The Gift

Chapter 50

Wisty

"HEY, GUYS," says Byron, weaseling up to me and Whit with an air of, I don't know… there's something slightly off about him. Dejection, maybe? "They told me to come… welcome you."

"How'd you get here?" I say, with a tone wavering between disgust and bafflement.

"Does it matter?" asks Whit, glaring at Byron and nudging me. "We're all here now." And I think I know why: to defeat the New Order from the inside.

I notice that Byron's practically swimming in his all-white jumpsuit, as if it's a hand-me-down costume carelessly pulled off a pile rather than carefully selected.

Suddenly I realize Byron might be on a mission to free us. Better be nice to the guy. "Cool outfit, B.," I comment, then decide that I'm not a good liar. "You look ridiculous."

"It's the school uniform," he tells us. "You'll have yours as soon as you get decontaminated."

"Decontaminated?"

"Cleanliness is next to Oneliness," says Byron. The guy has no sense of sarcasm about him. Makes him impossible to figure out.

"So the brainwashing's going pretty good with you, huh?" I ask.

"It's not so bad," replies Byron kind of listlessly. "There's chocolate, you know."

"Calling that stuff 'chocolate,'" I say, swallowing a mouthful of saliva in afterthought, "is like calling caviar 'fish eggs.'"

"When did you ever eat caviar?" asks Whit.

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Brother."

"I know you sometimes pretend like you've done things you've only read about in books."

"It's not totally pretending. When you read a book that's good enough, you sort of have done the things you read about."

"Don't talk about books," warns Byron. "You don't even want to know what they do to you here for that. If ERSA hears you -"

"Who's Ursa?"

"The Educational Remediation Services Administrator-the entity that runs, or really is, this place. That's the voice you were hearing over the intercom. And nobody's ever seen her in person, so some of us think she's just a computer. An extremely powerful one."

"I knew The One was into technology, but actually having a computer run a school-that would be a whole new kind of insane."

I glance over at Whit, who's staring at one of the little spots on the wall. There's one every few feet, and up in the ceiling, too. And each is covered with glass.

"Camera lenses, or ERSA's eyes, if you prefer," says Byron. "You'll get used to it. Although, word to the wise, it's always best not to forget you're being watched. Almost always."

"Almost?"

Byron shoots me a look. "Actually, always, always. I wouldn't want to face the wrath of ERSA myself."

I burst into a squeal of laughter. "Oh, it's my worst nightmare-a computer gone ballistic! Can't wait till Mrs. ERSA whips my butt when I tell her she can go reboot herself." I'm guffawing at my own incredibly stupid joke.

"Don't laugh. You'd be surprised what she can do. Like, she can change the chemical composition of the air in this room if you're not compliant-even make it toxic. And she doesn't care who else is in the room with you."

"Seriously, Wisty," says Whit, hushing me. "Try to keep the attitude in check. We need to not make waves if we want to figure out what's going on in this place."

"Um, Whit, this isn't us on some sort of mission. This is us being prisoners."

"Fine. You go ahead and get busy figuring out what kind of special punishments you can earn. Meantime, I'm going to keep my head down and my eyes open."

"Awesome," I say, my tongue finding some chocolate residue still wedged between my molars. "And I'll keep my eyes open for more of that stuff."

Maybe it's time for me to turn over a new leaf. Maybe it won't be that hard to keep my mouth shut to earn some brownnose points. Come to think of it, I'm not above acting like my last name's "Swain," if it helps me nab more chocolate.

I twist my head around at the sudden sound of the rear wall parting, revealing two arrows-one pointing left and marked with a, and the other pointing right, with a.

And ERSA's voice fills the air. "Informant Swain, return to your quarters. Whitford and Wisteria Allgood, you will now proceed to the gender-appropriate decontamination showers for cleansing."

Informant?

Informant?

My body is already charged and whirling with vengeance, my chipped fingernails ready to start clawing at that traitor's eyes with reckless abandon.

But he's already gone.

I'm really going to kill that kid.