The Great Interactive Dream Machine Read online

  Then we heard an eerie sound—a distant putt-putting high up. People began to duck. There it was, a small black sliver shape, like a needle in the sky, sewing the clouds. It angled in, putt-putting louder, with a flame in its tail. My heart was in my mouth. It looked like home-delivery death.

  A khaki-colored ambulance with blacked-out headlights pulled up at the curb, and Miss Mather jumped out. It was the young Miss Mather in her W.V.S. uniform.

  We all stood like statues, watching the doodlebug bomb get bigger. Its engine quit. The putt-putting stopped cold. That meant the bomb had reached its destination. It was falling now, on our heads.

  Miss Mather made a run for us. She could run like a deer. She had us all inside, somehow, at the last moment. We were in the echoing station, and the bomb fell somewhere just outside. A thump you felt in your stomach sucked all the air out of the world.

  We were sprawled on a floor, just barely safe. Glass rained. There was grit in my mouth from the sandbags. If this was a dream, it was a real production.

  I struggled to sit up, and I was sweating buckets. The sun was coming in the window of my room. It was a school day.

  15

  Three More Wishes

  Later Aaron said it was fate that drew us back to the Black Hole that afternoon.

  We were into oral reports in History. Zach Zeckendorf and Pug Ulrich were being chased all over North Africa by Rommel. Then Mr. Thaw would horn in to tell us where they got their facts wrong. Our own report was just a question of time, and we were getting down to the wire. After school when we were buying lunch at the deli, Aaron said we’d better go back to the Black Hole to work. He was having trouble seeing his ThinkPad screen in the glaring sun of the park.

  If it had been an overcast day, we’d have gone to the park. Fate.

  The halls at school had emptied out. Aaron handed me his salad and Snapple and dug for his key. But the media center was unlocked. We went in through the book area. Aaron’s hand was on the knob of the Black Hole door when he froze.

  He put up a finger. “The computers are booted up,” he whispered. Nothing wrong with his hearing. We listened.

  A voice from inside the Black Hole said, “Plastic or cash. I don’t take IOU’s.” A somewhat familiar voice.

  “Okay, stand right there,” the voice said to somebody in the Black Hole, “and really concentrate.”

  We didn’t breathe.

  Then we heard a click and a sizzle. The door vibrated.

  We burst in.

  Formula—it looked like Aaron’s formula—was displayed on both screens. Somebody sat hunched between them. He spun around. Fishface Pierrepont.

  Aaron lunged. He was going for Fishface’s throat, and my hands were full of lunch. The Snapples jumped out of my hands. Salad went everywhere.

  I had Aaron in a hammerlock. Fishface was clutching both sides of his own head. He had terror written all over him. Also guilt.

  “Fishface!” I said. “You’re The Watcher.”

  Aaron was trying to be calm. I eased up on him. “What’s this?” he said in a dangerous voice. He was pointing to a pile of money on the table. Reasonably big money. There was a fifty-dollar bill. Aaron picked up a major credit card. I read it over his shoulder. It belonged to Dud Dupont.

  Fishface was plastered against the screens, dreaming of escape. In the voice of a mouse he squeaked, “I was just playing some Sim—”

  Aaron started to lunge again, but I held him back. Rage rippled through him, but he said, “Let go of me, Josh.”

  Fishface’s desperate eyes were on the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Aaron said, nose to nose with him. “Talk. You’ve been hacking. You’ve been snooping. You’ve been all over us. You’ve called up my formula, and you’re a cybernetic illiterate. You don’t know a hologram from a hole in the ground. You don’t—”

  “You think you’re the only one who knows anything.” Fishface was a trapped rat with a mouse voice. “Your formula was stone age. I upgraded it. I zeroized and reexpressed some of your cockamamie mathematics.”

  Cords stood out in Aaron’s neck. “What’s this money about? Where’s Dud Dupont?”

  “In cyberspace,” Fishface said, and stuck out his lower lip.

  We stood there. Fishface could be bragging. He made a quick move.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Aaron said. “Make my day.”

