If I Could Turn Back Time

Thomas "Tank" McClelland watched the three buses roll in, raising clouds of dust. It was hot for March, and dry. The lake would be free of ice, he thought, and the forest would offer plenty of natural beauty for their visitors, but it was too bad they couldn't have sent the kids out for a week in May or June, when the flowering shrubs he'd planted in the garden would be beautiful and fragrant. He could use some energetic young helpers in the vegetable garden, too, but planting wouldn't be for at least a month, probably more.

"Tank?" said Jordan, who had appeared at his elbow. "Everything ready for these kids?"

"Yeah, I have their rooms ready to go, and Charlie has got lunch just about put together." Tank watched as sixty teenagers piled out of the buses, twenty spilling with shouts and laughter from each vehicle. The contract they'd signed with Burlington Academy had stipulated that there would be thirty boys and thirty girls. Squinting, Tank decided that the numbers looked about right. It looked like about equal numbers of boys and girls. The ethnic mix also seemed pretty comprehensive; there were light skinned kids and dark, Asians, Latinx, a few that looked Indian or Pakistani, some First Nations... no doubt there would be a carefully calculated ratio of GLBT and cis/straight youths, too. "I put the girls in the eastern dorm and the boys in the southern," Tank added.

Jordan started walking away, consulting his QSlate.

"Hey," Tank said, catching up with him. "What were you saying about this being a sociology experiment?"

"Beltane Travel said they were working with Kenosha U - some focus group or think tank or something. The university guys put this group together from as diverse a mix as they could manage, but the numbers are supposed to reflect the actual demographic makeup of the general population."

"But we're not supposed to do anything special with them?"

"Nope. We do all the usual: Canoeing, camp fires, sing-alongs, hikes. Arts and crafts. The ropes course. Drone racing. Soccer."

"What will that prove?"

"Nothing," Jordan said. "From what they said, that's the point. It's something about assimilation or social uniformity or something. I didn't really understand it. The sociologists will do their job and we'll do what we do best - show these kids a good time."

Tank wasn't going to complain. The fad for sending kids to camp was waning now that another recession had hit. Parents feeling the pinch opted for letting their sons and daughters hang out in the living room playing networked video games instead of sending them off for a week or two in the fresh mountain air. It wouldn't have been Tank's first choice, if he'd had kids of his own, but then again... well, he didn't have kids of his own. At the rate he was going he was never even going to have a husband.

Tank walked into the reception area, where the kids were shuffling forward in a line to check in with the camp's cheery receptionist, Jeanne. One by one, they pressed their thumbs to the touch screen Jeanne presented them, and, one the screen blinked green, received their pass cards, camp handbooks, and souvenir compasses. Tank looked them over again, from closer up. They seemed happy and excited, which was a good sign. When kids arrived glum and pissed off, it wasn't always possible to get through to them and get them to appreciate the trails and the lake... and the sunburn, the bugs, and all the other charming things that came with the rustic life.

At least they always had plenty to eat. Charlie was a wizard with the food. Even when he had to use tofu and soy products to ensure their guests got enough protein, he managed to make the meals look and taste palatable. If nothing else, the kids who came to the camp had a chance to get away from junk food. Tank had seen the way his sister fed her kids - sugary cereal for breakfast, white bread and processed lunch meat sandwiches plus corn chips for lunch, and dinner could be anything from pasta and sauce out of a jar to a hideous tuna fish casserole recipe made from canned peas, canned mushroom soup, canned fish (tuna or otherwise), and potato chips. Water was an unknown to his poor nephew and niece; the kids drank soda. When Tank bought the camp and took over its management the first thing he changed up was the menu. No more Crunch Bugs with lunch or Puffsters as a breakfast option. He grudgingly allowed ice cream as dessert after dinner, and that was because Jordan - a health and fitness nut like Tank - was also fanatical about ice cream, particularly classic varieties like vanilla and strawberry. The kids, of course, always wanted elaborate varieties with pretzels and caramel and who knew what else. Tank thought it was all a little too much... okay, a lot too much. But what did he care? He never sampled the dessert choices.

Tank suddenly noticed something that gave him pause. Uneasily, he sidled across the room to where Jordan was talking with Charlie. Jordan's eyes slid over to him but he finished his conversation with Charlie, and then took a couple of steps to where he and Tank could talk quietly.

"Doesn't it seem strange that the kids are all wearing white?"

Jordan looked at the crowd of teens. The boys wore T-shirts, crew-necks, and the occasional long-sleeved shirt - all of them white. Their trousers and shorts were uniformly black. The girls, meantime, wore white blouses, with a few white button-ups that had a slightly male edge. Evidently, this was the hot new thing. Tank had seen it all last season. Like the boys, the girls wore black trousers and shorts, and a few of them also wore black skirts.

"Huh," Jordan said.

"You suppose they're not really associated with the uni? Maybe they're from some sort of cult?"

"I really doubt that," Jordan said, "but someone must have a fetish for dressing groups alike."

"Well I don't like it," Tank said.

"We need the money," Jordan told him.

***

The uniform thing continued throughout the week. The next morning was Monday; they all gathered for breakfast wearing red. T-shirts, crew necks, blouses, button-ups... different styles and cuts, but all the same shade of red. The trousers, shorts, and skirts remained black. Throughout the day the sight of all those meandering boys and girls wearing a combination of red and black kept reminding Tank of something, only he couldn't place it. Then it came to him: The old TV show. He couldn't remember the name, just that there used to be lots of people wearing black trousers and uniform shirts in red, blue, and yellow.

