Etherworld (3 page)

“As long as it works,” my dad says, keeping an eye on the kids as they rush out of the mines, their arms filled with bombs. Josh reaches into his pocket and pulls out a glass sphere the size of my fist.

“It doesn't look like a bomb,” I say.

“They're not dangerous until they come into contact with the triggers,” he says. “Kind of like Elusion.”

I understand the analogy. For most people, Elusion isn't harmful. But if the user is a “high responder”—someone under twenty-one who happens to be particularly sensitive to Elusion's stimuli—there's a good chance it could alter their brain activity, inducing nanopsychosis. At that point, a high responder will experience obsessive behavior that could drive them to do things they know they shouldn't, like breaking through Elusion's firewall.

Which is what happened to all of us.

“Where are the triggers?” I ask, leaning forward to get a closer look at the sphere.

“They're bits of code located inside each Escape,” my dad says, rejoining the conversation. “I didn't have enough time to get the destruction protocol ready, so I had to put the bombs in a safe place, as far away from Elusion as possible because—”

“They took time to develop, since they have a similar code to Elusion,” Josh says, finishing my father's thought.

I smile at his brilliance, but thanks to a loud crashing sound, my dad barely notices.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I have to go deal with . . . whatever that was. Josh can take it from here.”

Josh pulls me close. “You okay?”

“Sure,” I say. “I just didn't think, after everything, he'd still be this . . .”

“Busy?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“He doesn't mean anything by it. He's just trying to get us out of here,” Josh says, his lips grazing the roots of my hair.

“He seems like he's becoming . . . closed off all of a sudden,” I say. “I don't know, maybe he's just frustrated with me.”

“No,” Josh says, giving me a little squeeze. “You mean everything to him. He's just under a lot of pressure.”

I look up in time to see him grin at me.

“We're all going to get through this. Trust me,” he says.

“I think you've turned my brother into an optimist,” chirps a voice that makes Josh roll his eyes.

Josh's sister smiles and walks toward us, her jeans and T-shirt covered in ash and soot. Even with Etherworld's dull colors, the family resemblance is obvious. They both have big eyes, defined cheekbones, and the same cute gap in their teeth.

“That's a compliment, right?” I say.

“Definitely.” Nora looks at Josh and her smile disappears, a shadow of sadness forming in her eyes. “After everything I've put him through, I'm surprised he has a shred of hope left.”

“Stop it, Nor. Please,” Josh says.

“I can't,” she replies. “If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be stuck here.”

I slink away from Josh a little, wanting to give him and his sister some space, since it's obvious she's feeling pretty guilty. But Josh won't let me go far, clinging to one of my belt loops with his thumb.

“Regan, how's Avery doing?” Nora asks.

“I said she was fine,” Josh interjects before I can answer.

Under normal circumstances, Nora's girlfriend is not someone I would ever describe as “fine.” Opinionated, yes. Stubborn, yes. Antagonizing, yes. What else would you expect from a young social activist hell-bent on exposing Elusion's dark side?

“And that's all you'd tell me,” Nora complains. “I walked out on her, Josh. And then I went missing. She's probably scared out of her mind.”

“She's handling it okay. She just misses you,” I say, hoping to comfort her a little.

“I miss her, too,” she says. It's obvious Nora is a lot more composed than the erratic, troubled mess of a girl Patrick painted her as back in the real world. Even so, I can see her lower lip trembling.

“Hey, why don't we do something useful and help out with these?” Josh says, trying to distract Nora. He holds up the ball and the glass glimmers a little, reflecting the pale yellow color of the torch flames.

“What are we doing with them exactly?” I ask.

“Your dad wasn't sure how to get them into Elusion without Bryce and Cathryn finding us,” Nora explains. “So Josh told us about this tactic he learned in military school—search and destroy.”

“That sounds . . . ominous,” I say.

“In a dangerous situation like this, not everyone goes on an attack mission at once,” Josh states.

