by Mark Frost
“Wow. You are good.”
“Oh, it’s not me,” she said, then leaned forward, pointed to the screen, and whispered, “You can’t fool the machine.”
“Okay, busted. He’s an academic researcher.”
Robbins smiled. “That sounds slightly more plausible. In what field?”
“Neurobiology, at UC Santa Barbara.”
“What is your mom’s full name?”
“Belinda Melendez West.”
“What does she do?”
“She works as a paralegal.”
“Where is her family from?” asked Robbins.
Will raised an eyebrow. “The Melendezes? Barcelona. Her parents came here in the 1960s.”
“Are your grandparents still living?”
“No.”
“Did you know any of them?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Would you classify yourself as Caucasian or Hispanic?”
“Neither. I’m American.”
Dr. Robbins seemed to like that answer. “Where else has your family lived besides Albuquerque?”
“Tucson, Las Cruces, Phoenix, Flagstaff, La Jolla, last year Temecula, and then here in Ojai—”
“Why do your parents move around so much?”
Good question, Will thought. Out loud, he said, “That’s the price Dad pays for working in the exciting and highly competitive field of neurobiology.”
“This part’s going to hurt a little,” she said.
He felt something sharp and prickly—like a steel brush—scrape his palms as the surface of the tablet crackled with a hot flash of light that filled the room, then just as quickly went dark.
Will yanked his hands away in alarm. The surface of the screen glowed like a pool lit underwater. Dust and debris floating in the air above rushed down into the black square as if caught in the pull of a magnetic field. Then the light went out, the surface stabilized, and the black tablet shrank back to its original chalkboard size.
Okay, Will thought. That is truly deeply weird.
Will looked at his hands. Both palms were red, and they pulsed as if he’d set them on a hot stove. Robbins took his hands in hers and examined them.
“I warned you it was going to hurt,” she said softly.
“What’s all this really about?”
“Sorry for the mumbo jumbo, Will. You’ll understand eventually. Or you won’t.” She gave him back his hands. His palms already looked less inflamed.
“Thanks for clearing that up. How’d I do on your test?”
“I don’t know,” she said, smiling like she had a secret. “Why don’t you ask the Mystic Eight Ball?” Robbins held up the black tablet in front of him. A photo-real 3-D image of an eight ball appeared on-screen. “Go ahead.”
Will lowered his voice in a parody of concentration. “Did I pass the test?”
Robbins gave the tablet a shake. The “Eight Ball” revolved and revealed a small window on its opposite side. A miniature white tile floated into view: Looking good!
“There you go. So sayeth the oracle,” she said, sliding the tablet back into her bag. “I have one last question of my own, Will. Nothing to do with the test.”
“Shoot.”
“Aren’t you absolutely bored to the edge of living death with high school?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled. “Let’s go talk to Mom.”
“I represent the most academically accomplished college preparatory academy in the country,” said Robbins as she typed commands into her laptop. “That you’ve never heard of.”
“Why haven’t we heard of you?” asked Belinda West.
“I’ll address that in a moment, Mrs. West. I think you’ll appreciate the answer.”
Dr. Robbins opened her laptop until it lay flat on Barton’s desk. A multidimensional image of thick cloud cover projected into the air about three feet above the screen, like an impossibly detailed children’s pop-up book. Barton and Rasche stood back in amazement.
As they all watched, the point of view circled above the clouds and then descended into them. As the clouds thinned, a stately array of buildings on vast green lawns surrounded by thick woods appeared. They floated down toward this astonishingly conjured world, swooped suddenly lower, and leveled off. They flew toward the campus above a long, straight entrance road lined with towering trees. As they passed over a gate and guardhouse, Will caught the glow of illuminated letters engraved on an impressive stone facade:
THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATED LEARNING
“We’re offering Will a full scholarship,” said Robbins. “Completely on the merits. We’ll include travel, living expenses, textbooks, and supplies. This won’t cost your family a dime.”
“Where’s the school?” asked Will.
“Wisconsin,” said Robbins.
The simulated flyby continued. They glided over classic ivy-covered stone halls connected by wide symmetrical walkways. Beyond the central campus, they passed over a huge retro-style field house. An outdoor all-purpose stadium. Stables and riding rings. Fields for a variety of sports, including a golf course.
“What’s the catch?” asked Will.
“There’s only one,” she said. “You have to want this, Will. The Center opened its doors in 1915. You haven’t heard of us because we value privacy. We never look for or encourage publicity. That’s one of the ways in which we protect our students and our reputation. But I assure you all the best colleges and universities in the world know who we are. Our graduate placement into those institutions has no equal. Among our distinguished alumni, you’ll find fourteen senators, a vice president, two members of the Supreme Court, nine Cabinet members, seven Nobel Prize winners, dozens of leaders in business and industry, and several foreign heads of state. To name just a few.”
The tour continued over a large meandering lake tucked back in the nearby woods. The trees were ablaze with spectacular fall colors. A big rustic boathouse sat on the shore. A tall, twisting Gothic-looking structure—almost a castle—occupied a craggy island in the center of the lake. Then the “camera” withdrew up into the virtual clouds and the image faded from view.
