The Reality Bug

by D. J. MacHale

  I looked her in the eye, trying to will her into trusting me. I wasn’t sure if Traveler mind persuasion worked on other Travelers, but I was willing to give it a try.

  “Come with me,” she finally said, and walked off.

  Phew. That was a start. The two of us walked along the center line of the empty street. The block reminded me of those big movie sets I saw on the tour of Universal Studios. Everything looked normal, but totally without life.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked tentatively.

  “Most everyone is in Lifelight,” she answered.

  “Lie flight?”

  “No, Lifelight.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what that means.”

  Aja stopped walking and touched her silver bracelet to my head. I felt a short, warm buzz, then she pulled it away.

  “What was that?” I asked nervously.

  Aja then pointed her hand, hit a few buttons, and said, “Look.”

  I looked to where she was pointing and saw something that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. It was Marley, my golden retriever. She stood facing me, wagging her tail so hard her whole backside wiggled. She had a goofy grin on her face and wore the green collar I got her for Christmas two years before. This wasn’t just any golden, this was my golden.

  “Marley?” I called out tentatively.

  Marley wagged her tail harder and ran to me. She was all set to jump and I was ready to catch her, but the second her front paws left the ground, she disappeared. Poof. Gone. All I caught was air. After a frozen moment, I looked to Aja and squeaked out a stunned, “How did you do that?”

  “Lifelight,” she answered. “It pulled that from your memory.”

  “Huh?” was all I could get out.

  Aja smiled. She was back in charge again. “Veelox is the perfect territory, Pendragon, because we can live any existence we choose.”

  I was sinking deeper into the land of confusion. “Now I’m totally lost,” I said.

  “Imagine the perfect place,” she continued. “It could be anywhere you want and populated with the people you choose. Like that dog. That’s Lifelight. People here can live a life tailored specifically for them.”

  “So Lifelight sends people all over the territory and sets them up in whatever perfect life they want?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered. “I said people live any life they choose. They don’t go anywhere.”

  “Still not getting it,” I complained.

  Aja motioned for me to follow her. She took a few more steps, rounded a corner and pointed to a sight that actually took my breath away. No kidding. For a second I couldn’t breathe. That’s how awesome it was.

  Sitting in the center of the city, maybe a mile away from us, was a huge, four-sided pyramid. It dwarfed the buildings around it, looking as if a massive, alien spacecraft had set down in the center of town. The shiny black walls reflected the sun toward us, making the immense structure seem more like a shadow than a building.

  “You’re telling me everybody from this city is in that pyramid?”

  “Not everybody. Most.”

  “Why?”

  Aja shook her head like I was a lousy student, then walked to the side of the road. Parked near a lamppost was a strange, two-seater pedal car. The seats were side by side and it had three wheels, like a tricycle. Aja climbed on to the left seat and said, “I could tell you, or I could show you. Which would be easier?”

  Man, this girl really thought I was a dimwit. But I didn’t want to argue anymore, so I took the right seat. Aja kicked off and the two of us pedaled toward the monster pyramid.

  “Is Lifelight some kind of virtual reality game?” I asked.

  “It’s no game,” Aja scoffed.

  “But it’s all just holograms, right? Like my dog, and your big floating head.”

  “Don’t pass judgment until you know what you’re talking about.”

  Fair enough. I decided to see what Lifelight was about before asking any more questions. The two of us rode in silence and I took the chance to check out more of this forlorn, deserted city. We passed grocery stores and clothing shops and office fronts. All very normal, but empty. Looking closer, I saw that the buildings were run down. Signs were turning yellow, garbage was collecting in corners, windows were thick with grit. It was like the people had just … walked away.

  I saw lots of signs for something called “gloid.” There was NEW GLOID and TASTE SENSATION GLOID and even GLOID PLUS. It was one of the few words that my Traveler brain didn’t translate into English, so I assumed it was something unique to Veelox. Another unique word I kept seeing was “Rubic.” Street signs pointed to RUBIC CENTRAL. Stores used the word too, as in RUBIC LAUNDRY. I even saw a sign that said: BEST GLOID IN RUBIC. That one put me over the edge. I had to ask.

  “What is Rubic?”

  “That’s the name of the city,” she said. “Rubic City.”

  “And what’s gloid?”

  “That one I’ll have to show you,” she answered.

  As much as this place looked like Second Earth, these subtle differences reminded me that I was nowhere near Second Earth. That’s when I remembered something else.

  “My clothes!” I blurted out. “I need Veelox clothes.”

  Aja looked me over. “Nobody will notice,” she said calmly.

  If she wasn’t worrying, then maybe I shouldn’t either. Besides, there were more important things to worry about. Looming up before us was the Lifelight pyramid. Man, it was massive! I’m guessing that it had to be fifty stories high. The shiny black surface made it seem even more imposing because it was such a contrast to the lighter-colored buildings that surrounded it.

  “I’m off duty, so I can give you a tour,” she said.

  “You work here?”

  “Yes, I’m a phader.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t think too hard. I’ll show you what that means.”

