Etherworld (2 page)

I hold my breath as my dad makes his way across, his arms stretched on either side of him for balance, like he's walking a trapeze wire. Only when he's safe on the other side do I step onto the bridge, my arms stretched out beside me. The bridge shifts under my weight and I freeze, staying motionless until it stills. I take one step and then another, and before I know it, I've made it to the other side. I step off the bridge and my feet sink into clumps of soil.

When a deep moaning sound echoes through the cold, dim sky, I recognize it right away. It's the cry of the hideous slug-monster that roams just outside the firewall.

The survivors I've met in Etherworld—the youngest looks about thirteen, the oldest twenty or so—have been living in fear of this disgusting creature for weeks, maybe more. But the survivor who matters most to me is the one who came here with me: Josh Heywood. Military-school tech geek. Loyal friend.

Or boyfriend, if you count all the kissing.

The wailing gets louder, and even though my dad has told me the giant worm can't reach us, I feel a shot of fear run through me. I can still picture its jagged teeth and yellow drool; I can still smell its rancid breath. The beast attacked shortly after Josh and I arrived here, and if Josh hadn't been there to distract it, the worm would have killed me.

We continue on, the wretched sound echoing above the howling wind. My father's pace is even quicker than before.

“Why is that creature in here anyway?” I ask, trying to keep up.

He pauses, like he's trying to think of an answer. “It was an accident. I never had a chance to finish this place. Like these,” he says, motioning toward the leafless trees that frame the path. At first, I don't see anything strange about them, but then I notice something odd. They all have the same bare branches, the same shape.

“They're identical,” I say.

“That's right,” he says. “I didn't have time to complete their design. And the same goes for almost everything on this side of the firewall. I guess any minor blip could have led to the creation of that . . . thing.”

“That's one hell of an accident.”

I feel a little bad when my dad winces at my curse. I never used to swear, at least not in front of my parents. It's just one of the things that have changed since he's been gone.

“When did you start building this place?” I ask.

“After I found out that Elusion could cause nanopsychosis,” he says, referring to the addiction disorder caused by the app. “It's a prototype, though. I never intended for anyone to actually live here.”

“And Cathryn and Bryce can't get in?”

It makes me sick to even say their names. Cathryn Simmons and Bryce Williams, my dad's former boss and colleague, falsified the research for Elusion so it would receive approval from the CIT. When they found out my dad had set off a destruction system, they kidnapped him and forced him into Elusion so they could trick his subconscious into revealing how to stop it. Then they faked his death so no one would know what they had done.

But my dad outsmarted them.

And later, so did I.

“Not yet,” my dad says, not offering any more information.

He's been acting like this since we left the makeshift base for all the survivors—answering my questions after long pauses, as if he's holding something back and deciding what to say.

Like he's still trying to protect me.

But I want to know more, so I'm going to keep asking him questions, even though it seems to be making him uncomfortable.

“So did you have the plan for Etherworld in your back pocket from the beginning, in case the sodium pentothal didn't work?”

“Sort of,” he says, “I knew we needed to solve the problem. I never liked the idea of inserting a drug into the wristbands. Besides, I knew from your mom's work at the hospital that people can develop—”

“A resistance to the meds?” I say.

He nods. “I just wish . . .” His voice cracks, and he chokes the words back. “I wish I'd pulled Elusion out of trials right then. I was still hoping I could fix it. I didn't want to give up.”

“You didn't realize how dangerous it was,” I say. “And it's not like Cathryn would have listened to you anyway.”

“The day I found out she and Bryce went behind my back and falsified data, I knew they couldn't be trusted. So I created a pass code to Etherworld, put
Walden
in a lockbox, and . . .” He trails off, like he's not sure if he remembers what happened next.

Or if he should keep his thoughts to himself.

“Anyway, you know the rest,” he says, marching ahead.

I follow right behind him, undeterred. “But why did they think trapping you in Elusion was going to stop the destruction protocol?”

“It's very . . . technical.”

“Seriously, Dad? I think I can handle it.”

“That's not the problem,” he mutters.

“Then what?”

He eventually explains, “In Elusion, theta brain waves are manipulated, so they used trypnosis to force my subconscious to reveal how I planned to take the program down. But when I escaped to Etherworld, where the brain goes into delta sleep, they couldn't influence me at all.”

My hands clench at my sides, and a chill runs through me. How could Cathryn imprison him inside Elusion like this?

“She underestimated you,” I say.

“She underestimated both of us,” he adds.

The path ends at the edge of a precipice. My dad gestures toward a steep, rocky slope that runs between one mound of ash to the the next. Down below us, a group of people are gathered around the opening of what looks like a cave tucked under the ash hill. The entryway to the cave is framed by pieces of thick wood and branches and lit by torches that have been dug into the sandy soil. People are walking in and out, carrying loads of round objects and adding them to several pyramid-shaped structures.

“What are they doing?” I ask.

“I'll show you,” he says, leading me down the slope and toward the mine.

Halfway into our descent, I catch sight of Josh standing next to his sister Nora. He risked his life to get here, just like I did. She's pointing at one of the structures like she's giving him instructions. The hiking shirt and pants he's wearing are covered in dust, but he still looks great, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and his forearms flexing as he folds his arms across his chest. If we were in the real world, my reaction would be enough to make me blush, but considering that I'm standing next to my dad, I'm hoping that's not the case. I smile at him and wave.

“The bombs are ready!” Josh calls out, shifting his gaze toward my father.

“Good!” my dad yells back, as my smile fades away.

What did he say is ready? The bombs?

My father's “way out” is a massive stockpile of explosives?

