The Institute Page 43

The next day, he finally used his laptop for something more than checking the date, IMing with Helen, or watching BoJack Horseman. He went to Mr. Griffin, and from Mr. Griffin to the New York Times, which informed him he could read ten free articles before he hit a pay wall. Luke didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but was sure he’d know it when he saw it. And he did. A headline on the front page of the July 15th issue read REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ SUCCUMBS TO INJURIES.

Rather than reading the article, Luke went to the day before. This headline read PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL MARK BERKOWITZ CRITICALLY INJURED IN CAR ACCIDENT. There was a picture. Berkowitz, a US Representative from Ohio, had black hair and a scar on his cheek from a wound suffered in Afghanistan. Luke read the story quickly. It said that the Lincoln Town Car in which Berkowitz had been riding while on his way to a meeting with foreign dignitaries from Poland and Yugoslavia had veered out of control and hit a concrete bridge stanchion. The driver had been killed instantly; unnamed MedStar Hospital sources described Berkowitz’s injuries as “extremely grave.” The article didn’t say if the driver was a redhead, but Luke knew he had been, and he was pretty sure that some guy in one of the Arab countries was going to die soon, if he hadn’t already. Or maybe he was going to murder somebody important.

Luke’s growing certainty that he and the other kids were being prepped for use as psychic drones—yes, even inoffensive Avery Dixon, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose—began to rouse Luke, but it took the horror show with Harry Cross to bring him fully out of his sleep of grief.


5


The following evening there were fourteen or fifteen kids in the caff at dinner, some talking, some laughing, some of the new ones crying or shouting. In a way, Luke thought, being in the Institute was like being in an old-time mental asylum where the crazy people were just kept and never cured.

Harry wasn’t there at first, and he hadn’t been at lunch. The big galoot wasn’t much of a blip on Luke’s radar, but he was hard to miss at meals because Gerda and Greta always sat with him, one on either side in their identical outfits, watching him with shining eyes as he blathered away about NASCAR, wrestling, his favorite shows, and life “down Selma.” If someone told him to pipe down, the little Gs would turn killing looks on the interrupting someone.

This evening the Gs were eating on their own, and looking unhappy about it. They had saved Harry a seat between them, though, and when he came walking slowly in, belly swinging and glowing with sunburn, they rushed to him with shouts of greeting. For once he barely seemed to notice them. There was a vacant look in his eyes, and they didn’t seem to be tracking together the way eyes are supposed to. His chin was shiny with drool, and there was a wet spot on the crotch of his pants. Conversation died. The newest arrivals looked puzzled and horrified; those who had been around long enough to get a run of tests threw worried glances at each other.

Luke and Helen exchanged a look. “He’ll be okay,” she said. “It’s just worse for some kids than it is for—”

Avery was sitting beside her. Now he took one of her hands in both of his. He spoke with eerie calmness. “He’s not okay. He’ll never be okay.”

Harry let out a cry, dropped to his knees, then hit the floor face-first. His nose and lips sprayed blood on the linoleum. He first began to shake, then to spasm, legs pulling up and shooting out in a Y shape, arms flailing. He started to make a growling noise—not like an animal but like an engine stuck in low gear and being revved too hard. He flopped onto his back, still growling and spraying bloody foam from between his blabbering lips. His teeth chomped up and down.

The little Gs began shrieking. As Gladys ran in from the hall and Norma from around the steam table, one of the twins knelt and tried to hug Harry. His big right hand rose, swung out, came whistling back. It struck her on the side of her face with terrible force, and sent her flying. Her head struck the wall with a thud. The other twin ran to her sister, screaming.

The cafeteria was in an uproar. Luke and Helen stayed seated, Helen with her arm around Avery’s shoulders (more to comfort herself than the little boy, it seemed; Avery appeared unmoved), but many of the other kids were gathering around the seizing boy. Gladys shoved a couple of them away and snarled, “Get back, you idiots!” No big fake smile tonight for the big G.