  I was beyond caring about Aja’s intellectual digs. I was way more interested in this strange pyramid. We headed toward a revolving door that looked tiny at the base of this massive building. As we rode closer I finally saw some of the other people of Veelox. They were walking around the pyramid, wearing coveralls like Aja’s. Some were blue, others were red. That was it. Blue and red. Not a whole lot of fashion going on here.

  “The people in red are vedders,” she explained. “No way I’d want their job.”

  “What do they do?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Aja guided our bike right up to the revolving door and hopped off. “Open your mind, Pendragon. Don’t judge until you’ve experienced it.”

  “Experienced what?”

  “Lifelight, of course. I’m going to take you on the most amazing trip you could possibly imagine.” With that, she turned and entered the pyramid.

  I had been on plenty of amazing trips lately. She would have to go a long way to top any of them. To be honest, I wasn’t so sure I wanted her to try. But there was one thing I was dead sure of: If I wanted to figure out what Saint Dane had been up to on Veelox, the answer would be inside this pyramid.

  So with one last quick glance around at the world outside, I stepped into the dark pyramid and a world called “Lifelight.”

  Forget everything I said about Veelox being like Second Earth.

  Stepping into that pyramid was like entering a different world. Inside the revolving door we walked through a narrow tunnel that was lit by long tubes of purple neon light. As soon as we stepped inside, the hair stood up on my arms. It was like the room was charged with electricity.

  “Sterilization,” Aja explained.

  Sterilization? That sounded like something the veterinarian did to your dog when you didn’t want it to have puppies. Gulp.

  “It’s totally safe,” she assured me. “The process kills any foreign microbes that might foul the grid.”

  “Sure, wouldn’t want to foul the grid.” Whatever that meant.

  At th
e end of the corridor, we walked our newly sterilized selves through another revolving door that led to a quiet, dimly lit room. There was a long counter, behind which were four people wearing red coveralls. “Vedders” is what Aja called them. She led me up to a guy I guessed to be about my age. He had coal black hair parted in the middle that went right down to his shoulders. There was definitely a Goth vibe going on, but I doubted they called it that on Veelox.

  “Hello,” the vedder said to Aja flatly.

  “This is my friend’s first time; I wanted to walk him through.”

  The vedder snapped a look at me like I had two heads. “You’ve never jumped before?”

  “Uh … not that I can remember,” I said, then held out my hand to shake. “My name’s Pendragon.”

  The Goth vedder stared at me blankly. He didn’t care what my name was. He didn’t shake my hand, either. Creep.

  “Yes, well, welcome to Lifelight,” he said, sounding totally bored. He reminded me of somebody who had worked at McDonald’s selling burgers for too long. He finally reached out to take my hand, but rather than shaking it, he flipped it over and jabbed a tiny needle into my pinkie.

  “Ow!” I quickly pulled back and sucked on my stinging finger. “What was that for?”

  “You need a bio workup,” Aja explained.

  I had already been sterilized, dissed, and stabbed. So far there wasn’t much to like about Lifelight. The vedder put the needle into a computer-looking thing that I assumed was doing the bio-whatever analysis on the blood he had just stolen from me. While we waited for him to finish, I glanced around the room. It reminded me of the ticket counter at an airport. It was all very modern. There were no signs, but on the wall behind the counter was a big oil portrait of a kid. He looked to be about ten years old, with short, blond hair and a blue jumpsuit like Aja’s. He was a serious-looking little dude, too. He seemed to be staring right at me.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  The vedder shot me a look as if I had suddenly sprouted a third head to go with my other two.

  “You’re funny,” Aja said, covering for me. She then looked at the vedder and said, “He’s always making dumb jokes.”

  The vedder wasn’t laughing. “Give me your hand, please.”

  “Not if you’re gonna poke me again,” I protested.

  Goth boy gave Aja an impatient look.

  “Hold up your hand, Pendragon,” she commanded.

  Reluctantly I held up my hand again, prepared for more pain. But the vedder quickly snapped a silver bracelet around my wrist. It looked more like a high-tech device than jewelry. It was smaller than Aja’s, about two inches wide, with three square buttons that were flush to the surface.

  “Enjoy your jump,” the vedder said, though I was betting he didn’t care one way or the other.

  I smiled at the guy anyway, then followed Aja toward a door at the far end of the room. “Who was the kid in the picture?” I whispered.

  “Dr. Zetlin, the person who invented Lifelight.”

  “A kid invented all of this?” I asked, unbelieving.

  “A very smart kid,” was her answer.

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  Aja then pushed open a door, and we continued into a long corridor that can be best described as mission control … times about a thousand. The walls were made of glass. Through them I saw a series of high-tech workstations that looked like they each had enough electronic muscle to launch about a million space shuttles. Each station was its own separate, enclosed cubicle. I guessed that there were around fifty of these workstations on either side of the corridor. Then there was a whole nother row of workstations above them. So a rough guess was that there were around two hundred of these high-tech rigs.

  There was one phader in each, wearing the signature blue jumpsuit and sitting in the coolest looking chair I had ever seen. It was black, with a high back, and wings near the head that spread out to either side. The arms of the chair were wide, with a silver control panel on each side where the phader could touch the myriad of buttons that worked … whatever.

