by Rye Duran
“So you did try to get me to come back so you could use me to escape?” I asked. “And I just have to stay here and let them do this?” I was crying again. I didn’t know if they would be able to hear me cry or not. But I didn’t care.
“I’m sorry, Alex,” the robot said, after I asked, “Who’s there?” “I’m sorry, it’s me.” I knew it was Anto. “We had to do it this way. You’re the one they want now. But we’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
I had no idea what time it was. But talking through knock- knock jokes took what felt like a long, long time. I didn’t even have time to fall back asleep before the lights in my room flashed on again.
“Alex, wake up,” said the voice from the speaker. “I’m awake,” I said. And I meant it. That morning I could feel my genius headache coming. Which was still a little scary. But I could feel something else, too. There it was— hope, an idea.
Dr. Pinker’s Second Mistake
From Dr. Pinker’s exam table, I climbed up out of my body. Like I had always done during my spells. But this time I knew what I was looking for. Instead of walking out of the building and into the air, I simply walked down the hall.
I walked into the common room, where I could see the Nine. Anto with her dark curls looked so cool and calm. She had her arm around Ander, whose tall, muscular body slouched into her. He looked like he had been crying. Ada brushed her bangs away from her face, and even though I knew she could not see me, I thought she winked. Then I went into the security room. The two security guards watching the cameras were eating cheese puffs and talking about football.
I looked exactly where Ada told me to look through the robot. And there was the folder with the map of the code patterns for the doors of Project Apogee. Ada told me the information that I was looking for was not the door codes themselves. But the pattern that showed how the codes changed over time.
“Each door code in Project Apogee changes every time any door next to it is unlocked. That’s how they keep us in here,” Ada said. “They are always one step ahead.” It took me the entire time I was out of my body to memorize the whole folder of numbers. Luckily I only had to get back to Dr. Pinker’s exam table by the time I came out of my spell. And when I opened my eyes, there he was again, asking me, “Where’d you go, Alex?” “I went to the lake by my house,” I said, lying. “I like to feed the fish.” Dr. Pinker pressed his lips together. He looked at me for what felt like too long. His eyes felt like lasers.
“Sounds nice,” Myra said, standing behind him. Dr. Pinker looked at her. “Yes,” he said. “Funny how we can go anywhere, and we always go home.” He wasn’t wrong. But he had just let me wander around Project Apogee unsupervised. And I realized how many places that I had seen during my genius headaches also felt like homes. Every one of them, my secret place.
The Robot Returns
That night the robot came back to the gray room, just as it had before. And it said: “Knock knock.” I asked, “Who’s there?” Even though I knew exactly who was there. Sometimes, even when things are very bad, all of life just feels like a really good joke.
In order for me to give Ada all of the door code information, she had to first switch who was telling the knock-knock jokes and who was listening. When Ada said “Who’s there,” I would say the area of Project Apogee that they would need the code pattern for. Like “The Rainbow Ring.” Then Ada would say, “The Rainbow Ring who?” or whatever. And I would say 107 numbers as quickly as I could.
I didn’t sleep much that night between all the back and forth with the robot and me worrying about what was about to happen.
The Last Morning
After my genius headache on Dr. Pinker’s exam table, I told him that something had happened during the night. “I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night. And got the same feeling that I get in the morning when they flash the lights.”
“Interesting,” said Dr. Pinker. He turned and looked at Glen and then Myra. And they all looked excited. I hated making them happy, even if it was for a good cause. “Then what happened?” Glen asked, sitting on the edge of the exam table. I wanted him to get away from me. “Please move,” I said.
“Oh,” Glen said. Myra moved between Glen and me. And then she asked, “Alex, what happened after you got the feeling?” I didn’t want to like her, but I couldn’t help it. Even after everything, I didn’t want to lie to her. I gulped. “I had a dizzy spell, like the same kind I have in here.”
Dr. Pinker made a sign with his hand for Glen to go with him over to the other side of the room. They talked for a minute. And Myra took my hand and said, “Alex, I just want you to know how proud of you I am. And how proud of you your parents are.”
“Don’t talk about my parents,” I said. It came out louder than I meant it to. Myra pulled her hand away. Dr. Pinker came over to me and said, “Good news. We’re going to go outside today.” “Wow,” I said. “That’s great.” It wasn’t bad news. It just wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Yes it is,” Glen said. “This is an exciting day for all of us.” “And then tonight,” Dr. Pinker said, “we’re going to give you some tests while you sleep.” There it was. That’s what the Nine and I had planned for. I felt relief and fear all at once.
Glen turned to Myra, and said, “And Myra will stay over and sleep right outside the gray room! Maybe you can even watch a movie together.” Dr. Pinker gave Glen a look. And then he asked, “Yes, doesn’t that sound like fun?”
