I turned and knelt down next to Ian. His gaze was locked on what was going on too.

  The men who were speaking wore long white jackets like I’d seen doctors wear. But they didn’t seem like doctors to me. They weren’t caring for Karen who was apparently ill or had come down with something. And what were they extracting? My stomach trembled, and I swallowed hard to keep my breakfast down.

  The bigger of the two men walked around the table and stood directly across from the other. They moved Karen onto her back. She flopped over without protest.

  I noticed a thin clear tube attached to her arm.

  “I don’t think she’s sick,” Ashley said.

  I didn’t either, but I wasn’t going to give Ashley the satisfaction of me agreeing with her.

  The two men looked at each other then around the room.

  Ian made a “shh” sound with his finger against his lips.

  The two men carried on. I leaned closer to the cart to make sense of what I was seeing.

  The bigger man knelt down out of sight, and I heard a sloshing sound from next to him. “Temperature has almost reached thirty-seven degrees Celsius. I’ll be inserting the LifeAgain into the subject for the transition.”

  He spoke as if he was being recorded, slow and deliberate. I looked around. Were there cameras in here? Were we going to get caught regardless of hiding from them?

  The other man glanced at a monitor. The movement of the lines indicated a heartbeat, at least I thought it did. While the top one moved up and down, the bottom one was a steady straight line.

  Ashley’s breathing sounded like the rustling of leaves, inconsistent and raspy. If I didn’t hate her so much, I might feel sorry for her reaction to all of this. I certainly felt the same way but wasn’t showing it to the others.

  “Hooking up now,” the bigger man said.

  I checked the monitor again. From what I could tell, Karen’s heartbeat was steady. So she was alive but unconscious. The way her body didn’t show any resistance indicated that she possibly didn’t know what was happening to her.

  The bottom line of the monitor jumped. It was irregular at first, but there was more sloshing then the rhythm of the line was steadier.

  Karen’s eyes sprung open. I had to stifle a startled scream from forcing its way out of me. Even though her eyes were open, they appeared lifeless.

  Ashley jumped, and me and Ian turned to her. Even in the darkness of our side of the room, she was white as a sheet.

  “Stop,” Ian whispered.

  Ashley clamped her hand over her mouth and nodded.

  We turned back to Karen. My eyes watered as I watched, waiting for her to blink. She didn’t.

  There was more sloshing, and the sound started to grate on my nerves, almost as if someone were drawing a straight line against my spine over and over again.

  A mumbling sound made all the hairs on my arms stand straight.

  Was Karen trying to say something? I squinted and didn’t see her mouth or throat moving. I tried to pinpoint the location, but it appeared to be coming from elsewhere.

  The bigger man bent over the bin or whatever held the liquid. And when he stood up, he was holding a stark naked, dripping wet Karen next to him.

  Ian let out a breath through his teeth.

  I had to blink a few times to understand what I was seeing. Karen, the girl that disappeared from the cafeteria that morning, was still on the table staring up at the ceiling. Then there was the naked Karen standing next to the bigger man. The naked Karen had her eyes closed, and she slumped against the man.

  “Turn on the chip,” he said to the other.

  And then things got weirder. Karen, the one on the table, closed her eyes and the one standing, opened hers. She stood up straight, and the bigger man let her go. The other man unhooked our Karen from all of the IVs and strapped her to the table. I could see that the naked Karen came from some large bin filled to the brim with a thick liquid. The stuff that was all over her. It dripped off her like molasses, but it was translucent.

  “What the—” Ashley said.

  “Shh,” Ian said.

  The other man moved the stretcher into a prone position, so it appeared that our Karen was standing up. He scooted the stretcher back toward that panel I’d seen before. He pressed something on the side of it, and a door opened. He slowly unstrapped Karen from the table and moved her body inside of the panel. He then strapped her inside and closed the door. He pressed a couple of more buttons, and the door closed, sealing her inside.

  I turned back to the naked Karen, and the bigger man had given her a towel. She moved the towel over her body in slow, deliberate movements. The strangeness of the situation made my entire body numb as if I was floating above my own watching this exchange.

  “What is your name?” the man asked, now holding a tablet like the ones that Lucy and Christopher always had.

  “Karen,” she said in Karen’s voice. If I closed my eyes, I would have sworn it was her. Other than being naked, I couldn’t tell a physical difference between the Karen’s even if they stood side by side. Our Karen wore glasses and had a tendency to squint when she didn’t have them on. This one’s eyes were bright and open even without the corrective lenses.

  “What is that thing?” Ashley hissed and started to tremble.

  “Be quiet,” Ian said.

  “No,” she moaned. “This is messed up. What the hell is going on here?”

  Ian reached for her, and she slapped his hand away. “I can’t be here anymore.”

  Ian lunged and wrapped his arms around her. She kicked her legs out, and they connected with one of the carts with a thwack.

  I watched in horror as a piece of equipment teetered. I reached for the cart, trying to catch the equipment but I was too late. The piece crashed to the floor, spewing pieces of metal and plastic all over the floor.

  Three sets of eyes turned in our direction.

