The Ultimate Escape Read online

  “I’ve seen one,” Andy Moore said finally, saving Matt from further embarrassment. All eyes turned toward Andy.

  “A long time ago, I thought Rifts were just myths to scare kids away from adult sims and hazardous programs,” he told them. “I got interested in them because I heard about Signal 30.”

  “You believed that!” David chuckled. Matt smiled in recognition. Megan looked puzzled.

  “What’s Signal 30?” she asked.

  “There’s an emergency rescue crew training veeyar called Signal 30,” Andy told her.

  “I heard it was an anti-drunk-driving veeyar,” Matt Hunter said, recalling the urban legend from his own childhood.

  “Whatever,” Andy said. “Anyway, the story’s about some kid who accessed the veeyar program when he wasn’t supposed to. He got into a virtual car wreck where his head got cut off—”

  Mark Gridley jumped in. “So they find this kid in his veeyar chair the next day—”

  “And his head’s missing,” Megan said. “Which makes your stupid story predictable and absurd at the same time.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Quite an accomplishment, Moore.”

  “But scary” Matt added. “When you’re six or seven years old anyway.” He recalled his own reaction to the legend, which he heard years before. It had made him afraid of veeyar technology for at least a year.

  “So what’s this have to do with Rifts?” Megan asked Andy.

  “When I was younger, I got into trouble sometimes,” Andy confessed.

  There were gusts of suppressed laughter throughout the room. David looked up. “Oh, really? I never would have guessed.”

  “Yeah, well, I used to mess around with programs to see if I could cause long-term effects, effects that would stay with a person after they’d left veeyar for the real world.” Andy’s voice got lower, until it was almost a whisper. “Once, I even tried to create a Rift. I didn’t get far, and what I did manage to make wasn’t all that interesting—just a lot of random activity, memory bursts, boring stuff like that.”

  “That’s so admirable of you,” Megan said, appalled. “You actually tried to make Mindcandy.”

  “I did not try to make Mindcandy!” Andy objected. “There was no such thing as Mindcandy back then. I was just, you know, playing around.”

  “Don’t play like that again,” David Gray said somberly. “Ever.”

  Matt stared at David, surprised by the threat implied by David’s tone of voice. He knew that David Gray hated everything about the newest illegal kick available on the street— the cyber “drug” called Mindcandy. It was a very addictive and very illegal veeyar program add-on that directly stimulated the pleasure centers of the brain while playing a scenario chosen by the user. Matt knew that playing with the human mind was really dangerous, and that there were laws against such activity.

  Matt also knew that David felt strongly enough about the subject that he thought anyone who messed with that kind of stuff should not be in the Net Force Explorers. Though Andy had always been a show-off, neither Matt nor David ever imagined that he would play with that kind of fire. They both decided independently that they’d better keep a close watch on Mr. Andy Moore. And Matt thought it might not be a bad idea to keep an eye on David as well, until he calmed down.

  “Anyway, Signal 30 is just a folk tale,” Matt Hunter said, getting back on the subject again. “It’s a modern campfire story, an urban legend, nothing more.”

  “But you heard what Dr. Lanier said,” Megan pointed out. ‘ ‘No two Rifts are alike. You can see—or imagine you saw— just about anything!”

  Mark Gridley snorted. ‘ ‘The problem with that theory is that Matt didn’t see it alone . .. I saw it tool”

  “The real problem is that I didn’t get to go after Dieter,” Andy said. “If you had just let me handle the Blue Baron, we wouldn’t be talking about this now, SquirtV 9

  Matt sighed. Andy knew that the hated nickname would get a rise out of Mark, and it worked. As Matt watched, Mark got livid and started calling Andy names, and Moore, older but no more mature than the Squirt, shot back a few childish insults of his own.

  Things were degenerating quickly, and Megan turned, her eyes meeting Matt’s in a plea for leadership.

