“You’re not going anywhere,” Nicky said. “You’re here for the long haul, just like the rest of us.” He smiled without showing his teeth.

“Stop it, both of you,” Kalisha said. She had her arm around Avery’s shoulders, and Luke didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking, because he was thinking the same thing: New Kid outweighed Nicky by sixty pounds at least, probably more like eighty, and although New Kid was carrying plenty of table muscle in front, those arms were slabs.

“Last warning,” New Kid said. “Move or I’ll lay you t’fuck out.”

George seemed to have changed his mind about going inside. Now he was strolling back toward New Kid, not behind him but to one side. It was Helen who was coming up behind him, not fast but with that nice little hip-sway Luke so admired. And a small smile of her own.

George’s face contracted in a frown of concentration, lips pressing together and forehead furrowing. The minges that had been circling both boys suddenly drew together and gusted at New Kid’s face as if on an invisible breath of wind. He raised a hand to his eyes, waving at them. Helen dropped to her knees behind him, and Nicky gave the redhead a shove. New Kid went sprawling, half on gravel and half on asphalt.

Helen leaped to her feet and pranced away, laughing and pointing. “Nookies on you, big boy, nookies on you, nookies all over you!”

With a roar of fury, New Kid began getting up. Before he could accomplish that, Nick stepped forward and kicked him in the thigh. Hard. New Kid screamed, clutched at his leg, and pulled his knees up to his chest.

“Jesus, stop it!” Iris cried. “Haven’t we got enough trouble without this?”

The old Luke might have agreed; the new Luke—the Institute Luke—did not. “He started it. And maybe he needed it.”

“I’ll get you!” New Kid sobbed. “I’ll get all of you fucking dirty fighters!” His face had gone an alarming red-purple. Luke found himself wondering if an overweight sixteen-year-old could have a stroke, and found—appalling but true—that he did not care.

Nicky dropped to one knee. “You won’t get shit,” he said. “Right now you need to listen to me, fatso. We’re not your problem. They’re your problem.”

Luke looked around and saw three caretakers standing shoulder to shoulder just outside the door of the lounge: Joe, Hadad, and Gladys. Hadad no longer looked friendly, and Gladys’s plastic smile was gone. All three were holding black gadgets with wires sticking out of them. They weren’t moving in yet, but they were ready to. Because you don’t let the test animals hurt each other, Luke thought. That’s one thing you don’t do. The test animals are valuable.

Nicky said, “Help me with this bastard, Luke.”

Luke took one of New Kid’s arms and got it around his neck. Nick did the same with the other. The kid’s skin was hot and oily with sweat. He was gasping for breath between clenched teeth. Together, Luke and Nicky hauled him to his feet.

“Nicky?” Joe called. “Everything all right? Shit-storm over?”

“All over,” Nicky said.

“It better be,” Hadad said. He and Gladys went back inside. Joe stood where he was, still holding his black gadget.

“We’re totally okay,” Kalisha said. “It wasn’t a real shit-storm, just a little . . .”

“Disagreement,” Helen said. “Call it a fart skirmish.”

“He didn’t mean anything bad,” Iris said, “he was just upset.” There was genuine kindness in her voice, which made Luke a little ashamed about feeling so happy when Nicky put his foot to the new kid’s leg.

“I’m going to puke,” New Kid announced.

“Not on the trampoline, you’re not,” Nicky said. “We use that thing. Come on, Luke. Help me get him over by the fence.”

New Kid began to make urk-urk noises, his considerable belly heaving. Luke and Nicky walked him toward the fence between the playground and the woods. They got there just in time. New Kid put his head against the chainlink diamonds and spewed through them, giving up the last remains of whatever he’d eaten on the outside, when he had been Free Kid instead of New Kid.

“Eww,” Helen said. “Somebody had creamed corn, how gross is that?”

“Any better?” Nicky asked.

New Kid nodded.

“Finished?”

New Kid shook his head and upchucked again, this time with less strength. “I think . . .” He cleared his throat, and more goo sprayed.

