by Tracy Deebs
He sighs. “Me, too.”
We sit there for a while, quiet but content—or as close as we can get to content with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. At least until Eli’s stomach growls and shatters our hard-won peace.
“Come on, let’s go.” I leap to my feet, extend my hand to help him up. “I’ll make you some eggs.” It’s a peace offering, and we both know it.
He stares at me for a second, his crazy green eyes lit up with emotions neither of us wants to explore. Then he asks, “Scrambled?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s the only kind I know how to make.”
He grabs my hand, lets me drag him to his feet. “Race ya.” This time, he’s the one who takes off without saying go.
I follow, laughing, as the sun beats down on me. Maybe everything is going to be all right, after all.
Half an hour later, I’m in the middle of cooking Eli’s eggs when my father’s computer lets out one long, high-pitched beep. Theo shouts in triumph, and seconds later my dad slams out of his room. His bare feet slap against the concrete floor as he runs down the hall. Even Eli gets up from his spot on the couch.
“Dude, you’re in?” he asks incredulously.
“I’m in.”
“Awesome!” I run over to see what he’s done, but stop when I see a gun in my father’s hand. A gun that’s pointed directly at the center of Theo’s chest.
“Mitchell! What are you doing?”
“I never thought he’d manage it.” He shakes his head, bemused. “You’re almost as good as I am, kid. I’m impressed.”
Theo doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as blink. He just stares my father down even as his life flashes before my eyes.
Ignoring Eli’s warning shout, I shove between them. It’s my turn to face my father. “Really? You said you wanted to end this thing.”
“I do. Just not yet. One more day and we can turn the game off. If we do it now, it will ruin everything.” The hand holding the gun shakes violently, but he keeps it aimed straight at me.
Which is where I want it. Better me than Theo. From the way he’s snarling behind me, I know Theo disagrees. But I don’t care. I’m betting on the fact that my dad won’t shoot me. And if I’m wrong, then it’s still better me than either Theo or Eli.
“You’ve already ruined everything,” I tell him. “You’re just too stupid to realize it.”
“By tomorrow, the water plants will go out. Shipments will have been disrupted long enough for gas to be a problem, even for the government. Generators will fail, and things will grind to a halt. Forever. It will be beautiful.”
“You’re insane!” I back up so my body is covering as much of Theo’s as possible.
“I’m a visionary. You’ll see.”
“You’re a madman.”
“I’m also your father. And I’m ordering you to move aside.”
“After Theo stops the worm.”
“That’s not an option.” He lifts the barrel of the gun, points it straight at my head. “Step away from the computer, Theo.”
“Theo, don’t …”
But it’s too late. He’s already stepping back.
“Good. Now, Pandora, sit down. We’re going to fix whatever your boyfriend messed with.”
I know I should do what he says. Know that defying him will do nothing, as he can fix it himself anytime he wants. But I won’t do it. There’s no way I’ll sit in his chair and help him destroy the world. He already used me for that once.
My father sees the refusal in my eyes, and his face falls. The gun wavers, and I brace myself for the feel of a bullet ripping through me. But he doesn’t shoot. Even when I’m sure that he will, he doesn’t. Instead, I hear the soft snick of the gun uncocking. And then it hits the ground. Hard.
“Pandora, please. We can change everything,” he pleads.
“You already have.” I bend over, pick up the gun, then turn and walk out the door. Back toward a world turned upside down and an airplane that is almost out of fuel. It won’t get us far, but it will get me away from him. Away from here.
Eli and Theo are behind me as we walk away from my father and all of his empty promises. None of us speak. There isn’t anything to say.
When we get back to the plane, I walk straight to the radio at the front, turn it on. Send out a call for help.
“What are you doing?” Eli demands. “You’re going to get us caught.”
I ignore him, send out another call. I’m doing what I should have done the second I realized where we were. Who we were with.
For long seconds the radio waves are empty, and I’m about to try again when a voice crackles back at me. “This is Sergeant Michael Butler from the Wyoming Police Department. What kind of assistance are you in need of?”
I freeze for a second, try to find my voice even as my heart races. I didn’t let myself hope that someone would really answer. Finally, I take a deep breath and say, “My name is Pandora Walker. My father, Mitchell Walker, is responsible for the Pandora’s Box worm. I’ve found him, here in Wyoming.” Under Eli’s stunned gaze, I give them our GPS coordinates.
The police officer has a lot of questions, but I don’t answer them. Don’t say anything else at all as I reach over and flip the radio to Off. I know the day is coming when I’ll have to give the government a full explanation of everything that has happened. But that day, God willing, isn’t today. Not when there’s still so much at stake.
I turn to say as much to Theo, to tell him and Eli that we have to go, but he’s not standing behind me like I expected him to be. Instead, he’s scrunched into the passenger seat, my laptop on his lap.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
He looks at me then, for the first time since we left my father’s house. Theo’s eyes are fierce, and the smile on his face is even fiercer. He holds up a USB drive.
“What is that?” I ask, trying to grab it.
He holds it out of my reach. “The game matrix.”
I feel my legs go weak beneath me. “You stole it from him?”
“Damn right, I did!” He slides it into one of the empty drives on his laptop. “And now we’ll see if I’m half as clever as I think I am.”
The next few minutes pass in tense, horrifying silence as Eli and I watch Theo’s fingers fly across the keyboard. I shudder, fight fatigue and fear as he tries to work his magic. I refuse to get my hopes up—the disappointment might kill me if it turns out there’s nothing he can do—but I can’t help it. Hope is a fragile feather right below the surface of my consciousness. A stiff breeze will blow it away, but until then—until then—it trembles and shakes in the sharp, prevailing winds of fear and disillusionment.
