The Reality Bug tpa-4

by D. J. MacHale

  Together this time.

  And they were about to learn about Lifelight.

  (CONTINUED)

  VEELOX

  “Bobby! It’s getting-up time!” came a familiar, singsong voice.

  I was still asleep. It was one of those perfect moments when no matter what position you roll into, it’s more comfortable than the last. No, I didn’t care what time it was, I was staying in bed.

  “Big day today!” came the pleasant voice again.

  I was too comfortable to care. I rolled over, determined to continue the bliss. But then I felt a huge weight land on me. I knew what was coming next. Any chance of staying in bed would soon dissolve because…

  A slippery, sandy tongue started burrowing into my ear. I don’t know what was so tasty about my ear, but it was the spot that Marley would lick when she wanted me to get up.

  “All right, all right!” I laughed and pushed my golden retriever away. I think she liked the whole ear-licking-while-I-was-trying-to-sleep thing because it was one of the few times she had complete control over me. That, and of course when I walked her and had to pick up her poop. She pretty much called the shots then, too.

  A second later another weight landed on the bed. I knew what this was too. It was my little sister. Shannon.

  “Breakfast is ready,” she informed me. “You have to eat or you won’t be strong enough to play.”

  Shannon thought she pretty much knew everything about everything, and for an eight-year-old she wasn’t far from wrong. She was cute, too, with long dark brown hair that she always tied into two ponytails. She had these big brown eyes and a broad smile that lit up the room. People always told Mom that Shannon should be a model, but Mom wasn’t hot on the idea. I think she was afraid Shannon was already growing up too fast.

  “Eat soon so you can digest,” she continued. “I don’t want to see you barfing on the court.” With that last little nugget of wisdom, she jumped off the bed and ran out of my bedroom. Marley bounded off the bed and scampered after her.

  The smell of bacon found my nose. That was the last bit of convincing I needed. I loved bacon and we didn’t get it that often because Mom thought it was too fatty or something. But every so often when there was a special occasion, she would give in. I guess today’s basketball game counted as a big occasion. Fine with me. I threw my legs over the bed and stood up, now fully awake. I was wearing boxers, but pulled on a pair of sweats because sitting at the breakfast table in my underwear wasn’t cool. I then picked a T-shirt off the floor, sniffed it to make sure it wasn’t rank, and pulled it over my head. It was going to be a good day. Big breakfast, basketball game, maybe Courtney would come to watch and…

  What the hell?

  Reality struck. My knees went weak and I actually fell back down onto the bed. What was happening? I looked around my bedroom and it looked as familiar as always. My desk, my computer, my trophies, my stack of CDs, my New York Jets posters, even my clothes strewn on the floor. This was my bedroom. At home. In Stony Brook.

  On… Second… Freakin’… Earth!

  Nothing was out of the ordinary but everything was out of the ordinary. How could this be happening? I started to hyperventilate. Nothing made sense, even though it made perfect sense. Could everything that had happened since the night I left home with Uncle Press have been a dream? Denduron, Cloral, the Hindenburg, Saint Dane… everything. Had it all been a nightmare? I glanced at my window, half expecting Professor Marvel from The Wizard of Oz to poke his head in to see if I was okay.

  “C’mon, Bobby, breakfast is getting cold!” came a voice from outside my room. It was my father. What was happening? I had faced a lot of scary situations since I became a Traveler, but on the strange scale, this was at the top. It took every ounce of courage I had to get my legs moving. I had to find out what was going on.

  I cautiously left my room. The upstairs hallway had all the same pictures, the same rug, the same doors, the same everything. I half walked, half floated down the stairs, through the living room, past the dining room and straight into the kitchen. When I poked my head in, I saw a scene that was totally normal and totally impossible at the same time.

  The table was set for breakfast. Mom was scooping scrambled eggs from a pan; Dad was sitting in his normal spot, pouring orange juice for everyone; Shannon sat at her place, politely waiting for everyone to sit so she could begin; and Marley sat on the floor at Shannon’s side, waiting with equal patience for somebody to drop food on the floor.

  I stood in the doorway, staring. Part of me wanted to dive into that kitchen, throw my arms around everybody and cry like a baby. Another part of me wanted to turn and run.

  Finally Mom saw me and said, “Eat. You can’t be late.”

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I drifted over to the table and sat down at my place. It was the place by the window where I had eaten since I was old enough to sit up. It was the place I never thought I’d take again, since my house and family and everything I had ever known had disappeared.

  But now they were back.

  I must have looked as stunned as I felt, because my father said, “You all right, Bobby?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer him, because I wasn’t. “To be honest. Dad, I’m a little confused.”

  “About what, sweetheart?” Mom asked innocently.

  I chose my words carefully, knowing just how ridiculous they would sound. “Has anything… odd happened?”

  Dad asked, “Like what?”

  Shannon chimed in. “We’re having’bacon for breakfast. That’s odd.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mom asked while taking her place at the table. I sat looking at my family. The three of them looked back at me over their plates of bacon and eggs, waiting for me to say something. Marley poked her brown rubbery nose up from below the table and looked at me too, though I think she was more interested in sniffing out the bacon. I didn’t say anything. Instead, I picked up a piece of bacon and took a bite. It was as delicious as any bacon I’d ever had. Done just the way I liked it too. Not too crispy. I didn’t know why that surprised me, but it did.

