The Leveller (9 page)

MY HEAD IS POUNDING, LIKE THERE'S A CYMBAL-PLAYING MONKEY
going to town inside my brain. I consider shooting it with my laser gun—that ought to shut it up—but something about that plan seems wrong. I'm too tired to figure out
what
though.

Why can't I think? I lean against the town house's exterior wall, then close my eyes and slide down it into a heap.

The monkey doesn't stop.
BANG BANG BANG BANG
. I tuck my head down and put my hands over my ears, which is useless, but I can't seem to do anything else.

After a few moments I register a hand on my knee and a soft voice saying, “Hey there.”

The monkey does its best to drown out the voice.
BANG BANG BANG
.

“Nixy, can you hear me?” the voice says, more loudly this time.

I blink and try to pull myself together. I nod and then wince. Moving my head makes me dizzy.

“Come on, let's get out of here,” Wyn says. He gently helps me to my feet. “You need to rest.”

He takes my hand like I'm a five-year-old and leads me around the back of the house, where a motorcycle's been parked in the alley. He climbs on, then tells me to get on the back and hold tight. As we ride through the city, weaving around cars, we don't talk—I
can't
talk—and I'm glad Wyn doesn't ask me any questions. I have no answers right now. I can barely remember my own name. I just rest my head on his back and let him drive. The monkey cymbals are not as loud now.

We finally reach a huge, stately hotel, its majestic entrance framed with towering palm trees standing sentry. The sign on the door reads H
OTEL
N
ACIONAL
. Wyn leaves the motorcycle with a uniformed valet, and we walk through a lush lobby, where more beautiful Meeple stand about talking and laughing and clinking little ice cubes in their drink glasses. Some of the people look familiar and I wonder if they are more famous movie stars—or the same famous movie stars. I open my mouth to ask Wyn, but nothing comes out.

Wyn squeezes my hand. “Don't worry, we're almost there.” He leads me to an elevator, where another hotel attendant
says, “Good evening, Mr. Salvador,” and presses a button. The elevator goes up to the top of the hotel and lets us out into a luxurious hallway. A small voice in my head is trying to tell me something—warning me—something about strange boys and hotel rooms being a bad idea, but my hand, the one that is holding Wyn's, ignores that voice, and it soon goes away.

We go through a service door, up a flight of stairs, and Wyn opens a door into the night sky. We are on the roof of the hotel. He leads me to a small garden and pushes me gently into a wicker recliner. “Wait here,” he says.

In the distance, I can make out the ocean, its waves slow and steady as they approach then retreat from the seawall surrounding the city. The sound is restful, hypnotic, and soon the cymbals in my head go away entirely. A handful of stars twinkle above me, like fairies. I feel as if I could almost fall asleep, which is ridiculous. I'm in the MEEP. Avatars don't sleep.

“Here you go,” whispers Wyn. His arms are full of linens and pillows. He tucks a pillow under my head and covers me with a silky, lightweight blanket. As my eyelids flutter down for the last time, I see him settle into the recliner next to mine. He is staring up at the stars.

When I next open my eyes, there is a beautiful pink-and-orange haze surrounding me. I blink once, then burrow my head back into the pillow and reach for Hodee, who likes to sleep inside
the nest of my curled body each night. Only he's not there. I register this as strange, but I'm not ready to fully wake up yet to investigate further. This pillow is so soft, the sound of the waves so soothing. . . .

Waves. Ocean? Something is wrong with that, I know. My brain is trying to pull itself out of slumber, but it's like it's fighting itself. Half of it is saying, “Ocean waves . . . mmm.” The other half is saying, “Ocean waves . . . wha?”

The “wha” side wins.

I open my eyes. A gorgeous boy sits across from me, watching me. He smiles. “Go ahead and take a minute,” he says.

I don't even need the full minute. Within seconds it all comes back to me like a full-scale tsunami: the sharks, the anaconda, the pterodactyls, the banshee, and of course, Wyn. I'm in the MEEP. Not only that, I'm a prisoner here.