  In front of each phader was a wall of computer screens. A quick count told me that each phader was looking at around thirty screens. Here’s the strange part (as if everything up until now wasn’t strange): Each of the computer monitors was showing a different movie. Multiply the thirty movies playing in each cubicle by two hundred cubicles and that’s like six thousand movies, all playing at the same time. I figured this might be some kind of satellite TV operation that beamed shows all over Veelox.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “This is where I work,” Aja explained. “It’s called the ‘core.’ The phaders troubleshoot the hardware, upgrade when necessary, and monitor the jumps to make sure everyone is okay.”

  “And what do the vedders do?”

  “They take care of the jumpers physically. That’s why they took your blood. They make sure the jumpers are safe and healthy.”

  “What are the movies they’re watching?” I asked.

  “Those are the jumps,” Aja answered, trying not to sound too impatient.

  I looked through the glass at one of the banks of monitors and saw that the action on the screens wasn’t continuous. Every few seconds each screen changed to another bit of action, like turning the channels on a TV. I focused on one screen to see a hot sailboat gliding through tropical waters. The image then changed to the point of view of a skier flying down a snowy mountain, expertly dodging through trees. On the screen next to that I saw what looked like a stadium full of people watching a game that was like soccer, but played with a big orange ball the size of a monster pumpkin. That screen then changed to the quiet scene of a cozy fireplace and an older woman drinking tea.

  “People come here to watch movies?” I asked.

  Aja chuckled. “Something like that. Come on.”

  She led me down the long corridor of cubicles. I glanced into the different workstations that made up the core to get an idea of what kind of movie I’d choose when it came my turn. I figured I’d want to watch a movie about basketball. I hadn’t played in a long time and missed it. I hoped they knew what basketball was on Veelox.

  When we reached the end of the corridor, Aja said, “Are you ready for this?”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess.” I had no idea if I was ready or not because I didn’t know what to expect.

  Aja shook her head again, amused by my innocence … or stupidity. We pushed through the next revolving door, and what I saw beyond proved only one thing …

  I wasn’t ready for it.

  We stepped into the central chamber of the pyramid. Everything up to this point had been pregame. This was the main event. I took a step inside, looked up, and my knees buckled from seeing the sheer size of the place. The pyramid was pretty much hollow so I could see all the way up to the point. In the center of the structure was a tube that ran from the floor right up to the uppermost tip. Off this central tube were hundreds of walkways that spread out like spokes of a wheel in different directions and levels. They attached to the inside walls of the pyramid, which had hundreds of levels, with walkways ringing all the way around.

  Aja didn’t say anything at first. I guess she wanted me to get my mind around it all. She shouldn’t have bothered. There was no way I could get my mind around any of this.

  “You asked me before where everybody was,” she finally said. She then pointed up to the walls of the pyramid.

  “You’re telling me everybody from Veelox is up there, right now?”

  “No,” she said. “But most everybody from Rubic City is. There are at least eight hundred more of these Lifelight pyramids all over Veelox.”

  The idea was staggering. “So, everybody’s in here watching movies?” I asked.

  Aja lifted her arm to look at her wide, silver bracelet. She touched a few buttons while staring intently at the high-tech device.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for a vacant station,” sh
e answered, and started walking. Like an obedient puppy, I followed. She led me to the center of the pyramid, which was not a short walk. Along the way we passed several phaders and vedders who were ferrying equipment or supplies of some sort. Nobody said much to anyone else. To me, they all seemed a little depressed. Maybe not as bad as the miners of Denduron, but these guys weren’t exactly whistling while they worked, either. We got into an elevator and quickly rose up the central tube.

  When Aja stopped and opened the door, my palms instantly went wet. We were seriously high up in the air. Worse, the guardrails on the walkways were only about knee-high. Aja stepped out. I didn’t.

  “It’s safe, Pendragon,” she said. “Look straight ahead and follow me.” She walked out on one of the bridges that led to the far wall of the pyramid. “Don’t look down.”

  Yeah, right. That’s the first thing I did. Yikes. We were about halfway up the pyramid, but that was plenty high. It felt like I was standing on a rickety Lego structure. I could only hope these walkways were sturdier than they looked. I didn’t want to be on that bridge any longer than I had to, so a few seconds later I caught right up with Aja and blew past her. I made it to the far end and the balcony that ran the length of one side of the pyramid.

  Aja gave me a disapproving look. “Are you sure you’re the lead Traveler?” she asked.

  “No. Where are we going?”

  Aja checked her high-tech bracelet once more, then walked along the balcony. I followed, hugging the wall to stay as far away from the edge as possible. There were doors every few feet. If you figured this was only one side of one level of the pyramid, there must have been hundreds of thousands of doors just like it. Each door had a small round, white light next to it. Most were lit. Aja stopped at a door marked 124-70. The light over the door was out so I guessed that meant nobody was home. Aja touched the door and it instantly slid back into the wall like we were about to step onto the bridge of the starship Enterprise.