they were given hurty shots and a fresh dose of the flashing lights. Then they were taken back to the screening room, where they watched twenty minutes of car crash movies. After each crash, Dr. Hendricks came on the screen, holding up the unlit sparkler.
Luke, grief-stricken but not stupid, began to understand. It was crazy, but no crazier than occasionally being able to know what was going on in other peoples’ heads. Also, it explained a great deal.
“Kalisha says she thinks she blacked out and had a dream while the crashes were going on,” Avery whispered in Luke’s ear. “Only she’s not sure it was a dream. She says the kids—her, Nicky, Iris, Donna, Len, some others—were standing in those dots with their arms around each other and their heads together. She says Dr. Hendricks was there, and this time he lit the sparkler, and that was scary. But as long as they stayed together, holding each other, their heads didn’t ache no more. But she says maybe it was a dream, because she woke up in her room. The rooms in Back Half aren’t like ours. They get locked up at night.” Avery paused. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore tonight, Lukey.”
“Fine. Go to sleep.”
Avery did, but Luke lay awake for a long time.
The next day, he finally used his laptop for something more than checking the date, IMing with Helen, or watching BoJack Horseman. He went to Mr. Griffin, and from Mr. Griffin to the New York Times, which informed him he could read ten free articles before he hit a pay wall. Luke didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but was sure he’d know it when he saw it. And he did. A headline on the front page of the July 15th issue read REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ SUCCUMBS TO INJURIES.
Rather than reading the article, Luke went to the day before. This headline read PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL MARK BERKOWITZ CRITICALLY INJURED IN CAR ACCIDENT. There was a picture. Berkowitz, a US Representative from Ohio, had black hair and a scar on his cheek from a wound suffered in Afghanistan. Luke read the story quickly. It said that the Lincoln Town Car in which Berkowitz had been riding while on his way to a meeting with foreign dignitaries from Poland and Yugoslavia had veered out of control and hit a concrete bridge stanchion. The driver had been killed instantly; unnamed MedStar Hospital sources described Berkowitz’s injuries as “extremely grave.” The article didn’t say if the driver was a redhead, but Luke knew he had been, and he was pretty sure that some guy in one of the Arab countries was going to die soon, if he hadn’t already. Or maybe he was going to murder somebody important.
Luke’s growing certainty that he and the other kids were being prepped for use as psychic drones—yes, even inoffensive Avery Dixon, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose—began to rouse Luke, but it took the horror show with Harry Cross to bring him fully out of his sleep of grief.
5
The following evening there were fourteen or fifteen kids in the caff at dinner, some talking, some laughing, some of the new ones crying or shouting. In a way, Luke thought, being in the Institute was like being in an old-time mental asylum where the crazy people were just kept and never cured.
Harry wasn’t there at first, and he hadn’t been at lunch. The big galoot wasn’t much of a blip on Luke’s radar, but he was hard to miss at meals because Gerda and Greta always sat with him, one on either side in their identical outfits, watching him with shining eyes as he blathered away about NASCAR, wrestling, his favorite shows, and life “down Selma.” If someone told him to pipe down, the little Gs would turn killing looks on the interrupting someone.
This evening the Gs were eating on their own, and looking unhappy about it. They had saved Harry a seat between them, though, and when he came walking slowly in, belly swinging and glowing with sunburn, they rushed to him with shouts of greeting. For once he barely seemed to notice them. There was a vacant look in his eyes, and they didn’t seem to be tracking together the way eyes are supposed to. His chin was shiny with drool, and there was a wet spot on the crotch of his pants. Conversation died. The newest arrivals looked puzzled and horrified; those who had been around long enough