After swallowing a few times, I’m able to say, “Call Patrick.”
The tablet dials, but the call goes directly to voice mail. I let out a soft groan. Will I even be able to say more than two words right now?
“Leave a message and I’ll call you back pronto,” Patrick’s recorded voice says in a half-business, half-playful tone.
“Patrick,” I say hoarsely. “My dad. I saw him . . . in Elusion. What’s—”
A long, high-pitched buzzing interrupts me, followed by an automated response:
“The recipient’s inbox is now full. Good-bye.”
I hang up and curse under my breath, pushing myself up on my elbows and shaking out my feet. I hope that partial message saved on Patrick’s tablet, but I know I can’t count on it. And I can’t wait. I have to return to that beach in Thailand this very instant and figure out what’s going on.
I type in my destination code, but it won’t go through.
I try a second time and receive an error message, blinking on the touch screen in bold red letters like a broken traffic light.
MANDATORY LOCKOUT: YOU MAY RE-ENGAGE ELUSION IN 51:37 MINUTES.
I enter the code again, and the same message pops up. I bow my head, tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I totally forgot that my dad added this safety measure to protect people from exposing their brains to intense hypnosis without giving themselves adequate recovery time.
There has to be some kind of special administrator code that can circumvent the timer, or at least I’m praying that there is one. As luck would have it, the only person who’d know it isn’t picking up his damn tablet. So I call the InstaComm at Patrick’s penthouse apartment atop Erebus Tower, where I’m met with another dead end. Then I break down and call his office. I usually don’t like to bother him while he’s at Orexis, but obviously this is an emergency. I ask his executive assistant to patch me through to him, but after keeping me on hold for ten minutes, he tells me Patrick is at an important meeting off-site and that he’ll leave word with the second executive assistant, who’s in charge of his return calls.
Unbelievable.
But wait, there is another person who needs to know what happened.
Mom.
I frantically dial her private number, hoping that she’ll answer right away. She can’t be too far into her shift. In fact, she’s probably just getting settled in at HR and going through a reorientation program or something. But soon her voice mail kicks in and I quickly press the Disconnect button on my tablet.
How can I possibly explain on a message that I saw my dad in Elusion? Mom would probably call back and ask me to come down to the hospital so the psych staff could check me out. It seems like the only thing left to do is stare at my watch for the next hour, willing each restricted minute to disappear into thin air.
When the last one finally does, my fingers fly to the touch pad of my wristband and the screen of my tablet, furiously entering every critical numeric code. I can feel beads of perspiration trickling down the sides of my face, and I wipe them away with the shoulder of my shirt. Then I put on my visor and reinsert my earbuds.
When the immersion countdown begins, I feel like my chest is filling with helium. A tickling sensation ripples up and down my limbs, making all the little light-blond hairs on my skin stand on end. A large swath of incandescent light covers everything in sight, and when it dissipates, I’m transported to the same beach where I saw my father.
I look around, stunned.
There must be some mistake. This can’t be the same Escape I left an hour ago. If it is, something terrible has happened here. It looks as if a bomb has exploded, leaving devastation everywhere. Fierce scarlet-colored ocean waves batter a torn charcoal shoreline. The extraordinary flowers have been scorched, so all that remain are burned fragments of stems. The forest is totally obliterated too, and the stench of decaying vegetation thickens the air so much I have to cover my nose with my hands. I’m yanked left and right by howling, storm-grade winds that spray salt water across my cold, bare skin, each and every droplet stinging me like acid rain. The wall that my father was sucked behind is nearly impossible to see, fading into the pitch blackness that surrounds me.
The environmental conditions aren’t the only things that have changed. I’m jumpy, nervous, filled with an overwhelming sense of doom. Then I begin hearing faint voices inside my head. At first I can’t make them out, but as the wind strengthens and shifts, I start to hear them taunting me relentlessly.
You’re going to lose Patrick.
Your mother doesn’t care about you.
Your father is dead; don’t you wish you were too?
Shaking them off with a sharp flick of my neck, I take a deep breath and force myself toward the swirling sea, moving closer to the spot where I saw my father. Each step becomes easier, and soon I’m running, the wind blowing my hair every which way as my feet sink into the sand. As I reach the edge of the water, I trip over a piece of pale gray driftwood and fall to my knees. I push myself up as another turbocharged current of air sprays sand into my face.
“Dad!” I scream, shielding my eyes from the debris. “Where are you?”
I look toward the firewall, but I can barely make it out through the dust fragments flying around me. A deafening clap of thunder sounds as a bolt of lightning streaks through the midnight sky, striking the beach only inches from me. I jump up and run in the other direction as hail begins to fall in heavy sheets, pelting the sand with pebble-size rocks of ice.
A roar comes from the horizon, so loud I’m certain the world is about to crumble. In the distance, far on the edge of the bubbling ocean, a cone of water rises out of the sea, twisting ferociously, like a violent tornado. I remember my father telling me a long time ago that I couldn’t get hurt in Elusion, but suddenly I’m doubting his words. Even so, I’m not leaving until I find him again. I crouch down in the sand, hugging my legs to my chest, bracing myself for whatever happens next.
Just as the funnel is about to suck me into its vortex, the rotating column suddenly turns away. I tilt my head up and watch as it practically flies back over the water, disappearing into the sea’s horizon. But it has left something behind. A number is carved into the sand in front of me.
5020
.
It’s a message. A message I’m certain is from my dad.
Then, from out of nowhere, two strong arms grab me from behind and yank me up.
“I’m getting you out of here, Ree,” Patrick says, holding me tight.
“No!” I say, fighting him off. “My dad is here! We have to find him!”
Patrick reaches over and presses the emergency button on my wristband.
“No!” I scream above the wind, trying with all my might to wrest myself from his grasp.
And then everything fades behind a blinding wall of light.