It wasn't long before Amanda just couldn't go back home anymore. I thought of The Other as I always had, for awhile. It was an interesting place to go when we had the time and inclination. But my headaches increased to a continuous throb, but Amanda found she had to go back to The Other about once an hour real-time. We wondered to the others if we had limited times to jump back and forth, or if it was specific for everyone, but all we could do was guess. I could still go back for hours at a time long after Amanda couldn't return. I tried to use my jumps sparingly, just in case they were limited, but it got to be so painful at the end. Besides, I missed Amanda. She was the only one who knew about The Other. Finally the time came when I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt like all my veins were filled with molten lead, especially those arteries in my head. I hugged my mother and father, told them I loved them, and went to my room to jump back to The Other. I wondered how many of my years in The Other it would take them to reach my room to ask me what was wrong.

After awhile, Billy became tolerable. He was mostly hot air, as Amanda and I had been told, but he could be cruel. Henry once told the group that he wasn't afraid of The Man. He said that he'd rather work with Him, because at least it wouldn't be boring. Billy hit him in the face with his fist so hard Henry spit out three of his own teeth into his palm. Henry never said anything like that when Billy was around again. None of us did.

Billy would take us to the park every other night for target practice. He called it the shooting range, though we all referred to it as the park. I had never handled any automatic weapons, and neither had Amanda, but Billy assured us that we would always have the best weapons, and that we should always take advantage of it. Only the military could afford automatic weapons back in real time. I became an excellent marksman, as did Amanda, though Amanda said she just didn't find it as satisfying as her .38 back home. On our frequent trips home to see our parents, suspended, she often thought of taking it along with us back to the arena, but she never did. She said she left it for sentimental reasons, reasons I never really understood.

It wasn't as bad to be trapped in The Other as Amanda and I had thought it would be. Both of us became close friends with Bridget, and she helped teach us the ropes. Kit even warmed to us, after awhile. Everyone missed the sunshine, but there wasn't anything we could do about it. It was about two months in The Other after we stayed for good that the next New Ones showed up.

The others regularly went on city patrols, looking for anything odd, looking especially for New Ones. Amanda and I were not allowed to go on patrols at first. Billy wanted to make sure he could trust us and that we could handle the firearms. Of course, both of us had grown up with guns, so it wasn't too difficult to get used to automatic fire. I had gone on three patrols before,Amanda had gone on two, when we spotted our first New One.

Bridget and Nigel were with us. "Shh!" Nigel said to us, even though we knew to be absolutely quiet and still.

"This is so great," Amanda whispered to me, "Kit said that she was here nearly six months before she spotted her first."

"Shut up!" Bridget hissed, and our little group was completely silent.

Our patrol had taken us out to the South Military Base. The New One was tossing anything he could find against the electrified fencing, from inside the perimeter. I figured he was trying to see if the fence still worked. Of course, we knew it didn't, but apparently he was really new to The Other. He looked to be about seventeen years old, and he was dressed in camouflage from head to toe. Even his face was painted. I thought, for someone so careful not to be spotted, he should be more cautious.

We had been told since our first day with the others that no one from the outside was to be trusted. Billy told us that since he had been in The Other, there had been two separate times when a New One had decided not to join. Of course, he didn't call it The Other. Billy had been here the longest, so we respected his advice. He said that one time resulted in open gun fire between himself, Nigel, Bridget, and the New One. Billy said that after the New One took off,there was blood on the floor where he had been, but they never saw him again.

So we watched our New One with great caution. We were told that any New One would be kept under surveillance for quite awhile before contact was made. The knowledge that Amanda and I were watched four separate times before they came up to us made me shiver. We never suspected. These people were good.

After a few minutes, the New One decided that the fence was safe, and he produced wire cutters from one of the large pockets in his pants. I heard a sigh from Bridget when it became apparent that he was not going to be able to cut through the heavy fence with what tool he had brought. "Climb over, you idiot," she hissed, and Nigel gave her an icy look to be quiet.

Eventually, the New One did climb the tall fencing, and not with much agility. After scaling to the other side, he fell the last few meters, right onto his back. He lay on the ground for awhile,and I assumed the breath had been knocked out of him completely. Finally, he stood, looked both ways up and down the highway, and started walking north, away from where we hid. Nigel motioned for us to follow with a wave of his hand.

We were across the highway and up the embankment, hidden well behind the shrubbery. There were times we couldn't see the New One, but after moving another few meters, we would spot him again. When he got to the end of the fencing and the crossing road, he turned east into the city. Again, we followed, waiting for a few minutes behind the trees to let him pass.

We followed him for about four hours. He went to the first co-op store he found, and filled his pockets with food and chips from the cash register. We watched as he sat on the pavement and ate and amazing amount of garbage food. We followed him back to the Base, watched him climb the fencing again, and then move toward the barracks. After he had gone inside the second building, we turned to make our way back to the arena.

"We'll stake out the Base every night until we've seen him a few more times," Nigel said,more to himself than anyone. He seemed anxious.

"What do you think?" Bridget asked him.

"I guess it's safe to assume he's from the Base. I think that if he's okay, he'll make a good asset," he answered, quietly, "And if he doesn't join, we've got trouble."

Amanda and I, buried deeply in our own thoughts, didn't say a word the entire way back.

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Copyright © 1995, Monica Israels
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