  We had been caught!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Who’s in here?” one of the men shouted. I couldn’t tell which one since I was too busy staring at Ashley. She was back on the floor, trembling.

  “Get up, Ashley,” Ian hissed, kneeling beside her.

  She scrambled to her feet.

  I stood too.

  “Get security,” the bigger man said. He held onto Karen’s arm.

  The other man spoke into a walkie talkie. Within seconds, a door opened and closed in the back of the room. Two people, no they were teens. Dressed the same way we were came forward.

  “Help us,” Ashely said. “They hurt our friend.”

  “They’re not going to help us,” Ian said, putting his arms out in front of us.

  The teens sprinted in our direction. Before I could blink, they were in front of us.

  Ian let out a loud cry and shoved one of them away. Ashley clawed at the other who was trying to grab her wrists.

  “Get off me!” Ashley screeched, throwing her arms in front of her.

  I tried to intervene, but the one that had attacked Ian appeared in front of me. Both of the recruits were much bigger than all of us. They were closer to Christopher’s size. In both, their hands were syringes, their thumbs poised at the top of the plunger. What were they planning to do with those?

  It appeared we were at a disadvantage then a thought popped into my head.

  Weren’t the professors looking for us? I know we had stumbled onto something very strange, but they had to be looking for us after we disobeyed orders. If they were looking, I had to alert them to our location.

  “Help!” I cried out. “Lucy! Christopher! Anyone!”

  Then Ashley joined in. “Someone help!”

  Something crashed into the teen attacking Ashley and me. We jumped away, and Ian stumbled over holding a piece of equipment from the cart. Blinking, I realized that Ian had hit the teen with the item.

  Ian’s victim was on the floor, unmoving.

  I glanced over and saw that Karen and the guys in lab coats we
re gone. They must have escaped out of the back door. My stomach sank. I wanted to know what was going on but without them, how would we figure it out?

  There was one of the teens left, and his eyes were narrowed, not accepting defeat. As much as Ashley and I weren’t fighters, I knew three against one were much better odds than before.

  Ian put down the broken piece of equipment and charged the other recruit.

  The recruit raised his hand with the syringe. Ian punched him in the stomach, and the recruit didn’t budge. His arm came down, and the needle end of the syringe plunged into Ian’s arm.

  “Ian!” I cried.

  Ian groaned and tried to push the recruit away from him.

  I didn’t know what was in the syringe, but it didn’t seem good. On instinct, I lunged forward and grabbed onto the recruit, trying to pull him away from Ian.

  His foot moved but otherwise, his body was rock-solid.

  “You can’t win this,” the recruit said.

  With me distracting the recruit, Ian was able to knock his arm away from him. “Tell me what’s going on here.”

  The recruit laughed and stepped away. His eyes darted over us as if calculating his next move. “You’ve given the institute a lot of trouble, Ian Weber. You were going to be last after watching your friend’s transition. But I’ve been ordered to bring you in now. All of you.”

  “What transition?” I asked. Is that what Karen went through?

  “Go on,” the recruit taunted Ian. “Tell them what you think you know.”

  “I think you’re rewiring the recruits that come in here.”

  The recruit shrugged. “Close but not on target quite yet, Ian. I could always ask Caleb to explain it to you. If you come with me now, I can make an exception for you.”

  Ian’s lip curled, and he charged the recruit. For the first time, the recruit was taken off-guard, and he and Ian fell to the ground. The syringe fell from the recruit's hand and slid across the floor. For some reason, I raced over to pick it up. It still had liquid inside, and I wondered what Ian had been injected with. I hoped it wasn’t lethal. I found a cloth towel and wrapped it around the syringe.

  I was close to the box that Karen had been placed inside. I started fiddling with the buttons on the side, but each time I pressed them, a red light illuminated the keypad. I wasn’t getting anywhere with that.

  Ashley yelped, and I ran over to them.

  Ian sat on top of the recruit, his arm raised and his hand clenched into a fist as if he were about to punch the recruit. He brought his hand down over and over again.

  “Ian!” I cried, unable to watch any longer.

  Ian stopped and was out of breath.

  The recruit looked up at the ceiling, the same way that Karen had.

  Ian scrambled off him and checked for a pulse.

  “Did you kill him?” Ashley asked.

  “I don’t think I can kill him,” Ian said cryptically. He rolled the recruit onto his side. The back of his head was soaked. “They’re not real humans.”

  I stifled a sob with my hand. “Oh god.”

  This wasn't looking good for the recruit. Ian touched the wet hair, and when he pulled his hand away, it was caked in a clear liquid.

  “What the hell?” he said, more to himself. Then without warning, he picked up the piece of equipment and smashed the recruits head.

  Ashley cried out again, and I buried my head in my hands.

  “What are you doing?” Ashley screeched.

  “Look,” Ian said.

  I peeked through two of my fingers and looked down. There wasn’t blood spatter all over the place as I imagined. I looked closer, and instead of brains inside the recruits head, it appeared to be some sort of electronic switchboard. Clear liquid poured from the wound, and little sparks of electricity moved across the board.