I sit up slowly, combing my fingers through my hair and running my tongue over my teeth. I've never slept in the MEEP before; I feel like I should have rumpled clothes and morning breath. But when I glance down, my avatar looks as fresh as ever. That's a bonus.

“I don't get it,” I say to Wyn, who's still watching me. “Why was I so tired? Avatars don't need to sleep.”

“Avatars don't, but our brains do,” says Wyn. He picks up the blanket on his chair and begins to fold it. “What's the longest you've ever played in the MEEP?”

I hesitate. I signed a MEEP contract promising I would always abide by the “4 hours per every 24 hours” maximum.

Wyn grins at me. “Be honest. I swear I won't tell my dad's legal department.”

I grin back and shrug. “I don't know . . . maybe eight hours?”

“So compare that to the twenty-four hours you've been in the MEEP this time around.”

“What?” I say, standing now. “I've been gone a
whole day
?”

“I think so, from what you've told me. That's why you were so exhausted last night. Even though your body is at rest at home, your brain keeps working here. And after all you'd been through yesterday—the maze challenges and, well, finding me—”

He pauses for a second, and I recall the raging hissy fit I threw yesterday, like I was somehow channeling King Kong. A wave of embarrassment runs all the way through me and I look away.

“Your brain was on overload,” he continues. “It needed to shut down for a while—in the real world.”

I guess it made sense. “I hadn't really thought of that before,” I confess.

Wyn takes the blanket from my recliner and I grab the other end to help him fold it.

“I hadn't either,” he says, “until I totally crashed on the beach one night and woke up the next morning eyeball-to-eyeball with a large crab.”

I laugh as he takes the folded blanket from me and scoops up the pillows.

We leave the roof and go back into the hotel, stopping by one of the rooms to return the linens he'd pilfered the night before. The hotel room is decked out in swanky retro furniture and boasts a panoramic view of the ocean. “Did you really go to the trouble of building and furnishing every single room in this hotel?”

Wyn gives a small laugh. “It wasn't as hard as it sounds,” he says, as he begins to make up the bed. I lean over to help him. I don't know whether to find it charming or crazy that he's so intent on keeping our MEEP prison nice and tidy. “All the rooms are identical, a simple copy-and-paste job,” he continues. “Eventually I might re-create some of the penthouse suites, but it's not my top priority.”

“I assume you mean the Let's-get-the-hell-out-of-here thing takes precedence?”

Wyn looks out the window and sighs. “Of course.”

“I'm going to need to know everything,” I say. “Why don't you start at the beginning?”

He nods. “Right. Let's go to the Malecón. We can talk there.”

The Malecón, it turns out, is the big stone seawall that I saw last night from the rooftop. As we walk along the top of it, we
see fishermen, townspeople, fruit vendors, and lovers holding hands. I suddenly remember Wyn holding my hand last night and I bite my lip, but Wyn doesn't seem to notice. He has turned inward, trying to figure out where to start his story.

“I've been working on this world for two years now,” he says, looking out at the ocean as we walk. “I guess you could say it's my hobby, the one place I spend most of my time when I'm not at school.”

“Two years.” I nod in understanding. “When your dad invents the greatest video game of all time, you don't have to wait for the official release like the rest of us.”

Wyn looks almost apologetic. “I know that seems unfair—” he starts, but I cut him off.

“I would have done the same thing. My dad's a developmental artist on the MEEP team. He lets me try new stuff all the time. Just not on a . . . scope of . . . this magnitude,” I say, waving an arm at the miles-long stretch of Havana coastline.

“So that's why you're so good at this,” Wyn says with a grin. “You inherited the video game gene from your father.”

“Both my parents, really,” I say, and all of a sudden I miss them horribly. “My mom, Jill, is a scriptwriter.”

