The Monastery

DEDICATION

FOR MY FELLOW VOYAGERS. ALL OF YOU.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

CHAPTER ONE: RED BEARD

CHAPTER TWO: THE ACCIDENT

CHAPTER THREE: FLATLINING

CHAPTER FOUR: THE DREAM

CHAPTER FIVE: ARRIVAL

CHAPTER SIX: INTO THE JUNGLE

CHAPTER SEVEN: YODA IN TWEEDS

CHAPTER EIGHT: G7W

CHAPTER NINE: THE SELECT

CHAPTER TEN: SECRET MESSAGE

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THREE A.M.

CHAPTER TWELVE: THE MOE QUADRANT

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: ESCAPE FROM KI

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SINK OR SWIM

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: TRAINING DAY

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE FIRST TREATMENT

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: HERMAN AND BURT WENDERS

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE ONES THAT DON’T BELONG

CHAPTER NINETEEN: MOUNT ONYX

CHAPTER TWENTY: BELAY ON!

CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE: THE TUB

CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO: ATTACK

CHAPTER TWENTY - THREE: INTO THE ABYSS

CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR: THE DREAM CHANGES

CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE: IF MISERY BE THINE

CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX: THE MAZE

CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN: RECALCULATING

CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT: DON’T LOOK UP

CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE: CASS ON FIRE

CHAPTER THIRTY: GOING, GOING, GONE

CHAPTER THIRY - ONE: MARCO

CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO: THE CIRCLE IN THE DARK

CHAPTER THIRTY - THREE: NO-DEAD-BODY ZONE

CHAPTER THIRTY - FOUR: THE HEPTAKIKLOS

CHPATER THIRTY - FIVE: CREATURE FROM THE BREACH

CHAPTER THIRY - SIX: MEANING OF THE SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY - SEVEN: RHODES

CHAPTER THIRTY - EIGHT: THE TROUBLE WITH TORQUIN

CHPATER THIRTY - NINE: CHASING THE MONKS

CHAPTER FORTY: BROTHER DIMITRIOS

CHAPTER FORTY - ONE: TWEETY RETURNS

CHAPTER FORTY - TWO: THE FLAME

CHAPTER FORTY - THREE: MASSARYM

CHAPTER FORTY - FOUR: THE AWAKENING

CHAPTER FORTY - FIVE: PLAN C

CHAPTER FORTY - SIX: ONE BEAST AT A TIME

CHAPTER FORTY - SEVEN: THE SECRET OF THE LOCULUS

CHAPTER FORTY - EIGHT: NO TURNING BACK

CHAPTER FORTY - NINE: SHOWDOWN

CHAPTER FIFTY: INCIDENT AT THE RHODEAN MANOR

CHAPTER FIFTY - ONE: SOLDIER, SAILOR, TINKER, TAILOR

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CREDITS

COPYRIGHT

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

CHAPTER ONE
RED BEARD

ON THE MORNING I was scheduled to die, a large barefoot man with a bushy red beard waddled past my house. The thirty-degree temperature didn’t seem to bother him, but he must have had a lousy breakfast, because he let out a burp as loud as a tuba.

Belching barefoot giants who look like Vikings are not normal in Belleville, Indiana. But I didn’t really get a chance to see the guy closely.

At that moment, I, Jack McKinley, was under attack in my own bedroom. By a flying reptile.

I could have used an alarm clock. But I’d been up late studying for my first-period math test and I’m a deep sleeper. Dad couldn’t wake me because he was in Singapore on business. And Vanessa, the au pair I call my don’t-caregiver, always slept till noon.

I needed a big sound. Something I couldn’t possibly sleep through. That’s when I saw my papier-mâché volcano from last month’s science fair, still on my desk. It was full of baking soda. So I got my dad’s coffeemaker, filled it with vinegar, and rigged it to the volcano with a plastic tube. I set the timer for 6:30 A.M., when the coffeemaker would release the vinegar into the volcano, causing a goop explosion. I put a chute at the base of the volcano to capture that goop. In the chute was a billiard ball, which would roll down toward a spring-loaded catapult on my chair. The catapult would release a big old plastic Ugliosaurus™—a fanged eagle crossed with a lion, bright-red.

Bang—when that baby hit the wall I’d have to be dead not to wake up. Foolproof, right?

Not quite. Around 6:28, I was in the middle of a nightmare. I’d had this dream way too many times: me, running through the jungle in a toga, chased by snarling, drooling, piglike beasts, whose screeches fill the smoky sky. Nice, huh? Usually I awake from this dream when a gap in the earth opens beneath my feet.

But this time, I fell in. Down into the darkness. To my death.

At the moment of contact, the Gaseous Giant burped in real life. The sound woke me up.

The coffeemaker-volcano alarm went off. And the Ugliosaurus whacked me between the eyes.

Which, in a nutshell, is how the worst morning of my life began. The last morning I would awaken in my own bed.

“@$%^&!” I screamed, which means I can’t tell you the actual words.

I sprang off my bed in agony. That was when I caught a glimpse of Red Beard on the sidewalk. Which caused me to drop to the floor, embarrassed to be seen, even by a wacked-out barefoot stranger. Unfortunately my butt landed squarely on a sharp Ugliosaurus wing, which made me scream again. That was way too much screaming for someone who just turned thirteen.

I lay there with gritted teeth, wishing I’d used the alarm clock. In my mind I saw Vanessa goading me: You think too much, Jack. Which she used to say about a hundred times a day. Maybe because I think too much. Always have.

I got off the floor, clutching my head. Red Beard was padding down the street, his feet slapping the pavement. “Next time, close your mouth,” I grumbled under my breath as I staggered to the bathroom.

I should have wondered who he was and why he was here. But I couldn’t stop thinking of my nightmare, which still lingered like the taste of moldy cheese. I tried to replace it with thoughts of math. Unfortunately, it felt about the same.

Looking in the mirror, I saw that the Ugliosaurus had made a gash on my forehead. Not too deep, but it looked pretty bad, and it stung.

I turned on the tap, dampened a washcloth, and pushed aside a mass of rat-brown hair to uncover my wound. As I dabbed it, I noticed a little tuft of blond hairs sticking out from the back of my head.

Weird. I’d never seen them before. Without Dad around to bug me, I hadn’t had a haircut in a while, so those blond hairs looked like loose wires. As I leaned closer to look, a sharp creak made me spin around.

“Vanessa?” I called out.

Aha. She’d heard my scream. I imagined her cowering behind the door, planning how not to be blamed for whatever happened. But she wasn’t there.

I glanced at the bathroom clock: 6:39. I had to leave the house by 6:45. But I wanted to see that little blond patch. I had enough time.

I pulled open the bathroom cabinet and reached for a hand mirror I hadn’t touched in years. Dad and I had bought it at CVS when I was in second grade, for an art project. Picking it up, I looked at the message I’d carved into the plastic frame.

I turned the mirror around. On the back I’d laminated a photo to the surface. In it, I was four years old and dressed in a puffy winter coat, sliding down a gentle hill on a sled. The white snow was tinged yellow-green with age. Mom was on the hilltop, laughing, wearing her favorite Smith College wool jacket. Dad was at the bottom, turned away. It was our game: Boom to Daddy. I’d slide into his legs and he would keel over, howling in pretend pain. Then he’d carry me back to the top and we’d do it all over again.

I smiled. Back then, I thought this game was hilarious. Every little thing we did was fun. Life was pretty perfect before Mom died. Before I started having those nightmares. Before Dad had decided home was a place to avoid.

Turning my back to the big bathroom mirror, I used the hand mirror to see behind my head. That was when I realized the blond hair wasn’t blond—it was white. And it wasn’t just a couple of hairs. I patted them down and noticed a pattern, an upside-down V. I tried to scrape it off with my fingernails, hoping it was some kind of weird stain. But nothing happened. My hair had just changed color—like in those cartoons where someone’s hair goes white with shock. Was that what the Ugliosaurus did to me? No way were the kids at school going to ignore this.

I thought about what Mom would say: Wear a hat.

Quickly I brushed my teeth. I dropped the mirror into my pack, in case I wanted to investigate further at school. Then I ran into my room and grabbed my peacoat off the floor. Peeking out from under a Wendy’s bag was my wool knit cap. I wiped off a crust of congealed ketchup and Chocolate Frosty from one side. It didn’t smell too bad, so I jammed it on my head, shoved my math notebook into my backpack, and bolted.

It was 6:43.

As I reached the top of the stairs, my cell phone beeped.

Dad!

Ugh. Our 6:30 Wednesday morning Skype session. I’d totally forgotten—and he was late! How could he do this on a test day?

I raced downstairs. Dad always insisted I take the call in the living room on the sofa—with the camera on, so he could make sure I hadn’t trashed anything.

He’s a neat freak. I’m a mess freak. And I had only five rings till the call went to voice mail. In the living room I shoved a pile of cables and joysticks to the center of the Turkish rug, along with two guitars, some comic books, three sweatshirts, a few pairs of socks, take-out containers from Wu Kitchen, a pizza box I was afraid to look into, and a half-eaten Kit Kat.

Beep…

From the middle of the pile I lifted a hook attached to four cables, which were linked to the corners of the carpet. I slipped the hook into a pulley I’d rigged to the ceiling chandelier support. A couple of strong tugs, and the rug rose like Santa’s toy sack, leaving a pristine wood floor below.

Beep…

6:44.

Plopping myself on the sofa, I accepted the call.

“Hey, Dad! Um, I don’t have much time to—”

“Five and a quarter! Tell them to sell at five and a half!” Dad was shouting to someone in his office. All I saw was his arm. “And close the door. I’m on a conference call!”

