"How did you find me?" stepping back, I'm surprised by his sudden hug.
"We finished for today, and Sevinstine said you were in here." He grabs on me tighter.
"Well... I suppose I should say It's good to see you Tim."
"I wish I could say the same about you... Desmond."
Boy, one day you will, trust me.
No, I can't tell him this, it'll make his ego grow.
Letting out a brief sigh, I look down at him.
"How was your day"
"How was yours." he asks back.
"I asked first Tim."
"But."
I clear my throat and raise my voice.
"You see, I can't help find your father's body if I don't understand anything… about anything, right? So if you tell me about your day maybe it can give me a greater understanding of this new place you call home."
He slowly nods.
"I suppose that makes some sense. Say what's with this cute black creature?" Diverting the conversation, he turns around leaving my embrace.
Bending down he watches as she licks herself.
"You can see her?"
"Of course, she's such a pretty girl." Going in for a pat, his hand moves right through her fluffy body.
Alarmed, Mute runs back and jumps into my shadow, disappearing for good.
He looks at me dumbfounded.
I look back at him just as confused.
We stare at each other for a moment.
Wait.
If Tim can see her... does that mean she's actually real?
I can't just say she looked like my imaginary friend from the other world, can I?
But he called her a creature, so he mustn't have seen a cat before.
Does that mean, that he hasn't seen one before, or that somehow this creature somehow has takes a shape from my memories. Can I even trust we are seeing the same thing.
"Her name is Mute and she scares easily. Maybe one day you'll be able to pat her."
There, that diverts any suspicions regarding my sanity.
"You'll be able to see her when she comes out next, lets talk about my findings instead. Say you can count, right?" Tilting my head, I place my hand on his cheek and study his face.
"Yeah. Of course I can." He lets out one of those toothy grins that looks almost forced.
"Can you help me with some things then?"
"Sure."
Leading him to my study corner, I hand him a crumpled page, sitting down.
"You know your percentages, right?"
"What is this?" he frowns, holding it against the darkness above trying to gain a clearer look.
"This is all the knowledge I have collected thus far," I speak vaguely. "It's okay if you don't understand it yet. I will teach you all that I know. We can even play a little game with some numbers to help you enjoy yourself."
He nods.
"If there were an imaginary hundred convicts, and third went missing, how many would remain?"
"Two-thirds, right."
"Good. So that's thirty-three gone missing. What's that as a fraction of the total population?"
"Thirty-three… out of a hundred?"
"Yes. Now reduce it to its simplest form."
He frowns, counting on his finger. "Around one-third?"
"Perfect, You're learning."
Allowing my high five, he looks at me with slight contempt.
"Too easy huh, well sorry, I'll make it harder for you Mr smarty pants."
My quill scratches out some notes. Its Ink seeps into my cuticle—thick and blue as blood.
"If one-third of the population disappears after every month," I continue, "how many remain after three months?"
He leans forward with furrowed brows, taking my offered quill, he writes down his process with nimble hands.
Pausing, he confers to his fingers, lips slightly parting as if they were counting.
He looks up. Looking uncertain this time, he replies softly.
"None?"
I smile.
"You understand perfectly, my boy."
I pat his back.
His grins curves into cheeks as he nods to himself.
"Now." His eyes suddenly widen at hearing my voice, "can you tell me what percentage of the convicts in this report have had their mana-cores removed as punishment? Take your time."
Scanning the page from up to down, side to side he answers me with projected confidence.
"Zero. Zero percent."
"Really? That's strange. Statistically, you'd expect at least a few, especially since it's a punishment. Meaning they're already offenders, maybe even repeats."
Tapping at the next column, I look to him. "How about in the resident population?"
Tracing the lines with his index finger, he reaches the bottom of the table. "Two in total. Out of… it says here five thousand. Another Tim and some girl named Marline"
"Go on. What are they as a fraction?"
"One out of twenty-five hundred. Then half of that is half out of seventeen-fifty… half again—quarter out of eight-seventy-five…" He squints, muttering under his breath. "I can't halve that again.
Wait.
What if I divide by five? Divide by five again—one twenty out of thirty-five…"
He pauses, thinking hard before scribbling something down. "That's, zero point three five percent?"
I stare at him for a moment. "Close, but not quite, Timothy. Here, let me show you a little trick I use myself."
Confused, he blinks back.
"Lookie here," reaching over, I take his paper and his quill, drawing a thin line beneath his written work.
"Two out of five thousand… if you write it like this, you break the equation into smaller steps. How many twos in zero? None—put a zero there. How many twos in five? Two, with one left over."
I glance at him. "See? Easy method of division, small number. So small you could squish it like an ant."
Following along with his finger, he seems to understand my point.
"I see, so it's zero point… zero four?"
A smile forces itself upon my face.
"You see, Timothy? Easy. It's so easy when you're just that smart, kid."
"No, it's just you're good at this. Why don't you teach the class?"
"..."
"I haven't thought about that quite yet."
"You should." He looks at me with that genuine but blank expression as if his words are a given fact.
It must seem so obvious to him, but its not so obvious to me.
Yes, he makes a good point. My education most likely far surpasses everyone here—but I really need to find this body first. Even so, I have my doubts about my abilities and my personality.
Just imagine it: thirty small Desmonds, running financial schemes, scamming kids out of their lunch money with predatory interest rates on borrowed crayons. I couldn't be responsible for unleashing that upon the world.
Tim as if reading my mood glances at another sheet of paper.
"What's this?" he holds the graph out to me.
"Life expectancy of convicts by gender?" I read aloud, "Lucky you, I just made this one."
"What's that all mean though?"
"This one's a bit more complex, you know. Do you still wanna learn it?"
