Pass/Fail (2012) by David Wellington Page A

there,” Jake told her. “Please. I want you to turn the gain knob all the way down.”
    “I’ll get shocked, like Cody,” she said.
    “No, not if you’re careful. The knob is plastic, so it doesn’t conduct electricity. Please. Just all the way to the left, as if you were turning it off.”
    She nodded and reached for the knob. She was very careful not to touch any part of the metal surface of the box. With a trembling hand she twisted the knob all the way to the left.
    Jake was not surprised when the needle failed to move. The pain didn’t go away. It didn’t even drop in intensity. There was no way to turn the current off, then, or even down. Up, on the other hand, would probably work.
    “Okay,” he said. “Now turn it the other way. Just a little.”
    She nodded and rotated the knob very, very slowly to the right.
    The needle lifted a fraction of an inch. Jake’s arms went rigid as the current racing through his hands increased. The pain burst through his head, stronger than before, more demanding. He thought he was going to cry. He was very worried he might wet himself.
    He had to go further, if he wanted to pass.
    “Okay, I see how it works,” he said. “You have to turn it up until the needle reaches the P there. Do you see the P?”
    “Yes,” Megan said. She looked back at the Proctor.
    “Don’t look at him! He’s not doing anything. You need to move the knob to the P, as fast as you can. But—and this is very important—don’t turn it too far. You have to be very careful not to turn it all the way to where it says AFC.”
    “What happens then?” Megan asked.
    I’ll die , Jake thought. The current will be strong enough to kill me . If he told her that, however, he would scare her. He might scare her so much she wouldn’t be able to turn the knob at all. “It’s just bad. Don’t worry about that. Do you trust me?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    “Cool. You’re going to get me out of this, Megan. You’re going to save my life, and then we’ll be even. Now, are you ready?”
    She bit her lower lip and nodded. Then she reached for the knob. With one quick motion she twisted it almost all the way to the right.
    Jake felt like wild animals were eating their way up his arms, starting at his fingers and palms. The electricity surged through him making every muscle in his body jump, making his hair start to smoke, making him feel like he was going to explode—
    —and then everything went black.
     

Chapter Twenty-Two
    Jake’s return to consciousness was a slow and unpleasant process.
    Inside his head, in the dark, it had been warm and safe. Nobody was trying to hurt or kill him. He didn’t have anything to prove. He didn’t have any tests to pass. Nothing happened in there, ever, which meant nothing bad could happen.
    Then he heard Megan’s voice calling him. She sounded very far away and oddly distorted, as if she were shouting up at him from the bottom of a well. Or maybe he was at the bottom and she was shouting down. She kept calling his name and asking him questions but he couldn’t hear well enough to know how he was supposed to answer them. Occasionally he heard Cody calling him, as well.
    He tried to ignore them, but because there was no other sound where he was, that proved impossible. So he started trying to shout back, to tell them to leave him alone. That meant learning how to use his mouth and lungs all over again.
    Then he opened his eyes and pain came rushing into the world. There was light everywhere and it was buzzing, ringing in his ears. No, wait, that didn’t make any sense, light didn’t buzz—
    “His eyes are open,” Megan said, sounding excited. Sounding like this was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
    Jake wasn’t so thrilled by it. He started to close his eyes again and the comfortable darkness started rolling back over him like a soothing fog—
    “Oh no you don’t,” Megan insisted, and she grabbed at his arms and pulled him upwards, pulled at