Elusion

by kindle@abovethetreeline. com

  “You’re wrong, Ree,” Patrick says, shaking his head. “There were parts of the Elusion creation process that even I wasn’t involved in. I’m great with coding and designing the Escapes, but the trypnosis application has never been my specialty.”

  “Oh really? Then whose is it?”

  “Bryce. Your dad chose him personally to run that division.”

  “So what? As soon as Josh told you about Nora, you had to have known the sodium pentothal wasn’t working. You keep coming up with excuses, Pat. Problems with the app being downloaded, signals being hijacked because a new company is hosting the server—you’ve got a reason for everything. And you haven’t done anything about it.”

  The breeze is turning into a full-blown wind, and I wrap my arms across my chest, trying to fend off the cold. “It’s like you’re in total denial. You can’t bear to admit you might actually be failing.”

  “I’m not going to fail,” Patrick says.

  “It’s not a crime to fail. But if you keep denying it—”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, Ree!” Patrick insists.

  “Then prove it,” I say. “Take me behind the firewall.”

  Patrick lets out a sigh, and I can tell he’s still holding back. “No,” he says simply.

  “Why not?” I ask. My heart pushes against my rib cage and I feel a little breathless. “Are you worried I’m going to suffer from nanopsychosis?”

  When he spins around, I stare him down, trying to make a connection. But it’s like there’s barely any life left in his eyes.

  “What if . . . you’re already sick?” he says, his lower lip trembling a little. “This stuff about the firewall, it’s nonsensical. I’ve told you that already. People are hallucinating things. Maybe even you.”

  “No, I was just with a girl who stayed too long in Elusion, and she said the exact same things my father told me when I saw him on that beach,” I say defiantly. “If anything, that proves that I’m not hallucinating a thing.”

  “How?”

  “Nanopsychosis can cause hallucinations based on subconscious memories. This girl would have to needed to know him in real life in order to dream him in Elusion. And there’s no way she could have known what he told me, unless he reached out while she was inside one of the Escapes and told her, too,” I say with conviction.

  But Patrick is not convinced. “You sound crazy. You know that, right?”

  “I don’t care what you think. I’m going to find the firewall, Pat. And if you won’t go with me, I’ll go alone.”

  “No, you won’t,” says a voice.

  I turn around, and Josh is standing not more than ten feet away from us, wearing jeans and a blue long-sleeved knit shirt. He looks healthy and strong, like he did when I first met him at Patrick’s party. “I’m going with you.”

  As much as I want to throw my arms around him, I know that this is the worst thing that could have possibly happened right now.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Patrick barks at Josh. Then he whips around, his face just inches from mine, his eyes blazing. “Did you invite him?”

  “Regan didn’t have anything to do with it. I stole the code off your InstaComm message,” Josh says to Patrick. Then he takes my hand and pulls me away. “After you left, I really started to worry. I didn’t like the idea of you being in here, especially after what we saw.”

  “Oh, that’s rich,” Patrick says, rolling his eyes. “You came here to protect her? How in the hell would you do that?”

  “I’ve already lost one person I care about to Elusion. I’m not about to lose another.”

  “I have some bad news for you. I’m afraid Regan’s little crush is affecting her mental capacity,” Patrick says. “She’s not thinking straight.”

  I feel my face get warm the way it does when I blush, but it only lasts for a second. I’m about to counter his snide remarks when I’m beaten to the punch.

  “If there’s something wrong with Regan or anyone else, that’s on you,” Josh says, calmly raising an eyebrow.

  Patrick doesn’t take criticism well, especially from someone like Josh, someone he views as competition. He shoves Josh in the shoulder to break Josh’s physical contact with me.

  “Ever since you met Regan, you’ve been trying to drive a wedge between us. You’ve known her for a week, Josh. A fucking week!”

  “This has nothing to do with Josh. We just want this mess to be over,” I say, reaching for Patrick’s arm. He moves away, as if he’s suddenly disgusted by the thought of me touching him. I’ve never seen him this upset.

