Rebels Read Online Free Page B

Accelerated, aggressive reflexes. Correctly channeled, SUBJECT could prove Useful to Society. Unheard of development considering her status as Offspring Waste.”
    Reading this, I’m surprised I hadn’t been thrown out the gates to mutants.
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    The Caretaker looked at her holofile, then back at me. “You already have a name,” she said, surprised. “How very odd . I’ve never seen one of you already having a name. Who gave it to you?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    Later, I’d find out they didn’t assign names until we’d assimilated from Infant Surveillance to Intermediate Dorm. Never knew how we’d react to the dorm transition. Some didn’t make it through the first night, so why waste a good name on a defective orphan?
    â€œWell, you always were . . . different,” she said, like I had an extra foot or something. “Now you are Lexie. Say it after me. Lex-ie.”
    â€œLex,” I said. That sounded better.
    â€œNo. Lex- ie . That’s what it says right here.”
    â€œLex,” I said again.
    She sighed, knew it was pointless to argue. She practically shoved me down the corridor to be issued my thermasheets. Relieved to see me go, I could tell. Now I’d be someone else’s problem.
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    Lex or Lexie, it didn’t matter. No one learned names in the Intermediate Dorm. The closest you got to existing was your cot number.
    My real new name? 242.
    The dorm was enormous. Cots as far as you could see. Lots of kids, all bigger than us new transfers. All wearing the same gray uniforms on their skinny bodies, their skin colorless from lack of exposure.
    No one noticed our arrival.
    Even with all those kids, the dorm was dead quiet. We were still little, didn’t know orphan rule #1: Don’t draw attention. Not that I followed rules. But still, I could tell this place wasn’t like Infant Surveillance. Not at all.
    Orphan rule #2: Don’t ask questions . I could never get that one either.
    It was the first week and 241 had been right next to me at evening cot confinement. I’d heard her snoring. Come morning, every trace of her was gone, even her thermasheets. “Where’d she go?” I yelled.
    No one answered me. Just looked away. “New transfer,” someone whispered.
    â€œWhere’d she go?” I said louder. Sharp stares. Pale faces pinched in worry.
    That just made me want to scream. I raised my voice. “Where’d she—”
    â€œShhhhhhhh.” Someone placed a hand on my shoulder. An older girl was leaning over, smiling at me. I’d noticed her before because, unlike the rest of us, she had some color. Like she was glowing from the inside.
    The older girl looked down at me. I shut up. Her smile was what did it. You didn’t see those very often.
    â€œI like you,” she said softly. “You say what you think. But right now, you should know when that becomes dangerous.”
    â€œBut where did—”
    My stomach growled.
    â€œYou’re hungry?” she asked.
    I nodded. Little kids, I quickly learned, got pummeled in the rush to the ration line. As hard as I’d pushed through the crowd, the food was gone when I got there. With so few caretakers, no one seemed to notice. Or maybe they just didn’t care.
    Sometimes little kids starved to death. It happened once in my first year there, a little boy who didn’t wake up in the morning, and caretakers just carted away the husk of his weightless body.
    So that morning the older girl took my hand and led me right to the front of the line, other kids stepping aside for her. I was starving and by then completely forgot about my neighbor’s empty cot. Kids are dumb like that. Easily distracted. Maybe she did it on purpose. Maybe she didn’t want to tell me about 241 just yet. The older girl was eleven, a year shy of graduating.