The Girl in the Wilderness (Leah King Book 2)

by Harris, Philip

  “Yes, let’s go.”

  Alice paused as though she was assessing Leah’s state of mind. Apparently satisfied, she lifted Leah’s hair away from her neck. Leah felt the steel grip of the spider as Alice slipped it into position.

  “I’ll leave you in there as long as I can, but if things go south, I’m pulling you out.”

  “Okay.”

  Alice adjusted the position of the spider. “Ready?”

  Leah closed her eyes, took a deep breath and nodded.

  She sensed movement around her, and then the world dropped away and she was falling.

  25

  Leah’s stomach twisted and turned, wrapping itself in knots. She tried to scream, but her breath caught in her chest. Panic gripped her, and she tried to open her eyes, but they wouldn’t respond. She swallowed, pushing down the fear and trying to go with the transition rather than fight against it.

  Gradually, a warm glow formed at the base of her skull. It seeped into her bones, spreading through her body. The falling sensation began to fade. Her stomach settled, finally adjusting to the change in environment.

  Leah opened her eyes.

  A dimly lit corridor stretched out ahead of her. The walls were made of rough-hewn blocks of stone, each one twice the size of Leah’s head. The floor was earth, but it had been packed down hard. In places, thin streams of water ran down the walls and formed tiny lakes in the uneven floor. The corridor smelled of rotting vegetation. It took Leah a few seconds to realize that despite the fact she could see, there were no lights.

  The corridor stretched endlessly into the distance, but about twenty feet away another passage split off to the left. Twenty feet beyond that another led right. There were more passages beyond those. There was no pattern to them. The spacing varied; there were crossroads as well as T-junctions and just as many left turns as right.

  Leah walked to the first junction. The corridor leading left was similar to the one she stood in. More stone walls, more trickling water, more side passages. She moved on to the next passage and found the same thing—another endless corridor. She was in a maze.

  Leah thought back to her time in the library. At that point, she hadn’t known what the VR was. The system had presented her with something familiar, the dollhouse. Without even thinking about it, she’d manipulated the environment. Maybe she could do that here. She pressed her hands against the wall. The stone was icy, slick with a fine, greasy film. Leah visualized the wall crumbling into dust.

  Nothing happened.

  She willed heat into her hands, imagining them as balls of raw, volcanic power that would melt the stone around her on contact.

  Nothing happened.

  She tried again. This time, she pulled her hands back and slapped them against the wall. They were sledgehammers, and they were strong enough to shatter the stone into a million shards.

  Still the wall remained intact—unmoving, unchanging.

  She closed her eyes and imagined the walls turning to clouds. When she opened them again, they were still made of stone.

  “Argh!” shouted Leah. The sound was swallowed up by the corridors with barely an echo.

  A droplet of water fell from the ceiling and landed on Leah’s neck. She shuddered and stepped back. Another drop fell, and she followed its descent. It hit a puddle on the floor and was swallowed up, but the water’s surface didn’t react. There was no splash, no ripples.

  Leah flicked the puddle with her foot. Water splashed against the wall, but it was gone a fraction of a second later. The puddle reverted to its earlier state. Apparently she wasn’t able to affect this world.

  She let out a scream of frustration, the sound immediately swallowed up.

  Leah stared at the wall. There had to be some way to unlock the maze, some key she was missing. She frowned. At first, the bricks in the walls had seemed random, but now she could see patterns emerging. Small patches of repeated stonework stood out here and there.

  She walked slowly along the corridor, her fingers trailing across the rough stone. About every thirty feet or so, the configuration of the stones repeated itself. Now that she’d spotted the pattern, it was obvious. But how could it help her?

  The hard-packed earth beneath her feet had its own pattern too. Every twenty feet there was a distinctive dip. She was studying the ground, looking for other repetitions, when her fingers brushed over something on the wall.

  She backtracked, tracing her fingers over the stonework. On the second pass, she found it—there was a symbol scratched into the stone. It was hard to see in the dim light, but her fingers traced it out. It took her a few seconds to recognize the shape as one of the public works symbols she’d used to navigate through the tunnels beneath the City. It was the same symbol as the one that marked the tunnel leading to her “secret lair.” Leah searched the wall around the symbol, but there were no other markings. It was a miracle she’d found this one. Either that, or she did have some control over her environment after all.

  Leah closed her eyes and pressed her palm against the mark. Nothing happened for several seconds, then the stone beneath her hand grew warm. She was convinced it was just her imagination at first, but the heat intensified until it was almost too much for her to bear.

  Then she felt the stone vibrate and shift. The movement lasted for a couple of seconds and then stopped, and the heat died away. Leah removed her hand, revealing a vertical slit in the wall about ten inches long and just wide enough for her to fit the tips of her fingers into. A hot breeze blew through the gap.

  Leah pressed her ear against the opening. The musty air was warm against her skin but she couldn’t hear anything. She forced the fingertips of both hands into the gap. The edge of the stone was rough, and she could feel it grazing her skin. She took a deep breath and pulled her hands apart as though she were opening a pair of sliding doors.

