“Sometimes they go out of fashion,” she chimes in, “so they don’t come back at all.”
“Which is okay,” Skye adds, “because there’s always plenty of different stuff to put on!”
The other two girls coo in agreement. Jay, however, merely strikes a pose, gracefully running his fingers through his thick brown hair. His expression is dim and dreamy.
Rufus grabs Noble’s arm.
“We’re in luck,” says Rufus. “I think we’ve found a way into the memory heap.”
From his tone, it’s clear that this is meant to be good news. But Noble has no idea why.
He clears his throat. “Oh?” is all he can come up with.
“It makes sense,” Rufus continues. “This is a kiddie fashion program. Most of its dynamic memory would be used to change the clothing stock. And if we’re really lucky, the software designer didn’t worry about installing good internal defenses.” Without warning, he suddenly whirls around to face Brandi. “Show me that laundry chute. I need to check it out. And you …” He snaps his fingers at Krystalle. “See what you can find for my friends to wear.”
Noble is surprised when Krystalle trots off quite happily, with Skye at her heels. “First stop, sporty casual,” the black-haired girl cheerfully observes, before they both vanish into Krystalle’s wardrobe. Brandi, meanwhile, heads in the opposite direction. Teetering along in her cork-heeled platform shoes, she guides Rufus back into the room he just left, past rack after rack of brightly colored garments. Noble follows them both, dragging Yestin. As they all gather in front of an elaborate, scroll-topped cupboard, Noble says to Rufus, “What about the man in the white coat? You told us he might show up again. And the hatch is just over there.”
“I know,” Rufus says, nodding. “Which is why we have to hurry.” He reaches up to tap Brandi on the shoulder. “We don’t have time to stop and admire your handbag collection, if that’s what you’ve got in this cupboard.”
Brandi can’t suppress a smile. “My handbag collection wouldn’t fit in this cupboard,” she informs him, turning a gold key in a filigree lock. Then she flings open the cupboard doors, revealing an unpainted stretch of wall with a large, square hole in it. Sure enough, a sign over the hole reads laundry. Craning his neck for a better look, Noble can see that the hole is actually the mouth of a metal shaft that drops straight down toward some distant, shadowy destination.
Rufus sticks his entire head into the hole. “Oh, this is big enough,” he announces, his voice echoing strangely. “It might be a bit of a squeeze for Noble, but not if the rest of us are behind him, giving him a shove.” Withdrawing his head, Rufus issues further instructions. “You know what we need? We need clothes. Lots of ’em. Now.”
Noble frowns. Yestin gapes.
“What kind of clothes?” Brandi says.
“Any kind. It doesn’t matter.” When she stares at him in confusion, Rufus tries to explain. “All you have to do is rip ’em off the hangers,” he tells her, waving at the nearest rack. Then he spots Krystalle, who’s just walked across the threshold. She’s brandishing an armful of clothes. “Oh, good,” he says. “Why don’t you dump those in the chute?”
But she won’t, because some of the clothes are for Yestin. “I think this T-shirt will fit,” she tells him kindly. “You need more color, but nothing too strong or no one will see your face. I’ve got some funky board shorts, too. And some hipster capris that might work.”
“Hand ’em over, then.” Cutting her off, Rufus proceeds to throw his weight around. He orders Yestin to change. He instructs Noble to find a shirt he won’t burst out of. He tells Krystalle to fetch more clothes and Brandi to consider her future. “You might be trendy now, but that won’t last,” he declares. “Some hot new fashion dolls will come along, with cuter names and better support software, and the kid who installed this program will drop you like last season’s lipstick. You’ve got to think ahead. Make plans. Be true to yourself.” As Brandi goggles at him, looking mildly flustered, he has a flash of inspiration. “Here’s a start,” he proposes. “Why don’t you go and pick your own travel outfit? Something that you want to wear? Only it has to be practical for sliding down a laundry chute.”
Brandi catches her breath. “You mean … I can choose anything at all?” she asks. “Right now?”
“Right now,” Rufus confirms.
There’s a brief silence. “Can I pack a bag?” is her next question.
