Then Dr. Hendricks came—he was still in his pajamas—and he called for the red guys. They were going to take Iris away.”
“To the back half of Back Half?”
“I think so. But then she started to get better.”
“Maybe they gave her a painkiller. Or a sedative.”
“I don’t think so. I think she just got better. Maybe Kalisha helped her?”
“Don’t ask me,” Luke said. “How would I know?”
But Avery wasn’t listening. “There’s a way to help, maybe. A way they can . . .” He trailed off. Luke thought he was going back to sleep. Then Avery stirred and said, “There’s something really bad over there.”
“It’s all bad over there,” Luke said. “The movies, the shots, the dots . . . all bad.”
“Yeah, but it’s something else. Something worse. Like . . . I dunno . . .”
Luke put his forehead against Avery’s and listened as hard as he could. What he picked up was the sound of an airplane passing far overhead. “A sound? Kind of a droning sound?”
“Yes! But not like an airplane. More like a hive of bees. It’s the hum. I think it comes from the back half of Back Half.”
Avery shifted in the bed. In the light of the lamp, he no longer looked like a child; he looked like a worried old man. “The headaches get worse and worse and last longer and longer, because they won’t stop making them look at the dots . . . you know, the lights . . . and they won’t stop giving them the shots and making them watch the movies.”
“And the sparkler,” Luke said. “They have to look at that, because it’s the trigger.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Go to sleep.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Try.”
Luke put his arms around Avery, and looked up at the ceiling. He was thinking of a bluesy old song his mother sometimes used to sing: I was yours from the start, you took my heart. You got the best, so what the hell, come on, baby, take the rest.
Luke was increasingly sure that was exactly what they were there for: To have the best taken away. They were weaponized here, and used there until they were emptied out. Then they went to the back half of Back Half, where they joined the drone . . . whatever that was.
Things like that don’t happen, he told himself. Except people would say things like the Institute didn’t happen, either, certainly not in America, and if they did, word would get out because you couldn’t keep anything a secret these days; everyone blabbed. Yet here he was. Here they were. The thought of Harry Cross seizing and foaming at the mouth on the cafeteria floor was awful, the sight of that harmless little girl with her head on crooked and her glazed eyes staring at nothing was worse, but nothing he could think of was as terrible as minds subjected to constant assault until they finally became part of a hive drone. According to the Avester that had almost happened to Iris tonight, and it would soon happen to Nicky, heartthrob of all the girls, and wisecracking George.
And Kalisha.
Luke finally slept. When he woke, breakfast was long over and he was alone in the bed. Luke ran down the hall and burst into Avery’s room, sure of what he would find, but the Avester’s posters were still on the walls and his G.I. Joes were still on the bureau, this morning in a skirmish line.
Luke breathed a sigh of relief, then cringed when he was slapped across the back of the head. He turned and saw Winona (last name: Briggs). “Put on some clothes, young man. I’m not interested in seeing any male in his undies unless he’s at least twenty-two and buffed out. You’re not either one.”
She waited for him to get going. Luke gave her the finger (okay, so he held it hidden against his chest instead of flashing it, but it still felt good) and returned to his room to dress. Far down the hall, where it met the next corridor, he saw a Dandux laundry basket. It could have belonged to Jolene or one of the other housekeepers who had appeared to help deal with the current influx of “guests,” but he knew it was Maureen’s. He could feel her. She was back.
8
When he saw her fifteen minutes later, Luke thought, This woman is sicker than ever.
She was cleaning out the twins’ room, taking down the posters of Disney princes and princesses and