Elusion

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  Symptoms can vary from user to user, fluctuate between mild and extreme, and can occur while inside the Escape or post-Aftershock. Inside the Escape, the most common phenomenon is false memories (visions projected from the user’s subconscious, consisting of people, places, or things) blending in with the programmed stimuli and what we call an “oasis-effect” (i.e., intoxicating hallucinations associated with the firewall). Behavioral changes have been seen in users after using Elusion as well, which can include impulsivity, obsessive-compulsiveness, and other signs of addiction. (See Index for complete listing.)

  Nanopsychosis can also be linked to instability within the Elusion program software, leading to Escape disruptions and emotional confabulation. This is caused when the brain, wrongly coaxed into a “fight or flight” state, essentially overloads the configurations of the system by a sharp increase of the hormone cortisol.

  As far as solutions are concerned, early studies have shown that sodium pentothal can both minimize these effects as well as intensify the pleasurable reactions for those who are not high responders.

  Possible administration tactics could include topical application to the skin from inside the pressure points within the wristbands, which would be undetectable to users and perhaps even CIT testers. It’s inexpensive to procure as well, so it could be easily absorbed as an additional operating expense in our budget.

  Please advise.

  I nearly drop Avery’s tab to the ground. This memo from Bryce and all the damning evidence that’s in it was sent not to Patrick, but to my father.

  He knew.

  My dad knew Elusion could cause addiction. He knew that it could harm people, kids like me. He knew that it could make us see things that were never there, feel things that weren’t real, watch in terror as the magical world he created turned to dust, lie to the ones we love. And according to the date of the memo, he knew weeks before Elusion was submitted for CIT approval.

  As my feet become anchors, threatening to bring me to my knees, I start to reject everything I just read. There is absolutely no way my father—the man who wanted to build a life of contributions, who wanted to give the beauty of our natural world back to us—could have known that Elusion had the potential to hurt anyone and then pushed ahead with its release. He wasn’t the type of man who would authorize drugging people in order to cover up his mistakes, either.

  “No, this has to be some kind of misunderstanding,” I say, hazarding a glance across the water, because I can’t look either Josh or Avery in the eyes.

  “What’s to misunderstand? It’s all here in black and white,” Avery says, snatching her tab back from me.

  “Hold on, let’s think about this for a minute,” Josh suggests. “So everyone who has shown addiction symptoms, or had hallucinations, are young people, like us, right?”

  “Yes, they’re all under the age of twenty-one. It totally backs up the information in this report,” says Avery.

  “Nora and her friends. They’ve been obsessed with getting behind the firewall. That’s why they started hijacking the signal in the first place. To stay in Elusion until they could find a way to do it,” Josh says.

  I glance back and see Avery nodding her head in agreement.

  She says, “And since symptoms of nanopsychosis vary, you and Regan—”

  “Experienced something totally different,” I murmur, trying not to give in to the pain in my chest that’s threatening to eat me alive from the inside. “Still, if my dad knew about nanopsychosis . . . he would have pulled the plug on Elusion. Or he would have at least put an age limit or something on it.”

  “Are you so sure about that?” Avery shoves her tab back in her bag with the force of a pile driver. “Teenagers are a huge part of Orexis’s consumer market. If we couldn’t use their product, then sales would be cut in half at least.”

  “Or kids would have just bought it on the black market,” Josh adds.

  “Which is why they wanted to add that chemical,” Avery says. “Probably as a short-term solution to the problem.”

  “If they did, it looks like it backfired somehow,” Josh counters. “Or it wasn’t enough to fix things.”

  “But maybe it did fix it, for a little while at least.” These words tumble off my tongue, but it’s as if someone else’s voice is coming out of my throat.

  “What do you mean?” Josh asks.

  “Sometimes people build up immunity to medication if they’re given it over long periods of time,” I say, somehow channeling my mom’s knowledge of all things nursing related. “Drug resistance. Maybe the sodium pentothal worked for a while, but then for some kids, the effectiveness—”

  “Began to wear off,” Avery concludes. “Still, Orexis was willing to gamble with people’s lives. That’s unforgivable.”

