The Reality Bug tpa-4

by D. J. MacHale

  Zetlin dismissed this and asked, “What is this Reality Bug?”

  Now came the really tough part for Aja. I hoped she wouldn’t get into the whole story about Travelers and Saint Dane, because right now, it didn’t matter.

  “I couldn’t stand to let Veelox die,” she said. “So I wrote a program. The idea was to make the jumps less than perfect. The program attached to the data stream of each jumper to alter the experience slightly. I thought that if the jumps became less than perfect, people wouldn’t spend so much time in them and would choose to return to their real lives.”

  Zetlin nodded. His jaw muscles clenched. He had just heard that somebody had sabotaged his life’s work. I had to give him credit, he kept his head on straight and didn’t go nuts on Aja. At least not yet.

  “But this… program… didn’t work the way you planned?” he asked calmly, though he said the word “program” with total disdain.

  Aja swallowed hard and said, “No. The Reality Bug was far more powerful than I thought. It acted like a wild virus that spread through the grid. Not only did it alter the jumps, it made them hyperrealistic. The jumps became dangerous. We couldn’t stop it and had to suspend the grid. Now most everyone on Veelox is in limbo, waiting for me to purge the Reality Bug.”

  “And for that you need the origin code,” Zetlin concluded.

  Aja nodded. “There’s one more thing,” she said. “Since my friends entered your jump, I’ve been desperately programming firewalls into the alpha grid to keep the Reality Bug out of your jump. It’s coming after you, sir. Every time I throw one up, the virus mutates and finds a way around my block. I don’t know how much longer I can keep fooling it. Sooner or later, the Reality Bug is going to find its way into your jump, and you’ll be in danger too.”

  Oh, great. That was a fairly crappy piece of news.

  Zetlin stared at Aja’s image for a moment, weighing what she had said. He then turned and sat back down in his control chair. “I won’t give you the code,” he said with finality.

  Uh-oh.

  “You must!” Loor demanded. “Holding it back is suicide. No, it is genocide.”

  “I told you before,” he snapped. “I won’t go back. If Lifelight is destroyed, so be it. Whoever survives will rebuild Veelox. I don’t care one way or the other. This is my reality now. I’ll deal with whatever it throws at me.”

  “But I can stop it from happening,” Aja shouted. “I can save Lifelight.”

  “From what you tell me,” Zetlin said, “Lifelight shouldn’t be saved.”

  “But at what cost?” I asked. “The deaths of millions?” “I have accepted calmly. “To me, Veelox doesn’t exist. I will only deal with the reality of my life here. I belong here in the Barbican, with these people, in this body, with this life.”

  “But it’s a life you don’t deserve,” I said.

  Zetlin shot me a look. I didn’t know where I was going with this, but I had to do something to get him to give up that code.

  “How can you say that?” he asked defensively, jumping to his feet. “I built Lifelight.”

  “So what?” I continued. “From what I can see, it’s all just math. Being good at math doesn’t earn you a perfect life. What about the people around here? These are the only people in your life. Your only friends. Do you think they really care about you?”

  “Of course they do,” Zetlin answered quickly.

  “Why? Because you’re the Z? The guy who races with them and plays games and throws parties? Is that why they care?”

  “That’s exactly why,” Zetlin said with confidence. “They love me.”

  “But they aren’t real,” I said. “You created them. They’re puppets who do what you say. You could be a monster and they’d still love you. You took the easy way out, Zetlin. Instead of repairing your real life, you lost yourself in a fantasy. Don’t you get lonely?”

  Zetlin’s eyes darted around the room. I was getting to him. To be honest, I think part of it was the Traveler in me at work.

  “Lonely?” he said, sounding shaky. “I am surrounded by friends. We have tournaments and games. I’m the champion slickshot racer!”

  “Sure you are!” I shot back. “I’ll bet you’re the champion at everything. It’s easy when all you have to do is imagine it. I’ll bet nobody ever says no to you, do they?”

