Brainboy and the Deathmaster (14 page)

The next morning she was the first one in the dining hall. Hedderly had set the table, complete with glasses of pineapple juice and vitamins. She pocketed Darryl’s tablet and sat down in chair number seven to wait for the others.

Darryl came in chattering with Billy O’Connor about the new G-17 image. They didn’t stop talking about it until the food was served and Ruthie raised her glass “To conquering Time!”

“Give it to me,” Darryl hissed.

Nina picked up her fork and sampled her poached egg.

“Thief,” he whispered.

“Wuss,” she whispered back.

A startled look crossed his face. His eyes fixed on his plate. Everyone else dug in, but he still hadn’t so much
as picked up his fork when the others got up to go.

“Come on, Darryl,” Billy said, pulling him out of his chair. “There’s this lecture on fission you’ve got to see.”

Still looking dazed, Darryl followed Billy out of the dining hall. Nina wrapped the cinnamon roll he’d left on his plate in a napkin and followed them down to L. After spending half an hour with Billy in Video, Darryl ducked into Bio, and Nina went in and set the cinnamon roll by his microscope. He didn’t thank her. He didn’t speak to her at lunch, either. Or during exercise period, which he spent in the pool, never even glancing toward the gymnasium. Nor did he speak to her at dinner.

After dinner there was a general migration up to the AquaFilm, but Nina retreated to her room. She was lying in bed listening to “We’ll Meet Again” when Darryl barged in.

“I want my vitamin,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest in the doorway.

She sighed, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “I didn’t really mean you’re a wuss, Darryl.”

“I want my vitamin,” he repeated.

“You just think you do. They make you feel better, but it’s not real.”

“So what? What’s so wonderful about real? You like StarMaster, don’t you? It’s not real.”

“But … facing things makes you stronger. Not a wuss.”

He flinched.

“What is it, Darryl?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

He closed the door behind him and slumped down in one of the red velvet chairs. “Somebody used to call me that.”

“Who?”

He said something, but too low to hear.

“Who?” she said, the last of her anger evaporated.

“My brother,” he whispered. “Jason.”

“What happened to him?”

Darryl lowered his eyes.

“Why did that bell bother you so much down on L? Or was it the flashing red light?”

He just kept studying the carpet.

“Darryl?”

He said nothing. She suddenly felt like going over and giving him a comforting hug, but she remained on the bed.

“Whatever it is,” she said gently, “you ought to face up to it. Otherwise it’ll make you its prisoner. Like you’re a prisoner here.”

He shot her a look. “Mr. Masterly said I could spend
the summer water-skiing if I wanted. Why would he say that if I was a prisoner?”

“He wanted you to think you had a choice.”

“You mean … because he wants us to
want
to be here?”

“I figure orientation only works if you’re psyched for the chemistry and stuff. It’s like in this book about magic in my school library. It said nobody can hypnotize you if you don’t want to be hypnotized. All that stuff about swaying a pocket watch in front of people’s eyes and putting them in a trance is baloney.”

“Did he mention talking with the dead?”

“Uh-huh. And you’d already taken a vitamin before you had the tour of Paradise, right? That’s how it was with me.”

“What made you stop taking it?”

“I dropped it one time at breakfast, like you did. Except mine rolled out behind my chair and Hedderly stepped on it. He pulverized it. I was scared to speak up. Then that night I started missing Boris something awful. I cried myself to sleep. But I decided I liked feeling lonely better than feeling numb.”

“That sort of looks like Boris,” Darryl said, eyeing the acrobat. “How’d you two get separated in that shelter?”

“Mr. Masterly said he’d be adopting Boris, too.”

“Did you eat a pastry?”

“A lemon tart—in his private jet. Next thing I knew, I was right here.”

“Do you remember orientation?”

“Not much. I figure they give you something that helps you absorb information but switches off the rest of your brain. The vitamins aren’t so strong, but they still switch off parts of you. Not the parts that help you figure out the structure of G-17. Other parts.”

“Like feelings.”

“If you don’t think about the past, or people you miss, you can concentrate better on isotopes and polymers.”