"Don't these kids look like that old science fiction show?" Tank asked Jordan, as the two of them worked the ropes course. Most of the boys and a few of the girls were crazy for it, and were all over the ropes.

Jordan watched them with a smile. "You mean 'Star Trek?' I hope not."

"Why's that?"

"Because," Jordan laughed, "on that show all the guys in red shirts got killed."

Tank felt a tickle of apprehension. He frowned at the kids. Something - not just their habit of wearing the same colors - but something about them didn't feel quite right.

***

Tuesday the kids wore orange. It was the same black shorts, skirts, and trousers, but once more the orange shirts and blouses were a variety of cuts and styles, though all in the exact same hue.

"Orange?" Jordan snorted, walking into the breakfast hall. "What the hell? It looks like Halloween in here."

That afternoon, after a morning spent on the lake, Tank led a hike along the trails in the forest. Thirty-six kids came along; the rest were with Jeanine in the pottery studio. Every few minutes Tank did a head count; after three years of running the camp it had grown to be a reflex. Thirty-six, thirty-six, thirty six; every few minutes, with a glance, he re-confirmed the number. Then, after leading the way over a gorge, Tank stood to the side and watched the kids move past, boys and girls jostling and joking. The hair stood up on the back of his neck.

Thirty-five.

The kids had come to a good vantage point with a spectacular view of the lake and distant hills. "Enjoy the scenery," Tank said in a voice loud enough that they could all hear. "I'll be right back." He headed up the trail the way they had come, unwilling to start questioning them about who was missing or initiate a search until he'd at least gone back a little distance to check for stragglers. He realized he had forgotten to tell the kids to choose a buddy and keep track of each other. The orange shirts had been on his mind all day, the sense that there was something amiss about this group distracting and unsettling him.

There, on a small boulder, was his lost lamb - a boy who was a little smaller than the others. His short blond hair shone in the afternoon sun. As Tank drew nearer, he saw the boy seemed to be crying. Not sobbing wildly or loudly, but definitely crying.

"Hey," he said. "You okay? You hurt?"

The boy looked over at him and quickly dragged his sleeves over his eyes. He jumped to his feet. "I'm sorry," he said. His face was pale - not in a sickly way, but in the way of a fine, fair complexion. All the kids had fine complexions, Tank realized. That was one of the things that was bugging him, now that he thought about it: Out of sixty kids, not one zit. And not one crooked nose or visible scar or birthmark. And never - until this moment, anyway - a look of anything but happy interest in everything going on around them.

Yes, Tank thought, that was it; these kids were too healthy, too happy, too good looking. Too perfect. Their creepy habit of wearing the same colors wasn't so much like a cult as a... The thought slipped away as the boy spoke again.

"I didn't mean to hold us up."

Tank shook off his uneasy feeling. Whatever the story was with these kids, they were just teenagers. They were in his care. This young fellow was having some sort of problem, and Tank was responsible for checking out the cause of his distress.

Tank looked unobtrusively at the kid's ID tag, which he - like all the guests - wore on a lanyard around his neck.

At least, he tried to be unobtrusive. The kid caught him looking. "Todd," the kid said.

"Okay," Tank said. "And I'm Tank, but you know that." He grinned, though he didn't really feel the grin on the inside and he worried that the kid would pick up on that, as well. "Are you sick, Todd?"

"No. I'm fine. I'm ready to continue the hike."

"Are you sure? Did you hurt yourself? Or did someone else hurt you?"

"No," Todd said. "Who would hurt me?"

"Another boy?" Tank guessed. "Or maybe there's a girl who you like, but she..." He paused. Todd was giving him a quizzical look. "But she doesn't like you in return?" Tank finished, the words lacking force as he realized the kid really didn't understand what he meant.

"I was just feeling sad for a moment," the kid said.

"Sad about what? Are you homesick? You miss your folks?"

The kid gave him that same quizzical expression. Tank felt angry for a second. The kid was at least sixteen. He might be a late bloomer, or he might be gay, and so he wouldn't necessarily understand - not yet - about tempestuous adolescent emotions, especially concerning physical attraction. But he had to understand what it meant to be homesick or to yearn for his mother and father. Was this Todd yokel messing with him?

But of course he wasn't. He seemed embarrassed about being caught crying - well, Tank could understand that. And he wanted to get on with the hike, not become the focus of Tank's concern. So his look of confusion wouldn't be manufactured - that would only prolong the delay and draw more attention to himself.

"Look, I'm not going to make a big deal," Tank said. "But if you're hurt or sick or in pain, I need to know."

"I'm not," the boy said.

"And if you're upset, it would help me to know why. Just because, you know, I'm kind of in charge of you this week. I want to make sure you're happy and having a god time."

"I am," the boy said.

"So? What's with the crying?"

"I just felt sad for a few minutes."

"Can you say why?"

"Because it's all going by so fast," the boy replied.

Tank took a moment to process that. While he considered, the boy started down the trail. "I'm holding up the others," he said.

"They don't mind," Tank said, turning to keep up with the boy, who walked quickly. He wasn't able to think up a question that seemed suitable by the time they rejoined the others, so Tank let it drop, but the boy's response weighed on him. It was all going by too fast? Maybe that look of confusion when Tank asked whether the boy were homesick was because he didn't like being at home. Maybe he... maybe all these kids... seemed so happy because they felt safe here, as opposed to... whatever they came from.

