Etherworld

by Claudia Gabel

  I’m surprised I didn’t think of this before. I was so excited 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 passcode, 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 has been exposed to heavy doses of trypnosis. Our best chance of survival is 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.

  TWO

  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 buzz cut. I look into his eyes, and though they’re colorless like everyone else’s here, they’re still brimming 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?

  “We’ve almost recovered them all,” Josh says.

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

  “Recovered what?” 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 and the guilt has been weighing on me since I realized my mistake. 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. For some reason, that only makes me feel worse. Patrick is my closest friend, and I miss him.

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

  “As long as it works,” my dad says, keeping an eye on the kids as they rush out of the mines, their arms filled with bombs. Josh reaches into his pocket and pulls out a glass sphere the size of my fist.

  “It doesn’t look like a bomb,” I say.

  “They’re not dangerous until they come into contact with the triggers,” he says. “Kind of like Elusion.”

  I understand the analogy. For most people, Elusion isn’t harmful. But if the user is a “high responder”—someone under twenty-one who happens to be particularly sensitive to Elusion’s stimuli—there’s a good chance it could alter their brain activity, inducing nanopsychosis. At that point, a high responder will experience obsessive behavior that could drive them to do things they know they shouldn’t, like breaking through Elusion’s firewall.

  Which is what happened to all of us.

  “Where are the triggers?” I ask, leaning forward to get a closer look at the sphere.

  “They’re bits of code located inside each Escape,” my dad says, rejoining the conversation. “I didn’t have enough time to get the destruction protocol ready, so I had to put the bombs in a safe place, as far away from Elusion as possible because—”

  “They took time to develop, since they have a similar code to Elusion,” Josh says, finishing my father’s thought.

  I smile at his brilliance, but thanks to a loud crashing sound, my dad barely notices.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. I have to go deal with . . . whatever that was. Josh can take it from here.”

  Josh pulls me close. “You okay?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I just didn’t think, after everything, he’d still be this . . .”

  “Busy?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s just trying to get us out of here,” Josh says, his lips grazing the roots of my hair.r />
  “He seems like he’s becoming . . . closed off all of a sudden,” I say. “I don’t know, maybe he’s just frustrated with me.”

  “No,” Josh says, giving me a little squeeze. “You mean everything to him. He’s just under a lot of pressure.”

  I look up in time to see him grin at me.

  “We’re all going to get through this. Trust me,” he says.

  “I think you’ve turned my brother into an optimist,” chirps a voice that makes Josh roll his eyes.

  Josh’s sister smiles and walks toward us, her jeans and T-shirt covered in ash and soot. Even with Etherworld’s dull colors, the family resemblance is obvious. They both have big eyes, defined cheekbones, and the same cute gap in their teeth.

  “That’s a compliment, right?” I say.

  “Definitely.” Nora looks at Josh and her smile disappears, a shadow of sadness forming in her eyes. “After everything I’ve put him through, I’m surprised he has a shred of hope left.”

  “Stop it, Nor,” Josh says.

  “I can’t,” she replies. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be stuck here.”

  I step away from Josh a little, wanting to give him and his sister some space, since it’s obvious she’s feeling pretty guilty. But Josh won’t let me go far, clinging to one of my belt loops with his thumb.

  “Regan, how’s Avery doing?” Nora asks.

  “I said she was fine,” Josh interjects before I can answer.

  Under normal circumstances, Nora’s girlfriend is not someone I would ever describe as “fine.” Opinionated, yes. Stubborn, yes. Antagonizing, yes. What else would you expect from a young social activist hell-bent on exposing Elusion’s dark side?

  “And that’s all you’d tell me,” Nora complains. “I walked out on her, Josh. And then I went missing. She’s probably scared out of her mind.”

  “She’s handling it okay. She just misses you,” I say, hoping to comfort her a little.

  “I miss her too,” she says. It’s obvious Nora is a lot more composed than the erratic, troubled mess of a girl Patrick painted her as back in the real world. Even so, I can see her lower lip trembling.

  “Hey, why don’t we do something useful and help out with these?” Josh says, trying to distract Nora. He holds up the ball and the glass glimmers a little, reflecting the pale yellow color of the torch flames.

  “What are we doing with them exactly?” I ask.

  “Your dad wasn’t sure how to get them into Elusion without Bryce and Cathryn finding us,” Nora explains. “So Josh told us about this tactic he learned in military school—search and destroy.”

  “That sounds . . . ominous,” I say.

  “In a dangerous situation like this, not everyone goes on an attack mission at once,” Josh states.

  “Or else they’d spot us,” Nora adds, leading me toward the mine.

  A few feet inside the entrance a girl with a pierced nose and a milky-brown braid that drops down to her waist uses her hands to pry a bomb out of the wall. Working next to her is a skinny boy who couldn’t be more than thirteen, while another boy with curly hair and a big chin stands at attention, overseeing everyone and offering advice.

  “So what do these bombs do?” I ask Nora.

  “When you attach them to the triggers, all the programming files associated with that Escape will be deleted.”

  “How do we connect the bombs and the triggers?” I ask, confused.

  “We have to carry them through the tunnels and into the Escapes,” Josh answers.

  “Can we go from Escape to Escape?” I ask.

  “No,” Nora says. “The ping tunnels connect Etherworld to David’s domain, but that’s it.”

  “Your dad told us that once the bomb is detonated, we need to find the portal back into the firewall,” Josh says.