  Scary thing is, she’s right.

  I don’t know what comes over me, but I grab her arm so hard I practically dislodge it from the socket. “Were you able to find a response to this memo? Anything that shows what my dad told Bryce to do?”

  “No.” She yanks her arm away, her eyes piercing right through me. “The encryption algorithms on each of these documents were ridiculous; I was up all night running them through advanced decoding software. I nearly freaked when I extracted this one.”

  “What if he never read it? What if it just got lost in the data banks?” I’m grasping at anything that will help my case, but Avery is here, waiting to slap me back to reality.

  “Yeah, the odds of that happening are about zero.”

  I take a seat on one of the benches near the carousel, resting my elbows on my thighs and covering my eyes with my hands so I won’t burst into tears.

  “I just . . . can’t believe any of this,” I say.

  “The facts don’t lie,” Avery snaps. “Your father knew Elusion was dangerous, and there are thousands of people at risk because of him. Now I have the smoking gun I need to take everyone at Orexis down.”

  My hands fall to my sides, my face sizzling with frustration and anger—at her accusations, at the memo, even at myself. Just as I’m about to lash out, Josh sits down next to me, puts his arm around my shoulders, and fires away at Avery.

  “If it weren’t for Regan, you wouldn’t have jack shit, so just shut up, okay?”

  I turn to him, and his lips are pressed together firmly, like he’s holding back.

  “Why are you protecting her?” she growls. “Her dad and her bastard boyfriend are responsible for making Nora sick. Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, telling her to go to hell?”

  “I know you’re scared,” Josh says, calmly. “And when you’re scared, you like to bitch. But yelling at Regan isn’t going to help us find her. You know that, right?”

  “We need to make this public right away,” Avery says, steamrolling right over him. “Patrick is probably already at work on a counterattack, now that he knows about the QuTap.”

  When I hear Patrick’s name, my heart begins to pound. The voice inside my head that’s been convincing me this is all some kind of grand hoax is now asking questions, like, What if Patrick discovered the memo and has been trying to protect your dad all along? What if he’s going to fix everything that’s gone wrong, if you just give him a chance?

  Honestly, I don’t know what to believe. I look around me and it’s as though this world is breaking into fragments and disappearing, like the Mount Arvon Escape. My eyes are playing tricks on me—I’m almost certain that I see metal rungs peeling away from the base of the carousel and floating up into the night sky, as though the moon were a high-powered magnet.

  “Regan?” Josh says, shaking me a little. “Are you okay?”

  “Just give me a minute; I’ll be fine.”

  I don’t think that’s true, but I want it to be.

  Josh’s arm slips away and I feel a vibration on the bench underneath my leg. He checks his pants pocket, so it must be his tab.

  “Poor baby,” Avery says. “Are you worried about your father’s reputation? At le
ast he’s not alive to see it go up in flames. Oops. Bad choice of words, huh?”

  Before I lunge at her, Josh leaps up, waving his tab around like a madman.

  “Oh, shit! It’s Nora!” he says, his eyes two wild pools of golden brown. “She just sent me a text!”

  Avery gasps. “What? Let me see.”

  Josh hands her his tab and I stand up, craning my neck so I can get a look.

  Hate Our New Land, the message says.

  “Huh? What does that mean?” Avery asks, scrunching up her nose.

  Josh and I share a wary glance. This time we’re the ones with a secret. I have to admit, I’d much rather be on this end of it.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he replies. “We just need to track it.”

  I watch as Josh drags his finger across the screen, opening his GPS. It takes only seconds for the message-sender location to be determined, but Avery and Josh look absolutely frantic, like it’s taking years.

  And then we have it.

  49 Flat Rock Rd. QS

  “Oh my God,” says Avery.

  “She’s right outside the trailer” Josh breathes.

