Nightmare Academy (39 page)
“Mr. Bingham! When are you going to let my brother out of there?”
Bingham watched the screen, then said over his shoulder, “When I know what I want to know, of course.”
“You mean, when
you
can know, and
he
can't!”
Bingham actually smiled at her. “Brilliant!”
Elijah was counting seconds. One, two, three . . . up to six. Every time, six seconds. The loop, the pulse, the wave, was six seconds. When he closed his eyes and listened to the room, he could even hear the sound of the air recycle every six seconds. The girl, still talking, seemed to take a little breath every six seconds. Wow. In all this mess, he could
know
something, a sweet six seconds.
So what about the code those fingers kept tapping out? Maybe he could know that, too. CKPROJECTOR60CLO . . . JECTOR60CLOCK . . . PROJECTOR 6 OCLOCK.
Six o'clock. Did she mean,
behind
him? Projector behind him? He opened his eyes and looked toward the ceiling, then over the back of the couch.
He didn't see anything. Not yet.
Teachers and techs were wheeling large cases of equipment and data on hand trucks, moving it all out that open door at the end of the room. It was all going like clockwork, well rehearsed. The audience remained in the shadows by the door, watching the final seconds of the great experiment on the big screens.
“All right,” said Bingham, “let them in.”
The tech threw a switch, and with a loud creak and groan, the iron gate broke open. Alexander and his mob were jubilant, waving their tools in the air. “Let's go!” Alexander yelled, and the whole mob moved forward, through the gate and up the walk.
“Any stragglers?” Bingham asked.
Mrs. Meeks looked up from her console. “Warren's friends are hanging back. Warren is still in his room, not wanting to be seen. We still have Tom Cruise and his two friends hiding near the Dumpsters and a few kids hiding in the buildings.”
“Let's contain them.”
Meeks held down a talk switch and spoke into her headset.
“Begin containment.”
“Demolition? Report.”
The third tech down the row reported, “Dozers in position, charges armed.”
Bingham smiledâagain. “I've grown to love this part!”
Overhead, there was a faint pounding. An image appeared on one of the big screens: the front door of the mansion. Alexander and the mob had reached it and were trying to break it in.
“Let them work at it a while. Let them have a feeling of accomÂplishment.” He thought that last line was funny, and laughed.
“Mr. Bingham!” Easley shouted, pointing to the other screen.
Every eye in the place went to that screen. There were audible gasps.
Even Elisha gasped and her heart went sick.
Her brother Elijah had become a madman. He was singing, jumping, dancing around the room, hiding behind the chair where the phony Elisha sat, then jumping up, then hiding again, circling, ranting, and raving.
Bingham hurried closer to the screen. “More sound, please.”
Easley reached for a knob on his console and turned up the volume.
Elijah was singing, “I've got a brain, and you've got a brain, and it's so much pain! I've got a brain, and you've got a brain, and it's so much
poop!”
Then he laughed and started ranting, “Gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gook! Gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee
geek!"
Then he rolled on the floor, kicking his feet in the air, then spun in sideways circles, pedaling against the floor with his feet.
Elijah was singing, “I've got
a brain, and you've got a brain,
and it's so much pain! I've got a
brain, and you've got a brain,
and it's so much poop!”
Now Bingham roared with laughter, so much it made him wheeze.
Easley reached up and shook his hand. “Congratulations.”
Booker came over and did the same. “Congratulations.”
“Very good, very good!” said Bingham. “So these people can be broken after all! Make sure we get a full record of the data.”
“My brother . . . ,” said Elisha, her spirit collapsing in sorrow.
“My sweet brother . . .”
“All right,” said Bingham. “Open the door and let's be done with it.” A tech threw another switch, and the front door of the mansion caved in. “Be sure they all go inside.”
The screens combined into one big composite and switched to an interior shot of . . . what in the world was it?
To Elisha, it looked like Alexander and his mob were pouring into a huge warehouse, a vast empty shell, and from the looks on their faces, they were as stunned and perplexed as she was. She strained to understand what she was seeing: bare, white walls, expansive concrete floor, high windowsâyes, but no rooms, no stairs, no furniture, nothing!
The mansion on the hill, that huge, foreboding structure that had all the kids in awe; that mysterious citadel where power resided; that symbol of ultimate authority and rulership, was a fake.
An empty shell.
A big nothing.
“Everyone's inside,” reported the tech.
“Seal them in,” said Bingham.
The tech threw a switch, and on the screen, the front and side doors of the empty shell suddenly disappeared as huge panels slammed into place. The kids started screaming.
Bingham looked at Elisha and told his crew, “Throw her in with the others.”
F
ARMER WASN'T SMILING, but his arrogance showed clearly enough. He wasn't about to say anything.
“You have an amazing sense of loyalty, Mr. Farmer,” said Morgan, turning away. “I wish you were working for us instead of them.”
The hotel clerk was sitting on the wooden bench on the back porch, handcuffed to a bench leg, a federal marshal on either side of him. He didn't look nearly as arrogant or confident as Farmer did, and Nate noticed.
“So what's going to happen to Mr. Farmer?” Nate asked.
Morgan whistled at the thought of it. “Pretty serious charges. There are laws protecting schoolchildren from invasive psychological questioning or conditioning, and I would say Mr. Farmer has conspired with his friends to violate every one of themânot to mention his role in kidnapping the children, plus the murder of Alvin Rogers and the attempted murders of you and Sarah.”
“Which doesn't look good for anyone who helped him.”
Morgan looked at the hotel clerk as he answered. “No, especially if anything happens to those children. Even if someone were hired simply as a stooge, as a decoy, if harm came to even one of the children, that person could face the same charges as an accessory.”
The little clerk was clearly shaken by that, looking at Morgan, then at Farmer, then at Morgan.
“However, if such a person were to help us save the children from any harm, that would certainly change the picture for the better.”
The little man was shaking, but remained silent.
Mr. Bingham threw some papers into his briefcase and fastened it shut. “Leave Mr. Springfield in the Maze while the computer finishes the program. An apt closure, don't you think?”
On his way to join the others going out the door, he stopped by Elisha's little TV stage. “So I imagine you've learned what it is you came to learn, but of course, like yourself, that knowledge is only temporary. After today, the Knight-Moore Academy will cease to exist, even as a memory, and your investigation will be moot. But make no mistake: What we've learned here will definitely live onâin schools, in films, on television, in recordings, in textbooksâand my friends and I will simply wait. After all, when the world does fall into chaos, such as we've demonstrated here,
someone
will have to take charge, won't they?”