PZA: Elite Academy Programme

I looked at Jacob uncertainly, as he stood by the gate. We had fallen to the back of the pack in cross-country, and that was going to lose us valuable points, but it shouldn't be a problem. I had done well in the sprints, and Jacob was excellent in gymnastics. We each had more than enough points to keep us in the programme, even if we came last now. That was partly why we had fallen back. Other boys had something to prove, but we were through whatever happened.

"What's the worst they can do you us? Disqualify us and give us no points? That's what we get for coming last anyway." Jacob reasoned. "So if we take the short cut we save ourselves a couple of miles, and loads of energy, and even if we did get caught, we are no worse off. Come on!"

I was doubtful still. Jacob had a point, and it was very tempting to slice off half the cross-country course. The field we stood by led up to a stretch of wood and beyond that the circuit looped back for the homeward run, missing out almost the entire moor. It was a perfect short cut. Still, I did not like breaking rules.

"Well I am going for it. If you are too much of a wuss to follow that's your look out." And with that Jacob was clambering over the gate and running up the field. I watched him go – and then considered running across two miles [3 km] of moorland alone and made my decision.

I crossed the finish line, panting after a sprint finish that had taken me well ahead of Jacob. He followed some 30 seconds later, and we were well over half way up the field. We got some curious looks and a few glares from other boys who were pretty sure they had passed us and did not remember us passing them again, but it was worth it. We had finished the course in good time, even having had a rest in the woods before rejoining the course. A wise precaution, we felt, as it would be too obvious had we strolled in first and in record time.

Jacob grinned at me, and we collected refreshments and waited for the stragglers. Last in was Lankie – John Lancaster was his real name but no one called him that. Lankie suited him well, as he seemed to be all arms and legs and no fat at all. Not that this had helped him – it would take a miracle now for him to get enough points to avoid coming last in the programme, and we all knew what that would mean.

The programme was physically and mentally demanding. Only the brightest and most physically active boys were even allowed to enter. Anyone not making the grade in their primary schools were automatically deselected and sent on to the comprehensive education system where they would learn to be good Helots. The programme was designed to find just the right kind of boys to become Elite though, and one of the first tests was the test of courage, and that test came just by entering your name for the programme. Because failing at the programme did not mean a return to the comprehensive system. Once starting the programme, there were only two places to end up: A scholarship in the Elite academy, or the slave school for eunuchs. To become an Elite you had to risk failure and life as a eunuch.

And that was where Lankie was heading. There were five parts to the programme – the physical part was the first, but there was also mental agility – which I knew I would be fine with, problem solving, survival skills and politics. Twenty boys entered the programme, and at each stage the boy who came last would be deselected.

Cross-country was the end of the physical section, and we were all pretty sure Lankie was on his way out.

Dad had been so proud of me when I had made the grade for the programme. I could have turned it down. Lots of people did, but the privileges for the Elite were huge. The whole family would benefit if I succeeded, and dad made it quite clear that he wanted better for me than life as a helot. Sure there was a risk, but twenty boys entered the programme and 15 made it to the academy.

We strolled over to the hall where the results would be announced, now that everyone had returned. The chief trainer was on the stage, and we sat down in our seats. Lankie was looking decidedly nervous, as were a couple of the other boys, but most boys knew they were through this stage.

"Before I announce the results of the cross country," The chief trainer began. "I would like to make an observation."

"The cross country circuit forms a large loop." He went on. "A loop that, if one were very foolish, one could short cut." He was looking at me. I was sure of it. I felt a lump in my throat.

"Of course if anyone were so foolish as to take a short cut, they would not have realised that there was a check point on the moor.

All colour drained from my face, and I knew that the horrified look I saw on Jacob's face was no doubt mirrored on mine. We got to our feet slowly, trembling with fear.

We mumbled, "Cheats, sir" because to say anything else would be inviting a whole heap of trouble.

"And we don't want cheats on this programme. However, in view of your good scores in other events, we will give you a second chance. Well one of you anyway."

I felt my throat constricting. Not wanted on the programme? He was talking about deselecting us?

"You will run the cross country again. Right now. And when you are done, the boy who comes last will be deselected, and all other boys will go through to the next stage of the programme. John Lancaster, you will go through to the next stage, because unlike these boys, you are not a cheat. Alex Peterson, Jacob Williams: one of you will be leaving us today."

And we did. We ran out of the hall and off on the cross-country circuit. And I sprinted hard. I hated cross-country, but I knew I could outrun Jacob if I tried, so I did try. I ran hard until I had to slow down, and then with a good lead I loped along around the circuit.

I felt bad for Jacob. He was a friend, and he did not deserve deselection. His gymnastics were amazing, and he would probably have sailed through the other sections too. But it was his fault we were in this fix. If he had not suggested the short cut, Lankie would be on his way out today and we would be safely through. It was his own stupid fault.

So I kept telling myself mile after mile. It was getting dark as I finally saw the hall up ahead and the finish post, and I spurred myself to one last effort, half loping and half sprinting to the finish. If I had run this well the first time around, I would have been halfway up the pack without cheating.

I crossed the finish line and panted, sinking to my knees by the senior trainer.

"Not a bad time, Alex." He said quietly. "Not bad at all. What a pity you did not do that first time around"

"Yes sir. Sorry sir." I gasped, trying to get my breath as my running vest stuck to my clammy body.

"Nevertheless, you did cheat, boy. So I am sorry to say you are hereby deselected."

The words hit me like a hammer. Jacob beat me? I was ahead of him the whole way. And then I knew.

The checkpoint had come back home. No one was checking, and with nothing to lose, he had cheated – and won.

I looked around. There was Jacob, with a couple of the other boys, watching me. He looked guilty, but he gave me a small shrug, as though to say, 'it was you or me', and I knew I hated him now. He had cheated on me. I tried again:

"I said silence! Alex Peterson, you are hereby deselected from the Elite Academy Training Programme." As he spoke, two other trainers grabbed me. I started to struggle, but they were used to that. Probably most deselected boys struggled a bit.

"So did you." And he inserted a ball gag in my mouth and fastened it around the back of my head. Then the trainers pulled off my vest and running shorts, leaving me standing in my black bikini briefs. I blushed and more so when these were removed too and I was marched away naked towards the deselection facility.

"Say good bye to Alex, boys. And Jacob – we will be watching you." The chief trainer said as I was led away, snivelling now, unable to speak and firmly guided by the two burly trainers.

In the deselection facility, I was strapped to a table. I struggled the whole time, but I was 11 and the trainers were adults and used to boys trying to make a run for it, so it did not help although it did earn me a sharp spank on the backside. My eyes were streaming now. I could not believe what I had done! What I had let happen. This morning I was going forward to stage two.

I guess I would be one less mouth to feed, but I had failed him. All those hopes and I had let him down, by my own stupidity.

My miserable self-reflection was cut short by the sharp pain of leather fastenings tightening around my ankles and thighs. Straps had been fastened there and then with a flick of the switch the straps were being pulled apart so that my legs were stretched into painful splits. I gasped. Jacob would maybe have been okay with this part, but I was no gymnast, and box splits were not a natural position for me. I moaned behind my gag.

And then someone in a surgical mask was handling my small hairless cock, taping it to my stomach. I looked down at my cock, pointing at me accusingly, as if reprimanding me that it would never get any bigger than it was now. I felt tears sting my eyes and roll down my cheeks as I was injected with an anaesthetic. I sobbed as my balls and much of my abdomen grew numb.

The doctor poked me with a pin in the balls and when I did not flinch, he nodded as if satisfied the anaesthetic had taken effect. Then he took a scalpel, and as I watched, moaning into my gag, he cut a circuit around my scrotum, and shucked off the skin like a glove off a hand. He dropped the skin in a jar, and I saw two blue-grey nuggets exposed to the world, hanging below my penis. I sobbed as blood oozed around them, and watched in both horror and fascination as the doctor inserted some kind of stitch in the cords above the nuggets before severing them. First one, then the other, and the cords seemed to get sucked back inside me as he cut.

Some stitching and application of a swab followed, and it was done. I was no longer a boy. Not even a helot – I would be trained as a slave. My balls would be labelled and displayed in the hall of shame, which we had passed through when we first arrived at the programme.

Only one last indignity remained though. When the dressing was taped into place, the straps were released, and the trainers turned me over on the bench. I was then refastened, and I heard the hum of the tattooing machine starting. I cried into the bench, heartbroken, guilty and as miserable as can be as the doctor tattooed my slave number into my right bum cheek, needling my new identity into the soft flesh. Just below the tattoo would go my permanent record chip. And the first entry in that chip would say I was a cheat.