Then he was grinning happily at me. Which made me grin, too. It was the end of his day in Singapore. He looked really tired, like he’d just run a marathon with a dead gorilla strapped to his back. I really missed him. I wished his job could keep him closer to home.

But why did he have to call now?

“Heyyyy, Jackie, so sorry I’m late!” Dad said with a tight grin. “Living room looks great! But…uh, where’s the rug?”

Oops. I tilted the phone so only the wall would show in the background. “I guess Vanessa took it to be cleaned. But, Dad, look, I have to go—”

“Did she spill something?” he asked.

“I have this math test today…”

“You’ll do great!” Dad replied. “Hey, what’s the McKinley family motto?”

“A problem is an answer waiting to be opened,” I recited.

“Bravo! Hey, did you see the article I sent you about that poor kid, Cromarty? Died in the bowling alley near Chicago?”

Ugh. Current events. This always involved sad stories about kids and tragedies. Followed by a lecture. Dad’s way of scaring me into being extra-careful.

I glanced at my watch. 6:46.

“I think I skimmed it. Send me the link again. So. Wish me luck!” As I stood, my leg buckled beneath me and I almost dropped the phone. I had to clutch the sofa arm to keep from falling.

“Jackie, are you okay?” Dad’s brow was all scrunched now. “What’s that mark on your forehead? Is that a cut? Did you fall?”

“No!” I said. “I just used a flying toy instead of an alarm.”

That sounded a lot crazier coming out of my mouth than I expected. “You used a what?” Dad said.

I was feeling weak and light-headed. I took about three deep breaths and tried to stand tall, but I stumbled against the tied-up pulley rope.

Bad move. The rug hurtled downward. It sent up a cloud of dust as everything clanked to the floor. I swiveled away so Dad wouldn’t see it.

“What was that?” Dad asked.

6:47. How much worse could this possibly get?

“Nothing!” I snapped.

Dad’s eyes were wide. “Okay, that’s it. Something’s not right. I’m booking the next flight home.”

“What?” This wasn’t like him. Usually he’s explaining left and right how important his job is. Usually he’s the one to cut the conversation short. “Really?”

Dad was looking at me funny. “Stay safe until I get there. Do not let yourself out of Lorissa’s sight. Make her take you to school.”

“Vanessa,” I said. “Lorissa quit. And so did Randi.”

“Okay, stay close to her, Jack,” Dad said. “Be safe. And good luck on that math test.”

“Thanks!” I said. “Bye, Dad! Love” —the image flickered off— “you.”

The screen was blank.

6:48. I had to book.

“Vanessa!” I yelled, running into the kitchen. As I snatched two bags of fruit-flavored Skittles from the counter, I saw a note taped to the fridge.

I darted back to Vanessa’s bedroom door and pushed it open. The little room was tidy and neat. And totally empty.

One more catastrophe to explain when Dad got home.

Shutting it out of my mind, I bolted out the back door and got my bike from the garage. The air was cold and bracing, and I quickly buttoned my peacoat.

As I sped onto the sidewalk, I leaned right and headed toward school.

If Red Beard was there, I didn’t see him.

CHAPTER TWO
THE ACCIDENT

“YO, SPACE MAN, watch out!”

I didn’t hear the warning. I was at the end of my bike ride to school, which involves a sharp turn around the corner of the building. You’re supposed to walk your bike by that point, but I was in too much of a hurry. Not that it matters, because most people are too smart to stand close to that corner anyway.

But most people doesn’t include Barry Reese, the Blowhard of Mortimer P. Reese Middle School.

There was Barry’s hammy face, inches away, his eyes as big as softballs. As always, he was involved in his favorite hobby, making life miserable for littler kids. He was hunched menacingly over this tiny sixth-grader named Josh or George.

I slammed on the brakes. My front wheel jammed. The rear wheel bucked upward, flinging me over the handlebars. The bike slid out from under me. As I flew forward, Barry’s face loomed toward me at a zillion miles an hour. I could see three hairs sticking out of a mole on his cheek.

Then the worst conceivable thing happened.

He caught me.

When we stopped spinning around, I was hanging from him like a rag doll. “Shall we dance?” he said.

All I could hear was cackling laughter. Kids were convulsing. Barry grinned proudly, but I pushed him away. His breath smelled like bananas and moldy feet.

Josh or George scrambled up off the ground. No one offered to help pick up his books, which had been scattered all over the playground.

I don’t know why Barry was a bully. He was rich. Our school was named after his great-great-grandfather, who’d made his fortune creating those little plastic thingies that protect the toilet lid from hitting the seat. Personally, if I were rich and the heir to a toilet-thingy fortune, I’d be pretty happy. I wouldn’t pick on smaller kids.

“I don’t dance with apes,” I said, quickly stooping to pick up my bike to lock it to the rack.

I stole a look at my watch. The bell was going to ring in one minute.

“My apologies.” Barry elbowed me aside and scooped up my bike with exaggerated politeness. “Let me help you recover from your ride, Mario. From the cut on your head, I guess you had a few crashes already.”

I tried to take back the handlebars, but he was too fast for me. He yanked the bike away and began walking fast toward the rack. “Hey, by the way, did you finish the bio homework?” he said over his shoulder. “’Cause I was helping my dad with his business last night, and it got late. And, well, you can’t think about homework before profits. Not that I wouldn’t get all the answers perfect anyway—”

I pushed him aside and grabbed the bike. “No, Barry, you can’t copy my homework.”

“I just did save your life.”

As I locked the bike to the rack, Barry leaned closer with a twisted, smilelike expression. “Don’t think there won’t be some financial reward…”

Before I could answer, he took two quick steps to the side. Josh or George was making a break for the safety of the school yard, clutching an unruly mass of papers and notebooks. Barry thrust his arm out as if yawning. He clipped the kid squarely in the chest and sent him flying, the papers scattering again.

The blood rushed to my head. I wasn’t sure if it was from the Ugliosaurus hit, the crazy bike ride, the near crash, or Barry’s extreme obnoxiousness. Math test or not, he couldn’t get away with this.

“Here’s my homework!” I blurted, yanking a grocery list from my pocket. “You get it if you pick up Josh’s stuff and say you’re sorry.”

“It’s George,” the kid said.

Barry looked at me as if I were speaking Mongolian. “What did you say, McKinley?”

I was shaking. Dizzy. Maybe this was fear. How could I be so afraid of this doofus?

Focus.

Barry reached toward my sheet, but I pulled it away, backing toward the street. “Tell him you’ll never do it again,” I insisted. “And don’t even think of saying no.”

Balling and unballing his fists, Barry stepped closer. His white, fleshy face was taking on the color of rare roast beef. The bell rang. Or maybe it didn’t. I was having trouble hearing. What was happening to me?

“How’d you get that little cut on your head, McKinley?” Barry’s voice was muffled, like he was speaking inside a long tunnel. “Because I think you need a bigger one.”

I barely heard him. I felt as if something had crawled into my head and was kickboxing with my brain.

I struggled to stay upright. I couldn’t even see Barry now. The back of my leg smacked against a parked car. I spun into the street, trying to keep my balance. The blacktop rushed toward me and I put out my hands to stop the fall.

The last thing I saw was the grille of a late-model Toyota speeding toward my face.

CHAPTER THREE
FLATLINING

BEEP…

Beep…

Harp strings? What was that noise?

The street was gone, and I could see nothing. I felt as if I were floating in a tunnel of cold air. I had dreamed my own death, and then it had really happened. I pried my eyes open briefly. It hurt to do it, but in that moment I had a horrifying realization.

The afterlife was beige.

I tried to cry out, but my body was frozen. Odd whistling sounds drifted around me like prairie winds.

Slowly I began making out voices, words.

Peering out again, I hoped to see cherubim and seraphim, or at least a few clouds. Instead I saw nostril hairs. Also, really dark eyebrows and blue eyes, attached to a man’s face that loomed closer.

I felt a hand push my head to the side. I tried to speak, to resist, but I couldn’t. It was as someone had turned the off switch on all my body functions. “Extremely odd case,” the man said in a deep voice. “No diabetes, you say? He had all inoculations? No history of concussion?”

“Correct, Dr. Saark,” came an answer. “There’s nothing that would indicate these erratic vital signs. He’s a healthy boy. We haven’t a clue what’s wrong.”

I knew the second voice. It was my family doctor, Dr. Flood. She’d been taking care of me since I was a baby.

So I was not dead, which was a big relief. But hearing your doctor’s voice is never a cheery thing. I was tilted away from the voices, and all I could see were an IV stand, electrical wires, and a metal wastebasket.

It had to be Belleville Hospital, where I hadn’t been since I was born. I must have been hit by a car.

The math test! I had visions of a blank sheet of paper with a big, fat zero. I willed myself to open my mouth. To tell them I was all right and had to get to school. But nothing moved.

“A highly rare set of symptoms,” Dr. Saark said, “but it fits exactly into the recent research I’ve been doing…”

Dr. Flood exhaled loudly. “We’re so lucky you were in town and could rush here at such short notice.”

I felt fingers at the back of my head, poking around where the upside-down V was. I felt a rush of panic. I figured I was about to become the first kid in the world with a prescription for Grecian Formula.

Heavy footsteps plodded into the room. “Excuse me?” Dr. Flood said. She sounded confused, maybe annoyed. “What are you doing here?”

“Chaplain,” a gruff voice answered. “New on job.”

While Dr. Flood dealt with the chaplain, Dr. Saark pushed my head back and slipped something in my mouth. He held my mouth shut, forcing me to swallow. From under his sleeve, I could see a tattoo that looked like two winding snakes.

