by Stephen King
Mrs. Sigsby: Hello, Luke, I run this joint, and I’d like to see you.
He considered this, then typed.
Luke: Do I have any choice?
The reply came at once:
Mrs. Sigsby: No.
“Take your smiley and stick it up your—”
There was a knock at the door. He went to it, expecting Gladys, but this time it was Hadad, one of the guys from the elevator.
“Want to take a walk, big boy?”
Luke sighed. “Give me a second. I have to put on my sneakers.”
“No problem-o.”
Hadad led him to a door past the elevator and used a key card to unlock it. They walked the short distance to the administration building together, waving away the bugs.
11
Mrs. Sigsby reminded Luke of his father’s oldest sibling. Like Aunt Rhoda, this woman was skinny, with barely a hint of hips or breasts. Only there were smile lines around Aunt Rhoda’s mouth, and always warmth in her eyes. She was a hugger. Luke thought there would be no hugs from the woman standing beside her desk in a plum-colored suit and matching heels. There might be smiles, but they would be the facial equivalent of three-dollar bills. In Mrs. Sigsby’s eyes he saw careful assessment and nothing else. Nothing at all.
“Thank you, Hadad, I’ll take it from here.”
The orderly—Luke supposed that was what Hadad was—gave a respectful nod and left the office.
“Let’s start with something obvious,” she said. “We are alone. I spend ten minutes or so alone with every new intake soon after their arrival. Some of them, disoriented and angry, have tried to attack me. I bear them no ill will for that. Why would I, for goodness’ sake? Our oldest intakes are sixteen, and the average age is eleven years and six months. Children, in other words, and children have poor impulse control at the best of times. I see such aggressive behavior as a teachable moment . . . and I teach them. Will I need to teach you, Luke?”
“Not about that,” Luke said. He wondered if Nicky was one of those who had tried to lay hands on this trim little woman. Maybe he would ask later.
“Good. Have a seat, please.”
Luke took the chair in front of her desk, leaning forward with his hands clasped tightly between his knees. Mrs. Sigsby sat opposite, her gaze that of a headmistress who would brook no nonsense. Who would treat nonsense harshly. Luke had never met a merciless adult, but he thought he might be facing one now. It was a frightening idea, and his first impulse was to reject it as ridiculous. He quashed it. Better to believe he had merely led a sheltered life. Better—safer—to believe she was what he thought she was, unless and until she proved different. This was a bad situation; that much was beyond doubt. Fooling himself might be the worst mistake he could make.
“You have made friends, Luke. That’s good, a good start. You will meet others during your time in Front Half. Two of them, a boy named Avery Dixon and a girl named Helen Simms, have just arrived. They’re sleeping now, but you’ll make their acquaintance soon, Helen perhaps before lights-out at ten. Avery may sleep through the night. He’s quite young, and is sure to be in an emotional state when he does wake up. I hope you will take him under your wing, as I’m sure Kalisha, Iris, and George will. Perhaps even Nick, although one never knows exactly how Nick will react. Including Nick himself, I should think. Helping Avery acclimate to his new situation will earn you tokens, which as you already know are the primary medium of exchange here at the Institute. That is entirely up to you, but we will be watching.”
I know you will, Luke thought. And listening. Except in the few places where you can’t. Assuming Maureen’s right about that.
“Your friends have given you a certain amount of information, some of it accurate, some of it wildly inaccurate. What I tell you now is completely accurate, so listen carefully.” She leaned forward, hands flat on her desk, her eyes locked on his. “Are your ears open, Luke? Because I do not, as the saying goes, chew my cabbage twice.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?” Snapping it at him, although her face remained as calm as ever.
“Ears open. Mind attentive.”
“Excellent. You will spend a certain amount of time in Front Half. It might be ten days; it might be two weeks; it might be as long as a month, although very few of our conscripts stay that long.”
“Conscripts? Are you saying I’ve been drafted?”
