instance. Like how Dr. Evans was always chasing after Dr. Richardson, trying to strike up conversations, too pussy-stunned (this phrase from caretaker Norma) to know Felicia Richardson wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. Like how Joe and two other caretakers, Chad and Gary, sometimes used the tokens they didn’t give away to get wine nips and those little bottles of hard lemonade from the canteen vending machine in the East Lounge. Sometimes they talked about their families, or about drinking at a bar called Outlaw Country, where there were bands. “If you want to call that music,” Luke once overheard a caretaker named Sherry telling Fake Smile Gladys. This bar, known to the male techs and caretakers as The Cunt, was in a town called Dennison River Bend. Luke could get no clear fix on how far away this town was, but thought it must be within twenty-five miles, thirty at most, because they all seemed to go when they had time off.
Luke tucked away names when he heard them. Dr. Evans was James, Dr. Hendricks was Dan, Tony was Fizzale, Gladys was Hickson, Zeke was Ionidis. If he ever got out of here, if this canary ever flew from its cage, he hoped to have quite a list for when he testified against these assholes in a court of law. He realized that might only be a fantasy, but it kept him going.
Now that he was marching through the days like a good little boy, he was sometimes left alone on C-Level for short periods of time, always with the admonition to stay put. He would nod, give the technician time to depart on his errand, and then leave himself. There were plenty of cameras on the lower levels, and these were all kept nice and clean, but no alarms went off and no caretakers came charging down the hall waving their zap-sticks. Twice he was spotted walking around and brought back, once with a scolding and once with a perfunctory slap to the back of his neck.
On one of these expeditions (he always tried to look bored and aimless, a kid just passing the time before the next test or being allowed to go back to his room), Luke found a treasure. In the MRI room, which was empty that day, he spied one of the cards they used to operate the elevator lying half-hidden under a computer monitor. He walked past the table, picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket as he peered into the empty MRI tube. He almost expected the card to start yelling “Thief, thief ” when he left the room (like the magic harp Jack the beanstalk boy stole from the giant), but nothing happened, then or later. Didn’t they keep track of those cards? It seemed they did not. Or maybe it was expired, as useless as a hotel key card when the guest it had been computer-coded for checked out.
But when Luke tried the card in the elevator a day later, he was delighted to find it worked. When Dr. Richardson came across him a day later, peering into the D-Level room where the immersion tank was kept, he expected punishment—maybe a jolt from the zap-stick she kept holstered under the white coat she usually wore, maybe a beating from Tony or Zeke. Instead, she actually slipped him a token, for which he thanked her.
“I haven’t had that one yet,” Luke said, pointing to the tank. “Is it awful?”
“No, it’s fun,” she said, and Luke gave her a big grin, as if he actually believed her bullshit. “Now what are you doing down here?”
“Caught a ride with one of the caretakers. I don’t know which one. He forgot his nametag, I guess.”
“That’s good,” she said. “If you knew his name, I’d have to report him, and he’d get in trouble. After that? Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.” She rolled her eyes and Luke gave her a look that said I sympathize. She took him back to the elevator, asked him where he was supposed to be, and he told her B-Level. She rode up with him, asked him how his pain was, and he told her it was fine, all gone.
The card also took him to E-Level, where there was a lot of mechanical shit, but when he tried to go lower—there was a lower, he’d heard conversations about levels F and G—Miss Elevator Voice pleasantly informed him that access was denied. Which was okay. You learned by trying.