The Institute Read online

  Nicky dropped to one knee. “You won’t get shit,” he said. “Right now you need to listen to me, fatso. We’re not your problem. They’re your problem.”

  Luke looked around and saw three caretakers standing shoulder to shoulder just outside the door of the lounge: Joe, Hadad, and Gladys. Hadad no longer looked friendly, and Gladys’s plastic smile was gone. All three were holding black gadgets with wires sticking out of them. They weren’t moving in yet, but they were ready to. Because you don’t let the test animals hurt each other, Luke thought. That’s one thing you don’t do. The test animals are valuable.

  Nicky said, “Help me with this bastard, Luke.”

  Luke took one of New Kid’s arms and got it around his neck. Nick did the same with the other. The kid’s skin was hot and oily with sweat. He was gasping for breath between clenched teeth. Together, Luke and Nicky hauled him to his feet.

  “Nicky?” Joe called. “Everything all right? Shit-storm over?”

  “All over,” Nicky said.

  “It better be,” Hadad said. He and Gladys went back inside. Joe stood where he was, still holding his black gadget.

  “We’re totally okay,” Kalisha said. “It wasn’t a real shit-storm, just a little . . .”

  “Disagreement,” Helen said. “Call it a fart skirmish.”

  “He didn’t mean anything bad,” Iris said, “he was just upset.” There was genuine kindness in her voice, which made Luke a little ashamed about feeling so happy when Nicky put his foot to the new kid’s leg.

  “I’m going to puke,” New Kid announced.

  “Not on the trampoline, you’re not,” Nicky said. “We use that thing. Come on, Luke. Help me get him over by the fence.”

  New Kid began to make urk-urk noises, his considerable belly heaving. Luke and Nicky walked him toward the fence between the playground and the woods. They got there just in time. New Kid put his head against the chainlink diamonds and spewed through them, giving up the last remains of whatever he’d eaten on the outside, when he had been Free Kid instead of New Kid.

  “Eww,” Helen said. “Somebody had creamed corn, how gross is that?”

  “Any better?” Nicky asked.

  New Kid nodded.

  “Finished?”

  New Kid shook his head and upchucked again, this time with less strength. “I think . . .” He cleared his throat, and more goo sprayed.

  “Jesus,” Nicky said, wiping his cheek. “Do you serve towels with your showers?”

  “I think I’m gonna pass out.”

  “You’re not,” Luke said. He actually wasn’t sure of this, but thought it best to stay positive. “Come over here in the shade.”

  They got him to the picnic table. Kalisha sat down beside him and told him to lower his head. He did so without argument.

  “What’s your name?” Nicky asked.

  “Harry Cross.” The fight had gone out of him. He sounded tired and humbled. “I’m from Selma. That’s in Alabama. I don’t know how I got here or what’s happening nor nuthin.”

  “We can tell you some stuff,” Luke said, “but you need to cut the shit. You need to get right. This place is bad enough without fighting among ourselves.”

  “And you need to apologize to Avery,” George said. There was none of the class clown in him now. “That’s how the getting right starts.”

  “That’s okay,” Avery said. “He didn’t hurt me.”

  Kalisha took no notice. “Apologize.”

  Harry Cross looked up. He swabbed a hand across his flushed and homely face. “Sorry I knocked you over, kid.” He looked around at the others. “Okay?”

  “Half okay.” Luke pointed at Kalisha. “Her, too.”

  Harry heaved a sigh. “Sorry, whatever your name is.”

  “It’s Kalisha. If we get on more friendly terms, which don’t seem too likely as of this moment, you can call me Sha.”

  “Just don’t call her Sport,” Luke said. George laughed and clapped him on the back.

  “Whatever,” Harry muttered. He wiped something else from his chin.

  Nicky said, “Now that the excitement’s over, why don’t we finish the goddam badminton ga—”

  “Hello, girls,” Iris said. “Do you want to come over here?”

  Luke looked around. Joe was gone. There were two little blond girls standing where he had been. They were holding hands and wearing identical expressions of dazed terror. Everything about them was identical except for their tee-shirts, one green and one red. Luke thought of Dr. Seuss: Thing One and Thing Two.