What did he just give me? Could he see my eyes were open? What kind of doctor had a tat like that?

What was a chaplain doing here?

“But…I never sent a request for a chaplain,” Dr. Flood said, sounding completely confused. “Are you sure you’re in the right room?”

“Yes, correct,” the man replied. “For last rites. Hospital rules. These situations…you know.”

Last rites? As in, the prayers spoken over people about to die—those last rites?

I panicked. I was obviously in worse shape than I thought. Then my body lurched violently, and everything turned white.

“He’s flatlining!” Dr. Saark shouted. “Dr. Flood, notify the OR. I need a gurney, stat!”

My body convulsed. I heard choking noises—my own. And hurried footsteps as Dr. Flood left the room.

The room was a blur of colors. The two men—Saark and the chaplain—were on either side, strapping my arms and legs down. My head jerked backward, and I thought it would crack open like an egg.

Hold on. Don’t die.

Dr. Saark stood over me, his face red and beaded with sweat. “Now!” he said.

The chaplain was nearly a foot taller than Dr. Saark and at least fifty pounds heavier, but he snapped to, fumbling for something in his inner pocket. I could see his face for the first time—green eyes, ruddy skin, curly red hair, and a deep jagged scar that ran down the left side of his cheek and disappeared into a bushy beard. He pulled out a long syringe with one hand, and with the other wiped my arm with an alcohol pad. As he leaned down, I realized I’d seen him before.

I tried to call out. I opened my eyes as wide as they could go. I stared at the man’s face, willing myself to stay awake.

A word escaped my mouth on a raspy breath: “Red…”

I felt a sharp pain in my left arm. As the room went black, one last word dribbled out.

“…Beard.”

CHAPTER FOUR
THE DREAM

A ring of fire, screaming animals, the end of the world. I am being attacked by a hose-beaked vromaski, whose breath is like a roomful of rotting corpses. Its head is long and thin, with a snout like a sawed-off elephant’s trunk. It has the sinewed body of a striped, shrunken cheetah, with long saberlike fangs and scales in place of fur.

As it thunders toward me through the burning jungle, its stocky legs trample everything in its path. In the distance a fireball belches from the top of a volcano, causing the ground to jolt.

The beast bares its teeth. Its crazed red eyes bore into me, desperate and murderous. But rather than running away, I face it head-on.

Mostly, I think, I’m an idiot.

I have a weapon in my right hand, a gleaming saber with a pearl-inlaid handle. It must weigh a hundred pounds, but it’s so well-balanced I barely feel it.

I rear back. The polished blade of the saber reflects in the vromaski’s red eyes. The creature roars, hurtling itself into the air, its teeth bared and aimed at my throat.

I swing with two arms. The saber shhhhinks through the fetid air, slicing off the beast’s head. Blood spatters onto my face and uniform, a brocaded tunic with a helmet and bronze chest plate, now washed in crimson.

Before the slavering monster’s head hits the ground, a creature swoops down from above, its gargantuan wings sending a blast of hot air into my face. With a screech, it grabs the bloody head in its talons and rises. I stumble back. Its wingspan alone is three times my height. I watch in fright and awe, recognizing the great beast somehow. It has the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

NO.

The dream is not supposed to be like this. Before it was more of a game, the most awesome and scary 3-D video game ever. But now it feels different. The heat sears my flesh. The weight strains my muscles and the smells sicken me.

I turn to run, and I spot…her. The queen. But she’s not the same either. She’s got darker skin than before and a long face lined with worry. Behind her, the land falls off steeply, and I see a vast plain stretching to the horizon. But I follow her glance, which is looking toward a deep valley near us, a depression in the middle of the jungle. She points to a cave opening and looks at me pleadingly. Something has pained her deeply, but I don’t know what—has someone attacked her? Stolen something?

“What do you want me to do?” I shout. But she looks blankly back.

The sky suddenly darkens. In the distance, behind the queen and far below us, I see something growing. A dark blue watery mass at the edges of the vast plain. It is moving toward us, changing shape, roiling and spitting. It seems to be swallowing the earth as it charges, crashes downward, and shakes the earth.

In the valley, the cave is beginning to collapse.

The queen’s mouth drops open. I see a crack growing in the earth. Trees, bushes, still aflame, drop inside the gaping maw. I must leave. I can prevent the destruction. But for the life of me, I don’t know how. All I know is that I must leave. I must race downward to the ocean. I must find someone—someone who looks a great deal like…me.

I run. But the crack is now opening in my path. My brain is telling me I’ve been here before. This is where I die. I am heading for the hole.

I can’t dream my own death again. Can’t.

Somehow I know my brain can’t take this one more time. If I follow through, if I fall into the hole and die, this time it will be for real.

The flying creature swoops down. I feel its talons burn their way into the back of my head. In the shape of an upside-down V.

CHAPTER FIVE
ARRIVAL

“GEEEAHHH!” I BOLTED upward and immediately regretted it. The back of my head felt as if it had been blasted open, and I was afraid my brains would fall out.

I had been facedown. I’d lifted myself to a push-up position, on a bed with sheets soaked in sweat. I dropped back to the mattress instantly, letting out a moan.

What had they done to me?

Partied on the back of my head, that was obvious. I was afraid to move, even to think. I lay still, face buried in the damp pillow, catching my breath. Slowly, the pain began to subside. The stillness helped.

You’re okay. You lifted yourself too fast. Breathe in…breathe out…

I tried to think positively. The last thing I remembered, Dr. Flood was rushing off to notify the OR. That meant I’d had an operation. Okay. This made sense. I wasn’t convulsing or dizzy or hallucinating anymore. No more wooziness. I had a voice. I could move and see. So the operation must have worked, and I was hurting because of the surgery. That had to be it. When Dad had had surgery on his back a year ago, he’d been in bed for two days. I would need to recover, that’s all. I had to look on the bright side.

Surgery, I realized, was a good excuse for missing a math test.

I took a deep breath. Had they cured whatever had happened to me?

In a few moments, I cautiously turned my head. I could see that they’d moved me to another part of the hospital. Dressed me in a set of pajama pants and a neat white polo shirt. It was quiet here, not like the first room. No beeps or voices or traffic noise. The room was dimly lit by a pre-morning glow. The walls seemed to be a peaceful bluish shade, maybe turquoise. The floor was polished wood.

“Hello?” My voice was hoarse and barely audible. I wondered where I was. How long I’d been out.

A breeze wafted over me, pungent and salty.

Salty?

I moved a little more until I could see the windows. They were open. A nearly full moon was fading overhead into a shimmering, silvery sky. I’d seen that color only once before, on the day after Mom had died. Dad and I had stayed up all night and seen the sun rise.

It was warm out, but I’d been wearing a coat when I had my accident.

I thought back to what the doctor had said. A highly rare set of symptoms. Patients with rare conditions sometimes had to go to special hospitals with the right doctors and equipment. This seemed like California or Hawaii.

A closed door stood about ten feet away. Carefully I rolled over and sat up. The back of my head felt like an epic smackdown between John Henry and Thor. I sat for a long moment, took some deep breaths, and stood.

With tiny steps, I shuffled toward the door. I was fine as long as I didn’t move my head too much. Propping myself up on the doorjamb, I pushed the door open onto a long hallway.

It had a new-building smell, like sawdust and plastic. A carpet stretched down the corridor, past a few closed doors. At the end of it, a hospital orderly sat on a stool, snoring. His back was against the wall, his face drooped down into his chest. He had broad shoulders and sharp cheekbones. A flat cap was pulled down across his eyes, and he wore fatigues and thick boots. On his belt was a holstered pistol.

What kind of hospital armed its orderlies?

Waking him up seemed risky. I backed into the room. I needed to call Dad. I wondered if he’d landed yet, and if he knew where I was. How long had I been unconscious? How much time had passed since I was in Indiana?

Slowly I worked my way over to the foot of the bed. There, on top of a steamer chest, someone had placed my backpack and my clothes, neatly folded. I reached around in the pockets of the folded jeans for my phone, but it was gone. It wasn’t in my backpack, either.

But Mom’s birthday mirror was.

I pulled it out. Her smile seemed to blast out of the photo, cutting through the darkness. Across the room, the bathroom door was open, and I could see my reflection in shades of gray. I wondered what exactly they’d done to the back of my head.

Taking the mirror into the bathroom, I turned on the light.

I barely recognized the kid in the big mirror over the sink. My face was ghostly pale, my head completely shaved. I noticed for the first time a monogram on the polo shirt—KI.

I turned and held the small mirror so I could see the back of my head in the larger one. The white hair had been shaved off with the rest. But someone had drawn a shape in black marker, from the top to the bottom of my head, outlining exactly where the upside-down V had been. Bandages had been placed at the bottom of each line, just above the neck. I touched one and began to pull, but the pain was too sharp. There must have been stitches underneath. Incisions.

“What the—?” The mirror slipped from my hand and crashed to the counter. The mirror cracked instantly, as did the frame, one horizontal line down the center, separating the image of four-year-old me from still-alive Mom.

As I reached to pick it up, I heard a click behind me. I spun around to see a figure standing in the door. It was a guy about six feet tall. He slipped inside and shut the door behind him. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

I stepped toward the bed, barely feeling the pain now. “Fine, I guess,” I rasped. “Who are you?”

“Marco Ramsay.” He was wearing the same clothes as I was, but three or four sizes larger. His shoulders were wide, his feet enormous. He had high, chiseled cheekbones dotted with small patches of acne. Dark brown hair hung down to his brow, making his eyes seem to peer out of a cave. They darted toward the door as if he’d done something wrong. “Because I heard a noise from in here…” he said.

