by Jason Segel
He puts a hand up as if to ward me off. “I’m serious. I really liked her,” he says. “I never thought…”
The water shuts off in a nearby shower. Marlow glances nervously toward the stall. He’s practically shaking with terror.
“I have to go. I just wanted to know if you got it,” he whispers as a man emerges.
“Got what?” I demand. For a fleeting moment I wonder if he’s talking about the disk. But there’s no way someone this pathetic could get his hands on a Company prototype.
Marlow is staring at the man who’s joined us. He’s a hairy little hobbit with the kind of glasses that tells me he spends at least ten hours a day staring at spreadsheets. Yet Marlow seems completely unnerved by the guy. “We’ll talk later,” he tells me, turning tail and heading for the locker room door.
“No,” I yell, rushing after him. “Now!”
“Sir! Sir!” A muscular arm clotheslines me just as Marlow disappears behind the closing door.
“What?” I bark, annoyed that Marlow’s been allowed to make his escape.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you leave the locker room like that.” I glance down and realize I’m dressed in nothing but a towel.
—
By the time I’m wearing clothes again, Marlow’s long gone, and I’m too hungry to search for him. I need to eat. I head straight for the restaurant, claim a seat and order double portions of pancakes, bacon and sausage. Whenever I catch one of the other diners staring at me, I give them a saucy wink and their eyes flick away. I can’t remember ever being this hungry, and I have to distract myself to keep from snatching the food off everyone’s plates. So I force myself to concentrate on what just happened. I run down the list of all the things that Marlow might be sorry for. It’s long enough to be meaningless. Maybe he’s sorry for trying to murder Kat. Or maybe he’s just sorry for driving her to the party. Or maybe he’s sorry for pretending to be a black-clad stoner when he was a pink chino shorts guy at heart. It’s impossible to say. But Marlow’s apology is another clue to throw on top of the growing heap of evidence that something seriously weird is going down. And what did he mean when he’d asked if I’d gotten it? Gotten what? Could he have been talking about the disk?
I could spend the whole morning wondering, but right now I have bigger fish to fry. I pull my mom’s smartphone out of my jeans. I’m pleasantly surprised to see she hasn’t cut off the service yet. I open the Web browser and type in Jeremy Arkan. A picture of the Otherworld knight appears on the screen. He and his girlfriend lived in a town about twenty miles from Brockenhurst. I scroll through the accompanying article and stop when my eyes land on a set of familiar words. Locked-in syndrome. Jeremy Arkan was diagnosed with locked-in syndrome, just like Kat, Brian and West.
I pull up a new screen and do a combined search for locked-in syndrome and New Jersey. The list of results goes on for four pages. I count at least twenty-five individuals who’ve been diagnosed with the condition. All in the last three months. Busara said locked-in syndrome was rare, but when I Google it, I’m still surprised to discover how rare. And yet in less than a year dozens of new cases have been reported in northern New Jersey.
I scan an article about a fifteen-year-old boy from Hoboken named Darius who was diagnosed with locked-in syndrome after an accident. At the end of the story it mentions that he’s now a patient at a long-term-care facility in New Jersey that specializes in caring for people afflicted with the condition. But it doesn’t give the facility’s name or an address. I go back and add the words long-term care to my search query. Ten articles, each focusing on other patients, mention a similar facility, but none of the articles name it.
I click on my browsing history and gaze in horror at the list of Web pages. Dozens of people in northern New Jersey have been diagnosed with a rare condition that makes them perfect candidates for the Company’s disk. It looks like many—if not all—of them have been moved to the same facility. And it seems highly unusual that not a single reporter was able to uncover the name of the place.
