Elusion

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  “Oh. My. God!” Are we really having this conversation? “It’s not what you think!” I shout.

  Her arm drops and she looks almost hurt. “If you don’t want to tell me about him . . .”

  “It’s not from my boyfriend,” I say, exasperated. “There is no boyfriend.”

  She twirls the note in her hands, hesitating.

  “Read it,” I insist.

  She looks at me for a second and then nods, taking her time as she opens the paper, folding out the corners and crinkles. Her eyes cloud with concern as she holds it up for me to see, as if I don’t already know what it says.

  HATE OUR NEW LAND

  HATE OUR NEW LAND

  HATE OUR NEW LAND.

  “Did you . . . write this?” she asks, horrified, like her suspicion about me being schizophrenic has been confirmed.

  “It’s not mine,” I say quickly. “A friend’s sister wrote this before she went into Elusion—and now no one knows where she is.” If my mom is involved in a conspiracy regarding my dad’s death, I want her to know that I’m determined to find the truth. “I think it’s an anagram. Something to do with Elusion.”

  “An anagram?”

  I don’t blame her for being surprised. I felt the same way myself when I first saw it. “It’s like the word puzzles Dad and I used to play.” I pick up my tab and, grasping the stylus hard with my fingers, I rearrange the letters, showing her how I figured it out. “I don’t think this is a coincidence.” I hold up my tab to demonstrate what I’ve done. “‘Hate Our New Land’ spells out ‘Walden’ and ‘Thoreau.’ And Josh found this paper at the warehouse where he last saw his sister.”

  “So . . . ,” she says carefully, as she sits back down beside me. She puts the paper on my bedside table as she picks up the copy of Walden. “You think your dad left you this book so you could figure out a message from Josh’s sister?”

  When she says it like that, it sounds crazy. “No. I don’t even know if he knew Nora. But I think he left that copy of Walden in his lockbox—and that other one in his office—for a reason,” I say. “It’s a clue. Dad knew I was the only one who could figure this out.”

  “And what does it have to do with Elusion?”

  “I don’t know.” That’s the one piece of the puzzle that remains out of my grasp.

  “I see,” she says, biting her lower lip. She looks away, embarrassed. “And you came up with this all on your own. This Josh didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  This Josh?

  “Patrick told me what’s going on,” she admits. “He’s worried about you.”

  A stinging burst of cold pummels me right in the back. Of course. Patrick is blaming everything on Josh.

  When I left Patrick’s apartment, I could’ve sworn I saw love in his eyes. And I knew then that any transgression I made against him would cause double the hurt and anger. I don’t regret stealing the info on the QuTap, but I know only too well the power of love and betrayal. The pain over Patrick’s deceit has driven my desire to pursue the truth at whatever the cost. And now, apparently, Patrick’s returning the favor by getting my mom involved.

  “So Patrick called you?”

  “No. When I couldn’t get ahold of you, I called him. I knew that once those stories about Elusion broke, you would’ve wanted to make sure he was okay,” she explains. “We didn’t talk long. But he did tell me that you’ve done something out of character. That this Josh Heywood is a bad influence on you. Patrick told me all about his sister—that she ran away and he’s blaming it on Elusion.”

  The burst of cold gnawing at my back quickly turns into a hot knife digging into my skin.

  “I can’t believe he . . .” I stop. “What else did he tell you?”

  “He begged me to talk with you. And stop you from seeing Josh,” she adds.

  I roll my eyes and let out a chilling laugh. “He’s warning you about me and Josh? That’s hilarious.”

  My mom pats me on the leg, running her hand along the needlework of the quilt. “Listen to me, Regan. Whatever you and Patrick are fighting about, you should just let it drop for now.”

  “Oh really? Why?”

  “Because Patrick has always been there for you, and he needs you. The project is in real trouble.”

  “I can’t do it,” I say.

  “Yes, you can,” she says. For a moment, I allow my eyes to meet hers, and all I see is sweetness. But then she says, “Besides, your father wants us to stick by Pat, and defend him the best we can.”

  Wants. Present tense.