  I couldn’t believe it, but Fishface had turned Aaron’s formula into a business—like a travel agency, for Pete’s sake. He was charging people for trips to cyberspace.

  The full horror of it hit us. Aaron smacked his own forehead. “Fishface, how long have you been doing this?”

  “Just today,” he muttered. “This was like my grand opening.”

  “Fishface, how many? Who’s involved here? Tell me it’s just Dud Dupont.”

  “It is,” Fishface said, “plus Wimp Astor and Pug Ulrich.”

  “No.” Aaron’s face dropped into his hands. “No, no, no, no. You mean you just moved them out—boom, boom, boom?”

  “I told you I improved your formula,” Fishface said with quiet pride. “I made them pay, and I sent them away.” He even had his own advertising jingle.

  Aaron grabbed the air. “But money won’t do it. It takes Emotional Component to interact with the formula. They really have to want to go.”

  “They did. I told them to want to go someplace, and they went,” Fishface said. “They’re rich guys. They always get what they want.”

  We reeled.

  “Get out of the way.” Aaron swept Fishface aside and settled at the screens. His hands hovered over the keyboards.

  “They have to come back on their own,” Fishface said, “like you guys did when you seniorized. That’s basic.”

  “Shut up, Fishface,” Aaron moaned. “My formula was already virused. Who knows how it operates now that you’ve hacked it around? Who knows if they’re ever coming back?”

  He signed off and sat round-shouldered in front of the dead screens. Silence fell. Time stood still.

  “We better stay here,” I said, “in case they—”

  Aaron shook his head. “It’s like the watched pot. It never boils. And why do I have the feeling they’re not coming back here?”

  He turned around to glare at Fishface like he still wanted to pop him right in the retainer. “This is totally your fault. If there’s a rap to take, you’ll take it. If Pug and Wimp and Dud are gone for good, we’re talking network news here. We’re talking national manhunt. We’re talking lawsuits and court dates and adult involvement. We’re talking Hard Copy. And all because you messed with something way over your head.”

  “Like you didn’t,” Fishface sneered. Quicker than the eye, he swept up the money and Dud’s credit card.

  He nearly made it to the door when Aaron said, “Freeze.”

  Fishface did, and Aaron said, “Just keep your distance, Fishface. If we have anything to say to each other, it’ll be fax to fax. I’ve got a little jingle for you: Stay off our cases and out of our faces.”

  Fishface fled.

  The next day Pug Ulrich, Wimp Astor, and Dud Dupont weren’t in History. They were Absent Without Leave the rest of the week. Fishface was there every day, of course, with his hands clasped on his desktop like a choirboy—perfect attendance. Aaron would stumble into class pink-eyed and green-faced. He was piping in CNN on one of his home screens all night, listening for this news to break internationally. He was calling me up every evening.

  “Look, if we could just figure out where they wanted to go, we could try cellular-reorganizing ourselves and go find—”

  “What we?”

  “But they’ve probably gone in three different directions anyway. Who knows? With whatever Fishface has done to my formula, they could all three end up as a dinosaur’s dinner.”

  I was pretty worried too. For one thing, we hadn’t been gone this long when we’d cyberspaced ourselves. Also, I had a bad feeling we’d end up getti
ng busted for this. Don’t we always?

  It was a long week followed by an endless weekend. I basically walked through it. On Monday Aaron and I got to History early. We’d been coming in early every day, hoping against hope. Aaron slumped into class, dragging his ThinkPad. He’d lost some weight.

  And there they were.

  Pug. Wimp. Dud. They were swaggering around as usual, except they all had great tans. Pug was beginning to peel. Fishface was at his desk, smiling quietly into his clasped hands.

  My knees buckled with relief.

  Aaron zeroed right in on Pug. “Okay, let’s hear about it. Where you been?”

  “Since when are you taking attendance?” Pug said. Pug’s pretty pompous, and Aaron and I aren’t exactly in his peer group. “Provence, if it’s any of your business,” Pug said, “the south of France.”

  “I know where Provence is,” Aaron snapped. “Go on.”

  “My parents have a country house there for the summers. I dropped in. Flew back last night on Air France. First class, of course.”