“I don't understand. Why do we need
bombs
?”

When I first arrived in Etherworld and my father recounted the reasons he'd been trapped in Elusion, he told me that the digital paradise he'd built would eventually self-destruct, thanks to the malware he'd unleashed on it right before his abduction. But if that's the case, why are these mines stuffed with explosives?

“The malicious scripts I wrote aren't enough to destroy Elusion,” he says. “All they did was arm the triggers in the Escapes. We're going to have to do the detonation work ourselves.”

Josh jogs back to Nora and helps her place an object near the base of the pyramid. Seeing them reunited like this should make me happy, but all I can think about is the fact that they're handling explosives. And there's something else. If you want to see someone in Elusion, you have to program in their invite codes. How are
any
of us reuniting with one another exactly?

I'm surprised I didn't think of this before. I was so happy to be with my dad again; maybe questioning how it happened just wasn't important to me.

“I didn't program in their codes,” I say. “I've never even met them before.”

“What's that?” my father says.

“The survivors,” I continue. “How can we all be here together without having each other's codes?”

My dad's face blanches, like I've caught him completely off guard, but then he clears his throat and gestures to the group working at the mines.

“It was a giant hack job,” he explains. “One of the kids used an advanced algorithm to get into the Orexis cloud, and got hold of the access code to my Elusion domain, which is connected to the entire system. He shared the info with his friends, and they all went to my domain, cracked the firewall's pass code, and got access to Etherworld.”

At first I find it hard to believe that anyone could break through Orexis's sophisticated security grid and get that information, but then I remember hearing how the company outsourced its security measures to another organization so they could keep costs down. The satisfaction I get from his response only lasts a minute, though. More niggling thoughts bubble to the surface, like the motives of the kids who tried to enter my father's domain. And how did Josh and I make it to Etherworld without that algorithm?

I'm about to prod my dad some more, but he cuts me off before I get a chance.

“You've always been inquisitive, and I know there's a lot that I haven't explained,” he says. “But what's most important right now is completing this mission. It's the only way to get home.”

“So we're going to blast our way out of here?”

“We don't have a choice,” he says. “Everyone here has been exposed to heavy doses of trypnosis. Their best chance of survival is for us to disable Elusion from inside the program. We have to destroy every Escape in my domain.”

The way he's talking makes me wonder if he already knows about Anthony and the others. I look at him, and his brow furrows with concern. Obviously it's killing him that he can't rescue me from all this.

“So what's going to happen to us all when we attack Elusion?” I ask. “Will we be okay?”

“We're about to find out,” he says, and starts down the hill in silence.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

THE MINUTE WE FINISH MAKING OUR WAY down, my dad is surrounded by a mob of kids throwing out all sorts of questions.

The dusty air fills with words like “detonation,” “targets,” and “survival.” I back away from the crowd and stand aside, listening to my dad hand out orders I don't quite understand. I guess my shock about the bombs is wearing off, and I just want to know what's going on.

A cool hand takes hold of my wrist, turning me around.

“Glad you made it,” Josh says, grinning.

The calm tone of his voice melts away the rest of my anxiety. “Me too,” I say.

There's an ashy grime on his face, but I don't think I've ever seen him look this cute. Although he's undeniably good-looking, it's his imperfections I love the most—the slight gap between his teeth, and how his ears stick out a little bit, due to his military buzz cut. I look into his eyes, and though they're colorless like everyone else's here, they still brim with intensity.

“I was beginning to worry,” he says, his fingers entwining with mine.

“About what?”

“That you realized you're too good for hard labor.”

“Very funny,” I say with a laugh.

“You feeling better?”

“I am now.”

Forgetting that we're in the middle of a crisis, I lean toward him, hoping to give him a discreet kiss. But when my dad breaks away from the crowd and heads in our direction, my heels slam back to the ground. Josh lets go of my hand, straightening his posture like he's about to salute a superior officer.

“Sir,” he says, giving my dad a polite but distinctive nod.

My dad raises an eyebrow in my direction, then tells Josh, “This isn't the academy. You don't need to call me sir.”

I cringe a little, wondering exactly how much Josh shared with him while I was recovering. Does my dad know about Josh's criminal record and that he was sent to military school as punishment?

“They're almost ready,” Josh says.

“Really? That was fast,” my dad says, astonished.

“What's almost ready?” I ask.

“The adaptive bombs,” my dad replies. “They have to be mined by hand. It's a delicate procedure, to say the least. Josh figured out the best way to extract them.”

“He just got his tech-master certification,” I blurt out, and Josh gives me this strained look, like I'm embarrassing him. But I don't care. After Nora contracted nanopsychosis and dropped out of college, vanishing without a trace, Josh did everything he could to find her. I want my dad to know how smart and brave and selfless he is.

“Good, we could use another master in the group.” Dad claps his hands and rubs them together, like he used to do back at home when he had an idea. “We have Zared and Malik, but they're not as talented as Patrick, I'm afraid.”

The corners of Josh's lips turn down at the comparison to my best friend, Patrick. But I know my dad's not doing it to be cruel. Patrick was more than just my father's protégé at Orexis; he was like part of our family. But even still, I was quick to blame him for the problems with Elusion, convinced that he'd known about them all along. I even blamed Patrick for locking Josh and me inside a disintegrating Escape, but I was wrong. Patrick wasn't responsible for a lot of things I thought he'd done. Still, he worked in my dad's old office. He had access to my dad's old computer. He could've helped me figure out what happened to my dad, but he didn't.

“I know I'm not in Patrick's league,” Josh says, holding my father's gaze. “At least not when it comes to programming.”