But she had nearly invited De, a man she didn't really know. Maybe De really wasn't a Millennium Baby. Perhaps a bunch of people weren't. Perhaps that was what the numbers and the letters meant. She had spent much of the evening staring at them, wondering. They appeared to be randomly generated, but that couldn't be. They had to have some purpose.
She shook her head and rested her cheek on her knees. She was taking this much too seriously, the way she always took things. And soon she would be done with it. She would have bits of information she hadn't had before, and she would store them into a file in her mind, never to be examined again.
Somehow that thought made her sad. The night was beginning to get chilly. She stood, stretched, and made her way to bed.
The next morning, they met in a different room—the Rose Room—named after the character in the twentieth century movie Titanic. Brooke hoped that the name wasn't a sign.
There were pastries and coffee against the wall, along with every kind of juice imaginable and lots of fresh fruit, but again, there were no chairs. Brooke's feet hurt from the day before—she usually stood to lecture, but not for several hours—and she hoped she'd get a chance to sit before the day was out.
She was nearly late again, and hurried inside as they closed the doors. The room smelled of fresh air mixed with coffee and sweat. The group had gathered again, the faces vaguely familiar now, even the faces of people she hadn't yet met. The people toward the back who saw her enter smiled at her or nodded in recognition. It felt like they had all bonded simply by spending an evening in the same room. An evening and the promise of a long weekend.
She shivered. The air-conditioning was on high, and the room was cold. It would warm up before the day was out; the sheer number of bodies guaranteed that. But she still wondered if she was dressed warmly enough in her casual lilac blouse and her khaki pants.
“Strange how these places look the same, day or night.”
She turned. De was half a step behind her, his long hair loose about his face. He still wore jeans and his fancy boots, but instead of the denim shirt and bolo tie, he wore an understated white open collar shirt that accented his tan. Somehow, she suspected, he seemed more comfortable in this. Had he worn the other as a way of identifying himself or a way of putting others off? She would probably never know.
“The people look different,” she said.
“Just a little.” He smiled at her. “You look nice.”
“And you're flirting.”
He shrugged. “I always believe in using my time wisely.”
She smiled, and turned as a hush fell over the crowd. Franke had mounted the stage in front. He seemed very small in this place. A few of his assistants stood on either side of him.
“Here it comes,” De said.
“What?”
“Whatever it is that's going to make this cocktail party stop.” He was staring at Franke too, and his clear blue eyes seemed wary. “I've half a mind to leave now. Want to join me?”
“And do what?”
“Dunno. See the sights?”
It sounded like a good idea. But, as she had said the day before, she had signed up for this, and she didn't break her commitments. And, she had to admit, she was curious.
She bit her lower lip, trying to think of a good way to respond. Apparently she didn't have to.
De sighed. “Didn't think so.”
The silence in the room was growing. Franke stared at all of them, rocking slightly on his feet. If Brooke had to guess, she would have thought him very nervous.
“All right,” he said. “I have a few announcements. First, we will be serving lunch at one p.m. in the main restaurant. Dinner will be at seven in the same place. You will not have assigned seating. Secondly, after I'm through, you're free to tell each other your names. We've had enough of secrets.”
He paused, and this time Brooke felt it, that dread she had seen in De's eyes.
“Finally, I would like everyone with a letter on your name badge to go to the right side of the room, and everyone with a number to go to the left.”
People stood for a moment, looking around, waiting for someone to go first. De put a hand on her shoulder. “Here goes nothing,” he said. He ran his finger along her collarbone and then walked to the right.
“Come on, folks,” Franke said. “It's not hard. Letters to the right. Numbers to the left.”
Brooke could still feel De's hand on her skin. She looked in his direction, seeing his blond head towering over the small group of letters who had gathered near the pastries on the far right wall.
She took a deep breath and headed left.
The numbers had gathered near the pastries too, only on the left. She wondered what Franke's researchers would make of that. Los Gatos was there, his hand hovering between the cinnamon rolls and the donuts as if he couldn't decide. So was one of the twins from Akron, and the woman from Boston. Brooke joined them.
“What do you think this is?” Brooke asked.
“A way of identifying us as we run through the maze.”
Brooke recognized that voice. She turned and saw Santa Barbara. He shrugged and smiled at her.
She picked up a donut hole and ate it, then made herself a cup of tea while she waited for the room to settle.
It finally did. There was an empty space in the center of the carpet, a space so wide it seemed like an ocean to her.
“Good,” Franke said. “Now I'm going to tell you what the badges mean.”
There was a slight murmuring as the groups took that in. Boston, Santa Barbara, and Los Gatos flanked Brooke. Her dinner group, minus De.
“Those of you with letters are real Millennium Babies.”
Brooke felt a protest rise in her throat. She was born on January 1, 2000. She was a Millennium Baby.
“You were all chosen as such by your state or your country or your city. Your parents received endorsements or awards or newspaper coverage. Those of you with numbers…”
“Are fucking losers,” Los Gatos mumbled under his breath.
“…were born near midnight on January 1, but were too late to receive any prizes. You're here because your parents also received publicity or gave interviews before you were born stating that the purpose behind the pregnancy wasn't to conceive a child, but to conceive a child born a few seconds after midnight on January 1 of 2000. You were created to be official Millennium Babies, and failed to receive that title.”
Franke paused briefly.
“So, feel free to make real introductions, and mingle. The facility is yours for the day. All we ask is that you do not leave until we tell you to.”
“That's it?” Boston asked.
“That's enough,” Santa Barbara said. “He's just turned us into the haves and the have-nots.”
“Son of a bitch,” Los Gatos said.
“We knew that the winners were here,” Boston said.
“Yeah, but I assumed there'd be only a few of them,” Los Gatos said. “Not half the group.”
“It makes sense though,” Santa Barbara said. “This is a study of success and failure.”
Brooke listened to them idly. She was staring at the right side of the room. All her life, she had been programmed to hate those people. She even studied a few of them, looking them up on the net, seeing how many articles were written about them.