“Which would make you a bright boy, I’m assuming.”

“Oh, sure,” Luke said, with no pride in his voice. “I’m a bright boy. And right now I’m a very hungry boy. I haven’t had anything for a couple of days but a sausage biscuit and a fruit pie. I think a couple of days. I’ve kind of lost track of time. A man named Mattie gave them to me.”

“Nothing else?”

“A piece of doughnut,” Luke said. “It wasn’t very big.”

“Jesus, let’s get you something to eat.”

“Yes,” Luke said, then added, “Please.”

Tim took his cell phone from his pocket. “Wendy? This is Tim. I wonder if you could do me a favor.”

9

Avery’s room in Back Half was stark. The bed was your basic cot. There were no Nickelodeon posters on the walls, and no G.I. Joes on the bureau to play with. That was okay with Avery. He was only ten, but now he had to be a grownup, and grownups didn’t play with toy soldiers.

Only I can’t do it alone, he thought.

He remembered Christmas, the year before. It hurt to think about that, but he thought about it, anyway. He had gotten the Lego castle he’d asked for, but when the pieces were spread out before him, he didn’t know how to get from that scatter to the beautiful castle on the box, with its turrets and gates and the drawbridge that went up and down. He’d started to cry. Then his father (dead now, he was sure of it) knelt down beside him and said, We’ll follow the instructions and do it together. One step at a time. And they had. The castle had stayed on his bureau in his room with his G.I. Joes guarding it, and that castle was one thing they hadn’t been able to duplicate when he woke up in Front Half.

Now he lay on the cot in this barren room, dressed in dry clothes, thinking of how fine the castle had looked when it was done. And feeling the hum. It was constant here in Back Half. Loud in the rooms, louder in the halls, loudest of all down past the cafeteria, where a double-locked door beyond the caretakers’ break room led to the back half of Back Half. The caretakers often called that part Gorky Park, because the kids who lived there (if you could call it living) were gorks. Hummers. But they were useful, Avery supposed. The way the wrapper your Hershey bar came in was useful, until you licked it clean. Then you could throw it away.

The doors here had locks. Avery concentrated, trying to turn his. Not that there was anywhere to go except for the hallway with its blue carpet, but it was an interesting experiment. He could feel the lock trying to turn, but he couldn’t quite manage it. He wondered if George Iles would be able to, because George had been a strong TK-pos to begin with. Avery guessed he could, with a little help. He thought again about what his father had said: We’ll do it together. One step at a time.

At five o’clock, the door opened and a red-clad caretaker poked his unsmiling face in. They didn’t wear nametags here, but Avery didn’t need a nametag. This was Jacob, known to his colleagues as Jake the Snake. He was ex-Navy. You tried to be a SEAL, Avery thought, but you couldn’t make it. They kicked you out. I think maybe you liked hurting people too much.

“Dinner,” Jake the Snake said. “If you want it, come on. If you don’t, I’ll lock you in until movie time.”

“I want it.”

“All right. You like movies, kiddo?”

“Yes,” Avery said, and thought, But I won’t like these. These movies kill people.

“You’ll like these,” Jake said. “There’s always a cartoon to start with. Caff’s right down there on your left. And quit lollygagging.” Jake gave him a hefty swat on the ass to get him going.

In the cafeteria—a dreary room painted the same dark green as the residence corridor in Front Half—about a dozen kids sat eating what smelled to Avery like Dinty Moore Beef Stew. His mom served it at least twice a week back home, because his little sister liked it. She was probably dead, too. Most of the kids looked like zombies, and there was a lot of slobbering. He saw one kid, a girl, who was smoking a cigarette as she ate. As Avery watched, she tapped ash into her bowl, looked around vacantly, and began eating from it again.

He had felt Kalisha even down in the tunnel and now he saw her, sitting at a table near the back. He had to restrain an urge to run to her and throw his arms around her neck. That would attract attention, and Avery didn’t want to do that. Just the opposite. Helen Simms was sitting next to Sha, hands lying limply on either side of her bowl. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Her hair, so razzily colored when she showed up in Front Half, was now dull and dank, hanging around her face—her much thinner face—in clumps. Kalisha was feeding her, or trying to.