  This question really threw Zetlin. He didn’t have to answer it.

  “There’s nobody to challenge you,” I said softly. “Nobody to argue with. Nobody to push you and help you find new ideas. For a guy like you, that sounds like death.”

  Zetlin shot me a look. I had definitely hit a chord.

  “You know what reality is for you?” I added. “You’re lying in a tube being fed by machines. You’re a living corpse. And you know the worst part? Your invention is doing the same thing to the rest of Veelox. Aja’s Reality Bug may have backfired, but at least she was doing something to try and save Veelox. The whole world is on life support, barely breathing. Veelox is going to die, just like you. If that happens, your life wasn’t miserable, it was tragic.”

  Zetlin staggered back and fell into his control chair. I had slammed him pretty hard.

  Aja’s image walked over to Zetlin. She stood over him and spoke reassuringly.

  “Please, Dr. Zetlin,” she said. “You are a great man. I would love to meet you as you are, not as a memory of yourself. I want to shake your hand and say how much I admire you.”

  Aja put out her hand. Zetlin looked up at her. His eyes were red, as if on the verge of tears. He reached out to touch Aja, but his hand went right through hers. Aja was only an image created by Lifelight. There was no human contact.

  “Come back. Dr. Zetlin,” she added. “Help rebuild Veelox.”

  Zetlin slowly turned and faced his computer array. Aja glanced over at me with a hopeful look. Had we gotten through to him?

  “Zero,” Zetlin said softly, as if he didn’t have the energy to fight anymore.

  “Excuse me?” Aja asked.

  “I said zero. That’s the origin code.”

  “Zero?” I repeated. “That’s it? Just… zero?”

  Zetlin gave a sly smile. “The phaders are a clever bunch. I knew they would try to crack the code, and I knew they would expect it to be a complex string of commands.”

  Aja smiled and said, “You really are brilliant.”

  “Am I?” Zetlin asked.

  “I’m going to purge the Reality Bug,” Aja said. An instant later, her image disappeared.

  “And then what happens?” Zetlin asked. “If Veelox is in such bad shape, all this will do is clear the way for its continued decline.”

  “That’s the next problem,” I said. “There has to be a way to use Lifelight without letting it control people’s lives.”

  “If I may say so,” Loor added. “If you could help Veelox find that balance, you would truly go down in history as a great man.”

  “Perhaps,” Zetlin said, then looked at me. “Real life is so much more difficult than fantasy.”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “But fantasy doesn’t last.”

  Zetlin stood up and walked over to the big glass wall to look out onto his dreary city. I couldn’t begin to guess what was going through his mind.

  Suddenly the monitor jumped to life with an image of Aja. She was sitting in her control chair in the Alpha Core.

  “We’ve got trouble,” she said, all business.

  “With the origin code?” I asked.

  “No, that worked perfectly,” she answered. “I went right to the processing code and cleaned the string. I totally purged the Reality Bug from Lifelight.”

  “Then what is the problem?” Loor asked.

  “The grid went back online by itself,” she explained. “I didn’t do a thing. It just happened.”

  “So everyone on Veelox is back in their jumps?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Aja’s voice started to crack. She sounded scared. “But something else is happening. As soon as everyo
ne went back online, huge amounts of data began flowing from all the Lifelight pyramids to the Alpha Core.”

  “Data? What does that mean, Aja?” I asked, trying not to get too freaked out.

  “I… I’m not sure.”

  We watched as Aja quickly input a series of commands and then checked her control monitor. There was tension in her eyes. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.

  “This is impossible,” she said, her panic growing. “Data from all over Veelox is streaming directly toward the alpha grid.”

  “Alpha grid,” Loor repeated. “What is this alpha grid?” “The alpha grid is where we are,” Zetlin answered, stepping up behind us. Uh-oh.

  “Killian,” Zetlin said, “the firewalls you created to repel this Reality Bug, are they still in place?”