  She didn’t expect the stone to move, not without a lot of effort, but it did. The wall simply parted. The split widened and lengthened, quickly reaching from floor to ceiling. Bright white light burst from the split. Leah looked away to shield her eyes. She pulled the opening apart until she was standing with her arms stretched out on either side of her. The breeze wafted over her. It smelled of burning dust.

  Hesitantly, Leah lowered her arms. The wall didn’t snap closed, didn’t vanish. Nor did the light lessen. It was as though dozens of floodlights were directed right at Leah, ensuring it was too bright to see beyond the opening.

  The rest of the corridor was as it had been. If there were other markings on the wall, Leah couldn’t see them, even with the extra light. This was the way out of the maze; she was sure of it. Without stopping to second-guess the decision, Leah stepped through the opening and into the light.

  26

  Leah passed through a wall of heat as though she’d just been dropped into the middle of a firestorm. The air around her was thick and dry, heavy with the smell of burning dust. Sweat broke out on her brow and trickled down her back. Her clothes suddenly felt damp and clung to her as she moved. The ground beneath her feet changed from dirt to something hard. The white light faded and was replaced by a flickering yellow. Cautiously, Leah opened her eyes.

  She was standing in a library, but the presence of books was the only similarity between this place and the library in her dollhouse. She was on a walkway that ran around the edge of a circular room that must have been over one hundred feet across. There was no railing, and Leah could feel the edge calling to her. The walls were lined with metal shelves crammed full of books. Each one was identical apart from a sequence of letters and numbers stamped on the spine.

  A little way to her left, a spiral staircase led up to another walkway, and above that another, and another. The room stretched up endlessly until perspective swallowed it whole. Each floor was filled with more of the identical books.

  Leah looked down and gasped. There were two more floors below her, and then the room ended in a sea of fire. Bright orange and yellow flame roiled like bo
iling water. Leah caught glimpses of more walkways beneath the fire where the room continued on. Heat wafted over Leah, and she blinked to ease her dry eyes. She took a step away from the edge of the walkway, and her back touched the shelves. Whatever doorway she’d used to get into the library was gone now. Panic rose inside her, and she had to force herself to ignore it. This wasn’t a real, physical place. She wasn’t trapped. She could leave any time she wanted to.

  Leah took a deep breath and caught the smell of burning dust again. The flames below flickered in the periphery of her vision. The edge of the walkway still seemed dangerously close.

  Pushing down her fear, she turned to the bookcase. She didn’t have long to find the information they needed and this might be their only chance.

  Leah pulled one of the books from the shelves and flicked through it. The pages were crammed with text, the letters so small she could barely read them. It appeared to be a description of some sort of religious ceremony. Leah didn’t recognize it, or the deity being worshiped. The back of the book contained an index with thousands of what appeared to be reference numbers for other books.

  She put the book back on the shelf and closed her eyes. Picturing Eric Morgan’s name written on a page, she plucked another book from the shelves at random. When she opened it she found the same minuscule text she’d seen before, but this time, she recognized the subject matter.

  It was a description of the merchant square in the City. Part of the text covered the physical makeup of the area with dry, workmanlike descriptions of the various buildings and the businesses operating within them. The rest was detailed information on the contract Columbia had with the Amish—what they would trade and when and for how much. There was no sign of anything about Eric Morgan. Leah slammed the book back onto the shelf. The sound echoed around the room.

  Maybe it was only the classified information that eluded her. She tried again, this time imagining Katherine standing in front of her. The next book she pulled off the shelf was a recipe book.

  “Dammit!” she said as she shoved the book back onto the shelf.

  The library stretched endlessly above and below her— millions of books representing the almost endless amounts of data held by Transport. She’d gotten through the maze only to find herself thwarted by the sheer amount of information stored here. It would take her a thousand lifetimes to find what she was looking for, if it was even here. Whatever had allowed her to control the data she’d found in the library the first time didn’t apply here. Clearly, Alice had been wrong when she’d said Leah was a natural.

  A fresh blast of heat hit Leah’s face. Below her, the flames still boiled. Fingers of orange-red fire reached upward only to vanish again moments later, swallowed up by the inferno. The fire lapped at the books around the edge of the floor. It was a wonder they didn’t catch fire. No, it was more than that. It was impossible.

  Leah grabbed a book off the shelf and pitched it off the edge of the walkway. It tumbled end over end and hit the fire. She’d expected the book to burn up or at least catch light. Instead, the flames parted, creating an opening for the book that lasted just long enough for it to pass through before snapping shut again. She pulled another book from the shelf and tossed it toward the fire. As before, the flames parted and let the book through.

  The air was becoming stifling. A trickle of sweat dripped into Leah’s eye. She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. It came away dry. Leah let out a little cry as her utter confusion threatened to overwhelm her. She could feel the sweat on her back and under her armpits, but it wasn’t real. Perhaps that meant the heat itself wasn’t either.

  Leah knelt and pressed her hand against the metal grille of the walkway. It was cool to her touch. She gazed past the crisscrossed metal to the fire two floors below. Leah groaned. It must be the firewall Gleeson had mentioned, manifested by Leah’s subconscious in the most literal way possible.

