“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Tim said.
“And why be so judgmental? The Nazis were onto nuclear fission before America. They created antibiotics that are still used today. They more or less invented modern rocketry. And certain German scientists were running ESP experiments, with Hitler’s enthusiastic support. They discovered, almost by accident, that groups of gifted children could cause certain troublesome people—roadblocks to progress, you might say—to cease being troublesome. These children were used up by 1944, because there was no sure method, no scientific method, of finding replacements after they became, in Institute argot, gorks. The most useful test for latent psychic ability came later. Do you know what that test was?”
“BDNF. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Luke said that was the marker.”
“Yes, he’s a smart boy, all right. Very smart. Everyone involved now wishes they’d left him alone. His BDNF wasn’t even that high.”
“I imagine Luke also wishes you’d left him alone. And his parents. Now why don’t you go ahead and say your piece.”
“All right. There were conferences both before and after the Second World War ended. If you remember any of your twentieth-century history, you’ll know about some of them.”
“I know about Yalta,” Tim said. “Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin got together to basically carve up the world.”
“Yes, that’s the famous one, but the most important meeting took place in Rio de Janeiro, and no government was involved… unless you want to call the group that met—and their successors down through the years—a kind of shadow government. They—we—knew about the German children, and set about finding more. By 1950 we understood the usefulness of BDNF. Institutes were set up, one by one, in isolated locations. Techniques were refined. They have been in place for over seventy years, and by our count, they have saved the world from nuclear holocaust over five hundred times.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Tim said harshly. “A joke.”
“It’s not. Let me give you one example. At the time that the children revolted at the Institute in Maine—a revolt that spread like a virus to all the other Institutes—they had begun working to cause the suicide of an evangelist named Paul Westin. Thanks to Luke Ellis, that man still lives. Ten years from now, he will become a close associate of a Christian gentleman who will become America’s Secretary of Defense. Westin will convince the Secretary that war is imminent, the Secretary will convince the President, and that will eventually result in a preemptive nuclear strike. Only a single missile, but it could start all the dominoes falling. That part is outside our range of prediction.”
“You couldn’t possibly know a thing like that.”
“How do you think we picked our targets, Mr. Jamieson? Out of a hat?”
“Telepathy, I suppose.”
Mr. Smith looked like a patient teacher with a slow pupil. “TKs move objects and TPs read thoughts, but neither of them are able to read the future.” He drew out his cigarettes again. “Sure you won’t have one?”
Tim shook his head.
Smith lit up. “Children such as Luke Ellis and Kalisha Benson are rare, but there are other people who are rarer still. More precious than the most precious metal. And the best thing about them? Their talents don’t fade with age or destroy the minds of the users.”
Tim caught movement in the corner of his eye, and turned. Luke had come down the driveway. Further up the hill, Annie Ledoux was standing with a shotgun broken open over her arm. Flanking her were Kalisha and Nicky. Smith didn’t see any of them yet; he was gazing out over the hazy distance to the small town of DuPray and the glittering railroad tracks that ran through it.
Annie now spent much of her time at Catawba Hill. She was fascinated by the children, and they seemed to enjoy her. Tim pointed at her, then patted the air with his hand: hold your position. She nodded and stood where she was, watching. Smith was still admiring the view, which really was very fine.
“Let’s say there’s another Institute—a very small one, a very special one, where everything is first class and state of the art. No outdated computers or crumbling infrastructure there. It’s located in a completely safe place. Other Institutes exist in what we thought of as hostile territory, but not this one. There are no Tasers, no injections, no punishments. There is no need of subjecting the residents of this special Institute to near-death experiences such as the immersion tank to help open them to their deeper abilities.
“Let’s say it’s in Switzerland. It might not be, but it will do. It is on neutral ground, because many nations have an interest in its upkeep and continued smooth operation. A great many. There are currently six very special guests in this place. They are not children anymore; unlike the TPs and TKs in the various Institutes, their talents do not thin and disappear in their late teens and early twenties. Two of these people are actually quite old. Their BDNF levels do not correlate with their very special talents; they are unique in that way, and thus very hard to find. We were searching constantly for replacements, but now that search has been suspended, because it hardly seems there’s any point.”
“What are these people?”
“Precogs,” Luke said.
Smith wheeled around, startled. “Why, hello, Luke.” He smiled, but at the same time drew back a step. Was he afraid? Tim thought he was. “Precogs, that’s exactly right.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tim asked.
“Precognition,” Luke said. “People who can see into the future.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not and he’s not,” Smith said. “You could call those six our DEW line—a defunct Cold War acronym meaning Distant Early Warning. Or, if you’d like to be more up to date, they are our drones, flying into the future and marking out places where great conflagrations will start. We only concentrate on stopping the big ones. The world has survived because we’ve been able to take these proactive measures. Thousands of children have died in this process, but billions of children have been saved.” He turned to Luke and smiled. “Of course you understood—it’s a simple enough deduction. I understand you’re also quite the math whiz, and I’m sure you see the cost-to-benefit ratio. You may not like it, but you see it.”
Annie and her two young charges had started down the hill again, but this time Tim didn’t bother motioning them back. He was too stunned by what he was hearing.
“I can buy telepathy, and I can buy telekinesis, but precognition? That’s not science, that’s carnival bullshit!”
“I assure you it’s not,” Smith said. “Our precogs found the targets. The TKs and TPs, working in groups to increase their power, eliminated them.”
“Precognition exists, Tim,” Luke said quietly. “I knew even before I escaped the Institute it had to be that. I’m pretty sure Avery did, too. Nothing else made sense. I’ve been reading up on it since we got here, everything I could find. The stats are pretty much irrefutable.”
Kalisha and Nicky joined Luke. They looked curiously at the blond man who called himself Bill Smith, but neither spoke. Annie stood behind them. She was wearing her serape, although the day was warm, and looked more like a Mexican gunslinger than ever. Her eyes were bright and aware. The children had changed her. Tim didn’t think it was their power; in the long term, that caused the opposite of improvement. He thought it was just the association, or maybe the fact that the kids accepted her exactly as she was. Whatever the reason, he was happy for her.
“You see?” Smith said. “It’s been confirmed by your resident genius. Our six precogs—for awhile there were eight, and once, in the seventies, we were down to just four, a very scary time—constantly search for certain individuals we call hinges. They’re the pivot-points on which the door of human extinction may turn. Hinges aren’t agents of destruction, but vectors of destruction. Westin was one such hinge. Once they’re discovered, we investigate them, background them, surveil them, video them. Eventually they’re turned over to the children of the various Institutes, who eliminate them, one way or another.”