“I dropped a mirror, that’s all,” I said. “Um, I’m Jack.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know. Anyway, that dude outside—you know, Conan? Special Ops, Sleep Division? He should have been in here to check on you, but it’s hard to wake him up. And if you do, he gets nasty. So I figured I’d check in myself. But it looks like you’re okay, so I guess I’ll go…” He began to turn back to the door.

“Wait!” I said. “This guy, Conan? Since when do they allow guns in a hospital?”

Marco gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Maybe one of the patients is a terrorist?”

The door swung open again and two others scurried in, a skinny guy and a girl with dyed-pink hair and a mole on her left cheek. She was about my age and looked like someone you didn’t cross. The guy seemed maybe a little younger and was a curly-haired version of George, the little guy from my school who’d been bullied by Barry Reese. “This is what we’re doing? We’re going to be in deep doo-doo, Marco,” the little guy said.

“Fun’s over,” the girl added, her voice a tense whisper. “C’mon, back to the kennel, Big Foot.”

Marco laughed. “Oh, look who’s Little Miss Obedient!” he said, also in a strange, whispery voice.

“Why are you guys whispering?” I said. “And what are you talking about? Kennel?”

“That’s supposed to be a joke,” Marco said. “Aly is a one-person Comedy Central.”

“Time to go!” said the shorter guy, his voice about three times as loud as the others. As he pulled the door wide open, he gave a dramatic wave. “See you at breakfast!”

“Dude, you’ll wake Conan!” Marco snapped. “Last time we did that, he punctured my basketball.”

“Will you guys at least tell me who you are and what we’re all doing here?” I shouted.

From out in the hallway, Conan let out a snort and a mumble. Marco froze.

The little guy was halfway out the door. “I’m Cass Williams, and this is Aly Black. Look, don’t get the wrong impression. We love this place, really. You will, too. It’s awesome. They’ll tell you everything soon. But we’re not supposed to be here right now. That’s all.”

Aly nodded and scurried out the door. Marco backed out, too, shooting me a thumbs-up. “Seriously, dude. Best place in the world. Great breakfasts. All you can eat. We’re all happy here. Later.”

Before I could say another thing, they were gone.

For a moment I wanted to race after them, but I knew my head would explode with the effort. And I didn’t want to risk waking the guy with the gun.

Plus, that was about the creepiest conversation I’d had in my life. Who were these losers? This felt like one big prank. Some crazy reality TV show. Postsurgical Punk’d.

I sank onto the bed and pinched my right arm, just to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. No chance of falling back to sleep now. Morning light was beginning to filter in through the windows, and I could see the room more clearly. I noticed a flag on the wall to my right, with a symbol that matched the one on my shirt:

The initials weren’t familiar. I searched for a call button, some kind of signal for a nurse. Nothing. No button, no medicine cabinet, no rolling tables or IV drips or hanging televisions. There was nothing hospital-like about this place at all.

I tried to think back to what had happened at Belleville. Had anyone said anything about moving me?

I’d had dizziness. I’d fallen into the street. In the hospital, there was this expert and Dr. Flood. She was worried. Some chaplain was there to perform last rites and that confused her…

But I never sent a request for a chaplain…

The chaplain had grabbed my arm. I remembered him now. Huge face, bulbous nose. Red Beard. The same guy who’d passed my house only an hour earlier, barefooted and without a clerical collar. He had tied me to a table and injected me with something. He wasn’t a chaplain. He was helping Dr. Saark. But helping him do what?

I wanted desperately to contact Dad. Just one phone call. I turned toward the window. The sky was brightening in the rising sun. Carefully I stood up. The pain wasn’t quite as intense as it had been. I guessed it was the sudden movement that had really torpedoed me. I’d be fine if I slowed down.

I stepped toward the window and gazed out. Before me stretched a long, grassy lawn nearly the length of a football field, crisscrossed with paths. Surrounding the lawn were old-fashioned red brick buildings, most with tidy, white-shuttered windows. They seemed old, but some of them had sections with glass ceilings. If the lawn were a clock I’d be at the bottom, or six o’clock. To the left, about nine, was a grand, museum-like structure with pillars and wide stairs, kind of the centerpiece. At around two, tucked between the red brick buildings, was a sleek glass-and-steel structure that seemed out of place. The whole thing was peaceful looking, like a college campus plopped into the middle of a jungle. Trees surrounded the compound like a thick green collar stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. Except for the left side—west.

Way beyond the big museum building, a massive black rock mountain loomed darkly over everything. It thrust upward through the greenery like a clenched fist into the softening sky. It seemed almost fluid, changing its shape with the movement of the morning mists.

A murmur of distant voices made me look across the compound. A pair of men dressed in khaki uniforms emerged from the side of a distant building. “Hello?” I called out, but my voice was too weak to carry.

As they stepped into the dim light, I saw that both of them were carrying rifles. Big ones, with ammo.

I ducked away from the window. This was no hospital. I was in lockdown. Were these people coming for me? Already they’d kidnapped me, drilled holes in the back of my head, and stuck me in some sort of bizarre prep school with a bunch of brainwashed zombies. Why? And what were they going to do for an encore?

I made my way silently back across the room. The window on the other side had a much different view. It looked away from the campus. The only thing separating the building from the surrounding jungle was a scraggly clearing, about twenty yards of rocky soil. Beyond it was a thicket of trees. In the dawn light, the jungle looked dense and almost black. But I could see a path leading into it, and that made my blood pump a little faster. Every path had a destination. Wherever this was—Hawaii, California, Mexico, South America—there had to be a road somewhere to a town or city. Stuff had been built here, which meant bricks and materials had been trucked in. If I could find a road and hitch a ride, I’d be able to locate a pay phone or use somebody’s cell. Call Dad. Contact the news media. Report this place.

I sat on the bed and carefully put on my jeans and shoes. Then I went to the window and perched on the sill. Swiveling my legs around, I jumped out.

CHAPTER SIX
INTO THE JUNGLE

IT WAS ONLY a short drop to the ground, but in my condition, I felt like I’d landed on iron spikes.

Sucking in air, I held back the urge to scream. I pressed my hands to my head to keep my brain from bursting. I had to be careful. I’d just had surgery and was a long way from recovery. Even just looking left and right hurt.

There wasn’t much back here: a scraggly yard of trampled soil and grass, some truck tire marks, a Dumpster. I was alone, and no one was coming after me.

Go. Now.

Each step felt like a blow. My ears rang. The distance from the window to the jungle felt like a mile. I was in full view of the windows on this side of the building. If anyone saw me and told Conan, I would be toast. Try as I might, I just couldn’t go very fast.

But as I stepped into the narrow path, I heard no alarm, no voices. Only the cawing of birds, the rustling of branches and leaves. An animal skittered through the grass, inches beyond my toes, barely making a sound.

Focus.

I hobbled as fast as I could. The adrenaline was pumping now, making me less aware of the pain in my head. The path wound around narrow gnarled trees. Thorns pricked my clothing and vines whipped against my face. The air was tinted orange in the rising sun, and droplets of dew sat like glistening insects on the leaves.

I don’t know how long I trudged like that—a half hour? an hour?—before all traces of coolness had burned off. My clothes were soaking wet with sweat and dew. Flies swarmed around my neck and ankles. I was slowing.

When my foot clipped something hard and sharp, I went down.

I let out a wail. Couldn’t help it. I took a deep breath to avoid blacking out. I had to will my clenched jaw open, to keep from shattering my own teeth. My eyes were seeing double, so I forced them to focus on where I’d tripped. It was a flat, disk-shaped rock, hidden by vines until my foot had torn away the greenery. A snaky line had been carved into the top.

I pulled away more vines. The rock was about the size of a manhole cover, covered with a blackish-green mold. But the carving was clear—a crude rendition of a slavering beast, a frightening eaglelike head with fangs.

It looked a lot like my Ugliosaurus.

This was freaking me out. I felt like someone was taunting me. I had to keep it together. There were carvings of mythical beasts all over the world—dragons and such. The kind of stuff that ends up in the museums of natural history. I didn’t care about that.

Look forward. Eyes on the prize.

The path was becoming narrow and choked. To my right, the black-topped mountain loomed over the trees. It seemed to be staying exactly the same size, which probably meant it was farther away than I thought. How far—maybe a mile, two? I felt like I was going nowhere.

I vowed to keep the mountain in sight, always to my right. That way my path would be straight. But straight to what? What if the next village was a half continent away? I had no idea how to survive in the wilderness—except from reading Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain, and I barely remembered those.

As I plodded on, the day grew darker. The thickening canopy blotted out sunlight like a vast ceiling. My ankle ached from the fall and my hands were bloodied by thorns. Overhead, caws and screeches rang out like playground taunts: Check it out! New prey! It can barely walk! The woods seemed to be closing in, dense and alive, rustling with the wind. Or maybe not the wind. Maybe hawks or a nearby pack of pumas or an angry cannibalistic tribe—or all, jockeying for position. First come, first served. A shadow passed and a buzzard landed on a branch above me, cocking its head expectantly.

“Not dead!” I called up. “See the moving mouth? Not! Dead!”

It didn’t budge a millimeter. It was waiting. Birds were smart. They knew where to find dinner. They could tell when someone was about to be killed.

My resolve was crumbling. I’d gone from get-me-out-of-here to what-was-I-thinking. Suddenly the idea of a zombie prep school didn’t seem so bad.

Time to bail.

But as I turned, I felt my heart drop like a coconut. I saw no trace of a path. The compound had long been swallowed up by the trees. The mountain was invisible behind the greenery.

The sun and the mountain. Those were the things that gave me direction. But I couldn’t see either one now.