Now more Institute personnel were appearing: Joe and Hadad, Chad, Carlos, a couple Luke didn’t know, including one still in his civvies who must have just come on duty. Harry’s body was rising and falling in galvanic leaps, as if the floor had been electrified. Chad and Carlos pinned his arms. Hadad zapped him in the solar plexus, and when that didn’t stop the seizures, Joe hit him in the neck, the crackle of a zap-stick set on high audible even in the babble of confused voices. Harry went limp. His eyes bulged beneath half-closed lids. Foam drizzled from the corners of his mouth. The tip of his tongue protruded.

“He’s all right, situation under control!” Hadad bellowed. “Go back to your tables! He’s fine!”

The kids drew away, silent now, watching. Luke leaned over to Helen and spoke in a low voice. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”

“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t,” Helen said, “but look at that one.” She pointed to the twin who had been driven to the wall. Luke saw that the little girl’s eyes were glazed and her head looked all crooked on her neck. Blood was running down one of her cheeks and dripping onto the shoulder of her dress.

“Wake up!” the other twin was shouting, and began to shake her. Silverware flew from the tables in a storm; kids and caretakers ducked. “Wake up, Harry didn’t mean to hurt you, wake up, WAKE UP!”

“Which one is which?” Luke asked Helen, but it was Avery who replied, and in that same eerily calm voice.

“The screamy one throwing the silverware is Gerda. The dead one is Greta.”

“She’s not dead,” Helen said in a shocked voice. “She can’t be.”

Knives, forks, and spoons rose to the ceiling (I could never do anything like that, Luke thought) and then fell with a clatter.

“She is, though,” Avery said matter-of-factly. “So is Harry.” He stood up, holding one of Helen’s hands and one of Luke’s. “I liked Harry even if he did push me down. I’m not hungry anymore.” He looked from one to the other. “And neither are you guys.”

The three of them left unnoticed, giving the screaming twin and her dead sister a wide berth. Dr. Evans came striding up the hall from the elevator, looking harried and put out. Probably he was eating his dinner, Luke thought.

Behind them, Carlos was calling, “Everyone’s fine, you guys! Settle down and finish your dinner, everyone’s just fine!”

“The dots killed him,” Avery said. “Dr. Hendricks and Dr. Evans never should have showed him the dots even if he was a pink. Maybe his BDNF was still too high. Or maybe it was something else, like a allergy.”

“What’s BDNF?” Helen asked.

“I don’t know. I only know that if kids have a really high one, they shouldn’t get the big shots until Back Half.”

“What about you?” Helen asked, turning to Luke.

Luke shook his head. Kalisha mentioned it once, and he had heard the initials bandied about on a couple of his wandering expeditions. He’d thought about googling BDNF, but was wary it might set off an alarm.

“You’ve never had them, have you?” Luke asked Avery. “The big shots? The special tests?”

“No. But I will. In Back Half.” He looked at Luke solemnly. “Dr. Evans might get in trouble for what he did to Harry. I hope he does. I’m scared to death of the lights. And the big shots. The powerful shots.”

“Me too,” Helen said. “The shots I’ve gotten already are bad enough.”

Luke thought of telling Helen and Avery about the shot that had made his throat close up, or the two that had made him vomit (seeing those goddamned dots each time he heaved), but it seemed like pretty small beans compared to what had just happened to Harry.

“Make way, you guys,” Joe said.

They stood against the wall near the poster saying I CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY. Joe and Hadad passed them with Harry Cross’s body. Carlos had the little girl with the broken neck. It lolled back and forth over his arm, her hair hanging down. Luke, Helen, and Avery watched them until they got into the elevator, and Luke found himself wondering if the morgue was on E-Level or F.

“She looked like a doll,” Luke heard himself say. “She looked like her own doll.”

Avery, whose eerie, sybilline calm had actually been shock, began to cry.

“I’m going to my room,” Helen said. She patted Luke on the shoulder and kissed Avery on the cheek. “See you guys tomorrow.”

Only they didn’t. The blue caretakers came for her in the night and they saw her no more.


6


Avery urinated, brushed his teeth, dressed in the pj’s he now kept in Luke’s room, and got into Luke’s bed. Luke did his own bathroom business, got in with the Avester, and turned out the light. He put his forehead against Avery’s and whispered, “I have to get out of here.”

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