“They’re the journals of a Traveler,” Dorney answered.
“Which Traveler?” Courtney asked.
“They were written by my best friend, Press Tilton.”
Dorney then raised his hand to show he wore a ring just like Mark’s. “I brought you two here because I’m getting old, and need help. Now, my question still stands. Why do you care? If I don’t get the right answer, you can walk right back out that door. I don’t care what that Pendragon kid thinks about you.”
VEELOX
Hey, guys. Getting used to watching me like this yet?
It’s weird, after Lifelight, the idea of recording myself as a hologram seems pretty low tech. Lifelight is an incredible invention… that’s also incredibly dangerous. The thing is, I’m afraid Saint Dane knows that, and we may not be able to stop him from taking advantage of it. I’m serious. We may already be too late to save Veelox. But I’m not ready to give up yet. Aja and I have come up with a plan. To pull it off I’m going to have to jump back into Lifelight. To be honest, it scares the hell out of me because this time it won’t be the wonderful, fantasy visit back home like before.
This jump is going to be hairy.
I know, I’ll bet you’re thinking: How hairy can it be if it’s all taking place in my mind? Well, the mind is pretty powerful. So is imagination. Trust me. I’ve just seen what can happen when things go bad. It isn’t pretty. I don’t want to risk jumping again, but I don’t see any way around it. I’ve got to go back in. I know what has to be done.
I think.
Let me tell you what brought me to the point of having to make this insane trip back into Lifelight…
After my first jump I was thinking Lifelight was pretty cool. Going home and spending time with my family and kicking some serious butt against Easthill High was excellent, even if it was just an illusion. I’m sure this is hard to understand, but while I was in Lifelight, I sort of forgot that it was fake. The experience was so real, my brain wanted to believe it actually was. Or at least my heart did. Does that make sense? It would if you had been there.
But then I left the jump and witnessed the death of a fellow jumper. That made it pretty clear that Lifelight wasn’t without risks. When Aja found me after her debriefing, I began to learn what those risks were.
“I’ll take you to my home,” she declared as she hurried into the office where I was recording my journal. “We’ll have something to eat and I’ll continue your education.”
Education. Wow-wee. Aja really liked showing me what a brain she was. Lucky me.
D. J. MacHale
The Reality Bug
“What happened to that jumper?” I asked. “Why did he die?”
“It happens,” she said quickly. “There are a lot of people in the pyramid.”
“But you said it’s happening more often.”
“It was an accident, all right!” she snapped. “I told you, things are under control here.”
Yikes. She was a raw nerve. Things didn’t seem like they were under control at all. But it wouldn’t help to argue. Without another word, Aja left the office. I guessed she expected me to follow, so I did.
We left the Lifelight pyramid and went back to the three-wheeled vehicle that had brought us here. We climbed aboard and started pedaling along the quiet street. There were a 104 million questions I wanted to ask about Lifelight and how it worked and why she was so sure Saint Dane’s plan was doomed to failure and, for that matter, what the heck Saint Dane’s plan was. But I didn’t think it was a good time to grill her. She looked pretty upset. As she pedaled the odd bicycle, she stared ahead with a vacant look that told me her mind was miles away.
I was faced with a real dilemma. From all I’ve described to you, it must be clear that Aja wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. She had a quick temper that flashed nasty the instant someone challenged her. She was a proud person, and totally brainy. And she took every chance she could to prove it. That was the exact opposite of somebody like, say. Uncle Press. Uncle Press knew pretty much everything about everything, but never rubbed it in your face. I think that came from confidence. With Aja, I got the feeling that beneath it all, she wasn’t totally sure of herself, which is why she was always trying to demonstrate her brilliance.
But she was the Traveler from Veelox and we had to get along. If she was right and Saint Dane’s plan was already derailed, then everything was cool. We didn’t have to be friends and I could be on my way. But after hearing from Saint Dane about how he had already won on Veelox, and learning how Lifelight might have some problems, I had some serious doubts. I was pretty sure Aja and I were going to have to learn how to work together, and it was up to me to make that happen.
“Did you grow up here?” I asked, trying to make small talk.
“Yes.”
“In Rubic City?” “Yes.”
“When did you find out you were a Traveler?” “Two years ago.”
She wasn’t exactly being talkative. But I kept trying.
“How old are you?” “Eighteen.”
“Wow, are all the phaders so young?”
“You want my life story, Pendragon?” she snapped suddenly. “Here it is. From the time I was a baby I was raised in a group home. I never knew my parents. To this day I don’t know if I was taken from them or given up for training.”
Whoa. Lots of baggage in that one little sentence. I wasn’t sure which topic to go after first.
“Training?” I finally asked. I figured it was less emotional than the whole “raised in a group home” thing.
“The directors find gifted babies and train them to become phaders and vedders. From the time I was old enough to sit up, I was at a key panel learning how to write code. I was a full-time phader by the time I was twelve. Now I’m a senior group leader.”
This was good. She was opening up. “Who are the directors?” I asked.
“They make all the decisions when it comes to Lifelight. But to answer your question, yes. All the phaders are young. The vedders, too. The directors want the sharpest minds possible at the controls. But it’s more than that. As people grow older, they want to spend their time jumping, not monitoring. By the time a phader gets to be twenty-five, they pretty much take themselves offline.”
“And do what?”
Aja didn’t answer. Instead, she looked around. I took the cue and looked around too. What I saw was… a deserted city. Like I described before, it pretty much looked like any city on Second Earth, except there were no people. Garbage kicked around in the wind and collected in alleyways. Glass windows were so grimy there was no way to see through them. Vehicles were parked along the curb, but many sat tilted on flat tires. I had the feeling that at one time this was a busy place.
I was starting to understand the problem.
“They’re all in Lifelight, aren’t they?” I asked softly.
“Why would they live anywhere else when they can create the life of their dreams?” was Aja’s sharp reply.
“Is it like this everywhere?” I asked. “I mean, other than Rubic City?”
“It’s the whole territory, Pendragon,” she said. “Reality on Veelox only exists to support the fantasy.” She then looked right at me. “That’s why Saint Dane thinks he’s won. This territory is about to fall apart, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.”
It made all sorts of sense. If nobody wanted to live in reality, then of course the territory would crumble. It made me think of a guy we used to go to school with. Remember Eddie Ingalls? He got caught up in playing one of those online fantasy games. He’d stay in his room on the computer for hours. I don’t think he even slept very much, especially on the weekends. He ended up spending so much brain time playing that game, he lost most of his friends because he never wanted to come out and do anything. Then he started messing up in school. I’m not sure what happened to him, but I think his parents had to send him away to some kind of special school to help him catch up with real life. Well, what happened to Eddie Ingalls is what was happening on Veelox… times about eight billion.