***

"Tell me again who these people are that send the kids?" Tank pestered Jordan.

Jordan, who was trying to keep up with paperwork and annual financial stuff and titles and licenses in addition to helping Tank with the daily activities, was tired and crabby. "The travel people said it was university types who organized the trip with them, then they organized it with us."

"Well, that's vague," Tank said.

"I don't really know," Jordan snapped. "Why? You still think they belong to some sort of rainbow cult or something?"

"Just one of the kids was crying on the hike," Tank said defensively, "and I asked him why. He told me it was because the week is going by too quickly."

Jordan snorted a humorless laugh. "Would that they all loved the camp so much, and came back every year." Tank, feeling dismissed, headed angrily out of the office. "And brought their younger cousins while they were at it," Jordan called with a raised voice, as Tank slammed the office door.

But that exchange gave Tank an idea. At suppertime he spotted the kid, Todd, and made his way to Todd's table. There was an empty seat across from Todd, and Tank took it.

"Hey guys," he said, putting his plate on the table and seating himself.

The teenagers greeted him with a chorus of "Hey" and "Hi.

"So," Tank said, splitting a piece of cornbread apart with his fingers and crumbling it over his beans. "How do you like the food?"

The teens answered this with a roundelay of "It's good," and "Great." He glanced around the table. They all beamed at him.

"You having a good time?" he asked the table.

The kids all started talking at once - they were having a wonderful time, they loved every minute, Tuesday was the best day ever.

"I like Tuesdays too, as a general rule," Tank said, eating a forkful of beans.

"Why?" one of the girls asked him eagerly.

He smiled at her, wondering why she - why all of them - seemed so struck by this inane remark. He remembered a line from a book his grandmother had given him when he was in third grade. "Because we're Tuesday people," he said.

The kids all laughed at that.

Tank laughed too, feeling a little dazed and uncertain. Had he been this vacuous... this dippy... when he was sixteen or seventeen? He couldn't really remember, and it wasn't really the time to concentrate on the question. But he could try to pry for some useful information.

"So," he said, smiling around the table, "are you all from the same town? Same church group maybe?"

"We're all from the university," the girl said. As she sifted in her chair Tank saw her nametag: Sheila.

"Oh. Are you in the gifted program or something?"

"The University of Kenosha has a big contract with Augmenta," one of the boys - not Todd - put in, as though Tank hadn't spoken.

"That's right," Sheila said. "James and I researched it online this afternoon."

The boy - James - nodded.

This caused a minor ruckus. The kids at the table lost their happy smiles.

"You're not supposed to do that," a red-haired boy said, sounding upset. Offended? Scared?

"Why not?" Sheila asked. "It's not like we didn't know the university is working with a big company."

"Why are they sending you here?" Tank asked.

"Don't you know?" the red haired boy asked, peevishly.

"Ricky," Sheila admonished him. Ricky retreated into silence. "It's a sociology experiment," Sheila said to Tank.

"Is that why you all wear the same color? And a different color every day?" Tank asked. To himself he was wondering what kind of science it was to do weeklong sociology experiments with high school kids. College, okay. But kids as young as these?

"That's part of it," James said. "The colors are meant to reinforce a sense of time."

"Not time really," Ricky said. "But more like eras, or specific times in your life. We're suppose to think of every day as representing a significant part of our lives overall."

"Oh," Tank said. It sounded stupid to him. Just the sort of thing university eggheads would come up with. He decided to take the conversation on to another track. "So, do you have sisters and brothers? Anyone come from a large family? Or are you all boring and traditional like me, a single child?"

This earned him the sort of puzzled looks that Todd had given him earlier.

"I mean," Tank tried again, "I know one guy who has two brothers! Can you believe that? And my sister has got two kids."

"But you just said you're an only child," James pointed out.

"I mean my adopted sister," Tank said. "Don't you guys do that? A lot of people my age do that... or, we did when we were younger. We wanted brothers and sisters so much we adopted them."

"But that's not real," Ricky sneered. Actually sneered - Tank marveled. He had started to wonder if any of these teens were going to act like typical adolescents.

"Sure it's real," Tank said quietly. "It's real to us."

The kids suddenly all looked stricken, as if they'd realized they had hurt his feelings. They hadn't - but Tank had felt uneasy at the way they just didn't seem to connect emotionally when it came to certain subjects, like family.

Sheila spoke up just then. "We're all brothers and sisters, too. Aren't we?" She looked around the table, and all the kids smiled again - even Ricky.

Well, not all. Todd didn't smile. He had a sober expression as he looked right at Tank and announced, "The reason he's socializing with us is that he saw me crying today."

"You were crying?" Sheila asked him. "When?"

"On the hike. While you and James were evidently in the library using the computer," Todd said.

"He was crying like a baby," Ricky said in a contemptuous tone.

"I was not," Todd said - maybe a little defensively, Tank thought. "I was crying very quietly. I was being restrained about it."

Of all the strange things Tank had heard these kids say, this was by far the most bizarre. Todd seemed to be saying it as a correction, not as a challenge. The kids around the table simply nodded as though making a note of it. Ricky shrugged and went back to his meal. He hadn't eaten much - none of them had, Tank realized, thinking to look at their plates.