“Or else they'd spot us,” Nora adds, leading me toward the mine.

A few feet inside the entrance a girl with a pierced nose and a milky-brown braid that drops down to her waist, uses her hands to pry a bomb out of the wall. Working next to her is a skinny boy who couldn't be more than thirteen, while another boy with curly hair and a big chin stands at attention, overseeing everyone and offering advice.

“So what do these bombs do?” I ask Nora.

“When you attach them to the triggers, all the programming files associated with that Escape will be deleted.”

“How do we connect the bombs and the triggers?” I ask, confused.

“We have to carry them through the tunnels and into the Escapes,” Josh answers.

“Can we go from Escape to Escape?” I ask.

“No,” Nora says. “The ping tunnels connect Etherworld to David's domain, but that's it.”

“Your dad told us that once the bomb is detonated, we need to find the portal back into the firewall,” Josh says.

“Getting back to Etherworld through the tunnels won't be easy either,” Nora says. “The worm on our side of the firewall isn't very friendly.”

I choke out a laugh. “That's the understatement of the century.”

“Hey, Nora!” the curly-haired guy calls out to her. “Stop slacking off with your new friends and get back to work!”

Nora levels him with a stony glare that rivals the signature look of her girlfriend, Avery. The boy stands there, staring, but when Nora doesn't move, he just shakes his head and starts talking to someone else. Josh smiles. I guess he's familiar with her defiant streak.

“Who's that?” I ask.

“Zared,” Nora says, still sneering. “He and I go to college together.”

“Is he in charge or something?”

“
He
thinks he is,” she says. “Zared founded the Stealth subgroup on your dad, which is where we all met, so he has one severe superiority complex.”

“Stealth? What's that?”

“It's this underground forum network where techies share information,” Josh explains. “Like how to bypass security systems and reengineer hardware like Equips, stuff like that.”

“Zared builds chips that can crack almost any algorithm,” Nora says.

“So he's the one who hacked into Orexis and got the access codes to my dad's domain?”

“Yep,” Nora says. “Your father is his inspiration. Same with Malik. Actually, he started a whole subgroup of David Welch followers.”

“Who would want to start a group to talk about my father?”

“People who didn't believe he was dead,” says Nora.

“What?”

“There was this whole legion of Elusion fanatics who thought everything about David's accident was suspicious,” Nora continues. “Rumor had it that your dad went into hiding because his project was being stolen. It really lit a fire under the group and made them want to infiltrate the program's firewall more than they already did. They were pretty protective of him.”

I can't believe what I'm hearing. I spent months mourning my dad's death, and the entire time, there was a secret group of people who thought it was a hoax? Not only that: from what Nora was saying, they were as fiercely dedicated to my dad's legacy as I was—and am.

“So everyone here was part of all this?” Josh asks “Even you?”

“Yes, we were,” Nora answers, her voice softening. “Zared founded the subgroup a week after David's accident and ran it from our dorm at U of M.” She points to a girl with a light colored ponytail who's working deeper in the cave. “Claire joined the forum from LA a few days after that.” She gestures back to the girl in the front with the braid and young boy by her side. “Ayesha's from Miami. She got roped in a month or two ago, after Malik, the kid next to her, cracked the password for the firewall and posted it.”

“I don't know about you guys, but I'm about ready to kick Zared's ass,” says the girl with the light hair, wiping her grimy hands on her shorts as she exits the mine. “I don't know what makes him think he's in charge.”

Now that she's up close, I can't help but notice her lean arm muscles and broad shoulders. She looks like she could bench-press Josh.

“Regan, this is Claire.”

“It's nice to meet you.” I extend my hand and Claire gives it a firm shake.

“Any kid of David's is a friend of mine,” she says.

I've been a little worried that Nora and her crew might blame my dad for what Elusion has done to them, but it's the exact opposite. They seem as loyal to him as ever.

“I've heard a lot about you,” Claire goes on. “Your dad is always ‘Regan this' and ‘Regan that.' It's kind of cute.”