“Jill?” Wyn asks, stopping us in our tracks. “Jill Bauer?”

“You know her?” I ask, though I'm sure that can't be right. Jill would have told me if she'd ever met Diego Salvador's son.

“Well, I know
of
her. I use her scripts all the time. More
than half the Meeple here in Havana speak JillBauer-ese,” he says, laughing. “She's funny as hell, your mom. Always throws in some wacky surprise. Makes the Meeple more interesting.”

I admit that I am a little taken aback, and also a little ashamed of myself. I have always thought of my dad's work on the MEEP as super creative and exciting, and my mom's work as . . . well, boring.

“So both your parents are in the biz,” Wyn continues. “Is that why they named you Nixy . . . for the water sprite boss in
Sirens of the Seylon Sea
?”

“God, no!” I say, giving him a small swat on the arm. “But the truth is almost as fruity. My full name is Phoenix Ray Bauer. Phoenix for the mythological bird, Ray for Ray Bradbury, my mom's favorite author.”

“Sounds like our moms are . . .
were
 . . . the same kind of crazy. My full name is Elwyn Brooks Salvador.”

“No idea who Elwyn Brooks is,” I say. “Sorry.”

Wyn laughs. “Don't worry, no one does. But I'm sure you've read
Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White?”

“Yes, and—?” I say, not quite following.

“Elwyn Brooks . . . E. B.?”

Now I am really laughing. “Wow, E. B., that is
almost
as embarrassing as my name.”

“Well, my mom's maiden name was Brooks, so I give her a pass on that one. But the ‘Elwyn' was certainly cruel and
unusual punishment.” He grumbles, though he is smiling. I remember the photo of his mother on the piano; he has that same warm smile that reaches the eyes.

“Maybe Elwyn is a little old-fashioned,” I say, “but I give your mom an A-plus for originality.
Charlotte's Web
is one of my favorites. Besides, Wyn's a cool nickname. Like,
for the Wyn
!” I yell, raising my hand in the air for a high five.

Now he is shaking his head and laughing at me. “For the win!” he agrees, slapping my hand.

We walk in silence together for a few more moments, as if we're both trying to stretch this brief carefree interlude as long as we can.

“So when did things turn bad?” I finally ask. As much as I'm enjoying our walk, I know my parents must be truly worried by now. I've never taken this long on the job. “Here in the MEEP, I mean.”

“Thanksgiving Day,” he says. “I could tell right away that something was wrong. My usual frequency code sounded different, a pattern I didn't recognize. When I arrived at the Landing, I thought about stopping at the main control panel to make sure everything was all right, but the damn Christmas in the MEEP promotion started that day, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

I snort a little at that, and he raises his eyebrows at me.

“My dad was lead developer on Christmas in the MEEP,”
I explain.

“No offense to your dad,” he hurries to explain. “It's
my
dad I was annoyed with. Christmas in the MEEP and this one-year anniversary have consumed him for months. We've hardly seen him. And once again, he bailed on my grandmother and me for Thanksgiving.”

“I get it, believe me,” I say, pushing my hair behind my ears as a breeze sweeps over us. “You should know, though, your dad feels bad about that.”

Wyn shrugs and his face turns unreadable. “So anyway, I left the Landing in a hurry and walked through the portal. I came through the wardrobe, then immediately left the bedroom. I was heading down the stairs when I heard a noise.”

He pauses and I look at him in question.

“An impossible noise,” he says, looking out at the ocean again.

I continue to stare at him, trying to be patient. “What do you mean an
impossible
noise?” I finally say, unable to wait any longer.

He turns to face me again. “I heard someone open and shut the wardrobe door.”

“ARE YOU SAYING THINGS TURNED BAD WHEN SOMEONE FOLLOWED
you into the MEEP?” I ask Wyn, as we continue along the seawall. “Why? Anyone who has a beta code could have entered. I do it all the time in my line of work.”

