The Reality Bug

VEELOX

My body started to feel heavy, like I was being pushed into the table. I felt a little sleepy too. This was pretty much what happened the last time I was in here, so I wasn’t worried. But my heart was starting to beat faster with anticipation.

I felt something dry and scratchy brush against my face. It didn’t scare me or anything because even though I didn’t know what it was, it somehow felt… right. I reached up to find out what it was, and discovered there was something covering my face. It felt like a towel. How did a towel end up on my face? I grabbed hold of it and pulled it away as…

The roar of the gymnasium crowd came flooding back like someone had just swung open a soundproof door. I pulled the towel away to find myself sitting on the bench between Petey Boy and Jimmy Jag. I was back at the basketball game at the exact same moment where I’d left it. Yes! It looked like I was going to get my extra twenty minutes after all.

It took a few seconds for me to get my head back into the situation. I glanced up at the scoreboard. It was all tied up at fifty-eight and we were headed for overtime. I had just sunk two free throws and the crowd was going ape. Coach

Darula came over and knelt down in front of us.

“We’ve been here before!” he shouted over the noise of the crowd. “Five minutes of OT. We’ve got the experience, we’ve got the conditioning, and now we’ve got them scared. All we have to do is keep our poise and the game is ours. Bring it in.”

We all brought our hands together and Coach shouted, “One, two, three…”

We all answered with “Win!” then dropped our hands and jumped up to take the court. I was back up to speed, warmed up, and ready to go. Oddly, I even felt a little tired and sweaty, as if I had just played a full regulation game of basketball… which I had, in my fantasy. As we trotted out onto the court I heard a lone voice calling from the stands. Though it wasn’t very loud, it cut right through the noisy crowd.

“Good luck.”

I turned back and saw Aja sitting in the stands behind the bench, dressed like a high school kid with jeans and a sweatshirt. She was holding a red pennant that said “Cardinals” and waved it with absolutely no enthusiasm. She really stood out against the rest of the crowd that was going totally nuts.

There was something about the way she said “good luck” that gave me an uneasy feeling. There was more. I looked up into the stands where I remembered you guys, Mark and Courtney, were sitting. But you weren’t there. Odd. Everything was the same as when I left the fantasy before, except that the two of you were gone. Another look told me my family wasn’t there either. I figured this was the kind of thing Aja was talking about when she said the Reality Bug made the jumper’s experience less than perfect.

As soon as I got to the center of the court for the tip-off, I noticed something else had changed. The players from Easthill High seemed bigger than before. It wasn’t like they were sundenly giants or anything, but they definitely had more muscle and a few inches of height. They didn’t look all that tired, either. I wasn’t sure of what was going on, but there was one thing I felt certain about.

This was going to be a long overtime period.

The ref threw the ball up, it got tipped away from us, and the fun began. It was horrible. This was an entirely different game. I’m not sure if it was because these guys were suddenly better, or we had gotten a lot worse. Didn’t matter. The result would have been the same.

They ate us for lunch.

Skill-wise, they dribbled around us, passed behind their backs, and alley-ooped for a bunch of slam dunks. Physically, they pushed us around like we were little kids. I’d dribble to the top of the key with my back to the basket, and the guy guarding me would put a hand on my back so I couldn’t move. If I tried to pass, he’d swat the ball away and steal it for a fast break, followed by an easy layup on the other side of the court.

Three minutes into the overtime period and they had outscored us twelve to one. It was worse than embarrassing. The only reason we got a point was because I took a jump-shot and the center hammered the ball back into my face so hard that it bounced off my head and landed two rows deep in the stands.

To be honest, the rejection was clean. No foul. But the ref took pity and called it. Unlike the last time I stepped up to the foul line, the crowd had grown deathly silent. I didn’t think it was possible to have so many people in one place make so little noise.

I sank the first free throw, which was our one point. But I missed the second. It was a costly miss in more ways than one.

The ball bounced off the rim and rebounded back toward me. I jumped for it. So did their big center. He grabbed the ball and came down hard… elbow first.

Yeow! He nailed me right in the nose. Man, I saw stars! I landed on my butt with the gym swirling around me. This might have been a fantasy, but that shot to the nose felt totally real. They had to stop the game and Coach Darula ran over to help me up. Blood was spurting from my nose like a lawn sprinkler. My head was spinning. I wasn’t sure if I could make it back to the bench. Crutch and Joe Zip had to help me get there.

The crowd gave me a decent ovation. At least that proved they were still alive. Then, just before I sat down, I caught a glimpse of Aja. She had a big smile on her face like she was all sorts of happy that I had gotten nailed. All I could do was give her a dirty look. She shrugged. I sat down on the bench with my nose bleeding and my head swirling. I was done for the day.

