by Julie Hyzy
“It’s supposed to home in on the target signal, right?” Jason asked as Kenna fiddled with the control’s center dial. The bronze gadget, a replica of the one pulled from Maya’s backpack, had a nickel-size dial at the top and ten soft-touch numbered buttons set deep enough into the front to prevent accidental commands. The contraption looked very much like the primitive television remote controls on display in the broadcast history museum.
“Yeah. And it should maintain enough of a connection between the target VR and our base to be able to manipulate the program’s parameters.” She turned the dial, making tiny clockwise ticks.
A high-pitched buzzing caused Kenna to clap her free hand to her ear. It didn’t help. The sound was in her head.
She tried turning the knob back counterclockwise but the sound continued.
Jason winced, twisting away.
“You hear that, too?” she shouted.
He nodded, grimacing.
Kenna hunched over the control, one shoulder pressed against her ear in a futile attempt to stem the pain from the screaming noise. She fiddled with the dial, typing the code Maya had given them, hoping for relief. Jason paced away from her, his hands fisted above his head, his body bent.
“Silence!” Kenna shouted.
As suddenly as the sound had begun, it ceased.
“Oh,” she said.
The sparkling white cloud disappeared.
In its place, Patrick sat strapped to a metal chair facing her. His hands were cuffed behind him, his feet bound to the chair’s front legs. He stared straight ahead, mouth set in a tight line.
The room was square, white. No windows, no doors. No visible means of illumination providing the room’s bright light. No means of escape. Hospital-like, sterile, and cold.
“Patrick!” She took off running, vaguely aware of Jason following. Tucking the remote into her back pocket, she sprinted less than five steps when she rammed full force into an invisible barrier. Like metal clanged with a hammer, her body hummed in agonizing reverberation. Stunned, she tumbled backward.
“Whoa,” Jason said, breaking her fall and lowering her to the ground.
Kenna’s mouth hung slack until her breath returned. It required effort to wheeze, “What was that?”
Jason hit the barrier with the side of his fist, knocking and shouting to be heard through the invisible blockade. Patrick gave no indication of awareness.
“Must be some sort of parameter safeguard,” he said. “Or firewall.” His hands began to explore the unseen obstruction, his movements like that of a trapped mime.
“Obviously, we’re not going to get through this with brute force.” Kenna massaged her temples. “We need to think. This is a problem-solving exercise. Like our tests. Except the stakes are real.”
Kenna pulled the dissidents’ VR control back out of her pocket and studied its numbered keypad. Maya had given them only one code. Kenna typed it in again, then called to the program to respond. Cheered by the acknowledging beep, she ordered the program to release Patrick’s bonds.
Nothing happened. She swore under her breath.
Jason stood next to her. “Tell it to lower this force field.”
She tried.
Nothing.
“What good is this damn thing if it…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Typing in the code again, she tried something else. “Program,” she called out, “no lights.”
Instantly their area went dark. But the sterile chamber remained bathed in illumination, its occupant still oblivious to his unseen audience.
“What good is this,” she asked, “if it only works out here?”
Jason grabbed Kenna’s arm. “But look at what you did. We can see where it ends.” He tugged at her and began to trot along the border between light and dark. “There might be a way in after all.”
Kenna followed as they made a quick circuit around the area. They circled behind Patrick, and she could practically hear his thoughts: “Nothing is real. Everything is perfectly safe.”
When the device in her hand vibrated, she glanced at it. One of the keypad digits flashed. Then another. She looked up long enough to see Patrick’s garments disappear. Still strapped to the metal chair, he was now stripped to his shorts.
“Dang! I missed it,” Kenna said. “That had to be some sort of control code from whoever is running this program. We could have used that information. Why did I look up? Why?”
“How many digits?”
“Not sure.” Kenna tapped her chin with her fist. “One of the numbers was seven, but beyond that I couldn’t tell you.”