When I look up from my phone, the world around me has changed. Before I typed in Arkan’s name, I was sitting in the restaurant of the country club I’ve been visiting since I was eight years old, surrounded by a familiar crowd of overprivileged but harmless assholes. Now it feels like everyone is a potential suspect—a player in a game I don’t understand. I have no idea how many people are in on the conspiracy I may have just uncovered, but there’s no doubt something big is going on. Patients in one little part of the world are being diagnosed with a rare brain condition. And as hard as it is to believe, it looks like the Company might be involved somehow. Locked-in syndrome is suddenly all the rage—and they just happen to show up with a ready-made therapy? But the idea’s still nuts. It would mean Milo Yolkin was involved, and that’s almost impossible to swallow. The gamer geek genius I’ve seen on television is about the last person on earth who’d have a hand in something as sinister as this.
If there are answers to be found, they’re at the facility where the patients have been taken. My breakfast arrives as I hastily type out a message to Elvis, the hacker who owes me his freedom. I attach links to five of the articles I found and ask him to hack into a few hospital servers and find the name and address of the long-term-care facility that the locked-in syndrome patients were sent to. Then I dig in to my food. My fingers and face are covered in bacon grease when a response text arrives from Elvis.
Back to you in a few hours. You played Otherworld yet? I hear the AI is insane. Least you can’t say I didn’t warn you. The revolution is nigh.
Holy shit. I think he might be right.
I’ve lost my appetite, but I keep mindlessly shoveling food into my mouth. I need enough energy to stay in Otherworld long enough to finish my mission. While Elvis hunts down the facility’s real-world address, I need to find Kat in Otherworld. The collapse at the factory definitely wasn’t an accident. Could the Company have been responsible for that, too? Are they doing more than kidnapping the minds of people who are already injured? Could they be arranging those injuries as well? If so, there’s a chance that Kat has the information that can blow the top off an enormous conspiracy, close the facility—and help me set her free.
I’m swallowing a glob of pancake and sausage when four women in white glide into the restaurant like the chicest of ghosts. One of them is Dr. Ito. The lump of food gets stuck in my throat, and I chug a glass of OJ to wash it down. My first instinct is to duck under the table, but I keep my wits about me, and once I’m no longer in danger of choking to death, I raise the menu to hide my nose and do my best to remain perfectly still. Her eyes pass over me three or four times without landing. I credit my new haircut.
I wait until the doctor’s deep in conversation with her companions before I attempt to rise from my seat. Unfortunately, the waiter arrives to fill my water glass just as I slip out of my chair. We do a little dance trying to get out of each other’s way. Then water from the waiter’s pitcher drips onto a girl eating nearby, and she shrieks as the icy liquid trickles down the back of her neck. There’s no expression on Dr. Ito’s face when she looks up and her gaze settles on me. Anyone watching us both would assume she’s never met me before. But her eyes travel from my nose to my hair and I see an epiphany register on her face. She knows why my hair’s gone. As Dr. Ito turns back to her friend, she casually removes her phone from the pocket of her tennis skirt. She glances at the screen, presses a button and places a call.
—
I’m outside the country club in five seconds flat. I take one look at the long drive that leads from the club to the street and instantly realize there’s no way I’ll make it anywhere on foot. As I see it, I have one option—and no time for moral quandaries. Next to the club entrance is a bike rack, and lucky for me, no one locks their bikes at the club. Why would they need to? Rich people don’t steal—right?
I’m pedaling as fast as I can, my duffel bag bouncing against my back as I review my optio
ns. I need to find somewhere private and safe to reenter Otherworld—and I need to do it fast. Home is out of the question. So, obviously, is Kat’s house. I don’t have any other friends, and without my wallet, paying for a hotel is impossible. As I run through my very short list of options, there’s only one that meets all the criteria. And it really sucks. I turn right at the next light and head for Elmer’s. I’d rather not return to the scene of the crime, but I figure it’s one of the last places anyone’s likely to look for me.
I haven’t been back since the collapse, and it’s shocking to see the place in the light of day. The shell of the building is still standing, but there’s a mountain of debris piled outside. The authorities must have removed it all from the basement during their search for victims. I pull up alongside the mound and carefully cover the bike with boards. When I’ve finished, there’s barely a trace of it.