  Ian cursed and stood up, backing away from the recruit.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked. Strangely, this all made sense, but I wasn’t able to link the pieces of the puzzle together.

  “They’re not changing the teens who come in here. They are replacing them.”

  “Replacing them?” Ashley repeated.

  Ian nodded slowly. “With these computers.”

  “Hold on,” I said, shaking my head. “You think that the institute is replacing the teens with these things that look exactly like them but have a computer in their head?”

  “It makes sense,” Ashley said. “In some twisted way. You saw Karen come out of that goo, then they put the real Karen into that thing over there.” Ashley pointed to the panel looking box.

  I strode over to the other panels on the outer part of the room. I smoothed my hand over the side of one. They were stacked close together so I could barely push my fingers through, but I felt the buttons on the side of them.

  I turned to Ian and Ashley. “Why?”

  Ian sighed. “That’s what I intend to find out. If Caleb and my brother are in here, I need to find them.”

  The back door opened and more shuffling feet entered the room. I saw at least six bobbing heads before I realized that we were in deep trouble.

  “You two, go and find the others,” Ian said. “I’m going to go get my bow and arrow. We need to be more prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?” I asked. We were locked inside Edgewood. How the heck were we going to fight them all off? We were severely outnumbered.

  “To get out of here,” Ian said. “We can’t fight them off, but we can get out of here and tell our parents and anyone who will listen about this place. Now, go!”

  “Good luck,” I said.

  Ashley and I didn’t need to be told twice. We raced to the door and threw it open. I took one last look at Ian before running out of there.

  “We should go to the cafeteria,” Ashley said.

  “We have to be careful, though.” If this was something that Edgewood was known to be doing, I was sure Christopher and Lucy were in on it.

  “Well, duh,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. I didn't have time for her childishness. If what Ian thought was true I wasn't willing to fight her and risk getting caught.

  A dangerous thought crossed my mind. “What of the others have been replaced already?”

  She looked me up and down.

  “Not me,” I said and then narrowed my eyes at her. “Ian told me about his brother missing a scar when he came home. So I guess we can look for changes in physical attributes. It appears these replacements can’t fully replace any of us.”

  “We’ll have to trust each other I guess. At least until we can confirm what's happening.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she was right.

  Ashley and I sneaked down the hallways back to the cafeteria. It was eerily quiet again, and the hairs on my arm stood straight up. I turned, listening for Ian. Where had he hidden his weapon? I assumed somewhere close by but what would happen if he was caught? We were defenseless in this place.

  We reached the cafeteria. I peeked through the door and was surprised to see the rest of our group sitting there.

  Marcus and Melanie stood up.

  “Where have you been?” Marcus asked.

  Ashley and I looked at each other.

  “Has either of the professors been here?”

  “No,” Amy said.

  Melanie came over to us. “A few minutes after we got back, there were flashing lights in the hallway. It looked like an emergency of some sort.”

  “Where's Ian?” Amy asked.

  “He's getting something,” I said, unsure about trusting everyone with what we knew. If any of them had been “transitioned” then I didn't want to tip them off.

  Ashley had another idea. “This place is turning people into robots.”

  The others stared at her like she had four heads.

  Well, the cat was out of the bag. Ashley and I explained what we’d seen, going back and forth. She failed to mention how bad she freaked out. As much as I wanted to embarrass her for bein
g a brat, we didn't have time.

  I kept glancing at the door. What was taking Ian so long?

  “What do we do now?” Amy asked. “I don't want to be a robot.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Melanie said.

  “They're not going to let us walk out of here,” I said. “Besides we have to wait for Ian.” At least with him, we had a chance of getting out of here.

  “What's that in your hand?” Marcus asked.

  “It's a syringe. One of the people who attacked us had it. I don't know if it will of any use but—”

  “We should get out of here,” Melanie said. “Like five minutes ago.”

  “We should wait for Ian,” I said.

  “No way,” Melanie said. “Who knows of he's one of them now.”

  “He's not.”

  “How would you know?” Amy said.

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. They were right. The Vessels looked like us, but Ian had been tipped off by differences in personality.

  “Okay,” I said. “They lock the bodies in these pod-like things. Try and think of questions that only Ian would know. Maybe something you said or did outside of this place. We can use that to determine if he's him or something else.”

  The others looked around the room at each other.

  “Does anyone else have a better idea? Ian wouldn’t leave us to fend for ourselves so that shouldn’t even be an option for us.”

  “It’s a good plan,” Marcus said. “But I think if he doesn’t show up here in the next five minutes, we can assume that he’s been taken.”

  As much as I couldn’t think of something happening to him, Marcus was right. We needed to be smart. I hoped Ian would make it, at least before the other Vessels or Christopher or Lucy did.

  “Should we go back to the residences and get our things?” Amy asked.

  If I knew where my charm was, I would have fought with her on this point. But understanding that we were going to be swapped for some creature, I disagreed.

  “I think we need to just get out of here.”

  “I’m sick of waiting!” Melanie said. “If it's as bad as you say it is, we need to leave now. If Ian has a bow and arrows, he can take care of himself.