Bryn

I replay the message Jonas sent me over an hour ago, triple checking the address, and then peer down the street of Komb’s largest shopping arcade. It’s late and the tiny shops, sitting one on top of another like coloured blocks, are closing up. Jonas definitely said in front of Bazar’s Emporium of All Things Unique. It’s my favourite shop, and Bazar always keeps aside the prettiest pieces for me. I love touching the old tech: textures rough and smooth, sometimes rusty, and the colours long faded. No one knows what some of these things started off as, but that doesn’t stop us from reusing and reinventing.

But since Activation I’ve been flush with credits – mostly from gaming – and my pockets are full of shiny things. I suck on the misty green glass marble I paid two whole credits for, clacking it against my teeth before rolling it under my tongue and feeling the pits and grooves across its surface.

“You alright, Brynnie lass?” Bazar calls from his second floor window, the lights from the three shops above him already off.

I spit the marble into my palm before replying, “I’m fine,” and wipe it on my sleeve. The light sinks into its murky depths until it dries and becomes a ball of old green glass again. Bazar is a little man with more hair on his chin than on the top of his head, but he has a warm spot for strays, and he adopted me when I first ventured down here in search for curiosities and adventure.

He frowns then sighs gustily. “I’ll be in awhile long yet. Shout if you need me.”

I wave and tuck my jacket around me as I acknowledge his unspoken warning. Level Seven isn’t the safest this late.

Another chilly blast of air makes my hair tinkle and I step into the protective bulk of the shop, peering at every face that passes by. Where’s Jonas? He sounded worried, his laugh terse, and his last words had scared me. He’s never said he loves me before.

I can’t shake off the heavy dread, and my mind scuttles over all the stories I’ve heard – the rumours and urban legends – and one memory in particular sticks out. I’d recorded it during a slumber party at Teo’s house, and it flickers up before my right eye, playing over the dark streets of Level Seven.

“Have you heard of the neighbourhood of Ash?” Chevette had whispered. The recording of her voice is soft inside my head. We’d been sitting cross-legged around a holo-fire in Teo’s room, his furniture pushed up against the walls and the lights off.

We’d shaken our heads in unison. Chevette grinned, firelight flashing off her teeth like LEDs.

“That’s because not so long ago the entire neighbourhood was Evicted!”

“How can a whole neighbourhood be Evicted?” Harper scoffed.

“No one knows. Overnight it disappeared, not a grease smudge or bone shard remained. Just, poof!” She splayed out her fingers with a flick. “Gone. Some say the Snaith crept out one night and snatched them all, dragging them into the shadows to feed on.” The Snaith are old urban legends of monsters hiding in the spaces between the walls, told to kids to make them eat their protein cubes. “Others say the neighbourhood depressurised so suddenly the residents just vapourised.” Even Chevette took a deep breath to settle her nerves after that vivid image, and even now the thought makes me nauseous.

“Nonsense! We’d know,” Teo pointed out.

“They kept it quiet. Wouldn’t want the Bottom Dwellers to freak out. You know how that lot tend to overreact.” Chevette leant back on her palms with a dismissive smirk.

“How can hundreds of people go missing and no one notice?” Harper was back to his unruffled self.

“It’s legit!” Chevette insisted. “So you better make sure you don’t wander about after lights out because the Snaith must be getting hungry.”

I blink away the memory and try to convince myself Jonas is just playing some prank on me. Soon he’ll be here, smug grin firmly in place, and I’ll forget all about my fear.

I lean up against the shopfront wall. Its rough concrete surface rasps against the back of my head and my hair sticks to it like velcro. I amuse myself for a while, sticking then unsticking my hair with a soft schnick.

An icon flashes and Teo’s voice fills my head.

Where you at, Brynnie?

Down on Level Seven, in Komb. I scowl at a youth, a tad older than me, who’s checking me out as he passes. His skin is tattooed like a circuit board, and I wonder who’s controlling his body. It creeps me out people pay to inhabit someone else’s body for fun. The bodyletter quickly speeds up again. Doesn’t the lower levels have a curfew? A lights out? I’ve never been here so late before.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Umm, why? You said you’d help me with that entry for the graphic design internship.

Jonas was meant to meet me.

In Komb? What in sky for?

I don’t know. He sounded worried. I think he’s in trouble.

Teo doesn’t answer right away and I try Jonas again with no success.

He’ll be fine, Teo finally says. Anyway, let me know when you get home and you can help me with this font. You know how much I hate text. He switches to Busy.

“Humph, some help he is,” I mutter, and bring up my brother’s profile across the vision of one eye. My tech malfunctions as I access his page. His smiling face and the hundreds of story links he’s created over the last few years flicker and jerk. I scroll through the twits he’s made, the last one three hours ago in Whitestone, Level Three. He’d commented on the irregularity of level tremors. His profile freezes as I try to access his location and it goes blank. Odd. I shake my head and try again. Nope, still nothing.