“Yes, but I have my own private frequency, Nixy. I coded it myself, with help from my father. We're the only two who know it. And I knew that
he
wasn't going to follow me . . . he was in California for the anniversary launch.”

“So what did you do after you heard the noise?”

“I went back to the bedroom, but it was empty. And when I opened the wardrobe door, there was nothing but Black.”

A small chill runs down my back, though the virtual Havana sunshine is perfect and the temperature warm. “Okay, what happened then?”

“Well,” says Wyn, blowing out a slow breath from his cheeks, “I still wasn't
that
worried. I figured maybe it was just a technical glitch—maybe my ear trans needed replacing or the MEEP network was acting up. I use a lot of beta programming, so it wouldn't be too strange to run across a problem now and then.”

I nod as he speaks, encouraging him to go on. It all sounds reasonable enough.

“So that's when I initiated my return frequency. Only it didn't work.”

“Did you try yelling
really loudly
?” I ask with a rueful grin, remembering my ridiculous display last night.

Wyn smiles at me. “Believe me, I would have broken your eardrums if you'd been here. I think I tried about a half dozen times before I gave up. It's a panicky feeling,” he says, as if letting me know that my temper tantrum last night wasn't completely uncalled-for. “I spent the next twenty-four hours running all over the place, trying every door, yelling random codes, killing myself over and over . . . that's how I ended up falling asleep on the beach, in fact. I'd just taken a running swan dive off the seawall, hoping I'd break my neck and reanimate in the Landing.”

“And instead you took a cozy nap with crab daddy,” I say, peering down at the beach below, though there isn't much of it left. The tide is rolling in fast now. “Surprised you didn't drown.”

Wyn stops and looks over the seawall with me. “I've been fooling around with the tides, trying to create a schedule for them that mimics the real tide charts of Havana. It's almost high tide now. In fact, we'd better turn around and make our way back if we don't want to get splashed. The bigger waves come right over the wall.”

“So back to your story,” I say as we reverse our tracks. In the distance I can see the towering white Hotel Nacional gleaming in the morning sun. It looks like a palace. “What happened after you woke up on the beach?”

Wyn shrugs. “I tried to keep calm. I figured my grandmother would be the first to notice I'd been gone too long. I knew she'd be worried and probably call my father, and that my father would send in one of his programmers to fix the problem.”

“So you also thought it was a technical issue,” I say. “But yesterday you told me that someone was intentionally keeping you trapped here?”

Wyn's face turns dark and he shoves his hands into his pockets. “We're not the only people here, Nixy.”

“What? How do you know?” I ask, eyeing the Meeple around us.

He shrugs. “The subtle differences that come from a lack of script. Small idiosyncrasies. I don't have to tell you about them. You just know, don't you?”

I nod because I do. I've always been able to sense my marks,
even when they're surrounded by Meeple. But I also knew exactly what I was looking for.
Who
I was looking for. “Have you spoken to them?”

Wyn shakes his head. “No, they've been successfully avoiding me. They try to blend in with the crowd, but I programmed this entire world from scratch . . . and they just don't fit in.”

“Have you tried chasing them down, capturing them?”

“Of course. I thought maybe you were one of them yesterday, that's why I—”

“Mugged me?”

“Sorry,” he says, the sheepish grin back on his face. “They always get away from me, initiating their return frequencies before I can even talk to them. So I guess you could say I was trying a more . . . forceful technique.”

“Yes, I
could
say.” I swat him again on the arm to let him know I'm kidding. Then I silently chastise myself for reverting to first grade. Why do I keep hitting him?

“Did you ever consider that shooting me yesterday might simply have reset me back to the Landing?”

Wyn nods. “It was a risk, but I had nothing to lose. I figured if I couldn't shoot myself back home, maybe no one else could get back that way either. Besides, I wasn't really going to aim at your head. I figured I'd just pop you in the leg and maim you if you got out of hand.”

