"Something to drink," you say, "would be nice."

"Sure, Nick, sure," the man says, twirling a finger. "Turn around."

"What?"

"So I can cut the cord."

Your bindings loosen; you bring forward your arms against the protest of your muscles and rub your wrists. You feel a lot more optimistic with your hands free.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, the tall man and his friend were quite surgical with whatever probe they put into your eye. It must have been a lot smaller than it felt, because all you seem to have come away with is a few broken blood vessels. Nothing anyone is really going to think twice about.

"So let's go get those snacks," the man says, and opens the door.

~

Three other cars sit beside pumps: two sedans and a battered truck with Texas plates, its rear window draped with a Confederate flag. A bumper sticker reads: CAN'T FIND A JOB? THANK AN ILLEGAL. You'd thought the tall man would want to fill up, but he heads for the store. The glass doors part and you step inside. There's music. The air smells sweet. The tall man stamps his feet. "Woo," he says, to nobody. "Cold tonight."

You see magazines and chocolate bars. A poster offers a hot dog and slushie for two dollars. How can you be kidnapped next to a deal like that? It feels wrong. You shouldn't have to fear for your life in a convenience store while looking at hot dogs. But you look at the tall man, and he's still there, with a shotgun not quite concealed under his coat, and you feel nauseated and look at the hot dogs again. That guy had almost shot you. He'd been seconds away from spreading you across the snow. Melinda is dead. Just yell, you think, What's the worst that could happen? You know the answer. But it's tempting, looking at the hot dogs.

"Go on," the man says. "Get whatever you want. He gestures at the confectionery aisle. You walk toward a great pyramid of Pizza Pringles. When you glance back, you see the man has wandered over to the magazine rack, where a man in a red-checked snow hat is staring suspiciously at shrink-wrapped women. "Hi there," says the tall man. "That your truck?"

You look back at the Pringles. You close a hand around one. It's firm and familiar and doesn't do anything unexpected, for which you feel grateful. You look back at the tall man. He seems to be paying you no attention. So you keep going, and then there's a shelf between you and him and he's out of sight. You feel overwhelmed by the desire to sit down. Cover yourself with snacks, maybe. Make a little fort. You keep walking. You take a bag of sunflower seeds. Then a woman's functional ponytail bobs along in front of you, above the green and red foil snack bags.

You close your eyes. The tall man is going to take you to a lonely farmhouse and kill you. It's obvious. They will find you eight years later, buried beneath the roses, one skeleton among many in WASHINGTON'S HOUSE OF NIGHTMARES. Because the tall man is a psychopath. Or possibly not: Possibly the tall man is part of some politically motivated group, something a little more professional and terroristic, but the point is the tall man kills people. He had shot a girl in a blue cotton dress, and reloaded and shot her again, and Melinda had died, and although that possibly wasn't the tall man's fault, not directly, the takeaway message here is that around the tall man people die. You will either get away or you will die, too. You feel calm. It's good to establish facts. It permits the making of decisions.

You're going to talk to this woman. You're sorry, but you're going to bring her into this. You'll whisper a message and if things go bad, you'll defend her. That's the best you can offer.

You open your eyes. You feel sure the tall man is watching you somehow, and sure enough, when you look around, there's a corner ceiling mirror and the tall man is in it. He's nodding at the man in the snow hat, who's showing him a cell phone, for some reason. You pretend to inspect potato chips.

The woman's ponytail bobs toward the end of the aisle, where a cardboard cutout lion offers free Cokes with every purchase over four dollars. This lion can screen you, if you time it right. You could pass the woman at this spot and for one perfect second speak to her unseen. You begin to move. Halfway there, the woman's ponytail stops, and you have to stop and eye batteries to kill time. You glance at the mirror. The tall man is still chatting to the guy. Why he has so much to say to him, you have no idea. The ponytail moves. You move. You spot a second security mirror and maybe this lion isn't going to screen you as completely as you'd thought, but it will only take a second to mutter I'm kidnapped help gun call 911, and you're committed now. You've made a decision not to end up beneath roses. You round the corner.

A girl stands there, five or six years old. She's looking at the cardboard lion. You stop.

The woman comes around the corner. "Katherine. Come here." The girl runs to her mother. You don't move. They pass you and head up the next aisle.

The girl says, "Mommy, why was that man sad?"

"Shh," says the woman.

~

You walk to the van, snacks and drinks in hand. You're going to let this motherfucker take you somewhere and kill you, apparently. That's where you're at. You feel furious, at something.

