by P. J. Hoover
Slowly I pull myself to my feet, Zachary trying to help but not quite sure what to do. “Can Chaos reprogram people?” I ask.
The logic goes through my mind. IF-THEN-ELSE. If the gods can place people in storage and reprogram worlds and simulations, then they are bound to have the power to reprogram individuals.
Zachary looks me right in the eye. “Yes.”
Hatred flows through me. Hatred for these gods. For the game we are now caught in. For the fate of the world resting in our hands.
“But it’s really hard to do, and it almost never happens,” Zachary adds. “It’s easier to erase people and start over. Not that either of those things are supposed to ever happen. They’re against the rules of the gods.”
“Rules of the gods?” Taylor scoffs. “And what rules are those?”
I’ve never mocked the gods like Taylor, but in this case, she is absolutely right. Thus far, the gods have all seemed to play by their own rules.
“We should get moving,” Zachary says. The gray sky has darkened like a blanket placed over everything.
“You’re avoiding the question,” Taylor says. “What rules?”
We walk in the center of the street, stepping around debris, but staying as much out in the open as we can.
“The gods operate by rules,” Zachary says. “We have to.”
Taylor kicks at a piece of metal that’s fallen into the street. “Tell me one rule.”
“There are lots of them,” Zachary says.
“One rule.”
He blows out a breath. “Fine. We don’t go into the domain of other gods.”
“A rule you just violated,” Taylor says. “Am I right?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t have much choice if I was going to keep the dead away from you two. Not to mention Iva basically gave me permission.”
I don’t point out that Iva told me to go into her domain, not Zachary. Not even Taylor for that matter.
“Not good enough,” Taylor says. “What’s another rule?”
We keep walking. Ten seconds go by before Zachary answers. “Fine. We aren’t allowed to outright kill humans.”
I can almost see the anger building up inside Taylor, so I hurry to respond first. “That’s why you have the simulations,” I say.
He nods. “We can program the events and the world, but killing humans directly isn’t allowed.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re not going to stab us while we’re sleeping,” Taylor says. “But if you happen to push over a building and it happens to fall on us and kill us, your hands are clean? Right?”
“Taylor,” Zachary says. “Why are you seriously thinking the worst of me? I’m risking my butt by helping you out in the first place. You don’t understand the old gods. They freaked out when one of us minor gods broke the rules. There were consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?” Taylor asks.
He shrugs, trying to act like he’s not bothered by the conversation, but his muscles are tight around his mouth, and he won’t look either of us in the eye. “I’ve always been a rule follower. You know that. But one time . . . well, it’s just rumor. I didn’t see it myself. But Iva and Elise . . . you know they’re sisters, right?”
I nod. Elise had told me that when Cole and I had visited her.
“So their father was one of the old gods,” Zachary says. “One you’ve met actually.”
I suck in a breath. That’s right. Elise had told me that the old god I’d killed back in the throne room at the end of the labyrinth simulation had been their father. I’d worried that she would be upset with me. But if anything she’d seemed relieved that he was dead.
“You do know that,” Zachary says. “Okay. Yeah. So what I heard was that one time he caught them interfering with his work, and he’d punished them.”
“What work?” I ask.
“Probably just the usual,” Zachary says. “Wars. Famine. Whatever he felt like doing to amuse himself. And Iva and Elise tried to stop him.”
“So what’d he do to them?” Taylor asks.
Zachary stops walking and faces us, finally meeting my eyes. “Well, for starters, he had Iva’s eyes pulled out.”
My stomach twists into a horrid knot. The blindfold. But what kind of father would do that?
“And Elise?” I ask, barely in a whisper.
“Yeah, Elise,” Zachary says. “He made it so she was always thirsty and could never quench her thirst. And the more she drank, the thirstier she got. I tried to help her. We all did. But nobody’s been able to do anything about it.”
Wow. Just wow. It’s unbelievable that a father—even if he is, or was, a god—could do something like that.
A ball of hatred forms in my stomach. I watch him die over in my mind. The image gives me a sense of peace. “I’m glad I killed him.”
Zachary laughs. “Yeah. Lots of us are, especially Iva and Elise. Let’s just say no one really shed a tear. Well, no one except . . .”
Immediately I know who he’s talking about. “Chaos.”
He nods. “Yep. His brother. You definitely made an enemy.”
I straighten my shoulders. I’d kill him over again if I had to. But now, if anything, I have more reason to.
“So what happens to you if Chaos finds out that you’re helping us?” Taylor asks.
It’s a really valid question.
“Well,” Zachary says, “I hope I never find out.”
I swallow as I process his words. He’s always seemed so casual about helping us, but if what he says is true, he won’t just be killed if his part in this is discovered.
“Thanks for helping us,” I say.
He shrugs. “Yeah, let’s just pick up the pace. I don’t like the dark.”
Night comes as we walk through the streets of Florida toward Ocular Technologies. It’s across the bay, not far from the sporting goods store where I got my bicycle when I first set out on the journey. Part of me wants to make a stop inside. To see if they have another jacket like the one I’d gotten there. But the smarter part of me knows that I will never find another jacket like that one. Zachary had placed it there, so long ago. A way to help me, even back then. An advantage. But him being with us is a much bigger advantage.
