The Gift (16 page)

I’m madly trying to think of a poem about light dawning.
There
must
be one! Why is my mind like a slushie when I’m around The One?

He pauses as some deeply unpleasant thought settles into his mind.

“Do you have any idea how much power it takes to do
what you’ve just done? Or the applications to which such an ability might be put? Do you?”

He grabs my head in his long-fingered hands. It’s no longer a warm touch. His skin is so cold it stings. He’s hurting me now.
A lot.

“Time for a pop quiz, my dear Wistful,” he says ominously. “Do you remember anything, anything at all, from your Biology 101
class? How about physics? Chemistry?” His hands are pressing harder into my temples.

“I… must’ve… skipped… those,” I manage to eke out through my clenched teeth. This is pain like I’ve never experienced before.

“Ah. I should have expected as much from a truant. What a shame that you know so
little,
” he spits out, “about your Gifts. About how the functioning of the human mind, and thus the body, is controlled by electrical
impulses. Electricity, in a sense.”

The One’s coldness extends invisible tentacles
inside
me. Ice is growing down my spine. “And I… should care… because…?”

“You.
Foolish. Child!
” he screams, shaking my head now, practically crushing my skull. “You have no respect for what you’ve been given!”

I try to flame up but realize I can’t. He’s entirely
draining
the magic from me. All the warmth is slipping from my body. Like I’m dying. He’s actually killing me right now, isn’t he?

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

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

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

“I frankly don’t know whether to be
im
pressed or
de
pressed.”

Whit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The One just laughs. And laughs, and laughs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wisty

ALL RIGHT, so I’ll admit it. There was a very small part of me—the dream-big girl who’ll cling to any hope no matter how many times
she’s been crushed by the cruel heel of life—that hoped we
were
headed to some sort of spa.

I mean, I wasn’t expecting a mani-pedi while drinking a seltzer with lime, but I let myself imagine something low-key, like
being a quarantined tuberculosis patient at a convalescent hospital, sitting on a porch wrapped in a blanket, staring out
at the countryside.

But that was the very, very old days, and this was a very, very new world. As noted by the name of this facility.

“Welcome to the Brave New World Center,” intones a disembodied female voice as we step into the brightly lit, ultraclean entryway
of our new home. Stun guns are planted firmly in the smalls of our backs.

“Please prepare to watch the Brave New World Center Onboarding Video,” continues the voice. She sounds like a
computer-designed voice-over—a little
too
perfectly modulated. With any luck, maybe she’ll shut up and we’ll start watching calming videos of waterfalls and rain forests,
or maybe she’ll conduct mind-body relaxation exercises.

This whole place actually looks more sanitary than a hospital—white glossy floors, white glossy walls, white glossy ceilings.
“What gives?” I ask Whit. “I thought there was a New Order law that said they always had to put kids in filthy hellholes.”

“Clean hellholes apparently will work in a pinch,” says Whit.

“Who knew? I’m waiting for my white terry-cloth robe and fuzzy slippers.”

“Shut
up!
” barks one of the guards behind us.

The lights go down as orchestral, soundtrack-style music fills the room, and the wall in front of us lights up with images.
The disembodied female voice comes back. “Congratulations on your admittance to the Brave New World Center,” she says. “The
most advanced facility of its kind in all of the Overworld, dedicated to the nurturing of young dynacompetents. Built in the
Year 0001 A.O., the BNW Center features the latest in new technology and employs the best pedagogical program ever devised
for unlocking scalable kinetic potentials and directing them into a life of fully compliant productivity.”

My eyes are glazing over already. Maybe she
is
inducing hypnosis.…

The screen plays a video tour of the immaculate
hallways, classrooms, lecture halls, cafeterias, and dormitory rooms that presumably await us beyond this reception chamber.
Everything reeks of sterility.

“The curriculum features twenty-four-hour audio- and video-based instruction.” The screen flashes images of hundreds of different
speakers and monitors—in the corners of ceilings, along walls, in desks, in headboards. “In this way, lessons will continue
uninterrupted—even during sleep. Ninety-nine point three percent of students find they are able to absorb enough information
and behavioral training to evolve to the second level in
less than two weeks
.”

“Big whoop,” I hear Whit mutter. “Dogs in obedience school do better than that.”

I start to snigger until he suddenly yells, “Ouch!” and jerks his hand up in the air. From out of nowhere a small robotic
thingy has scooted up and smacked his knuckles with a long yellow bar that looks suspiciously like a ruler. Maybe it’s a stun
gun.

“And,” continues the woman, “as a means of ensuring that the BNW Center remains a one hundred percent optimized learning environment,
you will find in place a system of corrective negative feedback stimuli for any disruptive or wasteful behaviors. No student
has ever been released from the Center without complete mastery of the core curriculum!”

“I’m still waiting for my aromatherapy treatment,” I whisper to Whit.

“Your
what
-atherapy?” he whispers back.

Thwack! Thwack!
Zoomba, the little robot thingy, is back with its stick.

Now Whit and I are both sucking our knuckles. So much for my spa fantasy.

“This concludes the Onboarding Video. Again, welcome and congratulations on your admittance to the Brave New World Center.
Won’t you have a chocolate?”

The little robot in front of us has lost the ruler and is now holding a tray with two chocolates on it.