IMAGES FLASHED THROUGH Rick’s mind as he swam in and out of consciousness. The ceiling tiles passing overhead as he lay on a gurney rolling through white halls . . . Doors, endless doors . . . Faces leaning over him. Voices shouting . . .
Have we lost him?
Stop the bleeding!
We’ve got to download his memory before it fades!
The bleeding first!
Tell me we haven’t lost him!
He’s still with us . . .
Thank God, thank God.
He was still with them, yes. He remembered who he was now, too. It came back to him in stages.
I’m Rick. Rick Dial . . .
That was his name, anyway. But who was Rick Dial?
Ceiling tiles . . . Frantic faces . . . He swam in and out of consciousness.
Number 12. Rick Dial was Number 12. He was a quarterback. No. He was a cripple with ruined legs. No. He was a MindWarrior of the Realm . . . His dragon was falling and falling out of the sky . . . He had failed . . . failed at everything . . .
What are you doing?
The gurney had stopped. A closed door. Miss Ferris was barking in that hard, weirdly emotionless voice.
Not through there . . .
I thought they said he was . . .
That door is never to be opened without my express permission! Ever! Do you understand?
On they went. Into a room. Monitors. Faces. Someone attaching electrodes to his temples. Someone cutting off his T-shirt with a knife. Hands gently bathing the wound in his shoulder. Hurt . . . it hurt. Miss Ferris’s face was hovering over him. Strange . . . her blue eyes looked almost gentle . . . Not like her. Rick thought he must be dreaming.
He swam in and out of consciousness.
He thought he saw Miss Ferris standing at the foot of his bed. Was he awake? Was he dreaming? He wasn’t sure. There was Commander Jonathan Mars—or was it the hologram of Commander Mars? It was the hologram, yes: a weirdly illuminated figure in the darkness. He was talking quietly and Miss Ferris . . . had to be a hallucination because Miss Ferris was weeping. She had her head bowed. Her fingers were pinching the bridge of her nose. Her shoulders shook and tears poured from her eyes, ran over her hands, and dripped to the floor.
Mars watched her with the crags of his face pulled down in that fixed frown of his, his bushy silver eyebrows knitted together.
“You can’t let yourself care this much, Barbara,” he told her.
She looked up at him, her damp eyes flashing and furious. “Don’t you dare tell me that!” she said.
“You know what’s at stake. Everything. The country could go up in smoke in an instant.”
“You can’t send him back in there so soon. It’s inhuman.”
“He knew the dangers—”
“He’s eighteen years old! He’s hardly more than a boy! He’s too young to understand what will happen to him, what it would be like if . . .” Her voice broke. She looked down again, the tears spilling off her cheeks. Rick knew he had to be dreaming. It was impossible that Miss Ferris could have so much emotion in her. “I couldn’t stand it if we lost another one,” she said.
The scene—dream—hallucination—whatever it was—faded away. The next time Rick was aware of anything, he was alone, staring up through the darkness at the ceiling.
He remembered now. The Realm. The fortress. Mariel. Favian. Falling from the sky on the back of the dragon.
I’ve failed at everything . . .
He lay there for a long time, thinking about that. His family—broken. His body—crushed. His football career—over. And he had nearly died in the Realm . . .
He felt something changing inside him. Something growing harder. Tougher. A fever of impatience rising into a fire of anger . . .
As full consciousness came to him, he sat up in bed. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth as the pain struck him. There was pain everywhere. His head was pounding. His shoulder throbbed. His legs felt as if they were being stuck full of pins.
Where was he?
He looked down at himself, touching himself to make sure this was real now, not a dream. He was wearing nothing but sweatpants, no shirt. There was a bandage wrapped around his left shoulder.
Mariel! Favian! They’re going to die in there. I’ve got to get them out!
He looked around the room. A bare, windowless cell. No lamps. No furniture. Just the bed. It would have been pitch–black in there but for the light seeping in around the edges of the door.
Was the door locked? Was he a prisoner here? Where were his crutches? How was he supposed to get out of bed? Was anyone near enough to hear his voice if he shouted?
He tried it: “Hey! Hey! Is anybody there? Where am I? Hey!”
He listened, hoping to hear footsteps running to find him. Nothing. He stared at the door.
“Hey!” he shouted.