“We’ll get in one way or another,” Jason said. “We have to.”
FIFTY-ONE
Werner banged the front door of AdventureSome. Inside, the lights were on, but the doors were locked. He’d rung the bell several times to no avail. He didn’t care what time it was. He’d tried reaching Kenna Ward at her home first, assuming he’d be waking the young woman. How to explain what he needed? He had no idea.
There had been no answer at Kenna’s. Desperate, he’d made his way here.
A disembodied voice came through the intercom: “We’re closed.”
Werner glanced around, finally locating the security camera. Facing it, he adopted an authoritarian tone. “Stewart Mathers? Is that you?”
“Who is this?”
“Werner Trutenko. From the Tribunal. It’s urgent you allow me in.”
FIFTY-TWO
When the device in Kenna’s hand vibrated again, she looked down in time to watch the number seven flash and disappear, followed by the eight, and then the nine. With a quick, surprised glance at Jason, she asked, “Could it be that easy?”
Without waiting for an answer, she typed the three-number sequence in. “Come on,” she whispered.
All ten digits flashed at once, which Kenna recognized as defeat. She shook the handheld control, ready to swear at it, but her attention was drawn back to Patrick’s sterile chamber.
“Celia Newell?” Kenna exclaimed at her appearance. “What is she doing here?”
The leader of Virtu-Tech stood facing Patrick, hands clasped behind her back, head cocked slightly to one side, looking like a toddler encountering a ladybug for the first time—gentle and inquisitive. Yet the expression in her eyes conveyed she was anything but.
Walking slowly, she circled Patrick’s chair. Her mouth moved in a way that suggested calm questioning. She’d speak, wait, and then speak again. Patrick kept his expression impenetrable, his gaze straight and steady. Celia continued to circle, in chillingly placid fashion, as she continued her silent interrogation.
“So, Celia Newell is hooked up to the system?” Jason asked. “Does that mean she’s at Chicago’s Virtu-Tech headquarters, too?”
“Could be,” Kenna said. “That, or she’s reaching in from a remote location the way we are.”
“Just what we needed,” he said. “More unknowns.”
Inside the bright tableau, Celia shook her head, expressing dismay. She held her hands up as though in supplication. A second later, a curved, serrated hunting knife appeared in her right hand. A small brown vial in the other.
Kenna went back to trying number variations to break through the entry code. The entire keypad flashed after every failed attempt. “Must be a six-digit code,” she said.
“How do you know?” Jason asked.
“The error message begins flashing the keypad after the sixth digit.”
“But we know three of them,” he said. “We’re halfway there.”
Kenna glanced up long enough to see Celia grab a handful of reddened skin from Patrick’s inner thigh. In a move, so fast Kenna almost didn’t see it, she sliced away a three-inch chunk of skin.
Patrick’s back arched. His mouth opened to the ceiling in a wail so primal, Kenna could almost believe she heard it.
Kenna banged on the barrier again. “It isn’t real!”
Jason gripped her shoulder. “Keep trying,” he said. “We’ll get there.” A second later, he said, “Holy geez.”
“What?” she asked. Palms against the invisible barrier, like a kid looking through a plate-glass window, she found herself unable to tear her gaze away. Celia had unscrewed the cap of the vial she held. “What’s she got there?”
Jason shook his head. “I’m afraid to guess.”
Frozen with uncertainty, Kenna watched as Celia positioned the vial over the bloodied shred of skin that had fallen to the floor. She tipped the container to spill a drop of its contents on top of it.
Instantly the flesh curled, twisting as it smoked and blackened.
She repositioned the vial over Patrick’s freshly sliced thigh.
Patrick twisted, wrenching himself away from the woman, the legs of his chair bouncing off the floor from his effort. He kept at it until the chair fell over and his face slammed to the ground, his big legs working against his constraints.
“I’m guessing acid,” Jason said. “Damn.”
