by Julie Hyzy
“Will he be okay?” Stewart asked, trying to read the seriousness of the situation from the older paramedic’s face, but the man wouldn’t make eye contact. Neither would the young guy.
The younger, short and Hispanic, dragged a clipboard out from under the gurney as his partner wheeled Jason toward the door and out to the waiting ambulance. “Next of kin?” he asked Stewart.
“I…I have that information on file. Just a minute.”
Torn between distress over Jason’s well-being and alarm for Kenna in the nearby capsule, Stewart hesitated.
Behind him, the console emitted a series of chirps alerting him to dangerous distortions in Kenna’s vital signs. Stewart moved toward the control panel.
Halfway out the door, the veteran paramedic said, “We’ll get the patient’s info from you later.” His voice was strained. “Let’s go, José. The patient is in shock.”
As the younger man hurried to join his partner, Stewart called out. “Please,” he said. “What if Kenna needs help?”
José alternated glances between his partner and Stewart. The other medical tech raised his voice to be heard as he headed out the door. “We’ll radio for another team for her.”
Stewart had expected Kenna to emerge from the program any moment now. She should have returned with Jason.
The ambulance departed AdventureSome with a mournful wail. Stewart pressed his thumb and fingers into his eye sockets. His head throbbed, his eyes burned, and his stomach chugged sour. What was taking Kenna so long to disengage?
FIFTY-EIGHT
Feet planted wide, gun pointed downward, Kenna panted over the dead beast. Her entire body heaved with each breath. She stank of sweat and fear and fury. Every pore oozed pure hatred. Blood ran down her face and dripped on the floor. She had no idea where she’d been cut.
“Kenna,” Patrick rasped.
As she hurried over to him, a scuffle behind her made her spin, knees bent, rifle ready. “Reload,” she called.
Ready for the creature to rise up again, she remained utterly still, waiting, watching, hearing nothing but echoes in her head and Patrick’s labored gasps next to her.
The creature moved.
“Damn you,” she said under her breath.
It didn’t, however, leap up. Didn’t resurrect itself like some hideous monster from a horror flick. The Tate-wolf’s image buzzed—a noise that didn’t come from within the creature but from around it. The werewolf’s right claw trembled, then began to shrink.
Humming, the claw’s knifelike nails receded. The wolf’s tail disappeared. Human legs replaced fur-covered ones. The being slimmed and shortened. In seconds, the creature was gone and Tate lay before her, nearly naked, with a blue Virtu-Tech infinity logo tattooed near his shoulder. His blond head reclined in a bloodied pink mess, his features almost angelic in repose.
Except for the bullet holes punched everywhere, he looked like he could have been sleeping. Kenna’s index finger eased from the safe position to caress the trigger. She almost wished the bastard was still alive so she could kill him again.
“Kenna…”
Blood chugged out from Patrick’s right side. He blinked with effort.
“Oh my god, Patrick,” Kenna said, kneeling next to him.
He tilted his head toward Trutenko, who lay motionless on the floor. “Save him. Save my brother.”
“I’m saving you,” Kenna said. She grabbed Patrick’s chin. “Look at me,” she said.
He clenched his eyes, grimacing. He blinked several times and tried to meet her gaze.
“Look at me,” she demanded. Tightening her grip on his chin, she adjusted herself to see his eyes. Red rings circled his irises. “None of this is real,” she said.
He coughed. Blood spurted from his side. “Feels pretty real.”
“Patrick.” Her voice rose in panic. “You’re perfectly safe.”
He pulled in his lips, held himself in check for a moment before his words burst out in a gasp. “Too much. Too long. Can’t…handle it.”
The rim around his iris widened, and the red grew more intense. The pressure behind his eyes had to be unbearable.
“We’ve got to get you out of here.”
He wore no signal medallion. Tugging hers from her neck, she started to put it over Patrick’s head, but he pulled away. “No,” he said, nodding toward the floor again. “Get him out of here.”
Trutenko had regained consciousness enough to lever himself into a sitting position. “Oh dear God,” he said, grasping his midsection. “I had no idea it could be like this.” A second later, he faced his brother. “Take her medallion.”
With effort, Patrick shook his head. “I’m tethered at headquarters, Celia is there. Tate is there. Armed security is there. How long do you think I’ll last? Go now. Before they come back.”
“Where are you exactly?” Kenna asked Patrick. “What floor? I’ll send help.”
“It’s too late.”
“Where. Are. You?” she asked again.
“Third floor. Capsule number two.” Patrick coughed. “Liberty, Kenna, liberty. Everything is at stake. You must stop them. Find Maya. She knows what to do.”
“Maya got me in here,” she said. “I won’t leave you now.”
“You have to,” he said. “Or liberty is lost.”
FIFTY-NINE
Kenna threw her headgear to the floor. “”Where are Maya and Aaron?”
“They left as soon as you were in.” Stewart pointed. “Doing whatever they can to get into Virtu-Tech headquarters.”
“Get one of them on the phone,” she told Stewart as she raced from her capsule. “Trutenko’s here?”
Stewart nodded.
“Where?”
Stewart indicated the next room. “What do I tell them?”