  “Yes, but it’s like… it’s like the data is swarming. No, it’s attacking the alpha grid and dismantling the firewalls. I can’t reprogram them fast enough.”

  While she spoke, Aja kept making rapid-fire keystrokes on her control panel.

  “Could it be the Reality Bug?” I asked.

  “No!” Aja screamed back from the monitor. “I cleaned the string. It should be gone. The Reality Bug is-“

  The image on the monitor began to crumble. The picture flipped and twisted and changed until another face appeared on screen. It was the last face I wanted to see.

  It was Saint Dane.

  “Who is that?” demanded Zetlin.

  “You don’t want to know” was all I could answer.

  “Hello, all you desperate little Travelers,” Saint Dane chuckled. “If you’re seeing this recording, it means you’ve tried to purge the virus from Lifelight. Congratulations for getting so close! There’s just one little problem. The virus cannot be deleted. I made sure of that. In fact, trying to delete it, only multiplies its strength. Right about now, every jumper on Veelox is feeding the virus. Imagine having to battle the fears of everyone on the territory? Well, come to think of it, you won’t have to imagine it at all. You’re going to get the chance! I can’t wait to return to Veelox and see what damage my last little surprise has wrought. Until then, sweet dreams!”

  Saint Dane’s image on the monitor was replaced by the sight of a zillion different numbers flashing by at lightning speed. Then every light on the control console began to glow brighter. Dr. Zetlin furiously input commands on his control column. Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t working.

  “Nothing is responding,” he announced.

  “It’s like an overload,” I suggested. “There’s too much data for the computers to handle.”

  The lights on the control console intensified, blinding us. We all covered our eyes and it was a good thing we did, because a second later, the large monitor over the control chair exploded. Boom! Loor grabbed Zetlin by the back of his jumpsuit and pulled him out of his chair as a wave of shattered glass hit the seat.

  All three of us cowered, afraid that something else explosive might happen. Smoke filled the room, along with the smell of burning plastic. We huddled together and cautiously peered through the smoke to see an eerie sight.

  The control console had gone dark. Every light was out. The monitor was nothing more than a jagged, smoking hole in the wall. We all stood, stunned, staring at the destroyed console.

  But there was more.

  “What is that?” Loor asked curiously, pointing down.

  On the floor, covered in bits of glass from the destroyed monitor, was a black pile of goo about the size of a softball. It was as if a soft piece of tar had been spit out of the control panel when it exploded.

  “Is that a piece from the console?” I asked.

  “No,” Zetlin answered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  I took a step forward to get a closer look. But as soon as I approached it, the odd substance began to move. It was alive! I jumped back, as if it were diseased. For all I knew, it was.

  “Tell me this is part of your fantasy,” I said to Zetlin.

  “I have no idea what it could be,” Zetlin answered.

  Bad answer.

  The writhing black goo began to take on different shapes. A chunk grew out from the top, pushed toward the ceiling like a growing plant. It rose up a few inches, then formed what looked like a snarling mouth on the end of a black stalk! The mouth opened, revealing a set of sharp black teeth. The teeth snapped shut and the mouth sank back down into the black ooze to become part of the glob once more.

  “That was… gross,” I croaked.

  The goo continued to writhe and squirm. We saw an eyeball peek out of one side, wink, then sink back into the muck. A tiny black fist then poked its way out, flexed its fingers. then pulled back into the mass. Then a sharp, spike-looking thing poked out of the side and retracted.

  The three of us stood watching in awe. It was hideous and fascinating at the same time.

  “It’s like living clay,” I said. “It’s molding itself.”

  As I said that, the entire black form changed into what looked like an animal. In seconds, lying before us, no more than six inches high, was a cat-looking beast with two large heads, each of which had huge fangs. The form lay on its side, writhing like a newborn. It was solid black, but as it moved, the surface subtly changed texture. For a moment it looked like fur, but it quickly changed back into black goo. It even croaked out a ratty sound.

