shrugged. “I committed my foot placements to memory. The patterns of the little pebbles in the blacktop. And the ssarg.”
“Ssarg?” I said, and immediately got it. “Oh. Grass.”
“Humor him,” Aly murmured. “He’s just that way with directions, trivia, you name it. World-class memory.”
“Just about the only thing I don’t remember is how I ended up here,” Cass said. “I was in a parking lot, and then I was here. Hey, tell me the name of the town where you live, Jack. And then name any other place in the United States.”
“Belleville, Indiana,” I offered. “And…um, Nantucket, Massachusetts.”
Cass stood stock-still for about thirty seconds. “Belleville. Take Route Thirty east to Fort Wayne; Route Sixty-nine north to Route Eighty all the way across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to the George Washington Bridge to the Cross Bronx; the Hutch to the Merritt, swinging down to Ninety-five via Route One at Milford; One Ninety-five in Rhode Island, Four Ninety-five to the Cape, and Six to One-thirty-two to the ferry in Hyannis.”
“Which shipping channel does the ferry take?” Marco asked.
“Ynnuf ton,” Cass drawled.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “He’s right. I used to follow the route on a map on our vacations. That’s freaky.”
“The ceresacrum takes your biggest talent and makes it awesome,” Aly said. “The treatments allow G7W to do its thing.”
“What’s your big talent?” I asked. “Something to do with movies?”
“That’s just a hobby with her,” Cass said. “Often very gniyonna.”
“I sent cute kitten photos to the members of the National Security Council,” Aly said with a laugh. “Which doesn’t seem like much, except I hacked into their system to do it. Through a military-grade firewall and the highest level of encryption. I was bored after finishing my homework. It seemed like a fun project.”
“Did you go to jail?” I asked.
“I was nine years old.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know I was doing anything illegal. They didn’t arrest me, they hired me. To strengthen their system. And…” Her face darkened. “Also to do some other stuff. I was their youngest employee ever.”
“What other stuff?” I asked.
She ignored the question and jerked a thumb over toward Marco. “Believe it or not, Slacker Boy over here is good at something, too.”
Marco was staring at the basketball court at the other end of the quad, near the main building. He bounced his basketball twice, rocking on his feet. “The blindfold, please.”
Aly took a bandanna from Marco’s rear pocket and tied it across his eyes. Slowly he reared back with the basketball.
The court was half a football field away. It was like trying to hit an airplane with a snowball. Marco crouched, then let go with a loud grunt. The ball shot high into the air. Scary high.
Marco pulled off the blindfold and watched as the ball came down like a cannon shot. It ripped the net as it dropped through the hoop.
“Three points,” Aly said.
“Dang,” Marco said disappointedly. “It grazed the rim.”
My jaw nearly hit the ground. “I did not see that.”
Cass had photo recall and could speak backward at will. Aly was a hacker genius and movie expert. Marco was Michael Jordan on steroids, without the steroids.
I was chopped liver.
I sat in my room, glumly putting on a pair of khaki pants and a button-down KI-logo shirt. I didn’t have a talent. I was eh in school and sports. I could use computers but didn’t really know how they worked. I could set up a fake volcano to launch a plastic toy. Maybe that was my talent. Dumb contraptions. Maybe I’d be able to launch an SUV using palm trees.
I was the opposite of the Select. I was the Discard Pile. Not good at anything. Maybe my lambda mark was just premature aging. I was a mistake.
And now I was supposed to go to a dinner honoring me. Were they expecting me to show off, the way Cass and Marco had?
“Ready?” Aly called out from the hallway, knocking on the door.
I opened it. She was wearing a striped knit shirt and a black leather skirt. Her wrists were full of cool, jangly jewelry that matched her pink hair, and she was wearing some makeup. “You look emosewa,” I said.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she said.
She was smiling brightly, like we were about to go to the prom or something, which made me feel really uncomfortable. “I was…making a joke,” I said, “about Cass’s backward speak. Not that you don’t look it—emosewa. Er, awesome. You know.”
“Quit while you’re ahead, McKinley.” Aly took my arm as we walked down the hall.
“Heeeere comes the bride…” Marco sang, emerging from his room.
Aly sneered. “Maturity is not part of Marco’s talent profile.”
We picked up Cass from his room, and Professor Bhegad met us outside our dorm. “Everyone is excited to meet you, Jack. Come.”
As he walked, his massive key chain banged against his hip like tiny cymbals. He pointed out the various buildings—a library with enormous windows, a state-of-the-art gym, a museum. People joined us as we walked, all wearing clothes that showed a KI insignia over the left breast pocket. Marco seemed to have a different secret handshake for each of them. Like he’d known them his whole life.
Strange voices called out to me: “Hey, Jack, how are you feeling?”… “Book club meets on Tuesdays!”… “yoga”… “spinning class”… “surfing club”…
Before we went into the dining hall, Marco stopped short. “Yo, P. Beg, I want to show Jack the media room.”
“It’s Professor Bhegad,” the old man said. “And I don’t think we have the time. The chef has prepared—”
“One minute, that’s all,” Marco insisted.
As Bhegad continued to protest, Marco pulled a plastic card from the protective pouch that hung from a big key ring on the professor’s belt. He quickly ran to a Colonial-style brick building, threw open the door, and announced, “Welcome to utter coolness.”
Although the building looked old, the inside was amazing—long and rectangular, with a lofted area and a glass ceiling high above. Everywhere I looked there were consoles and monitors, game devices and arcade machines. The beeps and sound effects made it seem like some strange forest full of squeaking electronic rodents.
“Nerd Heaven,” Cass continued. “Including board games and jigsaw puzzles.”
“We’re getting a foosball table on Friday,” Aly said with relish. “And we’re having a Preston Sturges festival. Hail the Conquering Hero Saturday night.”
We? I could never, ever think of myself and the Karai Institute as we.
“Dinnertime!” Bhegad said, heading back to the door. “Oh dear, where did that access card go?”
“I gave it back to you, P. Beg,” Marco said.
Now Bhegad was looking around the floor in frustration. “Achh. I’ve had this problem ever since I turned sixty. Honestly, I just lose everything! Ah, well, it will turn up. We mustn’t be late. We have a surprise for you, Jack. Come.”
As Professor Bhegad headed for the door, Cass and Aly followed. I turned to go with them.
Behind me, I felt Marco slipping something