When he was done, the chief trainer simply said: "We are done here, number 437." And he left.

Chapter 2

19 boys remain, fighting for 15 places at the Elite Academy. Four more will lose their balls when deselected, and Alex watches, hoping the next one is Jacob, the boy who cheated him.

Monday

Yesterday I was Alex Peterson, recruited into the Elite Academy Training Programme. I had been top of my class, and my primary school grades had made me one of the most gifted boys in the country. I had been offered one of just 20 places each year offered to the children of helots to advance into the Elite Academy.

I had been doing well too, and should have got through to the second round easily, but yesterday I messed up big time.

The anaesthetic they used wore off in the night and my crotch is so sore. I can hardly bear to look at the dressing. It is not just the pain. I think I could bear the pain. It is knowing that in the course of one afternoon I went from promising potential member of the Elite academy to being a eunuch and a slave. We all had heard stories about what they did to slaves. If half of those were true, my life had suddenly become very bleak indeed.

My penis is still to sore to touch, but I wonder whether that good feeling has gone away yet. Everyone says that cut boys don't get hard, but I don't know if that's true. I do know that I only recently discovered how nice it felt to stroke myself down there. I hope they are wrong about that.

Another slave came into the recovery room earlier. I think he was probably another failed recruit like me because even though he is older – maybe 17 or 18, and tall enough to be an adult, his voice was high like a kid's, and his face hairless.

He left me a pile of clothes and told me I should get dressed. I looked at the clothing, and bit my lip. I knew the law, but the reality of it hit as hard a I felt I had already been kicked in the groin. Eunuchs were not allowed any clothing that would prevent quick inspection of their tattoos. The underwear was little more than a g-string, but I could not imagine wearing it until I healed some more in any case. There was also a slave tunic, with a slit right down the right hand side so that even with a belt, the tunic would expose my right bum cheek as I walked. The tattoo would indeed be easily accessible.

I had seen eunuchs occasionally of course. Everyone saw them attending their elite masters at civic functions. On those occasions they sometimes got to wear more formal clothes, but the same strictures applied on tattoo access.

I was surprised I was not taken away at once. I had thought that once cut I would immediately be transported to the slave school, but the other slave – number 241 – informed me that I would be confined to the deselection centre until the end of the training programme. It seemed that it was more efficient to take five eunuchs to the school together than individually – it saved money in the induction process.

"You will be pretty much laid up here until you heal anyway. That usually takes at least a week." 241 told me. He seemed kindly and demonstrated for me how to walk so that it was a little more comfortable until I healed. He explained to me what was a happening and some of what would happen next.

"No one will bother you till you are healed. Then they will may a selection decision to decide what you will be used for." He appraised me as he spoke and went on. "You are really cute though so I don't think there is much doubt what they will choose."

I felt a lump in my throat, and my eyes misted up, but I blinked away the tears furiously. I may not be a boy anymore, but I was not going to let him see me cry like a girl.

241 took me to a room which looked out onto the training ground below. The room was fitted with one way glass, he told me, so we could see out but no one could see in. Apparently there were several such rooms, and camera feeds to internal areas like the examination hall and even the dormitories.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" I asked ass 241 switched on a monitor screen, revealing a view of the currently empty dining hall.

241 grinned at me. "I think the trainers have forgotten about this room. They never come into the deselection centre. That is why I am here. I was assigned to the centre to induct new eunuchs and help with their recovery. That doesn't mean we are not allowed to pass the time watching some of the training though."

I watched as he found the training feed for the main hall. The chief trainer was in mid flow, and as he turned up the volume and we watched, it felt almost like I was still sitting there with the other boys, joining in the training. Only the soreness between my legs reminded me otherwise.

19 boys sat raptly attentive. They had seen one of the cheats taken from them, struggling and naked to the deselection facility last night. Then they had eaten a good supper and slept an exhausted sleep. The first week of the programme had been tough. Rumour had it that it got tougher yet, but this week was mental agility and the chief trainer was telling them about the various tests they would be taken through.

Much of this was familiar territory from the 11+ exam they had all taken to get into the programme in the first place, and every boy in the room knew they could do the tests. What they were not so sure about was whether they could do them better than anyone else. Lankie, having scraped through to the second round, was now not worried at all. He was some kind of genius. Rumour had it he had scored a new IQ record for the country.

Some of the other boys did not look so comfortable. Joel, Jacob, Nathan – they were all looking distinctly edgy and Tristan was fidgeting like he needed the toilet.

"So this morning the exam is algebra. This afternoon is statistics." The trainer was finishing up. On the board he had displayed a full syllabus, and as his 20th watcher in the deselection facility, I bit my lip. I loved this kind of test. I could have been top of this class – probably behind Lankie… but then Lankie would not have been there. I wished I was doing the tests rather than watching them.

There were no questions though, and papers were passed out for the examination. I could not read the papers from the video feed, so after a while I got bored of watching and went to find something to write with. I am stuck here for four weeks, I might as well occupy myself with a diary or something while I am here.

Tuesday

We wandered over to the observation room after we had cleared up, because there was nothing else to do. 241 switched on the monitor and we were watching the classroom again, but now there was just the chief instructor and a deputy, looking through yesterday's examinations scripts. We turned the volume up high to catch what they were saying to each other.

"Jacob has done unexpectedly well. I thought this was supposed to be his weaker subject." The deputy was saying as he was checking through the script in front of him.

The deputy looked up, pausing and giving a quizzical look. "You are sure you want to do that?"

"We both know he cheated twice yesterday. I want to see what he will do. And if he does nothing, I want him out."

The deputy nodded, and started adjusting some notations on the sheet in front of him.

I grinned. So Jacob was going to get his just deserts after all. Still, I could not help regret that the chief instructor had not seen through him until after I had been deselected. If only he had listened to me when I finished the cross country, I would still be in the programme, and Jacob would be sat where I was sitting.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

I woke up early, and excited. I made breakfast for 241 today and helped with his chores, and then we hurried down to the observation room and waited for the exam. Well the examination was boring as ever. 19 boys quietly scratching away their answers, overseen by a couple of trainers. I watched Jacob intently, a few rows forward from the seat he usually chose, but he was not giving much away, scribbling furiously. Occasionally one or other of the boys would ask for a second answer book, they had written so much. It took fully three hours, and none of the boys looked like they were ready to stop when the time was up.

As happened at the end of every exam, the answer books were passed forward, and then the boys filed out of the hall. Now we just had to wait for the assembly this afternoon to hear the final results.

I watched through the one way glass as the boys assembled outside. Jacob was the last out – I guess he must have been throwing up in the toilets or something, but looking at him now he did not look as grim as he might, even though the other boys were already pointing at his crotch and laughing. Everyone knew who was on his way out today.

We had lunch of leftovers from the canteen. It was cold, but not too bad for a change. 241 told me a little about the slave school as we waited. He was always careful not to tell me too much, thinking I was not ready to hear it. And he was right too. I didn't ask any questions and we both fell silent after a while, waiting for the afternoon assembly.

When it came, we were sat as raptly at the monitor as the boys were in the hall, as the chief trainer stood up to speak.

"Before I start, I need to tell you that every one of you boys has excelled in their work this week." The trainer began, and then he went into a short speech about hard work and diligence that had Tristan fidgeting so much again that he was eventually sent to stand in a corner with his hands on his head.

"And now, the scores." He said, and 19 boys – including the one in the corner – held their breath. The trainer read them out high to low.

"In seventeenth place, Tristan with 1274 marks." he said at length, and now you could have heard a pin falling on a feather bed, it was that quiet. Even Tristan did not move a muscle.

"In eighteenth place, with 1047 marks is…" the trainer, with a flair for the dramatic, paused for several seconds. "Jacob."

Joel squealed in alarm, and already two deputy trainers were moving forward to grab the boy, who was up out of his seat and looking like he was about to make a dash for freedom. As the room was suddenly filled with a loud buzz of chattering, and the trainers descended on the unfortunate Joel, the chief trainer raised his voice and went on:

"Joel Coates, as your last examination paper was filled with meaningless drivel, you scored 1041 marks only. You are therefore deselected from this programme."

