Etherworld

by Claudia Gabel

  Then he slams his foot on the gas, and his tires spin against the concrete, making a high-pitched squeal that rings in my ears for miles.

  TabTalk Message

  From: Unknown user

  To: Leavenworth, Avery

  5:52 a.m.

  Hey, it’s Regan. Zoe gave me a new tab. Any news on J?

  TabTalk Message

  From: Leavenworth, Avery

  To: Unknown user

  5:53 a.m.

  No change. Will keep trying. What about u? Did u find ur dad?

  TabTalk Message

  From: Unknown user

  To: Leavenworth, Avery

  5:54 a.m.

  No. When I got to the room, he was gone.

  TabTalk Message

  From: Leavenworth, Avery

  To: Unknown user

  5:54 a.m.

  Shit. What now?

  TabTalk Message

  From: Unknown user

  To: Leavenworth, Avery

  5:55 a.m.

  Just wait. Be there as soon as I can.

  ELEVEN

  A HALF HOUR LATER, THE SUN RISES behind the spire of the Erebus Tower, the most exclusive hotel and apartment complex in Detroit. The last time I was here, the mob of reporters was so thick I barely made it inside. But fortunately, there’s no swarm of journalists blocking the entrance, or security guards roaming out front. I can’t get caught on camera again, not with the police looking for me.

  I press my palm against my cheek and feel a small round divot in my skin, still sore to the touch. Since we left Orexis, a ball of rage has been forming in my chest, and I’m glad. When I saw that empty lab, it felt as if someone punched a hole through me—causing my determination to seep out, drop by drop. But the anger is helping me regain my momentum.

  Patrick drives past the building and shifts gears, suddenly swerving onto a small access road. It’s a dead end, with nothing but a row of tall, thick bushes looming in front of us. But instead of slowing down, the car speeds up.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, clutching the armrests.

  “Parking structure,” he says. “Those shrubs are just a computerized image. No one likes to look at a garage.”

  No sooner does he finish speaking then the bushes begin to shimmer, every green leaf disappearing before my eyes. The car zooms inside a concrete maze, the virtual foliage closing behind us. We begin to spiral around floors lined with tightly packed cars until we reach the top. Patrick pulls into a prime spot designated as Penthouse Suite 1950AB

  My door unlocks and opens automatically.

  “Where are all the reporters?” I ask, stepping into the lot.

  “The condo’s lawyers were able to get an injunction. They can’t get within a block of here.” He exits the car and briskly walks to the entrance that leads to the building’s main elevators.

  Within a few minutes, we’re inside his apartment. I was just here two nights ago, but now it looks totally different. He hasn’t gotten rid of his stylish, sleek furniture or replaced his ugly art, but it looks warmer and more comfortable. Maybe it’s because the unusually bright sun is shining through the huge windows, casting everything around us in a happy glow. I sit on the edge of a boomerang-shaped couch while he walks over to the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry or anything?” Patrick retrieves a carafe of orange juice from the refrigerator. He doesn’t bother getting a glass, and instead sips directly from the bottle. He takes a breath and then another two big gulps.

  “No, thanks.” I haven’t had anything to eat since dinner last night, but after everything I’ve been through, I don’t have much of an appetite.

  “I have plenty if you change your mind,” Patrick says, setting the juice on the pristine countertop. “Be right back.”

  When he heads down the corridor, I spot a light yellow cardigan, tossed on top of one of the black-striped accent chairs. It definitely belongs to Zoe. It’s strange, thinking about the other night, when I walked in on her and Patrick. I’d been worried about Zoe getting too involved with him, yet today she risked so much for me, and she’s out there right now, trying to convince her father to pull rank with the Orexis stockholders.

  I text her to see how she’s doing.

  Any luck?

  The light on my tab flashes a few seconds later.

  He’s not at home. Still trying to track him down. Did u find your dad?

