“No, no . . .” the voice cried, louder this time, more obviously from the front right side of the room.
Dr. Richardson began to advance, flickering her flashlight so quickly it was like a strobe, calling to him. “Eddy. Your brothers and sisters compel you. Come forward.”
“Noo—”
“Come forward and join your family—” Dr. Richardson called. Aiden could feel his stomach twisting over as the gravity of the danger set in. Emma wasn’t lying—there was something fucked up about what they’d done to Eddy. Dr. Richardson was doing it now.
“Nooo—” The cries were constant now, sobs and gasps in between them.
“Come forward, rise to meet your family—” Dr. Richardson’s voice swelled louder.
“No!”
She stopped, only the piano between her body and the noise. “Eddy?” she asked breathlessly. Her flashlight clicked off, then on, then off—
There was a loud crashing noise at the front of the sanctuary. Someone hit the piano, someone cried out in pain, Dr. Richardson grunted in struggle.
“What the fuck is—” It was Dr. Richardson’s voice, trying to shout against obvious restraint. “What are you—oh no you fucking—” Her sentence was cut off by the loud snap of tape over her mouth.
In the back of the room, Aiden sighed, loosening his grip on the door handle.
Neesha.
“I’LL BE HONEST, I thought you guys were kidding about the sweeps when you were training me.” A voice with a slightly southern accent drifted around the corner. “Going into students’ rooms and shit? What’s the point of that?”
Neesha slid closer, angling to see around. There was a gathering of maintenance workers in the C-School Lounge, a gathering she’d have to get past.
“Yep,” another voice answered. “And we never even find anything. It’s just to scare ’em, I think, keep ’em from getting ideas.”
“Why, though? What’s the point?”
“Kids are too damn smart. They’re freaks.”
“What do they think kids’re gonna do, though? Run away?” the southern accent protested. “Why’d they run away from here?”
“Every kid’s an asset, gotta protect the assets.”
Breathlessly, she slid out into the darkness, cowering as far as possible from the fireplace, clinging to the circular outer wall. Above her, the maintenance workers were congregated on the first landing, two of them facing out over the lounge.
“I don’t know. I feel like maybe these kids have something special they don’t tell us about. Can’t think of why else you’d need so much security. Plus, why lie about it? Telling the kids we work in maintenance—”
“If one more of these little fuckers asks me to fix a toilet—”
One of the men laughed. Neesha ran her thumb over the key in her pocket.
“That’s what I’m saying! The kids never do anything, hardly break any rules, but we’ve got forty trained military guys out here in bumfuck wherever? For what?”
“Is it a good job?”
“Sure, pay’s great, but—”
“Well, then shut up about it.”
The other two men laughed, and she used the moment to slide into the doorway, unlocking the door to the C-School and clicking it open.
“Y’all hear something?” the Southern accent asked, and she froze.
“Listen to this guy! Little kids got you paranoid, bud?”
“Guess you’re right,” he mumbled. “I’ll shut up and drink my coffee.”
Neesha ducked through the door and turned to sprint away. The hallway was empty, multicolored as always, the neon reds and blues of the labs more vibrant in the darkness. Her footsteps clattered loudly on the linoleum. She could hear her heartbeat pumping in her ears as she reached the door to the Pharma Lab. She could see through the window that the room was empty. She pushed the door open.
“Schoolwork, I presume?”
Neesha froze. Dr. Yangborne stood behind her, smiling out from a lab across the hall.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, I just forgot something . . .”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I was thinking about what you said, about how I should be taking more of an initiative, and so I figured . . . today was a good day to get started.”
Yangborne nodded.
“So . . .” She stepped backward, turning away from him. “I’m just going to grab a few things, and—”
“How ignorant do you think we are?”
Neesha stopped in the doorway. “I . . . what do you mean?”
Yangborne was still smiling. “We test students every day. We monitor every aspect of your lives. You think we wouldn’t notice half our student population was high on amphetamines?”
Neesha’s stomach dropped. She stood gaping back at him.
Aiden.
AIDEN RUSHED TO the front of the room. Zaza held Dr. Richardson against the ground, half-triumphant and half-horrified.
“I can’t believe I did that,” he exhaled. “Who the fuck am I? Why did I do that?”
“You have a crush, Zaza,” he said, ripping off a huge piece of tape for Dr. Richardson’s hands. “And people do very stupid things for crushes.” They sat her up in a chair and Aiden wrapped a strip of tape around her arms behind it, then fastened it to the piano. Dr. Richardson flailed wildly within her bindings. “Keep a close eye out, and don’t let her make noise, alright?”
Zaza nodded, and Aiden rushed back up the center aisle and out onto the porch.
The back lawn was almost silent. One by one, the maintenance men who’d been in the woods had started to make their way back toward the school, each one asking about Dr. Richardson, each one receiving radio silence. They came out of the forest in groups of two or three, and each time, Aiden darted behind the top pillar of the church, praying they wouldn’t make the turn.
