His name was David. Both his parents were with the Army, stationed at South Base. He'd had extensive training, of course. If either of your parents were in the military and you decided at eighteen that you didn't want it for yourself, you had to buy your way out of it. Most of the time,those kids disappeared. It was a rumor that they were killed soon after paying the General in charge. David told us that it wasn't a rumor. His best friend was shot last year. He saw it. The shooting was done by a man in a uniform. David said it was for the best anyway. Military kids already had too much training to be allowed to live as civilians.

He was a lot of help to our group. He had training that we didn't have access to. He knew where all the explosives were kept, as well as the heavy artillery. So far, the group only had access to pistols, though Nigel had a rifle. We raided the Base, and took all we could carry. Nigel drove an Army truck over the fence, flattening it, and that was it. Easy as pie.

But after a few weeks, David began to change. He seemed guarded, moody. He had always talked to me, since that first day, but now it seemed like he was hiding something. I didn't believe that he was not truly with us, but I had to say something to Billy.

"He has always been your problem, Candice," Billy told me, "You deal with it." And that was the end of the discussion with Billy.

Then one day, David was just gone. He could still go back to real time, and he often did,but twice before I had gone to the barracks to find him suspended at his kitchen table in an animated discussion with his mother. This time, when I went there, he was nowhere to be found. I knew he was in The Other, and he wasn't with us. I jumped on my bicycle and got myself back to the arena as quickly as I could.

"We've got a problem, I think," I said to the others as I ran to the back, out of breath.

Everyone looked up at me in alarm. "What is it?" Kit asked me.

"David's gone. He's not at the barracks in real time, and he's not with us."

Henry looked away, back to cleaning his favorite pistol. "Why worry about it? We all spend plenty of time on our own."

Trish, a girl who had joined us a couple of months before, looked up at me with wide eyes. "Why do you think this is something to worry about?" she asked me.

I thought of a way to phrase what I was feeling. "He's been acting different. I think he's not with us anymore. I don't know, maybe he went to The Man."

"You're being paranoid," Henry said. "He'll come back, and I'll be laughing my ass off at you."

"I dunno," I said. "I don't think so."

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