The Star 3

Later on in the day, Cassandra was let in to see Sonny. Their short session threatened to be railroaded by an unending tearful litany of apologies as she reached through the bars to hug him. Sonny allowed himself to indulge in her guilty affection for a little bit before pulling himself out of her reach.

"Mom, please stop telling me you're sorry for things you can't help. I'm not happy seeing you beat yourself up over it. I mean, I'm happy you care but...What I need more than anything is something normal... Tell me about my little brother." he said, desperate to try to get a look on his mother's face other than misery.

He wanted something better to remember. Asking about Vincent was the magic password. Even though it was a subtle manipulation, he was genuinely interested. He had looked forward to being a big brother for some reason he had a hard time explaining. He might never get to be one in anything but name after everything that had happened, unfortunately.

It took a little prompting to get her warmed up to the topic but after that, she rolled on her own all the way until she had to leave. The patrolman informing her that visitation was over caused her to crash back into the reality of the situation but he had what he wanted, the image of his mother's smiling face.

As soon as she was gone, a dull eyed man in his mid twenties came in. Messy brown hair topped an almost absurdly square face. His murky brown eyes was almost a match for his murky aura. There was nothing unclear about the sense of danger or command presence the man had, however.

He said, "I hear you're sharper than the average potato peeler around here. So, maybe you can appreciate this advice more than the other bed wetters I've taken the time to share a word with. Start letting go sooner rather than later. Assuming you live long enough, your training might not be over before everyone you've ever known is dust."

Sonny didn't say anything as he let that carpet bombing of a revelation soak through the cloud of mild emotional numbness he was filtering things through.

After observing the results of his typically devastating words, the man added, "Alright. Since you're not a screaming ball of denial or spitting a thousand questions at me that I might only be allowed to answer one or two of, let me rip off another bandage. This world is a mutant breeding ground. There are three other colonies on this planet and yours is the last one in the dark.

"The only reason they are here is to make little squirts like you. Its funny how the rest of these people act like being a mutant is some kind of disease or a crime. It's the only ticket off of this rock. We weren't supposed to come to this farm for another few years but the crop's a little too plentiful over here to leave to chance."

Skipping all the questions that would probably do little more than annoy the guy, Sonny asked, "Why aren't you, your group, keeping it a secret any longer?"

The man gave a cold smile and said, "To encourage its inhabitants to stop beating mutants to death and start breeding instead. There isn't going to be much more pixie dust being sprinkled on this planet and mutations usually only stabilize after a few generations. The next suitable world projected to pass through an active section of the Squid Ink Stretch is already being terraformed as we speak."

"If you know what makes mutants, why still do it this way?" Sonny asked in confusion.

"It's cheaper, easier, safer and has better results. Some things just grow better in the wild." The man looked strangely pleased with himself.

Thinking as fast as his limited mind would let him, Sonny said, "If my little brother matches my blood type, would you let me give him a transfusion?"

The man laughed. "And what do you hope that will that do?"

The boy said, "My mother was near the strike. She didn't mutate even though I did. Vincent is still... going through the baby changes. Something might be sleeping inside him and my blood might... wake it up."

The man sat down looking a little lost. "The sheer f***ing irony. A six year old in a Union pig pen blurted out a primary method of exercising the Genetic Contagion Principle of pixie dust like it was as natural as sh*ting... Consider it already in the works. You've got a round two of pheresis in eight weeks and your little brother's going to get at least half of round one.

"For the hell of it, let me tell you that you got one thing not quite right. It's the plasma specifically. Whole blood transfusion isn't a tenth as effective. After round two of pheresis, most of the weaker expressions get a round robin of plasma swapping to try for a secondary trigger. That's reserved for little piglets three and under, though.

"The mad scientists usually play around more but don't worry about that. Something else grabbed their attention this time. Whatever that is, it's above my pay grade and you're not even a zero on that food chain, more like a negative one."

After that, talk time was over. Sonny was escorted by the man to 'Gen Pop'. Suddenly, he wasn't the only kid anymore but he was one of only a small handful that wasn't sedated. Far too many couldn't even remotely adjust to their new reality and were hysterical.