Every fifteen seconds, he checked his watch, waiting for 2:00 a.m. It was a Rolex, one he’d bought for himself before starting the school year. When he’d bought it, he’d stood with his mother, passing it back and forth, debating loudly in front of the attractive store clerk whether it was worth it to spend three thousand dollars on such a small accessory; whether he’d be able to wear it enough times to justify its purchase; whether kids at school would even care. Ultimately, the decision was made to buy it, of course, because of what it said about him, and the value it implied. It was 1:49 a.m., and at this moment, the watch was worthless.
A pair of footsteps came slogging out of the forest, slower than the rest. Aiden froze as Yanis came out of the black, whipping a stick that the maintenance workers used to clear undergrowth back and forth. His head was still up, the long beam of his flashlight scanning back and forth. Aiden tried to shrink into the darkness, but it was too late.
“Aiden?” Yanis took a few steps in his direction. “Are you still over there?” The flashlight beam hit him squarely between the eyes. “Aiden?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” Aiden said. “Did you find her?”
With every step closer, he could more fully appreciate Yanis’s size relative to his own—a little taller and much wider, particularly in the shoulders. His head sat perched on his neck like a boulder, threatening to drop and crush him. He was like a linebacker in a Russian version of the NFL.
“No. Where’s Dr. Richardson?”
“In there,” he said, nodding to the forest. “She said to send somebody in to look if she wasn’t back in twenty minutes. It hasn’t been twenty minutes, though.”
Yanis looked a little confused. “Have we checked the church?”
“Yeah, Dr. Richardson swept through it.”
“How long ago?”
“Ten minutes.”
“And she didn’t leave anybody here, at the initial site?”
“Just me.”
“Huh.” Yanis stopped next to him. “Very strange, right? Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said, staring back at the school.
“Ca
n I ask you something, just you and me?” Yanis reached for his vest, digging into one of the pockets. If Yanis wanted to get past, he wouldn’t have to try very hard. Aiden took two protective steps back.
Yanis pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one in Aiden’s direction.
“Oh, no—no, thank you.”
“Huh. Yeah, I guess I hear they’re no good if you play the running sports.” He put one in his mouth and lit it with a match. “I lift weights, so . . . not really so worried about the cardio. But you, you are going to be a basketball professional! Millions of dollars.”
Aiden was lost, but played along, nodding.
“In Russia, we don’t have this. We don’t think athletes are so much better than everyone else, that they deserve so much more money.” He took a long drag. “You know what I did back in Russia, for work? Private investigator. A very, very good one, for a lot of money, so much money, the only people who could afford to pay me is the Kremlin. So I guess maybe, more of a bounty hunter. I tracked down big criminals, enemies of state. And then one day, I get offered my best job yet, crazy money, to be private security coordinator. And I get on the plane . . . and I’m here. Can you believe that? What kind of school has that kind of money?”
He took another drag, giving himself time to fully exhale and watch the smoke disappear. “And yet. The students that I talk to here, they are more secretive. More afraid. Than the dissidents of Russia.” He looked at Aiden. “I don’t want you to lie to me. And if you feel like you must lie to me, I want to know why. You’re all afraid of something.”
“I . . .” Aiden stopped himself. He couldn’t place what Yanis knew or didn’t, whether he was telling the truth himself or it was an elaborate strategy to get information. “I’m not lying.”
Yanis nodded. “The one thing that gets me through my work,” he said, “is that I know I’m working for the good guys. Stopping criminals, I’m making Russia safer. Tracking students who misbehave . . .” He took another long drag. “I’m asking for honesty, one time. Did you see your girlfriend tonight? Is Emma still here?”
Aiden froze, avoiding Yanis’s eyes. He couldn’t tell whether Yanis was trying to manipulate him or not, but he wasn’t going to give in that easily. “Yes. She was in the woods.”
Behind them, something crashed inside the church, just loud enough to carry through the wooden doors and over the wind. Yanis’s head shot up, then back to Aiden. “Stay here.”
Aiden’s face flushed. He turned to tell Yanis not to go in but caught himself—all he’d do is strengthen Yanis’s resolve. He balled his fists in his pockets, thinking as fast as he could, squeezing up his chest—
“Yanis,” he said, stopping him. “I need to tell you something. I lied. I didn’t actually see her.”
Yanis came a few inches back toward him, his head jerking up in confusion.
“I wanted to find her so bad that I thought if, for some reason, you guys came looking for her, it might make me feel better.” Aiden looked sideways at his watch: 1:53 a.m. “So you can punish me however you see fit. If you have to take me in right now and write me up, I understand.”
Yanis considered it for another moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, that does explain a lot.” He turned back toward the church.
“Wait, why—” Aiden scrambled toward him. “You’re just gonna let me off? Without doing anything about it? I lied to the school!”
“Maybe we can figure out some kind of help system,” Yanis said, moving toward the door. “So you don’t feel tempted to try it again—”
“I don’t want any help,” Aiden tried shouting. “I’ll just keep lying to you . . . stupid . . . assholes—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Aiden,” Yanis said.
“Seriously?” Aiden shouted after him. “You’re not gonna do anything about all of this? You’re just gonna let me walk away?”