  “Fine, you want me to take you to the firewall?” Patrick says, gnashing his teeth. Then he grabs hold of my wrist and twists, hard. “Then he goes home! Now!”

  “Get your hands off her!” Josh steps in front of me, squaring off against Patrick, his knuckles turning white when he bares two clenched fists.

  Without warning, I hear a crashing sound from above. A stark sense of dread spreads through me as dark red clouds spill across the heavens like pools of thick, clotting blood. “Or what?” Patrick asks. He lets go of my wrist, carelessly pushing me to the side. I stumble backward a little and almost land on my rear, but I catch myself by grabbing on to an old, dying tree.

  That tree wasn’t there a few seconds ago.

  Or was it?

  “You’re going to hit me?” Patrick gets right in Josh’s face, angry spittle flying from his mouth. “Bring it on, you bastard.”

  Another loud crackle temporarily cuts through the tension among us as the dark red clouds begin to herd together and partially block the green numbers that were once flickering in the sky.

  “You used Regan to get to me. Admit it!” Patrick shouts, just as a small white butterfly flutters in front of me, winding its way through the air in tiny circles and landing right on my collarbone.

  I’ve never seen any live creature before in Elusion, so I’m completely stunned by its presence. All of a sudden I can’t hear anything but muffled voices or feel scared about what might be happening. It’s as though this butterfly seems to have silenced the world, just for me. I put my fingertips below its legs so it can rest on my hand, and then I bring it up for a closer look. Right away I notice a glint of gold on its wings, and I’m reminded of a line from those children’s books I loved.

  The butterfly with flecks of gold

  Was so beautiful to behold.

  Patrick must have remembered. That innocent time when he and I were simply best friends who told each other everything. Even now I can see that caring child within him, buried deep below the surface of this troubled young man who can’t seem to tell right from wrong.

  “I’m not going to fight you, Patrick,” Josh says, backing away from him.

  I wiggle my fingertips, and instead of flitting away, the butterfly disappears before my eyes.

  “Okay, fine,” I say to Patrick. “Josh goes home and you take me to the firewall.”

  Josh looks at me, his eyes registering his surprise. “What are you doing?”

  I try to stay focused on Patrick. I can’t worry about what Josh is thinking, nor can I let my personal feelings for him affect my actions.

  “I have a better idea,” Patrick says. “How about we go home together and get that QuTap back from Josh and his little friend Avery before they drag you down with them? If that information is released, I can’t prevent Orexis from going after you. And you will go to jail, Regan. I don’t think your mom needs to be dealing with that right now, do you?”

  Bringing up my mom is blatant manipulation. He, of all people, knows how much I’d give to protect her and spare her from suffering more pain. But I can’t allow my feelings for her to prevent me from doing what I know is right. And if he thought that mentioning her would make me change my mind, he’s sadly mistaken.

  Patrick reaches for my arm and I yank it away. “Keep your hands off me!” I shout.

  “I’m taking you home, Ree!” This time he succeeds in grabbing my arm and reaches for
my wristband.

  He wants to send me home just like he did after I saw my dad. There’s no way I’m letting him do it again.

  “No!” I yell.

  Josh rips Patrick’s hand away from me, tossing him aside as he steps in between us. Patrick lunges at Josh, but Josh ducks, dodging the blow. Patrick lands face-first on the gritty, gold-colored ground, rolling a few feet over crushed stalks before landing flat on his back.

  “Give it up,” Josh says to Patrick, his tone hushed and intense. It’s obviously taking all of his effort to stay calm. “This all needs to stop.”

  “I decide when things stop,” Patrick snorts, rushing Josh again and slamming into him. Both of them are knocked to the ground. My shoulders tense and my sides ache from my quick breathing when Josh flips Patrick over, pinning down his arms and incapacitating him.

  “Have you thought about what releasing the QuTap will do to Regan?” Patrick shouts as he writhes under Josh. “You don’t care what happens to her, do you? You only care about yourself.”

