“Huh. They gave me a shot before I had the test, but nothing happened. That does sound bad. I’m sorry, Lukey.”

“That was only the first bad part. I passed out while I was looking at the lights. Had a seizure, I think.” He had also wet his pants a little, but that was information he’d keep to himself. “When I woke up . . .” He paused, getting himself under control. He had no urge to cry in front of this pretty girl with her pretty brown eyes and curly black hair. “When I woke up, they slapped me around.”

She sat up straight. “Say what?”

He nodded. “Then one of the docs . . . Evans, do you know him?”

“The one with the little ’stash.” She wrinkled her nose and had another sip.

“Yeah, him. He had some cards and tried to get me to say what was on them. They were ESP cards. Pretty much had to be. You talked about them, remember?”

“Sure. They’ve tested those on me a dozen times. Two dozen. But they didn’t after the lights. They just took me back to my room.” She took another tiny sip. “They must have confused their paperwork, thought you were TP instead of TK.”

“That’s what I thought at first, and I told them, but they kept slapping me. Like they thought I was faking.”

“Craziest thing I ever heard,” she said. Hurr instead of heard.

“I think it happened because I’m not what you guys call a pos. I’m just ordinary. They call us ordinary kids pinks.”

“Yeah. Pinks. That’s right.”

“What about the other kids? Did any of that stuff happen to them?”

“Never asked them. Sure you don’t want some of this?”

Luke took the bottle and had a swallow, mostly so she wouldn’t drink all of it. In his estimation, she’d had enough. It was just as horrible as he’d expected. He handed it back.

“Don’t you want to know what I’m celebrating?”

“What?”

“Iris. Her memory. She’s like you, nothing special, just a little TK. They came and took her an hour ago. And as George would say, we will see her no more.”

She began to cry. Luke put his arms around her. He couldn’t think what else to do. She put her head on his shoulder.

17

That night he went to the Mr. Griffin site again, typed in the Star Trib web address, and stared at it for almost three minutes before backing out without hitting enter. Coward, he thought. I’m a coward. If they’re dead, I should find out. Only he didn’t know how he could face that news without breaking down completely. Besides, what good would it do?

He typed in Vermont debt lawyers instead. He had already researched this, but told himself that double-checking his work was always a good idea. And it would pass the time.

Twenty minutes later he shut down and was debating whether to take a walk and see who was around (Kalisha would be his first choice, if she wasn’t sleeping it off?), when the colored spots came back. They swirled in front of his eyes and the world started to go away. To pull away, like a train leaving the station while he watched from the platform.

He put his head down on the closed laptop and took big slow breaths, telling himself to hold on, hold on, just hold on. Telling himself it would pass, not allowing himself to wonder what would happen if it didn’t. At least he could swallow. Swallowing was fine, and eventually that sense of drifting away from himself—drifting into a universe of swirling lights—did pass. He didn’t know how long it took, maybe only a minute or two, but it felt much longer.

He went into the bathroom and brushed his teeth, looking at himself in the mirror as he did it. They could know about the dots, probably did know about the dots, but not about the other. He had no idea what had been on the first card, or on the third one, but the second had been a boy on a bike and the fourth had been a small dog with a ball in its mouth. Black dog, red ball. It seemed he was TP after all.

Or was now.

He rinsed his mouth, turned off the lights, undressed in the dark, and laid down on his bed. Those lights had changed him. They knew that might happen, but weren’t sure. He didn’t know how he could be positive of that, but—

He was a test subject, maybe they all were, but low-level TPs and TKs—pinks—got extra tests. Why? Because they were less valuable? More expendable if things went wrong? There was no way to be sure, but Luke thought it was likely. The doctors believed the experiment with the cards had been a failure. That was good. These were bad people, and keeping secrets from bad people had to be good, right? But he had an idea the lights might have some purpose beyond growing the talents of the pinks, because stronger TPs and TKs, like Kalisha and George, also got them. What might that other purpose be?

He didn’t know. He only knew that the dots were gone, and Iris was gone, and the dots might come back but Iris wouldn’t. Iris had gone to Back Half and they would see her no more.

18

There were nine children at breakfast the following morning, but with Iris gone, there was little talk and no laughter. George Iles cracked no jokes. Helen Simms breakfasted on candy cigarettes. Harry Cross got a mountain of scrambled eggs from the buffet, and shoveled them in (along with bacon and home fries) without looking up from his plate, like a man doing work. The little girls, Greta and Gerda Wilcox, ate nothing until Gladys appeared, sunny smile and all, and coaxed a few bites into them. The twins seemed to cheer up at her attentions, even laughed a little. Luke thought of taking them aside later and telling them not to trust that smile, but it would frighten them, and what good would that do?

What good would that do had become another mantra, and he recognized it was a bad way to think, a step down the path to acceptance of this place. He didn’t want to go there, no way did he want to go there, but logic was logic. If the little Gs were comforted by the attentions of the big G, maybe that was for the best, but when he thought about those girls getting the rectal thermometer . . . and the lights . . .

“What’s up with you?” Nicky asked. “You look like you bit into a lemon.”

“Nothing. Thinking about Iris.”

“She’s history, man.”

Luke looked at him. “That’s cold.”

Nicky shrugged. “The truth often is. Want to go out and play HORSE?”

“No.”

“Come on. I’ll spot you the H and even let you have your ride at the end.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Chicken?” Nicky asked it without rancor.

Luke shook his head. “It would just make me feel bad. I used to play it with my dad.” He heard that used to and hated it.

“Okay, I hear that.” He looked at Luke with an expression Luke could barely stand, especially coming from Nicky Wilholm. “Listen, man . . .”

“What?”

Nicky sighed. “Just I’ll be out there if you change your mind.”

Luke left the caff and wandered up his corridor—the JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE corridor—and then up the next one, which he now thought of as the Ice Machine Hallway. No sign of Maureen, so he kept going. He passed more motivational posters and more rooms, nine on each side. All the doors stood open, displaying unmade beds and walls that were bare of posters. This made them look like what they really were: jail cells for kids. He passed the elevator annex and kept walking past more rooms. Certain conclusions seemed inescapable. One was that once upon a time there had been a lot more “guests” in the Institute. Unless those in charge had been overly optimistic.

Luke eventually came to another lounge, where the janitor named Fred was running a buffer in big, lackadaisical sweeps. There were snack and drink machines here, but they were empty and unplugged. There was no playground outside, only a swatch of gravel, more chainlink with some benches beyond (presumably for staff members who wanted to take their breaks outside), and the low green admin building seventy yards or so further on. The lair of Mrs. Sigsby, who had told him he was here to serve.

“What are you doing?” Fred the janitor asked.

“Just walking around,” Luke said. “Seeing the sights.”

“There are no sights. Go back where you came from. Play with the other kids.”

“What if I don’t want to?” That sounded pathetic rather than defiant, and Luke wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

Fred was wearing a walkie-talkie on one hip and a zap-stick on the other. He touched the latter. “Go back. Won’t tell you again.”

“Okay. Have a nice day, Fred.”

“Fuck your nice day.” The buffer started up again.

Luke retreated, marveling at how quickly all his unquestioned assumptions about adults—that they were nice to you if you were nice to them, just for starters—had been blown up. He tried not to look into all those empty rooms as he passed them. They were spooky. How many kids had lived in them? What happened to them when they went to Back Half? And where were they now? Home?