The Gift

Chapter 18

Wisty

Have you ever tried to cut off all of somebody's hair with a pair of scissors?

It's incredibly hard to do without achieving a certain insane-asylum look. I actually do a pretty good job on Whit-he looks kind of like a war-movie hero. Apparently Emmet's hack job on my head doesn't fall into the same category, though. (I wouldn't let my brother come near my hair with scissors.)

"At least you don't have to worry about that witchy red color any longer." Byron cackles as we pull up to the Acculturation Facility. "Except for a couple of patches."

"Who invited you on this mission anyway, B.?" I grumble, even though I know we don't have a choice. He's our way in-but I can't help but fear this is a trap. I can't bring myself to actually trust Byron Swain.

At least Sasha and a few others are with us-but they're back manning the escape vehicles hidden beyond the tree line.

Byron unfurls his folio of various New Order badges and medals and memberships and ID cards at the guards at the entry, and then he drags us, handcuffed, through the door to the registration area.

The whole place has that oh-so-distinctively-generic-New-Ordery blandness to it. If it were a turtleneck color in my K. Krew clothes catalog, it would be called Dirty Dishwater.

"I've got Stephen and Sydney Harmon here," Byron says with an exaggerated bluster of authority. He plays the part so well. Maybe because he is the part? "Transfers from AC Facility #625. The One Who Reassigns is expecting them-I just spoke to him an hour or so ago."

"Certainly, Mr. Swain. They're expected. The elevators are down the hall to your left."

Byron's in his element as he theatrically yanks us this way and that and into the elevators. Once we sink down a couple of levels, he shoves us out the door. "Okay, Harmons." He grins. "You're on your own. See you on the other side."

As much as I sort of hate Byron, I have to admit, getting into an N.O. joint has never been so easy. His timing is perfect-as the elevator doors close behind us, we encounter a group of passing kids and join the rear of the party.

They're heartbreakingly pathetic, these "students." Skinny, hopeless, haunted-looking, and silent as monks. The spirit of youthful anger and rebellion has already been sucked out of them. No complaints, no sarcasm, no anything. They're so beaten down, they don't even seem to notice our arrival.

We follow the procession as it pushes through double doors at the end of the hallway.

At first we're almost blinded by the bright blue-white light bombarding us, but when our eyes adjust we find ourselves in what looks like it might have once been a school auditorium but is now something very different, and sinister.

All the theater seats have been removed, and the large room, including the stage, is now occupied by machines, chemical vats, and dozens of sick-looking kids in numbered shirts, working like diamond-mine slaves. Some of the kids in here are carrying sacks, some are stirring vats, some are pushing around technical equipment.

Our eyes are stinging as if there's something poisonous in the air. The whole place stinks like burning rubber, ozone, and, weirdly-Could it be?-chocolate. Toxic chocolate. Is there such a thing?

Then there's a weird flutelike note, a middle C if I'm not mistaken, and I look over to see a squad of kids-all wearing the number twelve-suddenly stop working.

And then I see the one adult in the room, a stiff-backed man in a white lab coat with a silver pitch-pipe thingy on a cord dropping out of his mouth.

"Attention squad twelve!" he screams. He waits a moment, and the veins in his neck slowly subside while his eyes roll. "Does anyone remember? You may not-under any circumstances-drop the pods!"

He blows a different note on the pipe, and they all nod robotically.

"Since these two sacks contain damaged specimens," he says, hoisting a couple of bags over his head, "you are all hereby required to work through the night without sleep!"

"Bu -," a sunken-eyed girl starts to say before catching herself.

"But?" screams the man. "Did you just say 'but' to me? Need I remind you that the penalty for arguing with a senior scientist requires level two corporal punishment?" The man rushes forward to heave the girl-who is probably only a quarter of his size-against the wall.

I want to charge in and sack the guy myself, and I have to reach out and grab Whit's arm to keep him from doing the same. We can't go down in a blaze of glory. Not just yet.

The girl begins to sob, the first glimmer of emotion I've seen in this place so far. A look of small-minded disgust seizes the "senior scientist's" face, and he blows a harsh F-sharp on his whistle.

As if in immediate response, the girl bangs her head against the wall.

He laughs and blows the whistle again. Bang goes the girl's head.

Whistle. Bang. Whistle. Bang. It's sickening, and I can't help myself any longer. I can't hold back.

"Sir!" I yell indignantly. Oh cripes. Oh crud. Oh kill me now.

Of course he immediately spins and sends a daggerlike glare across the room. "You two, come here!"