“Ever wake up and feel like you’re dreaming?”
“Will,” said Ajay, suddenly serious. “My mother came to America from India at the age of nine. Her impoverished parents worked as domestics in an Atlantic City casino and eventually bought a dry cleaners. My father’s from an old aristocratic Polish family that lost everything but their luggage in World War Two. He grew up in Milwaukee, a penniless immigrant. Worked his way through Duke University and eventually bought a small chain of drugstores in Raleigh, North Carolina, called the Pill and Puff. My mother attended community college at night to train as a pharmacist. She landed a job in one of his drugstores, where they met and fell in love. Which led to me, their only child.
“As a result of this unusual heritage, of which I’m immensely proud, I am an odd duck by any reckoning. I stand barely five feet tall, and if you think I’m puny now, you should have seen me at six. It won’t surprise you to learn that I was bullied in school, unmercifully, from my first day of kindergarten all the way through junior high, by every redneck Neanderthal who ever laid eyes on me. Girls found me to be, throughout these years, invisible to the naked eye. I knew, secretly, that I was smarter than all of these knuckleheads and survived by my wits alone, with no way of knowing that I had anything worthwhile to offer any other living creature, that I was someone who could have friends and meet girls and experience something resembling a present or a future. Until the day I arrived at the Center.”
Ajay held his gaze, openhearted and sincere. Will felt ashamed of any impulse he’d had to doubt him.
“If this is a dream, I’m begging you,” said Ajay, “don’t ever let them wake me.”
NICK AND ELISE
When they left the soda fountain, Ajay excused himself to go to class. Will made a quick grocery run for staples like peanut butter, crackers, and milk. He saw no junk food on the shelves and tons of health foods; his parents would have approved. He bundled up in his new gloves, hat, scarf, and jacket for the hike back to Greenwood Hall. He felt like a sausage but didn’t shiver once and covered the ground with surprising speed. So chalk up one plus for Nordic weather: It helped get you where you were going a whole lot faster.
Back inside, the door to the provost marshal’s office was open. Will noticed a camera on the wall above the door. Inside the room, he caught a glimpse of Lyle speaking intently to Todd Hodak.
Somehow he knew: They’re talking about me.
They saw him as he passed. Todd’s eyes fired with anger. Will started upstairs and heard Lyle’s door slam.
He reached his floor and used his key card to enter the pod. As he carried his bags to the kitchen, he felt someone else watching him. He turned.
Stretched out on one of the sofas and propped up on one elbow, a book open in front of her. Jet-black hair cut in a sharp pageboy and bangs that framed her face like a chain mail helmet. Porcelain skin and arched black brows above almond-shaped eyes. Big eyes, a dazzling jade green that he’d never seen except in pictures of tropical waters. Her bone structure echoed some statue of a lost Egyptian queen. She wasn’t conventionally pretty. There appeared to be nothing conventional about her. Words that came more immediately to Will’s mind: Commanding. Arresting. Intoxicating.
She was dressed in dark blue from head to toe: a tight skirt, leggings, and a turtleneck sweater. She didn’t move, secretly amused, still and regal as a Persian cat, and never took those unnerving eyes off him.
“You must be Elise,” Will said finally.
One eyebrow rose slowly. “Must I?”
Will felt like a mouse. Being toyed with by a cat. “Yes. ‘Must be.’ Sticking with my original call.”
“Well, then …”
She wants to know my name.
“Will,” he said.
“Well, then,” said Elise. “Advantage, Will.”
Not for long, he thought. He snapped off a two-finger salute, then, on purpose, tripped over his own feet and sent his bags flying.
Elise rolled her eyes and shifted back to her book. Dismissed. Humbled, Will put his groceries away, coaching himself: Just pretend she’s a person, too. He reentered the great room prepared to make small talk, but she held up a hand.
“Working,” she said.
Whatever witticism he’d been preparing flew out of Will’s mind. He hurried into his room and took some deep breaths. Brooke and Elise under the same roof? You cannot be serious. So far Ajay wasn’t exaggerating about the girls at the Center.
