The other side of the area contained private rooms scheduled for virtual meetings. The metal doors had a single control panel and a number etched inside. Farther down the aisle, she watched an attendant push a bed into one of the private rooms. She assumed it was her father.
They walked down the hall and the tall male attendant greeted them at the door. “6G? For patient 26409?”
She nodded. Her father no longer had a name, but a number. A number she hated and could never forget.
“You ready?” Reed asked.
They both waited as her feet stalled, heavy like cement. “Okay.” With a deep breath, she stepped into the room with Reed shutting the door behind them.
Her father’s once bulky frame had shrunken, now frail and bony under the thin sheet. His gaze flicked back and forth behind his closed eyes. Silver littered his dark hair, especially filling out his beard. His hair fell down to his shoulders and was tucked behind his ears. He used to wear it in a ponytail tied at the nape of his neck. He never was one to worry about his hair. When she was little, he used to let her put it in ponytails with all the colorful clips she wanted.
She stepped towards him and tears blurred her vision. How could she hate and love one person so much in the same moment? Her chest ached as she strengthened her resolve.
“Are you ready?” Reed asked.
She ignored his question. She would never be ready. Hesitantly, she took a seat next to her father.
“It’s okay if you change your mind.”
Ari reached for her cable. “Go to the original program in his history. It should be the cruise on the Rhine River.”
“If I get word from Marco, I’m pulling you out. You understand?” Reed had received an old HUB from Marco, so they could stay in touch.
“I’ll be quick. Promise.”
Ari bit down on her lip and slid the cable into her port. She closed her eyes, sensing the program was ready for her, and floated into a whole different world.
CHAPTER 33
Now familiar with the transition into the VRs, she wasn’t surprised when the cool breeze off the water brushed against her face. The world around her had turned green and blue. A lush countryside lined the water, dotted with villas and even a small castle in the distance. As the sun set, it gave everything a beautiful golden hue.
Turning away from the water, she pushed off the railing in search for her father. With the size of the ship, it might be harder than she’d thought. Several stories tall and long, there was no end to the white railing winding around the length of the ship.
“Excuse me, miss. Would you care for a drink?” An exotic waiter with a heavy accent offered Ari a glass of what looked like champagne. The waiter’s face with his crystal blue eyes and chiseled cheek bones was perfect, too perfect. The prison held enough beauty and luxury that was hard to leave, but it was still a prison.
“No, thank you.” Ari replied. “But can you help me? I’m looking for Enrique Mendez.”
“I’m not sure about him, but I know most people are upstairs dancing.” He motioned to a set of stairs to her left. “There is a live band tonight.”
“Thanks.” Ari headed to the stairs. Looking down at her outfit of jeans and a t-shirt, she decided to go dancing. Her clothes morphed into a simple blue dress that her mother handed down to her years ago. What Ari used to struggle with in the program, now didn’t take more than a second to fix. The music and laughter rose as she walked up the two flights of stairs.
Her hand trailed along the handrail made from dark wood lined with gold accents. The texture felt off, too smooth for the detailed engraving it showed. Dr. Coleman would be pleased with her observations, but there would be no more tests for her.
Stepping onto the dance floor, she noticed the clouds mingling in the background. High above the water, only the fading night sky surrounded them. The railing turned to soft white fabric laced with lights. Elegantly dressed couples floated by on the dance floor, spinning, smiling, and laughing. Maybe her father really thought he’d died and gone to heaven. She finally spotted his tall frame in the middle of the floor with a woman whose red dress exposed more skin than it covered.
Ari reached for the nearby railing. Despite her anger over the years, her heart leapt to see him so alive and happy. Granted after a minute of watching her father hold this woman tight against him, her joy fizzled. Vacation time was over.
Ari fought against her initial desire to strip this ship down to mere wreckage. It would just push him further away. She strode onto the dance floor, brushing off an approaching gentleman asking for a dance. He wasn’t real. None of this was.
“Excuse me.” She placed a hand on her father’s shoulder, stopping them cold. “Can I have this dance?”
Her father kept his long black hair tied neatly in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Without his beard, he looked younger. His hazel eyes peered out behind his heavy brow.
“Enrique?” The woman turned to her father.
Staring at Ari, he didn’t hide the confusion that flashed on his face. Ari wasn’t sure he would recognize her.
“Isabelle?” he asked, calling Ari her mother’s name.
“Not quite.” Ari remembered that he hadn’t seen her for eight years. She had changed a lot since she was eight.
Her father dropped his hands, dismissing the woman he was with, or rather ignoring her. She strode away towards the bar. He then reached for Ari and drew her into his arms. The resentment of years past, constantly eroding Ari’s soul, quieted, and she was back in her father’s arms, like a little girl dancing on his feet in the kitchen. She had to fight the urge to get lost in this dream as well.
He reached into his pocket and handed Ari a simple white cloth. She noticed the tears that had been silently falling onto her cheeks. She gave an embarrassed smile and brushed them away.