I bite my lip, but I know I'm smiling anyway. “So where do
these non-Meeple people usually hang out?” I ask, tucking my hands under my arms to keep them from touching him.

Wyn gives me a sideways look. “Usually they just follow me.”

I stop then and whip my head around. If these
rasshøls
are the ones responsible for this mess, I've got a few choice words for them. After I knock their teeth out, of course.

“How can we draw them out from the—?” I start, but just then something lurches beneath my feet and I nearly fall into Wyn. The stone seawall begins to buck and tremble like we've been hit by a magnitude seven earthquake. Wyn grabs my arms and tries to steady me, though it doesn't do much good. We're both flailing around like first-timers trying to couples skate at the roller rink.

“Don't be—” Wyn yells, but he's cut off by a deafening roar.

“BRRRAAAAAOOOKKKK!”

A piercing squawk bellows from the sea. A huge, slimy, saucer-eyed head emerges from the water, its gaping beak lined with a thousand dagger-like teeth. The beast rises higher and higher, lifting four huge flailing tentacles out of the water. It doesn't take a genius to know it's got four more where those came from. A freaking
kraken
has just come to call on Havana.

“BRRRAAAAAOOOKKKK!”
it screams again, then charges the seawall.

“Nixy—” Wyn yells, but before he can go on, the kraken
extends a hoary purple tentacle and snatches Wyn right off the wall.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God
is all that goes through my head.

Finally, I snap my gaping mouth shut and yell, “Inventory!” I have no idea what to use against a kraken. Laser gun? Crossbow? The monster's skin looks to be made of hard scales, completely impenetrable.

Wyn is still screaming at me, though I can't make out the words. The kraken starts to bring Wyn toward its toothy beak. “
Fy fæn
,” I mutter, then load the crossbow and take aim. I try to zero in on one of its milky eyes, though the beast keeps moving, making it nearly impossible to target. “Steady,” I tell myself, finger on the trigger. My crosshatch finds a big liquid pupil, and I start to squeeze.

“Nooooooo,” yells Wyn.

No what? I've lost the shot now. What is he screaming about?

“Nixy, don't shoot,” he yells again.

What? I lower the crossbow in disbelief. It looks like the kraken is . . . hugging Wyn to his cheek? Wyn strokes him and says something over and over again . . . something that sounds suspiciously like “Good boy. There's a good boy.”

Finally, the kraken paddles over to where I'm standing and gently replaces Wyn on the seawall. Wyn gives me a goofy grin.

I am not amused.

“What the hell is
that
?” I ask, pointing my loaded crossbow at the kraken. The beast is now bobbing in the water next to us, waving its tentacles around like it wants to play.

“That's Larry. Watch this,” he says, summoning a nearby fruit vendor with a whistle. Wyn quickly buys a bunch of bananas, then winds up and starts pitching them one by one at the kraken.

I have to admit, Larry's a pretty good outfielder. When he's caught a banana in each tentacle, he does what can only be described as a little happy dance—a few giddy spins, a couple of head bobs—then waves to us in farewell before sinking back into the deep.

“You've got to be kidding,” I say. “And here I've been admiring your devotion to historical accuracy, when all this time you've had a pet kraken floating around?”

Wyn laughs. “Sorry I forgot to warn you about him. Every now and then I get a bit bored trying to re-create the real Havana, so I throw in a few extras to amuse myself.”

“I see. Any other . . .
extras
I should know about before I kill them by mistake?”

Wyn grins. “None as alarming as Larry. I'll try to give you a heads-up next time.”

“I would appreciate that. Now let's figure out a way to ambush those intruders. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that
may help.”

“Tricks up your sleeve? Oh, don't you sound like Nancy Drew,” Wyn teases, his eyes twinkling.

I resist the urge to swat his arm again. “Just take me somewhere we can make a plan—someplace we won't find any Meeple, or hideous sea monsters who think they're golden retrievers.”

“I know just the place. This way,” he says, and holds out his hand to me.