  But Aaron was already moving on to Wimp. “Talk to me, Wimp.”

  Wimp blinked. His name tells it all. He’s the third-shortest kid in class. He and Aaron were eye to eye. “Martha’s Vineyard. It’s an island off Cape Cod.”

  “I know it’s an island off Cape Cod,” Aaron said.

  “Actually, my parents own most of it,” Wimp remarked. “I grabbed a commuter flight back.”

  But now Aaron was bearing down on Dud. “Tell me about it, Dud.”

  “Santorini. It’s a Greek isle. My parents have a villa there. Fishface sent me over, and I flew back on the Concorde. Fishface is a genius.”

  Aaron’s mouth opened and closed.

  He wandered back to my desk, half relieved, half disgusted. “Well, anyway, they’re back. They weren’t even missing. They were with their parents, for Pete’s sake. And they made lateral moves.” He dropped his ThinkPad on my desk and propped it open. “Let me just make a note of that.”

  “They took vacations?” I smacked my forehead. “What are they going to want next, frequent-flyer miles?”

  He waved a small hand. The classroom was in its usual uproar, but he lowered his voice. “Not vacations. They’re rich kids. Their parents are never around. Their parents are always on yachts or something, keeping their distance. In a way, it’s a little bit sad. They got what they most wanted—a little time with their families. They got their wishes.”

  Three wishes.

  “So it takes the Emotional Component of two or more,” Aaron said. “Let me make a note of that.”

  “Aaron, they’ve all got big mouths. What if they tell on us?”

  “What us? They’re giving Fishface all the credit.” Aaron rolled his eyes. “Anyway, if you’re talking about adults, who’d believe them?”

  I closed his ThinkPad lid for him. “Aaron, let’s call it quits right now. Let’s not—”

  “You kidding me?” He was already gearing back up. “Most of the great discoveries of science are accidental. I’ve got my original formula stored here in the ThinkPad and at home on my technopolis. We’ve got Fishface’s version on the Black Hole terminals. Once I get the two synthesized, we’re talking—”

  But Mr. Thaw suddenly invaded the classroom. “MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS,” he roared, and everybody fell into the nearest seat.

  Mr. Thaw scanned us from the front of the room. Nothing wrong with his eyesight.

  “Ah, nice of you to drop in, Dupont, Astor, Ulrich.” His old voice dripped with sarcasm, but what was he going to do to them? Pug had already given his North Africa report, so he was half off the hook. Dud’s grand-mother left Huckley School four million and change in her will. And Wimp is an Astor. These aren’t deserters you shoot.

  But Mr. Thaw was still scanning the room. Then he spotted us, though I was as far down in my seat as I could get. I was practically sitting on the back of my neck.

  “Zimmer. Lewis. According to my battle plan, this is the day for your oral report. ‘Victory in Europe: The Crucial Final Months,’ I believe? You may begin at once. Bring up your heavy artillery.”

  “No.” Aaron’s head hit his desk. “No, no, no, no.”

  16

  Victory in Europe

  I panicked. How could we be thinking oral reports with all we’d had on our minds? School should come later in life, when you can concentrate better.

  Aaron climbed out of his seat, looking older than Mr. Thaw. We didn’t have a note between us, and Aaron couldn’t take his ThinkPad with him. You can figure for yourself what Mr. Thaw thought about ThinkPads.

  “You too, Lewis,” he said, nailing me. “Out of your foxhole and up here on the front line.”

  Aaron trudged up the aisle. I followed, my head whirling. Maybe I could talk about that dream of mine when we were British schoolboys being evacuated.... Maybe I could ask Mr. Thaw to take off his shoe and sock and show us his missing toe from the Battle of the Bulge. He might be willing. Maybe I could ...

  Then we were at the front of the room with every eye on us. Fishface smiled quietly. Behind us Mr. Thaw was propped against the blackboard, ready to pounce on our first factual error. You could feel him back there, hear him breathing.

  “Picture it,” Aaron said in a wobbly voice. “The crucial final summer of the war dawning on a battle-weary Europe. Italy in—er—Allied hands at last. France—ah —crying out for liberation. While in England massive multinational forces gathered for the ... important invasion of Normandy.”

