INTRODUCTION

    "Are you sure this plane has enough wingspan to hold it up in the air?"

     The pilot, Marty, grinned as he turned the stick and the small plane banked away from Eppley Airfield in Omaha. "I don't know, kid. If it doesn't, we'll find out real soon. So where you from?"

    "Phoenix." Rachel didn't like being called "kid" by a stranger, so she added, "That's in Arizona."

    "Yeah, been there. Hot as hell. You got family in Bridgewater?"

    "No. A car will meet me there and take me to a little town called Fog Hollow, where I'll be attending school."

    "Fog Hollow, huh? That's a funny little town. They say people who grew up in Fog Hollow never get lost, it's like they've got a built-in compass. That's a plus, but on the minus side, they've got the worst football team in the state, the Dragons. Oh, but that's public school, I suppose you're going to a private school?" Rachel nodded, and he went on, "Well, it'll be a lot different than Phoenix. Rains a lot more, for one thing. Plus, small towns are a whole nother story."

    "So I've heard." Rachel decided that, even though the pilot wasn't her type, it made sense to be cordial to someone you were stuck in a little plane with for nearly forty-five minutes. It was just as well that he seemed to have taken no offense at her several attempts to squelch him. "This is a lot different than the Southwest," she agreed, in a much friendlier tone. "So much of it is farmed fields, it looks like a big patchwork quilt."

    "Yeah, pretty, ain't it?"

    "I can't get over how much water there is in that big river down there!"

    "Well, that's the Missouri. Around here, when we call something a river, it's got water in it."

     They chatted about inconsequential things as the plane negotiated the traffic pattern of the urban airport and then headed northwest toward the town of Bridgewater. Rachel hadn't flown in such a small plane before, and so eventually the conversation turned to that, and then, since both front seats had a stick (which was more like a steering wheel than a stick, even though it wasn't round), he offered to let her steer for a while. It was pretty cool, a little harder than it looked to keep it completely level. There was a short period where she kept overcorrecting and the pilot started to look a little pale, but then she got the hang of it and really started enjoying it.

    "Better let me take over now," he said. "We're coming up on Bridgewater."

    "Where? I don't see it."

    "Well, it's just a little bitty town, on the far side of that valley. That there is Fog Hollow, by the way. And see the wooded area there with the river running through it and some rooftops sticking up out of the trees? Bridgewater. The airstrip is just beyond it, but it's hard to see from this angle."

     Rachel relinquished control of the plane, and watched as he banked sharply to the right. "What're we going this way for?"

    "Well, with the wind being what it is today, we got to come at that strip from the west, so I need to go around."

    "Wouldn't it be quicker to go that way, straight over Fog Hollow?

     He laughed a little. "It would, except for one thing. Watch this." He pulled the stick the other way, leveling out and then banking to the left so that they veered towards the mist-filled hollow. They were close, closer, right above the edge--

     The cabin of the little plane went silent, but for the whistle of the wind. Rachel's stomach tickled as though she were going down in a fast elevator. The instrument panel caught her eye, and she realized suddenly that all of the gauges had dropped to zero! She looked anxiously at the pilot.

     With a grin, he pulled the stick, and the falling plane veered to the right again. As it crossed out of the airspace above the hollow, the engine started with a roar. The needles on the gauges came to life, and the plane began to climb again.

    "Why did it do that?" Rachel said.

    "I read in a newspaper once that there's a lot of iron ore in the ground down there," said the pilot. "Guess there's some kind of magnetic field that shuts down engines. Then I read another newspaper that said it was because the government has a secret project there and they want to prevent planes from snooping on them. And I saw a headline in a grocery checkout line that said it's because of aliens down there. Take your pick."

     Rachel picked the iron ore theory, with the government secret project as a backup.

     They landed at the Bridgewater strip with no further incidents, and she was met, as promised, by a driver from the school. He was a black man, which bothered her because she felt a brother shouldn't take such a stereotypical job, but he seemed nice. When she was settled in the very luxurious back seat of the Bentley, with her luggage in the trunk, they set out for Fog Hollow.

    "Oh, they're good kids," the chauffeur said. "They're all good kids. You won't find any drugs on campus, or gangs, nothing like that. All I mean to say is, once you get there, don't . . . well . . . don't forget your roots, I guess is what I mean. Good grief!" This last exclamation came as the undercarriage of the car hit a big rock in the dirt road. "They should give us a jeep for this road, not a Bentley."

