Doomed (6 page)

But I’ve learned from my namesake’s mistakes. I won’t be the Pandora Theo wants me to be. There’s enough evil in the world already.

“Damn it, Pandora! We don’t have time for this.” Theo’s standing in the doorway, my laptop in his hands. “Open the damn thing or I will!”

“Why? Why can’t I just refuse to play?”

He looks around the darkened kitchen. “Because this is happening whether you want it to or not. It’s stupid of you to keep out everyone who can help just because you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared!” It’s a total lie, but I feel honor bound to say it.

The look he gives me calls me a liar, but he doesn’t say anything. Just waits. Patiently. Which is somehow much worse than when he was pushing me.

“You really think you can help?” I finally venture after a long silence.

“This is what I do,” he answers.

“Play video games?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Hack systems.”

I look at him, standing there in his button-down shirt and khaki pants and can’t imagine him as anything but a rule follower of the highest order. I mean, even his shoes are perfectly polished. But then I make the mistake of meeting his eyes, and they’re not cold anymore. Instead, they’re totally bad ass. Filled with confidence and the thrill of the chase. There’s no sign of the sickness that’s churning inside me.

Again … “You really think you can do this?”

“Damn straight.”

Eli comes up to us then, and he looks a little excited—as if he, too, is actually looking forward to getting inside and playing with this monstrosity some crazed hacker has created. “Come on, Pandora. How could they get worse? Besides, what if they get better?”

It’s an enticing thought. I look at my laptop, think about doing what they ask. I don’t want to. For the first time, ever, I’m refusing to let my curiosity control me.

Sure, it seems like things are bad now. They
are
bad, but a little voice in the back of my head tells me that we don’t have a clue what bad is. Not yet. And I just couldn’t stand it if
I
somehow made things worse.

I think of my mom, of how annoyed she’ll be in Alaska tonight if she tries to reach me and can’t get through. How worried she’ll be, how worried Theo and Eli’s parents will be on their honeymoon, if this thing continues to spiral out of control.

And that’s when I know—I’m going to click on the box.

I’m going to play the game.

Because when it comes right down to it, Theo’s right. I don’t have a choice. Some madman has seen to that.

I take another deep breath, hold it in my lungs, then bring my laptop back to the family room. I don’t look at it, don’t look at anything, until I’m once more settled on the couch. And then I move the cursor over the box and double-click before I can change my mind.

For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then everything does, all at the same time. The lights come back on, Theo’s and Eli’s laptops beep from the other room, and mine—mine starts to play music—a full-orchestra version of “Happy Birthday” that is totally inappropriate, considering the circumstances.

“Told you,” Eli says, looking at the lights. “We’ve got electricity back.”

Theo doesn’t seem as happy with that development as Eli does, but when I start to ask, he shushes me. Points to my laptop, which has begun talking to us.

“Welcome to Pandora’s Box, the most real game you’ll ever play.” The voice that comes out is female and so overly sweet it makes me want to gag. It’s also completely unexpected and as I listen to it, I wonder what other surprises Pandora’s Box has in store for me. The thought weirds me out even more, and somehow Eli knows, because suddenly
he’s behind me, his big hand rubbing the tension from between my shoulder blades.

“Evil is everywhere. Your only hope is to fix what’s broken. Complete the given tasks to level up. Beat the game and find the key to a brave new world. Lose the game and life as you know it will come to an end forever. But be warned: this world is modeled after the real one. No matter how many points you amass or levels you conquer, you can only die once. There are no second chances.”

“What does she mean, ‘fix what’s broken’?” I ask. “What do we need to fix?”

Theo shrugs. “We’ll just have to play for a while and see.” He’s leaning back against the family room wall now, his hands shoved into his pockets. He appears totally calm, totally relaxed, but there’s a hypervigilance about him, an alertness in his eyes as he watches me, that negates the casual way he’s holding himself.

The graphics on the screen suddenly blur, and as I watch, it feels like I’m being pulled superfast into the box. The game is sucking me through a virtual black hole, with stars and planets rushing by me at alarming speeds.
Pandora’s Box?
I wonder hazily as I try not to get dizzy.
Or
Star Trek
?