  I’m about to write back when Patrick appears beside me, balancing a blue bottle, a box of cotton swabs, and his quantum laptop against his chest. “Is everything all right?” he asks, glancing at my tab.

  “It’s Zoe,” I say. “She just wanted to know if I was okay.”

  “Zoe? How is she involved in all this?” Patrick sets the items down on the coffee table and picks up his tab. He types on the keypad, and suddenly the drapes begin to close around the wall of windows, darkening the room.

  When I don’t answer, he puts down his tab and says, “She helped you escape from the hospital, didn’t she?” When I neither confirm nor deny it, he adds, “Come on, Ree. What else did she do? I need to know.”

  “Why? So you can yell at her?”

  “I’m not angry, I’m just . . . frustrated, that’s all. She should mind her own business. She doesn’t understand what’s going on right now.”

  “And you do?” I ask.

  He grabs the small blue bottle, popping open the cap. “We should put some Dermastitch on your cut.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine,” I say, pulling away a little.

  “I don’t want it to get infected.” He dips one of the swabs inside and holds the little ball of wet cotton up to my cheek. “May I?”

  “The security footage,” I insist.

  “As soon as I take care of this.”

  While Patrick tends to the abrasion on my cheek, a wistful grin slowly appears on his lips. “Remember the wok incident?” he says. “I think that took about five years off your dad’s life.”

  “If you hadn’t bandaged my entire head with the gauze from that old first aid kit, we probably could have hidden that burn from him,” I say as the Dermastitch fizzes near my ear. I’m trying hard not to smile.

  “I was eight. Secrecy wasn’t something I was good at back then.” He blows on my wounded skin, his lips close to my cheek and his breath smelling like oranges. My mind flashes back to our comet ride in Elusion and how he leaned in for that awkward kiss, and an uncomfortable chill runs down my spine.

  “Okay, stop. I’m good,” I say, craning my neck back and waving his hand away. I stand up and tuck my hair behind my ears, my cut still stinging. I watch Patrick’s grin dissolve, and I realize how stupid it is to hurt his feelings just as it seems he’s beginning to trust me. But I belong somewhere else, with someone else. And the longer we stay here, the longer it will take for us to get to Josh . . . and my father, wherever he may be.

  “Let’s just focus on what we came for, all right?” I say.

  He sets down the swab and turns his attention to the laptop without saying another word. Once he logs on, I sit back down next to him, trying to ignore the tension between us. I lean over so I can see the screen, but he inches away from me.

  I don’t want this to turn into an ugly argument like the one we had in this very room two nights ago, when it became not only obvious that Patrick knew more about Elusion’s problems than he was letting on, but that I didn’t return his romantic feelings.

  “I’m sorry if I’m being abrupt,” I say.

  “Forget it,” he says, cutting me off. He logs on to his quantum and begins accessing Orexis’s network remotely. “I’m bringing up the security logs now. This shouldn’t take long.”

  Patrick begins to type, his fingers whizzing across the touch screen. Then a passcode prompt pops up, requesting special clearance. Patrick enters a bunch of numbers and symbols into the text box, and we land on an Orexis splash page. He keys in more digits, taking us to the Office Services section of the company directory, complete with a l
ist of rooms and labs in the entire building.

  “Here we go.” Patrick clicks on a link that takes us to what looks like a user history of all the public labs in Orexis. Once he zeroes in on room 5020, groupings of numbers appear on the screen, one on top of the other.

  “Are those employee IDs?” I say, pointing to the five-digit clusters.

  He makes some enhancements on the screen so that the list is magnified. “Yeah, and this is really weird. The number 37194 is appearing over and over again. No one else has been in this room for months. They haven’t missed a day,” Patrick says.

  “Until yesterday,” I add, looking at the screen. “Maybe that’s when my father was moved.”

  “But wouldn’t security have picked that up?” Patrick clicks on a V-shaped icon at the bottom of his screen. His brow furrows in confusion when he hits a brick wall with an error message. “Shit. The video surveillance on this whole floor has been disabled.”