But the day wasn’t done with me.

Even though we were getting our butts kicked. Coach Darula was still coaching like crazy. He was running up and down the court, shouting encouragement, calling plays, crying foul when the other team got too rough (which was pretty much all the time). I had never seen him so excited. His face was all sorts of red. It worried me that he was overdoing it. As it turned out, I was right.

There were thirty seconds left in OT. We were down by fifteen with no hope of making a comeback. At this point our guys were only trying to survive. I had a moment of guilt, thinking that it was my fault they were getting beat up like this. I had to keep reminding myself that it was all a fantasy. But at that moment, it didn’t feel like one. I know my aching nose felt all too real. Easthill had just scored, again, and Coach Darula wanted a time-out. He jumped up from the bench, shouting at the ref, making the T symbol with his hands… and that’s when it happened. Coach Darula clutched his left arm, his face went blank, and he fell to his knees. I’m no doctor, but I was pretty sure of what was happening.

He was having a heart attack. The game was stopped. The referee ran over and laid him on his back. He then motioned for the timekeeper to get the paramedics. Seconds later two guys in uniform hurried over to the coach to take care of him. I didn’t think it was possible, but the crowd was even more quiet than before. Within minutes Coach Darula was on a stretcher, being wheeled out as the crowd applauded nervously.

Nobody wanted to play after that. There was no pointy Everybody just kind of wandered away in shock. Even the Easthill guys didn’t celebrate their victory. It was all so very strange. I looked around for Aja, but she was gone too. Not knowing what else to do, I followed my team into the locker room and took a shower. My nose had finally stopped bleeding and the warm water felt good. I stood alone in the shower with my sore nose, washing the dried blood from my face and watching it swirl down the drain.

‘Any questions?” came a familiar voice.

Aja stood in the entrance to the shower with her arms folded, looking smug. I quickly grabbed my towel and covered up. Sheesh, could this get any worse?

“I’ve got a ton of questions,” I said while turning off the shower. “But first I want to know why my nose hurts so bad if this is all happening in my head?”

Aja chuckled. “You’re not hurt, Pendragon. Not really. When we leave the jump, your nose will be fine.”

“Good. Would you mind turning around so I can get dressed?”

Aja rolled her eyes and looked away. I went quickly back to my locker and changed into the clothes I had put there in my earlier fantasy. The locker room was empty now. The other guys were long gone. As I tied up my hiking books, Aja came over and sat down next to me on the bench.

“Lifelight took your thoughts and created a perfect fantasy,” she explained. “The Reality Bug took those same thoughts and also found the flaws and fears. Rather than only pulling out the good, it also found the bad. Just like reality. Getting beaten like that was something you feared might happen. You probably even worried that one day your coach would overdo it and get sick. The Reality Bug found those fears and made them real.”

“But what’s the point?”

Aja stood up and paced. “Haven’t you learned anything? The people of Veelox will never leave Lifelight on their own. The territory is crumbling because nobody wants to take care of real life. Reality is too much trouble. People have to work and repair their homes and grow food and have babies and deal with other people who might not agree with them, and basically do all the things that it takes to run a world. But in Lifelight they don’t have to worry about any of that. That’s why Saint Dane is winning. He’s got fantasy on his side. But my Reality Bug is the ideal solution. It makes Lifelight less than perfect so people aren’t staying in as long as they used to. It’s forcing them to return to real life.”

“So… you’ve already tried it with other jumpers?”

“A few. Every time they ended their jumps earlier than planned. It works, Pendragon. Once I’ve fully installed the bug, it will affect every jump in every pyramid on Veelox.”

Aja sat down beside me. It was the first time she seemed happy.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “The bug will make Lifelight more like reality, so it won’t be as attractive anymore. And nobody will know why. I’ve buried the bug so deep that no one will ever find it.”

I hated to admit it, but Aja’s plan made a whole bunch of sense. Still, there was something that bothered me.

“I think it’s great, Aja, I really do,” I said, still trying to form my thoughts. “If everything works out the way you say it will, then you did it. You beat Saint Dane.”

“Thank you!” she said with a big, dramatic breath, as if this were the one thing she had been waiting for me to say all along.

“But-“

“There’s no buts,” she jumped in.

“Maybe not, but you said the battle on Veelox was going to happen inside people’s imaginations. I understand that now. But aren’t imaginations hard to control? I mean, look at me. I got hammered. You said this came from my own fears. What if somebody fears something really big? I mean, the jumps could get dangerous.”