  “All right, enough already!” Matt said. “It’s clear we don’t know enough about Rifts to make decisions right now. They’re rare, and none of us has ever run into anything quite like this before. We need more information. It’s time to do some research. We should check out the Net, see what we can find out about them—safely, Andy!—and report back to the group.”

  While the others discussed which were the best places to start looking for answers, Matt blocked out the conversation for a moment. He couldn’t forget the agonized look on Julio Cortez’s face, and he just couldn’t believe that pain was the result of a random program glitch or his own imagination. As the others bickered around him, Matt decided that something had to be done.

  He had to be careful about who he asked to join him in his quest for the truth about Julio. He didn’t know where a search for that truth would lead.

  Matt knew that Mark Gridley would be a part of whatever happened next. Mark had been there when it started. But Matt also knew that he and the boy genius might not have what it took to get to the bottom of things, especially if international politics were involved.

  It was important to take things one step at a time….

  And, Matt suddenly realized, the next step was right in front of him.

  Matt raised both hands and called for order, and for a halt to the bickering.

  “All right, shut up, everybody!”

  The group fell silent. Everyone stared at their leader in this venture expectantly.

  “You guys work on finding out more about Rifts. I’m going home to try to contact Julio in Corteguay,” Matt said. “If I can talk to him, maybe this whole thing will be cleared up quickly and easily.”

  Mark Gridley nodded. Some of the others expressed agreement too.

  “If I don’t get the right answers,” Matt continued, “we’re going to have to take some kind of action. If Julio really is in trouble, we need to figure out a way to help him. Come prepared with everything you can find on Rifts and possible ways to work around them. We’ll discuss our next move on Monday, after the competition against the Japanese students from Osaka.”

  “At least we won’t have to deal with Dieter,” Andy Moore said.

  David Gray nodded in agreement. “Yeah, he’ll be fighting the Brits, changing the history of World War II.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” Megan warned. “I hear Masahara’s Japanese are tough, too.”

  With that, Matt declared the impromptu meeting adjourned, and the group left the lounge, some to go home and head out into veeyar looking for answers, and some heading to their next summer course at the Institute.

  Megan lingered behind, and approached Matt when the others had left the room. He turned and saw her.

  “I could have used a little help there,” he said.

  “Oh, I thought you were doing just fine,” Megan said, crossing her arms and tossing her hair. “I especially enjoyed the part where you zoned out. Good leadership management technique, Hunter. Quirky, but good.”

  Because Mark Gridley was staying at the Center for his weekly Thai boxing lesson, Matt Hunter caught an early autobus back to his home in Columbia, Maryland. Matt was actually glad to have this time alone.

  He had a lot of thinking to do.

  As the autobus pulled away from the huge interlocking geodesic domes that housed the International Educational Institute Center, across from the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space, Matt wondered why his fellow Net Force Explorers were having such trouble buying into the fact that he and Mark had seen Julio in the simulator—and that Julio was in trouble.

  In all the time he had belonged to the Net Force Explorers, Matt had done his best to make his friends proud—always. He’d worked hard, learned a lot, and had al
ways demonstrated he was worthy of the trust Net Force had placed in him when they made him a Net Force Explorer. So had Mark Gridley, for that matter. Though the “Squirt” didn’t get much respect because of his age, Matt was just as certain about seeing Julio inside the veeyar as Mark Gridley was. Yet the rest of the Net Force Explorers, including Megan, had not immediately believed what he and Mark were saying. They’d certainly agreed to help, but Matt could tell that not all of them were convinced that Julio and his problems were real. Some of the Net Force Explorers clearly still thought this was a simple machine error.

  Why didn’t they believe me? he wondered. Why would I make up something like this? What would I have to gain anyway?

  Matt and Mark had no proof that anything other than a Rift had occurred, of course. All the evidence they had was locked up inside the veeyar’s memory banks. But Matt still felt a little betrayed by the rest of the Net Force Explorers’ doubt.