     Rachel got up on her knees on the seat and turned to look out the back window. She saw a trail of dark drops in the dust. "Better stop, Jimmy! We're leaking some kind of fluid."

    "Good grief!" he said again, pulling the car somewhat over to one side of the lane, not that there would really be room for another car to pass. The road was nothing more than a pair of weedy ruts between two barbed wire fences. They both got out and crouched down to look under the car. Red fluid was dripping rapidly from the transmission casing.

    "Shit!" said Jimmy. "Oh, pardon my inappropriate language, miss. I meant to say, this is frustrating." He sighed. Then he stood up with a grunt of effort--he was not a young man--and extended his hand to help her to her feet. Opening the door for her, he said, "It's only about four miles to town. We should be able to make it. I apologize for the inconvenience, miss."

    "It's not your fault," she said, with a shrug.

     They had not driven much farther when Jimmy stopped the car again. Rachel, too, had noticed the straining sound the car made as it tried to shift gears. "I'm afraid we're going to need a tow truck, miss," said the chauffeur. "And the cell phone is in for repairs." He looked around. "There's probably a farmhouse nearby, where I can call a garage."

    "Oh--but I'm wearing new shoes!" Rachel protested. "If I walk a long way, I'll get blisters!"

    "You needn't walk with me. I could leave you here, if you'll stay in the car with the doors locked."

    "I could do that," Rachel replied agreeably. This was true. She could, if she wanted to. She couldn't help it if he misinterpreted her statement. She leaned back in her seat and smiled sweetly at Jimmy. "You go on, then. I'll be fine."

    "All right."

     She waved a cheery goodbye to him and watched him start down the road. The experience of being driven around by a chauffeur was new to her, and distinctly charming. He seemed like a nice man, she thought, and looked very trim for his age in that black uniform, and he was so polite! She liked him, and didn't want him to know she hadn't done what he wanted her to do. So she waited until he'd passed out of sight around a bend in the road before she pulled on the door handle.

     It remained locked.

     With an exasperated sigh, she climbed through the window to the front seat and opened that door. She'd never been to Nebraska before and wanted a better look at it than the view from an airplane or a tinted car window, plus her cell phone would work better from higher ground. She'd been warned that it wouldn't work at all once she got into Fog Hollow. She needed to phone her contact at the Sherman Institute and confirm that she had an outside room, and then call the cable company and confirm her appointment for an Internet hookup. Then, she needed to rent some office space near the school, for her psychic counseling service. That would pretty much blow her bankroll, so the next order of business would be to hit up her father for a loan. After that, she could go back to the car and read a romance novel until Jimmy got back with the tow truck. It was really lucky that the car had broken down when it did, or she'd have had to sneak out of school to make her calls, which might've been a lot harder.

     Climbing the fence was a little tricky, but she made it without hurting herself on the barbed wire. The field on the other side had some knee-high green stuff growing in it, which smelled good. She waded through the foliage to the crest of the field, which looked like the highest spot in the neighborhood, shaded her eyes with her hand, and took a good look around.

     Well, it wasn't like standing on a mountaintop back home, but it was a nice view. The breeze was faintly scented with fragrant smoke. There were fields everywhere, with rows of corn or soybeans or whatever, following the contours of the rolling land. Usually a line of trees marked the boundary between fields. A meandering band of forest followed the course of a stream, which seemed to run into the hollow, visible from here as a big, low area brimming with mist. Here and there, along the roads that followed some of the field divisions, there was a farmyard, with a house, a barn, and some other small buildings. She could see three farmyards from where she stood. One of them was just down the other side of this hill. That was where the smoke was coming from; there was a small bonfire of some kind in the yard. They didn't permit that sort of thing in Phoenix, of course, because of the pollution, but here the air seemed to be cleaner.

     There was no sign of Jimmy. He'd followed the road down into a low spot where it apparently turned and ran beside the stream, so it was mostly hidden by trees. The horizon in every direction was obscured by nearby things--trees or hills. You couldn't see fifty miles, like in Arizona.

     The breeze had died down. She waved away a little bee that kept buzzing around her head, pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans, and opened it.

    "What are you doing here?" said a voice behind her.