  Finally I dropped the bacon on my plate and stood up. “I…I’m not hungry. I better get dressed.” I left the table, headed for the door to the dining room.

  “But you have to eat something before the game!” Mom called after me.

  “I’ll get something later,” I yelled back.

  I was going mental. If my parents had said: “Well, Bobby, you were in a coma for the last year and a half,” I would have understood. That would have meant that everything about the territories had been a dream. But they didn’t. They acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

  There was only one possible explanation. It must have been a dream. A really long, detailed, incredible dream that happened all in one night. Isn’t that how it worked with Scrooge from A Christmas Carol? I read somewhere that dreams may seem long, but they really only last a few seconds. I figured that must have been what happened to me. As I walked back toward the stairs, I began to accept that possibility. A few moments crept by where I actually started to relax. I was home. The nightmare was over. Everything was going to be normal.

  That warm, fuzzy feeling didn’t last long.

  I walked by a mirror and saw my reflection. What I saw wasn’t the image of the guy who had kissed Courtney, then got on the back of Uncle Press’s motorcycle bound for the flume. No way. This guy was older. About a year and a half older, to be exact. Everything in this house was the exact same as I remembered it… except for me. In that instant, my dream theory came crashing down. There was no way I could have slept for one night and dreamed up the whole adventure, because I wasn’t the same guy anymore. No, the answer wasn’t as simple as that.

  It was then that a single word came to my mind. I didn’t know what it meant at first, but it definitely felt like it was the key to unlocking this mystery.

  The word was… Lifelight.

  No sooner did I
remember that word, than I felt something on my wrist. I looked down and saw I was wearing a wide, silver bracelet with three buttons. It surprised me at first because it wasn’t there a second ago. But still, it seemed familiar. What was I told? If I needed to talk with someone, push the left button. Well, I couldn’t imagine a bigger need to speak with someone than right now, so I pressed the button on the far left. The button glowed white for a moment and gave off a soft, quick hum.

  “Not bad, Pendragon,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. “You put it together faster than most.”

  I spun around and looked up the stairs to see someone sitting on the top step. It was the one thing that was out of place in this house. Besides me, that is. She was a pretty girl with a blond ponytail, blue eyes, and yellow-tinted glasses. I stared at her for a few seconds, confused. It was like having an answer on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t quite get it out.

  “Breathe, Pendragon,” she said. “It’ll come back.”

  “Aja…,” I said.

  Aja smiled and clapped. “Very good. There’s always a little disorientation at first, especially if you’ve never jumped before.”

  I looked around the house. My house. It seemed so real, but it wasn’t. It was an illusion. An incredible, wonderful, heart-wrenching illusion. It was all coming back. I wasn’t home. I was lying in a dark tube in a giant pyramid on the territory of Veelox, and this was all happening in my head.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Aja said. “You’ve seen a little of what Lifelight can do and you’re pretty impressed.” She walked down the stairs and came right up to me. “But you’ve just had a taste. The only limits to Lifelight are the limits you put on it yourself.” She touched her finger to my forehead. “It’s all up there, waiting to come out.”

  “There’s more?” I asked.

  Aja laughed. “Pendragon, you’re just getting started.”

  (CONTINUED)

  VEELOX

  I walked around my living room in a daze. Or should I say, I walked around the illusion of my living room. The dazed part was real, though. No illusion there. I ran my hand along the back of my couch and felt the soft, cotton fabric. I turned the switch on a table lamp, and the light came on. I picked up a frame that held a picture of me holding a newborn Shannon the day she came home from the hospital. Everything looked and felt totally normal, and real.

  “You shouldn’t be surprised,” Aja said. “Everything is going to be right because it’s coming out of your head.”

  “But I can feel things,” I said. “And I tasted bacon. How is that possible?”

  “You know how it should taste, so that’s what it tasted like. Simple as that.”

  Simple as that? Who was she kidding? This was the furthest thing from simple I could imagine. I had about ten miles of questions. “What if I hurt myself?” I asked, my mind racing with possibilities. “Do I really get injured?”

  “No. You’ll feel the pain if you get injured, and you’ll stay that way until the jump is complete, but you’re not really here.

  You’re in the Lifelight pyramid. Nothing physical happens to you; it’s all in your head.”

  “So I can’t, like, die or anything?”

  “If you die, the jump is over.”

  I looked at the silver wrist bracelet that had magically appeared when I began to remember Lifelight.

  “Why didn’t I see this at first?” I asked, holding my arm up.

  “The goal of jumping is to completely immerse yourself in the experience,” she answered. “Having that control band on your wrist would be a constant reminder that none of this is real. You’ll only see it when you need to.”

  “Really? It’s like my mind tells the band when to appear?”

  “Exactly. Your mind controls everything.”

  “So I could, like, wish for a pizza to appear? Or for a swimming pool to be in the garage? Or for a spaceship to land on the front lawn and take me to Mars?”

