The Reality Bug (21 page)

“We'll never make it,” Courtney yelled, and pulled Mark into one of the empty bedrooms. They quickly closed the door. There were two other doors in the room. They were the doors that led to the adjoining bedrooms.

“Close those doors!” Courtney ordered.

They each ran to one of the doors and closed it.

“We're dead,” Mark said.

Courtney ran for the window. She tried to lift it up, but it had been closed for years and wouldn't budge.

Mark then noticed something. “Look,” he said, holding his hand up. His ring had stopped glowing.

“Not now, Mark. Wait here,” she said, and ran to the other door that led to an adjoining room.

“Where are you going?”

Slam!

The quigs had found them. They were trying to batter down the door Mark had just closed. Mark leaned against it to keep them out. He could hear their angry growling.

“Get ready to open that door,” Courtney ordered, and ran out of the room.

“What?” Mark screamed in shock. There was no way he was opening the door.

Courtney moved quickly and quietly through the next bedroom and poked her head out into the hallway. It was empty. She could hear the sound of the quigs slamming themselves against the door that Mark was holding shut.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Devil dogs! Suppertime! Come and get it!”

The banging stopped. Suddenly all three quigs came charging out of the far bedroom and into the hallway, headed for her.

“Psyche,” she shouted, and ducked back into the bedroom. She then sprinted through the room and back into the bedroom where Mark was. She didn't close the door behind her either.

Mark yelled, “Close the door!”

“No!” Courtney shouted. “Open yours!”

Mark hesitated. He didn't know the quigs had left. But it was clear that Courtney wasn't stopping. If he didn't open the door, she'd run right into it. So he swallowed hard and pulled it open. It wasn't a second too soon, because Courtney blasted through at full throttle.

“Close it behind you!” she shouted.

Mark didn't know what she was doing, until he looked back and saw the three quigs flying toward him, through the bedroom. They had come through the door Courtney left open. Mark jumped out the door and pulled it closed as …
slam slam slam!
All three quigs hit the door. Now Mark and the quigs were on opposite sides from where they had been a few moments before. He still had no idea what Courtney was doing.

Courtney never stopped running. She turned into the hallway and sprinted along the same route the quigs had just taken after her. She knew that either her plan was going to work, or she was about to serve herself up for lunch. She ran into the third bedroom and ran toward the connecting door that led back to the second bedroom. Her plan was to lock them inside.

The quigs had figured it out. They stopped trying to beat down the door, and turned back for the door they had just entered through. But Courtney was too fast. She reached inside the room, grabbed the doorknob, said, “G'night kids!” and slammed the door closed, trapping the quigs in the bedroom. Again the quigs slammed at the door in a blood rage.

Mark poked his head into the room. “Can we go now?” he asked.

The two of them ran back along the hallway and hurried down the stairs. They were just about to exit through the broken window when Mark stopped.

“Look!” he exclaimed and held up his hand. His ring was glowing again. “Whatever it is, it's down here. Or down
there
,” he said as he pointed at the door to the basement.

“Forget it! Those dogs are—”

Mark wasn't listening. He ran to the basement door and opened it. Sure enough, the symbol on his ring glowed even brighter.

“It's down there!”

“If the quigs get out, we'll be trapped,” Courtney warned. Too late. Mark was already headed down the stairs. Courtney ran right after him. She made sure to close the door behind her this time, just in case.

The large basement didn't look any different than a few minutes before, except for one thing: Mark's ring was blasting out light as if it were alive.

“This is it!” Mark declared.

“There's nothing here,” Courtney exclaimed. “We looked behind every door!”

A horrifying sound came from above. It was the sound of the quigs running down the stairs from the second floor. They had gotten out of the bedroom. Mark and Courtney looked up in fear. Mark was about to say something, but Courtney held her hand over his mouth. She put her fingers to her lips for him to “Shhhh.” They didn't move. They didn't make a sound. They thought that with any luck, the quigs wouldn't find them.

Slam!

No such luck. The quigs found them and were trying to batter down the door.

“We gotta find a way out,” Courtney said with a shaky voice.

“No,” Mark yelled back. “We gotta find out what's down here.” Mark looked around. He went to the door that led to the wine cellar and threw it open.

Slam! Slam!

The quigs threw themselves at the basement door with a horrifying fury. They seemed even more out of control than before.

