Nightmare Academy (35 page)

She got to her feet, wanting to run to him, but she was wary of walls that could disappear, lights that could blind, trapdoors that could open. She just wasn't sure about this place. “Elijah? Elijah, are you all right?”

He put a finger to his lips. “Sh. Come on.” He beckoned to her.

She ventured into the hall. It looked solid enough. She could touch the walls. The floor was solid beneath her. She quickened her pace. Elijah was smiling at her, encouraging her. He looked pretty tired, but okay.

“Where are we?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Come on,” he answered.

“Where are we?"
she asked in a hushed voice.

He turned and disappeared into a side passage. She hurried to catch up, rounded the corner, and saw him go through a door. She broke into a run, got to the door, and hurried through—

BANG!
The door slammed shut behind her—a short little scream escaped her throat—and she was blind again, in total darkness, feeling like she'd walked right into a trap . . . but . . . how could her brother . . . ? “Elijah! Talk to me. What's going on?”

A voice from somewhere said, “Okay, here she is.”

“Hello?” she called.

“Hang on, Elisha,” said the voice. She didn't recognize it. “Just stand there a minute.”

She heard the rumble of another wall moving on rollers. A vertical slit of dim, rose-colored light appeared, then widened, expanding from right to left like a curtain drawing back. She saw red, blinking lights far away in the dark, then red digital readouts, huge cabinets and equipment racks, more glowing lights, TV monitors, patch cables, knobs, switches. The wall kept moving, the vision broadened before her, and she was awestruck; stretching into the semidarkness were two rows of control consoles with a dozen technicians wearing headsets, sitting at computer screens, TV monitors, and daunting control boards with thousands of knobs, dials, faders, toggles, readouts. On the far wall, huge video screens were flickering from one view of the academy campus to another.

I'm either in a really big TV studio or a spaceship,
she thought.

A man dressed in black approached her. He was thin, a brainy sort, with his hair tied in a long ponytail down his back. “Hello. Let me show you to a chair.”

He guided her to a corner of the room, to a comfortable stuffed chair on a small platform, surrounded by a curved, green wall, and pleasantly lit. It looked like a small set for a TV talk show, but with only one chair. She looked the chair over carefully, then sat in it.

“Comfortable?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered, still too blown away to say anything else. Then her first question finally came to her. “What happened to my brother?”

Another voice from amid all that blinking, glowing equipment answered, “Your brother is here with us.”

That voice she recognized, and now she could see his face bathed in orange light, the blinking lights and red digital readouts reflected in his reading glasses. “Mr. Bingham.”

“Welcome, Miss Elisha Springfield. Please make yourself comfortable.”

His wasn't the only familiar face. Just behind him, looking very pleased, even victorious, was Mr. Booker, none the worse for wear, his formal, imposing air gone, his hair combed differently, like . . . like an actor out of costume. Next to him, perfectly comfortable in Booker's presence and apparently still employed, was Mr. Easley, now in long pants and shirt, no longer the “phys-ed” guy. Mrs. Meeks—or whoever she really was—was occupied at a control station, wearing a headset, minus her bookwormish glasses and hair-in-a-bun. Mr. Stern, wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard, came and stood with Booker, Easley, and Bingham, smilingly sharing the sight of a ragged, scratched-up, nearly exhausted girl in old jeans and an army-surplus khaki jacket.

“We'll get to you in a moment,” said Bingham. “I'm sure you're wondering—”

“They're in the tool room,” reported a technician, tweaking dials and looking up at the big video screens.

Elisha watched in amazement. The four big screens provided multiple, wide-angle views of the tool room, and she could see Alexander, Brett, Ramon, and Rory gathering up the rakes, shovels, axes, hammers, and anything else they could lay their hands on, passing them outside to the other toughs.

“Yes,” said Bingham, addressing Booker, “thanks to your little recruitment meetings, they all know about that tool room.” He looked at the large, digital clock on the wall. “Nearly three in the morning. They might pause to get some sleep, but in any event, I predict they'll approach us at first light.”

Booker chuckled as he shook his head. “So predictable.”

Booker chuckled as he shook
his head. “So predictable.”

Bingham wasn't one to smile, but he did appear pleased. “Be glad. A different selection of kids might have killed you.”

Booker laughed. “Oh, I
was
scared for a moment.”

“We all were!” said Ms. Fitzhugh, entering with a fresh cup of tea.

There was laughter—from a small audience. Elisha looked to her right, and along the back wall, facing the big screens, was a sizable group of faceless people sitting in the dark.

Bingham spoke to them, apparently in the middle of a lecture. “We interviewed and handpicked every child. This year we were looking for a particular, modern personality, the media-oriented, amusement-dependent, consumer type; a child who hears with his eyes, thinks with his feelings, and has been made to believe there are no absolutes, and therefore no right or wrong. Children from dysfunctional families were preferred; runaways provided an ideal subject pool.” He looked toward the big screens as a technician cued a recording.

Elisha's mouth dropped open. There, while one big screen continued to show the raiding of the tool room, another big screen replayed footage of the red-headed woman, Margaret Jones, talking with Ramon, then Britney, then Alice/Marcy/Cher/ Mariah/Joan, then Harold “Alex” Carlson and Alvin Rogers over a bowl of soup in a youth shelter, asking them questions about right and wrong and showing them a brochure.

“Using what we've learned in the previous years, we've been able to isolate and encourage a personality type that doesn't think but only follows, and believes any lie as long as there is pleasure attached to it.”

On the screen, Alexander was sitting on the picnic table, announcing the headband requirement. Kids all around him grabbed, ripped, or cut anything they could find to wrap around their heads.

“Oh, and please note this result.”

Elisha saw herself and some others in a muddy, dark picture, their faces blinking in and out of the dark as unsteady flashlight beams flashed around the room. The camera zoomed in on Joan's face as she said, “I was afraid,” and ran out of the building.

“One of our finest moments,” said Bingham. “Take away truth, and people will lie. Scoff at virtue, and betrayal becomes a matter of course.”

“Then these techniques really work!” said a man in the audience.

“Absolutely,” said Bingham. “If you'll pardon the expression.” The audience laughed. “But it takes time, the right personalities, the right circumstances.”

“So what about this young lady?” someone asked.

“Take away truth, and people will lie.
Scoff at virtue, and betrayal
becomes a matter of course.”

“Mmm,” said Bingham with a testy side-glance at Elisha. “This young lady and her brother.” He nodded to the technician.

Elisha was stunned. Now she was watching Margaret Jones talk to her and Elijah at that same table in the same youth shelter. For all she knew, even the
soup
was the same.

“We chose these two because they
do
have a strong religious background and they
do
believe in absolutes. Our goal, of course, was to compare their reactions to the same situations, and see if their particular system of truth could be broken.” With another sideways glance at Elisha, Bingham quipped, “And as we anticipated, it hasn't been easy.”

Bingham nodded to the technician, and another video began to play on the big screen: Elijah and Elisha reciting the Ten Commandments in Booker's class; the two of them debating Mr. Easley; Elijah telling Booker, “. . . it's like you and I are from different planets or something. For you, it's all power and money. For me, it's God. It's Truth. I could never work for you . . ."; and Elisha surrounded by the kids in the Rec Center, telling Alex, “Jerry would have to bow to you. He'd have to say you're right, and he won't do that. And neither will I,” and handing the scarf back to Cher.