The hand flusters me. I want to take it, but I'm also embarrassed by it. He's already saved me from careening off the seawall during the Larry episode. I don't want him to think I'm some little girl who can't take care of herself.

I fought sharks to get here, damn it.
I'm
the rescuer, not him.

I pretend I don't notice the hand. “Lead on,” I say.

He quickly drops his hand and turns his head. He shoves his fists into his pockets and starts walking briskly away from me. Great. Maybe we should both go back to first grade.

Neither of us talks as we head back down the busy Havana streets. There are Meeple everywhere. At first I try to scrutinize everyone within eyesight, but Wyn is walking too fast, and besides, I don't know what I'm looking for.

Finally, we turn down a residential street that looks familiar, only in the daytime it's even prettier. I wish the houses back
in Illinois were this colorful.

“You're taking me back to the wardrobe house?” I ask, when I finally catch up to Wyn at the doorway. I'm relieved to see it hasn't been absorbed by the hideous Blob I released last night, though I'm still not sure we should go back in.

“It's the one place I know we'll be alone,” he says. “Don't worry, we won't go upstairs,” he adds, guessing my thoughts. The warmth has gone out of his eyes and voice, but he is still kind, still polite as he enters the house first. “It's the only building in Havana where Meeple aren't allowed.”

I think of the girl's bedroom upstairs, the one I've destroyed. The one I thought belonged to some virtual girlfriend.

Only Meeple aren't allowed inside this house.

“Oh,” I say, unable to suppress the surprise in my voice.

He glances at me as we walk through the first floor of the house. “I thought you'd have it all figured out by now, Nancy Drew.”

I try not to get riled by the sarcasm in his voice.

We enter a walled patio at the back of the house. The whitewashed stone walls are covered with greenery and flowers, and a water fountain burbles in the middle of a small sitting area. Wyn gestures for me to have a seat on one of the iron benches.

“This is a replica of my grandmother's old house,” he says quietly, sitting on the next bench over.

“Mama Beti's?”

Wyn nods. “She and her family left Havana just before the Revolution in '59. Mama Beti was fifteen. They had to leave everything behind. And then they never got to go back.”

Shame washes over me. “That was her bedroom,” I say. I don't have to ask, I know I'm right.

“Yes.”

“Has she been here yet? Has she seen it?”

Wyn shakes his head. “Not yet. She hasn't had the frequency procedure.”

I look down at the ground, unable to look him in the eye. I am an idiot. “I'll help you rebuild her room, Wyn, as soon as we get out of here. I promise.”

“It's okay, the repairs shouldn't be too difficult once we're out,” he says, looking down at his hands. “Besides, it's not an
exact
replica. I don't have much to work with other than Mama Beti's memories and a few old photographs.”

“Does she know you're doing this?”

“She knows I'm up to something because I ask her questions constantly. But I still think she'll be surprised. I hope she likes it.”

I stare into his eyes, hoping to relay the depth of my words. “It's beautiful here, Wyn. How could she not be thrilled to see her childhood home again?” I stop then, remembering Mama Beti's metal walker. “How will that work? I thought only healthy people could get the MEEP piercing . . . heck, there
are kids at my school who aren't allowed to get pierced because they're on allergy medication.”

Wyn smiles, and I'm glad to see his face look happy again. “That's the truly amazing part. My father has some medical scientists in Belgium working on a special frequency for her. If all goes well, she'll be one of the first disabled people to ‘walk' in the MEEP. And it's not just Mama Beti . . . these researchers are working on technologies that would eventually allow people with all sorts of physical limitations to experience a healthy body in the MEEP. Not only will the lame be able to walk, but the blind will be able to see. Old people can feel young again.”

“Wow,” I say, sitting back onto the bench. “I had no idea your dad was involved in
that
kind of research.”

“He keeps it all pretty top secret . . . doesn't want to let the cat out of the bag until all the tests have been done, all the questions answered.”