“Wicked graphics,” Eli says, and he’s leaning forward, his hands on either side of my shoulders, as if he can’t get close enough to the game. Which is strange, because I want nothing more than to get away from it.

Theo sits down on the couch next to me, scooting so close in his effort to get a better look at my computer that his leg is plastered to mine.

For one second, I go into sensory overload. Between
looking at the game, feeling Theo against me and Eli behind and around me, it’s all too much. I feel trapped.

I shove at Eli’s arms with all my strength, desperate to get away before my brain short-circuits altogether.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he asks, and the question hits me hard.

What
am
I doing? Where
am
I going? I want to run away, to bury my head, to make it all just disappear.

But it won’t. I can’t go back, can’t go forward, can’t do anything but stay right here and see this through. I helped start it; now I need to finish it.

Theo’s hand comes up and holds my elbow, not hard, but enough to let me know that he’s there. Normally, I’d be pissed off that he thought he had the right to put his hands on me after what happened this morning, but Theo’s grip isn’t demanding. I could break it easily if I wanted to.

But I don’t want to. It’s keeping me grounded, keeping me sane, this small connection to another person who is right here in the present—in this world—with me. He doesn’t say anything, but somehow I know that this is exactly what he intends me to feel.

I beat back the panic, the fear, the knowledge that the imaginary has just become my reality, and focus on his hand on my elbow. Focus on the game. The second I let myself be drawn back to it, it yanks me in completely.

I fall straight through the blackness and into a wide blue sky, plummeting, plummeting, plummeting. I plunge through one cloud, then another and another. And then I’m skidding and shuddering to a stop, bumping along hard
ground as everything drops away but the world I’ve suddenly been thrust into.

On the sidewalk, dressed in jeans and a black Jimi Hendrix tank top, is an avatar with short, choppy red hair and brown eyes. She’s tall and lean, with multipierced ears, a small star-shaped nose ring, and purple streaks in her hair.

I freeze as I look at her, choke up, and hear Theo inhale sharply next to me.

“Is that what your avatar usually looks like?” he asks.

“No.” My voice is shaking and I realize my computer is as well. No, not my computer—just the hands that are holding it.

I put it down on the coffee table, fight the urge to bury my hands in my lap. I don’t know why it matters, but I don’t want the guys to know how upset I am. Maybe because they’re so calm, taking all of this in stride when I’m one small step away from screaming my head off.

“It’s the camera,” Theo tells me, tapping the top of my computer. “The game sees you.”

“Wicked,” Eli says again.

“So, where is she?” Theo asks, and I force my fingers back to the keyboard. At the moment, my character is sitting in the middle of an empty street with buildings in every direction. Cars are all over the place—some are stopped in the middle of the street while others are parked at the curb. But no one is in them. They’re empty, abandoned, which is nothing like the Pandora’s Box I’m used to, usually teeming with other players and NPCs, Non-Playing Characters.

I hit the Up arrow and I stand on-screen.

Even with everything that’s happened, I expect to be where I left off—in the middle of postapocalyptic Manhattan. But as I look both ways, and even cross the street to peer into the window of an empty shop, I realize that nothing looks familiar. It’s impossible to tell where I am, and there’s no one around to ask.

I am completely alone in this new world. It isn’t a pleasant thought.

“Look up,” Eli instructs, and I follow his directions, looking straight up to the very pointy, very recognizable top of the Frost Bank Tower.

“I’m in Austin?” I ask incredulously.

“It seems that way,” Eli answers.

“I didn’t even know Austin was an option in Pandora’s Box. When I started, the game plopped me down in Boston and I made my way to New York.”

“Pandora’s Box covers just the big cities,” Theo says matter-of-factly. “Or at least the original one does. I guess we’ll have to see what this version covers.”

“It looks exactly like downtown.”

“Not exactly like it,” Eli points out, his finger sweeping across the screen. “When have you ever seen North Congress this empty?”

“I don’t like it,” I say. “What am I supposed to do? How do I beat a level when I’m the only one in it?”

“You don’t know that yet,” Theo tells me.

