reconsidered and typed Maine State Police into the search field. His finger hovered over the execute button, almost pressed it, then withdrew. He’d get HAL’s meaningless apology, but Luke doubted if things would end with that. Very likely an alarm would go off on one of the lower levels. Not likely, surely. They might forget to change a kid’s name on the computer’s welcome screen, but they wouldn’t forget an alert program if an Institute kid tried to contact the authorities. There would be punishment. Probably worse than a slap to the face. The computer that used to belong to someone named Donna was useless.
Luke sat back and crossed his arms on his narrow chest. He thought of Maureen, and the friendly way she’d ruffled his hair. Only a small, absent-minded gesture of kindness, but that (and the tokens) had taken some of the curse off Tony’s slap. Had Kalisha said the woman was forty thousand dollars in debt? No, more like twice that.
Partly because of the friendly way Maureen had touched him and partly just to pass the time, Luke googled I am overwhelmed with debt please help. The computer immediately gave him access to all sorts of information on that subject, including a number of companies that declared clearing those pesky bills would be as easy as pie; all the back-to-the-wall debtor needed to do was make one phone call. Luke doubted it, but he supposed some folks wouldn’t; it was how they got in over their heads in the first place.
Maureen Alvorson wasn’t one of those people, though, at least according to Kalisha. She said Maureen’s husband had run up the big bills before taking off. Maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t, but either way, there would be solutions to the problem. There always were; finding them was what learning was all about. Maybe the computer wasn’t useless, after all.
Luke went to the sources that looked the most reliable, and was soon deep in the subjects of debt and debt repayment. The old hunger to know came over him. To learn a new thing. To isolate and understand the central issues. As always, each piece of information led to three more (or six, or twelve), and eventually a coherent picture began to emerge. A kind of terrain map. The most interesting concept—the linchpin to which all the others were attached—was simple but staggering (to Luke, at least). Debt was a commodity. It was bought and sold, and at some point it had become the center of not just the American economy, but of the world’s. And yet it did not really exist. It wasn’t a concrete thing like gas or gold or diamonds; it was only an idea. A promise to pay.
When his computer’s IM chime rang, he shook his head like a boy emerging from a vivid dream. According to the computer’s clock, it was almost 5 PM. He clicked on the balloon icon at the bottom of the machine and read this:
Mrs. Sigsby: Hello, Luke, I run this joint, and I’d like to see you.
He considered this, then typed.
Luke: Do I have any choice?
The reply came at once:
Mrs. Sigsby: No.
“Take your smiley and stick it up your—”
There was a knock at the door. He went to it, expecting Gladys, but this time it was Hadad, one of the guys from the elevator.
“Want to take a walk, big boy?”
Luke sighed. “Give me a second. I have to put on my sneakers.”
“No problem-o.”
Hadad led him to a door past the elevator and used a key card to unlock it. They walked the short distance to the administration building together, waving away the bugs.
11
Mrs. Sigsby reminded Luke of his father’s oldest sibling. Like Aunt Rhoda, this woman was skinny, with barely a hint of hips or breasts. Only there were smile lines around Aunt Rhoda’s mouth, and always warmth in her eyes. She was a hugger. Luke thought there would be no hugs from the woman standing beside her desk in a plum-colored suit and matching heels. There might be smiles, but they would be the facial equivalent of three-dollar bills. In Mrs. Sigsby’s eyes he saw careful assessment and nothing else. Nothing at all.
“Thank you, Hadad, I’ll take it from here.”
The orderly—Luke supposed that was what Hadad was—gave a respectful nod and left the office.
“Let’s start with something obvious,” she said. “We are alone. I spend ten minutes or so alone with every new intake soon after their arrival. Some of them, disoriented and angry,