  “I take it that’s not normal.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Can we figure out who the ID belongs to?” I ask.

  “Yeah. We just need to burrow into the HR database,” he says.

  Patrick minimizes the current window we’re looking at and opens up another one, issuing a series of commands. It only takes a few moments for him to bypass the security of the Orexis human resources department.

  Enter Orexis ID Number

  Patrick keys in 37194.

  Williams, Bryce M.

  Project Engineer and Research Specialist

  Security Clearance Level—11A

  Years Employed—15

  Citations—0

  Promotions—7

  I can’t look away from Bryce’s unassuming company photo. His eyes are partially closed, and his dark skin is ashen, with deep lines running across his forehead. He has a goatee, and there’s a small ink mark on the pocket of his pale blue shirt. He looks so ordinary.

  “This is bizarre,” Patrick says. “Bryce Williams? This lab isn’t even designated to his group.”

  “I told you he was involved,” I reply, vindication seeping through my voice. Although we haven’t found anything that can pinpoint what Cathryn might have done with my dad, knowing that Bryce was in that room less than eight hours ago seems like proof enough.

  I think another thing has also been ruled out.

  “I don’t have nanopsychosis. I never did,” I say.

  “I believe you,” he says. He pushes his laptop away and looks at me. “I couldn’t have loved your dad more if he was my own father. And this whole time my mother and Bryce were plotting against him? And faking his death? It’s just so . . . unreal.”

  “It’s real,” I say. “And we have to do something to stop them.”

  “You’re right,” he says, bolting forward and grabbing his tab. “I’m going to call Estelle and have her track down Bryce.”

  “Do you think she’ll be there? It’s not seven yet.”

  He holds his tab up to his ear. “Trust me, she’s always early.”

  A second or two later Estelle picks up, and Patrick launches into a bunch of questions about Bryce and what’s happening at the office. From the frustrated one-word responses on Patrick’s end, it’s clear the conversation is not going well.

  I pull out my tab and check the Net. The sites are all buzzing with news of Patrick’s resignation and contain a statement from Cathryn:

  It is with great sadness that I report the resignation of my son, Patrick Simmons. Although we at Orexis are grateful for his contribution as chief product designer, we respect his decision to focus on his significant health issues. Orexis has always placed a premium on the well-being of our employees. The Simmons family asks for privacy as they deal with this delicate family matter.

  It’s official. Cathryn fired her own son, humiliating him with some lie about health problems. Not that it matters, now that he’s going to help me bring her whole world tumbling down.

  “Bryce hasn’t come in yet. Estelle tried his tab, but he didn’t pick up,” Patrick says, his gaze floating back to the screen of his laptop. “All of his personal information is included in this profile, though, including his home address. So we should just go straight over there.”

  “Not yet. There’s someone we need to help first.”

  “Who?” Patrick asks. “Someone you love?” he mumbles half sarcastically as he refers to Josh.

  I’m so surprised by what Patrick has just said that I don’t answer at first. I’ve known Josh for a week. Is it possible I love him already?

  “Josh is a good guy,” I say. “Life hasn’t been easy for him, but even though he has every reason to be angry at the world, he’s not. He’d do anything for his family—or for me. He believed me when no one else did.”

  Patrick hesitates, the weight of my nonanswer sinking in. But then his clear blue eyes meet mine, and he nods. “All right. Take me to him.”

  When Patrick and I enter Josh’s trailer, my nerves are fried. Driving over here during the start of the Standard 7 shift was a big mistake—traffic was at a standstill and it took us hours to get here. I complained to Patrick that it would have been faster to take the Traxx, but then he pointed out that the freedom of getting around in a car was what we would need in the long run.

  “You!” Avery shouts at Patrick, her voice raw from desperation. “You did this to him. If it weren’t for you, none of this would be happening!”

  “We don’t have time for this!” I say.

  I try to move forward, but Avery is blocking the door to Josh’s room, glaring at Patrick like she plans to tackle him at any moment.

