Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels (95 page)

Maybe the people hiding out in the old shop down the street had seen something. They scared the piss out of him, with their crazy yellow eyes and the sickly-sweet smell of whatever they were smoking filling the air, but he had to start somewhere.

Tam was partway down the stairs when he heard it. A muffled clang, then a scrape of metal, coming from close by. He flung himself down the rest of the stairs and pelted to the back. Sure enough, the big door was unlocked. And inside -

“Peter!” He scooped his brother up in an awkward hug. “I was so worried about you.”

“Yeesh.” The Bug squirmed in his arms. “Let go, Tam. And don’t step on anything.”

Tam let his brother slip free, and finally saw what the kid had been doing. Disbelief hit him hard, right in the gut.

“Oh, god.”

He turned in slow circles, trying to take in the destruction. Disconnected cables were half-unwound in coppery spirals over the floor. The visor of his helmet was propped against the open side of his CPU - which looked like it had been visited by a bomb. His gloves were turned inside-out, the sensors dangling like broken spider-webs.

Anger rushed through him, and a horrible sense of loss. “My system! What do you think you’re doing?”

The Bug scuffed his shoe against the cement floor. “Marny said it was all messed up.”

“Well, now it’s
really
messed up. Damn it!”

He wanted to take his brother by the shoulders and shake him. Hard. So hard he’d fly into as many bits as the computer scattered across the floor. Instead, Tam took a deep breath. The Bug was too fragile for that - and besides, Tam was the one who held the family together.

“I’ll put it back.” His brother sounded on the verge of tears. “I didn’t think it would be so hard to fix, Tam. I thought maybe, you know…” He curled his shoulders forward.

“Aw, man. Don’t cry.” There were enough other things in their life to cry about. “The system was about to die completely, anyway.”

He tried to make himself believe it. And maybe the Bug could actually get the thing up and running again. Stranger things had happened.

“Ok.” His little brother sniffed, his voice still strained.

“Here.” Tam pulled him into a rough hug. “Let’s get you upstairs and ready for bed. You can work on putting it back together tomorrow after school.”

Just before waving off the lights and locking the door, Tam couldn’t help glancing once more at the ruins of his system. So much for his gaming.

Everything around here was falling apart. The stairs were getting more treacherous by the day, the neighborhood was disintegrating, and his brother had a disease nobody could fix. His mom was barely functioning. And now his sim-system was officially dead.

Tam shoved his anger deep down.

“How’d you cut yourself?” the Bug asked, one hand on Tam’s arm.

“What?” He glanced down, to see his brother was right. There was a red gash on his forearm. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was long and deep. “Oh, that. Don’t worry about it. Jammy time, Bug.”

While his little brother was getting into bed, Tam went into the bathroom and examined the cut. It throbbed, now that he knew about it. He didn’t remember cutting himself.

For a second, the image of the Black Knight flashed before his eyes. That faceless black visor stayed there, floating in his vision, as if it were looking at him. With uncanny clarity Tam recalled their battle - the moment the knight’s sword had slid into the gap between his armor….

A sick, shaky feeling moved through him. No way. You didn’t get injuries that carried over from computer games into real life, no matter how intense the virtual reality was. It just didn’t happen.

He had cut himself getting out of the grav-car, or downstairs, and just hadn’t noticed. Yeah, that was it.

He gulped back a glass of water, and then splashed more on his face.

“Tam?” The Bug’s voice was lonely.

“Coming.” He slapped some all-purpose ointment on the cut, then went out to tell his brother goodnight. It was time they both got some rest.

“’Night to you, too,” his brother murmured sleepily.

Tam curled into his old sleeping bag, and weariness hit him heavy in the chest. A crazy mosaic of his day flitted through his head. Jennet, smiling at him. The hairy brown man. A ring of pale mushrooms. Marny, stuffing his cash in her pocket. His system, the guts of his life, spilled everywhere.

Just before he slipped into sleep, he thought he heard the Black Knight’s laughter echo in his mind, low and menacing.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

J
ennet smiled at her reflection as she got ready for school the next morning. Hair a brighter shade of gold, eyes that sparkled - yes! She felt better than she had in weeks. Somehow, being back in Feyland had restored some of her energy.

Conviction rushed through her. She was going to win, going to make it all the way to the Court and get back the piece of herself she had lost.

Then her mood dimmed, the glint fading from her reflection’s eye. That was, assuming she could enter the game by herself. She’d been so certain she was in - but then she’d tried to go in-game again, after Tam had left.

Once again she’d been stuck, trapped at the first level with no quest-giver and no way forward. Which meant that she still needed Tam.

And she had to tell him the truth about Feyland - that it was an actual place, somehow connected to the real world. She couldn’t ask him to go any further in-game without knowing what he was getting into. Though there was no guarantee he’d believe her, and the thought of telling him made her feel sick. She squeezed her eyes tight and concentrated on keeping her breakfast down.