The building itself is wrapped with yellow tape printed with the words DANGER: DO NOT ENTER. I try my best not to rip it or pull it loose as I squeeze between the lengths and climb in through a broken window on what’s left of the ground floor. I edge around to the stairs, which are still intact, and climb up to the third floor. It looks different in the light of day, but I have no trouble finding the hole I was standing by the night of the collapse. From its edge I can see straight down into the basement where four people died.
The floor around me is covered in a layer of dust, and there’s a mandala of footprints in the center of the room. Leaving a fresh set of tracks across the floor, I look for the alcove where I hid the last time I was here. I find it and see that the sleeping bag is still here, bunched up in a corner. The dust on top of it is undisturbed, and it looks like a pile of garbage. It’s an unexpected bonus.
When I pick up the sleeping bag, I realize it’s kid-size. I shake it off outside the nearest window, over a patch of weeds behind the building. As the dust blows away, a face emerges. It’s Yoda. He’s standing in front of a tree looking smug, both hands on his cane. I recognize the image in a heartbeat. Years ago, Kat’s mother bought a bag just like this one at a thrift store in town and gave it to us for our fort. On cold days, Kat and I used to huddle beneath it for warmth.
I’m not the kind of guy who usually believes in signs, but I’m pretty sure this means something. Why was it here the night of the party? Could it actually be the same bag from the fort? I reach inside and run my hand over the lining. Kat’s bag had a tiny rip midway down that formed a pocket. We used to leave notes for each other there. My heart skips a beat when I feel a square of paper tucked inside. So the sleeping bag is hers, but why is it here at the factory? I pinch the paper between my fingers and pull it out. As I unfold it, I realize it isn’t a note. It’s a hastily taken photograph of an architectural blueprint, and it’s been printed out on regular copy paper. The image is blurry and off-center, but I can make out what looks like a wall covered with dozens of hexagonal windows. It almost looks like a wasps’ nest. I squint and hold the page closer, but I can’t make out the fine print. Why did Kat have it? And why did she hide it in the sleeping bag? When I find her in Otherworld, I’ll ask her what it means.
I tuck the page into my duffel, retrieve my Otherworld gear and spread the sleeping bag out on the floor. Only when I lie down does it occur to me that I’m about to take the biggest risk of my life. I’ll be leaving my body behind in an abandoned factory where it will be utterly defenseless. I could get eaten by raccoons and never know the difference. And no one knows where I am. If something goes wrong in Otherworld, there’ll be no one around to remove the disk.
All the more reason to act fast and get to the exit, I decide. I strap on the visor, attach the disk to the back of my skull, and I’m gone.
My avatar is standing exactly where I left it, inside the tunnel that runs through the bowels of Otherworld. Carole and Gorog are now asleep beside me on the floor. The Clay Man is nearby, watching over us all. Gorog’s fire is out, and the only light in the tunnel radiates from the Clay Man’s blue eyes and the stone around his neck. He’s got a lot of explaining to do.
“Did you eat?” the Clay Man asks me.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I had a lovely and nutritious breakfast at the Brockenhurst Country Club. Did you send that text to my mother? She was really pissed off about the state of my mattress.”
He doesn’t answer my question. “Is your body safe?”
“Who the hell are you in real life?” I demand. “Are you Martin? Todd? Marlow? Busara? Elvis? Priscilla? Lisa Marie?” I could keep on naming potential suspects, but I doubt I’ll ever get a reaction.
“I am your guide,” the Clay Man says. Again.
“But why are you helping me? What’s in it for you?” This guy is driving me crazy. I can’t get a straight answer out of him.
“Is your body safe?” he asks again.
I shrug. “For now,” I say. “I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of options when it came time to stash it.”
“Where is it?” he asks.
“I’m gonna need a few answers from you before you’re allowed to ask me anything else. Let’s start again. Who are you?”
“This line of questioning is futile,” says the Clay Man. “I am not going to answer. Please move on.”
