“Good f’you. Go on and get back on the bed. Lie down, it’s okay.”

Kalisha sat, dropped Avery’s feet on her lap, then patted the bed next to her. Luke sat down and asked Avery if he was feeling better.

“I guess so.”

“You know so,” Kalisha said, and began to stroke the little boy’s hair again. Luke had a sense—maybe bullshit, maybe not—that a lot was going on between them. Inside traffic.

“Go on, then,” Kalisha said. “Tell him your joke if you have to, then go to fuckin sleep.”

“You said a bad word.”

“I guess I did. Tell him the joke.”

Avery looked at Luke. “Okay. The big moron and the little moron were standing on a bridge, see? And the big moron fell off. Why didn’t the little one?”

Luke considered telling Avery that people no longer talked about morons in polite society, but since it was clear that polite society did not exist here, he just said, “I give up.”

“Because he was a little more on. Get it?”

“Sure. Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“To get to the other side?”

“No, because she was a dumb cluck. Now go to sleep.”

Avery started to say something else—maybe another joke had come to mind—but Kalisha hushed him. She went on stroking his hair. Her lips were moving. Avery’s eyes grew heavy. The lids went down, slowly rose, went down again, and rose even more slowly. Next time they stayed down.

“Were you just doing something?” Luke asked.

“Singing him a lullabye my mom used to sing me.” She spoke barely above a whisper, but there was no mistaking the amazement and pleasure in her voice. “I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but when it’s mind to mind, the melody doesn’t seem to matter.”

“I have an idea he’s not exactly too intelligent,” Luke said.

She gave him a long look that made his face heat up, as it had when she caught him staring at Helen’s legs and busted him on it. “For you, the whole world must not seem exactly too intelligent.”

“No, I’m not that way,” Luke protested. “I just meant—”

“Ease up. I know what you meant, but it’s not brains he’s lacking. Not exactly. TP as strong as he’s got might not be a good thing. When you don’t know what people are thinking, you have to start early when it comes to . . . mmm . . .”

“Picking up cues?”

“Yeah, that. Ordinary people have to survive by looking at faces, and judging the tone of voice they’re hearing as well as the words. It’s like growing teeth, so you can chew something tough. This poor little shit is like Thumper in that Disney cartoon. Any teeth he’s got aren’t good for much more than grass. Does that make sense?”

Luke said it did.

Kalisha sighed. “The Institute’s a bad place for a Thumper, but maybe it doesn’t matter, since we all go to Back Half eventually.”

“How much TP has he got—compared, say, to you?”

“A ton more. They have this thing they measure—BDNF. I saw it on Dr. Hendricks’s laptop one time, and I think it’s a big deal, maybe the biggest. You’re the brainiac, do you know what that is?”

Luke didn’t, but intended to find out. If they didn’t take his computer away first, that was.

“Whatever it is, this kid’s must be over the moon. I talked to him! It was real telepathy!”

“But you must have been around other TPs, even if it’s rarer than TK. Maybe not in the outside world, but here, for sure.”

“You don’t get it. Maybe you can’t. That’s like listening to a stereo with the sound turned way down, or listening to people talk out on the patio while you’re in the kitchen with the dishwasher running. Sometimes it’s not there at all, just falls completely out of the mix. This was the real deal, like in a science fiction movie. You have to take care of him after I’m gone, Luke. He’s a goddam Thumper, and it’s no surprise he doesn’t act his age. He’s had an easy cruise up to now.”

What resonated with Luke was after I’m gone. “You . . . has anyone said anything to you about going to Back Half? Maureen, maybe?”

“No one needs to. I didn’t get a single one of their bullshit tests yesterday. No shots, either. That’s a sure sign. Nick’s going, too. George and Iris may be here a little longer.”

She gently gripped the back of Luke’s neck, producing another of those tingles.

