SEVEN
BRIGHT ORANGE-AND-BLUE FLAMES crackle and jump in front of my eyes, sending me into a mini-trance. I search my mind for a memory of the last time we used the steel-encased ethanol fireplace in the den. Thanksgiving, maybe? It was definitely on the first night the temperature bottomed out, right before it started to snow.
But I doubt everything right now.
Patrick and I have been back from Elusion for about a half hour. I can hear him in the kitchen, shouting into his tab at one of his senior programmers. The minute Aftershock wore off and Patrick could move his hands, he called Orexis, looking for an explanation as to what happened to my Escape and how I managed to see a man who has been dead since December.
My head falls forward a bit and I feel the heat of the fire on my cheeks. It reminds me of the comfort of my father’s hug, and the soft timbre of his voice, but these aren’t remembrances from months ago—they are images from the here and now, stolen moments that I want back more than anything in the world.
The house is suddenly silent. I feel a comforting hand on the small of my back. Patrick squats down and sits beside me, placing a steaming mug of tea on the floor near my feet and wrapping a fleece blanket around my shoulders. I raise my chin and keep my eyes focused on the flames that dance in front of us.
“You okay?” he asks.
I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my elbows on them. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, dumb question,” Patrick says. “I just got off the phone with the manager of the tech crew. He can’t really give me a straight answer about what might have happened until he gets a more detailed report.”
“More detailed? I told you everything,” I say, my voice sharper than I intend it to be. “Plus you were there. You saw for yourself.”
I shouldn’t act like this is Patrick’s fault. He came over here as soon as he listened to my message and went searching for me in my Escape once he got my destination code off my wristband. He’s always watching out for me.
“I know, but maybe you could walk me through it one more time,” he says, setting his tab on the patch of floor between us. “Is it all right if I record this? Just so nothing gets lost in translation?”
I nod and then add a smile. Patrick has been a dot-your-i’s-and-cross-your-t’s kind of guy since we were kids.
He hits a button on his touch screen and says, “Go ahead.”
I let out a cleansing breath. “Well, when I first got to the Thai Beach Escape, everything seemed fine, but the landscape was way different than the last time I was there.” I think back to the golden water, the aqua sun, and the purple sand. “The colors were all surreal and the trees were made of glass. I don’t know; it was like something out of a child’s dream.”
Patrick loosens his necktie and slips it over his head, putting it in his jacket pocket. “Those changes were made to the World destinations a while ago, Ree. You’re just noticing it now?”
When I’m quiet, I feel his hand on my shoulder and turn to face him. He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell by the softness around his eyes that he realizes I have hardly been to Elusion at all since my father died.
“It’s not what he would have wanted.” I bite my lower lip a little to stop it from quivering.
“I know,” he says quietly.
“Are all the Escapes like that?”
“Yes,” he admits. “But the design changes were a business decision.”
“A business decision, huh?”
“Market research suggested that making Elusion like a fantasy world would give it more commercial appeal.”
“Since when do you listen to market research? You loved the way Elusion was before.”
Patrick’s face hardens a bit, but only for a second. He’s not about to let us get off track. “So you got to the beach. What next?”
“I went for a swim in the ocean. Then I strolled through the flowers, collected some seashells.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was. But then I remembered why I was there.” I stretch out my legs and stare at my feet. “I got into a fight with Avery today over her vlog about the firewall. So I went there to find it and see with my own eyes, so I could walk up to her tomorrow and call her on her BS.”
When he sighs in disgust and mutters, “That stupid video,” I’m caught by surprise. From the tone of his voice, it’s almost like he thinks Avery is the worst of our problems.
“As soon as I got to it, the entire world started falling apart. And that’s when I saw my dad. He was standing there in front of it, like he was waiting for me.”
“Then he said something to you, right?”
“He warned me. He said no one was safe.” Suddenly my heart sinks so fast I have trouble catching my breath. “That’s when he was ripped away from me and sucked behind the firewall. Then, out of nowhere, I was zapped home.”
Patrick starts cracking his knuckles. It’s one of his many problem-solving techniques, and I find it terribly annoying, so I nudge him with my foot and thankfully he stops.
“The safety alert on your Equip probably detected a change in your brain chemistry and cut off the program,” he says.
“But that doesn’t explain why I saw my father, or what happened to me when I went back to the Escape. This tornado appeared out of the water, and it was heading straight toward me—”
“Why didn’t you press the emergency button on your wristband?”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Maybe because I’d just seen a ghost.
“I wanted to . . . I figured if I tried, I might find my dad again,” I murmur.
Patrick reaches over and puts an arm around me. “It wasn’t real, Ree. I know you want to believe that somehow he might be alive, but . . .”
I slump down and lean my head against his chest. “If it wasn’t real, then what was it?”
Patrick doesn’t say anything in response, but I can’t help but notice that his heartbeat has picked up steam.
“I’m not sure,” he says. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with the firewall.”
Now his breathing is getting faster too.
Is there something that he’s not telling me?
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Right before David died, he and I installed the firewalls ourselves to prevent hackers from infiltrating the program,” he says. “All of them are application-, circuit-, and network-based, so they’ve kept intruders at bay, but there are assholes out there who will do anything they can to find a breach, trust me. They surround all the dumps—”
“Wait a minute,” I say, my head popping back up. “What are dumps?”
“Oh, that’s just programming lingo for the Escapes. Dumps are made up of basic codes with security programs in each one. Grouped together, these dumps make up the master program for Elusion, which becomes active when someone turns on the app,” he explains.