The Select

CHAPTER THREE

"...think this could be some sort of test too?"

It was the third time Trish had asked that since dinner—which Quinn was still marveling at. She glanced over at where her roommate for the night sat with an MCAT review course manual open on her lap. Trish was pudgy, with long frizzy hair and mild acne. The seams of her jeans, made for someone two sizes smaller, were stretched almost to the breaking point over her thighs.

"I don't know what you mean."

Trish rolled her eyes and sighed as if it were all so obvious.

"This." She gestured around her. "This room. Spending the night in the med students' rooms. They could be testing us to see how well we respect their rules. What do you think?"

A handsome room—a two-room suite, actually. Cedar paneled walls, a thick rug on the floor, and their own cheerfully tiled bathroom. The outer room had the beds and a view of the woods; the elaborate headboards looked like mahogany and were built into the walls, with drawers and bookshelves and compartments of various sizes; two huge closets also built in. The inner half was a sitting room with two built-in desks that also seemed like mahogany, plus a neetly upholstered, Laura Ashley-looking couch, a round table, and two comfy chairs. A far cry from the cinderblock box she called home at U. Conn.

"Isn't this the most incredible dorm room you've ever seen?" Quinn said.

"Got to be. Do you think it's true about the daily maid service?"

"That's what I've heard."

"But do you think they're testing us by putting us in here?"

"Could be. They certainly have enough rules around here."

The Ingraham, she'd heard, had a reputation of exerting an unusual amount of control over its students, and that seemed to stretch to its applicants as well. All applicants—and they reminded you endlessly that you'd been invited to be an applicant—had to attend the full orientation and spend the night prior to the test in The Ingraham's dorm.

As soon as she'd arrived, Quinn had been handed an orientation booklet which had laid down the rules in no uncertain terms. And in bold type had been the requirement of spending the night here. As if to say, if you don't stay the night, don't bother showing up for the test. Why, Quinn wondered, were they so adamant about that?

And these dorm rooms, all that stuff about not opening any drawers or closets, respecting the residents' belongings and privacy, as if she had any intention of prying into people's drawers.

Quinn was grateful for the free room and board. But why were they so strident?

"Well, the whole thing beats me," Trish said, "but I'm going to keep my hands off everything in here. Not even going to use the desk lamp."

"Maybe we shouldn't even get in the beds," Quinn teased in a near whisper. "Maybe we should just leave the spreads pulled up and sleep on top."

"You think really so?"

"Or maybe should sleep on the floor," Quinn continued, wondering when Trish would catch on. "That way we won't wrinkle the spreads."

"Oh, I don't..." Finally she caught it. She smiled. "You're putting me on, aren't you! I must sound a little nuts, huh?"

"No. Just nervous. Like me."

"You too? You don't show it."

Next to Trish anyone would look calm, but she saw no need to point that out.

"I guess I have a different way of showing it."

"So, aren't you going to study?"

"I don't think this is the kind of test you can study for. But you go ahead. I think I'll take a little walk."

She strolled out into the hall and headed for Matt's down on the first floor. The hall was almost like an expensive hotel corridor, well lit, carpeted, and clean—no graffiti, no cigarette burns, no litter. She wondered at the size of the maintenance crew it took to keep things in this shape.

Tim and Matt had somehow finagled a room together. Quinn begrudgingly admitted to herself that she had warmed to Tim over dinner. She'd actually had fun laughing at his unsuccessful attempts to conjure up some white wine to go with the chicken francaise. She found him stretched out on the couch, reading a Cerebus comic—and still wearing his shades. Matt sat with his feet up on the table, listening to his Walkman. He looked up and waved.

Tim said, "Ah, the Mighty Quinn. Welcome!" He plucked up a fold of a new sweatshirt he was wearing emblazoned with The Ingraham. "How do I look?"

"'Like a patient etherized upon a table.'"

"Ah! A T.S. Eliot fan."

"But what poem?"

"'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'—first stanza." He lifted his sunglasses and looked at her cross-eyed. "You saw the comic book and thought you'd slip one by me, huh?"

"Not if it's a Cerebus, but isn't it hard to read with those things?"

"Very. Especially at night."

"Then why wear them?"

Matt lowered the headphones to the back of his neck and answered for his roommate. "Because as Andre Agassi says, 'Image...is everything.'"

Quinn had her own idea about that: Image had nothing to do with it; Tim Brown was hiding behind those lenses.

"How'd you two manage to get assigned to the same room?" she asked, dropping into a chair.

