The Reality Bug

by D. J. MacHale

  “Aja,” Loor said calmly. “If we do not get out of here, we will not live long enough to find anybody.”

  “I know,” Aja said. “Pendragon, push the middle button.”

  “What?” I shouted. “The last time—”

  “I know what happened the last time,” Aja interrupted. “But while you were playing cowboy, I programmed a link.”

  “A link?” I asked.

  Suddenly, with a crash, the door to the bedroom flew open and Saint Dane strode in.

  “Time for the last roundup, buckaroos!” Saint Dane said. He raised his six-guns, ready to fire.

  “Push the button, Pendragon!” Aja screamed.

  I did.

  Saint Dane let loose with both guns, blasting us. I heard the sharp cracks, I saw the fire come from the muzzles, but I didn’t feel a thing, because a nanosecond later, everything went black.

  I thought I was standing inside a giant colander. You know, one of those big silver bowls with all the holes in it for draining spaghetti. Everywhere I looked, I saw tiny, round dots. For a second I feared I was in some giant, fantasy kitchen, and a pile of boiling linguini was about to get dumped on me.

  But that didn’t make sense. Still, there were far too many of these holes to have been made by Saint Dane’s six-shooter. So where was I?

  I looked closer to see the dots weren’t holes after all. They were little globes of water about the size of peas. There were millions, no, billions of them all frozen in space, everywhere. I lifted my hand and moved it slowly in front of my face. As I passed through the suspended drops of water, my hand got wet. Stranger still, my hand cleared a path through the drops. It was like what happens when you wipe a steamy window. Wherever I moved my hand, I cleared a trail.

  “Where are we, Pendragon?” Loor was standing next to me, doing the exact same thing. She took a step forward, clearing a body-size path through the dots of water. As she moved, her green jumpsuit got wetter and wetter.

  Yes, we were both still wearing our jumpsuits.

  “I don’t know” was my answer. I was tired of giving that answer. I looked around to get my bearings, but couldn’t see much. It was like we were in a misty white cloud. The ground we stood on was pavement, but I couldn’t see much more than a few feet in any direction.

  “What is that?” Loor said, pointing at something.

  I looked to see a faint, dark form not too far from us. It wasn’t moving, and didn’t seem to be a threat, so I cautiously walked toward it. It was strange feeling the water cling to my jumpsuit as I walked, making it wet. As I got closer to the dark form, it began to take shape. After one more step, the mist cleared enough for me to see what it was, and I caught my breath.

  It was a man wearing a green jumpsuit, just like ours. He was a normal-looking guy about my father’s age. There was nothing odd about him at all, except for the fact that he was frozen in place. Seriously, the guy didn’t move at all. It looked like he was in the middle of taking a step while looking backward and beckoning with his hand when somebody hit the “pause” button on his life.

  I looked to where he was gesturing, and saw two more people a few feet behind him. It was a woman holding the hand of a little girl. They seemed to be hurrying to catch up with the man, except that they were frozen too. It was like looking at a display in a wax museum. How seriously creepy can you get?

  “What is wrong with them?” Loor asked.

  An idea started to tickle at the back of my brain. I looked around at the billions of dots of suspended water all around us. Was it possible?

  “I think it’s rain,” I declared. “All these drops of water. It’s a rainstorm.”

  “How can that be?” Loor responded.

  “I don’t know,” I said while passing my hand through the dots again. “But I think this Lifelight fantasy is somehow frozen in time.”

  I took a closer look at the stiff family. There was absolutely nothing wrong with them. Their eyes were clear, their skin was normal. Close-up they didn’t look like waxworks; they seemed totally real. I even took a chance and touched the guy’s hand.

  “He’s warm,” I said. “This guy is stuck in time. So is the rain and the white mist. It’s a storm. Everything just … stopped.”

  Loor walked a few steps past the woman and kid. She wanted to see more. So did I. I followed her and the two of us passed through more drops of water, beyond which the mist began to thin.