She stopped at the doorway long enough to answer, “I’ll talk. Just get them on the line.” A second later, she turned back. “How’s Jason?”
“Alive when the paramedics took him,” Stewart said. “What happened?”
Ignoring the question, she made her way into the chamber Trutenko occupied. “Are you all right?” she asked when the older man emerged from his capsule.
“I think so,” he said.
His face ashen, his gait unsteady, he didn’t seem very well at all. But right now, Patrick was her immediate concern. “How can I get inside Virtu-Tech’s headquarters?” she asked.
“Without a valid badge?” he asked. “Impossible.”
“Unacceptable,” she said. “We need to get your brother out of there. Do you have your security pass with you?”
“Of course, but security has probably canceled my authorizations by now. If we attempt to use it, we’ll bring all of Virtu-Tech down on our heads.”
Stewart ran in, phone in hand. “Kenna.”
She grabbed it. “Patrick’s fighting absorption,” she said. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it. He’s at the Chicago headquarters, third floor, chamber two. Can you do anything?”
“On it,” Aaron answered. “Meet us there.”
“How will I get in?”
“Improvise,” he said.
When Kenna hung up, she snatched her jacket and slid it on. Trutenko grabbed her arm. “I’ll come with you.”
The man was still reeling from his VR encounter; he could only slow her down. “No, you and Stewart stay here.”
“I can’t sit back and do nothing.”
“Fine. Give me your pass.”
“But it won’t—”
“Just give it.”
When he complied, she tucked it into her jacket pocket. “Where might Celia be if she’s not with Patrick?”
“Her office is on the fifth floor,” Trutenko said.
“Got it.” Kenna made eye contact with Stewart and then Trutenko. “Now, you both
need to do exactly as I say.”
◊
When Kenna stepped out the front door of AdventureSome, she was shocked to see hundreds of people milling around outside the nearby Virtu-Tech offices, despite the morning’s chill. Her heart skipped a beat. Is this about Patrick?
“What happened?” she asked two women standing along the curb. Both wore company badges on lanyards around their necks.
“Fire evacuation,” the younger one answered. “They say it isn’t a drill, but I don’t believe it. These things are always false alarms.”
Kenna took off again, pushing her way through the scattered groups that made up the chattering crowd. She kept her head down as she raced around to the rear of the building, where a number of employees were taking a smoke break and fire department access doors stood wide-open. With so many bystanders, there was no way for her to sneak in unnoticed.
Walking past the smokers as though she had every reason to be there, Kenna pulled her jacket tighter. She made her way to the far end of the building, then ducked behind garbage dumpsters next to a door labeled “Keep Out.” Banking on it automatically unlocking in response to the fire alarm, she tried the door’s handle. Luck was with her. It opened easily and quietly.
Holding her breath, she stole inside to find herself in a tall industrial room that smelled of metal and wet concrete. A black iron spiral staircase led to a catwalk where maintenance workers could more closely inspect the fat pipes that ran along the walls and ceilings and be able to access their giant valves.
The area was empty, save for the thrum of machinery and the hiss of compressed air. She bolted for the staircase and hurried up to the catwalk. Running now, she sped toward the exit door at its far end.
“Hey!”
Kenna spun.
A firefighter on the floor below gestured. “Get back down here,” he said. “You can’t be inside until we issue an all clear.”
She pulled Trutenko’s pass out of her jacket pocket, keeping her fingers over the photo of his face.
“Ah…It’s an emergency,” she said thinking fast. “My medication. I left it upstairs.” Without giving him a chance to respond, she grabbed the door’s handle. “Thanks for letting me get it,” she shouted over her shoulder, even though he clearly had no intention of doing so. “You’re a lifesaver.”
Thinking of Patrick, she hoped that proved true.
The shabby two-toned beige corridor ahead let Kenna know that she was still in the back rooms of the structure. Although she’d only been inside Virtu-Tech’s local headquarters once before, she remembered its open floor plan. This was not it.
She sighed with relief at the sight of the stairway/exit sign at the far end of the hallway. Running full speed now to outpace that firefighter, if he’d opted to come after her, she made it to the doorway in three heartbeats. Stopping, she gently eased open the door and peered in. The stairway was clear.
Breathing through her mouth, she took the steps two at a time, treading as lightly as she could. The less noise she created, the better her chances of making it to Patrick unseen.
At the third-floor landing, she cracked the door open wide enough to get a view of the corridor. This was the Virtu-Tech she remembered. Gray-blue carpet, sky-blue walls, and the kind of indirect lighting that gave everyone’s head a golden glow. Best of all, no one nearby.
Quietly, she stole into the corridor, dropping to her hands and knees. The building’s center atrium made for a bright and sunlit working space, but the risk of being seen from firemen on other floors was too great for her to remain upright.
Taking in her surroundings, she managed to get her bearings. Trutenko had told her that VR chamber number two was on the building’s north side. She was on the east.
“I’m coming, Patrick,” she whispered. “Hang on.”
How long could his body hold out against what his brain believed? Was it longer than Charlie had fought before he’d succumbed? She didn’t know. And what about Tate? Although his werewolf avatar had been killed, had the man survived?