All eyes in the room were on Joel, but I could see Jacob's face clearly on the monitor and he had that same look he had last week, when he had cheated on me. As the trainers pulled off Joel's clothes, fastened a gag and dragged the struggling boy from the room, I knew with a certainty that Jacob had done something. I did not know what. But he had somehow cheated. Again.

I clenched my fists and actually moaned with frustration. I strode from the room.

I heard the voices from the medical room, and I found myself reluctantly walking to the observation window. 241 stood beside me and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. He knew what I thought of Jacob. Joel on the other hand, was a friendly blond haired boy who I had always got on well with. It was no comfort to me that I would have a friend with me next week. Not when he was hear because of Jacob.

His legs were already stretched apart into painful splits, and the boy was writhing against his restraints as the injected him with anaesthetic. I wondered if I had looked that afraid when I had been on that table last week.

I watched, feeling sick inside as the doctor cut away Joel's scrotum. It looked like he was having some difficult finding the balls though and had to use some kind of tweezers to coax out the blue-grey nugget. He deftly sutured the cord and snipped the balls away one at a time, dropping them in a jar marked 'Joel Coates', and then he was swabbing and cleaning up.

They turned the new eunuch over, as they had done to me, and I watched them needled the number 438 into the flesh of his bum. I saw the whole punch like device they used to insert the chip below the tattoo. I watched the trainer leave him, and then at last, when he was alone and sobbing quietly, 241 and I were allowed in to offer him some comfort.

Chapter 3

Week three of the programme sees 18 boys problem solving, knowing the worst of the group will lose his balls.

It has been six months since I was castrated, but this is the first time I have been able to pick up a pen since the day Joel joined me in the deselection facility. I stopped keeping my diary on that day, and never came back to it.

But my story is half told. From the deselection facility it was hard to tell what was going on, and I did not see everything I am going to write about now. I spent less time watching, too – more time with Joel, trying to cheer him up, and passing the time chatting with him. Neither of us ever talked about what life would be like in the slave school, and after we were sold. But I did find out that his family were farmers, and I learned a lot about soil inputs, keeping sheep, and other stuff I would never need.

Since coming to the slave school I have spoken to the other four boys who came with me. I watched many of the programme meetings on the monitors and all the castrations, although I wish I hadn't now. I have pieced together what happened and I think this is a faithful account.

I need to write it out quickly though. Slave school is brief – especially for those like me who are to be sold on as personal attendants. Right now I have a rest day because of the injections I was given this morning. They are apparently designed to stop my bone growth, an arrest my development. All I know is that I am sore like hell and can hardly move.

Not that being sore is unusual these days. One lesson we had was how to stand still and be attentive. We got a caning every time we moved, and another one if we were even slightly slow to respond to non verbal requests. Other lessons involved learning to insert butt plugs or how to dance until we dropped from exhaustion. So sore as the injections are, I guess I welcome the chance to finish my story before I am sold.

Jacob

Jacob's ears turned pink. He knew he should not really be here, but here he was and two boys were gone because of him. Boy 241 had also been called in to fix a blocked toilet, and he knew that this was his fault too. Never mind, they should not be able to identify Joel's real exam script after a night soaking in the u-bend.

"This week we will be doing things a little differently. You will be divided onto two teams of nine and sent out to complete today's task. Today you are required to build a raft from materials you will be given and materials you will find. You must then paddle your raft across the lake. The first team of boys to make it back, without swimming, will be through this week's round. The losing team and any boy that has to swim from the winning team will continue to the second activity tomorrow.

"By the end of the week, the one boy left who has come last in every test will be deselected."

There was a buzz of excitement. Raft building could be a lot of fun, and the thought of having the rest of the week off sounded almost too good to be true. A week of physical activity and a week of tests had left the boys feeling exhausted already.

As it turned out, the raft building was fun but far from easy. While Team A immediately descended into a power struggle between two boys who both felt they should be in charge, Team B spent the first twenty minutes arguing about what they should be called. Apparently 'Team B' was not good enough for them. Finally settling on 'The Poisonous Parsnips', they then followed Team A's example and had power struggle of their own.

Jacob watched with a wry smile as Nathan and Skippy squared off angrily. They were both as bad as each other, wanting to be in charge. Skippy's real name was Quintilian Skipton, so it was not surprising he preferred Skippy! In fact he was known to kick boys in the nuts who called him Quintilian. A pompous name seemed to have bred a pompous character too. He clearly felt he should be in charge, but no one was going to follow him. Nathan, on the other hand, was likeable but, in Jacob's opinion, useless. People would follow him, but already it was largely Nathan's fault that the boys had wasted twenty minutes choosing the stupid name. There may be plenty of chances to succeed this week, but Jacob knew what it was like to nearly fail and was not ready for that experience again. He was very fond of his balls, and just as fond of the idea of joining the Elite one day rather than the life of drudgery as a useless helot or, worse, a slave.

While the squabbling continued, Jacob looked at what they had been provided with. There was rope, several plastic water containers and a single plank of wood. That was not going to carry nine boys across the river, so he wandered away from the water's edge to see what else there was.

He was soon joined by Lankie and he smiled. Lankie smiled back and the two boys rummaged through the grass, picking up branches and then discarding them as they were rotten or too small to be of use.

"We must be missing something." Jacob complained. "There surely must be some way we can build a raft. The tasks have to be possible!"

The boys looked down, not believing their luck. There, under a thin grass covering, was an old, damp but basically sound door made from what looked like pine. They knelt down and started scrabbling away at the grass and then whooped with joy and called for the others to come and help.

It still took a lot of work to make their raft, and Nathan still thought he was in charge. Skippy seemed angry at everything and everyone, but somehow the boys managed to make enough common purpose that they lashed together the water carriers as flotation devices around the door and were able to climb on the raft without it sinking. Jacob quietly made suggestions to Nathan, and Nathan made them loudly, as though they were his own, and soon the raft was stable. It would never take nine boys all at once though, but Jacob had the answer to that. He quietly chatted to Nathan about how four people could safely cross at once, with one ferrying the raft back. It would take three round trips, but everyone would get across.

They broke the single plank of wood into four to use as oars, and set off, leaving team A behind – still lashing together saplings in a fashion that didn't look like it would ever be stable.

After two successful crossings, Jacob ended up being nominated to collect the last group of boys. Skippy, Nathan and Lankie climbed onto the raft and they started rowing across on the third and final crossing. Team A had already failed by now. Seeing themselves being beaten they had all climbed on their rickety raft and tried to cross first – only to have it come apart less than a third of the way across, dunking them all in the lake.

Jacob grinned at Lankie as they crossed, sat precariously at the head of the raft with Nathan. Nathan, for his part, was looking nervously at the ropes holding the flotation together. The raft was shipping water, and had the lake not been so still, and their progress so careful and ponderous, it would surely have sunk by now- but the water carriers were holding. The shore was close. So close they had almost made it.

And that was when Skippy struck. He leaned forward and casually pushed Nathan over the edge. Nathan cried out and made a grab for something to arrest his fall into the water, and caught Jacob. As he fell in, his weight pulled Jacob off the raft too.

Lankie yelled in protest and then panic as the front of the raft lifted from the sudden release of weight, and threatened to tip the other two into the water, but somehow they managed to stay on. Lankie rowed to the shore, glowering at Skippy.

Jacob swam to the sure, dragged himself out and then punched Nathan hard in the stomach.

Nathan

Friday had been given over to the whole group. A fun activity involving a maze and some buried treasure that the 14 boys who were through could enjoy very much, but just served to prolong the agony for Nathan, Jacob, Tristan and Lewis.

Jacob, it seemed was having as much bad luck as he was, and still had not forgiven him for instinctively grabbing him and pulling him in the water. That was a worry, because everyone suspected that Jacob had done something to Joel's exam paper, and it was very suspicious that he had beaten Alex on the cross country. Jacob was a dangerous enemy, and as much as he wished he could succeed on the tests, it would not be so bad, if there were not the risk of being the next boy shafted.

Saturday was some kind of chess puzzle, involving working out the only path to cross the chess board without being 'taken' en route. Nathan still did not really understand that puzzle, which is why he had failed it. Lewis was the only one to pass that, which meant it was he, Jacob and Tristan now competing on the last day

Nathan spent a long time in the toilet before breakfast, he was that nervous. When he came to the hall, Tristan was there fidgeting, and Jacob sitting quietly. Nathan slipped into a seat and waited for the chief trainer to tell them today's challenge.

