James Patterson - The Gift

Am I listening to her now? I am actually. The sound of her voice is like a drug I can’t get enough of.

The van is getting closer to the billboard. My face can’t be pressed any harder against the glass, my body flattened against the door. We’re passing right by her image, and I practically feel the heat of her breath on my cheek.

You need to turn yourself in, she continues. And you’re on your way to The One right now. It’s the only way. If you want us to be together again, it’s the only way.

“Together again?” I ask.

“Together again,” she repeats as we pull away.

And then she’s gone. But I’m still dazed by the lingering image of Celia until we turn in through a very high gate marked BUILDING OF BUILDINGS.

Wisty

WHIT AND I MAY have electrodes all over our arms, but at least we’re upright and sitting in high-backed leather chairs so comfy it’s like swimming in butter. And we each have a glass of water next to us. It’s all five-star accommodations here at the Building of Buildings, which is basically The One’s crib and bat cave-type place, and it’s where the very grumpy men in the van brought us.

Maybe I could get used to this?

Whit and I had both been curled in the fetal position in the back of the van when suddenly we were yanked out and escorted into the B of B. So this had started out as one of our most pathetic public parades into captivity yet.

I actually made eye contact with some of the citizens who were watching as we trudged across the luxuriously outfitted marble lobby. Maybe I’ve been infected with a big-ego savior complex, but I thought I saw a flash of… respect, maybe even admiration, or at least something vaguely hopeful buried deep in some of the glazed Beaner eyes. It helped me get my groove back anyway.

The more I stare at our interrogator right now, the more I think maybe I see it in him, too. Grudging respect? He’s hiding it pretty well, though. He’s definitely polite but sterile to the point of being scary.

The questions have also been pretty sterile so far-such as name, address, and N.O. ID number. As if we have an address or carry N.O. IDs!

Then he throws this real doozy at us.

“Have either of you had any children in recent months?” he asks, deadpan. We both stare at him blankly. “Now that we have you and your parents on death row, we need to ensure there are no other living members of Clan Allgood. Please answer so that the polygraph can register a result.”

“No,” we both manage to say.

“Excellent,” he says, watching the readout from the lie detector.

“I get an A plus for not being an unwed pregnant teenager?” I say. “Wow. Maybe I like the New Order after all.”

He completely ignores me. “Now let’s get down to some very important business. On a scale of one to five, with five being the most, how would you characterize the efficacy of your parents’ instructions to you vis-à-vis harnessing your… abilities?”

“What are you talking about?” I demand. “As you said, let’s get down to business. Tell us when our parents are due to be executed! Are they being held here?”

“Ms. Allgood,” he says. Ms. Allgood? Never in my life …“I’m afraid I am the only one permitted to ask questions here.”

“News flash, mister. I’m not big on following rules!”

Whit nudges me as if he’s signaling I should settle down. Since when is he going all Golden Boy again? We’re Resistance leaders, aren’t we?

The interrogator clears his throat. “We know your parents trained you. And we know they imparted to you certain, uh, highly sensitive pieces of information and/or equipment having to do with the scientifically proven energy forces that you both possess by dint of your genetic makeup.”

“Are you talking about magic? ” I ask. Whit frowns. Mute Golden Boy.

Mr. Interrogator looks extremely alarmed. “Shhh! Take my word and do not use that term in this building-or anywhere! You’re living very dangerously.”

Perfect invitation for me to get punchy. I’m practically singing at this point: “Magic, magic, magic, magic, ma -”

The Repressed One finally explodes. He’s up and grabbing us by our collars, my shirt in one hand and, surprisingly, that of my Mute Golden Boy brother in the other.

“You make me ill! ” he practically spits.

He looks at Whit. “You, with all your potential, and look what you do! Nothing! Sitting here like a mannequin! And your dynacompetent sister, here-why, she possesses a power so amazing, so devastating, so -”

There’s a sharp noise as the automatic dead bolt on the room’s door clicks open.

“Ah,” says our interrogator, suddenly whiter than a pickled egg. “Said too much, did I?” he whispers to himself. “Oh!” he manages to squeal as somebody steps softly into the room behind us and the temperature drops, oh, maybe fifty degrees.

And just like that the interrogator turns into a medium-size rubber tree in a large terra-cotta container. Somebody has just made him into the quintessential potted plant.

And I have a good guess who.

Wisty

INSTANTLY, IT’S AS IF someone’s quadrupled the gravitational force in this place, and the energy’s leaking out of me. I can’t even sit up straight anymore. He has these electrifying Technicolor eyes-you’ve never seen anything like them. They’d be, like, model gorgeous if he wasn’t so evil. As it stands, they’re like an instant barf inducer. I’m queasy. But Whit’s still locked into his weirdly placid state.

The One Who Is The One steps around the table, sliding our former interrogator’s pot into a corner of the room with one foot.

“He’ll need some watering,” he says to nobody in particular, and then smiles silkily. “Or not. ”

The One waves at the far end of the room and transforms what had been a featureless white wall into floor-to-ceiling windows. He can turn a man into a plant. He can fly. He can vaporize children. I guess turning a wall into windows with a panoramic fiftieth-floor view must be a walk in the park.

“Now,” he says, eyes briefly pulsing red but then turning a charismatic blue-a shade you might see on some touched-up face in a magazine ad (that is, if they made magazine ads for Pure Evil).

“Come,” he invites as if we’re old friends. He gestures at the picture windows. “Have a look.”

“Um,” says Whit, “we’re kind of hooked up -”

But all the polygraph wires are now gone, like they’d been particularly unlikely figments of our imaginations.

The One beckons gently. “I think you’ll enjoy this,” he says. I’m shaking now. The One seems to “enjoy” nothing except torture and death. What’s up his sleeve? And what’s up with my brother, for that matter?

Whit gets out of his chair and walks over to The One like an obedient child.

“S’all right, Wisty, come on.” Does he have some intel I don’t? Last I heard him say more than a few words, he was bouncing off the van walls with rage.

But I don’t want to be sitting over here alone. “For lack of anything better to do,” I say begrudgingly, “okay. Let’s have a look.”

“Why the impudence?” The One asks. “You do know I don’t intend to kill you.” He puts his creepy, long arms around our shoulders and leads us to the windows. Strangely, his touch feels totally warm, even a little reassuring.