The Disappeared by C.J. Harper

is sad-for-my-trouble? She sounds like an old lady. ‘What trouble?’ I say.
    ‘The trouble you’re going to get because you don’t know things,’ she says.
    Oh that’s great. Now I’ve got an Academy girl feeling sorry for me.
    ‘I know things. You don’t need feel sad for . . . you don’t need to feel sorry for me. I shouldn’t even be in an Academy. I’ve got a big future ahead of me.’
    She blinks at me. ‘In here,’ she says slowly, ‘you are nothing. You’ve got no fight ranking. You’re not a Red and I have the think that you’ve got no shrap either.’
    I stare.
    ‘I do feel sad-for-your-trouble because you don’t know what I’m meaning, do you?’
    I shrug my shoulders. How can I be expected to know what she’s on about? Not only is she an Academy ‘Special’, she’s also a girl. It’s like trying to talk to a double alien.
    ‘You think you know all things. Don’t you?’ she says.
    ‘Maybe not quite all . . .’ I say.
    ‘But you don’t know things in here.’
    ‘Well no, I don’t understand things in here, just like you lot don’t understand proper spoken English. It’s nice that you’ve made up your own language like little kids.’ A smile escapes me. ‘But you can’t expect me—’
    Smack. She punches me in the mouth.
    ‘ Ow! What the hell did you do that for?’ The space where those men knocked out my tooth fills with blood.
    ‘I understand what laughing means,’ she says and walks off.

I’ve only been in the dormitory half an hour when another buzzer sounds. I follow the others down to the dining hall for dinner. I remember what Ilex said about dinner not being drugged so I use my hand as a scoop to eat what the nozzles produce. The first stream tastes like a bland vegetable soup and the second is some kind of mashed-up fruit.
    After dinner, I find Ilex in an almost deserted dormitory across the hall from mine. He lets me sit on his bed.
    ‘What’s a Red?’ I ask him.
    He looks at me in surprise. ‘Reds are leaders. They tell you what to do.’
    ‘Like enforcers?’
    He laughs. ‘No Reds are Specials. But they’re the big good Specials.’
    ‘Good at what? Science? Public speaking?’
    ‘Fighting.’
    ‘Oh. So to be in the Red gang you have to be a good fighter?’
    Ilex shakes his head. ‘You are a Red when, y’know, when you are a baby. When you start.’
    ‘When you’re born?’
    He nods.
    ‘That’s not a system that allows for upward mobility is it? What can you do if you’re not born a Red?’
    ‘All Specials fight here. If you get a good fight ranking you can be an Hon Red.’
    ‘What do they call the Specials who aren’t Reds or Hon Reds?’
    ‘Bad names.’
    ‘That’ll be me then.’
    ‘Me too.’ He stares at his hands.
    ‘So, you have these fights and if you win you get points?’
    ‘If you have winned lots of fights then you get a good rank.’
    ‘What rank are you?’ I ask.
    ‘This time I’m a three-fifteener.’
    ‘That’s . . . nice,’ I say.
    Ilex laughs. ‘It means I fight fifteen fights and I win three.’
    ‘I see.’ That’s one fight in five. I’m not sure I could manage that. Ilex is kind of slow, but he’s pretty hefty.
    Ilex eyes my long, skinny legs then his head jerks up. There’s a lumpy-looking boy standing next to me. I turn to look at the boy and he grabs my arm.
    ‘ You come downstairs,’ Lumpy says.
    ‘I think I’ll stay here,’ I say.
    The boy blinks at me. ‘Come now.’
    ‘Blake . . .’ begins Ilex.
    ‘No, really, Ilex, I think I’ll stay here,’ I say. I’m tired of being told what to do.
    Lumpy’s mouth drops into a shocked ‘O’ and he lumbers off.
    ‘Blake, he works for the Reds. You have to do the thing they say.’
    ‘I don’t have to do any—’
    I’m grabbed roughly from behind by my shoulders and forced on to my feet. There are two huge boys on either side of me.
    ‘Hey!’ I shout, but there’s hardly anyone in the dormitory to take notice – except Ilex, who