"Nice of you to join us at last master Cook." Nathan blushed and the trainer continued. "Today's challenge is a race against time. We don't want any of you duffers failing to complete as we are only supposed to deselect one of you. In the unlikely event you are so incompetent you cannot complete this task, we will pass the boys who have completed the most of the puzzle."

Nathan cringed a little, as the trainer went on to describe the problem. There would be a set of clues that must be deciphered. These would lead to hiding places where pieces of a puzzle could be found. All the pieces of the puzzle had to be retrieved and assembled to form a pyramid in the space at the back of the hall. Last person to have a pyramid was out.

"Let's work together. We just need to beat Tristan." It was better, Nathan thought, to help Jacob shaft Tristan than to be shafted by the boy himself.

Jacob smiled and nodded, and Nathan breathed a sigh of relief, looking down at his clue sheet. He pointed at one of the clues "I think that piece must be by the lake. Wait till Tristan goes somewhere else and we will get that bit."

"You get that bit. I will get this one – it has to be on the track down to the woodland somewhere. Meet you back in the hall."

Nathan nodded and ran off, Jacob setting off in the other direction. Tristan had set off apparently at random up the hill behind the canteen. With two working together, they were going to be finished in no time.

When Nathan reached the lake, he followed the clue he had. The pieces of the puzzle should be near the lake shore. It took him longer than he thought but eventually he found three puzzle pieces together in a knee high rock cleft by the water's edge. He took two of them and threw the third into the lake. That would slow Tristan down some more.

He ran back to the hall, but was surprised to find that Jacob was not back yet. He started deciphering the other clues while he waited. Eventually Jacob came into view, panting and carrying two puzzle pieces. He handed one to Nathan and they started their constructions. One of the trainers, supervising the hall, looked at what they had.

But Nathan was not worried. Tristan had not come back with anything yet, and no way was he going to find the piece in the lake, unless he was some kind of scuba diver.

The boys split up again. Jacob suggested Nathan fetch a piece near the perimeter fence, so off he went whilst the other boy headed up to the dormitories for a piece that looked like it would be up there somewhere.

And that is when things started going wrong. Nathan searched high and low, but he couldn't find the piece. He was sure that there should be a piece here, but after 30 minutes of searching he was forced to the conclusion that Tristan had probably done for their pieces what he had done for Tristan's.

He went back and met up with Jacob, who had been more successful, and they agreed a different piece for Nathan to collect. Off he went again, and once again there was a long and fruitless search. Frustrated he returned, and again agreed a new location, and again he failed.

Hungry now, and tired, Nathan trudged back to the hall. Had Tristan hidden all his pieces?

As he entered the hall though, Nathan froze. Two deputy trainers were approaching him. Boys were pointing and whooping, and there was Tristan and Jacob, both standing beside completed pyramids, like two cats that had broken into a creamery.

And he knew the answer. Jacob had shafted him after all. He had been secretly working with Tristan, collecting all three pieces, and Tristan had been collecting Jacob's pieces. But what about the piece he had thrown in the lake? How had he got that one?

But he had told Jacob what he had done, and sure enough Tristan was damp – but the lake was not deep close to shore.

Nathan was dully aware of the hands seizing his arms. He didn't struggle. He just looked numbly at the two completed pyramids as they pulled off his shirt. He looked into Jacob's face, feeling somehow lost, as though this could not be happening as his shorts were pulled off. Jacob was giving him a look that could have said 'serves you right for pulling me in'. He heard his own heart pounding in his ears as his underwear was ripped off him and he was propelled, naked, but unresisting to the deselection facility.

As the door blocked out the cheering and chatter from 17 excited boys, Nathan felt himself being lifted on to a table. He did not struggle. He let them fasten the restraints. He could not see well now, his eyes clouded with tears of shame. He had let Jacob do this to him. How could he have been so stupid.

Nathan gasped as his legs were wrenched apart. All his dreams of being some great leader were over. His hopes of being better than the helots he grew up with were reversed now – at least helots were free. At least they were real boys.

The injection hurt more than he expected and Nathan cried out in pain as the anaesthetic coursed through his veins, numbing his balls. The way he had been forced into box splits gave him a good last view of the balls he had just forfeited, and he watched them curiously feeling the spreading numbness. His small penis had gone stiff, as it did sometimes and it was an odd feeling to feel that strange tense feeling it had when stiff slowly disappearing as the numbness spread. The penis went floppy as he watched it, all feeling vanishing.

Nathan bit his lips as he though about them. He probably would never see them again. Even if he did, he would not be free to acknowledge them in any way. Nathan bit his lip and swallowed hard. The doctor was testing his balls now, and it was curious to see someone touching his flesh but feeling nothing.

And then there was the quick sweep of the scalpel, and suddenly his balls were hanging there, two whitish grey nuggets, bare for the first time in his life. A stitch, and a cut and suddenly one of the balls was free and falling into a jar labelled Nathan Cook, landing with a dull plop.

Another stitch, and Nathan imagined he could feel a tug inside, and all at once he was ball-less. The second ball landed in the jar with a plop and his sutured cords disappeared inside his body. Then the swab was applied, and it was done.

Nathan sobbed numbly as his new identity was tattooed into his butt. That hurt more than the castration, but he was past caring. As the needles filled his flesh with ink, and there was a sharp pain from his chip insertion, Nathan was vaguely aware of the chief trainer speaking.

"The problem you were supposed to solve, in the last exercise, 439, was how to stop other people hiding your pieces and preventing you from completing the exercise. Your failure is your own. You are not suitable for the Elite Academy.

Chapter 4

Survival skills week lead to some unfortunate confrontations, and a one way ticket out of the programme to the castration clinic and slave school.

The boy blushed and stopped playing with the loose thread on his T shirt, and looked upwards attentively. A few of the other boys giggled, but were silenced by a look from the chief instructor.

"Now this week's activity is survival skills. It comes with a health warning. In the past we have sadly had several deaths in this activity. Usually from boys who do not take it seriously enough."

The chief instructor stopped talking, and silently cast his eyes around the group – holding one boy's gaze and then another.

"Last Monday we instructors were treated to a farce, as you useless little pricks started acting like the children you should no longer be. If I had my way I would have deselected the lot of you and started again with a new group." The boys cringed under the withering glare as the instructor went on. "Happily we deselected the worst perpetrator of Monday's nonsense. But let me make it quite clear: if you boys do not take the survival training seriously, there is a real possibility some of you might not survive."

"The exercise this week starts on Thursday. Until then, we will be teaching you important survival techniques…"

Thursday morning was wet and miserable. Rain was drizzling down and all the gutters seemed to be full and overflowing, so that water splashed noisily against the windows of the hall, as the instructors read out the groupings. The survival exercise was to be held in groups of three or four – with 17 boys remaining it was not possible to have all groups equal size. Tristan heard his name called, and then groaned when he realised that he was with Skippy and Jacob.

Jacob was friendly enough. Since they had collaborated to get Nathan deselected, they had got on well together. But he knew that Jacob had only come to him with his plan because Nathan had annoyed him. Jacob was a dangerous friend. Skippy, on the other hand, was just dangerous. Everyone had watched him push Nathan off the raft for no reason other than Nathan had argued with him. So now here he was paired with the two most scary boys on the programme.

The rules of the survival challenge were simple. Each team would be dumped in a different area of the open moorland with a minimal survival pack. They had to find their way back. On Sunday, anyone not back at base would be picked up and either the last team back or else the team furthest from the base at the time of the pickup would lose. One boy would be deselected from the losing team. Lewis had asked how the loser would be chosen, but the trainers would not be drawn on that.

They picked up their survival pack, and looked through what they had. There was one piece of plastic sheeting, a knife, three bottles of water, a watch (containing the homing transmitter if they needed pickup) and a bar of chocolate. That was not much. Despite the late summer rain and miserable conditions, they still were only allowed the regulation programme shorts and T shirt, and running shoes. All in all, they were not well prepared for up to three nights on open moorland.

Tristan looked at the meagre supplies and felt a terrible sick feeling in his stomach.

I had to stop writing for a while, I was so sore. It is like all my joints are on fire and I have been running a temperature. The school medic just told me that was normal. It showed that my bones are reacting to the treatment and fusing.

I just had to lie still for a while but now I can write again. This next bit I am guessing at. No one I spoke to knows what the trainers were thinking, but it's the only thing that makes sense of what happened next. So yes, I am putting words into the trainer's mouth, but I bet he said something like this.