  “Come on,” Kalisha said. “It’s all right. The trouble’s over.”

  If only that were true, Luke thought.

  13

  At quarter of four that afternoon, Luke was in his room reading more about Vermont lawyers who specialized in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. So far, no one had asked him why he was so interested in this particular subject. Nobody had asked him about H. G. Wells’s invisible man, either. Luke supposed he could devise some sort of test to discover if they were monitoring him—googling ways to commit suicide would probably work—and then decided doing that would be nuts. Why kick a sleeping dog? And since it didn’t make a whole lot of difference to life as he was now living it, it was probably better not to know.

  There came a brisk rap on the door. It opened before he could call come in. It was a caretaker. She was tall and dark haired, the nametag on her pink top proclaiming her PRISCILLA.

  “The eye thing, right?” Luke asked, turning off his laptop.

  “Right. Let’s go.” No smile, no chirpy good cheer. After Gladys, Luke found this a relief.

  They went back to the elevator, then down to C-Level.

  “How deep does this place go?” Luke asked.

  Priscilla glanced at him. “None of your business.”

  “I was only making con—”

  “Well, don’t. Just shut up.”

  Luke shut up.

  Back in good old Room C-17, Zeke had been replaced by a tech whose nametag said BRANDON. There were also two men in suits present, one with an iPad and one with a clipboard. No nametags for them, so Luke guessed they were doctors. One was extremely tall, with a gut that put Harry Cross’s to shame. He stepped forward and held out his hand.

  “Hello, Luke. I’m Dr. Hendricks, Chief of Medical Operations.”

  Luke simply looked at the outstretched hand, feeling no urge at all to take it. He was learning all sorts of new behaviors. It was interesting, in a rather horrible way.

  Dr. Hendricks gave an odd sort of hee-hawing laugh, half exhaled and half inhaled. “That’s all right, perfectly all right. This is Dr. Evans, in charge of Ophthalmology Operations.” He did the exhale/inhale hee-haw again, so Luke surmised Ophthalmology Operations was doctor humor of some sort.

  Dr. Evans, a small man with a fussy mustache, did not laugh at the joke, or even smile. Nor did he offer to shake hands. “So you’re one of our new recruits. Welcome. Have a seat, please.”

  Luke did as he was told. Sitting in the chair was certainly better than being bent over it with his bare butt sticking out. Besides, he was pretty sure what this was. He’d had his eyes examined before. In films, the nerdy kid genius always wore thick glasses, but Luke’s vision was 20/20, at least so far. He felt more or less at ease until Hendricks approached him with another hypo. His heart sank at the sight of it.

  “Don’t worry, just another quick prick.” Hendricks hee-hawed again, showing buck teeth. “Lots of shots, just like in the Army.”

  “Sure, because I’m a conscript,” Luke said.

  “Correct, absolutely correct. Hold still.”

  Luke took the injection without protesting. There was no flash of heat, but then something else began happening. Something bad. As Priscilla bent to put on one of those Clear Spots, he started to choke. “I can’t . . .” Swallow, was what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. His throat locked shut.

  “You’re okay,” Hendricks said. “It will pass.” That sou
nded good, but the other doctor was approaching with a tube, which he apparently meant to jam down Luke’s throat if it became necessary. Hendricks put a hand on his shoulder. “Give him a few seconds.”

  Luke stared at them desperately, spit running down his chin, sure they would be the last faces he would see . . . and then his throat unlocked. He whooped in a great gasp of air.

  “See?” Hendricks said. “All fine. Jim, no need to intubate.”

  “What . . . what did you do to me?”

  “Nothing at all. You’re fine.”

  Dr. Evans handed the plastic tube to Brandon and took Hendricks’s place. He shone a light into Luke’s eyes, then took a small ruler and measured the distance between them. “No corrective lenses?”

  “I want to know what that was! I couldn’t breathe! I couldn’t swallow!”

  “You’re fine,” Evans said. “Swallowing like a champ. Color going back to normal. Now do you or don’t you wear corrective lenses?”

