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“He seems,” the Lieutenant started, “um, very animated.”
“Yes,” Dr. Halsey said. “We may be able to use this one.”
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She glanced up and down the playground. The only adult was helping a girl get to her feet after fallingdown and scraping her elbow; she marched her towards the nurse’s office.
“Stay here and watch me, Lieutenant,” she said, and passed him the data pad. “I’m going to have acloser look.”
The Lieutenant started to say something, but Dr. Halsey walked away, then half jogged across thepainted lines of hopscotch squares on the playground. A breeze caught her sundress and she had toclutch the hem with one hand, grabbing the brim of her straw hat with the other. She slowed to a trot andhalted four meters from the base of the hill.
The children stopped and turned.
“You’re in trouble,” one boy said, and pushed Number 117.
He shoved the boy back and then looked Dr. Halsey squarely in the eyes. The other children lookedaway; some wore embarrassed smirks, and a few slowly backed off.
Her subject, however, stood there defiantly. He was either confident she wasn’t going to punish him—orhe simply wasn’t afraid. She saw that he had a bruise on his cheek, the knees of his pants were torn, andhis lip was cracked.
Dr. Halsey took three steps closer. Several of the children took three involuntary steps backward.
“Can I speak with you, please?” she asked, and continued to stare at her subject.
He finally broke eye contact, shrugged, and then lumbered down the hill. The other children giggled andmade tsking sounds; one tossed a pebble at him. Number 117 ignored them.
Dr. Halsey led him to the edge of the nearby sandpit and stopped.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“I’m John,” he said. The boy held out his hand.
Dr. Halsey didn’t expect physical contact. The subject’s father must have taught him the ritual, or theboy was highly imitative.
She shook his hand and was surprised by the strength in his miniscule grip. “It’s very nice to meet you.”She knelt so she was at his level. “I wanted to ask you what you were doing?”
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“Winning,” he said.
Dr. Halsey smiled. He was unafraid of her . . . and she doubted that he’d have any trouble pushing heroff the hill, either.
“You like games,” she said. “So do I.”
He sighed. “Yeah, but they made me play chess last week. That got boring. It’s too easy to win.” Hetook a quick breath. “Or—can we play gravball? They don’t let me play gravball anymore, but maybe ifyou tell them it’s okay?”
“I have a different game I want you to try,” she told him. “Look.” She reached into her purse andbrought out a metal disk. She turned it over and it gleamed in the sun. “People used coins like this forcurrency a long time ago, when Earth was the only planet we lived on.”
His eyes fixed on the object. He reached for it.
Dr. Halsey moved it away, continuing to flip it between her thumb and index finger. “Each side isdifferent. Do you see? One has the face of a man with long hair. The other side has a bird, called aneagle, and it’s holding—”