Preacherman was standing in front of a fancy mansion where a party seemed to be going on. Preacherman was in a motorcade. Preacherman was at an outdoor barbecue and there was red, white, and blue bunting on the buildings behind him. People were eating corndogs and big slices of pizza. He was preaching about perverting the natural order of things which God had ordained, but then his voice cut out and was replaced by that of Dr. Hendricks.

“This is Paul Westin, kids. His home is in Deerfield, Indiana. Paul Westin. Deerfield, Indiana. Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana. Say it with me, boys and girls.”

Partly because they had no choice, partly because it would bring a merciful end to the colored dots and the rising and falling of the hum, mostly because now they were really into it, the ten children in the screening room began to chant. Kalisha joined in. She didn’t know about the others, but for her, this was the absolute worst part of movie nights. She hated that it felt good. She hated that feeling of levers just waiting to be yanked. Begging for it! She felt like a ventriloquist’s dummy on that fucking doctor’s knee.

“Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana! Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana! PAUL WESTIN, DEERFIELD, INDIANA!”

Then Dr. Hendricks came back on the screen, smiling and holding the unlit sparkler. “That’s right. Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana. Thank you, kids, and have a good night. See you tomorrow!”

The Stasi Lights came back one final time, blinking and swirling and spiraling. Kalisha gritted her teeth and waited for them to be gone, feeling like a tiny space capsule hurtling into a storm of giant asteroids. The hum was louder than ever, but when the dots disappeared the hum cut off instantly, as if a plug had been pulled on an amplifier.

They see it, Avery had said. Was that the missing piece? If so, who was they?

The screening room lights came up. The doors opened, Jake the Snake on one and Phil the Pill on the other. Most of the kids walked out, but Donna, Len, Hal, and Jimmy sat where they were. Might sit there lolling in the comfortable seats until the caretakers came to shoo them back to their rooms, and one or two or maybe even all four might be in Gorky Park after the show tomorrow. The big show. Where they did whatever was supposed to be done to the preacherman.

They were allowed another half hour in the lounge before being locked in their rooms for the night. Kalisha went there. George, Nicky, and Avery followed. After a few minutes, Helen shuffled in and sat on the floor with an unlit cigarette in her hand and her once bright hair hanging in her face. Iris and Katie came last.

“Headache’s better,” Katie announced.

Yes, Kalisha thought, the headaches get better after the movies . . . but only for a little while. A shorter little while each time.

“Another fun night at the movies,” George muttered.

“All right, children, what have we learned?” Nicky asked. “That somebody somewhere don’t much care for the Reverend Paul Westin, of Deerfield, Indiana.”

Kalisha zipped a thumb across her lips and looked at the ceiling. Bugs, she thought at Nicky. Be careful.

Nick put a finger-gun to his head and pretended to shoot himself. It made the others smile. It would be different tomorrow, Kalisha knew. No smiles then. After tomorrow’s show, Dr. Hendricks would appear with his sparkler lit, and the hum would rise to a white-noise roar. Levers would be pulled. There would be a period of unknown length, both sublime and horrible, when their headaches would be banished completely. Instead of a clear fifteen or twenty minutes afterward, there might be six or eight hours of blessed relief. And somewhere, Paul Westin of Deerfield, Indiana, would do something that would change his life or end it. For the kids in Back Half, life would go on . . . if you could call it living. The headaches would come back, and worse. Worse each time. Until instead of just feeling the hum, they would become part of it. Just another one of the—

The gorks!

That was Avery. No one else could project with such clean strength. It was as if he were living inside her head. That’s how it works, Sha! Because they—

“They see it,” Kalisha whispered, and there it was, bingo, the missing piece. She put the heels of her hands against her forehead, not because the headache was back, but because it was so beautifully obvious. She grasped Avery’s small, bony shoulder.

The gorks see what we see. Why else would they keep them?

Nicky put his arm around Kalisha and whispered in her ear. The touch of his lips made her shiver. “What are you talking about? Their minds are gone. Like ours will be, before long.”