    "Eep!" She jumped, dropping her phone, and landed facing the other way. The person who had sneaked up behind her was a young man, or more accurately a boy, maybe a little older than her own fifteen years, but a lot bigger than she was. He had on a tight blue T-shirt advertising a hardware store, a loose pair of jeans--really loose, held up with a worn leather belt--and tennis shoes with holes in the toes. His unkempt blond hair desperately needed styling, the dirt on his face was streaked with sweat, and he had a black eye.

     Appearances could be deceiving, of course, but he looked like a big, dumb redneck. And he was looking at her like she'd just stepped out of a flying saucer. She had the uncomfortable feeling there was a racial issue. She was not white, and she was trespassing.

    "You scared me!" she said, hoping he would assure her there was nothing to fear.

    "Good," he said, stepping around her and picking up the cell phone. "What the hell are you doing in my field?" He seemed to have a slight accent, which she couldn't place.

    "Making a phone call, as you can see. My car broke down--" She waved toward the shiny black Bentley at the bottom of the hill. "--and I needed high ground to phone for a tow truck. Thank you." She made a grab for the phone, but he raised his arm and held it out of her reach. Rachel couldn't tell whether this was an awkward attempt at flirtation, or a prelude to something darker. Deciding to treat it as a lame joke, she put her hands on her hips and said, "May I have my phone back, please?"

    "Are you even old enough to drive?" he said. His eyes flicked over her figure, not slowly enough to be rude.

    "Thank you! You're a sweet child. But I think you're not a good judge of people's looks." If she could convince him she was an adult, she might get this situation under control.

    "So how old are you?" he said.

    "How old do I look?"

    "About fifteen."

     Damn. "Bless you! I thank you, my personal trainer thanks you, and my plastic surgeon thanks you! And I apologize for trespassing in your field. What is it you're growing here, by the way? It smells wonderful!"

    "It's alfalfa." He paused. "You're really a grown woman? That's your car?"

     God, he'd fallen for it! Until this moment she hadn't realized just how lame a lie it had been. Now, she felt sorry for deceiving him. It was like taking advantage of a child. "Well... oh, who's that coming? Is that your father?"

     The man walking up the hill was big--both strong and fat--dressed in overalls, with his light-colored hair in a crew cut, and although he wasn't close enough yet for her to read his expression, something about the way he walked made her think he was very angry.

     The boy followed her gaze, and then said, "You'd better go."

    "But I--"

    "Go, NOW." He handed her phone back to her. "See that hill over there, the one with the milo growing on it?"

    "The what?"

    "Looks like corn, but it's shorter. There." He pointed. "That's not our land. You go walk up that hill and make your phone call. Go on! I mean it!"

    "All right." His apparent urgency was contagious, and she started down the hill toward the Bentley as she was speaking. Her take on the situation, and she knew she might be wrong, was that the boy was protecting her from his potentially hostile father. Which was why she looked back and said, "What's your name?"

     He looked surprised. "Sigurd." He pronounced it "see-goord"

    "I meant, your first name?"

    "Sigurd Bramhall."

     Rachel had the impression that Sigurd, also known as Siegfried, the hero of a trio of Wagnerian operas, had been something of an icon to the Third Reich. With images of goose-stepping neo-Nazi hillbillies looming fearsomely in her imagination, she produced a smile and said brightly, "Oh! Well, bye now." She hurried down the hill.

     He was following her! She could hear his legs brushing through the alfalfa right behind her!

     His hand came down on her shoulder. She froze like a rabbit in headlights. "What about you?" he said.

    "What about me?"

    "What's your name?"

    "Umm," for a moment she couldn't remember, "Rachel Giraud. You're right, I really should go now."

    "Ja, you should. Good to meet you, Rachel."

    "Uh... nice to meet you too... Sigurd." She forced another smile and a silly little wave. He smiled a bit, turned, and started back up the hill. Rachel continued down, negotiating the barbed wire fence a little too quickly and tearing her jeans.

     Once safely in the car with the doors locked, she peered out the window, but Sigurd and the man who might be his father were out of sight. She tried her cell phone from the car, but wasn't able to reach anyone, and she didn't feel safe enough to climb the hill of milo as Sigurd had suggested. Sigurd. What a name.

     When Jimmy returned with the tow truck, she was in the back seat, reading her romance novel.

