I growled at them, yanked out the dart, but wasn’t even able to keep myself from sliding into my friends and the monster’s gunk before the world went dark on me—yet again.
15
A Freaking Whopper of a Ten-Tiered Violation Layer Cake, or
Pounding the Dreamwalking Nail
on the Head with an Overkill Hammer
As if it had its very own pulse, my throat throbbed rhythmically. It was the first thing to demand my attention as awareness nudged at the heavy mantle that enveloped me in its darkness. My head also hurt, as if I’d boozed too hard and was now suffering from a hangover. I was lying down, warm and sluggish. I didn’t possess the strength to open my eyes.
A constant background lull began to define itself into a vibration that rose and fell, rose and fell. It took a while before I realized they were words being whispered into both ears. It took quite a while for the events of the day, and then of the last several weeks, to click into place.
The voice was that of the woman I’d long known as Celia, Layla and Brady’s mother, though she was neither of those things.
My overpowering listlessness, then, was due to the tranquilizer I was shot with, a drug to make me more susceptible to their hypnosis, or a combination of both. Myhangoverwas no such thing, and I hadn’t earned the punishment after some wild fun worth the price. My throat felt as if it had been stabbed with a knife instead of a dart.
Not-Celia’s voice streamed through headphones that wrapped my ears tightly, and as I tried to focus on her words, I was careful not to so much as twitch a finger until I figured out more of what was going on.
I asked groggily into our private chat.
If they were either, they weren’t able to say.
I was eventually able to process that Celia was talking about our early days in Ridgemore, just as she did during the previous hypnotherapy session, when her recording glitched and we finally got our big break—and yet still nothing greater than a minor advantage in the game Magnum was making us play.
Celia was mentioning Ms. Gail, our kindergarten teacher. I had no way to know whether there had ever been a Ms. Gail—the kind, happy teacher who gave the best hugs—and also picked her nose—or if she, too, was yet another fabrication.
By now, there had to be hundreds of them, maybe even thousands.
While I listened to Celia prattle on about our childhood, the sluggishness faded, though only enough for me to guess that I was strapped down to what was likely a medical bed. A soft blanket draped over my hands. Any movement at all would ripple its fabric.
I tried again.
Still no response.
I was tempted to call out to Bobo as well, now that we had a handy-dandy telepathic channel between us, but if he happened to be there, he wouldn’t be able to control his reactions and he’d give us away.
I wanted desperately to clear my throat, to try something, anything to ease the ache where the dart had pegged me. It was torturous to suppress my natural urge to clear or cough.
Celia was steadily making her way through our formative years. Nothing was new. There were even the identical encouragementsto exercise and eat my veggies. Evidently, Celia reused the same material over and again.
At least she was nearing the end of her spiel…
And then the information abruptly departed from what she said last time. Celia probably used the same front material and mixed up the end bits.
“I’ve never heard of anyone by the name Frances ‘Fanny’ Leeman, or Kitty Blanche, or Bryce Reynard, or Cameron ‘Cam’ Bradbourne, or Caroline Dinley.”
I didn’t recognize those final names. Did that mean Magnum ordered them killed like he did Kitty?
Celia proceeded to mention many more names I had no recollection of, with the imperative that I shouldn’t remember the people ever existed.
Her previous programming sessions had worked all too well, it seemed. Whoever those people were, I had no clue if they’d been important to me or not, whether they’d been good or bad, human or not-human. Like so much about our lives, Celia had simply stolen them away.
“I am very excited to get to study at Uncle Magnum’s Ridgemore’s International Institute for the Advancement of the Gifted, Unique, and Extraordinary.”
When my crew and I were last there, the school was called Ridgemore’s Institute for the Advancement of Immortals. Finally I understood why the campus was so oddly devoid of branding. There were no placards announcing so much as the name of the institution, of which “Uncle Magnum” was presumably so damn proud.
Celia’s voice droned on: “My friends and I are so brilliant that there’s no reason to wait to attend the institute. We want to take advantage of the opportunities offered us by Uncle Magnum and to advance as much as possible, as soon as possible. When he suggests we transfer from Ridgemore High to the institute, we are allextremely happy to do so. We’re very grateful to him and show him our gratitude at every turn. We do our best to please him.”
