Return to Pleasure Island (3 of 13)

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Return to Pleasure Island by Cory Doctorow. Copyright 1998 by Cory Doctorow.
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RETURN TO PLEASURE ISLAND (CONT'D)

Joe returned as the sun was rising, and burrowed in between his brothers on their nest of blankets. George flung one leg over his smallest brother, and smelled the liquor on his breath in his sleep, and his dreams were tainted with the stink of rotting grapes.

George was the first one awake, preparing the morning meal. A maggoty side of beef, ripe with the vitality of its parasites, and gravel. Joe came for breakfast before Bill, as was his custom. Bill needed the sleep, to rest his cleverness.

"God-damn, I am hungry!," Joe said loudly, without regard for his sleeping brother.

"You missed dinner," George said.

"I had more important things to do," Joe said. "I was out with an Imagineer!"

George stared hard at him. "What did the Imagineer want? Is there trouble?"

Joe gave a deprecating laugh. "Why do you always think there's trouble? The guy wanted to chat with me -- he likes me, wants to get to know me. His name is Woodrow, he's in charge of a whole operations division, and he was interested in what I thought of some of his plans." He stopped and waited for George to be impressed.

George knew what the pause was 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.

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