Yestin, meanwhile, has been busy changing. “What do you think?” he suddenly inquires. He presents himself to Noble, twisting and turning, his arms outstretched to display his new outfit. “Do you like it?”
“Um …” Noble doesn’t think that short pants are much of an improvement. In his opinion, Yestin’s stick-thin legs need covering up. “It’s a nice blue,” he finally remarks.
“Oh, that’s way better!” Krystalle assures Yestin. “You don’t look so sallow, now. And it brings out the blue in your eyes.” She thrusts a puffy silver garment at Noble. “What about these harem pants for you?” she asks. “They’ve got elastic—see? So they’d definitely fit. And you’d look kinda cute, like a genie or something.…”
Noble recoils. “I can’t wear those!” he protests, eliciting an impatient scowl from Rufus.
“It’s just camouflage. It’s a safety measure,” Rufus points out.
But Noble isn’t persuaded. “I’m not wearing them,” he says.
Then Brandi reappears, dressed in a gray silk jacket, cropped black leggings, a filmy belted tunic, and patent-leather ballet shoes, topped off by hoop earrings and a capacious handbag. “I thought black and gray would be more practical for the laundry chute,” she declares. Rufus favors her with an approving nod, while Krystalle stares at her, openmouthed.
“Oh, my God,” says Krystalle, before raising her voice. “Skye! Jay! Come in here and check this out, quick! Brandi’s an independent dresser!”
“Okay.” Ignoring Krystalle, Rufus focuses his attention on Brandi, Noble, and Yestin. “First we’ll stuff a whole bunch of clothes down the chute. Then we’ll send Noble down after them, because he’s the heaviest. And then Brandi can go next.”
“But what’s at the bottom?” Noble interrupts. “You haven’t told us.”
“Yes, I have. It’s the heap, remember? It’s a dynamically allocated memory storage facility.”
Noble blinks.
“It’s where the programs dump blocks of memory during their run times,” Yestin hastily butts in, “and some of the memory is recycled, and some of it becomes trash because it won’t be used again.” Faced with Noble’s utter lack of comprehension, Yestin finishes lamely, “The whole thing’s kind of confusing.”
“Which is why you don’t have to worry about it,” Rufus instructs Noble. “The important thing is that the heap is full of discarded information—information we can use to get into really well-defended parts of this computer. Like the parts where the Colonel hangs out, for instance.”
Noble grunts.
“It’s also a cool place to check out our options,” Rufus adds, for Brandi’s benefit. Then he turns to Jay and Skye, who have finally emerged from the other room—perhaps because they want to inspect Brandi’s new outfit. “You two! Pick up all the clothes you can find and stuff them into this laundry chute, okay? Just keep shoving ’em in until I tell you to stop.” To everyone else, he says, “Well? What are you waiting for? Clothes, people—we need more clothes!”
It isn’t long before armfuls of clothes are tumbling down the laundry chute, ripped from their hangers and balled up like rags. Load after load disappears into the gaping shaft until Rufus cries “Stop!” and grabs Noble’s wrist. “Now you. Off you go.”
“But—”
“Quick! Get in there!” Seeing Noble hesitate, Rufus promises that no one is going to get hurt. “You’ll be hitting a pile of clothes, remember?”
Noble isn’t concerned about where he’s going to land. He’s concerned about getting stuck halfway down. Neverth
eless, he climbs into the chute as instructed—and soon realizes that he’s not too wide for it after all. Clinging to the lip of the squared-off opening, he’s able to wriggle around quite freely. His feet flail about in empty space. The cold, clanging metal feels slippery against his skin.
“What am I supposed to do when I reach the bottom?” he asks Rufus, who gives a snort.
“If I were you, I’d get out of the way,” Rufus replies. “Unless you want Brandi to land on you.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’ll be fine, I promise.”
“But what if something bad is down there?” Noble struggles to hold on, his voice tight and creaky. “Shouldn’t we work out a signal, in case I need to warn you?”
“Don’t worry about it, okay? There’s nothing bad down there. Just go. Go!”