“Help!”

My cry sounded puny in the wild-animal chorus. I stood, hoping that would help me get some more volume. “Help me!”

The buzzard fluffed out its feathers.

That was when I caught the hint of a breeze. It tickled across my nose and pricked me with a summer memory—the deck of a ferry, a Nantucket shack with Mom and Dad, air so damp it glued envelopes closed.

I may have been from Indiana, but I knew the smell of the sea. Sea meant shore. A shore was a path along water. I could follow it to a port. Swim if I had to. Signal to a passing ship.

As I moved in the breeze’s direction, I came across a pile of charred branches and vines. Excellent. With dry tinder, bright sun, and a piece of flint, I could start a fire and send up smoke signals. I gathered some of it, used my shirt as a sack, and slung it over my shoulders.

I forged on, feeling stronger. I was going to make it! I thought about returning home. Dad would be so freaked. He’d get a job in town and never leave home again. We’d work together to expose this place. My brain would recover from whatever these people had done to it.

My head had stopped pounding. The ringing in my ears was totally gone.

Unfortunately, so was the sea smell.

I stopped. I hadn’t been paying attention. I sniffed left and right. I sniffed until I had to sneeze. But I had lost the scent. Completely.

I thought of retracing my steps, but they’d vanished in the underbrush. Looking desperately around, I saw a gap between trees. Animal droppings. The possibility of a path. In the distance I thought I could see a tiny, bright glint. The reflection of the sun against water?

My heart raced. I hurried toward it, thrashing through the thick brush.

And then something fell from the sky.

“EEEEEEEEEEE!” With a piercing scream, it hurtled into my path. I sprang backward. As it leaped toward me, I could see a set of knifelike teeth and bright red gums.

A monkey landed on all fours and stood chattering angrily. In one hand it held some half-eaten fruit. In the other it was jangling something metallic.

A set of keys.

I rubbed my eyes. I was seeing things.

The monkey didn’t seem to want to attack. Instead it turned its back and walked into the woods. I watched it go, feeling as if my beating heart would burst out of my chest. Just as I’d gathered myself, the monkey popped out again, scolding me. Waving into the jungle.

“You…you want me to follow you?” I said.

“EEEEEEEEE!”

I took that for a yes.

I tried to obey, but the thing was much slipperier than I was. It would disappear into the brush and then emerge exasperatedly with its hands on its little hips. Ahead, I saw the bright glow of a clearing—and the glint again. We were approaching it from a different angle. It wasn’t water. It was something in the middle of a jungle clearing, something metallic or glass.

I picked up the pace, sweeping away thatches of thorny vines. And then I saw it.

A helicopter.

I figured it had crashed long ago, a relic from some war. But as I neared, I saw it looked new and was standing intact. The words KARAI INSTITUTE were emblazoned on the side in purple letters.

KI—the same initials that were stamped on my shirt and the banner in my room. I had no idea what Karai meant. But “institute”? You didn’t call a hospital an institute. Some kind of laboratory, maybe. A place where smart people got together to have smart ideas. What was I doing there? Was I some kind of specimen?

I approached warily. The monkey had dropped the keys on the ground by the helicopter’s door and was jumping around, hysterically excited.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “Fly it?”

The monkey clapped its hands and danced.

The only chopper I’d flown was in a video game. I escaped in order to get help, not get myself killed. Maybe there’d be something inside that could help—a map, a radio, a GPS device. Limping forward, I picked up the keys. “Thanks, bud. If I get out alive, I’m sending you bananas.”

I grabbed the handle by the helicopter door and pulled myself up. Standing on the platform, I carefully pulled the door open.

And I nearly fell back onto the ground.

In the driver’s seat was an enormous man in a short-sleeved shirt. His legs were crossed, revealing the thick, blackened sole of a bare foot. His arm showed a tattoo of the letters KI, made of intertwined snakes. As he turned with a sigh, a pair of steely green eyes peered out from a familiar, scarred face.

I said the only words my brain would allow. “I know you.”

Red Beard grabbed me by the arm and pulled me upward. With his other hand, he swiped the keys from my grip.

“Next time,” he said, “I shoot that chimp.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
YODA IN TWEEDS

I DIDN’T STAND a chance. Red Beard’s hands were like steel bands. He hefted me up into the chopper in one effortless swoop. The movement was so jarring and such a shock to my fragile system that I blacked out.

When I came to, we were rising high above the jungle to a chorus of simian screeches. I tried opening my eyes but even the light hurt. My brain felt as if someone had pumped it full of air.

“Seat belt,” the man grunted.

The chopper’s blades were deafening. I was going back. Back to the institute. Taken by the same man who had injected me with who knows what while he posed as a priest. He had walked past my house on bare feet. Now he was wearing earphones, moving the controls and humming tunelessly to himself. His eyes were bloodshot, his face haggard.

I tugged on his shirt to get his attention. “Take me home!”

“Hunh?” He turned, a little startled, as if he’d already forgotten I was there. Pulling off the left side of his earphones, he said, “Can’t. Got to go back. Seat belt!”

My sight was slowly clearing, the pain in my head subsiding. What was he doing here—in the middle of a jungle? What had he been doing in front of my house…at the hospital?

What was going on?

“You…you injected me…” I said.

He shrugged. “Job.”

“Why?” I said. “Why do you want me?”

“Do what I’m told,” he replied.

“What’s the Karai Institute?” I pressed.

“Bosses,” he said, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

I gazed out the window. Off to one side, the mountain was like a black wound. In the distance, the sea stretched out in a silvery sheet. I could see where the helicopter had been waiting. The spot was surrounded by acres and acres of jungle. What were the chances I’d walk right to it?

“So…you were just waiting at some random place in the middle of the jungle?” I asked. “What if I didn’t show up?”

The man’s face darkened. “Blasted monkey thief!” He pulled down his arm angrily and the chopper swooped. “Stole keys!”

My eyes slammed shut and my stomach jumped. Do not get him angry. And do not hurl.

In a moment we were descending. I peered downward to see a round helipad hidden behind the largest building on the Karai Institute compound.

“Torquin,” the guy said.

I figured he had lapsed into Swedish. “I’m sorry?”

“My name. Torquin.”

“Oh!” I replied. “My name. Jack.”

He cocked his head curiously. “You talk funny.”

The chopper landed and I reached for the door handle. But Torquin let out a grunt and held me back.

Five uniformed workers, three men and two women who looked like the Olympic weight-lifting team, had rushed out of the building. The helicopter door opened and a gloved hand reached in. I tried to pull away, but it grabbed me tight. I heard a sharp, metallic click.

Handcuffs.

“Wait here.” In the basement of a KI building, Torquin pulled open a conference room door. Unhooking the cuffs, the guards shoved me in. The place smelled of fresh cement.

“Go,” Torquin barked. For a moment I thought he was talking to me. But the guards instantly began to grumble and leave the room. I watched them disappear into a long hallway until Torquin slammed the door shut.

He pushed me around a long, polished-wood table to the other side of the room. The place was windowless with pristine white walls, swiveling leather seats, a coffee machine, and a pile of food on the table. With his Visigoth beard, bare feet, and camo clothes, Torquin looked way out of place. “Too many people. Don’t like crowds,” he said.

“Me neither,” I agreed. “Handcuffs, too. Can you take them off?”

“Sit.” He pulled out the leather chair at the very head of the table. My eyes shot directly toward the food spread: fresh and dried fruits, doughnuts, and pastries. On top of it all was a huge, gleaming, chocolate chocolate-chip muffin. It looked awesome, and I was starving.

As he undid my cuffs, Torquin pricked up his ears. “What’s that noise?”

“My stomach,” I said.

“Stay here,” he replied. “Eat. Professor will come.”

As he left, he grabbed the muffin off the top and inserted the entire thing into his mouth.

I hated him.

At the click of the shutting door, I began cramming doughnuts into my mouth. I chased them down with enough fresh pineapple and sliced mango to feed a small Caribbean nation.

When I couldn’t fit another crumb, I slid back into a comfy leather chair and closed my eyes. I would have fallen asleep, I think, and slept for a week straight if five seconds later, the door hadn’t flown open. This time, it wasn’t Torquin.

It looked more like Yoda in a tweed jacket.

“Well, that must have been an ordeal,” the man said in a flat, high-pitched voice. “Greetings and a cordial welcome, Jack.”

He was an older guy, short and lumpy looking with dark, wrinkled skin and a broad nose crossed with veins. His eyes were droopy and sad, and his salt-and-pepper hair seemed to have slid off the top of his head and skidded to a stop just above his ears, forming two messy thatches on either side.

He walked around behind me, leaned in too close, and peered at my head as if I were a lab specimen. Pushing a pair of thick glasses up his nose, he said, “Are we feeling all right?”

“I’m trapped in this room with you,” I said. “I was kidnapped and handcuffed. Nobody will tell me where I am or why I’m here. They took away my phone—”

“Yes, yes, that is a lot to unpack, isn’t it?” the man said, still peering at my head. “But you were hardly kidnapped. You were found wandering off into the jungle. Dear Torquin saved your life. Now please turn and let me properly see the stitches. I promise not to hurt you.”

He reached toward me. I flinched, but he took my chin in his hand and pushed it gently to one side. With his other hand, he lifted one of the bandages on the back of my head. “Splendid! The surgeons did a clean job back there. Are you still in much pain?”

My patience was gone. I was always taught to be nice to grown-ups, but that had expired. “They knocked me out and dug into my brain—yes, I’m in pain! I want to call my dad! Why am I here? And who the heck are you?”