“Are you going to tell me who you are? I thought you were Isabelle at first glance. But not quite. A relative, perhaps?” His lips pulled up into a big goofy smile, a favorite of Ari’s and one she never thought she would see again.
She took a deep breath, needing the extra air to draw the words out. “I’m Ariana ... Ari, your daughter.”
He stopped dancing. “No, you can’t be.” He pulled his hands away from her and stepped back. “That would mean ...”
“I’m sixteen. You’ve been gone for eight years.”
Rubbing his jaw, he shook his head but kept his gaze locked on her. The music played on while the couples danced around them in an artificial state. The perfection of it all was absurd, especially with the tumult of emotions happening in the small little bubble that contained Ari and her father.
“It’s time to come home, Dad.”
He shook his head slowly. “I can’t leave. Your mother and I must finish our vacation. It’s not every day one can celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary.”
She stepped towards him. If only she could reach him, hold onto him. “It’s been more than ten years, Dad.”
“How did you even arrive on the ship?” He spun in a circle now. “I know you say you’re my Ari, but something’s not right.”
She concentrated for a moment, analyzing the code around her. People turned into streams of numbers and letters. The dancers vanished, music stopped, and a light shone overhead, like high noon in the summer. She kept the river and the basic frame of the boat. The bright light showed her father’s worn and tired features, something he couldn’t even hide in the VR.
“What in the world?” He squinted against the bright lights, blankly searching for the others.
For a moment Ari thought she’d gotten through to him. She held her breath, praying it had worked.
Then something odd happened. The world resumed to normal. Like a rubber band, everything she’d torn down snapped back to perfection. What was happening?
While she stood dumbfounded, he moved toward the staircase. “I think I drank too much tonight. I better head back to my room.”
Ari rushed after hi
m and grabbed his hand. “Please stop, it’s me.”
He turned back, his breath choppy and labored. Confusion creased his eyebrows, and she wished she could be that eight-year-old little girl again with two long braids down her back. Then the thought crossed her mind that she could change herself, or at least his perception of herself.
She closed her eyes and imagined a picture of herself at that age, specifically the one from her eighth birthday. She was blowing out the candles with her brother next to her, wearing her favorite purple shirt. It took longer than Ari liked, and when she opened her eyes again, she realized she might have made the wrong choice.
His eyes bulged, and he stumbled back. “I need a drink.” He turned to the bar.
In anger, she deleted the code again, wiping away the bar and the people.
Even though nothing stood there, he continued going through the motions, ordering a drink and mumbling thanks to the non-existent barkeep. With nothing there, he appeared like a child playing make-believe.
“Dad.” Her voice cracked as silent tears fell heavy on her cheeks. “Mom wanted me to bring you home. She’s worried about you.”
He exhaled loudly, looking familiar with this argument. “Oh, I know. I’ll be up to join her in our room shortly. She was never one for staying out late. It’s okay, sweetie.”
“She left her room. She’s at home waiting for you.” With emotion tightening her throat, the words came out small.
“How could she possibly leave? Just give me a minute.” He tipped back a drink that only he could see.
“There was an emergency. She’s hurt.” Ari struggled to make up anything to convince him to go. “She’s in bad shape, Dad. We have to go now.”
She reached for his hand, trying to budge him, but he remained glued to the invisible bar. Even though he wasn’t in his right mind, his brush off tore at her. She couldn’t give up though.
“They would have come and got me. I spoke to her a while ago. She’s fine.”
Roughly wiping her tears away, she shoved those years of hurt into a box, the same box she had struggled to keep shut for years. Ari was no longer that little girl. An ocean breeze curled around her, and she focused on the code and what she could change.
She obliterated the ship, the sea and the surrounding lush landscape. Letters and numbers flew like a tornado around her head, breaking apart and morphing into something new. When she finished, Ari and her father stood on a plain dirt road, like the one that ran behind their apartment.
Turning in a circle, he stumbled over his words. “I gotta go back to our room. Maybe one more drink.”
“There is no room, Dad. There is no cruise, no boat, no damn river. You are in a VR and your only way out is to leave with me, to go back home.” She clenched her fists ignoring the pain in her palms. “You need to come home to me and Marco and Mom. Please, Dad. Come home.”
Ari’s words appeared to be lost in the air. He mumbled something about code and finding the loophole, but Ari couldn’t make it out. She reached out and shook him by the shoulders, pain turning to frustration. “Dad?”
He didn’t bother to even glimpse her way. He ripped his arm out of her grasp, and she fell backwards in the dirt. He walked away from her, stumbling towards an empty oblivion. Her whole life he had been walking away from her, and the pieces of her heart that he held, fragile and broken as they were, shattered.
The sick man, who was no longer her father, continued down the street to an old door, talking to people that were not there, and mumbling incoherently. A numbing sensation poured over her as she watched him in his own make-believe world, knowing she would never have her father back. Her father was dead. The only thing left was this VR recording, a shell of his former desires and wishes stuck on repeat.