"Not the van," says the tall man. "We're changing cars." He nods at the pickup.

"Oh," you say.

He jangles keys. "You saved their lives." He unlocks the pickup and pulls open the door. "You made the right decision."

The truck's interior smells of cigarettes. The dash has a bobblehead doll of someone you don't recognize. Some politician. The man pulls at the door and the thump of its closure is like the sealing of a tomb.

The engine turns. Air blows from vents. "Ah!" he says. "We have heat."

"You bought that guy's truck," you say.

"We swapped." The man revs tentatively. He seems to approve of the sound and you begin to roll past pumps, leaving behind the airport maintenance van.

"Swapped," you say. "He just agreed to trade vehicles."

"Yeah." The man takes a moment to check traffic, then accelerates onto the slip road. He digs in his coat pocket with one hand. "He also threw in this cell phone."

You look at it. "Did he."

"Yeah," he says. "To sweeten the deal."

~

You reenter the freeway. It's Melinda's birthday next week. You'd been putting off going shopping. "Just give me money," she'd said, and you'd been thinking maybe you would, because she was so hard to buy for. But you might have thought of something. You still had a week. You might have found exactly what she wanted.

You remember Rain standing in the middle of the road. The strange words she spat through bloodstained teeth. The short man putting the gun to his own chin. You don't understand any of that. Maybe the tall man is a serial killer, or a terrorist, or a covert government agent, or something else, but whatever he is, he must want something. You'll have to go shopping.

The man digs the cell phone out of his pocket. He thumbs a number and sticks the phone under one ear. "It's me. Where are you?" You watch the dashboard figurine bobble. "I'm clear. Brecht didn't make it." There's silence. "Because Wolf. Because Wolf fucking turned up five seconds after we made contact." You hear a tinny voice squawk from the phone, male but unfamiliar. "Well, fuck! Whose fucking fault is that? Just tell me where you can meet. I want to get off the road." He exhales. "Fine. We'll be there." He drops the phone into his pocket.

The silence stretches on. Now's your chance to ask him any questions you might have.

You're teeming with questions, but the tall man's been pretty good at figuring you out so far. You figure it might be worth a test, just to make sure he can't read your mind. Everything that holds up your perception of reality seems to have been thrown under the bus recently, so in your assessment, there's nothing that really rules out telepathy anymore.

Minutes pass. If the tall man knows what you're thinking now, he certainly gives no indication of it. His eyes stay laser focused on the road ahead. If he's going to answer your questions, looks like you're going to have to be more vocal about it.

"Why me?"

No answer.

"What do you want with me?"

The tuck hums. The tires sluice through wet road.

"What's the Exception?"

"Shut up," says the man. "I'm not talking to you."

"You came and kidnapped me. You must want me for something."

"It's not conversation."

"Then what? I'm just trying to understand."

"You don't need to understand. You need to sit there and not do anything stupid while I take care of you. That's what you need. Look, I get that it's been a confusing night. And now you're all, But how is that possible, and, Why did he do that. But I'm not going to answer those questions, Nick, because you don't have the framework to comprehend the answers. You're like a kid asking how I can see him even though he's closed his eyes. Just accept that this is happening."

"Can you give me the framework?"

"No," says the man. "Shut up."

You're silent. "Did you shoot that girl because I'm the Exception?"

He sighs. "I shot that girl because I had to."

"She was just lying there," you say. "She was already half-dead."

"She was dangerous, lying there, half-dead."

You say nothing.

"Okay," he says. "You want to know why you're important? You hear about that bad nightclub fire in Rome a couple months back? Bunch of people died? That was Rain."

"The rain wanted to kill me?"

"Not... not rain. Kathleen Raine, with an e. Wrote poems about nature. Lived in England from 1908 to 2003."

"And... she... came back?"

The man glances at you. "Are you serious?"

"What?"

"They use the names. The names of famous poets."

"Oh," you say.

"They're not zombies."

"Oh."

You drive in silence.

"So I'm important because Raine killed those people in the club."

"Yes. Because she thought one of those people might be you."

"Why does she want to kill me?"

"Because eighteen months ago you survived something you shouldn't have."

"In Broken Hill?"

"Yes. You're the Exception."

"I don't remember that."

"No."

Schazer Wrote:How could someone remove my memories?

"Why don't I remember?"

"Someone probably told you not to."

"What was it?"

"What?"

"The thing that should have killed me."

"Something bad," the man says. "Which shouldn't have got out."

"You mean chemicals? People died in a chemical spill in Broken Hill eighteen months ago."

