Gladys came in and pushed one of the keys to check on what he’d been surfing (he wouldn’t put it past her), she would see H. G. Wells’s invisible man with his wrapped head and dark glasses. She wouldn’t know what it was, might think it was just some kind of sci-fi or mystery site, but she probably made reports. If so, they’d go to someone above her pay grade. Someone who was supposed to be curious.
“Can I have a minute to put on some pants?”
“Thirty seconds. Don’t let this oj get warm, now.” She gave him a roguish wink and closed the door.
Luke leaped from bed, put on his jeans, grabbed a tee-shirt, and woke up the laptop to check the time. He was amazed to see it was nine o’clock. He never slept that late. For a moment he wondered if they’d put something in his food, but if that was the case, he wouldn’t have awakened in the middle of the night.
It’s shock, he thought. I’m still trying to process this thing—get my head around it.
He killed the computer, knowing any efforts he made to hide Mr. Griffin would mean nothing if they were monitoring his searches. And if they were mirroring his computer, they’d already know he’d found a way to access the New York Times. Of course if you started thinking that way, everything was futile. Which was probably exactly how the Minions of Sigsby wanted him to think—him and every other kid kept prisoner in here.
If they knew, they’d already have taken the computer away, he told himself. And if they were mirroring my box, wouldn’t they know the wrong name is on the welcome screen?
That seemed to make sense, but maybe they were just giving him more rope. That was paranoid, but the situation was paranoid.
When Gladys opened the door again, he was sitting on the bed and putting on his sneakers. “Good job!” she cried, as if Luke were a three-year-old who had just managed to dress himself for the first time. Luke was liking her less and less, but when she gave him the juice, he gulped it down.
8
This time when she waved her card, she told the elevator to take them to C-Level. “Gosh, what a pretty day!” she exclaimed as the car began to descend. This seemed to be her standard conversation opener.
Luke glanced at her hands. “I see you’re wearing a wedding ring. Do you have kids, Gladys?”
Her smile became cautious. “That’s between me, myself, and I.”
“I just wondered if you did, how you’d like them locked up in a place like this.”
“C,” said the soft female voice. “This is C.”
No smile on Gladys’s face as she escorted him out, holding his arm a little tighter than absolutely necessary.
“I also wondered how you live with yourself. Guess that’s a little personal, huh?”
“Enough, Luke. I brought you juice. I didn’t have to do that.”
“And what would you say to your kids, if anyone found out what’s going on here? If it got, you know, on the news. How would you explain it to them?”
She walked faster, almost hauling him along, but there was no anger on her face; if there had been, he would at least have had the dubious comfort of knowing he’d gotten through to her. But no. There was only blankness. It was a doll’s face.
They stopped at C-17. The shelves were loaded with medical and computer equipment. There was a padded chair that looked like a movie theater seat, and behind it, mounted on a steel post, was something that looked like a projector. At least there were no straps on the arms of the chair.
A tech was waiting for them—ZEKE, according to the nametag on his blue top. Luke knew the name. Maureen had said he was one of the mean ones.
“Hey there, Luke,” Zeke said. “Are you feeling serene?”
Unsure of how to reply, Luke shrugged.
“Not going to make trouble? That’s what I’m getting at, sport.”
“No. No trouble.”
“Good to hear.”
Zeke opened a bottle filled with blue liquid. There was a sharp whiff of alcohol, and Zeke produced a thermometer that looked at least a foot long. Surely not, but—
“Drop trou and bend over that chair, Luke. Forearms on the seat.”
“Not with . . .”
Not with Gladys here, he meant to say, but the door to C-17 was closed. Gladys was gone. Maybe to preserve my modesty, Luke thought, but probably because she had enough of my shit. Which would have cheered him up if