A few days later, it became apparent that Sonny himself was having a hard time adjusting. He wasn't used to contact with kids his own age. Even more, he couldn't really relate to them. The six or seven hours spent in primary education ended up being his favorite parts of the day. During mandatory physical fitness periods, he just went with the flow and during the two recreational periods, he found himself gravitating to the viewing room for 'fun but educational' entertainment.

At the end of every week, family visitation was permitted but for some reason, the supervisors paid extra attention to his, disallowing privacy. He could very well imagine why. While his contemporaries were struggling to learn coursework a level or two under where they should be by Union standards, quite a bit behind by Alliance, he was already polishing off holes in his knowledge to near Alliance standards. That meant he was being exposed to education and general knowledge that wasn't particularly desired to be in the hands of colonials.

At least, that's what he thought until his visitations were stopped altogether after he started dropping some advice on how to take advantage of the colony changes to his mom. Sadly, that meant his last visit during the eight weeks waiting for his blood to be sucked, spun and pumped back into him, ended with his mother in tears as she was lead away. Due to some mental health compensation, he could exchange letters and receive screened care packages.

Suddenly, he was one of the most popular kids in the group. Cassandra went overboard and tried to chock every delivery with the absolute limit of what was allowed. Not being a particularly stingy person, he didn't mind sharing the wealth when it came to the candy and bake goods but he drew a hard line on everything else. There was the occasional attempt at theft but with his ability to find what was taken combined with a freeze out of goody sharing time, such incidents were few and far between.

That was, until Gen Pop got the first round of outer wilds recruits. In comparison to the rough, almost brutal living conditions on the outside of the rings, the first group was little more than greenhouse flowers. Less than a day after their arrival, his collection of creature comforts had almost all found new owners. Stealing them back only helped so much and with a larger body of children to look after, individual incidences of rule breaking were treated with near indifference when it came to defending personal items.

The new wild children were fairly immune to petty tactics and basic psychological warfare. They took what they wanted when they could get away with it. They also didn't seem to mind taking the occasional corporal punishment when they got caught. It didn't take long for Sonny to realize that the people in charge had done it on purpose. It was a 'gentle' easing of the little flowers into a larger, more brutal world.

What he overestimated was the level of extremes forms of retaliation could take. "Do you know why you're here, Mr Desmond?"

Sonny looked at the thirty-something dark featured man sporting a few interesting scars. "A failure of authority to police rule breakers? A little too much enthusiasm discouraging thieves?"

He didn't so much know that he'd been backhanded by the man who'd moved faster than he could follow, he figured it out as he picked himself back up.

Over the pain, dizziness and ringing in one ear, Sonny heard, "Care to try again, Mr Desmond?"

Summoning up the cloud of emotional numbness so that he wouldn't have the child-like reaction that was likely expected of him, the boy said, "Humiliation to learn my place because fighting back is something I'm not allowed to do?"

The man frowned. "No. If you've had enough, fight back but don't put other children into the medical bay with broken glass in their throats and mercury poisoning."

Sonny sighed. "The one with mercury poisoning, he put two 'children' in the medical bay with head injuries and hand shaped burn blisters on their backsides. The one with broken glass in his throat, broke someone's collar bone. Strength fights with strength. Intelligence fights with intelligence."

With narrowed eyes, the man said, "Win or lose, you fight by the rules of the ones in charge. Only sneaky little snakes use poison and tricks. They aren't respected and they are the first to die in combat."

The boy said, eyes glowing strong enough for the man to notice in his lit office, "Sneaky little snakes are the ones not smart enough to BE in charge. Cowards are the first to die in combat. I would think thieves would be a close second since no one likes them."

The grizzled veteran loomed over the boy. "Do you think you're being smart right now?"

Sonny lowered his eyes. "No."

The man walked back to his desk. "You can keep your letter writing privilege but your package receiving one is suspended."

The boy said, "Thank you but could you make it permanent?"

Taken off guard, the man asked why.

"It saves me from hurting my mom's feelings. Her husband might be a doctor but there's no reason for her to be wasting what little extra they might have on things I can't enjoy. Let my little brother have it," Sonny said.

The man neither agreed nor disagreed. He just dismissed the boy and returned to his work.

On his way out, Sonny stopped at the desk of what appeared to be the man's secretary. "He's married. His wife and kids will always come before you... Use chlorine based cleaning supplies if you can't help yourself."

As he left the red faced secretary and walked out of the office area, he muttered, "You want to box my ear? Have a kick to the... fun time."

