Once the boys were all in bed and the lights were off, everyone went quiet. But Wolf knew everyone was still awake. He could sense it. Perhaps it was the sound of their breathing, or something else.

“We could refuse to take part, you know,” he said into the silence.

No one responded.

At dawn an alarm went off. A man in silver pants ushered the boys into a large bathroom where they had to shower and clean their teeth. Then they joined the girls in a large but almost empty cafeteria. The only options for breakfast were whole wheat toast or a brown cereal that looked like whole wheat toast but in a bowl. The milk tasted of chemicals.

Wolf sat next to Lucy.

“Last night no one in my dorm said anything about this place or what’s happening here,” he said. “Did you discuss it?”

“What?” she said. “The fact that we were all stupid enough to come here just because someone offered us hope?” She shook her head. “Nope. We talked about fashion and celebrities. Obviously.”

Wolf suddenly wondered which celebrities they’d discuss. He still felt he was somehow out of his own time. But before he could ask Lucy, a woman in a silver skirt came walking through the main door carrying a clipboard.

“Please assemble in Laboratory 065073 in ten minutes,” she said.

No one knew exactly where that was, but a man with silver pants soon came and herded everyone toward the room. Wolf was trying to notice everything he could in case it was useful later. At the moment he had several important questions in his mind. One was: Why was everyone here a child or teenager? An obvious answer was that this was a reality TV show for that age group. But if that were the case, then where were the microphones and the cameras? Maybe they were just very well hidden.

The door opened on Laboratory 065073. Was it the same room as the day before, or an identical one? It was hard to tell. There was a similar round white table, but this time there was a large screen by the wall. There were twelve places at the table, one for each participant. Each place had a glass of water, pen and notebook. There was also something that looked suspiciously like an exam paper. Each participant also had a half-hidden plastic box with two buttons inside it. One of the buttons was red and one was black.

Everyone sat down. A man in silver pants entered and fired up a projector. An unfamiliar logo appeared on the screen. It looked a little like a spaceship, or something belonging to a really old-fashioned computer company.