Yanis stopped at the door of the church. “Aiden, I’m afraid something bigger might be going on here,” he said, whipping the doors open.
Aiden watched them close and said a silent prayer, then charged in after.
Evan.
THEY STOOD FROZEN in the doorway. Evan could feel the cold, sterilized laboratory air spilling out, smelling like Lysol and metal.
Emma wasn’t lying. The ARC was real.
It was cold, polished white metal. The top expanded out into the ceiling and it was impossible to tell where it went from there. The bottom was rounded into a soft edge, just an inch across at its tip, where three holes were populated with a mess of exposed copper wire.
Emma walked up to it slowly, placing her hands against it.
The computer system around it was just as incredible. There was a control station directly in front of the machine, but the screens stretched all the way up to the ceiling, covering every corner of the walls in the circular room.
“Let’s get the picture,” Evan whispered, “and go.”
Emma nodded, her hands shaking as she raised the Polaroid camera to her eye and snapped a photo. The flash popped like a gunshot around them.
Immediately, he grabbed her by the hand, pulling her away, out of the room, through the office, and back to the lobby. The Human Lounge was still empty in front of them, and unless instructors decided to break their routine and police the common rooms this late, their path to the front gate would be unblocked.
“Wait,” Emma said behind him. “Wait, no, this doesn’t—this can’t—”
The words caught in her throat. In her hands, the Polaroid was developing slowly, the colors fading in from white to form indistinguishable shapes.
It didn’t look like anything. From the picture, the ARC looked like an ice cream machine, or a dentist’s office.
“Okay,” Evan said, snatching the camera from her hands and sprinting back into the room. He tried several different spots, different vantage points, and through the scope, none of them could capture the size of the ARC. He scanned the room, settling on the large stack of computer processors and monitors face-to-face with the machine. “What if we get up there?”
Emma stared at it, frozen in soft shock. “I—I can’t climb that. I can barely walk.”
Evan ran to the base of the machine, hoisting his leg over the first railing, ignoring the buttons he might be pressing along the way up. He threw his right leg over, but couldn’t find anywhere to counterbalance without reaching his right arm—
“Ah!” He fell to the ground, his busted arm flopping outside the sling uselessly. The camera hit the ground next to him.
“We have to go,” he said, regathering himself, ignoring the pain shooting up into his shoulder. “We have to go without the picture.”
“What about everyone else?” Emma asked.
“They’ll be fine,” he said. “If we don’t get out of here—”
“If we can’t prove what’s happening here, they’re all dead. I’m not leaving without it.”
Evan held his breath for a second, then searched the room for options. On the computer desk, buried in the back, was one of the school’s closed-circuit radios. He grabbed it.
“What are you doing?” Emma watched him as he uncoiled it and flipped the lever up.
“Calling Neesha.”
“You can’t do that.”
He didn’t stop, so she rushed over to put a hand on the radio. “Evan, what if someone in one of the other offices is listening?”
Evan nodded. “Then I won’t say anything.”
Neesha.
YANGBORNE TOOK A few steps across the hall. He walked straight toward her, then past her, into the classroom.
“Come in,” he said, beckoning her to follow, and she did.
“Dr. Yangborne, I don’t know what you think I have to do with that, but . . . it wasn’t my idea.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry, Neesha. You aren’t in trouble.”
“What?”
“In fact, the opposite. We all think you’re doing excellent work. As I’m sure you know, your trials
are responsible for a dramatic uptick in student performance.”
She clambered to catch up. “Why didn’t you . . .”
“Say something? We didn’t want to interfere. Your tests are tests we can’t do ourselves. If we provided every student with amphetamines, we’d be liable for the results. However, if the students take them on their own . . .”
“I . . .”
“You’ve permanently changed history here, Neesha. In one week, you’ve done something the school has been trying to accomplish for decades. Your discovery is not just the most dynamic for this year, but perhaps of all time. I’m sure you know what that means?”
She shook her head, and Yangborne smiled. Delicately, he moved toward her, passing her in the doorway and heading straight for the trophy case in the front of the classroom. He unlocked the case and lifted the four-foot Discovery Trophy out from the bottom.
“You can take it now, if you’d like.” He set it on the table between them.
Neesha couldn’t move. She’d pictured this moment a thousand times, hoisting the trophy high while cameramen snapped photos of her. In her head, the room was full of classmates—so everyone else could see what she’d done. They were applauding, wildly, for her.
“It’s a nice perk,” he said. “But this trophy is nothing compared to what you’re capable of. Do you have any idea the resources this school has? Its ability to impact the world?”
She swallowed. She did know. She pictured it every night before she fell asleep. Light from the window bathed the photos on the wall, the museum of Redemption’s past discoveries, casting a minefield of reflections along the ground between them.
“What is this place?” she asked quietly. “What do you all . . .”
Yangborne wasn’t surprised by the question. Instead, he kept smiling. “It’s exactly what I’ve always told you it is: a facility for the most important research in the modern world. We’re evolving the way humans think. And soon, we’ll transcend even that. Don’t you want to be a part of it?”
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