“But, you know, Nina, I thought about G-17 today even after the vitamin started wearing off. It’s pretty interesting. You think it’ll ever really work? Rejuvenate DNA?”

“Maybe.”

“It’ll be like that DeathMaster game.”

She sat up. “Is that why the red light bugged you?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you do well at DeathMaster on that Mondo thing, there’s a red flash. I think it’s taking your picture.”

Darryl went pale.

“Is that it?” she said. “The red flash reminds you of being in the shelter?”

But instead of answering, Darryl just surveyed the room.

“Want to get out of this place?” he said.

“Of course. But if he was even a little bit worried about any of us escaping, do you think he’d leave a chest of diamonds lying around?”

“You’ll have to go up your ventilation shaft.”

“Oh, sure! It’s got to be a hundred feet straight up.”

“Chimney technique.”

“What?”

“It’s a rock-climbing thing. When there’s long cracks in a rock face.”

“How do you know about that?”

Again he didn’t answer. Instead he asked the date.

“Um, August eighteenth, I think.”

“You ought to go while the weather’s still warm. In case you have to hike once you get out. You won’t be able to carry any gear—and who knows where we are? When’s Labor Day this year?”

“September fourth, I think.”

“Shoot for that,” he said. “It gives you a couple weeks to get in shape. You can train at night. Hedderly won’t notice.”

“I could never get up that shaft.”

“Really? I thought you were a Flying Rizniak.”

She couldn’t help grinning at this. “Well, I guess I
could try. You may have to pull me up the last part, though.”

He looked down at the carpet again.

“What?”

“I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. Unless I took a vitamin. And then I probably wouldn’t care about escaping.”

“But why?”

“Because,” he muttered.

“Because why?”

“It’s like you said. I’m a wuss.”

O
n the way back across Lake Washington, Boris rested as much as he rowed, but BJ never stopped paddling once. It was
his
bike and
his
wristwatch being held ransom at the rental shop. They made it back just before the place closed, and BJ was so exhausted by the whole ordeal that he barely made it through dinner that night.

He didn’t wake till after ten the next morning, but once he was up, he wasted no time, wolfing down three bowls of cereal, hopping on his bike, and riding straight over to the shelter. When he slipped into the front hall, he heard voices coming from Ms. Grimsley’s office, so he headed upstairs without bothering her. He found Boris smoking on the windowsill in the third-floor room.

“I thought your cigarettes got soaked.”

“I copped a couple from the old bag in the kitchen. So what’s your bright idea for today, Einstein?”

BJ pointed at the laptop on the desk.

“What about it?” Boris said.

“It’s got to be the link.”

“What link?”

“Between Darryl and your sister.”

“Look, Masterly couldn’t’ve adopted them. His own kid would know. My friggin’ arms feel like spaghetti.”

BJ sat down at the desk and booted up the laptop. As soon as he started negotiating the maze, Boris sidled over to watch.

“No, go right, yeah, go left there, no, not that way, dumb-dumb, there’s a wall that way.”

“Jeez, man, it’s hard enough without you blowing smoke in my face.”

But in spite of the smoke and the backseat driving BJ made it through. When the game list appeared, he clicked on StarMaster 3. Nothing happened for a while, but just as Boris went to flick his cigarette out the window, the question popped up:

BJ typed in:

“Hey,” BJ said, looking over his shoulder. “What’s your tattoo say?”

“What’s it to you?” Boris said.

“Check this out.”

Boris came back and peered at the screen. “You’re pulling my chain.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Come on. You typed that in.”

BJ typed in:

The answer reappeared:

“No way!” Boris screeched. “That’s Neen!”

“Your sister?”

“That’s Neen! It’s got to be!”

“What’s it mean, NABATW?”

Before Boris could answer, the door opened.

“Mr. Walker,” Ms. Grimsley said, frowning from the doorway. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Just came by to visit Boris, ma’am.”

Ms. Grimsley stepped in, sniffing the air. “Is that smoke?”

“Comes in the window from the kitchen,” Boris said.

Ms. Grimsley didn’t appear to buy this. “Come with me, Boris,” she said, closing the laptop.