The past four months have been the worst time in my life. But I can't imagine how my dad must've felt, trapped in here and separated from his family.

“So what's going on out there in the real world? Does anyone know that Elusion is addictive?” Claire asks Josh and me. Zared turns back toward us as Ayesha, Malik, and several others stop work, waiting for my response. “Word is starting to spread that the app can hurt people,” I say, suddenly feeling uncomfortable about being questioned in front of everyone.

“Do you know how long we've been here?” asks Malik, his high-pitched voice and small frame confirming what I suspected. He looks like the youngest one in this group.

“It feels like weeks. Maybe even months,” Ayesha says, her brow creasing with worry.

I reach for Josh's hand as more people swarm around us. The facts aren't pretty—all of them have been in Elusion way longer than the recommended time, and there's no saying how much damage it's causing their bodies. But before I can reply to Malik, there are more questions.

“Are we still missing?”

“Has anyone found us yet?”

“Is Josh's search-and-destroy plan going to work?”

Zared lets out a whistle and everyone quiets down, waiting for him to send them all back into the mine. Instead he closes in on me, his gray eyes locking with mine.

“A few people left Etherworld and snuck back into Elusion, against your father's instructions,” Zared says. “Do you know what happened to them?”

I know that some kids were recently found in comas, all said to have been avid users of Elusion.

“Wait, why would they leave?” Josh asks. “Especially when David said not to?”

Zared crosses his arms tightly in front of his chest. “I don't know.”

“What are their names?” I ask. “The people who left.”

“Anthony, Maureen, and Kelly were all from Detroit,” Claire says. “Ayesha, what were the names of the other two from Miami?”

“Cole and Anderson, right?”

“Yep,” Claire says. “That's it.”

Josh and I exchange a tense look. Some of those names are familiar. The day we arrived here, Anthony had been found unconscious with Elusion marks on his forehead and died not too long after. Kelly is the name of the girl who was discovered comatose. Maureen must be the girl who Josh and I found at the dilapidated house we searched in the Quartz Sector, when we were looking for his sister. Barely conscious, she had Nora's tab and the number 5020 scrawled on her arm—which I thought was a coded message from my father, but according to my dad, it's actually the room number of the lab where Cathryn and Bryce are keeping his body.

No one here knows what happened to their friends, or to themselves. None of them realize how dangerous it is for them to return to the real world. I'm kind of wishing I told my dad the truth when I had a chance, but then again, he didn't specifically ask about the other kids, and he knows the danger of staying in Elusion too long. In fact, he hasn't inquired about anything besides my health and my mom's. He's never even once asked how much time has gone by since he entered Etherworld.

Strange.

My dad returns to the clearing outside the mine shaft with a short, stocky kid with darker hair who I hear him call Wyatt. My dad's forehead is wet with perspiration, which is odd because the temperature in Etherworld can't be more than sixty-five degrees.

As much as I don't want to think this, I can't help but wonder if my dad is okay. He's been living in this virtual reality longer than anyone else. That has to have taken a toll on him.

“What's the count, Zared?” my father asks, bounding over to us.

Zared takes a moment to look at the stacks of bombs and do a quick mental tally. “Five hundred eighty-two,” he says.

“Great, then we're ready to move them to the entrances of the ping tunnels,” my dad says.

“We have a bunch of carts. They're lined up in the valley,” Wyatt says, gesturing over his shoulder.

“All right, let's get this party started!” Claire yelps.

She's the only one who appears excited, though. My father must see the weary, concerned faces in the crowd as clearly as Josh and I can. Wyatt starts to lead the group to the carts when my dad grabs him by the arm and stops him.

“Before we begin loading, I want to talk to you all about something,” he says, running his hand through his hair.

The group stands still, their eyes fixed on him.

“Since you all hacked into the program and dismantled the safety settings, the minute you reenter Elusion, your wristbands will automatically reboot. Which means if the brain experiences too much stimulus—”