Kenna pounded her fists. Jason pounded his. Like terrified viewers of a silent horror film, they shouted at the scene, knowing their efforts were futile.
Using a device exactly like the one in Kenna’s hand, Celia tapped in a code. Patrick’s chair righted itself. New clamps appeared, securing the chair’s legs to the floor. Celia nodded. She returned to her spot just over Patrick’s open wound and poured.
Kenna cried out. She couldn’t hear the sizzle of acid against Patrick’s skin as the wound bubbled black. She couldn’t smell the seared flesh. But as Patrick’s body arched back and he pointed his face skyward in a silent scream of agony, she felt his pain. “No,” she whispered. Her hand reached out to grab at Jason. “We have to stop her.”
Celia turned her face from the burning skin, wrinkling her nose. She capped the bottle. Unruffled, she returned to her interrogation.
FIFTY-THREE
There is not a chance in hell you’re getting in,” Stewart said when he opened the door to AdventureSome. “You have no business here.”
Trutenko slammed a meaty hand against the door’s glass pane, obscuring most of the company’s cheery logo with his thick fingers. “I have urgent business here,” he thundered. “It’s a matter of life and death. My brother’s life.”
Taken aback, Stewart hesitated. Aaron and Maya had taken off shortly after getting Kenna and Jason hooked up and explaining what Stewart needed to know to monitor the situation.
Before she’d gone in, Kenna had provided only the barest of details about what was happening, but she’d been very clear on one point: Virtu-Tech was the bad guy. And Stewart vividly remembered Werner Trutenko as the face of Virtu-Tech.
“Get out before I call the police.”
“Please,” Trutenko said. “I know you don’t trust me. I can’t blame you. But I have nowhere else to turn. My brother—” He sucked in a breath. “My brother is in danger.”
Stewart shook his head. “I don’t know your brother, but I can tell you he’s not here. There are thousands of other VR establishments, some of them open twenty-four hours. Maybe your brother’s there.”
“No.” Trutenko banged on the glass again. “I know the dissidents are here.”
“No one is here.”
“Please. Where can I find them?”
When Stewart tried to shut the door, Trutenko wedged his large frame between it and the jamb. “Virtu-Tech killed Charles Russell,” he said. “I was there. I take full responsibility. I recently found out that your associate—the young woman Vanessa—was murdered. The killing must stop. I can help stop it. My brother has been working with the dissidents. But he’s been found out.”
“So your brother—”
“Is Patrick Danaher. Yes. He’s in grave danger.” Trutenko’s voice cracked. “I need to contact the dissidents. I need their help to save him.”
FIFTY-FOUR
Kenna continued seeking the correct three-digit prefix to the known code seven-eight-nine, frustrated by the three-second delay in the system between her attempts. “If I have to go through every single combination, I will.”
“Hey,” Jason said, interrupting her. “Who’s this?”
Kenna sucked in a breath at the new arrival. “That’s Tate.” She stared down at the device in her hand. “Why didn’t the code come up when he came in?”
Jason shook his head, then pointed. “He’s got a device of his own. Maybe different codes signal different actions?”
Celia wasted no time. She advanced on Tate, her spine rigid, her cheeks flushed. Handing him the vial of acid, she spoke quickly, authoritatively, and then swept her hand between them in dismissal.
A second later, he was gone.
Kenna’s device didn’t react.
“I’ll keep trying. One of these combinations has to work,” she said.
Jason paced behind her. They were silent for several minutes.
“Oh my god,” Jason said. “He’s back.”
“What—” She stopped. In the horrifying seconds it took for the scene to register, she swallowed her next words.
Tate wasn’t alone.
He had one arm wrapped around Patrick’s wife, Mallory. Bound and gagged, she struggled against her captor, her efforts useless against the tall man’s brute strength. Tate’s other hand gripped the back of little Ryan’s striped polo shirt. Red-faced and screaming, the boy reached for his mother.
“No,” Kenna screamed. “No!”