“They know we're close,” Mark said. “They don't want us to find it.”

Courtney saw something they hadn't noticed before. A raggy curtain was hanging on the wall, covering it from ceiling to floor. Courtney pushed it aside to find another door. She quickly pulled it open and shouted for joy. Daylight flooded into the basement.

“Yes! It's the way out! Mark, c'mon!”

Mark ignored her. He threw open the door to the workshop, but nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Mark, c'mon!” Courtney yelled.

Crunch!

The basement door was starting to splinter. A few more shots and it would come down … and so would the quigs.

“Mark!” Courtney cried.

Mark wasn't going to run. Not now. Not when they were so close. He was about to open the next door, the one that led to the root cellar, when he felt something strange. He looked down at his hand, then grimaced in pain.

“Ahhhh!”

Courtney ran to him. “What's the matter?”

CRASH!

The wooden basement door gave way and clattered down the stairs. The quigs were on their way.

“It's burning hot!” Mark yelled, and pulled off his ring.

Courtney turned to see the quigs had begun their final, fatal charge. “This is gonna hurt” was all she could say.

Mark threw the burning ring onto the floor. Instantly a highpitched sound came from it. It wasn't a painful sound; it was more like a jumble of high musical notes that were all being played at the same time.

Courtney grabbed Mark. Mark grabbed Courtney. The two turned to face the charging quigs to see …

They had stopped. The three beastly dogs, their yellow eyes still intensely focused, had stopped. They twisted their heads as if the strange sound were irritating them. A second later the three dogs turned and ran back up the stairs, tails between their legs, whining in fear.

Mark and Courtney looked back down to the ring to see that it was moving. It wasn't growing though. It began to spin. It was slow at first, but picked up momentum until the ring was up on end, spinning so fast that it was nothing more than a blur. The high-pitched notes grew louder.

“Look!” Mark said, pointing at the door to the root cellar.

Courtney looked to see the door was starting to rattle on its hinges.

“Something's in there,” Courtney said in shock.

“Maybe,” Mark said. “Or m-maybe something's coming.”

The rattling continued, then an intense light began to leak from around the edges of the door. Whatever was behind there, it was giving off a light so bright that Mark and Courtney had to squint, even though it was only coming from the crack around the edges. The strange sound from the ring grew even more intense. Now it was so loud it started to hurt. Mark and Courtney both had to cover their ears. The light from behind the door grew even brighter. The door shook furiously. Mark was ready for it to blow off its hinges.

It was then that the most incredible event of all occurred. As the ring continued to spin, a laser light shot from it, aimed at the wooden door. Mark and Courtney watched in awe as the intense white light hit the door at head level. Smoke rose from where the light hit the wood. The door was burning.

And then, like somebody pulled the plug on a lamp, everything stopped. Everything—the beam of light from the ring; the bright light from behind the door; the strange, piercing sound. And finally the ring itself stopped spinning. It rolled one last time, then came to a stop with a slight, metallic
ping
. It was over. All was back to normal.

All but one small thing.

“Oh, man,” Courtney said in awe.

Mark saw that she was looking at the door to the root cellar. At first, Mark wasn't sure why she was so stunned, and then he saw it. It was on the door, right where the beam from the ring had hit it. There was no mistake. They had seen this once before and read about it many times over.

It was a star. The sign of a gate.

Mark reached down and picked up the ring. It was no longer glowing and was now cool enough to touch. It had done its job. Courtney walked over to the door and touched the blackened symbol.

“It's still hot,” she said. She looked to Mark and asked, “Could it be?”

“Open the d-door,” Mark said. “My hand's shaking.”

Courtney reached down and grabbed the door handle. “My hand's shaking too,” she said.

Mark put his hand over Courtney's and the two of them pulled the door open.

The room looked pretty much the same as it had when they searched it before. It was a large, empty space with a dirt floor and bits of dried weeds hanging from the beams of the ceiling. It was cool inside, just the way a subterranean root cellar should be. It was the exact same room that they had been in before, except for one small change. The rock that made up one whole wall of the cellar was gone.

Mark and Courtney stood together, staring, not breathing. Instead of a rock wall, they now looked into a craggy opening. It was unmistakable.

It was a flume.

Neither could speak. They both stood there, staring into the infinite tunnel. It was Mark who first broke the silence.

“D-Do you think m-maybe this means the time is right for us to be acolytes?”

