sound. Then the dots were gone, he was falling out of the chair, he was falling into darkness, and that was a relief. Oh God, what a relief.
14
He was slapped out of unconsciousness. They weren’t hard slaps, not like the one that had made his nose bleed (if that had indeed happened), but they weren’t love-taps, either. He opened his eyes and found himself on the floor. It was a different room. Priscilla was down on one knee beside him. She was the one administering the slaps. Brandon and the two doctors stood by, watching. Hendricks still had his iPad, Evans his clipboard.
“He’s awake,” Priscilla said. “Can you stand up, Luke?”
Luke didn’t know if he could or not. Four or five years ago, he’d come down with strep throat and run a high fever. He felt now as he had then, as if half of him had slipped out of his body and into the atmosphere. His mouth tasted foul, and the latest injection site itched like crazy. He could still feel his throat swelling shut, how horrible that had been.
Brandon didn’t give Luke a chance to test his legs, simply grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. Luke stood there, swaying.
“What’s your name?” Hendricks asked.
“Luke . . . Lucas . . . Ellis.” The words seemed to come not from his mouth but from the detached half of him floating over his head. He was tired. His face throbbed from the repeated slaps, and his nose hurt. He raised a hand (it drifted up slowly, as if through water), rubbed the skin above his lip, and looked without surprise at the flakes of dried blood on his finger. “How long was I out?”
“Sit him down,” Hendricks said.
Brandon took one of his arms, Priscilla the other. They led him to a chair (a plain kitchen chair with no straps, thank God). It was placed in front of a table. Evans was sitting behind it on another kitchen chair. He had a stack of cards in front of him. They were as big as paperback books and had plain blue backs.
“I want to go back to my room,” Luke said. His voice still didn’t seem to be coming from his mouth, but it was a little closer. Maybe. “I want to lie down. I’m sick.”
“Your disorientation will pass,” Hendricks said, “although it might be wise to skip supper. For now, I want you to pay attention to Dr. Evans. We have a little test for you. Once it’s finished, you can go back to your room and . . . er . . . decompress.”
Evans picked up the first card and looked at it. “What is it?”
“A card,” Luke said.
“Save the jokes for your YouTube site,” Priscilla said, and slapped him. It was a much harder slap than the ones she’d used to bring him around.
Luke’s ear began to ring, but at least his head felt a little clearer. He looked at Priscilla and saw no hesitation. No regret. Zero empathy. Nothing. Luke realized he wasn’t a child at all to her. She had made some crucial separation in her mind. He was a test subject. You made it do what you wanted, and if it didn’t, you administered what the psychologists called negative reinforcement. And when the tests were over? You went down to the break room for coffee and Danish and talked about your own kids (who were real kids) or bitched about politics, sports, whatever.
But hadn’t he known that already? He supposed so, only knowing a thing and having the truth of it redden your skin were two different things. Luke could see a time coming—and it wouldn’t be long—when he would cringe every time someone raised an open hand to him, even if it was only to shake or give a high five.
Evans laid the card carefully aside, and took another from the stack. “How about this one, Luke?”
“I told you, I don’t know! How can I know what—”
Priscilla slapped him again. The ringing was stronger now, and Luke began to cry. He couldn’t help it. He had thought the Institute was a nightmare, but this was the real nightmare, being half out of his body and asked to say what was on cards he couldn’t see and getting slapped when he said he didn’t know.
“Try, Luke,” Hendricks said into the ear that wasn’t ringing.
“I want to go back to my room. I’m tired. And I feel sick.”