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Can anyone hear me?”
    If he was heard, no one acknowledged him. His voice died on the walls of the room, and he felt even lonelier. “Feet?” he asked tentatively.
    He felt incredibly small, even being a larger than average kid. What are they going to do to me? Send me back to the Grinder? Perhaps worse. They’d warned him he could be sent to an adult prison for multiple offenses. After all, he’d shot at Shocks and Elite. Is that what they planned to do? He wanted answers. Anything was better than being restrained on a hard table, not knowing his fate. But no one came. Over and over he thought about the events that had brought him here. He dwelt longest on what could have happened to Feet and the others. Where were they? Then he heard a hiss.
    Someone had entered the room.
    “ Hello, Samuel.” The voice was deep, rich, and familiar.
    “ Who are you?” Sammy asked in reply more sharply than he meant to sound. It had been a long time since he had spoken to an adult he liked or respected. “My new counselor? Are you trying me as an adult?”
    “ Hello, Samuel,” the man repeated in exactly the same tone as before.
    “ Where have I heard your voice before?” Sammy pressed. “Where am I?”
    “ I said ‘hello.’” The tone in the man’s voice became disapproving.
    “ I don’t care what you said,” Sammy continued. “I want to know what’s going on!”
    His chest rose and fell rapidly. The outburst left him winded. He had sworn not to get caught again, and now he lay helpless and bound on a table like a wacko in a white room.
    I’m so stupid.
    “ I think I will give you some time to learn proper etiquette,” the man said politely.
    The same hiss sounded as the door opened.
    “ Wait!” Sammy called out blindly. “Where am I?”
    “ Close.”
    A hiss again.
    Sammy screamed every curse word he knew at the closed door.
    Above him, a square of the ceiling turned from brilliant white to transparent. Words appeared on the screen:
    Psion Training Positive Reinforcement
    Session 7: Etiquette
    Psion?
    The movie was ridiculously old-fashioned. The female narrator sounded about a hundred years old and spoke in a too-happy, delusional sort of way. The film ran at least twenty minutes, each minute laden with cheesy catch phrases and odd-looking people acting out scenarios. To Sammy’s horror, when the film ended, the same words from the introduction appeared on the screen. When the same corny piano music began, he realized he had to watch it again. The third time it started, he thought he might die.
    He wondered fleetingly if showing this movie over and over might be a tactic to drive him crazy because during the third showing, he caught himself repeating a couple of the phrases along with the film.
    “ If you want the peas, you must say please,” and, “Remember, nothing tells a person that you care more than verbal gratitude.”
    When it ended for the third time, he stared at the screen, daring it to play just one more time.
    The square on the ceiling where the film had appeared became opaque once again, matching the rest of the ceiling so well Sammy would never have guessed a screen was there. The room became very quiet again. He heard no ticking of a clock, no sound of people in a hallway outside.
    It must be soundproofed . He yelled as loud as he could for no reason. Nothing happened except his throat hurt a little now. Where are the others? he wondered again. In other rooms like this one? He missed them already. He hoped they had escaped, even if it meant never seeing them again, Feet included. He berated himself for not waking Feet in the church––so many decisions he could have made differently. Thinking about them all made his headache worse until he felt very tired. He closed his eyes to ignore the punk drummer pounding away inside his skull, and almost fell asleep when he heard the hiss of the door once more.
    “ Hello, Samuel,” the same man said, his voice pleasant again.
    “ Why, hello,