Jason dragged her to face him. “They aren’t real,” he said. He pulled her by her upper arms, twisting hard. “They aren’t real.”
Kenna fought. “What if they are?”
“They’re not,” he said with authority, but Kenna caught the flicker of doubt in his eyes.
“We have to get in there now,” she said.
Around the invisible perimeter, Kenna paced behind Patrick as she tried again and again to come up with the proper commands. Something gnawed at her. The numbers—something about them—where had she’d seen them before? If she could get a moment, one solid moment, to clear her mind, she might be able to reach back and remember.
Tate dropped Mallory to the ground and let go of Ryan’s shirt. The little boy ran to his mother, all arms and legs. Doing his best to wrap himself around her, he wound up knocking her sideways. Strands of hair stuck to the sides of her face, framing her swollen eyes. She lay on her right side, while little Ryan nuzzled against her, burying his head in her chest, his shoulders shaking. Mallory pressed her cheek against her son’s head, in a vain attempt to comfort him.
Arms crossed, Celia watched Patrick.
Kenna shut her eyes, forcing herself to remember.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked.
“Quiet,” she snapped.
She stared down at the floor, concentrating. “I know the code,” she said half to herself. “I know it. It was in Vanessa’s notes.” Drawing herself inward, she went silent, fighting through the jumble of recollections, trying to focus. “I didn’t recognize it for what it was,” she said, her words coming out slowly. Talking it out might make her remember. “And now I…can’t…come up with it.”
“You will,” Jason said.
At movement beyond the barrier, Kenna instinctively looked up.
Tate reached down to grab a handful of Mallory’s hair. He yanked—like a kid dragging a stuffed toy—and tossed her toward Patrick. Hands and feet bound, she landed in a heap, facedown. Ryan scrambled over to her, his pudgy fingers working to pull the gag out of her mouth.
The silent horror film continued.
Patrick bared his teeth, stared upward, his eyes clenched shut.
“Good man,” Jason said. “He knows none of this is real.”
&nb
sp; Kenna wondered how long Patrick would be able to hold out. How long before the unrelenting pressure took over. She had tried to convince Charlie that his wounds weren’t real. What if Jason was wrong? What if Mallory and Ryan were trapped in VR capsules, too?
Tate hoisted Ryan by his ankles and held him aloft. Kenna turned her back.
“Vanessa,” she whispered. “Come through for me, girlfriend.”
A hacked connection, she’d said. Static.
Deep within the system, Vanessa had explained, she’d found a series of numbers that repeated themselves, beating a constant, steady rhythm beneath the program it carried. She’d speculated that these numbers were a code that led directly back to the hostile program. When Kenna had gone over Vanessa’s notes, she’d assumed these numbers were unique to the original takeover. Now, she wasn’t so sure. They were likely a master code that would allow them access inside.
Suddenly Kenna remembered that she’d first thought the scribbles Vanessa left represented a phone number. Almost a phone number. Missing a couple of digits.
Her head shot up. She stared ahead but she saw nothing except an image of the note with Vanessa’s loopy handwriting.
“What?” Jason asked.
“Three, seven, six,” she recited. “Seven, eight, nine.”
“You got it?” His hand reached out to grab the control box, but Kenna pulled away and began inputting the numbers.
Jason faced the violence behind her. He winced.
“Don’t turn around,” he said. His face pale, he blew out a breath.
Kenna touched the final number and held her breath.
A tiny buzz replied.
She spun as the area filled with sound: Mallory sobbing, her cries muffled by the gag stuffed in her mouth; little Ryan calling out: “Mommy, Mommy,” through hiccupy whimpers. Patrick stared at the ceiling, an inhuman groan emanating from deep within his gut.
Kenna knew he was trying to drown out the sounds of his VR family’s suffering as his only salvation from immersion. If he allowed himself to succumb to Celia’s mind games, he’d be lost exactly the way Charlie had.