The Select (5 page)

"Maybe the whole point," Quin said,
"is seeing if you're willing to do things their way."

"Obviously this place isn't for the
wild and free spirits of the world," Matt said.

"But the price is right,"
Quinn said. The price is
very
right.

Tim shrugged. "No arguing that."

"What's not to like?" Quinn said. "The
place is like a resort. The dorm is like a Hyatt, the caf is like a
fine restaurant, you've got a physical fitness center with a lap
pool, a great game room, and a top-notch faculty—"

"Even a pub," Tim said.

"Makes you wonder, though,
doesn't it?" Matt said. "I mean, what are
they
getting out of it?"

"Simple," Quinn said. "The cream of
the crop."

"Yeah...maybe."

"TANSTAAFL," Tim said, and pointed to
Quinn with raised eyebrows.

She guessed it was her turn to
identify a reference.

"Easy," she said. "It
means There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. From
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
by Robert A. Heinlein."

"Hey, very good," Tim said, nodding
and mock applauding. "The lady knows SF too."

Quinn was surprised to
find herself enjoying in his approval. She shook it off and said,
"Who
wouldn't
want to go to medical school here?"

"Nobody," Matt said,
"until you realize that you
must
spend all four years right within these
wall."

Quinn felt a flash of resentment. Easy
to say when money was no object. But she knew Matt didn't deserve
that. He was a sweet guy despite the silver spoon he'd teethed
on.

"My point exactly," Tim
was saying. "What's the big deal? Why
must
you spend all four years in
their dorm?"

Quinn shrugged. "I don't
know. But they're
very
serious about it. I understand they make you sign a contract
to live on campus all four years. You don't sign it, you don't
register."

"And if you quit, you pay," Tim
said.

Quinn was startled. She hadn't heard
about that. "Pay? Pay what?"

"All your back tuition, room, board, book and
lab fees."

"But that could be—"

"
Lots
," Tim said. "Upwards of thirty
thou a year."

"But if you get sick or
hurt—"

"No. Only if you transfer to another
medical school. If you get sick or hurt or change careers, it's
goodbye and good luck. But if you want to graduate from another med
school, watch out."

Quinn figured Tim must have read every
line of fine print in the booklet.

"What if you want to get
married?"

"You wait," Tim said.

"Or you marry a fellow Ingrahamite,"
Matt laughed. "But seriously, speaking as the son of a high-priced
lawyer, let me assure you: contracts can be broken."

"Not this one," Tim said. "Not yet,
anyway. Some parents took The Ingraham to court a few years ago.
Their kid wanted to transfer to Cornell after two years here. They
spent years battling it, and lost. They had to pay."

"Well, they won't have to worry about
me," Quinn said. "If I get in, I'm staying." And she meant it with
all her heart.

But Tim's remark about no free lunch
nagged at her.

Matt was staring at Tim. "Where'd you
learn so much about The Ingraham contract."

"
Time
had an article on it awhile
back." Tim lifted his sunglasses and rubbed his right eye with his
index finger. "Let's see...it was the October 15th issue, page 12,
lower right-hand corner."

Quinn stared in amazement, then
glanced at Matt for his reaction. He was grinning at
her.

"He's kidding, isn't he?" she said to
Matt.

"Didn't I tell you?"

Tim sat up. "Tell her? Tell her
what?"

"About your weird memory."

Tim placed a hand over his
heart and let out an exaggerated sigh. "You had me worried there.
For one very bad moment I thought you'd told her about
my...
other
weirdness."

"Oh, God, I'd never do that!" Matt
said.

Quinn knew when she was being put on.
She stared at Matt with feigned shock.

"Sure you did. You said he's got a shoe fetish
and his philosophy of life is somewhere to the left of
'Whoopee!'"

Matt laughed but Tim was on his feet,
wagging his index finger at her.

"I know that line! I know
it! It's from...
A Thousand
Clowns
. Murray Burns discussing his
sister. Right?"

"Incredible," Quinn said. Matt hadn't
exaggerated. Tim Brown's memory was phenomenal.

"But how do
you
know that line?" Tim
said.

"For a long time it was my favorite
movie."

"Yeah, well, Jason Robards was great,
but—"

"It just was."

Quinn didn't want to get
into how as a teenager she'd fantasized about taking the place of
Murray Burns' nephew—she'd have been Murray's niece—and being
raised by such a lovable non-conformist. Her parents were such
staid, stick-in-the-mud,
normal
people. For years she'd longed for a little
kookiness in her home.

She glanced at her watch. It was
10:50. "I'd better be getting back."

"Right," Tim said. "I've heard you
turn into a pumpkin if you're late."

"Really? Was that in
the
Time
article
too?"

"A curfew!" Matt said, sitting up on
his bed. "Can you believe it? I haven't been here a full day yet
and already this place is getting on my nerves. And have you seen
all the video cameras around the campus?"

Tim pressed a finger to his lips.
"Careful, my friend. The walls may have ears."

MONITORING

"You bet they have ears, wise ass,"
Louis Verran muttered as he switched to another set of
pick-ups.

"Mattress sensors positive all over
the place, boss," Kurt said from his console.

"All right," Verran said. "It's almost
eleven. Nighty-night time. Let's get some slow waves
going."