She gave a brisk nod. “I’m saying exactly that. There’s a war going on, and you have been called upon to serve your country.”
“Why? Because every now and then I can move a glass or a book without touching it? That’s stu—”
“Shut your mouth!”
Almost as shocked by this as he had been by Tony’s roundhouse slap, Luke did.
“When I talk, you listen. You don’t interrupt. Are we clear?”
Not trusting his voice, Luke only nodded.
“This is not an arms race but a mind race, and if we lose, the consequences would be more than dire; they would be unimaginable. You may only be twelve, but you are a soldier in an undeclared war. The same is true of Kalisha and the others. Do you like it? Of course not. Draftees never do, and draftees sometimes need to be taught that there are consequences for not following orders. I believe you’ve already had one lesson in that regard. If you’re as bright as your records say you are, perhaps you won’t need another. If you do, however, you’ll get it. This is not your home. This is not your school. You will not simply be given an extra chore or sent to the principal’s office or given detention; you will be punished. Clear?”
“Yes.” Tokens for good boys and girls, face-slaps for those who were bad. Or worse. The concept was chilling but simple.
“You will be given a number of injections. You will be given a number of tests. Your physical and mental condition will be monitored. You will eventually graduate to what we call Back Half, and there you will be given certain services to perform. Your stay in Back Half may last as long as six months, although the average length of active service is only six weeks. Then your memories will be wiped, and you will be sent home to your parents.”
“They’re alive? My parents are alive?”
She laughed, the sound surprisingly merry. “Of course they’re alive. We’re not murderers, Luke.”
“I want to talk to them, then. Let me talk to them and I’ll do whatever you want.” The words were out before he realized what a rash promise this was.
“No, Luke. We still don’t have a clear understanding.” She sat back. Hands once more flat on her desk. “This is not a negotiation. You will do whatever we want, regardless. Believe me on that, and spare yourself a lot of pain. You will have no contact with the outside world during your time at the Institute, and that includes your parents. You will obey all orders. You will comply with all protocols. Yet you will not, with perhaps a few exceptions, find the orders arduous or the protocols onerous. Your time will pass quickly, and when you leave us, when you wake up in your own bedroom one fine morning, none of this will have happened. The sad part—I think so, anyway—is that you won’t even know you had the great privilege of serving your country.”
“I don’t see how it’s possible,” Luke said. Speaking more to himself than to her, which was his way when something—a physics problem, a painting by Manet, the short- and long-term implications of debt—had completely engaged his attention. “So many people know me. The school . . . the people my folks work with . . . my friends . . . you can’t wipe all their memories.”
She didn’t laugh, but she smiled. “I think you might be very surprised at what we can do. We’re finished here.” She stood, came around the desk, and held out her hand. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you.”
Luke also stood, but he didn’t take her hand.
“Shake my hand, Luke.”
Part of him wanted to, old habits were hard to break, but he kept his hand at his side.
“Shake it, or you’ll wish you did. I won’t tell you again.”
“Yes.”
“Good. I know this is a dark time for you, but if you do as you’re told, you’ll come out into the sunshine. Trust me on that. Now go.”
He left, once more feeling like a boy in a dream, or Alice down the rabbit hole. Hadad was chatting with Mrs. Sigsby’s secretary or assistant or whatever she was, and waiting for him. “I’ll take you back to your room. Close at my side, right? No running for the trees.”
They went out, started across to the residence building, and then Luke stopped as a wave of dizziness came over him. “Wait,” he said. “Hold on.”
He bent down, grasping his knees. For a moment colored lights swarmed in front of his eyes.
“You going to pass out?” Hadad asked. “What do you think?”
“No,” Luke said, “but give me a few more seconds.”
“Sure. You got a shot, right?”
“Yes.”
Hadad nodded. “It hits some kids that way. Delayed reaction.”
