D. MacHale - The Reality Bug

“Come on. Doctor, let’s go!” I shouted.

“It doesn’t work that way, Pendragon,” Aja corrected. “When he leaves, the jump is over. You and Loor have to go first.”

I looked at the mutant quig. Its body shivered as hair grew from the oozy black mass.

“Promise me you’ll leave the jump. Doctor,” I begged. “You can fight this thing from the Alpha Core.”

“I will,” he assured me. “Get going.”

The quig slowly rose to its feet. It was now twice the size of my dog, Marley, and getting stronger. I looked to Loor. She had moved behind the control chair and was holding tight to the back of it. She was ready to move if the quig attacked again.

“We should go,” she said to me without taking her eyes off the quig.

“With pleasure,” I said, and hit the right button on my control bracelet. “We are outta here.” It didn’t work.

“Why are we still here?” Loor asked. “Aja?” I screamed.

“I don’t know,” Aja’s image answered. “Loor, try yours!”

Loor poked the right button on her control bracelet, but nothing happened. No! I tried hitting the button on mine rapid-fire, like one of those idiots who keep hitting the elevator button, thinking it will make the elevator come faster. That never works, and hitting my wrist controller didn’t work either.

The quig stood on shaky legs, reared back and pounced.

Loor pulled the control chair right out of the floor and heaved it at the charging beast. The black chair nailed the quig, knocking it back to the floor. It lay there, breathing hard, still growing.

“Aja!” I shouted. “Get us outta here!”

“Hang on,” she called back. “I’m going back to the Alpha Core.”

Her image disappeared.

“C’mon!” I shouted at the others.

Until Aja figured a way to yank us out of this jump, we had to stay alive. Hanging around with this mutating, growing monster wasn’t the best way to do that. Loor grabbed Zetlin by the arm and the three of us ran across the floor and through the doorway that led to the big kitchen. When we entered, the first thing I noticed was that the chefs were gone. Can’t say I blame them. They may have been fantasy creations, but they were smart enough to beat feet when there was trouble.

Loor saw the empty kitchen and had a different thought. “Weapons,” she exclaimed.

She vaulted over a stainless-steel counter and ran to a table that held several nasty-looking kitchen knives. She quickly tested the weight of a few and picked two that she liked.

“If that quig gets any bigger,” I said, “those knives won’t do squat.”

“You doubt me, Pendragon?” she asked, pretending to be insulted.

She flipped a knife into the air, spun it a few times, then plucked it in midspin with the blade ready to go. She looked like a gunslinger. Or knifeslinger. Loor had been off balance ever since she arrived on Veelox. She had to deal with technology and events that were impossible for her to understand.

But now we were in a battle. Now we were in Loor land.

The mutant quig leaped into the kitchen. It had become the size of the quig from my fantasy of Davis Gregory High. Worse, it had gotten stronger. It stood in the doorway and let out a grisly bellow. The mutant quig was officially ready for action.

So was Loor. She quickly threw a knife, then another while the first was still in the air. I never should have doubted her. Both knives found their mark. The first hit the quig in the shoulder, the second in the neck. It was kind of gruesome, but I didn’t care. Better him than us. The beast reared up on its back legs, bellowing in agony. I thought this fight was over before it could get started.

I was wrong.

The quig reached for the knife in its neck with a paw, and brushed it away. It didn’t pull the blade out, it pushed it out of its body, as if its flesh were made of Jell-O. It did the same with the knife in its shoulder. Both knives clattered to the floor. No blood. No wounds. Whatever damage the knives had done to the beast’s body, it had regenerated.

We were in serious trouble.

“That cannot be,” Loor said, stunned.

“Yeah, it can,” I said. “That’s not a quig, it’s the Reality Bug.”

As if to prove my point, the mutant quig growled, shuddered, and grew bigger. This thing was now getting close to the size of the quigs on Denduron.

“Outta here!” I yelled, and grabbed Dr. Zetlin.

The three of us ran for the doorway that led to the video game room and charged through. This room was empty too. The cleanup crew had fled.

“Perhaps it will grow too large to follow,” Zetlin said hopefully. The quig smashed through the doorway behind us, taking out a piece of wall as it forced its way through.

“Let’s not count on that,” I said, and kept running.

We made it through to the giant Skittles game. Standing in the center of the court was Aja’s image. We all ran up to her.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“I can’t stop it,” she said nervously. “Data is flooding in from everywhere on Veelox. It’s feeding the Reality Bug and making it stronger.”

“Yeah, we see that,” I said. “Can you get us out of the jump?”

“Everything is frozen,” she complained. “The grid is totally overloaded and I can’t take control.”

“So we are trapped in here?” Loor asked.

“I’ll alter the jump,” Zetlin offered. He lifted his arm to reveal his control bracelet and pressed the center button.

I winced. But nothing happened. Good news, bad news.

“We have no control,” Zetlin said softly. He then looked at Aja and said, “You must try to isolate the alpha grid. Perhaps you can fool the virus by creating a duplicate program.”

“Duplicate program?” I asked.

“Back up the alpha software,” Zetlin explained. “Then make that back-up the default. The virus may recognize it and attack both.”

“Divide and conquer,” I said.

“Exactly,” Zetlin added. “Can you do that?”

“I can try,” Aja said, and disappeared.

“And all we have to do is stay alive,” I added.

“I do not know how to fight this beast,” Loor said.

“I do,” I offered. “Quigs hate loud, piercing sounds. Their ears can’t take it. We gotta find something to make a sharp sound, like a whistle. If this thing is just like a quig, it’ll send it reeling.”

“I know something!” Zetlin announced, and continued running across the court.

We followed him through the next doorway into the odd basketball court with the four nets. Zetlin ran right for a metal equipment locker. “We use whistles for the games,” he announced.

I could have hugged the guy. We joined him at the locker and flipped it open. As he searched for the whistles, we heard the sound of the quig tearing through the doorway to get into the Skittles room.

“Not much time,” I cautioned.

Zetlin found two whistles that looked like kazoos. He gave me one.

“We’ll take turns,” I said. “I’ll blow until I run out of air, then you blow. The louder the better.” “What then?” Loor asked.

“We’ve got to get out of the Barbican,” I said. “We’ve got a better chance of hiding from this thing out in that city than in this building.”

We then heard a horrifying roar. All three of us looked to the doorway of the Skittles room to see…

The beast had grown. It was now way bigger than a normal quig. Its head was almost as wide as the doorway. I hoped these whistles would be loud enough to do a number on something that big.

“Please use the whistle,” Loor said calmly.

I took a deep breath and blew into the kazoo thing. The sound it made was awful and perfect. It was a totally annoying, loud shriek-exactly what quigs hate. The beast lifted its head and bellowed in agony over the monster. My mind raced ahead, already calculating how we would take turns blowing our whistles to keep the quig away from us long enough to escape. Our victory didn’t last long.