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The day that Sam makes up his mind, he goes looking for Runner Five the moment he’s officially freed from his duties. He finds her in the quod, keeping warm by a fire pit as she chews a piece of hard tack with jam preserves.
“Hey, Runner Five!”
She glances up. She’s too “military” to smile, but she also doesn’t wear a permanent scowl the way Janine and Runner Eight do. The corners of her mouth do twitch when she sees him, which Sam takes a personal victory. She waves, then curls her hand into a fist and tucks it close to her ear.
Not for the first time, Sam wonders if it’s habit that keeps Five signing, or if she keeps it up for the same reasons that he sometimes lies awake reciting the Tao Te Ching. Five hears perfectly well – Dr. Meyers confirmed that – but her vocal cords don’t work, and there’s no one in Abel who knows either British or American Sign. Still, Five keeps her hands busy, even during runs. He sees her sometimes on the cameras, signing away as though responding to the conversations that babble in her ear.
Well, whatever her reasons, Sam think she’s been talking to herself for long enough. He plops down on the ground next to her and shivers, extending his hands toward the fire to enjoy the warmth. “Brr. Sure getting cold quick these days, once the sun goes down. Must be getting close to fall.”
Runner Five nods in tolerant acknowledgement of his small talk. She snaps off a piece of hard tack and offers it to him. Sam waves it off. God only knows the Runners need all the calories and vitamins they can get. Besides, he prefers his rations softened up with a nice soak in marmite.
“I’ve been thinking, Five. We’re friends, right? You and me?”
Again, Five nods and her lips twitch up. This time they stay twitched.
“But sometimes, you know, situations being what they are, our conversations can seem a little…one-sided.”
Five snorts, popping the hard tack into her mouth and licking the fruit off her fingers. She’s treading that line again, the one she so often manages to hold between stoicism and over-expression. It’s like she selects one very specific message, communicates it with her entire body, and doesn’t allow anything else to show. In this case, the message is, ‘No shit, Sherlock.’
Sam chuckles and rubs his hands together to spread the fire’s warmth into the joints. “Right, you get me. Always running my mouth, even to the folks who can butt in. What I’m trying to say now is, I want to change that. I want to be able to talk to you, like this, in a way that’s easy for you. So, Runner Five: will you teach me to sign?”
Five’s eyebrows go straight to her hairline. Sam thinks that might be the first time he’s ever managed to take her by surprise. Her hands go up as if on instinct. She hesitates, then dances her fingers through a single sign that Sam can guess from her expression.
“Yes, I really mean it. I know we can always scrounge together a pencil and some scrap paper when you’ve got something important to say, but you shouldn’t have to go to all that trouble just to have a nice conversation over dinner.” He rolls his fingers, trying to imagine them moving the way hers do. His are shorter and more clumsy, but with a little practice… “I know it won’t be quick, learning. But if you and I work together for a few hours every week, I bet I could pick up at least a few signs. So, what do you say?”
Five actually smiles. That feels like a victory all on its own. She nods and Sam’s entire body lights up with excitemet.
“Great! That’s great. Now, the only question is: where do we start?” Sam rubs his chin, a habit he got into back when he imagined he might someday be able to grow a beard. “Hm…it’d be easier to study if we had a book about it, but who knows how many of those are still around. Oh, I know! This.”
He mimics her sign from before, curling his hand into a fist and bringing it up to his ear as though it were a mobile phone. It’s a sign he’s seen her make over and over, usually combined with a wave or some other slew of symbols.
“What is this? You do it all the time so it must be pretty important. What’s it mean?”
Runner Five tugs his hand away from his head and takes it in her own. She guides his thumb out from under his fingers, then rolls it all back so it’s folded over the first two knuckles.
“Ah – got it wrong, did I? Learning something already. All right.” Sam opens and closes his hand a few times to make sure he’s got his fingers all in the right place. He catches Five’s glance of approval and lifts the sign to his ear again. “So. What am I saying?”
Five points at him. Sam looks from her finger to her face – which is frustratingly neutral – and then to his arm, wondering if the placement of that is important too. “Am I still not doing it right?”
Runner Five shakes her head. She mirrors the sign, holds it for a second, and then places her hand on Sam’s chest. When he still doesn’t get it, she repeats the motion a few times. Fist, ear, Sam. Fist, ear, Sam.
“…I don’t understand.”
Runner Five rolls her eyes. She grabs his wrist again and holds it out where he can see the thumb and the shape of the sign. She raises her free hand into the same shape, then traces a letter “S” into the dirt without letting him go.
“S?” Sam echoes. “This means ‘S’?”
Five nods, then leads Sam’s “S” back to his ear. She holds it there, taps the ground to get his attention, and adds two more letters.
It finally clicks. “Oh. Oh. This means ‘Sam.’ It’s how you say my name.”
Five releases his arm and claps in a way that’s slightly more congratulatory than it is sarcastic. Despite himself, Sam laughs. It’s like being a kid again. The first thing you learn is your own name.
“Wow,” he says, and repeats the motion to commit it to memory. This is his sign, his name. It’s the way Runner Five talks about Sam Yao. “That’s…that’s really cool, actually. Did you make it up? Just for me?”
Five nods one last time and shrugs like it isn’t a big deal.
“Wow. What about Maxine, or the other Runners? Do you have signs for them, too?”
Five holds her hand flat, palm-down, and shakes it. Sam takes that to mean ‘some of them, not all’ and feels a swell of pride. He’s almost certain that Five’s been making this sign for as long as she’s been in Abel. That’s got to mean he was the first she created a ‘name’ for. That feels good.
“Well, all right then! Where do we go from here?”
Runner Five spends the rest of the night – until the sun finally sets and they’re left without light to see by – running Sam through the finger-spelling alphabets of BSL and ASL. When Sam hits the bunk, he’s still running through the signs in his head. He’s half-certain he’ll forget them all by sunrise, but that’s all right. He’ll get it down eventually, and then they’ll have lots to talk about, him and Runner Five.