[2] Bean is a homeless child living on the hellish streets of Rotterdam around 2170 after escaping as an infant from an illegal genetic engineering laboratory.

Highly intelligent and extremely young, he is on the brink of dying from starvation, but manages to convince a nine-year-old named Poke to let him join her band of homeless children by offering her an idea.

Bean's incredible intelligence, creativity and determination bring him to the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is recruiting children for the International Fleet (IF) for a war of survival against the alien Buggers.

Bean has to overcome being much younger and smaller than the other child recruits and faces scrutiny when it is revealed that he scored record highs in all of the school's mental tests.

Bean concocts a scheme to trap Achilles and make him confess to multiple murders, including Poke's, revealing that he is a sociopath bent on killing anyone who has seen or made him helpless.

However, Bean deduces from various clues (such as the lack of speed-limit induced communication delay in the simulation) that the "simulations" are real battles: Ender and his "jeesh" are commanding human fleets attacking Bugger planets via the Ansible, an instantaneous communications device.

Through it all, Ender keeps on winning, but he begins to break down under the pressure; at times, Bean gives the jeesh additional commands.

Throughout the book, Bean struggles against the IF administration and how they push Ender, seemingly willing to break him to achieve their goals.