     It turned out that the low, foggy area she'd seen from the hilltop was where the town was; appropriately enough, it was called Fog Hollow, and it was lower and foggier than she had realized. The two-lane streets were made of worn and rounded red bricks, and most of the properties were surrounded by high stone walls, with just vague roofs and treetops showing above, which made everything look the same, and she wondered why more of the cars on the streets didn't get lost. But then again, maybe they did. The tow truck didn't, however, and in a short time they pulled up to the front of the Sherman Institute for the Gifted. The name of the school was proclaimed by a wrought iron arch over the fancy gate.

    "Here we are," said Jimmy. "Just a moment please, miss." He climbed out of the truck, then helped her down, and then went back to the Bentley and opened its trunk. When Rachel's suitcases were unloaded, he paid the driver and then carried her things up to the gate. She'd already bypassed the keypad, since she didn't know any security codes, pressed the intercom button, and made contact with a suspicious entity somewhere within the estate.

    "Hello?" she said.

    "Who's this?" said the entity.

    "This is Rachel Giraud. I'm a new student. Will you release the gate, please?"

    "What's the password?"

    "There's a password? Come on!"

     Jimmy arrived at the gate, puffing a bit because there was more in the three suitcases he carried than clothes. Two more bags remained at the curb; with a hasty "Oh Jimmy, sorry about that!" Rachel ran back to get them. To her regret, she didn't hear the password he used to get them through the gate.

     Dark pine trees stood before them, and above the pines, indistinct in the mist, loomed the towers and gables of what looked very much like a castle. Rachel grinned. "Too cool!" she said.

Week Zero, Episode One
Copyright 1999, Susan K. Putney

     As it turned out, the Institute wasn't a castle, but only a collection of gabled buildings and towers which, if you saw only the parts that stuck up above the treetops, strongly resembled a castle. Still it was an old place, and the ivy-covered buildings were all connected by paved paths sheltered under rows of stone arches, and several of the old mullioned windows had stained glass in them, so the overall effect was old-world and extremely quaint, and Rachel was not dissatisfied. Although she had hoped for a dungeon.

     The first person they met was the Suspicious Entity, the head of security, whom Jimmy introduced as Sergeant Rink. He was enthroned behind a big, high-tech desk in the security office in the Admin.. building. His uniform was more paramilitary in style than most security guards Rachel had seen: it was black, it had silvery stripes down the legs, it had a stiff Mandarin-style collar and there were actually epaulets of darkish silver braid on his shoulders. There were several small cloisonne emblems pinned to the breast of his uniform jacket, like medals, which she would've liked a closer look at. And although he stood to lean across his desk and shake hands with her, he never did come out from behind it so she couldn't see whether he was wearing S.S. boots, the only type of footwear that could really go with the uniform. He was a slight man with a lean build, a shaven head, and extremely dark eyes and eyebrows.

    "We've been expecting you, of course, Miss Giraud," he said. His deep voice was harsh, as though he had a sore throat or was very angry, but Rachel suspected it was his natural tone. "I've got your badge and card key ready; all we need is your thumbprint to activate them."

    "All right," she said. "Boy, this is a lot more security than I expected!" Privately she thought, this may put a crimp in my counseling service and other stuff, and how am I going to get the cable installer in here without anyone knowing?

     While she was providing a complete set of fingerprints, Jimmy bid her a good day and left to take her luggage up to her dorm room, and a woman came across the hall and introduced herself. "I'm Mrs. Peabody, Delilah Peabody, the Deputy Headmaster, and you can call me Lilah. We're fairly informal here, like a family really, though you wouldn't know it from this." She gestured at the security office. "This is partly because some of the students come from very wealthy families, and we have to worry about kidnaping; and it's partly, as you know, because of the sensitive government research that the students have access to." She was a tall, slender, youngish woman, with blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, dressed in a gray suit that seemed conservative except for a split up the side of her skirt, all the way to the hip. Her muscular legs were so smooth-skinned and tan, you almost couldn't tell she had no stockings on, and instead of high heels she wore little black leather slippers, like a ballet dancer. That was what she moved like, too, and her grip when she shook hands was as strong as Sergeant Rink's. However, at least she smiled.

    "Pleased to meet you," Rachel said. "No problem about the security, it makes me feel safe." Not. "I'm looking forward to meeting the other students."

