The Institute Page 109

“He does, though,” Kalisha said. Her eyes were merry.

“Right,” Nicky agreed. “And doesn’t like it. The Whatzis distribution is not his friend.”

“The Bernoulli is an accurate way of expressing probability,” Luke said. “It’s based on the idea that there are two possible outcomes to certain empiric events, like coin flips or the winners of football games. The outcomes can be expressed as p for positive result and n for negative result. I won’t bore you with the details, but you end up with a boolean-valued outcome that clearly expresses the difference between random and non-random events.”

“Yeah, don’t bore us with the easy stuff,” Nicky said, “just cut to the chase.”

“Coin flips are random. Football scores appear random if you take a small sample, but if you take a bigger one, it becomes clear that they’re not, because other factors come into play. Then it becomes a probability situation, and if the probability of A is greater than the probability of B, then in most cases, A will happen. You know that if you’ve ever bet on a sporting event, right?”

“Sure,” Tim said. “You can find the odds and the likely point-spread in the daily paper.”

Luke nodded. “It’s pretty simple, really, and when you apply Bernoulli to precognition statistics, an interesting trend emerges. Annie, how soon was the fire after your aunt had her brainwave about keeping her sons home?”

“That very night,” Annie said.

Luke looked pleased. “Which makes it a perfect example. The Bernoulli distribution I ran shows that precognitive flashes—or visions, if you like that word better—tend to be most accurate when the predicted event is only hours away. When the time between the prediction and the event predicted becomes longer, the probability of the prediction coming true begins to decline. Once it becomes a matter of weeks, it pretty much falls off the table and p becomes n.”

He turned his attention to the blond man.

“You know this, and the people you work with know it. They’ve known it for years. For decades, in fact. They must have. Any math wonk with a computer can run a Bernoulli distribution. It might not have been clear when you started this thing in the late forties or early fifties, but by the eighties you had to know. Probably by the sixties.”

Smith shook his head. “You’re very bright, Luke, but you’re still just a child, and children indulge in magical thinking—they bend the truth until it conforms to what they wish were true. Do you think we haven’t run tests to prove the precognitive capabilities of our group?”

His lisp was growing steadily worse.

“We run new tests every time we add a new precog. They’re tasked with predicting a series of random events such as the late arrivals of certain planes . . . news events such as the death of Tom Petty . . . the Brexit vote . . . vehicles passing through certain intersections, even. This is a record of successes—recorded successes—going back almost three quarters of a century!”

Three quarterth of a thentury.

“But your tests always focus on events that are about to occur soon,” Kalisha said. “Don’t bother to deny it, it’s in your head like a neon sign. Also, it’s logical. What use is a test when you can’t grade the results for five or ten years?”

She took Nicky’s hand. Luke stepped back to them and took Kalisha’s. And now Tim could hear that humming again. It was low, but it was there.

“Representative Berkowitz was exactly where our precogs said he would be on the day he died,” Smith said, “and that prediction was made a full year before.”

“Okay,” Luke said, “but you’ve targeted people—Paul Westin, for one—based on predictions about what’s going to happen in ten, twenty, even twenty-five years. You know they’re unreliable, you know anything can happen to turn people and the events they’re part of in a different direction, something as trivial as a missed phone call can do it, but you go on, just the same.”

“Let’s say you have a point,” Smith said. “But isn’t it better to be safe rather than sorry?” Thafe. Thorry. “Think of the predictions that have proved out, then think of the possible consequences of doing nothing!”

Annie was back a turn, maybe even two. “How can you be sure the predictions will come true if you kill the people they’re about? I don’t get that.”

“He doesn’t get it, either,” Luke said, “but he can’t bear to think that all the killing they’ve done has been for no good reason. None of them can.”

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it,” Tim said. “Didn’t somebody say that about Vietnam?”

“If you’re suggesting that our precogs have been stringing us along, making things up—”

“Can you be sure they haven’t?” Luke countered. “Maybe not even consciously, but . . . it’s a good life they have there, isn’t it? Cushy. Not much like the ones we had in the Institute. And maybe their predictions are genuine at the time they’re made. It still doesn’t take random factors into consideration.”

“Or God,” Kalisha said suddenly.

Smith—who had been playing God for God knew how long—raised a sardonic smile at this.

Luke said, “You understand what I’m saying, I know you do. There are too many variables.”

Smith was silent for a moment, looking out at the view. Then he said, “Yes, we have math guys, and yes, the Bernoulli distribution has come up in reports and discussions. For years now, in fact. So let’s say you’re right. Let’s say our network of Institutes didn’t save the world from nuclear destruction five hundred times. Suppose it was only fifty? Or five? Wouldn’t it still be worth it?”

Very softly, Tim said, “No.”

Smith stared at him as if he were insane. “No? You say no?”

“Sane people don’t sacrifice children on the altar of probability. That’s not science, it’s superstition. And now I think it’s time you left.”

“We’ll rebuild,” Smith said. “If there’s time, that is, with the world running downhill like a kid’s jalopy with no hand to guide it. I also came to tell you that, and to warn you. No interviews. No articles. No threads posted on Facebook or Twitter. Such stories would be laughed at by most people, anyway, but they would be taken very seriously by us. If you want to insure your survival, keep quiet.”

The hum was growing louder, and when Smith removed his American Spirits from his shirt pocket, his hand was shaking. The man who had gotten out of the nondescript Chevy had been confident and in charge. Used to giving orders and having them carried out ASAP. The one standing here now, the one with the heavy lisp and the sweat-stains creeping out from the armpits of his shirt, was not that man.

“Think you better go, son,” Annie advised him, very softly. Maybe even kindly.

The cigarette pack dropped from Smith’s hand. When he bent to pick it up, it skittered away, although there was no wind.

“Smoking’s bad for you,” Luke said. “You don’t need a precog to tell you what’ll happen if you don’t stop.”

The Malibu’s windshield wipers started up. The lights came on.

“I’d go,” Tim said. “While you still can. You’re pissed about the way things have worked out, I get that, but you have no idea how pissed these kids are. They were on ground zero.”

Smith went to his car and opened the door. Then he pointed a finger at Luke. “You believe what you want to believe,” he said. “We all do, young Mr. Ellis. You’ll discover that for yourself in time. And to your sorrow.”

He drove away, the car’s rear tires throwing up a cloud of dust that rolled toward Tim and the others . . . and then veered away, as if blown by a puff of wind none of them could feel.

Luke smiled, thinking George couldn’t have done it better.

“Might have done better to get rid of him,” Annie said matter-of-factly. “Plenty of room for a body at t’far end of the garden.”

Luke sighed and shook his head. “There are others. He’s only the point man.”

“Besides,” Kalisha said, “then we’d be like them.”

“Still,” Nicky said dreamily. He said no more, but Tim didn’t have to be a mind-reader to get the rest of his thought: It would have been nice.


2


Tim expected Wendy back from Columbia for supper, but she called and said she had to stay over. Yet another meeting about the future of Fairlee County law enforcement had been scheduled for the following morning.

“Jesus, won’t this ever be over?” Tim asked.

“I’m pretty sure this will be the last one. It’s a complicated situation, you know, and bureaucracy makes everything worse. All okay there?”

“All fine,” Tim said, and hoped it was true.

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