Avery: That’s what makes them stronger. Everything else is gone. Stripped away. They’re the battery. All we are is . . .

“The switch,” Kalisha whispered. “The ignition switch.”

Avery nodded. “We need to use them.”

When? Helen Simms’s mental voice was that of a small, frightened child. It has to be soon, because I can’t take much more of this.

“None of us can,” George said. “Besides, right now that bitch—”

Kalisha gave her head a warning shake, and George continued mentally. He wasn’t very good at it, at least not yet, but Kalisha got the gist. They all did. Right now that bitch Mrs. Sigsby would be concentrating on Luke. Stackhouse, too. Everyone in the Institute would be, because they all knew he’d escaped. This was their chance, while everyone was scared and distracted. They would never get another one so good.

Nicky began to smile. No time like the present.

“How?” Iris asked. “How can we do it?”

Avery: I think I know, but we need Hal and Donna and Len.

“Are you sure?” Kalisha asked, then added, They’re almost gone.

“I’ll get them,” Nicky said. He got up. He was smiling. The Avester’s right. Every little bit helps.

His mental voice was stronger, Kalisha realized. Was that on the sending or receiving end?

Both, Avery said. He was smiling, too. Because now we’re doing it for ourselves.

Yes, Kalisha thought. Because they were doing it for themselves. They didn’t have to be a bunch of dazed dummies sitting on the ventriloquist’s knee. It was so simple, but it was a revelation: what you did for yourself was what gave you the power.

14

Around the time Avery—dripping wet and shivering—was being pushed through the access tunnel between Front Half and Back Half, the Institute’s Challenger aircraft (940NF on the tail and MAINE PAPER INDUSTRIES on the fuselage) was lifting off from Erie, Pennsylvania, now with its full assault team on board. As the plane reached cruising altitude and set out for the small town of Alcolu, Tim Jamieson and Wendy Gullickson were escorting Luke Ellis into the Fairlee County Sheriff’s Department.

Many wheels moving in the same machine.

“This is Luke Ellis,” Tim said. “Luke, meet Deputies Faraday and Wicklow.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Luke said, without much enthusiasm.

Bill Wicklow was studying Luke’s bruised face and bandaged ear. “How’s the other guy look?”

“It’s a long story,” Wendy said before Luke could reply. “Where’s Sheriff John?”

“In Dunning,” Bill said. “His mother’s in the old folks’ home there. She’s got the . . . you know.” He tapped one temple. “Said he’d be back around five, unless she was having a good day. Then he might stay and eat dinner with her.” He looked at Luke, a beat-up boy in dirty clothes who might as well have been wearing a sign reading RUNAWAY. “Is this an emergency?”

“A good question,” Tim said. “Tag, did you get that info Wendy requested?”

“I did,” the one named Faraday said. “If you want to step into Sheriff John’s office, I can give it to you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Tim said. “I don’t think you’re going to tell me anything Luke doesn’t already know.”

“You sure?”

Tim glanced at Wendy, who nodded, then at Luke, who shrugged. “Yes.”

“Okay. This boy’s parents, Herbert and Eileen Ellis, were murdered in their home about seven weeks ago. Shot to death in their bedroom.”

Luke felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience. The dots didn’t come back, but this was the way he felt when they did. He took two steps to the swivel chair in front of the dispatch desk and collapsed onto it. It rolled backward and would have tipped him over if it hadn’t banged into the wall first.

“Okay, Luke?” Wendy asked.

“No. Yes. As much as I can be. The assholes in the Institute—Dr. Hendricks and Mrs. Sigsby and the caretakers—told me they were okay, just fine, but I knew they were dead even before I saw it on my computer. I knew it, but it’s still . . . awful.”

“You had a computer in that place?” Wendy asked.

“Yes. To play games with, mostly, or look at YouTube music videos. Non-substantive stuff like that. News sites were supposed to be blocked, but I knew a work-around. They should have been monitoring my searches and caught me, but they were just . . . just lazy. Complacent. I wouldn’t have gotten out, otherwise.”

“What the hell’s he talking about?” Deputy Wicklow asked.