“Look around. Do you see another avatar anywhere? Or even an NPC?” asks Eli.

Again, I remember all the NPCs from the original version of Pandora’s Box, characters I never paid much attention to
as I was working my way through the initial levels. But judging by the look on Eli’s face, it’s not a good thing that this version doesn’t have them.

Not that I’m surprised. Not good is par for the course at this point, right?

“Do you think you’re overreacting a little?” Theo says, and at first I think he’s somehow found a way to read my thoughts. But then I realize he’s talking to Eli. “She hasn’t even gone five feet yet.”

He’s right, I haven’t. Maybe all this gloom and doom and poor-me stuff is a little premature. I press the left arrow key and take off running up the street.

“Hey, where are you going?” Eli asks.

I don’t answer, because I don’t have a clue. I just keep my finger on the button, until I’m running faster and faster. I pass a bunch of side streets, including Austin’s famous Sixth Street, where I can hear music coming out of the bars but can’t see anyone on the sidewalks. It’s eerie to see the most popular street in Austin so empty, and I wouldn’t recognize it if not for all the familiar bar signs.

On and on I run until I’m standing, strangely enough, in front of the Texas State Capitol building. It’s in the middle of Congress Street downtown, and when the Texas legislature built it, they had one goal in mind: to make sure it was bigger and grander than the national Capitol in Washington.

They succeeded by about fourteen feet, and it’s the fanciest, tallest capitol in the fifty states. Beautiful and ostentatious, it towers over everything around it and is a monument to all things Texas. I know this because nearly every year in elementary school and junior high we were forced to take a
field trip down here, as if the first five trips hadn’t provided enough opportunity to ogle the red granite and pink marble.

I’m not sure why I chose to run here, but as I walk up the long path leading to the stairs in the front, a strange feeling washes over me. I start to turn back, but something keeps my finger on the arrow key all the way to the front door. I go inside, and as I look up at the huge rotunda a memory assails me, one I didn’t even know I had.

I’m almost three years old and dressed in a pretty pink party dress—I remember the dress because my mother had it specially made for me. It had layers of frilly petticoats, and I liked nothing more than to stand in the middle of the living room and twirl in circles, again and again, so that my skirts flew up around me.

I used to be such a girly-girl, it’s hard to imagine now. Anyway, I’m all dressed up, including little lace tights and black patent-leather shoes, and I’m looking around me in awe (it must have been my first visit to the state Capitol). My mom is standing to my left and to my right—I close my eyes, not sure if I’m trying to banish the memory or capture it. To my right, his large, calloused hand clasped around mine, is my father.

I flash back to the pictures in my backpack, the ones my father sent me this morning. I’m wearing this dress in the one where we’re posing in front of a statue of Sam Houston. Was that picture taken here, in the rotunda, I wonder, or somewhere else?

Either way, it’s a weird coincidence. One that has me backing out the door and down the stairs. Slowly at first, but
then faster and faster. I can’t get away soon enough. And even though I have a feeling that there is something for me to do at the Capitol, there is no way I’m going back in there.

“What’s wrong?” Eli asks, but I shake my head. I’m back on Congress and have no idea where to go from here. I start up the street at a dead run.

“This is stupid,” I say. “There are no directions, nothing to tell me where I’m supposed to go or what I’m supposed to do. I could wander here all day.”

But even as I’m speaking, the roads are narrowing, more and more streets are becoming blocked off to me as the game herds me in the direction it wants me to go. I know I should be hypervigilant—I’m supposed to be saving the world, after all—but I have to admit this is pretty boring. Nothing but running and occasionally jumping over something that’s in my way.

If this is the best this maniac has, he’s not nearly as smart or creative as he thinks he is. Surely someone will be able to beat the game quickly, and then everything can go back to normal.

“I think he’s sending you to Zilker Park,” Theo says, and as I look at the streets around me, at the big Whole Foods Market and Town Lake, I realize he’s right. But since I’m not in the mood for a paddleboat ride or a kite-flying competition, I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to be doing here. Unless the guy’s programmed the game to happen during the Austin City Limits music festival.