  Leah grabbed the nearest book and walked down the staircase to the next floor. It was hard to tell, but the air seemed the same temperature, maybe even a little cooler. The fire still looked real, though. She walked down the next staircase—slower this time.

  The wall of fire was halfway between this floor and the next. Leah would have to walk through the fire to get there. Her mouth felt sticky, and she was sure that wasn’t an illusion. Nor the sweat on the palms of her hands. This close, the fire looked more dangerous than ever. Tendrils of flame danced about, beckoning her to join them. She felt the walkway again. Still cool.

  Ever conscious of the ticking of the clock, Leah began to descend. She realized as she did that the library was silent. This close she’d have expected to hear the roar of the fire. The only indication it existed was the vague smell of burned dust that still lingered.

  Flames rose to greet her as she got closer. They flowed up the staircase, orange fingers grasping at the metal steps. Leah stopped one step above the fire. Fine tendrils of fire crept toward her feet. She tensed. Intellectually, she knew none of this was real. This close to the fire, she should be burning up, but if anything, the air was cooler here than it had been above. But still, what fool willingly flirts with immolation?

  The tendrils climbed over the edge of the step and reached toward Leah’s feet. But as they touched her leather boots, they shrank back and were swallowed up by the firewall once more. It wasn’t quite the reaction Leah had expected, and it didn’t mean the fire would open up for her as it had the books, but she took it as a good sign anyway. She was almost sure the fire would allow her through.

  Leah had just managed to pluck up the courage to test her theory when she heard a voice.

  “Leah, don’t!”

  It was Alice. She was standing at the top of the staircase.

  “How did you…?”

  “I followed you in. Do you have the data?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then we need to leave, now! Transport knows where we are.”

  “I can get the data; I just need a few more seconds. This is the firewall wall and I can—”

  “No, it’s a trick.”

  “But I—”

  “Leah, the firewall can really hurt you.”

  Leah frowned. “What? But none of this is real.”

  “It is real, it just doesn’t look like this. You’re connected to the data center. You’re vulnerable. If Transport has any of the really nasty defenses in place, you could get hurt, maybe even end up brain dead.”

  “But I’m really close.”

  “Leah, no!”

  Leah stepped into the fire.

  27

  Darkness dropped over Leah’s vision like a velvet curtain. The absence of light was absolute. The sudden change in her environment overwhelmed her senses and left her reeling. She gasped, trying to quell the instinct to run. If she was still in the library, then running could send her tumbling over the edge of the walkway. If she wasn’t, then trying to flee might be even deadlier. She tried to lift her hand to look at it, but her arm felt heavy and sluggish. It was as though it was moving through water with lead weights attached to her wrist. Her legs wouldn’t move at all.

  Leah forced her fists closed and took a slow, deep breath. Her panic began to subside. As it did, her bones began to throb. They pulsed slowly, sending tiny shockwaves through her body. Leah’s heart slowed to match the steady rhythm reverberating through her. A dull ache settled in her jaw. Leah stood there, feeling her heartbeat get slower, beat by beat, until the gaps between each one were so long she feared she might be dead.

  And then her heart stopped.

  Leah tried to breathe, but the air caught in her chest, bringing with it sudden, unbearable claustrophobia. Her eyes widened in terror.

  And then she was in the market square in Columbia. She dragged in a breath. The air was warm and filled with the scent of baked bread and smoked meat. The square was empty apart from a lone figure standing in front of the main gate. The figure raised a hand to her. She recognized him immediately.
/>   “Isaac!”

  Leah ran across the square to her friend. He was wearing his Amish jacket and broad fall pants, just as when she’d last seen him. He had a battered leather satchel over his shoulder. It was identical to the one she’d found the memory module in. Leah broke out into a broad grin. Isaac’s face remained calm beneath his wide-brimmed hat. She threw herself at Isaac, wrapped her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest. Her vision blurred, and she squeezed her eyes tight, crushing the tears.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said.

  Isaac didn’t respond.

  Leah tightened her grip and breathed deep. He smelled of freshly cut grass. She clung to the memories, even as her elation faded. It could be him. If Katherine had survived the blast, so could Isaac. She choked off a cry of frustration.

  “I’m sorry,” said Isaac.

  Slowly, Leah pulled her head away from his chest and stepped back. She sniffed and blinked away more tears.

  “You’re not him.”

  It wasn’t a question, but the man shook his head. “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “I chose this avatar, and this place, because I wanted you to feel safe. At least long enough for me to talk to you.”

  The man’s voice was distorted. It wavered in pitch, giving it a vaguely artificial feel.

  “But who are you then? And why do you want to talk to me?”

  “Who I am isn’t important. It’s the why that matters. I’m here to give you the information you’re looking for.”

  “The data on Eric Morgan?”

  “Yes.”

  The man slipped the leather bag off his shoulder. He reached inside and withdrew a small black book. It was leather-bound, and the pages had gold-leaf edges. He handed it to Leah. A series of letters and numbers were stamped into the spine.

  A8510TT24X

  “That’s it?”