Tim said, "I traded with the guy who was originally here."

"You sure there's isn't a rule against that?" Quinn said.

"I didn't see one," Matt said, "but I'll bet there's one somewhere."

Tim put down his Cerebus and sat up. "Hell of a lot of rules, don't you think?"

"Their ball, their gloves, and their playing field," Matt said. "So they call the shots."

"Yeah," Tim said, "but what's this deal with you've got to sleep over in the dorm the night before the test? Where's that come from? If you don't like institutional food, or you'd rather stay in the Holiday Inn, why should they care?"

Quinn had been thinking about that. "Maybe they want us all to start off tomorrow morning on equal footing. You know, same dinner, same amount of sleep on the same kind of mattress, same breakfast, that sort of thing. Another level of standardization for the test."

Matt nodded. "Maybe. Their booklet does say they've learned over the years that they get the best results from their applicants under these conditions."

"Well, I don't know about you guys," Tim said, "but this kind of thing makes me feel like some sort of a lab rat."

"Maybe the whole point," Quin said, "is seeing if you're willing to do things their way."

"Obviously this place isn't for the wild and free spirits of the world," Matt said.

"But the price is right," Quinn said. The price is very right.

Tim shrugged. "No arguing that."

"What's not to like?" Quinn said. "The place is like a resort. The dorm is like a Hyatt, the caf is like a fine restaurant, you've got a physical fitness center with a lap pool, a great game room, and a top-notch faculty—"

"Even a pub," Tim said.

"Makes you wonder, though, doesn't it?" Matt said. "I mean, what are they getting out of it?"

"Simple," Quinn said. "The cream of the crop."

"Yeah...maybe."

"TANSTAAFL," Tim said, and pointed to Quinn with raised eyebrows.

She guessed it was her turn to identify a reference.

"Easy," she said. "It means There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. From The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein."

"Hey, very good," Tim said, nodding and mock applauding. "The lady knows SF too."

Quinn was surprised to find herself enjoying in his approval. She shook it off and said, "Who wouldn't want to go to medical school here?"

"Nobody," Matt said, "until you realize that you must spend all four years right within these wall."

Quinn felt a flash of resentment. Easy to say when money was no object. But she knew Matt didn't deserve that. He was a sweet guy despite the silver spoon he'd teethed on.

"My point exactly," Tim was saying. "What's the big deal? Why must you spend all four years in their dorm?"

Quinn shrugged. "I don't know. But they're very serious about it. I understand they make you sign a contract to live on campus all four years. You don't sign it, you don't register."

"And if you quit, you pay," Tim said.

Quinn was startled. She hadn't heard about that. "Pay? Pay what?"

"All your back tuition, room, board, book and lab fees."

"But that could be—"

"Lots," Tim said. "Upwards of thirty thou a year."

"But if you get sick or hurt—"

"No. Only if you transfer to another medical school. If you get sick or hurt or change careers, it's goodbye and good luck. But if you want to graduate from another med school, watch out."

Quinn figured Tim must have read every line of fine print in the booklet.

"What if you want to get married?"

"You wait," Tim said.

"Or you marry a fellow Ingrahamite," Matt laughed. "But seriously, speaking as the son of a high-priced lawyer, let me assure you: contracts can be broken."

"Not this one," Tim said. "Not yet, anyway. Some parents took The Ingraham to court a few years ago. Their kid wanted to transfer to Cornell after two years here. They spent years battling it, and lost. They had to pay."

"Well, they won't have to worry about me," Quinn said. "If I get in, I'm staying." And she meant it with all her heart.

But Tim's remark about no free lunch nagged at her.

Matt was staring at Tim. "Where'd you learn so much about The Ingraham contract."

"Time had an article on it awhile back." Tim lifted his sunglasses and rubbed his right eye with his index finger. "Let's see...it was the October 15th issue, page 12, lower right-hand corner."

Quinn stared in amazement, then glanced at Matt for his reaction. He was grinning at her.

"He's kidding, isn't he?" she said to Matt.

"Didn't I tell you?"

Tim sat up. "Tell her? Tell her what?"

"About your weird memory."

Tim placed a hand over his heart and let out an exaggerated sigh. "You had me worried there. For one very bad moment I thought you'd told her about my...other weirdness."

"Oh, God, I'd never do that!" Matt said.

Quinn knew when she was being put on. She stared at Matt with feigned shock.

"Sure you did. You said he's got a shoe fetish and his philosophy of life is somewhere to the left of 'Whoopee!'"

Matt laughed but Tim was on his feet, wagging his index finger at her.

