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  My legs buckle, and a whimper squeaks out of me. Whit snaps out of his trance and swings around in alarm to help, but The One lets me drop and fends him off with an elbow. The One’s mere touch sends Whit sprawling back on the floor and slamming up against the far wall as if he is a rag doll.

  “All that power inside you,” The One Who Is The One says, his eyes once again flashing pure evil, “to control the mind. Everyone’s minds. The entire world at your fingertips.”

  Suddenly the cold stops, and he backs away with a rueful smile.

  “I frankly don’t know whether to be impressed or depressed.”

  Chapter 48

  Whit

  I’VE BEEN HIT PRETTY HARD during a few N.O. attacks, but right now I feel like I’ve been ploughed into by a speeding truck. Wisty’s on the floor looking spent, but then she hauls herself up. She’s okay, thank God, but apparently still too dumbfounded by The One’s completely absurd claims to say anything.

  This is my chance. My one chance to find out what Celia was talking about. I just wish I’d had time to figure out how to broach the subject first with His Oneness.

  “Um, excuse me?” I use the wall to help steady my body as I peel myself off the floor. “I have a question. Excuse me?”

  Wisty and The One both stare at me as if I’ve just risen from the grave.

  “I need to ask you about Celia Millet.” Hearing her name aloud, here, in the Building of Buildings, feels so… ancient. From another time and place. So out of reach, despite how close she’d seemed just hours ago.

  “Celia Millet?” He raises his eyebrows. He knows her name. But he pretends he doesn’t. “I can’t possibly keep track of all the pernicious children we’ve had to process through our retraining systems. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Was she a”-he smiles condescendingly-“special friend?”

  “You know exactly who she is. She told me to come here. To turn ourselves in-for our parents’ sake.” It’s probably insane, I know, but I take a deep breath and say it. “We need to talk about a deal.”

  “Whit?” Wisty is agape, agog, astonished, every word you can think of for “in total disbelief.” “Are you high?”

  The One just laughs. And laughs, and laughs.

  “Well,” he says, finally recovering, “it looks like we have one boy suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and one girl with…” He chuckles again. “Developmental disabilities, of a sort. Thank heavens we rescued you before your conditions got any worse. It looks like both of you need a little… recuperation. And education.”

  I can’t hear him. I shake my head. “I need to talk to you about Ce -”

  He speaks right over me. “And it just so happens I have a new facility designed for just that purpose. I think you’ll find it much more suitable than your last accommodations with us. Call it a spa, if you will. I’m sure your sister will enjoy it, at least.”

  He casts an amused eye at Wisty. “Perhaps they can even help you with your unfortunate-hair situation, Wisteria.” Another nasty snicker. Wisty growls as if she’s trying to turn into a werewolf. Whatever it is, it doesn’t work.

  “Listen.” I finally collect enough energy to take a stride toward him. “I’ll go to your stupid school or whatever if we can strike a deal.”

  “Ah, but you’re going regardless, Whitford! First, though, I’ll need to ask that you hand over any personal property-like that journal you have under your shirt.”

  He raises his snaky fingers at me, and the journal flies out from where it was tucked under my belt. And as the book zooms right into The One’s grip, I find myself flying backward and slamming into the wall. Again. And it really hurts-again.

  “There is no power in the pen and page anymore, my friend. Remember that. There is only power in energy. Now let’s see what you have in here,” he says, licking a finger dramatically and riffling through the pages. “Po-ems?” He starts to chortle. “And, oh my goodness, they’re bad poems-listen to this one!”

  Out-out are the lights-out all!

  And, over each quivering form,

  The curtain, a funeral pall,

  Comes down with the rush of a storm,

  While the angels, all pallid and wan,

  Uprising, unveiling, affirm

  That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

  And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

  He laughs as if his sides are going to bust open. Unnaturally glittery tears spill down his cheeks. “That,” he says, struggling to form words through his fit of amusement, “is the most pathetic, juvenile thing I’ve ever read!”

  Wisty gives me a look that says she knows it’s a poem by one of the most famous poets ever, the darkly inspired Edmund Talon Coe.

  “Well, clearly you couldn’t write your way out of a paper bag, so go ahead and keep it, you pathetic poetaster.”

  He flings the journal back at me. I make a perfect catch even though I’m still getting my wind back.

  “And you,” he says to Wisty. “Hand over the stick, my girl. I’d like to finish what your dear friend Eric, may he rest in peace, began.”

  Wisty goes gray at the mention of the drummer’s name, and grayer when she tries to process The One’s implication. She’s already gripping the drumstick tucked in her back pocket, but her fingers fly open and the stick zips through the air and into his waiting hands. He considers it for a moment and then fakes a little one-handed riff.

  “You look pretty natural,” she says as her face clouds with anger. “What’s your stage name again? The One Who Can’t Get A Recording Contract?”

  “You!” he screams. “Are… not… funny!” He takes the stick and breaks it in two, flinging the remains at her feet.

  “Bully!” she yells, dropping to her knees.

  “Tsk-tsk,” he clucks. “I assure you that names will never hurt me, Wisteria. Now,” he says, swiping the broken drumstick out of her hands before turning to leave, “somebody come and get these two ready for the school bus!”

  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 f
eatures 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.

  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.

  Chapter 51

  Wisty

  ALL RIGHT, we’re definitely on the inside now. Maybe Whit is right, maybe this is the only way to defeat The One. Maybe we’re closing in on something important. Meanwhile, though, we look like freshly boiled lobsters.

  “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!” I’m jumping up and down as Whit and I are reunited in the (surprise) all-white common space, waiting for our next instructions.

  “Stings, huh?” Whit agrees. “I have to admit, though, you really needed a bath. You were kind of starting to stink.”

  I punch him in the arm. Apparently even near-death experiences can’t take the obnoxiousness totally out of the brother. “Speak
for yourself. And they seriously didn’t need to take off the top two layers of my skin to solve the problem.”

  Byron, on the other hand… I remember a murder-mystery board game we used to play as kids, and I start a wicked fantasy: Wisteria Allgood, in the shower, with the industrial-strength power nozzle…

  My plotting is interrupted by a military march-like set of notes signaling the end of class, then the sound of a bunch of kids emerging into the hallway. Several come into the room and plop themselves in front of a TV.

  “Hey, guys,” says the boy who sits down next to us. “I’m Crossley.” He’s short and wiry, with a boyishly earnest and appealing face.

  “I’m Whit, and this is Wisty,” says my brother somewhat guardedly.

  “Yeah, everybody in this place knows about you two. Especially Wisty.” He leans in. “Saw you rockin’ out on the Net.”

  Whit and I are stunned. “Huh?” says Whit. “How’d you -?”

  Crossley’s eyes flash toward one of ERSA’s eyes. “Anyway, they gave us all chocolates when they announced you were coming.”

  “Do they give chocolates often?” I blurt out.

  “Every once in a while ERSA gives them to the whole school, but usually it’s just when you earn a trip to The Room Where You Eat The Chocolate.”

  “So how do you earn that?”

  “By being a good student, generally.”

  “Like solving trigonometry problems?”

  “Sort of,” says Crossley. “You’ll see. The chocolate is awesome. It’s just that some of us aren’t quite prepared for its… awesomeness.” He turns his attention to the TV screen and pastes a smile on his face like a baby who’s just been fed, pooped, and changed.

  I suddenly realize that I have no idea if the kids at this school are brainwashed New Order spawn-Mini-Ones in training-or if they’re innocent kids trapped in a white N.O. box just doing what they need to do to survive.