Maybe some of his yearmates, who I vaguely remember from his school days, know where he is? I tuck myself further under the eaves of Bazar’s shop and profiles scroll before my right eye while I keep the other on the flickering shadows around me. I squeeze the marble tightly in an effort to calm down.

Before me, my brother’s disappearing.

I find a photo of him on a follower’s site and then it vanishes. All the stories he’s ever written are being deleted.

“Oh, glitch,” I whisper as I slide down the wall, feeling the chill of concrete sink into my bones. I’ve both eyes shut now, searching multiple sites, my own profile, and everyone I know, for some trace of Jonas.

It’s like he never existed.

“Mum?” I call.

Hey, dear, are you home? It sounds like she’s at another party – I can hear music and clinking glasses.

“No, Mum — have you heard from Jonas?”

I’ll be home late. Don’t stay up, she informs me, then laughs at something a man says. She isn’t with Mom then.

“Mum! Listen to me! Where’s Jonas?”

Make sure you do your homework. I left you a carrot cakepod in the fridge.

I haven’t had homework since Activation two months ago.

“Mum!”

It’s okay, it’s all for you. Talk soon!

Mum disconnects and I breathe in deeply, settling my churning stomach. I try Mom, but she isn’t accepting calls.

“Brynnie?” Bazar asks. I open my eyes to see the shopkeeper crouched in front of me. “You need to head on home, lass.”

I nod, my thoughts slamming up against walls.

“Right to get there yourself?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Mr B.”

I message Mom, my friends, everyone I know and wait for their replies, all while catching the lift up to Level Five and wandering the familiar path home.

When the front door closes behind me, I sag. No one’s replied.

Teo? You there? Harper? Chev? I’m home. Something’s happened to Jonas. Anyone?

I hurry to my room, shrug off my jacket and toss the marble on my desk. It makes a horrible clacking sound and rolls off and under my bed. The collage on my wall flicks through photos and I search for Jonas’ face. There! No, wait, doesn’t he have dark hair? Like mine? Or is it light like a solar sun? I search through my memories, trying to find something solid to grasp.

My hands swirl almost violently as I search through databases, profiles and archives. I enter the Cyberinth as a hazy glowing orb, every minute more credit lost from my account.

I go straight to the heart of the Cyberinth — a seething, gleaming centre — every thread zipping through, to and from it, like it’s the centre of a massive web. Avatars bustle past me and I ignore their gestures of annoyance as I shove my way closer to the information hub. People are shouting and flinging their bodies about in a handful of languages; selling, buying and sharing information so rapidly a reaction headache settles at the base of my skull. I send out search pings with combinations of keywords (Jonas Morgan, year 344), names of famous experiences he created (Freefall, Starcross, and Breathless) and articles he wrote (Shared Tastes, Artificial Love, and An Idiot’s Guide to the Ins and Outs of the School System).

Bryn! What’re you doing? Harper appears beside me, his name and rank floating above his avatar. He’s spent many credits upgrading his old school image and he looks older and frightened. He must be wearing his modal suit to manifest as his avatar rather than a floating ball of light.

I can’t find Jonas.

You need to calm down, he says. Your rank’s dropping. I glance up and note my rank, which had settled between 71,000 and 73,000 has now dropped below 80,000 and, worse still, I’m quickly running out of credits.

But Jonas is missing, I whisper. I’m already dropping out of the Cyberinth and returning to my own head.

It’ll be okay, Harper reassures, and I take comfort that I’m not alone. I’m busy right now, but I’ll check on you soon, okay?

Okay, Harper. Thank you. I roll onto my side and notice the green marble has reemerged on the other side of the bed.

I must’ve stared at the marble for ages before a thought hits me so suddenly I’m half out of my room before I realise what it is. I skid into the kitchen and pause, confused. That’s not right. I retrace my steps down the hallway, a hand drifting along the wall as I examine the short decorative photo clips suspended at eye height. Someone’s changed them. Jonas isn’t in any of them – just a couple of my friends and me, and a few of when my mothers were younger. Even the family photo that’s been tucked behind more recent images has changed. It’s of three families – mine, and the families of my mothers’ friends from school. I’ve never met them due to some falling out when I was really little. Their kids – a boy who’s shyly peeking from behind his mother’s legs and a girl who’s balanced on her father’s shoulders – are the same age as me. I’m in my mom’s arms, reaching chubby fingers towards an empty spot where my brother once stood.

I move down the hall, stopping in front of a blank space.

“His bedroom door was right here.” I run my fingers across the smooth surface. The wall asks me what music I’m in the mood for and I dismiss it with a slight twitch. I push my modes up slowly and blink in the harsh white light of the hallway. There’s a door. Sealed. I press against it, then pound and kick it, but digital locks are near impossible to break.

The person I want to turn to is missing, so who else is there? What would I do if this was a quest? I need a new ally. I tug my modes down and search my year, vaguely remembering a geeky kid, from Level Eight, who’s been in trouble countless times for fooling the school system into thinking he doesn’t exist. Greyson. Greyson Ward.

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