“That was … like … magic,” said Rasche, his mouth agape.
“Bear in mind, magic is the name we’ve always applied to tomorrow’s technology,” said Robbins, “when we see it today.”
Dr. Robbins turned to Will and his mother. “No one applies to the Center. You have to be invited.” She pulled an oversized packet from her briefcase and handed it to Belinda. “We think you’ll find everything your family needs to make an informed decision in here. Take your time. We know you have a lot to think about.”
Barton chimed in. “And you can certainly be excused from class for the rest of the day to get started if you like, Will.”
“I do like,” said Will.
Everyone chuckled politely.
“All of my contact information is there,” said Robbins, packing up her notebook. “As you go through your process, please don’t hesitate to call with any questions or concerns you might have.”
She shook Will’s hand again and headed out.
“Dr. Robbins?” asked Will.
She stopped at the door. “Yes, Will?”
“What’s your first name?”
“Lillian,” she said, amused. Lillian Robbins knew how to leave a room, and now she did, briskly.
After a few minutes of predictable fawning from Barton and Rasche, Will left the office with Belinda. An intuitive flash went through his mind as they walked down the empty halls:
I won’t be seeing this place again.
Dr. Robbins was right: He had an avalanche of things to think about, hundreds of questions piling up in his mind. But none were more troubling than the one that had snared his soul the moment his mom had walked through Barton’s door that morning. He’d initially tried to dismiss it as an insane distraction. An off-kilter headtrip cooked up by the compounding weirdness of the day.
But now that they
were alone, it was worse. Much worse. And it wasn’t going away.
He glanced at his mother. Still wearing an insipid smile and those damn dark glasses. She saw him look at her and gave his hand an excited little squeeze.
Wrong. Completely wrong.
As he left for home with someone who looked and sounded exactly like Belinda Melendez West, the question was, Why did he have the feeling this wasn’t the same person he’d said goodbye to two hours ago?
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
This was her, but at the same time it wasn’t.
What about her makes me feel this way? Will couldn’t put his finger on it. It was a subtle feeling, but it gripped him like a python.
This was his mom’s car, no doubt about that. The old beater Ford Focus she called the Green Machine, down to her macramé back support and the floating compass on the dash. He felt below his seat and found the plastic In-N-Out cup he’d stashed there two days earlier.
“Well, I just don’t know what to say, Will,” she said, hands fluttering on the steering wheel. “I mean, if this isn’t the most amazing thing ever.”
Looked like her and sounded like her … but that wasn’t the right thing for her to say. She should be worried about how this test result came about. Asking him why he’d gone against their instructions and drawn attention to himself this way. That would have been the first thing she said.
Will kept his eyes forward, afraid she’d see the creeping terror on his face if he looked directly at her.
#14: ASK ALL QUESTIONS IN THE ORDER OF THEIR IMPORTANCE.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m just so excited,” she said, jangling the bracelets on her wrist. “The principal called when I got to work, and put Dr. Robbins on the line. I called Dad as soon as we hung up. He’s ditching the rest of the conference and coming home tonight. He sounded pretty jazzed.”
Dad would have a lot of reactions to this, but “jazzed” wouldn’t be one of them, Will thought.
Will worked to keep his breathing under control, the way his dad had taught him. It got harder to stay calm when they passed a black sedan parked on a side street a block from their house. It looked like the same car from this morning.
“I guess we have a whole lot to talk about,” he said, trying to sound calm.
“Indeed. But I have to say, Will-bear, you don’t sound all that excited.”
“I want to look over what’s in here,” said Will, gripping Robbins’s packet in his hands. “One step at a time.”
#20: THERE MUST ALWAYS BE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EVIDENCE AND CONCLUSION.
“You know, you’re absolutely right,” she said as she pulled into their driveway. “We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time.”
She parked and gathered her things. Will hurried in ahead of her. He ran upstairs, threw on some sweats, grabbed his MacBook, and brought it down to the kitchen. Fighting to stay calm, he clung to what he knew he had to do: Open his senses, clear his mind, notice every detail.
#9: WATCH, LOOK, AND LISTEN, OR YOU WON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE MISSING.
“You get started, then,” said Belinda, grabbing a Diet Coke from the fridge. “I’ve got to head back to work. We’ll go over everything later with Dad.”
She hugged him from behind as he sat at the table. Her touch felt tense, fraught with twisted anxiety, wrong. Her dark glasses slipped down, and for the first time Will saw her eyes: they were Belinda’s, but chillingly glassy and vacant.
“We are both so proud of you,” she said, and then she was gone.
He heard the front door close, then hurried to the living room and watched her drive off. The Green Machine slowed as she turned the corner where he’d seen the black sedan. Her window slid down as she edged out of sight. Will ran to the next window, where he could see both cars. Stopped beside each other, driver to driver.
She’s talking to them.
Will locked the doors. He tried his dad’s cell—please, Dad, please answer—but got voice mail. Will hung up, then tapped a text: NEED TO TALK. CALL ME.
Caps. SHOUTING. Anything to grab Dad’s attention. Will set his phone beside his laptop and picked up Dr. Robbins’s packet. His hands were shaking. It took every ounce of self-control to keep his terror from breaking loose.…
His phone marimbaed. Will jumped out of his skin and picked up before the second ring: Dad calling.