  “I don’t,” Luke said.

  “Good. Good for you. Look straight ahead, please.”

  Luke looked at the wall. The sensation of having forgotten how to breathe was gone. Brandon pulled down a white screen, then dimmed the lights.

  “Keep looking straight ahead,” Dr. Evans said. “If you look away once, Brandon is going to slap you. If you look away a second time, he’ll shock you—low voltage but very painful. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Luke said. He swallowed. It was okay, his throat felt normal, but his heart was still double-timing. “Does the AMA know about this?”

  “You need to shut up,” Brandon said.

  Shut up seems to be the default position around here, Luke thought. He told himself the worst was over, now it was just an eye test, other kids had been through this and they were fine, but he kept swallowing, verifying that yes, he could do it. They would project the eye chart, he would read it, and this would be over.

  “Straight ahead,” Evans almost crooned. “Eyes on the screen and nowhere else.”

  Music started—violins playing classical stuff. Meant to be soothing, Luke supposed.

  “Priss, turn on the projector,” Evans said.

  Instead of an eye chart, a blue spot appeared in the middle of the screen, pulsing slightly, as if it had a heartbeat. A red spot showed up below it, making him think of HAL—“I’m sorry, Dave.” Next came a green spot. The red and green spots pulsed in sync with the blue one, then all three began to flash off and on. Others began to appear, first one by one, then two by two, then by the dozens. Soon the screen was crowded with hundreds of flashing colored dots.

  “At the screen,” Evans crooned. “The screeeen. Nowhere else.”

  “So if I don’t see them on my own, you project them? Kind of like priming the pump, or something? That doesn’t—”

  “Shut up.” Priscilla this time.

  Now the dots began to swirl. They chased each other madly, some seeming to spiral, some to flock, some forming circles that rose and fell and crisscrossed. The violins were speeding up, the light classical tune turning into something like hoedown music. The dots weren’t just moving now, they had become a Times Square electronic billboard with its circuits fried and having a consequent nervous breakdown. Luke started to feel like he was having a breakdown. He thought of Harry Cross puking through the chainlink fence and knew he was going to do the same thing if he kept looking at those madly racing colored dots, and he didn’t want to puke, it would end up in his lap, it—

  Brandon slapped him, good and hard. The noise was like a small firecracker going off both close and far away. “Look at the screen, sport.”

  Something warm was running over his upper lip. Son of a bitch got my nose as well as my cheek, Luke thought, but it didn’t seem important. Those swirling dots were getting into his head, invading his brain like encephalitis or meningitis. Some kind of itis, anyway.

  “Okay, Priss, switch off,” Evans said, but she must not have heard him, because the dots didn’t go away. They bloomed and shriveled, each bloom bigger than the last: bwoosh out and zip back in, bwoosh and zip. They were going 3-D, coming off the screen, rushing toward him, rushing back, rushing forward, rushing—

  He thought Brandon was saying something about Priscilla, but that had to be in his head, right? And was someone really screaming? If so, could it be him?

  “Good boy, Luke, that’s good, you’re doing fine.” Evans’s voice, droning from far away. From a drone high in the stratosphere. Maybe from the other side of the moon.

  More colored dots. They weren’t just on the screen now, they were on the walls, swirling on the ceiling, all around him, inside him. It came to Luke, in the last few seconds before he passed out, that they were replacing his brain. He saw his hands fly up among the dots of light, saw them jigging and racing on his skin, became aware that he was thrashing from side to side in the chair.

  He tried to say I’m having a seizure, you’re killing me, but all that came out of his mouth was a wretched gargling sound. Then the dots were gone, he was falling out of the chair, he was falling into darkness, and that was a relief. Oh God, what a relief.

  14

  He was slapped out of unconsciousness. They weren’t hard slaps, not like the one that had made his nose bleed (if that had indeed happened), but they weren’t love-taps, either. He opened his eyes and found himself on the floor. It was a different room. Priscilla was down on one knee beside him. She was the one administering the slaps. Brandon and the two doctors stood by, watching. Hendricks still had his iPad, Evans his clipboard.

