One by one, five sixteen-year-old orphans are brought to a strange building. It is not a prison, not a hospital; it has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Nothing but endless flights of stairs leading nowhere--except back to a strange red machine. The five must learn to love the machine and let it rule their lives. But will they let it kill their souls?

"An intensely suspenseful page-turner." --School Library Journal

"A riveting suspense novel with an anti-behaviorist message that works . . . because it emerges only slowly from the chilling events." --Kirkus Reviews