“Come on, Hel, come on, Hell on Wheels, here we go.” Sha got a spoonful of the stew into Helen’s mouth. When a brown lump of mystery meat tried to come out over Helen’s lower lip, Sha used the spoon to push it back in. This time Helen swallowed, and Sha smiled. “That’s right, good.”

Sha, Avery thought. Hey, Kalisha.

She looked around, startled, saw him, and broke into a broad smile.

Avester!

A drool of brown gravy ran down Helen’s chin. Nicky, sitting on her other side, used a paper napkin to wipe it off. Then he also saw Avery, grinned, and gave him a thumbs-up. George, sitting directly across from Nicky, turned around.

“Hey, check it out, it’s the Avester,” George said. “Sha thought you might be coming. Welcome to our happy home, little hero.”

“If you’re gonna eat, get a bowl,” said a hard-faced older woman. Her name was Corinne, Avery knew, and she liked slapping. Slapping made her feel good. “I gotta shut down early, on account of it’s movie night.”

Avery got a bowl and ladled up some of the stew. Yes, it was Dinty Moore. He put a piece of spongy white bread on top of it, then took his meal over to his friends and sat down. Sha smiled at him. Her headache was bad today, but she smiled anyway, and that made him feel like laughing and crying at the same time.

“Eat up, buddy,” Nicky said, but he wasn’t taking his own advice; his bowl was still mostly full. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was rubbing at his left temple. “I know it looks like diarrhea, but you don’t want to go to the movies on an empty stomach.”

Have they caught Luke? Sha sent.

No. They’re all scared shitless.

Good. Good!

Will we get hurty shots before the movie?

I don’t think so tonight, this is still a new one, we’ve only seen it once.

George was looking at them with wise eyes. He had heard. Once upon a Front Half time George Iles had only been a TK, but now he was something more. They all were. Back Half increased whatever you had, but thanks to the immersion tank, none of them were like Avery. He knew stuff. The tests in Front Half, for example. A lot of them were side projects of Dr. Hendricks, but the injections were matters of practicality. Some of them were limiters, and Avery hadn’t had those. He had gone straight to the immersion tank, where he had been taken to death’s door or maybe right through it, and as a result he could make the Stasi Lights almost any time he wanted to. He didn’t need the movies, and he didn’t need to be part of the group-think. Creating that group-think was Back Half’s main job.

But he was still only ten. Which was a problem.

As he began to eat, he probed for Helen, and was delighted to discover she was still in there. He liked Helen. She wasn’t like that bitch Frieda. He didn’t need to read Frieda’s mind to know she had tricked him into telling her stuff, then snitched on him; who else could it have been?

Helen?

No. Don’t talk to me, Avery. I have to . . .

The rest was gone, but Avery thought he understood. She had to hide. There was a sponge filled with pain inside her head, and she was hiding from it as best she could. Hiding from pain was a sensible response, as far as it went. The problem was how the sponge kept swelling. It would keep on until there was nowhere to hide, and then it would squash her against the back of her own skull like a fly on a wall. Then she’d be done. As Helen, at least.

Avery reached into her mind. It was easier than trying to turn the lock on the door of his room, because he’d been a powerful TP to begin with, and TK was new to him. He was clumsy and had to be careful. He couldn’t fix her, but he thought he could ease her. Shield her a bit. That would be good for her, and it would be good for them . . . because they were going to need all the help they could get.

He found the headache-sponge deep inside Helen’s head. He told it to stop spreading. He told it to go away. It didn’t want to. He pushed it. The colored lights started to appear in front of him, swirling slowly, like cream into coffee. He pushed harder. The sponge was pliable but firm.

Kalisha. Help me.

With what? What are you doing?

He told her. She came in, tentatively at first. They pushed together. The headache-sponge gave a little.