It’s no good trying to argue with Rufus. So Noble heaves a sigh, loosens his grip, and drops like a stone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Noble plummets down a shiny metal shaft that dips and swerves just enough to make his descent a high-speed slide, rather than a straight-out fall. But he’s still moving so quickly that when he hits the bottom—whoomp!—he finds himself buried deep in a pile of dirty clothes.
As he claws his way to the surface, Brandi plunges into the clothes beside him. There’s a brief moment of confusion while Brandi thrashes about and Noble dodges her flailing arms. At last, however, he manages to push through the top layer of garments, emerging from the pile of clothes into what looks like unlimited space.
Above him is nothing but a pale, wintry sky. Around him is a vast rubbish dump, stretching off to the horizon. Giant trucks are unloading heaps of discarded objects, which are being shoved around by other machines armed with enormous scoops.
“We have to stay away from the bulldozers,” Rufus suddenly remarks—and Noble, turning, sees that Rufus’s head has popped out of the clothes behind him like a shooting bean sprout.
“What’s a bulldozer?” asks Noble.
“That is.” Rufus extricates his arms and points. “That’s a bulldozer dumping a big load of memory into that truck over there. And we don’t want to end up in that memory dump, because it’s probably going to be recycled.”
“I don’t understand.” Noble is hopelessly disoriented. “How did we even get here? Where did we come from?” He lifts his face to the sky, where no dangling laundry chute is evident. “I don’t see a hole up there, do you?”
“Maybe the hole’s underneath us,” says Yestin, appearing from the pile of clothes. “Maybe we fell up, instead of down.”
Noble has never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. “Fell up?” he echoes in disbelief. But Rufus simply shrugs.
“Maybe,” Rufus concedes, as Brandi’s glossy head bobs into view. “Now let’s get out of this truck, shall we?”
Noble blinks, then glances around. He realizes that they are in a truck—a truck with a kind of open box on its back. While Rufus heads for the side of the box, half-wading, half-swimming through a tangle of clothes, Noble tries to feel around with his bare feet.
He can’t find a hole, though.
“Where are we?” Brandi wails. “This isn’t the beach, this is awful!”
“We’ll get to the beach. Don’t worry.” With his fingers clamped to the edge of the low, metal wall that’s enclosing them, Rufus glances around. “First we’ve got to find an exit, okay?”
He swings his legs over the wall and drops out of sight, hitting the ground with a thud. Noble follows, after helping Yestin plow his way through a tightly packed drift of fake fur and knitted items.
Brandi is last in line. She takes a moment to shove something fluffy into her bag. Then, because she refuses to jump down from the truck, Noble has to grab her as she lowers herself awkwardly over its side.
“Okay,” says Rufus, once everyone has joined him. “Now we have to spend a bit of time scavenging. And as you can see, there’s a lot to search through.” He waves an arm at the surrounding heaps of detritus. “But there’s also a lot we can use to get out of here, like keys and maps and tickets—especially keys. Default keys. Keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like a key. Or even half a key.”
Noble gazes around grimly at all the towering hillocks of stuff. He can’t imagine how they’re going to find a humble key among so many rolls of paper, cardboard folders, nets, brooms, clocks, and broken picture frames. It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“Are you kidding me?” Brandi whines, echoing his thoughts. “We’ll be here forever.”
“No, we won’t,” Rufus insists. To Noble he says, “I’ll check this pile. You check that one. Just watch out for the bulldozers.”
“Which heap should I check?” Yestin butts in. “That one there?” He points at a mountain of discarded sporting equipment.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Rufus flaps him away. Noble, meanwhile, has trudged over to his own designated mound of junk, which is much taller and wider than Yestin’s. Though it’s scattered with old brushes, scissors, and empty paint pots, the pile is composed chiefly of pictures—highly realistic portraits presented on shiny cards. They’re not drawings, or paintings, or engravings. Noble can’t figure out what they are.
“Look at these pictures,” he says. “They’re so perfect!”
“They’re photographs,” Yestin explains as Brandi stoops to extract a feathery, iridescent wing from a huge pile of punctured balloons and giant lollipops. The wing isn’t attached to anything.
She displays it gingerly, like dirty underwear.