Courtney stared into the tunnel a moment more, then started to laugh. “Yeah,” she said through the laughter. “I'd say this is a pretty good sign.”

Mark laughed too. The two laughed and hugged. Neither knew what the future held, but one thing was for certain: They were no longer just bystanders whose job it was to read Bobby's mail. They were in the game now. For real.

Mark's ring twitched.

“Uh-oh,” he said, and held his hand up.

“Now what?” Courtney exclaimed. “I don't know if I can take any more fireworks.”

But this event was safe and familiar. The center stone of the ring started to glow. Mark took it off and placed it down on the dirt floor. This time the ring grew, opening up the portal to the territories. The familiar musical notes grew louder, bringing with them a special delivery. The sparkling light filled the underground room. For Mark and Courtney, it was like being held in a warm embrace. The lights flashed one final time, the notes fell silent, and the ring was once again back to its normal size.

Lying next to it was the silver projector that held Bobby's next journal.

“Hobey-ho,” whispered Mark.

W
e were good to go.

Loor and I stood facing the three silver disks in the wall of the alpha jump cubicle, wearing our dark green one-piece suits. Loor had been through the prep routine. Her blood had been scanned and she was fitted with a silver control bracelet. I got my own control bracelet too, but after what had happened during my last jump, I wasn't going to put a whole lot of faith in that thing.

Our safety was in the hands of Aja Killian. She had put the alpha grid that controlled Zetlin's jump back online. She would now monitor our jump into Zetlin's fantasy and yank us out if anything went wrong. At least, that was the plan. Once we were in Dr. Zetlin's jump, the Reality Bug might have plans of its own.

“Any questions?” Aja asked us. She stood at the door of the jump cubicle.

“No,” Loor answered calmly.

What could Loor ask? This was a girl from a territory of primitive, tribal warriors. The idea of jumping into somebody else's fantasy was about as alien to her as, well, I seriously doubt if there's anything that comes close to being that alien.

Aja stepped back into the Alpha Core and sat in the big chair. She hit a few buttons on the silver control panel on the arm. Two of the three silver disks in the wall retracted, and the tables slowly slid out. These tubes were on either side of the center jump tube where Dr. Zetlin was lying. It was creepy to think there was a guy in there, and we were about to leap into his mind.

I hoped there was room for all of us.

“Lie down on the table,” I instructed Loor. “Get comfortable.”

She did. Loor trusted me. Man, I hoped she wasn't making a mistake. I walked out of the jump cubicle and went to Aja.

“Do you have any idea where we might find him?” I asked.

Aja frowned. “I'm sorry, Pendragon,” she said. “It all depends on the fantasy he created.”

She showed me a picture. It was the old-man version of the little kid in the oil painting outside. There was nothing unique about him. He just looked like a smart old man. He was bald and wore round little glasses. I memorized the face.

“So all I have to do is ask him for the origin code, right?” I asked.

“Yes. Tell him the main grid has been suspended because the processing code has been corrupted. Tell him we have to clean the string.”

“Origin code, corrupted processing code, clean the string—got it.”

“I doubt he'll give it up easily,” Aja added. She leaned over my shoulder and glanced at Loor, who was now lying quietly on the table. “You may have to force him to end his jump.”

“Let's find him first,” I said.

“Right,” she said.

There was something bothering me, and I had to say it. “Aja, if the Reality Bug is doing its thing, you might be in danger too. I mean, look what happened to Alex.”

Aja shrugged and gave a cocky reply. “I'm not Alex.”

Gotta love this girl. She wasn't short on confidence.

“Just be careful,” I said, then turned and walked toward my jump tube.

“Pendragon,” Aja called to me. I stopped at the door to the cubicle and looked back at her.

“I'm glad you're here,” she said.

It was the nicest thing Aja Killian had ever said to me.

“We're gonna fix this, Aja,” I said, trying to sound as confident as she was.

“We don't have a choice,” she replied.

She was right. If we were to have any hope of rescuing Veelox from itself, and from Saint Dane, we had to purge the Reality Bug. I walked back to the jump tubes and looked down at Loor.

“What do I do, Pendragon?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I answered. “Just relax. You'll slide inside, it'll be dark for a few seconds and then we'll be together in the jump.” I called out to Aja, “Right?”

“Exactly,” Aja called back. “I'll be watching it all on the monitor.”

