“Lacking humility you are,” Yoda responded before firing up his lightsaber and leaping out of the elevator like a spastic, acrobatic monkey.
“Something’s totally wrong in here,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” said Max. “What the hell am I supposed to do when this happens?”
“We need to get you out of here,” I said.
I grabbed Max’s hand and yanked him out of the office, the two of us running towards the open elevator Yoda had left behind.
“Duck!” Max shouted.
So strange was the scene all around that my first instinct wasn’t to duck, but to look around for a duck of some sort, maybe Donald or Daffy, or even Howard. Then I realized what Max meant and I ducked just in time to miss a beam of bright green light that shot over my head and burned a hole in the wall next to me. I stayed low as Yoda did a little Parkour routine, jumping from somewhere behind us and bouncing off the wall ahead.
“You’re clear!” Max yelled. “Go!”
We sprinted the last ten yards, squeezing into the elevator as the door closed behind us.
“Jiminy Christmas!” Max said.
“Something bad is happening,” I said. “They shouldn’t have been here.”
“Damn right they shouldn’t,” said Max. “I thought this was a romance novel.”
“Something has changed,” I said. I pushed the B button to take us to the basement. “They came from other stories. It’s like they jumped out of their little universes and into this one.”
“Just like I left our universe and came here,” Max said.
“Yeah maybe,” I said.
The elevator chimed and the doors opened on the basement.
“Where are we going?” Max asked.
“To the vault,” I said. “We’re locking you inside.”
“Locking me inside? For how long?”
“Until we can get you out of here,” I said. “We need to put you someplace safe.”
The basement of Greenworld Enterprises was a small warehouse with shiny linoleum floors and wire shelves stacked with office supplies and retired computer equipment. I led Max to the far corridor of shelving and ran to the end, where a large steel door was built into the wall.
“You should have a key,” I said.
Max pulled a keyring from his pocket.
“There are a dozen keys on here I haven’t figured out yet,” he said.
I snatched the keyring from his hand and flipped through it until I came to a brass key with a square head.
“It’s this one,” I said. I put it in the lock and opened the door.
“Holly, how did you know which key? How did you know about this vault?”
“No time to explain,” I said, pushing him inside.
“But what are we going to do?”
I closed the door behind me and turned the lock.
The vault was no larger than a bedroom. There were boxes on the floors and shelves on the walls. There was a lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Locking Max in here was like putting him in prison. But at least he’d be safe. I had to figure out how to get him out of the Kindle.
“What’s going on out there?” Max said. “What are we doing in here?”
“Max, have you ever read The Mist by Stephen King?”
“No.”
“Well listen to me. In The Mist, a door gets opened between worlds and all sorts of monsters come out and kill everybody.”
“Sounds lovely,” Max said.
“The Mist is on this Kindle,” I said. “So is Dune, Lord of the Rings, and World War Z.”
“World War Z?”
“It’s a zombie novel. The point is, if Voldemort and Yoda found their way into this world, who’s to say all the others won’t find their way in too?”
“But why are they coming here?”
“I don’t know, Max. I’m sorry. I wish I had time to explain it all. I wish I knew what to do. Right now, I feel like the best thing to do is keep you safe, and this vault is the safest place I can think of. I’ll be right back. I promise.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to get back to the real world,” I said. “I need to talk to Christoph and find out what’s happening here.”
“Christoph. You mean me?” Max said.
“Yes….er…no. I’ll be back soon.”
I pulled myself out of the story and was back in the hotel room, sitting at the desk, the Kindle in front of me.
“Welcome back,” came a familiar voice.
I turned to see the man who, until recently, I thought was Max Brody.
“Christoph,” I said. “Right? It’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Holly, it is indeed.”
Chapter 22
“What have you done?” I said. I held up the Kindle and waved it in his face. “Max is trapped inside here. We need to get him out.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Holly,” Christoph said.
Christoph. Yes, this man standing here in Max’s body was Christoph Green. I had been so blinded by his charms that I ignored the obvious. Nothing about the man who spent the past two days with me was like the Max I knew in high school. I should have been skeptical right from the start.
Moving as fast as a snake, Christoph snatched the Kindle from my hands.
“Easy there,” I said. “I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get Max out and then we can all be on our way.”
“Max isn’t coming out, Holly,” he said. He stepped away from me, holding the Kindle out of reach. “It’s better this way. Don’t you see? Out here, Max lived the life of a loser. But in there, he can be a glamorous billionaire. He can live the good life in perpetuity. He will always be young, handsome, and rich.”
“It’s not the good life,” I said. “Something’s gone wrong. All the stories are getting mixed up. Voldemort and Yoda were fighting right outside your office.”
“Yes, an unfortunate side effect, I fear,” said Christoph.
“What side effect?” I said. “What’s happening in there?”
