14
While Hendricks and Zeke were discussing his future, Luke was on his way to lunch. As well as
terrorizing him, the immersion tank had left him ravenously hungry. When Stevie Whipple
asked where he’d been and what was wrong, Luke just shook his head. He didn’t want to talk
about the tank. Not now, not ever. He supposed it was like being in a war. You got drafted, you
went, but you didn’t want to talk about what you’d seen, or what had happened to you there.
Full of the caff’s version of fettuccini alfredo, he took a nap and awoke feeling marginally
better. He went looking for Maureen and spied her in the formerly deserted East Wing. It
seemed the Institute might soon be hosting more guests. He walked down to her and asked if
she needed help. “Because I wouldn’t mind earning some tokens,” he said.
“No, I’m fine.” To Luke she looked like she was ageing almost by the hour. Her face was
dead pale. He wondered how long it would be before someone noticed her condition and made
her stop working. He didn’t like to think about what might become of her if that happened.
Was there a retirement program for housekeepers who were also Institute snitches? He doubted
it.
Her laundry basket was half filled with fresh linen, and Luke dropped his own note into it.
He had written it on a memo sheet he’d stolen from the equipment alcove in C-4, along with a
cheap ballpoint pen which he’d hidden under his mattress. Stamped on the barrel of the pen
was DENNISON RIVER BEND REALTY. Maureen saw the folded note, covered it with a
pillowcase, and gave him a slight nod. Luke went on his way.
That night in bed, he whispered to Avery for a long time before allowing the kid to go to
sleep. There were two scripts, he told Avery, there had to be. He thought the Avester
understood. Or maybe the right word was
hoped
.
Luke stayed awake a long time, listening to Avery’s light snores and meditating on escape.
The idea seemed simultaneously absurd and perfectly possible. There were those dusty
surveillance bulbs, and all the times he had been left alone to wander, gathering in his little bits
and bobs of information. There were the fake surveillance dead zones that Sigsby and her
minions knew about, and the real one that they didn’t (or so he hoped). In the end, it was a
pretty simple equation. He had to try. The alternative was the Stasi Lights, the movies, the
headaches, the sparkler that triggered whatever it triggered. And at the end of it all, the drone.
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