Above her head she saw a bright rectangle of light. Silhouetted in the light was a figure. No, two figures.
One was King Hruth. The other was Nak Adyms.
“Bye-bye!” Nak shouted, waving cheerfully. “Have fun!”
Then the stone above her head began to slide back in place. She could hear the terrible grinding sound again, stone gnashing against stone. Nak’s arrogant smile disappeared as the trapdoor closed.
The room was plunged into darkness.
The grinding stopped. Aja felt a terrible sense of claustrophobia. Her heart raced and her palms were sweating. If she thought it would work, she could activate her silver bracelet and terminate the jump. But like Nak said, he’d hacked all the codes. He’d blocked her. This jump wasn’t going to end until Nak felt like ending it. Besides—she was here to solve the puzzle. She couldn’t very well quit now.
Aja tried to calm herself, breathing deeply.
Suddenly the grinding noise started again. This time the sound was slightly different and seemed to come from a different place. For a moment she imagined the walls were closing in, preparing to smash her like a bug.
Wait! Light. She could see light—a thin crack, widening slightly at one corner of the room.
The walls were moving! The chamber was opening. As soon as she could, she squeezed out past the still-moving gap between the walls. She found herself in a long stone passage lit by flickering torches lodged in recesses along the wall.
On the walls were carved images. A strange, simian creature recurred in each carving. That must be the Beast that King Hruth had talked about earlier. In each picture the Beast was eating people, tearing them limb from limb, trampling over their bodies.
“Yuk!” Aja said. To think all this nutty stuff came right out of Nak’s imagination. You thought you knew somebody and—
The grinding stopped once more. Suddenly the silence seemed extraordinarily intense. She’d never experienced silence like this before. There was literally no sound at all. She could actually hear her own heartbeat, the rush of the blood.
She was breathing very fast, she noticed.
There was a stale, pungent odor in the air. Then she heard something. A loud rustling noise, like a bag of meat being dragged along a floor.
Then a loud, inhuman scream.
The Beast. It was the Beast of the maze. And it was coming for her. She looked behind her. Where before there had been a tiny chamber, now there were three more passages running off in three directions. All three passages seemed more or less identical. Each one had some kind of symbol carved into the rock over the entrance. The passages ran off into the murky distance, until the torch light died out.
She looked over her shoulder. Two yellow eyes appeared around the distant corner at the end of the corridor. A gleam of light on long sharp teeth. The Beast! It was hunched over, walking on two powerful hind legs. Its hair was long and matted. The Beast resembled a monkey, but was much larger and stronger than a person. Its human-looking hands were tipped with long curved talons.
Dread ran through her like a spike between the shoulder blades. She began running, fear driving away all sensation of pain in her ankle. The scream followed her. As she ran down the corridor, other corridors branched off from it. She could hear the thudding of the Beast’s feet, growing closer and closer. It was obviously faster than she was.
As big as it was, she could probably turn corners faster. She turned into another corridor. Then another. Then another. She found herself running past a row of barred cells. Inside the cells were old men, bearded, broken down.
“You’ll never make it!” they all shouted. “You’re doomed!”
Thanks for the encouragement, she thought. She knew it was all part of Nak’s plan to psych her out. But still. It was creepy!
“Doomed!” they moaned. “Doomed!”
She passed the cells and ended up in another corridor. This one was more brightly lit. On the walls, these carvings were bigger, clearer. Above each picture of the Beast was a symbol, some kind of alphabet or pictogram—similar to the ones she’d noticed in the first passageway. It was like nothing she’d ever seen in a history book though. She studied the symbol for a moment, looking for a pattern. Then she realized that now was no time to be messing with puzzles.
She stopped, listened.
Nothing.
No pounding footsteps behind her. No dragging noises. No screaming. She began tiptoeing forward. She must have shaken it!
At the far end, the corridor turned left.
She peered around the corner.
Crouched there, not ten feet away, was the Beast. Its head was lowered, resting its weight on the knuckles of one massive hand, its nose sniffing the ground.
Oh, no! she thought. Somehow she had ended up behind it.
She froze, afraid that even the slightest sound would give her away. Suddenly the Beast stopped sniffing the floor. Its head came up.
Her pulse pounded in her ears. It sounded as loud as a hammer.
The Beast turned, fixed its eyes on her and charged.
There was no escape. It’s all just a Lifelight jump, she tried to tell herself. If I can convince myself of that, then Lifelight won’t try to shut down my brain when the Beast’s jaws clamp down on my—
Grinding.
Suddenly the grinding noise she’d heard when the walls moved started again.
The Beast froze, looked around. It was no more than five feet from her. But a section of the ceiling was moving downward now. The Beast eyed it nervously, blew several breaths from its large nostrils, and then began backing away.
Apparently, it was not interested in being squashed.
Aja too backed away. Now she could feel the entire floor moving beneath her feet. The grinding sound seemed to invade her bones. It may have saved her life, but it was sure a scary sound. The wall was getting closer and closer, the corridor narrower and narrower.