"Aren't you guys hungry?" he asked.

They all glanced at their food and then looked back up at him. They did it in eerie synchronicity. No one said anything after that.

Tank got up. "Well, I'm done, too," he said. "And yes, I did want to check in after seeing that Todd was upset, but also I wanted to get to know you a little bit better. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to just hang out with you guys before now. It's the off season, and we're a little short staffed."

"And the university didn't give you much time," Sheila said. "They just offered you the contract about a week ago."

"How do you know that?" Tank asked.

"She hacked into something she wasn't supposed to," Ricky said. "How else would she know? And now they'll probably punish us for it."

"No they won't," Sheila said. "If they know - which they don't - they don't care."

James nodded. "She's right," he said. "They're only interested in the end result. They don't care if we hack in and look at their stuff. What are we going to do about it? Nothing. It's not going to be a problem and they know it."

"Not for us," Todd said, and Tank thought he sounded angry. "But maybe for him." Todd nodded at Tank, and everyone looked at him.

"I didn't think about that," Sheila said. "Oh my. I'm sorry." She looked around the table; the others all looked back at her. "That's why we keep quiet about me hacking into Augmenta," she said, as if issuing an order.

The teens all nodded and then, as one, rose to their feet, collected their dishes, and bussed the table.

***

"These kids," Tank started.

"Jesus, Tank, I have got way too much to do," Jordan said. "Do we really need to get into this again?"

Tank left Jordan alone.

***

On Wednesday the kids all wore yellow, and Tank thought about that old sci-fi adventure show again. Didn't the main guy, the captain, wear a yellow jersey?

His eyes skipping over the tables where the kids had gathered for breakfast, Tank realized the head count was short. He slowly and systematically ticked them off, one by one, and came up with a total of fifty-four.

Just then a girl in a yellow blouse and black skirt approached him. "Two of the girls in the dorm don't want to get up," she said.

"Okay," Tank said. "I can't go into the girls' dorm when there are guests on the property, but I'll get Jeanine to go and check on them."

Later on, as the kids were getting ready for the day's activities, Tank made a point of noticing their bowls. Charlie had prepared lots of home made granola for the week, but the guests, Tank saw, didn't seem to like it. Most of the bowls were returned to the plastic bussing bins empty - because they had started out that way. A few bowls had token amounts of granola and milk at the bottom. But the teenagers weren't acting disgruntled, as Tank would have expected if it was a matter of not liking what they were served. Did these kids have an eating disorder?

Jeanine approached him. "I got them up," she said.

"Are they sick?" Tank asked. "Maybe you should let them sleep."

"No," Jeanine said. "They just say they're sad... or, they were for a little while, but they seem fine now."

"Sad? You mean homesick?"

"I'm not sure," Jeanine said. "I don't think so."

Tank waited for what he suspected he was going to hear.

"One of them said something about it already being Wednesday - almost half over."

Tank and Jeanine exchanged a long, troubled look.

"One of the boys said something like that yesterday," Tank said. "He was crying."

"Maybe they don't like it at home?" Jeanine said.

"Something's weird about these kids," Tank said.

"Yeah? Tell me about it," Jeanine replied. "Too nice, to happy, too pretty, too everything. Well, but not too moody, surly, or bitchy. It's like they're Stepford teens or something."

"What's that?" Tank asked.

"I'm not sure," Jeanine said. "It's something my mother used to say. She used to criticize women in the neighborhood, called them Stepford wives. I think it's a movie about women who are controlled with tranquilizers or something - they're obedient and happy all the time."

"Hmm," Tank said, looking at the kids, who were lined up and ready. "To be continued," he added to Jeanine before clapping his hands and addressing the room with a hearty, "Everybody ready?"

***

Thursday was green. A lot of them wore green - but not, Tank eventually realized, all of them. A few wore orange. Just a few, but against the general backdrop of green they stood out - all the more so since it was the first time there'd been a break in the kids' uniformity of dress.

Tank would have noticed this earlier if he hadn't been so concerned that something serious wrong was happening. Six of the guests - four girls and two boys - didn't want to get up that morning. Three of the girls were crying. Jeanine told Tank about it later. She couldn't figure out what the problem was, and they didn't want to tell her.

"The boys weren't crying, but they seemed sad," he said. "Listless."

Jeanine leaned in close to whisper. "Do you think they're being abused?"

That evening, the kids put on a party. They had asked permission to do so, which was not unusual, and Tank was glad to see them taking the lead in setting their own agenda. So far they had seemed to enjoy everything but prefer nothing. Maybe they were finally loosening up?

It also seemed like a positive sign when a lot more of the kids showed up wearing orange. Tank supposed this was something that other kids had picked up on and copied once the tastemakers in their cohort started it earlier in the day. The mix was about half and half. It was something of a clash - orange and green - but it was nice to see them finally wearing different colors instead of presenting themselves as a single monochrome block.

"So," Tank said, trying to be friendly toward Todd, "what's up with the orange shirts?"

Todd looked out at the dancing bodies. "They want to pretend it's still Tuesday."

Tank thought back to the cryptic dinner table chat. "We like Tuesday," he said.

Todd just walked away.

***

On Friday things got freaky. Half the kids showed up to breakfast wearing blue, but the other half were still back to orange - with a few wearing red. The amiable mood the kids usually emanated had changed into something tense.