The crescent moon has long since set when we finally reach Ocular Technologies. If not for the sign out front, I would never know there was anything special about the place. It’s a typical office building with glass windows and glass doors out front. Shrubs line the sidewalk to the main door, but they are shriveled and dead, like they haven’t been watered in decades.
Zachary walks up and places his hand on the rusty handle. It lights up at his touch. When he pulls on it, I expect it to squeak like rusty old metal, but it doesn’t make a sound, almost as if it’s been opened recently. He raises his eyebrows and puts a finger to his lips, telling us to be quiet.
The door closes as soundlessly behind us as when it opened. Inside, the main lights are out, but small LEDs decorate monitors, pictures on the walls, signs above doors and elevators.
“Fifth floor,” Zachary says. “That’s where I work.”
I nod and we hurry to the stairwell. No way am I getting in an elevator in this place. The emergency lights are still on in the stairwell, casting red light everywhere. We climb quickly, trying to walk lightly so our heavy boots don’t alert the world to our presence. And when we reach the fifth floor, Zachary opens the door and steps through.
It’s a room full of desks facing each other with all sorts of high tech equipment laying around. VR goggles and monitors and haptic gloves and arm bands. If none of this had ever happened, I would have killed for a tour of this place. I’d almost asked Owen if his dad could get me a tour. Almost. Then Homecoming had come.
“Where did Owen’s dad work?” I ask.
Zachary poin
ts over to one of the corners. A row of offices lines the wall, blocking most of the windows. “Corner office. He got promoted pretty quickly.”
“And why was that?” Taylor asks.
Zachary shrugs. “He was smart. And good at his job.”
“And maybe he had help?” Taylor says.
An image forms in my mind then. Owen’s dad may have been excellent at his job. But was he excellent enough to dig deep enough to find out about the gods? Or was he nudged in the right direction?
“Chaos had to have helped him get started,” I say. Sure, there is the small chance that he found out about the world of the gods all on his own, but if I had to bet one way or the other, I would be willing to bet a pair of VR goggles that someone gave him inside assistance.
Zachary stops walking. “That’s my guess, too. Chaos must have fed him information. Just enough for him to hack into Raven’s simulation and help Owen.”
“But why him?” Taylor says. “Why Owen?”
It’s a good question. Chaos is trying to keep me out because he’s scared of the prophecy. Scared of me. And the power that now runs through me.
“He wanted Owen to kill me,” I say as the truth settles in. “Chaos couldn’t kill me himself, so he enlisted the help of Owen’s dad and Owen, knowing Owen would be going into the simulation along with me.”
Zachary nods. “Which means when you finally find Owen again, you need to be extra careful.”
Maybe. Yet Owen didn’t kill me. He had multiple chances, but he never did. He’d even suggested we were meant to work together. I can’t see that as being part of Chaos’s plan. Owen’s dad might still be a pawn, but I wonder if Owen may be something more.
XIV
Zachary walks to the other side of the aisle where doors line a wall. He pulls open one of the doors. Immediately lights inside flicker on.
“Your lab,” I say. I’ve been here, back before the labyrinth.
“Yep,” Zachary says. “This is where I do all my work.”
The chair in front of the desk is turned away from us, but slowly it rotates until it faces us. There, sitting in it, is Iva, blindfold on. Ponytails sprouting out to the side. Blue sequin shirt and checked Vans. A god in the permanent form of a little girl.
She crosses her arms like she’s pouting. “You guys took so long. I was about to give up on you.”
I highly doubt that. More likely she was tracing our every move.
Zachary takes two steps toward her, and his entire posture changes. He stands straighter. His shoulder go back. He becomes a god.
“What are you doing here?” he asks. There’s a harsh tone to his voice that I’ve never heard before. I wouldn’t have believed it possible given his casual attitude thus far.
Iva stands and skips over to him, navigating the lab like she can see despite the blindfold. “Oh, Zachary, don’t get so upset. You went into my domain. I thought you realized that meant I’d be able to come into yours.”
He crosses his arms. “It meant nothing of the sort.”
His domain. That makes perfect sense. This lab. Maybe even the entire office building, is Zachary’s domain.
I step forward, hoping to diffuse the situation. Gods and their domains is the least of our concerns right now. I pull the black pearl from my pocket. Placing it on my palm, I hold it out for her. “I got it.”
Iva immediately takes the small sphere, not even pretending to act like she’s not interested. Before I know what she’s doing, she shoves it into her mouth and swallows it. Though it’s small, I watch it go down her throat. I try not to gag, but it reminds me of a snake. Once it’s all the way down she smiles.
“Thanks, Eden. I owe you one.” She acts like I haven’t just fulfilled my part of the bargain.
“The simulation,” I say. “You’re going to get us in.”
Iva giggles. “You still want to go?”
Her childish games drive me crazy. “We still want to go,” I say evenly.
Iva grins. “Okay. But first . . .” She angles her head toward Taylor. “What do you see with it?”
