The Reality Bug (16 page)

Up until that moment Aja looked like she was ready to crawl into a corner and shrivel up. But now the sparkle returned to her eyes. She sat up straight and put her yellow glasses back on. She stood up and faced me with the same confidence that I saw when she spoke with the technicians outside.

“Not a problem,” she said. “All I have to do is tap into the grid and purge the bug from the processing code.”

Whatever
that
meant.

“That won't solve the larger problem though,” she added. “Once I'm done, Lifelight will go back to normal and Veelox will still be in trouble.”

“One step at a time,” I said.

Aja walked over to me and turned me around. I wasn't sure why until I realized she was examining the cut on the back of my arm.

“Go see a vedder and get that taken care of,” she said. She even sounded like she cared. A little.

“You sure you don't need me?” I asked.

Then … a miracle. She smiled. Was it possible? I'd like to take credit for getting her to lighten up, but the truth was that nearly causing the deaths of millions of people was probably earth-shattering enough to get anybody to see things differently … even an ego case like Aja. All I could do was smile back.

“It'll take me less time to purge the Reality Bug than it will for you to get your arm fixed,” she said, then spun away from me and sat back down in the control chair. She pulled the control arm in front of her, ready to work. A few keystrokes later, the large monitor flashed to life. She had slipped into computer world, so I left her alone and went looking for some Bactine and Band-Aids.

The glass corridor of the core was empty and quiet. The technicians were gone and all the monitors at the control stations were showing the same blank green color. It was creepy seeing the place so dead, so I hurried to the end of the corridor to get out as fast as possible.

I stepped into the room with the long counter where I had been fitted with my silver bracelet for the jumps. It was empty too. I walked up to the counter and gazed at the portrait of young Dr. Zetlin, the inventor of Lifelight. He didn't look like a genius. He just looked like a regular kid.

“Hiya, Doc,” I said. “This what you had in mind when you invented Lifelight?”

A voice then came from behind the counter. “Who are you talking to?”

For a second I thought it was the portrait, and it made me jump. But it turned out to be the Goth-looking vedder who had pricked my finger the day before.

“Uh, nobody,” I answered, embarrassed. “Hey, you think you could take a look at my arm?”

The vedder rolled his eyes. “If I have to,” he said, as if it were the last thing he wanted to do. I wasn't sure why he minded so much. It wasn't like he had anything else to do. I unzipped my jumpsuit to my waist and pulled my arm out.

“Where did everybody go?” I asked as he examined my cut.

“They're all up in the pyramid,” he answered. “They're going to jump as soon as Aja gets Lifelight back online.”

Unbelievable. Even during a crisis, all these guys could think about was jumping out of there.

“What about you?” I asked. “Don't you want to jump?”

“Not anymore, I don't,” he said. “I'm beginning to think real life is safer than make-believe.”

That was good to hear. Maybe there was hope for the territory after all.

“It's not a bad cut,” he said. “Your jumpsuit got it worse than you did.”

The vedder put an ointment on it and the stinging immediately went away. He then put a yellow pad over the cut and I was good to go.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don't worry,” the guy said sincerely. “Aja is the best. If there's anybody I trust around here, it's her.”

I nodded. I really hoped he was right.

There was nothing else to do, so I wandered back to the Alpha Core to see how Aja was doing. The door was unlocked, and I slipped in quietly, trying not to disturb her.

Aja was totally focused on her work. I glanced at the large monitor to see that it was filled with several lines of computer code, each in a different color and each more complex than the last. Aja was furiously entering figures, and the data kept scrolling up with each new entry. She was good. My confidence rose.

“We've got a problem,” Aja said flatly.

So much for my confidence.

“I thought you said it would be easy to purge the bug from Lifelight?”

“It would be, if I could get to it,” she answered. As she talked, she kept inputting data. “The problem isn't the Reality Bug, it's the origin code.”

“You lost me,” I said.

