The Leveller (12 page)

WYN TAKES THE STAIRS TO MAMA BETI'S BEDROOM BY TWOS AND I
am right on his heels. We hardly spoke to each other on the motorcycle ride over here, but as we move to enter the room I pull on his arm to slow him down.

“Wait a minute, Wyn, we need to talk about this first. Tell me what you're planning to do.”

“The Black, Nixy. You heard Kora. Maybe we can somehow get home through the Black.”

“It's the
somehow
part that concerns me,” I say, warily eyeing the door to the once-room, the now-nothing.

Wyn shrugs nonchalantly, though I wonder how much confidence he's pretending. “We'll just have to experiment. Tell me what you know about the Black.”

“Very little,” I admit. “Mostly that you probably shouldn't, you know,
experiment
with it.” I feel a twinge of guilt as soon as I say this. I'd made a habit of tuning Chang out over the past year whenever he started telling horror stories about the Black.
It's just a game
,
Chang
, I'd say.
Those LEGION gearheads are just trying to scare you.
Now I wish I'd paid better attention to him, for more reasons than one. “For all I know, the Black is the Loch Ness Monster, with Frankenstein's head, on a giant spider body. It's all rumor and hearsay.
Dangerous
rumor and hearsay. But your father invented the MEEP. Surely you must know more about it than I do.”

Wyn rubs his cheek. “All I've ever heard the programmers say about the Black is to leave it alone. Something to do with MEEP coding, and that the Black is actually part of your unconscious mind so the codes don't work there.”

I peer again at the door into Mama Beti's room. A wave of shame washes over me as I think of all the beautiful work Wyn did on the other side—work that I ruined, leaving Godzilla-like destruction in my wake.

I turn back to him. “That's what my friend Chang says—that frequency codes can't reach you in the Black, and that some gamers have actually fried their short-term memories just by touching it.”

Wyn looks skeptical. “That's impossible. Regular gamers wouldn't even have access to the Black. The MEEP protocols, even for custom-built worlds, provide for 360-degree safety
walls. The only people who would ever encounter the Black are my dad's programmers.”

“And us,” I say, pointing to the door.

Wyn shrugs. “I'm not sure what happened here. I've never seen the Black in any of my custom worlds before. Maybe it's because I've used so many beta modules here? In any case, the story you heard can't be true. Regular players wouldn't have access to the Black.”

“What about unauthorized players?”

Wyn frowns at me. “You mean hackers? Like LEGION? I don't know, Nixy, and I don't care. They take their own risks when they break into someone else's property.”

“You sound like your father,” I say, but without much bite behind it. I can't summon the nastiness. Not when we're both still reeling from our encounter with Kora and, well, whatever you call last night.

“Yeah, well, my dad has taken plenty of his own risks and it's about time for me to take one too,” Wyn says. “Maybe the Black will reset us back to the Landing . . . or even better, wake us up back at home.”

He pulls away from me and throws the door open. The Black is just on the other side.

It is a gaping, jagged oval taking up the entire door frame. The insides are kinetic, shimmery and spongy . . . like a brain, I guess. Alive, somehow. As before, a shudder of revulsion comes
over me when I look into it, a shadow of fear. I can tell Wyn feels it too by the grimace on his face.

“Are you sure we should be messing with this?” I ask.

“Absolutely not, but what choice do we have? Someone may have killed Kora in the real world. What's to keep them from killing us next?”

“You,” I say. “
You're
what's keeping them from killing us next. As long as you're alive, they have power over your father, Wyn. If you die, they have nothing.” I pause and shrug. “Me? I suppose I'm pretty expendable at this point. Probably even a liability in their eyes.”

That last point does not sit well with Wyn. “All the more reason to get out of here this very minute. Come on. What have we got to lose?”

“Our minds?” I offer, glancing at the Black.

Wyn ignores this. “We'll go together on the count of three,” he says, taking my hand.

“No way,” I argue, pulling him away from the hole. “I'll go by myself. If it
does
work and I get out of here, I'll come right back for you, I promise. If it nukes my noggin instead, well, at least one of us will still have a working brain to figure out Plan B.” Wyn doesn't think this is funny. “I should be the one to take the risk,” I insist.

