inside the room of that age.

"Janie!" said one of those girls, standing. "You're back early."

She nodded, smiled. "Wasn't half as hard as they expected," she said, sounding slightly proud. Her eyes caught on the child. "Who's she?"

"New," said the girl by her. "She's only just even got her uniform, we got her in normal clothes. Julie had to take her when someone saw."

"And Sampson gave me trouble because you weren't around. You've got to get him to stop that. Clement's the one who noticed her and it'd have been really bad if he thought we were ignoring orders."

"He did? Dammit, he said – I'll tell him." She brushed back strands of hair, her hands partially hiding her face for a moment. "We're under Samuel, you'd think…"

-

"What? But – are you sure that's right?"

The man looked at her, expression dour. His eyes were a disinterested brownish grey, like stones. "That's what it says. Pretty clear. Missing the name, though. What is it?" The last part was only nominally a question. It was clear he was not at all interested in the answer.

"She–" The girl's eyes flickered to the side. "– she hasn't said."

"You think you could get her to say now?" Annoyance had crept into his voice, hard and dangerous.

"She's just a kid!" she burst out.

"So you're saying she's not of any use. That I should –"

"Stop it! She just got here, she hasn't even slept! She doesn't have any idea what's happening. You can't take –"

The man flicked the paper in his hand, irritated, and her mouth shut with a snap.

"Fine," she said after a moment, turning to the child. She bent down and said softly. "Listen, you have to do what they say. Whatever you do, don't disobey them. And don't run. Promise me, don't run."

The child did not want to make any such promise. The man had grabbed her by the arm and was pulling her roughly through the doorway.

"Please," the girl said behind her. "Promise you won't run."