Closing her eyes, she pinched the bridge of her nose, not able to look at him anymore. She morphed back into the older version of herself with jeans and a black shirt. It hurt too much to look at her childlike hands. Ari knew this could happen, but some part of her, that little girl with pig tails, wanted more. She had wanted a purpose for the past few months of her life. What would she tell her mother the next time they spoke?
Before she left the VR, a slow methodical clapping echoed in the program. It sounded nothing like her father, so she opened her eyes. In front of her stood Advisor Williams.
CHAPTER 34
How long had Advisor Williams been watching her from inside the VR? Standing there in his perfectly pressed gray suit and blue tie, his old blue eyes gave nothing away.
She stood, trying to keep her features calm as her blood raced. “Why are you here?”
“Oh dear, please don’t waste our time with asinine questions. You children are all so predictable, skirting your responsibility to your country. The question you should ask is, what I’m going to do with you and your newfound abilities?” He stepped purposefully, careful not to dirty his shoes on the dusty road.
“I’ll go back to school,” Ari lied. “I just wanted to see my dad.”
Williams gave a small sound of disapproval. “I’ve been watching you and your brother for a long time. Your brother is a waste of space, and at first, I worried you’d be just like him. I have to admit, I misjudged you. That was why it took so long for me to see what you really are.”
“Really are?” Her gut clenched as she realized he knew about her abilities. She could only play stupid for so long as he closed the distance between them. This was a VR, she reminded herself. He couldn’t hurt her in there. She was stronger than him.
“Don’t get me wrong. The signs were all there for a warper, but it took me hours of combing through footage to see the truth.” He stood mere feet away, watching her closely. “And even though you are gifted far above what you deserve, you still can’t be trusted. You’ll be taken immediately to a new facility, one that can help guide you through your true responsibilities. You can be shaped into the tool we need.”
Her head snapped up, her body poised and ready to flee. Dave was right. She had never thought Advisor Williams was a saint, but deep down she hadn’t believed the horror stories about warpers. How in the hell could she get out of this? Reed! If Williams was in here, they must have Reed already.
“You children think you’re so special and deserve so much. You started from nothing and deserve nothing. Your only worth is what you can give your country.” His tone turned dark, and disgust painted his face ugly.
“I’ve never asked for a handout.” She stepped back, a bit frightened, never having seen so much emotion on Williams face before.
“Your life is a handout. Detain.” The last word he said out loud as if talking to someone else.
Before she could respond, metal links tied her hands in front of her. “What the hell?” Her wrists hurt where the chains bit into her skin. It took her a second to remind herself it wasn’t real. She blinked to find the code, and it took her several more seconds to remove the links binding her hands.
“You’re too slow and untrained. Do you really want to play this with me? I’ll give you nightmares you’ll never forget.” He pointed forward.
Fast, like lightening, pain erupted across her thigh, and she cried out. Red blossomed on her jeans. She couldn’t figure out what Williams did, but it hurt like the devil. Why was this hurting so bad? VR programs were meant to dull pain receptors.
Williams spoke again, something she couldn’t make out, and the pain in Ari’s chest brought her to her knees.
Every breath she took was painful.
He stepped forward. “Do you like this little program? An addition I created when needed to motivate individuals.”
Her eyes widened. She’d never thought anything like this was possible. With his next step forward, blinding pain erupted along her spine. She closed her eyes and dropped her head to the ground. She tried to force her way out of the program, but nothing happened. She tried again and again, screaming in frustration. Why couldn’t she leave? A coppery taste of blood entered her mouth, and sh
e thought she would die. No, she wanted to die.
“After several months at school, you still don’t know your way around a VR. How disappointing.” He crouched close to her prone form, his voice creeping inside her mind. “This is my little invention. It’s modified to obey certain commands and protected by walls you’ve never seen.”
The code. She searched deep into the program. Numbers and letters flew by and she recognized certain specifics, grass, sky, and more. But there was something she had never seen before. Totally unfamiliar, she tried to delete it, to wipe it out, but nothing happened.
“You’re not the first warper I’ve had to drag in kicking and screaming.”
He touched her temple and a blinding pain stabbed inside her mind. Past her screams, the pain reminded her of another time, the day in the VR, when someone had destroyed her drive. The blank file hurt like hell to try to navigate. There was nothing but pain. She still remembered the ringing in her ears and the migraine she’d had for hours. Before she could think too long about her decision, she erased everything she could see, all characters in the code. She hoped that by destroying all the data Williams’s program needed to run, she would be free. Rage fueled her power, and she deleted everything. When her mind began to spin, she pulled out.
Unsure if she made it, she struggled for breath in the darkness. Snippets of light in the room she left flashed in front of her. She struggled to make things out as pools of black swam in her vision and code scattered across the darkness. Her wrists ached, restrained in front of her, and she realized she was back in reality. She glimpsed a guard as she tried to turn her head, the wires pinching her neck.
He reached for her neck to pull out her cable. He spoke, but the words were mumbled as if she were underwater. She wrestled under her restraints. It took another minute of panic until her vision came fully back.
Even though her wounds took place in the VR, her body ached, and her head throbbed. She ignored the pain and trying to search the room. “Reed!”
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