“The system is programmed with security codes that make it difficult to get in,” Aja explained while she worked. “It's to keep unauthorized people from monkeying with the grid. I know most of the codes because I'm a senior phader, but … but …” She slammed her fist down in frustration.

“But what?”

“When the Reality Bug infected the grid, it went so deep that the only way to reach it is to get past the final code, the origin code. And I don't know it!”

“Well, somebody's gotta know it, right?” I asked, trying to be helpful.

Aja jumped out of the chair and paced. “Only one person knows that code.”

“So let's go get them!”

“That's not so easy. He hasn't been seen in three years.”

“Three years? Who is it?”

“Dr. Zetlin,” answered Aja.

“That kid in the painting? How come he's the only one with the code?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Aja answered sarcastically, sounding like her old self. “Maybe because he
invented
Lifelight!”

Good answer.

“Besides,” Aja continued, “he's not a kid anymore. He's got to be in his seventies by now.”

“Fine. Let's find him, make him some warm milk, tell him the problem and get the freakin' code!”

“It's not that easy,” Aja said.

“Why not?”

“Because Dr. Zetlin is in Lifelight, Pendragon.”

Oh.

That was definitely a problem. A really big problem.

Aja looked up at the screen and said, “Without that code I can't purge the Reality Bug. And if I can't purge the bug then we can't put Lifelight back online.”

“And if we can't do that, most everybody on Veelox is as good as dead,” I concluded. I was getting the sick feeling that Saint Dane was right. The battle for Veelox was over and he had won.

“I don't suppose you've got a Plan B?” I asked.

I fully expected Aja to shout something like, “No, Pendragon! There is no Plan B, idiot!” Instead she looked down. The wheels were spinning in her head. That was good. She had a good head with good wheels.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“There is one possibility,” she said reluctantly. “But it's too much to ask.”

“Ask!” I shouted.

Aja sighed and said, “It's possible to jump into Lifelight and find Zetlin.”

“But I thought the grid was in suspense?”

“Suspended,” she corrected.

“Whatever.”

“It is, but there's another way,” Aja said.

She walked to the far side of the Alpha Core, where there was another door. She took out her green card and inserted it in a slot. Instantly the door slid open. I peered into the room beyond and was surprised to see a room similar to the jump cubicles in the pyramid. Only this one had three large silver disks on the wall.

“This is the original unit,” she explained. “The alpha grid. It operates independently from the main grid. I could bring it back online by itself.”

I gazed into the cubicle as the reality of what she was telling me slowly sank in. “Are you saying—”

“Yes. Dr. Zetlin is in there.”

Whoa. The father of Lifelight was lying only a few feet away. It felt like I was peering into a tomb. But it was no time to pay respects.

“So fire up the alpha grid and pull the old guy out of there!” I said.

“I can't,” Aja said. “He doesn't want to come out.”

“So what!”

“It's the same problem,” Aja said, trying to be patient. “He programmed the jump so nobody could end it. He doesn't even have a phader or vedder assigned to him. Without the origin code, I can't end his jump.” She glanced into the cubicle and added, “But I can put somebody else in.”

“You're telling me we could enter his jump, the way you were in my jump?”

“Well … sort of.”

“Tell me everything, Aja. C'mon!” I suddenly understood the term “like pulling teeth.” Sheesh.

“Yes, it's possible to enter his jump. The trick then is to find Zetlin and convince him to give up the code.”

“Then let's do it!”

“We can't! I mean, I can't. I mean … I can't go with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because somebody has to stay out here and phade the jump or you might not get back out again. You'd have to go alone, Pendragon. That's why I said it's too much to ask.”

Gulp. A few minutes ago I thought Aja was going to sit down at that control console and make everything okey-dokey. Now I was faced with the possibility of going back into that crazy fantasy world.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “If Zetlin's jump is on a different circuit—”

“Grid.”

“Yeah, grid, whatever, stop correcting me. Since it's different, did the Reality Bug infect it?”