Before I could say anything, Myra jumped in. “No,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
Out
Glen looked surprised. And Dr. Pinker barely looked at her. He kept smiling at me, and said, “We will talk about this later.” “No we won’t,” Myra said. She took off her gloves. Glen said, “Myra, you don’t want to do this.”
She said, “I have wanted to do this for months.” Glen looked like he was going to laugh or cry. Just like that, Myra was out.
And Out
That afternoon, we went outside, just as Dr. Pinker said we would. We took a car to somewhere off the interstate highway. I sat blindfolded in the back seat the whole way there. The sun was coming through the trees in slices. That meant it was mid to late afternoon. I know this because of the way the light and shadow flickered through the cloth over my eyes.
When the car came to a stop, Glen removed my blindfold and I got out of the car. We were deep in the woods. Dr. Pinker was wearing a goofy-looking bucket hat. He said, “Let’s go for a little hike.”
Another black car pulled up right behind us. Some of the other kids’ Monitors and a few other scientists got out of the car. “Everyone needs a day out in nature every once in a while,” Dr. Pinker said. He actually seemed like he was having a good time. He never seemed nice or cheerful in the lab. I noticed for the first time that he looked like someone’s grandfather.
We walked around in the woods all day. We stopped for lunch. We found old wasps’ nests and animal tracks and ran into some wild turkeys. It was so strange to be spending time with Dr. Pinker and the scientists. Glen walked far ahead of us. On his own. It gave me the creeps.
For Smell
When we got back, it was pretty dark. Some of the scientists helped me get ready for my next test. They rolled a few machines into my room. I put on my gray sweatpants and got into bed. Before he left for the night, Dr. Pinker took some of the leaves and pinecones from the woods and spread them out on my nightstand.
“For smell,” he said, still smiling. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Do you want me to memorize the woods?” Dr. Pinker said, “I think you can go back and find the exact same spot in the woods where we went today. I want you to try.” But I couldn’t do it. No way.
I had never tried to land somewhere so particular that I had never seen on a map. What if I failed again? Wow, I thought, why do I still care what they think of me? Why am I still trying to impress Dr. Pinker? I got angry with myself for being such a big baby.
Getting
Dizzy
Back at Project Apogee, it was easier to remember why the whole Project made me feel so tired and sad. Glen attached some colorful wires to my head. He took his post outside the gray room.
They actually let me watch a movie. Glen told me that the movie would help me feel dizzy. The way the flashing lights made me feel in the mornings. Before I put my head down, I felt a tiny piece of paper under my pillow. It said: I’m sorry. I will always be here for you. Love, Myra
Focus
The movie was like a comic book. Lots of black and white cartoon animals chasing each other and flickering scenes. It did make me feel dizzy, just like Glen said. But I needed to focus in order to make myself have a powerful dizzy spell. The kind that the Nine needed me to have for their plan to work.
I had given the Nine all the information Ada needed to get them out. But now I needed to do something even harder. I needed to make Project Apogee go completely dark. I closed my eyes and focused. I could smell the wet leaves. I felt dizzier and dizzier, but I didn’t stop. I went deeper into the back of the blue room inside my head. It seemed to go on forever. Darker and darker, like a blue cave.
I saw another Alex in there. And then another Alex. Then more Alexes. I followed them through the blue. Or maybe they followed me. I felt my body shaking and my eyes rolling. I kept going farther inside, farther than I had ever gone. I didn’t stop, even when I felt afraid.
And that’s when it happened. A huge light exploded on the outside. But I was so deep inside, I could barely see the sparks. Wherever the Nine were now, the night was theirs.
The Woods
In my spell, I found the woods that Dr. Pinker wanted me to find. It was easy enough. The smell led me to remember this one creek near Project Apogee, which led to a bigger stream. And then I was not so far from where we started hiking between the river and the highway. I floated around there for a little while, and then I realized something: I didn’t have to prove anything.
The point of this was to get the Nine out. Who cares if I did what Dr. Pinker wanted? This was my show now. When I came back to my body, I saw what I had done. And I was prouder of myself than I’ve ever been.
All of Project Apogee was dark. There were voices screaming in the hallways. The doors were all open. In the common room, the Nine were gone.
When the lights came back on, I saw Glen run through the doors to Dr. Pinker’s lab, with his cell phone to his ear. He was especially upset. I think probably because he would be blamed for this.
Alone
I wasn’t out of my body long enough to get to see where the Nine went once they left Project Apogee. But they had a plan for what would happen next.
After the rush of the escape, and all the noise around the gray room, I didn’t realize I would feel depressed again so fast. I realized I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Just like always. There it was, the same old fear. The same old alone. Project Apogee was the starting point for all of my aloneness. Whether I was there or not— I would always be alone.