He flipped the power switch and gave
the rheostat a clockwise turn on the slow-wave inducer. Getting
them to sleep before midnight was always the trickiest part of
entrance exam week. Most of these kids were uptight about the test
tomorrow and wired on their own adrenalin. That was why all the
coffee in the caf had been decaf—even the pots marked regular.
Without a little help, too many would spend the night chewing their
fingernails and tossing and turning on the unfamiliar mattresses.
Big no-no. They had to sleep. All of them. For at least five full
hours.

So each suite was hard-wired
with—among other things—slow-wave/spindle inducers. A huge expense,
considering that they were used only one week out of fifty-two. The
inducer created an electromagnetic field in the rooms that
connected with human brain waves, inducing sleep spindles on the
EEG, and making the pattern most comfortable in the slow-wave
form—the sleep pattern. Worked great on the kids if they were lying
in bed; thirty to sixty seconds and they were in dreamland. Took a
little longer if they were sitting up, but eventually they'd give
in to this sudden, overwhelming urge to lie down...just for a few
minutes...just to rest their eyes.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said a
voice behind Verran. "It's lights-out time for the students, I
believe."

Verran suppressed a growl of annoyance
as he turned to face Dr. Alston. The ghoul was always meddling.
Seemed to think being Director gave him the right to stick his nose
into everyone's business. Didn't know the first thing about running
security but he always had two cents' worth of nothing to
contribute.

"Dr. Alston," Verran said, forcing a
smile. "Back again for another evening of fun and games, I
see."

"Hardly, Louis," Alston said grimly as
he sniffed the air. His gaze came to rest on Verran's smoldering
cigar.

"Louis...is that another
cigar?"

Louis held it up before him, appearing
to scrutinize it. "Good lord, Doc, I believe you're
right!"

Elliot leaned on his console and
coughed to hide a laugh.

"Really, Louis, how many times must I
remind you of the rules against smoking on this campus?"

"And how many times must I
remind
you
, Doc,
that this is the one place on campus where that rule doesn't
apply?"

And how many times, you tightass, are
we going to butt heads on this? Verran thought.

"We'll settle this some other time,"
Dr. Alston said. "Right now, how are we doing?"

Verran clamped the cigar between his
teeth and leaned left so he could see Kurt behind
Alston.

"What's the status on the Z
Patrol?"

"Getting there," Kurt said. "Twenty
percent down already."

Verran glanced at the timer. The
slow-wave inducers had been running just shy of fifteen
minutes.

"Right on schedule."

Dr. Alston pulled up a chair and sat
down on the far side of the control room, fanning the air with a
manila folder every time some of Verran's cigar smoke drifted his
way.

Half an hour later Kurt slapped his
palm on the top of his console.

"There goes the last of them. They're
all down."

Verran nodded his approval. Amazing
how well those inducers worked. No one could hold out against them
for long—unless they were on anticonvulsant medication. And The
Ingraham's pre-invitation screening process culled out any such
kids long before the first invitation was sent.

"Excellent!" Dr. Alston said, rising
and moving to the center of the control room. "Let the music
begin!"

"Gimme a break," Verran muttered as he
nodded to Elliot.

Elliot began to work the switches on
his own console, and soon "the music," as Dr. Alston called it,
began to filter through the occupied dorm rooms.

CHAPTER FOUR

"How can you guys eat?" Quinn
said.

Tim looked up from his blueberry
pancakes. They were, quite literally, melting in his
mouth.

"Are you kidding? These things are
fabulous. I'm going back for seconds."

Matt was already back on line,
rejoining the bustle around the buffet area. The morning sun shone
brightly through the tall windows, but Tim's shades filtered the
glare. All around them The Ingraham hopefuls clustered at scattered
tables, creating pockets of nervous chatter or pools of silence.
Tim watched Quinn grimace as she picked at her shredded
wheat.

He said, "Why don't you try something
a little more substantial? The scrambled eggs look
good."

She pressed a hand over her stomach.
"Please. They're not even real eggs."

"Sure they are. They're egg
whites—real eggs with the yolks removed. Looks like anybody who
goes here will be on low cholesterol, like it or not."

"I'm all for that," Quinn
said.

Tim swallowed another bite. "No
smoking, low cholesterol food...looks like they wasnt us to live
forever."

"Makes sense, doesn't it? They're
investing a lot in their students."

Tim studied Quinn out of the corner of
his eye. She looked good this morning, dressed in a Navy blue
sweater that deepened the tint of her eyes, and white slacks that
hugged the curves of her buttocks. Tim decided he liked those
buttocks. Her short, strawberry-blond hair looked just right; she
wore a hint of eye make up, just enough to draw attention to them.
She looked well put together, but then watching her fidgety hands
he could see the stress she was putting on herself. This test was
too important to her. Tim had an urge to put his arm around her
shoulder, hug her close, and tell her don't worry. But he didn't
know her well enough for that. Yet.

"Didn't you sleep well?" he
said.

"Like the dead. Which is weird,
because I'm usually up and down all night before a big test. But
last night I hit the pillow and that was it till morning. Maybe
they put something in the food."

"Maybe," Tim said. He'd slept like the
proverbial log himself, but he'd expected to. He'd had next to no
sleep the night before.

"So we're all well rested," he said.
"And if you're well fed you'll do better on the test."

She shook her head. "My stomach's in a
square knot. I—" She broke off and stared toward the far end of the
caf. "Say...isn't he somebody?"

"Most people are," Tim said, looking
around for who she meant.