Lab 6 Read Online Free PDF

floor.
    From my room.
    (NO — STAY AWAY!)
    I can’t fight it. The sound itself is moving me — right to my door, making my hand reach out to the knob.
    I try to pull back but it’s no use. It is — he is — (I AM) calling and I can’t resist.
    I turn the knob.
    The door whooshes open and slams against the wall. Inside, the room is bathed in a harsh white light. A stranger sits at my desk, his back to me.
    I panic. Who is he? Is he the one? Is he shouting for help? I can’t tell. But I CAN see that he’s wearing my flannel shirt, the one that Dad took. At first I think it’s Bart — he’s found Dad, stolen his keys and my shirt, and broken into the house — but no, it’s not Bart, I can tell, it’s someone else, someone familiar, and I hover in the air, smothered and battered by the sound (HE-E-ELLLPPP!) as
    he
    s tarts
    to
    turn.
    I can’t close my eyes I see his profile and he IS yelling OR IS HE? no the sound is coming from ME now and it’s not “Help!” I’m not shouting for help anymore it’s a different word it’s a name (his name) it’s
    “KE-E-E-EVINNN!”
    And now he’s turned around fully.
    (STOP!)
    There’s no question now.
    I know who it is.
    I’ve known him all along.

What is he doing?
    He’ll come back.
    Unless he’s caught.
    And then we’ll lose him forever.

9
    S AM WAS JOLTED AWAKE.
    The harsh white light was gone, the room silent.
    Everything seemed wrapped in haze.
    WHO?
    Who was it?
    The vision was fading. Or was it?
    Sam tried to focus on the figure across the room. At his desk.
    He’s still there.
    He was standing now. Staring at Sam.
    Approaching.
    Sam scrambled to leave, but his feet were tangled in the bedsheets.
    A pair of hands grabbed him firmly.
    Mom’s hands. She was crouched at the side of his bed.
    “Sweetie, it’s okay,” she said. “You were dreaming.”
    Sam blinked. The room — and the figure — sharpened.
    Dad.
    It’s just Dad.
    Sam’s desk had been cleared off. On it was a laptop he’d never seen in the house before. It was attached on one side to a towering machine, on the other to a wrinkled, leatherlike object in his dad’s hands.
    “Are you okay, pal?” his father asked.
    Sam’s breathing was fast and painful. His throat felt raw, as if it had been scraped with a barbecue brush. “Yeah.”
    “Must have been a bad one,” his mom said.
    Sam nodded. “It … was so real.”
    “The brain can do that.”
    “Switches,” his dad said with a soft smile. “Remember, that’s all it is.”
    “What’s that?” Sam asked, nodding toward the thing in his dad’s hand.
    “Just a prototype,” he explained.
    “Of what?”
    Mr. Hughes began unfolding the object. It was concave, like a skullcap. Small electrodes protruded from the top, connected by wires to the machine.
    “Please put this on,” he said calmly. Sam fought back the words — Jamie’s words, the words in his fears and dreams (experiments … mutants … prisoners in lab rooms … brain tampering …)
    STOP.
    He breathed slowly, calming his still-panicked thoughts.
    They are my parents.
    “Why, Dad?” he asked.
    “It may make you feel better,” Mrs. Hughes said.
    “ ‘May’?”
    “Like I said, it’s a prototype,” Mr. Hughes replied. “It may do nothing. But it can’t possibly hurt.”
    “I feel fine now!”
    His mother leaned in and stroked the back of his head. “You were having that feeling, weren’t you? The one you sometimes get at Turing-Douglas?”
    “It was a dream, Mom. Really — ”
    “You were yelling out a name.” Mr. Hughes looked at him levelly. “Do you know what it was?”
    “Kevin …” Sam murmured.
    “Yes,” Mrs. Hughes said, almost under her breath.
    “Who is that, Mom? Why was the name on the — ?”
    You can’t mention the notebook!
    Sam cut himself off. The notebook was still under his bed.
    His dad was at the desk again. With a flick of a switch, he turned on the laptop. The screen glowed with four graphs, all