A Ruined Land Page 2

  Seven more choices span the compass rose, but all the directions look the same. It’s hard to even remember which way we just came from, as if the entire thing is here to confuse us.

  “Pick a direction,” Cole says.

  I bend down and study the details of the compass rose more closely. I hadn’t looked before, but at the start of each point is a small symbol. I commit to memory the strange symbol of the path we just went down, three interlocking spirals. Then I look at the others. Some symbols I don’t recognize. There is one, however, that I do. Concentric circles connected with lines. A labyrinth.

  “Hudson and Taylor,” I say, pointing to it. “If they’re still there, we could free them.”

  Cole traces the symbol with his finger. “Or we could end up back in the simulation.”

  A sick feeling worms its way into my gut. He’s right. Just thinking about our final moments in the labyrinth almost brings me to my knees. I can still feel Owen’s hands wrapped around my throat. Can still smell the decaying flesh that clung to the monster that guarded the power. But if there is a chance we can help Hudson and Taylor, then we have to try.

  I shrug, trying to be brave. “Yeah, we could.”

  Our eyes meet, and Cole smiles.

  “Ready?”

  “Definitely.” We can’t leave our friends behind.

  We run down the point of the giant compass rose. But this time, so we don’t get separated, before we reach the end, I grab Cole’s hand, interlacing my fingers with his, feeling the warmth that tells me he is real. He is here. I may not know what else, if anything, truly exists. I exist. And Cole does, too.

  Does he really?

  I push away the voice in my head. I won’t allow it to take root. We are both real, and together we can do anything.

  When we reach the end of the compass rose, the world drops away.

  III

  Relief flows through me when our new surroundings appear. We are not inside the labyrinth. Instead, we’re back where we started, in the stasis room. It’s still intact, the virtual reality pods laid out in a grid pattern, white lights extending from one pod to the next, reaching up the walls around us. Even with all that’s happened, with me killing the old god, us devouring the apple, Iva vanishing, the simulation is active.

  “They’re still here,” I say, stepping forward.

  “So what does that mean?” Cole asks. He moves toward the pod with Taylor trapped inside. Her face is pulled tight, like she still battles the monster that guards the center of the labyrinth.

  I run my hand up and down the glass covering her, and I go over the logic in my mind. IF-THEN-ELSE. If we are back in this room and these pods exist and we’re not actually in the simulation, then we have to assume that this is the real world, else . . . else we have nothing to hold on to.

  “This room is real,” I say. “These pods are real. The compass rose connects the different simulations, like a giant transporter. But here, where we are, this is real.” I rap the glass pod with my knuckles. The sound echoes around the stasis room against a quiet hum of electronics.

  “Transporters aren’t real, Edie,” Cole says, and the cutest smile creeps onto his face.

  I let a sliver of happiness slip into me. I am beyond thankful that Cole is here with me. That both of us got out. The rules were that only one could survive, but we broke the rules.

  “Well, here transporters are real.”

  “Which contradicts everything and makes this place not real,” Cole says. “You know, for someone who prides herself on her logic, you’re not making much sense.” The little grin on his face is still there.

  I blow out a breath because he’s right. My logic is flawed. “Yeah, true. But we’re gonna have to make a few assumptions if we want to keep our sanity,” I say. “We assume that this is the real world. Or at least as real as it’s going to get anytime soon. And we work within its rules. And if that means transporters are real, then transporters are real.”

  Cole shrugs. “I’m cool with transporters.” He walks around the back of Taylor’s pod. I try to ignore the fact that Taylor isn’t wearing any clothes, but it’s kind of hard. Even with the gel surrounding her, her muscles pop and flex visibly.

  “So how do we get them out?” he asks. “Can we just transport them out?”

  I was wondering the exact same thing. For Cole and me, the liquid surrounding us had drained, and the glass had receded, as if controlled by someone outside the simulation. We search around the base of Taylor’s pod, looking for some kind of controls, something that will open the glass and release the gel. But if there is a release mechanism, I can’t find it.

  I slowly shake my head. “I don’t know. It must not be controlled from here.” Zachary Gomez had mentioned the programming team. If there is a team of programmers, then they aren’t in this room. They are somewhere else entirely. Maybe the dome where we need to go. Everything here could be controlled from elsewhere, by remote. For all I know, Zachary was never physically in this place.

  “We need to find the dome,” I say. It flashes in my mind again. Extended from the top of it are three thick antennae. If this simulation is being controlled via remote, it’s our best hope.

  I turn to Cole because he doesn’t respond. He’s not looking at me or Taylor’s pod for that matter. He looks across the room. And I know in that second who he’s looking at: Owen.

  Owen’s hands crawl all over me, trying to violate me.

  No. I push the vision from my mind. Those visions are not real. Were never real. I am not going to let them into my mind anymore.

  My forehead throbs briefly, then calms. Only then do I allow my head to turn toward Owen’s pod.

  It’s empty.

  I take a step forward, almost like my body has a mind of its own. Then another step. Then I cover the rest of the distance until I stand directly in front of where Owen should be.