Will noticed something sitting on his desk: his new “computing device.” He examined it from every angle; it was nothing like a traditional laptop, more like a slightly thicker iPad. It was solid and metallic, with a soft black matte finish that looked and felt like velvet. Less than an inch thick, it weighed about a pound and a half and had no visible ports or drives. On the back, in the lower right-hand corner, stamped into the metal, was a sixteen-digit code number followed by WWEST. The same information that was on his black school card.
Will searched for a way to start it and found an indentation on the right side. He pressed it. Motors whirred. Legs unfolded in back and raised the entire unit to an ideal viewing angle. Then the thing expanded in size by a third—the way Robbins’s magical slate had done—and powered on with a musical chord. The whole face sizzled to life, a screen, and in the middle words appeared: INSERT CARD.
Will took out his new school ID card. A slot had appeared along one side of the machine. He inserted the card, and the tablet read its metallic strip, then ejected the card.
Words appeared on the screen: AUTHENTICATE, PLEASE.
A pulsating outline of a left hand appeared on-screen, fingers spread, like the outlines he’d seen on Robbins’s device. Will extended his left hand toward the outline. An inch shy of it he felt a burst of warmth.
As he touched the screen, the outline locked onto his hand. Subtle currents flowed beneath his skin, then with a flash of light the outline faded. A majestic major chord filled the room. The display dissolved to a greeting screen that featured the Center’s crest floating on a shimmering dark blue field. Moments later, a row of conventional interface icons faded in along the bottom of the screen.
Words appeared: WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL NOW? (RECOMMENDED) YES/NO.
Will tapped NO. A mailbox icon appeared. He double-tapped the icon, and the screen opened to a graphically familiar in-box.
There was one message inside: To
[email protected]. From
[email protected].
He double-tapped the message. A video file opened of Headmaster Stephen Rourke, at the desk in his office, looking straight into the camera. The image quality was so good he appeared to be on the other side of a window.
“Greetings, Will. I hope you’re bouncing back from that bump on the noggin. Sorry I couldn’t wait around, but the docs assured me you’d be okay. And I apologize for taking you in there in the first place. That one’s on me: headmaster brain-lock. Hope you’re getting settled. Let’s catch up tomorrow. If there’s anything we can do to make your first days here easier, all you have to do is ask. Have a good night now.”
The mailbox came back up. Instead of using his finger as the cursor, Will tried another way to interact with it. “Close mailbox,” he said.
The mailbox collapsed into the icon at the bottom of the screen. Cool.
“Open hard drive,” he said.
A file cabinet icon opened in the screen’s center. A drawer opened into a list of folders and files from the hard drive on Will’s laptop. He verified that the data from his laptop had landed safely.
A muffled buzzing sounded somewhere in the room. He traced it to the bed, under the mattress. Nando’s cell phone.
“Power off,” said Will.
His tablet shut down. Will couldn’t see one, but he worried there might be a video camera built into its frame. There was no way of knowing who might have remote access to its feed—Lyle, for instance. Will dropped his sweatshirt over the screen for good measure.
#83: JUST BECAUSE YOU??
?RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN THAT SORRY IS BETTER THAN SAFE.
Will pulled out Nando’s phone and took it into the bathroom. He closed and locked the door, then turned on the faucet before he answered.
“Hey, Nando,” Will whispered.
“Yo, Will,” Nando whispered back. “I’m parked outside your house right now.”
“Why are you whispering? Can anybody see you?”
“No, I’m cool, man. I’m down the street. Why are you whispering?”
Will thought a second. “You’re not supposed to use phones in the hospital.”
“So listen up, bro, your old man might be right. What’s going down here’s kinda freaky. Three black cars are parked out front. Identical makes and models, like undercover vehicles. Cops were here earlier, too. Two local cruisers.”
“How long have you been there?”
“About an hour.”
“Shouldn’t you be working?”
“Nah, man, this is way more fun,” said Nando. “Plus I got this little telescope my wife bought me at Brookstone? Puts you right up in somebody’s grill. I’m watching these dudes from the sedans go in and out.”
