THE location for Phase Two would be a place called Seville Trace. All Linc knew about it was that was situated somewhere near San Antonio Texas.
It looked as if it had been built as a hotel and fallen victim to the wired interstates, which let drivers doze while vehicles cruised on robo-drive, with the result that people didn't stop as frequently as they used to anymore. Or maybe it had been undercut by the spate of unstaffed "motelmats," where machines took care of registration and dispensed all needs including disposable linen. Whatever the reason, it was now taken over by other interests for the continuation of whatever it was that had begun at Camp Coulie.
Linc and the others had thought that the purpose of the operation might at last have been divulged with the completion of Phase One. They had expected something like a "passing out" parade, or at least a touch of ceremonials to honor those who had made it through, with maybe, as the culmination, an announcement of what it was all about. But nothing like that took place, and as far as that particular issue was concerned they remained in darkness.
They did hold the games at Coulie, two days before the end of the final week. Hut 2 just squeaked in ahead of Hut 6, and Hut 4 took the coveted third place. Hut 3, under Linc and Angelo, and Julie's Hut 8 tied for fourth place, and only two of the other huts managed to achieve golds. In Hut 7, Arvin personally took first for the bench press and runner-up for the squat lift. As with his performance at the climbing crag, it was done through brute force and determination. He'd never trained with iron systematically in a gym in his life.
But apart from that there was just a low-key winding down of everything, with another address by Mr. Black on the final evening, generally complimenting everyone and citing a few special commendations where called for. There were general rounds of farewells to the wardens—for whom, in many cases, respect and affection had become quite sincere and deep. But the overall tone was designed to restrain the inmates from getting too excited and carried away. The message seemed to be that whatever was going on wasn't over, and there was more to get through yet before letting up would be in order. They did all get a shoulder patch to wear, in the form of a doubled C motif set in gold against a red California sequoia.
About half those who completed Phase One at Coulie came to Seville Trace. The rest went to a different Phase Two, being held at another place. The remainder of the arrivals at Seville Trace were from Phase One staged at a place called Meyer Flat in Colorado.
Two two-story accommodation wings extended back from the ends of a front building containing offices, function rooms, and communal and dining facilities. The U formed between the wings contained a recreation area with a pool. Outbuildings erected on what had previously been the parking lot contained workshops, classrooms, and a gym. Standard dress was blue shirt and navy tie with a dark, tunic-style suit for the boys, ditto for girls but with a skirt.
Rooming was in fours, the slots being assigned, not chosen. Linc shared Room 207 with Patch and two of the contingent from Colorado—who wore blue shoulder badges showing a mountain peak. One with a Canadian accent, naturally enough dubbed Rocky; the other a black guy, Johnny, who sounded Jamaican. It seemed the general policy to mix the Coulie and Meyer people in this way. Flash, Mace, Rick, and Arvin were also among those who came from Coulie. Julie, however, was not. After their first brief encounter, intrigued by her as Linc was, the routine had been too demanding for him to get to know much more about her during the remainder of their stay at Coulie. The last he saw of her was as she was boarding a bus with a group leaving for Fresno a couple of hours before Linc himself was due to depart. He could have made a better effort, he told himself afterward.
Another face that Linc had hoped he would see more of, but who had presumably been routed elsewhere, was Angelo's. Both of Hut 3's "Macs" were missing from Seville Trace too.
The staff wore the same style of tan uniforms as had those at Coulie. Phase Two would focus on assessing schooling and identifying proclivities for technical, artistic, or other skills, and the names that most of the staff went by reflected the various specialty subjects they covered, such as Mr. Hacker, Ms. Writer, Mr. Math. The objective, the new intakes were told by the Director in an introductory talk reminiscent of Mr. Black's at Coulie, was not to shoehorn them into categories or any particular role but simply to uncover and get a measure of aptitudes. Everyone had their usefulness. The unusual, the oddball, the rare talents, were of special interest. They were what Phase Two was aimed at singling out.