  “Getting back to Etherworld through the tunnels won’t be easy either,” Nora says. “The worm on our side of the firewall isn’t very friendly.”

  I choke out a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

  “Hey, Nora!” the curly-haired guy calls out to her. “Stop slacking off with your new friends and get back to work!”

  Nora levels him with a stony glare that rivals Avery’s signature look. The boy stands there, staring, but when Nora doesn’t move, he just shakes his head and starts talking to someone else. Josh smiles. I guess he’s familiar with her defiant streak.

  “Who’s that?” I ask.

  “Zared,” Nora says, still sneering. “He and I go to college together.”

  “Is he in charge or something?”

  “He thinks he is,” she says. “Zared founded the Stealth subgroup about your dad, which is where we all met, so he has one severe superiority complex.”

  “Stealth? What’s that?”

  “It’s this underground forum network where techies share information,” Josh explains. “Like how to bypass security systems and reengineer hardware like Equips.”

  “Zared builds chips that can crack almost any algorithm,” Nora says.

  “So he’s the one who hacked into Orexis and got the access codes to my dad’s domain?”

  “Yep,” Nora says. “Your father is his inspiration. Same with Malik. Actually, he started a whole subgroup of David Welch followers.”

  “Who would want to start a group to talk about my father?”

  “People who didn’t believe he was dead,” says Nora.

  “What?”

  “There was this whole legion of Elusion fanatics who thought everything about David’s accident was suspicious,” Nora continues. “Rumor had it that your dad went into hiding because his project was being stolen. It really lit a fire under the group and made them want to infiltrate the program’s firewall more than they already did. They were pretty protective of him.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I spent months mourning my dad’s death, and the entire time, there was a secret group of people who thought it was a hoax? Not only that: from what Nora was saying, they were as fiercely dedicated to my dad’s legacy as I was—and am.

  “So everyone here was part of all this?” Josh asks. “Even you?”

  “Yes, we were,” Nora answers, her voice softening. “Zared founded the subgroup a week after David’s accident and ran it from our dorm at U of M.” She points to a girl with a light-colored ponytail who’s working deeper in the cave. “Claire joined the forum from LA a few days after that.” She gestures back to the girl in the front with the braid and young boy by her side. “Ayesha’s from Miami. She got roped in a month or two ago, after Malik, the kid next to her, cracked the passcode for the firewall and posted it.”

  “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m about ready to kick Zared’s ass,” says the girl with the light hair, wiping her grimy hands on her shorts as she exits the mine. “I don’t know what makes him think he’s the boss.”

  Now that she’s up close, I can’t help but notice her lean arm muscles and broad shoulders. She looks like she could bench-press Josh.

  “Regan, this is Claire.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” I extend my hand and Claire gives it a firm shake.

  “Any kid of David’s is a friend of mine,” she says.

  I’ve been a little worried that Nora and her crew might blame my dad for what Elusion has done to them, but it’s the exact opposite. They seem as loyal to him as ever.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Claire goes on. “Your dad is always ‘Regan this’ and ‘Regan that.’ It’s kind of cute.”

  The past four months have been the worst time in my life. But I can’t imagine how my dad must’ve felt, trapped in here and separated from his family.

  “So what’s going on out there in the real world? Does anyone know that Elusion is addictive?” Claire asks Josh and me. Zared turns back toward us as Ayesha, Malik, and several others stop work, waiting for my response.

  “Word is starting to spread that the app can hurt people,” I say, suddenly feeling
uncomfortable about being questioned in front of everyone.

  “Do you know how long we’ve been here?” asks Malik, his high-pitched voice and small frame confirming what I suspected. He looks like the youngest one in this group.

  “It feels like weeks. Maybe even months,” Ayesha says, her brow creasing with worry.

  I reach for Josh’s hand as more people swarm around us. The facts aren’t pretty—all of them have been in Elusion way longer than the recommended time, and there’s no saying how much damage it’s causing their bodies. But before I can reply to Malik, there are more questions.

  “Are we still missing?”

  “Has anyone found us yet?”

  “Is Josh’s search-and-destroy plan going to work?”

  Zared lets out a whistle and everyone quiets down, waiting for him to send them all back into the mine. Instead he closes in on me, his gray eyes locking with mine.

  “A few people left Etherworld and snuck back into Elusion, against your father’s instructions,” Zared says. “Do you know what happened to them?”

  I know that some kids were recently found in comas, all said to have been avid users of Elusion.

  “Wait, why would they leave?” Josh asks. “Especially when David said not to?”

  Zared crosses his arms tightly in front of his chest. “I don’t know.”

  “What are their names?” I ask. “The people who left.”

  “Anthony, Maureen, and Kelly were all from Detroit,” Claire says. “Ayesha, what were the names of the other two from Miami?”

  “Cole and Anderson, right?”

  “Yep,” Claire says. “That’s it.”

  Josh and I exchange a tense look. Some of those names are familiar. The day we arrived here, Anthony had been found unconscious with visor marks on his forehead and died not too long after. Kelly is the name of the girl who was discovered comatose. Maureen must be the girl who Josh and I found at the dilapidated house we searched in the Quartz Sector, when we were looking for his sister. Barely conscious, she had Nora’s tab and the number 5020 scrawled on her arm—which I thought was a coded message from my father, but according to my dad, it’s actually the room number of the lab where Cathryn and Bryce are keeping his body.