By now, my cheeks are streaked with tears and I can barely talk, so I dip my head down and shield my face with my hands.
“I’m putting the tab away,” I hear Josh say.
His footsteps grow closer, and I feel his arms loop around me. I lean into his chest, his T-shirt soaking up the wetness from my eyes.
“She’s going to hate me if I die on her,” I whisper.
“You’re not going to die.” Josh kisses my forehead and then my nose.
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“A little.” He cups my face in his hands. “Want to know what scares me the most?”
I nod, staring into his eyes.
“The thought of never seeing you again.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “We’re new to each other, but . . . you make me dream about the future. Happy dreams. Know how good that feels?”
“I do,” I say, taking one of his hands and lacing my fingers through his. I stand on my tiptoes, and soon we’re kissing, our lips moving in perfect unison. I drag my fingers lightly up and down his back and shoulders as the tip of his tongue touches mine. He cradles my face in one hand while the other caresses my waist, pulling me toward him so that every part of us is together. His mouth moves away from my lips and trails down my neck. I arch my back, take the bottom of his T-shirt, and begin to pull it up.
“Wait,” he says, grabbing my hands. “I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“I might not even be alive tomorrow,” I say.
He runs his hand down my cheek. “And if you are?”
“Will you regret it?” I ask.
“No,” he says without hesitation.
“Neither will I.”
I’m in the dark, my body curled up beside Josh, my head lying against his right shoulder. I crane my neck a little and glance around, as though I don’t quite remember where I am. But faint memories from the last hour or two begin to come into focus, and soon my thoughts are completely filled with Josh’s lingering kisses and his hands gripping my hips. I press my face on his bare chest. He stirs, bending his arm to hug me tighter.
I reach down and grab hold of the comforter, which is in a tangled clump near Josh’s knees. I pull on the fabric until it reaches a few inches above his belly, and then I let my fingers delicately trace the area beneath his collarbone. I close my eyes, trying to remember every single place Josh touched me, and my leg mindlessly lifts and winds itself around his thighs, my foot tucking beneath the top of his calf. I hear him yawn and feel his muscles tighten beneath me in a long stretch. His eyes open into two weary slits and his lips graze my forehead.
“Did you sleep?” His voice is parched and sort of gravelly. I like the sound of it.
“I think so,” I say, planting a kiss on his chin.
He smiles as his hand moves down to my stomach, his fingers massaging me in circles, sending a burst of electricity through me. “What time is it?” he asks.
I sit up a little to search for my tab, but my night vision hasn’t quite kicked in yet. “Not sure.”
Suddenly he takes hold of me in this swift wrestling move that makes me laugh and squeal. In less than a second he’s on top of me. Our hands entwine as he pulls my arms over my head, leans over me, and kisses me, hard. The moment is sheer, absolute perfection, and after what we just shared, I never thought those heightened senses were something that could be duplicated. But then I think back to our first kiss—deep in the ice cave of the Mount Arvon Escape—and remember how euphoric I felt then, how I almost disappeared inside that cloak of happiness.
But still, I questioned it. When I returned, things between us felt uncomfortable and weird, as if we weren’t sure if what had happened was the result of how we really felt or a product of artificially stimulated euphoria.
Josh shifts against me, and my bare legs swing around his lower back, pulling him closer. I know I should feel some sense of modesty, but I don’t. With my hands still over my head, I lean forward to kiss him again, but the buzzing of one of our tabs interrupts us.
It’s like both of us have been doused with freezing cold water. That sound is a signal that either Patrick is on his way or Zoe and Avery found something in the Oak Sector or there’s news about Nora. Whatever it is, it means the hideaway we built together in this room is gone.
Josh lifts himself off me and then rolls off the bed, searching around the room for his tab. He finds it on a dresser, checks it, and says, “Not mine.”
I wrap the sheet around me and crawl off the mattress; my feet pad across the floor to where my jeans ended up. Before I dig into my front pockets, I can feel the vibration of my tab through the fabric. When I finally have it in my hands, I notice the time—8:26 p.m.—and see a new message from Patrick.
Five mins away. Be ready 2 go.
At first I feel a rush of excitement. Patrick must have figured out a way to create those ping tunnels connecting the core Escapes, and with just enough time to beat the inoculation process that Bryce started. But then I click on my inbox and see that I have two additional messages from Zoe and Avery, which I must have missed while Josh and I were sleeping or . . . busy. Both are from about an hour and a half ago.
Two malls down. Nothing so far.
Nada at the next strip. Moving on to #4.
My stomach drops, and I sit down on the edge of the bed while Josh starts putting his clothes back on.
They haven’t found anything.
“Regan? What’s going on?” he asks.
“Pat’s on his way,” I say, trying not to let anything detract from the last bits of resolve I have left. “We should get downstairs; he’ll be here any minute.”
Josh begins collecting my clothes and handing them to me piece by piece, including my father’s watch, which I’d set on the nightstand. I put them on as fast as I can and duck into the bathroom, hoping there’s something in the medicine cabinet— a fragrance spritz, cologne stick, anything that will freshen me up a little. Unfortunately, the only thing in here is an air deodorizing dispenser built into the wall, so I press the button and wave my hands in front of the mist, spreading it over my neck and hands. I feel ridiculous, but I don’t want Patrick to have any idea what Josh and I were up to.