The man pulled up a seat. As he extended his hand, his Coke-bottle glasses slid back down his nose. “Forgive my poor manners. As I used to say to my students at Yale, ‘I have three names—Professor Radamanthus Bhegad—but unlike most academics, I let you use my first name. So you can call me…Professor Bhegad!’”

He sniffed with a very satisfied expression.

“Is that supposed to be funny?” I growled.

“It slew them at Yale,” he said with a sigh. “I apologize for all the secrecy here. You see, Jack, it’s very simple. You need us. You have a rare genetic condition that is about to kill you, and we at the Karai Institute are the only ones who know how to treat it.”

I looked at him warily. “I thought you already treated it.”

“We’re not done yet. This condition is complex. It has lain dormant in you until now. Untreated, it will overload your circuits, so to speak, and cause death.” He sighed and wiped his glasses. “The good news is that when we are finished, you will attain superpowers beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Is this a joke?” I asked.

“Pardon?” he said.

“You mean, superpower superpowers?” I asked. “Like flying, stopping bullets, becoming invisible, having X-ray vision?”

“Dear, dear boy,” Professor Bhegad said, shaking his head with a barely tolerant smile, “the radioactivity in X-ray vision would wreak havoc, wouldn’t it? It is a silly comic-book myth.”

“And there are some superpowers that aren’t?” I asked.

Bhegad nodded. He began to get this odd, faraway look in his eye. “The brain is an amazing thing, Jack. Quite exciting for a boy, no? Whoosh…whoosh…Geronimo!” He seemed to be igniting from the inside. Beads of perspiration lined his forehead. “Of course, this goes two ways. You see, we need you, too. Which is the main reason I am here. To explain your connection to a lost ancient civilization.”

“Wait. Lost civilization?” I said. “I’m still at superpowers.”

Without explaining, he began lifting doughnuts and fruit and glancing underneath. I noticed his fingernails were yellow, practically bitten to the nub.

That’s when it finally hit me. This guy was a nutcase. And I was alone with him. This place wasn’t a lab or a hospital. The “Karai Institute” was an institution!

“Excuse me, Professor…sir…” I said slowly, trying to keep my temper from rising, “I need to see your bosses. Please. Tell them where I am. Tell them there’s been some mistake. Tell them I don’t have my phone, and I need to contact my dad now. Because if they don’t, he will sue their pants off!”

Bhegad looked up from the plate of food. His fingers were smeared with chocolate icing. “You sound frustrated. But you needn’t worry. We have taken care of all details.”

“What does that mean?” I shot back.

“For reasons that will become clear, secrecy is necessary. You will understand when I show you this informational slide show, if I can find that blasted remote….” Leaving the pile of food, he flicked a switch on the wall, and a screen began to lower from the other end of the room. He knelt to peer under the table. “Honestly, no one puts things back where they belong….”

I had to get out of here. Slowly I stood up. The exit was just beyond him. I was sitting at the other end of the table, on the right side. On the floor behind me to the left was a pile of papers. “Oh! Is it that little black thing?” I said, pointing to the corner. “Behind that stack of folders?”

“Ah, thanks…let me see…” he said, waddling around the table.

I waited until he was leaning over, looking away.

And I bolted.

CHAPTER EIGHT
G7W

I RAN DOWN an empty, carpeted hallway. At the end was an exit sign pointing left, with a little graphic that indicated stairs. I took the corner at top speed.

I didn’t expect the stairs to be so close. Or to run into a card game in progress on them.

“Whoa, where are you going?” Aly cried out. She, Marco, and Cass jerked backward as I tripped over the steps.

Marco caught me midfall, but didn’t let go. “’Sup, Jack? Didn’t Bhegad explain everything?”

“You mean the part about him saving my life?” I said, struggling to pry myself loose. “Or turning me into a DC Comics hero?”

“Are you a DC guy?” Cass asked. “Emosewa!”

“Meaning awesome—Cass likes to talk backward,” Aly explained. “I’m a fan of the old-school Superman TV series…with George Reeves?”

They were all crazy. “Get me out of here! I want to see the head of this place!”

“You just did,” Cass said. “Well, he’s not the head of the whole thing…”

But Marco was already dragging me back toward the room. “Just do this, okay?” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t be a pain in the butt.”

“By the Great Qalani, what are you doing to him?” Bhegad’s voice thundered as he came around the corner. “If he pops those stitches, we lose him!”

Marco loosened his grip. I shot upstairs and pulled open the door, to the sound of a piercing alarm.

Three guards pivoted on their heels and faced me, hands on their weapons.

I stopped in my tracks. I was trapped.

“Jack,” Bhegad said softly from the bottom of the steps, “I have PhDs from Yale and Cambridge. If you think I’m crazy, then you must think your three friends are, too. And Torquin and the guards. And seventy-nine world-class experts in genetics, biophysics, classical archaeology, geography, computer science, mythology, medicine, and biochemistry. Not to mention a support staff of two hundred and twenty-eight. The Karai Institute is the finest think tank in the world. And we are patient. We can wait until you’re ready to listen. But you will not escape. So it’s either now or later. Your choice.”

“I don’t believe a word of it,” I said.

Bhegad beckoned me to come down the stairs. “Marco, Cass, Aly—would you kindly turn your backs?”

Marco spun around first—and my jaw nearly dropped. Buried in his dark mop of hair was a white Λ.

Cass’s, too.

“Mine is under the dye,” Aly explained.

I swallowed hard. I took a couple of steps downward. The guards slammed the door shut. “So…you’re all…?”

“The lambda is a unique physical sign,” Bhegad explained. “We don’t understand the mechanics of it. The hair changes rather quickly, and at virtually the same age among all who have the condition. But we do know its significance. It is common to one group of people, whom we call the Select.”

“Select? What are we selected for, something good?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” the professor replied. “Each of you has a rare genetic marker. It is an extraordinary gift, but it also happens to be a ticking bomb. Jack, we were hoping to have five of you here—including a young man called Randall Cromarty. You know the name?”

I was about to say no. But the name did ring a bell. A news item. A grainy video that had been circulating for the last week or so. Some kid rolling a gutter ball, throwing up his hands, dropping to the floor. The story Dad had sent me. “The kid who died in the bowling alley?”

Bhegad nodded. “At the age of thirteen, in Illinois. Cause unknown. Before him, a girl named Sue Gudmundsen fell into a fatal coma while in a San Diego mall—also thirteen. And Mo Roberts, playing catch with his little sister. In all cases, our medical team was too late. But we found you in time.”

“Torquin…” I said. “Dr. Saark…But how did they know?”

“For that, you can thank our IT staff,” Bhegad said. “After your last checkup, Dr. Flood made a note on your computerized medical records about the very beginnings of the lambda. Our tracking software picked it up.”

“You hacked my medical records.” My checkup had been about a week before the math test—a day before Dad left for Singapore. Had Dr. Flood mentioned anything about a mark on the back of my head? I couldn’t remember.

“Hacking is such an ugly word,” Bhegad replied wearily.

“So…what does the lambda mean?” I asked.

“Think of those nightly news headlines, the stories that float around social media like crazy.” Bhegad smiled. “An ordinary person lifts an entire car to free a trapped loved one! A kid considered mentally defective draws ornate cathedrals from memory, to the tiniest detail! As humans, we access only part of our brain’s capacity. But these people have tapped into a vast unused area of the brain that we call the ceresacrum.”

“What does that have to do with us?” I asked.

“Some people breach the ceresacrum temporarily, in response to crisis,” Bhegad replied. “Some are born with a bit of access, not much. But what if the ceresacrum’s gate could be lifted? Not just the rare flash of genius or the momentary feat of strength, but total access? Imagine! In each of us lies the potential to do superhuman things. Feats of great physical daring, art, science. The ability to defy laws of nature. Am I clear, Jack?”

Aly, Cass, and Marco were grinning at me now. My mind was a big fog of duh. “No.”

“Some genes are buried deeply in our DNA,” Bhegad continued. “For example, we all possess the code for a tail…for gills! But these are not expressed, as we say. Nature has shut the mechanism, except in extremely rare cases. Being able to open the ceresacrum gate is like having a tail. The genetic ability is there, but ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine percent of the world’s people do not express it. You four” —he glanced slowly at each of us— “are the point zero zero zero one.”

Now it was becoming clear. And the clarity hurt. “You mean…we’re all genetic mutants?”

“Yes, in a good way,” Bhegad said. “You four possess what we call G7W. It’s a marker. A piece of genetic code. We do not understand how it works, but we know what it indicates. You are the elite. The top of the top. The ones whose ceresacrum can be cracked wide open. Millennia ago, this ability may have existed in many, if not all, humans.”

“Wait,” I said. “Evolution is survival of the fittest. So if you had dudes who were superhumans way back then, why wouldn’t they have survived to now?”

“Because those who die early are, by definition, not the fittest.” Bhegad leaned forward. “Jack, we ran a genetic map of Randall Cromarty’s DNA after he died. And Sue Gudmundsen’s and Mo Roberts’s. They all had G7W.”

I looked from Aly to Marco to Cass. Their faces were drawn. “So I’m—all of us—we’re going to die?” I asked.

“No one who has had this marker has lived past the age of fourteen,” Bhegad said. “For whatever reason, the gene kicks into action around your age—and its actions are too powerful to be withstood by the body. Which is why we brought you here. We have developed a treatment. The operation on your head was the first step. You will be required to undergo regular procedures every ten days or so. Your first will be in about seventy-two hours. But we cannot keep you alive forever. There is a point after which nothing can be done—a sort of expiration date we can read in your genome. And that is what scares me. The fact that all our science is still not enough to keep you alive.”