  “You’re wrong,” I say as I pull the copy of Walden out of her hands. “And this is why,” I add, holding the book up as proof. “I’ve read Walden from cover to cover at least a dozen times since I got home from Patrick’s apartment.” Then I grab my tab and start scrolling through the notes I took. “It’s all about self-reliance—going out into the wild and finding our own ways to survive. If anything, the creation of Elusion seems to have led in the opposite direction, to dependency. Patrick has changed Elusion. He’s turned it into something that Dad would never have approved of. People are getting hurt. I can’t sit by and let this happen.”

  “Oh, Regan.” Her hand slowly pulls back from my leg, and her eyes dim. “Patrick was right. You’ve done something, haven’t you? What aren’t you telling me?”

  I hesitate briefly, wondering if she’s strong enough to take what I’m about to reveal, but then I think about all I’ve done to look after her, like she said a moment ago, and I feel like she owes me that in return, especially now. But the actual magnitude of what I’ve done doesn’t sink in all the way until I’m ready to confess.

  So I blurt it out and get it off my chest as fast as I can.

  “I broke into Dad’s old quantum computer at Orexis. Then I copied a bunch of encrypted files onto a QuTap and stole them.”

  The stoic look on my mom’s face evaporates in a heartbeat or two. In its place is a cloud of shock.

  “Oh my God. Regan, that’s . . . that’s a—”

  “Felony? I know.”

  She stands up and begins to pace, her hands firmly propped on her hips. “Why? Why would you do something . . . extreme like this?” I can hear the disappointment in her voice.

  “It’s because of this Josh, isn’t it?” she adds. “Did he make you do this?”

  “No! This was my idea.” I can no longer hold in the emotions I’ve been bottling up for days. I blink back the tears forming in my eyes and turn my head in embarrassment as they begin to fall by the hundreds. “I wanted to find out what was wrong with Elusion.”

  “Orexis is responsible for fixing Elusion, not you,” she replies, her tone softening a bit. “Your father understands that there are hidden flaws in any invention. Sometimes accidents are unpreventable.”

  “But they aren’t being responsible, and I don’t think this is an accident. That’s why I had to do this.” I set Walden down on the mattress and spring off the bed, stepping in front of her. I spread my arms out a little so she’ll stop moving. “Patrick has been lying to me. Lying to all of us. He denied there were problems with Elusion. That people were addicted. That people could be harmed. But when I began to investigate things, I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. So I needed to force his hand. Don’t you see? I had to do this.”

  My mom raises a skeptical eyebrow and sets the back of her hand upon my forehead. Then her mouth hangs opens a little bit, her lips forming a circle of worry.

  “And what about me, Regan? Do you suspect me as well?”

  I run my hands through my hair, like Josh does when he’s trying to think straight. It doesn’t help, though.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I stammer. “When I went to Elusion last week, I saw Dad. He held me and talked to me. It was so real, Mom. He even warned me about Elusion—and then he was somehow snatched away. He disappeared into the firewall.”

  Mom doesn’t say anything in response. She just sits down on the edge of my bed, staring at me, totally stunne
d.

  “Patrick said it was some kind of glitch. That he wasn’t really there. I mean—how could he be, unless he was still alive?”

  “Regan,” my mom says. She’s barely breathing. “You can’t think . . .” She stops, as if the mere thought is too incredible to even mention.

  “I had to at least look at the possibility. Think about it. That box from Orexis with the book inside. He left his passcard here—who does that? And there wasn’t any body. HyperSoars can be controlled remotely. . . . And then I found the prescription you wrote him, for Zolpidem.”

  I wrap my arms around myself, and although I can feel my temperature rising and my head becoming fuzzy, I press on. “I thought, maybe he became addicted to trypnosis. And maybe you were helping him stay inside Elusion.”

  “You thought I lied to you about his death? Why? Why in the world would I do something like that?” Mom says, choking back her own tears.

  “Because you didn’t want to tell me the truth—he left me. He left you. He walked away from our family by choice. And he was never coming back.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she says, taking my hands in hers and then this alarmed expression flashes across her face. “You’re burning up.” She places the back of her hand on my forehead. “How long have you been sick?”