“Dad?… Dad?” Will heard a hollow metallic whistling, like water echoing through a storm drain. “Dad, are you there?”
There was a burst of static, then silence. Will hit CALL BACK and heard the same swampy interference. Dad must be out of range or driving through a dead zone. Will killed the call and set the phone down where he could see it. He needed to stay focused, ground himself in facts. Analyze, manage, arrange: The Importance of an Orderly Mind.
He opened Robbins’s packet and paged through some forms, including an admission application for his parents to sign. A magazine-sized blank rectangle, made of strong, flexible material, slid out. The words TOUCH HERE appeared, and he did. More words appeared, in a simple, elegant font:
THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATED LEARNING
Below that, the school’s crest took shape. It was a coat of arms, an ornate shield in navy blue and dark silver, divided into three horizontal sections, each with an image. On top, a winged angel held a book and a sword. In the middle, a majestic black horse reared, its hooves rimmed with flames. On the bottom, a knight in armor pointed his sword at a vanquished foe lying on the ground. A scroll unfurled below the crest with a date, 1915, and a motto: Knowledge Is the Path, Wisdom Is the Purpose.
Photographs of the campus filled the screen. An audio track with quotes about the school’s credentials and distinguished faculty began to play. One of the photos stopped him cold: a shot of a still forest in winter, shrouded in thick mist, hardwoods and evergreens buried in thick snow. The female voice on the audio said, “You’ll feel as if you’re in a dream.”
It was the image he’d remembered from his dream the night before.
The image dissolved into video of students in classrooms listening to lectures and working in labs. Hanging out in a coffee shop and a bowling alley. Performing plays and concerts, riding horses, playing a dozen different sports. Bright, eager faces of kids Will’s age or older. All wore clothes in variations of the Center’s colors—navy blue and gray. The voices on the audio track were saying, “Life-changing opportunities around every corner … I made friends I knew instantly would be mine forever … I gained a feeling of confidence and belonging that’s stayed with me my whole life.”
Will knew this was advertising, designed to arouse specific feelings: The Center makes students smarter, stronger, and more popular. My best qualities will be recognized and rewarded and all my dreams will come true.
The screen shifted to video of the school choir singing in a candlelit jewel-box chapel. The beauty of the song gripped him, a slow, celestial melody that continued over heartwarming images of a graduation. Proud parents embracing their beaming cap-and-gowned kids. This was the part of the deal known as closing the sale. But knowing he was being manipulated didn’t prevent it from working. The Center made the life he’d spent stumbling through overcrowded, underfunded public schools seem futile.
Could a place this perfect really exist?
Will Google Earthed the school’s mailing address: New Brighton Township, Wisconsin. A rural community, seventy miles northeast of the corner where Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin came together. He zoomed in on the town, then scrolled out until he found the Center. It appeared exactly as he’d seen it in Robbins’s 3-D preview: the grand old buildings, the playing fields, the nearby lake.
It’s real. It’s all there.
Will’s parents didn’t have money or connections, and they’d trained him to leave no tracks, so he’d reined himself in. Posing as a B+ student, flying under the radar. Following Rule #3: DON’T DRAW ATTENTION TO YOURSELF meant he had no chan
ce of earning academic or athletic scholarships and the life that went with them. But now, without asking for it, a door to this astonishingly better world had opened.
What if the Center was a place where he could finally be himself?
Will’s phone dinged. It was a text from Dad: IN THE CAR. BAD RECEPTION. HOME BY SIX. TALK THEN.
Will glanced at the time and was shocked to see it was the middle of the afternoon. He’d been grinding this for hours. “Belinda” would be home from work soon, and he didn’t want to be in the same room with her again until Dad returned.
I need to see what Dad thinks. Then we’ll decide what to do about it together.
Will made a PB and J and wolfed it down as he prowled the house. He looked at the meager possessions they’d dragged around to six cities in fourteen years. They owned a small TV but seldom watched anything but news. All they did with their free time was read. Shelves lined every wall in the house—scientific, medical, legal texts.
#82: WITHOUT A LIFE OF THE MIND, YOU’LL LIVE A MINDLESS LIFE.
His eye landed on a shelf of family photos. He picked up a picture of his parents on their wedding day, playfully feeding each other cake. Belinda wore a gathered velvet gown, her long black hair woven with lace. Dad sported a burgundy velvet tux and a doofus grad-school haircut and scruffy beard.
Happy, laughing, carefree. He’d always felt a special connection to this picture, because he could glimpse the start of his own life in this moment, as if his spirit were right there, hovering, unseen: the spark in his parents’ eyes.
He thought of the glimpse of “Belinda’s” eyes he’d gotten when her sunglasses had slipped down—empty, vacant—and compared it to the vibrant woman in this picture. That’s what was different. Her soul was missing.
What had they done to her? Would they try to do the same thing to him?
He heard a car door shut and peeked out the window. Three black sedans had stopped in front. Men in black caps and jackets were headed for the house. One of them, a bald man, was pointing and giving orders.