    "They're all in class now, and you're not scheduled to start until tomorrow; we thought you might like the rest of the day to acclimatize yourself. But you'll meet them all this evening when school lets out, and meanwhile I'll get your friend, Terry, to show you around--as soon as you've been introduced to the Headmaster."

     The elderly secretary paused in her word-processing long enough to tell Rachel that Headmaster Vinton was on an important call. Rachel sat down on the sofa and waited. The late morning sunlight slanted in through the stained glass window and made spots of color on the cherrywood paneling, and on the old black and white photograph of the Sherman Institute, framed on the wall. When she was bored with looking around the room, she inspected the stuff Sergeant Rink had given her. The card key was on a retractable cord that clipped to the belt loop of her jeans, and it had a hologram of a hand with a flaming palm. Gruesome, actually, although the hand didn't look damaged by the flame. The picture i.d., which she wore clipped to the collar of her blouse, wasn't very flattering. It showed her black hair long and free-flowing, while she preferred to have her picture taken with a French braid, and it showed a big grin on her face, while she preferred to smile with her mouth closed in pictures because her gums showed when she grinned. Come to think of it, when had this picture been taken? They'd said they had one of her, and she had assumed it must have been her yearbook photo from high school last year... but this wasn't it. Well, it must've been something her father had sent them.

     The secretary paused in her typing to press a button on a console. Then she looked up at Rachel. "Miss Giraud, sorry for the delay. Headmaster Vinton will see you now."

     Headmaster Vinton wasn't like anything she would've expected. He was a lean man with heavy eyelids and a slow, reptilian way of blinking. His thin mouth was reptilian, too, a lipless crack like the great stone blocks of Incan construction, that you couldn't slide a knife between. Most of his head was bald--not shaven like Sergeant Rink's but really hairless--and the fringe of white hair that remained was long, pulled back into a ponytail or a braid; she couldn't tell which, at least not until he turned his head. He was wearing a gray business suit and not a uniform, but his posture made Rachel think he must have been in the military for many years before becoming Headmaster of this school.

    "You'll find we run a very tight ship here, Miss Giraud," he said, after the usual pleasantries. "I understand you haven't attended a private school before. You are privileged to attend this one because of your phenomenal test scores in the area of biochemistry."

    "Well, actually, I plan to major in psychology. The chemistry is just a sideline," Rachel said.

    "That's as may be, but it's the biochemistry that got you into the Sherman Institute. We focus on hard science here. You are aware that this Institute takes part in several government-funded research projects."

    "Yes, I did know that."

    "In the area of biochemistry, there are two projects to choose from. You'll be required to work on one or the other."

    "What projects are they?" She didn't want to work on somebody else's project. Her father was paying a lot of money for her to come here; she didn't think she should be forced to work on someone else's project.

    "One has to do with the mapping of human genes, and the other is to develop a substance that will transmit memory."

     Rachel's eyebrows went up. "I'll take the second one."

    "I'll make a note of that. And, Miss Giraud, I would like to know how you tore your pants?"

    "What?" That little rip was on her butt, and she hadn't even turned her back to him. How did he know? She stuck her legs out and checked her knees, then stood and peered back at her butt. "Oh! Uh, must've done it sometime this morning before I got on the plane, I guess. I have no idea when or how."

    "If you leave them on your bed tomorrow morning with a note pointing out the damage, our housekeeping department will repair them."

     Good, he seemed satisfied with her explanation. But she was going to have to be careful with little details.

     Rachel, you know Terry, since he recommended you for this school." Mrs. Peabody smiled at Rachel. "Terry's going to show you around. Have fun, kids."

    "First, your room, then the cafeteria," Terry said, as they walked out. He was a wiry, extremely athletic looking boy, with long legs and a compact, wide-shouldered torso. His curly sandy-blond hair was controlled by a bill cap, and his grin was very friendly. "I need to eat every two hours and the food there actually isn't bad. Then I'll show you the rest of the school, especially the biochem labs."

    "Actually, I plan to major in psychology. Biochemistry is just a sideline."

    "Yeah, so is math, for me. I'm training for the Olympics, so I guess you'd say my major is phys ed."

    "Really? I didn't know you were an athlete. I don't even remember reading about the physical education department here."