“I can't be absolutely sure,” she said slowly. “But I would have to say … yes. The overall operating software is the same, and that's what I designed the bug to attack.”

“So let me understand,” I said. “The only way we can get rid of the Reality Bug is for me to jump into Dr. Zetlin's fantasy and get this code from him. But it might be a horror show if the bug is doing its thing?”

“Yes, that's about it.”

Oh, man, no way I wanted to go. After what happened in my own fantasy with the quigs, the idea of jumping into somebody else's fantasy was truly horrible. Worse, I was going to have to do it alone.

“I don't want you to go, Pendragon,” Aja said quietly. “It's too dangerous.”

“Yeah, me neither. But what choice do I have?”

Aja shook her head. “What you said before makes sense. We're stronger together. It's way too risky for you to jump in by yourself. I don't know what to do.”

The reality of the situation was beginning to sink in. I was going to have to jump by myself.

That's when an idea hit me.

“There might be another way,” I said. “What if I got somebody else to jump with me?”

“Who?” Aja asked quickly. “You can't ask one of those technicians out there. If they find out what's really going on, there'll be a riot.”

“I'm not talking about one of them,” I said. “I'm talking about another Traveler. Somebody who knows the bigger picture and how important this is. If anybody is going to jump with me, it has to be another Traveler.”

Aja let the idea sink in, then nodded. “Sure. I could send you both in. Do you have somebody in mind?”

“Absolutely,” I answered. “And I can't think of anybody I'd trust more to get us out of a gnarly situation … alive.”

“I
f I thought there were a better way of doing this, I swear I wouldn't be here asking you to come along,” I said.

This was tough. I was asking a friend and fellow Traveler to go on a dangerous mission. In some ways it was more dangerous than anything we had faced so far, because we were dealing with the unknown. When we were in my own jump, the Reality Bug searched my brain for things I was afraid of and came up with those vicious quigs. As scary as that was, at least I knew all about the quigs and could figure out a way to beat them. But once we were in Dr. Zetlin's jump, the dangers would be from
his
memory, and we wouldn't have a clue as to how to battle the nastiness that might come flying out of his genius brain.

“I could go myself,” I said. “I will if I have to, but I think we have a better chance of pulling this off together.”

I could have asked any of the Travelers to help me, except for Gunny because I still wasn't sure what happened to him on Belong. But of all the Travelers, there was one I felt had a superior chance of helping me battle whatever boogeymen we found on the jump into Dr. Zetlin's fantasy world.

That was Loor.

“You have explained this Lifelight very well, Pendragon,” she said. “Yet, it is hard for me to believe it is possible.”

“Weren't you the one who told me that after all we've seen, we shouldn't think
anything
is impossible?”

Loor looked right into my eyes and gave a little smile. That didn't happen often. Loor wasn't the smiley type. But when she did, it made my heart melt. It wasn't until I saw her again, here on her home territory of Zadaa, that I realized how much I had missed her.

Aja had taken me back to the gate, where I flumed to Zadaa. I have to admit, part of me wanted to flume to Eelong to find Gunny, but I needed to find Loor. I could only hope that Gunny was okay.

I had been to Zadaa once before, with Spader, so I knew the way to Loor's home. I arrived at the gate on Zadaa and quickly changed into the white robe that was waiting for me. (Boxers stayed on, as usual.) I then made my way quickly through the labyrinth of underground tunnels that brought me out to the wide, subterranean river flowing under the city of Xhaxhu. Behind the waterfall that fed the river was a portal that I knew would lead me to the ramp up to the city. Everything was pretty much the same as I remembered it, except for a few disturbing changes.

Through the portal behind the waterfall was the giant gizmatron that controlled the flow of the underground rivers of Zadaa. It was a coolio-looking device with dozens of different-size pipes that ran floor to ceiling. In front of the pipes was a control platform with a series of levers and dials and switches they used to control the river water. Spader and I had watched a guy work this bad boy when we were there before. Well, when I entered the chamber this time, there was a guy working the controls again, but with one big difference.