  “I’m not sick!”

  “You are. You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

  My tongue is thick with suspicion right now. It seems like she wants nothing more than to drop this conversation as soon as possible.

  “You don’t want to talk about this, do you?”

  “You’re too feverish to think straight. You need rest.”

  “No, I need you to stop lying to me,” I snap. “I need you to tell me the truth about Dad and why you were writing him prescriptions for a drug that’s strong enough to wake people out of comas. Then I’ll get some rest, okay?”

  I didn’t expect to go after her like this. And I didn’t expect the pain to be so visible on her face when I did. What’s happening to me? I can’t be sure, but whatever it is, I’m powerless to stop it.

  “Honey, I’d give anything to have your father hidden away somewhere, whatever the reason. And I’d gladly tell all the lies in the world to bring him back from the dead.”

  “But he is . . . dead?”

  She looks confused for a moment and then nods, letting go of my hands and turning away from me. “That prescription for your father was for chronic insomnia. He wasn’t sleeping at all when Elusion was getting ready to be sent before the CIT; he was so worried about what might happen. That his life’s work might be rejected.” Her voice cracks every now and then, and each time, it’s like I’m cut into more pieces. I’m afraid I’ve pushed her too far, and when she turns around—her face pale, her eyes weary—that fear is more than realized.

  “I wrote him the script because when he didn’t sleep for a couple of days, he would run a high fever and get some flu-like symptoms,” she continues. “Blurry vision, mood swings. Kind of like—”

  “How I’m feeling.” I bow my head, my shoulders caving in with humiliation. “But why do you talk about him in the present tense sometimes, and keep all his things the way they were?”

  “I read somewhere that it helps with grief,” she says meekly. “It makes me feel closer to him, to think that his presence is still with us in some way.”

  I know I should be relieved that I’m wrong about my mother, but I’m so ashamed to have doubted her at all. I’m also strangely hopeful in this moment, like there’s a chance she might be wrong about my dad and he’s out there, somewhere, in need of my help. Still, when she walks toward me and gently eases me into a hug, I don’t feel very deserving of her comfort after what I’ve just put her through. But then I notice how she’s shuddering, and I feel a wetness collecting on the back of my shirt.

  Soon it’s clear that I’m suddenly comforting her. God knows how far this encounter might have set her back in her recovery, so I decide not to divulge anything else that might counteract the progress she’s made. No more details about Elusion.

  My mom needs to be well. I can’t ruin that.

  She releases me, clearing her throat. “So have you found out why you saw your father in Elusion?”

  “No. I hope that information is somewhere on the QuTap,” I say. “Someone else is analyzing it now.”

  She smiles a little bit, sort of like she might be oddly proud of me. “Why don’t you lie down, okay? I’m going to make you a little something to relax. Then if you’re feeling well enough later, we’ll call Clarence Reynolds about all this and see what he has to say.”

  “Isn’t that . . . Dad’s lawyer?”

  “Yes. I think we should tell him what’s happened. I’m sure he can give us some good advice about what to do next,” she says, as she stands. “I promise you, Regan, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you. As long as I live.”

  Just after six thirty p.m., my eyes finally open. I can’t believe that I’ve been asleep for over twelve hours. I guess instead of waking me up for a call to the offices of Gruber, Lewis & Reynolds, my mother decided that it was best if I woke up on my own.

  I’m still groggy from the small dose of Zolpidem she gave me from my father’s old stash—the powder form dissolves really well in hot water, so she brewed me some spiked herbal tea. I can see why my dad used it for insomnia, because within minutes of the first sip, I was so drowsy I could barely sit upright.

  I make my way down to the kitchen and see that Mom has already left for work. There are a few new dirty dishes loaded in the dishwasher, and she left me a note on the clear carbon-fiber counter backsplash:

  Call me @ hospital if you need anything. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Love you.

  My head buzzes as I defrost a peanut butter pocket sandwich. As the seconds tick down on the digital clock of the microwave, my brain begins to recharge, facts and figures blowing up like fireworks.

  Patrick has less than a day to recall Elusion.