  “Let’s go, then!” Avery says, running in the direction of her car. But when she realizes no one is following her, she turns back around. “What the hell, Josh? Are you coming or not?”

  Josh stares at me, the excitement unfurling like pink blossoms on his cheeks. “I have to go.”

  “You sure you don’t have room for one more?” I manage to eke out a smile.

  He’s found Nora. I need to be happy for him.

  “Regan, you don’t have to do this. I understand. Things are . . . different now.”

  “Maybe. But I owe you,” I say. “If my father really is responsible for all this, then I want to do everything I can to make it right. Part of that is helping you bring Nora back home.”

  Avery storms over to us when she sees Josh pulling me in close for a hug. I can tell that she’s about to blow up again—there’s a vein near her right temple that pulsates when she’s reached maximum hostility levels—but Josh thankfully issues a preemptive strike.

  “I’m not going anywhere without her,” he says.

  Forty-Five Flat Rock Road is nothing more than a dented mailbox.

  The house behind it is simply a pile of rubble. Forty-Seven fared a little better; only half the house is missing, leaving part of its interior visible. Thanks to the rising moon and the relatively clear yet code-yellow night, Josh, Avery, and I can make out some of the upstairs rooms, but the downstairs is shrouded in darkness. Then I see it. Number Forty-Nine: a large blue house.

  Although it still seems to have a solid foundation, four of the front windows are shattered and covered with swaths of plastic. There is a gigantic hole in the roof, covered by a black tarp, and from the looks of the sawed-off trees near the side of the house, I figure a heavy branch came crashing down on top of it.

  We hurry toward the steps, their iron railings bent into odd spiral formations, folding out in opposite directions. I hear a crackle of thunder echoing in the distance, which is followed by the sound of wet drizzle tapping on our shoulders. As Avery starts frantically ringing the bell and banging on the door, I pull out my umbrella from my bag, open it up, and try to peer in the right-side window, but the plastic is a little too thick and smudged to see through.

  “Hello?” I say, turning up the volume on my O2 so my voice can travel over a larger distance.

  “Is the lock still working?” Josh asks, moving Avery aside so he can inspect the lockpad.

  “Give me your passcard so I can check,” Avery barks, holding her hand out at me.

  I dig inside my bag, latching on to the card with my fingertips, and give it to her. Once Avery waves the card, a blinking red light appears on the lockpad.

  “Yeah, it’s functioning.” She tosses the passcard to me, and I catch it with my free hand.

  Josh nods his head to the left side of the house. “Maybe we could get in through a broken window or something.”

  “Good idea,” I say.

  He leads us down the steps and along a narrow, muddy path that winds around the house. As we walk by, my eyes trace the layers of blue siding and watch the rain dribble down them. Avery shoves past me, probably because I’m moving too slow for her, but I can’t help it. My legs still feel like they’re made out of solid rock.

  “Okay, here’s one,” Josh says, and then motions to me. “Can I use your umbrella?”

  I hand it over to him and once he closes it, he uses the umbrella to knock away two pieces of jagged glass that are still attached to the window frame, which is about five feet off the ground. Then he hands it back to me and bends over, cupping his hands and weaving his fingers together. “I’ll boost you up.”

  I nod, tossing my umbrella into the bag, and then my bag through the window. I listen to it land and I don’t hear any crunching or crashing sounds, so thankfully it doesn’t sound like there’s anything dangerous on the other side of the wall. I put my foot into the stirrup-like hold Josh has made with his hands and grab on to the windowsill, lifting myself a little bit. Then he hoists me up, very quickly, like I don’t weigh more than a puppy. When I’m level with the window, I swing my free leg over, and then the other. Soon I’m inside the house, my fingers coiled tightly around the strap of my bag, ready to use it to beat off an assailant.

  “You okay in there?” Josh calls out.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Great, I’m sending Avery next.”

  Oh joy.

  I pull my tab out of my bag and initiate its flashlight option, sending a small beam of brightness into the dark room. There’s not much furniture or anything else in here—just a stained carpet and the middle piece of a sectional couch with rips in the green upholstery. Looters must have cleared this place out not too long after the tornadoes.

