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for. "That's very good. You must be
doing a good job for your Lead to mention you to him."
"That little prick? He hates my guts. Woodrow's building a special
operations unit out of lateral thinkers -- he wants new blood, creativity.
He says I have a unique perspective."
"Did you talk to Orville?" Orville was the soft one who'd brought them

from their father's shack to the Island, and he was their mentor and
advocate inside its Byzantine politics. Bill had confided to George that
he suspected Orville was of a different species from the soft ones -- he
certainly seemed to know more about George's kind than a soft one had
any business knowing.
Joe tore a hunk from the carcass on the rickety kitchen table and stuffed
it into his mouth. Around it, he mumbled something that might have
been yes and might have been no. It was Joe's favorite stratagem, and it
was responsible for the round belly that bulged out beneath his skinny
chest.
Joe tore away more than half of the meat and made for the door.
"Woodrow wants to meet with me again this morning. Don't wait up for
me tonight!" He left the cottage and set off toward the tram-stop.
Bill rolled over on his bedding and said, "I don't like this at all."
George kept quiet. Bill's voice surprised him, but it shouldn't have. Bill
was clever enough to lie still and feign sleep so that he could overhear
Joe's conversations, where George would have just sat up and started
talking.
"Orville should know about this, but I can't tell if it would make him
angry. If it made him angry and he punished Joe, it would be our fault
for telling him."
"Then we won't tell him," George said.
Bill held up his hand. "But if we don't tell him and he finds out on his
own, he may be angry with us."
"Then we should tell him," George said.
"But Joe and this Woodrow may not get along after all, and if that
happens, the whole thing will end on its own."
"Then we won't tell him," George said.

"But if they do get along, then they may do something that would make
Orville angry," Bill looked expectantly at George.
"Then we should tell him?" George said, uncertainly.
"I don't know," Bill said. "I haven't decided."
George knew that this mean that Bill would have to think on it, and so
he left him. He had to catch the tram to make it to his shift, anyway.
#
The soft one with the six-to-noon shift left as soon as George arrived,
without a word. George was used to soft ones not having anything to
say to him, and preferred it that way. He was better off than Bill -- soft
ones always wanted to talk to Bill, and he hated it, since they never had
anything to say that Bill wanted to know. The weather needed no
discussion, Bill said. And as for the complaints about the shift's Lead,
well, one soft one was just about the same as any other, and Orville had
told them that at the end of the day, they worked for him, not for any
Lead.
Joe liked talking to the soft ones. Joe liked to talk, period. He told the
soft ones lies about their childhood in the shack with their father, and
told them about how his brothers tormented, and even talked about the
weather. When he got back home, he told his brothers all over again,
everything he'd told the soft ones.
George had memorised the SOP manual when they came to the Island,
five years before. It clearly said that the floor of the booth would be
disinfected every three hours, and the surfaces polished clean, and the
pots and machines refilled. The soft one with the six-to-noon shift
never did any of these things, which could get him disciplined by their
Lead, but George didn't complain. He just wiped and disinfected and
re-stocked when he arrived, even though he had to be extra careful with
the water, so that he didn't wash any of himself away.
Boys ran up and down the midway, baking in the mid-day sun. They

reminded George of the boys he'd gone to school with, after the social
worker had come to his father's shack. They'd teased him to begin with,
but he'd just stood with his hands at his sides until they stopped. Every
time he started a new grade, or a new kid came to the school, it was the
same: they'd tease him, or hit him, or throw things at him, and he'd
stand strong and silent until they stopped, even if it took months. His
teachers quickly learned that calling on him in class