He extended his hand. “Come back to bed, Holly. I came here to be with you. We are meant to be together. Let’s enjoy the night and talk more in the morning.”
“You came here to be with me? What does that mean?”
“It means from the moment you arrived in my world I knew we had to be together. One moment Annabelle was the unassuming new girl on the job, the next she was a brilliant woman with great ideas and a huge personality with many facets.”
“So you came out here to find me,” I said.
“Not at first. At first I thought we would be together in my world, but then you left me and that hideous woman took your place.”
“Vivian,” I said. “What have you done with Vivian?”
“Vivian is fine. She was always fine. She was safe in bed, trapped in the Kindle, happy to be there.”
“It was you,” I said. “You sent the message to me on Facebook. You told me the Kindle was destroyed. And the note from Vivian. You wrote it!”
“Holly, it took me only one day to give you everything you ever wanted. Imagine what I can do for you in a lifetime. Come to bed.”
“I’m not coming to bed with you, Christoph! Tell me how to get Max out of the Kindle!”
The sound of my voice echoed in the small room. From behind Max’s eyes, I could see Christoph looking at me, judging me.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll find a way to make this work. Come here.”
He beckoned me with his hand. “Come on,” he said.
I stepped closer. Big mistake. Before I knew it, Christoph had me in a headlock.
“Stop!” I shrieked. “Let me--”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. He did something to my neck that made me unable to talk. Or breathe.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Holly,” he said. “But you’ll thank me later.”
Have you ever choked? There’s a panic that sets in when you realize you can’t breathe, and yo
u lose control of yourself for a bit.
“This will only be a moment,” he said. “We’ll get you nice and relaxed and..”
With my right foot, I stamped down on his bare toes so hard he yelped in pain and his arm came loose. I took in a deep, cleansing breath of air. Never before had anything tasted as good as that first breath after I was choking. I felt so alive.
And so ready to kick some ass.
“Okay Holly, if you want to play rough--”
He couldn’t finish because I gave him a wicked elbow to the side of the head. He went flying across the room, and my Kindle clattered across the floor. It came to a stop in the far corner. I ran to it and picked it up. Then I grabbed the car keys off the nightstand. As I made my beeline for the door, Christoph got up and put himself in my way.
“You’re not leaving Holly,” he said. “I won’t let you go.”
“You can’t stop me,” I said. “I’ve been trained by Dolph McDougal himself.”
“Dolph McDougal?”
“That’s right,” I said. “It was a free download. Basic Principles of Self Defense.”
“Oh Holly, let’s stop this silliness shall--”
Boom!
That was the sound of my first stretching out and punching through my opponent, just like Dolph had taught me. Christoph fell back in a heap, then staggered away from the door, crashing into the table. With the Kindle under my arm and the car keys in my hand, I ran out of the hotel room. Wearing panties and an Alex English jersey, I left the Marriott in Max Brody’s Ford Explorer.
“Hang in there, Max,” I said as I drove off the lot, the Kindle in the passenger seat. “I’ll find a way to get you out.”
Chapter 23
I drove the Explorer away from the hotel for twenty minutes, with no idea where I was headed or what I was going to do. Should I go back to Albuquerque? Should I go and find Vivian?
The problem was that she was so far away. And what was I going to do when I got there? She wouldn’t know how to get Max back any more than I did.
No, the answer to this was inside the Kindle. This was a magical problem. It needed a magical solution. Maybe I could get help from one of the wizards in the book. I could hit up Harry Potter or Gandalf, or I could get a magical object, like the Amulet of Angoroth from Mane of the Werewolf.
I pulled into a subdivision on the east edge of town, with giant houses set far back from wide roads. I parked on an empty street lined with elm trees. Taking care to ensure the doors were locked, I grabbed the Kindle and rested it on the steering wheel in front of me.
I turned it on and brought up the carousel of books. Flipping through the titles, I realized just how dangerous this device was. What if Max had switched bodies with some super villain intent on taking over the earth? What if that was still going to happen? Who was to say if Christoph came out that other characters couldn’t come out too?
And was I risking further mayhem every time I went inside? What if some other magician was there waiting to switch bodies with me?
No time to think about all that. Max was trapped in there and I had to get him out. I had created this mess. It was my job to fix it. I scrolled through the titles looking for the best one to try, and wondering what I would find when I got there. If Voldemort and Yoda were hanging out in the His Golden Shackles universe, who was in their stories? Might I go into LOTR looking for Gandalf only to find that he had left the novel to go check out a different universe?
Twilight, Vampire Academy, 50 Shades, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, The Help, Life of Pi, a hundred murder mysteries, a hundred more paranormal romances. Who knew what I would find in any of them? Who knew what dangers were lurking inside?
And then I landed on a title that gave me pause. It was a book that had been on the Kindle since Day One, but I had never read it. It was buried away in the books section, never to find placement on the carousel because I never opened it. It was the one title I had never considered opening up and reading after the Kindle became magic, but now it was the only title that seemed to make sense. If there was a solution to this problem, maybe it was here.
