D. MacHale - The Reality Bug

Mark and Courtney looked back down to the ring to see that it was moving. It wasn’t growing though. It began to spin. It was slow at first, but picked up momentum until the ring was up on end, spinning so fast that it was nothing more than a blur. The high-pitched notes grew louder.

“Look!” Mark said, pointing at the door to the root cellar. Courtney looked to see the door was starting to rattle on its hinges.

“Something’s in there,” Courtney said in shock.

“Maybe,” Mark said. “Or m-maybe something’s coming.”

The rattling continued, then an intense light began to leak from around the edges of the door. Whatever was behind there, it was giving off a light so bright that Mark and Courtney had to squint, even though it was only coming from the crack around the edges. The strange sound from the ring grew even more intense. Now it was so loud it started to hurt. Mark and Courtney both had to cover their ears. The light from behind the door grew even brighter. The door shook furiously. Mark was ready for it to blow off its hinges.

It was then that the most incredible event of all occurred. As the ring continued to spin, a laser light shot from it, aimed at the wooden door. Mark and Courtney watched in awe as the intense white light hit the door at head level. Smoke rose from where the light hit the wood. The door was burning.

And then, like somebody pulled the plug on a lamp, everything stopped. Everything-the beam of light from the ring; the bright light from behind the door; the strange, piercing sound. And finally the ring itself stopped spinning. It rolled one last time, then came to a stop with a slight, metallic ping. It was over. All was back to normal.

All but one small thing.

“Oh, man,” Courtney said in awe.

Mark saw that she was looking at the door to the root cellar. At first, Mark wasn’t sure why she was so stunned, and then he saw it. It was on the door, right where the beam from the ring had hit it. There was no mistake. They had seen this once before and read about it many times over.

It was a star. The sign of a gate.

Mark reached down and picked up the ring. It was no longer glowing and was now cool enough to touch. It had done its job. Courtney walked over to the door and touched the blackened symbol.

“It’s still hot,” she said. She looked to Mark and asked, “Could it be?”

“Open the d-door,” Mark said. “My hand’s shaking.”

Courtney reached down and grabbed the door handle. “My hand’s shaking too,” she said.

Mark put his hand over Courtney’s and the two of them pulled the door open.

The room looked pretty much the same as it had when they searched it before. It was a large, empty space with a dirt floor and bits of dried weeds hanging from the beams of the ceiling. It was cool inside, just the way a subterranean root cellar should be. It was the exact same room that they had been in before, except for one small change. The rock that made up one whole wall of the cellar was gone.

Mark and Courtney stood together, staring, not breathing. Instead of a rock wall, they now looked into a craggy opening. It was unmistakable.

It was a flume.

Neither could speak. They both stood there, staring into the infinite tunnel. It was Mark who first broke the silence.

“D-Do you think m-maybe this means the time is right for us to be acolytes?”

Courtney stared into the tunnel a moment more, then started to laugh. “Yeah,” she said through the laughter. “I’d say this is a pretty good sign.”

Mark laughed too. The two laughed and hugged. Neither knew what the future held, but one thing was for certain: They were no longer just bystanders whose job it was to read Bobby’s mail. They were in the game now. For real.

Mark’s ring twitched.

“Uh-oh,” he said, and held his hand up.

“Now what?” Courtney exclaimed. “I don’t know if I can take any more fireworks.”

But this event was safe and familiar. The center stone of the ring started to glow. Mark took it off and placed it down on the dirt floor. This time the ring grew, opening up the portal to the territories. The familiar musical notes grew louder, bringing with them a special delivery. The sparkling light filled the underground room. For Mark and Courtney, it was like being held in a warm embrace. The lights flashed one final time, the notes fell silent, and the ring was once again back to its normal size.

Lying next to it was the silver projector that held Bobby’s next journal.

“Hobey-ho,” whispered Mark.

We were good to go.

Loor and I stood facing the three silver disks in the wall of the alpha jump cubicle, wearing our dark green one-piece suits. Loor had been through the prep routine. Her blood had been scanned and she was fitted with a silver control bracelet. I got my own control bracelet too, but after what had happened during my last jump, I wasn’t going to put a whole lot of faith in that thing.

Our safety was in the hands of Aja Killian. She had put the alpha grid that controlled Zetlin’s jump back online. She would now monitor our jump into Zetlin’s fantasy and yank us out if anything went wrong. At least, that was the plan. Once we were in Dr. Zetlin’s jump, the Reality Bug might have plans of its own.

“Any questions?” Aja asked us. She stood at the door of the jump cubicle.

“No,” Loor answered calmly.

What could Loor ask? This was a girl from a territory of primitive, tribal warriors. The idea of jumping into somebody else’s fantasy was about as alien to her as, well, I seriously doubt if there’s anything that comes close to being that alien.

Aja stepped back into the Alpha Core and sat in the big chair. She hit a few buttons on the silver control panel on the arm. Two of the three silver disks in the wall retracted, and the tables slowly slid out. These tubes were on either side of the center jump tube where Dr. Zetlin was lying. It was creepy to think ther was a guy in there, and we were about to leap into his mind.

I hoped there was room for all of us.

“Lie down on the table,” I instructed Loor. “Get comfortable.”

She did. Loor trusted me. Man, I hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. I walked out of the jump cubicle and went to Aja.

“Do you have any idea where we might find him?” I asked.

Aja frowned. “I’m sorry, Pendragon,” she said. “It all depends on the fantasy he created.”

She showed me a picture. It was the old-man version of the little kid in the oil painting outside. There was nothing unique about him. He just looked like a smart old man. He was bald and wore round little glasses. I memorized the face.

“So all I have to do is ask him for the origin code, right?” I asked.

“Yes. Tell him the main grid has been suspended because the processing code has been corrupted. Tell him we have to clean the string.”

“Origin code, corrupted processing code, clean the string-got it.”

“I doubt he’ll give it up easily,” Aja added. She leaned over my shoulder and glanced at Loor, who was now lying quietly on the table. “You may have to force him to end his jump.”

“Let’s find him first,” I said.

“Right,” she said.

There was something bothering me, and I had to say it. “Aja, if the Reality Bug is doing its thing, you might be in danger too. I mean, look what happened to Alex.”

Aja shrugged and gave a cocky reply. “I’m not Alex.”

Gotta love this girl. She wasn’t short on confidence.

“Just be careful,” I said, then turned and walked toward my jump tube.

“Pendragon,” Aja called to me. I stopped at the door to the cubicle and looked back at her.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.