  The glass of the pod is still intact, filled with the gel that suspended us. But Owen is not there.

  “How did he get out?” I ask. It makes no sense. I went into the stasis pod and it closed around me. I was only able to escape when the glass receded. But this . . . it violates the rules of the game. Except as Cole and I proved by both escaping, the rules can be broken. Are being broken, but not just by us. It’s the only thing that makes sense, because Owen is not here.

  Cole rests his hands on my shoulders and pulls me close, almost like he’s trying to extract the tension from me and into him. “It’s okay, Edie.”

  I shake my head and push closer to Cole, away from where Owen should be. Where he’s not.

  “It’s not okay,” I say. “We were the only ones who got out. Who should’ve gotten out.” I motion at the empty pod. “This isn’t right.”

  The familiar fear tries to push its way through me.

  Cole wraps his arms around me, and I turn toward him and circle my arms around him, pulling him into me.

  “It’s okay,” he says, running his hands over my back.

  I hate Owen. I hate everything he stands for. We won the game. We got the power. Not Owen. He, of all people, should not be out. But then I think of what Zachary Gomez had said after we’d defeated the old god. I’d had help.

  “He has help,” I say, trying to force away my emotions and focus on the logic that tries to build around me.

  “Yeah, it sure seems that way,” Cole says. “But why? If we already won, then what’s the point of him being free? Unless . . .”

  My stomach tightens at his words. I try again to reach for the power, but it slips out of my grasp, like I don’t possess it. Like something didn’t work the way it was supposed to. “Unless it’s not over.”

  Unless we haven’t really won because the gods are cheating. Minor gods but gods nonetheless. Zachary Gomez had helped me from the start. What’s to say that Owen didn’t have the same kind of help? Doesn’t still have the same kind of help.

  My eyes whip over to where Abigail should be.

  Her pod is also empty.

  Whoever is helping Owen had planted Abigail in the simulation to protect him. And if she’s gone, then that protection must still be working. My frustration returns, and even though I try to push it away, it stays.

  “You’re shaking,” Cole says. He pulls back enough that I can tip my head up and look him in the eye.

  “It’s just that—” I start, but I stop talking. Rehashing it won’t solve anything. Instead, I wrap my hands around the back of Cole’s head and pull him toward me. My lips meet his in a kiss, and I give myself a moment to forget the world. To live in this contact. Our lips part, and I taste the sweet golden apple on his tongue. But then something shocks me, and I pull back. Power rushes through me, solid and strong, renewing my energy.

  “What was that?” Cole asks, licking his lips. Amazing lips that I want to kiss forever.

  If he ate a piece of the apple and I ate a piece of the apple, and those two pieces meet . . .

  “A spark,” I say. “From the power.”

  Cole nods, then his lips find mine again. The power sizzles and moves through me—through both of us—but I don’t pull back. I let it become a part of me, until it feels like Cole, the power, and I all become one. And even though this is the moment I would choose to last forever, I know it can’t.

  I pull back, breathless, eyes still closed. When I open them, Cole’s smiling at me, a gorgeous imperfect smile that is like no other in the world.

  “I’m really happy we met,” I say.

  Cole laughs and tucks a strand of my curly hair behind my ear. “Yeah, me, too.”

  My eyes again s
ettle on Owen’s empty pod, but my frustration is gone. Instead, I know what I need to do. What we need to do.

  “We need to get to that dome,” I say. “It’s our logical next step. It has to be a control room. And from there we’ll free Hudson and Taylor.”

  Cole nods. “And then?”

  And then . . .

  “Then we’ll figure out where Owen went and why he’s not here, and we’ll stop him and whoever is helping him,” I say. Whoever that is will be the real threat. Owen may only be a pawn in the game of the gods. Or he may be something more. Either way, he needs to be stopped.

  IV

  I turn my back on Owen's empty pod. We can’t do anything else here. Staying won’t help Hudson or Taylor, and it certainly won’t find my parents. We retrace our steps, back to the intersection of the grid line where we entered. The world blinks away into darkness then reforms. Once again we’re spit out at the end of the giant compass rose. The black sky flashes with the electrical pulses.

  Now to find our way out of here. We hurry back to the center, and I study the symbols, looking for something that might be the volcano or the garden. There’s a symbol that looks familiar, maybe something my mom used to draw, like a giant bird hieroglyph.

  “Let’s start here,” I say, and we head down the compass rose, to the end. When the world shifts, whatever I expect is not what I see ahead of me. We’re back in the stasis room.

  Wait, it’s not the stasis room we were in, but another, almost identical. It’s filled with pods laid out in the same pattern as our room, with intersecting grid lines marking the spots where the pods are, but it’s bigger than the room we just came from. I can’t see the far end. So many more people are here. So many kids, just like us.

  I take a step into the room, but I immediately collapse as a vision fills my head.

  I stand at the bottom of a set of marble stairs. A black temple like something out of Greek mythology sits at the top of a platform, with gray columns that move like they are alive and crawling with bugs.

  No, not bugs. The columns aren’t real. They’re a hologram. The whole temple is.