“So what?” Aja shot back. “It’s a fantasy. Nobody gets hurt. They’re all lying safely inside the pyramid.”

“So when we come out,” I asked, “my nose won’t hurt anymore?”

“Exactly!”

I wanted to believe her, but something else was bugging me, so to speak. The Reality Bug was nothing more than a really advanced computer virus. And computer viruses were scary. You never knew where they’d turn up or what damage they’d do. I once got a virus on my computer at home that trashed my hard drive. If a virus could wreck my little PC, I’d hate to think what it might do to a system as complex as Lifelight.

“Tell you what,” Aja said. “I’ll prove it to you. Let’s do the final test. Right here, right now.” “Test?” I asked nervously.

“Your control bracelet,” she said. “Remember the middle button?”

I lifted my arm to see that the silver band with the three buttons had reappeared. “The middle button alters the jump, right?”

“Exactly. Press the button. Let’s see what happens.”

“Are you crazy?” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “What if things go wacky?”

“I hope they do,” Aja countered. “It’ll be the only way I can prove to you that no matter how wrong a jump goes, all we have to do is end it and everything will be fine.”

I shook my head and paced. This was getting scary.

“This is the final test, Pendragon. Pressing that button is the first thing the jumpers will do when their jumps go bad. They’re all going to try and change their fantasy. Let’s see what will happen when they do.”

“What do you think will happen?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It all depends on you.”

Truth be told, I was scared to death of what might happen. What if a fire broke out? Or an earthquake hit? I didn’t want to have to go through that kind of mayhem, even if it was just a fantasy. My nose hurt bad enough.

“C’mon, Pendragon,” she cajoled. “You’re the big brave Traveler who beat Saint Dane all those times. Be the hero again. Push the button. Let’s prove the Reality Bug works once and for all.”

“You promise we can end the jump right away? I mean, all I have to do is say ‘Stop!’ and you can make all of this go away?”

“You can end it yourself, remember?” she said, pointing to my control bracelet. “Just press the right button. That ends the jump. Everything should work exactly as normal, except the Reality Bug will alter the fantasy.”

Aja seemed to have found the solution to the turning point on Veelox. If her Reality Bug worked, it would force people to live in the real world again. The Travelers would have beaten Saint Dane and set the territory back on the right path. If all that was left to do was test the middle button, we had to do it.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

“You already asked me that,” she answered impatiently. “Haven’t I impressed you yet?”

Okay, she had. I took a deep breath, raised my arm, and put my finger over the middle button on the silver control bracelet.

“Ready?” I asked her.

“Always,” she answered.

I pushed the button. It glowed red for a moment and then…

Nothing happened. The ground didn’t shake, the roof didn’t collapse. We stood there like a couple of dopes. “Nothing changed,” I said. “Maybe it didn’t-” Then it all hit the fan.

Aja lifted her arm with the large, silver control bracelet. “My controller,” she said with surprise. “It’s activating.” “What does that mean?”

A second later a beam of light shot out of the wrist controller and projected a holographic image. If the idea of the Reality Bug was to dig into my subconscious and pull out all my fears, it did a very good job. Because standing in front of us in that locker room was the one thing I feared most.

Saint Dane.

“Checkmate!” the demon laughed.

“Is this my fantasy?” I asked Aja, stunned.

“No!” Aja answered with a shaky voice. “Your jump isn’t tied into my controller. This is real. It’s a recording.”

“Aja, you sweet thing,” the image of Saint Dane said. “Did you really think I’d let you sabotage Lifelight? I worked too hard for too many years helping those programmers create Lifelight to allow you to destroy it with a simple computer virus.”

Aja shot me a look. This wasn’t my horror fantasy.

It was hers.

“Sweet, little Aja,” Saint Dane’s image said. “I’ve watched you from the day you were born.

I made sure the directors picked you for the phader program; I saw you grow into an arrogant little Traveler; and I even helped you program your nasty little bug. I’m sure Pendragon has told you I’m always around. I’ll bet you didn’t believe him.”

She didn’t. But she was beginning to.

“You see, dear girl,” Saint Dane continued, “you’re my back-up plan. If Veelox didn’t crumble from neglect, then I wanted to make sure your Reality Bug worked far better than you could imagine. And it will!”

Saint Dane laughed. It was chilling.

“Either way, I win,” he continued. “Thank you so much for all your help, Aja. You’ve made destroying Veelox such a pleasure! Give my regards to young Pendragon.”