“It is time to depart for school, Miss Jennet.”
HANA’s even tones rang through the bedroom intercom.

“Ok, I’m coming.” Jennet hurried out of the bathroom and grabbed her satchel, then paused in front of her bookshelf. Her dad thought she was crazy for still wanting the paper books that lined the shelves.

“It makes no sense,” he had said, watching the hired movers carry the last of the heavy boxes of books away from their old house. He’d slipped his tablet out of his pocket and waved it at her. “
This
is where all those books could be - plus thousands more. Instead you’re going to give the workers a hernia.”

“I like old tech, Dad.” Especially since some of those books were too old, too rare. They didn’t exist in e-form. Neither she nor Dad would mention Thomas, or the fact that some of those books had belonged to him. Since he’d died, they never, ever talked about him.

She ran her fingertips along the bumpy spines until she found
Tales of Folk and Faerie
, a collection that was nearly three-hundred years old. It had belonged to Thomas. She’d salvaged the aging binding and done what she could to reinforce the delicate paper. With a whispered apology, she slid the book out and tucked it into her satchel. Tam needed to see this, needed to look at the stories and illustrations and have it all start to make sense. The way it finally had for her.

“Miss Jennet? Is there a reason to delay?”

“I’m on my way.” Sometimes she wished HANA would lose that machine patience and sound irritated. Just once. So that Jennet could pretend there was a real person there, who actually cared if she was late to class.

She made it to school on time. The only problem was, Tam wasn’t there. She was sure at lunch, when she saw Marny sitting in the cafeteria. Alone.

Jennet took a deep breath and swallowed back the bitter tang of worry. There could be a hundred reasons Tam hadn’t made it today.

Too bad all the things she could think of went from bad to horrible. Something had happened, she just knew it - somehow the game had harmed him already. Feyland had been completely unpredictable last night. It wasn’t such a stretch to think the game had done something to Tam.

And it was her fault.

Maybe Marny knew something. Jennet grabbed her tray and walked over to where Marny sat. Without waiting for an invitation, she set her lunch down and took a seat. A shocked little buzz of attention followed her, making the back of Jennet’s neck prickle - but there was no way she was waiting until the end of school.

“Hi,” Jennet said.

Marny had set her fork down as soon as Jennet approached, and gave her a level gaze across the table. “You sure you want to be over here?”

“Yes. Unless you want me to leave.”

Marny lifted one shoulder. “As long as the gossip won’t bother you. I don’t care. Sit where you want.”

Jennet looked across the cafeteria, saw the faces quickly turned away, the giggles hidden behind lifted hands. “It’s not like I’m exactly popular. Being a Viewer and all. Listen, do you know—”

“Where’s Tam today?” Marny’s question collided with hers.

“What?” Her worry spiked. “I thought you’d know.”

“I had to leave before he made it home last night. If he made it at all. What did you do with him?” There was a challenge in her voice.

“Nothing! Okay, he was a little late, but my dad’s driver dropped him off at his house no problem. Really, you don’t know where he is?”

“I’m not his keeper. Like I said, I had to leave. I hope everything’s all right.”

Jennet pushed her tray aside. “I have to go find out.”

“He never answers his messages - reception in the Exe is way spotty. There’s no way to get in touch with him.”

“I’m going to his house.” Jennet stood. Having a plan helped clear some of the anxiety, made her feel a little more in control.

“What - now?” Marny glanced side-to-side. “You don’t seem like the type to ditch your classes.”

“This is more important.” She had to make sure Tam was all right.

“Maybe he just got sick,” Marny said, though she didn’t sound very certain. “Or his brother did - their mom isn’t around a lot, so stuff falls on Tam. It could be no big deal.”

“Could be.”

“Look. You can’t just head into the Exe and hope to find Tam.”

“Come with me, then.” That would make things a lot easier.

“I wish I could, but…” Marny made a face, like she’d bitten something sour. “I can’t miss the test in World Markets today, or they’ll flunk me out. I’ll take you over there after school though.”

The anxiety sizzling through Jennet wouldn’t wait. “No. It has to be now.”

“You’re not big on sense, are you Fancy-girl?” Marny blew out a breath, then pulled a piece of paper out of her bag and scribbled something down. “Look, here’s a map. That’s my number at the bottom. Message me if you get totally lost. And when you find out what’s up with Tam.”

Jennet folded the paper and tucked it in her pocket. “I’ll let you know.” She grabbed her tray and stood up.

“One more thing,” Marny said.

“What?”

“Try not to get killed out there.” The big girl gave her a wry smile.

“Um. Okay, I’ll do my best.”

Jennet scraped her lunch into the bin, then set her tray on the stack with a clatter that seemed to echo around the room. People were still looking at her - but she had bigger things to worry about. There was only one person who mattered right now, and the sooner she slipped away, the sooner she’d know if he was all right.