Room 207 was on the outside of the block, facing the highway about a quarter mile away, where the drone of robo-trucks passing at precise one-minute intervals continued through the night. The room was doubtless more functional now than when the establishment had been a hotel, containing two single beds on either side of a central table, with chairs, a double bureau, shelf units, a shared hanging closet, and individual lockers for other clothes and personal effects. On the day following their arrival, Linc and his three roommates were resting up in the hour and a half of free time after the evening meal. It had been a day devoted mainly to becoming familiar with the program and organizing schedules. The Phase One program at Meyer sounded as if it had been similar to that at Coulie, ending also with a spontaneously organized contest of games. As was often the way when there was nothing pressing to attend to, the talk drifted around to what the purpose of the operation might be. Nobody was any nearer an answer, but they never tired of speculating on the subject. By now, few of the speculations were new.
"Most of us at Meyer figured it has to be free meat for the army," Rocky said, lying stretched out along his bed by the window, his hands clasped behind his head. He was long and gangly, though with strong arms like cables of knotted gristle, and had an angry, jagged scar across one cheek.
"Yeah, that went around Coulie all the time too," Linc said. His tone conveyed that he didn't subscribe to the view, especially.
"What else could it be?" Rocky asked.
Linc shrugged. "I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just saying that no amount of guessing is gonna change anything. We'll know when they tell us."
"I still think it could be somebody's idea of some new kind of rehab scheme," Patch said from the table, where he was whittling a horse head from a piece of oak. Patch always had to be doing something. If he wasn't deicing crampons, cleaning his shoes, or sewing something that needed mending, he carved things from bits of wood. The others said it was because he had totem poles in his genes. His mention of rehabilitation was an acknowledgment of what just about everyone had tacitly recognized: that by their general speech and manner, and the subtle, unconsciously registered signs that each kind has of knowing its own, the inmate population was made up of elements from that side of society that would be referred to in polite company as socially deviant. It was about as close as anyone came to talking about individual backgrounds, which was still on the prohibited list.
Johnny was relaxed and easygoing, with skin as black as any that Linc had seen. His huge white grin had earned him the nickname Piano Man among the Meyer people. It was surely no coincidence that all four of them put together in Room 207 were former Phase One team leaders or seconds.
"Why all this thing about the army and the military all the time?" he asked the others. "There's plenty other outfits out there that'd pay good money for extra help that they didn't have to go payin' no taxes an' insurances on, an' all that stuff. An' 'specially if they can be pretty sure you ain't gonna go walkin' nowhere." Johnny had a soft, lilting way of speaking that Linc found easy to listen to. At the same time, he got the feeling that with little effort Johnny's voice could become very menacing.
"Sounds to me that what you're talking about now could be getting close to what you might call slave labor," Patch said after reflecting.
Johnny laughed delightedly. "You think that's somethin' new with those people? What else would you call them givin' you a gun and tellin' you they gonna lock you up 'less you go kill people you never heard of to make the world safer for money that you ain't got? An' what about all them guys out there workin' two jobs, all rippin' each other off for the corporations jus' like the other guys who are shootin' each other for the governments? What's the difference? The only crime we got picked out for was workin' for ourselves instead o' handin' it all over. Far as I recall, at one time that was what used to be called bein' free."
"Watch it, Johnny," Linc cautioned. "Don't start getting carried away with histories now."
"Oh, yeah, right . . . I still say, though, that what they call criminal is just about the only honest way to make a livin' that there is left."
Rocky raised his head to look across at them. "Johnny's got a point, though. All of this hiking around mountains and running courses to see how you shape up doesn't have to be for the military. Maybe the scam is to find people the corporations can send to work in places where the regular labor price would be sky-high."
"Especially if the wastage rate gave you poor numbers for the return on the investment," Johnny pointed out, smiling nevertheless.
"Now tell me that isn't slave labor," Patch said.
"What kind of places, for instance?" Linc asked Rocky.
Rocky lay back to contemplate the ceiling again. "Oh, I don't know. Some of the deserts, or the mining you hear about out in Siberia, maybe. Then there's the deep-ocean extraction rigs. It could be even the stuff they're always talking about setting up to do on the Moon. That is right, isn't it? Aren't there supposed to be new things going on up there?"
Linc thought back to the night when he and Patch had sat with Mr. Green, high in the clearness amid the Sierra Nevada peaks, and stared out at the stars. "Or maybe even farther away than that," he said distantly.