"I know that line! I know it! It's from...A Thousand Clowns. Murray Burns discussing his sister. Right?"

"Incredible," Quinn said. Matt hadn't exaggerated. Tim Brown's memory was phenomenal.

"But how do you know that line?" Tim said.

"For a long time it was my favorite movie."

"Yeah, well, Jason Robards was great, but—"

"It just was."

Quinn didn't want to get into how as a teenager she'd fantasized about taking the place of Murray Burns' nephew—she'd have been Murray's niece—and being raised by such a lovable non-conformist. Her parents were such staid, stick-in-the-mud, normal people. For years she'd longed for a little kookiness in her home.

She glanced at her watch. It was 10:50. "I'd better be getting back."

"Right," Tim said. "I've heard you turn into a pumpkin if you're late."

"Really? Was that in the Time article too?"

"A curfew!" Matt said, sitting up on his bed. "Can you believe it? I haven't been here a full day yet and already this place is getting on my nerves. And have you seen all the video cameras around the campus?"

Tim pressed a finger to his lips. "Careful, my friend. The walls may have ears."

MONITORING

"You bet they have ears, wise ass," Louis Verran muttered as he switched to another set of pick-ups.

"Mattress sensors positive all over the place, boss," Kurt said from his console.

"All right," Verran said. "It's almost eleven. Nighty-night time. Let's get some slow waves going."

He flipped the power switch and gave the rheostat a clockwise turn on the slow-wave inducer. Getting them to sleep before midnight was always the trickiest part of entrance exam week. Most of these kids were uptight about the test tomorrow and wired on their own adrenalin. That was why all the coffee in the caf had been decaf—even the pots marked regular. Without a little help, too many would spend the night chewing their fingernails and tossing and turning on the unfamiliar mattresses. Big no-no. They had to sleep. All of them. For at least five full hours.

So each suite was hard-wired with—among other things—slow-wave/spindle inducers. A huge expense, considering that they were used only one week out of fifty-two. The inducer created an electromagnetic field in the rooms that connected with human brain waves, inducing sleep spindles on the EEG, and making the pattern most comfortable in the slow-wave form—the sleep pattern. Worked great on the kids if they were lying in bed; thirty to sixty seconds and they were in dreamland. Took a little longer if they were sitting up, but eventually they'd give in to this sudden, overwhelming urge to lie down...just for a few minutes...just to rest their eyes.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said a voice behind Verran. "It's lights-out time for the students, I believe."

Verran suppressed a growl of annoyance as he turned to face Dr. Alston. The ghoul was always meddling. Seemed to think being Director gave him the right to stick his nose into everyone's business. Didn't know the first thing about running security but he always had two cents' worth of nothing to contribute.

"Dr. Alston," Verran said, forcing a smile. "Back again for another evening of fun and games, I see."

"Hardly, Louis," Alston said grimly as he sniffed the air. His gaze came to rest on Verran's smoldering cigar.

"Louis...is that another cigar?"

Louis held it up before him, appearing to scrutinize it. "Good lord, Doc, I believe you're right!"

Elliot leaned on his console and coughed to hide a laugh.

"Really, Louis, how many times must I remind you of the rules against smoking on this campus?"

"And how many times must I remind you, Doc, that this is the one place on campus where that rule doesn't apply?"

And how many times, you tightass, are we going to butt heads on this? Verran thought.

"We'll settle this some other time," Dr. Alston said. "Right now, how are we doing?"

Verran clamped the cigar between his teeth and leaned left so he could see Kurt behind Alston.

"What's the status on the Z Patrol?"

"Getting there," Kurt said. "Twenty percent down already."

Verran glanced at the timer. The slow-wave inducers had been running just shy of fifteen minutes.

"Right on schedule."

Dr. Alston pulled up a chair and sat down on the far side of the control room, fanning the air with a manila folder every time some of Verran's cigar smoke drifted his way.

Half an hour later Kurt slapped his palm on the top of his console.

"There goes the last of them. They're all down."

Verran nodded his approval. Amazing how well those inducers worked. No one could hold out against them for long—unless they were on anticonvulsant medication. And The Ingraham's pre-invitation screening process culled out any such kids long before the first invitation was sent.

"Excellent!" Dr. Alston said, rising and moving to the center of the control room. "Let the music begin!"

"Gimme a break," Verran muttered as he nodded to Elliot.

Elliot began to work the switches on his own console, and soon "the music," as Dr. Alston called it, began to filter through the occupied dorm rooms.