The Gift

Chapter 49

Wisty

ALL RIGHT, so I'll admit it. There was a very small part of me-the dream-big girl who'll cling to any hope no matter how many times she's been crushed by the cruel heel of life-that hoped we were headed to some sort of spa.

I mean, I wasn't expecting a mani-pedi while drinking a seltzer with lime, but I let myself imagine something low-key, like being a quarantined tuberculosis patient at a convalescent hospital, sitting on a porch wrapped in a blanket, staring out at the countryside.

But that was the very, very old days, and this was a very, very new world. As noted by the name of this facility.

"Welcome to the Brave New World Center," intones a disembodied female voice as we step into the brightly lit, ultraclean entryway of our new home. Stun guns are planted firmly in the smalls of our backs.

"Please prepare to watch the Brave New World Center Onboarding Video," continues the voice. She sounds like a computer-designed voice-over-a little too perfectly modulated. With any luck, maybe she'll shut up and we'll start watching calming videos of waterfalls and rain forests, or maybe she'll conduct mind-body relaxation exercises.

This whole place actually looks more sanitary than a hospital-white glossy floors, white glossy walls, white glossy ceilings. "What gives?" I ask Whit. "I thought there was a New Order law that said they always had to put kids in filthy hellholes."

"Clean hellholes apparently will work in a pinch," says Whit.

"Who knew? I'm waiting for my white terry-cloth robe and fuzzy slippers."

"Shut up!" barks one of the guards behind us.

The lights go down as orchestral, soundtrack-style music fills the room, and the wall in front of us lights up with images. The disembodied female voice comes back. "Congratulations on your admittance to the Brave New World Center," she says. "The most advanced facility of its kind in all of the Overworld, dedicated to the nurturing of young dynacompetents. Built in the Year 0001 A.O., the BNW Center features the latest in new technology and employs the best pedagogical program ever devised for unlocking scalable kinetic potentials and directing them into a life of fully compliant productivity."

My eyes are glazing over already. Maybe she is inducing hypnosis…

The screen plays a video tour of the immaculate hallways, classrooms, lecture halls, cafeterias, and dormitory rooms that presumably await us beyond this reception chamber. Everything reeks of sterility.

"The curriculum features twenty-four-hour audio- and video-based instruction." The screen flashes images of hundreds of different speakers and monitors-in the corners of ceilings, along walls, in desks, in headboards. "In this way, lessons will continue uninterrupted-even during sleep. Ninety-nine point three percent of students find they are able to absorb enough information and behavioral training to evolve to the second level in less than two weeks."

"Big whoop," I hear Whit mutter. "Dogs in obedience school do better than that."

I start to snigger until he suddenly yells, "Ouch!" and jerks his hand up in the air. From out of nowhere a small robotic thingy has scooted up and smacked his knuckles with a long yellow bar that looks suspiciously like a ruler. Maybe it's a stun gun.

"And," continues the woman, "as a means of ensuring that the BNW Center remains a one hundred percent optimized learning environment, you will find in place a system of corrective negative feedback stimuli for any disruptive or wasteful behaviors. No student has ever been released from the Center without complete mastery of the core curriculum!"

"I'm still waiting for my aromatherapy treatment," I whisper to Whit.

"Your what-atherapy?" he whispers back.

Thwack! Thwack! Zoomba, the little robot thingy, is back with its stick.

Now Whit and I are both sucking our knuckles. So much for my spa fantasy.

"This concludes the Onboarding Video. Again, welcome and congratulations on your admittance to the Brave New World Center. Won't you have a chocolate?"

The little robot in front of us has lost the ruler and is now holding a tray with two chocolates on it.

Okay, so my spa dream is back in play!

I guess if they wanted to poison us, they could have done it already, and I'm not sure I care either way at this point.

I pick one up and-OMG-it's the best-tasting thing I've ever had inside my mouth. I'm seriously about to collapse in a heap of unending lip smacks and mmmms when the door in front of us clicks and in walks… Byron Swain.