Suddenly she realized that the threat was no longer the Beast. It was the maze itself! The corridor was squeezing in on her. She sprinted for the far end of the hall.
But as soon as she began to move, she realized she’d never make it. She had figured out a long time ago that she had a sort of computer in her brain that could measure distances, make sense of motion and shapes and sizes, and spit out answers. How close, how far, how many seconds it would take to go from here to there…
And the fact was, if the walls kept closing in, she’d never make it.
But she kept running anyway. The terrible claustrophobia was on her again as the walls squeezed tighter and tighter.
As she ran, a voice called to her: “In here!”
She stopped. Where was the voice coming from? The corridor was more than a hundred feet long, without a break.
“Aja! Here!” The voice came from behind her somewhere.
She whipped her head around. Nothing but—Wait! There! As the walls closed in tighter and tighter, she saw that a tiny slit had opened behind her. She hurled herself toward it.
Just in time, she burst through the slit. It was barely large enough to admit a human body. But that was all she needed. She squeezed through, finding herself in a tiny room not much larger than a coffin.
In the dim light, just inches away, she saw a man. He was chained to great rusting bolts driven into the black rock wall.
The only light in the room came from the corridor. As the walls squeezed shut, the light began to die.
Oddly, the chained man was smiling at her.
Then the light was gone. She was trapped! She moaned slightly. This was horrible! This wasn’t even a room. It was nothing but a tiny shaft.
“We’re gonna die here,” she gasped. She tried to tell herself it was all in her mind. It was just a jump, just a fantasy, just a—But her body wanted to explode. She felt herself panting with fear.
“Listen to me,” the man said softly. His voice was deep and calm. He sounded like he was on a picnic, not chained to a wall in a stone coffin. “You’re
okay, Aja. I know you’re claustrophobic. But you will get out of here.”
She tried to calm her panicked breathing. “How do you know who I am?”
“I have come a long way to see you,” the man said.
“Who are you? What’s your name?”
“My name is Press,” the man said. “I’ve come to tell you something very important.”
Then his face began to fade, and the world around her began to disappear.
SIX
Hurry! Now!”
“Huh?” Aja felt bleary and strange. It took her a moment to figure out where she was. Back in the Lifelight jump tube. Nak was standing over her.
“We gotta go!” he said in a tense whisper. “Somebody pinged us.”
Pinging was a technique that phaders used to contact people inside a jump. If somebody pinged them, it meant that a phader had located them somehow. Busted! This was a disaster. She could get thrown out of the academy. She could—
Nak grabbed her by the hand. “Let’s go.”
“But…if they pinged us, then they know who we are. They know I’m—”
Nak yanked her up off the jump table. He started running. Aja followed him into the hallway. Her legs were stiff and her shoulders hurt. “Run!” he shouted.
She started running too. Though for the life of her she couldn’t see why. If a phader had pinged them, then the phader knew who they were. She felt sick with fear. They were going to be in so much trouble!
“I rerouted everything,” Nak shouted over his shoulder. “Right now they don’t know where we are. I changed the registry, too. Our IDs were fake. It was probably just a routine system check. If we can just get out of the building, they’ll never know it was us. Run!”
So there was hope. Aja ran faster. Her ankle was hurting though. It was weird. It was almost like the hit her ankle had taken when she fell into the maze had stuck with her after the jump. But that wasn’t possible.
They pounded down the softly lit hallways, passing empty jump station after empty jump station. As she ran, she spotted a clock. It was late, almost midnight. Academy students weren’t supposed to be at Lifelight any later than eight. She couldn’t believe that she’d been playing Nak’s game for that long. It seemed like she’d only been in for a few minutes.
Nak shouldered past her. “This way,” he said. “Quickly. They’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
They retraced their steps, then went through a doorway into an emergency stairwell. She followed Nak into a lower level of the Lifelight pyramid. The lights in the hallway were dim. It was a little creepy.
“What is this place?” Aja said. She thought she had been all over Lifelight. But she’d never been here.
“The old research wing,” Nak said. “They used it a lot back when Dr. Zetlin was still perfecting Lifelight. Now it’s pretty much deserted. Except for these guys.” He pointed into one of the stations. A pair of legs stuck out of the machine that synched you up to Lifelight. “These are hardcore jump phreaks.”
She’d heard stories about jump phreaks, people who quit their jobs and just lived in the basements of Lifelight, making unauthorized jumps, sometimes getting so involved in their jumps that they risked starving to death. She’d always figured they were just stories.
Far down the hallway a disheveled man ducked furtively into a booth and slammed the door. An old woman in a strange black dress hobbled toward them. She had something written in tiny letters on a piece of paper that was taped to her clothes. “They’re taking your brains!” the old woman shouted. “They’re taking your brains!”
“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Nak said. “She’s harmless.”
“I don’t like this,” Aja said.
“Phaders and vedders don’t come down here much,” Nak said. “We’ll be safe. Wait about ten minutes and we can sneak out.”
They kept walking down the hallway. From almost every darkened tube, she could see a pair of legs sticking out on the jump table. Every jump at Lifelight was supposed to be attended to by a vedder. Vedders monitored vital signs and made sure no one experienced health problems during a jump. But down here there wasn’t a vedder in sight.
