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want
this particular piece of data. Maybe it’s just a way of saying
If we can stick
this up your ass, what else can we stick up there?
Answer:
Anything we feel like.
“Suspense is killing you, isn’t it?” Zeke said from behind him, and the son of a bitch was
laughing.
9
After the indignity of the thermometer, which seemed to go on for a long time, Zeke took his
blood pressure, put an O2 monitor on his finger, and checked his height and weight. He looked
down Luke’s throat and up his nose. He noted down the results, humming as he did it. By then
Gladys was back in the room, drinking from a coffee mug with daisies on it and smiling her fake
smile.
“Time for a shot, Lukey-boy,” Zeke said. “Not going to give me any trouble, are you?”
Luke shook his head. The only thing he wanted right now was to go back to his room and
wipe the Vaseline out of his butt. He had nothing to be ashamed of, but he felt ashamed,
anyway. Demeaned.
Zeke gave him an injection. There was no heat this time. This time there was nothing but a
little pain, there and gone.
Zeke looked at his watch, lips moving as he counted off seconds. Luke did the same, only
without moving his lips. He’d gotten to thirty when Zeke lowered his arm. “Any nausea?”
Luke shook his head.
“Got a metallic taste in your mouth?”
The only thing Luke could taste was the residue of the orange juice. “No.”
“Okay, good. Now look at the wall. See any dots? Or maybe they look bigger, like circles.”
Luke shook his head.
“You’re telling the truth, sport, right?”
“Right. No dots. No circles.”
Zeke looked into his eyes for several seconds (Luke thought of asking him if he saw any dots
in there, and restrained himself ). Then he straightened up, made a show of dusting his palms
together, and turned to Gladys. “Go on, get him out of here. Dr. Evans will want him this
afternoon for the eye thing.” He gestured at the projector gadget. “Four PM.”
Luke thought about asking what the eye thing was, but he didn’t really care. He was hungry,
that didn’t seem to change no matter what they did to him (at least so far), but what he wanted
more than food was to clean himself up. He felt—only the British word adequately described it
—buggered.
“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Gladys asked him as they rode up in the elevator. “A lot
of fuss about nothing.” Luke thought of asking her if she would have felt it was a lot of fuss
about nothing if it had been
her
ass. Nicky might have said it, but he wasn’t Nicky.
She gave him the fake smile he was finding ever more horrible. “You’re learning to behave,
and that’s
wonderful
. Here’s a token. In fact, take two. I’m feeling generous today.”
He took them.
Later, standing in the shower with his head bent and water running through his hair, he
cried some more. He was like Helen in at least one way; he wanted all this to be a dream. He
would have given anything, maybe his very soul, if he could wake up to sunlight lying across his
bed like a second coverlet and smell frying bacon downstairs. The tears finally dried up, and he
began to feel something other than sorrow and loss—something harder. A kind of bedrock,
previously unknown to him. It was a relief to know it was there.
This was no dream, it was really happening, and to get out of here no longer seemed enough.
That hard thing wanted more. It wanted to expose the whole kidnapping, child-torturing
bunch of them, from Mrs. Sigsby all the way down to Gladys with her plastic smiles and Zeke
with his slimy rectal thermometer. To bring the Institute down on their heads, as Samson had
brought the temple of Dagon down on the Philistines. He knew this was no more than the
resentful, impotent fantasy of a twelve-year-old kid, but he wanted it, just the same, and if there
was any way he could do it, he would.
As his father liked to say, it was good to have goals. They could bring you through tough
times.
10
By the time he got to the caff, it was empty except for a janitor (FRED, his nametag said)
mopping the floor. It was still too early for lunch, but there was a bowl of fruit—oranges,
apples, grapes, and a couple of bananas—on a table at the front. Luke took an apple, then went
out to the vending machines and used one of his tokens to get a bag of popcorn. Breakfast of
champions, he thought. Mom would have a cow.
He took his food into the lounge area and looked out at the playground. George and Iris
were sitting at one of the picnic tables, playing checkers. Avery was on the trampoline, taking
mildly cautious bounces. There was no sign of Nicky or Helen.
“I think that’s the worst food combo I ever saw,” Kalisha said.
He jumped, spilling some of his popcorn out of the bag and onto the floor. “Jeepers, scare a
person, why don’t you?”
“Sorry.” She squatted, picked up the few spilled pieces of popcorn, and tossed them into her
mouth.
“Off the floor?” Luke asked. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Five-second rule.”
“According to the National Health Service—that’s in England—the five-second rule is a
myth. Total bullshit.”
“Does being a genius mean you have a mission to spoil everyone’s illusions?”
“No, I just—”
She smiled and stood up. “Yankin your chain, Luke. The Chicken Pox Chick is just yankin
your chain. You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did you get the rectal?”
“Yes. Let’s not talk about it.”
“Heard that. Want to play cribbage until lunch? If you don’t know how to play, I can teach
you.”
“I know how, but I don’t want to. Think I’ll go back to my room for awhile.”
“Consider your situation?”
“Something like that. See you at lunch.”
“When the ding-dong goes,” she said. “It’s a date. Cheer up, little hero, and gimme five.”
She raised her hand, and Luke saw something pinched between her thumb and index finger.
He pressed his white palm to her brown one, and the folded scrap of paper passed from her
hand to his.
“Seeya, boy.” She headed for the playground.
Back in his room, Luke lay down on his bed, turned on his side to face the wall, and
unfolded the square of paper. Kalisha’s printing was tiny and very neat.
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