I hopped up onto my table and settled in. My heart started to beat faster. It was game time.

“Hobey-ho, let's go!” I called out.

Loor called out, “Aja? What should I be ready for?” I could sense the slight tension in her voice. Loor was the single most fearless person I had ever met. But this was scary, even for her.

Aja answered with one, simple word. “Everything.”

Funny. That was exactly what I was
afraid
of.

Everything.

I was hit with a blinding flash of light and threw my hand up to cover my eyes. My first thought was that something had gone haywire and I was floating in limbo. But a second later I realized what had happened.

I was staring up at the sun.

I quickly looked down to see I was standing on hardpacked dirt. I didn't think there was a sun or dirt in limbo, so everything was cool. A few seconds later my eyes adjusted, and I got the first look at my surroundings. I was standing in the center of a rocky canyon. The walls rose steeply on either side of me. In the distance, the canyon made a few gentle turns, and emptied out into a green meadow. Beyond that in the far distance were snow-capped mountains. Not bad. Dr. Zetlin's fantasy took place on a warm, sunny day in the great outdoors.

“Where are we, Pendragon?” Loor asked.

Oh, right. Loor. I almost forgot. I spun around to see her standing behind me. I smiled and said, “Howdy there, buckaroo.”

Loor gave me a strange look that said, “What the heck are you talking about?”

I didn't blame her, but I couldn't resist, because Loor was now dressed like a cowboy. Or cowgirl. Or cowTraveler. Whatever. She had on blue jeans, a deep red shirt, and black cowboy boots. Her long black hair was tied back in a tight ponytail that reached down to the small of her back. Tied around her forehead was a rolled black bandana. She looked great.

I was pretty much dressed the same way: blue jeans, a deep green shirt, and the same kind of black boots. I even had a bandana around my neck. Dr. Zetlin's fantasy was something right out of the Old West, which raised a weird question. Was there an Old West on Veelox? I guess there had to be, because we were in it.

Loor knelt down and picked up a handful of dirt, then let it spill through her fingers.

“It is real,” she said. “How can that be?”

“It's real because our minds are telling us it is,” I answered. “Or Zetlin's mind is telling us it is.”

Loor stood up and gazed around at the canyon. “This is what the man Zetlin is thinking?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He must have wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up.”

“What is a cowboy?” Loor asked.

Before I could answer, I heard a sound. It was a rumble, like far-off thunder.

“You hear that?” I asked.

The curious look on her face told me she did. We both stood there, listening, as the rumbling grew louder.

“It is coming from that direction,” Loor said and pointed deeper into the canyon.

Behind us the canyon walls made a sharp turn. There was no way to know what lay beyond. But Loor was right. Whatever was making that sound was around the bend, and getting louder. That meant it was coming closer. I took a quick look in the other direction. The mouth of the canyon had to be at least a half mile away.

“Look,” Loor said.

I looked back the other way to see a huge, brown cloud of dirt drifting out from around the bend in the canyon. What was coming? A storm? A rock slide? Godzilla? The thunder grew louder. The sound bounced off the walls of the canyon. Whatever was making that sound, it didn't seem happy. I took another quick look around to see if there was a place we could hide. But the rock walls to either side of us were steep and unforgiving. No way we could climb up. If we were in trouble, the only safe place would be out of this canyon …a half mile away.

I kept my eyes on the bend in the canyon, but started to back toward the mouth.

“I think we'd better get outta here,” I said.

“If this is happening in Zetlin's head, are we in danger?” Loor asked.

“That depends,” I answered.

“On what?”

“On what's coming around that corner.”

A second later we had our answer. Charging around the bend of the canyon, running full throttle, was a herd of cattle. There must have been a thousand of them, headed right for us.

“Stampede!” I shouted. “Run!”

Loor and I turned and sprinted away from the charging mass of animals. I took a quick look back and saw that the swarm of beasts was packed nearly wall-to-wall in the canyon, all snorting and grunting with wild eyes. I'll bet the animals in front of the herd were just as scared as we were. If one of them went down, they'd be trampled by the others charging up from behind. No way they were going to stop. They were running for their lives. Just like us.

“What are they?” asked Loor breathlessly. “Do they eat meat?”

“No, but if they catch us there won't be anything left to eat anyway!”