The recorded image disappeared and Saint Dane was gone. Aja looked like she was about to faint. None of this made sense to her. Unfortunately it made a whole bunch of sense to me. Saint Dane knew exactly what was going on from the beginning. He was in total control. Just like always.

“He’s lying,” Aja said. “The Reality Bug won’t fail.” “I think that’s the problem,” I said. “He’s saying it’s going to work better than you planned.” “How could he know that?”

“I’ve been telling you from the start, Aja!” I shouted. “That’s what he does. He works people, pushing them toward answers they think they want, but it leads them to disaster. You don’t see him coming until it’s too late. You’re smart, Aja. But you made a huge mistake. You thought you were smarter than Saint Dane.”

Aja shot me a look full of hurt and anger. But it was the truth. Just when you think you’ve gotten the better of Saint Dane, he comes back to bite you in the butt. And right now, our butts were stinging.

“Aja? You in there?” came a voice from outside the locker room.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“It’s Alex,” Aja answered with surprise.

She ran for the locker room door. I was right after her. The door led to a short corridor that led to the gym. We stopped, still inside the locker room, when we saw that standing outside in the empty gym was Alex, our phader. We stood on either end of the short corridor, Aja and I in the locker room, Alex in the gym. He was nervously punching buttons on his wrist controller.

“Aja, what’s going on?” he called to us.

“What do you mean?” Aja shot back.

“I’m losing control of the jumps,” he whined. “A surge of data shot through the grid in my quadrant, and I traced the source to you!”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Aja answered, trying to stay in control. “It could mean the Reality Bug has activated.”

“I thought it was already activated?” I asked, rubbing my stinging nose.

“Not fully. I had it isolated to our jump,” Aja answered. “But it’s programmed to spread through the entire grid once I give the command.”

“I think that command was just given,” I said soberly. “Saint Dane took care of that.”

“Reality Bug?” Alex called to us. “What is that?”

“End the jump,” she ordered me. “We’ve got to get back to the core.”

I quickly hit the jump-ending button on my control bracelet.

Nothing happened.

“Why are we still here?” I asked.

“I’ll override you and end it myself,” Aja said. She hit a few buttons on her wrist controller, and frowned. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “It’s not responding.”

“Not responding?” I yelled. I hit the right button on my controller a dozen more times. It still didn’t work. Aja’s fingers sped over the silver buttons on her wrist controller, trying to find the right combination that would put her back in control. She didn’t find it.

“Alex!” Aja yelled out to the phader, who was still standing on the opposite end of the corridor, working his wrist controller. “Get back to the core and jam a shutdown. Get us out of here!”

“Are you sure?” Alex called back. “What if-“

Grrrrrr.

The sound came from out in the gym, where Alex was.

“What was that?” Aja asked. She started to walk curiously toward the corridor that led to the gym, but I grabbed her arm to stop her.

“I don’t know,” I answered. But the truth was, it sounded familiar.

“Alex,” I shouted, “is something out there?” The phader looked around the gym and shrugged. “I don’t see anything.”

Grrrrrrrr…

There was something out there all right, and it was getting closer.

“We gotta get outta here, Aja,” I insisted.

“I’m trying!” she said while pounding out buttons on her useless controller.

I then heard what sounded like a scraping sound, as if something sharp were being dragged over a hard surface. I knew that sound. It felt so familiar, yet I couldn’t place it. What was it?

A second later it hit me. But it was impossible. Not here. Not on Veelox. Or on a fantasy version of Second Earth for that matter. Or wherever we were. There was only one other place where I had heard a sound like that. It was on a territory far from here. The sound brought back horrible memories from a place I would never forget.

Denduron.

“Hey!” shouted Alex with surprise.

Aja and I both looked up. We saw the phader framed in the doorway to the gym. He was now looking off to his right… and he looked scared.

“Who thought this thing up?” he asked with a shaky voice.

“What is it, Alex?” Aja asked.

Alex took two steps back, the fear showing in his eyes. “I’m gonna get back to the-“

He never finished his sentence, because a set of strong jaws closed around his throat. Aja screamed. I took a step back in surprise. The beast had appeared from nowhere. It leaped at Alex, knocking him down.

“How could that happen? I thought the phaders aren’t really here?” I yelled, trying to keep my head together.

“They aren’t!” Aja screamed. “This is our jump. He’s not part of this.”

“Yeah?” I cried. “Tell that to Alex… and the quig that just killed him.”

At that moment the beast looked up from its victim and stared down the corridor at us. The sight of blood dripping from its teeth was all too familiar. It was a quig from Denduron. It was in my high school gym, in my fantasy…

And it had just set its sights on us.

(CONTINUED)