seemed the Institute might soon be hosting more guests. He walked down to her and asked if she needed help. “Because I wouldn’t mind earning some tokens,” he said.
“No, I’m fine.” To Luke she looked like she was ageing almost by the hour. Her face was dead pale. He wondered how long it would be before someone noticed her condition and made her stop working. He didn’t like to think about what might become of her if that happened. Was there a retirement program for housekeepers who were also Institute snitches? He doubted it.
Her laundry basket was half filled with fresh linen, and Luke dropped his own note into it. He had written it on a memo sheet he’d stolen from the equipment alcove in C-4, along with a cheap ballpoint pen which he’d hidden under his mattress. Stamped on the barrel of the pen was DENNISON RIVER BEND REALTY. Maureen saw the folded note, covered it with a pillowcase, and gave him a slight nod. Luke went on his way.
That night in bed, he whispered to Avery for a long time before allowing the kid to go to sleep. There were two scripts, he told Avery, there had to be. He thought the Avester understood. Or maybe the right word was hoped.
Luke stayed awake a long time, listening to Avery’s light snores and meditating on escape. The idea seemed simultaneously absurd and perfectly possible. There were those dusty surveillance bulbs, and all the times he had been left alone to wander, gathering in his little bits and bobs of information. There were the fake surveillance dead zones that Sigsby and her minions knew about, and the real one that they didn’t (or so he hoped). In the end, it was a pretty simple equation. He had to try. The alternative was the Stasi Lights, the movies, the headaches, the sparkler that triggered whatever it triggered. And at the end of it all, the drone.
When they stop testing, you might only have 3 days.
15
The following afternoon, Trevor Stackhouse joined Mrs. Sigsby in her office. She was bent over an open file, reading and making notes. She raised a single finger without looking up. He went to her window, which looked out on the East Wing of the building they called the Residence Hall, as if the Institute really were a college campus, one that happened to be situated in the deep woods of northern Maine. He could see two or three kids milling around snack and soda machines that had just been restocked. There was no tobacco or alcohol available in that lounge, hadn’t been since 2005. The East Wing was usually thinly populated or not populated at all, and when there were residents boarded there, they could get cigarettes and wine nips from the vending machines at the other end of the building. Some only sampled, but a surprising number—usually those who were the most depressed and terrified by the sudden catastrophic change in their lives—became addicted quickly. Those were the ones who gave the least trouble, because they didn’t just want tokens, they needed them. Karl Marx had called religion the opiate of the people, but Stackhouse begged to differ. He thought Lucky Strikes and Boone’s Farm (greatly favored by their female guests) did the job quite nicely.
“Okay,” Mrs. Sigsby said, closing her file. “Ready for you, Trevor.”
“Four more coming in tomorrow from Opal team,” Stackhouse said. His hands were clasped behind his back and his feet were spread apart. Like a captain on the foredeck of his ship, Mrs. Sigsby thought. He was wearing one of his trademark brown suits, which she would have thought a terrible choice for midsummer, but he no doubt considered it part of his image. “We haven’t had this many onboard since 2008.”
He turned from the view, which really wasn’t that interesting. Sometimes—often, even—he got very tired of children. He didn’t know how teachers did it, especially without the freedom to whack the insolent and administer a splash of electricity to the rebellious, like the now departed Nicholas Wilholm.
Mrs. Sigsby said, “There was a time—long before yours and mine—when there were over a hundred children here. There was a waiting list.”
“All right, there was a waiting list. Good to know. Now what did you call me here for? The Opal team is in place, and at least one of these pickups is going to be delicate. I’m flying out tonight. The kid’s in a closely supervised environment.”