  “Look!” Loor exclaimed.

  Once we were out of the patch of fog, or mist, or whatever it was, we got a better view of our surroundings. We still couldn’t see very far because the clearing only stretched for about a city block, but it was enough to get an idea of what this place was all about, and I have to say, it was like a surreal nightmare.

  We were on a city street, but it wasn’t like any city I had ever seen because the buildings were all jet black. They looked to be made from the same shiny material that covered the giant Lifelight pyramid in Rubic City.

  The block was busy with people, though I guess “busy” isn’t exactly the right word—they were all just as frozen as the family we had passed. There were people of different ages and races, all wearing green jumpsuits. The sidewalks were crowded too. Some people were in the middle of crossing the street; others rode in pedal vehicles like in Rubic City. But unlike Rubic City, this place was alive with people.

  Did I say alive? It felt like we were standing inside a 3-D painting. “Alive” didn’t really cover it.

  We then heard a voice come from behind us. “This is incredible!”

  Loor and I both jumped in surprise, then turned quickly to see Aja standing there. She was looking around with as much awe as we felt.

  “So this is the fantasy of a genius,” she said. “Not exactly paradise, is it?”

  “Is this it?” I asked. “Is this Dr. Zetlin’s fantasy jump?”

  Aja checked her elaborate wrist controller. “Yes, I linked you in. Now the trick is to find him.”

  “What happened before?” Loor asked. “Where was that other place?”

  “It was the Reality Bug,” Aja explained. “I’m constantly fighting it. Every time I enter a string of commands, it tries to alter them. Instead of going into Dr. Zetlin’s jump, Lifelight took its cues from you, Pendragon. Everything that happened was pulled out of your mind.”

  Loor gave me a confused look. This made no sense to her. Oddly enough, it did to me. All the things we ran into: the Old West, the stampede, Saint Dane, Gunny, everything. It all came out of my mind. It wasn’t a fantasy out of the past of Veelox at all; it was a good old-fashioned Western from home.

  “So, Saint Dane was not really chasing us?” Loor asked.

  “Correct,” Aja answered. “He was part of the fantasy.”

  “But now we’re in Zetlin World, right?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Aja answered with confidence. “Sorry for the detour.”

  “Are you here with us, Aja?” Loor asked.

  “No,” Aja answered. “I’m still in the core.”

  Aja passed her hand through the drops of water, but her movement didn’t clear a path the way ours did. This was only an image of Aja. Loor walked up to her curiously, and tried to touch her. Her hand passed right through. Loor backed away quickly. I guess touching a ghost spooked her, so to speak.

  “It’s okay,” I assured Loor. “Everything’s cool.”

  “Pendragon, I want to find Zetlin and leave here quickly,” Loor said nervously.

  “Yeah, me too. But I don’t know where to start,” I admitted.

  “When Dr. Zetlin started his jump,” Aja said, “he didn’t want to be bothered. Ever. The last thing he wanted was to have people from Veelox entering his jump and disturbing him.”

  “Which is exactly what we’re doing,” I offered.

  “Yes, but the guy is a genius,” Aja continued. “He knew there might be an emergency where he needed to be contacted.”

  “I think this qualifies,” I said.

 
; Aja showed us a small, blue plastic box. It was about the size and shape of a floppy disk.

  “Zetlin left one of these for every senior phader, in case of emergency,” Aja explained. “Entering Zetlin’s jump is difficult enough. Controlling it is a whole different challenge. These are the codes to do that.”

  “So, what happens when you use them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” was Aja’s quick reply. “Let’s find out.”

  She held out the plastic case and snapped it open, revealing a thin silver square inside. Aja took out the square and examined it.

  “Two sets of codes,” she announced.

  “I don’t suppose either is the origin code?” I asked hopefully.

  “I wish,” she replied. “I’ll try the first.”