"So where do we drop team five?" The pilot asked. All the teams were dropped on the moor by helicopter – a prospect that held considerable excitement for the children of helots, who only ever rode on machines used for their parent's jobs. A boy who had only ever sat in a tractor or forklift truck, or maybe never touched a vehicle before would hardly have dared dream of flying in a helicopter, and the idea took most of the edge off the expectation of being lost in the moors with just a bar of chocolate to share for several days.

"Team five is special." The chief trainer looked at the names on the team list. Jacob the serial cheat, Skippy who had, in full view, pushed a boy off a raft to make him fail, and Tristan, who turned out to be a schemer too, having thrown his lot in with Jacob and deliberately removing many of Nathan's pieces in the final challenge last week. The trainer looked at the map carefully and then selected the location. "Drop them here".

"You are sure, sir? That has to be twice as far as everyone else, and the terrain there is dangerous. You know that the gorge is where we lost a boy a few years ago?"

Skippy scowled at Jacob and Tristan giggled. "Ooh Quintilian!" he said, his voice mockingly posh.

Jacob snorted. For the past 24 hours Skippy had been a constant source of annoyance to the other two boys, demanding to hold the pack, insisting he knew the direction to go in and generally trying to be in charge. It would not be so bad if he was not so obviously wrong most of the time, and right now the boys were picking themselves through a nasty sucking bog, making extremely slow and messy progress, miserable, damp and fed up. All because Skippy had argued that the open ground was quicker than the woodland.

At least they were heading south now. There had been a stand up row between the boys when Skippy insisted that he knew where south was, pointing closer to east. Fortunately Tristan had been listening in the training sessions and had demonstrated to Jacob how to find south using a watch and the sun. Jacob had explained it to Skippy with a right hook, and after a brief ruck in which everyone ended up with nose bleeds, Skippy had reluctantly conceded that point.

"Quintilian is a Roman name." Skippy huffed, pulling a leg from a large puddle it had just found with a squelching noise, and cursing as his running shoe came off. He leaned over and fetched it out

"My dad made the grade for the programme. My mum did for the girl's programme. But their families did not let them enrol. They always felt they missed out and so they married and said that one of their children would join the elite one day."

Tristan frowned. He did not really want to know about Skippy's family expectations. What he really wanted was to get back to base and have a nice warm cocoa.

Skippy stuck out his tongue and the boys fell silent, trudging through the bog, three forlorn looking figures.

That evening they bivouacked on the edge of a small copse. For the second night running they had failed to light a fire with sticks and ivy vine and the three boys huddled close together for warmth. They had finished their chocolate that morning, and had tried eating leaves but decided they were really not that desperate yet.

As they lay huddled together, Tristan lay his head on Jacob's chest. He heard the boy's heart beating. Felt the meagre warmth of his body shared with his own and sighed. He absently played with his shorts, feeling his body reacting to his own touch. Trying not to let on what he was doing.

Jacob seemed to be asleep. Skippy was making occasional huffing noises. Huddled next to Jacob's other side, but turned away as though to show he was only close to the boy out of extreme necessity. Tristan kept stroking himself. He liked that feeling. He liked lying on Jacob too.

And then, very gently, Jacob moved his hand, placed it on Tristan's, and started to help him. Tristan's eyes went wide as his cock reached a new level of hardness and he thrilled with pleasure at the touch. He took his hand away, and looked at Jacob as best he could in the gloom, lit only by moonlight filtering through the bivouac. The boy still had his eyes shut, but he was smiling. Slowly he found the top of Tristan's shorts and slipped his hand down their front, and under his bikini briefs too. Then he started rubbing Tristan again and the boy moaned.

Skippy looked around and Tristan blushed, but he did not seem to see what Jacob was doing. After a second he turned away again and Jacob carried on rubbing gently. Tristan explored Jacob's body with his fingers, and was just playing with the waistband of the boy's shorts when Jacob started rubbing him more firmly and he nearly gasped. That good feeling was getting more intense than ever now, and he gritted his teeth, closed his eyes and willed himself not to make a noise, as much as he willed Jacob to keep going.

And then it was like some kind of explosion inside. There was no other way to describe the sensation as something amazing happened in his cock. It throbbed and pulsed into Jacob's hand and Tristan experienced his first dry orgasm, as wave after wave of intense pleasure swept through him. He couldn't help it, he moaned and grunted in pleasure and was left panting and sweating and feeling much warmer.

He could feel Jacob's chest quivering in silent laughter, and the boys waited until Skippy was asleep before Tristan removed Jacob's shorts and returned the favour.

By all objective measures the next day should have been terrible. There was no food, the weather was turning to rain again, they had no idea where they were or how far they had to travel, and they could not help but think some of the teams had probably made it home by now.

But none of this mattered to Tristan. He was with Jacob. They had shared something special last night and then he had slept in the boy's arms. He couldn't help smiling and even Skippy's jibes and infuriating delusions of grandeur could not get him down. The boys picked their way further south, and by degrees they edged closer to home. Tristan kept smiling at nothing until Skippy nearly exploded, infuriated that Tristan was not taking his misery seriously enough.

Late morning they found some wild blackberries and stuffed themselves. Shortly after they found the river gorge.

Crossing this would take one huge detour, but climbing down and up would be hard work. The slopes were steep and littered with loose scree. Before he could stop him though, Skippy set off down the slope.

"This way!" He shouted, scrambling down, kicking screed won the slope as he slipped and slithered.

"No! We have to go round!" Jacob yelled. He was not sure they did, but he was certain that it was better to think before climbing into a gorge they may not be able to get out of. How were they supposed to cross the river anyway?

Tristan gave Jacob an awkward smile and then said. "Ok. Seeing as we are alone!"

But before Jacob could work out what he had meant, Tristan was lowering Jacob's shorts.

The boys had followed Skippy down eventually and found him sitting by the river, where he had been throwing large rocks in an attempt to create stepping stones to cross it.

Tristan didn't know if that was true or whether he just guessed well, but his blush turned a deeper crimson, and he instinctively held Jacob's hand.

"What? Quintilian? Ok then. How about prick?" Jacob snarled. "Come on prick, how are we going to cross this river? Did you spend any time thinking about that, oh glorious leader?"

Tristan looked at the river, swollen with the recent rain. Maybe Skippy only swam in public pools and lakes, but anyone could see the current was too strong in this river.

"Prick!" Jacob snarled. "We can't swim that. We needed to go round. I told you we did, and if you fucking well climbed back up again, then you fucking well should have stayed up and waited until we worked out the best way to go."

Skippy launched himself at Jacob and they were pummelling each other hard. Tristan watched, and when Skippy got on top of Jacob and started hitting his face, he grabbed him round the neck and dragged him off.

"Get off me, lover boy." Skippy snarled and threw himself forward. Tristan fell forward, pulled and toppling over the boy and sprawled in the dirt, and then Skippy was heading for the water.

Whether Skippy would have done or not, the boys would never know. But as he went towards the water's edge, and made ready, an enraged Tristan, fuelled by ever sly word and jibe from the last 48 hours, launched himself at the boy. His momentum launched Skippy forward into the water, and as he landed he hit his head with a sickening thud one of the rocks he had been throwing in earlier.

The current snatched the boy away and as Tristan got to his knees in the shallows, the boys watched the body being washed away downstream in the churning waters. There was no way they were ever going to catch up with him.

"Fuck!" Jacob whispered. And this time it did not enter Tristan's head to offer to do so.

The helicopter found all three of them that evening, a couple of miles down river. Skippy's body had become entangled in some vegetation at the river edge, but he was cold and stiff by the time the boys had made their way that far downstream. They dragged out the body, and just sat watching it.

All the other teams had returned to base, so the pickup had been sent out to fetch them.

The boys spent the evening in the medical wing being treated for mild exposure and shock. Despite their near exhaustion, neither boy slept that night.

Fourteen boys sat assembled in the hall, as Jacob and Tristan were marched in to the assembly the following morning. The chief trainer looked grim. Tristan had just endured the very worst interview of his life as he was asked exactly what had happened – how Skippy had died. The icy menace of the chief trainers voice left him in no doubt about the seriousness of what had happened and the likely consequences, as he admitted it was he who had pushed the boy in.

The trainer started to speak to the assembled boys. It was his sad duty, he told the assembled boys, to inform them that Quintilian Skipton had died in an accident on the survival training. There was a lecture then about taking the programme seriously, and actions and consequences and how everyone would miss Quintilian. This last part seemed like an order, because no one was going to voluntarily miss the prick.

