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What happened?”
    I sighed. “How much do
you know about the virtual reality network?”
    “I know the basic
structure and operation of the computer side of the network, but my
area of expertise is brainwave patterns and frequencies, and their
interaction with the fobs that provide access to the virtual
reality network. It’s my life’s work.” He eyed me with interest.
“That’s why I’m so interested in your brain’s interaction with this
mysterious network key that lets you sneak around undetected in any
network and decrypt files that are supposedly secure.”
    Kane blew out a breath
and frowned. “That’s part of the problem. Aydan has to use the
special key to decrypt files. If she uses a standard fob with a
brainwave modulator, she can’t do it. And when she uses the key, it
hurts her every time she exits the network.”
    “A lot,” Spider put in
unhappily.
    “And this is
life-threatening?” Sam prompted.
    “No,” I said. “It’s
just a nuisance. The life-threatening part happens if I get too
tired or stressed and I don’t control my thoughts inside the sim.
If you believe you’ve died inside the sim, you actually die in real
life.”
    Sam’s eyes narrowed as
he worked his stubby fingers through his beard. “I’d heard rumours
of that. I didn’t believe it.”
    “Believe it,” Kane
said grimly. “I personally know of three people who have been
killed inside a sim. The cause of death looks like a heart attack
when their physical bodies are autopsied.”
    “That changes things…”
Sam frowned at me. “But why would you think you were dying inside
the sim? And why couldn’t someone just wake you? Pull you out of
the network? It only takes a touch or a sudden noise to do it.”
    “That’s the other
complication,” Kane explained. “When Aydan’s using the key to
access the network, you can’t wake her unless you actually hurt
her. And if that happens, if she’s forcibly woken from the network,
she goes through hell.”
    “It’s awful,” Spider
quavered, his eyes haunted. “It’s like she’s being tortured. She
screams, horrible screams like she’s being burned alive, and her
whole body thrashes around, and you can’t do a thing to help her,
and it goes on and on…”
    “Anyway,” I broke in,
thoroughly embarrassed, “I only lose concentration in the sim if
I’m overtired. And if I’m in the secured facility when I lose
control, my claustrophobic anxieties tend to take over the sim.
That’s when I have problems.”
    “Little problems. Like
your heart stopping,” Kane added.
    “Well… yeah. But I
should be fine for at least a week before it starts to get bad,” I
reassured them.
    Sam eyed me. “Are you
sure?”
    “Do I have a
choice?”
    “Not really, at this
point,” he said regretfully. “I just spent the last several weeks
getting my lab facilities set up downstairs. Some of the equipment
can’t be moved easily. And this whole operation is so highly
classified that it shouldn’t be outside the secured facility at
all.”
    I blew out a long
breath. “Okay. Well, let’s get at it, then.” We all rose and
trooped down the hallway.
    My steps slowed as we
approached the heavy steel door. “You guys go on ahead. I’ll follow
you.”
    Sam shot me a piercing
glance. “It’s okay,” I assured him. “It’s just that the time-delay
chamber is so small. It gets pretty crowded.”
    “Okay,” he agreed, and
stepped up to allow the scanner to read his retina. When the latch
released, the three men entered the chamber, and I hung back in the
lobby, breathing deeply.
    When the indicator
light showed the chamber was clear, I approached the door
reluctantly. The secured facility contained nothing but bad
memories and despite my best efforts at calm, my heart pounded.
    I placed my face next
to the scanner and started belly breathing when the latch released.
In. Out. Slow like ocean waves.
    I stepped into the
cramped chamber, twitching when the door locked behind