Elena just stared, waiting for the punchline. But Helene kept her gaze steady.

Tech United didn't just believe her. They believed what she had wondered, only secretly, maybe only subconsciously—that nothing was wrong with her demos, and that something was wrong with Sam. That something was wrong with science.

Because of course, she had wondered. It was the obvious answer. But it was also the least sensical answer she could imagine. "This is ridiculous."

"Is it?"

She breathed in to say yes, but her breath caught in her throat. Other than pure coincidence, it was also the only answer she could imagine. Unless she was going crazy, but then Jim would have to be going crazy, too, and Michelle, and Sam . . . back to coincidence. "I—I don't—it's impossible!"

"Yesterday, I would have agreed with you. Today we run some tests, and we'll see where we stand in a few hours."

"A few hours? Will it take that long?" They had the camper and nowhere to go, and Elena wasn't exactly in a rush to get home, but something about this facility made her skin crawl, had made her skin crawl since before they had even arrived.

Helene raised her eyebrows. "You're a scientist, aren't you, Elena?"

"I'm an engineer. I mean, I'm an engineering student."

"You'll have taken enough science classes to know, then—scientific analysis takes time."

Elena shifted her position in her chair and gripped the armrests. "Okay. What kind of tests?"

Helene reached into the box on her desk and pulled out two wires, a light bulb, and a battery. "Let's start with this."

"You're kidding me."

"These are the demonstrations that didn't work for the child, right? You're our control."

Elena sighed and picked up the materials. She connected the wires to each side of the battery and each side of the bulb. The filament glowed, a dim yellow-white. "Happy?"

Helene made a few notes on the tablet on her desk, then she reached back into the box. She took out a flashlight and a blue sheet of paper. "Turn on the flashlight, will you?"

Elena pressed the button on the side. The bulb inside shone a bright yellow—sodium neon. They really were recreating her demonstrations.

Helene stood and walked around the side of her desk to flick the light switch off. The room was completely dark except for the little yellow light. "Shine the light on the paper. What color is it?"

"It's blue in white light, but it's black now."

Helene flicked back on the room lights and returned to her desk. "A few more."

She pulled out a mirror and had Elena describe the reflections of items in the room; she gave her a lens and a shaped light and had her form an image on the wall; she gave her a prism and had her make a rainbow. And on it went. Elena found herself impressed by the sheer quantity and variety of equipment Helene produced, but it shouldn't have been surprising. Tech United did a lot of pure research along with their pursuits of industrial endeavors.

Finally, the endless supply of materials in the box ran out. "Thanks for bearing with us, Elena. I know this must seem very strange to you."

She shrugged. She could see herself having done the same things with Sam. "Are we done?"

"One last test." She reached into the crate again and pulled out a small box with clear plastic walls and wires and chips inside. Three red digital readouts faced the top, all reading 1.000.

"What's this?"

"It won't hurt you. Hold it."

Elena hesitated before taking the box from Helene, holding it out away from her with straight arms. "What now?"

"Let's see—no changes on the readouts?"

All three still read 1.000. "No."

"Then that's all. I'm going to take you all into one of our break rooms."

Elena followed her to the door and down the hall. Nothing bad had happened. There hadn't even been any invasive tests.

All of the demos—all of the science—worked just fine for her. She wondered what the followup tests would have been like if they had failed.

But how could they have failed?

The break room into which Helene ushered Elena was brightly decorated, with large couches surrounding tables that held games and books. One wall was all windows; another was lined with cabinets and a countertop, with rows of bowls filled with various snack foods. Michelle and Patrick were already sitting on one of the couches.

"Feel free to help yourself to any of the refreshments," Helene said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Elena hurried over to sit on the couch across from her team. "What happened?"

Patrick shrugged. "Dunno, but you gotta love this lounge."

Elena rolled her eyes. "Not helpful."

Michelle's brow furrowed. "Ease up, Elena. We're all stuck here for a bit, but we don't have to be sour about it."

Elena took a deep breath—of course, Michelle was right, but that didn't mean they couldn't try to figure out what was going on. "Did they do a bunch of demos with you?"

Both nodded.

"Well? They all worked?"

"Um." Patrick traced a few lines in the carpet with his toe. "I forgot how to light the light bulb. But other than that, yeah."

Elena turned to Michelle, who shook her head. "No problems here. I'm assuming everything worked fine for you as well, Elena?"

She let her breath out. "You'll notice who's not back with us yet."

As if on cue, the door to the lounge opened, revealing a pouting Sam lead by the arm by a man in a white lab coat. "We're giving him a little break," the man said.

Elena stood. "What happened?"

"I failed all their tests." Sam trudged over to the couch and plunked down into the cushion headfirst. Patrick put a hand on his back.

"We're going to go recalibrate—er, we're going to make some—" the man cleared his throat in Sam's direction— "easier tests. Planck, we need you to calm down. Can you do that for us?"

Sam groaned into the leather cushion.

Patrick shot the man a look. "Oh, lay off him. He's a kid."

The man blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Go do your stupid science experiment."

Elena raised her eyebrows. She'd never seen Patrick speak that way to anyone. She wasn't sure she'd ever even seen him truly annoyed. He'd teased her a bit when she had seemed over stressed, much to her chagrin, but the tone of his voice was different now.

The man in the lab coat straightened his glasses and his back. "We'll be back." He fled the room.

Sam rubbed his eyes and looked up at Patrick. "I'm really bad at science."

"Me too." Patrick grinned. "But you know what? We can still have fun learning. Today, I learned how to light a light bulb."

Sam grumbled, "I couldn't do it. Mine just got all hot and burned my fingers."

Elena let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. He'd just short circuited the bulb. No breakdown of science there. Maybe his "failures" at the lab were really just that—an eight-year-old who didn't know hot to use the equipment.

"Oh, mine did too! But hey, Sam. How old are you?"

"Eight."

"Well, I'm eighteen. And I just learned how to light up a lightbulb today. So if you had made it work, you'd be ten years ahead of me."

Sam flipped around and sat up straight. "Miss Elena! Did you get the bulb to light up?"

Patrick widened his eyes and mouthed No, but Elena had no interest in lying to the kid. "Yeah, I did." She leaned forward a little. "But you know what, it was hard for me when I was eight, too."

Sam sat on his knees and bounced a little. "Miss Michelle?"

"Yeah, I got the light bulb to light up."

"But what about when you were eight?"

Michelle looked up for a moment, as if in thought. "Oh, I don't even remember that long ago. I'm pretty old, you know."

"How old are you?"

She smirked. "How old do you think?"

"Um, sixty?"

Michelle burst out laughing, and Elena couldn't help but join along. She'd never actually asked how old Michelle was, but she was almost definitely in her thirties, forty at the most.

Patrick tousled his hair, and Sam settled back into his chair, a small contented smile on his face. Elena's eyes passed from Sam, to Patrick, to Michelle, and she felt her smile fade. Patrick snapping at the Tech United employees and all of them comforting Sam after the tests wouldn't stop the inevitable end—the police still had to take him away, take him to a new foster home that would have no idea how to deal with him.

For now, though, they had a few hours, or at least a few minutes, to relax. Michelle went over to the counter to pick up dixie cups of snacks, and Elena knelt down in front of the table to pull out one of the games. For awhile, they played and ate and laughed, and Elena tried as hard as she could to put the future out of her mind, as Michelle and Patrick always seemed to do so easily.

Finally, the door to the lounge swung open once again, to reveal Helene and Jim. "We're ready for you."