  The ground rumbles below our feet, and suddenly the prairie begins to morph into a wasteland as the golden stalks multiply, rising upward and transforming into giant black pillars of rock. A piece breaks away and hits me in the back, knocking me down.

  Josh jumps up from Patrick and comes to my aide. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “The Escape is being destroyed,” I say, clutching his hands as he pulls me to my feet. “It’s like what happened on Mount Arvon!” Before he can respond, Patrick hits Josh with a sucker punch from behind, causing him to fall to the ground. Patrick is about to go at Josh again, but I throw myself at him, grabbing on to him with both hands, holding him away from Josh.

  “Are you insane?” I yell to Patrick. “Stop!”

  My protest seems to slap him back to reality, if only for a moment, and he wrestles away from me.

  I dash back to Josh and help him to his knees, gently cradling his head in my hands.

  “So this is the way it is, Ree?” Patrick shouts. “You choose him?”

  The golden wheat field is almost gone, rotting away before our eyes as if it’s being consumed by some terrible disease.

  Patrick’s face is so red and filled with hatred I barely recognize him. “I’m not going to stand in your way, Regan. I just hope you realize what you’re doing.”

  Then he looks away from me, pressing a button on his wristband. And just like that he’s gone, vanishing into a large blast of radiant white light.

  The quakes from below are becoming more frequent and intense. “We need to get to the firewall.” I say, glancing at my wristband. My heart stops when I see that the dial is flashing a red warning that I’ve never seen before.

  TIME EXPIRED

  “Something’s wrong,” I breathe. “My wristband is saying that our time expired.”

  Josh shoves up his sleeve, looking at his wristband. His jaw drops. “Mine says the same thing,” he says.

  “This can’t be right,” I say, giving the face of my wristband a little tap, as if that might help reset it. “We haven’t been here longer than an hour—have we?”

  “Press your emergency escape, Regan. Now!”

  I press the button. Nothing happens.

  Josh presses the button on his own wristband.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Nothing.

  “This Escape is under construction,” I say, trying to keep calm. “Maybe the emergency button isn’t connected—”

  “Or maybe he disabled it,” Josh interjects. His voice shakes a little, but I can’t tell if he’s frightened or furious. I can see sweat glistening on his forehead.

  “No, he wouldn’t, would he?”

  “Could he have done something to your wristband when he grabbed you?”

  “If you’re right, then maybe the fight with you was just a ruse so he could get to your wristband too. Or maybe he did it by remote, disabling our wristbands somehow?”

  But when?

  The next shift of the earth beneath us sends us tumbling onto our backs. As I look up, I see that the crimson clouds have all but vanished, but the numbers in the night sky are brighter than when I first got here. They begin to flicker erratically, and then one by one grow crazy bright, each one popping like a lightbulb when it receives too much current.

  “What’s happening?” I can’t hide how freaked out I sound.

  Josh swallows, and I can see the fear on his face. “Those numbers look like source codes. I think we’re reading what the programmer is logging in.”

  Right now.

  Someone in the real world is typing in a code.

  Someone who wants to hurt us.

  Someone who wants to cause us pain.

  The speed of the exploding numbers gets faster and faster until there are none left and the whole sky goes from ink black to angel white. When Josh and I come up to our knees, there’s just a hazy afterglow as all the light fades. For a second, the world around us is cast into total blackness. It’s as if I’m suddenly blind, as if Patrick has buried us alive. And then suddenly a sequence of white letters appears in the dark sky above us.

  ADMINISTRATOR LOCKOUT.

  The letters stay frozen in place, our only source of light.

  “This was all a trap,” Josh murmurs. “I think he planned this from the start!”

  At first I don’t believe it, but as I stare at those words, I’m chilled to the core by the truth. I want to scream at the sky, cursing Patrick’s name, but suddenly the earth shifts so violently Josh and I are torn apart from each other, flying through the air. I land on my side, my leg scraping against a sharp rock. I feel a stab of pain as deep magenta-colored blood oozes out of a nasty-looking gash.