I tried to feel happy for the Nine. But more so, I felt hurt that they left me here alone. Just like Myra and my parents and everyone I thought had ever loved me. I pulled the busted wires out of my hair and threw them on the floor. Then I curled up to wait for whatever terrible thing was coming for me next.
The Last Last Morning
When I woke up, there were no flashing lights. But the door was closed and locked. I looked up at the speaker. “Hello?” I asked. Nothing happened. I got dressed and stood at the door. I sat on the bed and waited. I was wondering if with the Nine escaping in the middle of the night, they had forgotten about me. And then I heard someone putting in the door code.
One of the scientists pushed open the door. And then from behind her white lab coat, I saw them. They came rushing in with their arms out. And I ran to them. And it was like one of those moments you always see in the movies. It felt like the best dream I could ever have in that dull gray room. It was my parents.
Reunion
When we walked out together, I noticed that Project Apogee was completely empty. I didn’t see Glen or most of the other scientists there. One or two guys in brown clothes were checking switches and cameras and things like that. But Dr. Pinker was not around.
My parents told me when we got to the car that they were so sorry they let me go back into that place. “It’s okay,” I said, even though I remembered how alone I’d felt the night before. We drove for a long time. So long I fell asleep in the car.
The sun had already tipped over to the other side of the sky, which meant it was afternoon. I looked at the clock, and it said 2:20. I asked, “Do you know what happened to them?” The car stopped. Dad turned around and said, “See for yourself.” We pulled up to a big house in the middle of a field with woods all around us. The big blue front door of the house opened. And there were Ada, Ander, Alo, and Anto, running toward me.
We hugged and hugged. We laughed and kicked the dirt. We looked around at the big blue sky and the trees. We took big breaths of fresh air and talked about the night before. And we talked about that morning. The morning everything changed.
Ada told the story of how she used the robot to set the door codes, each door triggering the next door and the next door after that, like dominos.
Ander and Alo made sure cameras were out and the halls were clear. Anto led the rest of the Nine out of the common room, out the doors of Project Apogee and through the base. To the vans waiting to take them here. “The vans?” I asked. “Yeah,” Anto said, her dark eyes on the trees behind me. “My grandmother and some of the parents in the support group— they got the vans together and found this old farmhouse.”
The Others
Anto pointed to her grandmother, who was moving slowly toward us with her walker. I had only met her once. But I was so happy to see her, I gave her a big hug. “Hi again, Alex,” she said. “You didn’t think we’d leave you there all by yourself with the bullies, did you?” She smiled. “No,” I said. I blushed and laughed at the same time. Because I did think that, but I was so glad to be proved wrong.
“What about the others?” I asked. Mom put her arm around me. “Their parents were worried about coming up here. And they wanted to stay in their houses. We tried to convince them, but you can’t make people do something just because you think it’s right.” I looked down at the dirt, and my chest got really tight.
“So we won’t see them ever again?” I asked. “Well, who knows?” Anto’s grandmother said. Dad said, “Yeah, maybe they’ll change their minds and come up later.” “The point is,” Alo said, “we’re together, and we’re safe.” He looked back to the house, where two people and a little kid looked back at him and waved.
“Are those your parents?” I asked. “Yeah,” Alo said, “and my little brother. I can’t believe they’re here. I can’t believe any of us are here.” “Sure you can,” Ada said, laughing. “You’re the one who never stopped fighting Dr. Pinker.” She turned to me. “They locked him up alone in a room, like you. He went on hunger strike.” Alo shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal,” he said. “You know I don’t need to eat.” My eyes got really big and I looked at the two of them. “So that means—” I said.
Still Got It
“Yeah,” Alo said. “Didn’t Anto tell you? We’ve all still got it. I mean, Ada would have never been able to get us out of there if she couldn’t code.” Ander handed me the red robot. “We would have never been able to use this little guy to talk to you.”
“Yeah,” Ada said, popping Ander in the shoulder. “You would have never figured that out. Without me, you’d still be in the common room answering knock- knock jokes in French.” “Right? It’s so funny Dr. Pinker thinks we all just somehow lost our abilities,” Ander said. “A stroke of genius from Anto for sure.”
“What?” I asked. “Oh, come on. Tell them already!” Ander said to Anto. Anto grinned. Turned to me. And said, “This is all because of you.”
Young Witch
“When Anto told me what you were doing with these plants, I thought, wow, a young witch friend for me,” said Anto’s grandmother, whose name was Renée, which sounded like bells and violins and dessert. Renée.
Changing Our Minds
Renée said I was a witch, like her. I loved that. So much new information. My head was buzzing. “We had to practice at first,” Ander said. “But after a while we could all control our abilities like magic. For example, when I eat some, things feel really dark and gloomy, and I can’t move.”
