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