  Standing between the columns is a woman with long red hair that is twisted together into tendrils that reach down her back. She’s dressed in jeans and a yellow shirt that stands out against her dark skin. She’s surrounded by creatures that look like pieces of various animals have been stitched together. Snake tails, winged horses, two-headed dogs. They rub against her, vying for her attention. She strokes their fur, scratches their heads. But as the vision settles, her eyes lock onto me.

  I try to pull my eyes away, but she has some power. Some hold on me that I can’t escape from. Like a witch.

  “An exchange,” she says. “If you bring it to me, I’ll reward you.”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Bring what to you?” I ask in the vision.

  “You’ll know,” she says. Then the columns, the stairs, the platform, one by one shift to computer code then vanish. The witch disappears, too, and she’s replaced by a golden key that floats in the dark sky. It’s an old-fashioned key, like something that would unlock the door of a house from another century. The stars behind the key flicker and move, like computer code crawling across a monitor. The lines of code scroll through the key, holding it suspended.

  Holding it waiting for me.

  I have to get that key because that key unlocks everything. And this witch has it.

  The vision collapses. I’m on the floor, in the new stasis room, at the edge of the sea of virtual reality pods. My head pounds, and I press the flats of my hands to my forehead, like that will make it stop. Cole is on the floor next to me, also pressing his hands to his head.

  “You saw her?” I say.

  Cole nods.

  I’ve never seen the woman before, but my mind races with a determination to find her. To get that key.

  No, that’s not right. We don’t need a key. It’s only a distraction to keep us away from freeing Hudson and Taylor. From stopping Owen. Whoever is helping Owen is trying to trick us.

  Except I’m sure I’m wrong. The key is everything. The vision makes me sure of it.

  “What’s it mean?” Cole asks.

  I tap my teeth together. My jaw still aches from where Owen punched me earlier. My teeth throb. After we’d fought and I’d gotten the apple, I thought that was it. I thought the game was over.

  I was wrong. There is more, I’m sure of it. And this key is involved.

  I pull myself to my feet and Cole does the same. Then I step forward and place my hand on the first stasis pod I come to. Inside is a girl about my age. She’s got cropped blond hair, and she’s not wearing any clothes, just like we weren’t when we were in the pods. Her hands are pressed against the glass. Her mouth open in terror. Her eyes wide. But I’ve never seen her before. She wasn’t in the labyrinth. Next to her is a guy with bright red hair. His skin is covered in freckles, from his forehead to his toes, like he’s been splattered with paint. He holds one of his hands up in front of himself and stares at it like he’s not sure what it is. Next to him is another guy, dark hair and thick stubble running along his cheeks. Pod after pod, each one contains someone new.

  “It means that the labyrinth was only part of the game,” I say as the truth of the situation crystalizes in my mind. “It means that there are other parts. Other levels. And these . . .” I motion at the kids in the pods all around the room.

  “They’re just like we were,” Cole says.

  I nod. “Except they’re playing a different game.”

  “To get the key.”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I say. Then my chest tightens as my eyes fall on another pod.

  Owen is here. In this simulation. It’s impossible. But there is no mistaking it. He floats in the gel, calmness covering his face. In a different pod next to his is Abigail. Her lips almost seem to move, like she’s praying for him even now. One of her hands reaches for the necklace she wears, a golden cross necklace with rubies embedded in it. She’s somehow brought it into this new simulation. And if that was the item she chose before and it did have power to protect Owen, then that power could still work in the new simulation.

  “They’re here,” I say as Cole walks up next to me.

  “They’re trying to get the key,” Cole says.

  Trying to get the key.

  I glance around the room at the pods, looking for someone, anyone, in here who will stop them. If Owen wants the key, it can’t be to save the world or anything noble like that.

  He’ll destroy everything, Iva says in my head.

  Her voice is there, cute like a pixie, then it’s gone. So fast I wonder if I made it up or if it was real. Her tone implies that she doesn’t have a care in the world. Like if Owen gets the key and the world is erased, it will just be one more possibility for the future. But if Owen destroys everything, there is no coming back from that, whether Cole and I have the power or not, especially because thus far, the power hasn’t proved entirely useful.

  We hurry from pod to pod, looking at each one. Some of the kids seem to be dead, like Adam and Dominic were in our simulation. Some still twitch and flail as it they’re fighting monsters of their own. Aside from Owen and Abigail, I don’t recognize anyone else. But next to me, I hear the sharp intake of breath. Cole runs toward one of the pods at the edge of the room. His prosthetic hits hard on the ground, making every other step sound metallic.

  He stops in front of the pod and runs his hand over the glass.

  A horrible feeling forms in my stomach. I know exactly who’s in this pod.

  “It’s Pia,” he says.

  Pia. His friend. Girlfriend. Even though I know I shouldn’t be jealous, after seeing Owen here, I can’t help the wave that rushes through me. Pia really is here. I recognize her from the labyrinth where the place had used her image to create a doll that nearly killed us. But this is no doll. This is the real Pia, trapped in stasis just like our friends.

  “She’s still alive,” Cole says. “We have to get her out. With Owen . . .”