“What made him become scared of you?”
“A lot of the guys in my class were into lifting weights, so I talked him into buying me a weight bench. I started working out every day, and it really made me feel good, so Grandpa decided he’d work out with me, make it sort of an ‘us guys’ kind of thing. We were both benching about a hundred, hundred and ten pounds when we started, but a month later, I could press two twenty, and he was only up to about one forty. That was when Grandma started saying I was weird and unnatural, and he started pulling back from me. It was only a month or so later when he told me they’d have to put me back in foster care because of health problems.”
Allison nodded. “Noah, you claim to have no emotions, and everything in your psych profile says that’s completely true. Did you feel anything during that time? Any rejection, any sadness?”
Noah shook his head. “No. Like everything else in my life, I looked at it logically. It was obvious to me that he was lying about health problems, because he hadn’t even been to see a doctor. Since he was lying, that meant he had other reasons for not wanting me living there anymore, and those reasons could only lead to them feeling resentment if they had to keep putting up with me. I told him it was okay, and that I would pray for him to get better, and I think that took away some of his guilt. For me, it just meant a change of scenery.”
“Just another transition,” Allison said. “You were sent to a foster home in the city where your grandparents lived, at first, but then you got transferred back to the one they took you out of. How did that happen?”
“You know, Ms. Peterson, all of this is in the memoir you had me write for you,” Noah said. “It was lying on my table, did you get it?”
“We got it,” Allison said with a grin. “I’ve even skimmed through it, but I haven’t had the chance to read it in detail. That’s why I’m asking you questions directly. How did you get yourself back to your original foster home?”
Noah grinned. “If I was going to be in the foster system, I wanted to be back around my friends, and back with the caseworker that I knew and trusted. The one they gave me that time was a man, and he had a mean streak as wide as he was. Seemed like no matter what his kids asked of him, he would do everything he could to make sure they didn’t get what they wanted. One of the first things he did was take away my weight bench; he said I couldn’t have it because it would make other kids jealous.” He shrugged. “I cut school one day, and called Ms. Gamble, my original caseworker. I said this guy was making me uncomfortable, with the way he looked at me. Two days later, she got an order from the court to transfer me back to Mrs. Connors’ house, and back to my few real friends.”
Allison nodded approvingly. “Good,” she said. “Deviousness can save your life, in our line of work. Among the things you’ll be learning will be techniques for lying convincingly, beating a polygraph, acting and creative writing. You’ll learn to use your imagination to create a character or scenario that will help you carry out a mission, and we’ll develop your natural acting ability, this knack you have for making people think you’re perfectly normal when you’re not, so that you can become that character or act out that scenario.”
Noah shifted himself around until he found a comfortable position. “You mentioned a support team,” he said. “When do I get to meet them?”
“That depends on how well you do in training. Obviously, if it turns out we can’t use you, then there won’t be a need for a team. And incidentally, this isn’t a pass or fail kind of course; it’s more like pass or die, because if you flunk out, we simply eliminate you. Nothing personal, you understand, but we do everything we can to minimize the risk that E & E will ever be exposed.”
“Of course,” Noah said. “I was pretty sure that’s how it would be, because it’s just logical. Anyone you recruit who can’t perform up to the standard you need would have to be eliminated. Nothing else would make sense.”
“I expected you to see it that way. Okay, so to actually answer your question, assuming you make it through your basic training, we’ll introduce you to your team sometime in the next few weeks. Normally, we don’t even bother to recruit people for your team until we know whether we’re going to need them, but I’m feeling pretty confident about you, so I’ve got people in mind.”
“That also makes sense. I’m guessing you find them in the same kind of place you found me? Prisons, places like that?”