  She lifted her wrist controller and input a series of commands as she referred to the silver square. It must have been a complex code, because it took her several seconds to enter it. Then, with one final keystroke …

  It began to rain.

  The once suspended drops fell from the sky, soaking us. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Look out!” somebody yelled.

  Loor grabbed me and pulled me aside as a man driving a pedal vehicle sped by.

  “Careful there, folks,” the guy called with a friendly wave. “The street gets busy.”

  Yeah, no kidding. I looked down the block to see that the painting had reanimated. People splashed through puddles, rushing to get out of the rain. The lady and little girl caught up with the man. He took the girl by the hand and they hurried on their way. The white foggy mist was now moving too. It blew down the street, rolling quickly along with the storm.

  “Fascinating!” was all Aja could say.

  “Let’s get off the street,” I suggested, and the three of us ran to the sidewalk and under the protection of an overhang that covered the entrance to a building.

  We stood there, watching Zetlin’s fantasy city come alive.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Here’s a genius guy who could live in any kind of paradise he could think of, and he chooses a gray, rainy city with black buildings? He may be smart, but he doesn’t have such a hot imagination.”

  I then stepped in front of a guy who was about to enter the building we were using for shelter.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know Dr. Zetlin?”

  The guy looked at me strangely, like I had three noses or something.

  “What’s the joke?” he asked.

  I looked to Aja. She shrugged.

  “No joke,” I said. “Do you know where we can find Dr. Zetlin?”

  The guy shook his head in confusion. “In the Barbican,” he answered. “Where else would he be?”

  “Barbican,” I repeated. “Okay. Where’s the Barbican?”

  The guy shook his head again, like I was being an idiot. He sniffed and continued on into the building without answering.

  “I guess everybody around here is supposed to know where he is,” Aja said.

  “Yeah, everybody but us,” I said. “What’s a Barbican?”

  “Pendragon?” Loor said softly.

  She stepped out onto the sidewalk, staring down the street with a dumbfounded expression.

  “I do not know what a Barbican is, but if I were to wager, I would say that is it,” she said in awe.

  Aja and I turned to see what she was pointing at. What we saw was about as incredible a sight as I could imagine.

  The rain had stopped. The storm was moving through quickly and the foggy mist was blowing away. We could now see a long way down the wide street. The buildings on either side were different sizes and styles, but all were made of the same, shiny black material. As the fog lifted, more people were revealed. They were all dressed in the same dark green jumpsuit style, going about their business. It was an incredibly drab city. But what we saw at the end of the street was anything but drab.

  It was another black building. Actually, it was more like a skyscraper. I’m guessing it must have been about eighty stories. It was way bigger than any of the other buildings on the street. But its size alone wasn’t what made it stand out. The breathtaking thing about it was that this huge building was floating on its side!

  Actually, it wasn’t exactly floating. There was a massive, triangular brace that held it in the air. You know that big Gateway Arch thing in St. Louis on Second Earth? That’s what this brace looked like. Imagine that big arch with a huge, horizontal building attached to the top. That’s what we were faced with. It looked like a seesaw for a giant.

  The three of us stood and stared at the impressive structure. Nobody knew what to say. It was Aja who moved first. Without a word, she began walking. It was like she was being drawn toward the bizarre building. I gave Loor a quick look and we followed. We walked along the sidewalk in a daze. I’d guess that by the time we got to it, we must have walked a mile.

  As we stood under the monstrous structure, the clouds parted. Bright sun shone through and hit the side of the floating skyscraper, making its black skin sparkle.

  Loor finally broke the silence, saying, “How are we to get inside?”

  “Aja?” I said. “You said there were two codes?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Try the second one.”

  Aja shrugged, looked at the silver square, then input Zetlin’s second code into her wrist controller. After hitting the final key, she said, “That’s it.”

  Nothing happened. I glanced back at the street, afraid that the second code would refreeze the fantasy. But the drab people continued to move, going wherever they were going.