"In view of yesterday's events, it will seem hard to understand that the training must go on, but you were all warned of the risks on this programme, as were your families. That being the case, we must deselect one of these two boys in front of us." He indicated the boys standing at the front between the trainers. Jacob was looking fixedly at the wall but Tristan's head was bowed in shame.

"Usually we ask the boys on the losing team to fight it out at this point, and make the point that fighting is part of survival training. But these boys have been fighting more than enough, the last few days. We have decided that the boy to be deselected should be the boy who is responsible for Quintilian's death.

"Tristan, you pushed Quintilian to his death. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Tristan cringed. He looked regretfully at Jacob, wondering if he would ever see him again. His cock seemed to jump and throb and get hard, and he wondered if he had already had his last orgasm. All eyes were on him, and he fidgeted nervously with his T shirt.

"Good luck Jacob." Was all he managed and then he pulled off his shirt, and kicked off his shoes. He had dropped his shorts to some subdued laughter before the deputy trainers grabbed him and helped him with his black briefs.

"Tristan Stanton, you are hereby deselected from this programme. You also stand accused of causing the death of Quintilian Skipton through your negligent actions. Do you contest that charge?"

"Very well," the trainer continued. "In that case, to satisfy the demand for justice, and to underline the gravity of your actions, your castration will take place here. It will be recorded and a copy will be sent to Quintilian's family, and we will NOT be using anaesthetic for you, boy."

Tristan's face went from shamed crimson to petrified white at the last words, and at last, Tristan tried to struggle free, but far too late. He was lifted up onto the top table, and then his arms were fastened above his head to table corners with the straps, The same was done for his legs.

"You will notice, boys," The trainer said, as though instructing a class, "that this boy is not to be given the luxury of a gag. Some of you may wish to block your ears in a few minutes."

Fourteen seated boys and Jacob watched on, horrified at what they were seeing. Tristan had given up struggling now, but had turned to begging.

"Please… please… I am so sorry… it was an accident… I didn't mean to…"

Jacob felt his eyes prick with tears as he watched Tristan babbling and a doctor inspected the prone boy. It was not, presumably, the doctor's preferred method of working. He had to bend over a little to get a good look at the ball sac, and the table was a little low for him. He taped the semi hard cock to Tristan's stomach as the boy sobbed and kept pleading for mercy.

"Make it hurt!" The chief trainer whispered to the doctor, just loud enough for Nathan to hear. The doctor nodded, his mouth hidden behind a surgical mask but his eyes looking grim.

He deliberately left the scrotum hanging on by a thread of skin, before pulling it away, tearing that thread.

Fifteen boys gasped and crossed their legs, several of them turning away, One of them threw up. Even the deputy trainers winced, and only the doctor and chief trainer remained stoic.

Tristan kept screaming, his body taught, his back arched in agony as the pain in his balls spread through him, consuming him. He screamed himself hoarse, as the doctor took one of his newly exposed testicles and sutured the cord. The testicle was blood red, as the ripped scrotum was bleeding more than usual, and the doctor had to squeeze it tight to maintain a firm hold as he slid his scalpel through the cord and dropped the testicle in a jar.

Tristan's screams continued, his body contorting in agony as the other cord was sutured. The agony of his mutilated balls had spread through his stomach as a terrible deep ache. He breathed, moaned and then screamed again as the doctor squashed the other ball, cutting it away and dropping it in the jar.

The doctor pushed a swab to the wound, and then stitched things together, as Tristan sobbed and moaned, and 15 boys wanted desperately to be anywhere but here. Tristan at last passed out.

He came around in the medical facility, lying on his front. The tattooing had to be done in the facility because the equipment was not portable, but it had still been recorded and added to the public record. There was a terrible ache in his stomach and sharp pain between his legs but he could also feel the smarting soreness where he had been numbered, and a tightness below that which would be his smartchip. He knew what the first record on that smart chip would tell any prospective buyer about the type of slave he was.

Chapter 5

The last week of the Elite Academy Programme sees 15 boys studying politics. Meanwhile one of the eunuchs is ill. As the programme draws to its close, one more boy will suffer the consequences of failure.

437

So here I am writing it again. It is perhaps not quite the story I wrote before, but I think it is a faithful account of what happened.

Jacob

"So, I have been asking everyone their thoughts… Who will you be voting off the programme Lew?" Jacob asked, still chewing as he spoke. The question was an important part of his market research. This week's subject was politics, and rather than a week of tests, the time was being spent on lectures and discussions on political philosophy, the history of the creation of the New Model Republic, and plenty of stuff about the Great Collapse. Much of it was familiar territory – the Great Collapse was covered in primary school, but they were learning all kinds of things about the nature of something called 'benign oligarchy', and its importance to maintaining prosperity in the reconstruction.

That was all very well, but the week had to end in a test, and a somewhat traumatised group of 15 boys had been informed on Monday morning that the practical element of the course this week involved choosing a boy to be deselected on Sunday. The least successful 'politician' amongst the boys would be the last boy removed from the programme. All others would be through to the Elite Academy proper at the beginning of September.

Lewis scowled and swallowed. It could have meant something or it could have just been the taste of the curry that was upsetting him. He sipped his water, and then set it down again before answering Jacob's question.

"I won't vote against you." Lewis assured him. Every boy, without exception, had given him the same assurance. He was not expecting an admission from Lewis, but he was not done yet.

"So I heard lots of kids were going to vote for Lankie." Jacob offered, knowing that was a lie too. Lewis laughed and shook his head.

"Who will they vote for then?" That was the question he was really asking. Not who Lewis would vote for, but who had Lewis heard that people would vote for. And the answer was the same one he received every time he asked this question, with one exception.

And that was the answer Jacob was looking for. If anyone else was in the frame, Lewis would have mentioned the names, but Lankie had been honest with him already. "They are all voting against you, Jacob" He had told him.

Jacob had not asked whether Lankie would join them. It did not matter if one or two voted for someone else. Jacob had spoken to every boy here and he knew without a doubt that this was not a vote he could win.

They knew he had shafted Alex, Joel and Nathan. And people seemed to think that he had probably killed Skippy and got Tristan blamed for that too. Fact was that most boys thought he was cursed. Any boy that got close to him or crossed him ended up out of the programme. And while he had been busy shafting his friends, a network of friendships between the other boys had grown over the last month, so that no one wanted to vote for the friend or a friend of a friend. The only boy they could safely vote off the programme without hurting someone in this chain of friendships was Jacob.

The curry tasted like crap. He swallowed a couple more mouthfuls, made his excuses, tipped the rest in the bin, and wandered off for a walk by the lake.

437 (an interlude)

I climbed onto the podium, naked except for the cuffs on my hands. The lights were bright and it was hard to see beyond them, into the crowd of people who would be bidding for me. I squinted. For a second I thought I had seen my father, but that could not be, because helots are not allowed to own slaves. Dad had seen the last of his son, and the last he would hear from me would be the five percent of my sale price that he would receive in commission. That and a letter of commiseration from the programme would be scant comfort to him, I thought.

"Slave 437 is a fully remodelled output from the Elite Training Academy programme. One of just four boys this year of this calibre. His full school record is encoded on his chip, and a summary can be found in the packs in front of you. I am sure you will agree that his academic and sporting achievements are impressive.

"437 has been remodelled and trained as a personal attendent, suitable for all statutory functions, and general household service as well as bedroom service for the lady or gentleman of discernment.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you will no doubt have noticed this is a good looking slave, and his skin complexion is fully guaranteed. He has been modified to stay this size permanently. Buy him as a companion for a favourite child, perhaps, and pass him down to following children. The options are limitless. We will even offer trade in terms when his skin ages, but kept out of prolonged exposure to harsh sunlight, he should be good for well in excess of the guaranteed 10 years.

"I must bring to your attention the unfortunate fact that this eunuch was deselected from his training programme for cheating, but rest assured that all such character flaws have been severely dealt with in his rehabilitation. 437 has proven diligent and honest. He has undergone full obedience training, and certificates of completion are in your packs.

"Now shall we start the bidding at 100. Do I have 100? Thank you. 150. Thank you, 150 is bid, 200, 250, 275, 300…"

I blinked as the numbers started to approach 500 megs. That was more money than I had ever heard of. That was more than dad earned in 20 years. It seemed a huge amount, and the numbers kept rising. Suddenly my family's five percent did not look so meagre after all.

Was that a shake of the head in the gloom behind the lights – how the auctioneer could see, I did not know.