  And without running through the program again, there was absolutely no way to prove to the rest of the world that he and Mark had really seen Julio Cortez. But they had, even though nobody believed them. And if Julio was really in trouble, Matt couldn’t ask for help from anybody else, not until he had real proof. After all, if the Net Force Explorers didn’t believe him, who would? Whatever the risk, and whatever the method, Matt was determined to discover the truth, and the evidence to support it. He had to—Julio was depending on him.

  But right now, Matt had more questions than answers.

  At least he knew what he needed to do first. He needed to talk to Julio. If he failed to contact his friend, for whatever reason, then he and the Net Force Explorers would combine their research about Rifts—find out everything available on what they were like, why they were dangerous, and what caused them.

  In Matt’s mind, Rifts still weren’t real. The whole story sounded too much like the “laser rot” that his grandfather claimed was eating away at his collection of twentieth-century punk rock CDs—something else that Matt had always heard about but didn’t believe actually existed.

  Now a Rift was preventing Matt from helping one of his best friends, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  First Julio appears, then a Rift. Is it a coincidence? Not very likely, unless…

  Suddenly, Matt sat up in his seat, his mind racing.

  Unless the Rift had something to do with Julio’s appearance! That was possible, wasn’t it?

  Matt sighed. He just didn’t know enough. But at least he knew someone who could help besides Mark.

  He needed to talk to his father. Now!

  When Matt got home, he found two messages waiting for him. His mom had been sent on a mission for the Pentagon due to a sudden crisis, and his dad was stuck filling in for a sick colleague at an educational seminar.

  I’m on my own for dinner and I’m going to be alone for the weekend, Matt thought, disappointed that he could not speak to his father right away. Oh, well, time for a snack.

  As he dug through the freezer looking for something to zap in the microwave, Matt remembered his father’s virtual National Geographic Atlas.

  When his macaroni and cheese was done, Matt took the plate into his room. As he began to eat, he stuck the two-inch-square South American datascript into his computer’s drive, settled into his personalized chair, lined up the side-mounted computer neural interface that was implanted in his neck, waited until he felt the link take hold, and blinked a bit as he looked about his personal workspace.

  Right now, in honor of the Net Force competition, it was set up like a control tower at a big aerospace port, and around the viewscreens that looked outward in every direction, giant airships took off and landed—each ship representing data that was interfacing with the Net.

  Strapping himself into the command chair, he began to scan for information about Corteguay. It was like taking a voyage— although in virtual reality rather than in the real world. But the news he gleaned from his virtual trip was hardly reassuring.

  Matt soon learned that calling Julio up on a simple videophone was next to impossible. Most Corteguans didn’t even have video-phones, just audio—and not very many Corteguans had those.

  Worse still, direct communication between the “free world” and private citizens in Corteguay was tightly controlled. All calls into or out of the country went through government-controlled switchboards, and were routinely monitored or tapped. Mail was similarly censored. Communications with the socialist country were most often conducted through embassies or government agencies—less occasionally by private citizens or even businesses, though some of the sanctions against foreign capitalist ventures had eased recently.

  If Matt wanted to talk to Julio Cortez, if would probably improve his chances if he went through the U.S. State Department. And it would take time. Hours, maybe even days …

  That was a stunning revelation, a look into a world completely foreign and incomprehensible, and suddenly Matt Hunter was more sure than ever that his friend was in trouble.

  But if it was going to be impossible to contact Julio on the Net, and tough to call him, just how was Matt going to talk to his friend and find out if he and his family were safe?

  Well, he had a weekend to himself, enough food in the freezer to withstand a siege, and nothing but time on his hands. If there was a way to find Julio, he would do it. He wasn’t a Net Force Explorer for nothing. Matt closed his eyes and headed out into the Net. …

  Two days later, Matt sat in exactly the same place, though the litter of empty food containers around him testified that he’d at least gotten up for sustenance. He jumped when the incoming flight indicator went off, signaling that he had a call coming in on the Net. He brought the jet in for a landing. Mark Gridley’s face filled his screen as he stepped out of the aerospace plane.

