Josh MacCallum sat by himself in the dining room that evening, nodding to everyone who spoke to him, but not asking anyone to sit with him, nor accepting Brad Hinshaw’s suggestion that he bring his tray to a table where two other kids were already eating.
Tonight he didn’t want to talk to anyone, didn’t want to answer any more questions about what it had been like to find Amy’s body, didn’t want to listen to all the other kids talk about how Steve Conners might have killed her.
Tonight he wanted to be by himself, for all day long he’d been trying to figure out what he should do. Though he’d tried to concentrate on his classes, it hadn’t worked. No matter how hard he tried to pay attention to what his teachers were saying, all he could think about was what had happened yesterday to Amy.
And what had happened to himself last night, when he’d put on the virtual reality mask and Adam Aldrich had suddenly appeared.
He’d been puzzling at it all day, trying to decide if what he had seen had been real or only some kind of computer trick; some kind of interactive program that was so complex it could respond to whatever he said.
But if the program was so good that he actually believed he was seeing Adam, and talking to him, then it was intelligent, wasn’t it? That was one of the tests of artificial intelligence. Yet Dr. Engersol had told them it didn’t exist, and never would. Besides, if what he’d seen was a program, how could he explain what had happened right at the end, when he’d heard Amy’s voice, calling out for help?
Then this morning Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich had come to the school and taken Jeff home. Josh had known right away that Jeff’s sudden departure had something to do with Adam. It had happened right at the beginning of first period, while they were waiting for Dr. Engersol, and when Hildie had told them the seminar wouldn’t be meeting that morning, and then taken Jeff upstairs to Dr. Engersol’s office, he’d been sure he knew what had happened.
Mrs. Aldrich must have gotten another message from Adam, and they’d blamed it on Jeff.
So now he didn’t even have Jeff to talk to about the confusion in his mind.
None of it made any sense, and it seemed as though the more he thought about it, the more confusing it got.
Except that if he assumed that what he’d seen last night was real, then it all fit together. And it meant that somewhere close by, Adam and Amy were still alive, their brains still working, even though their bodies were dead.
But where? Where was the computer Adam said he was inside?
And what would happen to him, Josh wondered, if he found out? Whatever was going on, it must be really secret if they wanted everyone to think that Adam and Amy were dead! And if he got caught trying to figure out the secret …
Maybe he should call his mother and tell her he wanted to come home.
But she’d want to know why.
What would she say if he told her that Adam and Amy weren’t dead at all, but were hidden away somewhere, inside a computer?
She’d say he was crazy and send him to see a psychiatrist.
Besides, he didn’t really want to go back to Eden, and have to sit in boring classes with kids who didn’t like him. And he certainly wanted to find out what had happened to Amy. If they’d done something to her, he wanted to find out who had done it, and make them sorry.
Finishing his dinner, Josh picked up his tray full of dirty dishes and took it to the butler’s pantry between the dining room and the kitchen.
His eyes fastened on the door to the basement, and he shivered as he remembered what had happened down there the night before last.
Remembered, and wondered.
In his mind’s eye he saw once more the mass of concrete that had looked like an elevator shaft, and heard once more the sound that seemed to pass right by him in the shaft and continue downward.
Under the house?
Could that be where Adam was, and Amy, too?
But how could he find out? And if there was something under the house, some kind of hidden laboratory, how could he get into it?
His heart raced as he began to speculate on the possibilities.