Finally, when my nerves are frayed and I’m convinced I’ll die if Theo doesn’t say something, he shoves the laptop away from him.
“Well?” demands Eli. “What did you do?”
“See for yourself,” Theo says.
I turn the computer to face me, watch as the walls of Pandora’s Box start crumbling on the screen. “You stopped the game?” I whisper.
“I did more than that,” Theo answers as words and numbers begin scrawling across the screen. “I destroyed it. But before I did that, I traced it into every nuclear power plant it’s touched and dug out the program that took control of the centrifuges. It’s over.”
He points at the screen, which now reads:
Total annihilation in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 days …
“Does that mean what I think it does?” Eli asks, reaching out to trace the numbers on the screen.
Before any of us can answer, the present that started it all takes over the screen. Except this time, instead of opening, it rewraps itself. There’s something inside and I strain to see it. Nearly cry out when I can finally read the word: “Hope.”
Theo’s given it back to the world.
The box grows bigger and bigger until it explodes, little shards of hope raining down over the whole screen—the whole world—like confetti.
“Time to start all over,” Theo says.
“With the game?” Eli asks incredulously.
“With the world,” I tell him. Then I throw my arms around Theo and hug him as hard as I can. “You did it.”
“We did it.” He kisses me, hard, then throws back his head and laughs. Soon Eli and I join him. We stand there for a long time, looking out over the fields that surround my father’s house as we contemplate the idea that our imminent deaths are no longer guaranteed. We might very well live long, productive lives.
They won’t be the lives we had once planned for ourselves, but in this place, at this moment, that doesn’t matter. Nothing does except that we—like so many others—will have the chance to live, after all.
“So,” Eli eventually says. “What do we do now?”
The words carry with them endless possibilities and challenges. For a moment, I’m paralyzed by how much everything has changed and how very much there is left to do. But then I remember his response when I asked that same question only a few days ago.
I gather up my backpack, hand the guys theirs as well. Because if there is one thing this wild nightmare of a ride has taught me, it’s that there is no going back.
Not in the game.
Not in our lives.
Not in anything.
We can only push forward into the new reality set before us. Push forward and hope like crazy that we’re doing the right thing. Because in this world, there are no guarantees.
“What do we do now?” I repeat Eli’s question. “What else?” I say. “We walk.”
As the distant sound of a police helicopter breaks the stillness all around us, I hop down out of the plane. Wait as Theo and Eli do the same. Then, together, we set off in the opposite direction from my father’s little house of horrors.
It’s a brave new world out here, and I, for one, can’t wait to be a part of it.
Acknowledgments
With any book an author writes, there are many people to whom she owes thanks. But with this book, the number of people to whom I owe gratitude surely stretches into the hundreds. This book really did take a village to write and edit and name and design, and I am thankful to each and every person who helped me along the way.
First of all, I need to thank the wonderful and amazing team at Walker Books for Young Readers: Emily Easton, Stacy Cantor Abrams, Laura Whitaker, Donna Mark, Regina Roff, and Patricia McHugh. I know this book has been a major undertaking, and I can’t begin to express how thrilled and grateful I am with the final product. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I also need to thank my dear friends and the other two-thirds of Ivy Adams, Shellee Roberts and Emily McKay, who put up with texts, e-mails, and phone calls at all hours of the day and night while I was trying to work out all the twists and turns of this story. I truly believe this book would never have been written without the two of you, and I appreciate you more than I can ever say.
A huge thank-you goes out to Sherry Thomas, who clipped Stuxnet articles for me, brought me cake, and gave me the swift kick in the butt I so desperately needed to finish the last few chapters of this book. Though I changed it to an airplane in this version, I still call dibs on the Hot Air Balloon idea.
I also owe my husband, intrepid electrical engineer that he is, a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you, honey, for patiently answering the thousands upon thousands of questions I peppered you with while writing this book. I can’t imagine how tired you grew of hearing, “What do you think of …” and “Just tell me if this is possible …” I couldn’t have written Doomed without you.
Thank you, the brilliant Skye White, who patiently brain-stormed with me at the very inception of this book and who first thought up the idea of using an MMO; I owe you more than I can say. Thank you so much.
I also have to thank my ARWA chapter mates Ana Farrish and Jackie Hinson, who answered a million gaming questions for me, no matter how minute, impractical, or just plain stupid they were. You’re the best!
As for my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, who has stuck with me through four pseudonyms, twenty-six books, and countless ideas, I don’t even know what to say. Thanks for being my biggest cheerleader and confidante (and also the voice of reason when I need it most). And thank you, thank you, thank you for saying those ten fateful words that changed everything: “What if Pandora opened an attachment instead of a box?” I can’t imagine making this journey with anyone but you.
To my three terrific sons, who put up with the worst summer on record when I was writing Doomed and Tempest Unleashed back-to-back, thank you so much for being such amazing kids. I really got lucky with the three of you.
And finally, I want to give a huge shout-out to my fans, who have waited and waited for this book to finally hit the shelves. Thank you so, so much for your support and unflagging enthusiasm. You truly make this job a joy for me.
Also by Tracy Deebs
Tempest Rising
Tempest Unleashed
WRITING AS IVY ADAMS
The International Kissing Club
Copyright © 2013 by Tracy Deebs
All rights reserved.
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published in the United States of America in January 2013
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Electronic edition published in January 2013
www.bloomsbury.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury Children's Books,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deebs, Tracy.
Doomed / Tracy Deebs.
p. cm.
Summary: Pandora Walker unwittingly unleashes cyber Armageddon on her seventeenth birthday and must play a virtual reality game in order to save the world.
[1. Virtual reality—Fiction. 2. Computer games—Fiction. 3. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D358695Do 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011050974
ISBN 978-0-80272-396-3 (e-book)