Iva’s non-seeing gaze is so intense, if I were under her scrutiny, I feel like I would step back. But Taylor holds her ground. “You can’t have it.”
“I don’t want it. I just want to know what you see.”
Taylor shrugs, though Iva can’t see her do it. “All sorts of things.”
The smile falls from Iva’s face replaced by a stone-cold look of intense concentration. “Do we have a chance?” she asks. “Can we defeat him?”
Him is Chaos. Our enemy. Her enemy. The true enemy of everyone on Earth.
Taylor crosses her arms and acts bothered, like she’s been asked this question a million times already and is so over it. “I see fifteen possible endings.”
“Fifteen,” Zachary says. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Taylor says.
“And of those . . . ?” Iva asks.
Taylor’s eyes are focused on something else, not in this room. Something only she can see. “In two we succeed,” she says. “In the other thirteen, we all die.”
We all die. Her words hang there in the air. I can’t let one of those thirteen options happen. Not for me or for selfish reasons, but because if we fail, there won’t be anyone left to save the world. We are the last chance for this round in the game of the gods.
Iva clasps her hands together and the smile returns to her face. “Two chances is good.”
Her statistics skills leave a bit to be desired, but two chances is certainly better than zero.
Iva steps back, leaning against the white board. “Now to get you guys into that stupid simulation,” she says.
“I told you I can get Edie and Taylor in,” Zachary says, and he sits in the chair where Iva just was. He starts tapping away at the keyboard. Bits of code fly across the screen. Then they pull from the screen and fly through the air, landing on the whiteboard where they mesh together into mini-programs.
Iva crosses her arms. “Let’s see.” And she waits.
Zachary shakes his head, like he’s had about as much of this game as he can take. Then he keeps typing. The algorithms erase from the whiteboard and are replaced by others. Over and over again.
“The thing is that even though Chaos runs the simulation, it’s still a simulation,” Zachary says. “And like any simulation, there are back door algorithms in place to allow programmers to test computer code out.”
“Cheats,” I say.
He nods, typing the whole time he talks. “Exactly. This should be no different, especially if he had Owen’s dad helping him with it. I’ve seen how he codes. I know his work.”
I glance to Taylor. She’s scowling at both Zachary and Iva.
“If we just enter a couple decoder commands, it should . . .” His voice trails off as the whiteboard is erased. He taps a few more keys and new code appears there. Then he waits. Types some more. And waits again.
Nothing happens.
“Well . . . ?” Iva says.
“It’s possible that . . .” Zachary gets lost in his words, trying to get the simulation to open up to let me and Taylor in. But minute by minute the confidence is deleted from his face.
“Do you believe me yet?” Iva says once he’s tried and failed five different times.
He shoves his chair away from the desk and stands. “What did you do to it?”
“Nothing,” Iva says. “I told you. You can’t get Eden in. Chaos has blocked her identification code from entering.”
Understanding dawns on Zachary’s face, and he sits again. “Okay, so we change her code.”
“You can’t change her code enough,” Iva says. “Chaos isn’t stupid. You do remember he’s been ruling for thousands of years.”
“I can do it,” Zachary says. And he goes to work, hacking away at the k
eys. But the look of frustration grows on his face until he finally lifts his hands and pushes back from the computer. “Fine, what do you suggest?”
Iva giggles. “I told you so.”
Zachary grumbles something that I can’t understand. It almost sounds like “little brat know-it-all” but I don’t ask him to clarify.
Iva turns to face Zachary. If she didn’t have a blindfold on, I’d say she was fixing her eyes on him. But instead, it’s more like she’s fixing her intent on him.
“You missed a perfect backdoor solution,” Iva says. “We get someone else into the simulation and they make the coding changes to open it up to everyone.”
Zachary’s eyes narrow as he tries to process Iva’s words. But he gives a small shake of his head. “If the simulation is blocked, Edie can’t get there to make the changes.”
“Uh huh,” Iva says. “But I’m not suggesting Edie make the coding changes. She’s not the only coder around here.”
“So put me in,” Taylor says. “Tell me what to do.”
Iva places a hand on Taylor’s arm. “Oh, Taylor. You’re so brave. Were you always so brave?”
Taylor says nothing.
“But the problem with that is—” Iva starts.
“You wouldn’t know what to do,” Zachary says slowly. “Which means . . .”
The smile on Iva’s face grows.
“Which means what?” I ask.
Zachary blows out a long breath and stands. “Which means that I have to go into the simulation. I have to make the changes.”
Iva claps her hands together in applause. “Exactly! Zachary goes in first, and from there, he opens the simulation up wide. Then Taylor and Eden can get in. Chaos will have no idea. It’s perfect.”
I’m not sure it’s perfect, but it is a solution.
XV
"Follow me," Iva says, and she skips out the door we came through earlier, leaving Zachary’s lab. Darkness fills the empty workstations around the interior of the office building. Though Iva can’t see, she moves forward with confidence, not even so much as stubbing her toe. She leads us right to Owen’s dad’s office. There’s a nameplate on the door, but someone has sprayed over it with red paint making it unreadable. Iva lifts her hand, palm out, and the door flies opens. Then she steps inside.