“Are you associated with the Company?” I demand.
The Clay Man hesitates before he answers the question. “Yes. I am associated,” he finally says.
Shit. Now we’re getting somewhere. “Do you know about the facility?” I ask eagerly. “The place where all the people with locked-in syndrome are being sent?”
“I have never seen the facility with my own eyes,” says the Clay Man. “But I am aware of its existence.”
“What’s going on there?” I ask. “Is it owned by the Company?”
“As I mentioned, I have never seen the facility,” the Clay Man repeats. “Would you care to see it?”
Now there’s a question I wasn’t expecting. “You’re saying you can get me in?”
“Perhaps,” says the Clay Man. “I myself am unable to visit. I have certain unfortunate physical limitations. However, I may be able to help you get inside. If you’d like me to make the arrangements, you must tell me where your body is.”
“Wait—you want me to leave Otherworld and go to the facility? What about my mission?”
“I think a visit to the facility will show you what’s at stake—and inspire you to focus on your original mission. You’ll understand why you can’t afford to get distracted by the unfortunate souls you encounter here in Otherworld. If you try to help all of them, you will end up helping no one,” he says, looking from Carole to Gorog. “Now. Tell me. Where is your body?”
It’s going to take a little while for me to be comfortable handing over that information to some anonymous dude I met in virtual reality. “Come ask me again when you’ve got all the details worked out.”
“It’s good to be cautious,” he tells me. “But if you want to see the facility, you will have to trust me.”
“Fine, my body’s at Elmer’s.”
He seems perfectly content with my answer. Which means he must know the factory’s nickname. “Who are you?” I ask again. “What do you want from me?”
“Wake the others,” he orders. “The time has come to move on.”
I give up. “Where exactly are we going?” I ask with a sigh.
“The Elemental of Imra has set you on the path to Mammon,” the Clay Man says. “You must travel through it before you can continue to the ice fields and the glacier. Guard your life carefully. Mammon is said to be one of the more dangerous realms.”
“So what’s going to try to kill us in Mammon?” I ask. “Care to give us a heads-up?”
“I don’t know,” the Clay Man says. “I have never been there.”
“Great,” I mutter. I’m getting really sick of surprises.
“Just remember why you’re in Otherworld,” the Clay Man tells me. “You’re here to save someone you love. Keep that in mind
at all times. The knowledge will protect you.” Then he turns and walks away, the light of his amulet fading with each step until I’m left in utter darkness.
“Mammon?” It’s Carole’s voice. I guess she was just pretending to sleep.
Gorog’s torch lights up. He’s been awake too. “Like the guy from Spawn?” the ogre adds.
Despite everything, I can’t help but grin. “I was thinking of the Mammon in StarCraft,” I say. “You ever play that?”
“Too old-school for me,” Gorog says.
“Mammon is from the Bible, you doofuses,” Carole says, sounding a lot like my second-grade teacher. “It means money or wealth—the kind that corrupts you.”
The ogre and I laugh our asses off, and it feels good.
“This is Otherworld, Church Lady,” Gorog informs Carole. “There’s nothing in this from the Bible.”
—
The joking ended somewhere during our first hour of walking through darkness. At least three more have passed since then. Every stretch of tunnel looks exactly the same. If you told me we were walking in place on some kind of treadmill, I wouldn’t be shocked. Gorog is a few paces ahead, while Carole strolls along beside me.
“So who is she?” Carole asks out of the blue. It takes me a moment to realize she’s speaking to me.
“Who is who?” I ask.
“Give me a break. You know who I’m talking about. Your friend. The girl you’re here to find. She must be pretty amazing if you’re willing to risk your life for her like this.”
“She is,” I say. I’m not sure I’m ready to open up to a woman I’ve only just met—and who could easily be a fat, hairy dude in real life.
“I saw what you did back there in Imra,” Carole says. “You could have had the perfect girl—someone made just for you—and you turned her down.”
“I don’t want someone who was made for me. I want a real person to choose me.”