“Describe them,” said Will.
“Black caps and jackets. Look almost like FBI, ’cept it don’t say ‘FBI’ on the caps or jackets. They’re loading suitcases into the cars. Boxes, too. All taped up, the kind you use for moving.”
“How many Black Caps?”
“Six. Two in each car,” said Nando. “And whoever these cats in the chapeaus are, they’re in charge of whatever’s going down: They were giving orders to the cops.”
“Have you seen anybody else?”
“A lady came out a couple times. Black hair, kinda tall, good-looking. Tell the truth, first time I seen her, I thought she coulda been your mom.”
Will felt bad about lying to Nando but didn’t see an alternative. “Couldn’t be. She’s up here with us. Anybody else?”
“One other dude, not one of the Caps. Long hair and glasses, light brown beard. Only seen him once, through the window inside, talking to the Caps.”
So Dad is still there. But in what condition?
“I took some snaps but didn’t think I should send ’em till we talked.”
“I have an email you can use.” Will gave him the address of his new account.
“Okay, boss. Gonna stay on this. Looks like they’re getting ready to move.”
Nando hung up. Will heard a series of sharp knocks on his bedroom door. He went into the bedroom.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“House security,” said a male voice. “Open the door now.” Not Lyle, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t out there with a whole goon patrol.
“One sec, I was in the bathroom.”
He yanked the phone’s charger from the wall and buried them both under the mattress. His heart thumping, Will walked over and opened the door.
A tough-looking kid with close-cropped blond hair stood outside. He wore a crested blue school blazer identical to the one Lyle had been wearing. A scalloped cowlick rose on the left side of his hairline like a nautilus shell. He stood four inches shorter than Will but occupied more space horizontally and radiated serious athletic vibes. His electric ice-blue eyes drilled straight into Will’s.
The kid held up the rules booklet Lyle had given Will. “Are you familiar with Code of Conduct rule sixteen dash six, paragraph five, subsection nine?”
“No, I—”
“Mr. West, ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Glancing past the guy, Will saw Elise seated on the circular hearth. She’d changed into a short athletic uniform skirt, black cleats, and high blue socks, and she twirled a field hockey stick in her hands. Will thought she looked, oddly, like she was trying not to laugh.
“Since you’ve chosen to ignore the provost marshal’s order to study the Code, let me read the relevant passage for you: ‘New students are not allowed to ask other students about their personal lives for a period of six weeks—’ ”
The young man glanced back at Elise, indicating she had lodged this lame complaint against him. Will stared at them in confusion.
“Like I said, I didn’t know the rules—”
“That is some weak sauce indeed, Mr. West. Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’re in? Would you like to know what else you don’t know about subsection nine? Please tell me if I’m going too fast.”
“No, go ahead.”
The guy lifted the book and read again: “New arrivals may only ask time of day or directions to classrooms. Random comments about your playlists? Violation. Gushing about your favorite sports team? Violation. Any mention of homesickness for pets named Pinky or Gum Drop? Violation. And you are never, under any circumstances, to ever, in the same sentence, use the words totally, freaking, or awesome. Unless you’re referring to me.”
Elise bent over double, shaking with laughter. The blond kid cracked up and staggered back into a nearby chair. “Oh God, dude, you’re priceless.”
“Punked,” said Will. “Nice.”
“Pinky or Gum Drop,” said Elise, and then shrieked with laughter.
“So you’re Nick,” said Will.
“That was so savage,” said Nick. “I am feeling you right now.” He turned and lifted off the arms of the chair into a perfect handstand: “Nick McLeish. Hope this doesn’t mean we can’t be buds.” He flipped over the back, landed softly, and stepped forward to shake Will’s hand. “Brooke told me you cracked heads with Lyle-Lyle-Crocodile, the Ogre of Greenwood Hall. Couldn’t resist. Elise put me up to it.”
“That’s a complete and total lie,” said Elise, suddenly not laughing.
“I’m okay,” said Will. “No harm, no foul.”
“Wow, you are being such a champ about this. Props, man, I’m majorly impressed. Aren’t you, Leesy?”