  “I thought you said there was nothing we could do if the emergency button didn’t work,” Avery snaps. “That’s why I’ve been sitting here with my thumb up my ass.”

  “I know,” I say, “but Patrick helped design Elusion. Maybe there’s something he can do to help Josh.”

  On the way over here, I told Patrick about my father’s warnings and what I knew about the destruction protocol. Patrick didn’t say much, but he recorded it all on his tab so we could refer to it any time we needed to.

  Avery doesn’t see anything remotely positive about Patrick being here, and I didn’t think she would—which is why I didn’t tell her when I texted to say I was on my way back to the trailer.

  “Tough shit. He’s not welcome here,” Avery says, standing her ground.

  “Move aside!” I say, staring her down.

  After a beat of hesitation, she backs up against the wall and crosses her arms, allowing us to squeeze past. Josh lives with his uncle, but there’s no sign of him, which makes me wonder if he’s merely a ghost in his nephew’s life—how could he not come home for two full days? No wonder Nora was able to disappear without anyone really noticing.

  When we enter the bedroom, Josh is as I left him, sprawled out on his thin mattress, his eyes still covered by the sleek black visor. I kneel next to the bed and touch Josh’s arm. His body isn’t as warm as it was a few hours ago. In fact, it’s like he’s caught some kind of chill.

  “Avery, hand me a blanket. He’s cold,” I say, panic flooding me.

  As Avery goes to the closet, Patrick rushes to Josh’s side, picks up his hand, and checks the face of his wristband. “So his emergency button isn’t working?” he asks.

  “I just said that a minute ago, idiot,” Avery mutters. She drapes a blanket over Josh’s legs and pulls it up to his waist, then takes a few steps back.

  I know that Patrick’s worried. Ever since we were kids, he would shut down and become very quiet when he was most afraid. This is one of those moments for him, and a part of me wishes that I were a million miles from here—or even back in Elusion. Then at least I’d get that temporary wave of euphoria before my world splits apart.

  Patrick types a few numbers into the chrome keypad on Josh’s wrist. As he studies the silver face of the wristband, his brow wrinkles in concern.

  “I’m trying to reboot his system, but it’
s displaying the same error code yours was. I might be able to use the Escape’s coordinates to override the Equip signal . . . ,” he says, looking at the screen of Josh’s tab. Then he curses under his breath.

  I try to get a peek at what he’s doing, but before I can see the screen, he sets it down and says, “I need my quantum.”

  As Patrick dashes out of the room and to his car to grab his computer, I stay next to Josh and try not to let myself get lost in dark, frantic thoughts. I pick up his tab and examine it. The blue status bar is flashing along the bottom of the screen, as if attempting to engage the program.

  ELUSION© Escape 010402 is experiencing difficulties. Please try again.

  “Did you see this?” I ask Avery. The codes for the Escapes are basic. The first two digits are always the same—01, the master program for Elusion. The second two numbers stand for the specific Escape within Elusion, and the last digits, usually a complicated and lengthy collection of letters and numbers, mark the user’s identity. I’ve never seen an Escape code so short.

  “That’s so weird. It was all zeros a minute ago,” she says.

  Patrick bursts back into the room, his quantum already open. He’s breathing hard, but I can’t tell if he’s excited, like a brilliant idea has come to him, or just plain scared. He sets his quantum on the edge of the bed beside me and squats in front of it. He begins to type.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him.

  “Remember last week when I explained to you how Elusion was set up? Dumps with basic codes of security programs in them? Grouped together, they make up the master program for Elusion, which becomes active when someone turns on the app.”

  “Which explains the first two numbers,” I say. “And the next two are the Escape number. But the last ones—that’s what I can’t figure out. It’s supposed to be the user’s code, right?”

  “Yeah, but all user codes begin with the same two numbers: zero two. The rest are digits that define the user, in terms of quantities produced.”

  “But there’s no other code here,” I say.