Luke ate. He slept, woke, ate again. He soon memorized the menu, and joined the other kids in sarcastic applause when something on it changed. Some days there were tests. Some days there were shots. Some days there were both. Some days there were neither. A few shots made him sick. Most didn’t. His throat never closed up again, for which he was grateful. He hung out in the playground. He watched TV, making friends with Oprah, Ellen, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy. He watched YouTube videos of cats looking at themselves in mirrors and dogs that caught Frisbees. Sometimes he watched alone, sometimes with some of the other kids. When Harry came into his room, the twins came with him and demanded cartoons. When Luke went to Harry’s room, the twins were almost always there. Harry didn’t care for cartoons. Harry was partial to wrestling, cage fighting videos, and NASCAR pile-ups. His usual greeting to Luke was “Watch this one.” The twins were coloring fools, the caretakers supplying endless stacks of coloring books. Usually they stayed inside the lines, but there was one day when they didn’t, and laughed a lot, and Luke deduced they were either drunk or high. When he asked Harry, Harry said they wanted to try it. He had the good grace to look ashamed, and when they vomited (in tandem, as they did everything), he had the good grace to look more ashamed. And he cleaned up the mess. One day Helen did a triple roll on the trampoline, laughed, bowed, then burst into tears and would not be consoled. When Luke tried, she hit him with her small fists, whap-whap-whap-whap. For awhile Luke beat all comers at chess, and when that got boring he found ways to lose, which was surprisingly hard for him.

He felt like he was sleeping even when he was awake. He felt his IQ declining, absolutely felt it, like water going down in a water cooler because someone had left the tap open. He marked off the time of this strange summer with the date strip on his computer. Other than YouTube vids, he only used his laptop—with one significant exception—to IM with George or Helen in their rooms. He never initiated those conversations, and kept them as brief as he could.

What the shit is wrong with you? Helen texted once.

Nothing, he texted back.

Why are we still in Front Half, do you think? George texted. Not that I am complaining.

Don’t know, Luke texted, and signed off.

He discovered it wasn’t hard to hide his grief from the caretakers, techs, and doctors; they were used to dealing with depressed children. Yet even in his deep unhappiness, he sometimes thought of the bright image Avery had projected: a canary flying from its cage.

His waking sleep of grief was sometimes pierced with brilliant slices of memory that always came unexpectedly: his father spraying him with the garden hose; his father making a foul shot with his back turned to the hoop and Luke tackling him when it went in and both of them falling on the grass, laughing; his mother bringing a gigantic cupcake covered with flaming candles to the table on his twelfth birthday; his mother hugging him and saying You’re getting so big; his mother and father dancing like crazy in the kitchen while Rihanna sang “Pon de Replay.” These memories were beautiful, and they stung like nettles.

When he wasn’t thinking of the slain Falcon Heights couple—dreaming of them—Luke thought of the cage he was in and the free bird he aspired to be. Those were the only times when his mind regained its former sharp focus. He noticed things that seemed to confirm his belief that the Institute was operating in an inertial glide, like a rocket that switches off its engines once escape velocity has been attained. The black-glass surveillance bulbs in the hallway ceilings, for instance. Most of them were dirty, as if they hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. This was especially true in the deserted West Wing of the residence floor. The cameras inside the bulbs probably still worked, but the view they gave would be blurry at best. Even so, it seemed that no orders had come down for Fred and his fellow janitors—Mort, Connie, Jawed—to clean them, and that meant whoever was supposed to monitor the hallways didn’t give much of a shit if the view had grown murky.

Luke went about his days with his head down, doing what he was told without argument, but when he wasn’t zoned out in his room, he had become a little pitcher with big ears. Most of what he heard was useless, but he took it all in, anyway. Took it in and stored it away. Gossip, for instance. Like how Dr. Evans was always chasing after Dr. Richardson, trying to strike up conversations, too pussy-stunned (this phrase from caretaker Norma) to know Felicia Richardson wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Like how Joe and two other caretakers, Chad and Gary, sometimes used the tokens they didn’t give away to get wine nips and those little bottles of hard lemonade from the canteen vending machine in the East Lounge. Sometimes they talked about their families, or about drinking at a bar called Outlaw Country, where there were bands. “If you want to call that music,” Luke once overheard a caretaker named Sherry telling Fake Smile Gladys. This bar, known to the male techs and caretakers as The Cunt, was in a town called Dennison River Bend. Luke could get no clear fix on how far away this town was, but thought it must be within twenty-five miles, thirty at most, because they all seemed to go when they had time off.