"Sure. Chemicals."

"So why do you care?"

"Because it's out again."

"And I can stop it?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't make sense."

"That's because it's not really chemicals," he says.

"Is it a word?"

The man looks at you.

"Earlier, in the snow, you were interested in something I said about words."

The man is silent for a moment. "Okay. It's a word."

"Which should have killed me."

"Yes."

"I don't understand how it can be a word."

"That's because you don't know what words are."

"They're sounds."

"No, they're not. You and I are not grunting at each other. We're transferring meaning. Neurochemical changes are occurring in your brain at this very moment, because of my words."

You're silent.

"Like I said," he says, "no framework."

You feel lost. "No one lives in Broken Hill anymore. Not since the spill."

"No."

(03-26-2015, 03:41 PM)AgentBlue Wrote: »Who are you?

"So... who are you?"

"Tom," says the man. "I'm Tom. And that's all the questions you get."

The road unravels out of the dark, and you go into it.

~

You keep waiting for someone to pull you aside, ask what you think you're doing, trying to sneak on board with the first-class passengers. But when you reach the gate and hand over your boarding pass, the attendant smiles. "Have a nice flight, Ms. Jackson."

"Thanks." You adjust the strap of your bag, self-conscious. The other first-class passengers are in sleek suits and expensive blouses, and you're wearing jeans a guy peed on yesterday. You hadn't realized everyone would be so bright and clean.

"Ms. Jackson!" says the attendant on the plane, like he's been waiting to meet you. "My information tells me this is the first time you've graced our airline. That cannot be true." He beckons, leading you past banks of leather thrones. "I am going to take extra special care of you." He leans close and whispers, stage-loud, "We need more beautiful young customers."

You think he's making fun. But he's not. First class is strange.

"Make yourself comfortable," says the attendant, "while I rustle you up the best chocolate cookie you've ever tasted."

"Okay," you say. You go to stow your bag and the attendant looks horrified and takes it from you. You slide into your seat. You've slept in smaller places than this. To your right, a woman in big sunglasses has a tall glass in one hand and a magazine in the other. She smiles at you, and you smile back. The woman returns to her magazine. This is okay, you think. This is okay.

~

You hear a tinkling and reach for your bag. The flight attendant whispers, "I'm so sorry." He sets a glass of water onto the armrest. The tinkling is ice cubes. "I didn't mean to wake you."

You stare at the glass. When you first heard the sound, you thought someone was peeing.

~

You deplane. That's what they called it: deplaning. You've never heard that word before. You unbuckle and feel sad. You want to stay in your little first-class kingdom.

Back in San Francisco, you left a note for a friend to pass to Jimmy. Has he read it yet? Is he upset? Missing you? You find you don't really care about this as much as
you thought you would. You realized this while gazing out at the hidden world of sunlight that lay above the clouds: You are leaving Jimmy behind. And this is a good thing. You feel like you did two years ago, when you walked away from a falling-down house with you Pikachu bag on your back, your mom's threats and prophecies bouncing off your back, and the more you walked the better you felt. Jimmy hadn't been good. Not really. You're getting a sense of that, now that people are taking your bags and bringing you drinks while you sleep. You're seeing that without Jimmy, you can be so much more.

The attendant touches your arm at the exit. "Thank you so much."

"Thank you so much," you say.

~

In Arrivals stands a driver, complete with hat and uniform, holding a printed sign reading ELISE JACKSON. "I'm Elise," you say.

He reaches for your bag. You hesitate, but let him take it: you need to get used to that. "I'm very pleased to meet you, miss. I have a car out front. Was your flight bearable?"

"Yes." You fall into step. You feel kind of stupid about the Pokemon bag. It looks ridiculous on this guy's trolley. But he doesn't seem to mind. People glance at you, this dirty girl with a uniformed driver, and you try not to smile, so as not to ruin it.

He holds open a door for you. Outside is bright and cold. A long, liquid black limousine lies spread along the curb. The driver opens the rear door and you climb inside like it's nothing.

Do you want a drink? Watch TV? Because you can do that. There's enough room to lie down. You could live here.

The driver enters. The locks thunk. "No rain expected. You come to us on a good day."

"I thought it was a good day," you say. "I felt that."

You drive for forty minutes and stop at a set of high steel gates. Through the limo's dark glass, you see grass and gigantic trees. The driver speaks to someone in a guardhouse; the gates part. As you move up the hill, a building appears.