He holds my gaze. “I don't want . . . you shouldn't have to do this. Not for me.”

I know he's trying to say more than the words coming out of his mouth.

I shake my head and try to pull off the same magic trick, to say the things I want to say, but don't have time for.

“There are only a few people I
would
do it for—and since you're the one I happened to be trapped here with—”

“But, I—”

“Think, Wyn,” I say, cutting him off. “What if I do get kicked back to the Landing? I know exactly how to get through the maze now, exactly how to defeat the enemies. I can be back in a flash. You? It will take you forever to fight your way through, and I don't have that kind of time.”

Wyn finally rewards me with a small smile. “Hey now, pretty full of yourself, aren't you, Nixy Bauer?”

“Only when I know I'm right.”

Wyn rubs his lips together, then nods. “Okay, I concede. But go slowly, and if anything feels wrong then come right back out.”

“Roger that,” I say, swallowing the last bit of fear that's been camped in my throat. No reason to be a scaredy-pants at this stage of the game. Not after everything I've been through.

Wyn is still holding my left hand, so I mentally brace myself and stick my right hand into the Black. I expect it to feel gelatinous inside, but instead I feel nothing, like I've just put my hand through a cloud. I wave my arm around for a second,
feeling, reaching for I-don't-know-what. A button would be nice, a big fat G
AME
O
VER
button, but I know that's wishful thinking.

“All right, I'm going in,” I say. “You wait for me right here in Mama Beti's house, okay?”

Wyn nods. “Good luck,” he says, but he doesn't let go of my hand even when I try to tug it away.

“You're going to have to let go of me at some point,” I say, smiling.

“I know,” he says, returning the smile, “but not until the very last second.”

This time it's my turn to give him a good-bye wink, which I hope comes off as jaunty, and I step inside the Black.

THE WORLD GOES PITCH DARK. I CANNOT MOVE.

Terror seizes my heart.

The Black is all around me.

A single thought pulses through my brain.

Don't breathe it in, can't breathe it in, don't let it get inside me.

I feel it, like a dense fog pressing up against my face.

I hold my breath, but it is no use.

I can feel it invading my body, creeping in through my nostrils, seeping through my pores.

I try to call out but my face is stone, unable to make a sound.

Dread.

The feeling floods my brain.

I can't move.

I am stone.

Every muscle, petrified.

And now the pain begins.

It starts in my lower body, like someone is holding a match to each one of my toes. I want to thrash, move away from the fire, but I'm paralyzed.

The burning licks up my legs.

I scream and cry. I beg for help.

No sound comes out of my mouth.

The fire is in my torso now. The heat is melting my organs, incinerating my bones.

The pain consumes me.

NO! Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop!

I am burning alive.

Another moment and the heat will reach my brain.

And I will be dead.

“NIXY!”

I am stone, I am dead.

“Nixy, wake up! Please, look at me!”

I feel a hand on my face, stroking my cheek.

“Please . . .”

I see color through my eyelids. The darkness is gone. I try to open my eyes, but the lids are so heavy, leaden, I can only lift them a sliver.

“That's it! Come back, come back to me.”

The hand is running through my hair now. I remember someone doing this to me when I was younger, when I was alive. Someone who loved me.

Mom?

I come back to myself in a rush, a tidal wave. I remember who I am now. I am Nixy Bauer and something bad happened, but Jill is here now. Everything will be okay.

I slowly force my eyes open.

“Thank God,” says a voice above me. It is not my mother's.

A salty sea breeze drifts across my face and I breathe it in. The person behind the voice slowly comes into focus. Brown curly hair, brown eyes, long lashes.

“Nixy, are you okay?” He is kneeling on the floor beside me, one hand still on my face, the other hand resting awkwardly in his lap.

I struggle to remember his name.

Wyn?

Wyn Salvador.

I gasp. I remember now. I'm in the MEEP.
Trapped
in the MEEP.

“Where's Kora?” I ask him. “Did she get away? We need to go after her.”

Wyn blinks. He seems confused.