    "There isn't one. They have a gym, but you go on your own time and you're on your own. If you're into martial arts, you can get Mrs. Peabody to show you some moves. We think she's a trained killer." By the time he said this, they were out of the building.

    "Sorry I didn't call you from the airport or on the way here. I tried, but couldn't arrange the privacy. I'm worried about the cable installer coming in here tonight. How will I get him through the gate?"

    "Well, at night it's run by a computer, and you have to type in the password. Rink changes the password once or twice a day, but we've added a back door to the program and all the gates will always accept 'rock and roll'."

    "Oh, good! Will there be any other problems, do you think? Like, troops of Nazis roaming the grounds? You told me the security was intense here, but I guess it didn't really sink in, until I met Rink."

     Terry nodded. "Day and night there are security guards; they travel in pairs and don't seem to stick to a schedule, and they stay in touch with Rink's office by radio headsets. At night there are also nine free-roaming dobies."

    "Nine?"

    "Yeah. They travel in a pack. The guards are scared of them."

    "So am I! That's so dangerous! No matter how well trained they are, put that many dogs together and--oh, god, I guess I'd better cancel the cable installer then."

     Terry gave her a look that indicated "not necessarily," but he said nothing as he opened the big, carved oak door of Witherspoon Hall, one of the school's mansion dormitories.

     They walked into what looked like an old-fashioned hotel lobby, a marble-tiled area with a big hardwood counter and a bored-looking woman perched on a stool behind it, reading a magazine.

     Terry said, "Bess, Rachel. Rachel, Bess."

    "Morning," said Bess.

    "Hi," Rachel said, as she and Terry stepped into the wrought iron elevator.

    "Bess is our house mother," he explained, as the machine started up. "She keeps us all toeing the line. Nothing gets by our Queen Bess."

    "Really?"

     They were out of sight of the lobby but probably not out of earshot, and he shook his head and grinned.

Week Zero, Episode Two

Copyright 1999, Susan K. Putney

     She liked her room. It was in a corner of the third floor, with big windows facing both directions, and a fireplace, and it adjoined a bathroom which, according to Terry, she would be sharing with a girl named Amy. There was a telephone, a TV, a computer terminal (not as nice as her own computer, which she'd brought), an oriental rug, an antique wardrobe that looked like it weighed half a ton, and a great big canopy bed. The rest of the furniture was new, but of good quality.

    "Do these windows face into the campus, or toward the street?" she asked, as she opened the maroon and gold drapes. "Oh, linen. That's nice." She looked at Terry.

    "The one you're standing by faces a side street. The other one faces the school's radiotelescope antenna--you can't see it, though; trees in the way."

    "The cable company said they can install at night, which is unusual but it's great, because I have things to do on the Internet that I don't want the school administration to know about... We discussed that."

     He nodded. "The psychic counseling scam."

    "It's not a scam. I'm certainly not psychic, but the counseling part is real. I guess I'm not that wise, but a lot of the things people need help with are pretty easy to figure out, if you're on the outside looking in. You know?"

     He shrugged. "I guess most people need all the help they can get because, let's face it, most people are fairly stupid."

    "Well... not necessarily."

    "Hell yes, necessarily. Now, you've got about sixty yards from this room to the campus wall, and the cable guy would never make it past the dog pack--if he tried to lay the cable in a trench. However, this building has access to a sewer tunnel below its basement, and although that's electronically guarded, we can rock and roll past it." He grinned. "That's our regular non-sanctioned exit. Of course, there are others."

     As they had come into her bedroom, Terry had unobtrusively reached behind the door and pressed a spot on the wallpaper. He did it again as they walked out.

     The cafeteria was, as promised, first-rate, and the rest of the campus was... interesting. It seemed to have been made by combining four wealthy estates, and the original mansions had been kept as dormitories, with the actual school buildings being added in the center. Those were the castle-like configuration that Rachel had liked the looks of. Various points of interest such as the big antenna (tuned to the government's VLA in space), the tennis courts, the obstacle course and the kennels were situated here and there on the wooded land.

     Rachel was surprised to find one whole tower connected to the physics building, which students weren't allowed in. There were two armed guards at the only visible way in, which was tucked away on the back side and not adjacent to the central courtyard. She wondered if there might also be a way in through the physics building or through the sewers.