About Your Kindle. The first book that came pre-loaded on the Kindle when I bought it. What was going on in there?
I opened up About Your Kindle and began reading.
Congratulations on your purchase of the Kindle Fire, the ultimate….
And then I was inside, and a slim man with a bald head and a goofy grin was speaking to me.
“…the ultimate in books, videos, games, and much, much more,” he said.
He wore a black jacket and a blue dress shirt, and waved his arms as he spoke. He reminded me of the ringmaster at a circus.
Behind him stood a big, beautiful library, with shelves that stretched high into the sky as far as I could see in all directions. It was a vast space, begging to be explored. As I looked on, the bald man continued talking as if I was one member of a large audience before him.
“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?”
He looked at me with a gleam in his eye.
“You are at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize,” he said. “Welcome to the user’s guide for your Kindle Fire!”
“Um…okay. Can you help me? I need to know why my friend is trapped in here, and how I can get him out.”
“Why is a good question,” the man said, stepping closer. “But an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’”
“Who are you?” I said.
He dropped his hands to his side and a serious look came over his face.
“Bezos,” he said. “Jeff Bezos.”
I laughed. “Of course,” I said. “Well, Jeff Bezos, I have some questions for you.”
“I have lots of questions too,” said Jeff. “Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions? Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling? Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love? Will you..”
“Jeff--”
“…Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?”
I got the feeling he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
“Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?”
“Jeff.”
“Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?”
“Jeff Bezos will you listen to me!”
He stopped talking, and looked at me like a curious little puppy.
“Have I made you grumpy?” he said.
“No, I--”
“Because I get grumpy now when I have to read a physical book. It’s had a great 500-year run, but it’s time to change.”
“Okay. Sure. I just want to get my friend out. He’s trapped in here. Can you help me?”
Silence. I was waiting for the next bit of weirdness to come out of his mouth. But then he said, “Yes, I can help you.”
Chapter 24
“What’s the story with this Kindle?” I asked.
“Ah…the story,” said Jeff Bezos. “There is always a story.”
He went up to one of the bookcases on the wall and pulled on the spine of a copy of Moby Dick. The wall swung open, revealing a long hallway on the other side.
“Come with me please,” he said.
I followed him into the hall, which was dark save the brightly colored circuitry flowing through the walls. We walked to the end of the hall, turned down another, and came to an elevator, where Jeff pushed the down button.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To a place where you will arrive,” Jeff said.
The elevator doors opened and we stepped inside. On the wall was a panel with a hundred or more buttons, each of them marked with tiny letters. Looking in close I saw that they read, Central Processor, System Bus, Apps, Docs, Video, USB, Memory Block, and much more. Jeff pushed the button marked Gateway and the elevator started going down.
“Your
Kindle Fire had an unscheduled supernatural upgrade,” said Jeff. “The primary changes were in the Gateway.”
A bell chimed as the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened.
“Welcome,” Jeff said. “Behold the Gateway to the Kindle Fire.”
You could practically hear the glorious music playing as we stepped into the large atrium with the bright, almost endless, picture window in front of us. It was like standing inside a giant cathedral where one wall was made of a single, mountainous pane of glass.
And where a terrifying giant peeked in from outside.
I jumped in surprise at the face outside the glass. At least ten stories tall, the face I was looking at towered over us, its chin looming above my head, its mouth above that, its lips…
“Oh my God, that’s me, isn’t it?” I said.
“She looks a little bigger than you,” said Jeff.
Completely unfazed by the giant Holly face on the other side of the glass, Jeff led me across the atrium. Putting aside nightmare visions of giant me swallowing up little me with a hearty FeeFieFoeFum, I followed Jeff to the center of the floor, where a brilliant white light shone from a hole in the ground. On the floor surrounding the hole was the word Bezoface.
“What’s a Bezoface?” I said.
“You mix an interface with a zuzzkoteer, shake it up in a giddly picket and pour it out again,” said Jeff. “At one time, the Bezoface projected words onto the glass and the story was told in your mind. But then…”
He turned to me, snapped his fingers, and in a high-pitched sing-song voice said, “UPGRADE!”
“This is where the magic happens, isn’t it?” I said. “We’re on the other side of the glass. This is where the reader gets sucked in and becomes part of the story.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” said Jeff. “I mean...the book is not really the container for the book.”
“Huh?”
“The book itself is the narrative. It's the thing that people create. It’s orange, apple, and pear-ative. The fruits you eat on your plate!”
“What are you saying to me?”
“All the words you hear.”
Shaking my head in confusion, I stepped closer to the ‘Bezoface’ and looked down into the light. As a beam of light crossed my forehead, I heard thousands of separate conversations all at once, and jumped back in surprise.
Holly and Her Naughty eReader Page 15