  Mark was grinning like a Cheshire cat. He climbed down from the cockpit, tossed his hat to a waiting robot, and walked quickly across the tarmac and into Matt’s tower.

  “Are you alone?” Mark whispered conspiratorially.

  Matt looked around the room in mock exaggeration, then faced his friend again.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “But we must hurry before this contact is traced.”

  “Don’t laugh, Matt,” the Squirt said with injured pride. “Because I got us in.”

  “After Thai boxing class I went back to Dr. Lanier’s office—” Mark didn’t get a chance to complete that thought.

  “Into the program?” Matt asked.

  Mark nodded. “All we need is a cutting-edge system with enough memory and RAM to run the program—like the one in your dad’s lab.”

  Matt’s face paled. “I can’t do that!” he said. “If the Institute traces the program to the point of access, my dad could get in trouble—maybe even lose his teacher’s accreditation!”

  “I’ve got it all fixed,” Mark said. “Even if they trace us— which they probably won’t—I’ve got a scrambler program in place. It took me all weekend to make it, but it’s a beauty. Not even the CIA could track the origin of the call.”

  “Are you sure?” Matt asked, beginning to weaken.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mark said. “Who’s the genius here?”

  Matt said nothing, his mind in turmoil. Julio needed him, but his dad trusted him. There could be real and perhaps harmful consequences if this went wrong, for him and for his dad. And if he and Mark just yelled loud and long enough, they could probably get someone to let them go into the IEI program—maybe through Net Force or his mom’s connections. But then Matt thought about Julio. If things were as bad as Julio said they were, delay could prove fatal for his friend and his family. And Matt had just spent all weekend proving that normal channels of communication were useless.

  “We can get to the bottom of this—tonight,” Mark said.

  Matt thought about the look on Julio’s face, about the things Julio had said, and he nodded.

  “Good,” Mark said. “I’ll be at your place for real in about an hour.”
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  The room went dark as Matt pulled out of his workspace and back into the real world. First, he got up and began to pick up the mess around his chair. After he’d thrown the cartons away and stuffed his dirty dishes in the dishwasher, he came back upstairs and settled into his computer chair. Matt sat there for a while, staring at the wall, wondering if he was doing the right thing. because I’ve got the password. We’re just going to knock on their door—with a nice scrambled phone line—and walk right in.”

  Matt’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You really got Dr. Lanier’s password?” he said incredulously. “How did you get hold of that?”

  “It’s not a state secret, you know,” Gridley said. “Dr. Lanier is a pretty careless guy. More than that, I cannot say.”

  Matt breathed a sigh of relief. With a valid password and an untraceable phone line, they should be safe….

  “Now, take me to your computer,” the Squirt said as he pulled a bulging backpack off his shoulders.

  Matt led Mark Gridley down to his father’s “lab,” which was a pretty impressive setup for an amateur. There were several research computers, about a thousand tools of all shapes and sizes, a bunch of unidentified electronic junk, and a computer-link chair. The Flight Simulation Museum at the Smithsonian and the simulators at the International Educational Institute used equipment very similar to the stuff in his dad’s basement.

  Matt Hunter’s father, Gordon, was a high school science teacher. The school district supplied him with a top-of-the-line computer for his personal use, so he could review new educational programs at home instead of tying up a machine at the library or at school.

  It was a nice perk, and his father made good use of it.

  And so did Matt’s mother. Though she now worked full-time at the Pentagon for the Department of Defense, Marissa Hunter was still listed as an active-duty fighter pilot, and she used the computer in her spare time to hone her skills when her busy schedule didn’t allow her to get real “in the flesh” flight time.

  The machine wasn’t a toy, and Matt had only used it a few times before—and always with adult supervision. Upon reflection, Matt felt he and Mark were lucky that his father hadn’t installed a security code to keep him from using the equipment when his parents weren’t around. The computer in his room wasn’t half the machine that this was, and who knew what kind of programs and stuff his parents had loaded on it. Matt knew they trusted him, and that made him feel even more ashamed of what he was about to do.