The Gift (18 page)

The emergency-containment doors fly open and slam Whit and I against the wall behind them. Three school monitors the size
of nightclub bouncers are dragging escapee Byron Swain. He’s limp—
dead?
No, he’s coughing now. Hard.

He sees me, of course, and croaks, “Told you. Stay away from the wrath of ERSA.”

Wisty

MY FIRST CHOCO-OPP IS a contest taking place in the Dynasium—basically a gym for dynacompetents, which is what they call kids they think might
have
energy capabilities
rather than admitting that we actually have
magic.

There are weights to levitate, bottles of various liquids to transmogrify (yeah, I don’t know what that means either), metal
bars to bend, braziers of oil to set alight. And there are bunnies and rats in cages for I don’t know what yet—maybe we’ll
just have to change the color of their fur?

Crossley, who’s now pretending yesterday’s weird episode never even happened, tells me the kids call these competitions “
spell
ing bees,” although that’s strictly on the down-low. So is the slang term “M,” for magic.

ERSA, like most New Order officials, has absolutely no sense of humor. So we’re not in here casting spells, you see, we’re
here demonstrating “dynacompetent potentials” and transmitting “biokinetic energies.”

ERSA’s smooth-as-apple-butter voice fills the room. “Students, join your partners at the workstation identified on the assignment
board and await further instruction. You will have sixty seconds to complete your assigned challenge.”

I look up at the board and moan aloud. Whit got some cute girl named Cherry Lu whom he’s been playing eye hockey with ever
since we got here. And me?

Perfect.

I have Byron “Nonmagical Weasel Who Shouldn’t Be in This Place to Begin with” Swain. “Informant” Swain. “Soon to Be a Half-light”
Swain.

I take a deep breath so I’m better able to resist the urge to strangle him.
Focus, Wisty. You must win the contest,
I remind myself.
Do it for the chocolate
.

Byron and I head over to our station, a wooden bench with a series of lightbulbs and some big old metal drum attached to it.
As we walk, I actually put my arm around his waist—but it’s only because I’ve got a pencil in my hand that I’m knifing into
his side as hard as I can.

He doesn’t resist.

“I hate you forever,” I say through gritted teeth. “
Forever,
you hear? You’re a criminal. An informant on Freeland. You’re probably the reason Whit and I ended up here.”

Byron says nothing. He just looks… sad.

“On the count of three,” says ERSA, “you will turn over the instruction card at your station. The first team to suc
cessfully complete the task it describes will win a trip to the BNW Reward Center… for chocolates. Get ready!”

I shove Byron out of the way and give him a threatening look so he knows not to interfere. “You’re probably the reason Eric
betrayed me,” I continue.

“One…”

“And the reason that Margo died,” I accuse him. “You’re a
murderer
.”

“Two…”

“So what do you have to say for yourself, you hideous, low-down
louse?
” I place my hands on either side of the laminated instruction card.

Byron looks me in the eye.

“Three!”
ERSA announces.

“I promise you, Wisty,” Byron whispers, “everything I’m doing is to protect you, not to hurt you. I swear to you over my dead
body. And I will be dead, soon enough. I would even die for you.”

I turn over the card and…
No way.

Good afternoon, ma’am. Flame Girl reporting for duty!

Wisty

IT WAS TOO EASY.

The apparatus on the table was a steam turbine hooked up to a generator, and, get this, all I had to do was use magic to heat
the thing up to light the bulbs on the table. I lit those bulbs so bright the other kids started yelling at me to turn them
down because it was hurting their eyes.

Sore losers.

Not that I blame them—I’d be honked off, too, if I wasn’t going to get any chocolate.

I’m so pumped I don’t even care that Byron’s coming, too. And, I have to admit, his very traitorous presence ticks me off
so much it’s easy to light up every single bulb that I walk by on my way out of the Dynasium.

I hardly notice that the “Reward Center” looks like some enormous, dingy corporate call center with carpet-board cubicles
all over the place. Sitting at many of them
are blissed-out, brown-mouthed children, with enormous platters of chocolate in front of each of them. The kids are covered
with wires and weird electro-majiggies that sometimes seem to pulse with a strange blue light.

But, OMG, I can
smell
the chocolate! Mouth watering. Knees weak. Can’t talk.

“Prisoner Allgood and Informant Swain, please proceed to cubicles 124G and 124H,” says ERSA.