I look around and see we're in Mama Beti's house, the hallway lights twinkling above me. “What are we doing here?” I ask, wondering
why
exactly I'm lying on the floor.

“You don't . . . you don't remember,” Wyn says. It is not a question.

I search my memory, trying to recall the circumstances in
which we came to be in this unusual position. The last thing I remember is uncovering Kora at the Tropicana but I don't remember where she went after that, what we did with her. I shake my head. “Sorry, I—what'd I miss?”

Wyn smiles. It's a strange, rueful grin. Then he glances down at his right hand, which, now that I get a good look at it, appears to have had several bones removed.

“Did Kora do that to you?” I ask, propping myself up on my elbows. This sudden surge of anger makes me feel like my old self again. “Because I will take her down.”

Wyn shakes his head. “No, it wasn't Kora.”

“Then how? Who?”

“You,” he says, almost apologetically.

My mouth drops open and I pull myself up to sitting. “No.”

“Yes,” Wyn says, getting to his feet. He offers me his good hand and hauls me off the floor.

I stand, unsteadily at first. Wyn circles an arm around my waist and I swivel away. Whoa. What is that about? “Hey, hands to yourself, buddy,” I half joke.

Wyn stares for a moment. “Just to be clear, you don't remember
anything
after spotting Kora. Like,
nothing.
Nothing at all.”

For some reason, I'm embarrassed. “No. Was there something . . . important?”

He sighs. “I'll tell you about it on the way there.”

“The way
where
?”

“You'll see,” says Wyn, leading me through the rubble and out of the room. “But first we've got a date with Larry.”

Larry. I smile. At least, thankfully, I remember him.

“BRRRAAAAAOOOKKKK!”

Larry, it seems, is excited to see us. As the kraken speeds toward us on the seawall I try to look cool and collected, but it's hard not to break out my crossbow and start pumping arrows into him. He's a kraken, after all, and a mighty big one.

Wyn must see the flash of panic cross my face because he puts his good hand on my shoulder.

I'm not sure why he has a sudden onset of the touchy-feelies, but I handle it a little more gracefully this time.

“Remember, none of this is real,” Wyn says, just as Larry raises a beastly tentacle and splashes us.

The cold water makes me gasp. “Well, it
feels
real,” I say, somewhat less enamored of Wyn's world and its cutting-edge
sensory modules than I once was.

On the walk here, Wyn filled me in on my memory lapse. Kora is dead. Or at least, we think she is. And then, apparently, like an idiot, I willingly stepped into the Black. Wyn doesn't know what happened to me there, but I guess I started screaming bloody murder. He said it sounded like someone was torturing me, like I had gone stark raving mad with pain and fear.

Fortunately, he was still holding my hand at that point and somehow managed to pull me back to the MEEP.

Un
fortunately, I squeezed his hand so tightly I did some major damage to his avatar.

I glance down again at his limp hand.

“I told you, it doesn't hurt,” he assures me. “It's just useless until I gulp down a healing potion.”

“Right. So what are we doing here?” I ask, jumping as Larry extends one of his purple tentacles in my direction.

“Going for a ride,” Wyn replies just as Larry wraps a tentacle around us and lifts us in the air.

“What the hell? What the hell?!” I yell as Larry starts thrashing through the sea. He has the two of us raised in the air over his head, like a five-year-old holding an ice cream cone. Wyn and I are squished into each other. Full-frontal togetherness, with our arms pinned to our sides.

Awkward
doesn't even begin to describe how this feels to
me. Wyn, on the other hand, seems weirdly at ease. Comfortable enough to crack jokes.

“So how do you like the view?” he asks, trying to keep a straight face.

I can't help it. I burst out laughing. “Do you mean the one of the ocean or the two tiny freckles near your ear? Because if you're talking about the freckles, I think they're a divine enhancement. Let me guess: you used a buy-one-get-one-free coupon at the Freckles Emporium?”

Wyn makes a face. “I'll have you know my avatar is one hundred percent me, right down to the very last freckle.”

Larry does a little twirl in the water now, like a ballerina, and I look over my shoulder to see where we're headed.

