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"We need your assistance," he said. "I can arrange to have you released, full pardon, on the condition that you do this. Frankly, I don't care whether you're a hybrid or not. We can't have another Kennedale on our hands. Negative press is killing the department."

But, I didn't have to think about it. To quote Pago: Mano, mani hafe'tooey onay, which, in Samoan, literally means, 'You will get further sucking on the elbow of your dead grandfather.' I wondered how Pago was doing, strapped to a different chair somewhere else-another place, a different interrogator. Oh, that arm of his. That arm, that arm. That wonderful, lifesaving, biomechanical arm.

It all comes back to me now: Hulen, dangling inches from the floor, held up by the cybernetic arm of this pudgy, mocha-colored kid I'd never met. I was still wallowing on the dingy floor after Hulen had knocked me down, too amazed at what I was seeing to stand.

"Tell Preston you're sorry," Pago said.

The mechanical hand made a fist where it gripped Hulen's shirt and pressed him against the smooth cinderblock. Small lights blinked around the forearm and wrist. Pago would've been the only Pacific Islander on the football team, but his parents-like mine-didn't allow him to compete in sports. With such undeniable strength, it was plain to see why. "Let go of me, you friggin hybrids. Both of you are dead," Hulen said.
Pago said: "You're really starting to piss me off. Now, I'm gonna give you one more chance to-"

"Screw you," Hulen said. If only he'd stayed on the sideline during the game instead of roaming the bathrooms looking for trouble. That remark earned him a trip sailing through the air, courtesy of Pago's arm, knocking him solidly against the opposite wall. Pago rushed over to Hulen, now collapsed against to the floor, and reached down to touch the linebacker's temples between his thumb and middle finger.

"A small shock to his memory, and he won't remember a thing," Pago said. Hulen body jerked from the treatment. I sensed a new world of trouble opening up. Memory or not, I insisted we ditch the game and hide out somewhere.

Gosh, I was so frightened back then, so worried about bullies and exams, what people thought of me...

...And now this...

I laughed to myself. Those were the good times.

"What's so funny?" the commander said.

My teeth bit my lower lip, trying to hold it in.

"You'd better think hard about my offer. It's all that separates you from a harsh regime of thought treatment," he said.

It must have been the madness of it all or the hope that Pago somehow inspired. I don't know what it was. Laughter tumbled out of me like a sack of oranges, laughter that shook all over, squeezing out tears of panic and exhilaration. I was an absolute wreck, and the commander didn't look pleased.

"He's delirious. Send him back, give him some time to think about it," he said.

Pago lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the other side of town. We went up to his room to see his arm in detail. It was made of a bio-metallic alloy as strong as steel. As a disguise, he'd fashioned a flesh-colored foam rubber covering to make the arm look like a prosthetic limb. Shark attack, he told everyone. Later, the cybernetic arm would grow it's own layer of iridescent skin. Hybrid skin.

The loss of flesh and bone was all part of the transition, like loosing baby teeth or seeing hair sprout around your you-know-what. Only, the more you changed, the harder it was to cover up.

Wooden masks and pictures of home hung from his wall, most of it papered over with posters of surfers on giant blue waves. A map covering one wall showing the impossible distance between North America and the group of islands in the South Pacific where he was born. Cedar Hills was marked with a red dot labeled: "You are here."

Pago and his family had moved to our town a few months ago. His dad, another robot trying to pass as a human, had landed the assistant bank manager position at Wilcox Bank. That's what they told everyone. The real reason was to be closer to Dr. Jensen, one of the few known physicians who helped hybrids in secret at his private ranch in the country. Jensen had told Pago about me. Apparently, I'd been under Pago's watchful eye for months and never knew it.

"Gosh, you guys were crazy to leave that place," I said, looking at the tiny islands on the map. "No one would find you there."

"A man shouldn't be imprisoned on an island."

"Are you kidding? We could be there, Pago, you and me. We could live on the beach. We could catch fish all day and make out with hot island women."

"There are no doctors there for us. We would die."

"Oh right, like it's so much safer here, between the H.A.R. hunting us and high school bullies trying to beat us up."

"I'm not so sure it would be much different."

"I get so sick of eating those awful tri'whatchamacallit tablets, living in sleep bubbles with zippers that won't open. I wish there was a magic pill we could take."

"You think that would solve everything?"

"It would at least make things easier."

"Easier for whom? Look at me," he said, holding up his masked arm. "At any moment, the rest of me might decide to change too. But does it stop me? I'm trying out for choir tomorrow. I have an exam on string theory in two weeks that I'm studying for now. I'm doing it all because that's what should be done," he said, smoothing out wrinkles in the foam rubber. "You live too much in fear."

"Yeah, it's called the H.A.R. Heard of them?"

"They have their job to do. I have mine," he said. "I have something that could help you."

"What?"

"I am here."

"I am, what?"

"I am here. If our kind is to survive, it's very important to think that way," he said. "You know those little pointers at information kiosks in shopping malls, those little dots that say 'You are here.' We don't have those in the village where I'm from. Anyway, it made me stop and think. I put one on my map and it cheers me up when I see it. Sometimes, I say it out loud, and it helps even more. You should try it," he said.

"Say what out loud?" I said.

"I am here," he said.

If I'd ever heard anything more ridiculous, I couldn't remember.

"Say it," he said.

"You're a weirdo, Pago," I said.

"Yes, it is weird. Most new things are," he said.

"I am here," I said under my breath.

"Good, say it again."

"I am here," I said.

"I'm a weirdo. I'm a freak. So what? Who else is like me? No one."

"Yeah, but it's easy when you have a cool mechanical arm that can break stuff and hurt people."

"This arm doesn't make me. My arm doesn't make my legs to walk, my eyes to see, my heart to feel. Come on, you have too much fear. Time to let go."

"I am here," I said.

"Again..."

"I am here."

"And again..."

"I am here." I said with force.

"Well now, young warrior-" he said, crouching down as if in some sort of tribal stance.

It was all pretty strange. But I had to give him credit. He was different.

Mirimam, his mom, called us to eat. As I frequented Pago's house later, I found it was always something involving fish, coconut or seaweed-the basic ingredients of a healthy Samoan, she said. I couldn't figure out how people could get so large from eating such simple things. She was round like him only shorter. Her long black hair nearly touched the floor.

His mom also made bread with the ethyl tri-glycerol supplements that Dr. Jensen had prescribed to Pago and I to help regulate our transition. See, there's a war going on inside new hybrids between their human and machine side. The supplements help keep the peace, snuffing out the headaches and nausea, but they, themselves, are terrible tasting. The bread she baked made it all go down a lot easier.

They seemed so at ease, his family-the eye of the hurricane. Pago was two years older than me, a junior, and further along in his transition than I. His arm was fully cybernetic, it was only a matter of time before his entire body would turn the same way: a hard biomechanical frame enveloped with bio-metallic flesh.

So, he had way more to be freaked out about but wasn't. We ate out of wooden bowls with our hands. We talked about girls. We played holograph games. Life was simple, the way it must've been on the island: in control and unafraid.

I am here. Hmm. When I was around Pago, I found I was.

The chilly voice of the guard told me to look at my desk after they removed the blindfold.

A few people remained in the class. The others had been carried off for interrogations. It seemed like a miracle I was still there and unsuspected.

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