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