  Avery still has the QuTap. If Patrick calls my bluff, what will I do?

  Three lives hang in the balance, with more possibly in danger.

  The microwave beeps the moment I remind myself that “Hate Our New Land” spells out “Walden Thoreau.” I didn’t have the chance to really examine this connection because my mother interrupted me, and now is not an ideal time to make sense of it either, because I’m stuck in an Aftershock-like limbo where my mental faculties aren’t very sharp. But I do know that this is another link between Nora and my father. Leading where, though?

  I pull my plate out of the microwave and walk over to the living room couch, plopping down on the center cushion and activating the InstaComm wall with the remote. Four video messages are listed—two for my mother and two for me. I highlight the icon with my school photo and then click on it, revealing two screen grabs side by side—the one on the right is of Josh, time-stamped at 4:31 p.m., and the other is of Patrick, time-stamped at 3:02 p.m. I stare at them both, comparing the different contours of their faces, which is totally irrelevant right now, I know, but my thoughts are still fuzzy and hard to control.

  With his sparkling blue eyes and chiseled features, Patrick is definitely more classically handsome, someone you’d notice while walking over a pedestrian bridge during rush hour with the hope that he’d bump into you. But there’s something about Josh—with his slightly asymmetrical face and the small gap in his teeth and the barely there hair—that makes it impossible for me to get his image out of my mind.

  So I click on his message first, knowing in the back of my mind that the logic I just used is particularly skewed, given the dire circumstances.

  Josh’s image flashes to life when I hit Play and the first thing I think is that the life has been drained from his amber eyes. I’m able to push hard through the brain fog, and suddenly I fear that there’s bad news about Nora, or he’s about to tell me that Avery plans to annihilate me along with Patrick.

  “Hey, Regan. You weren’
t in school today, so I’ve . . . been worried about you. I know you don’t want to talk, but there’s so much I want to say to you.”

  The sincerity in his voice peels back layer after layer of distrust away from my heart. And I recognize that exhausted look on his face all too well. I want to let him back in, more than anything—for both our sakes. Going through this ordeal alone is just too much to bear. But how can I trust him again, knowing that he turned to Avery? Will there ever be a good enough reason to justify that?

  “If you just give me a chance, I can make you understand everything. I know it. Please message me back.”

  The image freezes on Josh’s profile when the message is over, and I can’t move my gaze from his lips. They look so sweet and delicate, but I know from experience just how strong and seductive they are. Or at least I thought I knew. Now I’m more than aware of how Elusion is a distortion of reality, and anything felt or seen inside that virtual reality is impossible to trust. Regardless, Josh and I shared something together once, and as the resolution fades on his image, I feel like I should reach out to him, even if it’s simply to tell him that I managed to break the code in Nora’s note.

  But instead of selecting the Contact InstaComm Caller option, I minimize Josh’s window and decide to watch Patrick’s message. When I click on it, Patrick’s image fills the screen, his skin ashen and his brow trickling with sweat. I can tell from the background that he’s at his apartment, not at work, which is highly strange for him at three in the afternoon.

  “Ree, I need to see you. It’s really important. No one can know we’re talking and you shouldn’t contact me on my tab—I think it’s bugged.”

  I turn up the volume on the screen; his voice is but a jittery, paranoid whisper. I can’t help it, but my childhood instincts rear up and my heart begins to ache for him a little bit.

  “Meet me in Elusion. I promise, it’s safe—this Escape is under construction and not open to the public. Tonight at nine. Special invite code twenty-three hundred and one. You have to come—”

  He’s about to say something else, but the message is paused when a security alert flashes on the screen in bold red letters—Visitor Request: Heywood, Josh. I click on the View Camera One prompt and instantly I have a clear picture of the front of our house. Josh is standing on the porch wearing a black jacket and holding his motorcycle helmet. His back is to the camera, which makes it easier for me to consider clicking on Deny Access—I still haven’t made up my mind about him. But then he turns to face the camera, and even with his O2 shield on I notice the tightness in his cheeks, and how the corners of his mouth are sinking. No matter how hard I try to steel myself, my anger begins to unravel and I just can’t put him off anymore.