  The instant the cat image was revealed, I felt Loor stiffen beside me.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked her.

  “It is a zhou beast,” she exclaimed. “From Zadaa.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “Dr. Zetlin, have you ever seen something like that?”

  “Never,” was his emphatic reply.

  “Then it came out of your head, Loor,” I said. “You know what that means?”

  “It means it’s here,” came a sober voice near us.

  We all turned to see Aja’s image standing there. “It broke through the firewall,” she said, sounding as if she were in shock. “I couldn’t hold it back.”

  The black cat beast then mutated. It folded in on itself, once again becoming a formless mass. But there was a difference. It was subtle, and I wasn’t sure if I was seeing it at first, but once the goo started to squirm again, there was no mistake.

  The thing was growing.

  “The firewalls have collapsed,” Aja said. “Huge amounts of data are streaming into the alpha grid. It’s feeding that thing.”

  The growing black clay then squirmed and grew, and took on the form of another animal. It was now the size of a small dog. The creature was still solid black, but when it turned toward us, its eyes flashed yellow and my knees went weak.

  It was a quig from Denduron.

  “I know what this is,” I said, barely able to get the words out.

  “It is a quig,” Loor said.

  “No,” I said soberly. “It’s the Reality Bug. It’s taken physical form.”

  And then it attacked.

  (CONTINUED)

  VEELOX

  The black little beast sprang.

  We scattered. The odd creature missed everybody, and when it hit the ground, its legs collapsed. It reminded me of Bambi when he didn’t have the strength to stand on his own legs. But this little demon was no cute Disney deer. My guess was, it was going to get the strength to stand up pretty quick, and when it did, we’d be in trouble. Already the black skin was transforming into the dirty-brown fur of a quig. And it was still growing. In just a few seconds it was the size of my golden retriever.

  “You’re done, Pendragon,” Aja demanded. “Get out of the jump.”

  There was nothing I wanted to do more than press the bailout button on my wrist controller and kiss this fantasy good-bye, but we couldn’t leave yet.

  “You first. Dr. Zetlin,” I said. “Time to abandon ship.”

  Zetlin looked like he was in shock. He stared at the groggy quig, not believing what he was seeing.

  “This can’t be happening,” he said, s
tunned. “The jumps don’t allow it.”

  “They do now!” I shouted. “You’ve got to get out.”

  “You go,”he said. “I’ll be right after you.”

  I didn’t believe him. I was afraid he would stay here and try to do damage control.

  “Come on. Doctor, let’s go!” I shouted.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Pendragon,” Aja corrected. “When he leaves, the jump is over. You and Loor have to go first.”

  I looked at the mutant quig. Its body shivered as hair grew from the oozy black mass.

  “Promise me you’ll leave the jump. Doctor,” I begged. “You can fight this thing from the Alpha Core.”

  “I will,” he assured me. “Get going.”

  The quig slowly rose to its feet. It was now twice the size of my dog, Marley, and getting stronger. I looked to Loor. She had moved behind the control chair and was holding tight to the back of it. She was ready to move if the quig attacked again.

  “We should go,” she said to me without taking her eyes off the quig.

  “With pleasure,” I said, and hit the right button on my control bracelet. “We are outta here.” It didn’t work.

  “Why are we still here?” Loor asked. “Aja?” I screamed.

  “I don’t know,” Aja’s image answered. “Loor, try yours!”

  Loor poked the right button on her control bracelet, but nothing happened. No! I tried hitting the button on mine rapid-fire, like one of those idiots who keep hitting the elevator button, thinking it will make the elevator come faster. That never works, and hitting my wrist controller didn’t work either.

  The quig stood on shaky legs, reared back and pounced.

  Loor pulled the control chair right out of the floor and heaved it at the charging beast. The black chair nailed the quig, knocking it back to the floor. It lay there, breathing hard, still growing.

  “Aja!” I shouted. “Get us outta here!”

  “Hang on,” she called back. “I’m going back to the Alpha Core.”