“I’m gonna be your sister for a minute, Luke, your soul sister, so listen to me. If the only thing you like about Punk Rock Girl is how she wiggles when she walks, keep it that way. It’s bad to get too involved with people here. It fucks you up when they go away, and they all do. But you need to take care of this one for as long as you can. When I think of Tony or Zeke or that bitch Winona hitting Avery, it makes me want to cry.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Luke said, “but I hope you’ll be here a lot longer. I’d miss you.”

“Thanks, but that’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

They sat quiet for awhile. Luke supposed he would have to go soon, but he didn’t want to yet. He wasn’t ready to be alone.

“I think I can help Maureen.” He spoke in a low voice, hardly moving his lips. “With those credit card bills. But I’d have to talk to her.”

Her eyes opened wide at that and she smiled. “Really? That would be great.” Now she put her lips to his ear, causing fresh shivers. He was afraid to look at his arms, in case they had broken out in goosebumps. “Make it soon. She’s got her week off coming up in a day or two.” Now she placed her hand, oh God, high up on his leg, territory Luke’s mother did not even visit these days. “After she comes back, she’s somewhere else for three weeks. You might see her in the halls, or in the break room, but that’s all. She won’t talk about it even where it’s safe to talk, so it just about has to be Back Half.”

She removed her lips from his ear and her hand from his thigh, leaving Luke to wish fervently that she had other secrets to impart.

“Go on back to your room,” she said, and the little gleam in her eye made him think she was not unaware of the effect she’d had on him. “Try to catch some winks.”

7

He awoke from deep and dreamless sleep to loud knocking on his door. He sat up, looking around wildly, wondering if he had overslept on a school day.

The door opened, and a smiling face peered in at him. It was Gladys, the woman who’d taken him to get chipped. The one who had told him he was here to serve. “Peekaboo!” she trilled. “Rise and shine! You missed breakfast, but I brought you orange juice. You can drink it while we walk. It’s fresh squeezed!”

Luke saw the green power light on his new laptop. It had gone to sleep, but if Gladys came in and pushed one of the keys to check on what he’d been surfing (he wouldn’t put it past her), she would see H. G. Wells’s invisible man with his wrapped head and dark glasses. She wouldn’t know what it was, might think it was just some kind of sci-fi or mystery site, but she probably made reports. If so, they’d go to someone above her pay grade. Someone who was supposed to be curious.

“Can I have a minute to put on some pants?”

“Thirty seconds. Don’t let this oj get warm, now.” She gave him a roguish wink and closed the door.

Luke leaped from bed, put on his jeans, grabbed a tee-shirt, and woke up the laptop to check the time. He was amazed to see it was nine o’clock. He never slept that late. For a moment he wondered if they’d put something in his food, but if that was the case, he wouldn’t have awakened in the middle of the night.

It’s shock, he thought. I’m still trying to process this thing—get my head around it.

He killed the computer, knowing any efforts he made to hide Mr. Griffin would mean nothing if they were monitoring his searches. And if they were mirroring his computer, they’d already know he’d found a way to access the New York Times. Of course if you started thinking that way, everything was futile. Which was probably exactly how the Minions of Sigsby wanted him to think—him and every other kid kept prisoner in here.

If they knew, they’d already have taken the computer away, he told himself. And if they were mirroring my box, wouldn’t they know the wrong name is on the welcome screen?

That seemed to make sense, but maybe they were just giving him more rope. That was paranoid, but the situation was paranoid.

When Gladys opened the door again, he was sitting on the bed and putting on his sneakers. “Good job!” she cried, as if Luke were a three-year-old who had just managed to dress himself for the first time. Luke was liking her less and less, but when she gave him the juice, he gulped it down.

8

This time when she waved her card, she told the elevator to take them to C-Level. “Gosh, what a pretty day!” she exclaimed as the car began to descend. This seemed to be her standard conversation opener.

Luke glanced at her hands. “I see you’re wearing a wedding ring. Do you have kids, Gladys?”

Her smile became cautious. “That’s between me, myself, and I.”

“I just wondered if you did, how you’d like them locked up in a place like this.”