Dr. Baker took his car to headquarters, and Michelle followed close behind, driving the motor home. Sam rode with Patrick and Elena in the back. He clung onto Patrick's arm for most of the drive. "I don't understand," he said. "Where are we going?"

Elena sighed. Eventually he would ask question they wouldn't know how to answer, but withholding the things she did know wouldn't help. "We're going to the place where Dr. Baker works."

"Where does Dr. Baker work?"

"He works for this company called Tech United."

"What's Tech United?"

"They make computers and phones and stuff. They also—well, you know Camp Universe, where we just came from? They give money to Miss Michelle so we can keep doing camp."

"Oh."

Elena leaned back in her seat and let her eyes fall closed, waiting for the inevitable question.

"Why are we going there?"

Elena pressed her lips together. The anomalies were strange, but Tech United wouldn't actually believe that there was something to them—unless they knew things Dr. Baker wasn't letting on. She also couldn't imagine the police allowing them to cart around an escaped foster child, even if they did know Dr. Baker. Something was wrong.

She cleared her throat. "They're just . . . they're going to help you find a new place to live. But hey, have you ever been inside a motor home before?"

"Yes, right now."

"But before today?"

"No."

"Patrick, you should give him a tour." She gave him a pointed look.

He nodded. "Hey, Sam, do you want to meet some of the animals? We'll have to take them into the back room so they have space to run around, though."

Michelle wouldn't love the animals being in her room, but seeing as they probably didn't have much time left to live in the motor home, she'd forgive Elena for the diversion. There was a bit of spring in Sam's steps as he followed Patrick over to one of the animal cages.

Elena watched him go, then she opened the window to the driving compartment. "Hey, Michelle."

"Hey. How's Sam?"

"Oh?"

"You're concerned that Dr. Baker's not telling us the whole truth, you're worried about what they want with us at headquarters, you want to know my plan for keeping Camp Universe together."

"He's occupied, Patrick's showing him the animals. I wanted to talk to you."

"I know what you're going to say," Michelle said. Elena couldn't see much of her face, but she could imagine the tightness of her jaw.

"Well?"

Michelle sighed, her shoulders settling. "I know. This is weird. I'm on the same page you are—some weird things have happened this week, and I want to know why. But I wouldn't have expected one of the country's largest tech companies to feel the same way."

"Do you think it's some kind of trap?"

"What kind of trap?" She raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know. They're a multi-billion dollar corporation. Doesn't that make them, like, automatically suspect?"

Michelle gave her a pointed look. "If they weren't a multi-billion dollar corporation, they couldn't afford to be our donors."

"But—" Elena's voice lowered, and she looked around herself as if Dr. Baker would suddenly appear in the camper. "That's just for publicity, right? It's not like they care enough about us to . . . to not do bad things to us."

Michelle shrugged. "We'll be on our guard. But right now, we don't have much choice but to follow along. They own this camper, they own the shirts on our backs. Right now, we belong to them."

Elena winced. "I have a really bad feeling about this. What happens if we just don't follow him to headquarters?"

"We'll be guilty of kidnapping."

"Oh. Right."

Michelle's eyes met her for just a moment through the rear view mirrors. "I'd be more concerned if we'd . . . heard something we weren't supposed to hear, or seen something we weren't supposed to see. Something we might leak to the press. But we haven't."

"Then what do they want with us?"

"I don't know, Elena."

"Then why are we going?"

Michelle didn't respond for a long time, keeping her eyes on the road. There was a resolution in her gaze—there was no way she would turn back or question Jim—but Elena could almost see the gears in her mind turning at a thousand miles an hour trying to form a good explanation as to why. Finally, in a tone that was gentle but allowed no argument, she said, "Because resisting our sponsors isn't going help keep Camp Universe together. And we're not the only ones whose jobs are at stake here."

Elena knew in her head, but often forgot on a more conscious level, that they weren't the only camper traveling the country to put on science camps for low-income elementary school students.

She couldn't imagine that her job would be spared. Best case, Tech United would just fire Elena and leave the rest of camp intact; worst case, they'd shut down the sponsorship entirely; most likely case, Elena, Patrick, and Michelle would lose their camper and their jobs.

Still, they didn't have to go to headquarters for that to happen. And they sure didn't need to bring Sam.

But it was like Michelle had said: Tech United owned them all for the time being, owned the shirts on their backs. They didn't have a choice.

The motor home couldn't fit into the headquarters parking garage, so Michelle parked it out in the lot. It took up several parking spaces.

Sam's face was white, and he clung onto Patrick's hand as they followed Dr. Baker into the large office building, which was much taller and shinier than necessary. Elena felt as terrified as he looked.

The lobby was too white, too clean. A receptionist in a pants suit with creases sharp enough to slice through skin lead them down a hallway and gestured to an office for each to enter into. The receptionist asked Sam to step into a different room from Patrick. At first, Sam hung onto him, but Patrick tousled his hair and gently pried his fingers away, reassuring him casually with "I'll see you in just a few" and "You go be brave, okay?" and Sam finally agreed.

Elena shot a desperate look to Michelle before stepping into her assigned room, but she received no reassurance in response. She bit her lip as the receptionist gently shut the door behind her, and paced in the office. A brown desk, two black leather chairs, shelves holding books with titles too boring for even Elena to bother remembering, framed promotional materials for Tech United.

She had halfway lowered herself onto one of the chairs when the door swung open again, and Elena jumped to her feet. A woman in a white lab coat entered with a plastic box a bit bigger than a shoebox in her arms. She set it down on the table then held a hand out to Elena.

"I'm Dr. Helene Brooke," she said.

Elena hesitantly shook her hand. "Elena Holmes. What's going on here, Dr. Brooke?"

"Please, call me Helene. I'm so sorry, you must be so confused."

"Yeah, and Sam is kind of panicking."

"What did Jim tell you?"

"Jim. Uh, you mean Dr. Baker?"

"Yes."

"Almost nothing. Just that we had to come here."

"Again, that's our fault. We asked Jim not to try to explain too much to you all. As you saw, his people skills—" She made a face.

Elena almost felt at ease enough to laugh. Still, it was strange that they had tasked him with evaluating a kids' camp.

"So the reason we brought you here is that you all noticed something rather extraordinary this weekend. Jim noticed it, too. The number of anomalies witnessed in a simple place and time was, well, unallowable by all of our statistical models. We had to rule out coincidence."

"I don't follow."

"We think one of you might be special in a way no one has ever seen before."

"Sam, right?"

"Most likely, yes, though we had to bring you all down for control purposes."

"Just because our physics demos aren't working for him?"

She took a deep breath. "Jim's got you quoted in his notes. Those demonstrations show science in its simplest form. They should work for everyone, as long as . . ."

"As long as what?"

Helene looked away for a moment, then she looked Elena right in the eyes. "As long as science itself works for everyone."