“See that little isle in the distance?” Wyn says, pointing with his chin.

I nod. A small dome of land rises in the middle of the crystal-blue water, its sandy white beach topped by lush green palm trees.

“That's where we're going. It's where I keep all the good stuff stashed.”

A few minutes later Larry is reluctantly setting us ashore. Wyn picks up a fallen coconut from the beach and waves it at the kraken. Larry's bulbous eyeballs grow even bigger as he swims back out a few yards, his tentacles waving in anticipation. Wyn heaves the coconut, which Larry catches expertly.

“My turn,” I say, and pitch two more.

Larry juggles the three coconuts like a circus clown while Wyn and I whistle and hoot in appreciation. Finally, Larry pops the coconuts in his beak, waves good-bye, and sinks back under the sea.

Wyn motions for me to follow him. We head up the beach until we get to a break in the palm trees, then take a path carved through the vegetation. After a minute we reach a clearing and I bark out a laugh.

“You built a treehouse?” I say, shaking my head at the elaborate construction in front of me. It looks like something straight out of
Swiss Family Robinson
or
Gilligan's Island
, every kid's childhood fantasy.

Wyn looks half embarrassed, half proud. “It was my first custom creation in the MEEP. I've always wanted a treehouse, ever since I was little, so I decided to make one for myself.”

“Well done,” I say, admiring the multilevel open-air architecture. “Rustic, yet charming at the same time.”

“Wait until you see the waterfall shower in the back. Come on, I'll show you around.”

We go up and down a dozen ladders, slides, and rope bridges—slowly, since Wyn has to do everything one-handed—and peek into a dozen different rooms. We finally end up on a platform high above the tree line.

“This is where I like to sleep,” Wyn says, pointing to a big
woven hammock strung between bamboo poles.

“Under the stars—I should have known,” I say, admiring the view from this bird's-eye perch. The entire island is surrounded by a ring of brilliant white sand and sparkling blue water beyond that. In the distance I see a pod of dolphins cavorting.

Wyn opens a cabinet and pulls out a first-aid kit. The kit contains a dozen small bottles lined up in a row like colorful soldiers. He selects a green potion and holds it to the light. “This should do it,” he says, and glugs it down. Then he holds his mangled hand out in front of him and together we watch it shimmer and waver. Then,
pop
, it takes proper shape again. “Just like new.”

“You don't happen to have any ‘beam me up, Scotty' potions or ruby slippers in that cabinet, do you?” I ask, only half joking.

Wyn shakes his head. “Sorry. I never even used to keep healing potions here, but once I started playing with Larry, I figured it was a good idea. Especially after the one time he hugged me a little too hard.”

I nod, remembering the anaconda that nearly squeezed me down a few dress sizes. “I suppose a hug from Larry could crack a rib or two.”

“Exactly. After that I decided to keep some potions on hand in case it happened again.”

“And what's this?” I ask, picking up what looks like a remote control sitting on top of the cabinet.

“Ah,” says Wyn, taking it from me. “You're going to love this.” He clicks a button. Instantly, a tarp rolls out above our heads just as a rumble of thunder shakes the treehouse and rain begins to fall.

It's a slow, steady rain, the kind that feels soothing, cleansing almost, as it falls around you. “You're right, I do love it,” I say, sticking a hand out to feel the drops. “Show me more.”

Wyn hands the remote back to me and I experiment with all the buttons. I make it rain harder, then softer, then I roll up the tarp and let the sun back out. I change day to dusk, dusk to night, and night back to day again. I scrutinize the MEEP M
AIL
icon. “I don't suppose . . .”

Wyn gives me an impatient look. “Believe me, it was one of the first things I tried. They must have cut off all communication frequencies. Can't receive mail, can't send it.”

“Right,” I say, trying to ignore his tone. Of course Wyn's already tried everything. Still, I had to ask, didn't I? Because maybe there's one small thing he missed. One little crack in the armor surrounding us.

“Try the banana icon,” Wyn suggests, a hint of apology in his voice.

