DEDICATION
To Sadie and Lily, the best daughters and fans ever
Contents
Dedication
Press Release
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Acknowledgments
Back Ads
About the Authors
Books by Claudia Gabel and Cheryl Klam
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Press Release
Contact: Leslie Hartwick FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tab: 313-555-8001
InstaComm: lhartwick@orexis/NET
HOTTEST APP IN AMERICA APPROVED BY CENTER FOR INTERFACE TECHNOLOGIES
Elusion Slated for National Release by the End of April
Tech giant Orexis announced today that its most popular product to date, Elusion, has received the Center for Interface Technologies seal of approval, granting the company permission to sell the app on the US open market.
Invented by the late programming specialist David Welch, then refined by his young protégé, Patrick Simmons, Elusion transports users to a virtual reality where they can enjoy a variety of Utopian-type landscapes, all within the comfort and privacy of their own minds. The app is administrated through three combined components, known as the Equip; a visor, earbuds, and wristband work in tandem to redirect brainwaves through trypnosis, allowing the user to Escape to hundreds of destinations.
As of today, Orexis has sold 4.2 million units in three test cities—Detroit, Los Angeles, and Miami—and first-week sales projections post–national release are close to 9 million. Elusion has been named “the most anticipated virtual reality app of the year” by fifteen top-rated journals and magazines, including the MIT Review.
“Now more than ever, people need a respite from the polluted environment and Standard 7 work schedules,” said CEO Cathryn Simmons at a recent press conference. “With Elusion, it’s never been easier to get away! The app truly is a must-have for people who crave both relaxation and a little bit of adventure.”
Orexis is a Fortune 500 company specializing in the development of cutting-edge technology that strives to change the face of modern society. Orexis continues to lead the industry with award-winning devices, including the Florapetro refinery tool “XPet” and the “Zimmel” laser pen. Orexis also recently announced a military contract with the US Department of Defense.
If you would like more information, or to schedule an interview with Leslie Hartwick, contact James Donovan at 313-555-8025 or InstaComm James at jdonovan@orexis/NET.
The Los Angeles Record
Breaking News Alerts
New Lead in Missing Teens Case
by Rosanna Rodriguez
Local police are working on a solid lead in the case of three teens missing since mid-March: Claire Wilberstein, 19, a freshman at UCLA; Piper Lewis, 15, of Wilshire; and Wyatt Krissoff, 17, of Inglewood.
A witness, who does not wish to be named, has come forth identifying all three kids as part of a secret “E-fiend” society that frequently met inside an abandoned warehouse in Gardena, allegedly to hack into their Equips and interfere with Elusion’s safety settings so they could stay inside the virtual world for longer time intervals.
“They were addicted,” said the witness, a shipping and receiving clerk at a nearby business, who watched the kids as they frequently entered and left the site. “Every time I saw them, they looked sicker and sicker. Like they hadn’t eaten or slept in days.”
This is not the first report of teen users reengineering their Equips in order to increase their doses of trypnosis. Photos of IV bags, pills, mattresses, and Equip parts taken in a Detroit warehouse were made public soon after Anthony Caldwell, the seventeen-year-old son of a suburban high school principal, was found in a coma, allegedly from an unconfirmed Elusion overdose. Caldwell recently died. The attributed cause was a form of brain damage that has doctors baffled.
Police turned up items that belong to the teens in the Gardena warehouse. Evidence of the same nature has been discovered at a similar location in Detroit.
“It’s too early to say what this all adds up to, but if anyone has additional information on these kids, we ask that they call our hotline,” Captain Victor Grassi said.
Cecily Wilberstein, one victim’s mother, expressed hope that her daughter will be found unharmed. “I just want my Claire back home, where she belongs.”
Patrick Simmons, president and chief product designer at Orexis, the manufacturer of Elusion, could not be reached for comment.
However, Avery Leavenworth, host of the popular vlog AveryTruStory, spoke on the record: “Elusion is a menace to society. It’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out. I just hope nobody else dies before it does,” she said.
Her statement comes despite a court injunction against her site, issued on behalf of Orexis.
ONE
“THERE IT IS, REGAN,” MY FATHER SAYS, pointing to a mountain range made out of great heaps of soot. “The way out of Elusion is hidden in those hills.”
