“Harlan!”
My voice echoed through the towering trees and faded into nothing.
“Harlan.” This time a whisper, and no echo—or maybe it was smothered by the panicked sound of my pulse rushing, quickening, trampling.
The green extended forever in every direction. An endless forest.
Panic hurled me into motion, and I ran. My feet stomped the forest floor, kicking up the scent of damp earth. Nothing but trees lay this way. Endless trees with a cloudless blue sky overhead and pine-colored earth beneath.
I spun a one-eighty and sprinted in the other direction.
“Harlan! Lena!” Nothing. No one.
My sneaker caught a root. I tumbled to the ground. My hands hit dirt and stung.
When I turned them over and examined my palms, there were no scrapes, no blood, just the burn.
The digital construct extended around me in all directions, its perfect beauty mocking me. When I screamed, the only reply was the echo of my voice and the rustle of pine needles.
Think. Breathe.
I pulled myself to a sitting position and tried to calm my heart. I wiped tears from my face, and my hand came away smudged with mud. I wasn’t going to appear back in that gorgeous office with Harlan, Lena, and her team, or that would have happened already.
I had to save myself.
Lena said there would always be an exit. It would start the exit process and get me out of here. I shoved to my feet and spun a slow circle, squinting into the thick trees.
They’d rendered every leaf, pine needle, and blade of grass with stunning detail. Sunlight streamed through the canopy to create shadow patterns that shifted with each gust of wind. But there was no door, no exit as Lena had promised. Nothing except . . .
I froze.
Was that a glitch in this otherwise flawless construct? Straight ahead, the air shimmered and warped like heat waves distorting the trees. It flickered in and out of existence, a tear in the fabric of the digital reality.
As I held my breath, I reached into my pocket—and celebrated as my fingers touched tiny metal chips that must be the breadcrumbs the team had promised. At least something had gone right.
I extracted one, dropped it at my feet, and moved toward the glitch.
A beep sounded in my head. A unisex computerized voice said, “Recording captured,” and went silent.
Right, Jarret had said each breadcrumb would capture a short recording.
I pulled another metal chip from my pocket and dropped it. “Something went wrong—”
“Recording captured,” interrupted the voice.
I stuffed my hand in my pocket, yanked out all the breadcrumbs, and used my other hand to spread them across my palm. Only five more. One second of recording each didn’t give me much time in total.
After slipping the crumbs back into my pocket, I started my journey toward the glitch. It was the only oddity in this forest, so it could be my way out.
Occasionally, I dropped another breadcrumb and left a message.
“Lost.”
“Recording captured,” confirmed the voice.
“Alone. Walking.”
“Recording captured.”
“Toward a glitch.”
“Recording captured.”
I hoped Lena and her team could piece it together and find me. Most of all, I needed Harlan to be safe. Wherever he was, maybe he was headed to the glitch too.
Maybe it was our salvation.