Book Two of the Travelers Read Online Free Page A

idea…but she couldn’t quite get her fingers around it yet.
    â€œYou can’t win if you don’t play.” Nak was still smiling. But she could see something in his eyes underneath the smile—anger, spite, envy.
    â€œThe program that’s attacking the core—it’s inside the game, isn’t it? You buried it inside a jump program.”
    Nak laughed. “Boy, you sure are being dramatic.”
    â€œYou won’t get away with this.”
    â€œBut, just for the sake of argument, if I were going to attack the core using some kind of game program, I wouldn’t put it inside the game.”
    She looked at him for a long time. Then it hit her. “It’s not inside the game, is it?” she said. Her eyes widened. “It is the game!”
    Nak raised one eyebrow. “Want to play?”
    â€œNak,” she said, “I just told Dal that I had no idea what King Hruth’s Maze was. If I played your game right now, Lifelight would send a message straight to the controlroom saying I had invoked the program. Dal would think I had just lied to his face. He’d think that I really was the one who’d written your nasty little program.”
    Nak rolled his eyes. “Give me a little credit here. I’ll reroute everything so they’ll never even know you’re jumping. I’ve got tricks the phaders in the control room can’t begin to figure out. Those guys do everything by the book. I can run rings around them. You’d be totally safe.”
    Aja hesitated. If she was right, the only way to beat the program, to keep it from destroying the core, was to play the game. But if she got caught before she figured out what Nak was up to—well, it could be disastrous. Just for starters, she could kiss valedictorian good-bye. In fact, she’d probably get thrown out of the academy. Even worse, the Lifelight directors could ban her from ever working as a phader. Everything she’d been working for would be down the tubes.
    Aja was not a natural risk taker. But right now she didn’t see any logical alternative. If she went to Dal and tried to blame everything on Nak, she’d look like a liar. Nak was a good phader. If he’d intentionally made it look as though she had written the program, then talking to Dal right now would only make things worse. The problem was, Nak’s program was already munching away at the core. She had to do something to stop it.
    But the only way she could think of to stop Nak’s program was to jump into his game. Now.
    Aja pointed at the tier above her. “Okay, Nak. I see a free jump station up there.”
    Nak smiled. “I knew you’d see the light eventually.”
    F IVE
    A ja landed with a tooth-jarring thump. Pain shot through her left ankle as the impact smashed her to her knees. She stood, tested the ankle. It hurt a little. But she could tell it wasn’t broken or too badly sprained.
    She looked around. She lay in a small chamber of closely fitted black stone. Maze? This was no maze. It was a prison cell, barely wide enough for a person to lie down in.
    Above her head she saw a bright rectangle of light. Silhouetted in the light was a figure. No, two figures.
    One was King Hruth. The other was Nak Adyms.
    â€œBye-bye!” Nak shouted, waving cheerfully. “Have fun!”
    Then the stone above her head began to slide back in place. She could hear the terrible grinding sound again, stone gnashing against stone. Nak’s arrogant smile disappeared as the trapdoor closed.
    The room was plunged into darkness.
    The grinding stopped. Aja felt a terrible sense ofclaustrophobia. Her heart raced and her palms were sweating. If she thought it would work, she could activate her silver bracelet and terminate the jump. But like Nak said, he’d hacked all the codes. He’d blocked her. This jump wasn’t going to end until Nak felt like ending it. Besides—she was here to solve