  I said, “Try it again—”

  And that’s when it happened. At first we only heard the sound. It was a loud, grinding noise that hurt my ears. It sounded like giant pieces of metal were screeching against each other because, well, that’s what it was.

  “It is moving!” Loor exclaimed.

  We all looked up at the black building to see it was beginning to rotate. Like a monstrous Ferris wheel, the massive building slowly began to turn on its axis. I looked to the ground under the giant brace to see the outline of a huge square.

  “It’s the footprint!” I shouted. “The building is righting itself!”

  That’s exactly what was happening. The building was slowly rotating to vertical. The only trouble was, we were standing inside the giant square.

  “Back off!” I shouted.

  All three of us hurried back out of the danger zone. The screeching and grinding continued as one end of the building dropped nearer to the ground. It was incredible that something that big could actually move like that. But then again, this was the fantasy of a genius. I guess in Zetlin’s mind, it was possible.

  The whole event took about a minute. With a final rush of air that sounded like the brakes on an eighteen-wheeler, times about a thousand, the base of the building settled onto the square on the ground. The ground shook with the deep rumble of an earthquake as the base touched down. We then looked up to see an eighty-story-tall skyscraper reaching vertically toward the sky. Its black skin sparkled with rainwater. There didn’t seem to be a single window in the whole structure. But at the base, looking like a flea on a dog, was a single doorway.

  “Man,” I said. “This guy really makes it tough to pay a visit.”

  “That must be the way in,” Loor said, pointing to the door. “Follow me.”

  “Wait,” Aja said. “I should go back.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It’s the Reality Bug,” she explained. “I have to keep putting up firewalls to keep it out of this jump. I need to be focused in the Alpha Core to do that.”

  “What if we need you?” I asked.

  “Believe me, Pendragon, you need me in the Alpha Core a lot more than you do here. If the Reality Bug gets into the alpha grid—”

  “I get it,” I interrupted.

  Aja looked to the ground. Something was troubling her.

  “What’s the matt
er?” I asked.

  “I … I’m sorry, Pendragon,” she said softly. “I hate that I’ve put you and Loor in this position.”

  “We’re here because we’re Travelers, Aja,” I said. “Don’t be sorry. Just keep that freakin’ Reality Bug away from us, okay?”

  Aja nodded. She then reached out toward me. I think she wanted me to take her hand. I looked into her eyes and actually thought I saw compassion. Did Aja really care about me? A little while ago she hated that I had ever set foot on Veelox because she feared I would steal her thunder. What a difference a few death-defying escapes can make.

  “I believe,” Aja said, “this is truly the way it was meant to be.”

  I reached out toward her, but my hand passed right through hers. After all, she was only an image of herself.

  “Good luck to you both,” she said sincerely. “I’ll be watching.”

  She then disappeared in a ripple of light.

  I stood there with my hand in the air, looking stupid.

  “I believe she likes you,” Loor said.

  I quickly put my hand in my pocket. How embarrassing was that? I really didn’t want Loor to think Aja and I had a “thing,” because we didn’t.

  “Will you include that in your journal to Courtney Chetwynde?” she asked.

  I couldn’t believe it. Loor was teasing me. “There’s nothing going on,” I assured her, though I think I said it with such force that she didn’t believe me.

  “Very well,” Loor said. “You do not need to convince me.”

  “Let it go, all right?” I said.

  Loor looked up at the looming skyscraper. “He is in there somewhere,” she said.

  “Right,” I added. “Let’s go find him.”

  The two of us then walked together toward the small door that would lead us inside the strange, fantasy world of Dr. Zetlin, genius.

  The creator of Lifelight.

  We stepped into a jungle.

  I’m not kidding. It was a tropical rain forest full of palm trees, dense foliage, and mosquitoes. The ground beneath us was soft, dark dirt. The temperature had to be at least ninety degrees. It was so humid, my jumpsuit was already sticking to me. I swear I even heard the sound of a distant waterfall.