“Don’t let Nick’s charm mess with your savoir faire,” said Elise.
“She thinks I’m charming,” said Nick, offering a wide and—Will had to admit—exceptionally charming grin.
“They used to burn witches at the stake for less,” said Elise.
“Yo, we all know who the witch is, ’kay? And seriously, dude, I wouldn’t be anywhere close to this nice about it if you’d pulled the same gag on me.”
“I wouldn’t pull the same gag on you,” said Will.
“Right. I don’t think you would,” said Nick, looking at him searchingly. “You’re a dude of honor and character. Not sure you’ll fit in with us, but we’re open-minded. Where you from?”
“Southern California.”
“Shut up! So Cal, for real? You hear that, Elise? 90210. Hollywood. Surf City, USA, Lakers and Fakers—”
“Keep going,” said Elise. “You missed a few clichés.”
“You’re from Boston?” asked Will.
“Close enough: New Hampshire.”
“Celtics fan,” said Will. “I knew it. I’m sorry, Nick. We can’t be friends.”
“Come correct now. You know the kelly green of our championship banners is like Kryptonite to your shallow left-coast powers—”
Will turned to Elise. “You a Celtics fan, too?”
“Hell, no, bro,” said Nick. “She’s from Seattle. Like they’ve ever sniffed a championship in anything ’cept chronic depression.”
“The correct term is seasonal affective disorder,” Elise said.
“SAD,” said Will.
“Yes, it is,” said Nick. “Dude, let me tell you how life works in the pod. Our vixen-in-residence here, Miss Elise Moreau, is in charge of everything.” He walked to Elise—shaking her head while she tied her cleats—and massaged her shoulders.
“Every five minutes you listen to him,” said Elise, sighing, “you lose a point off your IQ.”
“Elise, esplain to Will what you’re like, girl,” said Nick.
“No.”
“Come on, you know I’ll only mess it up—”
“Nick? No is a complete sentence,” said Elise.
“Tr
uth,” said Nick. “Elise is a mad gypsy fortune-teller. She’s got this spooked-out mind-ninja power. Once she locks on and gazes into your soul, you can’t run, you can’t hide, and you can’t resist.”
Will couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to resist. Elise looked at him alertly, as if she’d heard him think it. He shivered and looked away.
“And, dude, imagine what it must be like for her? Knowing she has the power to see into the deep, dark places peeps won’t even admit to themselves?”
Is that why Brooke thinks Elise and I have something in common?
With a crisp swing, Elise cracked Nick on the shin with her hockey stick.
“Ow! Did I say that? No, what I meant to say is she’s as harmless as a cheerleader with a Hello Kitty screen saver—”
“Please, ma’am, may I have another,” she said, swinging her stick again.
Nick hopped out of range. Elise turned to Will. He avoided her big green eyes; right now, no one’s soul held more secrets than his did. He also realized that if he was looking for practical answers, he’d been talking to the wrong person. “So should I really read Lyle’s Code of Conduct?” he asked Elise.
“Yes,” said Elise.
“Oh, no, really?” asked Nick.
“Don’t be thick, Nick. Just because you never did. Forewarned is forearmed.”
Nick sank back onto the sofa, rubbed his shin, and flipped through the booklet. “She’s prolly right, dude.” Heavy sigh. “It’s just every time I try to slug my way through it, I …” Nick closed his eyes, fell back, and snored theatrically.
Elise shook her head again and started for the door, twirling her stick. She turned back to Will to say emphatically, “Read it. Did you get your tablet?”
God, her eyes were unnerving. “I just found it on my desk.”
“Have you taken the tutorial yet?”
“No, not yet—”
“Take it.”
“O-kay,” said Will.
Elise left the pod. Nick stayed prone on the sofa, pretending to be asleep.
“I’m going to finish … unpacking,” said Will.
Without opening his eyes, Nick flung his copy of the Code across the room like a Frisbee. It flew through the screen and right into the fireplace, where it began to smolder and burn. Nick waved at Will, eyes still closed, crossed his arms, and settled into a serious nap.