And that was it. Someone came over with a swipe cane, and ran it passed my butt and my new master's details were embedded in the chip below my tattoo. Then I was led away naked, shivering at the experience, feeling like a farm animal – but apparently a very desirable one.

I was sent to fetch my few possessions and then I waited in a holding cell for the end of the auction, when my new master would claim me.

241

This was beyond 241's abilities now, and he knew he had to fetch a doctor, or by the time the programme finished, there would be four eunuchs and a corpse to take away.

With some trepidation, 241 used his access code to open the door out of the deselection facility. He hurried across the grassy quadrangle and into the staff suite, heading for the chief trainer's office.

Jacob

As he crossed the quad in the direction of the canteen, he saw the programme's slave boy, 241, coming towards him, heading for the deselection facility. Normally he would have ignored the slave, but there was something he wanted to ask.

He reached out a hand to stop 241, touching his arm as he was about to slip past. The eunuch looked up as if he had been struck.

"I… I wanted to know…" Jacob began, stumbling over his words. "Tristan. Is he… How is he?"

241 looked alarmed to be addressed, looking over his shoulder as though checking whether anyone was watching. Everyone was in the canteen at evening meal right now, but he still kept walking, Jacob tagging along, not wanting to be ignored.

241 stopped on the far side of the quad. Jacob could not know that the spot was deliberately chosen for being too far from the nearest microphone for the conversation to be picked up. 241 knew where all the cameras and microphones were.

"Yes and everyone knows how you treat the people you like, Jacob Williams. You liked 437 when he was still Alex, right? And no doubt 438 and 439 too."

But it was fair. In fact he had liked Alex a lot. He had liked Alex before he had even noticed Tristan, and he regretted that it had not been Alex falling asleep on him in the dark of an open moor.

When he had suggested cheating on the cross country, he had hoped Alex would thank him. That it would be a little victory over the system that they shared together. Instead he had cheated a second time and sent Alex into slavery.

"You did what you had to do. Because that's what you do, isn't it? Don't try to pretend that if it had been you and Tristan fighting for last place last week, you wouldn't have wrestled him to submission without a moments thought" 241 glared at Jacob, and the boy looked at the ground. He used his toe to turn a small rock and watched a spider scurry away to safety.

It would have been better had he never qualified for this stupid programme. Four boys were eunuchs because of him, and one was dead. Jacob was under no illusions: Tristan was fighting for his new boyfriend when he had killed Skippy.

For the first time Jacob considered that maybe he was, after all, the best candidate for deselection.

241 was right. If it was him or Tristan, he would have fought Tristan. He somehow doubted Tristan would have resisted much. The last words: "good luck Jacob" hung in his memory, like a curse.

"The doctor is coming to make sure 440 will live, if you care so much. I am not sure what he has to live for though. The chief instructor says there will be an investigation, and that there is still the possibility of charges.

"You hear that? If they decide he deliberately murdered Skippy, he could be up for a trial. And now he is a slave, I don't think his chances of a defence are good, do you?

"Oh and if 437 knew I was talking to you, I think he might have mentioned something about wanting to poke your eyes out with chopsticks.

241 spat on the ground, and then hurried away from Jacob. More tears were running down his face now. He skipped the evening meal and showed up late for bed. A few boys ribbed him about missing afternoon lessons – there would be hell to pay for that tomorrow apparently. But then, he was living in hell already. A few more flames would make no difference.

Sunday lunch had been torture for Jacob. He had miserably endured the best meal that the boys had been served on the programme. Roast beef was incredibly expensive, and no helot got to eat it, so it had been a special treat for the boys on the last day of the programme.

Most of the boys had been in high spirits, and the volume of noise at lunch had rivaled the helicopter rides. They were on their way, and they knew it. Ready to pass out of the programme and into the academy proper. They would be immediately conferred the status of elite. They would be reunited with grateful families, who would find their incomes increased tenfold, and with generous relocation packages in the city. The hard work would continue, but without the constant threat of failure and deselection.

Jacob did not share any of this elation. He picked at his food, feeling no better than he had felt the day he had confronted 241.

And when the meal was done, the tables were cleared, and the chief trainer called for silence. The sudden drop in volume in the hall was itself enough to set Jacob's heart racing. This was the moment. The final deselection was about to happen.

The chief trainer began with a speech, praising the hard work of the boys, reminding them of key lessons learned, and once again instructing them to mourn poor Skippy. There was no mention of mourning the slaves who had paid the price for failure. Jacob studied a knot of wood in the lunch table, his ears burning.

And then the moment came. The practical 'exam' of the politics test was upn them.

"You bastard." Jacob hissed, loud enough for all to hear, and sending a murmur or whispering around the hall. "You promised you wouldn't vote for me."

Twelve hands went up. Only Lankie did not offer to second Lewis. There was a small ripple of laughter, and Jacob coloured, looking at the one boy who might support him. All Lankie gave him was an apologetic look, but at least he met his eyes. Jacob looked away first.

"Well I don't think there is any point asking for a second nomination then." The trainer looked at the sea of raised arms and then at the miserable figure of Jacob. "Jacob, if you would care to join me up here…"

The boy stood up, feeling every eye in the room locked on him. He walked slowly to the front of the hall and stood beside the chief trainer. He slowly turned his head to take in the faces of the assembled boys. Gloating faces some of them. Not all though. Lankie looked sad, others looked a little scared. One boy was holding his own crotch as if in sympathy.

Two deputy trainers stood nearby, but Jacob did not run and they did not seize him yet.

Jacob looked at the floor for a second, and took a huge, shuddering breath. But when he looked up, his eyes were no longer frightened or defeated. There seemed to be a new life in them.

"I do." Jacob began, and he looked around at the boys and then back at the chief trainer. "This week, sir, we have been learning about politics. We learned about the causes of the great collapse, the death of democracy and the creation of our benign oligarchy." Jason stumbled a little on the vocabulary. These were not words he had heard often before this week's training. He had rehearsed this speech to himself, but it still did not come easily, delivering it in practice.

"Today the democratic will of the boys in this room was to have me deselected from the programme. But I don't want to be deselected, and I don't think the boys in this room are the ones in power here."

"You are, sir. The choice of who to deselect from the programme is yours, and yours alone."

Fourteen boys saw the chief trainer nod, and each and every one of them caught their breath.

Flashback: Chief Instructor Marsh

"Enter." He barked. The door opened and a boy entered, his eyes red and puffy with tears, although he looked more collected now.

"Jacob Williams. We missed you in class this afternoon." He scowled. Jacob nodded, and stood awkwardly in the doorway. "Well come on in boy, best you sit down while you still can. After we punish you in class tomorrow for your truancy, it may be that you can't sit so well for a day or so."

Jacob steeled himself, looked up, held the chief instructor's eyes and answered him.

Jacob

Jacob looked at fourteen boys, seeing dismay and panic wash over their faces like an incoming wave. Someone whimpered, and a chair squeaked as ifits occupant was moving it, getting ready to run. Jacob did not need to think long. It was better, he told himself, if he did not think too hard about it.

"Lewis." He said, feeling the sick guilt in his stomach as he condemned the boy to a life of slavery, for no better reason than that his had been the first hand up.

Lewis was out of his chair at once and making a run for the door. He jumped and dodged from the grasp of one deputy trainer, and was nearly outside when he tripped, and sprawled forward. He tried to regain his feet, but they had him now and the boy sobbed as he was dragged to the front of the room.

There was a loud buzz of protest as the boy struggled and pleaded for mercy, sobbing and begging. The atmosphere among the remaining boys was almost mutinous, as they watched Jacob escape deselection in favour of another boy again.

A trainer fastened a ball gag to Lewis' mouth and then stripped his clothes off, leaving the boy standing naked, held between two men, sobbing, and eyes pleading for mercy still. The chief instructor raised his hand for silence.

"Jacob Williams has learned something of politics that the rest of you boys missed. The art of politics is negotiation, and the person you should negotiate with is the one who has the power to change things.

"Jacob, you have passed this year's programme in first place. We will be offering you a place on the academy fast track command programme. You are just the boy we have been looking for.

And with that, the struggling boy was dragged away, the assembly hall broke into a roar of furious chatter, and Jacob sat down on a chair, placed his head in his hands, and cried.

