Etherworld (26 page)

I nod, staring into his eyes.

“The thought of never seeing you again.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “We're new to each other, but . . . you make me dream about the future. Happy dreams. Know how good that feels?”

“I do,” I say, taking one of his hands and lacing my fingers through his. I stand on my tiptoes, and soon we're kissing, our lips moving in perfect unison. I drag my fingers lightly up and down his back and shoulders as the tip of his tongue touches mine. He cradles my face in one hand while the other grabs my waist, pulling me toward him so that every part of us is together. His mouth moves away from my lips and trails down my neck toward my collarbone. I arch my back, take the bottom of his T-shirt, and begin to pull it up.

“Wait,” he says, grabbing my hands. “I don't want you to do anything you'll regret.”

“I might not even be alive tomorrow,” I say.

He runs his hand down my cheek. “And if you are?”

“Will
you
regret it?” I ask.

“No,” he says without hesitation.

“Neither will I.”

I'm in the dark, my body curled up beside Josh, my head lying against his right shoulder. I crane my neck a little and glance around, as though I don't quite remember where I am. But faint memories from the last hour or two begin to come into focus, and soon my thoughts are completely filled with Josh's lingering kisses and his hands gripping my hips. I press my face on his bare chest. He stirs, bending his arm to hug me tighter.

I reach down and grab hold of the comforter, which is in a tangled clump near Josh's knees. I pull on the fabric until it reaches a few inches above his belly, and then I let my fingers delicately trace the area beneath his collarbone. I close my eyes, trying to remember every single place Josh touched me, and my leg mindlessly lifts and winds itself around his thighs, my foot tucking beneath the top of his calf. I hear him yawn and feel his muscles tighten beneath me in a long stretch. His eyes open into two weary slits and his lips graze my forehead as his fingers move gently down the length of my arm.

“Did you sleep?” His voice is parched and sort of gravelly. I like the sound of it.

“I think so,” I say, planting a kiss on his chin.

He smiles as his hand moves down to my stomach, his fingers massaging me in circles, sending a burst of electricity through me. “What time is it?” he asks.

I sit up a little to search for my tab, but my night vision hasn't quite kicked in yet. “Not sure.”

Suddenly he takes hold of me in this swift wrestling move that makes me laugh and squeal. In less than a second he's on top of me. Our hands entwine as he pulls my arms over my head, leans over me, and kisses me, hard. The moment is sheer, absolute perfection, and after what we just shared, I never thought those heightened senses were something that could be duplicated. But then I think back to our first kiss—deep in the ice cave of the Mount Arvon Escape—and remember how euphoric I felt then, how I almost disappeared inside that cloak of happiness.

But still, I questioned it. When I returned, things between us felt uncomfortable and weird, as if we weren't sure if what had happened was the result of how we really felt or due instead to a state of artificially stimulated euphoria.

Josh shifts against me, and my bare legs swing around his lower back, pulling him closer. I know I should feel some sense of modesty, but I don't. With my hands still over my head, I lean forward to kiss him again, but the buzzing of one of our tabs interrupts us.

It's like both of us have been doused with freezing cold water. That sound is a signal that either Patrick is on his way or Zoe and Avery found something in the Oak Sector or there's news about Nora. Whatever it is, it means the hideaway we built together in this room is gone.

Josh lifts himself off me and then rolls off the bed, searching around the room for his tab. He finds it on a dresser, checks it, and says, “Not mine.”

I wrap the sheet around me and crawl off the mattress; my feet pad across the floor to where my jeans ended up. Before I dig into my front pockets, I can feel the vibration of my tab through the fabric. When I finally have it in my hands, I notice the time—8:26 p.m.—and see a new message from Patrick.

Five mins away. Be ready 2 go.

At first I feel a rush of excitement. Patrick must have figured out a way to create those ping tunnels connecting the core Escapes, and with just enough time to beat the inoculation process that Bryce started. But then I click on my inbox and see that I have two additional messages from Zoe and Avery, which I must have missed while Josh and I were sleeping or . . . busy. Both are from about an hour and a half ago.

Two malls down. Nothing so far.

Nada at the next strip. Moving onto #4.

My stomach drops, and I sit down on the edge of the bed while Josh starts putting his clothes back on.

They haven't found anything.

“Regan? What's going on?” he asks.

“Pat's on his way,” I say, trying not to let anything detract from the last bits of resolve I have left. “We should get downstairs; he'll be here any minute.”

Josh begins collecting my clothes and handing them to me piece by piece, including my father's watch, which I'd set on the nightstand. I put them on as fast as I can and duck into the bathroom, hoping there's something in the medicine cabinet—a fragrance spritz, cologne stick, anything that will freshen me up a little. Unfortunately, the only thing in here is an air deodorizing dispenser built into the wall, so I press the button and wave my hands in front of the mist, spreading it over my neck and hands. I feel ridiculous, but I don't want Patrick to have any idea what Josh and I were up to.

Even though he might have already guessed it before he left the apartment hours ago.

I feel my tab vibrating again, and I take it out of my jeans.

At the door, let me in?

It's Patrick. He probably didn't want to request access, because it would be on the log.

“He's here,” I say, walking back into the bedroom to find Josh straightening up like a good houseguest.

“Okay, let's go,” Josh says, leading me out into the hall, his hand perched on the lower part of my back.

When we arrive in the dining room, the lights automatically come on at the lowest setting, and we open the door for Patrick. He comes in carrying three Equip visors, earbuds, and wristbands, and places them on the table. Then he just stands there, staring at nothing in particular, looking fried and wired. He looks like he's aged five years in the hours he's been away. His hair is disheveled and his eyes are wide open, like he's ingested fifty pod coffees.

“Are you all right?” Josh asks him.