I sank to the stairs. The carpet felt clammy. The walls felt cold. It was as if the stairwell itself were my coffin. I wouldn’t leave here without dying. I wouldn’t see my dad ever again. I might develop a power or two in the meantime. Maybe paint a cathedral or twirl a helicopter in my bare hands. And then…?

“So your job is to study us,” I said. “We’re your superhero guinea pigs. So what happens when we’re dead? Will you call our families and friends—or just have Torquin dump our bodies in the sea?”

“Yo, hear him out, brother,” Marco said.

“I’m not your brother!” I snapped. “Here’s a deal, Professor Bhegad. Call my dad. Give him your location. Let him come here so I can see him—”

“Jack, please,” Bhegad said. “Your father would snatch you back in an instant—the worst thing that could happen to you. Besides, it would be impossible to give him these coordinates. This place is not visible by ordinary means. Radar, sonar, GPS—none of them register here. There are forces on this island even we do not understand—”

“Then go get him and bring him here,” I said. “If he knows I need the treatments, he’ll stay. He’ll help!”

“We can’t risk that!” Bhegad shouted. “Your lungs need air, your eyes need light—but your ceresacrum needs something here, in the earth itself. Eons ago, this island was a continent. Its people created grand architecture, made extraordinary music, governed with fairness and sophistication. It was protected by a curious flux point of natural forces within the earth—electromagnetic, gravitational, perhaps extraterrestrial. When the place was destroyed, the forces were, too.” Bhegad’s phone beeped. He snatched it angrily from his pocket and looked at the screen.

“Dude, man up to this,” Marco said to me. “We’re on what’s left of Atlantis. And we’re, like, great-great-great-to-a-zillionth descendants.”

“Atlantis? Very funny,” I said, attempting a laugh.

No one else laughed with me. I looked toward Professor Bhegad, but he was texting, his face lined with concern. As he snapped it shut, he said, “I must go. But, yes, Marco is correct. You are connected to Atlantis by blood. Your ceresacrum must feed off the ancient power in order to survive. But that power must be found.”

I swallowed hard. Aly and Cass were looking pale and frightened. “How?” I asked.

Bhegad stood. He pocketed his phone and began edging up the stairs toward the building’s exit. “We don’t know where it is now. The power of Atlantis was stolen. Broken up and hidden all over the world. You must find what was taken. Your lives will be saved, Jack, if you locate all the elements of that power. You must bring them together and return it to Atlantis.”

Bhegad’s phone beeped again, and before I could say a word, he was up the stairs and gone.

CHAPTER NINE
THE SELECT

I FELT LIKE I’d been run over by a three-ton tank. Or squashed by Torquin’s feet.

Aly, Cass, and Marco were all talking at once. Really loudly. We were walking out of the building and onto the path that ringed around the quad. They were telling me what a smart guy Bhegad was and how he was our only hope and how famous we would become.

Half of me felt like a caged orangutan in the zoo. The other half wanted to burst out laughing. Either Bhegad was going to save my life or I had been pranked by some island Yoda who was two sandwiches short of a picnic.

“Atlantis…” I muttered. “Superpowers…I’m supposed to believe this?”

Aly put her arm around me. “Hey, we all doubted it, too!” she said in a loud, affirming voice, like she was talking to someone at the other end of a room. “It’s a tough transition!”

I looked at Cass. “I think Bhegad is nuts. No offense, but I’m not sure about you guys either. You all don’t mind not seeing your parents?”

“Um, no.” Cass’s face clouded over. “Not really. Well, I do, I guess. I mean, I did.”

My heart dropped. I felt like an idiot for asking the question. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are they…?”

“No!” Cass shot back. “They’re not dead. But we…my family isn’t close.”

Marco ran ahead of us on the path. He grabbed a basketball that was lying against the side of a building and began dribbling.

“Trust us,” Aly said. “This is no Truman Show.”

“She likes old movies.” Cass stepped up onto the path’s narrow stone border, and began flapping his arms rhythmically. “Be grateful, Jack. Just think what would have happened if they didn’t find you.”

I had to admit that one. “Okay, I might have died. But I feel totally cured now. Do you really believe this skeezy story—they’re keeping us alive so we can find our inner superpowers, but only if we find the lost power of Atlantis?”

“I believe him!” Aly exclaimed.

“Brother Jack, we are surrounded by world experts,” Marco said, spinning the basketball on one finger. “Wicked smart people. If they just wanted goons to travel and find the Atlantean powers, they could get them. They got Torquin, didn’t they?”

I looked around. Teams were working hard, mowing lawns, repairing roofs, paving walkways. A group was wiring a small maroon half globe to the side of a building. It looked to me like the surveillance cameras in Dad’s old office building. They waved to us as we passed.

“I used to feel the same way you do, Jack,” Aly said, toning her voice down. “I was on a plane flight home from Washington, DC, watching Citizen Kane for like the thirtieth time, and just when I got to the election scene, I had a seizure—and then I was here. The only other person was Marco. That was depressing.”

“Thanks a lot.” Marco threw the basketball at her head, but she caught it. “One minute I’m about to break the scoring record in a middle school basketball game, the next minute I collapse on the court—and I wake up here. I was the first one.”

“You’re in middle school?” I asked. I’d been assuming Marco was at least fifteen.

“I’m thirteen. Big for my age. I think they almost flew me back home, just to get rid of me. But then I started getting the treatments.” Marco faked left, stepped across my path, and quickly snatched his ball back from Aly. “I can’t wait to become invincible.”

Cass had veered off the path and was moving diagonally to the right.

“Where are you going, brother Cass?” Marco asked.

“Nowhere. Just trying to retrace the exact path I took at three o’clock or so.” Cass shrugged. “I committed my foot placements to memory. The patterns of the little pebbles in the blacktop. And the ssarg.”

“Ssarg?” I said, and immediately got it. “Oh. Grass.”

“Humor him,” Aly murmured. “He’s just that way with directions, trivia, you name it. World-class memory.”

“Just about the only thing I don’t remember is how I ended up here,” Cass said. “I was in a parking lot, and then I was here. Hey, tell me the name of the town where you live, Jack. And then name any other place in the United States.”

“Belleville, Indiana,” I offered. “And…um, Nantucket, Massachusetts.”

Cass stood stock-still for about thirty seconds. “Belleville. Take Route Thirty east to Fort Wayne; Route Sixty-nine north to Route Eighty all the way across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to the George Washington Bridge to the Cross Bronx; the Hutch to the Merritt, swinging down to Ninety-five via Route One at Milford; One Ninety-five in Rhode Island, Four Ninety-five to the Cape, and Six to One-thirty-two to the ferry in Hyannis.”

“Which shipping channel does the ferry take?” Marco asked.

“Ynnuf ton,” Cass drawled.

I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “He’s right. I used to follow the route on a map on our vacations. That’s freaky.”

“The ceresacrum takes your biggest talent and makes it awesome,” Aly said. “The treatments allow G7W to do its thing.”

“What’s your big talent?” I asked. “Something to do with movies?”

“That’s just a hobby with her,” Cass said. “Often very gniyonna.”

“I sent cute kitten photos to the members of the National Security Council,” Aly said with a laugh. “Which doesn’t seem like much, except I hacked into their system to do it. Through a military-grade firewall and the highest level of encryption. I was bored after finishing my homework. It seemed like a fun project.”

“Did you go to jail?” I asked.

“I was nine years old.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal. They didn’t arrest me, they hired me. To strengthen their system. And…” Her face darkened. “Also to do some other stuff. I was their youngest employee ever.”

“What other stuff?” I asked.

She ignored the question and jerked a thumb over toward Marco. “Believe it or not, Slacker Boy over here is good at something, too.”

Marco was staring at the basketball court at the other end of the quad, near the main building. He bounced his basketball twice, rocking on his feet. “The blindfold, please.”

Aly took a bandanna from Marco’s rear pocket and tied it across his eyes. Slowly he reared back with the basketball.

The court was half a football field away. It was like trying to hit an airplane with a snowball. Marco crouched, then let go with a loud grunt. The ball shot high into the air. Scary high.

Marco pulled off the blindfold and watched as the ball came down like a cannon shot. It ripped the net as it dropped through the hoop.

“Three points,” Aly said.

“Dang,” Marco said disappointedly. “It grazed the rim.”

My jaw nearly hit the ground. “I did not see that.”

Cass had photo recall and could speak backward at will. Aly was a hacker genius and movie expert. Marco was Michael Jordan on steroids, without the steroids.

I was chopped liver.

I sat in my room, glumly putting on a pair of khaki pants and a button-down KI-logo shirt. I didn’t have a talent. I was eh in school and sports. I could use computers but didn’t really know how they worked. I could set up a fake volcano to launch a plastic toy. Maybe that was my talent. Dumb contraptions. Maybe I’d be able to launch an SUV using palm trees.

I was the opposite of the Select. I was the Discard Pile. Not good at anything. Maybe my lambda mark was just premature aging. I was a mistake.

And now I was supposed to go to a dinner honoring me. Were they expecting me to show off, the way Cass and Marco had?

“Ready?” Aly called out from the hallway, knocking on the door.

I opened it. She was wearing a striped knit shirt and a black leather skirt. Her wrists were full of cool, jangly jewelry that matched her pink hair, and she was wearing some makeup. “You look emosewa,” I said.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she said.

She was smiling brightly, like we were about to go to the prom or something, which made me feel really uncomfortable. “I was…making a joke,” I said, “about Cass’s backward speak. Not that you don’t look it—emosewa. Er, awesome. You know.”

“Quit while you’re ahead, McKinley.” Aly took my arm as we walked down the hall.

“Heeeere comes the bride…” Marco sang, emerging from his room.