“It’s all right, Rick.”
Rick was so startled, he nearly jumped right off the mattress. There, out of nowhere, was Commander Mars: his hologram, at least, glowing in the shadowy darkness!
“Mars,” Rick snarled. The man who had gotten him into this. The man in charge. “Where am I? What’s going on?”
“Just take it easy,” said Mars—coming from him, it sounded like a command. “You were wounded in the Realm. You’ve been taken to our medical wing to recover. You’re going to be fine.”
Rick drew a breath, trying to keep his impatience—his anger—under control. There were so many questions he wanted to ask this guy, he didn’t know where to begin. He touched the bandage on his arm. He remembered the sword fight.
“Wounded,” he muttered, trying to get it all straight in his head. “By a crocodile. A man with a crocodile head. With a sword. Crazy.”
But Commander Mars didn’t seem to think it was crazy. He merely nodded. “We’ve scanned your memory. We know what happened.”
“That makes one of us,” said Rick, still fighting off his lingering grogginess. “Who were they? Those alligator guys . . .”
“Security bots. Kurodar has brought in a man—an actual human being—named Reza, to run them. When you climbed on the dragon, Reza felt it was time to send out his army and bring you down.”
“Reza,” said Rick.
Mars pointed to the wall and another man appeared there suddenly, startling Rick again. But in a moment, he realized this was just a three-dimensional picture of a man, not a living hologram like Mars. The image turned this way and that so that Rick could see the long, slender figure and the sharp, dark, Middle Eastern features.
“That’s Reza,” Mars told him. “Former terrorist and professional assassin—now chief of security in the Realm.”
Rick stared at the man. He seemed familiar to him. “I know him. I’ve seen him.”
“I doubt it,” said Mars. “He’s not the sort of person who—”
“He was there!” Rick broke in. “In the Realm. On the ramparts. I saw him.”
Mars’s craggy features gathered like storm clouds. “Are you sure?”
“It was him. Except he was . . .” Rick hardly knew what word would describe him. “He was like a demon there. He had this kind of pink-purple skin. Wings and claws. He was giving orders to the archers who shot down the dragon I was riding. It was the same guy. I recognize his face.” Rick could hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth: demons, crocodile men, dragons. It sounded like some kind of nutty joke.
But Mars didn’t crack even the hint of a smile. He nodded slowly. “If you’re right—if that was him—you’re lucky to be here. The man is deadly.”
Rick looked at Mars a long moment—looked with that new toughness, that new impatience inside him.
“I’m risking my life in there for you, and you haven’t told me anything,” he said.
“You’re risking your life for your country, and there’s not very much I can tell you.”
“What does the MindWar have to do with my father? What does it have to do with the truck that ran into me, that busted my legs?”
Mars’s expression remained thunderous and unmovable. “If I could tell you, I would. I can’t.”
A frizz of static went through his holographic image. It brought back another memory to Rick: a sickening memory of how the Realm had started to dissolve as his time ran out, as his mind began to disintegrate. He gingerly touched the side of his head.
“I nearly lost my mind in there, didn’t I?” he said.
“Yes,” said Mars. “You stayed too long. Another minute or so, we wouldn’t have been able to bring you back.”
“And then I would become . . . ,” murmured Rick. “Like that creature I saw . . . a person . . . dead . . . only not dead . . . stuck in a web in the spider-snake’s tunnel. That’s what happens to you when you get stuck in the Realm, isn’t it? Your body goes into a coma here, and your spirit is trapped over there.”
Commander Mars’s frown grew deeper. “Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t get stuck in there, Rick.”
“There are two other people in there already,” Rick said. “Are they yours? Did you send them in?”
“Get some rest,” said Mars. “We need you to go back in. Soon. Very soon.”
“Wait,” said Rick. “Those people—Favian and Mariel—are my friends. They’ve saved my life twice. They’re going to die in there if we don’t help them. They’re going to become like that other guy. If you want me to go back in, you have to help me get them out.”
“I don’t make deals,” said Mars. “We’re doing what we can. We’re developing a technology that might help them, but . . . I’m not making any promises. Go back in or not. That’s your choice. For now, get some rest.”
“No, wait!” Rick shouted. “Don’t go! I have more questions! I want to know . . .”
But Mars had already vanished.