As a beam of glorious sunshine filters through a lightning boltshaped crack in the capsule’s glass, I stop pacing and step behind Josh, peering over his shoulder as he tries to open every file, one by one. I’m really surprised by how fast the tablet-size quantum computer works—strings of infinite number-and-letter combinations blink on the screen in a rapid-fire succession that hurts my eyes. From the way Josh is squinting, I guess it’s affecting his vision too, but I don’t think that’s what’s bothering him the most.
He leans back on the metal bench and lets out a huge groan as he runs his hands over the stubble that’s sprouting up on his chin.
“Just like I suspected. They’re encrypted,” he mutters.
“All of them?” I cross my arms in front of my chest and contract my leg muscles, like I’m bracing myself for a typhoon.
“I’m only halfway through the QuTap directory, but I’m pretty sure that we’re screwed,” he says.
I lean in and stare at the last file Josh pulled up. “It looks like a random selection of symbols, underscores, and slashes.”
“I know, it sucks,” Josh replies. “Every time I click on a file, I find this mess. None of my algorithms are making a dent.”
I don’t like the futility in his voice, so I have to convince him that giving up is not an option. “Can’t we just use some decryption software to crack it?”
“Tried that already,” he says, irritated. Obviously, he doesn’t appreciate being second-guessed. “Orexis probably has a team of grunts policing the latest software so they can plug up any security holes. They’re ten steps ahead of us, Regan.”
I walk to the front of the capsule, still hugging myself tightly. I gaze through the slight film of mildew covering the glass surface, looking out at Detroit’s industrial skyline on the other side of the channel. A sun-soaked day like this only comes a few times a month, so I can actually make out all the architectural details of the high-rises—the antiquated neo-Gothic and art deco designs mixed in with more modern cylinder-style layouts; the narrow spires and old Corinthian columns and pilasters. My favorite of them all is the Florapetro Foundation Building, which has a sixty-floor spiral tower that actually rotates at a speed so slow it’s hardly visible to the naked eye. And yet given how clear the conditions are right now, I feel like if I stand here, concentrating all my focus on the tower, I’ll be able to see it moving.
I just have to be patient and wait for it to become real.
So I steel myself and say to Josh, “Keep trying. Please.”
He doesn’t answer, but I can hear him clicking away on his laptop, each stroke of his fingers hopefully bringing us closer to some kind of breakthrough. This goes on for about five to ten minutes, and my eyes never leave the tower. But with each heavy and frustrated sigh of his, my hopes begin to wither away. When thoughts of my run-in with Patrick begin to flood my head, I distract myself by tracing the concrete- and steel-infused horizon, the squeaking sound of my skin against the glass echoing inside the capsule.
And then it happens.
“I think I got something!” I hear him exclaim.
I spin around, my hair almost whipping me in the face. I stumble over to Josh and squat down next to him, my hand on his arm. “What’d you find?”
Josh redirects his eyes so they meet mine, and grins. “I only had a few files left when this one ruptured.”
With my heart lodged in my throat, I tilt the laptop so I can get a better look at the screen. I watch as he scrolls through pages and pages of spreadsheets filled with hundreds of diagrams that look oddly like genealogical charts. There are lots of rectangular boxes filled with sequences of letters and symbols. Connecting them together are solid and dotted lines with arrows pointing in multiple directions.
I’m not sure what to make of it.
“These are parse trees,” Josh explains, pulling away from me to point at one of them. “They basically break down the source code of computer programming languages.”
“It’s a map?”
“Yes. The only problem is we have no idea what program it’s for.”
I reach over Josh and slide two of my fingers across the screen so I can zoom in one of the trees, but enlarging the visual unfortunately doesn’t give me any deeper understanding of its meaning. “This could be source code for something my dad might have been working on before Elusion.”
Josh narrows his eyes, studying the figures carefully. “There are at least twelve levels of syntax being deconstructed here. What other program would have code this complex?”
“We need to know for sure, though,” I counter.
“But we can’t figure that out until we make sense of these trees,” he says. “And this is way more complicated than what I’m used to.”
“God, I wish my dad had taught me . . . then maybe I’d be able to help.” I stand up, and Josh instinctively moves over on the bench, giving me room to sit down. When I do, I bring my knees up to my chest and rest the heels of my sneakers against the metal. “He spent all his time training Patrick, who was a natural at it, of course. Like everything else.”