"Yeah. I want to learn it from you."
"Alright," I say, turning my sheet toward him. "Life expectancy means how long, on average, someone is expected to live.
You gather enough data—deaths, ages, causes of death—and this allows you to predict when a person is most likely to die in a specific population."
He smiles eagerly. "That sounds so cool."
"I know right, Read it out loud for me. I'll explain how it works for ya."
"'Twenty to twenty-six seems to be the interquartile range for women,'" he reads slowly, mouthing out the new terminology, "'with one standard div-in-ation within two years before and after, and at two-standard div-in-ations the age reaches a near thirty years.'"
It's pronounced deviation, but it just sounds too funny when he says it so confidently wrong like that. I don't bring myself to correct him.
"Good," I say, rubbing my chin, faking my bemusement. "So that means half of the convict women die between ages twenty and twenty-six. A few live to thirty, but not many. You see how steep the drop is here on the bell-curve?"
He looks uneasy but keeps reading. "'Twenty-two to twenty-eight for men… same standard divin-ation, two years on each side of the mean. Two-standard divinations give the upper limit of age, thirty-two years.'"
I guide his finger over the bell-curve. "So you see here, the mean: that is the middle, think of it as the technical word for the average number— within this section, that is the mean, or average, most of the male convicts die within this age-group between twenty-two and twenty-eight years," I murmur. "Even fewer reach thirty."
Tim frowns. "That's not very old."
"No… not long at all," my voice goes deep.
Tracing a line further down the page, my finger smears some of the wet ink.
Half the convicts here won't even see the full light from thirty stars. That really puts things into perspective.
"Now continue with this Tim." I point toward another drafted column. "This is Settler's camp average lifespan throughout the years. Here is without the outliers of both convicts or dead infants taken into the data's consideration; residents in this settlement live to about forty-two years old."
He stares back at me, nostrils openening wider.
Swallowing my spit, I resume my explanation. "That means, on average, someone arriving here at twenty-five years old will live to the age of forty-two until they cark it."
I let the number sink in.
"However, when you include the convicts…" I pause, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly. "Men's total life expectancy drops to the age twenty-nine, and women's falls to below the age twenty-six. That tells us, the combined lifetime someone experiences after arriving at Settler's camp is…"
"…"
I pause.
"Only nine years."
Tim blinks. "Nine years of what?"
"Nine years of life until death."
He stares at the floor. "So… father was forty-three when he died. Does that mean he was one of the lucky ones?"
"An outlier," subtly, I correct him. "But it seems, lucky he was. Still part of the same curve, yes, just way way out here." I plot a red dot on the scrawled graph.
Leaning back, the numbers stare back at me.
Seventeen years lived as a regular resident. Nine for the convicts. That's all this place gives you.
And that's only if you survive childhood.
Infant/child mortality is brutal til the age of 9—the youngest die so often it makes the town school look like a retirement village; only with less nagging and pension fund management I suppose.
No wonder the cemetery is buried so closely to the school.
Watching Tim process the information makes me think.
He's quiet. Did I make a mistake trying to teach him like this.
"..."
"I'm sorry. Maybe I shouldn't have shown you this." I reach out for the paper in his hand, before he pulls it back.
"No, I want—I need to help you."
"..."
"Well, if that's the case, here, look at this."
This seems wrong, I can't put my finger on it but, I just don't want to push him away. I've read too many relationships that fail because of miscommunication, I'm not going to be some annoying guy character that acts all gloomy and depressed but does nothing about it.
Studying his expression again, my hand slides another document across the floor for his review.
"Tell me what you see here. Any thoughts, ideas, key insights. I want it all."
Struggling to pick up the paper, his lips move as he reads through the printed writing.
-------------------------------------
Young-Adult — Career Selections:
Mines .... 30%
Administrative ..... 10%
Logistics .... 20%
No Employment History .... 40%
Delinquency Rate ... 20%
------------------------------------
------------------------------------
Orphaned Young-Adult — Career Selections:
Mines .... 30%
Administrative ..... 5%
Logistics .... 10%
No Employment History .... 55%
Delinquency Rate ... 70%
------------------------------------
He looks up.
"So, what is it?"
"Well," he takes a breath before explaining, "most of these orphans classified as delinquents here are taught at their home by the Three Sisters. None of them have jobs so I don't think this 55 percent number is right."
"Who?"
He hesitates, rubbing at his arm.
"Up north, it's dirty demon territory so their skin goes black. Lots of orphans came from there. The matron gets extra strict on them in class… for some reason. Poor Umer and Evon—we try to stand up for them, but she lashes at us too."
"So these Three Sisters… they take care of the northern orphans?" My fingers slam the middle of the page.
He nods.
"Most of them at least. They stay on the east-side of town."
"I see," This could be useful to me.
I clear my throat.
"How would you suggest we increase the steady employment of the children when they become adults in the long term?"
He scratches his left cheek.
"I'm not really about that. But one thing I've noticed is that lots of kids bringing drinks into class lately."
I blink. "Drinks?"
"Yeah," he spits as he speaks. "From the kitchens. They take them, then share them behind the stock-house, and even in the poo-box. I've even seen the younger ones in there too. It's real annoying to go piss in there when all they do is gather around and drink blocking half the pits."
"I see."
He shifts around on the floor. "And… I've also heard bad things from my previous seniors about working in the mines."
"What kinds of things?"
He glances toward the ceiling mural holding his hand up. "They wouldn't say. Just… that it involves Giana. I think its something to do with equipment safety, but, I don't really know to be honest."
The mystery thickens.
Giana cow. Looks like you're the second name after Todd, I will need to pay extra attention too. You better hope I don't find something that I don't like.