Chapter Four

Running my fingers across the machine, I considered a thousand possible outcomes. Two stood out the most.

If she’d had a stroke, why hadn’t the machine caught her body’s reaction to the program or the fluctuation in her vitals?

If indeed the nanocomputers were still adhered to her, she needed the pied pipers, the sirens of doom, to enter her body again to beckon them.

My only option was to sneak the syringe of nanocomputers into the hospital, inject her, and run the pied piper call through her body once more.

If that wasn't it, and the tests they ran on her brain didn't show a stroke, I would have to face the music. It could be a complete mental breakdown because she possibly had a preexisting mental disorder I wasn't made aware of, and I had put her at risk the entire time, slowly degrading her mental stability.

I would be liable in some ways, but if she had lied to me, the form she signed at the beginning would waive any responsibility on my part. Not that it would make me feel better. She was still sick in some way and my machine was partly to blame.

The mayor’s response to Danny Jacobs made me curious too.

I sat at my computer and ran his name with hers in Google. It took a lot of sorting through different social media sites until there it was: the most important key to her addiction to the machine.

“Danny Jacobs dies in terrible crash.” The words left my lips with horror and shock.

How had I missed this?

The moment I asked her the question flitted about my mind. She had laughed and shaken her head, completely relaxed and at ease.

She had lied like it was her job.

The headline gave me chills but the article made me sick to my stomach. I burst from my chair, grabbing a syringe of the pied pipers, the tablet I used to run the program, and darted for the door. Hailing a cab in the cold and dreary weather was nearly impossible. Every one of them already had a passenger. Finally, a cab stopped and I jumped in, shouting, “The private hospital on Saint Nicholas Avenue!”

The driver hit the gas, sensing my urgency.

I held up my card for him to scan when we arrived, fleeing the cab the instant the light turned green on the machine. I didn't take the elevator, hoping to sneak into the room when no one was looking. The six floors up were murder.

I was gasping for air and wheezing when I cracked the door open, scanning the nurses’ station and surrounding area for people. The lone nurse had her head down, reading or sleeping. I couldn't be sure which. There wasn't a single other person in the area.

Something sounding like a radio went off, causing the nurse to lift her head. She got up and sauntered down the hallway, opening the door I needed to get through. I took my chance, springing from the stairwell and dashing into the room where Lana continued to lay perfectly still.

I closed the door behind me and injected her immediately before I hurried to the other side of the bed to slide down the wall and wait for the nanocomputers to link to my tablet. I tapped the start of the sirens’ call, setting the pied pipers into motion. The program to dislodge any and all nanocomputers from her brain ran exactly as it had before, signaling it had completed its task. In a perfect world, I would have already created nanocomputers to take a tour of the brain, scanning for any rogues that had hung on. Or perhaps added a tracking device to each one, but that might have increased the size of them.

I would have to think about the changes I needed to implement at a later date.

Glancing up at the expression on her face, I winced.

There was no doubt in my mind that Danny Jacobs was to her what Jonathan was to me—her soul. They had just celebrated their engagement when his car went off the road with them both in it. He had saved her from the vehicle and swam her to shore where she managed to crawl from the icy waters, but he hadn’t been able to do the same. Exhausted from saving her, he was swept away with the river, his body found much later, frozen on the banks.

She married the mayor two years later, but the wedding photos showed the hollow stare of a girl still lost in the current, still clinging to the body of her love. A girl who had also loved a man destined for the other world, the one we weren’t allowed to go to. The one where our hearts were held hostage.

The mayor’s face was not the same as hers. He obviously loved her. Her desperate sadness and desire to escape came from the very same place that told me to avoid the Lucid Fantasies machine. My Choose Your Own Adventure would be overpowered by my broken heart.

Had I known about hers, I never would have let her use the machine.

I should have done a more thorough check into her background. I should have researched her. I should have listened when the mayor told me she couldn't come anymore. I should have let my dog die in the fire.

I should have done a lot of things I didn’t.

Focusing back to the problem at hand and leaving the past and the “should haves” where they belonged, I gazed up to watch her for a while, staring, motionless. She didn't move and barely breathed. I began to drift off until I was startled by her gasps for air. She sat up, shuddering and coughing. She turned and frowned at me. “Why are we here?”

“Danny Jacobs.”

She winced. “What?”

I nodded. “You lied to me.”

She lay back, confused and continuing to breathe heavily. “What about him?”

“When I first thought about making the machine to hook up to books or art, it was only to have someone write a certain story that I could live in, a story that was once real before it took a wrong turn. I wanted to fix the wrong turn and escape this world.”

She turned her head, staring at me like a ghost. “But you never go in.”

“I can’t, Lana, don't you see that? I know what would happen to me if I went in. I wouldn’t get lost in the perfection of that world. I wouldn't care about the story of the book or the characters. I wouldn't even notice the plot. Because I lost someone once who meant more to me than anything in the world, I have always feared I would find him in there, waiting for me. I would never leave if he were in there. I would become addicted to the machine. Or I would force my body to remain in a coma so I could stay and be with him.” As much as I hated her for making my machine look like the guilty party, I understood.

A tear slipped down her pale cheek. “He was there. Danny. He was always there. We danced and talked, and he was just as I remembered him being.” She closed her puffy eyelids, squeezing them shut. “He was warm and alive. And then it got harder and harder to find him. I could chase him around and finally find him. And we would . . .” Her cheeks flushed.

My heart broke for her. “And of course you got addicted to seeing him.”

“And heartbroken every time I left him.” She quivered.

“You can’t go in there ever again, Lana. You have to grieve and let him be where he really is.” My words stung inside me where the darkness was. I knew the words. I knew their meaning. I knew I needed to hear them, no matter how painful they were.

She didn't answer me. She sobbed quietly.

I got up, taking her cool hand in mine and squeezing. “Take care of yourself.”

She sniffled and heaved, and yet I left her there. I had enough of my own misfortunes; I didn't need to see hers too.

I went home to snuggle my dog and contemplate the places I had gone wrong in everything.

And that maybe the mayor was right. My science was dangerous.