Rebels Read Online Free Page A

Led the group in building entire cities with the polyblox, then gleefully clomped the whole structure to pieces. The other kids didn’t do things like that. They liked watching me do them, though. Giggled and clapped their hands.
    â€œDestructive tendencies,” muttered the caretakers, powerless to punish me, at least not when Recruiter was hanging around.
    His uniform wasn’t like theirs. It was impeccably clean, his boots unsullied by grime, his collar unyellowed. I thought he was supposed to be special. He could’ve been my champion.
    Recruiter walked the rows, inspecting the quiet babies, the ones whose parents never smiled at them, never sang or bounced them on their knee. All they got were the Caretakers, who didn’t hug or kiss or hold your hand. So these babies never learned to emote, their faces completely made of stone. Orphan babies never cry. They rarely make noise at all.
    When Recruiter got to me, he stared down into my hyper-crib. His face was enormous and implacable. “There’s nothing here,” he said, as he had probably said on every inspection at every crib.
    I reached out for him and I grabbed the rail instead. I fumbled forward as he walked away. I grabbed the rail with both hands, pulling myself up, my doughy legs barely able to support my plump weight. He didn’t linger over each crib for too long. I watched himas he worked. There are orphanages all over. I’m sure we looked like nothing more than underdeveloped meat. He finished my row and moved on to the next. Still I watched him, a string of sounds starting to fall out of my mouth. He looked up.
    He looked at me .
    He inspected more cribs. I pushed my body over the lip of the crib and let gravity do the rest. I pushed to a wobbly stand and edged around the crib, guiding myself by the rails. More sounds that this time he ignored. I slapped the rail with one hand of pudgy fingers. He looked up again, annoyed. I returned his gaze with equal force. He looked around, as if unsure that this was really happening. He cut back to my crib and stared at me standing there. Then he pushed me down. A slight touch and he sent me back on my bottom. Perhaps he expected me to cry. When I didn’t, he walked away.
    I fell onto my side and rolled onto my belly. As he continued his rounds, I stood again. I slapped the rail until I got his attention. He tried to ignore me, shooting glances across the room, but couldn’t. He removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair. He sighed.
    He came over, and just as he was about to push me again, I spoke.
    â€œNo,” I said.
    And he didn’t.
    I’ve been telling people “no” ever since.
    My memory’s good, but not good enough to penetrate the infant haze. Something to do with underdeveloped brains prevents us from remembering those years. But I did manage to snatch my holofile off Recruiter’s desk one visit—he’s been cursed with a small bladder and doesn’t have the influence to get it modded, so his trips to the receptacle were frequent during testing. Recruiter would have taken it with him, but how did he know I could read? I didn’t even know myself.
    I was only three. He hadn’t administered that test yet.
    The holofile seemed to be no more than a toy. A toy that burstwith sculpted light as soon as I opened it, casting forth images of me turning in circles. My tiny body, my little-kid legs. Is that what I looked like?
    Watching myself during an activity unit, where I was made to hit targets with zip balls. They monitored my heartbeat with sensors all over my body and asked me questions like, “Do you enjoy pain?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat do you dream about?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhy do you hate the polyblox?”
    â€œI love them,” I said excitedly. “Especially the part where I smash them!”
    Recruiter’s assessment of me trailed beneath: “Early rebellious tendencies.