     At the biology building, which Terry showed her last, she had a disturbing encounter. When they first entered she needed to use the restroom and came upon a young girl crying. Very young--the child was twelve, if that--leaning on the sink and crying like her heart was broken.

    "What's the matter, honey?" Rachel said, immediately putting her arm around the child and pulling a tissue out of her purse to wipe the tears away.

    "He k-killed Alvernon!" the little girl managed to say between convulsive sobs.

     This was alarming. Visions of violence-crazed security guards loomed in Rachel's mind. Where were the police? "Who killed Alvernon?"

    "Professor Bartolemy."

    "And who is Alvernon?"

    "M-my puppy!" The child broke down completely and could not speak coherently for several minutes.

     Rachel's stomach sank. This was the biology department. The government research projects here, at least the ones she knew about, might involve animal experimentation. She had been told, when she applied to this school, that animals were used in some experiments. But the brochure had shown a smiling youth next to a couple of caged white rats, and she had assumed--big mistake!--that rats were the test animal of choice here. Not puppies.

     When the child's sobbing slowed, she smoothed back the girl's blonde hair and said, "Do you mean, Alvernon was a laboratory animal?"

     She nodded, head sinking lower and lower. "Yes, but he was so sweet! And I taught him to come when I called, just like Professor Bart wanted! He would come and take cheese out of my hand, and his t-tongue was so warm! And then he killed him so he could grind up his brain!" This last statement ended not in a sob but in a near-shriek of helpless rage.

     Rachel continued to stroke the girl's hair. "How old are you, honey?"

    "T-twelve in December." She leaned against the older girl with a shaky sigh.

    "You're a student here?"

    "I'm a sophomore."

    "What's your name?"

    "Carol."

    "I'm Rachel." Putting both arms around the little girl and hugging her tight, Rachel said, "Don't worry, Carol, honey. I'll make sure that doesn't happen to any other puppies here." How she would make sure of that, she had no idea. But now she'd promised a child and she was committed.

     Since there were only sixty-two students in the Sherman Institute, and twenty-four instructors, classes were quite small, and one-on-one teaching wasn't uncommon. Professor Bartolemy was in the animal testing unit with a single student, measuring vials of a yellowish liquid. A chorus of high-pitched yips rose and fell and rose again through a doorway to an adjacent room.

     Bartolemy was a tall, stooped man with slicked-back red hair, a deeply lined face, thick spectacles, and Mick Jagger lips.

    "Rachel, this is Professor Bartolemy, he'll be one of your instructors," Terry said. "Professor Bart, this is Rachel Giraud." Rachel hadn't told him about the girl she'd spoken with in the restroom, although he had no doubt heard the sobbing, and seen the girl leave--Carol had gone to her dorm, cutting the rest of her class.

     Professor Bartolemy set the vial he'd just filled--probably with fluid squeezed from Alvernon's brain--carefully into a nearly full rack of such vials, and came over to speak with Rachel at a more courteous distance, or maybe just to get a clearer look at her (those were very thick lenses in front of his cold gray eyes). He smiled, exposing long, stained teeth.

    "Welcome to the biology department, Rachel. I've seen your test scores, and I'm expecting great things from you. Headmaster Vinton's email said you'd chosen the memory transference project. Excellent! As it happens, I've just had an assistant quit on me, so you can help with the lab coordination and the more advanced data analysis, if you'd like the extra credit."

     Rachel grinned. "That would be so great! Thank you!" All the better to rescue those puppies, you monster.

     That concluded Rachel's tour of the Institute; it was 4:00, and Terry showed her back to the dorm. Other students were leaving their studies at about that time, and for a few minutes the central courtyard seemed lightly populated, which was the most people Rachel had seen all day. "I guess the government must subsidize this school pretty heavily," she said, "because even as high as the tuition is, so few students couldn't begin to pay for a place like this."

     Terry nodded. "We do have some students here on scholarships who don't pay at all. Uncle Sam foots the bill, yep. That's why we've all got to be working on a government project of some kind."

    "You'd think they'd want adults."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Well, I know we're all geniuses and stuff, but you'd think they'd prefer grown-up geniuses who had finished their schooling. Not teenagers. Or younger," she added, thinking of Carol.

     Terry's lip curled as he said, "Yeah, well, that's something we're going to talk about tonight, but I'll wait till the whole Third Floor Gang is together."