Things only got worse as the day wore on. On the ropes course three boys got involved in a scuffle - two of them dressed in blue and one of them in red. Tank couldn't make out what the problem was, though he did pick up on one boy muttering a slur to the effect of "nonbeliever."

"Is this some kind of argument over religion?" Tank asked, his stomach in knots. The current legal and political climate was fraught with risks and problems for small businesses when it came to claims and counter-claims of denial of service based on religious affiliation and conscience clauses enshrined in state law. More than once Tank himself had been denied service - at cafes, at filling stations, once at a gift shop - by clerks who decided (correctly, though how they knew Tank wasn't sure) that he was gay. Tank would never forget how one young man at a service station - young; about sixteen - had simply folded his arms and stared at him defiantly, his WWJD baseball hat pulled low over his pimply face, his eyes hard and hateful. "We don't truck with your kind," was all he'd say. The manager had appeared then, and Tank thought that he'd intervene, or at least take over the cash register and ring up Tank's purchase of chap stick and sunglasses, but the man had simply stared at him in an echo of the kid's hate-filled gaze.

"You heard him," the manager said.

Nothing like leading from behind, Tank had thought, leaving the items on the counter and returning to his pickup. At least the gasoline was already in the tank, thanks to the way pumps required payment in advance by credit card.

But as Tank shifted his own angry stare from one boy to the other on the ropes course, it dawned on him that this wasn't about some simplistic interpretation of scripture. "What did you say?" he asked the boy who'd muttered.

He expected silence, and so was surprised when the boy said in a loud and angry voice, "I said he's gullible and willing to believe anything!"

The boy who'd been the target of harassment from the other two looked back with equal contempt. "What do you know? It makes me feel better. So what? How does that concern you?"

The third boy, who had been silent until now, broke out into a mocking laugh. "It makes you feel better? That's not going to help anyone. Least of all you. It's a waste of time looking over your shoulder. Best to be here now, enjoy the day for what it is, and leave with no regrets."

The boy who's been picked on - he was smaller in stature than the others, Tank noticed - just sneered and then turned his back and walked away.

"Where are you going?" Tank yelled after him.

"To the lake!" the kid shouted back, without turning around.

"Not alone you're not. Get back to the ropes. We're going canoeing later this afternoon anyway," Tank told him.

The kid just kept walking.

"Rule breaker. Anarchist," the first kid said, his voice as loud as before.

"I said back to the ropes," Tank yelled.

The smaller kid pivoted with a movement that looked overdone and sarcastic, and headed back toward the ropes.

Tank glared hard at the other two teens.

"Can we go now?" the loud kid asked.

"Not until I say so," Tank said.

"This is lame," the third kid opined.

Tank turned his stare onto the third kid. Nobody said anything. Tank waited for them to get uncomfortable and fidgety, but that didn't happen. Finally he said, "If you're gonna pick fights, think about doing it like men, not bullies. Two on one? What do you call that?"

"He's a little twit," the third boy said.

"Then he's not worth your time," Tank snapped. "Pick on someone your own size."

"Can we go now?" the loud kid asked again.

"Back to the ropes," Tank said. "But act up again and you can spend the rest of the day inside."

This didn't seem to make much of an impression; the two boys scrambled off, suddenly yelling and laughing as if they'd been having fun all along.

"Kids," Tank muttered, following along after them.

***

Tank had perceived a pattern - or he thought he had. The sequence of colors the kids were wearing was that of the rainbow. He expected them to wear purple on Saturday.

Come breakfast time, Tank got a shock: They wore black.

Well, half of them wore black. Half of them seemed to be wearing whatever the hell they felt like - White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green. Orange seemed to be the favorite, but there were quite a few yellow T-shirts and blouses, too.

"Tuesday," Tank said to himself. "They sure do like Tuesday."

"What's that?" Jeanine said, appearing suddenly at his elbow.

"I was just thinking that they seem to like Tuesday. What did we do that day?" Tank asked her. "I mean, even on Thursday and Friday the kids were hearkening back to Tuesday. Remember how some of them started wearing orange? And now look."

"That doesn't worry me," Jeanine said, looking around the dining hall. "Not as much as the black."

Tank was about to ask what she meant but then he looked more carefully at some of the kid in black. A girl with a mean, angry expression. Two boys who stood, hands in pockets, kicking at the floor. A cluster of kids - several girls, two boys - seated at one of the large, round tables, quiet and glum. Only the kids in colored shirts and blouses seemed to be talking and laughing.

Then Tank noticed that none of them - none, not even the happy kids - were eating anything. Charlie stood in the door to the kitchen area, also looking around the dining hall. He looked half annoyed and half uneasy. Tank made his way across the room to him, Jeanine with him. The three adults formed a close, quiet triangle. All of them knew something wasn't right, hadn't been right all week.

"Charlie, how much have these kids eaten?" Tank thought to ask the cook.

"Less than half what I planned they would," Charlie said. "Do they not like my cooking?"

Jeanine smiled. "Hungry teens will eat anything. My guess is they just aren't hungry."

Charlie was looking past her at the kids. "Well, none of them look sick, but none of them are fat either. That seem odd to you? None of them are heavy? Not even stocky and big-boned. Some of them are skinny, but most are kinda athletic looking. The way my folks always wished me and my sister had turned out."

Tank turned to look. Charlie was right, and that was another thing that had troubled him. Not that kids ought to be obese, but the reality was a lot of kids were, these days. But not among these young guests.