When he approached his shoe box room, his bunk mate decided there was better places to be. It made his heart hammer in his chest. There wasn't much left of his pile of personal possessions but there was one thing he cared a great deal about.

Sifting through the shredded books and broken trifles, he pulled the fouled second blanket from the bed and lifted the mattress. Feeling inside a seam, he couldn't find the small dropper bottle of anti-rust oil. The key was still there which meant that it hadn't been one of the other kids. It had been one of the overseers.

Ripping off a corner patch of the blanket that still faintly smelled of the solution, he placed it in a cheap tin that contained a couple of wallet sized photos in card sleeves. After that, he slipped the tin into a pocket and walked out of his room.

Two 'wild' kids were standing not too far away, waiting to see his reaction. He knew he wasn't okay. The calm was just the surface of a hot rage waiting for something to rip the crust off so it could erupt.

Seeing him walk towards them, they were smiling, ready to bruise a few petals of this 'greenhouse flower'. "Now you know what happens when you mess with one of ours."

Sonny said, "There is only one group here, property. Our owners are watching and listening to everything we say and do. You were brought here to teach us a lesson. We'll learn it but what are you learning?"

The boy with a sprinkle of stone-like dots on the edges of his face said, "You think you're special just because you have stuff and got a little more book smarts than us?"

A faint smile curled his lips as a touch of madness danced at the edges of his eyes. "What stuff? I have even less than you now but I'm not mad about that. Now, I have less to lose. Let me help you learn the lesson you helped me learn. You have two choices. Care about nothing, including each other and yourself, or obey."

He snapped his fingers. "That's how long it takes for you to lose something you care about when you don't. And as soon as they're done letting you trample the grass so it'll grow stronger, it'll be your turn to be stomped on. Except, they'll do it a lot harder because they know exactly how much they can hurt you before you'll break."

Sonny's words struck a cord with the boy who was almost uniformly brown but 'pebble face' was ready to fight.

Before he could swing, his earth colored friend stopped him. "Pa said you don't fight crazy unless you know you can put it down. We done enough to get the point across."

He turned to Sonny and said, "We're even now. Don't mess with us and we won't mess with you no more."

The boy wanted to tell them that they were far from even but, in a way that was hard to explain, he felt so much older. It didn't seem right to point his grudge at them anymore. He knew who was ultimately responsible and he couldn't find it in himself to direct his rage at these 'kids' just because he could actually hurt them.

Walking up to the instructor on duty, Sonny asked, "What do I have to do to get my bottle back?"

The man looked confused. The boy clarified.

"I don't know how you got a combustible past checks but that's contraband. It's been disposed of by now, I'm sure." the instructor said.

The boy looked at the instructor with as much gravity as he could produce. "If I wanted to start a fire, there would have been one already. There's exposed wiring in the viewing room and dining hall. There's a short in a gymnasium socket that's already close to causing a small electrical fire. But with a little help, it could be much bigger.

"I would greatly appreciate having that bottle back. Even if there's only a couple of drops left inside, that's fine. I know it didn't get thrown away because it's in the drawer of the desk you're sitting at."

The man drew himself up. "Are you making a threat?"

Looking genuinely confused, Sonny said, "Why would I do that? You can defend against something you know about. I told you about the exposed wires and the short because they could hurt or be USED to hurt us."

"You can't have it. It's a combustible," the man said with a slight smile.

Sonny gave him a faint but unnerving smile in return. "It sounds like there's a lot of things I can't have. Was I allowed to be given things just so you could take them away?... Whatever test we're in right now, do you do it because it's your job or do you just like creeping little girls out by stuffing their dirty undergarments down your pants?"

The man didn't seem phased in the least. He just radioed in a code word.

"It's my job. Stay here and don't speak to anyone until your escort arrives," the man said as he reached into a drawer and handed the boy the small dropper bottle.

He leaned in and added in a whisper, "You haven't done yourself any favors. Stage two is also eight weeks long but now you'll only have one. That's the end of visitation. Make your last letter count."

Sonny sighed. "So, I was wrong. This isn't even the greenhouse. This is the nursery. How bad do things get before they start getting better?"

"Things don't GET better. YOU are expected get better at dealing with them... Don't talk anymore or I'll have to knock you out," the instructor said with a small touch of sympathy on his face.