"It's an old convent," says the driver. "There were nuns here for a hundred years." The car pulls around the front of the building, its tires crunching gravel. A man comes down steps toward you. A porter. That's what he is. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"They'll take you from here." He turns in his seat to face you. You like that: the way people are turning to talk to you. "Best of luck with your examinations, miss."

~

The porter leads you to a room with high ceilings and wood-paneled walls and ten thousand books. A sitting room, you guess. Because you've heard of those, and can't think what else this room is for. Maybe nothing. Maybe after a certain size, a building gets more rooms than uses. You squeeze your bag between your ankles and try to relax. Occasionally you hear a door close - thonk - and murmurs of conversation, and laughter that floats up a corridor somewhere. You kind of need to pee.

A woman's heels rap outside. The door clacks open. For a second, you think it's a nun, but it's just a woman in a dark blue suit. You have nuns on the brain. The woman is slim, maybe thirty-five, with dark hair and delicate glasses. She comes toward you with her hand extended and her fingers down. A lady handshake. You get off the chair to take it. "Hello, Elise. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jane."

"Hi," you say.

Jane settles into a chair. You return to yours. The chairs seem a long way apart. A rug lies between you like a map of some undiscovered world. "In a moment, I'll show you to your room," Jane says. "But first, I'm sure you must have questions."

"Why am I here? Am I going to have to shave my head and kill myself to ascend to a higher plane at the appointed time or something?"

Jane suppresses a smile. "We're not a cult, I promise. We're a school. We bring the best and brightest here to help them reach their potential. That's why you're here. We've identified you as someone with potential."

(03-27-2015, 12:09 AM)Whimbrel Wrote: »That guy said you teach persuasion?

"Potential with persuasion, right? This doesn't really look like a school."

"Actually, it looks very much like a school. You may think otherwise because your experience has been limited to government-run child farms." She leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. "To me, those do not look very much like schools." She leans back. "So yes, we will be teaching you different things than those institutions. Persuasion is just one facet."

(03-27-2015, 12:09 AM)Whimbrel Wrote: »Are the rest of the tests going to be as messed up as that first one?

"Are all the tests here like that first one? Because if so, I'm going to have to decline."

Jane looks down. "Ah, yes, I do apologize for that. Some of our newer graduates tend to get a bit... creative with their methods. I am sorry about that, the error has been corrected, and no, none of our examinations are anything like that."

(03-27-2015, 12:09 AM)Whimbrel Wrote: »Can we use the bathroom first, actually?

(03-27-2015, 12:11 AM)Schazer Wrote: »What's the intake like for this test? How many other examinees are you up against?

"So what sort of competition do I have here? And... any chance there's a bathroom I could use?"

"We have six of you this week," says Jane. "Six applicants, that is. You each have your own room, of course, where you will find all the amenities you require, including a restroom. Your room overlooks the East Wood; I think you'll enjoy it. There's a central dining room here, where you'll be served meals, and you'll find a recreation room at the end of the hall, and a reading room beside that. Between examinations, please do feel free to explore the grounds. It's a wonderful space. It was once a convent."

"I heard."

"If you leave the New Wing, you may bump into some of our current students going about their lessons. They are under instruction not to speak to you, so please don't interpret this as rudeness." She smiles.

"Okay," you say.

"Before I take you to your room, I must ask that you observe two rules for the duration of the examinations. You are not to leave the grounds, nor use the phones. These rules are quite important. Do you find them acceptable?"

"Sure." Not like you have anywhere to go or anyone to call anyway.

"Good!" She pats her lap, like she wants a cat to sit there. "Well, then. For the rest of the day, you may simply settle in. Meet your fellow applicants, enjoy the facilities. The examinations will begin in the morning."

"So what's the catch?"

Jane purses her lips. "If there must be a catch, we do only admit those who pass the examinations. Which are difficult."

"I'll pass."

Jane smiles. "Well, then," she says. "There's no catch."

~

You follow Jane through wood-paneled corridors and halls with far-off ceilings. You've never seen so many arches. Jane taps a door with her fingernail. "My office." A copper nameplate is engraved J. AUSTEN. "Come to me with any questions or concerns, day or night." There are more corridors. Through tall, slitted windows, you glimpse kids in dark blue uniforms with hats and blazers. Maybe it does look like a school.

Jane stops outside a heavy wooden door. "Your room."

There's a small bed. A high, arched window. One old desk with a high-backed chair. The walls are stone, patches worn smooth by the palms of restless nuns.

"A few of the others are about," says Jane. "But I'll let you find them in your own time." She smiles, one hand draped on the door handle. "Dinner will be called at six." The door closes.

What do you do?