“Jesus,” Nicky said, wiping his cheek. “Do you serve towels with your showers?”

“I think I’m gonna pass out.”

“You’re not,” Luke said. He actually wasn’t sure of this, but thought it best to stay positive. “Come over here in the shade.”

They got him to the picnic table. Kalisha sat down beside him and told him to lower his head. He did so without argument.

“What’s your name?” Nicky asked.

“Harry Cross.” The fight had gone out of him. He sounded tired and humbled. “I’m from Selma. That’s in Alabama. I don’t know how I got here or what’s happening nor nuthin.”

“We can tell you some stuff,” Luke said, “but you need to cut the shit. You need to get right. This place is bad enough without fighting among ourselves.”

“And you need to apologize to Avery,” George said. There was none of the class clown in him now. “That’s how the getting right starts.”

“That’s okay,” Avery said. “He didn’t hurt me.”

Kalisha took no notice. “Apologize.”

Harry Cross looked up. He swabbed a hand across his flushed and homely face. “Sorry I knocked you over, kid.” He looked around at the others. “Okay?”

“Half okay.” Luke pointed at Kalisha. “Her, too.”

Harry heaved a sigh. “Sorry, whatever your name is.”

“It’s Kalisha. If we get on more friendly terms, which don’t seem too likely as of this moment, you can call me Sha.”

“Just don’t call her Sport,” Luke said. George laughed and clapped him on the back.

“Whatever,” Harry muttered. He wiped something else from his chin.

Nicky said, “Now that the excitement’s over, why don’t we finish the goddam badminton ga—”

“Hello, girls,” Iris said. “Do you want to come over here?”

Luke looked around. Joe was gone. There were two little blond girls standing where he had been. They were holding hands and wearing identical expressions of dazed terror. Everything about them was identical except for their tee-shirts, one green and one red. Luke thought of Dr. Seuss: Thing One and Thing Two.

“Come on,” Kalisha said. “It’s all right. The trouble’s over.”

If only that were true, Luke thought.

13

At quarter of four that afternoon, Luke was in his room reading more about Vermont lawyers who specialized in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. So far, no one had asked him why he was so interested in this particular subject. Nobody had asked him about H. G. Wells’s invisible man, either. Luke supposed he could devise some sort of test to discover if they were monitoring him—googling ways to commit suicide would probably work—and then decided doing that would be nuts. Why kick a sleeping dog? And since it didn’t make a whole lot of difference to life as he was now living it, it was probably better not to know.

There came a brisk rap on the door. It opened before he could call come in. It was a caretaker. She was tall and dark haired, the nametag on her pink top proclaiming her PRISCILLA.

“The eye thing, right?” Luke asked, turning off his laptop.

“Right. Let’s go.” No smile, no chirpy good cheer. After Gladys, Luke found this a relief.

They went back to the elevator, then down to C-Level.

“How deep does this place go?” Luke asked.

Priscilla glanced at him. “None of your business.”

“I was only making con—”

“Well, don’t. Just shut up.”

Luke shut up.

Back in good old Room C-17, Zeke had been replaced by a tech whose nametag said BRANDON. There were also two men in suits present, one with an iPad and one with a clipboard. No nametags for them, so Luke guessed they were doctors. One was extremely tall, with a gut that put Harry Cross’s to shame. He stepped forward and held out his hand.

“Hello, Luke. I’m Dr. Hendricks, Chief of Medical Operations.”

Luke simply looked at the outstretched hand, feeling no urge at all to take it. He was learning all sorts of new behaviors. It was interesting, in a rather horrible way.

Dr. Hendricks gave an odd sort of hee-hawing laugh, half exhaled and half inhaled. “That’s all right, perfectly all right. This is Dr. Evans, in charge of Ophthalmology Operations.” He did the exhale/inhale hee-haw again, so Luke surmised Ophthalmology Operations was doctor humor of some sort.

Dr. Evans, a small man with a fussy mustache, did not laugh at the joke, or even smile. Nor did he offer to shake hands. “So you’re one of our new recruits. Welcome. Have a seat, please.”