Luke expected to be asked if he saw spots or dots, but Hadad just waited, whistling through his teeth and waving at the swarming noseeums.
Luke thought about Mrs. Sigsby’s cold gray eyes, and her flat refusal to tell him how a place like this could possibly exist without some form of . . . what would be the correct term? Extreme rendition, maybe. It was as if she were daring him to do the math.
Do as you’re told, you’ll come out into the sunshine. Trust me on that.
He was only twelve, and understood that his experience of the world was limited, but one thing he was quite sure of: when someone said trust me, they were usually lying through their teeth.
“Feeling better? Ready to go, my son?”
“Yes.” Luke straightened up. “But I’m not your son.”
Hadad grinned; a gold tooth flashed. “For now you are. You’re a son of the Institute, Luke. Might as well relax and get used to it.”
12
Once they were inside the residence building, Hadad called the elevator, said “Seeya later, alligator,” and stepped in. Luke started back to his room and saw Nicky Wilholm sitting on the floor opposite the ice machine, eating a peanut butter cup. Above him was a poster showing two cartoon chipmunks with comic-strip word balloons coming from their grinning mouths. The one on the left was saying, “Live the life you love!” The other was saying, “Love the life you live!” Luke stared at this, bemused.
“What do you call a poster like that in a place like this, smart kid?” Nicky asked. “Irony, sarcasm, or bullshit?”
“All three,” Luke said, and sat down beside him.
Nicky held out the Reese’s package. “Want the other one?”
Luke did. He said thanks, stripped off the crinkly paper the candy sat in, and ate the peanut butter cup in three quick bites.
Nicky watched him, amused. “Had your first shot, didn’t you? They make you crave sugar. You may not want much for supper, but you’ll eat dessert. Guaranteed. Seen any dots yet?”
“No.” Then he remembered bending over and grasping his knees while he waited for the dizziness to pass. “Maybe. What are they?”
“The techs call em the Stasi Lights. They’re part of the prep. I’ve only had a few shots and hardly any weird tests, because I’m a TK-pos. Same as George, and Sha’s TP-pos. You get more if you’re just ordinary.” He considered. “Well, none of us are ordinary or we wouldn’t be here, but you know what I mean.”
“Are they trying to up our ability?”
Nicky shrugged.
“What are they prepping us for?”
“Whatever goes on in Back Half. How’d it go with the queen bitch? Did she give you the speech about serving your country?”
“She said I’d been conscripted. I feel more like I got press-ganged. Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see, when captains needed men to crew their ships—”
“I know what press gangs were, Lukey. I did go to school, you know. And you’re not wrong.” He got up. “Come on, let’s go out to the playground. You can give me another chess lesson.”
“I think I just want to lie down,” Luke said.
“You do look kinda pale. But the candy helped, right? Admit it.”
“It did,” Luke agreed. “What did you do to get a token?”
“Nothing. Maureen slipped me one before she went off-shift. Kalisha’s right about her.” Nicky said this almost grudgingly. “If there’s one good person in this palace of shit, it’s her.”
They had arrived at Luke’s door. Nicky held up a fist, and Luke bumped it with his own.
“See you when the ding-dong goes, smart kid. In the meantime, keep your pecker up.”
MAUREEN AND AVERY
1
Luke slipped into a nap crowded with unpleasant dream fragments, only waking when the ding-dong went for supper. He was glad to hear it. Nicky had been wrong; he did want to eat, and he was hungry for company as well as food. Nevertheless, he stopped in the canteen to verify that the others hadn’t just been pulling his leg. They hadn’t been. Next to the snack machine was a fully stocked vintage cigarette dispenser, the lighted square on top showing a man and woman in fancy dress smoking on a balcony and laughing. Next to this was a coin-op dispensing adult beverages in small bottles—what some of the booze-inclined kids at the Brod called “airline nips.” You could get a pack of cigarettes for eight tokens; a small bottle of Leroux Blackberry Wine for five. On the other side of the room was a bright red Coke cooler.