Epilogue

Lewis

The door opened as the chief trainer keyed in his access, and there was a brightly lit room, some machinery, a blood stained bench with scuffed leather straps, a mirror and the doctor who had cut Tristan's balls of publicly last week. Lewis cringed and struggled more, crying and losing control of his bladder as he recollected Tristan's screams when his scrotum had been torn off.

"Quick get him down and fetch a towel" the doctor sighed, and the straps were fastened around Lewis's legs. They mopped him up, and with a flick of a switch, the bench readjusted itself, pulling the boy's legs apart so quickly that he was sure he felt a muscle rip, and he tried to scream into his gag in sudden pain.

The needle with the anaesthetic hurt a lot, and Lewis arched his back, grunting and biting on the ball gag. But then gradually the pain from his wrenched groin muscle disappeared, and a numbness took its place.

Lewis looked away from his small hairless cock, and towards the door. He blinked, imagining the boys waiting outside that door for some glimpse in when the chief trainer would emerge. Waiting to hear any sounds that might escape.

He had stood outside that door. He had been one of the boys to sneak a glimpse of the newly neutered and tattooed slave boy when Alex, Joel and Nathan had each succumbed to this process. He knew they were out there, and he knew the thoughts going through their minds.

They would be joking about him and going over his good and bad points, commiserating and expressing relief it was not them.

The anaesthetic had done its job. He was numb enough, and the doctor picked up a scalpel and deftly made the incision that would sever his scrotum. Lewis closed his eyes, not wanting to see the skin come away, shucked off like a glove, to expose his blue-white testicles.

He felt a tug inside him, and kept his eyes closed, sobbing. He did not see the first suture, or the first cut, but he heard the dull plop as his testis dropped into a jar, now labelled with his name.

He opened his eyes, not really wishing to, but unable to avoid the curiosity. The other testicle was snipped away, the cord being sucked back to where he could not see it. And then the doctor was stitching the fold of skin he had left at the base of the scrotum, sealing him up, and it was done.

Two small pearls sat in a jar. He had not realised they were so small. His boyhood would go on display, and he – he had lost everything he ever wanted.

They turned him over, and the tattoo machine hummed to life. He moaned slightly as his number was etched into his bum, knowing that outside the boys would hear this as a sign that they were almost done.

A sharp prick followed the tattooing, which made him gasp. That must be his smart chip going in. A chip powered by body heat and keeping records of everything anyone would ever want to know about the slave.

And now they released the straps that held him and the chief instructor was talking.

The door opened. He imagined the eyes of several boys on him. It shut, and he was alone at last.

437

Well, the first time since I had been dragged away naked to the deselection facility.

When Jacob entered the room, I nearly forgot ever scrap of my obedience training. My heart thudded in my chest. I could hear the rush of blood in my ears as a dark red mist seemed to descend over my vision.

Standing in front of me was the boy I hated more than anyone in the world. A boy I would gladly strangle in his sleep, and then go happily to my execution, believing I had done the world a favour.

Jacob smiled ruefully at me, having at least the decency to look a little embarrassed.

My insides churned, and I clenched my fists tighter, summoning up all the inner control I had been taught these last nine months. I forced myself to look towards my master, eyes lowered submissively, head slightly bowed.

Jacob lifted my chin and looked into my eyes. He looked older now. Well he was 12 now, but something in his eyes looked older still. I knew I looked just the same size as I had before. He would keep growing older, and taller. His voice was already a touch deeper. I would live the rest of my life in an 11 year old body, watching him outgrow me. I told myself I did not care. I would kill him the first chance I got in any case, and damn the consequences.

It was as if he could read my thoughts. His steely blue eyes held mine, as he spoke.

"I came looking for Tristan, but they say he is going to stand trial, and may… may never be up for sale." Jacob's eyes darted away from mine for a second, and I thought for a second that he looked haunted. "They told me you had been keeping some kind of diary."

My voice was neutral, I was feeling numb inside. What did fucking Jacob want with me? And yet Tristan had told me what had happened with them. I wrote it down. Tristan had cared for Jacob.

Poor Tristan, 440, whatever I am supposed to call him. Last I saw him was the day the official investigation reported that he should stand trial for murder. Skippy's parents were only helots, but they were, it seemed, reasonably well connected helots and they had convinced someone to bring a case to trial.

He had never really recovered from his castration in any case. Some eunuchs can still get themselves hard if they stroke themselves long enough. Some can even still orgasm. I had some feeling when playing with myself I discovered, but not so Tristan. His cock is a dead flap of flesh now, and that hurts him, I know. The two orgasms he had with Jacob were the only ones he would ever have, and he could still remember how good those had felt.

He also was still a fidget, which had been bad for him in training. After many canings, there were questions being asked whether he could ever be good for anything but general duties. He was not going to get his obedience certification it seemed.

And then the word had come of the trial and we had watched the terrified eunuch being led away to a remand centre, without so much as time to say goodbye. (What happened with Tristan is told in The Trial of Tristan 440)

"Alex, I want you to keep writing. But please – let me tell you all of it first. Please."

And so he told me. He told me how he never meant to hurt me. How he had feelings for me, and how he wanted to keep me close to him, to protect me forever.

I was surprised – maybe a touch flattered, but it would be a very long time before I forgave him.

He also told me everything I need for this account, so it is time I finished it.

Flashback: Jacob

The chief instructor opened a desk drawer and pulled out a folder. He threw it at Jacob, and the boy grabbed it as it skidded over the desk. The instructor put his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, waiting.

Jacob picked up the file and looked at the cover. His name was on the front, and as he opened it, the first page had a red insert. "Command school candidate" was written on the insert. The rest of the file was full of facts, figures and observations.

Oligarchs! The thought had never crossed Jacob's mind. To most helots, elite were elite, but in the recent lessons it had been explained that there were scholars, technicians, justices, police and oligarchs. How one was chosen for each role had not been explained.

"Do you think we would need this programme if we just wanted to recruit scholars and technicians, boy?" Jacob cocked his head curiously and the chief instructor went on. "This whole programme has been designed to find people like you. People who will make hard choices, and do whatever it takes to meet your goals when you have nothing to lose. It is a test of ingenuity, courage and ruthlessness.

"You think the shortcut on the cross country circuit was put there by accident? Do you think we didn't notice you writing a whole other answer paper for Joel, and swapping it for your own? You worked out the problem solving just fine, and you somehow dealt with Skippy too. Best we not dwell on that point.

"This programme has been designed to give a few people an extreme incentive to show their true colours. You, Jacob, have passed."

Jacob was listening, feeling shocked – even outraged. The first test was bad luck – he hadn't needed to cheat on that. If Lankie had been meant for command though, presumably he would have thought to use the short cut. He could see the twisted logic of it, but it made him sick as he realised the cost. Not a cost he had to pay. This price had been paid by his victims.

"You see if all we wanted was scholars and technicians, we would just take the brightest helots and promote them right away. In fact we sometimes quietly do just that. This programme is designed to uncover the miserable sneaky nasty but also brilliant little boys who will do absolutely anything to save their own skin.

"Jacob Williams, you are one nasty self-serving piece of work. I don't think you have an altruistic bone in your body. You would do anything to save your own skin, and if you want a place in command school, it is yours. But you have to do one more thing to earn it."

"Prove me right, Jacob. When you get voted for deselection, you can altruistically give up your freedom and your balls. If you do, I promise we will look after your family very generously. They will want for nothing. They will probably be better off than if you go to command school. But if I am right about you, you will get to choose another boy to take your fate. Let me be quite clear that your chosen boy's family will not be looked after. But if you do that, you will one day be an oligarch.

"You wanted to know what you could do for me? That is what you can… and will do."

The End

Afterword

I have had a good number of very helpful and encouraging emails about this story already. Some people have pointed out problems – some of which I have tried to fix in later chapters, and others of which I will simply try to avoid next time as it was too late to fix them here.

Other people have been hugely encouraging to me, and I welcome all comments and constructive criticism. I will try to do better in my next stories. Please do feed back your thoughts, and many thanks to everyone who has done so.

If you want to know about the other characters – let me know who you are interested in, and I will see what I can put together. But for the Elite Academy Programme, that is all for now. Thank you very much for reading all the way to the end.

Calvin C

Elite Academy Programme

Summary

Characters

Category & Story codes

Disclaimer

Author's note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Monday

Tuesday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Chapter 3

Jacob

Nathan

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

437

Jacob

437 (an interlude)

241

Jacob

Flashback: Chief Instructor Marsh

Jacob

Epilogue

Lewis

437

Flashback: Jacob

The End

Afterword