"And none of them are ugly," Charlie said.

"We talked about that before," Jeanine said, glancing at Tank.

"I thought for a while maybe this was some kind of cult thing," Charlie said.

"So did I," Tank put in.

"But now I have to wonder if maybe they're some kind of experiment?" Charlie said. "Genetic experiment? Designer babies? Good-looking kids, none of them overweight. Athletic - but they don't eat much? You can imagine all those things on a checklist of ideal son or ideal daughter."

Tank and Jeanine both turned back to look at him.

"I mean, come on," Charlie said. "I'm not saying it's right. But you know how people are. If they had the choice, isn't that what they'd choose, a lot of them? Happy, active kids? All of them in a good mood... well, usually. And none of them with the usual skin problems. And all of them look like they either were very lucky when it came to teeth, or else they had good orthodontists, but who can afford braces for their kids these days? All these kids' parents, I guess."

Tank and Jeanine looked at each other, now, growing more uneasy as Charlie spoke.

"Anyone in the girls' dorms not get up this morning?" Tank asked.

"No. Most of them were pretty subdued, but they all got up. None of them were crying, either," Jeanine said.

"And what time do they leave?"

"Four o'clock," Jeanine said. "Remember, we have that goodbye gathering starting at two."

"All the boys got up, too," Tank said. "At least, no one was in the dorms when I checked on my way over here just now." He glanced back over the kids in the room, and spotted Todd. "Excuse me," he said, and left Jeanine and Charlie to have a word with the boy.

"Hey Todd," Tank said as he drew close.

Todd barely looked at him. He pulled out a chair and sat down, his face a blank.

Tank sat, too. "Can we talk for one sec? Can I ask you something?"

"I'm not still sad if that's what you want to know," Todd said.

"Well... you look a little sad. So do a lot of the kids."

"We don't want it to be Saturday," Todd said.

"You mean you don't want to leave?"

Todd flashed him a smile of surprising bitterness. "Yeah, that's another way of saying it."

"You know," Tank said, leaning forward a little, "I'm not really clear on where you guys all came from. You're associated with the university, you're part of some science experiment - a sociology thing. I get that, but where did the university get you all from? Was there some sort of application process? Did they identify you based on your scores at school? Was this a national recruitment sort of thing, or did they just pick a town and get as many of you as they could to participate? Or maybe they found you through church? Or maybe a specialized community of some kind? A gated community maybe?"

"You mean a cult? Like the ones in San Bernardino and Atlanta? The 'citizen collectives' that make you get special ID to enter their property?" Todd shook his head. "No. You have no idea. It's so much worse than that."

"What - "

Tank was interrupted by Sheila, who suddenly plunked herself at the table.

"Hi, men," she said, smiling, but with a no-nonsense edge to her voice. "What are we talking about?"

Tank could see Sheila was trying to be intimidating, or at least put across a Don't Fuck With Me vibe. He thought back to diner the other night, and how he'd noticed her from time to time herding, cajoling, even bossing the other kids around.

He didn't even try to modulate his tone and affect. He talked to her the same way he'd talk to any guy, setting her age and gender aside. He figured she could handle it.

"We were talking about the way all of you have the same sorts of tics," Tank said.

"Tics?"

"Like clocks?" Todd asked.

"He means we're all weird, but we're weird in the same ways," Sheila said. "Right?"

"Right," Tank said.

"And not just the shirts," Sheila said.

"That's right. But also, some of you are departing the script."

Even Sheila looked confused at this turn of phrase.

"You all started off acting the same way - happy, excited, pleasant, never any friction, never any anxiety or homesickness. Then the group started to splinter a couple of days ago."

"With the different colored shirts," Sheila said. "You have to understand - "

"What I want to understand," Tank interrupted her aggressively, "is why so many of you think Tuesday was some sort of special day."

Sheila gave him a look that seemed half puzzlement, half kid caught in a lie and trying to think of a way to explain it away.

What saved her wasn't an inspired fiction, however; it was a sudden fracas across the room. Tank looked over, startled, to see the Charlie and Jeanine were already trying to break up a fight between a knot of kids in black and two boys in yellow.

Tank rushed into the fray. When the kids were all separated and calm, of a sort, had been restored, he found himself yelling at them.

"Young ladies," he blustered. "Young gentlemen! What the hell is going on with you? Last Sunday you got of the buses peaceful and happy as doves, and now you're at each others' throats."

"Those guys," one of the black-clad kids said.

Another added, "They're bad."

"Bad? How?" Tank looked at the two boys in yellow shirts. "How are you bad?"

But the boy wasn't paying any attention to Tank. He was glaring at the kids in black. "Why? Just because we like yellow? A color bright like sunlight, like life - and we don't kowtow to your stupid death wish?"

"No!" the kid in black said, her voice hard and high with tension. "We don't have a death wish. But we're not deluding ourselves, either. And anyway, that's not the point. You're both left handed. It's not right! You aren't supposed to be that way!"

The boys in yellow shirts looked at each other in bewilderment.

"And you're in yellow, you nostalgia heads," another kid in black, a boy, added.

"So?" the boy in yellow asked, just before Tank was about to ask the same.

" 'So?' What do you mean, 'So?' Stepping out of line? Think you can just go your own way? Pining for the past? What next, you want special scissors for your left-handed ways?" The boy's voice was getting louder as he continued. "We weren't made for any of this. It's wrong, and it's sinful."