There was no place to go for protection. We had to get out of that canyon. But it was too far away. No way could we outrun this charging herd. I looked back again and saw that they were catching up, fast. It was like racing against an avalanche and we were losing. I started to feel the prickle of grit on my neck from the cloud of dirt they were stirring up. In seconds we'd be roadkill. Or canyonkill.

“There!” shouted Loor.

She pointed to the canyon wall ahead of us, where I saw a single, brown vine that snaked down from somewhere above.

“Follow me!” Loor ordered, and ran for it.

There was only one vine. Even if it was strong enough, which I wasn't sure about, there was barely time for one of us to climb. The herd would be on us in seconds.

“Jump on my back!” Loor commanded.

What? Was she crazy?

“Now!” she demanded, and grabbed the vine.

I wasn't about to argue. I could feel the ground rumble with the thumping of oncoming hooves. Loor grabbed the vine and I grabbed Loor, wrapping my arms around her neck. She climbed, hand over hand, with her boots on the wall, walking up. I dangled from her neck, hoping she had the strength to do this and hoping the vine was strong enough to hold us both.

The cattle were on us. But we were high enough to be out of harm's way. They charged past as if we weren't even there. The mass of animals thundered by only inches below us. I could feel the heat coming up from their bodies. Or maybe it was my own sweat.

“You okay?” I asked Loor.

Loor gave a quick nod. No problem. I could feel the strength in her shoulders and arms. I shouldn't have doubted her. This was cake for her. Now all we had to worry about was whether the vine would hold until the herd was past.

The cattle kept coming. I couldn't believe how many there were. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the herd started to thin, so they weren't close to the canyon wall anymore.

And the vine snapped. Loor and I tumbled to the dirt. Luckily I broke Loor's fall. Lucky for her, that is. It wasn't so hot for me. She landed on me full force and knocked the wind out of my lungs. Ooof! It took me about a minute to catch my breath, but I didn't care. We had survived. I glanced up and saw a few straggling cattle trotting after the herd. The rumbling sound of hooves grew faint. I glanced to the end of the canyon and saw the herd spreading out over the green meadow.

“How do you feel?” Loor asked. She was sitting in the dirt, barely winded from the ordeal.

“I feel like a genius,” I said.

“A genius?”

“We've only been here two minutes and you've already saved my butt. I knew it was the right move to bring you along. Thanks, Loor.”

Loor stood up and helped me to my feet. We started to brush the dust off our clothes when we heard: “What in blazes are you two doing here?”

We looked up to see two cowboys on horseback trotting up to us. These guys were definitely out of the Old West, complete with cowboy hats, leather chaps, and coils of rope around the horns of their saddles.

Neither looked like Dr. Zetlin.

One cowboy asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, we're fine,” I answered.

“We checked the whole canyon before we drove the herd through,” the other cowboy said. “Where did you two come from?”

“We must have wandered in right after you checked,” I said. It was sort of the truth.

“You coulda gotten killed! What're you doing all the way up here?”

“We're looking for somebody,” I answered.

“Up here? In the pass?” the first cowboy asked, totally confused.

“Yeah, well, we got lost,” I said. “His name is Zetlin. Do you know him?”

The first cowboy looked at the other and asked, “That the name of the fella staying down in Old Glenville?”

“Could be,” the second cowboy said with a shrug.

The first guy then looked at me and Loor and said, “There's a man living down in town who might be the one you're looking for. You been through there?”

“No,” I said with growing excitement. “Could you point the way?”

“Sure,” he answered. “Where are your horses?”

Loor and I looked at each other and shrugged.

“We lost 'em,” I said. Wow, could I have given a more lame excuse?

“Lost your horses?” the second cowboy exclaimed. “How did you go and do that?”

“Long story,” I said. “We can walk.”

“It's too far,” the first cowboy said. “We'll lend you horses.”

“Really? That's great!”

“Climb on,” the second guy said.

Loor and I each climbed on to the back of one of the horses, behind the cowboys. A second later we were trotting out of the canyon. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but way better than walking.

When we reached the mouth of the canyon, I got a full view of the beautiful mountain pass. It was awesome. The dry, rocky canyon gave way to green, rolling meadows that stretched out as far as I could see. The mountains in the distance were immense. I had never seen the Rockies, but this was what I imagined they looked like. It was another example of Veelox looking like Second Earth. Or at least an example of Dr. Zetlin's fantasy looking like Second Earth. Whatever. It was great.