Doomed by Tracy Deebs Read Free Book Online Page B

at alarming speeds.
Pandora’s Box?
I wonder hazily as I try not to get dizzy.
Or
Star Trek
?
    “Wicked graphics,” Eli says, and he’s leaning forward, his hands on either side of my shoulders, as if he can’t get close enough to the game. Which is strange, because I want nothing more than to get away from it.
    Theo sits down on the couch next to me, scooting so close in his effort to get a better look at my computer that his leg is plastered to mine.
    For one second, I go into sensory overload. Betweenlooking at the game, feeling Theo against me and Eli behind and around me, it’s all too much. I feel trapped.
    I shove at Eli’s arms with all my strength, desperate to get away before my brain short-circuits altogether.
    “Hey, what are you doing?” he asks, and the question hits me hard.
    What
am
I doing? Where
am
I going? I want to run away, to bury my head, to make it all just disappear.
    But it won’t. I can’t go back, can’t go forward, can’t do anything but stay right here and see this through. I helped start it; now I need to finish it.
    Theo’s hand comes up and holds my elbow, not hard, but enough to let me know that he’s there. Normally, I’d be pissed off that he thought he had the right to put his hands on me after what happened this morning, but Theo’s grip isn’t demanding. I could break it easily if I wanted to.
    But I don’t want to. It’s keeping me grounded, keeping me sane, this small connection to another person who is right here in the present—in this world—with me. He doesn’t say anything, but somehow I know that this is exactly what he intends me to feel.
    I beat back the panic, the fear, the knowledge that the imaginary has just become my reality, and focus on his hand on my elbow. Focus on the game. The second I let myself be drawn back to it, it yanks me in completely.
    I fall straight through the blackness and into a wide blue sky, plummeting, plummeting, plummeting. I plunge through one cloud, then another and another. And then I’m skidding and shuddering to a stop, bumping along hardground as everything drops away but the world I’ve suddenly been thrust into.
    On the sidewalk, dressed in jeans and a black Jimi Hendrix tank top, is an avatar with short, choppy red hair and brown eyes. She’s tall and lean, with multipierced ears, a small star-shaped nose ring, and purple streaks in her hair.
    I freeze as I look at her, choke up, and hear Theo inhale sharply next to me.
    “Is that what your avatar usually looks like?” he asks.
    “No.” My voice is shaking and I realize my computer is as well. No, not my computer—just the hands that are holding it.
    I put it down on the coffee table, fight the urge to bury my hands in my lap. I don’t know why it matters, but I don’t want the guys to know how upset I am. Maybe because they’re so calm, taking all of this in stride when I’m one small step away from screaming my head off.
    “It’s the camera,” Theo tells me, tapping the top of my computer. “The game sees you.”
    “Wicked,” Eli says again.
    “So, where is she?” Theo asks, and I force my fingers back to the keyboard. At the moment, my character is sitting in the middle of an empty street with buildings in every direction. Cars are all over the place—some are stopped in the middle of the street while others are parked at the curb. But no one is in them. They’re empty, abandoned, which is nothing like the Pandora’s Box I’m used to, usually teeming with other players and NPCs, Non-Playing Characters.
    I hit the Up arrow and I stand on-screen.
    Even with everything that’s happened, I expect to be where I left off—in the middle of postapocalyptic Manhattan. But as I look both ways, and even cross the street to peer into the window of an empty shop, I realize that nothing looks familiar. It’s impossible to tell where I am, and there’s no one around to ask.
    I am completely alone in this new world. It isn’t a pleasant