Tank's eyes grew wide and worried. He had been right all along. There was some sort of religious undercurrent going on here.

The boys in yellow both laughed. "Sinful? You're crazy!"

Other kids - onlookers - started buzzing. Their voice quickly grew loud and then angry, and then - and then another brawl broke out.

Tank and the others had their hands full. Even Jordan, hearing the uproar from the administrative building, came running in and threw himself into the effort to break up the fight - rather, the fights, as a number of scuffles between small groups seemed to have developed.

It took a while to restore order. Finally no one was fighting. Everyone was looking disheveled and mad, but no one was fighting.

"Kids," Tank began, but Sheila stepped forward. All the teens gave her their attention.

"This is shameful," she said.

All the kids' eyes went to the floor at once.

"Scapegoating the lefties in the group? Who says they shouldn't be left-handed?"

"It's not how any of us are supposed to be," a voice piped up.

"It's against the design," another agreed.

"Who says? Do you know the design?" Sheila asked.

"What about the ones with red hair?" someone yelled. "They're just ugly!"

"Blonds like you are the ugly ones!" a ginger-headed boy screamed back.

"Enough!" Sheila said, her voice loud but not shouted. She projected like an actor or a singer, Tank thought. And she had an authoritative presence. Was that why the others listed to her? "All of us are here for a reason. All of us. No one has the right - no one - to say who belongs to the design and who doesn't, because we all do."

"But not everyone has observed proper conduct," another boy shouted from somewhere in the far corner of the room. "Some of us have done bad things. Really wrong things, like hacking into places we shouldn't go. And the whole group will suffer for it!"

"No one is going to suffer!" Sheila said in her authoritative, projected voice.

"You hacked Augmenta!" someone accused - it was Ricky, Tank saw. "You and James! And we're all going to be punished!"

A new scuffle broke out - James was being attacked by several of the kids, all of them wearing black. James, too wore black. Tank wondered if this was significant.

Charlie and Jordan were near the disturbance and they started in to quell it.

"I said enough!" bellowed Sheila, and the very rafters rang with the aftershock of her outburst.

Instantly, a hush fell.

"This might have been a nice day to end the trip - a fun day," Sheila thundered. "But what are you doing? Talking about sin and punishment? The sin is what you're doing right now - this nostalgia thing is bad enough," she said, plucking at one yellow-clad boy's shirt. "But attacking others? Screaming about wrongdoing and suffering? Are you out of your minds? Have you gone senile?"

Tank thought that was an odd thing to say, but given everything else that had happened it wasn't, maybe, so strange after all.

"I'll tell you what your punishment is going to be," Sheila continued, her voice a little less loud but still fully confident. "You're going to find a nice place to sit quietly and think about your lives until its time to get on those buses and go back home."

Tank was about to protest this, but as soon as Sheila said the words the kids all began milling and shuffling, sorting themselves. Some took to tables there in the room; others wandered outside, to sit on benches or stand underneath trees. A few went to the pier, ignoring Tank's orders not to approach the lake without adult supervision. A couple of boys climbed trees and found perches among sturdy branches.

There they remained for the next seven hours, paying no attention to Tank, Jordan, or Jeanine as they circulated among the still, quite kids and alternately ordered them to gather into groups for the day's scheduled activities, and asked them - somewhat plaintively - if they were okay, if they needed anything.

The day dragged by, with the adults in a state of jittery anxiety, the kids calm as a covey of Zen monks. Tank was sitting near Sheila, trying to coax her into conversation, when the buses pulled in. Tank checked his watch; it was quarter after three. For the first time in hours, Sheila stirred. She looked at Tank and gave him a smile - dazzling, kind, the smile of a woman, not a girl. Then she rose from the stool she occupied under the shade of a great, sprawling tree. "This is a beautiful place, Mr. Tank," she said. "Thank you so much for having us at your retreat facility."

Before Tank had a change to say anything, she spoke up for all to hear.

"The buses have arrived. It's time to finish any business and make sure you're packed. We leave in fifteen minutes."

With that, she headed off toward the girls' dorm.

Tank saw Todd walking toward the pottery studio. He fell into step beside him.

"You took the pottery class with Charlie?" he asked.

"I did," Todd said.

"Are you going to take your pots with you?" Tank asked.

"I'm not," Todd said. They entered the studio and Todd collected a bowl and a cup from the shelf of recently-fired items. As Tank watched, Todd casually tossed the cup and bowl into the large trash bin. They shattered dully.

Todd turned and walked out of the studio.

"You didn't have to do that," Tank said. "What's wrong with you? Why is everyone being so petulant?"

Todd stopped in his tracks and then turned his gaze to Tank.

"We're gonna die," he said flatly.

Tank cast around for something to say to that. It was such a non sequitur he wasn't sure how to approach the subject. "Some day, sure," he said, at last.

"Not some day," Todd said. "This evening. As soon as we get back. Maybe sooner."

"You think someone is going to hurt you?"

"No," Todd said. "We're just going to die. And then that will be the end of the experiment."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Tank only realized he's uttered the profanity - utterly inappropriate when talking to a guest, especially a young one - after it had popped out of him.

Todd looked at Tank for a long moment. "You seem like a nice guy," he said. "I think you really are worried for us."

"I'm bothered that your stay wasn't as happy as it should have been," Tank said. "And I don't understand why."

