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would like to include him in this pilot project as well.”
    “That will be fine,” Thorn assured him. “If the five-year-old makes it into your program, it will be no problem to include him in the VR program.”

 
    Chapter 11
     
    The Baggers waited in the hallway before their first class.
    They were lined up single file, and the line extended far down the dimly lit hall. There were a lot more kids in line than there were on the train here. Brandon guessed that they must have come from different Centres. He waited patiently with the rest of the children; there was a girl in front of him and a boy behind him. Everyone towered over Brandon, which was no surprise to him, but it did cause many curious looks in his direction.
    “Please tell me you’re the five-year-old that everyone’s been talking about,” said the boy standing behind him. Brandon looked over his shoulder and saw a friendly looking boy with shaggy blonde hair smiling at him. His eyes were blue and his shoulders were wide for a young boy of ten. He looked stronger than the rest, and far friendlier than most of the kids he’d met so far.
    “Yeah, that’s me,” Brandon said.
    “Good, I thought maybe you were just really small, or else they’d been putting something in my food that made me really big!”
    Brandon laughed. “My name’s Brandon. What’s yours?”
    The boy tapped himself on the chest quickly three times, then held his hand out to Brandon who shook it. “My name’s Tony. It’s nice to meet you, Runt.”
    Brandon wasn’t sure what to make of the nickname. Whenever he’d heard it before, there was always a negative flavour to it, but when Tony said it he didn’t get that vibe.
    Tony sensed Brandon’s confusion, and he smiled reassuringly. “Hope you don’t mind me calling you that. It just kinda came out,” he said. “I know most people use that word in a bad way, but not me. At our Centre we had a dog. She had a litter of pups, and there was one that was smaller than the rest; you know, a runt. Well, the others all got snapped up real quick by people who worked there. No one wanted the runt, though, and so he stayed with us at the Centre. Most of us never thought we’d get a pet, and so we were really excited to get to keep him. We called him ‘Killer’ as a joke, you know, because he was so teeny. All of us would save bits from our meals and smuggle them to Killer, and it didn’t take long for him to grow.” Tony laughed. “By the time he was full grown, he was the biggest damn dog you ever laid eyes on. Our instructors would say to us that sometimes even a runt can surprise you if you give it what it needs.”
    Brandon smiled and nodded his head. He liked the story.
    “When I saw you standing there looking smaller than all the rest of us, but not really worried about it, you reminded me of Killer,” Tony said. “Calling you Runt just seemed to fit.”
    “It didn’t seem like you were trying to be mean when you said it,” Brandon said. “I think I like it. Feel free to call me Runt if you’d like, Tony.”
    Tony ruffled Brandon’s hair playfully, “Thanks, Runt. I think I will.”
    “Are you nervous?” Brandon asked. “Any idea what goes on during the trials?”
    “I have no clue,” Tony said, “I’m not nervous, though. I’ll do my best no matter what. That’s usually good enough to keep me ahead of the pack, so I’m sure that’s how it will go here too. What about you? Are you nervous?”
    Before Brandon could answer, the line started to move forward slowly. “Looks like there’s no time to worry now,” Brandon said.
    Brandon broke into a grin as he recognized the instructor at the door , it was Wesley! As the kids filed in, Wesley was repeating  instructions to all of them. “Go in the room and gather along the walls. No one is to sit down until instructed to do so.”
    A few minutes later, all of them were inside and standing along the walls. There were desks in the centre of the room,