I pull out a chair from the table. “Maybe you should sit down for a second.”

“No, we have to move. Right now,” says Patrick, picking up his tab and immediately activating the imaging plate.

“So were you able to do it?” I ask. “Link up the ping tunnels between the remaining Escapes?”

“Yes and no,” he says, scratching the side of his ear.

“What does that mean?” Josh asks.

This time Patrick doesn't ask anyone to hit the lights. I guess there's no time for that. A hologram image appears, not unlike the one we saw before, but this time we can see that there are only two red globes left. I can't imagine why Patrick isn't more excited—the team inside Etherworld has managed to knock out three more Escapes, even with the antiviral running through the program.

“There are only two more Escapes left? That's incredible,” Josh says, the thrill in his voice matching the hope that's rising within me.

“You don't understand,” Patrick snaps, pointing to a grouping of thin yellow lines sticking out of the red globes and intersecting with outer circles. I don't remember seeing those lines when he showed us the diagram before.

He points to the yellow lines and says, “These are tunnels I created to connect the Escapes together, but Elusion kept erasing them, one by one. It was like building a bridge and having a typhoon come by and wipe it all out the second I was done. And every time I started over, it was harder to build it.”

He presses his tab, and the hologram switches over to an image that illustrates Patrick's point. Black lines extend and wrap around the globes, as if on their way to tie themselves together in the center to form a link, but the moment the lines touch, they turn a faint yellow.

“So what are our options?” I ask.

“Well, I was able to do something else.” The hologram dissipates and another image appears. The two globes, which were previously lined up side by side, shift and move until they appear stacked one on top of the other, connected by some kind of strange-looking chimneylike structure.

“Holy shit,” Josh mutters. “Did you create a trapdoor within the Escapes?”

“Sure as hell did,” Patrick says, with a bit of a self-satisfied grin.

“So we can drop from one Escape down to the other,” Josh says.

“I hope so. It will be impossible to know for sure until we're actually there. And I had to make it adaptive, so it blends into the landscape. Otherwise Elusion will be able to detect it.”

“But how do we know it won't get erased like your ping tunnels?”

Patrick presses a button on his tab and the hologram disappears. “Yup, that's why we have to go right now. We have no idea how long those doors are going to be operational.”

“Okay, let's do this,” Josh says, clapping his hands and rushing to the table to sort out Equip components.

Patrick grabs me by my arms and locks eyes with me. “Listen, Ree, I have to tell you what the trapdoor looks like, just in case anything should happen to me—”

“Nothing will happen to you,” I say quickly.

“I'm not a high responder, Ree. Everyone else in your dad's domain is. There's a chance I might not make it in.”

I turn away, not wanting to think about what could happen, even though I know we should prepare for the worst-case scenario. “What are we looking for?” I ask.

“A mirage in the Silver Desert Escape,” Patrick says.

“You can't be more specific than that?”

“I'm sorry,” he says. “I had to be vague with the code—to make it look like I was improving the Escape somehow.”

“Were you able to find out anything about the vaccine?” Josh asks as he hands Patrick and me wristbands.

“No, Elusion has totally blocked me from certain aspects of the program,” Patrick says.

Josh hands me my visor, and suddenly there's this pull inside me, not unlike the one I felt when I was in the master program with Patrick. I take a deep breath, like I've been swimming for miles and am coming up for air.

“We should text Zoe and Avery,” I blurt out. “Tell them to come back here and make sure we get out before our hour is up.”

Josh glances at Patrick and something passes between them, because Josh takes his tab and sends out two messages.

“They're on the way back,” Josh says, seconds later. “Should be here any minute.”

Patrick extends his hand toward the sunken den. “Let's get started.”

After we hook up our Equips, we all sprawl out on the floor, with me lying in between Patrick and Josh. My mouth is sticky and dry from all the anxiety, but when Josh notices Patrick typing on his tab, he leans over and quickly gives me a kiss. I touch my lips and smile just a little when he lies back down and whispers, “See you soon.”

I hope he's right, and wherever my father is, I hope he can wait for us a little while longer.

“I'm sending you the new link now,” Patrick says. “I have a destination code for Etherworld to use in place of an Escape code. This should get us right into the main base at Etherworld.”

“Seriously? You found a way into Etherworld directly?” Josh says, totally amazed.

Patrick shrugs like it's not a big deal, but Josh shakes his head.

“David was right. There really is no one like you, man,” he says.

I make sure the tips of my wristband are aligned with the pressure points on my wrist, the digital dial facing up. The emergency warning flashes on the screen:

If your wristband alarm sounds and you have difficulty reawakening, please leave Elusion immediately. Staying in Elusion longer than recommended may result in brain injury.

I turn toward Patrick. He has been my best friend since I was a kid. I can't imagine my life without him, and even though this last week has been hell for us, he's proved himself to be the person I always he knew he was. I reach for Patrick's hand and give it a squeeze.

“Okay,” he says. “Your user invite number is 00-01-99-0001.”

“That's the code? It's so long,” I say, surprised.

“We're hacking into your father's system. Like I said, this isn't an Escape code,” Patrick says.

“Right,” I say, distracted. I have the sudden instinct to say something, maybe tell Patrick and Josh how much I care about them. But I'm not in the mood for sentimentality. I feel numb and resigned. Determined.

I type in the number, my breath shallow.

A second later a message flashes on the screen of my tab:
User 00-01-99-0001 has accepted invitation request. Please insert earbuds.

“Ready?” Patrick asks.

I place the tiny earbuds in my ears.

Please engage video visor.

I slip the visor down over my eyes. Blind and deaf, I reach beside me, searching for Josh's hand. When I find it, he softly runs his thumb over mine.

An inner-strength begins to charge through me, electric and defiant, as the calm female voice begins the countdown.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One . . .

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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