Luke took it back. “And I’d bet a million bucks the people in Dennison River Bend, that’s the closest town, know something’s going on. Something bad. Not what, because they don’t want to know. Why would they? It keeps them going, and besides, who’d believe it, anyway? You’ve still got people today who don’t believe the Germans killed all those Jews, as far as that goes. It’s called denial.”

Yes, Tim thought, the boy is bright. His cover story for whatever really happened to him is loony, but he does have a ton of brains.

“I want to be sure I have this straight,” Wendy said. She was speaking gently. They both were. Luke got it. You didn’t have to be a child fucking prodigy to know this was how people talked to someone who was mentally unbalanced. He was disappointed but not surprised. What else could he have expected? “They somehow find kids who are telepaths and what you call teleki-something—”

“Telekinetics. TK. Usually the talents are small—even TK-pos kids don’t have much. But the Institute doctors make them stronger. Shots for dots, that’s what they say, what we all say, only the dots are really the Stasi Lights I told you about. The shots that bring on the lights are supposed to boost what we have. I think some of the others might be to make us last longer. Or . . .” Here was something he just thought of. “Or to keep us from getting too much. Which could make us dangerous to them.”

“Like vaccinations?” Tim asked.

“I guess you could say that, yeah.”

“Before you were taken, you could move objects with your mind,” Tim said in his gentle I’m-talking-to-a-lunatic voice.

“Small objects.”

“And since this near-death experience in the immersion tank, you can also read thoughts.”

“Even before. The tank . . . boosted it higher. But I’m still not . . .” He massaged the back of his neck. This was hard to explain, and their voices, so low and so calm, were getting on his nerves, which were already raw. Soon he would be as nuts as they thought he was. Still, he had to try. “But I’m still not very strong. None of us are, except maybe for Avery. He’s awesome.”

Tim said, “Let me make sure I have this straight. They kidnap kids who have weak psychic powers, feed them mental steroids, then get them to kill people. Like that politician who was planning to run for president. Mark Berkowitz.”

“Yes.”

“Why not Bin Laden?” Wendy asked. “I would have thought he’d be a natural target for this . . . this mental assassination.”

“I don’t know,” Luke said. He sounded exhausted. The bruise on his cheek seemed to be growing more colorful by the minute. “I don’t have a clue how they pick their targets. I talked about it one time with my friend Kalisha. She didn’t have any idea, either.”

“Why wouldn’t this mystery organization just use hit men? Wouldn’t that be simpler?”

“It looks simple in the movies,” Luke said. “In real life I think they mostly fail, or get caught. Like the guys who killed Bin Laden almost got caught.”

“Let’s have a demonstration,” Tim said. “I’m thinking of a number. Tell me what it is.”

Luke tried. He concentrated and waited for the colored dots to appear, but they didn’t come. “I can’t get it.”

“Move something, then. Isn’t that your basic talent, the one they grabbed you for?”

Wendy shook her head. Tim was no telepath, but he knew what she was thinking: Stop badgering him, he’s disturbed and disoriented and on the run. But Tim thought if he could break through the kid’s cockamamie story, maybe they could get to something real and figure out where to go from there.

“How about the take-out bag? No food in it now, it’s light, you should be able to move it.”

Luke looked at it, his brow furrowing more deeply. For a moment Tim thought he felt something—a whisper along his skin, like a faint draft—but then it was gone, and the bag didn’t move. Of course it didn’t.

“Okay,” Wendy said, “I think that enough for n—”

“I know you two are boyfriend and girlfriend,” Luke said. “I know that much.”

Tim smiled. “Not too impressive, kiddo. You saw her kiss me when she came in.”

Luke turned his attention to Wendy. “You’re going on a trip. To see your sister, is it?”

Her eyes went wide. “How—”

“Don’t fall for it,” Tim said . . . but gently. “It’s an old medium’s trick—the educated guess. Although I’ll admit the kid does it well.”

“What education have I had about Wendy’s sister?” Luke asked, although without much hope. He had played his cards one by one, and now there was only one left. And he was so tired. What sleep he’d gotten on the train had been thin and haunted by bad dreams. Mostly of the immersion tank.

“Will you excuse us for a minute?” Tim asked. Without waiting for a reply, he took Wendy over to the door to the outer office. He spoke to her briefly. She nodded and left the room, taking her phone from her pocket as she went. Tim came back. “I think we better take you to the station.”

At first Luke thought he was talking about the train station. Putting him on another freight, so he and his girlfriend didn’t have to deal with the runaway kid and his crazy story. Then he realized that wasn’t the kind of station Tim meant.

Oh, so what? Luke thought. I always knew I’d end up in a police station somewhere. And maybe a small one is better than a big one, where they’d have a hundred different people—perps—to deal with.

Only they thought he was just being paranoid about that guy Hollister, and that wasn’t good. For now he’d have to hope they were right, and Hollister was nobody special. They probably were right. After all, the Institute couldn’t have guys everywhere, could they?

“Okay, but first I need to tell you something and show you something.”

“Go for it,” Tim said. He leaned forward, looking intently into Luke’s face. Maybe he was just humoring the crazy kid, but at least he was listening, and Luke supposed that was the best he could expect for now.

“If they know I’m here, they’ll come for me. Probably with guns. Because they’re scared to death someone might believe me.”

“Duly noted,” Tim said, “but we’ve got a pretty good little police force here, Luke. I think you’ll be safe.”

You have no idea what you might be up against, Luke thought, but he couldn’t try to convince this guy anymore just now. He was just too worn out. Wendy came back and gave Tim a nod. Luke was too beat to care about that, either.

“The woman who helped me escape from the Institute gave me two things. One was the knife I used to cut off the part of my ear that had the tracker in it. The other was this.” From his pocket he drew out the flash drive. “I don’t know what’s on it, but I think you should look at it before you do anything else.”

He handed it to Tim.

12

The residents of Back Half—the front half of Back Half, that was; the eighteen currently in Gorky Park remained behind their locked door, humming away—were given twenty minutes of free time before the movie started. Jimmy Cullum zombie-walked his aching head to his room; Hal, Donna, and Len sat in the cafeteria, the two boys staring at their half-eaten desserts (chocolate pudding tonight), Donna regarding a smoldering cigarette she seemed to have forgotten how to smoke.

Kalisha, Nick, George, Avery, and Helen went down to the lounge with its ugly thrift-store furniture and the old flatscreen, which showed only prehistoric sitcoms like Bewitched and Happy Days. Katie Givens was there. She didn’t look around at them, only at the currently blank TV. To Kalisha’s surprise, they were joined by Iris, who looked better than she had in days. Brighter.

Kalisha was thinking hard, and she could think, because she felt better than she had in days. What they had done to Helen’s headache—Avery, mostly, but they had all pitched in—had helped her own. The same was true of Nicky and George. She could see it.

Take the place over.

A bold and delicious idea, but questions immediately arose. The most obvious was how they were supposed to do it, when there were at least twelve caretakers on duty—there were always more on movie days. The second was why they had never thought of this before.

I did, Nicky told her . . . and was his mental voice stronger? She thought it was, and she thought Avery might have also played a part in that. Because he was stronger now. I thought about it when they first brought me here.

That was as much as Nicky could manage to tell her mind to mind, so he put his mouth to her ear and whispered the rest. “I was the one who always fought, remember?”

It was true. Nicky with his black eyes. Nicky with his bruised mouth.

“We’re not strong enough,” he murmured. “Even in here, even after the lights, we only have little powers.”