  I hear a thump behind me and turn to see Avery going from a crouch position to a statuesque pose. She glances around, her eyes heavy with worry, and takes a few steps until she’s standing in the middle of the room.

  “Nora?” she says loudly. “Are you here?”

  No answer. Not a good sign.

  Josh is the next one through the window, and now that we’re all here, we take off our O2s and move forward, heading down a hall with uneven floorboards that leads toward the remains of the kitchen. Crumbled plaster and small pieces of glass litter the once-beautiful mosaic floor like cookie crumbs.

  All of a sudden, we hear a noise. A whimper, maybe? Someone else is in this house.

  “Avery, you check the front rooms,” Josh whispers, reaching for his tab and, taking a cue from me, turning on the flashlight function. “Regan, you stay in the back. I’m going up.”

  “No, I’ll go up,” Avery says, pulling out a tiny bottle with a miniature spray trigger. “I’ve got mace.”

  “Of course you do,” Josh says.

  Avery spins around and I watch her gallop down the hall, until she turns a corner on the right. Josh follows, using his tab’s light to give him better visibility, but makes a left at the end of the hallway. I listen to Avery climb the stairs, each step creaking as she places her weight on it. The creaking stops, and I know she’s reached the top. My heart jackhammers inside my chest as I stand here, alone.

  Then I hear another muffled cry. But it isn’t coming from upstairs.

  I tiptoe over to an open wooden door across from the dining room, which has nothing inside it except for a chandelier that’s dangling from the ceiling by one or two electrical cords. I peer down a flight of dark steps and begin to descend, using the light from my tab as a guide.

  “Nora?” I say, my voice cracking a little.

  I can still hear Avery moving around on the second floor. Where is Josh? I reach the bottom and hold up my light. The floor is granite, regulation material in what were once considered flood zones. And when this house was built, Lake Saint Clair would only have been a block away.

  I hear a muffled noise.
r />   Holding my tab in front of me, I whip around. A girl with short brown hair is cowering in the corner of the room. She’s wearing only a T-shirt and her underwear, curled up into the fetal position on a very thin mattress, shivering. She doesn’t move. In fact, although her eyes are open, she’s staring straight ahead, as if she doesn’t even know I’m there.

  “Regan!” I hear Josh yell from upstairs.

  “Josh!” I scream. “In the basement!”

  “I’m coming!” he shouts back. Then I hear him yell up to the second floor of the house. “Avery! In the cellar!”

  I kneel beside the girl, pulling off my coat and wrapping it around her fragile body. She’s ice cold and barely conscious. I lean over to see if the girl is attached to an Equip, but all I can see from the light of my tab are deep visor imprint marks on her right cheek near her temple.

  Josh bounds down the stairs, his strides wide and frantic.

  “Is it her?” he asks with a blend of fear and excitement in his voice. He drops to his knees, as he sees her, the hopefulness in his face evaporating, which could only mean one thing.

  She’s not Nora.

  There’s a short, agonizing silence that neither one of us dares to break. Then Avery’s voice suddenly shatters the quiet.

  “Where is she?”

  I look up and see Avery hurrying down the basement steps, so fast she nearly trips.

  “Where’s Nora?”

  “She’s not here,” Josh says, standing.

  “What?” Avery stumbles a bit, as if Josh’s words are an actual physical blow.

  He tips his head in my direction, and Avery turns to see me holding the girl who, as selfish as it sounds, we all wished was Nora. I watch helplessly as Avery dissolves into tears in front of me, covering her mouth with trembling hands.

  “Oh my God” is all she can say, over and over again.

  I can’t help but feel sorry for her. When I lost my dad in Elusion—or hallucinated losing him, or whatever—I felt the pain of his death all over again.

  The girl in my arms quivers, and as she starts to blink and moan, I run my palm across her arm a bit, hoping to wake her, but she doesn’t rouse.