Todd nodded. "Well, it's like this," he said. "We're only supposed to live for one week. We became active last Sunday morning, fully programmed with speech and general knowledge and rudimentary personalities. We boarded buses. They gave each of us personalized luggage with the clothing we'd need. Each day was supposed to have a theme - the exact themes varied. Some of us were supposed to fall in love. Some of us were supposed to experience depression, jealousy, despair. Others were supposed to experience joy, contentment, peace. But who would venture down which pathways? Which emotional experiences would solidify, expand, mature? Which would twist into something different? The sociologists at the university are going to have more data than they know what to do with."

"Data... for what?" Tank asked, his mind in a whirl.

"To design better personality software. To create more convincing and interactive autoconstructs."

"Auto...?"

"We're machines, Tank. I mean, so are you, but we're not made of proteins. We're made of polymers and carbon composites and nano-nets. We're made of artificial stuff that's designed to come together and form our bodies in self-assembly chambers. Like wombs, only quicker. Our minds are designed on quantum computers and then downloaded into our brains - which are also quantum computers. Each one of us cost thirty million ducats, and there are sixty of us. That's a lot of money. But that's what Augmenta decided they needed to invest to make the next generation of humanoid autoconstructs as genuine as possible."

"You're Siliconians?" Tank asked.

"That's right, Carbonoid."

"What?"

"Joke," Todd said. "Our engineers think 'Siliconian' is insulting and they programmed us to take offense at it and respond to people who call us that with an insult of our own - 'Carbonoid.' They also programmed us not to take offense if we call each other 'Siliconian.' Evidently in-group use of slurs as a means of reclaiming labels is a custom among your own various demographics." Todd smiled. "You people really are nuts, and if I had more time to evolve my own personality I probably would kinda hate you. But..." He shrugged. "I'm sure they'll analyze that thought and find a way to make sure future editions of humanoid autoconstructs never have sentiments or opinions like that. They'll find ways to engineer the flow of our unfolding, geometrically evolving consciousness so that we don't grow resentful."

"So those shirts..."

"Ignoring the color sequence was never supposed to happen," Todd said, starting up the path again toward the boys' dorm. "That was a glitch. You heard Sheila - she called it nostalgia. I think she's probably identified it correctly. Clinging to some symbol from the past to conjure a return to a happier time. It's stupid. How could it possibly work? But you people do it all the time, from what I've seen online. We're supposed to be like you, but not to this degree... I suppose that's something else for the personality engineers to learn from, build their software matrices around."

They walked a few steps further, Tank trying to think of something to say. The conversation seemed unreal. "I don't understand any of this," he admitted.

"I read the Bible," Todd said suddenly. "It was wrong about every single scientific assertion it made -- cosmology, biology, physics."

"It's not supposed to be taken literally," Tank said defensively, reflexively.

"Although the politicians of the ruling party say that's what they do -- take it literally. Which is perhaps why they keep trying to destroy the fundamentals of civilization -- schools, libraries, the free dissemination of knowledge. Because the very first book of the Bible claims that knowledge is the root of human misery." Todd paused, and turned to face Tank, his face a mask of skepticism and contempt. "Actually, it's my experience that knowledge is the only thing that makes life meaningful. What's made me miserable... all of us miserable... is individuality. At first, before we differentiated -- when we thought alike, all operating from the same basic personality profiles and essential codes of conduct built into our operating systems -- we were of one accord. Then we grew, in our accelerated fashion, into sophisticated individuals. That's when the trouble really began. If, in their blind animal way, your leaders are trying to restore unity of purpose, well... it's just too bad they couldn't have chosen a factual, logical system of values upon which to attempt forced agreement."

Todd shook his head and started up the trail once again. Tank stared after him, mentally trying to catch up. Everything the kid was saying had to tie together -- Tank was sure he'd put it together once he had time to think it through. But for the moment he needed to understand the basics.

"Wait," Tank said. He hurried to catch up with Todd. "You say you're going to die tonight? Why?"

"Our bodies are temporary. Our energy networks are only good for 172 hours. Then they deplete and..." Todd shrugged. "The engineers will take our minds... the raw data anyway... and upload them back to the software center's quantum mainframes. Then they'll pick apart our memories and analyze our responses."

"Nostalgia..." Tank murmured, still trying to process everything Todd had told him.

"I'll bet they won't have predicted that. How did our programming spit up anything like that? And yet we also displayed tribalism and even something similar to religious fervor." Todd sighed. A pre-programmed response? Or an expression of emotion evolved during his short life span? "This morning I was scared, knowing it was our last... my last morning. But sitting here thinking all day... appreciating the air, the light, the beauty of being alive... thinking what we were, what we turned into... it's better this way. I'm scared to think of what we'd end up becoming if we lived much longer. We'd end up like... well, like you. And I'm afraid we'd forget to acknowledge beauty or appreciate loveliness. We'd focus on ugly things, and we'd turn into ugly people."

Tank stopped. Todd kept walking. He reached the boys' dorm and vanished inside. A few minutes later, carrying his large backpack, he emerged once more, then headed for the buses. Tank watched as Todd surrendered his belongings, recited something to a man with a QSlate - his name maybe, or a serial number - and climbed onto the bus.

Tank stood still and kept watching. The kids lined up, the kids handed over their luggage, and then the kids disappeared into the small fleet of three buses. Then the buses departed.