Swans and Klons Read Online Free PDF Page A

ever tells you what to do, or that you’re doing something wrong. It was like she was saying there was something wrong with me intrinsically. She said they create very few people of my Jeepie Type because of these problems.”
    “It doesn’t make sense,” Rubric said. “The Jeepie Types chosen were from the three hundred most intelligent, healthy, well-adjusted women. Why would the original Doctors have picked someone who could have problems?”
    “Panna Lobe explained that in former times many creative and intelligent people did something called Thinking Outside The Box, which involved being unruly and difficult. So even though The Box no longer exists, this trait has persisted. And my Jeepie Type can make great Doctors. So that’s why they keep creating my Jeepie Type.”
    “I guess your Jeepie Type either turns out really great or, um…”
    “Exactly,” Salmon Jo said. “Or down in flames. Anyway, after she told me all this, I agreed to the mentor match she proposed.”
    “It sounds like she knows what she’s talking about,” Rubric said.
    Salmon Jo frowned. “I still feel kind of…I dunno, manipulated. But I don’t want to end up some loser who needs treatment. Do you still like me?”
    “Of course!” Rubric said. “I’ll make that clear to you.”
    Rubric kissed her. Salmon Jo’s lips were soft and warm on hers. She felt a familiar falling feeling. She could almost believe that everything was fine, or even perfect.
    But then Salmon Jo broke away to say, “Panna Lobe said some women of my Jeepie Type, the ones who went bad, not only got treatment…they even got redistributed.”
    Rubric felt a chill. “Humans don’t get redistributed,” she said. “They really don’t. That’s ridiculous.”
    “She said it. Real fast.”
    “You must have heard her wrong. Because you were upset. Maybe she said that Klons of your Jeepie Type have been redistributed. Not Pannas.”
    Salmon Jo didn’t answer, but she drew even closer to Rubric. She was almost crowding Rubric off the beanbag chair. Rubric didn’t complain. She just stroked Salmon Jo’s wiry hair.

Chapter Five
     
    On the day they met their mentors for the first time, Salmon Jo got up at dawn. She had stayed over in Rubric’s room.
    “I’m going running in the city,” she told Rubric, who cracked one eye open. “Finally! I am so sick of circumnavigating the campus. Do you realize I have actually run around the campus more than a thousand times? I calculated it.”
    Rubric had been hoping Salmon Jo would take the trolley with her later. Neither of them had ever been off campus without Klons and teachers before, and Rubric was a little nervous about getting around the city.
    As it turned out, Rubric had no trouble figuring out the route by herself. It felt funny to walk through the wrought-iron gates of the campus, all by herself, without teachers or Nanny Klons, for the first time. She was planning to ask the Security Klon where to catch the Number 12 Trolley, but she saw a sign for it directly outside the entrance to campus. The hardest part was getting on the trolley, which slowed down but didn’t stop. The Conductor Klon showed her where to swipe her card and explained where she needed to get off in the city center.
    The city unfolded before Rubric’s eyes, a mixture of the golden spires of yesteryear and the more recent spherical buildings. Rubric watched the street scene with interest: the pedestrians, the Dog Walking Klons, the bicyclists who weaved skillfully between the trolleys, the Pedicab Klons who peddled furiously to pull their passengers up the hills. She pictured Salmon Jo running wildly through these crowded streets. The trolley passed the Singing Fountain, which Rubric had visited during several annual trips. It was a beautiful day, and the sunshine made the peak of Mount Sileza sparkle in the distance. Last year her dorm had gone to Mount Sileza for its annual trip. She wondered if she and Salmon Jo could go there for a