Luke tucked away names when he heard them. Dr. Evans was James, Dr. Hendricks was Dan, Tony was Fizzale, Gladys was Hickson, Zeke was Ionidis. If he ever got out of here, if this canary ever flew from its cage, he hoped to have quite a list for when he testified against these assholes in a court of law. He realized that might only be a fantasy, but it kept him going.

Now that he was marching through the days like a good little boy, he was sometimes left alone on C-Level for short periods of time, always with the admonition to stay put. He would nod, give the technician time to depart on his errand, and then leave himself. There were plenty of cameras on the lower levels, and these were all kept nice and clean, but no alarms went off and no caretakers came charging down the hall waving their zap-sticks. Twice he was spotted walking around and brought back, once with a scolding and once with a perfunctory slap to the back of his neck.

On one of these expeditions (he always tried to look bored and aimless, a kid just passing the time before the next test or being allowed to go back to his room), Luke found a treasure. In the MRI room, which was empty that day, he spied one of the cards they used to operate the elevator lying half-hidden under a computer monitor. He walked past the table, picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket as he peered into the empty MRI tube. He almost expected the card to start yelling “Thief, thief?” when he left the room (like the magic harp Jack the beanstalk boy stole from the giant), but nothing happened, then or later. Didn’t they keep track of those cards? It seemed they did not. Or maybe it was expired, as useless as a hotel key card when the guest it had been computer-coded for checked out.

But when Luke tried the card in the elevator a day later, he was delighted to find it worked. When Dr. Richardson came across him a day later, peering into the D-Level room where the immersion tank was kept, he expected punishment—maybe a jolt from the zap-stick she kept holstered under the white coat she usually wore, maybe a beating from Tony or Zeke. Instead, she actually slipped him a token, for which he thanked her.

“I haven’t had that one yet,” Luke said, pointing to the tank. “Is it awful?”

“No, it’s fun,” she said, and Luke gave her a big grin, as if he actually believed her bullshit. “Now what are you doing down here?”

“Caught a ride with one of the caretakers. I don’t know which one. He forgot his nametag, I guess.”

“That’s good,” she said. “If you knew his name, I’d have to report him, and he’d get in trouble. After that? Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.” She rolled her eyes and Luke gave her a look that said I sympathize. She took him back to the elevator, asked him where he was supposed to be, and he told her B-Level. She rode up with him, asked him how his pain was, and he told her it was fine, all gone.

The card also took him to E-Level, where there was a lot of mechanical shit, but when he tried to go lower—there was a lower, he’d heard conversations about levels F and G—Miss Elevator Voice pleasantly informed him that access was denied. Which was okay. You learned by trying.

There were no paper tests in Front Half, but there were plenty of EEGs. Sometimes Dr. Evans did kids in bunches, but not always. Once, when Luke was being tested alone, Dr. Evans suddenly grimaced, put a hand to his stomach, and said he’d be right back. He told Luke not to touch anything and rushed out. To drop a load, Luke presumed.

He examined the computer screens, ran his fingers over a couple of keyboards, thought about messing with them a little, decided it would be a bad idea, and went to the door instead. He looked out just as the elevator opened and the big bald guy emerged, wearing the same expensive brown suit. Or maybe it was another one. For all Luke knew, Stackhouse had a whole closetful of expensive brown suits. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand. He started down the hall, shuffling through them, and Luke withdrew quickly. C-4, the room with the EEG and EKG machines, had a small equipment alcove lined with shelves full of various supplies. Luke went in there without knowing if hiding was an ordinary hunch, one of his new TP brainwaves, or plain old paranoia. In any case, he was just in time. Stackhouse poked his head in, glanced around, then left. Luke waited to be sure he wasn’t going to come back, then resumed his seat next to the EEG machine.

Two or three minutes later, Evans hurried in with his white lab coat flying out behind him. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were wide. He grabbed Luke by the shirt. “What did Stackhouse say when he saw you in here by yourself? Tell me!”

“He didn’t say anything because he didn’t see me. I was looking out the door for you, and when Mr. Stackhouse got off the elevator, I went in there.” He pointed at the equipment alcove, then looked up at Evans with wide, innocent eyes. “I didn’t want to get you in any trouble.”