The Games

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The boy lay motionless in the tube as the machine moved all around him. He held his breath and concentrated on the pinging, trying to clear his head like the white coats told him.

“Look into the screen, Evan,” a voice said from a speaker near his ear.

Evan blinked against the sudden burst of white static and turned his head away.

They’d said this was going to be the last test, but they’d said that once before. They had lots of ways to test you here.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Evan’s mother asked from her spot near the door. She was backed against the wall, holding her purse tightly to her abdomen as if afraid to move farther into the room.

“Gross abnormalities,” the man at the computer said. He didn’t look up from his terminal as the machine continued its slow spin.

Evan glanced back at his mother. They think I’m gross.

There were four men in white coats in the room now, though only one was what his mother called a real doctor. The two younger men were testers from the special school, and the oldest man wore a dark tie under his white coat and probably wasn’t any kind of doctor at all. That one scared Evan most of all.

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