  “Important, to say the least,” Mr. Thaw grumbled behind us.

  Go, Aaron, I thought. Keep it rolling. Fill the whole class period. But he wasn’t having one of his better days. He was reaching for every word. Boy, did I wish I could reorganize my cells out of there. If Emotional Component alone would do it, I’d be on Mars.

  “... England, brought low by—let’s see—five years of war, was the great staging area for the D-day invasion of ... like, June sixth ...”

  “When suddenly a crazed and desperate Hitler, his unspeakable empire crumbling around his ears, launched the last and most demoralizing weapon of an inhumane war.”

  Except Aaron didn’t say those last words.

  Somebody else did. It was a lady’s voice from the door. She was standing on the threshold, and she was quite an unusual sight. An old lady in complete Women’s Voluntary Services uniform, along with cotton stockings, ripply hat, and a gas mask container hanging from her shoulder.

  Miss Mather.

  For some reason she was carrying a monkey wrench and a tire iron.

  She strode into the classroom on squeaky shoes. Everybody blinked. “What’s this?” somebody said. “Virtual reality?” Behind us Mr. Thaw wasn’t breathing.

  “‘Doodlebugs’ and ‘buzz bombs’ the British public called these pilotless payloads raining sudden death upon the London landscape,” Miss Mather proclaimed, “an early example of the ramjet engine in unfortunate action. The Nazis launched them by day and by night from their infernal installation in the Pas de Calais, and now the embattled Britons must endure one final challenge on their long road to victory!”

  Miss Mather had remembered when our oral report was due, even if we hadn’t. Aaron’s eyes were bulging at her like Nanky-Poo’s. Relief was breaking over his brow. It was like she’d stepped right out of World War II to tell us all about it.

  It looked like we’d planned her as our oral report all along.

  “It was women, naturally enough, who won the war. Women on the assembly line.” Miss Mather waved her wrench. “Women behind the wheels of a thousand careening ambulances.” She waved her tire iron. “Women stitching up the fabric of a torn civilization!”

  She had us all in the palm of her hand even before she hit Omaha Beach for us. We were all there with her as she liberated Paris. By now a few people at the back of the classroom were up on their desks, yelling, “On to Berlin!”

  Finally she wound down in the exact last minute of clas
s. By then her old voice was young.

  She’d done our oral report. Then she turned our way.

  But her old eyes skated past us. Her wrench and her tire iron hit the floor as she opened her arms to Mr. Thaw.

  “Hello, Teddy,” she said to him.

  17

  Just a Few Flowers, Just a Few Friends

  Mr. Thaw often said, “Contrary to popular opinion, it is perfectly possible to flunk summer school.” But nobody did. I got a B. Aaron got a B plus.

  After the day Miss Mather did our oral report, she said we didn’t have to report for dog duty anymore. We were like out on parole, but we were always welcome to drop by for teatime.

  Once school was over, it looked like we had summer pretty well wrapped up. I was basically hoping that nothing more would happen. Something did.

  August is New York’s stickiest month, and the smart money’s out of town. But even on the hottest days Mom walked home from Barnes Ogleby in her business suit and Adidas. She’s something of a power walker. One afternoon she came home pretty much wiped out, and we made a pitcher of iced tea with mint. She was sprawled on the living room sofa, sipping, when the front doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it!” Heather yelled from her room. It couldn’t be Muffie, who was in the Hamptons and had seemed to forget she knew Heather. It couldn’t be Stink, who actually didn’t know her. But Heather was still living in hope. I kind of wondered if it might be the C.I.A.

  Mom and I waited. Then Heather showed up in the doorway, looking confused. Her eyes were big and blinky. She was forming silent words with her mouth: It’s ... her. Heather pointed to the floor. It’s the old bat from down—

  “Thank you, my dear,” Miss Mather said, stepping into the doorway. Same old Miss Mather, except there was something different about it. Of course she wasn’t wearing her W.V.S. uniform, not in this weather. But there was something else. She’d painted all her nails with red polish.