  “He’s awake,” Priscilla said. “Can you stand up, Luke?”

  Luke didn’t know if he could or not. Four or five years ago, he’d come down with strep throat and run a high fever. He felt now as he had then, as if half of him had slipped out of his body and into the atmosphere. His mouth tasted foul, and the latest injection site itched like crazy. He could still feel his throat swelling shut, how horrible that had been.

  Brandon didn’t give Luke a chance to test his legs, simply grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. Luke stood there, swaying.

  “What’s your name?” Hendricks asked.

  “Luke . . . Lucas . . . Ellis.” The words seemed to come not from his mouth but from the detached half of him floating over his head. He was tired. His face throbbed from the repeated slaps, and his nose hurt. He raised a hand (it drifted up slowly, as if through water), rubbed the skin above his lip, and looked without surprise at the flakes of dried blood on his finger. “How long was I out?”

  “Sit him down,” Hendricks said.

  Brandon took one of his arms, Priscilla the other. They led him to a chair (a plain kitchen chair with no straps, thank God). It was placed in front of a table. Evans was sitting behind it on another kitchen chair. He had a stack of cards in front of him. They were as big as paperback books and had plain blue backs.

  “I want to go back to my room,” Luke said. His voice still didn’t seem to be coming from his mouth, but it was a little closer. Maybe. “I want to lie down. I’m sick.”

  “Your disorientation will pass,” Hendricks said, “although it might be wise to skip supper. For now, I want you to pay attention to Dr. Evans. We have a little test for you. Once it’s finished, you can go back to your room and . . . er . . . decompress.”

  Evans picked up the first card and looked at it. “What is it?”

  “A card,” Luke said.

  “Save the jokes for your YouTube site,” Priscilla said, and slapped him. It was a much harder slap than the ones she’d used to bring him around.

  Luke’s ear began to ring, but at least his head felt a little clearer. He looked at Priscilla and saw no hesitation. No regret. Zero empathy. Nothing. Luke realized he wasn’t a child at all to her. She had made some crucial separation in her mind. He was a test subject. You made it do what you wanted, and if it didn’t, you administered what the psychologists called negative reinforcement. And when the tests were over? You went dow
n to the break room for coffee and Danish and talked about your own kids (who were real kids) or bitched about politics, sports, whatever.

  But hadn’t he known that already? He supposed so, only knowing a thing and having the truth of it redden your skin were two different things. Luke could see a time coming—and it wouldn’t be long—when he would cringe every time someone raised an open hand to him, even if it was only to shake or give a high five.

  Evans laid the card carefully aside, and took another from the stack. “How about this one, Luke?”

  “I told you, I don’t know! How can I know what—”

  Priscilla slapped him again. The ringing was stronger now, and Luke began to cry. He couldn’t help it. He had thought the Institute was a nightmare, but this was the real nightmare, being half out of his body and asked to say what was on cards he couldn’t see and getting slapped when he said he didn’t know.

  “Try, Luke,” Hendricks said into the ear that wasn’t ringing.

  “I want to go back to my room. I’m tired. And I feel sick.”

  Evans set the second card aside and picked up a third one. “What is it?”

  “You’ve made a mistake,” Luke said. “I’m TK, not TP. Maybe Kalisha could tell you what’s on those cards, and I’m sure Avery could, but I’m not TP!”

  Evans picked up a fourth. “What is it? No more slaps. Tell me, or this time Brandon will shock you with his zap-stick, and it will hurt. You probably won’t have another seizure, but you might, so tell me, Luke, what is it?”

  “The Brooklyn Bridge!” he shouted. “The Eiffel Tower! Brad Pitt in a tuxedo, a dog taking a shit, the Indy 500, I don’t know!”

  He waited for the zap-stick—some kind of Taser, he supposed. Maybe it would crackle, or maybe it would make a humming sound. Maybe it would make no sound at all and he’d just jerk and fall on the floor, twitching and drooling. Instead, Evans set the card aside and motioned Brandon to step away. Luke felt no relief.

  He thought, I wish I was dead. Dead and out of this.