“Follow me,” says Byron. “I’ll show you how to hook up the monitors.”

“Monitors?”

“You need to wear the monitors when you eat the chocolate.”

“Not surprised, I guess, that you’re so skilled in surveillance tech,” I snort. But just between you and me, right now I’d
wear an
I
BYRON
T-shirt if it meant I could get some more of that chocolate.

Byron helps me put these little suction-cup things on my forehead and arms. They’re like those electrodes they use on patients
in the hospital, only they’re bigger, and the wires are a whole lot thicker.

And then,
Oh yeah,
here comes an automated cart with two huge platters of chocolate—I’m talking bigger than my head! One has Byron’s name on
it, and the other —

I’ve wolfed down at least a quarter pound before I even realize I’ve done it. The stuff tastes
that
good.

And I’d suck down more except my stomach is starting
to protest. I guess there’s a reason people don’t eat candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I take a breath and look around.

Some of the kids have clearly been here awhile and have eaten their entire trays. Most of them are now slumped over.
Napping, I guess?

Except maybe that little kid over there—he definitely looks a little green.

And that girl lying on the floor. While I watch, two goons in medical scrubs come in and drag her away.

Byron looks up from his own personal choco-fest and notices my glance.

“Yeah, she probably hasn’t learned her limit yet. They’ll take her to the vomitorium.”

“The
vomitorium?
” I ask, not really thinking it through.

“That’s what the students call the place where they pump your stomach.”

“Ah,” I say, vaguely finding that disturbing, but I feel another choco-craving coming on and quickly turn my attention back
to my glorious platter. I swear, if they’d had this stuff back in my high school, I would have weighed 250 pounds.

But right then I start to get really tired, and the suction cups on me—it’s as if they’ve gotten very cold. They’re almost
burning,
the cold stings so much. The wires are glowing an unearthly blue color. And my stomach’s totally knotted.

And I don’t know that I’ve ever been so tired in my
whole life. It’s as if these wires are sucking the life out of me.…

Byron is giving me a worried look.
What’s he saying?
Maybe if I just put my head down on the desk for, like, a few seconds, just close my eyes…

Whit

POOR WISTY COULD BARELY sit up and, for two days afterward, had to stay in her bunk, subsisting on water and the soup crackers that I stole from
the cafeteria.

But the craziest and scariest part of it was, even in the height of her sickness, she was
still
craving more chocolate.

My sister was officially an addict.

“I actually fantasized before we got here that it would be like a celebrity-rehab center where I could just do nothing but
recover all day,” Wisty confesses to me at one point. “Now that I’m doing it… well, it sucks.”

It’s not easy for a champion athlete and a whip-smart troublemaker who loves the spotlight, but we resolve from here on out
to be the most average, unremarkable students in the building.

We’ll do everything asked of us, but no more than that.
Nothing that will make us stand out. Anything to keep us from getting any special attention.

It’s nearly impossible to stay under the radar with Crossley and Byron on the premises, since we’d love nothing more than
to interrogate the heck out of them. But we quickly figure out that the best strategy is to nod politely and do our work with
as much mediocrity as possible.

Our assignments center around the “brilliant efficiency” of the New Order’s world vision. Essays in which we prove that The
One Who Is The One is the most powerful visionary in all of human history. Math problems in which we demonstrate that never
before have more people been more productive than under the New Order. Science readings in which we learn that magic, art,
music, and most of the rest of humanity’s former extracurricular activities were harmful to humankind.

One day our plan to blend in goes up in smoke, though, when Crossley does something really stupid. He’s still peeved at Wisty
for not giving him some of her M.

We’re sitting in the cafeteria, eating the usual nutritious but antidelicious porridge, when he throws a piece of chocolate
out on the table right in front of her. I figure it must be stolen, since he doesn’t get to the Rewards Center much.

“Want some choc-o-late, Wisty?” he says real slowly, smacking his lips.

My sister looks down at the candy and literally starts to
tremble at the temptation. She drops her spoon and grabs the edge of the metal table with both hands.

“Yeah,” Crossley goes on, despite the “I’m going to grind you into burger meat” look I’m giving him. “I won a contest. Guess
I didn’t need your help after all. But maybe I could use your help eating my rewards,” he says, pushing the chocolate closer
to her. “Or not.” He pops it into his mouth.

Wisty’s shaking. In fact she’s shaking so hard the whole table’s moving around. And now, oh no, not
again
—