Aly sneered. “Maturity is not part of Marco’s talent profile.”

We picked up Cass from his room, and Professor Bhegad met us outside our dorm. “Everyone is excited to meet you, Jack. Come.”

As he walked, his massive key chain banged against his hip like tiny cymbals. He pointed out the various buildings—a library with enormous windows, a state-of-the-art gym, a museum. People joined us as we walked, all wearing clothes that showed a KI insignia over the left breast pocket. Marco seemed to have a different secret handshake for each of them. Like he’d known them his whole life.

Strange voices called out to me: “Hey, Jack, how are you feeling?”… “Book club meets on Tuesdays!”… “yoga”… “spinning class”… “surfing club”…

Before we went into the dining hall, Marco stopped short. “Yo, P. Beg, I want to show Jack the media room.”

“It’s Professor Bhegad,” the old man said. “And I don’t think we have the time. The chef has prepared—”

“One minute, that’s all,” Marco insisted.

As Bhegad continued to protest, Marco pulled a plastic card from the protective pouch that hung from a big key ring on the professor’s belt. He quickly ran to a Colonial-style brick building, threw open the door, and announced, “Welcome to utter coolness.”

Although the building looked old, the inside was amazing—long and rectangular, with a lofted area and a glass ceiling high above. Everywhere I looked there were consoles and monitors, game devices and arcade machines. The beeps and sound effects made it seem like some strange forest full of squeaking electronic rodents.

“Nerd Heaven,” Cass continued. “Including board games and jigsaw puzzles.”

“We’re getting a foosball table on Friday,” Aly said with relish. “And we’re having a Preston Sturges festival. Hail the Conquering Hero Saturday night.”

We? I could never, ever think of myself and the Karai Institute as we.

“Dinnertime!” Bhegad said, heading back to the door. “Oh dear, where did that access card go?”

“I gave it back to you, P. Beg,” Marco said.

Now Bhegad was looking around the floor in frustration. “Achh. I’ve had this problem ever since I turned sixty. Honestly, I just lose everything! Ah, well, it will turn up. We mustn’t be late. We have a surprise for you, Jack. Come.”

As Professor Bhegad headed for the door, Cass and Aly followed. I turned to go with them.

Behind me, I felt Marco slipping something flat and rectangular into my pocket.

CHAPTER TEN
SECRET MESSAGE

MARCO HADN’T SAID a word. Hadn’t even looked at me.

What was I doing with the card key? I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to be caught with it. Was this Marco’s plan—to get me in trouble? Why?

I tried to look at him, to get some sort of indication. He was sitting across a crowded table from me, stuffing food into his mouth and carrying on a conversation with some young female staff member whose name tag said Ginger.

The banquet table was enormous, running the length of a vast octagonal room. Chairs were packed close together, and it seemed like the entire Karai Institute was here—fat old men with ZZ Top beards, hipsters in narrow glasses, all kinds of people. Many sported intertwining-snake KI tattoos on their arms. They all seemed to know each other well, their laughter and conversation hovering like a cloud of sound.

The place was called the Comestibule. Professor Bhegad said it meant “cafeteria,” and he didn’t answer me when I asked why they didn’t call it a cafeteria. Its walls, paneled with blond wood, rose dizzyingly upward to a kind of steeple. All around us were portraits of stern-faced scientists, who seemed to be staring at me like I owed them money.

A great chandelier, made of curled glass tubes that resembled Medusa’s head of snakes, flooded the room with LED light. Across the rafters hung a banner that stretched nearly the length of the room:

WELCOME TO YOUR KARAI INSTITUTE HOME, JACK!

Professor Bhegad had made a big deal about the chef preparing quail for dinner. The thought of it made me sick.

Cass leaned over to me and mumbled a long stream of words that made absolutely no sense. “Dude, stop it,” I said. “I can’t do that backward-speaking thing.”

As Cass stared at me, looking annoyed, Marco’s voice boomed out toward a passing waitress. “Excuse me, you got any more food? There isn’t much meat on these things.”

“If you eat one more quail, sir, you’ll fly away,” the girl answered.

“Take mine,” I said.

Marco reached across and vacuumed my plate away.

I kept expecting people to ask me about my Big Talent, but no one did. Fortunately, they all seemed pretty normal. Friendly.

A clinking sound rang out, and Professor Bhegad was on his feet. “Ladies and gentlemen and Scholars of Karai! Our Comestibule is a place of great joy today. We have saved a young life and we continue our adventure with renewed strength and hope. Tonight and over the next few weeks you will all have a chance to meet our newest young genius, Jack McKinley!”

“Speech! Speech!” Marco yelled through the applause.

My heart was ping-ponging. I still couldn’t get used to this. Weeks? Here?

I felt an elbow in my side. “Hey, wake up, dude,” Aly muttered. “You’re getting a standing O.”

All around the table, people were rising to their feet and applauding. Staring directly at me. All except Cass, who was doodling on a napkin.

“Stand up!” Aly said.

My chair was heavy and hard to push back. I felt like a dorkus maximus. I waved awkwardly and sat again.

“That was inspiring,” Marco said, his mouth full of quail.

As I sat, I noticed a paper napkin and a pen lying on my chair. “Is this yours?” I asked Cass.

His eyes widened. He glanced up at the Medusa chandelier. I looked into the crazy swirl of glass tendrils, but I couldn’t tell what he was acting so weird about.

Not weird. Scared, maybe. His face was tense and his fingers had the tremors.

I flipped the napkin over and saw a scribbled note. A bunch of numbers.

“The banner is cool!” Cass blurted out. “‘Welcome to your Karai Institute home, Jack!’ Man, I never had something this fancy. I’d remember those words forever. Wow. ‘Welcome to your Karai Institute home, Jack!’”

He was trying to tell me something. I glanced at the note and figured I needed to read it in private. “I—I think I’ll wash my hands,” I said, pushing my chair back.

The men’s room was outside the dining room, across a small hallway with a view of the kitchen. I bolted inside, ran into an open stall, and latched it shut. Carefully I spread the napkin on the wall and looked at the message.

They looked like Lotto numbers. What did they mean? Could it be some kind of code? Maybe an alphabet-number substitution thing. Like A = 1 and B = 2.

Nope. Didn’t work. Some of the numbers were greater than twenty-six, and there were only twenty-six letters in the alphabet.

I sat back with a sigh. What was it Cass had been telling me? The banner is cool…I’d remember those words forever. He’d read it aloud. Twice.

Weird.

I wrote the banner’s message across the top of the napkin: WELCOME TO YOUR KARAI INSTITUTE HOME, JACK.

Staring at it, I wondered if he meant it was connected to the code. I started numbering each of the letters in the banner message.

The first number on Cass’s coded message was 6. That mapped to the M in the banner message.

I went one by one with each of his digits: 6, 27, 2, 8, 23, 20, 30, 15, 13, 4, 11, 21, 13, 5, 11, 30, 8, 28, 16, 2, 31, 15, 6, 1, 7, 13, 25, 20, 15, 1, 17, 10.

MEETINMARCOS

ROOMTHREE

AMWERUNAWAY.

Meet in Marco’s room. Three A.M. we run away.

I took a deep breath. Then I ripped up the napkin and flushed it into oblivion.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
THREE A.M.

AS MY BEDROOM door clicked open, I snapped awake. I didn’t know what time it was. My brain had been dipping in and out of sleep for hours. The night had spooked me. I didn’t trust the smiling, squeaky-clean faces at dinner. Or Professor Bhegad.

“It’s Marco,” came a whisper. “Time to get up.”

The little glowing clock on my bed table read 2:56. My foggy brain was awakening. Three A.M. we run away.

“You’re early,” I mumbled.

Marco stepped inside. His backpack was slung across his shoulder. “Just wanted to be sure you got up. I’m kind of a control freak. But you probably figured that out. Come on before it’s too late. Aly disabled the bugs.”

I turned to face him. “The what?”

Marco gestured toward the banner with the KI symbol. “Wake up and smell the coffee, Jethro. They’ve got a recording device in that banner. And in a few other places, too. Just sound, out of respect for privacy, I guess. The cameras are on the outside of the building. Now come on. Don’t make me carry you out of here.”

I was on my feet. I hadn’t changed out of my clothes since dinner, so all I had to do was slip my feet into my Chucks.

Marco flung the door open. Conan was slumped backward in his chair, mouth open, snoring. “Aly hacked into the medical-supply security and liberated some sleeping pills,” Marco explained as we walked toward his room. “Horse strength for Conan. Not that he really needed it. Sleep is his natural state.”

Marco’s room was the second door to the right. Cass and Aly were already waiting inside, looking grim and worried. The little smiles that had always been plastered on their faces were gone.

“We owe you an explanation,” Aly said, talking very quickly. “You think we’re idiots. Children of the Corn zombies. We had to act enthusiastic. We’re under surveillance, indoors and out, twenty-four seven. I’ve been trying to hack into the system since day one. The encryption makes the US government look like amateurs, but I finally did it.”

“So…everything you’ve been telling me…about how happy you are here, how much you like this place…” I said.

“Lies,” Cass said. “At dinner I wanted to whisper the plan to you, but that chandelier is full of unidirectional mikes. Then I tried to talk to you in Backward, but you outed me. Sorry about the code. It was my only choice. If I had my way, we would all be talking in code, just for the fun of it. Naem I tahw wonk uoy fi.”

“I’m adjusting to the idea that you’re all normal. Don’t spoil it.” I smiled. “So I was right—they’re evil; they’re fooling us.”

“We’ll talk later, bro,” Marco said. “We have to move, before they notice the system is down.”

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