She crept along the wall, hyperaware of sound and movement. On the floor below her, firefighters called out to one another as they made their way from room to room.
“Over here,” came a loud shout from the floor below. “Found another one of the tripped alarms.”
“That’s two down,” a colleague responded. “One to go.”
A third voice chimed in. “So, what is this anyway? Some kind of prank?”
“Probably an angry employee looking to cause trouble,” the first voice said.
“Whoever it is should get his ass fired.”
“Better than shooting up the place,” the third guy said.
All three men made noises of amenable disgust.
Still on her hands and knees, Kenna crawled along the wall until she made it to the north end of the building and spotted the door to VR chamber number two. Enormous from the looks of it. Kenna tried to guess how many capsules it held. She rose to a crouch and hurried until she was directly outside.
She’d prepared as best she could. This was real life, not VR, she reminded herself. No calling up weapons or changing parameters. Whatever lay beyond this door, she had to face with instinct, strength, and whatever she carried on her person. She drew out one of the two items she’d armed herself with—a heavy pair of shears—and gripped them high in her right hand Psycho-style, prepared to attack. She fervently hoped she wasn’t bringing scissors to a gunfight.
She wrapped her fingers around the door’s handle. Locked.
Unsurprised, she dug out Trutenko’s badge and checked her surroundings one more time. If using it did set off an alarm, what better time to do it than when sirens were ringing all over the building already?
She got to her feet and swiped the badge. Rather than a security alert, she heard the satisfying click of the door unlocking itself. She turned the handle and pushed.
SIXTY
Frantic activity inside the chamber stopped Kenna short.
Startled by her appearance, Aaron and Maya leaped away from the tech stations they’d been manning to take up defensive positions. Both held semiautomatic handguns, pointed directly at Kenna and her silver shears.
A tense heartbeat later, all three took a breath and lowered their weapons.
Kenna started to ask about Patrick when she noticed someone else in the room. “How did you—?”
Maya gestured. “Hurry up. Make sure the door’s locked behind you.”
Aaron returned to his keyboard.
“Where did you get the guns?” Kenna asked. “When you broke into my apartment you said you were unarmed.”
“Would you have let us in if we’d told you the truth?” Aaron asked.
Starkly illuminated, the chamber was even bigger than Kenna had expected, outfitted in blinding white with four opaque VR capsules lining the far wall. The only color came from the computer monitors and the people in the room.
Seated on the floor with her back against one of the capsules, Celia’s legs were splayed, her arms limp, and her head tilted down to one side. Dark hair covered much of her face.
“Is she dead?” Kenna asked.
“Unfortunately not,” Aaron answered. “Maya worked her magic, but she’s only temporarily subdued. Long enough to—”
“Patrick,” Kenna interrupted. “Where is he?”
“Still hooked into the system. Over here.” Aaron opened the second capsule from the door.
“He’s alive?” Kenna asked as she pulled out her phone and began to dial.
Aaron’s expression was grim. “His vitals have stabilized, but he’s still in bad shape. Maya’s afraid we may need to do a cold shutdown.”
“Don’t!” Kenna spun as though to run back to the control panels. “Patrick’s mind is in no condition to handle that kind of shock.”
Aaron
grabbed her arm. “Hang on. We know that,” he said. “Maya isn’t pulling Patrick out. Not yet. She’s working on something more important.”
Kenna was about to ask what that was, but Stewart picked up her call.
“I’m here. It’s a go,” Kenna said into the phone. When he acknowledged, she hung up. “What’s Maya doing?” she asked Aaron. “What do you mean by ‘she worked her magic’?”
“When we got here, Celia was running tech where Maya is now,” he said as they hurried toward Patrick’s capsule. “That woman was plenty disoriented but apparently alert enough to send a replacement in. We assume it was whoever had been running her tech.”
Kenna hoped to God that Stewart and Trutenko had followed her instructions to the letter. As she reached Patrick’s capsule, one of the wall monitors sounded a new alert.
“No way,” Aaron exclaimed as he sprinted for the display. “Patrick’s coming out? No way is that possible.”
“Yes!” Kenna fisted both hands in triumph. Before she’d left AdventureSome, she’d outlined a plan to send Trutenko back into the sterile-room scenario. Stewart was to remain at the controls but assist Trutenko in arming himself. Most important of all, Trutenko would be sent in carrying in a signal medallion for his brother. The men would wait for Kenna’s all clear to send Patrick out.
It was the best she could come up with given the circumstances.
Kenna threw open the capsule, breathing a prayer of thanks that her hastily cobbled-together plan worked. The signal medallion had begun to bring Patrick’s mind back to his convulsing body. Patrick lay on his side on the floor, shivering. Though not stripped to his underwear as he had been in the scenario, his shredded shirt offered little cover. He must have put up quite a fight. She peeled off her jacket and placed it across his bare chest.
He took a shuddering breath.
“He’s out,” she said.
Kenna gently removed Patrick’s headgear the moment he was fully disengaged. “Patrick,” she said. The man’s eyes fluttered. “Wake up. You’re safe. You’re okay.”
