Stung

Fo is still bound by the magnetic cuffs when she wakes in a sleeping bag the next morning. Her own stench from the sewers wakes her. Bowen allows her to walk to a garden hose where someone hoses the dirt and dried sewage off of her. Bowen next takes her to a communal urinal where two men are already urinating; they leave, afraid of the Level Ten. Panicking that Bowen will discover her true gender, Fo tries to sound masculine when she tells him, “Need to take…a dump” (56). This strategy works and he takes her to an enclosed stall, although the armed man, Tommy, who accompanies her hits her in the head with the butt of his rifle for no reason. In the midst of her panic, Fo realizes she might know Bowen—he looks exactly like Duncan, a neighbor boy upon whom she used to spy when he kissed his girlfriend on his front porch. Fo cries in the bathroom stall, then sits for hours that day cuffed and under guard.

As evening approaches, Bowen takes Fo to a ring of rocks and builds a fire out of broken table legs. He roasts a rat that Tommy brings. Fo sneaks glances at Bowen, realizing he is not Duncan but is someone she knows.