Even though he might have already guessed it before he left the apartment hours ago.
I feel my tab vibrating again, and I take it out of my jeans.
At the door, let me in?
It’s Patrick. He probably didn’t want to request access, because it would be on the log.
“He’s here,” I say, walking back into the bedroom to find Josh straightening up like a good houseguest.
“Okay, let’s go,” Josh says, leading me out into the hall, his hand perched on the lower part of my back.
When we arrive in the dining room, the lights automatically come on at the lowest setting, and we open the door for Patrick. He comes in carrying three Equip visors, earbuds, and wristbands, and places them on the table. Then he just stands there, staring at nothing in particular, looking fried and wired. It seems like he’s aged five years in the hours he’s been away. His hair is disheveled and his eyes are wide open, like he’s ingested fifty pod coffees.
“Are you all right?” Josh asks him.
I pull out a chair from the table. “Maybe you should sit down for a second.”
“No, we have to move. Right now,” says Patrick, picking up his tab and immediately activating the imaging plate.
“So were you able to do it?” I ask. “Link up the ping tunnels between the remaining Escapes?”
“Yes and no,” he says, scratching the side of his ear.
“What does that mean?” Josh asks.
This time Patrick doesn’t ask anyone to hit the lights. I guess there’s no time for that. A hologram image appears, not unlike the one we saw before, but this time we can see that there are only two red globes left. I can’t imagine why Patrick isn’t more excited—the team inside Etherworld has managed to knock out three more Escapes, e
ven with the antiviral running through the program.
“There are only two more Escapes left? That’s incredible,” Josh says, the thrill in his voice matching the hope that’s rising within me.
“You don’t understand,” Patrick snaps, gesturing at a grouping of thin yellow lines sticking out of the red globes and intersecting with outer circles. I don’t remember seeing those lines when he showed us the diagram before.
He points to the yellow lines and says, “These are tunnels I created to connect the Escapes together, but Elusion kept erasing them, one by one. It was like building a bridge and having a typhoon come by and wipe it all out the second I was done. And every time I started over, it was harder to build it.”
He presses his tab, and the hologram switches over to an image that illustrates Patrick’s point. Black lines extend and wrap around the globes, as if on their way to tie themselves together in the center to form a link, but the moment the lines touch, they turn a faint yellow.
“So what are our options?” I ask.
“Well, I was able to do something else.” The hologram dissipates and another image appears. The two globes, which were previously lined up side by side, shift and move until they appear stacked one on top of the other, connected by some kind of strange-looking chimney-like structure.
“Holy shit,” Josh mutters. “Did you create a trapdoor within the Escapes?”
“Sure as hell did,” Patrick says, with a bit of a self-satisfied grin.
“So we can drop from one Escape down to the other,” Josh says.
“I hope so. It will be impossible to know for sure until we’re actually there. And I had to make it adaptive, so it blends into the landscape. Otherwise Elusion will be able to detect it.”
“But how do we know it won’t get erased like your ping tunnels?” I ask.
Patrick presses a button on his tab and the hologram disappears. “That’s why we have to go right now. We have no idea how long those doors are going to be operational.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” Josh says, clapping his hands and rushing to the table to sort out Equip components.
Patrick grabs me by my arms and locks eyes with me. “Listen, Ree, I have to tell you what the trapdoor looks like, just in case anything should happen to me—”
“Nothing will happen to you,” I say quickly.
“I’m not a high responder. Everyone else in your dad’s domain is. There’s a chance I might not make it in.”
I turn away, not wanting to think about what could happen, even though I know we should prepare for the worst-case scenario. “What are we looking for?” I ask.
“A mirage in the Silver Desert Escape,” Patrick says.
“You can’t be more specific than that?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I had to be vague with the code—to make it look like I was improving the Escape somehow.”
“Were you able to find out anything about the inoculation?” Josh asks as he hands Patrick and me wristbands.
“No, Elusion has totally blocked me from certain aspects of the program,” Patrick says.
Josh hands me my visor, and suddenly there’s this pull inside me, not unlike the one I felt when I was in the master program with Patrick. I take a deep breath, like I’ve been swimming for miles and am coming up for air.
“We should text Zoe and Avery,” I blurt out. “Tell them to come back here and make sure we get out before our hour is up.”
Josh glances at Patrick and something passes between them, because Josh takes his tab and sends out two messages.
“They’re on the way back,” Josh says, seconds later. “Should be here in about fifteen minutes.”
Patrick extends his hand toward the sunken den. “Okay. But we should get started.”
After we hook up our Equips, we all sprawl out on the floor, with me lying in between Patrick and Josh. My mouth is sticky and dry from all the anxiety, but when Josh notices Patrick typing on his tab, he leans over and quickly gives me a kiss. I touch my lips and smile just a little when he lies back down and whispers, “See you soon.”