I used to admire that trait in Patrick, but the pinched sound of resentment in my voice paints a different picture altogether.
“Well, he’s the last person we can go to for advice,” Josh says, smirking.
I smile back.
“Listen, I might be able to get somewhere if I take the QuTap back to the person who gave it to me,” he suggests, ejecting the magnetic device in question out of the laptop’s side port.
I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We can’t risk someone finding out what we did to get the information that’s on there.”
“I think I can get that point across.” He pushes up his sleeves, and I take a nice, long look at his toned forearms and large hands. I see what he’s getting at, but again, it’s hard to picture Josh as a threat, even after what he’s told me about his past.
Maybe that’s because we’re getting to know each other while we’re most vulnerable.
“So you take the QuTap back and then what?” I ask.
“Haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Just as he’s about to shut his laptop down, a chirping noise comes out of the speakers. I take a peek as he pulls up his personal message system, but glance away when he catches me in the act. Thankfully, he doesn’t tease me about it. Just one look at my flushed neck and he’ll notice I’m embarrassed enough as it is.
“You need to see this,” I hear him say.
When I shift my eyes back to Josh, his fair complexion has gone a little pale and his mouth is hanging open in shock.
“What’s wrong?”
He turns his laptop toward me, and a video clip is pulled up on the screen. It’s posted on the New Associated Press site, with the headline “Do You Know This Child?” Josh clicks on the Play button and the news story begins to roll. A young woman with a brunette bob and a microphone headset is standing outside a hospital’s emergency-room ambulance bay. She begins:
“This afternoon, police found a comatose boy on the streets of Miami. He was rushed to the hospital, where he is being treated for severe malnourishment and possible head-related trauma.”
“Turn it up,” I say, dropping my legs to the ground with a thud.
Josh immediately increases the volume.
“The young man had no picture ID or passcard, so he has been admitted as a John Doe. He appears to be fifteen years old, six feet tall, and about one hundred sixty-five pounds.”
The image of the reporter dims and a photo suddenly appears in her place. It’s a snapshot of the boy in question. His eyes are closed and he’s in a hospital gown, so the picture must have been taken once the doctors stabilized him. His cheekbones are sharp and raised, and he has a narrow chin. His coppery hair is very greasy at the roots, and he has a bit of acne in a thin line across his brow.
“If you recognize this person, please contact the Florida State Bureau of—”
Josh hits the pause button, freezing the photo in front of us before the camera cuts away.
“Notice anything strange about that kid’s face?” he asks me.
I search the picture with a steady gaze, and at first I don’t see anything unusual, but then Josh expands the viewing window on the screen so the image is much larger. There seems to be a deep circular impression near his left temple. It doesn’t appear to be a scar, because it’s too perfectly shaped.
“I saw those marks on Nora’s friends at the factory,” he explains. “I think they’re from the Equip visors.”
As soon as he says that, my body reacts with a systemic tremble, like my blood sugar just dropped a thousand points.
“So you think this kid is in a coma because he hijacked Elusion?” I brace myself for his answer by folding my hands in my lap and locking my fingers together so tightly my skin is turning white.
“Only one way to know,” he says. “We have to check out that firewall again.”
I want to get to the bottom of this confounding mystery as much as Josh does, but as much as it pains me to admit, when I look at this boy in the hospital and think of what happened in the Thai Beach Escape, a stroke of fear hits me.
“What if it’s not safe?”
As soon as I reflect on what my father said in Elusion, all I can think is:
You have to find me.
It packs a shot of resolve into my arm—I hope there’s more where that came from.
“We have no choice,” Josh says, turning off his laptop. “We aren’t making enough headway with the clues we have in reality.”
And in reality, time is running out.
I force down the bubble of anxiety that’s lodged in my throat and rise to my feet.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Josh stands along with me, casting a tall shadow on the floor of the capsule. “Where to?”
“My house,” I reply. “We should wait until my mom’s an hour or two into her shift, though, so we’re not interrupted like last time.”
“What about when we’re inside Elusion? Should we go back to the beach where your dad—”
“No, I already did that—and he wasn’t there. Patrick told me that the firewalls run through all the Escapes. They’re all connected. I’m not sure what Nora and her friends expect to find on the other side, but if Pat’s right, that means they’d just run into another Escape.”
“So where should we go?”
I smile. I have just the place in mind.