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Breeding of animals wasn’t allowed in regular towers. That’s why breeders camped out in towers that were scheduled for demolition. Out of the hundred towers in each urb, there are usually one or two of the oldest ones waiting to be rebuilt.
    Jon sold the bigger dogs to wealthy people who had exempt estates with room for dogs to run and act like dogs. The little furry, cute ones, he sold as pets to people living in towers. It’s hard to imagine being lonesome in a tower thathas ten million people in it, in an urb that has a billion or more, but lots of the apartments were just two hundred square feet, for one person, and if you couldn’t have a little dog…well, people have concs now, of course, but back then, nobody had ever seen a conc.
    The first one I saw was in a pod lobby. Even though it was sort of human-looking, anyone would know right away it wasn’t human. It was pale yellow, with silver hair. It didn’t look male or female, sort of in between, but it was curvy and had a pretty face and it was graceful-looking, wearing just enough clothes not to be bare. After that, I saw a few here and there; then, all of a sudden, everywhere, different colors of skin and hair, different ways of smiling or laughing, all sounding much alike, little kids’ voices using very few words.
    It wasn’t long before the information network started to do stories on them. They were “companions,” or that’s what the news stories said, even though everybody called them concs, for concubines. Only a few weeks later Paul came home from his school with a mop-headed, big-eyed, mostly naked, reddish-brown thing. I saw it by the door, smiling and murmuring to itself.
    I half wanted to laugh and half wanted to get mad, and I said, “Paul, that’s a conc!”
    â€œI know,” he said in his way-up-there, superior voice. (Matty said Paul had acquired loftiness with his mother’s milk, not that his mother ever nursed him.) “But it’s only a little one, and it followed me home. It’s name is Cinnamon, and I’m going to keep it.”
    Taddeus was standing right behind me. He said, “You’re not old enough. Jewel, he’s only twelve, he’s not old enough, is he?”
    I saw the flicker in Paul’s eyes, like a hot, barely controlled flame, and I thought of Paul being amused by a concubine as compared to Paul getting his amusement elsewhere, usually from bullying Tad or me, so I said, “If he wants it, and he promises to take care of it, I think he should keep it.”
    When I told Luth about it, I could tell she was thinking the same things I had. It didn’t take her long to say yes, let it stay.
    When I was twelve, Jon Point introduced me to a boy named Witt Hessing. Witt was one of The Hessings, and he came to buy two shepherd pups, Quick and Busy. He needed to know how to care for them and train them, and by that time I was very good at both those things, so Jon registered a contract between Witt and me so I could get paid for helping him. The Hessing place was outside the urb, a hundred-acre exempt estate with grass and trees and gardens. For a while I went over there every day, and Witt and I got to be friends. When he paid me for helping him train the dogs, he kissed me, just on the cheek, and I was so flustered I missed my stop at home tower.
    Nobody had kissed me since Matty died. There isn’t supposed to be any kissing except between liaised people, people with a contract. You don’t dare be involved with anyone without a contract that says who you are and what your intentions are and what the outcome is to be. That’s why Jon recorded a liaison contract between Witt and me.
    Anyhow, that was the only time. Witt and I stayed friends, and we spent time in each other’s company. Once I was old enough that they couldn’t stop me, I told Paul and Tad I was doing volunteer work at an animal shelter. Paul was his usual