  A pain that only gets worse when I hear my father’s voice from long ago, assuring me, You can’t get hurt in Elusion.

  “Regan!” Josh yells. He’s been thrown hundreds of feet away, but he’s already picked himself up and is running back toward me.

  “You’re bleeding,” he says.

  I push myself up, wiping away the blood that is trickling down my leg. It feels wet against my hand, dripping down onto my arm.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “It’s just a scratch,” I say. I attempt to stand, but my leg folds in pain.

  Josh grabs me by the waist, steadying me as he eases us back to the ground, his eyes focused on my wounded leg. “It’s more than a scratch.”

  He slips his shirt off over his head. His bare torso is sinewy, muscular like an athlete. He holds either side of the shoulder seam and tears, ripping off one sleeve and then the other.

  He kneels beside me, wrapping the sleeves of his shirt tightly around my leg. “This should stop the bleeding.” He puts what remains of his shirt back on and reaches underneath me as if he’s about to carry me.

  “I can walk,” I insist, pushing him away.

  My guilt won’t allow me to accept his kindness. I’m the reason Josh is stuck here—I agreed to meet Patrick, and it looks like it was all a big setup.

  I was an idiot to have ever believed in him.

  There’s a loud roar and the ground in front of us explodes as if a bomb has dropped. Clumps of dirt fly through the air, covering us in soot. I gag and attempt to yank the neck of my shirt up to screen my nose and mouth. But it’s useless. Dust is everywhere.

  A stone’s throw away from us, a gigantic mound of gray rock and soil begins to rise up out of the middle of the crater, moving upward. Josh takes my hand and together we scoot backward, faster and faster, watching in awe as the earth continues to shake and reconfigure itself. In only seconds, the rock is looming over us, growing taller and taller as its base continues to spread.

  Twenty feet, thirty feet, forty . . . it continues to grow as we move, the hole in the earth widening to accommodate it.

  “It’s a mountain,” I breathe, as it sprouts above us. Unlike the rest of our surroundings, this mountain looks real, brown and gray, like some of the pictures my dad showed m
e when he was designing Elusion.

  The earth gives a final, violent jerk, as if spitting out the painful last remnants, and stops.

  At its peak, carved into the block of granite, deep and distinctive, are the same numbers that were written on the girl’s hand, the same numbers that were written on the wall of the warehouse and in the sand the night I saw my dad.

  5020.

  “It’s Mount Monadnock,” I whisper as the numbers begin to glow. “It’s in New Hampshire—Emerson and Thoreau wrote about it.”

  Josh comes to his feet, regaining his balance but cautiously, like he’s waiting for the ground to move again. When it doesn’t, he straightens, staring up at the numbers. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. He used to have a picture of this on his tab.” I forget all about my injured leg as I push myself up. The number, the mountain that he himself pointed out to me on his tab. I know we’re in Elusion right now, but there is no doubt in my mind.

  This is real.

  My father is trying to send me a message.

  “Dad!” I scream out, my voice echoing over the ruined prairie.

  As I move toward the mountain, there’s another tremor—this time accompanied by a sharp electric current that flashes like the streak of a comet’s tail. I stumble forward and collide with Josh, my face against his chest.

  I still don’t know what those numbers mean, nor do I understand why a mountain that my father loved has suddenly burst into the Escape, but there’s only one way to find out.

  “We need to get to the firewall,” I say.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  SEVENTEEN

  WE’VE BEEN WALKING FOR WHAT FEELS like miles, but every couple of minutes, I jolt to a stop.

  “Did you hear something?” I ask for the umpteenth, trillionth time.

  “This?” Josh says, stepping on one of the crumbled stone reeds. “Just me.”

  A prickle of disappointment crawls up the back of my neck. Ever since I saw that mountain with 5020 etched into the peak, I’ve been on alert for my dad’s tall figure or his dark hair—convinced he might materialize in a fraction of a second. But the only sound we’ve heard for what feels like hours is the ground crunching underneath our feet as we shuffle through a foggy yet parched world like the living dead.