The wind blows a funnel of dust in front of us. Patches of fog linger in the air, creating shapes that appear and vanish like ghosts. The sky here is forever dark and cloudless, with hints of light coming from a moon that never seems to appear. Still, I can see a glow of determination in my dad’s pale eyes as he examines the area around us, like he’s about to lead a charge across a battlefield.
And he is, in a sense. There are fifteen people trapped inside this dismal, virtual world, trying to get back home. But right now it’s just the two of us, and when I look at him, I’m grateful he’s alive. For months, I thought he had burned to death in a HyperSoar crash over the Florapetro-clogged skies of Detroit, but all this time his mind has been locked inside the program he created, his body hidden in the corporate offices of its manufacturer.
“It’s weird,” I say, looking at the steep mounds of ash that seem to move back and forth with the blink of an eye. “Sometimes the hills look like they’re right in front of us, other times far away.”
“Yes. It’s hard to trust what you see,” my dad says. He stares at the rocky path, which looks like jagged granite. The desolate, charred landscape of Etherworld is so different from the beauty of Elusion, which my dad designed so people could escape our polluted, overcrowded world and experience nature. With just an app, earbuds, a visor, and a wristband, Elusion provided an escape from the drudgery of everyday life. “I just want to get everyone home before anyone gets seriously hurt,” he says.
I think back to the first time he took me to Elusion. How we jumped off a cliff and soared through the fresh, clean air on hang gliders, the sun sparkling above the river below us. He told me that nothing could ever harm me inside Elusion, but he was wrong. Elusion can cause addiction, hallucinations, and maybe even death. But I can’t bring myself to tell him about the worst of it yet. A part of me doesn’t want to spoil the feeling of relief I’ve felt since I found out he was alive.
So instead I say, “I know.”
My dad wants us all to be safe, and we are, at least temporarily. Etherworld, a virtual dimension located behind the firewalls of my father’s Elusion domain, offers such low stimuli that our minds are preserved in a suspended state with zero brain activity. That’s why colors look so faded here. Although I can still see a hint of brown in my dad’s hair, his eyes are translucent, void of any
pigment.
Another gust of wind whips around us, and I shield my eyes from the silver particles floating on the breeze like radioactive snow.
“Maybe we should’ve stayed at camp and given you a chance to get acclimated,” he says.
“I’m fine,” I say, a little embarrassed. Ever since I arrived I’ve been overcome with body aches, chills, and fatigue. “It feels like I’ve been sleeping for days. How long have I been here?”
“I wish I knew,” he says, gazing up at the dark sky. “There’s no way to keep track of the time. I guess I should’ve designed a sun. . . .”
“Or moon,” I say.
He flashes a tired smile, and hesitates as if there’s something else he wants to say. After a moment, he turns back toward the path and says, “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?”
“Yes, I want to help,” I say. Everyone else is out working at some place my father calls “the mines,” preparing to carry out an escape plan that he hasn’t told me much about. While we’ve had some nice moments together as he’s nursed me back to health, he hasn’t really explained what his strategy is, probably because he doesn’t want to overwhelm me.
But I can be here for him, if he’ll just let me.
“You’re still recovering from those delta-wave episodes,” he says. “I don’t want to push you.”
“I’m okay. Promise. You don’t have to worry.”
“It’s my job,” he says. “I started worrying the day you were born.”
“I can take care of myself. I managed to figure out all those signs of yours and find you here, didn’t I?”
My dad gives me a look, like this is the last thing he wants to talk about. “I’ve never doubted how strong you are,” he says softly.
I grin at him.
“The mines are just across that bridge,” he says, motioning toward a wooden plank in the distance. From here it looks at least a hundred feet long.
We walk another fifty yards or so, and the bridge is there, in front of us. “Be careful crossing,” my dad warns.
When he sees me sigh, he says, “I have a right to worry. There are deep cracks in the surface.”
He’s right. The bridge isn’t very wide and doesn’t have any railings. It sways with the wind, as if it might break free from the side of the hill. At least the fog makes it impossible to see how far we’d fall.
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 slug-like 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, who knows what would have happened?
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, gesturing at 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’s obviously 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 altered the data, I knew they couldn’t be trusted. So I created a passcode 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?”
“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,” he says. “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. Down below us, a steep, rocky slope runs between one mound of ash to the next. 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. Nora is 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 came to 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 the program 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 bombs. 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?
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