“Can we use this to get out?” she asks Rufus. “Maybe if I find another one and put them both on …”
“No.” Rufus is as blunt as the broken sword that he’s just pulled from another trash heap. With a sigh, he tosses it away. “Keys, remember? We’re looking for keys.”
“I’ve found one!” Yestin pounces. “Here’s a key!”
“Show me,” says Rufus.
At that very instant, Noble spots something that makes him gasp. He darts forward and seizes a photograph.
It’s a picture of Rufus.
“Rufus?” he croaks. Then he holds it up. “Is this—is this you?”
Rufus lifts his gaze from the little silver key that Yestin has given him. “Nope,” he replies, without much interest, before turning his attention back to the key. “Good work, Yestin. Can you find any more?”
Noble studies the photograph again. It shows a skinny boy in a grubby T-shirt, draped across a leather couch. The boy appears to be slightly younger than Rufus, but he has Rufus’s cheeky grin and sly expression. As for his hair …
“Are you sure?” Noble presses. “This looks just like you.”
“It’s not,” Rufus assures him.
“Who could it be, then?”
“It’s the real Rufus. It’s the guy who came up with my programming.”
Even Yestin reacts to this piece of news. He stiffens, his jaw dropping, as Noble catches his breath.
“The what?” Noble splutters. “What do you mean, the real Rufus?”
“Here’s one!” Unlike Yestin, Brandi seems completely oblivious to all the drama. She’s just swooped on a heavy cast-iron key, which she’s now waving in the air. “Is this all right? Will this do?”
“It’s fine,” Rufus confirms. “I’ll take it.”
Yestin, meanwhile, has rushed to examine Noble’s discovery. “Is that your programmer, Rufus? Oh, wow,” Yestin squeaks. “How weird.”
“Yeah, I guess he sorta made me in his own image.” Having pocketed Brandi’s key, Rufus is now poking around in a mess of flat, shiny disks and broken musical instruments. “Maybe that’s what always happens when you’re an inexperienced programmer, working by yourself. Maybe he can’t keep his personality out of the programming.” With a sudden hiss, Rufus hunkers down to snatch up something small and silver. “Here’s another key!” he announces. “And it’s identical to the first one, too, which is great.”
?
??But … I don’t understand.” Noble is still reeling. “Are you a copy, then? Are you like the false Noble?”
“No, no. You’re not getting it.” Rufus straightens and sighs. “That guy in the photo—the real Rufus—he doesn’t live inside this computer with us. He’s out in the real world, where the Colonel doesn’t run things.” Nodding at the great rubbish heap behind Noble, Rufus adds, “Those are all photos of the real world, but they’ve been trashed. Binned. The files have been deleted—I don’t know why. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. Not to us.”
“Yes, it does!” Yestin protests, as Noble struggles to understand. “It matters if the real Rufus owns this computer! What if he’s the one who’s been playing all the games around here?”
“He isn’t.” Rufus’s tone is flat but convincing. “This computer doesn’t belong to him. Believe me, if it did, I wouldn’t be needing all these keys. Because I already have Rufus’s current password. It’s bloodquest.”
“Then who does the computer belong to?” Yestin wants to know.
Rufus shrugs. “Some guy called Mikey,” he says, leaving Noble utterly confused.
“Mikey? Who’s Mikey?” Noble can’t recall anyone named Mikey. “I thought you said the Colonel was in charge?”
“He is. He’s in charge of making sure that Mikey gets what he wants.” Seeing Noble’s blank expression doesn’t change, Rufus takes a deep breath, as if he’s about to elaborate.
But then, Brandi screams.
“Oh, wow! You guys! Come here, quick, this is so freaky!” She begins to back away from the colorful mass of junk that she’s been exploring. “Look! It’s alive! It’s coming out!” she exclaims.
Rufus and Yestin both hurl themselves toward her, but Noble hesitates. He’s seen another picture of Rufus—or at least, another picture of the “real” Rufus, who looks almost as young as Yestin in this particular photograph. The young Rufus is shown sitting at a table behind a large blue cake, grinning happily, with his arm around the shoulders of another boy who has stiff black hair and high cheekbones. Most of the pictures seem to feature this black-haired boy, along with Rufus and a little dark-eyed girl. There’s also a white dog and a gray cat.