Hands grabbed him from behind and lifted him off his feet. Luke yelled in surprise, and Nicky laughed in his ear.
“If you wet your pants, you must take a chance and dance to France!”
“Put me down!”
Nicky swung him back and forth instead. “Lukey-tiddy-ooky-del-Lukey! Tee-legged, toe-legged, bow-legged Lukey!”
He set Luke down, spun him around, raised his hands, and began to boogaloo to the Muzak drifting from the overhead speakers. Behind him, Kalisha and Iris were looking on with identical boys will be boys expressions. “Wanna fight, Lukey? Tee-legged, toe-legged, bow-legged Lukey?”
“Stick your nose up my ass and fight for air,” Luke said, and began to laugh. The word for Nicky, he thought, whether in a good mood or a bad one, was alive.
“Nice one,” George said, pushing his way between the two girls. “I’m saving that for later use.”
“Just make sure I get the credit,” Luke said.
Nicky quit dancing. “I’m starvin, Marvin. Come on, let’s eat.”
Luke lifted the top of the Coke dispenser. “Soft drinks are free, I take it. You just pay for booze, smokes, and snacks.”
“You take it right,” Kalisha said.
“And, uh . . .” He pointed at the snack machine. Most of the goodies could be had for a single toke, but the one he was pointing at was a six-token buy. “Is that . . .”
“Are you asking if Hi Boy Brownies are what you think they are?” Iris asked. “I never had one myself, but I’m pretty sure they are.”
“Yessum,” George said. “I got off, but I also got a rash. I’m allergic. Come on, let’s eat.”
They sat at the same table. NORMA had been replaced by SHERRY. Luke ordered breaded mushrooms, chopped steak with salad, and something going under the alias of Vanilla Cream Brulay. There might be smart people in this sinister wonderland—certainly Mrs. Sigsby hadn’t seemed like a dummy—but whoever made out the menus was perhaps not one of them. Or was that intellectual snobbery on his part?
Luke decided he didn’t care.
They talked a bit about their schools before they had been torn out of their normal lives—regular schools, so far
as Luke could tell, not special ones for smart kids—and about their favorite TV programs and movies. All good until Iris raised a hand to brush at one freckled cheek, and Luke realized she was crying. Not much, just a little, but yeah, those were tears.
“No shots today, but I had that damned ass-temp,” she said. When she saw Luke’s puzzled expression, she smiled, which caused another tear to roll down her cheek. “They take our temperature rectally.”
The others were nodding. “No idea why,” George said, “but it’s humiliating.”
“It’s also nineteenth century,” Kalisha said. “They must have some kind of reason, but . . .” She shrugged.
“Who wants coffee?” Nick asked. “I’ll get it if you—”
“Hey.”
From the doorway. They turned and saw a girl wearing jeans and a sleeveless top. Her hair, short and spiky, was green on one side and bluish-purple on the other. In spite of this punk ’do, she looked like a fairy-tale child lost in the woods. Luke guessed she was about his age.
“Where am I? Do any of you know what this place is?”
“Come on over, Sunshine,” Nicky said, and flashed his dazzling smile. “Drag up a rock. Sample the cuisine.”
“I’m not hungry,” the newcomer said. “Just tell me one thing. Who do I have to blow to get out of here?”
That was how they met Helen Simms.
2
After they ate, they went out to the playground (Luke did not neglect to slather himself with bug-dope) and filled Helen in. It turned out that she was a TK, and like George and Nicky, she was a pos. She proved this by knocking over several pieces on the chessboard when Nicky set them up.
“Not just pos but awesome pos,” George said. “Let me try that.” He managed to knock over a pawn, and he made the black king rock a bit on its base, but that was all. He sat back and blew out his cheeks. “Okay, you win, Helen.”
“I think we’re all losers,” she said. “That’s what I think.”
Luke asked her if she was worried about her parents.