She kept looking at the legs sticking out, wondering who these people were. To think that this secret underworld had been here all this time…and she’d never known it.
One pair of legs shocked her. It was a kid. Kids weren’t supposed to be in Lifelight past eight o’clock. All she could see was a pair of small green athletic shoes sticking out of the machine.
“Sad, huh?” Nak said, noticing her gaze resting on the green shoes.
“Should we do something about it?”
“Like what?” he said. “Go tell a phader that while we were escaping from an unauthorized jump, we ran across a kid who should be home in bed?”
Aja felt terrible. She knew he was right. But still, it made her feel queasy. This whole situation was so bad! There were no right answers here.
Nak’s face softened. “Poor kid. Most likely both his parents are jump phreaks too. If we try to intervene, Lifelight Services will probably grab him. They might even take the kid away from his family. I’ve seen it happen down here.”
“Wow,” Aja said.
Nak pointed at the clock. “It’s been ten minutes. I think we should be safe. Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay.”
“Our odds are better if we split up,” Nak said. “You go that way; I’ll go this way.”
Aja’s heart was racing as she walked out one of the service exits of the Lifelight pyramid. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to her. But that didn’t stop the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She turned the corner and started walking down the broad avenue that led back toward the academy. The streets were dark and empty.
As she approached the building, she saw two figures standing near the entrance to her dormitory. One of them was Nak. The other was tall and thin. A teacher from the academy?
Aja wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to be seen out this late, so she ducked behind a bush. Nak and the other man talked for a moment. Then they separated, and Nak disappeared through the front door of Zetlin Hall.
The man stood for a moment watching him go. His face was shadowed in darkness. Aja wasn’t sure what it was about him, but something made her feel frightened.
Suddenly the man turned. A beam of light from the streetlamp overhead illuminated his face momentarily. Aja gasped.
The man turned and melted back into the darkness.
She had only gotten the briefest glimpse of the face. But there was no mistaking those pale blue eyes. She’d recognize them anywhere. It was King Hruth.
SEVEN
The next morning Aja awoke to the sound of pounding on her door. She opened it and looked out.
Headmistress Nilssin stood in the hallway. Behind her was a large, burly man with a shaved head. He wore the insignia of Lifelight Services on his shoulders. A visit from Lifelight Services was never a good thing.
Aja’s heart raced.
“Hi, Headmistress,” Aja said, trying her best to sound confident and unconcerned. “Something wrong?”
Headmistress Nilssin’s face was tense, and there were spots of color high on her cheeks. “This man is from Lifelight Services. I’ll let him speak for himself.”
“Aja Killian?” the man said.
“Obviously,” Aja snapped.
“Aja Killian,” the burly man said, “on behalf of the directors of Lifelight, this constitutes formal notification of the suspension of your Lifelight identity and privileges. Certain irregularities have been flagged on your profile. Until further notice, you will not be permitted to enter the Lifelight premises or to utilize Lifelight equipment. Pending resolution of those irregularities—”
“Irregularities!” Aja shouted. “Somebody is hacking into the core. And it’s not me. I happen to know—”
Headmistress Nilssin held up her hand. “Aja, stop talking. Now! Not another word. Y
ou have rights. Anything you say at this point could be misconstrued or used against you. Just…be quiet. I’m handling this.”
“Headmistress Nilssin,” the older man said, “if the young lady is willing to cooperate, we might be willing to consider leniency. Perhaps only a five-year suspension of her privileges could be arranged if she—”
Five years! Aja felt like a giant steel clamp had been tightened around her chest.
“Sir,” Headmistress Nilssin interrupted, “you have made your notification. I would request that you leave the academy now.”
“I’m in the middle of a major project at Lifelight!” Aja said. “I have to—”
“Aja!” Headmistress Nilssin said. “Quiet.”
The man from Lifelight Services glanced at Aja as if she were a bug he was about to squash. Then he turned back to Headmistress Nilssin. “I will be forced to notify the directors of your lack of cooperation.”
“I am simply insisting that you respect the legal rights of my student. You have done your job. Thank you. Now go.”
The man’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then he turned on his heel and marched away.
After he was gone, Headmistress Nilssin turned to Aja and said, “Look, Aja, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what you’re involved in—”
“It’s not me!” Aja said. “I’m being framed!”
“Aja, listen to me. Listen carefully. Dal Whitbred has showed me the evidence against you. It’s very, very strong. But right now they’re too busy trying to stop this program from destroying the core to worry about you personally. Lifelight could be severely damaged within a matter of hours. In fact, things are so desperate that they’ve asked me to lend my expertise.” As Aja knew, Headmistress Nilssin had once been one of Dr. Zetlin’s top assistants during the early days of Lifelight. She was still a top authority on the inner workings of the system. “On top of that, we still haven’t found Omni Cader. Right now I just don’t have time to discuss the matter with you.”
“But—” She wanted to explain about Nak’s game.
Book Two of the Travelers Page 3