“Don’t!” he cried, opening the laptop back up. “We’re in the middle of a game.”

“That can wait. There are some people downstairs who’d like to meet you.”

“
Huh?
”

“Prospective foster parents. They’re looking for a boy about your age. Their own son died in a boating accident.”

“Then they don’t want me! I can’t even swim. Tell her, man.”

“He can’t swim,” BJ said.

“That’s neither here nor there,” said Ms. Grimsley. “Let me smell your breath, Boris.”

Boris turned away, but Ms. Grimsley took him by the shoulders and made him face her. “As I suspected. Brush your teeth and come join us in my office.”

As soon as she left, hands gripped BJ’s shoulders like vices. “Get her back!”

The screen had gone blank, and when BJ hit “Enter,” another maze appeared.

“Crud,” he said.

“Go through it! Come on!”

But this time BJ was two or three turnings away from the exit when the two minutes elapsed.

“Try again!” Boris cried. “That was Neen!”

But again BJ failed. And before he could make another stab at it, Ms. Grimsley came back and shepherded them impatiently out of the room.

D
arryl came home from a field trip to the Pacific Science Center to find the house deserted. Or so it seemed. When he went up to his room, there was Jason, sound asleep in bed, even though it wasn’t dark out yet.

“What’s going on?”

Jason didn’t stir, so Darryl went to check his parents’ room. They were sound asleep, too!

“Are you guys sick?”

Neither of them answered or even rolled over. He crept up to the bedside and felt his mother’s forehead to see if she had a temperature.

“
Ow!
” he cried, yanking his hand away. “You’re on fire!”

“Rise and shine, friend and colleague. …”

Darryl jerked up. He wasn’t in his parents’ bedroom, he was in his fancy bedroom in Paradise Lab. His whole body was trembling, and his hand still tingled as if it really had been scalded.

But a nice long shower calmed him down, and later, down on L, he put the bad dream out of his mind by concentrating on the new G-17 image on a computer in
a carrel in Books, where he was safe from the flashing red light. The more he scrutinized the molecule, the more determined he became to stabilize it. He’d never been really and truly baffled before, not by the most ticklish math problems in CastleMaster, not by the Individualists’ wiliest brainteasers in StarMaster 3.

He became so absorbed that he didn’t realize he was no longer alone till he felt hands on his shoulders.

“It’s lunchtime, Darryl.”

“Mr. Masterly!”

“You like our new image?”

Darryl wanted to squirm away from the man, but at the same time he wanted to impress him. “It’s fantastic, sir. You can see the molecular scaffolding so clearly.”

“Has it given you any bright ideas?”

“Actually, yeah.”

“What would that be?”

“Chopping it in two.”

Mr. Masterly laughed. “Seriously.”

“But there’s a natural division.’’ Darryl broke the image up into two pieces. “G-9¼ and G-7¼. They remain bonded, but when they’re cleaved, they’re stronger. I think we could do it in the accelerator.”

Mr. Masterly leaned closer to the monitor, intrigued. “Divide and conquer, eh?”

It was Nina’s day for lunchtime game duty, so
instead of talking with her in undertones while he ate, Darryl pondered G-9¼ and G-7¼. When he got back down to L, Nina was sharing a sandwich with Snoodles at the computer console.

“How’s it going?” Darryl said.

“Well, we had a player. But only for a second.”

He eyed the red light warily. “Rosalie_W again?”

“No, she called herself BJ. Or he.”

“
BJ?
”

“Yeah.”

“Are you all r-r-right, young s-s-sir?”

Darryl blinked from the young face to the old one. “I have a friend called BJ.”

“Is he in a Masterly shelter?” Nina asked.

“No. But he delivers library books to one.”

It was a wasted afternoon for Darryl. He huddled safely in Books, yet he listened so intently for the bell that he barely focused on G-17. If BJ got through again, he
had
to be the one to play him.

But the bell never rang.

In the dining room that evening the team was just starting their main course when Mr. Masterly’s voice came over the PA system:

“When you’re finished eating, Darryl, I could use you down on L.”