  Aja laughed. That was a surprise. For a change she didn’t sound annoyed. I think she liked showing off what Lifelight could do. “Sure, but only if those kinds of things would normally happen. Lifelight was designed to create a perfect experience. A realistic experience. You can’t suddenly sprout wings and fly away. Your mind wouldn’t let you because you know that can’t really happen. You’re governed by the rules of reality. But the thing is, it’s a perfect reality.”

  She reached over to me and lightly touched the middle button on my wrist controller. Dingdong. The front doorbell rang. Mom hurried out of the kitchen to get it.

  “You expecting somebody?” she asked me on her way to the door.

  I shrugged. I was expecting nothing… and anything. When she opened the door, I saw that standing outside was a pizza delivery guy from Domino’s Pizza.

  “Large pepperoni, extra cheese/’ the guy announced.

  Mom gave me a look. “No wonder you didn’t want breakfast.” She paid the guy and took the pizza. “Do you have any idea how disgusting it is to eat this so early in the morning?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I answered, dumbfounded.

  Mom then smiled and said, “Fine, you can have this because it’s game day, but do not give any to Shannon or Marley, or your father. And eat it in the kitchen.”

  She disappeared back into the kitchen along with the pizza. She hadn’t even said anything about Aja.

  “Lifelight read my mind,” I said to nobody in particular.

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you,” Aja said.

  “Why did you press the button? What did it do?”

  “This starts getting a little advanced,” she explained. “When you started the jump, I told you to think about a place you’d like to be. Lifelight read those thoughts and created this house and your family. That’s the basic jump. That middle button is only used if you want to vary it. Let’s say your family wanted to go on a picnic, but it was raining. All you’d have to do is touch the button and the storm would clear. Or let’s say you wanted an old friend to be part of the jump. Think about the person, touch the button, and they’ll show up.”

  “So it’s like controlling the experience?”

  “That’s exactly what it is. But it’s also a safety feature. When you first enter a jump, Lifelight creates the environment you’re thinking of. Once you’re in, Lifelight only reacts to what is actually happening. The trouble is, you can’t control every idea that pops into your head. You might suddenly get a thought about being on a boat. But Lifelight won’t do anything with that unless you push the button. If not for that button, there would be too much input coming from your brain and the jump would be a mess.”

  “So I could think about climbing a mountain right now-“

  “And nothing would happen unless you pushed that button. Then a friend of yours might show up to tell you he’s going on a trip to the mountains and ask you to join him.”

  “That is so cool!” I said.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Aja replied.

  “So then, where are you?” I asked. “I mean, Lifelight isn’t reading your thoughts, is it?”

  “I’m your phader for the jump. Remember the core we passed through on our way into the pyramid? I’m sitting in one of those control cubicles, watching your jump.”

  “Those video monitors!” I exclaimed. “They’re showing you what the jumpers are experiencing.”

  “Exactly. The phaders monitor the jumps to make sure everything goes well. To be honest, it’s a boring job. Things rarely go wrong. But every so often a jumper needs some help or his wrist controller needs replacing or some minor problem arises and we get sent into their jump. But the thing is, we can’t become part of a jump unless the jumper presses the left button. That’s why I was able to show up when I did. If you hadn’t pressed that button, I wouldn’t be able to join you.”

  “So can you control the jump now too?” I asked.

  “No, I’m only a visitor.”

  “Bobby? Are you going to eat t
his pizza before it congeals?” asked Mom. She stood in the doorway of the living room.

  “Uh, yeah. As soon as I finish talking to my friend here.” I had no idea how to explain Aja.

  Mom gave me a strange look. “You want to run that by me again?” she asked.

  “She can’t see me,” Aja said with a chuckle. “I’m not part of this jump.”

  How weird was that? Aja was like a ghost. There were a lot of rules to this bizarro experience.

  “Never mind,” I called to Mom. “I’ll be right there.” Mom did a double-take, then left again. “So what do I do now?” I asked.

  “Anything you want. I think you have some kind of game to go to?”

  “Yes! The basketball game! I can play ball?” “If you want.”

  “Oh, man, this is great! How long does this go on?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Have fun. When you get back, we’ll talk about the big picture.”

  “C’mon Bobby!” shouted Shannon impatiently. She stood at the door to the living room with her hands on her hips, looking irritated with me for holding up the show.

  I looked to her and said, “Coming!” I then looked back to Aja, but she was gone. Just like that. My silver control bracelet was gone too. At least I couldn’t see it anymore. I had a moment where I wasn’t sure what to do, but then decided if I was going to learn all about Lifelight, I had to go along with the program. And heck, if it meant playing a little roundball, that wouldn’t be so bad. So I decided to give myself over to the experience and ran into the kitchen and tucked into the most delicious pizza I had ever eaten. But better than that was being together with my family. Shannon told me all about a play she was in at school. Dad talked about a newspaper article he was having trouble finding the inspiration to write, and Mom announced she was up for a promotion at the library. It was all so… excellent. I was home. The only sour note was that I couldn’t tell them anything about me. My guess was that would have thrown a monkey wrench into the whole illusion, so I kept quiet. Then again, nobody asked me anything either.