I press a button on the remote and a family of monkeys appears in the trees around us, chittering among themselves in friendly fashion. I smile as a baby monkey takes a seat on Wyn's shoulder, and Wyn grins back at me. I turn up the
temperature to “tropical,” and even though we can't sweat in the MEEP—thank God—somehow I still register, still
feel
, the extra intensity of the sun.

“Whew! Easy there, before our avatars melt,” Wyn says, reaching up to give the baby monkey a scratch between the ears. “How about a swim to cool off?”

I look down at the gorgeous beach. I'd love nothing more than to splash through those waves right now, but we've got work to do. “Shouldn't we go back? Or at least come up with a new plan?”

“Go back where, Nixy? And do what? Our last plan nearly killed you.”

“Oh, don't be so dramatic. Yes, I lost my memory for a bit but it was hardly a life-or-death situation.”

“That's because you don't remember it, Nixy, but I do. I had to listen to you scream. You were in so much pain you
crushed
my hand. If I had let go . . .”

“Fine,” I concede. “But you're just proving my point. We need to figure out our next move. Not take a vacation.”

“What move? I've been trying to bust out of here for days. There's
nothing
we can do. Going back to Havana's not going to help, not right now anyway. Here on the island we have total privacy. There aren't any Meeple or portals, so there's no way for anyone to spy on us. Remember, Rico Suave's still out there somewhere.”

“And when I find him I'm going to rip his arms out. Maybe even mess up his perfect hair,” I joke. As I'd hoped, the serious look on Wyn's face turns to a smile again. I like him better this way, I realize.

And all of a sudden, I feel tired of worrying, tired of anger, tired of thinking. I find myself wondering,
Why not take a little break?
My brain deals better with knotty problems when they're on the back burner, anyway.

And, of course, there is the part I don't tell Wyn.

I have the distinct feeling there is something else I have forgotten. Something Wyn hasn't told me.

“Wyn—” I begin, but then I lose my nerve.

“What is it? Tell me,” he says, the smile still playing on his lips.

“You did tell me everything, right? Everything that happened after we trapped Kora?”

Wyn's face goes slack and his eyes skitter away from mine.

“Everything important,” he finally says, turning back to me. “Are you sure you don't remember anything at all?” His eyes are searching mine now, as if he's trying to find the memories inside of me.

But there are none.

I shake my head.

Wyn's shoulders slump and he looks away again.

“Never mind,” I say, feeling more confused than ever. “Let's go swim.”

The water feels delicious—not too cold, not too warm, but that just-right temperature that almost never happens in the real world. I let the waves tumble me around in the shallows like a piece of driftwood while Wyn bodysurfs nearby. He's changed into bright green swim trunks and I'm wearing the most suitable thing I could find in my virtual closet—the tiny little dress I wore to level Coop. That seems like years ago now instead of weeks. In any case, the dress is small enough to look like a one-piece skirted swimsuit, and it's better than swimming in cargo pants or drowning in the wench dress.

I try my best to enjoy this picture-perfect moment and give my brain a rest, but it's harder than it should be. Images of Kora, Rico Suave, Diego Salvador, and even the damn sharks from the maze keep appearing before my eyes. I try to push the images away, back to the no-man's-land part of my brain, to save for later. I don't want to think about them now.

I remember the meditation exercises Jill makes me do whenever I'm stressing about school and college too much. I close my eyes for a moment and try to empty my mind. I focus on the sound of the waves around me, the smell of salt in the air. I hold my breath and duck under the water. The images in my head slowly disappear and everything goes dark.

The water presses in around me.

Black.

I stifle a scream.

Memory of the Black overwhelms every thought, every
sense I have.

Pain.

Fire.

Death.

No, not again!

I snap my eyes back open and pull myself up from the water.

I break the surface and search for Wyn.

I don't see him. I call his name and start to panic. I pump my arms and legs, thrashing in a full circle, searching the water for him.

“Wyn!” I scream, just as he surfaces down the shore from me, shaking the water from his body like a dog. He turns and waves, a big grin on his face.

Wyn.

I calm myself and wave back.

Just stay with Wyn
, I tell myself.

Wyn will keep me safe.