I hope he’s right, and wherever my father is, I hope he can wait for us a little while longer.
“I’m sending you the new link now,” Patrick says. “I have a destination code for Etherworld to use in place of an Escape code. This should get us right into the main base at Etherworld.”
“Seriously? You found a way into Etherworld directly?” Josh says, totally amazed.
Patrick shrugs like it’s not a big deal, but Josh shakes his head.
“David was right. There really is no one like you, man,” he says.
I make sure the tips of my wristband are aligned with the pressure points on my wrist, the key pad facing up. The emergency warning flashes on the screen:
If your wristband alarm sounds and you have difficulty reawakening, please leave Elusion immediately. Staying in Elusion longer than recommended may result in brain injury.
I turn toward Patrick. He has been my best friend since I was a kid. I can’t imagine my life without him, and even though this last week has been hell for us, he’s proved himself to be the person I always knew he was. I reach for Patrick’s hand and give it a squeeze.
“Okay,” he says. “Your user invite number is 00-01-99-0001.”
“That’s the code? It’s so long,” I say, surprised.
“We’re hacking into your father’s system. Like I said, this isn’t an Escape code,” Patrick says.
“Right,” I say, distracted. I have the sudden instinct to say something, maybe tell Patrick and Josh how much I care about them. But I’m not in the mood for sentimentality. I feel numb and resigned. Determined.
I type in the number, my breath shallow.
A second later a message flashes on the screen of my tab: User 00-01-99-0001 has accepted invitation request. Please insert earbuds.
“Ready?” Patrick asks.
I place the tiny earbuds in my ears.
Please engage video visor.
I slip the visor down over my eyes. Blind and deaf, I reach beside me, searching for Josh’s hand. When I find it, he softly runs his thumb over mine.
An inner strength begins to charge through me, electric and defiant, as the calm female voice begins the countdown.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One . . .
SIXTEEN
A WHISPER LURES ME AWAY FROM SLEEP.
“Regan? You okay?”
I lift my chin and look up at Josh, his colorless eyes searching mine. We’re both lying on the dusty ground in our real-world clothes, my head resting on his shoulder as he gently runs his fingers through my hair.
“Yeah, I think so.”
I pull myself up to a sitting position; a hint of light is visible in the coal-gray sky. The honeycomb-shaped building that the Elusion survivors have been calling home is about a hundred feet away, the fire pit so close I can reach out and touch it.
We made it. We’re in Etherworld. Right in the center of the Great Space.
A flicker of hope forms inside me, but it disappears when I realize how quiet and still it is right now. I can’t help but feel like something is terribly wrong—a feeling that intensifies when Josh stands up and grips my wrists, yanking me to my feet.
“I think Patrick’s hurt,” he says.
A couple of yards away, Patrick is lying on the ground, his legs splayed out at strange angles, his translucent eyes open wide. He lets out a groan, and we race over to him and kneel down on either side of his body.
“Regan?” Patrick says, his voice hoarse. “Regan!” He suddenly springs up, his arms thrashing. I duck to avoid a blow as Josh tries to hold Patrick back.
“Take it easy, Pat,” he says, restraining him. “We’ve got you.”
“I can’t see!” Patrick yells. “I can’t see anything!”
I’m right beside him, but instead of looking at me, he’s staring at a vague point in th
e distance. “Just give yourself a minute,” I say. I squeeze his hand, hoping the pressure will calm him down. “Maybe your senses need some time to adjust.”
“Are we there?” he asks. “Did we make it into Etherworld?”
“Yep,” I say. “You did it.”
Patrick lets out a deep breath, like he’s incredibly relieved, but his eyes are still staring straight ahead. “Did this happen to you? Were you blind the first time you came here?”
“No, but I passed out,” I say, remembering my brain’s strong reaction to the increase in delta waves. “Josh and my dad had to carry me from the firewall all the way to the base.”
“Now that you mention it, where is your dad?” Josh asks, looking around.
I stand up and face the building. “Hello!” I call out. “Anyone here?”
When there’s no answer, I walk toward the cavern to get a better look. As I get closer, I see that the structure has crumbled: the solid rock that once made up its top floors is lying in chunks on the ground. The arched doorways are dark; the outdoor set of stairs and platforms has collapsed. What was once a tidy set of halls and rooms is now in ruins.
A cool, ashy wind blows through the Great Space, and I look over my shoulder at Josh, who is helping move Patrick to one of the stone benches near the fire pit. Once he gets Patrick set, Josh and I lock eyes. I can tell we’re thinking the same thing.
Is there anyone left? “I’m going to search the building,” I say, as I head toward the cavern.
“Wait!” Josh shouts.
But I don’t stop. I run as fast as I can, my jaw clenched as I pump my arms hard. I make my way around the clumps of rock, approaching the archway of my dad’s room. I climb over a couple of huge pieces of stone to get to the door, and I slip my body under the caved-in archway. Running through the hall, I’m ducking down to avoid debris and jagged rock as I head toward his room.
The first thing I see is my father’s workbench. It’s smashed in half, crushed. The air is dusty, the room filled with rubble.
Etherworld Page 20
